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He’d been a member of the volleyball club for seven whole years and in three different schools, and in all those years and all those schools, Tobio never understood why it was so important for a club so direct in their goals—volleyball club, for volleyball—to participate in anything as general as the cultural festival. It was fun, getting a break from classes and being able to go room to room and play a game or maybe buy food (wait—definitely buy food), but to take a break from volleyball (the volleyball club, taking a break from volleyball) to put up some attraction that wasn’t at all related to the sport? Have you ever heard of such an atrocity?
And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Not only were they not playing volleyball (the volleyball club, not playing—okay, you get it, right?) but they were in the middle of brainstorming for possible attraction ideas, something that would “wow the crowd” and make the club unforgettable or something like that, and none of the suggestions were even any good, the prime example being Hanamaki’s ideas of putting up some sort of infomercial program advertising actual, volleyball club-made products, even going so far as to volunteer himself and Matsukawa as the hosts and Oikawa as the idiotic homeowner who couldn’t turn on the microwave.
Well, it wasn’t the worst idea; it actually sounded pretty funny. But there was no way they were going to get Tobio to hand-craft useless products. No, sir.
“What if we do a play?” Tobio eventually heard someone suggest.
“A play?” Iwaizumi repeated. “What play? And how many times are we going to have to perform it?”
“A couples of times throughout the week, maybe once a day or something? We can charge entrance tickets. And make a playbill and everything! It sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”
No, it really didn’t, but no amount of internal disagreement could stop the vast majority of Tobio’s team from making, “Huh. Why not?” faces at each other and slowly nodding, one by one suggesting potential shows. He stared at the ball carts in the distance. Longingly. Maybe they could do a volleyball-related play, he thought to himself, and then he was making a “Huh. Why not?” face of his own.
A volleyball play would be pretty cool. They could probably centre it around a high schooler, a small one perhaps, with big dreams of becoming a volleyball star because of a single game he saw on the television in the middle of riding his bike. He’ll enter a once-powerhouse school and meet his match there, his polar opposite, an excellent, hard-working player with the height and the brains, and they would clash and get kicked out of the gym and be forced to establish a partnership neither of them expected.
It didn’t sound very realistic, but the choreography was going to be awesome. They could do stunts and aerobics, maybe simulate actual volleyball games onstage and in slow motion with over-dramatized movement. Tobio nodded to himself; it was the best idea he’d had in years.
But then Oikawa’s obnoxious voice was cutting into his train of thought: “Of course, your most charming captain Oikawa-san will be the prince!” and he was blinking himself back to reality, looking around to find everyone murmuring, nonchalantly nodding to themselves as well.
“What does he mean prince?” Tobio whispered to the nearest person, Kindaichi, standing off to the side with Kunimi as usual, the two of them wearing expressions of moderate and zero interest respectively.
“Well, if we’re gonna do Snow White,” Kindaichi said, frowning, and Tobio blanched, “there has to be a prince.”
“We’re doing Snow White?” he demanded. “Why? That’s a terrible idea.”
Kindaichi shrugged and simply looked on ahead to where most of the planning was taking place, but Kunimi smiled (the smile of the devil, Tobio’s voice echoed inside his own head before he could stop and consider whether it was mean-spirited or not). And then he said, in the loudest voice Tobio had ever heard him use to date, “Kageyama volunteers to be Snow White.”
Suddenly the entirety of the gym was upon him.
“No, I don’t!” he cried immediately, glaring at Kunimi’s sadistic grin and Kindaichi’s amused one, and backing away from the intrigued stares of literally everyone else in the club—starter, benchwarmer, advisor—everyone he told himself he respected and respected him in turn.
But he wasn’t sure where that respect exactly was, now that they were all examining him and making, “Huh. Why not?” faces all over again. These people needed to stop agreeing to everything that was brought out on the table. “Actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Matsukawa announced, droopy eyes far too focused on Tobio’s head. “Relatively, he’s small, and he’s got the hair for it too.”
“Watari-san and Iwaizumi-san are smaller than I am,” Tobio pointed out.
“We’d both need wigs, though,” Watari said, smiling and winking at him for whatever reason.
“The day I play Snow White is the day the Virgin Mary appears to Oikawa and tells him he has a pure heart,” Iwaizumi said, and Tobio frowned. Leave it to Iwaizumi to find the most impossible scenario to link to his refusal.
“You’re such a blasphemer, Iwa-chan—but anyway, I think I’ll be the judge of whether or not the volunteer is worthy to be the the princess to my prince, the Juliet to my Romeo—“
“Wrong play.”
“I know that. It was a metaphor, a metaphor!” Oikawa said, showily gesturing with his hand, and Tobio couldn’t help but think how perfect he’d be as the idiot character Romeo, with all of his hyperbolic dialogue and penchant for flowery romance and tendency towards using uncalled for figures of speech. He had a dramatic, flashy way of walking too; if he didn’t know any better, Tobio could have sworn his hips were swaying, and they were getting closer and closer and wait, was Oikawa walking towards him—
“Let’s see here…” Oikawa said, studying the distance between the top of Tobio’s head and his own, and Kageyama growled impatiently. “Don’t sound like a wild animal when you’re auditioning for the role of princess, Tobio-chan, this’ll only take a minute.” He placed both hands on Tobio’s cheeks and squished, moved Tobio’s head from side to side while ignoring the wild look in his eyes and the unpleasant pucker of his lips. “Hmm.” His hands moved to Tobio’s shoulders, measuring the width, and then he was glancing at his waist, probably to do the same.
He made a “Huh. Why not?” face as well; Tobio was beginning to hate the look of it. “Well, he’s better than Iwa-chan already,” he said. “At least he won’t make Snow White look like a hoodlum.”
“I’m going to murder you,” Iwaizumi said.
Oikawa only brought his hands to his hips, turned to Tobio. “Well, well, dear Tobio-chan,” he said, looking anything but happy but still managing to sound like he was; Tobio could hear snickering off to the side where Kunimi and Kindaichi were. Bastards. “It looks like we’re going to be spending the next few days nurturing a beautiful, blossoming, unconscious romance. But don’t get a big head; I won’t be enjoying a single bit of it.”
“I should be the one telling you that,” Tobio snapped back, but Oikawa only turned his nose up.
Practice (or as Director Watari called it: rehearsals) had been nothing but hectic. No, Tobio hadn’t been tasked to help with the script or even obligated to help create any of the props or arrange too much of the set and, in fact, for most of the play he was going to be lying on a makeshift bed surrounded by plastic flowers and was completely permitted to sleep if he swore he would wake up when needed, but Oikawa—his prince, supposedly—was pretty darn excellent at making even taking a nap a living hell.
He was a high-maintenance actor, to be sure, though Tobio didn’t expect anything else. Other than the fact that he’d dubbed himself task-giver before ultimately assigning his best friend as a personal assistant, he directed Tobio’s actions more than Watari did, and in the most ridiculous fashions possible. He was meticulous, a little too meticulous, and oftentimes Tobio couldn’t tell whether he was serious or if inconveniencing Tobio all day was simply his chosen vocation.
“You fall like an absolute slob!” Oikawa had told him as he practiced the apple-eating scene. “Can’t you do it with a little more grace?”
“I literally just got poisoned by an apple. Where would I get the energy to fall with grace?”
“What kind of a face is that?” Oikawa had asked while he practiced his dialogue with the dwarves while Tobio simply lay in the background, pretending to be unconscious. “Close your mouth; you look hideous. And if you start drooling, it won’t make sense for the prince to want to kiss you.”
“I’m asleep. And I’m not gonna drool!”
“Tobio, move away!” Oikawa complained in the middle of his choreographed sword-duel with the creature Hanamaki liked to call 'The Mean Green Demon', his own strange addition to the show, dutifully played by Kyoutani. “I can’t do my moves right when you’re standing there.”
“I’m not even onstage!”
It was an adventure, definitely, co-starring in a play with this particular team captain, and most days, he received sympathetic smiles and encouraging pats on the back more often than he got to read out any lines. But that definitely wasn’t the worst of it, oh no. Tobio knew he’d very much prefer Oikawa telling him to stop breathing, claiming that it was distracting, over having to practice the final kiss with him.
That had been a special homework Oikawa had assigned one of the first years: to find out how to stage a kiss, because no way in hell were they doing it for real. Tobio wondered why they had to do it in the first place and why Oikawa had agreed to do the play if he was going to complain about the most important scene any opportunity he could get, but when he’d talked to Watari about it, he’d simply been given another smile and wink. In the end, they’d decided that Oikawa would try placing his thumb on Tobio’s lips under the guise that he’d be touching his cheek, and kissing that instead.
The method was easier said than done, especially since Tobio was lying down and they were both guys and just teenagers and it was really weird to feel Oikawa’s breath by his nose and—okay, there were a lot of reasons why it was easier said than done—but Oikawa managed to pull it off quite well, after voicing out a few choice complaints for everyone to hear (“You’d better have brushed your teeth after lunch, I swear to god”). He was very particular about not seeing Tobio’s eyes, always quick to remind him not to pull any faces while they rehearsed. When he’d first mentioned it, Tobio had frowned before sticking his tongue out. Oikawa did the same.
All in all, though, rehearsing it wasn’t that bad. It was Oikawa doing all the work anyway, and his thumb on Tobio’s lips was always surprisingly gentle.
(One time, however, as Oikawa leaned in, his hand had accidentally brushed against a sensitive spot in Tobio’s side and his leg had instinctively flown upward only to end up kneeing Oikawa straight in the chest; Oikawa had made the most pained noise he’d ever heard, sank to the ground muttering, “What kind of a princess are you?” in a strained voice, and the entire group of propsmen had erupted in loud laughter. It was kind of funny after, but Tobio still felt bad. Really.)
Well, all of that was days and days ago. Now, Tobio is currently lying on the completed makeshift coffin…bed…thing complete with a two-dimensional fake glass case, all of his pre-finale lines long since completed, simply waiting for Oikawa’s big epic duel to end so he can come in for the kiss and finally end the play. He had every intention to take a legitimate nap onstage (the bed is comfortable, and so is the dress, much to his surprise) but he supposes that recounting all of his rehearsal experiences isn’t such a bad way to pass the time, though some recollections do make him want to laugh.
After some time, he hears Oikawa puffing and panting where he stands, and Yahaba from backstage letting out a wail of agony into a microphone in Kyoutani’s place while the latter pretends to die in front of the audience, hears Hanamaki the Evil Queen gasping in horror as his ‘champion from the depths of the mirror’ is defeated, and Tobio knows it’s almost time for his final scene. He feels his entire body stiffen slightly, anticipation building up in his chest, but he doesn’t let it show on his sleeping face. He keeps himself relaxed, even as he hears Oikawa converse with the dwarves one last time and remove the glass case.
Just like we practiced, he tells himself. Just like practice.
Oikawa is hovering over him; he can feel it. But moments pass and he doesn’t feel Oikawa’s hand cupping the side of his face, or Oikawa’s thumb relaxing over his lips like it usually does. He feels the anticipation spike up even more, wonders if something’s going wrong in the scene or if anything else is keeping Oikawa from resuming the performance, wonders if he should open his eyes a crack to check. He doesn’t, though, too afraid to break character (“No matter what happens,” Watari had told him before, “don’t ever break character.”), and soon, the familiar feeling of Oikawa’s hand is on his face again and something soft and gentle is on his lips, and he unwinds.
Slowly, he opens his eyes, as gracefully as a peacefully-sleeping, dainty princess would, but when he does, he’s immediately disoriented. His vision is blurry from how close Oikawa is, like at practice, but somehow, he seems closer than he’s ever been before. His nose is brushing against Tobio’s, and it never has before, not when there was enough of a distance between them thanks to Oikawa’s thumb.
He feels whatever is pushing against his lips move, part, and then Oikawa’s breath is ghosting over his mouth.
His eyes are as wide as can be within a fraction of a second. Oikawa is kissing him for real.
In complete thoughtless panic, Tobio makes a muffled noise against Oikawa’s mouth, pushes him back hard enough to have him yelling and stumbling backward where he stands, and gets to his feet, covering his lips with the entirety of his palm and thinking what, what, what, that was real, why was it real, what, why did he do it for real, and then directing his wild gaze at the gaping Oikawa, pointing a trembling finger at him.
“You—you dumbass!” Tobio shrieks. “Why—what—who told—who said you could do that?”
“Wha—I—“ Oikawa stammers in turn, and unbeknownst to them, Hanamaki’s jaw has dropped, the dwarves are frozen stiff, the audience is confused, and the entirety of the backstage population is dying.
“Maniac! Weirdo!” Tobio continues, unaware that Watari is metaphorically ripping all of his hair out on the left side of the stage. “You don’t—you don’t just go around kissing people! I never agreed to that!”
“Ex—excuse you,” Oikawa screams back, “I am not a maniac. I’m a prince from a faraway land who scaled the entire forest, fought to the death with whatever that thing even was, just so I could give you a life-saving kiss!”
“I didn’t ask to be kissed!”
“Well, that kiss saved your life, you ungrateful hag!”
“An eternal coma is better than kissing you!”
“WOW, who the hell do you think you are? Everyone wants my kisses; I am a rich, charming young prince and my kisses rock!”
“Prince, my ass! A lizard could probably kiss better than you!”
“Ohh, and your kisses are any better, Mr. Lips as Red as Finger Blood? I bet a worm could kiss better than you, and it has no lips!”
“Oh yeah? Then why’d you kiss me?”
“I am a good gentleman who so happened to pass by and, out of the kindness of my heart, decided to help the innocent grieving dwarves reunite with their loving princess! Looks like I opened the wrong casket!”
“Go to hell, grave-robber!”
“So that’s how it’s going to be, is it? Well, fine! I do not deserve this kind of treatment. Go die in a ditch somewhere; see if I care.”
It isn’t until Hanamaki duteously steps in between them that Tobio snaps back to attention. He turns his head toward the crowd (a crowd—oh, right, they’re in a play) and sees them laughing, looks at Hanamaki and sees his expression purposefully blank, as if he’s trying not to imitate the guffawing coming from backstage, looks at Oikawa and sees him just as humiliated, and hears nothing but a wild pounding in his ears.
“Ahh, yes,” Hanamaki enunciates, and with great gusto. He spreads his arms out as Tobio (and Oikawa, probably, though Tobio is too out of it to take note) looks at him. “My plan all along! The charming prince wakes the loving princess up, only to find that she’s a complete asshole—“ Someone in the audience chokes “—and end up killing her himself to give no man the burden of having to deal with her and her thanklessness, ever again!”
“What?” Tobio cries, but before he can think to say anything else, he feels someone grab him by the puffy sleeve of his dress, custom-made by Watari and his mother, now being man-handled, and quickly drag him off to a nearby prop bush. He only gets a glimpse of Oikawa’s grinning face before he’s getting tactfully shoved to the ground behind the fake flora and getting straddled at the waist.
“Sleep once more, witch!” Oikawa cries out, drawing his sword and clutching it with both hands, and then he’s pretending to thrust it down with all his might, only to have it minimally knock into Tobio’s forehead.
“OW!” Tobio winds up yelling. It’s more of an exclamation of shock rather than pain, but the audience loves it all the same; from the stage floor he hears them cheer and applaud, hears the auditorium seats squeaking as their occupants get to their feet and holler, and more than getting annoyed that his character has been completely butchered (literally and figuratively), he can’t believe they’re actually happy with the outcome. Maybe he should reread Snow White sometime to find the subtext.
When the curtains close and Tobio’s pulled to his feet, and until they’re taking their final bows, Oikawa doesn’t take his hand—only his wrist. The skin of his palm is warm and Tobio wonders how hard he’d been holding that sword for the entirety of the play.
More than anything, he’s happy that the show is over and that they can once more go back to playing volleyball. But that’s something for the future still, he realizes, because the moment they’re all backstage, he gets pulled to the centre of the team and thoroughly ambushed by grinning faces and rapidly-fired questions. Director Watari is clutching a stress ball but he’s otherwise smiling, thankful that nobody got booed off the stage. On the side, some third years congratulate Hanamaki in particular for finding a way to end the heated exchange and he simply responds by spinning around and forward, allowing his black cloak to flutter in the wind he generates himself, while Matsukawa scatters flower petals on the invisible trail he leaves.
After that, however, all eyes are on Tobio. “Why did you suddenly freak out like that, Kageyama?” some upperclassman asks.
His reason is totally valid, he knows, and he’s certain that once people hear it, they’re all going to be flocking around Oikawa in less than two seconds and Tobio will finally be able to have some peace and quiet for the first time since they started rehearsing, and god, is he ready for that. Oikawa deserves the teasing anyway; he’d deliberately made life extremely difficult for Tobio, from rehearsals all the way to the day of the actual performance. He starts scanning the crowd for Oikawa’s head, ready to point an accusatory finger at it. “Oi—“
But when he finds it, he stops.
Oikawa is standing off to the side, away from where the entirety of the company faces, and his eyes are wide above the hand over his mouth. He glances at Tobio from time to time but otherwise, just stares into space or squeezes his eyes shut. The tips of his ears and the parts of his cheek his hand is unable to cover are all bright red, and nothing about him looks prepared for any of the things that had happened in the last several minutes.
The sight makes Tobio’s face warm too, and he doesn’t get why, but suddenly his tongue is tied. “I—“ he says, averting his eyes and bringing them back to the eagerly-waiting crowd of onlookers. “I, uh—forgot my lines.”
“So you ad-libbed a completely different princess?” Iwaizumi asks, laughing, and the others follow after him. “Well, I’m not complaining. I didn’t know you were a good actor, Kageyama. Good work. People are bound to remember this for a long time.”
They are, he thinks as the people around him disperse, already beginning to clean up, but Tobio doesn’t care about them. What is important to him, however, is that he isn’t going to forget it either, and the way Oikawa stares at him from afar, with his arms crossed and his lips desperately fighting off a smile but failing, tells him that Oikawa won’t forget it either.
He’s going to have to explain himself someday; Tobio will make sure of that. But for the moment, he only raises an eyebrow, dares Oikawa to make any petty comments about their improvisations from where he stands.
Oikawa only sticks his tongue out. Tobio does the same.