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Chapter Text

Rain hissed against plastic, blue on blue. A series of identical uniforms came pouring out of the gates; students were laughing and complaining and skittering across the concrete, some without even a jacket or coat to guard themselves against the storm.

That was very irresponsible of them, he thought. They should have checked the weather report that morning.

Kiyoomi kept his grasp steady and his gaze probing. He fought against the rain’s attempts to blur his vision into a smudge on the window. No, he had a clear target in mind and was ensuring nothing could get in his way of locating her. His teacher told him he was very good at paying attention during class. The gates were the lines across his kanji workbook. Pay attention, pay attention.

“—I told you that wasn’t it,” said one of those uniforms: ink blotting the page, the sky. “Like, fucking ridiculous, I know, but—oh, Manami-chan, isn’t that like, your brother?”

She had also forgotten an umbrella, but she was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, at least. Her hair spilled out onto her front like a messy, tangled scarf. Their mother often told her to cut it, and he sometimes thought that she only kept it that long for that very reason. The collar of her shirt flapped awkwardly over her hoodie.

“Kiyoomi,” his sister said. “What are you doing here?”

He said, “You said you’d take me.”

Manami blinked, slow and steady. “Take you.”

“The movies,” he said. “You promised.”

She still seemed to need a moment to get what he was saying. She tucked her collar back inside of her shirt. “I didn’t mean so soon,” she said.

“Why?”

Your brother’s so serious, said one of her friends—Maybe Aya—at the same time as another— Also Potentially Aya—said he’s so cute! The third friend was looking down the extent of the pavement and rolling on her heels. He knew her name was Chihiro. Manami had known her since they were younger.

“Don’t you have cram school?” was what his sister said. Teenage girls were weird.

“I told Nakamura-sensei that I wasn’t feeling well yesterday. And so do you.”

“That’s where I’m about to go.”

“No. You’re going to look at music albums with your friends.”

Manami was supposed to take her studies super seriously now that she was getting ready to take entrance exams for university, but she never seemed that stressed out about it. Wednesdays were the one day she did her calligraphy club instead of private tutoring right after school; it wasn’t the only time where she skipped cram school in the evenings, he was pretty sure, but it was still the most likely day of the week to catch her.

It was easy to tell when she came home in high spirits or wearing eyes vigilant for any wandering questions about how her lessons went. That, of course, and the times when he could still see the impressions left by her clip-on earrings on her skin.

She fixed him with a long look then, before turning to her friends and saying, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay?”

Aya One shot him a smile, adjusting the strap of her bag. “Awww, come on. You don’t want to hang out with your sister’s friends?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“Ouch. Rejected,” said Aya Two.

“You guys can go on without me.” Manami walked toward him. “Alright, come on. Make room.”

“Bye,” Chihiro said, waving.

His sister was a lot taller than him. Not as tall as Yasuaki, but no one was as tall as Yasuaki. Kiyoomi was tall for his age, too, but it didn’t keep the umbrella from vaulting far above his head after it was swiped from his grasp.

“You can’t just show up at my school,” she said, as they started walking down the sidewalk. “How did you even know where it is?”

“It’s not hard. You just need to use a map.”

“That’s not—” She paused. “You can’t do this again, okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so. I’ll tell Mom and Dad.”

“No you won’t.”

She shot a glance over to him; whatever she saw made her sigh. “Are you a delinquent, now?”

“I’m not skipping,” he said. “I told Nakamura-sensei.”

“You’re feeling hearty enough to go to the movies.”

“Are we going to the movies?”

“When did I ever tell you I’d take you today?”

“You said you’d take me to the movies,” Kiyoomi said slowly, so that she could catch every word. He shoved his hands, now free, into his pockets. “Why couldn’t it be today?”

Manami said, “Do you even know what you’d want to see? Or how you’d pay for it?”

“I know how to pay for things.” He wasn’t stupid. “I saw an ad on the way to school. Is that where we’re going?”

“Who says we’re going anywhere?”

“We’re supposed to be at cram school.”

Their mother was on a business trip and their father was working late, and their grandfather would be out playing cards with old clients—and even if he came home, he assumed he wasn’t really the type to tell on them, but it wasn’t as if he particularly understood his grandfather—but still.

And he heard his parents say once that their neighbors were nosy. Equally pertinent.

“I still want to look at albums,” Manami said. “You brought your coin purse, right?”

“Yeah.”

She said, “I’ll help you rent something at the video store. If you relax on asking me about this right now. And if you don’t show up at my school again.”

“You need a card for that, I think.”

“I have a card.”

He wanted to ask why she even had a membership card in the first place, but it didn’t seem particularly helpful in that moment. No, not when there were more fruitful avenues to explore.

“For how long?” he asked.

“It’s an indefinite membership, I think.”

“No, how long until I can ask you about the movies?

“Just—later, okay? We’ll talk about it.”

“But—”

“A couple weeks,” she said.

It was, all things considered, annoying. But the idea of going to the video store was pretty nice. A stepping stone to going to the movies, perhaps. “Okay,” he said.

“Sounds like a deal.” His sister tugged him along so they could side-step a puddle. “Why don’t you just go with Motoya? You’ve been hanging out with him, right?”

“Just for practice. And we’re both kids. It’d be suspicious.”

“You could pretend to be one adult together.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

“I guess you’re both tall for your age. It’d be hard to find a coat that’d fit over the both of you.”

“One of Yasuaki’s, maybe.”

“I’m sure there’s still one in his room,” she said offhandedly, before briskly moving forward with, “Michi was right. You frown too much.”

“No I don’t.”

“Do too.”

“No.”

Their voices petered out, then. Someone riding a bike rolled past, and they had to dodge a group of people coming out of a convenience store. Dark clouds loomed overhead.

“We’ll get your movies,” his sister said, “and we’ll just have to be careful that Mom and Dad don’t find out we skipped, right? And we’ll talk about going to see one in a theater later.”

“I know,” he said. Like he said: he wasn’t dumb.

His sister jostled the umbrella as a response. He scowled when raindrops scattered onto his coat.

Pitter-patter. Blue on blue.

…

It had started when one of Manami’s friends let her borrow a collection of old VHS tapes.

Borrow was the word that his sister had used, and it had been used loosely. Borrowed, she had said, because Aya got in trouble with her parents about her grades and they confiscated all of her movies. Not all of them, perhaps, given that she had passed the ones she could save off to Manami for safekeeping in the meantime. Allegedly.

Allegedly, his sister said, holding up a finger. Important distinction.

Aya’s mother had called their home phone and Kiyoomi had been the one to answer since his sister had been taking a nap. The phone call had went something like this:

“Is your mother home?”

“No.”

“Is your father home?”

“No.”

“Is there an adult home?”

“My grandfather is out at his swim class.”

“Do you think you could tell your mother that I called?”

“Why?”

“I just want to make sure that your sister is paying attention to her studies. I worry that her friends have been poor influences. Is your mother really not home?”

“No. Is that all?”

The whole thing had piqued his curiosity enough that he confronted his sister about it in her room after she woke up. And then she had said: I borrowed them, you see, very, very allegedly. And so Kiyoomi had poked through the pile of bulky rectangles on her desk, poorly obscured by a plastic sack.

“Did you tell her that Mom’s on a trip?” his sister said.

“No. Is she going to call again?”

“Probably.”

If she did, their father wasn’t the type to bother himself with something like this, and Grandpa would just hang up. Aya’s mother seemed a little overbearing and annoying, so Kiyoomi’d probably just let it ring out if she called again when he was home.

He asked, “Are these old?”

“Pretty much. There’s a couple Hollywood ones in there, too.”

“Can I see them?”

She had been scrawling something down in a notebook at her desk. She stopped when he said it.

“Do you like movies?” she said, after a second.

He shrugged.

She nodded, returning to whatever it was that she was writing. “If you want. Just don’t get caught.”

It hadn’t been like he was possessed by some great, consuming interest, then, to watch those movies. It was just that it had been the weekend, and he had been bored. He and Motoya didn’t have volleyball because the coach was at some work conference or something, and he had finished all of his homework and he didn’t feel like reading or going outside.

It was a very annoying thing, to be bored. Incredibly inconvenient.

Manami had ended up leaving to go hang out with friends and everyone was still out of the house, and so Kiyoomi had hunkered down in front of the TV in the main room with a few of the movies sitting in his lap. He had picked out one with a rather morose-looking man staring up at him from the cover.

And it was not, then, a couple of hours later, as if he had been so profoundly moved by the film that he found his life inextricably changed forever.

He was ten. He was staring at the credits as they rolled across the screen, and no, it wasn’t some sense of being moved that led him to grab another tape from the stack and queue it up on the TV.

Sakusa Kiyoomi was confused.

And boredom— boredom was something to be annoyed by, sure, but confusion—

Nothing good could come from confusion.

The movies were… fine. Both of the ones he had watched were in black and white, the actors speaking in an old, grating dialect and melodramatic tones. The third film he pulled up wasn’t quite so old, but it was in English; it meant that his sister got back home to find him sitting directly in front of the TV and squinting over at the paused screen in an attempt to parse through grainy subtitles.

“Have you been here all day?” she asked.

He said, “Why does your friend care so much about these?”

“I don’t know,” his sister said, kicking her shoes off. “She likes to collect them.”

“Why?”

“She just likes them. There isn’t a deeper meaning.” She peered over at the screen, walking closer. “Oh, I quite like this one. Actually, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you.”

He unpaused the movie. The stern-looking man on the screen waved around a gun as he spoke into a phone. Another round of subtitles replaced the old ones. He paused it again.

“You might just have to call it,” Manami continued. “This’ll take you hours.”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“You’re smart, but you’re still ten,” she said. “Reading’s challenging. I wouldn’t take it to heart.”

He said, “No. It’s not that.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“I don’t get why your friend wants to get in trouble for this.”

“The whole point is that she doesn’t want to get in trouble.”

He looked to his sister, frowning. “That’s not what I mean,” he said. “She could get in trouble for these. I don’t get why you’d even bother. They’re just movies.”

“Sometimes teens just like to rebel,” she said.

He frowned harder. “I know that. I just don’t get it.”

His sister squatted down beside him, hands on her knees. “If Mom and Dad said you had to stop—“ She stopped, thought, and started again: “Playing volleyball. With Motoya. If you had to stop because of your grades, would you still try to play?”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, if they would.”

“I get good grades.”

“So not for your grades,” she said. “If someone made it so you had to stop playing volleyball just because, what would you feel?”

“I would be annoyed,” he said, thinking. “But who would do that?”

His teachers all liked him and he couldn’t imagine his grandfather doing it. A neighbor, maybe?

“I guess it’s a poor analogy. But kids your age are supposed to be eating your own boogers,” he heard, pulling him from his reverie. “You don’t need to think so deeply about this.”

And it was one thing to be bored, it was another thing to be confused, but to be told not to do something—

“Huh,” Manami said. She leaned over and ejected the tape, standing to hold it above his head when he tried to swipe it from her hands.

He glared up at her. It didn’t do anything. He was going to be taller than her one day, he was pretty sure, and he’d hold all types of things over her head. Like her fountain pens.

“Let’s put this one on the back burner, okay? You can watch the rest of them. I believe. Let me double-check.”

“I already started that one. It can’t get more bad.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You’re the one who let me watch it in the first place. You’re not supposed to have those movies at all.”

“Exactly,” his sister said. “We in the business call this mutually assured destruction. Finish the other ones for now, okay? Just let me check them, first.”

He didn’t like this deal very much. Kiyoomi also knew that it never did much good to try to argue with either of his siblings. He thought that most people knew not to argue with him, either, but perhaps his sister was above him in that regard.

“Okay?” she said, indents on her earlobes.

…

And so Kiyoomi had watched the rest of the movies. The ones approved by his sister, at least, which ended up being quite a bit fewer in number than the pile he was initially handed. He tried to steal the ones she had taken back, but she had evidently anticipated this, given that he couldn’t find their hiding spot. He knew that they were somewhere around. Aya’s mother had called again later that week.

His brain swam with western stand-offs and sworn oaths and family drama and swords and, and, and.

He poked at a broccoli head. “I still don’t get it.”

“Sachie can be weird, I guess,” Motoya said. He was drinking from what had been Kiyoomi’s milk carton. “She keeps losing her glasses!”

They never ate lunch together before, but since the start of the school year, sometimes his cousin plopped down beside him, typically already gnashing on something between his teeth (Motoya hated the dentist, and they hated him just as much, Kiyoomi imagined), and so there they were.

“And she complains about it!” he, complainer of dentistry, continued. “But then she loses them again! Very weird.”

Sachie, Motoya’s sister, was only a few years older than the two of them, so she barely qualified as a teenager. It didn’t seem to make a difference. The indecipherable mysteriousness that seemed to afflict all teenagers had already taken effect.

Though to be fair, Sachie’s attitude might have been justified.

“Don’t you steal them?” Kiyoomi said.

Motoya tilted his head. All of their teachers seemed to think that his cousin was perfectly well-behaved, which Kiyoomi thought was pretty stupid. “That was just once! I was borrowing them, anyway. All the other times have been her. Really.”

For all that he could be rather sneaky, his cousin wasn’t all that good a liar. It must have been a family trait.

“But the movies?” Motoya continued, before Kiyoomi could say anything. “I didn’t know you liked them.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“It sounds like you watched a lot, though?”

“I did.”

“Huh.” Motoya took another sip of milk. “Okay. They were good?”

“I don’t know.”

He had tried to just ask Manami for the other movies, but she didn’t budge, only half-heartedly saying that maybe she’d take him some time to the theater, alright? as she was flicking through a magazine on her bed.

And so he had showed up at her school—and so she had taken him to the video store after buying her albums and several thinly veiled threats to not return to her school again—and so he had rented another couple of movies, two cheesy comedies that he found a little annoying, on DVDs, this time—and so here he was, eating lunch with his cousin, and still annoyed.

Motoya said, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

He was sure he was too, because the idea of not being able to understand what to make of those VHS tapes felt personally offensive. Going to the movies seemed like a good step to take, but given that he had until next week before he could ask Manami about it, he was stuck.

He could, of course, just have gone to the movies by himself. But he probably would only be able to go in the evening, and he thought that’d be suspicious, and it didn’t seem all that worth it if he could get in trouble.

As if on cue, Motoya said, “It’s probably all teenagers who’re weird. Not just girls. Because Yasuaki did stuff that didn’t really make sense?”

“I guess,” Kiyoomi said, just as lunch came to an end. “Let’s go to the video store this week.”

Manami had given him her membership card so that he’d be able to return the movies he had picked up. She never said he couldn’t get another one or two or three, especially since he’d be paying for them all on his own.

His cousin finished off the carton in one big gulp—which, ew, he was always so gross about this stuff—and said, “If I get your milk next lunch, too.”

“I wasn’t gonna drink it anyway,” Kiyoomi said.

His cousin smiled. As much as he hated the dentist, he had super white teeth. “I guess it’s a deal!”

They went to the same store that his sister had taken him to, the comedy movies tucked into his backpack. His attention was split between trying to find a new genre to explore—a non-fiction documentary. a mystery, or another action film that he wasn’t sure if he was even allowed to get by himself—and making sure his cousin didn’t get into any unnecessary trouble while they were there.

“I’m not even going to do anything!” Motoya said, but he wasn’t looking at Kiyoomi when he said it. No: he was tilting back on his feet and watching himself move in the security camera monitor overhead.

“Which one?” Kiyoomi asked. He’d get the documentary, and choose between the mystery or the action movie for the other; he held them both up to the security camera, their covers appearing like blurry blobs on the monitor.

Motoya squinted. He stood on his tip-toes—Kiyoomi was taller than him, at least—to get a closer look, though he didn’t think it would help very much.

“The one with the snake,” his cousin said, squinting.

“It’s a train,” Kiyoomi said.

“Snake train,” his cousin said.

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

Motoya finally looked over to him, his lips curling at the edges. “You’re no fun!”

He went with the bullet train one, regardless of the rating on it. The clerk at the counter was not the one who had been there when his sister took him; he looked young, though. Maybe also a teenager. He took back the comedy movies that Kiyoomi slid across the counter and eyed the new ones he placed down with a raised eyebrow.

“You need to be seventeen to get this one,” the boy said. “Technically.”

“It’s just a documentary,” Kiyoomi said.

“Ha ha,” the boy said. “You know what I mean.”

“We’re over seventeen!” Motoya said.

“Really.”

“Well, if you combine our ages.”

“Really.”

“Yes,” his cousin said, and he put two one thousand yen notes onto the counter.

The boy sent them both a long, probing glance, flicked his gaze around the otherwise empty store, and slid the cash out of sight.

“It’s my sister’s membership card,” Kiyoomi said, as he put his own money onto the counter. “And she’s eighteen.”

The clerk said, “Good to know.” He was quick in finishing the transaction, telling them rather unsubtly to scram.

It wasn’t raining when they stepped outside, but there was something gloomy about the sky. The cold was starting to creep in. Kiyoomi always rather liked the chill that winter brought. You could always get warmer, as opposed to being stuck in the heat during the summer. Besides— sweat was gross.

He hoped it would rain that night. When he was inside, because even if he liked it, it wasn’t all too fun to walk through. He could start one of his new movies then, depending on who’d be home.

“I’m glad we’re hanging out more,” Motoya said, looking up. He was often doing that. “And not just because my mom said that we should.”

“She didn’t say that,” Kiyoomi said.

His cousin said, “She basically said that.”

“I guess you helped.”

Motoya laughed. “Is that why I came?”

“There isn’t a big enough trench coat,” he said.

His cousin let out an understanding noise, before chattering all the way back to the station. Maybe it wasn’t just adults, or teenagers. It might have just been his family.

…

He liked the documentary. He thought it might’ve just been the subject, though, because he’d probably like any movie that was about dogs. The real question was if he’d be willing to get in trouble just to watch a documentary about different dog breeds. Maybe if it was a real dog, but his father was allergic, so that didn’t seem like it would happen anytime soon.

He had watched it that same night that he got home. It hadn’t rained, then, but it did when he got around to the action movie later that week. And it was getting darker out earlier now, meaning Kiyoomi had sat before the TV in a room lit only by the occasional bout of lightning or an on-screen explosion.

And he wasn’t sure why his sister was so adamant that he didn’t watch Aya’s action movie. He was plenty mature for his age. He finished the film with the lingering concern that he should probably learn how to defuse a bomb, since he, himself, used a train so often, but he was sure there must be some sort of documentary on it. This, he thought, was very mature and logical reasoning.

He thought about telling her this, but he decided against it upon recognizing that, so long as he was utilizing his sister’s membership card in a way they technically hadn’t agreed upon, it was for the best to avoid movie talk with her.

But Manami didn’t ask for her card back. In fact, she instigated movie talk herself, commenting on it one day when they both left for school at the same time, even if had been rather offhanded.

“And you picked up some new ones?” was what she said, holding the door open for him.

He nodded. His backpack jostled as he did, and he was acutely aware of the card he kept stashed in its front pocket.

“Well,” she said. “I hope they were satisfyingly riveting.”

And then they went their separate ways.

He went back to the video store again. Kiyoomi dragged his cousin along with him, and he always seemed happy enough to join, recommending titles and covers that he thought were funny. It was annoying. He told him such.

“I really think you’d like a musical, though,” Motoya said, poking his shoulder. “My mom said that your mom is home.”

She was. It didn’t necessarily mean that she was home anymore, since it just meant that both of his parents were working late. Aya’s mother had called again, interrupting the animated film he found at the back of the first-floor hallway closet. And his grandfather had been visiting the park, so he just let the home phone ring until it stopped. And she called twice.

Kiyoomi shrugged.

“Did you all have dinner together?” said his cousin.

“Once,” he said, nose scrunching.

“Oh no. I know that face.”

“I’m not making a face.”

“You’re right. It’s just your face. You like eating lunch with me, though, right?”

“When you’re not being gross.”

“Maybe the next dinner will be better.”

Kiyoomi said, “Stop it.” He swatted at the hand trying to slip the musical into his backpack. “They’re going to think we’re stealing it.”

Motoya fluttered out of his orbit. He had done gymnastics when he was younger; it made him far more flexible and lighter on his feet than Kiyoomi figured he’d ever be.

“Oops,” his cousin said. “Didn’t even realize I was doing that.”

He was trying more action movies. It was the same young clerk at the counter, who still looked the other way at the ones that he was realistically too young for. It was pretty irresponsible, but Kiyoomi wasn’t going to go telling—tattling on him or anything. He wondered if the money he and his cousin were handing over was worth—losing his job? He didn’t know.

While not as quick as he would have liked it to be, two weeks passed. Kiyoomi caught his sister in the hallway.

“I can’t right now, okay?” she said, and she was typing something into her plasticky cell phone, not even looking up at him.

“But you promised—”

“I know,” she said. “I said we’d talk about it, though.”

“Then talk.”

“We are, great and omnipotent thinker.” It sometimes felt like his sister was making references to things when she talked—ones he was oblivious to. “I told you, I’m busy.” Catching wind of the words brewing in his throat, she was quick to add, “Next week? You like going to the video store, right?”

“It’s not the same,” he said.

“We’ll talk about it. I’ll pay for your ticket when we eventually go.”

It seemed like a bad deal. Allegedly. He said, “You promise?”

She finally looked up at him. For a second, Manami didn’t say anything. Kiyoomi and his siblings looked like each other, he was pretty sure.

Her phone chimed. She nodded. “We’ll talk. Just later.” And then she was moving down the hall.

…

It started when there were negative four days left.

Another week had passed, and his subsequent conversation with his sister occurred very much like the previous one. She gave him another week. She gave him five days. Two weeks again. One. Motoya ended up renting the musical for himself and wouldn’t stop talking about it at lunch and practice and in the hallway and it wasn’t even that good, Kiyoomi thought, after he forced his cousin to hand it over. Not any better than the action movies.

Though the documentary he found about farming was pretty interesting. Motoya had a cousin on the other side of his family who lived in Yamagata; it was something to pursue after he finished up his thing with the movies, because he would.

Manami was nicer than Yasuaki, but that wasn’t a high bar to jump over. Yes: hopping, jumping, maneuvering—doing whatever she could to avoid talking about taking him to the movie theater. He tried again and again, but nothing seemed to stick.

“You’re not exactly nice either, you know?” Motoya said, at another time that they were eating lunch together. “Remember when you made Michi cry last year?”

“I was just being honest.” He had said something to upset a classmate of theirs; he didn’t remember what. “You’re not either.”

Motoya frowned. “No I’m not! She didn’t lie, by the way.”

He glowered. Scary! Motoya said. “Are you on her side?” Kiyoomi said.

“No.”

“It sounds like it.”

“Your sister is smart,” Motoya said. “She said you were just gonna talk about it. She knew what she was saying.”

She wasn’t lying, which was the most upsetting part. Sure, she said they’d go eventually, but she never lied about the when. They weren’t very good liars, his family. Manami couldn’t lie, so she did the next worst thing. She was honest.

So, four days after the latest day that he was allowed to talk to his sister about the movies, he struck again. He caught her when she was coming home. It seemed like she actually had been at cram school this time, based on her mood, and that she understood what was happening the moment she closed the door and caught sight of him standing there in his socks, waiting.

She sighed.

“You said we need to decide a day. So what day?”

“I’m really busy right now,” his sister said, bag thumping against the ground. “I didn’t realize how busy I’d be—”

“You’re still hanging out with your friends.”

Her jaw clicked shut. But then she let out another whoosh of breath, the tension in her shoulders unfurling. “Okay, listen— next month, alright?”

“A month,” Kiyoomi said.

“Yes,” his sister repeated. “Thirty days.”

“A month isn’t just thirty days. Like February.”

“Is it February?”

“No.”

“Correct. Very correct. But I’ll let it be February.”

“No,” Kiyoomi said, feeling the childish urge to stomp his feet. “You’re just going to say the same thing then.”

His sister was smart— but so was he. He wasn’t dumb. He said it again and again. This was how things went. Didn’t mean he liked it, even if he understood it.

(Kiyoomi’s childhood was dictated by a recurring theme.

In some ways, it was inevitable. His siblings often felt as if they were born on a different world, linked together by years that existed beyond him. This, of course, was a rather nuanced manner of describing emotions he was feeling in the most rudimentary way.

His brother and sister were older than him. There was a line between them and him that poked and prodded and tickled sometimes. Kiyoomi didn’t really care, not really, but he did rather hate being kept out of things, which this, definitely, always counted as.

Yasuaki used to be rather clear about it. Despite the fact that they weren’t close, not really, there was still something very loud about his empty room. His brother’s presence—there but not there—was what created his absence. Him being gone just felt weird. It turned things on their head.

It wasn’t enough to disrupt everything, though.)

“We can go during break,” his sister continued. She started to kick off her shoes, not looking at him. “There’ll be more stuff out then, too.”

“You’re going to say the same thing then. That’s even closer to your exams.”

“You don’t know that. I let you use my card—”

“Just so I’d stop bothering you.” He wasn’t stupid.

And with that, she looked back to him. “I’m being nice, Kiyoomi. I don’t have to take you anywhere. And I won’t,” she said. “I guess I won’t, if you’re going to do this.”

Manami was nicer than Yasuaki, sure, but her face was twisting just like his did— just like Kiyoomi’s must have done, too.

“You were never going to,” he said, crossing his arms. “You lied—”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You did. You know that you did.”

“You’re being such a brat,” she said, shoulders tensing.

“No, you are!” Kiyoomi said, because was very smart and very clever, but he was also ten.

And normally— normally it wasn’t like this. Sometimes his siblings used to fight, and the sound of their voices clattering against one another might’ve been familiar. But Kiyoomi didn’t involve himself, then. He kept to himself. He didn’t go to his sister’s room after her friend’s mom called because they didn’t do that. The line was rarely crossed, before.

But here they were: voices clashing. Liar, liar, you’re a liar, you lied. Brat. I told you. Stop it. It’s not my fault—

Kiyoomi’s skin felt hot and flushed and his sister had a sharp tongue and he wasn’t quite sure what he was saying, and then the phone rang.

Aya’s mother again, surely. It ripped the conversation in two; then he and his sister were standing there, staring at each other, chests heaving with breath.

Manami stomped over to the home phone. Just ignore it! he wanted to say, but Aya’s mother was stupid and annoying, so Manami should have had to deal with it. Maybe she’d get in trouble, and maybe Kiyoomi wouldn’t care, because why should he? She lied. They were never going to go to the movies.

Her movements were jerky as she pulled the receiver to her ear. Her Hello? was pointy at the edges.

It must have been Aya’s mother. She must have known that Manami was still holding onto the VHS tapes still. And he knew this because he watched the anger in his sister’s face melt away: wide eyes, parted lips. He could hear the muffled warbles of a voice too far away rattle something off into his sister’s ear, rapid and urgent, as his brain settled between his ears in his head.

…

Motoya had grandparents. Of course he did. They shared a set of grandparents, after all, given that Kiyoomi’s father and aunt were siblings. Those grandparents didn’t live in Tokyo and were pretty boring, but they existed.

Motoya had other grandparents though. They were more interesting, apparently, as there was plenty more to be said about them. Like how his grandpa was a whiz in the kitchen, or how his grandma went through a rotating circle of nail polish colors each month. And he even had an extra set through his stepdad, too, who were even weirder than his other grandparents, because Takeuchi-san was pretty weird himself.

None of them lived with Motoya, though— not like how Kiyoomi’s grandfather did with his family.

And Kiyoomi might’ve lived with him, but he didn’t think there was a lot to say about his grandfather. He was tall, but his posture curled in on itself enough—much like the crimped edges of a magazine—that some of his height was lost. His hair was thin and gray. He wore a set of thick glasses. He did many things outside of the house that Kiyoomi did not understand, as they were old man things, and he was not an old man.

Some things he did understand. Such as the fact that his grandfather broke his ankle that autumn: an injury that was turning out to be a particularly monumental disruption in the Sakusa family household. The largest, perhaps, since Yasauki left without saying anything and with no further contact one night that summer.

It didn’t matter that Kiyoomi wasn’t necessarily present for the hushed conversations his parents were having around the house, or the louder ones they were having with his grandfather. They were all there, together, for extended periods of time, and that was bizarre enough.

His sister seemed to think so too, given the firm, straight line her lips had been pressed into since their mother had interrupted their fight, calling to let them know that their grandfather was at the emergency clinic. They hadn’t really talked to each other since that evening; not about the movies, at least. Kiyoomi was just gratified that his sister seemed to be just as excluded from all the conversations going on as he was.

Their grandfather was set up in the main room of the house. His ankle, fat and wrapped up in a splint, rested atop a zebra-printed ottoman.

You can’t just be here on your own and I don’t need a damn babysitter and I have a call from work I need to take came floating up the stairs, where Kiyoomi was perched and listening.

His grandfather was going to have surgery. He would need to stay home after that. His parents wanted him to have some sort of nurse to stay at the house, or to visit during the day, or something; his grandfather didn’t. Kiyoomi wouldn’t if he were him, too. He didn’t now, because he didn’t like the idea of a stranger constantly being around.

And what if something happened when we were gone? and I don’t need a damn babysitter and I have an email I really need to respond to—

Next to him, Manami sighed. It was a breath of air punched through her teeth. She skulked off to her own room.

We could look into a program and I don’t need a damn babysitter and can we table this for later?

Kiyoomi didn’t take long to follow her. To his own room, that was. At that point, he didn’t really care what they all decided on; his movie plans were being messed up enough already. He flopped onto his bed and glared at the ceiling.

It felt like there was always something happening nowadays. He wondered if there would continue to always be something going on. Motoya would probably say something annoying like, That’s just a part of growing up! which he didn’t even have the right to say, because what did Motoya know about growing up?

He busied himself with seeing how many overhead sets he could do while lying down. He got to seventy-three before there was a knock on his bedroom door. He held his volleyball to his chest and shot over a pinched, wary glance.

“Kiyoomi?” his mother said, before the door opened.

A lot of people said he looked like his mother. He and his siblings had all inherited her hair, though she often had it clipped back. Something about cheekbones, something about eyes.

She was wearing her work clothes, all clean lines and crisp lapels. “Kiyoomi,” she said again, “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay,” he said. “About what?”

She crossed his room with certain steps. It was something he admired about his mother: her ability to act with such punctual efficiency. She sat down at the edge of his bed.

“I know things have been a little odd.” She waited for him to nod. “Your grandfather is going to have to be home for a while.”

He nodded again. “I heard,” he said.

“There’s going to be someone around to help him. But do you think you could keep an eye on him, too?”

His mother didn’t ask him of much, typically. He got good grades, he kept his room clean, and he didn’t get into trouble. He didn’t think his parents cared too much about volleyball, but he was good at that, too. He was good at a lot of things.

On one hand, he didn’t exactly want to keep an eye on his grandfather, in the way that he didn’t, on principle, like having people tell him what to do. Kiyoomi liked holding his schedule in his own hands. Someone forcing a task onto him was an obstacle, an obstruction, an irritant.

But his mother was asking him to, and it didn’t seem like it’d be that hard, given that his grandfather still couldn’t really move around easily, so he said, “Okay. What does that mean?”

“He’ll be home while he’s recovering,” his mother said, her hands perfectly poised in her lap. “I imagine you’ll be home at the same time. You might just make sure that he won’t get into any trouble.”

It was kind of a silly request, he thought. After all, what type of trouble could an old man get into?

She smiled at his question when he asked. Like every other action she made, it was well-practiced and systematic. Her eyes roamed around his room; he kept everything very neat, and so he knew there wouldn’t be anything out of place to snag her attention.

“Nothing too much, I’d imagine,” she said eventually. “He might just be a little cranky with his ankle.”

That made sense. He would be, too.

“Alright,” Kiyoomi said.

His mother nodded.

And then her hand lifted from her lap and hesitated: just the briefest stutter of a movement. Not even that. Just before she reached out to pat him on the back.

…

“I’d be pretty grumpy if I had surgery too, I guess.” Motoya bumped the volleyball back to him. His form was getting better. “You wouldn’t be able to play for like, ever. Like, two months.”

“Forever isn’t two months,” Kiyoomi said, bumping the ball back. His form was getting better, too. “An ankle injury could be a career-ending injury though. Even if you recover in the short-term.”

“That like, doesn’t happen a lot though, right? And wouldn’t your grandpa retiring already count as a career-ending injury?”

“I guess.”

“Second retirement, then.”

“I think that’s just dying,” Kiyoomi said.

“I guess.” Bump. “How’d he even break it?”

The whole story, he wasn’t sure about. But bits and pieces had emerged since the day of his grandfather’s injury. “He was at softball or something,” Kiyoomi said. “I think he slipped on the stairs.”

“That sucks,” Motoya said. Bump.

Kiyoomi’s eyes squinted. Bump. Not just good form— close to perfect form. When did that happen? “Have you been practicing on your own?” he asked.

“Oh? What do you mean?”

“You’re better.”

“Thanks!”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“It’s okay,” said Motoya. “And don’t worry— I bet you’ll catch up soon!”

Their coach blew his whistle before Kiyoomi could respond. It didn’t keep his nose from scrunching though. Motoya just laughed and bounced away.

Volleyball practice was nice. He hadn’t known what to think when Motoya first dragged him along to his camp during the summer, but it had become an integral part of his routine since then. There was something very cathartic about honing all of his energy into a physical activity.

They only had practice a few times a week, and sometimes on the weekend. Apparently they’d do it more in middle school. He didn’t like the feeling of putting on his regular clothes or uniform after exercising, but he supposed it couldn’t be avoided; besides—cram school was only slightly more unbearable because of it.

Their coach had a questionable mustache and clapped often when he was speaking. He had played in college and briefly went professional. Kiyoomi thought, based on pictures the man had shown them, that the mustache might have had something to do with it. He was sure it carried some sort of curse.

“—and we’ll be having you all try different positions again.” Clap. It sounded dry, too. He really needed to use some lotion. “And it can’t be the same as last time! It’s good to try something new.”

Kiyoomi kept his distance from the swarm of his teammates gathered around their coach. Another clap, something about washing up, and permission to break for the day. His cousin found him once again; he was staring at his own interlocked hands as he flexed them back and forth.

“What’re you gonna choose?” Motoya said.

“I don’t know.

“Setter?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s surprising.”

Kiyoomi shot him a look. “Why?”

He saw Motoya shrug. “I don’t know if you’d like it much.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s like—” Motoya made some nonsensical gesture with his hands. “You like doing stuff.”

“Setters do stuff.”

“Yeah, but like no? You can’t do what other people are doing. You’re only yourself, right? Like if Jirou messes up a spike.”

“Hey!” And there was Jirou: he always wore shirts with weird pictures. “I don’t mess up that much!”

“You do sometimes.” Another one. Isao. He had a tendency to pick at his nails. Some of their other teammates were there, too. They were walking out of the gym now in one big clump.

“Yeah, sometimes!” said Jirou.

Motoya nodded. “Exactly.”

“I think you’d be good at setting,” said Isao, and it took Kiyoomi a second to realize that he was talking to him. “You were good the last time you did it. And I bet your wrist would be weird for that, too.”

He thought about it, his cousin’s words still poking at him.

Literally poking him, in the side of the head. Kiyoomi ducked out of the way. “It’s not weird,” he said. Motoya didn’t know what he was talking about.

He was quick in changing, mostly ignoring the conversations that were going on around him. He’d be late for cram school. Motoya still caught him before he left the club room. He was in the midst of sharing a bag of chips with Jirou, legs thrown over Nobuyuki, who was lying on the floor.

“Leaving?” said his cousin.

He fixed his scarf. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Later?”

“Yeah.”

A chorus of voices said goodbye; Kiyoomi focused on the feeling of the cold biting on his cheeks when he stepped outside.

Cram school wasn’t too challenging. Nakamura-sensei was probably the biggest obstacle; he had somehow found out about Kiyoomi’s grandfather’s ankle and was being overwhelmingly sympathetic about it. Kiyoomi spent most of his time with his head down, keeping to his work.

He chose a perfect seat each time, smack dab in the middle, as to not be so far back to catch the draft from the windows, but not so close as to draw in the bulk of Nakamura-sensei’s attention. His seatmate, Urara, was relatively quiet and didn’t bother him. She shot him a small smile when he got to his desk before she turned back to chat with her friends.

Kiyoomi was a good student. Good enough that he could afford for his own concentration to wander as the lesson started up. No, not even wander. His thoughts were very clear-cut.

His cousin was right about one thing: his grandfather was very grumpy, even though his surgery supposedly went very well. They had made his father’s office on the first floor into a temporary bedroom so he wouldn’t have to deal with the stairs, and a nurse came by every day to help him with physical therapy, and another to help him do other things. Or something. He was still supposed to stay at home for the time being, and there were still hushed conversations happening about what would happen after that. One part of old man things seemed to be sleeping a lot, and even that seemed to be a grumpy activity.

All of this was to say that many people in the house were grumpy.

His sister, for one, was ignoring him. It created some swooping anger in him— the worst type of emotion, the type that was an overbearing attention hog.

So instead of letting it take up all that space in his brain, he was funneling his efforts into counting down a February. He had pinned his calendar to his bedroom door so Manami’d be forced to see it every time a day passed; he knew he was playing into his sister’s hands, but it definitely seemed to be annoying her, at least. His parents were too distracted by his grandfather to even notice, though he wasn’t sure if they’d have noticed beforehand, either.

The issue was that he didn’t want to wait a whole February. Not when he knew that there was likely nothing to even wait for in the end, anyway. He was starting to think that it might really be best to just go by himself. He’d do it on the weekend, when he could swing it earlier in the afternoon and no suspicion would arise from him being gone.

He looked down at his notes and frowned.

“Good work today!” said Nakamura-sensei later, holding the door open for everyone to squeeze through. “We’ll go over direct objects more at the end of the week. And watch out for uneven floor tiling!”

That latter statement seemed to be very targeted. Nakamura-sensei had large, perpetually wet eyes, much like a Boston Terrier. He was, in Kiyoomi’s humble opinion, not nearly as nice, approachable, or interesting as a dog. Another issue, perhaps. He fixed his scarf again.

The biggest issue—for his theater plans, for his movie plans, and in general—was that even though his grandfather technically had a room on the first floor now, he had been spending the majority of his time in the house’s main room. And it had made him into a watchtower. An old, tall watchtower. With a broken ankle.

Kiyoomi was a watchtower, too, as instructed by his mother: a young, shorter watchtower with an entirely intact ankle. An ankle he used to get home and to walk through the front door to see his grandfather sitting on the couch, watching the news.

He and his siblings’ worlds did not often overlap; his and his grandfather’s were practically on two different planes of existence. (He had rented a sci-fi movie, and his thoughts on the genre were still developing.) The house felt oddly too crowded with just the two of them there. Manami got home after him usually anyway, but she had been getting back later and later recently. Part of him was miffed; another part was affirmed to have his anger towards her further justified.

It all meant that Kiyoomi, as of late, often went directly to his room when he got home.

His grandfather was wearing his glasses, his lips tugged down into a sour frown and his leg still propped up on the ottoman, as it so often was nowadays. There was a woman on screen talking about numbers and the stock market and a bunch of other stuff he didn’t care about. His grandfather used to work in finance or something years ago, before his retirement; it must have meant something to him, at least. Or it once did, maybe.

A floorboard creaked beneath his foot. Eyes very similar to his mother’s—to his own—flashed his way.

“I’m home,” Kiyoomi said, feeling, for whatever reason, as if he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. He dug his fingers into the yarn of his scarf.

His grandfather inclined his head in a nod, then turned back towards the TV.

…

There was, across the board, however, one unavoidable wrench in his day that was hard to overlook, no matter how quick he was to get to his room after getting home.

Dinner was always a toss-up. He often anticipated at least someone being away by the time it rolled around—often multiple someones—but very occasionally, everyone was home to eat together. And without Yasuaki there, dinner had become even… weirder to deal with, recently. Him and Manami and his parents and his grandfather. Weird.

It had been weird with Yasuaki, too. Yasuaki had stopped coming to dinner a while before he left, though, so maybe it didn’t even matter.

Before the ankle, and before Manami ever lied to him about the movies—dinner often was something to enjoy by himself, with his sister occasionally cycling in and out of the room if she was home. That, unsurprisingly, had not been happening as of late. He figured that she must have been eating out with her friends.

He liked it when he got to eat alone. It was a time for himself. There were often pre-made meals ready in the fridge, or sometimes leftovers from something simple that his father or mother had cooked earlier in the week. He could set up everything just the way he wanted to on the table—didn’t have to bother with conversations he didn’t want to have—think about whatever he wanted to think about. He had even started to take the time to watch some of his movies.

And now his grandfather was home. And Manami had never had a problem with squirreling away food to her room, but the very idea of crumbs or stains or scents worming their way into places they shouldn’t be made his skin itch. So it meant eating at the table that was just a few meters away from where his grandfather sat.

It was weird. Very weird. Not as weird as when they ate all together, but still not normal in any way. He wanted things to go back to how they used to be. It could have been a lot worse, he guessed, because he and his grandfather, at the very least, had worked out a system where they mostly ignored one another as they could help it.

He was supposed to be keeping an eye out for his grandfather anyways. He hadn’t really gotten into any trouble yet—though he was pretty cranky. Kiyoomi sat so that he could watch the back of his grandfather’s head while he ate. The news was still on, and he still didn’t care about it much.

There were already dishes in the sink, so it looked like his grandfather had already eaten. He thought that maybe there was a nurse person over to eat with him too, but he couldn’t be sure. Sometimes one came over in the evening to help him get to his room. He had met one a couple of times; she spoke in a voice that was too sugary for his liking.

“—and a continuing trend of stagnation has investors concerned about the economy’s growth in the coming year—”

He didn’t quite understand what was being said, but he was starting to be able to decipher the various noises that his grandfather would make in response. For as long as Kiyoomi could remember, his grandfather had never been a man of many words. It was easier to tell things apart now that he was listening to him speak so much. Such as the grunt he released that seemed to indicate that he was displeased with whatever was on the TV. It was mostly grunts, with the occasional satisfied hmph or clacking of his teeth.

It was easy to catch these things when watching other people. Like how Yasuaki had always sucked in a breath before detonating or how Manami fiddled with her hands when thinking or how his mother was always composed and his father had perfect control over his face muscles.

Motoya said he should start keeping a log or something. It was an interesting prospect: perhaps something to show to his mother as proof that he was doing a good job.

Alone at the table, legs still a bit too short to touch the floor, he rolled the thought over in his head while he chewed. The voice of the TV seemed to echo in the open air. Some of the chairs around him felt more empty than others.

…

It had started just before the summer. Yes: that was probably hard to ignore.

Yasuaki went to school in the city for a little more than a year after he graduated high school. He spent most of his time away from the house; he lived there, technically, but you wouldn’t know it. Well, it might have been a bit of a lie, given that the times he was there—especially in those final couple of months—had the tendency to explode, sort of, to the point of being unavoidable.

His brother was tall. His brother had a smart mouth. His brother was smart, apparently, just like Kiyoomi and Manami were smart, but he had a weird way of showing it.

It had started long before the summer did, technically, probably. Yasuaki got in trouble in high school frequently. There were worries that he wouldn’t even be able to graduate. Before he eventually dropped out of university, his grades were lower than the floor, and it was a fact he often flaunted. In the spring of that year, he had managed to get in trouble with the police—something with a car?—and they let him off with a warning after their father called in a connection with a lawyer friend or something.

(None of these things were told to Kiyoomi, of course. They were overheard with his ear pressed to the floor, words passing under the crack in his door.)

Yasuaki was tall, he was smart, and he seemed to have a bone to pick with the world. And halfway through July, after spitting out something about a friend who was living overseas during a fight with their father—well, their father, first, but then later with his sister, he was pretty sure—he disappeared with a bag of his things in the middle of the night and little notice.

He remembered that night well.

He remembered the morning afterward, too. There had been a pit in his stomach as he went through the day; a wrinkle that couldn’t be smoothed over. He folded neat hospital corners when making his bed that morning, he ate his lunch with delicate precision alone at his desk, and his gut held some heavy and inevitable weight.

It hadn’t been odd, exactly, for Yasuaki to not show up for a few days. But the days had stretched on, and that weight had grown, and now it was autumn.

It was weird, maybe, without his brother there, but Kiyoomi thought that he was used to it. The fact that he talked so often with his cousin—that volleyball was a thing, now—was kind of a shift, sure, but at the end of the day, that was it. He didn’t particularly understand his brother before he left, anyways.

Yasuaki’s birthday was close to the end of November. It seemed to be putting everyone’s teeth on edge. More than they already were with his grandfather’s ankle, if that was possible. It made Kiyoomi think about July, and that spurred forward all types of irritating feelings.

His sister, specifically, seemed to have developed a particularly bitter edge to her personality. Her movements were jerky and clumsy, and he often heard her banging her elbow or knee when brushing her teeth in the morning, or while she was furiously tying her shoes. He went out of his way to slash out a day on his calendar when she was walking through the hallway, and the sound of her door closing must have created a sonic boom. (He still wasn’t sure about sci-fi.)

Kiyoomi tried playing setter at practice. He was decent at it too, he thought, but the sights of Isao picking at his nails or Nobuyuki laughing at a joke or Jirou whiffing a spike were entirely too frustrating. But it wasn’t as if Motoya was right or anything.

Motoya liked having two different flavors of milk at lunch if it could be helped. Kiyoomi didn’t really have an interest in indulging him, so he’d get the same flavor every day, while his cousin jumped between strawberry and chocolate and banana as they were available. He often drank them at the same time. It was gross. School was fine.

Urara showed him a new sheet of stickers she got at cram school, as this was apparently a very monumental purchase for her. He nodded in response. It seemed to sate her, as she smiled and nodded. Her water bottle was adorned with sparkling, shiny aliens.

He had not had a chance to watch another movie as of late, other than the last sci-fi film he squeezed in before his grandfather came home from the hospital. He was debating asking for one of those portable DVD players to keep in his room. He hadn’t gotten a chance to catch his parents to ask about it yet.

His parents could still not decide on something that he didn’t know about. It was about his grandfather, he knew. It seemed like his ankle was healing fine, and physical therapy was going well, and he would occasionally talk to people on the phone now, too, since he was missing so much of what he usually did. He still watched the news.

Kiyoomi got that old people could be frail, but it was just an injury. He didn’t even have a career to end. For as long as Kiyoomi had been alive, his grandfather had spent most of his days out of the house.

On the morning of Yasuaki’s birthday, Kiyoomi walked downstairs to find his father reading the newspaper at the table. He usually left early in the morning, but he occasionally went in late— often because of a meeting or something or other. His mother was there, too, looking out the window. His grandfather was watching the news.

“Are your classes going well?”

It was his mother who asked. Her nails were tapping against the countertop.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, adjusting the sleeve of his uniform shirt. He thought for a second, before adding, “We did a project for social studies. My teacher said it was very impressive.”

His mother smiled. “That’s great,” she said, nails still tapping. Behind his paper, his father nodded. “We’re very proud of you.”

Despite the oddness of the morning, he was no less pleased by his parents’ responses. There was, perhaps, some ruffled quality to his gratification, but certainly only because things had all been a little out of place recently. When his sister trudged by and out the door without a word, shoulders tense, he ignored the way something in his stomach wriggled, uncomfortable.

“I was thinking,” he said. He hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast yet: that was probably it. “I’ve done well in school, and there’s something at the electronics store that I saw…”

…

After a February passed, Kiyoomi ripped out two pages from his calendar, stapled them together, and shoved them beneath his sister’s door. They were returned promptly—his sister was nothing if not punctual—with a post-it note stuck on top.

Busy studying for my exams, it said, in oversized, flowing print—so exaggerated it was almost hard to read. We’ll talk about it later.

“You lied, again,” Kiyoomi said, ripping his bedroom door open. He just barely caught sight of the back of his sister’s head before her own door slammed shut behind her. There was another door, silent and unopened, between their two bedrooms.

It was a poor start to March. It wasn’t actually March: it was the start of December, it was cold, and he was mad. Even the portable video player he’d received wasn’t enough to assuage the anger brewing inside of him.

Winter brought anger. His grandfather, now fit with a giant, clunky boot around his foot, was able to move around the house with a walker, if only with a bit of a wobble; despite his improvements, it only seemed to make him crankier. Very often he heard grunts and sniffs that he knew to represent a righteous displeasure. This, in turn, seemed to increase the tension between his grandfather and his parents, which subsequently upset his sister, who was, to be fair, already in a mood to begin with.

Kiyoomi believed himself to be independently angry. Even if the tension was starting to get to him too.

And he tried to stamp it down, but it felt like his blood was fizzy and carbonated and broiling. And it was annoying. And everything seemed annoying.

Though Motoya and him hadn’t been all that close before, he seemed to know enough to keep a cushion of space between the two of them; his smile seemed brighter than usual, catching Kiyoomi’s eyes like it was the glare of a streetlamp. I tell them I’m good at brushing, but they don’t believe me! he said in response, twinkle, twinkle.

“—you’re not even going to drink it, though,” Motoya said at lunch, eyeing the carton he had set down on his own tray—unopened and full—with a dowdy frown.

“It’s mine,” Kiyoomi said.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And it’ll make your stomach hurt!”

“It’s mine,” was what he said, and that felt like it should have been a good enough answer. He wasn’t going to drink it—it would make his stomach hurt—but he wasn’t going to just admit that.

Motoya frowned some more. It inspired some stupid, squirming feeling in Kiyoomi’s chest, and he smushed it down, snapping at his cousin to just mind his own business. And milk.

On an evening just after the February ended, he shucked his shoes at the door, feeling particularly put out by the events of the day, which had not been unlike each other day recently.

His father, in a very rare fashion, was home. He was evidently taking a phone call for work, though; Kiyoomi could hear him pacing around in his parent’s bedroom when he passed by in the hallway. He was still pacing after he set his things down and changed, and it wasn’t until Kiyoomi settled at the table, about to eat, that he emerged, throwing a coat on as he rushed for the door.

“I need to head into work,” he said, and Kiyoomi opened his mouth to respond, only to realize it was directed towards his grandfather.

His grandfather, watching the news, only grunted in affirmation.

“Will you be alright?” his father said.

“Fine,” his grandfather said.

His father adjusted his glasses—actions sharp. “Just checking in,” he said, voice hopping off of the edge of his teeth.

Another grunt. Shove off, said this one. He heard it often when overhearing his parents and grandfather.

Kiyoomi watched his father adjust his coat and tie his shoes; and he watched as he seemed to notice Kiyoomi’s own sneakers neatly put away on the rack. Then his father’s eyes were on him.

He paused.

Then:

“I didn’t see you there,” his father said, his urgency rounding out at the corners—but only just barely. “I need to head into work for something important.”

“I know,” Kiyoomi said.

His father nodded. “You’ll be good?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said.

His father’s eyes flicked to his watch. “I might see you again tonight, alright? And your mother should be back soon, too.”

“Okay.”

Kiyoomi didn’t know the exact details of his parents’ work, but it was evidently pretty important and involved plenty of phone calls and video calls and paperwork. Something about advising or consulting: insurance, maybe. It was another documentary he needed to put on his list. He was still trying to find the bomb one.

He didn’t mind doing his homework if it was interesting. Judging by how much his parents cared about their work, he was sure they must have been interested by it to some degree. It was something he thought he could put up with in that case then.

His father left for work, and Kiyoomi’s appetite felt dulled. The day must have been getting to him. Nakamura-sensei was particularly enthusiastic about independent clauses during their lesson, and it nearly gave him a headache.

“Asked me if I’m alright,” he heard, and he looked up from his hands, sitting in his lap.

It was his grandfather. Kiyoomi sat up straighter in his seat. The man was still staring straight ahead at the TV, giving no indication that he had even spoken to begin with.

“—and recent cabinet elections have experts speculating about the new prime minister’s pivot to prioritize national security—”

“Asked me if I’m alright,” his grandfather said again.

Outside, the sun had grown shy by the season, and the sky was a set of dark velvet curtains. His father would not come home in time to catch him before he went to bed later that night.

…

He walked to school the next with flecks of dry snow falling overhead. They were as gray and beige as the pavement beneath his feet. It should have been something to covet; instead, he felt his mood further spoiling as they progressed into December.

Manami was not relenting. The house was still annoying. His grandfather was still brooding, though he was now taking walks around the neighborhood using some sort of knee scooter with his nurses. There had been an incident, not one that he had been home for; apparently, his grandfather had tried to get out on his own, but was unable to deal with the door and the steps, and was subsequently caught by his father. It had inspired a particularly incensed conversation about it—one that had lasted for several days.

It’s for your own good—let’s just wait—damn babysitter—phone call—what would you know?—this isn’t up for debate—

Despite the fact that Motoya seemed pretty easy-going, the milk embargo (he didn’t like the history documentary all too much despite liking social studies—it was far too dry) struck a particular nerve, as he clearly was holding onto some sort of grudge because of it. His expression didn’t change, of course—shining even brighter, if anything—but he, too, wasn’t unaffected by the winter, words sweet but stinging.

It wasn’t like he cared. He didn’t mind Motoya sitting with him at lunch, but he was fine with how it was before, too, when he mostly kept to himself. If he was going to be so annoying about it, there was no point for them to eat together. Motoya could sit with his friends. It was Kiyoomi’s milk. It was his choice of where it went, and so what if he was choosing to just throw it away? It was his choice. And he was fine going to the video store by himself.

The only thing was that there was something off about volleyball practice now, too—their other teammates clearly picking up on some sort of tension, shooting over nervous, intrusive glances—and that threw off cram school, too—Urara hesitating to show him her new stationery—thrown off more than it already was with Nakamura-sensei yammering in his ear—and too, too, too.

He had his rental movies, at least. That was what he held onto. Even if thinking about them made him think of his sister. It was something to look forward to at the end of the day, after checking in with his grandfather and scarfing down his dinner. His list of documentaries had grown, he was still sticking to action movies, and he had officially ruled out rom-coms as being an acceptable category.

He had his rental movies until he didn’t. Well, he did, but not all of them, at least—and especially not the ones that he really wanted.

Kiyoomi would still go to the video store at the same time of the week as he did before, even if Motoya wasn’t there with him. And the same irresponsible clerk had been the one working there throughout it all, only now he wasn’t, apparently. The woman behind the counter simply said that the boy and the company disagreed on their values, sniffed, and looked down at him from the tip of her nose.

He gave her the same look back, even if it was kind of hard to do when he was shorter than her. A documentary on how to grow taller. It was added to the list.

The problem now, in addition to the woman looking at him with that pinched expression, was that he no longer had access to the movies that he wasn’t supposed to be able to get, technically. Well—he could have tried, but like he had been saying forever and ever, he wasn’t an idiot. No, he was very astute, and it was a good thing that Motoya wasn’t there, actually, because he’d surely find a way to get them in trouble.

No more action movies, though. And, disappointingly, no horror movies. No good ones at least, that weren’t for little kids. It was the next genre he was moving onto, and all of the best options he had found online when researching on the school computer weren’t ones he’d be able to get on his own because of their rating. It was a disappointment that’d usually smart; now it flared at the edges, bringing in that spike of anger with it.

The new clerk didn’t take her eyes off him as he left the store. She still watched him from the window after the fact, and he clenched his fists tight to keep himself from doing something stupid because he wasn't stupid. He didn’t care, either. This was just irritating.

There was no way he could get Manami to go with him, let alone let him get that type of movie. Maybe Aunt Erika or Takeuchi-san would have been a little easier to get a hold of if he wasn’t actively engaging in a cold war with Motoya; that, and they struck him as the type, like his sister, who would be less than willing to help him out in this situation.

Perhaps he could’ve smudged some of the truth with his parents. They barely asked any questions when he asked for the portable DVD player. If he started with one of the foreign titles—something a little more obscure—yes, this was probably his best plan of action.

They were still a little tricky to get a hold of at the moment. Things with his grandfather hadn’t exactly improved at all.

He paused, the soles of his shoes scraping against the sidewalk.

,,,

“—and representatives of the labor union have gone on record saying that they have no plans to cease striking activities—”

“I’m home,” he said, and his grandfather nodded.

His grandfather was moving around a lot better now. He still wasn’t supposed to go out on his own, but it was clear that he wanted to, given The Incident, and—based on how he moved around the house—that he could probably do it with just a little more help. His parents still seemed totally against the idea of it. His parents weren’t currently home.

He went to his room and changed and set down his things as normal. And then he came back into the main room, and instead of immediately going back to the fridge, he stood just at the lip of the rug that extended from behind the couch to just before the TV stand.

Motoya probably would have done it in a way that bounded around the actual question, all smiles and misdirections. Manami was smart, too: she knew how to be blunt when it mattered. In Kiyoomi’s eyes, being honest seemed like the best bet to accomplish anything—not in the same way as his sister would have been, of course.

“Grandpa,” he said, and his grandfather turned to look at him. “I have a favor to ask.”

There was a hawkish quality to his grandfather’s face, lines permanently etched into the bridge of his nose from decades of wearing glasses; his eyes were dark and unreadable and flinty.

“A favor,” his grandfather said. He managed to make it sound heavy, like a mafioso movie.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, and he imagined that he was wearing a nice suit. “I need to run an errand.”

“An errand,” his grandfather said. He, like his mother, was always so brisk in his words.

Kiyoomi considered. Then he said, “I need to pick up a movie from the rental store, but you need an adult to get it.”

“What kind of movie?”

“Just a scary one. It’s just the store policy.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Kiyoomi shrugged. “Everyone’s busy,” he said. “It’s not that far away. I thought we could go Saturday. Since everyone’ll be busy.”

His grandfather’s eyes narrowed; and the camera would have perhaps highlighted the way the TV screen still reflected against his glasses or the way he leaned back slightly in his seat, shoulders rolling back. There would have been a score, then, some dramatic, ominous music that would drown out the woman talking on the news.

Kiyoomi didn’t look away, even when he felt nerves creeping up on him. He wouldn’t have felt nervous if he was wearing a suit.

His grandfather grunted and looked back towards the TV. Whatever. Maybe. It wasn’t immediately dismissive, and this, in his books, was a success. One that he shouldn’t have pressed.

He had rented a documentary on growth disorders and nutrition to get to watching, anyways.

Chapter Text

It had started on the first day of school.

He had been relatively excited. School appeared to be interesting enough, and he had liked the lessons they did at daycare. He was already starting to read. His instructors said he was very talented. If it was like that, he assumed he’d rather like it.

He checked that his shoes were tied. He checked that his new backpack was secured shut. He checked that the cuffs of his jacket didn’t have any wrinkles.

“All ready?”

He looked up at his father. They were standing by the door. His father was adjusting his watch. Kiyoomi nodded. Then he glanced behind them. His mother, smoothing down her blazer, came walking briskly down the stairs.

“We’ll make good time,” she said. “We’ll be early enough to take pictures.”

There was a noise. It was his brother. His brother, too, came down the stairs, holding his sneakers by the heels. It look liked he had not brushed his hair that morning, and his tie was a little sloppy.

Kiyoomi didn’t quite know how to act around his brother, maybe. Ten years was a lot of years.

“Don’t wait up on us,” Yasuaki said.

His mother frowned. “It’s your brother’s first day of school,” she said.

“Yeah, I get that,” he said. Then he plopped down on the genkan right next to where Kiyoomi was standing, shoving his sneakers onto his feet. “Have fun.”

“Yasuaki,” his mother said.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Yasuaki,” his father said.

“Can I not just say anything? Is that a big deal?” his brother said.

“Not now,” his mother said. “It’s—”

“Your brother’s first day of school. I heard you.”

And then his brother’s eyes were on him.

They looked like they were looking for something. Kiyoomi didn’t know what. He felt his shoulders tense, on instinct.

His brother leaned a little closer, and said, “You’re a good son, huh?”

Kiyoomi searched for his words, stringing them together on his tongue as he had been taught to. “I’m good,” he said, brow furrowed, and he wasn’t sure if it was the right answer.

Yasuaki snorted. And then he smiled. It didn’t feel like a smile, though. “I bet. Real good.”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, feeling his face warm. “I am.”

“Yasuaki,” said their mother.

His brother’s eyes flitted away, shoulders tensing. He scoffed. Then he leaned back, and he said, “Don’t get used to this.” He snagged his bag; the door flew open. “Have fun,” he said.

His mother said something about Don’t slam it, but it was too late. There was another pair of footsteps. He saw his sister lingering at the edges of his vision, gnawing on the skin of her bottom lip.

“Have a good first day,” she said. She nodded to their parents, and then she was darting by him and out of the house anything else could be said. She snagged her shoes from the rack on the way out but didn't pause to put them on. No: Kiyoomi watched Manami's socked feet disappear as the door closed.

His father’s eyebrows were bunched together, his lips pursed thin. His mother was back to smoothing down her already smooth blazer, though her eyes were still trained on the door.

“Her hair is getting too long,” she finally said, before she brought her hands down to her side. Then she looked at Kiyoomi, and she smiled at him. “You’re going to have a good day, alright?”

He had too many questions in his head already. He didn’t think they were the type of questions you would ask a teacher, even though his instructors said to always ask the teacher for something if you needed it. He didn’t know what to feel.

But both of his parents were looking down at him, expectant and—for once—waiting for him, and so he had said, “Alright.”

…

Kiyoomi would be a very tall businessman one day, he was sure, because he was really quite good at this. He didn’t think he’d like being a mafia member all too much, or that his parents would be particularly supportive of him if he chose that career path; they might not have been too happy with his current decisions, either, but he wasn’t really going to think very hard about that. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

This is what he told himself on a Saturday in December. It wasn’t that big of a deal. He was just running an errand with his grandfather. His father was on a weekend work trip, Manami was technically supposed to be meeting with her tutor but had left with her earrings on, and his mother was meeting with some people about a school charity thing. It meant that just he and his grandfather were home. Everyone else was busy, so he couldn’t ask anyone else to go with him.

And so there Kiyoomi found himself, wearing his gloves and his scarf and holding the door open for his grandfather to totter through. He was using his walker and not the knee scooter; his boot clunked against the ground with every step. Kiyoomi stood by, only just the slightest bit wary as his grandfather slowly but surely made his way down the front door’s steps.

The errand wouldn’t take that long. They had a lot of time to take care of it before he figured they’d even need to worry about anyone coming home, leaving shortly after his grandfather’s physical therapist person was gone for the day.

The gate clicked shut behind them. It was a loud noise, clattering against the stiff air. Kiyoomi smoothed down his coat. Static sparked between the fabric and his gloves. His grandfather seemed unaffected, plodding forward with little fanfare, and Kiyoomi kept beside him, pace purposefully slow so they could walk together.

There was little said between them as they walked. There had been little said between that conversation in the main room and today, in fact, and the days had passed so unceremoniously that he thought that perhaps nothing was going to come of it at all. He had to remind his grandfather about it—old people didn’t always remember things—but here they were.

He didn’t mind it. It was very efficient—no need to fill the air with meaningless conversation.

Eventually, his grandfather said, “Need to go to the post office.”

They were getting closer to the station, the streets growing more populated. Most other pedestrians were giving Kiyoomi and his grandfather a wide berth. The terrain had been relatively smooth so far. His grandfather had kept a consistent pace. Things were going to plan. They were no longer going to plan.

Kiyoomi asked, “Where?”

“I know where it is,” his grandfather said.

“Is it close to the video store?”

A clicking tongue. No.

“What if we’re late?”

A grunt. Doesn’t matter. Knock it off.

Kiyoomi frowned. He pinched at the fabric of his gloves. He needed to trim his fingernails. “Will we need to take a different train?”

“No,” said his grandfather.

He gave a hmph of his own. He was sure his grandfather didn’t have his own Kiyoomi glossary, though, so it probably didn’t translate his annoyed, annoyed, very annoyed. He had been taught growing up to respect adults; it didn’t keep the frustration from welling up inside of him.

Before he could say anything more, though, his grandfather stopped. Kiyoomi stopped with him. More frustrated.

“Wave down a cab.”

“A cab?”

What did I say?

Kiyoomi shot an incredulous look to the street. It wasn’t as busy as it’d get if they kept walking, but certainly more populated than the narrow roads around his home. He had ridden in taxis before, but this was not how he anticipated his day going. While not an obstacle, it was a divergence; one he didn’t have time to quite process.

If they were going to have to go to two different places that weren’t close together, a taxi could make it faster, maybe. His grandfather wasn’t looking at him, but the weight of his expectation was there all the same.

He missed the first cab. Or, more accurately, he waved for it—mirroring what he had seen his father do before—but it drove right by. His grandfather snapped out something about straightening his elbow—eye contact, be assertive—and as much as the comment made him bristle, it worked, given that the next one pulled up beside them, even if the driver sent them a dubious look.

His grandfather’s walker half-sat on Kiyoomi’s lap in the backseat after he had helped to collapse it. The car smelled like an overbearing citrus perfume; beneath it was something synthetic and plasticy. In the rearview window, he caught sight of the corner of the driver’s bad comb-over.

He still wasn’t happy about it by any means, but it was okay, he guessed. It was fast enough. The buildings and streets around him morphed into unfamiliar territory, and it was a little offensive, but it could have been worse.

When they stopped, his grandfather turned to him, pulling out an envelope. He passed it over with a handful of bills from his wallet.

“The box is outside,” his grandfather said. “There should be new stamps for the month at the counter.”

Kiyoomi stared down at his grandfather’s outstretched hand. It felt like he was doing a lot of that, recently—staring. Maybe just today. The car’s heater whirred around them. The clock was clicking.

He grabbed the money and the letter. The sidewalk greeted him with a blast of cold air that made his nose wrinkle.

The taxi had pulled up at the end of the block, meaning he had to walk past a stretch of buildings to reach the post office. He took the time to peer down at the envelope once his back was firmly to the car, and he knew his grandfather wouldn’t be able to see him. It was addressed to someone named Masaoka Kazuo in a place in Iwate that he didn’t recognize. He didn’t recognize Masaoka, either.

Why his grandfather was sending it—or what was in it—he wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem like anything special, thin enough that it could’ve just been a letter. Perhaps he was asking about the news: it wasn’t as if he got up to much else nowadays.

He shucked the letter into the red postal box with little fanfare. The inside of the post office was stuffy, the air sticking to the back of his throat like the taste of a licked envelope. He wondered if it was on purpose. Maybe they sold envelope air fresheners or something. The new commemorative stamp collection was something about the Netherlands in Japan—upon receiving them, his grandfather hummed—acceptable.

“You gave me too much,” Kiyoomi said, once he was back and buckled in. He hadn’t known how much stamps cost before getting out of the car, but the wad of cash his grandfather had handed him had ultimately been a little unwarranted.

He handed them back to his grandfather. Well, he tried to, at least, but his grandfather only looked up from the stamps to stare at his outstretched hand—positions reversed.

“For the stamps,” Kiyoomi said. “You gave me too much.”

This response seemed, for whatever reason, to annoy his grandfather. He still took the money back.

A moment passed.

“And now we can go to the rental store?”

Fine. An affirmation. Kiyoomi leaned forward and told the cab driver the address.

…

They didn’t take the taxi right back to the house after all was said and done—nosy goddamn neighbors—and his grandfather’s gait was noticeably stiffer as they completed the final walking of their trip. The visit to the video store had been relatively uneventful, even if his grandfather seemed disgruntled by the fact that he had to actually get out of the car to go in with him; it had been that same, snooty lady there, and despite his previous misgivings of the day, Kiyoomi had felt flushed with triumph at seeing her sour expression when they checked out.

No one was at the house when they got back. It was something he knew would be true, of course, but the confirmation that they wouldn’t be caught settled any lingering reservations that he had about their outing. Not that there were many to begin with. He knew what he was doing.

By the time he had removed his shoes and gloves and scarf at the genkan, he’d still have a couple of hours, probably, until anyone would be back, leaving him plenty of time to start his new round of movies. Not that it mattered much, anyways. No one would bother him when he was holed up in his room with his portable player.

He lingered in case his grandfather would need any help getting to the couch. It seemed to annoy his grandfather. His grandfather was annoyed with a lot of things. The main room returned to how it always was as he was back to his spot in front of the television, even if the screen wasn’t on.

“Thank you,” Kiyoomi said because he could use manners if he wanted to.

And he was just about to trek up the stairs when his grandfather said, “What is it?”

Kiyoomi said, “What?”

A grunt. Don’t make me ask again.

Kiyoomi looked at his grandfather. Then he looked at where his grandfather was looking. The bag.

His grandfather had not even bothered to look at the covers at the store. He had lingered by the counter, sending a very judgemental look to the space around him and occasionally clacking his walker against the carpet.

“They’re movies. They’re scary ones,” he said. “I told you.”

And?

“Well,” Kiyoomi said, taking his right foot off of the first step and back onto the floor. “This one is about a haunted house.” And he lifted the case to show off the cover that did, indeed, feature a red house atop a hill.

That’s it?

“I haven’t watched it yet. I don’t know. It’s supposed to be good.”

“It’s good but you haven’t watched it yet?”

“I’ve heard that it’s good,” Kiyoomi said, the plastic of the DVD case bending underneath his fingers. Why do you care? What about it? He would have voiced these thoughts aloud if he were talking to anyone else.

He was presented with his grandfather’s side profile from where he was standing. He could still imagine the exact curve of the other end of his mouth on the side that he couldn’t see—flat, tugged down. Even when sitting, he possessed a tall, impenetrable presence.

“Bring it over.”

Kiyoomi blinked. “What?” he said.

The TV flickered to life. Don’t make me ask again—

“Why?” Kiyoomi said, instead of—well— what are you even talking about? Maybe his face was saying it.

His grandfather held out his hand. Kiyoomi’s feet didn’t feel like they knew how to move. Which was stupid, because of course they did. Kiyoomi moved. He handed over the DVD case to his grandfather, who squinted down at it through his glasses. They stood there for a while. Kiyoomi shuffled on his feet. Give it back, give it back, give it back—

His grandfather handed it back. He inclined his head. Get out of the way. Kiyoomi got out of the way, lingering behind the couch. He waited to see if his grandfather would do something, say something. He didn’t.

A key turned in a lock. Before he could move, the front door opened, and in walked his sister. She was tugging off a knit cap that he was positive wasn’t her own. And she noticed him after he noticed her, not able to hide the surprise from her face when she caught him there.

The surprise was replaced by something very meaningfully blank and terse. There was a sort of wariness leaking into her expression as her eyes flickered to the bag he was holding and then back to his face. She knew he was going to the video store still. It wasn’t like she knew he was doing it in a way he wasn’t supposed to.

But she was suspicious. It was annoying. His sister seemed to be split, then, that wariness growing just as powerful as her dedication to ignoring him. One side eventually seemed to win.

“Did you go out?” she asked.

“Did you? he said.

It was the wrong thing to say. His sister’s eyes narrowed; he scowled right back at her.

“Was studying good?” he asked.

That did it. She went from suspicious to irritated in a heartbeat. “Fine,” she said, and then she was stomping by him and up the stairs.

He waited until he knew her door was closed to follow, footsteps falling onto the same path his sister had taken just a few moments earlier.

…

Kiyoomi liked the movie. The house one. Even if it was a little weird. It was a lot more absurd than the other two other films he had picked up at the store—he was assuming, at least, based on what he had researched—and the effects were all super exaggerated, but it still managed to make his skin crawl, which was supposed to be a good thing, he was pretty sure.

He didn’t think it was necessary to put a restriction on how old you had to be to rent certain films; it was scary, sure, but he was mature. He was pretty sure there wasn’t a spirit haunting the house, so he had no reason to worry about anything being possessed like that.

No one noticed his and his grandfather’s excursion that Saturday. His sister had been momentarily suspicious, but her attention that week had quickly veered off into more brooding after she had a conversation about university with their parents. Kiyoomi’s grandfather was acting as if nothing had happened in the first place. This was probably for the best.

The end of December was approaching with haste. There was one week of school left before winter break. His classmates chatted excitedly and endlessly about their plans for when they were away from school. Nakamura-sensei made them cut out paper snowflakes, something Urara proved to be unusually skilled at. She showed him how to do it properly when she noticed him looking. She had a lot of stationery at home, she said, and he nodded.

One day after school, when they both had been given hallway-sweeping duty, Motoya said to him, “My mom said we should hang out over break.”

Kiyoomi was still mad at his cousin. He wasn’t quite sure why. “I’ll be busy,” he said.

“Doing what?” Motoya said, snagging a cobweb that had bloomed in the crevice between a door and the wall.

“Things,” he said.

“Things.”

“Yeah.”

Motoya gave a hmph of his own. It was nothing compared to what his grandfather was capable of.

At their last volleyball practice of the year, their coach, however coincidentally, also had them make paper snowflakes. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like they were volleyball snowflakes, even if Jirou tried to make volleyball snowflakes. They just looked like a mess of overlapping black lines. Using Urara’s tips, Kiyoomi made the best snowflakes, much to his cousin’s chagrin.

It did mean that, by the end of the week, he ended up with far more paper snowflakes than any one person could need. He had let them pile up on his desk. They had become quite the irritating snowdrift.

His mother was always exceptionally busy at this time of year. As was his father. It was perhaps not all that different from any other point of the year. He stood in the hallway by the top of the stairs and listened to the familiar cadence of the news broadcast, holding what he had determined to be the best snowflake before he thought better of it. His grandfather would probably just grunt. Whatever.

These are great! was what Nakamura-sensei had said. Kiyoomi chucked the snowflakes into the recycling.

He’d spend his break practicing his serves (all the coolest players had the coolest serves, Isao said once, not that Kiyoomi was listening) and watching as many movies as he could. He still needed to finish one of his horror films (the second one had been alright, even if the idea of someone killing you through your dreams seemed pretty weird), and could make more trips to the video store if he needed to.

On the weekend that winter break started, he awoke in the middle of the night because of a thin, hollow bout of wind striking the window and an urge to use the restroom. He attempted to go back to sleep with little success. When he tugged on his blanket with enough force that part of it flopped right off of the bed, something fell over with it. Something that made some sort of flapping, hissing noise.

His breath caught on his tongue.

He was being serious: there was no way for their house to be haunted. It was only built like, not that long ago, and his parents said that the last people who lived here had been an old couple who the neighbors often talked about fondly. They had kept a nice garden, apparently. Old people things were generally not evil, spirit-creating things.

This is what he told himself. Kiyoomi was very mature. He was not scared. If he was, it was only for reasonable inclinations; perhaps it wasn’t a spirit. Perhaps a snake had crawled up through the drain. He was not a coward.

Quick enough that nothing could grab him, he reached out and flicked on the lamp on his bedside table. Light flooded the air and poked at his eyes; he blinked, and he did not see a CGI specter looming over his bed. No, he leaned over the side of his bed, clutching his duvet to his chin.

There was no snake. It was just a stray paper snowflake that he somehow missed earlier in the day. The gust of air made by his flapping blanket must have pushed it right off of his desk.

The sight of it there, sitting on the floor, twisted his insides into knots. He found himself standing and plucking it from the ground without even meaning to.

He could throw it out in the morning. He could go to the bathroom in the morning. There was no reason to take the trek into the hallway and down the stairs to reach the recycling bin. It would be irrational.

The paper crumpled in his hand.

December. Who even cared about December? Who even cared about a February? Manami would think his snowflakes were stupid, even if they were kind of stupid. He didn’t need the snowflakes, he didn’t need her.

That next day, in between bodies going to work and nurses entering the house, he’d slip into the main room when it only had one occupant, and he’d say, “Grandpa, I have another favor to ask.”

…

The beginning of his week away from school was accompanied by thick, gelatinous sheets of rain falling from the sky. It had been unexpected, the weathermen had predicted a cloudy if not dry day; or, at least, that was what Kiyoomi’s father said, when he was pacing around the main room and throwing sharp words to whoever was on the other side of the line in regards to a flight he needed to catch.

In the end, the flight wasn’t delayed. He wasn’t going to be back until the end of the week.

The unexpected patch of humidity had sent his sister’s hair on the fritz. Or perhaps it was just her that was on the fritz. She was supposed to spend all of break studying for her exams that were less than a month away, and they were finally starting to get to her, it seemed. Compared to before, she was moving around the house with startling efficiency. Very weird.

He always found it odd to be home during the times in which he was usually at school. It felt a little as if he were trespassing. He noticed things that typically existed without his observation, like the dog a couple doors down that spent most of the midday barking outside (understandable, he thought), or the naps his grandfather took periodically between the couch and his physical therapy. He napped quite a bit. Grumpy naps. Kiyoomi knew that he napped a lot, but he really, really liked to nap.

It was the first day of bright, unflinching sunlight of that week. It tore through his curtains with fingernails made of UV rays, sharp and clawing. The weatherman, however dubious his skills might’ve been, said that the sunshine wouldn’t do away with the bitter cold. Kiyoomi was all bundled up.

There was no reason to put it off. There was no reason to throw away a snowflake in the middle of the night. Not when his father was on a business trip and his mother was overseeing an event for her boss and Manami actually was out studying and why shouldn’t Kiyoomi be able to see a movie? Perhaps many months had been leading up to this week in December.

She had been right to suggest it, all that time ago when he showed up at her school. His sister. He didn’t need Motoya, either. He was tall for his age on his own.

…except he was waiting. For his grandfather. Because even though he could go to the movies completely on his own, he wasn’t sure if it’d work, and he didn’t want to go all that way just to be told he had to go home.

He stood in the main room. The TV was on. His grandfather was sitting on the couch: he had already done a bout of physical therapy today. No one else was home.

They had, he thought, most of the afternoon, but likely even more than that. The movie he wanted to see—an American fantasy film about a dragon—would start at two. He was sure it couldn’t take longer than an hour to the theater, even if they stopped at the post office.

If they left, that was.

“Grandpa,” Kiyoomi said. He saw his grandfather’s head turn; not so much that he wasn’t still watching the TV. Just an indication that he was listening. “Grandpa,” he said again. “You said we could go.”

He didn’t want to be late. He didn’t want his plan to go awry.

He, perhaps, should have expected this. Known what he shouldn’t have expected, more aptly.

But his grandfather turned, then, to look at him in full. And then he was searching Kiyoomi’s face for something.

And even though his grandfather’s full attention should have been a welcome surprise, he suddenly felt an uncomfortable trill run up his spine, as if a ghost passed through him. Which was a stupid thought. Ghosts weren’t real.

“To the movies,” he said. “You said you’d go with me to the movies.” He paused. “And the post office. We were going to go again.”

His grandfather was still searching. Then he nodded. He stood with his walker. Kiyoomi’s nerves eased. It was only a minor hiccup.

Their trip started much the same as it had before. Kiyoomi hauled a cab on the first try, and his grandfather gave the driver the address for the post office. The envelope he handed over had the exact same address as before; the box is outside, the new stamps are at the counter. He even gave Kiyoomi the right amount of money this time around. The box was still red and the post office still smelled of envelopes.

But there were no new stamps though. They hadn’t changed since the last time he had been there. When he was back in the car and told his grandfather this, he seemed incredibly annoyed.

“There are new stamps,” he said. “Every month.”

“I know,” Kiyoomi said. “But it’s the same month.”

“There are new ones.”

“It was just the Dutch ones.” A thought occurred to him. “You had one on the envelope you were sending. The guy in the wig.”

His grandfather’s jaw clicked shut. He still looked very annoyed, but he didn’t say anything more. Usually, Kiyoomi felt a rush of gratification at being proved right, but something about the day must have been throwing him off. He wasn’t going to let anything stop him, though.

Kiyoomi held the door to the theater open for his grandfather and his walker. There were a decent number of people milling about, likely affected by both the time of year and the time of the week. Nothing too packed: there would likely be plenty of good seats.

A slew of posters of all the movies currently airing bombarded them with flashy colors and logos from the walls. His eyes found his dragon movie. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about fantasy, but of the options available, it seemed like a decent choice for a first-time at the theater.

He started walking towards the ticket person until he noticed the shuffling behind him was headed in a different direction entirely. When he looked back, his grandfather was not following him, rather, walking towards one of those posters on the wall.

Kiyoomi didn’t think he could handle any more of these hiccups. He trailed after his grandfather, footsteps striking the carpet briskly. “Grandpa,” he said. “We need to buy our tickets.”

His grandfather was looking at the poster. It was an older movie; a samurai stood in the foreground, an unidentifiable if not intense expression on his features. Behind him was the face of a woman, staring at the man intently. Throne of Blood, it was called.

“Grandpa,” Kiyoomi said.

“This one,” his grandfather said.

“What?”

“I remember this one,” he said. “I never got to see it.”

Kiyoomi peered closer at the poster. Yes: it didn’t just look old, it was old. It was a special showing that the theater was doing, only for this week.

There technically wasn’t a rating on it.

It didn’t matter anyways, because Kiyoomi was there with an adult.

He turned and squinted at one of the big signs showing all of the showtimes. Not two o’clock, but two-thirty: the wait would be a little annoying, but the promise of drama and samurai and bloodshed—adult drama and samurai and bloodshed—made it acceptable.

“Okay,” Kiyoomi said, as his grandfather continued to look at the poster. “This one.”

…

The movie, apparently, was based on a Shakespeare play. That was what the ticket clerk had told him when Kiyoomi handed over their money. It’s a classic, the teenage boy had gushed, bizarre in the way that teenagers were. Perhaps he knew Aya. Perhaps he was Aya.

“Down the hall is where you’re at,” Aya Three had told them.

It seemed that an adequate trip to the movies involved spending an adequate amount of money on concessions. He had been rapidly eating through birthday and New Years money and allowances in the past couple of months, but this, too, felt like a necessary purchase. His grandfather didn’t seem to care either way. The secrets of the world were found in a box of popcorn that would maybe make his stomach hurt.

There was something very, very odd about sitting in a sparsely occupied theater with his grandfather next to him. They chose two seats right on the end so he could put his walker next to him, Kiyoomi two seats down from him. He would have preferred to be closer in the middle, but thought that it might be a little weird. It would have been weirder to sit right next to him.

Much like those first few films he watched all that time ago, this one was shot in black and white. There was something intentionally dramatic about the way the actors spoke and interacted—perhaps because it was based on a play. He had never read a play before. There was a ghost in the film, though, which was, by his standards, a very solid inclusion.

Kiyoomi liked being in the theater. It was something else entirely than his portable player, or even watching in the main room. With both seats empty on either side of them—sound effects blasting in his ears—light cast upon his face.

it was, very briefly, as if nothing else existed besides him and the screen.

It was ultimately a short-lived experience. Kiyoomi’s ears still rang with the aftermath of the protagonist's screams and arrows thwacking wood as the credits began to roll.

The lights turned back on. How quickly two hours passed. The popcorn was not yet playing leap-frog in his stomach, but it felt as if there was a layer of grease over his tongue and on his fingers. He would wash his hands before they’d leave.

He had finally done it. He didn’t need his sister at all. Here he was.

Now it was time to leave. This was fine.

“Grandpa,” Kiyoomi said, standing next to his grandfather. He was still sitting and looking at the screen.

His grandfather looked over. He blinked rapidly.

Kiyoomi said, “You’re blocking the way.”

Mouth opened: closed. His grandfather didn’t say anything.

“It’s time to go.”

This seemed to get a response. His grandfather’s brow furrowed, his eyes regaining a familiar sharp edge. “I don’t need to do anything,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Kiyoomi felt distinctly at odds with someone. Perhaps himself. Motoya said he could try using his manners more. He wasn’t being rude, though. He was just saying the truth.

“It’s time to go,” he said again.

Like in the car, his grandfather relented, but not without his face folding up into a terrible scowl. Kiyoomi threw his popcorn box away, and then they were walking out of the theater, and then out of the hallway, and then out of the lobby.

“Time to go,” his grandfather repeated, voice low and gravelly.

There was a bathroom close to the front doors. “I need to wash my hands first,” Kiyoomi said.

Patterns. Today was made of patterns, because once again, his grandfather didn’t follow his lead. He kept walking towards the doors. Despite the fact that it wasn’t even quite five o’clock yet, the sun was already starting to set, the sky painted in tones of deep reds and scattered stars.

“Grandpa,” Kiyoomi said, but it was no use. His grandfather was already reaching for the door handle.

Some patterns didn’t remain. His grandfather gave no sign of listening to him. Kiyoomi was the one to follow now, the cold biting at the skin of his hands, exposed to the world without his gloves on.

“My skin is all gross,” he said, as his grandfather started to hobble down the stairs. “I need to wash it off. Why aren’t you listening?”

“It’s time to go,” his grandfather snapped.

What was he supposed to do? How did one stop an unruly grandfather? Make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble, said his mother’s voice in his head.

“Grandpa,” Kiyoomi snapped back, following him down the stairs. “Grandpa, wait. Where are you even going?”

Passerbys parted around them as his grandfather started his way down the sidewalk. He wasn’t very fast. It wasn’t as if he could outrun Kiyoomi, who was quick to catch up to his side. Kiyoomi played volleyball.

“It’s just down the block,” his grandfather said.

“What is?”

Cars on the street had already turned their lights on. People around them were speaking, their voices poking at his eardrums. The anger was melting away. Something else was in its place. A hiccup. This was more than a hiccup.

His grandfather, boot thumping against the ground, said, “I need to make a call. They can’t make a decision until I let them know.”

“What are you saying?” Kiyoomi said, shoulders tensing. “Call who?”

But his grandfather didn’t seem to be listening to him. “It won’t get there in time. They were supposed to get me the OSE numbers.”

“Grandpa, please,” Kiyoomi said, using his manners, tugging on his grandfather’s sleeve.

He shook Kiyoomi off before he said. “I’m going to be late.” Clacking teeth: irritation. “This is why I bring your sister with me.”

Kiyoomi couldn’t keep track of anything. His brain was spinning like a carousel. “Manami? When do you take Manami out?”

He had never heard of that before. He had never seen that before. Maybe when he was younger—but no one had ever mentioned that. Manami didn’t. It wasn’t like they were close.

The light across from them was still telling them to STOP. An approaching car slowed, horn blaring, but it didn’t keep his grandfather from proceeding into the intersection. Kiyoomi’s feet clung to the pavement, all trains of thought crossing over each other, whistles blaring. Despite the weather, there was a steady warmth crawling its way up his neck. His breaths were puffs of cloudy air.

He followed after him. By the time they reached the other end of the street, the pedestrian light was flickering on, and Kiyoomi’s face was hot.

Okay.

Okay.

“Grandpa,” Kiyoomi said, and everything would be fine. “We should take a cab.”

“It’s just around the block,” his grandfather said.

“But we need to get there. So we should take a cab.”

A grunt. Maybe. He was still walking.

“I’ll get it,” Kiyoomi said, grabbing at his grandfather’s sleeve again. “I bet we won’t even need to wait. I’m good at getting them. Since you told me how.”

“We don’t have the time,” he said, but he was slowing. Slower than he already was.

“It’s cold, too,” Kiyoomi said, and he had no idea what else there was to say.

“It’s cold,” he repeated, incredulous.

Kiyoomi said, “It’ll be faster. I can do it.” He was fine. This would be fine.

A hiss of breath between the lips. Mad, angry, mad. “Two minutes,” his grandfather said, coming to a stop, finally. “If I’m late, I’ll be having a conversation with your mother.”

…

He was home after school one day.

Kiyoomi got home the earliest in the day out of everyone. He had started elementary school officially—that very first day coming and going—but unlike his siblings, his grade got dismissed right after lunch. Sometimes he went to cram school afterward, but also unlike his siblings, it was only something he did a couple times during the week.

He didn’t mind getting home to a quiet house. His mother said he was very responsible. He made sure he locked the door behind him, he got a snack out for himself, and he didn’t make a mess, either. Sometimes he cleaned the kitchen or his room or the bathroom. Sometimes she noticed when she got home, smiling and placing a hand on his back.

These were good and nice and simple things. One day he was home after school, and he was wiping down the wood of the first floor’s hallway, right outside his parent’s room and his father’s office. He was home alone: him and the dust. The not dust. The dust he was cleaning away. Just him.

Until—

Until he heard a door open upstairs.

No one else was supposed to be home. School, work, tennis or golf or walking or cards. He thought, maybe, sitting there in the hallway, legs folded beneath him, that perhaps he had just misheard.

But the person came walking down the stairs, wood creaking. He couldn’t see it, of course, but he heard it. Yes: he heard it. It wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. And he would have been possessed by a jolt of fear, perhaps—anxiety, confusion—if it weren’t for the fact that he, in some instinctive way, recognized those lumbering footsteps.

Well. He was still confused. But there was a direction for that confusion, at least.

Kiyoomi approached the main room warily. Even if he knew who it was, it didn’t make it any less odd. He rubbed at the fibers of the towel he had been using to clean. By the time he was peeking into the kitchen, Yasuaki had grabbed a mandarin orange from the counter.

He was supposed to be at school. Kiyoomi thought he remembered his brother leaving that morning with his sister, but it didn’t seem to matter either way; there was his brother, hunched over the counter.

Yasuaki ate like a bird. He threw flecks of peel onto the counter and brought orange segments to his mouth with jerky movements, gnashing on them with his teeth like he had a curt, unwieldy beak. He chewed on each one for a long time—longer than Kiyoomi figured was necessary unless he was trying to turn the fruit into paste. He wasn’t really doing anything else: standing there, eating, staring at the cabinet directly in front of him.

His hair was messy. He was wearing his uniform shirt and a pair of boxers, both very wrinkled. One sock had been messed up, bunching around his ankle in rings.

It was weird. Kiyoomi wasn’t sure what to do. Yasuaki was always a little snappish, even if, at that moment, he looked… not like that. Like a flimsy flower stem. Eating oranges.

His brother pressed the heels of his hands against his eyeballs. They stayed there. He muttered something to himself.

Kiyoomi asked, “Are you sick?”

Yasuaki said a word that would have caused a reaming from their father. An orange segment slipped from his grasp and plopped against the counter. His brother’s head whipped around to him, blinking rapidly.

“Fucking— Kiyoomi? What?” His chest seemed to heave with a breath: the vestiges of being startled.

“Why are you home?” Kiyoomi said.

Yasuaki’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you home?”

“School is done.”

“That’s— you—it’s like the middle of the afternoon?”

“School is done. Are you sick?”

“Am I sick,” Yasuaki repeated, voice slow. He picked up the orange piece that had fallen. “Do you always go around creeping up on people?”

“I wasn’t creeping.”

Yasuaki walked towards him. “What were you doing?”

Kiyoomi didn’t back up. The hallway was dark behind him. He clutched onto the towel. “I was cleaning,” he said, frowning. “I thought you left this morning.”

“I came home early.”

“Do Mom and Dad know?”

Yasuaki peered down at him. He was a lot taller than Kiyoomi was. That’s what a lot of people said about his brother. Even taller than your father. Still growing, too. He eventually said, “What do you think?”

Kiyoomi didn’t know. Yasuaki could have been sick. Kiyoomi couldn’t imagine being sick and having to go home and his parents not knowing, even if they were both busy.

He also knew that his brother had gotten in trouble for something like this before, he thought, maybe. Yasuaki got in trouble for a lot of things.

“Are you really sick?” Kiyoomi said.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

Yasuaki said, “I thought you knew everything.”

Rather defensively, he said, “I know a lot. You didn’t answer.”

“Sure I did.”

“No you didn’t.”

“You going to tell on me?”

“So you’re not sick?”

“Sure I am.” In a blur of movement, Yasuaki went to the fridge, grabbing something from inside of it quicker than Kiyoomi could keep track of. “Real sick. You know me.”

“You—”

The fridge slammed shut. “Just leave it, okay? Holy shit. Leave it.”

Yasuaki was scowling, and Kiyoomi might’ve been, too, but Yasuaki was a lot better at scowling than he was. Or, it felt like it, at least, because Kiyoomi never knew how to react to his brother’s pointy edges, and his brother never seemed similarly stumped as to how to deal with Kiyoomi.

No: she went stalking up the stairs. Kiyoomi stood there with his towel.

Kiyoomi wouldn’t be the one to bring it up to his parents. Someone must have called them at work or something, because they came home angry, before Kiyoomi could even say anything. It triggered another fight, another conversation he wasn’t quite privy to, but could hear nonetheless. Manami was involved, as well—their parents pressing her on did you know? Did he tell you? She got into it with Yasuaki, too, though he could only tell because they were avoiding each other at home.

His mother didn’t even notice that he cleaned the hallway floor. He had told her such. She hadn’t seemed to know what he was talking about, before nodding and thanking him, but her tone was clipped. Kiyoomi had hesitated, thinking of his brother’s height, and then he had said, “I saw him while I was home.”

“Saw what?” she said, and Kiyoomi didn’t know why her words were so terse with him. It was Yasuaki’s fault.

“Yasuaki,” he said. “When I was home.”

It finally seemed to register. He thought she’d be pleased. But if anything, it just made her face tense.

She said, “If it happens again, call one of us, okay?”

Kiyoomi had nodded.

…

The front door opened before he and his grandfather even reached the front gate. Behind them, the cab had already departed; Kiyoomi had counted out the bills on his own, passing them over with the same assurance he had seen in his grandfather that day they went to the video store. He had not felt very assured.

But they were home. His grandfather would sit back on the couch, and he would go back to finishing his movies, and things would be fine, probably.

His grandfather’s words had petered out in the cab. He had turned to look out the window. We’re going to be late, he had said again, once, twice. Kiyoomi had given the driver the address before they got in the car.

Kiyoomi was confused. He did not like being confused. They were home, though. Things would be fine.

Only the front door opened, and his mother came clacking out, shoes knocking against concrete. The gate swung open not a second after that.

“Dad,” she said, staring very intently at his grandfather, who was wearing a very pinched expression. “Dad,” she just said again.

“I had to go out,” his grandfather said. “There was—” He blinked. There was nothing more spoken.

“That—” His mother clenched her jaw. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. We’re going to—” A smooth, even breath in: out. “We will talk. About this.”

And then, with no hesitation at all, his mother was placing her hands on Kiyoomi’s shoulders, staring at him. It carried a weight that almost gave him vertigo— unexpected enough to nearly tip him over.

“Kiyoomi,” she said. “Are you alright?”

There was still that unflappable quality to her— but there was a wrinkle there, too. There were eyes darting around his face.

It tangled his tongue into knots. He suddenly couldn’t find his words.

He was nervous. He had been caught. He wasn’t sure if that’s why he was nervous—thrown off. He wasn't sure if he was just nervous.

Something was threatening to burst straight out of his chest, like an alien parasite. Yes. That was it. There was an alien parasite inside of him, and no matter how irrational it was, that’s why he felt as if he was losing control of himself.

“Your sister,” his mother continued, voice careful, “got home early, and called me and said you and your grandfather were gone. She said you wanted to go to the movies. Did you go?”

And there was no reason to be nervous, or upset, or anything at all like that, now: not when a roaring anger came to replace any anxiety. Not when the alien was wriggling around in his veins. Of course. Of course, of course, of course.

Yes, there was Manami, lingering in the doorway over his mother’s shoulder. She didn’t look triumphant, she wasn’t smiling, there wasn’t anything sharp about her face. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her shoulders were forming a tense line, and when their eyes met, she blinked, opened her mouth, and then looked away.

“It was just a movie,” he said, voice harsher than he meant it to come out.

And then his grandfather, who was also there, said, “It was just errands.”

“Dad,” his mother said.

“The post office,” his grandfather said.

“We’re going to go inside,” his mother said to his grandfather. “We’re going to talk about this.”

“It was just work,” his grandfather said. “You always—”

And he thought, just before, that he had never seen his mother’s face appear so wishy-washy at the edges and so unlike its usual veneer; but that was nothing compared to now, as she looked at Kiyoomi’s grandfather.

It was masked not a moment later by the same, crystalline confidence that she so often wore.

His day had been very long and he was very tired. Kiyoomi felt very young and very old at the same time, then. There were no cameras—no lights—no special effects.

His mother said something, later, while helping his grandfather get inside, about needing to call back Kiyoomi’s father to make sure he knew everything had been figured out. His grandfather didn’t fight back about it, even if he seemed annoyed.

“I don’t think he’s feeling well,” Kiyoomi said to his mother when they were back inside.

Perhaps he was sick. It was flu season.

His mother nodded. She wasn’t looking at him. Why would she be?

He would catch Manami’s eye again, and he would glare at her, the anger still surging—perhaps spurred forward by his newfound disquiet—and she would struggle to find her words again, before she’d glower right back.

“Tattle-tale,” he’d say.

“You—” she’d say, and then Kiyoomi would bolt up the stairs, something burning behind his eyes, scarf and shoes and no gloves still on.

…

It had started on a night in July.

In looking back, it was easy to observe his brother leaving as a passive participant. He wasn’t told things, after all. His siblings lived in a world of their own. So did his parents, and so did his grandfather. It was easy to move past that night with a shrug and what about it? He couldn’t have changed anything. It wasn’t like he was close with his brother.

Kiyoomi didn’t know why it happened. He had always been a light sleeper, but he still couldn’t remember if anything in particular—a noise, a thump, a door—stirred him awake that night. He had gone to bed with a mind swimming with a curiosity and an irritation at all the fighting that was clearly happening around the house—perhaps that had been enough to cause a bout of troubled sleep.

For whatever reason, he had woken up. It wasn’t the most unusual thing to occur. He tried to go back to bed, turning round and round on his mattress to find the most comfortable spot, but nothing was sticking. And then he felt like he had to go to the bathroom, and thinking about it just made him feel like he needed to go more, and so, clad in his matching pajamas and feeling very acutely upset with the world and his bladder, he got up.

He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He didn’t quite like it, feeling a little unnerved that he couldn’t see anything, but there was something oddly private about seeing the house in a way that he usually didn’t. Even compared to dinners on his own, and even when knowing that the rest of his family was asleep all around him; to be awake in the middle of the night was still an annoyance, but his and his alone.

So he went to the bathroom. He made sure not to make a lot of noise, washing his hands diligently yet covertly. When he closed the door behind him, he kept the knob turned so that it settled back into the doorframe with the slightest click.

And then he turned, and his brother was there.

Yasuaki had a presence that was hard to ignore. And yet, if not for seeing him there, Kiyoomi was sure he wouldn’t have even noticed him standing in the hallway. He was just in front of his bedroom door. He had on a backpack. He was holding a big bag. One that you’d use if you were camping, he thought. He had never been camping.

He was looking at Kiyoomi.

His heart was pounding against his ribcage. It was not often that he felt so startled—so off balance—and he didn’t like it very much. He swallowed, as the silence that stretched on between them buzzed in his ears.

“What are you doing?” Kiyoomi finally whispered, clutching at the fabric of his shirt.

“Nothing,” his brother said back, just as quiet. He managed to sound louder than Kiyoomi, though, somehow. Maybe just because he was older: voice lower.

“No,” Kiyoomi said, and he shifted on his feet, his words, very uncharacteristically, feeling far away from him. “Are you going? You’re not supposed to leave.”

Yasuaki said, “Says who?”

“You’ll get in trouble.”

“Maybe I’m allowed to.”

“No,” Kiyoomi said, even though he really didn’t know—not actually. But he knew his brother.

Yasuaki said, “Are you going to tattle?”

“They’ll find out in the morning,” Kiyoomi said. “If you leave. And they’ll be mad when you come back.”

Yasuaki just smiled at that. And it wasn’t like his usual smiles, which weren’t much like smiles to begin with. It was definitely very sharp and pointy and snagged at the corners, but it reminded him of a flickering lightbulb.

There was something that wasn’t quite right about it. Maybe something that needed to be fixed. Maybe he was sick. Maybe there was a summer flu season.

His brother looked tired.

“They won’t be,” Yasuaki said.

Kiyoomi frowned. “Yes they will. They’ll be mad.”

“And you’re an expert on what they think?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said. “But I know— I know they wouldn’t like it.”

Yasuaki laughed. It was harsh: a vent whirring and churning. He said, voice rising: “You—do you even—”

And then he didn’t say anything. And then it felt like the first day of school and his brother was looking at him like he was looking for something, eyes piercing.

His brother was very tall. The silence was very loud. Anxiety crept up Kiyoomi’s spine, notch by notch. And this was the summer, and it meant he hadn’t watched any of his movies yet, so he didn’t know how to be a samurai or a mafia boss or even a documentary narrator, tone even and clear and unflinching, tone not wobbling, nerves not flaring out in his chest.

He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It seemed to break Yasuaki out of it, at least. His brother’s face twisted up, and he looked away, and then he ran a hand over his face. “Fucking—just—it’s not your business, alright? Stay out of people’s shit.”

“Yasuaki—”

“Stay out of people’s shit,” he repeated, and it felt very much like he was looming. “Yeah? Alright?”

And then he placed a finger to his lips—shh—and then he was walking away and down the stairs, and Kiyoomi knew this was a recipe for disaster, he wasn’t stupid, but his feet felt as if they were glued to the floor.

It was a ridiculous thought. He ripped himself free, but only to tip-toe to the edge of the stairs. Kiyoomi watched his brother slip through the front door, still draped in a quiet, muffled air. He stood there for a moment longer, a weight building in his stomach before he retreated to his room.

It wasn’t his fault, he thought, as he stared up at his ceiling from his bed. He couldn’t control what Yasuaki did. If his brother got in trouble, it was his own fault. His parents wouldn’t know that Kiyoomi caught him in the hallway. His brother could tell them, of course, but he doubted his parents would believe them—especially if Kiyoomi were to deny it.

Yes. Kiyoomi would pretend like he wasn’t ever in the hallway because then it would never come back to him. There was no reason to. To tattle. It wouldn’t do anything. And he wasn’t doing it because his brother asked him not to.

No matter how much he tried to reassure himself, though, he was prickled with the slightest sense of anxiety from that night— that dread, that weight. It grew the next day when his parents discovered that Yasuaki had left. They didn’t ask him about it. But it grew the next day, too, and the day after that, and the day after that and that and that, when Yasuaki still didn’t come back. With each day that passed without any contact, he became more baffled about his brother’s actions; it was as if he was setting himself up to come home to the scolding of a lifetime.

(He was sure, for a moment, that his sister might’ve known something. Their parents thought the same. Manami denied it when they asked, though, and said that Yasuaki hadn’t tried to contact her since then, either.

She could have been fibbing, but her expression, while annoyed at the interrogation, had been lined with distress. Confusion. He sometimes caught her just staring down at her cell phone. It never made a noise.

Besides: they were bad liars, his family.)

Another had week passed—then two. And Kiyoomi came to realize, in quite an abrupt way, that he had been worried about the wrong thing altogether.

…

It was practically nighttime when Manami knocked on his bedroom door.

It wasn’t his mother, after all, because she would have announced herself, and it obviously wasn’t his father. And he doubted that it was his grandfather, leaving just one other option. He had gone to the door himself, then, cracking it open to see her standing there with that same glare from earlier in the day.

He tried to shut it; she shoved her foot in the way.

“What were you thinking?” she hissed out.

“None of your business,” he said.

“That was so stupid, Kiyoomi,” she continued, barging in. The door shut behind her. “That was stupid, you get that, right?”

All the nerves and uncertainty from the day were sharpening against a whetstone in his chest. He said, “Why do you care? You don’t care.”

“I care,” she said, face flushing.

“You didn’t want to take me. You were lying to me. You don’t care.”

“That’s not fair. I was— I was busy, and you can’t just use that as an excuse. You’re ten, not two.”

“You don’t care.” And: “I don’t care,” he blurted out, and he was a mighty samurai, he had made a vow, and his eyes felt damp.

He blinked furiously. Kiyoomi turned so he didn’t have to look at his sister and rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve. He wasn’t crying. He didn’t know why he was crying. He was fine, and it didn’t matter.

He heard shuffling steps and bedsprings creaking.

“Go away,” he said. He turned to glare at her when she didn’t move from where she had sat down. “Go away,” he said again.

She was staring down at her lap. Her nose was scrunched up, and her eyes were sharp. She was clutching at his duvet cover, the skin around her nails paling with tension.

He shoved at her arm. Her upper body lurched but she stayed seated—though not without releasing a shocked, garbled noise. He shoved again, planting his feet and pressing his palms against her arm, and he leaned his full weight against her.

“Kiyoomi—”

She stumbled to her feet, and Kiyoomi stumbled after her. His socks slipped on the wood flooring, and he crashed against his sister’s middle; he used the momentum in his favor, clutching onto her shirt and pushing. She staggered backward, but only just barely, before she dug in her heels and struggled to grip at his shoulders.

“Holy fuck—Kiyoomi—one second—”

They hit his desk chair, which hit against the desk itself, pencil cup and lamp and books rattling before it teetered precariously on its legs. He was shoving his sister towards the door, and she was attempting to put him in some mangled form of a headlock, saying shit and Kiyoomi and hold on—

His sister lost her footing. She went crashing against the floor. He followed with her. Elbows knocked into ribs and bony ankles against knees; he barely stopped his head from slamming right against the ground.

Kiyoomi struggled to grab at his breath. It left in deep, thundering rushes and didn’t seem to come back all the way when he sucked it in, like a hole was poked into his lung. The edges of his attention felt fuzzy.

The world took a breath in: a breath out.

He wanted to keep pushing, but all of the energy had left him. Instead, he used what was left to scoot away, until his back was pressed against his bed frame and his knees were up to his chest. His sister did not move from where she was splayed out on the ground.

They sat and they lay there for a second, breathing. Trying to breathe.

“Listen,” his sister said. “Listen— I’m not—I was never—I was never obligated to take you. You shouldn’t have shown up at my school.”

He glared at her with everything that he had. It didn’t seem to do much. The palms of Manami’s hands were pressed against her eyes, fingers digging into her forehead.

“It wasn’t that I— I did think about it—there’s just been a lot going on,” she continued. “There really has been a lot.”

“You lied,” he said, and he wanted to sound very official, brisk, just business, but he felt small.

“I didn’t—I didn’t lie,” Manami said. She sat up. And she looked at him, brow furrowed, but then she looked away, and he didn’t think he’d seen his sister so out of her depth before. “I just— I just told a bad truth.”

He didn’t say anything in response to that.

Very slowly, his sister moved to sit next to him. She was wearing a skirt—one of her knees had an angry, red mark growing across it, her tights with a new rip. He felt one of his hands sting and a lingering ache in his side.

She said, “Why do you even care about the movies?”

There wasn’t a particular reason. Not really. It was because of Aya One and Aya Two and their annoying mother. He needed something to do. Volleyball couldn’t fill all of his time—not yet.

He said, “I saw him when he left.”

Manami shifted next to him, silent.

“I had to go to the bathroom. And I saw him leave. I didn’t know he was really leaving.”

He didn’t say who. But unlike his mother, Manami didn’t need to ask to know what he was talking about.

He heard his clock ticking on the wall. “That’s not your fault,” she said, after a second.

“I know,” he said. Of course he did. “I don’t—”

He blinked. There were many things to ask about his brother. There were many things he knew his sister would understand more than he would, and it might’ve been because she was Yasuaki’s sister before she was Kiyoomi’s. Ten years—eight years—was a long time.

What he said was, “Did he not like us?”

Don’t worry about it. Don’t get used to this. Walking to school; eating dinner alone. This is why I bring your sister with me.

And then, too quick, Manami said, “No.”

And then she said: “I don’t know.”

And then she was sniffing and rubbing at her eyes. Her breaths sounded as if they were snagging on something. And then she began to quietly cry.

He never knew what to do when someone was crying. It made him uncomfortable. He wanted her to get out of his room. He wanted to never feel confused again. He didn’t voice either of these thoughts. He sat next to his sister. She continued to cry, wiping away her tears with her sleeves.

“Yasuaki did a lot wrong,” she said, eventually. “I know he could be. Mean sometimes, Kiyoomi, but it wasn’t because of—”

She released a frustrated whoosh of air. One their grandfather would have been proud of. “He was just—lashing out. Because he was. He just wouldn’t fucking talk to me about it, even though I could tell that he was—”

She paused.

“This house is too quiet sometimes,” she said, as if she were approaching an animal in the wild like one of those documentaries—circling very, very carefully.

“You cussed,” Kiyoomi said, because there were emotions ballooning inside of him, too broad to get his fingers around. “Earlier, too.”

“When?”

“When you pushed me.”

“You pushed me first.”

“I told you to leave,” he said, resting his head on his knees.

“You really shouldn’t have done that today.”

“It was just a movie.”

“It was more than that.”

“Grandpa’s ankle is getting better,” Kiyoomi argued. But there was something puttering around in his head.

“It’s not just his ankle,” Manami said, as if listening to his thoughts. “He’s—he’s slowed down a lot. That’s how he got hurt when he was playing softball. He— well.”

“He was confused,” Kiyoomi said.

“Yeah,” his sister said. “They want him to look into a program that would help him with it.”

Kiyoomi, even now, couldn’t claim to know a lot about his grandfather. Still. “He wouldn’t like that.”

“No. He wouldn’t.”

“Well. Well, no one ever told me that.”

“No,” said Manami. “I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

“It felt like it.”

“Not because of you. I shouldn’t have—I know I made a bad promise, but I didn’t mean to. I just. I don’t know how to act,” she said, and she said it like she didn’t even quite realize what was coming out of her mouth. “I don’t think I ever have. But after—” She mirrored his body language, wrapping her arms around her legs. “There’s just a lot.”

“I don’t think it’s your fault,” he said.

“You think so?”

“I haven’t found a documentary on it yet,” he said, thinking about dogs and farms and bilateral investment treaties and calcium and cutting the wrong wire, “but I think you just stop making sense when you’re a teenager. So it’s not your fault.”

“I think you might be right,” she said, tone very serious. “It’s not as fun as it’s made out to be.”

“I never thought it was fun.”

“Oodles of fun. All you do is think about being an adult. And study.”

“I already study. I already think about being an adult.”

“You shouldn’t. You should be doing stupid stuff with your friends.”

He paused. He said, “I’m mad at Motoya.”

“Oh,” she said. “Why?”

“He was being…” Well. “You can go to the movies when you’re an adult,” was what he said. “You don’t have to give money to the video store person.”

“To the who?”

“It’d be easier,” he said.

You could go to the movies by yourself. You could move across the world by yourself. You could do anything by yourself. No one cared if no one sat with you during lunch.

His sister, eighteen and picking at her ripped tights, said, “It’s scary.”

“Ghosts are scary,” Kiyoomi said.

“Ghosts aren’t real.”

“No,” he said. “But they could be. And that’s scary. Even though they’re not.” They weren’t, but it was only logical not to speak ill of them. “What’s so scary?”

“A lot of things are going to change.”

“They’ve already been like that.”

His sister said, “I guess so. I don’t know. I’ll have to work eventually,” she continued, before he could say anything. She finally stretched out her legs, joints popping as she did. “I’ll work until I die. How morose.”

“No,” he said. “That’s second retirement. You have to do the first, first.”

“What if I die unexpectedly?”

It was a good question. “Then you skipped a stage.”

“Cheat codes,” she said.

“You’ll have more money for albums.”

“Perhaps that’ll make it all worth it.”

Kiyoomi asked, "Have you run errands with Grandpa before?"

"No," she said. "Why?"

"Grandpa said so."

"He might be... confused about it. I don't know." Manami shifted. "Maybe he was thinking about someone else."

A door closed downstairs. He had forgotten, for a moment, that a world existed beyond his bedroom. It was one he’d have to reenter, eventually; but for the time being, Kiyoomi sat next to his sister.

…

Some memories were different.

Once, a couple of years ago, both of his parents were gone to attend some conference. His grandfather was out for the evening. Kiyoomi had been reading in his bedroom, bored out of his mind, only to be drawn out of his book when he heard raucous laughter echoing up from downstairs.

It had, as many things in his life had, annoyed him. It was something out of the ordinary. It was disturbing his reading.

When he walked into the main room, he found his siblings at the table. Manami was leaning back in her chair, and Yasuaki had evidently stolen one of her hairbands, wearing it around his forehead. They were laughing loudly while they ate chips and kaki-pi.

“—he’s a fucking mess.”

Manami said, “I don’t think he’s that bad.”

“I don’t know why you deal with him.”

“What, like your friends are all keen and personable?”

“He— what are you frowning for?”

It was Yasuaki who said it. The legs of Manami’s chair settled on the ground, and she craned her neck to look at him, following their brother’s gaze.

“What are you doing?” Kiyoomi asked back, shoulders tensing.

“What’s it look like?” Yasuaki said. “Dinner.”

“You can’t have chips for dinner.”

“You the dinner police?” said his brother.

“He made me do it,” his sister said.

Yasuaki said, “Eat shit. I’m the best-behaved child in the tri-state area.”

“You’re a child, correct.”

“Your face,” his brother said, back to him again, the whiplash nearly making him dizzy, “is going to get stuck like that.”

“No it’s not,” Kiyoomi said. “Your face would be more stuck than mine.”

Manami bit out a sharp laugh. His brother’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t claw back, even if his smile was still a little pointy.

(Maybe, looking back, he still looked a little crooked—a little tired. Sometimes the light seemed to catch him wrong, a peakiness clutching to tan skin.)

Some of the tension eased its way from his muscles. A boundary still stood in front of him. His siblings sat at the table.

“That’s funny,” his brother said.

“It’s true,” Kiyoomi said.

“He’s right,” Manami said, throwing a peanut across the table.

Kiyoomi frowned some more. “That’s gross.”

“Also right,” Manami said.

“You can’t eat—”

Head stretching back to look at the ceiling, Yasuaki said, “Well, we are, so what are you going to do about it?”

“It’s fine, Kiyoomi,” said his sister, shooting their brother a glance.

His lips pursed thin. His feet didn’t move. At another time, maybe, his brother and sister would have shooed him away, or Kiyoomi might’ve gone on his own, too miffed to deal with his siblings. See if he cared; see if they got in trouble.

But Yasuaki was looking at him—still stretching out his neck—and then he used his leg to kick at one of the empty chairs at the table.

Kiyoomi looked at the chair.

“It’s quite a nasty creature,” said his sister. He was pretty sure she was teasing him.

He said, “No it’s not.”

“Dastardly and wooden.” She also kicked at the chair.

Kiyoomi looked at his sister, then he looked at his brother, then he looked at the chair. This felt, in many ways, like a trap.

But he sat in the chair. Of course he would sit in the chair, in the same way that of course he’d agree to watch his grandfather for his mother. He did so very slowly, as if not to startle either of his siblings or cause fissures in whatever atmosphere had brought him to the chair in the first place.

“So,” said his brother, still not looking at him. “How goes elementary school? Any fights?”

“No.”

“Sad.”

“I wouldn’t fight anyone.”

“Good for you,” said Yasuaki.

Manami cut in, “It’s good, though?”

Kiyoomi thought. “Fine,” he said.

“Descriptive,” Yasuaki said.

“It’s just fine,” he said back, feeling oddly defensive. “What?”

Manami said, “Come on.”

Yasuaki said, “I’m just asking. Is Kato-sensei still there?”

“Yes. She sometimes falls asleep in the teacher’s room.”

His brother didn’t laugh, but he snorted, maybe. However bizarrely, Kiyoomi found himself perking up upon his reaction. His brother said, “Classic.”

“She drank a fly, once,” Manami said. “It flew into her water, and she didn’t even notice.”

“Did not,” Kiyoomi said.

“She totally did. Good protein. She doesn’t get enough. Eat a peanut.”

“I was always her favorite,” Yasuaki said. “She thought I was the fucking greatest.”

“She also ate flies,” Manami said.

Kiyoomi ate a peanut.

It had just been a night among many nights that weren’t at all like that. Life had moved forward as it usually did—their lives intersecting at moments, but for only moments. A single night did nothing to lessen the distance—his world, their world—a sneer on his brother’s face.

But it might’ve started there.

…

His grandfather’s nurses were very upset. They still spoke very, very sweetly though, words so cloying that he could feel them on his palette all the way from upstairs.

His grandfather didn’t care, if only sounding rather annoyed when he told them he didn’t care.

It was, perhaps, in some ways—something he might have admired in the past. It was perhaps something he admired now. His grandfather was very clear about whatever it was he was thinking or feeling. But he thought about sitting on his floor with his sister: and, well, perhaps.

His mother had been a bit more insistent in questioning him about his and his grandfather’s day out in the aftermath of that evening. She had, in a very stilted way, scolded him for breaking the rules, while also explaining his grandfather’s condition in vague platitudes that would have been even more abstract without his conversation with Manami.

It was annoying. He was not often annoyed with his parents: not in a palpable way. It was, by any means, something he fumbled with clumsily; especially when there was—however masked—still that expression simmering beneath the thin skin of his mother’s face.

(“Is he alright?” he asked, as they sat in his bedroom.

She hesitated. Then she said, “As well as he can be,” before she righted herself and bulldozed on about the start of the next school semester.)

His father seemed just as unsure of how to handle the situation as Kiyoomi did. He had asked if he was fine—he was—and said that he needed to be more careful—okay—and that—

“—your brother isn’t someone to look up to,” said his father, sounding annoyed.

I know, was what he should have said. Of course. Okay.

He didn’t say anything back to that. He still nodded, his father's eyes on him, but it was something he was, perhaps, troubled by.

(There had been a moment, right at the turn of January, when he thought that his brother would make an appearance. It wasn’t as if there was any justification for the thought: January simply brought change. Perhaps he had been coming to many different haphazard conclusions—or perhaps they were being born, not yet fully developed—and it felt fitting, then, for his brother to show up.

Yasuaki was always good at interrupting things, after all.

He didn’t this time.)

Kiyoomi didn't really even talk to his grandfather about what happened. Whether because his grandfather didn't want to talk about it or if some of the details were a little jumbled for him Kiyoomi didn't know: both seemed like they could be the truth. He watched the news. 

He was going to see a movie with his sister in March after she graduated. She’d still be living there next school year, and had not indicated that she’d be leaving anytime soon. Kiyoomi wasn’t sure if he believed her or not—but he didn’t not believe her. He’d see how things changed in the spring.

Yes: winter was for figuring things out. School was back. Cram school was back. Volleyball was back. Life was back.

His grandfather was going to start leaving the house more next month. But the nurses were around more. The house was once again overwhelmed by hushed conversations he wasn’t privy to.

Some things were unchanging.

…

Motoya fixed him with a long, hard stare when he placed the milk carton down on his desk. His cousin was always the one to approach him during lunch, not the other way around. He was looking at Kiyoomi as if he were a puzzle to deconstruct.

“It’s yours,” his cousin said.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said. “So I decide what to do with it.”

“And you’re giving it to me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want it. It’ll hurt my stomach.”

Motoya tilted his head, arms crossing over his chest. “That’s it?”

Kiyoomi’s eyes narrowed. His cousin didn’t seem too intimidated by it. His hands clenched at his sides before he forced them to relax. “You want it,” he said.

“And?”

Kiyoomi said, “I don’t have to give my milk over. But I was being. Bad about it.”

“Bad,” said his cousin.

“What do you want?”

“Say that you were being a snooty jerkface to me for no reason.”

“No.”

Despite his best attempts to prepare a script in his mind, he evidently didn’t know any of his lines; they were falling from his lips like clunky, mismatched puzzle pieces.

Motoya was looking at him expectantly.

Looking away, he said, “I didn’t have to give you my milk.”

“Okay.”

“But I was being… snooty,” he forced out, and his face felt very warm—even more so when Motoya lit up, his lips parting in a gasp. “You said you wanted me to,” Kiyoomi hissed out, and this was a mistake.

“Yeah,” Motoya said, “but I didn’t think you actually would!”

His cousin reached for the milk carton. It was strawberry—his favorite to mix with chocolate. Kiyoomi sat down with his tray.

Motoya said, “My mom said you got into trouble with your grandfather.”

“Not with him.” He took a bite of tofu. “With him.”

“Same thing. Why couldn’t I come?”

“Why would you?”

“But you went to the movies! Without me!”

“It didn’t go very well.”

“Well it could have,” his cousin said. “If you would’ve invited me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I think so.”

“For no good reason.”

“I’m a good reason.”

“I think I’m going to stick with wing spiker,” Kiyoomi said.

“You’re young,” Motoya said, pointing at him. “Don’t box yourself in! That’s what my stepdad says.”

“Don’t point.”

“My stepdad says that, too. I like playing wing spiker.”

“You’re good at it.”

“I’m not going to box myself in,” Motoya said.

Kiyoomi said, “Okay.” He said, “We should go to the video store this week.” He would think about everything later—and then even later than that.

“Okay,” Motoya said. “But you have to get a musical.”

No, he thought. “Maybe.”

When Motoya smiled.

They were children. These things were easy.

…

Some things were unchanging, yes.

Commemorative stamps were not. It was in their nature. He wasn’t sure what to think about that.

Kiyoomi stepped into the house. The news was already on.

Before he could say or do anything, though, someone came floundering down the stairs. It was a teenage girl. He had not seen her before. She was wearing a knit cap that he thought he had seen his sister wearing once, and her face was split by wide-eyed nerves.

As she reached the floor, she said, “Ah, Sakusa-san, I was just coming to pick up some study materials—”

Yes: there was a plastic bag hanging from her arm, full of familiar bulky plastic.

The girl stopped when she seemed to notice that it was Kiyoomi standing there. She blinked rather owlishly, eyes appearing like giant coins behind her glasses.

“Aya,” said his sister, as she appeared at the top of the stairs. “I told you, it’s just my brother.”

Manami’s friend Chihiro was there, too. She waved at Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi waved back.

Aya adjusted her glasses. “So it is,” she said.

“—investigators are just beginning to unravel the extent of the Social Insurance Agency’s mishandling of pension records—”

He slipped off his scarf, strands of yarn leaving phantom touches on his skin.

Chapter Text

A horse raced above the city. Chunks of white clouds flecked off of its body and left tear stains in its wake. The sun was the finish line—an omen of things to come in just a couple short months, if even; for now, spring still gifted them with a tolerable heat.

The door to the convenience store opened next to him.

“Geez. You look kind of like a creep just waiting around like that, you know?”

“No,” he said, and he caught the bag of peanuts Motoya threw before it could lampoon his skull. “Do you mind?”

“No,” his cousin said, and he gave a vigorous shake to his bottle of Yakult, and then they started walking. “I found another turtleneck.”

“Horrific,” Kiyoomi said.

“I’m telling you,” his cousin continued, “my aunt isn’t real. Koko found one in the kitchen cabinet.”

“It’s your relative.”

An aunt with a proclivity for turtlenecks so intense that she always managed to leave at least five behind after visiting: yes, it didn’t sound too out of the realm for a Komori.

Motoya said, “You’re my relative.”

Kiyoomi said, “What about it.”

“Kettle meet pot.”

“Different sides of the family.”

“You’re right. Auntie doesn’t hold a candle to whatever you've got going on,” he continued, knocking his head back to down his drink in a way that made Kiyoomi’s nose wrinkle.

They waited before a crosswalk; a couple of middle schoolers in front of them, short and gangly, scuffed their shoes against the sidewalk.

“Hey,” his cousin said, looking up. “Doesn’t that cloud kind of look like a donkey?”

“No.”

“Yes."

“It's a horse."

“I'll give you a mule. No, a pony."

"It's a horse."

"A Shetland it is."

Motoya’s smile had lost some of its jagged edges with time, softening at the creases to become something more genuine—less dangerous. Its original form still occasionally revealed itself.

As it did today, apparently.

Kiyoomi cast him a look, but Motoya was looking ahead, thumbing at the strap of his bag. 

The crosswalk light switched. A fluorescent light commanded them to move. They did.

…

Third year, Kiyoomi thought, wasn’t all that drastically different from the other years to come before it.

It was likely a symptom of peaking too early. Winning the Interhigh at the start of their second year had proved to be rather anticlimactic in the grand scheme of things. As far as a narrative arc went, it made more sense to save it for their third year, fit with highs and lows and a montage of their team training. Perhaps they wouldn’t even win in the end. How poetic. But that wasn’t what had happened.

Well, it could be what would happen, if not for the fact that they already had a victory under their belt, and it made everything sort of lose its urgency. It wasn’t that Kiyoomi wasn’t trying or going to try as much as he already had been, especially not when he was improving as time went on. He liked improving. He liked perfecting. He also liked statistics. The majority of teams that won a championship in the league didn't maintain a monopoly on those victories. 

“—and rest in peace, Iizuna-san,” Shige said, hands pressed together in prayer and eyes squeezed shut.

“Hey,” Motoya called out. His head was pressed against his legs in a pretzel of a stretch. "He’s not dead!”

Inamoto, too, had his eyes closed. “He could be,” he said, voice a low timbre. He might’ve been the youngest of the second-years, but he certainly didn’t sound like it.

Endo, not looking up from the van release forms she was organizing, said, “You talked to him last week.”

They all had. Iizuna and Mizuta called them often (and them meaning Endo, after trying to call Kiyoomi, who never answered) to check in on how the team was doing.

“He died on the court,” Shige said.

“Terrible thing,” Imamoto said.

“No he didn’t,” Endo said.

Shige said, “He could have died since then. Every day is a blessing.”

Inamoto nodded solemnly beside him. 

“Oh shit,” Arakawa said, lifting his head from his own butterfly stretch. “Iizuna died?”

“No,” Endo said.

“We could use some captain’s guidance, don’t you think?” Motoya twisted his body into yet another unimaginably complicated position.

Arakawa blinked. “Right, okay,” he said. “Well, you guys, Iizuna was like, a great player, and a greater friend. His presence from the world will be greatly missed.”

“Wait, is he actually dead?” said Hoshino. Hoshino had proved himself to be a relatively normal first-year; he was supposed to be one of the best wing spikers from last year's crop of middle schoolers.

“No,” Endo said.

“I actually have no idea,” Arakawa said. “Alright, two minutes and then we’re moving.”

Hoshino, who was sitting next to Kiyoomi, leaned a little closer and asked, “Is he dead?”

Morning practice brewed inane questions. He didn’t see the point in so much chatter. Stretching and warming up was supposed to be one of his favorite times of the day, yet here he was.

“Who knows,” he said.

Hoshino nodded. “Is it like a… captain curse?”

“Who knows,” was what he said again, and not Why are you talking to me, because he had been instructed to not scare off any of the new players.

Hoshino seemed to value his advice a little too much. Motoya, who had picked up a first-year libero as an apprentice himself (his word, not Kiyoomi's), told him to take it as a compliment. He did not.

“Interesting,” Hoshino said, as if he had revealed a great truth of the world, and Kiyoomi couldn’t keep his face from twitching.

He leaned back so that he was lying down. If he couldn’t see anyone, it was almost like they didn’t exist.

Being a third year didn’t change the way that morning practice went, even if it was without Iizuna’s pep talk or Mizuta’s constant attempts at conversation. Endo was far less gregarious a manager, keeping her head ducked while she worked.

Arakawa, for one, could be rather spacey, but he was passable as a captain. Especially given that he had an uncanny sense of punctuality. At the very moment that he ushered them all to stand two minutes later—Endo stayed on the ground, continuing to sort papers—Coach Nishio walked into the gym, Coach Takahama on his heels.

Coach Takahama was not particularly short, nor was she particularly tall. While young, her skin possessed a few creases in the manner of someone who spent most of their youth in the sun. Her attire was underwhelming: a crewneck sweatshirt and joggers. She might’ve been the type of person you’d pass in a convenience store and quickly forget about.

She did not stride, she did not march, she did not even move briskly. She just walked. “Circle up,” she said, and they did.

Coach Nishio often did most of the talking. He had a voice like the staccato of a pen clicking. He could, quite frankly, be very overbearing. Years of cram school instructors later, and he still found himself thinking about Nakamura-sensei.

They were starting with a tag-team passing drill. It was always one that Motoya particularly liked, and that Kiyoomi was relatively indifferent to. It did often leave him rather winded by the end of practice, but he did have intentions to work on his endurance this season.

After several minutes of Coach Nishio rambling, there was a lull of silence. Eyes went to Coach Takahama. She was tapping her shoe against the ground. She was thinking. It was not as if she controlled the silence. It was always rather awkward.

“The Interhighs will be here sooner rather than later,” she finally said. “We don’t want to waste any time.”

And that was that. They were numbered off into teams: Hoshino, coincidentally, was in perfectly the right spot to be on the same team as Kiyoomi, after switching places with one of the other first years.

As they were getting lined up, he shot a glance over to Coach Takahama. Coach Nishio had taken a spot on the referee stand while she had remained on the sidelines, her hands behind her back. She was looking up at one of the windows lining the gym’s upper balcony. The sun was hitting her face.

It was only when the whistle blew that she looked back to the court, and Kiyoomi turned his attention to the drill in front of him. Hoshino, first to get the ball, immediately sprinted back to tag him in.

…

It was true to say that Sakusa Kiyoomi, across the board, did not like having to deal with other people. He didn’t think that there was anything wrong with that. He had a short list of individuals that he tolerated being around more than others: namely, his sister, depending on how intrusive she was being, and his cousin, depending on his desire to be annoying. Perhaps his grandfather.

There were others that existed on his sliding scale of like and dislike who he could ultimately deal with being around a little more than others. Classmates, teammates, authority figures, sidewalk passersby. He thought it’d be easier if he didn’t have to deal with the majority of the individuals he encountered on a daily basis.

It was also true to say that Kiyoomi might not have liked people, but he liked watching them.

He didn't think it wasn't totally unexpected. He didn’t like the heat, but he liked watching the window displays in the convenience store as the seasons changed. He didn’t like the gravel outside of the main gym, but he liked how you could tell how many people had traversed through it when its pebbles were displaced. He didn’t like crowded trains, but—

He just didn’t like crowded trains.

(Motoya often made it sound like he was nothing but a beacon of negativity. He liked things. Like dogs. He liked dogs. Dogs. Movies. Volleyball. Improving.)

People were unpredictable, messy, and often incredibly obtrusive. But sometimes, if you watched closely enough, you could start to see how they ticked and functioned and unwound, and there was something interesting about that, maybe. 

Motoya’s lunchtime routines varied. He had quite a few groups of friends that he fluttered between—classroom peers, the volleyball team, student council, a recurring cleaning partner—and his appearance at Kiyoomi’s desk could be predictably sporadic. His cousin liked to act as if he was a being of spontaneity, but his habits were pretty easy to identify if you were looking for them.

Today he was likely chasing down their math instructor to talk about their upcoming lesson. After that, he would stop by the vending machines on the first floor so that he could say hello to his friend who helped in the nurse’s office. He would likely swing by Kiyoomi’s classroom within the final three minutes or so.

For now, he ate his lunch in peace by himself. Some of his classmates had gathered in their typical clumps, chatting loud enough that their conversations drifted over the rest of the room; others, like him, were seated alone, catching up on homework or already studying for university entrance exams that were half a year away.

He wasn’t concerned about exams. His grades were decent, and his studying habits were respectable, he thought. He was seeing the same private tutor that his siblings had in their third year, and for all that he had heard complaints about the old woman from his sister, she was expensive for a reason.

And there was volleyball. Based on initial conversations with some scouts, he could likely get a pretty nice deal for agreeing to play for a college team. As a child, Kiyoomi—without the proper knowledge of how real life actually worked—often imagined going to one of the fancy, shiny schools that his parents had attended, wearing one of the fancy, shiny suits that his parents wore, and having one of the fancy, shiny jobs that his parents had. It was something his parents likely still imagined.

It was, perhaps, still not out of the question. Technically speaking. 

He had a national title. By virtue of age, he was the only one remaining out of his trio of the best, even if it was annoying to have to hear about Ushijima’s success after graduating. As far as high school sports went, he had accomplished much of what one was capable of accomplishing. He was confident in his skills and relatively pleased with where he was at.

There was always more of course—more to win, more people to beat, more skills to develop—but it wasn’t as if Kiyoomi didn’t know that these things had their natural limits. You couldn’t physically win everything. You couldn’t physically beat everyone. You could become the best of the best, but it would always be a title up for grabs, and you’d never truly know if you couldn’t do better.

The remnants of broth from his lunch, savory and fragrant, lingered on his palette. His fingers tapped against his desk. Lunch passed much as it typically did, as it had done for the past two years. Around him, his peers were starting to clean and pack up their things.

It was not rare for there to be days when his cousin did not stop by at all; it was rare when Kiyoomi’s predictions were off.

They had just over a minute left. And there was Motoya in the doorway.

His eyes narrowed.

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Motoya said, snagging the unopened strawberry milk carton sitting perfectly on the desk’s edge. “Next week’s lesson on derivatives is going to be crazy.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Judgy. You pessimist.”

“Pessimist,” he repeated. 

Motoya nodded. “You assume the worst in me.”

“And what’s your worst?”

“Oh man, I don’t have one!” his cousin said, lips quirking up at the edges, and then the chimes rang.

…

“I don’t think I was nearly as moody as you were as a teenager.”

It was annoying how he could picture his sister’s face so perfectly even when he couldn’t see her.

George ducked his head to sniff at a bush, his collar jingling. Kiyoomi held the leash in one hand and his phone in the other. George’s evening walks often lined up with Manami’s walk home. They spoke on the phone often, especially now that she had moved.

“That’s offensive,” he said.

George moved on. George was a poodle mix. He was his neighbor’s dog, regrettably. Kiyoomi had agreed to walk George in the evenings a few years ago after his neighbor had an injury; he still walked George even now that she was good and healed.

“I was relatively well-behaved as compared to others my age.”

“I’m not moody.”

“You brood.”

“I don’t brood.”

“You are a young ghoulish child. You can only be seen out of the corner of someone’s eye. Can’t you just enjoy your last year?”

“I can,” he said. “I’ll enjoy it fine.”

It was just a year. His last year of high school, maybe, but not his literal last year. Presumably. Hopefully. 

He wasn’t sure how they quite got here. He wasn’t quite sure how everything was coming back to this. They were only halfway through April, and if things continued at this pace, he’d have to make efforts to scour the topic from conversation.

“Enjoy it while you can, I guess. Exam season will be a bitch.”

He grunted. Sure. He didn’t particularly like talking on the phone, mostly because he couldn’t get away with just talking with his face.

“Maybe you could do something exciting.”

“Exciting.”

“A road trip. An outing. Make it a special year.”

“You sound,” Kiyoomi said, “like a motivational speaker.”

“A good one, at least?”

“No.”

“A wound. Ouch.”

“I’m busy. I don’t have time to just drop everything.”

“You’ll have a break eventually, I’m certain.”

The next time he’d have an actual, scheduled, extended amount of free time would be the summer. There was always a week-long gap in August, after the Interhigh and any summer camps but before school and practice started up again to prepare for the quick turn-around of the Spring Nationals.

It was also months away.

“Sure,” he said.

“Well, I tried. Valiantly. Any updates?”

“Not since you asked last.”

“Doubtful.”

“Huh.”

“I’m sure you’ve already blinded many individuals invested in your university career with your talent since then.”

“No.”

“Have you blinded two, yet?”

“I told you,” he said, as a bicycle bell trilled, “there aren’t any updates. Are we going to lunch still?”

“Yeah,” said his sister. “Sunday work still?”

“Yes.”

“Next week?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Well. Good.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What is it?”

“What is what?”

“You’re being weird.”

“Your radar must be buggy.”

“You’re being weirder.”

“I’m just excited to see my brother. How evil.”

“Horrible,” he said.

“Destitute. I’m fine.”

“Fine,” he said. “Whatever.”

It came out flippant and harsh. The fact that his sister didn’t immediately get on his case for it was a signifier enough that something was amiss.

He wasn’t a child anymore, but he still wasn’t an idiot, and he’d still say it.

“Just—” She paused. Static crackled. “Everything’s fine, Kiyoomi.”

“Fine,” he said. Everyone could have their secrets if they wanted to. He couldn’t stop them. He could be annoyed at them for it, though. “I’m almost back.”

“Excuses, excuses.”

“I need to study. I’m seeing Kutaragi-sensei this week.”

“Dire. Very dire. I’m surprised she’s alive still.”

“I’ll let you know if she lasts until the end of the year.”

“Oh? Is that a threat?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to kill my tutor.”

Onishi-san, one of their crotchety old neighbors who, like his tutor, was closer to death than not, was out walking her dog. The dog’s name was Ran. Ran was also very, very old, essentially a frizzy white puffball on trembling legs, and he was still leagues better than his owner without even trying. George’s tail wagged.

The old woman sent over a scandalized look behind her glasses, sniffed, and hurried along on her way. Ran had to be tugged along with her, staring over at Kiyoomi and George with large, glimmering eyes. If one of his hands was free, it surely would have twitched. One day. 

“Just don’t tell me any details.”

“Thanks for the legal advice.”

His sister said, “I’ll see you at lunch, right?”

He said, “Are you going to leave me out in the cold until then?”

“You’re such a drama queen. Don’t make that face at me.”

“I’m not making a face at you,” he said, making a face.

Manami scoffed in a way that sounded like a laugh. It had never been a delicate noise; there was something very sharp about its edges as if it could pop a bubble.

It lingered in his ears when he stepped inside after the phone call had ended and George had been brought back to Matsunaga-san’s. There was no news on the television to greet him. His parents likely wouldn’t be home until later that evening, given the pattern set by the week prior. Like he said: no updates.

It was just another year.

…

He was not going to kill Kutaragi-sensei. Nothing would kill Kutaragi-sensei.

That was a lie: it’d probably be something like heart disease. Before that would come, though, he didn’t doubt the fact that there was very little on the mortal plane that could eliminate her.

While he didn’t like being on the receiving end of her focus, Kiyoomi could admit, in an admittedly twisted manner, that he respected the woman. It was impressive to live to the age of however old she was. Her study habits were impeccable.

Kutaragi-sensei had tutored his brother and his sister. She brought this up frequently. She had tutored many other people, people who, unlike his siblings, he did not know, and this fact did not keep her from bringing them up, as well. She evidently knew a lot of people.

“Again,” she said, sliding another practice test across the table. The chair she sat in nearly dwarfed her frail frame; it did nothing to curtail her intensity.

He wasn’t sure if he should have been offended that she was being so overbearing, or admired her close attention to detail. Kiyoomi did neither, choosing to instead take the test from her and keep his lips pursed into a thin line.

“Your sister,” she said, “could never manage to get her math scores up. I told her that her literature and civics scores wouldn’t be enough. It was the very same with that Kato. And he wanted to go into medicine. Idiot child. Are you listening?”

“Yes,” he said.

She let out a huff of air. “You shouldn’t be,” she said. “Pay attention to your test. How do you expect to score well if you aren’t paying attention?”

She was right. He was annoyed. What a terrible moral conundrum.

“Your brother would barely show up. And when he would, he'd never even bother to pay attention,” she continued, and yes, he supposed it was for the best that he didn’t listen.

He was already scoring decently on his practice exams. Kiyoomi was well aware of his talents and his limits; it would do him no favors to underestimate what he would be tested on, but he didn’t foresee entrance exams being a great obstacle to him. Especially not with the aid of Kutaragi-sensei, who—both fortunately and infuriatingly—was very good at her job.

Manami had warned him of all the ways to get the woman started (talking about the rising cost of eggs, talking about teenage fashion trends, talking about reality television, talking about calculators, talking about ground ginger, talking about dryer sheets) with a claim to use such information wisely.

You two are similar, she had added later, and he had, at the time, known enough to be offended. He knew more now. He was more offended now.

“Passable,” was what she said, after another round of practice exams. He did not care about her opinion. He did enjoy academic praise, on principle. Tough. “You were on time today. Be on time next week.”

He could take a hint.

The woman’s practice was based out of her apartment. Her building smelled overwhelmingly of pine floor cleaner. It was typically something he was appreciative of, but just like every other aspect of Kutaragi-sensei, it was just the slightest bit too potent, stinging at his eyes. Manami said he had the nose of an elephant.

An elephant with good tastes and realistic expectations for various odors, he thought. And then he thought about how he shouldn’t entertain his sister. She was still annoying him. Everything’s fine. A minute before lunch ended. Horse in the clouds. And then he was leaving the stairwell.

And there, sitting in the lobby, was who he knew to be Kutaragi-sensei’s next student.

Urara’s height had peaked in middle school. Her hair was as long as the rest of her was, and she often held it back with a large, daunting claw. She wore a pair of pristine white sneakers with chunky soles that were always neatly tied. The planner she was currently scrawling in had enough colorful sticky notes poking out of its side to create its own prism.

They weren’t the only ones from that cram school who ended up under Kutaragi-sensei’s tutelage. The woman used to work there, apparently, and that’s how students ended up in her practice. That’s how they both ended up in the same room, now.

Urara looked up. “Oh,” she said. “Hello.”

Kiyoomi nodded.

“Was she in a good mood today?”

Kiyoomi nodded.

“That’s good.”

Kiyoomi nodded. He adjusted the strap of his bag, slung across his chest. There were words trapped between his teeth, and their presence—and his apparent lack of floss—set fire to a burning sense of frustration.

She still kept a mural of stickers on her water bottle. Some of them were holographic, catching in the fluorescent light overhead.

Urara closed her planner with a snap that ricocheted through his chest— though not before marking her place with a reflective bookmark.

“Well,” she said, standing. She nodded.

“Bye,” Kiyoomi said, and then he was moving.

…

It had started with one of Manami’s friends from university.

She lived at home while she attended classes in the city. And, unlike their brother, she made no attempts to jump ship to—wherever it was that Yasuaki had gone. Manami took her studies diligently, if only taking advantage of the extra centimeter of freedom she was granted in no longer being a high schooler. Some of her friends from high school had moved away for their studies; she made plenty more to make up for that. Chihiro was still around.

He mostly heard about them more than he saw them himself. They ate dinner together and she told him about a classmate who was always late, or she walked with him to the train and mentioned the girl she met who shot water straight out of her nose at the bar—er, dinner, or he sat on the edge of her bed while she read at her desk and talked about almost getting kicked out of the library with a partner for a project.

Occasionally, they came over. Sometimes one she went to high school with, too. He caught Aya in the hallway once, and the interaction had been just as stilted as their first.

When he was twelve, she had needed to study for a big exam. Copyright law, she had said. Criminally uninteresting. She said she was going to have a friend over so that they could work together. He didn’t particularly understand it—he rarely got any actual studying done with Motoya.

Kiyoomi was home. He was still getting used to his middle school schedule. He thought that he liked it more than elementary school. His volleyball coach seemed a lot more serious, and he was pretty sure that was a good thing.

His grandfather was taking a nap. The nurse who came in the evenings was already there, reading in a chair in the upstairs hallway. Kiyoomi was working on his math at the front table when the door opened.

Manami came in. She was talking to someone behind her. She was laughing about something. She kicked her shoes off.

He wasn’t very tall. He had nice hair that fell back in waves to the cusp of his shoulders, and that Kiyoomi’s mother most definitely would have commented on. He was wearing small hoop earrings and a blue jacket. He was also laughing.

“Oh,” his sister said, catching sight of him there. The remnants of laughter were still caught in her words. “This is my brother.”

The man waved. Manami said his name, too, but Kiyoomi didn’t register it. They were interrupting his work. It was very distracting.

His sister and her friend disappeared upstairs, their bags thumping against their backs. He was pretty sure that their parents would say something about her having a boy in her room, for whatever reason.

Kiyoomi had stared down at his homework. He was pretty good at math, even if it wasn’t his best subject. The numbers seemed to be jeering at him. He picked up his pencil with righteous vengeance.

Later, he was still at the table when his sister and her friend came back down the stairs. They were going out. Their footsteps put him on edge for reasons he couldn’t explain. She forgot something in her room. You can wait by the door, be right back, she said, and then there was Manami’s friend rolling back on his heels, and Kiyoomi there at the table, and he should have just chosen to work in his room.

“You play volleyball, right?” Manami’s friend said, fiddling with one of his earrings.

Yes. The word didn’t come out. He didn’t know why. He had just nodded.

“Fun,” the man said. “I didn’t do too well with sports myself when I was your age.”

Kiyoomi nodded again.

“Man of few words, huh?” he said, and it was only then that Kiyoomi noticed his hoop earrings were two different colors.

The asymmetry was infuriating.

Yes. That was it: the cause of his stomach flip-flopping over itself and his mouth drying and his face warming. He was annoying. Manami’s friend. Horrific. He left not long after that, his sister coming down the stairs and issuing him a goodbye, don’t burn the house down, and Kiyoomi did not stop thinking about her friend even when he was no longer standing there. For whatever reason. For a reason he couldn’t wrap his brain around then.

It is something he could better understand in the present.

And, as opposed to most other puzzles in his life, finding the answer didn’t make him feel any better.

“Cousin,” Motoya said, squatting in front of the musical display. “Oh, cousin.”

“Stop,” Kiyoomi said, plastic bending beneath his fingers.

There was no shortage of video rental stores in this city. He had dabbled with other locations in the past few years, but there wasn’t any beating the place his sister originally brought him to.

“A chance meeting in a lobby,” Motoya continued. “How quaint.”

“Stop,” Kiyoomi said.

“Did you say hello, at least?”

He didn’t reply.

“Oh dear.”

“I didn’t need to literally say hello,” he snapped. He had known Urara since they were kids. It wasn’t as if he was being particularly impolite.

Motoya plucked a cover from the shelf. It looked nauseatingly flashy. “Okaaaay,” he said, rising. “Did you see the article about Ushijima?”

He was a libero. He used to do gymnastics, as he always yapped on about. It shouldn’t have taken him so long to stand. How inane to think that there was something ever wrong with his cousin—not when he was as troublesome as usual. Kiyoomi turned on his heel and left the aisle. Nothing good could be found in the musical aisle.

“Sounds like he’s thriving,” he heard, along footsteps that were quick to fall in line behind him.

“Good for him.”

“It sucks that you didn’t even get a last tournament together.”

This was true. Those idiot crows from Karasuno were who they had to thank for that. That little orange-haired freak specifically, apparently, who couldn’t even make it through the whole tournament.

“You know,” Motoya said, walking backwards to catch up to his side. He easily sidestepped a rotating display, even without seeing it. “With him gone, it kind of sounds like there’s less competition on the court for—”

Kiyoomi stopped. The soles of his shoes grated against the store’s retro carpet. He, once again, didn’t say a thing, only fixed his cousin—who was, unfortunately, rather immune to this sort of thing—with the most acidic Look he could muster.

The side of Motoya’s mouth quirked up. “Nothing,” he said, holding his hands up, placating. “Forget I said anything.”

The… feelings that Kiyoomi was bombarded with were out of his control. He held no personal responsibility for them. It wasn’t his fault; he could only control how he dealt with them, and he dealt with them by grinding them beneath his foot.

Besides: as much as it pained him to admit, there was, generally speaking, some sort of rationality as to understanding how those feelings arose. There had not been a grand justification for Manami’s friend, besides the hair and the earrings. Maybe. These were scientific observations.

The Thing with Urara started up much the same time as the Thing with Ushijima, and by Things, he meant nothing at all, of course. Middle school. Middle school had been better than elementary school, but it had brought with it more than a few… obstacles.

Ushijima was better than him. Had been better: was, nowadays. Schroedinger’s better, even if his fast track into professional playing was rather annoying. But he had presented himself as a ritualistic force—a boy of habits and righteous cleanliness—a foe on the other side of the net.

A fixation, then, was only understandable. It was middle school when Kiyoomi’s desire to play volleyball had truly festered into a desire to improve, and Ushijima’s presence had presented an avenue for that improvement. One of impressive physicality. It was only natural to have such pronounced shoulders with such an impressive spike.

In addition to being his seatmate, Urara had also been the best-ranked student in their cram school. She often helped their classmates with their work, and while she wasn’t one to raise her hand in class, when she did, her answers were textbook and professional. She collected stickers and hand lotion, and enjoyed bowling with her friends. Her notes were color-coded. There were several times that his attention had been caught by her hands—lithe and calloused—as they flicked through her planner.

There was a justification, was what he was saying. They were just feelings. Respect. Just with a few extra caveats. They were very irrational, but they also made sense, especially given his thought’s propensity to be rather obsessive.

Most of them made sense.

“I heard,” Motoya said, tone so innocuously casual, as it often was, “that Inarizaki picked up a good little libero this season.”

“Did they,” Kiyoomi said, and to anyone else, his tone would be warning enough to back off.

“Yeah. Guess he’d have to be good, what with the teammates he has to put up with.”

Kiyoomi slammed his own purchases of the day onto the counter. The clerk—a university student who often appeared to be high on something—blinked over at them, pulling a headphone off of his ear.

“What’s up,” he said.

“Nothing,” Kiyoomi said.

“Beautiful day out,” Motoya said. “You?”

“Chill. Oh, here’s this,” the clerk said, setting another DVD case on the counter. “Manager was flipping shit over the tracking information for this guy. Thought it wasn’t going to come in.”

It was a horror film from the 60s that the store had to special order for him. He had not met the manager himself, but he heard about her often enough, her presence lingering over the store like a shadow behind a curtain. She worked in his favor. That was all he really cared about.

Motoya threw his musical onto the counter. “I bought you peanuts,” was what he said, when Kiyoomi scowled at him.

How annoying it was when his cousin was right. He pulled out his membership card.

Later, when they were walking home, Motoya said, “So what do you think she’s going to say?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why would I know?”

“You’d know your sister better than me.”

“I don’t know everything.”

It would be nice if he did. Manami was clearly still lingering on something, even if she claimed that there was nothing amiss. He could see it through her texting.

“Maybe she’s seeing someone. Or maybe she’s taking the bar.”

“Unlikely.” To their parents’ chagrin, on both fronts.

“Moving?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said. She wouldn’t do that. Not without saying anything. “She just got a raise. It could just be some studying materials for entrance exams. She’s bad at surprises.”

Motoya looked up at the sky, blocking the sun with his hand. “Helpful,” he said. “Well, maybe it’s nothing.”

“Maybe,” Kiyoomi said, plastic sack rustling in his grasp.

…

He went to the video store with his cousin. He watched movies in the main room when no one was home. Practice went well, even if still often caught Coach Takahama lost in thought. Manami said she was excited for lunch. He petted two dogs when walking George one evening—Melon and Mugi. He did not pet Ran. This was unsurprising.

The heat continued to tear through the sky, growing in its carnage. (“Dramatic,” said someone, maybe his cousin or maybe his sister.) Ahead of him was the summer; it brought the potential to be interesting, but it also brought with it a useless, needless sun.

But it was not directly in front of him now. No: he was looking at a stoat, a very rodent-like creature with a small face and stubby arms. It was cute. He rather liked it, though he imagined it would smell quite a bit, given that it was likely in the weasel family. Unfortunate.

“He’s feeling well today,” he heard, and his attention snapped back up to the nurse leading him down the hall. They passed by a common room, where several elderly people sat playing games or embroidering. “I’m sure he’ll be very happy to see you.”

Kiyoomi didn’t respond, tracing the wallpaper around them with his eyes.

His grandfather’s room appeared rather clinical. He knew that the staff liked to keep things personal—decorating the walls and adding touches here and there—but his grandfather had never been a particularly personal person. There were some generic holiday cards pinned to a bulletin board, an old blanket that was brought here from home, and a photo of Kiyoomi’s grandparents, mother, and uncle on the bedside table that had to be around fifty years old.

“Oguma-san,” the nurse said. “Your grandson is here to see you.”

It was a familiar scene, if only with a different backdrop. His grandfather sat in a chair watching the television. His face had thinned out in the past few years, making his glasses appear even larger around his face.

He barely acknowledged that Kiyoomi was there. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Kiyoomi took a seat in the room’s other chair, and the nurse left the room with a nod and a smile.

“Grandpa,” Kiyoomi said. “I have your stamps.”

This grabbed his attention. He looked over through his glasses; the point in his gaze wasn’t nearly as sharp as it once was, and it roved over his face, searching.

He lifted the paper he held. “Your commemorative stamps from this month,” he said. “I got them at the post office.”

His grandfather held out his hand. Kiyoomi gave the stamps over. They were a travel set: landscapes and flora and a single stoat. He typically preferred landscapes. His grandfather.

“They changed manufacturers,” his grandfather said, voice made of gravel. “Quality’s gone to shit.”

It was not the first time he had made such a point. “Sure,” Kiyoomi said.

“I know you,” his grandfather said.

“I’m your grandson,” Kiyoomi said.

“You in school?”

“Yes,” he said. “Third year.” And why was it that it always came back to this?

A grunt. A shuffle of paper sheets. Huh. “I need to send a letter.”

“Alright,” Kiyoomi said.

His grandfather looked up from the stamps, squinting. “Your hair,” he said. “Too damn long.”

Kiyoomi sighed and leaned back in his chair. He would not stay here for long. He had things to get to. These were the brief moments that their worlds overlapped, now, even sparser than those in his childhood. He tried to stop by every few weeks, time permitting.

It was a good time to get some reading done, for school or otherwise. There was something distinctly bubble-like about this place, as if it existed on a different wavelength than the rest of the world. (Years later, sci-fi was still a hit or miss. He tried.) He could clear his thoughts. Even if those pesky little words—third year—still managed to worm their way inside.

The news was on. His grandfather turned back to face the screen. He still held the stamps; grasp loose enough that they slipped against his skin, but not quite enough that they would fall to the floor.

…

He had grown used to a relatively empty house nowadays. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be its only occupants for a stretch of time in the evenings; though it wasn’t like he had a lot of time to spend at the house himself. He wasn’t lying to his sister about his lack of time.

There were surprises, sometimes. Manami visited often enough, but she was relatively busy with her job. Sometimes there was someone there to look at the plumbing.

Sometimes his mother was coming out of the study, catching him as he rummaged around the kitchen.

“I didn’t know you were home,” he said.

She looked much the same as she always had. There was a timeless quality to his mother; if you peered close enough, you could perhaps see crow’s feet—the onset of a wrinkle here or there—but by and large, she looked, very purposefully, as if she were in control of even her aging.

“I had an important conference call,” she said. “But I was able to take it at home this evening.”

“That’s nice,” he said.

She nodded. He wondered what to do with his hands.

“School went well?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“And practice?”

“Also good,” he said.

She barely paused. “There was a voicemail left on the machine,” she said. “It was some sort of recruiter. From Waseda.”

He paused himself. “There were scouts at the spring tournament.”

“I remember you saying that,” she said. “That’s very impressive.”

“Did they want a response?”

“They did,” she said, after a moment. “I know,” she began, “that we talked about focusing on your studies this year.”

“I am,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “It’s a very busy year.”

Kiyoomi said, “I’m balancing it well.” And then he said, before he could stop himself, “Waseda is a good school.”

She seemed to think about this for a second. Then she said, with a smile just as pristine as it had always been, “It is.” Her tone was impossibly careful. “It would be a privilege to study there.”

There was always a moment, then, when the conversation had come to an end, but perhaps the two of them didn’t quite know how to go about it. When he was young, he might’ve taken the open air as a chance to ramble on about school or practice or whatever else was relevant to his young existence, enraptured by having her full attention. He might’ve still felt a desire to, now.

But he just said, “I have an exam in calculus to study for.”

And she took the opening with a nod, a smile unmoving on her face.

…

Manami had insisted on sitting outside. She had to pull her hair back because of the wind, but the length wasn’t quite right—cut just above her shoulders—so the front pieces kept sticking to the side of her face or tangling in the long, dangling earrings that she wore. A pair of sunglasses sat atop her head.

It was far too hot for this. She didn’t seem to care.

“I thought,” she said, “that they were leaning into it if you were going to a good school.”

He chewed on his bagel thoroughly—a sweet potato bread, mild and delicate—swallowed, then said, “I don’t know.”

Manami shoved a load of salad into her mouth. “Bummer,” she said. “I think they’ll come around.”

“Do you.”

“Surprising, I know.”

“Why?”

“You just need a name,” she said. “Prestige. They’ll come around. You’ve always been a rather good noodle.”

He sent her a Look. It did not work. These types of Looks didn’t work on his sister, as she sent him a Look right back. It was a lunch that tasted of judgment and raised eyebrows.

Yasuaki had not played sports. Manami had not played sports. Sachie had not played sports. Motoya played sports, but to his knowledge, very few other of his family members had played sports to such a serious level in school.

His parents, who had initially viewed volleyball as little more than a childhood hobby, had been surprised when he was handed titles of the top ten, top five, top three in middle school and invitations to national camps, if not pleased at his accomplishments. Success was success. Even if he was to make sure not to let it interfere with his studies.

They seemed less pleased about him playing in university, no matter how shiny the prospects of scholarships and school rankings were. Though they had seemed a bit more inclined to it as schools had started to reach out. He had thought so, at least. He wasn’t sure what to think about the conversation with his mother in the kitchen.

“I’ll figure it out,” he said.

“I bet they’re just concerned about what your job prospects might be,” she said, fingers fiddling with an earring.

The thought ruffled at something inside of him.

“Yeah, I know,” she continued. Another bite of salad. “All you’ll have to do is convince them that plenty of people are able to multitask. A successful college sports career would look good on the resume, I think. And you’re a smart enough cookie that you could market it well.”

He focused on taking another bite of his bagel. And then he said, “Why are we talking about this?”

“I am intrigued,” his sister said. “I care about you.”

“Gross,” he said.

“Compassionate,” she said.

It no longer felt odd to be here, sitting and talking with his sister. Perhaps it was easier now that he was older. Things had begun to change just before she started university herself, but they had still been awkward, then, a teenager and a ten-year-old not quite meeting on the same page.

One of them was still a teenager, of course, but a rather capable one at that. Especially as compared to his sister. As a teenager and an adult.

“Stop,” she said.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I see mischief on your face.”

“This is my face,” he said, as he often did.

“Oh, of course it is,” Manami said, and she was smiling about something.

He rolled his eyes.

“If not school, what would you like to talk about?”

He thought. His sister had questionable tastes when it came to film. Volleyball was school adjacent, as was Kutaragi-sensei. He was not going to mention Urara. Why the fuck would he do that.

She appeared normal. She was speaking relatively normally. But perhaps she was playing with her earrings more than she usually did. Her fingers tapped against the table. She was waiting for him to say something, and her gaze was traveling behind him.

His Looks did not work very well on his sister in the same way that her attempts at stalling were as clear as day to him.

“How’s work?” he said.

“Boring.”

“That sucks.”

“No, I meant you. It’s fine.” She rested her chin on her hand. “The merge has been shitty, but some of the partners are being assholes to each other, at least.”

“Sounds pleasant.”

“Better than it has been. You interested in law?”

“No,” he said. “I told you I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Right. My bad. Shall I relay to you my attempts to parallel park with a migraine two days ago?”

“What is it?” Kiyoomi asked.

“A migraine. You know what a migraine is.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Parallel parking is quite a mystery, I suppose. ”

“Stop,” he said. “You’re putting something off.”

She didn’t deny it. Her chopsticks clacked against the tablecloth. “How do you figure?”

“Just get it out.”

She couldn’t be moving. She wouldn’t just dump that on him now, he thought. She got that raise. She said that it was better than it had been.

Perhaps she was just seeing someone. Perhaps she was taking the bar. Perhaps she was getting a pet dog. Perhaps she had developed the ability to channel ghosts. Perhaps it really was nothing, and he was just imagining his sister’s hesitation.

Manami’s lips pursed thin. Then she said, “Is it obvious?”

He liked being right. He should have been glad, on principle, that he was right. He smoothed out the napkin in his lap.

“Just say it,” he said. “It’s been annoying.”

“Sorry. I haven’t been trying to.”

“You’re still doing it.”

“Still not trying to do it. Are you sure,” she said, “that you don’t want to talk about parallel parking?”

He didn’t respond.

Manami did not appear nervous, in the same way that none of them appeared nervous. But her expression had smoothed over: her eyes unreadable, her brow neutral if not sobered.

Kiyoomi was annoyed. Irritated. Vexed. It was burrowing into his chest. How familiar and cozy it was, being fed up with the world around him.

A moment passed. The veneer cracked. Manami sighed, rubbing at the skin beneath her eyes.

And then, quite unceremoniously, she said:

“Yasuaki’s back.”

…

It had started all the way back in a different summer—one when he was ten. One he felt like he had spent enough time ruminating on.

For all of the trouble that Yasuaki leaving had caused, it felt as if that whole stretch of time could be filed away under a few sentences. He left. It happened. It was years ago. A few sentences.

It was, in retrospect, quite clear that his parents had been just as clueless about how to think about the situation as the rest of them were. His father was never one to hide his displeasure. Should have expected this. Nothing but trouble. We tried. Shaking his head, throwing up his hands. Back to work. Business as usual.

His mother was… different. Perhaps he could look back and see cracks—see the immediate aftermath—see the bafflement—but what he remembered more than anything was her sitting down next to him and smiling, patting his back, how is school?

It had not been seven continuous years, technically speaking. To his knowledge, there were several times that he had reappeared in their lives—and by their lives, he meant Manami’s, most principally, as she was often the one he’d reach out to. And, to his knowledge, these appearances had appeared altogether if not entirely through text, phone call, or some social media-adjacent alternative, and could only be classified as appearances, moments, crossovers.

He was sitting at lunch with his sister. This was good and fine.

“What do you mean,” Kiyoomi said, “that he’s back.”

Manami said, “He’s in the city.” And she said, “And he’s living here.”

Kiyoomi enjoyed eating out. Motoya said he had a snobby palette. He enjoyed convenience store peanuts just the same as he enjoyed an expensive brunch, paid for by his sister. He liked things that tasted good. Price didn’t matter.

He especially enjoyed bagels. Sweet potato bagels were very good. He suddenly did not feel very hungry, and this was incredibly irritating.

He said, “And you know this how.”

“He texted me,” Manami said. “Well—he emailed me, first. With my work contact.”

“Okay,” he said.

“It’s different. He has a job. He’s living here. He said—” She chewed on her lip. “I think,” said his sister, “that he’s serious.”

“Have you seen him?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

It sounded true. She couldn’t lie. And yet he wasn’t sure if he believed her. It must have shown on his face.

“I haven’t,” she said. “I talked with him on the phone, but I haven’t seen him yet.”

“When did he reach out?”

She paused. “Towards the beginning of April.”

He counted the weeks in his head. They clicked like the hand of a clock. “And,” he said, “why are you telling me this now?”

“I didn’t mean to like, keep it from you,” she said. “I wanted to bring it up in person. I haven’t really talked all that much with him since then.”

"And how long has he been here for?”

Manami, for all that she was, to him, quite transparent in her demeanor—particularly when she was attempting not to be—spent her days pouring over legal documents. She spoke regularly of the assholes that she worked with. Emails, she had once told him, are a sacred art. Of shit.

She knew how to speak carefully, was what he was saying.

“He didn’t say specifically,” was what she said, “but it sounds like he’s been here for at least a few months. Longer, maybe.”

He sat up straighter. He chewed on his words. “Do Mom and Dad know?”

The answer was rather obvious, of course. He still put it out into the air, just to be sure.

“No,” Manami said.

“Are they going to know?”

“Yes?” she said. “I don’t know.”

“Why?” he said.

“He said,” she began again, “that he’s trying to get his shit together.”

There were, of course, plenty more questions to ask. In his world, there were always more questions to ask. But his brain had gone uncharacteristically silent. It was as if it had glitched out in trying to process what Manami had said. Because she had said, Yasuaki’s back. Their brother was back in the city, and their sister had been talking to him.

“Look,” Manami said, after another beat of silence. “I know this is fucking— I know it’s awkward,” she said. “It’s weird. I don’t know everything. I mean it. I think he’s trying. I don’t know.”

“Why are you telling me?” he said again.

“Of course I'd tell you,” she said. “You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. I know—” She stopped. She seemed to recognize the clumsiness of it all. Manami took another bite of salad; biting, stalling. Then she said, “I know you two weren’t… close. Since we all were never— well.”

A final sigh, before she righted herself. Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones: all business.

“He would like to get lunch,” she said. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Especially because of Mom and Dad. I think he’d like to see how you’re doing, but it’s like, fine if you’re good without it.”

“When?” he asked.

“Beginning of May,” she said.

“Are you going?”

She looked away for the briefest moment. Then she said, “Yes. I suppose I might.”

“You suppose.”

“Yes. I’m going to see him.”

He stared at her. She stared back. There was a resoluteness to her words: they were unflinching and true. She was going to see Yasuaki. He could see Yasuaki if he wanted to.

“I’ll think about it,” Kiyoomi said.

…

“I mean,” Motoya said, “it wouldn’t hurt?”

“I’m busy,” Kiyoomi said.

“You were able to fit in a lunch just fine with your sister this weekend.”

He felt his expression sour. His cousin released a huff of breath, amused.

Kiyoomi had always thought that Motoya’s appearance had gone largely unchanged since they were children. He had certainly grown taller and filled out with age; he would, if just a tad shorter, likely be described as stocky, though, to Kiyoomi’s standards, he was still rather short enough as it was.

(“You are a freakish green bean. Your opinion is invalid.”)

His hair often went through the same life cycle, growing just long enough that he had to start pulling it back before he’d trim it. He had developed a taste for sneakers, though kept much of his aesthetic rather minimalist. They were alike in this sentiment, uniform not counting.

But he wore his face the same. He wore his eyes the same. Yes, certainly, he had evened out as he had gotten older, but much of that had to do with appearances. It was something that Kiyoomi often saw beyond: or perhaps, more accurately, something that wasn’t always presented to him.

And what was there in its place—the eyes, the humming beneath his breath, the way his expression relaxed when almost no one was looking—was the exact same as it had always been.

Today was meant for conditioning. They had finished up their run already, and now they were doing their cool-down lap around the school. Motoya was hyper-athletic, but cardio had never been his strong suit. He was still grabbing for his breath, walking just slightly ahead of him. It wasn't quite a smile on his face, twinkles and winks replaced by something contemplative but not strained.

Kiyoomi wasn’t sure when he started counting as almost no one. Perhaps sometime after volleyball started. Perhaps with strawberry milk.

His cousin caught his eye. The side of his mouth lifted. “I piss you off that much?”

“I’m not pissed off.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know what there is to gain from seeing him.”

“Of course you’d say something like that.”

“It’s the truth,” he said. “It’s not like—even Manami said—” Stop. Focus. “We weren’t close.”

They were making the last turn before the stretch back to the gym. There was little need to pay close attention to their surroundings; this route was ingrained painfully into his calves.

Motoya said, “Do you have to be?”

“Why would I go?”

“It’s just a lunch,” his cousin said. “Your sister is going?”

“Yes.”

“Well. I mean like, you don’t have to.”

Kiyoomi said, “So why are you being so adamant about this?”

“Adamant! Kutaragi-sensei would be proud.”

“Annoying.”

“Less points.” His cousin said: “Because I know you.”

They had returned to the gym. And Motoya was evidently feeling cooled down, given by the returning gleam to his teeth as he greeted some of their teammates.

Kiyoomi stretched. He still needed to work on his endurance. He changed and he cleaned himself up. He folded his practicing clothes up with careful precision and placed them in a nylon sack before putting them in his bag.

He couldn’t claim that he missed his brother. There would have had to be something there in the first place for him to miss something, he thought, and the bulk of their relationship was made up of blood and nothing more.

He also couldn’t say that he wasn’t curious. He was, by nature, a curious person. He technically had enough of a connection with Yasuaki—and was affected enough by his absence—to want to know what he was doing now. What he had been doing. What had changed.

Manami had passed along to him what she had learned. He was working at a call center. He was living in a shitty apartment but was hoping to move. He had been back in the city officially since last October and had been back in the country before then.

He had not been here. Kiyoomi had been here. He didn’t feel malice towards his brother—good for him—but he didn’t feel the need to usher him back into his life now that he was back. They were both essentially adults. They were not children. They didn’t have to do this song and dance.

He had an easy out. It wouldn’t exactly be a challenge to keep a meeting with his brother away from his parents, and if they somehow found out, they’d be more pissed at his brother than him, he imagined, but it was apparently a large enough ask for Manami to have mentioned it several times already. All he had to say was I don’t want to deal with this, and he could stop thinking about a lunch. The lunch.

“Hey, you two,” he heard.

He was in the gym. It was Coach Nishio. Kiyoomi was one: two was his cousin, who was chatting with Inamoto and some of the other second years.

Coach Nishio nodded his head: come here. He was smiling. His coaches generally gave him useful advice and were good at their jobs, so he listened, as did his cousin.

“I have good news,” the man said. “You want to guess?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“You’ve bought us both lottery tickets,” Motoya said.

“No,” Coach Nishio said. “Close. I got the confirmation that you two got invites to that camp in August.”

Right. That had been mentioned. It was a camp exclusively for third years—no more gifted kid camp for us, Cousin—and was clearly meant to be a hotbed of university recruitment. Apparently, there would be agents from professional teams there, as well.

“I’ve gotten word that there’s some interest in both of you,” their coach continued. “There’ll be more after the Interhigh. That’s when a lot of agents are going to consolidate their choices—well, before camp, at least. This is a fantastic opportunity.”

Kiyoomi nodded.

“I have some informational packets for you both,” Coach Nishio said, “but do you have any questions?”

Kiyoomi did. How long would it last? Would they be rooming in dorms? Would they be rooming alone or with someone else? Were they expected to interact with any of the scouts? Were they going to hold interviews? Did he know who else was slated to be there?

“No,” Coach Nishio said. “But I have some pretty good ideas. It’ll probably be a lot of familiar faces.”

Good. Bad. Unfortunate in some ways. He waited for some sort of jibe from his cousin, but it didn’t come.

No, Motoya didn’t have any questions at all.

“Sounds like a great chance,” was what he said, and his smile was gleaming not unlike an angler fish’s lure.

He also didn’t react to the holes Kiyoomi was burning into the side of his head after Coach Nishio left to go speak to Shige about the Youth Camp.

“Pretty neat,” Motoya said.

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said. What is it?

His cousin was still smiling when he turned to him. “I promised to help Kaido out with his lit work before homeroom,” he said. “But I’ll see you at lunch?”

What is it? “Okay,” Kiyoomi said.

Coach Takahama was lingering outside when he left the gym. She was trying to wash a coffee stain out of her sleeve with a water bottle. She caught his eye as he stepped out of the doors.

“Congrats,” she said, after a moment. “The camp will be good for you.”

He nodded. She nodded. She went back inside.

He ended up walking back to school that morning with Endo. They shared a homeroom. She was a refreshing conversationalist, in that she saw absolutely no need to pepper her language with platitudes or flowers.

“—and the girl’s bathroom on the third floor is blocked up again. Tough shit. Literally.”

It was better than Arakawa, at least, who tended to forget what he was saying mid-story, backtrack, and then start another tangent before he could even get back to where he left off.

Once they reached their classroom, Endo gave him a wave as she ambled over to her friends. Kiyoomi went to his desk.

…

It had started—

Well.

Had his brother’s arguments with his parents ever really started? Was there a beginning? Logically, he knew this to be the case; but they existed for as far back as Kiyoomi’s brain was capable of remembering, and as far as he was concerned, that meant there wasn't a clear, bonafide start. They just were.

They were all relatively similar memories when it came down to it. Perhaps there were a few that stuck out more than others, but there was a formula to this type of thing.

Once, Kiyoomi had been getting ready for bed when his brother got home. There were things Yasuaki was supposed to have done that day—maybe tutoring, maybe cram school, maybe school in general—and Kiyoomi exited the bathroom to hear him and their father fighting in the kitchen.

“—it’s not like I fucking learn anything useful there—”

“—do you know what we’re paying for you to go to that school?”

“—like I ever asked you to send me to that place—”

“—don’t talk back to me—”

“—you both are just desperate to control something in your lives—”

It was annoying. It was something that had reared its head enough that it wasn’t completely obstructive to his daily routines, even if it really started to rile up in the few months before Yasuaki left. But it was always that formula. Yasuaki was always looking to spark something: his parents were always willing to offer kindling. Mostly his father, to that respect.

And there was the aftermath, as well. That was often the same.

He had already washed his hands and brushed his teeth and dried his face. He was fixing the corners of his sheets in the bedroom. He could hear the conversation happening in the hallway.

“—not wrong, but do you have to push him like that?” would come his sister’s voice.

“Are you going to start too?” Yasuaki would respond, and he wouldn’t sound nearly as angry. Still pointy, but quieter: voice low and snappish.

“No. But it doesn’t accomplish anything to like… just yell, you think?”

“Yeah. Well. Respectfully disagree, I guess.”

“Yasuaki—”

“Fucking— can we like, not talk about this?”

Quiet. Then: “Are you at least going to tell me what you were doing today?”

“So you can tattle?”

“Yeah right, you fucking jerk—”

They’d both start laughing. And when Kiyoomi would peek into the hallway, it’d already be empty.

And that was just how things happened. Until they didn’t anymore.

And it wasn’t as if it would happen again, given that, even if he and his siblings were all roughly in the same place, they weren’t children who shared a hallway together.

Manami asked him if he wanted Yasuaki’s number. He had texted back am i supposed to text him? She said No, but you can if you want. The conversation moved on from there.

He had other things to be focused on, like the qualifiers for the Interhigh coming up in just short of a month. They had a minor regional tournament in a couple of weeks. It would be a good warm-up for what was to come. It would be farther north. North enough to tickle at his thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” the clerk behind the counter said, wearing a bright red shirt that was a little glaring to the senses and an apologetic face. “But there was an issue with production; we won’t be getting this month's stamps for a couple weeks.”

He tried to keep his face from twisting, likely failed, nodded, and left his name and number for if there were any updates.

Kiyoomi’s grandfather always had a letter to send. At one point, that had been true; he had still written some when he was moved into the care home, but he stopped eventually. Before that, when he was still at home, Kiyoomi would often drop his mail off for him when he started to leave the house less.

It was always the same scrawling handwriting on the envelope; always to Kazuo; always addressed to somewhere in Iwate. He had come to know that the somewhere in question was the town where his grandfather grew up.

He had never found out who Kazuo was. He had asked once, maybe twice, and his grandfather had given a nondescript grunt in response. No answers here. Another time he had simply been rather confused. Kiyoomi was too late, he imagined. Pressing his grandfather about such a thing nowadays would surely only upset him, anger him, confuse him. Nothing could be gained from confusion.

He had asked his mother. She hadn’t known: an old friend, perhaps. She had told him that it was considerate of him to run errands for his grandfather, but it wasn’t a necessary task if he didn’t want to do it.

(“Masaoka,” she had repeated. “No, I’m not familiar.”

He had searched her face for a lie, even though he knew it, too, wasn’t a necessary task. She was wearing that placid, glossy expression, but he thought he saw something poking beneath it. Resignation, perhaps. Familiarity. Used to it.

“Your grandfather has always been very private,” she said, before asking him how school was going.)

The interesting thing, of course, was that his grandfather never seemed to receive any letters from a Kazuo in return, among the stacks of membership dues and letters from retirement groups and spam. And Kiyoomi had searched for them. He thought it was only natural to be curious.

He had written the address down, once, hoping that the Internet could come to his aid: but he had found little to nothing. Just a confirmation that it was on some kind of residential street.

There was still a sticky note with that address that he kept in a folder, stored away in his desk. In case it would be useful one day, perhaps.

It was a square in his brain at the moment. A square he was using to contain all of his thoughts about his brother, about his sister, about his cousin, about third year, and about a lunch in May. It wasn’t in his nature to procrastinate—he liked efficiency, and crossing things off of his list as they arise—but there also was no need to think about such things now.

Yes. Efficiency.

Chapter Text

There were many ways to describe a lunch in May.

He could have started with the weather. They weren’t eating outside, but only because the restaurant didn’t offer the option to. He could still feel heat, searing and putrid, leaking inside whenever someone would come through the door.

Then he would have discussed the food. He liked food, didn’t he, when it was made well and didn’t upset his stomach (a small venn diagram, unfortunately). He wasn’t sure how they ended up at a sukiyaki restaurant, let alone one where they cooked for you, but here they were as an old man seared meat at the side of the table in stilted silence.

He might’ve backtracked and talked about why he even agreed to go to this lunch in the first place, but that didn’t strike him as a relevant detail. He came to lunch. His sister was going to lunch.

There was a silence hanging over the table, intercepted by beef sizzling in a pan, by other customers chatting amongst one another, by eye contact that felt distinctly unwieldy. The tang of warishita normally would have struck him as appealing. Now it felt like an intruder on his senses.

One moment, two. Or maybe it was minutes. It felt like hours.

Their meal finished cooking. The old man nodded and went on his way.

Manami moved first. The cadence of her chopsticks was jerky.

His brother was next.

It might’ve been prudent to start with the fact that Yasuaki looked like Yasuaki, and this, more than the weather, than the meat, than the man or Manami’s bulldozing, was oddly troubling.

This should’ve been monumental, he thought. In a movie, it would be a scene of critical importance; perhaps the climax in one film, or critical, plot-twisting exposition in another. But it was not.

It was midday. It was hot enough to be uncomfortable, and Kiyoomi had long since realized that there was nothing scenic about his life.

He had lost sight of his brother’s face over the years. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t for his brother to look like his brother, if only with shorter hair. He still had that resting look—dull and mean—and slouched in his seat. He was wearing a dark green button-up. The collar was pressed evenly.

“You’ve grown,” had been the first thing that his brother said to him, and he had said it in the same voice that he remembered. Perhaps it possessed more gravel, but it was Yasuaki’s.

Also troubling.

Kiyoomi had said, “You haven’t.”

And it was true, wasn’t it, even if it did seem like his brother had managed to sneak in a few extra centimeters on top of his already grating height. He had not grown, because he had once been unimaginably tall to Kiyoomi as a child, and now they were close to eye level with one another. If only with a bit of a disparity withstanding.

Yasuaki’s eyes had narrowed in response, but he hadn’t said anything more. Their server had come to the table right about then; even Manami, whose gaze had been trained on their brother since they first saw each other, had struggled to fill the air with conversation.

And then they had sat. And then they had waited. Meat had sizzled. Great service.

“A call center,” Manami said, taking a bite of cabbage. “You have a customer service voice and everything?”

“I’m sweet as can be,” Yasuaki said. He still sneered while he talked, lips twitching in a way that should have been a smile, but came off as nothing but hostile. “Surprised you don’t have your own practice yet.”

Manami was rubbing the skin of her thumb with the nail of her forefinger. It was painted a brilliant sea-foam green. The nail. Not the finger. “Haven’t gotten around to it,” was what she said. “Why the call center?”

“It’s flexible,” he said. “I thought you’d at least have taken the bar already.”

“Well, I haven’t,” she said. “Why the need for flexibility?”

“So I can do some freelance shit on the side. Why not?”

“What type of work?”

“Just some IT stuff. Why not?”

“Who knows. Sounds lucrative,” Manami said, and Kiyoomi sat there.

Half-truths flying all around. Neither seemed willing to press too hard. What was it that his sister had once said? Mutually assured destruction. Mutual. Kiyoomi sat there.

Yasuaki noticed. He couldn't tell if this was a good thing or not. 

“Seems like that volleyball thing is going well for you,” his brother said.

Kiyoomi said, “Yeah.”

“Well.” Then he said, “I’m sure the folks are proud.”

Kiyoomi said, “Yeah.”

Yasuaki’s mouth twitched.

“He’s gotten attention from some pretty big schools,” his sister said. 

“Cool,” Yasuaki said, eyes flitting away. “Super cool.”

Kiyoomi said, “Yeah.”

There was a server at the table across the aisle from them chatting amicably with his patrons about the quality of the meat he was grilling. It seemed, all around, like a more pleasant situation to find oneself in.

What had he been expecting? The moments of his childhood that the three of them shared—eating chips and peanuts—had never been planned. Perhaps that was why they had worked. Spontaneity. They were adults, now, and such a stringent attempt at conversation was wringing the life out of the air.

His brother leaned back in his chair. He said, “This is supremely fucking awkward.”

“And I’m sure that mentioning it helps,” Manami said.

“Acceptance over denial.”

“Wow. Poetic. Have you been reading poetry?”

“Why are you back?” Kiyoomi said.

This seemed to shut the both of his siblings up. That had never happened before, in all his years of existence. He felt a little gratified. Kiyoomi dipped an enoki mushroom in egg and then devoured it.

Yasuaki considered him, then. “You’ve gotten louder,” he said.

“I was always blunt,” Kiyoomi said.

“Were you?”

“Would you know?”

His brother scoffed—or maybe it was a laugh. It was some sort of noise. He didn’t quite know how to read it. “Guess not.”

“It’s not a bad question,” Manami said.

Yasuaki looked at her—then he looked at Kiyoomi—then he looked back at her. “Huh,” he said.

Manami said, “You couldn’t expect us to not ask.”

“Very lawyer-ly,” he said. Then to Kiyoomi: “You going into law, too?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said. He didn’t know why everyone kept asking.

“Bummer,” Yasuaki said.

“That’s not an answer,” he said.

“Jeez. Yeah. Not ten anymore.”

His brother’s fingers were tapping against the table. He had placed his chopsticks down. He was gnawing on his front lip. Yasuaki reached back to adjust the collar of his shirt.

“Is it really that unexpected?” his brother said.

“Pretty much,” Kiyoomi said.

“You—” Manami stopped. Her own hands were in her lap. A glass knocked against a plate nearby: her eyes darted there, then back. “It’s a pretty dramatic return.”

“Don’t feel like an email is all that dramatic.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Guess I’m just a measly call guy.”

“Which is a dramatic twist within itself.”

“Why now?” Kiyoomi said.

There it was again. They both looked at him. Manami looked back down at the table. Yasuaki cleared his throat.

“I mean,” his brother started, “you didn’t think I’d just leave forever, did you?’

Neither of them responded.

A party left. In came the sun.

“I am trying,” his brother said, voice very slow, “to get my shit figured out. And I know that I left without saying stuff, and that was— shitty. It was shitty.”

Kiyoomi didn’t have words. He didn’t think it was necessarily appropriate of him to have them, either, given his investment in Yasuaki’s leaving—or lack thereof—but when he looked over to Manami, she, too, wasn’t saying anything.

Until she said, “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you admit something like that.”

“I could,” said their brother, and there was some of that familiar steel, “prostrate on the ground for you, if you wanted.”

Steely—but maybe there was a joking bite to it, until their brother looked over at Manami, who was smiling not dissimilarly to their mother. “Maybe,” she said.

Yasuaki jerked upward in his seat, rubbing furiously at the skin of his cheeks. “Shit. No. Listen— just.”

A breath in: out. “I am trying to get things back on track,” he said. There was a rehearsed nature to it: not in that there was something particularly fake about it, but as if it was something you might tell yourself in front of the mirror each morning. Shige was into daily affirmations. “And I thought this could be. Good.”

“Good,” Manami repeated, slowly.

“Yes,” Yasuaki said. “Good. For—” Teeth clacking together. “We’re like, literally related, so I thought it’d just be. A good option. Choice.”

“Option,” Manami said.

“Yes,” Yasuaki said.

“Why now?”

It was Kiyoomi who said it. Yasuaki looked at him. His brother’s mouth opened, and then it closed.

“It seemed like a good time,” was what he said.

“How cryptic,” his sister said. “Do you have something to share?”

“No,” said Yasuaki, and there was something about the way he said it, wasn’t there. “This feels like it’s going poorly.”

“Well,” Manami said. “You’ve always been shit at thinking things through.”

She was smiling again.

But it was familiar. Unrehearsed. A hallway.

Kiyoomi looked down at where a droplet of sauce had escaped the cooking pan and dripped onto the table. He scrubbed it away.

…

The lunch with his brother was ultimately anticlimactic.

There had not been much more new information gained throughout the rest of the meal. Manami would ask about something he did while he was gone, Yasuaki would start to tell a story before backtracking, and then both would realize the intrusiveness of the conversation before trying to change the subject, which would be Manami’s career, and there was some sort of elephant in the room there, too, and so both would turn to Kiyoomi, finally, as he was, in fact, there, and he was not much of a conversationalist himself, especially when faced with so third year, huh?

“That…went,” his sister said, as they walked up the stairs of the train station.

You think? he said with his face, glancing over at her.

She ignored him. After they broke through to the surface, the sun piercing their eyes, she said, “I’m glad you were there.”

He shrugged. He didn’t want to think about the lunch more than he had to, he thought. When he looked back over to Manami, he couldn’t quite read what was on her face, and it was incredibly bothersome.

Despite the heat, he kept his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweats.

No one was home when he got back, which he was grateful for. It hadn’t been particularly hard to keep the sort-of secret of their lunch from his parents, mostly due to the fact that their conversations often weren’t lengthy in nature. Still: he felt stilted, in a way that he felt as if they might have picked up on. Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

(“Mom and Dad are. Alright?” Yasuaki had asked, very overtly not looking at either of their faces.

“They’re fine,” Kiyoomi said.

His brother, Kiyoomi thought, had seemed to want to ask more, but thought better of it.)

Yasuaki was going to talk to their parents eventually, he said—but they had not gotten into the details of it, as none of them had seemed particularly interested in them. His father would likely be upset. He could already see the twitching in his mother’s expression. On one hand, it was a conversation that he absolutely wanted nothing to do with. On the other hand, Sakusa Kiyoomi was nothing if not morbidly curious.

Put it in a box. He’d think about it another time. He had a regional tournament to prepare for.

A regional tournament. A tournament that suggested geographic constraints.

That was what he had heard Coach Nishio say: that it was going to be a small regional invitational. Good competition, but ultimately lax in its urgency. Yes: this had been told to them at practice. A regional tournament before qualifiers started.

Kiyoomi, who typically broke down his life into meticulous little details, did not enjoy being blindsided. He didn’t like feeling as if the world was getting the best of him. He stared through the window: something in his face twitched.

“Tough luck!” said Motoya. “Apparently they were a last-minute addition.”

It did not make rational sense for Inarizaki to be there. It was out of their way. Why would they make the trek up here for a single, non-consequential invitational tournament? Especially with the qualifiers starting in just a few weeks?

From the seat beside him, his cousin said, “Apparently, with Fukurodani not coming this year, they decided to extend a few extra invitations.”

There was something inherently inflammatory about the Inarizaki bus. It looked the way its players sounded: blunt, sharp, and loud.

“It’s just a bus,” Motoya said, standing.

“Oh man,” Arakawa said, leaning over the seat in front of him. “Did you hear that they got a killer new libero?”

“Get off the bus or we’re leaving you on it,” Endo called out from the front, not even visible among his teammates already crowding the aisle.

He theoretically enjoyed tournaments. They were an objective way to test his skills, barring the occasional injury, mishap, or combination of the two. But it was a place to weigh everything he had done to develop in the past few months. There was something alluring about the energy of the court, as much as he disliked the loud noises, the potent smells, and the needless, incessant need for small talk happening all around him.

He liked to win. Tournaments were a place to win.

Tournaments were a place to win and to not fraternize with otherwise annoying opponents loitering around.

“I’m telling you all here and today,” Shige announced, hands thrown into the air. “I shall find Hoshiumi, and I shall obliterate him.”

“Mark his words,” Inamoto said.

“Literally,” Shige said, still staring up at the sky. “Mark them, first years.”

Kawashima, Motoya’s little protege (once again, his words, not Kiyoomi’s), looked around, and said, “Um, I don’t have like, a pen or paper?”

“Keep it moving,” Endo said, bustling by with a couple of equipment bags thrown over her shoulder. Coach Takahama followed quickly behind her, while Coach Nishio started to herd them along like they were cattle.

It was more like a handful of scrimmages than anything. While it wasn’t at the school’s facilities, it was Kamomedai who traditionally hosted; Kiyoomi wasn’t unaware that it was a privileged circle—and a self-fulfilling one at that—but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.

There were several faces here that he’d recognize from various camps over the past few years, some more irritating than others. He could deal with it. He wouldn’t have to deal with that overzealous spiker from Fukoroudani in close quarters ever again, at least.

The gymnasium they were set up in wasn’t very large; the tournament would barely last two days, round-robin style, and there would be downtime between games. Kiyoomi valued rest. He also wasn’t the largest fan of unstructured time, particularly when it was being poised as a means to socialize and network with other players.

There were already some teams gathered around in the lobby when they entered. It made his hackles rise. It made his cousin snort. It made him regret having a cousin. It made him look around, very inconspicuously, for a particular player whom he wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

A player who was not in the lobby. Endo guided them down a hallway. A player who was also not in the hallway. They wouldn’t play until the second set of matches, so they settled into the bleachers in the meantime. Kiyoomi liked the height that the bleachers offered, even if it was annoying to find the occasional wrapper or used tissue lodged beneath a seat.

It was time to get into the right state of mind. Routine was a necessity. He would be beside himself to not follow his own guidelines for getting ready. He would stretch, he would listen to his music, he would roll out his wrists, he would shake out his hands and his feet, he would—

“Oh look,” Arakawa said, peering down and into the floor of the gym below. “They’re already getting set up.”

And Kiyoomi was morbid and he was curious, and it’s why his eyes naturally followed his teammate’s exclamation, even if he knew it would be a mistake.

And not a moment later, from where he stood like an annoying ant on the gym floor, Miya Atsumu, ball shoved beneath his arm, shouted up:

“Well look! Fashionably late, huh?”

With the awkward angle and the lighting, his single dimple—etched into the left side of his face—appeared like a deep canyon in his skin.

“I agree, senpai,” said Hoshino, who had appeared at his side. “Their cockiness is incredibly unflattering.”

“Oh, incredibly,” said Motoya, who was there on his other side, how coincidental, and Kiyoomi trudged away because he had better things to be doing.

…

His first, actual encounter with Miya Atsumu—other than hearing his name in passing or seeing his face at middle school tournaments—had been at the All-Youth camp their first year of high school.

The interaction had gone rather poorly, he thought. While Kiyoomi had been looking forward to getting to practice with some of the most skilled players in the country, he hadn’t appreciated Mizuta’s attempts to PR coach him as a reasonable manager out to do, whatever that was supposed to mean. He didn’t need to know these people. He was just interested in beating them.

Iizuna and Motoya were also there. The former had been guiding them around the facilities, before parting ways in order to catch up with some old friends. Motaya had then taken initiative to haul him over to the gym. Nothing official had started up yet, but there were already players congregated about, talking.

How horrific.

“Drama queen,” Motoya said.

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“This’ll be good.”

“Sure.”

“We get it,” his cousin said. “You’re a crow on a bird feeder. Who needs friends.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Metaphor? Analogy? Have some creativity!”

They were lingering by the doors. Motoya could poke all that he liked, but he had a propensity for observing just as much as Kiyoomi did. There was something very purposeful about the way his cousin’s eyes traveled around the gym, taking exact stock of who he would likely spend the week buttering up to.

Kiyoomi was more interested in cataloging everyone he’d need to avoid.

“This’ll be good,” his cousin said again. “And look at that.”

He inclined his head. There was a boy walking across the floor not far in front of him. His hair was an incredibly unnatural shade of yellow, his stride was purposeful and wide, and his finger was ghosting around the lip of his ear. A habit. Not a nervous tic, he’d venture, because absolutely nothing about the boy before him read as nervous.

And Motoya called out:

“Hey, Miya, right?”

For some reason.

The boy looked to them. He was very overt in his attention; it washed over both Kiyoomi in a palpable way. He sent a lingering glance to the ball cart before his pace slowed. Why.

“That’s me,” said the boy. “You two are from Itachiyama, yeah?”

“Yup,” said Motoya. “Komori— this is Sakusa. I’m excited to see you here.”

Annoyingly, it worked. Miya’s feet came to a halt, a smile curling onto his face. “Oh?” Miya said. “Am I that popular?”

“Kind of hard to miss the title of the best,” Komori said. Gross. Impressive, maybe. “I got a chance to watch a couple of your matches in middle school.”

Miya’s smile glimmered. It was dimpled—one dimple, left cheek—and too sharp for Kiyoomi’s liking. “I hope they lived up to the hype,” Miya said, in a way that very much so conveyed I know they lived up to the hype.

It didn’t matter if he was actually all that good. Kiyoomi never cared much for those who talked big about their own skills. In his opinion, actions should have spoken for themselves.

“Definitely. I’m excited to see it first-hand during camp,” said Motoya.

“Well, I’m excited to see those receives,” Miya said, and Kiyoomi had half the mind to tell them to get a room.

Motoya brightened, as he often did when he felt as if he got what he wanted. “We’ll have to pair up sometime this week.”

“For sure,” Miya said. “I look forward to it.”

And then, a group of boys were laughing ahead of them, and Kiyoomi caught sight of a short libero from Tokyo, and already felt the irritation brewing in his gut before his cousin could say, “Oh. I see a friend of mine— sorry to cut this short, but it was nice officially meeting you.”

Miya responded. Kiyoomi didn’t quite hear it. He was too busy trying to telepathically communicate his plans for righteous vengeance to his cousin.

His cousin, who turned to him so, so innocently, and said, “Catch up with you in five?”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said, hoping his eyes translated the unspoken I will set a hellstorm upon you.

Motoya smiled. You can try! it said. Then he skipped off.

Perhaps if he ignored Miya, he would just take the hint and leave. Perhaps Kiyoomi could be the one to leave. He didn’t want to do this thing—schmoozing, whatever you called it. It was vulgar and pathetic. He was here to play: nothing more.

“You’re the guy with the nasty spin, right?” he heard.

He stared. Miya was clearly sizing him up, with a large, performative smile to match.

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said.

“You actually any good?”

Blunt. Interesting. Annoying. A change in tactics. Not enough.

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said.

Miya tilted his head. He was so loud. It was like you could hear the muscles in his face move. “Is that all you can say?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

The boy snorted. “That’s chill. If you’re really that good, how about you prove it?”

Be good and make friends. Play nice. Mizuta had dyed hair herself, but her roots were always visible. I will not have you tarnishing my good name.

Kiyoomi was a lot of things, but he wasn’t an idiot—Miya Atsumu was supremely annoying, but he also was one of the most talented players of their year. It was a great connection to make.

He said, “I’m good.”

Then he turned and he left. He’d come back in twenty minutes when practice was supposed to actually start; until then, he’d go and get cleaned up and keep an eye out for Ushijima if he was around. What else would he have done?

…

Kiyoomi was still at odds with his sister. He wasn’t actually at odds with her, and that was being slightly hyperbolic, but there was clearly something that had shifted with Yasuaki’s return, and it was framing every conversation he had with Manami.

There had been no attempts to set up another lunch, but he knew there must be some sort of invitation coming. He still hadn’t asked for Yasuaki’s number. He was sure that his sister must be talking to him more now.

manami (22:04): Day go well?

They were staying at a hotel. He had stepped away from dinner early so he could have alone time in the room before Motoya, Arakawa, and Hoshino would come back in. (How he was stuck with that particular combination, he couldn’t tell you). He always hated sleeping away from home.

He sat atop his futon, staring down at his phone. There was an oscillating fan whirring nearby. His skin felt raw in the aftermath of washing his face. His hair was damp against his neck.

Kiyoomi (22:07): company leaves a lot to be desired

manami (22:07): How so?

Hoshiumi from Kamomedai was still incredibly skilled and still incredibly loud, and they didn’t even play them today. There was something criminal about Shiritsu Sakae’s defense, even if Itiachyama came out on top. Inamoto was good, but he was still growing into Iizuna’s shoes. It was imperative to know their flaws, but that didn’t make their appearance any less grating.

There were many things he could have replied with. A laundry list. Ever expanding.

Kiyoomi (22:09): inarizaki is here

manami (22:09): Which one is that

manami (22:09): Nvm I’ll look it up

manami (22:10): Wait oh haha oh no

Kiyoomi (22:10): it’s not funny

manami (22:11): Yes of course not

manami (22:11): Did you play against them today

Kiyoomi (22:11): no

manami (22:11): Well it’s something to look forward to then 🙂

Kiyoomi (22:11): i’m not looking forward to it

manami (22:12): Okay

Kiyoomi (22:13): they made him captain for some reason. i don’t know why. it doesn’t matter how talented he is when nine times out of ten it’s his team needing to put him into check rather than the other way around. and his twin is vice captain. it’s inconceivable

manami (22:13): Oh definitely

Kiyoomi (22:14): and he’s gotten even more arrogant as if he didn’t lose because of an avoidable mistake in january. the title has gotten to his head. his serve has improved and it may be impressive but that’s really it and it’s not good enough to warrant such a big head.

manami (22:15): It sounds like it

Kiyoomi (22:15): i’m just pointing it out

manami (22:15): For sure. You’ll have to shove it to him when you play them tomorrow

Kiyoomi (22:16): he’s frustrating

manami (22:16): Very frustrating

manami (22:16): The most frustrating?

Kiyoomi (22:17): yes

manami (22:17): Hahaha

So incredibly frustrating. With that stupid, stupid dimple.

It wasn’t long after that that his cousin came barging in, followed by Arakawa and an enthusiastic-looking Hoshino.

“Good brooding?” Motoya said, before ducking into the bathroom.

“Not brooding,” Kiyoomi said, and his cousin’s laugh echoed through the closed door.

“Big day tomorrow,” Arakawa said, flopping face down onto the futon to his left.

Kiyoomi had chosen the futon at the end so that he’d only have to deal with one neighbor. A neighbor he had anticipated to be his cousin. Hoshino looked slightly disappointed with his own futon, a whole two spots away.

Voice muffled, Arakawa continued, “Good day today.”

It had been, objectively. A victory was a victory. He still would have preferred it to be cleaner. There was always room for improvement.

“There’s definitely stuff to work on, but just like, enjoy the success as you can, right?” Arakawa said. Still face down, arms straight at his side.

Kiyoomi said, “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah. But it’s all kind of in the—”

Arakawa waved a hand around the space above his skull. Face-down. Still.

“You aren’t looking at me,” Kiyoomi said.

“I can feel it, though. Vibes. You know?”

“Your spin was like, so on point today,” Hoshino piped up, from the futon right next to Arakawa’s, and he could hear Motoya laugh from the bathroom.

…

The game against Inarizaki happened. There wasn’t much to be said about it: not anymore than any other game. They won, but only barely, and after losing a set. It was slightly infuriating, but not nearly as much as their opponents themselves.

Motoya liked to indulge in their banter for whatever reason. He enjoyed seeing if he could receive Miya’s serves—blond, annoying-er Miya, naturally, though they were both bad, and he only made the distinction because this Miya was more annoying—and that seemed to be a particular irritant for their opponent.

On one hand, Kiyoomi would always revel in such a fact; on the other, he would never not question why his cousin was engaging with them in the first place.

They were there to play. That’s what Kiyoomi did: play. And when he sent a spike spinning across the court, scoring just before the outline, he was subsequently satisfied. If the curse that Miya Atsumu released in response caused something to pinch at his insides, it was because of said satisfaction, and nothing more.

When they were shaking hands and Kiyoomi was keeping a reasonable distance from the net after giving an obligatory shake to one member of the other team, Miya—who was giving a begrudging shake to Arakawa—called out:

“Hey prince charming—just know we’re comin’ for ya at Nationals.”

It wasn’t just the accent that caused the angles in his voice to bite at the sound waves in the air: it was the demeanor, the timbre, the volume. Loud, loud, loud. Annoying.

Kiyoomi ignored him. He also ignored Motoya’s guffaw. He also didn’t think about why the fuck he’d say prince charming. Itachiyama beat Inarizaki at Nationals. They won Nationals. Kiyoomi had emerged out of their game victorious, so there was no reason for any of this.

They ended up losing a single match across the whole tournament, and it was just enough for Kamomedai to slide into first place. It wasn’t as if this was a competition with any real weight, but it was another part of May to feel put out by, maybe.

“This was a valuable experience,” Coach Nishio said when they were gathered together at the end of the day. “We got some good insight into some of our top competitors.”

Coach Takahama was holding a spiral notebook. It was likely bought from the dollar store, yet it occupied the space in a tangible way.

“...there’s a lot to say,” she said. Her fingers tapped against its cover. “And to improve upon. But it can wait until we’re back.”

They went to dinner; they drove home that night. Hoshino tried to sit next to him on the bus, but his cousin stepped in at just the right moment.

“You’re welcome,” Motoya said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “Prince charming.”

“Stop.”

His cousin laughed.

Motoya was always a little wired at the very end of the day. More on edge and yet looser in his speech, if that were possible. “Think we’ll win?” he said when they had started onto the road.

It wasn’t egregiously late by any means, but the darkness painting the sky outside was enough to put some of their teammates to sleep.

“We’ll just play,” Kiyoomi said.

“Very wise. Guess we already have a title. If that’s enough.”

He liked winning. It felt good to win. He liked seeing the fruits of his labor come to fruition. It would be a lie to say he didn’t want to win.

It seemed like a natural conclusion. He thought of what might greet him at the end of his third year, and he thought of Iizuna’s pain-stricken face at the Spring Nationals just how many months prior.

“We’ll have two chances,” was what he said. “We’ll just have to see what happens.”

January still felt far away. March even more so, even if it was starting to become inappropriate to claim that it was a year off at this rate.

Motoya said, after a beat of silence, “Are you going to see your brother again soon?”

Kiyoomi frowned. He saw his own face in the reflection of the window beside him. A frown on Arakawa looked mopey; on Coach Takahama it looked contemplative. On him, it was sharp and sour, eyebrows furrowing and mouth pursing thin.

“Why bring that up?” he said.

Motoya had opened his eyes, but he was looking out into the bus’s aisle. “It’s kind of relevant, don’t you think?”

“To volleyball.”

“No, to your life.”

“We weren’t talking about my life.”

“Since when do you do anything outside of this?”

“I have hobbies. We’ve already talked about this.”

“No,” Motoya said. “You’ve skirted around it.”

“We were talking,” Kiyoomi said, and perhaps he was affected by the end of the day too, tired and pointed, “about the tournament.”

“And now we’re not.”

He shoved on his headphones. “No, we’re not.”

…

Most of his memories of his brother causing trouble and getting punished for said trouble blended together. There were a few in particular that stood out. There was one in particular that stood out, in the spring of the same year that Yasuaki left, when the neighborhood’s flower bushes had started to bloom and Kiyoomi had started a new year of school.

He had awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of voices. It had left his heart thumping in his chest, staring up at the swirls that formed in the darkness of his ceiling, before the confirmation that yes, they were real voices, coming from outside of his room and not from a nightmare in his skull.

It was his mother for once. He was too tired to even try to be sneaky, opening his door and peering outside in the hallway. What were you thinking? came ratcheting up the steps. Do you have any idea how this could have gone? How this could go?

He wasn’t alone. It was dark, but he could see his sister there, at the top of the stairs. The lights from the kitchen were traveling far enough to crawl across her face.

His door creaked. Her eyes snapped over. Sitting there in her pajamas, Manami looked, he thought blearily, a little sickly, like one of the posters from the nurse’s office.

Then she said: “Kiyoomi, go back to your room.”

He was tired. The comment woke part of him up. “What’s going on?” he said.

It’s not even my fault, came up his brother’s voice. I was only in the passenger seat, anyways—

Are you still drunk?

“Go back,” she said.

You’re lucky your father knows—

Like I even give a shit—

“Why?” he said.

Footsteps clamoring up the stairs. His brother: angry, stomping, and tugging on his hair. Manami’s mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything; especially not when Yasuaki breezed right by her. His door slammed shut. So did her mouth. She was still on the floor.

His mother came up the stairs then, too. She was wearing her pajamas. Her hair, for once, was loose around her face, wavy and unfettered. There was something pinched and angry and there in a way that immediately put him on edge, a chill clutching at his insides.

“Don’t slam your door,” she snapped. “We’re not done talking.”

And then she saw Manami sitting there, and then she saw Kiyoomi standing there, and she said: “Go to your rooms.”

Manami said, “But—”

“No,” said their mother, and there was a hard, impenetrable edge to her voice. “Go to your room, and go to bed.”

“But—”

A door down the hall opened, around the corner. “What is this?” came his grandfather’s voice.

Downstairs, his mother’s phone started ringing.

She rubbed at her face. “Nothing,” she bit out. The ringer blared. It shook his brain in his head. “Dad, it’s nothing.” Her shoulders were forming a taut line.

“Mom—”

“Manami, not now. Go to your room.”

His sister, who had slowly risen, was clutching at her pajama shorts. She looked as if there was more she wanted to say, but she finally just scoffed, turned on her heel, and went back to her room. His grandfather was starting to grumble about something—trying to sleep through all of your damn yelling—and Kiyoomi was still there, and his mother looked down at him.

She took in a breath, and she released it. And, leaving little room for argument, she simply said: “Kiyoomi.”

There was a lump lodged into his throat. He darted back into his room, but he didn’t immediately go back to bed. There were still conversations happening outside his room until he would, but the words were too muffled to hear.

It wasn’t his fault. Why was his mother upset with him? It was clearly Yasuaki’s fault. Or Manami’s fault. Kiyoomi had just poked his head out. There wasn’t any reason for his mother to speak to him with such a harsh voice. This is what he told himself, falling asleep with a deep, sweltering anxiety gripping at his chest.

The next morning had clearly been off. But his mother was perfectly back in place. He had asked about what had happened, and she had told him, too quickly and too sternly, that it had been a long night, hadn’t it been. She had been smiling.

No one would ever tell him explicitly what had happened that night, but he figured it out in pieces. His father had been particularly angry this time around, especially since he had to drag his friend, who was a lawyer or something, into it. Yasuaki had really gotten into big trouble this time. Well, he was going to, maybe, but it seemed like it was only a threat of trouble: a warning, he had overheard, you’re so lucky that your father—

In looking back, it was a clear, direct start to what would eventually happen that summer. It started long before that, of course, but he could see, with older eyes, how Yasuaki had wound up tighter and tighter in those months leading up to his departure.

He remembered his sister’s fruitless voice, coming from the hallway while he was working at his desk, will you just talk to me? Please?, and he remembered the sound of a door slamming.

…

So Yasuaki was back in the city. Nice for him. He seemed to be getting things back in order, and on an objective level, Kiyoomi could… congratulate him for that, if it ended up being legit. They were connected by blood, and they were connected by a name and a handful of shared memories—a house they both grew up in—but like he had been saying over and over again, there wasn’t any need to pretend they had actually had any type of relationship.

They had a sister in common, maybe.

It was dinner this time. There still wasn’t much more to say about it. Motoya could claim that he was being obtuse all that he wanted, but it was, to be frank, the truth. It wasn’t a fragility gripping the conversation, or tentativeness, because since when were any of them tentative, but there was a flimsiness, maybe. Small talk and work is good and perhaps remember that time—

Awkward. It was awkward. Contrary to popular belief, Kiyoomi wasn’t oblivious to when a social interaction was running amok, by traditional standards. He normally just didn’t care. He didn’t care in this case, either, other than the fact that it was uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to deal with it.

There were times, at least, when he’d make eye contact with his brother—his brother—across the table, and it seemed that he was experiencing the same thing. It spurred emotions that were partly gratifying and partly disheveled.

It had just been a dinner. What more was he supposed to say?

Manami was sitting on the couch next to him. No one else was home but them. His sister and their parents typically had a cordial if not distant if not boring conversation when they encountered one another. Their mother, for one, seemed to recognize that his sister was no longer a teenager, and yet she could not fully reconcile with such a fact. They often ended up speaking in stilted abstractions and overly polite small talk. She still commented on her hair.

“I know you’re busy,” his sister said, fiddling with her bangs. “With all of your games coming up.” He didn’t know how it had come back to this. “I’m grateful.”

“Have you been speaking to him?” he said.

“I have,” she said.

“Have you seen him?”

“You would know the answer to that.”

“Without me there.”

She paused. Then she said, “Once or twice. But we’re both busy enough people, believe it or not.”

He didn’t frown. No: he picked up the remote. “This is why I don’t watch things with you,” was what he said. “You interrupt.”

“You pick weird movies.”

“They’re meaningful.”

“Meaningfully weird.”

“If you don’t want to watch them,” he snapped, “you can just go.”

“Well,” she said, leaning over to try to ruffle his hair, and he was literally seventeen, “I do want to, ruffian. Just let me powder my nose before starting it again.” And then she made a break for it before he could respond.

He rolled his eyes. Head tilted back, he watched the ceiling fan whirl, and he scowled.

Qualifiers were just about to start. Practice was centered around Coach Takahama’s notebook. Her handwriting was essentially illegible, and she had a bad habit of writing with pens that smudged across the side of her hand. The feedback was an endless sea of ink.

Comments ranged from angles to take against specific teams, to gaps in defense and new plays for offense, to notes on posture, form, and technique. There was a particular practice where she spent twenty minutes having Motoya adjust his stance by the millimeter without a ball even present: you’re falling back into old habits, she said, and even from across the gym, he had been able to see the frustrated twitch of his cousin’s fingers.

(“There’s not much more I can help you refine with technique,” was what she said to him. “There’s more to do there, but I would say it’s in your best interest to prioritize conditioning.”

It came back to stamina, naturally. Annoying.

“Ah,” she said, catching his expression. “Yes. Well. Not the most fun. Sorry.”)

Kiyoomi was not concerned with qualifiers, and he didn’t think it was a particularly egotistical position to hold. Fukourdani had traditionally been their largest competition in the past, and while that setter of theirs—captain, now—was rather tricky, the team lacked much of its bite without its previous third years around.

Kutaragi-sensei was unimpressed that he had to miss several tutoring sessions for practice. She made up for it with a rather vicious set of practice exams, centered primarily around statistics. When he walked into the lobby after the fact, Urara, waiting as she typically did, snorted.

“I’ve heard you’ve been an irresponsible student,” she said, tucking a tube of lotion into her bag. Her smile punched through the air like eucalyptus and mint.

“I’m busy,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “It sounds like it. You don't want to fall behind.”

“Yes,” he said.

She stood, smoothing down her pants. “Goodbye,” she said.

There was always a light bulb flickering at the video rental store. The windows up front were plastered from top to bottom in posters; the room was dim and secretive.

“Do we think the CGI in this will be good bad or bad bad?” Motoya said, peering down at a fantasy movie from the 80s.

Kiyoomi shot a look to the lightbulb. “Does it matter?” he said.

“Yeah,” his cousin said, shoving the DVD case under his arm to carry. “Probably not. Did I tell you that my stepdad managed to find that one VHS tape finally?”

Onishi-san’s adult son—visiting that week, apparently—was out walking Ran. The dog yipped from the other side of the street. The son sent him a wary look, before tugging on the leash. George’s tail still wagged. One day.

June clung to his skin.

…

Perhaps the standards for dinner had always been dubious.

It was rare for them all to be home at this time nowadays. Kiyoomi was older, and he was the only child under their roof anymore; it made sense that they’d take advantage of his independence. The independence had always been there, naturally. Maybe it just felt more pointed now that Manami had moved out.

His parents sat across from him. His father showed his age more than his mother did; the wrinkles were more noticeable, and his glasses had surely left dents in his skin after decades of use. His hair was starting to gray.

“Kutaragi-san said you’re doing appropriate work,” his father said.

He took a bite before he said anything. Mackerel wasn’t his favorite, but it wasn’t his least favorite, either. “I’ve been studying,” Kiyoomi said, when his mouth was no longer full.

His father nodded.

His mother nodded.

Kiyoomi nodded.

“Are you planning on playing past the first term?” his father asked.

It was a question, but it was a statement all the same. A preconceived answer—a desired outcome—laced through his words. A Sakusa’s rhetoric was cutting and presumptuous.

Maybe he was talking out of his ass. Kiyoomi said, “I don’t think it would be to my detriment not to.”

“You have,” said his mother, leaning forward in her chair, “quite a busy year ahead of you.”

He nodded again. There was an inherent rarity prescribed to their undivided attention. Novel. A vintage DVD that had to be special ordered.

“We just worry,” she said. “We had just talked about high school.”

They had. When he first started at Itachiyama—around the same time when his parents became aware of his prestige in the sport. Extracurriculars were expected, but ones of enrichment—enhancement. It had been a lucky coincidence that Manami quite enjoyed calligraphy.

Just high school. Don’t let it distract you from your studies.

”There’s a camp over the summer,” he said. “There’s going to be college scouts there. Including from Waseda.”

His father’s eyes narrowed. His mother’s lips pursed thin. It was, perhaps, a success in some ways. Relative to other options.

He easily could’ve derailed the conversation. His parents were smart; they’d recognize a diversion, but if it was distracting enough, it wouldn’t matter.

Yasuaki’s in town, he could have said. I’ve talked to him. He’s here.

There was supposed to be another get-together soon, at Manami’s apartment. She had texted him about it the day before.

Kiyoomi ate his nanohana.

His father said, “You shouldn’t rely on an offer to get into Waseda.”

“I know,” Kiyoomi said. And then, “Aunt Erika has been talking to the agents that have been reaching out.”

It inspired another twitch in his mother’s mouth. He might’ve been pushing it too far with that. Motoya and his family were a bit of a diversion in their own right; his parents had never discouraged his friendship with his cousin, but from everything he had seen, his father and his aunt had a rather stiff relationship.

(Kiyoomi liked his Aunt Erika, though she could be rather overbearing at times. Motoya got his Motoya-isms from somewhere.)

It presented an obstacle in conversation. And, like hypothetically talking about his brother, they were certainly not oblivious to its intentions. He wondered, sometimes, if they were split between being proud for such a thing or annoyed that they were on the receiving end of it.

But oddly enough, his father just sighed. He rubbed at the skin beneath his eyes, and he lifted his chopsticks. He probably wouldn’t talk for the rest of dinner.

He looked particularly old, then.

His mother said, “We’ll be talking at conferences about this.”

There were more stances to take, naturally. It was a marketable skill. It looked good on a resume. Certainly, it had to be good for networking, especially with the growing prominence of social media. Everyone was connected to everyone.

Just high school. Just university.

“I know,” he said.

…

Kiyoomi was sitting on Manami’s couch when his brother walked in. Her apartment was an over-glorified matchbook, and when she let in Yasuaki, it felt as if they were already stepping onto each other’s toes. It was apparently his first time visiting.

“Nice place,” he said.

Her furniture was rather nondescript. She had snagged an old rug, shaggy and orange, from a friend of hers who was moving, and it clashed with everything else in the room. It clashed with them. It did not, apparently, clash with Manami, who had always commented on the fact that she liked its color.

“Awe-inspiring and specific,” she said. “Shoes.”

“Yeah, I know. The degree’s made you more annoying.”

“Verbose, you mean.”

“Annoying. Yeah.” Yasuaki caught sight of him sitting there, on the couch. “Hey,” he said, after a moment.

Kiyoomi nodded.

“Shoes,” Manami said.

Yasuaki rolled his eyes.

Once or twice, she had said. She and Yasuaki had seen each other once or twice. After work. A dinner. Relatively short, all things considered, she had explained. She had Yasuaki’s number if he wanted it. She could give him his if he wanted.

There was no meal to occupy them all this time, other than the popcorn Manami had made, as apparently that was an adequate snack for a gathering such as this one. He still didn’t like the residue that it left on his skin, but his fingers didn’t want to sit still.

It was stilted and awkward. Being there, in that room. Sitting next to his brother, who still looked like his brother. His hair was still short. He was still tall. Today he was wearing another button-up shirt, untucked, gray. He was wearing a watch. Kiyoomi could not remember if his brother used to wear a watch, but it seemed like something new and disruptive. His brother, closer to thirty than not, not a teenager, wearing a watch.

“—not the sharpest guy, but he’ll never forget a citation. Makes reviewing briefs a breeze.”

Manami was not particularly chatty. None of them were. She and him weren’t, and he was assuming the same for Yasuaki. She was the one making most of the conversation, sitting on one of the dining table’s chairs. Kiyoomi was eating popcorn and thinking about the politics of the sci-fi movie he had watched the previous night, or qualifiers coming up, or the furrow between Motoya’s eyebrows at practice. Yasuaki was looking around the apartment, rubbing at his chin. 

They talked about work, they talked about school, they talked briefly about a shared childhood memory before skirting around it. This wasn’t supposed to last very long. They were all busy people. He had homework to get to.

It wasn’t just awkward, it was absurd. Two months ago, if you would have told him he’d be sitting there with the both of his siblings, he wouldn’t have believed it. Surreal, perhaps. Like one of those abstract storylines that teetered on the edge between reality and non-reality, that redefined what reality was really supposed to be.

The bowl of popcorn had depleted. It brought forth a looming silence. After a moment, Manami grabbed the bowl, stood, and walked over to the kitchen, which was really more of a kitchenette essentially in the same room.

“Your like, big tournament thing is coming up, right?”

He looked over. Yasuaki wasn’t looking back.

“Yeah,” he said. “Qualifiers.”

“You feeling good about it?”

“Fine.”

His brother’s leg was bouncing. “I saw an interview of you online.”

He felt his expression twist. He wasn’t interested in talking to most strangers, let alone those who held microphones or tried to goad him into dropping any provocative answers. They were talking about high school volleyball. He often found himself wondering where a given interviewer's life had led them, to be trying to stir up drama in the realm of high school volleyball.

(Motoya liked interviews.)

“It was pretty fucking weird. I was like, that’s my brother. Didn’t think you’d be that good. Not like—” The microwave beeped. “It was just weird.”

Where were you when you saw it? What were you doing? How long ago? Were you in the city when you saw it? The country? What did you think I’d end up being like?

“Manami said you and Motoya tear shit up.”

Hmm, was what Kiyoomi said. Manami returned with another bowl.

Little details poked through the surface of their voices: Yasuaki once had a group of friends in a horrible, horrible band. Manami interned with a firm overrun with scandals of affairs and infidelity between its lawyers—a story he already had heard before, he felt the need to acknowledge. Kiyoomi went to the video store that week.

Onishi-san was still nosy. The street still collected rain in the gutter. Do you remember the time in middle school when the stage at the cultural festival nearly caved in—

He pulled out a towelette from his bag and wiped down his hands.

Yasuaki’s phone buzzed. He looked down at its screen with a terse expression.

“What is it?” Manami said.

“Nothing,” Yasuaki said. “I gotta get going soon.”

He didn’t make any move to stand.

“Okay,” Manami said, “but what is it?”

“Why do you think there’s something?”

“Because you’re obvious.”

“I’m just sitting here.”

“Which is rather suspicious.”

“What is it?” Kiyoomi asked.

There was still a mystery. Yasuaki was in the city, he was working at a call center, he wore button-down shirts, he was making a concerted effort to see the two of them and hadn’t made an inclination that he was bolting anytime soon. A few stories from his time away had emerged, but only the few, and only the few he had chosen to tell.

“So,” Yasuaki said, and he shifted his posture, shoulders wary and hostile.

Manami’s lips pursed together, but she didn’t say anything.

“I wanted to run something by you both.”

“Okay,” she said. “Ominous.”

“It’s not ominous. Holy fuck.”

“The tension is severe.”

“You’re making it worse.” Yasuaki said, “I was seeing someone.”

It was not what Manami had expected, given the way she paused. It had not been what Kiyoomi expected, either. He tried to imagine the type of person that Yasuaki would. See.

“Oh, well. Congrats, I guess,” Manami said.

“You said was,” Kiyoomi said.

A beat. “Yes,” Yasuaki said. “We’re still—it’s complicated.”

“Okay,” Manami said. “Ominous.”

“Complicated, not ominous.”

Yasuaki stopped. It was ominous. Or something. In his memories, Yasuaki was always like a fishing line being reeled in, tension growing tighter with each day that passed. He saw it now: crooked and misshapen.

After another beat of silence, Manami said, lighthearted, “You’re not going to tell us that you’ve gotten married, are you? No: eloped, wouldn’t it be.”

His brother scowled. “No.”

“Divorced, perhaps. Have you gotten divorced?”

“I was never married,” Yasuaki said. “What do you think I’ve been doing?”

“I’m only following the expectations you’ve set for yourself. No elopement, no divorce,” said Manami. And then she said, “You haven’t gotten someone pregnant, have you?”

…

“Oh,” Manami said.

Such an obnoxious, obtrusive rug, sitting beneath their conversation. Their brother was staring at it. He was trying to say something, but nothing was coming out.

His sister sat up in her chair. “Yasuaki,” she said.

“It’s like, a mutual effort, you know,” he said. “Not like I did it on my fucking own.”

“Are you serious?” Manami said.

“I am obviously joking. Yeah. For sure.”

“Yasu—”

“No, I’m not joking.”

Their brother was hunched over in his seat. Barbed wire instead of fishing line, perhaps. Manami’s posture was pin-straight, and her eyes were wide, and her hair seemed particularly unruly around her face. Her hands would raise to fidget with her necklace or earrings before aborting their movements, as if not sure what to even do.

And Kiyoomi was— well.

Yasuaki had gotten someone pregnant.

Yasuaki was telling them that he had gotten someone pregnant, which indicated that it was going to maintain a relevancy in his life. It, being the pregnancy. It, being a theoretical child. Theoretically. That’s what came at the end of a pregnancy, wasn’t it. It’s complicated.

Manami said, “How?”

Their brother shot her a Look. Annoyingly, one that she did seemed to be affected by, shoulders clenching and embarrassment leaking into her features. 

“Not—holy fuck. Was it—were you— trying?”

“No, oh my god, this is so awkward,” said his brother. “No, it wasn’t on purpose. And we’re not— Kanae and I were never really together, and we’re not like, now, or anything, but we’re making it work.”

“So you’re—”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to have—

“Yes.” And while it was snappish and sharp, it was also a little wry, he thought. Self-deprecating. If that was even possible. 

The pipes in Manami’s apartment building were loud. You could hear them groaning in the walls: the upstairs neighbor must have been using the shower. He wondered if they were rusted. He wouldn’t doubt it.

“Congrats,” Manami said. “I guess.”

“Thanks,” Yasuaki said, running a hand through his hair. He might have been keeping it short, Kiyoomi thought then, to hide how often he touched it.

“When did you find out?” Kiyoomi asked.

Yasuaki stared at him for a moment, before saying, “April.”

“Is that,” he said, flexing his hands, “why you’re doing this?”

I am trying to get things back on track. Here they were.

“I mean, it was—” Yasuaki said, sitting up. “It wasn’t—”

He didn’t finish.

“So—December?” Manami said, after a moment. “Is it going to be December?”

“January,” Yasuaki said.

“January,” Manami repeated, still looking as if she were sitting on the top of the stairs. “You’ll have a—”

She couldn’t finish either.

“Yeah,” Yasuaki said, and he wasn’t looking at either of them.

No one seemed to have anything more to say. Kiyoomi, for one, couldn’t even find a voice for the questions poking holes in his brain, burning and festering. The apartment felt smaller than it actually was.

“It’s a major part of my life,” Yasuaki said, and there it was again, the same as their lunch. A well-practiced cadence, as if he had rehearsed the lines already. “So I wanted you to know. You can do with that as you will.”

Another moment passed.

“Mom and Dad will be pissed,” said Manami.

He couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a joke or a warning.

Either way, Yasuaki laughed. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I’m pretty used to that.”

…

It would not leave his thoughts. He had other things to be thinking about. He could not stop thinking about it. Kiyoomi was not oblivious to how obsessive and cyclical his ruminating could be, but it felt as if this was on an entirely different level. He did his homework, he walked to school, he practiced his spikes, and Yasuaki was going to have a kid, in theory, by January.

Kanae was a… friend of his, so he had said, and they had technically known each other for a couple years. Much of the details were not shared. He didn’t really need or want to know them. She had found out she was pregnant in April. They had no plans to fake a serious relationship or whatever the fuck, his brother had said. They were making it work.

(Yes, their parents were going to be pissed off.)

It was all connected. He had been in the country—in the city—for a good few months. He found out in April. He emailed Manami. He was trying to get things back on track: good for him.

Perhaps it was a compelling story. Spurred forward by what would be required of— fatherhood in his near future, Yasuaki was getting all of his ducks in a row. He had two siblings in the city whom he hadn’t spoken to in a serious capacity in years. Only now did he try in earnest.

It went unspoken not to say anything to his parents about this. Yasuaki had mentioned, rubbing at his neck and looking away, that he’d prefer if Kiyoomi didn’t tell Motoya in the meantime either. Manami said you two are close, was what he had said.

Motoya also wasn’t stupid, so when Kiyoomi was particularly reticent about their—gathering? Did it qualify as a gathering when it felt much more significant?—he clearly could tell that something was amiss.

“I told you,” Kiyoomi said, when his cousin had swung around at the beginning of lunch. “I can’t tell you about it.”

Motoya was leaning against the empty desk in front of Kiyoomi’s. “Can’t,” he said, and he hadn’t opened his milk yet. “Or won’t?”

“Can’t,” Kiyoomi said. “What do you think?”

“You’re being prickly. It’s suspicious.”

“I’m always prickly.”

“And self-aware. It’s concerning.”

His cousin was smiling. Coach Takahama was still working with him on posture during practice, and it seemed to be getting beneath his skin in a way that he wouldn’t admit to, and in a way that usually didn’t happen. His shirt was untucked and seemingly lax, despite the fact that Kiyoomi knew he had likely meticulously styled it in that way.

Motoya was nosy by nature. He liked to pretend he wasn’t. He didn’t like being left out of things, especially when you’re dangling them over my head like this, which Kiyoomi most definitely wasn’t doing, and especially when something still seemed to be putting him on edge.

“Aren’t you meeting with your band friends today?” Kiyoomi said.

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“You’d leave soon enough either way.”

“I’m a busy guy,” said his cousin, pushing himself off of the desk. “I expect details soon.”

Pickled cucumbers left a residual tang in his mouth for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t even May anymore when the May stamps came in. Kiyoomi picked them up from the post office along with the new ones for June. The assisted living facility had a group event that morning—to the movies, however ironically—but his grandfather, who was apparently not feeling well that day, had sat out.

He was in somewhat of a grumpier mood than usual. Which wasn’t saying much, to be fair. He still accepted the stamps as he usually did, and he was still watching the news.

“—temperatures are set to skyrocket in the coming months, experts warn—”

Kiyoomi thought of his siblings. He thought of his cousin. He thought of third year, and what came after that. He thought of August. There’d be Nationals, then that camp, and then the briefest break—only a week or so—before everything would truly start up again.

“I need to send a letter,” his grandfather said, watching the TV.

He thought of that post-it note in his desk, of the address of an unknown place and an unknown person, and of all the traveling his brother must have done when he was away.

Chapter Text

Kiyoomi had ultimately liked the Youth Camp, barring its obvious drawbacks.

He didn’t like some of the other players there. He didn’t like how some of the second-years were attempting to haze some of the first-years, mostly because it made them seem more pathetic than if they just acted normally. He didn’t like how Motoya and Iizuna kept trying to make him talk to people, even if they lightened up on it eventually. Motoya because he knew better than to push; Iizuna because he grew rather distracted by talking to his camp friends.

Kiyoomi talked to some people. And by people, he mostly meant Ushijima, and not just because of whatever Motoya liked to rib him about. He had plenty of wisdom when it came to talking about playing strategies. Other than that, Ojiro was normal enough, but his association with his teammates was a little dubious.

Case in point:

“That spin’s just fuckin’ wicked, huh?”

Miya Atsumu’s face was blurred by the net between them. It wasn’t any less annoying. The whistle blew; Kiyoomi walked away before Miya could continue to run his mouth. They were scrimmaging, and while the game itself was proving to be incredibly satisfying—to play with only the best—some of the other players left much to be desired.

A timeout had been called, though perhaps that was too formal a phrase to even use. A water break, more like. It was the end of the day, most of them were exhausted yet no less incensed, and trying to corral more than a few big personalities was proving to be a challenge.

One of the camp coaches was talking about formation and pacing. Kiyoomi was listening. He was also ignoring the rather loud conversion happening across the court. Allowing Hoshiumi and Miya to be on the same team seemed like a grave mistake. He also certainly didn’t want either of them on his team. It was a lose-lose situation.

Other than that—though it was a large That to overlook—yes, he could say the camp was going decently. His parents weren’t quite sure how to interpret it. He had told them that Coach Takahama said it would be a good opportunity. There would be connections there to make that wouldn’t just be constrained to volleyball. Several of the coaches there had roots in various prestigious programs and universities. Just high school.

The break ended. They settled back onto court, the other team doing the same, if only taking their time. It tracked. Motoya caught his eye across the net and smiled. Innocuously. Which also tracked. How irritating.

“Your teammate,” he heard, “makes things interesting.”

Kiyoomi glanced over. Ushijima wasn’t looking at him. He was rolling out his shoulders.

While even Motoya had issues with receiving Ushijima’s serves (and spikes, and everything tangentially related), far and above, he seemed to be one of the best in the league when it came to meeting him step for step. Kiyoomi’s playing style was centered around a strong defense, but not even he could match up to his cousin’s abilities. Motoya’s greatest skill, Kiyoomi thought, was observation. He didn’t think most other people noticed how much Motoya watched.

“He was hoping to play against you this week.” Kiyoomi said, “So was I.”

It was exhilarating to play alongside him, certainly—and to additionally watch him play up close without having to be preoccupied with trying to beat him. But the most exhilarating—the most fulfilling—the most satisfying, Kiyoomi thought, was a true test of skill, when they were positioned directly opposed from one another.

“Hmm,” Ushijima said. When Kiyoomi glanced over, he was smiling, maybe, edges serrated. He said, “Me too.”

Connections. Good connections.

Kiyoomi flexed his hands and forced himself to focus on the game starting.

…

His grandfather grew up in Ichinohe, Iwate and moved north when he was thirteen after his uncle had promised a job for his father in the steel industry. It wasn’t until he was in his early twenties and already doing economic consulting for an architecture firm in Hokkaido that it was recommended he move to Minato in Tokyo for work. He bounced around the metro, but he never left after arriving and spoke very little about his life before the city.

Kiyoomi’s grandmother had passed away not long before Yasuaki was born. She was not spoken about by his mother or his grandfather and appeared in photos with a solemn brow. Kiyoomi had an uncle on this side of the family that he had never met, and who similarly was never talked about. He was alive, as far as he could tell.

(His father had a sister in his aunt Erika. His grandparents on that side had moved out to the suburbs in their older age, and were technically also alive, though they were, as fate would see it, also spoken about infrequently.)

It would take the good part of the day and a transfer to get to Ichinohe by train. He would probably split it between two days to break up the transit, so he’d need to find a hotel or inn to stay in for the night. He could pack his meals, as well as plan ahead to figure out exactly where he’d eat within the town itself.

Kiyoomi didn’t like traveling. He didn’t like sleeping away from home. He didn't like prolonged social interactions with people he didn’t want to be talking to, and he valued his alone time. 

A road trip, his sister had once said on the phone. An outing.

The gap between the third-year camp and the first round of prelims for the spring nationals was just two weeks, if anything. Yet it would be an easy thing to fit those two days in. While they hit the ground running with practice in the immediate lead-up to qualifiers, Coach Takahama valued a handful of days of rest before they delved into the thick of things.

He had no idea who Masaoka Kazuo was, or why his grandfather still thought about sending him letters, or why those letters were never sent back. He wasn’t sure if this would be a way to figure it out, but it felt as if the start of June had catalyzed all of those feelings about third year. Among other things. This felt like— well.

Not a solution. Certainly not. But he wanted answers about something, and this felt like a way to achieve that something.

This wasn’t a movie. He wouldn’t delude himself into thinking he was a protagonist by any means; besides, he found road trip plots to be trite and cheesy, anyways. He’d still pack his portable video player.

Tentative plans aside, Kiyoomi cemented his decision to visit Ichinohe following qualifiers.

They won qualifiers. It should have, perhaps, been a statement worthy of a bit more flashiness, but it wasn’t terribly climactic. They still had most of their heavy hitters from the previous year. He didn’t think it was egotistical to say that next year would be a rouger transition for the team.

So: they won. June was quickly breezing by. There were more important things to do and to think about. The Interhigh, the term ending, university, Motoya’s birthday at the end of July (he had found a vintage Gameboy game for his gift), Yasuaki and his. Situation.

When he saw his sister at the beginning of July, neither of them addressed the elephant in the room outright. It sat on the ottoman, though—the same zebra print from his childhood. He told her about his plans for his trip, and she was rather bemused by it, all things considered.

(“Where Grandpa is from?” she said.

He said, “Yes.”

After a moment, she said, “I had been thinking about a more… picturesque location. But,” she continued, “a road trip is a road trip.”

“Not a road trip.”

“Totally a road trip.”)

He was studying at the table while she was reading something for work on the couch. He found himself distracted. His sister appeared distracted. Their eyes were both on the ottoman.

“He said,” Manami said, “that he’s planning on talking to Mom and Dad soon.”

Kiyoomi stared down at his textbook. Statistics were annoying. Kutaragi-sensei was demanding that he focused on upping his math scores in preparation for January.

“Did you see him again?” he said.

“Just on the phone,” she said.

“Why?”

“I wanted to talk to him about. Well.”

“No,” he said, tapping his pencil against the table. “Why is he going to talk to them?”

Carefully, Manami said, “He didn’t exactly give me a game plan. But I think it probably has to do with what’s been happening. He’s not—he’s not planning on like, reconnecting with them or anything. I think he just has things he wants to say.”

He couldn’t imagine a conversation between Yasuaki and his parents going smoothly. Empirically, there were little to no examples of that happening.

And he knew that it was. Complicated. Kiyoomi was no longer a child staring up at his parents’ silhouettes. They were… imperfect people.

“At any rate,” his sister said, “I wanted to make sure you had a heads-up.”

“Is he going to tell them about the pregnancy?”

She shut her book in her lap. Manami said, “Eventually, I suppose.”

Kiyoomi’s eyes traced the numbers on the page before him. They passed over his brain without making contact.

And, true to her word, his sister gave him an immediate heads up to Yasuaki alerting his parents of his general existence just a short week later. Though it wasn't as if it wouldn’t have been supremely obvious without him being told.

He wasn’t told the specifics. He didn’t know exactly how it had happened. But he knew that it had happened, and he had been told that it had happened, by more than one source.

It was his mother who approached him. While her expression had been relatively impenetrable, there was some sort of twitchiness there, maybe. She smoothed down already pinned-back hair. Her fingers tapped against one another. She caught him in the kitchen in the morning, and even if Manami hadn’t texted him the day before, he would have known from her demeanor alone that something was wrong.

And, altogether, it was a rather short conversation.

“Kiyoomi,” she said. “Did you know your brother was in the city?”

He thought for a moment, before he said, “Yes.”

Her hands flexed on the countertop. There was no chip in her expression. “That—” she started. “You—” She paused. “Has he spoken to you?”

Technically, yes. It had been largely—entirely—facilitated through his sister, though. He said, “Yes.”

“Why?” she asked.

It was a good question.

Kiyoomi shrugged.

“And you didn’t think to talk to one of us about it?”

Manami had said he could blame her if their parents pressed him about it. It had been a great point of concern in facilitating conversation between them all.

He asked me not to tell you. Manami’s been seeing him more. I don’t even know him, not really.

“He said he was going to talk to you about it,” Kiyoomi said. “It didn’t really seem like my business.”

The skin of her lips paled. She shifted in place. His height came from the both of his parents. She must have gotten her own from his grandfather.

“This is,” his mother said eventually. “This is a— important time for you. Your brother is a bad influence.”

He’s different now. He works at a call center. He’s having a kid.

Kiyoomi hadn’t responded.

His interaction with his father had gone much the same, though more pointed and more gruff. It was a conversation they had already had once, he was pretty sure. Your brother isn’t someone to—

He didn’t even seem as inclined to finish it this time around, however. Not because he meant it any less; it simply seemed like this was something beneath his father. Not worth his time. A sigh, a shake of the head. 

Kiyoomi still wasn’t sure how he felt about his brother—or, more aptly, reconnecting with his brother, but something about his parents made him feel:

Spiteful. Maybe.

It wasn’t his business.

…

Motoya was making mistakes.

He wasn’t perfect. He was still a teenager. He might’ve been lauded as the best in the country, but he was prone to mishaps every now and again. It wasn’t even that noticeable, all things considered; a slip-up here, a missed receive there. He doubted most of his teammates saw anything at all.

Kiyoomi saw.

They were going to the video store that evening, but Motoya had left the DVD he was returning at home. It wasn’t exceptionally out of the way—particularly if they went there straight from practice—but it was, ultimately, a detour. Are you serious, Kiyoomi said, and Must have missed it this morning, Motoya said. If he waited to bring it back until next week, he’d incur a late fee.

And: fine, Kiyoomi snapped, too sweaty and too annoyed.

He knew that his short fuse was due to everything else that had been going on. Such an acknowledgment only seemed to irritate him further. He was biting his tongue. That was a kindness, he thought. He wasn’t pushing Motoya, despite how obviously wrong all of this was.

He didn’t go over to his cousin’s home often. They spent a significant amount of time with each other as it was, whether through volleyball or school or their outings together.

“Alright, just hold your horses,” his cousin called out, already halfway down the hall. He disappeared not a moment later.

Kiyoomi lingered at the genkan. There was still a meticulous cleanliness to the Takeuchi home, even if it was certainly warmer than his own. The same could be said about Motoya’s room, which—as far as he knew—was often neat to a degree that exceeded even Kiyoomi’s. There was no denying that he was more hygienic than his cousin on the whole; Motoya, however, had always been rather compulsive about his belongings.

Yet here they were, grabbing the movie he had forgotten. His attention roved over family photos and the many wall sconces he knew his aunt to be a fan of. It was a disproportionately high amount of wall sconces.

“Oh,” he heard. “Hi, Kiyoomi.”

Sachie and Motoya had gotten their hair, wispy and reddish, from their father; the same could be said about his cousin Kuniko, who wore her own—thick and curly, lighter in color than his—in twin pigtails, held by pink scrunchies. All three of them resembled his Aunt Erika in the face.

Kuniko had appeared from around the corner, where he knew the kitchen to be. She was still wearing her uniform. She attended the same elementary school that all of them had; he hadn’t remembered the plaid being quite that garish.

“Hey,” he said.

“Um,” she said, shifting back and forth. She was playing with a little plastic chain—a necklace, maybe. “Are you staying?”

“No,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, frowning.

She could be shy. She wasn’t quiet, per se, but she spoke with a slow, careful cadence, and often stared a little too long at you before saying anything. He wasn’t sure if it was a her thing or a six-year-old thing.

It could have been a him thing, too, given that he really didn’t know how to talk to children.

He was saved by the sound of a door opening and closing in quick succession; a moment later, Motoya reappeared, carrying a DVD case and taking quick, efficient steps down the hallway. He was an athlete for a reason.

Kuniko’s posture straightened, her eyes lighting up. “Motoya,” she said. “Dad fixed the Super Nintendo.”

Motoya—whose brain had clearly been attuned to a single track—paused, registered his sister’s presence, and restarted. “Finally?” he said.

“Finally, he says,” Kiyoomi heard. “Tough crowd.”

Motoya’s stepfather was a lawyer. He had given Manami quite a bit of advice as she was starting out in the field. He possessed a rather youthful appearance despite his profession, bolstered by his full head of hair, which he claimed to be his second most admirable feature—beat out only by his beard. Takeuchi-san was rather laidback—a sharp contrast to his aunt, who, while certainly less guarded than his father, bled intensity from her pores.

He had appeared in the same place as Kuniko had, standing behind her with his hands in his pockets. His aunt must have been at work.

Motoya, tone completely innocuous, said, “Just pointing out a timeline. You know, objectively.”

Takeuchi-san shook his head with a sigh. He adjusted his glasses. “Teenagers, I tell you. They’re brutal, Koko.”

There was no heat behind their barbs. Takeuchi-san was ultimately smiling, and Motoya was even rolling his eyes, looking— well. Decidedly like a teenager, he supposed.

(Motoya had his father’s hair and his mother’s face. He had a lot of Aunt Erika’s neuroses, as well, but his stepfather’s mannerisms—expressed through his body language, his hands, his easygoing smile, real or not real—were unmistakable.)

“You been good, Kiyoomi?” the man asked.

He blinked—righted himself. “Yes,” he said.

“I heard,” he said, “that your brother’s been around.”

Motoya had been warned generally about not spreading the news of Yasuaki’s presence all the way back in the spring. Kiyoomi wouldn’t have been surprised if he still told Takeuchi-san or his mother. The man appeared before him innocuous, casual, and lighthearted, but he was rather intelligent, wasn't he, careful with his words, and he couldn’t tell exactly what his aim was.

“Yes,” was what Kiyoomi said.

“Cousin Yasuaki,” Kuniko said, eyes wide and words spoken as if they were something taboo.

“Yes,” Takeuchi-san said. “Cousin Yasuaki.” He smiled, and then he said, “I got some betting money on the repeat performance at the Interhighs.”

Lacing up his shoes, Motoya said, “He doesn’t.”

“Your doubt wounds me, Motoya.”

“Mom would kill you.”

“Your mother has a unique way of showing how she cares.”

“Can we play the Nintendo?” Kuniko said. The question was pointed towards Motoya; she had walked over so that she was standing at the edge of the genkan.

“I’m heading out again,” Motoya said offhandedly. He stood, shoes tied. “When I’m home later we can.”

“Okay,” said Kuniko. “But I’ll be Yoshi.”

“You got it,” he said. He reached out and tugged on one of her pigtails.

She didn’t seem to mind, face brightening. Kiyoomi looked away.

(He wasn’t ignorant to the parallels, obviously.

It had occurred to him the moment that Motoya told him that his aunt was pregnant how many years ago. Eleven years wasn’t ten, but it made little difference.)

“Don’t get into too much trouble,” Takeuchi-san said. “Provable trouble, at least.”

“We’ll keep it lowkey,” Motoya said.

“That’s my boy.”

“Dad, I think the noodles are overcooking.”

“I think you’re right, Koko. Stay safe,” said Takeuchi-san. “See you around, Kiyoomi.”

Kuniko, clutching onto her father’s sleeve with one hand and waving with the other, said, “Bye, Kiyoomi.”

He nodded and lifted his own hand in return. They stepped back outside—well, the hallway apartment, and then the lobby, and then outside—the heat returning in thick, muggy waves.

“Does it count as a wave,” his cousin said, when they were back onto the asphalt, “if you don’t actually wave? Back and forth?”

Kiyoomi made a face.

Motoya snorted. He had put the movie into his bag. “Koko’s been a little out of sorts since Sachie started her internship,” he said.

“Hmm,” he said.

“Are you peeved with me still?”

“I’m not peeved.”

“You’re a little peeved.”

“If it weren’t summer,” Kiyoomi said, “the sun would be setting by now.”

“Well thank god, then,” Motoya said.

He said, “That’s not what I mean.”

Motoya wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were drawn to the road. He had clearly been gnawing on his lip, the skin chapped and red.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Cousin,” Motoya said.

...

It had started right after he did at Itachiyama.

“—and you’re probably thinking, what’s the point in raking the leaves in the first place if you’re just going to leave them on the ground?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi had said, leaning forward to reach for his toes. He would never be as flexible as his cousin, and it would never stop being annoying.

Iizuna had been stretching his arms across his chest. He was standing in front of Kiyoomi, though he wasn’t looking at him, rather, head tilted back as he rolled out his neck.

“It’s all a part of the cycle,” Iizuna continued. “It’s all connected.”

“Okay,” Kiyoomi said.

“It’s good for natural pollinators. And for the soil. Dead trees can help local ecosystems thrive.”

Kiyoomi leaned back. A muscle in his shoulder twinged. He’d ice it later. He shook out his hands: step one. Step two was rolling them out across the floor.

Iizuna reached up towards the ceiling. “We can be so hyper-focused on cleaning the environment that we overwrite natural cycles, you know? Some of that is messy.”

Kiyoomi respected Iizuna. He was one of the best high school setters in Japan. He was a strong player all-around, responsible, and kept their teammates in line, despite still being a second-year. He had punctual and hygienic habits.

He was not without his idiosyncrasies. His teammate was somehow more neurotic than Kiyoomi’s cousin and had a tendency—contrary to his typical rational demeanor—to jump to conclusions that often seemed to miss a few steps. Sometimes they were on point; often they might’ve been hyperbolic.

Other than volleyball, Iizuna was an honorary member of the school’s gardening club. He often spoke his thoughts aloud, making those around him an unwilling audience. And Kiyoomi was often one of such audience members. And because he respected Iizuna, he did often find what he said to be interesting, but on principle didn’t know why said thoughts couldn’t be kept to himself. Often.

“Like, we wouldn’t have the Amazon without the decomposers there. The forest floor’s dark, too.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Kiyoomi asked.

“You’re so pointed, Sakusa. This is valuable,” Iizuna said. “You’re talking about nothing, right?”

Kiyoomi closed his mouth. His eyes narrowed.

“Everything’s connected,” he repeated, pointing. “The forest floor, your movies, whether or not we win.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Kiyoomi said. “Will climate change mean we stop winning?”

Iizuna said, entirely serious, “We all stop winning because of climate change.”

Kiyoomi supposed he couldn’t quite refute that.

“You get what I’m saying, right?” Iizuna continued.

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“You will.”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s all a part of a cycle. You will,” Iizuna said, and a second later, one of the gym doors whammed open.

“Zuna!” Mizuta cried, tearing across the court. “Did I or did I not tell you to be lowkey about telling Fujioka-sensei about the team’s absence for the tournament?”

She had recently dyed her hair a shade of red that just skirted the line of being unnatural, much to the ire of their teachers. It felt like a very poetic choice.

Iizuna blinked. “I was lowkey,” he said.

“Lowkey my ass,” she said, ripping off her glasses and using them to point at Iizuna’s chest. “You asshole.”

“I just told him I’d miss his lecture over the reading—”

“This is why,” Mizuta said, “I don’t ask you people for anything. You can’t be trusted. All you can do is play volleyball. You stupid meatheads.”

“I don’t see what the problem is.”

“You’re not supposed to call attention to what we’ll be missing in class, because then he’ll remember it, and then he’ll track us down and make us do it on our own. Do you think I’m trying to make up any assignment in my own goddamn freetime? Huh?”

“We’d have to do it eventually.”

“No we wouldn’t. He’s old. He doesn’t remember things. I have better things to be doing than a rhetorical analysis—”

Playing for Itachiyama had been fine so far. They were a good team. He wasn’t sure about some of his teammates, but he also couldn’t exactly change who they were, either, so much as just wait for them to graduate.

It was obvious that Iizuna would be captain next year. He’d be a good leader, Kiyoomi supposed, but he’d be better if he’d stop waxing poetic at any given moment.

…he understood how ecosystems functioned. Science had never been his favorite subject, but he was decent at it. And he had watched a documentary about deforestation in the Amazon once. On a pragmatic level, he understood what cycles meant, but no, he couldn’t claim to be keyed into whatever spiritual rambling of the day Iizuna was on.

“—I wasn’t going to not mention it! He asked! And— Sakusa, don’t just write it off, okay!” he heard, and he glanced up to see Iizuna—still in the midst of being lambasted—staring right at him. “I know what you’re thinking!”

“Don’t change the subject,” Mizuta bit out. “All you had to do was just say see you on Monday. Doing a rhetorical analysis, my god—”

…

There wasn’t another meeting with his siblings before the Interhigh tournament. He couldn’t tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing. In general, he knew that thinking categorically wasn’t always particularly helpful, but things were simpler, he thought, when they could be sorted into their places. Seeing his brother and sister at the moment meant delving into all of what that entailed, but the alternative just meant stewing in anticipation of what would inevitably come.

He had further solidified his plans for traveling. The exact trains he’d need to take, the rather dubious inn he could stay in, what meals he could pack.

There was still the matter of alerting his parents, as he doubted he could get away with leaving for essentially two days without them noticing.

Well. He imagined he could, if he really wanted to, but the potential of getting caught in that case didn’t seem appealing.

It wasn’t as if he got into trouble with his parents often.

First term ended. Practice happened. Coach Takahama had pages upon pages of notes. Urara had gotten a new tube of hand lotion—something crisp and citrusy. Another movie he had special ordered at the store had come in, and he watched it in the main room during the evening, the sun peering in through the windows.

And the final Interhigh tournament of his high school career—the potential repeat, as it were—should have arrived with monumental weight, but it didn’t. Kiyoomi had never been the nervous type; there was no reason for that to change now.

If anything—like he so often found himself as of late—he was rather disgruntled as he walked onto the court the second day of the tournament. It was being hosted in Yamagata this year, which, as far as commute went, could have been better, but could have been worse, as well. Nebulously annoying.

There was still competition to be found without Kiryuu and Ushijima around, even if the additional absence of Ojiro and Bokuto was also grating. (Less grating, perhaps, with Bokuto not there to hound him.) To his knowledge, he and Hoshiumi were both being thrown into the air for the title of the best as far as wing spikers went. It wasn’t information he sought out on his own. His cousin liked to keep a close eye on these things. Kiyoomi didn’t find it helpful. Talent should’ve spoken for itself.

(The Miyas were thrown into the mix quite a bit. One of the Miyas in particular, given the title he had held since last year. The best.

Itachiyama beat Inarizaki last year. He didn’t feel as if it were necessary to pursue that line of thought any further.)

Kageyama from Karasuno was supposed to be the name to look out for nowadays, but that didn’t matter for this tournament, given that Karasuno lost. Again. He didn’t recognize anyone from Miyagi’s representative team.

All of this was to say that he had spent the first day of the tournament watching the qualifying rounds with a completely valid judgment. Being seeded high enough to go straight to day two was ultimately an advantage, he knew, but it didn’t exactly feel like it when he was there to play.

And they were playing now. So he focused on that.

“Man,” Arakawa said as they gathered up, minutes away from the game starting. They were playing a team from Chiba. “I might be getting a little emotional, you guys.”

“Let’s go,” Shige said, rolling on his heels. “Let’s fucking go. We got this. Inamoto, slap me.”

“Don’t do that,” Endo said.

“Do it,” Shige said. “I’m ready.”

Inamoto lifted his hand. He said, “I love you, man.” 

“Let’s not,” Coach Takahama said, scratching at the collar of her shirt. “Please.”

“Yeah, stop, probably,” Arakawa said. “But if you do, not like, hard, okay?”

“You’ve started without me,” Motoya said as he joined their circle, smiling.

Kiyoomi didn’t get why so many of the players he encountered through this sport—whether his teammates or opponents—were completely intolerable. It was one of the reasons that lamented Ushijima’s absence. Because he knew how to behave normally. Not for any other reason.

“If you slap him,” Endo said, “you’re walking home.”

Inamoto looked to Coach Takahama. His hand was still raised. “Can she do that?”

“Yes,” Endo said.

“I don’t think slapping is particularly—” Coach Takahama paused. She tilted her head back, eyes glancing up as if racking her brain for something. “Ah, productive. I suppose.”

“Acknowledged,” Inamoto said, lowering his hand.

“I need a shock, Coach,” Shige said, eyes wide. “I’m burning up here.”

Coach Takahama blinked and said, “Jumping jacks, maybe.”

“Let’s fucking go,” Shige said, again.

“Language,” Coach Nishio said, joining in on their circle. “We have two minutes.”

“Yeah, okay,” Arakawa said. “So, you guys—”

Ideally, there was something innately cathartic about these few minutes before the whistle blew. It reminded him of the silence that stretched across the screen before a jumpscare. That, he had always found, was more disquieting than any pop of gore or explosion of noise ever could be; the tension, the anticipation, the way your eyes couldn’t look away. Assuming it was done well, of course.

Kiyoomi played because he enjoyed seeing the fruits of his efforts. It was obviously more than that, though. He enjoyed that tension. There was a pleasure to be found in that anticipation—even more so than scoring a point or landing a rather impressive dig. It caused his stomach to clench and his blood to pound.

He clenched his hands: unclenched. He took a breath in and then out. Kiyoomi grounded himself in his feet, in his connection to the ground, in his diaphragm—

“Um, senpai.”

Kiyoomi opened his eyes.

Hoshino looked. Well. Not nearly as on the fritz as Shige, maybe, but there was a tension in his shoulders and an unease tugging at the angles of his expression. Motoya had joked that the first year possessed a generic benevolence that would do wonders as a brand mascot; the perfect boy next door, he had said. Look at that face.

That face looked a little green.

“I’m usually pretty good about this sort of thing,” Hoshino said quickly. He spoke rather quickly in general. “But—”

He stopped. His ears were a little flushed: whether from embarrassment or trepidation, he didn’t know.

“I guess just— any advice?”

He didn’t know why Hoshino was asking him of all people. Arakawa was captain for a reason. Motoya had told all of the underclassmen they could always go to him for advice. Any other third year or second year would be a better option, he imagined.

Kiyoomi didn’t exactly do morale-boosting. His cousin called him a pessimist for a reason. He personally thought of it as being realistic. The real world didn’t have cheesy monologues that spurred the masses into action. And if it did, he thought they were rather stupid.

“Just play,” Kiyoomi said.

It was the only motivation he gave himself.

Hoshino didn’t appear completely mollified, but he nodded, at least. Kiyoomi couldn’t remember being particularly nervous even as a first year. He understood that he couldn’t treat his own experiences as a baseline for all people, of course; he simply thought it highlighted why he was ill-equipped to deal with this situation.

Arakawa had the first serve of the game. For all of his faults, he had one of the best floaters in the league. Kiyoomi took his position—ignoring Shige beside him, who was practically radiating energy—and Hoshino behind him, rooted in place as if he were made of stone. All he could control was himself.

…

This was a different tournament. One from a year ago: one where there wasn't a Hoshino on the court to try to uplift. One where the cheers had been overwhelming. 

He typically found them to be annoying. Kiyoomi didn’t need an audience in order to feel satisfied with a scored point or a received serve. At his core, he didn’t care about what other people thought of him; there was no reason that’d change on the court, with strangers at his back. 

But they were raucous, charged, overflowing. He felt them inside of his skull. He felt them radiating up from the floor. Kiyoomi was tired , limbs dripping with exhaustion and skin coated in an uncomfortable sheen of sweat. Iizuna’s arm was thrown around his neck, tugging him closer, his cheeks were glazed with tears. 

Across the net, he caught a glimpse of Kita Shinsuke gathering his team. Ojiro Aran had walked away from the court, hands on his knees. He saw silver, wiping his face down with the front of his jersey, and he was looking for blond—

“ Holy fuck ,” he heard Arakawa say, barely audible over the crowd. It pulled his attention back to his team. 

His team, who had won. 

The hour or so following the final match of the Interhigh his second year had occurred through an uncharacteristic daze. Kiyoomi never played halfheartedly, but even so, it was rare to feel a fatigue strike so deep in his bones. It was exacerbated by a drawn-out awards ceremony, by news representatives trying to tug him away for interviews, and by his own weepy teammates. They were lucky he carried around tissues. 

In middle school, they had nearly won: nearly but not quite. It had felt bitter then. He had tried his best, and his best hadn’t been good enough. 

It was now, apparently. 

He had barely had a chance to peek at his phone, but had seen that his sister had already texted him. His parents would likely congratulate him, and it would likely be as genuine as they could manage. Success was success was success. His Aunt Erika had made a promise, apparently, to take him and Motoya out for a celebratory dinner if they won, though he was sure she would have done it no matter what the results would have been. 

Kiyoomi thought of Iizuna crying, of Arakawa’s dazed expression, of Mizuta’s wobbly lips and his cousin’s smile, blinding as a billboard.

He found himself, at one point or another, in a hallway. There was a particularly nosy interviewer who was on his tail—he was busy pestering Iizuna at the moment, but would try to sniff him out later, he was sure. The woes of victory. 

In the moment, Kiyoomi had leaned against the wall. His limbs were sore. His body was sore. There was an ache in his muscles that he’d feel for weeks. Annoying, given that the turnaround for Spring qualifiers was so quick. 

And he could still feel the aftershock of those cheers, vibrating beneath his skin. 

...

At this tournament—the one in the present, the one in front of him, the one with a court beneath his feet—realism pulled through again. Kiyoomi’s predictions held strong. Takeuchi-san was going to lose some money.

It might not have resembled the invitational play-for-play, but losing the championship match to Kamomedai stung in a way that he doubted they would have felt with most other teams. That tournament had allowed them to anticipate exactly how to approach their best players and techniques; it had allowed Kamomedai to do the same.

The game was brutal. They dragged it out to the fifth set, only to lose in the end. There were those same cheers, the same vibrations in the floor beneath them, a teammate’s hand patting his back—Arakawa, expression uncharacteristically sharp. But they were the losers this time around.

He watched Hoshiumi croon across the net.

He didn’t like losing. He didn’t like being made to feel as if he were missing out on something. There was a deep, burning frustration inside of him that was always born after a match like this one, so close but so far away: next time, next time, next time. He would keep improving. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes as today.

He’d value his time on the court while he could.

Kiyoomi chose Hirugami to shake hands with, as there was not a single chance—let him reiterate, not a single chance—that he’d subject himself to dealing with Hoshiumi at that moment. Especially not with cameras around, either, though he was sure someone would look too deeply into his perceived slight towards his rival. He couldn’t care less.

The prospect of having to go through an awards ceremony was draining regardless of what plaque they’d be receiving. Itachiyama dragged themselves off the court in the meantime, over to where Coach Takahama and Coach Nishio and Endo and their reserve players waited.

Motoya ended up beside him. His cousin wasn’t quite frowning, but he was clearly exhausted, too tired to muster up a smile. He wasn’t even hiding the way he was chewing on his lip, arms crossed over his torso.

(More than even him, Motoya seemed to hate losing. It had always put him into a mood. And by a mood, he meant that it would turn up the dial that was unique to Motoya’s brain, and he’d spend a week straight being particularly shiny and pointy.)

His cousin caught his eye. The corner of his mouth upturned, but it was lacking its usual glow. “Tough luck, huh?” was all he said, and there wasn’t time to respond.

It was Coach Takahama who spoke first this time.

“This isn’t the outcome we wanted,” she said, and no, there wasn’t such a thing as cheesy, pitch-perfect monologues. It was hard to hear her over the gym’s roaring din. There was typically a rasp to her voice as is, and now it was even scratchier from overuse.

“I can’t— hmm,” she continued. “I don’t know if I can say anything that’ll make you feel better. Losing’s tough. We’ll eat and we’ll sleep.” She said, “We’ll talk later.”

There was a pause as if waiting for her to say more. She looked back at all of them, glanced away, looked back, opened her mouth, closed it.

“And we’ll still celebrate,” she added, after a moment. “Even though it’s ah— well. It’s something still worth celebrating.”

Shige, whose face was looking nauseatingly snot and tear-covered, sniffed. Loudly. Kiyoomi took a step to the left.

Coach Nishio told them to be proud of themselves; Arakawa told them that he loved this goddamn team, man. Shige wanted Inamoto to slap him again, and Endo said I’ll do it for him, and Shige said actually wait never mind. This was all supposed to be a break before the awards ceremony.

While center court was set up for the ceremony, Kiyoomi, once again, retreated to the relative quiet of the hallway. He didn’t want to think about the bus ride home. There wasn’t technically a reporter tracking him down at that moment, but he didn’t doubt that they were milling around.

“Oh, come to rub it in, huh?”

The hallway, ideally, was supposed to give him a breather. He came here to get away from overblown emotional responses and overbearing behavior, however warranted it might’ve been.

There stood Miya Atsumu and Miya Osamu, Suna Rintarou lingering behind them. The former twin’s face was twisted into some jeering smile. The latter twin—slightly more tepid in his obnoxiousness, though that wasn’t saying much—was eyeing Kiyoomi placidly, though he seemed annoyed by his brother’s outburst in his own right. Suna Rintarou was on his phone.

Why they had all chosen to find themselves in that hallway at that moment, he didn’t know. Kiyoomi was not Iizuna, and didn’t think of coincidences to be signs from the universe.

He stared. What do you want. Leave me alone.

“Not gonna lie, I’m kind of pissed at you, dude,” said Miya Atsumu. His dimple was still annoying. He was wearing his uniform jacket in the barest sense of the word, the garment simply draped over his shoulders.

“I don’t care,” Kiyoomi said, turning and walking in the opposite direction. Hopefully Shige had mellowed within the few minutes he had been away. It was an empty hope.

Miya called out, “The least you could have done is beat them for us, you know?”

And he didn’t pause, then, but he shot a scowl over his shoulder, lips pursing thin. Miya met him with a cutting grin.

“We lasted longer than you did,” Kiyoomi said, facing forward again. “And we still beat you last year.”

He heard Miya squawk, before spitting out some combination of curse words—alright now, you fuckin’ prick—that his brother was quick to interrupt with a you started it, idiot. I was just making conversation—yeah, okay, whatever—you got somethin’ to say to be, Samu?—that you’re bein’ a fuckin’ idiot, Tsumu?—dick weasel—

They beat Inarizaki. Kiyoomi beat Inarizaki. He never got the chance to beat Ushijima, Urara still likely scored higher than him on any given exam, but Kiyoomi had beat Miya Atsumu—Miya Atsumu, who was squabbling with his brother in public like they were children—and this had to mean something, he was sure.

He stepped back out into the main gym. Not a moment later, a woman with a microphone was conveniently standing right in front of him.

“Sakusa-san,” she said. “Great playing today. Do you think this loss will cement a hierarchy between you and Hoshiumi Kourai?”

I am a literal teenager, he thought, at the same time that a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Mizuta’s said publicity is a girl’s best friend.

“No comment,” he said.

…

It had started, like many things did, because of his tiny fucking bladder.

There wasn’t a formal curfew in place at that Youth Camp so much as an expectation set to act responsibly while they were guests at the facility. Kiyoomi had chosen to go to bed early. It meant he got to have the bathroom to himself, to choose exactly how he wanted to set up his futon, and to not have to deal with any grating bonding rituals with his fellow players.

It also meant that his body’s clock was knocked out of rhythm. He didn’t stay up too late in his everyday life—he valued his sleep—but it was still a big enough difference that he woke up a few hours later, the sky dark through the window, with a distinctive need to pee.

Motoya had come into the room at some point; he was knocked out in the futon next to his own, mouth hanging open and limbs spread akimbo. Kiyoomi stared at his cousin, looked back to the window, and stood with a dull frustration ebbing to and fro in his skull. The woes of keeping hydrated.

The restroom was down the hall from their room. It was quiet and empty. He preferred the solitude. There wasn’t much more to be said.

That was, of course, until he was washing his hands, and voices started to slip in from the hallway. A murmur, at first, far enough away that he might’ve ignored it, until it rapidly grew in volume and clarity. A cluster of voices talking until they were right outside the bathroom, just as he turned the faucet off.

There might not have been a curfew, but there were expectations, and one of those expectations, he thought, should have been not to be roaming the halls at night, bothering someone just trying to go about their business. Especially not when he wasn’t wearing his contacts. Irritating all around.

Kiyoomi braced himself.

It didn’t matter. The voices didn’t come inside the bathroom, of course; they remained there in the hallway, just outside. And he stood there. Because as much as he didn’t care about interrupting their conversation, it was late, and he didn’t want to deal with it.

He’d give them a minute. Nothing less, nothing more. Their voices came drifting inside, bouncing off of the linoleum.

“—and I’m just saying that everyone should probably know where they stand,” said one.

“Yeah. Like, it’s pretty wild to just waltz in and act like you own the place,” said another.

It was those second-years. He recognized the two that had spoken; they were skilled players, but they were the very same ones who had also spent much of the camp so far puffing out their chests and jeering down at the underclassmen when the coaches weren’t looking.

Kiyoomi could agree with the general sentiment that arrogance wasn’t a good look, but nor was hypocrisy. Some of them might have been talented, sure, but if you had to say that—and enforce it through something as backhanded as playground bullying—it didn’t really matter.

It reinforced the fact that he, very acutely, didn’t want to deal with this.

“Man,” he heard, “you guys are a bunch of losers, huh?”

The entrance to the bathroom, given its communal structure, was less of a door and more of an opening. He was at the sink closest to it; if he took a few steps that way, he likely could have captured a glimpse of the conversation that was happening.

He wouldn’t need to, though. Some of the faces of the second-years he couldn’t be bothered to remember, but that voice was regrettably familiar, ever since that horrific conversation that first day of camp.

Miya Atsumu was an asshole, a childish idiot, and was likely to capture the title of the most talented high school setter in the country. All of these facts had become more clear to him over the course of the week, even if Kiyoomi had spent most of the time doing his best to avoid the boy.

The annoying thing was that he did live up to the hype. He was good. Really good. He had plenty of room to grow still, of course, but it was obvious that he could be an absolute monster in a few years. He was a big enough threat to enter Iizuna’s peripherals, which was no small thing.

And he was also an asshole. And a childish idiot. Kiyoomi was bothered more by the latter than the former: if you couldn’t keep your cool on the court, what was the point?

Why Miya was out at night with such a group, he wasn’t sure; what they were doing, he wasn’t sure; why they had chosen to talk outside the bathroom, he especially didn’t know.

But he knew something. And that something was that Miya Atsumu evidently had a brain with a direct line to his mouth—no filter in sight—and that was particularly confounding.

A silence momentarily buzzed in the air. Then he heard: “The hell did you say?”

“Losers,” Miya said. “I said you’re kind of losers.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No. I’m a pretty serious guy, ya know?” The smile in his voice was audible. Nauseating, kind of like the blur to his vision.

“Listen, Miya—”

“I’ve been listenin’. And it’s been blowin’ my eardrums out. You guys can talk forever.”

He thought he heard shuffling. Or perhaps scuffling. Something physical and tangible that put him on edge.

“Alright, serious guy. Tell us what you’re thinking.”

It was probably supposed to be a threat.

Even before Miya started talking, Kiyoomi knew it would be a useless attempt.

“Gee, really? You finally gonna let me talk?”

“Funny, too, huh?”

“Yeah,” Miya said. “Really funny.”

“So be funny.”

“You can’t really rush that shit.”

“Do you think you’re better than us?”

“I mean, you said it.”

“Fucking listen—”

“Alright, okay, geez. I’m just sayin’,” started Miya, “that a loser’s a loser, and I’ll call ‘em like I see ‘em. But I don’t call people losers because I’m some has-been who needs to boost their ego. That’s just sort of pathetic.”

And Kiyoomi was curious, of course he was, and was sick of just waiting around in the bathroom, so he moved ever so slightly, feet silent on the tile, head barely peeking around the lip of the wall—

He heard a door in the hallway had opened soon after. Kiyoomi ducked out of sight. There was a heavy tension still begrudging the air, but it didn’t escalate just yet; especially not when footsteps were approaching, and when someone he was pretty sure was Ojiro Aran was calling out to his teammate.

“Atsumu,” he heard, “you said you’d be back ten minutes ago.”

“Sorry, Mom. Just sayin’ goodnight,” said Miya. “Right?”

And the group—however many there had been—scattered after that. Some likely grumbling back to their rooms, planning on making the final day of camp hellish for a certain setter, and a certain setter likely being pulled down the hall by the ear. No one ended up coming into the bathroom. Kiyoomi was still in the bathroom.

Later, he was trying to go to bed.

Trying. Sleep didn’t always come easy to him—something that was infinitely frustrating, especially when he had been testing his limits all week. A poor night’s rest in general would do him no good; here, it would be poignant.

The room had poor ventilation. He never liked sleeping in a bed or futon that wasn’t his own. This whole day was leaving him feeling disgruntled and beside himself. He was counting down when he’d have to pee again, because at this rate, he probably wouldn’t fall back asleep before then.

He was thinking about the camp. He was thinking about high school. He was thinking about the bathroom and the hallway.

He was thinking about how annoying Miya Atsumu was, and how grating his voice was, and how flashy everything about him was. How he was an asshole. An idiot. How overzealous he could be when playing. The edge that flickered in his gaze when he was sinking his teeth into someone, sharp enough to break skin and draw blood. The dim, fluorescent afterglow of the bathroom’s lights brushing over cheeks flushed with fervor, ambition, I dare you. The stupid dimple.

And:

“No,” Kiyoomi had said, staring up at the ceiling.

And:

“No,” he had said, shooting up with a vigor and clumsiness quite unbecoming of him.

And:

“No,” he had said, tripping right out of his futon and clattering against the floor.

Motoya, sleeping in their room that night, had shot up with a garbled mumble. Through his retainers, he had said, “The who…? What?”

It was a hard thing to be fifteen.

…

Itachiyama had beaten Inarizaki, so he didn’t think there was a reason to linger on any of his feelings towards Miya Atsumu. Not really.

Kiyoomi had always valued making the most out of little: he believed in intent, in meticulous control, in movements that expended only as much energy as they needed. His infatuation with certain individuals had always reflected that: Ushijima’s power, Urara’s attention to detail, Manami’s friend's well-groomed hair.

Miya Atsumu was brash and loud and stupid, but he wasn't not smart, no matter what first impressions might suggest. Or his attitude on the court. Or his very illustrious vocabulary of curse words.

He knew what he was doing. He was intense in a way that was overbearing, but there was a direction to it. It was obvious that despite his otherwise flashy demeanor, he knew how to hone his focus as needed, body moving on the court with precision. Kiyoomi had observed it himself.

But there was still something overzealous about his actions; he wasn’t clumsy, but his arms swung wide and his hand gestures flailed as he talked and his face contorted with every emotion that he felt. It was showy. It was too much. It was flaunting, and he hated flaunting.

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t matter. Who even thought about Inarizaki anymore, anyways.

Yes, people didn’t think about Miya Atsumu’s dimple; they thought about his parent’s terse and perturbed and baffled expressions.

To be fair, they weren’t all that flagrant, objectively, but given the typical neutrality they maintained, his mother and father’s ruffled feathers were undeniable. On his mother more so than his father. His father was undeniably pissed, maybe, but he was acting oddly detached about the whole thing. He had expected more fireworks.

Kiyoomi had indeed not been present for Yasuaki’s official conversation with their parents. Judging from everyone’s reactions, it had not been the best of conversations. Who would have thought.

He saw his sister a day before he left for the third-year camp. She wanted them all to see each other again sooner rather than later, but it was hard to find the time. They were at her apartment. It was rare that they came here instead of the house, but it seemed like testing the waters to be there, even if his parents were both theoretically at work.

“You said,” Kiyoomi said, “eventually.”

“I thought eventually,” Manami replied. She was scrubbing down the window above her kitchen sink. “He didn’t make it seem like it’d be— now, I guess.”

Kiyoomi stared down at the book he was reading. It was a murder mystery he had been intending to get to, recommended to him by one of the nurses at his grandfather’s care home. Cherry blossoms that resembled faint, pinkish bloodstains danced across the cover.

He took out his bookmark and returned to the page he had left off on.

It occurred through a lunch, apparently. He didn’t know why people kept trying to get lunch. It was a mockery to lunch. He usually enjoyed lunch. They hadn’t said anything to him after said lunch, his parents—nor before it, to be frank—speaking to each other in hushed conversations that made him feel like he was ten again.

He had caught his mother’s face after the fact, slackened beyond its usual veneer—a little wide-eyed, a little out of her depth, a little uncharacteristically emotive.

It had, at the very least, made it easy to bring up his plans to travel to Iwate in the coming couple of weeks. Kiyoomi had simply said that he had wanted to take a day trip during his few days off, that he had already budgeted it out, and that it wouldn’t impede on his studies. His mother had been too distracted to do anything more than nod.

The third-year camp was in Tokyo. They’d still stay at the facility during the week, but it meant no egregious commute for him and his cousin to get there in the first place, at least, nor for Coach Takahama, either, who was going to be one of the instructors there. Motoya and him were going to take the train together, as they did almost every day.

During the school year, they met outside of the same convenience store every morning. Kiyoomi always got there at the same time, as did his cousin; Motoya would typically be there a minute or two earlier than him, or however much time it’d take to buy something to eat inside.

In August, on the first day of camp, Kiyoomi stood outside the store with his things.

“You,” he heard, “are going to be an uncle.”

His cousin was beside him. He had approached from down the sidewalk, and not from the doors behind them.

Kiyoomi said, “I told you I couldn’t tell you.”

They started walking. Motoya said, “I didn’t think it would be— that. This.”

“Well. It is.”

“An uncle,” his cousin repeated.

“Stop saying that.”

“It’s true.”

“And what about it?”

“Isn’t that weird to you?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi snapped. “Obviously.”

Motoya’s mood had been further shifted (in what direction, he couldn’t tell you) by their loss at the Interhigh. There was something there, beneath his words—and maybe, if Kiyoomi looked close enough, he could see dark crescents peeking out from the skin beneath his cousin’s eyes, the too-perfect line of his posture.

“You’ve just been sitting on that,” Motoya said, not looking at him.

He said, “My brother told me not to tell you. We’ve been over this.”

“It’s not that,” his cousin said, and yes, Motoya sounded annoyed. Motoya rarely ever sounded annoyed, even when he was. “Just—” He paused. He said, again, “I just didn’t think it would be that.”

And Kiyoomi said, “What is with you?”

And a bristled Motoya said, “What? Nothing.”

“You’ve been off.”

“I’ve been fine.”

“No,” Kiyoomi said, and this was happening all wrong. “There’s clearly something going on.”

For months, he wanted to say. Since the year started. I have eyes.

When his cousin spoke, he did so with a steely voice that Kiyoomi hadn’t heard in ages. “You’re reading too much into things,” Motoya said.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” was what he said, irritated himself, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of his cousin or the morning heat.

“Just—”

Motoya didn’t finish. When he looked over, his cousin’s forehead was creased with wrinkles, his brow furrowed.

For what reason, Kiyoomi didn’t know, obviously, because since when did he know anything? They continued walking in silence.

…

It became quickly apparent at the third-year camp that the majority of the players Kiyoomi could deal with being around had graduated last year. This fact was made doubly concerning when having to deal with a prickly Motoya, who was, for some inexplicable reason, peeved with him.

He tuned out the Miyas and the Hoshiumis and the Hakubas and the Shirabus (being from Shiratorizawa couldn’t save him from being annoying) of the world. He could admit to being lukewarmly disappointed that Fukurodani’s setter wasn’t there, in that, despite his proximity to Bokuto, he seemed relatively normal. It was times like these that he lamented being born slightly prematurely. A month or so later, and perhaps he wouldn't have to deal with this at all.

He hadn’t been lying to his parents about the amount of college scouts that’d be swarming the gym. It seemed that half of their time there would be spent speaking to said scouts in pseudo-interviews and disgusting small talk, and the other half on the court, showing off skills that everyone was already aware of.

Ideally, Coach Takahama was there to act as a filter. Kiyoomi had already spoken with a handful of agents over the past year; he was sure his parents would be mostly pleased if he chose one of the schools nearby—Waseda or Keio being top choices, ironically, though his mother was minutely biased towards the former as her alma mater.

Very, very occasionally, he sometimes wondered if he and his cousin would end up going to the same university, as well. Thinking about Motoya annoyed him right now, though, so he wasn’t lingering over it.

“Just play as you normally would,” Coach Takahama said to the two of them, as they were still in warm-ups. “This really should be a low pressure thing.”

Kiyoomi nodded but said nothing more. Motoya did the same. This caused an awkward enough silence, and Coach Takahama just looked at them, blinking.

“Well,” she said. She cleared her throat. “I’m proud of you two. So. Break a leg out there.”

She was right in describing it as low pressure; the atmosphere somehow felt less intense than the invitational tournament, likely due to the fact that they weren’t strictly competing with one another. Many of the players present likely had some idea as to where they’d be heading next year, whether to university or otherwise.

(“There’s an unusual crop of talent for your age group,” Coach Nishio had explained once. “A disproportionately high number of players are going straight to the pros. I’d argue that the benefits of college experience are undeniable, though.” After a moment, he said, “No matter what you’d plan to do afterwards.”)

It was a camp. They were going to do drills and scrimmages throughout the week. There was an expectation for them to socialize with one another. These are faces you may be seeing in your future careers, one of the coaches said. It wasn’t a lie, certainly, for those who were planning on playing beyond university, but it was cheesy enough to make him want to roll his eyes.

Sakusa Kiyoomi—that spin is something else—monster generation—Ushijima—your cousin—Itachiyama’s a real powerhouse—real shame about the Interhigh—prospects for Spring Tournament?—love to give you a tour—our facilities—Takahama?—nice to meet you—that spin is something else—

Kiyoomi typically enjoyed the camps he attended. He wasn’t sure if it was the camp itself or the season or the other general circumstances of his life, but evidently, this particular camp left much to be desired.

He was eating alone at lunch. Motoya was off talking to a representative somewhere. The rice was undercooked.

“This is undercooked,” he heard.

He glanced to the side. The tables in the facility’s cafeteria were long and shiny and bizarrely prisonlike. Kiyoomi had chosen to sit next to the wall in the corner, hoping it would send a clear enough message.

Suna Rintarou was sitting four seats down from him. He was staring down at his rather paltry-looking tray, a gleaming, metallic energy drink can to its side. The chopsticks in his grasp, like the rest of his posture, seemed to droop.

Kiyoomi stared at him. He was more tolerable than his teammates, but the bar was on the floor.

“Yours too?” Suna Rintarou said, not looking at him.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said.

Suna Rintarou said, “Disappointing.” Then he pulled out a granola bar from one pocket, and his phone from another. He had some sort of dietary restriction, he was pretty sure— animal products, maybe?

They didn’t talk for the rest of the meal. Kiyoomi didn’t dare test fate by asking the boy where his teammates might be.

There was, at the very least, a very tentative truce established between the two of them, sitting at their table and not conversing. Suna Rintarou didn’t shy away from loud, obnoxious conversation—though often as an observer rather than a participant. He could ultimately be quiet for the length of a lunch. The bar, as he had stated, was on the floor.

He and his cousin were still sharing a room. He didn’t want to speak to Motoya, and Motoya didn’t want to speak to him, so they went through their nightly routines in a stilted silence. What is it? What’s the matter with you? Why are you being so secretive about all of this? Questions coagulating in his brain like useless mush.

…

The universe didn’t exist in an anthropomorphic state to hate him, but he certainly hated it. Or perhaps he just despised Suna Rintarou.

Part of their unspoken agreement, he had assumed, was to keep their shared table a sacred one. That was, even if certain parties decided to interact with less-than-savory figures, those figures were to remain distinctly apart from their table.

Miya Atsumu flopped down into the seat next to Suna Rintarou’s. Even though it was on the side farther away from Kiyoomi—leaving him essentially the farthest length away from him that was possible—his presence was still an irritant.

Even if the two were engaged in their own conversation completely apart from Kiyoomi, the sheer fact that he had to hear it was an irritant. Existence was an irritant.

(“Drama que—”)

“—it was so cool though,” said Miya, whining like a child would. “Man, I’m so jealous.”

“So you’ve said,” said Suna Rintarou.

“I bet I could do it.”

“Sure.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“I could one hundred percent receive with my foot if I wanted to. I played soccer like, once or twice growing up.”

“Totally.”

“Asshole.” Miya took a bite of an apple. Through a full mouth, he said, “I bet I could learn how to do it right by next year.”

“Going to show off at try-outs?”

“That’s the whole point of try-outs? Duh?”

Miya Atsumu was not going to play volleyball in college, because he was not going to college. He’d be heading straight to the professional leagues, allegedly. He wasn’t aligned with a particular team just yet, but as much as he hated to say it, Kiyoomi was aware that he’d likely find no issues. He was talented. You wouldn’t hear him say it aloud.

Kiyoomi didn’t like arrogance. He thought actions should speak for themselves. It didn’t matter how much skill a blabbermouth actually had.

There was, however much it bothered him to admit, an electrifying quality to passion—to confidence—to decisiveness. It was one of the things that kept him on the court in the first place.

He considered himself a decently confident person. Kiyoomi was well aware of the extent of his skills, as well as his flaws. He had never felt particularly insecure, either. And, based on the reactions of those around him, he often was a bit too decisive for his own good.

And yet.

…and that wasn’t him calling Miya electrifying. Because. No.

“What is it?” he heard.

When he looked over, Miya was still gnawing on an apple. He was leaning back in his seat. He was staring over at Kiyoomi, completely unabashed to have been caught.

“Ha,” Miya said. “It got worse.”

“What,” Kiyoomi said.

“Your face,” Miya said. Before Kiyoomi could interject, he said, “Your libero is kind of insane.”

It made sense that he had been talking about Motoya. There were a few notable moments of games past—instances that had truly caused him to elevate to the title of the best—in which his cousin had contorted his body into shapes that should have been impossible in order to make a save. As he had apparently done earlier, while Miya was watching.

Kiyoomi didn’t respond.

“Fuckin’ geez,” Miya said. “Cold. I bet I could do it.”

“Pick a lane,” said Suna Rintarou.

“Yeah like, I obviously wouldn’t be like, great at it or anything. But watchin’ that type of thing just makes your blood boil, you know?”

“No.”

“Asshole. You can’t do that shit, right?” said Miya, and it clearly wasn’t directed at his teammate this time around.

Kiyoomi could, technically, but it wasn’t like he had ever trained to be able to do it. His entire playing style depended on an unbeatable defense; he would never be as flexible and dextrous as his cousin, but he could try.

He didn’t want to talk to Miya. He also liked pissing him off.

Kiyoomi shrugged.

“Ugh.” Miya talked with his entire face. “Of course you can. You’re so annoying’, you know that?”

“No.”

“Super annoying.”

“Says you.”

“Oh, shut up, Suna.”

The conversation proceeded on from there without his input, thankfully. It was less of a conversation, and more Miya cycling through long-winded tangents with Suna Rintarou's occasional, cutting interjections.

Kiyoomi did not eavesdrop, as he had been sitting there first, and Miya didn’t exactly understand volume control by any means.

I beat you, he thought, as Miya started on a tangent about his own annoying cousin. None of this should matter anymore, because I won.

…

“Nishio-san told me,” said Coach Takahama, finding him alone one evening halfway through the week, “that your parents have expressed concerns about your college career.”

Kiyoomi, as already established, had reached an age where he was capable of being more actively critical of his parents’ actions. Or lack thereof. It didn’t mean he went out of his way to disobey them. It didn’t even mean he found himself upset with them often. They were the way they were. He was who he was. Realism. He was a realist. There was no changing anything.

And in hearing Coach Takahama speak, he was struck by a lance of scalding, quickfire anger.

“Yes,” he said.

He was sitting on one of the gym’s benches and adjusting his compression sleeves. They had been a recent purchase after doing quite a bit of research on the benefits of optimal blood flow. He was still getting used to the feeling of them.

Coach Takahama sat beside him. A mock scrimmage—non-serious, three players on each side, no less passionate—was occurring on one of the courts. He caught her observing it with a watchful gaze.

“I spoke with your mother on the phone,” she said. “She wanted to talk about your options.”

He squeezed the fabric of one of the sleeves beneath his fingers, skin paling. He released. “She hadn’t mentioned it,” he said.

“I just confirmed what she wanted to talk about. Playing at a top school,” she continued, “could certainly be beneficial to you after you graduate, if that’s what you wanted.”

“I had already told her that.”

“I had imagined so. There’s a scout from Kansai that’d enjoy speaking with you. I had a nice conversation with him at dinner yesterday. Well,” she said. “I think so, at least. It can be so hard to tell.”

“Kansai,” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s a very solid team. They place just as much emphasis in defense as they do offense.”

“Do I have a choice?”

She said, “Of course you do.”

He made a face. Given most of the conversations he had had up to that point in the week, it didn’t feel likely.

“Ah,” she said, peering his way. “Well, I imagine he might choose to talk to you either way. But it’s always in your hands.”

He didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t say anything more, but she didn’t move. They sat on the bench and watched the scrimmage. Shirabu snapped something at one of his teammates; Suna Rintarou was there, as well, lingering by the net with a bored expression on his face.

“Next year’s my last with Itachiyama.”

Kiyoomi watched the ball strike just outside of the line: out. Then he turned. Coach Takahama was looking straight ahead.

“I’m planning on telling everyone when we’re finished with qualifiers,” she said, voice just as plain as it always was.

He turned back. One of the boys was claiming it was in. It clearly wasn’t. “Have you talked to my cousin yet?” he said.

“He’s my next stop.”

Kiyoomi pursed his lips together. If empirical evidence was anything to go by, this seemed like the type of thing that’d get under his cousin’s skin. Still: not knowing—or finding out he could have known earlier when other people knew things (they were painfully alike, weren’t they), would probably be the worse of the two options.

“Why?” he asked.

“Oh. Well. I guess I just saw you first.”

“No,” he said. “Where are you going?”

The bench creaked beneath them. She shifted in place. “I’ll be accepting a position as a university coach. For Tsukuba. I had been meaning to go back to get my masters anyways, so the timing worked out.”

“Oh,” he said. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she said. “To be honest, I was never the best student. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to study.”

“You’re good at taking notes,” he said.

“I only was every good at doing it for volleyball. I could never pay attention well in math.”

And Kiyoomi didn’t know why, but he asked:

“Did you always plan on coaching?”

She said, “No.” She said, “Well. If I look back, I started to think about it at some point.” She said, “Well.”

Then she paused.

“I had thought about going professional after college,” she said eventually. “I was planning on it. But my mother,” she said. Her sleeve brushed against her pant legs, synthetic scratching against synthetic. “My mother passed away the semester I was supposed to graduate.”

He hadn’t known it. “Sorry,” he said, after a moment.

“It’s alright,” she said. Coach Takahama always sounded a little—perhaps not apologetic, but a blander, awkward cousin to sheepish. “Well. It wasn’t. But it’s fine now. It was rather unexpected. And she was kind of a hoarder, so my brother and I had to deal with her stuff. She used to print out copies of her emails. In triples. It was—

“Well,” she said, after a moment. “It was a mess.”

He said, “Were you close?”

Coach Takahama leaned back. She looked up—gaze, as it often did, seeming to catch one of the gym’s windows. “Not particularly,” she said. “But it was still—I’m not sure. I didn’t expect it to affect me so much. By the time everything was starting to feel less— hmm. A mess, I guess—less of a mess—I hadn’t played for more than a year.

“But,” she said. “I had missed it. More than I thought I would. There was a while where I thought I’d never be able to put things back together. I still don’t know if I did,” she said. ”But I had missed it.”

The three-on-three match came to a conclusion, and a bitter one at that. Rematch, Shirabu snapped. If you want to act so high and mighty—

Kiyoomi said, “I think I get it now.”

She turned to look at him. Her face clearly said: I am not quite sure what you are talking about, features blanking out. When he didn’t elaborate further, she just nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Well. That’s good.”

Before them, another scrimmage started up.

…

He had a ranked list of all the different rooms he had stayed in at camps and tournaments throughout the years. The rooms for the third-year camp’s hosting facilities ranked at a solid four. It could have been worse, it could have been better, and either way, he wished he was in his bed back at home.

They had one of the windows propped open for air. It certainly wasn’t cool outside, but the temperature had dipped enough that the circulation was worth it.

Kiyoomi stared up at the ceiling.

“I want to visit my grandfather’s hometown next week,” he said. “In Iwate. For just a couple of days.”

He heard his cousin shuffle around in his futon.

Eventually, he heard:

“Okay.” What of it?

Kiyoomi said, “You should come.”

What he presumed to be a dehumidifier whirred. He had been unable to locate it earlier. Maybe it was in the walls. 

“Why?” Motoya asked, his voice a thumbtack poking through the air.

“Because,” he said.

His cousin said, “That doesn’t mean anything.”

He didn’t sound annoyed, at least, if only rather exasperated.

“Because I invited you,” Kiyoomi corrected.

There was another pause. Motoya shifted again. He had always been a restless sleeper; it was only because Kiyoomi had become accustomed to sharing a room with him that it wasn’t unnervingly bothersome.

In the dark, the slats of the ceiling started to blur together into wobbly lines. He tried to imagine what his cousin might’ve looked like, undoubtedly thinking about something. It didn’t do much good. He didn’t have his contacts in.

“Okay,” Motoya said.

Chapter Text

The third-year camp ended with a tentative truce with his cousin, a somewhat productive conversation with an agent from Kansai that included a pamphlet detailing the school’s program, and a ridiculously tacky speech from the camp’s head coach about all of their bright, bright futures ahead.

There was still a noticeable wedge between him and Motoya, but they were speaking to each other now, at least, no matter how stilted. The Kansai scout had been decently helpful and actually seemed personally interested in Kiyoomi as a player, though he was sure a decent amount of it was still just schmoozing. The head coach was annoying.

He had several days to himself at home. Then he would take the train (several trains, technically) to Ichinohe, the address from his grandfather’s letters in hand, and the day after that he’d ride back to Tokyo first thing in the morning. With his cousin now, as well.

To be fair, speaking to each other mostly just entailed going over the details of their trip. Motoya, despite his moodiness, was intrigued enough, even if he was a little short with his questions. 

“The letters,” he had said, before Kiyoomi even had the chance to bring them up. 

There was little about his life that he supposed his cousin didn’t know about. The dots weren’t all that challenging to connect.

And Motoya had clearly wanted to say more, but he had simply looked the other way, face abject in his contemplation.

So: the trip. With his cousin. Practice would start back up the day after that, and sooner rather than later would come the first round of qualifiers and the start of the next term.

The same day he came back from camp, Kiyoomi picked up August’s stamps. The care home had AC, and it managed to feel horrifically cold and stuffy at the same time. One of the nurses who knew that he played volleyball congratulated him on his performance.

“I showed it to you grandfather, too,” she said, guiding him down the hall. “Streaming is so easy nowadays.”

Showed, and not watched, because he had no doubt that his grandfather would have complained about having to sit through a match he had no particular interest in. Kiyoomi wasn’t offended. The stamps this time around were based around a sports festival with a water motif. They could have been worse.

Kiyoomi sat. His grandfather sat.

“Grandpa,” he said. “I’m visiting Ichinohe this week.”

It could be challenging to predict how his grandfather would react to anything that was said to him. Most things were met with apathy, disinterest, or a lack of recognition. Certain topics—like stamps—always spurred forward similar, passionate comments. A benign statement could unexpectedly set him off. Kiyoomi’s grandmother had collected nice tea sets. It was one of the few things he knew about the woman, and he knew about it because a rather bland infomercial had sent his grandfather off for an entire day.

His grandfather turned to him, dark eyes roving over his face. “Kaz,” he said.

Kiyoomi said, “Yes. In Ichinohe.”

“That’s not right.” His grandfather’s face was carved out of wrinkles as it was, but even more seemed to form in his skin then. “Unless it’s—I have a letter,” he said.

“I’ll give it to him,” Kiyoomi said.

His grandfather said, “His handwriting never—because his father was always breathing down his neck. Never improved. I told him to practice.”

Curiosity was burning a hole through Kiyoomi’s tongue. Satisfaction was found in knowing things—in secrets—in truths. But his grandfather trailed off and his expression was ebbing out at the corners again. He swallowed his questions, telling himself they’d be answered within a few days.

Life had not been on pause while Kiyoomi was away at camp. He had still texted his sister, who had apparently seen their brother again. According to Manami, Yasuaki was being rather reticent when it came to explaining how the conversation with their parents had gone. Kiyoomi believed that. She wouldn’t lie to him, and even if she did, he would have been able to tell.

He had said that they—Mom and Dad—had been shell-shocked, a little flabbergasted, and, eventually, a lot pissed off. No duh, was how Manami had responded, apparently. He had been clear about his own planned involvement in his child’s life. He had apparently discussed with them their theoretical involvement—or lack thereof—in his child’s life. Some of the exact details had not been passed over to him. Of Yasuaki’s child’s life. This was fine.

It meant that there was a certain weight infiltrating the air of the house, one that had intensified in the past week. His parents had seemingly passed the first hurdle of shock; now the veil had fallen back over skin, if only with a bit more zeal than before. From the sound of it, his mother’s steps were creating enough force to crack the wood flooring.

All of it—all of it, he meant it—weren’t a concern to him. It wasn’t his business. He had his trip, he had qualifiers, he had school starting up again. Sooner rather than later, he had a decision to make about university. These fell within the realms of his care, and nothing else.

…

In theory, of course. In practice too, he had imagined, but—

But.

“I am,” his mother said, hands clasped together, “simply a little concerned about this whole trip of yours.”

Her pants had pinstripes. Her blouse had shiny, milky white buttons. His mother was wearing a thin, simple necklace—sleek and silver—that he hadn’t seen in years, resting just above her collarbones.

They were not in the kitchen. In another move that he hadn’t seen since he was a child, she had knocked on his door, and now she stood there while he sat at his desk. He had been going over some of Kutaragi-sensei’s revision materials.

Static buzzed between Kiyoomi’s ears. “You’re concerned,” he repeated.

She nodded. Her chin was raised but not haughty. Assertive but compelling. “It’s rather far, don’t you think? When you’re on your own.”

“Motoya is coming with me.”

This was not an effective deterrent. She seemed unsurprised. “You’re both young,” she said.

“We’re graduating this year.”

“And that’s an impressive accomplishment. But you’re both still high schoolers. I don’t know how I feel about you spending the night somewhere by yourselves.”

“It’s a small town. We can keep in touch,” he added, mind whirling with rhetoric and persuasion and, and, and. “I could let you know if anything was wrong. Or,” he said, and he was playing his hand, he knew, but— “It could be one day. We wouldn’t have to stay the night.”

His mother smiled. “I appreciate that, Kiyoomi, but I just don’t think this is the best idea right now.”

Kiyoomi didn’t disobey. He was a good enough son. He had never found it worth it to speak to his annoyance with some of his parents’ decisions or words, and honestly, they didn’t necessarily annoy him often. In fact, they often seemed fine enough just letting Kiyoomi do what he wanted, since so rarely what he wanted to do clashed with their own interests.

But—

But it was summer, and it was warm, and he was annoyed, and—

“You can’t say that right now,” Kiyoomi snapped, response immediate. He was still thinking, of course, because he always was, but his mouth was moving faster than the rest of him. “It’s in two days. You can’t say that.”

Something in his mother’s face chipped. She took in a breath, torso rising as her diaphragm expanded; in through the nose, out through the mouth.

“I’m your mother,” she said, after a moment. There was something in her eyes: he couldn’t quite place it. “I’m your mother, and I would ask that you would listen to what I’m telling you.”

She wasn’t asking. He knew that she wasn’t asking. She knew that he knew, and that was that.

Kiyoomi didn’t move from his desk after his mother left his room. Anger simmered low in his gut. His brain was on the fritz, neurons blazing, The texts he sent out were short and curt and snappish. To his sister, then to his cousin.

How can I get around this? How can I get her to change her mind? Where did this come from? He couldn’t. Get her to change her mind, that was. Because his mother had set her foot down in an insurmountable way; she cast judgment and she didn’t recast it.

As to why it had happened— well. He had some ideas.

Manami told him she’d call him when she was out of work that day. Motoya said he’d talk to his mom. Kiyoomi pressed his pencil so hard against his textbook that the lead broke off.

And what happened next he didn’t quite have access to. What was new. Motoya did indeed talk to his mother, because his mother talked to Kiyoomi’s mother, and then his father got involved and so did Takeuchi-san. It wasn’t exactly a rare thing for them to talk. Aunt Erika might’ve been his father’s sister, but to his knowledge, she and his mother communicated regularly enough.

They didn’t talk like this, exactly. The types of conversations that seemed to blow up on themselves, as far as he could tell; Aunt Erika was frighteningly stubborn, and his mother was also frighteningly stubborn, and oddly enough these two things didn’t mix well. And led to his parents blowing up on one another in a way that he hadn’t overheard since he was a kid, which caused Kiyoomi’s tolerance for any of this to blow up, and the whole house was about to collapse in on itself. No, his house still wasn’t haunted, but sometimes he thought he’d rather deal with ghosts.

After a day straight of thick, heavy tension and aggravation worming its way through his brain (he took several showers that day, and it dried out his skin and caused his hair to get all frizzy, and he had to go out to buy more lotion because he was nearly out of his, and the humidity caused his clothes to feel sticky over his skin), something seemed to give. Something, but not everything, because:

“Mom said she’ll take care of it,” Motoya’s voice said into his ear. He had called him that evening. “Or like, she’ll deal with your mom during it. But your mom still doesn’t want us to go alone, I guess.”

“You guess.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” Motoya’s attempts at amusement fell flat. “Mom doesn’t totally disagree, I think. I don’t know. She didn’t really give me a lot of the details.” A pause. “She’s a little pissed, I think. Not at you,” he added quickly.

She wanted them to have adult supervision, or something or other. Kiyoomi’s mother. And she certainly wouldn’t be the one providing it, nor would his father, nor would he want either of them to, to be frank, but Takeuchi-san had a hearing he needed to be present for and Aunt Erika was dealing with it and Sachie was across the country visiting a friend and Manami, of course, had a conference. But there was—

That was an option.

manami (14:17): He said that he’d be available

manami (14:18): Or that he thinks he could be able to do it

manami (14:18): I can give you his number

It was Kiyoomi who called her. He was lying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. “You said he thinks,” he said. “Does he even know for sure?”

“He needs to check it out, it sounds like, but he said he had already been planning on switching shifts with someone coming up. He said he could likely pull some strings to make it earlier.”

On one hand, Kiyoomi knew, objectively, that he should have been grateful probably—or acknowledge that his brother was willing to help him out, or, or, or, but he said, “What does that mean?”

“What?”

“He was going to switch for something. What for?”

“He didn’t technically say. Look, I know this isn’t what you wanted, but this could be— I don’t know. He wants to help.” After another moment of Kiyoomi not saying anything, she went, “Ironically, I don’t know how much he gets out, so perhaps this is a good thing for everyone.”

She was trying to tell a joke. It was the final straw, perhaps. Sparks, kindling, fire.

He thought about saying:

Do you actually even have a conference to go to?

He thought about saying:

Do you even care why Yasuaki came back?

He thought about saying:

You wouldn’t care.

He thought about saying:

No matter what he’d say, you wouldn’t care.

He said, “Did he ever even apologize?”

Kiyoomi heard the start of something—his sister’s voice leaving her mouth as only a sound before the action was quickly aborted. His skin still felt dry and muggy all at once.

“What do you mean by that?” she said.

“Did he,” he said, “ever actually apologize?”

He tried and failed to imagine what her face might’ve looked like. His ceiling was a blank, pale expanse. Beige enough to sear his retinas.

Eventually, Manami said, “I’m not having this conversation with you right now. I can give you his number. You can talk to him yourself, alright?”

It felt like there were shards of chipped plastic spearing his tongue to the base of his mouth. This is why he preferred talking in person. All he would have to do is nod.

“Alright?”

The word was brisk, clipped, and revealing very little and too much at the same time.

“Fine,” Kiyoomi said.

…

Once, when he was fourteen, the phone rang when he was home alone.

It had been a Friday. It had been at night. His sister was out, his parents were away, and his grandfather had recently been moved into the care facility. There had been a storm earlier that day, and a damp, earthy scent still lingered.

It meant that it all came together to be a good night. A night when he had the main room to himself, and could watch a movie in the dark, uninterrupted. He had never been the type to be scared to be on his own. Kiyoomi reveled in the solitude, no matter how much goading he received from his cousin.

He was enjoying himself. He didn’t need to think about any of the other responsibilities of his life.

And then the phone rang.

Kiyoomi, at that point, had a cellphone, so if any of his aforementioned family members needed to reach him, they likely would have used that avenue. It also would have been odd for it to be a spam call so late at night. And he knew that the care home had his parents give their contact information in case of emergency, but he wasn't sure if they ended up hanging over their cell numbers or the landline.

So he had paused the screen—a mystery with a big name American actor—and he had approached the phone—it had rung three times—and he hadn’t recognized the number. It rang again. He could have just let it go to voicemail, but if it was some sort of important phone call, people were so inefficient at leaving messages, and so he had answered.

“Hello?” he said.

It sounded like whoever was on the other side of the line fumbled with their phone. The low, droning buzz of silence crackled in his ear. A moment passed.

“Hello?” he said again.

It was like a cliche plucked straight from a horror film. All that was still needed was a bout of lightning to crackle across the sky at just the right moment, its flash revealing a silhouette poised to strike. Kiyoomi glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. No one was there, obviously. It also wasn’t raining.

He was just about to hang up—maybe it was just a spam call, or a butt dial, or some other redundant thing when whoever was on the other end of the line said, “Shit.”

There was a nebulousness to the voice—an anonymity. It was a single word, spoken through dark, muffled air and static. The voice was low and seemingly masculine. He didn’t quite recognize it.

He said, “Who is this?”

My sister is a lawyer, he thought about saying. Actually, she’s not for some reason, but she studied to be one, but she’s going to work in law, and so you should be wary.

It probably would have been easier to say my cousin’s stepfather is a lawyer.

Another fumble, or something. The person said, “Is Manami there?”

“Who’s speaking?” was what he said. If this came back to be his sister’s fault, he’d be rather annoyed.

“It’s—” They paused. “Fuck.” A horn honked in the background. “Is that— Kiyoomi?”

There was no storm outside, but something catalyzed in his chest, then, spreading through his body in a way that must have had long, curling fingers, much like the roots of a tree, much like lightning. The jolt of a realization.

Kiyoomi said, “Yasuaki?”

A pause. There might have been voices in the background, too, not just car horns. And sometimes he might’ve looked back, wondered what those voices might’ve been saying, wondered where his brother might’ve been—

The line went dead.

His night to himself had been officially ruined. He did not tell his parents about the call. He did tell his sister. She was still living at home at the time, and he hadn’t seen her until the Monday evening of next week.

(“Adult business,” she once told him, when he asked what it was exactly that she got up to on the weekend.

“You’re annoying,” he had said back.

“Very,” she had said, before attempting to mess up his hair.)

Something in her face locked up in the way that it only ever did when their brother was brought up. It had started then, maybe.

He didn’t even get too short when she unloaded a mountain of questions on him, each succinct and intentional. My sister is going into law— or something.

It had barely been a phone call. He didn’t even really say anything. He seemed a little out of it. It sounded like there were people around him. It sounded like he had been outside. He didn’t really say much at all. He—

“—asked if you were there,” Kiyoomi said, and his sister’s expression shuttered completely in a way that was more flagrant than any grand display of emotion could have ever been.

She said, “And would the machine still have the number he used?”

It did. And it didn’t seem to matter, because, as far as he knew, it hadn’t exactly led anywhere, because he knew that she tried—calling back. Texting, probably.

It wouldn’t be the only time something like this would happen. Well. It was the only time Kiyoomi would talk to Yasuaki, if it even counted as that, until a certain lunch in May. But there would be several moments where he knew his brother had dropped into their lives—not even theirs, but Manami’s life—only very briefly, and quickly followed by him dipping out as if he were never there in the first place.

…

Texting his brother had proved to be horrifically awkward. He got it over with. They confirmed a time to meet before they’d go to the station together. They were meeting his brother there because him coming to the house was understood by all to be an awful idea. He hadn’t talked to his sister since their phone call.

Kiyoomi largely avoided his parents leading up to his trip. He didn’t think it was hard to understand why. It wasn’t a particularly challenging task to take up, either, as it hadn’t been his entire life, because even when his mother was trying to do whatever it was she was doing, she still had work. And other, non-Kiyoomi obligations. As did his father.

His father, who certainly wouldn’t defend Kiyoomi—let alone when he was willingly going to spend time with Yasuaki—but who was evidently at odds with his mother for some reason. Fighting. Arguing. He had heard their voices but not their words, the specific details lost on him.

Nowadays, when his father caught sight of Kiyoomi, he just seemed put out in the same way that had caused him to sigh during their conversation at dinner months ago. Not quite resigned, maybe, but something adjacent to it.

A something that was dismissive and had better things to do, apparently.

And all things considered, that wasn’t exactly a change from how he had always acted.. If he thought back, it was a dynamic that only solidified further after Yasuaki left.

(His parents were often on the same page. His parents evidently had similar goals in life. He had a few memories growing up of his parents seeming to enjoy spending time together. They had been married for more than twenty years at that rate.

He still couldn’t tell if they liked each other or not. They had never been the type to argue with each other, but that didn’t exactly mean they enjoyed each other’s company, either, as much as they just tolerated one another. Or it appeared that way, at least. He couldn’t pretend like he understood them.)

His father was at work already that morning. His mother wasn’t. Kiyoomi had mostly gone without seeing her since she confronted him in his room—Aunt Erika, other than work herself, was dealing with it—but she found him with his bag in the main room as he waited for Motoya to get there so that Takeuchi-san could drive them to the station.

Different blouse—different pants—same necklace—different face. There was something palpably annoyed in the pinch of her mouth, the creases around her eyes. Did she look old? No, she didn’t, but, very oddly, she looked fidgety in the way that Yasuaki used to look. He would have been lying if he said that it didn’t make his posture straighten.

She didn’t end up saying anything. The fabric of her pants swished as she turned and attacked the stairs.

When he got there, appearing normal if not a little drawn out, Motoya peeked inside the house as Kiyoomi exited. “Auntie around?” he asked, hands in his pockets.

“Upstairs,” he said. The door shut behind him. “You could have just texted me.”

“Common courtesy,” Motoya said. “Kids these days don’t know how to knock.”

Sure, said his face. There was still something distinctly irregular thrumming beneath their conversation. Motoya knew it too, because he didn’t say anything more. Takeuchi-san greeted him with his typical nonchalance, smiling in the rearview window.

When he dropped them off, he simply said, “Have a fun one. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That’s a problematic standard,” Motoya said, snagging his bag from the trunk. “See you.”

Takeuchi-san was allegedly supposed to make sure that they were actually meeting up with his brother. His brother, who was indeed standing in front of Tokyo Central Station. Takeuchi-san was around when Yasuaki was around, technically, but he couldn’t remember a time when they would’ve interacted, given that by the time he had become more than just someone Aunt Erika was seeing, his brother was spending as little time around the house as possible.

He didn’t know why it was only occurring to him then that Yasuaki had never met Kuniko, nor why that thought stood out in his mind as he and Motoya trod across the pavement. And when was the last time that Motoya had actually talked to his brother?

“This is going to be pretty weird,” said his cousin, as if reading his mind. “Should we shake hands?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

Motoya hesitated as if he wanted to say something—perhaps feeling a tug to engage in their typical dynamic—but he seemed to think better of it. He simply adjusted the strap of his bag.

Yasuaki still looked like Yasuaki. Now he was wearing a striped shirt—a simple pair of slacks. He had a rather normal duffel bag. It wasn’t the same bag that he had used when leaving home all those years ago.

And his brother, at least, seemed to be similarly unaware of how to grapple with the conversation before them. Kiyoomi didn’t know why’d agree to be here, given that he already looked a little bent out of shape. That was also just what his resting face looked like.

“Hey,” said his brother.

Kiyoomi nodded. Motoya lifted his hand with a wave.

Yasuaki said, “Motoya. You look—” He stopped, before: “Older.”

“Yeah,” Motoya said. “That’ll happen.”

“Guess so.”

His cousin smiled: thrumming bright and iridescent. Sachie used to have a lava lamp, neon pink and fluorescent orange, and liked to plug it in at their kitchen table when she’d do her homework out there, much to Aunt Erika’s chagrin. Motoya said, “I heard about the news. Congrats.”

Sachie and Manami had never been close. They had occasionally hung out growing up—particularly after Yasuaki left—but there was enough of an age difference between the two that there wasn’t a super organic relationship there. And as much time as Motoya and Kiyoomi spent with each other, his sister and his cousin typically only interacted because of overlap. Or, perhaps, with Kiyoomi as an unintended conduit, sharing stories here and there.

It meant that Motoya, when around his sister, let his guard down more than he otherwise would in public, but he at times still put up a front. Nothing too severe, and nothing that his sister wasn’t prone to reciprocating herself. Polite and neat.

He wasn’t quite this polite and neat with her, though.

“Yeah, thanks,” Yasuaki said, a wry twist to his words. Everything he said had an acidic underpinning; grating in a way that probably wasn’t even intentional, so much as it permeated every aspect of his personality.

“We should get to the platform,” Kiyoomi said.

His brother eyed him for a second, and then he said, “Right. No time for smalltalk, I guess.”

“Not really.”

“Right.”

Motoya said, “How’s work?”

The station was as busy as one could expect on a summer morning in the middle of the week. There were enough people milling around for him to want to put on his headphones with the hopes of drowning out the spattering of conversations happening on the platform, the voice announcing stops, wave after wave of footsteps on the tile, on the stairs, in his ears.

On principle, Kiyoomi valued public transit and the good that it brought to a society. A busy train station was a busy train station.

“It’s where Grandpa grew up, right?” his brother said as they waited.

They stood in a line, facing the empty tracks where their train would roll in; Yasuaki, then Kiyoomi, then Motoya.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said.

Yasuaki said, “Manami told me about his—how he’s been doing.”

The train was running late. Of course it was. “Not great,” he said.

“Yeah, it sounded like it. But you visit him?”

“Occasionally.”

“Didn’t know you were close.”

“We’re not. I just bring him his stamps.”

“Right.”

“Just ask.”

“What?”

“Ask,” Kiyoomi said. “Just get it over with.”

“Ow,” said Yasuaki. “Manami said something about… letters? Or something.”

What else did she say? he asked.

No, he said, “Pretty much.”

Maybe this should have been when he’d say thank you for doing this. Or, we don’t have to pretend to like each other. Or— or something.

They stood and they waited. The train showed up eventually.

…

As the number of years since Yasuaki’s departure had grown, November had become easier for his sister.

Their brother’s birthday—similar to the anniversary of that night in July—always had a habit of bringing up bad memories, he thought. Perhaps not even just bad memories: memories, generalized, whether they stung or were simply bittersweet. He couldn’t claim like he had many either way.

His sister had quite a few. Enough that they’d bog her down. Especially in the beginning, and especially after those handful of times when Yasuaki would make a distorted attempt at contact.

It wasn’t all that long after that aborted phone call. That autumn brought a dip in her mood, though it was far less noticeable than it might’ve been just a few years prior.

Kiyoomi couldn’t quite understand it. He knew, of course, that Manami and Yasuaki had been close. He knew that just because he didn’t know Yasuaki didn’t mean that no one knew Yasuaki. No: in fact, he thought about it often when he thought about his brother.

He was doing his homework in the main room. She was reading through some documents for her internship. She was supposed to be, at least, but he could tell that she wasn’t quite there. Not completely.

They didn’t talk about Yasuaki often. There wasn’t quite a need to. He often occupied enough of a space without even being there: an empty room constantly on their tails.

It was out of character, then, when he said, “Did he ever talk about leaving?”

Manami looked up at him. Her face was carefully impassive, which was a clue enough on its own that he had caught her off guard. He didn’t mean to—not really. Kiyoomi didn’t think there was any way to bring up one’s estranged brother without catching the other off guard.

She didn’t respond immediately. Only after thinking about it, she said, “He had a friend.” Her tone was meticulous. “He lived in Vancouver. He started talking about him.”

Kiyoomi said, “I remember.”

He remembered Yasuaki and Manami fighting. Instead of conversations that ended with inevitable laughter, the hallway became a place of terse exchanges, of more yelling, of confusion. Just fucking talk to me—just leave me alone—just let me know what’s wrong—just fuck off—I know that you’re not telling me something—

Manami nodded, movements slow. “He had friends in a lot of places. So who even knows—” She paused, righting herself. “I suppose there’s a lot of places he could be.”

She returned to reading whatever it was she was reading. Financial documents for a contract negotiation or something or other. Kiyoomi normally would have done the same.

There really wasn’t a particular trigger for it, other than that phone call.

Kiyoomi said, “He was a jerk.” In general. “For not saying anything.”

He thought she was going to snort, or shake her head, or say what an astute, unknowable observation.

But Manami’s shoulders tensed, her mouth pulling into a line. She said, “I don’t want to talk about this, Kiyoomi.”

That should have been a sign enough. A blaring air horn. Back off.

Defensive.

And that poked.

Kiyoomi said, “He could say anything now. But he hasn’t.”

“Just—” Manami sat up, chair creaking beneath her. “Drop it, okay?”

Why are you mad at me?, he nearly bit out, but perhaps he had developed enough survival skills at fourteen to keep his mouth shut.

They continued to work in silence. When he glanced over, he was sure the same terse wrinkle between her eyebrows was reflected back onto his own face.

…

Ichinohe wore its ruralness much the same as any other small town in the country, he imagined. Riddled with a slowing economy and declining population, the cluster of buildings found in the immediate vicinity of the train station—which was, as fate would see it, not nearly as illustrious as Tokyo Central—were a mismatch of dated asbestos, ramshackle wood, and pops of color in storefront windows, all remnants of twentieth-century urbanization.

The sky was particularly blue overhead. All one had to do was look up to see the earth beginning its slow ascent to a summit on the outskirts of the town; a short drive was all it would take to be immersed in nature entirely.

Kiyoomi was not Iizuna. He wasn’t embarrassed to admit that he preferred the city.

“Quaint,” said his cousin, and yes, even when at odds with one another, they were on the same page.

The immediate sense of quiet was welcomed, at least.

He couldn’t complain too much about the train ride. It had appeared like their transfer was going to be delayed, but it had smoothed itself out soon enough. His brother made no attempts at further conversation while they were en route. Yasuaki and Motoya talked very briefly—school, work, volleyball—and his cousin had smiled the entire time before everyone had deferred to putting on their headphones.

It was the afternoon, now. They were waiting for the bus to arrive so that they could drop their things off at the inn.

It (being the inn, not a hotel, not a motel, not even a traditional ryokan, as specified by the man he had talked to on the phone) was technically within walking distance. This was the closest option within town limits; some of the other choices were further out, veering closer to being resortish within the context of the mountains that surrounded Ichinohe. As did their price points, despite winter’s distance.

It was also one of the only places he could find that didn’t seem to mind renting a room to him despite his age. He was very aware of the fact that that, within itself, perhaps constituted a red flag, but Kiyoomi was a rather self-serving individual.

The bus driver was far too talkative for how bright the sun was. Motoya, as one might expect, saw no problem in engaging with him in conversation, leaving Kiyoomi and his brother as unwilling passive participants.

He looked out the window. A child was riding a bike. Kiyoomi watched the child ride the bike parallel to the bus. Either the child belonged in the Tour de France, or the speed of their bus ride was rather dubious. The child met Kiyoomi’s gaze and gave him a thumbs down before speeding away.

“Wow,” said Motoya. “That’s so interesting!”

This trip was more pragmatic than anything else. He had never really thought of it as a vacation in the first place, so there were no standards to not meet. Kiyoomi had gone into this thinking very little of the inn they’d be staying at, so when the man they had seen chain smoking in the parking lot bustled inside behind them, saying, oh wait shit, and turned out to be manning the front desk, he couldn’t even complain.

Not even when his droning description of the inn’s facilities took at least ten minutes, and was finished with a:

“And check out our hypothetical koi pond in the courtyard in the back.”

“Hypothetical?” Yasuaki said.

“Legally,” continued the man, “we can’t actually call it a koi pond, because there might only theoretically be fish in there.”

“We’ll take a look,” said Motoya, as if able to hear the steam whistling out of Kiyoomi’s ears.

They had two rooms. Yasuaki was in one; Kiyoomi and Motoya in the other. He had called last week to add the second room thinking it would just be him and his cousin coming, but given the possible combinations they could create, this was the most optimal choice as far as room and board went.

He, his cousin, and his brother stood in the hallway outside of their rooms. The building seemed to be a few decades old and had evidently never been renovated. A damp scent clung to the walls. He would scrub down the bath before using it.

“Well,” his brother said.

Yasuaki had mentioned, while waiting for their transfer earlier that day, that he was fine with staying out of his and Motoya’s hair. “I have some shit to get done anyways,” was what he had said. Motoya had run to the bathroom. “I can just like. Chill at the hotel.”

He hadn’t thought it would be completely appropriate to say yes thanks that would be preferable. So Kiyoomi had said, “You’re supposed to be making sure that we’re not misbehaving, aren’t you?”

Kiyoomi still wasn’t quite sure why his parents were somehow okay with Yasuaki being the adult to accompany them. In his mind, he would have thought them to prefer no adult at all versus his brother’s company. It undoubtedly had something to do with Aunt Erika’s intervention. He knew he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, even if this felt like a rather flimsy gift.

His brother had snorted. “Yeah, well,” he said. “You probably can’t get up to much shit as I did at your age.”

That was true. Kiyoomi also had no desire to act out to the same degree that his brother ever did. He had also felt oddly needled by Yasuaki’s comment.

It continued to needle at him now. “We’re going to go by the house.” He clarified, “The address.”

Yasuaki nodded. “Alright. Well.” He peered down the hallway. There was nothing down the hallway. He looked back to Kiyoomi. “Text me if you need anything, I guess.”

A few minutes later, when they were putting their things down in their room and Kiyoomi was inspecting the beds, his cousin said, “He’s normal.”

“What,” Kiyoomi said.

“Your brother.” Motoya was at the window, holding back the curtain with his finger. “I don’t know. I thought he’d be like.” He paused. “You know what I mean.”

He did. It was annoying. Kiyoomi pulled out the pillowcase he had packed. “It’ll be easier to walk,” was what he said.

“It’s probably good to get our steps in.” The curtain fell back. Motoya huffed out a laugh. “There really is a pond back there.”

…

It had started with George’s shining, friendly eyes. Completely unbridled.

“It’s just hard to get around with this thing.” Matsunaga-san’s home resembled a photo from a catalog. He was pretty sure she worked in interior design. “And my husband just hates taking him on walks.”

“I’ll do it.”

“He’s never liked dogs much! Can you believe that? I think he’s kind of scared of them, but don’t tell him I told you that. Who would be scared of Georgie?”

“I’ll do it.”

“So it would be a real help if you could take him out. I can get my boys to help, too, but I can’t rely on them every day. They’re all sorts of trouble,” Matsunaga-san said. “I could pay you, too.”

“I’ll do it,” Kiyoomi said. Volleyball had proved itself a fruitful hobby for a variety of reasons: one of which being an increase in hand dexterity, meaning he was all the better at petting dogs like George behind the ears.

Matsunaga-san was not one of their nosy neighbors, but she was rather long-winded. She had children who were younger than Kiyoomi, and were, as she had said, a little annoying. They hadn’t always lived in the neighborhood, though they had lived there as far back as Kiyoomi’s memory mattered. Matsunaga-san and her husband were relatively young themselves.

She usually was someone he’d avoid if he could manage, except when he caught her walking her dog.

She had also recently broken her foot. She seemed to be taking it much better than his grandfather had those several years ago, though he supposed there were other factors causing that. Matsunaga-san was into fitness, and had, to his knowledge, tried to tangle his mother into a trip to her yoga studio. His mother did not like Matsunaga-san.

Because of her foot, she couldn't walk her dog. She had left a voicemail on their landline asking if Kiyoomi would be interested in helping. He had gotten to it before his mother had.

“Oh!” Matsunaga-san said. She was stirring something in a mug. They were standing in her kitchen. He was pretty sure it wasn’t coffee, as he imagined she might have qualms with caffeine. Or something. “That’s great. Awesome.”

George’s fur was soft. His breath was a little potent, but it was a con easily outweighed by the pros of everything else about him.

Matsunaga-san grabbed a leash from a drawer. “If you could just stop by after school, that would be great. Oh—you play sports, too, right? That’s fine. After that, then. I’ll leave a key out for you. Gin might be home sometimes—he can come with you!”

Gin was ten years old and loud about it. Kiyoomi didn’t say this. He pet George. “Okay,” he said.

She hadn’t yet handed over the leash, talking about Gin’s schooling and her husband’s work and how is high school going for you? Is your sister doing well?

Your brother?

George was now lying on his back. Kiyoomi was giving him belly rubs. This was the only reason he hadn’t yet pressed for the leash formally.

The fact that Matsunaga-san wasn’t nosy should have been a benefit, but it also meant that some of the neighborhood gossip that he knew very well to pass around their street likely flew over her head. No one had seen Yasuaki’s departure in a literal sense, but his absence had become noticeable. Even more so in light of the many fights that had led up to him leaving.

His mother had told him once what to say if someone asked him about it. She had tried telling Manami, too, but his sister’s face had done something very funny before she had retreated to her room.

He said, “Yasuaki moved out.”

She said, “Is he working?”

It didn’t seem to be purposeful. Matsunaga-san was relatively nice. She wasn’t the type to wheedle information out of someone so overtly, even if George’s presence was rather convenient.

(It might’ve made it worse, then, that it was genuine.)

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, instead of I don’t even know where he is.

But she wouldn’t know that. He could say anything about his brother, and she’d probably believe it.

So he said, “He works in the public sector. Under the city planner.” His fingers wormed their way into George’s fur. “He’s very busy.”

“My sister-in-law worked as a volunteer for the city’s housing committee,” she said. “It’s important work.”

“Yes,” he said, and he didn’t know why, but he said, “He studied abroad, too. In Canada.” He speaks to me every day. He speaks to my sister every day. I know exactly where he is.

Matsunaga-san rattled on about her own travels backpacking across South America. Eventually, she handed over the leash, and Kiyoomi escaped outdoors with a very happy George. The specific details of his dog-walking duties still needed to be ironed out, but he didn’t mind too much.

George trotted at an amicable pace, nose occasionally pinning itself to the concrete to catch a whiff of whatever it was he was smelling. His tail wagged in perpetuity. Perhaps life would be easier if he only had two types of cones in his eyes.

…

They chose to walk. It was easier than waiting for the bus again. Kiyoomi didn’t consider himself to be a rather antsy person, but he also didn’t like being confined; being restricted to a train for several hours made him want to burn off some energy.

When they had been walking for five minutes, Motoya said, “So. What’s the plan?” He was wearing a ballcap that Kiyoomi was pretty sure was Takeuchi-san’s.

Kiyoomi had opted for a sunhat that Iizuna had given him as a birthday gift a couple of years ago. For adventuring, or something. He had not used it for adventuring. He didn’t think this counted as adventuring. “We go to the house,” he said.

“Yeah,” Motoya said. “And?”

It wasn’t exactly a bad question. Motoya had asked very little about this trip up until this point, even though he had seemed to understand its purpose. There was still a tension in his shoulders—one that had been there all summer, if not earlier than that.

“We ask about the letters,” Kiyoomi said.

“And then?”

“What.”

“Is that all we came here for?”

“You didn’t have to come.”

“You were the one who invited me.”

“You were the one who agreed to come.”

Motoya adjusted his cap. A woman was sweeping the stretch of asphalt outside of a storefront. She waved at them. Motoya waved back. “I want to choose where we eat,” he said.

They kept walking.

Kiyoomi had spent weeks meticulously mapping out the path to the address. To Masaoka Kazuo’s alleged address. The address from his grandfather’s letters.

There was something about that moment that didn’t feel lost on him. He couldn’t pretend like the secret behind his grandfather’s letters—as if it could really be called that, because it wasn’t as if it was that, a secret—was something that had greatly consumed him since that particular, fateful day out to the movies. But it had become a thing, hadn’t it; blending into the facts of his life, naturalized into something he just had to accept.

His grandfather wrote letters to someone. He didn’t know who to.

And here he was: and there was the possible answer.

It was a little out of the way from the main part of town. The road there had been narrow and quiet, the scenery around them changing from beige to green, trees thick and dense. Motoya took a few pictures. Kiyoomi adjusted his sunhat. It wasn’t a particularly short walk—and yes, perhaps would have been preferable to take with a car or bike—but even with the heat, he could admit it to be a pretty enough view.

They came upon a cluster of houses. Their appearance was distorted by the heat, at first, coming into focus as they grew closer. A pinwheel tied to a wooden stake twirled with the breeze. The paved road came to a stop, as expected, and so they took to a worn path carved into the earth that continued up a slight incline, where more houses peeked through the trees.

It was the farthest house out, fittingly enough, with a hefty gap between it and its nearest neighbor. And much like everything else that had been happening in Kiyoomi’s life as of late, they were 100 meters away, and then 50, and then 10, and then, however unceremoniously—

And then—

It was a house. Clearly. Structurally, it was a house, but functionally, it had been a house, judging by overgrown shrubs littering the surrounding grass; by broken window screens; and by a roof that, even from this angle, was clearly caving in.

“It’s the right address, right?” Motoya said.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, pulling off his hat.

“Sorry, dumb question.” He saw his cousin glance over at him. Motoya said, “Maybe someone does actually live in it.”

Kiyoomi stared.

“We could still ask around. Like, a neighbor or something.”

Kiyoomi stared.

“Or investigate. Like it’s a video game or something. Maybe we’ll find a conveniently placed diary.”

Kiyoomi stared.

“Cousin,” Motoya said. “Give me something. Or something.”

“It’s a house,” Kiyoomi said.

“Yes. It is.”

Kiyoomi took a step forward. Then another. He walked until he was directly in front of the house’s front door, his shoes striking its concrete foundation. The door opened with little resistance; a cloud of debris shuddered down from the ceiling.

The genkan was cramped and dark. The floor seemed to be concrete here as well, caked in a thin layer of grime, and the step up into the house itself was steep, the entranceway narrow. He couldn’t see the bulk of what he assumed to be the main room of the home, but light filtered through the roof, catching motes of dust and shadows.

“Well, first theory is out,” said Motoya’s voice, approaching from behind him. He peered over Kiyoomi’s shoulder. Around it, more accurately. “I would hope, at least.”

Yes: it was clear no one lived here. Or, more accurately, someone had, but not within the twenty-first century, despite his grandfather’s letters.

He could go to the local postal office. He could go to the neighbors. He knew, realistically, that there were still other avenues to take, that this didn’t necessarily mean that his trip was for nothing at all. There was still more that he could do.

“Tools,” Kiyoomi said, eyes tracking a spider that was crawling across the concrete, legs long and spindled. “We need tools.”

“Tools,” Motoya repeated.

Kiyoomi said, “We need to survey the house. Before we go inside.”

It was probably incredibly unstable. To truck inside with no precaution would be a safety hazard he wasn’t willing to take.

“I was kind of joking about the video game thing.”

“I’m not.”

“I know. Tools,” Motoya repeated. He released a noise that was sort of like a laugh. “Tools,” he said again. “Alright, tools. I will help you find some tools.”

He heard his cousin’s sneakers scuff against the concrete. Kiyoomi was still staring into the dark underbelly of the house. He was still staring when he stopped hearing his cousin’s sneakers and instead heard a sharp intake of breath. He turned.

Tools. Tool. Singular.

A man holding a tool. A man holding a shovel and wearing thick boots, caked in mud, that went up to his knees. The man stood just a few meters away, face shadowed by his straw hat.

He didn’t say anything. The man.

Kiyoomi and his cousin stood there.

In front of him, Motoya’s hand lifted in a wave. “Oh,” he said. “Good afternoon, sir.”

His voice was clear; his cadence crisp. It didn’t reveal a single thing except for a sunny, good-natured disposition.

(Once, a couple years ago, sitting in front of the TV:

“Who do you think would survive between the two of us?” Motoya asked.

Kiyoomi said, “Me.” He said, “What are you talking about?”

Motoya said, “In a horror movie.”

It was a good question. He thought for a second. Someone on the screen slammed a door shut, face drenched in sweat and terror. “You too,” Kiyoomi said, after a moment. “If you didn’t get too in over your head.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Too bad. Iizuna probably wouldn’t make it through act one.”

“Of course not.”)

“We didn’t expect it to be so hot,” said Motoya.

Voice gruff, the man said, “What’re you doing?”

Motoya said, “Just looking around. We’re out-of-towners. It’s a funny story.”

“Who used to live here?” Kiyoomi said.

Motoya, still smiling, of course, shot him a look, tight around the eyes.

“Who’s askin’?” said the man.

Kiyoomi pulled out the sticky note with the house’s address from his pocket. “I’m looking for someone who used to live here,” he said, holding it up. “Masaoka Kazuo.”

The man lowered the shovel. He squeezed the front of his hat between his thumb and forefinger, lifting it up so that his face—freckled and befuddled—was revealed by the sun. He was on the older side of things; not as old as his grandfather, but older than his parents, certainly.

“Masaoka,” repeated the man. “Yeah, they used to live here. You’re lookin’ for Kazuo?”

“Yes,” he said. “Does he still live in town?”

The man stared at him. “No,” he said, after a moment, voice slow. “Who are you supposed to be?”

He didn’t exactly want to tell a stranger who he was. Kiyoomi was also aware of the fact that he was probably in the position of someone who did, indeed, need to express his purpose for being there, given that he was technically trespassing. He doubted that this was the man’s property, though. He doubted that this was anyone’s property.

Kiyoomi settled for: “My grandfather used to live in this town. He sent letters here.”

And the man still appeared confused, maybe, but a different variation of it. A little flummoxed. “Those aren’t sent here anymore.”

Obviously, he didn’t say. Motoya said, tone light, “I would imagine many wouldn’t be.”

“No,” the man said. He lowered his shovel, at least. “Those letters. They ain’t sent here anymore.”

Kiyoomi said, “You know about them?”

“Yeah,” the man said.

And that was all he said.

Before he could very calmly articulate a response, Motoya said, “Do you live around here?”

“I do,” the man said. “Live just down the road.”

“That’s neat. The area’s so nice.” Motoya said. Kiyoomi opened his mouth, but his cousin said, “Do you think you know where we could find the man who used to live here? Even if he’s no longer in town?”

The man with the shovel, even if not holding said shovel like it was a weapon, just squinted over at them, appraising. He swore he heard a thump reverberate from somewhere deep in the house behind them; he glanced over his shoulder, but nothing had changed in the darkness. He turned back.

“I can’t help with that,” the man said, adjusting his hat. “But I can help you.”

…

Arai-san lived in the house with the pinwheel outside. He had seen Motoya and Kiyoomi walking earlier, had not recognized them, and had subsequently been suspicious. Teenagers come up here sometimes. I ain’t stupid— I’ve found the bottles they leave behind. Motoya, casual as could be, asked about the shovel. You never know, said Arai-san.

Arai-san lived with his wife. She was pulling weeds in the garden when they returned to his home and appeared to be similarly bemused by the reference to the letters. Neither was actually explaining why, though. They hadn’t lived there at the same time as the Masaokas and didn’t know Masaoka Kazuo, but they knew his sister. She had married and moved years and years ago just across town. Her name was Chiba Setsuko.

“She would have known your grandfather,” was what Arai-san the husband said.

Kiyoomi asked for her address. Arai-san the husband refused. Well, he said nonsense it’s fine gotta head over to the hardware store, which he was qualifying as a refusal. Arai-san the wife said, I needed to return that shoehorn anyways, and then she bustled into their house, throwing off her gardening gloves.

And then Arai-san the husband started up the rusting kei truck that was parked in the grass. And Motoya and Kiyoomi watched.

“You’ll have to sit in the bed,” said the man, sitting behind the wheel and using his thumb to point behind him.

On principle, accepting a ride from a stranger didn’t exactly seem like a productive idea. He didn’t want to sit in the bed of a truck. A theoretically moving truck. Arai-san seemed fully prepared to maul them with a shovel just ten minutes ago. Kiyoomi was an avid fan of horror movies.

It was also hot outside. He didn’t want to have to walk all the way across town, and then back to the hotel, or have to do either of those things in addition to waiting for the bus. Hunger was starting to gnaw at his stomach.

“Found it!” said Arai-san the wife, who was walking out of the house and waving a plastic shoe horn for Arai-san the husband to see. “It’s been sitting there for who knows how long—I just keep forgetting to grab it.”

She also got in the car. Kiyoomi and his cousin were still watching. And then the Arais were watching them, expectant.

“Seriously,” Motoya said, as Kiyoomi started to walk towards the truck. “Are you serious?”

He said, “Do you want to walk?”

The truck bed could fit the two of them, but it was small enough that they’d have to be mindful of their legs. While obviously aged, it wasn’t all too dirty, all things considered. Kiyoomi gripped the truck’s sides for stability as he climbed into the back.

“Sure,” Motoya said. “Okay. Let’s get in the truck.”

They got in the truck. Arai the husband started driving the truck. He didn’t drive particularly fast, and the car was low enough to the ground that it didn’t feel as if they were going to spill out onto the road; it helped, likely, that they were taking a route that avoided going through town itself, ensuring that they encountered very few other cars on the road.

They were also in the back of a truck. Kiyoomi held on with one hand and ate a protein bar from his sling bag with the other. He had offered one to his cousin, catty-corner across from him, but Motoya was rather occupied with white-knuckling his way through the ride.

It wasn’t his first time around rural scenery, of course, but he had never been quite so literally exposed to it. Perhaps he had seen glimpses through the bus window—or experienced a few minutes when waiting outside of a gym where a tournament was being held. But there was no hiding the sun beating down on his shoulders, the chipping paint against his palm, the truck jostling beneath them.

He would take a long, long bath that night. And one tomorrow, when back to the comfort of his own home.

Some fifteen minutes later, the car rolled to a stop. To their right was an expanse of open field where some type of crop was clearly being grown. He would have to ask what later. Houses lined the road to their left, spaced out from one another and falling on a slight incline. There were a few gravel paths—private, he’d assume—that split off from the main street, either leading straight to individual homes or clusters of them.

They had stopped just before one of these drives. It seemed to lead to several buildings up ahead, though they were partially obscured by trees and shrubbery and the natural slope of the land.

Motoya was quick to hop over the bed’s sides, sneakers planting firmly against asphalt. Kiyoomi did the same. His knees protested, angry at having been confined. He’d have to stretch later, too. The Arais were chatting among themselves—something about the community center—as they stepped out of the truck. Kiyoomi was just about to ask which house was Chiba Setsuko’s when he was interrupted by movement flickering in the corner of his vision.

A child had appeared on the gravel road. Boyish and scrawny, wearing a visor over a mop of short, messily cut hair, the child stared at them from their vantage point, features wary.

“Ah,” said Arai-san the husband, “Hisano-chan, will you let your grandmother know that we’re here?”

The child blinked. Then she nodded. Then she turned her head and called up the slope, “GRANDMA, THE ARAIS ARE HERE. THEY BROUGHT SOME GUYS I’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE. IT’S KIND OF WEIRD.”

She turned back to them. “Why’re you here?” she said, more so to Kiyoomi and his cousin than the couple accompanying them.

Arai-san the wife said, “Sakusa-kun and Komori-kun know someone your grandmother used to know.”

Hisano squinted. Your face will get stuck like that, or something. “You don’t look all that old,” she said.

“Looks can be deceiving,” Motoya said. He looked far more in his element than he had in the truck bed, if only a little pale, still. “My cousin acts like an old man.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Sure it does.”

“Um. I don’t think so?”

“Oh,” Kiyoomi heard a rickety voice say, the words crawling out from the trees, “who’s knocking at my door?”

…

There were four cats that roamed around the Chiba property. Gachou was fat and gray; Funwari had tufts of white hair poking out of her ears; Otis was missing an ear; and Bocchan had been the run of his litter, and was the only one who sometimes came inside of the house. There was also Chobi, though she only came around every couple of weeks.

Hisano explained this as she guided them up the road, pointing out each cat as they saw them. Gachou liked people the most out of all of them, though her approval wasn’t guaranteed; the fact that she had gone up to Motoya had been enough to receive Hisano’s apparent respect. That, and the fact that y’all are actually from Tokyo? Like, actually?

Hisano was Chiba-san’s granddaughter. Chiba-san had long, gray hair and had broken her hip ten years ago, and still felt it trying to get up and down the drive. Don’t you try to help me, was what she said to Arai-san the husband, who had greeted her amicably. Oh, is that my shoehorn?

She was a person. She was tangible. She wasn’t Masaoka Kazuo but—

“Haru? You’re Haru’s grandkids?” She had shuffled a little closer, peering over at them with wide eyes. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” Kiyoomi had said. “I am. He isn’t.”

“Just a humble cousin,” Motoya had said, raising a hand.

The old woman had gotten close enough to his face for it to feel uncomfortable. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had some vision problems. She had said, “God, you look just like him, don’t you.” And yes, there was something uncomfortable about all of this.

“They’re here ‘bout the letters,” was what Arai-san the wife had said, and it had, however incomprehensibly, caused Chiba-san to say ahhhh you don’t say and nod in understanding.

And so Hisano had guided them up to their house while Chiba-san chatted with the Arais—who had waved and said goodbye to him and Motoya in a way that felt way too personal. Motoya, apparently bound to his politeness, had—rather strained—thanked them for the ride, and as did Kiyoomi, because he did have manners.

Chiba-san’s house was accompanied by a vegetable garden. Sheets and shirts hung from clotheslines and rippled with the breeze. A cat that must have been Funwari was splayed out in a spot of sun in the dirt. The house’s sliding doors were all open, revealing a rather simple if not clearly well-lived home.

There were a series of wind chimes hung up over the engawa. No, not wind chimes—or traditional ones, at least. They were all made up of what appeared to be recycled plastic bottles: soft drinks, lemonade, water. The sun glided through them and across wood, appearing as blobs of pale yellow and green and blue.

“So do you go to school with idols?”

“No. Do you?”

“No. Well, I’m pretty sure not. I think I’d know if someone from here ever became somethin’ like that. Do you live right next to the department store?”

Hisano managed to wrangle Motoya into kicking a ball around in the yard. Or maybe it was the other way around. He had always been good with kids. Better than Kiyoomi was, at least, though he supposed that was a skewed metric.

“So. Those letters.”

Chiba-san had settled across from him on the engawa. She palpated her hip with bony fingers—weather doesn’t help, she had said. Just a meter or so away from them in the yard, Hisano released a belligerent cry as she attempted to steal the ball from Motoya’s control.

He said, “They’re here?”

“They are,” she said. “I always figured someone’d get them one day. Just didn’t expect that it’d be his grandson, huh. I always wondered if he ended up having kids. Knew he was married.” She said, “Is it just you?”

“I have two siblings.”

…he was pretty sure his uncle didn’t have any children. Kiyoomi could count the things he knew about the man on one hand, but he felt like he probably would have known if he had a secret cousin out there. He was fine with the cousins he had now.

Chiba-san said, “They look like you?”

Yes, he didn’ say. Kiyoomi shrugged. And then he said, “Did you know him?”

“A long, long time ago. He was my brother’s best friend,” she said, her smile unfurling into something sharp and wry, “if you could even call it that. More like brothers. Those two had a single heartbeat.”

He took the thought in and turned it over: careful, like he was wrapping it up at a department store counter. Not to be forgotten. He filed it away. “Why do you have the letters?”

“No one’s lived in that house for forever. Mailman’s always known to bring them here instead.”

“You got them? And not Kazuo?”

“No, he’s dead.”

And he—

He paused. This wasn't so easy to put to the side. He hadn’t put the idea out of the realm of possibility, but the confirmation of Masaoka Kazuo’s death was… troubling. Mostly in the sense that it was forcing him to reorient the theories he had

Perhaps a moment later than was appropriate, he said, “Sorry.”

But Chiba-san merely said, “It was a long time ago.”

And he hadn’t deemed it impossible. It had never been out of the question, but it was only there, sitting on Chiba-san's porch after spending half the day in transit, sweaty and gross and stiff, that the realization tangled up as a knot in his gut.

His grandfather’s condition had progressed quite a bit before he broke his ankle, retrospectively, manifesting through misplaced words, a tenuous memory, bungling times and dates and things. And he had always wondered how far back it actually went, those little signs peeking through his usual demeanor.

It made sense. His grandfather had been writing letters to a friend who had passed away. It was sad, objectively, but it made sense.

And it was an answer, but it felt disappointing.

This wasn’t a movie. He wasn’t going to find some grand discovery.

Kazuo was dead: that was his discovery.

“That surprising?” Chiba-san said.

“I didn’t know.”

The old woman considered him for a second. “Did he never talk about any of this?” she asked. “About him?”

“His memory,” Kiyoomi started, pushing it all into a box in the corner of his brain, “hasn’t been the greatest. He must have forgotten. Or—” He thought of a trip to the movies: of the residue left by buttered popcorn. “Things might’ve gotten mixed up.”

She looked a little bemused, then. “So he has spoken about him?”

“Not particularly,” he said.

There was clearly a gap between them—a misunderstanding that neither of them seemed to quite understand. He thought he was being rather clear, but Chiba-san’s lips pursed thin, her brow furrowing in confusion.

“The letters,” Kiyoomi continued, trying not to sound too terse. Given that they were talking about her dead brother. “He still sent the letters. Even though—”

Even though your brother is very, very dead. Even though my grandfather never spoke a word about him.

But she said, “He’s always sent the letters.”

And he said, “What?”

“Your grandfather. He’s always sent him letters.” And then Chiba-san said, “Kazuo died when he was fifteen.”

…

A breeze whistled through the hair curling up at the back of his neck. One of the doors that was caught between being open and shut rattled, but only slightly. He saw a flash of Motoya’s eyes, head tilting in their direction; Hisano stole the ball away from him in the meantime, announcing it with a triumphant shout.

“What do you mean?” Kiyoomi said.

Chiba-san said, “He really didn’t talk about him at all?”

“No. I thought—” His mouth zipped shut. What did he think? “I didn’t know— how long?”

“I’ve lost count of the years. How old am I?”

Hisano cried out, “Old, Gran.”

“It’s been a long time,” she said. “If he were around, he would be— oh, I’m seven years younger—eighty-seven? No, six. However many decades ago that’d be.”

“And how long did he send the letters for?”

She scratched at the underside of her chin, thinking. “It was after he had come by—he had visited once after everything, because they had all moved, you know. Did he talk about that?”

“I know that his family moved.”

“Well. It had been after that. And after—after Kazuo passed. Years after all of that. I don’t know if he had been married yet. But it was after he had moved south, too. Some years he never sent them at all. But they’d usually start up again eventually. I had just figured he had finally passed on when they stopped coming.”

So: Kazuo was dead. He had been dead. It was clear that his grandfather’s symptoms had started up far before anyone seemed to notice, but that couldn’t explain this. That couldn’t explain decades.

Kiyoomi asked, “Why’d he send them?”

“Couldn’t exactly tell you. You ever try asking him?”

“Obviously,” he said.

Chiba-san looked distinctly unimpressed. She said, “You might not be my kid, but I’m not the type to take that type of language.”

It must have been getting to him—fatigue wrangling for control over his temper, his attention. He wasn’t oblivious to it, nor was he ignorant to the fact that he was being unnecessarily short. Something was starting to crawl out of all those neat little boxes he had set up.

“Sorry,” he said. He opened his mouth: it shut on its own. Kiyoomi wet the seam of his lips, and he said, “I don’t— I’m not—”

There was a story there, obviously.

And he knew there was no obligation for him to understand that story, or to know it, or to feel as if—well, to feel as if it were his own. The world was large and complicated. He was a single person. There were many things he would never know. It was a fact he had learned to swallow as a child. It was something he had settled upon.

Chiba-san was watching him. In the yard, Hisano had picked up one of the cats—he wasn’t paying attention closely enough to tell which one—presenting it to Motoya.

“Okay,” she said, leaning back. “Well. It started when your grandfather moved away.”

She said, “Kaz was gutted when he found out your grandpa was leaving—the both of them were. I remember Yoshiharu being so funny about it. Daddy used to say that he was born with a wrinkle in his forehead already because he was just so serious about everything. Kaz was the crybaby. But they made this whole sappy promise to write to each other each week. They held pretty tight to it, too.

“They liked to play board games with each other. Kept tally of who won. I think they used to draw out a board and play back and forth like that, just one move a letter. I don’t think,” she said, “they ever even finished the one game.

“He started hanging around these local boys after your grandpa had moved. Ma always thought they were such a bad influence. Kaz wasn’t stupid, but he could be a little naive.” Her voice went low, thrumming with an old, yawning anger. “They never fessed up, but everyone knew. It was some sort of dare. One of theirs. Out in the woods. It had just stormed, and he—”

She cut herself off. A grief—just as old, just as chasmal—seemed to overtake her.

(He knew he was seventeen. Obviously. The ages might’ve been off, but they were close enough for him not to be aware of his own age.

Yet he found himself thinking about his sister at eighteen, walking home with him under an umbrella.)

“Well,” Chiba-san said. “Details don’t matter.”

She continued, “Yoshiharu’s letter came a week or two later. After it happened. Another one. Since he didn’t get a response to the first. I think, actually, that the first one had come in just right after Kaz had—you know. But no one had thought to respond. Until the second one. My older sister did it. I don’t know what exactly she said, but she let him know what happened.

“I just saw him that one time after that. I don’t know if he came more than once, but I just saw him the one time. He stopped by the house. I was still at home, then. I think he just wanted to see it again or something.

“I didn’t really get those two,” she said. “I was just the annoying little sister. And Kaz might’ve been the one who’d bawl his eyes out for a dead grasshopper, but he could be nasty to me, too. He didn’t like me getting in his business. Haru always tried to be nice.” She smiled. “He was real awkward. My sister used to tease the hell out of him. He’d get red red. But— oh. Anyways. He had moved again. I think he said for work. Did I say that? It must have been a few years later when he started writing the letters.”

Kiyoomi said, “What did they say?”

“Don’t know,” she said.

“You never read them?”

“I ain’t that nosy. I don’t know why Haru wrote them all those years, but I can guess,” she said. “And he might not be around anymore, but Kaz’d be so angry if I went through his things. I can still hear him in my ear.”

He heard Hisano, saying, Come on— let’s play again, okay? He heard plastic bottles knocking against one another. He heard the wind.

Chiba-san said. “Does your grandfather want them?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi said. “Probably not.”

“Well, they’re yours more than mine, I reckon. Hi-chan,” she yelled, and her granddaughter’s head shot up. “You want to grab some boxes for your Gran?”

“Can you do it?”

“Can I what?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Hisano said. She brushed dirt off of her front. “Come on, Motoya. You gotta help me, too.”

He didn’t catch sight of his cousin’s face as the girl led him deeper into the house. He didn’t know what he was thinking himself.

Chiba-san seemed a little far away. She was looking at something that wasn’t there. It felt, in an odd, indefinable way, as if they weren’t alone on that porch, as if there was something or someone there beyond him and her, sitting across from each other.

“I think,” she said, “it was an accident. I really do. I mean, when it happened, I thought they were just—they had to have been evil. You know. It’s easy for them to just be evil. Those boys he hung out with. Because they were already mean enough. I didn’t like Kaz hanging with them either, because they were just mean. Your grandpa never made him meaner like that.”

She said, “But I think one day I just realized they were just a bunch of dumb kids. Kaz was, too. He probably really did just slip and fall and that was that. Just a freak storm.”

And she laughed, then. “Doesn’t make it better.” And she continued, as if to herself, or as if to that other thing there on the porch, “I think it must be worse.”

A cat lept up onto the engawa and bopped its head against Chiba-san’s side. It was the same one Hisano had been holding earlier—Otis. She scratched behind its ear absentmindedly, as they waited for Hisano and Motoya to reappear.

…

It had started with an old camcorder.

Kiyoomi enjoyed the artistry that came with photography. He had found himself pulled into an excursion with Iizuna and Mizuta once, the former of whom enjoyed taking pictures of leaves and bugs and twigs and dirt (so perhaps not dirt, but basically dirt, he thought, because Iizuna did seem to possess an honest passion for dirt), and the latter indeed having a rather artistic eye, despite him not quite understanding all of her fashion choices.

He had mostly been a passive participant. Iizuna and Mizuta disagreed on a particular shot, and then one turned to say Sakusa, what do you think? or you agree with me, don’t you, huh? and Kiyoomi said I don’t really care or no not really or I think it would look better another way entirely and the conversation would devolve from there.

Motoya once said you three have a funny friendship, you know? And he had said we’re not friends. And then Mizuta had come flying into the gym, stating, SAKUSA DID YOU LEAVE YUI-CHAN OUT HANGING IN THE COLD WHAT HAVE I TAUGHT YOU—

(Kiyoomi took a picture of every dog that he encountered. That was the extent of his photography career, and by extension, any attempt to dabble in cinematography.)

But he, like most young children who found themselves drawn to film, had dabbled his hand at a few ideas for some bastardized form of a screenplay at one point or another in his youth. He had the power of retrospection to understand the flaws in his eleven-year-old self’s attempts at a subversive superhero thriller. Motoya had been sworn to never speak about it.

He had nearly asked his parents for a video camera but had never gotten around to it when he had never been able to produce an adequate enough script. It might’ve been for the best.

And so he had been surprised, then, when he was cleaning out the closet in the first-floor hallway, and he had stumbled upon an old, dust-riddled camcorder.

Manami was preparing to move out. It was a slow-going process, and one she was employing Kiyoomi in, though she certainly wasn’t paying him for his services.

She swore that she used to have an old, metallic jewelry box that had once been their grandmother’s. There were very few nooks and crannies in the house that could be defined as cluttered, and the first-floor closet was one of the sole exceptions to that fact. He didn’t like dealing with the first-floor closet. It did, regrettably, have a tendency to turn up objects otherwise assumed to be lost.

(Some of Yasuaki’s stuff could be found there. It had taken a few years, but eventually, his room had been cleaned out and converted into another workspace for his mother. There had always been an untouchable quality to the room.

A lot of his things had been pitched. Manami had saved a box or two. And some other of Yasuaki’s possessions, however enigmatically, had found themselves in the first-floor closet.

He was still mostly confident that the house wasn’t haunted.)

He had been unable to find the jewelry box. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. But he found the camcorder jammed behind a box of financial documents that Kiyoomi probably shouldn’t have been looking at. It was large and blocky and would have only been a passing curiosity if it weren’t for the VHS tape still lodged inside of it.

It had been an excuse to step away from the closet. That had been the driving force behind his decision to use the VHS player in the main room to see what was on the tape; that, and the fact that he had no memory of the camcorder, or who it possibly could have belonged to.

Manami had run out of the house earlier—a work emergency, or something. The trials and tribulations of needing to pay your bills, was what she had said, before disappearing out the front door.

He cued up the tape. The speakers released a gasp of whirring static before the grainy replay of some nondescript baseball game came into focus on the screen. It was just a taping. The second inning seemed to have just started. Well. It had started years ago—closer to two decades than not it seemed, given that, based on the date in the corner due to the overlay, it was taped a couple of years before Kiyoomi was born.

His father liked baseball. It wasn’t as if he were particularly passionate about it, but he often watched games with the little time he spent around the house, and he had some old newspaper clippings from games in his office, too. He had always found it rather ironic that despite his apparent enjoyment of the sport, his father was still rather wary about Kiyoomi’s own involvement in athletics.

It was just a game. The Swallows versus the Giants. How disappointing. Kiyoomi pressed the fast forward button on the console three times, the players on screen moving like frantic worker ants.

The cut was rough and occurred during the seventh inning. He breezed right past it, the image on the screen morphing from a cheering crowd to vague, flashing shots of the interior of a house. His house. Kiyoomi rewinded.

At first, it was just the kitchen—the hallway—the front door. Whoever was filming started taking slow, careful steps around the side of the house, recording the grass, the sky, the sad excuse of a tree in their neighbor’s yard. More rough cuts. If he were a critic, he wouldn’t leave a particularly forgiving review.

And he had started to wonder, of course, who the director in question really was. And before he could solidify his answer, there was another jump to a different scene.

A little hand-held an apple. The apple had a face drawn onto it, two dots and a rough smile, the epitome of a childish arts and crafts attempt. The hand had a wrist and it had an arm, but it was cut off by the table that the camera must have sat on.

“Hello,” said the apple. It was clearly the cadence of a child, pitched as low as it could muster. “Welcome to the evening news. Today, we have a very special story. A very important story.” The apple shook. “Racoons!” it said. “RACOONS. Everywhere. And they love apples! They do! And now— oh yes. The weather! First the weather!”

Another little arm. Another apple. This one had thick eyebrows drawn on. Another child’s voice saying, “It’s going to rain. A lot. If you look here—” a couple of muffled giggles “—it’s gonna rain so much.”

And then another apple, with stripes drawn across it—this one with a hand that looked like it was likely attached to the same body as the one holding the first apple.

“It’s going to rain,” continued the apple weatherman. “Let me just turn around here—”

Before the scene could reach what he would assume to be its climactic moment, the weatherman slipped right out of the little hand’s grasp. It disappeared from sight, before thumping onto what he imagined to be the floor.

“Yasuaki!” cried a voice, and then the first apple and the raccoon apple disappeared, replaced by the upper half of a young girl as she rose to enter the camera’s view.

He knew what his sister looked like as a child. Of course he did. He had seen pictures. He had memories. Memories that only went as far back as her being a tween, youngest, but he knew good and well what she looked like, and easily could have guessed that it was his sister either way, given the face, the hair.

It was different to see her like this, though. Laughing despite her scolding tone, tiny and bright-eyed. She was wearing her school uniform.

As was the boy who must have been his brother. One of his teeth was missing on the top row. His hair was as messy as ever. For both of them, really. Yasuaki had a little height on her, and could perhaps visibility be identified as older, but in those uniforms, with that hair and those eyes, wearing those faces: they looked like a pair.

“It was an accident,” said Yasuaki.

“We have to do it again,” said Manami. “Is the apple squishy?”

“No.”

They ducked out of the camera’s vision, clearly walking around the table. “The weatherman can’t be squishy. He does the weather,” said his sister.

There was a flurry of muffled noise: movement. The image on the screen blurred. Undoubtedly the result of tiny hands picking up the camera. Yasuaki’s hands, presumably, as the camera was pointed at his sister’s face, appearing much closer than it had across the table.

“Weather people can be squishy.”

Manami said, “Kuro-sensei would be a good apple.”

Behind the camera, his brother laughed.

And there were no remnants of the sharp, barking voice that he remembered his brother speaking in: no underlying tone or hidden spikes. It was a child’s laughter. It was squeaky and gasping.

Manami blew a raspberry into her palm. There was another rough cut: the skit starting up once again if only take two, clearly.

“Hello. This is the news. Something you should know about is…”

...

There were several boxes worth of letters. The sheer amount of them felt daunting in a way that he couldn’t quite articulate. Kiyoomi was disgruntled, he thought. He was also hungry. Chiba-san was feeding them while they waited for Hisano’s older brother to get home. He had a car, which could theoretically be used to transport Kiyoomi and Motoya and the letters back to the inn.

It was a mismatched dinner, according to Hisano. Cold soba with leftover grilled offal. Chiba-san was putting things together after leaving Kiyoomi with the letters.

She had not just left him with letters. That would have been damning enough. Kiyoomi hadn’t touched the letters yet, other than peering into each box to confirm their existence. Each one unopened; each one with a different stamp. His grandfather’s handwriting.

But he had forgotten about the letters. There were things, somehow, more pressing than the letters.

He held a picture. It was in black and white and blurred around the edges in the way that old photos often were.

Two boys stood next to each other. Behind them was a wooded area. He wondered briefly where exactly in Ichinohe it must have been taken, or if they had obliviously passed by it earlier that day.

The two boys, if teenagers, had only just passed that milestone. Baby fat clung to their cheeks. Their limbs, even static, seemed disproportionate in a way that only adolescence could allow, monochromatic growing pains.

One boy was jutting out his chin and attempting to twist his expression into something mean and threatening. It fell flat. A performance. He was standing right up next to the other boy, shoulder to shoulder.

That boy was taller. He had dark, curly hair. Familiar eyes. There was something sharper about the angles of his joints, his bones, but there was a youthfulness to his face not even possessed by his companion, who, himself, wreaked of juvenile ego.

That boy was standing with his chin tucked a little low. He was meeting the camera’s gaze, yet his attention still seemed averted, as if uncomfortable with meeting it head-on. But hiding within his insecurity must have been a smile, no matter how subdued or obfuscated or shy. Perhaps someone had told a joke before the photo was taken. Perhaps it was directed towards the boy next to him. Kiyoomi would never know.

Footsteps approached behind him on the porch. He glanced up at his cousin. “Food’s ready,” Motoya said, and a glob of liquid sun, green from an empty bottle of tea, melted across his skin, causing his features to blur.

Chapter Text

“Sakusa-kun,” said the woman. “It’s nice to meet you.”

It had started at a camp. One in middle school.

There was nothing inspiring about her delivery. Her expression wasn’t morose or serious by any means, but it wasn’t overly enthusiastic, either, caught in some neutral middle ground. Some of the other coaches that had approached him had done so with enough gusto to give him a headache. This was, perhaps, a welcome change, if only still annoying by nature of the interaction itself.

None of it mattered, after all. He and Motoya both already knew that they’d be going to the same high school that their siblings had gone to—barring that they completely failed the entrance exam, though he didn’t think that’d be too much of a concern.

“I know who you are,” Kiyoomi said.

Her name was Takahama. She was Itachiyama Institute's coach. There were several high school coaches at this camp, and despite the fact that there was little question that he’d be on her team next year, she had waited until the last day to attempt to make conversation with him.

They were on the gym floor. He had just finished stretching and was still on the ground. She was standing and wearing a plain, hooded sweatshirt.

“Ah,” she said. “I guess that’d be right.”

There was a beat of silence. Some of the other players here were still messing around; a ball struck the floor, a shout of dang it!

“Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.

He didn’t really want to talk to her; he also knew that it probably wouldn’t be a great idea to be flippant to someone who’d end up being his coach. He wasn’t totally oblivious.

Kiyoomi nodded. She sat cross-legged on the floor.

He said, “My cousin said you talked to him already.”

Three days ago. She had caught him during lunch.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s a very talented player.” She paused. “You are as well.”

Motoya said she had talked to him about what his goals were in high school. She had played as a libero herself; she looked forward to being able to work with him in the future. He had great skill, she said.

She asked, “Are you excited to graduate?”

“It’s fine,” he said.

She hummed and nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Indeed.”

Someone came down from a spike a little wobbly. Another coach shouted at them to be careful. Takahama’s attention was drawn away.

To the side of her face, he asked, “Why are you talking to me now?”

She looked back over at him. “I wanted to get a chance to watch you play,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“I have always found,” she said, “even when I was a player, that there’s much to be gained from observation.”

He nodded, eyes narrowed. He agreed, naturally, but: “And?”

“And?”

“What did you see?”

Years later, he would wonder if she had been carrying a notebook around that camp; when he’d realize that the answer, he’d wonder what she had written down.

At the time, he had not known anything more about the woman than her rather lackluster appearance before him. No notebook, no ink. 

She said, “What do you think about volleyball, Sakusa-kun?”

“That’s not an answer,” he said.

“I think so,” she said. “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” he said.

He was good at volleyball, and he liked being good at things. It was satisfying to see his skills continue to develop, especially when there were players—players like Ushijima—out there to test his skill. He didn’t want to put it down now: not when there was much left to do, and many people still left to beat.

“That’s good. And what do you think about it?”

“It’s a sport,” he said. She might not have been as overbearing as some of the other people who had tried to scout him, but the vague questions were starting to annoy him. He didn’t get why people couldn’t just get to the point. “Why are you asking?”

“Do you picture yourself,” she said, glancing up at the fluorescent lights overhead, “playing forever?”

He said, “I don’t know. I won’t be alive forever.”

“Good point.”

And he said, “No one can play forever.”

One, because there was no such thing as forever; two, because in the realm of athletics, retirement came earlier than usual, anyways. First retirement: second.

“Certainly not,” she said. “But you’ll find there are still plenty that try.”

Takahama smiled. It was precisely unlike his mother’s. There were no clean edges, no hospital corners, no even, impenetrable lines. No, it was crooked. 

He didn’t get it.

Before he could tell her that, she said, “I don’t think I’m the most personable. You’ll have to forgive me.”

Itachiyama had a solid team. They regularly qualified for national tournaments. To his knowledge, there had been a coach there for a long time, but he had retired a few years ago. Takahama was his successor.

She had played in college. She was definitely older than his sister, and probably his brother, too, but she was the youngest coach out of all he had already had.

“I’ll stop bothering you,” she said, standing. “It was nice to formally meet you. I look forward to working with you in the future.”

He nodded. She walked away. Later, his cousin would flutter into his orbit, asking about what she had told him.

She’s kind of weird, Motoya would say, bumping shoulders with him. But I heard she’s supposed to be good!

…

Sometime between eating dinner and the arrival of Chiba-san’s grandson, Yasuaki texted him.

yasuaki (17:47): Everything alright

Kiyoomi (17:51): yes

In the midst of everything, he had managed to forget about his brother altogether. He thought it was an adequate enough answer. He assumed Yasuaki had thought the same, until a few minutes later, he said:

yasuaki (17:55): Are you coming back any time soon

yasuaki (17:55): *?

Kiyoomi (17:56): yes

Kiyoomi (17:56): we ate already

yasuaki (17:58): Alright

yasuaki (17:58): Im going to eat smthing

yasuaki (17:59): Let me know if you need smthing

It wasn’t that much longer after that when Chiba-san’s grandson arrived home with a bemused expression. He wore a visor that was identical to his sister’s.

Hisano said, “Motoya and Kiyochi—oops, Kiyoomi—came on a quest looking for his uncle’s or—um, grandpa, did you say? Yeah—letters that he used to send to Gran’s brother. Why’d you tell me that everyone knows an idol in Tokyo? Motoya says that’s totally not true.”

Masao—the grandson, the brother—had dubiously long sideburns and had recently gotten a tattoo on his bicep that could trigger Chiba-san into a long, bemoaning tangent that was overbearing even for Kiyoomi. The tattoo was covered by his shirt. It didn’t seem to matter much.

“A ride?” said Masao, who he imagined couldn’t be much older than him and Motoya. “I mean, I guess I could.”

“Oh, so you could be responsible, huh? I might be shocked.”

“Shit, Gran—”

“—and you’re gonna use that language, too—

“—and who the hell’d I learn it from?”

“That finger better not be pointing at me—”

“They’ll be like this for a while,” Hisano said, from where she stood next to Kiyoomi and Motoya. “We can put the boxes in the car.”

Kiyoomi still hadn’t looked at any of the letters. He had looked at a few more pictures. They had eaten dinner, and Hisano and Chiba-san had made up most of the conversation, Kiyoomi having reached his limit for the day, and Motoya, evidently, having done the same, however rare it might have occurred.

Yes: his cousin didn’t speak even as they placed boxes in Masao’s surprisingly pricy car (“He bought it himself. Gran got so pissed at him for it—don’t tell her I said that.”), when it was just him and Hisano and the cats. Usually, that’d be about when he’d look over, try to smile, at least, and say, such brilliant and amicable weather we’ve found ourselves upon!

Motoya was looking away.

Kiyoomi really needed that bath. Even his brain felt dusty.

They would go back to the inn. He’d do... something with the letters. He and his cousin probably wouldn’t talk to each other more than they needed to in the meantime, which was fine. That happened occasionally at camps. Kiyoomi needed to sort out his thoughts: Motoya his. He’d probably talk to his brother at some point. He wondered if he could get away with just texting him.

And it wasn’t like—

It wasn’t like he was expecting her to text him. He didn’t— it wasn’t like he didn’t know how their last conversation had went. Kiyoomi wasn’t an idiot.

It was something to add to his list for when they got home. He’d talk to her then. He looked down the expanse of Chiba-san’s gravel driveway, his gaze carrying his attention to the long, monotonous fields of soy (he had asked) on the other side of the road. Masao came shuffling out of the house, grumbling beneath his breath but holding a pair of keys.

…

Hisano was rather glum to see them go. Correction: Hisano was rather glum to see his cousin go, as apparently Kiyoomi wasn’t important enough to have his name remembered. Whatever. She wanted to go in the car with them, but Chiba-san—still gruff from her conversation with her grandson—had told her she still had chores left to do that she had put off earlier in the day. Something something the neighbor’s chicken: he wasn’t quite paying attention.

“Okay, fine. Bye,” said the girl. She had taken off her hat at some point, and the mop of hair atop her head was flying in every which way.

“Bye,” said Motoya. “I’ll get an autograph for you.”

“Ugh, I know you’re totally pullin’ my leg! Right? I mean, like you’re not serious, right, ‘cuz—”

Chiba-san said, “If it’s worth anything, tell him hello from me.”

Kiyoomi nodded.

And that was that. They drove away with Chiba-san and Hisano in the rearview window, the girl kicking at dust and stretching her hands over her head. Chiba-san reached over and tugged on her ear; her voice was raised, but he couldn’t catch exactly what she was saying.

Kiyoomi and Motoya and Masao drove away.

“So like,” Masao said, as they pulled onto the main road. “You’re just in town for a day or something?”

They were both in the back. Motoya sat behind the driver’s seat.

Kiyoomi didn’t say anything. His cousin didn’t say anything.

Kiyoomi said, “Or something.”

“Oh. Cool. So you guys goin’ to that party tonight?”

Kiyoomi didn’t say anything. His cousin still didn’t say anything. His cousin was looking out the window.

Kiyoomi said, “No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Masao didn’t try to make conversation after that. Neither did no one else in the car, including the boxes of letters, that felt as if they were weighing down the vehicle; only metaphorically, of course, because Masao’s speed seemed rather illegal. Kiyoomi weighed the fact that he was a recipient of needless kindness on Masao’s behalf on one hand, and the fact that he did plan on leaving this town alive on the other. He ended up keeping his judgment to himself.

The inn wasn’t a far drive from the Chiba home, but after only five minutes, Masao rolled to a stop in front of a dingy gas station.

“I gotta grab a couple things,” said the boy, making eye contact in the rearview window. “Do y’all mind?”

Yes. A lot. “That's fine,” Kiyoomi said, when his cousin didn’t say anything.

“Chill. Well.” Masao paused. “Do you want anything?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“Alright.”

He watched Masao shuffle into the station. The store windows were plastered with fraying posters and promotional signs; still, through dingy glass, he was able to see Masao wave to the clerk as he began to meander. Kiyoomi went back to staring at the back of the seat in front of him. The leather was smooth and well-kept. It really was a nice car.

His cousin was still staring out the window.

Perhaps it had been naive to assume that inviting Motoya on this trip would be enough. It hadn’t been a particularly well-thought-out plan; he knew there was something wrong with his cousin, but they had never been the type—he had never been the type—to press so earnestly, in a way that couldn’t be waved off or laughed about or ignored.

So he had asked him to come, and Motoya had said okay, and he had figured— well, he didn’t know what he figured, but here they were.

…it wasn’t like he thought this would put some sort of magical balm onto whatever it was that was happening (fantasy was a reputable genre when it didn’t utilize cliches that skirted the edge of being a deus ex machina), but he also hadn’t imagined that it would make things worse.

Kiyoomi began to lay out his words in his head. Motoya beat him to the punch. 

“What are you thinking?”

He still wasn't looking away from the window. 

“About what?” Kiyoomi asked.

“I don’t know. About anything.”

He thought. “We’ll die the next time he turns.”

“No,” Motoya said. “I mean it.”

“So do I.”

“Do you?”

“I do. I don’t know,” Kiyoomi said. “I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Motoya’s posture was a little crooked. His hands were clenching and unclenching in his lap. Kiyoomi could practically feel the way that the car was too confining a space—too constricting.

Kiyoomi looked back ahead. He thought about saying: are you okay? What is it? Tell me. What’s wrong? Are you okay? He didn’t. Or, he couldn’t at least, words building up in his throat, as once again, Motoya beat him to the punch.

His cousin said:

“Tell me why I’m all—tell me why I'm all twisted up right now.”

In a different context, from a different person, he imagined it would be a purely rhetorical question. But for all that Motoya could spin around his intentions and smile and shift from side to side, he never did that with Kiyoomi. Or, to be more exact, he never did it thinking it’d genuinely work, or with intention for it to work. Not in the long run, at least. Because it never worked like that.

Still. This was a minefield. This was an action movie. Kiyoomi wasn’t a protagonist.

Motoya continued, “Come on. Honest. You’re good at being honest. I need you to say it.”

Kiyoomi said, “You’re scared.”

“Scared,” Motoya repeated.

“Of things changing,” he said, watching his cousin’s face.

Motoya finally moved, then, turning to him. Perhaps to protest—perhaps to smile—perhaps to say fuck off, just kidding, some weather. But he didn’t manage to do any of those things, words seeming to die on his tongue. His jaw clamped shut.

And then maybe there was something flashing in his eyes, his cheeks, his body. A pallor quickly replaced by flushing cheeks, by frenzied attention.

“You’re jealous,” Motoya said, turning back away. “Of your siblings.”

It was a diversion. A distraction. An animal backed into a corner. He knew that, but:

Kiyoomi bristled. “I’m not— jealous,” he said.

“You are. “

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. And you’re scared. Of things changing. Even though you’re not—”

Motoya cut himself off. He sucked in a sharp breath. His hands clenched and remained there.

Neither of them said anything more. Masao returned with a plastic sack. He pulled out a carton of cigarettes and offered it to Kiyoomi and Motoya. Kiyoomi declined. The ignition started.

His cousin and him did not speak as they unloaded the boxes from Masao’s car. It was an awkward job with just the two of them, but perhaps all their work as student athletes had done something good. Masao halfheartedly offered to help. He didn’t protest much to their refusal. Kiyoomi was pretty sure he ended up smoking in the parking lot with the guy who worked behind the front desk.

He had no idea if Yasuaki was still in his room. He didn’t want to ask. It didn’t matter either way. Kiyoomi and Motoya brought the boxes back to their room. When all was settled, it was just the two of them standing there, the sky starting the change colors through the window—

“I need to wash off,” said Motoya. The bathroom door shut.

Whatever. He was going to scrub it down anyways, so this didn’t make a difference. Kiyoomi was left alone in their hotel room. He didn’t want to look at the letters. He wanted to take a bath. He heard the plumbing start to groan and a faucet turn on in the bathroom.

He stood there. He sat down. He checked his phone again. He stood up again. He always enjoyed his time to himself. This was time to enjoy. He stopped himself from looking out the window. He—

A run. He’d go for a run.

He worked out almost everyday; it was inevitable to feel so beside himself when his routine was thrown off.

He sent a text to his cousin’s phone. He debated sending a text to his brother but decided against it. Kiyoomi had dressed earlier for plenty of walking, so he was already prepared for a jog; and even if he would have preferred to change shirts, he didn’t think it’d be necessary to sweat on another one. He put on his headphones. 

The idea of running around a town he wasn’t familiar with wasn’t optimal, but he felt confident enough to not get lost. He had reviewed the area around the inn and the path over to the Masaoka home in preparation for this trip. Kiyoomi had always enjoyed going for a run. Motoya called him a sadist. It would be a masochist, was what he had said back. Motoya had said, I’m always with you, so it’s sadism.

He wasn’t thinking about his cousin right now.

His sister always said—

Kiyoomi increased his pace. He enjoyed the effort that was put into it. Running. The soreness that came after a long day of conditioning was by no means a pleasure, but there was a catharsis to it. Putting in the effort: that was why he did what he did.

It didn’t matter that his clothes didn’t feel like they fit right, or his joints felt too tight, or this wasn’t his neighborhood. He was on a run. The only thing missing was George. Perhaps he would find a dog.

His music thrummed in his ears, louder than he’d usually have it. Passerbys would nod and wave. His pace increased. Fast and curt: a pace that caught up to him.

The air left his lungs forcefully. He walked briskly, the soles of his shoes striking pavement or gravel or grass. He stretched where he stood. He leaned over, attempting to touch his toes and checking his watch for his time.

A pedestrian stopped ahead of him. He only saw their shoes. They weren’t moving. Kiyoomi was going to say I can do without the hospitality, actually, before he realized that he recognized those shoes.

He straightened out. It still felt as if he were trying to catch his breath.

“Hey,” Yasuaki said.

…

He had, at the very least, not stopped in front of the exact restaurant that Yasuaki had chosen to eat at that evening. No: they were standing in front of a women’s boutique that had seemingly just closed.

He had still happened to run into him when he was walking home. Randomly. Incidentally. Of course, of course.

“You're... jogging?” his brother said.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, moving his headphones so that they were around his neck.

“Okay. The thing with the letters go alright?”

“Yes.”

“Great.” Yasuaki’s tone was as enthusiastic as his expression. “You planning on heading back soon?”

He said, “If I wasn’t?”

Yasuaki’s eyes narrowed. But he just said, “That’s—whatever. Can’t stop you.”

Kiyoomi didn’t move. He stared at the familiar and alien contours of his brother’s face.

He tried to breathe. He said, “Why did you come?”

Yasuaki paused. Then he shrugged, too casual for the action to be unplanned. “Figured I’d lend a hand.”

“Why?” Kiyoomi said.

“Because,” he said. “Manami made it sound like—it sounded like this had been something you were looking forward to.”

The answer did nothing to gratify him. No—what was the point in bringing up their sister? “And so what?”

“Maybe I just wanted to,” Yasuaki said, and there was something familiar about his face, even if Kiyoomi—taller, grown—was seeing it at a different angle. Stubborn. Flinty.

“You didn’t,” Kiyoomi said.

“And you know that how?”

“You ate alone. You’ve been in your room. You didn’t know this was happening until a couple days ago.”

“Maybe I just wanted a vacation. You don’t know.”

“I don’t,” Kiyoomi snapped. “I don’t know. I don’t know you.”

A car drove by. The sky was more maroon than blue.

“Shit,” Yasuaki said. 

He said, “You can’t disagree.”

“No, but like—” He worked out his jaw. A hand adjusted his shirt collar. “Do you want to get into this now?”

Kiyoomi said, “We were never—”

And then he stopped.

He took a breath. He had said something like this before. It was easy to say.

He started again, “We don’t have to pretend about anything. I don’t know why you came.”

Ten years were ten years. Seven years were seven years. Kiyoomi was seventeen, and the proportion of time in which he had actively participated in conversation with his brother as compared to time otherwise was abysmal. Barely on the charts.

Yasuaki ran a hand through his hair. He said, “Okay." Then he stopped again. “I’m not pretending about anything, alright? I’m trying to—I want to be. Helpful.”

Voice raising beyond him, Kiyoomi said, “Why?”

A woman said, “Excuse me.” She was poking her head out of the boutique door. He hadn’t even noticed it had opened. “I know that we’re closed, but could you do this somewhere else?”

The breath returned to Kiyoomi’s lungs. The skin of his cheeks felt like it was buzzing—his fingers, his toes. He clamped down the thunderous clouds that had taken control of his voice.

“Yeah, whatever— shit, Kiyoomi, will you wait?”

Kiyoomi did not wait. He kept walking. Away from Yasuaki. His brother. He heard the door close, at least. Just like he heard his brother’s footsteps, skittered and off-rhythm. His brother had never played sports. No student athlete advantage for him. Perhaps he was gratified.

“Listen, just—just let me talk?”

He didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to give Yasuaki that satisfaction. But:

Let me talk, said the specter of his youth. Let me talk.

“I’m not slowing down,” Kiyoomi said, and he wasn’t. It was just a brisk walk, anyways. Nothing serious.

“Okay,” his brother said, but he caught up to him. “Alright. I’m not. Lying,” he said. “I was going to take a day off anyways. So it just worked out. Manami texted me.”

“Okay,” he said—perhaps bit out himself, teeth sharp.

His brother snagged Kiyoomi’s sleeve. Kiyoomi ripped it out of his grasp with more force than was strictly necessary, turning to meet him dead-on. His brother was taller than him.

“What,” Kiyoomi said. “What do you want?”

Yasuaki said, “I just—”

And he didn’t finish. His hand was out to his side, prepared to gesture along to words that he was apparently unable to say. In his memories, Yasuaki was loud, explosive, unignorable.

Now he had no words. Or, he had them, but they weren’t willing to make it to the air. Perhaps the air was unworthy. Perhaps it was beneath him.

Kiyoomi said, “She never got over it.”

Yasuaki flinched. Fissures formed in his veneer. He was thrown off guard. Taken aback.

(And it might’ve been—

It might’ve been his cousin’s wide eyes in the car, a second before he turned away.)

Kiyoomi ignored it. He said, “What did you think would happen?”

I was there, he nearly said. I was there. You weren’t.

And then it was gone. There was a wrath. A familiar one at that. Yasuaki’s shoulders were drawn tight. “It wasn’t like—there was a lot fucking going on—”

He turned. He continued on his jog. He put his headphones back on.

His brother didn’t follow him. He just yelled: “Just—text me when you get back, okay?”

…

Kiyoomi jogged.

He enjoyed jogging. He enjoyed walking. He enjoyed movement. And he enjoyed stillness, too: Kiyoomi was an observer, he enjoyed watching—listening, hearing, filing away details—and that did, at times, require a pause, a tranquility, a moment of standing by to take in the sights around him. He enjoyed those times, too. There was no use in speaking if you didn’t think beforehand.

But sometimes one needed to just jog. Kiyoomi was an athlete for a reason. He was thrumming with energy. He walked through an unfamiliar town, the sky darkening above him, and this was perfectly fine. He was curious by nature. Sometimes curiosity couldn’t be satisfied by pages, by a screen—sometimes one had to take it into their own hands.

Perhaps Iizuna’s words had finally broken through. Yes—he was sure Iizuna would be overjoyed to hear that Kiyoomi was communing with nature. Nature and fraying small town infrastructure. Everything was connected.

He thought about going back to the house. Kaz’s house. Or going back to Chiba-san’s. Asking more questions: getting more answers. Cats were fine. More stories. Investigating the ruins of a house that his grandfather once knew well. He didn’t know where his grandfather lived as a child; perhaps he could have found out. Perhaps he could have seen it for himself. Breathed the same air.

Kiyoomi jogged. He wasn’t paying much attention to where his feet were carrying him. Music blared in his ears. One step in front of the other. Buildings petered out around him: the road started up an incline, gradual and slow. It was dark. He’d need to be careful not to stray too far from the main part of town, unless he wanted to lose his way back.

There was a set of crumbling, concrete steps . He took them with assurance, shoes striking stone. It was only when he reached the top that his pace caught up to him. There was little to be found at the top of the stairs. A small shrine, dilapidated and tucked away among thick trees. A dirt path that cut its way into the woods.

He paced, hands above his hand. He caught his breath. It was important to cool down. There was a bench near the shrine. Kiyoomi sat down. The wood creaked beneath him. It didn’t give. He pulled down his headphones and ran a hand through his hair.

Maybe it hadn’t actually been quiet earlier, upon their arrival. Or maybe it had been, only for the air to lurch awake now. Cicadas blared; a set of wind chimes near the shrine—actual ones, not made of plastic bottles—caught in the breeze. Something hooted deeper into the woods.

Kiyoomi heard his own breathing, sharp and abrupt.

His brother had texted him. Just another message about telling him when he was on his way back. Kiyoomi didn’t respond.

His cousin hadn’t responded, either, but he wasn’t expecting him to. He still hadn’t heard from his sister.

And it wasn’t like Kiyoomi regularly talked to his teammates outside of a group chat for the team. And most of those messages were long, rambling tangents from Arakawa, or Endo telling Shige and Inamoto to get a room. Hoshino hadn’t texted him individually, outside of the chat, yet, but he was sure it was on his way.

He occasionally heard directly from Mizuta or Iizuna, but he wasn’t going to text them about this. That’d be ridiculous. And he had a few acquaintances through the film forums he often posted on, but he certainly didn’t know them personally—most of them not even sharing their names—and it wasn’t like he had their phone numbers. Urara, he imagined, would have given him very stalwart advice, if he had her number. Ushijima as well. Miya— Miya wouldn’t have anything useful to say, because he was Miya.

I don’t know, asshole. Figure that shit out yourself.

Why was he thinking about this?

Kiyoomi was—

He was fine where he was, wasn’t he? These things would rectify themselves eventually. Kiyoomi breathed.

The note with the address was no longer in his pocket. There wasn’t any use for it. He had a photograph, though; one whose details were hard to parse out in the dark. It still felt weighty in his grasp.

Maybe the photo was taken here. Not here, literally, on this bench: but deeper in the woods, in front of one of the trees that was rustling with the wind. Just a few meters away. Maybe it wasn’t for that photograph—but perhaps his grandfather had been to this shrine before. Perhaps the dirt his feet rested on had been dirt his grandfather had traversed with his friend in the past.

Perhaps he was close to where Kazuo died.

Perhaps his ghost still occupied these woods. Perhaps all of Ichinohe.

He could have been sitting right next to Kiyoomi, then. He probably wasn’t—but he could have been. Even though Kiyoomi was pretty sure he didn’t believe in ghosts.

And maybe it was for that very reason that his grandfather had never come back here. That he had never spoken about it. That each time Kiyoomi took a step in this town, he was met with another surprise.

(He certainly couldn’t talk to his family about this. Given that half of them were directly involved in what was wrong, and the others technically outside of it were, who: an unknown uncle? Sachie? His grandfather? If he spoke to his grandfather, what would he have to say about this?)

Kiyoomi sat with the photograph. He was used to physical exertion, but the day must have been getting to him, body sore from crooked exhaustion. Adrenaline slipped from his grasp. He cast his gaze across the intermittent lights of Ichinohe. Houses and stores and cars: people going about their daily lives.

And here he was. On a bench. With a dead boy. With a photograph that had been forgotten to time.

With answers. With answers he had come here so assuredly to find.

...what did it mean to hold such a photograph? To remember it? There was no such thing as magic, nor fantastical powers, nor stupid sci-fi nonsense, but Kiyoomi was holding a photograph that not only didn't exist to him just a few hours prior, but by all means shouldn't have existed. Not when it clashed so horrendously with everything he knew about his grandfather. What little he knew about his grandfather. What his grandfather had turned out to be, decades and decades after the fact. 

What did the boy in this photograph imagine he'd be? Where did he want to go? Did he imagine he'd always have the boy next to him at his side?

Why was Kiyoomi here in this city in the first place? 

Answers, cicadas, hooting, wind chimes.

He rubbed at his eyes and looked away from the photograph. The shrine itself was falling apart, but there was a cleanliness to it—however rustic—that suggested that someone must care for it, however occasionally. It was hard to make out with the lack of light, but it struck him no less.

A wink of light in the corner of his eyes: muffled footsteps and voices. Kiyoomi lifted a hand to prevent himself from being blinded. 

“—holy fucking geez,” he heard from one of the bodies that appeared at the top of the steps. The same one that was holding the flashlight.

They must have been around his age. There was a… gothic tilt to their attire, dark and draped and metallic. One of them was holding a bottle that they were quick to hide behind their back, the brocaded fabric of their sleeve swishing as they did.

“Uh.” The flashlight was lowered, but the wariness wasn’t. This one had a lip piercing. “Who the hell are you?”

He said, “What are you doing?”

A scoff. “We’re just— it doesn’t matter. But like, seriously,” said lip piercing. “I totally don’t recognize you.”

Another—one with a dyed stripe of hair—said, “I think he’s from Yogo.”

“I’m just jogging,” was what Kiyoomi said, instead of literally leave me alone.

“Oh. Well. You going to that party?”

“No.”

“Well, chill,” said lip piercing. “It sounds pretty stupid anyways.” A beat. “Do you want to like—chill with us?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said, slipping his headphones back on and standing. He put the photograph back into his pocket.

His phone buzzed in his pocket when he made it back to the road. It was Motoya.

Okay, was all that he said, and nothing more.

Even through his music, he heard the wind chimes from the shrine, carried down the hill by the breeze.

…

By the time she was at university, it wasn’t uncommon for Manami to be away for the full length of a weekend. Adult business, she’d say. She had friends; she enjoyed seeing them.

And every now and again, she might’ve come home early. Earlier than Monday, at least. Sometimes that just meant returning home sometime Sunday, if only just as hungover as she would have been the next day. Sometimes, it was a Friday night—Saturday night—when she’d be dropped off by a friend, words still passing a little too easily, rhetoric a little flimsy, cadence a little garbled.

He hadn’t been in the main room that night, but he had been awake, and he had heard the front door open when it normally wouldn’t have. His mother was home that night (asleep, he assumed), and his father was away, and his grandfather didn’t live with them anymore, and his sister did, but he had thought she would have been gone for another couple of days.

Kiyoomi had paused the movie he had been watching on his portable player—Motoya had been getting onto him about the artistry of Mechagodzilla—taking his headphones off and listening closely for the sound of keys hitting the counter and clumsy footsteps. It was only when he heard the kitchen faucet turn on that he moved from his bed.

Manami’s back was to him when he came down the stairs. She was standing in front of the sink. There was a pair of wedged heels kicked aside by the door. She didn’t typically dress up more than she did on a daily basis when she went out—as far as he knew—but she was often rather meticulous with her appearance to begin with. She was wearing earrings that looked like long, metallic bars and caught the stove light, and a linen shirt that he thought belonged to one of her friends.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched. The room was dark. She took a sip of water.

“Hey,” he said.

She didn’t jump. Manami turned slowly, seeming to take a moment to register his presence. It wasn’t like he saw her drunk often—but when he did, she was never particularly loud or obnoxious or gaudy. In times like these, his sister often seemed stuck within her own head.

“Hey,” she said. “You look like a ghost.”

“The house isn’t haunted.”

She squinted. “It could be.”

“It’s not.” Probably. He was pretty sure.

“It is. You’re haunting it,” she said, pointing with the hand that held the glass. “Boo.”

“That would make you the ghost.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“You’re not.”

“You’re right. I’m too corporeal for that. Lungs and stuff. You know. Come,” she said, moving towards the table. She didn’t stumble, but her gait was slightly more deliberate than usual, as if having to be more purposeful in each step.

Manami sat. She patted the wood. “Sit,” she said.

“No,” he said. He sat.

“Petulant.”

“Mom is home.”

“I know. I’ll behave.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I’ll behave,” she said again. “Value your youth while you can,” she said, rubbing at her face with her free hand. It crawled up into her hair and stayed there, elbow resting against the table.

“Are you old?”

“No,” she said.

“Interesting,” he said.

“What has become of you?”

“What did I used to be like?”

“This,” she said. “But shorter. You’ve stretched out.”

He said, “Sorry.”

She said, completely serious, “It’s not your fault. It’s kind of your fault. You’re a teenager. It is a troubling, troubling time.”

“You’re home earlier than usual.”

“I wasn’t feeling it tonight. Sometimes the vibes are just—oh, it’s a cruel truth of being an adult.”

“Coming home early.”

“It’s more than that. It’s a great, unnamed truth of the world.”

“Okay.”

“You doubt me. He doubts me.”

“A little bit.”

“You have developed too much bite,” she said, taking another sip of water. “Too sharp are your teeth.” And then she was quiet, gaze trailing off.

Kiyoomi knew his sister well. And he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that there were parts of her life that he didn’t see, but it was a feeling that felt far more consuming in moments like these, when, even as she sat across from him at the table, he had no idea where she had gone off to in her brain.

Don't think too hard or you'll hurt yourself, he thought of saving. Or, Your face will get stuck like that. Or, What are you thinking about?

Manami said, “Do you ever think about what he’s doing?”

They didn’t speak about Yasuaki often. Perhaps that time when he was fourteen was the last time he had become the subject of conversation so explicitly; the tension at that table had been a reminder every time his brother’s name had clawed its way to the tip of his tongue.

They didn’t speak about Yasuaki often across the board. Even more rare than that was Manami bringing him up herself.

Kiyoomi chewed on his words. He let them rove over the grooves of his teeth: thinking. He leaned back in his seat. 

He said, “I don’t know.”

And then, so quiet that it almost wasn’t there at all—as if a confession, as if a secret—his sister said, “Sometimes I think he might be dead.”

And she said, “And I wouldn’t even know. Because I’d just be here. And he’s somewhere.”

Her expression was disquieted. Not melodramatic, not overtly stricken, but a little drawn, lit by nothing but the cold, fluorescent stove light. Not sickly, but feeble, maybe: waxen. Fingers clutching onto the glass now, knuckles paling.

Kiyoomi glanced away. He said, “We’d know. If something happened.”

She didn’t immediately respond. He looked back. Wherever she had gone she returned from, blinking over at him from across the table. Her eyes were still a little wide.

“Ah,” she said, sitting a little straighter. The movement was disjointed. “I don’t know why I—yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said.

“I’m being a bummer. A total bummer.” She said, “What a bummer.”

He said, “What’s new.”

She said, “Cheeky, cheeky. Sharp teeth.”

“You should drink more water.”

“I’m hydrated.”

“No you’re not.”

“Ugh.”

She had gone to bed later. And Kiyoomi had lingered in the hallway, but only for a moment.

The house couldn’t be haunted.

...

Here were things that Kiyoomi did know. 

Kiyoomi knew his cousin tried to will himself into being ambidextrous as a child. Kiyoomi knew that his cousin liked buying hand warmers to use in the winter time. Kiyoomi knew that his cousin joked about the veracity of power spots as a cover for how superstitious he could be. Kiyoomi knew that his cousin couldn't stand the rain. Kiyoomi knew that his cousin liked pineapple-flavored candy the best. 

Kiyoomi knew that when he was four, his uncle died.

He didn’t remember it well. First because he was young; second because he was young and therefore self-centered enough that his uncle’s death didn’t register as something monumental in his world, as callous and cruel as it sounded. His uncle had not been someone who occupied a particularly large space in his mind.

He couldn’t tell you what the immediate aftermath of his death was like—he couldn’t tell you what the funeral was like—he couldn’t tell you something that he remembered from that time, but his uncle died, and that shifted something in the world.

Motoya’s dad died when they were four. He had colon cancer. It was caught late enough that treatment couldn’t do much to help. It had still taken a year or so.

He didn’t remember his uncle’s death, other than foggy memories of a couple years of his parents helping out his aunt, but he remembered a boy that existed on the peripherals of his life until he was ten.

Motoya had a smile as bright as the sun. Motoya was responsible and well-liked by his peers. Motoya was often at the top of their grade—doing better than even Kiyoomi. Motoya switched to libero because it was something he could be the best at. Motoya, like all Sakusas, even without the official name, was a control freak. Motoya still carried his father’s name. Motoya liked to pretend that he wasn’t a control freak. Motoya was the best in control when he was the best, when he was smiling, and when everything was A-OK.

He and his cousin were very alike in some ways, and very unalike in other ways. They both appreciated a good quality T-shirt. They both were driven by their own self-interests. Kiyoomi couldn’t bring himself to care about appearances, even if he probably should. Motoya preferred cats to dogs. They were both creatures of routine, and while Kiyoomi knew he could be a little unbearable when his plans went awry, Motoya was often truly unable to function if he felt thrown off enough.

They were cousins. They had known each other since they were born, but they had only become friends once they were ten. It had started someone around then. Maybe before, maybe after, maybe during, maybe never at all.

There was, as advertised, a pond behind the inn. There had been a clear attempt to spruce up the area into… something, though he couldn’t place exactly what the vibes were supposed to be.

Several plastic folding chairs were set up in front of the pond. Some cheap-looking dividing walls had been placed to form a rough perimeter. A few outdoor lamps, staked into the ground, lit the area. There was gravel, and there was grass, and there were flowering shrubs. Like many properties in Ichinohe that lay outside of town center, the inn was backed by thick forestry that appeared rather ominous in the dark.

And there, sitting in one of those chairs before the pool of still, dark, murky water—with fish or not, he truly couldn’t say—was Motoya.

He hadn’t been in the room when Kiyoomi got back. He had doubted that he was with his brother (and he had texted him that he was back, if only a little short), and he didn’t imagine that he, too, had decided to go on some sort of run. This was the first place he was checking.

Kiyoomi sat down in the other chair. He didn’t say anything. His cousin didn’t seem startled, but he didn’t do much to register his presence, either. He was staring into the water. His lips were chapped. His hands were clasped tight in his lap.

“We can just forget about it,” Motoya said.

“About what,” Kiyoomi said.

“Don’t be difficult. You know.”

“I really don’t.”

“Come on.”

Kiyoomi said, “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Who says that anything is wrong?”

“You literally said something was wrong.”

“I said I was fucked up,” Motoya said. “Didn’t say something was wrong.”

“I don’t know why you’re fucked up, then.”

“You had some ideas earlier.”

“You asked.”

Motoya said, “Yeah. I did. But we can forget about it.”

Kiyoomi said, “Do you want to forget about it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The plastic of the chair Motoya sat in creaked. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s continue to talk about what happened in the car. That seems super productive.”

“Is this productive?”

“Not everything fucking has to be,” Motoya said. “Right? We can like, just— just suck sometimes, you know?”

And Motoya bulldozed ahead:

“Your grandfather spent his entire life writing letters to someone who wasn’t even there. I don’t even know your grandfather, but I like, know him. And you just— I don’t—I don’t get you. I’m supposed to get you.”

Motoya said, “I’m supposed to get you more than anyone. I can’t—” There was something that wobbled in his tone. “I don’t know what’s in your head.”

Kiyoomi asked, “Is that what’s wrong?”

“Yes. No. No— it’s not. I don’t know.” Motoya laughed, but it sounded a little crimped at the edges. “I don’t know. Who knows. You tell me. I'm being stupid.”

Kiyoomi paused. He said, "It's not stupid."

"God, stop. Yes it is. Just—we can forget about it? Yes?"

What was going on inside of Kiyoomi's head? What was he thinking about? What had he been thinking about? What had been consuming him since third year started? What would he think about tomorrow? In a week? A year? Where would he even be in a year? Where would his cousin be? What did he think about, sitting on that bench?

He thought of a lunch.

"I'll tell you," he said. "What I'm thinking about."

He thought of his mother’s grasp on his shoulder. He thought of his grandfather’s silhouette on the couch. He thought of his sister. And maybe he thought of his brother. And I thought this could be. Good, he had said, halting and stilted, as if it had to be ripped out of him.

"Cool." Motoya said, "Cool. Great."

Kiyoomi said, “I wouldn’t be playing without you.”

If Motoya had quit, he couldn’t say whether or not he would have stopped, too; it was true to say that Kiyoomi liked to see things through. He probably would have still played. He probably would have enjoyed it still. Probably, hypothetically.

But he brought him there in the first place. None of that mattered because it hadn’t been what happened.

Motoya laughed. It was choppy and feeble. “Well, you’re welcome, I guess,” he said.

And I thought this could be good.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do in going forward,” Kiyoomi said slowly, “and I don’t know exactly what that will look like.”

He looked into the pond: nothing looked back. He said, “But I want to keep playing because of you. And I’ve been lucky to have you in my life. I don't think I've always known that.”

Because he wasn’t sentimental, he wasn’t overly emotional, and he was often put off by grandiose displays of mushy feelings—but it was honest. He was honest. Certainly, it had to be the truth. Kiyoomi thought of a world—of being ten—without his cousin there, stealing his milk at lunch.

Yes: a Kiyoomi without Motoya would have, any way you spun it, turned out worse than he ever could be now.

When he looked up, Motoya was staring right at him.

His eyes were wide. He seemed to be fishing for a response: face so uncharacteristically open, unabashed, uncontrolled.

And then he burst into tears.

Kiyoomi had grown since he was a child. He would like to think that he was better at this, even if it was becoming clear that he, perhaps, just maybe, was stumbling around like he still had growing pains.

All of this was to say that he still really didn’t know what to do when someone was crying. It still made him insanely uncomfortable.

“Fuck off,” his cousin babbled. He sucked in uneven breaths, lungs hiccuping. “What’s—what’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know?” Kiyoomi said.

“You know I’m a crybaby!”

“No?”

Motoya scrubbed his face against his sleeve. “You know I hate to cry,” he said, and that was true.

“I didn’t mean to?” Kiyoomi said. “You need a tissue.”

Snot was starting to come out of his nose. Motoya was not a pretty crier. It was rather gross. “And whose fault is that?” he bit out, and Kiyoomi could take a hint.

When he came back with a packet of tissues from his room a good ten or so minutes later, Motoya had not moved. It was somewhat of a surprise, perhaps, but there he was, hunched over and as flimsy as the chair he sat in. Kiyoomi held out the packet wordlessly, after taking a seat. His cousin took it. He blew his nose. It had always sounded like a trumpet blaring.

A car horn honked somewhere far away; more cicadas. A very cicada-heavy town this was. Iizuna would be jealous. He thought he saw a bug, long-limbed and scant, skim across the top of the pond.

“Do you know,” his cousin started, furiously crumpling a tissue in his hand, “how annoying it was to have you be so good when you started? I knew you would be, but it was like— you were good. You are good. And I’m good. I was the best by last year. And you were still good.

“And I know that it’s shitty, but I remember—god, it’s so stupid—like, okay, there was this time when the older kids on the walk home were talking about their homework or something, I don’t know, and they were quizzing each other on capitals. Of countries. We were in middle school?”

He might’ve remembered it. A memory that appeared through hazy, muggy air and tasted like concrete.

Motoya said, “And they were being so pretentious about it, which is kind of funny in looking back because it’s so stupid, and you were pissed about it, and so the next day you had like, almost all of them memorized. And I don’t know why then, because it was just—I don’t know, it was just a walk home from school, and you were being stupid—but I just remember thinking—he could probably do anything. If he wanted. All he needs is time for it. And I'm here. And it was fucking capitals. I’m still thinking about fucking capitals.”

His cousin sniffed, then pulled out another tissue. He blew his nose again.

“I don’t remember all of them anymore,” Kiyoomi said.

…he could probably do a good chunk, though, especially if he had time to prepare. He didn’t think that would be particularly helpful to say.

“Well thank god,” Motoya said, and his tone was amused, at least, if only brittle. “I just— I thought I was— I’m not making any sense. I'm just—I'm still here. It feels like I'm still here sometimes. Aren’t you freaked out?” he asked. “About— about any of it?”

Kiyoomi thought.

He didn’t like things changing. He enjoyed being in control of his little bubble. The rest of his life stretched before him like a great, unfurling path, and while he had a direction in mind, its final destination was unknown to him.

Well, he’d die eventually. And he’d probably retire. Hopefully not in that order. That was besides the point.

“My brother is having a kid,” he said, tone careful.

“I’m aware,” Motoya said. “What about it?”

“I can’t picture that. Even though it’s going to happen.”

There were months left until a little, wriggling baby with Yasuaki’s genes would enter the world. Still. He tried to merge the Yasuaki he knew as a teenager and the Yasuaki that would be a father and found them to be totally incongruent.

His brother was different. He had changed. But Kiyoomi’s memories were his own, and they were stubborn. His brother was stubborn. His child would probably be stubborn.

Things were always changing. Things wouldn’t ever stop changing.

Thinking of a conversation he had with his sister on his bedroom floor years ago, he said, “It’s unavoidable.”

“That makes it—that makes it worse, though,” Motoya said, the edge of his voice bitter. “You get that, right?”

“You can’t stop it.” Kiyoomi knew it well. Maybe he would have once tried to fight against it. “I'll just deal."

“And you’re just okay with that?”

They were all ruled by chance. Anyone could be Iizuna. If today was his last day, would he be satisfied with it?

Kiyoomi said, “No matter what happens, I’ll still have you and my sister.” And he said, “All I can do is try.”

Yasuaki was around, but that didn’t mean anything.

When he glanced over, his cousin had started crying. Again.

“This,” Motoya said, ripping out another tissue, “this is what I’m talking about. You’re emotionally constipated, but you say stuff like that, and I’m like totally fucking inconsolable—”

He blew his nose again.

Kiyoomi opened his mouth, searching for something to say. He closed it. He opened it again. “I don’t think I’m good at this,” he said.

“You’re not,” he thought his cousin said, muffled through a tissue. “You’re horrible. The worst.”

“Probably.”

“And you’re joking about it. This is a nightmare.”

“I’m not—” Kiyoomi paused. “I’m not… not freaked out about it. And I don’t really like studying for exams, even if it’s— efficient.”

“I’m dying, and you don’t like exams.”

“You’re not dying.”

“It’s a—”

“If it’s a simile, then it’s cliche. Pick something better,” Kiyoomi said.

Motoya said, “I’m boiling alive. I’m in a vat of acid. I’m getting crushed underfoot by Mechagodzilla.”

“You deserve it then.”

“It’s fucking camp. Some emotional support you are.”

“I’m not.”

Motoya said, “And this shit with the letters? You’re fine with that?”

Did something move in the pond? It might’ve just been a breeze. “It wasn’t what I was expecting,” Kiyoomi said.

“And what were you thinking was going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. You had to have some theories.”

“I did,” he said.

“And now?”

He thought of two boys in a photograph. “It’s sad,” Kiyoomi said. He said, “I don’t know.”

“You hate not knowing things.”

“Yeah.”

Motoya blew his nose.

And then they sat there for a while longer, he and his cousin. The heat was relatively tolerable due to the night sky, but there was a muggy quality to the air because of the pond. It was a poor tourist attraction.

“We’ve literally seen each other almost everyday since we were ten,” said Motoya, after another moment.

“We have,” Kiyoomi said.

Motoya said, “We could be going different places next year.”

Oh.

Kiyoomi sat up a little straighter in his chair. He looked at his cousin; he looked at the pond.

“It’ll be weird,” he said. “But you’ll have me, too.” He paused. “You’ll have to buy your own lunch.”

“I think I’ll be able to manage. Ugh—don’t give me a look.”

“Whatever,” Kiyoomi said.

“Your brother is having a kid,” Motoya said. “What the fuck.”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said. “Pretty much.”

“This just feels like it’s going to get worse.”

“It could. I think we’ll probably be fine.”

“He thinks. Thank god.” Laughing, Motoya said, “I guess that’s a lot, coming from you.”

“It’s a prediction.”

“Some prediction.”

“We can go to the video store next week.”

“Are you saying or asking?”

“Asking,” Kiyoomi said. “Are you answering?”

“You have to watch whatever I choose.”

They would move later. For now, they sat.

…

“I promise,” his cousin had said, “this will be fun!”

It had started on the path to a gymnasium. It was the summer. That summer. When he was ten.

Motoya was wearing neon orange gym shorts and a white T-shirt. His shoes were perfectly laced up and his socks formed neat lines on his calves. There was a very purposeful quality to the way he walked. It wasn’t like Kiyoomi's mother’s or his father’s or even Manami’s, who got in trouble for slouching sometimes; no, Motoya walked as if he were very relaxed, and Kiyoomi hadn’t known him well enough to guess if it was true or not.

He had seen more of Motoya that summer than all previous summers combined. Usually they’d see their cousins on special occasions, or maybe sometimes on a random weekend. Ever since Yasuaki had left, though, they seemed to appear more at the corners of his vision.

Motoya and him talked about some of the books that they read, or the homework they had started, or their weird neighbors, but not a lot else. Today was different, though. His cousin was doing a camp for volleyball, and he and his aunt Erika had said that Kiyoomi should come try it, too.

They were walking. Aunt Erika was checking them in.

Kiyoomi said, “I don’t know why I’m here.”

A routine hadn’t been created yet. This was a one-off event: or it had been, at the time.

His cousin said, “Cuz it’s fun? You’ll like it, I bet.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He hadn’t known Motoya well at all, here. They were cousins. They were blood-related. They saw each other occasionally and went to the same school, but that was mostly it.

“You’re pretty funny,” Motoya said.

He was also rather hard to understand. A little annoying, too, given that he didn’t seem keen on actually answering Kiyoomi’s questions.

“My mom,” he heard, before he could say anything, “said that I should make sure you’re okay. Because of all the stuff with your brother.”

It was a fresh wound. If it could be called that. Just a few weeks in the making. New enough for Kiyoomi to feel rankled.

“I’m— I’m fine,” he said, tone probably too forceful.

“Oh, man! I finally give you the answer, and you’re still mad!”

“I’m not mad.”

“Uh-huh. Come on, we’re almost there.”

The camp was run by a high school or something. There were taller boys lingering outside of the gym by the faucet where they were supposed to be filling up water bottles, though their shirts were stained with too many water droplets to be accidental. Kiyoomi scowled.

Motoya, glancing over, said, “Oh, just ignore them!”

He said, “It’s wasteful.”

“Yeah, I guess. But they’re actually pretty good.”

He didn’t really like feeling like the people around him knew something that he didn’t. Motoya had done this camp before, so it made sense that he knew about the people there. But it still felt annoying. Kiyoomi didn’t quite know what constituted a good player, but he doubted those boys could be that good if they were being so careless.

Motoya shoved open the gym door. “Ta-da,” he said.

It wasn’t all that impressive. Kiyoomi had been in a gym before. Not this particular gym, but all gyms were similar enough to one another that it didn’t really seem to matter.

There were more high school students, a couple adults milling about, and lots of other kids their age. A few of them reacted to their entrance, shouting over at his cousin: friends of Motoya’s, he guessed. He didn’t recognize them from school. They must have only known each other from the camp.

“—and this is my cousin,” said Motoya. “He hasn’t played before.”

It was true, wasn’t it, but Motoya’s words caused something pointy and annoyed to blow up like a balloon in his chest.

“It’s not that hard,” said one of Motoya’s friends. “I mean, it can be kind of hard to like control the ball sort of, but it’s not that bad.”

“Yeah,” said another. “You’ll probably be okay.”

Motoya said, “Kiyoomi’s smart. He’ll be fine.”

He was pretty okay at some of the things they did in their gym classes. Kiyoomi was tall for his age, too, and that was supposed to be good for volleyball. The point was, he didn’t need his cousin or his friends to tell him he’d be fine, because he already knew that he’d be fine.

They still had some time left before the camp technically started. Motoya’s friends dragged him over to the circle they were forming with some of the high schoolers in order to stretch; Kiyoomi followed. He ended up with his cousin to his left and a girl with a very high ponytail to his right.

The camp lasted five days and ran from the morning to the afternoon. They’d eat lunch there. Motoya said they provided sweets on the last day, too.

It had been mostly fine so far, even if it hadn’t really started yet. He’d probably know then if it was a good idea to come here or not. There were other things he could have been doing with his time that week, like reading or playing a video game or people-watching through the window.

The girl in the middle of the circle started to guide them all through stretches together. He knew how to do some of these ones at least.

A finger poked his ankle. Kiyoomi looked to the side, where his cousin—engaged in his own butterfly stretch—was smiling at him.

“It’ll be fun,” Motoya said again, voice a whisper but teeth sharp. “Pinkie promise!”

…

They watched a movie on his portable player that night after Kiyoomi bathed. It had been a musical. Kiyoomi had not chosen the movie. They wouldn’t need to get up at an unreasonable hour the next day, but the plan was to leave in the morning, so it would do no one any good to stay up late.

There weren’t any particularly mushy or sentimental words shared before they went to bed. That had been left by the pond. And it wasn’t as if that conversation had gone and completely fixed things, whatever that might have meant; it simply felt as if a balance had returned, no matter how precarious it still felt.

It had been a long day. Sooner rather than later, his cousin was snoring in his own futon, and Kiyoomi was staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t have to go to the bathroom for once (he wasn’t staying on top of his hydration on this trip as much as he should have), but he was restless nonetheless.

(“Good jog?” his cousin had asked, not looking away from the screen.

He said, “I ran into my brother.”

“Awkward. I don’t know what to think about him.”

Kiyoomi couldn’t think of how to respond.

“He’s taller than you," said Motoya. Then: “Ha.”)

It wasn’t as if he could go on another jog at this hour. He didn’t want to have to bathe again, either. It felt like there was still something he could do, though.

Kiyoomi stepped into the hallway, careful as he shut the door behind him. He walked across the hall. He hesitated for just a moment before he knocked.

Nothing happened.

Well. Not at first. He was just about to knock again, before he heard a floorboard creak in the room before him. The door opened.

Yasuaki appeared as if he might’ve been asleep, hair messy and clothes ruffled. It reminded him of how constantly disheveled he appeared as a teenager: he couldn’t tell if the familiarity was comforting or jarring.

His brother blinked. His brain seemed to take a moment to work. He said, “Hey.”

Kiyoomi said, “Hey.”

“Are you good?”

“Fine,” he said.

“Okay.” After a moment, he said, “Is there a reason you’re waking me up?”

He chewed on the skin of his inner cheek. Then he said, “Sorry.” It was not an easy thing to say to his brother.

Yasuaki blinked. “No, I didn’t mean like— it’s fine,” he said. “Just confused.”

“You wanted to talk,” Kiyoomi said.

“Now?”

“You wanted to talk.”

His brother’s expression sobered. It still felt distinctly Yasuaki-like, but seeing him so serious was definitively odd. He knew that much.

“Okay,” he said, holding the door open wider. “I guess we’re talking.”

His brother’s duffel bag had been thrown to the side. It was half-zipped, a shirt that Yasuaki had been wearing earlier thrown on top of it. A small laptop computer was set on the sitting desk.

“Didn’t realize I’d be having company,” Yasuaki muttered, moving to fix the rumpled futon.

“It’s fine,” Kiyoomi said, moving to sit on the floor.

It was mostly fine. He didn’t think it was his place to judge. (It wouldn’t necessarily keep him from judging.)

His brother followed his lead. “So,” he said.

And.

Well.

Honest. Just be honest.

Yasuaki started, “You—”

“I don’t know you,” Kiyoomi said. “I never did. You don’t know me.”

Yasuaki considered him for a moment, working out his jaw. Then he nodded and said, “That’s fair.”

“And I still don’t get why you came.”

“Manami said—”

“I’m not talking about Manami.”

“I’m doing a favor.”

“But why?”

“I don’t—” Yasuaki looked away. He ran a hand down his face, before it clapped against his leg. He finally said, “I don’t know, Kiyoomi. I’m just— I’m doing what I can.”

And more than the messy hair or sleep dust in his eyes, it was the brief, worn look drawing out his brother’s features that reminded Kiyoomi of the boy whose room had been next to his own.

“I know,” Yasuaki continued, “that I was an asshole as a kid. And I know that I still am. And I am—” He pushed out a breath. “That was wrong. Of me. I had,” he said. “Issues. I had a lot of issues. And a lot of that had to do with that house, but it was still—I was an asshole,” he said again.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“...I wanted to. And I know that sounds stupid. And like, yeah, there were definitely times that I didn’t, but—” Yasuaki paused. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t. I don’t know. It’s like.”

Very few stories from Yasuaki’s time away had emerged in conversation. He was sure there were plenty of them. Seven years worth. He wondered which one he went to then.

“It’s like digging a fucking hole,” Yasuaki said. “A big fucking hole. All dirt and rocks and shit. And you’re already at the bottom anyways, so it’s like— who even cares. No one can get you out. But I—"

He cleared his throat. "I've been working on that. And I really was already planning on saying something before Kanae—”

He stopped.

Yasuaki said, “It kind of expedited things.”

Kiyoomi didn’t think he’d ever fully understand his brother. There would always be a distance there: a gap. While it was true that the same thing could have been said for him and his sister, his brother wasn’t his sister: nor was Kiyoomi. He didn’t think recognizing that was a result of any begrudging feelings.

It was true, however, that he never could have imagined a conversation like this one happening.

Kiyoomi said, “We’re all assholes.”

Yasuaki snorted. “Yeah, well. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we got the short end of the stick when it comes to this stuff.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“It wasn’t—” His brother looked a little pained. True to fashion, on his face, it still came out a little spiteful. “When I would be—it was never you. I mean, you were—it wasn’t because of you. It was them.”

“I don’t know why you talked to them.”

“Yeah, well, you and me both. I wasn’t planning on telling them about everything so soon.”

“But you did.”

“It got away from me,” Yasuaki said, voice flat. Ruffled discomfort flitted across his expression. “It was— weird talking to them.”

He could agree.

“All of this is weird.” Yasuaki said, “I didn’t think you two’d be.” He finished: “Close, I guess. With Manami.”

Kiyoomi’s mouth pulled taut. He had felt more talkative today than he’d been in years. He wasn’t sure how much more he wanted to talk.

“We weren’t before,” was what Kiyoomi said.

“Did something happen? Like, about this trip or whatever, I mean.”

Kiyoomi put his words in careful order. “Why would you say that?”

“A lot has changed,” Yasuaki said, rather wryly, “but she’s never been able to hide what she’s feeling.”

It inspired a gnarled tangle in his chest. You’re jealous, Motoya had said.

His brother continued, “And she just seemed weird about something when she was talking to me about all of this.”

“She’s weird,” Kiyoomi said.

“She is,” Yasuaki said. “But this was a different weird.”

Kiyoomi didn’t respond.

Yasuaki sighed. “Listen.”

He said, “I’m not here to mess shit up for you. I mean, I’d be lying if I said—”

He said, “This is weird. But I’m not here to— intrude. That’s what I’m saying. I fucked up with Manami. We have our shit to deal with. I do,” he was quick to add. “Me. I do.”

Yasuaki’s tone wasn’t strained, but his cadence was choppy, his speech leaving him like prerecorded reels. It wasn’t like he felt disingenuous; if anything, the garbled mix of a words Yasuaki had obviously practiced saying mixed with his halting voice, tripping over itself like its shoelaces were untied, was all the more humanizing.

(Yasuaki, like all of them, might not have been exceptionally open in his more… sentimental emotions, but he was never very good at keeping his feelings off of his face. And in a literal sense: not because of a mask, an obvious shield, a smooth, indestructible smile.

He couldn’t play the part, maybe. He couldn’t play the game.)

It appeared as if he was going off-script, though, if only by the sudden, deeply uncomfortable tilt to his body language. “It’s been messing me up a little,” he said, not looking Kiyoomi in the face, “but I am. Glad. That you two were able to—that she had—”

In Kiyoomi’s world, it was one thing to be bored, it was another thing to be confused, to be told not to do something, but—

Guilt was an ugly thing.

Was he angry with his brother for hurting his sister, or was he grateful for the bridge that was created with him leaving? Did he rebuke Yasuaki for being selfish enough to thank him for filling the hole he left, or was it sympathy that stole his words? 

Was it because of that sinking, pathetic feeling that they couldn’t be all that dissimilar at the end of the day? That chance caused the ten years that spanned between them? That Kiyoomi, as much as he tried and tried and tried, would always be caught off guard upon the realization that he was never in control to begin with? Who was the boy in that picture, really? 

Some trip of answers this had turned out to be.

“Things are going to be different,” Kiyoomi said—to who, he wasn’t sure.

Across from him, his brother said, “No kidding.”

…

It might’ve been warm when they stopped outside of the theater, but it was rainy. His sister held the umbrella again. He had not grown in the months since that day he went to her school, even if he was officially eleven now. It was actually March.

She said, “I imagine I’d like it more if I watched more Doraemon.”

“It was okay,” he said.

“You’re a little critic.”

“I’m not little.”

“You’re little to me.”

“I won’t always be.” Kiyoomi glared down at a puddle. “I’ll be tall.”

“You’re not yet. But I suppose you could be a tall critic then.”

She hadn’t made a bad promise that time. Manami had a couple weeks before she started up at university in the city. He’d be starting a new year of school soon. Winter had passed into spring, warm weather returning in flowering bushes and a breeze, and they had finally made it to the movies.

It really was just okay. Motoya liked Doraemon more than he did. He wondered what he would do in a world where magic was ordinary. It would be rather convenient to be able to use brooms to fly around on.

“I agree,” said his sister. “Transit times would be no more. We might only hope they wouldn’t privatize it.”

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“And hopefully you never will. Brooms belong to the public.”

His sister, he was finding, was really quite odd. She had still been a little out of sorts even when her exams were finished; he wondered if it would happen even more as they approached a full year without Yasuaki around. She had gotten into a really good school, but there was still some sort of tension between her and their parents. He wasn’t sure if it was new, or if he had just never noticed it before.

She seemed alright then. They were going to go by the store: her to look at albums, him to rent another few movies. He wouldn’t watch them until later. Seeing a movie in the theater stuck with him for a little bit. He’d need to unpack it.

Then they’d go home. Months of anticipation, done in just a few hours.

They turned a corner.

“Was it fun?” she said.

“Fine,” he said.

“Fine. Oh no.”

Kiyoomi said, “I liked it. I wanted to go.”

They reached a crosswalk. Kiyoomi and Manami waited.

He wondered what would happen at the store. He wondered what would happen when they got home. He wondered if he would go to his room, and if she would go out with her friends, and if he would go to school and she would go to school, and if things would go back as they had been.

A boy could do a lot of wondering. That might be all that they’re good for.

“If you wanted,” she said, not quite looking at him. “We could do it again.”

His sister had been talking to him more since that day he went to the movies with his grandfather. He didn’t really know what to talk to her about. She didn’t either. Sometimes he still felt a little peeved with her, and her with him. Sometimes he didn’t know why. Sometimes thoughts and feelings came to him, and he couldn’t parse through them: couldn’t voice them aloud. Like:

Maybe it wasn’t ever about the movies.

Kiyoomi said, “Okay.”

It had started with the rain.

…

No one was at the pond when he returned. His cousin was passed out in their room; other patrons must have had other, better things to be doing than wasting their time here. Sleeping, most likely.

He felt a little exposed, sitting alone out there, but some energy that had been carrying him forward since Chiba-san’s house was preventing him from being too concerned about it. He’d probably be fine. He was a student athlete. It hadn’t even occurred to him to just wait until morning. He was there already. There was no changing his mind now. No matter how tired he was
genuinely starting to feel: Kiyoomi's feet had carried him back to the pond without even thinking about it. 

A day of non-answers, a day of conversations, a day of hesitations.

“Kiyoomi?” said his sister’s voice in his ear. “Are you there?”

He had been the one to call her. Kiyoomi still felt caught off-guard, his brain stumbling to find anything to say. 

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

A beat.

“...so the letter stuff went alright?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s… good.”

He could only hear his sister’s voice over the line. That and the weighty silence left in its absence. He tried listening closer, wondering if he could pick apart the static, but all it managed to do was fill his head with a mindless droning. He wondered where she was. He hadn't thought much about this beforehand. He had sat, and he had gotten out his phone, and here they were. 

Kiyoomi said, “I didn’t—”

And then he stopped.

Manami could often be overbearing. She found joy in getting under his skin. She spoke like she was regurgitating the vocabulary of whatever book she had most recently read. She fiddled. She had a propensity for misspeaking to strangers who didn’t understand her peculiarities. She hated reality television. She watched quite a bit of reality television. She allowed herself to consume one dairy product a week. There was a purse from a bougie department store that she swore she’d buy one day. She enjoyed helping people through her work. She could have easily shunted him off when they were children, but she didn’t.

He would be nothing without her.

The realization came swiftly. It caused his eyes to burn. It caused his words to good and fully escape him. It was another way he and his cousin were alike: how awful it was, to cry, and in front of his sister no less, even if she wasn’t physically there.

“Kiyoomi?”

He sucked in a breath and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and nose, as if pressure alone could keep him intact. “I’m fine,” he bit out. He wiped at his cheeks. He hadn’t brought out tissues: how irresponsible of him. “I didn’t—”

Breathe, be honest. “I was being mean,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s uh— it’s okay,” Manami said, and there was something tenuous about her own words, maybe. “I mean it wasn’t—I’m glad you— I knew you didn’t mean it. Or that you were just being—”

She didn’t finish.

She cleared her throat. “Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he said, and he hated feeling this way, as if he was chasing after his own body. Tears wormed their way into the crevices of his fingers. “It’s been a long day.”

“Has it been… okay? Between you two.”

“We talked.”

“Good. That’s good. That’s—”

Something croaked out in the woods.

“I thought this would be a good chance for you two,” she said, sounding uncharacteristically as if she didn’t know where the sentence was going. “I think I was being—“ She stopped. “I didn’t mean to force you into anything.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I know why.”

There was something distinctly uncomfortable about being around his siblings, perhaps, especially at the same time as one another. He and his brother and his sister were all tall, shiny mirrors. Not so shiny, maybe, but jagged at the edges and reflective on the surface.

It was unfair, he thought, that these things seemed to come so easily to others— that kindness seemed to come easily to others, while he and Manami and Yasuaki were dry soil that struggled to grow anything. I don’t know how to act, his sister once told him, face shoved into her knees. His brother once ran away and evidently didn’t know how to come back. Here he was crying in front of a pond as his cousin did earlier that night.

And he knew that about his brother—and he knew that about his sister—and they knew that about him—and they knew things about each other, those things and other things, apples with faces painted on them—and it was equal parts appalling and assuaging.

He wondered if it was a mutual feeling. It must have been, given the silence that stretched over the line.

“Did you find the guy? Who he was writing to.”

“He died.”

“Oh.”

“It happened when they were kids. We found his sister. She has all of them still.”

“Oh,” she said again: and yes, there it was in her voice, something terrible and understanding. “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“That really sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad that you called. I was going to text you in the morning.”

“Sorry if I woke you up.”

“It’s fine. I was out anyways.”

“Well, sorry if I was interrupting.”

“You’re apologizing too much. It’s scaring me. And now you’re making a face at me.”

He was. He imagined it was rather pathetic-looking.

“I’m right,” she said, something warm slipping back into her tone.

He sniffed. “No.”

“I am. Of course I am. I am an expert in these things.”  She trailed off, clearing her throat again. “I thought,” she said. “I thought it would be nice for the three of us to have each other."

Kiyoomi glanced at the empty chair next to him. “I know.”

There was something gnawing at his chest cavity. That was why he said, too raw and too exposed: “I wish you could have come.” His eyes skirted away from the pond, lingering on the grass at its outer edges.

And after a moment, Manami said, “Me too."

Chapter Text

Kiyoomi read quite a bit as a child.

It was the prerequisite for his eventual love of film, he imagined. He enjoyed knowledge. He enjoyed stories. He enjoyed consuming ideas until they filled each crevice and corner in his brain.

And it was convenient that he liked reading, too, because he had plenty of time to do it. He didn’t just read. Sometimes he drew or counted the lines in the wood grain or reorganized his desk. His father had books in his office that Kiyoomi wasn’t supposed to touch, but there were some more kept on a bookshelf in the main room. Sometimes he tried to read those, too, but he didn’t know most of the characters they were written in.

His parents lived in parent world, his grandfather lived in grandfather world, his siblings in sibling world, and Kiyoomi in Kiyoomi world. Neat and clean, like the segments of an orange.

Sometimes, rarely, they overlapped. His father was often working, his grandfather did old man things, his siblings got up to teenage things, and—

His mother still worked, she was still gone more often than not, but it might’ve started with the memories he had—however few of them that might have existed—of her crossing over into his bubble.

Some of the details smudged together. In looking back, he would try to think of catalysts: coworkers talking about their families; his brother acting out, his grandfather’s existence; a constant pressure looming over the house. For whatever reason—for reasons he was completely ignorant to at the time and likely now, too—his mother would approach him with a crystalline smile and bridge.

Once, they went on a walk. Once, they sat in the same room together while his mother worked. Once she took him to get a drink, sweet and fizzy, from a cafe that she liked. You are doing very well at school, she would say, patting his back.

And once, when he was particularly bored, he was going through one of the closets on the first floor (yet to be known as the closet), and he found a game board. It was a large square, broken up into a billion tiny little scares. No: not a billion. That was far too many squares. It was a lot of squares. There were little drawers on the sides of the board, revealing smooth, black and white pieces.

He had brought it back to the main room. It didn’t seem like a game he could play by himself, but he could try. Or he could count squares, count pieces, add them together, subtract. His teachers said he was very good at counting by twos.

It was when he was halfway through lining up the black and white pieces on the board, one after the other, that his mother had come upon him.

“Kiyoomi,” she had said, just sharply enough for his head to jerk up. A piece fell out of his hand and clattered against the board.

His mother was standing there, behind the couch, so he could only see her upper half. Her eyes were on the board that sat in front of him on the carpet.

“Kiyoomi,” she said again. “Where did you get that?”

He felt, oddly enough, as if he were being scolded for something. Kiyoomi couldn’t find his words. Then he said, “The closet. I was just bored.”

She approached him, then. She must have been taking a phone call or something. Her footsteps, however muffled by socks, felt very loud. He didn’t think he had done anything wrong. He didn’t know why she had sounded so curt.

His mother was standing in front of him: a tower. She hesitated. Then she crouched, and then she was sitting on the other side of the board, legs folded beneath her. “This isn’t how you play,” she said.

“I don’t know how,” he said.

“You need two people.”

“Well,” he said. “I’m just me.”

He couldn’t tell what was on her face, but she didn’t seem like she was going to scold him. “Would you,” she said, after a moment, “like to know what the rules are?”

And of course he would have. His mother was sitting in front of him.

And she beat him rather resoundingly. As it always happened, the loss prodded at his chest, his brain: let’s do it again, he said. His mother smiled and she said okay and she probably patted his back.

“It takes quite a bit of time to learn,” she said, plucking pieces from the board and returning them to their drawers with pinpoint precision, as if the actions were well-practiced. “I played this game quite a bit when I was your age,” she said.

Kiyoomi had always admired his mother. She had a resilient posture and all of the other adults that he knew respected her.

They were very alike, he thought, and he was pleased by that fact.

He imagined she must have already been as good as a kid as she was then. Thinking of his mother in any way other than she was now didn’t make sense. Puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together.

She said, offhanded, a detail that he’d file away at the time as interesting but rather benign, “Your grandfather taught me.”

They did play more. It had only occurred within that stretch of time, in the way that walks and working in the same room together and going to the cafe had occurred within and not forever. Their games petered out eventually. He was understanding: his mother was busy.

He had been young enough that the insatiable want for knowledge—perfection—resolution that would guide almost every single one of his actions in going forward was still a little juvenile and clumsy. Something else inevitably caught his focus—too meaningless to remember. The board found its way back to that closet as most things did.

And she’d occasionally fall back within his orbit. Yasuaki left, and she did the very same, didn’t she, before they’d go their separate ways. Distance maintained out of. Out of. Out of necessity, perhaps. Instinct. Nostalgia. Old habits. Call the cab: be assertive. I played this game quite a bit when I was your age.

…

As it often happened, Motoya woke up before him.

He had already changed by the time Kiyoomi started moving around. He sat atop the futon, reading a comic book. “I forgot,” he said, watching Kiyoomi sit up, “what you’re like when you don’t get your beauty sleep.”

There was a tightness to his eyes that one could only get after crying the night before. He pressed the pads of his fingers against his cheeks. “You’re not any better.”

His cousin’s responding smile was tinged by exhaustion, but it wasn’t particularly flashy. Little victories, perhaps.

They had a little over two hours before they’d need to leave. Kiyoomi could have slept in longer, he supposed—it wasn’t as if it would take long to get to the station—but he never liked to be in a rush.

The extra time served a purpose, now. One that had struck him as he was returning to the room last night.

Motoya seemed a little bemused, but without skipping a beat, he said, “Okay. Now?”

“We can carry them on the bus,” Kiyoomi said, rifling through his bag. “With Yasuaki’s help.”

“Did you two…?”

“We talked.”

“Right, well, okay,” Motoya said, in a way that clearly meant you will tell me later.

Kiyoomi stood. “We don’t want to be late.” Obviously.

Yasuaki, who hadn’t ever been given a clear picture of what had happened the day before in the first place, didn’t have any protests. His room appeared behind him in the doorway, looking slightly more put-together than it had last night. The same could be said about Yasuaki. Something on his face still read as dubious, but that was also just his face.

“Alright,” he said. “If you want.”

(And yes, of course it had come back to him just before he had knocked on his brother’s door. He didn’t think he could forget yesterday even if he wanted to. And it wasn’t that he wanted to forget it, in the sense that he didn’t regret any of it, but there was something to be said about waking up and knowing that something, however minute or grand, had changed.

There wasn’t a point to dwell on it. Not in a way that made him stagnant. All he could do was move forward and hope for the best.

It was still awkward.)

He and Motoya ended up each hauling two boxes back to the bus stop; Yasuaki took one. No worries, Motoya said. We could do with the strength training! Yasuaki claimed that he had once worked out. He was a little out of practice. He didn’t have a ton of time on his hands.

“No worries,” Motoya said again. And this was still rather performative—still flickered under the light—but it perhaps wasn’t quite as pointed as it had been. “Cousin needs the workout more than I do, anyways.”

The bus was going to take them decently close to Chiba-san’s. It was, at least, until the same, talkative driver as yesterday caught wind of where they were going. I should have brought those tweezers, he said. I’ve been meaning to bring it back, just keep forgetting. This somehow equated to him dropping them off down the road from her house with a wave. Motoya waved back.

It was Hisano who stumbled upon them again. She was holding a chicken. Is that kid holding a chicken, said his brother, in between huffs of breath. If he used to work out, it hadn’t been recently. It’s their neighbor’s, said Motoya and Kiyoomi at the same time, while Hisano said GRANDMA—

Chiba-san was apparently slow to rise in the mornings. Hisano guided them up the hill. She wanted to know why they were back and when they were leaving and if there was time for another game in the yard. The chicken was named Piyo. She couldn’t tell any of the chickens apart, so they were all named Piyo.

It was as they were placing the boxes down and onto her porch that Chiba-san emerged. She was wearing a pair of pajamas. Surprise bled into her features, but she didn’t seem particularly taken aback by the sight of them there.

Her eyes were tracking the boxes. She moved to sit. “I must have been good company.”

“Your cooking was just too good,” said Motoya, barely winded.

Kiyoomi said, “They’re not mine.”

“They’re not mine either,” said Chiba-san.

“He meant them to be here.”

Chiba-san gave him a long, hard look. She didn’t seem all too impressed. “Guess I’ll make room,” she finally said. “Wasn’t excited about the extra space anyways.”

And then her gaze moved over to Kiyoomi’s brother, who was still recovering from their trek up the hill. He was using his sleeve to wipe at his forehead. It was a rather fruitless endeavor.

The surprise returned. “Another one,” she said.

He said, “My brother.”

“Hey,” Yasuaki said, with his usual aloofness. It might have been undermined by the way sweat caused his shirt to stick to his skin.

Chiba-san barked out a laugh. “Like little clones,” she said, and it must have been to that other something sitting on the porch. “You ain’t just leaving these outside. And I know you’re not done yet.”

Hisano said, “Motoya—”

“You can do it yourself. You’d be done already if you didn’t dawdle so much.”

“Shoot,” the girl said, looking down at Piyo. “I’ll be right back.”

“You remember where those came from?” Chiba-san asked.

Motoya did. Yasuaki looked pained, meaning he looked pissed off, but was saved—if that was the word one wanted to use—when Chiba-san continued, “Since my helper’s occupied, you go get things started. Must be luck that we got too many eggs.”

“What,” Yasuaki said.

“There are some old leeks in the fridge,” Chiba-san said. “Gotta use those up. I’ll be there after you. I just gotta stand first.”

“What,” Yasuaki said.

“Are you expecting to just stand around while everyone else works?”

It was familiar. Watching someone else be on the receiving end of Yasuaki’s clenched jaw, his narrowing eyes. Kiyoomi couldn’t exactly blame him, given that he wasn’t all too fond of being bossed around by Chiba-san himself.

“Not much of a cook,” Yasuaki settled on.

“What a shame. Hope it’ll be edible,” Chiba-san said. “Ooh—look at that eye. My grandson might as well lack a spine. You,” she continued, “might be fun.”

Yasuaki didn’t seem to know how to take this. The old woman began to stand, her movements slow and creaky. She began to hobble into the main room, clicking her tongue when Yasuaki didn’t follow.

His brother shot him a glance. Kiyoomi shrugged.

And Yasuaki still looked a little displeased, but he followed. No shouts, no barbs, no digging in for a reaction. It wasn’t as if he had been truly expecting it, maybe, because he had enough insight to know that this version of his brother didn’t have the same propensity for exploding, but it was still odd.

Kiyoomi picked up his boxes. So did his cousin. They’d make another trip to get the last one. Motoya guided him to where the boxes had been shoved away. It was a tiny room: not quite meant to be a closet, but evidently used for storage, and someone’s sleeping area, judging by the futon.

It was only as they were setting them down into the same spots they must have sat for years, judging by the empty squares outlined in dust, that Motoya said, “You didn’t look at any of them?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“You have to be curious.”

“Obviously.”

“Huh.” Motoya led them back onto the porch, too. He reached up to graze a collection of little plastic stars with uneven edges with his fingertips. Kiyoomi wondered what containers they had been cut out of.

He caught sight of Hisano returning up the road. She was carrying a cat, now; he couldn’t tell which one because of the distance. Her visor flopped as she walked.

Motoya picked up the remaining box. “I’m a little surprised,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be, though.”

Kiyoomi eyed his cousin. “We still have half a year left.”

And Motoya said, “Yeah, I know.” And then he said, “Ugh, but way to bring down the mood!”

There would be breakfast, there would be awkward conversation, there would be Masao stumbling into the house, clearly hungover, there would be a bus ride and a train ride, also awkward, and there would be leaving Ichinohe and Kazuo behind.

Hisano, halfway up the hill, perked up at the sight of them on the porch. She lifted the cat above her head, her strides gangly and purposeful. Elsewhere in the house, where she was forcing his brother into helping with breakfast, Chiba-san was griping about a lack of a good set of fish bone tweezers.

…

Manami texted him on the ride back to the city. Just to check in, she said; he told her they’d be back in the afternoon. Unlike with Yasuaki, Kiyoomi had felt compelled to outline to her what had happened yesterday as they were finishing up their phone call. He had, to be fair, additionally been a little delirious at that point.

He wouldn’t see her today. Life would pick up again as soon as he got back, and with a brutal pace, at that. He wasn’t any more spooked about qualifiers than he had been for the Interhigh, but there was, perhaps, a weighty awareness at the fact that it’d be their last go around.

There were also exams. He had it on good knowledge that Kutaragi-sensei’s ire ratcheted as the New Year approached. Urara had told him a few weeks ago that she was glad she had him to act as a buffer before her own meetings. You’re rather helpful, she had said, and Kiyoomi had only nodded.

Ichinohe had felt like a buffer in its own right. And he was returning from it empty-handed, even if he had been given answers. Sort of answers. A lack of an answer was an answer within itself.

There was still much to be said and done. It hadn’t gone and fixed things.

It had been. Productive, maybe.

Takeuchi-san was picking them up again. The train ride back might’ve been the same length, but it felt longer and shorter at the same time. On one hand, he had had his fill of public transit for the past two days. On the other, the rapid approach of the city meant the approach of everything else going on in his life.

He ultimately didn’t complain when they arrived. No: it was always good to stretch his legs, even if it meant having to deal with saying goodbye to his brother. Kiyoomi liked to think himself immune to these things and didn’t care much about social faux pas, but he did generally like to avoid throwing himself into needless uncomfortable situations.

Standing outside of the station, sun in his eyes and legs sore, he settled on, “Thanks. For coming.”

Yasuaki shrugged. “Yeah. Well. I got some good work done.”

And then they stood there.

Their conversation had meant something, but it also didn’t mean anything. His brother was still more or less a stranger. There was a gnarled, tangled forest of hang-ups and thorns between them: the woods around that shrine, around the house his grandfather’s friend used to live in. The pathetic shrubs of the yard of the home they had both grown up in.

“Good seeing you,” Motoya said.

“Yeah,” Yasuaki said, after a moment. He still seemed to have no idea how to act around Motoya. Motoya seemed to find pleasure in this, even if Yasuaki was no longer on his shit list. “I’ll see you guys later, I guess.”

That was that.

Motoya hadn’t heard much from Aunt Erika while they were away, so either Kiyoomi’s own mother hadn’t made much of a scene, or his aunt was being rather close-lipped about it. He didn’t know what the preferable answer was. Takeuchi-san certainly didn’t give anything away in the car.

Kuniko was with him. Motoya sat up front while Kiyoomi sat with her in the back. Takeuchi-san asked about their trip, and Motoya chose to rattle on about the nature and the pond and the walking.

“I haven’t gone camping in a long time,” Takeuchi-san said. “Maybe we can put it on our list.”

“I didn’t realize you were into that sort of thing,” Motoya said.

“I was a scout back in the day, believe it or not.”

“Hmm. Well, I am believing!”

Kuniko asked, “She had how many cats?”

Altogether, he had spent less than an actual day in Ichinohe. A large chunk of that time had been spent sleeping, too. And yet it was enough for Kiyoomi to be struck by some sort of feeling: unwieldy and unnamable. He had spent more time outside of the city before. And yet it was only now that he felt, however precariously, as if he were viewing the familiar streets around him as an outsider.

Takeuchi-san put the car into park. “Sounds like your mom’s working at home today,” he said, nonchalant. “Do you need help bringing anything in?”

He just had his two bags. Takeuchi-san was looking at him in the rearview window.

“I got it,” Kiyoomi said.

Kuniko held out a hand. She was into handshakes now, apparently. Web-to-web is important, she said. Motoya walked him to the door.

“You want to shake hands, too?” Kiyoomi palmed his key in his pocket.

“Nah,” Motoya said. “I don’t want your germs.”

He made a face.

His cousin smiled. “It was a good trip. A little weird, I got to say.”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said. And then, “Thanks for coming.”

“I guess,” Motoya said, “I should thank you for inviting me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh man, should we hug it out?”

“Leave.”

Motoya snorted. He lingered.

Kiyoomi said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Motoya said. “Don’t be late.”

No one was in the main room. He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting. This, too, felt a little jarring for him, and even though it had been years since his grandfather lived with them, he almost felt thrown off by the lack of the news playing on the television.

He wasn’t left alone with his thoughts for long. Kiyoomi had just taken his shoes off when his mother emerged.

Her hair was kept back in a braid. A few of the shorter strands around her face had slipped out of its control; they framed the skin of her cheeks, dark and unruly. Her arms were crossed over her front, and her mouth was forming a terse line. There was an uncharacteristic wrench in her posture—just a notch too tense to seem natural.

He didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything.

After a moment, he said, “I’m home.”

She nodded. And he couldn’t remember the last time his mother took so long to find her words. Her foot tapped against the floor. Finally, she said, “It was what you hoped for?”

No. Sort of. Maybe. Not really. Probably.

“It was fine,” he said.

Something flickered in her expression. Maybe anger, or maybe exasperation, or maybe irritation, or finally—

Finally, just something shallow and resigned and baffled.

His mother scoffed, shaking her head. “I have tried,” was all she said, voice wan, “exceptionally hard. With all of you.”

And perhaps something was flickering inside of him, too. It was angry. It flared up in the same way it had when Coach Takahama had said your mother called, pinched at the edges and spiky in his chest cavity. It was angry, it was exasperated, it wasn’t baffled—because nothing about this was unexpected—and it wasn’t shallow, rather, occupying deep crevices within him, canyons and rivers and soy fields—but—

Perhaps it was, in its own way, resigned. Perhaps it knew how they came to this conclusion. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

There were many things he wanted to say to his mother, then. But Kiyoomi nodded. That was all that he did.

She stared at him, and it seemed like she debated saying something more—wanting him to say more—but then she was leaving, disappearing somewhere into the house. He thought of a girl sitting in front of a game board.

…

George had been given a haircut. George did not seem very pleased with his haircut if dogs had the capability to be displeased with haircuts. By extension, Kiyoomi, too, was not pleased with the haircut, but he wouldn’t voice anything to Matsunaga-san, as that didn’t seem productive.

The neighborhood had not changed in the time that he was gone. The house at the end of the block was still being renovated, their neighbor’s front gate still had pointy, draconian spikes, George still sniffed at the same spots as he always did. Kiyoomi wasn’t sure what he was expecting.

George’s collar jingled. He kept walking.

At practice, Shige claimed this is the one, this is really the one, this is the fucking one you guys. He didn’t elaborate more than that. Inamoto wasn’t much help in translating. Something about winning. Kiyoomi liked winning. He didn’t want to voice that he liked winning while in proximity to Shige, because that would have seemed like he was supporting whatever it was that his teammate was doing.

Endo had picked up a first year to train to manage next year. He was big on personal fitness, apparently, chatting up Motoya about his deadlifts and squats and PRs.

(Motoya seemed. Better, maybe. Even though his mood had certainly improved, something had changed in his cousin—between them, maybe—in a way that Kiyoomi was coming to recognize would not simply go away with time.

Sometimes he looked at Motoya and still saw him at ten.)

“Did you,” Kiyoomi said, “pick him up from the gutter?”

“Gym rats are productive rats,” Endo said, not looking up from her clipboard.

Arakawa said, “Well. I like him.”

It’s all about form, bro—

His father did not have much more to say to him than his mother did. When they encountered each other in the main room one evening, he spared Kiyoomi a glance—a glance that might’ve been looking for something, at something—before he sighed, an irritated furrow to his brow, and went on his way. Kiyoomi watched his movie.

He asked the nurse about it first. His grandfather had several old pictures around that never seemed to upset him. He never explicitly talked about Kazuo, but the letters were omnipotent, looming, and he wasn’t sure if the extra weight would cause a problem.

The nurse had told him that it was a possibility: she also seemed rather touched that he had found the photograph in the first place. He ducked into his grandfather’s room before she could start cooing.

It had been odd to deal with seeing his brother in the aftermath of their conversation. It had been odd seeing his cousin. It had been odd to speak to Manami. It had been odd to see his mother.

Seeing his grandfather was perhaps the oddest of all, even if he appeared no differently than he did beforehand.

Kiyoomi sat. A pinwheel was on his bedside table—from some summer holiday event the care home had. It caught his attention, winking and metallic, before he looked back to his grandfather. </p,

“Grandpa,” he said. “I have something for you.”

He had received a few photos other than the one with his grandfather, though the rest were just of Kazuo or his family. There was even one with Chiba-san, young and tiny and with dark, thick hair. Snapshots of a house he had only seen in ruin existed alive and well in the folder that he held.

He started with that first one, though: two boys in the woods.

His grandfather held the photograph like he held his stamps—but his attention was more honed, his gaze roving. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t stop looking, either, the seconds stretching on—then minutes.

Eventually, his grandfather made a noise that Kiyoomi wasn’t sure he had ever heard before. He wrote it into his mental glossary. Maybe: huh. Maybe: oh. Maybe: you. Maybe an ache that was seventy years old.

They sat there for a long time.

…

He didn’t end up seeing his sister in person until next week. She stopped by the house one day when they were both home, and neither of their parents were. That wasn’t exactly a challenge. The tension wasn’t the same as before he left, but there was an unsettled quality to the air, maybe. A frigidity. Resigned.

His parents still seemed to be disgruntled with one another. It wasn’t. Ideal, but in a pragmatic way—even if Kiyoomi evidently had something to do with it—it meant they were spending more time being passive-aggressive with one another than asking him about university.

(There was. Guilt, maybe. And there was also a part of him that was relieved to not be the focus of attention—or a general ambivalence to their situation. An annoyance, maybe. Keep me out of it.

He wasn’t sure which, if any, was more problematic.)

And it wasn’t like things had changed monumentally with his brother, either. Even if Kiyoomi technically had his number now, he wasn’t going to go out of his way to use it, and Yasuaki seemed to be of a mutual mind.

And perhaps that was the refreshing conclusion to have come out of that conversation in Yasuaki’s hotel room. I don’t know you; you don’t know me. There was no reason to pretend. And there would still inevitably be more conversations to have with his brother—larger conversations, Big ones—but for now, that corner of his mind felt manageable to deal with. When still politely glossing over the pregnancy, of course.

It was different. With Manami.

Kiyoomi didn’t regret his conversation with his sister that night in front of the pond, but he couldn’t pretend like he wasn’t— embarrassed, maybe. Defensive. He didn’t like crying. More than anything, he didn’t like feeling as if he were so unable to control even his own body, as if it existed beyond him: in tears, in breaths punching their way out of his lungs.

So no, he didn’t regret it, but he did lament the fact that he once again had found himself breaking down in front of his sister, much like he had done all those years ago.

She technically had a key to the house, but she often still knocked anyway. That day she came over, Kiyoomi opened the door after pausing for only a moment.

Manami had been just about to knock again, it seemed. Her hand was raised in the air between them. She blinked and brought it back to her side. Blue gemstones, wreathed in silver, hung from her earlobes.

Kiyoomi stood there. His sister stood there.

She cleared her throat. “Are you just going to block the door, hooligan?”

“Yes,” he said, moving.

“Unforgivable,” she said.

There were things left to be said to his sister. Especially as university exams and the potential outcomes they brought were just beyond the horizon. He knew it. He knew his sister knew it.

She flopped onto the couch right where he had been sitting and did not seem particularly deterred by his complaining.

She asked about the trip. He answered with a shrug. She moved from his spot eventually. She still sat on the couch. She said, glancing away, “Yasuaki told me about that conversation you had.”

He nodded. Even with the trip, something still pinched at him.

“We had a conversation of our own. And he didn’t tell me exactly what about—what you talked about,” she continued. Kiyoomi had never told her exactly what, either. “I know we already—” She sighed. “I’m glad you got to talk.”

He said, “We’re on the same page.”

Yasuaki wasn’t the only one who could tell what she was thinking. The curiosity burning at her was obvious, in just the same way that she was clearly debating how much to press him on it.

Now he looked away. “I’m fine with seeing him. But we’re not—”

He stopped. He felt her shift on the couch.

“I know,” she said, after a moment. “And I will— I am—” She cleared her throat. “I know.”

And later, after they had talked briefly about the cats and the goth teenagers and her work and an odd bartender who allegedly had a pet tarantula she had met the previous weekend and exams in January, Kiyoomi—thoughts still coming out of the literal woodwork, picking off leaves and brushing off dirt—blurted out:

“I don’t want to just play in university.”

“Play,” she repeated, toying with an earring.

“Volleyball,” he said.

“Oh.” Comprehension dawned on her face. “Oh. Okay. You. Want to play—professionally, then?”

That was the natural conclusion one would derive. It was literally and pragmatically true, and yes, he would say that was his ultimate goal at the moment.

But even to his sister, who could make a decent argument for knowing him best in the world, Kiyoomi didn’t know how to explain that all he wanted to do was play. He wanted to improve. He wanted to see what that limit was for himself.

(There was no such thing as forever.)

He said, “Yeah.”

“Motoya too?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” she said, after a moment. “I’m sure you could. I’m sorry if I— I didn’t realize you wanted to.”

Kiyoomi glanced at the window. “I didn’t always.”

“Oh,” Manami said. Oh, watching him as if she had realized something. When he looked back, the corners of her lips had quirked upwards. “How morose.”

.

..

…

..

.

One day that autumn, Coach Takahama told him, “Oh. Yes, I can do that.”

Some schools were already taking self-recommendation applications; both Coach Takahama and Coach Nishio had emphasized that they weren’t strictly necessary, and he didn’t feel the need to bother himself with the extra work if it wasn’t important. They were, however, supposed to be narrowing down their choices as winter approached, if not making them outright.

He had sat on it. He was sitting on it. He couldn’t say that he was positive about his decision, but it was a choice he was going to have to make inevitably. Asking Coach Takahama to put him in contact with the representative from Kansai seemed like his next natural step.

They were at practice. They were technically warming up still. He had caught her outside.

She said, “I had a feeling you would like their playing style.”

“Yes,” he said.

“It’ll be a bit away from home.”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” She blinked. “Well—I’ll do it first thing this afternoon.”

“Thank you,” he said.

He had talked about it with Motoya. His cousin was thinking of a school nearby. Distance felt inevitable. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it yet—so he wasn’t going to ruminate. He had talked to his sister about it, as well, because something about moving away from her triggered a feeling shaped like guilt.

She had seemed surprised. Oh, that’s rather far, she had said. And then: You are sailing across the globe. And finally, with the same expression as that first meeting after Ichinohe: you might be growing up.

(“You’re fine with missing out?” It had been said by his cousin. They were walking to school one morning. “With your brother back.”

The answer was: of course not. No: it stabbed at him quite furiously. Kiyoomi couldn’t pretend like the idea of him being kilometers away while his siblings returned to being a duo rather than a—not that, whatever the absence of that was—was a thought aggravating beyond measure.

Yasuaki had mentioned, apparently, that Kanae eventually wanted to move back to her hometown. And he would be rather busy with child-rearing duties anyway, because unless everyone forgot, Yasuaki was still aiding in bringing a child into the world. Kiyoomi wasn’t unaware that these weren’t the best thoughts, but they felt helpful, somehow.

“A train ride is just a train ride,” was all he said back.)

It had something to do with Ichinohe. He couldn’t pretend otherwise. Kiyoomi could never live in a town that size or a place that rural, where despite the distance everyone seemed to be shoulder-to-shoulder with one another.

But he sometimes thought of that shrine, decaying but cared for. A view as wide as the town itself. Chickens and cats.

Suita, as far as he knew, had none of those things, but it was someplace new.

He still wasn’t going into this recklessly. Kansai wasn’t the only team whose playing style complemented his own. Kiyoomi had spent hours pouring over maps of public transit, restaurant reviews, video rental store web pages—all to ensure that he was making a sound choice.

Hoshino was waiting by the doors when he stepped back inside of the gym. He had become slightly less clingy since the Interhigh. That wasn’t saying much.

“Kiyoomi-senpai,” he said. “If you’re not busy, could you give me a few pointers on my form?”

I’m busy, he nearly said. Nearby, Endo was scraping stickers off of a new set of water bottles. Arakawa was stretching. Shige and Inanoto were doing something to one another. A handshake, it looked like. Motoya was seemingly giving some advice to Kawashima, who still appeared bashful under his attention.

“I’m busy,” he said, but he started walking towards the ball cart.

When Hoshino didn’t follow, he shot a look over his shoulder. And it was nice when his Looks actually seemed to work, even if this one just made his teammate brighten, sneakers shuffling on the gym floor in his wake.

…

As conceited as it was to say, winning qualifiers for the Spring tournament had lost some of its novelty. It had been closer this time—Nekoma rousing a surprisingly tough game—but when all was said and done, victory was theirs to grab. There was a sort of routine to it now. Kiyoomi, naturally, ducked out of the way as microphone-wielding gnats descended upon the court. Someone, as it always happened, still managed to ensnare him.

“Sakusa! Just where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Mizuta’s hair, free from the clutches of high school regulations, was now a resilient shade of indigo. He was sure she had a more specific name for it. She had gotten new glasses, too, that caught in the light as she came stomping down the hallway, Iizuna on her heels.

Why me, he thought.

“Sakusa!” said his former captain. “You’re not thinking why me, right?’

With a flourishing wave that caused her blouse to flutter, Mizuta said, “This is watershed. This is redefining. People will look back to this tournament as the precursor to your career, and you’re hiding from reporters instead of taking control of the narrative.”

“Why are you here,” Kiyoomi said.

“Can you blame us for wanting to see how the team would do?” Iizuna said.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said.

Mizuta said, “I told Endo not to let you off of your leash. It would lead to nothing but problems.”

“What leash,” he said.

“You know,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, you know.”

“Inamoto finally looks like he’s coming into himself,” Iizuna said before Kiyoomi could respond. It was probably for the best. He didn’t think saying is that an innuendo would be particularly helpful.

And it was true. Inamoto was finally starting to shake off some of his nerves, even if Shige was definitively not shaking off his energy. Motoya sat out for a handful of minutes to give Kawashima some time on the court; Kiyoomi had glanced over at his cousin to see him gripping the edge of the bench, but he hadn’t appeared so high-strung that he was about to combust.

Even Hoshino seemed less likely to get sick all over himself. Something about things changing.

“Are you better?” Kiyoomi asked.

To his knowledge, Iizuna’s injury had lingered. The ligaments in his ankle had been damaged beyond a simple sprain, as had first been thought. It had never seemed like something severe enough to cause egregious concern, but it had been an obstacle with rather unfortunate timing. And even once physically healed, it seemed the type to maintain a presence at the back of someone like Iizuna’s mind.

“Right as rain,” Iizuna said. “Hasn’t given me an issue since spring.”

Kiyoomi hmmed.

Iizuna said, “Just in time, too. I’ll be all good to go by the time I’ll be seeing you next year.”

“You won’t have an easy excuse anymore,” was what Kiyoomi said, and Iizuna’s smile got a little pointy at the edges.

It was still odd to talk about next year as something tangible and within grasp as opposed to existing in a distant future. But it felt. Less weird, perhaps, than it had in the past.

“I’m not dropping this,” Mizuta said. “I won’t be around to hound you at all after this, so you need to let this shit ferment in that skull of yours, alright? And don’t shunt it off.” She pointed at his chest. “I know your memory is too good for that.”

“Couldn’t you be bothering someone else?”

“Your cousin doesn’t need coaching. He was born for the camera.”

This was probably true. Kiyoomi debated who was worse: a reporter or Mizuta. A reporter Mizuta would be the worst of all. He didn’t know if he should ask her how her studies were going.

Thankfully, Iizuna put his foot in his mouth before Kiyoomi could speak. “Come on,” he said. “We can save this for later, right?”

“I don’t want to hear anything from you. You’re even worse than him, do you know that?”

“What?”

“Do you want to talk about the article again? I’m not above it. Talking about fucking ecology instead of the game you had literally just played—”

“It seemed relevant—”

“Oh, it seemed—”

At the end of the hallway, among other passersby who were sending them poorly hidden looks, Kiyoomi caught Endo leaving the court. She stopped, looked at Mizuta and Iizuna, looked at Kiyoomi, and then started slowly backing away.

It did little good. Mizuta had a radar for these things. “Endo,” she said, and in a blur a glossy blue, she was hurtling down the expanse of the hallway.

…

Kiyoomi spent his winter break at practice. It was his first time practicing with Itachiyama for the full length of the week, given that both he and Motoya had participated in the youth camp since they started high school.

“Don’t worry,” Arakawa said, hand on his shoulder. “I’ll totally show you the ropes.”

He swatted it away. “It’s practice,” Kiyoomi said. He knew how to practice.

Kiyoomi wasn’t so sentimental as to feel anything more than relief that he wouldn’t have to deal with the dorms this year—among other things—at the prospect of staying home to practice. It was nice to follow his familiar routine. He could admit that it might’ve been especially nice given what was now just a handful of months away.

It was a lie to say that all he did was practice. Kiyoomi took advantage of his extra time. He studied for his exams, he visited his grandfather, he took George on walks. It was rare to cross paths with his father, and his mother oscillated between ignoring him or approaching him in a manner that reminded him of his early childhood if only flipped on its head.

Ichinohe changed something for her, as well. She looked at him and saw something different than she had before; or at least that was what he gathered, given that most of their conversations ended with that same sigh or scoff or displeasure. A desire to say more, perhaps, even if she never would. No: it was easier to walk away with a shake of the head.

Kiyoomi wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

Lingering on it certainly didn’t feel good, even if he couldn’t unpack exactly what that actually meant, so Kiyoomi avoided doing so as he could. In fact, he avoided seeing both of his parents in general.

At the start of January, Kiyoomi saw his siblings. He had seen his brother a handful of times since the summer, but only ever with his sister there. The first time had been—awkward, maybe, but if there was anything that all three of them were good at, it was moving forward without addressing the elephant in the room.

(It was a little easier, maybe, after talking to his brother in his hotel room. After talking to his sister. Maybe talking about your feelings actually had the possibility of doing good. Who would have thought.)

Yasuaki was frazzled. It was January. The end of January, he had once said. Kiyoomi had met Kanae at a dinner in October. She was… normal, if only a little jagged at the edges. He didn’t think he’d know how to act around any partner of his siblings’, let alone a person who wasn’t, rather threading the needle of “awkward friend” and “co-parent.” The co-parent of Yasuaki of all people.

More than his final tournament or exams or university looming around the corner, it was perhaps the arrival of Kiyoomi’s niece that felt as if it were carrying the most weight.

They met at Yasuaki’s apartment. It was indeed a shitty apartment. He was planning on moving within the next couple of months to a place that was closer to Kanae’s; in the meantime, this one was stuck in the liminal space of packing and baby preparations.

Kiyoomi moved a pile of folders and documents from Yasuaki’s futon couch to make space to sit down. His brother’s apartment was sparsely decorated, if at all. It wasn’t clean, per se, but it was by no means a pigsty.

Just. Bare. It didn’t look like there was going to be much to pack to start with. Bits and pieces of Yasuaki’s time away had come through in the past few months. It sounded as if he moved often, never lingering in a place for long, at times bouncing from couch to couch.

“This is cute,” Manami said, tone stilted. She stood above an open box. She was holding a very tiny onesie. A onesie for a baby. It was pink.

His sister was just as oblivious as how to handle all of this, at least.

Yasuaki adjusted his shirt collar. Then he adjusted another box. “A lady from work had a bunch of shit from when her daughter was born.”

“That’s nice.” Manami kept the onesie far away from her body as she put it back into the box. She then decided to plop onto the cramped couch beside him, undeterred by his scowl. “Things are approaching with haste, aren’t they.”

“Fucking tell me about it.”

“I believe I did.”

“Nice one, genius.”

These were fleeting moments. It wasn’t like with his cousin, or practice, or with Manami alone; there was still an unfamiliarity to these meetings, and he doubted it would go away by the time the spring came. It didn’t feel like there would be a sense of loss—not like there’d be for other parts of his life.

He couldn’t say that he’d miss it, perhaps, but he’d feel its absence. Though maybe that was just because he’d be feeling left out. How juvenile.

“—she hasn’t kicked it into phase two, yet, I’d imagine. You’ll have that to look forward to.”

He realized it was being said to him. What, he said with his face.

“Kutaragi-sensei,” Manami said.

“She flips shit in January,” said Yasuaki. “Get ready for hell.”

“I’m already there,” he said.

“Just remember, it can always get worse.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

Yasuaki said, “What do you think?”

And there was a humor in his voice: no matter how dry, and no matter how novel.

…

Kiyoomi wouldn’t be the one who was ambushed: not this time around. The new year had brought with it proactivity. There was no time to remain stagnant.

Miya Atsumu was miraculously without his other half. A water bottle hanging from his mouth, its nozzle lodged between his teeth as he typed something onto his phone. He was standing in front of a water fountain. There were other people lingering in the hallway, but not many; most were busy watching the first round of matches begin.

Miya pocketed his phone with one hand and grabbed his water bottle with the other. He turned, and then he startled, and then he said, “Oh shit, man—what the hell?” Miya Atsumu blinked. “Have you just been waiting there?”

Kiyoomi didn’t respond.

“Well, sorry, I guess,” he said, stepping out of the way. He didn’t sound particularly apologetic. “You could have said something.”

Kiyoomi said, “You’re going pro next year.”

“Yeaaaaaah,” Miya said. His expression was flagrantly suspicious. “What about it?”

“Why?”

“Why am I going pro?”

“Obviously.”

“Sue a guy for askin’ a clarifying question.” And he said, not a moment later, as if he didn’t even need to think about it, “Why wouldn’t I?”

Kiyoomi could have asked, but why not university? He could have asked, why do you want to play in the first place? Or, What does forever mean to you?

He wouldn’t ask any of them. There was no need to.

Why wouldn’t I, said Miya, and there was arrogance there, certainly. A defiance pushing the words forward, just begging Kiyoomi to say differently. Why wouldn’t I? said Japan’s best high school setter. Why wouldn’t I? said the walking blond lighthouse. Why wouldn’t I? said Miya Atsumu.

He was the type to only look forward. He bulldozed through obstacles in front of them like they didn’t mean anything, even to his detriment. Despite already having some bizarre type of fan club, he would have earned even more of Mizuta’s ire than Kiyoomi, speaking to strangers with the same cadence and abrasiveness as he would his brother. Piss off, get out of my way, just a bunch of losers.

And he very easily could have been all of those things in university. More players went than not: Coach Nishio said it was a place to further develop skills before hitting the big league. Nothing about Miya’s words could cause Kiyoomi to doubt his own decisions, and he also couldn’t pretend like he didn’t feel a derision towards his attitude, as if any other path would be beneath him.

But it made sense, perhaps. In the way that it made sense for a first-year to pick a fight with a bunch of upperclassmen in a hallway with nothing more than his metallic words to defend himself with.

Miya said, “Why? You movin’ up next year too?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“Well,” said Miya. “No worries.” He smiled then. “I’ll keep it warm for ya until then.”

It was not a kind smile. It still had a dimple.

Kiyoomi said, “You can’t even beat me now.”

Then he turned and walked away, ignoring whatever it was that Miya Atsumu called out after him. In most areas of his life, moving forward meant accepting things as they were as time moved on. This particular section, he thought—these particular feelings—were to pack away and leave behind.

Miya Atsumu would go to the professional leagues. Kiyoomi would go to university. Years into the future they’d likely encounter each other on the court, but that would be the extent of their interactions.

This would remain a…

Crush. An idiotic high school crush, if it could even be allowed to be called such. Kiyoomi tugged on his mask.

It wasn’t as if they would really see each other again.

…

Kutaragi-sensei did, in fact, lose her shit in January. With less than a week until exams, she had fully devolved into speaking in only rebukes and scoldings. Kiyoomi, still recovering from the sting of coming second place to Kamomedai again, found himself rather twitchy as the weekend approached. At least there was no doubt that he wouldn’t fail the history section.

He tugged on his knit cap. He pushed open the stairwell door. Kiyoomi walked into the building’s lobby. Urara was sitting there. She looked up from her planner and said, “Crunch time.”

“If you want to call it that,” he said.

And then Kiyoomi lingered. Urara stood, throwing her bag over her shoulder.

“How are you feeling about them?” she asked. She was wearing a scarf that was segmented into three neat shades of orange.

“Well enough.” He inclined his head. You?

“Not too worried. We’ll have to compare scores.” Urara said, “I wonder if our rankings from cram school will hold out.”

“If you’ll be on top, you mean.”

“You always beat me in literature.”

“It was the only thing I beat you in.”

“Well,” she said, humor in her face.

Kiyoomi cleared his throat. “You’ll do well,” he said, looking away. “It’d be more of a surprise if you didn’t do well.”

And it felt like the type of thing that’d leave his cousin saying too blunt!, but when he glanced over to gauge Urara’s reaction, she looked pleasantly surprised.

“Oh,” she said. “Thank you.”

He shrugged.

“You too.” Her head tilted back, her eyes glancing upwards, towards the ceiling: she was thinking. She said, “You play a sport, don’t you?”

“Volleyball.”

“Are you playing next year?”

He nodded.

“Well,” she said. “I imagine you’re quite good at that, too.”

He ignored the way the comment poked at his insides. He asked, “Will you bowl?”

“Just as a hobby.”

“I haven’t played before.”

“You should. It’s fun.”

And Kiyoomi paused, And then he said, “You’d have to show me.”

She looked surprised again, but it was brief. Urara smiled. Her eyes always widened when she smiled like this, eyebrows raising. “Oh. Well. I’m very good,” she said. “Just as a warning.”

“I haven't played,” Kiyoomi said again. Not that he wouldn’t try. Perhaps it was a new activity to practice to oblivion, even if bowling alleys, as a concept, sounded like a personal nightmare.

He could imagine that his wrists could give him an advantage. I have weird wrists didn’t seem like the right thing to say, then.

“Well,” she said. “I’ll help you out.”

He nodded. She nodded.

She said, “I probably shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

He nodded again. She walked towards the stairwell: he walked towards the door.

Urara said, smiling, “Bye, Sakusa.”

…

“He’s all grown up.”

“Stop.”

“Does your sister know?”

“No.”

“Are you—”

“No.”

“Can I—”

“No.”

“Tough,” Motoya said. He took a bite of rice. “Oh, Cousin.”

It had been a while since Motoya had sat with him for the full extent of their lunch period. Rarely did he even catch him with a tray, whether because it never existed in the first place, or because it got put away in another classroom at one point or another.

But here was one in front of him now.

Motoya was seemingly taking this loss better than the one at the Interhigh. He had still been rather put out by it—particularly the day of—but he wasn’t spiraling like he had done during the summer. Maybe they’ll get them next year, he had said on the bus, looking out the window.

“Did you check out the next chapter for calc?” Motoya said.

“No,” Kiyoomi said. “Why would I.”

“It’s a doozy. And a half.”

“Why did you?”

“I like to be prepared! Michiba-senpai still gives me pointers for his quizzes.”

“You’d do fine without it.”

Motoya said, “Maybe I just like succeeding. Have you ever thought about that?”

“No.”

“Rude.”

These fleeting moments.

…

He came home to an empty house. He ate alone at the table. He watched an art-deco horror film that would leave Motoya rolling his eyes. He did not think he would miss this quiet house or these meals to himself, but he took his time anyway, savoring taste, savoring sound.

…

A thin layer of ice had frozen over the ground, the temperature stuck between freezing and not. Kiyoomi shuffled through his neighborhood with slow, deliberate steps, keeping his hands free just in case. He had hoped when leaving that morning that things would clear up by the time he got back in the evening. It had been a naive hope.

He didn’t mind winter, and he didn’t like change too much, but he was looking forward to it, maybe: the temperature thawing, the days growing longer, the shitty shrub growing shitty leaves. Perhaps he was just tired of ice. Perhaps he was waiting to hear from his brother, the start of February just a handful of days away.

March would bring spring, and spring would bring university, and a niece, and a move, and a routine, and, and, and, and Kiyoomi was still here.

Here was the neighborhood he had grown up in. Here was him about to break a bone on the ice. Perhaps he was meant to be Iizuna after all. Here, in the now, Kiyoomi heard a shout ahead.

Then another shout. He stopped. Well: he commanded his legs to stop, slid forward a centimer, and then he stopped. The shouting sounded as if it was coming from around the corner, shouter out of sight. He was just about to pick apart what they were saying, and—

Something skittered across the ice ahead of him. A blur of fur that came crashing into his calves. Kiyoomi wobbled, then looked down to see two watery eyes looking back up at him.

“Ran! Ran, where did you go? Ran—”

The dog’s tail wagged.

Chapter Text

When they were five minutes out from his apartment, and the radio was turned down low enough to hear the car humming, Manami said, “I think I upset your Box Dye.”

Kiyoomi said, “Don’t say your.” Then he said: “And don’t call him that.” And finally: “What’d you do?”

When he glanced over, she was resting her cheek against her knuckles and looking out the window. She was wearing rings. They were going to leave dents in her skin.

“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “But I brought up his parents, and he seemed pretty put out about it. You know why?”

They had to make a left turn; he took the time to think. Tick, tick, tick.

“No,” he said. “Like I told you, I don’t really know anything.”

“And like I told you,” his sister said, and he saw her glance over at him, smile wry, “you owe me a bit of an explanation.”

“Nothing happened.”

“How disappointing.”

“Nothing happened,” Kiyoomi repeated. “He needed a ride. He got locked out. That’s it.”

“Chivalrous.”

“I was doing a favor.”

“Dashing, as they say.”

“I was being nice.”

“That you were.”

There was something amused playing around in her tone, but in a way that sounded as if she were lingering on something that no one else in the world knew. He still couldn’t pretend like he completely understood what happened inside his sister’s head.

“It’s kind of weird,” she said.

“Yes, you are,” he said.

“Ha ha,” she said. “Seeing him in person.”

He felt his expression sour. She didn’t even have to look at him in order to laugh.

“You’ve seen him in person before.”

She said, “Yes, but I haven’t talked to him before. And who’s fault is that?”

All things considered, Manami and Miya's meeting—without his supervision, because he was showering, because Miya decided to let someone into his home without asking—went less catastrophically than it could have gone. He had expected a spontaneous eruption. What he got was still pretty awful, even if lunch went mostly fine.

Lunch. It was always lunch.

They shouldn’t have met. He wasn’t planning on having them meet. He had felt a rather juvenile sense of guilt at agreeing to Miya’s plan to shunt him off to his apartment building until he could get a locksmith in, but he had been the one to offer, and Kiyoomi had done enough good deeds that a little selfishness felt warranted.

It hadn’t prevented anything, in the end.

(It relieved some of that guilt, perhaps, but it was easy to say that when the world was still tilting on its axis, which had not been guaranteed.)

Kiyoomi said, “Why would you ever need to meet any of my coworkers?”

“Do you really call them coworkers?”

“They are essentially coworkers.”

“Because I want to know all about your little life. You are my ant in a terrarium.”

“You’re nosy,” he said.

“Of course I am,” she said.

“Why did he seem upset?”

“He’s not very subtle.” She said, “He’s really quite expressive, isn’t he. I can see the allure.”

She wasn’t lying. About the fact that Miya wouldn't know subtlety if it hit him over the head. There was clearly something fishy about his suddenly canceled trip, his need for a ride home, and his notably subdued demeanor by the end of their lunch. Family thing, he had said it had been, yet his brother was nowhere to be seen.

Miya must have talked about his family before. Certainly so. He talked about his brother well enough. He talked well enough. He talked all the time. He talked too much. Inunaki had mentioned the trip he was going on before their break, and he could recall Miya talking about a vacation he took to the beach with his family growing up.

Kiyoomi wasn’t one to pry, though; and while selfish of him, he hadn’t exactly wanted to delve into any particular emotional gauntlets when all he had really wanted to do was go to sleep. A nice, even sleep, unperturbed by the knowledge that his teammate was camped out on his couch.

“He was having a bad couple of days,” was what Kiyoomi said. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” his sister said. “You got to be his knight either way.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Sure you did, Omi. Ha. Sorry. Oh, listen,” his sister said, leaning over to crank up the volume. “I love this one.”

…

Sakusa Kiyoomi, age twenty-three, did not do things that he did not want to do if he could help it.

He understood, naturally, that life involved having to take part in events and actions and conversations you did not want to be a part of, but by and large, he controlled the general flow of his existence. And while he could say that he had attempted to grow from when he was younger, he wouldn’t describe himself as particularly kind by any means. He was driven by self-interest. In general, he didn’t feel guilt over such a fact. It was about balance.

So when he had received a text from Miya—Miya, his teammate, no longer just a nuisance in his peripheral vision—not long before midnight the day before New Year’s Eve, asking for a ride after being stranded at the airport, he had not immediately jumped into action. He had paused the TV and stared at his phone; and then he had been struck by the brief, fleeting wish that he was not gripped by the moral dilemma of what was being asked of him so late at night when on his break.

No one would know that he had seen the message. It was late; he easily could have been sleeping. Miya even said so in the text. Kiyoomi hated the airport. He thought of Miya at the airport, texting him. For whatever reason. Because yes, the fact that he was asking him of all people for help—not a joke or barb in sight—surely meant that something was amiss.

Sakusa (EVIL) (23:29): i’m awake

Sakusa (EVIL) (23:29): at ITM?

miya atsumu (23:29): Yes

miya atsumu (23:29): I had to come back into the city and it was kind of a last minute thing it’s been a long day sorry to bother

Sakusa (EVIL) (23:29): do you still need a ride

miya atsumu (23:40): Yes you obviously don’t like have to but I would seriously owe you one and I’d pay you back

He had stared down at his phone, a shrill light in a dark room, and he had sighed. And then he had gone to put in his contacts.

“Hey,” Miya had said into his ear, at the exact same moment that it occurred to him that they had never spoken on the phone before. Likely for good reason. “I’m like, real fuckin’ sorry to bother you about this.”

His apartment’s hallway had been quiet. Kiyoomi hadn’t necessarily been tired, but it was odd to be awake when the world around you wasn’t. It ebbed away at what little tact he had. Wearing a coat that late when he had not anticipated wearing a coat: odd. Irritating.

“Why are you coming back into town tonight?” he said.

“I had like, family shit, but it fell through. Didn’t exactly just want to sit on my hands waitin’ to come home.”

It was a fair explanation while also revealing nothing at all. Lukewarm. Miya wasn’t lukewarm. He had the biggest mouth within city limits.

Irritating. Interesting. Concerning.

“I don’t have access to money right now obviously, but I’ll—”

“It’s fine,” Kiyoomi said. The stairwell was even more of a liminal space than it usually was. “It’ll probably be a little more than half an hour.”

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll take it. I can send you the address.”

“I’ve been to ITM before.”

“Right. Well. Obviously.”

A silence fell over the line. He bit back a sigh—or maybe he had been about to roll his eyes.

“Thirty minutes,” he had said.

“Cool,” Miya had said. “See you then, I guess.”

And he had seen him again. More than he had wanted to. It had been a bizarre experience to wake up in his apartment and hear someone puttering around in his kitchen, and even more bizarre when remembering who exactly that puttering belonged to. He had only seen Miya in the dark up until that point. Seeing him at his kitchen table, in the sun, looking drawn and pissed off as he spit something into his phone had been. Odd.

And then his sister had shown up because Manami took pleasure—whether knowingly or not—in casting his life into disarray.

(“Drama queen.”)

But Miya had returned to his apartment and Kiyoomi to his own and all was right in the world again. His sister finished up some remote work that evening while he read a new novel he had been meaning to get to.

A break in routine—unexpected as that night at the airport had been—always threw him off. But they found the track eventually.

And here was where that track had taken them the morning of New Year’s Day,

“I texted him that we’re here,” Manami said, phone in hand.

It was still odd to picture his brother living in a place that could be described as a town. It was a large town at that, closer to a city than not, but it was a town. The apartment building that Yasuaki lived in was not a tall skyscraper so much as it was a nondescript rectangle with flat shingles. Kiyoomi and his sister walked up the stairs. He kept his hands in his pockets.

The door opened before they could even knock.

Riko was wearing a blue dress with a star embroidered onto its front, a t-shirt layered beneath it. Her hair had not been brushed yet, and she wasn’t wearing her glasses. Her socks were polka-dotted.

“You’re late,” she said.

“No,” Manami said.

“You said you’d be here at ten,” she said.

“It’s ten,” Manami said.

Riko said, “It’s two past ten! You lied. You’re liars.”

“Terrible,” Manami said. “Book us.”

“Where are your glasses?” Kiyoomi said.

“Your punishment is to find my glasses.”

“Did you hide your glasses?”

“No,” Riko said.

“You left them on the couch,” said a voice, and there was Yasuaki appearing behind her, holding said glasses. “Between the cushions. Very convenient.”

“Well,” Riko said, crossing her arms and looking at her father with all the haughtiness that a Sakusa child was capable of. Which was, to be fair, quite a bit. “They wanted to be there.”

“Interesting story. If you don’t want to wear them, where should you put them?”

“My case.”

“And is your case also between the couch cushions?”

“No.”

“Where is your case?”

“My room.”

“So where should these go?”

She swiped the glasses from his grasp, then used them to point up at him. “You drive a hard bargain.

And then his niece turned to the two of them standing in the door. There was an expectant look on her face.

On instinct—before he could even manually do it—Kiyoomi’s arms lifted. Manami did the same. Riko looped her arms around his middle and pressed her face against his shirt with a little too much effort, before backing away and doing the exact same to his sister, who oomphed at the impact.

“Don’t start to talk without me,” she said, and then she was racing back to her bedroom.

“Don’t run,” Yasuaki said, with a tone that knew it was a fruitless ask.

A moment after they heard a door creak open somewhere else in the apartment, Manami, smiling, said, “She’s spirited this morning.”

“More like bouncing off the fucking walls,” Yasuaki said. “She’s been a little excited for your visit.”

“You too, right?”

“Never.” He opened the door. “You gonna loiter outside or what?”

“Waiting for you to get out of the way,” Kiyoomi said.

“Oh, fuck off,” Yasuaki said, but there was no actual heat to it.

The apartment was not particularly large, nor was it particularly small. There was an overflowing shoe rack next to the front door and a leafy houseplant sitting on the kitchen windowsill that looked like it needed a little water. Many pictures were scattered across the wall, mostly of Riko.

His brother was wearing a sweatshirt and loose pants. He was back to keeping his hair short these days. “The drive?” he said.

“Fine,” Kiyoomi said.

“Slow,” Manami said.

He shot her a look; she was unaffected.

Yasuaki plodded over to the kitchen as he spoke. “I told Hana-san that you’d be taking up a parking space, but she’ll probably still forget, so like, get ready for that to happen.”

“Annoying neighbors never stop being annoying,” Manami said, going to take a seat on the couch, after removing her shoes and coat.

Kiyoomi followed her lead. The fabric of the couch was balding. He said, “Is she going to try to block my car?”

“Hopefully not,” Yasuaki said. A cabinet opened.

Manami asked, “Kanae asleep?”

“You just missed her,” Yasuaki said. “She got home late.”

“Yuck.”

“I said to wait for me!” came Riko’s voice, returning to the main room with a brush in hand.

…

He often wondered where Riko inherited her propensity for conversation. Yasuaki might’ve had a big mouth, but it was rather antagonistic by nature, and often lacked a certain sincerity. Kanae wasn’t a quiet person and was certainly more sociable than his brother, but he couldn’t call her chatty.

Riko, if encouraged, could talk more than all of them combined.

“—but I think the garden would be a whole lot better if we grew more bitter melons,” she said. She wasn’t a small girl by any means, but she was, in true Sakusa nature, a little scrawny at this age, and her puffy coat nearly swallowed her whole. “Snap peas are okay, but they’re not bitter melons.”

“You have at least a couple months,” Yasuaki said. His hands were shoved in his pockets. “I’m sure you can make a decent campaign for your teachers.”

She nodded. She was wearing glasses now that they were outside, and the lenses gleamed under the sun. “It’d be a lot easier if Yui wasn’t being so stubborn,” she said, frowning—though it came out a little like a scowl.

His brother said, “Yes. I’m sure she’s being the stubborn one.”

“Well,” Manami said, adjusting her scarf. “I think we could fix up a very respectable brief for you. The snap pea constituency won’t know what’ll hit them.”

Riko looked up to her, eyes narrowing. “I don’t know what that means, but I think it’s a very good idea.”

His sister smiled. “A great idea. A verbose idea.”

“Okay. But—” Riko looked up at the sky, squinting, thinking. Thinking face. “Koshiba-sensei said we’re supposed to compromise. So it has to be a compromising brief. For the pea const— the pea people. Even if they’re stubborn.”

“Good advice,” Manami said. They had reached another set of stairs. His sister said, “First, you’ll just have to beat me to the top.”

And then his thirty-one-year-old sister was bounding up said stairs. Riko was quick to follow after her, shouting head start, not fair! Kiyoomi and his brother were left to watch their backs before they followed.

“She’ll be passed out by eight,” Yasuaki said.

“If we’re lucky,” Kiyoomi said.

“You won’t have to deal with her in a couple days, so I don’t want to hear it.” His brother said, “Sounds like you’ve had an exciting couple of days yourself.”

Manami. Leave it to Manami. He had been naive to think that it would occur so seamlessly.

“What,” Kiyoomi said.

“Making a move on New Year’s Day. I’m impressed.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

“Have you eaten at his brother’s restaurant? I have a coworker who’s interested.”

“No,” he said. “If I knew who you were talking about. Motoya says it’s solid.”

“He doing good?”

“Yeah.”

“Riko wanted to know how Mimi is doing,” his brother said.

He said, “I’ll ask him to send over some pictures.”

Cats were fine, even if they’d never be dogs. He stood by the fact that Motoya’s cat was literally demonic, something which Riko was infinitely intrigued by. Like, actually? she had asked once, and in the background, Yasuaki had said No, and Kiyoomi hadn’t responded.

It was a fitting pet for his cousin.

“Thanks,” Yasuaki said. Curt and acute: his brother’s voice would never change.

But the humor in it wasn’t as jagged as it had been, maybe: no longer forcing itself out of his chest, desperate and clawing. Or perhaps it was too early to be waxing philosophical.

He spoke to his brother in one way or another at least once a week. It often might’ve been facilitated through a group chat with his sister, and more often than that it was concerning Riko. He was busier now, but he still saw him in person at least once a month, if not more.

There would always be a gap between them. There were times, maybe, when it was just the two of them standing there, and the good seventeen or so years of their lives that had passed without them talking to each other earnestly and consistently would quietly make themselves known.

It perhaps wasn’t helpful to compare his relationships to his siblings to one another, but it felt intuitive to him in some way. Kiyoomi would never know Yasuaki like he would Manami. Yasuaki would never be close to Kiyoomi in the way that he was close to Manami.

As if on cue, Yasuaki said, “She seem good?”

They weren’t talking about Riko.

“No weirder than usual,” Kiyoomi said.

Yasuaki hmmed. He was, in some odd, grating way, the best at being communicative in the same way that their grandfather had been. He had never voiced this to his brother, as he imagined neither Yasuaki nor Manami would quite understand what he was saying.

Kiyoomi watched his sister; he was sure Yasuaki was doing the same. It was better, now, certainly, but he often still caught himself looking her way reflexively. Especially when she was so close—close enough for him to check with his own two eyes. 

They kept moving. 

“You’re annoying, you fucking know that?” his brother said, as they reached the top. His breath was escaping him beyond his control. “Don’t have the knees for this.”

“Whoops,” Kiyoomi said.

“I won,” Riko said, and she, too, was regaining herself, puffing out visible clouds. “I’m going to steal your job, Uncle Kiyoomi.”

“You’re too short.”

“Your teammate is short.”

“He’s still double your size.”

“I’m still growing,” Riko said. “Oh. And eating bitter melons helps you grow, I bet. Aunt Manami, can we add that?”

From where she stood with her hands on her knees—and he was the drama queen, sure—his sister gave a thumbs up. “Killer,” she huffed out. “Oh yeah. For sure.”

“You need more cardio.”

“Shut up,” his siblings said.

“That’s rude,” Riko said.

There was a reason she was his favorite niece.

“Come on,” Riko continued, pointing at where the top of a shrine appeared through the trees. “We don’t want all the good fortunes to be gone!”

…

Other than the shrine visit and a brief stint at the park that was over quicker than it started given that the majority of their party was gassed from said shrine visit, most of Kiyoomi and Manami’s time in Kyoto Prefecture—as if often did—occurred within Yasuaki’s apartment.

Lunch was picked up from the convenience store. Riko insisted on dropping off a meat bun for Hana-san, as it was her favorite, apparently. She can be super grumpy, but she’s less grumpy when you give her something to eat.

The woman had indeed looked at them, standing in the hallway, with a dubious, paranoid glare. But she had also patted Riko on the head and taken the meat bun with a grumbled thank you.

Yasuaki wasn’t much of a cook, but he often took up the task of making dinner for New Year’s Day and claimed with each year that passed that he had dinner would be better than what had come before. Kiyoomi was no chef himself, so he supposed he didn’t have a place to judge. His brother was decent.

By the time lunch was finished, it meant that Yasuaki had his head ducked in the kitchen while Riko pulled Kiyoomi and Manami into a game on their Switch. Riko often got frustrated when playing herself, subsequently forcing him and his sister to play against each other through some bastardized form of a proxy war.

He didn’t appreciate the manipulation. It also wasn’t a hard task to engage in when his sister was so annoying.

“Oh dear,” said his sister. “Maybe you should switch characters.”

Riko frowned. “Uncle Kiyoomi, I like Samus, but you really have to do the combos right.”

“Oh dear,” his sister said again, catching sight of his face and mouth twitching at the corners. “Go again?”

He wasn’t bad, could he just say. The fact that his sister spent much of her free time playing games like these was a variable out of his control.

Eventually, Riko wanted to show them their Animal Crossing island, spending a good hour taking them on a tour with slightly long-winded commentary. She had a list of all of her favorite villagers, growing very personally offended by some and pleased by others. Yasuaki would occasionally call out his own rather dubious opinions.

Kiyoomi liked the ones that were dogs. You’re so predictable! said Riko, before going out of her way to track down every dog villager on the island.

She sat between them on the couch. She had shoved her glasses up into her hair, which, despite indeed being brushed this morning, was in many ways untamable. Riko spoke with authority and confidence, her chin raised and her hands gesticulating. Kiyoomi watched her little character run circles around a mouse, and then his gaze drifted to the window.

The sky was gray; he could practically feel the bitter chill seeping in through the glass. He didn’t mind the weather, but it was hard to see the cold as anything more than uncomfortable when he was sitting inside his brother’s apartment.

He felt a wrinkle form between his brows.

At this point, a full day had passed. There was no reason to still be thinking about Miya. Kiyoomi was well aware that his thoughts could border on compulsive at times, but it had been a good few years since he had found himself completely spiraling because of misplaced focus. He paid his rent. He had seen a therapist in college. He was no longer a teenager. These things were listed in order of progressing importance.

He was no longer seventeen—fifteen—and viciously fending off feelings that teetered the line between indignation and admiration. The sight of Miya’s blond, annoying head didn’t cause butterflies to infest his lungs, or him to desire spontaneous combustion. A crush. He no longer had a crush, because he was an adult, and it didn’t feel as if he was desperately trying to grasp at every strong emotion he felt like it was a gale storm between his fingers.

Miya could still be childish, could still be an idiot, and was, definitively, an asshole. While his hair could now fall into the realm of being natural, he was still no less flashy. His biting voice was no less biting. No amount of time away from home could take away the accent.

It would be a lie to say that Miya had mellowed out since high school. But he was more self-assured, maybe. He was, to be fair, often caught up in appearances, making it everyone else’s problem if he (quite literally) slipped up, but there was something oddly humanizing about that. What Kiyoomi was saying was that he wasn’t the only one to have grown since high school. Probably.

This was a preface, naturally to the fact that Miya still complained, whined, and bemoaned about any of the misfortunes that fell upon his lap as if no time had passed at all. He could hide what he was thinking about on a technicality—that was, the fact that thoughts couldn’t literally be broadcasted across your forehead—but it was a slight thing.

And he had been quiet in the car. And he had offered to willingly get out of Kiyoomi’s hair in the morning. There was clearly something bothering him about that whole trip. Manami upset him by bringing up his family. He hadn’t mentioned a word about it. No: he had burrowed.

Which was weird.

He didn’t have enough shame to not admit that he was, on a base level, curious. It wasn’t his business, nor did he want to make it his business, but Kiyoomi would be lying if he pretended like he didn’t have some morbid interest concerning what was wrong.

He wasn’t going to ask about it. Miya seemed to be frazzled enough by the whole thing that Kiyoomi could catch a drift, and that drift was likely to pretend like nothing had ever happened when their schedules started up again. A situation in which Kiyoomi would have to preserve the privacy of his life among his nosy teammates: it would be painful, but he was sure he could manage.

It had all been resolved, essentially. He had a path forward. He was going to have to get his coat back eventually, but he was hoping it’d be an easy thing, which, with Miya, was probably a high ask. The sky was gray.

“Uncle Kiyoomi, you can’t make things break with your brain.”

He turned his head. Riko was frowning.

“I can,” he said.

“No you can’t,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “You can when you’re tall.”

“My dad would break a lot of glass, then. So that can’t be true.”

“She has a point,” Manami said, looking at him over their niece. There was something else on her face: What?

He looked back to the screen. The little person was fishing. “You missed it,” he said.

A dark blob in the ocean swam away. Riko’s attention snapped back into place with a shout.

…

Kiyoomi had grown. He wasn’t burdened by the past, though that didn’t mean it didn’t possess a weight. He generally looked forward—he generally looked in front of him. Things were easier this way.

In moments like these, perhaps it was prudent to glance behind his shoulder.

…

Because it had started in university.

University life had brought benefits, and it had brought challenges. He had never been anything if not pragmatic.

He had liked having a space to himself, the freedom to do what he wanted, and a schedule truly dedicated to his sport. Kiyoomi had come to Kansai for a reason, and it proved itself every day. Predominantly through sore limbs and ice baths. He didn’t like change—perhaps wouldn’t describe himself as flexible—but he was stubborn, and he thought that must have translated into adaptability.

It was odd to not see his sister. It was odd to not see his cousin. Motoya was someone he had seen nearly every day for seven years straight. His absence was much like losing a limb. An annoying, radioactive limb.

Yasuaki had only been back in his life for less than a year. He couldn’t lie and say that living so far apart from each other was so radically different than it had been in the past; it was just a sign of things changing.

Just like the existence of his squirming, infant niece.

He had never felt a particular attachment to the city where he grew up. It was true that he missed the familiarity of his neighborhood or the clarity of a routine that was nearly as old as he was. There was the taste of sweet potato bagels, there was the scent of envelopes, there was the video store’s shitty carpet, Motoya’s laughter, Itachiyama’s gym, George and Mugi and Ran and—

But he couldn’t claim that it was the city or metro area as a whole that he missed. And he would stand by that, given:

“—and it’s not home, but I guess it’s just good that the weather’s similar.”

He tolerated his new teammates well enough. There were a few that seemed to puff out their chests a little too much, but there was at least some sense of mutual respect amongst the players there. Their coach was an old man, distinctly opposite to Coach Takahama, but he wasn’t bad. He had his job for a reason. Kiyoomi respected experience.

He hadn’t quite remembered Yamamoto. He told him that after he had marched up to him at practice, hands in his pockets, and said Ohhhhh, think you’re so fucking cool, huh?, and then maybe Kiyoomi remembered some sort of zealot from Nekoma. Their setter, purposefully forgettable and keenly observant, had always stood out more, but Yamamoto—in appearance, at least—was a little distinct.

Easy to ignore, was what he thought at the time, and yet here they were, walking beside each other on campus.

In his defense, Yamamoto was often the one to track him down in the first place. Tokyo represent. Or something, apparently.

“I mean, like, I kind of miss my little sister, kind of, but like. We still like, talk all the time on the phone, so it’s no big deal. You have siblings?”

“How did you find me?” Kiyoomi said.

It was one thing Yamamoto would tag along after practice, and another thing entirely when he somehow zeroed in on Kiyoomi when he was leaving his literature class. Which was rather suspicious, given that the boy was studying engineering.

(His parents were more than dubious at his choosing to study within the Faculty of Letters. He had a year to declare his focus. Lukewarm conversation about history and philosophy classes and the potential to sub-major in business was keeping them at bay.)

“I can sniff out your ego from across campus, that’s how,” Yamamoto said.

Kiyoomi’s expression twitched. He increased his pace. It did nothing to deter the idiot next to him.

“Food here’s fine, I guess, but it’s not Mom’s or anything. You know.”

“No,” Kiyoomi said. “I don’t.”

It was supposed to be, in tandem with his speed walking, clearly dismissive, but Yamamoto just shot him a contemplative look.

“You know, like, home-cooked goodness? Good for the fucking soul?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said. “Leave me alone.”

“Huh,” he said, like it meant something. Yamamoto didn’t linger, bulldozing ahead: “All the attention from the ladies is pretty chill, at least.”

At that moment, a few members of the film club happened to cross their path. They waved at him. He nodded. Several of them were, in fact, women, as they happened to make up quite a sizable portion of the population, what would you know.

There was a brief, blissful, suspicious moment of quiet.

Kiyoomi made the mistake of glancing back; Yamamoto’s ears were burning red.

This can’t be worse than Arakawa. Or Shige and Inamoto. Or Hoshino.

He wasn't naive. No: he had sat in front of a pond, hadn’t he. Kiyoomi was aware of the fact that he perhaps missed his sister, his cousin, the walk to school in the morning. But he had chosen to come here for a reason—had chosen this distance for a reason—and he couldn’t pretend like there wasn’t something liberating about that.

Especially not when his phone was buzzing in his pocket: likely his cousin, or his sister, or a picture of Riko sent in their group chat. Here but not here; certain but uncertain; freedom and loneliness, wrapped in one.

“Hey, bro—”

“No,” he said.

The sun, very similar to the one from home, had been shining overhead.

…

Disaster struck in the evening.

“Well,” Yasuaki said, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. “Shit.”

“But,” Riko said, blinking. “But.”

She liked to help her father crack eggs. She was very good at it, she said, as she pulled Kiyoomi and his sister into the kitchen with her, after they had started up another game of Smash; and she was, relatively speaking—good, that was—with the one cracking they had seen, but that skill didn’t keep the next egg from slipping from her fingers and splattering across the kitchen tile.

It’s just one egg, Yasuaki had said, de-escalating the tension growing in Riko’s shoulders. They’re meant to break. No sweat.

And it had only been one egg, but it had been two eggs from the dozen that were unknowingly cracked within the carton that manifested the perfect storm. A single, non-maimed egg remained, other than the one already cracked into a bowl.

“We can still make it,” his brother was quick to say. “It’ll be a little smaller.”

“But,” Riko said, clutching at the front of her dress. “You can’t make datemaki with just two.”

“Sure you can.”

“But I don’t want one with two. It’s supposed to be with four—or, three, at least.”

“Okay,” Yasuaki said, kneeling down. “Okay.”

Kiyoomi was no longer a teenager, but some things didn’t change. This was a fact of life. He was still uncomfortable when someone else was crying—particularly when it was his niece, fit with a flushed face and clenched fists, and a screwed-up expression.

Kiyoomi had never been good with kids. It was likely due to the fact that he didn’t like them. Riko was an exception rather than a rule change.

Yasuaki had some idea of what to do, at least.

“—that it feels frustrating as shit. Accidents are like that,” said his brother.

“I didn’t mean to drop it,” Riko said. So she wasn’t quite crying, but there was a sheen to her eyes and a hiccup stuck in her throat.

“I know. It’ll be alright, even if it feels like it sucks right now.”

“I don’t want two. We could have had three. We can’t all eat two.”

Yasuaki said, “Your aunt and uncle are excited to be here with you. They know it was an accident, too.”

And then he threw a very meaningful look over Riko’s shoulder.

Manami, leaning against the counter and fiddling with her rings, looked up and said, “It happens, sweetheart. And serving size doesn’t determine taste. We’ll eat like kingly ants.”

Riko frowned, turning. “We’re not ants,” she said, sounding particularly put out. “We’re people. Big people.”

“Ah, well,” Manami said, and then she looked over at Kiyoomi, for some odd reason.

Even worse was that Riko followed her gaze. She looked up at Kiyoomi with a scrunched nose and red-rimmed eyes, expectant.

Before he could stop himself, he said, “We could get more.”

“More?” Riko said.

“The store,” Kiyoomi said. “Eggs.”

“Eggs,” Riko repeated. Then she turned to his brother. “Could we?”

“We could,” Yasuaki said, but his eyes were narrowing in Kiyoomi’s direction. “Technically. Because this is a special occasion,” he added, “and not because this is always going to be the best solution.”

Riko sniffed, wiped at her nose, and nodded.

His brother continued, very pointed, “Your uncle could. Since he was so kind to offer.” Dark, flinty eyes—so familiar to his own—darted his way. You hear?

He drew his mouth into a thin line.

“I’ll go too,” Riko said. There was a resoluteness returning to her expression. Her chin lifted. She began to smooth out the front of her dress. “Since we’re supposed to be responsible for our mistakes.”

This, miraculously, thawed out the daggers his brother was very unsubtly throwing his way. Yasuaki smiled, eyes soft. “It was an accident,” he said. He reached out and ruffled her hair, rising as he did. “Accidents happen. But that’s nice of you.”

“Uncle Kiyoomi,” Riko said, suddenly very serious. “Let me go get my gloves, okay?”

And then she was darting out of the kitchen as if she had never been on the brink of melting down in the first place.

When she ducked out of sight, his brother turned to him, mouth curling into a familiar sneer (he had lost his touch with time, Kiyoomi thought), and said, “Nice one.”

He did not appreciate his brother’s tone. “It seemed like the most rational option,” he said.

Kiyoomi knew, realistically, that it wasn’t necessarily the best lesson to impart to his niece, but he didn’t think it was a completely unreasonable choice. Depending on the recipe and how annoyed he was, he’d do the exact same back home.

“Sure,” his brother said, grabbing plastic cling wrap from the cabinet.

“Ants?” Kiyoomi said.

“That’s not bad,” Manami said.

“Kingly ants.”

“It makes more sense than a trip to the store, don’t you think? At this hour? In this climate? The economy?”

“Once again,” said their brother. He had covered the bowl that had successfully received a cracked egg: into the fridge it went. “I regret bringing you in for the assist. Both of you.”

“I feel as if we provided adequate feedback,” Manami said, and he couldn’t tell whether or not to agree with her.

“Just eggs,” said his brother. “Don’t buy her anything else. She’s getting spoiled enough this week as it is. And get some mirin while you’re at it. I’ve been meaning to pick up more.”

He didn’t want to be his brother’s errand boy, and he imagined his face reflected such a thing, but Kiyoomi didn’t protest. He was aware of the fact that he had done this to himself. He was no less annoyed by it.

“A trip to the airport, a trip to the store,” Manami said, earrings winking in the light. “You’re full of favors with the new year.”

…

They were going to walk, despite the weather. It was close enough. Riko had gloves; he had his hat. The sky was painted in shades of burnt orange. Kiyoomi left with Riko, his siblings remaining in the warmth and protection of Yasuaki’s apartment.

Riko was already in a better mood by the time they got down the stairs. She still occasionally sniffed. She was carrying a wrinkled canvas bag that Yasuaki had gotten out from the closet before they left. The skin of her nose was scrunched up.

Their footsteps padded across the pavement, occasionally crackling against the remnants of gray snow.

“What is it?” he said.

“Why were you at the airport?” she said.

He said, “Were you eavesdropping?”

“No,” she said. “Well, I don’t think so. You were still talking when I walked out of my room. Why were you at the airport?”

Riko was astute for her age, curious; she was already developing a burgeoning interest in horror films, much to her father’s chagrin. She asked many questions. It was less admirable and more annoying to be on the receiving end of such questions.

Diversions could sometimes work. They could also make it worse. He, himself, didn’t often feel the need to respond to nosy questions.

But it was Riko. He had always found himself answering her.

“I was picking someone up,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because they needed to be picked up. It was late.”

“Why?”

“It gets late every day.”

“That’s not what I mean. Why?”

“I don’t know why.”

“Well, who? Wait,” she said. “I heard my dad tell my mom that you and Auntie got lunch with someone. Was it that someone?”

He was going to kill his brother.

“Does it matter?” he said.

“Yes. Because if it was late, but then you got lunch, that means you had a sleepover. I cracked your code. My grandma got me a puzzle journal. I’m very good at cracking codes now.”

“It wasn’t a sleepover,” Kiyoomi said.

“Who was it with? Wait.” Sounding far too accusatory, she said, “Was it one of your teammates?”

Kiyoomi didn’t respond.

“You had a sleepover with one of your teammates?” she yelled more than said, and then she slipped.

He reached out and steadied her, and she grabbed onto his arm. She held on even as they started walking again, gangly limbs wrapping around his own, the bag squished between them.

“It wasn’t a sleepover,” he said.

“With your teammate,” she repeated. “Which one?”

“Riko,” he said.

She hmphed, head pressed against his coat sleeve. “I just want to know,” she said.

“What do you want to do for your birthday?” he asked.

“Oh,” she said, perking up. “Well. I have a lot of ideas.”

“Like what?”

“Well, other than coming to see you play—”

Riko was an avid fan of the Jackals. His brother claimed she watched every game. She owned a jersey with his number on it. And she also played volleyball, though it wasn’t a very intense affair, given that it was for elementary schoolers.

She was more than happy to talk about her birthday, at least. She talked about it until they reached the store, where she then transitioned into guiding him to where they kept the eggs. It was in the far back corner of the store; they usually went there last, Riko said, so this was completely out of order.

The mirin was a little trickier. She couldn’t remember exactly where it was, so they would have to retrace their usual steps. Dad lets me hold the list while we walk. He pushes the cart. Her words were interrupted by a yawn. By the time they got to the self-checkout station, she was rubbing at her eyes beneath her glasses.

Yasuaki had put it at eight; it’d likely be sooner than that. She refused to hand over the bag after all was said and done, claiming that she could do it.

“It’s always my job to hold one of the bags,” she said. “Because Mom and Dad can’t carry them all.”

“There’s only one,” Kiyoomi said.

“I carry the bag,” she said, an unshakable force. “Who did you have a sleepover with?”

It had been naive to imagine that she’d let something go so easily.

Yasuaki, irritatingly enough, often could redirect his daughter’s focus, or, at the very least, package his words to be something— well. Something that a parent would say to a child. Sometimes it came out more mangled than not. Kiyoomi didn't have a place to judge, as he didn’t possess such an ability in the first place.

He also knew that she’d keep asking. And that refusing the answer would make her want to know the answer more. He thought of himself at age seven, reading in his bedroom.

“Who do you think that it was?” was what he said.

“Barnes is too big,” she said, footsteps lagging. “Hinata’d be small enough.”

“He’s taller than you.”

“Nooooooo,” she said. “Not forever. Was it Bokuto? He couldn’t do cartwheels inside though.”

“Do you think I’d let him do cartwheels?”

“No. Because it’d make a mess. Atsumu…?”

He never minded using his given name with the public—a habit that must have been born young, what with the fact that two Miya parasites had entered the world at once. It still felt odd to hear it spoken aloud.

Riko peered up at him when he didn’t say anything. Her eyes widened.

“Atsumu?” she repeated. “Really? That’s not fair.”

“Why?”

“Because you had a sleepover with Atsumu.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because Atsumu is like, my second favorite player. And you took Auntie to lunch with him. You could have taken me, too.”

Riko had many second favorite players on the Jackals. (Motoya was the official second favorite player across the league.) It often depended on the day of the week. He didn’t choose to remind her of such.

“It was because he needed a place to stay,” Kiyoomi said. “No sleepover.”

Riko squinted. “Sleepover,” she said, pointing. And she really must have been tired, because she didn’t say anything more, shuffling slowly next to him.

He peered down the road. They had at least five minutes left: more than that, likely. The streetlamps overhead were pulling more weight than the sky, rapidly darkening above them. Riko reached out to hold onto his coat. He sighed.

“Can you walk?” he said.

“Yes. I can. I always do. I carry a bag.”

He paused outright, then turned to look down at her. She craned her neck to meet his gaze, and she did it abruptly, taking a step back to steady herself as her body reacted to the whiplash. It didn’t deter her: nor did the sleepdust in her eyes. Slight shoulders formed a bold line, even as she wobbled while regaining her balance.

Stubborn. They were all stubborn, weren’t they.

Kiyoomi reached down to grab the sides of the hood on her coat. He dragged it up and over her head, its furry liner framing her face. And then he squatted—perfect form—with his back turned to her.

A second, before arms wrapped around his neck and her puffy coat scraped against his own.

(It would be faster this way. He was a professional athlete, after all: long gone were the days when he was chasing after his endurance levels.)

“I’m not tired,” he heard her say, voice right beside his ear. The bag was still looped over her arm, close to her shoulder. “It’s just faster this way.”

He snorted. His breath escaped in a cloud.

“Why did Atsumu need somewhere to stay?” Riko said.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“He was at the airport?”

“Yes.”

“Was he going to Hawaii? Yui said her cousin is going to Hawaii. Maybe Yui’s cousin couldn’t go to Hawaii either.”

“No,” he said.

Family shit, he had said, his attempts at a diversion darting into the conversation like a deer on a road. Family shit that fell through.

“Well,” she said, interrupted by another yawn. “He should’ve at least come for dinner. Since you didn’t invite me to the sleepover…”

He tugged on her ankle. She kicked at him halfheartedly, head slumping against the crook of his neck and words escaping as an illegible blur into the fabric of his coat.

…

When they reached the apartment, his siblings were sitting on the couch, clearly in conversation.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t still poked at by that thorny little voice in his head. Kiyoomi didn’t like being left out of things. He didn’t like feeling like the odd one out. In his early twenties, he had the emotional capacity to understand the fact that his siblings had a relationship that existed beyond him and that his own feelings were his to unpack—but there was sometimes still that prodding, jeering, itching.

He let it poke. Then he sent it on its way.

Two pairs of eyes found him depositing a bleary-eyed Riko onto the floor. The bag slipped off her shoulder—he caught it before it hit the ground.

“Eggs,” she said, blinking rapidly. “We got eggs.”

Yasuaki looked exasperated, but fondness ebbed away at the most brutal angles of his face. Manami placed a finger against her lips, doing very little to hide the way it was curling up at the corners. Riko yawned and started to waddle towards the table.

She had a second wind by the time they were sitting down to eat. His brother did a decent job, even if the omelet—even with a full amount of eggs—had rather dubious edges. The nikujaga was a little heavy for his tastes, but it settled into his gut, sated and warm. Riko’s delirium might have been contagious.

She perked up even more when a door opened somewhere else in the apartment; a moment later, Kanae appeared, weariness still baked into the circles beneath her eyes. Her current schedule, as far as he knew, involved working for a week straight—night shifts, no less—followed by a week off: rinse and repeat.

“Morning,” she said, shuffling into the kitchen.

“It’s evening!” said Riko.

Kanae wiped a hand down her face. “That’s true.”

“There’s coffee in the pot,” Yasuaki said.

“Thanks.”

“I got the eggs. For the omelet. Well, me and Uncle Kiyoomi did.”

“That’s very nice. Did you have fun at the shrine?”

Riko said, “It was good. Dad got a bad fortune, though.”

“You got a good one, though?”

“Yeah. I think that must mean they cancel out. And that’ll be good for you, too.”

“You might have a point.” There was an empty chair at the end of the table, between Riko and Manami. Kanae plopped down, wood creaking. She peered out over the table. “Nice spread. Hey.”

“Hey,” Manami said, and Kiyoomi nodded.

“You got a couple hours?” Yasuaki said.

Kanae peered at her wrist. She wasn’t wearing her watch. It seemed to take her a second or two to notice. “Yeah, about, I’m pretty sure.”

Riko and them had already had a New Year’s celebration with Kanae’s family a few days ago, on one of her days off. He knew because his niece had gone into great detail describing the night, including a reenactment of a conversation between Kanae and one of her sisters that left Yasuaki saying hey Riko talk to us more about bitter melons, alright?

He couldn’t claim to know much about Kanae’s family. She got along well enough with her parents to move back home after finishing school, and there seemed to be a revolving door of conflict between her and her three sisters (it was an amount of sisters that Riko always commented on, because that was a lot of aunts to have, apparently). Her father liked Yasuaki the most out of his daughters’ partners, which was naturally ironic given the nature of their relationship, or lack thereof. (This was sometimes a point of contention during said revolving door of conflict.) Kanae found it to be funny.

“You can watch the movie with us, then!” Riko said, eyes bright.

Kanae yawned. Then she reached out to bring her daughter’s head closer to her, before planting a kiss right on her hairline. Riko said coffee breath! Coffee breath! but seemed delighted nonetheless.

Yasuaki talked about a proposal another team leader was trying to shuck off onto him at work. Manami was still dealing with a recent graduate with a stick up his—hmm, well. Yui wouldn’t let go of snap peas. Snap peas were okay, but there was a lot that was better than snap peas, too. Kanae had been working blood bank with a veteran lab tech who hated technology. Practice was going well.

“Heard your fan thing was successful,” his brother said.

Kiyoomi felt his face twitch.

Manami laughed. “Fans,” she said. “Adoring, adoring fans.”

“They’re fine,” Kiyoomi said.

He knew, naturally, that in the industrialized, commercialized, social media-ridden world that they lived in (“Just use Twitter like a normal person, weirdo!” said Motoya), that fan events were an inevitable result of his profession. He was… thankful for those who supported the Jackals. Their gifts seemed largely unnecessary, as did the majority of their tearful gushing.

“I’m your biggest fan, though,” Riko said, still managing a serious tone despite the fact that she was back to almost faceplanting into her dinner. “So don’t forget.” She took another bite, and then she said, “Even when you don’t invite me to team sleepovers.”

“Team sleepovers?” mumbled Kanae.

A familiar, sharp expression returned to the throne called his brother’s face. “Team sleepovers.”

“Ah, team sleepovers,” said Manami.

“Not a sleepover,” he said.

“Why didn’t we go to the fan thing?” Riko said, tugging on her father’s sleeve, and that kept the conversation moving, at least.

Riko indeed wanted to watch a movie after dinner. A scary one. Nothing severe, of course, and one that was approved by her parents; Kiyoomi had brought several from his collection at home. They set up blankets and pillows and popcorn while Kiyoomi and Manami washed dishes, and Kanae went to take a shower.

When all was said and done, she fell asleep within fifteen minutes.

“There she goes,” Manami said.

“Keep it down,” said their brother, voice a whisper, before he shoved a load of popcorn into his mouth. “Enjoy it while you can.”

Kanae stood, stretching. Her hair was still wet. “I will. Holler if you need me,” she said, before disappearing down the hall.

Kiyoomi had been kicked to the floor. He cast a glance to his side, where Riko was passed out on the couch. She was starting to drool. He scooted a centimeter or so away.

His traveling was interrupted by his sister, who shifted off the couch—gently moving Riko’s legs, which had been thrown across her lap—to settle onto the floor next to him.

“Is this supposed to be scary?” she said, reaching across him for the popcorn bowl, which Yasuaki—sitting on either side—held.

They, three fully sized people—taking up more space than the average person, in fact, given that Manami, the shortest of them all, was easily considered tall—sitting on the floor, while a seven-year-old who was dead to the world was sprawled across half of the couch behind them.

This made sense.

“It’s meant for children,” Kiyoomi said, shoving her arm away.

“Hey,” she said. “Rude.”

“Stop sandwiching me,” he said.

“It’s not a sandwich,” she said.

“It’s a sandwich,” Yasuaki said. “I didn’t think this shit would be so weird.”

“It’s not weird.”

“It’s a little weird,” Manami said. “Button eyes are neat, I guess— do you have a problem with me?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, scowling at the arm that had once again tried to grab for the popcorn.

“Tell our brother to hoist over the corn, then.”

“Tell him yourself.”

Through a full mouth, Yasuaki said, “It’s my popcorn. I bought it.”

“Kiyoomi bought you eggs.”

“He offered to do it.”

“I’m your sister.”

“Alright? Do I care?”

“You’re interrupting the movie,” Kiyoomi said.

“Yeah, Yasuaki. You’re interrupting.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Yes. None of them were teenagers anymore.

…

“So what is it?” his sister said, smoothing over her face mask.

Kiyoomi tapped the lid of the lip of his beer. His own mask was cool on his skin, catching the room’s brisk air. His sister had gotten a whole pack from a friend who worked for a skincare brand. There was a pleasant buzz accompanying his thoughts.

It wasn’t even that late. Riko had officially not even made it past seven. She was back in her room after Yasuaki had guided her through her nighttime routine. A groggy couple of hugs had been given out before she left, Kanae returning to tuck her in.

So here they were. They’d leave early enough in the morning, so it wasn’t as if they were going to stay up all too late themselves. Kiyoomi was tired. Validly, he thought, and not in the way his siblings were tired. Because they were old. He wasn’t.

A pillow sailed past his head.

“What,” he said.

“Pillow for your thoughts,” his sister said. “And for ignoring me.”

“Stop throwing my shit,” said their brother, walking back into the main room. “Drinking my beer, throwing my shit.”

Kiyoomi said, “Drinking shit.”

His sister laughed.

His brother rolled his eyes. “Mr. Celebrity fucking Athlete, buy your own, then.”

“He will,” Manami said. “Don’t encourage him. What is it?”

“It’s from some hippie brewery my coworker likes.” Yasuaki frowned, grabbing a can from the fridge. “Is it that bad? I haven’t tried it yet.”

“No, not that,” his sister said. “Let me see your brain.”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“You’ve been away.”

“I’m right here.”

Kiyoomi swatted away the foot that came to poke at his side from the other side of the couch. One of Manami’s socks had a small hole beneath the big toe.

“Knock it off,” Yasuaki said, plopping down in between them. 

This couch was too small. Or maybe they had been born with limbs too long. It served his career well, at least; he didn’t know what their function might’ve been, career-wise, for his siblings. Perhaps it was another move by their parents to try to secure success for their children.

“You need a larger couch,” Manami said.

“Buy me a couch, then.”

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

“You make more than me,” Kiyoomi said, staring at the ceiling.

Yasuaki said, “And not all of us can be in our boss’s will.”

“Nonsense. She just appreciates another woman in law. And she has a kid.”

“Who she doesn’t like,” Kiyoomi said.

“Driving the wedge,” Yasuaki said.

“We weren’t talking about me,” Manami said. “Stop moving the subject.”

“What?” his brother said. “Am I missing something?”

“The both of us are.”

“No you’re not,” Kiyoomi said.

“It’s his thinking face, Yasuaki. He’s worn it since he was a kid.”

“That’s his face.”

“This is my face.”

“And he’s wearing a mask,” Yasuaki said.

“No matter,” Manami said.

“Yeah, time to cut you off.”

“I’ve had one can, asshole. Asshole trying to control a woman. A woman in law.”

“Proudly,” Yasuaki said.

There were fairy lights strung up where the wall met the ceiling. They were small and cheap-looking, and he couldn’t remember the last time they were turned on. Riko had wanted to hang them up some time ago—he forgot when. She had fancier ones in her room.

The beer was cold against the palms of his hands. A chill—it brought a chill. His siblings sniped back and forth at one another in the background of his thoughts.

“You said,” Kiyoomi started, “that it was his family? The thing that upset Miya.”

There was a pause. He felt a weight of attention burning into his face.

“Yes,” he heard.

“What’d he do?” he asked.

Manami shifted. Or she must have, at least, given the way he felt the couch adjust beneath him. “Nothing, really. I told you. His face just seemed— well.”

His brother said, “You want to fill me in?”

Kiyoomi didn’t say anything, waiting for his sister to speak. She did the same. The silence was awkward.

“Okay,” Yasuaki said. “What the fuck was that?”

“I upset Box Dye. At Kiyoomi’s. Or— I don’t know.”

“Okay,” said Yasuaki.

There was another silence. And what about it? it said. This was one for him to fill—but he wasn’t sure how. And that, historically, was something that got to him: wriggling and attention-grabbing. A question mark the shade of Miya’s damaged, miraculously intact hair.

Why did he care? Why was he lingering? He was curious, undeniably. It felt, perhaps, as if he had left a stone unturned, and that always required reflection.

Miya left early from some event with family. His brother was in a different city. It had all been a spur-of-the-moment thing, evidently, unplanned for and unexpected. He had likely looked through a list of people he could contact to give him a ride home and chose Kiyoomi of all people. And he had certainly been vocal about his displeasure, and he had certainly been annoyed, but he had been reticent in a way that was unbecoming of him.

It didn’t seem too outlandish to assume that the man was spending his holidays alone. And Kiyoomi—someone who enjoyed being alone more than most people—felt no inclination to worry, to frown, to pity. It’d be condescending and useless. There was no point in pity.

He could be off base, too. That, and Miya seemed the type to be able to find means of occupying himself. As much as he flocked to attention like a moth to a flame, since they were teenagers, he had made it clear that he saw no problem in paving his own way—even at the risk of alienating others. Whether or not that confidence translated into a comfortability in spending his time alone was another question altogether, certainly, but it didn’t seem too out of character.

Yet he was here, still. Stone unturned.

“He was being weird,” was what Kiyoomi said. “I don’t know what to think about it.”

“I suppose,” his sister said. When he looked over, she was back to smoothing over her facemask. “It was an odd situation. Why are you thinking about it still?”

He scowled. He hoped it was visible beneath his mask. That’s the problem, said his face.

“I think he’s spending his holiday alone,” Kiyoomi said.

“Some people do,” Yasuaki said, taking a sip of his drink. “Shit, yeah, this is kind of gross.”

His brother was right. The question, of course, was whether or not Miya was the type.

He could see it. He could see the opposite, too. Miya still often came off as someone who—despite seeing no problem in doing things his own way—despised being left out of things. He had no idea if this situation qualified as such, of course, because once again, he had no idea about what had actually happened to Miya in the first place. If something had happened.

Maybe he had gone out. Maybe he had found something to do. He seemed pleased to be back in his apartment. They only had a handful of days before they’d be back to business as usual. Ultimately, even if he was upset, or wounded, or annoyed at being on his own, Miya could manage.

“What,” he heard his sister say, “do you want to do?”

“What makes you think I want to do anything?”

“So you don’t want to do anything.”

“Stop.”

“Sorry,” she said, but she was smiling.

(He meant it when he said it. Kiyoomi wasn’t kind. He could only ever try to be, balancing self-interest with consideration for others. Compassionately pragmatic. Be nice and move on.

He wasn’t a kid. He wasn’t a teenager. He was sure—in the most earnest sign of growth, he thought—that he’d look back at himself at this age and still see someone too young and self-assured, but he had grown. He tried. That was all he could do.

Kiyoomi wasn’t Riko—completely open in her laughter and giving meat buns to her annoying neighbors, even if her compassion was, naturally, abrasive in a way that only a Sakusa could be.

He could give her a piggy-back ride home, though.

He should’ve at least come for dinner, she had said.)

Riko wouldn’t care. In fact, Riko would be overjoyed. Judging by his sister’s own lingering feelings—not quite guilt, he’d imagine, but an awareness that one had poked the bear—she wouldn’t mind either. She’d probably find joy in teasing him. Yasuaki too.

It was enough to make him think that he shouldn’t bother at all. They were supremely annoying. If he based his decisions on avoiding his siblings’ propensity for being annoying, he’d never do anything. At all. Ever.

Kiyoomi sighed, tugging his face mask off.

…

He was not a commemorative stamp, but he had changed. He had habits, too. His body did.

It had started in the middle of the night because he had been struck by the need to pee.

Foggy vision; foggy attention. He swore that his eyesight had already degraded since his teens. The fact that he was intimately familiar with making the short journey from his bedroom to the bathroom in the dark was what kept him from maiming himself on a weekly basis.

He did his business as usual. The glare of the bathroom light was overwhelming beneath his skin. When he washed his hands, so did the blurry mass in the mirror.

And even though his apartment was lit only by the moon when he stepped out into the hall, and even though he couldn’t see for shit, Miya’s presence in the main room was a smoking flare gun.

He wasn’t awake. Kiyoomi couldn’t see his face from this angle, but he could hear him snoring. Could see the vague shapes of his limbs flopping across his couch, blanket kicked to the side.

Even in his sleep, Miya exuded some sort of zeal. And by that, of course, he meant that the man was still an attention hog. He had clearly been exhausted earlier. He was, for all intents and purposes, completely passed out. Yet there was something to be said about potential energy, exuding from his pores.

Yet there Kiyoomi was, standing in the hallway, looking. He scowled. He wasn’t sure at who. He scrubbed at the skin between his eyebrows. Stop it. He had returned to his room.

…

miya atsumu (21:30): Geez okay tough fucking crowd huh

miya atsumu (21:32): Yeah I’ll probably be free I need to double check but probably

Sakusa (EVIL) (21:35): just let me know

miya atsumu (21:37): Sounds good

Chapter Text

It had started in Shizuoka City.

The coast felt fitting for his cousin. It wasn’t as if the bay could be seen from his apartment, given that the only view he had was the alleyway between his building and the next one over, but Motoya and saltwater felt fitting together. Stinging and brisk.

Something hit his hand. He looked down at where Mimi sat on the windowsill, angrily headbutting him after he, distracted, had stopped petting her behind the ears. He resumed not a moment later. She’d bring out the teeth and claws if he didn’t.

(She’d probably do that no matter what he did. He could dream.)

“Wow, thanks for all the hard work!” he heard.

Tracing over the brick of the apartment building with his eyes, Kiyoomi said, “Your cat was trying to kill me.”

“My Mimi? My Mimi is a saint.”

“Of what canon?”

“My own. I’m very creative.”

He sighed, pulling back his hand. Just in time, too, as Mimi tried to take a chunk out of his palm. He stared down at her with pursed lips and narrowed eyes; she seemed to do the exact same.

Kiyoomi turned. At the same time, his cousin emerged from behind a mountain of cardboard boxes, holding a chipped Dutch oven. He wasn’t letting his hair grow out nowadays, keeping it clipped short and smart. He looked the same in the face.

“Oh,” Motoya said. “Are you choosing to work, now?”

“You’re not paying me,” Kiyoomi said, even as he chose the box closest to him to start unpacking.

Motoya’s apartment was not quite an apartment yet. It was a collection of rooms and half-constructed furniture and cardboard boxes, and a small collection at that. Its size rivaled Manami’s first place in its puniness.

“Motoya,” came Sachie’s voice, and then the sliding door that divided the kitchen area from what was technically the bedroom came flying open. She was holding some sort of sweatshirt. “You didn’t tell me you still had this!”

He couldn’t see its front, but based on the color, he was pretty sure it was from their old gymnastics gym. It was, consequently, child-sized.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to.” Motoya bent down to put the Dutch oven into an open cabinet.

Sachie cooed, lifting her glasses and bringing the shirt closer to her face for inspection. “It’s so tiny,” she said. “I forgot they used this font.”

Motoya rolled his eyes, returning to the same box of pots and pans. Kiyoomi, for what it was worth, was actually helping. He enjoyed the monotony of unpacking silverware—though he knew anything that he, or anyone else, for that matter, put away would likely be rearranged by Motoya to his liking.

He was going to stay in the city for one night; tomorrow he’d be passing through Chofu—spending a single day with his sister—before continuing on until he was back home.

“Do you think I could have this?” Sachie said, still holding the sweatshirt.

“No,” Motoya said.

“It’s so cute,” Sachie said.

“I know,” Motoya said.

She said, “I wonder if Mom still has mine.”

On cue, a key rattled in the front door before it opened, and his aunt Erika came striding into the room.

His aunt and his father didn’t necessarily share many features in the face, but they wore it the same, a terse concentration hardening the planes of her expression. Behind her was Kuniko, who was balancing a small box on her head; behind Kuniko was Motoya’s stepfather, who was holding said box on either side as a steadying force, much to his daughter’s obliviousness.

“Moving van get all figured out?” Motoya said, tone carefully bright as Aunt Erika began to tear into a box of books.

“We have,” his aunt said, “negotiated a fair deal. Based on the rates they had originally advertised, of course.”

“It was a bloodbath,” Takeuchi-san said. “I’m glad you all weren’t there to see it.”

“I saw it,” Kuniko said. “I have the last box.”

“Mom, do you still have my hoodie from gymnastics?”

“I’ll check storage.”

“Well, thanks for dealing with it,” Motoya said. “Oh—thanks, Koko.”

“I carried it myself.”

“I could have gotten it.”

“But I carried it myself?”

“No, not you Koko.”

“Oh.”

Takeuchi-san said, “It’s a kindness that you let her take care of it. It was a swift execution.”

Indeed holding the last box, Motoya’s lips pursed thin. His eyes were tracking his mother. He said, “Still.”

“I think I had two hoodies, actually.”

“You had one,” Aunt Erika said, tucking several books into the crook of her elbow. “And it was fine. What a shameful scam.”

Aunt Erika might’ve been more engaged in her children’s lives than his father, but they were similar in their brusqueness and sharp judgment. It meant that the care she afforded for her children—while completely apparent, thorough, and realized—manifested in definitively odd ways.

They weren’t always the most straightforward, and they weren’t always taken in stride. The Komori-Takeuchi family unit wasn’t the type to argue in the way that the Sakusas did (if you called it arguing, as the only type of conversation that seemed to fit that traditional definition typically involved Yasuaki), but occasionally they sniped at one another and stepped on each other’s toes.

In a different context, Motoya might’ve pushed back against Aunt Erika’s incessant need to be the one to ream out the moving company that was attempting to extort him. Kiyoomi had witnessed such a thing before. I could have handled it. I had it. It’s not even that big of a deal.

Now, he watched his cousin watch his mother and her graying hair.

(She had reacted much the same when Sachie had moved out. Out of the two of them, Takeuchi-san was the one to cry.)

A pain raced up his foot. A hissing breath escaped through his teeth, and his leg jerked back. Mimi looked up at him, tail swishing behind her and acting as if she hadn’t just clawed at his socks.

“Ohhhh, Mimi,” Kuniko said, padding over. She crouched. “Silly girl. Be nice to Kiyoomi.”

And he wasn’t put out that the cat didn’t choose to maim his eleven-year-old cousin, let him say, because he was an emotionally well-adjusted adult. Animals were very intelligent creatures. He respected their agency.

In the meantime, Kuniko was rubbing Mimi’s belly, the cat like a melted puddle of fur on the ground. He swore it was on purpose.

“Kiyoomi,” he heard. It was his aunt. “Is the shelf set up?”

“Yes,” he said.

She said, “Good.” And then she walked over, wordlessly dumping the books she had collected into his arms. She turned and began to dig back into the same box.

Motoya sighed. Sachie was still looking at the hoodie. Koko was petting Mimi.

Takeuchi-san laughed and took half of the books from Kiyoomi’s hands. “Come on,” he said. “Best not to keep her waiting.”

…

Riko, as he had anticipated, was over the moon to find out that Miya would be accompanying them on their trip to the museum that day. She couldn’t stop talking about it as she ate breakfast, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, put on her coat, and ran back to her room to grab the glasses she had forgotten.

Kanae shuffled inside right as they were getting to leave. She squinted over at him from the table, her scrubs wrinkled, her makeup smudged. “So it’s your fault,” she said.

“You only have yourself to thank,” his brother said, setting a mug down on the table. He was smiling. It was not a nice smile, given that Yasuaki was incapable of delivering those.

Kiyoomi ignored that he was also correct. It was easier to pretend otherwise. Kanae grabbed the mug.

(He didn’t regret his choice. Kiyoomi didn’t live to regret, so he didn’t make choices to regret, either.

Still. There had been a moment that morning, however brief, as his niece talked about is he actually coming? Do you think he’ll like the museum? Is his hair natural? Will we play volleyball? that he had wondered if it had all been a result of Yasuaki’s weird indie beer and if there was room, then, to be regretful.)

“I’m excited,” Manami said. “This should be riveting.”

“Don’t be weird,” Kiyoomi said.

“I wouldn’t dare. On my honor as a servant of the law.”

“You’re crossing your fingers.”

“I am not.”

Kiyoomi turned to his brother. “I’ll see you.”

Manami would see him that evening when dropping off Riko. Kiyoomi would not. All the same, he doubted his next meeting with his brother was too far off into the future.

“Bye,” Yasuaki said. “Keep up the good work.”

“That was,” Manami said, “so awkward.”

“What, being supportive? Is that a crime?”

“It should be, the way you do it.”

“Gee,” Kiyoomi said, tone flat. “I’ll try.”

“I hope you faceplant.”

Manami said, “He doesn’t mean that, Omi. It is imperative for the legacy of this family that we maintain the integrity of that face.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Yasuaki said, “I saw Box Dye doing a brand deal on Twitter. Why the fuck aren’t you cashing in on those?”

“Don’t call him that.”

“Aren’t you a little old for social media?” Manami said.

“No,” Yasuaki said. “What?”

“You both are,” Kiyoomi said.

Rising, Kanae said, “Stay safe.”

“Found them!” Riko said, darting back into the room.

It was a defining start to the morning.

Riko continued to be a chatterbox the entire drive back home. The topic was no longer solely circling around Miya, thankfully—snap peas and algebra and a new anime and did you know the sky’s not actually blue—but it maintained an orbit, especially as they drew closer to the city. This was needlessly amusing to his sister. Kiyoomi gave lukewarm responses in some places and tried to distract her in others.

“My gift?” she parroted, leaning forward in her seat. “You have my gift?”

Riko’s birthday was at the end of January. He had talked to his brother about tentative plans for them to visit sometime around then, but he imagined he wouldn’t see her until after the fact. Yasuaki had seemed a little put out by the idea of Kiyoomi handing over her gift so far in advance. She’ll be talking about it for the whole month, he said, dragging a hand over his face. Oh no, Kiyoomi said.

He would be lying if he said he wouldn’t be a little disappointed that he wouldn’t be there in person to see her open it. Kiyoomi had found the haunted doll at an antique store just a handful of days ago after finding it online; he was aware enough that it wasn’t the most ordinary gift to give to an elementary schooler, but his niece had always taken after him. He would have been intrigued by such a thing as a child.

It wasn’t as if it were actually haunted, of course. And even if it was, there seemed to be very little in life that Riko couldn’t overcome with her own two hands.

“You can’t open it until your birthday,” Kiyoomi said.

(Miya finding the doll had been less than ideal. He had left it on the counter as a reminder to wrap it, something he had gotten to the same evening after he got lunch with his sister and Miya, and had forgotten it was even there in the rush to get to the airport.

On one hand, he didn’t want to imagine what type of stories Miya had spun in his head to be so put out by the doll. On the other hand, he had obviously been spooked by it. That was funny.)

“That’s a lot away, though,” Riko said.

He said, “You’ll just have to wait.”

When he glanced in the rear-view mirror, Riko’s face was scrunched up in deep contemplation. Perhaps he felt a smidge of sympathy for his brother.

They ate a metric ton of croquettes and gyoza for lunch; it was Riko’s favorite place to go when she visited, and it was consequently somewhere he only went when she was in town. His stomach could only handle so much.

“Drama—”

“No,” he said.

“My mom says that IBS is the silent killer, Aunt Manami. It’s really serious actually.”

“Apologies,” Manami said. “My deepest condolences.”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

Lunch was only a passing detour. Sooner rather than later they were back into the car, the orbit turning into a space shuttle torpedoing straight for a blond moon. Manami was driving now.

“Is this where he lives?” Riko said, very nearly pressing her face to the glass. “It’s more boring than I thought it’d be.”

Manami said, “And what’d you think?”

“I don’t know. Something a little more exciting. It’s just a building.”

“Most people live in buildings, my dear.”

“Not hobbits.”

“Are hobbit holes not buildings?”

“I guess I don’t know,” Riko said. “You’d have to talk to— I don’t know the name.”

“A contractor, I’d imagine.” Manami said, “Is he—?”

“I texted him,” Kiyoomi said, tucking his phone back into his pocket.

“You sound so very excited.”

He scowled. She smiled. Riko said, very seriously “Auntie, do you know any hobbit hole contractors?” And then Miya came trudging out of his apartment building, wearing—

“Nice coat,” Manami said, tone hiding nothing.

It was going to be a long day.

…

It wasn’t, to be fair, as if he particularly wanted to give Miya his coat.

Kiyoomi put effort into being compassionate, but he also valued his things, meaning he didn’t like lending those things out to others if it could be helped. It was about personal space. Control. A warm thanks, once again, to that university therapist.

In an ideal world, Miya didn’t lose his coat, and none of this would have happened in the first place. In the second most ideal world, Miya lost his keys and wallet but not his coat, and Kiyoomi would do the ride from the airport and the trip to the museum without needing to lend out his own. Since Miya would not have lost his coat. Since that’s the crux of the matter, really.

As he had learned when he was a child, they did not often exist in an ideal world.

Part of it could be chalked up to self-interest. Reticent as he might’ve been that day, Miya was a complainer. He would have complained about the cold. He complained about the cold often enough even when wearing a coat—Kiyoomi heard it plenty at practice. He gave him his coat to assuage any such complaining, and perhaps any generosity the act possessed came second to that.

There was nothing special about the coat. It was plain, black, a little too puffy for his liking. It was something he picked up in university one winter. Kiyoomi remembered buying it on sale. He hadn’t worn it in several years. Miya wore it now.

He seemed to be getting along with Riko, in that he acted enough like a child that he fit right in with his niece. To his credit, Riko could be a little… pointy in her affections. Kiyoomi still rolled his eyes at how easily he was wrangled into bickering with her.

It felt a little more normal, at least. Miya normal, that was. It still seemed as if there was something a little off, perhaps, but he was in egregiously high spirits as compared to how he had been just a couple of days ago.

And yes, even though he had been the one to instigate all of this in the first place, Kiyoomi could admit that it was odd to be in close quarters with Miya and his family. It was like the crossing of all those planes he had outlined in his head as a child.

The annoying thing was that he seemed to be aware of it. Miya. Or, at the very least, seemed to be making something of the trip in his head that was likely—through Miya logic—distorted and gaudy. He wasn’t saying anything to allude so, but he was looking, and that had always been loud.

Miya was, by nature, brash, overbearing, a bit obnoxious at times—but most chiefly because he was so intentional about it. It would be easy when first meeting him to assume a lack of self-awareness in his confidence. That he had a head so big he couldn’t see directly in front of him. But he knew exactly how he came off.

Except there were things he clearly was oblivious to. Namely, how much space his presence took up in a room just by standing there, or the weight that his gaze carried. Kiyoomi felt a pair of eyes burning into the side of his head several times throughout their commute to the museum; and each time he turned to catch Miya in the act, he just blinked, seemingly bemused to have been caught, if aware of it at all.

Riko guided them through the exhibits with startling efficiency. This wasn’t the first time they had gone to the museum together, but it had been awhile. Science was her favorite subject. Particularly when it involved them working outside.

(Iizuna was another second favorite player, but mostly because of his rather active gardening channel on YouTube.)

They were wandering through the electronics exhibit. Miya was off on his own, Riko trailing not far behind him.

As they walked by an old set of typewriters, Manami let out a huff. “Like a little duckling. Blond feathers.”

“Hopefully not,” he said. Whether Miya or Yamamoto, he had spent his earlier adulthood haunted by hair dye.

“She probably won’t stop talking about this for weeks.”

“Hopefully not.”

“The woes of generosity.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “I’m enjoying it as well if that makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t.”

“For shame.”

He glanced over at her. While she was obviously poking fun at him, it wasn’t as if she was lying; her shoulders were relaxed, her eyes mirthful.

Stop looking, said a voice in his head. She was there. Of course she was.

He looked back forward. “You’re still liking the new firm?”

“Oh. This is a change in subject.”

“I’m making conversation.”

“Riveting. Exquisite. It’s been almost eight months,” she said. “I don’t know if that counts as new anymore.”

“Have you been counting?”

“My boss likes to find excuses to celebrate. It’s good,” she said. “Good as it can be.”

She pronounced each word with a polished cadence. The technology changed around them: typewriters to walkmen.

“That’s good,” he said.

She bumped shoulders with him again. She said, “He’s funny. Mostly when he’s not trying to be. I think I get it.”

“Get what.”

“You know.”

“No.”

“Ha,” she said.

He said, “It’s not like that anymore.”

And she said, “I know.” They turned a corner. “If it’s—”

“It’s fine,” Kiyoomi said. “I’d tell you otherwise.”

She nodded. “Do tell,” she said. “I’ll lay off. That dimple is rather cute, though.”

He just looked at her. She laughed.

She checked her phone. “We’ve got to get moving,” she said, as they caught up to Miya.

Miya, who was arguing with his niece about MP3 players.

Yes. Real charming.

…

The first time Kiyoomi met Miya Atsumu after high school was not the first time he had seen him in his years of university playing.

Miya was not the only player from their age group to go straight to the big leagues. He was good, there wasn’t any denying that, but even with the serve and the sets, he was no longer eons ahead of his peers as they had been when they were teenagers. Especially given that he was a teenager, shoulder-to-shoulder with players who had been on the court since he was a child. More of a child.

It had additionally become clear to Kiyoomi that many higher-level athletes had a few screws loose, so it was another trait that Miya wasn’t unique in possessing. And he wasn’t the only professional player with a big mouth, an attitude, an arrogance, a propensity for running his mouth on camera. He wasn’t even the only one to stir up a passionate following from fans.

But there was apparently something about him—perhaps it was the hair, the brand, the twin, the youthfulness—that was deemed to be rather uniquely marketable. The MSBY Black Jackals did not shy away from blasting their newest addition across various social media platforms and physical ad campaigns. It was rather flagrant.

And Kiyoomi knew this because he had, of course, managed to have chosen to attend a university in a city that couldn’t be more than fifteen kilometers from where Miya Atsumu was now playing professionally.

There was a very particular day that first spring in Suita when he was riding the train on his way to school. And it had started with a text from his cousin. Because of course it did.

motoya (7:03): Haha

It had been unprompted. The last time they had spoken had been two days prior—a conversation about trying to remember a television show from their youth—and nothing had been said to warrant such a message. Nothing to haha at. Against his better interests, Kiyoomi had responded:

Cousin (7:05): what

motoya (7:05): Did you see the news???

Cousin (7:05): about what

motoya (7:06): You totally didn’t lol

Cousin (7:06): what are you talking about

motoya (7:07): Lol okay one second

And in that second—that had been more like a couple of minutes—an increasingly annoying Kiyoomi had reached his stop. And it was as he was standing on the escalator that Motoya texted him, at the exact same time that Kiyoomi had just happened to glance at one of the advertisements slapped across the station’s beige tiled walls.

Like many of the most grotesque moments in his life, it had ultimately been decided by chance. Coincidence. He looked to his right, and there was blond hair that had obviously been edited in post so that it wasn’t as garish.

The thing was, professional volleyball had its popularity. Especially within a team’s hometown. There were surely other ads for the team elsewhere around the metro area. It wasn’t as if this were the only one in the tri-state area. Certainly. Of course.

But it was still ultimately a niche popularity, even if certain players had developed their own fan groups on social media. And yes, there might’ve been more ads for the MSBY Black Jackals around the city, and yes, it made sense for them to put one in a station of all things, but the likelihood of Kiyoomi finding the one promotional poster featuring Miya Atsumu at the exact same time his cousin sent him a link to an article entitled Quick-Witted Rookie Finds a New Home in Osaka should have been infinitesimal.

And yet there he had been.

A man behind him nearly cussed him out when he found himself stuck at the top of the escalator. His legs jolted into action not a moment later, and he had responded with a very succinct and righteous text to his cousin that read:

Cousin (7:11): i don’t care

motoya (7:11): Hahaha

Annoyingly, he did look good in black and gold. This was likely solely due to the photographer behind the shoot, of course, as well as whoever had touched it up.

(That poster remained up for two years and two months until it was changed out for a natural grocery store’s ad campaign. How awful.)

What he was saying was that Kiyoomi wasn’t lying to his sister.

He had the retrospective ability to understand that his ardent denial of any feelings towards Miya Atsumu in high school had been a rather large projection. A large projection of a crush, perhaps. A mushy, teenage crush that did have teeth a little too sharp, and had arisen at a time when Kiyoomi’s emotions had seemingly possessed a mind of their own.

He wasn’t going to act like he had them perfectly in control of them nowadays, but he had grown. Yes, especially when their first practice together after Kiyoomi had joined the Jackals went something like:

“Mister MVP, huh? Pretty cool.”

“Do you still have that wicked spin? With the wrists? Yeesh.”

“Hey, you mind if I call you Omi? Just tryin’ to be more welcoming!”

He was still attractive. Kiyoomi would send a mild greeting card to whoever had introduced him to toner. His skills had only improved, and he could admit that it was enjoyable to watch him play.

But nothing like that intense, sweeping cloud of… whatever one labeled whatever that had been had come over him like it had when he was a teenager.

University had been good for him. Time to himself had been good. Kiyoomi had developed both on and off of the court, and Miya—for, as much as it pained him to say, no fault of his own—embodied a very particular phase of his life that he didn’t want to remember all too keenly.

Attractive, yes; admirable, perhaps. Still childish, still abrasive.

It had nearly been a little jarring, how anticlimactic it turned out to be for Miya to become a regular figure in his life, in the way that it was always disorienting to brace himself for an impact that never came.

His siblings, who had been just out of touch enough as far as volleyball went to not realize Miya’s proximity while Kiyoomi was at school, were not so oblivious about this. Regrettably. He was sure it was Motoya’s fault in some way.

The guy with the hair? The guy with the twin? The guy you once had a—

Not anymore, he had said. High school was high school.

It had been mostly a fleeting point of interest, especially when it became clear that no, Kiyoomi really wasn’t some hormone-fueled teenager anymore, and that yes, Miya really was nothing more than a work acquaintance. Boohoo, Manami had said.

Boohoo indeed.

He adjusted his mask. He was waiting in the hallway by the planetarium; Manami and Riko were in the bathroom, and Miya was checking out the gift shop. It seemed like the type of thing that would entice him. Bright colors and sounds and consumerism. Kiyoomi had passed.

He had watched him through the shop’s glass walls. Kiyoomi enjoyed watching people. Miya had always possessed a quality that seemed agreeable to that fact, and he often wondered if that was what spurred all of those feelings back when he was a teenager, whether he realized it or not.

After a few moments, Miya’s blond head ducked behind a shelf, out of view. Kiyoomi had resorted to checking his phone. He had put it away by the time Miya left the shop, striding down the hallway with that decisive gait of his.

He didn’t seem to be carrying anything, his hands in his pockets. Kiyoomi nearly commented on it, but he settled for waiting for some inevitable sharp comment about the gift shop decor or something as he reached him. Only the comment didn’t come. Miya stood in front of him, and then he just stopped.

And it looked like he was about to say something. It was another symptom of that odd quality of his—the one that made him all too easy to observe. Everything came across on his face. And his face looked rather confused. Or stilted. Or caught up in something.

The point was, he wasn’t saying anything. Just standing there.

So Kiyoomi said, “Miya, what’s wrong with you?”

And he blinked rapidly as if dispelling dust from his vision. “Nothing,” he said, voice snappish. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

On another person, the hostility might have been a cause of concern. Miya wasn’t another person. He shifted. “Nothing. Are you good?”

“Fine.” Miya dropped onto the bench next to him. “You missed some great stuff in there. Sure you’re not interested?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.” Peeking at his disgruntled expression, Kiyoomi said, “You’re being weird.”

“I think your judgment is just flawed.”

“With you, probably.”

Empirically, it was the truth, even if he liked to believe that recent polling data held solid.

Riko barreled back into sight before Miya could respond, followed by his sister. The planetarium awaited. Kiyoomi stole a glance as they took their seats: that befuddled expression still found itself on Miya's face, brazen and dour. He filed it away. It likely wasn’t his business.

…

Ishibashi had worn a birthmark below his right collarbone and a nicotine patch that peeked out beneath the sleeve of his shirt. He had a rather casual fashion sense, rarely seen without a pair of stained, ratty sneakers on. For good luck, he had once said.

He did camera work. He had mentioned such when they first met, eyebrows waggling. Kiyoomi had been unimpressed. That usually works, Ishibashi had said, smile wry. Kiyoomi had remained unimpressed.

Ishibashi ran most of the events for the film club. He wanted to go into the industry after he graduated: the grippiest grip to ever key grip. He was earnest and had a rather self-deprecating sense of humor, even with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

“Another bust,” Ishibashi said, raising his beer. “The public just wasn’t ready for it.”

Kiyoomi took a sip of his own. “That’s a phrase for it.”

“Stingy. My harshest critic.”

“I doubt it.”

Ishibashi laughed.

He had a rather eclectic taste in the short films he chose to work on. They rarely received any accolades from the various festivals they were sent off to—local or otherwise—and Kiyoomi himself couldn’t act as if they weren’t perplexing. They were always directed by a friend of his. Kiyoomi had only met him in passing, as he was a bit of a recluse.

The bar they were at was a common spot for local university students to bleed dry. He didn’t come here often, both because of volleyball, and also because he could only tolerate its general seediness in short bursts.

It was off-season, though. It was mostly students from the film club, but not all; friends of friends, acquaintances, et cetera. Yamamoto, who, to Kiyoomi’s horror, had started to see a Creative Writing major who dabbled in screenplays, was somehow there.

He was there somewhere. There were a lot of people around. Kiyoomi was a couple of drinks in. His attention was starting to feel a little flighty, but it was a slight, pleasant thing.

“So what was it about this one?” Ishibashi said, in the peripherals of his vision. His shirt was covering where he knew the birthmark to be.

“Didn’t say there was anything,” he said, eyes crawling back up to Ishibashi’s face.

Ishibashi was smiling behind his glass. “There’s always something.”

Kiyoomi had found as he got older—confirmed, maybe—that he didn’t like to do things half-heartedly. It really shouldn’t have been surprising. It at times felt like he would be washed away by all of those feelings of his, but they still could be rather picky, and Kiyoomi could be rather meticulous when putting them into action. Something about time, something about investment.

It wasn’t something too serious. Kiyoomi had a busy schedule: Ishibashi was as breezy as his dress.

“The tone,” Kiyoomi said. “It was like it was trying to figure itself out.”

“That might’ve been the goal?”

“Is that a question?”

“I won’t pretend like I always know what’s going on in his head.” Glass tapped against the counter. “One of a kind, that one.”

“Hmm.”

“Do I hear jealousy?”

Whatever was on his face made Ishibashi snort. Kiyoomi’s feigned annoyance was a short-lived thing, burning off of him like water evaporating in the sun. He didn’t have anything going on the next day. It left him with a choice as to how he wanted the rest of his night to go.

With a glance over to Ishibashi, he—

Wait.

Kiyoomi straightened, eyes narrowing.

“I think he’s been getting into performance art,” Ishibashi was saying. “He wants his projects to feel like they have a heartbeat—oh, you’re not listening to me.”

Kiyoomi was not. Ishibashi shot a glance over his shoulder, following his gaze.

There were several TVs hung up around the bar. While meant for sports, he imagined, at this point at night, they flickered through oddball matches (the cornhole championship looked riveting) and late-night variety shows, muted to not add to the catastrophe of noise already happening.

Even so, and despite years without witnessing it in person, Kiyoomi was sure he could still hear Miya Atsumu’s twang ringing in his ears as he answered whatever dimwitted question the show’s host had asked. The same could be said of Bokuto Koutarou’s laugh. A thing of nightmares.

…what business did volleyball players have being on a variety show? Who was the audience for this? Was this an expectation for all players, or only the most annoying ones?

What were the odds? Why here? In what world did it make sense not only for a volleyball player to be on a variety show, but for that very variety show to be playing at a shitty college bar, perfectly within view?

“Oh!” said Ishibashi. “My roommate loves this show. I don’t know these guys though,” he said. “Do you?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

A graphic flashed on the bottom half of the screen. It said: MSBY Black Jackals Players Miya Atsumu and—

Ishibashi said, “That’s a volleyball team, right?”

Kiyoomi said, “No.”

The graphic changed to say Can two pro volleyball players beat our trivia challenge?

Ishibashi said, “I see.”

Kiyoomi said, “No you don’t.”

“This is some jock shit. Jock drama. This is all beyond me.”

“You did theater in high school.”

“My greatest shame. Do you know these guys?”

“No.”

Kiyoomi felt someone thump against the bar counter beside him. “Bokuto? Seriously? Man, my blood is fucking boiling. You remember when it was always you and us and Fukurodani at the top? Not that we were fucking fighting for your scraps or anything. Fuck you.”

He turned, hoping his face alone would be enough to send Yamamoto on his way. It took him a bit to recover from the whiplash. He was maybe a little tipsy.

Ishibashi laughed.

Yamamoto’s friend (“Not like— girlfriend,” he once said, face smoking) had to get going. Some of the other people there who were technically part of the group they were with were starting to filter out the doors, likely on to their next bar to ravage. Another film club member came up to the counter to ask if they were going to join.

“I have an early shoot tomorrow,” Ishibashi said. His eyes flashed to Kiyoomi’s. “This is probably it for me, I’m afraid.” And it was said in the same apologetic tone: no hidden meanings, not maybe not for you and me.

Kiyoomi could not pretend like he wasn’t wrangled by dull disappointment. He never liked it when the plans that he made—voiced aloud or not—went awry.

Ishibashi said, leaning back, “Maybe we’ll see each other later this week.”

“Hmm,” Kiyoomi said, and he couldn’t pretend like he wasn’t tracking the expanse of his neck as he stretched.

The moment was ended by a hand clapping onto Kiyoomi’s shoulder. “For sure bro,” said Yamamoto. “Yo, Sakusa, you want to head back to the dorms?”

If Ishibashi was leaving, then Kiyoomi didn’t have much of an interest in continuing the night. He also didn’t want to commute with Yamamoto.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

And it clearly didn’t come across as intended, given that Yamamoto said, “Chill. Alright. You want to get something to eat?”

No. Leave me alone, he said, except he didn’t, because Kiyoomi didn’t always like going through the work of turning his thoughts into words when he was completely sober, let alone when his skin was starting to flush.

He cast a lingering glance at that TV. Just in time to see Miya get a question wrong. Figured. Feeling oddly satisfied about something, Kiyoomi stood.

They all walked out together in a clump, annoyingly enough. A shuffling, gratuitous clump. Unsightly. Ishibashi brushed up against him. He was engaging Yamamoto in conversation, which was irritating, but he was serving as a buffer between them, at least. They stepped outside, the air biting.

“Shit,” Ishibashi said. “I think I left my card for the train inside.”

“Psh, I fucking got you, man,” said Yamamoto, ducking back inside without a moment’s notice.

The bar was situated on a street corner. They stepped out of the way of the front door; it was a relatively busy block, buzzing with other drunk or soon-to-be-drunk pedestrians, but they lingered by the cafe that was shuttered closed, just out of sight.

“We could leave,” Kiyoomi muttered.

“I forget how mean you are,” Ishibashi said.

“You didn’t leave your card inside.”

Ishibashi said, “Nah.” And then he was pressing his lips against Kiyoomi’s.

It was fleeting. It still sparked a gnawing pang low in his gut: one that burrowed as Ishibashi pulled away.

“Later this week,” he said. “I know you’re impatient, but think you can wait?”

“I’m not impatient.”

“Oh, whatever.”

Another quick, searing kiss. Yamamoto burst out onto the street. Ishibashi stepped back, but only slightly.

“I asked around, bro, but I totally couldn’t find your card.”

“All good,” said Ishibashi, but he wasn’t looking at Yamamoto. “Found it in my wallet.”

Ishibashi lived off campus, meaning he had a different train to take home than Kiyoomi. Unfortunately, Yamamoto lived on campus, meaning he had the same train to take home as Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi had a train to take home. They said their goodbyes. Yamamoto walked next to him.

He was talking about something. Kiyoomi wasn’t listening too closely. This was how a lot of their conversations went.

It felt like an oddly transitional time in his life, despite the fact that he was a good two years away from graduating. But being perfectly stuck in the middle felt like something meaningful. He had established himself. He had acquaintances. He had a pesky teammate. He had a reputation in the league.

An established foundation: an open future. Yes. That felt like something. Something he didn’t know how to get his arms around.

They were a few blocks away from the station. And it had started when Yamamoto said, voice casual:

“—and like, Ishibashi seems chill.”

Kiyoomi grunted.

“Kaori wants to set him up with one of her friends,” he continued, “but she’s pretty sure he’s seeing someone right now.”

When he looked over, Yamamoto was looking down the expanse of the road.

Kiyoomi’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so,” he said.

“Yeah. He hasn’t like, told her who the guy is or anything, but he’s just kind of mentioned it. Sounds like they went to this like, exclusive showing thing or something. For small film shit.”

Ishibashi was rather open with his sexuality. Kiyoomi was not. It wasn’t something he had many hang-ups about, so much as he by and large didn’t share too much of his private life. Kiyoomi rarely talked about his dating trysts with his peers, regardless of the gender of whoever he was seeing.

Kiyoomi looked over again. Yamamoto caught him looking, looked back, then looked away. His hands were in his pockets, and there wasn’t any particular… anything on his face. Anything out of the norm. It was rather casual.

“Okay,” Kiyoomi said slowly.

Yamamoto nodded.

A suspicion was growing in Kiyoomi’s brain.

A knee-jerk defensiveness churned inside of him. Kiyoomi didn’t like being led down a road, wool over his eyes: words hidden beneath tongues, statements fishing for some particular answer. The notion that Yamamoto was trying to rile him up—get him to admit to something—that felt like something more than irritation.

And yet—

Yamamoto was vexing on a good day, but he wasn’t the lying type, nor the malicious. And that made this worse, Kiyoomi thought, as that suspicion grew larger.

“It’s me,” he said.

Yamamoto blinked. “It’s what?”

“That someone,” Kiyoomi said, sounding out the words, “is me.”

To confirm his suspicion, his very horrible suspicion, a wide-eyed Yamamoto said, “Wait, seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Huh, okay. I didn’t realize,” he said, in a voice that very much so said, holy shit bro, really?

Despite his better interests, and with a horrible sinking feeling in his gut, Kiyoomi asked, “What was that?”

Yamamoto rubbed the back of his neck, looking rather bashful. “I thought like—I don’t know, man. I didn’t want to overstep or anything. But it seemed like there was something going on tonight and Kaori had just talked to me about this and I didn’t want to see you getting hurt in case like, something fishy was going on. You know, if he was two-timing you or something.” He said, “You’re like, my bro.”

Kiyoomi opened his mouth to respond. Then he closed his mouth. They turned a corner. His brain was fizzling.

“Thanks,” was what he eventually settled on, instead of ohhh my fucking god.

“Course, man.” He added, “And like, I’m proud of you.”

He felt a muscle in his face twitch. He said, “You seem… well-versed in this.”

Yamamoto shrugged. “A lot of people came out to me in high school? Like, a lot. I feel like I was a test run or something. I guess I put out a vibe?” He gave a thumbs-up. “I’m an ally, bro. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

There was something gravely serious about the way that he said it. Yamamoto had his fickle moments and could puff out his chest in a way that seemed rather performative at times, but he also had a stringent sense of honor that he held himself to. Righteously.

Kiyoomi, to be frank, didn’t think he’d ever feel the need to spill his guts to Yamamoto of all people, but the sentiment was. Kind. And that was. Hmm.

He said, “I like interesting people. Whoever they are,” he added. “That’s it.”

“That’s sick as fuck bro,” Yamamoto said, clapping a hand on his shoulder for the second time that night.

Kiyoomi swatted it away.

“Did you want to get something to eat—”

“No.”

“Chill.” Without skipping a beat, Yamamoto said, “It was so fucking weird seeing Bokuto on TV, wasn’t it? Like, give me a break. Hey, do you think we’ll have to do that type of thing? I mean, seems like it’d be pretty annoying, but also maybe it could be nice—”

He thought of a flashy smile, a flashy screen.

“It was weird,” Kiyoomi said, and that was the truth, just as they reached the station.

…

Thankfully, Miya was even weirder after the planetarium show. This was a joke.

He had seemed rather contemplative while drinking his hot chocolate: more so than was warranted for a mediocre hot chocolate, with no offense to the museum’s coffee shop. Miya said, “My Nana could point out all the big constellations. She lived out in the country. It’s been a while, but I bet I could still pick out a couple of ‘em.”

The first thing he thought was: of course. Yes, of course Miya had a grandmother who lived out in the country, and of course she looked at stars, and of course he called her Nana.

The second thing he thought of was how offhanded it had been said. Miya talked all the time. He talked about himself all the time. This wasn’t the first time that Kiyoomi had heard him speak about his own life, but he was rather confident that he had never heard him speak about a Nana before, let alone so casually.

Like which ones? said his niece, and Miya said, Ursa Major, Orion, Gemini, and Kiyoomi, watching, said, “Of course.”

Miya looked over to him, then. And he looked like he had been caught doing something, and on Miya’s face, of course, this looked vaguely accusatory, as if it was Kiyoomi’s fault for sitting at that table and not plugging his ears.

“What?” Riko said. “What is it?”

“Twins rule,” Miya said, looking away.

He didn’t stop being weird after that. He was always weird, but there was still something, what—bothering him? Annoying at him? Clearly eating at him, if his face was anything to go by. Riko and Manami pillaged the gift shop, Miya went to the bathroom, and Kiyoomi was back to waiting outside, until they all converged onto one another again.

“Look,” Riko said. “It is extra special, just for you.”

I’m a Little Space Cadet in Training! said the button, and Kiyoomi cast a dubious glance over Riko’s shoulder. Manami was smiling. Of course she was. As much as he wanted to say that it was her idea, Riko had a rather developed sense of humor, insofar that she liked delving under people’s skin just like his brother did. Genetics or something.

“Who’s little?” Kiyoomi said.

Riko laughed. “You,” she said. “Your hat.”

No, said his face. How dare you even ask. No.

Kiyoomi leaned over. With another laugh, his niece pinned the button into his cap. He adjusted it as he stood; Riko beamed up at him, the corners of her mouth sharp. She nodded to herself: yes, said that nod. Yes, of course.

This was going to be problematic one day, he was sure. Yasuaki had developed enough parenting skills to keep her in check, but god forbid when he and Manami would cart whatever tsunami a teenage Riko would bring. The Sakusa-Komori-Takeuchi-Nakanishi Teenage curse would still live on, he was sure.

Miya was once again knocked out of his head by Riko. The calcite was a solid gift idea. Good job Riko. Riko, energized by the prospect of doling out her gifts to her parents, marched off, Manami following with a shake of her head. Miya lingered, staring down at the rock in his hand.

Kiyoomi was there, too. He said, “It’s a little off.”

“It’s a lot off,” Miya said, pocketing the calcite. “What’re you telling that kid?”

They started walking. “Nothing. She’s able to come to her own conclusions.”

It wasn’t untrue. His siblings liked to tease, but it wasn’t as if Miya was a common topic of conversation, let alone while Riko was around. She tended to regurgitate whatever Yasuaki and Kanae said like a sentient, curly-haired sponge, but she also possessed a robust confidence in her own opinions.

Miya said, “Yeah, well, so am I. And it’s that you’re annoying.”

“You could be more creative.”

“I’m plenty creative.” Miya walked in such a way that his shoes sometimes scuffed against the floor in a way he probably wasn’t aware of. “My mother’s an artist.”

It was the same way that he had talked about his grandmother. A detail that caught Kiyoomi by surprise, but likely shouldn’t have. He was positive that he had talked about his mother before, and yet this certainly had to be the first time this particular detail had arisen, because he was sure he would have remembered it.

An artist could have meant any number of things, of course. There were many different forms of art in the world. There were many different types of artists. But he imagined a woman who certainly had to be like Miya in some way—because that had to come from somewhere, surely, especially with that brother of his—and merged it with an artist, and—

“What?” Miya said, after the moment had gone on for too long. There was something biting in his tone. There always was.

“Nothing,” he said. “I guess that makes sense.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s fitting.”

Miya said, “I thought I wasn’t creative?”

“You aren’t. What type of art?”

“She’s a ceramic artist.” Offhandedly, he said, “Pottery. That type of thing.”

He imagined a woman who acted like Miya, a woman who was an artist, a woman who made things with her hands. “I see it,” Kiyoomi said, and they had reached the front.

They went back to his apartment. Manami left her bag in his car, and Riko needed to grab her birthday gift. Kiyoomi drove them to the station; they were running a little short on time, quick to get out and grab their things from the trunk once they were parked. It was only then that Riko seemed to remember her gift.

She leaned forward to peer at the bag in his trunk. “It was there the whole time?” she said, turning to him.

“Yes,” he said.

“What?” she said. “That’s cruel and unusual!” She spent too much time around his sister.

He had thought about handing it over to her when he was at their apartment, but this seemed like a good way to wrap up their little trip.

She said, very gravely, “I won’t peek.” Her hands twitched at her sides. “But what if one of my parents does and I ask them—”

(Perhaps this, too, had been a choice made out of self-interest.)

Manami, who would spend the next couple of hours with Riko on the train, didn’t look very impressed. It didn’t stay on her face for long.

She did seem to be good. He had come to accept that there would always be a quality to his sister that was away from him, maybe, but it didn’t seem like there was anything weighing her down except for her dangling earrings.

She said, “Don’t have too much fun.”

He rolled his eyes. She bumped her knuckles against his shoulders. Riko, not one to be left out, collided against his side, arms looping around his middle.

“You have to win your next game,” she said, chin digging into his shirt as she craned her next to look up at him. “Promise?”

“I’ll try my best,” he said.

“And you’ll win?”

“I’ll try.”

She squinted, but this seemed to be good enough an answer. “Bye Uncle Kiyoomi,” she said, backing away. “Thank you.”

As an answer, he reached out to mess up her hair. She wrangled his hand off of her head with a laugh.

His niece wasn’t finished, apparently, and Kiyoomi knew it because he watched as Riko yank open the passenger car door and bombard Miya with a hug.

Manami said, “She’ll pick up his accent.”

“God help us.”

“You had fun today?”

“Miserable,” Kiyoomi said.

“Oh dear. What will we do.”

“Let me know when you get back.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“That’s not what I—”

“I know,” Manami said. “I’ll let you know.”

The sun was rapidly setting around them. When he glanced over, her jewelry caught in the receding light.

…

It had started—

He still wasn’t sure when it had started.

It was true that it had come to head after his sister turned twenty-nine, in the last few months of him finishing university. Acutely, then. It was true that it started with a day spent in Kyoto Prefecture under fairy lights, under a burgeoning snowstorm. That was for a different time, though.

It was an awareness that had started when he was at school. After he had left, maybe.

It had started, perhaps, when he realized how much of his sister’s life he didn’t know about. More precisely, that she didn’t tell him about. Eight years was a lot of years, even if he lost sight of them sometimes.

His eyes caught the glare of his dashboard light against the window. He focused on the road ahead of him. He’d value a day or so of complete rest before returning to practice.

Miya had a way of settling down at night. Before knowing him, he had seemed the type that would be rejuvenated by the sun going down, jeering about the promise of what could come before the next day arrived. Kiyoomi might’ve been a little biased in his judgment. He still thought about that one night at a camp when they were first years.

It had been a little surprising at their first few away games, then, when it became clear how Miya unraveled the closer the promise of a bed came. And unraveled was a little dramatic, maybe, because there would never be any doing away with all of that energy and stature (though he had come close to seeing it at the airport, he thought), but he clearly eased out at the edges.

Kiyoomi had once overheard Meian and Inunaki ribbing him about it. I need my fuckin’ beauty sleep. Can’t say the same about you two.

Conversation came a little easier, perhaps. Especially when he wasn’t on edge as he had been on the ride back from ITM. Kiyoomi couldn’t say that he was more blunt, because Miya seemed to max out on that as it stood, but his propensity to speak words without meaning to was heightened.

Case in point:

“Why did you invite me today?”

To be fair, though Miya rarely said things that he didn’t mean—other than the occasional, completely blatant lie—it seemed like his filter struggled to keep up with his mouth on a good day.

He was a stubborn asshole, too, so he rarely took back what he said, driving his heels into the sand if need be. Kiyoomi didn’t think that saying this in particular qualified as such a case, given that it was, in fact, a valid question, and it was, in fact, a question he had been asking himself, but even if it wasn’t, he doubted Miya would ever take it back.

“Riko is a fan,” was how he started. “When she heard you’d be in the city, she was excited.”

Miya said, “Is that really it?”

“She’s a fan.”

“Omi, come on.”

Kiyoomi clutched at the steering wheel, thinking. “You usually talk about whatever’s bothering you,” he said. “Loudly.”

Miya snorted. His elbow was resting on the console; he doubted he was even aware of it. “Yeah,” he said, fingers tap tap tapping. “I get that I complain a lot.”

“You do.” He ignored Miya’s huff. “And you didn’t when I picked you up. Or you weren’t specific. And Manami thought that she said something that upset you.”

“It’s not like—”

Miya paused.

He wasn’t one to pause. Even at night. Even when tired. Despite appearances, Miya could be frightfully observant, but he often did so while talking as opposed to in the absence of it.

But he paused now. Then he said, “I was in a mood. If I was pissed about it, you would have known.” Tone delving into something cutting, he said, “So what, you felt bad for me or something?”

“Manami felt guilty, but no, not really.”

“Well good, because I don’t need pity.”

Frustration burrowed away inside of him. “I don’t pity you. I told you. If I didn’t want to pick you up, I wouldn't have picked you up. You’re overthinking things.” And perhaps the night was getting to him, too, because he said: “You act so surprised that I can be nice.”

Miya sputtered. Then he regained himself. He said, “I know you can be nice.”

“Convincing.”

“It was just surprising,” he continued, gesturing broadly with his hands in a way that made little sense. Kiyoomi had tried, as had done since he was a child, to keep a glossary of what those gestures could mean, but each one seemed to be unique to the given moment. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“You’re right,” Kiyoomi said. “But I did, so stop overthinking it.”

It was blunt in a way that his cousin might have tsked at, or that Mizuta might scolded him for, how many years later. But Miya got blunt. In fact, it seemed to be one of the few ways to get something into his skull, even if he was being particularly hard-headed about this.

And fortunately enough, he pulled up to Miya’s building not a moment later. He didn’t seem to be the only one relieved if Miya’s face was anything to go by. Kiyoomi fought back the desire to roll his eyes.

After a second, Miya wiped at his face and said, “Thanks. Again. I’ll make it up to you.”

He said, “Don’t.”

“I already got plans,” Miya said. “It’ll be great.”

Kiyoomi scowled. Miya laughed. What wondrous times these were. The passenger side door opened: cold air seeped inside.

“See you,” Miya said over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said, watching him disappear inside of his building.

…

It was good to be home. It was good to spend time with family, too, but Kiyoomi enjoyed his space. In a move that his sister would have been proud of, he flopped onto the couch.

He didn’t regret today. He didn’t regret what he said. But it felt like there was still something left to be said, even if he thought he had made his point clear. It might have had something to do with Miya’s inability to just take things for what they were. Yes. He would just say it was Miya’s fault and call it a day.

His phone buzzed. He unlocked it to see a picture from his sister: they were on the train, Riko clearly having fallen asleep against her shoulder. She was clutching the gift bag to her chest, even if her grasp had slackened. He saved the picture to his phone.

It rang not a moment later. He sighed.

“Are you stalking me?” he said.

In his ear, Motoya said, “That’s always been my line. You’re home, then?”

“You clearly already know.”

“It was an educated guess.”

“Sure.”

His cousin laughed. “Are you going to wish me a good new year?”

“No.”

“Well, I am.”

“Good for you.”

“Thank you. Is there something else you want to tell me?”

“No.”

“I want to know about the airport, Cousin.”

“I went to the airport.”

“And who did you see at the airport?”

“Miya Atsumu. Haha. What a coincidence.”

“You’re being funny. You must be tired.”

“And yet I’m not sleeping.”

“Are you telling me nothing at all happened?”

“Yes.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Why would going to the airport ever be fun?”

“You went to the museum today?”

“Yeah.”

“And? Good? Bad? Your sister good?”

“Yeah. Riko was a little high-strung.”

“Were you expecting otherwise?”

“No. Can you send those photos over?”

“Yeah. Koko got her a cat sweater. Got some good pics.”

“She didn’t destroy it?”

“We got some pictures,” was his cousin’s answer. “Did you go to that one place for lunch?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said, and then he thought.

Motoya clearly didn’t know. He wouldn’t have any reason to. He knew that his siblings and his cousin technically had each other’s numbers, but it wasn’t as if they communicated that regularly. Kiyoomi certainly hadn’t told him about it since yesterday.

He would manage to find out about it eventually. It was inevitable. Motoya had a way about these things. And despite the fact that he, too, certainly had grown since he was a teenager, he’d be all the more insufferable the more time that would pass between today and whenever he’d find out about it.

Kiyoomi sighed, rubbing at the skin on the bridge of his nose. He was still a realist. He made his choices with pragmatism in mind.

He said, “He was there.”

“He was—who?”

“Miya.”

“Miya was at the museum.”

“Yes.”

“And how did he get to the museum?”

“How do you think?”

“Cousin. What New Year’s gift is this, Cousin?”

“Riko wanted him to come and he seemed weird about being alone for the holiday. He spent most of the day fighting with her.”

Motoya was quiet for a moment. He was likely sitting on his shitty futon, demon cat on his lap. And he would be smiling. “I might be tearing up.”

Kiyoomi said, “Stop.”

“Haha.”

“Your family’s good?”

“I smell a non-sequitur.”

“Your family?”

“Yeah. It was a bit of a bummer without Sachie, though.”

“Is she back next month?”

“She said so. It probably could be a little longer, knowing her.” He said, “Koko is talking about when she’ll start high school next year.”

Kiyoomi squinted at the ceiling. “That’s not right.”

“No. Not at all. Doesn’t help that the old man’s getting all weepy about it already. It’ll be a nightmare when she moves out one day.”

“Don’t talk about that.”

“Yeah,” Motoya said, humor in his words. “I know. Are you telling me that your sister would have another perspective on this little outing today if one were to ask?”

“No.”

“Yes. So I found this new show on U-Next—”

Kiyoomi lay on his couch and talked to his cousin. Pavement and the sun flashed behind his eyelids, his muscles sore with the path of a familiar route home.

Chapter Text

Kiyoomi couldn’t say that it had started at a lunch, and yet, like most things in his life, it felt as if it could be traced back to a lunch with his sister—who had recently cut her hair—sitting across from him.

Something shifted between him and Manami after he left home. It was only minute, only appearing in the corner of his vision, and he still wasn’t sure if something had truly changed, or if Kiyoomi had merely started to see something he had been ignorant of before.

And if that had been an unintentional ignorance, smudged at the edges because of naivety, or something more intentional, better hidden, planned for—

Well.

The physical distance was the most obvious. Manami visited, and Kiyoomi did, too, though they both had rather busy schedules. He always brought his grandfather his stamps when he was in the city. He had arranged to have them delivered each month as it was, and Manami had been willing to do it occasionally. He visited Yasuaki while he still lived in the metro area, too, even if it was almost always with his sister there.

They texted. They spoke over the phone. It wasn’t as if they didn’t talk. And Kiyoomi had first thought that it had merely been the way that their communication had literally changed. But only at first.

Adult business, she had always said, clearly holding it over his head. Adult business when she’d come home after a weekend away, or when he’d catch her ruminating over something, tugging on her bangs. He knew quite a bit about Manami’s life, he had thought. He knew all about her work, he knew about her neighbors, he knew about her friends, some new, some old. Chihiro was still around.

“Adult business,” she said. Her lips were curled behind the coffee she was drinking.

They were talking about a night out from a few days ago. She had mentioned that the weather had been bizarre. That had been that. He had asked a rather benign question, he had thought—wondering where she was, wondering what she was doing, wondering who she was with.

As a twelve-year-old, his nose might’ve scrunched; as a high schooler, he might’ve rolled his eyes. In any case, he had always grown to expect his sister’s answers and had long since grown used to her changing of topics. Manami could get on his nerves like no other. He was also rarely actually upset with her—barring the obvious few exceptions.

There wasn’t exactly a precedent for it, then. That was what he was saying. The kneejerk irritation that bolted through him, genuine and fresh—jarring in the same way as too-hot coffee burning his taste buds.

“I’m an adult,” Kiyoomi said. He had been halfway through nineteen at the time. He would look back and still see himself then as a child, naturally, but he certainly wasn’t walking in her shadow anymore. He was taller than her.

“You’re tiny.” There was nothing but humor in his sister’s tone. “You’re so very tiny.”

It was just an offhanded lunch. There wasn’t any particular reason for him to be confronted with a gasping, untamable vexation, and yet there he was, and yet there were those feelings.

He set down his coffee. “I don’t know why—” He paused. It was rare for his words to feel like they were ahead of him. “I don’t know why you’re doing that.”

Manami was still smiling, but it was distinctly more polished. “Doing what?”

“You know,” he said.

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

I’m not a child, he nearly said, but he had the self-awareness to understand that to even speak it aloud would be juvenile within itself. He was caught on a line; the rope wobbled precariously beneath him.

Maybe then he thought it only to be a product of that ruffled, defensive want to grow—to move forward. Adult business, said his sister, and that part of Kiyoomi said, what is it that you see when you see me?

His sister wasn’t obligated to explain to him all the little nooks and crannies of her life. He’d know that better than anyone. Everyone had their secrets. He had his secrets. She did, too, and she was entitled to them, and yet sometimes he wondered how far those secrets extended.

He would unpack it more later. Sooner and later. In the moment, Manami’s face was perfectly and flashily unreadable across the table. The conversation moved forward, his sister charging ahead and Kiyoomi doing nothing to stop it.

…

Kiyoomi couldn’t pretend like he was oblivious to the fact that the museum could shift things, no matter how insignificant a day it had turned out to be.

He knew for a fact that Miya had no intentions of talking about it. To talk about it would bring questions about how he spent his break, and he—empirically a horrible liar—would likely skirt around the questions with the grace of a man slipping at a fan meet-and-greet.

And Kiyoomi also had no doubt that Miya would be weird about it, given he was weird about everything, but that day would not exist explicitly. Not in the locker room, at least.

Or that had been what he was anticipating. It had been a poor anticipation. Yes, it was true to say that not a word was spoken about their little outing to the museum, but through the divine powers of a break from his busy schedule, Kiyoomi managed to underestimate just how loud Miya could be. He was Miya.

He was looking. He wouldn’t stop looking. Looking like he had at the museum . Miya had proved himself to not be completely unaware of his own behavior, but Kiyoomi had to wonder if he was truly oblivious to how often he was looking and not saying anything.

While they warmed up, during practice itself, as they changed to leave for the day. Searching, observing, looking.

They were in the locker room. There was a pair of eyes on him. Kiyoomi adjusted his hat, and he waited, and the eyes were still there, and he said, “What is it?”

Miya blinked, but he didn’t look away. No, he said, “You ever think about playing around with patterns?” He pointed at his own face. “You could rock something brighter.”

“Oh yeah!” said Bokuto, shattering the corners of his vision. “You’d look great!”

“What was that one shade of pink you were talking about earlier?” continued Miya, calling back to Meian.

And Meian, midway through throwing on a sweatshirt, said, “Pink flamingo. Marshmallow rose was a close second, though.”

“Perfect.” Miya looked far too gratified. Whether because he enjoyed seeing Kiyoomi suffer or was proud of his very obvious redirect, he couldn’t say. It didn’t really matter. He said, “Options are open, Omi.”

“I’m good.” Kiyoomi left before anything else could be said. Or done. He had things to do. Things to do that were not Miya Atsumu.

(This was a poor metaphor.)

Kiyoomi took the train home. He took a shower and ate the quail eggs at the back of his fridge. Just like every Thursday, with conditioning ending at midday as opposed to the afternoon, Kiyoomi proceeded to grab his car keys and began his hour-long commute out of the city.

It was rather pretentious to pretend like any slightly rural area was similar to Ichinohe, he imagined. Nose was its own town. It was simply that all small towns felt alike in their idiosyncrasies. Something about driving up the winding, dubious road to the animal shelter caused familiar feelings to stir: dust beneath his sneakers.

The shelter closed just as afternoon turned into evening. He always got there as the final batch of potential adopters were filtering through. Kiyoomi skirted by a couple filling out paperwork while trying to calm down their young child in the waiting room and made his way to the clipboard sitting on the front desk.

“Hi, how can I—oh, hi, Sakusa-san.”

Ueno had just graduated high school last year. He was the nephew of Ueno-san, one of the shelter’s directors, and he was relatively competent at his job. The boy had an interest in social media and marketing and often brought this up to Kiyoomi, however coincidentally.

Kiyoomi nodded. He scribbled his name onto the volunteer log sheet.

“Any big games coming up?”

Sure.

Ueno adjusted his glasses. They made his eyes look larger on his face. “I saw the Jackals reposted a—”

“Is Tsuji-san in the back?”

“Yes. Did you know that Twitter is becoming more and more relevant in our daily—”

“Thanks,” Kiyoomi said.

Tsuji-san was washing dishes near the kennels. She was a confounding figure. She presented herself as a typical, rural housewife, cadence chipper, tone light; rolling up her sleeves at work revealed a full tattoo sleeve of fading black ink and a rather morbid sense of humor. She had a toddler-aged son who occasionally could be found watching over the cats.

“Sakusa-kun,” she greeted, without turning around at the sink. “Did you have a good start to the year?”

Debatable. “It was fine,” he said. He grabbed a ring of keys from a hook on the wall. “You?”

“It’s always refreshing! New year is always the time to get the mind ready to start anew.” A feeding bowl clacked against the drying rack. “You might look out for our little Wannabe today. He was tugging on his leash this morning something nasty.”

Kiyoomi said, “Did he respond at all?”

“Ueno-kun was walking him, so who knows!”

When he glanced over, she was smiling, expression as cheery as a tune one would hum beneath their breath. He chose to nod again, grab one of the harnesses by the door, and proceed out into the kennel area without further comment.

Kiyoomi started volunteering at the shelter during his final year of university. The film club had put together a fundraiser for it at one of their screenings; his interest had been piqued then and had never quite declined. His familiarity with the organization had been an added bonus when he decided to stay in the city after graduating.

His hours were rather limited by his schedule, and the commute here wasn’t ideal. It was a time he ultimately valued, issues aside. A dog didn’t seem quite feasible with his life just yet. This presented a chance to walk dogs, still. Multiple dogs. Kiyoomi greeted each dog as he passed their kennel.

Wannabe’s kennel was the farthest back on the right side. Next to Wannabe was Tsubame, and then Martini, and then Pat Benatar. Wannabe was a Shiba Inu with an attitude problem, which was, perhaps, rather redundant to say. Wannabe’s tail was wagging. He jumped up against the chain link door, metal rattling on its hinges.

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

Wannabe barked.

He was indeed tugging on his leash. He knew better than to tug on his leash. Kiyoomi told him this, and Wannabe did not seem to want to listen, shooting back quite the obstinate look when Kiyoomi refused to move. He had the time.

Walking the trails around the shelter always felt like a cool-down after a day of conditioning. It gave him time to decompress: to think. His hours spent at the shelter were sparse, so he made value out of what he got.

Gravel crunched beneath his soles. The cold bit at his skin. Wannabe kept his nose to the ground, his tail bouncing behind him. There was a septic tinge to the grass, to the trees—but they were there nonetheless, withstanding the weather. Kiyoomi stood and looked up at the peak of one of the gradual inclines of the earth that grew from Nose.

And what was Kiyoomi thinking about, then?

Presumably, one would not guess Miya Atsumu.

Wannabe cast another look behind him. It somehow felt more judgmental than usual. Kiyoomi scowled and stood his ground.

It came down to that same non-curious curiosity. Miya was obviously stuck on something, and Kiyoomi was between wanting nothing to do with it—while perhaps acknowledging that it still could be related to private matters in his life—and being overcome by a deep-seated irritation that he had no idea what was going on in his head.

…he just wasn’t saying anything about it, and he wasn’t obligated to say anything about it, and it wasn’t as if Kiyoomi and Miya were friends—they were coworkers, as he told his sister—but it was out of character enough to be grating.

Whatever.

Hopefully he’d be over it soon enough. Sooner rather than later. Kiyoomi certainly was already. A small, furry creature bolted into the woods alongside their path, and the leash jolted in his hand.

…

With Kiyoomi in school and Yasuaki moving with Kanae to be closer to her parents when Riko was halfway past two, it had been rare for the three of them to get a moment alone. His brother stayed mostly in place; it was Kiyoomi and Manami who often did the roving around, though he traveled enough as it was for volleyball.

That was the irony in Yasuaki coming back, perhaps. Back before they immediately went on their separate ways again.

However rare it had happened, though, there were moments: moments of him and his sister and his brother at a dinner that was slightly less awkward than it had once been, but not without its bumps and ridges. It would take a few years to smooth those out.

Manami and Yasuaki still had the occasional habit of wandering off into talking about something he was rather oblivious to. Kiyoomi could be short. They were all busy. That would never change.

Even then, some things were easier, perhaps. Some topics less of a minefield to broach.

“The daycare teacher is like, fucking bonkers. I don’t even know.” Yasuaki’s appearance had grown more haggard right after Riko was born. It might’ve been a few years after that at this point, but some vestiges of exhaustion remained. “Kanae agrees. It’s not even because she’s like, traditional or anything. She’s just off.”

It was funny to think that there was ever a time when Riko had been an obstacle in conversation. It might’ve taken a couple of years, certainly, but his niece had easily wormed her way into those select few people in the world that he sought out willingly. Kiyoomi was no longer up his own ass enough to deem the rest of the world completely intolerable, but it was true to say that he had his people, and he preferred his people to other people.

Manami said, “Not to our little Riko, though, right?”

(It might’ve been a Sakusa thing more than just a Kiyoomi thing.)

“It’s not even like that,” said Yasuaki. “It’s just like, uncanny valley or something. Like she’s too on all the time.”

“She’s happy,” said Kiyoomi.

“How weird,” said Manami.

“Fuck off,” Yasuaki said. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” said Manami, and they spiraled off from there.

Kiyoomi ate. When he ignored the poking, it was an easy enough position to fall into when Manami and Yasuaki set each other off. Especially when they tended to rattle off incriminating information about the other.

The reminder that his siblings had a life that seemingly existed before him was still… odd to grapple with, but much like his trip to his grandfather’s hometown, he had found value in finding out about their own childhoods. Stories and anecdotes that rose up here, memories that flowed beneath conversation there. It was— interesting, maybe.

Case in point:

“—perhaps you’re just an odd judge of character,” his sister said.

Yasuaki said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Manami said, “You just kept the most interesting company when we were kids.”

“Yeah, and it’s so awesome that I still talk to all of those guys now. Obviously.”

Those years—that summer—often brought spikes to the conversation still. Kiyoomi had come to understand that his siblings had conversations he was not privy to—an apology, maybe, a talking things out, a where did you go—but it wasn’t a fact he necessarily lingered on. Not when it caused clumsy, stilted guilt to resurface: embarrassment born from his own actions.

But perhaps even Yasuaki and Manami’s own teenage years were no longer off the metaphorical table. Yasuaki, tone biting but not fatal, continued, “And you’re not one to talk, either.”

“Oh? For what reason?” said Manami.

“What was that one friend of yours in high school? Fujita?”

“No,” Manami said.

And Kiyoomi’s attention perked up, his gaze snagging his sister’s face.

Because she said No, and there was something about her posture, wasn’t there—

“Yeah,” Yasuaki said. He was rolling a crumpled strip of napkin between his fingers. “Santa’s buddy. I remember. She’s the one who used to—”

Manami said, “I don’t remember.”

Her tone was sharp, definitive, no-nonsense.

Yasuaki’s jaw clamped shut. His eyes narrowed. Across from him, Manami’s expression had evened out, and she met his gaze head-on, even as her finger tapped against the table.

And Kiyoomi was sitting there, and it was the oddest thing, because there was clearly something happening—something he didn’t have all the pieces to understand, which was annoying—but it felt, for the oddest moment, as if they were both suddenly looking at him. And it had started there, maybe.

Yasuaki’s gaze flitted his way, then back to their sister. “Alright,” he said.

“But Riko is doing well? At the daycare?” Manami said. She was smiling, but it was— well.

(It reminded him of their mother’s. Irrefutable, neat at the edges.)

“Yeah,” Yasuaki said, and he was still looking at Manami in a way that Kiyoomi couldn’t read.

Perhaps some things were off the table. Or perhaps he spoke too soon. In an odd, foreign way that managed to feel reminiscent of his childhood, Kiyoomi no longer felt hungry.

…

“I’d be lying if I said I was ready, though,” said Meian, leaning back in his seat. “I mean, I don’t think you’re ever ready, but still!”

Tomas nodded. He was always the type to chew on his words. Kiyoomi imagined it mostly had to do with the language barrier, but Tomas, despite his hulking form, could be surprisingly delicate with his actions.

“You’ll learn,” Tomas said. He didn’t have children—as far as Kiyoomi knew, at least—but there was a wisdom enshrined in his cadence that seemed hard to doubt.

“Hopefully,” Meian said, smile wry behind his glass. And then he said, “Hope I’m not boring you.”

Kiyoomi blinked. “No,” he said.

“I guess you’d say otherwise.”

“Not necessarily,” he said. He wouldn’t leave in the middle of a team dinner, but Kiyoomi didn’t have a habit of lingering in conversations he didn’t want to deal with.

Meian laughed. He was rather notorious for his charisma, and Kiyoomi could understand why. It was not often that he felt so short; the Jackals were a bunch of behemoths.

He was by no means the shortest, though. Not by a long shot.

His eyes, without meaning to, wandered down the expanse of the table.

Kiyoomi enjoyed playing with all of his teammates and could tolerate most of them in extended conversation. Team dinner was often laden with pitfalls, however, and this typically translated into being very meticulous about who he chose to sit next to.

Miya, Hinata, Bokuto, and Inunaki could all be handled much easier when not actively bouncing off of one another. When they were, in fact, bouncing off of each other, because they were, in fact, clumped together at the opposite end of the table, it was safe to say that Kiyoomi wanted nothing to do with any of them.

This was a general premise he ascribed himself to, but even more so now, when Miya was still dedicating himself to acting so… weird.

The Looking had not let up. It still went unaccompanied by any sort of explanation, though Kiyoomi supposed it was his own fault for thinking there could be some world where it would be. He was sure that Miya was making it out to be Kiyoomi’s fault, no less. What it was, he didn’t know.

It wasn’t as if Kiyoomi’s life as of late had been overtaken by thoughts of Miya and his oddities, but they saw each other more days of the week than not, and it was hard not to think about it when Miya was in the process of doing it.

He felt as if he was doing a decent enough job. As he had gotten older, Kiyoomi had learned the artful skill of boxing something away with a label of whatever, don’t care, will check later. Miya would let up eventually.

“—I picked up a little jersey for her already and everything. Well, onesie, but you get the gist,” he heard Meian say, and yes, Kiyoomi had better people to be talking to.

“Very cute,” Tomas said.

“It’ll be good,” Meian said. There was a faraway look in his eye. “Yeah, it’ll be good.”

Kiyoomi squinted. He said:

“Are you retiring?”

“Am I— what?”

“Retiring,” Kiyoomi repeated.

Meian, still a little bewildered, said, “Where’d that come from?”

I think I’ve had a conversation like this one before. It was in your face. He said, “You sounded like it.”

Tomas said, “He’s right. You sounded like a movie. A cheesy movie.”

(He preferred Tomas as a teammate—among others—for a reason.)

“I sounded like I’m retiring,” Meian said, spacing out the words. “I’m not retiring. Oh,” he said, “come on, really?”

“You’re unconvincing,” said Tomas, but he was smiling.

Meian shook his head. “You’ll have me for a least a couple more years.”

“And then?” Kiyoomi said. He still liked being right a little too much, he supposed.

“And then I’ll be in my thirties.” Meian laughed as he spoke. “So you might have to get rid of me, maybe. Happy?”

“No,” Tomas said.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi said.

“I’m very depressed,” Tomas said.

Meian rolled his eyes. He leaned back in his seat. “I got a kid on the way and a bad back as it stands. I didn’t even think I’d get this far.”

He had been playing for what must have been—ten years? He knew he had started right out of high school. Ten years ago, when Kiyoomi himself hadn’t even started middle school. It was moments like this one where their gaps in experience felt startling, even if Meian had never flaunted his seniority.

Kiyoomi tapped his finger against the lip of his glass. He asked, “What’ll you do?”

“Father-in-law’s an electrician,” he said. “Wants to put me in the office, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I went to trade school, either.”

“Education is always good,” Tomas said, nodding.

Kiyoomi could see it. It was funny to think that all of them would filter out of this place eventually. Even the most skilled players had to listen to their bodies, their ages; one could go from playing on an internationally televised court on one day and working in the same office as their father-in-law the next. It wasn’t as if any one of them was special—not really.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t given it any thought. No, not when preparedness was a vital tenant of Kiyoomi’s personhood. But it was seemingly the one area of his life that he could afford to put on the back burner. He had his ideas, but he would cross that bridge when it got there. He hopefully had a good amount of time left himself, barring injury or a second retirement.

“I’ll coach if I can help it,” Meian continued. “Kids can’t be much worse than you all.”

“We’re much worse,” Tomas said.

“Some of us,” Kiyoomi said, at just the same time as someone shouted at the other end of the table.

Meian said, “It’ll be good to move on. It’s a part of life.”

Kiyoomi said, “Now you sound like you’re dying.”

“Terminal illness,” said Tomas.

“Some of you,” Meian repeated. “Yeah, some of you are worse than others.”

The moment settled. Dinner wouldn’t last for too much longer. He never minded these things—they were the easiest to deal with out of the laundry list of social events that allegedly required the attendance of Jackal players, even if the owner of this restaurant had rather odd fashion choices.

At the other end of the table, Hinata had gone off with a stumbling Inunaki. Bokuto was saying something to Miya, who looked a little put-out, maybe. It came across as a deep furrow between his eyebrows and a fork dangling in his grasp.

“Man,” he heard, and he looked back to Meian. There was that same look in his eye—not so far away, maybe, but perhaps aware of what was to come. He was smiling. “But it’d be great to play forever.”

…

Time had gotten away from him in university.

He had been a busy high school student, certainly. He traveled quite a bit more in college, but his class load, if anything, was less weighty to deal with, and even when squeezing in events for the film club or working at the animal shelter, it didn’t feel as if he was spending drastically more time doing things than when he was a teenager.

But it slipped away from him. A week would go by—two. Kiyoomi had never been one to lose track of his things, but there were moments when the existence of his phone was an afterthought.

They were all busy people. That was the crux of it. That had always been a fact. Sometimes things slipped through the cracks. Sometimes he went a few weeks without talking to his sister. It happened.

They still texted. It wasn’t as if there was no contact between them whatsoever. At a different time in his life, however, the idea of not hearing his sister’s voice for such a stretch of time—too short and too long—would have been striking.

“Ah. So he has time for me at last, I see.”

He was walking to the station to head back to the dorms after running a few errands. Kiyoomi made a face.

“What a face,” said Manami’s voice in his ear.

“You were busy too,” he said.

“I’m surprised you even remember.”

He said, “You’re right. I’m famous.”

“Too, too famous. Shiny famous.”

Her work was fine. Annoying lawyers were annoying. Kiyoomi’s schooling was fine. Yes, he had started making a spreadsheet for what hotels were the worst to stay in. No, he wouldn’t send it to Manami. Manami said what a waste. Manami said she wouldn’t make fun of it. Kiyoomi knew his sister.

“Spoilsport,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.

Kiyoomi stood waiting for a crosswalk. He held his phone against his ear.

And.

And—

There were many moments in his childhood when silence had walked freely between him and his sister. Plenty of occasions of them seeing one another had just involved working in the same room. And there were certainly moments where silence had meant something—tense, writhing, obtrusive—but Kiyoomi and his sister were alike, and it was for that very reason that silence between them could be a welcome thing indeed.

Kiyoomi stood there, and he couldn’t really explain why, but as the silence in his ear stretched on and his mind whirred in trying to find something to say it struck him then that yes, he didn’t know what to say. To his sister of all people.

Heavy. Unwieldy. Awkward.

It had started with that silence.

And he wondered, briefly, if his sister was feeling the same thing—

The light changed. Manami said, “Did you know Sachie was back in town?”

Kiyoomi walked. “Motoya mentioned it,” he said. “Did you see her?”

She did. They went out for a coffee. Sachie had a poor habit of telling multiple stories at once, and Manami still wasn’t sure if their cousin’s roommate was a real person or not, a stray raccoon, or a ghost.

They were talking. It was fine. There were things that Manami didn’t talk to him about, and that could be irksome, maybe, but there were things Kiyoomi certainly didn’t talk about with her, either. It was only natural for their dynamic to shift as they both got older.

It was just a moment. He wasn’t even sure if it was even there, to begin with. Kiyoomi glanced over his shoulder. Nothing was there.

Perhaps he was just being dramatic.

…

It was as they were boarding the van for the airport that Kiyoomi, while settling in his seat, heard Barnes say:

“Management’s really hounding Miya, don’t you think?”

Barnes was sitting in front of him. Inunaki, never the best at sitting still, was lingering in the aisle until the last possible second. Sure enough, just outside the window, Miya was talking to Fujioka-san; and by talking, he meant that Fujioka-san’s words seemed to strike the earth with physical weight, just as heavy as his eyebrows, and Miya looked annoyed to be alive.

This was none of Kiyoomi’s concern, of course. He went to put on his headphones, and—

“Yeah,” Inunaki said, “heard he lost a coat or something. They’ve been real finicky with the replacement that just came in.”

“Ah,” Barnes said.

And Kiyoomi—

It still wasn’t his concern. It certainly wasn’t his concern. Kiyoomi wasn’t thinking about it.

“Oh,” he heard, and hundreds of hours of horror movie consumption were the only thing that kept him from jumping out of his skin when he glanced up to see Bokuto looming over his seat.

Miya, despite all predictions, had ultimately not been the player he was most…needled by upon joining the Jackals. No, that position could only ever be fulfilled by Bokuto Koutarou, who had the tendency to say the most batshit, nonsensical thing imaginable before looking at Kiyoomi as if he were stupid for not understanding.

Hinata was a close second, even if he did seem to have picked up better habits since high school.

“What,” Kiyoomi said.

“Hmm,” Bokuto said.

“What,” Kiyoomi said again. “Stop.”

Bokuto nodded. “Okay.”

“What.”

And Bokuto looked at him for a moment longer. There was a sharp edge to the gold in his eyes.

Then he just smiled and said, “You should be careful thinking so hard! Akaashi always told me to be careful about that before games. Your face can get all stuck.”

And he disappeared before Kiyoomi could say anything more. A second later, he heard a thud of a body colliding with its seat. The van started up not much longer after that, Inunaki complaining as he finally took his seat.

For ease of mind, Kiyoomi was going to pretend that that had never happened. It did no good to be unnerved a day before a game. The Rockets were decent competition.

Plane rides were fine. He didn’t enjoy them, but he didn’t hate them, either. Trying to read in any sort of vehicle had seemed to trigger motion sickness the older he got, so it was a nice stretch of time to indulge in an audiobook.

A murder mystery droned on in his ears, the sky was an infinite expanse out the window next to him, and it wasn’t as if Kiyoomi had given a timeframe for when Miya would give his coat back, nor did he really care (well, he did, by virtue of it being something he owned, but not because he particularly cared about that coat), but it was just another thing that was odd.

It wasn’t as if Miya was technically avoiding him. Being avoidant was one thing, and shamelessly bulldozing his way through conversation was another, but all of this could be described as odd, could it not?

Kiyoomi had been sticking to ignoring Miya’s oddities for the most part. And it did seem like they were starting to let up as time had passed since the start of the New Year. Miya was still odd because he was odd by nature, and by odd he meant annoying, but less annoying in this specific capacity.

Or he had thought so, at least, but he had gotten a new coat—and Kiyoomi had seemingly not noticed—and had said nothing about Kiyoomi’s coat, a coat which, to be fair, he hadn’t thought of much at all this month, but—

Box it away, he thought. The narrator in his ear was beginning to interrogate a witness.

He still didn’t like hotels. He liked hotels even less, now. It was nice to have his own apartment. They stayed at nicer hotels than the ones they found in high school or even university, but his standards remained. He preferred his own bed, even if not having to share a room with anyone was an added benefit.

A handful of his teammates piled into an elevator. Kiyoomi would take the stairs. And of course the other person to do so would be Miya.

Kiyoomi wasn’t a teenager anymore, so he wasn’t annoyed by the fact that he was behind Miya—following in his footsteps—but he was slighted, maybe.

Particularly when Miya almost shut a door on him. Especially when Miya almost shut the door on him. He caught it either way, arm stretched behind him, but still.

He looked surprised. Surprised enough that he clearly didn’t even realize that Kiyoomi was behind him. Slighted, not annoyed, yes. A tad annoyed. Kiyoomi’s gaze, without meaning to, found the logo of Miya’s new coat, pristine and shiny as if it was just taken out of the package.

(He had cleaned it, at least, because Miya used some sort of heady, floral-scented detergent that lingered on all of his clothes.)

“You gonna make me stand here all day?” said Miya.

Kiyoomi bit back his words. He breezed by Miya without saying anything, and Miya didn’t even bother to call out anything after him. He had a bathtub to scrub down.

…

The first time Kiyoomi had played against Motoya in university had not gone exceptionally well. His teammates had noticed. His coaches had noticed. Kiyoomi had noticed that he wasn’t playing up to speed, but he had also been distracted by the fact that he was playing against Motoya, and that was rather ground-breaking in the most horrible of ways.

(If it was any consolation, his cousin had played just as poorly.)

It wasn’t as if he had never seen Motoya across the net before. At practice, during scrimmages, for camp—going as far back as being ten years old and playing a meaningless game of two-on-two behind the gym. But it was different to actually be playing against one another. Wearing different jerseys, having different victories.

They got a little better about it, at least. It was still weird.

It hadn’t been their last university match together, but it was certainly past the midway point. Kiyoomi had found his groove—as had his cousin. When moving past how obviously wrong it felt, there was something thrilling about playing against someone who knew your flaws and your skills and your everything, inside and out.

They were outside. The game had come and gone. Waseda was the visiting team; they were heading back that evening. For now, Kiyoomi walked with his cousin.

Kansai’s Senriyama Campus boasted a surprising amount of greenery. They were following a short trail that looped around the soccer field just next to the central gym. Motoya was nursing a Pocari Sweat instead of a yogurt, the sky was melting into a deep umber instead of lighting up around them, and Kiyoomi was guiding them down a path that his cousin was unfamiliar with: they were odd things to be poked by.

“It shows that they care,” said Motoya. “It’s not just a cash crab.”

“I never said I didn’t like it,” Kiyoomi said.

“I know your kind.”

“I literally told you I liked it.”

Motoya said, “I, for one, welcome in the Reiwa era, reboot or not. Godzilla will find you eventually.”

It wasn’t like they didn’t talk about these things over the phone. But yes, perhaps it was different to be walking next to each other in the very same way they did throughout their childhood. There wasn’t lost time between him and Motoya. It felt like a contrast to something he didn’t want to give a name to.

Nameless but alive—making itself known without asking as Motoya said, “Hey, how’s your sister doing?”

“Fine,” Kiyoomi said. “Why?”

“The old man mentioned something about her work. A weird thing with a big client.”

He thought. There was no reason to. He was sure he would remember if she had told him something like that; no, they had talked last weekend, and she had merely said that work was fine as it could be. As far as emails can be.

A tree rustled. “She hadn’t mentioned it,” Kiyoomi said.

Motoya was watching his face, then. “Oh, well. It sounds like he just heard about it through the grapevine.” He said, “Maybe it’s just boring.”

“Maybe,” Kiyoomi said, and it had started with that flaring irritation—a child overhearing a conversation in the hallway.

The sky was dark enough that the lamps lighting the path automatically clicked on. Motoya peered up at one, covering his eyes from its glare. “You want to talk about it?” he said.

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

“Well. Yamamoto seems well.”

“Don’t talk like you know him.”

“Do I hear jealousy?”

“No,” Kiyoomi said, tone grave. “Stop treating him like he’s a fixture.”

“I’m just glad you have someone looking after you. A guy worries.”

“Don’t.”

Motoya just glanced over at him and laughed.

…

“I told you you would win. I said it.”

Riko was at an age where volume regulation was out of reach in general, let alone for what was required for a call. His brother was likely in the process of fighting for control of the phone as they spoke. Muffled static crackled over the line—perhaps a shirt sleeve brushing against the microphone.

“Thanks,” Kiyoomi said.

“You’re welcome,” Riko said, completely earnest.

It was that night after the game with the Rockets. He was surprised his niece was still awake; he was sure she’d be sent to bed the moment either one of them hung up. Kiyoomi was in his hotel room. It was nice to be by himself after hours on end of not being by himself, no matter how much he enjoyed playing on the court.

“That point was totally in, too. Mom said the referee is probably cheating.”

“Did she say that.”

“Yes,” said Riko. In the background, Yasuaki said, “No.”

Kiyoomi waited.

“She said that you can’t trust a man with a whistle.”

Yasuaki didn’t say anything to correct it. It did sound like something Kanae would say.

“It was out,” was what he said.

Kiyoomi was not a perfect player. He had spent years honing his skills, and for good reason, too; The Spin, as Motoya so often dubbed it, might have come naturally to his body, but it took time to get it under control. It was almost completely under control nowadays. Every now and again, it got away from him. He’d stamp it out next week at practice.

The worst part about missing a point, however, other than the frustration at making a mistake that he dedicated his career to not making, was the subsequent social conditions born from missing a point. Nice try, Omi. Or I’ll get it back for you, Omi. Or, something something something Omi something annoying.

“Well, I think it was in,” said Riko.

“Are you going to be a referee?”

“No, because stripes are bad. Are you even listening?”

“I guess not.”

And Riko, without skipping a beat, said: “Is Atsumu there?”

Kiyoomi had made a mistake, and it had taken Miya a second or two before he turned to him to say, better luck next time, Omi. His tone had been the same, the mocking tilt to his mouth had been the same, the glint to his teeth had been the same. But one second, two—maybe even three.

He knew that he was probably out of his mind to feel tripped up by the fact that Miya hadn’t immediately jumped to goad him, but it was just weird.

“No, he’s not,” said Kiyoomi.

“Why not?”

“Why would he be?”

“I don’t know!” said Riko. “Maybe you were having another sleepover.”

He heard his brother cough in the background. Before Kiyoomi could say anything to that, Riko continued:

“My friend Sana said she ate at his brother’s weird restaurant when she was visiting her grandma. Do you think he would have seen her there?”

“I don’t know,” said Kiyoomi.

“Well,” said his niece, sounding out her words as if to let them linger, “could you see?”

And Yasuaki’s voice said, “Alright. We were calling to say congrats, but I think it’s time to go brush our teeth.”

“Oh, yeah. Uncle Kiyoomi, it’s important that you do that.”

“Right,” said Kiyoomi. “Thanks for calling.”

“You’re welcome.” Riko said, “Will you ask Atsumu if—I’m going! I was just saying—”

“Goodnight,” Kiyoomi said.

“Okay, goodnight. Ask?”

Yasuaki—caught between a sigh—said, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah,” said Kiyoomi.

He was left alone in his room. They were leaving that night. Kiyoomi was all packed and ready to go, and now it was a matter of waiting for the optimal time to head down to the lobby. Not too early that he had to sit on his hands and wait—not too late that he was rushing. He would give it a good ten minutes.

His phone buzzed.

manami (20:49): Respectable work on this evening

manami (20:49): I bet you’ll get that promotion soon !

kiyoomi (20:50): hopefully not

manami (20:50): Hahaha

He heard a door open in the hallway and someone chatting on the phone—Barnes, from the sound of it. Thin walls. It’d get this place knocked down a level on his hotel list.

…

Kiyoomi had never been the nervous type.

Motoya would needle him for saying it, but he could recall only a handful of moments when he had been truly gripped by nerves, by anxiety. He would never pretend that his thoughts couldn’t be obsessive; but apprehension had always manifested as frustration, worry being ground out by annoyance and apathy.

(There were moments, of course. Moments where he stood in a hallway when he was ten, the summer air thick at the back of his throat.)

Kiyoomi had stood in front of the door to an apartment. And he was—not nervous, no, but there was an uncertainly throwing his mind for a loop that left him uncharacteristically hesitant.

(And if he was nervous, he was a teenager, here, just a couple of months short of graduating high school, so he thought it was rather warranted.)

Manami did not appear to be coping any better than him. He looked at her; she looked at him. Her face was a mask, and he was sure the same could be said of his own. This was still in those early days of figuring out a dynamic with the both of his siblings. Someone was always left out in a trio, it felt like; at least then it was Yasuaki who was the odd one out, Manami and Kiyoomi joined in their bafflement and not-nerves.

The door to the apartment opened. And there was their brother; his hair was a mess, his face was drawn, and his posture looked especially crooked. Kiyoomi had not seen his brother for a month and a half. To be fair, he had not looked much better before then.

“Hey,” Yasuaki said.

“Hello,” Manami said. Kiyoomi was sure that her eyes—just like his own—were darting behind Yasuaki, taking stock of everything visible behind him.

Their brother had enough energy to roll his eyes, evidently. He propped the door open wider. “Come in,” he said.

It was Kanae’s apartment. Similar to Yasuaki’s, at first glance there was nothing exceptional about it—though the art on the walls certainly added life to the room.

“Friend of hers made those,” he heard, having been caught looking. Yasuaki’s voice was quiet and gruff.

Kiyoomi looked back at his brother. Yasuaki, who was going to sit on the sofa. Manami sucked in a breath.

There was a bassinet right next to the sofa. Inside of the bassinet was, naturally, a sleeping baby. A baby named Nakanishi Riko.

He couldn’t remember the last time he saw a baby, let alone one so young. His middle school coach once brought around his toddler-aged son—a teacher once showed them photos after coming back from leave.

It had to be Kuniko. They had visited when she was a couple of months old, he was pretty sure; he remembered how high-strung Motoya had been.

The baby’s face was a smudge in the way that all baby’s faces were. Her eyes were scrunched closed. Kiyoomi knew he must have been imagining it, but the wrinkles in her forehead looked like Yasuaki’s scowl.

Say something, said his brain.

Kiyoomi didn’t say anything. Manami didn’t say anything.

Yasuaki shook his head. “Sit,” he said.

They sat.

“Kanae’s passed out.”

Kiyoomi didn’t say anything. Manami didn’t say anything.

Yasuaki sighed. He rubbed at the skin between his eyebrows. “You can talk.”

Manami’s mouth opened. She looked over towards the baby. She didn’t say anything.

“She’s fine,” Yasuaki said. “Just be quiet.”

“Congrats,” Manami finally said; Kiyoomi nodded. She held out the nice gift envelope they had picked out at the store. “Here. From us.”

Yasuaki took it gingerly. “Thanks,” he said, and cutting through a smog of exhaustion might have been amusement. “I told you not to.”

“Ah,” Manami said. “Well.”

They had originally planned on getting an actual gift. After spending thirty minutes wandering through the baby section of a department store, Manami had turned to Kiyoomi, her face carefully blank, and had just said, Envelope. Let’s pick out an envelope.

Eyes lingering on the bassinet, Kiyoomi said, “Things are fine?”

“Neither of us sleep and I put a thing of chicken breast away in the cabinet yesterday,” Yasuaki said. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

His brother didn’t look any different from just a handful of months ago. Kiyoomi only saw his brother however often—had only started seeing him again less than a year ago—so it wasn’t as if he had much to go off of. But Yasuaki hadn’t changed so melodramatically since his child entered the world that there were physical markers of it.

That might’ve made it weirder.

They stumbled through some sort of conversation. Kiyoomi and Manami clearly didn’t know what to say and Yasuaki’s sleep deprivation became more apparent the longer he talked. At one point, the baby squirmed a little in her sleep, releasing a quiet, gasping noise, and it put Kiyoomi and his sister on edge enough for their brother to laugh. It was still a mean noise.

Yasuaki stood.

Manami said, “Where are you going.”

“Need to pee,” he said.

“You’re leaving us.”

“I will be two minutes,” Yasuaki said. “I would do this if you weren’t here. You think you can manage?”

Manami did not appear to be particularly mollified. After a moment, though, she nodded. Yasuaki turned to Kiyoomi next.

“Fine,” he said, and Yasuaki rolled his eyes.

Kiyoomi let his eyes wander in his brother’s absence. He took another look at the abstract paintings hanging above the sofa. There was a full dish rack in the kitchen. He was wearing a new pair of sneakers. Kanae’s apartment had a green rug.

There was the baby. Small yet unavoidable. She was wearing peach-colored pajamas that covered her feet.

She was very tiny. Too tiny. The world was very large. That’s where it started, maybe.

The refrigerator whirred.

“Huh,” Manami said.

And Kiyoomi looked at his sister and watched her face. And something had changed, then.

(Later, when Yasuaki was back, Riko had startled awake, cries shrill. And their brother had gone to pick her up. And nothing had seemingly physically changed in his brother’s appearance, and his actions weren’t well-practiced, yet, tentative and wobbly, but yes—things were different now.)

…

After the game with the Rockets, practice returned as it did. Routine returned as it did.

Kiyoomi was the last one out of the locker room that day after lingering to speak with Foster about their plans for a new defensive rotation. Inunaki had stayed back as well, but he was a man of few possessions and could be surprisingly quick about packing up for the day.

He wasn’t complaining. It was aasy to avoid conversations or burning eyes if they weren’t there in the first place.

Kiyoomi sighed. He walked through the hallway, hands in his pockets.

He’d ask about the coat… next week. That seemed prudent. If Miya didn’t say anything, he’d ask about the coat next week. Especially if he continued to be in a mood.

He pushed his way through the facility’s doors, sunlight spearing his vision.

There was someone waiting just outside.

He, once again, did not jump when immediately met with Bokuto’s piercing gaze. He was better than that.

He still said, “What. Problem.” He corrected himself: “What is your problem?”

Bokuto didn’t say anything at first. He was wearing his headphones—Kiyoomi heard faint rock music. He was wearing a neat, knitted scarf that served in great contrast to the rest of his usual demeanor. It had been a gift from his friend Akaashi, Kiyoomi was sure he had mentioned once.

A beat. Bokuto blinked. Kiyoomi stared.

“I bet you’ll figure it out!” was what Bokuto eventually said, voice abundantly louder than necessary. The headphones could only take half of the blame, given that speaking too loudly was the man’s default mode.

Before Kiyoomi could say what or literally what or what or walk away, Bokuto walked away as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Kiyoomi watched his head bob along to his music until he disappeared around the corner.

…next week. Sure.

Chapter Text

There might’ve been signs.

Yes. There were signs. Signs that he would go back over again and again with a fine tooth comb: wondering, ruminating, spiraling. He and Manami at lunch—Manami saying I don’t remember—a gap that he couldn’t close—adult business—silence over the phone line. Losing time. Manami was busy—Kiyoomi was busy—his sister pulling away. Something there but not there—a ghost on Chiba-san’s porch—explicit but invisible, looming yet incorporeal.

Yasuaki moving to Kyoto Prefecture with Kanae might’ve put Kiyoomi closer to his brother than their sister, but it wasn’t as if he visited on his own all that much. He had still been in the habit of seeing his brother only with their sister present.

Two weeks after that particular game with Motoya and that walk around campus, he had seen his sister while he was briefly in the city. It had been the first time in a while that they had seen each other face to face; Manami didn’t look any different—other than a new hairstyle involved a few square barrettes—but Kiyoomi had become acutely aware of that silence that now occasionally existed between them.

“I’m glad you got to see each other,” she said.

They were at a specialty tea lounge. Kiyoomi couldn’t claim to like tea all too much. He knew the same could be said of his sister. The floral oolong he had ordered was decent enough.

Kiyoomi nodded. He tilted his cup and tracked the ripples that it made. Then he said, “He mentioned something.”

“Oh?”

“Takeuchi-san,” he said, “heard something about your work.”

“Oh?” Manami said again, and had he been imagining how her curiosity now seemed to possess a weight? An edge?

He nodded. “What’s that about?” Kiyoomi asked, hoping that a typical bluntness could keep the conversation moving. He took a sip.

But Manami just looked over at him, finger tapping on the table, and said, “It’s just a thing with a client of ours. Nothing too exciting, I’m afraid.”

He placed his cup back down. And he said, “You’re doing it again.”

“What?”

“You’re just—you’re doing it again,” Kiyoomi said.

Manami sat up in her seat. “I don’t know what you mean,” she continued. “Just putting in a few extra hours at work.”

“I read that—”

“You read?” Manami said.

“An article,” Kiyoomi said. “About the client—”

“I don’t—Kiyoomi,” his sister said, and she was—maybe she was thrown off, then. “It’s just a work thing. I don’t know why you’re being weird about it.”

And Kiyoomi said, “I’m not the one who’s—”

He didn’t finish. The space between him and Manami at a table had always felt like a bridge.

And yet here it was, disjointed, ill-fitting, at odds.

The article talked about a client of their law firm who had gotten caught in some particularly tangled legal trouble. It didn’t go into specifics. It was rather sanitized, all things considered. The client worked for a large tech company.

“I’ve been working more,” his sister said, tone slow and pronounced. “There was an—issue with a client of ours, and I’ve just been working a lot. That’s all there is.”

And he felt too old to also feel so petulant.

…

“—but it’s pretty fucking cool. She’s one of the top-ranked high school journalists in the prefecture.”

“I’m studying.”

“I always knew she could do it.”

“You told me you would study.”

“I like, helped her learn how to read.”

Kiyoomi shut his book. With emphasis.

Across from him, Yamamoto paused. Then he said, “Shit dude, my bad. Have I just been talking?”

Yes, he made his face say.

“Like, my bad,” Yamamoto said again.

His… friendship with Yamamoto had developed without much of Kiyoomi’s input. That day, Yamamoto had asked him why he was going to the library, Kiyoomi had said to go over something for his ethics in film class, Yamamoto had said oh that’s cool or whatever, Kiyoomi had said you have to actually study and if you don’t I’ll leave, and Yamamoto had said of course, bro.

Kiyoomi couldn’t pretend like his college coursework was all that vigorous in comparison to what he had dealt with in the past. He certainly didn’t have to deal with a Kutaragi-sensei anymore. It was his final year of university, though, and most of his classes were genuinely interesting at this level.

(His parents had mostly given up on giving him grief about his choice of study, though in the offhanded times when he spoke to his mother, she occasionally brought it up. Motoya liked to call him pretentious.)

“Sorry,” Yamamoto said. “It’s just like—I’m proud of her. Big brother shit, right?”

And to Kiyoomi’s horror, it looked like he might’ve started to tear up, covering it up with loud, obnoxious coughing into his fist.

“No,” Kiyoomi said, mapping out an exit route. They had been able to grab a table in the corner, tucked away behind a few rows of shelves. He could dip into the philosophy section and come out of the Edo history aisle, surely.

But Yamamoto leaned back in his chair, blinking rapidly. “I forgot,” he said. “You’re the youngest in your family, right?”

Kiyoomi looked back. “Why do you know that.”

“You’ve totally talked about it before.”

“No I haven’t.”

“I don’t know. It’s come up.” Yamamoto squinted over at him. “That like, fits.”

“No,” Kiyoomi said, and his face said No, what are you even talking about.

“Yeah, man. Intuition. You totally read youngest.”

“How?”

Yamamoto had gotten his ears pierced last year. His studs appeared like little mirrors under the library’s fluorescent lighting as he titled his head in appraisal. “I don’t know.”

This wasn’t the first time Yamamoto had said something that made little sense to Kiyoomi’s ears. He had a habit of it. But maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the pedantic vocabulary of his study guide, maybe it was the person across the room who had been sneezing every few minutes, but Kiyoomi opened his book again and resolved to pretend that Yamamoto wasn’t even there.

…

In the December of his final year at university, they had been planning to go to Yasuaki’s over a weekend. Supposed to, that was, until his sister had to cancel last minute due to a deposition she needed to travel for.

He wasn’t doubting that it was true. Manami also didn’t like to change plans last minute. None of them liked plans to be changed last minute. Manami claimed that they didn’t have to reschedule for her sake.

There was something odd about it, maybe, and it wasn’t just because it would have left Kiyoomi alone with his brother.

His brother, who had called him then.

“You don’t have to come,” was what Yasuaki said. “I mean, if you want, you still can, but I’m giving you an out.”

This was several years after they had first reunited, after all. They were no longer quite strangers, and they might have been… closer, maybe, than before, but routine was routine. He rarely saw Yasuaki without their sister there, and when he did, it was typically for Riko’s benefit.

Maybe the fact that Yasuaki had given him an out at all was a signifier of their relationship—that hazy conversation in a hotel room.

He had said, “Riko’s alright with it?”

“She’s a little cut up, but sometimes shit changes. She can learn to deal with it.”

Kiyoomi did not like the idea of disappointing his niece. He also couldn’t pretend like taking a weekend to himself—just himself—wasn’t appealing, even if something was gnawing at him.

Yasuaki asked, “Have you talked to her recently?”

“You would know,” said Kiyoomi.

“Not Riko,” said his brother. “Manami.”

“We talk,” Kiyoomi said. “Why?”

“Like, talk.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, even though he did, kind of, in a way that was never actually spoken aloud. Of course it would be Yasuaki who would go and run his mouth, no matter how much different he was as compared to when he was a teenager.

“Has she seemed like, alright to you recently? That’s what I mean.”

A silence fell over the line while Kiyoomi thought. It did not feel so out of place with his brother. No, it might’ve been expected.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Has she just felt—off, at all?”

Kiyoomi thought about it often, certainly. The more time that passed, the more apparent it became. But it was his last year of university, and now more than ever, sometimes time slipped away.

He said again, “I don’t know.” And he said, “We talk. She’s busy.”

“I know. I guess—shit, I don’t know. She’s always been weird.”

(Yasuaki had changed. And what did it say about Kiyoomi, then, to have that kneejerk reaction of—of—you’re jealous, said Motoya.)

…

Once, when they were children:

This was after Yasuaki left, but only just barely. This was after a trip to the movies, but only just barely. This was a Kiyoomi who still lingered near the top of the stairs to hear what was said just out of his reach.

It was the evening. Manami had gotten home. He slipped out of his room to hear them in the middle of a conversation already.

He heard his mother say, “—I just wish you would take this more seriously.”

And he heard his sister say, “I am. Taking it seriously.”

“You’re not in high school anymore.”

“I know that,” said Manami.

Even from where he stood, Kiyoomi could hear his mother sigh.

After a moment, she said:

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“What?” said Manami.

“Don’t be coy.”

“They’re earrings. Lots of people get them done. What?”

“If I have to tell you, then clearly—”

“It’s not a big deal. I don’t know what you want.”

“I want you to start taking things seriously. For once.”

“Classes have just started. I got into the school in the first place. I don’t—”

His sister trailed off.

Their mother said, “With everything that happened with your brother last year, I would just hope that you would have the sense—”

“Why even bring up Yasuaki—”

“—have the sense to know better. If you don’t want to be seen as a child, Manami, you have to stop acting like one.”

And there was a bolt of silence. And then the rapid pounding of footsteps on the stairs, his sister hissing out an Unbelievable, and then there was Manami appearing in front of him.

There was a terrible expression on her face. She almost didn’t see him there. When she did, her feet stuttered to a halt, her eyes widening.

And Kiyoomi didn’t know what to say. But he figured it would come to him. He was eleven and not ten now. He would know exactly what to say to make Manami laugh.

But his sister only straightened out her shoulders and said, “It’s not good to eavesdrop, Kiyoomi.”

And then she disappeared into her room.

.

..

…

..

.

It had not started with anything. It had happened.

They had progressed into the new year, and they had seen each other early in January for Riko’s birthday, and was Manami acting strange? Was she off? Was her smile a smidge too clean? She said that work was going well and that was that. He looked over at her at dinner and saw her glancing out the window, her plate relatively untouched in front of her.

And there were signs, certainly, but the truth, of course, the truth was—

It was the end of February that year. Kiyoomi hadn’t heard from his sister in a little more than a week. With only a few months of university left, things got away from him. He had chewed on this fact for a few days. His brother’s words had been pacing around in his head. He would be going out of town the next morning for a college tournament. He had already done his packing, and now he debated.

And since when did he ever have to debate over what to say to Manami?

He sent her a link to a pop-up restaurant that’d be in Shinjuku next month. It was benign, tame, and a placid attempt at starting a conversation, but it was the type of thing that Kiyoomi would send to his sister.

…there was no reason to be weird about it, he thought. It didn’t need to be given a name.

Not yet, at least. Not over a text.

Manami’s response times had grown longer the older that they got. Even when he was younger, she was busy with school or internships or work, and so there had never been an expectation for her to respond with immediacy.

And despite all of that, Kiyoomi sent his sister the link, he put his phone down so that he could put away the dishes that were left out to dry earlier, and not a moment later, his phone buzzed.

manami (18:04): Looks neat

It wasn’t unheard of for her to text him back so quickly, he figured. And they had a habit of messaging each other in short, continuous bursts, even if the initial response time varied. It was the evening. She was likely just home.

Kiyoomi (18:06): i’ll be in town before it closes

manami (18:06): We’ll have to make plans

Kiyoomi (18:08): work alright this week?

manami (18:08): Oh yes the usual

He had achieved what he wanted to achieve. He texted his sister. She responded quicker than he thought she would. He needed to put away the dishes. His alarm was already set for tomorrow morning to give him plenty of time to get over to campus.

Kiyoomi stared down at his phone.

Kiyoomi (18:11): are things good

Kiyoomi (18:11): in general

(Not a name, not even legs to stand on. That had never been how it worked between them—only rarely, only when pulled out with pliers, only when one or both of them were angry or crying. A pond, his childhood bedroom.)

He nearly didn’t send it. The second message was tacked on hastily as if the first had been cast off into the void between them without him even meaning it to.

It didn’t matter. His sister’s response was swift:

manami (18:12): What’s this about

Kiyoomi (18:13): it’s just been a while just wanted to check in

manami (18:14): Did Yasuaki talk to you?

what, he nearly said back, but Kiyoomi paused, thoughts whirling. Because it wasn’t as if there was no basis to Manami’s question, and it wasn’t as if Kiyoomi had any particular desire to lie to his sister.

The understanding of these things didn’t make the words fall together any easier in his mind. Not when he was still unable to quite categorize what that phone call with Yasuaki had actually entailed, all abstractions and vague hand-wavings. Has she seemed off?

Kiyoomi didn’t need to come up with a response, evidently, because his phone buzzed before he could type anything. It was his sister.

Calling him. Manami was calling him. Kiyoomi paused. Then he answered.

And:

“—I’m fine, Kiyoomi,” said his sister’s voice. Said his sister.

This wasn’t quite right. This wasn’t how he wanted this to go, or how it was supposed to go. Kiyoomi pressed the receive button and brought the phone to his ear and he prepared himself to speak and he did all of that on autopilot. He found himself thrust into a conversation he didn’t even realize he was having.

(Sakusas didn’t get nervous. So Kiyoomi couldn’t have been struck by nerves, then, when something wrangled for control over his words.)

“I didn’t say—I’m not saying you aren’t,” Kiyoomi said, and it was easier to be irritated, maybe; to latch onto the vexation of being misinterpreted.

Before he could continue, she asked, “Did Yasuaki talk to you?”

This time, he did say, “What?”

“Did you talk to Yasuaki?”

“He just wanted to know if we had talked.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know,” said Kiyoomi. And why did it feel like he was fumbling for his words? “Just—if we had talked.”

“Well, you can tell him I’m fine. Because I’m—I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”

This, he nearly said back. What is this? But Kiyoomi found himself glancing around him as if it would give him an answer—something to say. He saw his kitchen and he saw dishes. The sight of the task he should have been doing left him bizarrely reeling.

He couldn’t tell where his sister was. It wasn’t like one of those calls from her walk home where he could hear traffic behind her voice, or the rare time they talked when she was out, and there was some blur of noise accompanying static. There wasn’t anything. There was absence. There was that silence and his sister’s voice.

His sister’s voice, showing too much—too rattled, too expressive, too stark against the void between them. That disjointed void. It wasn’t right at all.

“I’m just asking,” he found himself saying. “It’s just been a second. I don’t know—”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want me to do.

He said, “Are you at home?”

“I’m fine. Yes. I’m fine.”

He said, “Okay.”

“You can tell him I’m fine,” Manami said. “And Chichi too. I don’t know why—she’s just pissed. I don’t know why now. So just—tell her it’s fine. Okay?”

“Manami,” Kiyoomi said.

“Okay?”

Sakusa Kiyoomi was less than a month out from twenty-two. He lived alone and had a steady grasp on his future career.

He stood in his apartment. He glanced at the dishes. His free hand gripped the edge of the counter.

“Okay,” he said.

…

Kiyoomi had not gone on to tell his brother that Manami was fine. Obviously.

The phone call with his sister ended nearly as abruptly as it had started. She had been the one to hang up. He remembered Manami’s temper from those months they spent locked in a frigid stand-off as children over the movie theater, but it so rarely showed itself anymore. Manami had sounded pissed, and she had sounded upset, but more than anything, she had just sounded— off, maybe.

So after a minute of staring at his phone, he texted Yasuaki, and he told his brother that there was something very not fine about their sister. And for the second time that night, he was met with a phone call from one of his siblings with little preamble.

In his ear, his brother’s voice said, “What do you mean? Did you talk to her?”

“Yes. Did you?”

Did Yasuaki talk to you, she said, and it had felt like an accusation. Sharp—and maybe a little paranoid—but pointed in a way that felt purposeful.

“I spoke to her last week,” said Yasuaki, his pace slow. It felt grating. “She wasn’t really budging. What’d she do?”

And Kiyoomi didn’t know quite how to answer. The phone call with his sister had only ended up being a handful of minutes, if even. It barely even constituted a conversation, he imagined. Especially when its focus had been so stalwart and singleminded. He relayed what he could.

“Chihiro?” his brother repeated. “What?”

Chichi, Manami had said. He had never heard her use that nickname before. His brother seemed to recognize it without question. “I don’t know,” he said, and he had said it many times that night. “She didn’t explain.”

“And she said she’s home?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she sound like—like is she fucking on something?”

Kiyoomi said, “What? No—I don’t know. No.” Words. Find your words. He wasn’t a child. “She just seemed—no.”

“Alright. I’ll talk to her.”

“You—”

Kiyoomi didn’t finish.

It didn’t seem like a good idea, instinctively. The last thing he needed was a cross Manami on his tail because he had gone and snitched to their brother. It wasn’t as if he had gone straight to Yasuaki after all those little moments before: lunch, the silence, and awkward gap.

Perhaps he was being overly cautious. Perhaps he was caught up in something. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

“I’ll talk to her,” said Yasuaki. “Thanks for letting me know,” said Yasuaki. “I’ll talk to you after, alright?”

And it felt like there was something in his brother’s tone. Yasuaki’s edges only ever softened around his daughter, and that didn’t change, now. But he spoke as if he understood something that made something caught between irritation and anger and anxiety leapfrog beneath Kiyoomi’s skin.

Kiyoomi had never hated his brother. He was annoyed frequently by Yasuaki, certainly, but that wasn’t a unique thing at all.

He had never been afraid of him, either. Even in those moments where the difference in their age and height had been so apparent: the shadow of a teenage boy looming over him in a hallway. Yasuaki’s childhood anger had been real, thrashing, and tangible—but even as a child, Kiyoomi, in the most rudimentary of ways, had been able to see its feeble underbelly.

Perhaps he looked back at himself as a teenager and saw fear, though. That year Yasuaki came back. Here, that was still closer than not, no matter how far away that high school felt. No matter how far away it was supposed to feel. No matter how much taller Kiyoomi had grown.

A boy clinging to the refuge brought by an umbrella. A turbulent storm. They were a stubborn lot, the Sakusas.

Something cold and resigned settled over Kiyoomi’s chest.

“Okay,” he said.

…

He didn’t have the exact details as to what happened next.

Kiyoomi knew that he put away those dishes, finally. He checked through all of the things he had packed for the tournament. He read over the beat sheet that a screenwriting peer from the film club sent him. He read it again. He walked back into the kitchen. He walked back to his room. He tried to sit down with a historical non-fiction book twentieth-century industrialization. It was too dry. It lacked texture to ground him. He walked back to the kitchen.

He debated texting his sister. What was that. What’s wrong. Are you alright?

He didn’t.

Eventually, his brother got back to him.

Yasuaki was going to go into Tokyo that night. He had talked to Manami. Manami, he agreed, did not seem to be fine. He was going into the city that night to see Manami. Their sister.

“—she’s at home,” said Yasuaki, and they were talking over a phone call again because evidently, Kiyoomi had too many questions for his brother to deal with over text. “I should be there before nine, I think. I talked to Chihiro, and she’s going to head over in the meantime.”

Yasuaki was going to Tokyo that night. By nine. His brain latched on and couldn’t let go. Because Yasuaki making such a sudden decision represented an urgency, an acknowledgment of that offness—something that made Kiyoomi feel very poignantly restless.

He asked, “What happened?”

“I don’t know if it’s anything specifically,” said his brother. “Yet, I guess. She didn’t exactly say. But I think—she’s burnt out. Chihiro says they got into an argument about it a couple weeks ago.”

His brother, like all of them, wasn’t all too good a liar. And Yasuaki wasn’t lying, maybe, but it was not dissimilar to how conversations between his siblings could sometimes feel like they were working off of context and a basis that Kiyoomi was oblivious to.

Yasuaki said, “I’m going to go see how she’s doing, and we’re gonna go from there.”

“I have a tournament tomorrow,” Kiyoomi said, thinking, “but I can take off.”

It wasn’t advisable, he imagined, and he could see his coaches being annoyed, but it wasn’t like he could imagine trying to play right now anyways.

On the other end of the line, Yasuaki did something that sounded like a sigh.

“I don’t know—”

“I can,” Kiyoomi said. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not—listen,” Yasuaki said.

Kiyoomi said, “What? What is it?”

And then his brother said:

“It’s not about you doing anything.” He pictured his brother tearing a hand down his face—rubbing furiously at his eyes. “What I’m saying is like—you haven’t done anything, okay. She’d just—she’s weird about this shit.”

“How,” Kiyoomi said, sharp, sharp, sharp.

“I think there are things,” Yasuaki said, “that she doesn’t want you to see. And it’s not because you like, did anything. She’s just—I think she has this image in her head,” he said, “of how you see her, and she wants to like. Keep to that.”

“I don’t care,” Kiyoomi said. “She knows that I—I don’t care what she’s like.”

Kiyoomi was a self-centered person, and he prioritized his own needs, and he didn’t like messes or complications, and he liked routine, and none of that mattered. Not with his sister. He needed to see her with his own eyes.

Yasuaki said, “I’m not saying it’s like, great, obviously, but I just dunno if that’s shit we want to get into right now.”

His apartment felt too still around him. For the umpteenth time that evening, Kiyoomi’s words existed beyond him.

So what, he nearly said. Kiyoomi could be mean. Yasuaki spent the first half of his life mean. He could be, too.

He didn’t.

His brother said:

“I’m going to go over tonight. You can come up to Kumiyama. Tonight, if you want. Or tomorrow. We’re still figuring out shit with Riko’s schedule since I’ll be gone, but we’ll figure it out.”

Kiyoomi snapped, “I don’t need you to—”

Mean, mean. His voice went nowhere.

“Tonight or tomorrow,” Yasuaki said. “Whatever works.”

…

Kiyoomi had driven up to Kumiyama the next morning. Most of the time, the drive to the town where his brother lived was wandering and lackluster. This time was no different. The mundanity of it felt offensive; he might’ve just been sleep-deprived.

He had texted his coaches the night before about a family emergency that required his attention. In a spur-of-the-moment impulse that he regretted immediately afterward, Kiyoomi had texted Yamamoto, as well, and Yamamoto had immediately responded with you know I’m always here for you man like literally always man I’ll kick the shit out of anyone for you man. Seriously tho just let me know if i can do anything.

Kiyoomi had wanted to text his cousin, because there were so few things in his life that—even now, with the distance—Motoya wasn’t given access to. But towards the tail end of their final phone call of the night, Yasuaki had told him to keep things on the down-low for now.

(In any other situation, the next person he’d have turned to, naturally, would’ve been his sister.)

Thanks, was all he had sent back to Yamamoto. His brother texted him that night when he got into the city, closer to ten than nine. He was staying over at Manami’s for the night—they’d see what would happen in the morning. He did not say specifically allude to how Manami was doing, other than that he was with her and she was safe.

And so Kiyoomi was in Kumiyama. And so he had brought over the same bag he was going to use for his tournament—his coaches had been understanding if not obviously terse—and it occurred only as he rolled into the parking lot of Yasuaki’s building that no, he probably didn’t need his uniform and compression sleeves and foam roller for a simple trip to Kyoto Prefecture.

Kiyoomi turned off his car. He sat in his car. It was the morning. If you had asked him twenty-four hours earlier what he would be doing now, he never would have guessed this. He checked his phone for the umpteenth time that day to see if his brother had texted him yet. He had not texted him yet.

It was Kanae who answered the door. Obviously. The indifference she so often carried in her face was a welcome sight; there had never been anything particularly melodramatic about Kanae, and that didn’t change now, regardless of their circumstances.

She looked at him for just a moment—nothing longer—before she said, “Morning. Come in.”

He could not think of a single other time where he was alone with the Kanae, just the two of them. In a different situation, he might’ve been struck by the obtrusiveness of it all. This was not a different situation.

Kiyoomi’s attention felt flighty and his palms felt clammy in a way that they hadn’t since he was a child. Kanae padded over into the kitchen area. She seemed to be wearing her pajamas, still.

“You want something to drink?”

He stared.

“Water,” she said.

“Sure,” he said.

He was standing by the door still.

She looked at him again. “Take a seat,” she said. “He tell you about my work today?”

Kiyoomi set down his bag. He took off his shoes and his coat. He took a seat at the table. He said, “Yes.”

Kanae had been off yesterday, conveniently. According to his brother, she was supposed to go into work in the afternoon today and wouldn’t get back until late tonight. Riko got off of school not long before her shift started.

She set down a glass in front of him. “My mom’ll come over in the evening, but it’ll be a couple hours,” she said. “Will you be good until then?”

He grabbed the glass, but he didn’t move it. “Yes,” Kiyoomi said.

Kanae eyed him. Then she sighed.

She pulled out a chair across from him and sat. “You don’t have to play babysitter if you don’t want to. And gotta be honest, I want to make sure my kid’s going to be alright.” She said, “I’ll probably end up taking tomorrow off. And I have a friend who might be able to swing by. She’s on maternity leave.”

The glass was cool beneath his fingers. “I can do it.” He wasn’t completely useless.

Kanae’s chair creaked beneath her. “I’ll get her set up with something to eat,” she said, and that was an answer as any, he figured. “She’s pretty thrown off by everything, but she’s excited to have you here, at least.”

And she said, “If things aren’t alright, you let me know, yeah? I’m serious.”

He nodded.

She considered him for a final time. Kanae fiddled with an object in her lap out of sight that crinkled before she popped something into her mouth. A packet of gum was set on the table.

Kiyoomi didn’t know Kanae well enough to read her face. There was a casual tilt to her posture. Her arms settled onto the table alongside the gum. She had freckles that lingered around her eyes.

She had never stuck him as the awkward type. He wondered if this was awkward.

“You good taking the floor out here?” she finally said. “With the futon.”

“Yes,” he said. It was what he usually did when he stayed the night.

Kanae chewed. She said, “I have a couple errands to run this morning before we pick the kid up. You can come if you want. Or stay.”

He nodded. He felt the need to check his phone.

She sighed.

“Things will figure themselves out,” she said. “And if they don’t, you’ll figure them out after that.”

Kanae was not necessarily similar to his brother, but there was a reason they were able to get along so well. She wasn’t the type to mince words, and she had never been overtly expressive, though he supposed he only saw her in a limited capacity.

She wasn’t the type to ask him if he was alright, was what he was saying. Whether or not it was because of their lukewarm relationship or an uninterest in delving into more sentimental musings, he couldn’t quite say, but it might’ve been another thing he was grateful for.

He nodded.

…

Kanae had to go by the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner, the local vet’s office to pick up some medication for her parent’s yappy dog for her mother, and the post office to drop off a package to send to her sister, who lived in Nagaoka.

When he made a noise that sounded like a laugh after she mentioned she’d need to buy more stamps while they were there, she glanced over but didn’t say anything more.

Kiyoomi and Kanae didn’t talk much as they went about her day. He felt as if he was constantly being confronted with the oddity of him being there, agitated by that same restlessness as he watched Kanae scan the shelf for the right brand of chili oil. If he had stuck to his normal schedule, he would be in transit for their away game, still, listening to an audiobook or looking out the window or trying to throw off Yamamto’s attempts at small talk.

And yet he was here. An awkward shadow. He checked his phone again as Kanae snagged a glass jar and chucked it into her basket.

The message from his brother didn’t arrive until they were on their way back to the apartment. He was holding the medication from the vet’s office in his lap since it was apparently stupidly expensive and my mom’s neurotic about this shit. They were turning a corner that Kiyoomi was dimly aware of being just a few blocks from Yasuaki and Kanae’s place when his phone buzzed.

yasuaki (12:02): As a preface nothing happened but we’re going to the hospital, she’s the same as last night for the most part. Not gonna get into specifics here but it seems like she hasn’t been taking all that great care of herself I’ll keep you posted

Kiyoomi stared at his phone.

His thoughts immediately went to his grandfather’s care home, as ill-fitting a comparison it might’ve been. Stuffy, constraining, and littered with people trying to get in your business—it was the exact type of place his sister would despise. He knew that much, at least.

He felt eyes on him. Kiyoomi read the message out loud instead of thinking about how he would respond. Kanae took them through an intersection.

She said, finally, “Those places aren’t perfect, but they should have someone who can help her out. You can focus on that.”

He didn’t ask how she’d know. He didn’t voice aloud how some part of this felt the same way that it often did with his siblings, with his brother—that context, that knowledge out of grasp. What did Kanae know? What didn’t Kiyoomi know?

okay just keep me updated, was what he wrote back to his brother. They pulled back into the apartment complex’s lot.

Kanae asked if he wanted something to eat. He wasn’t very hungry. She set a protein bar in front of him without a word. She disappeared into the back of the apartment for around an hour. He tried to read. He didn’t get any more messages. He knew because he checked.

Kanae sat on the building’s stairs, chewing on a new piece of gum. It was cold. She was wearing a hat. Kiyoomi stood on the asphalt, leaning back against a concrete pillar that guarded the bottom of the steps.

Kanae said, “We told her that her aunt wasn’t feeling well and Yasuaki was going to check to make sure she was alright, but nothing specific. She couldn’t stop talking about a friend of hers who was out with the flu last week.” She rolled a metallic wrapper into a ball between her fingers.

He said, “That sounds like her.”

It got a snort out of Kanae, at least. “Yeah,” she said, and then she stood, shoving her hands into her pockets.

Riko appeared on the sidewalk with a gaggle of other kids. She carried a fluorescent orange flag, waving it above her head despite a lack of cars around them to alert. There was an adult accompanying the children. He waved to Kanae; Kanae waved back.

His niece spotted them. Her face lit up. She started to run, movements disjointed because of her bag and coat, before she stopped, ran back, and handed the flag over to the adult guide. She resumed her quest, not stopping until she had collided against her mother’s side.

“Hey, bug,” Kanae said. “You got a visitor.”

Not a second later, Kiyoomi was being given the same treatment. Riko, voice muffled against his coat, said, “—I knew you were gonna be here because my mom said so but it’s still so weird that you’re here!”

She pulled away. Her glasses were crooked. He reached out to adjust them.

Riko said, looking back to Kanae, “Is Daddy back?”

“Not quite.” Upon Riko’s deflation, she continued, “He’s still hanging out with your aunt to make sure she’s alright.”

Riko still frowned, expression severe, but she nodded. “Is he making her soup?”

“Soup?”

“Aoi said he ate soup while he was sick, so that’s good probably. Dad’s pretty good at making soup, too.”

“Yeah,” Kanae said.

“Well,” said Riko. “That’s good.”

And then she didn’t say anything more. She returned to frowning. For a child who was as zealous as Riko, this was a rather severe change.

Kanae said, “You’ll have to tell your uncle about your day. And show him how to water the plant.”

It worked well enough. His niece perked up, chattering on as they took on the stairs about how a classmate broke one of the pretend clocks they were using to learn how to tell time. Riko shrugged off her backpack while she walked, handing it over to Kanae in return for a key. Kiyoomi followed behind them.

“The minute hand is tall like Dad,” said Riko, reaching up to unlock the door once they reached the apartment. “The hour hand is short like Grandpa. It’s easy to remember.”

“Very smart.” Kanae held the door open for them.

Riko took off her shoes. “...but if Grandma and Grandpa are both short, how did you learn how to tell time?”

“I had a tall neighbor,” Kanae said, and this, apparently, was satisfying to Riko, who nodded before dragging Kiyoomi over to the houseplant sitting in the kitchen window.

…

“Mom should be over by half past six,” said Kanae. She was in her scrubs, pulling her hair back into a ponytail at the door.

Kiyoomi sat at the table next to Riko, who was finishing up an egg salad sandwich. She liked to take bites around the edges to see if she could make a circle. It was circle-like, perhaps.

Jangling her keys, Kanae said, “If there’s a problem, just let me know.” She was looking at him when she said it.

Kiyoomi nodded.

Riko said, “Don’t worry, Mom. I will.”

Kanae huffed. She took one last look at them, said her final goodbyes, and then went on her way.

And Kiyoomi was alone with his niece in his brother’s apartment and would be for at least the next three hours or so, and beyond that, too, presumably. He had at least three days away because of the tournament he was missing. He hadn’t thought out how long his stay would be.

Earlier, before Riko had gotten home, Kanae had gone over any of the numbers that he should call in case of an emergency, just as a precaution. You ever babysat before? she asked, and Kiyoomi didn’t think that all of his experience dealing with idiots at camps or in practice counted. Just in case, she said.

He wasn’t actively concerned about being responsible for Riko or anything. It was just another reminder of his obtrusiveness here.

“I’m finished,” Riko said, and yes, the egg salad sandwich sort-of circle had disappeared. Her legs didn’t touch the ground, so she thumped against the wood when she hit the floor.

Riko picked up her plate and held it out towards him. He stared down at it. She stared up at him.

“I do the scrubbing,” she said. And she stared some more.

“...the plate,” he clarified.

She nodded.

Riko stood on a stepstool next to him at the sink while they washed the dish. He couldn’t say that he had ever spent much alone time with his niece, either. It helped that Riko did most of the talking, filling in the silence by talking about bullfrogs and minute hands and spring cleaning and egg salad sandwiches.

Kanae had pointed out a few things they could do until her mother arrived—the Switch, one of Riko’s workbooks, a board game for her room—but it wasn’t until the plate was drying on the counter that Kiyoomi was truly struck by the fact that he’d need to spend the next four or so hours keeping his niece entertained to some degree.

He was quickly saved from his realization by the niece in question, who disappeared down the hall from the main room with nothing more than an oh! There was the sound of something crashing, perhaps. Kiyoomi, to his credit, paused for only a second before following after her, catching Riko in the process of pushing a plastic tub out of her room.

Trying to push might’ve been more accurate to say, given that the tub was essentially the size of her. When she caught him standing in the hall, she said, “I’ll make you a sandwich.”

Which definitely made sense as an explanation.

The tub, as it turned out, contained piles of mismatched toy food. Apparently much of it had come from one of Riko’s older cousins. Kiyoomi carried the tub over to the main room after Riko tried to push it into the hall, wood scraping against plastic. She pointed at where he should set it down.

And so he did. And so Kiyoomi sat on the couch while his niece dug into the tub to pull out all of the pieces to make an egg salad sandwich. This is my restaurant, she said very proudly. He glanced at his phone.

Riko laughed. He looked up. She was trying to secure a plastic egg between two pieces of wooden bread, and she laughed some more when the egg catapulted itself through the air because of a lack of friction. It rolled beneath the couch.

…

The text said:

yasuaki (17:35): So she’s going to be here overnight at least—could be a few days more beyond that or longer not sure yet. She’s been talking to some people as it stands it’s ultimately her choice

yasuaki (17:35): Here as in the hospital

“Uncle Kiyoomi, it’s snowing.”

Riko’s knees dug into the crevice where the couch arm met the rest of its body. She flopped over its side precariously, her legs thumping against the cushion. She was pointing out the window.

It was, in fact, snowing, though barely at that. Little gray specks that were indiscernible from a gray sky. Whoever had cleaned the window last had left streaks on the glass.

He felt Riko climb off of the couch. “The weather lady didn’t say anything about snow. That’s like um—illegal I think. Do you know?”

Tell me what’s wrong, tell me why I’m here and you’re there, tell me if she’s alright or if she’s going to be alright or—

“Uncle Kiyoomi? Is it illegal?”

She was glancing back towards him.

“Probably,” he said. “Don’t touch the glass.”

Kiyoomi (17:37): okay thanks for letting me know

“It barely snowed at all even though the weather lady said it would. But now it is snowing when she said it wouldn’t be snowing. So I think she probably has to go to jail.”

yasuaki (17:39): You and Riko doing alright?

“You’ll get fingerprints on it,” Kiyoomi said.

Riko’s hands were barely a centimeter away from the window. “I really like it when it snows. But it has to snow a lot. Can we go out?”

“Out?” he said.

“Outside,” she said. “Because of the snow.”

Some of the play food had yet to be cleaned up. He had gotten Riko to stack up her workbooks, at least, even if they were topped off by a glossy apple.

“No,” Kiyoomi said.

Riko frowned. “But it’s snowing. My dad lets me go out when it snows.”

All of Riko’s many requests and asks of him had been relatively reasonable so far. He had been lucky, he supposed. Kiyoomi held no anxieties about an emergency happening, sure, but he was rather concerned by the prospect of upsetting his niece.

“It’s barely snowing,” he said.

“So?”

Kiyoomi said, “There’s nothing on the ground yet, so it’ll just be cold outside.”

Riko seemed to chew on it. She clearly wasn’t completely convinced, as her fingers still lingered next to the window. This morning, she had allegedly left the apartment with a braid; her hair could never be contained for long.

“Snowflakes,” Kiyoomi said, before he even realized he had said it.

“Snowflakes,” Riko parroted.

“You can make snowflakes,” he said.

“But the sky makes snowflakes,” she said.

“With paper.”

“Paper snowflakes?” And then Riko said, “Oh! I know what those are. I think I did those once. At daycare. We can make snowflakes?”

“With paper.”

“I know where that is.” Riko turned with a flourish. The window was saved. “I have my scissors too. I don’t know where my mom or dad’s ones are.”

And she was back to disappearing down the hallway.

Kiyoomi (17:43): she has a lot to say

“Don’t worry,” came Riko’s voice from somewhere else in the apartment. “You can use mine!”

yasuaki (17:43): Yeah that tracks

yasuaki (17:44): I’ll call you later today alright

Indeed, Riko came in with a pile of construction paper from who knew where and a single pair of tiny orange scissors that clattered against the kitchen table. She pulled out a chair that squeaked. “I think my mom has a pair of scissors for her hair in her room but I’m not sure.”

Kiyoomi (17:45): okay

“Here,” said Riko, and there was a blob of orange flapping in his direction. “You can start with this color. But I’ll cut first.”

He took the seat next to her and he took the piece of paper. Riko had picked out a dark blue, and she held it in front of her with two hands, squinting.

Kiyoomi said, “Like this.” And it had been a while—it had been more than a decade—but it didn’t take much to figure out the best way to fold his paper. Riko followed along with pinpoint precision, if only a bit clumsily.

He didn’t know if this would last her until Kanae’s mother arrived, but it would certainly take up most of it. That, or distract her from any of the snow that started to accumulate outside. She seemed pleased enough to start hacking away at her blue paper.

Riko said, “Mom said you were supposed to play a game today. Were you going to win?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Well, I bet they won’t now since you’re really good.”

“Maybe,” he said. They’d be fine, probably.

“But that’s okay,” said his niece. “I’m glad you’re here. Because I showed you how to water the plant and do the dishes. You have to know how to do that.”

And then she was unfurling her snowflake. It was as misshapen around the edges as her sandwich from earlier that day. More chunks were missing out of it than not. A blue, blue snowflake that his niece held up for him to see.

His niece, who said:

“We can give one to Auntie so she feels better.” And then she paused, her face scrunching in contemplation. “But you’re not supposed to go out in the cold if you have a cold. Does this count?”

And she looked to him to ask. There was nothing but earnest curiously on her face if only marred by her confusion. Her hands still held onto her snowflake and its sloppy, well-loved edges.

When he was a child, Kiyoomi always dreamed of being tall and perfect.

“That sounds like a good idea,” he said, and his niece beamed.

…

Kanae’s mother was indeed short. She might’ve been the source of Riko’s chattiness, given that she didn’t stop talking as soon as she stepped into the apartment. You look just like your brother, don’t you, she had said, with a titter that he couldn’t decipher.

“Corn potage, corn potage,” said Riko, dragging Kiyoomi along as she set the table. “Grandma’s corn potage is the best, Uncle Kiyoomi. You’re lucky.”

A pot clambered against the stovetop. “Priscilla’s poor little tiny beautiful heart just can’t handle all the stress of the world. I knew from the moment we first got her. She’s just something special and precious.”

Kiyoomi ate corn potage. He sat at a table with his niece and her grandmother. He checked his phone. Priscilla the dog looked not dissimilar from his neighbor’s when he was a child, based on the pictures he was shown. Nakanishi-san had been keeping the corn in her freezer and finally got a use for it.

His brother called that evening. It was not a particularly long phone call. Yasuaki sounded tired. He didn’t have anything that much different to say than what he had expressed through text earlier. Manami was going to stay the night, but it didn’t seem like they’d force her to stay any longer involuntarily. They’d figure out more tomorrow.

He had stepped outside to answer. The snow had formed a layer of powdery dust on the ground, and the hand holding his phone was starting to numb.

He said, “Can I talk to her?”

A dull white noise muffled Yasuaki’s voice. “She’s with a nurse right now, but I’ll ask. For tomorrow, how about.”

Kiyoomi watched a couple of kids—preteens, maybe—chase each other around in the parking lot with cupfuls of useless snow. He said, “Okay.” The apartment’s front door rattled behind him. “Do you want to talk to Riko?”

“I was going to call Kanae’s mom in a minute, but that sounds alright.”

He sat next to his niece while she spoke in a whirlwind over the phone to his brother about all that she and Kiyoomi had done that day. Kanae texted him not long after to see how things were going. Nakanishi-san helped Riko bathe and get ready for bed.

She did not want to go to bed, evidently. Nakanishi-san got to deal with the bulk of what that entailed and not him, at least, as selfish as it was to say. She had raised several children. He had not. She probably had it covered. Eventually, Riko appeared in the main room in a flurry of purple pajamas and with a righteous declaration that he had to help tuck her in.

There were fairy lights strung up. They offered little more than a faint glow. Riko’s room was messy—every stray paper or stuffed animal or book was an interrupted thought that he could practically read in the air.

Kiyoomi gave his expectant niece a hug from the edge of her bed. Without her glasses, she really did look like his brother.

When Riko was officially settled down, Nakanishi-san rattled on to him in the main room about how she needed to get home to give Priscilla her medicine. This conversation took around thirty minutes. Kanae had mentioned the possibility of her mother leaving after Riko went to bed. It’d be a couple of hours until she was home.

He figured he could handle it. Nakanishi-san seemed caught between lamenting the fate of her dog and sending him poorly hidden dubious glances.

“That girl is dead to the world when she falls asleep,” seemed to be her final judgment, and deeming him competent enough to not burn the apartment down, she left in a flurry.

The snow was coming down in thick, translucent flakes. He could hear the faint whirring of the humidifier from Riko’s room. There were fairy lights in here, too, but they weren’t lit.

In the dim main room of his brother’s apartment, Kiyoomi sat, alone.

…

There were signs. Of course there were signs.

But the truth of the matter—

The truth was that Kiyoomi had been caught unaware. Off guard. He had known that there was something going on with his sister, but hadn’t his frustrations been borne by an inability to grapple with whether or not it was simply because of something that had always been there?

Hadn’t Manami appeared to him as she always had? Could Kiyoomi even claim that he was the one who had changed when here he sat, while Yasuaki and Manami and Kanae moved around in a world beyond him?

Yes—here, wrapped up in his own ineptitude. He didn’t lack the self-awareness to understand how even now, he was burrowing himself away into the nook he had carved out as a child.

Kanae got home a little past midnight. Her footsteps were soft, routine. She saw him on the couch. Her bag and coat were dropped onto the table, her keys hung up on a hook; Kanae didn’t say anything until after she took a seat next to him.

“Everything go alright tonight?” she asked, voice quiet.

“Yeah,” he said.

“That’s good.” And that was that. She lingered for a minute or two, before asking if he needed anything. He was fine. She nodded.

It had been an odd day. A disruptive day. A day he’d remember well. Too well.

And it was a day that passed eventually as all days did.

He eventually fell asleep. He eventually woke up. Riko stumbled into the main room to eat breakfast, Kanae shuffling behind her. Kiyoomi ate breakfast. He responded to a text from Yamamoto that used too many bros. He stood on the steps with Kanae and watched Riko waddle off in her coat with a bunch of other penguin-like children.

He watched an old period piece with Kanae, who had put on a ratty pair of house slippers with barely any soles. If I’m going to take a day off, I’m going to do it right. According to Yamamoto, they were pulling for a solid second place. The period piece was a drama. He had seen it before.

He talked to his brother in the morning. He gave Kiyoomi instructions on how to call the hospital and what phrase to give them to put him in contact with Manami. The hurdles between him and a conversation that had only ever existed just out of range of touch since he was ten were disorienting.

She would be available in the afternoon. If she was free to talk, they’d grab her. Yasuaki had spoken to her that morning, and she had seemed up to it, apparently.

After lunch but before Riko got home, Kiyoomi was back to standing outside. He had started by standing, pacing, walking—waiting to be transferred to the right department—and he eventually found himself sitting on the stairs. He had tried to clear off any of the snow that lingered; he was sure his pants would be damp when he stood.

His leg bounced. He thought he might’ve heard windchimes somewhere. It might’ve just been the dull elevator music he was being forced to listen to.

The music was cut off. It was replaced by silence. Just silence. Kiyoomi sat in the silence. He swallowed.

He said, “Hello?”

There was no response. He waited.

“Manami?” he said. And he cleared his throat. And he set his hand down next to him—right into a pile of snow he had shooed away earlier—and he shook the snow off, and there was still no response.

And he thought that perhaps he really had been improperly transferred, until—

“I’m here,” said his sister.

There was a worn quality to his sister’s voice, not dissimilar to the gravel of someone who had just woken up, but it was a benign difference, ultimately; nothing that he would immediately notice, nothing that would ever lead him to believe that they were speaking within the context they found themselves in.

He released a breath; it formed a cloud in front of him. “Oh,” he said. “Hey.”

Another gap before Manami said, “Yeah. Hi.”

“Are you—” He stopped. “Are things alright?”

“Yes. Alright as they can be.”

Kiyoomi didn’t know what to say back.

He heard muffled movement. “The food,” said his sister, “is rather deplorable. You’d be incensed.”

He nodded. His hand flexed in his lap. “Horrible,” he said.

And he sat there some more. And his sister must have sat there on the other side of the line.

He would go back home the next morning. Yasuaki would, as well, but only for a day or so before popping back into Tokyo. Manami would stay in the hospital for two more days before transitioning into a program that would allow her to go home in the evening.

And some of the details would reach him. Manami would go on to speak rather vaguely around it where she could afford to. It wasn’t as if any of it was Yasuaki’s business to be sharing. Some, not all.

She had started eating less. Sleeping less. Working more. It had built. Time had passed. She had pulled away. He looked back and wondered when it started. Signs. It sounded like it had been a tiny, insurmountable thing—an email from work, a neighbor moving. A tipping point.

And she had holed away in her apartment. And she had gotten into it with Chihiro. And he had texted her, and she had called him. And Yasuaki had to talk her out of her apartment.

And sometimes there were big conversations to be had. Sometimes you sat in front of a pond.

Sometimes, but not always.

Sometimes you sat with your sister on the phone in the way that you used to sit with your grandfather when you were a child who had your eyes and her eyes and that’s all that you could do, histories unspoken between you.

Things would get better. For a word. As clumsy as it felt to say. Different, but better. Comparatively. Relatively. Manami would take leave from work before eventually switching jobs. He knew she’d talk to someone, even if these details of her life still never quite reached him. Enough time would pass that it would be easy—easier to look back on what had happened and view it just as a memory. Where these things could be listed in sequential order: one sentence after another.

He hadn’t known it then. He knew fear and he knew his sister’s voice.

Yes. Sometimes you sat.

.

..

…

..

.

Later, a couple of years later, it started with an ill-timed nap, and with Miya Atsumu standing in front of him.

Miya Atsuma. In front of him.

Miya Atsumu was standing in front of him, in his apartment. Kiyoomi’s apartment.

Miya Atsumu, in his apartment, who said, “Will you take the fuckin’ basket? You’re ruining things here.”

Basket, as in gift basket. The gift basket he had brought over for Kiyoomi as a thank-you gift. A gift basket and a coat that looked suspiciously like his own.

Kiyoomi was not one who typically enjoyed naps. They ran too much of a risk of throwing his routine off. A functioning sleep schedule was pretty critical to his line of work.

In a rare turn of events, however, on his day off that week after the game with the Rockets, Kiyoomi had laid down on the couch after a rather vigorous round of cleaning. He hadn’t even realized he had started to fall asleep until his phone—sitting on the coffee table—buzzed to life.

His hand had slapped onto the table with enough force to smart. Vision blurry—both from sleep dust and because he had taken off his glasses—he had quickly realized that the text was only from Miya. Miya, asking if he was home. For some reason. Miya in his apartment.

Staring at the gift basket, Kiyoomi said, “Forcing someone to accept your thanks isn’t very thoughtful.”

And then, for some reason that surely had to do with the fact that his brain was stuck in some half-state of consciousness, Kiyoomi took the basket. With an appropriate amount of wariness, granted.

Miya had a surprisingly subdued taste in clothing despite his choice of hairstyles. He was wearing a sweatshirt that Kiyoomi had seen him in before. It was faded and red with a hem that looked to be fraying. “I have my limits,” Miya said, and Kiyoomi knew it to be completely earnest.

He said, “Is that what you want to call it?”

“So I’m not a fuckin’ sunflower or anything, but I can actually do good every once in a while.” Miya pointed for emphasis as he spoke. “Look— I got one with cheese that won’t mess up your stomach. And I put some of those caramel candies in there that you like, too.”

Kiyoomi looked down.

It was those candies. The salted ones. And the cheese, too, and assorted nuts for some reason, and tea packets and cooling face masks. Some of it was obviously rather standardized, but it was also clear that Miya had gone out of his way to customize it in some way to fit Kiyoomi’s tastes.

He said, “Have you been stalking me or something?”

Miya sniffed. “It’s called being observant. It’s not like any of this shit was a secret.”

Kiyoomi couldn’t look away from the gift basket. His attention snagged on something metallic tucked within the cellophane. There was a ring of some sort—he tugged it out of place, a chain and a grinning skeleton jingling in the air.

“And this?” he said.

BAD TO THE BONE, said the metallic tag on the keychain. Why.

“Got it at the museum shop,” he heard. “They had a cute little anatomy section. Seemed fitting.”

“Why.”

“You’re a cool guy,” Miya said, mouth quirking at the corners. Yes—he looked far too satisfied. “And I thought it’d be bleak enough for you. You can put it with the other bodies you’ve buried.”

Kiyoomi chose to say, “You’re joining them next.” He slipped the keychain back into the basket, out of sight. “You’ve just been holding onto this?”

“Wanted to give it with the full package.” Miya shrugged. “Besides, if you don’t like my incredibly thoughtful gifts, I brought this back. So like. Here.”

And then that coat was being shoved into his arms. His own coat. A month or so later, at least.

“I washed it and everything,” said Miya, out of his space as quickly as he had entered it.

And:

“I can tell,” Kiyoomi said.

“What. I fuck it up that badly?”

And, for some reason:

“No. It smells like your detergent.”

Miya rolled his eyes. “Well sorry that it’s not to your liking.”

And, because of that nap, certainly:

“That’s— you—”

Kiyoomi’s brain was not working quite right. Clearly. He breezed by Miya to set both the coat and the basket on the kitchen table. His hands lingered. A gift basket and a coat.

Leave it to Miya to go and throw him off. He needed to leave. Sooner rather than later. This was the problem with napping. He said, “Was that all?”

“That’s pretty much it. There’s a gift card in there for your sister. Wasn’t sure what she’d want.” He heard Miya clear his throat. “And I just wanted to say sorry that it took so long to get the coat back.”

“It’s fine,” Kiyoomi said. A gift basket and a coat.

But Miya said, “You can’t be mad at me for forcing you to accept the basket and then force me not to apologize. Let me say sorry.”

Kiyoomi felt something in his face twitch. A gift basket and a—

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said, turning to face Miya.

Miya, whose chin was raised, his voice all angles when he said, “I say that there is, so I’m sorry for being so slow about gettin’ you the coat back.”

Kiyoomi said, “And I told you that it’s not that big of a deal. And your comparison doesn’t even work, since you’re forcing me to take the basket and your apology.”

“You can’t not take an apology that you’re sayin’ doesn’t need to happen in the first place.”

“Because there doesn’t need to be,” Kiyoomi said, sounding out the words as if that would make them penetrate Miya’s thick skull. “I said it’s fine.”

Miya appeared as if he was looking down at Kiyoomi from the point of his nose. Which was impossible, given that he was four and a half centimeters shorter than Kiyoomi. “Fine? You’ve clearly been lookin’ my way this week. I’m not blind.”

Kiyoomi blinked. Miya didn’t appear any less obstinate an obstacle before them. Mind catching up with the rest of him, he said, “I was not looking—”

“You totally were?”

“Just because you’ve been weird,” Kiyoomi snapped, because the notion that it was Kiyoomi who was acting character, who was being weird, who was looking was laughable. “I was confused as to why you haven't said anything about it, but it’s also been like a week. And we had a game.”

Miya threw out his hands. “It’s been like three weeks.”

“Since I gave you it, yeah.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Kiyoomi was going to lose his mind. He had managed to make it into his early twenties—he grew up with Motoya as a best friend—but it would be Miya who would make him good and fully lose it.

“I gave it to you with the expectation that I wouldn’t get it back until you got a new one,” he said, as slow as he could manage. “I was going to mention something next week if you hadn’t given it back before then.”

And it didn’t do anything to mollify Miya, of course, because that would make sense, and since when did Miya make sense? No, if anything, this only seemed to piss him off further, his eyes widening in bafflement.

“Dude,” Miya said, “you’re doing it again.”

Kiyoomi said, “What?”

And Miya said, pointing, always pointing, “You’re being nice. I’ve been freaking out about this for weeks for like, no reason, apparently, because it was supposedly not actually that big of a deal.”

And then he collapsed onto the arm of Kiyoomi’s couch, tugging on his hair. Dramatic. He was so dramatic, unable to hide his emotions even if he wanted to. What the fuck, his body was telegraphing. What every pore of his skin was exuding.

“Why,” Kiyoomi said, feeling his own voice start to fray, “would you freak out over this?” And he thought of a car ride home. “God, Miya. Are we doing this again? Is it that unbelievable that I could do you a favor?”

It wasn’t like—

Kiyoomi didn’t have any grandiose ideals or a noteworthy penchant for spontaneous acts of kindness. He thought this was well-established at this point. He knew this, and he didn’t have any qualms about it, but it was— annoying, maybe. Yes. He would chalk it up to Miya being annoying.

But Miya said, “No.” And he trucked ahead, arms crossing over his front. “I mean, sort of— sorry, I’m not trying to be stupid about this. It’s just—”

“It’s what?” Kiyoomi said. “What could it be?”

And with the posture of a corkscrew, Miya spit out, “It’s just some stupid shit. Real stupid. It’s my stupid shit and I don’t want to like, dump it on you unprompted.”

“Well,” Kiyoomi said, “I’m all ears.”

And Miya hesitated.

His shoulders had risen, his gaze flitting to and fro. Something raw, something tired, something hurt, maybe, brief by apparent enough for Kiyoomi to hesitate.

He thought, for a second, that Miya wouldn’t answer at all, but as if he couldn’t help himself, he said:

“My dad kind of peaced the fuck out when we were kids. And I went to see him and it went not great and I kinda knew it wouldn’t go great and went anyways, and then I came home early and all that shit happened at the airport and you were like— reliable? I don’t know.”

Before Kiyoomi could say anything, he bulldozed ahead:

“I just kind of can’t think right when my dad’s in the picture and it made me stupid. And thinking about giving the coat back made me think about the airport and all that shit. And it’s not that I don’t think that you can’t be nice—I mean, yeah, I was a little surprised—but it’s more like you were nice at a really weird time and it made me overthink and shit.”

And he wasn’t looking at Kiyoomi. And Kiyoomi, despite his age, was still not very good at these things.

He figured he didn’t really have the right to be surprised about Miya’s answer. Not referring so much to its content, rather, its length, its specificity. He had been going on and on about how much Miya liked to talk, hadn’t he? Yes—especially after he had been holding himself back for so long.

An estranged father who left when he was a child—a chance meeting over their break—a decision that he had clearly spent the last month ruminating on. Kiyoomi filed away each detail with intent, reworking his image of Miya in his mind.

It was the same as the Nana who lived in the country: the mother who was an artist. A father who could not evidently be bothered.

And he had enough tact to know that telling Miya that it was a fitting fact was a poor idea. Or a fact that wasn’t disruptive to everything else that he knew about him, at least.

What Kiyoomi chose to say was, “How is it that in all of that, you still managed to find the time to insult me?”

And Miya’s head snapped up, his brow furrowed in confusion. And irritation, evidently. That was a given. “Are you serious?” he said. “Saying I was surprised isn’t like, an insult. I was just telling the truth. And you already knew that, too.” And he said, completely accusatory: “And you were doing the exact same thing about me with the gift basket.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t sure me.”

“Are you telling me what to do in my own apartment?”

“Yeah. Because you clearly don’t know how to act right.”

“Compelling,” Kiyoomi said. And he said, “Sorry about that shit with your dad.”

Miya glanced away. “Yeah, me too.”

He took in the sight of this Miya, who was stubborn even in his hurt and his resignation. His revelation about why exactly he had been at the airport put many missing puzzle pieces together, but not all.

He asked, “Your brother didn’t go?”

“No.” The word was steeped in bitterness. He couldn’t tell exactly who it was directed at. “I really shouldn’t have gone. ‘Samu’s always known that better than me.”

“Why did you, then?”

Miya’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. He swallowed, and then he just said, “It’s embarrassing.”

“More than you usually are?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Nice one,” Kiyoomi said. “You don’t have to answer.”

And Miya smiled, but Kiyoomi was sure he had never seen that particular version of it on his face before. It was not without its typical barbed edges, its hidden jibes, its brazen flare. It was still an expression that said bite me, I dare you.

And it was self-deprecating. Rueful. Kiyoomi nearly didn’t think him to be capable of it.

Miya said, “No. I went because I wanted it to go well, even though it was pretty obvious from the get-go that it wouldn’t.”

Kiyoomi leaned back against the table, and he thought. “I don’t really think that’s embarrassing,” he said.

“Sure you don’t.”

Stubborn even now. “I don’t exactly know all the details I guess,” Kiyoomi said, “but I don’t think that wanting your dad to not be awful is something to feel bad about.”

Kiyoomi was certain he didn’t have any warrant to make a claim on morality in a situation like this one. His own parents came to mind, reflexively. He didn’t think he would call them awful, so much as not equipped—or particularly interested—in being parents.

When he was a child, he might’ve sought for a particular image in his mother and father: one that was receptive, one that gave him praise, one that sat down with him and played a game of Go on the carpet.

It had been a long time since he had grabbed for that image. In Kiyoomi’s world, it had simply become inevitable to assume his parents’s indifference to be a natural part of their relationship. Something to accept and move forward with.

They spoke occasionally, and it was often with less tension than it had been in those final few months when he lived at home as a teenager.

It wasn’t something he felt exceptionally guilty about. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps neither him nor Miya had anything to be guilty about—or perhaps the opposite, and the average person would look at either of them and run for the hills.

He was confident in his own relative normalcy, at least. Miya, on the other hand.

Miya, who just spit out, “Yeah, well, a lot easier said than done.” And he crossed his arms over his chest, and he threw out a hand, and he said, “I think I’m weirdly worried that he like, has actually changed this time and I might miss out on it. Since I kind of ditched before I could find out.”

Kiyoomi really wasn’t good at this type of thing. “I think you’re probably a pretty good judge," he said carefully. "You left early for a reason. And even if he has changed, you're not like, obligated to keep him around.” And his curiosity might’ve really been getting the best of him, because then he said, “You also aren’t the type to question yourself like this.”

“That’s literally the fuckin’ problem.” More gratuitous hand gestures. “If I like, ditch him and shit then that means he’s a bad dad, but if he’s a bad dad then does that make all the good parts of him that I remember stop being good?”

“No?” he said. The hostility in the question obviously wasn’t directed towards Kiyoomi, but it was hard to think otherwise with the intensity of Miya’s cadence. “I’m not going to pretend like I’m any good at this, but I think his quality as a parent isn’t really dependent on what you choose to do in response.”

Miya’s mouth zipped shut. He returned to burning a hole into Kiyoomi’s floor with his eyes. It was clear then that he was back to somewhere in his own head.

What a poor, poor nap.

Kiyoomi said, “That’s just my opinion.” When Miya still didn’t respond, he added, “And I think my experience with this sort of thing is a little biased, anyway.”

And it figured that this was what captured his attention. “Oh?”

There were many words he could have used to describe his relationship with his parents, and there were few words, as well. It was always easiest to just go with the simple answer. “I don’t really talk to my parents all that much anymore,” he said. “None of us do. But they were never that present in the first place, so I don’t really have that many good things to cling onto.”

Miya, twitching, said, “I’m not… clinging, necessarily.”

“You don’t let go of things easily.”

“So I'm stubborn. Yeah. I get that."

“No. That’s not—” Kiyoomi breathed. Stubborn, stubborn. He could use his words. “You have a tendency to see things through to the end," he said. "And that’s... admirable. Even when you're too stubborn for your own good. And it sounds to me like you might be seeing the end of something.”

I have seen you steamroll your way through obstacles since we were teens felt oddly damning to speak aloud.

It didn’t matter, evidently, since he had still again managed to spur Miya into a silence with his advice. Kiyoomi partially regretted not barring him from access to his apartment in the first place.

Miya’s mouth opened. It closed. It opened, and he said, “Did you just give me a compliment?”

Yes, Miya should have been banned from his apartment grounds. “I’m going to take it back.”

“No. No way. You can’t take it back.” This was a Miya smile he unfortunately was familiar with.

“You have an ego the size of the sun,” Kiyoomi said. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Hands gripping the armrest on either side of him, Miya said, “Sorry about your parents."

Kiyoomi couldn’t even bother to shrug. "It's not a big deal. I don't lose too much sleep over it."

"Well, you gonna start charging me for your time or something now?"

“I’d question your taste in therapists.”

“No, I mean it.” Miya said, “It’s a great back-up career. Since you’re just so personable.”

“I’m very charming,” Kiyoomi said.

“You would be if you joked like that more. Where’s all this go during practice?”

“I make jokes all the time.”

“Name one.”

“No.”

“One.”

He said, “This is beneath me.”

Miya said, “He makes jokes, he says—”

“When you nearly tripped in front of the observers yesterday, I said that you’d be a professional athlete one day. If you try hard enough.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“The fans laughed.”

“You don’t get to side with the fans. You don’t like the fans.”

“I tolerate the fans.” He didn’t like the fans.

Miya pointed. “You tolerate the fans. Making fun of me doesn’t count as jokes.”

“My comedy career is dead, then,” Kiyoomi said. “I told you, this isn’t really my thing, so feel free to ignore what I have to say.”

The last thing he needed was for Miya to go following his advice and then blame him for any of its consequences.

“You’re too hard on yourself, Omi,” said Miya. “That was some wise shit.”

“Stop.”

“Really. Thanks for listening to my complaining.”

And this was—

It was yet another rendition of a Miya smile. And it wasn’t soft, it wasn’t pliant, because Miya easily shrugged off such descriptors, as whiny as he could be, but—

There was a quality to it, maybe.

Kiyoomi glanced away and said, “It’s not like I do that every day already or anything.”

“You choose to listen,” said Miya. “You pay that much attention to me? I’m honored.”

And Miya was still smiling, and Kiyoomi was still curious, so he focused on: “Earlier you said you were overthinking. About me picking you up. What does that mean?”

No more smile. Miya blinked, and then he glanced to the side in a tell-tale move of lying, kind of lying, I am not giving the whole truth. “I don’t know. I kind of… latched on because you showed up at the like, worst moment, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t really feel shit lightly. Stop laughing.”