JSWGAS Chapter 91

The entrance wasn’t lit, only the light from the direction he came from helped him see the blurry outlines in front of him. Kokonoe Taka’s mind was still echoing with his mother’s fourteenth piece of music. There were still more than half a year until the New Year… it would be a long time before he could see her again.

He raised his left hand and gently pressed it against the doorknob. Speaking of which, who would be looking for him at this hour?

“Creak.”

The door opened, and a cool breeze ruffled the bangs of the person knocking. The person who appeared was carrying a bag, yawning listlessly. When the door opened, they lazily straightened up.

Kokonoe Taka was taken aback: “…Tōru?”

Oikawa Tōru, who appeared at his door late at night, drawled in response: “Ta-da! It’s me, the kindly visiting Mr. Oikawa—why don’t you have the lights on?” Oikawa Tōru raised an eyebrow, looking at the boy standing in the dimly lit room. He squeezed past Kokonoe Taka from the crack in the door with complete naturalness, and then closed the door behind him as if he were the host.

Kokonoe Taka obediently released his hand, moved his feet to give him space, but said, “I don’t think I invited you in yet, kindly Mr. Oikawa?”

“Huh?” Oikawa Tōru snorted lightly, “Then you shouldn’t have opened the door in the first place, leaving me outside. Nitpicking after the fact isn’t very likeable, Mr. Taka.”

“…Eloquent.”

This place seemed incredibly spacious when Kokonoe Taka was young. At least a little rascal could sit at the entrance, happily eating the pudding Tsurumi Sumiko gave them together; but now, when he occasionally went out, he would sometimes space out while tying his shoelaces, wondering if he should put some decorations at the entrance to make it look less empty.

…Now he felt that the place was still a bit small.

Kokonoe Taka’s right arm leaned against the cabinet at the entrance, looking down at Oikawa Tōru bending over to change his shoes. He took two steps forward, giving him space.

“Where are my slippers?”

“There’s no such thing.”

“How awful, your hospitality.”

“I don’t welcome uninvited guests.”

Although he said that, Kokonoe Taka still nudged Oikawa Tōru twice with his toe, telling him to move aside. Then, he took a pair of women’s slippers out of the shoe cabinet.

“…You want me to wear these?”

Oikawa Tōru stared at the delicate Miss Rabbit embroidered on the slippers, its eyes were two bright crystals, beautifully like crafts. His tone was a little strange.

“Please bear with it.” Kokonoe Taka smiled, remembering something interesting, “You’ve worn women’s clothing before anyway, now it’s just a pair of women’s slippers.”

Oikawa Tōru: “…Do you think I’ll thank you for this?”

He also remembered how his mother, at Kokonoe Taka’s instigation, had forced him into a Little Red Riding Hood pajama set that looked like it was for girls. The action of stuffing his feet into the shoes became even more violent, “They’re too small.”

He stretched out his foot and shook it confidently. Looking at it for a long time, he actually felt that these slippers were much better looking than the plain, mousy-grey slippers on Kokonoe Taka’s feet. Sigh, this guy’s taste is really awful.

“There aren’t any others.” Kokonoe Taka walked along the corridor, seemingly finding Oikawa Tōru’s appearance in the slippers amusing and ridiculous. These shoes were left over from before, and he cleaned them when he moved back and stuffed them back into the shoe cabinet—he usually didn’t have many guests to entertain. In Miyagi, there were only Oikawa Tōru, who lived next door, and Iwaizumi Hajime, who lived in the same neighborhood. Ah, and now there were also the Aoba Johsai teammates, but other friends were elsewhere.

“If you don’t feel comfortable, you don’t have to wear shoes.” As soon as he said this, he looked amusedly at Oikawa Tōru quickly kicking off the shoes.

And Oikawa Tōru thought: Why didn’t you say so earlier? As expected, you wanted to see me make a fool of myself—damn it, why am I not surprised at all.

“You took so long to open the door.” He complained, changing the subject.

“I was just on the phone with my mother.” Kokonoe Taka didn’t turn his head, and raised his hand to turn on the light switch as he passed a certain spot. The room instantly brightened, artificial suns hanging above their heads, illuminating Oikawa Tōru’s expression, “I was just saying goodbye to her. Don’t worry.”

“…Oh.” Oikawa Tōru felt a moment of guilt, but he quickly covered it up, “Is Auntie Sumiko still in England?”

“She went to Vienna.” The two of them went through the corridor one after the other, and arrived at the living room, “She’s studying there now, it’s been two months already. She also participated in a charity performance last week…”

He stopped talking, turned his head, squinted and asked, “Speaking of which, what are you here for?”

Oikawa Tōru plopped down on the soft sofa, bounced once, and then retorted: “Can’t I look for you if I have nothing to do?—But, I do have something.”

Leaning back on the sofa, feeling as soft as sinking into clouds. Oikawa Tōru didn’t indulge in this feeling, straightened his back, raised his chin at Kokonoe Taka who was still standing, and glanced over a few spots on the other person’s body: “—Looking so relaxed, are you a robot? Can’t you feel the pain?”

“…”

He straightened up and took out the medicine in the bag. And Kokonoe Taka obviously didn’t expect him to do this, and was speechless for a few seconds.

Oikawa Tōru said lightly: “Yesterday’s two practice matches, you received a lot of balls, and you also coordinated the block a lot of times, right? Especially Little Ushiwaka—” He snorted softly when he mentioned this name, “As one of the victims of that kind of cannonball, you can’t fool Mr. Oikawa, can you?”

He paused deliberately, and the casual voice continued: “Your arms, and your right hand. Anyway, looking at your current situation, your family probably hasn’t prepared any medicine at all, or maybe they’ve already run out and haven’t restocked…”

His rare kindness was questioned: “…So you really are here to bring warmth?”

The smile that Oikawa Tōru originally had quickly disappeared. He asked in disbelief: “What kind of image do I have in your heart? Iwaizumi isn’t here to answer that question for you this time—”

The other person evaded the question: “It’s a bit late…did you bring your keys when you came out?”

Oikawa Tōru: “Your way of changing the subject is also terrible…Of course I brought them, did you think I would shamelessly sleep at your house? So answer me!”

“You’re a kind person who came to bring warmth.” Kokonoe Taka sat down, “How did you find out?”

“Did I need to find out specifically?” Oikawa Tōru feigned surprise, “Isn’t it obvious at a glance?” He paused, still reluctantly explaining, “I was guessing at first. But when I saw that you used your left hand to open the door, and the action of turning on the lights was also a bit unnatural, I confirmed it.”

“But, although it sounds nice, you might have deliberately picked this time to come over.” Kokonoe Taka rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie, revealing several bruises hidden on the inside of his arm. He watched Oikawa Tōru take the spray, and his body paused imperceptibly, and he understood most of it in his heart, “The reason…is it something like ‘I should teach that guy a lesson’ or—’Then Mr. Oikawa appears and he will thank Mr. Oikawa properly, and might even look at me with admiration’—like that?”

Oikawa Tōru endured the annoyance of being exposed, gritted his teeth and pressed the purplish-blue bruise on his arm in front of him, “I wouldn’t be so bored.”

He deliberately used force, “Hiss.” Kokonoe Taka gasped, “I’m starting to suspect that you deliberately used this reason to enter my house, and then you can use this method to murder me.”

Oikawa Tōru took a deep breath, and instead answered in an affectionate tone: “Don’t say such ungrateful things to a benefactor, if you can’t speak, you can not speak.”

He never thought he would say this one day.

“I’m still a patient who needs to be taken care of. Be gentle, Mr. Oikawa.”

One person raised their arm, and the other looked down and sprayed medicine. The inside of the arm, behind the elbow, injuries were commonplace for them, so they handled them skillfully and quickly. The smell of Salonpas spray gradually took over the air, and the hissing sound of pressing the nozzle was drowned out by the mutual bickering between the two, which was actually a bit lively.

There’s an old saying that one thing conquers another. In Oikawa Tōru’s fifteen years, perhaps the people he couldn’t deal with the most in his life, and maybe even later, were Iwaizumi Hajime and Kokonoe Taka. It’s just that the former usually treated his words as farts, and if he was really impatient, he would carry out violent suppression, using Oikawa Tōru’s pain to exchange for his own peace; the latter valued spiritual attacks more than the former’s physical blows.

Oikawa Tōru had never had much of a way to deal with the latter since he was a child. Especially after Kokonoe Taka returned to Miyagi, the difficulty of verbal confrontation increased to a higher level, and he could often say all kinds of unpleasant things in a cool tone.

—But, maybe it was also what he deserved.

After finishing the medicine on his arm, the rest was his right hand, which bore the pressure when blocking.

“Hand.”

He subconsciously handed it over.

After Kokonoe Taka really did so, Oikawa Tōru became excited and curious, and the smile on his face was extremely punchable: “Taka, are you a dog?”

Kokonoe Taka: “…”

Oikawa Tōru checked the other person’s little finger, which was a bit stiff and a little swollen…but there was no major problem. At the same time, he kept talking: “Look, as soon as I said give me your hand, you really gave me your hand—isn’t that an obedient dog?”

“Is that so.”

If it had been Iwaizumi Hajime who was provoked like this, he would have already taken action. But Kokonoe Taka used an affirmative question in a gentle and harmonious way, and just as Oikawa Tōru’s sixth sense sent out a warning, he grabbed Oikawa Tōru’s unguarded palm with his backhand, and in a series of “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” he smiled noncommittally, “There’s a little difference.” Slowly and deliberately, “An obedient dog wouldn’t use its claws to ‘shake hands’ with you like this.”

It was said to be a handshake, but his fingers were clenched tightly, and an uncomfortable sense of confinement was transmitted from the fingertips that the setter relied on for survival, accompanied by the friction of uneven skin against each other, which made one’s scalp tingle. Oikawa Tōru quickly surrendered with tears in his eyes, and after struggling out, he hugged his hand and yelled and accused, “You used too much force! If Mr. Oikawa can’t set good balls tomorrow, it’s all your fault!”

Kokonoe Taka glanced at Oikawa Tōru, who had quietly taken two steps back, and lowered his head to apply the medicine to himself, “Serves you right.”

Brief and ruthless.