Chapter Text
“You’re so stupid. God, I can’t - I just - you’re so fucking stupid, Oikawa Tooru” the boy whispered, half to himself, half to Oikawa - he wanted to yell at the brunet lying in the hospital bed, unaware of the chaos happening outside the clean, orderly white room as he rested on the hard mattress, long eyelashes like drifting petals framing his delicate closed eyes. “How do you think you can keep your promise to beat Shiratorizawa together if it’s only me? The preliminaries are soon and our rivals are training harder and harder each day, and you’ve been doing that too - you’ve been training way harder than they have been- you should have been the one to defeat them, but of course, it was too much. It was too damn much,” he paused for a moment, catching himself as he sobbed into his clenched fist. Iwaizumi wiped his tears. “You trained more than them, but you still lose in the end. You will lose because you won’t be able participate in the first place...” His eyes wandered off, glancing at the clock. As much as he would like to stay overnight, the visiting hours were going to end soon. Might as well go home and come back tomorrow so that he could scold the boy properly when he wakes up in the morning - hopefully, if he wakes up that fast at all, he hoped that it was nothing serious -, hoping Oikawa Tooru did not suffer a concussion from the heavy fall. Just thinking about the sound that moment of Oikawa’s knees cracking, his neck twisting made Iwaizumi incredibly nauseous and-
And-
He breathed -
They - the volleyball team - were going to continue on playing without their captain, their #1, their setter that puts plays into motion; the motivator and strategist of the game. Those wounds will take at least a month to heal, and because Oikawa’s knees had always been bad - it got worse and worse until he finally couldn’t take it and now fell to this vulnerable state, nothing like the strong king he was before - Iwaizumi wasn’t sure if he was going to be allowed to play at all this season. The boy sighed, casting one last longing look at the boy on the bed before burying his head in his calloused hands, standing up - taking another deep breath - and exiting the hospital room, closing the door as silently as he could. The empty linoleum floors greeted him as his rubber shoes squeaked, echoing across the hall.
“Iwa-chan,” the other boy croaked out, his voice hoarse; clearly talking to no one in particular in that room full of antiseptics and devoid of any warmth. “You know I was already awake, right?”
He’s been told multiple times in his year as the captain of the volleyball team that his jump serve had something of an explosive and dynamic nature by friend and enemies alike ( goddamn Ushijima keeps rubbing the fact that Oikawa might’ve won more if he had joined Shiratorizawa’s team with his stupidly amazing jump serves and how stupidly amazing he was at volleyball but was wasting his time and efforts at Aoba Johsai, dammit ). Whenever Oikawa thought about the praise he’s been given for his talent for volleyball, he felt ridiculous. It wasn’t a talent that he was born with, like a genius such as Kageyama Tobio. Ever since the discovery of the sport, Oikawa had to relentlessly work for the skills he wanted to acquire - and so he did. Oikawa’s jump serve was indeed beautiful - from the toss of the ball into the air to the actual execution of the moment when his palm smacks down the leathery surface to the other side of the net -, but the work and time he put into learning it was something not many got to see, so they never get to fully understand.
Ten minutes into the match, and Oikawa’s side had scored 15 to 12.
It’s time for another jump serve, he thought.
The ball flew out of his hand, onto the other side, leaving a trail of dust where it grinded into the ground.
He scored, with his teammates on the other side unable to receive the ball and hit it back. A shame, if it were an actual match against more powerful schools.
“Oikawa! This is a practice, you’re not supposed to blow someone’s arm off!” Iwaizumi yelled at him across the court.
“You’re just jealous, Iwa-chan~!” he said in his casual sing song voice. Iwaizumi just sent a threatening glare at Oikawa, but soon got immersed into the game once again.
Words such as “Kindaichi, nice receive!”, “Do you want your toss to be a bit lower?”, or “Nice kill!” flowed out of Oikawa naturally during the duration of the practice match between him and his teammates, and while it was exhausting to keep commentating, the brunet knew it was doing wonders for the teams’ morals as they practiced with Oikawa’s tosses and serves.
“Toss it again, Oikawa!” Hanamaki commanded, and just a mere second later the ball was touching the other boy’s fingertips, sending it over the net. That made 25 to 23, and Oikawa’s side of the net had won the first round.
By the second practice round, it became clear that if he was to continue playing, it would do Oikawa more harm than good. It was just practice, so he didn’t have to exactly push himself - but it was in his nature ( or so he was told; by his doctors, by his family ) to be so self destructive and push himself to his limits. The moment he jumped off, the beginning of the jump serve forming Oikawa knew something was definitely off. The muscle near his calves twitched and sent a jolting flash of pain - like lighting - down his right leg. He winced and managed to hit it half heartedly, and his teammates managed to receive it with ease. Normally, he would’ve been proud of them getting his serves, but this time it only pissed him off because it meant that he was incapable of beating his own teammates.
“Your form was off!” the coach yelled.
“Sorry! I’ll get it next time,” he replied, not bothering to mask his annoyance with his usual cheekiness.
The second time, his fingers didn’t even touch the ball, much less hit the ball over the net. The sharp pain was back, and he felt his head getting heavily, his legs unable to support his body weight. His heart beated faster and faster as he panicked in midair, his vision blurring as spots danced in front of his eyes, before everything stopped as his head tilted back, bringing his entire body down with it. The last thing he hear was the crunch of his neck on the gym’s laminated floor and the sounds of a crowd yelling in confusion.
He did not get to see Iwaizumi Hajime’s face contort in confusion, nor did Oikawa hear the guttural heart wrenching scream of his own name coming from the mouth of his best friend.
In his dream, he was invincible. Their team had beaten all the others, and now only Ushijima’s team was the only wall blocking their way to victory. Oikawa set himself up with a jump serve, the one that was perfect every time; no exceptions.
Left, right, left, jump, s-
He didn’t even touch the ball when his left foot disintegrated into dust, much to his horror. He stumbled onto his right leg, only to realize that it was shattered into pieces on the ground like broken china, and it wasn’t his own soft flesh anymore.
It was as hard as steel yet as delicate looking as porcelain and had sharp edges that cut into Oikawa’s body when he walked on it - he couldn’t stop himself, he kept walking on it until he bled from every inch of his body, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to be doing that, he should just stay where he was and call for help; he couldn’t avoid it - slowly, and painfully. This is so I can climb past the wall, he thought. I just have to get past my own broken pieces first. The people on the other side of the net turned into red mortar bricks, the net disappearing in a flash of blinding white light. Behind them, a trophy was awaiting with “Aoba Johsai” inscribed on its base, gleaming, just waiting for someone to take it.
He was seeing things from a bird’s eye view, but he himself was on the ground, stepping on the pieces of himself without a care in the world. With every step he took, more and more pieces of his body started disintegrating, until he was only a metre away from getting to smash apart Shiratorizawa except by that time, nothing but the flesh from his neck up was left, and the team behind him was so busy picking up the shattered pieces of Oikawa they couldn’t continue onto defeating Ushijima’s team themselves.
He saw Oikawa stir a bit first, arms restlessly moving around in his blanket; hands twitching. The other boy’s face was a mixture of concentration and sadness, which was pretty much what Iwaizumi felt when watching the brunet. Then without warning, Oikawa sat up in a sweat, gasping as he clutched at his throat. Iwaizumi quickly stumbled out of his chair so that he stood in a fighting gesture, alarmed at the reaction then settled down ( and getting into a much more normal pose ) as Oikawa’s glossed over eyes focused on the raven haired boy in front of him, soft pink lips forming a small ‘o’. Without thinking, Iwaizumi blurted out everything he wanted to say properly to Oikawa since yesterday night.
“Do you know how fucking worried I was?”
“H-hey Iwa-chan...no need to yell…” the brunet replied defiantly.
“Do you know how much blood I saw? Do you know how late I stayed thinking that someone really bad happened to you and then the doctor came in with your stupid X-ray scans showing how bad your knee got? How are you going to win in the future if you screw up and destroy yourself now, Asskawa? It’s all because you couldn’t stop and pushed yourself too hard again trying to settle your childish dispute with Ushiji-” Oikawa’s eyes widened when Iwaizumi said that, and the boy bit his lips and paused. “Shit, no, please ignore that, I didn’t mean it. Tooru I-”
“It’s okay, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said, suddenly interested into the white mattress beneath him. Iwaizumi stared blankly as Oikawa’s slender fingers clenched and unclenched the sheets, examining his bandaged fingers every few seconds. Suddenly the tension in the room had gotten thicker, if that was even possible…
A minute passed with only uncomfortable silence filling the room.
“Ah, Oikawa-san, you’re awake!” A young doctor that regularly worked with Oikawa for his knee injury walked into the room, completely unaware of the tension in the room, carrying a clipboard with scans of various parts of Oikawa’s body and a worrying amount of notes. He placed it onto the stand next to the bed and sat down in one of the chairs next to Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi noticed that Oikawa’s family still wasn’t here and he was wondering if he shouldn’t be here either, but he really wanted to know when Oikawa could play again. If he still can.
“When can Oikawa be dis-”
“Today, he can be discharged and go back home today,” the doctor - Iwaizumi saw that he was called Dr.Watanabe, assuming that the name tag didn’t lie - said to him. Turning then to Oikawa, “though I wouldn’t recommend straining yourself to play volleyball or doing any exercises that might tear a muscle or break any bones. I have no idea how many times I’ve told Oikawa-san this, but he wouldn’t listen. So here he is,” the doctor chastised, emphasizing it with a sigh at the end.
“So he can’t play anymore?”
“No, not until his shoulders and knees heal fully. His knees had always been damaged badly with over-practice...So if he rests properly it will only take about two months-”
“Two months? Iwa-chan, the Interhigh preliminaries are in two weeks!”
“No,” Iwaizumi chided. “The team cancelled practice after school today because we needed to figure out what to do with you. You can go back to school tomorrow but as vice-captain, I won’t let you continue playing in this state. I- I think your parents are busy, so I could...take care of you?” The last part had come out as a question without him meaning it to.
“Iwaizumi, the Inter-hi-”
The raven haired boy stared at Oikawa with a hardened expression; all the anger he could express into his eyes and his face only softened when he saw the other boy bit his lower lip, tears pooling in his eyes as he recoiled and agreed with Iwaizumi.
If there was a word that could describe how guilty Oikawa was feeling, he couldn’t think of it.
As Iwaizumi and Dr.Watanabe stepped out to the hall to discuss things and also speak with Oikawa’s parents on the phone, a million thoughts were racing through the brunet’s head. His mildly concussed head, might he add. So of course his thoughts drifted off to how he let down the team and it made him so horrible that it was all his fault that they weren’t going to win before he remembered what Iwa-chan said about how it was six people on the court, not just Oikawa taking all the burden himself. He really should’ve remembered that before he overworked himself to this extent, though. He should’ve had put in more trust in his team to carry on without him and it wasn’t his fault, really.
He was going to launch into some dramatic rendition of the speech he was prepared to give to his teammates once he got back, when Iwa-chan walked back in the room with the doctor and a nurse. They helped Oikawa get up and replaced the gauze and bandages, and Iwaizumi told him that his parents were here to drive him back home - for he was well enough to go to school tomorrow ( read : excluding volleyball practice ) , if he wanted to.
“I told them that I could take care of you tonight, since they originally had some plans anyway,” Iwaizumi explained.
“Oh. So...it’s...a sleepover?”
“Yeah.”
They waited until Oikawa’s parents came and rushed the two boys to their car, but also taking great care that Oikawa didn’t injure himself anymore in the process. It was amazing, really.
The ride home was silent, with Oikawa’s mother nervously fidgeting with her purse every now and then, while his father purse his lips together, staring blankly at the road in front of him as Iwaizumi watched them from the car’s side mirrors as Oikawa, though groggy from painkillers, watched Iwaizumi from the side.
“Iwa-chaaan,” the boy groaned as he wiped his hair dry, just finished with his shower. “I’m so tired, and all your talking is giving me a headache.” Oikawa threw the towel on his bed before landing on it while the raven haired boy cringed at the smack of wood against Oikawa’s leg.
“Well, someone has to lecture you once in a while. You’ve had it too easy.”
Oikawa actually threw his head back in laughter, pressing his hands to his mouth.
“You’ve had it too easy,” he said, imitating Iwaizumi. “Of course Iwa-chan, otherwise I wouldn’t have an injured leg, right?”
That shut him up.
“J-just, let’s forget about the fact that I can’t play volleyball for a while, okay?” he said, reverting back to a serious voice. “Seijou’s team has many skilled members and they can all be my substitutes if they tried hard enough and I’m not really that amazing so you guys can participate in the Inter-High without me so- so please beat Ushiwaka-chan for me, okay?
“I know I’m really selfish sometimes, Iwa-chan, but I think I’ve really pushed myself to the limits this time- even I know that. I’ve had some time to think about it and you’re right. I’ve decided that you’re right. I shouldn’t be so obstinate and stubborn all the time and it’s just the preliminaries right? So what if-”
“Oikawa, stop,” the other boy interrupted; now was his turn to shut Oikawa up.
“Yeah...that’s all I wanted to say,” Oikawa’s gaze dropped, before he flashed a quick grin that was fake, plastic. Iwaizumi didn’t believe it for one second that the brunet was fine, but he didn’t bother talking about it.
“T-thank you for taking care of me, Iwa-chan.”
In one of his sparse moments of genuine sincerity, lacking all traces of mockery and playfulness, Oikawa blurted the words out.
Iwaizumi, with nothing to say after Oikawa kept changing moods every five seconds, simply asked for his shirt that he let Oikawa borrow the other day - the day that Oikawa fell . For a second, the boy looked embarrassed, shocked even, but eventually regained his composure.
“Ah, it’s downstairs...let me get it, okay?”
Oikawa stood up from the bed, slightly limping as he made his way downstairs. Iwaizumi sat cross legged on the ground besides the other boy’s bed, glad to have a few moments by himself; he didn’t even know why he had signed up for this but he supposed that it was doing Oikawa’s parents a favour by taking care of their troublesome manchild while they had business to attend to. When Hajime called his mother to know that he was staying over at Oikawa’s house to take care of him in case he does something stupid again - because for a 17 year old, he sure acted like he was fucking six - and his mother had asked if he wanted her to stay for a bit too, he had declined her offer. Which was a shame, because he just remembered what an absolute hassle an injured Oikawa Tooru was.
He lay there steeping in silence for a few minutes before hearing a string of profanities, followed by a loud crashing that he would’ve mistaken for an earthquake if Iwaizumi didn’t know better. Rushing out of the room, the sight of Oikawa Tooru sprawled over the stairs holding his borrowed t-shirt would’ve normally made him punch him in the head, but he remembered the injury.
“Jesus, Tooru. Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course,” he mumbled. “I just fell on the stairs and hit my head on five steps simultaneously, but of course I’m okay! Help me up, Iwa-chan.”
“Shit, no. That fucking position your legs are in look like every bone in your body just got dislocated. I’ll get some ice and bandages, wait here.
It’s also almost ten, so I think we should go to sleep soon- after all...you still have school tomorrow.”
“Iwa-chan, what are you, my mom?”
Trying to get up and fix his uncomfortable position, Oikawa held the railings of the stairs and helped himself up. Somehow, the idea of Iwaizumi bandaging up his leg brought back the foggy recollections he had of his dream a couple weeks ago; heat rising up to his pale face.
“See, I can get back to the room just fine by my-”
“Tooru!”
“That fucking hurt!” he yelled.
“Who’s fault was it that you couldn’t stay still when I told you to?”
“I was fine until my knees gave out on me!”
“That’s why I told you to stay there and wait for me to bandage it up, Trashykawa.”
He huffed, shallow breaths puffing out every second as he watched his best friend set his leg back down on the ground while everything else lay in comfortable silence; the two boys sitting side by side together on Oikawa’s bed.
An accidental brush of the cheek was too easy when they were so close together, and honestly Oikawa hoped that this was a dream like the other one - he knows it’s not, his leg was absolutely murdering him right now - because he feels his cheeks getting hotter and a pleasant fuzzy feeling in his stomach as Iwa-chan leaned in closer to the point where he could feel his breathing on the injured knee. Iwa-chan’s spiky hair, brushing the nape of his neck, sending chills across his spine [ a.n: holy shit this is turning into a really bad romance fanfiction im--oh wait thats what this is haHHA ].
He immediately got up, turned off the lights and hoped that it wasn’t blatantly obvious how flustered he was right now.
“What the hell? Oikawa, I’m still not done with your kn-”
“Iwa-chan it’s really late and I’m tired so - let’sjustgotosleep, goodnight!!”
He flopped down on his bed, drifting off without dreaming for the first time in days.
“Goodnight, Tooru.”
It’s already the end of the week, and after that one night Iwaizumi have not spoken a word to Oikawa. Since the brunet wasn’t allowed to go to practices anymore and kept ignoring Iwaizumi’s attempts to speak to him properly or avoiding him when he directly approached Oikawa.
I went to school ahead of time, breakfast is on the table!! thanks for taking care of me, iwa-chan!!
That one note was the last time Oikawa had any sort of communication with him, left on Iwaizumi’s face as he was still sleeping on the ground. He realized that perhaps he was a bit rough on Oikawa that day, but it shouldn’t have affected their daily schedules much. Sure, he was acting weird that day, but Iwaizumi had blamed it on the painkillers. After all, what kind of best friend ignores the other person for days after the said best friend dedicated an entire night taking care of him?
If he was so afraid of being lectured by Iwaizumi again, it was only a given. The guy has it coming for him, and the Hajime planned to give him a piece of his mind after school. He sighed, ruffling his spiky hair as he walked towards the next period’s class.
Two more periods to go, and he would have to seriously go find Oikawa and talk some sense into him.
If someone was glaring at you with the intensity of a thousand suns, would you dare stare at them back in the eye? That was the question Oikawa posed upon himself as he sat down in sixth period, in one of the classes that Iwaizumi and him had together.
Sure, Oikawa had been avoiding Iwaizumi’s texts, ignoring daggers from his eyes shooting into his direction, and pretending to be talking to his ‘fanclub’ when Iwaizumi found him outside of class during lunch. There was a good reason for that, but now that it’s been two whole days of miscommunication - no communication, actually - he feels like it’s too late to explain himself to the other boy.
“Oh, Oikawa-kun, you haven’t been with Iwaizumi-kun outside of club practice either?” one of the girls walking next to him asked. He hanged out with them every now and then, and perhaps confided in some of them when he was too upset with the other guys he was friends with. And with Iwaizumi making sure he couldn’t practice volleyball - so that his stupid knee could heal - he couldn’t exactly face any of the guys on the team either.
“Iwa-chan is really busy, taking care of the team in my place…”
“But wasn’t he trying to talk to you yester-”
“N-no! Haha, I guess I was just out of it I-”
“Oikawa-kun, did you upset Iwaizumi-kun?”
The girl glanced up at him, head tilted. He couldn’t say whether she was correct or not, because he didn’t know if that was the case himself.
“He’s really scary when he’s mad at me, you know.
“He’s mad at me now, and it might be because of my knee and because things happened and I guess I’m not ready to face him...not yet. I don’t want him to know how messed up I am right now.”
“Still! You should go talk. Things can’t be solved like this.”
She smiled sadly then faltered, walking in the opposite direction of Oikawa. The other girls that were silent during their exchange also waved their goodbyes, leaving Oikawa to settle things by himself.
Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with one of you instead? he mused wistfully.
What was that idiot doing.
Holy shit.
They were running laps to warm-up for practice, and who else other than the one and only Oikawa Tooru was pressing his face on one of the gym windows, breathing onto the panel until it fogged up. He wasn’t supposed to be here, but it’s been so long since they actually talked for real that Iwaizumi forgot about that tiny detail and ran to the coach, telling him that he had something to do.
“Make it quick,” he grumbled.
Nodding, he ran to the door of the gymnasium and there stood Oikawa, still looking into the gym. The shorter boy jogged up to him, hitting him lightly on the shoulder to tell him that he was here. Oikawa turned, and even though he was an inch or so taller than Iwaizumi, compared to any other period in his life, now he was feeling the shortest. Iwaizumi made Oikawa feel like he was worth something ( when he comforted Oikawa after losing to Shiratorizawa; days when he felt like he just wasn't enough ) , but this week just looking at Iwaizumi made him feel inadequate. How would he be possibly so selfish to claim Iwaizumi, to say that he truly deserved him?
Iwaizumi glared at Oikawa, oblivious to the turmoil in the other boy’s head.
“I had a dream, you know.”
“Oikawa, what are you trying to say-”
“No! Iwa-chan, just listen. Please.
“Anyways. In this dream, you were sleeping over at my house. Oh, it happened before I injured my knee past the point of no return, by the way,” he said dramatically, pausing for effect ( dammit Oikawa Tooru, this was supposed to be a serious conversation ). “The weirdest thing happened, you know! I was strangely happy, and you were being so concerned for me and I couldn’t help but feel really happy, you know? I was so happy it was stupid. Because we used to do that all the time, and that time wasn’t any different except I knew that something changed inside of me when our goddamn cheeks touched and we’ve been friends for the longest time and I’ve only come to terms with these feelings right now. Iwa-chan, I know I’ve been avoiding you - I didn’t want to see you because I thought how I would act around you would change and that you would know and well, also because I know you might yell at me for fucking up my knee - so I’m rambling on right now and my mind has no filter for anything. I thought that if I saw you after that night that you spent with me, took care of me, I would be pining after you even harder and I..
...couldn’t bear to lose you because of my s-selfishness.”
Fuck.
Hajime had no idea what to say to that uncharacteristic rambling - Oikawa was acting drunk, except he knew he wasn’t the type to drink and they were both horribly underaged. Oikawa Tooru had never choked up on his words; careful facade never fading away, a persona, a fake front he puts up around him 24/7. But he knew that he was being genuine and that’s the thing he can’t stand, because he knows that he couldn’t simply whack Oikawa on the head and call him ‘Shittykawa’ because this was a serious issue and Hajime has never realized Oikawa was feeling like this.
“W-wow. I feel like a shit friend,” Iwaizumi managed to stumble out after what felt like five very awkward minutes.
“Of course, Iwa-chan. That’s all we’ll ever be,” Oikawa grimaced. “Friends.”
Those simple words broke the dam that Iwaizumi kept inside of him, and he finally just...broke. Oikawa fumbled with his slender, long fingers, looking at the ground every few seconds; breaking eye contact with Iwaizumi. He looked disappointed, what the fuck.
“I’ve put up with you for pretty much a decade, Oikawa Tooru. If you think something like this will break us apart, you’re wrong. But-
“I’m just not ready for that right now. Sorry.”
He wanted to hurt Oikawa, as petty as that was. The truth was, all this time he was putting up with Oikawa’s endless flirting with the girls chasing after him, while Hajime was doing his best to bury feelings that had been there since junior high. He thought he was done with his unrequited love, only to have this happen now. Oikawa ignoring him for days, because of this. Iwaizumi was actually worried, and Oikawa couldn’t have been trusting enough to tell him that sooner.
Iwaizumi didn’t look back as he walked back into the bright gymnasium, shutting the doors as Oikawa remain standing there himself in the dark.
“I thought you felt the same way once, Iwa-chan.
"In the second dream, I was shattered apart but you were still staying behind to pick up the pieces."