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paperultra · 1 year ago

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THE FIVE NONSENSES

[ SOULMATE!AU ] Pairing: Miya Osamu x Fem!Reader x Miya Atsumu Summary: Like most people, you do not meet the Miya twins so much as they are thrust upon you. Unlike most people, you are thrust upon them as well. read on ao3 | read on quotev

CHAPTER TWO: SOUND Word Count: 3,725 words Warnings: Mild swearing

Two months after you turn twelve, you watch your first horror movie.

“What a wimp,” Atsumu sneers, looking down from his nose at you. “Twelve and ya haven’t seen a horror movie yet? Me and ’Samu have already watched loads of ’em.”

“They’re not that scary,” Osamu adds through a full mouth. He’s already chipping away at the cheddar and caramel popcorn, fingers sticky and cheeks puffed full of salty and sweet. “You can see how fake they are.”

Fake, indeed. You glance at the TV. With all the lights shut off and all the blinds closed, the sun having set hours ago, the Miya’s old television set is your sole source of light. The DVD menu flickers before your eyes, a white, windowless room with a single mirror in the middle. Muffled static creeps out from the speakers and into your ears.

You shift discreetly in your seat, then look back at the twins. The cold light from the screen paints their faces ghostly pale.

You clench your fists and shrug impassively.

“Then let’s just watch it already.”

Osamu grunts in agreement. On his other side, Atsumu scowls.

“Don’t know why we gotta babysit ya on movie night,” Atsumu grumbles, reaching for the remote and selecting the Play Movie button. “Not like ya can’t be at home by yerself.”

Perhaps you should thank him for his rudeness this time, since it disrupts the tension enough for you to kick his ankle underneath the kotatsu.

Over the years, you’ve come to terms with the fact that Atsumu does not like you. This is compounded by the fact that Osamu does; of the few ways that you can tell the twins apart, nothing stands out more than their reactions upon seeing you, one turning towards you, the other turning away.

It’s funny how they balance each other out so completely. Osamu may be your soulmate, but Atsumu knows exactly how to get on your nerves.

“You’re the one who needs to be babysat!”

“Says the one who –”

“Can ya both shut up? It’s starting.”

You stop short at the dull prickle of annoyance from Osamu. From the way Atsumu screws up his face, halting his preparation to rear back and slam his feet into yours, he feels it too. The two of you glare poisonously at each other before settling in and letting the title sequence play without interruption.

I won’t get scared, you tell yourself as you reach out to grab a handful of popcorn. You toss a few into your mouth and the crunch of them between your teeth softens the uneasy sound of rolling waves coming from the TV. It’s all fake. Osamu said it’s not that bad, so it’ll be okay.

—

You should’ve known better.

Your room is completely silent as you look up into the void where the ceiling should be, muscles stiff and eyes wide and unblinking. The blankets are pulled up to your nose. It had taken a long time for the bed to warm up to your body, the only thing providing you with some semblance of safety, but it had taken only a matter of minutes before you found yourself agonizingly uncomfortable and sweaty.

You wish you’d kept the door open, but leaving isn’t an option. If you expose so much as a toe, the long-haired woman from the movie might crawl out of the darkness in the corner, stare down at you with a demonic eye and kill you on the spot.

(Telling yourself it’s not real doesn’t work. Because what if – what if –)

In the midst of trying to keep your breaths as quiet as possible, thoughts thundering around behind your eyes, the doorknob turns with a soft click.

“Oi.”

You jolt as if electrocuted.

The yellow beam of a flashlight shines upon your bed. It takes a moment to process everything, but once you do, relief floods your lungs.

“What?” you whisper back, peeking over the covers and squinting through the light.

Osamu and Atsumu crowd your doorway, shoulder to shoulder. Their bodies are nothing but shadowy figures until Osamu turns the flashlight to shine it at his hand, which is raised to show you a deck of cards.

“Wanna play Babanuki?” Osamu asks.

Your mouth parts.

Yes, is what you yell in your head. Anything is better than being all alone in the dark.

“Okay,” is what you say out loud, and the boys shuffle into your room.

You crawl out of bed. Atsumu closes the door behind him, and it is then that you notice the blanket underneath his arm. The three of you settle on the floor in a circle and he tosses the blanket over your heads.

Ah. It’s so the light doesn’t shine underneath the door and get you all in trouble for still being up.

“How’d ya know I was awake?” you ask while Osamu shuffles the cards on your right.

Osamu pauses to glance at his brother, and they seem to communicate something before he shrugs and answers you.

“Just knew.”

“Knew you’d be too scared to go to sleep,” Atsumu taunts quietly.

Your face heats up. “I wasn’t! ’S … ’s just too hot.”

“Liar,” both drone simultaneously.

You wither, lips protruding in a pout.

Osamu begins to pass the cards out. He’s steady and unhurried, three messy piles of cards building up as he goes around and around.

“… How come you guys are still up, then?” you finally mutter, drawing your knees up to your chest.

“Didn’t feel like sleepin’.” Atsumu picks up his pile and sorts through it. “’S too boring after watching a movie.”

Liar. The thought pops into your head unbidden, and you’re surprised at the certainty of it. The twins had jumped and screamed a few times during the movie, sure, but they get over things quick enough as a general rule and had seemed fine by the time the end credits rolled by. The image of them lying awake, terrified in their bunk beds like you had been in your own, is quite the odd thing.

But you do not voice that aloud.

(Babanuki doesn’t need three players.)

Osamu’s knee nudges your own. You look up to meet his eyes, and he holds his cards out towards you, face down.

“Choose one,” he says, and you do.

—

“[L/n]-chan, I have a question.”

“Mmhm,” you acknowledge distractedly, scribbling in the answers for today’s English homework. It’s less than ten minutes before lunch ends, and you had completely missed the other side of the worksheet. (Panicked, barely legible answers are better than none at all.)

Miki watches you carefully, fidgeting in her seat. “Is it true that you and Osamu-san aren’t really soulmates?”

You don’t even pause to think.

Even four years later, you’re faced with this same question from your peers. You fault Atsumu for this, who, despite having stopped outright denying the red string connecting you and Osamu, does nothing to clear the confusion except to say that he’ll always know his brother better than anybody else. Osamu doesn’t seem to give much of a crap, either. You’re the one left explaining things over and over again for some reason, and it gets tiring.

“No, we are.”

“Are ya sure? Even though Osamu-san has Atsumu-san?”

“Yeah,” you say. “We don’t really talk about it.”

More people are trailing into the classroom, including the twins, who had gone off earlier to intrude on Ojiro-senpai’s lunchtime. Despite your efforts to signal that it’s not the best time, Miki scoots closer to you. She’s silent for a few moments and then speaks once more, whispering now.

“Do … do you and Osamu-san actually like each other, [L/n]-chan?” she asks.

This time, you do stop.

It’s easy to feel sorry for Miki. Her name often comes up when your classmates are discussing soulmates – she had met hers during the first week of school, a popular senpai on the baseball team. Their timers went off at the same time in the cafeteria line during lunch.

According to the rumors, Matsuda-senpai told her off. He was graduating this year and didn’t have time for a soulmate two years below him, or something like that. Miki had cried in front of the whole cafeteria.

You do feel bad for her in that regard. Osamu and you may not be best friends, but at least you are on good terms. And despite Atsumu’s antagonizing behavior, he really is just a pest at worst.

“I like him,” you reply. “He’s easy to get along with.”

“But he’s already soulmates with Atsumu-san, and they’re twins. A-And ya don’t eat lunch together every day, even though ya always walk together n’ all,” she presses. “Are ya really okay with that?”

“Yes,” you reply shortly.

Miki doesn’t seem to like your answer. But it is the one you have, and you have to finish this stupid worksheet before the bell rings, so you turn away slightly and scratch at your paper. You hear her finally retreat back to her own desk.

When you glance up towards the front of the classroom, you catch Osamu shooting a rubber band at Atsumu. Atsumu yelps and scrambles to retaliate, and you hear a snap as his attack backfires and hits him in the face.

You cross your ankles underneath your desk and fill out the last blank on your worksheet. There aren’t any mistakes when it comes to soulmates. But each time someone comes up to you and asks that question, you wonder anyways.

—

On the walk home from school, Osamu and Atsumu talk about volleyball.

This is nothing new. There are many things that the twins enjoy, but volleyball is usually at the top of the list, and they always have something to say about it – about drills, their teammates, upcoming games. Most of the time, though, it is about themselves.

You don’t know how the conversation came to it, but they are arguing within a matter of minutes, which is also nothing new. No two siblings are more competitive than the Miya twins. It’s both entertaining and annoying, and you take Osamu’s side every time.

“I’m just sayin’ that you’re sloppier, ’Tsumu.”

“Sloppier?! Yer sets were off, like, half the time today!”

“No, they weren’t.”

“Yuh-huh!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“See ya tomorrow, [Y/n]-chan,” Kokomi tells you as you arrive at her house, and you nod, stopping just briefly to wave goodbye. She doesn’t bother bidding goodbye to the twins, who are too engrossed in their bickering to even notice. “Our packet for math is double-sided, so don’t forget.”

“… I won’t,” you mumble sheepishly.

She waves once more, then saunters down the pathway to her front door.

Turning to see that Osamu and Atsumu are now further away, having left you behind, you frown and jog slightly to catch up.

“If ya really are the better setter,” Atsumu is saying once you’re within earshot, his voice rising, “then prove it! Vertical sets, last man standing wins.”

“We only got one volleyball at home, moron,” Osamu retorts. Then he tilts his head, and you nearly miss a step, surprised, when he suddenly turns around to look at you. “You have one, don’t you, [Y/n]?”

Even after four years, you’re not quite used to him using your first name without an honorific. “Yeah,” you reply, attempting to keep your tone from sounding too flustered.

Your dad had gotten you one after the twins mentioned their interest in volleyball during an awkward joint family dinner not long after you’d met them. It’s important to support your soulmate’s hobbies, he’d told you, and it wouldn’t hurt for you to be a bit more athletic, anyway.

You like volleyball just fine. It’s one the more enjoyable sports to play during gym, but it hasn’t got a hold of you quite like it has on Osamu and Atsumu. Still, the volleyball remains in your room, pumped up and ready to be played around with when you feel like it.

“We’ll just borrow it for a bit,” Osamu says. “Wanna judge?”

“Aw, c’mon, ’Samu,” Atsumu complains. “We don’t need a judge. Why’s she gotta be there?”

The sharp reply in your throat is cut off by Osamu.

“’Cause we’re using her volleyball, and I want her there.”

You blink.

A bitter expression crosses Atsumu’s face. Then he knocks his head back and groans. “Ugh,” he says loudly, but for some reason, he does not push it further.

The three of you part ways when you reach your house. You head inside, text your mom to tell her that you’re going to the Miyas’ for a little while, drop your school things off in your room and grab your volleyball, and head back out.

Miya-san tells you that the boys are already in the backyard when she lets you in. Sure enough, when you walk out into the small strip of land behind their house, Osamu and Atsumu are waiting there, already disputing their previous setting records.

“Here,” you announce, tossing your volleyball to Osamu.

He catches it easily and meets Atsumu’s eyes, narrowing his own.

“Standing vertical sets, no stopping,” Atsumu says as the two of them move further apart.

“Loser gets first dibs on the PlayStation for the next two months,” Osamu adds.

“Deal.”

Your eyes track your volleyball as Osamu raises it over his head, perching it onto his fingers with a kind of firm delicacy that makes the ball look perfectly at home.

And without words, without even looking at each other, the two boys begin at the exact same time.

You sit on the chair next to the potted plant and watch them idly.

They really are mirror images of each other. The same concentration wrinkles their brows, their jaws set. You’ve heard from members of both the girls’ and boys’ volleyball teams that Osamu is the better player by a slim margin, but here, with them facing each other and the volleyballs’ soft tap tap taps hitting your ears in a syncopated rhythm, you admit that it’s very hard to tell.

Really, you do not need to be here – Atsumu’s right for once, because the twins have a scary awareness of their surroundings when it comes to volleyball, and one will certainly catch the other if he fumbles.

The competition goes on for a long, long time.

“Gettin’ tired, ’Samu?” After what seems to be hours, Atsumu breaks the silence, shaking you out of your daze.

Osamu scoffs. “You wish, ’Tsumu.” Though his voice is steady, you notice that he’s breathing a little harder, and his sets are getting higher.

Your own wrists are starting to cramp. How long have they been doing this now?

A few more minutes plod by.

Then – finally – the volleyball lands off-kilter on Atsumu’s fingers. You sit up, eyes widening as it bounces off to the side.

A curse flies out of Atsumu’s mouth as he dives after it, but to no avail. It lands on the grass and quickly rolls to a stop. He’s lost.

“You lose,” you say, because you feel like being petty.

“Shaddup!”

“Guess I’m still the better setter.” On your left, Osamu continues setting the ball. There’s a grin on his face now, and you know that he’s doing this purely to tick Atsumu off. “Bet I can break my record.”

“Whatever,” Atsumu gripes, picking up their volleyball and standing up. “Stop showin’ off!”

Osamu ignores him.

What happens next would’ve been impressive if it wasn’t so horrible.

Fuming, Atsumu tosses the volleyball up. It ascends in a perfectly straight line, and as it falls back down, he winds his other arm back and spikes the ball straight at Osamu.

Instead of hitting Osamu, however, it slams straight into your volleyball right as it’s descending. Thud.

All of you watch, frozen, as your volleyball flies up and over the wall into the neighbor’s yard.

None of you say a word for a good five seconds.

You leap at Atsumu, fully intending to throttle him. “Ya idiot!”

“I didn’t mean to!” he shouts back, struggling to escape your grip. His hand presses flat against your face and you have half a mind to bite it off. “Let go!”

“Stupid ‘Tsumu,” Osamu hisses. “That’s Akiyama-san’s yard!”

Upon hearing the name, the two of you still.

Everyone on your street knows Akiyama-san. He’s old and crochety, and he walks with a cane that he lifts high above his head whenever he’s shouting at any of you because he hates kids. Everything your parents have hammered into your head about greeting your elders sails right out whenever you spot him walking down the street. Nobody says it, but you’re all afraid of him. Even the Miya twins.

The worst thing about Akiyama-san, at least at this very moment, is that he has a dog – a big, mean one, even meaner than its owner. A dog who, as you, Atsumu, and Osamu find when you peek over the wall, is thankfully nowhere in sight at the moment.

You bite the inside of your cheek. “Do we ask Akiyama-san to get it for us?” you whisper, eyes glued on your volleyball nestled in one of the bushes.

“Are ya dumb? If he doesn’t kill us, he’ll just feed the ball to his dog,” Atsumu shoots back.

“Atsumu,” Osamu says, and you look over to see him staring ahead with his chin resting on top of the wall. There’s a serious tilt to his mouth. “Go get it.”

“… Hah?!”

“It’s yer fault,” you argue.

“Well – well”—Atsumu glares at you, then at his brother—“’Samu’s the one who was settin’ it!”

“Still yer fault,” mutters Osamu. “I ain’t riskin’ my life.”

“So you’re riskin’ mine?!”

You shift uncomfortably, their quarreling fading away as you consider the options. Your volleyball is a nice one. Not cheap at all. Your dad would be quite upset if he found out you sacrificed it to Akiyama-san’s yard, and he’d probably make you go apologize and ask for it by yourself.

Swallowing, you hoist yourself up.

“I’ll get it.”

The noise the twins make is nothing short of a hushed squawk as you clamber over the wall.

Your shoes land softly on the grass. Scanning the yard, you nod to assure yourself that it’s empty, then glance at the dog door built into the back door. It doesn’t budge. You look up at the windows. All the blinds are shut.

Further emboldened, you move your gaze to your volleyball, tiptoeing towards it and picking it up gently.

Success.

Smiling, you face the twins.

Their faces have gone pale.

Your smile fades as a soft growl pierces the evening air. Looking over your shoulder, you lock eyes with Akiyama-san’s monster dog.

Drool drips from its jowls, teeth large and sharp and yellow, eyes beady and black. You’ve no idea what breed it is. All you know is that it is there, and it is huge and angry.

It probably dreams of eating kids, you think, blood draining from your face. You’d be a full course meal with the volleyball as dessert.

Osamu whispers your name.

You turn again, sweat dripping down your forehead, and see him perched on top of the wall, knees bent and arms outstretched towards you as if he were in a volleyball match. The red string on his pinkie drifts in the breeze.

Throw it, he mouths.

You inhale. Tighten your hold on your volleyball. Then you launch it towards Osamu and sprint towards him.

The dog lets out a thundering bark, running after you. You can hear the tags on its collar clanking against each other. Its giant paws flatten the grass beneath it.

Osamu catches the volleyball and tosses it at Atsumu.

You jump, and you swear you feel jaws snap at your heels.

“Osamu!”

He grabs you by your wrists and throws his weight backwards. Your legs scrape against the concrete wall as the boy hauls you up and over it, sending both of you tumbling headlong into their yard.

When you come to, your mind feels fuzzy, body shaking with adrenaline. Beneath you, Osamu groans. You hastily roll off him to lie on the grass.

“Thank you,” you pant.

Osamu gulps for breath. “’S nothin’.”

Behind the wall, the dog continues barking.

“What the hell!” Atsumu cries, and you crack your eyes open to see his face pop into your field of vision. “Do ya have a death wish or somethin’?”

For the first time, Miya Atsumu actually looks concerned for you.

“No.” You prop yourself up onto your elbows, wincing at the ache in your shoulder and the stinging on your knees. You glance at them. Yikes. They’re all scraped up. But despite all of it, you feel a grin spreading across your face. “I just ain’t a wimp like you.”

He gawks, then sputters.

“Nice receive, ’Tsumu,” Osamu says. He gets up with a grunt, then helps you up. His arm slides underneath yours and across your shoulders. “You can walk fine, right?” he asks you plainly.

“Yeah. Kinda.” You’re still a bit trembly.

He nods. His hand remains steady on your shoulder.

As the two of you start ambling towards the house, Atsumu says your name.

Guilt twists his features in an unfamiliar way when you look at him. He lowers his head slightly, eyes averted.

“… Sorry,” he mumbles, looking for all the world like he’d rather wrestle Akiyama-san’s dog right now.

You regard him. “’S fine,” you say, slowly.

(In the back of your mind, you realize that it really is. All your anger must’ve fizzled out with the run.)

The boy’s expression doesn’t change, but his shoulders slump a little, as if relieved.

“Let’s get the bandages from bathroom,” Osamu mutters while Atsumu slides the door open. “But we gotta be quick, ’cause if Ma –”

“If I what?”

For the third time that day, you all freeze in place. It’s an interesting sight – you and Osamu with your arms around each other’s shoulders, Atsumu with both volleyballs in his arms. The shadow of the twins’ mother, falling over the three of you.

Ah, crap.

Miya-san’s gaze flickers downward at your scratched-up legs. Her face goes through more emotions than you can count, and then it stills.

She takes a deep breath, but the twins beat her to it.

“It wasn’t me!”

—

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#haikyuu #hq #miya atsumu x reader #miya osamu x reader #miya atsumu #miya osamu #miya atsumu x reader x miya osamu #haikyuu fanfiction #reader insert #fem!reader #soulmate au #i watched ringu for this chapter only for me to barely reference it at all rip. it's rlly good though and not as scary as i thought #shoutout to fanfics for making me try new things #babanuki is old maid #the five nonsenses

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