Monochromatic: Haikyuu Fanfic

Chapter 58: Pests

Saturday mornings are quiet with Oikawa and the children gone.

When Fukui gets up from the bed and heads to the bathroom, she stops by the vanity mirror in her room. She sighs.

My hair is getting long, she thinks thoughtfully.  She remembered that the ends curled just around the tip of her chin, but now those dark brown locks drop just inches past her shoulder. How did it grow so fast...? Now that she realized, how long has it been since she stared at the mirror?

It seems that time ticks so quickly when she's around people. Always hurrying. Always rushing. Nowawadays, she's back to her old regular schedule: independent routine, alone, taking everything slow.  

  In fact, she hasn't taken the time to be alone with her thoughts for the past few months. And maybe it was a good feeling for her. Seclusion, eating alone, walking alone - she grew accustomed to those things long ago. That is, until Oikawa came knocking on her door nearly a year ago.   

It's supposed to feel nice - being alone - but the silence doesn't sit still with her. It was sad like greeting an old friend, but nothing sparks like it did before.

Fukui shakes her head of other thoughts. Tying her hair up, she gets ready to head for a shift at the boutique and then head to the library for more textbooks.

-*-

[ oh my god ume-chan, there's a cricket in my dorm room ]
[should i call someone to kill it]
[I I THINK IT WENT UNDER THE TABLE ]
[HELP]

"BPFPFFFFT- "  

"Fukui-chan, are you okay?" Her manager asks, eyeing Fukui skeptically.

At least she's finally laughing... Makino says to herself. Even she noticed the lack of enthusiasm in her these days despite her mask. For a nice lady, Makino's sharp senses saw through her with how clumsy Fukui is these days. This include tripping over that one box at the basement,  or the  bow-ties tied haphazardly into a deformed, wad of paper.

Well, it must be someone very important that can make her smile like that, Makino thinks.

"Are you talking to your boyfriend?" Makino asks with a spark of curiousity - wasn't there that boy she walked in with before? The one with the pretty hair?

Fukui freezes like a dead man in mid-typing and stiffly turns her head to Makino.

"Well...No..."  Fukui says. "he's a close friend."

"Hm~ 'close'  eh? Just how close?"

Close enough that we've kissed, she thinks instinctively. Fuck. Fukui's ears feel warm now. Goddamn it all.

She opts for leaving for the basement to re-stock, "Whatever, I'm going back to work."

Makino grins amusedly as she cups her hand over her mouth has a speaker, "make sure you don't trip over that one box - "

THUD!

"- too late."

-*-

On the other side of things, Oikawa isn't faring too well. At least, not after getting this text message from Fukui.

If anyone wondered, someone next door got rid of the cricket for him - and it was a shameful process, if he had to admit. The person who got rid of it is quite small in height - can be easily compared to Karasuno's Chibi-chan, but did not look at all bothered when he cupped his hands for the menacing cricket to jump in and let back out into the wild (aka thrown out the window).

But the thoughts of the cricket long left him. There's a new pest in his approach. Another thing to shed his worries about now. Because right now, he's staring at a text that he did not know how to respond to:

[ Oikawa!! the class president
decided to help me out with physics!!
i'm feeling a bit more
hopeful for the next retest!]

There's three things wrong with that, Oikawa thinks.

1. Knowing the president's infamous cynical nature, there's a 99.9% chance that he definitely likes her. He would easily turn down someone else to tutor if it wasn't Fukui.

2. It's nine at night. With that taken into account, they're probably in Fukui's house.

3. There's a man in Fukui's house. At nine in the night. Alone. With no one else.

Fuck.

It's no secret that Oikawa and the president never got along swimmingly, even before Fukui came into the picture. It all came down to a disagreement of leadership qualities: the class president ruled with an iron fist. Sternly. Strictly. Systematically. Oikawa laid on the opposite spectrum, adaptable, and flexible with his team cooperation. Countless times did Oikawa voice out his distaste for the president's domineering ways, but in retaliation, the president defends that leading the student body requires more work than a 'silly little sport team'.

Everyone at school knew to never mix those two together. They're too much like opposites. When paths cross, they only talk briefly, with stonecold feigned politeness and a fake smile from Oikawa.

Oikawa realizes that he hasn't replied to her yet and quickly types out a half assed message, maybe just hint  to her about the dangers of what she's doing.

[okay! don't stay up too late]

Okay. It should imply that Kaichou shouldn't stay for long as well.But maybe that's pushing the boundaries a little bit? It sounds a little commanding doesn't it? Oikawa fumbles for a safety net and re-edits his text:

  [okay! don't stay up too late ('ω｀)ノﾞ  ] 

Much better.

-*-

"You've been smiling at your phone for a while now."

The president leans lazily on his palm, eyes studying Fukui. As much as he secretly enjoyed the little quirk on the corners of her mouth, it's still quite unsatisfying because it was not because of him that she's happy. He'd much rather have her attention all to himself.

"Huh?" Fukui lifts her head and blinks twice. "Oh, right - sorry. We should continue."

Continue they did. They're nearly over the review chapter, and while Fukui visibly looks beat from today's work, she wills herself to listen to the president's each and every word.

" - And so the total mechanical energy possessed by an object is the sum of its kinetic and potential energies...That's how the relation works from one another."

"It...all makes sense now." Fukui says slowly, eyes scanning the pages. "You really are smart. I'm so glad I ran into you at the library."

"It's a curse for me," he lies coolly, (how pleasantly surprised was he running into her), "I was only searching for a place to do research, until you came along."

"Oh? Is it for your resume or something?"

"No, for leisure time. I'm already accepted at our local university for a full scholarship." He said, "but tutoring you still costs a lot for me, nevertheless."

"Oh," Fukui laughs apologetically, "I'm sorry for bothering you. Is there any way that I can repay you? You agreed to tutor me until next week, after all."

Now that sparked interest in him. He looks up at her with a raised brow, he echoes her words:  "Any way that you can repay me?"

"- Does that mean you'll do anything?"

Fukui gulps nervously. She hopes that it's doesn't involve with money, because Fukui worked hard for hours in the boutique. But for the most part, she's willing to comply. Of course, the lilt in his voice didn't seep through Fukui's thick skull, as uneasy as it may sound.

"Uh...Sure."

"Hm... Okay." He says pensively, "I'll have to think about it; I'll tell you how you'll repay me then."