Work Text:
Oikawa Tooru tilts his head to the side.
It is mid-afternoon, the sort of day that wraps itself around you, sneaking in your window bit by bit until time has drained away through your fingers. The eighteen year old holds up a shirt, examining it through all angles of the light, seemingly unaware of the yellow sun caramelising his skin everywhere it struck. It's a wonderfully soft brown, the colour of faded coffee.
He hums, gaze shifting to something unseen.
"Caramel? I know that my skin is smooth and perfect already, but you're feeling generous today, aren't you?"
There are scattered pimples appearing on the side of his jaw.
Running a hand along his jawline, his lips slide outwards in a pout, resting the shirt carefully down on his bed with his other hand. "Would it kill you to flatter me, even a little?"
As he turns back to the wardrobe, slender fingers resting on the knob, a shadow drifts into his brown hair, transforming it to the uncanny double of shit. An insulted yelp leaves his mouth, and he scowls - viciously. It twists his face into something ugly.
"Now you're just being mean," he grumbles, unhooking another shirt. "Could you at least be a little helpful, and give me advice on what to wear for my date?"
It's surprising he had gotten a date at all, given how nasty his features look, all scrunched up in a sour frown. Laying the shirt out beside the other on sky-blue sheets, he gives one last glare to the narrative and straightens out his expression, flashing a dismal attempt at a charming grin.
"Please? Can you describe me honestly? For once?" he asks thin air.
He decides that the shirt with mint-green would flatter his shit-coloured hair, and Oikawa gives a little, genuine smile as he slips a forearm under it.
"I guess that'll do. Thanks!" he chirps out, voice breaking through the stillness.
If someone were to walk in, they'd think him mad. As he undoes his buttons, a chuckle bubbles up out of him, a noise about as pleasant as a kettle's whistle.
"But I'm not mad, am I?"
No. No, he isn't.
The aforementioned date takes place at the park.
A relatively uninventive choice, but it gives Oikawa an excuse to wear his scarf, adequately hiding his emerging pimples. He scowls slightly, then remembers he's in public, and satisfies himself with a huff.
His shoes dig into the frosted mud as he paces around, hoping he didn't get stood up.
"I wouldn't get stood up!" he snaps out. "Ever! She's just a few minutes late, that's all."
Receiving a few unsettled glances, he submerges himself into the depths of his scarf, muttering to himself. He closes his eyes, the darkness of his lashes falling into the masterfully-covered bags beneath his eyes, and sighs out into the thick fabric. His breath folds back on his nose, hot and sticky, but it calms him, prevents him from picking at the skin around his nails.
Chewing on the inside of his scarf, Oikawa reminds himself that she's just a few minutes late. And even if she couldn't make it, that would be okay. It's okay. Rejection stung deep, but he would tug the tip from his chest and keep moving, keep meeting people, keep living.
He opens his eyes.
"Thank you," he whispers out softly, audible to nobody but himself.
When he was only speaking to himself, his voice sounded melodious, without the edge of fear it always hardened into when talking to others. Oikawa's brow lifts, as if amused.
"Is that so?"
He didn't expect a response, and the emptiness is stubborn. Spinning on his heel, he settles back onto the metal bench, the coldness seeping straight through his jeans to the backs of his thighs. A shiver creeps through him, shaking his bones. He had never dealt well with cold, and he really should've known better than to bring his thinnest, but most flattering coat -
"Oikawa-san?"
His date stands nearby, dark blue tights covering her legs, a flouncy skirt and red top matching with her lips. She's beautiful, and Oikawa's heart feels nothing. Frustration claws at his throat, but he masks it with a welcoming smile, drawing his scarf down to display it fully. It's a smile that made him sick, but he's used to it.
Gently, he offers her his arm. Greetings are passed over to one another, a sly joke, the swift sound of her giggle warming the winter air.
Oikawa Tooru falls on his bed.
He is nineteen, and graduation has sped past.
His chest feels fine when he's with her. He hopes someday it'll go dizzy, his heart running laps in his chest or beating hard against his ribs when they kiss, everything he's read about. It'll happen. It has to happen.
As he sits up, his knee aches. He should've gone home when he -
"Shut up," Oikawa spits out. His hand encircles his knee. "I know my limits. I'll be fine. It'll be fine."
He feels a hand rest on top of his, and the weird warmth causes him to start, but he stays there, scared of moving, as if the first touch from something he's lived with all his life will vanish. It's tender, almost wistful. A thumb glides down the side of his hand, and he is overwhelmed with a sort of sacredness, a prayer being said, a god being heard.
"So - so you can…"
The words trail off, the thickness shredding away, and the touch leaves.
"What? You can't just - do that!"
"Answer me!"
"Why are you quiet now?"
"I - I want to meet you. Do it again. Please. Or say something - insult me! You love doing that, don't you? I bet if I threatened to overwork my knee you'd come back! Please, don't - I need a story. I need you."
"Why aren't you saying anything? Is it because you want to see me cry? Is that it? Are you a fucking sadist?!"
"......it's so empty by myself."
Oikawa Tooru is twenty years old.
He nearly slips on the curb, mouth falling open limply. He still has pimples on his jaw. A finger raises, skimming along his skin, and he laughs openly, grin wide. A few students passing stare at him, the tall youth laughing to himself, face upturned towards the clouds.
"You're back."
His smile is free and bright. It’s a good sight to see. He closes his eyes, relishing the sound of voice in the air.
“It’s good to hear you too,” he whispers underneath his breath, words meant for one thing and one thing only.
They hear him.
Tooru has five fingers entangled with someone else's.
The street is quiet, which isn't a problem for him. He speaks confidently and fluidly, his gait faltering only an instant at the returning voice, but he's gotten good at covering up his surprise. He is thirty three, and trying again.
Not quite trying the same way.
The man beside him chuckles slow, squeezing Tooru's hand, and his face heats up, warming the cool moonlight on his skin.
He leaves him at the door, a small kiss offered, reassurances exchanged, and Tooru turns to go home.
"I think I'm doing the right thing," he mumbles to himself, gaze sweeping around for something that can't be seen. "I am, aren't I?"
Yes. He is.
A little smile lights up his face, more lined than before. It creases up, mouth sliding outwards into a childish pout - but it is still as handsome as ever, even more so now with the flecking of stubble covering his jawline.
"You think so?" Oikawa asks, the cloudiness in his eyes fading away as he rubs a hand over his jaw. "I think it's a good look on me. More mature and all of that bullshit."
With no answer, he falls back into silence. His hands sting from absence, despite the mild air. In an effort to fill them with something, surround them with some sort of comforting pressure, he slips them into the pockets of his silk-lined, ankle-length, pretentiously fashionable coat. The shadows disperse from his feet as he passes under orange streetlights, unseen by anyone but a cat observing from the window, and he feels alone.
"Did you really have to state that?" he murmurs out, and the words go no further than the breath of his hard exhale.
He should be feeling jubilant, the high of a great first date, of finally with the right gender, of a tender first kiss. He doesn't. He feels flat.
"And being reminded of it doesn't help," he snaps out at nothing.
Breaking stride, he stops in the street, waiting for a car to crawl past, the glow of the tailights illuminating the flutter of litter, silvery on the grey pathway.
He spreads his hands. They're shaking, and the corners of his mouth downturns at the observation.
"Why are you here?" he demands, glowering up through eyes yellowed by streetlamps. "I don't fucking understand. I know I'm a big deal, but nobody else has their own personal narrator. Am I insane? Am I literally fucking crazy and you only reassure me that I'm not because you're me?" He hisses out his frustration through his teeth. "What's the point of you showing up at random points in my life to point out how I'm feeling? I know how I'm feeling!"
He seems unaware of the help that comes from someone keeping him on an even keel, to drill home that his feelings are genuine, unbroken.
"'Someone'?" Oikawa quotes, brow drawing down. "You're somebody?"
"Oh, don't stop narrating now!" His nose twists. "Please, tell me what I'm feeling, huh? Tell your imaginary audience exactly what's going on in my life! Where's the exposition dump? When is it coming? Why am I thirty three years old and still have no fucking clue what you are?"
A hand touches his cheek. Oikawa flinches back instinctively, and the touch fades.
"Wait -"
He aches for an explanation. It is there, he knows it, in the air, in the wind, in the words. It swirls around him, fleeting through his fingers with giggles, mocking. It doesn't mean to. The explanation yearns for him to grasp it, to realise.
His shoulders pour down, as if there was rain lashing against him, as if the night wasn't dry.
"Are you - do you….?”
The realisation came slow, but it is there.
There he stands, with trash circling around his ankles, looking lost and confused and relieved, a man who had become himself. A kiss presses to his cheek. A curtain slides across a window with a quiet rattle. The strength of words wither, and we leave him.
A boy so bright that his own storyteller loved him.