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It finally happens on Friday, 25th of November 2016 at 10:41pm.
Atsumu is in bed with a perfectly nice girl, who is play-hitting his shoulders and fielding his big, gentle hands as he slaps back at her hands like a disgruntled cat, because he started laughing after some pretty good sex, and then she started laughing and now she can’t stop, and this is all his fault, and he can be fine with that.
It happens approximately a month and three quarters after Atsumu turns 21, which means he’s had enough time to figure out truths about himself that were inextricable from Osamu before. Osamu never needed to mediate, because the people who like Atsumu like him kind of cunty, and the ones who don’t like him simply don’t, and Atsumu doesn’t care. The people who like Osamu can’t handle him mean and the people who don’t like him are probably fucked in the head, and Osamu cares a lot. He frets about Atsumu still, chews his lip raw worrying over whether he’s fittin’ in with the team and all, which is Osamu’s secret way of saying he misses him, because Osamu is needy and a homebody and stubborn enough to refuse to admit it. Atsumu knows this because of course he’s not having problems with the team. There’s very few problems he could have with the team, since just two weeks into signing as second-string setter with the MSBY Black Jackals, he’d one-hand thrown Bokuto Koutarou into the lockers and told him to get his shit sorted or he would make sure he never had children, and if by some miracle he managed to un-fuck the gonad situation, his descendants fourteen generations on would be spitting the taste of his gym socks from how far up his ass Atsumu would wedge his foot. Now they have movie nights every Wednesday and Atsumu helps him sext his dreamy Tokyo boyfriend, so Osamu fusses for nothing, and Atsumu is doing more than fine.
Aran asks after Osamu when he and Atsumu get dinner like he’d rather stick his hand in a beartrap, because it’s a tick-tick-ticking timebomb that’s bound to just fucking blow at any moment. Suna texts him anytime Osamu sends him anything mildly concerning, from an errant punctuation mark to full tangents about how Atsumu needs to be looked after that Suna could not give less of a shit about, as Suna has never had a single doting sentiment toward Atsumu in his life. Kita and his mother text him eerily similar messages reminding him to check on his brother, like he doesn’t have it programmed into his phone reminders, like Osamu doesn’t drop by with unnecessary food every Tuesday and Thursday because those are his least busy days and he spends his time off hovering around Atsumu instead of caring for himself, because he is a fucking moron.
Which is to say, they all know it’s coming.
It happens when Atsumu’s lady friend has her tongue in his mouth and her hands on his tits and his lower half is thinking oh, round two? and his phone starts ringing. He gives it a disgruntled look and lets it ring out the first time, because it’s easy to forget about it when he’s brushing his thumbs across skin and trying to kiss around laughter, which is the best way to kiss, in his humble opinion. And then it rings again, and a third time, so he rolls over and snatches it up, before sighing.
“Shit,” he says, smoothing an apologetic hand down her back, “I gotta take this.”
“Go on then,” she says, slaps his chest hard and gives the protruding muscle a cheeky squeeze. It leaves the faintest hand print, and Atsumu is quite fond of it. He would be more delighted if it wasn’t Suna calling, because Suna thinks phone calls are the equivalent of a war crime. You either text him or ask him something in person, and that’s it.
“Where the fuck are you,” Suna says as soon as Atsumu answers, before he can even get a word out. He must be in a car because it sounds like there’s a bee in his phone and Aran is swearing to Jesus somewhere in the background.
“I’m at home,” Atsumu says, already resigning himself to his fate. “Where the fuck else would I be?”
“Don’t be a cunt,” Suna says, because Suna is his dear friend, and he can say things like that, and Atsumu thinks it’s the funniest shit in the world. He leans hard on the horn so violently Atsumu’s pretty sure someone in Seoul can hear him. “Get the fuck out of the fast lane! Go back to the retirement home!”
“Okay,” Atsumu says, fishing for his underwear on the floor. He’s not really sure where they went, he stopped paying attention to them the second a hand was down them. What can he say? Single-minded focus and what not. “Anyone gonna tell me what’s goin’ on or am I just gonna guess? Alien invasion? Kita-san finally snapped and started murderin’ people? Oomimi-san dick-pic leaks?”
“Osamu called me twenty minutes ago and said he couldn’t get through to you but he just wanted to ask about the V-League schedule and then he burst into tears and hung up, so you tell me what that means.” Bad things, Atsumu thinks. It probably means bad things. Suna continues, voice pitching higher in hysterics with every third word. It’s kind of impressive; he’s accessing a range Atsumu thought was solely reserved for dog whistles.. “He won’t answer me, he won’t answer Aran, he won’t answer Kita-san and even your mother is pissing herself because he left a bunch of crytyping texts on her phone and now he won’t answer her either so I don’t care what or who it is you’re doing. Put some fucking pants on, I’m coming to get you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Atsumu says, already zipping up his jeans. His friend is sitting up now, head cocked at him judgmentally. God, he loves when they’re bitchy. Thrilling. He gives her his best kicked-puppy look and she rolls her eyes, shakes her head at him. “I’ll be there. Try not to total your rental car before then.”
“Fuck you,” Suna spits, which means he’s truly worried, because he only gets virtriolic when he’s feeling something too big and too real. Something incomprehensible happens on the other end of the phone that ends with Suna swearing like a sailor until Aran, presumably, snatching his phone from him and ending the call. Atsumu stuffs himself back into his t-shirt and rummages through his closet for a jacket, because Osamu had to pick a night it’d be piss-cold to have the long-awaited breakdown.
“You’re not coming back to bed?” His friend asks him, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. He gives her a grim smile over his shoulder.
“My brother’s havin’ a crisis, sorry. I’ll make it up to ya some other time.”
“You’d better,” she says, like the proper little Tokyo girl down for college that she is. Atsumu puts one knee on the bed and kisses her again, laughs as she tries to pull him down on top of her, and gently extracts himself to help her find her clothes. He’s letting her use him as a prop while she hops into her last high-heel when his intercom starts buzzing violently.
“God, he’s an impatient little shit,” Atsumu grumbles, shoving his phone and his wallet and his keys into his pockets as she folds up her pantyhose and shoves it into her jacket, trailing behind him with barely concealed amusement. Crisis to her probably means Osamu’s been dumped or whatever, not that he’s spiralling out of control because he’s too much of a bull-headed shitheel to admit he needs help and let other people care for him sometimes, the prick.
Atsumu keeps an eye on her Uber on the way down the stairs, other hand laced with hers as they try not to trip down the narrow staircase. It’s pulling up almost at the same time as they stumble into the Autumn night to find Suna and Aran waiting, Aran still in his volleyball uniform with his jacket zipped straight up to his chin.
“He’s fucking crazy,” Aran says, by way of greeting. Atsumu thinks this might be justified given that Suna snatched him straight from a game.
“Get your asses in the car,” Suna says, eyes nearing ‘hazardously feral’. “Move, move, move.”
“Your friends are fun,” says his date, so Atsumu kisses her right on the mouth. Suna scruffs him and hauls him off her. It’s an odd dynamic for them; he’s tall and scrawny, less bulky than Atsumu is and historically incapable of flinging him around; but right now he’s motivated by sheer fear. Whatever, if Osamu dies without Suna sticking his dick in him, it’s their fault for pussyfooting around it for so long. Atsumu grabs the door-frame with stiff fingers so that he can hover over his flavour of the night with apologetic eyes.
“I’ll call you.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only the pretty ones,” he says, and Aran mimes gagging while Suna gives him another particularly good yank. Briefly, the force of it makes Atsumu think he should revisit the high school phase where he and Suna put their tongues in each other’s mouths and dry humped on Suna’s shitty futon. That would probably motivate Osamu to do something given that he has, historically, been weak to the age-old fallacy of only wanting something once your sibling has it.
He stays half in and half out of Suna’s tiny little rental car until he sees her get in the Uber, and yells at her to let him know she got home safe. She gives him a thumbs up that quickly transitions into a middle finger, and he laughs loud before ducking into the car and buckling himself up. The mood drops instantly as he lets the smile fall and thunks his head back against the headrest. Distractions like her are easy. The looming weight of what comes next is not. Suna puts his foot down on the gas so violently that Aran ragdolls forward in the passenger seat.
No matter how long he’s had to prepare for this, it doesn’t make it particularly pleasant. It’s not like he wants Osamu to be unhappy. They made that stupid promise, but in order for it to be a good bet it has to be a close bet. Osamu can’t be miserable if Atsumu’s on cloud fucking nine. Osamu should be having pleasant missionary sex with Suna and texting Atsumu disgusting, sappy monologues about being in love and harping about how he should settle down, even though his first and only love is volleyball, and he simply lives vicariously through whatever the fuck Bokuto and his boyfriend have going on.
Osamu never listens to him though, no matter how gently or how bluntly his advice is phrased. He gets away with a lot of things, his baby brother does, because Atsumu’s such a piece of shit that Osamu looks frankly angelic in comparison, but they’ve always been two sides of the same coin. Osamu’s every bit as mulish and cantankerous as Atsumu is, only he’s better at internalizing it. His emotions are just as volatile, but he bottles it up because he has some fucked-up sense of responsibility, like he has to make up for all the awfulness of his twin as if Atsumu ever asked anyone to do that for him, and he’s too soft to handle people disliking him. Bokuto’s the same kind of breed, all wet doe-eyes and wounded wobbly bottom lips just because someone doesn’t want to be their super-sparkle-bestie. Atsumu never cared about that shit, but Osamu does, so Atsumu tries to understand it.
Osamu moved to Osaka because his dreams are big and so are Atsumu’s, and they’re always chasing each other. One moves forward, the other strains to catch up. Atsumu made a huge leap, and Osamu’s been left scrambling in the dust. Maybe it’s a little bit his fault that Osamu’s so lost these days, ‘cause yeah, maybe he didn’t need to work his ass off with gnashing teeth and hungry eyes until Foster had slapped him onto the starting line-up at the tender age of almost-twenty, and maybe he didn’t need to be having really good sex and bonding drinks at the local izakaya with his teammates and maybe he didn’t need to laugh so much and hurl popcorn at bad movies on the TV with Bokuto.
Maybe he didn’t have to make a whole new life that included a whole lot less Osamu.
He’s still got a key, though, because their mother worries herself sick about them for no reason, just like her big idiot of a son. What if you get murdered? What if no one finds your body for days because you live alone? What if, what if, what if? It comes in handy when your twin’s trying to have a meltdown in secret even though every fibre of his stupid, shitty being is screaming out for attention. Asshole.
“I’m comin’ in, shithead,” Atsumu announces at Osamu’s door, loud enough to wake his neighbours. The lights are off, but Osamu is definitely here. Atsumu can hear his ugly fucking sobbing from the genkan. He kicks off his shoes and leaves the door open for Suna and Aran, slapping on the lights as he goes. There’s a broken plate on the kitchen floor and Osamu is hugging his knees, rocking back and forth and smacking his forehead on his kneecaps. It’s way more convenient to brain himself on the kitchen counter, but Osamu’s too dumb to realize that.
“I can’t do it, Tsumu,” he babbles, as soon as he picks up on his presence like some kind of fucking homing beacon. “I can’t do it, I can’t do this.”
“Hey now,” Atsumu says, feeling something gentle and tender unfurl inside his chest. He sinks down against the counters next to him, wraps an arm over his shoulders and pushes his fingers into his hair, curls his head against his neck. Osamu sobs louder and puts his arms around him, half-crawls into his lap trying to get a tighter hug. Atsumu smacks him on the back, pats him solidly like he’s trying too burp a fucking baby.
But it’s his baby brother, and Osamu tries to be all bigger than the world, bluster and solidity because that’s how Atsumu is and has always been. Osamu doesn’t realize it’s okay to be soft sometimes, that there’s a particular strength in being kind that Atsumu will always lack, because he’s blunt and acerbic and honest, even when people don’t want him to be. His stupid baby brother, always trying to carry the weight of the world and then some on his stupid shoulders. Atsumu presses a kiss to the part of his hair, rubs his back high between his shoulder blades.
“Shh now,” he tells him, “it’s alright, I gotcha.”
“I can’t do it,” Osamu all-but-wails again, grips his t-shirt hard enough to stretch the fabric as he wipes his snot on Atsumu’s perfectly nice jacket. Little shit.
“Hey now, stop yer blubberin’,” Atsumu says, forcefully pushes Osamu’s face into his neck a little more and rubs his back rougher. “I’m here now, alright? Let’s just take it slow and figure it out.”
Osamu shakes his head and whimpers a broken little noise into his throat. Atsumu keeps patting him as Osamu cries and cries and cries. Around them, life goes on. Silently, Aran picks up the broken crockery, piece by piece, and sweeps the kitchen floor. Suna scrapes take-out containers and energy drink cartons into rubbish bags, lines them up neatly by the door, tries to hide how his hands shake and his mouth presses into an unhappy little line, like Osamu’s pain is an extension of his own. Atsumu lets Osamu be until his crying quiets down, until he’s just barely trembling in his arms, and sniffing like he can suck the emotions back into his body through his nose.
Atsumu draws back, gently cups his hands around Osamu’s face and forces him to look him in the eye. He looks awful, face swollen and red from crying, eyes puffy, and snot congealing on the edges of his nose. He’s a fucking mess. It’s been a long time coming, but it doesn’t stop Atsumu from wanting to tear a hole in his ribcage for Osamu to settle in, protected by Atsumu’s steel skin, where nothing can ever hurt him again.
“Now,” Atsumu says instead, pulls the sleeve of his jacket over his hand and roughly wipes Osamu’s face. “Come on now, what’s happened?”
“I just can’t do it,” Osamu warbles, voice thick and sticky from the tears lodged in the back of his throat. “The shop- it’s all too much. It costs so much, ‘Tsumu, and I don’t have enough money- never gonna have enough money- and I’m workin’ all the time, and I don’t got anyone to do admin ‘cause I can’t afford to pay anyone, and I can’t pay rent for here and the shop, and I just can’t do it, okay? I can’t.”
“Bullshit,” Atsumu tells him, squeezes his cheeks until they must hurt. “Don’t ya ever try to wimp outta something like that again, you hear me? Are you a Miya?”
“Yeah, ‘course I am, but I can’t, it’s not-”
“Shut up, dickhead,” Atsumu says. “We Miyas don’t just give up ‘cause things are hard. Was volleyball easy?”
“No.”
“Was movin’ to a new city easy?”
“No.”
“Was gettin’ as far as we have easy?”
“No.”
“Right,” Atsumu says, “and you did it anyway, ‘cause yer a ballsy son of a bitch, and you don’t know when to quit, so if I hear you say ‘I can’t’ one more time I’m gonna clock ya. Yer real dumb if ya think ya gotta do it on yer own. Ya think I’m playin’ volleyball all by myself out there? I got a team to back me up, I got Aran and Suna and Kita-san, and if you stop actin’ like ya gotta do everythin’ by yerself, then you have ‘em too.”
“I don’t want to bother anyone,” Osamu says miserably, wiping at his own face. “Everyone’s so busy now.”
“No one’s too busy for ya, dummy,” Atsumu tells him, slaps his cheeks with both hands and rattles his head from side to side. Osamu squirms and feebly tries to push him away. Atsumu pinches him like an overbearing Auntie. “You really think I’d let ya skulk around my apartment if I was too busy for you? All you gotta do is ask to hang out. And stop fuckin’ cookin’ for me, dumbass, you’re just puttin’ unnecessary stress on yerself. If yer gonna cook, come to my place and we’ll do it together, like we used to. You’re not Kaa-san, so you don’t gotta look after me. I can take care of myself. Stupid.”
“But,” Osamu says, with big watery eyes, “but.”
“But nothin’, moron. I know you felt like ya had to watch my back, but we’re bigger and older now, and we’ve got lives to live. Ya can’t spend all yer time worryin’ about mine, or yer gonna miss out on good things. Big things, too. Why’d ya even make that dumbass bet if yer just gonna throw it first chance you get, huh? I don’t wanna beat ya if it’s easy. At least make it a challenge.”
“I’m tryin’!” Osamu’s voice is basically a wail now as he sniffs again. “I’m tryin’, but I don’t know what to do. It’s just so hard.”
“So we figure it out together. When have we ever done anythin’ apart?” Atsumu gently brushes his hair back from his face. He’s stopped dyeing it now, let it fade back to that natural brown. It looks good on him, really. When he gets his shit together and gets rid of the bags under his eyes, he’ll be handsome enough to pull whoever he wants, but only ‘cause he’s got Atsumu’s face. It’ll likely even work on Suna, ‘cause Suna’s probably into his whole useless fumbling thing he’s got going on. Atsumu kisses him on the forehead. He loves him so damn much.
“There’s nothin’ to do,Tsumu,” Osamu says, pushes himself out of Atsumu’s arms and puts his head in his hands instead, hunched over his own knees. “It’s always the same shit. I don’t got enough hours in the day, and I ain’t sleepin’ good, and I can’t afford help or proper marketin’ or anythin’. I’m doin’ my best, but everything’s stalled. I don’t got anythin’ left in me, okay? It’s over.”
“Fuck up,” Atsumu tells him, honestly offended that Osamu seems so ready to throw in the towel. Usually, Osamu hates being told to shut up, but he doesn’t even fight Atsumu on this one, so Atsumu takes the win and barrels ahead. “We always figure something out, okay? Who managed to get that octopus outta Kaa-san’s net, huh? Remember how proud she was when it came back with no holes? Who did that?”
“We did,” Osamu mutters.
“Damn fuckin’ right. And who was the only other spiker-setter duo to pull off Karasuno’s freak quick, huh?”
“Us.”
“Uh-huh, and we did that just by fuckin’ looking at it, ‘Samu! And when we got into that fistfight with some snotty kids from Kobe who had some shit to say about Kita-san, who figured out a way to justify it so we didn’t get our asses kicked off the team?”
“We did.”
“Exactly. Yer a Miya, which means ya fight, or I kick your ass so hard every single one of your children is gonna have inherited spinal problems. I don’t care if they’re technically my relatives too, okay? I will fuck you up. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Wednesdays is conditioning in the mornin’ and Sundays I don’t have practice, so I’m gonna work the shop for free-”
“No!” Osamu grabs him by the collar. “No, you can’t do that, ‘Tsumu, I’m not gonna let ya-”
“I don’t give a fuck if yer lettin’ me, shit-for-brains, I’m doin’ it whether ya like it or not. When I’m workin’, you can do yer books. And first thing tomorrow, we’re callin’ Kita-san, tellin’ him we’re very sorry for worryin’ him, and then we’re asking him if ya could do some kind of a discount on his rice until you get your feet under ya.”
“I can’t ask Kita-san to do that! What will he think-”
“He’ll think you’re lookin’ after yourself. Don’t be stupid.” Atsumu closes his fist and smacks it on top of Osamu’s head. “Kita-san understands ya can’t build a sturdy house without a good foundation. If you build it outta rotten wood it’s gonna fall to pieces. The discount can go away once you’ve got enough of a foundation that anythin’ else ya build on top of it is gonna be solid, okay? It’s not a forever thing, it’s a starting thing, and Kita-san’s yer friend. He wants you to succeed, so pull your head outta yer ass.”
“I’ll work too,” Aran says, and Osamu’s head jerks up, wild with tears.
“We’ve got Tuesdays off, so I’ll do Tuesdays. I was always better at math than y’were anyway, so I can do books on Tuesdays.”
“And I’ll do marketing,” Suna adds, before Osamu can protest. “I’ll run your social media accounts for a while, okay? Atsumu can help, he’s good with taking pictures too.”
“Oh! Bokkun knows Yaku Morisuke! Apparently they used to play together in high school,” Atsumu says, snapping his fingers. “He’s popular, havin’ him eat yer onigiri would help.”
“And Kuroo-san,” Aran pipes up. “He’s Yaku-san’s friend from his high school team, he introduced me to him after a game one time. Apparently he’s an intern with the V League’s sports promotion division, maybe he could help out, or at least put us in touch with someone who could?”
“We could get ya some kinda deal with food stalls at away games!” Atsumu knows he’s being loud, excited by the prospect. “You could do signature onigiri, themed around some of the players!”
“Wouldya really do all that?” Osamu asks, sounding tentative and vulnerable, eyes glassy and lower lip bitten red. He’s still snot-nosed and dark under the eyes, so Atsumu wipes his face again with the fondest tch of his tongue that he can manage.
“Of course we would. We love ya, ‘Samu.”
Osamu’s lower lip wobbles. He sniffs hard again, and throws himself into Atsumu’s arms. Atsumu cuddles him close, puts his nose in his hair and rubs his back as Osamu cries onto him some more, apparently full of an infinite supply of tears, the little sook. Aran sinks down next to him, puts one long arm around the both of them and squeezes tight. Suna sits straight down on top of Atsumu’s thighs, bony ass digging into him painfully, and rests his cheek on Osamu’s back. They sit like that for a long while, curled up in each other, before Atsumu punches Osamu between the shoulder blades.
“Alright then, that’s our plan. Right now, ya stink, so let’s getcha into the shower and into bed. When’s the last time ya washed yer sheets?”
“I don’t know,” Osamu murmurs, looking less horrified at the realization than he should be, the fucking slob.
“Well, doesn’t matter. Me and Aran will change ‘em. Suna, you’re in charge of findin’ clean clothes ‘cause I don’t wanna sift through my brother’s underwear.”
“And I do?”
“Obviously,” Atsumu says, and ducks the swat at his ears. Osamu flushes furious red as Atsumu shakes Suna out of his lap and hauls his twin up by his armpits. It takes a significant amount of effort, because Osamu has never been small, but the fact that Atsumu can do it is worrying. His brother must have lost a lot of weight, which means he needs to eat. And that’s okay, that’s something Atsumu can do. He’s a mean, mouthy motherfucker, but he’s dedicated too. Loving is easiest to do through food, the second thing he and Osamu knew; before volleyball but not before each other.
“It’s all gonna be okay tomorrow,” Atsumu tells him, gently fixing his hair as he leads him toward the bathroom. It’s okay to be gentle when it’s just the two of them, when it won’t shatter Osamu completely to let himself be treated so tenderly. They’ve got reputations to maintain, after all. “It’s all gonna be alright, ya hear? We’re gonna make it through this the way we always do, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. And I’m gonna be right there with ya, alright? I ain’t gonna leave you behind.”
Osamu hugs him again, tight and bone-crushing.
“I thought you didn’t want me around anymore,” Osamu mumbles into his shoulder, clutching him like Atsumu might evaporate if he lets go. The part of Atsumu’s heart not made of actual stone aches a little at the admission, so he wraps his arms around his brother and hugs him as tight as he can, presses his love into him with all the physical force of a typhoon.
“That’s never gonna happen, dipshit. You were born with me, yer gonna die with me ‘cause I’m not lettin’ you have the last laugh about livin’ longer, and everywhere in between? Stuck with me.” Osamu laughs, a hiccuping, sobbing little thing as he snuggles in closer and hugs him harder. Atsumu indulges him, one hand cradling the back of his head protectively, the way he used to hug him when they were littler and Osamu needed it more. He hopes he never has to hug him like this again.
“I love ya, ‘Tsumu.”
“I love ya too, ‘Samu. But seriously, shower. Ya smell like dogshit.” Osamu punches him in the chest, an indignant flicker in his eyes. That’s good, Atsumu thinks. A little bit of his brother is coming back. Piece by piece, they’re sticking him back together, helping him dust himself off and fly again. Osamu is strong, because he’s everything and nothing like Atsumu and Atsumu is strong too. If Atsumu runs ahead, Osamu will chase him with dripping fangs and fury in his lungs. That’s the way they are. They crawl their way back if they have to, with like hell ya will if I’ve got anythin’ to say about it hanging on the tips of their tongues.
Osamu showers. Atsumu and Aran change his sheets. Suna lays out pyjamas and then crams all of Osamu’s laundry into a hamper while Atsumu cracks eggs and cooks rice in Osamu’s kitchen. Stupid sentimentalist keeps it as close to the layout of their kitchen back home in Inarizaki as he can, because of course he does. Aran washes indeterminably old dishes. Suna hovers, picks at the tape on his fingers and sucks his unhappy cheeks between his teeth.
“He likes ya back, y’know,” Atsumu says, and then slaps him solidly on the back of the hand with his spatula. “I promised him not to tell ya, so don’t fuck this up or I will fuck you up beyond recognition. You both deserve happiness, and if ya keep being wussy little fucks about it I’m disownin’ the both of you.”
“You’re the most aggressive pep-talker I know,” Suna tells him, and then slings his arms over his neck to give him a side hug. “I won’t mess it up, I promise. I’ll take care of him.”
“Take care of each other,” Atsumu tells him, and pats his hands. “Obviously, if ya ever hurt him…”
“I’m leaving the country before you can get your hands on me.”
“Smart,” Aran says, dead-serious, from the other side of him, stealing a piece of broccoli straight from the pan and putting it in his mouth. Atsumu preens under the knowledge that his reputation as one scary son of a bitch has not had the edges smoothed by time and the tide.
Osamu puts food away like he’s never eaten before in his life. Atsumu gives him a half-portion of his own, watches him tuck it into his mouth with a newfound vengeance. It’s good. Food makes you strong. Food sustains you. Food gives you the energy to push on, and right now Osamu needs that more than Atsumu does. Osamu needs his food, needs to eat and build up again to what he once was, needs to relearn how to rival Atsumu, push and shove him about and keep up with his breakneck pace. He’s sick of the empty space beside him where Osamu used to be, and he needs to catch the fuck up already.
Atsumu tucks him into bed and sings him to sleep with his favourite lullaby, the one their mother likes best so Osamu always liked best too. He sleeps on the couch. Aran and Suna share the guest futon on the floor. Atsumu texts Kita-san to tell him it’s all okay, and lets him know about the rice plan in advance, because Kita-san will be gentle with Osamu that way. He texts his mother, lets her know he’s with Osamu, and it’s okay, and come tomorrow, everything will be alright. He’ll shove Osamu up onto that first step if he bloody well has to, and onto the one beyond that and the one beyond that, however many steps it takes for Osamu to get proud and snobby again, to shake him off and stride off on his own.
That’s what Atsumu’s for, after all. His greatest blessing is always going to be Osamu, but they are and always have been two sides of the same coin, after all. If his greatest blessing is his brother, then Osamu’s is Atsumu, too. For as long as Atsumu walks this earth, Osamu can count on that.