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Oikawa believed in a higher form of life from the the age of seven, when he first watched E.T. He had immediately taken a liking to the thought that the human race wasn’t alone, and that there was, in fact, something smarter and better advanced than them, and that one day he might be able to meet a real life alien. He began to read books on his own time-thinking about the possibilities that maybe they (Extraterrestrials) even lived on earth around him.
The Men in Black franchise really set that mindset in stone for him, which led to a particularly hard year for his parents-who had to continuously scold him for interrogating people about whether or not they born on planet Earth or him getting into very intense debates with his friend about the topic.
One very vivid memory for his parents, was a few weeks after Oikawa turned ten. They had gone to the public library to pick out something for their nightly read along-and ended up having him yelling at an elderly woman on the bus ride home. She had apparently told him the sci-fi book he had in his hands seemed silly and immature for a boy his age-only for him to turn right back around and start screaming in her face, telling her ‘You’re too old to be alive, bitch, I don’t take advice from corpses’.
That had resulted in a pretty long scolding from his parents, who were both thoroughly humiliated over their son throwing around a naughty word so carelessly. Of course, he didn’t know what exactly ‘bitch’ meant, but he had heard his mother call a coworker that in a very angry conversation with a close family friend over the phone. So, really he just knew it to be something you call someone you don’t like.
The whole ordeal didn’t stop his obsession with aliens however, and he continued to watch his favorite movies and read his favorite books as much as he wanted to.
As the years went on though, he began to realize that being that kid who wore UFO t-shirts and read Starship Troopers at recess, made him also that one kid that no one wanted to invite to the Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties or to play four square with st recess.
The good thing however, was that he also loved Volleyball. In fact, he was pretty fucking good at it, and so was his best friend; Iwazumi Hajime.
He threw himself into the newly found passion for the sport, and shoved every last piece of his old obsession into the back of his closet, where it could only be seen by him.
The time was just about at the end of his life in grade school, and he knew once he reached middle school he was going to have to change his image sooner or later.
And so he started to practice everyday after school, playing sometimes with whatever team he happened to be on-or with Iwazumi.
Said boy was the only person who seemed to know about Oikawa’s old obsession once they reached the new schools. He didn’t bring it up though, deciding that it must just be easier to ignore whatever switch went off in Oikawa’s brain, as they could finally do something so often together.
It was really nice to spend so much time with Oikawa, and vise versa, seeing as the two began to hang out even more than they did when they were little kids.
By the time they reached high school and Oikawa had survived a pretty nasty knee surgery, a breakdown, and three broken hearts from past girlfriends-Oikawa and Iwazumi were closer than most married couples could say they were even after thirty years of staying together. They were sleeping over at each other’s house almost every night, and had almost the exact same school schedules (Pardon Iwazumi taking Ceramics, where Oikawa took debate).
So really who could blame Iwaizumi when he started to develop feelings for the other boy? It wasn’t like he had actively sought out to find romance-in fact, he had never felt so much adoration and warmth for another person before Oikawa. It was the first time he could even think about perhaps even kissing someone or holding their hand.
At first he thought he was ill.
He had walked into practice after school one day, after changing in the locker rooms, and found Oikawa with a focused, determined look on his face. He was in the middle of a small match with only four people on both teams, but also seemed to be the main person playing. Well, to Iwazumi at least. In fact, Iwazumi was so impressed when Oikawa spiked the ball over the net and won the practice match, he felt a rush of warmth over take himself and began to ponder the possibility that maybe he had a fever.
The next time it happened, he and Oikawa were setting back and forth to one another, Oikawa spitting out a million words a second. It happened quickly-really only a second- but Iwazumi had been so affected he had felt a rush go through his body and downpour of sweat spring to skin. He had watched another player’s ball fly towards them, at the same time he had set the ball back to Oikawa, and almost yelled out in warning-only for the ill-like emotions to turn in when Oikawa set one ball and then the next, right back to their intended target like it had been no big deal.
Iwazumi had been impressed. Something he had been feeling more often when he was around Oikawa.
It didn’t really set in that he had feelings for Oikawa until the summer after their first year of high school.
It had come like a slap to the face.
Really, honestly, he had felt the feelings rush up during a practice match with that one school, Nekoma at a training camp-and had responded by slapping himself across the face.
He quite literally smacked the confusion out of himself, replacing the ‘Am I sick?’ question with ‘Am I seriously in love with Oikawa Tooru?’
Fast forward to the start of that school year, he found himself wanting to tell Oikawa about everything-then he heard the tale of his older brother getting dumped by his girlfriend and that he couldn’t even get out of bed and that the two weren’t friends anymore.
He was was absolutely terrified of what would happen to their friendship if he said anything. So, he began to avoid his best friend as much as he could.
Lucky for Oikawa, Aoba Johsai decided to send the entire volleyball team to a private training camp for spring break. There was no way they could avoid each other if they had to sleep in the same room.
Iwazumi woke up to a door clicking shut and the pitter-patter of someone’s delicate footsteps.
He had always been a light sleeper, but the same could not be said for the rest of his team-one could see that by the way they continued snoring loudly and spread out in their sleep like little kids. You wouldn’t think they were all nearly adults by the way they looked in their sleep.
And normally Iwazumi would just sit back down and sleep like nothing was wrong-but with a glance over at Oikawa’s bed roll-he could see it was empty.
That wasn’t something he could ignore.
He found himself tip-toeing out of the room as silent as he could manage and trying to avoid stepping on his teammates’ hands and feet.
The door opened quickly and he held the handle to avoid it clicking loudly, before leaving it open and shuffling down the hall.
He passed the room of his sensei, the door shut, but the sound of loud snores and sleepy murmurs still echoing out into the hall.
He went down the hall and stepped down the staircase to find himself in the kitchen. A light was on, illuminating a small amount of the kitchen, yet still forcing Iwaizumi to rub at his eyes as they stung at the bright light.
The kitchen was empty however.
A look over at the stove showed him someone had turned it on and that a pot of soup was cooking irresponsibly, as no one was around to give it a stir.
He took the duty over and heaved a sigh when he saw the clock read three am.
It wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened though.
He finished with the soup after a few minutes and poured it into two bowl, turning off the heat. He grabbed two spoons and marched to the back door where he could see it slightly ajar.
“You should be asleep, Shittywaka.” He said as he stepped out into the cool night air, the glimmer of stars above them-something he could never see in the city-catching his eyes.
Oikawa turned to look at him, visibly startled, and sat on the edge of the porch, legs crossed. He had an open mouth and a strange shocked look in his eye, accompanied by dark bags and an exhausted redness.
“Iwa-Chan.” He said, voice low like he was breathing it out. His tone was light and his words soft, adding on to the sweet appearance he wore. His shorts were light blue, his shirt a pale white with yellow stars covering the front and gracing his shoulders.
Iwazumi held back a loving grin at the sight of his friend and sat down beside him, passing over a bowl of soup.
“Why are you out here?” He asked, dragging a spoon through his food and watching the liquid spill over the metal like drops of blood. It was a good thing Oikawa had decided to make tomato-Iwazumi preferred it much more than chicken noodle. It was almost like Oikawa knew he would wake up and join him soon.
“I thought I heard something.” The boy who had stolen Iwazumi’s heart whispered, his eyes gazing across the field in front of them like it reminded him of a bad childhood memory.
“Heard what?”
Oikawa stared into his bowl before lifting his eyes to see Iwazumi’s questioning expression.
“Well,” He looked at him for a moment before looking back down at the grass with a large frown, “I thought,” Oikawa sighed just as Iwazumi found himself moments away from asking another question, “I thought I heard like… a spaceship.”
A moment of silence passed over them, Iwazumi frowning deeply as time went on and Oikawa shrinking in on himself like he was afraid of the way his friend would respond to his words. They both sat still and not talking-until Iwazumi found himself unable to keep the conversation quiet.
“Why did you stop caring about aliens and crap?”
Oikawa froze. “What?”
“I mean,” Iwazumi went on, “You used to sneak out in the middle of the night when we were younger and run over to my house, ranting about how you thought you saw a UFO or your neighbor, Yuka-San, was from Pluto.”
“I was a dumb kid,” Came his answer, Oikawa adding on a roll of his eyes as e spoke, “And I probably just had a nightmare tonight or something, okay? I’ve been really stressed out lately and my sleep has been all messed up,” He leaned his chin into his hands and gave a sarcastic mumble of, “Guess I can thank you for that.”
A frown plastered itself onto Iwazmui’s lips at that, “What’s that supposed to mean?” He scowled.
“It means you’ve been avoiding me for some reason and I don’t know why and it’s really messing me up, okay?”
That obnoxious silence from earlier came back after that, slapping both boys in the face and leaving them to pick themselves up off the ground. For both it was horrendously awkward-however that awkwardness came from different reasons.
“I’m sorry.” Iwazumi muttered after the long moment, “I’ve been acting like a jerk.”
“Yeah,” Oikawa nodded, “You have. Can you tell me why? It’s really just...it’s messing me up, Iwa-Chan.”
...
“...It’s ‘cause I like you.”
Oikawa blinked, his eyebrows shooting up and a little ‘o’ forming on his lips as he looked at Iwaizumi, totally shocked.
“You-you like me? Even though I’m...me?”
Iwazumi felt a weird surge of confidence go through his body as Oikawa asked the question. No longer was he feeling that gross kind of ill. It seemed to be replaced by a bubbly warm kind.
“Especially because you’re you,” Iwazumi chuckled, “You wake me up at three am to look for alien spaceships an eat soup together. How much better could you get?”
“That’s true.” Oikawa giggled after eating a large gulp of his own soup, “I just hope that you don’t think I’m a…”
“A what?”
“You know,” Oikawa sighed, “A weirdo. I read 1950’s sci-fi books and listen to alien podcasts. I don’t let people see that side of me anymore but-“
“That’s dumb.” Iwaizumi cut in, grabbing Oikawa’s hand and affectingly shutting him up.
“You can be interested in that stuff as much as you want,” He growled, “You shouldn’t let anyone decided what your hobbies are or what you’re interested in. You, out of anyone, should know that. You’re one of the most confident and talented people I know, Shittywaka. Don’t let other people tell you who you are.”
“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Oikawa sniffled, leading to Iwazumi stopping his rant to look over at the teary eyed captain.
“Are you crying?” He whispered, setting aside both of their soups to hold Oikawa closer, “Did I do something wrong? I didn’t mean to-“
“Please date me.”
“Okay.”