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

Where You Should Be || Oikawa Tooru

The way the information passed through him struck so powerfully that it left him feeling dazed and fuzzy, like that time he had stuck his sister's hair pin in an outlet just to see what would happen. Suddenly, Oikawa regretted punching that straight-faced bastard in the face. He regretted the anger that always seemed to boil up inside of him every time that olive-haired giant stepped into his path. Before, his anger had always been so elementary: a scream against every way in which Ushijima represented all his own shortcomings. It was about revenge and pettiness and power, but outright knowing that Shiratorizawa's ace was the cause of Marri's pain, suddenly made it all righteous. Right then and there, he resolved that he really, deeply, hated Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Somehow, though, he also immediately started hating him even more.

"Oi, where have you been," Iwaizumi grumbled as he caught sight of the brunet walking their way. Oikawa immediately screwed up his face in shock and concern as he turned his eyes toward the small girl in Iwaizumi's arm and hid his throbbing hand behind his back.

"What did you do to Okano," he said with a feigned growl as he dropped next to them and pushed her fingers away from her face to examine the damage. Talk about projecting, he thought.

"I didn't do anything," Iwaizumi said in his typical pissed-off tone. "Her soulmate must have pissed someone off pretty bad."

"What a jerk," Oikawa responded, brushing Marri's hair behind her ear before helping her up. "He never cares about how his life hurts her."

It's not as if it was an untrue statement. It was something Oikawa and Iwaizumi had thought for some time now. Okano Marri was not a frail girl — no friend of those two oafs could be — but her soulmate seemed to push both of their bodies past their abilities and did so without any regard to the woman on the other side of his red string of fate. He didn't care if his extra workout after practice left her with legs so weak and wobbly that she had to be helped out of bed in the morning. He didn't care that those 100 serves, and the 100 more after, made it so she couldn't lift her arms above her head. He didn't care. He had a goal. Life was simple. (Even if it wasn't.)

The two boys had come to hate their best friend's soulmate long ago, but now that Oikawa knew it was Ushijima that abhorrence seemed to overflow. How dare that superpowered bastard do this to Marri. How dare he look smug on the court and push his body to the absolute limit while Oikawa's best friend suffered alongside him. How dare Ushijima keep stealing such precious things from him.

It was then that Oikawa made a plan and a promise to himself (because once he had his mind set on something, he'd be damned if anything got in his way). He was going to take something precious away from Ushijima. Oikawa would make Ushiwaka hurt the way he hurt Oikawa and Okano so many times, because that unfeeling, calculating, power-focused giant didn't deserve her, didn't deserve her smiles and encouragement and he sure didn't deserve to be tied to her forever.

In the moment, he wasn't concerned with the logistics of his plan, nor the ramifications. There was something he could do to get even while protecting his friend from a future of being a begrudging mistress to volleyball.

Oikawa Tooru was going to steal away Ushijima Wakatoshi's soulmate. It was simple, really. (Even though it wasn't.) 

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Early on, Okano Marri had set a list of rules for herself to live by and, though they may be small in number, they existed to make her life easier. One: never leave home without an umbrella. Two: always buy tampons before they run out. Three: coffee should never count as a meal. Four: always wear shorts under your skirt. Five: don't ever, for even one minute, look at Oikawa Tooru or Iwaizumi Hajime as anything more than your stupid best friends.