MARTINI BLUE oikawa tooru

eleven. YOU SET THE FIRE, NOW WATCH IT BURN

 

          Oikawa Tooru knows something's up. Tahjiko won't even let him touch her anymore and Mariko isn't going out of her way to hang out with him at all, and that's not just him being needy contrary to Iwa-chan's stupid opinion. The two sisters disappear after school together and Mariko's been missing out on practice more often than not. The reason why, only privy to their coach and it's a firmly guarded reason.

She finally agrees to come to his house after school for a few hours while Mari was required to participate in a practice match. "Did I do something wrong?" Tooru asks, he's been itching with curiosity for the past week. It was consuming his mind even deeper than it usually did and he even asked Iwa-chan for advice. The ace was, of course, unhelpful in his advice.

          "No I just have a home situation that I have to focus on." Tahji hates labeling the return of the legendary Okonome Chihiro as a home situation, but she's not very keen on explaining the mess to Tooru either. In her mind this is simple, Tahji loves her mother more than she could ever explain in words. Tahji also happens to realize that she got into this relationship with this boy knowing that this was entirely temporary. Yet, she still finds her heart beating with doubt as she stands near his kitchen table facing him.

Tahji's famously regarded as the heartbreaker among her friends, she was the one that carelessly tramped around catching fire or not, it didn't matter to her because she was in control of the situation. Okonome Tahjiko is not the most beautiful among the other renegades and rebels, she is not the strongest or the nicest, and she is not the merciful.

Mariko has volleyball, Tahjiko has romance. Hearts are like glowsticks in her palm in the middle of the night, she breaks them without regret. There's always going to be another heart to break, another night to make roar with indecency enough to make a priest have a heart attack. Tahji does not regret, and yet she finds her own heart, in all it's layers of cardiac muscle and capillaries, seize with pain as she watches Oikawa Tooru's love crumble in her hands.

          "If it's because of me being focused on volleyball--"

          "Tooru, I already said it was a me thing." She'll be the bad guy this one time.

          "Then why are you pushing me away Tahjiko?" His light brown eyes are serious as he gazes up into her, trying to bravely decipher her mind once more. His hands are rubbing soft circles into her wrist as Tahji looks away, she doesn't want to do this but she cannot bear to lie more to her mother.

Their floundering relationship was never expected to last long, but he wanted to defy the odds for once.

          "You don't need to know everything in my life--"

          "But I care about you and you're changing and I don't know why!"

          "Just let it be a mystery, Christ!" She snaps, anger's rising to the surface of her skin and she can feel the way that Tooru recoils as he tries to protect himself from getting burned. When two clever people go up against each other, it's down to acceleration of conflict. Who can make the fire burn brighter?

And Okonome Tahjiko knows that she's going to win every time. She's been setting fires since middle school. Oikawa Tooru doesn't even know anything and he's about to get crucified in the flames. But the most damage she can do is to push volleyball back up like it's actually something she was worried about.

Of course there was an understanding on her part that he was going to spend a decent amount of time on it because Aoba Johsai has consistently lost to Shiratorizawa and never gone to nationals not once, it was a reasonable cause for dedication. There was also a conflict between him and one of the people on those teams that she didn't really know about but she never pressed in. And there was the notable tension he had with that remarkable First Year setter at Karasuno.

          Really, volleyball is a touchy subject and Tahjiko knows it, but who can make the fire roar faster?

          "Focus on volleyball and losing to Shiratorizawa, I hope you feel insecure because your junior that's an infinitely better setter than you is coming to take your ticket to nationals. Spend all your sleepless nights and all your aches and pains on volleyball. Just forget about me." She spits her curses like venom and salts the earth behind her. They've really fallen apart so easily, but Tooru looks more hurt than angry. Tahji can feel her heart breaking to pieces, this is different than her last flings. It holds meaning. It hurts so much that she can't even feel herself start to cry.

           "Just get out, Tahjiko."

Tahjiko leaves her own broken heart in her hands, she lets herself out of the Oikawa house and into her own apartment where Mariko isn't even home yet. She half ran home with her hood pulled up and her face turned toward the ground, running blindly back to her apartment where she probably can't even cry in peace anymore. She stumbles into her building with a steady stream of you did this to yourself in her head plaguing her already conflicted thoughts.

          "Tahji, baby, what happened?" Chihiro immediately says as the key turns in the lock and her daughter immediately proceeds to her room, slamming the door closed and flinging herself onto her bed. The woman is shocked, something definitely happened but she wasn't sure how to handle the situation. She'd never played an active part in her daughter's love life as the counselor or the wise matron, she was just a young kid when she got pregnant with Tahjiko too.

Grabbing a carton of ice cream and two spoons, she opens the door to her daughter's room slightly where Tahji is listless. She lays face down breathing into a pillow, Chihiro slowly creeps forward. They've been reunited for four days and there's already tears. Her delicate hand rests on Tahji's shoulders as she sidles up next to her daughter, setting the carton down on the floor as she hugs her daughter.

          "What happened?" She repeats as the young girl raises her head and looks away from her mother.

          "Not your business." She mumbles as her mother raises an eyebrow. This definitely sounds like a boy problem. In the past when Tahjiko had the bullying problems she was usually the one to be painted as the perpetrator because she used her fists just as decently as her words, thus less crying and more suspensions.

          "Honey, were you dating someone maybe?" Chihiro asks cautiously. "You can tell me, I won't be mad, I promise."

Tahjiko sniffles again, wiping her tears on her sweatshirt she remains silent. "Ma I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?"

Chihiro nods against her daughter's back. Tahjiko's outgrown her by a few centimeters. "There's ice cream on the floor for you, don't let it melt. But if you ever want to talk, I'm around. Even when I'm away from you I still love you so much. Sure I might get mad if you do irresponsible things, but I care about you and I just want to make sure that you're happy. So just, when you're ready, talk to me baby."

          Tahji nods, she's crying even more now as Chihiro exits the room.