Chapter Text
As if things hadn’t sucked enough since the Suga thing, at practice on Wednesday, Oikawa accidentally serves a volleyball into Yahaba’s face. It becomes a big affair with everyone crowding around the other setter, whose nose is bleeding and bruised, with the promise of further purpling in the hours to come. His white shirt is now a good portion red, along with the polished wood underneath him. When Oikawa helps him up, scrambling to apologize as profusely as he can while his ears are pounding, he nearly slips on his own blood. The whole thing isn’t pretty.
Practice is canceled so the coach can take Yahaba to the hospital, since his nose looks pretty broken and the school nurse has already left for the day. Oikawa wants to come and make sure he’s okay, but that request is denied. Coach doesn’t want to deal with his hysterics. One teenager leaking from the face is enough for him. Yahaba does promise to text him (“I’ll tegd you”), so he clutches his phone desperately as he walks to the train station with Hanamaki and Iwaizumi, checking the screen every twenty seconds even though there’s no way they’ve even gotten to the hospital yet.
“So,” Hanamaki says, breaking the silence. “That was fun.”
“It was awful, Makki-chan! I won’t stand for you taking pleasure in his pain,” Oikawa half-wails.
“I think we’re all just taking pleasure in your pain, since you seemed to be more upset about it than he did,” Iwaizumi points out.
Oikawa goes quiet with solemnity and checks his phone again. The silence settles back on them, more uncomfortable now that Oikawa hasn’t had the last word.
“What’s up with you?” Iwaizumi asks after a bit longer, gruffness of voice hiding a deeper layer of concern.
Oikawa throws his hands up in front of him, careful not to throw his phone with them. “I just hit my precious kouhai in the face and broke him. Did you see all that blood? Did you see his face?”
“You’ve been acting weird this week.”
Hanamaki is glancing sideways at them both, pretending to be disinterested.
“It’s nothing,” Oikawa mumbles out. This earns him a smack on the back of the head from Iwaizumi. “Iwa-chan! You can’t just bully people until they talk to you about their deep dark secrets! Are you sure you even want to know? What if I’m lying to protect you? What if I’m in trouble with the yakuza?” He wiggles his fingers to indicate “yakuza trouble” and checks his phone again.
Iwaizumi is clenching his fist and gritting his teeth. He’s saved from having to hit Oikawa again by Hanamaki. “Hey, Oikawa, what happened to that Sugawara guy from Karasuno?” He manages to ask it without smiling or indicating that he’s onto him, though internally he is both of those things.
“Ahh, Makki-chan, you irritating little blister!” Oikawa claps him on the back harder than is necessary, apparently not having gotten his fill of injuring his teammates today. “I have no idea. We stopped with the prank last Friday. Had a big blowout in front of his team. It was very heart-wrenching. I haven’t heard from him since.” The more he adds to his explanation, the more transparent he feels, but he can’t stop himself from letting it out.
“That was a prank?” Iwaizumi asks, looking puzzled.
“Iwa-chan, I told you all. It was just pretend to get back at his teammates.” Oikawa clicks the button on the side of his phone again, in vain. There are no messages. It had just been pretend, which had been the problem. Somewhere along the way he had actually developed real feelings for Suga, which lead to his formation of two concurrent plans: ask Suga out for real, or propose they break up before the feelings got any worse. He meant to go with the former that day at the park, but an uncharacteristic panic had seized him and he had accidentally let loose the wrong plan. At that point, he felt locked in, and it was too late to go back.
Part of him felt like he had been dishonest enough for even imagining privately that their relationship was real. For the way his heart started to beat faster whenever they held hands, or even when Suga smiled at him. It felt like he was taking advantage of the situation, so maybe it was better that it was over.
He’d considered for a bit that they could be friends afterwards, but after the fake breakup he had texted Suga asking how it went and had only gotten a simple “You were very convincing.” Oikawa had tried to continue the conversation, but Suga’s answers had been short and disengaging, so he figured Suga was too busy to interact with him anymore. He had mentioned a couple of times while they were hanging out that he wasn’t used to spending so much of his free time not studying or doing chores. Oikawa had just been distracting him from the things that were probably more important to him.
“Hmm. That’s a shame, I liked him,” Iwaizumi says.
Oikawa sighs and checks his phone.
XXX
On Friday, a few things happen after practice. Matsukawa suddenly remembers a very, very important gift he has for Oikawa in his desk. This gift absolutely cannot be given on Monday, he insists. He also doesn’t want to go alone because empty classrooms freak him out, which is news to Oikawa, but he goes anyway. The gift turns out to be a pencil, and not even a new one. Oikawa has noticed him using this particular pencil (blue, with little bear faces on it) every so often. But apparently Matsukawa thinks he should have it, so he tucks it into his pocket and doesn’t think about it.
As they’re going out into the hallway, they spot Hanamaki and Iwaizumi, which strikes Oikawa as a little weird, but he doesn’t think much about it either. Iwaizumi’s leaning against a closet door wearing a weird face, which is only somewhat unusual. Oikawa’s just about to tease him for looking constipated when Matsukawa grabs him, Iwaizumi moves off the door, Hanamaki jerks it open, and they shove him inside.
“What the—oof!” Oikawa collides with something soft. The soft thing is a person, and the person is Sugawara Koushi.
Before he can get up and get off, he hears a key turning in the lock outside. “We’ll be back in 20 minutes!” Matsukawa sings through the door.
“You guys can’t do this! This is kidnapping!” Oikawa yells back, flinging himself against the door.
“I tried that card already,” Suga says, sounding bored.
“Kou-chan, if we make enough noise, maybe someone will hear us. Help! HELP!” Oikawa yells, banging his hands against the door.
“Tooru, stop it. You’re giving me a headache. They’re coming back in 20 minutes and they’ll let us out.”
Oikawa turns around. Suga is very close in the small space, leaning against the back shelves littered with cleaning supplies. Oikawa presses himself against the door. They’ve been close before, but not front to front, usually side to side. Something about having more of his surface area facing Suga in close proximity makes him even more nervous.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why they’re doing this. How did they even get you to come over here?”
“Hanamaki-san texted me and said—” Suga swallows. “He texted me. It doesn’t matter. I kind of thought they might be trying to do something like this.”
“Makki-chan’s connections run deep,” Oikawa says sagely, nodding, trying to keep things light despite the grim situation. Suga doesn’t seem amused. “I’m really sorry they’re doing this,” he tries more seriously.
Suga crosses his arms and fixes Oikawa with an unusually hard stare. “Maybe we should talk, since that seems to be what they want.”
“Sure.” Now Oikawa swallows. “How did your team react?” It’s the only thing he can think of to talk about. Suga’s face contorts slightly.
“They bought it.”
“Oh, good. I guess it was a good prank then.” Oikawa picks at his nails. He can barely see Suga with only the light from the frosted glass of the closet window coming in, but he can still pick out all the features he’s memorized. The soft curve of his eyelashes, the subtle point of his nose, the sharp point of his mole, dark against his skin, framed by his silver hair.
Suga starts to say something and doesn’t even get a full word out before he stops. Oikawa is distracted by the shape of his lips. He watches his eyes as they look towards the broom in the corner. “It was a bad prank.”
Oikawa mentally shakes his concentration. “What do you mean?”
Suga bites his lip. “It didn’t feel like a prank.”
Vaguely, Oikawa is aware of his heart pounding a little faster. Had Suga noticed his feelings even though he hadn’t chose to share them? Had they come through somehow anyway? “I wasn’t trying to—” he begins. “I’m sorry.”
Suga’s hands are clenched where he’s holding them under his arms, and he still doesn’t look at Oikawa. “It’s okay, I knew you didn’t feel the same.”
What a strange way to phrase it. Too strange for Oikawa to ignore. “Wait, what does that mean?”
Suga looks at him now, eyes fierce and shining. “Don’t make me say it.”
“I think you have to say it because I’m clearly missing a piece here,” Oikawa returns slowly.
“I like you,” Suga bites out barely as he finishes speaking. He bites his lip, face cinched tightly as if he wishes he could have kept the words locked inside himself.
Oikawa goes for his hand, but it’s clamped tightly under his arm, so he grabs that instead. “Kou-chan. Kou-chan, I’m—what?” Suga shakes his head. “You mean like for real, not just as a prank? Not just as a friend?”
“Yeah!” he shouts.
“Wait, ‘yeah’ as in as a prank or friend, or ‘yeah’ as in not like that?” Oikawa is desperate for clarification since he can’t believe the best possible outcome.
As an answer, Suga unlocks his hands and grabs the front of Oikawa’s shirt, haphazardly crashing their lips together for a brief second before he pulls away. He shoves Oikawa aside and twists the door handle, banging his hands against the glass. Oikawa catches them and turns him around, pressing his shoulders to the glass with the weight of his own body. Suga’s lips are clenched tight against his, and he holds his own over them as gently as he can manage while being this tense. He can’t believe what he just heard, what he just felt. He’s still expecting the first kiss was just an accident and he’s going to get slapped for this. But he doesn’t. Eventually Suga’s mouth goes slack, and his lips part, and his teeth scrape against Oikawa’s flesh. He opens his mouth too and slips his tongue into Suga’s. His mouth tastes mostly like warmth, and wetness, and if softness had a flavor, he thinks it would taste like that too. He sighs tilts his head to push in deeper, moving Suga’s wrists up to pin them against the door. He slides his hands up and laces his fingers in between Suga’s, earning an enthusiastic squeeze.
“Tooru,” Suga mumbles against his lips. He breaks his hands free of Oikawa’s and fists them in the back of his jacket, hugging their chests together before kissing him again.
They both lose track of the time and possibly also forget that their time in the closet of the closed school has an expiration date, because when Matsukawa opens the door of the closet, they all but fall out of it, more or less on top of each other. They right themselves and separate, though still standing close together, and bear the weight of Oikawa’s friends’ smug smiles.
“Well, that wasn’t supposed to be seven minutes in heaven, but okay. Whatever gets the job done,” Hanamaki says.
“Don’t ever lock my boyfriend in a closet again,” Oikawa demands of them, gesturing with a stern finger.
“Boyfriend…” Suga muses, subtly sneaking his hand into Oikawa’s. “I think it’s allowed as long as you’re there too, boyfriend.”
Oikawa returns his smile and squeezes his hand.
“We could lock you back in there if you want,” Matsukawa offers, holding up the key.
“Pass,” Suga says. “I’m hungry.”
They start to walk away from The Closet together. Hanamaki, Matsukawa, and Iwaizumi walk ahead, giving them some space while congratulating themselves on their superior matchmaking skills, despite not really having done anything.
“So what are you going to tell your team this time?” Oikawa asks, squeezing Suga’s hand.
He hums in thought a little. “I think they deserve to know the whole story.”