If You Want
A Haikyuu! oneshot
by mew-tsubaki
Note: The Haikyuu! characters belong to Furudate Haruichi-sensei, not to me. Finally giving some love to one of my background OTPs. :D Read, review, and enjoy!
- ^-^3
Inside the halls of Fukurodani Academy, teachers began the new semester with renewed vigor, students attended classes with half the attention they paid at the start of the year, and clubs burst from excitement, specifically the sports clubs, as many tournament seasons were gearing up for their climax.
Outside Fukurodani, sweeping through the streets of Tokyo, the rain from the middle of summer persisted—though it was now September.
The general gloom of the weather—the smells of damp pavement, wet grass, humidity itself—creeped in through the windows, and no one could escape it. In the classrooms, in the halls, even in the gyms. An uncomfortable warmth lingered no matter where one went, and Konoha grumbled in the back of his throat as he ate lunch with his friends.
"It's the first freaking weekend back from summer vacation," he groused, tugging on his tie which was already loose because he'd been pulling on the knot all day. His gray uniform blazer was back in his classroom, and the rest of the guys and both Shirofuku and Suzumeda had left theirs behind, as well.
Sarukui's curled head bobbed on the step below Konoha in the stairway as the dark-haired wing spiker rolled his shoulders and let his head loll. "It's as if monsoon season never ended," Sarukui huffed. Beside him, Komi groaned in agreement and had little else to say while he pinched the front of his button-up shirt to fan himself.
At the bottom of the staircase, even Bokuto's hair had seemed to melt in a puddle around him, as the captain was splayed on the hallway floor and hadn't moved since he'd inhaled his bento. "I'm ready for winter now," he announced. His voice sounded funny, glitchy, because Akaashi ate on the bottom step with one hand and held a miniature, battery-operated fan in the other, aimed at Bokuto to provide the poor guy some relief.
"You'll be whining about wanting summer the moment the first snowflake falls," Konoha called down to him, and he could see between the girls' heads a few steps down the way one of Bokuto's eyes narrowed. Konoha laughed, finally feeling energized in the slightest. "You know what a day like this calls for?"
None of them replied. From where he stood leaning against the bannister, Washio gave him a slow, tired stare.
"Oh, don't look at me like that, Wasshi. It's Friday, for crying out loud. We should all go out and do something fun!"
Washio slouched, even as Onaga piped up beside him, "Well, we don't have practice for once…"
"Correct! First practice back is tomorrow, right after classes." Konoha finally released his tie and brushed some of his blond locks out of his face as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He raised his eyebrows at everyone else. "What do you guys say?"
Bokuto raised his hand from the floor. "I've got plans."
Konoha's right eye twitched in annoyance. "What plans?"
"Make it home before I melt completely," he moaned.
"That's not a legitimate excuse."
"It's fine. Akaashi will see that I make it home."
"Don't drag Akaashi into your pitiful plans."
"Actually," the jet-haired setter piped up, "I am going home with Bokuto-san." Akaashi glanced at Konoha over his shoulder. "But it's because his teacher said his summer math assignment, though complete, is nearly entirely wrong, so I'm going to tutor him."
Bokuto bolted to an upright position, red-faced and howling "AKAASHI…!" while the others heaved sighs at their captain's predictability.
Sarukui raised his hand next, almost thwacking Konoha in the face in the process. "I've got plans, too," he stated.
"What?" Konoha looked from one face to another as lunches were finished and bento packed away and faces angled up at him, mostly apologetically. "Does everyone have plans?"
"Pretty much," Komi said. He stood and stretched and pointed to Sarukui. "I've got the same plans."
"He didn't even say what his plans were!" Although, a beat later, Konoha realized he probably didn't need to know what Sarukui and Komi were doing. Those two had been attached at the hip for years; it was all but said aloud that they were an item. On the other hand…
Onaga's innocent face was so calm and plain as he gestured to himself and Washio with his thumb. "We've got a date," he said. Beside him, his taciturn boyfriend didn't blush but did duck his eyes, indicating some embarrassment since they were still fairly new into this relationship which had popped up during the summer training camp.
That twitch in Konoha's eye ached at this point. Damn it. Was he honestly surrounded by happy couples?
The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, before Konoha could gripe. The kouhai packed up first since this level was for the third years' classrooms.
"I'm unavailable, too," Shirofuku told Konoha after the rest of them left the stairwell. She raised her eyebrows briefly. "You'll have to have fun by yourself, kid." And she left ahead of him, trailing after Washio and Bokuto. Her hair was in pigtails today, and they bobbed above her shoulders as she walked back to her classroom.
Well, now the day felt even more disappointing. He stared at those three's backs for a moment, his eyes following Shirofuku's tiny pigtails for most of the instance, frowning. Usually he could count on Bokuto, Washio, or Shirofuku to keep him company. But that just wasn't the case today.
Still, it surprised him that Shirofuku was busy, too, and he caught Suzumeda's arm before the freckled girl dashed upstairs to the second-year floor. "Konoha-san?" she prompted.
"Do me a favor, Suzumeda, and lemme know if the two of you have a change of heart at the end of the day," he said with a jerk of his head in Shirofuku's direction.
She cleared her throat and shook her head. "Um, Yukie-san and I aren't hanging out today. I have to head home right after last bell." She gave him a sympathetic smile, something he'd expect from the kouhai and never from the other third years, but then she left, too, leaving Konoha alone by the stairs right before the tardy bell sounded.
- ^-^3
At the end of the day, Konoha's face was frozen in half a grimace, with his lips twisted around to the right side of his face, forming a dimple in the corner of his mouth. He was sulking, and he'd been sulking since lunch, and he'd keep sulking even while Onaga and Washio didn't mind him spending a minute with them at the shoe lockers before they left.
Washio ignored him and changed into his outdoor shoes silently, but Onaga, bless his heart, opened and closed his mouth, two, three, four times, trying to find something nice to say.
Konoha glanced at the gigantic first year and felt the urge to rub his short hair the way he would a puppy. But he resisted, lest that annoy Washio. "Don't worry about me," Konoha told Onaga unconvincingly.
Onaga gave him a tiny smile not unlike Suzumeda's earlier, but he still exchanged a look with Washio when the older boy straightened up to close his cubby.
Sarukui and Komi rounded the row of lockers, both surprised to find the little gathering. "You guys are still here?" Sarukui asked.
"Akaashi already dragged Bokuto's ass outta here," Komi added with a grin.
"Even Shirofuku's dawdling."
One second Konoha had been ready to bemoan his bad luck at being a momentary third wheel. The next, he snapped his attention to Sarukui. "What do you mean?"
Sarukui mimicked the lazy way Shirofuku liked to point both her fingers at once, and he aimed at the doors. "I'm pretty sure I saw her talking with the basketball captain yesterday, and he just left. Thought I saw her heading that way, too."
Konoha licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry in spite of the humidity that made his shirt cling to his back and had forced him to throw his blazer over his bag.
Internally, he was freaking out.
Plans with someone else—
Her hair done cutely, done rarely in pigtails for once—
Talking with the basketball captain at all—
Holy crap, she couldn't really be going out with that guy, right?!
He dropped his eyes to the floor and slipped off his bag before his mind even caught up. But he had to unfold, had to wear his blazer, otherwise he'd certainly drop it when he ran after her. Because he had to run after her. He was going to run after her. He spluttered, "I—um, yeah—gotta—run—"
In the midst of his frenzy, Konoha missed the skeptical looks the other four exchanged. Washio, in the best position to bring him back down to Earth since he knew about the baaad crush Konoha had nursed for Shirofuku since the end of first year, reached for the blond's arm to stop him—
—but Konoha turned faster than Washio moved, so he slipped out of his friend's reach and dashed like an idiot out into the rain.
Lucky for him, the rain was not a downpour, and he vaguely thought he passed by Suzumeda outside. He even thought she called out to him, confirming what Sarukui had said: Shirofuku had just left.
He scrambled down the school's front steps, ignoring the pleasant coolness of the light droplets on the back of his neck, for he was distracted by his panic. But then he wondered where to go. Turn left? Right? What if she had crossed the street first thing?
Konoha patted his pockets and snatched his cellphone from his left side, sprinting through the contacts and finding Shirofuku's name. Sure, he only had her number because she was the volleyball club's senior manager, but he'd take it anyhow. He tried texting her first, though his thumbs shook with along with his nerves:
-h
-HEY hi I didn't mean to send a letter alone
He paused and frowned.
-this also isn't me pocket-texting you
-you still around?
-shiro?
-hello~?
-suzu-chan said you two weren't hanging out
Uh-oh. That…looked bad. Didn't it? He hadn't been checking on her…although he was sort of doing that now, wasn't he?
But he thought of Shirofuku uncharacteristically tying her hair in those cute little pigtails. And he thought of all the times they had shared a laugh—not just at Bokuto's expense. And there were all the times when she plopped her butt ungraciously into the spot beside him, at school during lunch, after school, during training camps. She stole his food more often than she did anyone else's, she nagged only him during and outside of club when she was tired, and she'd "borrow" his club jacket when hers alone wouldn't cut it during cold autumn days or snowy winter days when practice really ought to have been cancelled.
But, most of all, there was the flutter he got when her soft brown eyes alighted on him and she made the conscious decision to smile, not smirk, at him. Shirofuku was ninety-nine percent sass, but that one percent of softness made Konoha trip over his own two feet.
That smile and that one time, on the ride back from the summer training camp, when she had snuggled close on the bus and nodded off on his shoulder instead of Suzumeda's as she'd done up until then—Konoha thought all of that made his panic worth it, and then some.
Nevertheless, his texts went unanswered and unread, so he picked a direction—right—and picked up the pace, dialing her number and hoping with every ring that she might finally answer. No luck. He ran a block, entering a completely different neighborhood full of shops in all shapes and sizes, and kept calling, but Shirofuku never answered. He gave up and shoved his phone back in his pocket.
Another block and a half went by in a blur with Konoha's eyes scanning for her deeply red hair, and he did a double-take when he at last caught sight of her emerging from the supermarket. With…her mother.
He blinked rapidly in disbelief; his imagination had run too wild. Konoha slowed a bit but jogged to Shirofuku and her mom anyway, and his heart still pounded in his chest even when he came to a halt in front of his club mate.
Shirofuku noticed him when he was a yard away, and he glimpsed the furrow of her brow before he bent over to catch his breath. "Konoha?"
He weakly raised his right hand to wave. "H-Heya."
"You idiot… Imagine what the team would look like without you if you caught pneumonia in this weather. And before the Spring High prelims, no less," she scolded.
Konoha couldn't help it, though: He grinned.
He heard her mother chuckling, and he straightened up in time to see her smile at the two teens before heading home first. She tipped her head politely to him, and his eyes followed her for longer than they probably should've. But it was like looking into the future: Shirofuku's mom was barely taller than she was, dressed in a blouse and office skirt, with the same fair skin but darker brown eyes and that burgundy hair styled into a fluffy bob that curled around her ears.
He sensed Shirofuku's stare and quickly turned back to her. "Never seen your mom before," he pointed out awkwardly.
Shirofuku sighed and rested her umbrella's handle against her shoulder. "She's a working single mom. I barely see her myself." She hefted the plastic shopping bags in her other hand—or tried to lift them. They didn't make it far beyond the hem of her school skirt. "I needed to meet her here to carry some things because today's the last day of the sale."
Konoha eyed the bags, impressed. "She doesn't drive?"
"No car. We're city people through and through. She doesn't waste money on cabs if she can avoid it." She squinted at him. "I can't believe you really came running after me."
If she hadn't seen her phone yet, Konoha counted it as a small grace. "Well… All right, maybe it was a dumb thing to do—"
"Without an umbrella? The dumbest."
He frowned. He was used to her tough-love attitude from club, but he winced at her agreement and pouted. "But you never have plans."
Her thin eyebrows sank above her eyes. She wasn't amused.
Konoha scrambled to backtrack. They'd get nowhere if she jumped the gun and got angry so soon. "Wait before you get mad," he insisted. "But you never have plans," he repeated, "and you look really cute today, and Saru thought he saw the basketball captain ask you out the other day. So I panicked." That was the truth. Mostly. He inferred that to be Sarukui's meaning behind mentioning the basketball captain, at least.
It was hard to tell exactly what her reaction was to his summary. The rainy sky was gray and darkening with each passing minute, and they stood a little ways away from the supermarket's automated doors, with the light behind Shirofuku and therefore casting her face into medium shadows. She still glared at him, sure, but he couldn't decipher if she were pleased at all, having heard him out.
Her nostrils flared, and she inhaled. But she stood up straighter. "…you're an idiot," she eventually grumbled.
"So you've said."
"He was asking about Kaori-chan; I had to tell him she's taken."
Suzumeda, taken? Something clicked in his brain, a fleeting bit of conversation between the girls at the summer training camp. "Oh, right. Childhood friend," he recalled.
Shirofuku stood stock still, her eyes trained on his face. "…you honestly like my hair in pigtails?" she asked skeptically.
Konoha wondered why that mattered so much to her. "Well…yeah."
"It's only in pigtails because of the weather," she explained. "It's impossible to tame when it's rainy."
"…oh." He liked that she bothered telling him the real reason behind the hairstyle. That was her soft side showing.
"Konoha."
"Yeah?"
"Get under my umbrella already. Konoha," she repeated. She shook the plastic-and-metal contraption to beckon him and shook it until she had to give up and hold the cream-colored umbrella over him.
He laughed at his ridiculousness, tilting his head back and catching a few more droplets down his neck and back, and appreciated her kindness. Konoha showed his thanks by taking the grocery bags from her, which caught her off-guard, considering she stopped glaring at him immediately.
But she didn't comment on being surprised. She faced the same direction her mother had gone. "C'mon, let's get home," Shirofuku insisted, and they began walking carefully in the drizzle that had picked up to drench him before she shared her umbrella. "I know my mom is dying to know what happened," the redhead continued, "and you need to dry out and warm up."
Konoha gaped at her. "Wait—then—"
Shirofuku smirked, but she couldn't keep the expression cheeky enough, not with how her eyes crinkled the longer he stared at her. So she smiled. "You're an idiot, but you're a cute idiot." She darted her eyes up to his face. "Next time you want to hang out with me, Konoha, just ask me out straight."
He had no clue what to say. Konoha laughed again, nervously. "Got it" was the best he could come up with in that heart-pounding moment.
Shirofuku had nothing else to add, either. But she did hook an arm through his so they fit snugly under her umbrella.
- ^-^3
*LOL* XD So, there's this other Konoshiro I've had planned for a WHILE, but! This one just came more easily, so this got written first. I love this sassy couple so, so much. Konoha and Shirofuku not only look good together, but their personalities mesh well, too, IMO, based on what we've seen of them so far. I absolutely adore my owls, and I enjoy writing confession fics that aren't obviously confession fics, too—and I find that works especially well in Konoshiro's case. Cuties. -w- Shirofuku, you know you love his dumb ass. My other owl ships were here, some obvious, some not (and y'all know my Suzumeda ship if you've read my other Fukurodani fics, tho I have yet to write them their own story—yet! Sorry, Suzu!), but I like how Konoha's grouchy about them. *lol* He loves his friends, but BOY the panic at the thought of Shirofuku being out of reach sent him into a frenzy. XD Writing this also worked out thanks to inspiration from "Hangang" by HOODY, which is such a cute song! I love HOODY's stuff, but the vibe of the music vid and the song itself (seriously, go on popgasa and read the translated lyrics) screamed Konoshiro to me. The title is even a lyric from the song. =w= It's funny to me, too, writing this as I finally welcome spring, kissing winter goodbye—but, tbh, Bokuto is me here. As soon as it's dreadfully hot, I'm ready for a blizzard. Oops.
Thanks for reading, and please review! Check out my other [HQ!] fics, too, if you liked this! Looking for more Konoshiro or owls in general? Then have I got stories for you~
-mew-tsubaki :P