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liillyliilly · 4 months ago

Text

Mind Games

iwaizumi hajime x reader words; 14055 synopsis; Whether by fate or luck, they had always been seated right next to each other. Every year, they were desk-mates. She liked to play Go, a game that used a lot of mental planning and strategy. He did not like the way his own brain played games with him, psyching him out every time he was near her. It's just too bad that she's dating one of her club members, leaving Iwaizumi to spend too much time in his own head.

She always thought he was mildly bothersome. The same guy that arm wrestled on her table, when she had the full intention of playing Go instead. Maybe if she had been a part of the chess team instead this all could’ve been prevented. That way she could’ve spent lunchtime with them instead of solely with her strange, but still sweet, best friend.

She focused back to the issue at hand.

“Iwaizumi Hajime, this is my table too.” She shook her box that had the black and white stones she spent so many hours playing with, capturing and expanding territory in the classical intellectual game of Go. Ito Yuuta was hovering around the door, waiting to be invited inside the classroom to join her in their game from yesterday. She had a picture of the board and needed to set it up again the way it had been left.

He just slammed down another kid with his arm, getting patted on the back by one of his fellow club members. “Ah, yeah, my bad, sorry. Truly.” Iwaizumi’s face was red, and she thinks that maybe arm wrestling was more intensive than it appeared.

He ushered the group of boys to clean their stuff off the table so she could set her board down on the desk in the classroom. Sometimes it irked her how much he would neglect to acknowledge that the set of desks right next to each other were not in fact, both of his to utilize in activities between classes. She had a claim to her desk and he had a claim to his desk. That’s all there was to it.

Every year, without fail, when she picked a charm before school started, she always got the Unlucky charm. That unluckiness manifested in the personage that was Iwaizumi, because every year, since elementary school, he had been her seatmate. Iwaizumi himself wasn’t mean or rude, he just lacked a sense of personal space. Especially regarding their desk situation.

She supposes that her family name may have played a role in the seating charts, but even midway through the year when desks were shuffled, she always sat next to Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi was really nice though, she did have to admit. And while they weren’t best friends, or extremely close, she did have to admit that she enjoyed his presence more often than not, so she enjoyed the friendship she had with Iwaizumi.

She sat down at her desk, laying out the board and starting to set up the stones. She noticed Ito still awkwardly standing on the threshold of the room, and she waved him over. He pulled around a chair so the two of them were sitting knee to knee around the Go board.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa were already out in the hallway, heading downstairs, aiming to go outside to the tables that were out there. Matsukawa was folding bills in his hands, collecting money from other boys who thought they could beat Iwaizumi. Hanamaki was chewing on a stick of licorice. When the duo noticed that Iwaizumi wasn’t behind them, they turned around.

Only to see Iwaizumi outside the room, but still keeping his head in the room. It looked silly to Hanamaki, to see Iwaizumi almost splayed out against the wall trying to balance while he was trying to watch what was happening in the classroom he had previously occupied.

“Oi! Hajime! I have three guys lined up for you still, hurry!” Matsukawa’s deep timbre broke Iwaizumi out of his trance, as he turned on his heel to catch up with his friends.

Hanamaki glanced at Matsukawa, then back to Iwaizumi who had his hands tucked into his pockets, slouching a little.

Matsukawa caught wind of what Hanamaki was trying to get him to notice, and Matsukawa tucked the bills into his back pocket. Hanamaki decided to instigate a titch, talking over Iwaizumi and making eye contact with Matsukawa.

“She’s really irritating. Thinking she can just kick us out of the classroom.” Hanamaki clocked how Iwaizumi’s shoulders stiffened.

Matsukawa gave a lazy grin, “Yeah, and her infant of a boyfriend is such a twerp, lurking around the room so he can play with her.”

“Not to mention, the school does way too much for her. I mean, what’s a couple of Go championships have on true athletics?”

Iwaizumi stopped dead in his tracks, the three of them right near the exit to go outside. Hanamaki and Matsukawa took a few more steps until Iwaizumi spoke, “You bastards are so rude, did you know that? Screw human decency and shove it all off I guess? You’re both on par with Shittykawa himself.” He waved his hand in irritation and had a scowl on his face.

He pushed past them and sat down at a table with a thud, putting his forehead on the table and clasping his hands over the back of his head. He was bouncing his knee anxiously, enjoying the way the cold outdoors air cooled down the flush on his face.

Today it was how she had said his full name, just hearing his given name on her tongue had his heart stuttering.

Hanamaki chuckled, “Caught him.”

Matsukawa snickered, “Hook, line and sinker Hiro.”

“Great game Issei, we should do it again sometime soon.” Hanamaki held his fist out, and Matsukawa gave it a solid bump.

“Sooner rather than later, he’s so boring when he’s lovestruck and down bad like this. How many years has it been now?”

“I’ve counted four, but I think he’s liked her since they first met.”

Oikawa strutted outside, putting a hand on each of their shoulders, “What are you two plotting this time?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.” Hanamaki throws up the middle finger in Oikawa’s direction as he and Matsukawa walk to go sit with Iwaizumi.

Oikawa throws his hands up into the air and rolls his eyes. “You guys can’t make jokes like that because my mom restricts my internet access.” He groans before jogging over to his friends.

Back inside the classroom, while Ito had picked up his black stone and was thinking about which notch to play it on, she glanced outside the window. She already knew what her next three plays would be regardless of where Ito had placed his stone. The cool wind from the open window next to her desk was always pleasant. The flowers were just beginning to blossom again after a particularly cold winter.

Even though she and Iwaizumi shared a desk partnership, he always asked the teacher if they could swap who was sitting by the window. She asked him about why he liked sitting on the outside of their desks, rather than the inner side by the wall and the windows.

He hadn’t even really given her an answer, he just stuttered and shoved his hands into his pockets. She had offered him an answer, asking him if he just preferred the elbow room from sitting near the aisle. He nodded furiously before running a hand through his spiky black hair and accidentally getting a strand of hair stuck on a ring he had been wearing.

“Just freeze.” She had told him. The bell had rung for a passing period for teachers to change classes and for students to stretch their legs. Iwaizumi’s hand was still stuck to his hair. She leaned over a little, not needing to do much to get closer due to their desk arrangement.

Her knees were brushing against his thigh, and she reached up into his hair to try and solve the puzzle of disconnecting his ring from his hair. The ring was a clunky metal one, on his ring finger. She finally saw where the hair had gotten snagged on one of the sharp curves of his ring.

She gently tugged his hand out of the ring, so both his hands were free but the ring was still in his hair. She spent another few seconds untangling his hair and got the ring free.

“There we go.” She tossed the ring into the air before catching it again. She smiled and held the ring out on her palm for Iwaizumi to grab. He was still frozen. His hands were toying with a different ring on his other hand. “Hello?”

He shook his head before grabbing the ring. Letting out a gruff, but surprisingly earnest, “Thank you so much.”

“It’s no problem.” She turned her head back around so she could look outside, the snow coating the ground and layering over the trees. She sighed a little, reaching out to draw shapes on the cold glass that was fogging up slightly in the corner.

Unbeknownst to her, Iwaizumi let out a deep sigh as well. He had laid his arm out on his desk, resting his head on it as he looked up at her slightly. He was observing the way her face seemed to focus on the snowflakes outside the room and the way her pointer finger gently glided over the glass of the window.

That’s why he liked to sit on the outside. He could pretend he was looking out the window as well, when he was really just looking at her.

The smell of flowers brought her to attention, as well as Ito’s stone making a click on the Go board and him saying, “Your move.”

She held the white ceramic playing piece in her hand, rolling the heavy toy along her palm with her fingers. She saw Iwaizumi on the bench, getting poked by his friends as he lifted an arm to try and defend himself from getting prodded. Then someone she didn’t know came around and sat opposite to Iwaizumi, rolling up his sleeve. She lost interest quickly after that.

She sat down the stone, capturing several of Ito’s and he made a short whimper sound at losing so much traction in the game. She picked up his pieces and put them in the side bowl reserved for his captured stones. Her next two moves went identically, and their short one hour game, from both yesterday and today, had ended the same way most her other games went, with her winning.

“Sorry Yuuta, maybe tomorrow you’ll have better luck.”

Yuuta scoffed, “Yeah right, I’m glad we don’t play in the same division for a reason.”

He started cleaning up the pieces and putting them back into her opened box, arranging the bowls of stones where they went and sealing lids over the bowls.

“Any luck on finding another member for next year? You can’t have a Go club with just one player.”

“My brother will come here next year, he’ll be in the club.”

She crosses her leg, chewing on her bottom lip, “Anyone else? Maybe you could aim for two new members next year?”

“Face it, Go isn’t popular at this school, despite your best efforts, and all the awards you rake in. If we went somewhere like Shiratorizawa or a different prep school then maybe the story would be different.” Ito slung his backpack over his shoulder, standing up right as the bell rang.

She grabbed his hand before he left, “Thank you, really. You’re the best vice captain a girl could ask for Yuuta.”

Ito rubbed his thumb over her knuckles in a friendly gesture.

“Well, anything for you.”

She smiled as Yuuta carefully slid past Iwaizumi who was making his way to his seat next to her.

“How tall is he?”

She was still getting her math textbook out of her desk. Iwaizumi assumed maybe she hadn’t heard him, so he repeated his words, “How tall is he?”

She looked at Iwaizumi and pointed at herself, he nodded.

“How tall is Yuuta?” She repeated, making sure her understanding was correct.

“Yeah, how tall is he?”

“Like 193 centimeters I think? He had this crazy growth spurt these past couple of months.” She laid her book out, opened to the page the teacher was writing on the board. “Why?”

“No reason.” Iwaizumi knew why he had asked. Iwaizumi was barely cutting it at 179.3 centimeters, but there went her boyfriend who was almost a full fourteen centimeters taller than him. He shoved his hand into his desk, looking for his pen case. “Damn it.”

“What is it?” She had her plastic gel pen in her mouth, lightly between her teeth while she waited for class to officially start. Iwaizumi gulped a little at the way her lips were pressed against the body of the pen.

“I left my pencil at home. I have my pens, I just can’t do math in a pen.”

She nodded, closing her mouth around the pen, she reached into her pencil case and handed Iwaizumi a simple wooden pencil from her bag. She gave the pencil a slight shake in front of Iwaizumi.

He accepted it after a moment, muttering thanks.

When she smiled as a response to his gratitude the pen in her mouth dropped to the ground. Iwaizumi, without much thinking, bent down to pick it up for her. She, also without much thought, also bent down to pick up her pen. When they hit their heads against each other, she let out a soft ouch and rubbed the top of her head.

“My gods I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think,” Iwaizumi cringed internally, how much longer could he keep going like this, stammering and not even being able to get out a full length sentence. He was supposed to be a third year student for heaven’s sake. His ears were already burning and he fully believed he was going to get a lasting permanent burn from how hot the blood was that rushed to his ears.

She told him not to worry, that there wasn’t anything to apologize for, but she kept rubbing her head, trying to use sensory overload so that the pain wouldn’t be as bad. “It’s fine. Class is starting, let’s just focus, okay?”

He could, decidedly so, not focus. Especially not when she kept putting that stupid pen in her mouth, the worst part was when she took it out of her mouth to write down a note or to finish solving a problem and his brain was filtering in a pop sound each time her lips opened. He had to rub his face in his hand every time he caught himself drifting over to her instead of the chalkboard up in the front of the room.

Her perfume was light, but he was so tuned into her that he practically absorbed the scent. It was just a silly vanilla smell, but he was almost tripping over himself each time she moved her head and he could smell the scent from her neck just a bit better.

Iwaizumi was always glad that he went to the first day of school at least an hour early. Maybe it was slightly manipulative, maybe he was trying to weigh the scale in his favor, but he didn’t care. The teachers were always so oddly receptive to his request too.

Each new year, starting in the first year of middle school, he went to his homeroom teacher early and asked to be placed next to her. He knew that in middle school the seating chart wouldn’t be solely based on a family name basis, so his chances of losing out on sitting next to her would reduce drastically.

The first time he had had the conversation with the teacher it went something vaguely akin to him pleading and then the teacher taking pity on Iwaizumi and agreeing to the seating arrangement.

After that first year, that same homeroom teacher contacted the second year homeroom teacher he was going to have. The teacher had simply said, “If you want to be thoroughly entertained, then you need to sit him next to her. I’ve never been more engaged during study hall than watching him try and befriend her.”

Iwaizumi wasn’t aware, but when the jump from middle school to high school was made, all three of his homeroom teachers had personally contacted his first year of high school teacher and had collectively bargained for him- just so that he could be sat next to her.

And now, while Iwaizumi was struggling to solve this equation during the ten minute practice period in the middle of class, the math teacher was watching him extremely closely.

So what if all the teachers at Aoba Johsai that had Iwaizumi had a group chat, and so what if they shared any sort of progress details he had made. So what if they got mad when a different boy tried to talk to her during passing periods when Iwaizumi was struggling to find a reason not to leave his desk so he could stay near her. Adults were allowed some form of entertainment as well.

The day came to a close at Aoba Johsai High School, and she was busy packing up her stuff, having to pull everything out so she could take her Go board home. Typically she would leave it in her locker, but she wanted to polish some of the stones, so she would take it home today.

Ito Yuuta and Hanamaki Takahiro both made their way to her classroom after the final bell had rung. Ito let Hanamaki enter the room before he followed suit.

Hanamaki slumped down in Iwaizumi’s seat, resting his feet on the desk. She just raised an eyebrow and finished Tetris-ing her bag. She looked to Ito who just shrugged but held up his phone, which communicated to her that Ito would text her later about whatever it was he wanted to say. Hanamaki watched as Ito left the room, then leaned back into the chair and rubbed his mouth with his hand.

“Yes? Is there something I can do for you Hanamaki?” She put her hand on her hip and lolled her head around to look him in the eyes.

“Listen.” Hanamaki starts, and she nods , zipping up her bag. “So, I don’t know if you know this, but us volleyball third years are absolutely trash at English. Iwaizumi more than the rest of us.”

She continued nodding, she thought that Iwaizumi was doing particularly well in English, having seen his test grades when papers and exams were handed back. But she supposes maybe not if Hanamaki is telling her this.

“I’d like to be the one to invite you to a study session at Iwaizumi’s house this weekend, it’s a sort of sleep-over situation, but his dad will be home the whole weekend so no need to worry sweetheart. Oikawa and Matsukawa will also be there. It should be fun.”

She pauses for a moment, slowly putting her backpack on. “Can I bring a friend?”

Hanamaki takes his feet off the desk, wiping away the dirt that fell from his shoes onto the desk. “Tall curly brunette that sits with you at lunch?” He posed.

“Ito, yes.” It was a wonder that Hanamaki could befriend anyone she thinks, he’s all bite and no bark.

“Yeah, no. There’s only so many extra futon mattresses.”

“I could bring an extra?” She begins to walk out of the classroom, needing to get home to start polishing her Go materials if she wanted them ready by the tournament. She never used her personal board, it was just a naturalistic routine to get her into the right mindset.

Hanamaki chuckles, “That’s not how this whole sleepover thing works.”

“Okay, well, why me? There’s plenty of other people I would assume you guys want to hang out with over me. I’ve never even loaned you a pencil before Hanamaki. I don’t even have your number.”

“Leave it all to me, just say you’ll come.”

What harm did it do to help these poor boys out before midterms?

“Sure, this Saturday then?”

“Yes. I’ll text you. See you there!”

Hanamaki hustled out of the classroom, getting outside quicker than she could stage an invasion on her opponent's side of the board when playing Go.

She settled into the reality that boys are weird and that she was the only sane person in the universe.

Iwaizumi was pulling his hair out as Hanamaki ate a bag of chips in his living room.

“You did not.” Iwaizumi began to pace back and forth, entirely dumbfounded that his supposed friend would go out of his way to craft a fake tutoring session that would last all night. A full twelve plus hours of her, plus it would be at his house, plus there would be pajamas involved. “I can’t believe you told her that all of our hang outs require pajamas as the attire.”

Iwaizumi dragged a hand across his face.

Hanamaki shrugged, shoving a handful of potato chips into his mouth, then speaking while the chewed up bits of food were still in his teeth, “Don’t lie to yourself, you’re glad that this is happening. You’re glad that I just crafted the perfect catalyst for you to make out with her under the stars. Also, you getting to see what kind of pajamas she wears ought to earn me some Hajime brownie points.”

Iwaizumi lifted his hands up, “I hate you so much. Genuinely, you’re the worst. She knows I’m decent at English too, Hiro, she knows that something is up.”

Hanamaki rolls his eyes and tosses the empty bag away, patting his stomach, “Do you have licorice?”

“Yeah, cupboard.”

Hanamaki throws up his thumb and goes into the kitchen to acquire his third snack since arriving at Iwaizumi’s house twenty minutes ago.

Since today was Thursday, he still had Friday to try and reverse any damage that Hanamaki had caused.

On Friday, during lunch, he decided to stay inside and eat in the classroom. She had brought a lunch from home and was reading a book, her elbow resting on her desk- holding her thick book, and her other hand had her chopsticks lifting bits of rice and chicken into her mouth intermittently.

Iwaizumi scanned for her boyfriend. Then he realized that her boyfriend would probably know all about her going over to his house on Saturday, so maybe she would gently let Iwaizumi down and tell him that her boyfriend said she couldn’t tutor his rowdy group of friends this weekend.

“Can I sit here?” He grabbed the back of his chair, balancing his tray in his other hand.

She chuckles, using one hand to put her bookmark where she had left off in the book, setting the book down in the corner of her desk. “That’s your desk, it would be weird if I said you couldn’t sit there.”

He chuckles just like she had, nodding in agreement.

He thinks about what to say to her, but can’t find the words, so he resigns to sipping on his carton of apple juice.

“You don’t normally eat in the classroom, what’s the reason for your change in behavior?”

He liked that she talked slightly strangely, sometimes she would say things in a long round-about way instead of simply using basic phrases to convey her thoughts. He liked it because he could hear her voice for just a bit longer.

Iwaizumi shrugs, taking a bite of the salmon on his plate.

“Well, it’s nice to see a fellow athlete appreciating the calm that is a classroom during lunch.” She smiles.

Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow, and without much thought, inserts a statement that triggers her, “Go isn’t really a sport though.”

She dropped her chopsticks, clattering to the ground. He feels like the most inconsiderate imbecile ever to walk the earth. He prayed to the gods to just relieve him of the pain of having such a thick skull.

“Iwaizumi, I will make you eat your words because Go is the most intensive mind sport there is in the entire world and you will see how difficult it is once you play one match with me.” She realizes that it really isn’t that serious, but it felt like an insult to her passion. She knew that he likely didn’t have any sort of foul intention with his words, he just didn’t understand Go the way that she did.

“Bring your Go board then, on Saturday.” Iwaizumi almost visibly winces. His whole goal in eating lunch at his desk had been to diffuse the idea of a sleepover, but here he was, actively encouraging it. Subconscious thoughts and desires crept up on him like a sort of rain, pittering down slowly, and as you watch the small dark dots appearing on the ground, suddenly you’re soaked from head to toe. In this case, his deep yearning to spend time with her manifested in encouraging Hanamaki’s criminal approach to matchmaking.

“I will then, and you’ll see what a real athlete looks like, an athlete of the mind.” She taps her temple a few times, grabbing her chopsticks from the ground and saying she’s going to go wash them.

Iwaizumi shudders. He had a lot of cleaning to do to prepare for Saturday.

When he got home, he started with the living room and then worked his way out to all the other areas of his house.

His dad, Haruo, appreciated the cleanliness when he got home from work, but seeing his teenage son scrubbing the floor vigorously on his hands and knees might have been overkill for the older man.

“Hajime, what are you doing?”

“I’m having friends over on Saturday night, they’ll leave Sunday morning.” He wipes some sweat from his forehead before going back to his rag and scrubbing in a circular motion.

“It’s just your buddies, what’s all the cleaning for? They all practically live here anyway, they know what a sty it can be here.” Haruo dropped his bag on the coat hanger, kicked his shoes off in the walkway, and stepped up to enter the main living portion of his house.

Haruo looked at the family photos on the wall along the hallway to the main living room, seeing a toothless Hajime being held by his late wife, Hana. He put two fingers to his lips before pressing the fingers to her face through the glass of the frame. Haruo whispered a quick, ‘love you’ before focusing on Hajime again.

“It’s not just Hiro and Issei and Tooru.”

“Oh, do tell? That junior of yours who came around once? The one with the bleached hair? He kind of looks like a puppy?” Haruo sat on the couch, surprised that Hajime had also cleaned the fabric cases of the couch cushions.

Iwaizumi let out a deep sigh, “You know that girl from middle school?”

How could Haruo forget her?

“And you want her over here? With all your friends?”

“Believe me, I was not the coordinator for this.”

Haruo laughed, a deep humor from his chest. He needed to sleep, work had been hard, but he was glad that he had spent some time talking to his son. As he walked to his bedroom, he ruffled Iwaizumi’s hair.

Iwaizumi had finished cleaning around ten at night, stretching his back and scratching the back of his neck, he looked around the house. He applauded himself on having done a good job cleaning. It would be Saturday tomorrow, and he didn’t know if he was stressed from the anxiety of her being around or the excitement of her being around.

Iwaizumi went into the hallway to grab his house slippers, when he stopped at the picture frames. His dad always touched the one of his mom holding him when he was an infant, so there was slight discoloration on the glass right where his mom’s face was.

His dad knew who she was, because she was the only one to come to their house besides Oikawa Tooru during his entire second year of middle school.

She had come with a bouquet of flowers, of lilies.

Iwaizumi remembers that entire day much too vividly for comfort.

He had needed to go back to school after missing it for almost three whole weeks. His mom’s funeral had been the week prior. Staying in the hospital for one full week while she was slowly dying had crushed Iwaizumi’s soul. There isn’t much that you can do for someone once they get ovarian cancer.

He had cried so much when his mom told him that she wouldn’t be doing any more chemotherapy or treatments the month before she died. He had begged her to just try one more, but she had to find a way to gently tell her son that she wanted her quality of life in her last days to be something less painful than if she had undergone various chemical treatments.

“Mom, just one more. You can fight this.” Iwaizumi was tugging on her hand. His dad was sitting on the opposite side of the room, crouched into himself with his shoulders heaving and stuttering from the silent cries he was letting out. “Why won’t you just fight a little more. For me, you won’t even fight for me?”

Iwaizumi had looked to his dad for back up, but was said was done.

“Hajime, you don’t understand now, but you’ll understand later. Please just don’t be mad.” Hana, his beloved mother, was trying to soothe him by gently rubbing his hand with hers.

“I’m not mad, I just want you to try. You say that I don’t understand, and I really don’t, but I do know that you can fight a little more.” He looked into his mom’s olive colored eyes, “Please mom. Please.”

When she frowned sadly, Iwaizumi just cried, wrapping his arms around his mom and getting her hospital gown wet with tears.

The week after her funeral procession, Iwaizumi felt alone. Not even Oikawa could do anything to relieve the pain of losing a parent. No one could do anything.

And at the ripe age of fourteen, she understood that as well. Iwaizumi’s seatmate. Maybe she felt like she needed to do something, because she had missed the way Iwaizumi would steal her eraser without asking, or the way that he’d been gone for so long. Her desk felt empty without Iwaizumi there. So when he returned, but as the shell of himself, she knew she had to find some way to show that she cared.

She couldn’t take away pain, but she could mourn with him. That’s a lesson her own parents had taught her. A friend who mourns with you, is a friend for life. When you mourn with those who mourn, you are honoring those who passed and those that still live with that pain.

It was during lunch, and the teacher had said that everyone would need to leave the classroom for lunch, letting Iwaizumi stay inside the classroom by himself.

That was the only time she broke the rules. When she snuck away from the cafeteria, and went into that empty classroom.

He had his head on his desk, bento left unopened. His body would sometimes tighten and shake, trying to hold back audible cries.

Silent cries were always more painful than loud wails she thought. A silent cry carries a sense of belonging to the agony and a consistent resistance against peace. A loud cry is a relief, you can let go when you cry and people can hear you. But when a person cries silently, they hold in their pain and won’t let anyone share the burden of it.

She opened the door, stepping into the classroom. The overhead lights seemed too bold, too cruel, too unloving for this moment.

She sat down, and began to eat her lunch. She didn’t say anything, she just kept eating and chewing.

Iwaizumi had been upset that she came into the room.

“What the hell do you want?” He was facing away from her, head still on his desk. She was sitting face forward, at her desk. It annoyed her that he was being so curt. She had to let it go, realizing his reaction was more likely out of his sorrow than actual intent to be mean to her specifically.

“I want to mourn with you.”

“Oh, shut up. You don’t know anything.”

“I don’t. But I’m here. I’ll leave if you want me to.” She drank from her water bottle.

Iwaizumi cried in a small voice, she could hear it this time. “She didn’t want to fight anymore.”

The way his words cracked in his throat. The way he lifted his head to make eye contact with her. The way his face was morphed into a shadow of who he was supposed to be.

She started crying when his first tear fell straight from his eye to the space between their desks. She just hugged him. At first, he resisted, trying to break out of the hold. But then he could hear the way her heart pounded in her ribcage.

He hugged her back and had his face in her neck.

It was thirty minutes of crying, some minutes went by quieter than others.

But tears dry up eventually.

“What do you think my mom’s life looks like without me? Can she still hear my voice? Is she watching down on me?” Iwaizumi had rubbed his eyes raw, leaving red everywhere he had touched.

“I think that she’s all around you.” Iwaizumi clenched his jaw, but she kept going. “Even though you can’t hear her or see her, she’s there. She’ll always be there for you.”

“Why did you come?” Iwaizumi started eating his food, extremely small bites, but bites nonetheless.

“I told you earlier. I came to mourn.” She gives Iwaizumi her bowl of chicken broth, and he tries to push it away, but she insists, and he downs it before continuing to speak. She wanted to settle the issue, but he bothered her with more insistence.

“No really, you could’ve just ignored me, just let everything go. But you came.”

“You’re stubborn. I’ve known you for almost three years now, and you’re stubborn. But also, your heart is so sensitive. You take in everything and hold it close. I figured you might need someone who you can express everything too without having to put on a face of composure.”

After school, she had bought lilies from the farmer’s market.

She had asked Oikawa Tooru how to get to Iwaizumi’s house, and Oikawa drew a map for her.

When she had gotten to the door, she tucked the map into her pocket and knocked gently.

Iwaizumi Haruo, the man who had just lost his wife, the mother of his son, saw this sweet kid holding a neatly wrapped bouquet of lilies. She was bowing deeply, holding the flowers out for him to take. Haruo had hesitantly accepted the flowers, and she bowed again.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” She couldn’t have been any more mature for her age, Haruo had thought. Hajime had turned the corner in his house, finally seeing that she was at the door.

And for the first time in a really long time, Iwaizumi Hajime had smiled.

Saturday came soon enough, and Iwaizumi was dressed in his school uniform. Which in hindsight might not have been the most optimal outfit choice when Hanamaki, Matsukawa, and Oikawa came barreling in wearing their pajamas and dumping their stuff in the middle of the living space

Oikawa just rubbed the space in between his eyebrows, “Iwa-chan, why are you wearing school clothes? You know it’s a Saturday right? This is supposed to be a pajama thing.” Oikawa tugged on his Hello Kitty bottoms, demonstrating to Iwaizumi what attire was supposed to be worn.

Matsukawa had turned on the radio, playing GOT7’s “If You Do”. When Iwaizumi asked what Matsukawa was doing, he replied with, “Playing music to set the mood. It’s a song about being desperate for a girl. You know, your whole pining thing you got going on. I thought that my music choice would’ve made for sense, but you’re just oblivious.”

Iwaizumi slapped Matsukawa upside the head, clicking his tongue.

“How much money to enact your little scheme today?” Hanamaki inspected his fingernails, lounging on Iwaizumi’s couch in his living room.

“How much money? You’ve got to be kidding me here Hiro. Shittykawa make this man see reason.” Iwaizumi directed Oikawa’s attention to Hanamaki, but Oikawa just shrugged.

“I don’t know Iwa-chan, if you really liked her then you’d be willing to pay Hiro for his services.”

“Hiro’s going to simply befriend one of her friends under the guise of him having a crush, then find out everything about her for me. That falls under friend duties.”

Matsukawa rolled his eyes, “Iwaizumi you sound crazy, just ask her to hang out one on one, we have like what? Three months left of school? Muster up some of your Ace energy and confess. I’m tired of you acting like your own personal cock-block for these last four agonizing years.”

Oikawa looked at Matsukawa incredulously, “Four years? Nah, Iwa-chan’s been whipped for like at least six years at least. I really don’t understand why, she’s not-”

Iwaizumi threw a sock at Oikawa that he had hastily taken off his foot while balancing on one leg. “Finish that sentence and I’ll shove the other sock down your mouth.”

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Iwaizumi was too engrossed in continuing to insult Oikawa to notice. Hanamaki giggled, then he wiped the pleased expression off his face, “Sorry Iwa, me and Issei got to get back to my house for dinner, my mom is making curry tonight, be back later.”

Oikawa remembered the other plan, the one that Hanamaki had made a separate group chat for last night, rushing to say his part, “I have to take Takeru to that new kid’s movie, I’ll be back around ten.”

“What the hell, I thought we were hanging out.” Iwaizumi lifted up his shirt, planning to change into a tank top. Only once his shirt was entirely off, did Hanamaki open the front door.

She was standing right there, holding both a Go board and the English textbook. “Hanamaki? Matsukawa? Oikawa?” She took a step back, letting the boys exit Iwaizumi’s house as they all told her to have a good time while giving their various excuses why they had to leave. When she took a step forward, she saw Iwaizumi struggling to get his button-up back on. The sleeves were stuck and his head was covered in the body of the shirt.

She could see the solid outline of his abdomen, and the way his back muscles were constricting as he fought with the shirt to get it back on. She felt her body naturally produce some drool, which she just swallowed and pretended like it didn't occur.

It would be rude to just let him struggle, right? She set the Go board down on top of the textbook.

“Freeze for me.” She stated and Iwaizumi stopped wiggling, arms still up in the air.

“Kill me now please.” Iwaizumi said, but it was muffled due to his head being surrounded by fabric.

She snickered a little, “You have other shirts around yeah?”

“I live here, so yes.”

“There’s no need for the snark, I’m helping you.” In one fell swoop she yoinked the sleeves of his top and pulled it off him, she stumbled back from the force, but managed to get the top successfully off.

His face was entirely red, and he had folded his arms over his body. Ignoring the particularly good look she got at his biceps and forearms, she handed the top back to him.

“You should go finish changing, I’ll set my English book up.” She gave him a smile, neglecting the way her ears felt hot.

“Yeah, I’ll, I’ll go do that. Thanks for stripping me.” Iwaizumi mentally slapped his face, “Thanks for taking my shirt off.” He paused and rubbed his forehead, there really was no good way to say this that didn’t end up with him imagining pushing her up against a wall and kissing her.

She laughed at his rapid fire speech.

Iwaizumi had finished changing into a pair of grey plaid bottoms and a black hoodie when he came back out to the living room. She was wearing black sweatpants and a tight-fitting white shirt. He swallowed, before going to sit near her at the coffee table where she had the textbook open and some paper with notes.

“They’ll be back right?” She didn’t look up from her paper, finishing an outline for what she was planning on teaching Iwaizumi.

“Yeah, in a few hours.”

She looked up at him and he felt like the only person in the world. Her mouth was moving but he couldn’t hear anything. She snapped her fingers and stuck her pen into her mouth.

It was always that pen that brought him back to focusing.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I know you don’t need to be tutored.”

His breathing hitches.

“You just wanted to play Go, Hanamaki is the one that needs English tutoring.” She explained her thought process, and how Hanamaki had been the one to ask for her help. “So, let’s play Go for a bit.”

Iwaizumi went back to breathing normally again. Matsukawa’s playlist was still going, and Iwaizumi supposed that he must still have had control over the music because suddenly the song changed to “Sex Tape” by OZI and Sunset Rollercoaster.

She opened the board and began getting the truncated bowls out that held the white and black stones, while Iwaizumi messed with the radio to try and get rid of music playing.

She looked up at Iwaizumi, “Not a fan of Chinese RNB?”

“Uh, well,” He tried messing with the volume but it would not budge. Iwaizumi heard the chorus start to play and he wanted to vivisect Matsukawa down to a pulp.

She froze for a moment, letting the lyrics of, “Watch you love me like a Japanese porn star, ” ruminate in the air for a second.

“Yeah, maybe changing the music would be a good idea.” She just laughed it off though.

Iwaizumi appreciated that about her, she could let awkward moments slide off her shoulders. When he felt like embarrassment was overtaking him, she always approached oddities and uncomfortableness with an attitude of nonchalance. Which was good for him, because he often had moments like that around her specifically.

Iwaizumi was still struggling to change the music, which had now transitioned to another explicit song from Matsukawa’s favorite make out playlist. She had finished setting up the Go board, but noticing that Iwaizumi was still frustrated at the radio, she stood up and went over to him.

She put her hand over his and slightly pushed it away. She pressed the Bluetooth connective button, and suddenly Masukawa’s music was gone.

“There, now we can play.” She clapped her hands together and went back to the coffee table in the center of the room. She was sitting cross legged, bouncing her knees in excitement.

Iwaizumi copied how she was sitting and looked over the board. “I think now would be a good time to tell you I have no idea how to play this game.”

She leaned backwards and giggled. “Don’t worry, I’m an excellent teacher.”

After an hour of interchanging teaching moments and actual exchanges of pieces, Iwaizumi’s brain was fried. And he was losing, for the second time.

She cringed when he placed his black stone down on the board. “Sorry, I hate to do this.” She put her stone down, and let him look at the board again.

“Okay, you have to be cheating because I was thinking at least five moves ahead.” Iwaizumi ran a hand through his hair, leaning over the board to see where he had messed up.

“I think ten moves ahead, at minimum. That way I can plot out multiple escape routes for my pieces.” She kicked her feet a little, positively elated with her consecutive wins against Iwaizumi.

“You’re such a nerd, did you know that?” Iwaizumi rubbed the back of his neck, looking at her.

She didn’t expect to get flustered. It was just, he was looking at her in a way that made her feel all ooey-gooey inside, and the way he was sheepishly rubbing his neck had her weak in the knees.

“Yuuta is way nerdier than me, he’s almost the same rank as me, but he’s only been playing for two years.” She accepts the bowl of various candy that Iwaizumi hands her.

He moves to the couch after putting away his pieces. He chews the inside of his mouth, feeling the stinging reminder that she was not single. She still sits on the floor, cleaning up the board all the way, exactly as she liked it. The clock on the wall read twenty-five to ten.

“He seems really nice, your boyfriend.” Even saying the word made Iwaizumi feel ill.

She laughs, “Boyfriend? Yeah right, you’re funny.”

“So wait, he isn’t your boyfriend?” Iwaizumi tugged on his sweatshirt strings, making the back of the hood tighten into a ball instead of staying relaxed across his back.

She slaps a hand over her mouth with wide eyes, “Absolutely not. Yuuta's a first year, Iwaizumi.” She grimaced and slumped back into the base of the couch, her head near Iwaizumi’s leg, “Does everyone think… he and I?”

Iwaizumi contemplated, making a face that told her, ‘I hate to break it to you’.

“I’m cursed.” She threw her hands up into the air, “It’s because of those stupid fortunes my family takes me to get every year. It’s such a devastation.”

Iwaizumi reached behind himself to adjust the hood of his sweatshirt. Only to subconsciously tug on the strings again as he posed a question that he felt too much rode on.

“We could go to a shrine. Break the bad streak of luck. If you go with me then maybe your luck won’t be as bad. The one in the center of town is having a blossom festival to celebrate the end-”

“Hell yes. We’re going. Give me your phone so you can text me the details.”

“I-uh, yeah, sure, okay, yeah. We’ll go together.” Iwaizumi almost dropped his phone, pulling it out from the inside of his pocket.

She looked at the miniature Godzilla charm hanging from the case. “I really liked Godzilla Minus One, it was the best Godzilla movie that we’ve gotten in a while.” She enters in her number from memory, giving herself a special nickname in his contacts as well.

Iwaizumi blinks. Was it really that easy to get her number? And if so, why had he spent so long waiting to get it? Matsukawa was right, Iwaizumi had been preventing himself from actually getting closer to her.

Oikawa, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa rang the doorbell repeatedly, knocking loudly as well.

“Here, I gotta go get the door.”

While standing up, he trips on her leg. She lets out a short yelp. Moments like these have Iwaizumi’s brain slowing down and playing the scene that unfolds in a sort of vintage sheen.

Because he didn’t want to land on her, he had managed to grab her and bring her over the top of him. But that also meant that when Oikawa used his spare key, they walked in on her sitting right overtop of Iwaizumi’s hips, her hands on his chest. His hands had come to grip her sides, with his thumbs barely below her chest.

She was furrowing her eyebrows slightly, with a slight pout on her bottom lip as she raised her shoulders slightly, finally noticing the trio that had come into Iwaizumi’s house. She picked one of her hands off of his chest and waved sweetly, “Hi boys.”

Her only logical way to avoid a bigger problem was to duck her head down to avoid their eyes. Which caused Iwaizumi to choke and lose any sort of functioning, because her face was right above his. Not to mention she had also accidentally rolled her hips against his in just a way that made his vision blurry. He could feel the plush of her thighs on the sides of his hips and all he wanted her to do was roll her hips one more time.

So much for just an innocent crush. It had become a full blown lust and infatuation at this point.

Iwaizumi ran through his head, trying to clear out all the X-rated thoughts occurring. The fact that he now knew she was single made him feel like he could act just a little more possessively towards her.

He really needed to get a grip, because instead of just standing up and explaining what had happened, he reached his hands up to cup her face and he brought her a singular inch closer to his face, their noses fractions away from touching.

“Only say hi to me like that. You’re mine.”

She gulped, pushing her chest against his chest to lift herself off of him, her hands resting on his biceps as she pried herself away from him. Agonizingly too quick for him.

“I’m going to go get some water.” She carefully stepped around Iwaizumi and went down the other hall to the kitchen. When he heard the door shut to the kitchen he groaned and sat up.

Oikawa was red in the face, slightly fanning himself, “Even I felt something there. Geez. Did you see the way she swung her leg around and off your body, but she had to bring her chest to yours for that leveraging motion? That’s probably in the top ten dream scenarios right there.”

Oikawa sat the bag of snacks he had brought onto the coffee table, sitting on the end of the couch looking stunned.

“You need to shut up right now.” Iwaizumi patted the back of his head, his eyes shut tight. He had pulled his legs up, while sitting upright on the floor next to the couch.

Matsukawa chuckled, “Why, is recounting the experience giving you post boner stress syndrome.”

Hanamaki chimed in, “Or he’s trying to avoid getting one in the first place, consider that Issei.” Hanamaki ran his tongue over his teeth, “But I suppose he’s having a difficult time, because just thinking about that getup she had on, oh, those baggy sweatpants and that tight little shirt that hugged-”

“Close your traps right now.” Iwaizumi barked. He rubbed his eyes until he was seeing static. His brain had finally started clearing but his friends were being insistent annoyances.

He lets out a shaky breath. “Hiro, you better listen to her. She genuinely believes you’re bad at English.”

“But I am bad at English.”

“Good, you won’t have to act at all then.” Hanamaki kicks Iwaizumi in the back before sitting around the coffee table. Matsukawa hooks his music back up, playing Artic Monkeys with a reverb. Matsukawa moves his shoulders, jamming out to the music.

She returns with two glasses of water, mentioning that she’ll go back to get the other three.

The night proceeds with much less excitement. She does help Hanamaki with his English, and Hanamaki feels like he can actually understand basic sentences.

She and Oikawa play a round of Go, she beats him but Oikawa is entertained and says that playing Go was fun. She practically beams hearing his admission of enjoyment.

Matsukawa and her share playlists, she tells him that he needed to blend the energy levels of his songs otherwise it gets boring to listen to a bunch of high energy songs sequentially. Matsukawa accepts the criticism and starts editing his playlist for her to evaluate at a later date.

Iwaizumi talks, and jokes around with everyone but he can’t help but drift off when he hears her laugh at his jokes, or how she pays active, attentive attention to him when he talks about something that’s been on his mind.

So when it hits two am and she says she needs to leave, Iwaizumi feels a bit shafted. Oikawa and Hanamaki were cuddling, already asleep and snoring. Matsukawa was staring at the TV screen watching another episode of a never ending sitcom.

She’s holding her Go board and textbook in her arms as she slides her shoes back on in the entryway of his house.

They’re both whispering so as to not wake up the snorers.

“Why are you leaving?” Iwaizumi slides his own shoes on, getting the door open for her as she takes a step outside.

He closes the door once he follows her to the front porch. She shifts her things in her arms uncomfortably. Iwaizumi takes them from her wordlessly, holding them with ease and perfect balance.

“I need to go to sleep,” She yawns, using a hand to cover her mouth. Her eyes shined from the porch lighting.

“You can just stay here, and if you don’t want to sleep in the living room with us, you can sleep in my bed?” Iwaizumi shuffled his feet, trying to find the right words to get her to stay.

“I need to get home.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Iwaizumi swallows thickly.

She bites her bottom lip, but earnestly explains her thoughts, “Well, I’m in a slight tizzy. I mean, you did grab me by the face and tell me to only say hi to you like that and not to other people, in that specific tone of voice. And, uh, the whole you saying that I’m yours, remember that?”

He digs the tip of his shoe into the porch flooring. “Yeah, that’s my bad.”

“No, it’s all fine, I’m just, I just need space to think. I really did enjoy hanging out though.” She tries to take her stuff back from Iwaizumi. He pulled her stuff closer to his chest.

“Let me walk you home at least, it’s what a fifteen minute walk?”

She pursed her lips, reaching her hand out to touch Iwaizumi’s elbow. He had traded his hoodie for a simple t-shirt earlier when all the bodies in the living room brought the temperature up too much for his liking. He naturally ran hot as well. He also got warm whenever she was near. The feeling of her hand on his elbow had his heart beginning to pitter-patter.

“You’d have to walk back to your house alone then.” She pulled him closer, putting both her hands on his arms, she ignored the taut muscles. “And I wouldn’t want that.”

His heart was racing, because she was leaning in slightly, and he thought that he should’ve brushed his teeth again. In her intelligence though, his body relaxed a little, so she was finally able to grab her stuff from him. She felt a modest amount of guilt for toying with him like that, but his face was blushed from staying up too late, the heat in his ears and apples of his cheeks stemming from watching screens too long.

“So, go to bed Iwaizumi Hajime.” She smiles, “I’ll see you later okay. Don’t forget we need to get fortunes soon, I need to change my luck before Nationals.”

He nods his head, slightly stunned from being tricked a little into thinking she was leaning in for something other than to take her board and book back.

“Wait.”

She paused, already halfway down the path from his house to the sidewalk.

He must have been going crazy. But everyone has to do crazy things once in a while, he supposes.

Iwaizumi slightly rushed to where she was. Just like earlier, he put his hands on her face, but this time he pressed a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth. Not wanting to push his luck any further than it had gone so far this night, he pressed one longer, more intense kiss to her jaw as he moved his hands to her waist.

He smiled at her when he backed up, “Now we’ll have something to talk about on our date at the festival next week.”

It was all so mildly irritating. She wondered why he hadn’t just kissed her earlier, when she had been settled into his lap in his living room.

Shaking her head in amusement, she handed her things to Iwaizumi, and he felt a chill in his spine. When she gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a real kiss, a lip to lip kiss, he felt his whole world burst into vibrant color.

What a tease, he thought, when she licked his bottom lip and took her things back, actually making her way down the street.

He stood outside staring at her retreating body for much too long.

When she set her stuff down on her desk, she flung herself onto her bed. Sighing deeply.

This was not good for her heart.

She remembered her second year of high school.

It was positively awful, and not to mention her repeated failures at romance were starting to make her feel absolutely uncrushable. She thought she was doing everything right, wearing the right makeup, hitching her skirt up just enough (but she returned back to the normal length after she realized she did not appreciate the staring in the hallway from that stunt).

She even tried changing the way she did her hair. Still no gentleman callers. Maybe she was determined to be unlovable.

The only person she could go to was her Go Captain, a third year exchange student from China who destroyed her in every game they played, but at least he was cute, despite the extreme gap in a language understanding. Well, her Go Captain or Iwaizumi Hajime.

She decided to go to the Go Captain first.

“Mingzhe, am I attractive?”

He raised an eyebrow, looking from side to side. He was reading a book in the corner of the library when she ambushed him, resting a hand on the table. Mingzhe looks up at her and tilts his head to the side a little, almost as if he was inspecting her.

“In what sense of the word? Because you have what I would call an attractive personality, you’re really smart and you love Go almost as much as I do.”

“I definitely love Go more than you, but thank you.” She smiles and Mingzhe thought he could go back to his book, but she kept talking. “But the other kind of attractive, like the way my body looks.”

Mingzhe’s eyes almost popped out of his head, “Uhh, I, um.” He made a fist and pounded on his heart for a moment, trying to stop his stuttering. Now, if Mingzhe was the romantic interest of this story, then more about his background would be shared at this point. Unfortunately, he’s just Mingzhe from China who loves to play Go and accidentally fell in love with his overly kind and sweet Go teammate.

Mingzhe kept stuttering, trying to think of the right words to say to her that would express what he wanted to tell her. Because how could he tell her that she was the only girl he’d ever really liked like this. The way that she always took the stones from his hand when he got too close to winning, just so she could make him pause and explain where she went wrong.

She took his silence negatively and she hunched into the chair right next to him, pouting. Mingzhe felt a pang of melancholy run through him. Maybe if he wasn’t so realistic, his story with her would’ve turned out differently.

“Sha gua,” She lifted her head at the nickname he called her frequently. “Do you know what that means?”

She rubbed her eyes, and shook her head.

“Literally translated, my nickname for you means idiot or fool.” Mingzhe puts a hand on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb back and forth a little. If he wasn’t Mingzhe, if he didn’t have to go back to China so soon, he’d want to be everything to her.

Her body shakes a little as she laughs in reaction to Mingzhe's statement. “Oh great, thanks for that Mingzhe.”

“In China though, sha gua is a term of affection, right up there with something like bao bei, which means both treasure and baby. Sha gua is a testament to the innocence you have, and my appreciation for that genuineness you carry.” It means I love you.

“Where are you going with this?” She put her hand over Mingzhe’s, and he felt his soul crack just a little.

“If I wasn’t leaving at the end of the year, I would definitely try to approach you romantically, sha gua.” He tacks on the nickname, in tandem with a genuine smile. She puts a hand to his long black hair, brushing away the strand that always fell into his deep brown eyes. She always thought his eyes looked like brown sugar tapioca pearls.

“Thanks Mingzhe.”

“Of course, xinjian.” She left Mingzhe alone in the library, so he could finish his book. She never did find out that xinjian meant ‘peak of my heart’. Mingzhe was the one who gave her her special Go board that she carried around everywhere. (Engraved deeply in the box, on the underside, in Chinese characters was his wish for her to always stay healthy and happy. Along with the address of his family home in China, if she ever did come by to visit him.)

Mingzhe’s answer wasn’t enough for her in second year, so she went to Iwaizumi for additional clarification on her attractiveness woes. Or maybe, Mingzhe’s answer gave her hope that Iwaizumi would have a similar answer.

She just hadn’t known it would be so awkward. In Iwaizumi’s defense, she had cornered him in the back of class after school had been dismissed for the day.

To say he was stunned and bothered would be an understatement in the highest regard. Because how could he think when she slightly loosened the tie around her neck and untucked her lavender button-up from her skirt. Iwaizumi kept tightening and adjusting his own tie, trying to keep his hands focused and on his body rather than letting them magnetize to her body.

“I just need to know, simply. Plainly.” She had put her hand on the side of his head, her fingertips grazing the wood of the cubbies in the back of the classroom.

Iwaizumi was sure he’d seen this scene before in a drama that Oikawa had shown him. Except, he’s in the girl’s position and not the guy’s.

When she puts her foot in between his feet, he can feel the way his thighs threaten to give out on him. He’d been reduced to jello and she didn’t even know it.

“Know what?” At least he could reign in his tone of voice, staying flat.

“Am I or am I not attractive?”

He had wanted to say she was absolutely adorable. But given the way he could feel her body heat from how close they were, his assessment of her attractiveness had gone from cute to downright gorgeous. How a fellow seventeen year old could act like this, he did not understand.

“Yeah, you’re, you’re good looking.” Way to go Iwaizumi, he knew that if Oikawa or Hanamaki or Matsukawa could see him now, they would have either used a slingshot to put him out of his misery or taken a photo and posted it with the caption of, “Top Three Most Epic Fails in Romance.”

“Okay, thank you, I appreciate it.” She brought her hand back, no longer on the side of his face.

Iwaizumi liked her near though, so he grabbed her hand. She looked at him in the eyes, and he looked at her in the eyes.

His boldness was about to be curbed if he didn’t say what he wanted to say right in that moment, “Be my first kiss? As, uh, my treat for answering your question?” He was ready to go and dig his own grave.

“Sure.”

Iwaizumi almost shuddered, almost.

It was a clash.

Neither of them really knew what they were supposed to be doing, or where their hands were supposed to go. They had both settled for holding onto each other's necks lightly.

It was a series of closed mouth brushes of their lips, that was how Iwaizumi’s first kiss went. She had kissed a boy before, in middle school at a party, but she suddenly was wishing that this was her first kiss instead.

When she pulled away, Iwaizumi cleared his throat. Slowly nodding he adjusted the straps on his backpack.

“Thanks,” He started, “I have to go play volleyball now.”

“Yeah, yeah. Totally get it.” She was twisting her foot, digging it into the floor as she kept her eyes hesitantly on Iwaizumi.

Walking to the gym, Iwaizumi pressed his hand against his heart and begged it to slow down.

She realized that maybe high school boys just didn’t go out of their way to confess to her because they were too busy with other things, as demonstrated by Iwaizumi’s focus on volleyball. At the end of the day, she didn’t need external attention to give her internal validation. But it would’ve been nice.

She thought about Mingzhe from time to time. But Iwaizumi always stuck to her thoughts much longer. Second year was when she realized that she liked Iwaizumi, but she just couldn’t tell him. For her, what she had with Iwaizumi was a longer game that expanded much further than high school. Like a good game of Go, it had exchanges and bold moves between players.

Her second year didn’t carry totally throw away memories she concluded, curling up in her bed to finally go to sleep.

By Monday, Iwaizumi was positively giddy with excitement at seeing her again. He had a whole plan for their outing after school on Friday, and he wanted to tell her everything. When she wasn’t in her seat by the first bell, he looked around the room to see if she was silently slinking her way to her seat. Then when the final morning bell rang, he slumped into his chair in irritation.

By lunchtime, she still wasn’t at school, so he decided to go and investigate, making his way to the first year hallway, looking into all the classrooms.

He saw Ito Yuuta, her not-boyfriend, sitting at his desk, playing on a Go board by himself.

He entered the classroom and put his hands on the desk, making a slamming noise that wasn’t too jolting, seeing as Ito was still fidgeting with the stone in his hand.

“Yes?” Ito pressed the stone to his mouth, then quickly set it down. He input where he placed the stone on his phone, waiting for the computer to make a move so he could set the corresponding piece down, trying to beat the Artificial Intelligence system known as AlphaGo for the second time today.

“Where is she?” Iwaizumi brought his head down to force Ito into making eye contact.

Ito made a sour face, unamused with Iwaizumi, “She’s at a tournament today, the posters for it have been up for like a whole month.” Ito rolled his eyes, “It’s at the central Miyagi Gym, she’s playing in the 5 dan ranking bracket.”

Iwaizumi tensed his leg, ready to get to the gym as soon as possible, “Are spectators allowed?” If Iwaizumi wanted to be something to her, he figured he needed to break out of his shell around her and commit, and show that he wanted to be with her.

“It’s almost like all the captains of our sports team were asked to attend. You play volleyball, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Do yourself a favor and find a girl who’s more into guys like you. She’s on a whole other level, whatever interest you have in her will be short-lived.” Ito places some more pieces down according to the computer input. Ito was only teasing, he wanted to make sure Iwaizumi was sure about her.

“Guys like me?”

Ito smiled, standing up to his full height. “Guys who don’t play Go. Guys who are brainless muscle heads. Guys who lack basic skills of strategy. Guys like Iwaizumi Hajime.” Ito wondered what the reaction would be, slightly dismissing his game.

Iwaizumi brought his head back in offense, shocked and appalled at what Ito was saying. A bitter look on Iwaizumi’s face was all Ito needed to feel self-satisfied in his jests. Iwaizumi felt like a fish, with how his mouth gaped open and closed.

“Listen here you little bastard- I don’t know who you think you are, but clearly your ego is too big to contain within the convoluted mind game you’re trying to play with me.” Iwaizumi stuck a finger in the center of Ito’s chest, and Ito lazily held his hands up. “I like her. Genuinely, I like her. I want to go support her, so clearly I’m doing more than you.”

In all honesty, Iwaizumi was just trying to make up for what he considered lost time. He had spent years waiting for the right time to get closer to her, but now wasn’t the time to deflect, to deter, to do anything that would slow the progress he had been making. Iwaizumi was going to make her his, regardless of what anyone would try to tell him.

“It’s not me you have to worry about, it’s the other Go players. There’s an entire array of guys who would literally kill to be with a player like her, a 5-dan player at her age. You’re not fighting with me, you’re fighting with the guys who play Go professionally and rake in the big bucks at 19, 20, years old.” Ito wondered if Iwaizumi knowing he had competition would make Iwaizumi scurry away. Ito was genuinely glad when Iwaizumi rolled his eyes and left the classroom, because that showed that Iwaizumi wasn’t scared to go all in for her.

Another day's work for Ito Yuuta in the books. Now if only he could beat that stupid AI Robot.

Iwaizumi knew that Ito was just trying to get in his head. So he just made his way to Miyagi Gym, taking one of the posters from the hallway to make sure he could get there in time to see her play.

He got there within fifteen minutes, thanks to Matsukawa’s moped that he borrowed.

He held the helmet under his arm as he entered the gym, looking around for directions or a chart. She would be in a higher bracket, he knew that, but he had no idea what the 5-dan ranking was about that Ito had gone on about.

Then he looked over to a screen that had her on display, making a focused face at a game board.

Iwaizumi saw her in person pretty soon after he asked around, she was sitting criss-cross on her chair, across from a boy who looked about their same age. The boy looked much more stressed than she looked. She looked like a picture of calm, almost bored if Iwaizumi was being honest.

She placed her stone down, and leaned back in her chair with a smug smile on her face. Iwaizumi couldn’t help the smile that drew across his face watching her seem satisfied.

“I pass.” Her opponent threw his hands up in the air and shook his head.

She placed one more stone and her opponent groaned and grabbed strands of his hair. She started collecting her opponents pieces and then shook his hand across the board.

An older woman, mid-forties maybe, announced the winner of the round. The announcer held her hand up in the air and she bowed to the audience, and then went and individually bowed to a group of people holding clipboards.

Iwaizumi cheered so loudly from where he was standing, and she caught sight of him immediately. She smiled, but then waved her hand in a ‘be quiet’ gesture. He nodded and started walking over to her.

She got handed a paper from the announcer and she held it so tightly, Iwaizumi thought she would rip it. She quickly made her way over to Iwaizumi, who was standing near the entrance of the subsect in the gym.

“You won? Right? Otherwise my cheering that ended up really bothering that guy who looks like a lemon was a waste.” Iwaizumi tried to sneak a glance at her paper, but she held it close to her chest.

“Yes, I won. I can’t believe you’re here. I didn’t know you wanted to come watch me play?”

Iwaizumi scratches the back of his head, “Well, I missed you. You weren’t in class.”

He missed her whenever she was gone. This was just the first time he had told her.

She laughs, “Usually tournaments are on the weekends, this is the only one I’ve ever had on a Monday.”

“Ah, makes sense. Is anyone else from Aoba here?”

Iwaizumi felt upset that people couldn’t appreciate her. He decided he would just have to appreciate her all the more.

She shook her head ‘no’ with a slight frown.

“I’m here. If that means anything at all.”

“It does mean something that you showed up, even though you’re also missing our math class so conveniently.” She poked his cheek with her finger, Iwaizumi shrugs with a grin on his face.

“One question before we celebrate,” She nods, urging him to continue, “Is your buddy Ito always such an asshole?”

She slaps her hand on her forehead, “What did he say.”

“Oh, he said quite a lot. Nothing I can’t deal with though. But he’s criminally mean, how do you deal with him?”

“He’s mad because he wasn’t invited to the tournament, he spent a lot of time practicing this year and to not get an invite to National Qualifiers kinda put him in a slump. Although, that doesn’t excuse anything he said.” She tucked her paper into the back pocket of her jeans, then gave Iwaizumi a hug.

He liked the hug a lot. He hoped there would be a lot more of them in store for them.

Iwaizumi, letting his curiosity get the better of him, lightly reached behind her to grab the paper. Letting his hand rest on the top of the curve of her backside, just high enough where he could play it off as his hand was on her waist. She let out a gasp at the touch, then he pulled her into his right side so he could read the paper, holding it out with his left hand.

He read through it quickly, scanning for keywords.

“So, you’re my Miss Miyagi Representative at Nationals then?”

“Don’t say it like that, just say Miyagi Representative.” She ducked her head a little, putting her face into his shoulder.

“Why are you getting all shy? This is an amazing accomplishment.” He held her shoulders with his hands and shook her a little, eliciting a laugh from her.

“The winner of the 5-dan bracket at Nationals can become a 6-dan player, just two dan levels below a professional ranking, isn’t that crazy!” She looks a little crazy, but the way her eyes shine with excitement and the way her mouth runs a mile a minute, and the way her hair looks sort of messy all settle into Iwaizumi’s heart comfortably, making themselves at home with his spirit.

“I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying but you’re really cute saying it.”

She rolls her eyes. Her expression changes for a second, shifting from playful annoyance to confusion.

“Iwaizumi, are we friends now? Is that what this is?”

He freezes, “I thought we were already friends? This is me trying to be more than friends.”

She lets out a knowing sound, understanding more than she did before.

“I mean, is kissing something you do with all your friends? Because if so, I’m going to need you to reconsider what you define as friendliness.”

“No, I don’t kiss my friends.” She hits him lightly on the shoulder.

“Good, because I don’t know if I’d be able to handle that. You know, my jealous streak and all that.”

She just loops their arms together and they walk out of the gym.

She ended up winning at Nationals, and Iwaizumi was there to cheer obnoxiously when she won there as well. She thanked him personally because when they went to the blossom festival at the central shrine, she ended up getting a lucky fortune.

What she didn’t know was that Iwaizumi had seen through the paper, and knowing that it was unlucky, got her to set it down to look at some of the stringed lights. And when she went to look at the lights, he swapped their fortunes.

Just so she could have his lucky charm.

He supposed he didn’t need a lucky charm, because she was all the luck he needed.

But even luck runs out sometimes.

He was sitting on the couch, listening to her talk about her college plans. They’d only been out of school and graduated for one week and she had sat him down in her living room to explain what the future holds for her. She was pacing back and forth in front of him, explaining the situation.

Iwaizumi recounted a synopsis of what she had just said.

“You got a full ride to University of California-Irvine, to play Go?”

“Apparently they wanted some cultural diversity, and they wanted me specifically at their school. It’s technically an exchange system, where I attend Tokyo University, but stay in California. But I’d get to teach Go classes, and I’d have a team of players that I would travel with to China and Korea, and home to play with at international tournaments.” She froze, and stood right in front of him.

“I guess you have to leave then.” Iwaizumi folded his arms, and she could tell something was wrong.

“Well, we knew that we weren’t going to be at the same university, so I don’t know why this is such a shock for you?” She lifted her eyebrows, giving him a look of concern.

Iwaizumi pursed his lips.

She sat down on her knees in front of him and tugged on his hand. “Hey, what’s going on behind those beautiful brown eyes of yours?”

“And I guess I’ll have to accept the offer from University of California-Irvine to do an exchange year then.”

She gently slapped his hand, “You’re such a prankster, I can’t believe you made me worry.”

“Oh, don’t stop worrying about me. I never said that.” Iwaizumi grabbed her hand and kissed her palm a few times, then moved his mouth so that he could rest his lips on her pulse point within her wrist. “You’re going to have to call me at least twice a day, and I’ll need you to send me all of your meals so that I can make sure you’re getting enough nutrients.”

“You’ll definitely need to stop worrying about me.” She groaned slightly, trying to get her hand away from Iwaizumi, but he pulled her up and into his lap. He put his face onto her back, his hair tickling the nape of her neck.

He liked being in California with her, but he’d only get to stay for one year, so he’d have to make the most of it.

Which is why he tried to spend most of it at the beach, trying to get her to play volleyball with him.

“Then after I receive it, you do that two handed toss I showed you, bringing the ball back to me so I can spike it over the net.” Iwaizumi was shirtless, wearing swim trunks, and had sunglasses on. If she was being honest, she was distracted by her fiance’s body movements and didn’t pay a lick of attention to the things he was trying to teach her.

She nodded though, taking off her swimsuit coverup, not wanting it to be in the way of the game. She was left in a black one-piece, with a large cut out in the back. Iwaizumi ran his hand down her exposed spine and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, before getting a volleyball tossed at his torso.

On the other side of the net was a guy that Iwaizumi had introduced as Ushijima, and one of her Go teammates who seemed very romantically interested in Ushijima.

Iwaizumi walked backwards for a moment, then he threw the ball up into the air and hit it with the center of his hand. The game was afoot.

Her friend received the ball with a practiced ease that convinced her that she was the only one who did not understand volleyball.

At the end of the game, Iwaizumi was hitting Ushijima’s back and telling him better luck next time. The four of them sat on a large beach towel and ate cut up pieces of watermelon that she had brought. Iwaizumi was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, one hand behind himself to prop him up. Ushijima was trying to hide his face from how her teammate was leaning closer and closer to him, talking about this and that.

Iwaizumi and her made eye contact, and Iwaizumi glanced over to where her friend was attempting to get Ushijima’s number. She sighed, ate another piece of watermelon and laid on her back, wiggling her hips a little to get comfortable on the expanse of the towel under the hot sun.

“Where do you want to live after we graduate?”

“I don’t know, I can play Go wherever I want. It’s a very portable game, you know.”

“You’ve told me that a few times before.” Iwaizumi stole the watermelon she had picked up with her pointer finger and thumb, just putting his mouth around her fingers and using his tongue to leverage the piece out of her control.

She let out a sound of disgust at his actions.

He wiggles an eyebrow teasingly, and leaned over her, putting one hand on her back and the other cupping her face softly. He looks to her lips then back to her eyes, she nods rapidly. He slots his lips into hers, working up to the right intensity.

She can hear the way her friend suggests that they and Ushijima should head to get popsicles, and to her surprise, Ushijima agrees.

Iwaizumi breaks out of the kiss for a second, still brushing his lips against hers as he speaks, “I thought they’d never leave.” He slides his tongue into her mouth, gently coaxing her to make the noises he loved to hear.

She pulls back for a second, “You know we’re still in public right?”

“I know, but now I can do this without getting watched by a high school friend of mine.” Iwaizumi slid his hand down to her thigh, and twisted himself around, so that she was straddling his hips. She was on top of him as he was sitting up. He let out a happy hum when she rested her hands in his hair, curling the strands around her fingers. “I think you should just always stay in my lap.”

She starts kissing his neck, then jokingly starts sucking on his jawline. He murmurs a little, asking her to keep going, and she giggles. She moves a hand down to rest on his abdomen, tracing along the lines of his muscles.

“Watch your hand.” He grumbles a little, her hand just a little too low for his own sanity. He kisses her cheek and then goes to nip at her earlobe.

“Watch your mouth.” She leans back but his head follows her, trying to capture her lips again. He lets out a complaining noise, muttering an apology.

“My bad.” Iwaizumi gives her a light kiss, pouting when she doesn't kiss back, “Please.” He kissed her again, and she still didn’t kiss back, “Kiss me.”

“You’re so whiney sometimes.” She pulls him by his neck into a deep kiss and he makes a noise she can only comprehend as a happy chirp.

So what if Iwaizumi Hajime was mildly bothersome to her, she had the rest of her life to be bothered by him. She had the ring to prove it.

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #hq #hq x reader #lilly's red string of fate #fluff #haikyu!#haikyuu!!#haikyuu!! x reader #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime x reader #iwaizumi the man that you are #iwaizumi hajime #haikyuu iwaizumi #iwaizumi #gonna need a sedative after this one #don't love the whole plot- but it was a good workshop on dialogue and character interactions #iwaizumi you better be glad i love you 😭#iwaizumi take all my money and all my love and all my time

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