By 10 p.m., though, the eatery is nearly empty. There are a couple of college-aged students in the far corner, and there's a man on the opposite side of the dining area with earbuds in, watching something on a tablet.

As you look over the menu laid out in front of you, you hear footsteps heading your way. A plate clinks against the counter as the ceramic is set just to your right, and the soft thud of something else being placed immediately follows.

"It's on the house."

You glance at the plate. There are two onigiri nestled neatly together. A beverage also awaits you — a milk tea, you assume, based on how it looks. Both look delicious, and you take a short breath to keep your mouth from watering.

As hungry as you are, though, your confusion wins out. "I didn't order this," you say, brow furrowed as your attention shifts to the person you'll dub your snack sponsor for the night.

He hovers by the counter as he looks at you. He's tall and broad, the fitted black t-shirt he's wearing highlighting his form. The black baseball cap on his head sports the same Onigiri Miya logo as his tee. His hair's dark beneath it, and his eyes match. When your gaze meets his, you quickly notice that although his grey irises show how tired he is after what you can only assume has been a long day, there's still a friendly glimmer in them as he replies.

"Course ya didn't. That's why they're on the house," the man tells you. "Can't charge ya if it's not somethin' ya ordered."

You don't mean to sound skeptical, really, but you can't help it as you ask him why.

As he watches you pick up one of the onigiri, he hums. It's low, seated deeply in his chest. "Look like ya could use it. That's all," he says, one shoulder lifting as if letting your suspicion roll off his back. "And I don't feel like having to deal with leftovers in the mornin'."

You look like you could use it.

That's exactly what you want to hear when a stupidly handsome man is standing in front of you.

"I look that bad, huh?" you ask, a small laugh escaping you, but there's no humor behind it. You weren't sure what the giveaway was: smudged eyeliner from crying on the phone to your best friend, red eyes from wiping away your tears of frustration, the hint of congestion as you spoke, or maybe just your general vibe. It could be any or all of the above.

He clicks his tongue. "Don't think I said all that. Just look like it's been a long day, and I'm sure I look the same. Been at it since 7:30 this morning," he shares. He gestures to the onigiri you're still holding. "Eat. That one's tuna and mayo, the other's bonito."

He walks away after that, moving back behind the curtain separating the kitchen from the dining area. You hear the clattering of dishes as you take your first bite of the rice ball.

It's good. Really good. The tuna tastes fresh, and it's neither too dry nor too wet. The rice is good, too — fluffy and sticky without being too heavy. One bite is enough to make you understand why the place is always so packed when you walk by. You've been robbing yourself, you conclude. The milk tea is good, too, but the onigiri really is the star of the show.

The employee comes back out. He gives a quick wave to someone behind you — tablet guy, you're guessing — and wishes him goodnight by name. About a meter down from you, he sets a caddy holding small bowls down on the counter. As he begins to store them beneath the counter, he glances your way. The lines around his eyes soften a bit as he offers you a nod of acknowledgment.

"That's better. Can't have anybody sittin' at my counter lookin' that upset. I got a reputation to uphold."

The gentle smile he shares is enough to let you know it's not about his reputation.

You return to Onigiri Miya a week later. The scene is mostly the same this time around. This late at night, most people have already settled in at home, leaving only a couple of others dining in. You take a seat on the same stool at the counter, not bothering to look at the menu this time.

The man from last time is standing at the register, cell phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder as he takes notes on a legal pad. You can tell by his tone and the lazy smirk on his lips that he's giving someone grief; his accent sounds a little stronger than you remember, too. It's strangely comforting.

He tosses the notepad next to the register and appears to hang up the call, slipping his phone into his pocket as he approaches you.

"Welcome to — well now, it's you," he says, putting his hands on his hips. "Welcome back. Ya don't look like you're about to cry this time, so that's good."

You can feel heat rushing to your cheeks, but you laugh, too. "I'm not coming here right after an awful date this time," you reply.

He lets out a low whistle. "My guess was somethin' work-related, but that woulda been my second pick," he jokes, attempting to keep the mood light. "What can I get for you?"

"If it's not too much trouble, I thought I'd let you pick for me again," you suggest. "I'm happy with whatever you recommend or whatever helps you get rid of anything you don't want to deal with tomorrow."

After a second, he nods. "Yeah. I can do that," he says. "Give me a few minutes."

He drops off a milk tea for you soon after.

The next time he comes by, he sets a plate down in front of you. There are three onigiri this time: one salmon, one pickled plum, and one grilled in miso, he tells you.

You tell him they're delicious.

After the only other diners head out, he offers you his full attention. He swipes a chair from one of the dining room tables, lifting it over the counter like it weighs nothing, and sets it down opposite you. He settles on it comfortably, and when you ask him why he didn't just come sit at the counter, he simply grins and shakes his head.

"Still technically on the clock, so I'll keep hangin' out on the staff side," he replies.

His name is Miya Osamu, you learn. He owns Onigiri Miya, and this is the flagship location, but he's currently scouting out a spot for a second restaurant somewhere in Tokyo. He's around your age — a smidge older, but there's not enough of a difference to really count for anything.

He's always liked cooking, always found comfort in food. He gravitated towards onigiri because he likes how creative you can get while making them, and it's helpful how convenient they are. Plus, he shares, he always enjoyed making them with his mom when he was a kid.

Osamu asks about you, too. He's not satisfied with learning your name, your age, and your profession. He wants to know what you're passionate about, what you like to do in your free time. You can tell he's listening by the way he asks follow-up questions.

It's refreshing.

When you eventually leave, he sends you home with a couple of extra onigiri. "For tomorrow," he tells you.

Over the next few months, he begins to fit into your life with ease.

You drop by Onigiri Miya a few times a week, usually late at night when it's practically empty, your sleep schedule be damned right along with his. He continues to share pieces of his life, and in turn, you do the same. You've met some of his friends, including his twin brother — which had been quite the experience, because wow, they sure are different — and he met your best friend when the two of you had gone by the restaurant one night after having too many drinks at a nearby bar.

Today, he's at your apartment. It isn't the first time he's been over, but it is the first time he's dropped by and you're embarrassed about it.

You'd been standing in three centimeters of water when he'd called to ask if you were up for spending the afternoon together. It'd be one thing if you'd just stepped in a puddle out in the parking lot after a nice rain; instead, you were frozen in your flooded kitchen after a pipe had burst.

"Did ya call maintenance?" he'd asked over the phone.

"Um, yes, yeah, but they said it's not an emergency since I got the water cut off. They'll fix it tomorrow, but all the water in here, I don't even -."

He had sighed, and you could practically see him shaking his head. "And the water's cut off. Did ya turn off the power at the breaker?" he asked. You could hear him moving around.

"The - Shit. No," you'd told him, carefully padding your way out of the kitchen and towards the utility room. "Doing that now. Thanks."

"Go get some towels and hang tight. I'll be there soon."

You'd waited for Osamu in your living room, trying not to think about your flooring. True to his word, he'd shown up at your front door about fifteen minutes later carrying a pump vac.

It'd taken some effort, but by the time he's done, almost all of the standing water is gone. Towels will easily clean up the remainder. As he turns the vacuum off, he looks at where you stand in the entryway.

"This is so embarrassing," you say.

He blinks slowly, and you don't miss the wry grin he's wearing. "Most people would just say 'thanks', ya know," he says. "What're ya embarrassed about?"

With a small huff, you hold your arms out, gesturing around the room. "Oh, you know, all of this," you reply. You continue talking as you grab one of the towels, spreading it out over the floor to wipe up what's left of the mess. "Having to be rescued in my own kitchen, for example. Why does the universe like to have you see me during some of my worst moments?"

Osamu effortlessly catches the towel you toss to him, parroting your actions. "Pretty sure it lets me see ya during some of your best moments, too. Couple weeks ago, we celebrated your promotion," he reminds you. He reaches up, rubbing the back of his neck. "But if ya want the truth, I'm - I think I'm pretty damn lucky I get to be the one ya call when ya need something."

Your gaze flicks upward quickly, looking at him through your lashes. The sentiment is sweet — not saccharine, but it still makes your heart thump a bit louder in your chest. For a few moments, the two of you bask in the silence.

Unable to take it for too long, Osamu clears his throat. "If it makes ya feel better, you're the one I call, too," he says. "Like that time I needed a change of clothes at work -."

You laugh at the memory, the image of him standing in Onigiri Miya's kitchen while soaking wet from head to toe successfully cutting through the tension.

"Shut up," he warns playfully as he continues, breaking into a laugh when he hears yours, "or when I locked myself outta my apartment and couldn't find a locksmith to come out at 2 a.m."

You find yourself wringing your hands that were clasped in front of you. Still, your smile grows as you move across the room to stand next to him. Your body language mirrors his, the two of you standing on an old towel, leaning against your kitchen counter while facing one another. "I like being the person you come to when you need help, too," you admit softly. "It feels… natural. Comfortable, I mean. I like doing what I can to help you."

"Then ya understand why this shouldn't be embarrassin'. This ain't nothing," he says, voice low. He reaches out, the pads of his fingers gently brushing away something. An errant eyelash, a drop of sweat, who knows? It's so casually intimate that your breath catches, and you don't have time to think about it. "And even if it was, I'd still want to be here. Got it?"

His words are resolute, leaving no room for argument. You can't imagine wanting to, anyway, with the way he's looking at you.

"Got it. Thank you," you reply. Without thinking twice, you press a tender kiss to his cheek.

Osamu's cheeks darken, but his wry grin reappears, more boyish in its charm this time. "I think breakin' out the pump vac is worth a little more than that," he teases.

It's your turn to tell him to shut up, and he gleefully does as your lips meet his and his hands quickly move to rest against your sides.

When you delete the dating app from your phone that night, you almost want to laugh. You can't even remember the last time you opened it.

“12:56. 1 hour, 7 minutes,” akaashi puts his phone down after checking the time. “not bad. but you’ll have to solve quicker, takahashi’s really big on being punctual.”

“oh, trust me, i know. one time, i submitted a paper through google classroom and it was a minute late. he deducted five points,” you say, annoyance coming back to haunt you like a man possessed. “five!” you repeat, holding up your hand.

akaashi smiles before sitting up straight. “last year, i was a minute late to class because i dropped my headphones while climbing up the stairs and i had to go down for it. he was already at the door when i reached the floor, and when i ran to catch up to him, he locked the door. in my face.”

you gasp, “he did not!”

“did too,” he shrugged. “i had to sit outside on my ass eavesdropping for like, a good 15 minutes of the class before he felt bad and unlocked it. then he gave the class a lecture about how punctuality is discipline.”

“he is so mean! i swear, we need to set him up with someone so he’s less grumpy,”

“like in clueless?”

“exactly like clueless!”

the two of you share a laugh before akaashi sighs and looks over at your finished paper. “alright, well, i have to check this.”

you nod, tidying up your supplies. “yeah… or we could grab lunch?”

akaashi’s already in item #2 on your mock exam when he looks up at you, “lunch?”

“well, we’ve been here for three hours with no snacks. i don’t know about you, but i’m starving,” you say, patting your stomach to emphasize.

you can practically see the gears turning behind his blue eyes as he contemplates.

“oh, lighten up, akaashi. it’s just lunch. i’m not asking you to go to war with me,” you tease, swatting his arm playfully.

he chuckles endearingly before shaking his head, “fine,” he says, cleaning up.

akaashi takes out a folder from his bag and places your paper along a pile of others, and you can’t help but notice how gracefully he moves. maybe it’s because of his slender hands, but there’s a certain elegance in the way akaashi carries himself. it’s in everything he does, engraved in every little action.

you look up at his eyes when he finishes, smiling. “ready to go?”

“mhm.”

the autumn breeze passes you by as you and akaashi walk side by side out of the library.

“so, what are you in the mood for, anyway?” he asks.

you look around the scenery, and though you’ve been here practically everyday since starting uni, it’s never failed to amaze you just how beautiful your campus is. “honestly, i’m not in the mood for anything in particular,” you say before turning to meet his gaze, “what about you?”

his eyes look away from yours just as soon as you look at him, before he sighs and shrugs. “i don’t really know. i was hoping you had something in mind when you invited me to eat with you.”

your brows furrow as you pout slightly, “well that’s no fair. you’ve been here longer, you definitely know some good spots.”

akaashi purses his lips, his hands in his pockets as he walks. “hm… i guess i do have a place in mind…”

“great, it’s decided!”

“…but i don’t know if i trust you well enough,” akaashi stops in his tracks.

you stop too, albeit a few steps ahead. you turn to face him, giving him a questioning look before he laughs softly. “i was kidding! jeez…” he says, closing the gap as he puts an arm around you and starts walking. “but you have to promise you won’t go telling everyone about it, okay?”

“whatever.”

akaashi takes you to a spot just a few minutes outside campus. it’s a small wooden stall connected to a household, but there’s a counter and some seats on the outside, accompanied by a red-and-white canopy roof. he takes a seat and sets his bag down on the table. before you’re even seated, an old man in an apron and a face mask smiles warmly at the both of you before greeting akaashi.

“my boy, all grown up. is she your girlfriend?” he asks, looking at you.

akaashi returns the smile before shaking his head politely, “no, sir. she’s just a friend.”

“ah, a friend,” the old man nods, eyes flickering between you and akaashi. “you know, that’s where my wife and i started off, too.”

“mr. oka, please,” akaashi chuckles, scratching the back of his head, “we’re just here to eat.”

oka shakes his head before swatting away at the air. “aish, kids these days. always so bashful, so shy,” he says, turning around and getting a laminated sheet of paper before handing it over to you. “back in my day, we simply asked a girl out, plain and simple,” he says, facing akaashi as you scan the menu. “the more time a woman spends being single, the more opportunities she gets. better lock down this beauty before she goes on to find the next best thing,” he winks at akaashi, whose face is currently buried deep in his palms with his glasses pushed up to his head, though you could see how red he is from the gaps between his fingers.

“gramps, you’re old…” akaashi mutters quietly, rubbing his temples as his face returns to its original color.

the old man laughs hysterically before placing both hands in his hips. “alright, alright. i’m sorry, kiddos. it’s been a while since i’ve seen two cute little kids like yourselves,” he says. “so. what will you be having?”

“i’ll just get a tonkotsu ramen,” akaashi answers, pulling out his wallet from his bag.

“extra chashu?”

“yes, sir.”

“and for the lady?”

you hand him back the menu, offering him a small smile. “i’ll have the same, thank you.”

———

shortly after, both your orders arrive. the bowl of ramen is steaming hot as oka places your respective meals on the counter. then, he puts two cups of iced water before retreating to his chair a few feet away, facing the television.

“wanna see a trick?” akaashi asks, snapping his wooden chopsticks in two.

you nod hesitantly as he picks up an ice cube from your cup and drops it onto your bowl. he sees your brows furrow.

“it’s to cool the soup down. it works because oka goes heavy on the seasoning, so it doesn’t get too watered down.”

“oh…”

he does the same thing, only, he adds two ice cubes instead of one in his bowl. “and, you know, more soup,” he says, stirring the bowl.

you mimic his movements before finally digging in. bodies of flavor all greet your taste buds at once, like getting hit by a truck. “oh, wow.”

akaashi looks over, then chuckles once he sees your face. “good?”

you nod eagerly, taking in another bite. “really good. oh, i am so gatekeeping this place,” you say, your focus entirely drawn to the soup before you. “i am not letting these prices go.”

he smiles fondly at you before taking in a bite of his own.

“hey, how’d you even find this place, anyway?” you ask, mouth halfway full as you look up at him.

akaashi doesn’t return your gaze, his eyes fixated on his meal as he shrugged, “i… well, it’s kind of lame.”

your eyebrows furrow, still looking up at him as you tease, “who says “lame” in this day and age?”

he smiles, then looks at you before shaking his head. caving in, he speaks, “i was a struggling freshman last year. there aren’t many spots in campus that are budget-friendly, and i didn’t really have time to cook three meals a day so… i had to look elsewhere, you know?”

your eyes travelling back to your bowl as you nod. “mhm, i get that. i don’t know why you’d think that’s lame, though,” you say, taking another bite, “i agree that the campus is… a little gentrified.”

akaashi looks at you for a moment—only with his eyes so you don’t notice—and hums in agreement, “yeah.”

“is that why you got, um, that job at the bookstore?” you ask, looking up at him once again.

“yeah, actually. well… i mean, that’s not the sole reason.“

“really? what else?”

his eyes look around, clearly finding a way to soften his words. “i… i’m kind of a nerd.”

“…a nerd?”

“yeah. well, i mean… i don’t know. i like literature as much as the next person, i guess. animanga’s pretty cool, too. and i like games,” he says. “employees have a 15% discount so you can see how far it goes as a struggling college student.”

you nod once again, “that’s why you have so many books.”

“not that much,” he says, side eyeing you as he teases.

“yes that much. you practically took up half the table on our first meet.”

“okay, i was preparing for a big exam so that doesn’t count.”

you and akaashi finish your meals around the same time. you’re just about to pull out your money from your wallet when akaashi stops you.

“hey, don’t bother,” he says, calling over oka to pay for the meals.

“oh, you don’t have to…” you trail off, feeling a little bit guilty. “you’ve done enough for me today,” you say softly, suddenly feeling meek.

“no, it’s okay. oka always gives me a discount anyway. says i’m the one keeping his lights on,” he chuckles, already getting up.

you follow him and clean up your belongings before the two of you walk back to your university’s gates, “okay… but i’m covering for us next time, alright?”

akaashi chuckles before he looks over at you, “sure. same time next week?” he says.

“deal,” you nod. “and i get to pick where we go.”

“works for me,” he shrugs. “should i walk you home? are you going home?”

just then, a text notification pops up on your phone.

“well…”

“you know that’s not what i meant.” he sighed, exhaling sharply.

“then what exactly… did you mean, sae?” you demanded, your voice trembling despite how badly you wanted it to sound firm. “because lately it feels like i’m constantly trying to squeeze myself into whatever tiny space you have left for me.”

“don’t start, please.”

“don’t… start?” you scoffed, a humorless laugh slipping out. “i’m your girlfriend. i shouldn’t have to beg for your attention.”

“and i shouldn’t have to justify every second of my day to you.”

for a moment, all you could hear was the faint static of the call between you. it stretched on long enough for your anger to start turning into something heavier.

“maybe… it’s better if we stop pretending this is working,” you whispered, your throat tightening around every word.

sae’s sharp reply came instantly. “don’t say that.”

“… why not?” you snapped. “when was the last time we had a conversation that didn’t end like this?”

“that’s because you keep pushing.”

“no, it’s because you’re impossible to talk to!”

“maybe because nothing i say is ever enough for you.”

for a beat, neither of you said anything. then came the final straw. “fine,” you breathed, the word coming out shakier than you wanted. “… maybe soccer is the only thing you actually care about. you know what? i’m done.”

before he could respond, you ended the call.

the screen went dark instantly, your tear-streaked reflection staring back at you through the blackened glass.

for the first time since the argument started, your apartment fell completely silent. your chest felt tight. your eyes burned from crying because some part of you already missed him. and despite how angry you still were, guilt had already begun creeping in around the edges.

but right now, the resentment that had been building for weeks was still fresh, still sitting heavy in your chest. then in a fit of anger and exhaustion, you’d decided to block him everywhere— imessage, whatsapp, instagram, tiktok, even his email too. you didn’t want to hear his voice, see his name pop up on your screen, or read another dry reply that made you feel like an inconvenience.

you just needed silence and a moment of clarity for yourself.

—

on the other side of the world, sae stared at his phone screen in disbelief.

his messages weren’t delivering. his calls went straight to voicemail. when he opened instagram, your account no longer existed in his following or followers. the last message he sent you sat on ‘not delivered.’

he tried once more, then again, each attempt ending the same way. still nothing.

“… fuck,” he muttered, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

he was in his hotel room after his evening training, hair still damp from the shower, exhaustion from the day mixing with rising irritation from whatever that transpired between you two.

sae rarely lost his cool. but right now, sitting on the edge of the bed with his phone gripped tightly in his hand; he was definitely furious. sure, the two of you had argued before, but this time you had intentionally shut him out. he knew he’d said things he shouldn’t have. he knew the distance had been wearing thin on both of you. but the thought that you’d actually block him— or cut him off completely made him feel more helpless than ever.

after one last failed call, he threw his phone onto the mattress with a sharp exhale, dragging a hand down his face.

“stubborn woman…” he hissed under his breath, teal-eyes sharp with irritation. “you really think blocking me is going to fix anything?”

he leaned back against the headboard, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the phone lying uselessly in front of him. a small part of him wanted to book the first flight back to japan without thinking twice, while the rational part of him knew you’d only resent him for ignoring the space you so clearly needed.

but the longer he sat there, unable to reach you; the heavier the unease settled in his chest. because for the first time in a long time… he couldn’t get through to you.

and he absolutely hated it.

⨳ 𝓷𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: errr ending it here because i might wanna do a pt 2

His name would roll off the tongues of adolescent and teenage girls, accompanied by dreamy sighs. They’d all looked up to him as though he was Prince Charming or the handsome male lead of a shoujo manga. And, in all honesty, you couldn’t blame them, even back then when you hadn’t known him personally.

He was everything a prepubescent girl could ever want from a guy. From good looks to an approachable persona, he effortlessly sold the image his fans had crafted of him. He hardly turned down the attention and only fuelled their advances, easily dishing out winks and smiles for them to greedily eat up and feed into their romantic fantasies of him.

Hell, you’d even caught some guys who’d scoffed at him flush at his impeccable fan service.

He was a celebrity—untouchable for mere plebeians like you, belonging in a separate world for those who were bolder, brighter, and far away.

In hindsight, you wondered if you would have harboured an unrequited crush on him as your peers had. There was no denying the effortless draw he had over people. The only reason you probably didn’t was that you’d nursed a silly crush of your own. One that had annoyingly carried over into the beginning of high school but fizzled out as you simply grew out of it.

Ultimately, your path did eventually cross with Oikawa’s in Aoba Johsai.

By some mysterious twist of fate, you wound up becoming the manager of the boys’ volleyball team.

Takenouchi Hina, the third-year manager back when you were in your first year, had been on the lookout for a new manager. Later, she admitted to you that she’d wanted to snatch up a first year who hadn’t chosen or joined a club; it had been to her luck that you were one of the last students in your class who hadn’t joined a club by her timely hunt, torn between Home Economics and Photography.

During one lunch period, she’d approached you with a warm smile and invited you to watch their practice before you could completely rule out the volleyball club. Being the good kouhai you were, you couldn’t bring yourself to deny such an earnest plea. And so, after class that day, you awkwardly trailed behind Takenouchi and hesitatingly followed her into the gym, wondering how rude it would be to excuse yourself when you were already there.

Very rude, you’d decided and continued to obediently shadow your senior.

“Takenouchi-san! Hello!” A boy called out from the other side of the court as the two of you drew closer to where the coaches stood.

The greeting caught the attention of the other gym-dwellers, and you found dozens of curious eyes falling on your awkward form trying to hide in the shadow of their manager.

Oh, God. Help me.

The sheer number of people just staring at you intimidated the ever-loving shit out of you. Why were teenage boys so intimidating and imposing and—

A deep voice suddenly cut your thoughts short, and you instinctively turned to the call of your name, eagerly latching onto the familiarity in the voice. Relief immediately flooded your veins and soothed your nerves as you found solace at the sight of the familiar speaker.

Over on the other end of the court, your old classmate, Iwaizumi Hajime, stood with a dumbfounded look on his face—slack jaw, wide eyes, and all.

Is it really that surprising to see me in the gym? Momentarily, you couldn’t tell if you should have been offended by how surprised he appeared. Rather than dwell on that stray—and semi-depressing—thought, you pushed it aside to give him a jerky wave and strained smile.

Your eyes swept past him, intending to survey the rest of the gym before the inevitable and dreadful introductions. However, you unwittingly met the gaze of a certain Oikawa Tooru, who’d been watching you and Iwaizumi with what you could only describe as curiosity and cautious intrigue.

You studied him for a moment longer before tensing and glancing at Takenouchi as she introduced you to the rest of the team. On cue, you greeted them with a proper 90-degree bow and soft stutter of “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

After you straightened up and stiffly accepted the team’s loud greetings, you found yourself studiously avoiding Oikawa’s (still!) curious gaze on you. There was something piercing about his stare—something that made you, honestly, intimidated by the guy you’d heard so much about in junior high.

It felt weird being in the same space as him. You didn’t actually know the boy personally, but you’d heard so much about him from other people—even people close to him like Iwaizumi. It sort of felt like you knew him, but at that moment, you realized that you never really had proper face-to-face interactions with him in your three years at Kitagawa Daiichi.

And for some reason, that made you feel incredibly awkward and a bit like a creep.

In your first year as the volleyball team’s manager, you had slowly but surely gotten closer with the players—especially the ones your age.

Hanamaki Takahiro and Matsukawa Issei were both easygoing guys, so it didn’t take long before you shared inside jokes with them and sought them out for company during lunch. And you had probably felt most comfortable with Iwaizumi out of pure familiarity and an established sense of rapport.

The three of them had helped you comfortably ease into your new role, freely lending a hand as needed, much to your relief and appreciation. Within a couple of months, you even felt comfortable calling them your friends.

That wasn’t to say you didn’t get along with Oikawa—because you did. It did take him a bit longer to warm up to you, having approached you with guarded eyes in the first few months. You were fairly certain that he only started to truly respect you after you’d helped Iwaizumi treat a jammed finger from an Interhigh match against the reigning champions, Shiratorizawa.

Frankly, Oikawa had defied your expectations.

Perhaps it was because you weren’t his best friend like Iwaizumi or a pining fan, but you were surprised by just how cool and indifferent he could be to others. Sure, he was polite and all, but you had seen the calculating glint in his eyes as he watched you, seemingly evaluating you and your every action.

It was only after that jammed finger incident that the ice in his eyes had completely melted, and he started to approach you with genuine smiles. From there, forging a friendship with Oikawa had been surprisingly and pleasantly easy. You found his dramatics amusing, and he seemed to enjoy your reactions, sometimes amping up his antics, if Iwaizumi was to be believed (he had a tendency to exaggerate when it came to the matters of his best friend).

But your friendship with Oikawa did not just end there. In some respects, the setter had come to trust you the most in certain matters over the others.

“Oikawa,” you called out to the boy glaring across the net, his chest rising and falling with each breathless pant.

Staying back after practice and watching over him had been a recent development, starting from the beginning of your second year. The brunet had come up to you one day after club activities and asked if you could stay back with him for extra practice—apparently, the coaches had only permitted it on the condition that someone else stayed back to supervise.

You hadn’t understood why at first, but after having sat through multiple overtime sessions with him, the answer became abundantly clear.

Oikawa had a propensity of working himself to the bone.

You were genuinely concerned for his health and well-being. Sometimes, he looked downright exhausted as the two of you cleaned up. You’d always offer to clean up by yourself, afraid that the boy would topple over or collapse on his way home if he moved around anymore.

Naturally, he brushed aside your offer, insisting that you stayed back for him, so he needed to repay the favour. Any further protests and snatching of balls from his hands went ignored and snatched back. To avoid having the boy expend any more energy, you relented but made sure to take care of the more tedious and laborious tasks as discreetly as you could—though you had a sneaking suspicion that Oikawa picked up on that and played along to keep you happy.

At first, you’d stayed behind because he’d asked. After the first few times, you stayed behind to keep an eye on him to assuage your worries—not that seeing him push himself so much ever really did.

You became a constant presence in the court, worriedly watching Oikawa as he pushed himself with a hunger and drive you didn’t think you could ever understand. You admired him for it, nonetheless.

“Geniuses make me sick.”

The venom in his voice made you tense as you helped Oikawa gather up the balls scattered all over the court.

“What?”

He clutched the ball in his hands tighter, trembling in a way that accentuated his frustration and despair. “I can’t stand geniuses. They don’t need to put in as much effort as I do to pull off the same stunts. If geniuses and people like me put in the same effort, the geniuses will win as long as they have a team of equal skill with my team.”

You startled as he suddenly snapped his head up and gave you an intense look. Envy, anger, hatred, desperation, and sadness swirled in those chocolate orbs, leaving you feeling oddly winded as though he’d sucker-punched you with the unmitigated force of his emotions.

“It’s so unfair.”

Your heart broke at the unadulterated grief and anguish in the boy’s voice.

You could sort of understand where he was coming from, having witnessed those who were effortlessly smart and comfortably sitting at the top of the class while you had to put in the work and tirelessly study to keep up with them. It wasn’t fair, and sure, sometimes, you were bothered by it, but it wasn’t something that… ate you alive. Those were simply the cards you were dealt with. You were alright with being average—content with it, even.

Oikawa evidently wasn’t. In fact, he seemed to abhor the very idea with every fibre of his being.

Life wasn’t fair. And that was a plainly irrefutable truth—one painful in its simplicity yet exhausting in its web of complicated intricacies.

But you didn’t want to say the wrong thing, not knowing nearly enough about volleyball to provide a proper response to such a weighty and loaded statement. You honestly thought Oikawa was a brilliant player. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a natural-born “genius” or whatever.

He shone brightly on the court, positively beamed with a child-like joy you couldn’t comprehend for simply playing the sport he loved more than anything else in the entire world. You might have been more envious that he had such a life passion if you did not get a glimpse into the suffering it also caused.

“It is unfair,” you found yourself agreeing.

Oikawa blinked at you owlishly, clearly not having expected such a response. You absently wondered if all he’d heard until that point was disagreement or a challenge to his impassioned words.

“Don’t discredit the fruits of hard work, Oikawa,” you told him softly but with firm conviction. “Your dedication and effort will surely pay off.” It had to. You refused to believe that such a dedicated and talented individual like Oikawa would not reap the rewards of his passionate drive and effort.

Surely, the world wasn’t that cruel.

You’d expected more of a fight from the brunet, seeing how passionate he was earlier, but he curiously remained silent.

You watched as the high-strung tension in his shoulders loosened, and a thoughtful look chased away the dark looming cloud of hatred and frustration that’d previously taken over his usually clear eyes.

“I… see.”

You let your eyes linger on him for a few beats longer before giving him space. Just before you averted your gaze, you noticed the boy slowly mouth the words you’d said to him as he curled his hand into a tight fist over his chest.

Don’t discredit the fruits of hard work.

Something about your friendship with Oikawa changed after having bore witness to that moment of vulnerability. You couldn’t put your finger on exactly what it was, but it certainly felt like he had let all of his remaining walls down around you—walls you hadn’t even realized he still had up in the first place.

You had grown a lot closer to him—and quickly, too. He actively sought you out during practice to whine and cling to you the way he did to Iwaizumi. The first time he’d done that was the day immediately after that moment, so you had been taken aback at his sudden bout of silly affection. However, you were adaptable. And so, you and Oikawa developed your own brand of friendship. Unlike the ace, you entertained Oikawa’s clinginess but poked fun at him in your own way instead (one that refreshingly did not involve your fists and sharp looks).

When you were apart, he texted you frequently, striking up random conversations and asking the strangest but admittedly interesting questions about alien life. You found yourself glued to your phone more than usual, giggling quietly in your room as you read through his far-fetched albeit entertaining conspiracy theories about JAXA and life on Mars.

It surprised you just how easily and effortlessly you clicked with Oikawa. You could be both silly and serious without any judgement from the boy. Although he’d been the guy you were most distant with on the team in your first year, he was probably the member you were closest to by your second year.

And going into your third and last year of senior high, he was both one of your best friends and a great menace in your life.

“Oh, Manager-chaaaan,” he sang before clutching onto your arm with his two hands.

You merely grunted in response, letting him pull you away from your desk. You’d learned the hard way that some things weren’t worth fighting when your opponent was the Oikawa Tooru.

“Yudacchi insisted we join him for lunch today,” Oikawa heaved a dramatic sigh as though Yuda was causing him a great inconvenience—which you knew wasn’t the case as the boy cared for his teammates more than he liked to admit. “So it’s not going to be at Iwa-chan’s as usual.”

“What, why?” you furrowed your brows, wondering what Yuda wanted. As Seijoh’s volleyball team was rather large, not all those in the same year hung out with each other. Sure, you were all friendly and got along fine, but the club had broken off into smaller friend groups. You mostly stuck around the starting third years: Oikawa, Iwaizumi, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa. While you all were somewhat friends with Yuda, Sawauchi, and Shido, they stuck to themselves outside practice.

“He said he wanted to talk to us all about something.”

“All of us?” you queried dubiously. “What could he possibly want from all of us?”

Oikawa shrugged and simply pulled you along.

There was no need for him to keep holding onto your wrist as you were following after him willingly. For a split second, you considered telling him to let go, but you couldn’t bring yourself to open your mouth and say the words.

Mystified by your own reaction, your eyes fell to his fingers, which were wrapped soundly around your wrist. He had long and almost elegant-looking fingers with pretty nail beds. You knew he took care of them obsessively, insisting that if a nail was even a millimetre too long, it threw off his tosses.

You didn’t know if you believed him (the millimetre part, that was) but entertained him, helping him pick out new nail files whenever his old ones grew dull.

Either way, his meticulous routine and care for his hands paid off. They were probably the most well-groomed hands you’d seen from an athlete. You’d have thought that volleyball players who built up calluses from constant contact with fastballs would have hands that were rough to the touch.

It was almost unfair just how much Oikawa had won the genetic lottery. From his princely looks to his athletic abilities, he was a bit too perfect. If he hadn’t opted for sports as his career path, he probably would have made it big in the entertainment industry.

The call of your name pulled you out of your strange thoughts.

Shit.

Heat rushed to your cheeks as you met Oikawa’s amused chocolate brown eyes. Flustered, you tried to sputter out an excuse for your blatant gawking but fell short of any coherent stream of thought when he suddenly leaned in.

He gazed deeply into your eyes, and a slight smirk graced his lips.

He’s too close, you shrieked in the safe confines of your mind.

You fidgeted in your spot, cursing Oikawa for the twitter-pated effect he had over you. His gaze appeared to melt with unbridled softness and another indescribable emotion. The look stole your breath away, and your fingertips tingled as a pleasant yet electrifying thrill coursed through you.

Unable to handle any more intense sensations, you directed your eyes to your feet.

To both your relief and disappointment, Oikawa pulled away the slightest bit, and you heard a quiet chuckle. Then, he gave the back of your hand a cheeky little tap with his finger before finally—mercifully—letting go of your wrist.

What the hell was that?

You stood there, still as a statue, while Oikawa blithely entered the classroom with a notable bounce in his steps.

You sucked in a deep and long breath for four seconds and held it for seven before letting it out slowly through your nose—eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Those traitorous butterflies in your stomach settled a bit, and you felt… well, like yourself again.

Without another moment to waste, you strode inside and glanced around to see where the team was gathered in Yuda’s class.

“Oh, it’s our Manager-chan,” Hanamaki caught sight of you and waved you over to where your friends had pushed together a few desks by the window.

“Hey,” you greeted everyone as you took the empty seat between Hanamaki and Matsukawa. Looking up from your seat, your eyes met Oikawa’s amused ones.

Still embarrassed from whatever the hell happened by the door, you found that you couldn’t hold his gaze and immediately looked to Yuda.

“Is this everyone?” The aforementioned boy asked Sawauchi on his left.

“I think so?” Sawauchi gave the entire group a cursory scan.

“Yeah, it is,” Shido confirmed.

Without a moment to waste, Yuda slammed his hands down on his desk, “Listen.” Your clubmate’s antics embarrassingly captured the attention of the rest of the class. Mercifully, once they noticed who had caused the commotion, they all turned back to their own friends and ignored the boy.

You couldn’t help but wonder just how commonplace Yuda’s theatrics were for his classmates to turn away without so much as batting an eye. As much as you liked your fellow third year, you found yourself looking down at your lunch to avoid meeting the gaze of his classmates.

“We’re all the same age, right?” he continued, evidently oblivious to your discomfort.

You exchanged wary glances with the others at the table.

“Right…”

“We’re all friends, right?”

“Right…” This one was said with more hesitance, but luckily, Yuda didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s our final year! We need more team bonding moments!”

While the sentiment was nice, you didn’t think Yuda was going about it the right way, seeing as the rest of the team shared discreet cringes.

Matsukawa nudged you by the side and leaned in to whisper, “How long do you think this will take?”

You grimaced, “Maybe the whole lunch?” Yuda, though a kind and well-intending soul, was not the most… concise. He had a tendency to ramble and go off on tangents as he circled around the point he was trying to make out of pure passion.

“Damn,” the middle blocker chuckled and straightened up. “I think you’re probably right.”

Sorry, Yuda, you sent the fellow third year a silent apology.

You tuned out the rest of Yuda’s ramblings and leaned back into your chair, tilting your head to stare up at the ceiling. Your fellow clubmate could go on for ages if he wanted to, and you’d learned that it was best to let it out of his system.

With that thought, you fixed your posture, opened your bento, and pulled out the chopsticks you’d packed.

You gave an internal cheer as you realized that your mother had put in the leftover tonkotsu from dinner and happily shoved a big piece into your mouth.

Just before you could chew down on the tonkotsu, you heard someone call your name. Perking up, you instinctively turned your head in the direction the voice came from.

You promptly swallowed the tonkotsu and blinked in surprise. “Nakamura?”

“Hey,” the boy smiled. “Long time no see.”

Nakamura Seiichi was, by all means, an average high school boy. Though rather plain-looking with an average build and height, he was friendly and had an endearing charm about him. It was those very traits that had you carrying a crush on him throughout junior high.

“I see you’re with Iwaizumi, too,” he nodded before giving your friend a wave. “Long time no see.”

“Hey,” Iwaizumi gave him a friendly nod back.

“You guys on the volleyball club together, was it?”

“Yeah,” you replied. “I’m just the manager, though.”

Nakamura’s lips curled into that boyish and friendly smile of his. “Yeah, I think I heard that from our old classmates. I’m on the student council as treasurer… though you probably already know that.”

You nodded and let out a quiet chuckle, “Most people know the third years on student council, yes.”

Nakamura gave a sheepish laugh as he rubbed the back of his neck. Then, he glanced up at the clock and grimaced. “I have to run—student council meeting, actually.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” you waved in understanding.

“Well, I’ll see you both around,” Nakamura waved back before leaving the room.

Your eyes trailed after Nakamura, shocked to realize that his presence didn’t fill you with the same jittery nerves and butterflies as it once did. It was a small thing but felt more monumental than it actually was. It felt like you’d shed that last bit of your junior high self and were seeing the changes within you.

You tapped your finger on your chin and shifted your gaze back to your friends. Amazingly, Yuda was still at it and hadn’t seemed to notice the exchange. You gave a cursory glance over at each of your friends to notice that Hanamaki and Matsukawa were actually listening but with a suspiciously mischievous glint in their eyes. Iwaizumi appeared to be half-listening as he chomped down on his yakisoba bread.

You stopped short at Oikawa, not having noticed that he had been watching you for who knows how long. There was something in his eyes that you couldn’t describe, but it was intense. A part of you wanted to desperately avert your gaze, but the more stubborn and traitorous part couldn’t bear to look away from him at that moment.

He’s beautiful, your mind supplied unhelpfully.

At that horrifying realization, you finally fixed your eyes on your bento box.

Senior high was very short. Each year passed by in a blur, but the sentiment rang particularly true in your last year at Aoba Johsai.

Volleyball had ended on a bittersweet note. While you could proudly declare that your team had relentlessly fought—tooth and nail—to the bitter end, it still hurt that their efforts fell short. Their blood, sweat, and tears weren’t enough to reach their longtime goal of making the Spring Nationals.

Hell, they didn’t even manage to make it to the finals against Shiratorizawa after facing an agonizing defeat to the rapidly evolving Karasuno.

Nevertheless, you were proud of them and yourself.

The plays they pulled against Karasuno were astonishing. Watching the match on the bench left you on the edge of your seat, waiting with bated breath for the ball to drop on the other side of the court.

You were grateful to have been part of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Who would have thought you’d get involved with volleyball, or sports in general, as you had the opportunity to in high school? You didn’t think you would ever get involved with volleyball in the same capacity but had an inkling that you would follow the sport for a long time—it wasn’t like Oikawa would let you stay out of the loop with his declaration that his journey with volleyball was nowhere near ending after high school.

And it was finally the day of your graduation.

You were glad you had the opportunity to cry with the rest of the volleyball team at the crushing realization that you would not see each other in the same capacity next year. You didn’t want a repeat on graduation day and, mercifully, found yourself laughing with your friends as you all reminisced on past memories and talked about your plans.

The air was filled with a blend of bittersweet nostalgia and anticipation for the future. It truly felt like a chapter of your life was ending, but that only meant another chapter was starting.

You had been with the rest of your friends when Oikawa suddenly sauntered up and grabbed you by the upper arm.

Startled by the sudden contact, you whipped your head to see the boy not looking at you but at Iwaizumi. The latter merely shook his head and glanced between you and Oikawa with a strange smile toying at his lips.

“Wha—” you sputtered as Oikawa tugged at your arm.

You shot Iwaizumi a startled look as his best friend started to drag you away from the rest of them. He only gave you a knowing look and turned back to Hanamaki and Matsukawa, who hadn’t so much as blinked at the intrusion.

That traitor!

Enraged by your friend’s betrayal, you fiercely glared at the back of his head, fervently hoping that he would feel it and take pity on you—or save you out of fear over your wrath.

But Iwaizumi did not move or show any indication that he felt your glare as you only got further and further away from him until you lost sight of him among the sea of students.

Once you could no longer see your friends, you hesitantly shifted your attention to the boy in front of you. As much as you wanted to ask Oikawa where he was taking you, for some reason, it did not feel right to break the weird silence.

Tension lined Oikawa’s shoulders, contrasting the gentle yet firm grip on your wrist. He did not look back at you at all as he kept maneuvering you through the crowds.

Amazingly, no one approached him. You couldn’t help but wonder what his face looked like for it to ward off even the most persistent of his fans. A part of you wanted a glimpse, but another part of you didn’t. You were, frankly, scared of what you would see.

Inwardly, you were grateful that Oikawa didn’t hold onto your hand. Your palms were cold and clammy as your nerves got the better of you. That time before lunch with Yuda had already cued him into his effect on you—you didn’t want to give yourself away any more than that.

The silence and trek stretched on for what felt like hours when, in reality, it had only been a couple of minutes.

Eventually, Oikawa came to a stop as he wrenched open a door and ushered you inside. Instantly, you recognized that he was taking you to the roof.

Will it be empty? You wondered doubtfully. You imagined it was the perfect place for some graduating students to say their goodbyes or have private conversations away from peering eyes.

“We’re here,” Oikawa announced, breaking you out of your thoughts.

“Oh, wow, there really isn’t anyone else,” you blurted out as you scanned the shockingly empty roof.

“I’ve been keeping my eye on it,” he admitted sheepishly. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

You remained quiet for a few seconds, studying your friend’s form. “What is it?” you finally asked.

Oikawa shoved his hand into the pocket of his jacket and seemed to fiddle with something in it.

“I have a present for you.”

“A present…?” you eyed the hand in his pocket dubiously.

“Yep, will you accept it?”

“As long as it isn’t weird,” you nodded slowly.

“It isn’t weird! Promise!” Oikawa defended, looking mildly offended.

“Alright, then… What…?”

“Tada!” In typical Oikawa Tooru fashion, he’d brandished his gift with unnecessary flair, sticking his hand out to you as he winked and shot you his signature disarming grin.

Although it was not unlike him to put his flair to things, it felt a little out of place and forced. You could see the nerves and tension in his usually naturally charismatic and charming smile—the corners gave a nearly imperceptible twitch.

You glanced at his hand to see a little button smack in the middle of his palm. At the sight of the gift, you pursed your lips and arched a brow at him skeptically. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Oikawa?”

He beamed down at you unflinchingly, “Giving you my button, of course!”

You stared at his jacket and noted that his second button was indeed missing and likely the one he was offering you.

“Why are you giving this to me?” You queried cautiously. Did he know what giving the second button entailed? Knowing Oikawa and his popularity, he had no reason not to know.

But there’s no way he’s giving it to me of all people, right?

He must have noticed your doubts as he immediately adopted a grave face and called you by your given name. “Listen, carefully. I…I want to tell you something.”

A shiver went down your spine at the serious use of your name. Normally, Oikawa would say it playfully, though he didn’t use it too often either.

“Uh…” you tried to string together a coherent response but found that he’d rendered you speechless—a common occurrence as of late.

He gently grabbed your wrist and pressed the button down firmly into your palm. “I’m giving this to you for the same reasons other guys give away their second buttons.”

You gaped at him, opening and closing your mouth a few times in a fruitless effort to say something—anything in response to this earth-shattering…confession.

Wait, is this actually a confession? It can’t be. No way.

You needed to clear the air.

“Oikawa, I—”

“Tooru.”

“What?”

He averted his gaze.

“Call me Tooru… just for this moment. Please.”

Oh, maybe this is real.

“Tooru,” you acquiesced in a shaky tone.

The boy before you sucked in a sudden deep breath. He appeared oddly nervous—unlike his usual demeanour—and seemed to be trying to calm himself. Ironically, the sight only set your nerves to life as butterflies came to life and fluttered in your stomach as you put two and two together.

His nerves…the freaking button, graduation day. Is he actually…?

“Is this… are your, uh, feelings—”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

In all honesty, you didn’t know what to say. Oikawa was leaving for Argentina in a few days, tirelessly working and pushing to make his dreams come true. It was a little cruel of him to confess his feelings when he couldn’t even stay.

I like you, too. Those words lingered at the tip of your tongue, and suddenly, you were gripped with the need to let Oikawa know your feelings as well—that you reciprocated his feelings.

You looked up at him, set on telling him, but something in his face gave you pause.

You couldn’t completely place your finger on it. It was something soft. Something sad. Something so heartbreakingly tender.

You studied him for a few moments longer before it finally clicked.

Oikawa knew. He knew that his feelings weren’t one-sided. He knew that confessing now put you in a pickle.

He gently reached for your hand and laced your fingers together.

You both stared at your hands, marvelling at how well they fit together. Warmth emanated from his fingers and palm, and you realized just how cold yours had been. It was pleasant. Comforting. It was like Oikawa—the way you knew him. Not the way his fans knew him. Not the way Iwaizumi knew him. Just you.

He was your Oikawa in a weird way.

That thought ushered a flush to your cheeks, and you couldn’t help but look down at your shoes in embarrassment. Stop. He’s not my anything.

How horrifyingly embarrassing.

Before you could shrink into yourself, Oikawa gently tugged on your joined hands, drawing you into his warm atmosphere. You stumbled at first but quickly regained your balance as Oikawa let go of your hand and wrapped his arms around you instead, pulling you in even closer.

What.

You froze for a moment, totally caught unaware by the boy’s actions. But soon enough, you felt yourself melt into his warm embrace. You raised a hand to his back and felt him immediately hold you tighter in his arms before cradling the back of your head with one hand.

It was in that tender action that you realized that you both knew and understood.

He wasn’t even planning on staying in the country. Oikawa Tooru was meant for greater things in life, higher summits. Saying those sweet yet forbidden words would hurt more, given the circumstances. Knowing what those words sounded like from his lips, in his beautiful voice, saturated with heart-wrenching sincerity, would hurt all the more.

You would simply have to bury those words deep in your heart and lock them away.

Still, you closed your eyes and basked in your shared warmth. And as you held him in your arms, just as he held you, the beat of your heart danced steadily against your chest to the melody of your feelings singing from its locked cage.

[12:47 PM] Oikawa: I’m in Japan for a bit. Wanna hang out and catch up?

You stared down at the text as you bit down on your thumb nervously.

It had been a few years since you graduated from high school and a few months since you graduated from university. In the hustle and bustle of school, you hadn’t had the opportunity to see Oikawa the couple of times he’d visited Japan—specifically, Miyagi. Sure, you managed to keep up with him via video calls, messages, regular calls, and all that, but it just wasn’t the same. You could afford to delay your responses as needed—besides, with the time zones, it was a rarity for you to hear back from him right away, and vice versa.

But now… you were minutes away from interacting with Oikawa in real time with no delays, no mulling over your words, and no anxious waiting for replies.

[1:23 PM] Sure, do you wanna go anywhere in particular?

You read over your text again and scanned through your brief conversation. Ultimately, you and Oikawa had chosen to meet by Skytree to do some sightseeing—well, more like you playing the tour guide for Oikawa’s Tokyo trip.

You were, admittedly, nervous. It had been over four years since you’d seen Oikawa in person, so your scheduled reunion felt… monumental. It felt like you were breaking off from the familiar and comfortable rapport you’d built up over the years.

And so you stood outside Moomin House Cafe, which Oikawa had insisted on visiting before making your rounds around Skytree. You took another quick peek inside and had to admit that it was rather cute. It was a supposed “anti-loneliness” cafe, and the decor certainly created a warm atmosphere even as you looked in from the outside.

The warm spring breeze swept through you and let a stray hair loose from your scrunchie. You huffed in annoyance and reached up to undo it when someone else had beaten you to it.

Alarmed, you whipped your head back to see Oikawa smiling down mischievously at you, scrunchie in his hand. 

“Oikawa!?” you reeled back in surprise, watching as he pocketed your scrunchie with a cheeky grin. 

“That’s me!” The brunet winked and lifted his fingers into a peace sign. “Long time no see, Manager-chan.”

“Yeah,” your words came out in a breathless rush. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

After graduation, the distance between you and Oikawa had grown bigger—almost insurmountable. He lived across the globe, chasing after his dreams with that hunger you’d seen since high school.

And now, he was right in front of you, and the distance grew smaller. You hovered in his orbit, close enough to see and admire but never daring to touch.

He’s beautiful, you couldn’t help but think to yourself.

Like clockwork, a wave of horror crashed over you—a stupidly common occurrence every time you’d made that realization, even back in freaking high school.

You cleared your throat in an attempt to distract yourself from those warring feelings. “So, want to go in?”

After catching up on each other’s lives over a cup of coffee, you and Oikawa decided to make your trek to Skytree. Having already visited a couple of times in university, you led him to the Skytree Gallery, allowing him to “ooh” and “ah” at the models and historical photos.

Once he’d had his fill of learning about the history of the tower, you took him to enjoy the view from Tembo Galleria, the highest observation deck of Skytree.

“Have you ever been here at this time?” Oikawa asked.

You shook your head. “No, I visited when it was dark since that’s when I finished most classes.”

“The night view must be nice. You should take me here again when it’s dark next time.”

You couldn’t help but quirk a little smile at the prospect of a next time, liking the thought—the delicious promise—of seeing each other again. “Yeah, definitely.”

A comfortable silence fell between the two of you.

Oikawa turned back to the windows with a thoughtful look on his face. “Miyagi was all I knew,” he admitted as he took in the city view with shining eyes. “Adjusting to Argentina was hard.”

You nodded slowly. “I mean, you went alone and away from home. There must have been a lot of barriers you had to overcome in the process.”

“Yeah…” He got a distant look in his eyes as he seemed to reminisce about days past.

You let him be, wondering if he’d ever given himself a moment to really think and reflect—to be proud of his accomplishments as many others were—as you were.

Fixing your gaze on the breathtaking afternoon view of Tokyo, you felt a sense of peace. You understood why so many people took comfort in viewing the city from a far distance or great heights. Everything looked smaller and put things in a different perspective.

As it was still bright outside, you could see some office workers—the poor souls, working on a weekend—hurrying back into their office buildings with a coffee in hand. It was funny that while it had only been a few months since you started working at your plain old office job, you related to them more than the students who were seemingly on break and enjoying the nice weather, likely taking a break from their studies.

Life moves on. The sentimental thought struck you suddenly as one student in particular—if their Waseda hoodie was to be believed—tackled their friend waiting for them by a bench excitedly as though they hadn’t seen each other in a long time.

With that thought, you fell into a thoughtful silence, reminiscing on your high school years, which simultaneously felt like yesterday and eons ago.

Quietly, but comfortably, you followed Oikawa as he walked around the observation deck to admire the city view from all angles.

It had been a peaceful and quiet affair, and you felt so relaxed as you took comfort in simply being with Oikawa.

“Welp! I think I got my fill of Skytree. Have anywhere else to go, Tour Guide-san?” Oikawa asked playfully as he stretched his arms behind him.

You thought for a moment before taking a quick glimpse outside. “Up for a walk?”

“Sure,” he shrugged.

“We’re gonna have to cross Oshinari Bridge,” you explained as the two of you made your way out of the observation decks. “There’s a quaint little park—Oshinari Park—it’s quite nice but nothing special. We can kill some time before grabbing some dinner.”

“Sounds good. Lead the way!”

As you’d said, Oshinari Park was not anything special. In all honesty, it wasn’t even worth touring around, but it served its purpose. You wanted to kill some time before dinner and expend enough energy to feel hungry.

After you’d walked around and worked yourselves up to hunger, you and Oikawa entered a nearby izakaya.

Thankfully, there was an empty table when you’d arrived, so you were swiftly seated upon your arrival. After some contemplation, the two of you ordered karaage, agedashi tofu, and some beer.

You laughed through a mouthful of karaage, mindful to cover your mouth with a hand as the other reached for your beer cup.

He laughed along as well. “Man, nothing beats authentic Japanese food!”

“How is the Japanese food in Argentina?”

“It’s alright,” Oikawa shrugged. “Pretty standard for Japanese places outside of Japan. Buenos Aires has some pretty good restaurants.”

“Bu—Bue…no…?”

“Buenos Aires,” he repeated slowly with an amused grin.

“Buenos Aires,” you nodded resolutely as you repeated the name, albeit with a thick Japanese accent. “Your Spanish accent sounds pretty good to my non-native ears.”

“Well, I’ve had a lot of practice.” He shrugged nonchalantly before redirecting the conversation back to you, “Do you come to izakayas often?”

“Sort of?” you hummed. “After work, some coworkers invite me to grab drinks with them. Sometimes it’s at an izakaya, sometimes it’s not.”

You took another swig of your beer and gingerly plopped a piece of tofu in your mouth.

“It’s like those scenes in anime and dramas!” Oikawa giggled.

“Hardly,” you rolled your eyes. The slight delay in your movement keyed you into the fact that you were drunker than you’d expected.

The man giggled some more.

“Are you getting drunk, Oikawa?” You couldn’t help but laugh at how… giggly and gleeful he seemed.

“Hardly,” he threw your previous words back at you. “Just… happy, I guess.”

“O-Oh…” you looked down at your fingers and twiddled your thumbs. “That’s… good,” you finished lamely.

“Yeah.”

The slightly choked response made you look up in confusion and concern.

His gaze made your breath catch in your throat.

Even in your less-than-put-together state, flushed cheeks from the alcohol and all, he stared at you as though you’d placed the stars in the sky.

You couldn’t bear the weight of his gaze, so you looked down at your shoes and let your hair fall and curtain you from him.

“I… missed you,” Oikawa said in an uncharacteristically timid voice. “I meant to say this earlier, but… you—you look good.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” you stared down at your food, unable to look at him. “I—I missed you, too.”

The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Briefly, you wondered if others could feel it from their seats.

He called your name in a choked voice.

You sighed and let your hand inch closer to his. After a fleeting moment of hesitation, you hooked your pinky to his.

I’ll allow myself this much.

You heard Oikawa heave a shaky breath before he curled his pinky tightly around yours.

“We broke up.”

You paused in the midst of chewing on a piece of tempura and gazed across the table.

You had unexpectedly run into Matsumoto Ayaka, your high school classmate, after getting off work and making your way to the station.

She had looked excited to see you—likely excited to see a familiar face in a city far from home. But now, she looked wistful. Her brows slightly furrowed and lips pursed as she peered over your head, eyes not focusing on anything in particular but staying still.

“Oh, uh, I’m sorry to hear that,” you floundered, taken aback by the suddenness of her confession. A brief moment of silence had overtaken you both as the waiter brought over your entrées to the table.

“No,” she shook her head, eyes focusing back onto you. “Sorry to spring it up on you. I just…”

“Haven’t had anyone to talk about it with?” you finished gently, watching as your former classmate seemed to struggle to verbalize her feelings.

“Yeah…” Matsumoto hung her head.

You waited for a few moments, but Matsumoto did not seem to know where to start, simply lost in the storm brewing inside her heart. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She hesitated before peering up at you impishly. “Can I? I know I kinda sprung it on you, but—”

“It’s alright,” you assured her. And you meant it. While you hadn’t been the closest with Matsumoto in high school, you had been close enough to have somewhat deep conversations—those that went beyond just the simple and trivial pleasantries.

“Did you know that Shin went pro?”

You nodded. “I heard. There aren’t many alumni that make it to the big leagues, especially for soccer.”

“It… was rough,” Matsumoto admitted in a soft voice. Her eyes glazed over, lost in a haze of beautiful memories, even as she continued speaking. “We had to be careful. He had some overzealous fans, so he wanted to keep me safe. We were careful… but… that can really mess with your head, you know? I felt like, I don’t know, a dirty little secret?”

You hummed and nodded so that Matsumoto knew you were listening. Frankly, you didn’t know what to say and felt it was more appropriate for you to listen and let her get things off her chest.

“I started to grow bitter,” Matsumoto sighed in a painful combination of resignation and self-blame. “I kept thinking things like ‘He’s not even an idol. Why do we have to go to such extents?’ and ‘Is he even that popular in Portugal?’ I started to resent him and picked fights with him. It was like… I wanted to get under his skin. I wanted him to feel a portion of what I felt.”

She paused and hung her head, voice coming out weak and defeated. “I hated the person I was becoming… and the person that I was.”

Your heart clenched for your high school friend. Matsumoto had always been a sweet and self-assured person. She never came off as overly confident nor arrogant; she had a quiet sort of confidence about her, a comfortability with herself and an understanding of her character.

It was odd to see her so downtrodden and uncertain. Although you hadn’t been the closest with her, it still hurt to see a friend in such spirits. 

“It made me question: can I really be happy like this? Is a relationship that’s so… so… closed off healthy? I wanted to be like any other happy young couple—holding hands in public without having to mask up and disguise ourselves. I’m just ordinary. Average Japanese office worker. Average in looks, average in my freaking salary, average in, like, everything!”

As the impassioned words left her mouth, the sympathy you felt for Matsumoto mutated into something deeply personal. Every syllable pricked at your chest, spreading a cold, suffocating haze of self-doubt from your heart straight to your fingertips—like a storm cloud violently overtaking a clear sky.

“He asked me to move to Portugal with him.”

A tense silence fell between the two of you. 

You stared at Matsumoto with wavering eyes, waiting with bated breath for her to continue. 

“I guess… I guess I couldn’t take it anymore,” Matsumoto sighed defeatedly. “Being with him clawed away at my insecurities—which isn’t his fault, don’t get me wrong! I know that perfectly well!”

You just nodded numbly in response.

“But…it made me think that I needed a break,” she admitted in a defeated voice. “I needed to take a good look at myself. I’ve grown and felt like we’ve grown apart, if that makes sense.”

You could feel the strain in your face as you fought to keep your cool, trying your best to not let her words put a fucking mirror up to you and see you in Matsumoto’s shoes. The pain, the resignation, the insecurities, the uncertainty—the beast born of those unspoken and repressed feelings clawing away at your chest one excruciating chunk at a time, manifesting into a physical hurt and suffering.

This will be your future! You can’t let it happen to you! Look at you right now; the mess you are right now! Do you think you can handle being like Matsumoto right now? The insidious voice inside you screamed.

Fighting hard to keep your cool, you reached for your cup and sipped on the tea, letting the familiar, slightly bitter taste ground you.

“I’m sorry you felt that way,” you said, realizing you had stayed silent throughout the entire conversation. 

“I’m doing better,” your former classmate managed a crooked smile. “I had to learn to pick myself up alone. I relied on Shin a lot, so it was hard at first, but I managed.”

She rested her chin on her palm and tapped her cheek with her index finger. “Shin was my first love. I thought we were gonna get married and have kids by now.”

You hesitated but decided to bite the bullet. “Do you… still want to be with him? I mean, would you take him back if he chased after you again?”

Matsumoto closed her eyes as she hummed in consideration. “I’d like to say no because of how hard it was, but a part of me still misses and loves him.”

It was both an answer and a non-answer. An oxymoron that spoke to the complexity of love—one that you knew very well.

You, and evidently Matsumoto, were a pendulum, swinging to and fro between wanting to recklessly chase after the thrill of a good romance and wanting to ground yourself in reality and live without any unnecessary risks.

Ultimately, that was what it was: a risk. Love was a risk, and it was up to you to decide whether it was worth the risk or not. 

Her hand fell from her face and gently folded over her other hand. Matsumoto opened her eyes and looked into yours intently. “So, if I were to give you one word of advice, it would be to stay clear from pro athletes. Especially if they have big dreams and ambitions. You might just end up getting caught in something bigger than you expected.”

Your pulse raced at her words, wondering if her intent gaze could see right into the depths of your heart.

“Right,” you nodded jerkily. “I won’t.”

The next time you see Oikawa again is a year later when you have enough vacation days stocked up to go abroad for once. He’d bugged you endlessly to visit Argentina. You had your reservations since it was an unknown country to someone who’d grown up and stayed in Japan for, basically, all their life.

Alas, you somehow found yourself walking down the jet bridge of your plane to Ministro Pistarini International Airport.

This is a dumb idea.

The thought repeated itself over and over and over again in your head like a mantra. Regret swelled up in your chest as you clutched tightly onto your carry-on bag. And it only continued to balloon as you claimed your luggage, went through immigration, and slowly dragged yourself to the arrivals terminal gate.

Each step was one step closer to him.

The sheer reality of it threw your mind into a frenzy.

With each step you took forward, your fingertips buzzed with anxious anticipation. Beyond the crowd of passengers ahead of you, the excited calls of names sounded along with the squeaking of shoes hurrying against the floors.

The sounds grew progressively louder until you could see the people waiting at the terminal gate. With a stuttering heart, you scanned the groups of people until your eyes settled on one familiar figure.

And there he stood, with his hands in his pocket as he scanned the terminal.

Your footsteps slowed as you got closer and closer to him. Your eyes greedily drank in the sight of him, cataloguing the changes in his appearance since you’d seen him last. He had filled out considerably, his shoulders broader and posture more commanding—the undeniable physical transformation of an Olympic athlete. He wore a pair of round glasses and donned a white t-shirt, well-fitted grey pants, and white shoes.

The changes weren’t major or drastic, but they were, nevertheless, there—there as a gentle yet harsh reminder of the lengthy time spent apart from him.

He spotted you and immediately lit up in that endearing way of his—eyes wide and brows drawn slightly up as the ends of his mouth curled up in that boyish grin of his.

“Hey,” he greeted with a wide smile as you stopped a good foot away from him. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, hi.” You returned with an equally big smile.

“Welcome to Argentina!” he stretched out his arms excitedly and suddenly pulled you into a tight hug, closing the distance between you two.

You froze for a brief moment but returned the embrace. “Thanks. Glad to be here.”

“You’re finally here.”

“Yeah… I’m… finally here.”

And you’re close to him, sitting across from him at some restaurant he had pulled you into. Your fingers curled around the napkin in front of you as your eyes wandered and scoured the place with a curious glint.

“Like it?”

You glanced back at him and felt your lips involuntarily rise at the sight of his eyes twinkling under the ambient lights.

“Of course. It’s beautiful.”

He gave you a soft smile in response. “It’s one of my favourite places.”

Unable to hold his stare, you fixed your eyes on the menu laying atop the table. “What do you recommend?”

Oikawa hummed thoughtfully as he swiftly scanned the menu. “How about I surprise you?”

“Uh…” you floundered, wondering if it was safe to trust the man across from you. After all, he had a penchant for teasing you at the most opportune moments.

“C’mon!” He pouted, seeming to have guessed where your thoughts had trailed to. “I wouldn’t do you dirty for your first taste of Argentina!”

“I… guess so,” you acquiesced albeit with the slightest hint of distrust colouring your voice. 

“Just trust me,” he shot you his signature disarming wink. Then, he waved down a waiter and ordered your dinner with practiced ease.

As you watched Oikawa confidently hold somewhat of a conversation in Spanish, you couldn’t help but admire his grit and drive.

The man had been crazy enough about his dreams that he left his friends and family at home, only to carve out a new home in a totally foreign country. It was so like Oikawa to fit right in with all sorts of people. You remembered how he would sometimes fill in as a setter for a university team during practice matches and harmonize perfectly with completely new teammates.

In some weird way, that familiarity comforted you. The man before was still Oikawa Tooru, your old senior high—and junior high—classmate.

After the waiter left, you and Oikawa took the time to catch up, filling each other in about things mentioned in passing over the phone or updates to texts. It was… nice to finally share the things you had wanted to share in full with him. There was only so much a phone or text could do—you had been robbed of seeing how his laughter seemed to brighten the atmosphere around him. Being in his presence raised your spirits, and you found yourself growing more animated as you shared the silly moments you had mentally bookmarked for him.

As the conversation fell into a comfortable lull, the food was ready and set on your table.

“These are empanadas,” he pointed to the dish that resembled gyoza to some extent. “And you have choripán in front of you.”

“Chouripan?” You echoed as you eyed the hot dog-looking dish dubiously. “That’s what they’re called?”

“Choripán,” Oikawa corrected in a damn near flawless Spanish accent. Sure, you weren’t a native speaker, but in the short time you’d already spent in Argentina, you had been surrounded by Spanish. Your keen ears had listened intently whenever Oikawa conversed with a local, and you were fairly sure that his accent and pronunciation were even better than you’d seen him last.

You listened intently as he carefully explained the difference between the Argentinian choripán and Japanese chouripan. More than the actual explanation itself, you found yourself captured by how passionate he seemed about describing anything related to the cultural differences between his national and ethnic identities.

Conversation flowed easily out of the two of you. With Oikawa’s exciting adventures as an Olympic athlete, he had a lot of interesting stories to tell. And you listened intently, finding it unbelievable yet so natural that Oikawa managed so many great feats already.

“I… missed you,” Oikawa confessed slowly, sliding his hand closer to yours on the table.

You stared down at his hand, waiting with bated breath as it inched closer and closer to yours.

He hesitated for a moment before gingerly linking his pinky with yours in a painful reminder of that cozy night in the izakaya. In fact, the dim and ambient lighting of the restaurant you were currently at seemed to overlap with the image of the izakaya in your mind’s eye.

It amazed you how warm it was having his pinky connected to yours. It wasn’t just a physical warmth but one that emanated from within. A hearth that drew you in and smoothed out the knots in your tense shoulders—knots that only accumulated in his absence.

For a tempting moment, you almost caved. Suddenly, the words buried deep in your heart that had remained there for years seemed to want to let loose.

You were so close to the edge. You were teetering on the edge of a line you both religiously did not cross for your sakes.

But you took a look at Oikawa again. And reality slapped you in the face.

You needed to pull back from the dangerous waters. It wasn’t like the waters were violent and crashing tides. No, if anything, they were calm and still—and that was what scared you from ever dipping your feet into them.

You didn’t know what your touch would do to these still and peaceful waters of your relationship. And so, you strayed from ever diving in.

Besides, you were just a regular office worker in Tokyo, and he was a professional volleyball player. Perhaps Ushijima had been onto something with that infuriating plant analogy. 

You were a single blade of grass in an ordinary field. Oikawa was a shooting star, burning brilliantly across the night sky for the entire world to admire. The distance between your worlds was simply too vast. There was no earthly way you could ever hold a candle to his exuberant brilliance.

At that thought, you gently pulled your hand away from him. His eyes tracked your every move, watching until you clasped your hands together tightly, fending off the desire to reach out to him and feel his warmth.

Finally, his eyes trailed up to your face, studying you with an inexplicable look. “Where did we go wrong?” His voice cracked towards the end.

A lump formed in your throat at his teary question, but you merely shook your head and bravely looked up at him with glassy eyes of your own. “I don’t know.”

Soon, your trip came to an end. You had seen Oikawa every day despite his busy schedule. Every time you expressed your concerns, he’d brush you off with a light yet meaningful laugh.

Nevertheless, you were grateful for his hospitality. Thanks to Oikawa, you got to know the more local spots in San Juan as opposed to solely tourist areas. Every single day of your stay had been amazing, and you fell for the charm of the country you truly hadn’t known anything about before your visit.

With your carry-on bag on your back and phone and passport in one hand, you scoured your terminal for a seat. Thankfully, you were early and had plenty of seats to choose from, so you decided to sit by the windows.

Oikawa hadn’t dropped you off at the airport or seen you off there. And you were grateful for that.

There was something about saying goodbye at airports that felt…too sentimental. Too significant for whatever you and Oikawa were.

As you sat at your terminal, awaiting your flight, your phone buzzed on your lap and the screen lit up to reveal a text that sent your heart racing.

[10:49 PM] Tooru: I miss you already.

A single dry chuckle escaped from the back of your throat, raw and gritty.

You sat at your cubicle in a daze for a few more moments, allowing yourself to feel the exhaustion of working overtime with yet another deadline looming over your head for the entire week. You were unable to formulate much coherent thought, having used up all your brain power throughout the long and hectic day. Your stomach was empty, but you didn’t feel particularly hungry, even though you had skipped lunch and dinner—you’d completely bypassed hunger by that point and were simply left feeling tired and drained.

But, it was a Friday, a merciful end to your long and arduous week. You had a couple of days of rest and reprieve—you could sleep in the next morning without a care in the world. You could laze around in your apartment without having to worry about deadlines and proposals for the next two days.

With that promising thought, you started to gather your things, turned off the computer, and slung your bag over your shoulder. You bowed to your poor colleagues left in the office and dragged yourself to the lobby to wait for the elevator to arrive on your floor.

After pressing the down button, you stood back and stared blankly at the shiny tiled floor.

Should I eat or just go to sleep?

You genuinely worried over whether you could muster up enough energy to cook some instant ramen or not. The last remnants of adrenaline had completely vanished into thin air at that point. The trek home would likely eat up the remaining bits of your energy as well.

Maybe I should just—

Suddenly, your purse vibrated against your waist, shocking you out of your reverie. The muffled sound of your ringtone went off in the quiet lobby, growing louder and clearer as you fished your phone out of your bag.

Without bothering to see who was calling, you swiped your finger across the screen to answer the call. “Hello?” Your voice came out more tired and lifeless than you’d intended.

“Why, hello to you too, sunshine,” came a familiar deep and sarcastic voice.

“Give me a break, Iwa,” you grumbled, relieved that it wasn’t someone you had to put a front with. “I’m dead tired.”

“Sure sounds like it. Where are you?”

Then, the elevator pinged, and the doors slid open to reveal an empty cab.

“At the office.” You stepped into the elevator and pressed G to lead you to the ground floor of the office building.

“Still?” Your friend queried in a notably concerned voice.

“Overtime.”

There was a pause.

“You down for yakiniku?”

Iwaizumi’s gaze always seemed to pierce through your façade, leaving you feeling as though you were stripped bare in front of him.

You squirmed in your seat as he studied you for a moment longer before finally letting out a sigh.

“What’s with you and Oikawa?”

You immediately averted your own gaze away from your friend and fiddled with the napkin by your cup of tea. “Nothing.”

“Sure,” he responded sarcastically.

“No, really,” you insisted, eyes turning back to look at him. “Nothing’s going on.”

Iwaizumi paused at that before he started tapping the table with his index finger. “And? What do you want?”

I want him.

Your breath caught in your throat. You couldn’t bear to speak the words into actuality.

But the desire burned you from the inside, crawling up your throat, desperate to get out.

You clenched your jaw tightly.

He waited. And waited. And waited.

But you stubbornly kept quiet.

“Why are you so scared?” Iwaizumi probed in a gentler tone. “I don’t get it. Oikawa doesn’t treat you the same as others.”

“He treats me as a friend.”

You internally winced at the uncertainty underlying your voice. Your mind traitorously thought of the stupid button you’d put into a cute ring box—it had a pretty little bow and all.

You were a goner and you knew it. Hell, maybe everyone who knew the two of you knew it.

Iwaizumi shook his head, “Bullshit.”

You heaved a long and heavy sigh.

Even if you were to pursue something with Oikawa, would it really last? He had a bright future ahead of him—one that he’d fought tooth and nail for. And he’d already made some impressive yet scary leaps to reach his dreams. To stand on the Olympic stage, he dropped his Japanese citizenship for an Argentinian one.

How the hell would a relationship with an Argentinian even work? You sure as hell weren’t going to up and leave your roots for a relationship. You didn’t have anything in Argentina other than Oikawa, and he would get so incredibly busy that—

Iwaizumi stood, chair scraping against the floor at his movements. “Look, I can’t convince you of anything, but…”

You watched curiously as he shoved a hand into his jean pocket and wrenched out a familiar scrunchie.

“What…?”

“I told Shittykawa to give this to you, but he wanted me to be the messenger.”

Your brows furrowed. “Messenger?”

“Oikawa said he’s going to be at ‘your spot’ by Skytree,” Iwaizumi continued. “You should probably go now if you want to catch him.”

“Wait, Iwa, what?”

He held your gaze, his expression entirely serious as he spoke your given name. It was stern, yet enveloped in a deep, protective warmth—an expression that was fundamentally, purely Iwaizumi. Your mouth snapped shut. Despite years of unbreakable friendship, he had never once addressed you by your first name.

“You deserve to be happy,” he said quietly. “Oikawa’s my friend, but so are you. I want you to be happy.”

A lump formed in your throat.

“I know that relationships are not needed for people to be happy, but…” he trailed off and shot you a meaningful look. “But Oikawa makes you happy.”

He grabbed hold of your limp hand and pressed the scrunchie—the silly little thing—down in your palm.

“Go.”

What in the shoujo manga am I doing? You couldn’t help but let loose an incredulous laugh as you ran to where he was supposedly waiting.

You felt so ridiculous. This wasn’t like you.

And frankly, you weren’t entirely sure where “your spot” was supposed to be, so you just followed your heart, as cliché as it was. The place that had the most… emotional memories was the izakaya.

Tipsy giggles spilling out of lips. Eyes glazing over with wistful adoration. Pinkies linking together in an unspoken and uncertain promise of something.

Yes, that was indeed your spot—at least, it was in Tokyo.

And wasn’t that quite the thought; you had multiple “spots” with Oikawa—you had one back in Miyagi and another in Argentina of all places. You wondered if Oikawa considered them his “spots” with you as well.

After all, you had gone to multiple places together, and all those places held special memories—some greater than others.

Your mind drifted back to the anticipation of meeting Oikawa for the first time since he had left Japan in front of Moomin House Cafe.

Yes, your ponytail had come loose from the breeze… and he had taken your scrunchie. 

You shoved your hand into your pocket and gave the scrunchie tucked away a squeeze.

You had completely forgotten about it, not having fully processed that Oikawa hadn’t given it back on that day, too caught up with… him to realize that it had been gone in the first place.

Your fingertips tingled as heat rushed up from your heart to face.

Lost in your thoughts and of days passed, you didn’t notice your surroundings until you nearly got shouldered by a pair of drunk university students near the izakaya.

“Ah,” the one who seemed more sober shot you a glazed over glance. “Shorry ‘bout that!”

Before you could come up with a response, you caught sight of him in your peripherals.

There he is. Your heart raced and your palms grew sweaty as you halted in your steps and just…admired him.

There he was, Oikawa Tooru, in the flesh, leaning against the front of the izakaya, paying no mind to the passersby.

He appeared deep in thought but seemed fidgety at the same time. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his left foot rested against the brick wall behind him. He was tapping his index finger against his bicep in an irregular rhythm, and his left knee bounced restlessly.

You sucked in a deep breath to settle your nerves and let it all out slowly, letting your shoulders relax to release all the tension that had been built up.

Then, you raised your chin and took a resolute step forth.

Oikawa looked up at the crunch of gravel at your feet and immediately straightened up.

“You came…” he murmured, staring at you as if he couldn’t believe it.

You took a couple more steps forward and nodded slowly. “I… was with Iwa.”

He examined you for a couple of moments longer. His eyes traced over all your features, not missing a single detail as though he was an artist staring down at his magnum opus. A wistful smile blossomed from his lips, giving him an ethereal sort of melancholy that made him so achingly beautiful.

He really could have been a model, you thought.

Unable to stand the tension, you opened your mouth to break the silence, but Oikawa held up a hand.

“Wait,” he requested weakly. “Let’s talk… somewhere else.”

You gazed into his chocolate eyes before giving him a slow nod. “Okay.”

He waited patiently as you considered the places you could go. 

Perhaps it was the nostalgia and sentiment of the place that got to you, but a sudden thought took hold of you and wouldn’t let go.

You chewed on your bottom lip as you rolled that idea over and over in your head. Is it really a good idea to walk down memory lane? You wondered before promptly brushing it aside.

“I have somewhere in mind,” you uttered into the silence that had fallen between you.

Oshinari Park was surprisingly quiet. Only a few scattered commuters hurried through the paved pathways, striding briskly toward their next destinations; no one lingered the way you and Oikawa did, walking at a leisurely synchronized pace, drinking in the rare stillness the city had to offer.

You stared up at the warm incandescent lights and listened to the gentle flow of the river. Occasionally, a little splash broke through the soft rhythm of Oshinari Park as fish swam up close to the surface before flittering away with a flick of their tails.

As you walked with Oikawa next to you at a safe distance, uncertainty and doubt crept in, clouding your initial confidence and conviction to open your heart to him.

It was an excruciatingly familiar feeling—an insidious demon that sucked all the warmth in you and left you feeling cold and numb in that tight suffocating bubble of insecurity and doubt.

The longer you lingered in Oikawa’s bright presence, the more uncertain you felt. His presence only emphasized the contrast between the two of you: where he was bright and brilliant, you were dark and dull.

With a heavy heart, you drank in the intimate scenery before you. The river was a wonderful sight to see in the ever-so-busy bustling city of Tokyo. The pretty light and flittering fish were captivating, almost hypnotic in their harmonious serenity.

But they were still not enough to distract you when Oikawa’s presence felt so grand and demanded most of your attention.

The both of you strolled along the river for a bit longer before finding a seat near a waiting heron, unbothered as if your presence meant nothing to its hunt.

Neither of you spoke for a good while, so it startled you when he gently placed his hand on top of yours. Warm. His hand was still as well groomed as ever, maybe even more so; you couldn't stop staring as he linked your pinkies together.

For a moment, you had the absurd thought of standing up, flinging your arm away, anything to avoid what you set out to do, but your pinkies remained gingerly hooked as you held your breath in anticipation.

"This reminds me of when I visited Japan almost two years ago,” Oikawa mused aloud, raising his gaze to the starry skies—a rarity in Tokyo, and it felt more significant with the two of you in your little pocket of the world. “Do you remember when we visited Skytree?”

“Of course I do,” you laughed quietly. “How could I forget?”

You could never erase that memory from your mind even if you had wanted to—not that you ever would. 

“We saw Tokyo when the sun had been out, but it was still nice,” he hummed. “It felt like home.”

Then, he swallowed nervously and licked his lips, glancing over at you bashfully. “Being with you… it felt like home.”

Dammit, you internally cursed, heart picking up speed at his sweet words that nearly tore down your defences.

You wanted it. You borderline needed it.

Those three forbidden words played at the tip of your tongue, tingling your nerves and urging you to open your mouth and let them escape out into the world—but the memory of Matsumoto’s tired and defeated face popped into your mind.

You might just end up getting caught in something bigger than you expected. Matsumoto’s words echoed like a bad omen in the recesses of your mind, pulling your heart in two opposite directions.

Eventually, the tug of war gave way to one side. And you stubbornly swallowed those forbidden words back and fortified your resolve. No, I can’t. This is wrong—I was wrong. This is all a stupid mistake.

What good did following your heart even do?

“Listen to me, please.”

A shiver ran down your spine following the wonderful sound of your name saturated in his deep rich voice. Your pulse raced with anticipation, but you tried to maintain a semblance of your cool as you shoved your trembling fingers underneath your thighs.

“Oikawa.”

The use of his surname was purposeful. A roundabout yet a stern reminder of the distance between you—a distance you had maintained throughout all these years, one you couldn’t close.

“Oikawa, look—”

“Tooru.”

“Call me Tooru… just for this moment.”

Your heart jerked at his painfully familiar words. They took you back to the day that you now knew was when he had completely taken your heart.

“...Tooru,” you sighed, pulling one hand from underneath your thigh and dragging it down your face tiredly. “I just—I don’t—How is this even supposed to work? We live in different worlds.”

“I’m pretty sure we both live on Earth,” Oikawa retorted.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I actually don’t.”

You turned your head to the side and heaved a long and heavy sigh of frustration. Why couldn’t he understand? Why was he so set on not trying to understand?

“Oika—Tooru,” you hastily corrected yourself. “Look, it’s just that… we’re different. I’m…I’m not right for you. You’re so—you’re you. And I’m me.”

“You’re perfect,” Oikawa insisted, eyes flashing with determination—one that you had often seen right before he pulled off an awe-inspiring no-touch service ace.

Rather than feel flattered or at ease, frustration started boiling over.

Why can’t he see what I see?

“No, look—” you pinched the bridge of your nose and shook your head. “I… just don’t know where to begin. There’s so much stacked against us, Tooru. You’re… chasing after your dreams in another country. I’m happy living my life in Japan as another regular office worker. I don’t have grand dreams, the same kind of aspirations, as you.”

Oikawa shook his head in that same stubborn and determined manner of his. “That doesn’t matter to me. I just want y—”

“Don’t!” you cut him off sharply, your voice cracking under the strain. “Don’t say it. It’s only going to hurt worse when it ends.” 

The fight abruptly left your body, leaving you feeling entirely hollowed out. Your words had cut through the air harsher than you intended, and you didn't miss the sharp flash of agony that flickered across his features. Why do I keep ruining things? This is why we can’t work out.

The two of you were silent for a tense minute or so, and you felt horrible. Hell, you didn’t even have to look at him to know that your words had also hurt him—you could sense it radiating off of him in alpha waves. 

This was a mistake.

Those words sunk deep into your chest, branding its truth and the seriousness of the entire situation on your heart, leaving a painful sting that felt akin to a burn. 

“You know what…” you sighed, wanting nothing more than for time to rewind itself. “This was a mistake. I’m sorry, Tooru.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. You looked past his shoulder at the river, but the harmonious serenity you had admired moments ago was completely gone. In the dark, the water looked black and bottomless, and the incandescent lights from the bridge fractured across the ripples like shattered glass. It looked just like your thoughts—broken, cold, and entirely uninviting.

You felt like a total asshole and so fucking ashamed of yourself. You knew that the ruined mood was all because of you and your stupid insecurities. This was a mistake.

“That’s why I’m no good for you…” you muttered, turning away from him and putting some distance between you two. Maybe I should just leave?

“What you said back then!” He blurted out, desperation and urgency colouring his voice. “To not ‘discredit the fruits of hard work’! I… Those words…”

You craned your head back to shoot him an incredulous look over your shoulder. “You… remember that?”

“Word for word,” he confirmed before continuing. “Those words… for some reason, they kept me going throughout all these years. Even though you don’t know much about volleyball… I felt like you were the only one who really… understood me—saw me sometimes.”

You fell silent at that, not having realized just how strong of an impact your words had left on him through all these years.

For a moment, everything felt serene. It was as though his words quieted all the loud thoughts in your head. There was something tender and intimate about his admission—words blurted out in a moment’s passion.

“Talent is something you make bloom,” he spoke in a way that sounded as though he was quoting someone. “Instinct is something you polish.”

You felt your body turn slowly as you watched his eyes glaze over as though he was lost in memory. A beautifully wistful expression painted his face, brows slightly pinched together with lips quirked up in an oddly complementary way.

Badump. Badump. Badump.

Your heart sped up and your throat tightened in response. As though keenly aware of his effect on you, Oikawa’s gaze refocused and landed squarely on your wavering ones.

“And that is all through hard work.”

And in an utterly embarrassing cheesy turn of events, a strong gust of wind swept through the place right at the end of Oikawa’s solemn statement. You squinted up at him, and the sight that beheld you nearly stole all the breath in your lungs.

Oikawa’s brown locks danced gracefully in the wind. Although they weren’t in their usual place, not a single lock of hair looked out of place. He looked picturesque staring at you with those serious eyes.

You, on the other hand, probably looked ridiculous. You could feel the ends of your hair rising before it obscured your sight.

You blew a piece of hair away from your mouth and ran a hand through your tousled hair, hoping to get it away from your face.

Damn, he really is a shoujo manga male lead.

“Why are you so perfect?” you blurted out with an odd tinge of annoyance and admiration.

“Huh?”

The poor guy looked gobsmacked. For good reason, you supposed. You had thrown that in out of absolutely nowhere, probably shattering whatever mood Oikawa was working up to.

The serenity that had settled between you two was completely shattered, replaced by confusion and awkwardness.

Ah, shit.

After a second of contemplation, you decided to simply lean into it, allowing yourself to be honest with him—with all your confused and awkward feelings.

“You’re just…” You exhaled a long and shaky breath. “You’re just so perfect. And…and I’m just me.”

“You’re… just you?” Oikawa echoed with an odd inflection in his voice. You couldn’t quite pin down what it was.

“Oi—Tooru. You’re a star volleyball player. Yes, I’ve been keeping tabs, you know—turns out Spanish to Japanese machine translations aren’t that great, but the articles I’ve read have nothing but good things to say about your progress. You’ve chased after your dreams with such… hunger. And look at the heights you’ve reached! People at home—in Japan—now know who you are. And…and…” you trailed off as the fire stoking your words simmered down.

Oikawa didn’t say anything. He only stood, watching you with pained eyes.

“And I’m me. I can’t hold a candle to you. I don’t have big dreams. I don’t have big ambitions. Hell, I’m not that passionate about my job! I’m just… content with being, well, average. Surely, you can do better, Tooru.”

You let your head drop, your chin nearly touching your chest as your shoulders slumped under the weight of your own confession. You stared down at your shoes, suddenly hyper-aware of the sharp chill of the Tokyo night air cutting through your clothes now that his hand wasn’t touching yours. You felt entirely small, hollowed out, and utterly defeated by the gravity of your own words.

You couldn’t bear to look at him any longer, so you turned your body slightly away from the man you loved. Yes, I admit it. I love Oikawa Tooru.

A part of you felt relieved to finally admit those words even to yourself. It was simply the truth—one that you had buried deep into your heart and locked away for it to never crystallize and take proper hold in your mind.

Another part of you felt defeated. All of the years of fighting while subconsciously knowing and denying the truth had gone to waste. There were a multitude of reasons why you had gone down the route of repressing your feelings: the difference in lifestyles, ambitions, and homes to start. The list was seemingly endless. How could you even dare to bask in Oikawa’s light?

You would weigh him down.

You weren’t stupid. You were content in your steady and stable life. Although it was routine and perhaps boring, you liked the stability, the on and off, and the time you had to yourself. 

Oikawa’s was far more unpredictable than yours. He had his busy seasons, where he barely had time to himself, let alone others. 

The distance between Japan and Argentina had been good for you. Being in the same place—in a significant place—your spot—was dangerous. It had effortlessly tore down the walls you had built up over the years and penetrated the fortress around your heart that had guarded your feelings—the truth.

Oikawa remained quiet, but you felt his eyes rest on your figure. You didn’t dare look up, fearing what you would see in his gaze.

“I don’t know why you seem to think you’re… lesser than me because you really aren’t. I’ve always thought you were untouchable.”

“Me?” you snapped your head up and couldn’t help but clarify incredulously. He thinks I’m untouchable?

But… you were you. And Oikawa was Oikawa.

There was no comparison to be made. You were simply not on equal playing fields.

“You’re always so steady,” Oikawa started in a soft voice. “I feel like a fucking mess compared to you. After years of knowing each other, you’ve always stayed true to who you are.”

“I… have?”

“You feel like home. Every time I meet you again, I… you feel familiar. You make me feel safe. Comfortable. Like I can let down my walls so that you can see all my ugly parts. And… I want you to see them. I want you to see me. I…I want to see more of you.”

You were floored. You had absolutely no idea that he felt that way around you. You knew that he held some feelings for you; you would have been a fool to not notice those tender glances, lingering touches, and tense silences. But it had never crossed your mind that he might have engraved a piece of you into his heart as you had for him.

After all… you were just plain old you.

In your eyes, there was nothing special about you. You led an average life and just so happened to have some pretty awesome friends.

“So… you’re perfect.”

You didn’t know whether you wanted to laugh or cry. After all these years of thinking Oikawa Tooru was this bright and brilliant star too far out of your reach, it turns out that he’d thought the same of you.

You couldn’t understand.

How could someone think so highly of you? How could Oikawa think you were the untouchable one?

He’d saturated your world with bright and beautiful colours. He was the sun that shone brighter than ever after a long and fierce storm—the reprieve that everyone sought but couldn’t touch without getting burned in the process.

Oikawa Tooru effortlessly drew you in and kept you on a wire, leaving you pining for more like a selfish child. But simultaneously, he provided an absolute sense of security. You finally understood what he meant. Being with him brought a profound, unparallelled peace.

The week following your departure was always the hardest. A part of you felt hollow, feeling symptoms of withdrawal after having basked in paradise for a short reprieve.

A part of you was spooked by the depth of his effect on you. No one should be so over-reliant on another person. That was bound to be the beginning of a painful ending.

“I love you,” he said, his voice ringing out with absolute, unshakeable confidence. 

You closed your eyes tightly, a heavy lump forming in your throat. 

“I love you,” he repeated, closer now. “And… I desperately want you to love me back.” 

Fuck. 

Even with your lids sealed, hot tears welled up against your lashes, your lips trembling violently. Your eyes fluttered open as you focused on preventing the tears from running loose.

“Please say something,” Oikawa implored.

“I’m… I…” you licked your lips as you tried to verbalize your incoherent thoughts. “I’m… scared.”

Oikawa’s gaze softened at your words, and his fingers twitched toward your hands as though he wanted to hold them, but he, mercifully, held back. “I’m scared too.”

“You are?” you asked in a small voice.

“Of course,” Oikawa replied gently. “I’ve wanted you for so long. And it’s not like I don’t see where you’re coming from. I understand.”

“You… understand?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I get that it can be… burdensome being with a pro athlete. I’ve had colleagues and teammates tell me things over the years. I didn’t want to drag you into all of that and hurt you, so I tried to hold myself back for your sake and mine. But…” He glanced up at the stars and sighed. “But I didn’t want to at a certain point. I was tired of fighting this.”

Suddenly, his gaze fell on yours, and you were entranced.

His soft brown locks danced in the wind, and his chocolate orbs sparkled as they reflected the bright stars in the night sky. He glowed with the city lights of Tokyo behind him. He was staggeringly beautiful, and yet… right now, there was something so completely, beautifully human about him. 

Perhaps it was the subtle tremor he couldn’t quite control in his hands. Perhaps it was the slight redness rimming his eyes. Perhaps it was the tight, anxious clenching of his jaw.

Perhaps he simply convinced you with his open and honest words.

Ah, you realized suddenly as you studied him and noticed all these little details. He isn’t untouchable.

Oikawa Tooru, at the end of the day, was just another person.

You had been so stupid, blinded by the rose-coloured lenses you’d unknowingly donned this whole time. You had put him on a pedestal after you’d gotten to know how amazing the man before you was.

You could see him now, for some reason, with more clarity. You saw the brokenness inside him—one that everyone carried simply because they were human. 

“Take a chance on me. I love you. I have loved you since high school.”

You bit down on your lip, fighting back the tears that welled up in your eyes.

How was it so easy for him to tell you his feelings when it was so hard for you?

“Do… you love me too?”

At his timid question, a single tear rolled down your cheek. Then, another followed suit. And another.

“How could I not?” You responded with a question instead. “How could I not love you? Of course, I love you. I think I’ve loved you since high school too.”

Oikawa let loose a wet chuckle and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “You think? I knew… Actually, I’m pretty sure everyone knew. Iwa-chan knew from day one.”

A disbelieving laugh escaped you, memories of graduation day flooding in like a sudden tidal wave, filling you with wistful nostalgia.

Iwaizumi was a wonderful friend. His knowing smile and eyes suddenly made sense to you.

“He did, didn’t he?”

Then, you suddenly remembered the stupid scrunchie. The ridiculous little token of the past that Iwaizumi had whipped out to prove Oikawa’s sincerity. You shoved your hand into your bag and fished out the silly thing.

Oikawa watched curiously before you brandished your scrunchie before him.

He immediately flushed red.

“O-Oh… uh, that thing! I can—wait—I…”

You took pity on the poor guy and cut him off. “I met up with Iwaizumi earlier. He said that you wanted him to be a messenger.”

The brunet gulped and nodded jerkily. “Y-Yeah…”

“I’ll be honest,” you started slowly. “I didn’t think you would carry something of mine for almost two years. I didn’t think you were the type.”

Oikawa flushed an even deeper shade of red. “I couldn’t help it! I saw the opportunity and… well… yeah!”

“But why?”

“Gosh, you know why! I wanted to have a physical piece of you with me over there, okay? Way to make a guy feel like an absolute idiot,” he whined playfully, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry, sorry,” you apologized with a laugh. “I didn’t mean to tease you.”

“You liar.”

“Okay, well, not that much, alright? Besides… I’m not any better,” you confessed.

At that, the brunet perked up and pinned you down with an accusatory glare.

“Do you remember your second button? From graduation day?” you asked, bypassing his look. 

Oikawa clearly hadn't anticipated your question. His playful defense mechanism dropped instantly, his eyes widening. “You mean…?”

“Yeah, your… gift,” you nodded. “I still have it with me, you know. It’s in one of those small ring boxes with a bow on it.”

Instead of teasing you as you had expected him to, Oikawa simply stared at you with awe.

“You…you kept it? Even after all these years?” he whispered.

“Yes… it’s…it’s precious. A little token of our feelings for each other—even back then.”

A comfortable silence fell between you two. You felt warm, knowing that Oikawa felt the same way as you. It set your heart at peace and soothed the ache that you’d grown used to—one that built up from all the longing and pining over the years.

You smiled at Oikawa, just as a lock of your hair fell over your eye.

He reached up and gently tucked the loose hair behind your ear. His fingers grazed the shell of your ear and trailed down to your cheek. He closed his eyes and rolled his lips in between his teeth, seeming to fight something welling up within him.

“We’re… in love… right?”

“We’re in love,” you whispered into the space between you.

A choked laugh escaped his lips and warmed the cool atmosphere with its beautiful and wonderful tenor.

He opened his eyes, and you weren’t shocked to see that they were glassy with tears as well.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. “I just—I can’t believe…I can’t believe that I’m finally yours.”

You loved how he said it. He didn’t say that you were his, but that he was yours.

“And I’m yours.”

You didn’t think you’d ever said anything truer in your entire life.

His arms snaked around your waist, the heavy fabric of his jacket rustling sharply as he pulled you forward, erasing the last few inches of empty air between you. The contrast was instant—his palm was burning hot against your freezing cheek, his thumb smoothing over your skin with a gentle, desperate friction. You caught the faint, nostalgic scent of his cologne mixed with the crisp, clean breeze from the river. Every single nerve ending screamed with the realization of how solid he was, how completely he anchored you to the earth.

You unabashedly stared deep into his eyes, committing every little detail to memory—the glassy sheen, the little specks of silver and gold from the stars and city lights, the tenderness—all of it.

His thumb gently brushed against your right cheek as he reciprocated your gaze.

You had spent a lifetime maintaining a safe, calculated distance, orbiting his gravity but never daring to close the gap. But as his lips finally descended onto yours, Oikawa completely, beautifully closed the distance between you.

A/N — this has been ROTTING in my drafts for so long it started growing mold. hope u enjoy 🧐 (bc i dont. this is pure absolute slop i hate it fr)

click here for part 2 ⋆.˚ + m.list

He decides against sending another message, convinced it will only annoy you more. Oliver also manages to convince himself that, despite there not being any indication of it, you are definitely being passive-aggressive and he has to make it up to you somehow. Preferably by the end of the night. He likes you and doesn’t want to fuck up the first exclusive relationship he’s had in years, he has to do this right. You’re good to him, you’re his girlfriend, it’s only normal to be upset about him preferring to go out with his teammates rather than spending time with you.

You smile when Oliver sends you the first picture, the table of an exlusive restaurant crammed with turbulent athletes, Aryu promptly offering a V sign. You react with a red heart and put your phone aside, engrossed in the show you’re watching sprawled on your couch.

The second picture he sends is a selfie of him and Sendo but you only see it at the end of the episode, almost an hour later. You react with another heart, or so you think: you end up tapping on the thumbs up emoji instead but there is no real way for you to notice because Oliver just keeps texting and sending pictures for the entire evening.

Oliver: still with the boys [IMG_76439]

Oliver: we’re still here

Oliver: they want to go for drinks now

Oliver: this place is nice, nothing special

Oliver: it’s just us [IMG_29364]

Oliver: will leave in a bit!

Oliver: niko got pretty wasted, had to drag him home first [IMG_28165]

Oliver: I’m home now :) goodnight ♡

When you see the texts, a weird feeling settles in your gut for a moment. Something feels off but you can’t quite place your finger on it. Oliver texts you during the day or when he’s travelling, sometimes he’s very detailed about what he’s doing too. That is not unusual. But it’s very unlike him to send you so many updates, with so many pictures.

You find it a little odd but, again, your relationship is still quite new and maybe there are sides of him you have yet to uncover. Perhaps he was excited about dinner, maybe a little tipsy too, which makes you smile.

The next morning, Oliver is at your door right as you’re brewing yourself coffee. He’s holding two paper bags and is grinning so wide, proud of the surprised smile you’re greeting him with.

“What are you doing here?”, you ask as he gets inside, kicks his shoes off by the doorstep.

“Thought we could have breakfast together”, he pecks your lips once, one hand gently cradling your cheek, “so I can apologize for last night”.

You’re too distracted for a second, his lips moving on yours and your arms around his neck. When you pull away, your thoughts are still floating in that sweet haze he evokes so you are unable to immediately grasp the meaning of such sentence.

Oliver doesn’t waste any time: in a moment he’s in your kitchen setting the table, hands moving on their own accord as he fishes out plates and cups and glasses from your cupboard. He’s already memorized where everything is, which makes you want to kiss him again, right by the coffee machine.

“I have coffee, blueberry waffles and-”

“Wait”, you finally snap out of your daze and let out an airy chuckle, “you’re apologizing? What for?”.

Oliver continues with his ministrations, the bags on your table being emptied with steady precision.

“For going out with the boys”, he shrugs, “I should’ve cancelled”.

You tilt your head to the side.

“Why, did something happen?”.

“I wasn’t with you”, he meets your confused gaze for a second.

“Yeah, but”, you offer an uncertain smile, “you were with your friends. Why are you apologizing?”.

The table is set so Oliver doesn’t have any more tasks to keep himself busy at hand. He looks at you, attentively searches for something across your features. Relief floods his chest when he realizes you’re being serious.

“You’re not upset”, he says and it’s not a question. You truly aren’t. Chances are you weren’t being sarcastic either.

“I’m not upset”, you repeat carefully, “did I say something-”

“No”, he’s quick to interrupt, “no, you didn’t. I’m sorry, I’m an idiot”.

In fact, he feels like the biggest idiot on earth. Even as you chuckle, he can see it, the wariness he prompted. Oliver kisses you again, reminds himself that there’s a reason why he wanted to be in an exclusive relationship after so much time. You’re not a ghost from his past, you’re you. He doesn’t want to ruin the one good thing he’s had going on in years and, most importantly, he doesn’t want you to notice. Inquire. You’re too caring for your own good and he’s too embarrassed to let you take care of him the way he knows you’d want to.  

You gently brush his bangs away from his forehead as you sit next to him and share breakfast. He relishes in how oblivious you are to his thoughts, hopes he’ll be able to shield this one relationship from them.

“I really like you, Aiku Oliver”, you say, quiet, adoring, and his heart melts like liquid gold in his chest. He wants to enjoy this feeling completely, he wants to deserve it.

“I think I like you more”, Oliver grins, pinches one of your cheeks and you slap his hand away with a groan. Your kitchen is nothing special and yet he’s never felt such warmth in his own apartment. He wonders how you can make any place feel like home, how you manage to summon that dangerous spark that lights up every room you step foot into and if it’s not too early for him to be already falling so hard.

If he ends up hitting the ground, it may hurt worse than the last time.

The first, actual evidence that something you can’t quite understand has indeed been simmering beneath the surface, comes with a phone call.

Oliver has been quite observant of the ‘no need to update me when you’re out’ suggestion. It has been a constant and it was beginning to drive you insane: whenever he was somewhere you were not, he kept sending you texts and pictures the entire time, something that quite soon stopped being cute and started feeling off instead.

You politely explained that you didn’t need that: not when he was with his family, not when he was with his friends, not when he was working. Of course you still want to text him during the day but you want texts, not constant proof of where he is and who he is with.

You think his reputation might have something to do with it. It’s no secret that the name Aiku has been associated with the very worst playboy scandals all over trashy magazines and social media, for years. The media has never been kind to him: heartbreaker Aiku, playboliver, bad boy Aiku who’s constantly at it again. The soccer player who plays them all. One is never enough for Aiku.

He knows, as you know, they have not been entirely wrong. But the minute you started dating him, the day you decided to be in a relationship with each other, all that should’ve stopped being important. Oliver doesn’t have to prove he’s not all that, you don’t need him to. That’s what you hope he’d understand: you simply wouldn’t be his girlfriend if you didn’t trust him.

The argument seemed to convince him, although at times he still slips, especially when he isn’t home by the time he told you he would be or something unexpected he feels the need to update you on happens. The main problem is that he occasionally gets upset if you don’t update him the same: why didn’t you tell him you’re not home yet? Why didn’t he know other friends, who happen to be all guys, would be joining your brunch? You have been too quiet, is something wrong? Maybe he should come with you. Maybe you should’ve told him.

It starts irritating you. Which irritates him. You really like Oliver a lot and you desperately want to make things work but so long as there’s something you don’t comprehend fully, it’s just not going to be easy. You needed an excuse that would give you the chance to start the conversation in the first place for quite some time and the call you receive late at night on a Saturday might just be it.

“Hey?”.

“Something happened”, Oliver’s voice comes out uncharacteristically high pitched, urgent, “I want you to hear it from me first”.

You straighten up on the couch, suddenly alert.

“What happened? Are you okay?”.

“I’m fine. It’s just”, you hear him take a deep breath, the distant banging of the music in the background, “just promise you’ll believe me”.

You can’t relax your shoulders, anxiety threatening to clutch your chest in a cold grip. You have a feeling about where this is going but you remind yourself of the faith you place in him.

“Okay”, you murmur.

“We were at the club, doing our own thing in the vip lounge, and then the guys let in a group of girls. This one girl… I told her I wasn’t interested, I told her I have a girlfriend but she was just all over me, you know? And then she tried to kiss me and of course I didn’t let her, I gently pushed her away and left to call you, but…”.

“But?”.

“But if someone took pictures or a video and leaked them online, I just know it’s going to look fucking bad. She was laughing, her arms were around my neck and my hands on her shoulders-”

“Okay”, you say, sternly, “I believe you”.

“I’m sorry. I swear this is all there is to it, nothing happened, you can ask any of the boys”.

“Oliver, I said I believe you”.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel relieved. He feels incredulous, almost like you’re making fun of him.

“What, you’re not pissed? Not even this pisses you off?”.

“What do you mean?”.

“Are you the perfect girl or something? How are you so unbothered all the fucking time?”.

You almost laugh, in utter disbelief.

“What do you want from me, Oliver?”.

“I want you to have a normal reaction for once!”.

“Well, I am pissed! Is that what you want to hear? I hate all these strangers that make you uncomfortable, get in your personal space and think they own you just because you play for a soccer team, I hate how you always somehow end up being the bad guy and yeah, maybe I am pissed that a woman tried to make out with my boyfriend while I wasn’t there! I’m jealous and I’m pissed, alright? I’d kick her in the face if I could. Are you happy now? Is my reaction normal enough?”.

The line is silent for a while but you know he’s still there. Frankly, this is what upsets you the most: the claim he wants to have over your emotions, your reactions. You can always tell when he’s surprised and you wouldn’t let it get to you if it wasn’t for the way Oliver then looks at you. Dubious, not entirely convinced, always expecting something different to follow. It hurts, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth that you always swallow down because it’s clear by now that he doesn’t know how to be in a proper relationship. You’re just going to have to find out if you are simply not compatible or whether the problem lies in something else, something different he never wants to openly talk about.

“I don’t want to be unfair to you”, you speak quietly once more, “but you are being unfair to me”.

It’s late, you’re upset and you can’t really bring yourself to say what you really want to. Maybe you should start a relationship with someone who doesn’t trust you, since this is clearly what you’re chasing. 

“I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry”, he whispers more to himself than to you, “can I come over?”.

“I don’t think-”

“Please, I’ll apologize and leave. I just want to see you”.

You exhale slowly, the exhaustion that comes with not knowing how to fix whatever is broken within the man you’re falling in love with makes your limbs feel heavy. He whispers your name again and you don’t have it in your heart to deny him, because it’s Oliver and because you want to understand. If he’ll allow you, you want to help. And if he won’t, it will mean that you’re not the right choice for him. A pity, because by now you’re pretty confident he is your person.

The night is a whirlwind of apologies, sincere eyes and broken voices. He’s not drunk but definitely tipsy, confused by what he said and why he said it, the moment you open the door you find yourself in his arms and he whispers his apology into your shoulder over and over and over. He says he doesn’t know what came over him and while you don’t quite believe that, you decide it’s a conversation for the morning.

You don’t let him leave, instead you hug him back and hope your hushed reassurances will be enough to soothe his perturbation. Oliver lets you drag him into the bathroom, where the spare toothbrush you were hoping to whip out for a happier occasion is. He lets you undress him and drinks the water you bring him and crawls into your bed, where he keeps you pressed against his chest. You card your fingers through his hair as he breathes you in and keeps whispering his apology, lips brushing against your collarbone. You slip into a restless slumber, agitated by dreams that wake you multiple times.

Oliver wakes up as the sun rises, body controlled by habits that are years old and whose familiarity he welcomes. The ceiling of your bedroom stares back at him and he takes a few minutes to let the comfort of the steady murmur of your soft snores trickle down his spine. He’s scared more than he is worried. You’re resolute, way more than he is: if you already decided you want to end things, Oliver knows he won’t be able to change your mind. Why would you change your mind? He’s been an asshole. His phone has already been blowing up with texts from his friends, sisters, PR team, so he doesn’t really need to guess whether something regarding the previous night has been leaked or not. He really is the worst possible choice for a boyfriend, he thinks with a sour smile as he tiredly rubs his eyes.   

“Hi”, you whisper as you hug him from the back an hour later, right as he is brewing coffee in your kitchen.

“Hi”, he says back, leaning into your embrace. You press a kiss to his shoulder blade and he can feel the way his heart kicks at his ribs.

“You’re a kicker, you know?”.

Oliver allows himself a dry chuckle.

“I’m a soccer player”.

You hum and he turns around to find that familiar, sarcastic glint in your eyes he’s learned to love so much.

“Maybe leave my legs alone and stick to the ball?”.

“I only do it when I’m nervous”.

With a sigh, you accept the cup of coffee he hands you.

“Right. Well, let’s just get this over with, shall we?”, when you meet his gaze, Oliver’s expression is almost carved in stone, “please tell me what’s wrong”.

He blinks, surprised.

“What do you mean?”.

“I want to know what’s wrong”, you articulate the words slowly but confidently, “talk to me”.

Oliver puts his own mug back on the counter, runs a hand through his hair to conceal the way it’s quivering.

“I don’t understand. Talk to you about what?”.

“Oliver…”.

“What?”.

You frown.

“About why you think I’m always assuming the worst. About why you justify yourself over and over again, why you spend a night out with your friends updating me. About why I’m apparently at fault for not thinking you would cheat on me. Who made you do all this and why are you still doing it with me?”.

Oliver doesn’t appreciate the feeling of being seen so clearly because it is unbearably similar to the feeling of being cornered. It makes him vulnerable and shifts his role from someone who is perfectly capable of taking care of those around him to someone who needs to be taken care of. You are too good at seeing him and if he was a good boyfriend, a normal one, he’d be happy about it. He’d feel comforted by the feeling.

But he’s not a good boyfriend.

“Jesus”, he lets out a bitter laugh, “what’s this, an interrogation? Didn’t notice you were so goddamn bothered by everything I did”.

“I just want to understand”, you push, “to help”.

“There’s nothing to understand and I don’t need your help”.

“So you’d just rather keep hurting me instead?”.

He smiles.

“I’m hurting you? I spend all my fucking time doting on you. I tell you everything. I give you everything”.

You try to not let his words sting but it’s difficult to feel in control of your emotions when the man standing in front of you suddenly feels like a stranger.

“You hurt me by not talking to me. You hurt me last night, Oliver”.

“Oh, fuck off”, he groans, “I apologized a million times. I’m the one being ripped to shreds online, you’re safe”.

“I don’t want that!”, you raise your voice, “shit, I don’t want your apologies and I don’t care about the fucking gossip! I want to know why you can’t handle that I trust you, I want to know what-”, when you take a step forward with the intention of taking his face in your hands, the sudden movement prompts something that stops you dead in your tracks. Oliver is gripping your kitchen counter, knuckles white.

In disbelief, you try your best to soften your tone as you take a step back.

“Did you just flinch?”.

“What? No”, he says, a deep crimson hue spreading slowly over his cheeks and neck.

“You did”, you murmur, “did you think I was going to-”

“Enough”, Oliver speaks in a way he’s never spoken to you. It’s imperative, final, a booming tone that doesn’t allow objections. “This is bullshit, I’m done”.

Petrified, you watch him storm out of your kitchen, the quiet of the early morning stained by how loudly he slams the front door on his way out of your apartment. Of your life too, probably.

Ironically, the detail you remember most clearly about that morning is his cold cup of coffee abandoned on the counter. You didn’t touch that mug until two days later, comforted by the one thing that still proved that Oliver had been there at all. You aren’t left with much else.

Days pass, then a week does, almost two. He doesn’t text, doesn’t call, and you don’t either because somehow you decide it’s best to give him space if that’s what he needs. By day 10 you realize that if he’s truly done, you’re gonna have to be too. And the very least such hurt deserves is a clear, respectful, mature breakup. You can’t fight for someone who doesn’t want to be seen.

You would’ve held his hand and walked with him on a difficult but shared path that could heal whatever wound is still infected. You were willing to ache as much as necessary in the process, well prepared to face bared teeth and brandished claws, but if Oliver doesn’t want you to, if he isn’t prepared to maim himself by exposing the rot and then sever it with your help, there is no reason for your relationship to exist in the first place. Not if he likes you, not if you may already be in love with him. You will face this hurt on your own and always hope he will heal from his own, perhaps with someone better than you by his side.

You politely ask your friends and family to stop bringing him up, you’re not sure how final the breakup is yet (quite final, it’s just that they don’t need to know so soon) and wish to clarify things before initiating a sob fest over it. They’ve been more subtle with their care. You have so much homemade food in your fridge despite not having cooked a single thing in ten days, your best friend brought you a million face masks and a basket filled with snacks, your mom sent you pretty, colorful flowers just because you love them. You can’t wait for your apartment to feel less dull, for the ghost who lives there to come alive again.

On day 10, you almost get kicked out of the training facility on the other side of town. Niko doesn’t hear you when you call for him and security definitely doesn’t believe you when you swear you’ve been there before. To watch your boyfriend train.

You have to pretend the knot in your stomach doesn’t damn nearly make you throw up when Oliver suddenly shows up right at the entrance, seemingly surprised to see you.

“It’s fine, she’s with me”, he dismisses the security guy with no particular inflection in his voice, but you know him too well. He’s not happy you’re there. Becoming an inconvenience sure has been easy.

“What are you doing here?”, he hates himself for sounding like a father scolding his unruly child and you try your best to keep your unbothered facade up.

“Wanted to talk”.

“I’m kinda busy”.

“I’ll wait”.

“I just got here”.

“I’ll wait”, you say again, adjusting the bag on your shoulder.

Oliver looks at you with something difficult to interpret in his expression. You don’t really care that he’s bothered by your presence, soon enough it’s not going to be a problem at all.

“As you wish”, he shrugs before jogging back to where his teammates are, on the pitch. Sendo waves at you and you offer a smile, waving back.

You sit there for so much time your legs start cramping, tired eyes concealed by the biggest pair of sunglasses you own. Your back hurts and you can’t remember the last time you had a full, restful night’s sleep, yet your heart still races as you watch him do what he does best.

“Glad you’re here”, the low, sudden voice makes you jump as you take notice that someone is now sitting next to you, “he’s been playing like shit”.

You’re still quite startled but welcome his comment with a light, nervous chuckle.

“Yeah?”.

His keen, crimson eyes never spare his opponents and they certainly don’t spare you. He’s far too intelligent to fall for your dumb act.

“It’s none of my business”, he clarifies, “but I hope you two can sort it out”.

For some reason, his unexpected kindness brings tears to your already puffy eyes. You take a moment to collect yourself, clear your throat, and miss the way his gaze further softens.

“Thank you, Shoei”, you say and it’s the most sincere you’ve sounded in over a week. He gives you a dry nod and you smile.

“How come you’re benched?”.

“Sprained my ankle. Told those fuckers I can still play but they won’t let me”.

You click your tongue.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You need to rest”.

“I need to play”.

“Do you have someone who can help you cook proper meals? We live pretty close to each other, I can-”

He raises a hand and the words die in your throat right away.

“I’m fine. Take care of yourself first”.

You huff out an exasperated sigh.

“I’m fine too”.

“Sure you are”, he grunts, “and your man didn’t just miss his fourth chance to score in a row”.

“Be nice to him”, you warn, eyes following the players running on the pitch once more. He scoffs pretty loudly but decides against saying anything.

You’re still thinking about Baro’s quiet care, unexpected but not really surprising, when Oliver finds you at the end of his training. You’re outside the facility, leaning against the wall and looking up to take in the delicate violet, orange hues the sun has painted the sky in.

“Hey”, he sounds softer now but there’s still a sharp edge to his voice, “sorry, that took a while”.

“It’s okay, this won’t take long”, your sunglasses are perched on your head now and you’re sure he can see how much of a wreck your face is as you meet his gaze. But the thing is, you can see the exact same devastation blinking back at you. It looks like he’s been getting the same amount of sleep as you the past few days, more or less. You resist the impulse to take his face in your hands and stroke the tired skin under his eyes.

He waits for you to go on and you force yourself to snap out of your stupor.

“If you’re really done, I think I at least deserve a proper breakup. So please, do it right”, you bravely tilt your head further up, gaze focused on the tip of his nose to avoid his eyes. 

Oliver suddenly feels as if the sidewalk is dropping beneath him, it leaves him feeling dizzy and disorientated. One hand rises to idly touch his chest, to double check that you did not just physically kick the wind out of his lungs.

“No”, he says, genuinely surprised, “no, that’s what you think? That I broke up with you?”.

You blink once, twice.

“You said you were done and stormed out of my apartment”.

“Done with the conversation, not you. I was just-”, he struggles to find the right words, “I was really mad, okay? I couldn’t-”

“I haven’t heard from you in ten days, Oliver. You said you were done, slammed my door and disappeared. If this is what you call a relationship, I can’t be the one to be in such a relationship with”. 

You look up at the sky, to conceal the tears clouding your vision once more. He closes the distance between your bodies and gently takes your face in his hands, the movement prompts one traitorous tear to escape your stubborn confinement but his thumb instantly wipes it away.

“No, you’re right”, he murmurs, “you can’t and you shouldn’t”.

“So won’t you please just do it right?”, a broken sob cuts you off and you tremble slightly in his hold, “tell me that it’s over and I’ll leave you be”.

Oliver clicks his tongue before cradling the back of your head and pulling you into the tightest hug he’s ever given, hating himself more than he’s ever done. He only now realizes how his own hurt can end up damaging others and you’re quite literally the one person he wanted to always protect from that. You deserve so much better than him and yet he’s egotistical enough to not want to let you go. If love is selfless, Oliver’s is stubborn.

“I’m sorry”, he whispers into your neck, “I’m so sorry. It’s not over for me, how could it be? But if that’s what you want, I won’t stop you”.

You weakly clutch his shoulders, further pressing his body against yours.

“If I can’t be what you need”, you murmur, “it’s the right thing to do”.

He wants to kick himself in the face. How could he let you think such nonsense? He’s the one who’s been wrong the entire time. He’s been unfair to you and, most importantly, to himself. He always thought the shame embedded in feelings experienced so far back in time would weigh more on any scale, that the choice between letting someone truly see every facet of him and letting them go would be easy. But he’s horrified to find out just how unaware he has been, so engrossed in his denial he completely failed to notice the way you’ve been slipping between his fingers like powdery sand. You, the one person who could still see him for who he really is. The person who has been too busy trying to protect him to protect herself.

“I’ll tell you”, Oliver pulls back but one of his hands is still cradling your cheek. It’s like he’s afraid you’ll somehow disappear into a cloud of dust if he stops touching you. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, if you still want to hear it”, there’s still hurt in his eyes but it’s the hopeful lilt to his voice that breaks your heart.

You part your lips to say something but he beats you to it.

“No, it’s not just because I don’t want to end this relationship. It’s because I want to tell you”.

It just so happens that Oliver sees you too, just as clearly.

His apartment is conveniently close to the training facility. The penthouse occupies the highest floor of the building: it grants him privacy and unobstructed views of the city below, it’s practical, luxurious, lonely. You haven’t been there in a while and knowing the place does rarely look like he’s living in it at all, the environment tidy and void of any real personalizations, you’re surprised to be met with a slight, foreign mess when you step inside.

It’s nothing major but it’s heavily unlike Oliver. Two empty beer bottles left on the coffee table, the rolled up corner of the carpet, dirty dishes left in sink instead of being moved to the dishwasher, shutters only being half open.

He drops his gym bag to the floor, asks you to sit. You curl up on one of his armchairs, in the same position he once told you it reminded him of a jungle cat. Seemingly comfortable and at ease but also deeply alert.

Oliver, still standing and leaning against a console table, takes a moment to observe you and take in the feeling swarming in his chest. He’s nervous but he’s also so relieved. He didn’t think it would be possible for him to miss someone so much.

“I was in a relationship for a very long time”, he clears his throat, one nail absentmindedly scraping the surface of the table behind him, “it was one of my first real relationships, actually”.

You observe his clear discomfort and can hardly keep yourself from rising from your seat, taking his hand.

“I was deeply in love with her, I think it was the first time I felt anything like that at all. She was my first in more than one way. She set the standard for what was normal and I complied. I thought that’s what relationships must be like, you know?”.

“Like what?”, you ask, quietly. He offers a small, sad smile.

“She’d call it intense. When it was good, it was great, but when it wasn’t…”, he sighs, “we’d fight a lot. She was very jealous, obsessed with the idea that I was going to cheat on her with other women  and men. I was at the beginning of my career so I justified her, told myself maybe I’d feel the same way. I tried really hard to give her what she needed to feel at ease but it was never enough. She didn’t want me to go out if she wasn’t there and if I did, I had to facetime her multiple times despite having my location on”.

You hum, a gentle encouragement for him to go on.

“It didn’t matter if I was with my friends, team or family. She needed to be there too somehow. The craziest thing is she’d get really upset if I didn’t do the same. She said she didn’t feel wanted, cared for, she said she could fuck some guy at the club and I wouldn’t ever even know”.

“What happened if you refused to do what she asked?”.

Oliver pauses for a moment, eyes focused on nothing. 

“She’d cause a scene. We ruined quite a lot of dinners, parties, vacations”, he laughs dryly, “we’d get into these big, explosive fights and she’d yell the worse things. But then she’d apologize and we’d always find our way back to each other. I was in love and thought that was what love was supposed to be like. I didn’t believe anyone who told me I was getting sucked into something harmful”.

When he looks at you and sees the sorrow embedded in your features, he steps closer and offers a hand. You take it right away, interlace your fingers with his and squeeze gently.

“Well, it was shitty. We’d break up, then get back together, then break up again. I did everything I could to make her happy but it was never enough. Took me years to properly cut her off but I guess I still associate being someone’s boyfriend to… all that. I fucked up a few other relationships along the way, I just decided it wasn’t really worth it. Until you”, he crouches down by your feet and brings your hand to his lips to kiss your knuckles. You’re frowning, swallowing hard as if trying to get down some bad medicine.

“Do I remind you of her?”, the question breaks his heart.

“No”, Oliver replies immediately and squeezes your hand harder, “no, not at all”.

You hesitate briefly before asking the next question, the pang in your heart concealed by the calmness of your tone.

“Did she ever hit you?”.

He tenses up again, a boyish smile already tugging at his lips in an attempt at playing off the whole thing as insignificant.

“Nah. Just one or two slaps here and there but she never really hit me, no”.

You shut your eyes for a moment.

“Oliver…”.

“I know it sounds bad but it wasn’t really important. She’d do it out of frustration, when I wouldn’t listen during an argument. Men get slapped, it happens”.

“It shouldn’t happen”, you state vehemently, “and I’m sorry it happened to you. I’m sorry she put you through all that”.

“It’s fine. It’s been years, I should get over it-”

“There’s no set time to get over something like that”, you say because it’s true. It’s hard and it’s shitty and it requires so much emotional work. He has to do it on his own terms.

“Thank you for telling me. For trusting me with this”, you inch forward to wipe some wetness from under his eyes, something that surprises him as he blinks and a few more tears fall down his cheeks. Oliver doesn’t remember the last time he cried in front of someone.

“Wow, it feels really weird”, he chokes out a chuckle, “I haven’t talked about this in so long. I feel ridiculous”.

You let yourself slip from the armchair to the floor and wrap him up in a tight hug, one he melts into immediately. He rubs your back and you nuzzle further into the crook of his neck. You both stay like that for a while, nestled in each other’s familiar hold. If the thought of how unfairly the world treats him crossed your mind several times, you realize you’ve never properly reflected on how unfair Oliver can be to himself. How self-destructive. It doesn’t hold any importance, the degree to which he managed to numb himself: he’s still been carrying all this inside him all these years. An ache harbored deep within him, protected by high walls, thick with shame. You hate her for what he did to him, even if it’s not your place. You hate her and you hate that he couldn’t meet someone better, someone he could love and be loved by the right way.

At least a few minutes pass before he timidly speaks again.

“I know you’re not her. I’m sorry”.

You pull back to look at him and Oliver offers a tiny, awkward smile.

“Don’t apologize”, you try to smile too, but it probably comes off a little broken still.

“Don’t tell me what to do”, with a chuckle he gets up from the floor and helps you up too. As he sits in his armchair you’re immediately pulled into his lap, where you try to adjust yourself better in his arms. Oliver only gives you so much room to move, arms secured tightly around you. He lets you take his face in your hands and kiss his forehead, then his eyelids, his cheeks. He feels like there are still shattered pieces of him on the floor where he just crumbled but for the first time, he’s not in any rush to pick them up. If you’re with him, he doesn’t need to be intact. He can hope to be loved exactly for what he is.

“Are you still my boyfriend?”, you ask after a few minutes of silence. He softly bites into your shoulder, where he was resting his chin until a second ago. Your little ow! makes him smile.

“I am”, Oliver says. He wouldn’t know how to be anything else by now, really. “I might not be a perfect one, though”.

You scoff.

“I’m hardly a perfect girlfriend. So, how about we make an agreement?”.

“Like a blood pact?”.

You flick the tip of his nose. He sticks his tongue out but you can feel his hand gently rubbing circles on your back once more.

“Fine, sorry. Go on”.

“Let’s just always talk to each other, yeah?”, you card your fingers through his hair, gently brush some of the strands away from his face, “you can ask me things instead of assuming. I promise to be honest. And if I’m upset about anything, I’ll talk to you too. How does that sound?”.

Oliver turns his head slightly, enough for his lips to press to your forearm.

“It sounds really good”, he murmurs. It sounds like he can almost see what the rest of his life is going to look like already. If love is prudent, Oliver’s is impetuous.

“Thank you”, he breathes and you curl up on his chest, in an armchair that is not meant to accommodate two people at all.

“Don’t”, you whisper, “I’ll be there for you if you’ll want me to. I’m sorry if I pressured-”

“Don’t”, Oliver says back and tilts your head up with the softest grasp of your chin, “I want you there. I want you everywhere really, all the time”.

A mischievous smile tugs at your lips.

“Wow, this took a corny turn”.

He rolls his eyes.

“Sure, go ahead. Ruin the moment. It’s not like I was about to say I really missed you, or anything”.

You laugh into his chest and the sound seeps through the fabric of his shirt, mends another crack he carries in his bones by filling the crevice like honey so sweet.

“I think I’m falling in love with you, Aiku Oliver”, you say, head resting right where you can hear the staccato of his heartbeat.

Lungs expand further in his chest cavity as he takes the next breath.

"Yeah, I know." Katsuki whispered, his hand gentle on your arm as he pulled you close against his chest. He rested his chin on top of your head, soothing you with a gentle back rub as he breathed in your familiar scent.

You were all his, and he was going to make damn sure you never doubted that he was the only one who could hold you together.

A moment like this was never something he took casually.

You turned your tense back to him at his gentle nudge, letting out a soft, grateful hum the second Katsuki's large hands found your shoulders, kneading the stress right out of you.

He knew exactly where you carried your tension, exactly how much pressure to apply without hurting you. Hell, he knew every inch of your body better than you knew it yourself.

You closed your eyes and leaned into his touch, murmuring in a low, exhausted voice about your absolute hell of a day—the day's frustrations, setbacks, and the exhaustion of trying to meet every expectation.

Katsuki didn't interrupt. He just listened with a tight jaw as he absorbed every word, his thumbs smoothing out the tension in your back as if he could physically pull the burdens off your shoulders himself.

When you finally ran out of words a peaceful silence settled over the room. The stress melted from your shoulders, leaving you completely soft under his hands.

Katsuki let his thumbs trace one last, lingering path down the curve of your spine before his hands rested on your waist. He desperately wanted to pull you against his chest, turn you to face him, and tell you straight to your face that he wanted to do this for you every single night for the rest of their lives. Fuck, maybe that was too much..

But he didn't want this just for tonight—He wanted it forever.

"I needed this.." He could practically hear the relieved smile on your face. "I needed you, Kats."

A sudden flicker of hope lit up in his eyes at your words, only to be completely crushed by the casual, easy tone of your voice. It wasn't the confession he yearned to hear. It wasn't an admission of love, or a plea to change what they were.

Swallowing hard, Katsuki buried his own aching desire and pressed a soft kiss against your shoulder. He knew exactly what you meant. He was your perfect escape, a familiar and reliable comfort to run to after a brutal day just to get your head straight before reality caught up.

You meant it with the same casualness you'd shared for months, just friends who took care of each other when things got heavy.

After all, it was what you two had agreed on in the first place. He swore he'd never fall this hard—yet here he was, never wanting to let you go.

"Yeah, well.." Katsuki mumbled quietly, sliding his warm hands under your shirt while his lips traced a slow trail of kisses straight down your spine.

Each tender touch and soft kiss said everything he couldn't say out loud right now. "I'm right here."

"Just let me take care of you, Y/N."

© katsukiib ʚ♡ɞ do not steal, edit, or copy my work! ♡ — MASTERLIST! ♡♡

A ragged breath hits the mic on his end. "I'm outside. Well. Outside your window, specifically. And I’m drenched." A weak, self-deprecating chuckle breaks through the static. "Even Infinity doesn't feel like keeping the water off tonight." Liar. You know how he is.

You sit up, the blankets pooling around your waist. "Come inside. The window's unlocked." A second later, the latch clicks. A chill cuts through the bedroom air, followed by the soft, heavy thud of socks on your floorboards. He’s a massive, dark silhouette in the shadows, his white hair damp and hanging loose over his forehead, completely covering his eyes. The blindfold is stuffed into his pocket.

He doesn't move toward the bed. He stands there, hands shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders uncharacteristically slumped. The strongest sorcerer alive, looking entirely fragile.

"I tried," he says, his voice cracking slightly on the syllable. He swallows hard, the movement of his throat sharp in the dim light. "I tried to do the whole... distant thing. To give you space. Keep you out of the mess. But I’m stupid. I’m so stupid."

You slide to the edge of the mattress, reaching out. Your fingers catch the damp hem of his sleeve. "Satoru, what's wrong?"

He collapses forward. Not hard, but like a tree finally giving into the wind. He drops to his knees by the bedside, burying his face directly into your lap. His hands come out of his pockets and wrap around your waist, gripping the fabric of your shirt like he’s drowning and you’re the only thing keeping him above water.

He’s warm, radiating that intense, overwhelming heat he always has, but he’s trembling. Just a little.

"I can’t do it," he mumbles, his voice muffled against your thighs. "Everything is loud. The noise, the people, the higher ups... it’s all just constant noise. When I’m with you, it stops. My brain actually shuts up."

You run your fingers through his hair. It’s soft, despite the dampness, clumping between your fingertips. He lets out a long, shuddering sigh at the touch, leaning into your palm like a stray cat.

"Three weeks," he whispers, tilting his head up just enough so you can see the brilliant, fractured blue of his eyes in the dark. They’re wide, blinking up at you with a desperate, sweet vulnerability that he only ever saves for this room. "Twenty-one days. I haven’t eaten properly. I broke three coffee mugs because I wasn't paying attention. I can't function, baby. I’m completely useless without you. It’s pathetic."

"It's not pathetic," you soften, leaning down to press your forehead against his damp hairline.

"It is," he insists, a tiny, genuine trace of his usual pout returning to his lips. He pulls himself up, shifting until he’s crawling onto the mattress, crowding your space until he can wrap his long arms completely around you, pulling you flush against his chest. He tucks his chin into the crook of your neck, breathing you in.

"I love you," he confesses, the words tumbling out fast, urgent, completely devoid of his usual smirk. "I love you so much it makes me dizzy. Please don’t ever let us argue for that long again. Just let me stay here. Let me be small for a little bit."

You wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, holding him tight, feeling the rapid, steady thud of his heart against your ribs. "You can stay, Satoru. As long as you need."

He relaxes completely, his heavy frame going pliant against yours, burying his face back into your neck with a soft, content sigh. The strongest man in the world, finally safe enough to sleep.

Your eyes roll back down.

“Mhm.”

"And it was such a good question.”

You turn a page. "Really?”

“Yup.” He’s draped over the corner of your desk now, like gravity has wronged him, whining. “It was such a thoughtful… personal… deeply relevant… extremely genius level getting-to-know-you tier question that—”

You scowl. "—Satoru, enough. Just do your job."

It lands harder than expected. The sigh he lets out is deeply, theatrically offended. And when you glance up again, he’s sprawled over that same corner of your desk you made the mistake of clearing for him on day one because you’d thought, foolishly, that giving him a designated surface might contain him.

It had not.

Nothing about Satoru had ever suggested he could be contained.

Snowy white hair falls against his brow, sleeves rolled to his elbows; looking far too expensive and far too comfortable for someone whose official title is intern. His coffee is sweating beside your open planner — the one with a date next week circled in red: WEDDING, scrawled across the margin in your own handwriting. The condensation trails towards a stack of vendor invoices and—

…

Wait.

Are those the same vendor invoices you asked him to file yesterday?

Fucking great.

“Oh, c’monnn,” he grumbles, blinking at you over the rim of those absurdly expensive sunglasses he insists on wearing indoors. “One question. Just a tiiiiny one. It’s completely harmless. Humor me, yeah?”

You narrow your eyes.

“Satoru, you’ve been trying to ask one question for the last four months.”

“Yeah,” he says. “And you’ve been dodging it for four months. Imagine that.”

Technically… four months and four days. But who’s counting?

With an exhausted groan, your eyes fall shut, pinching the bridge of your nose. Noise drifts in from the hall — the elevator, the printer, a phone trilling somewhere nearby.  But when you look up again, it all seems to fall away.

He’s gone strangely still. The smug grin hasn’t disappeared, but it’s softened at the edges, hooked at one corner with his head tilted slightly. And those eyes…

Oh.

That’s — no. You’ve seen his eyes before. Obviously. Four months of them. But right now, with the morning light doing something cruel and unhelpful behind him, they catch in a way that makes you forget you were mid-thought. The kind of blue that doesn’t ask if you’re looking. It already knows.

Which means of course, you look away first. “Fine.” Your hand drops as you mutter. “One question. But if it’s stupid, I’m sending you back to HR.”

It’s not much of a threat. It’s his last day, after all, and for reasons you still don’t fully understand, Satoru has always seemed oddly immune to consequences — which, frankly, feels statistically improbable given the amount of shit he’s managed to pull in the few months of being here.

“One question?” his grin sharpens. You point your pen at him. “Don’t make me regret this.” Yet his pleased chuckle is already making you. “Awhh… look at you. Finally yielding.” His pen twirls between his fingers, nodding with false solemnity. “Okay. So, here’s the thing… throughout these four months working beside you, I’ve seen a lot—"

“—that’s not a question.” You deadpan.

But ignoring you, he reclines back in the chair, hands clasped behind his head.

“Liiiike… I’ve seen the exact face you make when Mei-Mei emails you,” he smirks. “Even noticed you work through lunch more than you should. And I’ve noticed that little line right here—” he gestures vaguely between his own brows “—every time the budget goes sideways.”

Lips parting, you blink.

…why is he so observant?!

For someone who acts like he doesn’t give a shit, he’s strangely attentive.

You clear your throat, huffing. “Okay… what’s your point?” Your hands straighten a stack of papers that doesn’t need straightening. “Is there a question in here somewhere, or are you just reciting my habits back to me for fun?”

His grin is far too pleased. “Relax. I’m getting there.” And leaning forward, his voice drops, like he’s unraveling a conspiracy. “I just find it interesting how you answer work calls before the second ring. Every damn day. Doesn’t matter who it is.” His head tilts with a smug grin. “But for whatever reason, for the past month, your personal phone’s been ringing off the hook, and you never pick up. Not once.”

Heat creeps up your neck. Not because he’s wrong — but because he’s right. And he said it like it was nothing. Like noticing the pattern of your avoidance was just something that happened to him between stamps.

Oh.

Way too observant.

Shit. He couldn't have settled on what's your favorite color!? Or, what superpower would you have!? No. Of course he had to go for the fucking jugular.

His eyes drop to the planner lying open beneath the invoices. The circled date: WEDDING. And his grin sharpens. “Ohoho… I get it now,” he whistles, leaning back in his chair and kicking one leg over the other. “What’d your fiancé do to screw up this bad? Is the wedding off?”

Your head jerks up. “F-Fiancé?!” And he rolls his eyes with a scoff, still grinning. “Knew it. God, he must be really in the doghouse. Or maybe he’s just clingy as hell to be calling that much.”

You blink.

Okay. Nevermind. He’s wrong. That is not even remotely what’s happening. The most committed relationship you’ve had is the one with your coffee machine. And yet… part of it feels almost cosmically cruel.

Because somehow, this is the second time in a month that someone had looked at the scattered pieces of your life and decided a man must be hiding inside them. Except the first time, you never even got the chance to correct it.

After all… how do you tell your mother she’s wrong?

Last month, you still answered her phone calls.

Not because you expected anything different. But because somewhere between the second ring and the third, there’s this gap — this stupid, paper-thin gap — where you still believe she might ask how you’re doing and actually wait for the answer.

Some habits taste like smoke. Some burn like liquor. But yours, unfortunately, had always looked a lot like hope.

Hope is a terrible habit you’ve never been able to kick.

“Oh—uh, hi mom!”

Your phone was wedged between your ear and shoulder while you stepped out of your car, juggling your purse and what was left of your sanity. You were already behind schedule, and your mother was calling — which meant the day had already made its intentions very clear.

“What’s up?” the door slammed shut with your hip. “I’m actually about to—”

“—Trish sent the venue photos,” she blurted, launching into a conversation like always.

Blinking, you shook the bitterness away. Striding toward the towering glass of Gojo Corporation. “That’s—yeah, that’s great,” you muttered, badge in hand as you pushed through the front doors. “But I’m actually heading into work right now? So—”

“—It’s such a beautiful venue,” she ignored you. “Very traditional, very grand. But you know the Zenin family—they never do anything small.” And as she sighed in awe, you resisted the urge to roll your eyes.

The rational part of your brain told you to let this go to voicemail. But the rational part of your brain has never once won this fight. Because…

Hope is a terrible habit you’ve never been able to kick.

"Mom, I'm sure it's lovely, really… but I'm kind of—um, excuse me…" you pivoted around a man in the bustling lobby with a sigh. “Sorry. I’m literally walking into the building right now? But maybe we can revisit this later and—"

"—have you booked your flight yet?"

Your mouth flattened.

Clearly, your half of this conversation is optional.

“No… not yet,” you mumbled, as patiently as you could manage, jabbing the up button harder than necessary. “It’s been a crazy ass week so I haven’t had a chance to, but—”

“—every week is a crazy week for you.” The huff she let out sounded almost offended by the inconvenience of your life. “Why can’t you just book it now while we’re talking? I mean, it literally takes five minutes.”

A miracle, really, that your blood pressure isn’t a medical emergency.

Every week is a crazy week?

Yeah. No shit.

Two managers resigned last quarter. Another got escorted out by security. And their work didn’t disappear. No. It landed on your desk. Because that’s how it goes. That’s how it’s always gone. Group projects. Internships. End-of-quarter disasters no one else wanted to touch. If something needed fixing, it found its way to you.

You’re the one people relied on.

Just… never the one people chose.

“Mother. I’m at work,” you said, stepping into the elevator as the doors slid open, dropping your voice as you stabbed at floor fifteen. “Look—I’m about to walk into an eight a.m. meeting. But I’ll book it tonight, promise.”

“…eight a.m.?” she repeated slowly, before letting out a small, unbothered laugh. “Oh! Right. It’s eight p.m. here. Silly me. I keep forgetting.”

…

Keep forgetting?

She keeps forgetting that she’s ten thousand miles away? Forgetting that twenty years ago she abandoned you in another country to live abroad in Japan—handing you to your grandparents like a detail she'd get back to later?

How convenient that she forgot that.

The elevator slid shut, and you watched the numbers tick upward. “Um. Yeah…” you managed, trying to keep the hurt out of your voice. “Anyways. I’ll book it tonight. After work. Okay?”

"Okay, okay. Sure. Sounds good. But are you bringing anyone?”

Squeezing the strap of your bag, you swallowed the lump in your throat. This again? The last thing you needed was to walk into your shitty eight a.m. meeting looking emotional.

No thanks.

“I… uh…” you cleared your throat. “I um—actually—haven’t decided yet. But anyways, I gotta go, so—”

“Waitwatiwait. Haven’t decided? Does that mean… you actually found someone?!”

Her voice pitched up so fast it almost startled you, and your mouth dropped so low it could’ve hit floor one.

Shit.

“I-I—I didn’t say—"

“—oh, thank God. This is incredible!!” she squealed. “We’ve been so worried. I mean—Trish is younger than you and she figured it out,” her tongue clicked. “People have been asking questions, you know. Your aunt Sara keeps bringing it up every time I see her and—”

“—Mom, I—"

“—It’s about time,” The laugh she let out was relieved, like a problem in her life had finally begun resolving itself. “You can’t keep putting love on hold forever, because men aren’t going to wait around forever. You’re already twenty-six—not getting any younger, dear.”

Love?!

Who has time for that?

And why the fuck is twenty-six the age a woman expires?!

“What’s his name?” she pressed, practically beaming through the phone. “What does he do? Is he from there, or—oh, is he Japanese? Your father would love that, he always said—”

And she was off.

Spinning an entire man out of thin air. An entire future, really. Building him in real time from a tiny slip up you had because you were too tired and cornered and desperate enough to answer the phone in the first place. And you stood there, letting her. Because interrupting her has never once worked in the history of your life.

“—actually, never mind,” she chirped a moment later, as if she was being considerate now. “You have work. I’ll call tomorrow and you can tell me everything, yes? Okay, bye-bye honey—”

Click!

And just like that, the elevator went quiet. You were left staring at your reflection in the metal doors, phone pressed to your ear, listening to the silence where your mother’s voice had been.

‘We’ve been so worried.’

…

If they were so worried… why had you spent most of your life learning to take care of yourself? And yet, the second there might be a man, suddenly you’re worth getting excited about?

Funny how that works.

Scoffing, you lowered the phone, shoving it into your bag just as the elevator chimed open. Itadori Yuji’s head snapped up behind the reception desk.

“Morning, boss,” he waved, radiating sunshine as you walked towards the conference room. “Kento’s asking if you’re still good for the budget review at eight… or if I should just tell him to panic.”

Your smile softened, burying the sting. “Yes… I’ll be right there.” And as you stepped through the polished glass doors, you played the role you’d always played.

The reliable one. Twenty-six years old, with two master’s degrees, a career at one of the most competitive corporations in the world, and a team of seven that would quietly fall apart without you.

But…

None of that glitters quite like a diamond ring, does it?

“Oi,” Satoru frowns. “You’re makin’ that face again.”

“Huh?”

Blinking out of your spiral, your eyes trace back to the man across from you. His chin is resting in his palm, those impossibly blue eyes fixed on you with a quiet stillness that makes something in your chest trip over itself — like a lock turning in a door you didn’t know was closed.

“Oh.” You clear your throat, forcing the pen back into motion. “…what face?”

“The one you make when something’s wrong,” he says quietly, gaze unmoving. “When you’re upset and trying to act like you’re not.”

For a second — one terrible, unguarded second — you don’t have a single thing to hide behind. It’s just him, looking at you like your well-being is something he’s been keeping track of in a column you didn’t even know existed.

But then the sarcasm kicks in, right on time. "Wow," you say, forcing your hands back to the papers in front of you. "So… now you read faces?"

“Mm... nah. Just yours, sweetheart.”

And that grin — god, that fucking grin — hooks at one corner like he knows exactly what just detonated inside your chest. You don’t acknowledge it. Acknowledging things have consequences, and consequences with this man are not something you can afford.

"…that’s highly inappropriate," you mutter, shoving it down. "Let’s maybe redirect some of that insight toward the invoices, yeah?"

“Sorry, sorry.” He leans back, hands up like he’s the picture of innocence. “Wouldn’t wanna start shit with your dear future husband.” His grin goes sharp as he twirls his sunglasses between two fingers. “Though, wow. Tough look for him. Whatever he did, he clearly fucked up bad.”

Why does he sound… bitter?

No. You must be imagining it. This is Satoru. Satoru, who treats everything like a joke until proven otherwise. Satoru, who doesn’t care enough about anything to sound bitter over a man who may or may not exist.

You scoff. "You’re making some wildly stupid assumptions right now…"

He perks up at that. "Oh?" With his grin hooking higher, almost hopeful. "Wait. So, there’s no fiancé, then?"

Your lips purse.

What does he care? He’s not your mother.

“I wish you’d be this interested in your actual job,” you sigh, arms crossing. “Those invoices have been sitting there all week.”

“Uh-huh.” He tips his head. “And yet somehow, I noticed you still didn’t answer me.”

You frown.

What the fuck are you supposed to say!?

Oh. Um. Actually, Satoru, there is no fiancé. That’s the problem, actually! My mother invented him the other morning and I haven't worked up the nerve to call her back.

Yeah. No. You'd rather die at this desk.

“Maybe because it’s none of your business.”

“But I—”

“Drop it.”

He stares at you for a beat, then he flops back in the chair with a dramatic huff, long legs kicking out in front of him, mouth dragging into a sulky pout.

“Well, damn,” he grumbles, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair, rolling his eyes. “No wonder you’re single if this is how you shut people down…”

The second the words leave his mouth, he blinks. His gaze flicks up to yours like he hears it too late — like he realizes, all at once, how shitty that sounded.And it only feels worse the moment he sees your face.

God.

Of all the places to hit.

“Oho… wow. Okay. This?” you say with a thin, self-deprecating laugh, chair scraping as you shove back from your seat. “Yeah. This is exactly why I shouldn’t have let you ask, Satoru.” You reach for your planner, your purse, anything to do with your hands besides let them shake.

He straightens, watching you scramble. “Whoa. Wait. I—"

“—because you don’t know when to stop!” The words come out louder than you mean, blinking at the sting behind your eyes. “You just keep pushing and pushing and pushing until you get what you want. Well good. I hope you’re happy.”

Before you can turn away, he’s on his feet. “Wait—” And the moment his hand catches yours, you freeze, breath snagging.

His voice is quieter now. His grip is firm yet gentle, and the air between you shifts, while something warm and uneasy twists low in your chest. The kind of feeling that makes you want to lean in and run in the same breath.

Though your eyes stay down. “Satoru… let go.”

“I didn’t…” he starts, then stops, gaze flicking to where his fingers still circle your wrist — before climbing back to your face, slower this time. “I’m… sorry. I just—” His mouth tightens. “I see how hard you work, okay? I see it. And every time that phone rings, you get this look on your face like it’s already ruined your day before you even touch it. And…” His brows pinch. “Fuck. I dunno why, but it pisses me off!”

Your gaze hesitantly drags to his, and the look in his eyes is softer than they have any right to be — all that blue, stripped of its usual sharpness, turned careful. Like he’s stepping toward something breakable and knows it. Like… if he asked once more, something in you might actually give.

“Satoru…” your breath hitches. “I-I—"

“Oh, finally.”

Shoko’s voice trails in, and your head snaps up so fast your neck almost goes with it. She’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, coffee in hand — looking like a woman who arrived exactly on time for something she's been expecting all week.

Her gaze flicks down to where he’s holding you, and the corner of her mouth twitches.

"Sooo… not to interrupt whatever this is," she says, taking a sip, "but Kento's one eye-twitch away from a medical event. He needs you to sign off on the variance line before he starts reconciling his own will and—"

You're already jerking your hand back. "Yup—coming!" And as you step away, heat floods your face, but you don't look back. Not once. Not even when you feel him still standing there, watching you go.

Because looking back would mean acknowledging that something just shifted. And you are not — not — doing that today.

Unlike those invoices, perhaps some things are better left… unfinished.

You’re gone in a blur of heels, nerves, and professional self-preservation, leaving Shoko trailing behind and Satoru staring at the empty doorway like maybe the conversation might wander back through it.

It doesn’t.

And it’s not long before his mouth is pulling into a slow, petulant pout—just before he flops back in the chair with all the elegance of a man personally betrayed by the universe.

Un-fucking-believable.

He’d almost had you! After four months and four days of being stonewalled, redirected, and professionally shut down, you’d finally looked like you might give him something. A crack. A sliver. And then Kento had to ruin it with his stupid reconciliation sheet, his stupid earnest face, and his stupidly impeccable timing.

…

He could fire Kento.

Should he fire Kento?

As tempting as that thought is, Satoru settles for glaring at the empty doorway a second longer before dragging a hand down his face and raking it back through his hair. There’s no point. This performance will end soon. Because by this time tomorrow, he’ll be on a flight back to Tokyo. Where he can resume the slow, agonizing process of preparing to inherit a company he didn't actually give a shit about.

'Grow up, Satoru.'

'Apply yourself, Satoru.'

'You have no idea what it takes to run something like this, Satoru.'

Right. Because apparently, the heir to a multinational corporation needed to learn humility. Alphabetize files. Sit in a cubicle. Fetch coffee like some goddamn spreadsheet slut with a trust fund and nowhere to put it.

Four years of business school, two years shadowing his father; and yet, this is what they had for him?!

He scoffs. And when his gaze drops to the wreckage of your desk, he’s pulling the stack of vendor invoices toward him with a sigh that sounds put-upon even to his own ears. You’ve been nagging him about filing them for the better part of the week and… the least he can do is clear one thing before he goes.

The stamp thuds against the first page. Then the next. Then the next. And with muscle memory taking over, his face goes blank in the way it always does when boredom finally wins. It’s mindless shit. Still, he’s used to it. So naturally, when the phone on your desk buzzes, he doesn’t think twice; snatching it up, tucking it between his ear and shoulder as he reaches for the next invoice.

It’s probably another budget nuisance. Or Mei. Or one of the other thousand little crises that seem magnetically drawn to your extension.

“Yo,” another stamp echoes. “Satoru speaking.”

There’s a sharp inhale. “…who?”

His brow lifts. “Uh… Satoru?” Another thud of ink slams against the paper and he huffs, annoyed. “What do y’need?”

The line goes quiet for a beat too long. Before the woman on the other end finally murmurs, “Satoru…” Sighing in awe. “What a lovely name. Is that Japanese?”

"Uh… yeah?” he snorts, flipping to the next page. “I mean. Last I checked.”

“Mm… I thought so!” She giggles. And her voice pitches like she's just unwrapped a present she didn't know she was getting. “So… Satoru. Why exactly are you the one answering her phone, hm?”

…

Why the hell does this woman sound so invested? And why is she asking questions that should be obvious?

Frowning down at the invoice, he stamps it harder.

“Because it rang?” He says it like it’s obvious. “And uh—sorry, but. Maybe because I’ve been with her for months, so… why the hell wouldn’t I?”

"Months?!” A soft gasp crackles, far too delighted. “You've—you've been with her for months?!"

"Mmm… four months and four days, technically."

He’s been her intern for that long.

That’s the question, right?

"—technically?!" she squeals, like the word personally seduced her. "Ohmygoodness—oh, this is perfect. Four months and four days—that is so specific.”

He blinks. But she doesn’t give him time to process.

“Look at you Mr. Devoted. Keeping track. I was starting to worry she’d never find someone like you. Every time I asked it's like pulling teeth. But I knew there had to be someone. I told her father—I said, there is a man, I can feel it.”

Pausing mid-stamp, the words slowly begin to catch up. Satoru straightens.

"…sorry. Who is thi—"

“—everyone is so excited to meet you at Trish’s wedding. I already reserved your seat and—"

Her voice keeps going… and going… and going. He pulls the phone away slowly as her voice echoes on the receiver, staring down at the phone in hand to see:

📞 Mom

Oh.

Oh, shit.

This is not your work phone. Your work phone is currently sitting at its dock twelve inches to his left. And it dawns on him that he accidentally just spent the last sixty seconds answering your personal phone like an absolute jackass and—

"Uh…” he backpedals. “Wait. I—"

"I told Sara, I said, we have to meet him and—”

"Stop. I-I really think—"

“—Satoru, what are you doing?’

His head snaps up at the sound of your voice, mouth dropping as he sees you standing at the doorway, eyes wide in horror.

Oh, fuck.

“Who is on the other end of that phone,” you hiss.

He winces, pulling the phone from his ear like it’s toxic — and you’re snatching it right out of his hand. He lets you have it without a fight, sinking back into the chair like he’s trying to physically dissociate from the situation he’s just created while you press the phone to your ear.

“And I mean…” she rambles. “I certainly was never one to wait around at twenty-six, believe me. But—"

"Mom."

"Oh! Honey!” She gasps. “Oh, my goodness, hi—I was just having the loveliest chat with—"

"I'm at work. Gotta go."

"—okay! I can't wait to meet Satoru, he—"

Click!

The phone sits in your hand like evidence.

And Satoru — to his credit — has the decency to look like a man standing in the blast radius of his own stupidity. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Like he’s rehearsing an apology in a language he hasn’t learned yet.

You stare at him.

He stares at you.

And somewhere ten thousand miles away, your mother is already calling your aunt Sara.

“Sooo… funny story…”

“—what did you do?!”

Satoru flinched, and now, the tears were already rolling down your cheeks — hot, fast, completely unauthorized. Not the kind you could disguise as allergies or blame on the air conditioning. No. The ugly kind.

Great. Fucking great.

You were standing in the middle of your own office, in the building where you work, crying in front of your intern. And Satoru felt the weight of it all at once. In the last four months, he had seen you in every flavor of workplace misery there was. Pissed off, stressed out, one spreadsheet away from actual murder.

But cry?

Never.

And this had his fingerprints all over it.

"Shit," he breathed, panic flashing across his face. "I—fuck. Okay. Please don't—I can fix this. I can—"

"Fix this?" A splintered laugh ripped out of you, and you hated how thin it was. "Fix what, Satoru? You just confirmed a boyfriend to my mother, a boyfriend that doesn't exist—and she is, at this very moment, probably already—"

Another break in your voice cracked, and you squeezed your eyes shut, pressing your hand to your forehead hard like you could hold the tears in by sheer force. But it only made it worse, because now you could feel the wetness on your own face, the heat of it under your palm, and the mortification landed like a second wave.

God. How fucking humiliating.

"Hey, hey—it's okay,” his voice softened. “We'll just… call her back. Right? Tell her it was a misunderstanding. Easy."

“Easy?” you scoffed, the word coming out strangled. “Y-You don’t understand my mother, Satoru,” you managed, voice gone thin as thread. God, you sounded like a child. “If she thinks something is true, then it’s true. That’s it. That’s—there’s no correcting her, there’s no walking it back, she’s already told my aunt Sara by now and Sara’s told Trish and—oh, fuck—”

Another sob tumbled out, and your fingers dug harder into your temple.

God. Stop it.

Stop it stop it stop it.

Think.

Think logically. You're good at this. You solve problems for a living.

But every time you tried to grab onto a thought, it slipped — replaced by the echo of your mother's voice, high and delighted. The happiest she'd sounded talking to you in years. Maybe ever.

…what look will she give you when you show up alone?

"I can’t," you whispered, and the word came out waterlogged. "I-I'm supposed to get on a plane to Japan in a week and—do what? Tell them there's no one? Tell them I'm still—"

Single.

The word sat in your mouth like a stone. You didn’t realize you’d gone silent until the silence itself started ringing — your sniffling, the hum of fluorescent lights, the muffled life of the office continuing beyond the door like yours wasn’t actively coming apart at the seams.

And through all of it, you could feel Satoru looking at you. His stillness; holding you with an expression you'd never seen on him before and couldn't categorize if you tried.

"Um…” he looked down, scratching the back of his neck. “Soooo... the wedding's in Japan?"

You blinked. “What?” And as you wiped your face with the back of your hand, his gazed tentatively flicked back up. “The wedding…” he repeated, voice careful. “It’s in Japan?”

"Yes." Your brow furrowed, not understanding. "Why?"

He didn't answer right away. Just looked down at the floor for a second, jaw shifting, like he was turning something over in his head — something he hadn't fully assembled yet but could already feel the shape of.

"Huh… okay."

Okay what?

You watched his expression change in real time — from guilt to calculation to something else. "Right then!" He said, clapping his hands once, bright and sudden. "No biggie. I'll just go with you."

No biggie?

Your mouth dropped.

That wasn’t even an option, was it?

…is he crazy?

“You’re kidding,” your laugh was awkward and breathless. His eyes rolled with a smug grin. “Sweetheart, c’mon,” and he was gesturing between the two of you like the answer was sitting there in plain sight and you were the only person in the room committed to not seeing it. "Your family thinks you're bringing someone? Cool." A hand pressed to his chest with theatrical solemnity. "I'm someone."

You stared at him. Genuinely stared.

Oh. He wasn’t kidding.

Yup. He’s crazy.

"You are not 'someone,' Satoru. You are my intern."

“Yeah. For like… another six hours?"

He checked his watch with a shrug, and your lips flattened.

"…that is not the point."

“Mm… feels a little like the point."

He smirked, but it faded faster than usual, dimming at the edges as his blue eyes hesitated on yours. Something shifted in his posture; the performance pulling back, like a tide going out. "Um… look…" He pushed off the desk, stepping closer. "It’s really no hassle." He said, hands sliding into his pockets. "I already have a flight scheduled. My family's in Tokyo. And I was going back after this internship anyway, so… this just moves my timeline back a little."

He was shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal. Like he wasn’t agreeing to fly across the world with you and walk straight into the disaster that was your family.

…

His family’s in Japan too?

You barely knew anything about him. He kept his life sealed off with the same practiced deflection you kept yours — jokes in place of answers, charm in place of honesty. You never bothered to ask, because asking meant caring and that was a door you never intended to walk through with anyone.

But…

"Just… let me come with you. I’ll be your boyfriend for the weekend. For the wedding. For… whatever you need,” he said. And this time, when he stepped closer, there was no grin to hide behind. "I can be useful. I caused this. So… let me fix it."

Heat creeped up your neck, and you scoffed, weakly.

"Okay… but you can't fix my mother."

"No…” he murmured, tilting his head. His hand came up and brushed a tear trailing down your cheek with a careful gentleness. “But… I can make sure you don't have to walk in there alone?"

Your breath hitched, and when your eyes finally lifted, the morning light was being cruel again — catching in that impossible blue and turning it soft. Like stained glass dipped in sunlight. Like something holy made dangerous by the simple fact that it was looking straight at you.

“Mhn. So, do I get the job, boss lady? Because that look you’re giving me…” a slow smirk curls up the corner of his mouth. “Very encouraging for my boyfriend résumé, by the way. Might get addicted to it and wanna make it a full-time gig.”

“Shut up,” you mutter, looking away too fast to be convincing.“That was not a look. I was just—” You grimace. “…never mind.”

He’s chuckling as you brush past him. And his words are what scared you the most. Which was bad. Very, very bad. Because your mother was one problem. Japan was another. But Satoru looking at you like that?

Shit…

That felt like the kind of complication that didn’t stay neatly contained. And you knew better than anyone. Nothing about Satoru had ever suggested he could be contained.

a/n: hehe. this has been fun to work on! i am excited to share the next part. clearly i love these fake dating/fake marriage tropes aha 🙂‍↕️ bc this is like... what—my third time doing it? soooo i tried to change things up and make it feel less standard/generic :) but anyways, like i said pt 2 will be out in a week, pls lmk if you wanna be tagged 💖

you wake up to sunlight filtering through the blinds on the window, and yawn. you smile; today’s your birthday!

you reach over on koushi’s side of the bed, only to find that it’s cold there. you sit up, confused. and then you realize that he probably just left early for work today.

you check your phone to see if he’s sent you anything this morning, but it comes up blank. you shrug, figuring he’ll probably just come home this afternoon and wish you a happy birthday himself.

you spend the day enjoying your day off, watching your favorite shows and lounging around. obviously you wish suga was with you, but you know he needs to work today, so you have a little self-love session.

4:00 approaches and you wait for him to come home, as he usually comes home around this time. you wait, and wait, and figure maybe he just had some things to do at work.

then 6:00 rolls around and you’re a little bit tired of waiting around, but you figure it’s not that big of a deal.

it’s past 8:00 when you’ve become irritated, your phone empty, not a single message from your boyfriend in your inbox.

then, you finally hear the door open, and you go to see him. he gives you a peck on the lips and continues down the hallway towards his desk, where he sits down and sets up his laptop. he doesn’t pick up on your irritation at all.

“so,” you start. “where have you been?”

“work,” he mutters, eyes focused on the screen of his computer. you scoff, and he finally looks up at you. “what?”

“i don’t know, i just thought we’d do something today. you’re always busy.”

he sighs, as if he doesn’t have the patience to deal with you. “i know, baby. but i need to finish this, okay?” he turns back to his screen.

“seriously? that’s all you have to say?”

“y/n, i don’t have the energy for this. we’ll do something later, okay?” he says, not even paying attention to you.

and then it finally dawns on you that, he forgot.

you want to say something but decide against it, turning on your heel and entering your bedroom, slamming the door behind you.

suga sighs, exhausted, and looks at the time on his computer. 9:28 pm, the clock reads, next to the date. then his eyes finally find the date, and his heart drops.

he scrambles around on his laptop, afraid to check his calendar to confirm, but it’s lying there, outlined in red, fat letters.

it’s your birthday. and he completely forgot.

then he remembers the way you were acting, and everything makes sense now. and then he remembers how he treated you. he feels terrible.

he knocks twice on the door and opens it to find the light off and you in bed already, turned away from him on your side. his chest pangs with regret.

he kneels down in front of you, and you turn away from him.

“baby?”

no response.

“i’m sorry, y/n. i totally forgot about today and i—”

“it’s fine, koushi. you were just busy,” you cut him off, voice embarrassingly watery.

“that’s not an excuse, okay? i should’ve made time for you, and i got so caught up in my work that i just forgot that i’m not the only one in this relationship,” he explains. “please let me make it up to you?”

silence.

“i love you?” he tries again, heart in his throat. he waits a few moments.

then you turn back over to face him, and your eyes are watery.

“i just missed you.”

his own eyes are filling up now, and he puts his forehead on yours.

“i’ll be better from now on, okay?”

you nod, that smile he loves taking its rightful place on your face.

he laughs softly.

matsukawa

you know mattsun loves you (he really does)

but lately it seems like he hasn’t had any time for you

you know that he’s always quite busy, what with work and other friends

but sometimes you wish you could just spend some time alone with him

luckily, your birthday is coming up!

every year, you and issei spend the day together just relaxing and being with each other

you’re looking forward to just having a day to spend with him :)

issei has already left for work when you wake up, and you send him a message telling him to have a good day.

today, you figure you’ll be productive, organizing the pantry and doing a little cooking for yourself.

it’s late in the afternoon when issei finally comes home, and you get up, excited to see him! you wrap your arms around his waist and squeeze gently, your face in his chest. but something’s wrong, because he doesn’t hug you back in the way he usually would.

he walks past you and into the living room, and he doesn’t seem to be in a good mood today.

“is everything okay?” you ask. he shrugs.

“work has just been exhausting lately,” he mutters.

“oh,” you reply. “maybe you should take some time off, relax a bit?” he scoffs, as if the idea offends him.

“i can’t do that right now, y/n.”

“well, maybe you have to. i feel like i never see you anymore; you’re never even around,” you mumble, frustrated.

he seems to be getting just as irritated as you, because he sighs in annoyance.

“look, you can’t expect me to spend every hour of every day with you. some people actually have things to do. don’t put this on me just because you’re lonely, okay?” you reel back, hurt.

why is he treating you like this? and on your birthday?

and then you realize that he doesn’t even know. and that hurts even worse.

“issei, i’m not asking you to throw away your life for me? but it’s like you don’t even care about spending time with me anymore!”

he puts his head in his hands, frustrated.

“y/n, why are you so mad at me? i’ve had a really fucking rough day today, and i don’t need you yelling—”

“well maybe if you hadn’t forgotten my fucking birthday, i wouldn’t be so upset!”

he freezes. what?

you turn away from him, eyes watering angrily, and stifle a sob. you don’t even care that much about your birthday, but the fact that he didn’t even care enough to remember stings bitterly.

meanwhile, issei is helplessly counting dates and weeks in his head. he’s reeling through a calendar in his mind, and when he finally realizes what day it actually is, his heart stops for a second.

“baby...”

“just forget it,” you whisper, voice tiny. “it wasn’t that important anyway.”

he tries to reach for your hand but you push him away.

“i’m just gonna go to bed, i think,” you mutter under your breath. “i’m sorry for yelling at you.”

as you leave, mattsukawa watches you go, and while he’s desperate to catch you and apologize, you’re probably angry at him and he doesn’t want to make it worse.

the more he thinks about it, the worse he feels. when he can’t think of the last time the two of you just spent some time together, he realizes you were right. he put his own problems in front of you, and in doing so, he hurt your feelings. he couldn’t even remember your own birthday. determined to make things right, he takes out his phone.

around half an hour later, he opens the door softly. the lights are off and you’re on your side, still sniffling quietly. the bed dips behind you, and you turn to see issei next to you. he lies down on his side, facing you, and brings your face close to his. he noses at your cheek affectionately, and while you’re upset, you’ve missed his touch so much you can’t push him away.

“i’m taking a week off just for the two of us, okay?” he whispers against your lips. your eyes get watery again. issei doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive himself for making you cry on your birthday.

“you did this for me?” you whimper.

he sighs regretfully. “i’m so sorry, baby. i didn’t even realize how much i was neglecting you. please let me make it up to you?”

you laugh, sobbing pathetically, and bury your face in his chest.

“okay,” you giggle softly. “cuddles?”

he pulls the covers over you and holds you close.

“anything.”

sakusa

dating a pro athlete was never something you pictured yourself doing, ever

but now that you’re doing it, you can’t see your life any other way :)

the only thing is, sakusa always has a lot on his plate

having a balance between you and the rest of his life has always been difficult

and lately, it feels like he’s been drifting away

you miss him :(

buttt thankfully your birthday is coming up, so you hope that’ll give you some time alone with each other!

sakusa has been very busy with the MSBY team, and it’s been hard for him to think about anything else.

today, he’d left super early in the morning to get to practice. the team had to condition even harder than usual, and kiyoomi was already running on low energy when they began actual practice. and now, practice is over, and he’s irritable and all he wants to do is go home and sleep.

meanwhile, you’ve been at home, waiting for him to come back after practice. neither of you are that big on birthdays, but you’re hoping that you’ll be able to spend a few hours with him before the day is over.

when he finally walks through the door, you get up and take his bag for him, welcoming him home. he mutters a thanks under his breath.

you notice that he’s even more tired than usual, and you nudge at his arm. “you okay, omi?”

“tired,” he murmurs.

“oh,” you respond. “wanna watch a movie? or are you hungry? we could always—”

“i don’t feel like doing anything right now, y/n.”

you deflate. “sorry, i just figured that you’ve been so busy lately, and i thought maybe it’d be good for you to relax.”

“i think it’d be good for you to just leave me alone right now, y/n. i need to rest, and you’re just being a distraction.” sakusa rests his head against the couch, closing his eyes.

your heart stings at that, and now it’s clear to you that he doesn’t even remember what day it is. there’s a lump in your throat, and you swallow.

“right.”

you decide to leave and let him be, walking into your bedroom and closing the door behind you. he probably didn’t even notice that i left, you think.

kiyoomi is laying on the couch, head tilted up to the ceiling, when his rest is interrupted by his phone ringing. he plans to ignore it, but it’s so loud that he just picks it up in annoyance.

“what,” he grits out, irritated.

“chill dude, i was just checking in to see how you were doing!” atsumu chuckles into the phone on the other side. “you looked like you were about to fall over at practice.”

“well, i was trying to get some rest in right now, but then someone decided to call me,” sakusa mutters. atsumu laughs again.

“okay, well, i’ll leave you to it then,” he continues. “oh wait, tell y/n i said happy birthday!”

sakusa grumbles at that, about to hang up when atsumu’s words register in his head.

he sits up, fully awake now. “what?”

“tell them i said happy birthday; i didn’t get a chance to text them at all today,” he explains.

“...”

“omi?”

“i’ll call you back.”

“what—”

he hangs up the phone and stares at it for a while.

fuck. fuck. fuck. what day is it? i could’ve sworn.. there’s no way.. kiyoomi’s mind is racing.

his heart is beating rapidly in his chest as he checks his reminders on his phone. and there it is, bolded neatly: “y/n’s birthday.”

“fuck,” sakusa swears, burying his face in his hands. he can’t believe that he forgot. the fact that atsumu remembered and he didn’t.. god, he fucked up. badly.

he called you a distraction and told you to leave him alone when you just wanted to spend some time together. and now he feels like the worst boyfriend in the world.

he opens the door after knocking on it softly. he sees you gasp softly, hiccuping, and then bury your face in your pillow in an attempt to seem asleep. he would laugh at your adorable behavior if he didn’t feel like absolute shit right now.

for now, though, he sits on the bed next to you, and pulls the covers off of you. you shiver, and he scoops you up into his lap. you feel warm and soft, and you hide your face away from his gaze in his chest. he kisses your hair affectionately, and you sniffle at the gesture. you cry into his shirt, comforted by his touch.

“i’m sorry, y/n,” he mumbles. “i’m sorry for forgetting about today and for neglecting you and for being a complete asshole to you when you didn’t do anything wrong.”

your grip on his shirt tightens, and you snuggle in closer to him.

“i love you, okay? i never wanted to hurt you, and i hate myself for doing that to you.”

at that, you look up at him, teary-eyed and nose red from sniffling.

“‘s okay, omi. i’m not mad at you for forgetting about my birthday. i just miss you being here with me. sometimes it feels like you don’t even want me anymore.”

kiyoomi looks down at you in disbelief. how could you think that? he can’t even imagine how his life would be without you in it.

he puts your face in his hands, thumbs wiping away your tears. he lays a kiss on your lips, and then a couple on your eyelids, and more on your cheeks.

“i’d never want to live in a life without you. i need you,” he whispers.

“so sappy,” you mumble. a soft smile graces his lips.

“shut up,” he mutters, quiet and sweet.

yeah, you think. we’ll be okay.

when you wake up, the sun is shining and you feel well-rested and content.

you sigh happily and reach over to the other side of the bed, only to find it cold and out of use. you sit up to investigate and discover that atsumu is gone.

you sigh again, this time a little disappointed. he must’ve gone to work, you think. you get up.

while you’re making breakfast for yourself, you check your phone. you have a couple messages from some of your friends and family, to which you respond to, but none from your boyfriend. even as you refresh your inbox, nothing comes up.

he’s probably busy, you remind yourself. you finish cooking and sit down to eat, alone.

today seems like a good day to just relax and let yourself breathe for a moment. you lounge around on the couch and watch some movies and take a nice, warm bubble bath. you waste the day away as you wait around for atsumu to come home, hoping maybe the two of you can go out for dinner tonight!

when he finally comes home, he lets out a tired groan and sits down on the couch after kissing you quickly on the cheek.

“i’m starving, babe. what’s for dinner?” he asks you, eyes closed.

you stand in front of him. “well, i actually didn’t make dinner tonight,” you respond. he opens his eyes and furrows his brows at you.

“...i thought i told you that i needed you to make dinner tonight,” he notes. “i texted you earlier.”

confused at his apparent annoyance, you try again. “well, i was hoping we could go out tonight. it’s been a long time since we ever—”

“y/n, i’m tired, okay? i had a long day and you’re not helping at all. i mean, you don’t make dinner, and now you’re asking me for more when it’s clear that i don’t have the energy,” he argues, irritated. you step back.

did he...? you ask yourself. there’s no way...

but now he’s just ignoring you, and it finally sinks in. he forgot.

you sigh sadly and retreat into your bedroom, hoping to just call it a night. you don’t want to spend your birthday arguing with your boyfriend.

atsumu gets up and walks into the kitchen, looking for a quick dinner. he opens the pantry to see new products that you must have gotten from the store. he looks over them, eye catching on a box of chocolate pocky.

the snack reminds him of a happy memory he shared with you just last year. it was your birthday, and he took you on a picnic and you shared the box, fighting over who got the last one, and instead just breaking it in half and having to share it.

atsumu thinks back to that day fondly, grinning softly at the memory. maybe this year we can do it again, he jokes to himself. and then he pauses.

...

.....

.........

...fuck.

he pulls out his phone frantically and swipes open the calendar, flipping to the correct month and staring at it obsessively.

and there it is; the reminder he set for your birthday, adorned with emojis and bolded brightly. his heart stops.

his eyes grow wide and he puts his phone down, panic slowly rising in his gut and making it hard to breathe.

“how could i have...” he whispers to himself.

then atsumu remembers how you asked him to go out with you to dinner and all he did was berate you for not being good enough. the way you seemed dejected as you took his words and left, leaving him alone in his head. he’s supposed to be your boyfriend, and he couldn’t even remember your birthday. he’s just been neglecting you.

desperate to make things right, he bursts into the bedroom to see you getting into bed. at his presence, your shoulders droop, and you sigh.

“‘tsumu, i don’t wanna fight, okay?” you ask, exhausted. his heart sinks even further. that’s what you think he wants to do?

he approaches you guiltily, and you look up at him, confused. he stares at you for a second before pulling you up by your hands and wrapping his arms around you ever so tightly.

you exhale, his touch so comforting that you just want to melt. it’s been so long since he held you.

“i’m so sorry,” he mutters, voice shaky with honesty. “i’m sorry that i missed your birthday and i’m sorry that i haven’t been a boyfriend and that you’ve been alone and i haven’t even realized.”

you freeze, astounded.

your eyes begin to fill up with tears and you dig your face into his chest to hide them away.

“i know i don’t deserve it, but please forgive me? i just wanna make it up to you, ‘kay?” he pleads, desperate.

in response, you nod into his chest. to be honest, you don’t really care all that much about your birthday, but now you that you’re in atsumu’s arms, you really can’t think about anything at all.

but he’s here now, and that’s the best gift you could have asked for.

suna

you and suna had always had an interesting dynamic

he was often distant and seemed unfeeling, while sometimes you grew needy and clingy

you complimented each other

but lately the differences between you led to distance, and all you wanted was for your boyfriend to spend some time with you

because even with those differences, you loved him more than anything

your birthday was approaching, and you were relieved that you finally had a day just for you and him

you yawn, rubbing your eyes gently, and breathe in the soft morning air. today is your birthday!

you don’t see suna next to you, so you venture out into the living room. he’s not in there either. you check the kitchen and come up empty.

he must have left, you say to yourself, sighing. honestly, you had hoped for a whole day just for the two of you, but you supposed you’ll have to take just a few hours.

you check your phone to see if he’s left anything, but you see nothing. it’s not like you had expected anything, but it still stings just a bit.

so you spend the day having a little time to yourself, treating yourself to some snacks and doing some shopping. when you come home it’s early in the evening, so you start preparing dinner.

you wait for him to come home so that the two of you can have dinner together, lounging on the couch as you wait.

7:00 rolls around and you continue to wait. he doesn’t come home.

8:00 is here, and he’s still not home. the food is getting cold.

when 9:00 approaches and he’s still not home, you wonder where he is, irritation and disappointment filling your gut. you send him a message, to which he doesn’t respond.

it’s almost midnight when he comes home, and you get up, arms crossed in front of you, frustration coloring your features.

“where have you been? i’ve been waiting for you all day,” you ask. he just looks at you tiredly, as if he’s the one who should be disappointed, and sighs.

“it’s been a long day, okay?” he murmurs, and you scoff.

“you could’ve responded to my texts, at least.”

“i didn’t have time, okay? can you not be mad at me for two seconds, please?”

you stare at him, baffled. how does he have the audacity to—

“besides, not everything is about you, y/n. you have no idea the day that i had, so stop making today about you, okay?”

at that, your heart sinks, and realization hits you like a truck.

he... he didn’t even remember.

even while the two of you have had disconnects at some points in your relationship, he’s always taken the time to remember these dates and celebrate them with you. but now he doesn’t even remember.

anger starts to creep in, and you can feel it in your blood.

“fuck you, rin,” you mutter, and exit, slamming the door to your bedroom behind you. you press your back against the door and huff angrily.

at first, you just want to yell. but the more you stand there, the more you just want to lie down and cry. because the thought that your own boyfriend doesn’t even care about you enough to remember your birthday hurts far more.

outside the door, suna stares at the space where you left, confused. he doesn’t understand why you’re so upset with him.

he takes out his phone, hoping to text you and ask you to come back out so he can talk to you. he clicks on your contact and scrolls through it, looking for the message button. it shows your phone number, your emails, your birthday, your address...

suna pauses.

he scrolls back up.

your birthday.

oh no, he thinks, beginning to panic. oh god, what did i do?

and sure enough, the date is resting there on his phone, and his panic is confirmed.

today is your birthday. and he completely forgot.

and on top of that, he called you selfish for wanting the day for the two of you. he sees that you’ve left a plate of food out on the table for him and one for you too, and his chest aches painfully. you waited for him. and he didn’t show up.

when he gently pushes the door open, his heart breaks even further.

you’re lying on your side, arms wrapped around your pillow, crying softly. you hadn’t been this way when he saw you last, and the idea that he made you feel like this hurts terribly.

“...baby?” he calls softly. you gasp, startled by his sudden appearance, and attempt to stifle your sobs. it’s too late though; he’s already heard you. he comes over to your side of the bed, getting on his knees so that he’s eye level with you. you shut your eyes to avoid his gaze, and he sighs.

“please look at me?” he pleads, and you open your eyes reluctantly. they’re puffy and teary, and suna feels even more guilty than before.

“i haven’t been taking care of you and our relationship very well,” he starts. “i got so caught up in everything and i just got so distant and—” he exhales. “i completely forgot about today. and i’m so, so sorry, y/n. you have every right to be upset, and i’m so disappointed in myself for neglecting you.”

he cups your cheek gently, wiping away the tears there and kissing you sweetly.

“please let me make it up to you. okay?” he asks against your lips. he feels them curve up slightly, and sighs in relief.

“okay,” you whisper.

suna climbs up onto the bed and pulls you into him. you snuggle into his chest and he kisses your hair.

“goodnight, baby.”

“goodnight.”

ushijima

your boyfriend has always loved volleyball more than anything

and you’ve always loved this about him

but it’s often leads to lonely days and meals eaten alone

you know it’s part of the compromise he must make, but you still miss him

however, with your birthday coming up, you think maybe now’s your chance to spend some time with him💓

today is your birthday, and you’re looking forward to what the day has in store for you!

toshi had left before you’d gotten up as per usual, but instead of waiting for him to come home, you decide you’ll visit him at practice today. you figure he’ll want to see you; it is a special day after all!

so you get up and walk into the kitchen, beginning the preparation of his lunch. you put together some rice and meat in a segment of the bento, adding an omelet to another and some salad in the other compartment. you pack some dressing in a tiny container and some miso soup in an insulated jar, packing everything up neatly. you look at it proudly.

you make your way over to the gym, excited to see your boyfriend. when you get there, the boys are in a practice match, so you sit on the bleachers to watch.

when ushijima finally spots you during his break, his eyebrows furrow, and he walks over to you.

“hi, toshi!”

“y/n, why are you here?”

you pause at his bluntness. he doesn’t seem very happy to see you.

“oh. uh, i made you lunch! i figured you might be hungry,” you reply, getting a little nervous. does he not want me here?

“y/n, you shouldn’t be here right now. it’s unprofessional.”

your heart sinks.

“but i just thought, since today is—”

“you really should just go home, y/n. i will see you later,” he mutters, his dismissal obvious. you look behind him to see a few of his teammates eyeing you pitifully. and now it’s clear to you:

he doesn’t even know it’s your birthday.

you sigh, hurt. you pick up the lunch you made him and leave silently, humiliation and disappointment swirling in your stomach, making you nauseous.

when you get home, you just put the bento in the fridge and walk into your bedroom. it doesn’t seem worth it to do anything else today. so you lay down, drifting into sleep by the comfort of your own arms, missing his.

—

hoshiumi stares at wakatoshi as you leave. toshi senses his eyes on him and looks back at him, confused.

“why’d you send y/n away?” kourai asks, curious.

“oh. i figured i’d see them later. besides, we have practice,” toshi answers.

“but,” hoshiumi continues. “don’t you wanna spend some time with them today?”

toshi looks down at him, brows furrowed in a question.

“i mean, it’s their birthday today, right?” he clarifies.

ushijima stares at his teammate.

“it is?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically cautious and quiet, almost shy.

hoshiumi’s eyes widen.

“tell me you didn’t...”

“i didn’t know. i must have forgotten,” toshi mumbles, eyes glued to the floor shamefully.

he didn’t mean to forget, really. but the thought completely slipped his mind somewhere and now...

you’re gone, because he sent you away, and you’d just wanted some time with your boyfriend. you brought him food and company and he turned you away.

there’s an unfamiliar sting in his chest as he recalls the way he’s been treating you; the way he never sees you and how you’ve been spending so many hours alone in your shared apartment. and now you’re alone on your birthday because he forgot.

wakatoshi doesn’t know exactly how, but he knows he needs to make it up to you.

—

when you wake up, an delicious aroma fills your senses, and you get up to investigate.

as you walk into the kitchen, your heart swells.

your boyfriend is at the stove, making a meal for the two of you. for the first time in a long time, he’s home for dinner. what he’s making smells amazing and your eyes fill up with tears at the sight of him here.

he finally notices you’re awake and walks over to you. he wraps you up in a hug, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“i’m sorry, baby,” he mumbles against your hair. “i’m sorry for forgetting about your birthday. and for constantly leaving you alone. i want to make you feel better, okay?” he asks, pulling you off him gently to look into your eyes. his own widen in alarm at seeing you tear up. “did i do something wrong?” he mutters, self-consciousness leaking into his tone. you laugh, the sound shaky.

“no, baby,” you reassure him. “i’m just happy you’re here, that’s all.”

he sighs, relieved, and kisses you gently.

“me too.”