Work Text:
He doesn’t remember when the hookups officially started.
Instead, he remembers the first kiss, the tension of their rising anger causing an explosion that turned closed fists and seething voices into clashing lips and ravenous touches. He doesn’t recall who moved first, wasn’t quite sure who decided that closing the gap between them was the only way to make the fight end.
What he did know for certain was that they both wanted it.
He remembers the delicate softness of Oikawa’s mouth, even as he pressed it deeply and harshly and passionately onto Kageyama’s own chapped lips. He remembers the rushed strokes of Oikawa’s roaming hands, an invasive touch on the skin of his neck, his arms, his chest. He remembers the gripping tightness of his hold in Oikawa’s brown hair, pulling forcefully on its silky strands to tilt the taller boy’s head closer towards him, the roughness of the action done either out of lust or out of anger. He remembers the sensation of Oikawa’s teeth nipping hard at his bottom lip, the feeling of Oikawa’s tongue ferociously dancing with his own in an unspoken battle of dominance.
He remembers the breathlessness that came afterwards, their quiet panting the only sound in the silence as the atmosphere shifted from hot and heavy to blank and empty far too quickly for his liking. He remembers the glare Oikawa sends him when they recover, the haste in his movements as he went to depart, as if he wanted to forget that this encounter had even happened.
Kageyama felt like he could live with that, felt like he could take the secret of their one-time kiss to his grave.
But then the next thing he knew, Oikawa kept coming back.
Always with a breathless “Tobio-chan” and a tight grip on his wrist, calloused hands tugging him along towards the nearest secluded space and shoving him towards the closest flat surface. Always with needy soft lips meeting his own rougher ones in a frenzied fashion, the kiss sloppy, sure, but explosive all the same. Always with a longing, a desperation, a thirst that only the heated exchange seemed to quell.
And every time it ended, the words were always the same, always spoken with a scorching fire in the authoritative rasp of his voice, brown eyes piercing through him with a stabbing gaze.
“This doesn’t change things between us, okay?”
When it stopped being okay, Kageyama tried to speak.
It was the first time he received a text from Oikawa, the first time their meetings were planned instead of spontaneous. The number was unknown, his phone said, each of its digits displayed as the texter’s ID, but the words were painfully obvious as they blared up at him from the bright screen:
im coming over, tobio-chan. see u at 10.
He doesn’t reply, doesn’t question how the brunette got his number, doesn’t question how he even knew where he lived. Instead, he acknowledged the message in silence, placing his phone on the desk beside his bed, calmly lying back down as the sun’s orange glow faded from his window, repeatedly tossing his volleyball in the air with his perfect precision while he waited for ten o’clock to arrive, like nothing had changed. Maybe in a way, he really believed that at the time, holding Oikawa’s words to heart like they were the terms and conditions that came along with their arbitrary relationship. Maybe he, too, wanted things to stay the same, unchanged and untouched, as if their secret didn’t exist at all.
He wasn’t exactly anticipating the dangerous territory they were entering that day.
In the intimacy of his personal space, he felt all of his senses heighten, every cell in his body on alert as it awaited Oikawa’s onslaught. It’s probably because of this that he caught all the subtle differences, the testimony and proof of their developments.
He recognized the practiced precision of Oikawa’s hands on his body, taking off his sweater for him like it was the most natural thing in the world, clumsily tossing the garment to the floor to discard it. He felt the unwavering intensity of their shared kiss, the way their lips found their place on each other immediately, fitting together as if they were always meant to meet in a tight lock that felt just right. He noticed the instinctive way his own hands expertly threaded through each button of Oikawa’s dress shirt, seamlessly slipping the barrier free from the body he knew too well for all of this to have been nothing, wrapping themselves around him once he was bare, eventually finding their rightful place on the exposed skin like moths drawn to a flame.
It was like clockwork, how flawless their movements have started to become, a testament to the number of times they’ve probably done this. Yet even then, even with the repetition and the abundance of encounters in their twisted history, the raw longing felt fresh and new, never wavering once.
He wanted to drink it all in, to drink him all in.
When they parted, a string of shared saliva still linking them together, he couldn’t help stare at the lust-filled chocolate eyes that stared back into his ocean blue. There was still that recognizable tension sitting there and shining back at him, an electricity so palpable, it made him shiver. Their breaths mingled in the air between them then, their lips still just centimeters apart, skin flushed red from the heat of their moment. He could’ve easily risen from his bed just a little bit and their lips would’ve met once more for a second dance, but he restrains himself, choosing it wiser to just observe.
Oikawa smiles at him. The words are different this time, spoken in a murmur with a teasing tone.
“You’re getting better, Tobio-chan.”
He feels a knot at his chest then.
“My, my, how much you’ve learned from your favorite senpai. One day, you’ll thank me for all the girls and boys you’ll win over.”
He wanted to kiss that smug smile off that beautiful face, just to shut him up.
“Ah, but let’s think about that in the future,” he said nonchalantly, shifting off the bed and away from Kageyama, taking his warmth with him, “For now, you’re mine.”
The knot tightened, stealing the air from his lungs.
He watched Oikawa pick up his clothes from the floor, putting it back on mechanically with ease. He watched the grace the older boy carried himself with, even after the tiresome makeout session they indulged in. He watched the occasional glances thrown his way, an unreadable expression plastered on his face. He watched as he smoothed the creases out from his shirt, tamed his naturally messy hair, and eventually made the move towards the door.
Kageyama realized then that he didn’t want Oikawa to leave.
“Oikawa-san—”
He paused at the mention of his name. “Don’t, Tobio.”
He swallows to clear his throat, hoping that his nerves would tame with the action. “...What?”
“Just don’t,” he repeats, and then says the sentence that Kageyama’s already heard a million times before, but for once, it haunts him for days.
“This doesn’t change things between us, okay?”
Despite that stupid declaration Oikawa made at the end every time, Kageyama can no longer stomach ignorance. He didn’t try speaking up about it anymore, his words always shut down before he could actually get a sentence out, but that didn’t mean he’d suddenly forget.
Even if he wanted to, the knot kept coming back every time to remind him.
It was honestly suffocating, an ache that felt tight in his chest, like a coil slowly wrapping around his heart, waiting for the day until it finally burst.
He knew he couldn’t do anything about it, knew that it would’ve been a breach of their imaginary contract to acknowledge it. There were established boundaries to their relationship that they didn’t have to discuss verbally to grasp, implied limitations that prevented them from diving far too deep. Speaking of the knot would have meant breaking those barriers, passing through the fine line between casual and intimate.
He wanted to be intimate, though. He really, truly did.
And maybe, maybe that was the problem.
Every time he’d see Oikawa, he couldn’t help but feel contempt, one that was unparalleled and abysmal than the anger he’d felt in the past. Here they were, in a position that felt far too risky to improve but far too good to undo, yet he acted as though he wasn’t in any form of inner turmoil. He wasn't contemplating the repercussions, wasn’t wondering about what the future holds, wasn’t sparing a second to even think of Kageyama’s name. It was unfair. What right did he have to walk away from this agreement unscathed and unaffected?
In their next session, he acts rougher, unleashing all the pent up emotions through his movements. It is him who shoves the taller boy down, him who pins his arms on the futon of his bed, him who captures those lips and explores that mouth. He catches the surprise in Oikawa’s eyes and hopes that maybe this is hurting him somehow, maybe he can get a reaction from him after all. But when the only response he gets is eyelids skewing themselves shut tightly and a renewed vigor in his senpai’s own moves, he finds that the message he wanted to get across died somewhere in between clashing mouths.
Oikawa made no attempt at slowing him down, at turning things around, at stopping him from going further. He let him take the lead, accepted the harshness of his kiss, and allowed him to devour him whole. Maybe the exchange felt good, liberating, and just as explosive as their first had been, but Kageyama didn’t want any of it. Call him selfish, but he didn’t want that right now. He wanted more.
He wanted Oikawa to pause, push him away for a moment, and stare into his eyes in that analytical way he did. He wanted him to ask him what was wrong, what needed fixing, and figure out what wasn’t working any more. He just wanted him to look at him, not through him, but to see him for once instead of just touching, just feeling, just invasive hands roaming free through the expanse of his body.
He wanted him to care.
And it is because of this shift in emotions that Kageyama finds his skin burning under Oikawa’s cool fingertips, his heart pounding in his chest as though asking for him to stop the ache.
It is him who then separates first, gasping for air needily as if he had been drowning, the arms that pushed beside Oikawa’s head suddenly feeling heavy and worn. It is him who detaches himself from the other body, kicking himself up and off the bed, looking at the ground for his clothes. It is him who is watched as he starts dressing up, starts tidying himself to look presentable, combing fingers through undisturbed straight black locks.
He looks back at Oikawa, looks for a sign of anything else in his predatory stare, but finds none.
“We’re done?”
Kageyama looks away. “Y-Yeah. For today.”
“That short, huh?” he remarks coolly, standing up from the bed to step closer to his junior.
He steps backwards. “Yes.”
“Hm,” he hummed, not once halting his approach.
He was probably cornering him, Kageyama thought. Another show of dominance, of ownership, and he just couldn’t handle that anymore.
He stood his ground, gaze leveled towards Oikawa, glare intensifying with a flame he only ever saw in the other. It might not have looked like anything to the older boy, Kageyama’s face having always been stoic and cold and angry, but he hoped his eyes were screaming the emotions in his thundering heart loud enough to be noticed.
Oikawa placed a hand on his cheek. “You don’t intimidate me, Tobio-chan.”
“You don’t intimidate me either, Oikawa-san.”
“Oh?” He presses his thumb hard on tan skin. “I don’t?”
It takes a strong willpower to resist flinching. “No.”
“We’ll see about that, brat.”
Before he could properly react, the taller boy was leaning in, head tilting down towards him. The kiss that lands on his dry mouth is chaste, the kind that was impossibly sweet for someone like Oikawa, the kind that was over before it really began. It was so innocent, the complete opposite of every kiss they’ve shared so far, that Kageyama forgets about the hand digging into his cheek, forgets about the reason why he’d challenged his senpai to begin with.
But when the hand leaves his skin, the space where Oikawa’s thumb rested turning slightly red, and the gap between them widens, Kageyama feels the coil around his heart tighten to a sickening degree, enough to make it sink into the pit of his stomach.
He stays frozen as he watches Oikawa gather the garments scattered on the bedroom floor, hastily putting them on with a blank expression. He doesn’t know how to interpret him and his mixed signals, doesn’t know what to make of that soft kiss he gave. A part of him wants to just yank his hair out at the complicated nature of them, maybe run away from their charade for good. However, what he truly wants, more than anything, was for that beautiful face to turn his way and show him more.
At this point, he’s certain that he’s already had his fair share of wishful thinking.
He waits for the closing line, the sentence he’s memorized out of repetition, waits for the stab it’s likely to leave in his heart.
When Oikawa merely exits the space in silence, he can’t quite tell whether he misses the words or not.
They never share another intimate moment again, at least not when Oikawa was awake.
If anything, their interactions were rougher, more feral, like the taunt Kageyama left in their last confrontation was being challenged every time. They were rivals after all, both in and out of the volleyball court, always needing to have the upper hand at one point. He lived for the competition, strived for the best in everything that he put his heart to, and expected no less from his senpai. Maybe that’s why the older setter had taken his show of dominance as an invitation to a different kind of match.
When they collide, Oikawa wastes no time, starting them off immediately and inviting him with a growl that was uncharacteristic of his usually smooth senpai. His grip digs into Kageyama’s shoulders, nails probably leaving red marks on his back that would stay scars for days, but it doesn’t seem like he cares about it. If anything, it’s as if he wants to leave evidence on his skin, like little reminders of what they were, what they would always be.
He’s then roughly pushed towards the wall with a strength never used on him before. The impact of his head on the hard surface stuns him for a moment, but he’s got little time to acknowledge it before the taller boy captures his lips hungrily. He goes to devour him completely, without a single regard for how much pressure he was putting or how much force he was using. It hurts him, but he accepts it all the same, ignoring the way his eyes sting slightly from the pain.
When he parts from his mouth, he reconnects with his neck, and Kageyama can’t help the gasp that escapes his throat. Oikawa licks the skin teasingly, looking up at him with a devilish smirk, before marking him. The pressure he’s leaving is a new sensation for the younger setter, one they’ve never explored before, one that both hurt and felt good at the same time. He let him do it, let him bite into his skin, let him place hickeys all over without a single regard for who’d see them tomorrow.
Once he’s satisfied, Oikawa returns to kissing him, pulling at his bottom lip forcefully. The strength of the action makes Kageyama groan in pain and stumble forward, and soon he’s hovering over him on the bed again, like he was the day he decided to be angry. Arms wound their way up his back, crawling beneath his shirt, before finding their place in an embrace. He almost thought the gesture to be sweet, almost allowing himself to tone this down, until he feels those nails dig in again, scratching deeply like claws.
They proceed this way: Oikawa hurting him and marking him, Kageyama letting him and handing him control. It was definitely rough, definitely nothing like their previous times, and as much as the wounds sting at his skin, the raven-haired boy couldn’t deny the heat.
The encounter leaves them extremely tired, more exhausted than they’ve ever been before, and he finds himself collapsing onto the futon, chest rising and sinking rapidly in its attempt to fill his lungs with air. He lets his eyelids fall close as his arms drape the duvet blanket over himself, not bothering to watch Oikawa dress this time, instead simply waiting for the sound of shuffling feet and a closing door that symbolized his departure.
When he feels the slight dip of his bed instead, he lets the question drift from his hoarse voice.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t be so rude, Tobio-chan! I’m tired too, you know?”
He opens his eyes lazily to give an incredulous stare, watching as Oikawa took cover underneath the sheets right next to him, ever so nonchalant. “You never stay the night.”
The brunette turns the other way to avoid his sharp gaze, curling in on himself. “Let this be the only time, then.”
It wasn’t.
Kageyama’s bed was made to fit only one person, but lying next to Oikawa every time he stayed the night had never seemed to be a problem for the two. They always found a way to make room for the other, moving around each other seamlessly until their bodies were snug underneath the covers. They were always a mere centimeter away from touching, so close to comfortable cuddling, but they never made the leap. He thinks he should just ease them into it slowly, thinks that they’ve crossed another barrier already anyway and that it should be enough for now.
Yet when he’s right there, so achingly near and warm, he just can’t help but feel tempted to wrap an arm around that pale waist, drawing the taller boy closer while burying his head in the crook of his neck and shoulder where he knew it would fit perfectly well.
He turns around carefully to face his sleeping senpai then, minding his movements to make sure he doesn’t startle him awake.
In the dark, it’s hard to make out any imagery, but the small lines of moonlight sifting through the blinds of his window are enough to highlight Oikawa’s tranquil face. He was lying down on his back instead of turned away, clearly in deep sleep as the only sign of life was the soft and slow rise and fall of his chest caused by his shallow breaths. It was so odd to see him so peacefully quiet, a clear contrast from the aggressive nature he had when they were awake. It felt like he was intruding on something personal, crossing yet again another line.
But he kept watching anyway, patiently observing this side to Oikawa he never had permission to know.
His brown locks were more untamed than normal, a different kind of messy compared to the stylized way he wore it during daytime, pooling around the shared cotton pillow. His lips were now a paler pink, less sore and puffy than it was moments ago, slightly parted as air sifted through in and out. His jaw was defined by the glow of light, its edge an odd but beautiful mix of sharp and soft, lying relaxed instead of clenched in tension. His eyelids were skewed shut, each long eyelash resting gently on his cheek, and Kageyama swears he could count how many there were from his proximity.
He was beautiful, so breathtakingly so, and he hates how he’s not allowed to see him this way, hates the fact that he couldn’t openly appreciate him for who he was beyond their hookups.
He wanted to ruffle that bedhead to a messier fluff, wanted to gently peck those parted lips in admiration, wanted to cup his cheek with a soft hand and feel that jawline underneath his palm. He wanted those sleepy eyes to open, revealing a shade of coffee brown he’d drown into, and show a fondness through its shine that he’s sure would be found in his own midnight blue.
He knew he was digging his grave by thinking this way, knew he was only going to hurt himself the more he wanted a relationship that wasn’t this casual thing they had, but for once, he doesn’t think. He shoves the warning signs and red flags to the furthest corner of his mind, let’s his longing take control, caring not for the consequences he’d have to face.
His long cold calloused fingers glide over the warm pale skin of his arm, starting from his limp hand, keeping his touch soft and easy, the total opposite of what Oikawa normally wanted it to be. The pads of his fingertips burn at the contact despite how featherlight his touch was, and he has to force himself not to smile fondly in the fear that his companion wakes up and jumps out in fear. The slowness of his movements brings forth a flutter at his heart, something close to the damn knot but not as suffocating. He likes how it feels. He wants to feel it more.
When his hand finds its way to the brunette’s shoulders, he bravely stretches his arm across to the other side, resting it there tentatively and waiting for a reaction. When there is none, he relaxes his hold, allowing the embrace to fall into place. It fits, like he expected it to, and that realization makes him blush in a childish, giddy way, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
He closes his eyes then, allows himself to sleep this way, finally letting the small smile escape onto his face.
He almost makes it through, almost lulls himself to deep slumber, but Oikawa’s sudden jerk causes him to sit up and away.
Gone was the calm expression. Instead, it was replaced with an intense glare that made Kageyama frown.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Tobio?!”
“Don’t be so loud,” he said in response to the older setter’s yelling. “My mom might hear you.”
“I don’t care,” he answers like the brat he was. “Why were you hugging me?”
He decides to be a brat, too. “Why not?”
Oikawa seems to seethe at that answer. “Why not? Why. Not?! We’re not supposed to be hugging. We’re not supposed to be touching.”
“You seem perfectly okay with me touching you when we’re kissing,” he reasons.
“That’s not- that’s not the same, idiot! The only time you’re allowed to lay a finger on me is when we’re messing around. Not for hugging, cuddling, or anything cheesy sweet!”
“And who made that rule?”
“It just comes with the arrangement. Break it and everything we have falls into chaos! It’ll get messy - no, messier - and then we’ll be facing all these consequences,” he rambled on, ever so dramatic. “I mean, can you even imagine what people will think of this… this scandal? God, there will be questions, the kind we both can’t answer, and before you know it, this’ll all be out in the open! Do you really want to risk that?”
He goes to open his mouth to answer a ‘yes’ because truth be told, he didn’t care about reputation as much as his senpai did. He would rather risk it all than regret not doing anything about these untouched feelings, would rather take the plunge than stay in this awful space of being close yet so goddamn far away.
Besides, so what if people ask? He’ll shrug them away then, simply giving a vague response to leave them guessing. Or maybe he’ll give them the truth in all its glory and have them reeling in shock.
Then again, maybe it was easy for him to be so determined and sure because he barely had a reputation to protect anyway, compared to the brunette with the charming smile and handsome face that made all his fans swoon.
Oikawa must have caught the conviction in his expression, because he cuts him off before he could say a word.
“ Nothing changes between us, remember?! ” he exclaimed, the harsh familiar words like poison in the air. “That means that once we finish, we return to the natural order of things, to what is expected of us. It means that we’re still rivals, in volleyball and in life, no matter what. It means that I will always hate your guts and you will always hate mine, which then means that you should stay away. ”
The sensation he gets from the words thrown his way stun him like never before. It’s like a knife stabbing straight through the tissue of his heart, or a punch knocking the air out of his lungs, or an unexpected slap thrown to his face—
He vaguely remembers that moment from middle school, the pressure of the air on his cheek as Iwaizumi caught the pale hand just a second before it could make impact.
He refuses to think they were back there, back to that unpleasant time full of hatred and rejection.
“But things have changed, Oikawa-san. You can see it too, can’t you?” he murmurs, hating how desperate the words sound.
The flash of fear that appears on the older boy’s face is enough of a sign to tell that he knows about the changes that Kageyama was referring to. It was also enough of a sign to tell that he didn’t like it.
“Tobio-chan, please,” he then said, voice now oddly soft. “Let’s not bring this up, okay? It’s not worth talking about.”
“But why?”
“Because it’ll complicate things,” he answered exasperatedly, hands flailing to emphasize his words. “And I like where we are already.”
“I don’t,” he admits bluntly. “I want something else, something more.”
Oikawa chewed on his lip, probably contemplating on whether he should reply or not, whether he should consider this at all, before eventually muttering a response, “What do you even mean by that?”
“I don’t know, maybe something beyond fooling around.”
He scoffed. “What, do you want to hold hands? Spoon each other and cuddle when we’re in bed? Maybe a ‘hello’ kiss and a ‘goodbye’ kiss, too?”
“Yes,” he answered, ignoring the disbelieving way the other talked. “I do, want that.”
“Those things are done by lovers, dear Tobio-chan,” the older boy barked with spite, his overbearing attitude now returning, “which is a thing that we’re not. Hell, you could even say we’re the exact opposite of that.”
“Even after everything?” he tries quietly, words sounding like a desperate plea of hope.
Oikawa is quick to shatter it, raising his voice once again as he speaks, “There is no everything, Tobio! Nothing’s changed. Nothing!” He jabs a finger harshly onto Kageyama’s forehead. “Get that through your stupid, empty head.”
He feels a blizzard of emotion overcome him then, as though the older boy had accidentally unlocked the cage that was keeping it all contained.
The recurring knot tightens in a way that chokes, finally reaching the point where his heart feels as though it had just burst. The pieces deflate into his stomach, dropping like a giant weight had landed on him, before catapulting and launching up through his skin like a searing sting of heat.
He gets the urge to clench his fist, to convey the fire that was sizzling from the damage within to his companion through a glare that was sharper than any other he had worn. He gets the urge to run and hide, to escape the doors that he had willingly opened and the stabbing truths that had now revealed themselves to him with denial. He gets the urge to bury his head in his pillows, to wallow in the pain left behind for days on end and cease interactions with any breathing soul until he feels himself recover and repair.
But most of all, the strongest force in the storm, is the urge to cling onto the boy who still refused to see him, to snake his arms around that warm body and shake him to his senses, to beg him to just look at him. Even just once. Because he was here, he was here, he was here—
He steels himself, taking a deep breath instead, before shielding himself with his characteristic scowl.
Tentatively, he then speaks, voice shaking ever so slightly, “Why do you deny it so hard?”
Oikawa falters then, taken aback, as the slender index finger on his forehead is withdrawn. His eyebrows crease, before catching himself and returning to his annoyingly carefree expression, an expression that he wore so often around Kageyama that it was starting to get annoying.
In an attempt to wipe it off, he continues, “Does it sound that bad to you? Do you really hate me that much?”
Brown eyes narrowed. “Don’t ruin this with your feelings,” was the cold reply he got.
“You’re not answering me, Oikawa-san!”
His own voice had now risen too, but he couldn’t help it.
He doesn’t quite understand where his sudden confidence had come from, but here he was, fighting back. It wasn’t like he never did, but he usually let things slide when it came to his senpai.
This time, he doesn’t think he could just sit by and let the other wreck him.
He’s had enough of it.
“No, really, what is it?” he keeps going. “What makes it so easy for you to look right past me? What makes it so easy for you to hate me as intensely as you do?”
“Stop it, Tobio! We’re not doing this. Not now. Not ever.”
“I want to know, Oikawa-san. I want to know why you’ve made it your life mission to hurt me. What did I ever do to you?”
“Please, just stop—”
“No! Not until you answer me.”
“ Tobio. ”
His name comes out of those lips breathlessly, like the first time they met up for these encounters. Except this time, it felt hollow and empty, something akin to an end.
It hurts. It really, really does.
Oikawa takes advantage of the pause in their conversation then, lying back down in a move to get him to shut up and stop his retorts, back turned away as he harshly yanked the blanket over his body.
“Just sleep,” he said in finality to his kouhai, ending their confrontation and speaking in a way that told him there was no room for any further arguments.
He feels his body sag, as though the last ounce of his spirit had been stolen at last. He pretended that his sight didn’t blur with the threat of tears, pretended that he was just shaking due to the cold prickling at his skin. In the end, the water slips past his defences anyway, passing through eyelids shut close too tightly in the hopes of all of this just being a bad dream.
He knew it then, that he’d lost. That no matter how hard he’d fight, he’d always lose. He was going to fade into the shadows once the fizzle of their chemistry burns out, left with nothing but the ashes. Maybe, since the beginning, that had always been his fate, and he was just dumb enough to believe that he could change it.
He should have heeded the warnings when it was early, should have never gotten too close to the cliff that he had now fallen off.
The leap, it wasn’t worth it.
He was always going to be alone in the aftermath after all, skin far too cold despite the scorching warmth emanating from the body that lay next to him.
The days after are dull.
Oikawa had stopped visiting or trying to contact him, which he had come to expect. In fact, it was almost as though he’d suddenly made himself scarce, most likely avoiding any of the usual locations he found him. Kageyama knows it’s his fault that this distance existed, but he doesn’t try to reconcile with his senpai for a while, thinking it better to backpedal all the way to when they didn’t acknowledge each other’s presence.
He thought that it was probably better off this way, that he could move on with the loss of contact, that not seeing the brunette would make it easier to forget his name, his face, his eyes, his mouth—
He was definitely wrong.
He denies it at first, attributing his longing to being touch-starved instead, and almost considers finding someone new to fool around with just to feel something. When the idea starts to sound unflattering, bordering onto disgusting territory, he knew the progress he’d thought he was making was simply inexistent. He wanted to be touched, sure, but only by those familiar slender fingers. And no matter how much it hurt, he’d willingly succumb to it in the end.
He finds himself gravitating towards Aoba Johsai then, finds himself waiting patiently by the gates for the familiar bed of brown hair to enter his line of sight, finds himself grabbing that familiar wrist and ignoring the widening of those familiar eyes. He finds himself dragging them to the same secluded place it had all begun, finds himself staring at the taller setter a little longer to drink him in, finds himself then connecting their lips for a kiss.
The taste, the touch, the chemistry is so achingly familiar, that he feels like he could breathe again.
Even if the air scratches at his lungs, at least he could breathe again.
In between their frantic and needy movements, he hears the soft breathless “Tobio-chan” flutter in the air like a quiet affirmation, an ode to their beginning, a clear-cut sign that they were back.
Yeah, he was probably an idiot, but Oikawa was the mistake he didn’t want to amend.
He was the mistake he would gladly make over and over and over again.