Certainty | Oikawa Tooru

Third Act

Oikawa frowned; he had always envisioned himself as more of a...

He leaned back from the mirror and spat the toothpaste in his mouth into the sink.

He wasn't quite sure who he was anymore now that he thought about it.

With a sniff of his nose, he watched as his reflection squared his shoulders and stood straight before him in the mirror. He raised two fingers on each hand up to the corners of his mouth, pushing the edges up into some semblance of a smile.

Had his smile always looked so forced? He opened his mouth, revealing his teeth in a wide beam.

Had his expressions always seemed so stiff?

With a heavy sigh, he dropped his hands back to his sides and he watched as his lips fell back into the tight line from before. He tossed his toothbrush to the side and walked back into his room towards his closet, his fingers combing through his hair as he grabbed his team jacket with his other hand and headed for the front door.

It didn't really matter in the end whether or not his smile looked forced or stiff or whatnot. He was the mood-maker of the team — the comedian, the jokester. No one would pay any notice as long as he seemed happy enough.

Slipping one arm and then the other into his sleeves, he zipped the jacket up to the top and pulled at the bottom of the fabric to straighten out the folds. Oikawa had settled into a predictable routine now that he had gotten accustomed to his new life in Argentina. He'd wake up, get ready and head out the door, jog over to practice, and then cool down on one of the benches outside by the gymnasium doors as he waited for the rest of the team to trickle in. It gave him time to ready himself for the act he would have to put on, equipping him with the focus he would need to simultaneously play at his best while acting out the character of the Pierrot.

Ensuring that his shoelaces were tightly laced, he gave a quick tap of the tips of his shoes against the marble flooring of the atrium and pulled open the door, stepping out into the sleepy streets of the early morning.

It wasn't that he really needed the extra exercise, but it gave him something to keep his mind occupied with. In a world where time seemed to have stopped only for him, it was his one chance to regain his pace to catch up, no matter how futile, with the rest of the world. It was short-lived and fleeting, but he appreciated how there existed no pressure on the way he should act — it was just him alone in the very moment; the intermission in the play his life had become where he could, almost ironically, stop and catch his breath.

As he arrived at the front entrance of the training center, he reached up to his ears to unhook his earbuds and shoved them into his pant pocket before taking a seat by the gymnasium door. He brought his phone up to his face as he leaned back against the wall, his legs outstretched in front of him, as he scrolled through the notifications that had accumulated throughout the night.

He let out a quiet chuckle at the silly pictures of animals his old teammates sent him in their group chat, and his thumbs flew across his phone's on-screen keyboard as he typed out his reply with the same pinpoint precision as his tosses. He tapped reflexively at the corner of the screen to toggle the stickers, sending an onslaught of smiling cartoon aliens to the group to declare his amusement.

He paused, looking back at the chat window on his phone, and frowned at the overly up-beat messages he had just sent to his friends. Was he overcompensating? Was he trying too hard to be happy?

Was he not?

With a shrug, he tapped at the arrow at the top corner to return to the app's home screen. He was a professional; they'd never take notice that he had accidentally dialled his excitement too high. Even he didn't notice after all.

Leaning forward with his elbows resting on his thighs, his thumb scrolled through his LINE feed, sparing less than a second of a glance at each post until his eyes landed on a picture you had posted just hours earlier. It was simply a photo of you by the beach with little written in the caption save for a silly turtle emoji, but a ghost of a smile settled on his lips nonetheless. You were never good at writing captions, and the memory of him teasing you for "taking the easy way out with emojis" brought about a sense of solace in his heart.

Oikawa stared at your vibrant smile before him, a warm feeling settling at the base of his stomach. You looked happy; the sun shone brightly behind you in the photo, and your arms were splayed out with the exuberant energy of your infectious joy reaching out to the very tips of your fingers. You looked happy and full of life — as if you had finally reached the very ending that he had fought so tirelessly to offer you on a silver platter. This was the proof he had needed to convince himself that it was all worth it; that all the nights he spent awake wandering through the depths of his mind imprisoned by his own regret had been worth it.

He was glad that you got your happy ending, but at the same time, he couldn't deny the stiffness of his jaw and the pang of pain that shot through his chest. It hurt, and he suspected that it would continue to hurt for the rest of this life, but if that were the sacrifice he would have to make to guarantee your protection against his demons...

Then he would be more than willing to trade away every genuine feeling of happiness in his entire lifetime just to secure the deal.

He swallowed a gulp and quickly swiped up and out of the app to return to his home screen. He locked his phone with a quick press of the button, but subconsciously pressed at it again to bring up his wallpaper once more.

"I just want you to be happy," he murmured quietly to himself, his thumb dragging across the surface of the screen.

Because at the end of the day, what was most important was that he had accomplished his mission — that he had kept the promise that he made to himself to guard his most beloved treasure with every fiber of his being.

If it meant that you'd get the happy ending you deserved, he'd willingly take the fall.

Loud footsteps echoed out from in front of him, and a pair of bright blue court shoes stepped into his visual field.

"Hey, you okay, Tōru?"

He looked up to find his team's captain staring down at him with a worried frown.

"Oh, never better," Oikawa replied with a mirthless laugh as he stood back up to his full height, looking his captain in the eye with a cheerful smile on his lips.

"Never better."