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Today's kitchen hand

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sometimes someone will casually mention using chatgpt or some other generative ai thing and I can actually feel the little

above my head

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onigiri shop owner osamu miya

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Osamu miya (23) Owner of Onigiri Miya the man you are...

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have you ever heard of the ‘group effect’? how people are more attractive as a group but if you take them as a singular person, their flaws are magnified and they become wholly less appealing?

that’s osamu but opposite.

osamu’s so cool when he’s alone. respectful and kind to elders, engaged in children’s conversations. he knows how to haggle the most intimidating vendors, can fix a leaky sink, and appreciates drawings made by 5 year olds.

but then you place him in the same room as atsumu and then you realize he’s one half of a whole idiot.

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atsumu never wins setter of the year in his professional career. the pool is small and even talent like his can seem unimpressive when compared to others.

you may have jested on occasion, touting oikawa and kageyama and the like, because a foul mouthed and pouty atsumu is your favorite sight. his huffiness is unbearably endearing and despite the stardom that surrounds him on the court, your eyes are always enraptured by him.

so when atsumu reveals to you that he’s about to retire, you begin planning. it takes a whole season, nights of waffling, (should he? should he not?) and quite literally a whole village, but you’ve carefully curated the night.

surrounded by people he loves, favorite foods on, liquor in so much abundance he’s had to pop the top three buttons of shirt, osamu claps to gather everyone’s attention.

you take your cue. suna dims miya onigiri’s lights back as kita scuttles in front of you, ducked with his head tucked between raised shoulders, as he tries to pass by unnoticed with a microphone. atsumu has an expletive forming on his mouth that mama miya tampers with a quick rub at his back.

you blow a kiss to the woman, that saint. now that the restaurant has quieted, you don’t know quite what to do with yourself. everyone is in on your plan, but still, you don’t know how atsumu would react. joyously, you assume, but there’s a chance he could pull a wildcard on you today.

you tap the mic at your thigh twice and then blow into it, “this thing on?” no one reacts so you blow twice more, “hello? hello?”

suna thrusts a thumbs up from the back, the other hand dramatically covering an ear.

“oh. okay. well…” atsumu’s stupefied expression compared to everyone’s eager one gives you the confidence to continue on. “thank you all for coming today to celebrate. as you know, we all casted our votes weeks ago, and we have finally tallied the votes tonight.”

atsumu looks at his ma then osamu who only give him a knowing smile and shrug. he mouths to you, what the fuck is going on? causing you to chuckle before continuing.

“the winner of this award is well known in his field. In the past year he’s had 3,010 assists, 78 kills, 32 aces, and only Three trips onstage, 2 viral videos but in an ironic way, and 1 in an unironic way…”

you see the light slowly dawn in atsumu’s eyes as he sits up in his seat.

“he has made me laugh and made me mad, and then begged me not to be mad at him which made me laugh again. and he is so deserving of this award, i cannot fathom why it has taken so long for his name to be called. so without any further delay…”

you pull an envelopes from your back pocket. atsumu’s gaze catches yours as you open it and you cannot help but beam. his eyes glitter in the light and your thankful. it doesn’t seem like a wildcard will appear tonight.

“the best setter of the year goes to miya atsumu!” suna takes cue and flips a switch on. atsumu’s engulfed in light as he stands when you gesture for him to join you.

the room erupts in celebration and despite it being all for show, that his trophy is simply an action figure of him that says “BEST SETTER” on the jersey, atsumu envelopes you his arms.

the embrace is joyous and public, but in your ear he thanks you quietly, a frailty in his voice reserved for you. he takes the microphone, and turns to the crowd.

“they said i couldn’t do it!” atsumu points at his brother an faux animosity, “but i always knew i could.”

you smile. there’s that wildcard.

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inarizaki

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A family of cheetahs sleep with the forest guard every night. When the Forest Dept. heard about it, they decided to check the veracity of the claim by installing a CCTV camera. This is what the camera recorded! Just amazing.

Kitties will be kitties 🐈‍⬛

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🎀

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The three C's of being sexy: competence, confidence, and character ...... if yr good at something it makes u hotter if yr confident it makes u hotter if yr weird and unique it makes u hotter ..... aim to have at least two

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i moved and now i get sun in the morning. great news for me. eating the same thing every day.

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letter to theo by vincent van gogh

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the sillies

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nanami mhm mhm yeah yes mhm mhm

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rintarou's sheets are scratchy.

they're new, and haven't yet gone through the wash enough times to properly soften. they haven't been slept on enough times to be fully broken in. you know he bought them because you always used to tease him about his old sheets: faded with some holes in them—a mismatched fitted sheet and top sheet in two different shades of blue, unbefitting of a grown man making grown man money.

so, he got new ones.

these new sheets are green, in the exact shade you like so much—the one you always point out when the two of you are walking in the park near your office on your lunch break. he sent you a picture of the package when he got them home, fishing for praise you refused to give him for doing the bare minimum. they're nice sheets, though. expensive, organic cotton with a high thread count.

but right now, they're scratchy.

and they're irritating you as you lay tangled up in them, the top sheet wrapped around your waist like a belt and twisted around one of your bare legs. you must have been tossing and turning a lot in your sleep, because when you properly rouse from your slumber to take inventory of your surroundings, the first thing you notice is that you're practically knotted into the stiff, new cotton.

you extract yourself from the blankets, stumbling a little towards the door in a fog, and make your way from rintarou's bedroom in the direction of the kitchen.

"oh," rintarou perks up once you appear around the corner, his eyes bright when they spot you. "you're up."

you shuffle around the kitchen counter towards him, your head heavy and pounding, your mouth dry. you feel nauseated, and without thinking, you slump against him with your forehead pressing into the valley between his shoulder blades. you're confused. you're hungover. but he's warm, and smells like laundry detergent. suddenly you feel a little less queasy.

"what's going on?" you grumble into his back. you peel yourself away from him, blinking slowly, and sweep your gaze around the room to get a better sense of things.

suna holds up a frying pan and a whisk. "i'm cooking!"

you blink again. "okay?"

it's not what you meant when you asked him your first question, but rintarou simply smiles. he has an almost puppy-like personality when he gets like this—you can almost picture ears atop his head and a tail wagging happily as he stares down at you.

"how'd i get here last night?"

rintarou freezes, but only for a moment. he quickly turns his back to you again to continue on whatever misguided culinary adventure he'd been attempting before you woke up. "you were pretty drunk."

"my seniors kept egging me on," you complain, rubbing your forehead as the hazy memory surfaces from the night before. it was a company dinner you couldn't get out of, and it had quickly spiralled out of hand. "i don't even remember leaving."

rintarou laughs a little. but he still won't look at you.

"suna."

he doesn't turn, whisking something you can't identify but that you're almost certain should not be whisked in a bowl in front of him on the counter.

"suna." you repeat yourself again.

suddenly, a wave of nausea overtakes you.

no.

no.

you pat yourself down in search of your phone, but the attempt is useless. you're dressed in one of rintarou's t-shirts and boxers, neither of which come equipped with any pockets, and your phone is nowhere to be found. you whip your head around in search of it, but don't spot it anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

"hey—" rintarou finally looks at you when he senses your alarm, and his tone mirrors your own panic. "don't—!"

you swipe his cellphone off the counter in front of him, using the passcode you'd managed to weasel out of him a few months ago to unlock the device and navigate to his call log. you take off running as you tap your way through the various screens on his phone, but he's quickly in pursuit of you—leaving whatever he'd had on the stove to burn like he world's saddest funeral pyre.

"stop, stop!" rintarou is faster than you are, and has longer legs, but even by the time he catches you, you've already found what you're looking for in his call history. he snakes an arm around your waist, pulling you down onto his sofa with him in the living room, and the two of you land in a tangle of limbs against the cushions, your breathing laboured.

"i didn't make this call, did i?" you ask meekly, pointing at a brief call in the late hours of the night prior that sits at the top of his call history. it's from your number, but you're confident you hadn't been the one to dial.

rintarou pouts a little bit, avoiding your eyes. after a moment he shakes his head. you groan, rolling over on the sofa underneath him and hiding your face in your hands.

"i wasn't even there long, i promise," rintarou says, his voice impossibly close because of the way the two of you are sprawled across the sofa. his breath is warm against the column of your throat when he speaks.

you refuse to look at him.

"i didn't even say anything embarassing."

you still don't budge.

"i made sure to thank your coworkers for calling me to come get you and everything."

your hangover has been overtaken by your own mortification, a horrible heat creeping up your face to accompany the taste of bile in your throat. you've been so, so careful not to let your relationship and your career overlap thus far. so cautious about introducing rintarou into parts of your life that would make it even harder to face if or when the time came that he wasn't around anymore.

"are you embarrassed of me?"

his question makes your chest ache. the way he says it twists the knife.

you lift your face from your hands and peek at him over your shoulder. he's so close that your noses almost brush.

"no." you mean it.

the anxiety in rintarou's gaze eases. he presses closer.

"you sure?"

you narrow your eyes at him. "depends. were you wearing that awful yellow track suit?"

rintarou laughs, all breath, and then dips down to kiss you softly. you want to complain that you haven't even brushed your teeth yet, or that you kind of feel like you might be sick, or that whatever he was trying to cook is on the brink of burning down the building. but you don't. you just let him rest on top of you. you let yourself enjoy it.

when he finally pulls away, rintarou has a somewhat sly smile on his face.

"what, rin?" you ask him gently.

"just wondering if now that i've met your coworkers you're going to let me come visit you at lunch, or if you're still gonna make me hide in the park."

"i like the park," you pout.

because the park is green, the colour you like so much. like rintarou's scratchy bedsheets. and his eyes.

"okay, okay," he laughs, pressing his forehead against yours. "i like the park, too."

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©东予薏米  jade rabbits making mooncakes for mid-autumn festival