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In another lifetime, there are two boys with the same nose but different freckles.
Each has a soft arch to their thick, dark eyebrows and a dimpled left cheek, but only one has a chipped canine tooth.
In this lifetime, both are deeply asleep, tucked warm and safe in bed while a storm blooms outside. They are freshly eighteen and have yet to know any hurt beyond the aches and pains of fading childhood; sidewalk-scraped knees and swing pinched fingers, the sting of a puppy loves rejection, each other's fists.
Here, nothing bad has ever happened to them.
A clap of thunder pulls Atsumu from his sleep, crisp and clamorous. It’s still dark in the quiet of his shared room, Osamu’s even breathes a gentle rumble from the bunk beneath him.
Groaning quietly, he arches into a stretch and then slumps, allowing himself a minute to feel the heavy pull of sleep in his bones. When he manages to reach for his phone, Atsumu winces at the too-bright light, blinking until the glowing numbers atop the screen sharpen to read 6:02am, an entire eight minutes before his alarm is set to go off.
“Fuckin’ hell.” He mutters, already fighting the dread of early morning practice and the preemptive urge to shut off both his and Osamu’s alarms. Dragging yourself up and at ‘em at ungodly hours never gets any easier, and anyone who said differently was a flat-out liar.
Atsumu knows better than to go back to try and catch those extra minutes of sleep by now, though; Osamu has proven many times over that he finds no issues in leaving Atsumu to walk.
Atsumu plays on his phone for a bit before Osamu’s alarm goes off below, scrolling through Volleyball Monthly's twitter and wrinkling his nose at the atrocious team colours that a dark haired boy is pictured in above the linked article. Eventually though, he hears his brother stir and yawn, hears the creak of the bed springs as he rolls over to smack at the blaring clock beside him.
“Mornin’ sunshine.” Atsumu rasps, gripping the railing and digging deep to scrounge up whatever dredges of energy he can. Tensing, he heaves his body into the familiar motions of up and over, forgoing the ladder in its entirety and he lets himself swing and then drop, little shocks racing up through the balls of his feet and into his shins.
“Mhm.” Osamu replies eloquently, still face down on his pillow.
“Yeah, me too.” Atsumu pats the top of his head, and leaves him lying prone as he heads for the shower. He’s not particularly careful to conserve the hot water while in it, not when it’s so rare there’s any left by the time he usually gets to it.
His brother doesn’t catch up with him until Atsumu’s halfway through his bowl of oatmeal downstairs, strands of damp grey hair clinging limply to his forehead and looking about as joyful as he’d sounded earlier, which is not at all.
Osamu’s never been a morning person, which is funny considering it’s Atsumu with the penchant for sleeping through alarms - he just needs to be woken up, and then he’s good to go. Car horns, fire alarms, and probably the end of the world - it was a little strange that the apparent storm outside had pulled him from his sleep this morning, if he was honest.
Atsumu goes back to the video he’d been watching on his phone when Osamu does little more than shuffle forward like a zombie. “There’s some extra oatmeal on the stove.”
“Mhm.”
When Osamu settles down across from him, bowl clinking against the wooden table, Atsumu sneaks another glance at him and the unusual darkness beneath his eyes. Narrowing his eyes, he shoots Osamu a critical look. “Ya’ look like death. Sleep okay?”
Osamu yawns and scrubs at the hinge of his jaw. “Yeah, just had some weird dreams.”
“Bout’ what?”
“Dunno’. It was weird. Like I was watchin’…like I wasn’t even really in ‘em? Ya’ were, but ya’ were older…” Osamu pauses, frowning, like he can’t quite catch the shape of them anymore, and shakes his head. “Anyways, a cold fuckin’ shower because ya’ used all the hot water didn’t help. Ass.”
“Don’t go actin’ like ya’ ever leave me any.” Atsumu says, kicking him under the table and earning himself a nasty glare in return.
They're the only ones awake in the house, and they keep their voices low, even in light squabble. Their mothers are still sound asleep down the hall, and as per usual won’t be rousing until their sons are already well and done with practice and into the first block. If Atsumu and Osamu are what manages to wake them before that, it won’t be pretty.
Scraping out his bowl and finishing up breakfast, Atsumu makes himself a half-decent lunch (which loosely translates to Osamu shoving a premade bento box at him, and Atsumu throwing in various extra snacks) and then the pair of them are out the door minutes later. Only, Osamu skids to a stop in front of him less than two steps out the door.
Immediately, Atsumu lurches to the side to avoid smashing his nose into the back of his brother's skull, and feels the sizzle of irritation warm his chest. “The hell, ‘Samu?”
Osamu rolls his eyes and gestures vaguely in front of them. Atsumu tilts his head, cooling minutely. “Oh.”
Here, beneath the cover of the porches awning, it’s business as usual, cool and dry with late spring. The sheets of rain ahead of them seem urgent to remind them of the other weather the season has to offer.
Atsumu can’t help but think that it’s unfortunate he was right about the storm - one that only seems to have worsened. Rain, thick and freezing, comes down in a torrential downpour, pooling over the roads and lapping at the sidewalks edge in a shimmering layer of floodwater.
Atsumu pulls his hood up over his head, and prepares for the sprint to the truck; umbrellas are only for wusses and old people. Beside him, Osamu looks similarly motivated.
“Ya’ unlock the truck?” Atsumu asks.
“Yep.”
“Alright, fuck it. Let’s go!”
Together, they sprint down the stairs and across the stone pathway of their front yard, water splashing with every step. Instantly, Atsumu feels his sneakers soak, cold water seeping unpleasantly past his socks and between his toes, and lengthens his stride.
The rain is so much worse once they're dashing through it. A violent wind creates an almost diagonal downpour, which Atsumu’s hood does nothing to defend against; with water streaming down his face and into his eyes, it’s blind luck that he doesn't slam face first into the side of the vehicle and slows down just as he notices the pathway turn to concrete sidewalk.
Atsumu finds the handle and hops inside the mercifully dry passenger side of the cab, tugging down his hood and shaking his head to rid himself of the worst of the water. A smack to the side of his head makes him jump.
“The hell, “Samu?” Atsumu flails his arm harshly in his brother's direction, using his free hand to wipe his still blurry eyes.
Osamu blocks his smacks with his own, snapping. “Ya’ were spraying water all over the dash! Yer’ not a dog, dude!”
“Whatever. Barely even helped, anyways.” Atsumu says, purposely flippant, and buckles himself in. Glancing at the scene beyond the windshield, he frowns at the road ahead of them as the old engine rumbles to life. “Ya’ sure ya’ can drive in this? Visibility is piss poor.”
“And let coach think we’re slacking? If yer’ in the mood to run suicides tomorrow, be my guest.”
“Practice ain’t worth killing ourselves to get there.” Atsumu snarks, dodging the open palm Osamu sends his way when he twists to reverse on instinct.
The ride to school is mostly quiet. They keep the radio on low, the drum of rain through the roof noise enough. The roads get a little better as they escape the lower streets of their neighbourhood, the film of water on the asphalt thinning. Still, there’s enough it jets out from the tire wells in an arching torrent behind them.
Atsumu is absentmindedly watching the spray in Osamu’s side mirror, head leaned against the rain-cool window when his brother's phone chimes, and in a movement Atsumu has snapped at him a million times for, Osamu reaches to grab it from the cupholder.
“Samu’,” Atsumu says with a scowl, irritation flaring wildly. “Suna isn’t going to go anywhere if ya’ freakin’ wait.”
Osamu makes a face, mouthing the words back at him mockingly, only to take a quick peek at the road ahead of them and then look back down at the screen.
Half tempted to snatch the phone out of his brother's hand, Atsumu leans forward. Yet - just as he does, a blur of red catches his eye and his gaze flits from his brother's phone to up and out the driver's side window.
Instinct is a funny thing, in that Atsumu doesn’t remember choosing to yank the wheel from Osamu’s one-handed steering, he just does. He doesn’t remember choosing the words he'd spit, only that they were near a scream and it takes less than a second for them to be said.
“Osamu, shit, turn, car!”
His body goes hot, then cold, and then they’re spinning because he’s forced the wheel right and he physically cannot let go of it, muscle and boned locked in some primordial iron-clad grip, and Atsumu can feel his brother slam on the breaks, can feel the tires trying and failing to catch a grip on the rain slick concrete and then he feels the smash.
When his brain catches up with his body, or at least begins too, Atsumu is slumped against the passenger side door, and the right side of his face throbs in rhythm with his heart.
His thoughts come slowly, and out of order, a confusing montage of blurring colour and the metallic tinge of fear. Atsumu lifts a trembling hand to his right eyebrow, and his fingers come away in vibrant red, an image that sways in and out of focus.
He’s bleeding.
There’s a noise coming from his left too. Someone is saying something, much too loud in a voice so like his own, and then they’re grabbing his shoulder, fingers digging in so tightly it’s painful. “-Shit, Atsumu - are ya’ okay? ‘Tsumu?”
Atsumu lets his head roll to the side, and closes his eyes when his vision absolutely swims, nauseous bursting aggressively at the base of his throat. “S-Samu?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. Can ya’ open yer’ eyes? ‘Tsumu? C’mon.”
Atsumu swallows, exhales shakily. When he opens them, Osamu’s grey ones are right in front of him, huge and frantic.
Blinking, Atsumu’s gaze tracks downwards, towards the arm that’s bent backwards and flopped limply across the console.
Somewhere, in the back of his brain, Atsumu knows it’s his own. That part is completely shut off, blocked so tightly that it doesn’t even register the arm as an injury; it doesn’t hurt at all.
“My arm.” He says blankly.
Gently, Osamu cups his jaw and guides Atsumu’s gaze back to his own. “I know. Just, just focus on me, okay? How’s yer’ head?”
Atsumu thinks as hard as he can on that, and almost winces at the sheer effort it takes to answer the simple question. It’s like wading through fog, while his legs drag behind in the mud.
“Fuzzy,” he decides eventually.
“Yeah, well ya’ dented the dashboard with it, so I image it’s pretty fuckin’ fuzzy. Yer’ okay, though. We’re-” This sentence ends in a sort of choked off breath, and breaks awkwardly in the middle. “Okay.”
Osamu shuts his eyes, head bowing forward as his shoulders curl in, quivering. Tears, thick and shimmering begin to stream down his face, and he sucks in a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Concern, and some type of strange clarity flash through him at an alarming rate. “Samu, are ya’ hurt?” Atsumu shifts, struggling to sit up against the oddly tight seatbelt. “Let me- ugh!”
The first bolt of pain twists like molten fire up his bicep, burning down his wrist, lighting every single nerve in his body with excruciating hurt. “Oh god, god, fuck!”
“Don't move, dumbass!” Osamu’s other hand comes up to brace him in place, shoving him gently but firmly back against the seat. “It’s broken, dummy, don’t try to fuckin’ move it!”
Atsumu grits his teeth against a moan that begs a sob, jaw twinging with how tightly it’s clenched, and god he wants to puke so bad but if he moves he’s going to die. His arm is so, so broken.
“Atsumu, breathe, breathe, lookit’ me. Just focus on me, help is coming.” Osamu soothes, but his voice is hoarse and wet, and god ‘Samu never cries, so if he’s crying he must be hurt too.
“Are ya’,” Atsumu forces out, lights dancing behind his eyes. “Hurt?”
Osamu blinks at him through his reddened eyes, and hiccups a laugh. “Me? No, dummy. I’m okay.”
Okay. Atsumu thinks. Okay.
His brother is fine. His brother is fine, but they’re in the middle of car crash, and Atsumu can’t feel his fingertips, and he’s a setter-
Loud knocking from the window drags his eyes from Osamu’s to the horrified face of a man at the driver's side window. His voice is slightly muffled by the glass divide, and water streams down his forehead, but even then, the concern is palpable. “Ya’ boys alright in there? I called an ambulance, they’re on their way. Can I pull ya’ll out?”
Osamu leans away from Atsumu, but leaves his hand to brace his shoulder. The touch is grounding, warm like a brand through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “I think I’m fine. My brother’s hurt, though, for sure’ broke his arm and hit his head. I don’t think we can move him.”
“Yeah, well, his door is wedged up pretty tight against that lamppost, anyways. Looks like when the other car hit ya’ll it bounced ya’ straight into it.”
Confusion bubbles at the man's words, so Atsumu turns his head with a wince to glance at his own window. What greets him is equally bewildering; the glass of his window is spiderwebb fractured, so broken it’s almost entirely white. Whatever shards of glass that managed to remain clear have buckled inwards against what must be the grey pole, and the enormous force it would’ve taken them to be pushed into it.
When Atsumu looks down, his entire door is curved towards him, nearly brushing his shoulder and thigh.
“Huh.” Atsumu says. He rolls his head back towards his brother and the man, who appear to be deep in conversation. “Samu?”
Osamu turns to him instantly. “Yeah?”
“I think I’m gunna’ pass out.”
The last thing he sees is his brother's mouth shape around the word ‘no’ and an awful fear that Atsumu never wants to see on his face again, and then Atsumu’s consciousness slips backwards into oblivion.
When Atsumu comes too, it happens slowly and uncomfortably.
The right side of his face aches something fierce, and his left arm, instead of hurting, is almost entirely numb. Stiff, but definitely numb, which Atsumu doesn’t think is going to mean anything good.
There’s steady beeping coming from behind him, and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth with surprising ability as it currently feels about as moist as a dried out sponge. Atsumu runs it against the back of his teeth, mildly relieved when the molars on his right side are firmly intact.
When he forces his eyes open, they stick and burn unpleasantly, leaving his vision grossly clouded. Blinking, Atsumu tries again.
This time, a white, panelled ceiling greets him.
There are hushed voices coming from the foot of his bed, and in a sudden ping of awareness, Atsumu realises someone is holding his free hand, their fingers laced through his. There are several other people in the room with him.
“Tsumu?”
Atsumu turns his head slightly, settling his tender cheek against a crinkly pillow. Soreness lances up the side of his neck, and down his shoulder at the slight movement. His voice is no better than a rasp, but he forces it out the same. “Samu?”
His brother is sitting in a chair beside him, and quite frankly, looks even worse than Atsumu feels. His grey hair is in total disarray, the majority of it hidden under the hood of his - their ma’s - blue zip up. The purple of his under eyes and swollen eyelids are equally alarming as it occurs to Atsumu that he must’ve been crying, because Osamu hasn’t cried in years.
Atsumu tries to speak again, brows furrowing, because he wants to know what’s wrong, what happened, but only a garbled wheeze escapes him.
Osamu attempts a weak grin, one that’s likely meant to reassure Atsumu, but the way his eyes glaze with unshed tears ruin any effects it might have had. “He’s up, mama.”
Ma’s here? Atsumu wonders, pulling at pieces that are slow and disjointed, and disliking the stab of pain his skull gets for it. Something tightens in his chest at it all.
His ma appears over Osamu’s shoulder seconds later, looking pale faced and equally weary. She reaches down to place her cool hand atop where his and Osamu’s are wound together, the other coming up to stroke his bangs off his forehead. “Hey, sweetheart. Ya’ had a little accident, but ya’ and yer’ brother are both okay. Momma’s on her way now.”
Stubbornly, Atsumu clears his throat and tries not to wince at the dryness. “Accident?”
At his question, his ma swallows, already pale face whitening. She straightens, hand slipping from his head to glance at someone just out of sight behind her.
“What accident?” Atsumu murmurs to Osamu, tugging at their joined hands and wishing he could find enough strength to lean over and peer at whoever she hid. As if hearing his silent request, a man steps out, hair carefully swooped and clad in a white lab coat. A doctor.
Anxiety, hot and unpleasant surges through Atsumu’s chest at the sight of him, and the sudden lack of information he has over everything, even as he appeared to be at the heart of it. Osamu squeezes his clammy hand, and doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Good afternoon, Miya-kun. My name is Taiki, and I’ll be taking care of you. I just want to start off with some questions, is that alright?” The doctor smiles at him, the picture of pleasant and calm. It does the absolute opposite of whatever that demeanour intends.
Atsumu sets his jaw, and turns to his brother instead, digging a nail into his knuckle until Osamu pulls a face and looks at him. “What accident? ‘Samu?”
Osamu’s jaw tenses. Glancing back and forth between Atsumu, and the doctor, and their ma, and looking only a little like a deer caught in the headlights, he clears his throat. “We got side-swiped by a car this morning, and it banged ya’ up pretty good. Can ya’ remember anything from before that?”
“Osamu.” Their ma rebuffs gently. It’s betrayed by the tense set to her shoulders. “Enough. Let the doctor do the assessment.”
“Not really,” Atsumu answers him, anyways. Whatever memories he can scrounge up are patchy and ripple like water, and his temples throb with the effort of clinging to them. He squeezes his eyes shut, reaching, pulling apart the tangled threads of what could be yesterday or today. “I remember…oatmeal? Maybe?”
The doctor raises his eyebrows in a way that appears faintly taken aback, but looks to his twin for confirmation. Osamu’s shoulders sink infinitesimally, his tensed brows slipping into an expression of closed-eyed relief.
“Yeah, we had oatmeal.” Osamu confirms, looking up at the doctor. His adam's apple bobs as his voice wobbles. “That’s a good thing right? That he can remember?”
The doctor nods. “Yes, it is. It’s looking like what we originally assumed was right; Atsumu likely has a moderate concussion. It’s nothing he won’t recover from, but we would like to keep him under observation for at least forty-eight hours before we release him.”
“Two days?” Atsumu croaks, forgetting himself and trying to squirm his way upwards. Along with a sense of strange deja vu, everything aches, an unexpectedly viscous pain coming from the dead weight of his arm. Startled, he sucks in a breath, and cranes his neck to get his first real look at what’s stiffening his arm; a white plaster casing that runs from mid-bicep to just before his wrist. That’s not even the end of it, his arm elevated with straps and bands that connect to the roof and Atsumu’s stomach drops so hard he wouldn't be surprised to find it on the floor. “Holy fuck, my arm-”
“Easy, baby,” Ma soothes, slowing his frantic energy from where it’s coresetting his ribs. It helps, but only just, and likely for the simple fact that she’s his mother. Her grey eyes meet his, surprisingly even. “Take a breath first, and then you can ask what ya’ need to.”
Even as he listens, inhales slowly and carefully, the sound is a trembling rattle. His voice breaks when he sucks in enough air to speak. “My arm, ma, what about volleyball?”
He twitches the fingers of it weakly, watching the braced arm dangle from the ceiling. They’re numb, the sensation not unlike they’re stuffed with cotton. It almost doesn't look real, like a doll's limb; there’s no way it’s his. Not the one he’d washed his hair with this morning, the one he sets with - it can’t be.
Osamu sniffles beside him, the grip on his good hand tightening again, strong enough for it to hurt; vaguely, Atsumu wonders if this is Osamu’s new, safer equivalent to smacking him.
It makes the sudden outburst even more startling. “Shut up, ‘Tsumu! Ya’ coulda’ died and yer’ worried about volleyball? Ya’ scared the shit outa’ me!”
Osamu glares at him through his damp eyes as Atsumu flinches and gapes, and though his voice sounds angry, it’s not the only thing wound through it.
Atsumu stares at him, silent and still as the strange gravity of the situation hits him. There are extremely few things that are capable of drawing something like that out of his brother, and given the few things he’s catalogue since waking, it’s easy to guess what did. Whatever could have happened to him was serious, then.
Slowly, his eyes begin to fill with unexpected tears. He’s not even really sure why he’s crying, not with what he knows and what he doesn’t. He’s not even all that afraid, not with Osamu whole and hale beside him. It’s just a lot.
His ma saves him crafting a response to that with a flick to Osamu’s forehead, drawing Atsumu’s attention to the bloom of a darkening bruise along his temple that he hadn’t noticed before. “I specifically said no bickering with him right now!”
The swelling lump crawls down from his brother's temple down along his cheekbone in splotches of purple and red. It already looks painful, and without a doubt, it’ll only worsen. Atsumu wonders how much of the hood that’s pulled over him is for disguising the darkening of it.
“Were ya’ hurt?” Atsumu asks.
Osamu looks away from their ma to stare at him, face going still and blank. If it wasn’t for the trembling of his lower lip, he might as well be a statue. Atsumu’s heart picks up in response to the stomach churning vulnerability on his brother's face, and the fact he’s exposed like a live wire in a room full of people they’ve never met.
Ma takes a seat on the edge of the bed, sighing quietly and surveying them both with a hand to Osamu’s back. “He was driving. He’s not hurt beyond some bumps and bruises.”
“That’s not too bad, then.” Atsumu squeezes their hands, and blinks the blur of tears away. “Ya’ don’t gotta’ look like ya’ seen a ghost, dummy.”
Osamu’s expression doesn’t change. If anything, it becomes something close to haunted, and he looks down, voice quiet. “...’Tsumu, it…it was my fault. Everything. I-”
Atsumu interrupts him, not giving half a thought to how rude it might come across to anyone else. His stomach aches with how badly he wants to rid his brother of the expression. “Did it kill us?”
“No, but-”
“Then it’s fine, ‘Samu.” And he means it.
Osamu shakes his head, a tiny thing that could’ve been nothing more than a tremble. “I was textin’ and it almost killed ya’. There's nothing about that that's okay, it’s. It’s sick.”
Atsumu huffs, more make believe annoyed than anything else. It’s safer, now; they can have it out another time, when things aren’t as raw. “It’s fine. Leave it.”
Osamu looks up, on the border of being truly distraught now, and Atsumu cuts him off before he can even begin, even as his throat burns and his chest squeezes, because if he doesnt say something, Osamu will bleed himself with this. He won’t ever let it go in that silent, churning way of his if Atsumu doesn’t make him.
And shit, he knows his brother is just as mean and sharp as he is, cruel edges hidden but just as cutting behind Osamu's seemingly palatable manner, but he's never going to deserve something like that.
Atsumu wriggles the fingers sprouting from the cast, and lectures him with a nonchalance he doesn’t feel. Whatever. “It’s fine. My arm will get better or they probably woulda’ clipped it off. I’ll…I’ll take a bit off, and some time for myself. I’ll get better, and play again, but if one of us woulda’ died, ‘Samu, there woulda been no coming back from that. I wouldn't have wanted to. So… we’re fine. Just take it as a learning moment or whatever.”
Osamu closes his eyes and tucks his face in the elbow facing away from the door, tears running in silent tracks down his face. When he opens them a pregnant pause later, grey-blue vibrant against the upset flush of his face, he stands slow and careful, and leans to pull whatever uninjured part of Atsumu he can against himself. Atsumu hears his brother inhale in the crook of his neck, feels the cool, ticklish drops of his tears on his throat.
“Love ya’.” He grounds out, just a whisper. “So much. So, so much.”
There's nothing he tacks onto the end, no asshole, dummy, dude, to soften the ick of admittance because Osamu loves him, and he’s shoving the flesh of himself at Atsumu as if he needs to reaffirm that his brother knows it.
That they’re both alive.
Atsumu sniffles. “Ya’ owe me onigiri forever. And yer’ feeding me ‘till this thing comes off.”
“Made with extra love.” Osamu mumbles, somehow not even cringing. Atsumu laughs, wheezing.
“Yeah, yeah, just don't poison me.” Atsumu pats his hooded head gently, giving in when his brother appears dead serious. “Love ya’, too.”
His Momma bursts in the door seconds later, dodging the several nurses already in the room, and the small swarm of them chasing her. If Atsumu had to place a guess, it’s at the lack of a visitor pass pinned to her shirt that has made her target number one for hospital security.
“Etsu?” Ma asks, standing to greet her partner. When the nurses catch up to her, flustered and with annoyance stark on their faces, she waves them away, taking their moms hand in her own. “It’s fine.”
The doctor, who she had been mid-conversation with seconds before, steps back to hand the clip-board of notes to one of them, to give their family what Atsumu guesses is an attempt at space. They probably hadn’t been the easiest to work with straight out the gate, and that’s without the addition of their second mother.
Once clear, his Momma slips up behind Osamu and his Ma, sweeping all three of them together in her arms, closing her eyes, midnight black hair a wild rain-damp sheet over her shoulders. “My boys, lord, my boys.”
Later, Atsumu learns the exact sequence of events that took place that rainy morning. He doesn’t remember much of it, per his concussion, but Osamu recounts it in eerie detail - that he’d been on his phone, and Atsumu had reacted before Osamu had even clued in something was wrong. How his arm was hyperextended backwards when he turned the wheel to avoid the vehicle coming straight at the driver's side door at what the insurance surveyor's think was seventy kilometres an hour, how instead, it connected with the end of the truck beds and sent them spinning.
How the impact had sent his head straight into the dash, before their truck was stopped dead in its tracks by the lamppost that caved the passenger side door. Atsumu had narrowly avoided any further injuries via lamppost due to the airbags beside his head going off upon that second impact. If they hadn’t, or had gone off with the first, his skull would have looked a whole lot more like the shattered window. This, the policewoman tells him.
If he hadn’t turned the wheel, she says gently, sitting with him and his mom inside his hospital room to collect the incident report while her partner speaks to Osamu and ma outside, there’s a high likelihood it would have crushed his brother.
The nauseous that the knowledge inspires is vicious, and thick with a new flavour of anxiety. It’s a lot more like paranoia.
It had been an older lady who had lost control behind the wheel, going too fast to stop and as a result, hydroplaned straight through the intersection that Atsumu had taken to school for the past three years of his life. One that he knew like the back of his hand, and one that had almost taken everything from him.
There would have been two dead that day instead of one, the officer informs, tone kind as she can manage, like it’ll soften the horror of it. It doesn’t do a whole lot for him.
When they finish, she pats his shoulder and calls him a hero, like the pure instinct that recognized his brother's texting was going to get him killed was something Atsumu had chosen to act upon.
Atsumu has never, ever in his life been so grateful for things that are out of his control: thunder and instinct.
Atsumu’s arm takes a full nine months to fully recover, and in that time with nothing better to do while biding his time, he applies and enters a bachelor of science, specialising in chemistry. Osamu never lets him hear the end of it - how he’s a lame nerd, how if he's a lame chemistry nerd then why does his hair look like that - Atsumu thinks he can suck it, because he wants to make balls for a living.
Rice balls, but same difference.
He starts university in Tokyo, the same one Osamu applies to for a degree in food sciences, which is nice despite the continuation of the Miya Twins identity issues. They get an apartment together, and Atsumu dates a girl named Aiko for a few months before they split ways.
Second year comes around and narrowly aligns with the end of his physiotherapy, so Atsumu tries out for and makes the Toyko Tigers, joining the team instead of immediately attempting to go pro; he’s rustier than he would like to admit.
His arm begins to ache whenever it rains, and the scar where they’d split him open to reattach ligament and bone now permanently stretches across the back of his arm like a yawning, pink-pale mouth after it finally settles around the same time. Insurance had offered treatments to pale it further, and while he’d had some work done to soften the issue beyond pulling taunt when he spiked, he sort of likes it. It’s a good reminder.
It’s metal looking, he had explained to Osamu when asked. His brother had thrown a handful of damp rice at him for his bullshit.
He probably already understood, anyway.
Second year, Atsumu meets a boy who makes his head spin and his heart angry, and on something like instinct (without choice, or conscious thought), he falls in love. Sakusa Kiyoomi is nothing like what he’d thought he’d want in all of the best ways; a challenging ground to his arrogance, cold calm to his fire.
Second year, Osamu and Suna meet Komori, much Sakusa's vehement regret, and they become three instead of two, and then in third year Osamu graduates a year quicker than them all.
The grand opening of Onigiri Miya is probably one of Atsumu’s favourite days on record, right up there with becoming the first string setter on his new team, or crushing Osamu in monopoly that one time (he’s not the one with a partial business degree. Sue him.)
It's a sunny morning near the end of their fourth year when Atsumu finds them. He's not looking for them (and he'll swear it till the day he dies), rather preoccupied with stealing a pair of Sakusa's socks after forgetting to tuck a second pair into his overnight duffel, but the firm, velvety little box at the back of the drawer is also pretty hard to ignore.
Sakusa had seen it on his face within seconds, still tangled in the sheets and watching him with the quiet fondness of early morning. He’d promptly looked so aggrieved that anyone else would have wondered if he had been forced to buy the rings at gunpoint; Atsumu, thankfully, is more than fluent in Omi.
Osamu, of course, is his best man.
In this universe, Atsumu gets to keep his brother. In this one, losing him isn’t something he ever is forced to know, and while the thought of it never really leaves him, aching like his bones when it storms, he’s just privately grateful for the reminder of what he has.
Beyond the aches and pain of healing, he never falls. There's too many hands to catch him.
He gets to keep Sakusa, and Komori and Suna too, and everyone he’s ever loved. He gets to love them everyday and on purpose, without any knowledge of what not getting to do that does to a person, of what having his soul split in two is like. He doesn’t have to have his ruined, bleeding edges cauterized with a different type of love.
In this universe, nothing bad ever happens to them, and they are twenty-one, twenty-five, fifty, married, loved, kissing under the snowfall, stuffing their faces with their team long past the closing hours of Onigiri Miya.
Osamu cries when Atsumu shows him his olympic jersey number, even if he vehemently denies it, and tries to smash his phone when photo evidence is taken. Suna, of course, does not allow this.
They get to watch their mothers get married for real when it’s legalized, and they each walk a parent down the aisle.
They get to love.
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It’s just that not every lifetime is this lucky.