The Onigiri That Stayed
When Osamu comes home early, he discovers his twin brother Atsumu's hidden battle with an eating disorder. A story of understanding, support, and the slow journey towards healing, one onigiri at a time.
The first thing Osamu noticed was the silence.
Their house was never silent. Not with Atsumu around, filling every room with that obnoxious voice, his loud laugh, his constant need to be the center of attention. But today, when Osamu pushed open the front door an hour early—practice ended early because Coach Kurosu had a family emergency—there was nothing.
He kicked off his shoes, waiting for the familiar sounds of his twin yelling at whatever cooking show he pretended not to watch. Instead, a strange, muffled noise came from the living room.
Osamu froze.
It took him a second to recognize it. Sobbing. Deep, ragged, desperate sobbing, like someone trying to breathe through water.
He moved without thinking, his feet carrying him down the hallway on instinct. The living room door was slightly ajar, and through the gap, he saw something that shattered everything he thought he knew about his twin brother.
Atsumu was on the floor, curled into their mother's lap like he was five years old instead of fifteen. His shoulders shook with violent tremors, and his fingers twisted in the fabric of her sweater like he was drowning and she was the only thing keeping him afloat. Their mother's hand moved in slow, steady circles on his back, her face a mask of barely contained anguish.
"I can't do it anymore, Mama," Atsumu choked out, his voice raw and broken. "I can't. I can't keep pretending."
Osamu's hand let go of the doorframe. He hadn't realized he'd been gripping it hard enough to leave marks.
He backed away slowly, silently, his heart pounding so loud he was terrified they'd hear it. He made it to his room and shut the door, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands.
What the hell was that?
The flashbacks came unbidden, fragments of memory he'd dismissed at the time but now reassembled into something horrifying.
Three months ago.
Atsumu came home later than usual, his practice jersey stained with something dark. When Osamu asked about it, he laughed it off. "Just dove for a ball in a puddle, Samu. Don't get your panties in a twist."
Osamu believed him.
Six months ago.
Atsumu stopped eating dinner with the family. Said he was watching his weight for the upcoming tournament. Their mother raised an eyebrow but didn't push. Atsumu was always intense about volleyball. That was just who he was.
Osamu believed him.
Nine months ago.
Atsumu came home with a bruise on his jaw. "Got into a fight with some upperclassman from another school. Don't worry 'bout it, I won."
The coach at the time—their old coach, the one fired at the end of last year—had always kept Atsumu late for extra training. Said he saw potential in him. Said he needed to be pushed harder than the others.
Osamu believed him.
One year ago.
A girl started calling Atsumu's phone at all hours. She was older, seventeen, from a different school. Atsumu would slip out to meet her, come back with shadows under his eyes and a smile that didn't reach his face.
"She's just demanding," Atsumu said when Osamu asked why he looked so tired. "You wouldn't get it, Samu. She's special."
Osamu believed him.
Now, sitting in his room, Osamu replayed every single one of those moments and saw them for what they really were.
The bruises weren't from practice. They were from the coach.
The weight loss wasn't for volleyball. It was because Atsumu was making himself throw up.
The girl wasn't special. She was hurting him.
And the scars.
Osamu's stomach lurched as he remembered the time he'd walked in on Atsumu changing, catching a glimpse of thin, parallel lines on his forearm before his twin yanked his sleeve down.
"Cat scratched me," Atsumu said, already laughing. "You know how the strays around here get."
Osamu believed him.
I believed everything.
The confrontation came two days later.
Osamu had been watching. Really watching, for the first time in his life. He noticed how Atsumu's hands shook when he thought no one was looking. How he excused himself to the bathroom immediately after every meal. How he flinched whenever someone touched him unexpectedly.
"Tsumu."
Atsumu looked up from his phone, sprawled across his bed with practiced nonchalance. "What, Samu? If you're gonna complain about me stealing your charger again—"
"Stop."
The word came out harder than Osamu intended. Atsumu's smirk faltered for just a fraction of a second.
"Stop what?"
"Stop pretending." Osamu stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "I saw you. With Mom. I heard you."
The color drained from Atsumu's face. For a moment, he looked almost terrified—a raw, open fear Osamu had never seen on his twin's face before. Then, like a mask being pulled down, the arrogance snapped back into place.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about." Atsumu laughed, but it was hollow and wrong. "Must've been dreaming or somethin'. You know how stress gets to you."
"Stress?" Osamu's voice cracked. "Tsumu, you were sobbing."
"People cry, Samu. It's normal."
"Not you." Osamu stepped closer, and Atsumu flinched back. The movement was so automatic, so ingrained, it stopped Osamu in his tracks. "Not like that."
Atsumu's jaw tightened. "Drop it."
"I'm not dropping anything. I saw your arms, Tsumu. The scars. The ones you've been hiding."
"I told you, it was a cat—"
"Bullshit."
The word hung in the air between them. Atsumu's eyes went cold, a defense mechanism Osamu recognized all too well.
"You don't know anything," Atsumu said quietly. "So just leave me alone."
"Then tell me." Osamu's voice broke. "Tell me so I can know."
But Atsumu just turned away, pulling his knees up to his chest, making himself small in a way so unlike his usual larger-than-life presence that it made Osamu's chest ache.
"Get out, Samu."
"Tsumu—"
"I said get out!"
The scream was raw, ragged, desperate. Osamu stumbled back, his hand finding the doorknob, and he left before his legs gave out.
He didn't sleep that night.
The next morning, Osamu went to Kita Shinsuke.
It wasn't a decision he made lightly. Kita was their captain, but more than that, he was the one person Osamu trusted to understand without judgment. He found him before practice, alone in the storage room organizing the volleyball carts.
"Kita-san."
Kita turned, his expression calm and steady as always. "Miya. You're early."
"I need to tell you something." Osamu's voice was barely a whisper. "About Atsumu."
Kita's eyes sharpened. He set down the volleyball he was holding and gave Osamu his full attention. "Tell me."
And Osamu did. Everything. The crying. The scars. The way Atsumu flinched and pretended and smiled through all of it. Kita listened without interrupting, his face growing grimmer with each word.
When Osamu finished, Kita was quiet for a long moment.
"Thank you for telling me," he said finally. "This stays between us and the team. We'll watch over him."
"How?" Osamu's voice cracked. "How do I help him if he won't let me in?"
Kita's hand landed on his shoulder, firm and grounding. "You be there. Every day. Even when he pushes you away. Especially when he pushes you away. That's how."
The Inarizaki team became an invisible net.
Suna Rintarou started sitting next to Atsumu at lunch, making offhand comments that kept him talking, kept him present. Aran Ojiro made sure to walk with him between classes, a steady, reassuring presence that didn't ask questions. Kita called Atsumu's name during practice more often, making sure he was hydrated, making sure he was eating, making sure he was there.
And Osamu followed him to the bathroom after every meal.
It became a routine. Atsumu would stand up, and Osamu would be right behind him. Atsumu would lock the door, and Osamu would wait outside, counting the seconds, listening for any sound that didn't belong.
"Stop following me," Atsumu snapped on the third day.
"No."
"I'm serious, Samu. I don't need a babysitter."
"Too bad."
Atsumu's eyes blazed with frustration, but there was something else underneath it. Something that looked almost like relief.
On the fifth day, Osamu intercepted a call.
The phone buzzed on the kitchen counter, an unknown number flashing on the screen. Atsumu was in the shower, and Osamu answered without thinking.
"Hello?"
A pause. Then a girl's voice, cold and familiar. "Put Atsumu on."
"Who's this?"
"That's none of your business. Just give him the phone."
Osamu's grip tightened. "He's busy."
"He's always busy." A sharp laugh. "Fine. Tell him I'll call back later. We have unfinished business."
The line went dead.
Osamu stared at the phone, his heart hammering. He deleted the number from the call log before Atsumu came out of the shower.
It wasn't enough.
Osamu knew that now, sitting in the waiting room of Hyogo Prefectural Hospital, his hands still stained with blood that wasn't his, his ears still ringing with the sound of Suna's panicked voice on the phone.
"Osamu. Get to the school bathroom. Now."
He'd run. He'd run faster than he'd ever run in his life, bursting through the door to find Atsumu slumped against the tile floor, an empty bottle of painkillers beside him, his skin pale and his breathing shallow.
Osamu screamed. He shook Atsumu, slapped his face, begged him to wake up. He performed CPR until the ambulance arrived, his own sobs mixing with the wail of the sirens.
Now he was here, sitting in a plastic chair that was too small and too hard, staring at the door that led to his brother's room.
Kita was beside him. He'd been there the whole time, a steady hand on Osamu's shoulder, not saying anything, just being there.
The door opened. A doctor stepped out, her face tired but not grim.
"He's stable. We pumped his stomach. He's asking for you."
Osamu was on his feet before she finished the sentence.
Atsumu looked small.
That was the first thing Osamu thought when he saw his twin in the hospital bed. Atsumu was never small. He was loud and bright and took up all the space in every room. But here, under the harsh fluorescent lights, with IVs in his arm and shadows under his eyes, he looked like a ghost of himself.
"Hey, Samu."
The voice was weak, barely a whisper. Osamu crossed the room in three strides and collapsed into the chair beside the bed.
"Don't," he said, his voice breaking. "Don't you ever do something like that again. Don't you dare."
Atsumu's eyes glistened. "I just wanted it to stop."
"Then tell me." Osamu grabbed his hand, gripping it so tight his knuckles went white. "Tell me how to make it stop. I can't help you if you won't let me in."
The dam broke.
Atsumu's face crumpled, and the words came pouring out like water from a cracked vessel. The coach. The girl. The things that had been done to him, the things he'd done to himself to cope. He told Osamu everything—the hands that had touched him without permission, the voice that had told him he was worthless, the food that had become his enemy, the knife that had been his only comfort.
"I thought I deserved it," Atsumu whispered. "I thought if I was just better, just stronger, just different, it would stop. But it never stopped."
Osamu was crying now, tears streaming down his face. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want you to look at me like this." Atsumu's voice cracked. "Like I'm broken."
"You're not broken." Osamu leaned forward, pressing his forehead against his brother's. "You're not broken, Tsumu. You're just hurt. And we're gonna fix it. Together."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
The days that followed were brutal.
Atsumu was transferred to a rehabilitation facility that specialized in eating disorders and trauma. He attended therapy sessions that left him drained and hollow-eyed, sometimes refusing to speak for hours afterward. Osamu went to family therapy, learning how to support his brother without smothering him, how to recognize the warning signs before they spiraled.
The Inarizaki team visited whenever they could. Kita brought homemade bento boxes, simple and nourishing. Suna sat with Atsumu during his quiet hours, not saying anything, just being a presence. Aran sent him stupid memes that made him crack a smile.
Slowly, painfully, Atsumu started to heal.
Three months later.
Osamu stood in the kitchen of their family home, rolling onigiri with practiced hands. The cooking show played on the television in the living room, the host's cheerful voice a familiar background noise.
He heard Atsumu shuffle in before he saw him. His twin had gained back some weight, and there was color in his cheeks again. He still had bad days—days when he couldn't look at food without his hands shaking—but they were becoming less frequent.
"Whatcha making?" Atsumu asked, flopping onto the couch.
"Onigiri. Tuna mayo."
"Make one with umeboshi too."
"Make it yourself."
"Samu."
The whine was so familiar, so Atsumu, that Osamu couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. He grabbed a pickled plum from the fridge and started on a second batch.
Atsumu watched him work, his eyes soft and distant. The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable—it was the kind of silence that came after a long conversation, when there was nothing left to say but everything had been understood.
Osamu brought the onigiri to the living room, setting the plate on the coffee table. Atsumu reached for the tuna mayo one, hesitated, and took a small bite.
Osamu held his breath.
Atsumu chewed slowly, swallowed, and took another bite.
"I'm proud of you," Osamu said quietly.
Atsumu's eyes glistened, but he didn't cry. Instead, he leaned his head against his brother's shoulder, the way he used to when they were kids.
"Thanks for not giving up on me."
"Never," Osamu said. "Not in a million years."
They sat there, two halves of a whole, watching the cooking show as the sun set outside. The onigiri disappeared slowly, one bite at a time, and for the first time in a long time, Atsumu's stomach was full without feeling like a betrayal.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't fixed.
But it was a start.
And for now, that was enough.