Chapter Text
Shigeru Yahaba hates the world.
Yahaba groans as his alarm starts blaring at an unholy time in the morning. He throws a pillow at the deadly device, trying to knock it off the stand he purposefully put about 5 feet away from his bed. He thought it would help him get up in the morning if he had to get out of bed to turn his alarm off. It was a foolish thought. Yahaba curses his past self as he slowly slides off of his bed, dragging his comforter with him. He shuffles to the alarm and switches it off, glancing at his roommate's bed. Empty again.
His roommate was a really strange guy, with blond streaked-black hair and a permanent scowl. He already had a reputation at their college as a delinquent and all the other students in the dorm tended to avoid him. Yahaba didn’t believe the rumors though. He just looked pissed all the time, and why would a delinquent go to college anyways?
But there must be something to these rumors. He's never in their room, and the only times Yahaba had tried to talk to him, he just grunted and walked away.
Eventually Yahaba wakes up enough to stumble to the adjoining bathroom and start his morning routine. By the time he walks out of the bathroom, there is someone sitting on his bed, flipping through one of the books he had left near his pillow.
"I regret giving that key to you Shinji." Yahaba walks over and flops onto the bed next to his best friend.
"Pfft, no you don't. I am a gift of nature; you're luck you get to spend time with me." Watari says as he closes the book, dog-earing the page he was on. Yahaba squawks, reaching for the book.
"Hey! Don't crinkle my books!" Watari throws his arms in the air, trying to keep the book out of reach. Yahaba tackles him, and they both roll off of the bed and onto the floor. Watari braces both arms on floor by Yahaba's head, and untangles his legs from the comforter they dragged down with them. Yahaba laughs as he struggles to get his feet out of the blanket without losing his socks. They both freeze when Yahaba's roommate walks nonchalantly past them, putting his stuff down on his desk.
"This is exactly what it looks like," Watari blurts as he shifts, and Yahaba slaps his hand over his best friend's mouth, hissing at him to shut up. Watari protests, his insults muffled by the hand. Yahaba tries to wiggle away, but Watari grabs him, trapping his arms in a bear hug.
They're still wrestling when the 'delinquent' grabs a set of books and walks out again, closing the door behind him. He didn’t even glance at them.
Watari stares at the closed door. "Huh. You're roommate’s weird, man. What’s up with him?" he asks as he releases Yahaba and stands up, pulling the other up with him.
"I don’t know. I don’t even remember his name," Yahaba says as he grabs the book off the floor and puts his comforter back on his bed. "He never told me, even when I first moved in. Somebody said it once; I think it started with a K." He huffed, blowing his hair out of his face as he shoved a few things into his backpack. "Besides, everyone just knows him as 'that scary kid' or 'the bleach-blond.' Arg, Whatever!" He ran his hand through his hair and started walking towards the door, Watari following behind him. "Why did you have to hug me Shinji? Now it's going to be even more awkward."
"Well, you're gay and he's hot. Soooo..."
Yahaba felt the heat rise to his cheeks as he shoved a grinning Watari away from him, his mouth turned down in a scowl.
Yes, he would admit that his roommate looked... rather attractive, with those bulging muscles and callused hands (Volleyball had given him a strange attraction to working hands). And once Yahaba had walked in on him changing, his muscles rippling as he stretched his arms over his head. Hmmm yes, that was a delicious memory. He wants to get his hands all over that, feel that back to see if it was as-
"Shigeru. Shigeru! Oi, SHIGERU!"
"What?" Yahaba looks over, dazed.
"Oh that is so nasty, oh you're drooling, oh oh yeah, I'm leaving you are so gross." Yahaba wipes at his mouth, and look at that, he was drooling. Well, that back deserved it. That sweet sexy back. It was probably hot to the touch-
Watari looks on in disgust. "We can't be friends anymore, this is so disturbing," he mutters as he increases his pace. Yahaba laughs as he jogs a little to catch up to the libero, throwing his arm around his shoulder.
"I can have fantasies about him all I want. It's not like he ever talks to me anyways."
Pancakes. It all started with pancakes of all things.
Yahaba stops abruptly as he walks to the shared floor kitchen. He just finished a grocery run and is ready to get the bags out of his drooping hands.
But there is someone already in the kitchen. There’s a delicious yeasty smell coming out of the open doorway. Yahaba inhales. Pancakes? Who on earth would be cooking pancakes at 8 o’clock at night? Yahaba can understand the ‘starving college student’ trope, but that meant Ramen and Oreos at midnight, not pancakes at eight. He rounds the corner and peeks into the kitchen.
It’s delinquent.
He’s standing in front of the stove, moving his hips and singing under his breath softly. He isn’t singing just any song, though.
Wannabe.
By the Spice Girls.
Yahaba drops the bags. They land with a soft ‘clunk’ on the carpeted floor. Delinquent instantly stops singing and looks up at the noise. Yahaba ducks out of sight behind the doorway, cursing the new-found cuteness of his roommate. It was just a one time thing, right? It had to be a one time thing! People who have reputations as miscreants don’t blush when they’re caught dancing to Spice Girls, right?
He groans and moves down the hallway, dodging behind the corner just as (the still flaming red) Delinquent bursts out of the kitchen, catching himself on the doorframe and scowling as he scans the hallway. He doesn’t see anything. Yahaba has already escaped in the direction of Watari’s room, flailing his arms and screaming as he silently runs.
I probably won’t ever see him cute again, he thinks later, cocooned in two of Watari’s fluffiest blankets. He groans pitifully, drawing it out for the benefit of Watari, who is ignoring him and working on homework at his desk. “You uncaring jerk! I bet you hate me! You have no compassion for the miserable and woefully overworked and misused, hardworking son of a good family!” His voice accuses, drifting out of the mess of blankets.
“Stop being so weird, Shigeru. Of course you’re over worked. You’re at college, ” Watari stops and looks back at the cocoon pointedly, “Overworked and underappreciated are a state of being.” Yahaba moans again. “You’re overdoing it, friend.”
Yahaba’s head pops up out of the cocoon like a little butterfly on steroids. “I am overdoing it, right?! Of course he isn’t a cute person! I’m overthinking this.” And with this, he settles and nods happily to himself, content in the knowledge that his roommate is not – and will never be – cute.
Except he is.
Yahaba watched as the source of his frustrations helped an old woman carry her bags across the street. Who even does that anymore? The linguist-in-training was currently sitting in an off-campus cafe, trying to escape the premature cold weather (and to inhale enough caffeine to even attempt his homework). But despite the cold, Delinquent was patiently waiting for the old lady and helping her set her bags down by the bus stop. His ears were red from the cold, and they got even darker as the elderly woman thanked him sweetly (probably. Yahaba couldn’t hear that far away). The Delinquent bowed gently to the woman and walked away. When he passed near the window, Yahaba ducked down, but he could still see Delinquent's soft blush and hesitant, pleased smile.
Gosh darn.
This boy was cute.
The waitress came over and worried about Yahaba’s state of mind. He couldn’t find the energy or emotional strength to lift his head and answer her properly. He stayed that way for awhile.
Yahaba sighs as he steps away from the pounding water of the shower. Practice had run late that day, and even Oikawa looked exhausted as Iwaizumi dragged him away to the locker room. They had a big match coming up against another college team, and the players were pushing themselves too hard. It's like none of his teammates understood the concept of college coursework. Yahaba was studying to be a computational linguist, which meant he had to take classes on computers, math, and the histories of languages.
Yahaba walks into a dark room, steam billowing behind him. He reaches over and flicks on the light switch, blinding himself with the sudden light. Blinking away the spots in his eyes, he notices something different. His roommate is actually sleeping in his bed for once.
Yahaba stares as he slowly inches closer to the beds. Once he gets close enough, he starts heading towards his own bed, but stops when he glances at his roommate’s resting face.
He's not a nice sleeper, not by any means, but something about the way he's completely sprawled across the bed and drooling in his sleep is strangely endearing. He looks like a big dog, hogging the entire bed. Yahaba snickers at that mental picture as he dumps his stuff on his bed and tiptoes over to his roommate’s sleeping form. He kneels on the ground next to his bed and just watches as the bleach blond snuffles and twitches in his sleep (not creepy at all). Yahaba is still laughing when he notices his roommate’s eyes are slowly opening, squinting when he sees the setter kneeling by his bed. Yahaba just smiles and pillows his head on his arms, ignoring the water dripping off his hair, "You're really cute when you sleep, you know."
'Delinquent' scrambles away from him, his back hitting the wall and his feet getting caught in his blanket. "What the-!"
"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out. You were just so cute when you were asleep, umm... What's your name again? We've lived together for a few weeks, but I don’t think I ever caught it. Just in case you forgot mine, I'm Yahaba Shigeru," Yahaba blurts as he extends a hand to his wide eyed roommate. He just stares at the hand with what looks like fear, as Yahaba continues, "Actually, I thought you were a huge jerk because you kept ignoring me whenever I tried to talk to you. But, - Hey!" His roommate just slapped his hand away, recoiling into himself and glaring at Yahaba.
"What do you want," he spit, scowling as his ears burned red.
Yahaba glares back as he replies, "I just want to know your name."
"Kyotani Kentaro, happy now?" He says as he untangles himself and scoots off the bed as far away from Yahaba as he can get. He gets up, grabs his bag and strides to the door, Yahaba scrambling to get up behind him.
“Hey! Where are you going? Where do you go every night?”
“None of your business.” He slams the door behind him, leaving Yahaba gaping at the closed door.
Well I was right, he thinks, he is a jerk. Granted, a cute one, but still a douche.