Chapter Text
– – –
When Oikawa found out Ushijima was going to the same university he was going to, he crossed the street from his house, raced to Iwaizumi’s, barged through the front door, kicked off his shoes, bound up their staircase – shouting his apology to Iwaizumi’s mom for the noise on his way up – and practically kicked down Iwaizumi’s bedroom door.
Iwaizumi, who had been in the middle of the final part of a two hour sniper mission on his Playstation, jumped, accidentally pressed the shoot button, misfired his shot, and subsequently failed the mission.
He whipped around to face the door.
“Oikawa, what the hell – “
“Ushijima and I are going to be teammates!”
Iwaizumi just stared as Oikawa crossed the room to his bed, flopped his entire weight on it and grabbed one of the pillows to mash his face against, muffling the anguished cry he let out. When he finally lifted his head from the pillow, he groaned and flopped onto his back to stare up at the ceiling.
“Why is this happening to me?” he asked out loud, begging for an answer from the universe. “First, my supposedly best friend doesn’t even care that we won’t be in the same school, and now I’m going to have to play setter for Ushiwaka!”
He let out a whimper and clutched Iwaizumi’s pillow to his chest.
Iwaizumi rolled his eyes and turned back to his game, starting his mission all over again. “You’re being dramatic again.”
Oikawa flipped onto his stomach, tucking Iwaizumi’s pillow beneath him so he could rest his chin on it and give the full pout effect to his best friend.
“There’s still some time for you to request to transfer schools,” he mumbled against the pillow.
Iwaizumi didn’t even bother to take his eyes off his game. “We talked about this – there’s no point. They didn’t offer me a spot in the team,” he said, his head moving left and right to watch his player on the screen. “And I’m happy with where I’m going anyway.”
“And that’s it? You’re just going to just accept the no?”
Iwaizumi sighed. He recognized that tone. He finally paused his game. They had gone through this talk so many times, he didn’t know why Oikawa still picked at the issue like he could change the outcome if he argued about it again. The fact was, Tokyo University, the champion school in the college league had offered Oikawa a spot in their team, but not to Iwaizumi. Although he had been scouted by the second placed team in the league, and coincidentally, the universities were long-time rivals.
Sure, there was a bit of disappointment, but overall, Iwaizumi didn’t feel all that bad about not getting an offer from Tokyo University. He had long accepted, even when they were kids and he had been the first one to get into volleyball – he had only dragged Oikawa into it because he needed someone to practice with – that Oikawa had far surpassed him and most people their age in terms of skill and talent. He was a level above all of them, and this was something Iwaizumi had accepted, and was proud of, and constantly tried to remind Oikawa about. So he wasn’t surprised when Oikawa got offered a spot from and he didn’t. And he also wasn’t surprised that Ushijima got an offer too.
He turned to Oikawa. “Why are you so upset about this?” he asked, his voice slow and patient, like talking to a child. Which Oikawa was, most of the time. “It’s not like we won’t be rid of each other – we’re sharing an apartment anyway.”
At this, Oikawa turned his eyes from his best friend, burying his face deeper into the pillow so that Iwaizumi could only see a hint of the redness high on his cheeks and the back of his neck. Iwaizumi huffed and turned back to his game.
“Well, you know,” Oikawa said, his voice slightly muffled by the pillow. “I’m just worried Iwa-chan won’t have any friends without me and will be all alone in school.”
“Really,” Iwaizumi deadpanned, easily shooting down one of the enemy soldiers in his game.
“Yeah, you’ll probably scare everyone off during orientation with those eyebrows and outdated haircut of yours.”
“Well,” Iwaizumi started. “At least I’ll be free of you during school and you’ll find some other poor, unfortunate person to bug for most of the day.”
Oikawa lifted his head from his pillow and scoffed. “Hmph! I’m pretty sure there’ll be even more girls after me without you there to scare them off all the time with your face.”
Iwaizumi laughed. “Well, maybe I’ll finally be able to get a nice girlfriend without you there to flirt with every girl all the time.”
After saying it, Iwaizumi realized it was hardly an insult. In fact, it was kind of like a backwards compliment to Oikawa. Besides being better than him in volleyball, he had also come to accept that Oikawa, despite his horrible personality, unfortunately also possessed physical traits that most people in society found attractive and appealing. He had come to accept over the years that most girls weren’t going to give him a second glance with Oikawa beside him, and for the ones that did, Oikawa was always somehow there to flirt them back to his side like he was intentionally keeping them all to himself.
“He’s the worst wingman,” Makki had once said during the time they had invited girls from their class to watch a movie with them and they all just ended up fighting over who would sit next to Oikawa. “The anti-wingman. If you ever want the girl you like to leave you, bring him along.”
And that was exactly what happened to Iwaizumi. He had invited Midori, the girl sitting two rows ahead of him in his math class, and he could only watch as she joined the other girls fawning and arguing over seating arrangements. And of course she ended up being the one Oikawa chose out of all of them to take the seat beside him and share his popcorn with.
Mattsun had glared at Iwaizumi, and with a deathly serious tone of his voice, said, “Never bring him along ever again.”
Iwaizumi was chuckling at the memory when he realized Oikawa had fallen silent. He took a quick glance at his friend, and was surprised to see that Oikawa was watching him, his eyes with an unreadable glint to them, and worrying his bottom lip like he wanted to say something else but was stopping himself.
“So, did I win this round with that?” Iwaizumi asked, turning back to his game.
After a few seconds, Oikawa looked away, and pressed his warm cheek against Iwaizumi’s cool pillow. “You’re so stupid, Iwa-chan,” he mumbled. “Sometimes I really, really hate you.”
Iwaizumi scoffed. “Not as much as you’ll hate having Ushijima as your team mate.”
With that, he got a pillow to the face, misfired his shot once more, and failed his mission again.
– – –
Oddly enough, it’s in the middle of a game between his university and Oikawa’s that the memory pops in Iwaizumi’s mind. He’s sitting by the bench, taking a few minutes off as his coach lets the second string players get a chance to experience playing against their university rivals. While only a practice game, it’s the first time their universities are facing each other this season, so it feels like a regular game; the tension in the gym is high as each team holds their breath to see who will draw first blood this season.
From his seat, he gets a good view of Tokyo University’s team, and while he recognizes some of the other players, there’s Kuroo from Nekoma, a few people from Shiratorizawa and Fukurodani, he’s only really paying attention to the duo who’ve been unstoppable for most of the game – Oikawa and Ushijima.
His mind thinks back at how Oikawa swore that he’d never set for Ushijima, yet watching them now, he can’t imagine a more in-sync pair. They’ve only been in the same team for a few months, and Oikawa complains about Ushijima non-stop whenever he gets home from practice, yet they play like a well-oiled machine running on years of experience and honed skill. Oikawa doesn’t even have to say anything – mostly because he refuses to talk to Ushijima for more than necessary – and Ushijima is there to spike his set, or Oikawa knows exactly where Ushijima will jump and perfectly sends the ball to that direction.
Iwaizumi would have been more than happy to just watch and learn from the way the two were playing, if only he wasn’t at the other side of the court and it wasn’t his team that was at the receiving end of their killer spikes or accurate sets.
There’s a whistle and Iwaizumi looks up to see his coach motioning for him. It’s near the end of the first set and the score is 25-24, in their team’s favor.
“Get in there,” his coach says, giving him a pat on the back as takes the card from his teammate and subs in.
As he gets on the court, he can’t help but glance at Oikawa, and from the way Oikawa is looking intently at his perfectly tied shoes and not at the other side of the court, he knows Oikawa is intentionally not looking at him, and has been doing so for the entire game. Oikawa has always had hawk-like focus during games, staring down every member of the opposing team, most especially during tense, high-stake moments like now, so it’s easy for Iwaizumi to conclude that Oikawa is affected by the fact that this is their first game against each other since… well, for the first time in their lives.
“It doesn’t have to be weird,” Iwaizumi had said a week ago, when he found out about the practice game.
“I know, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa had said, brushing him off with fake nonchalance. He poked his Chinese takeout with his chopsticks. “It’s just a practice game anyway.”
“Even when it becomes an actual game,” Iwaizumi had pressed, because he knew it would be one day and Oikawa was going to drop the issue unless he held onto it. “There’s other things besides volleyball.”
But despite saying it, even he couldn’t help but think about how he hated losing, and how there would be a bit of a sting if it’s a loss aided by a close friend. He noticed how his interactions with Oikawa were shorter and more subdued as the game drew nearer, and he had just let them be, telling himself things would smooth over after the game, regardless of the outcome.
The whistle blows, and Iwaizumi snaps back to the game. The serve soars over the net and it’s easily received by his team’s libero. Iwaizumi runs to position as he watches it fly to their setter, and when he gets to his mark, he jumps, the blocker in front of him doing the same. He pulls his arm back, his eyes never leaving the ball as it rushes toward him, and with a swift hit, he spikes it over the net. It glances against the blocker’s hand. He sees the fingers shake at impact, and the ball drastically changes direction – only to be picked up by Tokyo University’s libero who sails to the other end of the court after saving it with an outstretched arm.
“Shit,” Iwaizumi curses to himself as his feet land back on the ground, watching the ball soar up in the air.
At the corner of his eye he sees Oikawa rushing towards the ball’s landing point and Iwaizumi follows him. Since Oikawa’s too far away he’s not going to have time to get underneath the ball properly to be able to set it far from him – but then Oikawa leaps off the ground, making up for the distance, and his fingers perfectly catch the ball, and suddenly the ball is flying to the other end of the court – where Ushijima is, right in front of the spot Iwaizumi had just left open.
“Cover!” their captain yells, and Iwaizumi jerks to a stop. He races back to his position, swearing at himself for falling for the feint. Sawamura, who was in the back row position behind him steps up to cover the area, leaps in time with Ushijima, his arms forming a perfect wall in front of the spiker. From below, it’s easy for Iwaizumi to see the split-second decision Ushijima makes to divert the ball away from the wall to the empty gap beside Sawamura where Iwaizumi is closing the distance on.
Iwaizumi knows that Ushijima is one of the most accurate wing spikers in the country. He knows Ushijima’s spikes can travel at a speed of 95kph. But Ushijima acts so much like a cyborg all the time that Iwaizumi forgets sometimes that even Ushijima is human and can make less than accurate spikes, so that when Ushijima hits the ball, instead of heading straight down to the uncovered spot of space on the court, its angle is off a few degrees to the right.
Which is how Iwaizumi gets a 95kph volleyball to the face and is out cold even before his body hits the court.
– – –
When Iwaizumi opens his eyes, he’s staring up at the pale ceiling tiles of the school infirmary. He blinks, and while he can feel his left eye do it normally, something about his right eye feels like it’s stuck because it doesn’t blink closed. He then realizes he can’t actually see much out of it. He lifts a hand to his face, and when he feels the tender, puffy skin beneath his fingertips, he concludes his right eye is swollen and must resemble something close to a plum.
“Shit,” he swears, letting out a deep breath. And when he inhales, there’s a sharp pain from a cut he feels on the bridge of his nose and he concludes that besides the black eye, the ball must have also broken his nose before they snapped it back together.
He drops his head back to the pillow and groans. He’s never going to hear the end of this from Mattsun and Makki. Getting hit by a ball is a common occurrence when playing – but passing out and getting a black eye and broken nose isn’t. He’s in the middle of devising a plan on how to contain the news so it doesn’t spread to his friends or anyone back home when the door opens and from his one eye he sees Sawamura come in.
“Oh good,” he says, texting something on his phone before moving toward his bed. “You’re awake.”
“How long was I out?”
Sawamura shakes his head. “You woke up after a few minutes, but that’s still pretty long, so they put you in the infirmary. You’ve been in and out since then.”
“Oh,” Iwaizumi says, nodding. He pauses for a few seconds before turning back to Sawamura. “So did we win?”
“Yeah, we did,” he says with a chuckle. “It was tight ‘til the end, but who knows how it could have turned out if Oikawa had stayed in the game.”
“What? What do you mean – “
“Oh,” Sawamura says, clearing his throat. “Right, you were out cold by then. As soon as you passed out, Oikawa just stopped playing altogether and got to you first. And when they were taking you away, he just started, um, well, yelling at Ushijima. Honestly, it looked like he was going to hit him.”
He scratches the side of his face. “I think he forgot they were supposed to be on the same team now,” he says. “So yeah, their coach pulled him out for the rest of the game.”
Iwaizumi rests his head back on the pillow and sighs. How typical of Oikawa to get carried away again when it comes to Ushijima. Who knows how that’s going to affect him in his new team. He opens his mouth to ask where Oikawa is now when they both hear a thunder of footsteps from the hallway outside and they turn in time to see Oikawa practically skid into the room, his gym bag swinging behind him.
“I came as soon as I got Sawamura’s text,” he says, breathless as he rushes to Iwaizumi’s bedside, Sawamura stepping back to make way for him. Before Iwaizumi even gets to say anything, Oikawa grabs his shoulders and wraps his arms around his back as he pulls Iwaizumi into a rib-crushing hug, which makes it even harder for Iwaizumi to breathe considering he’s practically inhaling through one nostril.
“Oikawa, I can’t breathe – “
Oikawa pulls away and sets him back on the bed, but doesn’t let go of his hold on his arm as he looks down and inspects him. “Are you okay? Do you have a headache?” He raises three fingers in his other hand. “How many fingers am I holding? Do you remember how to count – “
Iwaizumi swats his hand away. “Cut it out – “ and when Oikawa doesn’t budge, “Three fingers, okay? I can count just fine.”
Finally believing him, Oikawa drops his hand and instead uses it to brush Iwaizumi’s hair back to look down at his face. He frowns as his other hand rubs Iwaizumi’s arm in slow circles. “Stupid Ushiwaka,” he says, almost like to himself, his fingers brushing lightly against Iwaizumi’s forehead. “I swear, why’s he even on the team if he can’t even spike a ball properly.”
Iwaizumi swats his hand away. “Oikawa, you can’t keep pulling shit like that. Ushijima’s your teammate now – “
“Who knocked you back to last Sunday! In case you forgot – “ Oikawa pales. “Wait, did you forget? Is it that serious? Should we call a doctor – “
‘Wow, they really are together. I need to text Tanaka he’s been right all along.’
Iwaizumi blinks at the sound of Sawamura’s deep voice. He turns his head to look past Oikawa to see him watching them with an amused expression on his face as he pulls his cellphone out of his pocket. Iwaizumi rolls his eyes – well, one eye – and flatly says, “No, we’re not.”
Sawamura stops mid-motion and blinks. “What?”
“We’re not together,” he repeats.
Oikawa tilts his head to the side, his eyebrows scrunching up in confusion. “Not together…?” he asks, looking back to see what Iwaizumi was looking at. His eyes widen when he sees Sawamura, almost as if he didn’t realize there was another person in the room. “Ahh, Daichi, thank you for texting me!”
Sawamura flushes and blinks as he turns to face Oikawa, dropping his phone back his pocket. “Ahh, sure, Oikawa, no problem,” he says, his eyes switching back and forth from him to Iwaizumi.
‘Crap, did I say that out loud?’
Iwaizumi’s eyes widen. His eyes were on Sawamura the entire time. While he clearly heard his deep voice say those words, his mouth had not moved at all to say them.
‘What the fuck?’ he thinks, lifting a hand to his head.
Catching the movement from the corner of his eye, Oikawa whips back to face him, his eyes wide. “Oh, no, does your head hurt? Should I call the nurse – “
“No, it’s fine,” Iwaizumi says, swatting his hands away from his face. There’s a building panic in him that he’s trying to tamp down. He swallows. “I just… I just want to go home, I hate staying in hospitals.”
Oikawa looks down at him with a frown, but nods before getting up from the bed. “Okay, I’ll tell them you’re ready to go.”
He leaves and Sawamura follows after him, so now Iwaizumi is alone in the room. He drops his head back on his pillow and stares up at the ceiling.
‘What the fuck was that?’
– – –
Half an hour later, Iwaizumi is able to check out of the infirmary, sporting a black eye and a cut on his nose. Fortunately, his teammates think he looks pretty cool and the upperclassmen give him a slap on the back and tell him he’s done more than enough to be considered part of the team that he doesn’t have to go through the annual rookie initiation.
His coach asks him to stay back to inform him about how he’ll have to do minimal activity during the next few practice sessions as his eye gets better. His teammates leave ahead, exchanging looks when they see Oikawa sitting at the lobby, wondering what the setter of Tokyo University is doing there. When Iwaizumi is done speaking to his coach, he heads to the lobby, and as soon as he gets there he sees Oikawa stand up from his chair and rush to him.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Iwaizumi mutters, pulling his arm away as Oikawa attempts to help him walk. “I can walk just fine.”
“No you’re not fine,” Oikawa pouts, staying firm at Iwaizumi’s side and hooking his arm around Iwaizumi’s. “You can’t see at all through your right eye, so let me stay here.”
Knowing there’s nothing else he can do or say to get Oikawa off him, Iwaizumi sighs and lets him hold onto his arm. They walk to the bus stop side by side, Oikawa pulling him back and telling him to slow down every time he thinks Iwaizumi is walking too fast and over-exerting himself. When they get to the stop, they sit down on the bench, and Iwaizumi fills the silence by asking how the game went, making sure to avoid asking after Ushijima. Oikawa fills him in on the really good plays he made and grudgingly notes how Sawamura’s defense is still impeccable. He’s in the middle of outlandish hand motions and proudly going on about how he knows he’s going to make captain, in two years tops, when a soft, guilt-ridden voice cuts through his story.
‘It’s my fault Iwa-chan’s like this.’
Iwaizumi blinks and as he turns to Oikawa, he can’t explain it, but suddenly the memory of the practice game enters his mind, during the last play before he gets knocked out by Ushijima’s spike. But this time, he’s seeing it from another perspective, because he’s standing beside members of the Tokyo University team. He’s at the other end of the court, he sees his teammates behind the net – and he sees himself at the exact moment he leaves his position and looks straight at the person viewing the memory –
It doesn’t take long or Iwaizumi to conclude he’s seeing this through Oikawa’s point of view. And as he realizes this, Oikawa’s voice cuts through his thoughts.
‘Iwa-chan always did leave his left open.’
And Iwaizumi can only watch as he-as-Oikawa sets the ball, and it heads straight for Ushijima who had also spotted the opening Iwaizumi had left behind. The play continues to its inevitable end, and Iwaizumi winces when he sees the ball head straight for his face. When he sees himself fall, he doesn’t expect the cold slice of emotion that clutches his chest so tightly leaving it hard for him to breathe. He thinks it’s what Oikawa had felt at the moment.
With a gasp, Iwaizumi is pulled back from the memory, and he’s back at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to roll in, Oikawa’s warm palm resting against the inside of his elbow. He doesn’t even know what Oikawa is talking about as he waves his hands in the middle of a story, but there’s a lingering tightness in his chest, not as bad and fresh as it was in the memory, but something like it, and he concludes that it must be what Oikawa is feeling now, despite the laughs he’s giving as he shares his story.
“I’m not blaming you,” Iwaizumi tests.
Oikawa freezes, his hand in mid-motion, and Iwaizumi knows he’s right. He’s just caught Oikawa blaming himself for what happened. Oikawa’s eyes turn to him before he lowers his hand, and drops his eyes from Iwaizumi, his long eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones. Seconds pass before he shakes his head.
“No, it’s my fault you’re hurt like this.”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes – rather, his one eye. “Oikawa, everyone gets hit in the face once in a while. It’s normal,” he says. “Sure, not everyone gets hits by an Ushijima spike…”
“I placed it there.”
Iwaizumi stops and scrunches his eyebrows. “What?”
Oikawa looks down, pulling the hand around Iwaizumi’s arm away to rest both his fists on his lap. Iwaizumi feels a crushing weight on his shoulders and chest that must be coming from Oikawa again.
“I mean,” Oikawa starts, glancing up at him before turning away again. “Ever since, you’ve… always tend to leave your left side open and, um, I’ve always noticed this. And so… I just, instinctively set it there, knowing Ushijima could get it and score.”
Oikawa slumps even further in his seat, covering his face with his hands. “I feel awful about it,” he says, shaking his head. “At the time, it came automatically, I didn’t even think about it, but then I realized at the hospital, it’s the first time I’ve ever intentionally used your weakness against you – and what kind of friend am I that I only thought about winning? That I didn’t even feel any guilt or have any second thoughts about doing that during the game – “
“Shittykawa. Don’t worry about it.”
Oikawa looks up, and even though Iwaizumi’s the one with the black eye and broken nose, he’s surprised to find its Oikawa’s eyes that are watery.
“Who we are in the game is different from… who we are when we’re not playing,” Iwaizumi says, and he’s aware he’s also telling this to himself. “We’re no longer on the same team. It’s bound to happen.”
It doesn’t seem to make Oikawa feel any better, and Iwaizumi knows because he still feels the weight of his emotions on his shoulders. Annoyed, Iwaizumi shoves him on the shoulder.
“Why are you the one crying? I’m the one with the black eye,” he says, in a scolding manner. It’s really the only way he knows how to diffuse emotions. “Besides, don’t think I won’t use the fact you’re horrible at picking up drops against you one day.”
For a moment, Oikawa pauses, but when he realizes what Iwaizumi’s doing, he gives him a watery smile. He laughs. “Nice, Iwa-chan, now that you mentioned it, I’m definitely going to start practicing on that.”
“Right, and I’ll definitely work on my defense,” Iwaizumi returns. “You won’t be able to pull that again and get my other eye.”
Oikawa starts to whine – “Iwa-chaaaan” – but Iwaizumi cuts him off by hooking his arm around his neck to mess up his hair. “I’m just joking,” he says as Oikawa wriggles out of his grip. “You’re such a baby.”
Slowly, Iwaizumi feels the weight easing off his shoulders and chest, so he knows Oikawa’s feeling better. He turns away and looks down the street for the bus, but sighs when it still isn't there. He’s about to sit back when he feels Oikawa tug his arm again, but this time pulls it closer to his body, then rests his head against his shoulder, his breath warm against the skin of his collarbone.
– – –
When the bus finally rolls in front of the stop, Iwaizumi has to swat Oikawa away because he insists on holding onto him as he gets on the bus. He makes his way to an empty row, but even before he sits down, he knows something's wrong. His gut feels like it's emptying out of him, leaving him choking with nerves. He drops to his seat. His hands start to grow clammy.
‘As soon as I get to the apartment, I need to tell him I'm pregnant.’
As Oikawa takes the seat beside him, Iwaizumi looks up, trying to find who that is – until his eyes land on a girl he recognizes from the infirmary, gripping a piece of paper tightly in her hands, her eyes close to tears. He takes a deep breath, tries to take his mind off it –
‘I'm starving! Maybe I'll have ramen for dinner today.’
All the anxiety in him disappears and instead his head is filled with thoughts of shoyu ramen from some person who's obviously excited for dinner. He feels the hunger pangs in his stomach and can feel himself start to salivate as the thoughts grow into deeper detail. He looks up and sees a man who looks like he just came from work, sitting a few rows down, and it's the same guy in his head who's entered a ramen-ya and has ordered a bowl. He can practically taste the shoyu broth in his mouth, the smooth texture of the ajitama as the person take a bite into it –
‘Oh, he's super cute.’
Just as the man is about to take another spoonful of ramen, the thoughts cut short and Iwaizumi glances at the girl seated at the row beside them, eyeing Oikawa with a glint in her eyes. Oikawa's checking his phone so he doesn't notice, but Iwaizumi wants to blush because her thoughts go from 0 to 100 in a span of few seconds. They go from admiring the line of Oikawa's nose, his high cheekbones, and suddenly he's in what looks like her apartment and she's got Oikawa on his back, his head thrown back as she rides him.
"Fuck," Iwaizumi says, eyes wide, resting his head back on the seat seat. He closes his eyes and grips his head, trying to drown out the streams of thoughts with something, anything, and he's so occupied with this that when Oikawa rest a hand on his shoulder, he jumps in his seat.
Oikawa's eyes widen. "Iwa-chan, what's wrong?"
By reflex, Iwaizumi holds onto his wrist. He doesn’t know what to do, but he feels that he somehow needs steady himself amidst all the thoughts whirling in his mind. "Sorry, Oikawa," he stammers, wincing. "Can I just... hold onto you for a bit?"
Oikawa's eyes widen as he stares at Iwaizumi, then down at the hand gripping tightly around his wrist. Iwaizumi moves and rests his head on Oikawa's shoulder, closing his eyes as he takes in deep breaths to calm his mind. And he thinks it’s starting to work. Maybe it’s because of the proximity, because Oikawa is the closest person to him, but suddenly, all the other thoughts in his head start dying down to a soft buzz. Instead, they're being replaced with a soft warmth that fills his entire body, a calming comfort, like when you lie on fresh bed sheets after a nice, warm bath after a long day of school and practice. His guess is that it’s coming from Oikawa. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he tries to think of what Oikawa’s thinking about, but it doesn’t seem like something he can will on his own, so nothing comes up.
So he just asks anyway.
"What are you thinking about?" Iwaizumi asks, and he realizes he'd bone-tired and sleepy because it comes out softer than he had intended.
There's a small pause and he can feel Oikawa swallow. He sees his fist clench tighter on his lap before he answers, "Um. Milk bread."
"Ah," Iwaizumi says, chuckling. "Typical."
There's a brief pause before Oikawa asks, almost shyly, which is odd to hear because Oikawa is never shy, "Do you... uh, do you want to lean on me more? I can – " He stops. Instead, he lifts his arm anyway, then swings it around Iwaizumi's back to tuck him in his arm and let his head rest more comfortably on his shoulder.
Iwaizumi closes his eyes as the warmth travels through his body. Soon, he falls asleep.
– – –
The next day, Iwaizumi goes to school and as he passes through the hallways to get to his class, he’s not even surprised by some of the questioning looks people are giving him and his black eye.
‘Oooh, did he get into a fight?’ he hears, some of them thoughts, some of them whispers he can actually hear when he passes by some people.
When he gets to his biology class, he dumps his bag on the table and slumps back on his chair. The seat beside him moves back and he looks up to see Sawamura, who gives him a small wave as he gingerly sits down, holding onto his lower back as he gets on the chair. Iwaizumi gives him a curious tilt of his head. “Something up with your back?” he asks.
“Ah yeah,” Sawamura says, clearing his throat. “I think I may have overstretched it a bit during the game yesterday.”
“Oh okay,” Iwaizumi says, moving to get his things out of his bag, but right as he’s about to pull the zipper open, he’s yanked into the story of how exactly Sawamura had pulled his back – and it definitely didn’t have anything to do with the practice game.
He doesn’t even know how he’ll be able to look at Sawamura properly after this, now that he’s seen him completely naked, banging his girlfriend into the mattress – who Iwaizumi recognizes as Michimiya, the former captain of the Karasuno girls volleyball team (he remembers because Oikawa had commented about how cute she was once during a practice game at Karasuno and Sawamura had pointedly interrupted and said she was seeing someone) – in a position that Iwaizumi deemed as nothing short of an acrobatic feat that it’s no wonder he pulled his back while doing it.
Iwaizumi squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he could find a way to close off his mental eyes from viewing the scene, because as it is quite a sight to see Michimiya’s breasts bounce in every thrust and hearing the moans she’s making, he feels ashamed about the instinctive twitch he feels in his groin, knowing that it’s because he’s viewing a completely private scene – although judging by how loud they’re going at it, he’s pretty sure their neighbors were able to hear them.
“Okay, class, good morning.”
Fortunately, as the professor walks in the classroom, Sawamura’s thoughts end as he focuses on the class. Iwaizumi breathes a sigh of relief as he slumps back against his seat, never thinking he’d ever feel that happy about a class starting. He pulls his notebooks out of his bag, but stops when he hears an absolutely defeated groan.
‘Man, I have such a fucking hangover.’
Which had come from their professor.
He isn’t even able to control the loud laugh that comes out of him, which makes Sawamura, some of his classmates, even make his professor look up from his desk. He clears his throat and ducks his head low to avoid making eye contact with anyone for the rest of class.
He then spends the next hour getting a better grasp of this strange new ability he’s been given. He learns that if he isn’t focusing on anything, the thoughts just pour in, unfiltered and tangled up with one another. So the only way he can drown them out to just a dull buzz is if he gives his sole focus on something – in this case, his professor going on about molecules and DNA. He’s never paid this much attention to a class ever before in his life.
But there’s really only so much he can listen to about cells and mitochondrias before his brain dies on him, so he gives himself five minutes to lean back on his seat and rest his mind – and almost automatically, the thoughts come pouring in, like the dam holding them back just finally gave way. He hears people grumbling about how they’re still hungover from the weekend, gossip about who’s sleeping with who, who looks particularly hot in class today, some people recalling the sex they had over the weekend – actually, there are a lot of thoughts of sex. In general, he comes to realize that the average college student thinks about sex at least three times during a one hour class.
He shares this with Oikawa later that night, after a supermarket run because they had run out of shampoo and dishwashing liquid. He and Oikawa are having dinner in their tiny kitchenette. Oikawa is sitting on the stool by the counter top, while Iwaizumi is leaning against it on the other side.
“Do you know how many times the average college student thinks about sex?” Iwaizumi asks, setting his cup of instant ramen down on the counter. “Around three times an hour.”
Oikawa looks up at him from his supermarket-bought sandwich, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “And you know… how?”
Iwaizumi shakes his head and waves a hand at him, taking another slurp of his instant noodles. “That’s not the point,” he says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I mean, take you for example, when’s the last time you had sex?”
Oikawa purses his lips as he thinks. “Ahh, last week,” he says. “Kuroo invited me to a party.“
“See, that’s what I’m – oh shit,” Iwaizumi says, clutching his head as his mind is pulled there and he can see himself at the party he hadn’t even attended. Suddenly his head is filled with the image of Oikawa pressed against a bathroom stall, head thrown back as he’s receiving what looks like (judging purely from his expressions) a really good blowjob from a girl with red streaks dyed on her hair. Iwaizumi can practically hear the moans he’s making and the thumping of the bass outside the club’s bathroom.
“Fuck, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi mutters, sitting back as the image fades. He scolds himself for failing to realize of course Oikawa was going to think about it if he asked him to recall it. He notes this down for the future. He curses under his breath, completely forgetting the point he wanted to make. “Anyway, make sure you use protection, okay? And get yourself checked once in a while.”
“Aww, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, leaning over the table to squeeze his cheek. “Such a good mom, promoting safe sex. So thoughtful.”
He swats Oikawa’s hand from his face. “Stop doing that.”
Oikawa laughs and set his hand back down. He picks up his sandwich and is about to take another bite when he stops and eyes Iwaizumi.
“You know, Iwa-chan,” he says, leaning forward on their tiny counter. He props his arm up to rest his chin against his hand. “As much as I tease you about your looks – I’m sure there’s some girl out there willing to lower her standards for one night with you.”
“Fuck you,” Iwaizumi says, leaning over to smack the side of Oikawa’s head.
Oikawa sits back and laughs, holding onto his head and moving away from Iwaizumi’s reach before he gets hit again. “I’m serious though!”
Iwaizumi scowls and starts eating his noodles. “You know I’m not into that thing.”
“Ahh, yes, I forgot,” Oikawa says, almost solemnly. “You’re into long-term monogamy and the promise of gross domesticity.”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and finishes the last of his ramen. Oikawa grows quiet, the teasing atmosphere from earlier toning down to something more contemplative as he crosses his arms over the counter. There’s a small slump in is shoulders as he looks down at his sandwich. “I was just thinking…” He stops and shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“Oh, continue,” Iwaizumi says, motioning with his chopsticks. “These are rare moments we should treasure.”
Oikawa scowls at him. “I was just thinking what’s so special about the whole domestic thing. Do you really only have it with a specific person?” he says slowly, picking up his sandwich but putting it down again. “Isn’t it… something you can have with you know, anyone you’re close with. Is it… is it really only just with one person?”
Oikawa looks away and shrugs. He means to make it look like it’s a random thought, but something about the tenseness in his shoulders makes Iwaizumi feel he’s been thinking about it often.
Before he can say anything, there’s a picture growing in Iwaizumi’s head, and he’s preparing himself for the visual examples of Oikawa and everything anti-domestic, but instead he’s treated to the sight of him and Oikawa just a few hours earlier at the supermarket, Iwaizumi sticking to the agreed list of toiletries and food they had set out to buy, and Oikawa ignoring that list completely and dumping any snack or junk food that caught his eye or wanted to try into their cart. Iwaizumi had refused to pay for any of them, and only agreed to half of them when Oikawa promised he’d do the dishes for three days in a row.
Suddenly, he’s pulled away from the supermarket and he’s in Oikawa’s room back in Miyagi, daylight pouring in from his open windows. He doesn’t know if this is a memory Oikawa is recalling or if it’s just something he’s thinking about. It’s just Oikawa this time, coming out of his bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist before he pulls it off to use it to dry his brown hair, water droplets running down his arms, the naked V of his hips, and down his bare legs. Maybe it’s the sunlight, the cool breeze flowing into the room, but he looks especially refreshed and happy. There’s a comfortable ease in his movement, his eyes bright as he drops the towel to the ground and makes his way to his bed, propping a knee against the comforter before crawling onto it.
It’s only when Oikawa lies down when Iwaizumi realizes there’s someone else sitting on the bed beside him. When Oikawa moves to wrap his arms around the person’s waist, Iwaizumi’s eyes widen when he realizes that from the person’s arms and the body type, that it’s a man. He can’t see who it is, since he’s sitting against the bed’s headboard, reading a familiar looking book that’s covering his face, but then Iwaizumi’s eyes snap to Oikawa who moves to snuggle – snuggle?? – even closer against the man’s side, then presses a soft kiss on the exposed patch of skin on the man’s hip between his shirt and his boxers.
“Good morning,” Oikawa says softly, a warm smile on his face as he rests his head back on his pillow and closes his eyes. He sighs. “Can we please have breakfast soon? I’m starving from last night.”
Iwaizumi has to give himself time to process the sight. Oikawa, self-proclaimed non-believer of all things domestic, imagining himself in a prime example of domesticity in action – and with a man.
“Iwa-chan?”
Iwaizumi snaps out of his thoughts and he’s back in their tiny, poorly lit kitchenette. He’s staring at Oikawa, who’s watching him with a raised eyebrow.
“You kind of zoned out on me there,” he says.
“Ah, yeah, sorry,” Iwaizumi says, looking away as he feels himself growing red.
While Oikawa has never told him that he was also into guys, Iwaizumi always kind of had the idea that he was. He chalked it up to the intuitiveness of being his closest friend, noticing the way Oikawa’s eyes would linger at girls and some guys during the rare parties he’d attend. Or how sometimes Oikawa would come home late from a night out, sporting marks and bruises in particular places that he didn’t think a girl would be able to put.
Aside from asking to make sure he was being safe with his personal activities, to which Oikawa would scoff and say of course he was, Iwaizumi has never touched on the topic beyond that, deciding it was something he felt Oikawa would tell him whenever he was ready. So until he felt he was ready, Iwaizumi wasn’t going to bring it up or force Oikawa into a spot where he’d he have to say it. But now, because of this new ability, all that careful consideration and respect for Oikawa’s personal life that he had kept up was all for nothing, and while he knows he had no control over it whatsoever, he feels guilty about finding out something so personal about Oikawa without his consent.
He moves away from the counter and dumps the empty cup of noodles into the bin. He doesn’t even know how to apologize for it.
“I’m, uh, I gotta go study for a test tomorrow,” he mumbles. He needs to get out of the room. Looking at Oikawa makes the guilt in his chest grow worse. “I’m just gonna head back to the library so you can watch your game videos here.”
Oikawa swivels around on his stool as he watches him cross the room to get his school bag. “Oh, I don’t have to watch them tonight,” he says. “You don’t have to leave – “
“No, it’s okay,” Iwaizumi says, hastily picking up his school bag and shoes. With a quick wave over his shoulder, he leaves the apartment, leaving a confused Oikawa staring after him.
– – –
When he gets back to the apartment, it’s almost midnight.
Their apartment is a small one, with a living room that shares the kitchenette. It has one bathroom and one bedroom. While still relatively small, fortunately their room is big enough to have both their beds, one at each side, pressed against the walls, and in between them a console table with a small lamp. By the time Iwaizumi’s done taking a shower and opens the bedroom door, Oikawa is fast asleep, turned to the side to face the wall. The lamp is still on, leaving a soft yellow glow by their beds.
Iwaizumi quietly makes his way to his bed, carefully stepping over their clothes and textbooks. When he finally gets on the mattress, he sighs as he reaches over to turn off the lamp.
His bed creaks slightly as he moves and he hears Oikawa stir from the other bed. He watches as Oikawa turns around and blinks at him slowly, rubbing his face. “Did you get to study?” he yawns, closing his eyes as he rests his head back on his pillow.
“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, his hand still over the lamp’s switch.
“Okay,” Oikawa muses. He lets out a soft sigh. “Don’t work yourself too hard, Iwa-chan.”
Iwaizumi chuckles. “That’s my line.”
There’s a small smile on Oikawa’s face as he settles back to sleep. “I know.”
Iwaizumi waits until he hears soft snores coming from Oikawa, and when he does, he turns off the light and tucks himself under the blanket to go to sleep.
– – –
Practice ends late one day and his teammates decide to head out to eat after. Usually Iwaizumi is exhausted whenever the seniors call for drinks and dinners after practice, but given his coach isn’t letting him doing any of the more strenuous drills for a few more days, he doesn’t mind joining. Iwaizumi pulls his phone out of his bag to text Oikawa he won’t be able to be there for dinner when he sees a text from Oikawa sent a few minutes earlier.
Practice isn’t finished yet!! ( ≧Д≦ )
But I’m having dinner with my teammates after. I can bring leftovers home!
Iwaizumi leans against his locker as he texts back, No need. I’m eating out with my teammates too. See you later.
He slips his phone back in his pocket as he turns to his teammates. “Where are we eating?”
One of the seniors claps one of the freshman on the back. “Apparently, it’s Higuchi’s birthday today.” There are cheers and ribbing from the rest of the team. “He decides,” he says, before leaning close to Higuchi’s ear. “And it better be good since we’ll be the ones paying.”
Higuchi laughs nervously as he looks at the seniors, rubbing his shoulder. “We can have anything, I’m not picky.”
Iwaizumi thinks about what he wants, but as he looks at Higuchi, the smell of smoke and meat over a charcoal grill wafts under his nose. His mouth starts watering as he can practically taste the tender beef and the cold beer.
“Yakitori?” he suggests, and Higuchi looks at him, surprised.
“Sounds good,” their captain says, looking at the rest of the team for their approval before turning to Higuchi. “Okay with that?”
Higuchi turns to look at their captain and nods. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”
“Alright, let’s go! I know a place nearby.”
As they file out of the gym, Higuchi walks up to him, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Actually, Iwaizumi,” he says, looking back at their seniors who had moved on to Sawamura as the freshman to bully at that moment. He leans forward a bit and whispers, “I was really craving for yakitori. You totally read my mind there.”
Iwaizumi has to control himself from laughing. “No problem.”
Dinner is a fun one, especially when the beer comes in, and the second years start singing their heads off, their captain passes out and falls face first into his yakisoba, Sawamura drunks dials his girlfriend and tells her how he’d like their first child together to be a goldfish. Fortunately, Iwaizumi is sober enough to get on the right train home and get off on the right stop. Sure, there’s a small shuffle in his step as he walks to the apartment, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary on a late Thursday night in Tokyo.
He’s near his building when he sees a familiar figure at an intersection down the street. It’s Oikawa laughing as he talks to someone as they cross the street together. They’re both wearing the Toyko University team jacket, so they must be teammates. The guy is tall, taller than Oikawa even, with a wide set of shoulders, and Iwaizumi thinks he recognizes him as one of their middle blockers from the practice game. The sign hasn’t told him to cross yet, so as Iwaizumi waits, he observes the easy set in Oikawa’s shoulders as he talks to his teammate, the way he moves his arms as he speaks, the laugh he can hear from the other end of the street.
It’s nothing out of the ordinary from the way Oikawa talks to anyone, but Iwaizumi can’t help but wonder if there’s anything special about why it’s this guy walking home with Oikawa. He know it’s stupid to think about, and he knows he’s only thinking about it since he saw what he saw a few days ago. Maybe the guy lived along the way so he usually walked home with Oikawa, and it wasn’t like he and Oikawa updated each other 24/7 about who they’re with and what they’re doing, but still… he has the frame, the slightly darker skin. And maybe it’s the alcohol affecting his judgment, but as Oikawa’s best friend, doesn’t he kind of have to know the person Oikawa imagines having perfect domestic bliss with?
The sign changes and Iwaizumi crosses the street and now they’re heading toward each other before they both make the turn to their building. He waits until Oikawa notices him, and when he does, his eyes widen before he waves. His teammate looks up to see who he’s waving at.
“Iwa-chan!” he calls, as they near each other.
“Don’t call me that,” Iwaizumi mutters. He’s able to tolerate the nickname most times, but it’s more embarrassing than usual when Oikawa calls him it in front of people he doesn’t know. He gives Oikawa’s teammate a nod. “Hey.”
“Hey,” the guy replies back. This close, Iwaizumi can see how the guy takes a quick look at the Keio University logo on his bag.
“Iwa-chan, this is Hara,” Oikawa says, motioning toward his teammate. “Hara, this is – “
He cuts in, “Iwaizumi.”
Oikawa rolls his eyes. “Iwaizumi,” he repeats, as he turns back to his friend. “My best friend from high school. We’re sharing the apartment actually.”
Iwaizumi glances at Hara, curious to see if there’s any physical or mental reaction to Oikawa sharing the fact they’re roommates. He concludes that if there was something between the two of them, there would have to be one. Fortunately, he does manage to get a peek into Hara’s thoughts, but surprisingly, all the guy is thinking about is analyzing what position Iwaizumi plays on the team, how good he is, if he knows anyone else from their team – pretty basic stuff from someone from a rival team.
“Oh, cool,” Hara says. He points ahead of them. “My building’s actually just a few streets down.”
“Yeah, we usually walk home together.”
“Cool,” Iwaizumi nods, not really trying to add much to the conversation because he’s in the middle of controlling himself from laughing at himself for his overthinking.
Hara turns to Oikawa. “Well, see you tomorrow,” he says, giving a small wave as he steps around them. He gives Iwaizumi a quick nod before continuing his walk down the street, his hands slipping inside his pockets.
He and Oikawa head down the street together to their building and there’s a gleam in Oikawa’s eyes when he leans forward a bit and glances at Iwaizumi. He flutters his eyelashes at him. “So, were you jealous there for a second?”
A chill runs down Iwaizumi’s spine. Did Oikawa suddenly have the ability to read minds too? But then he realizes, wait, no, that wasn’t what he was thinking earlier when he saw Hara. He clears his throat. “Of what?”
“That I might have gotten a new best friend,” Oikawa says cheekily, winking at him.
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Didn’t I say before we graduated that I was going to be happy if you found someone else to bother?”
The smile falls off Oikawa’s face and what's left is a mix of hurt, disappointment, and frustration. He shoulders Iwaizumi, nearly sending him over the sidewalk. “Iwa-chan, you’re no fun,” he snaps, before picking up his speed and leaving him behind.
Iwaizumi gapes after him. For a moment he considers just letting him stew in whatever mood he’s in now, before he sighs and knows the best thing to do is to deal with this directly. He runs after Oikawa and holds onto his arm to get him to stop walking. “What’s wrong – “
Oikawa spins around, jerking his arm way from Iwaizumi’s hold. “You know, I asked other people,” he says, his eyes bright. “Sure, it’s not exactly a good thing, but it’s normal, to feel a bit jealous when your best friend starts hanging out with other people and spends less time with you. And okay! I’ll admit!” He raises his hand up in the air like it’s a role call in class. “I do worry sometimes that you’re gonna find someone funnier, smarter, nicer – “
Suddenly Oikawa stops, the words cut short as he covers his mouth with the back of his hand and a blush envelops his entire face. He looks away before shaking his head, his closed fists dropping to his sides. “The point is, okay, sometimes I think you don’t really care, or that you don’t care… you know, about our friendship, as much as I do – “
Iwaizumi drops his bag to the ground so he can hold onto both of Oikawa’s arms, shutting his best friend up. Oikawa looks up at him, his eyes watery.
“Oikawa,” he says slowly. “I’ve never cared about it that way.”
Holding onto both of Oikawa’s arms, he can feel when Oikawa’s shoulders fall. He gives him a small shake as he continues. “I don’t really care if you hang out with other people without me or if you spend more time with other friends.” Iwaizumi looks at his best friend in the eye as he finishes, “We’re in different schools now, of course I don’t want you to be a loner there."
He sighs. "And okay, call me stupid or whatever, but I just know that at the end of the day I’m your best friend. And you’re mine.”
Oikawa bottom lip quivers as Iwaizumi drops his hands from his sides. “And besides, we live together,” he says, picking his bag up from the ground. “So, as cheesy as it sounds, at the end of the day, I come home to you.”
Another blush takes over Oikawa’s face as Iwaizumi continues the walk back to their building. A few seconds after he hears Oikawa run after him until he’s back beside him. He latches onto his arm and clings to Iwaizumi’s side.
“Ugh, I really wish you would just get jealous once in a while,” Oikawa huffs, ducking his head low to rest against Iwaizumi’s shoulder as they walk. “You know me. I’m petty. That’s how I know I’m valued and wanted.”
Iwaizumi is about to reply back, but then the image of Oikawa on his bed, snuggling up to that guy appears in his mind and the words fall from his tongue. He muses to himself, self-aware enough to know that he’s been thinking about it more often than he thought he would.
He settles his reply with a “Whatever” before they enter their building and go up to their apartment.
– – –
The next weekend it’s his mom’s birthday, so his parents decide to spend the weekend in Tokyo. Given their apartment is too small to fit them all, they check in a hotel for the night. It’s only Iwaizumi’s pride that keeps him from asking if he and Oikawa could also stay over, just to remember what it’s like to live in sanitary conditions for one night.
He and Oikawa pick them up from the train station, Iwaizumi swearing they would be late the entire way there because of how long Oikawa took to get ready before they finally got to leave the apartment.
“Why are you so dressed up anyway?” he asks as they wait outside the gates. He glances at Oikawa, who’s wearing a dark coat over a light blue button down he had ironed for today. “It’s just my parents.”
“You know I like looking my best for your mom,” Oikawa sniffs defensively, running a hand through the light brown hair he had spent about twenty minutes fixing. He glances at Iwaizumi, who’s wearing a pair of jeans and a grey sweatshirt. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you dressed up a bit.”
“Oikawa, she’s seen you when you were eight and you had diarrhea at my house. She cleaned up the sheets.”
Oikawa’s face flushes as he looks around, making sure no one had heard him. He smacks Iwaizumi on the shoulder. “Iwa-chan!” he hisses. “Can you not bring that up here?”
Iwaizumi laughs as he rubs his shoulder, and looks up when he hears that his parents’ train had arrived. A few minutes pass until a crowd of people emerge from the gate and he soon sees his parents among them. His mom waves when she sees him and she rushes over to give him a big hug, to which he returns, lifting her a few inches off the ground.
“Hi, mom,” he says, putting her down.
“Ah, Hajime, how’s my college boy?” she asks, smiling up at him. She starts to ask him a few questions – how’s he eating, how’s the apartment, do they cook – and he’s in the middle of answering when he hears her voice in his head.
‘Tsk, tsk. He’s not bothering to cut his hair. Gosh, who does his laundry? Does he even wash his clothes? Look at the stain on that sweatshirt.’
He instinctively looks down and notices the ketchup stain at the hem of his sweatshirt for the first time. He’s about to protest when Oikawa steps up to them and gives a small wave.
“Hi, auntie.”
His mom’s eyes widen. “Oh, Tooru!” she cheers, wrapping him in a big hug. “Look at you, looking like a proper college boy.” From years of experience, Iwaizumi knows a part of that was meant to be a rib against him.
“Mom, you saw him five months ago,” Iwaizumi says flatly, but she only ignores him as she continues to fawn over Oikawa.
‘How does Tooru manage to keep up his appearances while my son leaves the house not knowing he has a stain on his shirt?’
“That’s because he’s vain and hogs the bathroom,” is what Iwaizumi wants to say, but decides not to as he watches Oikawa bask in his mother’s attention like he always does. Iwaizumi doesn’t really know why Oikawa always tries to put his best foot forward and look his best in front of his mom; she practically half-raised him and probably already considers him her favorite son anyway. He turns and sees his father with the bags so he heads over to greet him and help him with them. After asking each other how they are, he can clearly hear his father’s pained voice in his head.
‘I’m starving. Where’s the nearest curry house?’
“I know a good curry house for lunch,” Iwaizumi says, enjoying the impressed look on his father’s face. “It’s nearby, just a few minutes from here.”
His father claps a hand on his back as they start the walk there, Oikawa and his mom following after them, chatting nonstop.
When they get to the restaurant, they shuffle into a booth, him and Oikawa in one side, his parents at the other. After handing the menus back to the waitress his mother starts the grueling inquisition he had been preparing himself for all week – How’s school? How are your professors? How are your grades, I don’t get to see a copy of your grades anymore. How are your classmates? Do you have any new friends? Do you have a girlfriend yet? Don’t tell me you have a girlfriend I don’t know about yet.
Because Oikawa is not her son, he fortunately doesn’t have to go through the same line of questioning, and instead is having a pleasant conversation with his dad about how his volleyball is going.
“No, mom, I don’t have a girlfriend,” Iwaizumi says, his answer routine. The food comes and even that doesn’t stop his mom's barrage of questions.
“Are you going out to parties? Meeting new people? How are you going to have a girlfriend if you don’t go out to meet new people?”
Beside him, Oikawa coughs as he chokes on a spoonful of curry, which fortunately cuts his mom short. He gulps down a glass of water and after a few seconds of everyone asking if he’s okay, Iwaizumi’s mom turns back to him.
“Hajime, I’m not getting any younger. When am I going to have grandkids?”
Iwaizumi’s eyes bug out of his head. “Mom, I just entered college – “
To which his mom throws her head back and starts laughing. He just stares at her in shock, and gets even more flabbergasted when his dad starts chuckling beside her, hiding his smile behind a napkin. Iwaizumi gives both of them a flat, unamused look until his mom waves a hand at him.
“Honey, I’m kidding,” she says, digging into her bowl of curry. She turns to Oikawa. “How about you, Tooru? I’m sure you must have a girlfriend by now.”
“No, sadly, no one yet,” Oikawa says, giving her a sweet smile, and Iwaizumi wants to roll his eyes because it’s the complete opposite of the images of all the situations and people he’s hooked up with in the past few months that’s currently running through his mind as he answers her.
His mom frowns. “Really? No special person you’ve been spending a lot of time with?”
“It's just me, mom,” Iwaizumi replies flatly, before taking another spoonful of curry. “The usual.”
From the corner of his eye, he notices the way Oikawa stops mid-reply to glance at him, before turning to look back down at his food. There’s a slight redness to his cheeks, Iwaizumi thinks he had asked his curry to be too spicy again.
“Oh,” Oikawa says, putting his spoon down. He pulls his coat back and takes out a parcel from one of the inner pockets. “I got you a gift.”
His mom’s eyes widen in surprise as she takes it, and so do Iwaizumi’s. “Oh! Tooru, you shouldn’t have!”
As she opens it, Iwaizumi kicks Oikawa under the table, and Oikawa has to visibly control himself from clutching his leg when he shoots Iwaizumi a look – What?
“I haven’t gotten her a gift yet,” he hisses under his breath.
Oikawa shoots back, “And that’s my fault because – “
“Oh, it’s lovely!” Iwaizumi’s mom coos as she pulls out a pale orange scarf from the packaging. She wraps it around her neck and looks at Iwaizumi’s dad who gieves her an approving nod. She turns to Oikawa and holds her hand over his. “Thank you, dear. I love it.”
Oikawa beams back at her. “I’m glad you do.”
She sits back and pats the scarf over her neck as she smiles sweetly at Iwaizumi. “I’m sure my son forgot to get me anything.”
Iwaizumi blushes. “No, of course I did,” he quickly lies, and he sees the way Oikawa is trying to hold his laughter. “I just left it at the apartment. I’ll get it when I meet you back to your hotel.”
“Oh, I’m excited then,” his mom says, smiling wider. “Although, you didn’t have to get me anything special. You know I’d be happy with just a card.”
She says that, but Iwaizumi knows she’s thinking differently. In his head he can see her back at their home, reading through a cooking magazine and stopping at a page that features an assortment of pots and pans. She focuses on one, reading its details and commenting on how perfect it’d be for her stews, before turning the page. Iwaizumi takes note of the brand and model.
When they leave the restaurant, Oikawa joins Iwaizumi’s parents to help them check into the hotel. Iwaizumi excuses himself and says he’ll just pick up the gift from their apartment, but instead heads to the nearest home appliance store and easily finds the pan his mother had been looking at in the magazine. With the change, he gets the box wrapped in orange gift wrapping paper since orange is her favorite color.
When he gets to the hotel and hands the gift to his mom, the delight in her eyes is enough to make Iwaizumi think, for the first time, he doesn’t mind having this strange new gift.
– – –
The weekend ends and Iwaizumi says goodbye to his parents at the train station. By the time he gets back to the apartment, he’s exhausted and wishes he could just have two more free days to have a proper weekend and recharge for the coming school week. Oikawa glances up at him from where he’s sitting on the floor, his back resting against the couch as he watches a movie on their television. Seeing the free couch, Iwaizumi throws his entire weight on it and groans as he closes his eyes.
“I am so tired,” he groans against the cushions, pressing his face against them.
Oikawa turns away from his movie and rests his arms over the cushions. He settles his chin against the back of his hands as he watches Iwaizumi, a small smile on his face.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, his voice soft. “I can go out to get some snacks.”
Iwaizumi shakes his head. “Wake me up when it’s time for dinner,” he mumbles as he closes his eyes and quickly dozes off.
When he wakes up it’s already late afternoon, the sun setting outside their windows, casting a dark red orange hue over their living room. Oikawa is still sitting on the floor in front of him, his legs pulled to his chest and his chin resting on his knees. He’s munching on a bag of chips, transfixed with the fight scene playing on their television screen between the military troops and the alien invaders trying to take over Earth. Iwaizumi recognizes the movie instantly. It’s one of Oikawa’s favorites, and it was probably the hundredth time he’s watched it with Oikawa that Iwaizumi has already memorized the choreography in the fight scene and knows that after the humans win this first battle, it’s followed with a sex scene between the hero and the top female commander who originally hated his guts; the characters high on adrenaline and their recent win.
On screen, the lady commander has her head thrown back, her long blonde hair hanging over the edge of the bed as the hero trails down her body, pressing his lips over her breasts, her stomach, the inside of her thighs as he parts her legs, and the camera cuts to a shot of the woman’s face as she squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a long moan, making it clear where the hero is now and what he's doing. If it wasn’t the hundredth time he’d already seen this movie, Iwaizumi would have had his eyes glued to the screen, but now he can only see the sex scene as a series of choreographed moves and verbal cues, so when he feels his phone vibrate beside him, he reaches for it to read his messages.
He’s scrolling through them and about to open a new message from Makki when he sniffs and recognizes the distinct smell of semen. He pulls his head back from the couch, not getting off it completely, but ready to swear up a storm if Oikawa had –
He stops as his mind is cut with an image of a shirt lying on a carpet. He stares at it, then his eyes follow a trail of clothes leading from what he recognizes as the hallway of his house back in Miyagi, up to his bedroom. He’s not dumb, he knows what he’s going to see if he follows a line of clothes into a bedroom, but as much as he tries to squeeze his eyes shut and will himself to try to escape this train of thought, he can’t. He finds himself coming in through the open gap of his bedroom door, seeing a pair of pants on the floor, shoes tossed carelessly to the side, and he’s already vaguely wondering why there’s a noticeable lack of a bra or lingerie when suddenly his head is filled with an image he will not be able to erase from his mind.
It’s Oikawa, completely naked, legs spread open, his head thrown back and hanging over the edge of the bed – his bed – one arm hooked over his head and covering his eyes. The position is just like that of the female lead in the movie, so it’s not hard to conclude that as Oikawa’s watching it, he’s thinking about it, imaging himself in her position because just like the heroine in the movie, Oikawa is being fucked into the mattress like there’s no tomorrow.
Iwaizumi blinks. Oikawa is the one getting fucked here. That’s a man fucking Oikawa.
“Harder,” Oikawa breathes, his chest heaving, his other hand clutching the mattress, anchoring himself from sliding off the bed with how strong his body jerks as the man fucks into him. Oikawa lifts his head to press his lips close to the man’s ear, a wicked turn to his lips. “I want to feel this in the morning, I want to remember what it’s like to feel this full, filled with that cock of yours. Come on.”
Iwaizumi curses under his breath when he feels his groin twitch at Oikawa’s words, at the blatant lust and desperation in his voice. He’s still trying to wrap his head around the sight when the man in question comes into full view and Iwaizumi’s throat dries.
At first he can only see the man’s bare back, the pair of boxers not even fully removed and pooled by his knees as he fucks Oikawa, like they couldn’t even wait to get properly undressed. But even though Iwaizumi can go an entire day without looking at a mirror, he can recognize his own body when he sees it. And he knows those pair of boxers. He just had them washed yesterday.
He knows it’s his hips that Oikawa has his thighs wrapped around, his back that Oikawa’s ankles are linked behind, his tan hands holding onto Oikawa’s pale waist as he pulls him into each hard thrust, Oikawa taking him to the hilt every time, and finally he hears his name – Hajime, not Iwaizumi, not Iwa-chan – escape Oikawa’s lips amidst the moans and begging for him to come faster.
That’s him fucking Oikawa.
Oikawa is imagining himself being fucked by him.
“What the fuck!” Iwaizumi yelps, jerking upright on the couch, his face on fire.
Suddenly the vision is gone as Oikawa jumps in his place on the floor. He turns to look up at Iwaizumi.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, pausing the movie and reaching over to touch him. Iwaizumi sees the slight flush in Oikawa's cheeks, and it makes his face red.
“Nothing! Stay there!” Iwaizumi says, pretty much jumping off the couch. His foot catches on the arm rest and he stumbles onto the floor, but he quickly picks himself up together. “Uhh, I forgot something in the library.”
Oikawa stares up at him from the floor. “It’s Sunday.”
“Yeah, uh,” Iwaizumi clears his throat. He grabs onto his nearest pair of pants and puts them on, makings sure not to look at Oikawa in the eye. His face is hot. His entire body is hot, and yet shivers run down his spine if he doesn’t keep his thoughts together, if he doesn’t keep himself from thinking about what he just saw. “I forgot it last Friday, um, lemme just – “
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, pointing at him. “Your pants are inside out.”
Iwaizumi looks down and shit, they are. He pulls them off one more time, cursing inwardly as he turns away and tries to hide the boner that won’t quit and pulls the pants back on. Once they’re on properly, he practically runs out of the apartment, and breathes in relief as the smell of sex fades and is replaced with the cool pine scent of indoor air freshener. He takes a few more deep breaths and looks back at his apartment door.
What now?
– – –