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i'm still so blue
The first thing that Oikawa noticed about eleven-year-old Kageyama Tobio was how blue his eyes were. There were other things he had meant to notice in hindsight, like how tall he was (whether he was really as good as everyone said he was) and if he’d be as annoying as he’d already imagined him to be.
But his eyes were blue, in an electric way that made him stare.
Kageyama had looked down a lot during that first introduction, only lifting them clearly when the coach suggested that Oikawa take him under his wing and show him the ropes at Kittagawa Daichi VC. Fat chance of that!
“That Kageyama kid is a good setter,” Iwazumi had noted after school in a way that had made Oikawa scowl violently.
“His eyes are too blue.”
“What do you mean too blue?”
“Too blue! It’s freaky!”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
Oikawa remembers arguing with Iwazumi about this all the way home. Kindred spirits when it came to stubbornness and all that.
The azure from Kageyama’s shirt bleeds light onto his plain dormitory sheets now. This isn’t an official match; it’s some recording from casual practice that the National Team has put on their YouTube channel to encourage more people to ‘get into volleyball, ’ although in what aspect he’s not sure, given the frequency of the close-ups on Kageyama and that show pony, Atsumu Miya.
Gazing at Kageyama now should have felt different, but it didn’t. This was the Kageyama that he could have predicted. This was his perfected self, carved fully out of marble, Michelangelo’s David unveiled. Take everything that had terrified Oikawa in junior high and dial it up to perfection, and voila!
Oikawa felt a wonderful hunger watching him; it was gloriously self-indulgent in a way that he knew he should try to curb.
Kageyama’s next serve misses, skirting the line by a whisper.
“Timing Tobio-chan timing,” he mutters, leaning closer to the screen.
Oikawa liked to think he excelled at timing.
After all, who wanted a success story from birth? Where was the grit and drama and flourish? What was glory if you weren’t the scrappy underdog, claiming your throne after years in exile?
He hadn’t always felt that he’d perfected the art of timing. Case in point was when the kind air hostess had asked him where he was going, and he had said Argentina for three years.
‘I hope you haven’t forgotten anything important in that case!”
Had he?
There was everything to confess, all of it formless. It felt intrusive to even begin telling Kageyama about his feelings.
That dizzying blend of emotion that he was certain only belonged to him would have perplexed Kageyama. He knew enough to know that he and his junior existed on different emotional planes, perhaps as complex as each other in their own way, but very different. Hinata Shoyo was the only one he’d known to have been able to meet Kageyama where he was. And so here he was on a Friday night.
The bruise on his left thigh had bloomed prettier than ever on Day Three. Later in life, Oikawa would want to throw his arms around the 14-year-old who had kept tabs on that all-defining moment all the way until he’d left middle school and some more after.
The worst and best part was that Kageyama didn’t know.
It felt so magnified, so all-consuming in his mind, the way he’d lifted his arm ready to lash out, the fury that flared in one great white pulse of sheer hatred and Iwa-chan’s fingernails leaving crescent moons on his elbow as he’d clawed him away. He’d gotten the bruise kicking the bike shed after, a rock that’d been freed of the moss by the rains tumbling onto his thigh. He’d used up all the swear words he knew and realised he would have to ask his sister to teach him more, as he’d iced his leg later.
And Kageyama had no idea.
Oikawa wonders if he’s slow with everything except volleyball.
It’s only on Day Five that he raises it with Iwazumi at all, when his bruise has mottled navy. It’s a vague little evasive garble of apology and question in one, and Iwaizumi’s brows deepen across the net they’re folding, but he doesn’t elaborate with more than a nod.
“Does he- not know?” He has to ask again because how.
Iwaizumi shrugs, taking a sip of his water. “Guess not. You weren’t as obvious as you think stupid. You just kind of-flinched and raised your hand but it was more of a weird big twitch thing. It’s not like you ran towards him screaming bloody murder.”
The bruise remains for the month. He remembers gaping at it every day in the shower, watching it transform into a deep midnight hue, awestruck, weirdly, that his body could make these colours.
Kageyama notices it too when he guides the younger boy through serving (five minutes before and after official practice, nothing big, nothing major, Iwa-chan’s idea and something about making it up to him). Not that there’s anything to make up because Kageyama still looks at him with those big moon eyes like he’s some sort of volleyball demigod.
“War wound Tobio,” he tells him, noticing the way the junior’s eyes widen as his shorts rise to expose the flesh of his thigh as he demonstrates the perfect art of jump serving “This is the sacrifice of volleyball. You'd better be ready kid.”
Kageyama’s eyes flick left, right, uncertain before solidifying in a nod.
“Wrong! The best players avoid injuries as far as possible. How are you going to defeat anyone if you won’t even make it on the court?”
Kageyama nods again, another mute’ ok’, and Oikawa feels like he’s looking at those squishy toys he had when he was younger, infuriating and strangely endearing, something he wants to squeeze intensely so that it no longer exists.
However, the bruise was a lesson to his 14-year-old self that just because one wants to do something, it doesn’t mean one can. So he wrangles self-regulation and instead corrects Kageyama’s form, chalking up the fact that they’d run considerably over the assigned five-minute slot to the fact that it was best to keep your enemies closer and all that.
Hinata skims pebbles on the surf and tells him Kageyama’s favourite fruits are blueberries.
“Oh- are you still in touch with him much?” Oikawa shoves his hands into his pockets, rubbing at the grains of sand that have found their way there.
“Ummm…a little? Kageyama isn’t great at texting. I got the better grade in literature you know!” Hinata pipes up proudly, and Oikawa gets the sense that their high school rivalry has morphed into adulthood, in some enormous, unknown way that made him reel silently. “I just kind of-send him stuff- and sometimes he replies, although he’s so slow-look I’ll show you!”
Hinata whips out his phone and scrolls through his chats. Kageyama’s replies are random and few and far between, a ‘that is cute,’ a ‘that’s the wrong stance’ scattered between them.
As Hinata chatters away, Oikawa finds himself staring at him. Is that how one got through to Kageyama? Iridescent brightness and utter persistence?
They’d spoken that last time when he’d made sure he’d bumped into him after the final Shiratorizawa match. Iwazumi had looked at him significantly as he’d headed back home without him, a play nice of disapproval thrown over his shoulders as he’d stepped out of the revolving doors and into the drizzle.
Kageyama had exited the doors of the hall to head to the water fountain, blessedly alone. Oikawa can’t quite remember how he’d interjected, some insincere showmanship probably. That was his mojo with Kageyama.
He had tilted his head, a bob to the right when he’d spotted him, and Oikawa remembered thinking how adorable.
“Is there something you needed, Oikawa san? I didn’t know you’d come to watch the match.”
Oikawa had wondered if there was any other way to play for time, to reveal some of that overflowing emotion within him messily, but no way presented itself. He was always so much, and Kageyama liked to live his life by the straight lines of the volleyball court.
“Oh, I dropped by briefly. You beat Shiratorizawa, huh? I should call in my coaching dues now.”
“We won spring high,” Kageyama says slowly, feeling around the words carefully like they’re new to him. “And now we go to nationals.”
Oikawa feels the planes between them shift for the umpteenth time, gears rotating and grinding, train tracks moving apart. Of course, Kageyama saw it that way. There were no personal vendettas, no teams to single out; they would all fall away inevitably under his absolute, unrepressable genius.
What did one have to do to be singled out for battle by Kageyama Tobio?
He’d leaned forward to grip his shoulder, relishing in the way the muscle felt under his fingertips and wondered why they lived in a universe where he couldn’t do this more.
“Good luck.”
He’d turned to leave, feeling a sense of gruff awkwardness that he rarely held. Kageyama had called out behind him, and he’d turned too quickly for it to be nonchalant, but it’s not like Kageyama had a sense for this kind of thing off the court.
“I’m going to be the best setter, Oikawa san.”
Oikawa had grinned then, all tooth and fang at his best and most enduring challenger.
He eventually joins Hinata in skipping rocks, and neither of them is particularly good at it, but Hinata finds it hilarious and hoots with laughter in a way that makes Oikawa feel seventeen again. Seventeen and just as obsessed with a certain Kageyama Tobi as he’d always been.
When does it stop he asks the sea. The sea should know, it touches the shores upon which Kageyama rests.
It twinkles in return, a secret of coded blue.
“Did that orange number 10 kid just call you- The Great King?”
Little droplets still crown his hair after the brief spell of summer showers that had caught up to him on the way in, and he shakes it thoroughly, enjoying the yelps of irritation his teammates inevitably make.
“Something like that- kid’s clearly got a hyperactive imagination,” he replies, eventually remembering how Hinata had marked him out with a pointed finger (who even did that??) and declaration.
“Isn’t that Kageyama’s thing though- you know- all that ‘King’ shit?”
Oikawa’s shoulder blades stiffen under his jersey, and he busies himself by adjusting items in his bag that need no adjustment.
“But I’m the Great King, don’t forget. I still maintain precedence!”. The word from history class comes neatly to his tongue, and Iwazumi scoffs unimpressed.
He isn’t quite proud of the feelings that had rushed up unbidden when he’d learnt about Kageyama’s nickname. It had nearly annihilated him initially because: a title! Young rebels got titles before they initiated glorious revolution against the old guard (history repeated itself), but when he’d seen just how that title had been used, and how it had resulted in Kageyama very very alone on the bench, crowned in a cage, it’d felt like borrowed euphoria.
But finally, finally, Kageyama had a kryptonite, and yes, it was petty and weak to cling gasping to it like a lifeboat, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Kageyama Tobio has potential, but he fundamentally lacks the teamworking abilities to excel at this game. And I don’t see any real inclination in him to learn,” a voice had drifted from the office as he’d treaded the dusky corridors after the gym lock up.
“Yes…but let us bear in mind that he’s still young.” Another voice, more careful, the younger, new coach- Nishida sensei.
Oikawa feels like snapping at him to shush in this secret rally he was privy to, pressing success towards Sato sensei’s rebuttal through the gash in the door.
“Look at Oikawa Toru, same position but willing to democratise his talent for the team. I agree they’re both blue-blooded setters, but I’m not sure about Kageyama.”
“Yes, sir, that’s certainly true. But Kageyama has such skill. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made it to the under-19s in due time.”
“The point is that one’s willing to descend from his ivory tower to actually win the match, whereas the other isn’t. And that’s the moot point, isn’t it, Nishida?”
He hears a little sigh and a short silence. “That’s true. I agree with you, sir. Regarding future games, do you propose we bench Kageyama until he…”
The voices had faded as Oikawa had walked away, polishing the pearls that his envy had curdled into.
And so it had been surprising when he’d seen him again on the battlefield those months later in high school, armour probably a bit too large on him, but with that ginger comrade that had apparently stormed his castle, run up the circling staircase to his lofty throneroom and demanded he come out because “volleyball was fun!”
It’s only when Oikawa’s exposed features begin to burn warm instead of jarring icy shudders through him that he concedes it’s time to head home. Tipping his face backwards, he feels the snowflakes pepper his face with ice kisses and sticks his tongue out as they melt thickly against it. A laugh exhales out of him, and he traces his footsteps back to the path, making sure to step in the indents so as not to further disturb the clean blanket that is nestling ever deeper upon the fields of Miyagi.
A ding that he feels rather than hears vibrates through his right pocket, and he fishes for it under his layers and manages to wrangle it out before scanning the notification and stuffing it back whence it came.
Annoying, infuriating Tobio-chan’s birthday is today: all day
He’s suddenly very glad that Iwaizumi blankly declined his invitation to go on a run today, because how could he explain that!
He recorded his birthday back in junior high, even then thinking that it wasn’t very normal to know your arch nemesis’s birthday, but his fingers had taken a life of their own and tap tap tap he’d typed it in. He’d probably consoled himself that he was being a good captain by knowing everyone’s birthdays.
And so every December 22nd, he’d allow himself to indulge in Kageyama and let his thoughts rest firmly upon him. That’s what birthdays were for right? ‘Thinking of you etc etc’ that was the general spiel of birthday cards.
He wonders if Kageyama even celebrated birthdays. He could imagine someone lovingly plonking a party hat on his raven head and placing a candlelit cake before him, but beyond that, it’s blank. Kageyama doesn’t seem like the sort to make it a Day. He probably still did his morning stretches, maybe even went for a run. Maybe volleyball was his ideal birthday. There wouldn’t be a self-planned party; maybe Karasuno would do the honours for him, turning up at his house at the crack of dawn and screeching ‘Happy Birthday’ outside his window. Maybe they’d coax him out with the promise of opening the gym early.
Or maybe they wouldn’t even need a reason. Maybe Kageyama gave them access to his whole self without the necessity for volleyball to act as a bridge.
Arms tightening across his chest, he wonders if they know what liquid gold they had. To see Kageyama, speak to him, hear a preference, a comment, to have a presence.
It left him winded at how his intense fantasy was their everyday.
“Happy birthday, Tobio-chan,” he murmurs at the snow-heavy world of Miyagi, beginning the route home before the cold left a hue of violet on his lips.
Oikawa watches the little speedboat of an aeroplane skim the cerulean waves of the Argentinian sky, leaving a trail of white surf in its wake. Something about it brought back a fragment of a memory. Kageyama’s voice caught during lunch break, from their days at Kittagawa.
‘That’s like a boat!”
“No, Kageyama, that’s an aeroplane! You know- whoosh!” the other kid, probably a full-grown adult now if only he could recall his name, had mimed the aeroplane and zig-zagged down the length of the corridor to demonstrate, whilst Kageyama had gaped wide-eyed.
He shrugs his fresh shirt over his skin, enjoying the way it cleanly kisses the length of his spine before heading out of the changing rooms.
He’d spoken to the Argentinian coach briefly about the possibility of a final match against Japan, touching upon the fact that he’d been playing against people who had a long and not uncomplicated history with.
He finds him swivelling on his chair, occasionally tapping the fan that whirls drunkenly in the corner with impatience.
“They’re coming to fix the AC today, between 9-6, but I have a feeling it’s going to be 6,” the coach says rifling through some papers.
“You have to learn to take your own advice, coach and maintain a positive attitude,” Oikawa collapses into the seat opposite him, flexing his fingers in and out, in and out in the way his physio had reminded him to do.
The coach glances up at him sharply with a loud, wry laugh before going back to flicking between the sheafs of paper that litter his desk. “You’re right! Maybe I should make you captain.”
“I find that the time to make rash decisions is probably after the Olympic Games, but hey, it’s your call, coach.”
“About the Olympics,” the coach waves a page too quickly for him to make out anything meaningful on it. “You have a relationship with many Japanese players no? School history, rivalry, friendships?”
“Something like that, sure. Probably a mix of all three.”
“Fine. I don’t care about your personal life or past, Toru, but it will impact the game.”
Oikawa feels the sting. “I should hope not, coach, it’s my job to ensure it doesn’t.”
The coach shakes his head impatiently, taking a vocal crunch of an apple lying on the side table.
“The best players don’t suppress their emotions on the court. That’s doing two things at once, and to play at 100% you need to focus on volleyball only.”
Oikawa’s face must have shown doubt because his coach puts the apple aside and leans the tips of his fingers together.
“The audience loves players who show their emotions authentically. Why? Because that’s part of the game. We don’t leave ourselves on the sidelines when we step on the court. So take all that rivalry, complexity on court with you and let it fuel you.”
Oikawa feels an involuntary rush of goosebumps blaze down his bare arms.
“The last time I let my emotions show on the court, it didn’t go well.”
“Past is past,” the coach says, and Oikawa teeters internally at how easily this is thrown aside. “You are different because you are not there anymore. Think it will go the same as before, and it will. Know it will be different, and it will. Both choices are yours, but only one will help you win the medal.”
There’s a short pause punctuated by the stuttering of the fan.
“Think it over,” the coach opens his palms. He glances over at the ping from his phone. “That’ll be the damn AC men, time to go, Toru, or I’m going to hold you responsible for when I die from heatstroke tomorrow.”
Oikawa leans back against the brick wall outside with a long sigh. The breeze chases away the heat from his cheeks, and he allows himself to reckon with the flurry of emotion that rises unbidden, uncalled but perhaps, maybe needed.
He’d always moved forward, boldly certainly, perhaps even recklessly, but this was a vertiginous cliff.
“Fuck, let’s do it,” he finally whispers to himself hours later, clothed in the light of the blue hour.
The aura that ripples almost visibly off of Kageyama’s back makes him pause in his stride forward. Perhaps now was not the time to reclaim that remarkably one-sided connection he’d nurtured through the years apart. Iwaizumi would have been proud of him if he’d let Kageyama be.
Sorry Iwa chan
He continues and reaches forward towards Kageyama’s back, which blends into the deep sapphire gauze that is the sky.
It’s just them on this little hill; they can see the lights flicker below.
His fingers tremble, and he holds them there. Kageyama doesn’t notice for a long time, apparently courting thoughts too deep for spatial awareness as the dusk deepens.
Eventually, he turns, and he can hear a sharp inhale and a note of clear silence.
“Oikawa san?”
“That’s the name, kiddo.”
They stare at each other. It’s different here off the court, where they don’t have to wield the sword and armour of duty.
He’s taller than me, Oikawa realises. Logically, he knew this from Kageyama’s player profile, but it felt remarkably insubordinate of Kageyama to actually have grown taller than him in the flesh. He vocalises this and sees Kageyama’s cheeks darken. Blushy blush. He’d always been so self-conscious in the best of ways.
His jacket is zipped lightly, a glint of rounded silver underneath still catching the light of the full-formed moon. His eyes rest lightly on Oikawa’s own chest before lifting to his face.
“You were the best setter, Oikawa-san.”
Oikawa feels a shivering rush wash over him involuntarily. What was devotion if not remembrance?
“I’m going to win next time, though,” Kageyama juts his chin out, a flick of stubbornness that Oikawa is glad has not mellowed out.
They end up getting drinks, Oikawa’s suggestion, and throughout the walk there Kageyama responds to his airy stream of questions with a hesitation of why are we doing this?
Oikawa doesn’t pay this any mind, and nor does he have an answer as they sit across from each other in some dimly lit izakaya that happily provides enough discrete corners for them to rest incognito. Kageyama’s cheeks mirror the cartoon characters of childhood books, two round patches of crimson, and he was only three drinks in.
Of course, he’s a lightweight.
“Do you not go out with your team much, Tobio-chan?” he circles the tip of his glass with his ring finger, and Kageyama watches it as he replies.
“Um-sometimes I do.”
“You should do it more. Teams are built just as much off the court as on it, you know. And if the rumours are true and you’re entering the Italian league, socialising will be even more important to build up trust with the language barrier.”
Kageyama tilts his head the other way now, still adorably, and nods with a little gleam of interest, and Oikawa thinks he can let it rest knowing he has probably taken that bit of advice and nestled it away neatly for future reference.
Oikawa has imagined this scene a thousand times before and, whilst never a practicalist, has to stop himself from reveries of awe that imagination can indeed become reality.
Maybe the conversation contains more awkward gaps than he’d pictured (Kageyama had a habit of responding rather too early or late to maintain any regularity of riparte), and maybe he himself ends up getting tipsier than he intends to- not out of nervousness, mind you- but because it’s something to do with his hands.
But it’s real. There’s only so long that figments can satisfy you.
“What do you have planned tomorrow?” Oikawa asks.
Kageyama hesitates. “I fly out tomorrow- I’ll have to check the flight timings. I didn’t really…”
“…Think about anything beyond the final? I get it. That felt like the end of life, right?”
“Something like that,” Kageyama nods.
“But life does go on does it not?”
Kageyama hums in affirmation, adjusting his long fingers around his glass half full.
“Well, it’s a shame. Truly ships in the night, Tobio-chan.”
They leave eventually, hardly knowing when and find themselves waiting side by side at Kageyama’s bus stop, where they can see the lights of the vehicle make its way through the dawn, a caterpillar on the road.
Kageyama turns towards him with an urgency he’s never seen him possess- not in this way.
“Maybe we can catch up more, Oikawa senpai- someday,” an agitated wave of a hand encapsulates the ‘someday. And for the first time, Oikawa allows himself to hope as he had never hoped before.
Oikawa leans forward, just a breath, and Kageyama’s eyes ripple with emotion.
“I’d like to catch up more someday soon, Tobio,” he says, slowly, deliberately and finds it wondrous when Kageyama breaks into a smile, hand falling to his side.
“I’d really like that too, Oikawa senpai.”
Oikawa watches the bus carry him away, but it’s a soft parting. The boy with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen would be weaving a parallel future to his own across continents, countries and nets. But every once in a while, in a world of ‘someday soons, ’ perhaps their tapestries would coincide.