NEO-POP | Iwaizumi Hajime ✓

07 IWAIZUMI HAJIME IS OVER PARTY

CHAPTER SEVEN
Iwaizumi Hajime is over party

"Excuse me?"

Despite the verbal warning, Iwaizumi jolts when he feels a tap on his shoulder before turning in the direction of the unfamiliar voice. His natural response is to make the most hideous face ever known to mankind, as per usual whenever he's caught off guard — his eyebrows unintentionally compress together and his face contorts into a scowl that gives the impression he's mildly irritated regardless of whether he actually is or not. And understandably, most people tend to scream and run away before he even gets the chance to redeem himself with a more socially acceptable look, but strangely enough, the person he meets eyes with this time doesn't do that. Instead, there's an unstable smile on their face and an overall nervous expression that looks like they're holding in a couple tears or something.

"Good morning!" they shout suddenly, causing Iwaizumi to stumble back out of pure surprise.

"Good" — his eyes flit toward the items in their hands in a quick and short movement — "morning."

And then he offers a smile, one that's tight and restrained around the corners and doesn't quite reach his eyes, yet he hopes it looks genuine enough to conceal the mild unease that he's feeling right now. They're holding a small box of chocolates and an envelope in their hands — he took note of that a few moments before — and upon further inspection, he can see that on the front of the envelope, there's his name written with a cutesy heart next to it, along with a couple more words below it:

A hundred hearts would be too few
to carry all of my love for you.

He blinks. Once and then twice for good measure to make sure he's really seeing things right. No, he cries out mentally. In his mind, his mouth is shaped into an oval and his hands are pressed to the sides of his face for the dramatic effect. It couldn't be...?!

The corners of their mouth twitch. They briefly look toward the doorway, where two of their friends are standing with thumbs-up and toothy grins, and then they look back at Iwaizumi, their forehead glistening underneath the classroom's fluorescent lights in a nervous sweat. Iwaizumi is a near mirror reflection of them; even his now wobbly smile can't conceal his restlessness, as evident in the way he's fidgeting with the charms on his phone like they'll suddenly fall off and run away.

(He reminisces lightly. You had gotten both of them for him a while back, for Christmas and as an end-of-the-year gift, and they're a little disgusting now if he has to be honest, having significantly tinted an ugly shade of piss-yellow over the past few years. But for some reason, he can't be bothered to take either of them off, even after Oikawa somehow lost his matching one during practice and you accidentally vacuumed yours up in the middle of deep cleaning your desk.

They're sentimental, he thinks. That might be why.)

"I'm — so sorry to bother you, but my name is Nakamura! From class 1-4!" The words tumble out in a rushed mess as if they have no control over what they're saying, and truthfully, Iwaizumi is only able to make out last part of the sentence. He then remembers there's only a few minutes before the bell rings; whatever it is this Nakamura from class 1-4 has to say to him, he hopes it won't make them late to their class. "I have these to give to you. For you! From me!"

They proceed not-so-gracefully shove the items toward him, so that he has no other choice but to take them, and then glance shyly to the side. "I hope you like them. I know we've never actually met before, and uh. Man, I don't know if you — if you even like chocolate... But please read the letter inside it once you have the time to. I put a lot of thought into it and... I hope you feel the same way..."