Chapter Text
Oikawa smiled down at his fangirls as they surrounded him. Every single one tried to touch him in some way. They tried to be discreet about it, to seem natural, but he knew what they were doing. All the girls did it. He was used to it though, and he didn’t mind.
He found it kind of cute in fact. All these girls, trying to see if they’ll be the one to make him see color. If he’ll be the one to make them see color. Little did they know, he already could. He had since the day he turned fourteen.
Only one person knew though.
“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa called, noticing Iwaizumi walking by. “‘Scuse me, girls,” he said, pushing through the group and running to his best friend, “Oi! Iwa-chan! Wait up!”
He caught up and fell into pace with him.
“Caught by your fangirls already, Shitty-kawa?” Iwaizumi asked simply.
Oikawa shrugged, “It appears so. And may I just say, you look awfully colorful today, Iwa-chan. Warm and beautiful.” He said it in an almost teasing way. He always said things like that to Iwaizumi. Iwa didn’t know how much he meant it though. Or didn’t care.
“And you look quite monochromatic. Grey and ugly.”
Oikawa gasped in exaggerated offense, “How could you lie so plainly to my face like that?”
Iwaizumi glanced up at him properly for the first time. After a moment, he said, “Your eyes look browner than usual. It’s nice.”
Oikawa blinked in surprise at the genuine compliment. When was the last time he had received one from Iwa? Once he got over his surprise enough to respond, he said, “Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now shut your trap and let’s get to class.”
Oikawa smiled, “Okay.”
He followed Iwaizumi, feeling fluffy inside.
Iwaizumi liked to pretend. He liked to pretend he couldn’t see color. He liked to pretend he and Oikawa weren’t tied. He liked to pretend Oikawa’s fourteenth birthday never happened. Oikawa didn’t, but he played along. As much as it hurt him that Iwaizumi didn’t seem to be happy about them being soulmates, simply being his best friend and even having him in his life at all was enough.
It all started on his fourteenth birthday.
“Tooru, Hajime is here!”
“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa ran to the door. Iwaizumi was in the entryway taking his shoes off.
“Here you go,” Iwaizumi handed him a gift.
Oikawa took it from him. It was only a fraction of a second. One that would go unnoticed in most cases. For them though, in that moment, it was life changing.
As they passed the gift, their fingers briefly brushed against each other. Oikawa’s eyes grew wide as he was suddenly staring at a color he didn’t know the name of. A color at all. He slowly looked up at Iwaizumi. His black hair now had depth to it. His eyes too. His skin was a beautiful tone. For some reason, Oikawa knew it would be defined as “warm.”
“Tooru, Hajime, are you two alright?” Oikawa’s mom asked, catching him off guard.
Iwaizumi met him with intense eyes. His meaning was clear, Not a word.
Oikawa turned to his mom and smiled, “I’m fine! I just spaced out for a second.”
She shrugged and headed back to the kitchen. As Oikawa watched, he quickly started having an intense headache. His brain was receiving so much more input than he was used to. So many colors, he thought.
“Oi,” Iwaizumi flicked him in the back of the head as he walked past, “stop acting weird.”
Oikawa looked at him, confused, “But—”
“I know. You can act normal about it.”
Oikawa felt weirdly hurt by his stern voice. His head was already pounding, his eyes feeling overworked. How was he going to manage acting natural?
Oikawa sighed. Sometimes, the memory decided to show up and replay itself. It didn’t happen that often, but it was often enough. He still remembered the candles clearly.
Oikawa stared at the candles on his birthday cake. They hurt to look at. For some reason, seeing them in color made them even more blinding than when they were just in black and white. He found the way they danced even more intriguing than he had in the past. He wanted to touch them.
Gazing so intently on the bright fire wasn’t helping his eyes or his headache, already past what he thought he could deal with, what with all the colors and other stuff going on, even with a few pills to help in his system, but he couldn’t look away.
“Tooru,” he registered faintly. Then louder, “Tooru! Blow out your candles.”
“Oh?” he startled. “Right, sorry.” He blew them out, highly aware of Iwaizumi studying him out of the corner of his eye.
Even now, almost four years later, Oikawa still never understood why Iwaizumi seemed so against them being soulmates. Maybe they would end up marrying other people—not everyone met their soulmates, and not everyone married them—but Oikawa hoped with all his heart that Iwaizumi would come around. He was in love with Iwaizumi, every bit of him, and maybe one day Iwa would understand.
The school bell rang.
“Shit!” they started running.