Work Text:
Osamu remembers every single face that has walked through the doors of Onigiri Miya since the day they’ve opened. He has yet to hire another worker, manning all stations of his business himself. The rush hours always provided him with a bit of a heavy work load, but Osamu has learned a lot about diligence and patience. Business had been good enough; traffic was steady throughout the day, and he had his fair share of regulars whose orders he had already memorized.
The stuffy, salt-and-pepper haired man in the pressed three-piece suit always ordered two umeboshi onigiri and a medium iced green tea. The kind old woman that ran the shop across the street would come in for his salted salmon, and if he had extra, Osamu would throw in an extra tuna mayo. She’d always smile and give him a pat on the shoulder, her eyes crinkling in a way that reminded Osamu of his grandmother.
It was when the shopkeeper had slowly walked out of his establishment and back to her own that Osamu noticed you standing a few feet away from his storefront. You had been wearing a face mask, but Osamu could see that you were staring at his sign. Your eyes squinted at the block letters that looked down at you, before they trailed down to land directly on Osamu. You seemed a little startled at the fact that his eyes were already staring at you, but you were standing outside his restaurant, weren’t you?
Before he could lift a hand to wave you in, you quickly turned and walked away.
Every few days, either during the dinner or lunch rush, Osamu would catch a glimpse of you outside of his restaurant. You’d stare at his sign for a few seconds; maybe glance at the menu board that stood a few feet away from his entrance, or look at the pictures of his full menu taped to the restaurant window. he would see the way you studied each item, yet you always walked the opposite direction.
It bothered Osamu. Why didn’t you want to come in? Did his menu look boring? Was his sign uninviting? Is his decoration too traditional? Should he have made it look a little more modern? He grumbled to himself about it each time you peeked in, and walked away. Why do you bother coming so often if you didn’t want to try his food? Osamu huffed.
It wasn’t until four weeks later, when Osamu had posted three brand new flavors on his menu board that you finally deemed his restaurant worthy enough to step in.
You had stopped by a little bit later than usual today, the dinner rush had come and gone, and the only ones left in the restaurant were you and Osamu. He stood patiently waiting behind his counter, desperately trying to look busy and as if he hasn’t been waiting for this moment for weeks.
He waited until you were close enough to his counter to say his greetings. You nodded at him in acknowledgment, taking a seat at the bar in front of him. He handed you a menu, and your eyes roved over the words as if they hadn’t done so dozens of times prior.
“Can I get ya anything to drink?” He asked, and you took off the baseball cap you had been wearing, setting it down on the counter beside you. Your finger hooks along the ear loop of your face mask and Osamu realizes he’s seeing your face for the first time. You place the piece of cloth in your pocket, and Osamu fights the heat across his cheeks.
“Just water,” you said, and Osamu was quick to set a fresh glass down in front of you.
“What’ll it be?” He asked after a few moments, adjusting the bill of his hat and settling his hand on his hip.
You hum a little, tapping your finger against your lips before you reply. “I’ll have the combo #2 with the gyoza.”
Osamu nodded, “What two flavors onigiri would you like?”
“For the first one, I’ll have your most popular flavor,” you say, before closing the menu and handing it back to him, “I’ll let you choose the second one.”
Osamu raised an eyebrow at your odd request, but nods anyway, putting the menu away and walking back to give his hands a quick wash.
He begins to gather his ingredients when he noticed you take out a notepad and a pen from your bag, placing it on the counter in front of your water.
“So,” he says, starting the process of making his number one seller (salted salmon), “What was it?”
“Excuse me?” You asked, pausing the drink that was half way to your lips. “What was what?”
“Well, ya stood outside for weeks, so I gotta know,” Osamu said, placing the delicate filling into the ball of rice he was kneading in his palm, “What made ya decide to finally come in?”
You tightened your lips, awkwardly setting the cup back down on the counter and placing a palm on your forehead.
“I was that obvious?”
“Were ya trying not to be?” He laughed, looking at you expectantly.
“It was the flavors on your board,” you finally replied, leaning back in your seat, “There was one that my grandfather used to make.”
Osamu smiled to himself, wrapping his first finished onigiri in the seaweed he had roasted earlier that day, placing it gently on a serving platter and moving over to make the next rice ball.
“That’s a coincidence,” Osamu said, “Your grandfather must have had great taste.”
“He used to own a restaurant,” you blurted out, and Osamu hummed.
“You’re kidding,” he said, “Whereabouts?”
You nibbled on your bottom lip, shifting your eyes side to side as if debating on whether you wanted to divulge him in your greatest secret. Eventually, you leaned forward, resting your elbow on the counter and placing your chin in your palm. “Actually, it was this one.”
Osamu’s fingers froze. “Ya don’t mean—?”
You nodded excitedly. Osamu lets out a scoff. “Now you’re just messin’ with me.”
“No, I swear!” A bright smile erupted across your cheeks as you jumped a little in your seat, “My grandparents used to own this restaurant.”
“I thought this was a boutique before I bought it?” Osamu questioned, putting his final touches on the second rice ball.
“It was,” you agreed, taking a sip from your water, “They owned this place until I was in high school, and sold it before they retired somewhere in the mountains. It’s been a few different stores since, but this is the first time it’s become a restaurant again. I was pretty surprised when I first saw it.”
Osamu felt an odd sensation of pride began to brew in his chest, shown in the way he sprinkled his sesame seeds a little extra forcefully.
“Well,” he said, placing the plate of two perfect onigiri right on the counter in front of you, “I hope I do this place some justice.”
You smiled, and Osamu found himself smiling with you. He pointed out the shake on the left, and the surprise flavor on the right. You nodded, intrigued, picking up the onigiri lying on the left side.
Osamu makes the gyoza while you take your first bite, nearly pumping his fist in victory when he sees you close your eyes in satisfaction, the tension he didn’t even know you carried slowly melting from your shoulders. He sees you quickly jot down comments on the notepad next to you, and Osamu tries to peek at what you wrote when he gives you the gyoza.
“Ya jottin’ down comments about my food?” He joked, and you jumped a little at his voice, “Got any suggestions, then?”
You smile sheepishly, “It’s just a little hobby of mine.”
He nods, grabbing a towel and wiping down the counter that he had just used. “Well, ya let me know if ya need anything else.”
“It’s just you working tonight?” You ask, grabbing your chopsticks and picking up a piece of gyoza.
“It’s just me every night,” he chuckled.
Your eyes widened as you chewed on your food, swallowing with a loud gulp.
“Doesn’t that get exhausting?” You ask, quickly jotting down your notes before diverting your attention back to him.
Osamu just shrugged. “I poured my everything into something I didn’t love half as much as cooking. This is just how I know how to do things.”
You tilted your head to the side, “What did you do before this?”
Osamu takes a deep breath as he lifts his hat up a little bit to ruffle his fingers through his hair. He flips the cap around and puts it on backwards, his vision no longer half covered by the bill of his hat and he can now look at you fully. He almost wants to laugh because no one has ever asked him that version of this question before. It was always, ‘What are you going to be doing after volleyball?’
He hated the fact that any answer other than ‘I’m going to play professionally’ was deemed a shame, or a waste. For Osamu, he didn’t want to waste another second not pursuing his passion.
So it was refreshing to tell you about volleyball as if it was just a footnote in his food journey; something that he had done prior to finally recognizing his actual potential.
You gawked at him in disbelief, “Volleyball? Were you even any good?”
Osamu actually recoiled in offense, “I’ll have ya know I was on a team that went to nationals three years in a row.”
You raised your eyebrows appreciatively, and Osamu straightened a little.
“So why food?” You question him again, and Osamu wonders if you’re always this inquisitive. He’s answered this question hundreds of times, swore up and down that he would shoot the next person that even dared to say ‘Why food?’ in front of him. Yet for some reason, he felt more than happy to divulge you.
“Because food is more than just something ya eat when you’re hungry. It’s coming back from a long trip, and it’s the warmth that spreads through your body when ya eat your mom’s cooking for the first time. That taste of victory that spreads across your tongue when ya go out for a meal with your pals after a game. The sensation of closing your eyes in satisfaction when ya take a bite out of a fresh onigiri after a long day,” you pause your scribbles at that moment, looking up to shoot him a playful glare. Osamu chuckled and continued, “It’s laughter shared around the table, and memories made over a plate that makes food more than just nourishment for our body, but also for our soul.”
Osamu feels his cheeks heat up as he finishes his speech, embarrassment beginning to sink in at the end of his long tangent. You looked at him with a soft look on your face as you finished the last bite of your first onigiri, and dusted your fingers from any stray grains of rice.
“Words to live by,” you commented, lifting your glass of water up in agreement before tilting it back for a drink.
He let out a breath of relief that lasted only a second when he saw you reach over to pick up the onigiri with toppings he picked out for you. He held his breath as you took a bite, not expecting to see your eyes widen so fast, snapping your head down to the innocent rice ball that now sported a bite mark.
“Shio kombu cheese?” you say hurriedly, holding the onigiri closer to your face.
Osamu steps forward, “Do ya like it?”
You take another bite, chewing slowly, savoring the flavors as they melded in your mouth, and your eyes nearly begin to water.
“I never thought someone other than my grandfather would be weird enough to come up with this,” you laughed, scarfing down the rice ball in less than two seconds. “Yet here it is.”
“It’s not weird,” he defended, “It’s refined.”
You laugh as you dive into a story from your childhood spent sitting in this exact restaurant. Osamu listens intently as you recount how many different failed recipes your grandfather had forced you to ty and review, helping him decide what to put on the menu, or which combinations would bring in the businessmen that always seemed to just walk passed the restaurant.
He tells you of the tantrum his brother threw when he told him he was quitting volleyball, but still, Atsumu was his first sale. You pester him about his secret ingredient, and give him an incredulous look when he says it’s the rice. (“My old volleyball captain is a rice farmer.” “… what an interesting volleyball team.”)
The furniture was different, and the lay out was unfamiliar, but the atmosphere around Osamu’s counter had brought you right back into your childhood, reminding you of all the reasons why you loved what you did in the first place.
Long after your plates had been emptied, and the hour hand on the clock had extended way passed closing time, you finally paid for your meal, stood up from your seat and prepared to take your leave.
“Thank you for the meal, and the conversation,” you lean forward to read his name tag, “Miya-san.”
“Osamu,” he corrects, and raises an eyebrow at you.
You tell him your name, and Osamu repeats it in his mind over and over again.
“Come back soon,” he calls out his usual greeting as you walked out the door, but it felt different when he said it to you.
“I will,” you smile, waving a hand before stepping into the night, leaving Osamu with a dizzy head and fluttering stomach.
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
In the following weeks since his late night encounter with you, Onigiri Miya had ceased to be a simple stop along someone’s route to work, or an afterthought on the way home.
One could imagine Osamu’s surprise when he arrived an hour and half before he was due to open, and already a line began to form down the sidewalk. He thought, perhaps it was a fluke, or maybe there was some sort of business convention in town nearby – something to explain the sudden spike in popularity.
Yet day after day, the crowds of people came to him by the dozens, climbing over each other to get a taste of his cooking. He couldn’t stop to wonder how long this was going to last, barely having the time to stop and give himself a break.
He finally realizes it’s not merely coincidence when the lines get longer, yet the faces he sees stay the same. Osamu remembers every single face that walks through the doors of Onigiri Miya, and it’s the ones that he sees over and over that truly give his restaurant its meaning.
The last customer of the dinner rush left thirty minutes ago when Osamu’s phone rang.
“‘llo,” he greets, sandwiching the phone between his ear and shoulder as he sweeps the floor, thinking about how he needed to start looking for someone to hire.
“Hey, asshole,” the voice of his twin comes through loud and clear, “When were ya gonna tell me ya invited that food blogger to your restaurant? And how the hell did ya get them to like your garbage cooking?”
Osamu stops in confusion, grabbing the phone and holding it up himself. “Did ya finally get hit in the head a little too hard at practice? What the hell are ya talking about?”
Atsumu curses at Osamu, telling him to hold on a second as he sends him the link.
Osamu pulls the phone away from his ear for a second, quickly pressing on the blue url that popped up from Atsumu’s chat bubble.
It took a second for it to load, but when it did, Osamu’s jaw dropped
ONIGIRI MIYA IS AN ONIGIRI MUST HAVE by L/N Y/N
Beneath the obnoxious title was a photo of his sign, shining brightly against the wooden panels of his building, looking very much like a beacon for those searching for the perfect plate.
“Your shop is all over the internet and I had to find out about it on my news feed?! What the hell kinda brother are ya…”
Atsumu’s voice faded into the background as Osamu read the flattering words you had written about his restaurant. You complimented the decoration he had been insecure about, and he chuckled at the way you had described the fluffiness of his rice. He was captivated by your use of prose, painting the perfect picture of exactly everything he wanted his food to convey.
It wasn’t until he got to the last paragraph when he felt his breath hitch in his throat.
Though the years have passed, and the season have changed, the sentimentality of this particular shop had never lost its meaning for me. For the first time in years, I felt the soul of my grandfather, the curator of my inspiration and passion, all around the atmosphere of what is now Onigiri Miya. I have every faith that the new owner has already done him justice.
“Excuse me, are you still open?”
Osamu tore his eyes away from the screen, the very author of the only review that will ever matter to him stood a mere few feet away from his counter.
“Call you later, Tsumu,” he said hurriedly.
“Hey, wh—“
Osamu slips his phone back into his pocket, turning his attention back to you. You had a cheeky smile on your face as you waited patiently.
“Welcome to Onigiri Miya,” he says dryly, and you laugh at his tone.
“Should you be on your phone while you’re on the clock?” You joke as you settle in the same seat you occupied the last time you paid him a visit.
“I don’t know,” Osamu crosses his arms, “Should ya be writing articles about people without telling em?”
You winced a little at his words, holding your hands up in surrender. “You saw it then?”
Osamu nodded.
You looked to the side, rubbing the side of your arm. “Did you like what I wrote?”
Osamu smiled, uncrossing his arms and walking to the back to wash his hands. You watch him curiously as he walked back to you, and pointed to a spot on the wall directly to your right.
“That’s where I’m gonna put it,” he said, “when I print it out and frame it.”
You laughed at the seriousness of his face, and he smirked in satisfaction.
You ordered the combo #2 with a side of gyoza, letting Osamu pick the two flavors. You mentioned how you tried to visit a couple of times, but the line was always so far out the door. He realizes that he has you to thank for that, and you blush deeply when he sincerely tells you so.
“So,” you say as you munch on the honey garlic pork onigiri he prepared, “Aren’t you glad you did this instead of boring, old volleyball?”
Osamu nearly chokes at the insult. “Volleyball is not boring.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat, “Let me take you to a game some time. We can eat something other than rice balls.”
You look up from the half eaten onigiri at the chef who made it so carefully, looking so bashful and nervous you couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah. I would love that.”
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧