Chapter Text
Oikawa Tooru X Reader
No Need for Trivial Things
There was something special about a good game of chess. You rubbed your nose as you stared at the pieces on the board. Your opponent was extremely intelligent and you had to focus more than usual in this game. You didn’t mind, though. You adored it. It was always a blessing to finally have a competent opponent. Because it made it even more satisfying when you won.
Your mind was working overtime, calculating six moves ahead as you moved your rook five places forward. Your opponent breathed out, moving his knight to take your queen who you had left open. You smiled as he fell right into your trap. With your bishop already in line to take the pawn guarding his king, he had just moved his last defense line. You moved your bishop, taking away his pawn and looked up at him.
“Checkmate.” You said, smiling. The boy across from you flared his nostrils and looked up at you, glaring hard. You grinned and stuck your hand out. “Good game.”
The boy angrily took your hand and roughly shook it. You smiled and stood up, walking back to your cheering team. This had been the semifinals for your chess club’s tournament and because of this win, your team was going to the finals. The captain hugged you tightly, slapping your shoulder and grinning.
“You showed him! You know that’s one of the top ranked players in our prefecture and you just annihilated him!” He exclaimed as the rest of your team crowded around, cheering and congratulating you.
“I bet he hates losing. Especially to a girl.” You said, smirking. You glanced at your captain and you saw he was blushing as he stared at you. You rolled your eyes and punched him playfully on the shoulder.
Being the only girl in the chess club, the members had more than a few times tried to ask you out. And you got looks from other teams quite a lot. You really didn’t mind, you liked all the attention and it gave you even more satisfying pleasure since you were probably one of the best players in the prefecture, if not the nation.
Soon, after a few hours of eating and celebrating with the members of the club and the teacher advisors, it was time to return to school. This semifinals had taken place in the morning and you all still had to return to school for afternoon classes. All of the members were wearing the signature turquoise polo shirts, representing their school and they clambered onto a matching colored bus. You loved your school, Aoba Johsai, because it was a powerhouse school in pretty much every club. In chess, your team reached the National Final pretty much every year. The trick was winning the finals.
In years past, you didn’t take part in the chess club because you spent most of your time as manager for the basketball club. Your brother had been on the team, and you just wanted to spend more time with him before he left for college. Now that he was gone and this was your final year of high school, you decided to join the chess team because you figured they could use you. With you on the team, the chess club was sure to go to nationals again this year.
While on the bus, one of the team members shouted up to the teacher advisor who was driving.
“Hey, Sensei, do you think we could stop by the Sendai City Gym? The volleyball team is playing today, I think.” The teacher advisor asked the rest of the team if they wanted to, and everyone agreed.
You remained quiet in your seat. You weren’t sure how to feel about this. You knew the volleyball team better than most people would think. Your brother had been good friends with some of the players and that led you to become acquainted with one Oikawa Tooru who was their star setter. You and Oikawa had quite the history together.
When you were both first years, you found him quite attractive. In fact, you found yourself developing a massive crush on him. That whole first year, you always followed your brother to volleyball practices when he wanted to visit his friends, and you’d end up using your brother as an excuse just to show up at practice to watch Oikawa play. Then in your second year, you mustered the courage to talk to him. After speaking to him, you found yourself liking him even more. Then one day, out of the blue, he asked you out.
For the rest of your second year, you and Oikawa dated. For the first few months, you were on cloud nine. It was bliss to wait for him after volleyball practice and then have him sweep his arms around your shoulders, whispering sweet nothings in your ear. He paid you a lot of attention back then. But towards the end of the year, he became more and more into his volleyball game. He practiced for hours and sometimes forgot that he was supposed to hang out with you. You stopped seeing him that often and you realized that he cared more for volleyball than he ever would for you.
So you broke up with him. It was heartbreaking and you cried for days, but you knew it was necessary. You hadn’t spoken to him since that day. You knew it was immature, but you had even started avoiding him in the halls. It was just too painful for you to look at him and not think about what you used to have.
And that’s why your hands shook as your bus pulled into the parking lot.
All the boys hopped out of the bus with you trailing behind. You followed them silently, your hands wrapped around yourself protectively. As you entered the gym, you heard the familiar sound of balls bouncing and boys shouting. Your teammates ran up the stairs to the cheering section and you tried to keep your head up as you followed them. When you reached the top, you saw Seijoh’s huge cheering section and made your way toward it, trying to keep yourself from looking at the matches below.
When you reached the cheering section, one of the students smiled and handed you a cheering tube. You took the cone shape and stared at the turquoise color before finally forcing yourself to look down. The team was closest to your side so they were facing away from you. You immediately recognized the four third years. Iwaizumi signature spiky hair made it easy to spot him as he jumped for a spike. Maki and Matsukawa were also in the game as they were on the offensive. The two others were some first years that you’d never seen before.
And then, there he was. He still kept his hair swept up and he was still wearing his signature smirk. He fist pounded Iwaizumi as he tossed the ball to Maki who was about to serve. You glanced at their score and saw that they were winning pretty easily. You assumed they’d already won the first set because they were up 22-11 in the second set.
Maki served and the opponent tried for a normal quick. One of the first years easily picked it up and the ball floated to Oikawa. You held your breath as Oikawa jumped to toss, the blockers had already jumped in front of Iwa to try and stop him, but before they could react, Oikawa’s hands changed and he slammed the ball down for an easy setter’s dump. You tried to keep yourself from letting out a shout of victory, but you let one out anyway. Luckily, the cheers around you drowned out the sound of your voice.
The next point, the other team managed to get a point off by getting a lucky ball to hit the net and fall over, out of reach of the others. Then, Seijoh immediately got the point back by one of Iwa’s amazing spikes. You held your breath as Oikawa picked up the ball to serve for the match. He turned around to walk to the back line and you immediately wanted to hide.
Suddenly, three girls next to you shouted at the top of their lungs:
“Oikawa-kun! Do your best!”
You whirled on them, trying to get them to shut up, but it was too late. Oikawa looked up with a pleasant smirk on his face. He waved at the girls and paused as his eyes connected with yours.
You felt a blush rise to your cheeks as his eyes widened. His smirk faded and he went pale. You stared at each other for a few seconds before the umpire blew his whistle, telling Oikawa he needed to serve. Oikawa looked down and turned away from you, his back now much tenser than before. You let out the breath you were holding as he tossed the ball high and ran up to jump. He jumped and his hand made contact with the ball, making a sound like a gunshot as he slammed the ball down.
You gasped as the ball flew with so much speed, you were pretty sure if someone tried to touch it, their arms would break off. Oikawa’s serve bounced in the court and then flew to the back without a single person touching it. From the silence in the crowd and the other team, it was clear that this was one of his harder serves. Maybe the hardest in the match.
“Alright!” The team cheered, the cheering section erupted and your chess club friends were right in the pack, cheering along with them. You felt yourself shrinking in the midst of an ecstatic cheering section, so you decided to wait downstairs to go back to school.
You made your way down the stairs and stood by the front door of the gym. As you waited, you watched the other team pack up and leave, all of their faces full of melancholy. You felt bad for them, but you said nothing as they walked past you and left the gym. You sighed and watched as they climbed back onto their bus, knowing that their season was over.
Suddenly, you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand like when someone was watching and you turned around. You blushed as you saw Oikawa standing at the mouth of the gym, holding his shirt in one hand and his bag in the other. He was shirtless, probably because he was about to go shower, but you felt your eyes involuntarily shift lower on his chest. He dropped his bag and immediately pulled his shirt back on, walking toward you. You took a breath and prepared yourself for this conversation.
“It’s been awhile.” Oikawa said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. You nodded and faced him, crossing your arms. “I didn’t think you’d be here.” He said, glancing away before back at you.
“It wasn’t by choice.” You said abruptly, feeling that familiar heat rise in your stomach. Oikawa smirked at your remark and you found yourself feeling like he was mocking you. He usually did when you were together and you would have many verbal jousts. But right now, you honestly didn’t want to bring up the past.
“I heard you won a chess match. Congratulations, you never told me you played chess.” He said, looking you up and down. Your eyes narrowed and you pursed your lips.
“I did tell you. You just never listened.” You retorted, causing Oikawa’s smirk to falter. He glanced up at you and you found yourself feeling extremely irritated. You never wanted to be here in the first place and now you had to go through an awkward conversation that you never wanted to happen. You took a breath and uncrossed your arms.
“Look. I don’t want to fight. I don’t even really want to talk. So I’ll make this simple. I’m doing fine, you’re doing fine. You’re enjoying volleyball, I’m enjoying chess. No, I don’t miss you. You don’t miss me either. I hope you have a good life, I’ll try to have a good life too. Now let’s just agree to not speak to each other again, because it is way too awkward.”
With that, you walked past him and started to make your way back inside, even though you weren’t really sure where you were going. You heard a chuckle behind you and you paused slightly.
“You really haven’t changed, have you?” He asked, turning around to face you. You looked down before turning back and glaring at him.
“Maybe you just haven’t noticed the difference.” You snapped. Oikawa threw his head back and laughed, causing you to straighten your back in indignation.
“It’s always the snarky response with you, isn’t it? I should have known this would happen eventually. Especially since you’ve been avoiding me in school.” Oikawa’s eyes found yours and you felt yourself gulp and step back. You blushed, your immaturity now coming back to bite you in the butt. Oikawa smiled.
“You didn’t think I’d notice?” He asked. “You literally ran away from me a couple of weeks ago.” You blushed again and looked away, remembering the incident with clarity.
You had walked into the library to meet the chess club and had accidentally bumped into Iwaizumi who was conveniently standing in front of Oikawa. You took one look at the duo and did the only thing that came to your mind. You turned around and fled down the hall. You didn’t stop until you reached the girl’s bathroom. You had to stay locked in a stall for a good half hour before you felt courageous enough to come out.
“I’m sorry for my immaturity.” You said, ducking your head in shame. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Well I couldn’t blame you. It was me, after all.” You looked up as Oikawa grinned, inflating his own ego.
You glared at him and straightened your back, ready to sock him in the face. He always took things as a joke, even if it was serious. You had just tried to apologize and he’d come at you with a stupid joke. You wanted to fight, but you knew that you were too heated to win.
“What do you want from me?” You asked in defeat. Oikawa laughed and raised his arms in surrender.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” He said with a smile. Then his smile faded slightly as he looked you in the eyes. “I’m happy you came. I’ve missed you.” You looked away, blushing slightly. Oikawa took a step forward and you saw his arm reach out, like he was going to take your hand. “And I’ve been thinking…” you immediately jerked back, not allowing him to touch you.
“No, you haven’t been thinking. You don’t miss me. We’re not about to do this.” You said, stepping back. Oikawa stared at you with wide eyes and took another step forward.
“What are you talking about? Of course I’ve missed you. You don’t think I hated it when we broke up? Damn I know you’re naïve but I didn’t think you’d be that dumb.” Your eyebrows raised as he cringed, probably realizing what he’d just said. “I didn’t mean it like that. Look, all I’m saying is I really regret how we left things off and I want to talk about it.”
“No. There’s no need to talk about it. You made it very clear that you were going to put your volleyball over everything else and I respected that. You are not allowed to smooth talk your way back into my life like this. I already had my heart broken once, I won’t let it happen again.” You said, raising a finger to keep him from coming closer. He ignored your warning and in two long strides he was right up close to your chest so you had to lift your chin to look up at him.
“You don’t think my heart was broken too? You don’t think I regret making you feel like that at all?”
“Stop it. You are not allowed to do this to me.”
“No, you need to listen—”
“Stop it, Oikawa!” Your shrill yell cut him off and his eyebrows raised, his eyes widening. He stared at you and then took a couple of steps back. He looked into your eyes and you felt your knees buckle as his chocolate-hazel eyes melted your soul like they’d done a million times.
“So I’m just Oikawa to you now?” He asked, hurt ringing in his tone. “What happened to calling me Tooru?”
“I don’t want to call you that.” You said, wrapping your arms around yourself. “We’re not together anymore.” Oikawa frowned and bit his lip. It wasn’t a good look for him.
“No we’re not. But we’re still friends. You can still call me by my first name. I’ve given you permission.” He said, running his fingers through his tousled hair. You glanced away and felt the heat rise to your cheeks again.
“I just don’t feel comfortable calling you that.” You said firmly, straightening your back. Oikawa looked down, and then smiled, chuckling slightly.
“Of course you wouldn’t be.” He said lightly. He looked back up and you and smirked. “I should have known. I know you too well.” You felt a spark of indignation at his words and uncrossed your arms, clenching them to fists.
“Really? You know me that well, huh? Then what’s my favorite color?” You asked abruptly, causing Oikawa to pause. He blinked a few times, looking at you incredulously. Then he started to think and you knew from his blank face that he had no idea what your favorite color was.
“Case and point.” You said, feeling your heart crack slightly. You’d kind of been hoping he’d prove you wrong, but you supposed you should have been expecting it. “Have a nice life, Oikawa.” With that, you turned around and prepared to leave.
“Wait.” Suddenly, you felt a hand grasp your own and you jerked to a stop, feeling your cheeks heat at the warmth of his hand. “Okay, fine. I don’t know little things like your favorite color or your favorite number or whatever. Those are trivial in my opinion. But I do know you. I know you better than you think.” He pulled you around so you were facing him. He wasn’t smiling now. He wasn’t smirking or grinning. There was no amusement in his eyes now. The mask was down and he was being serious.
“I know you’re impulsive. When it comes to your emotions, you act out and cause a scene even if you don’t mean to. When it comes to anything else, you are one of the most manipulative people I’ve ever met. You’re able to talk your way out of everything and you can get whatever you want, just by speaking to someone. You’re a great negotiator when emotions aren’t involved. But because of your emotional weakness, you have passion. So much passion that sometimes, it overwhelms you. But that’s when you are your most beautiful.”
“I know that your eyes are never the same color because they change according to your mood. When you’re angry, you have hazel eyes. When you’re happy, you have green eyes. When you’re sad, you have grey eyes. Right now, you have dark hazel eyes. You’re angry. You’re angry at me because of what I did to you, because of how I make you feel. But at the same time, you’re sad because you still hurt and you still wish it hadn’t happened. You wish you had pretended not to care and still been here as my girlfriend and not as somebody I used to know.
“I know why you’re able to play chess, even if I don’t remember you ever telling me, because I know how you think. You think seven moves ahead and you have every word planned before you say anything. You are like me, you use the tools you have to the best of your ability, regardless of whether you’ve been given a bad hand. I know that you are like me in that we both try to hide our emotions. We pretend like nothing matters, when in reality, we hurt the most. You are the only person I can truly let my mask down for because you are the only person who truly gets it. So yes, maybe I don’t know the trivial things, but I know you as a person. That’s good enough for me. I hope that’s good enough for you.”
You were caught in shock as his mountain of words hit you like an avalanche. You tried to sort out what he’d been saying, but you couldn’t. You could barely think straight, or you would have noticed that he’d taken both your upper arms and leaned down to your face. You only managed to look up into his eyes for a split-second before you felt his lips press urgently against yours.
Almost instantly, all the blocks fell into place. Everything he’d just said to you made sense and suddenly, you were kissing him back. You didn’t even realize it when your hand reached up and tangled itself into his hair. You barely noticed when your back was pressed against the wall and his hands tightened around your waist.
Suddenly, none of that mattered anymore. In that moment, you remembered what it was like to love Oikawa Tooru. You remembered why you’d been so heartbroken when you left him. And it was at this moment you realized, you never wanted to let him go again.
He pulled away from you for a split-second, allowing both of you to pant and catch your breath.
“I’m sorry.” Oikawa let out. You inhaled sharply and sighed as he pressed his forehead against yours. “I never meant to hurt you.” You wanted to punch him for talking so much, so instead you cupped his face in your hands and brought his lips back to meet yours. He groaned slightly and ravished in the kiss before pulling away again. “We need to stop.” You wanted to protest, but you knew he was right.
Finally, you allowed him to wrench himself off you and take a few steps back.
“We… we need to talk about this.” He said quietly, rubbing the back of his head. You pushed yourself off the wall and nodded.
“I want to be with you.” You said suddenly. He looked up at you with wide eyes. “But I can’t fall back into this relationship without proof that I won’t get my heart broken.” You took a breath and took a step closer to him. “Come to the finals at my chess tournament. If you do that, then we can talk about our relationship. If you do that, then I know you’re being serious.”
Oikawa stared at you, like it was a horrible bargain and ‘how dare you force him to do that’. You ignored his face and walked up to him, lifting yourself on your toes to press a long, sweet kiss to his lips.
“I miss you. That’s all you have to do because it’s good enough for me. I hope it’s good enough for you too.”
~~~
The National Chess Tournament Final:
You leaned over the chess table in contemplation, all too aware of the timer counting down your precious seconds. This was by far the hardest match you’d played yet and the boy in front of you was giving you no indication of his thoughts. He didn’t have a very obvious tell. But you knew he had to have one, and you continued to use your special tactics to find it.
You scrunched up your eyebrows on purpose and huffed, making it look like you were stumped. Keeping a watchful eye on the boy’s face, you made a stupid move, by drawing your rook into open fire. The boy’s lip twitched, but he didn’t react otherwise, and quickly took your rook without hesitation. You huffed again, pretending that you didn’t mean to make that move. Then you moved your pawn one place, and smiled at your board. You were perfectly set up in every way, even after he’d taken your rook.
If the boy noticed, he didn’t show. He just continued to look at the board in contemplation with his hands on his lap. You looked at his hands as his thumb ran over the edge of his fore finger. A nervous habit? Or something more? You smiled as he moved his queen in position to take your king.
“Check.” He said with confidence. You smiled at the scene and pretended to be offended or bemused that he had a check.
Then you calmly moved your bishop, who was in the back, to remove the threat of his queen. He showed no emotion and quickly moved his pawn to take back your bishop. You smiled, danger now over, and moved your trump card. Your pawn, which you had been moving up slowly but surely throughout the game, moved one spot forward to reach the end of the board. Smiling, you removed it and replaced it with your spare queen. Now you had two queens, and he had none. You were about to take this game, and he knew it. You glanced at his hands and saw that he had clamped them to fists. You grinned, knowing that you’d won.
He sighed and moved the only piece he had, giving you the opportunity to move your new queen into his king’s line of fire.
“Checkmate.” You said slyly, giving him a cool smirk. He sighed, showing the first bit of emotion and stuck his hand out. You shook it enthusiastically, already feeling that trophy in your hands.
You wished him good luck in his endeavors and quickly rushed back to your team’s box. The captain was practically jumping out of his skin. All of your teammates whacked you on the back, hugged you, or simply screamed in your ear. You laughed and yelled along with them. Then you peered behind everyone and saw the one person you’d been the most looking forward to seeing… fast asleep with his head leaning back on his seat.
You smiled and almost burst out laughing at the sight. Oikawa had come straight from volleyball practice to see you, and you’d made a point not to speak to him at all before the match started. If he was still here after that, you decided, then you would know he meant business. You hadn’t even given him the time or place of the chess tournament, so the fact that he had found it and was here was pretty good to you. You had already forgiven him the moment you saw him walking in the big arena with wide eyes, looking around to make sure he was in the right place.
So you weren’t angry that he had fallen asleep. You were actually expecting him to screw up in some way or another. He was Oikawa, after all. He pretended to be smooth and suave, but he was quite the dork under all that facade.
You smirked as you walked up to the sleeping jock. You weren’t angry, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t have some fun. You turned around and started working up some fake tears. Hopefully, you wouldn’t start laughing as you messed with him. Once tears were steadily streaming down your cheeks, you roughly grabbed Oikawa’s shoulder, causing him to jerk up with wide eyes.
“Really, Oikawa?” You shouted, pretending to be hurt. “You’re asleep ? I asked you to do one thing for me, and you fell asleep?” Oikawa took a second to realize where he was, and then he jerked up, stretching his arms out in surrender.
“Wait, wait, you don’t understand, I wasn’t asleep the whole time. I watched the beginning of the match, I swear I did. I’m just so tired, I’m really sorry, please give me another chance. I mean, you looked like you were doing well. Did you win?”
You let the waterworks fall faster and turned your head away as your answer. Oikawa’s frantic voice softened and he touched your shoulder.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. You played your best, and I’m sure the person you played was really good. I know you wouldn’t let him win without a fight.” He said, trying to put his arm around your shoulder for comfort. You smirked internally and immediately jerked back, shaking his arm off.
“Don’t touch me. I just lost the most important match in my life, and all I wanted was for you to be here. All I wanted was to see if you really cared about me at all, but I guess you don’t care, because you didn’t even have the decency to watch the match .” You turned around to leave, but Oikawa grabbed your shoulder, before you could dramatically storm off.
“No, wait, don’t go. I’m sorry for sleeping, I really am. Come on, I’ve never done this for anyone before, you know that. I’ve never been to another event before, and I didn’t realize how long it would take. Look, just give me another chance, I promise I’ll make it up to you.” You felt a laugh bubble up in your stomach, but you stamped it down.
“What could you possibly do to win me over this time?” You asked harshly, turning around to face him. Oikawa flinched and looked down.
“Um… I can take you to a restaurant. Your favorite restaurant. And I’ll buy you a new chess set.” He said, looking around for help. You smirked. For all the flirting he did in his spare time, he was at a loss for what to do in this kind of romantic situation. He’d never been the chaser in the cat and mouse game of romance.
“Yeah, because that’s going to make up for you falling asleep.” You said sarcastically, crossing your arms. Oikawa threw his arms up in the air in exasperation.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” He cried out. You smirked for real, wiping away your fake tears. You approached the frustrated setter and stood on your toes to press your lips to his. His eyes widened and he stared at you in shock as you pulled away.
“Yes, you are. Thanks for being here, Tooru.” You leaned in again and pressed your lips to his again. At first, he was a little taken aback, then he wrapped one arm around your waist and another in your hair and kissed you back, hard.
“I can’t believe I came all this way, just to get trolled by the person I’m supposed to be winning over.” He said as you broke apart. You giggled and took his hand.
“Come on, Tooru. Let’s go celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” He looked at you incredulously and you laughed at his expression. Then he understood and swore. “My god, I’m dating a psychopath.” He said, rubbing his forehead. You grinned and pulled him along.
“You knew exactly what you were getting into when you showed up today. So you can suck it up.” You smirked and continued to walk forward. Suddenly, Oikawa jerked you around and slipped his hand around your neck, pressing his lips to yours abruptly. You sighed and let your rigidness fall into the kiss.
“You bet I knew what I was getting into.” Oikawa whispered huskily, before planting a tantalizing kiss on your nose. You were slightly speechless, and now it was his turn to grip your hand and pull you along.