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Kuroo doesn't like taking the train—it's always extremely crowded to the point where you can't move out of a two-inch radius or you'll end up elbowing someone in the stomach. It's also hot in the trains, and you'd think they would at least think to have some kind of air conditioning installed, and it's at its worst in summer, when everyone is sweaty and irritable from the heat. There's also a lot of strange people that take the trains—and Kuroo doesn't count himself as a strange person, mind you—and you'll almost always end up listening to a crazy old lady tell stories about how she knits sweaters for her twelve cats or leaning away as far as possible in the crowded space from a man muttering nonsense to himself.
It's normal to hate the train. But what isn't normal is for him being forced to take the train home, because no one in his family can pick him up from volleyball practice and there's no other way to get back. (He spent his last cents on a vending machine drink, so a taxi is out of the question, and he hasn't gotten around to getting his license.) That's how he finds himself on the platform at the train station, tapping his foot impatiently and waiting to be swept onto the transport among hundreds of other people. The train comes soon enough, but the real problem arises when the doors open and people simultaneously move out as more rush in. He tries to squeeze through the crowd, but gets caught in the back of the swarm, and for half a second he fears getting trapped in between the metal doors. When he finally makes it into the train, he's close enough to the doors to get his hair stuck in them if he wasn't paying attention. There's no room whatsoever for him to move and he can feel someone breathing down the back of his neck and he thinks about how he really hates taking the train.
As the doors begin to slide closed, a boy appears at the platform and slips between the shrinking crack, slamming hard into Kuroo and pushing him backwards against the people behind him. There's mutterings of profanities and complaints and Kuroo hastily apologizes, even though it's really not his fault at all. The boy is catching his breath and seems to grin to himself, or so Kuroo assumes so, until he opens his mouth.
"That was close," he says brightly, dropping the gym bag that's sitting on his shoulder to the ground. "I was worried I'd be severed in half!"
Kuroo wonders briefly if the boy is talking to him and turns his head around, but he's definitely the one the boy is looking at. "Don't do stuff like that, then," he says monotonously.
"But I would've missed the train," the boy says. "That would've ruined everything—I'd be late for dinner, and then my mom would make me do more chores, so I wouldn't have as much time for my homework..."
He continues on blabbing and Kuroo thinks he's come across his first train weirdo of the day.
"What's your name?" the boy is suddenly asking, peering at him with curious eyes. They're almost the same height, Kuroo takes note of.
"Kuroo," he says.
"Like the color?"
"Sure."
The boy grins. "I'm Oikawa Tooru. You look kind of old. Are you in college?"
He doesn't know if he should be offended or not. "No, I'm in a high school. Third year."
"Me too!" Oikawa gasps excitedly. "How funny. Where do you go to school?"
Kuroo sighs tiredly, unable to understand why he's being bombarded with so many questions, but answers despite this. "Nekoma High. It's in the area."
Oikawa's eyes spark with recognition. "I've heard of your school! Our school's volleyball team played yours once, I think. I go to Aobajousai High School."
For the first time since the conversation, Kuroo looks him the eye, incredulous. "That's all the way in Miyagi—what are you doing on the Tokyo lines?"
Oikawa waves a hand carelessly in the air. "Oh, I live just outside the city, and this line takes me close to home."
Kuroo lets out a sound of understanding, expecting that to be the end of the conversation. (It isn't, of course.)
"Do you play volleyball?" Oikawa asks, pointing down at Kuroo's bag sitting on the floor next to his own.
He shrugs. "You could say so. I'm captain of the school's team."
"That's so crazy!" the other boy exclaims, bringing his face closer to Kuroo's in his excitement. "I'm captain, too!"
Kuroo opens his mouth to respond—though has no idea what he's going to say to that—when the train comes to abrupt stop, and most everyone on their feet is thrown off balance. Oikawa tips over and stumbles right into Kuroo's arms, who reacts quickly and keeps him from falling by wrapping an arm around his body. When the train stills and Oikawa is still presses against his body, he realizes just how intimate of a position they're in and quickly releases his body.
"Um, sorry about that," Kuroo mutters, averting his eyes to the ground and wondering why his face feels warm.
"No, I fell into you," Oikawa insists, grinning sheepishly. His eyes shift to something above Kuroo's head and he cries, "Oh, this is my stop!" As he gathers his bag from the floor and hoists the strap up onto his shoulder he says, "It was nice talking to you! Maybe I'll see you sometime soon at a match or something." The doors slide open and Oikawa steps out, and he looks over his shoulder to smile once more at Kuroo. "Goodbye, Kuroo-chan." Before Kuroo can respond, he's disappeared on the platform among the crowd of people.
//
When he gets home, Kuroo trudges up to his room and tosses his backpack and gym bag onto his bed, exhausted from the long train ride. He unzips his gym bag to take his uniform down to the washer, but when he opens up his bag, he finds that the uniform sitting on top most definitely does not belong to him. He takes the jersey from the bag and squints at it, as if that will somehow change it into his own. Besides the crisp white and bright cerulean that couldn't be more different from Nekoma's jet black and crimson red, the words Aobajousai High are printed across the back, right above a large 1 in the center.
He's in the midst of wondering to himself how he could've possibly ended up with an Aobajousai uniform in his bag, when he remembers meeting Oikawa Tooru earlier that afternoon on the train. I'm captain, too, he'd said, and Kuroo knows that nearly all the captains in the prefectures he's played against have the number 1 on their jerseys. This is definitely Oikawa's uniform. He figures in the midst of Oikawa's hasty departure, he'd mistakenly grabbed the wrong gym bag off the floor without realizing and left, leaving Kuroo to believe the leftover was his own. Oikawa must have his bag, he concludes, and groans in exasperation. He'll have to get a hold of the other boy somehow and, assuming he's noticed the careless error he made, arrange a time and place to swap each other's belongings back.
He stares down at the foreign uniform in his hands and wonders absent-mindedly if he should try it on quickly, because he can. The idea sounds ridiculous even to him, but the temptation to know what it feels like to wear a uniform of a completely different team solely because the option is available outweighs the awkwardness he knows he'll feel for doing it. He removes his t-shirt and pulls the jersey over his head, fitting it around his body. For the most part it feels just like he's wearing his own jersey, but when he goes to stand in front of the mirror, he scrunches his nose up at the colors. The white doesn't look good against his dark hair, and the blue is helping absolutely nothing. It would probably look a lot better on Oikawa, he finds himself thinking.
And for whatever reason, he finds that he likes wearing the jersey, that it gives him an off sense of calm and content he's unfamiliar with feeling. And since there's really no reason for him not to wear it, he keeps it on for the rest of the night, through dinner (thought he puts a sweater over i so his mother doesn't ask where he got it) and while he does homework. When it's so late that he has to force himself to keep his eyes open, he figures that it would be a squander of his time tochange clothes when he could be getting some sleep, so he turns off the lights, crawls into his bed, and falls asleep wearing Oikawa's jersey.
//
When he wakes up the next morning and rolls over in his bed to check his phone, he sees he's received a message from a number he doesn't recognize.
From: Unknown Number
kuroo, it's oikawa! :D i did some research last night and got your number from a friend of mine who's friend knows one of your teammates. anyway i'm sure by now you've noticed the careless mistake i made when i accidentally stole your bag leaving the train yesterday. i'm so sorry, i hope you didn't need anything in it for something important last night! :/ i promise i've taken good care of your stuff though so you don't have to worry about that, and i'll get your things back to you asap so make sure to bring my stuff with you to school today. see you soon! :)
Kuroo stares down at his phone, rereading the text as if there's a secret message hidden within it. It's just a text—a text from an annoying yet oddly charming volleyball player he met on the train yesterday, who has his clothes with him and whose clothes he has. (So why does he feel so weird, like his stomach is soaring and his heart is beating as fast as it does during a match?)
He changes out of Oikawa's jersey and into his own clothes, and then brings the entire bag down along with his backpack. He eats a quick breakfast and starts his walk to school, the entire way thinking of what Oikawa could have possibly meant when he said see you soon. How soon is soon, anyway? And how did he manage to sound so obnoxiously upbeat even in his texts?
By the time Kuroo gets to his first period class, his head hurts from over-thinking. Kenma gives him a worried frown when he sees the stressed look on his face, but he ignores it and sits down at his desk, dropping his head on the tabletop with a soft thunk. He struggles to sit up during all of his morning classes and at one point is called out by the teacher for not having his eyes on the board. He couldn't be more grateful when lunch break arrives, and he slips unnoticed out of the classroom and wanders about the campus. He's too busy kicking small pebbles around the concrete to notice the figure running up to him until he hears a familiar voice call, "Kuroo-chan!"
He knows it's Oikawa before he lifts his head. The brown-haired boy is half-sprinting-half-skipping in his direction with that same wide smile he had yesterday on the train. Bumping against his side is Kuroo's gym bag.
"I finally found you," he gasps as soon as he's in front of Kuroo. He lifts the bag off his shoulder and holds it up proudly. "I brought your stuff!"
"I can see that," Kuroo replies calmly, taking it from him. "I have yours in my gym locker, so if you want to just stay around here while I—"
"I want to come with you," Oikawa says cheerfully. "I've never seen your school before."
Kuroo shrugs with one shoulder, more to himself than the other boy. "Whatever." Oikawa is close beside him as he heads to the changing rooms outside the gym. Oikawa waits patiently as Kuroo spins the combination to his locker, opens it up, and pulls out his bag. He holds it out to Oikawa with a short, "Here you go."
"Thank you, Kuroo-chan!" Oikawa sings, sounding much too delighted over a bag than any normal person would be. (But then again, he's pretty much established that Oikawa Tooru simply isn't normal.)
"Sure thing," Kuroo replies stiffly. "And, uh, thanks, I guess." He's going to bid him goodbye, but stops and and watches as Oikawa unzips his bag and takes inventory of his things. There's a brief flash of something across his face that Kuroo can't define, but then he's looking up and smiling brightly again.
"You didn't, by chance, happen to go through my stuff?" He doesn't look angry, just genuinely curious.
Kuroo's mouth goes dry and he licks his lips once over nervously. "I...kind of did look at your uniform. I'm sorry, that's a total invasion of privacy—"
"Don't be silly, Kuroo-chan!" Oikawa bursts into laughter that sounds just as lovely as bells ringing in the distance. "I don't mind at all. In fact, I find it cute how you tried on my jersey."
Kuroo goes into a coughing for out of pure shock at what he said. He manages to wheeze between inhaling breaths of air, "How did you know that?"
Oikawa's smile turns the slightest bit smug. "I can tell when someone else has folded my clothes, and, in all truth, you did a pretty sloppy job of putting everything back together."
Kuroo ducks his head as he feels the blush creeping onto his cheeks. "I just did it because I could, you know? You're making it sound so creepy."
"It's not!" Oikawa assures him, and then giggles. "If it makes you feel better, I tried on your jersey, too."
There might as well be a permanent expression of bewilderment on his face by now, Kuroo thinks. "Oh. Um."
"The colors are very dark compared to ours," he continues. "The black and red give off a sort of menacing look that I bet intimidates other teams. Our colors are the kind that seem nice and sweet at first, but when we play—" He brings his fist to his palm with a loud smack and grins wickedly, "—we destroy them."
Kuroo swallows thickly, intimidated by the sudden change in his tone of voice.
Oikawa sees the look on his face and laughs. "I'm just kidding, Kuroo-chan!" He leans closer and smiles. "If you want, you can borrow my jersey sometime."
"I...um," Kuroo mutters.
"And I'll wear yours," he says, getting a far-off, dreamy look in his eye. "It'll be cute, like when couples share clothes!"
"We're not a couple," Kuroo sputters.
"Of course I know that." Oikawa over-exaggerates an eye roll. "I'm just saying it'll look like we are."
Kuroo is very confused, as well as very embarrassed. "I—do you want to...look like...a couple?"
Oikawa somehow grins wider. "Now, now, Kuroo-chan," he teases. "We've only just met; we should get to know each other before we start calling ourselves a couple."
"But you just said—" His entire face is burning and he drops his head into his hand with a groan. "Never mind."
"I have to ask you something," Oikawa says, and Kuroo peaks out at him through the openings in his fingers. His smile softens as he says, "Will you be taking the train more often?"
Kuroo drops his hand to his side and gives a slanted smile back. "Yes, I think I will be."
//
Kuroo used to hate taking the train; but now that Oikawa is with him during the rides, he doesn't mind all that much anymore.