Thread by @miyameian

"My missing husband came home, but I just know it isn't him."

[ #atsuoi and minor sakuatsu, psychological horror / thriller & associated dark themes, mentioned mcd and ambiguous ending. inspired by a post linked at the end ]

Oikawa Atsumu went missing six months ago. He'd gone to pick up dinner one night, and just... never came home. Friends, family, neighbors--everyone was shocked and devastated, especially Atsumu's husband, Tooru.

This kind of thing just doesn't happen to former professional volleyball players.

The police launched a thorough, full scale investigation into Atsumu's disappearance. All the friends that the Oikawa couple had made over the years pooled their resources to expand the search.

Daichi coordinated with the police, Suna plastered his wildly popular social media accounts with Atsumu's face, Kenma spent a small fortune on the best private investigators in Japan, and (rather morbidly) Matsukawa used his morgue access to look out for anything Atsumu-shaped.

One early morning, Tooru even ran into Aran putting up old-fashioned missing person posters in the Oikawas' neighborhood, desperate to find the closest thing he had to a brother.

Six months is a long time to search without a scrap of evidence.

Updates from the police slowed as they got more pressing cases, Atsumu's story on social media became old news, and neither the investigators nor Matsukawa turned anything up.

Aran's missing person posters got covered up by brightly colored flyers and advertisements.

It was hard, but with the help of his closest friends, Tooru began to accept that Atsumu wasn't coming back.

Until he did.

Tooru was carefully tending to the foxglove his sister had helped him plant in the backyard when he heard the side gate swing open. Panicking, Tooru grabbed his garden shears and spun around to confront the intruder.

The sharp shears clattered to the dirt when Tooru came face-to-face with his husband.

Atsumu was exactly the same as the day he disappeared. Same meticulously styled bleach-blond hair, same gray-gold eyes; the perfect image of Tooru's husband, down to his idle little smirk.

Tooru was struck dumb with shock. He'd mourned this man, cried and screamed and wished it'd been him instead; but here Atsumu was, as if he'd never left.

Finally, Tooru managed to ask where Atsumu had been all this time.

And Atsumu didn't know. He couldn't remember. There was a six month gap in Atsumu's memories.

Everyone was absolutely beside themselves, elated at their beloved Atsumu's return. So many people were clamoring to see Atsumu that it almost made Tooru feel envious.

Tooru would be jealous if it weren't for the unease welling up within him like stomach bile, because whoever--or whatever--showed up in his garden /isn't Atsumu/.

It started small, at first, but the disparities between the Atsumu that Tooru knew and the Atsumu who came back became more and more glaring with every passing day. The wrongness of his husband weighed Tooru down, gave him vertigo, but... who was going to believe him?

Atsumu looked exactly the same, had the same mannerisms, remembered everything from before he went missing. His return should've been a miracle.

There were a number of reasons Tooru stopped believing in miracles, and stopped believing in this "Atsumu" that had returned.

The first was subtle, several days after Atsumu's return.

They were having a "welcome home" party, so everyone who wanted to see Atsumu in the flesh could do so at once. Atsumu said he wanted to make food for the party. This wasn't inherently unusual, as Atsumu enjoyed cooking.

...It was just odd, how wholeheartedly he'd thrown himself into it. Tooru knew his husband, knew he'd start strong but then get bored or distracted and only make half as much food as they needed.

There was a volleyball game on today, too, so the chance of distraction was high.

Even when Tooru reminded Atsumu of the game starting on TV, though, he'd still worked meticulously to make a large batch of onigiri for all their friends. The focused, passionate look in his eye reminded Tooru why he fell in love with such a cocky loudmouth. That warmth waned.

As the clock ticked closer to the beginning of the match, Atsumu showed no signs of running out of steam for his cooking endeavor.

Tooru's eyebrows furrowed unconsciously, but he decided to discard his worry. He had his husband back, right?

And why should he complain about Atsumu actually finishing what he started?

Tooru recorded the volleyball match for Atsumu to watch later.

The onigiri was some of the best Atsumu had ever made.

Atsumu thanked Tooru for recording the match, laughing at how intent he'd gotten on his cooking. He never watched it.

This could be excused, though--head trauma can cause memory loss as well as personality changes. Tooru should just be happy Atsumu was back.

The next moment with "Atsumu" that rang wrong came three days later. Tooru had disregarded the little onigiri incident, and was simply enjoying his husband's presence.

This one was a little harder to ignore, because Tooru woke in the middle of the night to Atsumu staring at him.

The clock past Atsumu's head read 3:18AM, Tooru was half-asleep and confused, and Atsumu's expression was uncharacteristically flat.

"Baby...?" Tooru murmured, afraid Atsumu might be sleeping with his eyes open.

Atsumu didn't respond. For a solid minute, Atsumu's blank eyes bored into Tooru's, and he said nothing. Unease spread like a poison inside Tooru with each beat of his heart.

Suddenly, Atsumu's face split into a saccharine smile and Tooru had to hold back a flinch.

"Sorry, love," Atsumu soothed, chuckling lightly like he hadn't just been utterly terrifying. Tooru tried to relax. "Sometimes I don't know if I'm dreaming you or remembering you," he confessed casually.

Atsumu rolled over and went back to sleep. Tooru couldn't do the same.

Tooru wouldn't be able to sleep soundly for days afterward.

[tbc]

Tooru couldn't admit that he was starting to believe "Atsumu" wasn't who he said he was. Who would believe him? Atsumu was the /same/, it was just a few tiny differences that only Tooru would notice.

Well... maybe not only Tooru could tell the difference.

There was also Sakusa Kiyoomi, their next-door neighbor and Atsumu's former teammate.

The next incident happened to involve him, too.

Yesterday, Tooru and Atsumu were helping Komori Motoya move his things into Sakusa's home. The cousins were moving in together because Sakusa left the country for long stretches of time, and was having trouble keeping up his house.

Komori, who Tooru was shocked to discover had a personality as sweet as a peach and bright as the sun, quickly made friends with Tooru.

"Kiyo's been struggling," Komori told Tooru quietly while Sakusa and Atsumu were outside, unloading the moving van.

"He's not great at making friends, and since he hasn't had the forced proximity of being on a team for several years, he's been terribly lonely," Komori said. "Moving in is the least I can do, y'know?"

Tooru didn't have the heart to tell Komori why neither he nor Atsumu had been helping Sakusa feel less lonely.

Tooru especially didn't mention how his search history is overflowing with questions about the supernatural and imposters and murder.

"It's nice that you're movin' in with Omi," Atsumu said to Komori a little while later. "He used to talk about you plenty while we were on MSBY. Shame I never got to meet ya."

Komori simply laughed.

"Kiyo does his best to make sure none of his friends meet me," Komori stage-whispered conspiratorially, "because he knows I'll embarrass him. I take my job as his older cousin very seriously."

"I did my best to keep my big sister away from Atsumu as long as I could," Tooru said. "She was determined to tell him every mortifying thing I'd done as a kid."

"Such is the way of family," Komori agreed sagely before turning to Atsumu. "What's your family like, Atsumu-kun?"

Tooru was practiced at not reacting when these things came up, but he noticed Sakusa pause for a moment, apprehensive.

Atsumu never spoke of his family. It was basically a rule, and sometimes he'd get upset at the very question.

They'd been married for years, but Tooru had only met Atsumu's mother once, at their wedding, and he knew that his father was alive and still married to his mother, but that was it.

Sakusa knew Atsumu well enough to know that his family was a touchy subject.

Tooru tried his best not to feel sour about that.

"Actually--" Tooru began, trying to redirect the conversation away from the sensitive topic, when he was interrupted.

"I'm completely with you on this one, Komori-kun," Atsumu said gravely but with a tell-tale twinkle in his eye. "If I can't embarrass my brother to everyone we know, I think I've failed him as a sibling."

Someone was saying something, but Tooru was too busy trying to make sure his jaw hadn't physically dropped to the floor to pay attention.

Who /was/ this Atsumu?

Who was this man, casually revealing the existence of a brother after all this time, after all the fights they'd had over how secretive he was about his family?

Why wasn't Tooru the first person he told? Or Sakusa, even?

The timing couldn't be worse. Already, Tooru was suspicious, but now Atsumu's just talking about his family like it's nothing?

Finally, Tooru focused back on the conversation when he heard Sakusa's deep voice interject into Atsumu and Komori's chatter.

"Are you close with your brother?" Sakusa asked Atsumu evenly, though Tooru could tell how he was white-knuckling the box in his grasp.

"Ah, we haven't seen each other in person in a long time, but we talk plenty," Atsumu replied.

"Why," Sakusa said--rather than asked--bluntly. Tooru imagined he was asking why Atsumu had brought up a brother they'd never known about, but Atsumu interpreted it differently.

"It's actually kinda embarassin', but we got into a huge fight when we were ten," Atsumu confessed, rubbing the back of his head bashfully, "and our relationship didn't recover until we were adults. Even then, it felt a little late. So we just text most of the time."

"That's understandable," Komori said sympathetically, oblivious to the loaded looks both Tooru and Sakusa were giving Atsumu.

It was all wrong. Atsumu's presence just rang so false after coming back, and Tooru was a bit ashamed at how obsessively he was searching for something to unravel the mystery of what came back in Atsumu's stead.

It seemed like Sakusa might've thought something was very off, too, but like fuck Tooru was going to ask him.

That is, until Tooru responded to the doorbell that morning to find Sakusa Kiyoomi standing on his porch.

[tbc]

"Hello neighbor," Sakusa said dryly, know just how thrilled Tooru was to see him.

Which was not at all.

"Omi-chan~! To what do I owe the *pleasure*?" Tooru said, too-loud in sleepy morning suburbia.

Sakusa pursed his lips. "I'd like to see Atsumu," he said shortly.

Suddenly, Tooru noticed the stiff way Sakusa was holding his arms behind his back. "Why?" Tooru asked, openly suspicious. "Do you have something for him?"

"I'm just returning something," Sakusa said coolly.

"I can pass it along," Tooru argued.

"I need to give it to him directly," Sakusa insisted.

Tooru had opened his mouth to say something he'd regret when there was a warmth at his back.

"Mornin' sweetheart," Atsumu said sleepily, wrapping himself around Tooru and pressing a kiss to his shoulder. "And hi, Omi."

Sakusa sighed through his nose and then stood up to his full height and looked Atsumu dead in the eye, almost challengingly.

"I've come to return something you gave me. |--" Sakusa, uncharacteristically, had to take a pause. "...I don't want it anymore."

Sakusa finally removed his hands from behind his back, holding his arm out to Atsumu. In his fist, he clutched a luxurious ribbon, and hanging from it was-

"My 2024 gold medal," Atsumu said. "Thanks, Omi-kun, I really missed it."

Both Tooru and Sakusa watched in muted shock as Atsumu so easily accepted the medal back.

The medal he'd given Sakusa because Sakusa retired from volleyball right before the Olympics due to an injury.

Atsumu and Sakusa had sworn to get gold in 2024 after losing to Tooru and ending up with bronze in 2020.

A year ago, Atsumu had given Sakusa his Olympic gold medal out of sympathy and nothing else Tooru could stand to say.

"Well. Seeya around, neighbor!" Atsumu said cheerfully before closing the door on a quietly flabbergasted Sakusa.

Tooru couldn't help but snort at the offended "excuse me?" that came faintly through the shut door, but it was mostly on reflex.

"Well. That got rid of him, I guess," Tooru commented.

"Mm," Atsumu hummed, nuzzling into Tooru's hair, "I could tell how much ya wanted him to buzz off, my little hater."

Tooru swallowed. "Thanks baby," he replied, a sudden dread making the words come out awkwardly.

"He's just--always finding ways to get up in our business," Tooru complained half-heartedly.

He wished Atsumu would stop holding him so tenderly; maybe if he had claws, fangs, and drew blood, this would make sense.

"Yeah," Atsumu chuckled. "A little *too* neighborly to be honest." He kissed Tooru's cheek sweetly before murmuring something about getting more sleep.

Maybe if whatever "Atsumu" is revealed what it truly was, Tooru could gain some peace.

Two things were wrong with this scene, though:

First, Oikawa Atsumu had never once accepted a return on a gift in the entire time Tooru had known him.

Second, Atsumu would defend and excuse Sakusa Kiyoomi until he was blue in the face.

This thing was so close to Tooru's Atsumu. Tooru could see it clearly, could see how if those two laws of nature didn't exist, maybe this could be his husband.

But his husband would never act this way.

Tooru feels insane, he feels like there's something so wrong that it's reshaping the very universe, and he feels like he's the only one who knows it's happening.

If he tries to tell anyone about this, though, Tooru knows he'd end up in a straightjacket.

The final nail in the coffin, proverbially speaking, comes that afternoon.

The Oikawas have a trophy case in their sitting room, huge and glass. There's an empty spot where Atsumu's gold medal should've been all this time.

As Atsumu puts it in its rightful place, Tooru's eyes are drawn to the large 2019 Emperor's Cup trophy that they keep atop the case. It's gleaming, spotless, perfectly polished.

Just like the thing pretending to be his husband, Tooru realizes.

If this was really Atsumu, he'd have a scar on his forehead.

"Y'know, it's a good thing Omi gave this back. I didn't win it for him," Atsumu confesses suddenly. He's sliding the trophy case closed, and Tooru feels like he's going to throw up.

Atsumu should have a scar on the side of his head shaped like the trophy Tooru had hit him with.

"I won it for my brother, actually, the one I mentioned yesterday," Atsumu says softly, but Tooru isn't paying attention.

Tooru is deciding whether or not to dig up his foxglove tonight just to check if Atsumu's still under there.

"Did I ever tell you he's my twin?" Atsumu asks.

Tooru's brought back to the present so abruptly that he flinches. He grabs the wall and wraps his hand around the stem of the heavy trophy to steady himself.

Tooru isn't breathing when he asks, "fraternal or identical?"

"Identical. You don't have to worry about mixing us up, though.

My twin brother was murdered six months ago."

[ end ]
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