Chapter 1: Oh, in those days I'd drift along on 25 sometimes
Chapter Text
Miya Osamu has never hated his life more than he does now.
That’s the first realisation.
The second realisation registers as the sharp stinging of pain through his fingers.
He knows what's happened before he even looks down, but the sight of red over his work station kickstarts his senses, sending his heart into overdrive.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
"Shit! Samu, that’s a fuckin nasty cut." One of his line mates exclaims, rushing for the first aid kit. Osamu feels the pricking of ten odd eyes, a blanket over the pulsing of his fingers. He can't move. Even as crimson pours, soaking into freshly chopped vegetables and an old napkin coloured with grease. Even as some of his coworkers inch closer and closer, urging him to wash his hands or follow whatever OH&S protocol had been drilled into their heads during their first week of culinary school.
Osamu can not move.
The world narrows to the burning in his fingertips, to the blood all over his workstation and the cuffs of his pristine white coat, the sounds of their usually noisy kitchen dulling to a static ringing in his ears. The dread that accompanies is enough to floor him.
Someone is touching him, pulling him away from the workstation, he registers, the faded colours in the background morphing and melting into each other before separating into their individual distorted hues.
20 minutes of mise en place gone to waste. A pile of food to be discarded because he’d fucked up and contaminated it with his fucking blood. He can hear the words, even though their owner isn’t within sight.
Waste of space in my fucking kitchen.
"Go home after I wrap your hand," Masakatsu-san, the sous chef, says authoritatively. His eyes are kind, and Osamu has spent enough time with him complaining to know that the wrinkles in his face are because of a lifetime of smiling, but the words feel like an anvil falling on an already hard day, and Osamu isn't sure if he'll have enough time to escape before it falls.
Fuckin idiot who can’t cut a few vegetables without fucking up. Whichever school decided to take you in should be burned to the ground.
"Sir, I'm fine, I can --"
"Boy, it's not yer day. Yer distracted. Go home, get some rest."
Keep being this useless, and you’ll never amount to anything.
"But --"
"Ya know it'll be worse if you continue like this. Head chef will have a bigger freak out, and you might end up with more than a sliced hand."
"Masakatsu-san, I'm -"
"Go home." Final. Authoritative. Masakatsu-san isn’t smiling. The words die in his throat. He means well. He knows this. He's been looking out for him one gruff sentence at a time since Osamu had started at the restaurant starry-eyed. He means well.
It doesn't stop the words from burying themselves into his skin, thin layers he knows will grow corrosive as the evening progresses.
It doesn't stop the feeling of being kicked out. Or the consequence of fucking up.
The anvil is inching closer and closer. He’s always been this bad. The head chef had said it. Osamu hadn’t wanted to believe it. Osamu decides to let it hit. He packs his bags and his knives, nods politely at the rest of the kitchen, and wanders off into the summer's air, begging the seams barely holding him together to stay put until he is away.
Osamu has never hated his life more than he does today. He's hungry, but the thought of being near a stove or a knife is so nauseating at the moment, it makes him want to tear his hair out. Or cry. Or both.
Why did he think he could do this?
The sun is more than halfway through its descent, coating the world in golden hues and painting the sky a mosaic of vibrant reds and softened pink. The summer’s heat is receding, leaving way for chilly breezes, petrichor riding the tail ends of the leaves they carry every which way. The route to Osamu’s apartment is a brainless 15-minute walk, a right from the restaurant, then straight with no deviations, but today, today of all days, his feet detour, his head full and numb and hostile. He ends up at a park, the one a few minutes behind the complex where the primary school kids like to hang out and race beetles. It’s mostly empty tonight, save for 2 boys dressed identically in jean shorts and t-shirts one size too big, one clad in orange and the other in a nauseating shade of green. They’re hunched over the sandbox, digging intensely for something only they know: a secret, maybe, buried treasure, something hidden from their parents. Orange boy says something, loud but indecipherable from where Osamu stands, and green shirt boy hits him on the head lightly with his fist. They chase each other around the park screaming. A breeze catches Osamu through his jacket, and he shivers.
All at once, Osamu wants his brother. He wants him viscerally and now, and if he doesn't hear Atsumu’s grating scratch, he’s sure he’s going to shatter, and maybe the pieces will get lodged somewhere unreachable, never to be seen again. Before he knows it, his phone is in his hands, fingers dialing automatically– he could recall them from heart, backwards and forward, since Ma had first given it to them; 2 numbers off his own, counting his breaths in between the rhythmic beeping of the line. The sounds stretch on forever, long trailing sounds that fill the space between golden hour and the imminent twilight. The boys are still playing, yelling and climbing and laughing, and parts of Osamu clench painfully, lurching with a basal longing threatening to rip him to shreds. It goes to voicemail.
Osamu tries again, this time, taking a seat at one of the benches because he’s so, so tired. The sounds of the beeping in his ears, the children outside, the birds overcast with too much to say blend and blur into a cacophony in his brain. Earlier on comes back to him, flashes of red, being patched up. Go home. Go home. Go home. Waste of space. Fucking idiot. 20 minutes of mise en place soaked in blood sitting at the bottom of an industrial sized compost bin. In discomforting detail, the memory of their argument back in third year plays like a childhood CD unearthed from years of storage, somehow still intact and scratch free.
“I’m going to be the happier twin!”
These words exclaimed between punches, his body sliding this way and that on the reflective linoleum floors of the gym. He’d screamed them with every ounce of convention he could muster, the deep seated rightness in his bones his only ammunition. And he’d meant every single word. Cooking was his dream. Something in the shape of purpose. Miya Osamu was going to become a chef, open up a joint of his own — become soo damned popular than either he or Tsumu could ever imagine because he would serve food that made people sigh in content, food that became associated with the special occasions in life, food that brought that expression to Ma’s face. He would make food that would make people Happy. His raison d’etre.
What a joke
The overly ambitious musings of a naive child. This wasn’t the first time he’d questioned whether he was good enough — culinary school had definitely knocked him down a few pegs, showing him that everything he thought he knew about good food was rudimentary and borderline childish — but this sense of despair and hopelessness, the numbness that had overcome him during prep for dinner was unfamiliar and terrifying. For the first time ever, it felt like he was on the wrong track, that somewhere in the fog of what his future could be, he’d taken one wrong turn, then another, then another. In the brief milliseconds of silence between the beeps of the active ringing phone, the voices of everyone who’d said he was being unrealistic compound into a monster of veritability, the truth Osamu hadn’t wanted to think for himself.
Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this whole chef business.
His head chef definitely didn’t think so.
The vision of a restaurant of his own melts into a formless dream, elusive and retreating, slipping away like sand through his fingers.
Voicemail again. Atsumu’s voice cuts through the static, loud and as familiar as breathing.
“Hey! It’s Atsumu. Leave a message unless you’re Samu…” Osamu mouths the words in time with his brother’s cadence without the hint of mischief. Some part of the act is comforting, but the ache is louder, more demanding. Osamu is sure he might drown in this fear if he doesn’t hear his brother’s voice live.
He presses call again.
It takes him 3 rings to realise he’s shaking. Another 2 to realise that it’s not from the breeze. He stalks back to his apartment after another two, hands in his pocket, the sun long below the horizon, the sky an elegant hue of squid ink. Dinner rush should be starting at the restaurant. The head chef has probably already cussed him out 14 different ways. He wonder briefly was Masakatsu-san said to placate him. There’s only 2 stars in the sky tonight, hardly visible under the glare of the streetlights and cityscape. A flier floats past him, urgent in the passing wind. Osamu catches 3 words, one of them he thinks is “Adlers,” the other some remix of the words “match” and “stadium.” It’s gone before he thinks to grab it, but the clear image of a volleyball is seared into his brain. He glances back at the escaping paper, then to the sky, feet planted where he stands. His stomach drops, the rush of inadequacy sudden and violent, strong enough to topple him from his feet.
Why had he thought he could do this? That wasting 3 and a half years of his life chasing nothing more than a pipe dream was worth it? How had he convinced himself that the chase of something as fleeting as passion far outweighed the stability of something simple, familiar? He could’ve done it. They could’ve smashed the world together. He looks up at the stars again. They’re a lot further apart than he remembers. Osamu feels just as lost as the furthest one away.
At the foot of the stairs of his building, he moves to hang up. His bones suddenly feel too heavy, his chest cracking and caving, and Osamu wants to sleep, to shed his suffocating chef’s jacket and forget his uselessness, his disdain for his life, and the pain in his fingers that oscillate between stinging and dull.
“Scrub.” Atsumu answers in the same way one might say bastard. There’s no malice, however, but Osamu can hear the alert in his voice, the control his brother is trying to have over himself. He exhales, a loud, breathy thing that empties his lungs. He wishes the thoughts had left with the oxygen.
“Ya think if I train hard enough, I could make D2 by next year?” Osamu tries for casual, for nonchalance, but his voice wobbles and he misses the mark by a shot so long, it could probably rival a home run in sheer distance.
“Samu, what the fuck are yer on about?”
There’s loud music playing from a few floors up, some weird mix between bossa nova and J-pop. A pair of stray cats appear from an alleyway, appraising him with disinterest before stalking off, probably to terrorise neighbourhood birds or procreate. Another breeze. No leaves or paper on their trail. The scent of rain is a lot stronger from here. His eyes prickle, and he exhales again. Slower.
“It’s been a long day.” I’m so so tired. I hate this. You’re not here. I’m sorry for not calling more.
The apartment smells like cigarettes and rock bottom. He’d promised Sunarin he was going to stop -- after all, his lungs had to survive until he was 80 so he could flip Atsumu off with the proof of being so insufferably successful. But it was a nasty habit he’d picked up somewhere between the business diploma and the start of culinary school, when the world felt like it was both crushing him and crumbling without any safe place to stowaway, and it’d stuck through all the bad moments. Osamu just hadn’t realised how bad it’d become.
The apartment was cold and barren, whatever scrap surface he could find holding some splatter or mound of ash that would relocate all over his carpet should a breeze make its way into the space. He feels his mood plummet even further, the rest of the energy draining into a pile beneath his feet. The call with his brother had blended into a mush of Osamu recounting his day and wrestling against Atsumu's weaning emotional control. His bag lands on the floor with a soft thump, Osamu taking two steps before turning back and placing it gingerly on his kitchen counter. Those knives had taken him over a year of working 3 jobs to afford. Self-deprecation or not, he cherished them too much to damage them just like that.
The spot in his kitchen, behind the island, gives him a full view of his living quarters. His jobs had provided enough of an income to rent a one-bedroom space with 2 pairs of interior walls acting as a separation of a bathroom and his bedroom. It was a tight, cramped space, barely enough to hold the sort of things people believed a man in his 20s should have, but it fit all of him and his disastrous presence. After all, more times than not, it was a place for sleeping and pacing and not much else, considering he never really endeavoured to elevate his numerous list of acquaintances to friends that would want to come over for inconsequential reasons. This meant the only people who frequented his place were Tsumu, Rin, and Aran, who were more brothers than anything. The walls were too white, the light grey furniture too plain and reminiscent of ash. How had he not realised how much of it had been left unfilled? He didn’t remember the last time he’d really sat in his apartment and lived in it. It wasn’t home, nothing could replicate the feeling of their house back in Hyogo, but this place was his, and it should have felt something more than what he was. It was so empty and dreary and suffocating. This life was suffocating. He hadn’t realised how much of it had been spent chasing and chasing and promising, jumping from restaurant to restaurant, working more hours than a young man his age should, trying to gain whatever experience would make him worthy enough of running his own restaurant.
Osamu lights a cigarette, one of the ones he’d stolen from Masakatsu-san, and the nicotine loosens the tightness in his throat, in his body. It tastes like regret. One last one. He opens the balcony door, stares out into the night sky, trying to spot the same stars from before. He smokes one more, retreats inside, and crashes on his couch, heavy as a stone in the ocean.
When he wakes, it’s still dark outside and the lamp in the corner of the room is on, illuminating the space a warm gold. He blinks the exhaustion from his eyes, sitting up, and the blanket falls to the ground. He hadn’t put a blanket on when he’d fallen asleep earlier. The brain fog clears almost instantly. It’s then he notices that the apartment is clean. Spotless. Almost reminiscent of when the overly enthusiastic landlady handed him the keys. There’s no evidence of his cracking mental psyche, of the packs of ciggies he promised he would ditch. No evidence of this space that feels nothing like him. It’s blank and clean, and Osamu is confused.
The soft sound of simmering draws his attention to the kitchen, and right there, where he’d stood mere hours before, is a figure he recognises more than life.
“Tsumu?” He whispers, voice scratchy and disused, but his brother hears anyway. He turns away from whatever’s on the stove, and when his eyes meet his own, Osamu feels like crying. He hasn’t seen his brother in person in months, and it’s mainly his fault. He’d skipped out on many of their calls, citing work first, truthfully, then work as a cover up for the fact that he was drowning and nothing seemed to be working. Then the weeks and weeks of trying to persuade him that he wasn’t dying, that coming over wasn’t necessary, until the season had started and Atsumu had gotten busy, and those long stretches between calls lengthened even more. The relief of not having to explain himself would morph into guilt. Osamu would remind himself of their argument and the fact that Atsumu was not just playing well but thriving in Division 1, while Osamu cut vegetables, and he would continue the same way.
Atsumu was here now, apron on and ladle in hand and Osamu hadn’t realised how much he had missed his brother. How much of him he’d lost in those months of sporadic contact.
“Yer up?”
Osamu nods in lieu of an answer. Then
“I’m sorry I kept dodging ya calls.”
Atsumu puts the ladle down, smiling softly. “Ya should be. Come eat, I made curry. It’s nothing like whatever fancy shit ya make at yer fancy restaurant but Omi says I make a damn good curry so ya better eat all of it.” The last sentence is said with a huff and sense of pride that seems to warm his brother up from the inside. When had Sakusa become Omi? His heart sinks a little with how little information he’d retained about his brother’s life recently.
“He only says that cause that's the only dish yer make without screwin’ up.” Atsumu squawks in indignation, and he feels a little bit closer to normal.
He moves lethargically to the dining table, where it's been set for two. Atsumu serves dinner, the kitchen relatively mess free compared to how Atsumu usually cooks. His brother serves plates of steamy rice and curry, a perfect mix between sunshine gold and orange. It looks good, Samu can’t lie, it’s tantalising, calling his empty stomach.
When Atsumu sits down, Osamu digs in enthusiastically. It’s perfect and it tastes like home, like one of Ma’s hugs and summers spent catching bugs and annoying Aran, like sunshine and water balloons and contentment.
“How’s it taste?” Atsumu asks after Osamu’s third bite.
“A little over salted, honestly, and the carrots and potatoes could’ve been cooked for a little less time.” It’s honest and snarky, but that too feels like coming back to self. When Tsumu throws a napkin at his face, Osamu swears the world rightens fractionally. They clean up effectively, two gears in a well-oiled machine, Atsumu washing, Osamu drying.
Then Atsumu brings it up and Osamu’s world begins to crumple once more.
“What’s up with ya, Samu?” Soft, almost imperceptible, piercing all at once.
“I’m– I— I don’t know,” Osamu admits truthfully, eyes locked on the plate he’s putting away. The action is repetitive enough that he can ruminate.
They continue in the comforting silence, letting the splashing of water fill the space.
“Tsumu, am I– I don’t know what to do and I —” An inhale, fragile as the glass in his hands and barrier holding the water behind his eyes. Osamu focuses on his bandaged fingers, wrapped neatly in white, on the calluses on his hands, he’s not quite sure how to make go away. He notices a hang nail, overgrown cuticles, long knobby fingers that carried so much power in them. He focuses on every tiny detail in his palms, everything to stop from retreating back into his head. “Am I wastin’ ma life?”
With the words out there, everything feels more monumental, more real, like the possibility that all of this is a failed endeavor. His heart clenches painfully
When Atsumu draws him into a hug so tight the air escapes his lungs with a soft gah, Osamu does cry. Thick drops of warm, salty tears that seem to carry the weight of his frustration.
“I keep wonderin if I shoulda taken volleyball a bit more seriously ya know? Maybe – maybe, I coulda don’t know, pushed harder so I coulda loved it as much as you did.”
Atsumu’s arms tighten impossibly more, and Osamu takes it as a sign to continue.
“And I’m doing all I can, staging, working 3 jobs, and it’s so so hard with so little yield.” A breath so shallow, the intake of air is practically negligible. “Tsumu, I’m tired. I don’t know what I’m doin' and where I’m going and honestly”, another sniffle, “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
The admission feels fragile in the kitchen air and Osamu can’t tell if he feels lighter with it out of him, or heavier with the weight of everything it represents. There’s a lump lodged in his throat, somewhere deep within his chest, restrictive and there’s an implicit veritability to his insecurities, because if he were good enough, he wouldn’t cop as much shit as he does every time he shows up at the restaurant. Everything is wrong and terrifying and there’s this cavern where his passion should’ve been and Osamu is frightened that he’s never going to get it back.
Then Atsumu says, “Stupid ‘Samu.” and presses his lips right square in the middle of his forehead, the way Ma used to do when they were little and the feeling of loss wanes fractionally.
“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be and no one,” His brother’s golden eyes, alight in the warm tone light, are filled with something that sounds like pride, its intensity all encompassing and steeled. “No one,” he emphasises, “ deserves to succeed more than ya”
“Yer one of the best damn cooks I’ve seen and Samu, when yer in the kitchen, yer a freak of nature. And ya keep getting better. Yer going to own your own place and it's going to be the damn best restaurant in alla Japan and the whole damn world.”
The conviction, this belief in his ability, is equal parts frightening and grounding and all Osamu can do is nod along, his tears still rolling down his cheeks. But Atsumu isn’t done.
“And if ya ask me”, Osamu didn’t, but he’s too keyed up to make a joke out of it, “I think yer a little burnt out and it's affecting ya love for cooking. Doesn’t help that ya head chef is such a piece of shit who I still want to beat the fuck out of. Ya gotta do something that helps ya reset, find what it was you loved bout bein in the kitchen. Maybe go on vacation, eat as much food as can fit in your fat ass and come back.” Osamu huffs a soft laugh at that and Atsumu smiles boyishly. “Ya deserve it. And stop overthinking.”
He flicks Osamu in his forehead, hard, and Osamu is so incensed he stops crying, lunging forward to pinch his brother in retaliation. A laigh bubbles out of him, like the foam from a shaken soda bottle, then Atsumu’s laughing, that sound of his that rings off every surface and they’re scrambling over the table, the carpet, the couch, trying to hit each other and laughing. God, they’re laughing, so damn hard their stomachs cramp and the air can't seem to permeate their lungs fast enough. The lamp is brighter in its corner, the sun to their personal solar system, the walls look a little lighter, the space in his apartment feels bigger and full of something simmering subtly beneath the walls, the floors, his skin. Osamu feels simultaneously 12 and 22, his brother crashed beside him while they heave broken, shallow breaths.
They do everything and nothing that night, but the thought doesn’t leave him.
Reset. Go on the trip. Go on the trip. Go on the trip
Chapter 2: Mise en place
Summary:
Alternative chapter title: And I met you
The trip is a certified go.
This is the conclusion he’s drawn after almost 5 hours of circling around the possibility, picking and prodding for reasons why it’s a terrible, terrible idea. For once, his brain supplies nothing. There, settled. Go. The thoughts take the form of Atsumu’s voice. Go. Go. Go.
Notes:
And the trip begins! Thanks to everyone who's read this so far. I'm finally done with exams (Yahoo!!) which means I have a lot more time to work on this which is ridiculously exciting. Did I flop my genetics exam? Quite possibly but at least I had Osamu on my mind so it wasn't so bad. Got so excited to post that I didn't proofread this much, it will be fixed at some point when I wake up, so in the meantime, enjoy this mess.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Mise en place: Directly translates to "Put in place." A culinary process in which ingredients are prepared and organized (as in a restaurant kitchen) before cooking.
The trip is a certified go.
This is the conclusion he’s drawn after almost 5 hours of circling around the possibility, picking and prodding for reasons why it’s a terrible, terrible idea. For once, his brain supplies nothing. Nothing combative. No pros and cons list. Just radio silence, like it isn't the most argumentative thing about him. There, settled. Go. The thoughts take the form of Atsumu’s voice. Go. Go. Go.
He isn’t an impulsive person — that was more of his brother's thing — but this trip feels monumental and pressing. Like something in his life will irrevocably change once he finds himself on the road. Anything was better than the monotony of his life at the moment: staging, working, then coming home.
In theory, the bulk of the trip is all planned out. Osamu had drafted something similar when he was 17, on the verge of graduating high school, younger, stupider, and oh so full of dreams. He remembers the notebook well, a small black paper-back notebook, with food stickers he and Rin had pinched off Rin’s little sister because they looked good— He’d only put them on because Rin suggested it, and back then he would’ve done anything for him.
The morning after Atsumu leaves, on one of his rare off days, Osamu sets out on a hunt for it. He’s sure he brought it with him to the apartment; it was too special, too wishful to leave at Ma’s, but in the 2 and a half years of moving out, he can’t recall where he’d placed it. The apartment becomes a sprawling mess, transformed from pristine apathy and borderline neglect to its own ecosystem. A parade of everything he hadn’t bothered to unpack, taking up space, filling the rooms with an explosion of colour. It feels alive. More alive than Osamu has ever seen it. Like it could be a home, not just a place he resides. His heart is pumping at a slow and steady pace. Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound is in his chest, in his hands, in his toes as he rummages through the stack of boxes shoved in his closet. He feels alive.
Isn’t that wonderful?
The book emerges after a 2-hour search. It was tucked beneath a pile of books Osamu had told himself to read but knew he’d never touch. In a sense, its location made sense. The stickers are still there and intact, one of a steaming bowl of ramen in the centre, another of a pair of onigiri directly beneath it. They still look as glossy as he remembers them. He flips to the pages with his notes.
There they are, hastily scrawled sentences, handwriting mostly legible but impatient. There’s a certain wanting in the words, a hunger for more, the desire of a teenage boy who wants the world and doesn’t quite know how to reach for it. His rationale back then was simple;
If I’m going to be the best fucking chef, I need to know my flavours, and to know my flavours, I need to eat a lot of good fucking food.
A correct assumption to make. So he’d made a list of places to visit all around Japan, aiming for a mix of popular restaurants and small local joints. He was going to try everything he could, develop that palette until it could distinguish the finer tones of whatever he was making. Develop a menu so balanced and flavourful, it made you grin after the first bite.
The list is organised by region and prefecture, slightly detailed about what each region was known for, culinary-wise. A giddy sort of rush explodes through him then.
Why hadn’t he done this earlier?
The sense of possibility is all-encompassing and deep down, Osamu knows that this trip, wherever he ends up going, will be monumental. Irrevocable. Life-altering. A splitting of timelines. He’s 17 again, and the world is so, so vast. He runs his finger over the map of Japan hastily glued into one of the pages, eyes closed. He opens his eyes.
Right smack in the middle of Kansai.
Home.
Obtaining a car is easy. Osamu’s downstairs neighbours, the Nakajimas, are a slightly older couple in their early or late 60s who run a flower shop 2 streets down from their apartment. They’re an interesting pair, constantly oscillating between bickering and affection, and they’d taken on a sort of adoptive role over Osamu when he first moved in and helped them carry a delivery of planters that was sent to the wrong place up 4 flights of stairs. He makes them dinner once a month. Osamu gets to try out new recipes and combinations he’s concocting from his staging stints and work, and the Nakajimas get a meal that differs from their schedule.
They’re enthusiastic when he asks, even more so when he offers to both make their monthly meal and a set of meals to interspace between their routine for when he’s gone.
“Samu-chan, you take good care of us!” Mrs Nakajima exclaims, patting him gently on his hands and cheeks. She’s a small woman, hair halfway gray yet still lush, forceful but sweet, smile lines and wrinkles carved into pearlescent, glowy skin from years of expression. She wasn’t a touchy person, by far, Osamu had gathered from years of her company but she never hesitated to pat him here, or a rub there, or a deep, genuine smile when she didn't give either.
“Go eat all the food you want. Yer a growing boy.” Mr Nakajima bellows with a deep laugh, the sort you know comes from deep inside the belly and works its way up. He was a stately man, somewhere on the border between regular-sized and visibly rotund, but he was built in that way that suggested he had been a dad for a long time and a damned good one too. He’d gone completely gray, a fact he claims he inherited from his mother, and he was all smile lines and motivational talks and hugs. He’d been the most excited when Osamu had told him about the trip. Osamu wasn’t sure he’d qualify as a ‘growing boy’ anymore, considering he’d lost most of his baby fat to stress-induced workouts on his umpteenth attempts to quit smoking, but he replies with a hearty laugh all the same.
“Then when yer back, cook something you’ve learned for us ay?” Another round of laughter.
“Yer gonna make some girl very happy.”
Mrs Nakajima glances a look between Osamu and her husband quickly before hissing,
“Honey, he’s the other one, the ones who like both.”
It wasn’t quite an accurate assessment, but the fact that she’s trying warms him down to his toes.
“Oh. In that case, then, Samu-chan, make some girl or some boy very happy with yer cooking.” Mr Nakajima amends a little stiffly but still good-natured.
They hand him the keys to Mrs Nakajima's pickup truck, a pale blue monstrosity that reminds him of the sky and the truck the fishmongers at the market used to drive around town growing up.
“Since yer close, could ya pick up some of our new flowers from our vendor? Cancelled cause his kid got sick,” Mr Nakajima asks. His wife gives him the list, and Osamu folds it and places it in the black notebook. He thanks them again profusely, leaving a hug for Mr Nakagima and a hand squeeze for Mrs Nakajima that conveys more than words can say.
Taking time off work is a little harder.
He phrases it as “Taking a week off for personal reasons.” Carefully omitting that if he doesn’t take a fucking break from this place, he would end up committing crimes against himself and humanity, starting with arson.
The head chef reacts precisely as anticipated, like Osamu is some routine delinquent he’s just caught vandalising his house. His reaction is explosive in a way that he’d mentally braced himself for but still feels like a window shattering in front of him, the words slicing into his self-esteem like shrapnel. Masakatsu-san thinks it's a great thing he’s doing and promises to mediate on his behalf.
He gets the go-ahead from next week, on the condition of no fuck ups till then. Osamu can adhere to that.
The week before his trip passes in a flurry, an uneventful haze of deciding what to take and watching his fingers and back in case the head chef decided to veto his time off over an unevenly sized potato. On his last shift, Masakatsu-san and the team gift him some restaurant vouchers from places they know. There’s an accompanying card, well wishes telling him to enjoy his trip, and that the head chef is a piece of shit. It’s weird that they’re acting like he won’t be back bright and early a week from now, but the attention eases the tension from his shift fractionally. Masakatsu-san gives him a big squeeze, messes his hair in that way that has him feeling 6, and before he knows it, Osamu is standing next to the light blue truck, keys in hand, bags in the trunk. On the way to seek his fortune.
His first stop is Tatsuno, a measly 20-minute drive from his apartment. He’d bought tickets for both the Somen and Soy Sauce museum, mostly because it seemed like a fun way to gain in depth information about ingredients. No better source than some of the manufacturers, right?
He effectively spends most of the morning and early afternoon, taking notes on how Usukuchi Shoyu, the light soy sauce featured in most, if not all, of Ma’s dishes, is made, relating the process, how the ratios between soybeans, wheat, Amazake, and brine, meld into subtle umami and a slightly sweet taste he’s so attuned to. Knowing the history behind it, brandished with the intuitive understanding of where and how to use it fills him with a strange sense of pride. This is home and I understand why. He converses jovially with the staff, asks all the questions he can relating to his culinary knowledge, enthusiastically jotting down key points the tour guides bring up that could be useful for cooking. He manages to weasel himself into trying his hand at some of the stages, taste testing some prepared batches at the different stations. Ask Kita-san about this, he writes on the top of his page when the topic of growing conditions comes up.
Osamu doesn’t even complain when the staff wheedle him into buying more bottles than he needs. There’s a list of combinations growing in his head that he can’t wait to test with this new batch of information. The somen museum is essentially the same. He eats more noodles than he can count, in different configurations and broths, taking notes of specific flavor profiles, the subtlety of certain brothers, a dish with beef he’s never tried but isn’t sure what he dislikes. By the time he deems himself ready to leave, he feels just like the pages he’s been writing on, pleasantly full and primming with promise.
One playlist, a brief detour which involved him spending an egregious amount of money on snacks, and one strange phone call with Sunarin later, the city scapes melt, giving space to sprawling country roads flanked by earth and dust. He knows he’s vaguely on the road to northern Hyogo, both his GPS and the sparsely placed signage say so, but there’s no one on the roads but him, his thoughts, and his half-full belly. Osamu doesn’t know when the sun will set, but he catches its minuscule movements, the tiny shuffle it makes on its descents. He has at least a few hours to find a place to sleep and somewhere to have dinner. He thinks of calling Tsumu again, but his brother swore last time he’d called hours back, voice rough with sleep and laced with exhaustion,
“Sam, if ya call me one more time, on my day off, mind you, bout the possibility of adventure or even mutter the words “I think this trip is gonna be life changing” again, I will shoot ya, then myself and Ma’s gonna have no granbabies and ya don’t wanna upset her, yeah?”
So that was vetoed until later in the day.
Osamu lets the scenery overtake him; the sprawling hills that dwarf him and the pale blue monstrosity, their rocky formations blanketed in summer bright verdure. The countryside is bursting and bright, sun beams ramping up the saturation on every corner. It’s like a dream. Overhead, birds sing and call to each other, their melodious push and pulls a resonant baseline to the orchestra of chattering critters; the sounds blend in time to the rumbling of the engine and the music playing from his speakers.
For a few kilometers, it's just him on the mostly silent roads, counting farms and waving at herds of animals as he goes along and seeing if they respond, making a game out of it. It takes a while before something happens.
There’s a car on the side of the road, a small, velvety black salon that glistens in the afternoon sun like unearthed obsidian. It’s old and elegant, looking somewhat out of place in the dusty countryside and like it belongs here, in this century, in this moment.
Its owner, Osamu, assumes, is a tall and slender man, dressed in sensible dress slacks and a jumper so green it reminds Osamu of the rainforests in documentaries he used to watch with Ma when he and Tsumu were younger. It’s such a pretty shade of green, full of life. The man, however, seems to be stressed, a situation that keeps escalating into compounding distress. Osamu slows down the truck fractionally. The other man circles the car, slowly and deliberately, sparing small glances beneath the wheels. He moves with an indescribable sense of something, maybe grace, the mundane task seeming regal, in a way.
The man pops the car hood open, opening and prodding at whatever’s in there. As the truck rolls forward, Osamu rolls his window down just in time to hear the man swear. It’s a long and dignified sound, bits of expletives strung together so masterfully, Osamu is both scandalised and impressed. He could’ve given sailors a run for their money, and that fact in and of itself is surprising, considering he looked like he’d popped right out of a library, or an office, or a liberal arts class. He pulls over, directly opposite the classic black car and its equally refined owner with his sharp expletives and expressive descriptions.
His mouth opens to say something, offering help, something similarly courteous, because Ma didn’t raise an asshole, when the man, decidedly done fiddling with the compartments in the hood, opens the driver's seat, pulls out a phone, and taps a few times.
Then he screams.
A loud, piercing sound, the sort that emerges deep from your core, fuelled by the sort of distress that arises when everything in your life seems to be going wrong. Osamu feels it in his skin, in an array of goosebumps growing along his arms. He has to look away. A breakdown of this sort was a private thing. When the man is done, Osamu speaks.
“That was an impressive swear back then.”
The man flushes a deep red. Osamu catches it in his neck, and the brightness of the bits of his ears sticking out between onyx curls. He speaks, voice velveteen and soft, sounding exactly like the car looks.
“Oh my God, did you hear that?” He croaks, voice hoarse and heavy and horrified.
“Unfortunately,” Osamu replies sheepishly, hands rubbing the back of his neck.
“I didn’t look, though.” He adds hastily. “It looked, um, uh, private”. A useless addendum.
The man turns around, and whatever breath he’d been holding in or about to take escapes him.
Beautiful. The only word that plays on loop in his strangely emptied brain.
Curly black hair frames a rounded, slender face, high cheekbones tinged a shade closer to strawberry than mortification. He’s got wide, blown eyes, reminiscent of baby deers, beautiful, colorful things that sit equidistant above a pointed nose and soft-looking, pale pink lips. His features are elegant, parts of a puzzle that slots so seamlessly together; the partitions aren’t visible. He reminds Osamu of Hina dolls or Roman statuettes, almost too pretty to behold in person, like whoever had carved him had fallen in love with the concept of grace, and this countenance was their magnum opus.
The man is beautiful, and Osamu is awestruck. Wordless. Gaping. Oh! He was gaping. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Uh, looks like ya, um, need some help?”
Why do I sound like that?
The man blinks at him, slow and deliberate, mouth pursed together and still very red. Never once has he met anyone who wears mortification with style.
“I could jumpstart yer car?” Some part of him crumbles at how pitchy his voice sounds. He chances another glance at this strange man with his soft-looking jumper and softer eyes, currently appraising his own face. He wonders if he looks scruffy. Maybe he should’ve worn another t-shirt, opted for a better pair of shorts, and nicer sneakers, even though he can’t see them from where he stands.
“I don’t think that’s necessary in my opinion.” The man starts, and Osamu is enthralled he’s been replied to and a little heartbroken at the prospect of not being able to help this pretty man. “Ji-san’s car may be old, but the engine is a beast. Frankly monstrous if you ask me.” He laughs, honestly, it’s not even a proper laugh, just an exhale of air with the tone of a laugh, but the sound scratches Osamu’s brain and lingers.
“What seems ta be the problem, then?”
“I can’t figure it out for the life of me. Nothing’s obviously wrong, but here we are now, unmoving.”
Here they were now. Osamu talking to the most beautiful person he thinks he’s ever seen
“Call for help? I’d tow ya but I don’t got a hook.” He hears his accent, wild and southern and lilted, and the familiar feeling of self-consciousness crawls through his body slowly.
“I tried. My phone’s having a bit of a” A pause. “Let’s just say, moment.” Osamu nods, not quite knowing what a moment entails.
“I could call for ya?”
A warm breeze flitters between them, rustling through tall stalks of grass and weeds. Circadas chirp distantly; the sky is still a brilliant, vibrant blue. The time between his offer and an answer stretches and stretches, like sugared corn syrup being turned into lollies. The afternoon heat is starting to hit him now that the car’s air conditioning has been off for a few minutes. A drop of sweat races down his back.
“That’d be lovely, thank you so much.”
The pretty man bows. Osamu feels warm with accomplishment. They find the nearest autoshop willing to tow the car. Osamu can’t stop thinking: He’s beautiful.
The beautiful man’s name is Akaashi Keiji. He knows this because, between placing the call to the auto shop and waiting in the slowly dimming afternoon sun, Akaashi had enunciated his name almost 4 times. 3 in frustration to whoever had picked up the call, and a final one addressing Osamu in thanks. He’s run through the name in his head, testing its syllables on his lips quietly. Akaashi Keiji, Akaashi Keiji, Akaashi Keiji. He wonders what characters make up his name. It’s just as lovely as the rest of him.
They sit in an almost silence, Akaashi-san rummaging through his car, shoving things into a book bag and a small violet carry-on bag. He taps his phone in rapid succession before letting his head rest on the roof of his car, taking deep breaths.
“Akaashi-san”, Osamu starts, and the man in question hums in response. “Ya could sit in the truck while you wait if ya want. I got the aircon on.”
Akaashi deliberates this for a few moments. Osamu can’t see his face, what he’s thinking, or anything, but for good measure, he tags on. “I got water and mochi from this place in Tatsuno.”
Akaashi straightens, a slow event that has his spine flowing from curved to upright, tjen he turns to Osamu with a small smile. “Sounds like you’re trying to lure me into your van.”
The implication hits him all at once, and Osamu needs to clear it up. “Oh.” Stupidly. “Oh, Oh! That’s not—that’s not what I meant. Absolutely not. I wouldn’t do anything like that, cross my heart, hope to die.” He rambles for a bit. “I’m not a creep, promise.”
Somewhere between his unending platitudes, Akaashi had opened the front door of the truck. He hauls himself in with a soft chuckle. “I believe you.”
“I would never do anythin’ like that. Especially not to someone as pretty as ya. Ma twin brother would kill me.”
Well fuck. You’ve really done it now.
Osamu exits the car, practically flees it, face flushed and hot. Inside his head is a lot of screaming, words, and emotions jumbled up into an indistinguishable pile that starts with Fuck and ends with Goddammit. He lets out a slow exhale, which turns into a groan, scrubs a hand over his face, and grabs 2 bottles of water and the pack of mochi he’d purchased before leaving Tatsuno. When he returns to the driver’s seat, Akaashi is ramrod, hands clasped and resting elegantly on his lap. Osamu soundlessly hands him the bottle, placing the mochi between them both. They both say nothing as they drink, Osamu staring at the expanse of empty road, at wild rabbits crossing from one patch of grass to another.
Akaashi opens his mouth, probably to comment on how weird and creepy he’s being. Osamu doesn’t want to hear how he’s already blown his chances by being a creature, so he says, in a tone that’s half a step too loud to be considered casual.
“What brings ya round these ends?”
From his periphery, he sees Akaashi’s hands ghost over the unopened pack of mochi. Osamu nudges it discreetly in his direction, a peace offering or an apology of sorts.
“Life. Family.” Osamu hums in reply, ears attuned to the melodic lilt of the man's voice once the scratch is removed. It’s honey smooth and warm in that way stews and soups tend to be, and Osamu thinks he wants to hear it forever. Akaashi interprets his lack of proper response as some nudge to continue, for which Osamu is ridiculously grateful to the universe, because he adds,
“My grandparents have been wanting me to come visit for forever, and they live south side, a little outside Hyogo. My best friend thought I needed a break from work and stuff, practically forced me to go despite being all the way in Osaka.”
There were so many things Osamu could reply to, to sound cool and suave and charming. Instead, his brain settles on
“Ma idiot brother lives in Osaka as well.”
Osamu curses Atsumu in his head 100 times.
Akaashi laughs, that soft one that’s more an exhale of air. “Does he now? How come you’re all the way out here?”
“It’s a, uh, long-ish story, I think?”
“We’ve got time.” Osamu turns just to see Akaashi take a bite of a pale pink mochi. He lets out a content sound, so quiet that Ossmu wouldn’t have heard it if they weren't separated by his clutch gear and two peeling vinyl cup holders.
“It’s actually not as long as I made it seem. Ma twin and I grew up in Hyogo, then he moved to Osaka after we graduated to —” He freezes momentarily. Some parts of him want to keep Atsumu and the sheer impressiveness of him hidden. Not that he wasn’t proud, in fact, it was the opposite; he was so proud of Atsumu and everything he’s accomplished that the comments dipped in awe are inevitable. And as selfish and juvenile as it is, Osamu wants this beautiful man to like him, or at the very least, think he’s remotely cooler than an overglorified busboy. And there was no way aspiring restaurant owner would sound anywhere as impressive as V-League volleyball setter or the best setter in Japan. He’ll apologise to Tsumu when he sees him.
“He, uh, moved away to do stuff. Work. Accounting, I’m pretty sure.” Sorry man.
“And you?” The mochi is halfway done, and Akaashi seems a little more relaxed than earlier.
“I stayed here. Studied. Worked and now I’m on this trip ta find ma self or whatever bullshit ‘Tsumu said.”
Akaashi asks him to elaborate. He tells him that he’s a chef, that he’s on an adventure to sample as many foods as he can for the restaurant he’s going to open in the future. The other man seems impressed, genuinely so, and self-satisfaction sits warm in Osamu’s chest. Akaashi tells him he’s an editor and an aspiring writer. He works on editing manga even though he wanted to work with literary pieces. He doesn’t hate his job, but it’s not quite what he imagined his life looking and that’s a little disorienting. He wants to publish a book, something put together with his own hands and mind, and whether he loves it or hates it, he wants to feel something viscerally from his words. Osamu can relate, not to the book aspect ---in fact, he curses his lack of commitment, vowing to himself to finish the stack of books sitting in his closet the moment he gets home ---- but to the want to create something uniquely his from scratch. Time slips in and around their conversation, languid and taffy flexible, and before they’re aware, another car, a grimy truck that must’ve been a pristine, pearlescent white about 20 years ago, pulls up next to Akaashi’s car. The man who descends from it reminds Osamu of a volleyball on legs or a minion, and the blue overalls and bright yellow hat don’t help his image.
Akaashi dismounts the truck at the same time the man does, filling him in on all the details. There’s a tiny cavern forming in the middle of his chest, growing with each inspection the repairman makes to the car. This is it. Akaashi’s car would be fixed, he would drive off into the indigo twilight, and Osamu would have to live the rest of his life knowing his life had intersected, though briefly, with that of an angel. Maybe he could ask for a number, a keepsake, something to remember that he hasn’t hallucinated this entire moment.
“Look here, kid,” The repairman says gruffly and mildly put out for having to do actual work. “I can’t figure out what’s causin’ yer car to stop since ev’rythin’s workin like it should. Gotta take it ta the shop, see what’s actually wrong with it.”
Akaashi, exasperated with a sigh, says, “How long would that take?”
“Like I said, I dunno, gotta check, but it’s gonna be a few days minimum. Maybe a week or two.”
The jumper-clad man seems on the verge of another ear-splitting scream. He watches the repairman hook his car to the truck with an expression that screams, “I will not cry.”
“Akaashi-kun,” The man hums a sound that’s more than halfway to fracturing. “I’m more than happy to take you ya where ya need ta be until ya car gets fixed.”
“No. No. I couldn’t ask that of you.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It would be presumptuous of me, and you’ve been so kind.”
“It’s no trouble –”
“You’re busy. Places to see –”
“—I promise, it’s fine. Scouts honour.”
Maybe it’s the earnestness in his voice, or maybe his inability to manage both an argument and his waning mental state, but Akaashi relents, allows Osamu to move his things into the back of his truck, and sits solemnly in the front seat while Akaashi follows the repairman.
The car won’t be ready for a while. Akaashi looks on the verge of a break.
He’s muttering to himself, pacing the length of the auto repair shop. Osamu catches a few words, renditions of the phrase, “what do I do?” and “fuck me.” In varying levels of distress, fingers twisting each other. He’s unsure of whether to interject or to let the other man spiral in the aftermath of what seems to have been a really long day. After the 10th lap, Osamu taps Akaashi’s shoulder, committing the soft feel of the forest green jumper to memory.
“Have ya eaten yet?”
It wasn’t completely dark yet, but it was close enough to dinnertime that Osamu was sure he was hungry. Akaashi, startled by the question, stares until Osamu repeats himself.
“Hungry?”
He nods.
“Let me buy ya dinner n’ we’ll figure out yer next steps from there.”
Akaashi starts to protest, and Osamu smiles in spite of himself.
“Akaashi-kun, I want ta do this fer ya. Lemme do ya a good thing in what’s probs been a pretty shitty day.” The other man deliberates this, brain working and reworking, turning Osamu’s offer this way and that.
“Why’re you helping me? Is it pity?” Akaashi asks, voice laced and heavy.
“Not pity. Definitely not. Ya just look like a good meal could do ya some good. Besides, Ma says never make big decisions on an empty stomach.”
Akaashi sighs, chats with the repairman, and slinks into Osamu’s front seat. As they peel out into the darkening sky, Osamu is filled with that rightness again. That sense that he was supposed to be here, in this exact moment, with the man currently dozing off next to him.
And it feels good.
Notes:
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. I love hearing what people have to say.
If anyone wants to have a chat, feel free to hmu on Twitter: @__Kxylxx__
Chapter 3: All I’m asking is time, all your time, all your time
Summary:
They trade stories this way, little snippets of lives separate from this one, of an existence the other is unaware of. It’s cathartic in a way, being able to reflect and joke about past failures.
The trip continues ft awkward flirting and lots of good vibes - A montage
Notes:
Hey hey hey team! Finals are over, life is good again and I'm kinda sorta beefing with this chapter but whatever. Two things become abundantly clear as you read this; a. I am not a chef and most of my google searches now include what is the flavour profile of xxx b. I am incapable of writing people flirting for the life of me, so bear with the boys as they try to sort out whatever the hell is going on with them. Was I writing this when I should've been doing research for my project? Yes, yes I did.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They end up at a small bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Toyooka, the sun completely sunken beneath the horizon. The summer breeze is slow and charged, and it carries the sound of harmonising critters and playing children on their way home. Twilight twinkles in muted combinations of pink and purple, the faint outlines of stars making themselves known between gaps of slowly moving clouds as they pull up to the inn. The building is old yet sturdy, but in no way is it dilapidated. It is a mosaic of warm browns of traditional wood and soft pastel flowers illuminated by flanking streetlights spilling gold.
Akaashi had fallen asleep so early on that he hardly noticed when Osamu had parked the truck or when he’d gone in to pay for lodging. The woman, who’d turned out to be the owner alongside her husband, had fixed the booking with little extra cost and said dinner would be served within the hour. He’d moved Akaashi’s things into the extra room he’d booked, given himself approximately 30 seconds to admire how ephemeral he looked in his sleep, before shaking him awake.
“We’re here.” He whispers when Akaashi’s eyes open blearily.
“And where is here?” Akaashi asks, voice groggy and heavy with fatigue.
“I booked two rooms at the inn I’d planned on staying in. Ya looked exhausted and wasn’t sure you’d sorted accom out. Figured a place to sleep was your best bet.”
When Akaashi blinks at him, frog like and disoriented, he adds, “Nowhere shady, I promise.”
“Mhmm.”
“Ya can check on yer phone or call a friend to verify.”
“I believe you.”
Akaashi moves out of the car and into the building slowly, like his limbs hadn’t quite synced up with his brain on how to operate. It takes him until he’s inside to realise he’s missing something. Akaashi makes a frantic and comical swivel, an expression of alarm taking over his expression. He walks right into Osamu in his march to the car with an oof, brain still lagging from his nap.
“Akaashi-san, I put yer bags in yer room.” That seemed to be the most obvious reason for concern. He knows he’s right when the tension bleeds out of the man’s shoulders as he exhales and steps back. When his face is no longer buried in Osamu’s chest, not that he was complaining, the man bows so fast, Osamu is scared he’ll get whiplash.
“Sorry for the inconvenience I have caused you tonight. Please allow me to cover the cost of my stay and repay you for your kindness.”
It takes Osamu a second to recalibrate.
“Nah.”
“I beg your pardon.” Akaashi straightens fractionally to stare at him, dumbfounded.
“I promised ya a meal, didn’t I, Akaashi-san?”
“But a meal is separate from lodging. It is unfair to have you pay for my stay as well.”
“It came at no extra cost.” That was a lie, but Akaashi didn’t need to know that. “And it was easier because ya get dinner, breakfast, and lunch with the room.”
“I still cann —”
“It was nothing. I wanted ta do a nice thing fer ya. Looks like ya needed it.”
“Miya-san, I –”
“It would make me feel infinitely better knowing ya were fed and warm while ya figure out yer next moves.”
“Please allow me to repay you for your kindness,” Akaashi replies, resigned, limbs sagging like wet spaghetti.
Osamu grins at him, wide and triumphant. “We can figure that out later. Takahashi-san says dinner will be ready in 10 minutes and we get access to the onsen. Ain’t that cool?”
Akaashi nods slowly and allows himself to be directed to his room.
“Thank you, Miya-san.” He says, nice and low once in the doorway.
“It’s no worries. And please, call me Osamu. Miya makes me feel like my brother is going to appear at any time.”
Takahashi-san had graciously included them with her family, serving them a hearty serving of steamy yaki udon. She’d made them a range of sides to go with their meal, pickled radishes, shredded cabbage, and gyoza.
“Thank you for the meal.” They say in unison before digging in.
Watching Akaashi eat is an experience, kind of like watching the night sky a few seconds to midnight on New Year’s Eve, thinking you know what’s coming, only to get the breath knocked out of you anyway. When Osamu ate, it was an indelicate process of shovelling food into his gob as quickly as possible --- an unfortunate consequence of living with Tsumu and his ever reaching sticky fingers. When Akaashi eats, it’s a whole body affair — all 5 senses engaged in dissecting the plate of food placed in front of him.
The man is methodical and precise. He starts with the sides on his left hand side, picking at everything cautiously, assessing each bite critically before it enters his mouth. He chews with deliberation, characterising whatever sensation the food brings up, before swallowing slowly. Osamu knows he likes it when he sighs softly and contentedly, continuing across the rest of the dishes on the table.
It’s good food. Osamu can’t deny that. It’s food cooked by a mum who clearly loves what she does and adores her family. He can taste it in every bite, in the delicate crisp of fried chicken, the smokiness of the noodles. While it is a bit heavier than he would’ve made it, he finds that he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind that it's a tad saltier than he prefers or that it isn’t as spicy as he’s used to. It’s hearty and comfort in a plate and how could he ever be mad at that?
Walking to the onsen in the dark probably isn’t Osamu’s brightest idea by far, but Takahashi-san had assured them it was safe. Besides, after an entire day of driving stick, Osamu and his sanity needed a break from the constant purring of an engine. The clouds from earlier had cleared up, and the wind up north smelled fresh and rejuvenating, like the first sip of water on a really hot day. It’s a twenty minute walk altogether, following the trail of warm coloured and crudely coloured signs clearly in children’s handwriting. It should have been a 20 minute walk following the map Takahashi-san had given them, but Osamu hadn’t accounted for his new companion, sans glasses, having directional awareness of a newborn foal. Though he’s pretty sure half of their missteps could be attributed to Akaashi squinting at everything in the distance. Takahashi had handed the map to the other man, who had decidedly taken his role as guide to the onsen seriously. Except, he kept stumbling into things.
“Akaashi-san, maybe I should handle the directions,” Osamu says gently, watching Akaashi narrowly avoid walking into a telephone pole on the side of the path. They’d already taken 2 wrong turns, on account of Osamu misreading one of the signs, and Akaashi picking the wrong path at a fork in the road.
“Miya-san, I assure you, I can handle this.”
“No doubt, but I’m worried about yer eyes since yer squinting n tired.”
“I am not squinting.”
“How many trees are in the distance?” He asks cheekily. He thinks Akaashi frowns, watches as his eyes narrow in assessment.
“Four.”
“Five,” Osamu replies, crossing his arms in an X. There’s one a little further out that’s a little trickier to see. Akaashi grumbles about him teasing, handing over the map in resignation.
What Akaashi isn’t aware of, which he’ll keep close to his chest, is that he sucks with maps. There’s a reason why he was never the designated driver on their little Inarizaki four road trips; There was this strange phenomenon that kept happening whenever Osamu was in charge of directions — he’d either miss one turn and be fine or miss 4 in a row. No in betweens. He thinks he’s used up his bad luck on getting to Toyooka and currently, he’d only missed one, which means luck is probably on his side. Probably. Standing beneath one of the streetlamps, they both assess the map.
“We missed a left around there, so that means we continue straight, then take a right.”
Akaashi hums his assent.
They continue on the path, Osamu tracing the lines on the map diligently, because for both their sakes, Akaashi needs to be stationary before he gives himself a concussion. They only miss one more turn because Osamu got them mixed, but they finally arrive, forty minutes later, and feet aching, looking worse for wear.
If heaven is a place on earth, its heart would begin at this onsen. It’s partially shaded, a secluded enclave surrounded by rocks and water so clear, the little pools feel like gateways to other dimensions. Steam dances above the surface of the water, whispering to him like a siren song to enter. The moment he does, his weary bones begin to unwind and a sigh of contentment escapes him before he can fight it.
“People probably ask ya this question, so I’m gonna flip it on its head,” Osamu starts once they’re all settled and the silence begins to prick at his skin. “What’s the worst story idea that’s ever been pitched to ya?”
Akaashi hums, pondering, head thrown back and resting gently on the rocks behind him. Then his face lights up and his eyes crinkle up even though his lips don’t move.
“I can’t pick a specific worst one, but I’ve gotten some pretty interesting ones to say the least.”
Osamu leans forward in interest.
“There was one I remember vividly for being the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard. So, this was when I first started, and this man comes in, somewhere in his 30s with enough pages to fill up two manga volumes. You’ll never guess what the story was about.”
“Anything I guess will be miles off, won’t it?” Osamu asks. Akaashi gives him a wry smile in response.
“No, but I’m interested to see where your imagination takes you.”
“Hmmm, birds?”
“Good start, but no.” Then, “Think more inanimate objects.”
“Like a universe with anthropomorphic tables and chairs? Like those old cartoons?”
Akaashi huffs that laugh that’s more air than laugh.
“That would’ve introduced a lot more substance to the story.”
“Yer killing me, Akaashi-san,” Osamu whines. “My curiosity has been piqued, and I need to know now. It’s integral to my wellbeing.”
Akaashi laughs then, soft and true and proper. The sound buries its way into Osamu’s brain, scratching itself into his memories like a laser engraving metal.
“All right, all right, since your brother would prefer you alive. The entire premise of the story was a brooding box.”
“A box?”
Akaashi nods, beads of condensation rolling down his face. The man swipes them off with his hands.
“N’ what was this box doing?”
“Brooding.”
“Broodin’,” He repeats dumbly. “Seriously? What does that even mean?”
“Precisely that. He’d spent two years of his life drawing a box in a dark room, contemplating the horrors of being a box. No plot, just straight angst.”
Osamu barks a laugh. The concept of a box in darkness lamenting about God knows what is so unfathomable, it tickles something in me. “Ya mean ta tell me a grown man sat down for years writing a story about a box going “Life is all trepidation and gloom. Put me out of my misery.”” His stomach starts to cramp up from the laughter and he almost splashes water up his nose. When he looks up, Akaashi has a grin on his face, and his shoulders are shaking like he wants to laugh but is trying so hard to maintain his cool.
“That’s not even the worst part. Since the story was set in a dark room, 80% of his drawings were completely pitch black with faint outlines of a crudely outlined cuboid. I think I flipped through twenty pages of black.”
“Oh man.”
“And when we told him we wouldn’t be able to continue with his story, he got mad and yelled at the whole office that we would never understand true art; an entire tirade topped with a 10 minute monologue about the essence of his story that we were being obtuse and underappreciative about. The office was in shambles by the time we’d managed to escort him out.”
Osamu truly loses it at the image of a grown man presenting black paper, defending his story about a box like his life depended on it entirely. He throws his head back so hard with laughter, it collides with the rocks. When Akaashi shoots him a look of concern, he can only look back with a sheepish smile, forcing the laugh back into his body. Then he thinks about the situation and he’s cracking up again.
He thinks Akaashi is smiling now and when he checks, he’s got this expression on his face which is half amusement, half something that borders on pleased and maybe … self pride? What about Osamu doesn't know.
“That’s my one. Your turn. What’s the worst thing that’s happened in your time cooking.”
Oh boy, he could write an entire book about his culinary failures. He tells him about the incident with a vat of oil at one of his part time jobs, of forgetting milk he was boiling and having it bubble and explode over his kitchen, off making a dish so spicy, his eyes watered just thinking about it, of accidently putting a quarter cup of baking soda in a cake he and his brother were making for Mother’s day.
“‘Tsumu was so pissed off he refused ta talk to me for the rest of the day and when he did it was ta call me an idiot.”
They trade stories this way, little snippets of lives separate from this one, of an existence the other is unaware of. It’s cathartic in a way, being able to reflect and joke about past failures. The conversation slows after a mountain of stories, where he learns about Akaashi’s favourite projects, a big error that got him in trouble, and about having to fight one of his co-workers for printer access on the daily with, “You don’t get it, I swear she has it out for me.”
They talk about dinner, how good of a chef Takahashi-san is.
“I wonder what it’s like cooking for an inn.” Osamu muses out loud, watching his fingers shrivel and prune in the water.
“You should ask her,”
“Ya think she’ll teach me her asazuke method? It was delicious.”
“I don’t see why not. She’ll be glad to hear someone takes an interest in her cooking. Ask her.” Simple and straightforward, like its the easiest thing in the world.
Something flutters in Osamu’s chest, delicate as the beating of a butterfly’s wing.
Grasshoppers chirp relentlessly in their conversations, frogs mutter their complaints in drawn out croaks, a motorcycle passes by with characteristic vigour. The water is pleasantly warm, Osamu’s body relaxed, like the past two weeks haven’t existed and for the first time in a while, he feels blissful. At peace. Not wound or stretched beyond his capacity. His mind feels together, not fractured like he is one minor inconvenience from shattering. He feels more of himself than he has in a very long time. Already, he starts to mourn the feeling, the inevitability of it ending, the flutter of fear that this serenity is fleeting, that once he’s back in the apartment, not home, the cavern will return, wide and bottomless and hungry.
“What’re yer plans? The mechanic said yer car might take ages and ya need to get back home.” He asks because it’s better than stewing in his mind, than letting a fear for the future gobble up whatever little calm he’s managed to inject into his life.
Akaashi sighs, a deep, heavy thing that seems to erupt from his very core. The breath mixes with the softly rising steam, lost in their haze.
“I’m not sure. I need to get to Osaka,” His eyes unfocus for a moment as his brain whirs through possibilities, Osamu thinks. “Maybe find my way to the nearest train station. I can figure my way out from there.”
“To visit yer best friend?”
“Hm?”
“The one who forced ya ta go visit yer grandparents.” Osamu supplies.
Akaashi huffs a laugh that’s low and dipped in fondness. They must be very close.
“The very one.” He answers with a shake of his head. His lips are tilted up, the very ghost of a smile, but it’s genuine and heartfelt, because the smile sits in his eyes as well, in the small crinkles that line the periphery, and the subtle brightness of his irises in the diffuse light of the space. Super super close then.
A stupid thought hits Osamu then. A thought so insane, Akaashi was bound to stare at him like he’d grown two heads, another pair of legs and 13 arms. In a way, it was his solution to this problem; he just had to express it in a way that wouldn’t convince the other man that he needs to be neutered. He keeps it to himself for the rest of their bath, rolling its probability around in his head and grimacing at their odds.
The walk back to the inn is less intensive because they find the right road on their first guess. On account of the hot springs, the surroundings aren’t as frigid as he expects, but the winds do carry a little bite as they pass them by. The world is mostly quiet, buried between blankets and warmth, leaving the streets barren and eerie and quiet, like the set of a thriller. Osamu is instantly grateful for the company. The moon is a muted, round light in the sky, partially hidden behind thin clouds spread like paint on a canvas.
“ I didn’t mean to pry, but when I was moving one of yer bags, this book fell out. Something about nights? It was small, two-word title, and I think the other word was a colour.”
“Ah! White Nights.”
“That’s the one. Author had a complicated name. Not local.”
“Russian. Fyodor Dostoevsky.”
“What’s it about?”
“A lonesome man in St. Petersburg who falls intensely in love with a girl he meets, to simplify. He’s a dreamer, in the sense that he’s retreated so far into his own head that he’s let life pass him by. The moment with the girl is a serendipitous island, in a sea of self-inflicted solitude.”
Osamu listens as Akaashi talks him through the plot, his interpretation and awe of the writing, the details he appreciates. He’s enraptured, unable to look away as Akaashi analyses chapter after chapter, expression focused but silently excited.
The air rushes out of his lungs. All he can do is stare in awe. The clouds clear, allowing the moon to take centre stage in the vast sky. Moonlight hits the other man’s face at an angle, painting a sharp nose and cheekbones. and the thoughts from earlier barrage into him at full force.
God, he’s beautiful. Ridiculously smart, too. I would listen to him talk forever.
The idea from the bathhouse feels both like a promise and a death sentence, like he’s committing to something much grander than himself.
The sky overhead is a mosaic of twinkling stars, entire galaxies on display, burning bright and white in their miraculous glory. Billions of years condense into this moment; Osamu watching Akaashi Keiji speak while the stars bear witness. Maybe it’s the universe. Perhaps it's fate. Maybe it’s something else that placed him in the moment, at this time. He doesn’t know. What he does know is that this feels right, like he was always meant to be here.
Osamu is trapped between the weight of two forces of ethereal beauty, caught in their magnetism.
“Where have you buried your best days? Did you live or not?” He hears the other man say distantly.
Did you live or not? A question for the ages. The words are out before he can stop them– another bout of that reckless, uncharacteristic impulsivity that feels like breathing again.
“Come on this trip with me.”
Akaashi stares, mouth open mid-sentence, but the words die out. He only narrowly avoids walking into a light pole.
“Pardon me?”
Osamu clears his throat. Better to go for it now that it was out in the air.
“Akaashi-san,” He starts gingerly, weighing each of his words carefully. “I’ve got a proposition for ya.” Osamu straightens his spine, gazes at the amalgamation of stars no doubt shimmering in obvious support, then into ocean blue eyes. The other man hums in response.
“Would you like to accompany me on ma trip? I’m heading towards Osaka to visit ma brother and I could take ya there.”
There it was, this pivotal declaration that had been roaring in his head at the onsen. It sits heavy in the summer breeze, an anchor between them both. Something in him whispers to the universe, please.
“Ya don’t have to, if ya don’t wanna and I’m more than happy ta drop ya off at the nearest train station. It’s just, ya’ve been good company so far and …” Osamu trails off, words losing steam, the longer it takes Akaashi to respond.
To his credit, the man seems to be rolling the idea in his brain, turning it over and over like a stone in water.
“ I couldn’t intrude on a trip so important to you.” He settles on, quietly. Some part of Osamu dies.
“It’s not an intrusion if I want ya there.”
These words, proclaimed with certainty were surprising, their source unknown to him but true.
They continue walking towards the inn, following the signs as Akaashi thinks. It’s not awkward, though, despite the silence. It’s strangely comfortable.
When they get to the inn, no wrong turns, a feat he’s infinitely proud of, Akaashi taps him on the shoulder.
“Can I think on it some more?” He asks, carefully.
It's not a yes. But it’s not a no either. Osamu has the patience of a damn saint after putting up with Tsumu’s bullshit for his entire life. It’s something. A sign of sorts. He nods, smiles and answers.
“Of course. Take as long as ya need.”
“Thank you.”
“Good Night, Akaashi.” He says as he turns towards his room.
“Good night.”
The first thing he does when he wakes up is approach Takahashi-san. With Akaashi’s words from last night as his armour, he bows.
“Would I be able to help out in yer kitchen for today? Yer asazuke yesterday was phenomenal. Perfectly fresh and crisp, and God, the way the garlic and konbu cut through all the salt was incredible. Could ya teach me how yer pickle yer vegetables?
When he looks up, Takahashi is surprised, but pleasantly so. She beams, a large grin overtaking her face.
“Of course, dear boy, come here.”
By the time Takahashi talks him through prep, the hall is slow-moving yet buzzing with energy. He helps out with breakfast, cooking what he’s been directed to cook, obeying her every instruction. The hall empties, leaving a table crowded by five boys, all around the age of 10, chatting and playing and clamouring over each other. They’re dressed lightly in tanks and shorts, rowdy in the way little boys are in the summertime— all youthful and brimming with excitement.
“Guys!” The head of the boys screams over his friend's mutterings. The others stop their chattering to listen. “Did y’all see the volleyball match yesterday?”
The clamour rises again vigorously as each of the boys fills in on their thoughts, slight discussion permeated with long strings of “wahhhh!” and “soo cool.” They discuss the players they thought were cool, predictably the spikers, lamenting over their inability to hit the ball so high and the whole discussion reminds Osamu of being 8, seated in front of the television, swearing to his brother that he’s going to be the best spiker in the world. Nostalgia is a warm tea to his chest.
Akaashi is reading on the table next to the boys. He’d spent most of the early morning downing more coffee than was healthy, dancing between phone calls that ended in yes sir and I understand and Thank you, and typing frantically on his computer. Between taking notes from Takahashi-san’s cooking process and staging, Osamu steals subtle glances at him. Categorises his long, elegant fingers as he flips his pages, how the frames of his glasses sit delicately on his sharp nose, the beads of the chain a perfect reflection of his irises, and how even with the amount of noise, he still manages to stay focused and poised. Christ, he’s unreal. Takahashi-san bumps his head cheekily when he misses her instructions for the third time. Her expression says something along the lines of “get back to work and stop being obvious.”
There’s a scream from one of the boys, a ridiculously over onomatopoeic rendition of hitting a spike, which involves too much yelling and not enough action.
Then, Akaashi’s voice cuts through the ruckus like a cleaver through butter.
“You know, I used to play volleyball in high school.”
The boys at the table quieten, each sporting looks of intrigue and suspicion.
“If you boys wanted to get started, I’d be more than happy to explain stuff to you.” He places his bookmark in the page he was on, smooths over the cover page for good measure, before turning to face the boys and their incredulity.
“How’re we sure yer not lyin’ ta us?” The head boy replies, eyes narrowed suspiciously. The other boys nod vigorously in agreement with him. “What position did ya play?” A smaller boy, wispy in a white tank top and a bowl cut, tags on.
“Fair enough assumption, though what do I gain from lying about playing volleyball?”
One of the boys nods thoughtfully. Then to bowl-cut boy, he says,
“I played in Tokyo, Fukurodani Academy, a few years ago. I was the starting setter in my second and third year, and we made it to nationals every year I was there.”
Head boy dashes to the kitchen suddenly, darting past where Osamu is watching Akaashi transfixed. A heavily freckled boy replies at the same time, “What’s a setter?”
And he plays volleyball. Ain’t he perfect? Some part of Osamu’s brain supplies.
Head boy, or Akagi as his mother calls him, types furiously on the phone he dashed in to retrieve, then dashes out with the phone, interrupting Akaashi’s explanation.
“Whoa, Mister! Yer school’s a powerhouse.” The rest of the boys gather around the cracked screen. “Ya won nationals?”
“Sometimes.”
“What was yer name?” Akaashi tells them. “Waah, you were captain back in 20xx! So cool.”
It takes Osamu’s brain a second to catch up to that statement. He and Tsumu were third years at that point, which meant he and Akaashi were the same age. And if he went to nationals, they must’ve played each other at some point. He retrieves his phone from his back pocket and shoots a quick text to the Inarizaki group chat.
Aran replies a few minutes after: Maybe. Can’t rmbr if we were in same bracket. Y?
Atsumu: Ain’t that Bokkun’s alma mater?
Osamu pockets the phone.
After a few rounds of questions, the boys seem to take Akaashi as a credible source for volleyball, and they push to get him outside. Akaashi turns around, meets Osamu’s eyes and smiles, slowly that his dimples make a show of appearing in each cheek. Then he winks and returns his attention to the boys.
The plate in his hand clatters to the table, and Takahashi-san knocks him on the head again. He doesn’t know what the wink was for, but he’s so, so warm.
Takahashi-san runs her kitchen like a captain runs the navy, but her forcefulness doesn’t carry the overbearing quality his head chef’s tutelage has. She’s directive, clear with her instructions, overly giving in her compliments, yet fair in her chides. Osamu loves every minute of working with her. Since he’d explained what his motives for being here were, she had a list of the best restaurants written on a piece of paper torn from her journal, and she updated it sporadically as she remembered. She was also eager to hear any ideas Osamu had regarding the menu and very receptive to his feedback. This was more freedom than he’d ever been rewarded in a kitchen setting, and the thought of it sets his blood alight. Whatever changes he suggested, they’d prototype, taste and rework, rinse, repeat. In between, he prepared her standard dishes beneath her falcon eyes, keeping note of what contributed to flavours he liked and what elements he’d like to try on his own.
She kicks him out when the lunch rush starts to die down.
“Go have fun with yer pretty boy.” She tells him, pushing him out of the door with more strength expected from a wiry woman in her 40s. “At this rate, I need ta waft out the smell of yer pining.”
“He’s not ma pretty boy,” Osamu mutters weakly, letting himself be let out.
“Not yet, but he’s not gonna be yers if ya spend the whole day cooped up with me.”
And that was that, Osamu outside, searching for Akaashi and the boys with the little flame of hope in not yet sitting in his chest.
They’re still playing volleyball, almost 3 hours later, on a patch of asphalt that used to be a basketball court. Akaashi seems to have taught them how to spike, because he’s running drills setting to them and having the 4 boys spike in succession.
Osamu sits near the edge of the court --- he doesn’t think they’ve noticed him yet and observes. Akaashi doesn’t have his glasses on. They make him look a little different in the sunlight, still pretty, but a lot less reserved and wide eyed like he’s watching the world for the first time.
The boys, ever energetic, cheer after each successful hit, looking bright eyed to Akaashi for some sort of validation. The man gives it to them freely, congratulating each one for every spike or for their movements, even if they miss. He’s full of kind pointers and gentle reminders to watch where you’re landing, and you don’t want your hand too far back or else you’ll miss the ball. He’s so gentle with them, and this list he’d been building since yesterday, about how unreal someone like him exists, keeps growing.
“Akaashi-san, I hit it!” When the freckled boy lands a spike. Akaashi cheers with him, rolling his sleeves to give him a two-handed high five. When he lifts his head, his eyes catch Osamu’s and Osamu gives him a small wave. Akaashi smiles warmly, and he feels it all the way in his toes.
“Miya-san, did you want to hit as well?” He exclaims from across the court. All four boys turn to eye him suspiciously.
“Ya know what, why the hell not?” Osamu dusts gravel and dusts off his shorts and jogs leisurely towards where they’re clustered. He takes his place a few meters back, and when Akaashi shoots him a quizzical look that says, “What are you doing?” He grins.
“Don’t worry ‘bout me. Jus’ set it nice n’ high.”
The surprise on the raven-haired man’s face is palpable, but he obliges with a set so beautiful, high, and perfectly arched like he’d asked, Osamu almost stops to marvel. But he’s got a show to deliver, so he runs, launches himself from the asphalt, spiking the ball like he would’ve if they were in a match. His palms burn when he lands, but it’s a pleasant sort of burning, the same sort from eating one of Aran’s heavily spiced soups or beating an opponent. When the ball lands on the other side of the court with a satisfying bam, he allows himself a moment to cheer unabashedly. He’s missed this.
The kids are cheering, minds evidently blown by this little stunt.
“Nice kill.” Akaashi slides coolly. There’s a glint in his eyes Osamu recognises as excitement. “I take it you’ve played before.”
He rubs the back of his neck, the aftermath of the adrenaline pulling his face into an easy smile. “You too. That was a crazy good serve. Almost perfect.” Perfect was reserved for his brother and his brother alone, but Akaashi was damn near close.
“I played in high school.”
“I heard. And as the streets have it, ya went to nationals.”
“Yes, we did.”
“Fukurodani, yeah?”
Akaashi nods, running a hand through onyx locks. They’re starting to stick to his face.
“Small world. Played for Inarizaki at Nationals. Probably the same years as you. Kita Shinsuke was our captain for second year.”
“No way. That answers the question from before.”
“Yep,” Osamu replies, making sure to pop the p
“Small world.”
“Small world indeed.” It sounds a lot like fate, like a thread sewing their meeting in the fabric of the cosmos. This past day has been filled with little serendipitous coincidences and similarities between them. It’s wonderful.
“Ya know, just when I think ya can’t surprise me anymore, ya somehow seem talift the bar a little higher.” Osamu shakes his head amusedly.
“Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Osamu-san.” Akaashi deadpans.
The use of his given name catches him off guard and for a heartbeat, he’s unable to move. Then, Osamu laughs loud and heartily, and it fills the shrinking space between them.
“I know. And I’m open to learning every bit if yer down ta teach me.” It’s light and flirty but underneath it is a layer of earnestness that has him feeling a little embarrassed. The words have an effect, though; Akaashi flushes, cheeks round and rosy like the mochi he’d eaten yesterday in his car. It makes him want to bite, taste for sweetness.
“I might be open to that if you’re a good student.”
They stare at each other for what feels like hours but is probably seconds, holding this charged and fragile thing between them, bodies warm from something outside the summer heat. The moment is effectively ruined when Akagi throws the volleyball with what feels like 110% of his strength, and it almost takes out his kneecaps. Between them, they teach the boys the basics of receiving and spiking, and get a little rally going before Takahasi-san calls them in for lunch.
Lunch is a rambunctious affair — Takahashi-san brings the food while the boys wash up and set the table. Her husband, a quiet man who had removed himself from all sorts of excitement, arrives silently, knees soiled and coated from working in the gardens. Osamu and Akaashi sit next to each other, the other’s heat causing goose bumps to grow all over Osamu’s skin. Takahashi gives him a wink, and he rolls his eyes. Not yet.
She serves a host of dishes, tonkatsu, her signature asazuke, sunomono and a massive serving of stir-fried rice.
Reactions to lunch are immediate and heartening. Loud exclamations of it’s delicious from the boys and a muttered but appreciative hmm from Takahasi-san’s husband has Osamu beaming in pride for this woman he’s come to like so much. Akaashi is practically radiating joy while he eats and Osamu takes it as a sign to dig in. Instantly, the freshness of the cucumbers hits him, cool against the summer heat. Osamu takes a bite of rice.
He shoots her a look.
“Yer figured it out, huh?” She mouths over her bite.
No fuckin way
“Osamu-chan cooked lunch for us, so be sure ta thank him when yer done.” She declares over the table. He’d been messing around with some leftover rice from earlier, throwing bits and bobs of spices and sauces together in an old wok. He hadn’t expected to have it served in front of him. The rice is still nice and fluffy, the umami flavour strong and delicious. The rice is slightly smoky from the wok and undertones of garlic and herbs ring beautifully, marrying with the combination of spices he’d incorporated. But what takes him by surprise, even though he’d tasted it earlier, was the sweetness from the pineapple he’d incorporated. He’d seen it done online by a Thai chef — a little bit of grilled pineapple pieces in the rice for tartness. He’s impressed all over again, with its brightness, the juiciness of each bite, how balanced it feels mixed with the saltiness of the sauces he’d used. He’s definitely trying that one again. The sounds of chewing quieten momentarily, then each of the boys expresses their thanks loudly and profusely.
“Osamu-san, can ya come cook fer us forever?” Akagi asks earnestly, and Takahashi knocks him on the head slightly. “What’s wrong with ma cooking?”
While they argue, Akaashi leans in and whispers in his ear, “You’re an excellent cook. This is delicious.”
Osamu has fucking made it. Cut the cameras, everyone go home.
Osamu had forgotten how exhausting volleyball could be. His muscles were aching and his voice was croaky with yelled commands, but his soul felt lighter and floaty above his body. Hours after lunch, the boys had launched into an hour by hour description of their day to their dad and he’d invited both him and Akaashi to play with the neighbourhood team. It’d been cathartic, spiking and receiving, and even though Akaashi’s tosses weren’t as intuitive to him as Tsumu’s, they’d been monsters on the court.
Now here he was, freshly showered, arms burning, deciding on what to watch on his computer. As he clicks on the episode, a soft knock comes through his door.
“It’s open.” He says, and a heartbeat later, the door opens. Akaashi is in his pyjamas, a comfy pair of navy blue pants, and a t-shirt that was at least 2 sizes too big. It made all 183 metres of him dwarfed and tiny. He looks so huggable and warm. Was it weird to want to hug someone you’d just met?
“Sorry to interrupt.” He whispers into the silent room. Osamu beckons him in.
“’’S no problem. Didja need anything?”
Akaashi ponders the question for a little bit, then shakes his head.
“What’re you watching?”
Osamu glances at the laptop, then back at his guest. “Some cookin' show we used ta watch growin’ up.”
When they’d been younger, it’d become a Sunday night ritual. Tsumu, him and Ma, on occasion, Aran and Sunarin, when they’d decided to stay over, would huddle in front of the television and watch 3 contestants try to battle against an expert chef to win some obscene amount of money they couldn’t fathom. Now he watched it when he was tired, or bored, or reminiscent of when life used to be simpler with no responsibilities.
Akaashi appraises the show with what Osamu assumes is curiosity, so he continues.
“There’s four contestants; 3 of em are regular cooks, sometimes home cooks, sometimes not, and the last one’s a pro chef. Basically, the aim is ta beat the pro chef ta win the cash prize.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It’s the best! Some of the choices people make are concernin’.” Explaining it out loud, there’s this inexplicable urge to share this part of his childhood with him.
Akaashi glances at the laptop, thinks for a little bit, then seems to make up his mind. As he turns to leave, Osamu reaches over, fingers grasping the soft t-shirt. He lets go, like the material had personally burned him.
“Sorry.” Akaashi turns around, eyebrows cocked up in a way that has Osamu swallowing slowly. It was a needlessly attractive gesture. “Sorry. Um…didja.. I mean, did ya want ta watch it? with me?”
There’s a heartbeat or a lifetime between the question and a response. Akaashi, impassive as ever, lets nothing slip and Osamu counts his heartbeats as the echo loudly in his ears. Then, Akaashi smiles, softly, a small quirk at the corners of his lips. Victory.
Osamu shuffles over on the mattress, Akaashi takes the empty spot and he places the laptop in between them. They’re so close. So so close. So close that their shoulders graze each other when Osamu leans over to push play. Too close. Almost. He smells like the beach – sea salt and winter winds, hints of coconut and sweet ice cream. Something in Osamu feels alive being this close to him.
Don’t be weird, Samu, don’t be weird about the fact that he’s next to you. On your bed. Why had he thought this was a good idea?
“Why the fuck would ya do that? It’s not gonna cook in time!” Osamu exclaims at the screen, pointing accusatorily at where a contestant was popping something in the oven, with 10 minutes to spare.
“What’s the problem with that?” Akaashi asks innocently. The bubbling in his veins calms to a steady simmer. He thinks about his answer and feels his blood pressure spike again.
“He’s only got 10 minutes left. A cut like that would require at least 15 minutes. It's bound ta be raw in the middle.”
“Oh.”
“Now what I woulda done is made the salad first, popped the meat in the oven, and gotten to workin’ on the rice. Take it out after 15, let it sit so it remains tender and juicy and worked on the rest of the garnishes. Woulda gotten the whole thing plated with time ta spare ta make it look pretty.”
The contestants present their plates in front of the judges. The idiot from before gets his food tasted first.
“What’d I say? And its fuckin hideous too. Fuckin’ scrub.”
Akaashi laughs. It’s a big sound that bubbles out of him in waves and his entire frame shakes with the force of it. All Osamu can do is stare – at how the harsh lighting strikes his face, making the softer parts sharper, how Akaashi’s neck is thrown back, exposing a long and graceful neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every sound, how Akaashi unguarded laugh sounds like melodies and heaven opening and how wonderful it was to be alive to hear it in person. He is also very insecure, in spite of feeling proud of eliciting the sound.
“What’s funny?” He asks when he’s used up his allocated not creepy staring time. He doesn’t want to think the laughing’s at his expense– that might just kill him faster than this entire experience. “Was it somethin’ I said?”
“No. Nothing at all. It’s just –” He laughs again. “—It’s just, I wasn’t expecting that. You’re–you’re so – so-passionate about this.” He adds, gesturing wildly to the screen. “It’s so easy to tell how much you love it.”
Osamu blinks at him for a second, takes in the imprint of the laugh on Akaashi’s face, its remnants seen in the soft smile plastered there, then the words that stop him mid breath and fill him with warmth.
“Is it childish if I said I’ve always wanted ta be on one of these shows when I was younger?”
“Why would it be? With the way you cook, just from brief observations in Takahashi-san’s kitchen, I’d say you’d have a pretty good chance.”
It's nothing grand; Akaashi hadn’t declared that he would win or be the best of anything. He’d just provided an observational-based opinion, and boy, wasn’t it doing wonders for his ego.
“Besides, I’m sure your presentation will be better than whatever that mess is.”
Osamu turns his focus to the screen.
“Oh yeah, that’s actually horrifying. Who let 'em on the show?”
They continue like this until Akagi calls them for dinner, each making many little quips about the meals prepped, the presentations, and Osamu switching between simplifying kitchen jargon and frantically jotting notes in his notebook about new hacks he could try.
Before they enter the hall for dinner, Akaashi grabs Osamu by his wrist.
“I’ve thought about it. Organising things with work was a nightmare, but I’ll come with you. On the trip that is. I’ve told my best friend, so he’ll expect me at the end of the week.”
Akaashi carries on into the room before Osamu can react.
The grin that hits him almost splits his face in half.
Dinner is an even quieter affair. Takahashi san makes a banquet to feed a small town, under the guise of sending her lovely guests with a bang. The boys gift them both with handwritten cards, sporting cut out photos of volleyball, detailing how much fun they had. He promises to visit when they ask, leaving his phone number with their mum. Osamu and Akaashi clean up before heading to bed, each in anticipation of what the next leg of the trip would look like.
In his bed, before he closes his eyes, Osamu makes a note in his journal
Food should feel like family and like summer afternoons being outside
Bonus: Akaashi on the phone
Akaashi: Udai-san, I need to tak the week off. I’ll work remotely but I will not be in
Udai: Huh? Is everything okay? Do you need help?
Akaashi: This is integral to my well-being, please help me get this approved.
Akaashi: Bokuto-san, I’ll be over in a week, not tomorrow like discussed.
Bokuto: Did anything happen?
Akaashi: Life is perfect rn because the hottest man alive offered to drive me to Osaka. And he cooks too.
Bokuto: Are you safe?
Akaashi: I want to bury my face into his pecs and stay there forever.
Bokuto: HAHA keep me updated.
Notes:
Akaashi is a mess and I 100% support it. I'm also a sucker for direction challenged individuals because I, too, struggle to navigate with maps. I know this felt less cohesive and I swear the formatting's a little messy but you know we ball. I'll fix it when I'm no longer hotspotting in a random car park
As always, feel free to leave your comments. I love having chats with y'all about stuff and feel free to contact me on twitter: @__Kxylxx__
Chapter 4: We’re riding ‘round the country spending our time like its money
Summary:
His internal circuitry is still oozing out of his ears because fucking hell.
Holy fuckin’ fuck.
Akaashi is indisputably beautiful.aka Osamu has an entire crisis ft Akaashi as a car boy.
Notes:
We're back and I highkey think I hallucinated writing this during the semester cause I don't remember half the details and was genuinely shocked when I was proofreading. Anyways it's a journey and a half for Osamu.
Finally dropped the title of the song in the piece. For reminders, it's “Careful” RMCM, and the paragraph in question is a reference to the first line “Careful my heart, Careful my mind.”
Posting this after a really good bbq with my friends, my heart is happy. Shout out to the girlies who read the chapters when I post them. Love youse to the moon and back.
As always, I am not a chef so bear with my descriptions of food lmaooo
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“There is no way ya believe that, honestly!”
“Being completely honest, and if it’s wrong, you can’t change my mind.” Akaashi answers, hands folded on his lap as always.
They were halfway through their drive to Maizuru, because Osamu wanted to swing by this fish market he’d heard a lot about. Somewhere in between leaving Toyooka and now, they’d played this little game of opinions, commenting on everything that a comment could be made about. The sky, the weather, a car an outrageous shade of purple Osamu thought was both hideous and a shade his brother would wear. The family of ducks crossing the street as they’d turned on a side road, what sort of animal they would be, what sort of superpowers they would have, the ethics of being a superhero, which had launched Akaashi into a dispirited but impassioned criticism of Batman.
“A lot of things in his backstory went wrong, but fundamentally, I feel like deciding to become a masked vigilante in a city laden with crime, rather than say, I dunno, go to therapy and process grief healthily, was a choice.”
He’d rolled the windows down about 20 minutes ago to allow the aircon some rest, and the summer’s breeze rushes in, circling their heads, and exiting in an equal hurry, like it was unsure why and how it’d entered. It’s doing wonders for Akaashi’s hair, though, tousling carefully pat down curls, making them wild and tangled and full of life. It looks so soft to touch and, in his pale, blue cardigan, an inky t-shirt peeking out cheekily, he looks younger, more boy than man, wild toothy grin and mirage eyes. He wants to touch so bad. His fingers tighten against the wheel, letting the polished smoothness of vinyl be a reminder to keep his hands to himself.
“But ain’t that the whole point though? His grief is him dedicating his life ta fightin’ crime.”
“That’s not healthy.”
“He’s Batman. He’s not supposed to have healthy coping mechanisms. He’s supposed ta beat bad guys, so no one gets traumatised like he did. Same with the Robins”
“He doesn’t kill them, which in the long term causes more and more problems for Gotham, especially when they keep breaking out of prison. Case A, The Joker. Case B. Jason Todd and the Joker”
“Fair point. Howeva, he’s dedicated to the whole moral no killing thing cause --”
Just like that, his brain shuts down, body freezing — moving somewhere from living body to frigid puppet.
“Miya-san, please pull over the car.”
The hairs on his knees stand, straight and erect, and a shiver zips through the nerves beneath his skin, leaving taut hair and goosebumps in every place it passes. Osamu feels his brain to body filter fizzle out slowly. He should probably try to get it back, the sensible part of him muses. The rest of him that’s beyond brain empty and mind drunk convene in varying levels of panic, screaming the same thing. He’s touching me.
Right there, on his right knee, just below the hem of his cargo shorts, Akaashi’s nimble fingers are barely a stolen breath away. They’re rougher than he expected, the balls calloused from years of use. The touch is soft, gentle, sure in a way he’s sure Akaashi doesn’t want him to think is hesitant but most certainly is. His hands are cold. Osamu thinks he wants his hands all over him, wants Akaashi to touch him with certainty, like he wants him.
Focus on his words. He chides the parts of his brain that are either dazed from the searing touch or yelling some primal screech of victory, because he needs to not be weird about this. Focus.
“ — I think there might be something wrong with the car over —”
He’s touching me. He’s touching me. He’s touching me.
The car slows to a stop opposite a small white truck not unlike the one he’s driving. He’s unsure how he managed to get his muscles to coordinate and not burst into song, but the smile Akaashi sends him has his chest puffing in misplaced pride. God, this was bad.
His knee feels like it's on fire, his entire body feels like it’s been electrocuted, melting from the inside where Akaashi’s palm makes contact with his skin. He thinks he’s warming the other up, the thought of their heat mixing and swirling sending additional thrill through him.
Then Akaashi is out of the door, leaving an imprint where his hands used to be, cold and empty.
It takes him a few minutes to recover, to stop staring at that spot on his knee. Then he realises, if Akaashi had asked to stop the car, it must have been important. Osamu opens the door to find where the man had slinked off to.
There he is, tousled dark curls swaying with the warm mid-morning breeze, jumper rolled up to his elbows, gaze assessing the inside of the truck. One hand supports the hood, despite the strut propping it open, and from where he stands, Osamu can see a dark splotch, where grease has stained pale skin. None of this should be surprising, but it is. He’s seen him do this before, right after Akaashi had broken down on the side of the road, before he’d known this man was capable of upturning him, making him breathless and light. Seeing him do it again now, though, eyes focused and sharp, the gears in his pretty brain turning, biting his lips subconsciously in rapt attention, well, Osamu is sure this is where he dies.
His internal circuitry is still oozing out of his ears because fucking hell.
Holy fuckin’ fuck.
Akaashi is indisputably beautiful. Stunning. Ethereal. Simply out of this world. It’s a fact, like the sky is blue and grass is green and that Osamu isn’t getting enough oxygen into his brain and lungs. But this, seeing him pull some metal contraption from within the engine area, appraise it and order (or as ordering as he could get for someone so polite) the old woman for a rug, Jesus fuckin’ Christ. And Osamu has never had a thing for car guys. In fact, he’s had the opposite of a thing for car guys, courtesy of a fling gone wrong with a classmate back in business school, but Akaashi makes it work. More than work, even. He’s unbelievably attractive and the way he grips the contraption, wiping roughly up and down its length is frankly obscene. His throat feels dry, and his palms are itchy and why is it so fucking hot outside, it isn’t even 11am yet.
He probably should look away from the firm hold, the expert twist of his wrist as the rug clears oil, revealing darkly tinted metal. Akashi’s grip isn’t overly rough, but it isn’t gentle either and – and -- Samu stop starin’ at him ya creep.
He needs to stop; stop picturing himself between those hands, being privy to Akaashi’s expert ministrations, being worked clean and empty by a man who looked as if an angel had reincarnated as a librarian. Osamu feels a little untethered, a weighty emotion settling over him when the blood that should be going into his brain so he can be a rational, functioning person travels south.
Fuckkkk
This is weird, isn’t it? Like, really fucking weird, thinking about him this way when all Akaashi is doing is fixing an old woman’s car. He tries to channel all the not-hot thoughts he can, anything that isn’t Akaashi’s hands steadily pumping up and down, Akaashi’s lips rounding and closing around every word. His skin feels charged, his body a little unstable as heat floods in and around him. The spot on his knee burns a little brighter. He wants those hands all over him.
“-You need a new spark plug. If you had one, I could’ve replaced it for you.”
Thank you, universe, for your service! He mutters in his head. The visual of him actually fixing the car would’ve ended him, the heat in his gut erupting like a volcano. He can’t handle all of that. He can barely handle this, as minuscule as it is. Akaashi gives a few more pointers to the receptive woman, and a small part of him wishes he were the one being lectured, on the receiving end of Akaashi’s eloquent instructions. He turns to sit back in the car, willing his heart to stop pumping, his brain to fucking listen to him for once in its miserable life, his body to get a grip. Get a grip. Get ---
And there he is again, head through the window before Osamu can close the door, leaning on the frame like he’s got all the time in the world. He’s so close, Osamu catches the smell of engine grease and sea salt, can see the individual movements of his lips forming words like he’s observing the behind the scenes of a stop motion. He suppresses a squirm. God, he’s out of this world. From this close, Osamu can count the individual clumps of eyelashes, the faint scar on his nose bridge, the specific area that marks the apex of his cheekbones. Irises, a spectrum of idyllic sea green and crystal blue, peer back at him, concerning, raking through every detail on his face like the Akaashi was assessing him the same way Osamu was always assessing him. It does nothing to make the heat go away, everything to magnifying the electricity buzzing beneath his epidermis and the voices screaming touch me. Touch me. Touch m–
“I didn’t take ya fer a car guy.” He starts with a teasing lilt because it’s more normal than saying I want your hands all over me. “What’s the verdict?” He tilts his body minutely, whispers a silent prayer Don’t notice. Please don’t notice.
Akaashi does that soft exhale, the one that carries an imprint of a laugh, mouth twitching and eyes alight with amusement. There’s this soft inkling that he’s been caught, but Akaashi doesn't mention it, and he’ll take this entire interaction to the fuckin’ grave, so he assumes he’s fine for now. “I wouldn’t call myself a car guy per se. My grandfather taught me the basics.”
He leans a little closer into Osamu’s space, and Osamu can hear the blood jostling and gushing out of his heart.
“And the verdict, I suppose,” God, Osamu loved the way he spoke, even cadence, enunciating each syllable out perfectly. “I’m going to have to drive her car to wherever she’s going or the nearest mechanic, in case the spark plug fails again.”
There’s a mole beneath his left ear, a stray fibre sticking out near his neck, which Osamu tells himself not to reach and pull out. His eyes are drawn to the minute stuttering of the other man’s Adam's apple when he breathes and swallows, and God yer incredible, he wants to say. He had to know that he was scrambling Osamu’s brain just by standing there. Right?
“I’m gettin’ a large rush of deja vu. Feels like I’ve seen this happen before,"
Akaashi groans in response, lips upturned even as embarrassment settles over his skin in splotches of red. “Oh my God.”
“But this time, it’s oddly quiet.” He shoots him a wolfish grin. “No screamin.’”
“In my defence,” Akaashi starts indignantly, hands rubbing over his face. “I had had a really, really long day and –”
“ — It was an impressive sound. Very much a get to safety, danger approaching level — ” Akaashi’s hands cover his mouth before he can finish, his breath mixing in with the heat radiating from the man’s hand. Then he laughs, loud and bright and a little self-conscious, given his neck is a tint darker than the rest of him, and Osamu feels like he’s won something precious and fragile. He wants it forever.
“We’re not adopting her on our road trip, are we?” Osamu’s heart swells at the word “our”. Three letters, one small word with one big punch. He wishes more things would be referred to with “our.”
Osamu snorts. “Nah. Pretty sure that’s considered kidnappin’ in some prefectures.”
Akaashi’s eyes are alight, and he looks so boyish, so mischievous, and Osamu can’t seem to look anywhere else, doesn’t want to look anywhere else. This feeling, this unshakeable magnetism towards one person, is an unfamiliar weight in his chest, but it's right. There it is, that rightness again. This trip, this moment. Something big is happening, tectonic plates are shifting, stories are being woven and unwoven, stars aligned to put him in this place, at this exact moment in time, with this incredible man smiling like Osamu had handed him the world.
How could I have ever hated life?
“Good,” Akaashi says, eyes crinkling shut behind his glasses, and the words settle in his chest.
Everything is so inconceivably good.
The lady’s truck fails conveniently as they pull into her location. It stutters to a halt like a petulant toddler, unwilling to make the remaining 100 metres of road into an appropriate parking space. Funnily enough, it’s the fish market he’d been planning on visiting when they’d left Toyooka. 3 points to Fate, 0 to Osamu. Akaashi jumps out of the truck, landing in a way that scatters dust and rocks, jogs around to help the old lady alight, and when he turns, his face is beet red, dark splotches covering almost every surface of his face, neck and ears.
He’s embarrassed. Osamu notes and files the fact that they’ve hung out enough for him to notice this.
“Anything happen on yer ride? Yer red as a tomato.”
“I-it’s fine. Perfectly good. Nothing wrong. N-Nothing’s ever been wrong.” Eloquent and articulate Akaashi, reduced to a stuttering, glowing mess. Now, Osamu was intrigued. Akaashi won’t look him in the eyes, attention focused on where his fingers were interlocked. When his hands weren’t actively in use, Akaashi’s hands always seemed to find each other, interlocked or together. It made him look endlessly proper, highlighted the fact that his posture was impeccable, his eyes were set and even, that he was utterly and completely composed at all times, appraising people critically like a judge. Now, though, they wring themselves over and over. Osamu leans in closer and whispers, “Are ya sure? Did she say anythin’ ta ya? Need me to talk to her?” Dark curls bristle his cheek, and his fingers brush over the man’s vibrating digits. The touch sends a thrum of something electric down his body.
Akaashi leaps back comically, and if Osamu squinted, he thinks he’d see the outline of his soul hovering aimlessly and distressed above his body. He hadn’t thought it possible, but the other man flushes violently, face so bright it could probably be seen from space
Osamu grabs his wrist when Akaashi trips over a stray rock, losing his balance. The man’s pulse thumps thumps thumps, loudly and vigorously and oh God, Osamu's heart rockets to sync with it.
He pulls the man towards him in a single fluid motion, and when he’s sure both of Akaashi’s feet are rooted to solid ground he does a cursory glance over; hair, face, arms legs, making sure nothing hurt, smoothing over rumples in his jumper, clearing hair that had stuck to his forehead, storing away the feel of soft, slightly damp hair and clear skin, how hot it is to his touch, it’s smoothness, the way he could still feel his veins circling blood round and round.
“Careful, now.” He mutters partly to Akaashi, mostly to his relentlessly thundering heart. “Wouldn’t want ya pretty head getting hurt.” He runs one last indulgent touch down the length of Akaashi’s arms, squeezing when he’s halfway through. “All good?”
The raven-haired man swallows, nods languidly before clearing his throat to verbally respond. “Yea—”
A clucking sound, an irritated tsk interrupts their moment.
“He’s fine,” the old lady clucks from beside the truck. She hobbles slowly towards them, expression filled with mild exasperation, but it’s not unkind. “Boys these days can’t take a bitta teasing.”
Osamu quirks his eyebrow up in question.
Akaashi groans softly under his breath. His face is heating up again. Before he can answer, the old lady tuts
“Both of you. Come help me move the fish to my stall before that bitch steals all my customers.”
With no indication of who “that bitch” is, they offload her truck, following the lady and her endless muttering, “hope Natusuki isn’t being useless again.”
Akaashi bumps into his side when the lady cusses again about a woman they're starting to think is her nemesis, and when he cranes his head to see, Akaashi smiles, wide and mischievous.
“How did we get ourselves into this mess?” He mouths.
Osamu bumps him back.
“It’s part of the adventure”, he mouths back.
“What took you so long? Do you know how irritating it’s been to deal with Ishiguro-san, stupid old woman?” A tall woman calls from beneath the table they stop at. Her light brown hair is cropped into a pixie cut, majority of it hidden behind a dark blue bandana with a fish embroidered on one corner. Silver glistens in multiple spots around her ears and nose. Her mouth is downturned and pursed, and her eyes are beyond displeased, but there’s a softness to them when her eyes assess the old woman’s frame. She sighs, hands on her hips, and clears empty eskies with her feet to make room.
“Truck broke down again, useless daughter. What has she been doing?”
The resemblance was subtle but clear once you were looking for it. Despite differently shaped faces, their expressions carried the same air of being irritated with everything and everyone at every time. They were both slender but wore it in different ways. The mother was short in stature, a full head of hair that was more grey than it was black. The daughter was wiry, over a head taller than her mother, with a graceful neck and narrow shoulders.
The old lady points where she wants them to place her hoard. The market is rousing, shaking the tendrils of morning sleep. Vendors were calling up discounts and sales of everything — Salmon caught that morning, fresh crabs, no, you won’t get it for a price better than what I'm giving you. Come get octopus for cheap, cheap, cheap!
The daughter stops mid-sentence when she sees them.
“Ma, what’s with the hot men?” She attempts to whisper but he hears her anyway.
She straightens her shoulders, eyes narrowed in something like suspicion, wipes her hands on her apron, and shoots them a smile that borders on grimacing.
“The round-faced one with the black hair helped me get the truck running.” She points to Akaashi. “They’re on a trip as friends.” The old woman says friends like it’s a suggestion, a fallacy, like she could see through everything Osamu wanted plain on his face. His skin feels raw and exposed, the breeze cooler than when he first entered.
The splotches on Akaashi’s face rise again
Oh. Oh. Is that why?
His heart flutters when Akaashi refuses to meet his eyes.
The old lady whispers something to her daughter, the girl slumps over, and the maybe half grimace, half smile falls off her face. The one that takes over is wide and cheshire-like.
“You watch the stall. Gonna deliver ya uncle’s batch before he calls me with his panties in a twist.”
She stalks towards the entrance without seeing if they’re following her.
“Bye, boys!” The daughter calls in their wake, suddenly cheerful. Osamu waves her back, using his other hand to direct Akaashi in ghost touch. Akaashi stiffens momentarily before leaning in.
The old lady, Saeno-san, barges into the restaurant with little decorum or concern for whomever might be sitting next to the door or occupying the space. It seemed that barging into places was her normal, completely comfortable in every space she took them in. She was the sort of woman who had been here a really long time, and it showed.
“Daisuke!” She roars once inside. The wall above the bar holds a warm mahogany plaque carved with the same fish logo she’d seen on the daughter, Natsuki, apparently, earlier. Seafood restaurant? That made sense.
“Nee-san, why the fuck are you screaming in my restaurant?” A man grumbles, emerging from between dark curtains hiding the kitchen from view. He’s no taller than Saeno-san, with the same salt and pepper hair and grouchy face covered in speckles of hair. He’s sporting a dark blue apron, which he wipes his hands on rapidly.
“There’s no one here.” She supplies unhelpfully, making herself comfortable on the nearest chair, like she owns the place.
“That is because we aren't open yet.” The man retorts irritated. “You know this. It’s the only reason you’re here!”
With a flippant flick of her wrist, she tells them where to place the boxes of iced seafood and he and Akaashi slink outside, into the boiling sun, to retrieve them. The siblings bicker as they offload the truck, stupid renditions of you’re so annoying and why are you here and shut up, you know why I’m here, I’ve been doing this for 20 years now. For a moment, everything focuses in crystal clarity. This would be his future, 30, 40, maybe 50 years down the line, him and Tsumu fighting like they always have over everything and nothing.
He smiles over the last box of ice he places down.
Gentle reminder that I’m still Ma’s favourite, he sends simply because he knows his brother’s on break and will see it. Almost instantly, his phone floods with a barrage of messages he doesn't need to read to know what they say. Atsumu was always so easy to rile up.
“They’re extremely lively,” Akaashi whispers, hands dusting his shoulder. This little game of touch chicken is turning his brain to mush.
“Reminds me of Tsumu ‘n’ I”. Behind them, he hears Saeno-san knock her brother on the head with a “Don’t talk to your older sister like that. I didn’t raise you with that tone.” He winces in solidarity.
“Did the two of you bicker this relentlessly?”
“We were probably worse.” He mutters into Akaashi’s ear. Even though he can’t see his smile, he knows it's there anyway. “Sunarin, our collective best friend, has videos of pretty much all our fights since the starta high school. Annoying bastard’s always filming.”
Akaashi huffs a small laugh.
“You both sound so spirited.”
“Still are, I think. And I won 80% of our fights.”
“Did you now? What about the other 20%?”
“I was having a bad day, or ‘Tsumu was bein’ an underhanded scrub.”
Akaashi chuckles, and Osamu laughs along with him.
A little quieter, Akaashi says, “I am a little jealous though. I never had any of that, being an only child and all.”
Osamu couldn’t imagine living life solo, without his brother by his side. For all ‘Tsumu’s faults and there were so many it would take him years to list out, Osamu was beyond grateful that he’d been born with a built-in companion, someone who would understand him always, sometimes more than himself. Someone who always pushed him to be greater, better, more than he currently was. Astumu is Osamu’s biggest blessing and his biggest challenge. He would never understand only children, the feeling of growing up solo so alien, but he wants to try, so he says, “Must’ve been quiet, huh?”
Akaashi nods slowly, reminiscent.
“Yer not missing out on much, yer lucky ya didn’t grow up having someone steal your clothes and food.” He doesn’t miss the small smile that blooms on the other’s face.
“Ahem!”
Osamu and Akaashi jump apart, turning to face Saeno-san. She rolls her eyes at them and motions hurriedly.
“This is my idiot brother. He runs this place. Makes decent food in Maizuru.” She says it flippantly, in that way that indicates that she actually thinks the world of her brother's food. It was bound to be good. Osamu is practically fizzing just thinking about it. There’s a soft, brothy aroma wafting from behind the curtains. It’s divine. Osamu needs to know what’s in it, now.
“This one’s a chef, apparently.” She points to him. “And this one’s a literary agent. Works for that manga your boy’s always obsessed it.”
When Daisuke-san looks at them, it’s with fresh eyes, like he’s noticing them for the first time.
“Would Udai-sensei be able to give my son an autograph?" He starts, stomping forward until he is all but hovering over Akaashi. “My son would love me forever. He keeps talking about the series to the point where I’m fully caught up, even though I’ve never read it. Any idea when the next volume will come out?”
Akaashi, having not been expecting this many words spoken to him at once, shrinks backwards, shoulder meeting Osamu's chest. Osamu’s hands grip his shoulder, stabilising him until Akaashi is no longer being ambushed.
“Daisuke.” Saeno-san chides, and her brother retreats chastised. He straightens the wrinkles in his apron where it’d gotten bunched up in his enthusiasm.
“Sorry bout that.” It was strange to see a man like him, short but built like a brick wall, apologising for anything. “Forgive my rudeness.”
He takes another step back, allowing Akaashi to stabilise himself, wipe the shock and discomfort from his face.
“It’s okay,” Akaashi tells him politely. He straightens his glasses, glances at Osamu, who is assessing him for any signs of damage, and clears his throat.
“I suppose I could get Udai-sensei to send you a signed volume.” A breath, the start of Daisuke’s face breaking into a small grin. “On one condition.”
The other man freezes. Osamu lifts an eyebrow in question. Akaashi notes that and promptly ignores it. Saeno-san looks more interested than she has looked at anything else.
“And what would that be?” Daisuke responds gruffly. Osamu is curious. Akaashi, with his gentle giant frame, his quiet demeanour, looks not quite crafty, but a precursor to the expression. What could he want so much from this random man?
“You let my friend here,” He pulls Osamu forward with his wrist, “help out in your kitchen this morning until your lunch rush is over.”
Saeono-san rolls her eyes so hard that Osamu freezes for a second, double checking that she isn’t having a seizure. Daisuke glances between them and stares at Osamu for a long second. Looks like he isn’t the sort of man who enjoys strangers in his kitchen. Valid. No offence taken. While Daisuke deliberates between keeping his kitchen sterile and foreign people free or the coolest gift for his son, Osamu leans into the raven-haired man.
“That was unexpected.” He whispers to Akaashi. “Why’d’ya ask for that of all things?”
“You had your chef eyes on.”
“I do not have chef eyes.”
“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
“And what do ma “chef eyes” look like?” He asks teasingly, finger quoting the phrase. The question is half joke, half curiosity.
“Crazed. Incensed. Hungry.” Akaashi says them deadpan, but his expression is charged, intense. It sends a thrill of something through him. There’s an undertone, he knows there is, but he can’t pinpoint it. Crazed. Incensed. Hungry.
“What sort of cuisine do you have experience with?” Daisuke booms with irritation.
“Japanese fusion, currently fine dining, but I’ve worked on others, chef.”
Daisuke barks a laugh. “This ain’t none of your fancy shit. This food has soul. Can you honour that?’
“100% and more, Chef. I’ve only ever wanted to cook food with soul.”
Then the gruff man smiles, enough for the permanent scowl to drop off his face. Then to Akaashi, “I’ll do it.” He put his hands out, Akaashi shakes them firmly. “Thank Udai-sensei in advance for me. He’s about to make my boy feel like it's Christmas.” He turns to leave with a sharp order to follow.
“Go on, chef.” Akaashi teases and Osamu loves the way it makes him feel. He follows the man into the kitchen with one warming realisation: Akaashi has been watching him.
The aroma from earlier turns out to be where Daisuke and his crew make their own Dashi from scratch. There are a few large gallons with different combinations he can pick up; konbu, katsuoboshi, niboshi and a pot that’s definitely shiitake mushrooms. But there’s an underlying layer, something adding a level of complexity to the broths he cannot pinpoint, and it’s frustrating. Worse of all, he finds that Daisuke Kobayashi is a mind-blowing chef and ridiculously stingy with all his recipes. His menu consists of a handful of dishes but they’re all planned out masterfully, detailed in the layers and shocking in the combinations that highlight his understanding of sensation and taste. Osamu is enamoured.
The thing that really gets to him is that the meals are incredibly simple. Easily made at home but ridiculously polished. Recipes that have been perfected simply by having time and love and family. They made easy dinners, the sort that appeared when everyone was finally together over the holidays. It reminds him of hazy memories of cooking with Pa when he was still here, making Ma lunch for work, cooking with ‘Tsumu to surprise Ma for her birthday, or Mother’s Day or just to remind her that they loved her and that she was working really hard. It reminds him of childhood, when the passage of time felt slow and syrupy, endlessly wide and irritatingly non-specific. It’s so different from the food at the restaurant, with its technicalities and high precision. This menu is simple in the way life is simple; a few basic elements, a lot of passion built together to make a tower of Babel. Osamu wants this so bad. He wants this: food that is reminiscent, food that shows that he loves what he does, food that is warm in the same way a body is, with a beating heart, a warm soul, and a shocking sense of self. He wants to take what's simple and make it more. So much more. Not just a revamped recreation, but imbue it with life, something unseen.
He works diligently at his station, being tasked with a meal that half steamed, half grilled Sawara Fish paired with ginger, aromatics, the mysterious dashi, and an umeboshi sauce sweetened with a bit of honey and something else Daisuke adds when he double checks the quality of Osamu’s food. Daisuke won’t tell when he asks and Osamu lets out a frustrated sigh. He cycles through the stations, helping out with nikujaga, getting walked through the no-waste policy Daisuke had implemented – use all parts. Crab gets removed from shells, and shells are boiled down to make another broth, and are further dried and added to completed meals as garnish. He listens as the sous chef explains some of their more complicated meals, and attempts them with vigour, cataloguing the flavour profiles that interest him to be tried later.
“Do ya know what he puts in stuff to make it work?” Osamu whispers to the sous chef as he passes the completed dashi through the industrial-sized strainer.
“I got some idea based on the ingredients but nothing’s 100%. ‘pparently this stock’s family protected, and he always double-checks food, adds his final touches.”
“He’s like a fuckin’ grouchy wizard in there.”
The sous chef hums slowly and agreeing. When they’re done with the straining and labelling, he asks for a cigarette, Osamu pats his pocket and tells him he hasn’t got one. The implication fills him with a sense of pride even though it hasn’t been that long.
He works for a few hours, and when he’s done, Daisuke claps him on the back with something akin to a smile. “Your whole future’s ahead of you, boy. You’ll make a mighty fine head chef, just work on your plating. Presentation is key. I’m sure they taught you that at your fancy place. But ya’ve got all the right skills and the right energy for the job”
The words hit him like a freight train. It’s a whole different thing to have an established chef like Daisuke, one who had just met him, to vocalise a belief so strong. It’s a whole different thing to have his technical skills complemented, to have his passion acknowledged. Maybe he hasn’t picked wrong. Maybe he’s right where he’s supposed to be. It’s just a comment, but it makes him feel like picking passion wasn’t a mistake.
Osamu sniffs hard, keeping the tears gathering above his waterline from spilling over.
“Thank you, chef.”
The kitchen makes him a few meals to share with Akaashi for lunch, and he takes them out to where the man is staring furiously at his computer, like he could obliterate it with his glare if he looks hard enough. There’s a small notebook opened in front of him, and the pen in his grip is definitely being suffocated. Akaashi looks so over it.
It’s endearing.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, setting the table with their spoils of war. He means it to be light-hearted and joking, but his heart stops when Akaashi looks up at him through long lashes, the beads of his chain clinking delicately against his frame and face. “Hmm?”
God, yer gonna kill me. He swallows and tries again. “What’re ya working on?” He places one of the crab-based dishes and the nikujaga on the table, away from Akaashi’s laptop and papers. “Ya look so hyper focused. Wasn’t sure if ya were on the verge of stress screamin’ again.” He grins when Akaashi rolls his eyes.
“You’re delusional. That never happened.”
“Yer embarrassed, that's how I know I’m right.” The dark splotches had barely taken shape, but they were there.
“Shut up.” It’s said with an exasperated tone, carrying the hint of a laugh.
“Nah, don't think I will.” He returns for the last of the side dishes, a pitcher of water and some cutlery, and when he’s done, he sits facing Akaashi. “But honestly, what's happening? Ya looked stressed. Work stuff again?”
Akaashi puts his stuff away on the seat next to him and appraises the meal in front of them carefully. His eyes linger on a plate of fried noodles a little longer than the rest. Hmm.
“Yes.” He pours them both a glass of cold water and takes a sip from his. “My manager sent the most nonsensical email regarding another manga series I’m not even in charge of, and wants me to have a cursory look at it and evaluate if the story is worth pursuing.”
Osamu nudges the sides and the plate of noodles towards his left-hand side; Akaashi always seems to grab stuff methodically from left to right. Satisfaction is a warm ball in his chest when the man begins picking at it, and a plate of daikon on the furthest left-hand side.
“I’m assumin’ it ain't lookin’ good since ya look like ya wanna blow it up with yer mind.” Akaashi pinches the flesh on top of his hand as retaliation.
“It’s one of the worst stories I’ve read in a while, to be as polite as possible," Akaashi says. “But it’s got potential, if I could even make sense of what the plot is,” Akaashi tells him about the story — it's truly the worst, most plagiarised thing he’d ever heard of.
“But anyway, enough about work. How was it, chef?” There it is, that thrill at the title coming from that mouth Osamu has imagined more times than he’d like to admit. He nudges Akaashi with his foot to say Eat and find out, watching intensely for that first bite. He tries the fish he’d made. Akaashi makes a sound that’s almost obscene and wholly blissful. His eyes are bright when he looks up at Osamu again before going in for another bite, like he can’t believe that this was in front of him.
“Holy fucking shit.” Akaashi didn't swear much, but when he did, he transformed the crassness of the words into elegance. “This might just be the best thing I’ve ever had, and I don’t even like fish.” Osamu didn’t know that and files that knowledge for later use. He takes the enthusiastic response as a sign to eat, and even though he’d tasted the elements individually during prep, he wasn’t prepared for it as a whole meal. Osamu takes a bite of food and almost screams. The flavours come together in a way that’s mellow but intense. It’s an unexpected burst, layers and layers of masterfully used ingredients gelling together in a beautiful orchestra. Osamu hates Daisuke for withholding this information from him and hates him even more because its valid – If he’d been the one to come up with something like this, he’d gatekeep it too, lock it up in some safe somewhere, he'd never write it down, take it to the grave and pray that everyone in his kitchen developed a dementia of sorts. Dramatic much, but the food was that good.
Akaashi seems to be in his own blissful state, sighing after every bite. Osamu curses Daisuke again, just for the sake of it.
Osamu fills him in on his experiences, on the different combinations that intrigued him, how the kitchen is structured, and how everyone seems to be in sync. They eat and eat. Osamu tells Akaashi about stuff he’d like to try and eliminates some food items he won’t want to include in his menu. He keeps the bigger declaration to himself, though. It feels too large to put out into the world just yet.
“Can I pick the next spot after we leave?” Akaashi asks once they’re down to their last couple of bites.
“Course ya can. This is as much yer trip as it is mine.”
“More accurately,” Akaashi starts after a bite of rice, “This is your trip, I’ve just hijacked it.”
“Hijacking implies I don’t want ya here.”
“Of course, you want me here. I’m an absolute delight to be around.” Osamu leans in to wipe away grains of rice stuck to the man’s cheek.
I want you here. I wish this trip wouldn’t end. He grins instead.
When they’re done, they bid farewell to Daisuke and his crew, who enthusiastically welcome him back anytime. Akaashi finalises the last set of details with the head chef regarding the autograph.
“Where’s Saeno-san?”
“I dropped her off back at the market. Hope you don’t mind that I used the truck without telling you.”
Osamu curses Daisuke for making him miss the view of Akaashi driving his truck. They swing past the market to bid the lady and Natsuki farewell, then they’re off, Maizuru left behind in the dust of the afternoon sun.
I want to make food with heart and soul.
Bonus:
“We both agree that Natsuki is queer as hell, right?”
“That’s a lesbian if I’ve ever seen one.”
"Denial?”
“Heavy.”
---
Saeno-san: You’re on a trip as a couple, right?
Akaashi: HAHA a couple of friends
Saeno: Not with the way you undress him with your eyes.
Notes:
It’s so funny how Osamu keeps teasing Akaashi about the screaming thing, like he didn’t run from his car cause he thought he fumbled.
Saeno san is dedicated to bullying young men in homoerotic situationships. Akaashi was not safe in that car ride.
We love a couple that gossips together and also don't you love it when you meet someone that makes you love life again. Manifesting for me and y'all.
As always, feel free to drop comments, I love reading them <3
Chapter 5: Underneath my big talk, there’s a humming soft and sweet
Summary:
Osamu has been chasing a concept for as long as he can remember.
The boys do a bit more random stuff and Osamu comes to some realisations.
Notes:
Posting this before I go on holiday!!! But enjoy the slight unseriousness of this chapter! It also becomes glaringly clear that I am not a chef haha. I have always hc'ed Atsumu as being the baker of the family and Osamu the chef and between them both, Mama Miya is always fed and full.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Kyoto prefecture passes in a flurry of varying shades of green; sprawling mountains wearing shrubbery like winter coats, the narrow winding roads flanked by trees and wild grass that wave in the summer breeze. It’s the perfect definition of alive, the leaves whispering to each other, wind dancing between hardened stumps and wispy weeds. Osamu feels their life in every breath he takes, punctuating every cell in his body.
This is summer. This is living.
It was all so grand and beautiful and real. He whistles a soft tune under his breath, a nonsensical mash-up of musical notes that isn’t quite song, more of sound, same as the rustling and chirping of the bugs and the call and response of the birds overhead, barely a speck in sprawling, endless blue. It doesn’t matter, though, whether the notes piece together or not, he feels the earth harmonise with him, and that is more than enough. Between bursts of frantic writing, Akaashi hums along subconsciously, matching every second note. His left hand rests comfortably on Osamu’s knee. Occasionally, he rubs little circles, especially in the intervals when his pen is frozen and his face is pensive. Osamu finds that he quite likes watching Keiji like this: hyper-focused, inspired, creative. He hasn’t seen it often, but like everything to do with the man, it’s a sight to behold. It should scare him that there’s so much he likes about one person, but it’s scary in that way of knowing that the ocean is dangerous, but still dipping your toes into it at the beach. Besides, it isn’t like they’re dating anyway.
You could be if you said something. A tiny part of his psyche screams. If you just said something. They weren’t, and he isn’t sure if he’ll say anything now. They’d just built this new equilibrium, and parts of him are scared shitless of putting a sound to those words, speaking them into the universe. I want you to stay. Because the more he thinks about it, the less probable it gets. Realistically, they were settled in two parts of the country. Keiji is a city boy, Tokyo born, bred and it would likely be his final resting place. Osamu was Hyogo born and bred and while his brother’s life involves city hopping for games, Osamu is unsure of where he wants to place his roots — if he wants to leave the only home he’s ever known. Besides, Ma needs someone close. He doesn’t think about the fact that she’d been the one to push him out of the house. “Go chase yer dreams, Samu. I can handle myself.”
There’s the other thing. While he isn’t scared that so much of him is captivated by one solitary person, he is scared shitless that this is a thing only he feels. Some parts of it feel too good to be real, like the concept of Santa Claus or his head chef suddenly complimenting his work. It feels fragile, like a whisper could shatter it if he ever tried to speak the words out loud, that he is bound to break it just by holding it, feeling it. S–, what was he thinking about again? Keiji is rubbing the soft circles again. He’s thinking. About what, he can’t quite recall.
“What’re ya writing?” He asks, and the circles slow but don’t stop. He adds that to the tally to convince himself that this isn’t just him. He’s been curious since Akaashi pulled out both his laptop and notebook 15 minutes outside of Maizuru, and he’s been going steady for about 45 minutes, unending and rhythmic, spinning words into wild paragraphs, the occasional frantic crossing out here and there. For a second, there’s nothing but breathing and the periodic tic ticking of the indicator, then the other man replies.
“Short story. Possibly a novella, considering how much I want to fit in here.”
“What’s the difference?” He overtakes a car, deciding to go at half the speed despite being on the freeway. Lucky for him, it’s mostly an empty road ahead, and he accelerates a little as the road wraps around the hills like twine around a sirloin.
“Novellas are shorter than novels but longer than short stories. Typically, less than 100 pages, anywhere from 20,000 words to 80,000 words on average. The word count for short stories is a bit arbitrary. It tends to depend on the publisher, for example.”
“So that one ya were reading, the one by the Russian author with the name, White Nights, was it?”
Akaashi nods, laughing at his floundering. “That’s considered a novella, correct?"
“I would consider it a novella. Many call it a short story. It’s hard to tell when the boundaries start to blur.”
He stores that information somewhere to be used. “So, author Keiji,” The man’s given name sounds weighty on his tongue. Not wrong, just unfamiliar. Two syllables taking shape in the world for the first time in his voice. To his credit, Akaashi turns a pretty shade of pink but he doesn't correct it, so Osamu takes it as a sign to continue. “What’s yer short story, maybe novella about?”
“How to describe...” He trails off.
“Is it aliens?”
“No.”
“Vampires?”
“Space cowboys chasing villainous cowboys?”
“I already vetoed aliens, so no. Are these the kinds of movies you watch?” Akaashi answers with a laugh.
“Nah, I like ma movies slower and charged.” Staunchly ignore other things he’d like to explore that fit this description.
“Oh?”
“You know, slow-paced romances, stories that aren’t about anything in particular or ones that are about everything.” Akaashi is watching him. He can feel the prickling of his gaze and makes an effort of staring at the asphalt and road signs. “Not that I get that much time to watch movies,” He adds, because it's been quiet for too long and he’s starting to get self-conscious. This has been one of the major differences between him and Tsumu for as long as he could remember. Tsumu has always loved his movies adrenaline-packed —heart-pumping, violent and explosive. After a particularly bad horror movie run with him and Aran when they were younger, he’d been unable to sleep or watch anything action-based for a bit for fear of collapsing of a heart attack. It’d taken an entire week of musical rom-com marathon with Ma to get him to calm down. The was enough excitement in meaningful dialogue, in the would they, won’t they? Of stories with predictable endings, finales that don’t include the entire world being saved but one small section, one minuscule aspect being altered forever.
Now he’s older, he can stand action movies, but slower paced ones still have a way of melting ice, warming him up, pulling the world to a stop when everything feels too frenzied. Akaashi feels like one of those movies sometimes.
“I like those too,” Akaashi mumbles softly. Osamu feels his neck go hot.
“Ya never mentioned what yer story was about.”
“That was because you kept interrupting me, silly.”
“Potato potahto.”
“Anyways, it's great you like slow-paced stories, cause this might be right down your alley. I’m trying, emphasis on trying, to write about a boy who keeps chasing a shooting star.”
Somehow, Osamu knows this is a personal story, knows that whatever’s on those pages contains vital aspects of all the parts of Akaashi Keiji Osamu doesn't know but wants to learn about. Somehow, the premise of it feels like a punch to the chest, the short blurb applicable to more aspects of his life than he’d like. Quitting volleyball, trying so hard, and failing to get into culinary school twice. Taking a business diploma while working two kitchen jobs for the experience. Finally getting in and busting his ass off every single class. Thinking he’d made it when he’d got his current gig at the restaurant. This is it; this is everything I wanted, everything I’d been working hard to achieve. Having it all crumble down, his self-esteem ground fine like salt in a mortar. The harsh, acrid realisation that fine dining isn’t what he wants by far.
Osamu has been chasing a concept for as long as he can remember. He’s panted and fallen and lain in the mud, eyes trained on the night sky watching other stars zip and zoom, as his one gets further and further. He’s pulled himself up from quicksand, dusted himself off, and jogged after it. Who am I if I cannot get this one thing to work? He’s been chasing his brother’s shadow since they were born, chasing an ideal of what they could’ve been if he’d wanted volleyball like Tsumu breathed it. Osamu Miya has been chasing shooting stars for so long, he doesn’t know how to stand still and just watch. He’s reminded of twin stars he’d seen outside his apartment, waiting for Tsumu, thinks of the stars moving further from each other. Thinks about the fact that wanting Akaashi Keiji in his life is star-shaped, all burning gas, far and unreachable. Tries to ignore the implications of it.
Osamu smiles, slow and gentle, because this story was so like Keiji, or at least the parts of him he’s met—candid, but breathtaking and impactful.
“Does he ever catch the star?” He wonders what Keiji has been chasing. A pipe dream? A feeling? Has he ever lain awake, trying to imagine what it would feel like to hold a star in his hands? Is there something he wants so bad he feels incomplete without it, hollow in the shadow of its probability?
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“It's perfect,” Osamu says because he needs to let Keiji know.
“You haven’t read a single word.”
“Don’t need to. They’re yer words. I know they’re perfect.” That’s that.
They drive to the sound of pages flicking and whooshing of air, and when Osamu feels his mind getting a little tired, he turns up the radio, not too loud to distract Keiji from his work but enough that he can sing along to whatever’s been popular this month.
A particularly catchy J-pop song starts playing and he recognises it because Rin’s younger sister went through a massive obsessive phase with this band, this song a feature in her replays. He recalls most of the words, never from listening to it on his own, but because it was all she would play for about a week straight every time Osamu visited back in third year. He wonders if she still likes this song. Makes a mental note in his head to ask her next time he’s around their ends.
What he doesn’t expect is to hear Keiji singing along softly, a small frown on his face as he stares down his page.
Osamu turns the music up a little bit, and they sing the chorus together.
When the song ends, he meets the other’s eye cheekily.
“A writer, a setter, a mechanic, and a vocalist. What can’t ya do?”
“Please,” He starts with a flippant flick of his wrist. “ I hardly think my vocal abilities warrant consideration in your list of my supposed merits.”
“I’m a little bit surprised you know that song. Considered your music taste a bit more refined.”
“Shut up. I don’t.” A laugh. “It’s just, my little cousin was obsessed with it when it dropped and made sure the whole family knew it. She even made me learn the dance with her when we visited our grandfather when it was released.”
“And he dances too.”
“Not well enough to be subject to that wondrous tone of yours.”
“I would kill to see it.”
“You’d be highly disappointed.” Keiji deadpans with a flick of his hand and goes back to writing. The smile on his face stays for the rest of the drive.
I don’t think anything about you can be disappointing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Turns out Keiji’s stop is just short of the main Kyoto city, a patch of grass smaller than a soccer field. In the middle sits a retrofitted brick building, likely an old factory from its industrial and imposing interior. A large roller door is opened, revealing 8 identical metal benches, white fridges of uniform shape and build sit equidistant from each other on top of heavy concrete flooring.
A group of workers appear to be loading a variety of fruit and vegetables into the ones closest to the grass. From his position, Osamu can see a row of black aprons, stark against the burnt orange and toasty red brick walls. Beside the aprons, crew in white t-shirts move stacks of wooden chopping boards, sliding them seamlessly beneath each metal bench. There’s a massive screen nestled into the wall on the far left, displaying the time in brown block computer numbers. Stage lights hang in rows on the ceiling, and another crew, this time clad in black, shuffle back and forth, yelling orders to each other and setting up video cameras and a host of electronics that has his head pounding in confusion. As he observes, another screen is set up near the grassy area. He can read the display, “Sponsored by..”, followed by a range of businesses he doesn’t recognise and tags as being local. A man in a glossy black suit and slicked back hair, greasier and shinier than glazed pork belly, strides in. He’s got an air to him, like news reporters but with a whole lot more enthusiasm and genuine positivity.
On the grass, families and groups of people cluster. Children run amok while adults chatter loudly. There’s an excitement in the air. Something is happening here and soon.
Osamu surveys the scene, but the pieces don’t come together to spell an obvious picture.
“What’s all this?”
“Surprise?” Jazz hands and a shy smile. His eyebrow cocks up. Keiji puts his hands down.
“Don't hate me for this, but I might’ve done something impulsive.” The eyebrow goes a little higher. Keiji isn’t the impulsive sort. Colour him intrigued. “You mentioned always wanting to be part of a cooking comp when we were watching your show, and when I was taking a break from work stuff back at Daisuke’s, looking up things we could do in the city, it came up.”
The pieces start to click together. “Don’t worry, it’s just a community thing, being sponsored by some of the local companies, and it's mainly for good fun. They were looking for one more entrant, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you did it?” That explains the fridges and the large benches and the massive truck full of produce being offloaded.
A cooking competition, huh?
He can’t lie, the concept of it sends a thrumming in his veins. “You can back out anytime if you don’t want to do this. I should’ve asked you first.” Keiji’s voice is dipping into unsure and panicked territory. “Please say something.”
This is the most words he’s said in tandem since they’ve met and unsurprising, he likes hearing Keiji ramble.
“A cooking competition?”
Keiji nods twice. He opens his mouth to word vomit. Osamu speaks before he can.
“Sounds fun to be honest.” And it did. What were the chances he’s ever going to find something like this again? A chance to live out a silly childhood dream with lowered stakes. He could try some of the new recipes he’s been picking up, learn some new skills, maybe devise some strange combination that will blow the world away, and become a feature in his new joint. It would be fun. Ridiculously stressful but fun. He grins at the possibility of it.
“Thought you might like the opportunity to put your money where your mouth is, with how confident you sounded last time.” The worry washes off Keiji’s face, letting a small smile bloom in its place, sunlight breaking through rain clouds. He can feel its warmth, though small, from where he stands.
“Awwe, if ya wanted ta see me sweaty and stress cooking, ya coulda just asked. I’d have been more than happy ta give ya a personal show.”
Keiji flushes, the rush of blood tinting his face in splotches of pink. Adorable.
“Shut up and go cook. Since I went through the stakes of organising this, I’m expecting a medal.”
“Of course. Gold and nothing less for the world’s finest.” He has to plant his feet to stabilise himself when Keiji preens. He doesn’t know why, but he leans in till his lips brush the delicate skin of Keiji’s ear. “Bet it’d look gorgeous round yer neck.”
A full body shiver racks through the man’s frame, like ripples on the surface of a pool. He’d ditched his jumper on account of it being absolutely sweltering, so Osamu gets the view of goosebumps erupting up his arms in the wake of the shiver.
“Thank ya. This might just be the most thoughtful thing anyone’s done fer me.”
An earnest whisper conveying more in those few words. There’s something swirling in his chest, warm and harder to ignore. It reminds him of humming on the freeway, of Keiji’s lips and basking in the summer sun. It’s larger than anything he’s thought he could feel for any person. He wonders if Keiji picks up on the undertones.
“You’ll be good.” He says it with that certainty that’s been in his voice since their first meal with Takahashi-san back in Toyooka. “I’ll be cheering you on.”
Contrary to popular belief, cooking shows are actually hard as fuck, and Osamu rescinds every negative comment he’s ever made about contestants. Except for the fucker who severely undercooked his rice. That guy sucked. The entire premise for this competition is that there are six of them cooking, 3 sets of eliminations, then the remainders are awarded based on who the judges think is best. The host gives them a theme, and they have to create a dish that matches both the theme and the course of the meal. Easy peasy? Stressed, depressed lemon zest. His heart pounds an anticipatory tune, large expulsions of blood as he waits for the host to announce the first theme and course. He’s trying so hard to ignore the TV crew in the corner, especially the camera he’s sure is pointed and zoomed in on his face. He rubs his hands over the black apron he was given once he checked in, is annoyed by the fact that he’s got his semi-decent sneakers on, and takes in his competition.
Across the bench from him, a young girl, maybe 16 or 17, long hair dyed blonde at the ends and plated complicatedly. Her eyelids are covered in dark eyeshadow, eyelashes long and tinted with silver. She hasn’t got much makeup on, good, cause she’ll be cooking, but what little she has looks alternative, somewhat goth whimsy leaning. Rin’s sister would love her. Diagonally, a buff man, maybe mid-30s, completely jacked. He could be in a gang or something. A large tattoo snakes from above his t-shirt, dark and menacing. Yakuza? Wouldn’t it be funny if a member of the fucking mob decided to join a community cooking comp? Maybe they were sponsoring the event. Sounds like something out of a book. I wonder what Keiji’ll think of him. There’s an old man dressed in sensible slacks and a jumper despite the heat, a young mum whose kids keep screaming, You can win, mama!, while their father hushes them sternly. There are a few more people a little further out, he can’t quite place, but there are six of them total. The audience, consisting of friends and family, occupies benches outside the factory in the summer sun or sprawled out on the grass where huge screens are mounted to watch.
Keiji’s eyes meet his from where he sits two rows back, and he shoots two thumbs up. Osamu sends him a thumbs up as well. Pulling a stray piece of paper from beneath the drawers under his bench, he tests the provided knives for sharpness. The knife glides through like water.
Perfect.
“For the first round, the judges want an appetiser, something light and easy. The theme they’ve selected from the wheel is...” There’s a dramatic pause and a drumroll playing over the speakers. “...Picnic! You have 45 minutes to cook and plate for 3 judges. And your time starts now.”
When Osamu thinks of picnics, he thinks of summertime, being outside with Ma and Tsumu and roughhousing in the parks. A specific memory comes to mind. The first summer after they’d met Aran, they’d all written a song to beg Aran’s parents to come on a picnic trip with them. It was a little after Aran’s little brother had been born, but they’d managed to convince the family to join them and Ma out. Ma brought out her grill and threw some yakitori together. He knows what he’s going to make. He rushes to the fridge, pulls out an entire chicken, some peppers, scallions, edamame, and cucumbers. After gathering the ingredients for his glaze, he gets to work.
Breaking down a chicken isn’t hard, but it takes years to perfect. He hasn’t had to do it this quickly since the start of culinary school, where he and his classmates would time themselves on how fast they could do it accurately. He manages 15 portions in three minutes. He used to be faster. Next, the vegetables. He cuts his scallions into thick portions to be skewered with the chicken, preps the greens into garnish pieces, his peppers for grilling, cucumbers for a light salad, and potatoes for the salad Aran’s mum makes whenever they’re outside. Makes the sides because he knows he’s bound to run out of time. Skewering the chicken, skin, thighs breast, is a lengthy process, and Osamu swears under his breath when the wood pricks him for the 5th time.
Setting up the portable charcoal grill wastes more time than he likes, and with 15 minutes left, almost spilling his entire sauce all over the bench, Osamu takes a deep, stilling breath, wills his heart to stop rocketing, begs the adrenaline to calm the fuck down and steady his shaking hands. He gets to work on grilling—dipping chicken skewers in sauce, lightly grilling, redip, regrill, rinse, repeat for all 15 skewers. He grills his peppers, fumbles around to make a slightly thicker glaze, adding citrus and cinnamon sticks and honey, cause Ma always liked her glazes sweet, to the portion of sauce he’d saved earlier, and barely gets the chance to plate everything before the timer buzzes, loud and resonant, pulling him out of his skin. But he finishes, it looks a little rough, and he thinks his body is still shaking with the adrenaline of it all. But there’s a little seed of pride looking at his plates. It’s not perfect, and his head chef would’ve freaked out about almost every decision he’s made, but it looks prettier than he’d expected, a rustic family sort of charm to the presentation. He feels eyes on him, and when he looks up, Keiji is beaming. He mouths something that’s a presentation joke they’d made so many times during their watches and Osamu laughs, the violent stress slowing into tiny waves. The anxiety respikes when the judges try his food. His fingers wring themselves over and over, his brain hyper-focusing on every single error he could’ve made. Maybe the pieces aren’t even; did the glaze simmer for too long? Was the potato salad too rich for Japanese palates, considering it’s an American recipe? Is it picnicky enough? Maybe he should’ve used a different combination of sides. Why did he choose to grill the peppers? Should he have included more glaze on the side? Should —
“What made you pick yakitori?” The host asks while the judges pick at his dish.
“My mother and Best friend’s mother used to make a combination of potato salad and chicken skewers when we were younger, so it's my default picnic dish.” They grill him a bit more about the components, but overall seem very pleased with his cooking. One of the judges begs him for the glaze recipe, so that must be a good sign, right?
The next meal is the entree with theme of winter dinner, so automatically he thinks soup. Apparently, so does everyone else, so he knows he needs to take a different approach. For some reason, his brain screams Laksa. It was a special at a restaurant he’d worked at years ago, rich and aromatic and comforting. He separates prawns from shells, removes crab shells, and cooks them up on high heat to make a stock. He adds a few ingredients he’d picked up from Daisuke’s restaurant and thanks the skies for the grumpy man and his incredible homestyle recipes. When it’s done, he works on making his noodles from scratch. The time is crashing down, but the familiarity of the dish has him a little more in control. He’s never made the noodles from scratch on his own, but it can’t be too different from the ramen noodles he’s made at his current job. He recalls them being made from a combination of tapioca and rice flour and gets to work. He adds the hot water, gets to kneading and regrets the past 15 minutes of his life. Why did he choose to make the noodles? Because you’re a try hard and fresh noodles always taste better.
The exact texture is unknown to him, but it looks soft enough that he lets it sit to proof.
The mise and place for this is detailed, ginger, lemongrass, dried peppers, coriander, shallots and nuts similar to candle nuts in the pantry for creaminess. He makes a paste with shrimp paste for umami, dried shrimp, coriander seeds, salt, turmeric, and coriander seeds. He preps additional prawns, tofu, bean sprouts, cilantro, alternates some recipes for ingredients he knows are atypical but interesting in his head, notes to boil an egg, and his rice noodles closer to presentation. He preps lime for his garnish, seasons his separate prawns and crabs.
Once his stock is prepared, the anxiety hits him in full force. Prepping every had taken him almost an hour, and he’s down to his last 40 minutes to cook, plate, boil his noodles and garnish. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity. Fuck. What does he start with? His body is shaking, and he doesn’t feel quite in his body, but he’s acutely aware of everything on his table and a little too paralysed to move. Turn on the stove. He does. Oil in the pan, add the paste. Where is it? Keiji’s looking at him. He can’t fuck this up. He looks up. Keiji mouths, breathe. Osamu takes a large swig of air, clears his brain and just lets his body take over. Simple instructions. One thing at a time, you’ve got this. This is the life of a chef, Samu. Buck up, or you’ll never last running your own restaurant.
He adds coconut cream once the paste is fried up and aromatic, simmers that down and adds the fragrant seafood stock, fish sauce, a splash of sugar and salt, and leaves it to simmer. He fries his tofu the way Masakatsu-san taught him, shreds his scallions speedily like he learnt in culinary school, rekneads and slices his dough until they’re noodle-shaped. Not quite as round as they are traditionally, but good enough considering he doesn’t have much time. He tastes his soup for seasoning, adjusts accordingly, fries off half of his prawns and crabs, places the other half in his soup to boil. Noodles and eggs. There are 15 minutes left on the clock. 3 minutes for the noodles, and blanch in an ice bath. 5 minutes for eggs so they’re still nice and gooey in the middle. Fried tofu and fish balls go into the soup, and when he deems it ready, he gets to plating. There’re these lovely, large homey bowls that scream winter meals tucked beneath the kotatsu.
The thought hits him as he sets the bowls on the table and he freezes momentarily.
This is the most fun I’ve had cooking in a while.
It takes his breath away. Plating time. Focus. 10 minutes left. Noodles first. Soup until the noodles are mostly covered but still visible. He uses his chopsticks to separate some noodles, so they take up a bit more space. Half the fried tofu and the fried shrimp he slowly and painstakingly arranges on the periphery of the bowl. He creates an appealing dome of bean sprouts, herbs,and cooked crab in the centre of the bowl, and tops it with coriander, shredded scallion, and thinly sliced cucumbers. The sliced egg takes up an empty section and the lime wedges from earlier. He puts a bit of sambal sauce in tiny bowls next to the larger bowl, and the timer sounds as he’s dusting some fried scallions over the bowls. He doesn’t get to add them to one bowl and wishes he could’ve fried them himself but no time.
With a clean towel, he wipes sweat off and sinks to his knees behind the counter to ride the massive wave of anxiety rolling off him. He knew it’d be stressful, but holy shit. After a minute of breathing, he surveys his dishes and he’s … happy. Beyond happy, actually. Ecstatic, deeply, deeply satisfied with the calibre of food he’s presented. He’s young and there’s so much out there to learn but he looks at the bowl of food he made in 90 minutes and feels himself tear up.
Maybe it’ll all work out. There'll be hijinks on the road, stuff won’t work out, but he’ll learn new skills, make picturesque food that is both a testament and an amalgamation of every experience he’s had. Hours in Ma’s kitchen making breakfast, lunch, dinner, culinary school, bouncing from restaurant to restaurant, learning and devouring and planning and cooking, cooking nd cooking. The rightness of it all, that deep-seated feeling in his bones and in his chest. This is what I love. And it's true. He loves it all in the difficulty, in almost slicing fingers off, and discovering horrid combinations. He loves it in his perfection, executing dishes, making the traditional contemporary, making food that evokes memory. He’s staring at his bowl, and he almost can’t believe it. Regardless of what they think, it’ll be special. A pivotal moment. This is what I love.
He’s the last one up. The judges love it. They love it so much that one of them finishes the entire bowl and asks for more. He feels the praise like a drug, an outer body experience that has him floating on a joyful high.
“The final round is desserts. The theme is Valentine's Day.” There’s three of them left. His high bubble bursts, and he comes hurtling down to earth like Icarus. Desserts were always more of Tsumu’s thing. He’d learned the basics back in school, as part of holistic training but he’d never explored further than what he’s been taught. Savoury food is much more interesting. And Valentine's Day? It’s Jul,y what the fuck. The clock’s about to start, and his brain is churning, churning, churning ideas. Val's day. Romance, practically non-existent in his life. Desserts. Chocolate. But chocolate what? Cake? Cream? Mochi? What kind of chocolate? Milk? Dark? White? Think. Think. Think. He isn’t much of a sweets person, so he can’t base this on something he’d like, and he doesn’t have much time, so nothing too complex. What does Keiji like? He thinks back to all the little stops they’ve made. He likes fruit-flavoured things but no cooked fruit remnants. He recalls the mochi they had when they’d first met. Something soft, fruity and gooey. Fudge of sorts? He seemed to really like things with cream and when desserts weren’t too sweet. Tart. Cherry and chocolate. Milk chocolate for sweetness, dark chocolate for the cream. Cherry infused into the milk chocolate. Epic. Epic. Cookies. Chocolate cookies, nice and fudgy, with centres filled with cherry jam or syrup. Maybe topped with cherry cream. Heart-shaped for Valentine's Day. Simple. Easy
He starts with Tsumu’s cookie recipe, trying to recall it as accurately as possible because he knows his brother will feel it if he fucks it up. Wets and Drys separately, Samu. Tsumu’s voice calls in his head. Mix the wet through the dry, form a dough. Fold in extra chocolate chips for extra fudginess. Rolls more cookie balls than he needs, wastes 5 minutes searching for a heart-shaped cookie cutter before realising it doesn't exist. He settles for thumbprint hearts like he’d seen Tsumu make ones and cringes when his imprints don’t look symmetrical. With the cookies in the oven, he starts on his cherry jam, cooking down chopped cherries with sugar, lime juice and cinnamon cloves until nice and thick. He sets it in the fridge to cool faster. Looking at the time, he debates whether making whipped cream is necessary. Decides to do it anyway and swirls in a quarter of the cherry flavour because he’s not getting attacked for not having enough fruit flavour, like he’s seen happen to people on TV. He takes the cookies out of the oven, separates the ones that look good from the ones he’d rather die than show anyone. One of the camera crew asks him what he’s making.
“Chocolate cookies, inspired by someone special.”
With 8 minutes to go, he fills the thumbprint hearts with jam, melts down some white chocolate, and drips it over in a way he hopes looks pretty and sets the whipped cream in little ramekins. For the first time since this competition started, he finishes before the timer sounds, adds a sprinkle of icing sugar, and marvels. They look like Keiji’s grandpa’s car from the afternoon they met. That is to say, the cookies look like his perception of the man seated in the audience, beaming at him. Oh, he’s so excited to show them to him.
Osamu comes in third place. The mum from earlier delivers a show-stopping dessert, a complicated chocolate tart that is so rich and plated so magnificently with fresh flowers and dried fruits. Osamu is surprised that she isn’t a pro and begs her for the recipe for his brother. She wins first place based on this and her really good entree.
The possible Yakuza with the menacing tattoo wins second place, on account of solid dishes all round. The man breaks into a ferocious smile, one that’s all teeth and danger, and the host almost shits himself when placing the medal around his thick neck. A bunch of his friends, men of similar stature and appearance, cheer and whoop from the back wildly and gruffly, and Yakuza guy waves at them excitedly. Huh. Who knew scary men could be cute with good support systems?
Osamu comes in third simply because the judges felt his cookie was a little simple compared to the others. He’s still happy. He congratulates the other contestant, has a long chat with Yakuza guy about rice remixes, and takes a picture with his medal, apron, and hat and sends it to the Inarizaki group chat with no context, ignoring the rapid buzzing of replies. When they’re released, Keiji’s waiting for him.
“It ain't gold, but it’s still a medal.” He says with a dopey, lazy grin.
“Congratulations.” It’s soft, and the noise from outside fizzles down to this moment between them both. “You were incredible.” Osamu wants to kiss him. He wants to so, so bad its a little scary how sudden the feeling is. There’s so much buzzing in his blood. The pride of finishing the comp and placing, making food he’s proud of, finally making a better than average dessert that could make his brother proud, Keiji looking at him like he’s the answer to some large existential question. He stomps the feeling of wanting to place his lips on Keiji’s plump ones, ignores the fantasy of what that smile would feel like on him. Instead, he places the medal around Keiji’s neck, wraps his arms around him and takes a picture. For the memories. They stare at the photo longer than they should — Osamu taking in the round Oh, of Keiji’s lips parted in surprise, how the bronze looks duller close to his slightly tanned skin in proximity to Osamu’s slightly darker ones.
“I want ya ta try something.”
He pulls Keiji to his bench, where the rest of the cookies have been packed up into containers, as well as the leftovers from the previous meals. He picks 2 of the nicer ones and places them in front of him, scrutinising any changes to his expression. His elegant man eating the cookies he inspired.
“Do ya like 'em? I’m not the best with desserts and stuff. Tsumu usually makes the best cookies and I tried to make them as best as I could from memory.”
“Did you know that cherries are my favourite fruit?”
He did not, but it makes sense. Tart, sweet, complex, regal, bright.
Keiji takes another bite, this time with cream. “All my favourite things in one cookie. They’re absolutely lovely.” Absolutely lovely. Nailed it! His heart does a weird little stutter, the world quietens until all he can hear is his breathing, soft and slow, inhale and exhale. He’s looking at Keiji, and all he can think is
Nothing’ll ever beat this feeling.
I want this every day.
It’s a heavy realisation to come to in the middle of a random trip. Something in the world shifts again. Osamu feels himself being irrevocably changed; this revelation too large to ignore. He looks at Keiji eating, blissfully enjoying himself, and his heart hammers in just chest. He’s breathless and weightless. He has to say something. He’s going to say something. Keiji turns to him, aqua eyes alight and questioning. God, he’s perfect.
Yakuza and friends invite them out to the nearest izakaya for celebratory drinks. They walk side by side, shoulders touching and hands brushing part each other.
“Ya think they’re in a gang?” Osamu whispers.
“Oh, 100% The tats, the mean expressions, the embroidered leather jackets with their hometown on it.” A thoughtful expression comes over his face. “But they look like good company, and they all came to support their friend, so they can’t be too bad.”
“Ya know, I was thinking this looked like something from a novel. Yakuza with cute interests.”
“Oh my God, imagine one of them painstakingly hand-embroidered the jackets?”
“Or that they got cute socks on.”
“One of them is secretly a veterinary intern.”
They snicker together, and when company asks what’s funny, they clam up. The laughter remains in Keiji’s eyes even when his expression softens. Osamu would do anything to keep it there.
Notes:
I apologise to all cooking shows everywhere for this. Hope ya like this and as always I love hearing your thoughts on stuff!!
Chapter 6: Careful my mind, I was up late wondering about you baby
Summary:
“Oshamu-san,” Akaashi says, punctuating his name with a hiccup. “Have you ever fallen in love?”
The world slows in that instant, like all its frantic energy has been forced to move through molasses.
Has he ever fallen in love?
What a loaded question.
Notes:
Hello, hello, hello!
Sorry for the late update; was travelling. Finally visiting my grandparents after almost 3 years. No one tells you how strange it is to be in your childhood house, knowing where everything is but still feeling like you've outgrown it a little. But I'm glad to be back in it's familiar walls.I'm not entirely sure how I feel with this chapter but enjoy this little chapter with Inarizaki Sqabbles.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
One long, strangely pleasant night, an ill-advised drinking game and many bouts of Akaashi Keiji’s characteristic politeness later, Osamu finds himself, somewhat sober, balancing the weight of a sluggish and beyond drunk Keiji. He’s completely flushed, that even the tips of his ears glow in the lamps, a beacon to any extra-terrestrial organisms.
“That was fun!” Keji exclaims the moment they’re outside, the summer breeze cool and light on their faces.
“Yes, it was. They’re good people,” Osamu answers with a chuckle, chest warm when Keiji smiles dopily at him.
“They were. Which is strange because I never thought I’d say that about Yakuza.”
“It’s like we said earlier, they’re Yakuza with cute habits.”
A bunch of giggles erupt from Keiji, like bubbles from a fizzy drink that’s been shaken too many times. Even drunk, he’s stunning. Osamu finds himself laughing with him.
Then Keiji leans in conspiratorially
“Speaking of cute,” He starts, voice low and secretive. “Did you see them holding hands?”
Osamu leans in fractionally, face already splitting into a grin.
“Which ones?”
“The one – The one two seats away from the baker.” His voice drops an octave lower, like a secret between them. “He was holding hands with the one sitting across from him?”
“Ya mean the one who looked like a drowned cat? And the one with the moustache that made ‘im look like he was outta a 70s movie? No way!”
“Yes! Them! Them!” Keiji exclaims excitedly, his voice light as a laugh.
“There’s no way,” Osamu says, trying for serious but missing by a mile. He’s already smiling. It seems to be his default when caught up in all that Akaashi Keiji is.
“How’d ya know?”
“Well,” he pauses, like he’s regaling an epic tale. “You went to the hic – the bathroom, and it was just me and the crowd. I think I was pulling something from my pocket, I can’t remember - hic – but it will come back to me. Anyway, it fell on the floor. I leaned down to grab it, hit my head on the table and then,” Another pause for dramatics that has Osamu grinning. “I saw them. Holding hands. Fingers linked and everything!” He ends the story with a tone half scandalised, half triumphant at the discovery.
He’s so jubilant about his observation that Osamu can’t help but share in his joy. Maybe hearing about two hardcore men holding hands is the revelation of the century. Maybe the world is better now that this knowledge exists within it. Maybe it feels better because it’s Keiji that’s telling him and no one else. Regardless, he smiles, hung and crooked, ignoring the rush of affection that barrels through him.
Then, in a tone of surprising lucidity, Keiji says,
“We should hold hands.”
The wind gets knocked out of him so quickly, he stumbles. He’s just drunk. He’s just drunk. Don’t read into it. His heart skips a few beats. Play along. Osamu laughs, bright and amused, to which Keiji pouts. After hurried comments of “don’t laugh at me.” Osamu answers,
“Should we?”
Keiji snakes his elegant fingers slowly, down his forearms, past his wrist and into his palm. Osamu swears he feels supernovas when their palms flush against each other. Then, Keiji links their fingers. The world as he knows it explodes, a burst of galaxies and heat. They fit, just right. Like butter in mashed potatoes and pork in ramen and Osamu in the kitchen. It feels right, and Osamu feels his knees go weak; his body is off-kilter and untethered. His eyes stare where their hands are joined– at Keiji’s narrow and regal ones interlocking his own wider ones. He notes the hangnails on the other man’s hands, the split cuticles from where he’s chewed them too relentlessly, notices how Keiji’s knuckles jut out, gaunt but princely. It’s unreal, how unmoored a simple act like this has him feeling. Like he’s been in a boat pushed too far from the shoreline. His thoughts from the competition barrel into him, warming his face and core and arms. Osamu wants to ignore what it all means.
Keiji, on the other hand, looks triumphant. He’s got this winsome smile on, eyes alight behind his glasses, even when he says in a serious tone. “Yes. Yes, we should.” He’s also staring at their conjoined hands, with this soft look in his eyes, sea green mushy and warm and beautiful, like he’s been gifted something he’s been wanting for a while. It’s silent for a moment while they both stare, the world rioting, upturning and screaming inside of Osamu’s chest. Then Keiji gives a breathless oh, like he can’t believe this is happening, like he’s holding something precious and serendipitous. The softness of the sound has Osamu equally as breathless. His heart is rocketing in his chest, churning blood ricocheting through his veins, rattling his ribs. The air isn’t getting into his lungs fast enough, and he’s sure Keiji can feel every nervous thump of his pulse. Whether the other man notices, he doesn’t say.
Keiji gives their hands an experimental swing, so Osamu has no choice but to swing with him. One way, the other in a huge arc, making sure a still drunk Keiji doesn’t hit anything.
Before he knows it, he’s laughing. It’s spilling out of him, bright and unrestrained, his stomach cramping with the force of it. He thinks it's a side effect of the alcohol. Deep down, he knows it's not. Keiji is confused, but he grins as well. They swing their hands as they walk a little further. Osamu staunchly tries to ignore the part of him which mutters that this isn’t real, that Keiji is just drunk and not in his right mind. He wants to enjoy whatever little he can get.
Most of the walk is quiet. The world has retreated indoors and they’re the only souls for a while. The silence pops once they step beneath a streetlight.
“Oshamu-san,” Akaashi says, punctuating his name with a hiccup. “Have you ever fallen in love?”
The world slows in that instant, like all its frantic energy has been forced to move through molasses.
Has he ever fallen in love?
What a loaded question.
Love, particularly in the romantic sense, has always been this untouchable, abstract concept — far too large for the likes of him to begin to comprehend, too fleeting for his mere hands to hold without shattering. The thing is, Osamu has been in love. He’s loved cooking like a body loves a heartbeat, loved volleyball like the mess of his childhood bedroom, loved being the bane of Atsumu’s existence because it’s easier than breathing. The problem is, he can never remember if he’d fallen in love with them because he can’t recall a time when he didn’t love them. People were the same. He loves his Ma and Pa wholly, loves Tsumu like his soul and Aran like his ribs, and Kita like his spine. The line blurred a little with the others. He’d loved Sunarin, but not in the same way he’d loved the others. Their loud barbs at each other back then had softened into something else, something fragile and softer. They were still Samu and Rin, just quieter, charged. He doesn’t think he’d fallen in love with Sunarin, because they’d changed again, regressed into their rowdy, rambunctious selves once more. But the feeling was still the same. Osamu had known from the moment he’d met the boy, with bad posture and endless sarcasm, that he was going to love him, same with Kita and Aran. That was that.
The real question, he supposes now, is what the fuck is falling in love supposed to feel like? It’s one of those things he’s never been sure of, one of those things a base part of himself trembles at the prospect of never experiencing. Sure, he’s dated, if one experimental thing with Sunarin in high school, a few short flings and a questionable 2-month-long situation, for lack of better words, could be considered dating. And sure, he’s crushed on people before, categorising everything he liked about them and wondering if he was feeling everything about them the right way.
He’s consumed enough media to have an image of it in his head. Concern, attraction, want, wrapped up in one big bow, but there’s only so much romance movies can teach. He doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be slow and mellifluous or rapid like the onset of an avalanche. If love is supposed to feel like drowning underwater, opening your mouth for a sliver of air, or if it’s akin to running along mountains or being carried by a lazy current on a hot summer afternoon. To him, it’d always be this alien concept, some inclination the rest of the world, sans him, is privy to understanding. All he knows is that he’s experienced each of the little fragments he thinks make up love separately — rosy cheeks when Kita-san smiled at him back in first year, the period of wanting Rin everywhere, every time, eyes trailing and searching for that guy in culinary school — he’s just never experienced the fully assembled thing.
So when Osamu answers, “Nah, I don’t think so,” it doesn’t feel untruthful, because he doesn’t even know what it feels like to describe it if he has.
Akaashi exhales then, loud, eyes trained to the midnight sky. There’s a cavity where the moon should be and the stars, though muted in their twinkle compared to Toyooka, shine persistently to be seen between the city smog.
“I take it you’ve fallen in love before, Keiji?” He asks, ignoring the bitter feeling rising on his tongue. Keiji sighs again, and this time it’s heavy, tinged with fondness and longing and sadness. For a moment, his eyes are focused, squinting at the sky as if some answer would be revealed in the constellations. It's a characteristically un-Keiji-like expression that Osamu stops in his tracks to observe. Then Keiji smiles, or at least attempts to, drunken haze making a reappearance.
“Falling in love is a brittle but gentle process. Reminds me of the first snow in winter.” Keiji’s voice is distant, conjuring a memory only he is privy to. “It’s one of those things that creeps up on you. It wasn’t there one day, you blink and suddenly it’s there, and it’s inescapable. You can’t stop looking at them, wanting them. Wanting them to notice you.” Keiji’s voice is soft in a way he’s never heard it before, imbued with years of history Osamu might never know. “When you’re together, the world feels right, like the universe placed you in that specific coordinate point, so you breathe the same air, entwining your lives together. I suppose fate makes love a beautiful thing. It weaves two existences together, makes two seem much more magnificent than one.”
“And you know,” He starts, but Osamu knows he’s no longer talking to him. “Bokuto-san was a star back then. An impossibly luminescent, prodigious star. He still is. He fills up every room, so bright that the colours around him dull. At least that’s what I thought back then.”
Osamu listens to him speak as they walk to their inn, hands still linked– an unfortunate fact, keeping Keiji from stumbling and walking into things. Each word hits with the momentum of a sledgehammer or a raging firestorm. Eventually, Keiji’s attention gets caught by something else, and he begins to talk rather animatedly about it. This might be the only time Osamu hasn’t stopped to hear the man think. Because his mind is whirring, his chest is breaking, disintegrating and the world feels like it’s been ripped out from beneath him. He’s come to one aching realisation.
Akaashi Keiji is in love with someone else.
It shouldn’t hurt, but it does, and somehow it's worse than anything he’s ever experienced before.
He comes to a second realisation when they get to the inn, convinced that this has to all be part of some divine comedy. There is a single room available with a singular king sized bed. Realistically, it’s sizable to fit two over six foot ex-athletes with little shuffling, but that’s beside the point. When he mentions it to the owner, a tall, dour man in his 40s, the man gruffs that that was the booking and he’s too tired to change it now. Indeed, when he checks, the only change that’d been made was upgrading his original booking to a larger one. He thinks back to giving Keiji the booking details in the car so he could book another room under his name. Osamu sighs, majority of him squashing the little ball of hope that’d sprouted with that realisation.
He’s in love with someone else.
He carries Keiji to the room when the man begins to doze off.
When he’s sure Akaashi isn’t going to die choking on his own spit, Osamu retreats into the bathroom to face his crisis. Fresh air would do him good; the breeze on his face and skin would wipe the distress off him. It’s what normally works, but he can’t in good conscience leave when Keiji, no, Akaashi’s beyond pissed and asleep. What if something happened to him? He settles for opening the window above the bath, staring through the net as fractions of the breeze cool his face. Then he grabs his phone.
Aran picks up on the 4th ring.
“This better be important ta be interruptin’ date night.” He thinks he hears Kita greet him in the distance. Hearing his voice now, the words jumble up into this amorphous mess, and he’s unsure which string to tug on to unravel them.
He settles on an apology. “Sorry ‘bout that, man. Is this a bad time?”
“Nah, Shin n I were just bout to head ta bed.” There’s a slight shuffling, a door shutting silently, more shuffling and when Osamu says nothing, Aran says,
“How’s the road trip? Are you okay? Safe? Do ya need me ta come get ya cause me n Shin could –”
“ —How’d you know that Kita-san loved ya back?”
“Oh boy.” Aran starts after a pause. “Hmm. The answer is that I didn’t. At least I didn’t back then. I didn’t know whether Shin felt any way about me, but I was 18, and parts of me were sick of being frightened by my feelings for him, tired of waiting, and floating on everything I wanted Shin to know. So, during grad, I took ‘im on our walk home, gave him ma top button and told him everything that was on ma mind. I wasn’t eloquent in any way, shape or form but it was out and ma chest felt lighter than anything in the world.” There’s a fondness in his voice, far away and reminiscent. It’s filled with so much love that it fills Osamu from the inside. It wasn’t his story, but it belonged to someone he’s called brother for a while and knowing that Aran was happy made him happy.
“Shin didn’t say anything for a while. It was scary, watchin’ his eyes settle then go wide as the words hit him, with ma heart pounding like hell in ma chest. Ya know how he is, not used to being the centre of attention, the one bein’ picked. Ya saw how he was when he became captain. It was the same. The stoic smile melted, his eyes welled with tears and Shin did something I’d never expected from him.”
Osamu can hear the smile in his voice, the pride and adoration emanating from the memory.
“What’d he do?”
“He kissed me. Honest at God grabbed ma neck and pressed his lips to mine like he was starvin’ and the rest is history. “
“Kita-san kissed ya? Our Kita-san? Not an imposter?”
“Don’t call my Shin an imposter.” Aran chides playfully. “He did. Best kiss of ma life.”
It’s sweet. Possibly the sweetest thing he’s ever heard. Osamu gags just to maintain face.
But Aran isn’t done.
“The thing I noticed shortly after is that, datin’ Shin wasn’t much different ta being friends with him. And sometimes I got worried that he didn’t like me the way I liked him. Like that kiss was for ma sake. It took a lot of observing to realise that it felt the same because Shin was the same. He hadn’t changed overnight. He puts the same effort, the same amount of work and compassion and care into everything he does, consistently. Ya know how he says, the end results are just a consequence of everything, all the hard work he puts in. He’d treated our relationship the exact way, with that gentle care, that constant steady effort, consistent and steady like a heartbeat. It made me realise that he’d loved me all along.”
“If I wasn’t in a crisis right now, I’d make fun of ya for getting soft.”
“Shut up, scrub. Not like being in a crisis has ever stopped ya anyway.” Aran retorts dryly. “What I’m trying to say is, it took a bit of bravery on my end, and a whole lotta observation to learn whether Shin liked me back.” Aran leans back into the couch. “What’s this crisis you speak of?”
He starts with the obvious fact. Voicing it feels as awkward and as liberating as it feels in his chest, this weird fluttering feeling
“I think I've, uh, met someone.” He winces at the awkwardness of the words, how they hang and squeeze at his chest.
He can hear rustling like Aran readjusting himself on their leather sofa. He’s got his attention now.
“On yer cooking trip? How’d that happen?”
Osamu fills him in, from helping Akaashi with his car, to the onsen to offering to drive him to Osaka. He tells him about how fun it’s been, driving round the country, eating and cooking and laughing and getting to know every bit of each other.
“God, he's the most charmin’ person I've ever met. And ridiculously smart and witty. Ya know he signed me up fer the cooking show?”
The memory of putting the bronze medal around his neck plays in his head again. He sees Akaashi’s wide eyes, his lips parted in surprise, his heart pumping wildly and alive beneath his skin. He can picture Akaashi mouthing the words breathe, Akaashi’s mouth rounded against heart shaped cookies, whipped cream painting the corners of his smile. Akaashi. Akaashi. Akaashi.
Oh No. The conversation from the walk to the inn plays in his head, like an old CD with an indelible scratch. He thinks back on everything that's happened, the little events that have been compounding and compounding into this mass disintegrating in his chest and it all boils down to this. A slow realisation. The want for something more than what you have. He thinks of clandestine touches, natural as breathing, the glances Aran and Kita share that carry more than words, the forceful way his brother and Sakusa challenge each other, sharpening their edges like blades not just for the sake of competition but because that was their worship to each other. It was a vow — I know you can be better, and i will push you there. In frightening detail, he recognises himself, reaching out, feeling, looking, sharpening.
His third realisation of the night, perfect in its devastation, comical in its appearance.
He’s never fallen in love, but he thinks he’s close, standing on that ledge and peering down.
Wasn’t that horrifyingly beautiful?
Aran is talking; he vaguely hears “That explains the photo from this afternoon,” but Osamu isn’t listening. His body feels heavy with dread, his soul weightless and suspended out of his body.
“Sounds like you’ve got a big crush on him.”
Oh no
“I don't—“
“Let’s try that again. Sounds like ya got a big crush on him, correct?”
It feels like more than a measly crush, but admitting to anything larger than that felt irreversible so he sighs.
“Yes. I’ve got a bit of a crush on him.” He has to force the words into the air to stop them from choking him.
“So what’s yer problem? Can't ya just ask him out? Tell him ya want to see him again once the trip is over?”
“That’s precisely the problem. I can’t.” Not in good conscience. He wouldn’t do that to Bokkun, who’s been nothing but sweet and welcoming. He wouldn’t put Akaashi in that position, having to slowly let him down, souring the end of what’s been an incredible journey. He wouldn’t do that to himself because to hear the words I don’t want you, being spoken out loud might kill him faster than any disease could.
“I don’t get it. Why not? Does he not reciprocate?”
“I mean, yes? I don’t know.” Osamu throws his hands up in frustration. The hands come back to comb through his hair. “He flirts back, I think, laughs at my jokes, which I take as a massive good sign considering I'm unfunny around people I like and we play this little game of touch chicken where some parts of our bodies are always touching. It’s not weird, it's completely normal and PG, stop grinning like a cat, ya look like Tsumu.”
Aran flips him the bird, grin still on his face.
“So he likes ya back. Which brings me back to ma previous question, why not?”
“He’s in love with someone else.” Saying it out loud is worse than thinking it, like someone has taken his heart, split it in half, then set it on fire.
Aran clearly isn’t expecting this, because his mouth parts in an oh.
“How’d you know?”
“Cause he told me,” Osamu admits forlornly, sinking to the floor, letting the icy tiles ground him and his lurching chest. “He’s in love with someone else and to make matters worse, it sounds like they’ve been in love for a really long time.”
“Oh, Samu.” Aran says pityingly. He’s too strung up to even care about it.
O,h Samu indeed. He’d dug his grave, and all that was left was him to live in it and pray it was comfortable.
“Does Tsumu know?”
“Haven’t told him yet.”
“Any reason why?”
“Wanted a more mature response to my conundrum first.” Aran barks a laugh in agreement.
Then, quieter, ‘Yer ma older brother, I can trust ya with this right now.”
“Aw, yer gonna make me cry.”
“What do I do?” He whispers into space. This entire situation seems beyond anything he’s been equipped to deal with. This was more of Tsumu’s space, the large feelings, the passion, assigning importance after a week of knowing someone. It’s all so alien, and uncomfortable and frightening and preciously fragile. Akaashi was right. It feels like the first snow in winter, soft and magical, carrying the weight of possibility and destruction.
“Look, it's a shitty situation and to be honest, there isn’t much that can be done without someone’s heart gettin’ squashed in the process.”
“I know.” Because the universe had decided that it’s his heart on the chopping block this week.
“But I want ya ta do what feels right, okay? Cause at the end of the day, I want ya ta be happy. If it’s this then it’s meant ta be and it’ll sort itself out, but if it’s not, we’ve got ya and you’ll always try again. I know ya.”
Osamu exhales, feeling the prickling of water gathering beneath his eyes. He’s already tired of the emotional merry-go-round.
“In the meantime, though —” Aran starts.
The call connects instantly.
“Someone better be dying for y’all to call me this late at night.” Then, “Shaddup Omi, what do ya know? That is a perfectly acceptable way ta answer the phone. It’s just Samu and Aran.”
Atsumu’s voice is a salve on raw nerves. Damn them for knowing him too well.
“Ooh, Omi-Omi's there?” Aran coos mischievously.
“Hi Omi-Omi.” Osamu sing songs in a shit imitation of the affection his brother uses when discussing his spiker. Teasing is easy, familiar. Besides, Tsumu’s so disgustingly obvious, it’s a testament to how thick-skulled both him and Sakusa are, considering their weird little situationship permeated with mutual pining. Keiji would absolutely love this. (Well, provided Bokkun hasn’t already filled him in on the details.) The sound of his heart shattering for the umpteenth time clouds the bickering voices for a bit.
“Why’s Omi at yers this late?” He thinks Aran says, but it sounds a little garbled, like he’s listening to this whole conversation from underwater. He strains to pay attention, to focus less on the pain in his chest and the slight pounding in his scalp where the alcohol is 100% doing its job.
“Because we were hanging out.” Atsumu retorts like it’s the most logical explanation in the world, like it's not the world's most bizarre situation because Sakusa isn’t known to hang out with anything but Komori.
“Right. Just ‘hanging out.’ If that’s what ya wanna call it. ’” Osamu says, just to be a little shit.
“Pervert,” Atsumu replies.
“Freak.” He shoots back.
“Loser.” He can vaguely make out Sakusa’s gruff voice muttering, “Real mature, Atsumu.”
Hmm. First name basis, huh? If this wasn’t the end of the world for him, he would have gotten to the bottom of this.
“Osamu’s in love.” Aran spits with minimal preamble, likely to interrupt their back and forth of name calling. They would go for hours if need be.
“Samu, what the fuck.” His brother screams the same time Osamu retorts, “ I am not in love.” In the distance, Sakusa tells Atsumu to shut the fuck up.
“Correction, Osamu is in a situationship where he’s developed a massive crush on this guy who’s apparently in love with someone else.”
A beat of silence.
“No comment.”
“I thought his trip was supposed to be you rediscovering yer love fer cooking or whatever bullshit ya said.” This is Atsumu.
“Me too.” This voice doesn't belong to anyone he’d called initially. It’s distinctively slow, and Osamu knows precisely who it is.
“Who the fuck added Sunarin?”
“I did.” His idiot brother responds. “This seemed like a big enough crash out ta not have him here and Sunarin woulda killed me if he found out belatedly.”
“Aw, Tsumu can be less of a jerk when he puts his brain cells to work.” Rin coos.
“That’s awfully sweet of you, Atsumu,” Kita says and Aran hums in agreement.
“Why are we actin’ like I’m some sorta gremlin incapable of normal human emotions?”
“That’s because you are.” Sakusa’s lazy voice supplies in the background. Aran cackles, Rin laughs full and roundly while Atsumu protests.
Is the whole fucking world here to witness his heart smash into pieces? To curb the irritation, Osamu wonders if Keiji is okay. He places the phone down on the sink, peeks through the door and stands still as a hawk, waiting to observe the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, exhaling when he knows Keiji is breathing and alive.
Can't believe we got the whole council present.
He leaves them to squabble for a little longer, then tells them to shut up for fear of waking Akaashi up.
“Back to Samu’s thing.” Tsumu comments and the attention is back on him again.
“To recap, Samu’s got a thing for a guy he met on his trip who loves someone else, yes?” Rin asks. Aran confirms with a nod.
“How’d that happen?”
He gives them a shortened version of their meeting. He tells them about their adventures, including the cooking competition.
“That explains the photo, asshole.”
He flips the screen off.
“The worst part is,” He steels himself for how much it’s going to hurt once Tsumu and Sakusa put the pieces together. “He played volleyball for Fukurodani, was in our year and is on his way to Osaka to meet his best friend.” A beat. “The one he’s in love with.” The words still feel heavy on his tongue, like dropping a rock into a honeypot.
“What position did he play?” Sakusa asks. He was always one of the quicker ones to put things together.
“Setter.”
There’s silence for a little bit, then hushed whispering, then,
“HOLY SHIT, BOKKUN’S AKAASHI?!”
“Have some tact, Atsumu, your brother’s clearly in a crisis about this.”
“Shaddup Omi.” He says at the same time Rin goes, “Like Bokuto Koutarou, Bokkun? That’s who yer Romeo’s in love with.”
“Yep.”
“Holy shit.” That’s Rin again. “That sucks, man.” It’s said with a weighted understanding that itches at his skin. Aran had said it with the same sort of understanding, too. Was this something that only people on professional teams knew about? What is he missing?
“You guys know something.” He whispers harshly into the phone. There’s rustling. He holds his hands up in a universal be quiet and checks on Akaashi. The man had woken up bleary eyed and confused. He’s still very sleepy, shirt rumpled and hair sticking out everywhere. Akaashi is so pretty, Osamu feels himself attracted to him like a moth to a flame, a solitary person against the massive call of the void.
The man is patting the bedsheets slowly, almost like he’s looking for something. His face slowly morphs into one of distress.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He asks because he can’t help it when Akaashi notices him watching, not even when his heart is shattering with the reminder,
“I can’t find my glasses.” His voice wobbles, heavy with distressed emotion. Still drunk then.
“It’s too late fer ya to need yer glasses.” He walks towards the bed, hands Akaashi the glass of water. “I put them next to the table.” He points to them, and Akaashi visibly relaxes when he sees them.
“I can’t see very well without them.” He says, punctuating each word slowly to ensure he says it right, not unsimilar to the way a child would. It's endearing.
“I know. But right now, ya need ta sleep and glasses aren’t needed fer that.” Akaashi nods. Osamu hands him the glass of water. “Drink a little, and I’ll tuck ya back in.”
The other man complies, and Osamu pulls the blanket over his shoulders, replaces the glass of water and clears the hair from Akaashi’s face so he can sleep. Akaashi takes his hand right before he leaves and presses it to his lips. Osamu’s heart does a complicated thing in his chest, like a tiny gymnast. The blood rushes to his face so quickly he feels dizzy with its impact. For a moment, Osamu is floating, his soul hovering above his body into space. His ears feel hot, his entire body burning like a furnace. Just as suddenly, the feeling wanes and he’s crashing, like Icarus hurtling towards the earth.
When he returns to the bathroom, heart pounding in his chest, the call is still rampant.
“Where’d ya go? Yer redder than a tomato. ” Aran asks. Kita’s head had migrated to his boyfriend's lap in the time he’d been gone, Aran’s fingers running carefully through white and black locks.
“He woke up.”
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Tsumu mimics in a shit imitation of his voice, heavy and laden with something he’s been trying to ignore all evening.
Osamu groans. “Of course, ya heard that. Can never get any fuckin’ peace.”
“You’re so gone, to be completely honest.” Rin deadpans. Aran, Sakusa and Kita agree.
“We couldn’t hear much of it but ya were so gentle with him,” Kita states. Sakusa and Tsumu share a look. It's one of those looks, communicative and sneaky. It irks him more that it's between those two.
“He deserves gentle,” Osamu tells them blankly. Then sighs. “Alright, out with it. What’re y’all hiding from me?”
“Are you sure? It might sting even more.” This is Sakusa, rational as always.
“Ma heart’s already shattering. Might as well grind the whole thing ta powder.”
His brother takes that as confirmation to run his mouth.
“It’s not confirmed or anything, but haven’t Akaashi and Bokkun been a thing since high school? Like I remember them bein’ in each other’s pockets all the time. And even now. Kaashi comes over super often, they hang out, and he restocks Bokkun’s fridge. I swear they lodge their taxes together even.” A firing squad would’ve hurt a lot less. His brother continues, “And Bokkun’s always been like Akaashi this. Akaashi that, like he hung the sun, the moon and the stars. I understand, though. Akaashi’s a bombshell.” Sakusa frowns but nods slowly with the rest of the group. Doesn’t he know it? And the bombshell in question is still hot as hell, frumpled and sleep addled, not even 4 steps away from him. God truly has favourites.
It’s always been Akaashi and Bokuto, then. Bokuto and Akaashi. Entwined by fate, red string tied to each other’s fucking pinkies. He closes his eyes to keep himself from crying. Why put him in this situation, to meet someone he can’t have? But life has never been fair. It’s why he gets a comfortable life and some people don't. It’s why his brother’s found someone (even if he doesn’t know it) and he’s left with a hollowed-out chest and the same dull ringing he felt in his fingers when he’d cut himself at the restaurant a few weeks ago. He feels himself shutting down, the hollow feeling seeping into every crevice of his bones. Logically, it shouldn’t hurt; they’ve only known each other for a little under a week. Their paths were only meant to intersect for this fractional moment, 7 days and diverge. Bokuto and Akaashi have known each other since the start of high school. A boy who’s chasing a shooting star. It makes sense. Another part of the puzzle of his demise. Bokuto is Akaashi’s star. The one he’s been chasing after this whole time. The embarrassment of it all sneaks up on him slowly, like a stress-induced cold. How silly he was, this whole situation, to hold all this feeling for someone he’d just met. But some people proved in tiny moments that they were meant to be in your life forever, that their stories and yours would be tied so intimately that the separation of yours and theirs became nothing but a suggestion, a supposition, the line dividing the horizon. It’d happened with Aran, Kita, and Sunarin. He thought maybe it’d be Keiji. Clearly not in this universe.
He thinks he laughs in all the right places when the conversation moves on and waves when Kita, Aran and Sunarin retreat to bed. His bones suddenly feel heavy and his chest is a minefield, and it shouldn’t hurt this much Samu, ya didn’t know him long.
“Earth to Samu.” His brother calls and Osamu sighs irritably in response.
“What?”
“Ya were shutting down. I could hear it in yer voice.” Sometimes he wishes his brother didn’t know him so well. The sentiment is trumped by the relief of not having to explain himself.
“Sorry Omi n I dumped all that on ya.”
“Not yer fault. I asked.”
A beat.
“This is stupid, isn't it?” The breath that escapes him wobbles, small and fragile as ice in the now frigid bathroom.
“What is?” It's a gentle question, just them two, no probing, no forceful comments, just directive questions, to keep Osamu’s words outside rather than in. Their routine.
“Only met ‘im this week. It shouldn’t hurt this much”
“But it does.”
“Ya think I'll get an invite to him n Bokkun’s wedding?” He asks with a humourless laugh. It’s self-deprecating, he knows, but it's better than trying to sort out who on earth he’d offended to put him in this situation.
“Samu.” Atsumu chides.
“Maybe I’ll get a special mention. ‘Shout out to the idiot who caught -- got in his head when I was trying to get home to ma high school sweetheart.’”
“Samu.”
“Why does this keep happening to me?” The truth of the matter is, despite his friendly disposition, Osamu has always been the more reserved of the twins emotionally. Where Atsumu wears his heart on his breastbone, polished and splayed out for the world, where Atsumu pours his devotion liberally, like a farmer watering crop, Osamu’s is hidden, like treasure buried beneath an oak tree. He keeps his affections hidden in a box behind his heart, slow to open, affectations hoarded and handed out in minute portions. It wasn’t that he forced people out or kept them at built boundaries; it was more that opening up didn’t come easily, and most people didn’t stick around that long, or even get to the stage where Osamu is willing to retrieve his box from its hiding place. So, he didn’t crush on people often, dated a grand total of 1 person experimentally through high school, and had a few barely serious relationships. The problem is that when he crushed, when a person managed to sneak around his heart, when his mind started screaming, take them to the spot, it consumed him wholly. Maybe this would be the one where all those feelings came together. There hadn’t been many people he’d reached that point for, but so far, none of it had worked out. Just another thing out of reach.
“Samu, yer not stupid fer feeling like this. He must be one incredible guy to have ya all mopey.”
He is. Osamu thinks, depressed. He’s in love with someone else.
“When do ya get here?”
“Saturday.”
“We’ll watch cartoons and stuff ourselves full of fried chicken and sweets.” Their comfort activity when one of them was hurting. He’s pulling out the big guns huh? He thinks to himself. Tsumu must sense it hurts a lot more than he’s letting on.
“Aren’t ya on a diet regimen?”
“One cheat weekend won’t kill me, scrub.”
At the end of the day, all his brother can do is try to patch him up. There is no fixing this. He can’t beg Akaashi into loving him back. He’ll get to Osaka, deliver him off and lick his wounds. Then he’ll put the pieces of his life back together and forget that this ever happened. God, he needs a cigarette.
He checks on Akaashi one last time, pulls out the emergency stash box he’s kept hidden somewhere in his duffel bag, the white box crushed and crumpled with the shuffling of clothes. He lights it on the balcony, lets the acrid smoke fill his lungs, taint everything, including the chasm in his chest, and lets it shave the edges of his discomfort.
“Are ya smokin’?”
He nods even though he knows his brother won’t see him. Bits of ash waltz in the barely there breeze before tumbling gracelessly to the ground. He hums, more of a groan if anything, the resurgence of irritation at his brother’s knowing.
“I’d prefer it if ya didn’t with ma face, but ya need this one.”
“Fuck off, I don't need yer permission.” They sit in silence while Osamu smokes his stress away. Tsumu falls asleep on the line, his breaths punctuating through the speakers in slow yet even puffs. Osamu counts them along with his own heartbeat, stares at the sky with as much vengeance as he can muster, then retreats inside.
The cigarette makes him feel dirtier than usual and the concept of sleeping in the same bed as Keiji makes him feel charged and twice as guilty. Bokkun is such a good guy.
He brushes his teeth twice, grabs the spare futon from the cupboard and closes his eyes.
Notes:
Sorry for the light angst, haha. We're in the home stretch now! Don't worry, it all gets resolved, I swear.
Hopefully, I captured the Inarizaki dynamic properly.
As always, feel free to share your thoughts. I love hearing what you think!!
(Previous comment deleted.)
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 1 Fri 07 Nov 2025 11:45PM UTC
Comment Actions
(Previous comment deleted.)
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 1 Mon 10 Nov 2025 11:49AM UTC
Comment Actions
Arlet (Guest) on Chapter 1 Mon 10 Nov 2025 12:05PM UTC
Comment Actions
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 1 Mon 10 Nov 2025 12:29PM UTC
Comment Actions
Arlet (Guest) on Chapter 1 Mon 10 Nov 2025 12:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
Kate (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sat 08 Nov 2025 05:01PM UTC
Comment Actions
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 1 Mon 10 Nov 2025 11:49AM UTC
Comment Actions
Emma (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 13 Nov 2025 06:41AM UTC
Comment Actions
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 1 Fri 14 Nov 2025 12:31AM UTC
Comment Actions
Emma (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 14 Nov 2025 02:56AM UTC
Comment Actions
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 1 Fri 14 Nov 2025 08:44AM UTC
Comment Actions
Maya (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 02 Dec 2025 01:17AM UTC
Comment Actions
Angela (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Dec 2025 11:02PM UTC
Comment Actions
pinkpress on Chapter 3 Sun 23 Nov 2025 04:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 3 Mon 24 Nov 2025 11:36AM UTC
Comment Actions
onewoo on Chapter 3 Tue 25 Nov 2025 11:47AM UTC
Comment Actions
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 3 Wed 26 Nov 2025 09:40AM UTC
Comment Actions
TheWriteKindOfLove on Chapter 3 Tue 25 Nov 2025 02:42PM UTC
Comment Actions
Xxkxxxylxx on Chapter 3 Sat 29 Nov 2025 02:05AM UTC
Comment Actions
amelia (Guest) on Chapter 4 Fri 12 Dec 2025 10:14PM UTC
Comment Actions
hopesxdreams on Chapter 6 Fri 12 Dec 2025 10:00PM UTC
Comment Actions