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For Suna, dinner with his family is something of a monthly affair. For that, he returns to his parents’ house in Nagoya for a home-cooked meal, younger sister Ritsuka in tow—and his mom cooks anything. Whatever it is, he’ll eat it and enjoy it.
Then, they’ll talk about work, politics, Ritsuka’s schoolwork and upcoming entrance exams, Suna’s latest matches, the latest news—the usual.
But dinner with Ritsuka and Ritsuka only is something of a, “call me five hours in advance, and maybe we can make it work,” affair. And the conversation: unfiltered.
“Hey. Hey.”
Suna sits at his table, squinting at his bowl of white rice and the spread of food before him. It’s a humble spread, but decent by their standards: just white rice with furikake, seasoned karaage chicken, stir-fried vegetables and assorted cold toppings. He’s tried to heap bits of them up in his bowl to create a nice look, but it’s a bit slanted—his aim was off with the furikake shake and now there’s seaweed exclusively down the right slope of his rice while the left sits white and clean.
He squints. One piece of chicken is sticking out halfway on the left slope, crisp skin half-peeled and flopping out to reveal bare thigh meat. Not very pretty.
Oh, well.
“Hey. Tarou.”
Suna picks a clump of rice up with his chopsticks by the middle, only for it to fall apart. He clicks his tongue. Sure, the rice stuck together well enough when he first took it out, but now that it’s been a while since it’s been exposed to the open air, it might be drying up just a little. Maybe he just needs to sprinkle a tiny bit more water in the pot next time round. What did their mom say about making the perfect rice—
“Rintarou-nii.”
At the sound of his name ringing loud and clear, Suna glances up quickly, only to catch his sister leaning away from his ear, hands still cupped around her mouth. He makes a face. “What?”
His sister tilts her head slightly, contemplating him as she lowers her arms to the table again, and for a moment, Suna considers the possibility that she’s interrupting their dinner for a staring contest, which is stupid, but also, he’ll win—
“Won’t it be your anniversary soon?”
He blinks, and like that, he’s lost.
“…What?”
His sister rolls her eyes at him as she picks up her spoon and shovels rice into her mouth.
“Your anniversary, idiot,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Romantic anniversary with Osamu-nii.”
Ah. That. That’s. Well. Good that she asked.
Suna frowns as he lowers his chopsticks. “Why do you care, anyway?” he asks.
“Can’t I care about my dear brother’s wellbeing?” She sighs as she meets his deadpan stare. “Okay, fine, don’t be so sensitive about it.”
“It’s not—” Suna shakes his head. “I’m not sensitive about it.”
“Okay, then are you going to answer my question?”
Suna continues to poke at the karaage chicken in his bowl, which threatens to fall down the left slope.
“Uh… no.”
His sister gawks at him. “Huh? Why?”
“Just because. I don’t need to answer to you.” Suna points his chopsticks at her and clicks them twice. “Less talking, more eating.”
“Hmph.” She scoffs at his gesture. “Just like Mom.”
“No way I’m like Mom.”
“You’re right, Mom makes better rice than this.”
“Uh, you helped me make this!”
“Hmmmm, you poured the water in while I marinated the chicken, so…”
“Whatever you say, Ritsu…”
They lapse into a comfortable silence as they each take a couple more bites from the spread they prepared together. Suna’s not the best chef, and neither is Ritsuka, but between the two of them, they were able to cook up some dishes that Suna thinks their mother would hopefully approve of.
Seaweed karaage chicken, Osamu’s recipe. Suna pulls out the piece of chicken stuck in his rice and pops it into his mouth. It’s really not bad, he thinks; Osamu’s training kind of paid off.
He glances at his sister, who stares back at him innocently while she chews.
The thing is, it’s not that Suna doesn’t want to talk about him and Osamu in front of other people. He really does—well, he doesn’t mind. But Suna has never been the type to gush, or be sappy or cute about anniversaries and those types of things.
Maybe if Osamu were around for dinner today, answers might come to him more smoothly. But it’s just him and his sister for the evening, and anyway, the reason why he won’t answer her question isn’t even related to all that. It’s just because it’s kind of embarrassing.
You see, they don’t celebrate anniversaries, never have, because neither of them have ever mentioned it. I.e., they don’t have an anniversary; i.e., Suna doesn’t know when they started dating, actually.
And at this point in time, with countless photographs taken together and Osamu’s clothes in Suna’s closet, it’s a bit too late to ask.
“You’re sure, though?”
Suna blinks. “Um...yeah?”
His sister puts her spoon down and looks at him pointedly.
“‘Cause I remember, you know, almost two years ago from today, I was at the window and I saw the both of you talking in front of our house, and then out of nowhere you kis—”
“Okay—“ Suna sets his utensils down again, cheeks threatening to burn. “I don’t know how much of that you saw, but—”
“I looked away when you guys started kissing, if it helps!”
If his cheeks weren’t pink earlier, they might be now. “It definitely doesn’t,” he mutters, “thanks.”
“The point being,” Ritsuka continues, unbothered, “isn’t that the day you guys confessed and got together?”
Suna considers it for a split second and thinks that maybe it sounds romantic enough to be a good story. But that’s not really where and how they began. He thinks.
“No,” he says, “I don’t think so.”
“What?” Ritsuka frowns, confused. “Then what the hell was all that, then?”
“No, I mean, that was a pretty big moment, I think, but I don’t think that was it. Uh.” His hands twist nervously. “I don’t know when we first started to date.”
His sister is completely unimpressed. “…What.”
“Don’t look at me like that, we kind of just slipped into it, y’know?”
“Okay, now that’s dumb,” she huffs, crossing her arms. “How could you slip into dating Osamu-nii, just like that?”
Suna sighs, because he doesn’t have the answer, not really. How does one just slip into dating someone, anyway?
Suna’ll be honest. The truth is that he doesn’t know how, let alone when, he started dating Osamu. They just…went with it. One moment they were classmates, tossing notes at each other, waiting for time to pass, then another day they were in remedial class together, after which they took the long route home, skipped rocks and saw the sunset along the way. Then they were studying together after school in the clubroom, sometimes in the Miya household. Eating lunch together. Laughing at a joke they heard on television while trying different flavours of ice pops in the summer.
Then, on another day, Osamu asked him, wanna get ice cream? And it became a thing.
And then one day Osamu kissed him on the cheek, then on another occasion on the lips. On another day Osamu held his hand. Maybe not in that order. He doesn’t know. Things happened and he rolled with it.
The kiss in front of his house had happened somewhere in the middle of the timeline, maybe, right before he moved out of Hyogo. He doesn’t remember exactly how it happened but he remembers that he was holding onto something in his right hand, that he was trying to tell Osamu something, and that Osamu had said to him, “you worked hard for this, didn’t you? So why not go?”
And then Suna kissed him. For whatever reason, he kissed him.
“That was…” Suna’s fingers curl and uncurl against the table. “I think it was the day I got an acceptance letter.”
“From the EJP?”
He glances at his front door, where his team jacket lies hanging on the coat rack. “Yeah,” he mutters, “that day.”
“So,” Ritsuka hums, “Not your confession day.”
“…No.”
See, the thing is, Suna doesn’t think he ever did properly confess. Because, youth, you know? They were young and stupid and didn’t put on labels, and Suna never really thought about it until one day, Suna visited Osamu’s pop-up and one of his customers asked Osamu who he was.
“Oh,” Osamu had said, simply, for the first time, “that’s my boyfriend.”
And then he just was.
“I don’t think we have an anniversary,” Suna says, picking his chopsticks back up and shoving a lump of rice and cabbage into his mouth. “And I’m not about to ask, ‘cause it’s gonna make it weird.”
“Oh, please.” Ritsuka rolls her eyes at him. “Weird, my foot. If you think that, then you’re more stupid than I thought you were, Nii-san.”
“Oi.”
“Oi yourself.” She sighs as she picks her spoon up again. “I’m just saying, don’t be a dummy.”
A moment passes, punctuated only by the clinking of utensils and soft sounds of rice scooping.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s that important to have a date,” Ritsuka says between mouthfuls. “But if you think it’s important, then why not just ask?”
—————
His sister is meddlesome. Irritating, inquisitive, much too observant for her own good.
But also.
“Hey.”
It’s almost eleven when Ritsuka’s huddled in her guest bed and Suna is left lying in his, staring at the ceiling in semi-darkness.
“Osamu,” he mutters, closing his eyes as Osamu’s voice fills his ears. “Hey.”
“Hmm?” Osamu's voice is soft, reassuring. “Ya sound so serious. What did you guys talk about?”
“Stuff.” Suna curls up on his side. “I asked about school. She asked me about work.”
“Uh huh.”
“And, uh.” Suna hesitates. “Hey, when did we start dating?”
Right there and then, Osamu bursts into laughter, and Suna’s eyelids flutter open again.
“What? Rin, what kinda question—”
“No, no, I actually wanna hear your answer.”
“Okay… but what’s yours?”
Suna curls up a little more. “Tell me first.”
Osamu hums over the phone. “Okay, then.”
Suna holds his breath as Osamu hums a little before he continues to speak.
“Ya remember in the winter of our third year, when Nationals were over and ‘Tsumu said we could finally all eat ice cream again?”
Suna laughs a little. “He did kinda go overboard towards the end.”
“Let’s call a spade a spade and say it was a dumb-as-fuck rule,” Osamu continues. “And then you and I ditched him and we went to the ice cream shop closest to the train station?”
“Uh… huh.”
“Even though it was winter, and you were cold, and ‘Tsumu was sayin’, why the hell are ya even eatin’ ice cream in winter?”
“…Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Osamu repeats quietly, “I don’t even know if you remember, but that day, I didn’t even open my mouth, but you stepped in and immediately ordered my usual flavour.”
“…Black sesame, double scoop,” Suna mumbles, eyes widening slightly because he doesn’t remember when he first ordered it, but he knows this particular order like the back of his hand.
In his ear, Osamu lets out a soft chuckle.
“Weird, but from that day on, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of us as not datin’, yanno?”
“Oh.” Suna feels his cheeks heat up. “Oh, that’s so long ago.”
“It kinda is,” Osamu admits, “but, well, who cares?”
Suna shifts a bit under his covers.
“Isn’t that just when you fell in love with me?” he says softly.
“Huh?” Osamu pauses. “Well, maybe. But you paid for the ice cream and held my hand that day, so I’ll double-count it as our first actual date.”
Ah, he did, didn’t he?
“So, tell me yours, Rin.”
Suna doesn’t really know. There are so many moments that he could think of. The day they shared their first kiss. The day Osamu first made him a rice ball. The day they stayed behind after practice, just the two of them, and Suna let him bandage his fingers.
Or the day they got caught in the rain, and they had to make a run for it to the nearest shelter, and they spent a whole hour just sitting around in dampness, talking, joking, hands side by side but not quite touching. Or the day they first shared an ice cream cone and a melted drop fell on the back of Osamu’s hand, and Osamu licked it off and continued like it was nothing, and Suna thought in a flash: that was cute.
Oh. Maybe Suna’s liked him for a long, long time.
“If I said I can’t pinpoint a date, are you gonna hate me?”
“‘Course not.” Osamu’s laughter fills his ears again, and Suna thinks that maybe he laughs more often now that he’s pursuing what he loves. “Ritsu say somethin’ to ya?”
Suna raises his head, glances at the blanketed heap on Ritsuka’s pull-out bed, and flops back face-first onto his pillow. “She asked me when our anniversary was,” he mumbles, voice muffled, “and I panicked.”
“Aw, Rin.”
“Do we have one, though?” He flips around onto his back. “Because I really don’t know how we started dating, and at this point I’m too afraid to find out.”
Osamu hums thoughtfully into his ear.
“Wanna fix a date?”
At that, Suna can’t help but laugh. “Like, what, we cherry-pick a date that we like?”
“Yeah.”
It’s ridiculous.
It’s perfect.
“Let’s make it tomorrow, then,” he whispers.
“Why tomorrow?”
“It’s a Saturday, and I won’t have practice.” Suna shrugs. “My favourite kind of day.”
“Lazy,” Osamu chides, but it’s said with affection. “Tomorrow, then. Let’s go on a date. You’re comin’ to Osaka for awhile, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Aquarium? We can be like high schoolers again. Weekend date. Holding hands and watchin’ fish go by.”
Suna smiles into his phone. “You know, we’re not that far apart in age from the high schoolers.”
“Whatever.” He can tell, from his voice, that Osamu’s smiling too. “So, how ‘bout the year?”
“Hmm?”
“The year we started dating.” Osamu says, “Unless you wanna fix it and say it’s our 30th anniversary.”
“Stop.”
“Then we oughta be in our middle ages, and you oughta be coachin’ or something.”
“And you?” Suna indulges. “Would you still be making onigiri?”
“If I can. Or maybe I’ll be making somethin’ else.”
His smile doesn’t fade. “Old man.”
Osamu laughs again. “See ya tomorrow, Rin.”
“Bye, ‘Samu.”
“Love you.” And before he can say anything back, there’s a light click and the call is over. Suna’s phone is light and warm in his hands, light and warm like the sensation that nestles in Suna’s chest when he settles back down against his pillows and closes his eyes.
“I heard all that.”
A muffled voice pipes up amidst the pile on the guest bed, and Suna’s eyes crack open instantly as he sits right up.
“I thought you were asleep,” he accuses, pointing at the heap, where his sister’s face and phone emerge from the top.
From where she’s huddled, Ritsuka scoffs. “What kind of self respecting 16-year-old sleeps at 11 pm?”
It’s Sunday the next day, so Suna can let her off the hook. “Fine, but let’s go to sleep now.”
“You only say that ‘cause you have to wake up early,” his sister says mischievously. “For your date with Osamu-nii~”
Two to three years ago, he would’ve probably instinctively replied, it’s not a date. But now, Suna merely grins.
“It is,” he says, “and I’m going to have fun.”
“...You guys are sappy, y’know that?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Eh.” Ritsuka shifts a little to tuck her phone away, and as she turns back, Suna catches her smile. “Happy anniversary, Nii-san. Even though you guys didn’t figure out the year in the end, you’re both still cute.”
In the end, it doesn’t really matter, because it really could only have been those few years, and Suna has an inkling as to when it might’ve all begun. But that’s for another time, maybe for tomorrow’s lunch discussion, when they’re eating by the ocean and feeling philosophical.
For now, he feels glad. He feels grateful.
As he glances back at his sister, his grin softens, and her smile grows even wider.
He feels loved.
“Thanks, Ritsu.”