Monochromatic: Haikyuu Fanfic

Chapter 57: Vague Answers

Oikawa avoided Fukui for weeks.

He had to wake up significantly earlier in the morning to avoid running into her on his way to school. At the end of cram school, he stays at the gym alone for a couple hours to make sure that she already left, before taking his leave. In mornings and afternoons, he's all alone except for his thoughts and a volleyball in hand - practicing his serves endlessly like it'll solve all of his problems in life.

If she were ever to ask, he'd use the " team practices are more often now" excuse. Which is bullshit - Spring High Tournament ended with a loss from their team to Karasuno - no point to just now increasing the frequency of practices with the season ending.

She never asked him why.

Who is to blame in this situation? It's completely understandable and downright horrifying to think that you have the potential to lose a friend here. Someone whom they had shared memories, secrets, and weaknesses for years - all for it to turn into dust. Gone. History.

Fear splits them apart.

On Fukui's end, she's incredibly confused. Gods help her. The kid is so used to living life as if she's an outside reader - she'll imagine everyone with obscure romance with the simplest signs. But the time comes and someone painfully hints her a sign, even to a point of kissing to show it, she's hopelessly lost.

Believe her, she tried to find explanations behind it through research in shoujos, but she keeps rejecting each and every idea.

Perhaps she's not looking at the right places.

She could always ask him directly, right? Wrong. If only confrontation isn't such a frightening subject for her. Like her new years fortune said, "good things will come to those that wait." She will wait - however long it takes to find out the meaning behind it. It'll come, she tries to say to herself, eventually. It doesn't have to end with her standing her ground and making both herself and Oikawa uncomfortable.

What she didn't expect is that the eventual moment comes on a regular after-school day. Here she is, stuck with cleaning duty as Oikawa walked in on her. Their eyes locked momentarily, unblinking and mildly shocked. In those seconds, Fukui didn't even think about the kiss - she thought only of him as warmth and home: a good friend and nothing unusual. But then when her eyes traveled down to his lips, her gaze fixed on the floor immediately. She didn't blush; it was more of disappointment and confusion than anything that makes her giddy.

He doesn't like this - the awkwardness brought by the kiss. To distance yourself from someone who you love is a painful thing - but it never compares to the pain of rejection. The pain of losing years worth of friendship.

The low buzzing on the base of his chest revisits. But even with that, he forces himself to smile.

"I forgot my bag here," he says.

Ah.

So that's the reason he's here.

Not for what she had thought.

A mix of relief and a teeny weeny tinge of dismay stirred in her. She finally looks up to him. A small quirk of her lips turned her frown to a smirk.

"How responsible of you, Captain."

Oikawa pouts, (how she had missed teasing him), "Mean! Is this how you treat a friend who'll move out soon?"

Fukui raises her eyebrows. "Leave soon?"

"Yeah well," Oikawa scratches his neck, "because of a lot of incoming students this year, the administrator suggested that I should settle to a dorm before they run out..."