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How. How did he get here? He was a law-abiding citizen who upheld every rule he had ever been informed off. So why, Matsukawa questioned, was he staring at a detention slip in hand? Of course, it may have something to do with the six boxes of crickets he let loose in the science room, but apart from that, he had never done anything wrong in his life.
The time he dropped paint balloons from the third floor was a rare deviance.
And maybe spilling soapy water across the gym floor had been a little uncalled for, but it was hilarious.
There was that time he and Hanamaki had set off stink bombs in the school ventilation system…
Okay, he suddenly understands the detention slip in hands. The slips says to head to room A-01, so he walks the corridors until he reaches the A section, and trudges right to the end. To his astonishment, the door is open and there’s noise floating out, not like how a detention should be. The second he steps in, he’s sent flying backwards by something launched at his stomach.
“Mattsun~!”
“Oof! Oikawa?!” He looks at the object clinging to him and is slightly surprised to see that it is indeed Oikawa, grinning up at him with a mischievous expression, hair as perfectly flyaway as ever.
“What did you do to get here?”
“Nothing~. I’m the supervising prefect. So you can relax until Sensei gets here.”
“Yeah, come chill with us!” Matsukawa whips his head around to the seats near the back, a quiet squawk of disbelief escaping at the sight of familiar faces.
“Hanamaki, I’m not surprised to see you here, but Iwaizumi? Aren’t you the poster child for good behaviour?” Iwaizumi grunts and Oikawa snickers.
“Iwa-chan got sent here for punching a certain someone~.”
“He was being an asshole!” Without skipping a beat, Hanamaki waves from his seat with a troublesome grin.
“Hi, I’m asshole.” Matsukawa barks with laughter and sticks his hands in his pockets to slouch over to them, dropping sloppily into a seat nearby. Iwaizumi sits properly, albeit his arms crossed over angrily and a pout on his lips, brows drawn together. Hanamaki, on the other hand, swings back on his chair lightly, hands behind his head in a relaxed pose and feet on the table. His shoes are somewhere across the room, one by where Oikawa stands like an innocent, angelic ray of sunshine, posed ready for when the teacher arrives.
“So what asshole thing did you do now?”
“It wasn’t that bad!” Iwaizumi slams his hands on the desk and pushes himself to standing, pointing accusingly at Hanamaki.
“You were about to trip up that first year walking out the teacher’s lounge! Just because he was carrying a stack of papers!”
“It would have been hilarious!”
“It would have been wrong and upsetting!”
“You would have done it if it was Oikawa!” Iwaizumi’s mouth gapes and stutters like a fish out of water and it takes only 2.5 seconds for Oikawa to whine indignantly whilst the other two guffaw.
“Iwa-chan, you’re so cruel!”
“Sh-shut up! It’s different! I know Oikawa! And I would’ve helped pick it up afterwards. You would have tripped and ran.” Hanamaki shrugs guiltlessly, then gestures to the bruise blossoming on his cheekbone.
“So do you always aim for the face?”
“I panicked.” Matsukawa continues to laugh and even Oikawa giggles as Hanamaki bombards Iwaizumi with questions about his reflexes, and Iwaizumi gets a little more flustered with each one. A noise from down the corridor has Oikawa jolt back to his angelic pose, and clears his throat.
“Quiet please, this is detention. You should know the rules by now.” The teacher steps in just at this instance and lights up at seeing the ‘Perfect Prefect’ lecturing the other students. As all teachers - Minus Irihata and Mizoguchi - know, Oikawa Tooru is the perfect role model and ideal student.
Iwaizumi, Matsukawa and Hanamaki send identical glares to their Captain, who responds with a gleaming smile that carries a promise of impishness. Matsukawa snorts in amusement. Imp. That’s the perfect noun for Oikawa.
Hanamaki appears to be subtly flipping Oikawa off with a series of hand gestures that could be plain flailing from leaning too far back on his chair, and Iwaizumi is mouthing various threats - Although Matsukawa knows they’re entirely empty. Iwaizumi wouldn’t do anything to hurt Oikawa beyond the general smack when he’s asking for it.
“All of you please sit properly at your desks, and get on with some work. Hanamaki-san, please put your shoes on. If you have nothing to do; I’ll assign something.” Sensei places down a set of textbooks on the front desk, and Hanamaki quickly retrieves his shoes, followed by some homework from his bag, whilst Matsukawa decides to read ahead for classes he’s already caught up on. Sheepishly, Iwaizumi raises his hand to ask for assigned work. Hanamaki scoffs and rolls his eyes, making Matsukawa snicker.
“Nerd.”
“I prefer the term studious.”
“I can’t believe Iwaizumi is the literal embodiment of the me; an intellectual meme.” Matsukawa snorts and laughs with little hiccups, a laugh he hates and thinks is ugly, but he always missed the way Hanamaki lights up on hearing it, or Iwaizumi’s eyes softening, or Oikawa clutching at his chest. It’s a beautiful laugh, not that he’ll ever acknowledge it. The teacher sighs, obviously worn out long before this point.
“Alright, settle down. Silence in detention, please.” They drift into silence, Iwaizumi working diligently on the assigned work, Matsukawa casually reading through his textbook, and Hanamaki… Doodling on what’s supposed to be his homework. Oikawa must have picked up on this, because he grins with a hint of a smirk and struts over to Hanamaki’s desk.
“Hanamaki-san, isn’t this why you’re failing class~?”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“That’s one strike for language! Two more and you’ll land yourself another detention~.” Hanamaki narrows his eyes into a glare as he snatches his paper back, reluctantly writing down the first answer with a little too much pressure on his pen than necessary. As if to prove a point, he gestures to his paper with sass. Oikawa only grins wider, and the three suffering detention come to the same conclusion in a split second.
He’s enjoying this too much.
As Oikawa elegantly glides across the floor back to the front of the classroom to oversee them, Iwaizumi quickly scribbles something on a spare notepad and tears it off to shove at Matsukawa. They’re almost caught in the act when Matsukawa makes a noise of surprise and stares at Iwaizumi, the note held in clear sight. But in the second Oikawa turns around to glance over his shoulder, Matsukawa clocks on and shoves the note into his book to make it look like he’s reading normally. He waits until Oikawa tuts and closes his eyes as he stretches to read the note.
If we all run, he can only catch one of us.
Coughing into his hand to hide his laugh, Matsukawa is fully aware of the grin that flickers across Iwaizumi’s face. Oh, so they’re playing that way, are they? Testing Oikawa’s Perfect Prefect reputation would be mean… And much too fun to ignore. Using a blue pencil, he adds his own line underneath before sneakily tucking it into the back of Hanamaki’s shirt. The squeak and jolt is entirely worth it, and the teacher sighs wearily before waving his hand towards Oikawa for the prefect to investigate. Again.
“Something bothering you, Hanamaki-san?” Like telepathy, Hanamaki seems to pick up on Matsukawa’s internal begging for him not to give them away. It’s important.
“... Just the label of my shirt.” He reaches back as if adjusting it, tucking the folded note under his thumb and keeping it hidden. As soon as the coast is clear, he opens it carefully and quietly.
If we all run, he can only catch one of us.
Why run when we can make his life hell for an entire hour?
With a snicker, Hanamaki picks a red crayon from his pencil case - a messy collective of all drawing items - and scrawls his one response to pass to Iwaizumi. It’s not going to be easy to get it done secretively, but a quick glance up shows that the ace is ready and prepared, one hand making a ‘throw it here’ gesture. Hanamaki crumples the note into a tiny ball, before he lobs it discreetly as possible, acting as if he’s swatting a fly.
“Sensei, can we close the window? There’s a lot of bugs in here.” As if on cue, there’s a chirp.
Wait, what?
Four sets of eyes turn to Matsukawa, who give an over-the-top shrug and nervously glances away. Another chirp, but it works to their advantage anyways.
“See? Bugs.” Although he’s suspicious, the teacher gets up to close the window anyways, checking left and right as if expecting some kind of prank to come flying at his face. Matsukawa is about to suggest they bolt for it, but realises with irritation that Oikawa has moved to block the door, smug grin in face. Iwaizumi gestures slicing across the neck, whilst Matsukawa shows his middle fingers with a sharp glare and Hanamaki checks the teacher isn’t looking before throwing an eraser at him, as hard as possible.
Oikawa dodges it and the eraser bounces off the door. Sticking his tongue out might be childish, but it’s all Oikawa does in response.
“Alright, can you focus now, or is there something else that needs changing?” Hanamaki smiles innocently and shakes his head at the teacher’s question, even going as far as to lower his head back to his homework and fill out the answer to the second question. He’ll keep the doodle page underneath hidden until he’s really bored.
Oikawa and the teacher back in their places overseeing the front of the classroom, Iwaizumi ‘accidentally’ knocks his water bottle off the desk and ducks under to grab it, quickly opening up the note.
Why run when we can make his life hell for an entire hour?
Half hour then we make our grand escape.
Iwaizumi sits back up, water bottle in hand, and places the note down to add on “How?, when there’s another chirp. He and Hanamaki turn to stare at Matsukawa, who freezes in place with a face of guilt, like he’s been caught in the act. He could almost be sweating.
Iwaizumi adds something to the note before passing it across in the split second Oikawa sneezes, seeing as the teacher is too busy marking things from a previous class. By the time the note comes back, it has a few additions, having gone back and forth between Hanamaki and Matsukawa a couple of times.
Half hour then we make our grand escape.
How? Also, Matsukawa - what the fuck? How are you doing that?
Crickets. I have a cricket in my hair. I think there’s one in my trouser leg too.
That gives me a good idea of exactly how.
Are you suggesting we use the crickets to get past Oikawa?
You read my mind. Here’s what we do…
The plan is detailed with little doodles and Iwaizumi very much appreciates it, having trouble reading large chunks of text at a time. Apparently, Matsukawa is going to pretend to have a headache and stand up before ‘fainting’. At this point, Iwaizumi catches him and removes the cricket.
When Oikawa comes over to check what’s wrong out of worry - because he undoubtedly will - Hanamaki will trap him from behind and the cricket will be placed neatly in Oikawa’s fringe before they drop him to the floor and bolt for it. It’s a good plan, but Iwaizumi doubts just one thing.
If we run, we’ll just get another detention. Let’s wait until the Sensei says detention is over and leaves the room.
Matsukawa grins and nods when he reads the note, passing it down to Hanamaki by pretending to cough, and blowing the screwed up scrap onto his desk. Hanamaki pretends to scratch his shoulder, giving them both a thumbs up of approval. The plan is set, and all they have to do now… Is wait.
It’s a long 45 minutes, since they’ve already killed approximately 15 minutes. Hanamaki doesn’t even bother to hide the fact he’s doodling anymore, and Matsukawa simply rests his head on the open pages of the textbook. Iwaizumi continues to work, actually completing the assigned work long before detention is over. Much to his credit - In Hanamaki and Matsukawa’s opinion - he doesn’t ask for more. He probably knows they’d ‘bully’ him for being dedicated to his studies.
“And that’s the hour. Don’t let me catch you in detention again.” Three mumbles of agreement come his way before Sensei tucks his folder of marked tests under his arm, and leaves.
The second the door closes behind him, Oikawa shrieks as his friends lunge towards him, swearing at him and calling him creative names that should result in their mouths being washed out with soap or sore behinds.
“Have mercy! Iwa-chan, Mattsun, Makki, please! Oh, not the face, not the face!” With crayon and pen all over his face and neck, Hanamaki and Matsukawa pin his arms back against the blackboard with matching evil grins.
“Wh-What are you doing?” Iwaizumi holds out a closed fist, and Oikawa flinches away like he’s expecting to get punched, when something gently prods his hair instead. He opens one eye to see Iwaizumi’s victorious smile, a hint of deviousness on his lips, and it’s only when Oikawa opens his other eye that his vision reveals something hanging from his fringe.
Something living.
A cricket.
To the sound of Oikawa’s screams, the other three finally get their chance to bolt out the door, whooping and hollering as they escape in victory, laughing all the way as Oikawa chases them, cursing them for placing the demon in his hair and threatening to get them back.
They don’t regret the detention slip they get for running in the hallways. Oikawa is also secretly relieved to be freed from his Perfect Prefect pressures.
All in all, a pretty good detention.