𝐂𝐇. 𝟑𝟒

⋅. ˚₊ ‧ 𐙚 ‧ ₊ ˚ ⋅

Oikawa's POV

I didn't mean to say it.

I didn't plan it. Didn't rehearse it. Didn't time it like I usually do with everything else in my life.

It just happened.

The words slipped past my mouth like they'd been waiting there for weeks. Maybe months.

And once they were out, there was no dragging them back.

But before all that, things were normal.

Or... at least, they looked normal.

Practice had gone well. The team was fired up, joking as they left the gym together, tossing snacks and teasing Iwaizumi. She was staying behind again, reorganizing the clipboard the team always messed up and collecting water bottles the guys somehow still forgot after all this time.

I didn't leave.

I lingered by the exit, pretending to scroll through my phone, then pretending to tie my shoes. She caught me on my second loop around the bench.

"You forgot something?" she asked without looking up.

I shrugged. "Nope. Just... seeing if you needed help."

She narrowed her eyes. "You've never willingly offered to help in your life."

"That's slander."

"That's true."

Still, she let me walk with her toward the school gates.

Even though the sky was turning gold and purple, even though it was quiet and too calm and too charged for our usual banter.

She didn't threaten to kick me in the shin.Didn't call me annoying.Didn't shove me away when our arms brushed.

She just... walked. Slowly. Beside me.

And it was that silence — that softness — that destroyed my ability to keep pretending I didn't care more than I should.

So when we stopped by the vending machine near the gate, and she looked at me like she actually didn't hate being around me—

It happened.

I said it.

"I like you."

It came out too fast. Too flat. Like I was ripping a Band-Aid off.

Like I'd been holding it in for way too long.

And the second her head whipped toward me, I regretted everything.

⸻

[Y/N's POV]

I blinked once.Twice.

My heart skipped. Then stuttered.

"I like you."

That's what he said.

Like it was nothing.

Like it wasn't everything.

He wasn't smiling. He wasn't smirking. He wasn't being dramatic or flirty or annoying.

He just... stood there.Like he had nothing else to hide. Like that was the whole truth.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

My mind went completely blank.

And in the silence that followed — thick and heavy and stretching between us like a wire about to snap — I saw his face shift.

His eyes dropped.

His shoulders stiffened. He let out the softest breath and gave the smallest nod, like he was answering his own question. Like he already knew how this would go.

Then he turned.

Started walking away.

Fast.

No drama. No final line. No spinning on his heel with a wink.

Just... quiet steps, growing smaller.

Like he hated himself for saying it.

⸻

Oikawa's POV

I could feel my heart pounding in my ears, drowning out everything else. Every word she didn't say.

It was stupid. I was stupid.

What was I expecting? A hug? A confession back? A magical kiss under the sunset?

I didn't deserve any of that.

I had been messing with her since day one. Teasing. Poking. Flirting just to get a reaction. Making her life harder than it needed to be.

And even when things started to shift between us—when she stopped yelling as much, when her gaze lingered longer, when our knees touched and she didn't pull away—I still treated everything like a joke.

Because I thought if I really showed her how I felt, she'd run.

I wanted to keep her close, even if it meant playing the fool.

But today?

I couldn't keep it in anymore.

I didn't want to keep pretending.

And now?

Now I wished I had.

⸻

Y/N's POV

I stayed rooted in place long after he disappeared around the corner.

The wind picked up. I hugged the clipboard to my chest and stared at nothing.

My thoughts were racing in every direction.

Because the worst part wasn't that he liked me.

It was that I already knew.

Somewhere deep down, I'd known for weeks.

In the way his eyes softened when he thought I wasn't looking.In the way he always showed up last just to walk with me.In the way he remembered the dumbest things I said and quoted them back to me a week later.

But hearing it?

Out loud?

Real?

That was different.

And scarier than I expected.

Because I didn't know what to say back.

Not yet.

⸻

Later That Night

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard it again.

"I like you."

The way he said it—nervous but certain.Like he'd been holding it in until it burned.

I thought I wanted him to shut up. I thought I hated all his flirting and dramatics.

But now that he wasn't doing any of that...

Now that he'd shown me something real—

I missed it.

Not because I needed the jokes. But because I missed him.

The loud, ridiculous, flirty, overconfident setter who was also surprisingly thoughtful and insecure and—

Gosh.

He liked me.

And I didn't know what scared me more:

That he meant it...

or that I might like him back.