ಌ i mildly like you more than like (p.1)
— in which an incessant fan girl, a kiss, and a little bit of denial makes oikawa tooru realize he might mildly like you more than like
description. you’ve been in love with oikawa tooru for longer than you can remember. having known him for the better part of nearly 11 years, you’ve come to accept that you’ll never be more than a best friend to him. but with the help of a few irritatingly persistent fangirls and a kiss that was only meant to drive them away, a tale of unrequited love might just prove to be something more.
warnings. language
word count. 4.2k
oikawa tooru x f!reader, childhood best friends to lovers, fluff, some angst
parts. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
author’s note. i started writing this a few weeks ago and it was originally just going to be a one-shot but it got almost up to 10k words so i just decided to split it up HHSKFJ
Oikawa Tooru has perhaps one of the strongest drives when it comes to hard work.
His tenacity is a thing of nature, something that awes you time and time again, no matter how many times you’ve seen him pick himself up before. It might be one of the reasons you fell in love with him in the first place.
But despite how in-tune he is with his senses on a mental standpoint, his Achilles’ heel lies with his inability to pick up on the signs his body gives him when it's had enough. Well, he can, but he just chooses not to listen.
His first encounter with a crack in that heel came in his first-year, where you had to stand on the sidelines and watch as he fell to the ground during a game with a resounded sweep of gasps around the gym. That injury benched him for more than half the season.
It was from that point on that you and Iwaizumi decided that if Oikawa wasn’t going to take care of his own body, then it would be up to you two to make sure his head is still above water.
So it doesn’t surprise you when your phone flashes with a text message from Iwaizumi during one of your shifts at the bakery.
1 new message: iwa (´,,•ω•,,)♡
Received: can you come pick up shittykawa
“Tooru?”
A figure sits slumped against the benches in front of Aoba Johsai high, his eyes closed as he lays back. There’s something beautiful about the way that he looks almost ethereal in this relaxed state, the most relaxed you’d seen him in months. When he hears his name from your lips, he slowly blinks and sits up, the aura of relaxation falling from him.
You almost regret having said anything in the first place when he puts up his guard the moment he sees you.
“Y/N-chan!” An easy smile falls between his lips, one that could’ve easily fooled anyone else. He always was very good at portraying happiness and contentment, especially when he’d been followed everywhere by people that only really want to see Oikawa Tooru, popular ladies’ man with charm that could make your mother swoon.
But you’re one of the select few that knew him before he learned that his charm was a crucial asset in his arsenal. You knew him at his highs and his lows, so the convincing smile on his lips doesn’t convince you in the slightest. That’s because you notice the way his arms seem to sit limply in his lap and the way his eyes convey fatigue rather than joy. You also know that Iwaizumi called you here for one thing.
“Don’t Y/N-chan me. Iwa texted me.”
Oikawa’s facade seems to fall at that, replaced with a troubled expression. He brings his right hand up to wipe at his face in frustration. “Listen, I don’t know what he may have said, but he’s exaggerating. I’m fine.”
You raise an eyebrow at him. He can’t seem to meet your eyes. “Well, that’s a lie considering that you’re out here right now and not in that gym,” you say matter-of-factly.
“He physically dragged me out here!” Oikawa whines, throwing his hands in the direction of your school’s gym.
A bemused chuckle leaves your lips as you move to sit beside him on the bench. Oikawa moves his bag to give you more room to sit, but you don’t move any closer. “And when has that ever stopped you?”
Oikawa getting kicked out of practice by Iwaizumi and even on select days, by their coach, is not an unusual occurrence. Iwaizumi has forcefully dragged Oikawa out of the gym before. Each and every time, Oikawa just marched right back in, despite Iwaizumi’s rage and his coach’s warnings. Even when his extra practice hours cause detrimental effects to his knee, Oikawa never seems to back down.
It was something both you and Iwaizumi had grown used to in your years of friendship with Oikawa -- his incredibly stubborn determination to somehow work himself to the point of bad health.
That’s how you know something different has happened today, because Oikawa is sitting out here on a bench rather than arguing with Iwa about how “a few more serves won’t hurt him!” (though they most definitely do, and Oikawa never seems to learn).
You turn your head to look at him. He’s quiet now, though he still doesn’t meet your eyes. His gaze is instead focused on a dog that’s running in the park opposite the school. You know that he’s avoiding confirming your accusation.
When it doesn’t seem like he’s going to talk anytime soon, you sigh. “All I’m saying is that if you really believed that you were fine, you would be using all your blood, sweat, tears in order to find a way back into the gym. Especially since the qualifiers are coming up.” You lean back against the bench as well, letting your eyes watch the dog happily run with its tongue lolling out of its mouth. “But instead you’re here, sitting on a bench in the afternoon. And from the looks of it, you had no intention of heading home.”
He still doesn’t turn to look at you, the only indication that he even heard you is the mild tick in his jaw. You try not to think about how perfectly sculpted his side profile is.
When he finally does speak, he still avoids your accusation of his fatigue and instead asks, “Why did Iwa-chan call you here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be working at the bakery?”
You shrug. “Business was slow. Besides, my boss likes me enough to let me go early today. He said I’d have to work overtime this weekend though.”
At that, he finally turns to look at you. In the split second that you glance at him, you catch the guilt in his gaze before he looks away again. “You shouldn’t have come. You already overwork yourself being the only decent baker besides your boss that works there.”
A smile spreads on your face, your tone teasing. “Oikawa Tooru wants to talk to me about overworking myself?”
“I’m serious. You work too hard at that bakery for the measly amount that they pay you. Don’t think I don’t notice the way you try to cover your under eye circles with makeup.”
You feel your stomach jump, the familiar feeling causing your lips to tug upwards lightly. Tooru has been one of your best friends ever since you moved into the house across from his when you were seven years old. You hadn’t known when it happened, but you had come to school one day last year and just suddenly knew that your feelings were no longer limited to platonic when it came to the brown-haired volleyball captain. It’s in moments like these where you wonder how he hasn’t managed to figure your feelings out, considering how observant he is of everything else about you.
“Yes, well I’m sorry that we can’t all look like we spawn from a god like you do. It’s seriously unfair how you can still look like that when you get even less sleep than I do.”
There’s only a hint of teasing in his voice when he says, “You think I look that handsome?” He turns to face you again, and this time there’s a blink of surprise lurking in his chestnut eyes. Especially now, with the sun casting golden glows on his hair and skin, he looks beautiful to you.
Painfully, it reminds you about how unrequited your feelings are. Not that Oikawa has ever outright rejected you or even acknowledged knowing anything of your feelings, but him reciprocating your feelings didn’t even cross your mind as a possibility most days. Not with the group of girls that are always vying for his attention; not when his ex-girlfriend was what everyone thought was his perfect match; not when he hadn’t even attempted a committed relationship since Yua-san broke up with him all those months ago.
“Y/N?” His voice drags you out of your train of thought. You realize that you had been staring at him this entire time.
You play off your thoughts with a roll of your eyes and turn your head back towards the park. “No,” you lie. “I just hear comments like that from your fan club all the time.”
He nods lightly, his eyebrows creasing. “Right. Right, of course.” You’re about to ask about the odd tone in his voice when he speaks again. “You never did answer my question. Why did Iwa-chan send you here?”
“He wanted me to make sure that you actually went home instead of finding somewhere else to practice,” you say. A chuckle escapes your lips. You’re happy for the change in topic.
“I am not that hard-headed!” You raise a brow at him. He pouts. “Fine. Maybe a little.”
“A little?”
“Oh come on, Y/N. Now you’re just being mean!”
“Yeah well, it’s payback. You’re a real pain in the ass.”
“In your ass, I hope.”
You try to keep the blush from your cheeks as your mind takes you in a completely different direction. Suddenly, the space between you two seems too small. “You might want to rethink what you just said.” You try not to stare at his mouth as it falls open, your mind still invading your thoughts with images that you should not be fantasizing about when he’s sitting right beside you.
“Wait.” Oikawa’s eyes go so comically wide that you almost forget your own embarrassment. “Jeez, that did not come out in the right way. Not right at all.” For what seems like the millionth time, he looks away from you, though this time it seems to be out of his own mortification over what he just said. There seems to be a blush to his cheeks, but you very well might have just imagined it.
You let out a laugh, your arms coming up to clutch at your side. “I cannot believe that you’re supposed to be the big hotshot volleyball player that every girl has a crush on. There is not a charming bone in your body. I refuse to believe it.”
Oikawa lets out a small chuckle. “I don’t have to charm you when you already love even the uncharming parts of me. But if anyone asks, I am completely perfect. There are no uncharming parts to Oikawa Tooru. Don’t you dare spread false rumors, Y/N-chan!”
An amused snort leaves you at his last three sentences, but you decide to respond on the first part of his words. “Me? Loving you? Very unlikely.” You tease, trying your hardest to keep a straight face when Oikawa begins to pout.
“If you don’t love me after all these years I will actually start crying right now and then those girls that follow me everywhere will come for your blood for making me cry.”
You chuckle again, catching yourself before you roll your eyes again. Next to you, Oikawa has his arms crossed with a convincing pout sitting on his lips that makes him look like a child. You smile despite yourself. “Okay, okay keep the dramatics to a minimum.”
“Then say it.”
“Say what?
“Say that you love me.”
You feel a small pang as you plaster a smile on your face. “I mildly like you more than like,” you say, not really sure if you’d be able to say those three words to him at this point in time. Not when you know that they’re true.
Oikawa’s pout deepens, but you’re adamant on not saying more.
“That’s all you’re getting from me, Crappykawa.” Suddenly you find yourself amused at the way you managed to sound exactly like Iwaizumi. It hadn’t occurred to you that you’d spent so much time with him.
“Call me pretty and I’ll drop it.”
“You’re so needy sometimes, you know that?”
“Very much aware, Y/N-chan. As if you and Iwa-chan would ever let me forget.”
An eye roll comes easy to you and this time you don’t try to stop it. At this point, an eye roll is almost like a natural reaction to anything Oikawa says. “Fine. I’ll admit you’re not bad too look at.”
“Not great, but I’ll take it,” he concludes. “I can slowly feel the crack in my ego being restored.”
“If you want to be complimented please go seek out the never-ending stream of girls and guys that come your way hoping for even an ounce of your attention.” You hope that he doesn’t notice the mild bitterness in your voice. “I’m almost positive that they’ll be willing to tell you just how pretty you are and how everyone in the world should be in love with you.”
“They should be, shouldn’t they?” Oikawa bemuses.
A laugh leaves your lips despite your efforts. “You are insufferable sometimes. I don’t understand why I’ve kept you around for so long.”
“There you go with the insults again,” he tskes. “Have you and Iwa-chan been spending time together without me?”
“Iwa and I are friends you know?”
“Yeah but you’re supposed to be my best friend,” he pouts.
“You already said that line to Iwaizumi yesterday when he opted to carry me instead of you.”
“Yeah, well … I met you before he did!”
“Because you threw a volleyball at my head!”
“It was an accident!”
Laugher spills from both of your lips at the memory. It isn’t until Oikawa’s hair brushes upon your shoulder during his laughter that you realize that the space between you and Oikawa had increasingly gotten smaller. He’s so close that your thighs are only centimeters apart.
As your laughter dies down, Oikawa’s bubbly personality begins to slip once more and the fatigue on his face becomes more evident. Eventually, he rests his head on your shoulder. You feel your stomach flutter pleasantly at his proximity. Even now, you can smell the cologne he regularly wears, the one you helped pick out back in first-year that he’s worn ever since.
Once the silence lasts for a few moments, you finally attempt to ask him about practice once more. “Are you finally going to tell me why you didn’t fight back when Iwa threw you out of practice?”
He sighs. “I guess you can say that I’m a little bit tired. Plus my knee hurts like all hell has reigned down.” His voice is so much different from just moments before that it’s hard to believe that they come from the same person.
“You’re exhausted,” you say. It’s not a question, but more of a definite statement.
“More or less,” he responds quietly.
This time, it’s you that sighs. “Just … be careful. I get that you want to beat everyone and go to Nationals, but you’re no good to your team if you fuck your knee up so badly that you can’t play.”
“This year is our last chance,” he mumbles. “I just don’t want to look back later and wish that maybe I’d practiced just a little more.”
“You can’t beat anyone if you’re sitting on the bench from an injury that you got from overworking yourself.”
Oikawa winces at the tone in your voice. You almost feel guilty. Almost.
“You’re going to work yourself to death. Iwaizumi and I aren’t just going to stand by and watch you dig your own grave,” you say softly. “For his sake, at least. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“I’ll try,” he says. For some reason, you believe him.
The two of you sit there in silence once more, the wind blowing lightly on your hair and the sounds of a busy town echoing around you. You wish that you could bottle this moment up and keep it with you forever, even if it’s only a testament to how much Oikawa values you as a best friend and nothing more.
The thought makes your stomach drop in the slightest bit. It’s usually easy to contain your depth of feelings for Oikawa when the air around you two is lively and joking, but you’ve found over the years that quiet moments like these are the ones that really tear at your heart.
He’ll never know the extent of your feelings for him, and you’re too afraid to wonder what would happen if he did know.
Oikawa turns his head only slightly to look up at you while still continuing to lean on your shoulder. “You okay?”
You give an almost imperceptible nod. “We should head home. I don’t know what Iwaizumi might do to you if he finds you out here after practice ends,” you say.
Oikawa nods and detaches his head from your shoulder.
The two of you have only walked a couple of meters when you hear a group of girls squeal from not too far away. Oikawa tenses from beside you.
“Your fanclub found you,” you say.
“I’m aware.”
He doesn’t make any move to look back at them or stop. Instead, his pace seems to speed up.
You furrow a brow. “You don’t want to talk to them? Thought you loved their attention?”
“Ouch. You really know how to wound a man, Y/N-chan,” he says with a small smile on his lips. You take notice of the weariness in his features. “But while I do enjoy them feeding my very justified ego, I am far too fatigued to deal with them.”
You nod and continue to walk beside him. The less interactions he has with his fan club, the better your mood will be. Besides, you weren’t going to fail Iwaizumi by not doing the one thing he asked you to do and not take Oikawa home.
A giggle reaches your ears once more, and you sneak a glance behind you. The girls are talking amongst themselves, but still obviously walking in the direction you’re headed in.
“Well, what do you wanna do? Cause they’re coming.”
Oikawa sighs and you notice a tick of irritation in his clenched jaw. You can see a million thoughts going through his mind, but before you can ask him about them, he reaches out to grab your hand.
“Is this okay? I’m just hoping that they’ll leave me alone if they think that you and I … uhm.”
Oikawa’s hands are long and calloused, but they feel nice as his fingers intertwine with your smaller ones. You try hard not to let the little gesture get to you. “Yeah … yeah of course.”
The two of you fall into silence again, mostly due to his fatigue and your inability to form coherent words that don’t have to do with his hand in yours. You’ve held hands with Oikawa before, but it was never with the intent to make you two look like a couple. You wish more than anything that he would break the silence before you blurt out something that you don’t want to.
Your wishes are answered when Oikawa asks, “They’re still following us, aren’t they?” Oikawa still doesn’t look back as he says it.
In your short reverie you had forgotten about the girls behind you. You sneak another glance at them and find that Oikawa’s assumption is correct.
“Yeah, they are.”
Oikawa makes an incoherent noise. “Y/N-chan, could you be a dear and describe what they look like? I have a feeling I know who exactly they are.”
You turn back again, and really take a good look at them. They’re pretty. Really pretty, you think. You wonder for a second what they could’ve done to make Oikawa so adamant on not speaking with them.
“There’s three girls. One with cropped red hair, one with long blonde hair, and one with brown hair in a high ponytail.”
“Oh, it’s them again. I don’t know what to do to get them to leave me alone at this point,” he sighs.
“Who are they? What’s going on?”
His grip on your hand tightens. “Ichika-san and her friends. She sent me a love letter about a month ago. I tried to let her down easily, but it seems that she has yet to give up.”
“This girl is your stalker?”
“Not quite. At least, I hope not.”
The noise from behind you two gets increasingly louder. A giggle echoes on the mildly empty street and you catch Oikawa’s name being whispered between their conversations. Now that you’ve found out about what they’ve been putting him through, your annoyance spikes.
“Not to sound paranoid or anything, but I’m not keen on these girls finding out where you live.”
Oikawa is quiet for a moment, his brows furrowed in indecision. It seems that he makes up his mind when he turns his head to look at you. “Kiss me.”
Your step momentarily falters.
“What?”
He shakes your intertwined hands. “We’re already holding hands. They might get the memo if we …”
“Oh.”
“I .. I mean only if you want to. You don’t have to. I just figured that .. nevermind. It’s a spotty plan. They might still not leave us alone and --”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.” You weren’t going to pass up a chance at kissing him, even if it’s only for a diversion. This doesn’t seem like such a bad idea anyways — you’d long since given up on him reciprocating your feelings, and this way you can kiss him while saving yourself from the possible embarrassment of rejection.
“You will?”
“Where’s the harm? It’s just a kiss right?” You can barely hear yourself talking over the beating of your heart. “Besides, it could work.”
Oikawa shoots you a grateful smile. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready then.”
You try to shake out your nerves and instead focus your time in looking at your surroundings. The sound of giggling is still in close range when you spot a tree nearby. It’s still pretty out in the open, but not so much that you and Oikawa might draw stares, at least not from anyone that isn’t a part of the group of girls behind you.
Gathering enough courage to not insanely mess this up, you tug on Oikawa’s hand to drag him with you in the direction of the tree. You make sure that you’re still in the line of sight of the three girls when you snake your arms around Oikawa’s neck and pull him down.
His lips are softer than you imagined, and you’ve imagined kissing them more times than you’re willing to admit. Pleasantly, he tastes like oranges, which you don’t quite understand, considering that you can’t seem to remember him ever being fond of oranges. But then again, you can’t quite think of anything besides the feeling of his lips on yours.
Your lips move fluidly against his, soft but not entirely without passion. It takes everything in you to not kiss him with the force that you want to be kissing him with.
Hands come down to grip your waist as he pulls you closer to him, gently placing a hand on the small of your back. You run your hands through his hair and wonder to yourself why you hadn’t ever played with his hair before. If you ever make it out of this with your senses still intact, you’d make playing with his hair a part of your regular routine.
He makes a small noise against your lips when you make the mistake of pulling a little too hard on his hair. His grip on you tightens.
You don’t know how long you two stand there, lips locked with each other, but Oikawa doesn’t make any move to pull away. Instead he deepens the kiss by running his tongue against your bottom lip and pulling you even closer. You stifle a noise that threatens to come from deep in your throat. One of his hands comes up to cup your cheek and tips your head so that he can slip his tongue into your mouth. He has fantastic lips, you think.
It’s only until you feel the air in your lungs begin to dwindle that you force yourself to pull away. The kiss lasted for longer than you expected, and by the way you pant with every breath, it feels like a kiss that the rest of the world should not have been privy to.
You keep your eyes closed for a moment more, wanting to savor the moment for just a little longer. The moment you open your eyes, you’ll have to come back to the reality that this was just a one-time thing. You’ll have to come back to reality and remember that this kiss likely doesn’t mean anything to him.
Slowly you open your eyes, and find that Oikawa’s already staring at you intently. His breathing comes out staggered, and his eyes have turned a few shades darker. What used to be a soft chestnut brown looks almost close to black. In them, you notice a flicker of an odd emotion that looks too familiar, but you don’t want to hope for anything.
You slide your hands down to his chest. His hands are still planted on your back and face, touching you both gently and carefully. “Did it work?” Your voice comes out small.
He seems to wake up from his trance then, and turns to look in the direction that the girls were before. You look behind you to see one of the girls running away with her head in her hands. Her two friends follow after her in an attempt to console her.
“I think it did,” he says. And what he says after is so quiet you almost believe that you imagine hearing it. “In more ways than one.”
part two will most likely be up on thursday next week :)