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You don’t know why it bothered you so much.
You never really thought much about Oikawa Toru. It wasn’t that you disliked him; no, you simply weren’t impressed by him. He was good at what he did – that didn’t mean that he deserved special treatment.
Maybe it aggravated you how most of your friends would fawn over the setter, and maybe you would roll your eyes and scoff when you would make your way out of the school only to have your way blocked with the boy and his flock of doe-eyed squealing girls and boys, but it wasn’t that you hated him. You just didn’t think he was anything to lose your head over, especially since most people had something better than a silly unrequited crush to look forward to.
You absentmindedly rub at your neck, just below your shirt collar, where the first words your soulmate will speak to you are scrawled in a messy script.
Afterall, everyone has a soulmate, so why waste your time pining over someone who likely isn’t going to be yours.
A shrill voice above the rest knocks you from your reprieve, and you stand patiently waiting for your upperclassman’s fangirls to disperse.
“Oikawa-san! You look particularly happy today; you’re smiling so handsomely! Did something good happen over the weekend?”
You don’t know why it bothers you so much.
“Oh, it just makes me so happy to see all of you so happy!”
He chirps the words back to the girl who spoke, but gestured all around him, punctuating the sentence with his most dazzling grin yet.
You don’t know why it bothers you so much that you know that he is lying .
That his smile isn’t real, that his answers are mere platitudes, as though it is his job to keep all these ridiculous girls happy. That you know that he hasn’t been happy all day, that the smiles that she referred to have been nothing but empty masks.
You don’t know why it bothers you so much that Oikawa is hurting, and that he is lying about it.
You stand there, leaning against the wall with your brow furrowed, staring unseeingly at the ground. You remained that way for some time, oblivious to the sounds of a peeved Iwaizumi retrieving the setter for practice and the sad sounds of the girls wishing the setter good luck, until finally silence washed over you and you blink back up to the cleared walkway.
You shrug and make your way home, shaking away any lingering thoughts of the setter.
Your younger cousin started playing on the team that school year, so when he noticed your lack of attempts to interact with their captain, he tried to convince you to join the team as a manager.
“Please, Y/n? You’re not part of another club anyway! You’d be a really great fit with the team!”
You rolled your eyes at your cousin, “I’m not part of a club because I prefer to focus on my studies, ‘taro.” Kindaichi opened his mouth to say something, but you finished, cutting him off: “And anyways, you don’t actually want me to be part of the team, you just want me to join because it wouldn’t be to try to get closer to that captain of yours.”
Your cousin groaned. “Can’t it be both? You would fit in well with the team, and you wouldn’t be joining for ulterior motives.”
You just raised an eyebrow and held back a laugh, “Don’t you have a practice to get to right now?”
He blinked once at you, before checking the time, and hurrying off towards the clubroom.
“Just think about it, at least!” He called over his shoulder as he went.
You did think about it. A lot.
You even went to a few of their practice games to observe the team – without telling your cousin of course, he would never have stopped bugging you if he had found out you were genuinely considering it.
It didn’t make sense why it seemed appealing to you – you had very little interest in the sport itself, and other than Kindaichi and some of the second years, you weren’t close with any of the guys on the team either.
After one of the practice games, you slipped out the back of the gym, trying to avoid running into your cousin, and the congestion of all the other students who had come to watch.
The game had been against Shiratorizawa, the ongoing rivalry between the two teams created a draw for many of your fellow students. They played hard, but they lost.
The gym had still been in an uproar for quite some time after the teams had exited, and you had remained in your seat hoping that at least some people might start to file out. Most seemed happy to stay and talk amongst themselves, however.
Exiting through the back of the gym had been a bit of a miscalculation on your part.
You ran into the usual large group of fangirls, who were, once again, blocking your way.
You let your back fall against the metal door that just closed behind you, and resigned yourself to wait. You took in the sight before you and noted that Oikawa’s smile seemed even more strained than usual. He didn’t seem all too interested in entertaining the group of girls today, and frankly, you couldn’t blame him. They had just suffered a pretty hard loss.
Eventually the girls began dispersing, Oikawa skillfully shooing them away by citing needing to meet up with the team to go over the game (which again, you immediately recognized was a lie).
He remained waving and smiling at the girls even as they moved away. Your gaze stuck to him, he hadn’t noticed you, and before you realized what you were doing, you spoke.
“Why do you always lie?”
His posture straightened at the sound of your voice and his eyes met yours. There was a long beat of silence as the setter stared at you a little shocked by your question. Eventually his look turned calculating, as though he was trying to decipher your words.
You blinked, and you felt fire creeping up your neck into your cheeks and ears.
“I, ah… sorry that was incredibly rude of me. I was just… you never mean it when you smile. I just… I guess I was wondering why you seem to put their feelings before your own. You don’t owe anything to them. You’re allowed to be… unhappy…” You trailed off, and you diverted your gaze, apologizing again before quickly walking off, in the direction of home. Brown eyes followed you until you rounded the building, and out of sight.
You wondered if the ground would do you the favour of swallowing you whole.
The next few days you did your best to avoid the setter. You knew you probably offended him, and you felt bad for your words. It was so unlike you to just blurt out such a prying question at someone you didn’t even know! To your dismay you seemed to be hyper aware of the older boy now. He seemed to pop up no matter where you were at school. You would be in the hallway, between classes and suddenly there he was. Spending lunchtime in a friend’s classroom – suddenly you happen to look up and there he was peering in the doorway. After school in the library, a pair of familiar brown eyes are meeting yours through the bookcase.
Didn’t they have practice? What is he doing here?
You blink at the gaze for a moment before turning and hightailing it out of the library.
You are stopped dead in your tracks in the empty hallway when a familiar sentence is called out from behind you.
“You know, I can’t tell if you’re avoiding me, or if you’re just generally a difficult person to locate.”
There was a slightly teasing lilt to the voice that, paired with the burning sensation that ripped through the tattoo scrawled across your shoulder blade, sent a shiver up your spine. You turned to find the setter looking at you slowly making his way closer to where you stood, a small smile spread across his lips.
“Oh.”
His smile grew at the small sound that fell from your lips.
This time, the smile wasn't a lie.