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“Oikawa… I know your secret.”
Oikawa slowly turned around to see Ushijima standing in the hall. “Haa? Whatever could you mean, Ushiwaka? I don’t have any secrets!” He stared right back at the spiker, almost daring him to either respond or drop it.
Ushijima just looks at him blankly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”
“What?” Oikawa is a little mystified, to be honest. What secret does Ushiwaka think he knows? That Oikawa only got an 80 on that quiz in Literature? That Oikawa replaced his shampoo with a similar, better-quality shampoo, because he couldn’t stand seeing such cheap, low-grade products in the bathroom? …That Oikawa is only here to learn all the team’s weaknesses and by the time Interhigh rolls around, he’ll go right back to Aoba Johsai?
That last one would be difficult to talk his way out of, he has to admit.
“Music is an important aspect of many people’s lives. It’s commendable that you’re involved in that as well as volleyball.” Ushijima starts walking and passes Oikawa, unaware of the effect of his comment.
Oikawa gapes at him, frozen for a moment before he rushes to catch up, nearly stumbling over his own feet in the process. “Wait, what?”
“Eita told me you were interested in singing. Was that incorrect?”
“No, no, he’s right, I am—he’s teaching me songs other than just, like, Wonderwall, although I don’t see why it was so funny that—” Oikawa shakes his head. “No, nope, now you’re distracting me. Why did you call that a secret?”
Ushijima glances over. “Ah. I suppose it was my misunderstanding, then. That time I mentioned that I heard you singing in the shower, you seemed embarrassed.”
Oikawa runs a hand through his hair. Ushijima remembers that? Oikawa barely remembers that! He sings in the shower all the time anyway, but his roommate hasn’t commented on it since the first week of school— apparently out of decency and a respect for privacy. Wow. Who would have known the people at Shiratorizawa were so nice?
No, no. He couldn’t think like that—they were his rivals! He was only here to spy on them!
Even if Semi was teaching him to sing better.
Even if he fit in well with the team.
Even if dense, annoying Ushiwaka was kind of, sort of, actually, a good roommate.
Oikawa realizes they’ve been walking in silence for a bit and scrambles for something to dispel it. He ends up blurting out, “Do you sing at all?”
Ushijima considers the question. “No, although Eita said I could probably be good at it if I tried.”
Oikawa rolls his eyes. “You’re good at most things, Ushiwaka. Like Satori-chan says: Miracle Boy!” His tone is sarcastic, but really, he is a little jealous. Just a little, though.
“I’m not that great,” Ushijima says steadily. “I just practice, like you do with your jump serves.”
Semi pops out of a doorway. “There you are! I wanted to try something with some new chords I learned—oh, hi, Wakatoshi. Wanna join?”
Oikawa grins and nudges the ace standing next to him. “I don’t think Ushiwaka would know a chord from a bass clef, Semi-chan.”
“A chord is a series of notes played at the same time, and a bass clef is a lower register of notes.”
Semi gives Ushijima a thumbs-up, while Oikawa just stares at him.
Ushijima returns his gaze. “Music is important to Eita. I thought it would be beneficial for our friendship that I learn more about it.”
“Very cool, dude,” Semi agrees. “Do you wanna come in, then? I was thinking…” He goes on to talk about some idea he has, something to do with bass, tenor, harmony, and some instrumental track he downloaded on his phone?
All Oikawa knows is that suddenly he’s got a cheap microphone in his hands, and so does Ushijima, and Semi’s room has been converted to a mini recording studio.
“Ugh, Iwa-chan, it’s not fair!” Oikawa whines, an hour later, rolling over onto his back on his loft bed. Luckily Ushijima had gone for a run after Semi had convinced them to sing a few songs, so he isn’t anywhere in their room.
“What is it this time?” Iwaizumi’s voice crackles over the speaker of Oikawa’s shiny new phone that he hasn’t figured out how to use yet.
“Hold on,” Oikawa mutters. “You need to see my distressed face to properly understand this.”
Iwaizumi sighs. “I think I can imagine it.”
Oikawa ignores his best friend, pressing buttons that look relevant until the video pops up and he sees Iwaizumi’s face from below, moving in and out of the picture as the sky fills the screen. Meanwhile, Iwaizumi probably gets a great view of Oikawa’s purple alien socks before he figures out how to flip the camera. “Are you jogging?” Oikawa pouts.
The movement of the camera slows down and Iwaizumi comes into focus at a normal angle. “Yeah, practice wasn’t great today so I’m running laps around the block. Matsukawa and Hanamaki wimped out after two laps.”
Oikawa snorts a laugh. “You know how they are. Why’d you ask them?”
Iwaizumi shrugs. “What’s got you in a funk now? Does Ushiwaka fold his socks weirdly?”
Oikawa turns over again and buries his face in his pillow. “I don’t care how Ushiwaka folds his socks, Iwa-chan, it’s his voice that annoys me! Did you know he’s good at singing, too? He just focuses on volleyball because that’s the only thing in his brain. Ugh!”
“Singing?” Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow.
Deep breath. “Yeah, you’ve seen their setter in our year, right? Semi-chan? Funny coloured hair? He plays guitar, and he’s really good at it, too, I don’t think that’s something Ushiwaka can do at least. I walked in on him playing once and he suggested starting a band, although we still don’t have enough people. But he’s taught me how to read sheet music and sing a few more songs, and somehow—somehow Ushiwaka found out about it! And then Semi-chan dragged the both of us into singing.”
“Huh.”
“Is that all you have to say?!” Oikawa whines.
Iwaizumi sits down on a bench. “You’re clearly going somewhere with this. I just figure I’ll let you talk it out.”
Oikawa pouts, but keeps going. “Anyway. I sang a bit of a song. Ushiwaka sang another bit—not at the same time, I would have gotten too annoyed to keep singing, but his voice is actually really good—like, objectively—and it’s not fair!”
“That’s it, then? You think his voice is nice and you’re mad about it.”
“Yes— no— well…” Oikawa trails off. “I guess it’s, kind of, nice to listen to…?” He exhales sharply. “But it annoys me like crazy! Why is he good at everything? At least Semi-chan didn’t say his voice was better than mine, that would be ridiculous.”
“Right,” Iwaizumi drawls. “Because you have so much professional practice time in the shower.”
Oikawa runs a hand through his hair. “You’re just jealous I have a better skincare routine than you,” he says breezily. “But that’s not the point! The point is—oh, hold on.”
Iwaizumi almost looks a little interested at this interruption. Surely he wasn’t bored with the topic. “What’s going on?”
Oikawa gasps. “Semi-chan sent me a video from earlier!” He presses on the notification. “Hold on, you have to see this.” He pulls it up and, after a brief pause where he nearly presses all the buttons, figures out how to share his screen with Iwaizumi. The video plays; it’s a few minutes long, patched together, and then it’s over.
“Wow,” Oikawa breathes, a little starstruck.
“Wow,” Iwaizumi echoes. “That audio quality was shit.”
“Hey!” Oikawa shrieks. “That—that was just because the screen share function is weird, dumbass! I’ll send it to you, hold on.” He minimizes the call, copies the video, and is about to send it to his friend when the door opens and, in a startled jerk reaction, he accidentally ends the call.
Oikawa drops his phone on his chest and sighs. “Jeez, you startled me, Ushiwaka-chan.”
Ushijima looks up over the edge of Oikawa’s bed. “Sorry. I thought I knocked first.”
“Not loud enough,” Oikawa grumbles, then brightens up. “Hey, you’re done with your run, right? Did you get the video from Semi-chan?”
Ushijima shakes his head. “No, I was running. I usually leave my phone here because the notifications are distracting.”
“Aha! Then I get to see your reaction!” Feeling a little triumphant, Oikawa throws his legs over the edge of the bed and jumps down, stumbling a little and steadying himself on Ushijima’s shoulder. He flips his phone in landscape mode and hits play for the second time, his eyes flickering between the video itself and Ushijima’s face. Disappointingly, he doesn’t react all that much, until it reaches the part where Semi put together the recordings of all three of them.
Oikawa won’t lie, it does sound really good. Semi is singing a medium pitch harmony, Ushijima is singing the low harmony, and Oikawa has the melody, and it sounds damn good all put together like that. Listening to it, Ushijima actually smiles. It’s not very wide, but it’s clearly a smile, and it does funny things to Oikawa’s insides.
Oikawa looks away and lets the video finish playing. He stands up. “I think I’m going to go for a run now,” he mutters. “You don’t have to come with me, since you just went.”
“Alright.” Ushijima nods; it is a sensible thing to say, after all. Oikawa knows as well as anyone that you need rest in between workouts. “Be careful.”
Oikawa rolls his eyes and grabs his jacket, shoving it on as he leaves. “Be careful,” he repeats mockingly. “What, like I’m gonna get lost at this enormous school? Because Ushiwaka is such a team player.” He slips his phone in his pocket as it starts playing—
“Crap,” he curses. He doesn’t need to hear the video again, dammit! It’s just going to put his thoughts in a loop in his head. Thoughts like—oh, maybe he does like Ushiwaka’s voice or maybe, just maybe, he’s going to miss this.
He closes the video player and calls Iwaizumi again. “Hey, I’m going to send you the video properly this time, so don’t you dare make fun of it.”
“Duh, that’s what you were about to do. Why’d you hang up?” He can practically hear Iwaizumi rolling his eyes on the other end of the call.
“Roommate,” Oikawa says breezily.
Iwaizumi groans. “You don’t have to say just roommate, you know, I’m well aware that you room with Ushiwaka.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Oikawa fumbles with his phone a little bit and sends Iwaizumi the video.
There’s a few minutes of soft silence, in which all Oikawa can hear is his own heartbeat and footsteps, and the tinny sound of the video playing on Iwaizumi’s end.
“Okay, that is good,” Iwaizumi admits. “This guy has some real video editing skills.”
Oikawa whines. “What about the singing?”
“Yeah, you and Ushiwaka do sound good together.”
Oikawa flops down on a bench dramatically. “Not helpful, I already knew that. You should get canceled on Twitter dot com, Iwa-chan.”
Iwaizumi sputters. “What do you want me to say, then?”
“I don’t know,” Oikawa admits, after a minute. “There’s a lot I don’t know lately.”
“Hey, it’s alright,” Iwaizumi says, almost gently (although he’d totally cuss Oikawa out if he suggested that adjective). “Once you learn more about the way their team works, you can come back to Seijoh and spill all their secrets. We’re your team, remember?”
Oikawa leans his head on the back of the bench seat and thinks about that. Iwaizumi is right—Aoba Johsai is his team, first and foremost, way more than Kitagawa Daiichi was and certainly more than Shiratorizawa is. But… if things had gone differently… he can see how Shiratorizawa could have been his team, too.
That’s the funny thing about perspective: nowadays, he can look across the net at Ushijima in a practice match, and it doesn’t feel like they’re enemies anymore.
“Yeah,” he offers lamely, when he remembers Iwaizumi is waiting for a response. “We’ll crush any team that gets in the way of victory.” That’s how the game works, after all.
“You have a nice voice,” Ushijima tells him that evening, while they’re studying. (What? Ushijima is better at math than Oikawa is, and he can help the volleyball idiot with literature in exchange.)
Oikawa looks up after the few seconds it takes him to process the remark. “What?”
“I said—”
“No, no,” Oikawa says, waving away Ushijima’s words. “I heard what you said.”
Ushijima frowns. “Then why did you ask for clarification?”
“Uhh,” Oikawa says, searching for an answer. “I was… surprised. You don’t give out compliments a lot.”
Ushijima nods, as if that explains everything. “It is good to see you settling in here.” He goes back to his set of math problems, humming a tune that, after a few notes, settles into the familiar pattern of the song from earlier.
After a few moments, Oikawa puts his pencil down, slowly letting a thought piece itself together. “Ushiwaka, have you ever thought about what it would be like if you went to a different school?” He’s verging on dangerous territory here, but he needs to satisfy his curiosity.
“No,” Ushijima answers simply. “Shiratorizawa is the best powerhouse in the region.”
“Okay, not what I meant. Sure, they have great funding and a good program. But if it was just you and a group of shoddy players that can’t dig a ball for shit, Shiratorizawa would totally suck.”
Ushijima looks up from his homework. “You’re talking about the team as a whole, then.”
“Yes! Imagine what kind of team it would be without the captain, or Semi-chan, or Satori-chan the oh-so-great guess blocker.” He says that last part with sarcasm, but he’s trying to make a point here. “It’s not all about individual strengths. Didn’t you say you thought I was a great player because of how well I brought out the best parts of my teammates?”
“You have also always been an incredible setter, Oikawa,” Ushijima reminds him. He pauses to think.
Oikawa jumps in, determined to finish his point. “There’s six people on the court for a reason, Ushiwaka. As long as you have a group of decent volleyball players, the part that really makes the difference will be how well they work together.”
Ushijima nods slowly. “You and Iwaizumi have always been like a well-oiled machine. He doesn’t have the same power as I do, but you know him better. That’s because of circumstances. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
Oikawa leans back, grinning. “Exactly.”
Ushijima smiles softly. “I hope you can learn to trust and work with our team as well, then.”
Oikawa blinks and gapes at him. “That’s not— Oh, nevermind!” He flops backwards onto the floor, pouting overdramatically. “Alright. I’m not helping you with any more of the questions tonight.”
Ushijima just shrugs.
[Two minutes later]
“Oikawa, do you know what this word means? It sounds a little bit like this other question, but the answers are very different.”
“Ughhh, yes, fine, give it here—no, you’re doing it all wrong, Ushiwaka. Look at this here, this line is what it’s asking about—”
“Oh, I see now.”
“Wha—no you don’t!”
“Thank you, Oikawa.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re insufferable?”
“Yes.”