4. »You still doing the King thing?«

Whether there was a new message in his spam folder or not, Tooru could not tell. During the past three days, the needle of his inner compass had navigated him safely along the steep cliffs of contact abandonment and straightaway onto the open sea of closet suffering. Mute like a pirate whose tongue had been cut out, he kept silent about the fact that the water was already up to his neck. While his psyche gasped for breath, Tooru was highly disturbed about still gaining followers on Instagram and finding another rose-scented confession letter in his shoe locker at school. How could anybody be attracted to a drowning person? That was sickening! Just like it was sickening that he was basically forced to infernally pay attention to not rub off his concealer in public or to always hide the inflamed corner of his mouth on all of his selfies by sticking out his tongue.

Fingertips throbbing from too many volleyballs smashed too hard, he precautiously palpated the sensitive area right beneath his ears. He had no inkling why it was hurting or why the swelling just would not subside, but the longer he scrutinized the young man in the mirror, the more voluminous his hamster cheeks appeared to be.
'Maybe you just got fat, Tooru-chan~'
Though it was rather unlikely, the setter was suddenly terrified and, without batting an eye, angled for the scales neatly standing under one of the bathroom shelves: 69.8.
That was about two kilos less than he had weighed before the Playoffs. So he had actually lost weight?! But that did not make sense! Why was his face screaming 'weight gain,' whilst the scales claimed 'weight loss'? Endlessly confused, Tooru stepped off the scales, emptied his lungs with a painfully deep breath, and stepped back on the square-shaped measuring tool, only to be confronted with the previous' number's identical twin. Shit! If the idea of gaining weight had scared him, than the fact that he had lost weight made him want to step out off his skin because he could not tell what exactly he had lost! Fat? Water? Or—and this was his worst fear—muscle? Please not the latter! Anything but that!
Goaded by an irrational panic, Tooru weighed himself a third and even a fourth time, yet the red-glowing number did not reveal any information about the circumstances of its birth. It just did an excellent job as the latest addition to Tooru's private torture chamber.

"You alright, Oikawa?" Coach Irihata's calm but indubitably concerned voice cut through the thick fog of pain radiating from the biting cramp in Tooru's right calf. It was the second time within five days that Seijou's number 1 stood grimacing in the gym, oppressing a hiss and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Only difference being that it had gone unnoticed the first time, for it had happened right after the warm-up jog when everybody had been busy doing stretching exercises.

"Sure, it's just a cramp." Straightening his shoulders, Tooru flashed the smile that had earned him his coach's trust for the last three years.

"Hm," the black-haired man's mouth hardened in a way the setter had rarely witnessed. "It's not your knee again, is it?" Voice calmer but tenfold intense, Coach Irihata crossed his arms. His probing gaze resting on Tooru's uncharacteristically wanly face.

"No," the truth came easy, but felt wrong anyway. Long accustomed to lying, Tooru feared that he had just failed selling honesty to someone who had trained several generations of high school students and thus smelled every rat. His worries were further aggravated by his own observations. He knew he had not been his top-performing self lately: His stamina had turned gray and his concentration had transformed into a shadow of its former self due to his eating disorder. With both his body and his mind weathering at an alarming fast rate, he was playing more and more balls according to instinct. Although the strategy had been successful so far, it was surely only a matter of time until his decay would be noted and he would be told that he was no longer worthy to be on the team. What if the time had come now?
The dreadful hunch injected pure anguish into Tooru's spinal canal, paralyzing him from head to toe. Standing straight as a die, he unconsciously held his breath while expecting the absolute worst. What was he supposed to do if he was kicked off the team? And what if this was not exclusively about his performance? What if a friend had given Tooru's secret away? A sour darting flame shot up Tooru's esophagus, boiling his internal organs and putting his tolerance for pain to a test. In a trice, his oral cavity filled with saliva, but just before he got sick of stress, his coach nodded lightly.
"I know that the last few months were quite intense for you 3rd years. The extra practice for the Playoffs, the Playoffs, and then there was also all the studying for your final exams and the entrance exams for university," he slowly summed up, averting his attention to the tossing practice of the 1st years nearby. "Practice will be over at seven thirty sharp today. No exceptions for anyone."

Tooru swallowed the pool of spit in his mouth before voicing the expected "Hai." It went without saying that he as the captain was to take care of his team's punctuality. It also went without saying that he was going to stop his individual training now in order to assist Kindaichi and Kunimi. The synergy of Coach Irihata's eyebrows and forehead wrinkles indicated a certain dissatisfaction. Tooru was only relieved that he was not the reason for his coach's discontent expression.

After practice, a bag of lollipops was passed around in the damp air of the locker room and the wheel of misfortune put Tooru first in line. Under the expectant eyes of his teammates, he did not dare to march to a different drummer. Chirping an apparently grateful "Thank you, Yahaba! Always so good to us~," he picked a scarlet-wrapped lollipop and shoved it in his winter coat's pocket, where it lay like a time bomb, ticking away the last minutes of Tooru's healthy diet for today. Shiyou ga nai.

With his leg still feeling like a fighting dog's chewing bone, Seijou's captain and some other members of the volleyball club got on the bus. Their luggage a whiff of shower gel and deodorant, to which the brunette majorly contributed. Though he was normally a friend of fresh and subtle scents, his paranoia had educated him to better smell of perfume than of sick.

Anesthetized by the bus's steady movements and the mellow warmth Iwaizumi's body emitted, Tooru fell again victim to the sorriness permanently lurking for him. His dull gaze kept on switching between his friends, always searching for the one speaking. Yet, his efforts to engage in the conversation rarely bore fruits: Tooru jumped too late on each train of laughter and missed most opportunities to show off or act upon his inner diva. Each time a chuckle tripped over his chapped lips, he could have sworn the sound had been produced by someone else, just like the words that followed immediately afterwards and ignited further tirades of laughing.
Secretly studying the fingers of his right hand, Tooru wondered why everybody else was so vivid, whereas he decomposed into never-ending thoughts about food, working out, binging, vomiting, hating and weighing himself. This was certainly not how he had imagined his life to be. . .

By the time Matsukawa said goodbye and left the group, Tooru wished he had not had to lie his way out off the team's trip to their favorite ramen restaurant last Saturday.
By the time Kunimi said goodbye and left the group, Tooru wished he had directed his undivided attention to the practice of the 1st years instead of thinking about throwing up his lunch.
By the time Watari said goodbye and left the group, Tooru wished he knew who a friend really was.
And by the time Hanamaki said goodbye, Tooru wished his eating disorder would just let him be instead of feeding off his life. He was cold and lugubrious and illogically lonely, and these were only some of the many ramifications stealing the quality away from his life.

Upon being nudged by Iwaizumi's elbow, Tooru disentangled himself from his bonding worries and followed his friend's quiet command. Shortly afterwards, the bus stopped, its doors opened with a whooshing noise, and both students got off at their usual stop. A sturdy winter breeze scraped the mist of tiredness, that had encapsulated Tooru during the ride, from his dry skin. Instinctively burying his hands in his pockets and his nose in his checkered scarf, Tooru glued his eyes to the shrinking back of the departing bus and adjusted the position of his sports bag by rolling his right shoulder. The prospect of coming home and having to manage both his eating disorder's exorbitant demands and the great deal of homework was almost too exhausting to keep him going.

"What's up with you?"

"Huh?" Behind the curtain of a pertinacious headache, Tooru had not seen the question coming. His perplexed gaze lost its footing on the bus's back and fell upon Iwaizumi's alert face.
"You're hoarse, you're tired, you're inattentive, and what on earth happened to the corner of your mouth?" The ruthless fact bombardment lifted Tooru's feelings of uncomfortableness on a whole new level.
"Oh, that," he shrugged, keeping his body as poised as possible. His lips produced the yellowed copy of an easy smile, as his nervous fingers clasped the lollipop like an amulet freeing its carrier from all telltale signs of illness. "Must be this cold everybody has at the moment. Good looks don't protect against germs, you know?"
"Obviously a distorted sense of reality doesn't either!" Seijou's number 4 fretfully rolled his eyes, before continuing visually grilling his interlocutor. "Bad enough that Kaneo and Watari missed practice for almost a week because of that damn thing! Be reasonable for once and take a hot bath and get enough sleep tonight, or you'll miss some of our last practice sessions!"
Our. The word alone got Tooru's heart in a headlock and exacerbated the excruciating throbbing behind his temples. Wrinkling his nose, he wittered the stank of imminent graduation, of abandoned teenage dreams and of separating ways leading friends straight into estrangement. Disenchanted, he let go off the useless amulet and saluted, "Aye aye, oka-san!"
One of Iwaizumi's eyebrows shot down like a hangman's axe—a reaction Tooru was way too familiar with to continue fooling around. His prompt "Sorry! Sorry!" was answered with an anomalously short grunt. 'Definitely not a good sign,' Tooru thought to himself. If only a hot bath, some matcha and eight hours of sleep could cure him. . .

"How come you're never online before midnight anymore?" Iwaizumi continued his inquisition, his elbow apparently coincidentally brushing against Tooru's as they turned into a small side road. The noise of bypassing cars gradually died down, whereas the ticking of Tooru's personal time bomb grew louder and louder.
"Just busy feeding my dorama addiction," the brunette's smirk came quick like a shot. At which juncture in time he had transformed into an absolutely full parcel of pain neatly tied up with solid cords of lies, he honestly could not say. He only hoped he would not burst in front of his friend, who now 'hmm'ed suspiciously and narrowed his green eyes like a cat targeting a mouse.
Unconsciously speeding up for fear, Tooru experienced the unannounced return of the devilish cramp. This time, however, it did not infest his leg, but his chest, stampeding his heart and minimizing his lung volume. Breathing became a true challenge under these circumstances. If only he was home already!

Twelve steps passed without either of the two high school students saying a single word. Then Iwaizumi ran out of patience and groaned through clenched teeth: "Okay, listen Oikawa: We're all sad we lost the Playoffs. It just sucks! No discussion here! But it's no reason to bury your head in the sand for weeks on end!"
"Pfft, the Playoffs are all water under the bridge by now! Why would I still care about them when Masato has cheated on Yasu? Can't believe he did that after all they've been through! Unbelievable!" Tooru ignored the unsettling fact that Iwaizumi must have had a very close eye on him altogether. Instead, he got all worked up about his favorite dorama, just to be boxed against the upper arm.
"You are unbelievable, Assikawa!"
"Ouch!"
"I know I'm being repetitive here, but volleyball is still a team sport. We're all in the same loser boat."
'And they also all know who had drifted them off the course of winning!' added Tooru's morbidly obese self-loathing. Nearly collapsing under the unbearable burden of remorse, the taller student anchored all ten fingers in the smooth lining of his dark coat's pockets and coerced himself into holding his view straight ahead. Iwaizumi would beat him black and blue if he ever found out that Tooru had not only fucked up on the court, but that he had also had the nerve to puke the ice cream Iwa-chan had treated him to after the final. Much to Tooru's regret, the plan of suppressing any unwelcome memories by avoiding locking eyes with his best friend did not work. Before he even knew it, his bad conscious had pushed him right into the fires of shame hell, where he burned beyond recognition. In front of his inner eye the events leading to the ultimate disaster:

With a hasty "Come on, let's go home. I'd rather die than seeing the award ceremony!" he had practically shoved Iwaizumi away from the thundering applause and Karasuno's climaxing ecstasy. But as expected, Seijou's vice captain had neither been impressed by Tooru's unprecedented bad mood nor by his jostling fingers, and had only stated matter-of-factly: "You really are a crappy guy."
"'m not!"
"Sure you are."
Seconds later, Tooru's hands had come to lie on Iwaizumi's shoulders for good, because the wing spiker had intentionally slowed down his walking pace to a minimum. Confronted with yet another factor of frustration on a day that was already frustrating enough—For what else could a day be that elicited a "kuso kawaii" from Tooru while watching his kouhai play?—Tooru had huffed before more forcefully attempting to push his friend towards the nearest exit. It had been to no use, though, for Iwaizumi had simply acted as if he had been turned to stone. Tooru's rushing "Damnit, Iwa-chan! Move! Move!" had hence fallen on deaf ears.

"Home time, please," had Tooru eventually begged for real, forehead leaning against his friend's neck. In the act, the glasses he hardly ever wore in public had slit up the bridge of his nose. With the frames poking into unusual areas of his face, he had allowed himself to take a short break. He had been looking hideous anyway, given that his left eye had still displayed the remains of the popped vein. Iwaizumi had presumably interpreted the redness as the outcome of a tearful night and had therefore not posed any questions. That he had earlier discovered Tooru moping in the very last row, all alone and completely sunken into himself, had told him more than enough about Tooru's emotional state.

"Alright," Iwaizumi had at some point sighed and agreed. "Home time." The arrangement of pensive syllables had worked like a pre warning for Tooru, who had briefly nodded and deeply inhaled the conversant scent. If they had not been out off the audience's focus, Iwaizumi had never tolerated Tooru's clinginess. Truly thankful for the moment of serenity, the brunette had swallowed a lump the size of a mountain, before apologizing for yesterday's loss by whispering a voiceless "Gomennasai, yurushite kudasai, Hajime," in the cozy fabric of the blue hoodie.
After that, he had quickly dissolved the securing contact. The realization that he had been starving for comfort he definitely had not deserved had left him deeply ashamed. Silently cursing himself for being such a wimp, he had walked down the stairs and through the spacious entrance hall; all the time paying great attention to maintaining a reasonable distance between himself and his teammate. The instant the automatic glass doors had closed behind them, they had finally been rid of the pesky cheering and Iwaizumi had unexpectedly tilted his head to the left, "This way!"
"What? Why? The bus stop is over there!" Tooru had protested but stayed on Iwaizumi's track nevertheless. A minute later, they had stopped at a red traffic light. "Iwa-chan, where're we going? I thought we agreed it's home time!? You haven't forgotten already, have you? I mean even for someone with so little brain capacity, that'd be really poor."
Instead of providing an answer, the guy with the spiky hair had shot Tooru a deadly glare before crossing the road. Tooru had not even noticed that the color of the traffic lights had changed. His whining had accompanied them until Iwaizumi had abruptly stopped again, right under the striped marquee of an ice cream parlor. Upon realizing this, Tooru's heart had shrunk to the size of a raisin. And as if his day had not already been bad enough, Iwaizumi's next actions had set off all of Tooru's alarm bells. For with a coarse "Pick your poison," Iwaizumi had pointed to the counter while fetching his wallet out of his jeans back pocket.
"Wha-what—?" Tooru had stuttered, the blood in his veins heating up his cheeks and setting his earlobes alight. No doubt he had looked like a totally flustered idiot, though in truth he had simply been shocked to the bone, because pick your poison?
'Iwa-chan knows!' Tooru's keen mind had hissed like a venomous snake. But before his panic had even gotten the chance to unfold, Iwaizumi had snapped at him, clearly more embarrassed by Tooru's unexpected blushing than Tooru himself had been.
"Oi! Stop making that face! I just can't handle another shitty comment of yours today! That's all!"

In retrospect, the setter really could not tell why he had not flatly rejected the invitation. Assumingly still in shock, he had ordered a bright yellow type of ice cream called Pikachu that had contained big pieces of chocolate. On the silent way home, his tinted lips had mumbled a rueful "Arigato, Iwa-chan," while his mind had wandered several years back, to a time when Tooru had still been able to enjoy ice cream with his best friend without falling into an abyss of anxiety afterwards. It really was no surprise that ice cream and cacao, along with milk bread and cereal, were his all time favorite binge foods, for they all reminded him of those long lost, light-hearted times filled with conspiratorial whispers and fleet-footed giggling. Cacao tasted like all the stormy autumn and winter days, on which the friends had retreated into blanket caves protecting them from quarreling wind gusts and corpulent rain drops. Ice cream and cereal tasted like all the weekends they had spent together; like all the countless breakfasts after too short nights full of made-up horror stories and stargazing. And milk bread, well, milk bread was just the sweetest supporting pillar when the world around Tooru threatened to collapse. Ever since kindergarten milk bread had had that soothing effect on him. To be able to buy and consume bags of it was almost too good to be true, it was like heaven was for sale—and Tooru hardly ever resisted the temptation. A binge did not satisfy him unless it included either milk bread, ice cream, cereal, or cacao.

Yet, he had not intended to vomit the Pikachu ice cream. Upon arriving back home, however, he had felt so guilty for being such a pain in the ass that his feet had carried him directly to the bathroom. To be fair, it had been the first time he had ever wasted a friend's pocket money so shabbily. Heretofore, he had only thrown up foods he had bought with his parents' or his own money—and that had never bothered him until the conversations with a friend plus the recent increase of physical and mental discomfort had made him realize that he was indeed suffering from an eating disorder, and not only was he causing harm to himself. No, his handling of other people's money was utterly disrespectful as well. But regardless of how much Tooru's soul cried for help and relief, he was still at a loss at who to turn to. Some online counselor? His parents? His sister? The guidance counselor? Iwa-chan?
No.
Raised traditionally, Tooru always considered his words' possible effects before speaking. His family, the volleyball club, even his school would be brought into disrepute, just because he was too stupid to eat normally. And exclusively opening up to Iwa-chan was not an option either. After all, his longest and dearest friend could not magically cure him, so the truth would only unnecessarily burden him.

Reconsidering all this, Tooru now unwrapped the lollipop and repressed the urgent impulse to confess with cherry coke flavor. In a flash, the taste turned his world of emotions upside down. Surfing on a freshly released wave of adrenaline, he slung an arm over Iwaizumi's shoulders like a drunkard, finally giving the overdue answer to his friend's "I know I'm being repetitive here, but volleyball is still a team sport. We're all in the same loser boat."
"Totally repetitive! As if I could ever forget the nosebleed Iwa-chan gave me back in middle school!"

The smack of a flat hand against Tooru's forehead did not come as a complete surprise, but caused him to yelp nonetheless.
"Don't say it like that! It sounds all wrong, hentai!" Iwaizumi barked, eyes aflame and hand hitting Tooru once more.
"Ow!"
"Serves you right! Those stupid doramas you're watching all the time are definitely no good for you, Trashykawa! What you need is some quality in your free time! You free this weekend or at your sister's again?"
"How can you say something like that about my beloved doramas, Iwa-chan!? They teach me very important life lessons! See?" One fast move and Tooru had shoved the lollipop past Iwaizumi's lips. The clicking of candy sliding through separating rows of teeth nourished his grin par excellence. "Problem of your grumpy face solved! Ha! And no, I'm not at my sister's this weekend, so you can come over on Saturday. My parents will be back on Tuesday and a helping hand in preparation is very welcome~"
"Eh—?" Still visibly irritated about the lollipop-incident, Iwaizumi blinked twice, before anger eclipsed his whole face. "Wait! Are you telling me here you need help cleaning the house?!"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?!"
"Haha, don't worry, Iwa-chan! It's as tidy as usual," Tooru assured, smile genuine for once.
"It better be or I'll mop the ground with you!" Seijou's vice captain flailed the lollipop like a sword, missing Tooru's nose by a mere hair's breadth. Sticking out his tongue, the setter intuitively stepped back, his smile slowly fading away.
"I'm heading this way. Fridge's empty and a man needs to eat. Bai-bai~," he waved, right hand forming the victory sign and feet leading him straight away from his surprised friend.
"But—Hey! You forgot your stupid lolly!"
"Keep it as an advance payment for Saturday~" Laughter a nuance too shrill to play the melody of an ordinary goodbye, Tooru generously glanced over his shoulder but strictly avoided meeting his friend's eyes. He was on the horns of a dilemma here, for despite dearly missing spending some leisure time with Iwa-chan, he felt compelled to exploit the last unsupervised weekend.

Sighing deeply, he turned around the corner and took advantage of the first unobserved moment by spitting out. Yet, it did not do much against the strong cherry coke flavor beleaguering his taste buds like a hostile army. Taking a parallel street, Tooru made his way back to the bus stop. Shopping groceries at one of the small konbinis nearby was too great of a risk. A salesperson would most certainly recognize him as the guy yet again buying a giant amount of food and candy—and Tooru's enfeebled brain had no good excuse ready. He did not even know how to explain to his parents that he had spent much more money than they had provided him with. Perhaps keeping it a secret and just accepting his shrunken balance would be best in his situation.

Approximately an hour later, Tooru closed the front door, habitually called "Taidaima," and took off his leather shoes and his coat. The rest of his evening fated by the newly acquired weight in his bag, he jumped right into action, starting with the already half-melted ice cream. Plopping down on the bathroom carpet, he banished his fears in his stomach and froze them by the spoonful. The method was worth a mint. In no time, Tooru felt numb and free and good and—
". . . We're all in the same loser boat."
The echo of Iwaizumi's voice brought Tooru's emotions back to life faster than he could handle.
How could Iwa-chan ever say that? How?
The ailing question sealed Tooru's throat and thereby interdicted him from continuing eating and, even worse so at the moment, from throwing up all the ice cream he had just bolted down.

Fighting against an imminent nervous breakdown, he threw the almost empty package in the washbasin, rushed into his room, and changed into his running clothes. With his face deep in the hood of his jacket, he blindly stormed out off the house and ran ran ran until he was dead on his feet. Stumbling, Tooru realized too late that the piercing pain in his lungs was about to overpower him. In search of support, his fingers clung to the crisp air, but found it was in vain. His knees hit the park's adamant lawn with a slam, while vertigo squeezed his torso together, giving him the feeling of breaking his ribs one by one. The explosive retching suddenly bursting out of him tore the peaceful still life of the calm evening apart.
This was the worst.
The absolute worst.
Close to passing out, Tooru lay trembling on the winter-cold ground, his body nothing but the rattling of his exploited lungs and the thundering of his overexerted heart. Overly acidified blood leaked from the torn corner of his mouth, mixing with sour puke and salty tears. Watched by a noble crescent and some unaffected stars, Tooru only wished for a friend to help him get back on his feet.