Work Text:
Todomatsu didn’t remember him.
By now, he should have.
Setting: High School.
Atsushi is a third year, and president of the student council. He is dependable, easy going, approachable, and the other council members joke that girls voted him in because he is rich and good looking. Atsushi never really understands what that has to do with anything,
As class president, Atsushi is expected to show school spirit in all departments. Today, he is attending a championship basketball game against one of the local public schools. Atsushi did not care much for basketball - or any other sport for that matter - but this was his job, and he never had anywhere else to be, anyway.
It is here that he spots him. Sitting on the sidelines and doing his best to look interested, he must be a team manager because he is far too delicate, far too fragile, far too small to be on the team. He looks like he could be a dancer, maybe. His eyes and hair are dark, and his smile is small and coy, like he knows some secret that no one else does.
Against his will, he is staring. He notices this only because one of his peers jostles him - apparently their team has scored.
But he doesn’t care, and cannot care no matter how hard he tries. He can’t focus.
He wants to know whatever the pretty manager knows.
The game ends and Atsushi is pretty sure that his team has won. He trails behind one of his classmates onto the court, and turns to look around as nonchalantly as possible. But, he is searching, hoping to spot the pretty manager, maybe meet him, anything really.
He is close to giving up after he exchanges kind words with the basketball team, but he backs into someone. When he turns, he sees the dark hair and eyes, and small, temporary frown that morphs back into a smile in an instant.
“I’m…” Atsushi tries to speak, but his words betray him.
The shorter boy shakes his head, still smiling. “No, I’m sorry! I should’ve been watching where I was going.”
His voice is not particularly feminine, but his intonation and mannerism can only be described as… soft. Soft, and light.
“Ah.” Atsushi tries to collect himself. “Your team played very well!” He hopes that this is true. He cannot remember the game at all, just the pretty manager’s expression as he had watched.
“Oh, thank you! I’ll be sure to tell them.” He bows his head slightly. “I’ve got to get going now, so, goodbye!”
Atsushi stares as the pretty manager scurries off. One of his council friends throws an arm around his shoulders.
“Whoa! You met one of them.”
Atsushi furrows his brows, and is upset that his mourning of the moment has been interrupted. “One of who?”
“The Matsunos.” His acquaintance nods. “They’re sextuplets, you know? Kind of a big deal around here.”
“Matsuno?” Atsushi rubs his chin and stares into the crowd, intently searching. “Do you know his name?”
The acquaintance shrugs. “Nah. You seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. But, I can tell you they’re first years, if that’s any help.”
Atsushi nods, but then sighs.
Six of them. His mind is reeling.
Six same faces.
He worries whether he will see that one ever again.
^^^
Setting: Go Club.
Atsushi is very popular at his university, but he is not as fond of others as they are of him. His roommate absently advises him to try things outside of just the university community - maybe go out and meet people living in the area around them.
Atsushi does not realize that this suggestion is not very serious, and he decides to take the advice. Go, he thinks, is fun. It is a strategy game, so the people he meets will be intellectuals - or, at least, aspiring intellectuals - but it is also a game, so the people won’t be afraid to have fun. They will think that Go is fun too, and thus they will already have something in common with him.
When Atsushi arrives to Go club, the room is mostly full of elderly men and women, and they grow quite fond of him very quickly. He finds their seniority cute, but he was hoping to befriend people closer to his own age.
There are a few young adults in the bunch, but they don’t really seem to be his type. They are all too serious about this game. Atsushi is very good at Go, and beats all of them. He is fairly certain that they all hate him for this. He begins to feel dejected as he realizes that he is back to square one.
But then, the door slides open, and someone with dark hair and eyes and a small, coy smile enters the room, and Atsushi feels like he has soared from square one to square one thousand.
‘This,’ he thinks, assuredly. ‘Is the pretty manager.’
The pretty manager takes a seat across from one of the elderly people and starts off grinning. Atsushi cannot focus on his own game, because he is looking past his opponent’s head and staring at the pretty manager’s face. The pretty manager goes from a kind of blind happiness, to worry, to frustration, to utter despair in his defeat.
Against his will, he is staring. He notices this only because his opponent jolts at one of his moves - apparently he has stolen more territory.
But he doesn’t care, and cannot care no matter how hard he tries. He can’t focus.
He wants to feel whatever the pretty manager feels.
The game ends and Atsushi is pretty sure that he has won. The opponents switch off in a bit, and by wriggling and sweet talking his way around everyone, he is able to sit across the table from the boy he knows only as ‘the pretty manager’ and, ‘Matsuno’.
“Ah, jeez, when you sat down at my table, everyone started whispering. You must be really good at this.” Matsuno smiles, worry already streaking across his face.
Atsushi’s words catch in his throat again and his face begins to flush. He is embarrassed, but also overwhelmed by the pseudo-compliment. He pushes the words from his mouth. “I - I don’t know that I’d say that. I just… really enjoy Go.”
The pretty Matsuno nods, and the game begins. “I’m pretty new to this. I haven’t been playing here very long at all. I only got interested because -” He stops himself, blushing a bit.
“…Because?” Atsushi says dumbly. The pretty manager’s pinkened face has him in a daze, and he can’t say anything more innovative. He just wants him to keep talking.
The pretty manager laughs.
Atsushi’s vision goes out of focus.
“To be honest, my brother read a manga about it a while ago, and I read about it online.” He looks up, smiling, this time not as though there is a secret, but as though he is welcoming Atsushi. “I’ve wanted to try it since then.”
Atsushi nods, and he can’t see anything but the pretty manager’s face as he stares at the board, the pretty manager’s hair as he presses loose wisps back, the pretty manager’s hands as he timidly places each piece, and Atsushi is not thinking about the game at all.
Atsushi loses.
All of the elderly people are stunned.
The pretty manager gasps when he realizes he’s won.
“Good game!” The pretty manager yells, smiling again and bowing deeply.
Atsushi bows as well. “Good… game.”
Before he can say anything, the opponents switch. The pretty manager is playing someone else, and Atsushi is doing the same. He resolves to talk to him before the next round begins.
But when the round ends, the pretty manager’s phone rings, and he answers it, and a multitude of voices pour through the device. The pretty manager yanks the phone away from his ear and grimaces.
“What, what? I’m out right now!” He sounds frustrated. “You… you what? Ah, just wait, Osomatsu nii-san, I’ll be there in a few minutes!” More shouting. “A few seconds, fine!”
Atsushi is listening intently. Every other sentence his brothers yell ens with, “Todomatsu”.
He is happy to finally know the pretty manager’s name.
^^^
Setting: Sutabaa Coffee Shop.
Atsushi has been doing international business for a while, and has finally found some time to come back home. He decides to visit all of the places that he never had before, because he misses this. He misses the familiarity; but regrettably, he has never gotten too familiar with the area outside of his university, his high school, or his house.
This coffee shop is mildly popular, and everyone from home recommends it because it has “decent coffee, and very cute baristas”. Atsushi doesn’t understand why cute baristas add to the experience at all, but he also doesn’t like coffee enough to get frustrated about its quality. He decides to go on an adventure.
When Atsushi finally reaches the front of the line, one of the baristas smiles at him sweetly and takes his order. Her nametag says, ‘Sacchi’. Atsushi tells her his order and she seems very nice, and, maybe cute? She seems to fit the standard for what a lot of people find cute, but Atsushi doesn’t really get it. He supposes that he came here more for the decent coffee than anything.
As he is going to sit in one of the comfy chairs, the bathroom door opens and he is utterly floored.
The pretty manager who is perhaps named Todomatsu Matsuno, is walking out. He is not smiling at this exact second, but Atsushi is sure that it is him. His dress shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his weird blue-green apron looks great on him, and everything happening right now is beautiful.
Atsushi smiles. Wow! He had really good friends. They knew exactly the cute barista he was looking for, didn’t they? Now he understands how a cute barista can add to the experience.
But then, Todomatsu walks behind the counter without even crossing paths with him, and takes over for Sacchi taking orders.
Atsushi is overwhelmed, and he jumps back in line without a second thought. As the line dwindles down, he wonders what he is going to say. ‘You look lovely today, Todomatsu’ or maybe, ‘I’m so glad I’ve got the chance to see you again”, or maybe, ‘I’ve been all around the world, I will gladly tell you everything that you want to know about anything, just please don’t look away from me’, or maybe,
Atsushi is at the front of the line, and he can feel his face burning, and he only stops swimming around in his own mind when the pretty manager - now very pretty and cute barista - says, “Sir, can I help you?”
Sir. It occurs to Atsushi that he knows much more about Todomatsu than Todomatsu knows about him. He wishes that Todomatsu knew his name. Todomatsu was definitely the barista’s name; it was on his nametag, so it had to be true. He has no excuse for the reason why he is back in this line, coffee in hand.
Todomatsu frowns. “Is there something the matter with your coffee?”
Atsushi is sweating and trying his best. “I, uh, could I actually, get whipped cream on this?”
Todomatsu furrows his brow in confusion, then laughs. The last time he heard him laugh was across a Go board, and Atsushi is sure that his knees are weak.
“Aida could’ve done that for you, but sure!” He turns away from the register and calls to Aida to toss him a can of whipped cream, and she immediately obliges. Atsushi wonders if the pretty manager is dating one of the ‘cute’ baristas. Todomatsu then uncaps the lid on Atsushi’s coffee, and expertly swirls the whipped cream on top. “There you go, um… Atsushi-san.”
Atsushi is in a vegetative state. Todomatsu knew his name all along? Todomatsu knew his name? Todomatsu said his name? Atsushi needs to get away from him as quickly as possible before he accidentally proposes.
“Tha-thank you! Very much, I really appreciate it! Thank you!” Atsushi takes the coffee, turns, and all but disappears from the coffee shop, his mind in a flurry.
Outside of the coffee shop, he looks at the drink which was once held by Todomatsu Matsuno, pretty manager, cute barista, bad Go player of his dreams.
He realizes that his name is written on the cup.
^^^
Atsushi attends his first Go club meeting in about a year and a half. He hopes that Todomatsu will be there, and he hopes that maybe this time he will get to actually introduce himself. He hopes that this time, maybe they can exchange numbers, or emails, or addresses - anything would be good, actually. He just doesn’t want to leave without knowing anything about him again. He is sick of letting coincidence run this part of his life.
On the one hand, Atsushi is happy that Todomatsu has stayed so stationary in life that he can always be found in relatively the same place. On the other hand, though, Atsushi is pained to think that perhaps Todomatsu has never left this area. After all, he’d always seemed to Atsushi to be the wandering type. Like he’d want to go places, get out, do things. There was no way he could enjoy staying in this little town his whole life. Atsushi would be sure to ask him. He was excited to get to know him, to meet him for the first time all over again.
But, before all of that, he’d make sure to tell him his name.
Todomatsu Matsuno enters the room, slightly late again, wearing a pink hoodie and blue jeans. Pink looks very good on him, Atsushi notes. It fits his image.
When it is time to play, Atsushi has wormed his way over to Todomatsu, and made sure that he would be able to sit across from him again.
Todomatsu smiles. It is good that they are sitting, because now it seems that Atsushi’s knees can get weak from that alone. Atsushi opens his mouth to speak.
“Atsushi!” Todomatsu pipes out.
Atsushi’s eyes widen. Everything goes out of focus but Todomatsu’s face.
His name.
He’d said it. He looked around for a tattling coffee cup. There was none. He didn’t even like coffee.
“Uh,” Atsushi gapes. “You know my name?”
Todomatsu cocks his head to the side, looking slightly puzzled. “You were at the coffee shop last week, weren’t you? Why didn’t you mention that we played Go together. I knew you looked familiar! I just couldn’t place it.”
Atsushi cannot speak. He just stares.
Todomatsu smiles blankly at him.
Atsushi tries again. He smiles back.
“That’s me. Thanks for remembering.”