apotelesma - o. tooru

trois.

He can't remember the last time he'd been this late out at night. Time passes when you're too busy throwing your emotional woes into the continuous serves you make, despite everyone having left the gym already.

Oikawa Tooru trudges back home, alone. A few cars drive by, and the occasional bird makes its call. Ten o'clock isn't the usual time he returns home from school, but he figures exceptions can be made.

Mitsuha isn't with him on this walk. She left earlier, because she had pressing duties at home to take care of, and had to skip her own rehearsal for the school's cultural festival. Iwaizumi, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki left five hours ago, stating that they were too hungry and tired to continue practice, and that Matsukawa had a discount for a ramen place close by. Before they had left, Iwaizumi lectured Oikawa at an extensive length, saying he'd beat his ass if he wasn't home by nine.

Truthfully, he only stayed back so he could instruct and advise the second years who would take their places after they left. He'd already made the decision to make Yahaba the new captain for the next year, confident in his abilities to bring out the best in Seijoh.

Much, much better than I could have done.

He turns the corner, crossing the little wooden bridge that went over the mountain stream. He remembers falling into this once, when he and Iwaizumi had been little, and had an obsession with catching butterflies.

Simpler days and simpler times, where he just wanted to play volleyball for the fun of it, where Mitsuha was just Iwaizumi's cousin who had to come live with them because of family issues. Where pains of love did not exist.

"Ha, what are you? Some kind of shounen protagonist?" Oikawa admonishes himself out loud, running a roughened hand through his styled hair. "You're honestly so lame-"

"Yeah, if you talk to yourself out loud at ten in the night,  with your hand placed in your hair like that, you've definitely qualified as lame, if not neighborhood creep," someone chides, with a hint of tease. He looks up from the ground to see Mitsuha standing there, her arms folded.

"What are you doing out this late?" Oikawa asks, aghast, but she waves the question away.

"Where the fuck have you been?" she hisses, raising an eyebrow at him. "It's so late-"

"Didja make ya worry?" he chirps, smiling at her cheekily. "Aww, Mittsun, you don't have to-"

She whacks his army with a glove, and he flinches. "That really hurt, ya know," he mutters, nursing his arm.

"Of course I was worried. I was worried when Iwa-chan didn't come home with you, I was worried when you weren't home by nine like Iwa-chan asked...you gave me more worry than my mother has in my entire life time," she scolds, giving him a disapproving stare. "I thought you got hurt and fell into a ditch, or a group of thugs decided to gang up on you and ask you for your money."

Now it's his turn to give her a look, this time one in disbelief. "A group of thugs...in Miyagi?" he asks, raising his own eyebrow at her. "Mittsun, the most you're gonna get of thugs in Miyagi is if they're Kyoutani, and he's anything but a thug. He just looks like one."

Mitsuha sighs, and turns around, heading back to her own house. "Just come inside," she says, beckoning him to follow her.

He hastily leaves his things at her front door, slipping off his trainers in a quick motion before padding into the kitchen in his socks. He sits by the kitchen island, slumped across the counter, his head resting on a propped up hand. He watches as Mitsuha pulls out a bowl from one of the cupboards above, and gives him ramen.