Oikawa remembered when he and Iwaizumi had been young… when he'd been certain that the rough Kanji on his hip meant that his relationship with his friend was different than it was for everybody else… That they had something unique and special.

Realizing that this was not the case was a slow and devastating process.

First had been the fact that Iwaizumi didn't have his name in return. He wasn't bothered by this fact, most people didn't get their names till their teens. The most common time for names to appear was in the late teens early twenties, though there were exceptions of course. Not to mention it was widely believed that if you lived in close proximity to your soulmate that names were supposed to appear faster (a big reason why many young couples choose to try living together so early in their relationship, hoping to discover that they were each other's intended). So there had been no reason to worry at first. Not to mention Oikawa had taken the fact that he had gotten his soulmates name before he even hit the double digits of age as a sign of specialness. He always figured that Iwaizumi would get his name once they matured a bit more.

The day it had appeared he'd run over to Iwaizumi's house and nearly pulled down his pants in his excitement to show his friend the soulmark sitting low on his hip. Then he'd given him a big wet kiss on the mouth. Iwaizumi had spluttered and turned crimson and then hollered about that being nasty while Oikawa had giggled on the floor. It had been great.

Not till they were in middle school did the doubt start to creep in.

Oikawa almost hadn't believed it when he'd first seen someone else with Iwaizumi's name on them. She'd been a shy girl, pretty, one of Oikawa's fans actually. He couldn't remember her name. Then one day she'd timidly asking to borrow an pencil from him and when she'd reached out to take it the edge of her sleeve pulled back to reveal his friend's name black against her pale skin.

He'd hid his unease and teased Iwaizumi mercilessly about the girl, offering to set them up and so and so forth. He'd gotten smacked for his theatrics and that had been the end of that. Or so he'd thought.

Then he's seen someone else with Iwaizumi's name, then another, and then another and another. Anxiousness began to creep up within him steadily with each sighting, each curious and flustered glance at his friend.

"Has your soulmark appeared?" Oikawa had started to demand of his friend regularly. Never if his 'soulmate' appeared because Oikawa had still hoped that it'd be him, though the doubt was growing stronger each day.

"No, stop asking." Iwaizumi would grumble.

"Maybe it's somewhere you can't see on yourself, let me check."

"I am not stripping for you, you weirdo." Iwaizumi would shoot back, but often he would cave and let Oikawa look nervously for a name, though there never was one.

"You'll tell me the moment your soulmark appears right? No matter who it is?" Oikawa would ask often, the cracks in his bravado showing.

"Of course dummy, you'll be the first to know." Iwaizumi would promise, always gentler and less gruff when Oikawa got like this.

At first that was enough to settle him, but soon that began to change too.

People started approaching Iwaizumi. Now if it were for simple confessions Oikawa didn't think he'd mind so much, he got large number of those quite regularly himself, but these were people for whom Iwaizumi was their soulmate. These were people who wanted to know if Iwaizumi had their name, wanted to try and date him and see if their names would appear once they discovered that he didn't. Some were shy. Some were so freaking confident that Iwaizumi was supposed to be with them that Oikawa daydreamed about stabbing them. Especially the beautiful ones. Oikawa never claimed to be above jealousy. He'd ranted to his sister about it and she'd just laughed at him.

"Some people are just like that Touru," she'd said waving her hand vaguely, "What would you call it? Easily accommodateble? If that's even a word. I don't know. Many of the qualities that would make a perfect match are actually fairly generic, like if someone is particularly devoted, or kind, or willing to compromise… or even call people out on their shit, lots of people need someone like that. And when someone has quite a few of those qualities then they are usually able to be compatible with a wide range of people."

"So… Iwa-chan could be fated to be with any of these people? Just anyone would do?" Oikawa had asked miserably.

"Not… just anyone. Our Iwa-chan doesn't have anybody's name despite being compatible with so many people, so we can deduce that while he is a lot of people's perfect guy, not many people are suited for him." His sister had said thoughtfully.

"…That doesn't make me feel better." Oikawa had grumbled.

"Aw, cheer up little bro! Soulmates are over rated, screw fate, go date someone you like and work out the details later."

"Says the person who eloped with their truemate in high school and had a kid- ack!" Oikawa's sister had shut him up as she often did by tickling him till he could hardly breathe.

Oikawa had tried to put the worry of soulmates from his mind and focus on his studies and more importantly on volleyball. It didn't help that he knew several team members had Iwaizumi's name. He would try to tell himself that despite all the offers that his friend got, he still stayed by his side and that- that had to mean something.

Then all the excuses came crashing down. Because of Kageyama Tobio no less.

Oikawa was at the point where he stopped trying to tell who had Iwaizumi's name and just assumed that they either had it or develop it soon enough. But it was obvious for Kageyama even if Oikawa never saw evidence of a soulmark. The way that the first year looked at his childhood friend with stars in his eyes spoke volumes. It would have been cute, except that Iwaizumi responded to it. Warmly. Supportively. It hurt to watch them around each other and Oikawa didn't know why for a while. Just tried to hog his friend as much as possible and push away the small setter.

And then suddenly it all clicked into place for him.

He had been coming from a meeting with the coach when he had seen Kageyama practicing his tosses with Iwaizumi. This wasn't all that unusual, but it suddenly registered very acutely the pinpoint way Kageyama was setting. The fact that he was setting for his friend in a way that Oikawa with all his hard work never would be able to.

In that moment, a sick feeling grown in his stomach and then never left.

All he could see in his head was Iwaizumi's blank skin as his mind whispered not combatable, not good enough. All that would come to mind were images of Kageyama and Ushijima and the nasty inferior.

All he could see were all the other people who also had Iwaizumi's name and all Oikawa could seem to think of himself was one word:

Replaceable.