I got another checklist item done, woohoo! Also, Oikawa has terrible fashion sense, you can fight me on this, this kid would wear plaid with pinstripes, Iwaizumi is the only reason his clothes match.
Iwaizumi comes across Oikawa crying in his bedroom. They have regular movie nights, and Iwaizumi is only a little late because he couldn't decide what stuffed animal to bring. His mother had already put his blanket and pillow into his tiny travel bag.
But Oikawa is crying and he has no idea why.
He scrambles up onto the bed, his bag forgotten at the door. Oikawa looks ugly when he cries. His eyes get all red and he gets a runny nose. His skin is blotchy too, turning his usually pretty face into a mess.
Oikawa only just notices Iwaizumi, and he's quick to wipe his face, smearing tears and snot into his sleeve.
It's really gross.
But Iwaizumi lets him finish before asking what's wrong. Oikawa answers with an 'I don't know' before he begins crying again, throwing his arms around Iwaizumi and sobbing into his shirt.
It's not his favorite shirt, but he does like it. He wouldn't dream of moving his best friend though. So Iwaizumi lets him cry, hugging him until he wears himself out. He sends Oikawa to the bathroom to wash his face, and once he comes back they set up the movie. Oikawa's more clingy than usual, but Iwaizumi tolerates it.
For tonight anyways.
Their first year of middle school, Iwaizumi finds him crying again. This time, he hears heavy sobs from Oikawa's bathroom.
He walks in without knocking, immediately heading for the small linen cupboard. He pulls out a washcloth and wets it with cold water. Oikawa's hunched over, sitting on the bathtub ledge, head in his hands. Without hesitation, Iwaizumi kneels down in front of him, moving his hands so he has room to shift closer.
Gently, he wipes the tears from Oikawa's cheeks and the saliva from his chin. He twists around for the toilet paper, tearing some off, and putting aside his own squeamishness to help Oikawa blow his nose.
Once Oikawa's clean enough for Iwaizumi, he throws the rag in the sink and the toilet paper in the trash. He lays his arms across Oikawa's thighs and waits.
"What happened?"
"I feel sick, but not sick."
Putting aside how strange it sounds, Iwaizumi nods.
"Do you want to stay inside today?"
Oikawa only nods.
"Okay, I'm not carrying you though, come on."
He pushes off Oikawa's good leg, avoiding his bad knee entirely. They settle themselves in Oikawa's room. Iwaizumi takes off his jacket and hangs it on Oikawa's bed post.
Oikawa sniffles before falling face first onto his bed.
"I feel bad," he says after a moment.
Iwaizumi isn't quite sure what he's supposed to say.
"Is this an esteem thing?"
"Maybe, I think so," Oikawa rolls over onto his back so he can look at Iwaizumi properly.
Iwaizumi doesn't know where to go from this point. He doesn't like seeing Oikawa upset, but it does seem to be happening with increasing frequency. The first time he saw Oikawa crying like this, back when they were kids, he'd held Oikawa, let the other boy cuddle up to him.
With a heavy sigh, Iwaizumi moves over to the headboard and sits against it, bodily dragging Oikawa with him. The protest is minimal, nothing but a surprised squeak on Oikawa's part, as he's settled against Iwaizumi's side. Iwaizumi is quiet, pointedly not looking at Oikawa.
Eventually, Oikawa gets the gist of what's going on. He wastes no time in throwing an arm around Iwaizumi's waist and moving closer. Iwaizumi's not exactly the most cuddly person out there, despite Oikawa's best efforts, which makes instances like this all the more enjoyable.
Cuddling doesn't exactly solve the problem, Oikawa still feels like there's something wrong, but he does feel safe.
The feeling doesn't pass for two more days and Iwaizumi's more tolerant of his clingy behavior in that time. It's strange when the feeling goes away, looking back on it Oikawa has no idea what caused it, though he wants to know how he can stop it from ever happening again. He never wants to feel like that, not ever.
But now he feels perfectly fine. So he'll take that and run with it for as far as he can.
It's movie night after practice, Oikawa brings another dumb alien feature that he's jabbered about non stop for the past two weeks. Iwaizumi doesn't mind indulging him, despite how he grumbles about it whenever Oikawa asks. Besides the fact, it's been a good week, Oikawa hadn't strained his knee as much as he usually did during practice, and he didn't have a single episode save for a small twenty minute crying session in which he told Iwaizumi that he felt like clawing his skin off.
It had been concerning, obviously. Iwaizumi wasn't sure what it was he was supposed to do, what could be done to help. Oikawa had just sobbed into his shoulder and said that he hated feeling like that.
But he's good now, cuddling into Iwaizumi's side under the pretense that he can reach the snacks better this way.
They both know that's not the reason but there's no point in calling it out.
Oikawa pipes up when they're in the middle watching some skin walker type alien shed its human disguise in preparation to eat the protagonist. Iwaizumi's looking pointedly elsewhere, not interested in the visual when the audio is graphic enough to make him shiver.
"I wish I could do that," Oikawa mutters.
"What?"
"Not the eating people thing, that's gross. The disguise thing."
"You realize the alien killed the person it's disguised as, right?"
"Well, I'm not going to kill anybody, obviously."
His voice is light, but Iwaizumi's still concerned. He wants to say something, but Oikawa's already absorbed in the movie, watching the protagonist fight for his life, only to be saved by another alien that had apparently sided with the humans in the beginning of the movie.
Oikawa stares at the mirror, turning this way and that until he grins easily.
They're at the mall, Iwaizumi just needs to find another pair of shoes, but it seems that Oikawa's intent on filling his closet.
"What do you think, Iwa-chan?"
Iwaizumi looks up from his phone and assesses Oikawa's choice. He knows his friend doesn't have the best fashion taste, but he's managed to not look like a total fool this go around. The cardigan is a little different than what he usually chooses, but it looks nice.
"You look fine," he says.
"Be a little more enthusiastic," Oikawa pouts, but he gives himself up as a smile breaks onto his face.
"Just hurry up," Iwaizumi chuckles, standing up.
Oikawa disappears back into the dressing room and reemerges a few minutes later. Getting everything checked out only takes a few minutes then they're off, heading back to Oikawa's.
"You think it really looked okay?" Oikawa asks, pulling the cardigan from the bag and holding it up.
"You looked fine, Oikawa, it looked good on you."
Oikawa brightens considerably and that makes Iwaizumi feel better.
Iwaizumi raises a brow when he catches the undiluted joy in Oikawa's eyes.
"Look at this, Iwa-chan, look," he shoves the magazine into Iwaizumi's face, pointing excitedly to one of the pages.
"What am I looking at?"
"The dress, obviously. Can you believe how amazing that looks?"
It's an odd question, but the dress really does look pretty. It's simple, kind of like what Iwaizumi's older sister would wear when she wanted to feel extra girly. If he can remember his terminology correctly, the dress has a sweetheart neckline, and a box pleated skirt. Mostly blue, the only accents come from the designs on the slip beneath the sheer layer of the dress.
"I guess so, it looks cool."
Oikawa huffs at him.
"'Cool', it's gorgeous." He removes the magazine from Iwaizumi's face and flips to another page. "I mean, just look at this, girls are so lucky, look at all the pretty stuff they can wear."
He's pointing now, a little irritated, at the models layered on the page.
Iwaizumi doesn't really know what he's supposed to say, so he just shrugs.
Oikawa's crying again, this time they're on his roof, and Iwaizumi's got an arm slung over his shoulder. The night sky is is still forming, the moon is shining and the stars have only just started to come out.
"What does it feel like?" Iwaizumi asks.
"Like I'm wrong," Oikawa gasps between breaths, "And I hate it because I know it'll be gone soon and I don't even know why I feel like this. I just feel so bad in my skin, how I look, I hate it so much."
"Is it always this bad?"
Talking seems to help, Iwaizumi's learned over the years. While cuddling does wonders, Oikawa needs to actually talk about what's bothering him, Lord only knows he bottles up so much. Iwaizumi doesn't want him locking this away as well.
"No," Oikawa sniffles,"Not always. Sometimes it's just discomfort."
"Okay."
Oikawa calms down a few minutes later and Iwaizumi waits until he's not shaking anymore to coax him closer to the edge of the roof so they can climb down. They go to the bathroom Iwaizumi waves Oikawa to the bathtub edge to sit down. He gets a washcloth from the cupboard, just like he did all those years ago, and wets it at the sink.
Oikawa is very nearly silent as Iwaizumi wipes off his face, the only noises he makes are hiccuping squeaks that slip past his lips and the occasional sniffle.
When most of the redness in Oikawa's face has gone down, Iwaizumi presses a kiss to his forehead and pulls him to his room.
"I'm going to call my mom and tell her I'm spending the night." He watches Oikawa climb into bed before stepping into the hallway to make his call.
By the time he comes back in, Oikawa's already asleep.
"Hey, Iwa-chan?"
It's a bit of a lazy day. Oikawa's banned from the gym until he can move around without his knee swelling or buckling.
"Hm?"
Iwaizumi's finishing up homework, though it's a little hard to do with Oikawa's head in his lap, he won't complain.
"Your sister left some of her clothes here when she went to college, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
Oikawa fidgets, wringing his hands hard enough to make Iwaizumi wince.
"Could I try some of them on?"
Confusion is a bit of an understatement, Iwaizumi doesn't even know where to start.
"Um, sure?"
The smile Oikawa gives him is beyond brilliant, and Iwaizumi remembers all the times he's found Oikawa crying his eyes out. Is this why? Oikawa's said before that he sometimes doesn't feel right, that he feels uncomfortable in his own skin.
"Wait here a moment," Iwaizumi says.
The box with his sister's clothes is in his mother's closet, and she's not home.
Oikawa's still on his bed when he comes back. It's quiet as Iwaizumi opens the box. It's mostly filled with blouses and skirts, there's one dress though.
They lay them out on Iwaizumi's bed. Oikawa hesitates a moment before picking up one of the skirts.
"You're not...weirded out?" he asks. Iwaizumi just shrugs.
"It's a skirt. My sister used to dress me up when I was younger, and she used me as her model when she was doing her high school projects. I guess it's not really a big deal."
Oikawa starts giggling.
"I want to see those pictures, I know your mom took some."
Iwaizumi only grumbles and turns around so Oikawa can change.
There's no way the clothes will fit perfectly, Oikawa is tall and slim and Iwaizumi's sister is bit broader with wider hips, but that can be fixed with a belt or minor alterations. Iwaizumi knows how to do that much. Sometimes it pays to have a sister studying fashion. He's been dragged along on many shopping trips, and he's helped his sister fix enough of her own clothes that helping Oikawa shouldn't be a problem.
He just wants Oikawa to talk to him about this.
"O-okay." Oikawa sounds small, and Iwaizumi turns around.
The outfit is a little mismatched. The skirt is a rosy pink that falls just above Oikawa's knees, but he's still wearing his dark green alien graphic tee under a light grey cardigan that ends at his mid thigh. To top it all off, he's not removed his neon green socks.
He looks nervous, more nervous than Iwaizumi's seen him in a long while.
"Does it look okay?"
Iwaizumi purses his lips then moves closer, digging around the box.
"Take your shirt off," he says, holding up a simple white capsleeve. Once Oikawa's removed the garish t-shirt and replaced it with the capsleeve, he puts the cardigan back on. Iwaizumi stares pointedly at his socks, and then those are gone as well.
Instead of giving his opinion however, he opens up his closet to reveal the full mirror hanging on the door.
It takes a minute for Oikawa to properly face his reflection.
Iwaizumi's thrown for a bit of a loop when Oikawa starts crying. He steps forward, unsure of what to do. Oikawa solves that problem easily enough and seizes him by his shoulders, pulling him into a hug.
Iwaizumi pretends he doesn't know that Oikawa's wiping his face into his shirt.
"I'm happy," Oikawa mumbles.
"Then why are you crying?"
"I don't know."
"Go wash your face."
Once Oikawa's cleaned up, he works his way through the rest of the clothes. His fashion sense is horrible so Iwaizumi puts the outfits together, temporarily modifying them so they fit Oikawa better.
"The tops don't seem to be that big of an issue, most of them are open anyways. But you'll need a belt for the skirts. Even then, they're not going to fit right, so we can go shopping this weekend if you want. I can do some small alterations as well, I just have to find my sister's sewing kit and I should-"
Iwaizumi finds himself wrapped tight in another hug.
"Thank you, Iwa-chan."
"You don't have to thank me, you know?" He presses an absent kiss to Oikawa's jaw, wrapping his arms around Oikawa's back and pulling him closer.
"I know."
Not explicitly stated in the story but Oikawa is genderfluid. I decided to project a bit and put my horrible dysphoria on this lovely character. If you don't know, I'll be the first to say, dysphoria is hell but not everyone feels it as potently or consistently, it's all variable. Regardless, please let me know what you think, I'm always a little hesitant in posting stories like these because they're kinda hard to relate to with no experience, but...