Chapter Text
“Tell me what you think of her,” Atsumu prods one chilly August night, perched behind the restaurant counter. You’re in the middle of daintily folding the napkins. Osamu’s a bit of a freak for having cloth napkins in a shop that sells onigiri, but you don’t say anything about it.
Atsumu shoves the phone towards your face. When you squint at the proximity, he shoves it closer. You snarl and grab his wrist, moving it away at a distance where you can actually see what he’s talking about.
Immediately, you get taken aback. You blink, not really knowing what to say. “She’s… um… She has a big heart?”
“Huh?” He looks at you like you’re stupid. From across the closed restaurant where he’s mopping the floors, Osamu’s brows furrow.
The people on the street are starting to dwindle and the flying termites are beginning to horde under the lamplights. The sign outside the restaurant door has been flipped to read closed. It’s only the three of you inside along with the lulling sounds of chairs being moved back to their places, windows being shut.
You sigh, going back to your swan napkins. “Well, what do you want me to say? She has a huge rack.”
Osamu chortles, then goes back to wiping his tables clean. The only lights left on in the restaurant are the ones from the kitchen, painting Atsumu’s back in a harsh luminous glow. His face is met with the light from his phone as he stares at the picture of The Woman With The Huge Rack. It smells like Mr. Muscle, damp floors wafting up with the clean scent of after hours cleanup. Still, you catch a whiff of Atsumu’s cologne whenever he shifts from elbow to elbow.
“She’s Bokuto’s cousin. He’s settin’ me up with her. I should go, right?”
You hum absently, eight swans now around you on the kitchen counter. Two to go.
Atsumu swipes again, no doubt probing around her instagram profile. “Samu, you think I should go?”
“Go home, sure.”
You make a face. “Your brother’s mean.” You direct your attention towards the blond, and he perks up like he’s been waiting for you to finally give it to him, delayed greatly by the napkin-swans. “I think you should go. C’mere, let me see.” He complies. “Yeah, she looks nice enough. I’m dead jealous of her breasts.”
He appraises your face, then his eyes dart down. “Yours are nice too.”
You lean in, elbows knocking on the wooden surface, palms coming to cradle his face. “You’re a shit liar.”
“How many people has Bokuto tried to set you up with?” Osamu asks his brother.
“Four now,” you reply.
“Hah,” he laughs from under his cap. “What happened to the other three?”
“The first one bawled --”
“That’s enough. Time to shut up,” Atsumu shouts, holding your swan by the neck and hurling it at your head. You recoil, hand coming up to shield your head. The swan dies, sadly crumpling open as it lands on the floor.
“You killed my swan.”
Osamu finally walks closer. “The hell are these?”
“Oh, I folded your napkins. You know, like at those fancy restaurants where their napkins are folded --”
“What?” Atsumu asks. “Those are at hotels.”
He looks at you, one eyebrow drawn down, face confused. It registers. You open your mouth. That’s why it felt like you were doing something novel. Turns out it is, only on the wrong side of novelty.
“Oh my god, Samu.” You hide your face in your hands. When it isn’t quite enough, you take the fallen swan, now back to being a plain square strip of cloth, and hide your face in it too.
“I don’t even have napkins -- where are these from?” He inspects one swan. He tells you, exasperation coating his every syllable, “These are for wiping the kitchen.”
Atsumu doubles over in laughter, and you slump your head on the counter with a dull thud. “He doesn’t have cloth napkins -- I honestly thought he was some kind of nutcase,” he wheezes.
“Me too,” you agree.
Osamu disappears into the backroom with his mop. You feel a bit bad that he’s still cleaning up, but in your defense you’ve already disinfected all the utensils and cleaned the massive refrigerator, all within the hour that you’ve been hanging around in his shop. You have no clue what Atsumu did but it was probably something counterproductive. Osamu knows him well enough not to expect anything.
You tug at Atsumu’s sweater. “Doesn’t he have employees to clean the place?”
“He does, but he cleans up again after they finish.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause he’s a freak.”
When Osamu reappears, you've already folded the napkins back into sensible little squares. You tuck them into the corner of the counter shamefully. You bat your eyelashes in what you hope is a cute expression. “Sorry.”
Osamu fixes you a look, immune. “No harm. For you — wait, hold on.” He looks at his phone, then promptly picks up and disappears into the backroom again, leaving you with a little box of tuna onigiri.
Before you can say thanks, there’s a knock on the glass door. From the other side, dimmed by the tint and the late night, Tatsuro waves. Your fiancé’s tie is loosened and the first button of his shirt is undone. He must be done for the day. You wave back, smiling, and start gathering your things. Your phone gets tucked back inside your bag, along with your wallet. You push the box towards Atsumu, who’s tapping away on his phone. “You have it. I’m going home.”
His eyes snap up, then he follows your gaze towards the window. He straightens, then waves jovially back. A little too jovially. To you, angling his head closer, Atsumu says, “Can’t believe you’re gonna get married —”
“Yeah,” you sigh dreamily, the zipper shutting closed. “Me too.”
“— to a sucker.”
The soft smile falls from your face, mood souring. “Wow.”
He shrugs and suddenly you’re sixteen again, wanting to strangle him with his school tie and dangle him from a window. You’ve learned to be more patient and he’s learned to be less of a threat as the seasons passed, the years progressed, and your lives moved on. Twenty-five now, Atsumu is still brash, but he handles it better, masking it well enough to make it appear like the endearing sort of bluntness, only to be taken in small sips. Still, old habits must die hard because his words are still sharp. It doesn’t bother you, usually, but his statement exposes a bad opinion festering in his brain.
You slam your bag back down the counter. “Why can’t you be happy for me?”
“I am,” he argues defensively.
“I ask you for help with planning the wedding, and you fuck off to who knows where --”
“I was at an off-season retreat. There was no signal in the mountains. I’ve explained this a hundred times.”
“Now you insult my fiancé--”
“I wasn’t insulting --!”
“Yes you did! And this isn’t the first time either. If you have a problem with him, tell me about it. I’m really sorry not all of us can’t live as wildly as you--”
“Why is it suddenly about me!”
“I’m sorry I don’t have groupies to fuck on rotation. I’m sorry my teammate isn’t setting me up with a million girls because he feels sorry for me. I’m sorry I can sustain a relationship because I know how to communicate like a grownup and not some horny teenage whore.”
The knocking resumes, more incessant this time. You stomp away and out the shop, leaving the box.
.
Tatsuro is a lawyer. He is not a sucker.
It’s what you repeat to yourself on the walk back to your apartment like a dying mantra. You want to punch Atsumu in the face. But mostly, you just want to go back and take Osamu’s takeout home. Your stomach grumbles, and you clutch it sadly.
“Are you listening?”
You blink, feet halting on the pavement, grounding you back. “I’m sorry, what?”
Tatsuro looks at you, brown eyes full of concern, lips ticking down disapprovingly. You straighten up, flustered at having dozed while he was speaking. “I said we have a few visitors at home.”
You tilt your head. He’s never asked about having someone over tonight. “Who?”
“My family.”
At that moment, an insect flies straight into your eye. You blink a split second too late, and you feel its body being crushed between your eyelids. “Motherfucker.”
You open your eyes wide, feeling like you’ve been punched. You feel yourself starting to panic. You don’t know if the insect is still there, glued to your iris, or if it’s already on the ground, or even if it’s inside your eye. “Help me.”
He moves closer, frowning. He pinches the skin around your eye outwards, inspecting it. “It’s gone.” Tatsuro blows on your eye, the pads of his fingers tracing your cheek beneath it. “All gone.”
“It hurts,” you say. You make a show of pretending to sob.
He laughs. It’s a little chuckle reverberating through his chest. You smile. His laugh is a nice sound, and you revel at the times you manage to get one out of him. He’s always so serious all the time; talking about work, companies you don’t care about, terms you can never seem to understand. His laughter is like little drops of sunlight you collect.
“So, my parents…” he starts again.
“Ow,” you wail. He holds you in place while you thrash halfheartedly. “Ow, my eye.”
“Hey,” he gently chides.
“I haven’t cleaned the apartment. You should have told me so I could have fixed it up.”
“If I told you, you would have fretted too much. The apartment is fine as it is.”
“The guest room doesn’t have bedsheets.”
“We can put the bedsheets up later. Let’s go home.”
He should have told you that his mother was coming over. It takes at least two days to prepare for a single conversation with her, and the thought of her being in your space -- her eyes moving from ceiling to floor, listing down all the things she finds distasteful -- makes you feel like the fly that just flew into your eye.
“Does it still hurt?”
“A little,” you admit, walking beside him again.
“It’s a bit swollen.”
You sigh, dreading having to face his parents with a butchered face. “For fuck’s sake.”
.
“Your eye is swollen,” his mother states plainly, staring at you like you’re something ghastly. You must be, judging from the dull, throbbing pain on the left side of your face.
You bring a hand up self-consciously, hoping to cover it, hastily bowing once you’re in front of her.
“What happened?” she asks.
“An insect flew into my eye.”
She cringes. “Tatsuro, what are you waiting for? Go get her some ice.”
“No, no, I’m fine.”
Tatsuro disappears to get you ice. You see her bag on the living room couch. On the coffee table, there is a can of disinfectant spray you’ve never seen before that matches the new scent of the room. His father is already watching television, feet up on the ottoman. A replay of a volleyball match is on. You wonder if Atsumu is in it. You shouldn’t have called him a whore, now that you think about it, anger simmering down.
“Go sit. Why is it swelling so much?” she mutters to herself.
“The impact was pretty, um… severe.”
“Was it a cockroach?”
You laugh. Then you realize she isn’t joking, so you clear your throat instead. “No, I don’t think so… I didn’t see it.”
“You didn’t see it, but you don’t think so. This girl, honestly.”
“Here,” Tatsuro reappears, holding out a pack of peas.
“You don’t have an ice pack in this apartment?” his father chimes, looking at you.
You clear your throat again. “No, we haven’t gone around to getting one yet.”
“I assume you don’t have bedsheets too?” his mother asks tartly.
You jump up your seat. “Oh, no, we do. I’ll fix your room real quick. I’m so sorry I didn’t prepare it earlier.” You hold the ice pack to your eye. “I didn’t know, and --”
You see his mother’s disapproving face, lines inching down at your every word, and you clamp your mouth shut. You turn to your boyfriend. “There’s food in the refrigerator, you can heat it up. I’ll come right back.”
You know his mother doesn't like you. You also know it doesn't matter. She has her reasons, and in a way, you do understand why she thinks her son is too good to be in this relationship. It's not unfounded. There's a great chasm between you and Tatsuro, from education to family name to everything in between, and she must see it too.
Tatsuro moves, but his mother is quick to clasp his hand. The disapproval melts off her frame. “Sit back down. Let me look at my son for a moment.”
.
The ringing of the cell phone stops, the successful connecting beep reverberates, and a woman’s face appears on Atsumu’s screen. “What. How many times do I have to tell you I’m not a gossip center? I am --”
Atsumu waves her off, her pixelated face in his phone moving slowly as he moves to flop down on Osamu’s bed. Masami must be on some kind of work trip again. “Yeah, yeah, listen for a while.”
“Where are you?” she asks.
“Samu’s house, why?”
“Let me talk to him.”
“I was the one who called you. I need someone to talk to and he locked me out of the kitchen.”
“So? Talk to him through the cracks like you always do.” Masami halts, having found herself a spot under the Portuguese sun. Her hair is dyed a shade of dark blonde now, and their family resemblance is uncannily jumping out. “Better yet, call --”
“Can’t,” Atsumu wails. “That’s the problem.”
“You fought again? What did you say this time?”
“Why do you always assume it’s my fault?”
His cousin laughs at him from the other side of the call. He should have known she’d take your side. She always does. Atsumu’s sensible mind reasons that you’re her friend before you’re his. It makes him feel like a cheap stand-in, but whatever. She got first dibs, but he’s the one that’s stuck with you. Unfortunately. “It’s always your fault, Tsumu-chan. I scraped my knee in Lisbon and I blamed you. What did you do?”
“I called her fiancé a sucker.”
“To his face?”
“To her face. Come on, you know it’s true. She could marry a drywall and she’d have a better time.”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t met him yet.”
“Ya don’t have to. He’s the human equivalent of damp cement.” He picks on a loose thread in his hoodie. “Dunno what she sees in him. He’s good looking, sure, but other than that? He’s a chump.”
“Maybe he’s really fun when they’re together.”
He remembers the dinner between the three of you. Tatsuro asked Atsumu what he did for a living and Atsumu jokingly replied that he slapped balls, and the man replied with a believing Ah and moved on. He frowns. “He’s not.”
“She told me he’s a lawyer. He must earn a lot. He must be smart too. Capable. Dedicated. Honestly, if he can finish law school without quitting, I think he has enough patience for a marriage. You know how it is, she just wants stability after everything that went down with her parents.”
Atsumu makes a face, mimicking her words, still picking at the thread, realizing he’s lost the argument. Is stability being bored out of your mind?
You change into a different person whenever you’re with him. Masami has nothing to say because she hasn’t really seen you: always stuck looking at him for approval before you react to anything, a second too slow before you can make a remark whenever you’re together. Osamu has nothing to say because Osamu is polite and he doesn’t call anyone out on their bullshit.
The mantle inevitably falls to Atsumu, and apparently bringing things up in a roundabout way doesn’t work, and so here he is: lying haphazard in his brother’s bed, nibbling a rice ball at almost midnight.
It’s not that he wants to sabotage your marriage. He’d be happy enough if you were out of his hair. Atsumu just doesn’t understand why it has to be him of all people. He’s boring. He’s stale. His very presence is an antithesis of everything you’ve ever told him you wanted in life. Now you’re settling because you feel like it’s the right thing to do after everything, like you have something to prove and you're running on borrowed time. Atsumu has never seen a lie as bold-faced as the one you're in now.
“Maybe he’s good in bed,” Masami adds, as if salt isn’t enough for the wound, she has to pour in vinegar too.
“Okay,” he cries loud enough he’s sure the tenant in the other unit could hear him. He sits back up the bed. “That’s enough. Bye.”
“I’ll see you at the wedding.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
The call ends with a final beep, and Atsumu slumps back down the bed, your box of onigiri beside his head. He sighs and puts it back in, spilling the sesame seeds on Osamu’s comforter.