Archive of Our Own ^beta

It often starts with nothing: an empty space, a dark void, and the futile attempts to navigate it. Even if he had wanted to do something, he could not move his limbs—unsure if he even has limbs at this state—and so he allows himself to drift and wait for the next part to happen.

Then comes a noise that starts out as something garbled and short; inconsistent, and gradually becomes stable. It transforms into past conversations and vague sentences that are often muffled and difficult to decipher. Akin to train station announcements, hard to understand and relying on the nature of how it works to not be alarmed. 

Some noises are more comprehensible that he is able to trace back to their origin. Hearing his mother's voice fills him with warmth, whereas a higher-pitched and shrill voices fill him with annoyance, but that annoyance brings a tinge of comfort and home. Some are ones that he could never remember who they were, but were comforting as the specks of different voices and sounds anchor him as he drifts on the sea of deafening quiet.

It was alarming the first time, the transition period; the shift of the old life and into the next; the encompassing cold that envelops him that slowly warms as time moves forward (or what he assumes as time since it was hard to say); the eeriness of solitude and the overwhelming rebirth.

The calm facade of the sea will shatter itself, and he will find himself in the middle of a riptide—drowning, even if there is no body of water; pulled towards somewhere with no clear direction. This is when he finally gains access to his limbs, and his actions become erratic; trying to hold on to something, anything, but there is nothing.

Supposed, it is human nature to feel alarmed and do something during times of perceived danger, even if they are aware that the outcome is safe. Supposed it was just part of his being not to accept being passive during times of turbulence and fight back even if it was futile.

He was Osamu Miya, after all. He would not go down without a fight.

Soon he will feel the air force itself into his chest, painful and heavy; then the light will shine on his face, beckoning him to open them, and that becomes the moment he decides to wake up. As his eyes open, adjusting to the morning light, he waits for his consciousness to kick into place and rationalise what just happened (a weird and vivid dream), and try to figure out where he is ( bedroom)

Supposed Osamu would be used to it by now—the reincarnation process of feeling nothing and then everything—and yet he still keeps on resisting. Maybe it was his way of asserting his will against his fate and showing that even if he has to play by their rules, he has to do it in his own terms; the false sense of hope that he has a say in things.

Lying on his bed, he allows himself to recollect pieces of what he had experienced and what he had heard, especially how, once another inhabitant of his room comes back, he will not have another moment of peace.

Osamu tries to recall, for however uncomfortable and intense an experience it was, the moment he wakes up —it slips away from him. He wouldn't call them dreams—as they were old memories and experiences—but it was easier for him to regard them as such. 

The glimpses of his old life: hazy, ephemeral, and abstract. He tries to find ways to construct the then and the now, looking for similar patterns, what he calls the constant.  

So far, he was able to break it into the following:

1. The world works within the laws of soul mates, and it differs between people and in every life that he has been, he gets to experience each different one. 

2. He will always be stuck with Miya Atsumu.

3. And being stuck with one Miya Atsumu means being stuck with his soulmate, and seeing him crash out and then finding love. Osamu will spend a lot of time bickering with him, but they will always be there for each other. Especially pertaining that issue.

4. He (is) will fall in love with Suna Rintarou. No buts, ifs, and whats. 

It was always the same.

The moment his life ends in the old one, and he gets sucked into the new one, these are what he considers the laws of the universe. He might never have the full memory of the lives he lived, and as he goes on, the memories become less and less material, until all that is left are the emotions he felt.

Osamu likes to think of this as a gesture of pity— it was far better for him to have a glimpse of the happy memories of the lives he lived, especially with what lurks in the aftermath of those moments. One of the more cruel aspects of living in a universe that bestowed a unique way of finding your fated other was that they are not as straightforward as they seem. Some people hated their fated pair, and it ended badly for them; some never even met theirs.

For Osamu, however, it was harder to tell if he had it worst. For while he loves his fated pair and while they had their fair share of hardships, they always end up happy.

Although not forever.

Not even for the extent of his life.

As much as he would want to, it would never be. For fate decided to play a cruel trick—for every life in which Osamu Miya finds, cherishes, and adores Suna Rintarou, the universe takes Suna Rintarou away from him.

For the last constant of the lives he had lived—and maybe the lives he will live—was that Suna Rintarou will have to die, and he will have to live the rest of his life without him.

In a universe with different ways of finding your soulmates, and with every new life, it entails a new way to meet them—sometimes it's a word, sometimes it's the way he sees the world— it does not matter because it is all a red herring. No matter what, they are haunted by the bitter clause that comes with the ability to fall in love again and again, and again, in different ways and at different times.

Now it seems like he is at the start of a new cycle. As per routine, he figures out where Atsumu is, and it isn’t that hard with the dying sound from the bathroom, a bunch of things toppling over and a muffled voice that seemed to be in the middle of screaming.

Osamu was able to decipher what his twin said. “Ha! Take that, Samu, told ya Kita-san is my soulmate.”

Guess that's another similarity between the two of them, that in all the worlds and all of time, they are bound to one person. It makes him happy, and it was not something he’d say to Atsumu, but it was true. He’s happy that his brother, for all his annoying and obnoxious nature, will always be loved. Not every fated pair is lucky to have love between them, and it seems he and his brother luck out on that one.

“Guess I’ll have to apologise to Kita-san and his grandma for the trouble you’ll be causin’ them in the future. ” Osamu shouts back. 

For now, he will move forward in this life. He is a student from Inarizaki. It is located in Hyogo. He is part of their volleyball team and is the opposite hitter. His team bears the saying "We don’t need the memories”, to which he finds it reassuring, even if it seems like a sarcastic joke from the universe. He still enjoys cooking and maybe plans to open a restaurant. He will get out of bed and get ready for school.

He will be on his way to meet his soulmate.

However, it seems that the latter had already found him, as he looked on his wrist, a tiny message formed itself.

"Are you there?"

He immediately replied,

"I am.”

And not even a minute later, a reply forms itself on his skin. 

“Welcome home.”

The moment he steps through the doors, he is hit with the smell of cleaning detergent and rubber. He finds him standing in the corner, back turned against the wall, head burrowed in his jacket, and a phone in his hand. Osamu can’t help but move towards him, seeing Rintarou again never fails to make his heart dare to burst out of his chest. As he moves closer, he can’t help but look at the other's every detail—the way he squints at what he is reading, the quirk of his lips, the way his hair frames his face.

In their past life, they met when they were a bit older, and the one he was looking at now was something he saw in pictures. As he stood in front of Rintarou, he found himself unable to say anything, even if he wanted to say everything. Meeting him again in their new life was always an experience that made him short-circuit. The hurt and scars of their past lives, forgotten and replaced with ecstasy and the desire to just hold the other and never let go.

He must've taken too long to reply because Rintarou broke the silence. He looked at Osamu and said.

“Can I help you?” Mirth dripping from his words. Green eyes crinkling with life and hues that remind of the fields, on a breezy summer day. Osamu was lucky to have him as a soulmate.

“Hey.” Was all he managed to say back.

“Took you long enough. " Rintarou smiled at him.

“Not my fault, ya left me too soon.”, Osamu replied, smiling back at him.

A comfortable silence falls between the two of them.

"So, Sunarin, what's us in this life? "

“Volleyball team mates, thinking about whether or not we'll win Nationals," Rin replied.

“And do ya?”

“Do I what?”

“Think we can win the interstate high?”

Rintarou placed his hands on his chin, looked up at the ceiling and feigned thinking. “I dunno, what do you think, Osamu?”

“With ‘Tsumu finding out that Kita-san is his soulmate, then I can imagine he’ll do his best to impress his soon-to-be partner. ”

“Ah, they finally know,” Rintarou commented as he decided to sit on the floor and patted the space next to him. Osamu took that as a cue to move to his side and sit.

Sitting next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, they could stay like this forever.

“Hey, Osamu, do you sometimes wonder why we’re each other’s soulmates?”

“What ’dya mean, Rin?”

“Do you sometimes question why I’m your soulmate, and that maybe because of the nature of our soul mate-ship means that we are stuck in this cycle—" Rintarou paused for while, and in a smaller voice her continued "—that maybe if you weren’t bounded to me, and then maybe, you wouldn't be in this nightmare-ish scenario."

“The first time I realised that ya were my soulmate, ‘knew there was no goin’ back. Decided that I’ll do whatever it takes to be with ya—” As Osamu was talking, Rintarou’s hand enveloped his. “I think the first time ya died, maybe my wish to have more time, made us like this. Maybe ya should be the one to question why I am your soulmate."

Rintarou let out a breath and chuckled. "I guess I have to blame you, huh? You love too much that you just couldn't let me go."

Rintarou leaned into his side, and Osamu felt his heart burst—it was the warmth from the other that he missed. "Still, I feel sad whenever I have to leave. You get used to dying but living in this new life, knowing you're still in our old one—I don't think its just fair. "

"None of this is fair, but ya have me now. We're together again."

Osamu yearned for the moments he would get to exist in the same space with him and be trapped in their own bubble, without a care in the world. He wasn't sure how long he had waited until this new life, but it didn't matter now that Rintarou was alive next to him.

"In the next life, Osamu, come find me faster. Take me to the ocean too, I feel like a life near the beach would be fun."

"We can do this in this world. Like to think we have the time.”

"What do you think we should do in this life?"

"Follow our dreams and see where that leads us."

There was nothing romantic about sitting in an empty gymnasium, but with Rin beside him, no matter where they are, no matter the context, Osamu will always see it through rose-tinted glasses

“Let’s make the most of it.”

In a world of soulmates and finding your fated other, Osamu feels his was more of a game of chase—always running and reaching out towards Rintarou, but always failing to have a full grasp on him

“By the way, you should woo me again, or else I’ll find someone else”

It was downright torturous to give him a taste of something and then cruelly take it back. It can drive a person insane—maybe it already has, and that's why Osamu still chooses to resist; small ways to show that even with the nightmare cycle they are both in, there are some pockets of happiness in it.

“As if, I don’t think anyone can handle ya, especially with your tricks”

Osamu Miya is fated to meet and fall in love with Suna Rintarou. Suna Rintarou will die, and Osamu Miya will have to live the last of his days recalling the time they spent together. He will wonder how the other is currently doing and coping with waiting for him to join their next life.

There will always be pain that comes with losing your love, but there is also the hope—even if it's tiny and even if it gets muddled by the loss— and assurance that in the next one, he’ll he waiting for him and they can find news to build their relationship and express their love.

It does not matter that they're running on borrowed time; the fact that they at least have time keeps them going.

In this life and in the next.