Ace of Hearts - Haikyuu || Short Stories || One Shots || Creative Rambles

You'd Be a Clown By Now || Oikawa Tooru

This was a desperate attempt at a meaningful story that came from being far too inspired by 'I'm Still Standing' by Elton John.

Dear Tooru,

I saw you on television accidentally today. It was so like you to appear in the unlikeliest of places and force you way back into my mind. But, you know what I realized? It was the first time I'd thought about you in nearly five years.

I wonder if that would break you? To know that, the people you left in the wake of your push to the top, have somehow moved on with their lives and rarely think about you. That you had such a great impact but it only lasted for so long before you faded away.

After you left, I used to spend my nights staring out the window and wondering if you were actually taking care of yourself now that you didn't trust me anymore to take on that role. I'd have to stop myself from picking up the phone and sending you reminders to call your mom, to wash your red clothes separately or to air out your shoes on the balcony overnight so that your teammates didn't make fun of the stench again.

The only thought that stopped me from sending all those typed-and-erased messages was that time you told me you only have room in your life for things that are useful. Do you even remember saying that? It was after our first Christmas together and I caught you throwing away that cherub figure your sister had brought you home from Korea. You had said it with such a serious and biting tone that I don't think the etching those words made in my subconscious could ever be erased.

And, well, if you tossed me aside with such similar short and biting words - then I must have been just as useless to you as that cherub. My messages would have been little more than annoying reminders from a past you didn't want anymore.

Through those first few months - I used to call them "The Oikawa Aftermath Recovery" - I never once thought about if you knew what it was like to never be enough, but I began to bitterly wonder if you knew that you made others feel like that. If you knew that you caused the same sort of wreck you hide behind that mask you use.

I think you probably would have been proud of your handiwork - if you had ever been the type to look back instead of constantly (and only) looking forward. I know that you know heartbreak and maybe, at the time, there wasn't anyone who knew better than me the way you suffered. Though, I think you could never know what it's like to be left behind while someone runs away with the heart you promised only to them.

Still, my mother used to tell me that the greatest victories came from the ashes of the worst defeats and I worked so hard to pick up the pieces of my life without you by my side - to be able to say that I was still strong. Still worthy. Still me. It was arduous work and there were so many times I had just wished you'd never stepped foot into my bakery on one of those few days when it was raining despite the sun being out. I cursed your stupid hair, the way you gave me your real smile and the fact that you kept coming into my shop despite me begging you not to - my poor bakery could never handle the influx of customers that followed in your wake. (I honestly am disappointed in myself for being able to remember those details even now.)

But, I grew beyond you. I finally got a taste of simple love - something without the flair of expensive presents to quell the loneliness, or to do the apologizing for you, and without the need to rush every interaction for fear of losing a single moment. I don't think you'd like him, though. His presence is unassuming in all the ways you couldn't bare to be and he's handsome in ways you could never match.

It only took me a few months to realize that I didn't need him to fix me - that I had already single-handedly repaired myself from those words you meant to cut me down and that I was already looking like a true survivor. Still, he showed me all the ways that your love failed. He listened to me when you never had. He took time for me when you never had. He offered to be there, despite being busy and I began to understand that maybe you had never really loved me. That in letting you go, I lost nothing - just as you had.

I remember, as I was walking down the aisle, that I had closed my eyes and tried to picture how a younger me had envisioned this moment. It had scared me to realize that the woman I was five years previous to that had always thought that you'd be the one waiting for me at the end of that trumpeted walk. But when I opened my eyes again, I realized younger me could have used remedial lessons in choosing men. I was walking toward a wonderland and my past with you had just been a circus. I guess you'd be a clown by now.

You know, I have this secret desire that I will forcefully make my way back into your consciousness the way you crashed into mine. (I mean really, Tooru, what the hell were you doing on my favorite cooking show?) Next month, my shop is going to be featured in an international baking magazine and I even got invited to that favorite show. I might pretend it hasn't been tainted by you. I might pretend to care if you're watching.

We even opened up two additional locations. Can you believe it? Ten years later and I'm a successful businesswoman, a wife and, soon, a mother. So, thank you for giving me the ability to stand on my own.

Hey Tooru, I'm still standing. Does it kill you?

~ Regards,

Seina Ennoshita