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Chapter 11
Step one: do not stand or sit up quickly after a long night out.
Failed step one.
Immediate regret came over Haruko, along with a massive headache, as soon as she shot up from the bed. She groaned out loud, trying to pry her eyes open and figure out just where in the hell she is.
Her groaning made someone shuffle in their sleep – she noticed Terushima sleeping on a couch in the tiny room she was in. She looked around, her hand on her head, and her throat dry. It was a tiny college-like dorm room with a desk, a couch, the bed she was on, a dresser and some edgy band posters on the walls, as well as a mirror. Haruko could have sworn she's seen the same posters in the bar she works in. She figured this was Teru's dorm room.
The shock pain from her head soon subdued to a bearable level and most of the leftover pain went straight into her tongue.
Wait, what?
Haruko sat on the bed flicking her tongue a few times, trying to figure out why it's so sore. It didn't take long for the realization to hit.
Oh HELL no.
She shot up from the bed (which, of course, did a number on her headache, but there were more pressing matters at hand) and quickly went over to the mirror. Before investigating her concerns, she noticed that she was wearing the exact same clothes from last night.
Haruko then opened her mouth and stepped closer to the mirror. She was correct.
She had a tongue piercing.
"You've got to be joking!"
Haruko glared at Terushima who was now groaning and slowly waking up from her outburst.
"Where's the fire..?"
"Dude! I have a freaking tongue piercing!" she exclaimed, still glaring at him while he was still trying to focus his vision.
"Wha..?"
He heavily sat up, rubbing his eyes – the man seemed to have no hangover whatsoever, he was just sleepy – and questioningly looked at Haruko. She shook her head slightly and stuck her tongue out, pointing at the piercing.
"Oooh. Right, that happened." he raised his eyebrows and then grinned like an idiot, "Siiiiick, we match now!"
Haruko cupped her face in her hands and let out a very loud "UUUURGHHHHHHH."
"What are you complaining about? It looks good!" Terushima said.
"Oh yeah, because I definitely want a ton of people fantasizing about me going down on them because of this thing. It looks kinky, I'm taking it out."
"No no no no no!" he lifted his hands up motioning Haruko to stop, "You gotta keep it in for at least two months, unless you want an infection."
"Are you serious? You can't possibly expect me to go to class with this?"
"Well, just… Just don't show anyone? And don't talk much?"
"For two months?"
Terushima shrugged humming and "I don't know" sound at her.
Haruko put her hands back down and let out another groan. "How did this even happen? Like, I barely remember anything from last, just a few things, it's like there's a slideshow in my head…"
He leaned back on the sofa as Haruko sat next to him doing the same. "Well, I can sum it up for you. We went to some club, you didn't do well with your alcohol, so we went behind it to smoke."
"Yeah, that much I can recall."
"Right, so after that we went to a different club, and when we came out for some fresh air and another joint, I saw my buddy Toshi who did all of my piercings. And I'm like, shit, I have a great idea. You just kind of rolled with it."
Haruko let out yet another groan.
"Anyway, he didn't even bother using painkillers cause you were too high to feel anything, it was impressive even. So we got you a piercing and went to another club where we joined some of my friends, then left with them cause they were headed to a house party, spent some time there, then came back to my humble abode," he stretched his arms out to motion at his furniture, "ordered some pizza, which, you insisted was the best thing you've ever eaten in your life, even though it was from the shady pizza place down the road, and then we just talked for a few hours, finishing up the two joints I had left. Then you fell asleep and I went to sleep too."
"Okay, I remember that pizza, it was a good pizza. I also remember not being able to figure out how to open the box."
"Haha yeah, that was fun."
The two laughed in unison, making Haruko put her hand on her head again because of the loud noise. This was going to be a long day. "Ow…"
"Ah, hang on…"
Terushima got up to look for painkillers and soon threw a small box of them at her, as well as a bottle of water. She held the bottle up, telling him "I'm keeping this for the day."
"Sure, sure. What's the plan, anyway? Cause I'm definitely not ready to survive a lecture, screw that."
Then it hit her.
It was Monday.
She had class.
"SHIT!" Haruko exclaimed, "What's the time?"
Terushima shuffled around looking for his phone.
"Uuuh, 12:15pm?"
"Shiiiiiit I had class this morning! And I have another class in 15 minutes!" she panicked.
"You're seriously going to go to-"
"PLEASE give me a ride to Shokey!"
Terushima looked up to the desperate girl next to him. Well, it wasn't his place to judge – not everyone could allow themselves to skip class and still do well. He sighed. "Fiiiine."
Haruko clapped her hands together (quietly!) and rushed to the door, realization quickly coming over her as she saw herself in the mirror. Her makeup had somehow survived, all but the red lipstick at least, and her hair was a bit messy, but bearable.
Her outfit, however, wasn't exactly casual – the jeans and white sneakers worked, but the leather jacket and a blouse she called 'the cleavage shirt' was a no-no. The tongue piercing didn't help.
"Dude, wait, I can't go in looking like this."
Terushima quickly eyed her while putting his own sneakers on. "I mean… you can, no one is technically stopping you…"
"You are literally looking at my cleavage right now."
"…Yeah, you want a hoodie or something?"
"Please."
Haruko got off Terushima's motorcycle as he stopped by the university's gates, gave him a quick hug and a "see you later" wave, and finally rushed off towards her class, minutes left before it was supposed to begin.
She didn't even have her phone to check the actual time – just the water bottle she had taken from Teru. His plain grey hoodie was definitely oversized, but it worked well enough. She had left the leather jacket at his dorm, hoping that she will eventually get it back. No point in carrying it around all day.
Haruko put the water bottle and her hands into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and skipped over to her class, entering seconds before the lecture began. She gave a quick wave to Iwaizumi and Oikawa a few rows behind her own desk, who, she could have sworn, were holding grins in. Um, okay?
She quietly asked to borrow some paper and a pen from the person sitting next to her and started taking notes, as difficult as it was.
Haruko thanked the girl who stayed behind after the lecture to help her catch up with what she had missed in the morning – thank heavens this person took the same morning class as she did. Everyone else had left at that point, so she decided to make her way to the 'volley-sofa' to meet up with her friends before volleyball practice.
This weekend felt so long, it felt like she hadn't seen them in months. As she was walking towards the lounge area she realized there are probably 700+ group chat messages waiting for her at home.
Haruko saw Oikawa, Iwaizumi, Maki and Daiki, 'the fantastic four' as she liked to call them, as well as one more boy from the team, who's name she still can't remember. She wanted to say hello as she approached them, but before she could even open her mouth, Maki noticed her and nearly yelled.
"Hooooly shit she's alive!"
"Yooooooo!" with a quick follow-up from Daiki, the rest of them started snickering.
The girl squinted at them, "What's that supposed to mean?"
Oikawa was about to say something, only to be cut off by Maki shoving his hand in Oikawa's face, "Show us the piercing!"
Haruko's eyes widened and she furrowed her eyebrows, "How do you know about that?.."
Oikawa was once again about to say something, but Maki repeated exactly what he did before and cut him off, "Show us and we'll tell you."
She watched Oikawa shove Maki off and take off his glasses to clean them from his fingerprints. Haruko squinted at the glasses-boy, he clearly knew something. But how..?
He put his glasses back on and turned to her, smirking, "Sooo? I was just going to tell you but I like Maki-chan's plan more." he teased.
Great, he's back to his old, shitty self. Fabulous.
She groaned for the billionth time today. They had the upper hand and knew about it anyway, might as well.
She looked to the side, rolling her eyes and opened her mouth, sticking her tongue out.
Haruko could have sworn she saw Oikawa sink into his seat in the corner of her eye, but couldn't process that because her thoughts were cut off by the volley-boys McFreakin' losin' it.
"You actually got it oh my goooood!"
"You wilddd!"
"Holy shit!"
A few hyena-type laughs from the boys made Haruko's headache kick in again.
"Uuugh, inside voices, please!" she crossed her arms, glaring at the group, "Now will you tell me how you found out about this?"
The group glanced over at Oikawa, of course it had to be his doing, and he sighed. "Alright, alright."
She watched him take his phone out of his pocket and click a few times. Then he turned the screen to her.
Eyes wide, she grabbed the phone from his hands and stared at the photo.
"That son of a bitch!"
"Whoa, language!" Maki said, trying his best not to laugh and failing miserably.
Ignoring him, Haruko focused on what she was looking at. The little shit named Terushima Yuuji had apparently been taking selfies and photos all night, as well as uploading them to Snapchat. And there they were, taking a selfie together in some club. It would be all fine and dandy if both of them weren't making a really suggestive 'tongue between two fingers' gesture together.
"Move."
She glared at Oikawa who, just like the rest of them, was doing his best to suppress his grin, and he shuffled over closer to Maki to give her space to sit down.
Haruko started flicking through all the photos Terushima had uploaded to Snapchat – good gracious there was even a video of her getting the piercing, it really did look like she couldn't feel anything. That, along with photos of them playing beer pong (which they had apparently won), tons of selfies with random strangers from clubs and the house party they went to, all topped off with a final picture of Haruko sitting on the ground at his dorm room, eating pizza and giving it a thumbs up.
She sighed, relieved there was nothing too embarrassing on there and slid Oikawa's phone on the table back to him. Her hopes to have a single quiet moment were in vain, as Maki spoke up again.
"Ikeda-san, how do you even know him? The guy's a legend!"
She lifted her head at Maki and realized he's talking about Terushima. Legend was a bit farfetched, but whatever.
"We met at a party once I think, back in high school. I've known him for years."
Haruko noticed Daiki in the corner who was about to make some "ooh la la" sound or something equally as dumb as that, and cut him off before he could do so, "We're friends."
A short silence followed, broken by the social boy Maki again, "You know, I'm just gonna come out and say what we're all thinking."
Haruko raised her eyebrow at him.
"That look really suits you."
"Maki!" the other team members scolded him in unison, making Haruko realize that they may or may not have discussed her 'nightly outfit' before she showed up.
But she decided to dismiss him and rolled her eyes, "Oh keep it in your pants, Maki."
She then turned to Oikawa who was still sitting next to her, "And you – don't think I haven't noticed you've been staring at me for the past five minutes. I've told you before and I'll tell you again, take a picture, it'll last longer."
At first Haruko could have sworn she saw him flinch at her callout, but much to her dismay, the boy recovered very quickly.
"Oh don't worry, I already took plenty of Snapchat screenshots. I'm good."
She gave him a quick glare before shoving her face into her hands and doing the same "UUUUUUUUGH" she did in the morning. This day was getting better every second.
She grabbed her water bottle off the table, stood up and started heading towards the changing room where she kept her tracksuit. "See you in practice, you assholes."
"Byeeeee!"
"Please don't leave us, we loooveee youuuu!"
"You can't run from us Ikeda-saaan!"
She continued to be on her way, shook her head and chuckled, taking a sip from her water bottle. They were idiots, but they were her idiots.
"I'll be right behind you."
Iwaizumi nodded at Oikawa and left him behind to head to practice. The latter was dealing with some emails from university, typing replies out on his phone. He's not one to be late to practice, if anything he would usually be the first one to show up, but he decided that he needs a freaking minute.
What the hell was that?
Reluctantly Oikawa flicked through his phone to get to his image folder and opened one of the photos he had saved this morning. The same one he showed Haruko just a few minutes back. Except with Terushima cropped out.
He stared at it for a while. Then closed it and tried really, really hard not to think about how his heart sunk when Haruko stood there with her mouth open and pierced tongue out. He failed miserably and couldn't stop thinking about how much he wanted to-... Wait, what did he want to do?
Uuuuugh I didn't even know I was into that…
Oikawa sunk in his seat even more, his butt pretty much hanging in the air. He couldn't figure out what the hell he was feeling and that went on the never-ending list of things that bugged him about her.
Was he intimidated? Was he turned on? Was he both? For a few brief moments she had a look in her eyes that could kill a man, and for some reason his stupid brain had to find that attractive, like, really? Are you serious?
You know what, nevermind any of that, it's cool, he's cool, it's all good. Nothing wrong with finding someone attractive. She was still a bitch, a judgmental, manipulative bitch. Yup.
Part of him wished he didn't know that. So he did his best to shove that part of himself deep, deep down into the back of his thoughts and got up to head to practice.
AN: wow this turned out way longer than I thought it would be haha oops
also I just realized I forgot that Teru is a 2nd year and he technically should be a 3rd year right now, not in uni... we're just going to ignore thAT MY BAD
