You Can Lean On Me

Meeting them (Hikaru POV)

Not everyone is okay with Aoki Hikaru being nonbinary as I found out in my second year of middle school. 

One particular bunch of bullies refuses to leave me alone. I would always laugh and joke that the bullies are just obsessed with me but today is an especially hard day for me to pretend I don't care. 

Usually, they'll stop after roughing me up a bit and calling me names and slurs. Today was not the usual. Today the bullies decided they wanted to play a game of "Who can find out what gender Aoki is" and they corner me behind the school by the gym. Despite my best efforts, they manage to pin me to the wall. I squeeze my eyes shut as tears threaten to fall- I just want to be me, is that too much to ask?

"Hey, scram!" a voice calls out

"You're gonna make the volleyball club look bad with all your dumb attempts at bullying." someone else chimes in

And then the hands are gone from my shirt, my blazer already discarded on the ground somewhere- probably dirty now.  I open my eyes to see two volleyball players next to me, the one with brown hair smiles and hands me my blazer while the one with really dark hair just stares at me.

"I'm Oikawa Tooru, and you are?" the brunette boy asks me as I hesitantly dust off my blazer

"Aoki Hikaru. Thank you for saving me back there, Oikawa-san and..."

"Iwaizumi."

"-Iwaizumi-san. Thank you guys," I say before bowing

"If you don't mind us asking, Aoki-kun, why were those guys bullying you? You look pretty roughed up..." Oikawa asks

I pause and fidget uncomfortably with my tie for a moment, trying to find my words before Iwaizumi cuts in.

"Oi, Shittykawa. Leave the kid alone."

"Ah, no! It's okay, really. I was trying to collect my thoughts. I identify as nonbinary and use they/them pronouns. And... some people don't like that..." I trail off for a moment before looking up at them and smiling, "Those bullies are just jealous that they're not as cool as me!"

Oikawa suddenly leans closer to look at me up close before grinning widely.

"That's so cool, Aoki-kun!! Or do you prefer different honorifics? Ohmygosh teach me all about being nonbinary! I'm gonna learn and remember all of it.  That means instead of using he or she you use they and them?" Oikawa starts gushing

"Oh, uhh, whatever you want as my honorifics is fine. And yeah!"

Oikawa nods furiously before turning to his friend.

"Iwa-chan isn't Aoki-kun so cool?? Let's be their friend, okay?" Oikawa asks, to which Iwaizumi nods his head before Oikawa whips around to face me again and asks "Did I use your pronouns right in that sentence?"

I can't help but genuinely smile and nod yes to Oikawa. The pair invite me to hang out after they change out of their gym clothes. 

*timeskip*

I think it was at some point in our third year of middle school that I really started developing feelings for Oikawa Tooru- from his kind demeanor toward me to his excitement and willingness to learn about me and nonbinary people and different sexualities and what each one meant or the way his genuine smiles were reserved for only me and Iwaizumi. Unfortunately for me, that's also the time when Oikawa started trusting me enough to confide in me about his crush on Iwaizumi.

I didn't think it really mattered if he didn't like me back and there was no need for me to ever confess because he loved Iwaizumi. As long as he's happy, I'm content to just be his friend and be a good listener. Once high school started, he had less time to hang out because he had to get better for his new volleyball team so in addition to eating lunch together, we started our tradition of weekly sleepovers. 

Sometimes Iwaizumi was invited, sometimes he wasn't. The times he wasn't there, it was just Oikawa and me. Of course, there was the weekly gushing about his crush and asking for advice or just telling me everything that happened while they had practice that he either forgot to mention at lunch or couldn't say because it was about Iwaizumi. But then we'd talk about anything and everything.

Those sleepovers are how I learned that Oikawa Tooru secretly loved the thought of aliens and enjoyed stargazing. It's how I found out that his right knee sometimes throbs in uncomfortable pain and he's never told anyone because he says it's barely noticeable and usually doesn't feel any different from his left and he doesn't want to be kicked off the team for something so trivial.

I got to learn the real Oikawa Tooru through those sleepovers, even when fangirls would swarm him at school. It became almost painful to see him switch to the flirty, confident Oikawa when girls would show up. All because he didn't ever want to come off as rude even when they gave him anxiety from the sheer amount of letters and confessions and questions he would get on the daily from them. They had to ban anyone without the coach's permission from entering the gym during volleyball because of it in our second year of high school.

Even with all that going on, Oikawa would still introduce me as one of his best friends. Every time someone would ask about me, it was the same because it was often the three of us together.

"These are my two best friends: the scary-looking one is Iwaizumi Hajime and the cute nonbinary one is Aoki Hikaru. But to me they're Iwa-chan and Hikaru-kun." at which point he'd pause to wrap his arms around our shoulders before continuing, "That means that Hikaru-kun goes by they/them pronouns so please respect that."

It was best when he'd ruffle my hair during introductions if I got anxious but I was really just grateful for him doing introductions for me. Everyone seemed to like him which by extension meant that I was more accepted for being nonbinary. It was a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I didn't have any real bullies in high school. On the other hand, Oikawa's fangirls started obsessing over my apparent "cuteness" and I ended up with more attention than I wanted until Iwaizumi stepped in and asked the girls to let me be after I almost got mobbed and dragged off by some fangirls.

Oikawa later pouted at my popularity and joked that I can't steal all his fans or he 'won't have anyone cheering for him at his games' and winked at me. Iwaizumi followed up by calling Oikawa Loserkawa for not being able to keep his own fans. Oikawa followed up by making a face before pouting and saying "Iwa-chan, you're so meannnn~"

And then Oikawa and I found out we both made it to class 6, Iwaizumi in class 5 and suddenly our third year had started.