Warning! Dark themes / substance abuse ahead!
What Oikawa Experiences:
Gender Dysphoria
Chronic migraines
Fatigue
Anxiety
Insomnia
Depression
HRT [Hormone Replacement Therapy]
Oikawa is a recovering opioid addict. This addiction formed and developed from her time in the hospital, during her head injury, and numerous visits for her knee injury in the past. Because of the amount she takes, and used to take, she does her best to regulate them properly now by only taking things when absolutely needed, save for the exception of HRT. Labeling them, somehow, as 'break in case of emergency' medicines made them easier to keep track of.
The knowledge that these little pills could take all her pain away became something of an unhealthy fantasy to her. It scares her more than anything, how she - in her own way - has battled with an addiction in a similar fashion to her mother. And how she still has those desires after a few close calls.
As every child does, Oikawa began to grow up. "Tooru" didn't feel... Fitting, any more. Being called a boy felt... Weird. The wrong kind of 'alien'.. It didn't feel... Right. They didn't know when they started to notice these feelings, but it had to have been quite early on. Though, they didn't really question it until later on.
Oikawa's quest of self-discovery started in in their early teens, around middle school years at least, bent on trying new things and finding who they really were. Questioning the things that made them uncomfortable.
They found many things to describe themselves, good and bad. One term that stood out though, the word 'transgender', was new. Something they'd never heard it before, relatively new at the time, and the more they looked into it. . . The more it seemed to fit. New terms like 'dysphoria' and 'dysmorphia' were confusing. And yet, somehow, Oikawa could. . . Relate to them, in some way.
It was intriguing, nonetheless. So they did more research, reading articles and watching informing videos to grasp the meaning better, looking up more words each time they found something new.The stories of many who were shunned for who they were frightened Oikawa. The treatment of people who might have been like them in media and real life heightened their sense of perception from the people around them as the first year of middle school went on.
They started light, only opting to confess to their closest friend, Iwaizumi, at the time. Oikawa had other friends, but none seemed to understand and accept them the way he always had. They decided on gender neutral pronouns, with the logic that it wasn't too obvious, and still gave room for them to be comfortable. Of course, this was highly confidential information for them, so it could not be shared. Iwaizumi understood that much, at least. He would spend time through the year learning more about what his childhood friend was experiencing, but often kept it in the back of his mind rather than speak unless he had a question about it.
Following Iwaizumi, their brother was the next to find out, and his reaction was surprisingly similar to Oikawa's. Though, he seemed to have a harder time grappling with it, most of his confusion seemed to come from the terms, rather than how his younger sibling felt. It didn't change the fact that he loved them, all the same.
Knowing they had two close people they could be open with, Oikawa was feeling pretty confident! She'd later made the decision, and prepared to tell everyone. Her friends, and her parents.
It was Sunday. They didn't go to school on Sunday, always opting for Saturday if they needed an extra day to study on something. Everyone had the day off, so it seemed perfect. And, technically, it was. . .
But it was also nerve-wracking.
At the very least, they had their brother there, but. . Still.
Oikawa had gathered everyone in the living room, and there, she told them all what she'd been feeling. Her findings, and their explanations. It wasn't easy, but somehow, she did get through it. She was. . Expecting a big reaction - something like what she read from the negative coming out articles she had found so many times before.
[This part of her research had been left out, for fear of garnering an even more negative response.]
Her brother seemed proud, happy that his younger sibling was taking steps to become more of herself. Having gone through self-discovery himself, he could only provide some help, as he didn't have the 'handbook' to give for his sister's kind.
The reactions from her parents were dreaded from day one of her realization. Seeing them process the information she'd broken down for them, particularly her father, was slowly chipping away at her strong exterior. Her mother was the most emotional, not entirely understanding, but not really. . . Upset? Neither of them really seemed upset, actually. It surprised her.
Her brother had noticed this anxiety settling in Oikawa's eyes, however, and had moved to her side of the room. He filled in the blanks for their parents, where her mother had questions and her father occasionally voiced a concern or two. At the end of it all, though, he only leaned in to ask Oikawa, herself, "And you're sure about these feelings?"
At first, she was confused. Sure? She's never been more sure about anything in her life. Of course. But it seemed that all he wanted was clear affirmation from her lips directly.
So long as she was sure of herself, no matter the changes she underwent, he would be there by her side. And this, as well, seemed to be enough for her mother after she had time to process everything.
Though they had come together in understanding, none of them could prepare for the emotional roller coaster they'd been strapped into.
She'd always heard of the saying, 'it always gets worse before it gets better,' but. . Why? Why this, why now?
The end of school was approaching, closer than ever now, and Oikawa had decided that it was time. She would come out to the rest of her friends, and hopefully, finally, be able to be herself properly.
The universe seemed to have other plans. . .
Her approach varied depending on the person. Some people she told in a small group, others she told by themselves. Gauging people was difficult enough, but knowing how other kids could react - and how brutal they could really be - she had to take the safest of routes when navigating this path.
Not all of them saw eye-to-eye with her. . Or each other, for that matter. Some friends, Oikawa witnessed, immediately turned on her, while others stood up for her in support. She didn't like the thought that someone had to choose between her and another friend, but that seemed like what happened in many of these talks. That being paired with seeing a new setter, someone younger than her, doing better than her to such an extent that it felt as if she'd been replaced - even if it wasn't the reality. . . It was heartbreaking.
With only a handful of friends by her side now, it was the worst time to go into a game. But she had to. Oikawa never quit before, she couldn't now, right? The last game of the second year, everyone was counting on her. She worked harder and harder until the day came.
It was a mistake.
She didn't just slip. Oikawa fell, hard, in front of everyone. It would have been the most embarrassing thing, had she not been in so much pain. All the stress she'd put on herself in her training came back to bite her. She knew something was wrong before the game, but she didn't listen to her body. Oikawa slipped several times, before her knee locked after a jump, preventing a proper landing and falling on it in the process.
Needless to say, the shock of it and her cries sent on-sight staff running to her.
Oikawa didn't know what hurt more - the emotional burden of losing people she cared about, simply because they couldn't or didn't care to understand . . . Or the physical pang from her leg, and the knowledge that she may never play the sport she loved the same again, if at all. With torn muscles and a fractured patella, only at 16, Oikawa was wondering if this was when she finally had to say 'I can't', and truly believe that she couldn't.
It was overwhelming how helpless not only Oikawa, herself, felt, but her parents as well.
Mr. Oikawa gave reassurance where he thought it was needed, having not been too good on the emotional side. But this was difficult to see, for him and his wife, both. Despite that, he did all he could do.
While he took the backseat often in familial matters, his children mattered the most to him, and like he does with every problem he faces, he did what he does best.
Research.
If there was an answer, a method, an exploit in the system, he was going to find it.
And while he took care of findings and medical procedures at that time, wanting to see what he could do to help get both his daughter's transition underway, and find out what method of recovery they could follow for her recovery... Mrs. Oikawa did was she did best: take care of her kids. This time, with an extra set of hands, thankful she had her eldest to help out.
It took some time of researching together, as Mr. Oikawa wasn't an entirely judgmental man - in stark contrast to his own parents - and Mrs. Oikawa was more than open to do what she needed to help her eldest. The two had found much of what their daughter did. Though the information at the time was not numerous, they did manage to find a little more.
It wasn't easy to juggle everything at once, but by working together, the two parents and their son had gotten her set up for hormone therapy. Her mother looked into the laws and how to work around them in public, looked into schools and the guidelines for any loopholes, while her son took over for Mr. Oikawa so he could continue work and handle the medical side of things regarding his youngest's knee injury.
They tried it all. It was quite the busy rest of the year, while she was recovering and going through her third year.
Though she had to be more careful from now on, she was told she could continue volleyball if she was mindful after recovery. And by the time high school came around, she could at least 'pass' as an everyday school girl. On top of that, she finally found a name! that both felt right, and was one everyone seemed to like as well.
Touka.
Simple, yet extraordinary, and right.
It didn't solve everything. . . But it was a step in what felt like the right direction.
Her father passed due to declining health and work fatigue.
He was a very business-oriented, workaholic type of man, who simply could not sit down. Whether it was house work, or actual work. Mr. Oikawa had the ethic of a worker honey bee, and most of Touka's own habits and constant giving of 200%+ has been adopted from and ingrained into her being by her father. Both directly by being taught, or indirectly, by watching. His parents always told him he'd be a great farmer, and once upon a time, that might have even been his dream retirement plan.
Despite that, and his strict idea of upbringing, Mr. Oikawa was a soft-hearted man. The bond she had with him was closer than what her mother and brother could have ever hoped to build, despite how close her mother and herself had been growing up.
It was distant, but he was supportive in his own way, and accepted her happily when she had come out. He was proud of her in everything she and his oldest son did. It was difficult not to be, really. They were both so talented beyond his wildest dreams.
He always pushed her to do better than her best. In hindsight, he internalized some guilt, thinking this might have been what caused his daughter to stress herself and follow in his footsteps with her own [future] volleyball career.
Throughout her musical advances with the cello, active progression of her sport career later on, and her increasing love for photography and independent adventure, Mr. Oikawa had a business exterior, and a family interior. Everything he did, he did for them.
His fondest memory was of how the three of them pulled together to aid his daughter, Touka, in what seemed to him like her darkest hours.
Touka remembers him fondly.
There's no bad blood between her brother and herself, and actually get along well, when they're together.
These two just don't talk much these days, though she does keep up with him occasionally through social media, as the older sibling moved overseas at some point. Sometimes, she will receive and send things in regard to her nephew, Takeru.
Takeru and Touka probably talk the most, since she likes to keep up with his volleyball games [to the best of her ability, at least]. Over the years she has become more of supportive role as he grows and gets older, and often attempts to help him when he messages her for advice, mirroring how her brother took care of her when she was younger.
She finds some humor in when Takeru says her brother is jealous of the time these two spend talking, because "all he gets is a card! ... Sometimes!!"
It only makes her laugh, because some sad part of her wonders where that emotional investment and effort to communicate was when they were younger, while her brother often wonders where she went, and what happened that caused her to go dark on everyone.
Knowing his sister, however, it was just best not to ask. She would bring it up if, and when, she was ready.
Warning! Dark themes / Slight violence, mentions of alcohol, & smoking ahead.
Mrs. Oikawa was a good-hearted homebody who devoted herself to her family wholly. She loved kids, and dreamed of having a job as a preschool teacher. Instead, however, she chose against it. With how often her husband worked, and insisted on working for the both of them, she knew someone needed to be home to keep things in check when her two little creations finally got walking.
Out of the two parents, Mrs. Oikawa was heavily invested in her daughter's sports life. She probably supported her youngest the most through her [future] sports career and surging popularity in elementary and middle school.
Where most parents would brush off simple mistakes or have caused harm, Oikawa's mother would go the extra mile to personally apologize to her if she was in the wrong.
She taught Oikawa to trust themselves, and trust the decisions they made. That only Oikawa would be able to know what was right for her. Paired this, with her father's advice of mindfulness, and reminders to keep impulsivity in check as best they can.
This system set up a seemingly stable foundation for future relationships and self-responsibility in her life.
At one point, they were very close. She watched her child from a distance, but always seemed to be there, more than willing to help out. Always there to apply the bandage, provide advice, solve the problem. She helped Oikawa learn multiple lessons, but allowed her to make mistakes, believing that "people can't learn how to pick themselves back up if they don't fall first."
Even still, there were only so many things Mrs. Oikawa could help her youngest child with. Things even she could not handle.
When she was younger, Mrs. Oikawa was a heavy alcoholic, and a bit of a chain smoker, having gotten a taste for it after finding it calmed her nerves during times of stress. Quitting was hard, as it had become a fun pastime and way of spending time with friends. She had managed to stop during her first pregnancy, but started back up shortly after. Only after a small scuffle with her husband, after Touka turned two, did she properly go sober. Since then, she hadn't drank even a sip of celebratory wine. Not a lick of alcohol was taken in, even if her husband found the rare occasion to do so. She continued to smoke, but always made sure to 'smoke responsibly', away from her children and other people.
However, during the middle of Touka's third year of high school, he passed due to chronic illness and exhaustion. In his wake, the following months leading up to Touka's graduation, drinking her sorrow away was the only thing keeping Mrs. Oikawa afloat. The more she tried to keep herself together, the more Mrs. Oikawa would find herself at the bottom of the bottle. Another sip, another swig, even when she'd say "no more," it was always there. With her son away, Touka was the only one left to help, and she was unable to keep up with her. She tried, harder than anyone would have known, but with school and volleyball preparations, her social life closing in, setting things up with surgeons for top surgery once she was out of high school... It was too much.
No one was around to help regulate the older woman. As a result, the state of the house began to fall apart, and more and more tension began to form between her and her daughter.
An alcoholic Mrs. Oikawa is a very different person.
Irresponsible, irrational, impulsive, irritable, and explosive.
Touka referred to this often as the "Four I's, An E, and Me," mood
Because she always - somehow - got stuck with her mother in this state some way or another. The name was long, admittedly... But it worked, and it was unfortunately fitting.
One day during such moods, the teen had come home after a long day of graduation prepping to yet another instance of her mother sunken over the dining room table. By this time, she'd had enough of the alcohol, downward neglect of the house, and further neglect of her mother from what used to be a close bond. She had decided she was going to talk to her mother.
Despite the cautiousness she'd put into the talk, one slip as she was cleaning the kitchen had led to another scuffle of sorts. Fighting over a bottle her mother refused to let go of, led to getting hit with the bottle when it flew from the older woman's hand. That drew the line in the sand for Touka. After all her attempts to help keep the house together, help her mother get back up on her feet, she couldn't do it anymore.
And as her own mother would have said to her in this very situation:
"Sometimes, you have to remove a bad root from your garden. Even if that root belongs to one of your favorite plants in the world. If you don't remove it, after trying to do everything you can to fix it, all you're ever going to get from it is bad fruit."
Touka would never forget all that she's done for her, but the damage to their relationship, and her head, was already done.
She now suffers from chronic migraines, recollection and lasting memory loss from the traumatic experience. Touka was left with a small dent at the top of her hairline, as well as lasting loss of memory and recollection issues and chronic migraines.
This also gives way to a general discomfort in the presence of smoking and alcohol, as a trigger of those repressed memories.
She still thinks about her mother from time to time, hoping she is okay, and wondering if she should reconnect.
Whenever she'd be ready for that.
Warnings for dark themes / Death, Harassment, Stalking, Ect.
A devoted fanbase that she cannot ever, truly, escape. Oikawa has a love-hate relationship with her fans.
On the one hand, it's nice to be recognized, even admired. There's nothing wrong with looking up to someone. These mildly interested groups are simply 'followers' to her. She often plays into the theatrics of sitting on a pedestal, but never truly enjoys it. . .Because it can always be taken too far.
It's when that admiration turns into obsession, taken to an extreme. That's when she finds it... Them.. Unpleasant.
She won't lie, Touka has a comfort bias towards female fans, over male.
On several occasions, the ex-captain has been followed, had attempted break-ins [which often result in constant door replacements], and more often than not, attempted assault, both sexual and non-sexual.
Whether it's for refusing a fanatic's advances, or simply for 'being in the wrong place at the wrong time,' Oikawa finds herself in more fights than she really should.
After reports of hers being ignore, or passed off because she's "pretty," if they haven't come to find out through her records that she is trans. If they have, their demeanor changes, and she notices their reluctance to actually help. . . Perhaps, because they don't want to? She tries not to think about it, since it just makes her angry. Touka has learned to be skeptical of any authoritative figure she sees.
She prefers not to use the term 'fan' for her significant other/s, or friends, as it holds more of a negative association, than positive, in her mind.
Occasionally, she will experience phantom touches from incidents in the past where a fan has gotten a little too close and handsy for comfort. This leads her every so often into a period of personal discomfort in being close to others, whether they are emotionally close or involved, or not, and sends her into a state of dissociation, aside from stress-induced dissociation.
She often finds it hard to sleep, and has recurring night terrors, or occasional sleep paralysis, that hark back to these incidents.
She has killed at least twice out of self-defense, reluctantly. Despite her perpetual disdain for the behaviors of these people, it is always exactly those behaviors that drive her to wanting more. Touka is constantly at odds with herself, as it's morally wrong in her mind to want to hurt people the way she often thinks of. Yet, continues to think of such things, believing that if they are in the wrong, or wronging her, then they deserve it. They attacked her.
However, she has only ever acted out of self-defense, and if she can avoid harming someone like that, she will. She believes this is what keeps her from truly labeling herself as 'awful.'
The night of the fight between her mother and herself, Touka said goodbye, that she was leaving, and only took a bag of personal belongings, with an added duffle of things from her father. She stayed the night at a hotel nearby. She stayed at school long enough to give her volleyball club members a reasonable goodbye. Then met with her three closest friends to give them each a hug, make sure to exchange up-to-date numbers in case any of them had changed recently, then went to the hospital. Just to get her head checked.
Touka didn't return home after graduation, and as much as she wanted to, she didn't attend the after party, either. Out of desire for much needed change in her environment, she simply moved on to find more of herself outside of her comfort zone and the home she had grown up in.
From here, she went MIA.
In her new adventure, the start was rough. Still eighteen, and fresh out of high school, Touka hoped she could continue her sports career and tried out for a few teams in the area, even getting picked out of interest by a scouter or two from the nearby college.
It didn't last, however.
Only a few weeks in, during a doctor's visit, it had been revealed that the condition of her knee had worsened just from the extensive training. No amount of distraction or work could help push back that set of choices she was left to think about that day. It would continue to sustain damage throughout her life - The need for distraction lead to more self-destruction.
After being unsuccessful in landing a permanent spot in volleyball, Oikawa did a number of odd jobs to keep herself afloat and gain experience.
Finally, after a year and a half of bumbling through bills, saving, and working side/part-time jobs, she managed to be taken in at a bakery. A little pastry shop just down the block from the Osaka University of Arts. That was where she got an idea.
She'd spend the next two years at the OUoA [Osaka University of Art], to get her degree in photography and become a freelancer.
In the time of her being in school, she only had to switch jobs once. Moving from baking, due to the business closing down from raised rent, Oikawa went on to work at the Osaka Museum of Natural History as a part-time tour guide. Once again, the job only lasted about a year or so, before Oikawa finally decided to use her photography skills for more than a hobby, quitting the museum life in order to become her own boss.
She couldn't believe she finally did it.
A job all on her own -- no -- a business. Something her father would have been proud of, no doubt.
By this time [21-24], she'd already gotten a house of her own. It was fairly sized, but definitely a fixer-upper. Most of her money went into that house, and the two fluffy cats she would adopt soon after. Touka would invest in gender affirming top surgery and laser hair removal later down the road.
