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The sun is up, hardly. Only the barest of pink cuts through the grey lining the horizon, only the smallest slivers of yellow strike against the deep navies of the sky. The stars are still out, the moon still shines high and mighty like the crown jewel of the sky. There's a wind whipping around, howling outside as it rounds the walls of nearby houses.
Oikawa has morning practice, as he usually does. He has to be there early, to unlock the club room and the gym and to get everything set up, those are his average captain duties. Regrettably, he’d hardly gotten any sleep last night. He'd been preoccupied with studying some professional players and the time had slipped away like sands through his fingers.
He has practice. He has to be there early. He hardly got any sleep.
One would think that this dreadful combination would end in him oversleeping, maybe missing his alarm in his sleep-deprived haze. But instead of that much more likely scenario, Oikawa wakes at the ass-fucking-crack of dawn, wide awake and unable to find comfort in his own bed.
He shifts around for a little while, mashing his head between pillows and rearranging his sheets until his legs itch with a need to move and his overactive mind won't calm down enough to let him rest until the time his alarm will cut through the silence.
He drags himself from his bed, the sting of the morning air nipping at his exposed skin as he stumbles around to turn a light on. He thinks better of it and instead lets his eyes acclimate slowly to the mere slivers of sunlight that shine in the distance.
He wonders, vaguely, if anyone else is awake at the early hour. Surely not. With the way Iwaizumi is always preaching proper sleep schedules, with the way Matsukawa sleeps more than can be considered healthy, and with the way Hanamaki nearly passes out at an hour that is simultaneously all too late at night and all too early in the morning, Oikawa is sure none of them are up.
He lets out a sigh-groan combination and sulks over to his window. With sleep-heavy arms, he pushes it open, pulling off the screen to get the full effect of the morning air on his flushed cheeks. He crosses his arms on the window sill and leans into the whip of the wind.
He lets his eyelids flutter shut and upturns his nose ever so slightly.
It's cold, bitterly so. It stings his exposed skin and it burns his nostrils and the deep corners of his lungs. But he sucks it up, again and again until the bite is gone and what remains is the pleasant beginnings of a serene scent. It smells of cigarette smoke and of fresh spring, of leftover night chill and of slowly warming morning buzz. It's the earthiness of grass and it's the sweetness of flowers. It's the first hints of life in a sleep-heavy city.
Oikawa feels his lips quirk at the edges, an involuntary action as his chest swells and clenches with something so painfully pleasant. Mornings reek of Matsukawa in only the most wonderful of ways. It's the same earthiness, the same careless and breezy scent that is so effortlessly perfect that Oikawa feels himself swooning. He sways on his feet, quirk of lips growing into a suggestion of a smile.
He wonders, vaguely again—because he isn't quite in the right frame of mind and is willing to entertain silly fantasies—what Matsukawa would do if he were here. If he'd slept the night in Oikawa's bed and had tangled his legs with Oikawa's as he dozed heavily. Oikawa thinks of the many, many times Hanamaki has complained of Matsukawa's snoring. What had they compared it to? The pull starter of a lawnmower, Oikawa thinks. He also thinks that if Matsukawa were here, he could excuse snoring, no matter how obnoxious.
If Matsukawa were here, Oikawa knows he would probably wake drowsily. He always has those sleepily-lidded eyes, the ones that see all too much and never enough, the ones that are somehow always calculating and yet oh-so-silly when times allow it. Oikawa would love to see what those eyes look like freshly awoken. He figures they'd be nearly drunk on love, Matsukawa might even sport a crooked grin and sigh contentedly as he would pull himself from the nest of blankets to wrap his arms around Oikawa's waist and join him in gazing out the window.
Matsukawa could anchor him down, could hold him right and keep him from spiralling. He's good at that. He has a strong grip and an even stronger hold on reality that makes him the most perfect anchor. He may not have the brute strength of Iwaizumi, but he has a kind of lightness that makes him grounding and safe.
A cold emptiness surrounds Oikawa's abdomen where he lacks Matsukawa's rough touch and he tries to suck in more of the frigid air in an attempt to ward off the loneliness that stabs at his heart.
He can see Matsukawa at practice in only a short while. Missing him in such a painful way will do no good.
Oikawa sighs. He presses his eyes shut tighter, trying to stop his reeling mind from bringing him such intense thoughts at such an early hour. He breathes deeply through parted lips so he doesn't have to smell the fresh Matsukawa-ish scent of the morning dew, and slowly, he calms down.
When he manages to pry his eyes open, the sun is a little higher in the sky, shining a grey fog over the city. It's a little hazier, less crisp than the last moments of dark Oikawa had awoken to, and it leaves him feeling less sturdy than moments before.
When he takes another deep breath he can nearly smell the fog, the grey of it all. It's a little wet on his tongue, dewey like rainwater. It's nice.
It's very nice, and it's the same grey as Hanamaki's eyes. Oikawa wonders, as he watches the peaking sunlight cut through the fog and make it shimmer in all shades of yellow and pink, what Hanamaki's eyes would look like in this morning scape.
Their eyes are like mirrors, Oikawa's always thought so. Those eyes never show what they're truly feeling, they only reflect their knowledge of what others feel. Hanamaki takes what is around them and turns it back onto the world with their own quirky spin on it.
Maybe, in the glowing gray of morning, those eyes would show some soft reflection of the shimmering sun. Maybe they’d look all pink and orange and sweet like dripping ice cream on hot days.
Maybe Hanamaki would glance over to Matsukawa and Oikawa by the window and complain about the early hour. Oikawa can nearly hear their voice, low from sleep but high and whiny nonetheless, calling out, come back to bed, ‘s too early.
Maybe they would sleep in one of Oikawa’s T-shirts, positively glowing at how perfectly it fits. Maybe they’d wear a pair of Matsukawa’s sweatpants and run their fingers along the fabric of it, just because. Maybe they would smirk at Iwaizumi and say, maybe if you grew a couple more inches, I’d be able to wear your clothes. And Iwaizumi would glower.
It’s a lot of maybes and not a lot of definitelys. A lot of thinking and not a lot of doing. It’s an ache deep in Oikawa’s chest and he has to remember that he has time. He’s got an entire relationship ahead of him. It is only the budding seeds of romance between four high schoolers. He’s got time, he reminds himself, steels himself in a way that isn’t nearly as good as Matsukawa’s reassurance, not nearly as good as Hanamaki’s and definitely nowhere close to Iwaizumi’s.
Iwaizumi. More of a home, than an anchor. More of a home than the room Oikawa stands in now. More of a home than anywhere Oikawa has ever been. That’s Iwaizumi.
Oikawa takes another look at the landscape laid out in front of him, the view from the window of his childhood home. The view from the window he has looked out of nearly every day of his life. The view, the familiarity of it, the image of it that’s burned deep into the backs of his eyelids, brings him a sweet kind of feeling. It’s liquid honey trickling through his chest and it’s childhood memories and nostalgia on his tongue. And it’s Iwaizumi. It’s him in the way he’s always been there, and the way he always will be. It’s him in the promises and the teasing and everything that has made up their years of friendship.
If Iwaizumi were here, he might blend into the morning scape with the way it resembles him so strongly.
Oikawa bangs his head into the bottom of the window sill. He’s so stupid, to think and to feel, to bring such a sense of want and need onto himself when it’s not necessary.
He’s not sure how long passes before the alarm set on his phone sounds through the room with its musical chiming. He goes to turn it off, now ready to start his carefully planned morning routine, when a few distinct chimes echo through the set ringtone.
Text messages, Oikawa smiles as he unlocks his phone to check them. There’s a few from Hanamaki, a few from Iwaizumi, and a singular morning greeting from Matsukawa. Oikawa clutches his phone tight to his chest, fighting against the tense clenching of his heart.
His morning routine goes by in a blur, his mind preoccupied with the need to get to practice as soon as possible, not only to open the gym and club room, but also to see his partners. He sprints out of the house at record speed, tying his tie as he goes and typing quick texts with minimal regard for safety.
He misses them. It’s stupid, having seen them the previous day at school, but he misses them so much. The breeze of the morning carries with it the smell of Matsukawa, the look of Hanamaki, and the feel of Iwaizumi. The morning alone and the painful reminders of it have made Oikawa into a mess of emotion, charging to school on adrenaline and the winks of sleep he managed to get.
If he charges directly into a big group hug the second he sees Hanamaki, Matsukawa, and Iwaizumi waiting for him, then that secret can stay between the four of them, carried away on the morning breeze.