Work Text:
i.
“Fuck,” Oikawa says when he first sees him.
“Ah,” Ushijima says in reply, and almost drops his cup of coffee. He does not. He tightens his grip around the cup instead. “Don’t swear in public. It’s unsightly,” Ushijima adds with a hint of a frown.
“Fuck,” Oikawa repeats, except this time there is a very clear edge to his voice. Ushijima notices this very clear edge, because Oikawa also adds a “you” to the end of that statement, which makes the general sentiment hard to miss. Ushijima remains remarkably unruffled.
The midday sun filtering in through the glass windows turns Oikawa’s hair into a velvety chocolate-gold, shadows like bruises in the dips of his collarbones; his eyes gleam in a way that almost hides his distaste, transforms it into something prettier, less petty. Ushijima had watched the recording of Aobajousai’s last match with Karasuno, and had felt bitter then, disapproving. But now he sees Oikawa with his chin tilted up, unwavering, nose wrinkling and features sharply stunning, and he is glad.
Before he can say anything else, Oikawa rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out, turns around and wordlessly stalks off in a series of fluidly exaggerated motions. Ushijima watches him go, and sees when he trips on the tip of someone’s umbrella on his way out. The glare he gives when he catches Ushijima still watching is practically a work of art.
Ushijima downs the rest of his coffee in one go. It has turned cold. He remembers that he is in his second semester of university, and that he is an adult who needs to learn to let things go. He remembers Oikawa’s gleaming eyes. Their reunion, in total, is less than a minute in length.
He is not very fond of the feeling of intoxication, but perhaps, tonight, he will go home and have a beer.
(He later forgoes the beer, but he goes home and turns on his laptop and finds out that there are not many universities in the vicinity. His is a sprawling campus with too many students to name. His is an almost non-existent social circle; the possibility gapes wide and open. He allows himself to ponder).
ii.
There are over a hundred seats in the lecture hall, and the decision to sit in the seat next to Oikawa’s, when he spots him, is incredibly deliberate. And surprisingly spontaneous. Ushjima, who was once told that he was not good with words, lets the two phrases roll around in his head for a bit. Deliberately spontaneous.
Oikawa Tooru does not seem to appreciate deliberate spontaneity. “Maybe,” he murmurs, as the seats in their row are quickly filled up. “If you sit further away from me, the effects of your dense, minimally efficient information absorption rate will be spread evenly around the hall. Maybe your failure to sit further away will be the catalyst to me inevitably failing this class.”
Ushijima cannot help but glance down at Oikawa’s notebook. There are sheep—spiral cloud bodies, big eyes and no mouths—doodled in the margins. A scribbly crow is trampled to death by a herd of cloudy, mouthless sheep. “I have heard it is an easy class to fail,” Ushijima says consolingly. Oikawa looks like he is diverting energy better spent punching Ushijima’s nose into his skull towards putting the most offensively plastic sheen into his smile instead.
“Whatever you say, Mister Perfect,” he says through gritted teeth, syllables crisp and eyes narrow. He spends a good part of the lecture unashamedly kicking his legs out and leaving grey marks on Ushijima’s haversack, unashamedly picking up his ten different black pens and dropping them around noisily in ten different ways, and unashamedly batting his eyelashes and smiling prettily when the girl beside him starts to want to skin him alive one hour in.
In between all this, he still manages to copy all of his notes down impeccably, and for the first time Ushijima is unsure of the intelligence behind his high-school desire to have them play together on the same team.
“Well, that was a refreshing classroom experience,” Oikawa remarks conversationally when the lecture is over. He does indeed look remarkably more relaxed compared to when he, with the shadowy beginnings of a scowl, first saw Ushijima walking in. Despite the dirty looks of various people in their vicinity, the beatific expression on Oikawa’s face, almost triumphant, is not displeasing.
Still, Ushijima says, “I am inclined to disagree,” because he sees the looks and because he disagrees. And then, when Oikawa’s grin is still in the process of souring, he adds, quick and efficient, “If you are having trouble with this class, I can provide assistance. I have tutored before.”
He knows it is a mistake the minute the words leave his mouth (the immediacy a novelty in and of itself, for people usually respond to mistakes with a passive-aggression he cannot and will never pick up on). Not because he says it on a whim (they have been on the tip of his tongue, words turned over and rearranged in his head since the first eagle-eyed gaze Oikawa shot him, the one he is so unwittingly enamoured by). Not, he thinks, reasonably, because it is a bad suggestion.
But Oikawa’s sharp eyes are now blunted, expression something akin to a very shuttered sort of surprise. Lips curl upwards, downwards. Months of separation have not dulled Ushijima’s want, but neither—he realises now, unhappily—has it heightened his understanding.
But it is not a bad suggestion. Certainly not an unfair one. Ushijima frowns as well, and begins to straighten himself up, ready to look suitably indignant, when Oikawa laughs. Short and sharp and sickly sweet.
“You look like you’re constipated,” he muses, watching Ushijima start, and leans down for one of the ten pens he dropped. Glances up at Ushijima’s face and laughs again. “Is that your default expression? Perhaps it is. You still look constipated, by the way.”
A breath. “My bowel movements have no bearing on my offer of assistance.”
Oikawa's mouth twists. Another mistake. “Assistance! Ha! Like I’m just going to go around, free and easy, accepting hand-outs from any old condescending—” He mumbles the rest—there are still other students in the hall—something that sounds suspiciously like a swear word and that rhymes suspiciously with plant. Still partially bent over, he begins to laugh again, possibly angrily, possibly at himself.
Ushijima, unsure, bristles.
Once it’s all out of his system, Oikawa finally straightens up, laughter petering out. He wipes his eyes and considers Ushijima, more delighted amusement than actual offense. His mouth is a wicked, syrupy curve.
“You know, Ushiwaka, you don’t need to lie.” Condescending—Ushijima remembers the word when he hears Oikawa speak. “Because—hm…How do I say this nicely? You have very little going for you, so if you’re going to ask someone out, you need to do it properly. Especially someone with impossibly high standards like me. This—this is just unbelievably sloppy.”
Oikawa sniffs, childish and smug. Ushijima is bewildered, and possibly horrified. If he’d known he was going to ask someone out on a date, he would have worn a suit and brought flowers. Dabbed on some nice cologne. Polished his dress shoes and checked the calendar for an auspicious date. This is a dreadful misintepretation.
He opens his mouth to explain all of this to Oikawa, patiently. Oikawa, impatiently, flounces off before he can.
iii.
Oikawa’s first call to him is at seven thirty, right after his evening workout and right before dinner.
“I searched up your name and number on Yahoo,” Oikawa explains when Ushijima picks up, in lieu of a greeting. “Piece of cake. You’d be incredibly easy to kidnap, Ushiwaka. I hope you have insurance.”
Ushijima is deeply impressed—by Oikawa, by simple, rugged determination, by the vast scope of the Internet that he has insofar been unaware of. The last time he searched something on the Internet, it was the meaning of a swear word that rhymed suspiciously with plant, but he does not tell that to Oikawa. He does not know what else to tell Oikawa besides that, so he keeps silent.
He can hear shouting on the other end of the line—socially incompetent dumbasses, the both of you!—hears Oikawa sighing, theatrically aggrieved. His voice, when he speaks, is theatrically cheery. Ushijima’s heart almost warms. “Changing one’s mind is a show of flexibility, not weakness,” he points out, unashamed.
Ushijima nods solemnly, and then remembers no one is there to see it. “I agree,” he says, because he agrees.
A pause. A hum, pleased with the agreement. “Well then. I guess I’ll do you this one favour.”
iv.
Ushijima learns, in a library at two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon when he is not supposed to be the one learning, that Oikawa Tooru’s definition of failure is a grade anywhere near the vicinity of a C.
Also, that Oikawa has spent a significant portion of his student life studying in this library, and knows thirty seven different blind spots located in between the shelves.
Also, that Oikawa kisses like he plays volleyball—smoothly harsh and furiously unforgiving and intuitively breath-takingly mind-blowing.
“As I thought,” Oikawa mutters between ragged breaths. His hands, cold, trail under Ushijima’s shirt. “You.” Fingertips, cold, skittering across the drawn-tight skin between his shoulder blades. “Cannot teach. At all. Absolutely lousy. Atrocious.” He nips at Ushijima’s chin for emphasis.
Your overall grade for this class was two thirds of mine, Ushijima wants to point out. The shelf is digging uncomfortably into the back of his head. Oikawa’s tongue is tracing the blunt ridges of his teeth at the same time his hand is tracing a straight line down Ushijima’s chest—his stomach—further, further. Ushijima is finding it difficult to point out anything at the moment.
This, Ushijima recognises, is a bad idea. It is probably dangerous and illegal. Doing dangerously illegal things will not reflect well on him when he wins the Olympics and journalists start searching the Internet for a scoop.
I hope you have insurance, Oikawa said. He does not.
Oikawa looks up at him from underneath his lashes and his eyes blaze, like fire, like a power surge, like a concrete building crumbling down, ruined.
Maybe, without knowing it, Ushijima has always been chasing bad ideas. Maybe the bad idea that is chasing bad ideas somehow negates the badness present in all these aforementioned ideas. Maybe. He feels too light-headed for this to make sense, and Oikawa has really pretty eyes, and Ushijima might still really need that beer.
He tugs at Oikawa’s waist, closer, and kisses back. Oikawa laughs against his lips.