When Tooru wants something, he goes for it.
So what does he do when he finally figures out that he wants, of all things, Kageyama Tobio?
The irony does not escape him.
Nor does wanting to bang his head against the wall until the it goes away. (That jerk? Really? He wants that single-minded, obsessive, idiotic, rival? What’s wrong with him?)
Since the head-banging isn’t a viable option (he likes his brains, thank you very much – they’re absolutely, one hundred-percent, his most formidable weapon on the court), what does he decide to do instead but squish these inexplicable feelings into a compact ball and eject them – forcibly – from his mind.
Most unfortunately, this strategy doesn’t work.
When he’s woken up for the fourth day in a row with a wet patch in his bed and lurid visions of Kageyama fading into the backs of his eyelids (could that guy really, truly, ever look like that?), he doubles down and tries harder. (Is it really that impossible to not think about someone?)
Not only does he end up flubbing five serves in a row in a practice scrimmage, but he snaps at Iwa-chan (really snaps, with teeth bared and everything, Iwaizumi giving him a black but nonetheless wounded look in return).
Something has to be done.
Unfortunately, he knows in his bones (he’s no idiot, despite Makki and Mattson’s constant aspersions to the contrary), that that something is to ask Kageyama out. On a date. In no uncertain terms, so even that King of Fools will understand what he’s saying. There will be no room for subtlety here, or anything remotely resembling plausible deniability.
He will have to spell it out.
He sets his jaw, squares his shoulders, and prepares to map out Kageyama’s minute-by-minute schedule so he can just do it, already.
“I hate you but I want to take you out on a date,” he says grimly, having cornered Kageyama behind the gym (where, unsurprisingly, the lunkhead spends every waking moment). It was important to preface the request thusly, as he already feels like it’s his head he’s offering on a silver platter (just waiting for said lunkhead to carelessly stamp on it with his giant, clod-like feet) rather than an offer of a date.
Kageyama stares at him unblinkingly. He stares for so long that Tooru wonders (for the millionth time) why the hell he’s into this dummy. Nonetheless, he grits his teeth and flat-out bears the nightmarish wait while the wheels turn, ever so slowly, in that equally clod-like skull of the absurd object of his affections.
(His mind, unhelpfully, chooses this moment to go into analytic overdrive. What does it mean, this blank stare? Are the wheels turning in there? Is Kageyama weighing the pros and cons? Trying to figure out if it’s a yea or a nay? Doing ‘eeny, meany, miney, mo’ in his head? What could possibly be taking him so long? Or did Kageyama simply not hear him? Will Tooru, God forbid, have to repeat himself? He shudders internally at this hideous possibility. Why, oh why, he wails silently, has he put himself in this position? It’s too late to back out now, though).
An eternity later, Kageyama grimaces; Tooru’s heart immediately plummets.
He’s in the process of picking it up off the ground (he may be the world’s biggest ninny to be interested in Kageyama Tobio in the first place, but at least he’ll walk away with dignity and lick his stupidly painful wounds in private) when Kageyama’s dumb face smooths out and his lips twitch – weirdly.
Tooru’s heart leaps up off the ground of its own accord.
Could it be – is it – is this the Tobio-chan version of a smile? (Come to think of it, he’s never seen that dunderhead smile, has he?)
The moment stretches on in all its tormenting uncertainly until Kageyama says, simply, “Okay.”
It takes Tooru a second (a very long second, probably lasting at least 20 in all) to realize that Kageyama is responding to his question. Not only that, he’s responding in the affirmative. He’s agreeing to a date!
Tooru has an unbearably strong urge to fall to his knees in thanks or lift both arms up in victory. Luckily, he does neither. Nor does he voice his disbelief at what, ultimately, has turned out to be unbelievably easy acquiescence on Kageyama’s part. He thought he was going to have to work a lot harder for such acquiescence, and, frankly, he wasn’t at all sure of his chances of securing it.
“Okay, then,” he replies, for lack of something better to say.
But Kageyama’s dull, cloddish face has taken on an expectant look.
Which is dumber than ever, for there’s nothing left to expect. Tooru has played his cards.
Unless… Kageyama wants more information? Which… would kind of make sense. He probably wants to know what said date is going to consist of, where it will occur, when, and a myriad of other relevant logistical details.
Which Tooru himself doesn’t know, because that was as far as he got in the planning stage. (Embarrassing as it is to admit, even to himself, he purposefully hadn’t done so. He hadn’t wanted to jinx himself. Or perhaps he hadn’t wanted to face the emotional devastation of investing even more of his precious time time coming up with the perfect date only to have Kageyama reject him.).
Luckily, fortune does indeed favor the bold (or is it the stupid?). He is (as he is so often on the court) hit with sudden inspiration. An image flashes into his mind, of Kageyama slurping up the contents of a milk box with the ferocious determination he applies to everything he cares about, the fiend.
“We’re getting milk shakes,” he says, pleased to hear the confidence in his own voice. (Surely Kageyama can’t resist the prospect of milkshakes?) “Saturday at 3. Meet me at the place across from The Four Corners – the one next to the hardware store.”
“Okay,” repeats Kageyama.
This time it is most definitely a smile: widening by the second, toothy, and ugly as sin.
The sight of that ghastly grin is unnerving in so many ways (why do crushes feel like snakes slithering over one’s guts?) that it leaves Tooru dumbstruck.
All he can do is nod, but he does so particularly forcefully.
Kageyama nods back, still smiling like the Grim Reaper.
He can’t believe it – he really can’t believe it. But he sure as hell isn’t letting that show, so he nods one more time, spins around, and walks away. He doesn’t look back.
His heart is banging in his chest.
He fucking has a date with Tobio-chan.
(When Tooru wants something, he goes for it. And he usually gets it.)
(cross-posted from A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87255856)
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