Chapter Text
One of the first few responsibilities that Oikawa had been given once he’d been promoted to captain was fundraising for the club. Primarily, he needed to organize multiple events to take place over their schools’ cultural festival week and aim to milk as much money from unsuspecting first-years as possible.
“Why does a powerhouse like us even need to raise funds?” He’d wondered to the previous captain. The answer had been something like: “it’s a Seijou captain-to-captain tradition: we ensure that the next captain carrying on our legacy will always have enough on hand to treat his team!” but by then ideas for awesome events had already started taking shape in his head, and his attention had derailed.
First of all though, he had to rope the other third-years into organizing them. The burden for such an important task couldn’t just fall onto his shoulders alone, he explained patiently, as they shot him looks of varied unhappiness. Plus, this will be a good experience to put on your resumes!
“What if we refuse?” Hanamaki, always the most rebellious, had challenged.
Oikawa gave him his lunatic sunny smile. “Then as your new captain, I get to kick you out of the club for having a bad attitude and refusing to cooperate with the team!”
And so everyone begrudgingly acquiesced.
To start things off, Oikawa said, we’ll split the entire VBC into two, captain VS vice-captain. Immediately someone opened his mouth to argue - it was Iwaizumi, who went, “Why the hell do we need to split up?”
“Obviously because the club has so much competitive spirit - I thought it would be a good idea if we could capitalize on that and turn this fundraising thing into a competition. The winning team gets to take 5% out of the total earnings as a reward!”
Iwaizumi’s frown deepened and he looked like he wanted to continue, but Oikawa beat him to it by loudly declaring the people he wanted on his Apollonian Aliens team. “Hanamaki Takahiro,” he shouted first.
“What? No!”
“And Shigeru Yahaba and Akira Kunimi. You can have all the other regulars because I know you’ll need more help than I do, Iwa-chan.”
“Yeah? Fine with me, since I’ll be doing everyone else a favor by sparing them from being on your team.”
“Issei,” Hanamaki whined, throwing his arms around Matsukawa’s middle. The middle blocker’s face was looking more bemused than usual. “I don’t want to be aliens with Oikawa!”
“Iwaizumi’s actually fine with this arrangement,” Matsukawa marveled in answer.
“Any creative name ideas for your second-tier team, Iwa-chan?”
“Godzilla, uh no… Kaiju-“
Matsukawa nodded. “I like Kaiju.”
“That’s obviously cooler than being Aliens-“
“Team Godzilla Kaijus,” Oikawa announced sarcastically, marking it down on his phone. And then he added very quickly under his breath: “But we all know monsters are fictitious and aliens are real.”
“What, Trashykawa?”
“So! The plan is that the club will host stalls on Monday and Wednesday, and since there’s four of us, that makes four different booths. Since I’m captain, I’ll set the example by going first, on Monday, along with Iwa-chan, and then Matssun and Makki can handle Wednesday’s.” Hanamaki and Matsukawa’s faces lifted simultaneously, those shitty devils, and so Oikawa quickly added with a finger wag: “Don't even think about copying our ideas for Wednesday!”
Monday – Booth 1: Captain Oikawa’s Cupcake Bake Sale! <3
“You know this is a surprisingly tame idea coming from you.”
“Why did you presume that I wouldn’t do something like this?” Oikawa replied, arching his eyebrows with a look of superiority as he laid out another batch of green cupcakes (‘Magic Matcha Mikes, green tea chocolate cupcakes, 150 yen for 3!’) on the table. “This idea is so by-the-book, success is practically guaranteed. And I don't have to worry at all about clashing with Iwa-chan because he wouldn’t ever dream of doing something as unmanly as this.”
“He’s making us wear frilly domestic kitchen outfits and dance to girl pop trash, but this isn’t wild enough for you?” Yahaba commented lightly. He might say that, but Hanamaki saw him nod his head in time to every single offensive song – Milkshake, Hollaback Girls, Fergalicious – that Oikawa had blasted from his portable speakers, and hardly believed that Yahaba out of all of them disagreed with this arragenment.
“This really is the complete opposite of manliness.” Kunimi murmured quietly on their left.
“Stop exaggerating, the two of you. And our aprons don’t even have frills!” The way he said it, Hanamaki wondered if the reason was because Oikawa had actually taken their dignities into consideration and let them off this one time, or if perhaps someone like Iwaizumi had found out and preemptively teased him to hell for it. “And none of you are even dancing to the music anyway! Don’t any of you have killer moves to show off?” Oikawa had brought two aprons, both bright and mostly red, but one with ugly Teletubbies and another saner one with words that read: “Keep Calm and Kiss This Hot Piece of a Cook”. He had decided last minute to wear the more socially acceptable one and stashed the Teletubbies beneath the table, though not without stealing longing glances every now and then throughout the shift.
“Killer moves don’t stand a chance against this kind of trash music, Oikawa-san.” Kunimi replied politely. He was the only one out of the four that didn’t bring an apron, probably in the hopes that Oikawa hadn't been serious . But Yahaba and Oikawa both had an extra (Yahaba had predicted this happening and came smugly prepared), and between Oikawa’s uncanny Teletubbies and Yahaba’s effeminate purple and yellow flowers, he had gone with the lesser evil. Yahaba wore an identical one, so according to Oikawa and his girl-vocabulary, that meant that they were “twinning” outfits, and he was extremely pleased about it.
“My dear, naïve kouhai. You all know nothing about what women want from men these days.” Oikawa flipped his hair and gestured at the long queue of girls that had never once let up, as Avril Lavigne’s Hello Kitty started (“Stop giving me that look, Makki, I know you like her!!”). Indeed, the combination of sweets, pop songs and Oikawa was a massive pull for the crowd, despite the fact that all four of them – young, fit, male volleyball athletes in the prime of youth – made for ugly cross-dressers. Quite a number of their customers were bobbing their heads to the tune.
“You’re disgusting, Captain,” Hanamaki declared, trying to focus his attention on laying out blue-orange cupcakes (‘Stitch’s Sunset Surprise, blue pineapple flavor, 200 yen for 4!’) so that he wouldn’t accidentally belt out lyrics that he had completely memorized by heart. Hanamaki felt that his own apron was the best one out of here – the naked body of an ultra hot woman was imposed over his own. Her bared three points was the highlight, actually, but the first thing Coach did upon visiting their booth was yelling at him for it, so he’d been made to cover the crotch and nipples with AOBA JOHSAI VBC stickers. Now his apron just looked stupid, he was hot from the heat, disgruntled from listening to Oikawa and trashy pop songs, and selling cupcakes to girls who were only really interested in asking if they could buy Oikawa instead. Actually, on that thought…
“Ka-ka-ka-ka-kawaii,” Yahaba chanted next to him. Hanamaki rolled his eyes at that hypocrite. Yahaba attention was focused on the girls in line, who were giggling shyly among themselves. When the girls finally looked at him to make payment, Yahaba was ready – ready with a peace sign and a tongue-out and a wink. “Thanks for supporting Captain Oikawa’s Cupcake Bake Sale! The ones you’re holding now were baked by yours truly.”
What the fuck, thought Hanamaki. “You’re really sucking up to Oikawa, aren’t you, Yahaba,” he accused. Yahaba merely shrugged innocently beneath Oikawa’s million-watt beam.
“Stop looking so grumpy all the time, Makki, or you’re gonna get premature wrinkles like Iwa-chan!”
“Hanging around you for extended periods of time really makes me see things from his perspective,” Hanamaki retorted, ideas spinning in his head for Wednesday.
Monday – Booth 2: Arm-wrestle Fight: Compete for the title of the Strongest Man in Seijou!
“I don’t get this,” Matsukawa deadpanned. “The only person this kind of thing would appeal to is you.”
“No,” Iwaizumi shot back. “This appeals to any decent young man with a sense of personal pride and dignity.”
“What about the girls?” Watari asked, standing unsurely next to the handmade cardboard sign that read: ‘Pay us however much you think your DIGNITY is worth.” The crowd has mostly passed by their small booth, with a few people giving them weird looks or pointing from a safe distance away.
“They can bring their boyfriends with them,” Iwaizumi said stubbornly, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that only two brave challengers had stepped forth thus far in the past two hours (Watari: 0; Iwaizumi: 1). He leaned backwards on his chair and stretched, arm muscles flexing, but he did it with such a nonchalant face that Matsukawa couldn’t tell for sure if he was doing it for female attention or not. It worked though, he could hear high-pitched tittering coming from the background. Watari caught his eye and they exchanged knowing side-grins.
A phenomenal amount of arm muscles were on display at the Seijou VBC’s second booth today. Iwaizumi hadn’t really stipulated on a uniform, but he’d apparently caught wind that Oikawa’s team was being made to wear women aprons, and so had decided to outdo those poor losers by making his own team come in flattering muscle tees.
Imagining the pinched, disgruntled expression that Hanamaki must be wearing now made Matsukawa grin absent-mindedly into space, until his musings were disrupted by a sudden loud slap against the table. Immediately four wary gazes landed on their most volatile, Kyoutani Kentaro.
Kyoutani had stood up from his seat and was gazing sharply at Kindaichi. “Come here, Turnip-Head. Your turn to take the shift.”
Matsukawa slid his gaze back front and pretended to be unconcerned. Iwaizumi was here anyway. Kindaichi looked quickly to Iwaizumi for confirmation, who gave a small jerk of his head in assent. They swapped, and then Kyoutani went to the front of the booth, reached into his back pocket for a thousand yen bill, and slammed it down on the table in front of Iwaizumi.
“I challenge you, Iwaizumi Hajime, to title of Strongest Man in Seijou,” he declared hotly. Iwaizumi sat up straight, eyebrows raised as a similar, competitive fire ignited behind his eyes.
“Fine with me, but I have conditions that you’ll have to adhere to when you lose.”
Kyoutani’s only reaction to that was to nod and narrow his eyes even more. Matsukawa wolf-whistled and unlocked his phone to text Hanamaki. Mad Dog-chan and Iwa-chan are about to fight.
“Name it.”
“Just one. You have to call me ‘Iwaizumi-san' when you lose.”
Matsukawa frowned. What about the other third years? His phone pinged with a message from Hanamaki. Fight??? Is it over Trashykawa??
< No, dumbass. They’re arm-wrestling.
> You guys have an arm-wrestling stall?!!!
“Deal.” Kyoutani threw himself onto the chair, and the rest of them started the fanfare. Watari howled thrice, Kindaichi banged the gong also thrice, and Mastukawa got up to write ‘KYOUTANI KENTAROU’ in big, dramatic letters in Iwaizumi’s column on the white board.
“Ready positions!” Kindaichi set the timer as Watari adjusted their hands and checked their positions. “Set… Go!”
At first their clasped arms jostled a bit, before remaining stationary in the dead center, neither side budging. Arm tendons and veins rippled and bulged. Kyoutani gritted his teeth into like a rabid dog about to go in for the kill, but Iwaizumi’s face remained coolly impassive. A few seconds passed in tense silence… And then Iwaizumi slammed Kyoutani’s arm down with a loud bang, victorious grin breaking out across his face. The other two howled again. Matsukawa, a step ahead of the rest of them, took a photo of Kyoutani’s priceless, stunned expression and sent it to the team's big group chat.
“Now what do you say?” Iwaizumi demanded.
Kyoutani swallowed heavily. “Iwaizumi… San.”
“Good boy,” Iwaizumi nodded, gathering the bill from the table. “Thanks for supporting the volleyball club with your donation, and remember to call me that often in front of Oikawa.”
“Your last line just destroyed the cool senpai moment you were having."
“Shut up Matsukawa. You wanna go?”
The red-faced Kyoutani, however, had yet to budge from his position. He looked intensely thoughtful, almost like he was considering his money and chances for a re-match. Watari was about to prompt him, but he was interrupted by a shout from afar.
“IWAIZUMIIIIII!!”
It wasn’t Oikawa, though their captain was also pushing his way through the crowd behind an excited Hanamaki, who's the one shouting. The two made their noisy way over to their booth.
“Greetings, humans. We come to your planet in peace, love and cupcakes-“
“You guys have an arm-wrestling booth? That’s fucking unfair. Oikawa’s making us sell his lame, Disney-themed cupcakes-“
“Call them lame and none of you will get to eat them” Oikawa waved the plate of colorful, petite cupcakes at them threateningly.
“You’re never lame, Captain,” Matsukawa said assuredly, reaching for a bright orange one with a small green leaf on top - pumpkin, he supposed? It must be some weird flavor if Oikawa made it – just as Oikawa expertly rotated it away from him, putting a green one in his path instead. Less than half a second later, Iwaizumi's plucked and tossed the whole orange cupcake into his mouth. Matsukawa gave Oikawa a shrewd look. His captain stared back unflinchingly, eyebrows slightly raised in a ‘So?’ look.
“The mint was a nice touch. Really brings out the pumpkin and dark chocolate flavor.”
“You guys are being unsettlingly cordial today,” Matsukawa observed.
“Take the pink one, I made em’,” Hanamaki chimed in, eyes shining and looking at Matsukawa like he was in on the know. “It’s our most popular, too!”
“Just because it’s pink!”
“Pink is good!”
“Pink is good,” Matasukawa agreed. It was some kind of flower flavor, but neither too strong nor too sweet. “Made up after the fight?” He added to Oikawa.
“We didn’t fight,” Iwaizumi stated, smoothly pushing the conversation along before the three kouhai could figure out the innuendo behind their words.
“I want to fight,” Hanamaki said, interrupting. “How much for- What is with this tacky, open-ended payment manner you have here? How’re you guys gonna earn with the super clichéd pay what you want method? At least the prices of our petite sugar bombs are fixed and raking in it.”
“Well Hanamaki, you know this really depends on how much value you think your personal pride is worth.”
Oikawa gripped his wing spiker. “Don’t listen to him, Makki, he’s trying to bait you into paying more! Just give him a hundred yen coin.”
“Is your dignity seriously that cheap?”
Hanamaki scowled and dropped two hundred on the table. “All of you shut up, these are my only small change.”
“That’s the lowest amount we’ve received so far-“
“Shh, Issei! Quiet!” To Kyoutani, who hadn’t moved a muscle since he lost, he said: “Oi move it, it’s your senpais turn.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as Kyoutani ignored him. All three of them – Hanamaki, Oikawa and Iwaizumi – opened their mouths at the same time to reprimand:
“I said move, punk, are you deaf?“
“Mad Dog-chan, listen to your senpais~”
“Kyoutani.” Iwaizumi’s voice cut sharply over the other two’s, and seemed to be the only one to reach the target. Kyoutani twitched and looked up resolutely. “Iwaizumi-san,” he declared fiercely (as Oikawa and Hanamaki gasped in surprise). “I want a rematch.” He took out another thousand yen bill and placed it in front of all of them. Iwaizumi’s shining eyes tracked the note throughout its whole movement, from wallet to hand to table. Matsukawa knew he was sold. Oikawa gasped a second time.
“Fine with me, but on another condition. If you lose this round, you’re going to listen to me and follow my instructions no matter what I say, from then on.”
Kyoutani doesn’t even pause to think. “Fine,” he said. Iwaizumi waved the fanfare off, started the wrestle, and defeated Kyoutani in less than fifteen seconds this time.
“Your rashness and anger impacted your performance,” Iwaizumi smugly pointed out. “Now move and let me best Hanamaki, too.”