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By the time the last diploma is awarded, they are not in the ceremony anymore.
“Miya Osamu. Will you run away with me?”
“Always.”
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“Don’ like seagulls, stop makin’ ‘em fly.”
Rintarou—sleeves and pants hitched up—chases the birds. Sand flies everywhere and Osamu has to cover his face.
“Aw, but they’re so silly, I like scaring them. Especially ‘cause you’re so uncomfortable right now that your accent is slipping out.”
“I’m not, and I always talk like this.”
“Well, now you’re trying too hard to hide it.” Rintarou takes his shoes from the sand with one hand and Osamu with the other. He moves away from the few seagulls that stayed close. “Besides, you always have tried to speak less… Kansai when you’re with me.”
“Uhm, no?” He frowns, genuinely caught off guard.
Rintarou doesn’t roll his eyes, but the way he stares at Osamu from the corner of his eye is giving the same skeptical vibe.
“You do, since when we met for the first time.” Although Osamu opens his mouth to answer back, Rintarou quickly bumps their shoulders hard enough to shut him up. “Osamu, I saw you earlier that day arguing with Atsumu and I didn’t understand a damn thing. In practice, though, you pronounced every word carefully only when you introduced yourself to me.”
“I- Did I?” Osamu's voice gets lower. Rintarou giggles.
Rintarou’s voice mixes with the sound of the waves. It’s still early in the morning, so it’s just them and a few more people walking on the beach; it feels like it’s only them, nonetheless. The breeze is fresh, Spring’s sun isn’t too hot, so the proximity between their bodies is nice—sharing each other’s slight warmth.
Memories flood Rintarou’s mind, he closes his eyes and inhales deeply. He hums. “Yeah. I thought you were handsome, so perhaps I was paying a little too much attention to you.” Osamu frowns, but remains in silence when Rintarou kicks the sand as he walks, and puts his head on Osamu’s shoulders. “I know. Yes, I thought the same of Atsumu, but he was annoying since day one, and so fucking loud. I think that when I realized you were as loud as him, it was too late for me.”
“Uh? Ya did like me, and yet ya were trying so frickin’ hard to not get involved with us.”
“I’m dating you against my principles.”
“I’ve noticed it.”
As every time Rintarou is with Osamu, he laughs—a laugh from his stomach, loud and clear. Not even the waves' sound colliding with the rocks could rise above it.
“Oh, but it’s okay now. I've got no regrets.”
“Ya better not.”
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Opening a second branch of Onigiri Miya—in Aichi instead of Osaka—is not as awesome as some people are trying to convince Osamu it is.
He cleans tables, mops floors, turns the sign to Open and the working day begins. Same as he does in Osaka.
A new restaurant isn't a new system, nor a new life.
“Isn’t it open yet?”
Osamu doesn't turn to the voice. He doesn't greet with a friendly Welcome! or a big customer service smile.
“It took ya long enough, don'tcha think?”
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The sun slowly stops heating behind them while the train rattles towards Koshien, the beach can be seen now instead of gray buildings. Osamu closes his eyes and tries to disappear in Rintarou’s neck, his hands clenched to his boyfriend’s sweater and nose subtly sniffing the scent of his lime and lemongrass of his body wash.
“Yer parents are comin' tomorrow?”
“Nope. They think high school graduation is not that important, especially since it's a miracle Rintarou managed to graduate, y'know?”
“Cool. Granny ain't comin’ either.”
“Really? How unexpected.”
“Yeah, she needs to work. It's okay, though. I barely managed to graduate too—nothin’ to be proud of—, and the only reason Tsumu'll come is ‘cause Aran and Kita will be there.”
Rintarou reaches Osamu's hand, face hiding in his hair.
“I don’t wanna graduate.”
Osamu squeezes his hand.
“Neither am I.”
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Rintarou loves volleyball, despite his eternally resting bitch face and moody groans when it’s practice time. If not, he wouldn’t be in Hyogo, unable to get inside his new classroom due to a couple of idiots fighting for something he can’t understand a word about.
“Is everyone in this region that unintelligible?” He sighs. Getting out of bed was hard enough to now have to cope with noisy- “Twins?”
Rintarou records them for a while, but gets bored once he accepts is not going to understand the whole argument. Besides, a fight where someone screams apple can’t be so interesting.
One of them is in his class. However, Rintarou doesn’t pay attention to him again until they meet once more in the volleyball club two days after.
They’re good-looking. The quieter one is cute, mainly because he tries extremely hard to hide his accent—likely since Rintarou speaks as a city boy as some of his teammates said—when they talk for the first time.
He didn’t want to become closer with the Miya twins. He did it anyway. On top of that, Rintarou falls in love with one of them.
It makes him feel like a man sentenced to the gallows the first time he realizes Miya Osamu is more than a handsome, bearable pain in the ass. Accepting to himself that Osamu is funny, cute, and a hard-worker full of conviction, is like being in court under oath and telling the truth, mumbling as it causes him physical pain.
Osamu's mischief makes him snort and laugh. He smiles at Osamu's stupids answers back to Atsumu, also when the teacher awakes him to answer a question and he turns red and babbles.
They're not that close. They're good teammates, acquaintances—not friends. Rintarou is another insignificant person with a crush on Miya Osamu among many more from first to last year students.
Rintarou is good at reading people, using it to his own convenience. He knows that Osamu has some kind of feeling for him. Osamu should at least think Rintarou is attractive, considering that he sometimes talks nonsense or is easily embarrassed when Rintarou is around.
It's not enough.
Rintarou wants Osamu to be into him, looking for excuses to spend time together. Trying to talk more with him, paying attention to everything Rintarou does.
Acting like he’s in love. Acting like Rintarou does for him.
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“Show me,” says Rintarou. There’s a lazy grin on his face, and their hands keep swinging while they look for a nice place in the rocks to take a seat and enjoy the sea view.
“I’ve got nothin’ to show ya yet. Unless ya can read my mind.”
“I can, and I see the future too.” Rintarou isn’t willing to let go of Osamu's hand, but eventually they’d have to do it to figure out how to settle down in the flattest rock they found. “It’ll be a big counter in the middle, you're cooking there, surrounded by many happy people moaning, and shouting of delight,” Osamu laughs, and softly kisses Rintarou in the cheek. He smiles, too, and reaches for his boyfriend’s hand again. “So, show me. How does it look for you.”
Osamu hums, Rintarou recognizes his shyness—he caresses his boyfriend’s thumb, occasionally swinging their holding hands.
“Looks traditional, but not excessively. Cozy and fresh, the smell of rice would be felt frem the very first step inside. One of those tiny bells would sound when someone arrives…” Osamu giggles, staring at the waves that are less than two meters away from getting their legs wet. Rintarou knows he’s imagining something, and his heart feels warm. “Tsumu’d be there, complainin’ ‘bout volleyball on the counter, eatin’ like it’s free…”
“And me?” Rintarou mutters, eyes fixed in their joined hands.
“Ya come, eventually. Yer smilin’, and so am I.”
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It’s not Ritarou’s first time visiting Onigiri Miya, but now it’s different. Although it’s not like he’s going to work or live there, it feels like being back at home knowing he’s staying forever this time.
Osamu is right. It took them too long.
They have to compensate for lost time for the rest of their lives.
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“We should get married when that day comes.”
“We should.”
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Osamu had a plan: Never be like Atsumu, he’d be a nice guy.
Well, it’s his first day in their new high school, and probably nobody believes that already. It isn’t his fault, though, that Atsumu begged him to punch him in the face since the very first moment they took a step in first years’ floor.
It’s not even the first time they aren’t in the same class. They don’t need to look for their classrooms together or stay stuck until the bell rings. He wants space, make new friends. (Starting to prepare himself for the imminent future in which he won’t be able to run back to his brother whenever he feels alone, or if he struggles making friends.)
Nevertheless, Atsumu never acts according to Osamu’s wishes. So, here they are, just standing in the corridor, not even looking at each other, because Osamu wants to spend at least the first day without his entire class trying to talk to him only because he has a twin.
They fought in the morning, they were supposed to be fine for the rest of the day before coming back home.
But Atsumu threw his apple—which was his excuse to ignore him, but he also wanted to eat—on the floor to demand his attention.
His fist moved on its own…
So, they fought. As always. And he’s almost sure someone recorded them.
He’s a hundred percent sure someone actually did it when he talks with Suna Rintarou weeks later. By then he’s over his first impression of him—no more babbling, nor awkward politeness.
Osamu has relearned how to talk and the fact he’s born and raised in Hyogo by the time he realizes Rintarou’s not only a handsome, hell beautiful, guy with a charming city accent, intense pretty eyes and attractive nonchalantness. But also a gossiper, manipulative and unsuggestible.
Rintarou also focuses on reaching his goals, can smile with evilness and softness at the same time, is secretly a caring person and always gives his best even if no one notices. However, up to this point, Osamu loves him.
Love. Straight to the strong word, no detours.
It’s likely a teenager’s delusion, convinced he has the absolute truth when everything he knows about the world is limited to a few cities away.
Osamu is as sure that Rintarou believes he’s a loser because of his behavior around him, as he’s about that he could love him forever if he doesn’t break his heart soon.
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Osamu always acts like he’s in love with Rintarou (but it’s not an act for even a second). Rintarou never breaks Osamu’s heart (he'd never do it).
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“How’re ya gonna answer when they ask ya fer yer autograph?”
The water touches their toes, the sand sticks on their feet, and the sun has reached the point where it warms and shines painfully before it begins to set.
Rintarou chuckles, excited but nervous about the perspective of being good enough to have people asking for his autograph.
“I’ll write my name in silence and keep walking.”
Osamu hums, unimpressed, looking his boyfriend skeptically out of the corner of his eye. He knows Rintarou better—he’s too kind to look down on people, with the condescension that usually comes with being a successful professional athlete oozing against his will. No. He’d crouch down to the children’s height, would give handshakes with that tiny proud smile he can’t help sketching when someone compliments him.
Osamu tugs hard on their intertwined hands, forcing Rintarou to turn around with a stumble. Their noses touch for a second, and Osamu pecks Rintarou’s cheek before taking distance again. Sand flies between their legs, and the salt water splashes everywhere. He exaggerates a bow with his hands outstretched, as if holding a piece of paper.
Atsumu must have already been in the same position, accepting his high school diploma.
It’ll be sunset soon.
“It’s an honor, Suna-senshu! Can I have yer autograph?”
Rintarou sighs, changing his expression for a nonchalant one. He clicks his tongue, turns to the other side and almost pushes Osamu’s face with his hand.
Osamu grabs his arm and pulls him back, trapping him in his arms, leaning his chest heavily on Rintarou’s back. They both laugh scandalously.
“Ya diva!”
“Let me go, Samu!”
“Oh, no way.”
Osamu slides his hands under Rintarou's back and behind his knees, carrying him princess-style. He then runs toward the sea, stopping only when both of their pants get wet and the water splashes onto the rest of their clothes.
“Samu!”
If someone stops to see them, judging or subtly laughing, they’ll never know. They’re the only people in the world, playing in the water, trying to escape from each other’s hugs between giggles and one or two playful pecks.
They lay in the sand as half of the sun disappears behind the horizon.
“You really think I can do it?”
Osamu finds his hand and joins them over the cold sand.
“I’m askin’ fer yer autograph, ain’t I?”
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“Samu?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll miss you.”
There’s no sun, just a black sky painted with tiny stars. The sand on their bodies dried. The last train has already left.
It’s not a goodbye, though.
After a silent, long second, Osamu mutters. “Rintarou.”
“Osamu.”
“I love you.”
Rintarou doesn’t bother trying to hide his soft, wet titter. “Yeah, I know.” He sniffles. “You’re hiding your accent.”
He doesn’t answer; they already know they’d say the same. Besides, they have time—it won’t be the last time Osamu will say it, or Rintarou will hear it.
Today, it’s just a heartfelt ‘see you soon’.
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Not a single hour after entering Onigiri Miya’s doors in Aichi—the newest Osamu’s restaurant and his daily job’s place for the years to come until Rintarou retires, or they decide to move again—Rintarou kisses Osamu’s lips with the calm that comes with the certainty to being able to do it again every morning, every night… forever. Then, the proposal leaves his mouth before processing them in his mind.
Well, they’re words he doesn’t need to overthink anyway.
“We should get married.”
Osamu blinks once, and the answer comes before the end of the question.
“We should.”
The answer is as useless as the question that preceded it; after all, it was asked in the past, time solved it and the future came with the response.
It’s not to hurry love, nor stop it. It’s to keep it strong no matter the time.
“Miya Osamu. Will you run away with me?”
“Always.”
By the time Onigiri Miya should be open, they are not in the city anymore. By the time Onigiri Miya should be closed, Suna Rintarou no longer exists.