Chapter Text
“H-hey… Atsumu…” Osamu wasn’t expecting to see his brother up. Wracking his brain, he couldn’t think of any moment in the last ten minutes that he heard any footsteps around him, so Atsumu must have come in when the music started.
“Sleeping beauty decided to grace us with his presence I see,” their mom chided in, clearly trying to cut the tension with a very dull knife. “You wanna wash your hands and help us?”
Shifting his legs under the table, Atsumu stretches his arms above his head and groans, shutting his eyes. “Nah, I'm good,” he says. “Don't wanna get in the way.” he opens them to look right at his brother, and Osamu doesn’t miss the hurt in Atsumu’s eyes when he speaks, or the very obvious cutting remark sent his way.
“Atsumu,” the warning from his mother breaks the intense eye contact, Osamu dropping his gaze down to his socked feet.
“Yeah whatever, sorry” Atsumu grumbles out, the last word coming out more like an exhale.
“Be nice,” their mom adds, and it's less a message to the blonde, and more a statement to both of her sons. She’s very aware of what happened between the two, remembering the slammed doors and the deafening silence throughout their house that day. She gives them one last look and walks out of the kitchen, sitting on a small armchair in the family’s sitting room.
Turning towards the rice cooker, Osamu hopes the awkwardness at least helped the time pass faster, with less time to be distracted by his emotions-
Twenty-eight minutes remaining.
Well.
Clapping his hands together to try and ease his nerves, Osamu walks over to the counter and starts wiping stray crumbs away with a cloth he grabbed from the sink. By this point, Kenny Loggins has faded out, and another song has taken its place.
“Oh, sick! I love Vanilla Ice,” Atsumu says, tapping his fingers on the table to what he THINKS is the opening beat to Ice Ice Baby. Without thinking, Osamu turns his head and gives his brother an are you fucking kidding me? look.
“No you blockhead, it's Queen and Bowie? Under Pressure? Are you that dense?”
“Damn, didn’t mean to shit on your fucking breakfast this morning.”
Osamu’s fists tighten on the counter, but he doesn’t move. He knows deep down that he took it a step too far with that last comment, but boy does Atsumu know how to get on his nerves. It’s his special talent; something he’s excelled at since the two knew how to walk and talk.
“Whatever,” Osamu grumbles under his breath, not wanting to fight with Atsumu. Making everything a bit worse doesn’t sound too appetizing, and Osamu just wants to get through the rest of the day without another screaming matches with his brother.
Ignoring the ringing in his ears, Osamu keeps his back turned to the table and lets himself get into the song, his head bopping softly along to the beat. When Bowie starts singing, Osamu starts mouthing the lyrics while he shakes out the cloth he used on the counter a moment ago.
For a while, it’s quiet in the kitchen, while Atsumu watches his brother try and hide his clear enjoyment of the song. But between the slight shoulder shakes that let him know that Osamu is clearly trying to sing along, or his foot tapping along to the beat, he’s god-awful at hiding it. He always has been. Looking at his twin, Atsumu can’t help but remember all the times he too would try to hide his excitement and pure joy over a song, until his brother ultimately dragged him by the arm to dance with him. Osamu was good to him like that. He never made his brother feel weird about wanting to enjoy something.
For the first time in five days, Atsumu lets out a small laugh.
It’s not a loud one, but it made enough sound for his brother to turn and see Atsumu quickly turn his head away and cover his mouth with the back of his hand, not wanting his smile to be seen. He lets out his best attempt at a throat clear, which only makes Osamu’s eyes narrow in further suspicion.
“You good?”
Atsumu coughs unconvincingly.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, only half a lie. Relatively speaking, Atsumu is okay, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss dancing with his brother right about now.
Osamu turns his head back to the sink, clearly unconvinced but not caring much to start questioning. The cloth has been wrung out and is now sitting draped over the tap to dry. His gaze lingers there for a moment, and he considers, just for a moment, sitting down next to his brother and apologizing. There's only so much time left before they both graduate and ultimately go their separate ways. Osamu would never admit to his brother that he loved him (in their entire lives, the twins have said that word to each other 9 times at most).
But he didn’t. Osamu didn’t have the right words to say to his brother right now. So he just stood there, staring at the cloth, hoping the words he was searching for would come to find him instead. Digging crescent moons into his hand with his nails, he doesn’t turn around, until he hears a voice behind him.
“...Pray tomorrow gets me higher, higher, high”
Osamu almost laughs out loud at Atsumu’s off-key singing. Even at the volume he is, Osamu could know his brothers singing anywhere. He never could quite hit the notes.
“Sat on the fence but it don't work
Keep comin' up with love but it's so slashed and torn”
He’s still going, a little louder now, an invitation for his brother to join him.
Osamu thinks for a split second. Considering how dumb he would look if he just turned around and started belting along, he kept his back turned to his brother and began to join in softly. Not too loud that it would be annoying, but enough for Atsumu to know that he was listening.
Osamu was, if anything, a worse singer than his brother. Growing up, their extended family would often tell their parents to be grateful they had something else other than singing to offer the world, much to the boy’s disappointed looks. The two had convinced themselves when they were much younger, that they were gonna be “the next big act coming out of Hyogo since KinKi Kids!”
Years later the two would deny ever saying anything like that, having realized their talents did not lie in the idol industry.
Osamu sucks in a breath, putting his own embarrassment and pride aside for a second, and joins in with his brother when Atsumu starts singing Freddie’s “why, why, why?”, overlapping it with Bowie chanting “love love love” over and over.
Osamu hopes it was loud enough for his brother to hear, and that he wasn’t angry that he tried to join in.
“Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking” Osamu hears behind him, louder this time. Just turning his head, he sees Atsumu’s eyes now trained on him. Looking right at his own. Testing the waters, Osamu keeps going.
“Can't we give ourselves one more chance?”
And Osamu would be joking if he didn’t force the lump in his throat down when he saw his brother smile at him for the first time since their fight.