"Are you really Tobio-chan?"

Those words rang through my head several times, had he noticed?

"W-Who else would I be?" I asked, scolding myself when I stuttered.

Oikawa chuckled. "Right, you're not the brightest I forgot. Let me rephrase that: what happened to the Tobio-chan I saw in Kitagawa Daiichi?"

The relief I felt when he said that almost made my fear go away but, seeing as I was still in the danger zone it didn't.

I looked to the side, frantically thinking of an excuse. "I-I simply realised some things…"

"What things?"

I took my hands out of my pockets and began fiddling with them, moving my thumbs in circular motions across my palms.

"Just… things."

Oikawa kept looking at me, though it seemed more like he was looking through me. My vision turned blurry and I knew that a panic attack was coming up. I had to get away from him. There was no way I would lose it in front of him.

"Excuse me." I fast-walked past him and made a beeline to the bus, entered and sat down.

Just don't look outside, don't look outside.

I knew that my behavior would raise some red-flags, especially considering Kageyama never acted anything like that before.

The rest of Karasuno hadn't entered the bus yet but were waiting outside. They were now huddled around the entrance, forming a rather protective circle.

My behavior had also made Kindaichi and Kunimi curious and seeing as Oikawa had become curious then Iwaizumi would automatically also be. Which made the entirety of Seijo curious.

"We just want to know what happened." Kunimi calmly explained. "He's never given a compliment before so we were just curious as to what changed."

Okay, I might be a little biased towards Kunimi. He was always the nicer one. Though he definitely didn't like me either.

"True," that was Kindaichi, "Kageyama's always only thought about himself. This is just plain weird for him."

The feeling of tears creeping up appeared in my eyes. Goddammit, I didn't want to cry! My breath hitched in my throat and the familiar feeling of not having enough breath came. I clamped a hand over my mouth, if I made too much noise they might notice me!

"That's what you think Kageyama's like?" Hinata wondered, voice full of… disgust?

"Yeah! We've been in his team for three years, he's never been anything like this."

Then Tsukishima spoke up, the first of many times that he would defend me. "Three years? And you've only ever thought of him as an asshole?"

I assumed that Kindaichi and Kunimi nodded.

Tsukishima's voice turned bitter. "If you've failed to notice something this obvious in three years then ask yourself this: did you ever know him at all?"

And then there was silence. Tsukishima had not only defended me, he had silenced Seijo by presenting them stone-cold facts.

Kindaichi and Kunimi didn't even know the canon Kageyama, nevermind me.

But it made me smile, it was a small gesture that Tsukishima had done but it meant so much to me.

He had also effectively finished the entire conversation. Another plus.

Thanks, Tsukishima. I appreciate it.

Once again I repeated my breathing exercises, trying to keep it calm.

It was working, but that probably had something to do with the fact that I hadn't fallen too far into an attack.

The rest of the team entered the bus as well, stony expressions on their faces. It would've scared me, if I hadn't known what had happened outside.

But I did know, and it felt nice that they were protective over me. It made me feel happy.

The bus ride back to the school was mostly silent. Everyone was just going over the match. I remained silent as well.

After the meeting I went home, and immediately slid down on the floor.

That day was far more intense than I wanted it to be. Too much for a single day.

I just knew that I would be sick the next day. That was a rather common thing that happened to me.

To be honest, there was nothing I wanted more than go to sleep.

So I did. I showered and went straight to bed, happy that I got my homework done before the match.

My body fell asleep before I even hit the mattress.

When I woke up, my prediction had come true. I had caught a small fever and called in sick.

But after that, my days were pretty dull. Well, until we played against Nekoma. The kitty cats. I love kitties. It's just unfortunate that they weren't real kitties.

It also meant that there would be one more person joining the team, and don't even get me started on the meeting with Nishinoya and Asahi. Though it went rather smoothly, it still was extremely unnerving.

Luckily for me however, both of them were supportive of me. Nishinoya even told me that he would be more than happy to take the attention away from me and onto him, since he rather liked being the center of attention.

But anyway, Nekoma was next on schedule, followed by the Inter-High. Ahahaha, so not looking forward to that.

Nevertheless, when the day came, I went with the team to enter the gym we were lucky enough to get.

Daichi and Kuroo 'greeted' each other, the aura the two emitted only unnerved me more. Thanks for that captain.

So I did the normal thing, I stayed as far away from anyone as possible. Only realising when it was too late that I had gotten closer to Kenma.

Wait, what was I freaking out over. Kenma didn't know Kageyama before I entered him. I didn't have to worry about the most dangerous person in the show figuring out who I was.

"I-I'm sorry," I stuttered out in apology, "I didn't see you."

Kenma looked just as shocked as I did before something flashed through his eyes, recognition.

Did he seriously already figure out that I had-

"You've got social anxiety, don't you."

Motherfuck- he did.

I began swinging on the heels of my feet and mumbled: "Maybe…"

He nodded at me, a silent acknowledgement and walked back to Kuroo.

That was when a terrifying thought struck me, was he going to use my anxiety to his team's advantage? Surely not. Surely he had better things to use, surely he wouldn't solely target me out of the entire team. He wasn't the type to do something like that right?

Right?

Nononononono, he would. He would target me, trash talk me. Hinder my playing ability and made me a burden on the team. Then they would think I was useless too and get rid-

"-ama! Kageyama!" A voice shook me out of my thoughts.

Sugawara. It was just Suga, calm down.

Suga looked at me with concerned eyes. "I think you're having an attack, do you need to sit down?"

He grabbed my shaking hands and led me to a bench on which I nearly collapsed. Something that obviously attracted the attention of everyone in the gym.

Karasuno and, surprisingly enough, Kenma immediately realised what was happening and attempted to distract the rest of Nekoma. An appreciated gesture.

I took several deep, but somewhat shaky, breaths. These people weren't Seijo, they weren't Seijo, they weren't.

So there was no need for me to be so afraid of them. No need to fear them. No need to hold back against them. No need to pretend to be anyone but myself.

That thought calmed me more than anything else did.

With that mindset I played the match, not caring in the slightest that we lost. I simply played to the best of my ability.

Perhaps I should learn how to control my jump spike…

I probably should.

Nekoma was an interesting team, but that was something I had expected from the get go. What did help was that Kenma didn't actually take advantage of my anxiety, a pleasant surprise. Though logically I should've seen it coming. Kenma wasn't a bad person.

The two of us even exchanged peaceful nods as they went back to Tokyo. A friendly exchange between two socially anxious people.

"Kageyama-kun, right?"

I startled at the sudden sound and spun around, completely ready to run away at the nearest sign of danger.

It was just Kuroo, the sin with a grin.

"Ye-Yeah, can I help you?" Must I stutter so often?

His smile, somehow, softened. "Kenma's told me about your condition," There, my breath hitched, "I won't use it to my advantage, don't worry. But if you ever need to talk about it, with a relative stranger, give me a text. Cause I know that people like you are pretty much terrified of calling others."

I grabbed the paper with his number, completely astonished. "Thanks…"

And with that they were off. Leaving me rather surprised at the nice gesture. Well, you know what they say, talking about it with a stranger is better than not talking about it at all.

There was nothing else planned until the Inter-High, which meant that I would have some evenings to myself.

Evenings in which I could do nothing, absolutely nothing. The best thing ever.

Or at least, that was the plan…

It was about a week after the Nekoma practice match, on a rainy Friday afternoon.

I had been taking a run when the rain started tumbling down and decided to instead go back home, I didn't feel like catching a cold. And that was when I found him.

In one of the streets I took as a short-cut I found Oikawa sitting on a bench, getting absolutely drenched in the rain.

The thought of just ignoring him crossed my mind but I decided that hey, I wasn't an asshole so I confronted him.

"Oikawa-san? What are you doing here?"

Just asking him anything unnerved me. But I endured it.

Oikawa looked surprised to see me. "Tobio-chan?"

Was it too late to start running again? Yes, yes it was.

"What are you doing out in the rain?" I repeated my question, trying not to think too hard about what could potentially happen.

He chuckled, it was forced. "I don't think that's any of your business."

I flinched, that's true, it certainly wasn't any of my business but I still interfered.

"I know, I'm sorry," I mumbled, "but if you stay out here you'll catch a cold."

That made Oikawa narrow his eyes, why was he so suspicious of me? Or was it just his blatant hatred for me?

"So what? What does it matter to you?" Oikawa's tone turned angry.

Why was he angry with me, what did I do wrong? Maybe I should've just minded my own business and ignored him, yeah, I should've.

I swallowed thickly and turned to leave, not wanting to let the tears flow down in front of him.

But he stopped me, Oikawa stopped me. He grabbed my sleeve, something that made me look at him again. He wasn't looking me in the eyes and there was a red hue on his face that I should've noticed before.

He wasn't blushing, that much was certain. So I pushed my anxiety away and put my hand to his forehead. It was burning hot.

He had a fever, why was he outside then?!

Before I could do or say anything else, Oikawa fell forwards. I was just able to catch him.

"Oikawa-san? Are you okay?"

Oikawa didn't respond, he had fallen unconscious.

What was I supposed to do now?

An hour later I wondered to myself if I had made the right choice. Taking Oikawa to my place, I mean.

He didn't have his phone on him so it wasn't like I could call his family or something. And it wasn't like I could just leave him on the streets. That was why I had taken him to my house.

Which made me remember something else, during the entire time I had spent as Kageyama I hadn't once seen his parents. Sure, their numbers were in his phone but from the looks of things, the last time they had visited their son was before he graduated middle school.

Kageyama was a neglected child. Yet another thing that explained his behavior in the anime. Didn't change the fact that it was horrible though.

Well, at least it meant that I had a spare bed Oikawa could rest in.

I had put him in my parents' bed when I had gotten home and prepared some tea for myself, making sure to leave enough in the can for Oikawa as well.

But man, what a day. Meeting Oikawa, the man I trusted the least, and having the situation turn into one in which I brought him into my own home was not part of the plan.

I sipped my tea and contemplated my life choices.

Splendid. This was fine.