Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

They’re sitting at a 1-Eleven table crammed awkwardly into a corner, Tobio telling him, “Yesterday. I beat Hinata racing back from the gym,” between mouthfuls of meat bun when they get caught in the act.

In a high-pitched, all-too-familiar, worst-case scenario voice, he hears “Tooru!” from halfway across the convenience store, and glances up to find Takeru scampering over to him, soft-serve ice cream in hand and his mom trailing behind him.

Bad idea, looking up to confirm what he knew already. He breaks eye contact as quickly as possible, pretends there’s something interesting on the sidewalk outside and ignores the strange looks from pedestrians.

Briefly, Tooru thinks about standing up and racing out of the convenience store and dragging Tobio out by the arm. He could; Tobio is oddly pliable everywhere outside of the court and asking about it won’t even cross his mind, but—

“Eh? This is why you said you couldn’t play volleyball with me today?” Takeru says, somehow already by Tooru’s side, squinting at Kageyama as he eats his meat bun.

“Shut up,” he whispers furiously, even though he can already see the way Tobio’s eyes are lit up at the mention of volleyball. At least the more embarrassing part of that comment flew over his head.

Takeru’s face is sticky. It’s always sticky; he’s a messy little monster and his sister didn’t put enough effort into teaching him to eat like a normal person. That’s something; Takeru’s already at the age where he gets self-conscious when Tooru dotes on him, and he’d rather self-conscious over flapping his big mouth around Tobio.

“Your face is dirty,” Tooru says, wiping it with the napkin he took off Tobio’s tray, and Takeru starts making a face and slaps his hand, starts wrestling Tooru off of him.

“Stop it! I can do it myself. Besides, I’m still eating. It’s stupid if I get all cleaned up now,” he says, freeing himself from Tooru and then turning to Tobio. “I remember you!”

Tooru watches Tobio’s eyebrows knit, as the slight frown on his face thins out into recognition. He doesn’t think about whatever awful thing that face makes him feel. “Oh. You were at the children’s volleyball class.”

“Tooru, don’t you hate this guy? Why did you—” Takeru starts to say, and Tooru nudges him in the side, almost jarring Takeru into dropping his ice cream cone on the floor.

“Tooru, stop hitting my son. Takeru, leave Tooru and his… friend alone,” Tooru hears, and remembers his sister’s there. He watches as recognition flits through her eyes when she looks over Tobio, wonders why his luck put them here the one day he spends with Tobio a week. “Middle school reunion? Where’s Hajime-kun?”

“He’s—” Tobio starts to say, and Tooru immediately cuts him off.

“He’s busy. Leave us alone, too, nee-san.”

“Always glad to see you, too, Tooru,” she says, rolling her eyes and tugging her son by his hand. “Come, Takeru. Tooru will play with you on Monday.”

“I’ll what—”

“I wanna play with you, too!” Takeru says as his mother drags him away. “If you play like Tooru says, I bet I can beat you!”

Tobio’s eyebrows narrow as he tilts his head, and his eyes follow their backs through the window once they’ve left the store. When they’re finally gone, he looks back at Tooru. “I have practice on Monday,” he says.

Tooru hears the rest of what Tobio is trying to say, that if he hadn’t been busy he’d have come and wiped the floor with his nephew. Just like him to take anything as a challenge. Annoying. “Takeru’s ten. Don’t get him confused for Chibi-chan,” he says. “If you let him rope you into playing, you’ll end up teaching him more than anything. You’d probably make him cry just trying to do that.”

The comment is thoughtless, like every comment that comes to Tooru when he’s around Tobio, but he catches the way Tobio stiffens at his words. Funny; the way he’d played at Nationals, he thought the monarch had perfected his control over his kingdom. It doesn’t matter whether or not he might accidentally make a child cry.

Or even that is funny. If it’d been a couple of weeks earlier, Tooru would have said that out loud, too. The kind of thing that would have cut and swooped back into encouragement, somehow, because he’s always been soft on Tobio even when he convinced himself he hated him – and he does hate him now, still, no matter how twisted this situation got – but he can’t do it, now that he’s aware of it. The things he’s saying. The way he feels. The way Tobio feels.

Tobio isn’t responding. It’s not like he talks that much, anyway. But Tooru’s always been good at learning people, always kind of knew Tobio like the back of his hand even when he was dead-set on ignoring him in middle school, and the past few weeks have cemented it.

“Eh, I’m joking, Tobio-chan! You don’t need to make such a long face.”

Tobio’s eyebrows furrow. If he’d been anyone else, Tooru would think it was because he didn’t think anyone would notice the change in his demeanor, but it’s Tobio. Tooru isn’t sure he even realized he was upset at all. That’s something like a victory, being more aware of Tobio’s feelings than Tobio himself, but it feels a little bit like being proud he’s strong enough to suplex someone’s grandmother.

“Besides, it sounds like you’re just trying to get me to teach you my tricks through Takeru. I told you I was never going to teach you volleyball on my off-days, so there,” Tooru says, sticks his tongue out at Tobio. “It’s not like you have a shortage of mentors, anyway.”

Tobio is quiet for a moment, but it’s thoughtful instead of awkward. He watches him look up at the ceiling, bite the inside of his cheek as he thinks over Tooru’s comment. Tooru’s surprised he doesn’t start counting on his fingers how many mentors he has.

That awful annoying-looking blonde kid from Inarizaki. Miya Atsumu. Tobio’d told him about him, when Tooru hassled him about his change in playing style from Qualifiers to Nationals. That’s who Tooru’d been thinking of.

(But thinking about that, if one barely-well-meaning snarky comment was enough to make a mentor, then Tooru would be—)

“I’m not trying to play volleyball with you. I learned enough watching you in middle school,” Tobio says, and it stings somehow, the same way it stung to watch him play volleyball during Nationals. Something like being yesterday’s news.

I’m still worth watching, Tobio-chan flits through Tooru’s mind uninvited, and the humiliation that floods his system is only cushioned by the fact that he had enough presence of thought to not say it to Tobio out loud. Even if his words would probably sail right over Tobio’s volleyball-stuffed head.

Still. What an embarrassing thought. Tobio sitting across from him in a 1-Eleven for reasons neither of them can explain, caught red-handed by his sister and nephew who know exactly how Tooru’s felt about Tobio for as long as he’s known him, bitter over— Tobio not paying enough attention to him. Like this isn’t the situation they’re in.

“Did you ask Iwaizumi-san to join us today?”

“What? That’s just something I told my sister. I didn’t…” I didn’t know how to explain us being together. Tooru doesn’t want to say that to him. “Why, do you want me to? Have you been using me this whole time to get to Iwa-chan?”

It’s mostly a joke, but Tobio’s expression is strange; there’s a thought he’s struggling to get out of his head like the last piece of candy on the inside of a jar. Tooru wonders if the answer is yes. Why that thought stings, somehow, too.

Well. Stupid of Tobio to rope Tooru into this, if it’s over Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi’s always been friendlier to him than Tooru was, always offered to help him, defended him when Tooru made fun of him. Even if both of them are oblivious, even if Tooru could help. It doesn’t mean he wants to waste his time doing it.

“I like Iwaizumi-san,” Tobio says. “I wouldn’t be upset if you invited him.” He pauses, and then tilts his head, like he still can’t make sense of what he’s trying to say. “But…”

“But?”

“It’s not what I expected. I wasn’t thinking about Iwaizumi when I started meeting you on Saturdays.”

What were you thinking about? Why did you invite me?

“Whatever. I wouldn’t help you with Iwa-chan anyway. He’s already got me and that’s more than enough,” Tooru says, like that’s the problem. Like if Tobio didn’t look at him long enough in the right way he wouldn’t do anything for him, and that’s why he always devolves into teasing him mercilessly, into getting as far away from him as he can whenever he’s around.

The situation they’re in despite that. Tooru is lucky Tobio hasn’t been thinking too hard.

“Anyway, Tobio-chan, isn’t it stupid to waste our time talking about someone who isn’t here? Finish eating and let’s leave.”

Grunting in agreement, Tobio shoves the rest of his meat bun into his mouth and they make their way out of the convenience store.

♔

“I heard you rejected someone the other day,” Iwaizumi says as he sinks into the park bench next to him, takes the water bottle he holds out to him without so much as a thank you. “That blonde girl from the other class who always wears the red lipstick. Shibata-san?”

As he takes a swig of water, Tooru’s arm threatens to collapse underneath the weight of the bottle. It’s the first practice he’s had with someone on his level in a long time; as hard as he works himself during his solo practices, it’s impossible to feel this way without someone else. He probably pushed himself too hard because of that.

He’s almost too tired to annoy Iwaizumi. He wonders where Iwaizumi’s finding the energy to be nosy.

“Jealous, Iwa-chan? I could set her up with you if you want. Call it charity for the perpetually single. It’s not your fault girls are so dazzled by me that they never notice you,” Tooru says, flashing Iwaizumi the most shit-eating grin he can summon. “Oh, but it hurts my feelings if you have enough time to date, but not enough to practice with me. I always put you first, you know.”

“You always put volleyball first, dumbass, and it’s made every girl you ever dated dump you in three months. Besides, I said yes to practicing with you for the first time in two weeks and you made me play for five hours straight,” Iwaizumi says, elbowing him weakly in the shoulder, for show more than to cause any actual harm. “I’m gonna be sore later.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’ll make cram school a lot harder tomorrow,” Tooru replies, and Iwaizumi only grunts in response. “Why did you ask about it, anyway?”

Iwaizumi exhales, takes a drink from his water bottle and swallows. “You used to say yes even when we had tournaments coming up. It’s not like she isn’t pretty.”

“I really could set her up with you if you want.”

“Idiot. That’s how you break hearts, you know. Trying to set someone up right after they confess. That’s not why I brought it up, anyway.” Iwaizumi puts his hand behind his neck, rubs it so hard that Tooru can hear the friction. “It’s… You make fun of the rest of us when we’re single on Valentine’s Day. And you get bored easily.”

“Aw, Iwa-chan, are you worried about me? Haven’t you have enough of that by now?” Tooru asks. “I’m working hard, too, you know, even if I don’t spend half the day hunched over a textbook. I don’t need to distract myself with a relationship that probably won’t last once I go overseas.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t talk for a moment, hunched over where he’s sitting on the bench. Tooru winces; maybe a topic like that is too sensitive for this time of night, even if they’ve talked about it already.

Tooru puts a heavy hand on Iwaizumi’s shoulder and starts to say, “You’re not—”

And Iwaizumi shakes his hand off of him. “Dumbass. I’m not worried about that. You wish running halfway across the world would be enough for you to shake me,” he says. “It’s…”

“Just spit it out already. I’m sick of wasting away here. I wanna go home.”

“Like you could stand up if you wanted to. Five straight hours of practice. We’re not even on the team anymore,” Iwaizumi mutters, and then looks up, meets Tooru’s eyes.  “I ran into your sister while I was at the convenience store the other day. She told me how surprised she was that you were reconnecting with Kageyama. She thought you hated him.”

Oh.

Shit.

Tooru should have been suspicious. The first time Iwaizumi offered to practice with him, instead of Tooru asking and him relenting. Smart of him to bring it up after Tooru’s too tired to walk away.

“You’re not so bored now that we don’t have volleyball practice and you don’t have a girlfriend that you’re bullying him or anything, right?” he asks. “Kageyama is… He’s grown a lot. Honestly, I don’t think he even needed me to defend him in middle school. It’s just… I’m asking because of you, Oikawa. You get too in your head, especially when you think too much about Kageyama. It’s—”

“You have an awful opinion of me, huh?” Tooru says, a little too much of an edge to his voice. Iwaizumi doesn’t notice. “As annoying as he is, I don’t meet him every week just to bully him. Even if I do bully him a little, it’s not like he cares.”

“You wish he cared. No, wait a second— You meet him every week?”

Iwaizumi always picks up on what Tooru doesn’t want him to. The stuff he reveals by accident. Sometimes he wishes he had a best friend that was a little more stupid, like Tobio with that shorty. “Not every week. When he asks. Usually.”

“And he asks…”

“Almost every week. I skipped the other Saturday because my sister wanted me to watch Takeru,” Tooru admits. Iwaizumi can tell when he lies, so the effort isn’t worth it and— there’s something alleviating in getting to talk about it to someone. Like he’s sitting in a confession booth. “Tobio probably would’ve volunteered to come anyway, but that’s even worse. I don’t want him to talk to Takeru any more than he already has. They’re both annoying enough as it is.”

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, and when Tooru looks at him, he can read My best friend’s an idiot off the crease of his eyebrows. “Are you telling me you spent the last three years weirdly obsessed with our ex-underclassman – I still remember the time you made us play him on a dumb whim, you know – and now you’re at his beck and call? Are you okay? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m— I’m not at his beck and call! I said no last week. It’s… It’s like you said. I get bored easily. I saw him at the park a couple weeks after they played Nationals and called him a perfect little tyrant, and he pestered me into spending time with him after,” Tooru says. “I’m not a monster, Iwa-chan. If he wants the company of his cool, handsome ex-upperclassman that badly, who am I to begrudge him?”

“Y’sure didn’t have a problem begrudging him in middle school,” Iwaizumi says flatly. Tooru doesn’t glorify it with a response.

Or – it’s something more like Tooru can’t glorify it with a response. The sweat drying on Tooru’s back is starting to feel uncomfortable, now, itchy underneath the fabric of his cheap t-shirt, and he can’t find the energy to change the subject, to talk his way out of the one thing he hadn’t wanted anyone to know about in the first place.

He hasn’t even told Iwaizumi the full story. It’s one Tooru knows by heart by now, has gone over that day a thousand times in his head like he’ll somehow find something in the memory.

A jab about how Tobio played at Nationals that came out sounding more like a reluctant compliment. A handful of hours that passed like seconds. Grabbing the back of Tobio’s shoulder and putting his email into his cellphone.

If you need more advice from the Great King, Tobio-chan, email me and maybe I’ll find it in my heart to be kind enough to do this again. It’s a little fun having you in my debt.

Iwaizumi’s having an aneurysm over half of what happened. He doesn’t want to tell him the parts he can’t explain.

“This a mid-life crisis or something?” Iwaizumi finally says, breaking the uncommon silence. His question sounds like it’s mostly a joke, just something to make fun of him. Casual, instead of worried or frustrated. But forced.

There’s a look on Iwaizumi’s face, in his narrowed eyes. Tooru’s silence was too out of character; Iwaizumi’s realized something he’s too tired to put his finger on. It would’ve been easier to just have called Tobio a loser or annoying or lame, before, Tooru thinks now. Than to deal with whatever Iwaizumi’s textbook-addled brain is coming up with to make sense of this situation.

Still. Casual. Iwaizumi’s thinking something, but he’s not worried enough about it that he’s willing to press him on it after he’s made it clear he doesn’t want to talk about it. He can deal with it later. When things make more sense. Never mind how long he’s been waiting for that day to come.

“I hope my life isn’t half over at seventeen,” Tooru says, and there isn’t enough of a joke in it. Iwaizumi hmphs. The silence resumes, stretches almost long enough for Tooru to say something about getting up and going home, and then Iwaizumi breaks it again.

“Are you playing volleyball with him?” he asks, and Tooru wonders what answer he wants.

If it’s a yes – something like newfound maturity, something he wouldn’t have done in middle school, but maybe a sign that he still hasn’t gotten over obsessing over the way his underclassman plays. If it’s a no – something like he isn’t feeding what made him insufferable in high school. But what the hell are they doing, too.

Tooru’s thought about it. What he would say if Tobio asked him to play volleyball with him next Saturday. No, probably, as a kneejerk reaction, but if Tobio pushed it – Tooru isn’t sure. Tobio pushed spending time with him, and now Tooru is “at his beck and call.”

(Or— if Tobio even pushed it. If there was a hidden pleading in his voice, desperation in sapphire eyes. If Tobio even asked more than once. Tooru’s gone over that memory so many times in his head he can’t remember what really happened.)

It doesn’t matter. Tobio’s never asked.

“I know you watched them at Nationals, too. Tobio-chan has enough people to play volleyball with,” Tooru says, exhaling. “When we meet, he tells me about that shorty, the way his club’s been playing. If one of his teammates started acting strangely. I feel a little bit like a counselor, sometimes. That’s all it is.”

It’s the truth. Words that cling to the inside of his mouth as he forces them out, that live in his stomach even after he’s materialized them in the air.

It’s funny. When he started speaking, he’d intended to hide the confusing parts of it, obscure the story into a half-truth that would stop Iwaizumi from getting more worked up than it is now, but he hadn’t had to change a thing. That’s all it is, and it isn’t a lie. There isn’t any more to it, despite the way Kageyama Tobio takes up all the space in his brain during lectures he’s stopped having to listen to, during walks home once his and Iwaizumi’s commutes branch off.

Tooru takes another drink from his water bottle. It doesn’t wash the sour taste from his mouth. He didn’t think it would, anyway.

“Hm,” Iwaizumi hums, but it’s playfully thoughtful. Whatever was weighing him down is lighter now, and when Tooru turns to look, there’s a quirk to his mouth that he knows Iwaizumi doesn’t even realize is there. “I think I saw something like this in a yakuza movie once. Before the main character went to fight the family on his own at the end of the movie, he said bye to everyone. Settled all his debts.” He laughs twice, heavy and from his stomach. “You were always kinda obvious about it, Trashykawa. I’m glad you grew up well.”

Tooru doesn’t really understand what Iwaizumi is talking about; maybe all the studying has jumbled up the inside of his brain so thoroughly that all he can do from now until university exams is say nonsense. He decides not to mind it; if Iwaizumi’s decided he’s happy with whatever he’s gleamed from the conversation, he might as well let him delude himself into believing whatever he’s thinking.

“Eh, isn’t it a little oxymoronic to say I grew up well right after calling me Trashykawa?” Tooru asks. “Besides, I’ve always been this cool and mature.”

“I think that’s proof you aren’t even that now,” Iwaizumi says as he stands up, stretching his arms back and exhaling like he’s been holding his breath for hours. He holds an arm out to Tooru, where he’s still sitting on the park bench. “Come on. I’m sick of wasting away here, too.”

His legs feel a little less like lead. Maybe that’s contagious, the weight off Iwaizumi’s chest. “Yeah,” he says, and grabs Iwaizumi’s wrist, uses it to pull himself up

Iwaizumi leaves the conversation about Tobio in the park, spends the walk home complaining about how Matsukawa and Hanamaki annoy him during their group study sessions but he can’t bring himself to let them try to study alone and bomb. Tooru plays the part, says something about how he’s always been too responsible for his own good, finds an excuse to elbow Iwaizumi in the stomach for nothing. But even as he does it, Iwaizumi’s words echo in the back of his mind.

You were always kinda obvious about it, Trashykawa.

What was I obvious about, Tooru wonders. But he isn’t sure he wants to know the answer.

♔

Tooru’s been thinking about his last year of middle school a lot, lately.

It makes sense. A straight year of Tobio’s eyes trained on his back, on every individual limb movement; it’s different now that Tobio is looking at him from the front, but the eyes are still there. A gaze he can feel.

He remembers those moments, during at afterschool practice. Knowing that a perfectly-executed serve watched a hundred times by a wide-eyed prodigy would make it easier for him to surpass but not being able to give up his worthless pride.

Keep looking at me, Tobio-chan. Watch my perfect serve as many times as you want. You’ll never match this. You’ll never match me.

He hadn’t believed it, then. But he told it to himself anyway, taught himself to be satisfied with just doing that after Iwaizumi grabbed his arm in their middle-school gym. After he nearly…

Something like a coping mechanism, but not really. Telling himself how much better he was than Tobio while pulling his arm back for a perfect serve. Making fun of Tobio whenever he tried to talk to him, trying his best not to look at him when they were in the same room.

Not pretending. Just stopping himself from getting distracted. He’s already watched his ticket to Nationals ripped up by Ushijima Wakatoshi, had Tobio replace him on the court when he wasn’t good enough to stay.

He knows how good they are at volleyball, the ways they have and might surpass him. Trains of thought he’s learned to watch disappear as he stands on the station platform. There’s a difference between running away and not running yourself into the ground.

Back then, Tooru had to choose between surrendering to his earnest underclassman during his first year in middle school, or to keep outrunning him. He had two years on Tobio then, and he has two years on him now. More, after the middle school setbacks Tooru wasn’t around to witness, even though Tooru’s not pathetic or despicable enough to count those as a victory, or even good luck.

(Stupid. Like he doesn’t remember the relief that flooded his body when he watched him play from the bleachers. King.)

He’s been thinking about that lately. The way Tobio played in his last year of middle school. Not as much as Tobio does, obviously, because even after everything he can see the way he pulls back when Tooru’s words are too sharp, but more than he ever did.

Tobio talks about Karasuno like he never thought Tobio could talk about anyone. That shrimp, too. The way he’s obsessed with him. There’s something fun about it, somehow, watching him break out of his awkward, forced-polite shell; he can remember how every too-formal word annoyed him when they were younger. The only way he’s been raised too well.

Idiot. Shorty. Dumbass. He must have picked that up from Iwaizumi, Tooru thinks in retrospect. Annoying the way he looked up to him just as much, but… lucky for him, probably. That he found someone for himself, that way.

Tooru wonders, sometimes. If that shorty went to Kitagawa Daiichi with them, all those years ago, how Tobio would be playing today. If he’d have beaten them in the Interhigh as well, instead of Ushijima.

Maybe. It’s a pointless train of thought. Maybe if he never went to Karasuno, never met Hinata, Tobio never would have improved. Would have just been an awful team player the rest of his life. There’s something funny about that thought, in a way the dark pit in his chest finds entertaining, but it isn’t true, too. Tooru would never prefer to be there instead here.

Here, where Tobio asks to meet him every Saturday.

And that is— He doesn’t know what it is. A respect he can’t shake. A yearning for acceptance, approval that he hasn’t yet learned he doesn’t need. It’d never be to do the worst of what it’s doing to Tooru now; stirring these thoughts in him, feelings, making him recall memories from his last year of middle school where he looks for Tobio only to realize that he was purposely looking away. Tooru didn’t even know these things could happen to him.

And… the reason Tobio spends his Saturdays with him. It isn’t to learn volleyball, either.

That’s what it is, really. What’s taking the biggest amount of space in his brain. The nightmare of a daydream that makes him answer his teachers incorrectly when they call on him.

Tobio, thirteen, coming up to Tooru with a volleyball after practice and asking him to teach him how to serve.

Tooru saying yes.

Maybe he could have taught him to play better with others, then. Maybe he wouldn’t need to flinch when people called him King. Maybe he would’ve been a benevolent dictator and gotten invited to Shiratorizawa. Maybe he would’ve followed Tooru to Seijoh, and they would share school grounds. Practice every day in the same gym the way they did in middle school.

Maybe he’d already be playing better than Tooru today.

It’s funny. He won’t teach Tobio anything now, won’t waste a second of training he could be spending on himself on Tobio. He’ll die before he helps him surpass him. But in that scenario, the one where he helped Tobio middle school, instead of making fun of him, instead of almost…

In that scenario, Tooru can’t bring himself to mind.

♔

It’s freezing on Valentine’s Day. The snow that fell the day before freezes into ice, and the cold cuts through Tooru’s uniform blazer during all the confessions he isn’t mean enough to ignore.

“You should’ve put your jacket on before you left, idiot,” Iwaizumi tells him after he complains about it, when he’s back into the classroom. His eyes follow him as he shoves chocolate into his already-overflowing bag. “It’s as cold as it was yesterday.”

Exaggerating. Maybe. It’s the first Valentine’s Day Tooru’s spent single in years; that might have something to do with how sharp the icy winds prick his skin today. Cold on the first holiday he’s alone.

Tooru sighs. He’s been listening to too much pop music. That acoustic garbage his older sister likes. Iwaizumi told him that thing about getting bored easily, the other day. That’s what it is, what this holiday is, if you’re not dating anyone. Boring and annoying.

During Valentine’s Day practice in their second year, after Tooru made fun of him and the other third-years for being single, Hanamaki’d asked him, Wouldn’t you prefer not having a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day? So more girls give you chocolate. Even though it doesn’t seem like you have a problem with that, anyway.

Tooru didn’t have a problem with that, ever. It’d been such a perpetually single thing to say; Tooru’d told him that, and then Iwaizumi smacked him over the head and told him to stop bragging and focus on volleyball.

But it is funny to think about. That this would be Hanamaki’s dream Valentine’s Day. Try breaking a dozen girls’ hearts in one school day, Makki. See how much you enjoy it.

Iwaizumi says he’s insensitive when it comes to love, and maybe there’s some truth to that, the way every girl he dates drops him without looking back once. But even with that, even with how much he likes being fawned over, Tooru isn’t heartless. He lets them down as sweetly as he can, tries to leave before they realize he’ll be leaving them in cold rejection, but he still is. Leaving them like that.

It’s annoying, all the confessions and the chocolates. Witnessing the earnestness of all their feelings and not being able to return them. And then carrying them around in his backpack. If he wanted sweets, he could just go to the store. It’s cheaper after Valentine’s Day, anyway.

He wishes he had a girlfriend, just for today. Maybe he should’ve accepted Shibata’s confession. It would’ve saved him the conversation he had with Iwaizumi the other day, and the girls he’s dated have always been good at glaring down other girls approaching him. But he doesn’t feel like freeing up his weekends for a relationship with a time limit.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi calls out as he walks over to him while Tooru’s doing his best to sneak out of the school without drawing any attention. “After cram school, me and Hanamaki are playing video games at Matsukawa’s house. They’re so depressed about being single their last year of high school they pestered me into coming over. You can come, too, if you want.”

Tooru resists the urge to visibly cringe. Not even at the idea of it – he must seem really out of it, if Iwaizumi thinks he’d say yes to something like that. “Isn’t spending Valentine’s Day with three single guys kind of depressing? Thanks for the invitation, Iwa-chan, but I think I’ll do something else.”

“Suit yourself. If you change your mind, let me know,” Iwaizumi says, head tilted slightly. There are no wrinkled noses or rolled eyes; Tooru wonders the emotion behind his expression is. “That girl over there’s been looking at you the entire time we’ve been talking, by the way.”

Tooru turns his head to find the person in question; a tiny waifish girl he’s never noticed before smiling hopefully at him, clutching the outside pocket of her schoolbag. Instead of clicking his tongue, he smiles back, and then turns to Iwaizumi again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good luck,” Iwaizumi says, clapping his shoulder on his way out of the hallway.

♔

Tooru sighs as he reaches for his television remote and pauses Independence Night two-thirds of the way through. He isn’t sure what he intended to happen when he put it on, but it isn’t happening. Valentine’s Day doesn’t usually get him this out of it.

Absently, Tooru wonders if watching his seventh-favorite movie for the millionth time is really less depressing than spending the afternoon at Matsukawa’s. He could still go if he wanted to; there’s still about an hour left of cram school classes. But it’s not like turning down that invitation is why he’s feeling so lethargic anyway. He has no choice but to be alone right now. Depressing thought.

He should be practicing volleyball at the park like he always is. But it’s cold, and he doesn’t feel like it.

Eh. The cookie he’s been eating is a touch too sweet. He digs through the schoolbag he tossed next to him the second he got home, and his hand brushes his cellphone as he looks for his water bottle. He takes it out like there’s something on there that will make him feel a little less out of it. He scrolls through social media for fifteen minutes, likes a couple of classmates’ posts even though he doesn’t really care. There’s nothing interesting going on, except for a few guys bragging about the chocolates their girlfriends made them.

Sweet, maybe. That they’re happy. Tooru remembers the first time he made a post like that. It’d already had a bite taken out of it when he took the picture; he hadn’t realized he was supposed to take a picture until his girlfriend nudged him. He hadn’t minded, then, but he doesn’t have fond memories of receiving chocolates from his girlfriends, either. Handmade and perfect. Things that feel like too much. They all ended up dumping him a little after White Day, anyway.

Tooru yawns. Useless train of thought. He doesn’t really miss any of his exes in the way he should; he’s sure they’re giving candy to someone who deserves it this year. It’s just boring, being alone.

He closes the app he had open and checks the time. If he was still on the team, he’d be halfway through practice right about now, maybe taking his water break. He wonders if his underclassmen are working just as hard as they were when he was watching them.

He wonders about his other underclassman, a train-to-bus transfer away.

Ex-underclassman, his mind corrects, and then he twists his mouth in disgust and leans back on his couch. He should’ve known it would come to this when he reached for his cellphone instead of the television remote. The uneventful text log he’s read over and over like Tobio cares enough to leave him coded messages.

Embarrassing. Tooru opens the text log again anyway.

A message from three days ago asking to meet tomorrow. ok, the only thing Tooru lets himself text Tobio. Like he might send coded messages by accident.

His sister doesn’t ask him to watch Takeru on Saturdays anymore. Tooru wonders if Iwaizumi said something to her. He’s grateful, if only not to have to take care of that little snot. Not for anything else. Or… if anything, Tobio’s the one who should be grateful. Even if he hadn’t seemed that upset when Tooru canceled that time.

Tomorrow. It seems like so long from now. He wonders what Tobio’s planning to say to him this time, and then sighs. Like he’s been able to predict anything about Tobio, the way he’s been acting lately.

Tooru taps his fingers on the back of his phone. He could match him in that, for once. At his beck and call. He hasn’t been able to shake those words since Iwaizumi said them.

i’ll come visit you today, Tooru types out and sends before he realizes it. Embarrassed. This is embarrassing, too, but it’s kind of fun, also. Maybe if he does this, he can get in Tobio’s head the same way he’s in his.

Not that he is in his head. Still…

Ten minutes go by that Tobio doesn’t answer and Tooru remembers he’s probably at practice. He wouldn’t notice his phone buzz once. tobio-chan, he tries. No response.

tobio-chan, he tries again.

tobio-chan

tobio-chan

Tooru lets a minute pass, and then exhales. He’s just being annoying. Tobio wouldn’t ignore him; he’s probably knee-deep in receiving drills. Tooru thinks about putting his phone down, or texting him something like call me when you see this, and then his phone buzzes in his hand.

Y, Tobio texts back, and Tooru almost snorts. Just like him. At least he doesn’t complain.

If he were talking to anyone else, he’d say something like i can’t just want to see my favorite ex-underclassman? It isn’t that strong of a qualifier; Tooru can hardly remember the first- and second-years who didn’t end up in Seijoh now that it’s years later. It’s a given that Tobio would be the exception.

But he doesn’t want to say something that loaded to Tobio. There’s a reason the only thing he lets himself respond to Tobio with is ok. Not that Tobio would read something into anything he sent him, but something more like… Tooru might accidentally mean something.

Or— Tooru makes a face. This is ridiculous, obsessing over something like this when he’s already forcing spontaneous plans on him. But maybe that’s a reason to be more cautious.

i never ask you that, Tooru finally types out.

For a minute or so, there’s no answer. Tooru can imagine the wrinkle of Tobio’s brow, the slight pout on his face as he thinks it over. Cute, Tooru almost thinks, but the buzzing of his phone cuts him off.

Practice ends at 5

Tooru reaches for his television remote and turns the movie off.

♔

Tooru overestimates the commute and ends up poking around Karasuno’s neighborhood for half an hour. The weird tchotchkes in one of the nearby discount stores are so distracting that Tooru doesn’t remember to start heading to the school until it’s a little past five.

He texts Tobio something about being on his way, and when he’s about a block or so away from the school he sees the Karasuno volleyball club standing in the streets together like a mob. They’re all holding meat buns, mostly polished off.

Tobio’s is less than half-eaten, and his cheeks are rosy from the biting wind. Tooru wonders what’s wrong with his club that they’re standing around outside in weather like this. There’s a saying about it, Tooru thinks, something about idiots and immunities.

Tooru weaves a little closer to the side of the street, subtly enough that they won’t notice him. They’re so caught up in their laughter and shouting that he doubts they will, but he stays on the side of caution anyway. Before he left, he bundled up more excessively than usual, pulled on an old hat he wouldn’t be caught dead in normally and wrapped a scarf over too much of his face.

He stops at a vending machine on the side of the store, pretends he wants something even though all the drinks in the machine are cold. He could get milk for Tobio, but he doesn’t really have a reason to. If Tobio wants milk, he can get it himself.

Tooru punches in C8 anyway.

“Kageyama, why are you eating so slowly?” Tooru hears that shrimp say from behind him. It’s kind of strange, seeing him in the flesh after all the hours he’s listened to Tobio complain about him. “Finish so I can race you to the bottom of the hill!”

“I, uh. I need to get something else from the Foothill Store.”

“Eh, why didn’t you get it before?” Hinata asks. “I don’t wanna wait for you the whole day, y’know? The sun’s setting earlier now.”

“Dumbass. I never asked for you to wait for me,” Tobio says, a little more forcefully, and Tooru feels strangely proud. Better than the bland lie from before. “Go home.”

“Huh? Why?” Hinata asks. “Scared I’ll beat you? That counts as a forfeit, y’know!”

“It’s not a forfeit,” Tobio sputters. “I’ll—"

If Tobio makes Tooru walk down this hill after he’s walked all the way up it, he’ll kick his ass. He turns around then, tries to read Tobio’s face to see if he needs to figure out some way to intervene. He makes eye contact with him by accident, watches as his eyes widen.

Shit. He didn’t even notice it was him, and Tobio’s a terrible liar. Tooru turns back around as quickly as he turned the other way, crouches down to take the change that clattered to the bottom window of the machine and the box of milk from the higher one.

“I’ll beat you tomorrow morning,” Tobio half-mumbles, and when Tooru turns around, his frazzled face is too hard for him to watch. He ducks around to wait by the benches on the side of the building, staying in earshot. “I— I have to meet someone, so.”

The milk is cold in Tooru’s gloved hands. He puts it down on the bench he’s afraid to sit on because it might freeze his legs off.

“What? Hey, are you getting secret training or something, Kageyama? It’s not fair if only you get it. Let me go—”

“Hinata!” Tooru hears a voice he doesn’t quite recognize call, and when he looks, it’s that too-loud buzzcut guy whose spikes caught him off guard enough times to piss him off. “Today’s Valentine’s Day! I don’t think he’s gonna be meeting some wrinkly volleyball coach, if you know what I mean.”

“Huh!? Kageyama, you—?"

“I— I didn’t—"

Buzzcut fixes an arm around Tobio’s neck, leans on him in a way that looks too heavy. It’d be funny if Tooru wasn’t annoyed. If Tobio’s cheeks weren’t so red – from the cold, Tooru reminds himself, not anything else – or if Buzzcut’s arm was around Hinata’s neck instead of—

Or, that doesn’t matter, either.

“Hey, didja get a girlfriend and not tell us?” Buzzcut asks, squinting. “You can trust us, y’know? S’not like— S’not like I’m gonna be hurt or anything that one of our club’s first years got his first girlfriend before— before I did—"

“Don’t forget we got our first handmade chocolates this year, Tanaka! A man needs to focus on his victories just as much as he focuses on his losses!” their tiny libero pipes in, popping up out of nowhere.

“You’re really wise, Noya-san!” Hinata says, and Tooru makes a face. He feels like he’s watching some variety show.

It’s still too cold. He should’ve gone inside the store, but he couldn’t make himself feel good about leaving Tobio in the circus he made him create.

And maybe it’s a little interesting to see them in action now, too. The team that was so special in broke Tooru’s least favorite ex-underclassman out of his shell. Even though he can’t see why.

“Hey, hey, leave him alone, guys. Especially you, Tanaka,” another one of the upperclassmen says – the sleepy-eyed guy Tooru thinks he remembers seeing on the sidelines. He knocks the baldy – Tanaka – on the shoulder and Tobio gets out from under his grip. “Let’s go home. I know you’re all idiots, but even you’ll catch cold just standing around out here.”

“You’re so mean, Ennoshita. But I guess you’re right,” Tanaka says, rubbing his arm, but he starts making his way down the hill. He slaps their small libero on the back. “Hey, come on!”

“I’m gonna outrun you tomorrow, Kageyama!” Hinata calls as he runs to catch up with Tanaka. “Hey, did Tsukishima and Yamaguchi leave on their own again?”

With the coast nearly clear, Tooru picks up the box of milk he left on the bench, but before he can come out, he sees the same sleepy-eyed guy turn around from his place in the back of the group flash Tobio a thumbs-up. “Have fun!” he says, just loud enough for Tobio to hear over the exaggerated yelling of the group of idiots halfway down the hill.

“Th-Thank you, Ennoshita-san,” Tobio says, looking away from him and speaking too quietly for anyone but someone who’s staring at his mouth to notice it, “but I—”

With a light wave, the sleepy-eyed guy runs down to catch up with the rest of his club. Tooru finally emerges from his place at the side of the convenience stores and lightly knocks Tobio on the back of the head as he comes out from behind him. “That was embarrassing, Tobio-chan. You’re a terrible liar,” Tooru says as he presses the box of milk into his hands.

Tobio’s eyes widen in surprise when he sees it – blue invades Tooru’s mind, even though he’s known his eye color for ages – and he says, “Th-Thank…”

“Don’t strain yourself. I was by the vending machine and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. There was nothing I wanted.”

“Okay,” he says, not meeting Tooru’s eyes. He’s usually never this embarrassed; his club’s idiocy must have done a number on him. His cheeks are still firetruck-red, too. But it’s probably the weather.

Tooru brings a gloved hand to his cheek, and he can feel the cold from his face through the fabric.

“What are you…”

Tooru tsks. “What were you all thinking, standing around in weather like this?” he says, and unravels the oversized scarf from his face and hastily wraps it around Tobio. He feels like he’s dressing a snowman.

Tobio lifts the scarf so it covers his nose and breathes out. His cheek was soft, even though it was cold, Tooru suddenly remembers. Like marshmallows he refrigerates during the summer. It doesn’t matter.

“Thank you, Oikawa-san,” Tobio says meekly, and Tooru tsks again. The atmosphere is strange. He wishes he missed Karasuno’s clown club; maybe things would feel different if he hadn’t seen it. Or maybe if Tobio didn’t know he’d seen it. He’s strangely self-conscious, now. Not like he usually is.

Tooru takes the awful hat off, too, considers putting it on Tobio but thinks better of it and shoves it in his jacket pocket. Doing more feels like taking advantage of Tobio’s weird state, right now. “I don’t need that scarf anyway. I just didn’t think you’d want your teammates to recognize me,” he adds before he realizes. That’s something they’ve never talked about, not telling anyone. Maybe Tobio won’t notice. He beckons at the Foothill Store with a tilt of his head. “Come on, let’s go warm up.”

“Ukai-sensei works there. Our coach,” Tobio says. “If we’re there too long, he’ll come back.”

“Oh.” He’d recognize him, then. A part of him wishes he didn’t come off as quite so flashy, but he was captain anyway, and he can’t bring himself to want to look bad, when looking good comes so easily to him. Better flashy than boring like Tobio and Iwaizumi. “Come on. We’ll go somewhere else. There’s a family restaurant a couple of blocks away, isn’t there? Are you hungry?”

“I just ate,” Tobio says, and Tooru cringes. Embarrassing.

Tobio’s words are blunt, irritate Tooru the way they always do, irritating him more because they weren’t intended to irritate. He sounds less self-conscious, now, slipping back into their routine after fifteen minutes of normalcy, but it’s Tooru’s turn to feel his cheeks heat up. It isn’t his fault he got so caught up in their slapstick he forgot what Tobio was doing in the first place, Tooru thinks.

He makes a face a Tobio, a little exaggerated. “You can watch me eat, then,” he says, leading him a little up the hill, intending to turn at one of the backstreets so they don’t run into his teammates. “I haven’t had anything since school let out, and I barely got to eat anything during lunch, the way I kept getting called out.”

He’s speaking a little too honestly, now. Not like Tobio hasn’t always brought that out of him, but the genuine sourness in his tone is almost embarrassing. It’s the kind of complaint that’s made Matsukawa and Hanamaki pelt potato chips at him. “Wah, I’m Oikawa and too many girls like me!” Cry me a river.

Personal, somehow. The accidental hint towards how he really feels. He tries not to mention things like this around Tobio, to keep every genuine disappointment or insecurity hidden behind a stuck-out tongue or an annoying word. Not that he lets his guard down that much around Matsukawa and Hanamaki, but he’s a little less nervous about it, the way they play off every too-heavy comment until the only thing he feels is a stomachache from laughing about something unrelated.

Tobio wouldn’t be able to do that. Or… that’s wrong, Tooru’s been feeling less out of it since he came here, but what he’s doing is embarrassing as it is. Embarrassing to try to ask even more from Tobio, especially something like that.

“Okay,” Tobio says, and Tooru exhales, his breath turning to vapor in the cold. Overthinking. He wonders what it is about Tobio that makes him over- and underthink at the same time. Those should cancel each other out, really.

Tobio, at least, is normal now. Mostly. Tooru remembers how the first thing Tobio’d asked after he said he was coming over was why, how he justified coming by telling himself it’d be nice to make Tobio act strange the same way he’s been acting. He wonders if Tobio is still wondering why he’s here. He wonders why he feels better that Tobio isn’t flustered anymore.

It’d be nice to annoy him, though. A little. Embarrass him, maybe. It’s more entertaining if he’s the reason, instead of anyone else.

When they get there, the family restaurant is overflowing with people. Stupid of Tooru, really, to forget how most people spend the holiday. “Shit.”

“There’s a WcDonald’s around the corner,” Tobio supplies helpfully. “Or a 1-Eleven a block away.”

They’re both bad choices; Tooru’s never been a fan of that greasy kind of western food, and they’ve spent so many Saturday afternoons in 1-Eleven in search of a more casual place to eat that their food doesn’t taste like anything to him. “Invite me to your place,” he says the second the idea comes to him, and he’s only self-conscious enough to regret it a little. It’s why he came. To keep Tobio on his toes.

Tobio’s eyes widen. It’s hard for Tooru to see most of his cheeks, the way he wrapped the scarf around his face, but he imagines them somehow redder. It’s satisfying this time. “The sun will have set by the time we get there,” he says, looking away from him. “My sister will be home.”

The rejection stings, just slightly. From someone who’s almost never told him no. He didn’t even know Tobio had a sister, he realizes. He thinks about asking about it, but it doesn’t feel right, for some reason. “Ah, you’re boring as always, Tobio-chan. 1-Eleven, then. I never liked WcDonalds.”

Tobio leads the way this time. Tooru spots the glowing green-and-orange lights in the distance, and they find a place at the bar facing the front window. The store is the perfect level of crowded, filled mostly with people filing in and out, buying last-minute chocolate or bottles of water. The seating area is mostly empty.

While he hangs his coat on the chair, Tooru watches Tobio carefully put down the box of milk he gave him earlier and pull a little plastic bag out from his jersey pocket, wrapped neatly with a pink bow.

“Eh? What’s that?”

“Chocolate,” Tobio says, as he sits down, pulls the ribbon undone, and pops one of the two misshapen truffles into his mouth.

Obvious answer to a question that shouldn’t have been asked. But the sight is so bizarre that Tooru sits there frozen, just watches him chew and swallow in silence. It’s only when Tobio reaches for the other one that Tooru moves – snatches it out of his hand, before he realizes what he’s doing. He feels his face heat up. “Let… Let me try it.”

Tobio tilts his head, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Why?”

Acutely, Tooru’s aware he’s making a fool of himself, but he doesn’t want to let this one go. He doesn’t feel like thinking too hard about the reason. “I want to know what girl that likes someone like Tobio-chan cooks like,” he says, and there isn’t enough of a song to his voice.

Tobio frowns, but exhales in surrender. “Fine. You already touched it.”

“I don’t have germs,” Tooru says, and then pops the truffle in his mouth before he starts feeling guilty for taking something Tobio clearly wanted from him.

As the sweetness pervades his mouth, Tooru thinks to himself that it’s nothing special. He’s eaten half a dozen chocolates like this today – too many, actually. He wonders if Tobio would feel better if he gave him one of the chocolates he stuffed in his pocket before he left. But that feels disrespectful somehow. Sharing chocolates like trading cards. Hanamaki and Matsukawa only get away with it because they dig through his bag without asking.

Well. Stupid of Tooru, to be thinking about disrespect after what he’s just done. “It’s good,” Tooru says. “I didn’t know you were popular with girls.”

“I’m not,” Tobio says, rubbing the back of his neck. He’s blushing, just a little. “I don’t care about things like that. They’re from Yachi-san. Our club manager. She made them for everyone.”

Ah. Tooru really feels like an idiot now, acting like this over obligation chocolate. It should’ve been obvious, two truffles in a tiny bag, but he… The way it always is around Tobio. Still… “Your gorgeous manager who wouldn’t even say hello to me?”

“The blonde one,” Tobio says, and then holds a hand out horizontal by his chest to indicate her stature. “If she ignored you, she was probably scared. Sometimes she still gets nervous around me.”

Tooru digs through his memory and finds the tiny girl with the demeanor of a small animal he saw hugging the railing when he watched them play Shiratorizawa. Cute, more than gorgeous, but not really Tooru’s type. He wonders how Tobio made the mistake. He wonders if she’s Tobio’s type.

Tobio’s expression right now, talking about her being nervous around him. The same face he made when the ducks ran away from him in the park. There’s something wholesome… funny about Tobio liking cute things, but it’s a little irritating, too. “You never bring her up.”

“I don’t need your help with her. She’s nice, even though she doesn’t know that much about volleyball. She tutored me and Hinata when our grades were too low to go to training camp.”

I could’ve done that, Tooru suddenly thinks, too bitterly, and then he looks away from Tobio. What is he thinking about, anyway. What is he doing. He wouldn’t have said yes if they asked, and it would’ve been bizarre of them to ask anyway. “I’m glad you have such a good manager, then,” he says, and then stands up. “I’m going to get food before the cashier starts glaring at us. If you want something, I’ll get it for you. Just pay me back.”

“I’m fine,” Tobio says, and if he picks up on Tooru’s accidental irritation, he doesn’t show any sign of it. Tooru watches as he rips the straw off his box of milk and stabs it into the drink. Something cute about that, too, somehow, Tooru thinks until he realizes he’s thinking it.

Tooru settles for a rice ball and a bottle of water; better to just stave his hunger off until he gets home instead of wasting his money on convenience store food. Impulsively, he grabs a box of Pocki off the shelf while the cashier is scanning his things.

“I didn’t ask for—” Tobio starts to say after Tooru taps him on the shoulder with the box. Tooru pats him on the head after he puts it on the table in front of him.

“Since I ate the other one,” Tooru says as he slides into his seat. “Happy Valentine’s Day from your favorite ex-upperclassman.”

He keeps his voice low and dry as he says it, like he’s being sarcastic, but as much as Tooru tries to lose the meaning for himself, he can see understanding in Tobio’s ocean-blue eyes as they widen. The depth of what he’s doing spreads in heat across his cheeks.

Tobio’s supposed to be oblivious to these things. Tooru shouldn’t have made big deal he did out of his manager’s chocolate. Even though… Tooru told himself he came here to make Tobio less oblivious, he didn’t mean to— in this way— Tooru tsks. “Anything I can do for hopeless guys like you.”

It isn’t much, but it diffuses whatever situation was brewing. Tobio’s cheeks are still a faded pink, but he probably hasn’t still heated up yet from how long he spent freezing outside. Tooru watches as he opens the box, rips open the foil packet, determinedly not looking his way. “You’re not,” he says quietly, breaking a cookie stick in half with his teeth.

“Huh?”

“What you said before,” Tobio clarifies through his too-loud chewing. Tooru feels like he’s talking to a beaver.

“Eh… Your favorite ex-upperclassman? You’d tell me that after I bought you something? You’re as harsh as always,” Tooru says, overplaying his pout. At least Tobio doesn’t have enough presence of mind in this situation to force himself to be nice. “It’s annoying if you like Iwa-chan that much, you know?”

“I don’t think of you as my ex-upperclassman. You or Iwaizumi-san. Especially… I learned to serve by watching you, even if you didn’t want me to,” Tobio says. After a moment where Tooru doesn’t say anything back, can’t bring himself to even force a joke, Tobio glances at Tooru and then glances away. “It’s the same as— Daichi-san and Asahi-san. Sugawara-san. Even when they graduate, they won’t stop… So.”

Daichi, Asahi, Sugawara. Tooru can match all their names to faces by now, knows and has been annoyed by the way Tobio looks up to them so earnestly. Mr. Refreshing especially; he’s sat through enough of Tobio’s raving on the way he reads and calms down his team so effectively, how much he wishes he could be like that. But Tooru can’t bring himself to be annoyed by that.

Tobio’s cheeks are a stronger pink than they were a second earlier, and Tooru can’t stop thinking about how soft they were when he touched them through his gloves. The color of Tobio’s lips.

For the first time, Tooru lets himself think I want to kiss you.

And then he pulls back. Looks away from Tobio, starts pulling the tab on his rice ball. There’s a name to the weight that’s been tugging on his chest all day, that’s made him hide his Saturdays with Tobio away from anyone who asked, that’s made his mind stray to Karasuno school grounds whenever lecture got too boring.

It hurts, a little. And he feels like more of an idiot than he did before. But there’s something else, too. He knows what the name of it is. Can feel it grow stronger as Tobio adamantly doesn’t look at him, as he rubs the back of his neck while he sips his near-empty milk box.

“Tobio-chan.” Tooru’s voice is loud enough to make Tobio face him. His eyes are blue, Tooru thinks, for maybe the fifth time that day. Clear like water.

“What?”

“I don’t dislike you,” Tooru says, and his words are too strong, and too honest, but he doesn’t want to keep them inside his chest anymore. At least not those.

“Huh?” Tobio’s eyes are furrowed and his mouth is twisted in some mix of shock and suspicion, like Tooru’s playing a joke on him. Maybe Tooru is. But this whole thing feels like a joke on himself, anyway.

He chuckles a little dryly as he looks away from Tobio, takes a bite out of his rice ball. Swallows. He turns around again, and pinches Tobio’s cheek. “You’re not gonna make me say it twice, Tobio-chan!” Tooru says, sticking his tongue out. “Just enjoy your gift. I got it for you.”

“Fine,” Tobio says, and even as Tooru directs the conversation elsewhere, asks casual questions about his teammates, the dusting of pink never leaves his cheeks, and Tooru doesn’t stop thinking about the shape of Tobio’s mouth.

♔

Tobio lets Tooru take the window seat when they get on the bus. “My stop is before yours,” he says, and as he slides in and stares out at the rapidly darkening sky, Tooru feels Tobio’s gaze as he looks over him to see out the window.

He wishes he’d let Tobio sit where he is, even if it wouldn’t have made sense. He wonders what his face would look like illuminated by the changing streetlights. Tooru exhales. “You’re probably exhausted. You can close your eyes if you want. I’ll tell you when your stop is coming up.”

“I’m fine. You don’t know when it is.”

He’s huddled too close to him, Tooru thinks. Staring too intently out the window. But maybe Tooru’s just being self-conscious. It feels better in the cold anyway, Tobio next to him. “You could tell me, then.”

“It’s dark. I don’t want to miss it.”

There’s something endearing, the blunt way Tobio talks. That’s an okay way to think of it – endearing. Less serious than… any other word he’s been thinking since they were sitting together at 1-Eleven. “Fine. Reject my kindness, then,” he complains, but his heart isn’t in it.

“Ah…” Tobio tugs on Tooru’s jacket sleeve, like he hasn’t been hyperaware of every move he makes since he got on the bus. Since before that, probably. “Oikawa-san.”

“Hm?”

“Tomorrow. Are we still meeting?”

Tooru turns to look at Tobio, then, and Tobio looks away from him as he turns. His face is fixed away from him, like there’s something in the bus aisle he’s looking for. His expression is hard to make out from this angle, obscured by a mop of messy black hair. Tooru can’t tell what answer he’s looking for, even if he knows the answer he wants to give. He sighs. “You’re the one who wanted to,” he settles on saying, inflecting his voice like he’s a little bit annoyed. “I didn’t ask to meet you today because I’m busy tomorrow.”

Tobio glances at Tooru, diverts his gaze before they can meet eyes. “My sister is… She’s always booked on Saturdays. Everyone else is off from work, so.”

“Oh.” It’s a bizarre change in subject. Tooru wonders if Tobio is trying to explain something, or open up to him about the sister he didn’t know about until today. “That’s good, I guess.”

Tobio is still looking away from him, rubs the back of his neck a little violently. “She won’t be home until late. If you want, you can…”

Oh.

Cute, Tooru thinks, and can’t stop thinking it. Cute, cute, cute—

Tooru coughs. “Feeling bad about turning me down before, huh? I’ll think about it. Maybe if I have nothing else to do,” he says, twisting the smile he can’t keep from his face into a smirk. He takes his phone out of his pocket and opens his GPS app. “Put your address in.”

Tobio grunts in irritation as he takes the cellphone from his hands, and Tooru thinks it again. Cute. “Here,” Tobio says as he shoves it back into Tooru’s palms, still refusing to look at him. He tugs the top of the scarf Tooru lent him up, hides part of his face beneath the fabric. “Ah, I should…”

“Give it back to me tomorrow,” Tooru says. “You still need to walk home. Plus, you’re so absentminded, I don’t think you’d even realize you were freezing to death.”

Tobio grunts again. “I would—”

Tooru resists the urge to laugh. And to do… anything else. Instead, he leans part of his weight on Tobio, just enough to annoy him. “What did you say? ‘Thank you, Oikawa-san’? ‘Because you took pity on me, Valentine’s Day wasn’t lonely for once’? ‘You stopped me from dying from the cold’?”

“You’re being too loud—”

Tobio’s elbow is sharp as it juts into Tooru’s ribcage. But it’s still fun to lean on him, so Tooru doesn’t stop, and Tobio gives up on annoying him away. “You’re welcome, Tobio-chan! There’s nothing I enjoy doing more than extending my kindness to my underclassmen.”

For some reason, it’s enough for Tobio to turn his gaze back to Tooru. To meet his eyes for the first time in ages. Under the too-white artificial light inside the bus, Tooru can see his reflection in his irises.

“Yeah,” Tobio says, and even though it’s supposed to be sarcastic, Tooru can hear a strange inflection behind it. “Fine.”

♔

When Tooru sees Tobio waiting for him by the bus stop, the scarf from yesterday is wrapped around his neck. Tooru pinches the front of it as he moves over to meet him and raises it to cover Tobio’s nose, just to annoy him. Tobio doesn’t say anything, just angles his head so it falls back down the way it was.

“You didn’t need to meet me, you know. I could’ve found your apartment on my own,” Tooru says. “You must have no faith in my sense of direction.”

Tobio looks away from Tooru. Shoves his hands in his pockets. “That’s not why. I… don’t have video games,” he says, absentmindedly adjusting the front of his scarf to fit looser around his neck. He doesn’t move from where he’s standing.

“Huh?”

“Or movies. My sister has some, but they’re only romantic comedies and historical films. And I don’t watch TV, so we only get NHK. Nee-san watches dramas on her laptop,” Tobio says. “Sometimes I go with Hinata and Yamaguchi to Tsukishima’s place after practice. I… forgot yesterday. My place isn’t the same as Tsukishima’s.”

Tooru can hear the rest of it. Some uncalled-for permission to do something else. He wonders what Tobio’s embarrassed about, the way they always end up sitting in some convenience store or coffee shop for hours at a time whenever it’s too cold to be outside.

He didn’t know Tobio could be embarrassed about things like that. He isn’t sure how he feels about it. Cute, maybe. But Tobio’s so volleyball-minded and oblivious he must have learned to be that self-conscious about it somewhere.

“Eh, if I wanted to play video games, I would’ve gone to an arcade, you know?” he says, and then bops him on the shoulder. Tobio’s jacket is heavier today, and Tooru gets a handful of down-stuffed nylon. He isn’t sure Tobio even felt it. “Take me to your place already! It’s freezing out here.”

Tobio moves his gaze towards Tooru, studies him like he’s looking for something, and then says, “Okay.” He gestures with his jaw towards the corner they’re heading for, and Tooru follows after him carefully, dodging all the stray ice on the sidewalk. “There’s a video rental on the next block.”

“You’re such an old man, Tobio-chan. I don’t want to go to a video rental,” Tooru complains, and then bites the inside of his lip. “You really don’t watch anything? What do you do when you’re not playing volleyball?”

Tobio’s quiet for a minute. It’s not embarrassment; when Tooru turns to glance at him, Tobio’s eyebrows are furrowed and he’s looking thoughtfully at the sky. Tooru can hear the gears turning in his head. “I watch volleyball tapes. And DVDs. I have a lot,” Tobio says, mouth turned up in an almost indetectable smile. Just like him to be proud of that. “And nee-san doesn’t like to sit at the table when she eats, so I watch the news with her while we eat dinner.”

The news. That explains some of the stranger anecdotes Tobio’s told him when they were at a loss for things to say during their normal Saturdays. Tooru laughs, a little dryly. “You still have a VCR? You really are an old man. They put games online now, you know?”

“I like watching them on the TV. It’s easier to see everything that way.”

Earnest, Tooru thinks. Cute. He puts a too-heavy hand on Tobio’s head, messes up his hair and laughs as Tobio tries to get out from under him. Tobio nearly slips, then, and Tooru grabs his upper arm, holds him steady. “You’re moving around too much,” he says as he watches Tobio steady himself, then releases his grip.

“You’re bothering me,” Tobio says, mouth turned down into a tiny frown Tooru is sure he isn’t even aware of. He holds back the urge to laugh.

“Well… let’s do that, then, Tobio-chan. It’s been a while since I watched a game with someone,” Tooru says. He wonders what it’d be like to watch a game with Tobio, anyway. He’s probably the kind of person to chastise the screen.

“Really?” Tobio asks, and when Tooru glances over, there’s a light in his eyes Tooru isn’t sure he’s seen before.

Ah. Maybe this is like breaking a rule. Tooru helps him with volleyball every time they meet, but only interpersonal issues because Tobio is so bad at it, it almost feels unfair to say nothing. A volleyball game is… more concretely volleyball. Still… “I’m not the kind of guy who would suggest something and immediately take it back, you know.”

‘Okay.”

Eventually, Tobio leads him to a condominium, tells him to be careful as they walk up the icy steps to the second floor. “I’m not the one who almost fell over a couple of minutes ago,” he sings, relishing the sight of Tobio’s still-rosy cheeks.

“Shut up,” Tobio says as he digs through his bags for his keys. “That was your fault.”

Rude. But Tooru likes that, a little bit. Tobio speaking to him in ways he would never have a month ago. Inviting him to his apartment, too, even if it was because he asked.

They leave their wet shoes on the mat, Tobio taking Tooru’s jacket to hang up and then taking off his own.

As Tobio unravels the scarf he lent him and unzips his own thick jacket, Tooru notices he’s wearing a light gray crewneck with what looks like the logo of a sports company emblazoned on the front, faded from time and over-washing. There’s a hole by the collar, too small and strangely placed to be done on purpose. He’s wearing sweatpants to match, but in some off shade of hunter green. Uncharitably, Tooru wonders if he’s changed his clothes since he got up this morning.

Humiliating. Tooru spent twenty minutes that morning figuring out what to wear – it’s always better to overdress than underdress, except when you’re going to visit the underclassman you have a weird history with and unresolved feelings and if they realize you put too much thought into what you’re wearing while they didn’t, it’ll make you feel like an idiot.

He’d gone through too many options, blazers and turtlenecks and cardigans, went outside and then back into his room when his mother caught him on his way out the door and asked him who he dressed up for. He toned it down with clean, reasonable jeans and a clean, reasonable v-neck and white undershirt and somehow is still overdressed. Tooru feels himself frown. Impossible to put less thought into something than someone who didn’t put any thought at all.

Still, at least Tobio’s oblivious enough not to notice. Even if it does sting a little how unaware he is of him. It’s not like Tooru expected anything else from him, anyway.

Tooru turns away from Tobio then, because he’s observant enough to realize when he’s staring, decides to look around his apartment in the meantime. It’s a small place, and except for the small cabinet lined with pictures in the living room, it’s sparsely decorated. There’s a coffee table between the television and the couch, its bottom shelf stuffed with magazine stacks and a small pile of DVDs.

Tobio wanders over to the short cabinet and glances over the pictures, mostly of Tobio and an older girl who must be his sister. She looks a little younger than Tooru’s own sister, maybe closer to Tobio than Tooru’s sister is to him. It’s strange she’s never come up until now.

Actually, it’s strange the only adult in their pictures is a man too old to be their father. It’s strange Tobio’s never mentioned his parents, and they’re not even pictured here once. Tooru wants to ask, but he invited himself to this space. Tobio didn’t let him in.

“He was my grandfather,” Tobio says, his voice so neutral even Tooru can’t get a read on it. “He taught me and Nee-san volleyball.”

“He must have been good at it, then. Sorry, Tobio-chan,” Tooru says, studying the kind lines in the older man’s face. He wonders if he’s the one who taught Tobio to be so polite to his elders. Tooru remembers the way he smiled at him, in middle school.

Tobio takes too long to answer, and when Tooru glances at him, the faint pink he notices in his cheeks darkens when their eyes meet. “It’s fine,” he says, and then turns around. “Come on.”

Tooru follows him past a doorway smelling faintly of perfume and chemicals, goes into his bedroom, lonely-looking except for exercise equipment and a stack of sports magazines at the foot of his bed. There’s a notebook and textbook open on his desk; Tobio must have been doing homework, Tooru thinks, and when he looks over it, he feels his face twist in horror. “Eh, you’re really hopeless, aren’t you? I thought that manager of yours was helping you.”

“She helps me when it’s exam season. Stop looking at my stuff.”

“Eh, you’re the one who brought me to your room,” Tooru complains as he picks up the mechanical pencil and scribbles the correct formula in the margins of Tobio’s notebook. He underlines it twice for good measure, and then glances over at Tobio to see if he’s seen what he’s done.

Tobio’s paying no attention to him, sitting on the floor of his closet, hunched over something. Tooru walks over to him, peers over his shoulder.

“What are you doing, anyway?” he asks, looking at the bin full of VHS tapes and discs Tobio is digging through.

“I’m finding a game,” Tobio says, putting the tape he picked up down and searching through the bin again. Tooru crouches next to him on the other side of the bin and looks at the one he’d been looking at before. Two local team names he doesn’t know and 2003/5/15 written in permanent marker in the center.

“This is from when I was nine. Why do you have this?”

Tobio glances over, reads the label on the tape and then goes back to digging. “The losing team in that one uses unique formations for back row attacks. They would’ve won with a stronger ace,” Tobio says. “I’ve been thinking about practicing some of them with the volleyball club.”

“You sure are trusting me a lot. I’m going to pass that information on to Yahaba,” Tooru says, nudging Tobio. “I’m still loyal to my team, you know.”

Immediately, Tobio stops moving and turns to Tooru, eyes wide with genuine horror. Tooru can’t help the laugh.

“I’m joking. I doubt Yahaba’d be able to find a local game from 2003. Or even that he’d want to,” Tooru clarifies, patting Tobio on the shoulder. “Seijoh’s not so desperate they’d need me to do recon. You’ll see how it is after Yahaba whips Mad Dog-chan into shape. I… hope he does… Well! I forgot everything you tell me after you say it, anyway.”

Tobio’s looking at Tooru like he has seven heads. Tooru thinks about kissing the expression off his face, and then coughs. Tobio grunts. “What are you talking about?” he complains.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tooru says, and then starts looking through the bin again. Tobio wasn’t lying about having a lot of games recorded, he thinks as he sorts through the DVDs in hopes of seeing a team name he recognizes, and then—

Seijoh v. Shiratorizawa
2011/10/22

“This is my game. This is from when I was in second year!” he says, putting it on top of whatever tape Tobio was studying. Tobio watching him, this entire time. Tooru feels his face warm. “Were you… I didn’t know you…”

Tobio snatches it out of his hands, his face cherry-red, probably to match Tooru’s own. “Stop looking at my stuff,” he complains again, and then nudges him away from the bin. For once, Tooru does what he wants and moves over, pretends he’s interested in the stack of sports magazines at the foot of his bed and then stands up.

Tooru remembers that game. Spring High Qualifiers, a little more than a year ago. The third set – he remembers, near the end, believing maybe they’d be able to take one set, something about victory in the jaws of defeat, and then…

Being enveloped by Ushijima’s shadow. The ball pushing past his fingers. The clatter as it landed on the squeaky gym floor.

Tooru closes his eyes and opens them. He doesn’t need to relive this now. It’s why he’s leaving. Besides, Tobio’s working so hard to find a game for them to watch.

“Hey, Tobio-chan, you’re kind of like a stalker, aren’t you?” he says, nudging his back with his foot. Tobio elbows his calf.

“Of course I watched you. I knew I’d be playing you eventually,” Tobio says, and then puts the tape in his hand down on the floor and closes the bin carefully. He picks up the tape and stands up. “I found the one I was looking for. Come on.”

Tooru follows him out, sits on the couch while Tobio operates the ancient-looking combination VCR and DVD player. He pulls a magazine out from under the coffee table and flips through it, finds a stylish popstar-type with sweeping bangs and dyed-brown hair and turns the magazine around so Tobio can see it. “Hey, Tobio-chan,” he calls, watches as he turns his head from the awful contraption underneath his television. “You’d look good with this haircut.”

Tobio’s mouth twists. “It looks like yours.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Tooru says, putting the magazine and running his fingers through his hair. He’s never been insecure about it before – even Iwaizumi makes fun of him for checking it so often – but it’s annoying if Tobio doesn’t like it. He wonders what Tobio likes if he doesn’t like the way it looks now, the way his bangs kind of just fall in his face more like he forgot to get a haircut instead of he styled them, but— maybe it is better. The way blue eyes peek out from under them when Tobio’s head is angled the right way. Or—

“I watched this game a lot when I was a kid,” Tobio says, and Tooru feels the weight shift as Tobio sits down. He sat too close to the center, Tooru realizes now. On a couch this small. “But I haven’t seen it in a long time.”

“Why?” Tooru asks lazily, only half-interested. Tobio is too close to him, he thinks. But maybe it’s nice like this. Still. He was less conscious of him on the bus, somehow.

“Neither of the teams’ playing styles are that unique. It isn’t useful,” Tobio says as he reaches for the remote on the coffee table. “The teams are just evenly matched, so it’s fun to watch. It’s the first game I saw that I ever wanted to watch again.”

Tobio’s words are level, but he’s leaning forward now, the excitement for the game he’s watched a thousand times emanating from the light in his pupils. Tooru feels himself smile. “You should do things for fun, too, or you won’t grow up well,” Tooru says, still looking at Tobio. “Maybe I’ll take you to the arcade next week. There’s one in the neighborhood over.”

“I’m good at video games now,” Tobio warns him, face deadly serious, a hint of pride shining behind his eyes. “Yamaguchi played Ultra Punch Bros. with me until I understood the controls after I kept being the first one to die.”

The story stings a little, the same way every story about Tobio’s current volleyball club stings when Tooru remembers how the last one he was in treated him. But it’s a silly thing to dwell on now, sitting on Tobio’s couch, listening to the strange ways he confides in him.

“We’ll see next week, then,” Tooru says, a little wryly. “Why don’t you play the game already? I can only make fun of the trendy guys’ haircuts in your weird magazines for so long.”

“Like you can talk. Anyway, I think it’s…” Tobio reaches for the remote on the coffee table and turns the television on. The screen cut into a square and glowing blue, two backwards arrows at the top right of the screen, and Tooru unearths useless memories from when he was five. “It’s still rewinding,” Tobio says, and turns the television off again.

“Eh, it’s not the nineties anymore, Tobio-chan! I can’t believe I have to wait for a video to rewind in 2013,” Tooru complains, throwing himself back on Tobio’s couch and staring at the ceiling. “You’re lucky I’m so patient.”

Tobio makes a face at him that speaks more than words could ever say, and Tooru feels himself grin.

He hasn’t felt like this in a long time. Maybe ever. There’s a bittersweetness that comes with spending time with Tobio like this, time he could have spent doing this lost, time he can’t decide if he regrets or not, feelings that stir the inside of his chest. That Tooru could close the gap between them by leaning over just a little, but he won’t, because it’s Tobio, and he can’t.

But he can sit next to him, this close. He can ask Tobio to let him in and he will. Embarrassing or not. That’s something. More than he thought he’d get. More than he thought he wanted, before.

Eventually the tape finishes rewinding and Tobio presses play. The two teams are lined up on their sides of the court, and Tooru realizes why he didn’t recognize the names; the players are women and they look university-aged, or maybe minor leagues. He’s caught a couple of women’s volleyball games, but only really knows the pro teams. “I didn’t know you watched women’s volleyball,” Tooru says, watching as the players get into position.

“Kazuyo-san was a women’s volleyball coach. And Nee-san played until high school,” Tobio says. “Until I got old enough for Kazuyo-san to enroll me in a volleyball class, I thought only girls were allowed to play volleyball. I thought they only let me play with them because I was a kid.”

Tooru remembers Tobio starting Kitagawa Daiichi a little prodigy. He wonders how young he must’ve been when he thought that, considering they start volleyball classes at around six these days. It’s a little bit funny, though. Tobio can’t imagine his life before volleyball because his life’s been living and breathing it from the second he was born.

It explains a lot about him, Tooru thinks, and then laughs softly.

“You were a cute kid, weren’t you? I saw the picture where you were hugging Vabo-chan,” Tooru teases, nudging Tobio’s calf with his foot. Tobio kicks him, and Tooru laughs again. “Maybe I’ll watch women’s volleyball after this, too. What’s your favorite team? I’ll cheer for their rival.”

“I don’t follow women’s volleyball anymore,” Tobio says. “Except when the Rockets are on a winning streak and Nee-san wants to watch with me. I pay attention to men’s volleyball now.”

“Huh? Why?” Tooru asks. “I guess it’s the only one I’ve ever watched, but they can’t be so different they’re not worth watching.”

“I don’t have time to watch both, and I have to watch the men’s leagues. Since I’ll be playing with them eventually, I should start learning about them now.”

Tobio’s voice is flat and completely serious. Tooru makes a face. “You’re so sure, huh? I take back what I said about being cute. You’re totally insufferable and you’ve been like that your whole life.”

Tobio furrows his eyebrows, sighs, and then moves his attention to the game. “Watch this,” he says. “She’s their powerhouse server.”

Tooru turns his attention to the screen, and notices the scoreboard’s already 2-0. He hasn’t been watching; that feels rude, somehow, after Tobio spent so long digging up this game in particular.

He watches the woman’s jump serve, watches her score three service aces in a row until the other team forces it back in the net for a volley that lasts six rounds. It’s interesting enough that Tooru forgets he’s supposed to be paying attention for Tobio’s sake and just pays attention; starts yelling at the screen like he’s watching a game with Iwaizumi and leaning forward to catch every detail he can get from the grainy pillarboxed video. At one point, he and Tobio disagree so strongly about what one of the teams should’ve did that Tobio pauses the video to start arguing with him.

Tobio’s right that neither of their playing styles are particularly unique, Tooru thinks to himself as the game winds down after the brief deuces at the end of the second set. Even the powerhouse server Tobio pointed out wasn’t that strong, and she didn’t use any tricks, either. But the two teams are perfect matches: weaknesses that correspond to weaknesses and strengths that correspond to strengths, so the scoreboard never gives an inch. It reminds Tooru of that game between Karasuno and Inarizaki; he still finds himself thinking about it sometimes. The way that upstart Karasuno was able to bring a veteran favorite to win its knees. Not like Kamomedai, but even though Karasuno is the one team Tooru would believe could make lightning strike twice, he can’t say he was surprised their luck dried up, either.

He’s sure Tobio’s over that loss by now, but he doesn’t feel like bringing up the events of last month. There is one thing, though.

“You haven’t seen this game in a long time, huh?” Tooru asks as he watches the teams huddle with their captains on sidelines. He wonders, briefly, what they’re talking about, and then decides it isn’t that interesting. It’s a big fish in a small pond situation, like a surprisingly talented busker outside your train station. Entertaining and fun to watch – maybe you’ll miss a train or two on purpose if you have the time – but nothing you’d call a record label over.

“I told you already,” Tobio says. “Why?”

“That team,” Tooru says, pointing to the one on the left. “The setter… When they go back on the court, watch the way they communicate. She reminds me of your Mr. Refreshing. The way you played during the Interhigh, you still could’ve stood to learn a lesson or two from her. Though… I guess that’s not a lesson you could’ve learned until you got some advice from your wisest upperclassman!”

Tobio doesn’t talk for a second, and Tooru wonders if he’s hit a nerve somehow. It’s hard to tell with Tobio, sometimes. He waits for Tobio to pause the video again so they can argue, and then Tobio says, in a voice so low Tooru almost can’t hear it, “Thank you.”

Tobio’s face is red. It’s been red so much lately; Tooru never knew he could get like this. He’d be giddy about it, the way he was on the bus ride back after Tobio got off, but he can feel his own face heating up. “Huh?” he asks, and rubs the back of his neck. “For, ah… It was an equivalent exchange, you know? I still have that picture on my phone if you want to see it.”

The picture is blurry and embarrassing now – Tooru almost deleted it after Takeru made fun of him so harshly for it – and he doesn’t want to show it to Tobio. But if it’ll cure this strange atmosphere, he’ll make a joke about showing it to him. Mayve then Tobio will say something too blunt the way he always does.

He feels the same way he did when he found his game in Tobio’s bin, but Tobio is so close to him now, cheeks rosy. Tooru needs to— He doesn’t… know.

“Not that,” Tobio says, looking away from him now. He’s reaching for the remote— pausing it, now. That’s… “Everything. Your advice, and…”

“Tobio-chan,” Tooru says, at a loss for what to say. Tobio is sitting on the edge couch, leaning so far forward that his face is almost in his hands. It’s doing a terrible job of obscuring the color of his face. Gingerly, Tooru pats him on the back, and then retracts his hand. “It’s not that crucial, you know? I was joking. Um, I never asked you to thank me, so you don’t really need to—”

“It is. If you didn’t talk to me, that time I met you after your nephew’s class… Even now, I…”

Tooru forces a laugh, tries to figure out a way to put this moment out of his misery. “I guess you’re right! Since you did get to Nationals after that. Well, ah, it was worth it to see someone finally beat Ushiwaka, even if it was you, so… anytime, Tobio-chan! You know how much I love lending my wisdom to my underclassmen!”

Tobio doesn’t move from his spot on the couch or say a word. If it weren’t for the sound of his breathing, Tooru would turn him over and check his pulse.

“Tobio-chan?”

Tobio exhales, and says, every word stilted like an individual sentence, “I’m going to get yogurt.”

“Oh, uh. Okay.”

Tobio doesn’t move for a second, but before Tooru can ask if he’s okay, he says, “Do you want yogurt.”

“Um. Sure!”

Tobio stands up and ambles over to his kitchen, his footsteps sounding like an elephant’s. Tooru does him a favor and doesn’t watch him while he leaves, and Tobio doesn’t dare look his way, either.

God. What an awful conversation. He never expected they’d talk about that kind of thing, or if they did talk about it, he thought it’d be him to bring it up, but… Tooru exhales. He wonders if this is some kind of emotional growth. He wonders how he’ll handle it Tobio emotionally grows anymore.

Tobio takes too long in the kitchen – Tooru’s sure he’s doing deep breathing exercises or something, anything to come to terms with the fact that he’s just displayed genuine and vulnerable in front of him – but when he comes back his face is normal, again, and he puts a little container of yogurt in front of Tooru.

It’s blueberry flavor. Tooru’s never loved blueberry flavor, or even liked it, but he opens it and spoons it into his mouth just so he doesn’t have to talk. Tobio picks up the remote and presses play.

Things go back to normal after that, the way volleyball always makes things normal. The mutual language they’ve spoken since they were in middle school. They go back to disagreeing over plays and strategies, and Tooru goes back to making fun of him every opportunity he can, but he feels Tobio watching the setter closely now, and goes over the words from before in his head.

If you didn’t talk to me, that time I met you after your nephew’s class… Even now, I…

They’d been embarrassing in the moment, and they’re a little embarrassing to remember now, even as he’s half-distracted by a close volleyball game. But he thinks about them, feels the strange way that Tobio thinks about him from them.

It’s wrong. Tooru would be remiss if he let Tobio be wrong about something like that, after all the progress they’ve made.

Tooru keeps watching the game, gets worked up at the very end when it seems like it’ll go to deuces before the team with the setter he likes snatches victory at the very last moment. But as the adrenaline leaves his body, and he feels Tobio glance over at him while he pretends there’s nothing more interesting than watching the two teams bow to each other, the thoughts he’d been thinking before come back to his mind.

Tobio’s already up and at the combination VCR/DVD player, probably going to take the game out. “You should rewind it now, so you don’t have to rewind it later.”

“Huh?” Tobio says, and then grunts in agreement when the words parse.

Tooru watches as he does as he says, and then beckons him back to the couch when he stands up. “Kunimi-chan and Kindaichi… I could tell, whenever we played you. They both feel bad about what happened at Kitagawa Daiichi, but Kindaichi especially… That guy’s awful and won’t let go of his pride. But he’s still obsessed with you. Some practices he wouldn’t shut up about you.”

Tooru exhales. He feels like he’s talking about someone else, not Kindaichi. Maybe Tobio won’t pick up on it. He brings himself to look up, takes in the gentle furrow of Tobio’s brow. “Why are you talking about this?”

“I’m telling you that the two of them… They’ll talk to you if you want to talk to them. Patch things up. I could give you their email, if you want,” Tooru says, and rubs the back of his neck. “You don’t need my advice anymore, Tobio-chan. Or… well, I guess I could tell you one last thing.”

He turns to Tobio and smiles. His brows are still furrowed, and Tooru thinks about pressing his lips to his forehead. His chest hurts, a little absently.

“The things you ask me, you could probably figure out on your own, even if you are kind of an idiot. Maybe with that sleepy-eyed captain of yours’s help, or even Chibi-chan’s,” Tooru says, and his voice sounds strange in his ears. “I can tell you still think about what happened in middle school even if you don’t say it. But you stopped being the person you were then a long time ago, and… anyway. There are other ways to come to terms with what happened then than to waste your days off with me.”

Tobio is quiet for a long time. The video finishes rewinding, but before Tooru wonders if he should be the one to get it, Tobio says, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Huh?”

“Sometimes I still have nightmares about middle school, but my volleyball club is… I don’t really understand them, but they all… That time after I got back from the National Youth training camp, they… I told you about that already,” Tobio says. “They’re weird. If I start acting strange, they check on me. Even Yachi-san, even though she’s scared of me. It’s embarrassing, but I know circumstances are different now.” Tobio fixes his eyes on Tooru’s, blue irises clear and deep, pupils pitch black, and Tooru sees his own reflection. “I wouldn’t need closure from you, Oikawa-san. You weren’t even there.”

It’s funny, somehow. Tooru can’t stop the peals of laughter from escaping his lips, gentler than usual but still wholehearted. It feels like a weight’s been lifted from his chest. “You’re blunt as always. Awful kid. But…” Tooru bites the inside of his cheek. Wonders if he should ask this question. “Why do you spend your weekends with me, then?”

Tobio swallows. Rubs the back of his neck and looks away. “I could ask you that, too.”

“You’d be deflecting.”

“You’re annoying,” he says, and then exhales. “You’re leaving, after this year. In middle school… It wasn’t because of you. But after you graduated, volleyball club stopped being fun. I used to watch your games in case there was something I missed while you were still at Kitagawa Daiichi, and you were annoying, but… the way your teammates looked at you. I wondered what it would be like for my teammates to look at me the same way, but I also… I knew you didn’t like me, but I still wanted to understand. What made them look at you like that, if it wasn’t your jump serve.”

There’s something in Tobio’s words that makes Tooru’s chest ache even more. He can’t put his finger on why, but he also… doesn’t want to do that right now. It’s rare for Tobio to speak this much, and the things coming from his mouth are… Tooru would rather hang on to every word.

“I only really realized after Nationals, when I was rewatching the games we played this season. You’d be leaving. The day we met, I was looking for you. I didn’t want to lose my chance because I didn’t try hard enough again,” Tobio says. “Especially… That time, with Hinata. You helped me, even though you didn’t have to. I understood a little, after. But I wanted…”

I was jealous of you. I knew that if I let up even a little, or if I gave you a single leg up on me, you’d overtake me immediately. Everything I worked so hard for would be… It’s why I’m leaving.

I’ve never hated you. I think about that day in the gym more than I should. I’ve always thought about you more than I should.

No one has ever looked at me the way that you look at me.

Tooru exhales. Words bursting out of his chest that are physically incapable of coming from his mouth. Words he can’t let himself say because even oblivious Tobio might realize what resides in his ribcage, because he might accidentally move one step further and…

Tooru leans over. Puts a gentle hand on Tobio’s shoulder where it is bent forward and leans a little too much weight on him. “Was I worth the hype, Tobio-chan?”

Tobio swats him off, and his shoulder stings a little where Tobio hits it. “I hate you.”

“Those didn’t sound like the words of someone who hates me,” Tooru sings, but the lilt in his voice leaves more to be desired. “How did you know I was leaving, anyway? Did Iwa-chan tell you? Do you guys text?”

Tobio sits up, then. His face is a little more neutral, slightly pissed off; the moment’s successfully defused, Tooru thinks, even if it’ll probably play on repeat in his head the second he leaves this apartment. “We don’t text. It was obvious. There are only three strong volleyball universities in Miyagi, and none of them are in commuting distance. And it’s not like you’d be able to go pro right out of high school.”

Those words sting, but it’s Tobio, and he just gave a speech about how badly he wanted to be his friend. Tooru lets it go. “Of course I wouldn’t be able to.”

Tobio must not like the way his voice sounds, because he turns towards him, grabs his shoulder. His fingers dig into his skin. “You’re not quitting, are you?” he asks, and the shock is so much that Tooru doesn’t speak for a second. But Tobio sees something in his eyes and takes his hand off of Tooru, crosses his arms. “Of course you’re not. You can’t try to lie to me about it. I’ll find out when I meet you on the court again.”

“I never tried to lie to you about anything,” Tooru says half-bitterly while he dusts off his shoulder, and then the words Tobio said fully sink in, and he freezes.

I’ll find out when I meet you on the court again.

The complete sureness in his tone. Something like faith, but not as romantic. Just some strange, solid belief in him Tooru doesn’t know what he’s done to earn.

Tooru breathes out. He wonders how a kid who’s such an idiot manages to do this to him. A way he’s never felt before.

“Tobio-chan,” Tooru says, putting his hand on Tobio’s shoulder, turning him around so he’s looking at him, “if you don’t stop me, I’m going to kiss you.”

“What?” Tobio’s face lights up red, mouth contorted in surprise and embarrassment, and even though it’s cute somehow, that this is his reaction, that this is a shock to him, despite everything, even more than that it’s… annoying. Tooru feels his face heat up to match Tobio’s. “Why?”

“What do you think? I like you! I told you yesterday!” Tooru says, and his other hand somehow ends up on Tobio’s other shoulder, but it’s like he’s going to shake him instead of— hold him tenderly, and press his lips against his, and—

“You said you didn’t dislike me! I didn’t think you— that you— that you liked me!"

It’s annoying that Tobio’s face is so red, and he’s babbling and awkward and weird, and Tooru can’t even enjoy it because he feels the exact same way. “Well, I do, Tobio-chan! You’re the most annoying person I know! I sat here and waited for you to rewind a VHS tape and I didn’t complain once! I surprise-visited you on Valentine’s Day, you oblivious idiot!”

“Neither of those things are even— I thought you didn’t hate me! I…”

They’re going in circles. Tooru’s fingers are digging into Tobio’s back. Tooru thinks about kissing him, and then squeezes his eyes shut and tries to get rid of the thought the way he did at 1-Eleven yesterday. Slowly, he releases his grip and leans back, forces a hand through his hair.

When Tooru opens his eyes, Tobio’s are half-lidded, trained on the material of the couch. After a minute passes, he looks up. “Huh? I thought you…”

“I’m not going to kiss someone who doesn’t want me to. I’m not a predator,” Tooru says. His face is still hot. He can’t bring himself to look at Tobio. “It’s fine, anyway. You’ve always had terrible taste, so I understand why you don’t like me. You probably— Chibi-chan or Iwa-chan—”

“I, um. I never said…”

Tooru holds back a heavy sigh. Tobio’s embarrassed, probably, since he used names, and… He made a fool of himself today. At least he didn’t—

“I never said I didn’t want you to,” Tobio says, determinedly not looking at him. “Or that I didn’t… like…”

It takes a second to parse. Tobio couldn’t even bring himself to finish his sentence, and even though it’s obvious, even though he’d never question it with someone else, he still doesn’t… It doesn’t feel safe to assume, with Tobio. “You’re going to kill me, Tobio-chan. Why didn’t you lead with that.”

“I didn’t think you would— You surprised me, so…”

The tone of Tobio’s voice. Quiet, sloppy words that will crumble underneath the wrong look. Tooru can’t stand it anymore, being this close to what he’s wanted for so long he can’t even put his finger on when it started and not being allowed.

Finally, Tooru looks up, takes his hand away from his hair, letting Tobio see the red face to match his own. Tobio still isn’t looking at him, so Tooru fixes his hand under his chin, tilts it so their eyes meet. His eyes are blue, Tooru thinks. His eyes are wide, and blue, and the feeling of his gaze is as heavy as it always is, but Tooru doesn’t mind carrying it, this time.

Still, the look in Tobio’s eyes. Like he’d do anything if Tooru asked him to. He doesn’t want him to. “Eh, you better be sure. I’ll really do it, you know,” Tooru warns him. “I’ll die if you make me stop again.”

“I didn’t make you stop,” Tobio says, words hard, solid in the air around them. His gaze is still locked on him, despite the scarlet red of his cheeks. Like in middle school. Tooru doesn’t think there’s anything he could do to make him look away.

Blue. Clear like water. For the first time, Tooru lets himself get lost in it, and then tilts Tobio’s chin up towards his.

Tobio’s lips are chapped from the cold, and their mouths fit together strangely the first time, but it’s funny somehow. Because it’s Tobio. He feels himself smile, feels himself laugh against Tobio’s mouth, and puts a hand on Tobio’s shoulder, pushes him back gently, still laughing. “You’re terrible at this,” he says, just looking at Tobio then, the way his eyebrows knit, the way he climbs closer to him and takes it as a challenge. Tooru can’t keep the smile from his face. “Tobio-chan.”

“Shut up, Oikawa-san,” Tobio says, pushing him back against the couch and pressing his mouth against his.

♔

“So, what was so important you wanted to talk to me alone?” Iwaizumi asks, eyes narrowed as he looks at him.

They’re standing at the end of a crowded hallway, a hasty, barely-private corner Tooru found after pulling Iwaizumi out of their usual place in Matsukawa’s classroom. Tooru wonders if he should have had this conversation earlier.

Probably. But he should have planned it, more than that. Just like Tobio to end up inconveniencing him to hell the first time he tries to do something romantic. But it’s still cute anyway. Though— he shouldn’t get lost in thoughts like that now.

“Hmm, well,” Tooru says, suddenly losing the determination he had a second ago. “I’m actually— Ah, wait, I think I see Koizumi-san over there! I’ve been looking for her since this morning. Give me just a second, okay, Iwa-chan?”

Tooru digs a package of cookies out of his school bag and strides over to the brown-haired girl a couple feet away, distracted by some strange story her friend is telling her.

“Koizumi-san!” he says, watches as she smiles when she turns around. At least she’s smiling, he thinks, as he presses the cookie bag emblazoned with the name of the local bakery into her hands. “Happy White Day.”

“Oh, um. Thank you, Oikawa-san.”

He just smiles at her, waves a little, and then makes his way back towards Iwaizumi. He rolls his eyes at him once he’s close enough to notice. “Are you done now or are there any other girls you slightly recognize in this hallway?”

“Eh, I can’t be rude, Iwa-chan. You’re the one who always says I’m unromantic,” Tooru complains. “Well, speaking of that… Oh, you can tell Mattsun and Makki about this, by the way. I just thought it’d be better to tell you first since they’ll probably be annoying about it. Plus they’ve been annoying me all day.”

“You’re annoying me right now,” Iwaizumi says, crossing his arms as he leans against the hallway window. “Can you spit out whatever it is so I can finish eating before break’s over?”

“Well… You have to promise not to laugh at me or get mad.”

Iwaizumi’s face doesn’t change. “I’m not promising either of those things,” he says, eyes still hard with irritation. Tooru should definitely have told him a long time ago, he thinks to himself.

Well. Better late than never. And he’ll be angrier when he finds out later, if Tooru doesn’t tell him him now. He swallows. “You know how I don’t spend time with you on Saturdays because I’m hanging out with Tobio-chan? Those are actually dates! He’s my, uh… Well. I guess even Tobio-chan couldn’t resist my obvious charms, and I couldn’t bring myself to break his heart, so—”

Iwaizumi’s fist connects with his shoulder, and Tooru stops talking. It’s placed well – enough to just look like two guys goofing off, especially the eternally pissed-off looking ex-vice captain of the volleyball club and his best friend – but Tooru feels just how hard it stings.

“What was that for?” Tooru asks, barely playing up the wince from the pain because he doesn’t have to.

“You expected it. Honestly, I did it mostly because it seemed like you wanted me to. It’s the only reason you start acting like that,” Iwaizumi says, half-shrugging as he puts his hand back in his pocket. “Don’t get me wrong, though. If you hurt that kid, I’m aiming for your jaw next time.”

“Yeah,” Tooru says, rubbing his shoulder. “Wait, so… you’re not mad?”

“Oh, you’re an idiot for dating him. Or more… That you had a thing for him and acted the way you did so long. Years. You’re like that thing they say about elementary schoolers. What is it? With the pigtails,” Iwaizumi says, still slouched against the hallway window. Absently, he pulls on the end of his shirt collar to loosen it. “S’not like I expected it, but it kind of makes sense looking back. We’ve been friends a long time. Haven’t been calling you a dumbass for nothing.”

“Well… I don’t know what I was so worried about! I guess I thought you’d be angrier or make fun of me more,” Tooru says. “You don’t mind telling Makki and Mattsun for me, do you? I’m going to go find the girls these last two bags are for before break ends.”

“Hey, not so fast,” Iwaizumi says, grabbing the shoulder of his blazer when Tooru tries to turn around. “What time’s Kageyama coming? Actually, wait… it’s White Day, isn’t it? Are you telling me you— Is that why you blew us off last month?”

Tooru turns around and sticks his tongue out at Iwaizumi as he brushes his hand off his shoulder. “You’ll see him if you’re supposed to see him! But maybe I told him to hide from you specifically. Well, there’s nothing to do about it. Hopefully I don’t see you later, Iwa-chan!”

♔

Tooru finds Iwaizumi and Tobio talking by the school gate and curses the fact that all but five of his boyfriend’s braincells are directed towards volleyball.

“Hey, guys,” Tooru says, throwing his arms around both their necks and pulling them into some makeshift huddle, “what are we talking about?”

Iwaizumi pushes him off immediately. “I was doing a sanity check on Kageyama, but since I’d rather die than see you guys be lovey-dovey, I’m gonna take off now. Keep in touch, Kageyama!” Iwaizumi says, smacking Tobio’s back. “I can kick this guy’s ass for you whenever you want.”

“Okay, Iwaizumi-san,” Tobio says, nodding like a good underclassman. Tooru feels his bottom lip stick out involuntarily. Conspiring together like this.

“Iwa-chan, you’re supposed to side with me,” Tooru complains. “You, too, Tobio-chan.”

Iwaizumi makes a face at Tooru like he’s dying. “See you later, Oikawa. Remember what I told you about punching you in the jaw.”

“Like I could forget.”

Once Iwaizumi’s out of view, Tooru turns Tobio around, removes his awful cloth mask, sunglasses, and baseball cap. “You stick out like a sore thumb, Tobio-chan. You look like you’re going to kidnap someone. No wonder Iwa-chan recognized you,” Tooru says, and then gestures with his head that Tobio should follow him. “Come on. Let’s go talk at the park. Everyone knows me here.”

“Okay.”

“What did you guys even talk about, anyway?”

“Nothing. He gave me his email and asked me why I—” Tobio’s cheeks red, even though the cold’s calmed down the past few weeks. “Nothing. He knew we were dating, somehow.”

“Eh, Tobio-chan, you’re pretty obvious when you’re avoiding something. What did that guy tell you?” Tooru asks, crossing his arms. He should’ve known Iwaizumi was more put off by what he told him during lunch than he let on. He’s always been the kind of guy to seem like he doesn’t care until he does something, Tooru thinks. Maybe. Sometimes. “I knew he was going to tell you something weird. That’s why I told you to run away if you saw him! You really should—”

“Shut up, Oikawa-san! He just asked me why I like you,” Tobio says, aggressively refusing to meet his eyes. “I told you it was nothing.”

“Oh,” Tooru says, and thinks to himself that maybe he spoke too soon. Remembers that Iwaizumi really hadn’t seemed like he cared that much in the hallway. And then he looks at pale pink of Tobio’s face right now, and thinks to himself that he should buy Iwaizumi a soda sometime. “What did you say?”

“Nothing. I said I like your jump serve.”

Tobio’s lying. Iwaizumi wouldn’t have let him get away with just saying that, and Tobio’s also trying really hard to not look at him. Cute. Maybe he’ll pay for Iwaizumi’s lunch tomorrow. “You know, you both seemed pretty engrossed in a conversation about nothing,” Tooru says, and then puts an arm around Tobio’s neck again, leans on him as he walks. “Well, that doesn’t matter. I like Tobio-chan because his cheeks are round and get red really easily, and his eyes are blue like water, and he’s so cute he can’t drop the ‘-san’ from his boyfriend’s last name even though it’s been two weeks since I asked him to, and when he hugs me his elbows—”

“Shut up, Oikawa,” Tobio says, knocking Tooru off of him, frantically looking around. “Let’s sit over there.”

When Tooru looks, it’s an empty bench Tobio’s gesturing at, and Tooru realizes they’re at the park already. Funny how quickly Tobio makes time pass. He thinks about that every Saturday. “Since my cute boyfriend asked me to,” Tooru sings, and Tobio groans.

They settle into the empty bench and Tooru realizes there’s no one around. They’re in an ugly corner of the park, behind the baseball field and basketball courts, but Tobio’s never been a romantic and Tooru’s glad for the privacy.

Tobio doesn’t say anything for a second, and Tooru thinks about bothering about what his gift is or continuing to name all the superficial things he likes about him, but he’s teased him enough for today, probably. He thinks about kissing Tobio on the nose, and settles for pinching one of his cheeks.

“Stop that,” Tobio says as he swats him away, used to Tooru doing things like this already, and then he digs something out of his pockets and holds it out towards Tooru. “Here.”

“You should be a little less romantic. You’re going to make me blush,” Tooru says, and then he realizes what Tobio’s giving him and closes his eyes. He clutches the gift in his hand and leans forward, tries to suppress his laughter.”

“Do you— Do you not like it?”

“I like you, Tobio-chan. I like you so much,” Tooru says, and then slides his arm around Tobio’s neck, pulls him into him so he can press his lips to his hair. Tobio doesn’t fight him, and Tooru keeps him snug where he is, in the crook of his arm. “Is this for the movie you kept telling me you thought was stupid last week?”

“I do think it’s stupid,” Tobio says. “Also, I bought the tickets already.”

Last week, Tooru’d taken him to the mall the neighborhood over, and in an effort to make their dates romantic and not four hours of trying to outcompete each other at Sweet Fighter – he tried getting him a toy out of the claw machine but kept failing, and Tobio seemed happier watching him lose and keep trying than he would if Tooru was actually able to get him the stuffed animal – he’d tried to suggest watching a movie.

Maybe Tooru should’ve tried harder than suggesting a kids’ movie about the little girl making friends with a purple alien, but in Tooru’s defense, he isn’t sure what kind of movies Tobio would like if they weren’t explicitly about volleyball, and Tooru already wanted to see that movie, and it would’ve been convenient to kill two birds with one stone.

Tobio was a little weird about shooting the idea down, looking back on it now – on dates, he usually says yes to doing anything Tooru suggests unless it’s something he hates – but he’d taken it in stride then, already had the emotional damage done when he suggested watching it to his nephew and he told him to stop watching movies for babies.

But that he’d been so weird that time just to add up to this – Tobio’s such a terrible liar, must have panicked so much when Tooru suggested it. His big surprise for White Day ruined. Tooru can’t stop himself from laughing, then, just at the thought of it, how cute he is. How hard that was for him.

“Wait,” Tobio says, trying to move, and Tooru loosens his grip on him a little just so he doesn’t make him let go of him. He feels Tobio dig into his bag, and then pull a box of milk and press it into his hands, on top of the movie tickets. “This, too. Hinata told me I’ll look like an idiot if I give something handmade to someone who gave me something store-bought. So. Happy White Day, Oikawa-san. Oikawa.”

Tooru can’t stop laughing, softly into Tobio’s hair. “I am happy, Tobio-chan,” he says.

“I am— I am, too,” Tobio says, the embarrassed shyness clear in his voice, and Tooru thinks I want to kiss him. For a second, he tries to suppress it, some leftover reflex from the torture he’d been enduring a month ago, and then he remembers that he can now, cards his fingers through Tobio’s hair, and does it.

Tobio’s lips are softer now, and he’s gotten better at kissing him, opens his mouth against Tooru’s without him having to ask. But it bursts inside Tooru’s chest like the first time.

♔

When Tooru gets back from giving his luggage to the airport shuttle employee, Takeru is standing behind Iwaizumi’s leg and trying to hide the fact that he’s crying, and Tobio is just looking at him, something Tooru can’t quite pinpoint behind his expression.

“Hey, uh,” Iwaizumi says when Tooru’s close enough. “Takeru really wants ice cream, so I’m gonna stop by the convenience store over there. You guys want to be alone anyway, right? We’ll be back before you leave.”

“Thanks, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, too seriously, and Iwaizumi laughs a little harshly.

“We’re still coming back, Oikawa. You haven’t gotten rid of us yet,” he says, and then puts a hand down on Takeru’s head. “Come on. Vanilla, right?”

“See you in a bit, Takeru.”

Takeru doesn’t say anything but a muffled hmph, not turning back to look, probably trying to hide the fact that he’s crying. Ice cream – Iwaizumi’s always been good with things like that, finding out the ways to make someone feel better without saying it out loud.

They’d planned out today before Tooru even reconnected with Tobio, since everyone else would be at work and Takeru wanted to say goodbye, but he’s grateful that Iwaizumi didn’t mind him adding Tobio to the annoying trip up to the shuttle connection. The thought of having to see him for the last time two days ago when it could have been today, and the thought of Tobio taking the bus back alone after he’s gone. They both sting, somehow.

When Tooru turns, he realizes Tobio’s gravitated towards him, is standing at his side now. After glancing to make sure no one’s looking too closely, he cups Tobio’s face in his hands and presses his mouth to his. It’s chaste, quick, and familiar – the small kisses he gives Tobio on the way out of his apartment door – and the thought that this could be the last time he ever kisses Tobio again springs to his mind, unwelcome. He closes his eyes, and clears it from his mind.

He feels like crying, a little. His family, Iwaizumi, Aobajosai, but those are things he knows are permanent, things that will be waiting for him no matter what. Tobio’s young and hasn’t signed up for the long haul, doesn’t deserve to have his high school years consumed with a half-assed long-distance relationship with someone who doesn’t even know if he’ll come home. He’ll still be here when he visits, and he’ll still be on volleyball tapes and playing in the tournaments Tooru spent the last three years of his life playing, but it won’t be like this, anymore. Tooru won’t be allowed to turn him around and kiss him on the mouth or fall asleep on his couch watching tapes from his grandfather or—

Tooru swallows. Tobio isn’t crying. Tobio didn’t cry when he told him their relationship had an expiration date after their first kiss in his apartment, and he didn’t cry two days ago, when they went on their last date. Tobio is strong, surrounded by people who love him. This isn’t the same as middle school. He doesn’t need to cry. He wouldn’t cry anyway.

Still. Tobio’s so… something, maybe in the vicinity of melancholy but more along the lines of serious, that he doesn’t chide him for kissing him where they are. There’s something behind his eyes. Tooru’s afraid to put a name to it. Instead, he forces a smile.

“Hey, Tobio-chan,” Tooru says, arms hanging curled around his neck in a loose hug, their foreheads pressed together, “you can fall in love with someone else when I’m gone, but keep thinking of me, won’t you? Getting better than you is fun on its own, but it’ll be more fun if I know I’m pissing you off along the way.”

“I…” Tobio says, that same indecipherable expression across his face, and Tooru realizes his cheeks are wet.

God. Embarrassing. He wasn’t supposed to. Tooru squeezes his eyes shut, releases Tobio and turns around and wipes his face with his sleeve. He puts a hand on Tobio’s shoulder once he feels like a little more in control, leans forward to press his lips to his bangs. “I love you, too, Tobio-chan,” Tooru says, forcing a smirk. “But don’t be an idiot and wait for me, okay?”

“You already made me promise,” Tobio complains, looking away from him, but Tooru can see it. Whatever was blurry behind his eyes is long gone, now. He’ll be okay, Tooru thinks. Knows. He always knew. If Tobio wasn’t strong, he wouldn’t have dated him.

He’s happy, Tooru thinks. That first person he ever felt like this about was Tobio. Even if he was kind of an idiot about it and his feelings got complicated by volleyball and anxiety and they took years to come to fruition. He’s happy they came back together the way they did, older and wiser. He’s happy they had the time they had.

“Oikawa, I—” Tobio suddenly starts to say, cutting off Tooru’s bittersweet train of thought. He’s looking straight at him, eyes clear, face red. “I lo— I lo— I love you.”

Cute, Tooru thinks. Silly, to get caught up in things like cute in the last few dozen minutes they have together, but it’s more than that, too, enough to make Tooru laugh so hard he can’t stop the tears from flowing from his eyes. Words Tobio was always too red and flustered to return, suddenly realizing themselves the last chance they have, right when Tooru least expects it.

It’s the reason Tooru lost to him, that day in Tobio’s apartment, almost lost to him in a convenience store on Valentine’s the day before. This earnestness, this inability to lie, the pure meaning in every rough, too-blunt word.

I’ll find out when I meet you on the court again, Tooru remembers, and decides that he can learn from his underclassman, too. That he’ll toss away all those practice days that ended in frustration, the time in middle school his coach swapped him out for Tobio, every dream of Nationals that was shattered by the hands of bigger, more talented players.

It doesn’t have to be a fight, a marathon through the desert that you struggle through and only find energy in through the miles-apart oases; maybe, just a little. Tooru can believe, too. The way Tobio believes in him.

And maybe, that day when they meet on opposite sides of the court, when Tooru is finally strong enough to meet him where he is, he’ll find the courage to try to win his heart again.

“Yeah,” Tooru says, staring into Tobio’s clear eyes and memorizing the shade of his irises, the feel of his skin warm against his, “I know.”