crown [t. oikawa]

[fourteen]

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"KICHONA. WE NEED TO TALK."

it's an hour after the four of us left the library, etsuko and hajime now awake. it's late at night and all of the city lamps lining the pathways have been lit up, the only thing beside the moon and stars illuminating the quiet streets around the neighbourhood. 

etsuko and oikawa have already split off into their respective streets. it's only me and hajime, who posed the question with a frown. 

i open my mouth to answer, knowing what it's about ever since yesterday at the restaurant and today when hajime woke up to find oikawa's head in my lap. "it's about oikawa, isn't it?"

"yes," hajime stops, leaning on somebody's stone fence. "what on earth have you two been doing? what exactly happened that night i was at etsuko's?"

"nothing," my face flushes because it wasn't exactly nothing. 

 hajime sighs in exasperation, but doesn't bother to probe. "you've caught feelings, haven't you?"

it's my turn to stop. "so what if i do?"

"you know what," hajime says, his frown deepening in frustration. "we've already had this conversation. oikawa isn't in the right mental space and darkness follows your every footstep. kichona, i know that you're fully aware of how badly a relationship between you two would end." 

hajime's right.

despite all the smiles and the laughs and the butterflies when oikawa touches me gently, i do know that dating oikawa will end in a disaster. 

[and i hate it.]

"but i can't just leave oikawa to destroy himself with negativity," i turn to face hajime. "i need to do something."

"and so far, what exactly have you done, kichona?" 

"i've- i've..." my voice falters. i haven't done anything. i've reassured him and whispered the words he needed to hear, but...have they actually reached him?

hajime crosses his arms and closes his eyes, almost as if he's tired of me and my feelings. "see?"

the condescending tone in his voice leads me to snap and angrily burst out, "well, oikawa's made me happier!"

it's eerily quiet after i finish the outburst. hajime opens his eyes, mouth pressed into a thin line. "you don't know how many girls have thought that and ended up crying themselves to sleep. what makes you think that you're so special?"

the last sentence is so shocking and staggering that for a moment it seems out of character for hajime to say something as blunt as that (to me, at least) before i remember that he's probably the one etsuko leaned on the most through her relationship with oikawa.