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They’re fresh from defeat, Karasuno beaming, Atsumu, a bomb yet to be defused and beeping with triggers, when Kita pulls him aside to put him down kindly. In their club room—soon to be his—surrounded by memories of a year spent assuming, Kita looks at Atsumu for the first time with eyes of pity.
“It won’t be you,” he says, and his voice is firm so Atsumu immediately thinks of crying, more out of rage than real sadness, though there’s despair there too, carved deep in his frown, that Kita would be so cruel as to do this now of all times, knowing Atsumu’s at his lowest.
Kita leads with kindness. If his last actions towards Atsumu are anything but, Atsumu must have deserved it. He must have earned his disappointment somewhere down the line, something’s off, something changed, and that hurts more than the loss.
“I’m sorry, Atsumu,” Kita says, but there’s no apology behind it.
“Go on then,” Osamu mocks him when they get home.
Atsumu could strangle him. Then he does. They collapse on top of the futons, scrambling for leverage, knees in soft places, hands unforgiving. It’s not often they wrestle, but when they do, it’s vicious. Since childhood, they’ve done this, reached boiling points that can never be put into words—tamed only through blows and aggression. Bloody noses, scraped knees, bruises that are dark, and yellow, and a constant reminder they’re trapped having to handle each other for the rest of their lives.
Fights that as kids were solved in groundings. As adults, shame, more silence.
“This is stupid and you know it,” Atsumu brings up later when they’re both in bed, faces covered in band-aids. Osamu patched him up too because he’s Atsumu’s big brother by three minutes, twenty-five seconds.
Tomorrow, the boys will know they argued and ask who won and Osamu will lie, like always, to protect him because three minutes, twenty-five seconds. The others always seem to know. Osamu tells them. He whines and relies on them, while Atsumu relies on him and him alone—that’s what loyalty is about. Atsumu wants it to be them against the world. Osamu wants to be the world. He wants to try new things, things not mutually decided. It’s not Atsumu’s fault they’re twins. He would have been fine without someone to follow and guide his way out of the womb, into the court. This is how things are. They exist in relation and contrast to each other, as a unit.
“It changes nothing, Tsumu,” Osamu says because like an idiot, he doesn’t get what it means to be captain and like that same idiot, he will run the team to the ground their third and final year. Their year to be noticed by a big team so they can get recruited together and keep playing forever like they decided ages ago.
“You don’t deserve it,” Atsumu says.
Osamu laughs in response.
If Atsumu wasn’t sore from their last round, that sound would be cause for another beatdown but this time, unlike every other, Osamu had hurt him. He had pulled Atsumu’s dominant arm behind his back and threatened to break it so you never set again—that’ll teach you. Osamu meant it, like Atsumu meant when he thought, secretly to himself, that he wished Osamu never existed. And not so secretly wished him dead.
“I would have been much nicer about it if our roles were reversed,” Osamu says because his brand of bragging is being smug about how humble he is. He’s the calm twin, the softer one. People fall for this too—his fake composure—they want to be lied to. Atsumu plays along because arguing the opposite makes him look crazy, and they’ve got a good thing going.
“You’d be nice because it’d be right and I’d have deserved it,” Atsumu says, glaring at his slow, droopy eyes. He never understood how people would mistake them as children. Looking at Osamu, he never once saw himself. “Admit it, you thought it’d be me.”
“So what,” Osamu says, rolling away.
Atsumu scoffs in disbelief. “So volleyball is my thing,” he argues with Osamu’s back. “See! This exactly. The fact that you don’t fight me about it means it’s my thing more, means I deserve it more.”
Kita gets to his classes early. Knowing this, Atsumu sets an ambush. Osamu doesn’t want to come but knows he has no choice. Kita sees them both and seems to know—the bruises give it away.
“You’ll work through it,” he says in place of good morning.
Atsumu rounds his desk to slam his hands on either side of it. It’s meant to be intimidating but Kita doesn’t flinch. It’s meant to trap him but Kita could easily leave, push his chair back and stand up to face him. Kita has authority. He can stare Atsumu down. He knows this and so does Atsumu. That’s why it’s frustrating to pretend. Kita has never forced him to before. It’s probably a test.
“If I didn’t care so much, I’d have let it go, but I do care so I’m gonna fight for it,” Atsumu proves to him. “I’m the only person in this team that cares. I care more than anyone else.”
“I know,” Kita dismisses.
“You even told me yourself that you wished I didn’t kill myself playing all the time.”
“I know, Atsumu,” Kita says, still smiling, still patient.
Atsumu drops down to a crouch and lays his forearms on the desk, chin on top, pleading. “So then it will be me? Osamu can be vice captain like we planned it.”
Kita glances at Osamu, who’s leaning on the wall with his arms-crossed. “What do you think, Samu?”
“I think you’ve already decided.” Osamu shrugs.
It’s hard to be in a team of traitors and snakes, of people who don’t understand that he’s the reason they win because they’re at most above average while Atsumu’s exceptional. He makes them look good, so what if he’s not fun to be around, who the fuck cares? Volleyball isn’t about fun, not for him, not for people who are good enough to do this forever, like Atsumu and Osamu. It’s the only thing they’re good at and that should count for everything, but Atsumu’s better.
“It’s unfair that this is some kind of popularity contest,” he grumbles at lunch.
Osamu sits with him and Suna too, stuck by Samu’s side like a shit-stain at the bottom of his shoe. Atsumu’s feeling extra mean and extra whiny since this morning. Suna, participating in what should be a one-sided rant that’s between him and his twin brother, pisses him off further.
“What made you think it’d be you anyway?” Suna taunts him.
Atsumu looks at Osamu, who looks at his food. Of course he’d take Suna’s side. He thinks Suna’s cool. It’s important for Osamu to get cool people’s approval. He needs to be validated by everyone and always. Then has the nerve to call Atsumu insecure when Atsumu doesn’t give a fuck that they talk shit about him to his face and behind his back. He’s fine being hated, but Osamu should stand up for him, as his brother.
He doesn’t.
“This is how it’s gonna be all year then. Fuck this.” Atsumu throws his leg over the bench to leave. “You’re gonna regret this, just so you know.”
“Very mature and captain-like, Tsumu,” Suna calls back.
Atsumu crosses the distance in two steps to get up in his face. “Don’t call me that—you mean nothing to me, you understand?”
“Finish your food,” Osamu sighs like a parent, like someone who apparently cares for the well-being of his teammates, like what Kita thinks all captains should be like: obsessed with mediocrity. Sucking at everything except for how annoying they can get when it comes to food.
It shouldn’t matter if Atsumu is liked. If he can play, none of that matters. He’s a good setter. He gives them good tosses. Without him, they’re nothing. As a captain, he’d have to be listened to—that’s what matters. He can force them to win. They’ll love winning more than they hate him.
He’s late to practice out of spite. He won’t show them he’s angry because that’s a weakness they’ll exploit and they’ll be so happy he’s upset, they always are, but it doesn’t help that he can’t think of any other thing to be. Proud is out of the question. Jealousy, too touchy to confront.
“The captain doesn’t have to be the team’s best player,” Kita tells him when he eventually shows up, tail between his legs with restlessness in his body from having waited all day to touch a ball that never came.
He skipped. To spite them—without him, they’re nothing—and today they got a taste of what it’d be like hitting tosses that aren’t his and don’t quite fit with their styles.
The gym is empty. Everyone has left, including Osamu. Kita gives the court a second pass, putting everything in its rightful place: windows shut and locked, cones by the door organized by color, their practice jerseys nicely folded so they won’t wrinkle though no one would care if they did. It’s a matter of principle, Kita taught him. Atsumu would do it right too.
He follows Kita around, not helping, despite knowing all the routines. Kita groomed him to be captain and he’s not a cruel person — so he wouldn’t hurt Atsumu on purpose — so Atsumu will be captain.
“You can still be the best without being the captain,” Kita says, “I was captain.”
“And you were shit for it!” Atsumu reels. It bubbles out. Not as pride or jealousy. Fear. “You didn’t play at all, you did nothing, and now you wanna let that happen again with Samu. How is that fair?”
“Why does it have to be fair?” Kita asks calmly. There is no trace of resentment in his tone and Atsumu feels shitty for going there in the first place and assuming Kita would get hurt. He’s shitty, so what, that doesn’t matter if he plays well.
Kita sighs, reaching to baby him. Atsumu avoids his stupid hand-on-shoulder moment. “There’s more to being captain than showing off and tossing well.”
“There’s more to making people win than telling them good job all the time,” Atsumu shoots back.
“You’re right,” Kita agrees. “Osamu has both. He has you too.” Meaning what, meaning who, who takes care of who, it’s a crucial distinction to make.
“So it’s gonna be Osamu then,” Atsumu darkens.
“It’s gonna be Osamu,” Kita confirms.
“You don’t believe in me.”
“I do.”
“I’ll quit.”
“You’d never. You love it too much.” Kita’s hand flattens the jerseys pensively. “So he needs it more.”
Osamu’s playing video games when he returns. He says nothing of Atsumu’s absence. There are no messages on his phone from when Osamu should have worried that he wasn’t there and done something about it, texted him to call him an idiot, threaten death or dismemberment. If this is the new captain, cool boy Osamu, Atsumu will resent him.
He grabs Osamu’s chair and swivels him towards the front, unplugging his headphones with the suddenness of the movement. They glare each other down in preparation for a fight.
“Are you gonna let me have it?” Atsumu asks for the last and final time. “Is this some bullshit way to put me in my place? Teach me a lesson about being nicer to others but I get it in the end when I learn?”
“You’re so self-centered,” Osamu mutters, trying to rotate back. Atsumu grabs his shoulders to keep him there. He’s dead anyway. From the corner of his eye, Atsumu can see the game over, flashing on the screen.
“Why are you doing this?” Osamu’s avoiding him.
“‘Cause you need me to,” Osamu says. “You need me to do it so you can follow. You won’t do shit if I don’t do it first.”
“That’s a fucking lie!” Atsumu shakes him. They’re gonna fight again and that’s fine. Fights are problem-solvers, the restart they need to be on the same page. “I’ve done better than you. You did it first, and? I did it better and I can sure as fuck do it without you.”
“Good. Cause you’ll have to. I’m not playing after high school.”