TW
It was the spikes that first caught his attention. The first was just a little too low, the second too high. By the third, when he almost hit the net on his follow-through, Iwaizumi was certain something was seriously wrong. He landed and turned with a frown to face his setter. Before Iwaizumi could even open his mouth, Oikawa was ruffling his own brunette hair apologetically.
"Gomen~! That was too close to the net, it won't happen again." In the background, Iwaizumi could hear the familiar calls of 'don't mind' from the rest of their teammates but he blocked them out, narrowing his eyes at the boy in front of him.
Eventually he swallowed his worried questions and instead growled, "'Course it won't happen again, next time it'll be too far away," and Oikawa flinched and cowered.
"I said I'm sorry Iwa-chan!" Behind him, a second year sauntering up to the net overheard, and tried to come to Oikawa's rescue...the key word being tried.
"Maybe Oikawa-kun isn't on top form today." he shrugged, taking up his position as middle blocker.
Iwaizumi rolled his eyes, "Oikawa is always on form.
"Why thank you, Iwa-chan." Oikawa fluttered his eyelashes and earned himself a punch to the top of his head and a kick back into position. If you listened hard enough, there might have been an 'assikawa' thrown in somewhere. (It didn't sound fond at all).
Oikawa trotted back into position, hair bouncing with every step, eyes down.
They were having a practice match between first and the second years who hadn't made it onto the team. Iwaizumi didn't mind much, just content with the sting of the ball on his palm, the burn of his forearms on a receive; but Oikawa was another thing altogether.
Oikawa would be fine for a while - just as content as Iwaizumi - but then they'd be up in the stands to cheer during a match, or told to watch the team practice for educational purposes, and his pure, unadulterated brattishness would come shining through; in pouts and whines and tugs on Iwaizumi's arm the second they were out of sight of school and Oikawa let down his high and mighty façade. Iwaizumi had found out from years of friendship that the best way to stop the tirade of complaints and petty insults was a smack around the head and maybe a pinch of his ear and a healthy side dish of curse words.
So, the fact that Oikawa wasn't complaining loudly, or gazing longingly at the court on the other side of the gym, or proudly predicting his apparently eminent promotion to a starter, made Iwaizumi glare at him harder than usual. He knew Oikawa like the back of his hand, as much as he wished that wasn't the case (at least, that's what he told everyone.
He couldn't be held accountable for the thoughts that ran through his head if he found himself staying over when Oikawa couldn't settle down to work for anything and by the time their homework was finished, his mother insisted Iwaizumi not walk the two blocks to his own house and stay the night. And Oikawa, no Tooru - because warm bedrooms in quiet houses, and arms enveloping him in familiarity, were for first names - would sleep in those t-shirts that scooped low and framed his collarbones, and the shortest, ratty shorts, with holes in the back that gave glimpses of his briefs underneath.
He'd drape himself over his bed, hanging willowy off the edge, the lamplight melting his eyes as they reminisced and cracked inside jokes that usually ended in fighting and huffed breaths mingling when they settled in a pile that Tooru always wriggled into cuddles and shit. He was not thinking of this now. He was not thinking of the way it felt to hold his childhood friend in soothing warmth and steady sleep).
