The Desperate Tales of Oikawa and The Bus

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"Hey Ogi-chan!" Oikawa chirped happily, but for once his greeting wasn't met by any response but silence.

The brunette furrowed his eyebrows at the girl. She was staring out the window, seemingly not having noticed him, and was watching rain drops pour down.

"Ogi-chan?" He asked after a small moment, realising something was off.

The girl jumped, startled, and turned around to face him.

"Ah, sorry Oikawa-san. I didn't notice you there." She mumbled, turning her head back to the window.

The setter sat besides her, never taking his eyes off of her. Something was terribly wrong: usually, whenever he stepped on the bus, the girl would sigh and urge him to take out the chess board.

Over the course of the past few weeks he'd noticed she had great senses, especially hearing, and that she was always aware of her surroundings. It really was unlike her to not notice him.

"You alright?" He asked after awhile.

The girl didn't turn around, eyes still fixated on the window. She hummed in response, leaving the setter incredulous once again.

"You don't look like it." He finally let out. He was starting to realise that today there wouldn't be any chess lessons.

The girl looked away from the window and at the floor, nervously twiddling with her hands. "It'a just a bad day, that's all." She mumbled, almost inaudibly, but the bus being empty apart from the two of them, Oikawa heard it all too well.

It wasn't a lie. She dreaded this day every year, and never knew how to deal with it. The first year she'd looked herself in her room, only coming out when it was finally over. The second year she'd plopped herself on the couch and watched movies all day long.

This year, she'd decided to act as if nothing was wrong, but it was proving to be harder than she had expected.

"Do you... want to talk about it?" Oikawa attempted, the girl still staring at the floor.

Though her face was still unreadable, he could tell it wasn't the usual emotionlessness. There was a dark veil that covered her face, sadness enveloping her soft features and green eyes.

"Not really." She whispered after awhile. Although she didn't find him as insufferable anymore, she didn't want to be so vulnerable with him.

The setter pursed his lips, worry painted over his face. Whatever it was, it was more than a bad day; he knew the girl would have rather died than lose her usual cold demeanour in front of him.

"You know, everyone has bad days. Even I do. Volleyball is more stressful than you'd think." He chuckled, comfortably relaxing in his seat as the girl looked up to him.

"I doubt we're having the same kind of bad day." She replied. I hope it for your sake, because otherwise your life is just as miserable as mine.

"Well, there's many types of bad days. I'm supposed to be the best player in the prefecture yet I've never been to Nationals." He laughed dryly.

Though volleyball brought much comfort to Oikawa, it was also his main source of stress. So much was expected of him, from his friends and himself, and sometimes the pressure was a lot to handle.

"Sometimes I... over train... Last break I had to wear a knee brace because I worked too hard." He exhaled sharply.

"But... why would you do that? You must know the limits of your body, right?" The girl asked, furrowing her eyebrows. This was a side of Oikawa she'd never seen.

"Apparently not." He hummed in response. "To be honest I don't know how it happened. I was so focused on beating Ushiwaka I didn't notice the pain."

And I was surprised the boy got a tattoo to prove a point. The girl thought as she stared at the setter sadly.

"I've seen you play, you're perfectly fine to me." She admitted after a long silence.

Oikawa shot up in his seat, eyes wide in shock. "You've seen me play?"

"Huh-huh." She nodded, awkwardly scratching her neck. "The local news channel had a piece on it, so I saw some bits of the game with Shiratorizawa..."

The boy stared her some more, his chocolate brown eyes unable to believe the scene in front of him. So... she cared?

"Well... what'd you think?" He asked, his voice shaky and uncertain. This was new territory for them.

"I... I think your setter dumps are really cool." She mumbled, feeling the heat rush up to her face.

She was sure Oikawa was going to make fun of her for this, for all of it. But to her surprise, he didn't.

The boy simply beamed, flashing a genuine smile. "Those are pretty cool, aren't they?"

And then he started gushing about volleyball and how much he loved playing it.

The girl kept staring at him, eyes narrowed in slight confusion. She'd never seen Oikawa get so excited over something... and to be honest, it was a sight to behold.

She didn't interrupt, leaning on the window of the bus to sit more comfortably and carefully listening to all of Oikawa's banter.

The boy, on the other hand, was so lost in his world of volleyball and Nationals, he hadn't noticed the way the girl was looking at him, stripped of all her defences.

She could've stayed like that forever, but unfortunately, her stop came.

She slowly started packing up her stuff, under Oikawa's watchful eye.

She got up and walked to the door silently, neither of them daring to say a word.

The girl sighed. She knew she had to do something.

She slowly turned back to Oikawa, her hand desperately clinging on her bag. "Huh... thank you, Oikawa." She bowed gracefully, closing her eyes, too frightened to be made fun of by the setter.

The boy simply stared at the scene in disbelief. Had he really done anything to help her? He'd just talked about volleyball for the whole trip, he hadn't really comforted her per se.

But whatever he'd done seemed to have worked, as this was the first time the girl ever thanked him for something.

She finally got up, looking at Oikawa, eyes full of stress. What was he going to do now?

"You can call me Tooru." He gave her another one of his genuine smiles, causing her heart to erupt in her chest.

"O-ok. See you tomorrow... Tooru." She mumbled as she jumped off the bus and headed home.

Both teenagers' cheeks turned bright red, the sound of the name never having felt so right.