Thin Walls and Yellow Roses

The walls in Inarizaki’s old row house were paper-thin. Osamu figured that out years ago, back when they were first-years and Atsumu would blast music at three in the morning, bass thrumming through the plaster like a second heartbeat. He learned it when their mother screamed from the kitchen and he could hear pots rattling from his futon. He learned it every single night after they moved into this two-room hell of their own making.

Tonight, the lesson cut different.

Osamu stared at the ceiling, back flat against the mattress, hands folded over his stomach. On the other side of the wall—just Sheetrock and shitty insulation—came the unmistakable rhythm of a headboard knocking against a frame. A low, breathy moan filtered through. Atsumu’s voice. Deliberately loud. Showy.

Suna Rintarou lay on the floor beside Osamu’s bed, one arm draped over his eyes, phone abandoned on his chest. He hadn’t said a word in ten minutes. Breathing even, unhurried. Calm.

Osamu wanted to punch the wall. Wanted to scream. Instead, he dug his nails into his palms and kept staring at a water stain on the ceiling.

“He’s doin’ it on purpose,” Osamu muttered.

Suna hummed. “Probably.”

“He knows we’re in here.”

“Your room’s right next to his, ‘Samu. Not exactly a state secret.”

The headboard picked up speed. A sharp gasp—or a laugh?—cut through. Osamu’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached. He remembered last month, when Kita-san walked into the locker room and found a phone propped against a bench, recording. Atsumu’s phone. The video was queued up, paused on a frame of Atsumu’s face, lips parted, eyes half-lidded. Kita deleted it without a word, handed the phone back, told Atsumu to be more careful. No lecture. No judgment. Just that quiet, disappointed look that cut deeper than any scolding.

Atsumu laughed it off. Said it was just content. Said it was none of their business what he did with his body.

Osamu wanted to throw up.

“How many times this week?” Suna asked, voice flat.

Osamu didn’t have to think. “Four. No—five. He brought someone back after practice on Tuesday, too. I heard the door.”

“He’s restless.”

“He’s a train wreck.”

Suna shifted, lifted his arm to look at Osamu with one dark eye. “You gonna talk to him?”

“What’s the point?” Osamu’s voice cracked. He rolled onto his side, facing the wall. The headboard went quiet. A door opened, then closed. Footsteps in the hallway—a stranger leaving, probably. The front door clicked shut.

Silence.

Then a knock on Osamu’s door.

He didn’t answer. The door slid open anyway.

Atsumu stood there in a thin robe, sash tied loosely around his waist. Hair damp at the temples, skin flushed, lips swollen. He looked wrecked in a deliberate way, like a performance. Leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and smiled—that sharp, knowing grin that always made Osamu’s blood boil.

“Hope we didn’t disturb your studyin’,” Atsumu said. Voice hoarse. Satisfied.

Suna sat up, reaching for his phone. “You always disturb my studying, Miya.”

Atsumu’s eyes stayed locked on Osamu. The air between them felt thick, charged—seconds before a lightning strike. Osamu didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stared at his twin, at the bruise blooming dark on Atsumu’s collarbone, at the smug tilt of his chin.

“Jealous?” Atsumu asked, soft and venomous.

Osamu’s chest went tight. He thought about their mother catching Atsumu sneaking out at fourteen, crying for hours. The volleyball coach pulling them aside after practice to ask if everything was okay at home. Teammates who stopped meeting his eyes. Whispers in the hall. Rumors that spread like rot.

“Not jealous,” Osamu said, low. “Disgusted.”

Atsumu’s smile flickered. Just for a second. Then it was back, brighter, sharper. “Good night, Osamu.”

He slid the door shut. Footsteps retreated to his room.

Osamu pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars.

Two weeks earlier, the fight was a different kind of explosion.

It started small—a dish left in the sink, a stolen protein bar, some trivial grievance neither of them remembered afterward. But it escalated the way all their fights did: fast, brutal, uncontainable. They ended up in the living room, chest to chest, shouting until their voices cracked.

“You think you’re better than me?” Atsumu screamed, face red, eyes wet. “You walk around with your perfect posture and perfect grades and perfect little friend group, and you look at me like I’m trash.”

“Because you act like it!” Osamu shouted back. “You have no shame, Atsumu. None. You bring strangers into our home, leave your stuff everywhere, don’t care who sees what. You act like the whole world is your audience.”

“Maybe it is.”

“That’s not healthy. That’s not normal.”

Atsumu laughed—a broken, ugly sound. “Normal? We’re twins who finish each other’s sentences and share a fuckin’ face. We’ve never been normal. Don’t start pretendin’ you want to be now.”

“I want you to get help.”

“I don’t need help. I need you to get off my back.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“No, you’re not. You’re embarrassed of me. There’s a difference.”

The words hit like a slap. Osamu opened his mouth to deny it, but the denial stuck in his throat. Because it wasn’t entirely false. He was ashamed. Tired of explaining away the rumors, tired of defending Atsumu to people who’d already made up their minds, tired of the pitying looks from teachers and teammates who assumed he was the same as his twin.

Atsumu saw the hesitation. His face crumpled, just for a moment, before hardening into that familiar mask of defiance.

“That’s what I thought,” Atsumu said, and walked out the door.

He didn’t come home until the next morning.

Now, standing in the hallway two weeks later, still smelling of sex and cheap perfume, Atsumu had made his point. He’d drive the wedge deeper, intentionally, obsessively, until there was nothing left between them but splinters.

Osamu didn’t sleep that night.

The reconciliation came three days later, pushed into existence by a storm.

Rain lashed against the windows, drowning out the world. The power flickered twice before dying completely, leaving them in the dark. Osamu lit candles from the emergency drawer and set them on the kitchen table. Atsumu sat across from him, picking at a bowl of instant rice, face shadowed and hollow in the candlelight.

The silence stretched. Broke. Reformed.

“You don’t have to save me,” Atsumu said suddenly, barely above a whisper. “You know that, right?”

Osamu looked up. Atsumu’s eyes were fixed on the rice, but his hands had stopped moving. He looked small. Younger. Like the kid who used to crawl into Osamu’s bed during thunderstorms, claiming he wasn’t scared, just cold.

“I’m not tryin’ to save you,” Osamu said. “I’m tryin’ to understand you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my brother.”

Atsumu’s laugh was soft, almost sad. “That hasn’t stopped you from hatin’ me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You act like you do.”

Osamu set down his chopsticks. Rain hammered the roof. A candle guttered, shadows dancing across the walls.

“I hate what you’re doin’ to yourself,” Osamu said. “I hate watchin’ you fall apart and not bein’ able to stop it. I hate that you won’t let me in. But I don’t hate you, Atsumu. I could never hate you.”

Atsumu looked up then, eyes wet. He blinked hard, knuckling at his face. “I don’t know how to stop,” he admitted, words cracking. “It’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m in control.”

“Control of what?”

“Everything. Nothin’. I don’t know.” Atsumu laughed, choked and broken. “When I’m with someone, I don’t have to think about the future. Or volleyball. Or you. I can just… be wanted. For a little while. Even if it’s fake.”

Osamu reached across the table and took his brother’s hand. Atsumu’s fingers were cold, trembling.

“You are wanted,” Osamu said. “For real. By people who actually care. By me.”

Atsumu’s composure shattered. He sobbed, ugly and raw, and Osamu pulled him into a hug across the table, knocking over a candle. The flame sputtered out. They sat in the dark, holding each other, while the storm raged outside.

For the first time in months, Osamu felt hope.

For two weeks, things were better.

Atsumu stopped bringing people home. Came to practice on time. Laughed—actually laughed—at Osamu’s stupid jokes. They cooked dinner together, watched old volleyball matches, fell back into the rhythm of being twins instead of strangers sharing a roof.

Osamu let himself believe.

Then Atsumu started throwing up.

At first, he blamed it on bad food. Then stress. Then a stomach bug that just wouldn’t quit. But Osamu noticed the way Atsumu’s hand drifted to his stomach when he thought no one was watching. The way he’d gone pale, waxy—like a candle left too long in the sun.

One night, Osamu found a pregnancy test box in the bathroom trash. Empty. Used. Hidden beneath a wad of toilet paper.

He confronted Atsumu in the kitchen. Atsumu’s face went white, then red, then white again.

“It’s nothin’,” Atsumu said, voice too high. “False alarm.”

“It was positive, wasn’t it?”

“I said it’s nothin’.”

“Atsumu.”

“Drop it, Osamu.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

The words hung between them like smoke.

Osamu’s stomach turned. “You don’t know?”

Atsumu’s chin lifted, defiant, but his eyes were glassy. “I told you, I don’t—it doesn’t matter. I handled it.”

“Handled it how?”

“I took care of it.”

Osamu stared at him, truth dawning cold and horrible. “You got an abortion.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a monster.”

“I didn’t say you’re a monster.”

“You didn’t have to. I can see it in your face.”

Atsumu turned and walked out. A door slammed. Osamu stood alone in the kitchen, staring at the empty box in his hands, and felt the fragile hope of the past two weeks turn to ash in his chest.

He didn’t know how to reach his brother anymore.

He didn’t know if he wanted to.

The breast milk videos were the final nail.

Osamu found out through Inarizaki’s group chat, of all things. A link was posted, accompanied by a string of laughing emojis and question marks. He clicked without thinking, expecting a joke, a meme.

It was not a joke.

It was Atsumu. On a bed, dim lighting, thin tank top. Squeezing his chest, watching with detached interest as milk beaded at his nipples and dripped down his stomach. His eyes were empty. The comments were a flood of praise and depravity and disgust.

Osamu threw his phone across the room.

He retrieved it twenty minutes later, hands shaking, and called Atsumu. Voicemail. Called again. Again. On the fourth attempt, Atsumu picked up.

“What?”

“Take it down.”

“No.”

“Atsumu, take it down. Now.”

“It’s my body. My content. My money. You don’t get a say.”

“People are laughin’ at you.”

“They’re payin’ me.”

“You’re humiliatin’ yourself.”

“I’m survivin’.”

Osamu’s throat closed. He pressed the phone so hard against his ear it hurt. “This isn’t survivin’. This is—I don’t know what this is. But it’s not livin’. It’s just… existin’. In the worst way possible.”

A long pause. When Atsumu spoke again, his voice was quiet. Almost gentle.

“You don’t have to watch.”

“I don’t have a choice. You’re my brother.”

“Then don’t be.”

The line went dead.

Osamu stared at his phone, at the cracked screen, at the reflection of his own face. He looked old. Tired. Like someone who’d been fighting a losing battle for years and finally ran out of ammunition.

He didn’t call back.

Years passed. The distance between them grew from a crack to a canyon.

Osamu graduated. Went to culinary school. Opened a small restaurant that slowly, painstakingly, became successful. Suna was there through all of it—sharp-eyed, dry-humored Suna, who never asked too many questions and never judged him for the answers he didn’t give.

They got married in a small ceremony. Osamu’s mother cried. His father shook his hand. Guests ate good food and danced and filled the venue with laughter.

Atsumu wasn’t there.

Osamu hadn’t invited him.

It wasn’t malice. It was exhaustion. Every interaction with Atsumu had become a battleground, and Osamu had no more wars left to fight. Tired of the arguments, the excuses, the endless cycle of hope and disappointment. Tired of loving someone who seemed determined to destroy himself.

So he cut the cord.

Blocked Atsumu’s number. Didn’t respond to the emails, texts from unknown numbers, letters that showed up at the restaurant with no return address. Told himself it was self-preservation. Told himself Atsumu made his choices, and Osamu made his. Told himself some people couldn’t be saved.

Told himself a lot of things.

Suna held him the night after the wedding, when the silence of their new apartment felt too loud. Osamu cried without making a sound, face pressed into his husband’s shoulder, mourning something he couldn’t name.

“You did what you had to,” Suna said, soft.

“Did I?” Osamu asked.

Suna didn’t answer. He didn’t know how.

The news came on a Tuesday.

Osamu was in the kitchen of his restaurant, plating orders, when his phone buzzed. He ignored it. Buzzed again. Again. A call. A text. Another call.

He wiped his hands on his apron and picked up.

It was his mother.

Her voice was strange. Hollow. The kind of hollow that comes after all the tears have been shed and there’s nothing left but the bleeding aftermath.

“Osamu,” she said. “You need to come home.”

“What’s wrong?”

A pause. A breath. The sound of someone holding themselves together with sheer will.

“It’s Atsumu.”

“What happened?”

“He’s gone.”

The word didn’t make sense. Gone where? Left town? Moved? What did she mean, gone?

“Mom, I don’t—”

“He died, Osamu. Last night. He killed himself.”

The restaurant kitchen went silent. The hum of the fridge, the sizzle of the grill, the chatter of the line cooks—all of it faded into a single, high-pitched ringing in Osamu’s ears.

“What?”

“He left a note. Addressed to you.” His mother’s voice broke, then steadied. “They found him this morning. A neighbor called the police when they heard… when they heard his dog crying.”

Osamu’s legs gave out. He sank to the floor, back against a counter, phone pressed so hard to his ear his hand cramped.

“I’m sorry,” his mother whispered. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Osamu couldn’t speak.

He sat on that kitchen floor for a long time, surrounded by the smell of garlic and onions, the bustle of a world that refused to stop turning, and thought about the last time he’d seen his brother’s face.

Three years ago. A chance encounter at a convenience store. Atsumu looked thin, tired, eyes carrying a weight Osamu chose not to see. They exchanged short, awkward words. Atsumu smiled that sharp, familiar smile and said, “You look good, ‘Samu. Happy.”

Osamu said, “Thanks. You too.”

It was a lie. They both knew it.

Osamu walked away. Didn’t look back.

Now he never would.

The funeral was small.

Osamu sat in the front row, Suna’s hand in his, watching a casket that held the body of his other half. Flowers surrounded it—white lilies, yellow roses, things Atsumu would have called boring and cliché. Osamu chose them anyway, because Atsumu wasn’t there to complain, and because he didn’t know what else to do.

The note was given to him in a sealed envelope. He held it for three days before opening it, hands shaking so badly the paper trembled.

It was short. Atsumu was never good with words.

‘Samu,

I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed. I tried. I really did. But I was tired. I was so, so tired.

I hope you’re happy. You deserve to be happy. Tell Suna I’m sorry for making you sad.

Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me.

—Tsumu

Osamu folded the note carefully, placed it in his wallet, and cried until he had nothing left.

Now, sitting in the funeral home, listening to the priest speak words that meant nothing, Osamu looked at the casket and thought about all the things he should have said.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

Stay.

But he hadn’t. He’d walked away. Chosen his peace over his brother, and now Atsumu was gone, and the peace felt like a lie.

Suna squeezed his hand.

Osamu squeezed back.

The rain started as they lowered the casket into the ground. Osamu stood under an umbrella, watching water pool on the polished wood, and felt something crack open in his chest.

It would never heal. He knew that now.

Some wounds were permanent. Some losses left marks that didn’t fade.

He lost his brother twice: once to distance, once to death. And he didn’t know which one hurt more.

The truth, Osamu would realize years later, was that Atsumu had been dying for a long time. Slowly. In increments. Each stranger in his bed, each video uploaded, each midnight cry no one heard—all steps toward an end that felt inevitable to everyone except the people who loved him.

Osamu saw the signs. He just chose not to read them.

He visited the grave once a year, on the anniversary. Brought flowers—yellow roses, because Atsumu was allergic, and it felt like a private joke only he would understand. Sat in the grass, rain or shine, and talked to the stone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, every time. “I should have been there.”

The stone never answered.

But sometimes, in the quiet moments between words, Osamu could almost feel a hand on his shoulder. A sharp grin in the corner of his vision. A voice that sounded like his own, saying, It’s okay, ‘Samu. I know.

And he would close his eyes, and the weight would lift, just a little.

Just enough to keep breathing.