The Desperate Tales of Oikawa and The Bus

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"Oi, Shittykawa, will you answer my questions instead of dragging me?" Iwaizumi complained for the thousandth time, the captain paying no attention to him.

Oikawa had been in an awfully good mood that day. Iwaizumi had noticed he kept staring at his phone, seemingly looking for something, and had pretty much completely ignored his fangirls (which had come as a shock to them since they'd been receiving more attention from him lately).

The brunette refused to answer his best friend, not even flinching at the insulting nickname which usually irritated him. He was set on doing something, and Iwaizumi still didn't know what.

Heck, he'd even missed the opportunity to stay over time and practice some more for the upcoming Inter High tournament!

Oikawa dragged him all around town, and only stopped when he reached a particular shop. Iwaizumi sighed in confusion once he read the sign.

"The library?"

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"This is insane! You're insane!" Iwaizumi stuttered, trying to talk Oikawa out of it as the latter payed for 5 chess books on the counter. "You can't just learn chess to flirt with a girl!"

"Who says I can't?" The brunette asked, noticing a mini chess set out of the corner of his eyes and adding it to the pile of things.

"Common sense, Trashykawa! Common freaking sense!" Iwaizumi glared at him, hoping his words would bring him back to sanity. In vain.

The boy ignored his friend's remarks, paying for the books and set as the vendor put them in a bag, not paying much attention to the high schoolers' conversation.

Oikawa thanked the vendor and grabbed the bag as he and Iwaizumi exited the shop.

"I'll just learn some stuff so that I can play a decent game, and then with this-" he grabbed the mini chess set from the bag and waved it in his friend's face. "-I'll play with her on the bus."

"You're out of your mind." The ace shook his head. "Honestly, out of all the stupid dumb things you've ever done, this is by far the worst."

"Oh come, how hard can it be to learn chess?" The setter asked in response, distantly flipping through some pages of the first book.

"Chess is a game of strategy and logic. You can't just learn it in one day." The ace retorted.

"Wanna bet?"

And needless to say, Oikawa lost the bet. When he went home, after quickly finishing some of his leftover homework, he started studying the mental sport.

Though Oikawa was the strategist of Aoba Johsai's team, he quickly realised chess was nothing like that, and definitely not a piece of cake.

He'd spent the first couple of hours simply learning to recognise the pieces and how to move them around. Then he'd tried to go online and play some matches against people, and had miserably lost all of them.

He'd opened the books, trying to find the solutions to what seemed unsolvable problems, but had hit a dead end every time.

But Oikawa wasn't going to give up that easily. Although he had to give Iwaizumi 5 yen from losing the bet the next day, he was convinced that he'd eventually learn the art.

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"How are you doing, heartbreaker?" Fudo asked sensing his best friend coming. Though he never took his eyes off the motor he was fixing, his lips had curved upwards.

The girl rolled her eyes as she took a seat in front of him. Fudo had been teasing her endlessly about the boy, and she was starting to regret having friends.

"Actually, he hasn't shown up in awhile." She shrugged as she looked over Fudo's plans for the machinery. As intricate as always.

"Really? Now that's new. How long has it been?" He asked, glasses on the bridge of his nose as he carefully took out a broken piece.

"Huh... a week or so." She hummed, faking a small pause.

In reality she knew it was exactly 8 days, because she internally rejoiced every time he didn't show up. That, and the bus was now oddly silent without the brunette.

"You've probably finally managed to scare him away." Fudo raised an eyebrow at her as she simply shrugged.

"It's better this way. I couldn't stand him." She replied nonchalantly, grabbing her book and going through some more chess problems.

"And you have no idea why he stopped showing up?" The girl paused, recollecting her memories.

It had been after that one time she'd told him he had to find something they had in common. She still remembered the grin on his face, as if he'd already found a solution, and that was the last she'd seen of him.

She wasn't quite sure what to think. Part of her hoped that he'd finally given up, but the other part suspected he was simply up to no good.

"Not really sure. I don't care. The longer he stays away, the better." She said, though something felt off.

It's not that she was lying when she said she couldn't stand him... but a part of her had gotten used to his constant bickering and pouting.

She quickly shoved the thoughts out of her head. She couldn't regret the boy's presence, that was insane. Silence was a far better company.

"Do you know when the pieces are going to come in?" She asked Fudo after a small pause.

"Another month or so." He replied, switching tools.

"Fudo-kun, you said that two weeks ago." She replied, narrowing her eyes.

"Yeah, well there's some problems with the shipping and manufacturing. I'm sorry." He shrugged. Truthfully, he could have pulled some strings to get the pieces here faster, but he thought a bit more time with her infamous bus buddy wouldn't hurt her.

"If he shows up again and my bike still isn't fixed, I blame you." She threatened in a passive aggressive voice.

"Sounds fair." Fudo hummed as they went back to their individual tasks.

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To Oikawa's great joy, the girl was still there, reading her book as usual, though she seemed as if she was about to finish it. He smiled internally, sprinting to catch the bus and greeted Koto.

"Your absence was too good to be true Oikawa-san." The bus driver said playfully while praying for the poor girl who'd be victim of Oikawa's flirting once more.

"Oh, don't say that Koto-san, I know you missed me deep down." Oikawa gave him his bus pass before walking towards the girl.

Though Oikawa's first reaction to their presence (after a whole week of missing her) had been pure ecstasy, you couldn't quite say the same for the girl. When seeing Oikawa, her lips had pressed in irritation and she could swear steam had come out of her nose and ears.

The volleyball captain slouched down next to her, skipping the usual 'good evening' and 'how are you doing' and quickly went through his bag.

The girl discreetly took her eyes off of her book, fearing the worst. What was he looking for so excitedly?

Oikawa exclaimed a joyful "Ah!" As he found what he was looking for.

He unfolded the mini chess set in front of the girl's wide green eyes.

"Wanna play chess?"