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Hajime knows he says and thinks this a lot, but this time he truly, deeply and sincerely means it: He’s done. Like done done.
“So just to make sure I understand this correctly,” he takes a deep breath while just barely resisting the urge to smash his head through the next best wall, “you finally fulfilled your lifelong dream of winning Olympic gold, and the best thing you could think of doing with your medal was to put it by the wide open window, where a bird flew in… and stole it?”
“... … … Yes,” Oikawa grits through grinding teeth, eyes set firmly on a point somewhere above his shoulder.
It’s the last straw, both on Hajime’s patience and on Matsukawa’s composure. The curly-haired collapses against the wall of the hotel room with a poorly stifled wheeze and slowly slides down onto the floor where Hanamaki has already dissolved into a puddle of hysterical giggles.
“And your first reaction was to call them!?” Hajime adds dryly.
“In my defence, I was in panic and I didn’t realise my voice memo went to the wrong chat until it was too late.” Oikawa crosses his arms over his chest, trying to keep the last shreds of his dignity from escaping. “And it’s not like I only called them, alright?”
“Yes… you truly assembled the perfect squad,” Hajime deadpans and Hinata begins to beam, entirely oblivious to the thinly veiled sarcasm.
“Hey!” the brunet snaps sharply. “Sho-chan and I bonded—he’s my emotional support shrimp. Also, you brought Kageyama, who I most certainly did not ask for.”
“I didn’t bring Kageyama, he followed me,” Hajime shouts back, throwing his hands in the air before he turns around to the man in question. “Why did you follow me?”
He is met with two blueberry eyes, looking at him as if that were the most logical thing in the whole wide world. “I saw you and Hinata leave and thought there’d be volleyball.”
The pile of molten MatsuHana vibrates with a new wave of laughter and emits a choked chortle, that could either be Hanamaki biting down on his first or a sick cat regurgitating a hairball.
Hajime decides not to comment on any of it.
“And you couldn’t have asked someone on your own team for help?” He turns back to Oikawa, who finally explodes.
“No, Hajime, I could in fact not have, because as you may or may not have noticed, they are Argentinians! They neither know a single street in Tokyo, nor do they speak any Japanese beyond asking for directions to the bathroom and citing Naruto catchphrases, which, and bear with me, is not practical right now. So will you stop acting like this is somehow my personal fault and help me, or not?”
What follows is a long stretch of unamused silence in which Hajime honestly considers just leaving.
“Hm...” he hums thoughtfully and is immediately restrained by a 182-pound man latching onto his arm.
“Iwa- chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!”
✦
“It’s a bluejay,” Matsukawa announces as soon as the door falls shut behind him and Hinata, finally releasing Hajime from having to watch Oikawa pace and listen to Kageyama argue with Hinata over the phone about whether the redhead should get wholemeal or white bread to throw out the window as bird-bait. “And it has quite the rep-sheet. Two engagement rings, one Rolex and a priceless pearl necklace heirloom.”
Hanamaki whistles, impressed.
“So we decided to grab these instead of bread.” With a grunt, Matsukawa and Hinata both pull out fistfuls of cutlery and a roll of silver duct tape.
“That’s… genius!” Hanamaki exclaims, eyes shining.
“It’s also theft,” Hajime deadpans.
“Potato, potato,” the strawberry-blond dismisses him with a wave of his hand.
“So, you really think that a bird that’s developed a taste for luxury watches and grand larceny will come back for a couple of spoons?” Hajime shifts through the not-so-small pile of stolen goods, eyebrows knitted tightly.
“Quantity over quality?” Matsukawa shrugs and carries his booty over to the scene of the crime. He opens the window wide and begins to arrange the cutlery. “We can pile it up here, where the medal used to be.”
“And then?” Oikawa crooks his head.
“We wait,” Matsukawa shrugs.
“And then?” Hajime folds his arms.
“Who do I look like, Bear Grylls?” Their former middle blocker rolls his eyes. “We’ll just look where it flies.”
“It’s not going to come with us all standing here, though,” Oikawa points out. “We gotta hide.”
✦
“Whose idea was this?” Oikawa laments loudly and for the thirty-fourth time. “We’ve been here forever, my legs are falling asleep.”
Somehow, Hajime finds himself agreeing. The space behind the hotel sofa is not quite suited for hiding six grown men.
“We are missing something,” Matsukawa decides. “Does anyone know any bird noises?”
Hinata perks up. “Kageyama coughs like a really angry goose!”
“What!?” the dark-haired hisses.
“Yeah, it’s like ‘wchecheeeeee’,” and Hinata puffs up, releasing an unholy screeching sound that is somewhat reminiscent of a screw going through a woodchipper.
“I don’t sound like that!” Kageyama snaps, face gaining colour.
Instead of answering, Hinata just rolls his eyes and punches him square in the chest without warning. The dark-haired bends over with a ‘wchecheeeeee’ indeed.
“See,” Hinata declares smugly. “Angry goose cough.”
“As impressive as that is, how do goose noises help us attract a bluejay?” Matsukawa asks.
“You wanted bird noises, I provided bird noises,” Hinata snaps at him with a pout.
Their brief exchange is all the time Kageyama needs to recover and throw himself onto the redhead.
“Get him, Sho-Chan,” Oikawa hollers, then a foot kicks him in the shoulder and he topples over with a squawk.
So much for their cover.
“Enough!” Hajime yells out, slamming down his hand. “It’s official, I cannot take this anymore. What other ideas do we have?”
✦
“So,” Hanamaki adjusts the glasses he stole from Oikawa’s suitcase and strides up and down the length of the sofa, “we have a couple of style options. Firstly, good old, classic Illuminati.”
He holds up something cap-shaped that a crazy person would wear while ranting about 5G waves on a shaky YouTube video filmed vertically, complete with a teaspoon sticking out from the top, probably to get better reception of the alien signals.
Oikawa eyes it with interest.
“Next, a bold, modernist interpretation of the classic Egyptian snake diadem.” Hanamaki holds up a tinfoil headband, with a single gavel taped to the front, bending towards them in a looming S-shape.
“Similarly, our third design is this era-appropriate Totoro cosplay—”
“I told you it’s a bull!” Hinata interrupts Hanamaki with an angry little stomp of his foot. “See?” He grabs the ring of glued-together spoons, with a pie lifter attached above each ear, and lowers his head.
“If you bend the pie lifters, it could also look like cat ears. You know, like ‘nya’ ,” Kageyama pitches in and lifts his hands to mimic paws.
Hajime has never experienced any silence as absolute as the moment that follows Kageyama Tobio saying ‘nya’ and he exhales slowly, eyeballing the younger with honest concern.
“And lastly,” Hanamaki starts again, “this simple, yet timeless knife-crown.” He presents another makeshift headgear with no less than two dozen knives attached all around.
“ Ohhh, ” Oikawa coos, nodding enthusiastically. “I like that.”
“Cool, I expected more debate.” Hanamaki grins and hands the knife construction to him.
“Debate about what?” Oikawa eyes it.
“Well if the bird doesn’t come to you, you have to go to it, silly.” The strawberry-blond rolls his eyes. “We’ll walk through the nearby parks and you’ll attract it. I thought that was obvious.”
It takes Oikawa two looks from the knife-crown to Hanamaki and back before the implications hit him and he drops the crown unceremoniously as if it had suddenly turned hot in his hands.
“Hey!” Hanamaki calls out and picks it up hastily, inspecting the damages. “Ungrateful rube.”
“No.” Oikawa wipes his hands on his thighs with a disgusted grimace. “Absolutely not!”
“Do you want your medal back or not?” Matsukawa asks.
“Of course, but there has to be a better way that does not involve me running around Tokyo with knives taped to my head.”
“Alright, let’s hear your ‘better idea’ .”
Ten eyes look at Oikawa, whose face turns first pink, then red and finally takes on a somewhat impressive shade of purple.
“Fine,” he grits out and snatches the knife-crown, tossing back his hair. “Shoyo… ready my steed.”
✦
“Do you have as bad a feeling about this as I do?” Matsukawa hums under his breath.
“Probably worse,” Hajime says, watching how Hinata fastens the clasp of his helmet, Oikawa’s arm wrapped around his middle, the knife-crown high and mighty upon the brunet’s head, both of them balancing on Hinata’s truly ancient moped.
The arrangement is accompanied by an astonishing lack of Kageyama, who heard the word ‘moped’ , muttered some hasty excuse and hasn’t been seen since. Hajime can only assume he already had his turn and did not enjoy the experience.
“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asks.
“Absolutely,” Oikawa gives him a cheerful thumbs up. “I have no fear.”
“If you die, I will punch you.”
“I have one fear,” Oikawa corrects himself.
“It’s easy peasy,” Hinata chimes in. “We did this a bunch of times in Rio already!”
It doesn’t take much imagination for the picture to pop up before Hajime’s inner eye, and he knows it will stay in his nightmares.
“Then we’ll catch up with you in a bit,” Hanamaki chirps and Hinata lets the engine rattle and roar, a small blast of Karasuno-black smoke rising from the backend of his vehicle.
Hajime’s brain shifts into panicked lizard mode, but Oikawa lifts his fist into the sky. “We ride, Sho-chan!”
“Wheeee!” Hinata yells gleefully and with a jolt the steed begins to gallop, leaving them behind in its dust.
✦
Hajime has known Oikawa for most of their lives and despite Oikawa being… well, Oikawa , Hajime cannot come up with a single rational reason that would warrant karma this catastrophically bad.
“Wipe that grin off your face,” Oikawa screams, grass and dirt smudged across his cheeks.
“Higher,” Matsukawa tells him with a shiteating, little smile. “Jump, tiny man.”
“Less complaining, more thanking me,” Hanamaki joins in.
“You didn’t do anything!” Oikawa screeches. “You abandoned me to get a waffle.”
“And on my way, I spotted your bird. You’re welcome.” The strawberry-blond’s last words disappear into a mouth full of Belgian baked goods.
Oikawa curses them under his breath, crouches down and jumps again, fingers missing the crucial lowest branch of the gnarled, old birch tree by an inch.
The bird above him crooks its head and chirps curiously, parading up and down and fluffing up its feathers.
“Should we not help him?” Kageyama asks.
“In a bit,” Hajime mutters.
“After another waffle,” Matsukawa agrees.
“I also saw an ice cream stand,” Hanamaki suggests.
The three of them hum in unanimous contemplation while Oikawa unleashes his fury and chugs his wallet across the grass in frustration.
“Hey guys, seems like Tooru wants to buy,” Matsukawa points at him cheerfully and they dissolve into a heap of giggles.
“Ah… good old times,” Hanamaki hums. “Remember when Mizoguchi forced him to go home on time and he got so frustrated he threw the gym keys up onto the windowsill?”
Hajime eyes him carefully and is met with a cheeky grin. A grin he knows much too well. A grin that brings back memories. A grin that means trouble.
“Aw hell n—” He sighs in defeat and cracks his knuckles. “... Alright.”
Matsukawa cackles like a hyena and moves to put the fallen knife-crown back on Oikawa’s head with a sheepish: “Your Excellency.”
The brunet huffs and puffs and pouts, turning his head away. “I am not associating with traitors.”
“Then you won’t mind if I do this,” Matsukawa hums innocently, crouching down behind Oikawa and raising him up on his shoulders with a playful roar.
Oikawa releases a short screech that fades into a surprised laugh.
“Just for protocol, I am avidly against this,” Hajime declares but he bends over nevertheless.
“Iwa-chan?” Oikawa looks at him, but Matsukawa is already moving forward and as soon as Hajime can feel him over his shoulders he squares them, slowly rising to his feet.
Hinata clutches Kageyama’s arm, gasping in excitement and awe, while Hanamaki sniggers, immediately taking out his phone to snap a picture.
“If you so much as think about tickling me, Takahiro, I will drop them on you,” Hajime grunts, the weight of two grown men on his shoulders sending tremors down his back muscles.
“If you spot the Rolex, grab it for me, will ya?” Matsukawa calls up.
For eight, pressed breaths there is nothing, then Oikawa screams in near hysterical triumph, directly followed by a yowl of pain. “Ouch, no, stop, bad bird, bad! That’s mine, you little cretin.”
Hanamaki pulls a grimace, shielding his eyes to look up. “Should’ve done the cat ears.”
“You need to trade.” Hinata snaps his fingers.
“Ow, goddamn… with what?” Oikawa asks back, now struggling and swaying harder and Hajime has to bite his lips to keep them upright. “Get this… get this thing off my head, my hair is a national treasure, not nesting material!”
“Running out of time here!” Hajime groans, eyes screwed shut.
Hinata bites his lip for a moment, then his eyes light up. “The crown, it wants the crown!”
The cursing and shuffling that follows is lost to the blood drumming through Hajime’s ears but after a few painful seconds, Hinata twitches at his elbow. He collapses down to his knees and sags back into the grass.
“You two… really need… to go… on a diet,” he pants out.
Matsukawa chuckles and Hajime finds his own body shaking with small laughs. Taking a deep breath, he sits up and there he sees him.
Oikawa Tooru, with dirt on his face and leaves in his hair, hand clutched firmly around a slightly smudged gold disk, wide grin on his face and all of Hajime’s exhaustion is washed away with pride.
“Thank you guys,” Oikawa all but chokes out, tears of relief welling up in his eyes.
“Don’t cry, man. You snot like crazy and nobody here has any tissues.” Matsukawa plucks a stick out of the brunet’s hair.
“And besides,” Hanamaki joins in, “this is only the fourth worst thing that can happen to a day.”
“Fourth?” Kageyama asks, handing him back his waffle.
“Well, one would be a zombie apocalypse.”
“Naturally.” The younger nods.
“Two would be the store being out of profiteroles.”
Hajime rolls his eyes.
“Three, Mattsun gets eaten by sharks, and four, Oikawa calls because he misplaced something… again .”
“I am Mattsun and I approve this message.” Matsukawa gives them a cheery thumbs up.
Hajime fights his way back up to his feet, gently whacking Oikawa in the shoulder. “You know: Anything for our captain.”