Aeonian - Oikawa Toru x Reader

Ch. 06 - So Far, So Good

I smoothed my skirt out about my legs as I settled out onto the grass of one of Aoba Johsai's many beautiful lawns. Students were scattered about elsewhere, but we were secluded enough to talk about whatever we pleased.

When I was settled, my boxed lunch in my lap and my legs tucked to one side, I looked up, catching up on the conversation I'd missed the beginning of.

"It's not like you missed it," Hajime was saying. "Just relax about it."

"How can you tell me to relax when I know you're getting anxious, too?!"

"Who's anxious and why?"

"I am," Toru answered, then pointed at Hajime. "But he is, too!"

"That only answered one part of my question."

"Announcements for try-outs haven't gone out yet," Hajime told me. "He thinks that somehow all three of us have missed it."

"But what if we did?!"

"We didn't," I assured him. "Club applications aren't even out yet. When the team is ready for tryouts, they'll make it obvious."

"But..."

"What, have an itch or something? It's not like you don't play volleyball every evening on your own, Toru." He was still pouting, so I sighed and opened up my lunch. Inside, as I knew there would be, was an apple. "There you go," I said, tossing it to him. "Go ahead and practice setting it. If you can get a good volley going, I'll even give you some of the milk bread I made."

That shut him up and kept him quiet for a few minutes, anyway. As Hajime and I talked about what we were supposed to read for our language arts class, Toru focused only on setting that piece of fruit to himself, over and over, concentrating so much his tongue was poking out from between his lips.

And after a couple of minutes, I told him that he'd done enough, that he could stop. So he caught the apple on its next pass, and handed it back to me. I set it back in the box and handed him some milk bread, instead.

Anything to keep him happy, I suppose.

Though I had been intending to use that bread as leverage for him to help me out this term in our science lab because I might have dozed off during part of the very first lesson, but I would just need to find something else.

Ah, well.

—

"Will you, er..."

"Yes, Toru," I said, prompting him to continue.

I flipped the page I was reading over, scanning the list of all the clubs looking for new members. Student government and treasury, teaching aide positions for older students, more academic-based clubs like science clubs, and... ah, athletics.

"You were our manager in junior high," Toru said. "Do you still want to..."

"Yes, Toru," I repeated, this time not a prompt but a statement. I knew what he wanted to ask, and I already knew my answer.

"Ah," he said. "Good. I mean, of course you want to manage us. Why wouldn't you? It would mean spending more time with us, after all. And wasn't this the agreement back in junior high?"

I kept my eyes on the paper as I answered him and continued to look for what I wanted. "There's that,"" I agreed, "but I also found that managing a volleyball team is something I'm quite good at. Beyond that, there are some valuable real-life skills - managing, of course, and scheduling, learning to maintain a team, drafting correspondence with coaches and other teams, tracking funding..."

With each new point, I could tell in my periphery that Toru's smile grew and grew. I crossed one leg over the other, sitting more comfortably at the table in the library. I lifted my pen upon finding the listing for the volleyball team, and then...