miss me.
a/n: for tooru’s birthday and for the anon to whom i swore i’d fix furudate’s lie about iwaoi not talking in timeskip.
content: light angst
word count: 3.2k+
[ oikawa x reader ]
–––––
One way or another, Oikawa Tooru always got what he wanted.
It never mattered how long it took, because it always happened inevitably. It never mattered what it was, either. Toys when he was five, Iwaizumi when he was six, top-of-class grades when he was thirteen, free ice cream from the corner store in the summer of the worst heat he remembers. A place on the volleyball team in his first year of high school, the opportunity of captain during his third…and a chance with you until his final step back home in Miyagi.
He wonders why he still considers Miyagi more of a home than anywhere else. (He knows why.) His family moved to Argentina to support him and be closer to each other since their jobs were much more flexible to adjust than his dreams. (Perhaps nothing in existence has even been more immovable than Tooru’s dreams.) His friends come and visit him, watch as many of his matches in person as they can, stay in contact during the times that they can’t. There’s nothing, no one, he could want for left back in Miyagi. At least, there shouldn’t be…not anymore.
(…There will always be the person in Miyagi most wanted by Tooru yet left behind by him.)
Perhaps this is his curse. To get everything he wants, ever since he can remember, except the one thing he wants most of all. The stuff of tragic Greek myths, which that someone once told him fit him perfectly to a T.
Maybe Iwaizumi’s treatment of him as a spoiled child, the most petulant brat not only of the three of his friends, not only of the entire school’s population, but on the entire planet itself — maybe it was justified after all. Because while Oikawa Tooru always got what he wanted, Iwaizumi Hajime always ended up being right. Always.
Now, Tooru wonders if Iwaizumi is his second curse, because his best friend’s prediction five minutes ago of the receiving player shanking the ball out of the court — a stark contrast to Tooru’s bet — has once again hit the nail on the head.
“Do you miss it?”
He doesn’t spare so much as a glance for Hajime, only cocking his head in his direction and briefly muttering, “Huh?” The next serve flies across the net and Tooru’s breath catches, a little different than how it used to catch when he was so much younger sitting in similar stands so long ago. His eyes flick over the opposing receiving player’s stance, a one-look assessment telling him everything he needs to know before it happens just as he pictures it. Stance, angle, speed, trajectory. At least this time he was as right as Hajime was.
Retired from the sport, instinct polished as ever.
Passion still the same.
Pridefully, and maybe just a little relieved that he’s still got it even after a few years out of the big leagues, he hides a half-smile to himself.
“So the answer is yes.”
That smile immediately turns into a frown at the hinting tone in Hajime’s voice. “I didn’t even say anything."
“Didn’t need to,” says Hajime flatly, leaning back and crossing his arms as he scans the court. “Look at your face."
Tooru rests back alongside him. “Handsome, I know. You flatter me.”
“Bite me."
There is no one else around them at the top of this bleacher section, though Tooru wouldn’t expect anyone to be anyway. The match has garnered just over a half-full gymnasium of spectators, not a high-profile game by any means, but volleyball is volleyball. And he loves what he loves. So this is his weekly tradition with his best friend, reminiscent of the days they’d sit up high on bleachers just like these, alone just like now, in a much smaller stadium in a much smaller town, watching rivals and enemies with fire in their blood and desperation ever-present in their minds.
Tooru thinks he’s still got a little bit of all that, too.
“You miss it.”
His head follows the ball’s path back and forth along the court. “Miss what?”
“This,” Hajime says, gesturing down at the scene below them. “Playing. The adrenaline. Using your head more than you do now—”
“What the hell is that suppo—”
“Having everyone around and together back then.”
Tooru chews on the inside of his cheek at that. Says nothing.
“Am I right, captain?”
After all these years, somehow he still gets caught off guard with just how unexpectedly right Hajime can always be.
He rests his elbows on his knees and leans forward, pushing up his glasses. He uses them more often now that he’s older. Not that he’s old by most people’s standards, but he’d definitely miss a set on the court without them now. Surprisingly, he doesn’t mind his glasses so much anymore, not the way he used to when he first got them and suffered the wrath of Makki’s teasing. You used to say you liked how they looked on him despite his friends’ laughter in the background, and that alone was reason enough for Tooru to continue wearing them, even now.
You used to say a lot of things you liked about him back then.
Tooru misses it.
“I miss the four of us. As stupid as those two were—”
“I’m recording this and sending it to Makki and Mattsun.”
“As insufferably abhorrent as those two miscreants are,” Tooru emphasizes harshly and purposefully, because nothing he says or does is ever without intention, “I miss them. But you three disrespected me a lot as your captain, so you should be grateful I still put up with you all these years.”
Hajime chokes out an exhale of disbelief. “You put up with us? No one would’ve tolerated your sorry ass except for us. Correct your wording there, captain.” He spits the comment with vitriol as always, and Tooru still feels all the affection in the world in it.
“Maybe we all just put up with each other,” he muses. Then, as an afterthought, “Do you think anyone hated all four of us?”
“Nah,” quips Hajime without hesitation.
They both remain silent for a moment, then look at each other with eyes squinting in debate before shaking their heads.
Hajime repeats assuredly, “Nah.”
And Tooru says, “Surely not.”
They watch the set end and the players return to the bench for a break. Tooru likes the feeling of not having any obligation to fill the silence in moments like these. The people he feels comfortable enough this way are far and few in between.
Hajime clears his throat, breaking his thoughts. “It wasn’t only just the four of us, you know.” He waits for any sign of reaction in Tooru. Gets none. So he pushes on in light, bantering provocation. “Or have you forgotten her name already?”
And the reaction to that is more immediate. “Never."
He huffs a little. “Then how did it feel?”
Tooru clenches his jaw at the prodding. His best friend is going somewhere with these questions, as he always is; Tooru know exactly where, and he also knows Hajime won’t quit until he makes Tooru say it himself. So for now, like always, he plays along. “How did what feel?"
“Telling people we don’t talk to each other anymore.”
Ah.
He rakes a hand through his hair. It’s gotten longer now, as it usually does during this time of year. He always hated the sensation of long hair sticking to his neck in sweat, but you used to like the look of it so he stopped cutting it during summer; he never told you that was why, of course. But it’s a habit so ingrained that he has yet to break it to this day.
(You are so ingrained in Oikawa Tooru that you are his most unbreakable habit to this day.)
“Iwa-chan, you read my press interview?” He swoons and puffs his lips out as Hajime bats him away like an insect. “And here I thought I loved you more than you loved me.”
“So you’re just never gonna say who it is you really don’t talk to anymore.”
Tooru gives up on trying to kiss the man. “Not in front of people who don’t know her. Obviously.”
“Then why did you tell the world we don’t speak anymore?” Hajime’s annoyance is palpable. “You do realize you could have said nothing at all and kept your mouth shu—“ He glances at Tooru’s blank expression. “Never mind. That’s a lot to ask.”
Tooru rolls his eyes and rests his chin in his hand, slouching in his seat like a child scolded. “Just giving them something to talk about, I guess. Even if it’s not true. Cannon fodder to keep them occupied and off my case for a while.”
“Always an entertainer in that regard, aren’t you.”
He picks at a loose thread on his sleeve. “I never wanted to be,” he mutters.
“And what did you want to be?”
“Hers.”
Hajime visibly cringes. “Pain in my ass is what I was looking for,” he says, “but…” His hand wraps behind his neck, stretching it out as the players’ next set begins. “I can’t say yours isn’t a true answer too.”
–––––––
"You and Hajime are the stuff of Greek legends."
He paused for a moment. “If you’re talking about Hercules and Achilles and all those guys who did great deeds and saved millions of people, then yeah, I get it."
From over his shoulder, an amused scoff echoed abrasively behind his ears. “Pff. There’s no way you would ever be Achilles."
Tooru spun around so fast his shoe squeaked on the gym floor. “I could be, Iwa-chan!” He didn’t have a specific reason to argue with, but he was ready to protest more until you nodded and chimed in.
“He might be right,” you admitted slowly, as if seriously contemplating the comparison of man to myth. “Hajime has…the more Achilles build."
Tooru’s eye was on the verge of twitching. “Then what build do I have?” he asked, feigning normalcy.
You twisted your lips in contemplation. “I don’t—"
“Aphrodite.”
The eye twitch came so hard it almost popped out of his socket while you nodded harder at his best friend’s smirking response. “Oh, you’re right, I can see it,” you said to Iwaizumi, who was crossing his arms and looking proud of himself for — as you just praised him — being right.
And Tooru never hated his best friend being right more than in this moment. The bastard just called him Aphrodite, not only stealing your attention away from it being rightfully on Tooru but now he was impressing you with bicep curls and making you laugh.
He was going to kill the guy. Only Tooru was ever supposed to be the one to make you laugh.
He sauntered over albeit gingerly, partly on a war path and partly to claw his way back to being seen in your good graces. He slid onto the bench next to you and wrapped an arm over your shoulders. And as you smiled up at him, Tooru knew he was delusional when he thought that smile was your way of saying “thank you for saving me from this brute of a best friend of yours.”
He cleared his throat and reigned in his monologuing mind before it could overtake his logic; he was used to doing that around you by now. “How could Achilles be a hero,” started Tooru, emphasizing theatrical wonder and awe like a spell, “if he’d fall the moment Godzilla would simply sink a claw into his heel?”
The satisfaction swelled in Tooru’s chest as Hajime frowned and the calculating realization slowly etched itself on his face.
“Tooru,” you laughed as the man himself swore he heard wedding bells chiming behind the tinkling of your voice, content to ignore everything else you said from here on out because his name was all he wanted to hear on your lips, “that’s why the story is so poetic. Don’t you think it makes Achilles more human to have a weakness like that?”
“Couldn’t care less.” He grinned as you just blinked at him. You had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen. “Godzilla would never have a weakness like that.” He watched in amusement as Hajime’s jaw clenched in his peripheral vision, hands balling into fists at his sides. Tooru scooted just a little closer to you (he wished he could just lay in your lap). He could smell your shampoo and your hair tickled his cheek. It took everything in him not to plant a kiss on the top of your head right now.
“I can’t be Achilles,” said Hajime in a low voice. “Godzilla would never.”
You turned back to Hajime and Tooru wanted to kiss you on the lips instead just to keep your eyes on him only. You asked, “If you’re not Achilles, then who will you be?”
“He can be no one,” said Tooru desperately, loudly, finitely. “He can be a servant of the gods—”
“The gods!” You clapped your hands at the unseen epiphany. “Okay, Hajime, if you can’t be a Greek hero, then be one of the gods! Like…”
Tooru watched in horror at his backfiring while Hajime waited with visible bated breath for your declaration.
“Ares!”
“Ares,” breathed Hajime as if bleeding life of the new identity directly into his own skin.
“God of war, one of the strongest, and the overseas spelling of Godzilla has the word ‘god’ in it,” you went on. “It’s perfect!”
“Perfect, she says,” Tooru grumbled under his breath.
“You don’t think Godzilla is perfect?” The response came swiftly and chillingly from angry eyes and a spiky-haired head engulfed in flames.
Good god, I’ve awoken the beast, thought Tooru.
“Iwa-chan, I never said—”
“Let’s go, Y/n.”
Tooru reeled. “What?!"
Hajime began to tug your arm up off the bench and Tooru grabbed onto your other arm to keep you with him. Hajime said, “We’re watching perfection without you, since you so clearly don’t know what it is.”
I know what perfection is and she's exactly what you're taking away from me, thought Tooru.
“Wait, wait!” You wrestled your arms out of both their grips and stepped back out of their reach, pointing at Tooru like a teacher in lecture. “You’re not getting out of this,” you whispered. Then you turned Hajime and smiled oh so sweetly. “Tooru is coming, too. You can teach him about perfection again.”
After a moment of speculation, Hajime nodded slowly. “He could use some rehabilitating. We’ll have to marathon it to get the message through that thick, pretty-boy hair of his, though.” He grinned down at Tooru as if it was a death sentence — which, for Tooru, it practically was.
When Hajime headed out to prepare his deathly marathon of perfection, leaving Tooru with you to find snacks for the show, Tooru finally yanked you back down on the bench to him.
“Thanks a lot, Y/n."
You rolled your eyes. “You can’t just leave me alone when he’s like this,” you said, and at that, Tooru couldn’t even argue. “Swear you won’t leave me, Tooru. Okay?”
And Tooru couldn’t argue with an ounce of that either.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
–––––––
“You still haven’t answered the question.”
"Why are you always a stick up my ass?"
“You’re the last person who should ever be asking that.”
Tooru blows a long strand of his bangs out of his eyes, exasperated. “You expect me to say anything else?” he finally snaps. “Of course I do.”
Hajime nods once. “Hm.”
“Oh, don’t go speechless on me now.”
He shrugs. “I just wanted you to say it.”
There are a million snarky comebacks Tooru knows he could fire back at him with, but suddenly he doesn’t have the heart to anymore.
Not when admitting it is what gets him to feel it. Not when, deep down, he’s glad for once that Hajime is always right and wanted him to say it
Maybe, sometimes, it is okay to feel.
So, quietly, he admits to him, “I miss it.”
And Hajime does the same. “Me, too."
So Tooru admits even more. “…I miss her.”
And Hajime nods like he was expecting it. “I know,” he says, and almost leaves it at that. But the look on Tooru’s face tells him he should go just a little bit more. So he continues, “You don’t have to, you know.”
Tooru stares at him.
“Miss her, I mean. You could change that in a day. I always tell you that."
“You do,” agrees Tooru, “and I can’t."
Hajime grunts. “Oikawa Tooru saying he can’t is worse than his pettiness wishing for the downfall of every team but his. Sportsmanship award of the year, my ass.”
“That was a legitimate award given to a legitimate winner,” defends said winner.
Hajime sighs. “Why do you so badly think you can’t, Tooru?”
He squirms in his seat like a little kid debating to lie or not; Tooru opts for the latter. “Because I don’t deserve to,” he says.
“That was a long time ago,” reasons Hajime. “You were young. We all were. We’ve all made mistakes—”
“Not like me.”
Hajime doesn’t bother finishing his sentence when Tooru cuts him off. He just looks at him, dejected in all his puppeted sportsmanship glory. “No,” Hajime says softly, “not like you.” He watches as Tooru lets that sink in. Adds on before it can cut the way Tooru always lets his self-deprecation cut, “But she still asks about you, you know. Every time I see her. It’s practically part of our routine.”
“I still can’t believe you see her more than me."
“Like I said,” says Hajime calmly, “that can change.” He looks back down at the court, another serve sailing over the net. “Am I right?”
“Why do you always ask if you’re right when you already know the answer to it?”
“Same as before,” he replies, smiling lightly. “I just want you to say it. Someone needs to humble the great Oikawa Tooru because his head got too inflated after winning Olympic gold.” He flicks Tooru in the temple, making him jerk away.
“Cut it—I already said it, is that not enough for you?"
Hajime smiles wider, a down-the-line shot winning another point for the higher-ranked team, clearly the favorite among the local crowd. “No.”
Tooru sighs in defeat, one of the rare times he’s done so in his life. “You’re right, Iwa-chan.”
“There it is.”
He swallows thickly. “I miss it,” he says. “I really miss it.”
“You said that already.”
“Will you tell her I said that?"
“Only if you want me to.”
Tooru folds his hands under his chin and watches the underdog team huddle up with a new game plan, a way to come back.
I miss you so much I want to go back.
“Tell her.”
He says it as the huddle breaks with a fighting cheer from the players.
He remembers that feeling all too well.
So he says nothing else when Hajime waits for him to rescind his words, a silent green light to give him the go ahead.
…Is it okay for me to still come back to you?
Do you ever miss me too?
Tooru asks you the silent question from a million miles away and sees his hopeful answer in the service ace from the underdogs, who cheer wildly and pump their fists in the air, clapping each other on the back to fire themselves up to fight again, renewed life in their eyes.
Because I do.
The sight brings another nostalgic smile to his lips.
I miss you like hell.
