Akaashi's 18th (and the events that followed...)

17. Ghost

Iwaoi recap: Oikawa and Iwaizumi met Suga and Daichi in Minato, before heading to a hotel. Oikawa missed his flight so he stayed with Iwaizumi another night. They're now back at school after the winter holidays.

Oikawa turned off his phone with a sigh.

Still no messages from Iwaizumi.

In fairness, it was only six in the morning. Meaning it was two a.m. where Iwaizumi was. Still, that was no excuse. He pouted and flopped back down onto his messily-made bed.

"Tooru!" A harsh voice barked, jolting him from his thoughts and causing him to fall off the bed in surprise.

"Coming Coach!" He pulled on his jacket, stuffed his phone into his sports bag and bolted out of his room. He nodded to Mateo and Pedro, and they made their way to breakfast.

"What's going on with you Oikawa?" Mateo, San Juan's no.13, asked. Oikawa loved the way he pronounced his name, emphasising the 'ka' and drawing it out in his thick accent. Normally Oikawa would smile at this, but not today.

"Nothing much," Oikawa said, the Spanish flowing as naturally from his tongue as if it had been his first language. "My friend hasn't contacted me in a while. I think I'm bothering him, that's all."

"The one in America?" Pedro, the no.8 middle-blocker, cocked his head.

"Yes, Iwaizumi." Oikawa said.

"Maybe he's busy?" Mateo suggested.

"Not any more than we are... I think." Come to mention it, Oikawa didn't actually know how busy his friend had been. He hadn't replied more than a few words to any of Oikawa's messages. "What would you like to practice later?" He changed the subject, if only to avoid more questions on this painful and embarrassing subject. "I can set for both of you today if you want." And with that, the discussion was diverted, and they traipsed off to the gym.

Training had been way too difficult over the past few days. It was so tiring just to roll himself off his bed. He was rapidly losing motivation, and he had to get it back before he got benched - or worse, booted from the team.

Leaving high school hadn't been a massive problem for Oikawa, in terms of his emotional wellbeing. He didn't have many friends to stay in contact with, and his fangirls could easily follow his Instagram from across the globe, so there was no loss of followers there.

However, the hours of training every day, the immense amount of work he put in just to become half as good as the geniuses on the team, not to mention the extra physio because of his knee - that was something he hadn't been prepared for. And the one person on whom he could count to help him was four time-zones away, and on a different continent.

He selected a randomised bass-boosted playlist, as he did every day during morning gym training, in the vain hope that the thudding beats might resuscitate his heart for volleyball. The song's lyrics began to motivate himself slightly.

'If at first you don't succeed,
Dust yourself off and try again,
You can dust if off and try again,
Try again.'

Try again....

That was what he had to do, what he made himself do every day. That was why he moved countries, to a place where he didn't know anyone, where nobody knew him. He thought it would be freeing, refreshing, and he wasn't wrong. However, there was something to be said about regularity, comfort, and familiarity. Three things he had barely experienced at all since he set food in this beautiful yet dauntingly-unknown land.

He began with squats, but, barely ten seconds in, he heard it again. That voice that rang around his head every day. "Knees shoulder-width apart, and make sure you keep your back straight." He felt the ghost of a hand pull his shoulders back and hold his knees still. "You'll never get onto a proper team if you can't even do your exercises properly. Never skip on the basics, no matter how impatient you may be to push yourself, okay Shittykawa?" The ghostly breath of a laugh blew past his ear as he felt a phantom of his friend lean on him. "It'll be hilarious to see you look all built-up and muscly. Still won't be able to beat me in an arm-wrestle, though." Oikawa almost caught the spectre of his best friend in the mirror, flexing his biceps to make Oikawa laugh.

He remembered the shared smiles that day, the shared sweat, the shared lane swim afterwards. They had arrived at four in the morning - back in the day when waking up had felt like stepping into a world of opportunities rather than walking into a prison - and they had the entire pool to themselves. Oikawa had spent half of the time swimming laps, and the other half chasing Iwaizumi and splashing him.

He remembered the water-wrestling match at the end of their session, when Iwaizumi had grown so tired of trying to get away from Oikawa that he snapped, tackling him in the water and pulling him close, before pushing against the pool wall and flipping him over. He remembered the shrieks of delight and surprise. He remembered... too much.

And what made things worse was the lack of contact. He had been trying so hard to remain in contact with Iwaizumi, but the other man didn't seem to be reciprocating. Yes, he was probably tired, and had a lot of work to do. And yes, they were in different time-zones, which made life harder.

But still... Oikawa was so used to being Iwaizumi's first priority, his only concern. It was difficult in more than one way to imagine Iwaizumi talking to new people more often than him. It wasn't that Oikawa didn't have friends - he had made many - but no-one who felt the same as his Iwaizumi. He was special. But maybe Oikawa wasn't as special to him. Maybe Oikawa was the only one who wanted to fight to keep the ghost of their friendship alive.

He forced his body onto the treadmill. Running was something, at least, that he could do without a flood of attached memories tumbling back. It might also clear his fuzzy morning brain. The repetitive rhythm of steps, and the whirr of the machine just audible, even with earbuds in, sparked off the thought process he had been following recently, one on how he could get back to his best self. His most productive self. His confident, charismatic, aspirational self.

Perhaps going to visit home again would bring him back to good spirits. Perhaps he ought to see his parents again. Perhaps visiting some of his old friends would help. He should at least pay his kouhais a visit. Perhaps Iwaizumi would go with him. If he contacted Mad Dog-chan, then he might be able to find out when their next match was. If Kiyotani could remember, that is.

Oikawa moved back to the weights, plucked his phone from its charging point, and smiled to himself as he read the notification on his lock screen, realising who had sent it. Maybe not just a ghost, then.

(Word count: 1173)
(Total word count: 20,436)