Chapter Text
A few weeks after finishing his first year and Tobio, along with the other previous first years, as well as the second years had continued to meet up during the holidays to train for the next year.
They had decided to play a series of one set 3v3 matches which were spilt Group 1: Ennoshita, Hinata, & Tanaka, Group 2: Noya, Yamaguchi & Narita and Group 3 Kageyama, Tsukishima, & Kinoshita. Hinata’s little sister, who Tobio thought looked like a mini version of Hinata, had been tagging along to these meetings and was with Yachi helping keep track of the points.
The last match of the day was down to his team vs Noya’s. The score was 23:24 Tobio’s side in the lead. He served, Yamaguchi received, it was a bit off from the setters position, but Noya still got to it and set towards Narita, Tsukishima saw it coming and got them a kill block, winning the game.
Soon after everyone started heading off home, Tobio detoured to a vending machine outside of a nearby convenience store. While enjoying the yogurt the machine had chosen for him the door to the shop opened bringing an unexpected familiar voice.
“-ve in 2 more weeks, Iwa-chan”
Unable to help himself he stepped towards the corner and looked in the direction of the voice, and sure enough there was his old senpais. It wasn’t the first time Tobio had seen Oikawa and Iwaizumi in casual ware, but it didn’t happen often, and he since he wasn’t over thinking about his and Hinata’s quick, this time he was actually able to take it in.
The older setter had always put more into his looks than Tobio thought anyone needed to, Oikawa was just as attractive without all the excess things he did to emphasize it. Though he also knew it was from noticing Oikawa’s constant care of himself that Tobio had learnt how to take better care of his hands and fingers for volleyball, so it wasn’t one of the setter’s bad traits.
Iwaizumi didn’t put much if any care into his physical appearance at all, a more naturally rugged beauty to Oikawa’s cultivated one, Tobio thought both to be equally attractive.
“Tobio-chan?” Oikawa was the first to notice him come from out around the side where the vending machines were “what are you doing out this way?”
“Karasuno was practicing at the courts near here” Tobio answered before going back to his yogurt
“So you’re on your way home then” Iwaizumi observed to which Tobio just nodded
Iwaizumi looked towards Oikawa who sighed before looking towards him finishing off his yogurt
“Well since we ran into you might as well do this now, could you follow us for a bit?”
Tobio agreed to Oikawa’s request and followed his former senpais to a bench at a nearby park, where they sat in a somewhat awkward silence until the older setter spoke again.
“How was nationals?”
“We made it into the top eight, but I wish the team we had was able to go further’ Tobio smiled in memory of his next words. ‘Suga-senpai responded saying that proves there was a point in making it that far and since I was able to feel like that then it’d means I’d be able to feel the same about the future teams I’m on.”
“He’s right” Iwaizumi agreed with Suga’s past words
“Mr. Refreshing was a good senpai to for you, huh?” Oikawa said softly
He nodded, assuming Mr. Refreshing was referring to Suga and still having no idea why his old senpais had wanted him to follow them, epically when Oikawa usually avoided or tried to mock him
“Tobio” one of Oikawa’s rare moments of dropping the suffix he usually used told Tobio that what Oikawa wanted to say was serious, so he looked towards the setter and waited for him to continue
“I wanted to apologise for my behaviour during middle school.” Oikawa continued after a few moments “I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past year. I’ve seen how even Mr. Re-, Suga-san has helped you despite being a third year in the same position. The spot I held three years before him, and he did what I, as too much of an Insecure kid, didn’t.
“Pondering what if’s and could have been’s are pointless, what’s done is done, but I do know I need to do this. Do you remember that time Hajime stopped me from, from hitting you?” Oikawa said, bring up memories of that day to Tobio
Oikawa hadn’t playing his best that day, and Tobio had thought he had a chance to show his skill and how much he had been working to the senpais he had admired and the team he was apart of. Afterwards he had approached the senpai he admired the most at the time, Oikawa, and wanted to see if he had proved himself enough for the older setter to teach him how to serve.
What happened next had come completely unexpectedly to Tobio, Oikawa’s arms were swinging towards his face, Iwaizumi had been nearby and seemed to act faster than Tobio was able to process what was happening. After the older setter’s hands dropped back down he didn’t move while Iwaizumi told Tobio to head off, Oikawa was still just standing there unmoving.
It was that image of Oikawa seemingly frozen that stuck in Tobio’s mind more than the almost hit that had transpired just before. Tobio didn’t know what emotion he felt seeing Oikawa look like that, but he knew it hadn’t felt right. The days afterward Oikawa seemed back to his usual seemingly never serious self, but there still felt like there was something different from that point on.
Tobio realised Oikawa was waiting for him to reply “I do”
“Before that point” Oikawa continued to speak “In all of middle school I hadn’t been able to beat Ushiwaka once and then in my final year you join the team, naturally skilled and wanting to be setter. I felt threated by you. At that point all I could see in you was another Ushijima, another genius at volleyball who had come to take everything from me. As the year went on that frustration grew until it seeped into my playing in the game that day
“When you were subbed in, it felt like I was being replaced, that all the work I had done had been for naught, I hadn’t seen that it was my mind set that had stressed me out to make those mistakes, I had instead seen it as proof that I would never be good enough in the face of pure talent.” Oikawa’s voice had become shaky as he spoke of his genuine emotions and thoughts
“Afterwards when you approached me, I was lost in my own head, I didn’t hear you or see you. I saw me being subbed out, I saw Ushijima standing on the other side of the net staring down at me. When I did notice you standing there I wasn’t able to see you, all I could see was a threat I couldn’t escape getting closer. I can still remember my mind repeating the phrase, get way, it became an all consuming thought, but still you weren’t leaving and without though my arm moved.” Oikawa paused in his speech and Iwaizumi placed his hand on Oikawa’s shoulder, looking like he was giving Oikawa a small squeeze of support
“In that moment when Hajime grabbed my arm, I finally saw you, a kid two years younger than me who did nothing but follow me around and ask me to teach him new techniques. I also realised what I almost did to that kid. I almost struck you, I didn’t know what to do, what to think, Hajime did though.” A small smile and a slight laugh came from Oikawa “After you left, he headbutted me and reminded me about the value of teams
“I’m not saying any of this as some sort of excuse, I’m also not expecting to be forgiven. I needed to apologise to you for that moment, and for not being a good senpai before and after that point. I’ve realised that in order to stay ahead of you I’ve pushed myself further and further into the sport, I’ve become better at what I love in part because I didn’t want to be beaten by you.
“If I had been willing to see you as a potentially rival who can push me forward rather than simply a threat who knows how we might have ended up. Well that’s all I wanted to say, thanks for listening to all of this” Oikawa got up to leave
Tobio had been listening to Oikawa and there was definitely a lot to think about, but there was one thing he knew at least “You might not be expecting it, but I do forgive you”
Oikawa turned back towards Tobio while he continued “Or rather I never blamed you for that almost incident in the first place. There is still a lot of what you have said that I do need to think about but I want you to know that at least. You were never violent before or since that day, so I was able to figure out that you weren’t yourself at that moment, even without knowing why, so I never blamed you for that”
“As for not being a good senpai, even still I’ve always looked up to you, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked for your advice a few months ago when I bumped into you and your nephew, your advice did help me with that situation, so you may not have been a good senpai in middle school, but you weren’t completely terrible at it, so I do forgive you that as well” Tobio finished
“Thanks” Oikawa paused “Maybe one day we can have a match again”
“I look forward to it then” Tobio replied “Which university are you guys going to?”
Oikawa and Iwaizumi looked at each other than back to Tobio “I’m going to study physical therapy at university in Tokyo, Tooru will be heading overseas”
“Overseas?”
“Argentina” Oikawa informed him
“Might take a while for our rematch then”
“Yeah”
Tobio finished talking to is old senpais and finally headed home, the house was quiet, his parents away visiting Miwa’s salon in Tokyo at the moment. He grabbed dinner for himself, and was left to think on all Oikawa had said to him today. Overlapping him with Ushijima, seeing him as a threat, leaving for overseas.
So much had been revealed and Tobio needed time to process it all.
He was still thinking about it all when it came time for the farewell party the next day. Hinata had messaged the group chat saying he had something important to share with everyone before the party, and after a bit of trying to get Hinata to just message whatever it was, or at least that’s what Tobio was trying to do, Tanka and Noya had joined in but seemed to be trying to guess it, and a few others piped in as well until Suga stepped in saying that it was fine to do so, ending it all.
Hinata brought his little sister along again and after everyone caught up with the third years a bit Hinata shared what he needed to tell them.
“Our mum’s being transferred overseas and so is having us move in with our uncle in the Hyogo prefecture”
Hinata’s statement froze Tobio for a moment, he had come to rely on the simple completive friendship that had formed between him and the orange haired spiker, the idea of not having Hinata there was unsettling.
Hinata had been just what he needed the year prior, someone who pushed him, who he wasn’t afraid to be demanding with because he’d just be demanding right back.
Tobio wasn’t good at social stuff, wasn’t always good at expressing what he was thinking, and was often too direct when speaking to others making him come across as rude. With Hinata it hadn’t mattered. Hinata was also direct, though in the tangerine’s case it never seemed to come across as rude to the others like it did with Tobio.
The spiker had been good at seeming to always understand what Tobio meant with ease. And now he was going to have to deal without someone who could two years earlier that Tobio expected.
“I’m going to be aiming for Inarizaki” The others had gotten over the shock quicker and had already been asking follow up questions for Hinata to answer
“So you all make it to Nationals again and this time” Hinata looked straight at Tobio “we’ll be rivals”
We always were Tobio thought, but he still understood what Hinata meant, they’d be rivals across the court once again, similar yet different from their first meeting.
Once the party started everyone seemed to split off into their own groups, with Hinata being one of the few people moving from different groups, when the spiker got to him, Tobio explained a little of what had happened between him and Oikawa the day before, how he’d had awkward yet strangely calm conversation and finishing with how Oikawa and Iwaizumi weren’t going to be at the same university, though didn’t realise he forgot to mention that Oikawa was moving overseas until after Hinata had already moved on to another group.
After a while the party died down and everyone headed home, Tobio was trying to think about how the next year of volleyball was going to go, since the team had all become almost reliant on Hinata’s abilities as a decoy for the bases of their offense, and now they’d have to change that. He knew that the team had improved overall in throughout the year though, and because of that Tobio knew they still had a chance at taking on Nationals.