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sukirichi · 2 years

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[ DUSK ‘TILL DAWN : 007 ]

“we who bear the burden of the crown do not need to love. you only need to stay here, with me, in power, in greed, in lust – in victory.”

c/w. modern royal au. infidelity. angst. gaslighting. toxic characters. suggestive. toxic relationships. mentions of neglect and abuse. hurt and comfort. it’s cringy when suna calls us ‘my love.’ half heartedly edited.

notes. this chapter is dedicated to all my fellow oikawa fuckers, enjoy <33 i’m really in love with how deep his character can be like lowkey he has more personality (as of now) than rintaro lol

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[ SEVEN ] i know you don’t really see my worth. you think you’re the last guy on earth, well, i’ve got news for you. i know i’m not that strong, but it won’t take long

“Would you stop pacing?” Prince Tooru reprimanded. His wife, the ever-so-sweet Maiko, jumped a little at the sting of his voice. She was no longer an alien to his harshness, nor was it anything new for her the way he sent daggers her direction. “It’s an eyesore.”

“My apologies, Your Highness. I just... I’m extremely worried for the Princess.”

The Prince kept flicking through the television. However, behind his uncaring facade, he shared the same sentiments as her. Everyone would be lying if they said the entire manor hadn’t been deadly quiet the entire night, save for the hushed whispers between your servants appalled by Rintaro’s display. Tooru was actually impressed they hadn’t called your parents by now. Your servants watched you grow up and had been loyal to your family for years, yet not a single one of them stopped the Crown Prince from dragging their precious Princess like she was nothing but prey. Then again, Tooru mused, maids from a noble family would never go against the crown.

“You heard what Kiyoomi said. The Princess wants space, and Suna will not let us step a foot outside either. We have no choice but to await her return.”

“Would she even return?”

Hearing the scuffle of her feet rubbing against the carpet one more time, Tooru dragged a palm down his face. “Look. I cannot answer your questions, so can we please just go to sleep?” Sleep, of course, meaning that Prince Tooru enjoyed the luxury of your guest room’s king-sized bed while his wife remained on the couch. Hell, he was kind enough to share the same room as her.

Unbothered by the Prince’s nonchalance, Maiko gazed at her feet and fiddled with her fingers.

“Your Highness, I-I know this sounds far-fetched of me, but would you grant me a small favour? I promise I would repay you generously—”

“If you offer to leave me the fuck alone for a month, I might consider it.”

Maiko’s head snapped up. Her husband held no trace of remorse on his face as he pulled the blankets under his chin, handsome as usual—as all the Princes were—even with his eyes peacefully closed. Such a sight made him look unbelievably gentle with the way soft, brown strands of hair brushed over his forehead. And Maiko, poor Maiko who never learned, had no choice but to swallow her pride and give in to the Prince’s request. Whether it was because she had been in love him with him for the longest time and this was the first, possibly last, chance he would ever hear out, Maiko prioritized your well-being over anything else.

“I...Of course, Your Highness. If it is what you wish.”

Tooru raised a brow in disbelief, eyes narrowed at his wife’s sagging shoulders. Just like that? Ah, but he wasn’t complaining. “Fine. What do you want?”

“Please find the Princess. O-Or at least check up on her, talk to her or something. Anything would be of great help as long as she knew she does not have to face this alone. The Princess is having a hard time and it breaks my heart to imagine she is all by herself—”

“Why don’t you go yourself if you care so badly?”

“Because...” Maiko frowned, “If the Crown Prince catches me, I am done for. He might be far more merciful to you considering you are his brother.”

“That is hilarious,” Tooru couldn’t hold back a guffaw. “You think Rintaro would be less bothered if his brother sought out his damsel in distress of a wife? Oh, how gold. Has it not crossed your mind that Rintaro is oddly possessive over his wife? He thinks either Kiyoomi and I will snag her up.”

“But you will not, so—”

“What if I did, hm?” he challenged. Instantly, Maiko held her breath, awaiting the threat—or rather the possibility—that Tooru didn’t jester. He had always made it clear how he didn’t want her. Expressing at any opportunity he could take about his desire to have had the privilege to choose who he could have been married to, and Maiko knew exactly what he was doing. The Prince, just like now, was simply reminding her the consequences of her actions. But she must have been a true masochist as she remained mum in her spot the longer he continued, sitting up now and tilting his head with a smirk. “The Princess is gorgeous. I could easily choose her over you any day, so let me ask—would you still want me to find her and lend her a shoulder to cry on?”

Be strong, Maiko—was what she must be thinking. And honestly? Tooru thought it was complete, utter bullshit. She could plant her feet on the ground as solidly as she could, but he refused to have his bones buried next to hers.

Maiko had already taken his life.

He should choose his own death now, and if that meant slowly driving a dagger deep into her heart and carving out his to place into the mercy of your hands—because god forbid, you would be death of everyone someday—then Tooru would have no regrets. To have his fate intertwined with yours, whether the outcome may be bitter or would shatter him to pieces, would be honourable. A heaven in comparison to the hell bowing his head at him right now.

“We are family now, Your Highness. She needs us.”

“I take that as a yes?” Tooru mocked. He didn’t wait for her response as he was swiping his car keys off the counter the next second, his jacket shrugged on and halfway out the door before he sang, “As you wish, my dear.”

There are some things Tooru would never admit out loud. One, how he grew up closest to Kiyoomi and Keiji out of their shared love for literature, and that those two brothers of his held one of his most embarrassing secrets on how Tooru loved romantic novels. Jane Austen? He personally booked a theatre all for himself just to watch the film adaptations of her works. Margaret Mitchell? Tooru had handmade notebooks buried deep within his study filled with his favourite lines from her in perfect cursive; the younger version of him fantasizing about what it felt like to yearn for somebody your being felt incomplete without them. Two, how grateful he was deep down that Maiko had asked him to find you, because truth be told, only Rintaro got in his way. He would have ran after you hours ago the moment his bastard brother returned to the manor without his wife in tow. But appearances must be kept, trouble must be avoided if it provided more conflict than entertainment, and looking at it now, Tooru didn’t quite regret his previous actions.

The pitch-black sky felt more comforting than haunting as he pulled out of the driveway and headed to town. Maiko informed him you were at your family’s bed and breakfast, quite possibly asleep, but fuck it, right? Tooru convinced himself he wasn’t doing this for his wife. Never for Maiko, but not quite for you, either. Other than having a miserably pretty face that wasn’t as adored as it should be, and a heart bigger than Maiko was capable of, Tooru came to a conclusion he was doing it for himself.

Yes, he was simply a bored prince. Dragged into the edge of the country with no phones to use since Maiko would just snoop around, and Rintaro didn’t help with the situation by driving everybody apart. Even Kiyoomi seemed more of a bore than usual. So yes, Tooru was fetching you for his own gain, because surely listening to a broken hearted woman weep about her woes sounded far more entertaining than pretending to be asleep back at the manor.

No. He did not care about you at all.

He does not care one bit as he found you minutes later, sulking like a little child on the swings under an old sycamore tree whose leaves danced amongst the wind. He would admit, however, that you were undeniably beautiful. You always had been.

With a fresh face that granted him the luxury of seeing how crestfallen, forlorn eyes could remain dull under the moonlight’s gleam, Tooru tightened his grip on the scotch bottle. He wondered how sadness could look so beguiling on someone—whatnot with the lines of your frown and the absence of light you usually emanated. You sat there unaware of his presence looming overhead of you before you kicked and up high you flew. Skirt flowing at the same time you finally turned your head to look up at the sky, eyes glistening with tears and kissable lips quivering with slow, shuddered breaths he knew held back a sob. Tooru couldn’t help but find it befitting how you would one day hold power over everyone, because you were capable of breaking hearts. You could ruin kingdoms and tear everything apart. Yet, Tooru also knew how gentle you could be. He had shared enough family dinners with you to grow envious—no matter if he was aware they were all a sham—with the way you and Rintaro would share knowing smiles with each other like you both spoke a secret language exclusive only for those who had experienced falling in love.

Was this why Rintaro was so adamant in keeping you?

Had his brother even looked at you this way?

You made princes like him who grew up skilled in the arts of swordsmanship and combat weak in the knees. All you had to do was keep kicking your feet and fly higher up in the air and Tooru wouldn’t have argued if somebody told him he saw a fairy that night. A fairy who shed tears for a man unworthy of it. A fairy who mourned for a love that was never hers and whose cries were as muted as the dumbfounded Prince tracing the shape of your lips with his eyes and wonders, what would his name sound like if you whispered it to his ears? Would it feel biblical if Tooru could also share a secret language with you and murmur it into the crevices of your palm in a promising kiss, or would your words curse him into a thoughtless follower who walked into his own demise? You would be his Queen, after all. You would be the one he would fight for his life with, and whose wishes would become his command—his only good reason for living.

“Fuck,” Tooru muttered under his breath as he leant against his car. He could already feel his heart pounding. And for what? The spine-chilling realization of—or more like could no longer deny—that he found his brother’s wife mesmerizing? “Fuck you, Rintaro. I don’t wanna be like you. I’m not stealing anybody’s wife.”

Tooru chanted those words in his head like a mantra.

He needed more than a bottle of alcohol to get him through the night without accidentally blurting anything stupid, which he was certain was the last thing you needed. Tonight, you needed a friend. You needed someone with genuine intentions after being cruelly dragged into a make believe story of Prince meets Beauty, only to wake up with an unfortunate twist of Beauty and the Beast where happy endings didn’t exist when Rintaro was the Beast through and through.

Tonight, you would not be Prince and Princess.

Tooru would come as himself, and with a clear of his throat, plastered on his infamous smirk. “The night is too good to spend alone, Your Highness. I am quite certain no lovely woman would envision their honeymoon to turn out this way.”

You halted your body from swinging up.

Eyes widening at the sight of the Fifth Prince in nothing but sleepwear and a coat, your mouth falls open. You must have remembered you were now a Princess and had to act properly in front of a royal blood that you sat up straight. The action had Tooru sucking in a sharp breath before making himself comfortable on the swing beside you, opting to stare out in the vast fields because his chest was fluttering at the look on your face. How relieved you seemed upon seeing him. Like he was your hero even if he was far from having heroic attributes, and Tooru bit the insides of his cheeks.

He loathed how that passing moment made him feel important and brought a tint to his cheeks.

“Your Highness,” you began, “Wh-What brings you here?”

“To comfort a certain lonely Princess,” he winked, and you respond with a surprised squeak. “What? Can’t believe that the most handsome Prince is now your knight in shining armour? Don’t flatter yourself, though. This will not be a daily occurrence and—”

“Thank you.” Ducking your head, you stare at your lap, and Tooru patiently waited for you to continue speaking. He could see your eyes water as you swallow audibly, “I...I did not think anyone would bother to come find me, much less you, my Prince. Out of everybody, I thought you might have cared the least, but forgive me for I was mistaken.”

“Well,” he shrugged, “Not everyone is as heartless as Rintaro. Not your fault too that you thought of me that way.”

The both of you share a knowing smile—his telling you that you would be alright, and you reciprocating a thankful one. A comfortable silence settled after that. None of you found the need to talk about anything when Tooru wasn’t the best at comforting, and you were more than satisfied for the company. It shocked him, though, how he unexpectedly ended up playing in the swings with his brother’s wife at three in the morning, surrounded by nothing but grass and the faint sounds of crickets chirping. The wind would occasionally hum, and so did you.

The intimate beginning of a core memory felt like a scene straight out of a novel, but Tooru knew better. As much as he cherished this moment of sharing a silence with somebody in a world filled with people demanding for answers and explanations, Tooru understood this moment would not last. He had to remind himself he wasn’t your Prince. You weren’t his Princess. You were both just royals stripped of their titles until they were reduced to nothing but humans at their rawest form—a Princess with a disloyal husband, a broken heart and pride, and him as a Prince who didn’t quite knew where he belonged. At least, Tooru knew his place, and maybe that was why it felt a bit wrong to be the one next to you this moment. You were newly married and should be having this emotional intimacy with your husband. Not his brother. It was a constant fight of push and pull in his brain of wanting to be greedy and have more for this, whatever the fuck this was, whatever the fuck it meant now that you were smiling to yourself without saying anything, but Tooru chose to be the bigger person and stop kicking his feet.

“Say,” he scrunched his nose, “The town is dead, and you look like you have a lot to get off your chest. What do you say about a drive up the hill? You can scream as much as you want there.”

“Scream? Why would I scream?”

“Curse out Rintaro. I do that a lot when he gets on my nerves.”

When you laughed at his words, Tooru had to stop himself from getting too ahead of himself. Surely, it didn’t mean anything at all that he just made a pretty Princess laugh, even if your laugh was so airy and sounded so nice he would have taken full credit of doing a job well done for being a temporary friend.

“That does not sound too bad. In fact, I know a spot.”

The spot being a ten minute walk up the hill, far enough to be hidden from the prying gaze despite everybody being asleep but close enough that Tooru could retrace the steps back to the town in fear you would get lost again. Not that he had to worry. You were already steps ahead of him, shoes looped into your fingers as your toes dug into the bare earth—the very spitting image of a woman he couldn’t have most with sparkling hair pins keeping the strands kissed by the wind at bay.

Right. He needed to look away.

You were not his to appreciate.

“How did you find me, Prince Tooru?” you asked when you’d both settled next to each other, knees slightly brushing with every relaxed move.

Prying his eyes away from your fingers spreading to let the blades of grass peek through the spaces, Tooru raised a shoulder. Stop, he chastised himself. Do not muse about how strong the soil must be that night to carry the unspoken sorrows that weighed heavier than earth itself. Do not put yourself into the shoes birthed with a responsibility you were not man enough to step in on.

“Let’s just say that my wife and I never really went to the shop centres. That was nothing but a lame excuse we had to tell her parents. Instead, I roamed around this lovely town of yours and wished earlier that this might as well be my spot—but of course, this has always been yours, isn’t it?” he attempted to lighten the mood, “You have a lovely view from here.”

While his view from his bedroom, up north in the Inarizaki Tower, granted him the vision of a god who saw all from the citizens rising early in the morning to mill about for work to children laughing as they chased each other outside their parents’ humble, little shops, nothing could have compared to the serenity of Greenville. Miles and miles of land rich with flowers and fruitful trees laid home to rows of grapevines; its scent so addicting the Prince might as well have gotten drunk from a single whiff. The land stretched overhead until the peak of the mountains along the edge allowed room for the sun to stretch its arms out in a few hours’ time. Crickets chirped. The wind sang a lullaby that put the people to sleep, and he had you next to him. Close enough he might have plucked out the flower tempting him nearby with its dulcet beauty and humorously recite you poetry like he was your lover if that would make you smile.

Unfortunately, you didn’t share the same sentiments as him. “I doubt anything could be lovely from now on.”

“Don’t let my brother get to you.”

“That is easy for you to say,” you exhaled, “You and your brothers all the same. We, as wives, never meant anything significant to your hearts. You throw us to the side away like we are lesser than dust. I doubt you could even understand my pain when you are clearly incapable of being a good husband with the inability to feel love.”

Biting back his tongue to ask “don’t you want to prove me wrong about that?”, Tooru blew a low whistle. “You don’t pull your punches, do you? That is harsh.”

“Well, I see no need to coddle you, my Prince. You are a grown man who needs to realize his own disgusting flaws.”

At any other day, Tooru would’ve taken the unnecessary projection of your own heartbreak out to him with disdain, but today was different. For his own entertainment, he would be a little kinder. A little more patient. So he let it slide, and masked his confused heart with the one thing he had perfected—the all-too-confident smile that made men and women weak in the knees. The smile that brought him to where he is now, married and unhappy.

“Oh, there is no need, Princess. I am more than well aware of what makes me terrible,” he admitted, “What my brother did was wrong. There is no excuse for his behaviour, but you must understand—this is all very common to us now. Rintaro was able to deceive you like that because he had seen it with his own eyes; how marriages needed to be successful politically but never romantically, and once he has a goal in mind, nothing is stopping him from achieving that,” it was more of a warning than a reminder, and Tooru snuck a glance to confirm if you understood where he was going. “Do not take it personally, Princess. Rintaro would have been a liar either way whether it was you or not that he first laid his eyes on.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?”

“I am shit at comforting others—” a laugh was pulled from him before the Prince steals the bottle from your hands and takes a swig. “—but I do sincerely hope you stop crying now.”

His words had the opposite effect. Not even past the neck of the bottle, you choked before him in a fit of sniffles and sobs. Eyes puffy and red, lips wobbly and fingers angrily wiping away at the tears you desperately tried to conceal from his stupefied gaze. “What do you care whether I cry or not?”

Out of instinct, Tooru’s arm reached out to stop you from pinching your cheeks.

Slapped by logic, on the other hand, his arm retreated by itself because he was only here to comfort, not to reassure. And bound by the foolishness that was called the never-learning vulnerable heart, Tooru found himself in the middle of heaven and hell as he sighs. “Believe it or not, Princess, but I do care,” was his confession, though before you could ponder too much about it, the Prince was already hogging the scotch. “Implausible, is it not? But I do not blame you for it. I know I seem unable to care about others when I hate my own wife, even if she has been nothing but an angel to me.”

“So you know Princess Maiko adores you. Why do you not treat her with the same kindness, then?”

Princess Maiko again. It always had to circle back to her.

“She annoys me. She clings to me like an obsessed leech and demands affection when she knows I have no interest in reciprocating it,” he scoffed, “It is for her own good, though. There is no point to fool herself we can be happy together when I never wanted to be married. It is better to break her heart from the beginning than be sweet to her and get her hopes up.” The Prince held no room for argument. Palms leaning back on the grass, he extends his leg and crosses them as he glares at the sky like the darkness caused all this trouble. “No idea what anybody told you, but Princess Maiko and I were not married under the Queen’s choice. It was Maiko’s.”

“Princess Maiko...proposed to you?”

“Something like that. Maiko is a year younger than me, and naturally, since our families had close connections to each other, I grew up treating her like my little sister. She was always clumsy and stupid that I feared she’d get into trouble if not properly watched over. Little did I know that my concern for her would grow into being lovesick, and next thing I know, she is begging with the Queen to marry me. One thing led to another, the Queen saw potential in our union, and now here we are.”

“You make it sound like you had no choice in this, yet you still let her walk down that aisle. Are you sure you are not just using the Queen as an excuse?”

“If I did not marry Maiko, the Queen would have kicked me out the palace.”

“That is legal?”

Tooru wore a face that said beats me. “When there are too many Princes in a patriarchal monarchy, there will be hierarchy among our worth. The First Prince is already worthy to remain in the family as the eldest heir, and then Rintaro is the only child of the King and Queen. Prince Shinsuke will never have to worry about not being Prince when his mother plays a large role in the Kingdom as one of their best lawyers. The twins, too, come from a wealthy mother whose chain of businesses greatly benefits the palace. The youngest, Prince Tobio, is naturally adored by everybody else. He is given everything without having to ask for it. But the rest of us? We have to fight for our place in the dinner table. My clan is not exactly on good terms with the royal family, either.”

“But did you not say you did not care about being Prince?”

“I don’t. The duties of a Prince wears me out and I hate having to put on a facade all the time, but I have no place where I belong in,” his voice grew somber, the tips of his ears tinting red at the realization he was actually being vulnerable to someone who wasn’t his brother. Hell, he didn’t even trust his brothers anymore the night titles mattered more than familial bond, yet here he was. “My mother... her family does not accept me because she was a married woman who had me after having an affair with the King, and the King never looked at me once when I was born. He merely had me to establish ties with the Oikawa Clan, but when he realized my maternal grandparents barely recognized me as their own, I was useless to him. So as much as I despise being a Prince, it is the only way I can actually live. If not for my title, I would have already been sent to the streets.”

Tooru was quietly begging whatever gods looked down on him that you wouldn’t look at him with pity. The last thing he wanted was to be pitiful.

Sneaking a glance after a split second decision dissolved his worries, because you were far from seeing him as less. No, you glanced at him more out of curiosity. Like if he allowed you to give it more thought, you could magically have a solution. “Then...if you are not that important to them despite being an heir to one of three founding clans, why could Prince Kiyoomi not be important, as well? He is the Second Prince. Is that why he married Princess Iris—to ensure his title of a Prince?”

“Nobody knows why Iris and Kiyoomi got married, and neither will anyone of them talk about it. None of us were even invited to their wedding. We just woke up the next day and found out our brother had gotten married with minimal preparations, but it was all over the news. The Kingdom ate their marriage and claimed it to be a firmer peace treaty over Inarizaki and Itachiyama.”

You hid a sniffle.

“...How long has Prince Suna and Princess Iris been together?”

Tooru believed it was best you knew less. But the look on your face begged, pleaded to have that certain itch scratched that Tooru had to give in. “They met when they were in high school,” he supplied, albeit hesitantly, “Iris was a scholar of the royal family as her mother was a loyal follower of the Queen despite being born in Itachiyama, and Iris was an intelligent girl. They hit it off ever since, but drifted apart due to obvious reasons. Then they met again right after the wedding, and have been inseparable ever since.”

God. He really shouldn’t have said it. He had barely finished speaking before you pulled your knees up to your chest, head buried between your legs and sobs stifled in the eerie silence. “Oh my god. I look like a fool, don’t I? They’ve known each other forever.”

“None of this was your fault, Princess. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“It was my fault, though. I-I knew all this time,” you were full on sobbing by now. “I found out the night we announced our engagement. Ever since that day, I knew whatever we had was never real, but I proceeded with the wedding anyway because I hoped he would still look at me the same way. D-Do you have any idea how much it hurts to learn that you were never loved in the first place?”

Your voice cracked with every sharp breath. Fingers lifting to dig into your scalp deep enough the skin turned raw, and Tooru was immediately peeling your hands away from yourself. “Princess, breathe. Do not hurt yourself—”

“It kills me, Your Highness. I have never felt this pathetic before.”

“Princess...”

“I can’t stop looking in the mirror and find a warped reflection of myself staring back,” you wail and flick his arm away, like the thought of being touched by someone else repulsive. “Every day, I see nothing but my flaws and insecurities and think, is this why he doesn’t love me? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not good enough? Will I never compare to Iris? I feel so horribly ugly and disgusted of my own skin.”

“Don’t think that. You’re beautiful.”

“His Highness said otherwise—”

“My brother is fucking stupid for taking you for granted. If you were mine, I would have never made you feel like you were not good enough.”

Your head slowly turns to face him, the previous sobs now dwindling into little sniffles, but Tooru was already looking away. Downing his wine before you could say anything else. Drinking fast enough his brain felt muddled and there was an ache forming at the back of his head, but anything. Anything to escape the prying eyes wet with tears as the confession settled into the air.

He either fucked it up, or started a new chapter along the way.

The sound of you crying harder again brought him no answer.

“I w-wish...he thought the same way.”

What did it all mean? This moment... when you looked at him now, clinging to whatever hope was left in your love struck heart. When you looked at him now, smile flattened upon the mutual understanding that maybe this was what it meant. Not quite friendship, not quite partnership, not quite acquaintances—but the gentle promise that when the castle and its burdens grew too suffocating, you would have the Fifth Prince to run to out of the thousand others living under the grand halls of royalty. And if you had even the slightest inkling that perhaps Tooru might be growing too warm in a cold night, he was comforted enough by the fact you and him were as impossible as him and his wife.

Whatever attraction he held for you simply had to die. Whatever happened tonight stays within this spot closest to the stars in a quiet town called Greenville.

“Let him go,” was all Tooru could offer before his hand covered yours—that silly smile returning on his face again as if to say the pain would pass. “He’s stupid, anyway.”

“Right.” Finally, fucking finally, you smile brighter than he ever could. “He is stupid.”

“What the fuck were you doing with my wife?”

No good thing ever lasted. It was a fact Tooru learned the hard way, and had to relearn once more when he brought you back ‘home.’ After an hour and a half more of sharing jokes that slowly, the both of you were forming your own secret language Rintaro would not be a part of, you decided to loosen up a bit and steal the rest of his drink. Well, he brought it for you, but he didn’t quite expect you to rummage around his own hidden stash in the car of flasks, only to be giggling and practically dead weight in his arms later on.

It was good until it lasted.

It was good until he showed up. Tooru hadn’t stopped scowling since your husband bundled you in his jacket and held you like you were a fragile woman in need of care. Sure, you could be, but if Rintaro knew it all along, why hadn’t he been more careful since the beginning? Tooru hated inconsistency. Hated lying out of everything—all of the traits his younger brother was an expert of.

It was absolutely revolting how he immediately took on the role of a concerned husband and carried you to bed when you passed out in his arms—like he hadn’t been the reason you felt the need to drink yourself to such a state.

“Only what you should have done.”

Rintaro grabbed him by the collar, their eyes levelled but neither giving in. “Don’t mess with me, Tooru. You think I don’t know what you’re doing, huh? Making my wife warm up to you so you can mess up everything I worked hard for?”

“I didn’t do shit. You ruined everything by yourself and you know it.”

“You still had no business going after her like that.”

“Are you fuckin’ serious?” gritting his teeth, Tooru shoved Rin back hard enough his back hit the doorframe. Although the impact didn’t cause too much of a sound, he still glanced your way to see if you had awoken before lowering his voice. “Your wife cried for hours. She could barely breathe well from how overwhelmed she is, and what were you doing? Oh, that’s right. Fucking your mistress while your wife wondered over and over again just what made her so unworthy of love in your eyes. It’s actually pathetic that such an amazing woman would shed these much tears over a man who can’t even tell her the truth about his malicious nature!”

Rintaro snickered, and it took all of Tooru’s patience to not punch his brother.

“Since when have you cared about the Princess?”

“Maybe we all do, Rintaro! Maybe every single one of us is tired that you and your mother are the exact same—you do nothing but manipulate people for your own gain and then wonder why your lives are so miserable! Your wife loves you, Rin. She would forgive you at the blink of an eye but it does not give you the right to abuse her kindness.”

“That is hypocritical coming from you. You talk as if you do not neglect your wife and leave her crying, too.”

“Maiko, Maiko, it’s always about stupid, fucking Maiko!” he fumed, “Don’t fucking pit me with you, asshole. You courted Princess Y/N for two years and had no intention of coming clean about your sins. Everybody knows I never wanted this marriage. It was Maiko who bound me with these shackles because she was obsessed with me!”

Rintaro was at a loss of words.

He, too, knew that in some way, Tooru had been better. Tooru had always been consistent over his disapproval of the marriage, and had no choice but to accept it in order to survive the harsh environment of the palace. But did Rintaro care?

Obviously not.

“Go back home. I don’t need you here.”

Tooru scoffed. “If it brings you any comfort—” with his back turned to his brother, he glared at him one last time on the way out. “I didn’t come here of my own volition. It was Maiko who requested me to go. Nobody’s out here stealing who isn’t theirs.” An excuse, a valid reason, a half truth—call it what you wanted. Tooru wasn’t sure himself either which one of it he truly meant when he could still smell your perfume all over him on the drive back to the manor.

At one point in your life, you became a Princess before you married a Prince.

It happened that one fateful night. Where elites, nobles, royals, and all the important figures in the world gathered in a grandiose castle in celebration of a Prince’s eighteenth birthday. Naturally, as the daughter of two of the trusted followers of the throne, you had been invited. You could still picture it all clearly—the weeks ahead of preparation despite being a guest who would most likely befriend the shadows and be accompanied by the walls until the party ended. Still, your mother insisted you be dressed to the nines. Calling out for the best dressmakers to travel to Inarizaki with the sole purpose of transforming you into—as what your mother called —“a butterfly who attracted attention, but would be out of reach.”

You were close to telling your mother she would return home from the party disappointed. Unless she could accept you were more of a moth who clung to the unknown corners.

Not that you thought lowly of yourself, but you preferred the term... realistic. Yes, realistic was what you were. You simply accepted the fact you weren’t the prettiest, the most sociable, nor the most interesting woman to ever be attending these balls. Perhaps only slightly above average all thanks to the respectable status and money you were born with, but otherwise not as dreamy as your mother painted you out to be.

See, you weren’t the best dancer. Your mother had given up halfway into dancing classes once she realized you were a lost cause. Little did the both of you know, that from that night onwards, the young woman who had two left feet would someday master the art of dancing all to impress a certain Prince who wouldn’t stop looking at her that night.

His name was Suna Rintaro—the Crown Prince by birth.

And you had caught his eye.

In fact, you must have captured his entire attention and bewitched his whole being that he was unable to take his eyes off of you and pushed through the crowd, all to ask for a dance.

You said yes. He said you made him the happiest man that night.

“Truly?” he echoed, as if a gorgeous Prince like him ever experienced his dance invitations rejected before. “You would dance with me?”

“It would be my pleasure, Your Highness. I...I am not great at dancing though,” you began to stutter, palms growing damp behind the lace gloves. “Perhaps you ought to find somebody better? I am uncertain I am the best choice to dance with tonight—”

“You are the best choice,” the Prince grinned, and your heart skipped a beat in awe at how someone could be effortlessly charming. You barely even noticed he was already leading you to the dance floor until you felt a hundred pair of eyes on you. All these people who bore more importance and held heavier money in their pockets witnessed how the Prince slid his warm hand above your waist then, his smile just as soothing as the little finger rubs to ease your nerves. “You are—” he leant closer, lips brushing against the shell of your ear. “The only one who I want to share this dance with.”

You awoke with a jolt, heart pounding a mile a minute as the memory replayed in your head. Like a film caught on tape, you could still hear the violins singing at the top of their lungs, the cello hitting deep notes that vibrated within your bones. You could still feel the warmth of the Prince’s touch as he danced the night away with you. How gentle he had been to walk you out the gardens just to shyly murmur how he found you beautiful.

Beautiful.

Until suddenly you were not—or more like, you had never been beautiful to him.

“My love,” a voice—one that used to be comforting but now only brought pain—broke you out of your reverie. “I prepared breakfast for you. We should go downstairs and eat.”

Your husband, Rintaro, sat at the edge of your bed with a pinched frown. As if he was worried. He had no right to be, yet somehow, there was still that voice at the back of your head rejoicing in delight. Because he came. He came to find you. You woke up with him, and sure, it didn’t erase yesterday’s events, but could it mean something? You so badly wanted to reach out to him when his hand snaked across the mattress to find yours. Offering you a small squeeze. Looking so concerned you would have believed it all over again.

How was it possible someone could be both your happiness and torment?

No! your inner voice screamed at you. Don’t let him get close.

Blinking back the tears you hadn’t noticed arrived, you kicked the blankets off of you and trudged to the bathroom when you felt bile rise from your throat. Right. Such great timing. You were pushing the toilet lid up the next second, knees scraping against the floor as you emptied your stomach. Your head pounded as you did so, and you winced, remembering just now how Prince Tooru had visited and you drank yourself to your limit.

Which, obviously, was a decision you regretted making.

“My love!” Rintaro was behind you in an instant. He rubbed your back, held your hair up as you retched a few more times, and whispered sweet nothings that did nothing but to intensify that sick feeling in your stomach. “How much did you drink? I was so worried for you, honey—”

You slapped his hand away.

“Don’t call me that.”

If Rintaro looked defeated, he hid it extremely well. “Please. I only worry for you,” he helped you up on your feet. Fortunately for him, you were too wobbly on your own legs to complain. You quietly let him sit you on the closed toilet and sat down before you, his knees brushing against your bare feet and his handsome face deceitfully worn. “Listen...we can talk about it later, alright? You need to eat first before you get even more sick.”

“You are concerned over my well-being?”

“I am—”

“It did not feel like that yesterday.”

“Please. Let’s stop fighting.” How rare for the Crown Prince to beg, much say please more than once in a row. Wasn’t he too prideful for that?

As much as you basked in how this man was now on his knees for you, you didn’t trust yourself to not give in to whatever he asked of you. True as it was that it hurt, love didn’t disappear in a night. It wasn’t that easy to un-love someone you planned your whole life with. Of course, going back to that same hellish place he put you in would truly paint you the ignoramus, but you currently didn’t have the power to say no to him just yet. It was two years of being wired to please him at all costs. And it would take more than that to unlearn all the habits you’d formed just to align with who he wanted you to be.

But things would change now. It would no longer be the same, and you could only hope the next chapters of your life would bring about a better change.

Today marked the beginning of you detaching from your husband.

Pushing past him, you walked out with clenched fists. You would not cry in front of him now. You would not let him feel the satisfaction of how perfectly he’d executed his plan of wrapping himself around your finger until the end crashed you both. You would not let him see that you still loved him, still craved him, still fucking wished he would be genuine in comforting you and not because he had to keep you as his pliant wife.

No matter how hard it was, you needed to turn your back on him from now.

“Wait,” he grabbed you by the wrist, and you nearly collapsed on the spot from how much you yearned for his touch. “Where did you get this?”

He was pertaining to the scratches on your palm. The ones you got when he rudely pushed you off. “It’s nothing,” was all you supplied, however, because he didn’t need to know. Rintaro would feel guilty and just feed you honey-like words to thaw the ice in your heart. Soon, you would be putty in his arms again if you weren’t careful enough. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I worry.” He said it like this should be obvious to you by now, and you scoffed.

“Why? Because I’m not the perfect Princess you want me to be anymore now that I have wounds?”

Rintaro’s lips puckered out. “Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You hurt me yesterday. Funny how fast your feelings change in the span of a night, no?” you grabbed your wrist before crossing your arms against your chest. “Is this how you always were? Kind one moment, ruthless the next? You put on so many faces and tell too many lies that I have no idea who I am talking to right now. So tell me—are you my husband who promised to take care of me and cherish me until death do us part, or are you the greedy Prince who manipulated me into marrying him?”

Rintaro does not respond. Instead, he manoeuvred around the cramped space of your bathroom and reaches for the first-aid kit on the top shelf. Your husband slowly unrolls the bandages before he takes your hand in his, touch butterfly like that you wondered if he was the same man who had been aggressive yesterday. Still, you waited with baited breath, unable to stop yourself from staring at him. And blessed he was with those hazel eyes who’d seen every ugly part of you yet stayed with you anyway—whether it was out of need or he actually cared sometimes to not mind—and that soft tuft of hair you loved running your hands to. Those lips who recited empty vows and kissed you like he meant it. That voice that made your legs quiver countless nights and now, these hands wrapping the bandages around your blistered palm with patience and grace you knew you had fallen in love with.

Tears sprung once again. Chest squeezing uncomfortably as you realized you still were, and still would, be hopelessly in love with Suna Rintaro. Heart shattering all over again when you began to accept your heart would be a chamber that hung him like an oil painting that never aged through the years. How your love would remain frozen in time along with his smiles, and you loved him so much you sometimes forget he did not love you at all.

He had someone else in his heart when yours cried out no one else’s name but his.

“Why her?” you croak out weakly, nursing your bandaged palm to your chest as you leant against the wall. Feeling your knees weaken little by little. “What does she have that I do not? Why did you love her...but not me?”

“I do not want to talk about it.”

“Why her, Rintaro?”

It was the first time you called him by his first name. The shock is apparent on his face, but Rintaro opted to shake his head before wrapping an arm around your waist. “We should eat first. Then, I will you tell everything.”

Breakfast, while not entirely comfortable, wasn’t as terrible as you expected it to be. It was difficult to stay mad at him when you were greeted by the staff who wouldn’t stop gushing about how your husband stayed up the entire night to cook for you. The said man only blushed in response, seemingly embarrassed and continuously apologizing for the mess he made in the kitchen.

Now, if Rintaro was on a mission to mess with your heart even more, it definitely worked.

All your anger dissipated as you ate the rice soup. The breakfast wasn’t anything flashy, but it contained everything you needed after a hungover. Bananas, some sliced apples, a light soup and some ginger tea to help ease your nausea. Such simple food, yet seeing as how Rintaro grew up with a silver spoon and never had to cook anything in his life before, your husband took multiple attempts to perfect the soup into a plausible taste. Not that you would ever tell him since compliments seemed far and beyond in this already failing marriage. But... you supposed, you could give him some credit. You appreciated the effort, and thanked the staff generously before you both decided to just walk back home and talk.

Greeting people as you go, your husband kept trying to hold your hand. For appearance’s sake, or because he simply wanted to have you close, you didn’t ask anymore. You shoved your hands deep into your pockets and led him into a field of dandelions—one of your favourite places as a child. The bright yellows mixing in with the lush green, along with the fresh breeze, and it would have been picture perfect.

You always wanted to visit here with Rintaro. Tell him some childhood stories. It was something you had been dreaming of around the third month of your relationship, but now that you were here standing next to your husband, you didn’t quite feel the same elation.

“This place is beautiful,” he cut the silence and faces you with a soft smile. “Imagine one day, our kids would run here with us—”

“Why are you doing this to me, Your Highness? Do you take pleasure in my suffering?”

“Princess, I—” he sighed, “Let me explain.”

“Go ahead. Tell me everything from the start and I might be kind enough to understand where you come from.”

And tell you, he did. He told you everything. From how they met, to how he had always felt this ‘pull’ with her and smiled to himself dreamily because gravity pulled him to her; they had this magnetic force that they couldn’t stay away from each other. He told you about the dreams he shared with her. The plans they made. He listed down every little thing he loved about her and remained unaware that you stood there furiously blinking back tears, because you were the wife, and you had never felt so unloved at the face of someone who proclaimed his undying affection for a woman who was not his. He reminisced about how it all went downhill when Iris married Kiyoomi, how they were so lonely that they just found home in each other. He couldn’t help it, he said, I just knew I needed to do everything to make her mine.

We were meant for each other.

And you? Who were you meant for? Perhaps, you were destined for this sick, twisted fate where you felt like the outsider, the third party, the side character, in a story that was supposed to be yours? He looked so in love. And you knew, because you mirrored everything he felt about her. You knew because you looked the same way as he does now when you were in love, and it’s not you—it’s never going to be you. It was never supposed to be you. All you could do was smile bitterly when your husband uttered her name like she had cast a spell on him. Pretending with whatever strength you had left in you to be fine.

“You love her that much you were willing to sacrifice me for it?”

“...I—”

“Did you ever think about how this would make me feel? How-How I welcomed you into my home and told you about my deepest fears and-and none of that had been real? Was there a single moment where you stopped to think maybe you were hurting someone else all because you wanted to be with the woman you want?”

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

“But that is the thing, Your Highness, you already did. You cannot undo what has been done.”

“I know that,” Rintaro stepped forward, only to be greeted by you keeping the distance bigger. The crestfallen look on his face nearly made you feel bad. “I do not expect forgiveness from you, Your Highness. Absolutely not. But if we could compromise on something—”

“What would we compromise on?” you laughed without a trace of humour, “I love you. I married you because I love you, I care about you, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. You married me out of greed. You still wish to proceed with your plans which shows you truly do not care about me, so tell me, what is there to compromise about? I want my husband more than anything else, but that is the one thing you cannot give me.”

Rintaro shook his head. “No, no. I am still yours, Princess. Iris is not my wife, you are. You are the one who I will wake up to every morning, the one I will spend the rest of my life with. We can still do the things you wish for. Iris, she... she is not a selfish woman. She has always been kind enough to let me be with you for the greater good—”

You raised a palm in front of his face.

“Please stop talking.”

Was he defeated? No. Rintaro needed more than this blatant rejection of yours. If he had been that weak or gave up any easily, then he wouldn’t get where he was right now. But at this moment, you could have sworn he meant it when his shoulders fell and called out your name.

“Had we met earlier, I would have loved you first.”

“That just hurts me more.”

“I was, and am genuinely happy with you, my wife,” he reassured, but it didn’t stop making you cry. It didn’t ease the pain as Rintaro slowly encaged you in his embrace. Your tears staining his shirt and fists crumpling the material as you felt yourself die little by little. “Shh, Princess. Not a part of me regrets reciting my vows to you on that day in front of the entire kingdom. Believe it or not, but I adore you. I love listening to your stories and hearing you laugh, and-and you are kind. You are strong. You are an extremely beautiful and loving woman that I am the luckiest man in the world to have been your husband.”

“But you do not love me,” you cried harder, “You will never look at me the way you look at her.” When the Prince remained silent, so did you. He didn’t deny it this time—how you would never receive the same treatment as Iris. That fact alone had you pulling back to stare at your husband’s eyes.

“Does she make you happier than I do, Your Highness?”

Ignorance was bliss, indeed. If only you could turn back time and undo this moment where you stopped curiosity from getting the best of you, perhaps you would not be twice as heartbroken when Rintaro nodded. No hesitation in his features. Just pure love, and an ounce of regret and guilt from the way you slowly crumbled before him.

“Yes, she does. The Princess is my entire universe. I would be utterly devastated and lost without her.”

It felt as if the wind had been knocked out of your body. It became a challenge to speak, to feel the tips of your fingers as you stepped back one time, two time, three times until the distance was just as big as the hole he punctured through your heart. Now, you had enough. You had reached your limit, learned your lesson, been humbled to your place—and Rintaro had no intention of taking his words back.

He meant it.

He would lose himself if Iris disappeared from his life.

With that, you had no choice but to force a smile. “I understand,” you declared, wiping your pathetic tears because it hadn’t been an hour since you promised you would be stronger now. But luck was never on your side, and you still kept tripping and wounding yourself. “I...I would like to return to the castle, Your Highness. There is no need to extend this trip any longer than it should be.”

“We don’t need to return right away, Princess. There are still plenty of things we can do—”

“Please refrain from sharing any activities with me from now on unless it is bound by duty. No eyes are looking, so you have no responsibilities with me right now,” you sent him a pointed gaze. “I wish to return to the city, and that is final. Do not question my decisions as I will not interfere with yours.”

Rintaro’s lips flattened into a thin line. You couldn’t bear yourself to look at him anymore, so you walked away from him, salty tears cascading down your cheeks, and the wedding ring heavier than the weight in your heart.

From today onwards, you might not recognize yourself anymore.

None of the Princes and their wives questioned the sudden return to Inarizaki Palace.

When they saw you and Rintaro walk in with gloom faces, everyone shuffled to their feet and quickly packed their things. No words or explanations needed. This honeymoon had already ended on a sour note, and now it was time to return to the reality of royal obligations and duties. Duties such as keeping a fake smile plastered at all times when the supportive citizens of Inarizaki waved and cheered at the couples’ arrival. Atrocious obligations such as letting your husband place a possessive hand at the small of your back when the rest of his brothers welcomed you into the lobby, the youngest Prince bouncing at his feet at the sight of you.

“Back so soon, sister? Did you guys enjoy?”

You shared a quick, affectionate glance with Rintaro. “We did. I had the time of my life, but I thought it unnecessary to dilly-dally around in my hometown when royal duties await us all.”

“As expected of my sister. You are always so adept,” praised the marvelled Prince Tobio who had taken himself to looping himself to your arm. It left Rintaro awkwardly following behind as you were guided to your shared chambers, but you weren’t complaining. The youngest Prince was lively and brightened up your bitter days. “Say, would you mind taking me to Greenville someday when we are both free? I heard you had the loveliest manor there.”

“It would be my honour, Your Highness.”

“Please,” he beamed, and instantly, you were given a reason to endure this hell even longer. “Call me brother, we are family now. But ah, it is night time! I should let the both of you rest. Take good care of her, brother!”

Rintaro offered a nod. The both of you waited as Prince Tobio left the room in high spirits when the uncomfortable silence stretched, leaving you to scurry changing into your sleepwear in opt of avoiding your husband’s gaze. Once done, you let your hands roam over the cream pillars surrounding the edges of your king sized bed with a robin egg blue and gold palette. A golden chandelier with diamonds hung from the ceiling above the bed, the bed post textured with coral shaped indents. The same shade of blue hung from the windows. A large television right across the bed with a cream coloured cabinet lined with gold outlines—a perfect room for a man who would be sleeping by himself. Who, by the way, was already comfortably settled into the left side of the bed with his arm propped behind his head.

“Where are you headed?”

“Outside?”

“In your nightgown? Absolutely not.”

“In the drawing room, my Prince. I am not stepping out of our quarters dressed like this.”

“But it is time for bed.”

“Indeed, and I do not wish to share one with you when you and your mistress must have rolled around in it already. Good night, Your Highness,” you sent him a preppy smile, bowing deep before shutting the doors shut. A baffled Rintaro about to leave his bed the last thing you saw.

Hearing the doors close behind you, you practically crashed into the couch. You were beyond exhausted and your head still pounded from your endless crying—it was now time for a good night’s sleep. Not that it would be good, no matter how soft the cushion may be, because the palatial room did nothing but echo the loneliness residing in your heart.

Unbeknownst to you, Rintaro wouldn’t stop tossing and turning in his bed. The clock ticking got to his nerves until he was cracking open every book, tossing the television to random channels, and even swiping his fingers across the countertops to check for dust. He couldn’t sleep—not when his wife wasn’t beside him. This wasn’t how he pictured his marriage out to be; sleeping alone, with his wife intent on keeping her distance. Still, Rintaro thought, shouldn’t he be happy? You were not getting in his way. You were not particularly malicious to Iris on the way back home, or anytime after that, despite his confession that he knew wounded you. You simply ignored her existence, and now it was his turn.

Did you intend on pretending he wasn’t there too? Because Rintaro wasn’t having any of it. He would rather you hit him, scream at him, even call him a monster if it meant you looked at his way.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rintaro walked to the doors and prepared himself to carry you back to bed when he heard it—the sounds of muffled cries and nearly inaudible whimpers.

He didn’t know why his mouth tasted sour and bitter at the same time.

Rintaro had no idea why he stepped away from the doors like what stood behind it scared him, and slowly returned to the bed. The door acted as a barrier between the two hearts who unknowingly kept themselves up and awake until the sun rose the next morning—Rintaro with a heavy chest of guilt, and your heart gradually losing the spark it once held for him.

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urtheloml · 2 years

Text

cosmically in love with you

pairing: oikawa tooru x reader w/c: 9.4k synopsis: the first time you meet him, he scowls. and then he cries right in front of you, and subconsciously, you keep wishing to see him again. oikawa tooru keeps you captivated and the more you get to know him, the faster you fall. a/n: finally finished this oikawa fic !! there's wayyy too much star imagery but like... oikawa is cute so it's okay <3

Everyone thinks it starts off with a bang, or with a whisper, or maybe even a laugh. When really, it starts off with a scowl.

He can't be serious, was the only thing you could've thought of the moment he entered your life.

The first time you meet Oikawa Tooru, you were 16 and full of caffeine. April weather at night couldn't be predicted and you should've brought a jacket. Midterm season sucked. Too many topics stuffed into an exam sheet with barely enough space for more than three lines of words. Too many things to revise and too little time. Too many subjects crammed into a limited number of days. Or maybe you were just bitter about being terrible at History.

Walking to your local convenience store, you let your eyes take a break from squinting so much. For a measly 30 minutes, you promised yourself not to think of Stalin and his stupid dictatorship and the pros and cons of his industrial revolution and- oh you've already arrived.

A hand comes up to rub your eyes sleepily, despite having just inhaled a can of instant coffee. You're so into browsing for a specific type of milkbread that you don't hear the little chime of the store's bell. When you spot the loaf you want, you go to reach for it, your hand almost grabs it when another hand topples onto yours.

The first time you meet Oikawa Tooru, he scowls at you. Actually scowls at you for trying to steal his milkbread, as he puts it. The frames of his glasses make his eyes look funky, you think. Or at least, you think you thought that in your head. Much to the boy's dismay, he heard you loud and clear and he reaches up to self-consciously toy with his glasses.

Quickly, you make use of him being distracted and snatch up the bread. However, he's quicker than you and grabs hold of its little plastic edge. Swiftly turning around, you try glaring at him with the little energy you have left in you. His hand stays on the loaf and so does yours and the two of you continue to stare- glare- at each other for God knows how long.

"Literally why can't you just grab another loaf of bread, pretty boy?"

It's you who speaks first, and yet you're a bit shocked that you broke the silence at all.

"Aw, you think I'm pretty?" The stranger croons, and using whatever critical thinking skills you have left, you tell him yeah, you're so good-looking and while his attention is diverted, you greedily seize the loaf of milkbread and scurry away to the counter.

The stranger gasps indignantly.

No, he actually inhales so loudly, you had to stop and do a double take. This boy- oh my God he's coming back for the bread. Mr. Stranger runs up to you and for a second you think this boy is about to start shouting. But that's not the case. What he does, is ten times worse, actually.

This random boy starts almost tearfully begging you to give him the bread. He's a head taller than you and here he is, pleading for some bread like some medieval peasant. Despite the emptiness of the store, you look around warily to see if anyone else is witnessing this pathetic man or if it's just your hallucination from a lack of sleep.

The pleas start coming out faster and faster and he literally looks like he's about to get on his knees in the middle of this old convenience store at 10p.m on a random Wednesday. It's testing your patience and your stubbornness is testing his and maybe that's why, at the same time, the two of you blurt out, "THIS LOAF HAS A SPECIAL ALIEN PRIZE STICKER!"

It's quiet after that and you're sure the poor underpaid employee is going to throw you both out the store if neither of you buys something in the next minute.

The cute stranger fucking pinches his nose, as if he's exasperated at you. He gives you a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes and tells you, "Let's ask someone if they have extras, yeah?"

They, in fact, do not.

The stranger is devastated and you hurriedly buy the little loaf of milkbread before he tries to steal it away again. He ends up buying an alienless loaf of milkbread.

The two of you exit the store quietly, and just to spite him a little, you open your loaf and flash him the little green extra-terrestrial sticker with a toothy smile.

Suddenly, it's not funny anymore. Because this boy's eyes legitimately start to water and- yeah. This child starts crying in front of you, one hand rubbing his eyes and all. Crocodile tears. Tilting your head up towards the sky, your eyes bounce from one star to the other, individually asking them why this is happening to you.

With a sigh, you shove the stupid little sticker into the boy's other hand and beg him to stop crying, oh my God, before I start crying too.

The stranger looks at you tearfully and warbles out a watery thanks before smiling softly down at the sticker and safely pocketing it into his wallet.

You're about to bid him goodnight when he asks, "Listen, I know this might be weird and probably creepy because we just met but- do you mind if I walk you home? A teenage girl walking home alone doesn't sound like such a good idea, you know?"

"Well I got here all by myself. Plus, this is a safe neighbourhood. Also, if you walked me home, you'll know where I live and that's even more dangerous."

The stranger smiles, genuinely, this time. He's quite cute when he smiles like that. You wave your hand dismissively in his general direction, basically telling him to do whatever he wants. As you walk away, you hear the sound of his footsteps catching up with you and you stop until he's by your side.

The only things that can be heard are the crinkling of the plastic bags and the sound of your footsteps and his. It's a quiet walk home, with this tall boy following you. It's silent until he starts to talk to you. And then it was never silent again.

"Okay, but think about it. Just think about it for a bit. Like I know it's totally impossible but- the moon landing, yeah? Let's say it was faked but because extra-terrestrial life was present at the same time, they shapeshifted into humans to pretend it was real!"

For the past seven and a half minutes, that's all you two talk about. Aliens. You're not really into aliens at all, to be honest. You only wanted that sticker for a scrapbook page. Although, listening to this boy talk and hearing his voice and how it lingers with barely contained enthusiasm, you don't mind so much.

"Alright, I hear you. But why though? How would helping us prove that we landed on the moon, help the aliens?"

The boy scoffs at your question, like the answer was supposed to be obvious when he says, "Well, now we owe them a favour. That's how they'll start abducting us, one-by-one."

"Ah. I hope you're first."

He clicks his tongue in retaliation and you smile at him. The conversation ends when you tell him he's safely completed his mission, because you've been delivered to your doorstep. The boy bows dramatically and, in his head, he unconsciously remembers the route to your house. Force of habit, he figures.

The stranger looks at you. His eyes are glittering and you think he must've bewitched you when he asks for your name because you're happy to give it away without a second thought. Oikawa Tooru, you learn, plays volleyball for his school team and he wanted, no, he needed that sticker as a good luck charm. That's the last thing he tells you before waving goodbye to your retreating figure. Before he gets too far, you wish him good luck for his next game, loving the way the stars illuminate the slight redness on his cheeks. Ah well, back to studying.

⚝ ⚝ ⚝

The second time you meet Oikawa Tooru happens almost exactly the same way. It's late, but not as late as the first time you encountered him. The sky was freckled with little lights here and there and you were much happier this time around. No longer was it midterm season and though the exhaustion from a long day at school could clearly be seen on your face, you were much more relaxed than before.

Walking into the same convenience store, you reach for a single cup noodle and some chips. It's a lazy dinner night. As you go into another aisle to grab a loaf of milkbread, your eyes light up in surprise when you someone else's hand grabs the same one.

Oikawa Tooru looks at you, his face mirroring your reaction, and the two of you won't admit it but you've both been hoping to run into each other. With his hand still on the same loaf, you hope he'll be the bigger person this time.

"C'mon Oikawa, there isn't even an alien sticker in this one."

He sighs dramatically and lets go, letting you take it. "Well, I guess I do owe you for last time."

He smiles at you then, and it's only once he's grabbed another loaf for himself that you snap out of it. He's way too cute, you grouse internally. He's not wearing his spectacles this time, but he still looks just as attractive as the last time you saw him.

Once you two buy your stuff, he looks at you like he's about to say something but you beat him to it when you ask, "So are you walking home this time around too?"

Oikawa nods and you ask again, "Even though it's not late?"

"Yeah, even then."

Yeah, he's way too cute, you think again. And as you two walk home, you decide you want to find out more about him. So you ask him which school he goes to since apparently you see him around your neighbourhood but not in your school. He tells you his best friend (Iwaizumi, or Iwa-chan) lives around here and he always stops by the store before leaving his house, and that he lives further away.

When he walks ahead of you for a bit, you notice his school jacket with the print 'AOBA JOHSAI VBC' and you exclaim, "Ah! Aoba Johsai! I know that school, yeah, your volleyball team is really good!"

You know you hit the right spot when he grins like he's holding back his pride, because his team is really good. His eyes can't lie, he loves his team and he wants you to ask him more about it, even if you have minimal knowledge about volleyball.

Oikawa fiddles with the plastic bag he's holding and your eyes suddenly take note of how red and raw his palms look. Your nose scrunches in discomfort when you ask him softly, "Were you practising? At this hour?"

He looks away from you, eyes hardening for a moment when he replies, "Yeah. I have to."

"Well, that’s not healthy. You're going to overwork yourself and I think you're too pretty for that. What if you walk home one day and you're too tired to notice giant UFO above your head, huh?"

Oikawa softens at your rambling, mumbling out a yeah, you're right, and you don't see the way he looks at you because you're too busy rummaging through your bag to take something out. If you had looked up, you'd have seen the way his eyes gleamed at your words, the way he looked at you like you said everything he needed to hear that night.

Once you finally find what you're looking for, you wave the small tube of hand cream in his face happily. With boldness you didn't know you had in you, you rub the cream into his hands. Your palms massaging his much larger ones, getting the cream into every crack of his hands, down to his wrist.

You're so focused on making sure his hands are alright that you miss the way Oikawa is absolutely flustered to the max. He's blushing, even though he'll never admit to anyone. And then suddenly he realises you've stopped your motions, because his hands have decided to interlace with yours and now both of you are an absolute mess.

"Oh- oh my god, I'm so sorry!" Oikawa stutters and you can't help but smile cheekily at the way he stutters. You're so lost in the way he's being so shy that you don't even realise you've already made it home.

Oikawa scratches his cheek nervously and tells you he can't wait for the next convenience store meeting. When he's about to leave, you tell him good luck for his next game again, just like last time. And you say, "Goodnight, Oikawa Tooru," loving the way he says it back and you're glad the stars have charted this in their memory.

⚝ ⚝ ⚝

The third time you meet Oikawa, you don't actually meet him.

Of course, it happens in the same small convenience store. While walking through the aisles of the store, you catch a glimpse of that teal green jacket and brown fluffy hair that you'd recognise anywhere. Or at least you think you recognise.

Feeling cheeky, you go up to him and tap him on the shoulder, "Oikawa! Seems like the aliens led you to me again."

It is decidedly not Oikawa Tooru that turns around to look at you quizzically. Yahaba Shigeru feels slightly proud that someone mistook him for his captain. You, however, feel like dying right there and then. The awkwardness of the situation catches up with him and you start stuttering out apologies, trying to leave as fast as you can.

Yahaba smiles at you kindly and exits the store. From a distance you can hear him call out, "Oikawa," and you already know who to expect when the store bell jingles soon after.

Oikawa Tooru stands in front of you, breathless (flawless) and looking right at you. A stupid smirk makes his way across his face when he practically preens, "You really thought my sweet little junior was me?"

The sad face emoticon can be heard from the way he says that and you love the way he rolls his eyes when you tell him that he and Yahaba look identical from the back. Someone from outside calls his name and he looks back out at them before looking back at you.

"I'm afraid I can't walk you home this time. Though, I'm sure someone like you can make it back safely." And he waves at you, seemingly making his exit when he hesitantly turns around to face you again. It's not noticeable, not really, but his ears are slightly red when he walks closer to you and pulls out a pen from his pocket.

Oikawa's eyes meet yours and he reaches out to take your arm and starts scribbling something on your arm. Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise when you realise it's his number. Oikawa bites the inside of his cheek, his heart's racing but he tries to play it cool when he breathes, "Maybe now I won't have to use this store as an excuse to see you."

He leaves after capping the pen and you're still in absolute shock at the move he just pulled. You're also very impressed and even more endeared when you see his teammates slapping him on the back outside the store as they walk away. Glancing down at the mess of numbers, you can't hold back the grin that makes its way across your face.

Pulling out your phone, you input his number immediately. Setting his contact as 'cute alien guy 👽🏐', you send the first text to him, not shocked at all anymore when he replies two seconds later.

hello alien man HIIIII!!!!!!!!

⚝ ⚝ ⚝

Ever since the first time you texted him, you haven't stopped. Oikawa texts you during class, even though you don't always reply. He texts you during break and in between practise and you text him just as much too. He's practically your online best friend at this point. He knows all your gossip and you know all of his. Like:

this bitch in my chemistry class thinks she’s better than me >:// DO YOU WANT ME TO GET MAD DOG TO SPIKE A VOLLEYBALL INTO HER DUMB BUS SHAPED HEADASS?

Things start to progress between you and him soon. A month into texting, he tells you he has an upcoming game.

hey. i got a game coming up on like tuesday at 4 if you wanna come (((o(*°▽°*)o))) actually ykw i'm not even gonna deny it, i'd love if u came (⊙_⊙) FR?? yeah of course i'm coming!! stfu as if you didn't know i'd say yes right away

Oikawa sends another dumb emoticon afterwards and you won't tell him but you scream into your pillow in excitement. And he won't tell you but he yells in triumph so loud that his sister throws a volleyball at his head.

You don't expect to see so many fangirls for him when you make your way into the stands of the Aoba Johsai gym. There are practically infinite rows of girls whining out, "Oikawa!!!" and you kind of knew he was popular, but it's still so... jarring.

You push your way to the front of the stands but there's so many people crowding you that you doubt he sees you anyway. Quickly taking a picture of a peace sign with him in the background, you send him a text so he knows you're there. He won't see it anytime soon but you send it anyway, captioning it with rooting 4u!! if u lose the aliens won't take u >:O.

Your eyes widen in surprise when you see him walk to the bench to look at his phone. Oikawa smiles at his phone and he looks up you, his eyes catching yours and he grins and your breath catches in your throat because he saw you. And when his focus shifts back to the court, you're eternally glad that you're not standing opposite him because his eyes have a certain glint to them and it's then that you find out how menacing his grin can become. His opponents know it and you know it, that Oikawa Tooru can be absolutely fucking frightening when he wants to be, and you've never wanted anyone to win more in your life than now.

Oikawa Tooru takes a deep breath. He glances at his shoes, he lets the ball sink into his palm and he knows you won't believe it but he swears he can hear you over the crowd. He hears the whistle blow and he bounces the ball once, then twice, before running and flying. He's practically airborne, you swear it, and his jump serve makes a ricocheting noise so loud it bounces in your body. He wins the first point.

By the time the second set ends, in Aoba Johsai's favour, you're pretty sure you've lost your voice from how hard you've been cheering. You don't really care though, the only thought that consumes your mind is the fact that he won. Well, his team won.

Oikawa smiles as he wipes down his face, he saw the way his phone periodically lighted up throughout the match. You basically texted him as if you were the match's commentator. And if you stayed until the end, you'd have felt it yourself, the way his cheeks ached from laughing so hard.

Oikawa doesn't ask you why you walked home without him. He knows you know he'd want to celebrate with his teammates, but he wouldn't have minded if you wanted to be selfish. He wouldn't have minded if you wanted to join him. He wouldn't have minded if you wanted to monopolise him for a bit.

Before your eyes succumb to sleep that night, your phone lights up once and you fall asleep dreaming of one boy.

thanks 4 cheering me on. could hear you all the way from the stands to the court. only you (⁠/⁠^⁠-⁠^⁠(⁠^⁠ ⁠^⁠*⁠)⁠/

What a player. There's no way he could hear you, the crowd was too loud for that. You reply with a simple '<3' anyway.

Ever since the first match, Oikawa tells you about every other match and even invites you randomly to hang out with him. You go and see him play whenever you're available, and you start to get more comfortable with his friends too.

The first time you meet his best friend, you can immediately tell that they hold each other together. Two sides of the same coin. And when Iwaizumi pays for your meal, you decide you like him even more. When Iwaizumi tells you all about Oikawa’s embarrassing childhood events, much to Oikawa’s whining and pleading not to, you decide that Iwaizumi is one of the best people you’ve ever met.

Oikawa slowly introduces you to his whole team once you and him have become proper friends. You meet Hanamaki and Matsukawa randomly on a cold night in a hotpot restaurant and you immediately decide they're your favorite in the group. That night, Oikawa fights everyone with his chopsticks, knocking his against theirs to let you get all the good meat.

Oikawa also finds out about your scrapbook and collects every sticker he sees for it. He peels off the sticker on his onigiri packets and tears off the stickers he finds on his classmate’s desks and pastes them on your arm whenever he’s with you. Your sticker collection grows a lot because of him, not that you’re complaining. And one time, you make the mistake of telling him that your class was going to have a karaoke party, to celebrate the end of a school year. And oh, what a coincidence, he shows up there as well with the entire seijoh team. They would never snitch on their captain but you know he planned all of it. That night, you and him do a duet of every single High School Musical song, fighting over who gets to be Troy and Gabriella.

⚝ ⚝ ⚝

It sneaks up on you. Brushing over your shoulders so lightly that you don't notice it until it happens; your third and final year.

It's one cold January night when your phone pings with an ominous text from Tooru (you call him that now). Your eyebrows furrow as you read his text and you laugh lightly at it.

coming over rn.

It's quite late but you're sure he's already outside of his house. Waiting for him, you sit on the steps outside your house. Rubbing you palms together and watching the way your breath floats in the air.

In a few minutes, you hear him before you see him. The pitter-patter of his footsteps as he jogs, the way his breath comes out harsh and ragged like he sprinted here (he did).

Above, the sky seems starless but you know they're there. They always are, whenever he's with you. Oikawa Tooru and the stars come in a package, you never see one without the other.

Anyway, here comes a freshly out of practice, out of breath and an absolutely elated looking Oikawa Tooru. The moment he sees you walking towards him, he starts running and then all you know is warmth and the way his arms are long enough to engulf you completely.

"I- I fucking made team captain. Coach just suddenly pulled me aside after practice and said they made me captain. Oh my God, they think- I'm the captain. Holy shit, I'm the fucking team captain."

Your eyes start to water at the way he sounds breathless. Not just because he ran all the way here but because he sounds like he's in disbelief. His voice, breathy and in awe, rings in your ears and you wonder why he sounded so unsure. As if everyone doesn't know how fucking hard he works, as if everyone doesn't know he deserves to be captain.

You're ecstatic for him. Your hands grip the back of his jacket so tightly that you're afraid it's going to tear. And when he pulls away, just far enough to look at your face, his eyes are shining and if you look close enough, you can see the moon reflected in its glassiness.

"Did you run all the way here to tell me that? You could've just called," you chide, not because you didn't want to see him but 'cause you know he's probably tired from practice.

Tooru looks at you, tilting his head the way he does when he can't figure out a math problem. His eyes soften imperceptibly and he bites the inside of his cheek so hard to keep himself from kissing you when he exhales, "You were the only person I wanted to tell. And, I wanted to see you."

Tooru let's go of you then. But he doesn't go home, not yet. He sits with you on the steps of your house. And even though you're cold, you're happy to sit with him. You'd stay freezing all your life if it meant you could always have him with you.

Tooru lets his body heat seep into you while he talks about everything and nothing all at once. He tells you about the stars and how he's scared about not being able to lead his team to the best of his ability. You tell him that he doesn't need to worry about that and asks him to tell you more about the stars.

Tooru exhales, let's the tension in his body go slack. He goes on then, telling you how it's not like he's going to study astrophysics or anything like that. Ever since he was little, he's simply been unusually in love with everything that's out of this world. It's why he's in love with you after all, not that he'll tell you anytime soon.

And it's not only the stars, he talks about space and the planets and he talks your ear off about different galaxies and the possibilities of endless alternate universes and you wish upon every single star that time would stop so you could listen to him go on for hours.

Once he leaves, after hugging you one more time and after you congratulate him once more, you let his words replay in your head.

You're the only one I wanted to tell.

Oh.

It's something so simple and yet you know, you both do. That's the moment you start to fall.

⚝ ⚝ ⚝

The whistle blows. The echo of the resounding smack of a volleyball rings in your ears. The ball falls into Aoba Johsai's court, and Tooru's team loses by two points.

The opposing team, (ushiwaka's team), looked like a tough match from the start and your chest tightens at the redness of Tooru's eyes when he begrudgingly shakes the other team's hand.

You can't see it very clearly, but you can tell how much Tooru's beating himself up over this. As the newly appointed captain, it's a hundred times tougher for him this time to deal with the loss.

Your hands are jittery as you wait for him outside his school gates. You've always walked to the station with him ever since he made captain, so you figure it wouldn't be any different this time. He calls out your name as he approaches you, looking bone weary. All locked jaws with eyes dull but still burning.

Half-heartedly, he smiles at you and thanks you for waiting. You don't say anything yet, afraid you might set him off somehow.

It's quiet as you walk beside him. The remnants of his loss lingering in the space between his body and yours. He says, very softly, like he's ashamed to admit that, "I tried my hardest. My team tried their fucking best yet we never seem to win against Shiratorizawa."

Your eyes can't seem to meet his. He keeps looking away from you and it's making it harder for you to say anything consoling. When you try, he snaps at you.

"Tooru, there's still a few more months to keep trying. You've still got a chance to beat him!"

Tooru scoffs at your words. And you try again but he cuts you off. His words cold and sharp, "What the fuck would you know."

He stops walking. He looks at you with wide eyes like he's surprised at what just came out of his mouth. You wave it off and even though he apologises, his words silently sting. You're well aware that he said those things because he's frustrated with his loss, but it hurts all the same. It's awkward then.

When you enter the train, he doesn’t wave goodbye to you as you leave, he doesn't even look at you at all. Somehow, that's the worst part.

The same achey feeling festers even more when he doesn't text you at all over the next few days. After three missed good morning texts, you finally start spamming his phone. It's an unusual switch, for you to be the one texting him first and this rapidly. But unfortunately, he still doesn't answer.

Disappointment weighs heavily in the pit of your stomach when he doesn't show up at the convenience store either. You don't normally frequent it daily but you thought maybe if you did then there'd be a chance to meet him, but he's never there.

When a whole week and a half passes, you finally decide to see him yourself. You don't really care that he's so hell bent on avoiding you. You miss your friend, you miss Tooru and his stupid emoticons and his dumb jokes and the way he laughs with his whole chest.

Walking into his practice session, you expect to see him talking to his team or practising receives. You don't expect to see him all smiles and rosy cheeks. You definitely wouldn't have expected to see a girl you've never seen before all over him.

Okay, she's just handing him a water bottle but whatever. Maybe the way he's smiling is forced too but again, whatever. Huffing and turning around, you walk out of the gym not two seconds later. You shouldn't have bothered, he's clearly all buddy-buddy with someone else, and he's clearly feeling fine so you shouldn't have worried in the first place.

Whatever.

At the same time, Iwaizumi, ever the wingman, sees you glaring holes in the back of Oikawa's head. He laughs softly before spiking a volleyball at his best friend's head. Hard enough for said best friend to fall forward and yell. Iwaizumi grins slyly and points in the direction you just left in.

"Shittykawa. The girl you won't shut the fuck up about just left."

"Shit. Thanks, Iwa-chan."

Oikawa Tooru thanks the setting sun for the first time that his coach makes him run like hell every practise. His athleticism pays off for once as he dashes for you. How you're walking so fast, he has no idea. The only thing he knows is that he has to catch up to you.

He does. Of course he does. He'd run around the moon to get you, and he'd do it in a heartbeat.

When you're finally within his reach, he spins you around to make you face him. He's barely panting but it's obvious he's been running. Without waiting for him to speak, you jerk out of his touch to snap, "You know. If you wanted to ignore me and make me feel like shit, congratulations. You did it."

Oikawa's face falls. You don't wait for his response and continue walking towards the station. Oikawa follows and spins you around again before you can get away again.

He puts his hands in front of him, begging you to wait. He sweeps his fingers through his hair nervously before babbling, "I'm sorry. I- It was stupid for me to ignore you like that. I kept over practising and then Iwa-chan had to literally drag me off the court the past seven days and I know that isn't an excuse not to talk to you but I couldn't handle talking to anyone. And I know that isn't a good enough reason to hurt you like that but- I was scared. I didn't wanna accidentally say something stupid like when I snapped you the night I lost against Ushiwaka."

"So, you thought isolating yourself from me was the best solution?" You deadpan, putting aside the desire to chastise him for overexerting himself again.

"Yeah. I'm a bit of an idiot like that."

Rolling your eyes, you push past him. "Hm, I can tell. Whatever. Glad we cleared that up. Have fun with your new girlfriend, or whatever."

Oikawa balks. His eyes do that Loony Tunes popping motion at your words. He watches you walk away for a second, a satisfied grin spreads its way across his stupid smug face. He catches up to you and spins you around again, and you almost punch him for looking so happy.

"You're jealous."

"Fuck off."

"You're jealous. And also, stupid. But I guess we're both stupid then. Anyway, she's just a fan. I don't even know her name."

Squinting, "She was all up in your space, Oikawa"

Oikawa's grin dims when you revert back to using his last name. Though, he supposes he deserves it for ignoring you. He tries again, placing both palms on your shoulders gently, gauging whether you'll let him or not. You do, and he takes it as a sign to carry on.

Oikawa looks at you like you're everything he's ever wanted, and then he says, "There's nothing to be jealous of. I don't care for her. I don't know her at all. I don't know her like you. I'm sure she wouldn't fight over an alien sticker with me. I don't think she looks at the stars whenever she's particularly sad, because she knows the darker the nights seem, the brighter the stars shine. I don't think she hated how corny she sounded when she told me that."

Oikawa breathes in and exhales unsteadily when he barrels on, "I don't think she'd sit with me in the freezing cold just to talk. And, I really, really, don't think she'd come all the way to my court just to see me if I ignored her for a week. No, I don't think I'd be so disastrously interested in anyone unless they did all those things."

The world keeps spinning on its axis. It doesn't stop turning, but it sure fucking feels like it. As you take in his words, you don't know if you've breathed even once. Your heart beats so loudly, you think it overshadows the sound of the incoming train.

Oikawa holds your gaze still, eyes soft and waiting, and you want to reply but the train comes. So, quite cruelly, you leave him on the platform and hope he doesn't notice how your face feels like it's burning. You tell him you'll text him and try to forget about how disappointed he looks as the train speeds off.

⚝ ⚝ ⚝

You don't text him. It's not that you don't reciprocate his feelings, because obviously you do. You absolutely like him back, no, it's more than that even. You love the way his feathery hair falls into his eyes when he nods too enthusiastically, you love the way his eyes light up whenever he figures out a new way to improve his plays and you love how caring and considerate he is for his teammates. You love the way he never seems to falter, how he's steady as a rock and how he's the embodiment of the word 'hardwork'.

Yet, even with all those feelings, you're terrified of telling him. You don't think he'd reject you, and maybe that's why you're so afraid. Because you're not sure he's meant to be with someone like you. Someone of your calibre.

It's not like you're so horrifically insecure but you just think maybe he won't shine as bright as he could with you weighing him down. In the back of your mind, you can hear Hanamaki's voice saying, "It's really not that deep, girl-" but you cut it off instantly.

Apart from that, there's no real concrete reason why you don't text him back. Maybe it's the fear and anxiety and the fact that you don't know how long the two of you will last and the thought of being so irrevocably in love with him just for it to fall apart sooner or later? That thought scares you the most, the fact that- unlike the stars, which are infinitely present- the two of you are not a permanent fixture.

Your overthinking does not stop Oikawa Tooru from being insane though. It seems Iwaizumi was right when he called Oikawa petty and the biggest sore loser, because he decidedly does not like or care for a taste of his own medicine. What with the way he's been blowing up your phone.

Oikawa has been tossing and turning every night you don't talk to him. He thinks about how this is how you must've felt when he did the same thing to you and it makes him even more restless. He picks up his phone to try you again.

His neverending texts range in severity and you're not sure how long you can keep him away. See the following:

omg PLS text me back (〃＞＿＜;〃) hey, if you don't wanna talk about what I said, it's totally fine with me. just talk 2 me :( MF ISTG,, if you don't txt me back rn, I'll manifest your alien abduction ☆ｏ(＞＜；)○ i can literally SEE you reading these messages, please text me back.

It keeps on going. Oikawa has never known when to give up. He'll keep trying until you respond. He's also known to be very impatient and after a week passes by, he decides he will not stand for this. He won't let your radio silence deter him. He won't let this chance slip away, he won't.

⚝ ⚝ ⚝

On the seventh night of your Oikawa Tooru strike, you're rudely awoken to the sound of your bedroom window rattling. You were always warned to lock your window at night because having a room on the ground floor would be easier to break into. Man, you should have listened.

Snatching your phone from its charger, you shine the torchlight at whoever it is. Unfortunately, the light shines directly into Oikawa's eyes, causing him to loosen the grip he has on your sliding window. He yelps and the window grille falls on his back, and the two of you stare at each other until he breaks the silence.

His eyes dart back and forth from your look of incredulity to anywhere else in the room.

"I just kinda feel like we're meant to be together. I mean look at how the universe keeps throwing us at each other!"

"It's 3 in the morning and you're stuck in my window. How did you even get there?"

"The universe, I just told you. Aren't you listening?"

At the way his voice lilts, you can't help but crack a smile. Damn it, you've missed him so much. It's only been a week but it feels like so much longer.

Oikawa pulls himself out from your window and stands on the other side of it, looking at you expectantly. You're about to go and apologise for your behaviour when he cuts in to tell you to follow him. He asks you, "Do you trust me?"

"Who are you? Aladdin?" You reply snarkily, but take his hand anyway, and let him pull you into the night. You don't even question where he's taking you.

He makes sure he gets you out safely and then he starts walking. He doesn't say anything about the way you trail slightly behind him instead of how you usually walk next to him. He knows you're sorry, he can see it in the way your eyes shift each time he tries to meet yours. He can see it in the way you laugh softly at his stupid jokes even though they're not that funny. He can see it in the way you keep trying to apologise but you can't get the words out so instead, you let him talk the entire time.

And talk Oikawa does. He speaks to you about everything he did in the week you didn't talk. He fills you in on the gaps in his life that you missed and it feels like you weren't absent at all.

"I finally got the timing for Kyoutani's quick right. And during break, Hanamaki dared Matsukawa to eat twelve pieces of Oreos at once, and then they both threw up. Hanamaki did 'cause he saw matsukawa do it first. Iwa-chan spiked three volleyballs at me this week."

You reply periodically and laugh at the right timings, but your heart isn't fully in the conversation. You're sure Oikawa can pick up on that, but you're grateful that he doesn't comment on it. Halfway through the journey to wherever he's taking you, he stops by your convenience store.

"Wait here!" He exclaims, and then five minutes later he comes out with a bag filled with snacks. Oh— it's all your favourite snacks and the guilt comes back full force.

The wind blows past you, and strands of your flyaway hair falls into your eyes. Oikawa reaches out and tucks your hair behind your ear, and you think he's the prettiest boy you've ever known. Another gust of wind blows past, hard enough for it to make the swing set in front of you creak and sway. It turns out that he's brought you to a playground in your neighbourhood.

You've been here before. Not with him, but you've been here nonetheless. When you were small and not worried if Oikawa Tooru was going to break your heart. It's an irrational fear, because Oikawa Tooru would rather shoot a hole in the moon itself than commit such a crime.

Oikawa walks towards swings. He sits on the left, and you on the right. He hands you the box of Pocky he bought. Both of you slowly kick off the ground, swaying slowly in the night. The streetlamp flickers and the sound of crickets drown out the sound of your munching.

Tooru (you want to call him that again) turns to you and stares, waiting for you to explain yourself. It's hard to do that while he's looking at you so intensely, so you slowly stop swinging and choose to look at the colourful ground instead.

There still isn't a concrete reason for ignoring him, at least nothing you can put into words just yet. So that's where you start, you suppose.

"It wasn't like I was ignoring you. If anything, I couldn't stop thinking about you no matter what I did."

Tooru stops swinging too. He's so confused , "You can't just ghost me every time you need space. If you want space, just tell me and I'll give it to you. Ignoring me like that was really shitty."

"Yeah, well. You're one to talk."

"And I apologised, didn't I? I'm still waiting for yours."

Biting back a frustrated groan, you stay silent. God, you hate this, you were supposed to talk things out. Not fight even more. Suddenly, the reality of it all hits you like a punch to the gut. This was what you were afraid of. Making him mad, being bad at communication, the two of you just don't fit and now he's annoyed at you and-

Tooru looks at the sky and sighs. He gets up when you stay quiet and takes your hand to drag you to the talking tube. It connects one end of the play area to the other. He brings you to one end, makes a motion with his hand that means stay there and then he walks to the other end of the talking tube. He sits down on the ground because he’s practically twice the height of the tube.

His voice echoes through the playground speaker. He asks, ‘Hey? Can you hear me?’

You hum in answer and then he clears his throat and says, “You know, I like the moon. I like space and I like the galaxies. I like memorising the names of different constellations and I like the stars. And, I like you."

"I like everything about anything that's outside of earth but none of those things compare to you. Not the stars, not the moon, not any other planet and not even aliens. You're the only cosmic element I'm in love with, for now and for forever."

He takes a breath and you’re surprised you can hear it through the old worn out tubes. He goes on, "And I'm sorry if that scares you but you're gonna have to deal with it. So, either tell me you don't love me back, and we can forget I ever said anything. Or tell me what I think you're gonna say, because I may be an idiot, but I like to believe I'm not entirely stupid.”

He's right. You hate how intuitive he is, because of course he knows. Sitting criss-cross on the ground, you let your forehead rest against the metallic rim of the tube.

"You're right. I do like you. It's more than that, but Tooru- I'm so scared."

Your eyes find comfort in the space above you, as they always do. It dawns upon you just how tiny the two of you are in this endless universe. If Tooru's so insignificant in the vastless galaxy, even when he glows as bright as he does, then you're even less than that. You lean back down onto the tube.

Fiddling with your fingers, you whisper, "In a few months, we’re gonna graduate and you’re gonna go somewhere amazing and be you know- all you, and I’m just, I think I’m just going to stay here. Probably. Anyway, I'm not someone you should be with, you know. You're- you're gonna go out there and be great and I'm just. I'm just, me. I know I'm not making any sense but like, see, I don't know anything about volleyball, so it's not like I could help you with- with the one thing I know you try your hardest at. Tooru, I like you, a lot, but I don't really think we're meant to fit."

Oikawa Tooru has heard many stupid things in the sixteen years he's been alive. He hangs around Hanamaki and Matsukawa for God's sake, but the nonsense that just came from you might be dumber than anything he's ever heard. He inhales, and then with a burst of breath, he echoes in a voice that’s much too loud for the time of night, ‘Bullshit.’

The volume makes you wince. Sucking the air between your teeth, you rub your ears and look over at him in annoyance. Your irritated look does nothing but make him smile, and he walks over to you. Tooru looks down at you.

Next, Tooru's scowling at you. Just like he did the first time you met him. It really hits you then, just how much time has passed since he came into your life. He makes a sound that gets stuck in his throat, something in between a scoff and a gasp.

"That's actually the dumbest thing you've said so far tonight. First of all, you still haven't apologised. Second of all, you don't like me, you're clearly in love with me," and then he waves three fingers in front of your face, 'and third of all, everything you just said is irrelevant."

You start to get up then, indignant, but Tooru beats you to it and crouches down to your level. When he's this close, you can count the freckles and spots on his cheeks and if you connect all the dots, you'd be able to form constellations. When he's this close, it's hard to pretend like you don't want to pull him in by his shirt just to wipe the audacity off his face.

"Everything you just said, everything, is irrelevant. I don't care if you’re going to stay here. I don’t care if I’m going somewhere three hours away or a plane flight away, I don't care. I love you. I’m going to- no, we’re gonna make this work. And it’s not ‘we can’ make this work, we’re going to make this work, because you and me? It's written in the stars actually, the aliens told me themselves."

This time, the world really does stop spinning. You have no idea if your lungs work or not, maybe it's that Tooru stole your breath, but you can't seem to breathe right. It's always a little hard to breath when Tooru's near you. Your head wraps around what he just said and you wish something would come out of your mouth.

Tooru sees your struggle and huffs, laying down flat on his back beside you. He looks up, away from you, but slowly reaches out his arm towards you to pull your hand down to his lips. He kisses your palm once, and mutters so softly, "And I wish you didn't talk about yourself like that. You're not someone I should be with? You're the only one I want to be with. If you think we're not meant to be, that's fine. I'd choose you myself each time anyway."

For once, you're the one holding his gaze. But he takes the same hand you're holding and places it over his eyes before continuing, "If I had to choose between a million things I love and you, I'd always fucking pick you. And I don't care that I can't talk to you about volleyball, that's why I have a team. Just coming to every game you can is more than enough for me. Look, I believe that everyone has one great love of their life and I'm telling you, you're mine."

At that, you inhale sharply. Tooru removes your hand from your face and instead, grasps it in his and places it over his chest. He starts talking again, and maybe he's trying to knock you out when he says, "I am not gonna let you throw us away before you even give us a chance. So, there you go, I cleared up all your doubts, haven't I? The only thing stopping us from being together right now, is yourself. So why don’t you save us the trouble and tell me you’re in love with me already."

Taking your tongue between your teeth, you bite down to stop yourself from beaming just yet. Letting his confession wash over you, the more it starts to make sense. You and him. You should be more confident in yourself. After all, you're the one he came running to when he made captain. You're the one he texts all night long even when he has morning practise. If anything, the only thing that doesn’t make sense in this whole thing, is the fact the two of you aren’t already dating.

Fuck your commitment issues.

Swinging a leg over him, both your kneecaps bracket his waist. You lean over him with your forearms on the ground and whisper, ‘Okay, you win. I love you. I love your stupid face and the way you talk about space and how passionate you are about volleyball," your voice breaks, "and- and I love you even though you always overwork yourself and you never think you’re good enough. I love you, and I always think you’re more than enough and I’m still really scared about us but 'm gonna try anyway 'cause I know it’ll be worth it."

By the time you're done speaking, you're winded onece again. Tooru, however, is all wide eyes and rosy cheeks and red ears, and then he grins so fucking wide that you're sure his mouth must ache afterwards.

The reflection of the moon disappears as his eyes crease and he brings a hand up towards your face to pull you down. Right before he kisses you, he murmurs, ‘that’s my girl,’ and then he closes the distance.

Everyone says not to expect too much for your first kiss. But they’ve never had a first kiss with Oikawa Tooru, and if you can help it, they never will. Tooru kisses like he speaks; languidly, sweet, and to the point.

His lips brush against yours, feather light at first and then harder. He brings a hand up to the back of your neck, pressing you harder against himself until you’re practically smashed up against him.

He pulls away for a bit and you chase after him but he flips you over so that he’s the one above you this time. He leans back down and it feels like everything is okay again. He has a hand on the back of your head, pushing you closer to him. Every doubt, every insecurity and everything you were afraid of gets erased with a single kiss.

When he holds you close like this, it’s hard to think about what you were scared of in the first place, because how could you have been so fearful of something that feels so fucking right?

Unfortunately, the need for air surpasses the longing to keep kissing him and you pull away to catch your breath. He rests his forehead against yours and whispers, “Thank you for giving us a chance.”

Laughing into him, letting your giddiness pour into his mouth, you say, “I never stood a chance, not against you. You knew you’d have me, Tooru. You’re a winner after all.”

He hums noncommittally, "You’re right about that," and kisses you again. With his lips on yours, open-mouthed and pressing down, you come to understand what the movies meant by 'seeing stars'.

When the sky grumbles and flickers, Tooru pulls away. He had to bring you home sometime. He gets up first before pulling you up as well. Up close again, you can tell that his lips mirror yours; wet and raw and loved.

He doesn't have to say he's walking you home. It's an unspoken agreement now that he's your boyfriend. As you walk home with him, his hands never once let go of yours. Your hand swings casually with his as the two of you walk as slow as possible back to your house, trying to prolong the journey as much as possible, taking every detour possible and laughing at nothing.

"Tomorrow, you're going to buy me dinner for ghosting me. And then I'll buy us dessert because I'll feel bad for ordering the most expensive item on the menu."

"Sounds good. Here’s a better plan— how about we just dine and dash?"

Tooru giggles into your hair at that. As you both approach your bedroom window, a thought comes into your mind like an unwanted rat and you immediately verbalise it to him.

"When you said it didn't matter if you were a plane flight away… does that mean you’re definitely not staying here?"

He whips his head around to face you, eyes shining with barely restrained glee, "I've always known I wanted to go overseas to play. Maybe not immediately after we graduate, but... soon. And I kept that in mind when I said we're going to make this work. And you agreed, so no take backsies!"

Despite his excitement reflecting onto you, your worries and doubts start to resurface unwillingly, "Okay, but wouldn’t it be hard to focus on us and going pro at the same time? Tooru, I can’t stand the thought of being a burden to you. what if you-"

He doesn't let you finish, doesn't let that thought spiral into a million other things. He cuts you off with a simple press of his lips against yours. Kisses you against your window until you're silent and doesn't let you speak until your heart calms down.

When he pulls away, the streetlight lightens up his eyes and the stars illuminate his face, it makes his hazel eyes dance. He rests his forehead against yours and tells you with a steady voice, with full certainty, “You’re worth it. You’re worth everything to me.”

Oikawa Tooru’s kisses taste like starlight and his words ground you better than gravity ever could and somehow, he gave you his whole universe without even trying.

#oikawa tooru #oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa tooru x you #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #fluff #humour #angst #hurt/comfort #oikawa #tooru oikawa x reader #tooru oikawa x you #haikyuu #hq!!#hq fics

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sweetdreamlandstuff · 2 years

Text

Sweet dreams

NSFW / Minors don’t interact

Pairing: timeskip Tooru Oikawa x female reader

Content: implied cheating, dirty talk, oral (f receiving), fingering, protected sex, penetrative sex

Notes: Because of popular demand (2 Comments lol) here is the second part for Oikawa’s part of this post. You don’t necessarily have to read the first part though (quick summary; he fantasizes about you after seeing you in a hotel bar). Now it’s time for the action haha. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Words: approx. 3800

Oikawa never was a believer in fate. Hard work, steady practice, determination; these were the things that lead him where he is now; a professional volleyball player, a successful man, living a fulfilled life.

But when he sees you again, sitting so prettily in the hotel bar the next evening he enters, he may just change his mind. Maybe there really is some kind of fate, even in his life.

He notices you’re alone. A slight smile appears on his lips at this realization. So he seizes his chance. Although his legs are tired after the training match today, his strides are long and driven.

He makes his way towards you, a charming smile on his lips. Your eyes finds his and he watches you rake them over his body before they fix on his eyes again. And there it is again, that smile on your face that makes his chest feel all warm. You shift a little in your seat once he stands in front of your table.

“Can I join you?” Oikawa asks, his tone polite and straightforward.

“Uh yeah sure” you answer, a little surprised.

He sits down in front of you. His warm brown eyes trail over your features and he’s baffled that you look even more stunning from up close.

You break the silence by introducing yourself. Oikawa does the same. For his normal cocky and confident nature this is the first time where he is actually just a little unsure of himself when talking to a woman. You’re just so enticing. And well, he dreamed about you last night (among other things). He really hopes that the next time his palms smooth over your skin, it won’t be a dream.

You both fall into light small talk. He learns that you are staying in the hotel, just like him. And today you are waiting for the man you were here with last night. Upon hearing this Oikawa slightly clenches his jaw. That’s unfortunate, but this won’t stop him.

“How long have you been waiting?” He asks, his eyes noticing your half-empty wine glass on the table.

You sigh “About 20 minutes”

“A man should never let a woman wait - especially not such a gorgeous one” he says in a flirtatious way. He leans back into his chair a smirk playing around his lips.

“I think so too…Oikawa” you utter, propping your head on your hand as a grin stretches across your face. And the way his name drips over your lips is just heavenly. He sees how you’re acting all confident and he loves it because the slight blush on your face shows him; you’re not immune to his charm. Far from it actually. You both look at each other just like that, getting lost in each others eyes before the waiter serves the drink Oikawa has ordered.

He’s happy when he feels the cool liquid entering his body. Because when his eyes take in your red nails or your delicate hand moving up and down your wine glass he can’t help sinful imagines flooding his mind. Just after a few sips of his drink he feel like he’s floating. But he’s sure, that is probably not due to the alcohol. He feels like he is getting drunk off your presence.

You both fall back into your small talk. The conversation flows easily. It seems like both of you don’t really care what you talk about. Oikawa has a hard time following your words as he is so caught up with gaping at you. He takes in the way your lush lips move, how you move your hair behind your ear and how your warm laughter vibrates in his chest. He loves the sound of your voice and he can’t help to wonder how this sweet voice would sound, moaning, whimpering and begging for him.

And you don’t seem to be able to get your eyes off him either. Your half-lidded eyes drinking in his lean figure and broad shoulders hungrily, trailing over his slender fingers again and again. And Oikawa thinks he could sit like that forever, just watching you. But fate isn’t solely on his side. The man who has been with you last evening arrives. And oh boy, he sure isn’t happy to see you sitting here with another man.

His eyes sternly jump between you two, his jaw clenching. You stand up, greeting him with a kiss on his cheek. “What the fuck are you doing with him?” He hisses.

You gulp, feeling the anger that radiates off him. “We were just having a drink” you mutter in a low voice. He only looks down at you with a frown before Oikawa intervenes.

He stands up and extends his hand “I’m Oikawa Tooru”. Your smile falters on your face when you see the expression on your man’s face. You gulp, shooting Oikawa an apologetic smile when he doesn’t move to extend his hand. You look at him expectantly but he just looks down at you, his face full of anger.

Tooru frowns slightly, trying to keep his smile polite. He raises one eyebrow and chuckles awkwardly “well then…”

He steps closer to you, his hand resting briefly on your lower back as he presses a fleeting kiss on your cheek.

“It was nice meeting you, y/n” he mutters and his lips briefly hover above your ear as he whispers “I’ll check out the pool. If he’s boring you just come and find me.”

You only look at him flustered, unable to utter a goodbye. You just watch how Oikawa stares at the man next to you, his eyes raking over him smugly. He scoffs quietly and then leaves you two standing there.

Oikawa is still pissed off when he reaches his hotel room. He didn’t like the way the man was talking to you. And he sure as hell didn’t like the way he looked down at you. A woman like you should be spoiled and treated well. A man who lets you wait for him, a man that gets this insanely jealous simply isn’t good for you. But who is he to judge?

It’s just that after he talked with you, Oikawa is really getting greedy. He simply needs more of you. No amount of dreaming or imagining will be sufficient enough. Not after he was so close to you; seeing the freckles on your face, the way your dress hugs you and your plush lips stained red by your wine. And he wouldn’t be Tooru Oikawa if he wouldn’t get his way somehow now, would he?

As you put on your bikini you’re still a little unsure if you should do this. You watch yourself in your floor length mirror, tugging at the fabric. You feel the alcohol you drank tonight cursing through your veins, maybe leading you to make a bad decision. But you know, there is no way you’ll find sleep tonight if you don’t follow Oikawa’s invitation.

You couldn’t sleep peacefully if you knew that a hot stranger awaits you. Well, if he really does, like he said. You gnaw at your bottom lip, trying to decide. But you’ve already put on your bikini so would you really not go? Alone the thought of him, wearing only his swim trunks makes your heart beat faster.

And when you walk through the floors, heading for the pool you feel excited. It’s already pretty late, nearly midnight. The pool is completely empty. You scan the room, and you feel disappointment wash over you as you take in the vacant space. That is until the water surface breaks.

Oikawa cuts through the surface, the turquoise water rippling around him. He cuts through the water elegantly, swimming a lap. You feel your heart beating faster upon seeing him. He hasn’t spotted you, so you move, sitting down at the edge of the pool, dipping your legs in. The water’s temperature feels a little cold against your skin.

He swims the crawl and then comes to a halt, at the edge. His warm hazel eyes spot you and a smile appears on his face. “Were you looking for me?” He questions, grinning at you from the water.

You don’t know why but seeing him look up to you makes your heart flutter in your chest. His breath is heavy, his face flushed. His wet brown hair is sleeked back, droplets of water running down. You can see his broad shoulders over the surface and his slender hands are gripping the edge right next to your thighs.

You chuckle at his question and mutter a shy “Yes”.

Oikawa gets out of the water and the ease of his movement has you in awe. You see his strong arms lifting him up easily. And you watch his abdomen flexing, his wet skin reflecting the dim light of the pool. You gulp at the sight. You quickly let your gaze flicker back to his face. He positions himself right next to you, his whole body just a few centimeters from yours.

His eyes rake over your figure. His slender hand takes ahold of the collar of your bathrobe softly “You’re gonna loose that?” He asks with his honeyed voice.

You gulp at his sudden proximity and the tone of his voice. You only nod. You stand up, open the belt and let the robe drop to the floor. His smoldering eyes rake over your body, taking in everything. You tug nervously at your bikini top, as you feel his burning gaze on you. The light of the water paints shadow and light onto your skin. Your skimpy bikini leaves not a lot to Oikawa’s imagination. But he doesn’t want to imagine about you anymore. No more sweet dreams. The real things far better, he is sure of it. Especially now that he has you standing in front of him … like that.

A satisfied grin is etched onto his face when you sit back next to him.

“You want to go into the water?” He questions.

“Yeah” you answer, smiling at him. “Let’s have a race” you propose.

He chuckles at your request. “Alright.”

You both position yourself on the edge, ready to dive in. “3, 2, 1” you count down.

The water feels a little chilly against your body as you cut through the surface. You dive, feeling like time travels differently under water. You come up and swim your lap. You see that Oikawa is far ahead of you, but you’re not surprised. You really didn’t expect to stand a chance against him. He awaits you at the other end of the pool, sitting on one of the stairs. His broad shoulders loom over the water surface as he watches you swim towards him.

He grins at you cockily and you beam right back at him. “I won” he states, mischief glinting in his eyes.

“I’m aware” you answer, standing in front of him, the water up to your waist.

“What’s my prize?” He inquires.

You chuckle to yourself, shaking your head. “There is none, Oikawa”

“Oh really… Can I wish for something?” He pouts. The way his voice goes lower has your heart fluttering in your chest.

“What would you wish for?” You ask, eyes boring into his brown eyes.

His hand slicks back his hair and he hums as if he is thinking. “A kiss” he says with determination. His eyes gaze at you, almost provocatively.

You shake your head, trying to stop a grin from stretching across your face “I knew it” you mutter.

He cocks up his eyebrow. He gets up, walking through the water to you. He looms over you, his lean figure towering over you. “So?” He prods, his brown eyes peering down at you curiously.

You gulp at the sudden proximity. You can’t resist and let your hand travel over his toned abdomen. You hear him inhale deeply when you touch him. You let your hand rest on his chest and look up at him through your lashes. “Claim your prize” you breathe.

And he does. His lips are soft on yours, his hands moving to rest on your waist as he pulls you closer to him. The kiss is desperate, the longing exploding in the sensation of your tongues moving against each other. His grip on your waist becomes stronger as he lifts you up. You instinctively wrap your legs around his torso and your hands around his neck.

He swallows your moan when his rough palms grab your ass. The water makes it easy for him to hold you up and you both loose track of time. Kissing each other, hungrily and thoroughly. You let him drag the breath from you until you’re panting. You pull away, watching how Oikawa’s enlarged pupils trail from your lips to your eyes.

“Let’s go to my room” he rasps. You breathe a yes and you both make your way to his hotel room.

Once the door is closed you both fall into each other again, as if the few minutes without your hands on each other left you famished. The kisses are sloppy now, messy even. Now it’s Oikawa that opens your bathrobe, letting it plummet to the floor. Your bikini follows right after. Once he has you naked he pulls away from you to take in the sight before him. His hungry eyes rake over you, admiring your naked form. “Fuck” he mutters, licking his lips in anticipation. You feel your cheeks heating, the look in his eyes borderline feral.

His eyes find your gaze again and you have to avert your eyes once he looses his clothes. You gulp when you see his hardened cock. You can’t resist and take him into your hand, dragging your hand along his dick. Heat pools in your core, as he throbs under your touch. The need to have him move and shudder inside of you flames through your body. You hear Oikawa’s breath quickening as he observes your delicate fingers moving up and down his cock.

That is until his lips press back onto yours and he takes ahold of you. He lifts you up and you wrap your legs around his waist again. He walks over to the bed, never breaking up the kiss as he lays you down on the mattress.

You feel his dick throbbing against your thigh, his hands smoothing down your sides. He breaks up the kiss, pressing soft kisses on your neck. Your hands nestle into his brown locks as he drops lower. The tingle of his lips against your sensitive skin draws a low moan from you.

“This is your prize” he mutters against your hot skin. His lips latch onto your nipple, sucking softly, while his hand kneads your other breast. Then he dips further down, trailing soft kisses down your stomach until he is positioned between your thighs.

Your breath hitches once you feel his breath fanning over your pussy. And you nearly loose your mind when you see him positioned between your legs, his brown eyes fixed on your dripping folds.

“I’ve dreamed about this” he murmurs before he licks a long stripe up your pussy. You moan aloud when you feel his tongue against your dripping core. Oikawa groans against you once he tastes you.

You gasp when his mouth closes around your throbbing clit, sucking harshly. He doesn’t tease you, he’s nearly impatient, although his skilled tongue works thoroughly.

He thrusts one of his fingers inside of you. Once he feels how wet you are for him, he adds a second one. He thrusts into you while his tongue swirls around your folds. You moan at his touch, your hands fisting the bed sheet, desperately trying to hold onto something. You melt under his touch, your legs trembling once his tongue increases his pace.

Once his fingers move faster you feel the coil in your stomach twisting tighter. His other hand holds onto your thigh, pushing your legs further open for him as they dare to close around his head. The hotel room is filled with your breathless moans and the squelching sound of your pussy. And Oikawa hums against your dripping core, once he feels your pussy fluttering around his slender fingers. He increases the pace of his fingers, sucking now harshly on your clit. You whimper, feeling yourself tipping over the edge.

Your back arches off the bed as he draws your orgasm from you. And he guides you through the waves crashing over you. Oikawa moans against your pussy, holding your trembling legs in place as he drinks up everything you give him, lapping up every drop of your release. Your moans turns into whimpers once his tongue swirls over your puffy clit teasingly. He takes his fingers out of you and you suddenly feel empty.

Your head is still spinning when he crawls up to you. You try to ground yourself, your vision getting less blurred once you come down from your high.

He presses soft kisses to your neck, eliciting small sighs from you. His calloused palms smooth over your bare skin, grabbing onto everything. You gasp when you feel his heavy dick throbbing against the plush of your thigh. Your pussy clenches around nothing and you want him inside of you - desperately.

You nestle your hand into his hair pulling him softly off of your neck. He looks down at you, eyes half-lidded, your arousal glistening on his chin. He drops down to press his lips onto yours. His tongue moves against yours, and he swallows your delirious moan once you taste yourself on him.

Then you pull away, opening your eyes, looking at him with beseeching eyes. “I want you” you breathe, nearly begging, and a sly smirk appears on his lips as he hears your needy words.

He moves grabbing a condom that lays on the bed stand next to you. He rips it open with his teeth, while your eyes glaze over his lean body kneeling between your thighs. Oikawa’s eyes drink in your naked form laying underneath him hungrily, his eyes hazed over with lust. He rolls the condom over his throbbing dick and your mouth waters at the sight.

He is on his way to hover back above you but you have different plans. You sit up, pushing him down gently, your hands appearing so small against his sturdy chest. He lays down on his back as you position yourself on him.

He raises his eyebrows only slightly, smirking up at you as you straddle him. His hands grab onto your hips and his smug smile is wiped off his face once you lower yourself on his dick. You move slowly and carefully, feeling his large dick stretching you open deliciously.

He curses under his breath “Fuck, you’re so wet”

You don’t answer him, you’re too busy basking in the feeling of him filling you up. You start to move lazily. His dick nearly moves out of you before you lower yourself again. You watch Oikawa falling apart underneath you; his brown hair disheveled, his soft lips bruised and his jaw hangs agape as his lust-drunk eyes rake over you. He watches your tits move and the way his dick disappears inside of you with each thrust. You are so wet, dripping down his thick cock and balls.

He moves his hands, gripping onto the meat of your ass. He guides you on his throbbing length, urging you to move faster. You do, increasing your pace but your legs are still wobbly from your first orgasm. The faster pace has you panting and when his finger circles over your puffy clit you throw your head back, exposing your slender neck. Your pussy spasms around him once again, as desperate whimpers fall from your lips.

Oikawa moves underneath you, sitting up slightly as his mouth latches onto your neck, sucking on your delicate skin. You nestle your hands into his hair, your moans falling directly onto his ears.

He takes ahold of you, flipping you over with ease. You gasp once he has you laying underneath him, the look in his eyes feral. He leaves you no room to breathe before he thrusts into you. Every nerve inside of you feels raw and electric as he ruts against you, short and sharp. He holds onto the headboard of the bed, just to thrust even harder into you.

The room is filled with the squelching sound of your pussy, the slapping of his skin against yours and both of your depraved sounds of pleasure.

You hold onto him, burying your nails into his back, feeling his back muscles work under your hand. You watch him fucking you, his mouth hangs agape and his expression gets increasingly more desperate with each thrust.

Oikawa finds your gaze and his lips curl into a sly smile. His low and taunting voice makes a shiver run down your body. “Can he make you feel like this? Is he fucking you like this?”

You gasp at his lewd words. “Oikawa” you whimper.

He chuckles cruelly, taking ahold of your legs to hook them over his shoulders. “That’s not an answer. Try again, y/n” he mutters, gritting his teeth once he plunges his throbbing length even deeper inside of you.

The change of position has you already in a daze, your eyes threatening to close. You gulp, trying to find your bearings to answer him.

“No” you mutter, your nails digging deeper into the muscles on his back, as you spasm around his throbbing length “Only you” you breathe.

“Say my name” he groans, his thrust becoming faster and harder.

You feel the coil in your stomach tightening one again and when it snaps his name falls off your lips. “Tooru” you moan deliriously, as he fucks you through your orgasm. Your mind goes blank, his name the only thing you have left to say. Your nails rake down his back as your sight grows hazy.

You hear him groaning, low and breathless, as you greedily clench around him. His name dripping from your lips repeatedly pushes him over the edge. He cums, long and hard, his dick pulsing deep inside of you, a string of curses dropping on your ears.

He collapses onto you, out of breath. You hug him against you, your hand soothing over this muscular back, where your nails raked over just a few seconds ago. He nuzzles into your neck, his hand soothing over your side before he comes back up. He slips out of you, causing you both to sigh in unison.

Oikawa peers down at you, his fucked-out appearance makes you smile. His warm eyes trail over your features before they fix on your eyes again. “That was even better than in my dreams” he pants.

You furrow your brows. “You’ve dreamed about me?” You ask breathlessly, your heart beating hard against your ribcage.

His chest vibrates on you as he laughs lightly. Then he grins down at you, his eyes glinting with mischief “You have no idea” he mumbles.

©sweetdreamlandstuff

#oikawa toru #oikawa tooru #haikyuu smut #oikawa x y/n #oikawa x reader #oikawa x you #oikawa smut #tooru oikawa #haikyu x y/n #hq smut #tooru oikawa x you #tooru oikawa x reader #tooru oikawa smut #haikyu x reader

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lyssasdrafts · 2 years

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— MISSING YOU !

SYNOPSIS ; the two of you haven’t spoken since graduation - but now, oikawa tooru is now back in town and agrees to a fake relationship to cover up a scandal on his part, and to make a crush jealous on yours. what could possibly go wrong?

chapter ten

MASTERLIST. next

“can i hug you?” he asks quietly.

you nod awkwardly. oikawa hesitantly puts his arm around you as you walk in, muttering something under his breath.

the two of you hadn’t actually met again yet, not since he came back. you’d both agreed on purposely picking a popular café and for him to ditch his usual disguises to stage your first “date”. all in hopes of being spotted.

something about going out with him makes you feel so distracted; it’s nothing you haven’t done before, right? you’ve gone on dates with him, you’ve kissed and hugged, but it’s still unfamiliar to you. you know that he’s still the same person, but he’s different in the sense that he’s matured.

his shoulders are broader, you notice. his hair’s grown out more. his voice is softer and quieter, but his insults and expressions haven’t changed.

you ask to be seated outside. once everything’s ready, oikawa takes a sip of his drink.

“so, mattsun?”

it catches you off guard. you didn’t really expect to be talking about your own motive for the deal. it’s awkward to be asked about your feelings by your ex.

“what about him?”

“how long have you liked him for?” tooru trails off. you think and chuckle, “maybe almost a year?“ he takes note of how giddy you seem over your mutual friend.

“been on any dates since?”

“not really,” you pick at your bagel. “i think i just haven’t really been interested in anyone else since graduation.”

oikawa nods in response. “what about you?” you ask.

he laughs it off. “i had a public relationship. it didn’t end well, which is what caused this whole scandal.” adding that, “i’m sure you heard about it though?” he winks.

you cringe at him. “not surprised. why would anyone willingly want to be with you?”

“you did,” he grins.

“shut up.”

“i think you’ve been spending too much time with iwaizumi.”

you can already hear a few people staring and muttering that it’s him. soon, you realize that there’s a small crowd of people around. you notice the flashes from cameras and the sounds of clicking.

both of you look at each other and instinctively lean in, oikawa purses his lips.

“can i kiss you? in front of the cameras?” he makes sure to emphasize that last part, reminding you of why you’re even doing this. you nod.

“for issei to see it,” you mumble.

you know that it’ll be everywhere now. that the now infamous oikawa tooru, san juan’s known setter, is seeing someone. namely, you.

NOTES

can you tell i’m not used to writing enemies to lovers 😭

next chapter is issei’s reaction <3 <3

TAGLIST

@theperksofsimplybeingme @namyari @gonsbiggestfan @hoothoottreiber @admiringlove @daddyissuesmademe @sassyglassesbunny @gabiisdone @kawaiitoga @hair-dye-or-nawh @r-xochitl @bloombb @m1kotsu @angybees @littlemochi @kaleshima @kiyokoism @chaotickyrith @shoyotime @putmeinyourdeathnote @discountkiyoko @rinniekawa @minimarkive @starylust @tendo-sxtori @ellesalazar @tinyegg @boxdisappeared @marshmallow12435

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atsukashii · 2 years

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❝tell me you love me❞ // t. oikawa

SYNOPSIS: ➛ confession: you've been in love with one of your best friends since high school, but life has a way of getting in the way. so tell your friends you love them, before its too late.

» CHARACTER PAIRING: tooru oikawa x reader

» WORD COUNT: 18k and i'm not sorry

» GENRE: slice of life, ANGST with no happy ending, mutual pining

» WARNINGS: major character death, blood, violence

From the moment you were born you had been coddled and hovered over by your parents. Albeit, not in the usual way that first time parents usually fuss over their babies as you were born with lungs that didn’t do their job properly. You were incredibly fortunate to have received treatment as a child, and as you grew it became a constant thing you monitored that didn’t interfere with your life too much.

Surprisingly, what it impacted most was your ability to make friends. Due to frequent hospital trips and doctors appointments, you hadn’t made any lasting friends in your early years. That was until your fifth birthday, when Iwaizumi Hajime moved in next door. Obsessed with bugs and getting himself into all kinds of trouble, the two of you made fast friends, but it wasn’t until a year later that you met the one person that would impact your life in both the best and worst ways.

“But she’s a girl!” These were the first words Tooru Oikawa had ever said to you.

To his credit, you were in fact, a girl, and only six years old, holding onto your childhood friend Iwaizumi’s hand in a white-knuckled bone crushing grip. You remember being so nervous the day Iwaizumi came knocking on your front door, asking your mother if you two could go to the park to play with his other friend.

You’d been jealous that Iwaizumi had another friend other than you. That jealousy had then turned to awe when your eyes had climbed up the lanky figure in front of you, and settled on the prettiest brown eyes you had ever seen.

Iwaizumi had stomped on Oikawa’s foot the moment he had uttered the words that had your heart dropping into your stomach. But you’d only blinked at him, puffing out your chest like you were stronger than what your frail little five year old body portrayed and snipped back.

“Yeah, and you’re a boy, so what?” The brunet had only gaped at you as if he’d never seen a girl in his life. And that was that.

From that moment, you had become a constant figure in both boys' lives, even though there were times that Oikawa had more often than not tried to hog your best friend all to himself.

It wasn’t until they started middle school that they both began to take volleyball more seriously than playing with a ball after school hours.

You found yourself trying to compete with sports for your friends' attention - something you weren’t allowed to participate in due to your condition, yet somehow, they always found time for you. Whether it was having study sessions after class, or walking home together - even if it means waiting until their practices were done.

Even though their love for the game grew, they never made you feel like less of a priority because you weren't a part of the game.

In the early days of your friendship, you had decided to keep your condition from your friends, not wanting them to treat you any differently. But Iwaizumi had found out when you were eight when you’d been rushed to hospital in an ambulance and he’d been standing next to your porch, his insect net discarded at his feet and a horrified look on his face. You had caught pneumonia after being in days of wet weather, spending it trying to catch tadpoles in puddles. But the look on Iwaizumi’s young face stayed with you, and it was a look you never wanted to see again. Ever. So you had just told your other friends that you had chronic asthma which was why you were forced to sit out on basically all sport classes and why you avoided those clubs.

Your condition frustrated you even more as your friends began their descent into volleyball obsession, a sport that you always wanted to play but couldn’t - so you were forced to watch from the side lines. That didn’t stop the boys from doing hitting drills with you sometimes though, however the moment your chest would heave due to the silent buzzing of your watch which constantly monitored your blood oxygen levels, you’d excuse yourself and more often than not, they’d fuss like mother hens. It was sweet, but also left you reeling in your thoughts of how pathetic it seemed to you to not be able to do those kinds of things.

Iwaizumi was always the one that would be stern on the outside, but the minute he noticed the slightest glance at your watch or the buzzing, a flip switched and he became a helicopter parent. It was Oikawa that had first brought up the idea of helping him with some receives, and you’d jumped at the chance, ignoring your other friends grumbles of disapproval. You’d always been closer to Iwaizumi, not really understanding where Oikawa and you stood with his constant jokes, sometimes blunt tendencies and the fact that he is like a smoke show. A smoke show that drew you closer every day.

It wasn’t until your junior year of high school did you really realize just what that warm feeling in your chest meant whenever Tooru was around you - until you realised just how vital he was to your life.

You weren’t bullied, not really. But teenage boys could be cruel, more so than girls could be. That year, you didn’t share many classes with your two best friends, even fewer with Makki and Mattsun, and often you had to actively go find them during lunch time because they had their own friends. That’s not to say that you didn’t, you just weren’t as much of a social butterfly as Tooru, or was naturally able to attract people to him like Maki.

You spent most of your time with music blasting through your headphones whenever possible, and more often than not had your nose shoved in your favourite book. This although wasn’t considered ‘cool’ by your classmates, so somehow you became ostracized.

You had been walking towards the gym where you knew your friends would be on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Like an idiot, you’d ignored your friend's texts to bring an umbrella to school and instead had looked at the then sunny sky and thought you wouldn’t need it. But now, as you cradle your book to your chest and jog the short distance from building to building, trying to seek refuge in the annex of the gym, you can’t help but mentally smack yourself for not knowing better.

The familiar sound of a hand slapping a volleyball meets your ears, immediately followed by a loud laugh has your downturned lips uplifting. By the sound of the ostentatious bickering, all four of your friends were inside. Anticipation stemmed to life in your limbs at the noise, suddenly being even more excited to tell Mattsun about the show he’d told you to watch which you had binged in a single weekend whilst they were at an out of town tournament. Only steps away from your refuge a long arm blocked your path, and as your eyes follow the limb back to its owner, you’re met with the dark brown eyes of a boy in your class.

“And where are you going mouse?” The nickname had caught on in your first year of high school when people had discovered you weren’t as openly brazen and loud as the boys you were often with. And so far, you’d been unsuccessful in your attempts to get rid of it.

“I’m meeting my friends for lunch.” You say, your voice quiet and the snickering grin that pulls across the boy's face has genuine fear licking to life inside your chest.

“You mean those boys you’re obsessed with? The ones you stalk?” What was it about moronic teenagers that thought boys and girls couldn’t be friends? Bare in mind you did have a tiny, microscopic crush on one of them - the others were like the overbearing brothers you never had or really wanted for that matter. Your brows pinch in frustration as the words grate on you. They'd been whispered behind your back for years, but for someone to say it to your face, it was more aggravating than you thought it would ever be.

“I’m not obsessed with them, they’re my friends!” Your voice is smothered by the rumbling of thunder above, and your cheeks flush with embarrassment as the boys laugh.

“Friends? Please you’re not even pretty. Why would the most popular guys in our year want to be friends with someone like you?” The back haired one in front of you asks, his two friends caging you against the side of the building snickering in agreement.

“All she does is read.” The book cradled to your chest is snatched from your hands, and your protests fall on empty years as your classmate to your left tosses it to the boy in front of you.

“Give that back!” The ring leader flips through the pages, ignoring you completely. His eyes only flick back to yours as he snaps the book shut.

“You follow those guys around like a dog, so fetch,” One second, your book is in his hand, and the next it’s landing with a thud into a puddle of mud in the rain. A broken noise slips from your lips as you watch the pages soak up the brown water. With no hesitation, you dash into the rain, picking up the hardback and not caring that your blue blouse of your uniform becomes dirtied from the book. The boys all snicker at you as you stand in the rain, glaring down at the puddle with tears welling in your eyes. However their amusement is short-lived.

“What’s going on?” Normally, it’s Iwaizumi who commands the sort of presence that has people like your crappy classmates shutting up. But as you look through your dripping lashes and the pounding rain, it’s Oikawa who stands at the doors to the gym, a frown etched onto his face, and anger radiating off him in waves.

“Nothing, we were just talking.” The raven haired teenager shrugs before making his leave. He doesn’t get more than a step before Oikawa’s large hand wraps around your classmate's bicep, yanking the boy to a stop.

“What the hell is your problem-”

“I asked, that the fuck is going on.” The underlying threat to his tone has the boy in Oikawa’s grip blanching at the taller brunet.

“I didn’t do shit!” Oikawa’s eyes meet yours and quite frankly you don’t know what to do. You want to tell him the truth, but also don’t want to cause more trouble for everyone. You just want today to be done so you can go home and get out of the rain before you get sick.

So you walk out of the rain, hugging the muddied book to your chest in a pathetic attempt to keep yourself warm. For a second, it’s as if the world holds its breath as Oikawa’s light brown eyes drag cautiously from your head to your shoes. Normally, the action from most people would make you uncomfortable, but the genuine concern in those golden brown orbs has a feeling of safety washing over you instead.

It’s not until Oikawa’s gaze hesitates on the now ruined book that you’re clutching like a lifeline does he release the boy.

“We didn’t do anything, right Y/n?” One of your classmates, the one who had stolen your book in the first place, asks with anger flashing brightly in his gaze. You can’t bring yourself to say anything due to the chattering of your teeth as the cold of your wet clothes starts to bleed into your bones. As if he hears the noise over the commotion of the summer rain and the boys trying to prove their supposed innocence, Tooru’s eyes once again meet yours, and this time there’s nothing but unbridled rage swirling in them.

It only takes a second for the situation to get out of hand. One moment, Oikawa is releasing the boy's arm, and the next his right hand is pounding into the bridge of the ring leaders nose, which makes such a sickening crunch it has your feet freezing to the floor. The book thrower hits the ground with a dull thud, and to your surprise, none of his friends move to back him up. Instead, they all look at Oikawa who is shaking with fury. The promise of more pain rippling from his eyes.

“If you ever talk to Y/n again - ever look at her wrong again I will break more than you fucking nose.” Like bats fleeing hell with hounds at their heels, the boys sprint from the scene leaving nothing but a few feet separating you from your friend. You both stand in silence for a moment, just taking in each other and the entire situation before Oikawa lets out a sigh, running a now shaking hand through his messy brown hair. You don’t know if you’ve ever seen his hair a true mess like it is now, and your mind fogs at that little bit of information, locking it away to remember.

“Are you alright?” You go to nod your head, but as your eyes move to the floor you notice the bright reddening skin on his knuckles and your body moves before your brain.

“Your hand…” Reaching forwards, you grip the limb gently with your fingers, rotating it to see if he’s hurt any other part of it. “I’m sorry-”

“Don’t apologize for those shit heads. Ever.” Oikawa sounds so unlike himself that it has you looking back to his face with shock. But what really rocks you to the core is the pink blush dusting his high cheekbones, and the fact that he can’t look you in the eyes. A small smile tugs to your lips at the sight, and he lets out a childish groan as he in his hesitancy to look at you, notices your drenched form.

“What assholes.” His damaged hand twists inside your hand until he’s the one clutching your fingers and dragging you inside the gym.

“You can’t go home like that. Your mom will kill you, and then me. I’ve got my volleyball uniform in the locker room. It’s clean so you can wear that - though it will be big it’s better than being drenched.” His words echo around your head as you follow behind him through the gym, both of you ignoring the ruckus of your other friends realizing your appearance. But you can’t even be bothered to look at them. You are unable to take your eyes off Oikawa’s broad shoulders.

When did his shoulders get so broad? They haven't always bee like that, have they?

The back of his neck is the same bright red of his cheeks, and it has your own face flushing in more than embarrassment.

You’d uttered nothing as you slipped into the locker room and Oikawa immediately opened a locker down the end, bringing out a bag before grabbing the familiar white and aqua blue uniform. Turning towards you with a shy smile, your heart felt as if it was about to go into cardiac arrest at the sight. He was giving you clothes so you didn’t have to wear your muddied uniform home.

He was giving you his clothes to wear. Your brain was short circuiting as he placed them on the bench in the middle of the room before gesturing to the door in a panicked movement and disappearing out of it.

In complete silence, you rid yourself of your soaking wet clothes before slipping into the uniform that was huge on you, but at least it was dry. You thanked whatever volleyball god thought putting elasticated drawstrings on the shorts was a good idea before taking a final calming breath.

The moment you breached the doors to the gym again, three teenage boys were in your face, talking over each other, and each one promising other forms of bodily harm that if you were anyone else would have probably made you nauseous.

“I’m going to kill them.”

“Not before I tear their legs from their bodies.”

“Screw that, I say we castrate the fuckers.”

“I’m down.”

“Can all of you just shut up?” Oikawa’s voice actually causes his teammates to hesitate in their homicidal planning, and they look at him as if he’s insane. “How about asking her if she’s alright for starters.” The rage covering Makki, Mattsun and Iwaizumi’s face quickly shifts to guilt, but as you hold up a hand to tell them that it's okay, you’re alright, Oikawa speaks up. “And maybe about how my hand is?” The sudden turn in conversation as Iwaizumi kicking one of the discarded volleyballs by his feet right at Oikawa.

“Iwa!”

“Shut up shitty-kawa, this isn’t about you-”

“Is your hand okay?” You ask instead, making sure that he hadn’t actually hurt it, because if he - the starting setter for their team had messed up a hand because of you, you don’t think you’d forgive yourself. The blushing and nervous Oikawa from earlier is nowhere to be seen, this time, the usual carefree and flirty boy you’ve known since you were eight is winking at you like nothing had changed.

“Nothing to worry about here gorgeous.” Oikawa smirks, before looking over your head to Iwaizumi and wagging his eyebrows teasingly. “You’d be jealous Iwa, I think I broke that Hiroto kid's nose.” As the room around you bursts into familiar chaos, you can’t help internally thank Oikawa for taking the attention off you. Being fussed over wasn’t your favourite thing, right along with causing trouble for your friends. But the fact that Oikawa had done both for you, and helped you when you needed it most… your heart flipped in your chest at his grin that he threw at Makki who was inspecting his hand as if not believing it and needing physical proof of the contact.

You knew then you were definitely friends.

But that was all you would ever be. No matter how much your heart wanted for more since that day. No matter how many whispered conversations you shared, or secret smiles and inside jokes. No matter how many times he shared his umbrella with you, took you out for lunch and hung his arm over your shoulder whilst you all walked together. You would never be his person.

This was cemented in your senior year, where you stood near the front gates of the school with Iwaizumi as you waited for your friends. Your traitorous eyes tried to settle on the tall brunet surrounded by a group of gaggling female fans every time you scanned the front doors for the other two members of your group. But you forced your eyes to keep moving, not wanting to hurt your heart more than necessary right now.

You were doing a bad job of it of course, because the dark haired guy standing to your left let out a sigh of not quite frustration or annoyance, but something, before opening his mouth.

“Why can’t you just tell him?” Iwaizumi had been trying to encourage you to tell Oikawa about the fact that you were head over heels in love with him from the minute you had burst into his room after an afternoon of studying with Oikawa, the secret spilling from your lips. That was over six months ago.

And so far, you’d kept those words locked deep in your heart under lock and key, never to be uttered. Why not?

Turning to Iwaizumi with raised brows, he only rolls his eyes in what you now know is annoyance at you. “Um hey have we met? My name is Y/n and that-” you hiss, gesturing over your shoulder to the brunet captain surrounded by girls who you think are far prettier than you. “Is Tooru Oikawa, our best friend, the most popular guy in school.”

“You forgot registered dumbass.” Iwaizumi points out and now it's your turn to roll your eyes. “You’ve got to tell him one day.”

“And ruin my friendship when he doesn’t feel the same? No thank you.” You grumble, adjusting the strap of your backpack and trying hard not to look back over at Oikawa as you hear him saying goodbye to his fangirls.

“You’re both idiots.” Iwaizumi grumbles and you don’t bother to reply as Oikawa skips towards you, a pep in his step and a blinding grin pulling at his lips. His happiness is contagious, and you find a small smile tugging at the edge of your mouth before you can stop it.

“Ready to go?”

“Don’t act like we haven’t been waiting on you for the past ten minutes.” Iwaizumi grumbles but Oikawa just ignores him and throws a heavy arm over your shoulders as he grins down at you.

“He’s just jealous Y/n, because I have fangirls and he doesn’t.” He probably has them too, you bite back the response because Iwaizumi beats you to it.

“I don’t need a group of gaggling girls to prove my worth as a player.” He snaps but the words are empty of any malice and anger, instead Iwaizumi looks like he might laugh from his friends' antics.

“So meat-buns?”

“So I got an interesting call yesterday.” The trio of guys seem to block out Oikawa’s words, however it’s the underlying excitement in his tone that has your noodles stopping half in your mouth. The moment your slurp stills, one by one your friends turn to him with feigned disinterest, obviously now picking up on the serious vibe Oikawa is radiating. It’s not that he’d never be serious, but normally any proper concentration is focused on volleyball so… Nervously, you bite into your noodles, letting the remainder that hung from your lips pathetically drop back into your soba bowl.

“Are you going to just say it or make us guess crappy-kawa?” Iwaizumi grumbles, pushing his food around with his chopsticks. However, the grin that breaks out across Tooru’s face has the soba in your stomach turning to lead.

“I got an offer to train with José Blanco.” The confusion on your face is one hundred percent sincere, because although you’re friends with volleyball jocks, that doesn’t mean you have a bottomless pit of knowledge of every star player to ever walk the face of the earth, past and present. But you can make a rough guess that he’s someone Oikawa really looks up to due to the delight filling Oikawa’s features.

“As in the Argentinian setter?” Mattsun’s words have alarm bells ringing inside your head. And as Oikawa nods his head, you find one of your greatest fears come to life right in front of your eyes.

“After graduation, I’ll be moving to Argentina to play for the CA San Juan team.” You choke.

All faces turn to you as your food catches in your throat, your stomach threatening to lurch and make your lunch have a second appearance although for a completely different reason. Pushing his glass of water across the table, you can’t bring yourself to even look at Oikawa as you down half the glass. The moment your chest stops heaving and your coughing fit ceases, you manage to look into Oikawa’s golden hued gaze and your chest throbs - and not from choking.

Makki and Mattsun congratulate him whilst you look back to your soba as if trying to find the answers to your life in. Because honestly, you’re completely lost.

Oikawa was moving to Argentina. He was leaving. To Argentina. Argen-fucking-tina.

Sniffling away the stinging in your eyes, you don’t look back up until you’ve managed to school your features to something akin of happiness.

But as you look at your best friend, he’s already looking at you with worry strung through his features. And that's where you know for sure, that you’ve got to show him you’re happy for him. Because you are, you’re so proud and happy that he has this opportunity because out of every person you’ve ever known - he deserves it.

But there’s the selfish part of your soul that wants to scream and cry until you’re blue in the face and your lungs are burning. That part of you wants to tell him to stay, that you love him and you want him here. That part of you however gets shoved further and further down into the deep dark depths of your heart as you listen to him talk ecstatically to Iwaizumi about going.

Even as Oikawa corners you as you all begin to disperse from your usual Friday afternoon post-practice feed, that despair leaking from your heart is buried six feet under - so deep that it doesn’t affect the smile that reaches your eyes.

Even as Oikawa’s brown eyes glitter down at you as he silently hands you his track jacket to cover your coatless shoulders, it doesn’t crack.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Oikawa starts about half way into your joint walk back to your house.

“You only received the call yesterday Tooru,” You say in disbelief. “Yes, how dare you wait a whole twenty four hours to tell us all in person that you’re moving halfway across the world.” The sarcasm brings a small teasing smirk to the corners of his lips. “You’re a horrible person, really.”

“The worst.” He parrots back, now grinning down at you. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Honestly, you have no idea why he’s thanking you, or what for. Your expression must say as much, as the teasing grin melts into something softer that has warmth spreading from your chest in waves.

“For not calling me crazy.”

“Oh it's definitely a crazy idea,” You deadpan, pulling at the sleeves that hang over your hands. “So it's fitting for you.” Finally looking back up at him, you can see the uncertainty in his eyes. Where did this come from? “Did one of the guys say something?”

“Not really.” Oikawa hesitates, running a hand through his hair. “Makki mentioned that I maybe should have thought about it longer.” There’s strong logic behind what your other friends say, and you both know it. However, Oikawa has always been what you call calculated impulsive, so the reality of that would never happen. Because although he has the habit of making decisions on the fly, there is always logic, reasoning and strategy behind every one and more annoyingly - most tend to turn out for the better.

“He’s just going to miss you is all.” You offer, but as the slight slump to his shoulders doesn't budge, you let out a soft sigh. “Look, you’ve got plenty of things here for you.” That catches his attention, enough that you finally stop and level Oikawa with a hard look. “But that doesn’t mean that you won’t have just as many, if not more, opportunities over in Argentina. As long as you remember that you’ve got four people back home who care about you and will support you in anything, then you’ll be fine.”

For a moment, Oikawa simply blinks at you, as if seeing something for the first time, it throws you for a loop. A wobbly smile then settles across your friend's face bringing a smile to yours.

“You think Iwa would let me forget him? He’d be more inclined to catch a flight to San Juan and beat me for trying.”

“And we’d all be there with him. You’re stuck with us Tooru - we’re lifers,” You laugh at his mock groan and bump your shoulder into his arm. More warmth bleeds from your chest as he bumps you right back, the insecurity in his eyes now fully swallowed by radiating happiness.

As you finally settle up against the front gate of your house, you look up at Oikawa and can’t help but smile at the lack of weight on his shoulders.

“I don’t know if I've said it yet,” you begin, looking through your bag for your keys as you talk. “But I'm really proud of you, Tooru.” You finish, looking up at him with your keys in your hands.

��Obviously, I’m going to be your rich friend Y/n.”

“My increasingly arrogant and vain one too, apparently.” You say, rolling your eyes and walking through the gate towards the stairs of your house.

“Please, you love me gorgeous.” You don’t have to turn around to hear the million dollar grin on his face, but you do anyway, trying to hide the blush across your face.

More than you’ll ever know.

“You wish.” With a dramatic gasp of outrage, Oikawa is by your side in seconds, snatching your house keys from your hands before you can blink. “‘Kawa!”

“Say it,” He teases, and you try to keep your frown from morphing into a smile as the bastard holds your keys over his head, very much out of your reach.

“My mother taught me to never tell lies, Tooru.”

“Then she would be simply disgusted at the words that just left your mouth.” He jokes, wagging his eyebrows at you teasingly.

“I’m not a liar Tooru Oikawa, now give me back my keys,” You grumble, reaching up towards his hand for your keys knowing fully well there’s no way you can reach them.

“Give me the truth, gorgeous, don’t break my heart like this.” He groans childishly, and you want to laugh as he’s seconds away from stomping his foot in jest.

“Never.”

“Never? That’s an awfully long time to be stuck out here with me. Are you sure you can handle it?” Handle it? No. Want it? Very much so.

“I’ve got a mirror in my schoolbag, so long as I give you that to look at yourself every five minutes, I think i’ll survive.” Just as Oikawa puts both his hands to his chest in fake disgust, you lunge at his clasped hand, gripping his tight fist and yanking at the dangling lucky cat keychain. The brunet squawks in outrage and pulls his hands back towards his chest with a sharp tug that has you tumbling from your stance and headbutting his chest hard enough that you both fall down in a tangle of limbs.

A groan slips from your mouth as you massage your forehead that meets his shoulder on your way down, and in seconds Oikawa’s face is mere inches from yours, with his hands pushing your hair from your forehead.

“Crap Y/n, are you alright?” Words leave your lungs, mouth and brain as you take in just how close he is. Sure you guys have hugged and been close before, but this, practically straddling his lap on your front lawn as he cups your face - this is new. And incredibly overwhelming.

Oikawa’s question goes unanswered as your mind goes quiet in a way it never has before. You’re not sure if it's a positive or negative thing, but as Tooru’s brown eyes slip from your forehead down to your eyes, before rapidly flicking to your mouth and back, you realize you’re not even breathing.

“Y/n-”

“Oh my goodness, y/n honey are you alright?” Iwaizumi’s mother’s alarmed voice cuts in, and your small moment implodes. You practically tumble from on top of Oikawa until your ass is on the grass and you’re gasping up at your friend's mother as if you’d been deprived of oxygen for minutes and not seconds.

“Hi Mrs. Iwaizumi.” Oikawa grins, waving at her as if she hadn’t just come across him being straddled in his front yard.

“Are you two alright?”

“You know Y/n, unable to keep her hands off me.” You gape and punch Tooru in whatever body part happens to be closest in retaliation as your face flushes brightly. The soft punch earns a hiss of fake pain from Tooru as he hunches over, holding his abdomen as if you had caused real pain. Drama queen. His bright eyes look up at you through his long lashes with fake shock, but you ignore it, quickly snatching up your keys that were until now forgotten on the ground beside you.

“Yeah we’re okay. Oikawa stole my keys.” You explain to the woman across the fence, shaking said keys in your hand for emphasis. The smirk on Iwaizumi's mother’s face as she glances between the two of you is point enough that she doesn’t believe you.

“Right. Well, have fun, and Tooru; be nice to her.” She chastises, yet she shoots your brunet friend a wink that has your jaw dropping.

“I always am.” He laughs back, waving at her as she retreats back towards her house next door, arms full of groceries.

“You got everything?” Makki asks for the fourth time in an hour.

“Who knew that you would be the mother hen.” Oikawa laughs, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, a smug smirk covering his face.

“I honestly expected this from Iwa, not you.”

“Fuck you, I hope you forget everything.” Iwa snips back immediately, making the group laugh. But there’s no anger or malice in it, so the banter almost falls flat. Everyone falls into silence once again, as if they like you are taking in the fact that this is the last time you’ll all be together like this for who knows how long.

Growing up sucks.

“Oh please, you’ll miss me most.” Oikawa grins, shooting a wink at his best friend that has the shorter one punching him in the arm hard enough to make Oikawa rock back with a genuine wince.

“Okay I feel better now.” Shaking your head at them both, your eyes draw back up to the lit up information board you stand beneath.

Flight UA183 to Buenos Aires : Departure 6:30A.M.

You’ve been staring at it as its the sign of death, and to be honest it almost feels like it. It’s the sign of the strain that's going to be put on your friendship, of the incoming pain that's about to befall your heart when you have to watch him go.

In the blink of an eye, the sign changes and your stomach drops.

Flight UA183 to Buenos Aires : Boarding now.

How was it time already? You had all arrived at 5am watching the sun slowly rise over the mountains surrounding Miyagi, and had been waiting ever since. How has over an hour already passed?

Over the intercom, the announcement of the now boarding flight comes through, causing the quiet banter between the group of boys to fall silent once more.

“Well, that’s me.” You watch in silence as Oikawa says his goodbyes to his friends, already having said goodbye to his parents before he left the airport, not wanting to deal with his mother sobbing over him in public.

Your friends would deny it, but there wasn’t a single dry eye as they talk quietly to each other. Makki gapes as Mattsun turns from Oikawa’s embrace, trying to subtly swipe under his eyes, but he just offers his friend his middle finger in response, as if Makki wasn't also in tears.

Iwaizumi holds Oikawa for a second longer than the others, and you subconsciously wrap your arms around yourself as you watch them whisper quietly to each other. Pulling away and doing a handshake you haven’t seen them do since they were kids, you can’t seem to stop your eyes stinging as Oikawa’s tall frame turns your way.

“No, please don’t cry.” He pleads, walking over to you. As if he hasn’t been wiping away his own tears on his jacket sleeve for the past few minutes.

“That’s rich coming from you. Your eyes are like a leaking tap.” Mattsun says, only for Oikawa to shoot him a playful glare.

“Pot? Meet kettle, snot nose.” Turning back to you and ignoring Makki’s laugh, you sniff, trying to withhold the tears brimming in your eyes.

“I want to be spammed with pictures.” You manage to get out, clenching and unclenching your fists as a distraction.

“Of course.”

“And I want to know all about your teammates, and all the people you meet, and the adventures you take.” Oikawa smiles at you and playfully rolls his eyes.

“Anything else?”

“for you to have the best fucking time, and to know that we are all so damn proud to call you our best friend.” None of the guys make the usual joke that you teed up for them quite nicely, and their silence speaks volumes of just how accurate your statement is. With a sharp breath, Tooru folds you into his arms, and you instantly hug his waist as tightly as you can, taking it all in.

You inhale his scent of fresh spring air and pine, tightly closing your eyes to stop the tears as you lean your head against his chest.

“I’m going to miss you most.” A sob rips at your throat but you push it down with everything in you, until the only noise that comes out of your mouth is a pathetic little wheeze.

“I’m going to miss you too. So much.” Your voice wobbles with every word, but as Oikawa pulls back you don’t care. Cupping your face with gentle hands, his thumbs wipe under your eyes as his gaze roams your face, as if committing it all to memory.

“Try not to be a prick to your new teammates, okay?” A small laugh comes from the man in front of you, and his mouth ticks up in the corners.

“I make no such promises.” For a moment you stand in silence. “Y/n, I-” Another boarding announcement repeats throughout the intercom bringing your hands from where you now notice you had been clutching the edge of Oikawa’s jacket.

You don’t even have the energy to blush as you both break your hold, and he looks over your shoulder to your group of friends behind you.

“I guess I’ll see you guys later.” He says, adjusting the backpack he carries on one shoulder. Oikawa flashes Iwaizumi a quick look and then there’s a heavy weight of his arm wrapping around your shoulders.

“Don’t worry shitty-kawa, we’ll all be here for when you eventually drag your ass home.” Iwaizumi says from by your side, and you loop your arm loosely around his waist, just needing someone to hold you as you feel your shattered heart fall apart piece by piece.

A small laugh is shared around the group, but it stops as Oikawa nods his head and only hesitates for a small second. His brown eyes lock on yours once more, and you offer him a wobbly smile as he nods his head again and finally turns to leave.

Another sob bites at your throat at his retreating back, so you pathetically force your eyes to his shoes, not being able to handle seeing him walk away.

The tears you’ve been holding in are now running down your cheeks, and as if they can sense it, you feel another hand on your back.

“You’ll be wishing for him to leave again when he comes back and annoys the shit out of us.” Makki jokes causing a loose laugh to come out of your mouth. You are grateful for them trying to lighten the mood, but with every step Tooru takes you feel like he’s putting worlds between you both.

Tracking his sneaker clad feet, you watch him move until he stands at the terminal to the plane, stopping to scan his boarding pass. Only then do you manage to drag your eyes up to his, only to see him stare down the terminal, spacing out and not hearing the lady behind the counter speak to him. Maki and Mattsun’s quiet talking falls flat as you all watch Oikawa raise his hands and quickly utter something to the woman before quickly pushing through the people behind him.

And then he’s running, with his eyes set on you.

Iwaizumi’s arm falls off your shoulder before settling on your spine, and giving you a little push forward. You don’t have time to be confused as Oikawa is suddenly only steps away from you, urgency filling his every feature.

“Tooru, what-” He’s upon you before you even finish the sentence. Your words are cut off as his large palms cup for face, his lips moulding to yours with a pressure you only ever dreamed of. Your body moves before your mind can continue on from the roundabout thought that Tooru is kissing you, in front of your friends, in an airport - and that he’s kissing you.

Your arms immediately move to his chest, clenching his jacket in your fists so hard your fingers hurt as he deepens the kiss. Every nerve in your body seems to shoot off like a firework leaving only warmth and adrenaline in its wake. Oikawa's calloused hands slip into your hair and you bite back the groan that threatens to fall from your lips at the feeling. As if he could feel it, Oikawa smiles against your lips as you kiss him back with the same urgency.

Your lungs scream at you for oxygen, so you reluctantly pull away from Oikawa’s mouth, his lips pink and bruised and a heated look blazing in his brown gaze. You’ve never seen that look from him, and to have it directed at you, it’s like a cattle prod to the spine.

“I know that was really fucking selfish of me but-” He starts.

“It wasn’t.” You interrupt, not letting his brain go down that road even though you’re thoroughly confused. An annoyed groan falls from his lips as another boarding announcement breaks through the speakers.

“I know we need to talk about this, but I also need to get my ass on a plane. When I call you, please answer y/n.” It takes you a second to fully take in the fact that there are now nerves swimming in his eyes, his hands shaking gently as he cups your face. Whilst you’re still vibrating from the kiss, this beautiful boy in front of you is scared shitless.

So instead of replying, you reach up onto your toes and press another gentle kiss to his plump lips that only lasts a few seconds, but earns the hand still in your hair to clutch your head tightly.

“I will. I promise.” With a final nod, and another kiss that bruises your lips and has your heart stuttering in your chest, Oikawa shoots you a wink before running back to his terminal and then gives you all a final wave before disappearing around the corner.

All the sadness that had flooded your body is now overcome with hope, and as you turn to your friends behind you, a hand touching your stinging lips, you almost had forgotten they were there.

“About fucking time.” Iwaizumi grumbles, and this time the laugh that falls from your lips is genuine and full of positivity, so much that smiles crack across Mattsun, Maki and Hajime’s faces at whatever you probably look like right now. But you don’t care.

Who had thought that one of the worst days of your life could also be one of the best.

+ + + + +

Dating is hard.

From the minute you had kissed Oikawa in the airport, it had sent your life on a whirlwind of good and bad moments that all seemed to stem from a fucking phone.

You had been basically running a hole in the rug in your bedroom waiting for your phone to go off, and when it had, you had almost missed the call from being frozen in place, staring at Oikawa’s name on the screen.

That conversation had been one of the hardest ones you’d ever made in your life. Because you were excited as to what the kiss had all meant, but also angry that you now found yourself across an ocean from him when you could have both acted on these feelings before that point.

Iwaizumi had said I told you so when you’d told all your nosy friends only days later when having a movie night in your own living room.

Due to the distance, you and Oikawa had no real choice other than to take things very very slowly, but he wasn’t afraid. In his words, “there is no one better for you than me gorgeous,.” and to be honest you weren’t sure there was going to be someone who would put up with his bullshit more than you, so you weren’t afraid when you both decided to not put a label on it for a while whilst you got used to just talking to each other in a way that wasn’t face to face, without the added pressures of what a relationship brought.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t tough. You just trusted the boy you had grown up with, and had no doubt in your mind that he wouldn’t do anything with your heart other than gently hold it for you.

But you missed him terribly. Face time at odd hours of the day and constant texts and pictures aren’t the same as having him there for the little things.

Like attending the orientation week at university with only Maki and Mattsun, or saying goodbye to Iwaizumi as he boarded a plane to California for college.

Or just the simple movie nights, dinners at your new usual restaurants, or going home.

Your parents had been so hard to convince to let you go to college away from home. Albeit you weren’t that far, but it was still ‘too far’ for them. However it had all come down to you having to tell your other two friends about your illness, all so you could stand in your living room alongside them, convincing your parents that you would be perfectly safe and that they would help look out for you.

It was horrible, but worth it.

Because here you are, walking out of a lecture with a pissed off Maki by your side, and everything is right in the world.

“I can’t believe you just said that.” Makki grumbles, adjusting his backpack as he pouts. “Did our high school years mean nothing to you?”

“Sweet Jesus Makki, please shut up.”

“No!” He hisses, and you can’t hide your grin at the stupid argument you’ve been dragged into. “I cannot believe you said that volleyball is-” the man fake gags and you roll your eyes. “Boring.”

“I didn’t say it was boring you dramatic asshole. I just said that I think that Ice Hockey is more interesting.”

“It’s the same thing you traitor!” Maki all but shouts and you can’t stop the laugh from bubbling from your lips.

“Where the heck did you even see an ice hockey game?”

“My roommate.” You explain, all but skipping down the stars of the building and into the sunshine. “She’s from Canada and is obsessed, so I got bored and watched a game with her on the computer. It’s actually pretty cool.” Maki once again gags and looks at you with a disappointed scowl.

“I don’t even know who you are anymore.” Laughing, you feel the sunshine hit your face, but its the cold air that has your grin growing. Winter is slowly coming and with that means the holidays. It’ll be the first Christmas outside of high school and you’re both nervous and excited about the possibility of Iwaizumi and Oikawa coming home.

His name causes a sharp pain through your chest that is nothing abnormal, but your smile dims a little as the longing for your best friend hits you out of nowhere. God you miss him.

You half tune out Maki’s complaints about your new favourite sport as you both walk down the tree covered path towards the front gates of the university, preparing to meet Mattsun there to go and get an early dinner together. However, your feet slow to a stop as the front gate of the campus come into view. And it’s not because your tall brunet friend is already there waiting even though he’s supposed to be working for another half hour.

No, its the other two figures full on bickering with each other that has the world around you going quiet. You feel Maki come up next to you and see him rubbing his eyes with his hands from the corner of your eye. But your gaze is set on the taller of the two, who has a childish pout on his lips, and his hands braced in his pockets. You want to interrupt them, to yell his name but your feet are stuck to the floor like tar, and your mouth isn’t doing much better.

“No fucking way.” The quiet in your head is broken, and the noises of the outside world come flooding in. The fact that you can now hear both Iwaizumi and Oikawa arguing about what you think is Onigiri, tears suddenly well in your eyes and a small noise breaks from your mouth.

All three of them whip their heads to you, grins breaking out across their faces. However, it’s Oikawa who’s smile has the air getting trapped inside your lungs. He’s here. He’s home.

You don’t waste another second as you sprint down the rest of the path, ignoring Maki’s complaints about the move, and meet Oikawa half way. You don’t even stop moving but instead jump on him, earning a laugh from the tall brunet as he catches you safely. His chest vibrates against your torso as he laughs, and more tears slip out of the corners of your eyes as you breathe him in. He’s actually here.

You clutch him so tightly you end up letting go, worried that you’re hurting him. Oikawa’s arms don’t leave you, instead he simply leans far back enough from your face so that he can see you.

The megawatt smile stamped across his face has you almost wanting to squint at the brightness of it.

Your happiness is swimming in a pool of unease, not quite knowing just what to do next. Considering you haven’t seen him face to face in almost a year, and the last time you did you kissed him, you weren’t sure where that would leave you. However, Oikawa doesn’t even bother to put you down when he leans close enough that you feel his breath on your lips.

“God, you’re so much better than I remember.” And he doesn’t hold your hesitation because he immediately crushes his lips to yours and its just as brain numbing as it was the first time. Smiling against his mouth, your fingers wind through his brown locks as you deepening the kiss. He’s back, your brain really can’t get around it. You want to both kiss him more and hit him for not telling you, but the sweetness of the surprise makes your heart turn to goo inside your chest.

Pulling back and gasping for air, you can’t stop the happy tears or the laugh that slips out. “I missed you so much, Tooru.” Your feet hit the ground, and Oikawa uses the pad of his thumbs to wipe under your eyes.

“I missed you too gorgeous.”

What he is doing here and hoe the hell your two friends managed to pull this off without your knowledge doesn’t get answered until hours later, where you find yourselves at a diner close to campus, the five of you together for the first time in what feels like a decade.

“So you knew about this?” You point an accusing finger at Mattsun, who sits across the booth from you with a feral grin on his face.

“FOMEFT hitting you hard there Y/n?” He jokes back as you mutter traitor under your breath.

“FOMEFT?” Iwaizumi asks, lifting his drink to his lips, eyebrows raised.

“Fear of missing every fucking thing.” Makki laughs, shoving a chip in his mouth. “Coined it herself when she got sick at the end of orientation week and missed a whole bunch of useless shit.” the guys laugh at your expense, but you just level Mattsun a glare.

“We’re off topic, again. Don’t think your getting away with this you sneaky little shit.” You growl, but your tone only makes him laugh even more.

“Why are you getting mad at me, I'm just the one that told them a good day. If you’re going to get mad at someone, settle that death-look in your boyfriend’s direction.” Without you wanting to, your glare morphs into a soft smile at the word. But even as unease pools in your belly, you’re trying so hard not to grin. Was he your boyfriend? You weren’t too sure. Did he want to be? Well he was here, sitting next to you in the booth with an arm thrown over the chair behind you. Turning to where Oikawa sat, you try to level him with the same glare you had given Matsukawa, but the minute you see him grinning at you, you can’t do anything else but smile.

“Disgusting.” Makki jokes, and you offer him a middle finger whilst you keep your eyes on Oikawa.

“You should have told me.” You grumble, turning around and shrinking down into your chair.

“And ruin the fun?” Oikawa tries not to laugh. “Sorry gorgeous, but it was worth it.” The group around you breaks into conversation and you lean your head back against the chair, smiling softly as you listen to the rambunctiously loud voices of your closest friends. You'd been at this diner multiple times with Hanamaki and Matsukawa, but being here with Oikawa and Iwaizumi in tow, it made your heart seem to double in size. They truly were home, even if it was just for a little bit.

“For the record,” Oikawa’s voice is a soft breath dusting your ear. It sends chills zapping down your spine, right to your toes as he lingers there. “I was going to tell you, but seeing your reaction this afternoon was everything.” Your heart thunders inside your chest as you turn your head to look up at him. His brown eyes are filled with so much warmth, it's almost infectious as the arm resting behind your chair moves so that his fingers entwine with your hair at the base of your skull. Its complete euphoria as Tooru gently plays with your hair, and the words ‘I love you’ cling to your tongue, begging to be let out. But you can’t, not yet. Even though you’ve been friends for years, the romance is still new and Oikawa hasn’t been in a serious relationship in his entire life. One of your biggest fears is scaring him off by saying the words too early, so instead you hold them in and let others slip out instead.

“I really did miss you, you know.” Your voice is a hushed whisper, the words only for you and him. Amongst your rowdy group of friends, the quiet moment is there, and its one you know you’ll be thinking about for a long time.

“Who wouldn’t.” You groan quietly and try to look away only for calloused fingers from hours of playing volleyball grip your chin, bringing your gaze back to his.

“In all honesty, I missed you more than I thought was possible to miss someone.” God the asshole is going to make you cry. So instead of letting him see the tears stinging in the corners of your eyes, you lean your head into his shoulder, closing your eyes with a small smile playing at your lips.

You feel Oikawa wrap his arm that was in your hair now around your shoulders, pulling you tighter against him until he shifts you so that you’re sitting across his lap. Your head on his chest, one of his hands on your spine, and the other on your leg. You’re so wrapped up in him you don’t even care about the fake gagging noises coming from the other side of the table. Neither does Oikawa, because the hand on your spine shifts to your waist to pull you tighter to him, as if he too just needs to have you close after being apart for so long. To just have you there, breathing in the scent you’ve known since a child, in the warmth that has been there for as long as you can remember.

Lips press against the crown of your head so gently that your smile turns into a grin. You open your eyes wanting to remember this moment, but they instead settle on the three stooges around you, all grinning like idiots as they speak at the same time.

“Disgusting.” Oikawa’s not even mad when you take the fries off his plate and toss them individually at your three idiotic friends until they’re all laughing.

“I can’t believe you didn’t book a place to crash.” You laugh later on, walking into your apartment building.

“Uh, my mind was elsewhere. And how was I supposed to know that Iwa and the others wee going home to see their families this weekend?” Oikawa squawks behind you, his suitcase in tow.

Stopping outside the elevator, you turn to your some-what boyfriend with raised eyebrows. The innocent ‘oh shucks’ little boy grin he’s flashing at you doesn’t work, because you have an inkling that he was well aware of his friends plans and just wanted to find his way here. Not that you mind, like at all.

“You could always have gone with them to see your own parents.” You point out the obvious as the elevator opens and you both get in.

“And leave you in the big smoke to defend for yourself, what boyfriend would I be if I did that?” The word shocks you enough that you drop your key card and have to snatch it off the floor like you weren’t completely flawed or affected by what he just said. He just called himself your boyfriend, so does that mean you’re dating?

You must stand in silence for a moment because there's a hand on your shoulder that gently moves you to the side, grabbing your key card and using it to press your floor number. It shouldn’t shock you this much, but you’d been so prepared to bring up the conversation and to no doubt have a long chat about what this all was and where it was going, that honestly you were so surprised that he juts blurted it out. At the same time, you really shouldn’t be considering its such a pig-headed thing for Oikawa to do, it makes logical sense.

“You alright down there gorgeous?” Finally turning to look back at Oikawa, you try to find something to say as you see the weariness swirling in his brown irises but the elevator doors open onto your floor before you get the chance. So instead you silently lead him down the hall towards your apartment. It’s not until you put your key in the door that he breaks it.

“Is it because I said the B word?” A short laugh slips from your lips as you push the door open.

“It’s not Voldemort Oikawa, you can say boyfriend.” The previous concern in his eyes has been banished when you look at him, instead they’re full of relief and joy so bright you want to squint. Honestly, sometimes looking at Oikawa has the same effect on you as if you stare at the sun.

“I just didn’t want to freak you out.” He offers, following into your small apartment after you. Closing the door, you offer him a tour of your very small two bedroom apartment. Your roommate is out with some friends tonight and you’re not sure if she will be home, but you sent her a heads up that the person sleeping on your couch is not a creeper who broke in.

She just responded with three wink face emojis followed by an eggplant that had you blushing so hard you had to lock the screen before Oikawa had seen what she’d sent. If he had, you’d have never heard the end of it.

“You didn’t freak me out,” You reply, putting his suitcase against the wall and moving into the kitchen to make tea.

“You just weren’t expecting it.” You don’t even have to look over your shoulder to know he's now sporting a smug grin as he lowers himself to your bar stools at the counter.

You boil the kettle, making a big effort of getting two mugs as you talk. “I was just a bit unsure.” You say going with true honesty.

“About us?” There’s so much anxiety in his tone that you quickly turn around to Oikawa, watching him run an uneasy hand through his hair.

“No!” You say immediately. Trying to backpedal this situation away from the giant hole you’ve started digging. “I wasn’t sure if-” a blush creeps onto your cheeks as you realise just how childish what you’re saying is. A groan leaves you lips as you run a hand down your face. You’re a college student for crying out loud, a borderline adult and yet you are about to have the ‘are you my boyfriend’ conversation? You thought dating as an adult was supposed to be easier.

“I was your boyfriend?” You flinch as Oikawa suddenly appears in front of you, your heart thundering from both surprise and anticipation as he looks down at you. Unable to form words or thoughts really, you give him a short nod in reply.

“You mean all this time, all these months, you thought I was just what? A friend who flirts with you?” He doesn’t seem annoyed or mad, but startled as he tries not to laugh. You want to curl up in a ball and die at your naivety, but the man in front of you doesn’t let you move.

“I don’t know what I thought.” You offer helplessly, which just makes him chuckle more. Suddenly his face goes sombre and he looks at you in distress.

“Wait does that mean you’ve been acting like you’re still single all this-” You cut him off with a palm over his mouth, not letting his brain go down that route and fill his head with doubt.

“No. In case you didn’t realize Tooru, no one is really knocking at my door to take me out. And even if there were people, I wouldn’t even notice them.” Because you take up ever free space in my mind so much that its maddening. You don’t say that last part though, instead you search his face until you see the relief in his eyes, and watch his shoulders relax until he’s leaning his head on your shoulder, a sigh leaving his lips as he moves.

Your hand weaves into his brown locks and for a moment you just take in how soft his hair is. You’d dreamed of doing simple domestic things like this with him for such a long time, but had thought it would never happen. But having Oikawa here, in your kitchen, his hands gently placed on your hips, one thumb softly brushing over your soft skin where it sits just underneath your shirt. It’s all brain numbing and overwhelming that this is your life.

“There’s no one else but you.” His words are muffled slightly due to the fact he’s facing down, but you hear them all the same. Your heart swells all the same as he raises his head and looks at you with the softest smile that causes your chest to physically tighten.

“You’re it baby. We’re lifers.” Your words being tossed in your face cause you to laugh, and Oikawa gently lets you go before hip checking you out of the way.

“You go change, I'll make tea.” You go to argue about how he’s the guest in your place, but the devil places a chaste kiss to your lips that has your brain short circuiting.

The smug grin that paints his mouth as his eyes flare at your lips proves that he knows it too.

“Go get comfy, then move your sweet ass to the couch and put on Solange whilst I do this.” The name of the Spanish soap opera you and Oikawa started watching to help you both learn Spanish has a grin pulling to your face. Turning to skip out of the kitchen, you squawk in outrage as Oikawa taps your ass as you leave. His laugh echoes as you quickly skip to your room, changing into your comfy clothes and then find yourself on the couch connecting your laptop to the tv. By the time he sits down, the opening credits are playing and you go to take your tea, but your boyfriend puts them both on the coffee table before you can take it. About to question him, you hold in a squeak of alarm as Oikawa pulls you into his arms and adjusts you so that you are laying half on his chest and half on the couch, facing the tv.

You want to make a comment about how you won’t be able to drink tea like this, but as Tooru’s hand gently runs up your spine, the other brushing the hair from your face, you say nothing. Instead, leaning forwards and placing a gentle kiss on his bottom lip. Holding you there for a moment longer, you smile against his lips at the thought that he wants to kiss you for longer. It’s still unreal to you.

Resting your head on his chest so you can watch, you let out a sigh of pure delight as his calloused hands weave under the back of your oversized shirt that may have actually been his at once stage, and gently trace your spine. God is good you’ve decided, for bringing this man to you.

Every few minutes your silence is broken by one of you asking a question, but by the end of the episode you both have no idea what’s going on. You blame your lack of attention on the fact that he’s trying to cop a feel, but Oikawa pleads innocence. Instead saying that you try paying attention to something when you’ve got your girl on you. You had pointed out that you don’t have a girlfriend which only made him groan.

You’re not sure how many episodes have gone by when the noise of the front door has you blinking awake. Your eyes briefly trail on Oikawa’s sleeping face as he holds you tightly to him before glancing up at the girl who just came through the door.

The brunet wags her eyebrows at you suggestively, and smothers her laugh as you toss her a middle finger in return. As she quietly slinks down the hall you check the time on your phone and try to untangle from Oikawa to turn off the tv.

2:08AM.

You’re surprised that your roommates home, but also surprised that you feel asleep on the couch. Who knew that sleeping half on someone was more comfortable than actual furniture. Gently slipping out of Tooru’s arms you move to the tv remote on the other end of the couch.

“You okay?” Pausing your movement, you look back at Oikawa’s half asleep face. His hair is ruffled in a way you rarely see, and the sight of him trying to blink away his tired eyes to focus on you tugs at your heart strings. God how can someone be so cute but also incredibly hot at the same time?

“Yeah, I just wanted to turn off the tv.” You offer, grabbing the remote and turning it off. The room is cloaked in darkness, the only dim light coming from the window next to the couch, showing the lights of the city behind it.

For a moment, you’re stuck on what to do. Do you crawl back to Oikawa and sleep there, or do you go to your bed?

You must be tossing it up for a bit because your boyfriend breaks the silence with a yawn.

“You should go to bed. I’ll take the couch, gorgeous.” You try to hide the disappointment from your gaze, so instead busy yourself with grabbing him a blanket and pillow. Handing them to him, Oikawa takes your arm with the pillow and pulls you closer until you’re leaning over him on the couch.

Every time you kiss him, your body seems to just melt under his touch. Whether its just him holding your hand or stealing the air from your lungs with a kiss - you’re now addicted to the feeling of your heart lurching into your throat.

He pulls away first, offering you a sleepy smile. “Goodnight gorgeous.”

“Goodnight.” You manage to get out, your face a burning crimson you hope he can’t see in the dark. God everything about Oikawa makes you turn into a blushing preteen you swear. With a final glance over your shoulder to make sure he’s set, you leave to your room and get into bed.

Within minutes of you laying in your large bed, you know you’re not going to be able to sleep. Tossing and turning, you hold in a groan as sleep keeps slipping away from you as your brain wanders. You keep picturing Oikawa out on the couch, wide awake and cold. Turning your back to the door, you can’t help but frown.

He told you to go to bed, you remind yourself. But he was probably just being polite right? Does he want to be here as much as you want him to? You want him to be there, in your bed, holding you like he was on the couch. You want to wake up next to him in the morning, to see that sleepy smile surrounded by the early rays of the sun breaching the curtains behind him.

You want to see that messy hair, sleep laden warm gaze every morning for the rest of your life.

Without another thought you throw your thick blankets off you and are out the door in seconds. It only takes a handful of steps before you’re standing back in the living room, your eyes locked onto the brunet who is looking at his phone. Wide awake.

His eyes move to you as he notices your entrance, and his brows furrow.

“Y/n? Everything okay?” You want to say no, because he’s out here and you’ve been banished to your room but the words don’t seem to want to come out. Oikawa sets his phone down as you wring your wrists as nerves flutter to life in your stomach.

“I can’t sleep. Will you-” You hesitate, not wanting to seem inexperienced as you ask him. “Will you come to bed?” At first you almost expect him to tease you about it, or to make some sort of joke. But instead, he slinks off the couch with grace and takes your hand gently in his.

“Always.” The moment you’re back in bed, facing him as he looks at you, you realize just how much he’s grown up. How much the both of you have, from having sleepovers as kids and watching Treasure Planet to now.

Gently under the covers, Oikawa’s fingers entwine with yours, allowing him to pull you closer to him. You move without much encouragement until you're pressed up against his side, a knee over his leg and your head on his shoulder. If you weren’t so tired you might be shocked with how natural this feels, but you don’t have the energy. Instead you place a soft kiss to his t shirt clad chest. As you drift to unconsciousness you feel the gentle press of lips to your head and the soft murmur of words that you can’t quite make out.

Instead, your body is focused on the warmth emitted from the person next to you and the sense of safety that it brings.

“Ugh,” You groan, stopping under the overhang outside the night café. You clutch your jacket tighter around you as you fish your keys out of your pocket, not wanting to stand in the rain as you have to try and find your car keys in your bag.

“Bye Y/n! Drive safe in the weather okay?” Your co-worker calls from inside, and you offer a final wave with keys in hand as you quickly walk into the rain and towards your parked car. It's only a matter of seconds before you’re closing the driver's side door and turning on the heating. As you’re waiting for the heat to kick in, trying to warm the chill in your bones that seems to have clung to you all day, you connect your phone to the car's speakers and make the call you’d unfortunately had to miss today due to work.

It’s only once you’re indicating to pull out onto the street does the line finally connect.

“Hey miss I’m-too-important-to-answer-my-friend’s-when-they-call.” Iwaizumi’s voice floods over the line and a groan slips from your eyes.

“I was at work you ass.” You grumble, knowing he’s fully aware where you were. Iwaizumi was back in Japan for a week to visit his family and for some liked to call you at random hours of the day because he was bored just sitting around on his ass.

“So I had an interesting conversation today.”

“Oh yeah? With who?”

“Your parents.” His words have your heart dropping like a stone to your stomach. Immediately knowing what this is about, your hackles raise up.

“I don’t want to talk about it Iwa.”

“Why exactly was your mother asking me about how you are? Because apparently they haven’t spoken to you in over a month Y/n.” Yeah you weren’t winning any awards for best daughter at this rate, but the last time you’d spoken to your mother you had both got into a huge argument due to the fact you had forgotten about a specialist appointment for your lungs and how apparently that made you immature, and uncaring for your health.

“It hasn’t been a month.” You bite back.

“That’s not the point-”

“Do you know what its like having the most overbearing parents to ever walk the face of the planet Hajime?” Hands tightening around your steering wheel, your mouth doesn’t stop as all the anger and bitterness floods from your mouth. “The last time I spoke to my mother she called me an immature selfish brat, uncaring for her health and those around her. And do you want to know why Hajime? Because I missed an appointment. One fucking appointment. As if I purposely chose to not go to the check up - which is a lie, I was studying for finals and just forgot. But no, I’m not allowed to make mistakes.” A cruel laugh slips from your mouth. “What grateful, perfect daughter makes mistakes, not their daughter. Not their Y/n.” There are tears brimming your eyes now and you bite your bottom lip to keep them at bay. You hear Iwaizumi’s deep sigh from the other line and you listen to the brief silence.

“I’m sorry.” His tone is full of concern, no doubt the agony in your voice ringing alarm bells for him.

“Look it’s fine, I just need some time to cool off because if I talk to them I don’t want to say things that will hurt them.”

“You mean how you really feel?” As much as you were mad at your parents right now, you still loved them with every fibre of your being. And you refused to hurt them, you wanted them to be proud of you and the person you are. They already have a daughter who has been in and out of hospital her whole life, how could you hurt them like that.

“I don’t want to hurt them.” You sigh, wiping your eyes on your sleeves as you stop at a red light.

“I understand that I do, but you shouldn’t bottle things up.” Iwaizumi argues and you simply let out a sigh of your own.

“Please tell me that you’ve booked your flight.” You ask, changing the topic.

“Yeah I did it today. I fly out on Tuesday, at 9pm, with a layover in Los Angeles. I should get to Buenos Ares the day after you.” Even with the past conversation, this one brings a grin to your face.

“Okay that works.”

“I swear if you spend the entire week being mushy and act like the usual love sick puppy I will puke.” There was a big tournament for Tooru’s team that he hadn’t been able to shut up about for the past few weeks. He’s been so excited for it, but little did he know you and his best friend were going to be in the stands to support him.

Saying goodbye to Oikawa last time had hurt a little less than the first, because now you knew where you stood. He was your boyfriend, and the best one. Even on the other side of the world, Tooru had never made you feel like less of a priority. Sure, it was hard only seeing each other on facetime for months at a time, and for him to not be able to be there for your birthday. But seeing his eyes come alive as he spoke about his team and what he’s been up to made it all worth it. He was where he was meant to be, you were certain of it. You just had to finish your college degree and then you’d maybe find yourself on Argentinian shores for the unforeseeable future. You hadn’t spoken your idea to Oikawa yet, but you knew that's where you would want to be. There wasn’t a single place he would go that you wouldn’t follow in a heartbeat.

Now it was your turn to surprise him. In a week you would be the one bragging about his flawed expression when he sees both you and his best friend thousands of miles from where you were supposed to be.

“I do not act like a lovesick fool.” You argue, but the silence on the other end is staggering. “Is it that obvious?”

“That you must have fallen on your head as a child because you somehow look at Oikawa and think, yeah that's my ride or die - i love him.” The words make your cheeks heat as you watch the lights in front of you, waiting eagerly for it to change so you can get home.

“I haven’t told him yet.” You blurt out, unable to keep it in. You know you’ve been in love with Tooru for a long time, but never knew just when to tell him. To be honest, you’re not sure when you started falling hard for him, maybe somewhere between when he helped you catch cicadas as a seven year old to the young man he is now buying you flowers from halfway across the world and having them delivered to your work. At first, you didn’t want to say it because you didn’t want to scare him off, but then that evolved into wanting to wait to see him in person.

“Bullshit.” You can’t reply because you don’t know what to say. “Really?”

“Mhhmm.”

“You haven’t told him?” Iwaizumi asks, genuinely in shock. As if this was some huge impossibility. The light in front of you turns green and you put your foot to the gas.

“Uh, and why not?”

“I wanted to tell him in person and-”

It all happens in a millisecond. The entire world seems to freeze, the raindrops on the windscreen, the noise, the very oxygen in your lungs, as if your brain is trying to engrave this moment onto your soul.

And then, time seems to accelerate at a speed that hurts. There’s a blinding light to your right, and before you can even see it, your body is thrown to the right. You can feel your head hitting the driver's window as the car flips from the brunt of the impact. Every part of your body aches, and your vision is dotted with black stars. A red tinge bleeds into the world, and it takes you a second to realize it's your blood as you dangle upside down, your seatbelt holding you to your seat.

Trying to inhale a breath, a wheeze sputters out instead, stemming from the sharp stabbing pain from your right side. It feels as if something is standing on your chest, and it's getting heavier and heavier by the second.

You can hear the crackling of Iwaizumi’s voice laced with panic, and bystanders yelling around you but you can’t make anything out. You’re so, so tired.

There is someone’s feet by your head, and then a flashlight being shone in your face, but you can’t even bring yourself to wince at the harshness of it. You can see the horror in the strangers face as the try to crawl through the smashed window of your driver's side. You can’t make out their features anymore as your vision tunnels feeling on the brink of passing out due to your lack of air.

With the pathetic rattling of your chest, you can’t help but let the tears building in your eyes fall. You’re terrified of the fact you can’t breathe. That you can’t seem to hear anything other than a dull muttering, and a deafening ring, and yet you can hear your chest rattling.

Please.

“Can you hear me?” A somewhat clear voice asks, but your eyes are drooping. You can barely keep them open as sleep tries to drag you away.

I don’t want to die here. Please.

“How far away is the ambulance?”

I’m not even twenty. I can’t die now, not like this.

You try to force your eyes open, but everything around you is hazy at the edges. Your friends' laughing faces pop into your mind. Maki’s mischievous grin, Mattsun’s low chuckle, Iwaizumi’s olive green eyes rolling in annoyance even with a small smile on his face. And Oikawa - you see Tooru’s sweet half asleep smile, his brown eyes soft as he looks at you like he did the day he woke up in your bed.

‘You alright gorgeous?’

No, you’re so scared. But somehow, in some small way, you find yourself smiling as you see those brown eyes filled with nothing other than love and happiness. And even as you feel yourself slipping away, you’re smiling because he’s there - like he’s always been.

It’s a 30 hour trip from Buenos Aires to Tokyo. Oikawa had 30 hours of his heart lodged in his throat, trying to hold it together on a international flight whilst flight attendants smiled their fake fucking smiles at him, as if his world wasn’t crumbling around him.

He’d been in the middle of early morning practice when he’d found out. The assistant coach of his club had come running into the room with a flurry of rapid Spanish that even with the help of his teammates, the stupid but addictive Spanish soap opera that you’d recommended and just god given talent he had no chance of understanding. But apparently his teammates did, because the room stilled as if the grim reaper himself had appeared before them all. He may as well have, because the minute the assistant coach’s eyes locked onto Oikawa, a phone held in his hand that an eerie chill crawled up his spine.

“Oikawa you got a call to the clubhouse line and… you- you need to take this.” The man all but shoved the phone into his hands and for a moment, Oikawa stared at the unfamiliar number on the screen. Why would someone be calling the clubhouse for him? All his friends and family had his mobile, which he albeit normally turned off during practices, but they all knew that. Questions ran through his mind hundreds of miles a second as he slowly held the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Tooru?” Something was wrong. Call it intuition, a fucking gut feeling, the universe throwing him a bone to prepare, or the fact that Iwaizumi was gasping for air, his voice breaking. A frown immediately pulled at Oikawa’s brow as his heart thundered nervously in his chest. What the hell was going on? Was it his parents? Iwaizumi’s parents? Has something happened to Makki or Mattsun?

“Iwa? Are you okay-” Iwaizumi didn’t even let him finish before he was all but yelling down the phone in a hysteric panic.

“I was on the phone to Y/n, she was driving home from work when suddenly there was this bang and now I can’t get onto her. Something is wrong, it's been an hour and I can't get onto her.” His breath gets stuck in his chest as his brain stills on your name.

Impossible, he had texted you before practice, he’d made a joke about not wearing a shirt today to deliberately get sunburnt so that it lured you across the pond to rub aloe vera ointment on his ‘rock hard abs’, and you’d laughed, and said that you’d be shoving it down his throat if he purposely got sunburnt to get felt up - which was a something you promised to do for free.

That had been just two hours ago. One hundred and twenty minutes. Seven thousand two hundred seconds.

He had just spoken to you, you were fine.

“Iwaizumi what are you talking about-” The line cut out and Oikawa let out a stressed groan in frustration as he shoved the phone into the assistant manager's chest. Pushing through his teammates, he sprints to the grandstands where he had thrown his bottle and phone. The seconds that it takes to power back up his phone are the longest Oikawa thinks he’s felt in his entire life. Even when his lock screen lit up on an image of you mid laugh, head tilted back in the sun from a hike you both had done in the winter he was there last - Oikawa’s gasps for breath don’t dissipate. He knew he was on the verge of hyperventilating as he found your number and it dials.

Every dial tone seemed to take minutes as it rang out. He doesn't try again, this time trying Iwaizumi once more, whose phone goes straight to voicemail. Tears stung Oikawa’s eyes from fear of what the hell could possibly be going on. Where the fuck were you? Were you alright? Were you safe?

He didn’t even know who he calls next until the line clicks and your name is the first one out of his mouth.

“Y/n?”

“Oikawa?”

“Mattsun, what the fuck is going on.” He was yelling now, but he didn’t feel bad in the slightest about barking at his friend. Not as he crouched down on his hunches, a hand in his hair, eyes stinging and hit bottom lip caught brutally between his teeth.

“Oikawa, you- you need to come home.” Matsukawa was sobbing down the line, and that enough made his traitorous tears leak from his eyes.

“Y/n was in an- an accident.”

To be honest, he doesn’t exactly remember what happened between then and when he touched down in Tokyo. Even if you asked him years later, he wouldn’t be able to tell you how the hell he got on that flight, then got through the airport and to the hospital.

But the sight that meets him when he barged into room 205 in the ICU, that he won’t ever be able to forget, as much as he tries to rid the image from his eyes. Seeing your young battered body, hooked up to so many machines, has Oikawa crumbling to his knees the second he meets your beside.

“Nononononono please.” Trembling hands touch your face, and what was once so warm feels sickeningly cold. A broken noise escapes him as Tooru grabs your one hand not hooked up to an IV and presses it to his forehead, desperate to feel you move, to stroke his hair and tell him he's being dramatic.

‘You’re so fucking dramatic Kawa.’

“Please gorgeous, please don’t leave me. Please,” Tears fall down his face in a steady stream as he roars at the pain threatening to possess him. But then there's a warm hand at his shoulder and another on the back of his head and he doesn’t have to move to know that Iwaizumi is kneeling next to him, with your other two friends at his back.

“Please, I love you.” His hoarse voice breaks. “Please, come back to me, please I’ll do anything. Don’t leave me, not yet.” Not yet. Not ever.

You love the summer, it’s been your favourite season since you were a kid because it meant spending so much time outside. It brought with it the scent of pine and summer rain and the sound of cicadas and summer storms. Even with the sunburns and lots of bug bites, it was worth it every time.

And now, sitting in the back garden, the large house at your back your home, picking at the wildflowers that litter the lawn, it's just another reminder why summer’s are now even better.

“Mamma,” A sweet voice laughs from across from you as you carefully weave the wildflowers together. You let out a laugh at her familiar impatient tone. Finally threading the final flower into the daintiest flower crown you’d made to date, you reach out and gently place it atop of the crown of brown hair.

“There you go, a crown for the princess.” The girl giggles with excitement at the nickname, and you find yourself marvelling at her smile. It’s one you see everyday when you look in the mirror, but her eyes and her hair, they aren’t yours. The chocolate brown locks only brought out the light brown of her eyes, a colour that almost seemed amber in most lights and seemed to radiate with optimism so bright it warmed every part of your body. She was your daughter. The embodiment of your soul walking outside of your body. The very best parts of you fill the little rambunctious four year old, who’s eye’s burn with curiosity at everything, paired with a fierce brave heart that she allows to lead her everywhere.

She is everything you thought she would be.

“Mamma?” The girl's smile drops to a sad smile and she looks at you with sadness.

“What’s the matter my love?” You ask, reaching out to wipe a smudge of dirt from her cheek.

“What about daddy?” Your arm freezes as it touches the soft skin of her cheek, tanned from spending days out in the sunshine.

“What about daddy?”

“You’re not going to say goodbye?” She asks, tilting her head in confusion as she looks at you. “He’ll be awfully sad if you forget.”

“Who are you-” Brown eyes and brown hair the mirror image of another floods your brain along with teasing grins, sweet kisses, whispers in the dark and an even warmer love. You feel as if a rug has been pulled out from beneath you and you fall. Tumbling as you see yourself staring at the blinding headlights of a bus, you can hear the honk as it runs the red light, and you watch your car crumple and roll. You see it, see the people coming out from the bus, the man from the car behind you getting out and running to your aid. You see it all until your world crumbles to pieces, only to find yourself standing inside a crisp white room.

A multitude of paper cranes of every colour are tacked to hand from the ceiling, fresh hydrangeas placed in vases all over your window sill, enough that there is no room left on any surface. The room looks like a florist, but that's not what draws your attention.

No, it’s the exhausted brunet who sits at your bedside, clutching the hand of a woman in a hospital bed, his forehead pressed to it. Tooru should be on the other side of the world, but here he sits, holding that hand, his face covered. The urge to see his face, to see him properly once more has you taking a tentative step towards him. You open your mouth to speak, moving to reach out to him in hopes of saying what, you’re not sure. But something. Anything.

“Oikawa?” It isn’t your voice that echoes through the air softly, instead it belongs to a shattered looking Iwaizumi who pokes his head through the door. You blanch at your friend, who is here wherever here is and not in America. Why isn’t he in another country? Your eyes fall back to Tooru who hasn’t lifted his head from that hand, and you feel your heart battering against your chest as your eyes fall to the battered human lying in that bed. It’s you. You look down at your own hands, but you look normal, but judging by your friends you can tell they can’t see you. What the hell is going on?

“I got you some clean clothes, and a phone charger.” Iwaizumi says so softly, bringing in a black duffle bag and plopping it on the bottom of the bed near your feet. It’s only then does Oikawa look up, and the pure defeat in his gaze has your heart breaking inside your chest. Dark circles cover his eyes, and his face is gaunt as if he hasn’t seen the sun or eaten in days.

He only nods to his friend before letting his dull eyes flicker back to you. There’s a dull tingling in your hands and suddenly, you know why you’re seeing this. Tears well inside your eyes as you look at Oikawa's curved shoulders. You watch silently as Iwaizumi gently kneels next to him and gently places his hand on his.

“I’m here, always.” Oikawa just looks from his friend back to the bed, biting his bottom lip to hold back his emotions. So you look out the open doorway to the two men standing either side, just watching silently.

‘You’re not going to say goodbye? He’ll be awfully sad if you don’t’

The heart inside your chest clenches tightly as the little girls words echo in your head. You know that’s why you’re here, and even if they can’t see you or hear you, you’ve been given this chance. A final goodbye to the people most important to you in the world. To those who were there for every major moment of your adolescent and teenage life. A chance to say goodbye to your friends, the ones you love so fucking much.

There’s no way you’re going to pass it up.

Turning to the duo by the door, your throat hurts from holding in your emotions as you move towards them. Mattsun and Makki look through you, and you offer them a sweet smile before tears brim your eyes. Reaching out, you grip their hands, warmth bleeding into your tingling limbs and offer them a tear filled smile as they gape at their hands.

“Thank you both for having my back, always. For being my family when mine wasn’t enough, and my anchors when Oikawa was gone. You two mean more to me than I can articulate - and I love you both.” You thank them, not noticing them blink in surprise as you turn to the duo by your bedside as if a chill swept over them both.

As Iwaizumi stands from Oikawa’s side, with a hesitant glance to you on the bed and a subtle wipe of his sleeve to his eye, he finally turns his back. You watch for a moment, taking a last good look at your absolute best friend. His shoulders are bunched as he shoves his clenched hands in his pockets. The steep frown on his face you know is holding in his emotions, because you’d seen that look before when he was eight and he came to visit you in hospital the last time. You hate that you’re doing this to him again. On his trek to the door, Iwaizumi hesitates only a step in front of you, his head looking back over his shoulder to your hospital bed, his chest rattling with emotion. You press a hand to his shoulder, squeezing it as if he could feel you, wanting to comfort him somehow. Iwaizumi pauses there and you let yourself take in your best friend's face once more.

“Iwa…” You let out a shaky laugh using the nickname he detests. “You were my very first friend. My brother. The other side of my battered and bruised coin. Thank you for showing me what unconditional loyalty and friendship is. For that I will love you and be by your side, always. Please tell my parents I’m sorry, and tell them I love them.” You see him stiffen, tears welling in his eyes as he stares at the bed where you lie, and then you turn finally to the person who is your heart walking around outside of your body. You can feel the others lingering in the doorway as if waiting as you stand next to Oikawa, kneeling where Iwaizumi once had. Tears run down the brunet's cheeks and you immediately feel your soul bleeding out for him.

“I’m so sorry I have to go.” You cry, sniffling as your words break. “I love you so much, Tooru. I’m sorry I never got the chance to tell you. I’m sorry we didn’t have more time. I wish I could have been the great love of your life, but I want-” A sob rips from your chest. “I need you to know,” You reach forwards and try to wipe the tear from his cheek.

“You were mine.” The tingling up your limbs has stemmed up your arms and now warmth fills your chest. You know you’re running out of time.

“I want you to grow old, get married, have lots of babies, to be happy and have so so many memories and stories. When I see you again, I want to hear about them all. I want you to fall in love and live Tooru, even if it's not with me.” Oikawa’s head snaps to your sleeping figure, and it takes you a minute to realize the machines are lighting the room up like a Christmas tree. Alarms ringing through the room like a bell.

“There will never be a day, life, or universe where I do not love every single part of you. Know that I am yours and I always will be.” Gasping in a sob, you try to paint a smile on your face. “We’re lifers baby.”

The world moves in slow motion as doctors flood into the room, Oikawa stands, reaching for your hand again and screaming in agony, as if someone has ripped into his chest and torn his very soul from his body.

“Please, don’t leave me. Please!” Your sobs echo inside your own head as you hear him yell. You feel the ferocity of it to your bones as he tries to grab your bedside as if to try to tether you to the world for even a second more.

“Please Y/n, please.” Oikawa’s voice breaks as he sobs and you cry as Iwaizumi holds him back, letting the doctors hurry to your side. “I love you, please. Please.”

Hearing the words from his lips has a strangled breath slipping from your mouth. You wish you had told him that you hadn’t been such a coward and waited. Now, realizing you won't get the chance, in despair you place your hands on his chest, pressing your head to his heart as you cry. “I love you Tooru, so so much.” You look up to him, seeing his wide eyes as he stares at your bed bound form, as if he was shocked. “Always.”

Always.

‘Mamma?” You look down at the little girl tugging at your pants.

“Are you ready to go now?” She asks and this time your smile takes no effort at all. She looks around the room as she reaches her hand out to you.

“Let's go kiddo.” You reply, grabbing her hand and letting her lead you out the door to where you can see all your friends in the room.

“Bye uncles.” She says with a small smile, her gaze lingering on Oikawa as he falls to the floor, Iwaizumi holding him tightly.

“See you later daddy.”

Oikawa’s world goes quiet as he stares at the doors to the hospital room that has been your home for the last few days. The last place you would ever breathe in.

He’d been dragged from the room screaming as doctors worked around him, trying to fix something they all knew couldn’t be repaired. He had shouted, roared at them to do something, to save you. But the nurses only looked on with tears in their eyes as Iwaizumi grabbed Oikawa and folded him into his chest as he begged. You were only nineteen, you were so young. You had your whole life ahead of you, a life with him.

And now here he was, hours later sitting on the floor staring at the door where you had been. Not able to grab the parts of you from the room he had brought to try and bring himself some semblance of reality.

There’s a scuffing of shoes, and a thump from next to him but he doesn’t have to look up to know it’s his friends.

“I uh- noticed this fall out of your pocket on the floor. ” In her room, he doesn’t add. Iwaizumi’s voice is hoarse from crying, and Oikawa can’t bring himself to look at him. He had lost the love of his life today, and Iwaizumi had lost a sister.

“I- I know she’d want you to have it.” Finally looking up at his friend, a broken noise escapes his throat as he sees the dainty chain dangling from Iwaizumi’s hand. A sob chokes him as he looks at the golden pendant swinging softly from side to side. Tooru had bought it for you for your one birthday months ago, The first initial of your name is stamped onto the small rectangular pendant, and as he flips it over in his hand, the small T stares back at him. How had it gotten there? You’d been wearing it in the crash, and when he’d arrived at the hospital. How had it gotten in his pocket?

He thinks back to the moment the room had erupted into chaos. Oikawa could have sworn he’d felt something through his tears, but wasn’t sure. Surely he was hallucinating, but in that moment of panic, Oikawa could swear he saw your smile, feel your warmth.

There’s hands on his shoulder as he unclasps the necklace before tightening it around his own neck.

“Y/n’s parents are downstairs.” Makki whispers, his voice breaking.

“I don’t know what to say to them.” Oikawa replies, feeling like it’s the first time he’s spoke in years. “She was their daughter and now-” there’s nothing more he can say, but luckily he doesn’t have to. Instead, Mattsun’s arm hooks around Oikawa’s shoulder and as the brunet buries his head in his knees, his friend speaks a truth that all of them will agree on.

“Now, we keep her image alive.” Iwaizumi hisses through his tears, and Oikawa rubs a hand across his mouth, unable to form words. SO instead, he nods, looking his friend right in the eyes, as distant and dead as his own. They would keep your image alive for the rest of their lives. You were their best friend, their family, there was no way they'd let you go.

Ever.

“Thanks for coming,” Your father seems to have aged five years in the span of twelve months. Though, having your child pass away will do that to you.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Oikawa gives the an who is like a second father to him a soft smile in return.

“Thanks for the call. I appreciate it.”

“I knew if I didn’t you’d not stop by.” The flash of a smile is so brief on your fathers face. Since you passed, he’d only visited them twice. The first time was by accident when he had come home to see his friends and his folks, and the second was on purpose when Oikawa had finally managed to work through your belongings in your apartment, picking some things your parents might want.

He’d watched your mother break down over an image of them all and since then, he didn’t want to be a reminder of what they lost, so he’d kept his space. But when he’d gotten the call this morning from your father, asking for him to come around he couldn’t find it in himself to refuse.

“We had been going through some of her old things.” Your father explains and Oikwa tries not to stumble as he removes his sneakers.

“And we thought you might want to have a look. You’re welcome to take anything you’d like.” Pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, your father lets out a sigh.

“If you don’t want anything we understand. Moving on will be harder if you have constant reminders of her but w just wanted to offer-”

“Thank you.” The words leave Oikawa’s mouth in a rushed hurry. There was no universe where Oikawa would ever move on from you completely. Even after twelve months, there are many parts of his life that remain unchanged, simply to preserve the essence of you in it. Whether its the battered pendant hanging from his neck, or one of the plain gold band rings of yours he had gotten resized just so he could wear it. He still had your makeup in a box in his apartment in Argentina, your perfume too.

“Take as long as you want.” Your dad says as he slips into the kitchen. Oikawa’s feet lead him down the familiar hall and up the staircase. In every part of this house are memories of you. Maybe that’s why your parents were discussing putting it up for sale, hence the reason they’re going through your old things.

Running a hand up the wooden rail, he can practically hear your laugh as him and Iwaizumi had cramped onto a mattress with you and slid down the wooden staircase, laughing as your mother yelled in fright from the top of the stairs.

As he breached your bedroom, his heart tugged painfully in his chest as he took in the decor. It was the exact same as he’d seen it the day before he’d left for Argentina. Nature posters cover the walls, and polaroid pictures litter one of the walls. That’s what draws him in first.

You’d been obsessed with polaroids as a kid, much to Iwaizumi’s dismay as he hated being on camera. The fact that many of those pictures were of nine year old him posing obnoxiously brought a laugh to his lips. Reaching out, he grabbed one off the wall, a ball stuck in his throat as he looked at the familiar image. You hung between Iwaiuzmi and Oikawa’s shoulders, the three of you covered in dirt, cuts and bruises. You had a blue flower bandaid on your chin and dirt smudged on your face like they did, but it was the bright grin on your face that had his eyes stinging. You couldn’t have been older than eight, no doubt having spent the day outside with them during the summer, if the bug catcher in Iwaizumi’s hand was anything to go by.

“Jesus,” He curses with a snuff trying to bite back the tears that threaten to fall. Even now, it all feels so fresh. Like you were to step through the door any second and tell him he needs a haircut.

It was the little things Oikawa had discovered that hurt the most when it came to not having you around. The daily catch ups and listening to you laugh at the most boring stories of his day, watching you grumble about an assignment. There were two moments in the past twelve months that had truly felt as crushing as he’d felt the day he lost you.

The first being your twentieth birthday. All four of his friends had made a deal at your funeral that they would all be together on your birthday. And when the day rolled around, they found themselves sitting at a bar, now all old enough to drink, sharing a bottle of sake with a fifth glass filled to the brim reserved there for you.

The second was the moment he had found out he made the Olympic roster. When he’d heard the news you were the first person he wanted to call. You would have been as excited as he was, and would have bought every bit of Argentinian Olympic merchandise available. The fact that he couldn’t share that with you, Oikawa had broken down.

Now, he’d had a week off from his vigorous training and took the time to come back home. Every chance he got he returned to Japan to spend time with his family. If there was anything he’d learned upon your death, it was that life is fucking fickle. So he wanted to spend as much time with Iwaizumi, Matsukawa and Hanamaki as possible, because spending time with them kept the image of you alive for a little longer.

Moving from the pictures on the wall to your desk, Oikawa’s gaze settles on the white and blue jersey and he lets out a shocked laugh. He’d lent you his spare volleyball uniform in high school and had never asked for it back. The fact that you’d kept the shirt all this time… tears crest his eyes.

Reaching to pick it up, his hand meets something solid. Pushing aside the shirt, Oikawa finds himself looking at a notebook - no not a notebook, he realizes as he opens it. A diary.

Your diary.

“Don’t fucking haunt me for this shit gorgeous.” Oikawa says softly as he flicks through it to the final page. You hadn’t hid it, ergo it was fair game, especially now that you aren’t there to yell at him about it.

Oikawa turns to the latest page, the book not yet complete, and lets out a shaky sigh at your familiar handwriting. It’s dated back to your senior year of high school. The familiar handwriting rips a shaky breath from Oikawa’s mouth as he reads.

So I graduated a few days ago. It’s scary to think that in a short few days I'm not going to be seeing my friends every day. Iwa’s moving to the U.S to study exercise sport science, and Oikawa’s heading over to Argentina on Friday - it’s Tuesday.

I think my internet history is full of wiki shows on how to tell your best friend he’s the love of your life without ruining your friendship, but so far I've come up with nothing. I don’t want to ruin what we have, but I don’t think I can let him go without telling him. I know it probably makes me a jealous and heinous bitch, but can someone cut me some slack please, because I've been pining over him for years, and if I don’t tell him then, I never will. Maybe I'll write him a letter-” you had. You’d put it in his backpack before he left and he’d only found it after trying to find his headphones on the plane. It still rested at his bedside table all these years later.

“But most of all, I just need to tell him I love him. I need him to know, for my sanity, and just to know that even though he’s across an ocean and over a thirty hour flight away - I googled it don’t judge me - I will always love him, and that’s not going to change. Okay, I've gotta go because he’s banging at my door about getting teppanyaki, but I guess I'll write later - not sure so bye!”

It takes a second for him to realize the gut wrenching sobs are coming from him. Oikawa’s chest burns as he tries to hold in his cries but god.

In the time he’d gotten the privilege of being your boyfriend, you’d never uttered those words. He’d wished you had, for so damn long. He couldn’t fault you for not doing it considering Oikawa had been a coward and not told you that he’d been in love with you since he’d found you at the mercy of those fuckwit highschoolers. You’d been drenched to the bone, your book covered in mud and although you’d looked so defeated, the minute your eyes had met his, it was like the sun had come out. He always wondered if you noticed the smile that worked across your mouth when he found you there, but it was one of the most stunning things he’d ever seen.

With his jersey in one hand and the book in the other, Oikawa drops to the corner of your mattress, letting out a broken laugh.

God what he would give to hear you say those words. What he’d give to be able to see you just one more time, that blinding grin, those vibrant eyes smiling at him.

To hear you say his name, to call him an idiot, a drama queen, a casanova.

Just to hear you tell him you love him, for the first and last time.

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