When vs If
PAIRING - Oikawa Tooru x Reader WC - 3.1K GENRE - Angst SYNOPSIS - You said 'if', when did it stop being 'when'?
A/N - thanks for coming to the free therapy of fictionalizing my irl breakup experiences. and yes. this was the actual way it happened
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I had convinced myself that I was overreacting. Nothing was wrong. I was being paranoid based off of past experiences. I had convinced myself, or he had convinced me. I was imagining it when I thought he was acting like something had been bothering him.
I was only being insecure every time I asked, just to make sure, when he was acting like something was wrong, when he swore nothing was wrong and he was just tired. "Are you going to break up with me?"
Tooru had convinced me that I was overreacting when he always replied with the same answer. "Of course not baby, you're never going to get rid of me. I'm here to annoy you for the rest of our lives."
He convinced me to ignore the gut feeling I had about it. Just three days ago, when I was driving to look at apartments, he brought up just building ourselves a house, just like how I wanted to. Told me that eventually, when we moved cities, it could become a summer vacation home and then we could build another to raise our kids in.
He convinced me when he talked to his family, telling his nephew about how I was an addition to the family. When his family praised me for taking care of him.
I always took care of him. More than he asked.
I packed him lunches and made breakfasts and dinners. I made sure the laundry was done and tried to clean. I made sure to remind him to take care of himself too, to not overstress himself the exact way I did.
Every time I crashed down and thought that maybe my love was overbearing, that I didn't get the same reciprocation. Every time I asked "are you going to break up with me," he assured me that he wouldn't. He'd pepper my cheeks with kisses and hold me while I sniffled back my tears.
Ending college was hard. There were so many unknowns. Finishing up the last project of the year was infinitely harder. I was way past my deadline for it but I had an indefinite extension. The only limit was the one I put on myself, getting it in by the end of summer.
The concern of where we would live the next year only added to it. Me and Tooru's original decision of no roommates had morphed into him slowly trying to push the idea of sharing a space. A last resort, he called it.
I worked two jobs trying to prepare to move, trying to avoid the stress of thinking about it. To make sure that I had enough money for the new place. So once we got there, there would be no more worries.
Today was the end to a long week. Sunday. My last shift until the next Monday. I’d agreed with T0oru to take the whole week off to pack our house and move into a storage unit. We were both supposed to crash at Makki and Mattsun's until we’d heard back from the complex we were putting an application into tomorrow.
I was off by 3pm, my boss having let me off early so that I could go home and start packing. I’d lost track of time since then, a show playing in the background as I packed all the clothes that I wouldn't need for the next three weeks (just to be sure).
It was almost 8 before I decided on a small break. Almost 8 until I realized that I hadn't heard from Tooru all day. The only thing bringing this to my attention now, was his name finally popping up on my phone
He was supposed to be off at 8:30. Just 30 more minutes before he would be coming home and I could make my official plan about how to tackle the upcoming week and everything else moving forward.
He'd sent me a snapchat with a filter on, little horns coming out of his brown curls and a silly look on his face, tongue poking out at me. I’d laughed and sent one back quickly. Silly pictures sent back and forth and only a small bit of conversation as I waited for him to be finished at work. 'How was your day today?' 'Long.' 'Yeah, me too. I'm so exhausted.'
It was finally time for him to be off, I could tell by the way that the scenery behind him changed from inside the gym to the open sky of the parking lot. I decided to ask if he wanted to get the food I’d been craving.
From y/n <3: How do you feel about getting pizza when you come home?
That was when the dreaded text came in. The worst thing you could say to an overthinker.
From Royal Pain <3: Okay. I just want to talk to you about something first.
My heart stopped in my chest. Sudden pressure, tightness winding from my heart and consuming my lungs.
From y/n <3: About what? Should I be anxious?
He took too long to open it and the bubbling anxiety forced me to hit call on his number. I was greeted with the rumble of his car engine when he picked up. "Should I be anxious?" I repeated the question out loud and he sighed.
"No, no sorry." He apologizes and sighs again. "I know that was sucky wording, I just wanted to sit down and have a conversation about some things."
I could hear the tightness in my voice, like my anxiety circled each word as I spoke. "Okay, what things?"
"Love, I'm gonna be home in like 5 minutes and we'll talk."
My legs moved on their own accord, lifting me off of our shared bed and taking me downstairs as he spoke, my need to pace arising. Pace to get out all the anxiety that built inside me.
I didn't want to push him. "Okay, I love you, Tooru."
"Love you too, I'll be right there."
I found myself in the garage, carried by my feet subconsciously. I’d tucked myself safely into the little corner of the couch we and our roommates had kept in there. Brought my knees to my chest and covered myself in a blanket.
I was trying to will my anxiety to stop. He promised he wasn't leaving. He just wants to talk.
"What are you doing out here?" Tooru asked when he found me after looking through the house. "I thought you'd be in our room."
"I had anxiety and just kinda ended up here." I mumbled and he nodded in return. I waited for him to sit next to me. He didn't. He stayed standing. "Tooru, can you please tell me what's up?"
He took a deep sigh before starting. "There's a few things that have been bothering me about our relationship and I just want to try and talk them out before I keep bottling them up. Before they get so bad that they aren't fixable anymore."
I felt the anxiety building up even more and I winced. I had been doing something wrong. Like always. And then there was a quick rush of anger.
He had said 'keep bottling them up.'
He had sat there and convinced me that I’d been imagining it. He had convinced me that the gut feeling I had about something being wrong with him was fucking incorrect.
I wanted to scream. All I did was whisper. "Okay."
He listed out his reasons and I tried to stay quiet. I tried to listen. To look at him. But every time I looked at him I could see him breaking my heart a million times. I couldn't hold the contract for very long.
I was trying to not cry. I was trying to explain myself when he said there was something I did. I was apologizing. Apologies formed in the frame of: 'I'm sorry.' 'I didn't realize I-' 'I did it because..."
I never got to finish my reasons with another "I'm sorry if I hurt you." I was trying to get there but he always cut me off.
"I don't get why you have to argue with me." He exclaimed the last time he cuts me off. I pause. Was that what I was doing? Had I been arguing? "I'm just trying to tell you what's wrong so we can fix it."
"I'm not trying to argue!" I defended myself. "I was just explaining why I did it so you could see where I was coming from." I wiped my palms against my cheeks in frustration, trying desperately to keep the tears back.
"It's easier to fix if we get where the other is coming from, we can find somewhere to meet in the middle." I whimpered at the eyeroll I knew he'd done subconsciously. "Please, this is hard for me. It feels like you're breaking up with me."
He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, shaking out some of his curls. "I'm not breaking up with you. I told you that." The words should have been comforting, but something about them made me more on edge. The tone in which he said them. Exasperation.
"Yeah," I scoffed, my anger getting a hold on me a little more, trying to protect myself, "you also told me, repeatedly, that nothing was wrong." His eyes snapped back to me but I quickly looked away. The second that he looked at me softly, I would do anything he asked. I would lose myself. Lose my will to fight for myself to be heard.
"Now here you are, telling me that you were lying to me." I could feel a tear escape and I quickly brushed it away before he could take it in. "How do I know you were telling the truth every time you said you weren't going to leave me?" It was harsh but it was the truth I needed to say.
"Why don't you believe me? Huh?" He was raising his voice, something he rarely did, especially at me. "Is it trust issues or what?" He spit the words out, like they tasted bad on his tongue and I could see him fling his arms in the air from the corner of my eye.
"You are always 'your tone of voice' and 'your body language says'... God! Can you not just believe me!" He ended it with a groan. Frustration or annoyance, I couldn't tell, maybe it was a mix of both.
"I'm sorry, I just pick up on the way you act and underlying tones, it's a bad habit, I'm trying to stop." I was trying to drag my eyes back to him. He was looking down at me, standing instead of sitting on the couch with me, shaking his head at my responses.
"You can't just believe me? I don't get your whole thing about tone and whatever. But if we get married one day-"
I cut him off quickly, my full attention going to look at his face, to see if he realized what he'd done. "What do you mean 'if'?"
"What?" Genuine confusion crossed his face as he looked back at me, confused at the wide-eyes look across my own face as I looked up at him. I knew that terror was visibly seeping into each of my features.
"You said, 'if we get married one day'."
"Yeah." He shrugged his shoulders in indifference. "And?"
"When did that become 'if'?" I asked the words quietly, my voice barely rising to an audible level. I was afraid of the response. "Its always been 'when we get married', 'when we have kids', 'when'." He sighed and bit his lip out of what I assumed was his own nerves. "It's always been 'when' for me and I thought it was too. So when did 'when' become 'if'?"
"I don't know." He took a step back away from me, turning his body slightly away from me. It didn't go unnoticed by me. "A couple months ago?"
I scoffed in disbelief. A couple months. He'd been lying to me for a couple months. "Okay," I whispered, "you wanna know why I read into tone and body language?" I asked the question and he only rolled his eyes again. I didn't care, I kept talking.
"You just stepped away from me when you were talking about that. When you were talking about mentally changing the way you thought about us being together long term, you physically put distance between us. How am I supposed to take that?"
"You're not supposed to take it any way!" He exclaimed. "I got tired of standing without moving."
"Okay, why do you have to be standing, you can't put yourself on the same level as me. You have to be on a different level, to have all the control in this conversation. Like you've decided how this conversation ends."
"Oh my god!" He shouted, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Stop fucking reading into everything!" He shook his head like he couldn't believe that he had to deal with this. to deal with me.
"You want to talk about body language? Then what the hell does it mean that you can't seem to look at me this entire conversation when all I've been doing is looking at you!"
"That I'm worried if I look at you I'll cry. That I don't want to cry because I know you need this off your chest and you'll blame yourself and stop if I cry." That if I look at him, at Oikawa Tooru, the man I decided was the love of my life, then I would see what I saw the very first day I met him and he gave me that saccharine smile. I would see him breaking me into a million pieces.
"Please just sit down." I whispered, begging him.
"Seriously?" He scoffed but collapsed on the other end of the couch. He sat closer the the front edge of the couch and leaned far back into the seat, a position that screamed about how he didn't care. "This is really better for you?"
I winced at the harshness of his tone. The condescension seeping through his words. He thought I was being ridiculous and he was making it clear. I hated it, but it was better than him standing and physically looking down at me.
"Yes." He sighs and shakes his head but stays silent. "Let's just talk through this and we can fix it. We can find a compromise." I swallowed hard trying to explain. I was trying the 'I'm going to stop doing...' It was fine for a little while. Until I started to ask for things in return too.
"I will try to stop raising my voice, I just need you to tell me I am. I don't realize it a lot, we have different views on yelling. I need you to tell me."
"I do!" He was rolling his eyes but staring straight ahead, no longer at me. "I say, 'why are we yelling?' is that not telling you that you're yelling?"
"That's not what I mean, I can't tell you why, I don't understand it, but it doesn't click for me. It makes me think you're talking down to me and I know you don't mean to. I just need you to tell me 'y/n you are yelling right now'."
He puffed air out of his nose, hands running through his hair again. "That doesn't fucking make sense. I don't understand how your brain works." I could feel the tightening in my chest becoming overwhelming. I didn't understand it either. "Whatever. Fine."
"Could you help me around the house too? I know I've been slacking on some of the chores like groceries and laundry, but I need help. You only ever get groceries if I'm already going and even then, sometimes you don't come. And I always do your laundry too but you only ever do yours unless I ask you specifically."
They were small things to me, things I didn't mind doing, but I knew I needed help. And if I was attempting to change for him I needed something back. Something to help me ease up on my stress.
It went on for a little longer, what I thought were minor requests being met with annoyance and hesitation. Until he stopped responding all together. It was like I could see it happening, him disengaging, the gears slowing down in his head as they settled on a solution.
"Please talk to me." I begged for it. I couldn't let him get caught in his head. "Don't go quiet. Tell me what you're thinking." My voice was quiet and wet, tears threatening to spill more than they already had. "I know you're getting in your head. I can see it happening."
He shook his head softly, no eye roll paired with it this time, no irritation at me. He was staring blankly at the wall in front of us both, his fingers rubbing into his temple. "I'm trying to decide if this is even worth it."
I froze in place, my body turning into a statue, watching my world crumbling around me. "What?"
"I don't know if this is worth it." He said it plainly. It was just a fact. No emotions attached to it. I was pretty sure that I could physically feel my heart tearing in my chest. "Is this even something worth fixing? Is it worth the effort?"
"What do you mean?" I squeaked out the words. This had to be a nightmare. I was sure of it. "Of course it's worth it to try. It's us. Years of us, of course it's worth trying." I was sure I would wake up in the morning and it would have never happened.
"Tooru, look at me please." He turned his head slowly, an apologetic look in his eyes. I would wake up and this would've been a scene my anxiety created in my head. "Tooru, are you breaking up with me?" I would open my eyes and still be waiting for him to come home from work.
His eyes looked glossy, but he nodded his head. "I'm so sorry."
All of the times I thought about it. All the times I had thought 'if he breaks up with me,' I had never thought 'when he breaks up with me'.
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