Tooru hadn’t always known how to sit still with silence.

When he was younger, he filled every room with noise—smirks, words, laughter too loud to be real. He thought love was supposed to be fast and bright, something you grabbed with both hands before it slipped away. And maybe that’s why he never held you the way he should have. Too caught up in ambition. In proving something. In proving everything.

You were always patient with him. Always there, in the background of his chaos. You saw him when no one else did—past the talent, past the arrogance, past the performance. You stayed even when he didn’t deserve it. Even when he pushed, then pulled, then disappeared for days behind excuses and cold shoulders. And now… now the silence was deafening.

The apartment felt too big for one person. His trophies stared at him from their shelves, gleaming reminders of everything he’d chosen instead of you. Outside, the city breathed like a stranger. Inside, his phone sat untouched, screen black, your name no longer lighting it up.

He’d grown, he thought. He could feel it in the way his heart hurt slower now—not sharp, but dull and persistent. Regret that sat in his chest like a second heartbeat. He could finally admit it: he wasn’t ready when he had you. He didn’t know how to be soft. How to be still. He thought love would wait.

He didn’t realize love was a window that only stayed open so long.

And now, he missed things he didn’t know he’d come to rely on. The way your hand fit between his shoulder blades when he was too tense to sleep. The way you called out his name like it wasn’t heavy. The way you left coffee on the counter when he had early training, scribbled notes he never replied to.

He missed the future he never made room for.

And standing at the window now, hands in the pockets of a hoodie that didn’t feel warm enough, he whispered words he’d never said when they mattered.

“You should’ve come over.”

As if it was you who had walked away. As if it wasn’t him who let you go first, by pretending you didn’t matter as much as the next match, the next win, the next hollow victory.

-- He stared at the phone like it had teeth.

Your name was still there in his contacts. It hadn’t changed, hadn’t been deleted—even after all this time. It sat near the top, untouched, like muscle memory. As if on some level, he still believed he might need to reach for it in the middle of the night.

Tonight felt like one of those nights.

He was tired—not from training, not from anything physical. Just tired in the kind of way that sinks into your bones, when everything is quiet and there’s nothing left to distract you. The kind of tired that feels like being haunted.

He picked up the phone. Tapped your name, Just to see it.

There was no profile picture anymore. No little green dot next to it. Just the name, frozen in time, like you still existed somewhere in a version of his life that had paused instead of ended.

His thumb hovered over the call button.

He thought about what he’d say. Maybe something light. Maybe a joke. Something about how he passed a café that served that awful tea you used to love. Or that he finally figured out how to cook rice without burning the bottom.

Or maybe just your name. Just once.

But the words never felt right in his head. They always came out sounding like apologies wearing different clothes. He exhaled. Pressed the side button. Locked the screen.

Because what if you picked up and didn’t sound the same? What if you were doing fine? What if you’d finally stopped waiting for him to grow up?

The thought gutted him more than silence ever could.

Oikawa placed the phone face-down on the nightstand, like hiding it might bury the ache too. He leaned back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling, eyes wide open.

His voice cracked when he whispered it, like an old song on vinyl:

“Lover… you should’ve come over.”