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Everyone thinks Samu’s the chosen one. They don’t believe it at first—the prophecy released at their birth is kinda murky about that stuff, but the coincidences start to pile up. Samu’s the one to fight the monster for the Philosopher’s Stone hidden in the magical mirror; meanwhile Atsumu is passed out on the chessboard after one solid hit to the skull. Second year, it’s Samu who kills the basilisk, and Atsumu who spends his time bawling over his brother’s poisoned arm until the phoenix comes to their rescue. Third year, fourth year, fifth year, it goes on: Samu goes time traveling, Samu gets chosen for the Triwizard Cup, Samu is in the lead for every fight, every skirmish, every article in the newspaper.
Atsumu gets it. Of course Samu’s the chosen one. He’s nicer than Atsumu is, probably cares more about the world in general than Atsumu does.
But it’s not until their seventh year, when they’re on the run collecting Horcruxes and hints to decipher the prophecy, that Atsumu realizes what it means to be the chosen one.
The lamplight flickers. Their tent is shitty as far as tents go, but it does the trick in keeping the wind out well enough. Samu is hunched over on the floor of their tent, cross-legged, balancing a piece of parchment on his knee as he drips ink down his tattered robes. There’s a perfectly good fold-up table they use for times like this, and Atsumu chucks a bread roll at his head.
Samu dodges, then looks up, squinting.
His reflexes have gotten good. So have Atsumu’s.
“Hey, scrub,” Atsumu says. “Whatcha ruining your back like that for?”
“None of your business,” Samu mutters. He shifts away to hide the parchment before the sound of scribbling fills the tent again, and Atsumu narrows his eyes. “Go patrol.”
“Just did. No one out here for miles. And it’s too cold to make patrol worthwhile, anyway.”
A grunt is his only answer. Atsumu tries to peer over at what Samu is writing, but no dice. He’s truly managed to contort himself into a defensive block against Atsumu’s eyes.
It’s like this guy’s never learned the rule of siblinghood. You would think one failed attempt at a secret diary in their second year would absolve him of the notion. “ Accio Samu’s parchment,” Atsumu barks, and Samu jerks and leaps up, but he’s too late to stop Atsumu from grabbing the scroll. “Alright, what’s this…”
“Tsumu, give it back,” Samu shouts, lunging for his throat.
Atsumu ducks into a roll and laughs. “What, you writing a love letter to Sunarin? I’ll just proofread it for you, then, make sure you get in the nice, raunchy details—”
“Tsumu, seriously—”
Atsumu grins and unrolls the parchment with a flick of his hand. His eyes scan the top of the page, reading aloud before he processes the words. “‘ The Last Will and Testament of Miya Osamu,’” he says, then pauses.
All movement in the tent deadens. Everything out in the winter forest is cold, but never frozen: there’s always something moving out here. Wild animals, the wind, or them, tussling around in the tent like they’re just camping and twelve years old again. Like there are no threats after their life. Sometimes Atsumu closes his eyes and imagines that they’re just two boys who’ve snuck out after curfew to go stargazing, one last bonding trip before graduation.
Samu’s eyes, staring at him from across the tent, look so fucking old.
Atsumu swallows. He keeps reading. “‘To Kita Shinsuke, I leave one-fourth of my Gringotts vault and my Hogwarts books, in the hope that it allows him to chase his dreams of starting a farm but never lets him forget that he made top of the class without thinking twice.’” A laugh bubbles in his throat, but doesn’t quite make it out. “‘To Ojiro Aran, I leave one-fourth of my Gringotts vault and my wand, in the hope that the money will make him keep the wand out of sentimental gratitude. ’ You manipulative sonuvabitch.”
“At least I keep things exciting,” Samu says, but there’s no bite to it. He’s curled up on the cot now, watching Atsumu read his will with exhaustion tight in his eyes.
Atsumu exhales. He forges on. What else is there to do? “‘To Suna Rintarou, I leave half of my Gringott’s vault, my photo album, and my Marauder’s Map,’” he reads, and falters. He has to breathe in and out. They’d found that damn map in their third year. They’d fought over the invisibility cloak for two years by that point, and Atsumu knew that the only reason Samu had contested it was to sneak out of their dorm at night to see Suna in the Slytherin basement without the teachers knowing. Getting the map had changed that.
Won’t fight you for the cloak if you gimme the map, Samu had said, and Atsumu hardly needed to consider it before agreeing.
Funny how things work out.
“'And my Marauder’s map,’” Atsumu repeats, “‘in the hope that he remembers treasured school memories for what they are: memories, and proof of the time passed.’” God. He has to clear his throat and kick at the legs of the table until he remembers what it’s like to be human again instead of some feral animal, raw at the edges. “Betcha he’ll get over you in three seconds flat, Samu.”
“Sure hope so,” is all Samu says. He’s twisting his rolled up jacket that they’ve been using as a pillow into knots. “You gonna finish reading the rest? Or you wanna add some revisions?”
“I could think of a few,” Atsumu says, instead of asking, Why? Why would you do this without telling me? He blinks and tries to find his place in the parchment. His hands are ice. There’s not much left. “'To Miya Atsumu, I leave…’”
There’s not much left, actually, because there’s nothing else. Samu hadn’t finished his sentence. Talk about a fucking cliffhanger.
He looks up incredulously. “You gonna leave me nothing ? Are you kidding me?”
“I was writing it before you interrupted,” Samu says, rolling his eyes. “Would’ve been real touching and shit, leave you with one knut to help you on your way.”
Atsumu tosses the parchment at his head. “Just for that, I’m robbing your vault before anyone else gets to it, bury your will along with your body.”
“Wills are magically binding, you idiot, you can’t fucking hide it.”
“Maybe I’ll steal your identity! Dye my hair that boring gray, talk like I haven’t slept in three weeks, no one’ll know the difference.”
“Fuck off,” Samu says, but there’s a tired grin on his face, and that’s at least one bright piece of hope in this fucked up situation.
Later, in the hectic commotion of the battle at Hogwarts, he’ll find the rest of Samu’s will, tucked away in his pocket. He won’t know how it got there. He won’t know when Samu even got the chance, shoving Atsumu out of the way of a stray spell and charging ahead against dozens of enemies. But in the quiet lull of battle, when Samu’s too busy comforting injured students and allies in the halls, he’ll find it, and he’ll unroll it real slow and careful, and he’ll read the rest of what Samu had been trying to impart in the cold space of that tent a few weeks back, alone and at the end of his rope.
To Miya Atsumu, he reads, I leave one knut, in the hope that he knows what he did, and I leave the first snitch we ever caught together, in the hope that he remembers all of the times he kept me up at night practicing, and how he’ll always have a brother who encourages him to chase his dreams.
Atsumu will sit there after he finishes reading. He’ll stand up. He’ll ask for some parchment from a scared fourth-year he vaguely recognizes, scribble a few lines of his own, and pass it back with a message to give it to Samu when she gets the chance. Then he’ll dust himself off. He’ll walk. He’ll walk. And he’ll walk.
“One must die, while the other must live,” rings the hissing voice in their heads.
The fighting ceases. Atsumu is bleeding sluggishly from his head from a half-shielded Diffindo; his joints ache, and his hand is stiff from his death grip on his wand. But it’s no struggle to look across the room and find Samu’s eyes on his.
“Come fulfill the prophecy, Chosen One, and meet me in the Forbidden Forest at midnight. It ends here.”
The enemies disperse not long after that announcement, too afraid of invoking their master’s wrath. Atsumu’s always been quick on his feet, and he makes his way to Samu before Samu does. They collide, and Samu’s voice is in his ear, his clammy hand holding onto the nape of Atsumu’s neck like a lifeline. “Wipe that blood off,” Samu’s saying, “you look like shit more than you usually do. Take a seat, find Sakusa, give him a kiss since it’s the end of the world, and I swear to god if I die without hearing you haven’t gotten together, I’ll come back just to haunt you, I will.”
Atsumu buries his face in Samu’s shoulder, shuddering. One must die, while the other must live, he thinks. One must. One must.
“What about you? You gonna find Sunarin?” His voice comes out muffled. They sink to the floor slowly, clutching onto each other the way they always do after a Quidditch match, win or lose. Atsumu will never say it to him, but even now, at seventeen, with the war weary in his bones, Samu’s hugs are the best thing he’s ever known. “You gotta… you gotta say goodbye.”
One must die. One must die.
“I know,” Samu says. “I’ll find him.”
“There’s still a couple of hours before midnight,” Atsumu says, and it’s this realization that makes him raise his head. He blinks. His eyes feel hot, and he can’t quite make out Samu’s face clearly. “You only listed a few people on your will, but you should see the others. Everyone’s missed you a lot.”
“They missed you too, idiot,” Samu says, but it’s half-hearted; they both know he’s not universally loved like Samu is, and Samu sighs, rubbing a tired hand across his face. “Yeah, alright.” Fingers graze across the cut in his temple. Cool magic seeps across the skin like a balm. The blood stops running. “You good?”
“I’ll find Sakusa, make him patch the rest of it up for me,” Atsumu says, and swallows before he shoves Samu away, standing up. “Go see people, Samu. They need some hope to keep fighting after…”
He can’t make himself say it. Samu still nods. “Yeah, okay. I’ll find you before I go. Got that invisibility cloak on you?”
“Always do.” It’s a staple now, tucked into his pocket.
“When I go to the forest, come with me. I,” Samu says, and cuts off with a grunt when Atsumu leans down to flick his forehead. He has the gall to look offended, as if he’s not talking about fucking dying. “What?”
Sometimes Samu really does piss him off. But they don’t have the time to get into it here. Atsumu’s not about to waste his last minutes with Samu fighting. “So fucking dramatic,” he says, and turns on his heel with a jaunty wave before he can lose his nerve. “I’ll wait for you, Samu, don’t worry.”
“You better!” Samu yells, and Atsumu shoots him a grin. Steady on and forward; it’s the only way he knows how to go.
“Fix this up for me, will you?” Atsumu says, to the unmoving pile of curls at the dining hall table.
Sakusa whirls around. The point of his wand digs under Atsumu’s chin.
Atsumu doesn’t flinch. Instead he surveys Sakusa, who’s clearly had better days. His face is streaked with dirt and blood and sweat—must be having a fucking conniption, being unable to take a shower. He’s pale, unsteady on his feet. It makes his dark eyes and mess of hair over his forehead all the more striking. No injuries as far as Atsumu can see, only magical exhaustion. A miracle if he’s ever seen one.
Sakusa’s hands are clenched white around his wand, and Atsumu leans over, unpries those fingers one by one until the wand clatters to the bench.
“Miya,” Sakusa says.
“Come on, sit down,” Atsumu says. Sakusa must really be out of it—he obeys without protest, and watches Atsumu as he massages the strain out of his wrists in the tender spots he knows by heart. A small glow lights up between the points where they touch, Atsumu’s magic flowing into him with practiced ease. “You’re gonna break your joints at this rate, Omi.”
“You can’t break joints,” is the automatic response, and Atsumu grins. Sakusa blinks, like he’s coming back to his body, and then he sighs, tilts into Atsumu’s space until his head is braced against Atsumu’s shoulder. Even beneath the sweat and dried blood, he smells like he always does: like clean soap and home. “I am so fucking tired.”
“Can say that again,” Atsumu says, still massaging. He focuses on the constant flutter of Sakusa’s pulse below his thumbs, the knobby jut of his wrist bones and knuckles.
“I’ve been alternating between healing and fighting, and it’s just goddamn exhausting. I wish it was over.”
“Yeah.”
“And that announcement creeped me the fuck out.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re going to watch your brother die.”
Atsumu swallows, and keeps rubbing. “Yeah.”
That’s when Sakusa lifts his head. “You don’t have to. You don’t have to go. Neither does Osamu. We can all stay here and fight. We’re already doing it, anyway.”
Between the two of them, people might think Atsumu is the more hopeful one, and Sakusa the realist. But it’s always been the other way around. Sakusa’s been the heart of his Hufflepuff team since second year, shoving them to the finals for the first time in decades through the power of his goddamn hope. Atsumu got into fights with anyone and everyone because he knew he was the spare twin. He’s known since the end of fourth year, when the monster came back, how much hope Sakusa has.
You don’t have to fight, Sakusa had said back then, hands warm on Atsumu’s cheeks, eyes solemn and serious even under the cover of their blankets. You know that. You’re not an idiot. We’re fourteen. We don’t have to fight.
I can’t let Samu do all of the fighting, Omi. I gotta go with him.
You don’t. You and Osamu can stay here and let everyone else figure it out. Just because you’re twins, people think you’re special. Shows them what they know.
You’re saying I’m boring?
I’m saying you don’t need to be chosen, Sakusa said.
Atsumu’s answer is the same as ever. “That doesn’t mean I’ll do nothing,” he says, curling his pinkie around Sakusa’s. Sakusa’s fingers slot into his, seamless. Cold as ever with his shit circulation. Absently Atsumu rubs circles on the back of his hand, trying to squeeze the warmth back into it. He exhales. “Doesn’t matter if I’m not chosen. I’ll still go.”
Sakusa doesn’t respond. Instead he brushes against Atsumu’s side, and Atsumu doesn’t say anything about it, so Sakusa takes it as the go-ahead it is and scoots closer until they’re curled together in the middle of the long, empty bench. It’s like Atsumu is visiting the Hufflepuff tables during dinner again. If he closes his eyes he can imagine it—just him and Sakusa in the dining hall after curfew, sneaking bites from the kitchens, kissing crumbs of castella cake off their mouths to hide the evidence.
“You’re intolerable,” Sakusa says, in the silence.
“You can’t stand me even when I’m nice and quiet, huh?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I could never stand you anyway.”
Atsumu brushes Sakusa’s curls behind his ear and musters the scraps of his bravery from his fleeting dream to press a kiss to the exposed skin, right beside those two moles. “You love me, though.”
“Wish I didn’t,” Sakusa mumbles.
It would be easier, wouldn’t it. If he didn’t love.
But it’d be worse, and that’s not a life Atsumu is willing to live.
“I’ll see you around,” he says, a promise tucked away in his throat. He tightens his grip on Sakusa’s hand, memorizes the feel of those skinny fingers, each joint and smooth fingernail, before he untangles their hands and lets go. “Comfort me in my time of need, yeah?”
“As if,” Sakusa says.
Atsumu grins and stands up, but he’s stopped when Sakusa’s hand shoots out to grab his wrist.
“Hey,” Sakusa says. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
God, the way Sakusa knows. Must be that near Ravenclaw placement . “Who, me?” Atsumu says, and makes himself stroll off before he can give anything else away.
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF MIYA ATSUMU
To Kita Shinsuke I leave ¼ of my Gringotts vault and my books, to use as kindling for your farm needs or whatever.
To Ojiro Aran I leave ¼ of my Gringotts vault and my pet frog that I never actually adopted, but he always waits out for me in the lake, you know the one.
To Suna Rintarou I leave ¼ of my Gringotts vault and my wand.
To Sakusa Kiyoomi I leave ¼ of my Gringotts vault and my Quidditch stuff. You don’t need anything else. Not from me.
To Miya Osamu I leave one knut to invest in his restaurant business.
Atsumu was born second. Popular fact that everyone knows. He came out three minutes and forty-six seconds later, wailing the entire time, reaching blindly for Osamu before he could even open his eyes. That’s in all of the biographies: every dirty secret about their birth, the saviors of the Wizarding World with the matching scars on their foreheads.
What isn’t written in the biographies: the first time Osamu tripped and scraped his knee and didn’t cry because he was too busy comforting a bawling Atsumu instead. The first time Osamu ever got on a broomstick, and the way Osamu waited for him to get on before he took a lap around the house. The first time Osamu had nightmares about their parents’ deaths and woke up to Atsumu’s tears on his cheeks. The first time they rode the train to Hogwarts together and nearly missed the welcoming ceremony, too busy curled up sleeping in the seats together. The first time they got Sorted into Gryffindor, only because Atsumu begged the Hat to put him with Osamu. The first time they won a goal in Quidditch. The first time they met Suna. The first time Osamu fell in love. The first time they snuck around in the castle with an inherited invisibility cloak too big for the both of them.
That’s all the moments that matter. At least to Atsumu.
He might have been born second, but he woke up first when they were born, when they got tossed into the infirmary after confronting the monster in their first year, when they shared the poison in their sixth year for the first Horcrux they stumbled upon.
“Come on,” Atsumu had sobbed into Osamu’s shoulder, cradling Osamu’s basilisk-poisoned arm to his chest. “Come on, you can’t die, you can’t, I—I promise I won’t take the last onigiri anymore! Come on! Samu!”
“Shut up,” Osamu had said weakly. “Ruining my last moments wailing in my ear like that, Tsumu.”
Biographies write events. They don’t write what’s inside people’s heads.
Atsumu talks up his plans of becoming a Quidditch pro, stealing Head Prefect out from under Osamu’s nose, and kissing Sakusa in the Astronomy Tower to anyone who’ll listen. Let them believe Samu’s the sacrificial lamb, sure as hell makes things easier for him. He writes up lists of what he’s going to do in the future. He’s going to take the Quidditch world by storm. He’s going to get Os on every NEWT exam possible. He’s going to live a happier life than Osamu.
One must die, and the other must live. Prophecies never mentioned names. And Atsumu’s had the invisibility cloak since year three.
Osamu doesn’t see it coming.
He’s better at spellwork, but Atsumu is faster on his feet. One Petrificus Totalus, and Osamu stiffens into a statue, protests frozen in his mouth. Atsumu shrugs his invisibility cloak off and switches it for Osamu’s robes. Always prim and proper, the bastard. He changes his hair color to gray with a quick spell. Osamu’s hair settles into a familiar blond. Then he casts a second Petrificus, just to be sure the spell won’t break off through Osamu’s sheer force of Chosen One will.
The spell will undo itself soon regardless. There’s no danger for Osamu here. Not anymore. He smiles, leaning his head against Osamu’s.
“Love ya, scrub,” he whispers, and then he drapes the cloak over Osamu’s head and walks into the forest to die.