Chapter Text
Tomohiro Ogawa was a patient man. He always waited for the pedestrian signal to turn green before crossing no matter how empty the roads were. He simply offered a smile at the barista working at the coffee shop near his accommodation when the shop was busier than usual and his cappuccino was delaying him for practice. Hey, he even happily dealt with his neighbour’s kids every evening when he’d babysit them for an hour until their parents got back. And mind you, those kids had a serious mouth on them, blabbing away on and on, their pool of questions never ending. And Ogawa was happy answering all of their questions. Never once did it make him want to yank his hair out.
Unlike right now. He just wanted to fist his hands in his hair and pull until his brain inside could somehow ignore what he was witnessing. The team was sitting around a table, listening intently to their captain. Everyone had their eyes on the man, faces serious as they noted down their schedule for the month. But out of the corner of his eye, Ogawa could see one pair of eyes mooning over the captain. The person to whom said pair of eyes belonged was none other than Ran Takahashi.
Ran’s eyes did not stray, even for a second, from the captain’s face. His gaze was transfixed, as if he was looking at the most beautiful being on earth, which, Ogawa mused, might be exactly what Ran was thinking as he was staring at the captain unabashed. This blatant staring was beginning to get on Ogawa’s nerves. Sitting right next to the captain, if Ogawa was not paying attention, it felt as if Ran’s gaze was on him and it was unnerving. The number of times Ogawa had glanced at Ran solely because he thought Ran was making eye contact with him was downright embarrassing. Embarrassing for him or embarrassing for Ran? Ogawa didn’t know. All he knew was that he absolutely did not want to get in the way of Ran eye-fucking his captain during this meeting. He wasn’t even blinking for god’s sake!
Ogawa decided that the best plan of action would be to turn his face completely away from Ran, such that the lovesick idiot was not even in his peripheral vision. This left him looking right at Ran’s subject of affection, Yuki Ishikawa, the man himself. Ogawa considered him. Yeah, the captain was good-looking, handsome even. But he simply could not see what was so alluring about the man that Ran had lost all his brain cells by simply looking at him. And Ogawa, for the life of him, could not figure out how on earth the staring was not bothering Ishikawa-san at all. The man did not seem phased, not one bit. In fact, Ogawa realized with horror, he seemed to be preening under it?
Whenever the captain’s eyes met Ran’s, a soft smile would take over his face. His back straightened and his chest puffed a little. It seemed as if the two shared a secret smile before Ishikawa-san would turn to look at someone else and his demeanour would go back to how it was.
Ogawa was downright mortified to be caught in the middle of this subtle interaction. He wondered if the rest of the team had even noticed the second conversation that was silently taking place between their captain and the outside hitter. His face must have reflected his inner turmoil for when he made eye contact with Otsuka sitting next to Ran, the man just smirked and jutted his chin towards Ran, rolling his eyes.
Oh. Oh wow.
It dawned on Ogawa just then, that he might have been the last person to realize what was happening. A quick look around at the team only confirmed his suspicions. There was Yamauchi-san, sprawled across the chair, eyes on the ceiling, fighting to keep a smile off his face. Right next to him sat Yuji, not even bothering to hide his amusement, a languid smile plastered on his face, an oh-so-innocent look taking its place whenever the captain looked at him.
Then there was Miyaura, beefy arms folded across his chest, resolutely staring at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Ogawa looked at the members sitting across from him to find Kentaro-san and Sekita-san staring right ahead at Ishikawa-san. But the stares were nothing like the ones from Ran. The pair was almost glaring at the captain, as if they were trying to bore holes into his head. And right next to Ishikawa-san sat Taishi, with his elbows on his knees and his face in his palm, looking affectionately at the captain but still so done with him. Everyone on the team either had exasperated looks on their faces or were trying their best to ignore what was happening right in front of their eyes. Ogawa found the whole picture amusing. All the annoyance from before had faded away as he saw the rest of his team on the same boat as him.
He turned to look at Yamamoto-san sitting next to him. His senior looked just as done as the rest of the team. He just shrugged at Ogawa’s questioning glance and gave him a small smile. Ogawa wondered if Ran and Ishikawa-san knew just how bad they were at keeping their relationship a secret. He could not wait to tease the shit out of Ran. Oh it was going to be so much fun. And he was not going to feel bad about the teasing he was going to put Ran through, not after all that he had had to bear through this meeting.
Once Ishikawa-san had dismissed the meeting, Ogawa made a beeline for Ran. The rest of the team were ambling about, discussing their plans for the evening. Ran was putting his notebook into his bag, and Ogawa snorted at the sight of it. He would bet on anything that there was not a single thing written in that notebook from this meeting.
“Hey”, Ran offered as a greeting.
“Hey there, loverboy”, Ogawa teased. He was not going to ease into this.
Ran frowned and looked at him questioningly. “What?”, he asked, zipping up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.
Oh, that’s how he was going to play this. Well, Ogawa was never one to back down from a fight. Though this wasn’t exactly a fight. But you get the point.
“Oh you don’t have to pretend anymore Ran-chan”, he chastised. He put his arm over Ran’s shoulders, which was quite the feat considering their height difference. “We all saw it during the meeting.”
Ran turned to him quizzically, “Saw what?”, nose scrunched in confusion.
Ogawa felt this impending sense of dread begin to take form in his stomach. “You know,” he started, hoping that his pointed stares at the captain across the room would trigger Ran into confessing or at least show some sort of sign. But all he got in response was Ran continuing to look at him in confusion.
“What about Yuki-san?”, Ran enquired. Now it was Ogawa’s turn to be confused. He turned to look properly at Ran and read his face. There was nothing but genuine confusion on his face. Ogawa felt his stomach clench in horror. Oh no, this was much worse than he had imagined it to be. He had a strict policy to not get too involved with the love life, or potential love life in this case, of any of his team members. It was just a matter of privacy and Ogawa did not want to cross any boundaries for fear of landing himself into uncomfortable situations, such as the one he was currently in.
“Ogawa-san!”, Ran’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. “What about Yuki-san?”, Ran repeated, face serious, eyes tinged with worry. He had taken Ogawa by the shoulders and was shaking him lightly. “Huh?”, Ogawa mumbled. “Oh, umm”, he let out, mind racing at a million miles per hour to make sense of what was happening right now. Ran’s reaction did not seem like someone who was in a secret relationship. Either he was an excellent actor or he genuinely had no clue as to what had been going on during the meeting.
Ran shook him again. And Ogawa, having no control over his mouth, blurted, “Aren’t you and Ishikawa-san dating?”.
Ran’s hands dropped from his shoulders as he smacked his chest. “Yuki-san and I? Dating? Are you mad? What even gave you that idea?”, Ran’s response was so matter-of-fact, so nonchalant, that it had Ogawa wondering for a minute if he had read the situation wrong. There was none of that telltale redness in Ran’s face that betrayed him when he was feeling shy or embarrassed.
Indeed, what had given him the idea? Was he actually mistaken? But then Ogawa thought back to the meeting, all the staring from Ran, the preening from Ishikawa-san, the shared smiles and the consequent reactions of the others. It was all so clear in his mind. There was no way that situation could have been misread. All of the frustration from before flew right back into his body. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, to tell Ran exactly what had given him that idea, the man said,
“Ogawa-san, I really do not have time for this right now. I promised Rui that I’d take him to dinner before we leave for the training camp next week. I’ve got to go now.” Ran uttered a quick apology, waved him goodbye and walked out of the gymnasium, leaving behind an open-mouthed Ogawa, frozen in place.
“Well, that went well”, came a sardonic voice from behind him. Ogawa turned to see Otsuka standing with a grim smile on his face.
“Please tell me he was joking. Please tell me that Ran is a spectacular actor and that I just did not know about it”, he begged. Otsuka just snorted in response and patted his shoulder placatingly.
“They really are not together. That idiot”, he jerked his head towards the door, “does not even know that he is in love with Yuki-san.” Otsuka paused in thought, “For that matter, I don’t think even Yuki-san has realized that he is in love with Ran” he said, running his hand through his hair in frustration.
“You’re kidding”, Ogawa deadpanned. Otsuka just shook his head. “BUT IT IS SO OBVIOUS”, he exclaimed, gaining the attention of a few of the others around him.
Yuji slung his arm over Ogawa’s shoulder. “What’s all the ruckus for?”, he said, ruffling Ogawa’s hair. Ogawa smacked his hand away in annoyance. Sekita and Kentaro had also joined their little circle now.
“This one here”, Otsuka said while jabbing his thumb towards Ogawa, “just came to the realization that Yuki-san and Ran are not dating and are in fact are just a pair of oblivious idiots who are making our lives hell”, Otsuka finished with flair.
The others made a collective sound of understanding, offering Ogawa sympathetic looks. “Welcome to the club”, said Yuji.
“At this club, participation is not voluntary, it is compulsory. You have no choice but to be subjected to daily doses of sickly sweet flirting and oblivious yearning”, Sekita-san added resignedly.
“And don’t forget, now that you are a member, you cannot quit. This is a lifelong subscription and your only option is to pray long and hard and that those two get their heads out of their asses”, said Kentaro with fake enthusiasm. “I am happy for them. All of us are. But knowing that those two are literally a step away from happiness and they don’t even know it, much less are ready to do anything about it, is honestly so frustrating”, he finished earning agreeing nods from the rest of them.
Ogawa just buried his head in his hands, shaking his head, hoping that if he shook his head hard enough, his brain would forget all that he had learned this evening. He could not imagine looking at Ran and Yuki in the same room together without saying anything. This was going to kill him.
“Isn’t there anything that we can do to get them together?” he questioned helplessly. He was met with silence. Ogawa went back to burying his head in his hands and shaking his head vigorously. He was going to make himself sick at this rate.
“There might be something we can do”, Sekita-san said and Ogawa snapped his head up at that. Sekita-san’s face had taken on a serious look, the one that took over his face when he was planning his attacks against the opposite team. They had a nickname for that face. Ogawa turned to look at Yuji. Yuji nodded at him, “Scheming face”, he agreed.
Ogawa did not know how they were going to get Ran and Ishikawa-san to confess to each other. But like the rest of the team, he trusted Sekita-san’s scheming face. He knew that whatever plan came out as a result of that face would either win them favors or backfire completely.
Ogawa sincerely hoped that it was not the latter.