Chapter Text
When Sugawara Koushi entered his train car home that Monday evening, it took Oikawa approximately four minutes and twenty-seven seconds to remember his name.
To his credit, four minutes and twenty-seven seconds is probably a record for him – the only names that tend to stick in his head are those of his team and a few from his class, but he can only recall those after years of repetition and a few awkward encounters. The names of strangers tend to go in one ear and fly out the other.
After all, that’s exactly what Sugawara Koushi was: a stranger. He doesn’t think he’s ever exchanged a single word with the guy, and it had been around three months since he saw him at the Inter-high. But simply glancing at his silver hair and barely registering his lithe frame, facts and figures started swirling in his mind at great speed.
Karasuno high school, third year – shorter in height (spike the ball over his head), analytical and thinks on the court (mix up our plays, be less predictable), changes the mood of the game (squash him as soon as possible), trusted by his entire team (tends to favour their ace) simple but reliable setter (by no means a genius-
The jostle of the train car snaps him out of it. For one brief minute, he’d thought he was in the middle of a game; he could see the number 2 jersey, he knew how far his fingertips reached over the net, he could hear the round of high-fives that Karasuno’s reliable substitute server would give out before he set foot onto the court.
He had to physically shake his head to dispel the rest of the stalker-level information whispering in his head (Vice-captain, Daichi’s right-hand man), but when he’d pulled himself back to reality he jumped as he noticed a pair of warm brown eyes on him, the exact warm brown eyes that he’d grown accustomed to be filled with dangerous determination on the other side of a net.
This time, Sugawara was raising his eyebrows at him, recognition flashing across his face. Automatically, Oikawa schooled his expression into one of indifference, simply nodding with his chin at the other setter and turning his gaze outside at the rapidly passing suburbs. But when he stole another glance at the guy, he found him to be smirking at him, a dimple pressing into his cheek.
(fuck, he’s pretty)
He quickly averted his gaze back out the window.
The next day, he was there again. Instead of standing by the door, leaning against one of the bars like he had done the previous evening, Sugawara was sat on one of the seats, headphones in and mouthing along to the lyrics of whatever hideous song he was probably listening to. Oikawa was never one for sitting on the train, even if every single seat was available. He liked feeling the thrum of the train car through his feet, feeling the changing of the tracks vibrating through the soles of his shoes. It reminded him of the squeaks of the ground against his trainers as he ran from one side of the court to the other; it evoked whispers of the adrenaline that would pump through his veins.
(Or maybe he was just being dramatic.)
Oikawa himself was clinging onto one of the overhead hanging handles with one hand, the other holding onto his Japanese literature notes. The words were starting to blur together as he read them over and over again, their assigned poetry going in one ear and out the other like the countless number of stranger’s names he’d failed to commit to memory. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes and yawning deeply.
A snort stopped him mid-yawn and he narrowed his eyes, head whipping around to find the source of the noise. Sugawara sat in his seat innocently, very obviously avoiding eye-contact but the upturned lips of his slightly wonky smile betrayed him. Frowning, Oikawa bit the inside of his cheek and turned his attention back to his hastily-written literature notes, mouthing each brightly highlighted word.
“Achoo!”
Oikawa winced, wrinkling his nose. Sugawara was sat in his usual seat (oh god, that’s how normal this had become for him – he’s got a usual seat) and was sniffling behind a white mask, shivering slightly. Oikawa found himself on the opposite side of the train car to the germ cloud that Sugawara was currently exuding, turning up his nose and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
Sugawara sneezed again and at the sound of repeated shuffling Oikawa turned to see the poor guy rifling through his school bag, pulling out a hot water bottle and setting it aside before continuing to evict his many books and pencil cases from their home. There were only a few other students in the carriage, many of whom from other, smaller schools in the area, but none took notice of the right state that Sugawara was in. Sighing, Oikawa gave in to the twinge of pity in his chest, glancing at a sign on the wall displaying that his stop was next. Rifling through his own pockets, he pulled out a barely used packet of tissues, mulling his next actions over before committing to them.
Just as the train started to approach his stop, he stalked towards Sugawara and held the tissues out towards him. They had the popular cartoon character Gudatama’s yellow face emblazoned on the plastic and it was far too late for Oikawa to feel embarrassed about the childish packaging. With Sugawara looking up at him, surrounded by various textbooks and sheets of paper, his knees knocking against Oikawa’s shins, the latter suddenly realised something.
He’d never stood this close to him before. Not without a net between them.
Sugawara’s face behind the white mask was hard to read, but Oikawa was sure it was sporting some expression of astonishment. After all, surely they were supposed to be rivals? Surely their entire relationship so far had consisted of wishing the other bad fortune, hoping that they’d drop the next ball, miss the next serve, block the wrong spiker?
But Oikawa surprised himself. There wasn’t a drop of animosity in his veins. Simply the thrum of the train beneath his feet and the crinkle of the plastic in his fingers. Slowly, as if waiting for Oikawa to snatch the tissues back, cackling at his demise before flouncing off into the sunset, Sugawara took the packet from him, smirking behind his mask when he recognised the cartoon face on it.
“Thank you.” He said, and it was then that Oikawa had another revelation: he’d never really heard the other boy speak before. On the court, the general buzz of the spectators and his fellow team members drowned out any dialogue he would’ve heard between his opponents, especially the soft spoken vice-captain of Karasuno.
(soft, like the fingers that had briefly brushed his own)
“No problem,” he replied, before the train slowed down to a stop. “Ciao!”
Too many people. Too many people. Shuffling, touching, coughing, breathing.
Too many people.
Oikawa was stood in the middle of the carriage, a decisive choice that meant that he would be far away from most of the other commuters, who tended to cluster near the doors to the train. His daily train journey lasted around thirty seven and a half minutes, so he had no need to wait by the exit or keenly watch out for his stop. These thirty seven and a half minutes were his time to himself, a bubble in which no first-year fangirls can penetrate, no teammates could breach, no family could pop.
It was peaceful.
Usually.
There must have been some sort of event at one of the stations his train stopped off at, for ten minutes into his journey the doors had opened and passenger upon passenger flooded into his carriage, crowding him into a corner and quite definitely popping his bubble. There was an arm digging into his back, feet nudging his knee, someone’s shoulder was pressing into the side of his head and he needed to leave leave leave leave leave.
He was aware of every single thing pressed against his body, limbs and body parts that he wanted to thrash against with all his might, and fuck suddenly he was aware of the rub of his uniform against his neck and the creases of his track pants against his shins and the weight of his school bag on his arm and it was too much, too much, too much.
He could feel his breathing become funny and before he knew it, as soon as the train doors were open on whatever stop his cursed train had pulled up to now he was gathering his things and pushing past everything and everyone, marching into the safe haven of the random train station. He spotted a wooden bench on the platform and nearly cried with relief, collapsing onto it without a lick of grace and taking a few heaving breaths, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his face with his hands.
But then his mind caught up with his body and he realised that there had been footsteps following him onto the platform.
And then his eyes caught up with his brain and he realised that there was a pair of feet on the ground on which his gaze was currently fixated.
He closed his eyes, praying to whatever god was up there that this wasn’t the person he thought it was. Then he braved to open them again, leaning back on the bench and finding himself face to face with none other than Sugawara Koushi, a water bottle in his outstretched hand.
He stared, mouth embarrassingly agape, before he quickly manipulated his expression into one of annoyance. He internally cursed the way in which he breathed out shakily, swiping the bottle Sugawara was offering to him with one hand and breaking the seal, only now realising the dryness of his throat. Oikawa gulped the water down as if he’d been depraved of the liquid for days, less so for hydration but more so for the feeling of something cooling, calming, refreshing in contrast to the sticky heat of the train.
Mr Refreshing
The nickname lit up in his head. He was reminded of the calming presence Sugawara had on his team during their match in the Inter-high preliminaries. It’s the same calming presence that he exuded now as he sat down beside him, delicately placing his school bags on the ground between their feet. Oikawa removed the bottle from his mouth and breathed out heavily, chest heaving, and scrunching the bottle in his shaking hands.
(why won’t they stop shaking?)
He pressed them together desperately, willing the last dregs of nerves to leave his rattling breath.
A pair of hands wrapped around his own.
They were paler than his, slightly smaller, fingertips slightly pink in the setting sun. Warmth ebbed from their touch and his heart stuttered, but the incessant quivering of his hands seemed to slow; he was safe, he was grounded, he was here.
“Are you alright?” asked Sugawara and curse him, curse him for caring, curse him for running after a boy he barely knew because he wanted to make sure he was okay.
Oikawa averted his gaze, turning his head to read the sign that told him the next train would arrive in three minutes. He considered ignoring the question – after all, it wasn’t his fault that Sugawara felt the need to follow him. But his hands were so warm, and so grounding after his panicked stupor. He swallowed, taking another deep breath.
“Yeah,” he bit his lip. “I just…don’t like big crowds.”
Sugawara let out a questioning noise and he sighed once more.
“I don’t like when people touch me.”
The pair of hands around his own retracted almost immediately and without thinking he let out a whine. An honest to god whine. He clapped a hand to his mouth in horror, feeling himself redden before he realised that Sugawara had snorted beside him, that same ugly snort from a few days prior. Oikawa shoved him lightly, still blushing, which only made Sugawara laugh louder.
He considered pushing him to the ground so that he would be late for their oncoming train. But then Sugawara stood up, neatly plucked the crushed water bottle from beside him, and was already walking towards the platform, leaving Oikawa to splutter in his wake.
Oikawa was sitting down.
That’s it. The end of the world was nigh. For Oikawa Tooru was sitting down on the train, hands clasped together and foot tapping against the floor as he watched the suburbs fly by through the window.
(he needed to sit down, especially after yesterday)
He couldn’t stop thinking about the gentleness of Sugawara’s hands clasped around his. It just didn’t make sense, and it had been plaguing his thoughts the entire day. No one had ever been that gentle with him before – the closest thing he could think of was the way his teammates would clap him on the back or shoulder during a match. Or perhaps the brief touch of hands when he was pulling someone up from the floor of the gym. Even his best friend Iwaizumi hardly made physical contact with him despite the years of spending the majority of the school day in each other’s presence – the closest he had gotten was smacking the back of his head after a particularly insensitive ‘your mom’ joke.
But here comes Sugawara Koushi waltzing in, with his perfect setter’s fingers and his stupid snorting laugh, cradling his shaking hands in his own and thereby sealing Oikawa’s fate in stone.
He put his head in his hands, scrunching up his nose and sighing deeply. I’ve got to get a grip, he thinks to himself. But then a familiar pair of shoes entered his line of vision and he looked up to see the very person harassing his thoughts.
“You know, we have to stop meeting like this.” Sugawara smirked, and before Oikawa has a suitable retort in reply he’s sat down right beside him, knee knocking against his.
The other boy simply put his earphones in and hummed to himself, as if sitting beside Oikawa hadn’t created a monumental bridge between the two of them that either boy was now free to cross. Oikawa’s suddenly reminded of the Korean dramas he watches as a guilty pleasure, and how normally in this sort of scenario the male protagonist would gaze into the female character’s eyes and the cliché romantic music would crescendo as she’s swept into his arms: the classic Romeo and Juliet storyline.
Except this was Japan. He was not the Juliet to Sugawara’s Romeo. They were simply on rival high school volleyball teams and the only music playing in the background was the tinny ‘Japan’s top 100’ playlist he had playing through his own headphones.
Day after day, they continued on like this. Neither talking to the other except for a “Heya,” or a “See you tomorrow!” and spending their shared twenty three minutes sat together in silence, each with their headphones in and bopping along to their respective music. Some days, Oikawa would be bent down over his literature notes, tongue sticking out and scratching his head in an open manner he only possessed around Iwaizumi. On others, Sugawara would be highlighting passages in his chemistry textbook, eyebrows drawn together in concentration and sighing whenever he got onto a difficult section. (He sighed a lot on pages with a lot of numbers on them, Oikawa noted.)
On these days, Oikawa contemplated offering to help him out. Chemistry was one of his strongest subjects (he was always better at subjects that utilised logic) and the textbook Sugawara used was the same one his school offered. The closest he’d gotten was tapping him on the shoulder when he’d noticed that Sugawara was very much writing the wrong equation down oh my god don’t do that it’ll mess up the charges completely.
He also had a feeling that the boy next to him watched him sometimes. Perhaps it was a sixth sense that he’d developed over years of volleyball but whenever he found himself chewing on a pencil as he read yet another poem, he swore he could feel a pair of eyes on the side of his head, or looking over his arm to assess his fervent notes.
His suspicions were confirmed when Sugawara walked in one day with a classic literature book.
In English.
“There’s no way you can read that.” He said without thinking. Sugawara paused, halfway through saying “Hey,” before looking down at the book in his hand and back up at Oikawa in surprise.
“Well I’m already halfway through it, so if I can’t read god knows what I’ve been doing for the past week.”
Oikawa rolled his eyes, moving his sports kit out of the way so his travel companion could sit. Smiling, Sugawara sat down, only for Oikawa to sidle up to him and look over his shoulder at the book in his hand, eyes narrowing as he tried to sound out the title.
“J…Ja…Jane…”
“Eyre.” Sugawara finished for him, chuckling at the expression of disbelief on the other boy’s face.
“No way those letters make that sound.”
“And why would I lie to you?”
“‘Cause you’re the enemy, Sugawara-san.”
It was Sugawara’s turn to roll his eyes, before he gingerly placed his sports kit right on top of Oikawa’s. The carriage was a little fuller than usual, so he supposed he’d done that simply to conserve on space, but the thought of Sugawara being comfortable enough with him to place their bags together warmed Oikawa’s insides.
“Call me Suga.” Was all he said, before putting in his headphones.
Oikawa’s insides did a flip.
“Why do all the books you read have names of girls as their title?” Oikawa raised an eyebrow, pointing at the cover of the new book Sugawara was thumbing through beside him. (Reh-bec-a he sounded out in his head.)
“Because, Oikawa-san,” Sugawara’s index finger turned over the page. “All the best books are written about women.”
Oikawa scoffed, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. “You’re such a literature snob.”
“Well fine, all the best movies are about women, too.”
Sugawara’s eyes didn’t leave his page, but Oikawa could tell from his small smile that he wasn’t really reading, just waiting for him to take the bait. But he wouldn’t let him.
“Fine, then. What movies do you watch that are all about women?”
The other setter reddened.
Aha, gotcha.
“I don’t know, just…movies I guess.”
Oikawa tugged at the sleeve of Sugawara’s jacket. “Oh come on, tell meeeee!” He drew out the ‘ee’ sound in the exact annoying voice he knew all too well from babysitting his nephews, in the exact pitch that he knew for a fact would make anyone want to reach for a bottle of aspirin.
“Ssssshhh!” An elderly woman sat in front of them shushed him angrily, clutching at the small handbag in his lap and shooting daggers at the rowdy teenagers before her. It was Oikawa’s turn to redden, instantly letting go of the fabric of Sugawara’s jacket and returning to his position on the seat, pouting.
Sugawara snorted beside him and Oikawa, forever dramatic, pointedly slid his body to the left so that the gap between the two boys increased, a clear indication of his superficial annoyance and hurt. Refusing to even look at the other boy, Oikawa kicked at a ball of fluff he found on the floor of the train, vaguely registering the sound of ripping paper but refusing to give in to his growing sense of curiosity.
That was until a familiar pale hand was waving an unfamiliar piece of paper right under his nose. Rolling his eyes, he plucked the note from his companion’s grasp and unfolded it.
Upon inspection, two things surprised Oikawa:
One, Sugawara had ripped out the corner of a page of one of his beloved books just to pass him a note and
Two, said note was a line of ten neatly printed digits, followed by a wonkily drawn smiley face.
He sat, dumbfounded, staring at the note before he glanced at Sugawara, who had simply returned to his book. Reaching into his pocket, Oikawa unlocked his phone (Gudetama’s yellow face smiling up at him on his wallpaper), and opened his contacts, punching in each digit with the keypad. His thumbs hovered over the contact name for a moment, before he decidedly typed it in with his keyboard.
To: Train-san
i cannot believe u ripped out a page of your book
From: Train-san
i cannot believe it took u that long to type in 10 numbers into ur phone
Oikawa jabbed him in the ribs and Sugawara stifled another snort.
To: Train-san
i’m hurt, truly
To: Train-san
i will not tolerate this SLANDER
From: Train-san
wow that’s a big word, im so proud of u
To: Train-san
sLaNdER