Chapter Text
If I knew what I know now I never would've agreed to help out at the bake sale, never would've gotten involved with him, never snooped around, never watched him cry, never would've had my heart smashed into a million pieces. Unfortunately at that time my naive self hadn't a clue what I was getting myself into. I never would have guessed that I would cry myself to sleep, to understand the feeling of drowning without touching a drop of water or that my whole life would be presently ruined by a single boy.
The boy who ruined my life? That's you. Oikawa Tooru. I'm guessing you don't remember me, that's fine. I hadn't expected you to. I'm nobody. You don't even need to read these letters. They're from nobody after all.
Anyways, I'm writing to you for only one reason and that is to express my feelings in the only way a coward knows. Through anonymous letters, hand delivered, I feel is the only way I can tell the truth and nothing but the truth without feeling and looking like the idiot that I am.
I suppose this is it for now, just a warning of the future messages and a prologue of some sorts. Expect another letter shortly once I've found the time to sit down and type it all out without any interruptions.
Sincerest Regards (sorry is that too formal?)
Nobody.
The boy reread the letter in his hands another three times before it finally sunk in. He had always thought that if he ruined somebody's life he would have remembered doing it. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the strange message. Was it a prank from one of his volleyball friends? Most likely not since he doubted they'd go to so much trouble. Their pranks were generally small scale but very messy.
"Tooru!" His mother yelled at him from the doorway. "How long can it possibly take you to get some mail?"
Hoping not to get screamed at again the boy pushed all questions about this strange letter and rushed inside.
~~
Imada Momoko could be described in very few words, plain, quiet, average. Quite simply, she was nobody. She faded into the background, no incredible talents, not the brightest, no dazzling looks, not very popular. However at the same time she wasn't terrible at anything, she was just average. Not amazing, not horrible, just there.
"I'm home." She sighed heavily despite having full knowledge that the house was empty, slipping off her shoes and exchanging them for a pair of worn slippers.
She proceeded to abandon her schoolbag on the floor and trudged into the dark kitchen. The brunette flicked on the light only to immediately turn it off again upon realising that she hadn't cleaned up after breakfast and thought it would be better to pretend she'd never seen the mess in the first place.
Briefly checking her phone for the time Momoko decided that it was early enough to procrastinate homework and busy herself with various other tasks such as writing her second letter or mindlessly watching television.
Throwing herself onto a couch surely older than she was judging by the multiple rips in the fabric and musty smell which reminded her of elderly people, not to mention the suspicious stain her father had tried to cleverly hide with a blanket.
A mere eleven minutes into the random teen drama she'd settled on her phone began to violently buzz, startling the bespectacled girl.
"Hulk's Deli, you order, we smash." She'd quipped cheerfully after reading the Caller ID.
"Hey sweetheart," her fathers voice droned tiredly from the phone. "I won't be able to come home tonight, sorry. I know how much you were looking forward to the party but I've just got too much work and my boss is breathing down my neck."
Heart dropping, Momoko knew she should have expected something like that to happen. "It's fine, birthdays come every year. We can celebrate properly next year."
She'd said the same thing last year.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive, now get off your arse and start working!" Already feeling the tears budding in her eyes she immediately hung up, afraid he'd catch on.
In no mood to continue with the drama she breathed carefully, in and out, refusing to cry. It'd been like that ever since her mother had up and abandoned them to move to Canada with some guy she'd met through work.
"Fuck my life." Pulling angrily at her hair she stood up and stalked to her bedroom. Plain and simplistic, beige walls, a minimal amount of posters and pictures, the only standout of her room was her expensive PC which she'd bought and assembled herself.
Silently she washed her face, scrubbing it just slightly too hard so that her skin took on an ugly red and changed into an oversized shirt and the baggiest pair of pyjama bottoms she had in her possession. The brunette stared at herself in the mirror, eyes full of hatred.
Inky black, straight as a pin hair left long to hang down her back, round eyes equally as dark which were almost completely hidden by her bangs which she always forgot to cut, round face with full cheeks, glasses usually propped on top of her head or perched on the bridge of her nose while at home, opting for contacts while at school. She hated it all. She was pretty much a carbon copy of her mother who remained a distant yet painful memory, burned forever into her mind.
Momoko originally planned to lose herself in sleep but quickly realised that she hadn't eaten and didn't wish to cook herself partly because it required too much effort and partly because she didn't want to clean up the present mess.
"Fuck it," she pulled her hair back into an untamed bun behind her head. "I'm getting noodles."
And so she did. Pocketing her phone and a few crumpled up notes she left her house and crossed the empty street to find a convenience store. Despite not being very late into the night it was already dark outside, no moon or stars visible on the inky landscape, only light coming from the houses that lined the road and streetlights positioned at equal distances from each other.
Locating a store did not require much effort nor time and before she knew it she was sat down at a table, shovelling cheap instant ramen down her mouth, hair pulled back to make the task easier than it already was. Just where every girl wanted to be on their birthday. Perhaps she could buy a cupcake and a sparkler to make up for the lack of birthday cake and candles. No that was stupid, she didn't have a lighter anyways and didn't want to risk being made fun of.
Sighing heavily she had suddenly put down her chopsticks and stared at her half-eaten food. She'd forgotten to sing. Would it be weird to do that in public however? Oh well, she couldn't possibly sink lower than the level she was already at, alone on her birthday.
"Happy Birthday to me," Momoko began quietly, keeping her dark eyes fixated on her noodles. "Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to me."
Singing it on her own, not even with a cake or candles she realised that the whole idea of birthday celebrations were pretty strange. A group of people gathered in a dark room around a flaming object singing a repetitive song in unison. Was it intended to be so satanic?
Apparently she'd said her last thought out loud and was startled as a familiar boy sat down across from her.
"Not sure, depends what you're talking about." Oikawa Tooru stared back at the dumbfounded girl as he shoved milk bread into his mouth.
"Um...hi?" Immediately she began internally hitting herself for being so stupid.
"Are you always this articulate?"
"Are you always this intrusive?" She shot back, unable to help herself.
"Intrusive?"
"I'm guessing you either don't speak basic Japanese or don't realise that you're intruding on my birthday celebration. Whichever it is it's not overwhelmingly good." The brunette desperately hoped she was hiding her secret obsession with the boy.
"Then enlighten me, why are you spending your birthday eating cheap noodles outside a convenience store, alone in what I'm guessing is your pyjamas?"
He was so cute when he pretending to act all cool and smart, too bad he had no idea she knew that he was just a giant volleyball dork.
"Do you really want to know?" She arched a brow and tilted her head to the side inquisitively.
"If I didn't I wouldn't have asked."
"Okay fine," she shrugged in defeat. "I'm here right now because my mother decided to abandon me, forcing my father to work longer hours just to prevent us from becoming homeless. Due to that he's more concerned with work than his own daughter and hasn't celebrated my birthday with me since I was ten. To add onto that my friends see me as an accessory used to copy homework off of which they don't particularly care much about. Does that answer your question?"
Why she had pretty much spilled her life story to a boy who barely knew her she wasn't sure. Why he sat down in the first place she wasn't sure of either. Had he read the letter and already guessed she was the writer? It didn't matter anyways, he would never know it was her.
"Yeah, thanks." He didn't have much to say after that. Who would faced with such brutally honest words?
Neither were close to finishing their meals at that point and it would feel awkward to leave without having finished so Momoko forced herself to speak up again, questions of her own plaguing her mind.
"Can I ask you something then?"
"You just did."
"Shut up pretty boy."
"Oh, so I'm pretty?"
"Obviously."
"I'm flattered."
"You should be. Anyways, why'd you sit here?" She pushed her round glasses further up her nose. "There's plenty of other tables you could have chosen."
"Because you looked sad." His reply startled her enough not to muster up a witty response.
"So what?" She felt herself growing defensive. "It's none of your business."
"I know it isn't," he'd grinned at her, the most beautiful grin she'd ever laid eyes on. "But I wasn't about to let you celebrate your birthday by yourself, now was I? How old are you anyways?"
Choosing not to question his logic any further, Momoko accepted the situation and answered simply. "Seventeen now. Woohoo!"
"That was definitely sarcastic."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Rude!"
"That I am, anything new?" Playfully, she rolled her dark eyes and continued with her task of eating her noodles which were by that time cold but still delicious.
"So you're a second year?"
"Yup, what about it?
"Nothing." He'd sung as though he was the unwanted, Japanese, Von Traap child in 'The Sound Of Music' who was just kinda there, not doing much.
Momoko had been about to claim that it was obviously not nothing otherwise he wouldn't have asked but chose not to continue an unnecessary conversation, terrified that she'd accidentally let on how much she loved that asshole.
"Fine then," the brunette stood up and dusted off her pyjama pants. "That was one of the most touching pointless conversations I've ever had with a stranger. It was a pleasure."
"You're a pleasure."
"Shut up." She hung her head to try and hide her now red face. It wasn't even a good pick-up-line yet it made her feel like a pile of melted butter on a stack of American style pancakes.
It was only after the strange girl had skipped off that Oikawa realised he'd never gotten her name. All he knew was that she was a second year, that it was her birthday and that she was one of the most entertaining people he'd ever met. Originally he'd come there to try and get his mind off the mysterious letter but found that meeting a sad, pretty stranger proved to be far more fun.
Once safe in her home Momoko had hit her head against the front door and cursed her entire existence, every word that came out of her mouth in front of him. He didn't even remember her when she knew well that she was head over heels for that stupid asshole.
Eventually she found the only way she would not stay up the whole night going over the encounter again and again and again was to let out all her feelings, very vocally. She took a deep breath in before releasing a scream, articulately expressing all her emotions in a single word.
"Fuck!"