Chapter Text
Argentina wasn’t particularly bad.
Oikawa remembered arriving in the country with nothing but a backpack, a massive suitcase, a dream, and a dictionary clutched in his left hand—which he’d accidentally handed over to immigration instead of his passport, his nerves getting the better of him.
So no, aside from the immigration officer eyeing him in disbelief, Oikawa decided that Argentina was a place to be.
Except his best friend wasn’t there. But still, Argentina wasn’t bad.
Especially not when José Blanco was standing across the arrivals area, arms crossed, eyes assessing, beside a woman in a tan blazer who looked about two spreadsheets away from a nervous breakdown.
Older, with sharp features and the kind of presence that didn’t need raising its voice, José had been Oikawa’s mentor long enough to know how to handle athletes who were a little too proud for their own good — and he looked every bit like he was bracing himself to do exactly that.
“I was starting to think you got deported.” Blanco snots at Oikawa.
“I almost was,” he muttered, half-grinning. “Apparently a dictionary isn’t a valid form of ID.”
The woman beside Blanco laughed nervously. “No worries! Happens to more players than you’d think.”
Oikawa highly doubted that.
“Also! S-should we take you to the training facility after check-in?” the woman asked, trying to sneak the question in.
José scoffed and clapped a firm hand against Oikawa’s back. “Let the guy rest first. We’ll take him to the facility tomorrow.”
“Y-yes, uncle!”
Oh. She was a niece.
Oikawa blinked. That made sense.
“You’ve grown a lot.” José added, finally giving him a once-over.
“I should be worried if I hadn’t.” Oikawa replied, grin still in place — though something in his chest tugged a little harder than expected.
He’d grown up.
He just never thought he’d have to grow up without Iwaizumi beside him.
They were miles apart now — but it still felt like he’d left a part of him in Japan.
So he turned his head, looking back to where he just exited. There stood Iwaizumi in his Aoba Johsai uniform, head held high like he was proud to see Oikawa walking away.
The urge to reach out for Iwaizumi itched, but before he could even lift his finger, swarm of passengers crossed his vision completely blocking his view—as if Iwaizumi’s image was not something etched in his memories since childhood.
Then he woke up.
—
Oikawa liked to think the dreams had faded. But dreaming of your best friend three times a week doesn’t exactly count as ‘less’.
Some dreams didn’t even feature him, not exactly — but they always found a way back to him. But often, memories of the moments their relationship changed replayed as he slept — the time he thought he could finally forget him.
He was wrong. Even in sleep, Iwaizumi lingers — not as comfort, but as a ghost that never stops watching.
It’s been years for fuck’s sake.
The ceiling fan hummed overhead — slow, steady, and annoyingly off-beat. Morning light crept in through the slats of the blinds, casting lines across the clutter of medals, used tape rolls, and empty water bottles on the desk by the window.
He blinked up at the ceiling for a long time before moving. The dream still clung to him, too vivid around the edges. The memory of leaving Iwaizumi screamed like the whispers of anguish.
But the apartment was quiet.
It had been quiet for years now.
He sat up slowly, stretching out limbs that were far too familiar with sore mornings. His legs ached from training the day before. Or maybe from sleeping wrong. Or maybe from existing. It all blurred together these days.
Argentina had become home in the way that cities eventually do—through routines, through resignation. He knew the streets now. He spoke the language decently. He had a favorite empanada place. He was known in gyms, whispered about at tournaments.
He had everything he wanted.
Except for the one thing he’d never admitted he needed.
Oikawa rubbed at his face, then checked his phone. No new messages.
Not that he expected one.
Not from him.
He thought, just for a moment, about sending a text. Something casual. Something that says:
Just had a dream about you.
But he didn’t.
He never did.
But his phone buzzed.
Oikawa glanced down, half-expecting it to be some team update or group chat spam.
It wasn’t.
Matsukawa: What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell us?
Oikawa sat up straighter, thumb hovering above the keyboard.
Tell you what? he typed, but didn’t send it right away.
His heart picked up, thudding with the kind of dread that didn’t come from nightmares or muscle aches. It came from years of knowing that silence could be louder than any goodbye.
Another buzz.
Matsukawa: We didn’t know that Iwaizumi was dating!
Oh.
The mornings that used to be slow, peaceful, and calm for Oikawa turned into an anguished moment of silence. There was a pause. In his heart. In his world.
—
It was a year after he got to Argentina. Maybe he got accustomed to being alone, the smell of empanadas, the creaking sounds of the massive gymnasiums he gets to exhilarate his skill, and even got used to foreign girls asking for his signature—but he never got used to his best friend’s physical absence.
September breeze called for Spring. The morning sun poured in gold through his half-open blinds, washing over the trophies on his shelf like they were still worth something. Outside, he can see that the jacarandas were in bloom for the first time he got here, their blossoms dusting the pavement like confetti from a celebration Oikawa hadn’t been invited to.
“Tch.” he mouthed.
It was when a year after he got to Argentina, when his phone rang from a familiar name for the first time since he left.
His heart raced, acknowledging that his friendship with Iwaizumi was never really something that needed constant communication.
“Iwa-chan!” His voice lit up, too eager, too ready, like it had been rehearsing for this moment in his sleep.
There was a pause on the other end. Just a second too long.
“Hey,” came the reply. Familiar, steady, grounding. It made something in Oikawa’s chest unravel. “You sound stupidly… good.”
He smiled. “Spring in Buenos Aires. You should see it. Everything’s purple.”
“Yeah?” Iwaizumi said. “Sounds nice.”
There was silence again. Not the comfortable kind they used to share on train rides home, when one of them was asleep with his head tilted back and the other scrolling through music. No, this one hummed with all the things they weren’t saying.
“I saw your last match,” Iwaizumi finally said. “You’re still too dramatic when you serve.”
Oikawa snorted. “Oh it’s fun when you let them anticipate a powerful move but they can’t do anything about it.”
But he was smiling. His chest felt lighter, and heavier, all at once.
“What a jerk.” Iwaizumi cackles on the other side. “Hey, I wanna tell you something.”
That was the thing about Iwaizumi. One word from him could crack Oikawa open.
His stupid mind was hoping Iwaizumi would beg for him to come, that he missed him, that he was in desperate need of his presence as much as Oikawa felt. Even if he knew he wouldn’t come home, Oikawa was going to try to see if he could give in and go back. For once, he thought, maybe the real dream was to be with Iwaizumi.
“Don’t tell me the vending machine ate your money again and called it thief ?”
Iwaizumi groaned, but Oikawa could hear the smile in it. “You’re never letting that go, are you?”
“Absolutely not,” Oikawa said, grinning to himself now. “You punched a vending machine, Iwa-chan. I thought I was going to get arrested just by standing next to you.”
“It ate my yen!”
“You yelled at it like it was your sworn enemy. You literally said ‘I’m not losing this battle, you metal bastard.’”
“I was hungry!” Iwaizumi barked defensively, and Oikawa could imagine the way he was rubbing the back of his neck right now, flustered and trying not to laugh. “You know what happens when I don’t eat after practice.”
“You lose all concept of diplomacy?”
Iwaizumi snorted. “I won, didn’t I? The second water bottle came out.”
“Oh yes,” Oikawa said dramatically, “A true hero. Fearless. Determined. Unhinged.”
“You’re the unhinged one.”
“Still not as unhinged as a vending machine warrior.”
They both laughed. The line between them felt thinner, less thousands-of-miles thick, more like the old string-and-can connection they’d used in Oikawa’s backyard as kids. It hurt, in that nostalgic, stupid, beautiful way.
Oikawa looked out the window again. The jacarandas swayed gently in the breeze. Maybe it really was a celebration, even if he didn’t feel like he’d been invited.
“You said you wanted to tell me something?” he asked quietly, the humor fading just enough to make room for something else.
Iwaizumi paused.
“Yeah. I…” He hesitated. “I’m seeing someone.”
And just like that, Oikawa feared every other phone calls.
—
Oikawa had finally accepted that whatever they were—whatever they could’ve been—would stay frozen in time. That there would be no big confessions, no dramatic reunions. Just two boys who chose different lives.
He told himself he could live with that.
He told himself enough times that eventually, it started to sound like truth.
Until now.
He stared at Matsukawa’s message again.
Iwaizumi was dating.
Not seeing someone. Not hooking up or trying things out.
Dating. Present tense. Active. Real.
But…was?
The word rattled in his brain like a loose screw in a machine that was already barely holding itself together.
Was.
Past tense.
Oikawa blinked, rereading Matsukawa’s text like maybe, somehow, the phrasing would change. He read his message again,
The exclamation mark was doing too much. It felt like a punchline to a joke Oikawa hadn’t realized he was the setup for. But “was” stuck in his throat, heavy and raw, because maybe it wasn’t just a slip. Maybe it meant something else.
Was, as in: not anymore.
Was, as in: it ended.
Was, as in: he’s not dating now, but he did.
He didn’t reply to Matsukawa. Instead, he jolts up from the name that flashed on his screen as soon as it rang.
With the slightest bit of hope from “was”, Oikawa seemed to forget about his fear of phone calls, rushed his finger to answer his best friend.
“Iwa-chan! How are you? Did you call because you were going through a break-up? I knew it! You always fumble girls!”
There was a pause on the other end.
Not the amused kind. Not even the confused kind.
Just quiet. Careful.
“I’m not calling because of a break-up,” Iwaizumi said, voice lower than before, tinged with something Oikawa couldn’t name — not yet.
Oikawa blinked. The grin on his face faltered just a little, but he kept it there. “Oh? Then what, did you—”
“I’m getting married,” Iwaizumi said.
The words landed like a dropped ball in an empty gym — echoing, bouncing, impossible to ignore.
Oikawa forgot how to breathe.
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
“Oh,” he managed eventually. Then again, softer. “Oh.”
Another silence settled between them. But this one wasn’t waiting to be filled. It was the moment.
“I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else,” Iwaizumi continued. “I thought…I owed you that much.”
Oikawa swallowed around the dry in his throat. “Right. Yeah. You did.”
“I also…” Iwaizumi hesitated, and Oikawa hated him for it. Hated that he was hesitating, like he didn’t know exactly what he was doing.
“I wanted to ask if you’d be my best man.”
There it was.
Not a punch. A plunge.
Oikawa let out a breath, sharp and shaky, half-laughing because what else could he do?
“Your best man,” he repeated. Just a best man, not his bride, or groom, or whatever the fuck you call it.
“Wow, Iwa-chan. That’s—that’s kind of a bomb to drop on a guy first thing in the morning.”
“Sorry,” Iwaizumi said, too gently.
“I mean, congratulations!” Oikawa rushed to add, too fast, too loud. Hoping that his voice could cover the ache since he left. “Obviously. That’s great. That’s amazing. What a lucky girl. What’s her name again?”
He didn’t hear the answer. Or maybe he did and just didn’t register it.
His fingers were trembling, but he pressed them harder around the phone, holding on like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
“You sure I’m the right pick?” he joked, or tried to. “I mean—best man. That’s a pretty important role.”
“You’ve always been important,” Iwaizumi said, and Oikawa hated that too.
Because it was too kind.
Because it wasn’t enough.
Because it was years too late.
“I wouldn’t want anyone else,” Iwaizumi added.
And maybe he meant that. Maybe it was true.
But Oikawa could feel every inch of space between them. Every unsaid word. Every almost, every maybe, every version of them that didn’t make it past seventeen.
He closed his eyes.
He smiled. He should have seen this coming.
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. I’ll do it.”
And even though his chest felt like it was caving in, Oikawa kept his voice steady. Kept the laughter in it. Kept the lightness.
Because if there was one thing he was good at — better than serving, better than winning — it was pretending not to bleed.
The phone call lasted a few more minutes; he was already unsure what he was telling Iwaizumi. His head was just blurry, overlapped by the tightness in his chest. He was sure, though, that Iwaizumi was talking about volleyball, him, Argentina, and Ushiwaka being on the Japan Olympic Team next year—something along the lines of him finally having the chance to beat Ushijima after their defeat against Karasuno years ago.
On a normal day, Oikawa Toruu would have shouted on the phone, daring Iwaizumi Hajime to collect his enemies like Pokémon, and he’s going to beat them all at once on the bigger stage.
But this wasn’t a normal day.
It was a morning in September in Argentina again, and the purple blooms of jacaranda trees were falling — like confetti after a game he never had a chance to win.
He decided he really hated phone calls as his eyes blurry in vision, and warm tears roll down his cheeks as if to fill the cold void Iwaizumi took with him.