Chapter Text
A chilly draft spilled through the cracked window in Makki’s room, and Iwaizumi’s frown deepened when the cold air wrapped around his arm, sending a prickling sensation that spread up to his spine and caused goose bumps to pop up on his legs. He stood and wrestled with the window for a few moments before it finally moved down a few inches to the ledge. Iwaizumi flopped back onto Makki’s bed, pulling the blankets around himself.
“Why the hell would you leave your window open when there’s literally snow on the ground outside?”
“It was not my choice, I’m afraid,” Makki answered, tugging on a drawer in his dresser that was filled to the brim. “It got stuck one day and I simply accepted my fate.”
“….You’ve had your window open all winter?”
“You know, it kind of made me feel like a Viking or something. Like I was camping out in the forest in the middle of a blizzard, waiting to ambush the enemies.”
“That is crazy person behavior.”
“No, I was simply trying to build character!”
“Oh, so that’s why you’ve been sleeping in my room for the past month,” Mattsun snickered, leaning against the doorway with a half-empty backpack slung over his shoulder.
“What the hell Issei, I was trying to prove my toughness.”
Mattsun shrugged and walked further into the room, leaning his body weight on Makki after he stood with the intention of going through his closet. He slowly wrapped his arms around Makki and pulled him tightly when he tried to move, only pulling tighter as Makki struggled to free himself from the confines of his partner’s loving embrace.
Iwaizumi chuckled as he watched them tussle, but his amusement quickly morphed into mild disgust when Makki ceased his futile pursuit of freedom and instead retreated further into the embrace. Iwaizumi decided he had seen enough when Mattsun’s lips found the back of Makki’s neck, excusing himself to go back to his own room and gently nudging Makki’s door shut behind him.
As he made the brief journey from Makki’s room to his own, he applauded himself for forcing his friends to start packing for their trip before the morning they needed to leave, since they would probably be making out for a while. But even still, no matter what they did, they always ended up being late somehow.
He softly shut the door of his room behind him and leaned against it for a short while. Seeing Makki and Mattsun being so intimate was definitely new, but he had grown accustomed to it over the past few weeks. But even still, it was never fun to watch his two best friends kiss.
He thought back to the intimacy between his two friends, the ease that Mattsun’s given name slipped through Makki’s lips. He had never called Oikawa by his first name, even though they had been together longer than his friends had. Oikawa had never called him by his name either.
Iwaizumi leaned his head back against the door, trying to picture how they would say each other’s names for the first time. Would the exchange carry the same ease as it did for his friends?
“Tooru,” he whispered softly to himself. The name felt heavy on his tongue, a simple name that carried the weight of so much time and emotion with it.
Shaking his head, Iwaizumi flopped onto his bed, next to his suitcase that was almost ready to go. Maybe this was bothering him more because he hadn’t seen Oikawa since the previous week. They’d only exchanged a few texts here and there, all along the lines of, “How are you doing?”, “Just fine, thanks for asking, love you!”
According to Aiko, Oikawa used the week leading up to any competition or concert to “get in the zone”. Even when he wasn’t actively practicing, it was clear through his stern features and poised posture that he was ready to deliver a perfect performance at a moment’s notice, and that this acute concentration wouldn’t waver until his trial was over and done with.
“Don’t worry too much, Iwaizumi. Just one more week, and he’ll be all yours again,” Aiko had told him a few days back over the phone.
“I know. He’s doing this because he wants to win. And that’s what I want for him too.”
Aiko sighed, and Iwaizumi could practically see her shaking her head in frustration. “That Tooru. He’s so focused on impressing the judges he forgets all about everyone in the audience that’s cheering for him.”
Iwaizumi had laughed, a small smile smoothing his furrowed brows. “We’ve got to give him a piece of our minds after we finish celebrating.”
“We sure do! But for now, the most important thing is to listen and wait.”
And so he would wait. Even though it felt like he was on a raft, drifting far from the comforts of land and home, he would wait and see where the waves took him. He hoped that he would reach the shore once again.
Oikawa’s competition was in a different city, about an hour and a half away by train. They were able to get seats right next to each other, and Mattsun slept for most of the ride while Makki wrapped Iwaizumi up in a book of word puzzles that he had brought with him.
Before they had left, Iwaizumi had been shocked to receive a call from Oikawa, and they spoke briefly before Iwaizumi was due to leave for the station. Oikawa was already at the competition venue with his dad, and he had spent the previous day practicing and doing small interviews for Fukumoto’s student-run newspaper and other music publications. Iwaizumi could hear the beginnings of exhaustion in the frayed edges of his voice, but he didn’t comment and simply listened as Oikawa complained about a reporter that had been digging far too deep into his personal life.
“My dad is probably going to be out for all of today. And there also just so happens to be a festival going on in a neighborhood near the concert hall.”
“If you want us all to go then just say that.”
“Oh come on Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whined. “Humor me at least a little.”
“I will, when we all go later today. No wait, won’t that be a lot for you? You have to compete tomorrow.”
“It’ll be fine. The first competition isn’t until noon.”
Iwaizumi frowned, but decided to take his word for it. He hung up not long after to get himself and his friends out the door, and also informed them of their new evening plans.
They had made it through about half of the puzzle book before they got stuck on a particularly tricky crossword puzzle. They had spent about twenty minutes on it so far, and were only about halfway through the list of clues at the bottom. Iwaizumi could feel his irritation slowly piling up, and was relieved when the train finally pulled into the station and the thank you message began playing over the speakers.
The three of them took turns grabbing their luggage before getting off the train. Mattsun was in charge of getting them all an Uber, so Iwaizumi and Makki went on their phones to find a place to eat and meet up with Oikawa. He offered to meet them at the station, but Iwaizumi had strictly forbidden him from trying to sneak out anywhere before his dad left their shared hotel for the day.
Mattsun called his friends to follow him about a block away from the station where their ride was waiting for them. They had booked a cheap hotel that was about a fifteen minute walk from the concert hall, because they were all short on money for one reason or another.
When they pulled up to the hotel, Iwaizumi was struck by how out of place the traditional Japanese building looked among the typical concrete city buildings it was nestled between. They grabbed all of their things before entering through the sliding screen door at the front of the building. An older man with a grumpy look on his face greeted them at the front desk, and checked them in quickly before briskly leading them to their room down the hall and disappearing as soon as they unlocked the door.
They surveyed the room, which was sparsely furnished. The room was empty save for a low table in the center, a closet on the far wall that contained a few futons and other things they may need, and a pair of screen doors on one side that led out to the small lawn encircling the whole property. Their interest in the room and a bit of rest was minimal compared to the hunger growing in their stomachs, so they left their luggage in a pile by the door and left the hotel to walk to a ramen restaurant a few blocks away.
Iwaizumi stopped to text Oikawa the address before they set off. The district they were in looked a lot like the one their apartment resided in, but most of the people that hurried past them were a lot older, wearing formal suits and dresses instead of the loungewear associated with most tired students.
The restaurant’s entrance was covered by a simple red curtain, and when they pushed it aside they were met with a homely atmosphere and a rush they would have associated with dinner time. They were ushered to a table near the back and given a set of well-worn menus before the waitress hurried off to go assist a few customers running short on beer. The pictures in the menu were faded, but every item still looked tantalizing, almost as much as the dirt-cheap prices.
Makki and Mattsun went ahead and ordered when the waitress finally returned, looking harried and frantic. Iwaizumi held off on placing his order to wait for Oikawa. He had no interest in being scolded for going on and eating without him.
Just the thought of seeing Oikawa sent a flurry of anxious butterflies swirling around his stomach, and the combination of that and the heavy pangs of hunger made Iwaizumi want to double over and groan. As he watched the clock on the far wall and listened to his friends talk with half an ear, he contemplated ordering more and more as the minutes ticked by, if only to knock out the hunger that was mixing into an unfavorable soup within his stomach.
His eyes drifted from the clock down to the door, and his eyes widened as the curtain was shifted sideways to allow a tall, brown-haired boy into the restaurant. His hair was tousled and the tips of his ears a bright red, both likely caused by the chilly breeze running amok in the streets. Even from where he sat all the way across the room, Iwaizumi could see Oikawa’s gaze travel around the room, stopping when they locked onto his own.
Iwaizumi felt his own eyes soften as he watched Oikawa approach, and he stood to wrap his arms around the lanky musician. Oikawa’s arms were tight around his torso and the warmth radiating off his body and the waves rolling off everyone else packed into the restaurant was almost nauseating, but even still he felt his arms bury further into the other boy’s coat, the idea of letting go unimaginable.
Eventually though, Iwaizumi finally let go after they began to warrant odd looks from some of the other patrons. Oikawa greeted Makki and Mattsun cheerily before sitting down and flipping through the menu. When the waitress came back with Makki and Mattsun’s food, the other pair placed their orders.
“What’s it like being famous?” Makki asked after Oikawa told them about the interview he had been at before he arrived.
“Honestly? It’s such a drag,” Oikawa complained. “The girls who bake me cookies before my competitions are all very sweet, but most of those in the competitive music community are cutthroat. Especially the stupid judges that are all decaying in their plushy VIP auditorium seats.”
“Are you sure you can just say that? What if they’re here?” Mattsun whispered, scanning the room covertly for any judges in disguise.
“Oh please. Most of them are too stuck up to even set foot in a place like this. It would have to have at least one Michelin star for them to even consider it.”
“Well, those old coots sure are missing out,” Makki lamented, slurping up his last few noodles and leaning back in his chair with a satisfied grin.
They left not long after, stomachs filled to the point of mild discomfort. Makki had been concerned that he wouldn’t have enough room left in his stomach for greasy festival food, so he declared that the time between then and the beginning of the festival would be devoted to walking until their stomachs were emptied and ready to be stuffed once more.
The festival was going to be held at a shrine a decent ways away from where they had their lunch. It probably wouldn’t have taken longer than a half hour to reach there on foot, but every so often they would pop into a store that had antique porcelain cats in the window, or a café selling small cakes in the shapes of flowers and small woodland creatures.
While Iwaizumi was flipping through a rack of leather jackets in a trendy-looking thrift store, he paused in front of a slim floor-length mirror that separated the leather jackets and lettermans. He felt a growing sense of unease as leaned forward to observe the minute changes in his face that he hadn’t paid much attention to in the past few months.
His hair was a bit longer than he usually kept it, but he hadn’t had enough time to dig through online reviews for a trustworthy place to get it trimmed. The bags around his eyes were nothing new, neither were the faint lines that were beginning to emerge above his brows. He looked much the same as he had back in Miyagi, but he still felt the sense that the face staring back at him was much older than the one that met his gaze back home.
“What are you looking at so intently?” Oikawa asked, moving to rest his chin on Iwaizumi’s shoulder as he too peered into the mirror.
Iwaizumi’s eyes moved to rest on Oikawa’s reflection next to him. His fingers reached up and tugged the edges of Oikawa’s hair lightly, the ones that were beginning to fall into his eyes as they wriggled out from where they were tucked behind his ears.
Oikawa looked older than he had when they first met. His hair was longer, now kissing the collar of his button up. He was more tired, the circles around his own eyes smeared with hastily applied concealer. But his eyes were the same, as their gazes met on the surface of the glass. The same soft brown, the same glow they’d had all those months ago. Beautiful.
“Don’t you think you’re due for a haircut?” Iwaizumi asked quickly, shifting his gaze to the side where the lettermans were lined in a varied array of colors and numbers.
“Do you not like it long?” Oikawa murmured lazily, reaching up to tug Iwaizumi’s fingers away from his hair and slide them between his own.
“It’s not that. I just don’t see the point in wearing glasses if your hair is constantly hanging over your eyes.”
Oikawa hummed thoughtfully, his other hand reaching up to pull his hair away from his forehead. He contemplated his reflection for a moment before letting his hair fall back down.
“Maybe I’ll get it cut after the competition,” Oikawa said. Their eyes met again in their reflection, and Oikawa smirked a bit. “Since you find my eyes so captivating.”
The red flush that colored his cheeks in the mirror betrayed Iwaizumi’s true thoughts, and he disentangeled himself from Oikawa’s embrace to retreat further into the store. Oikawa simply laughed and followed at his heels, teasing remarks falling from his lips as easily as the last traces of snow melted in the increasing heat of the spring’s sun.
It wasn’t long after that the day began to fade into evening, and the small group hurried to traverse the few blocks that still stood between them and the shrine. Already they could hear the sounds of people and loud, booming music as they walked, and it simply added to their eagerness to partake in the festivities.
There was a crowd pooling around the tall red gate towering above the shrine’s entrance, and the four of them blended in with the crowd of locals as everyone slowly passed through the gate and into the shrine.
Makki and Mattsun were practically watering at the mouths when the smell and sight of the food stalls beckoned to them from the distance, so the two pairs parted ways as they made a beeline for the food. Iwaizumi and Oikawa joined the long line spanning the tall set of stone steps leading up to the shrine itself.
They didn’t speak much as they slowly shuffled up the steps, opting instead to admire the view on either side of the shrine. The steps were fairly high above the ground below, and though Iwaizumi couldn’t make out exactly what the signs said from where he was standing, he could already see a few points of interest that he wanted to visit when they got around to exploring the different stalls. And he was also hungry thanks to all the walking.
Once they reached the shrine, they both pulled out a bit of money to toss in with the other coins and paper bills. They rang the bell, bowed, clapped and stood quietly side by side as they recited their own respective prayers quietly to themselves. After they finished, they moved off to the side where there were strips of paper to write wishes on. He assumed that Oikawa would already be wishing for good results in the competition, and that left him at a bit of a loss. Iwaizumi pondered the thin slip of paper between his fingers for a few moments before leaning against the wooden table and writing:
After the competition, I would like for Oikawa and I to be happy together.
They both tied their wishes alongside the dozens of others before heading back down the steps, where the festival was already in full swing. Iwaizumi knew they should probably try and figure out where the hell their friends had disappeared off to, but he couldn’t help but want to spend a bit of time with Oikawa after so long apart. He doubted his friends would mind.
They walked past the small crowds of patrons huddled around the brightly-lit stalls, waiting for one to catch their eye. Oikawa tugged on his arm after a few minutes of walking and pointed to one of the games. It was one of those games that had a bunch of cans stacked in a tower and were deceptively difficult to knock down. Iwaizumi just shrugged and followed Oikawa to the booth. There would be no real harm in trying.
A few throws in, Iwaizumi struggled to hold in his amusement as Oikawa stared at the cans, which he had failed to knock over four separate times. He looked more than a little disgruntled, the plastic ball clenched tightly in his fist. He eyed the stack of cans warily for a moment before poising his arm for the throw, reeling back, and hurling the ball at the cans. There appeared to be enough strength in the throw, but Oikawa’s aim was off, and the ball simply grazed one of the side cans and knocked it out of place before bouncing off the wall behind it harmlessly.
Oikawa frowned and the man working the booth tried to soothe his frustration, claiming that Oikawa had been the closest to knocking the cans over that night.
“The festival hasn’t even been open for an hour,” Oikawa grumbled when he walked back over to Iwaizumi. He simply patted Oikawa’s defeated shoulders and steered them over to another game, not interested in forking over any money to the can game himself.
Eventually, they settled on a game where they had to pop balloons with darts, and even though these games were usually even more rigged than the cans, they both had significantly better luck. Iwaizumi gave one of the workers a bit of a fright with one of his stronger throws, and he felt guilt wash over him in waves as she reached up to retrieve his prize with shaking hands.
They both walked away with a small stuffed animal, a green dinosaur for Iwaizumi and a blue cat for Oikawa. Iwaizumi wandered over to a more secluded area between two tents to call Mattsun while Oikawa went off to get them both takoyaki. It was difficult to hear Mattsun over the sounds of the crowd, but after a few minutes of repeating their sentences over and over again they were able to agree on a meeting point, a sidewalk overlooking a field where a fireworks show would be held.
Iwaizumi met up with Oikawa before they began walking towards the rendezvous point. They watched as children darted around wearing masks and couples walked hand in hand in colorful yukatas. The sheer amount of people crowding the space between the parallel lines of tents prompted them to walk side by side, and Iwaizumi tucked his dinosaur under his arm so he could entwine his hands with Oikawa’s.
Makki and Mattsun were already leaning against the railing when they arrived, a few different food packages in their arms. There were already people streaming down the steps on either side of the overlook and setting up spots on the ground below to watch the fireworks from, but Makki pointed up to a hill down the street and suggested they watch from there.
The small group huddled together to squeeze through the crowd and walked up the crumbling stone stairs up the hill. It was secluded, the edge lined with a low stone wall that didn’t look like it would do much to keep one from toppling over the edge. In typical perilous youthful fashion, the four of them sat atop the low wall and watched the field below them with their feet dangling over the edge. Makki and Oikawa took off their sandals and set them on the wall beside them, and Oikawa laughed a bit as the cold air surrounded the entirety of his pale feet.
Makki and Mattsun appeared to be feeling particularly generous that particular night, because they willingly shared the food they had gathered from the entire selection of food stalls the festival had to offer. The four of them sat, munching happily as they watched the dark sky stretched out before them, waiting for it to change into a smattering of color and light.
“The stars have looked so much duller since we visited the observatory,” Oikawa lamented, chewing on some fried bread half-heartedly.
“That’s what I’ve thought every day since I moved away from the countryside,” Iwaizumi sighed. “It's kind of a bummer.“
“Are they clearer back home? In Miyagi?”
Iwaizumi gazed out into the dark expanse of night, at the few stars that studded the emptiness surrounding the vibrant moon.
“Yeah. There’s so many of them that you keep seeing new ones emerge no matter how long you stare at the same spot.”
“I’d like to see that one day.”
“I’ll take you sometime. Maybe this summer, if you’re up to it.”
Oikawa simply hummed, scooting over so that their sides were pressed against each other. He reached over and linked their hands together, resting them in between each other, and Iwaizumi only tore his eyes away from their joined hands at the sound of a large crack from the sky above.
A bright red flash erupted from a small spark in the middle of the sky. As soon as it faded it was replaced by beams of gold soaring high above, and the white streams that fell from it looked like the stars that should have been visible, falling down to Earth to remind those below that they were still there. Flashes of green and blue and purple continuously lit up the sky, and Iwaizumi couldn’t help but watch in wonder as the bright colors shined against the dark expanse that had no choice but to yield in the face of their burning vitality.
Later, when the fireworks had long since concluded their striking performance, Makki and Mattsun had left to play a few games, leaving Iwaizumi and Oikawa lying alone in the grass. It wasn’t as cold as Iwaizumi had expected, and the slightly damp grass tickling his face and limbs reminded him of the tall grass he used to venture through when he was younger, searching for any bug he could get his grubby little hands on.
There was no point stargazing under such a dull sky, but they stared up above anyway, wrapped up in their own thoughts and the warmth of the person lying next to them.
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whispered after a few minutes.
“…..Hm?”
Oikawa raised himself up and leaned over Iwaizumi, the tips of his hair falling forward and barely tickling Iwaizumi’s face.
“Hajime.”
Iwaizumi balked at that, and Oikawa’s eyes sparkled with mirth at Iwaizumi’s surprise. He leaned down a bit more, turning Iwaizumi’s head so he could whisper directly into his ear.
“I love you.”
Once again, Iwaizumi’s eyes widened in surprise. He turned to meet Oikawa’s eyes, and he watched him, trying to see what was lying beyond their warm exterior through the dark. His staring seemed to plant seeds of unease into Oikawa’s mind, and he began to back up. Iwaizumi immediately pulled him back down, fitting his lips over Oikawa’s and kissing him deeply.
They remained entwined in the grass for a long time, arms around each other.
“I love you too, so much, so much ,” Iwaizumi whispered over and over when their lips broke apart. He felt the sharp prick of tears at the corners of his eyes as he held his love close, no words that he knew enough to encompass the feelings that he tried his best to convey through his fervent kisses.
“I want to stay with you,” Oikawa said breathlessly. “For the rest of my life I want to be right by your side.”
“You can, of course you can,” Iwaizumi assured him, running his fingers along the sides of Oikawa’s face.
“I wish nothing could come between us.”
“Nothing will, nothing at all.”
Oikawa lowered his eyes a bit, and when he raised them again it was dark and Iwaizumi wasn’t entirely sure he could trust what he saw in them and before he could open his lips to ask why Oikawa looked so sad they were met with another soft pair and he said nothing at all, leaning into the kisses that grew more and more desperate and whispering more and more words that tried to fill the despondent void that was growing in both of their chests.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
—————————————————————
They had crept back to their hotel room much later than they had planned to. Makki and Mattsun disappeared inside as soon as they had reached the hotel, and Iwaizumi had lingered outside to say his goodbyes to Oikawa. He had wanted to ask if he would stay the night, sure he could sneak Oikawa in without the owner of the inn noticing, but Oikawa had simply shaken his head. With a kiss on Iwaizumi’s cheek and a heartfelt good luck whispered in Oikawa’s ear, he was left alone in front of the sliding doors.
The next morning, Iwaizumi stared up at the ceiling as he laid there on his futon, anxiety quickening the pace of his heart as soon as he awoke. He sat up and glanced over to see his two friends sharing a hearty breakfast at the table, Makki’s phone set up between them playing a comedy skit of some kind.
“What time is it?” Iwaizumi asked groggily, sitting up slowly.
“Around ten,” Mattsun answered, eyes glued to the phone.
Iwaizumi felt his heartbeat stutter, and he immediately sprung up and grabbed his toiletries and raced to the bathroom. As he showered and brushed his teeth and changed his clothes, his stomach twisted and turned with anxiety. He wasn’t competing, and he had full faith in the one who was, but he still felt pricks of nervousness lodge deep inside of his torso when he dared to think of the possibility that Oikawa didn’t place in the top three.
There was so much unknown to Iwaizumi and he felt as if he were staring up at the dark sky from the night before. But this time, there were no fireworks shooting up into the darkness, no Oikawa next to him that he could borrow warmth from.
Oikawa had told him the pieces he would be performing for the first competition portion, and they all had long names he couldn’t remember and the composer had a long name he couldn’t pronounce. Oikawa had exuded a resolute confidence when talking about the first half of the competition. He needed only to place in the top eight to move on to the next half, and he had said that he had no fear that he could play the pieces perfectly, despite their supposed complexity. Iwaizumi trusted his words, and shared his confidence in the first half.
The second part of the competition was a showcase of an original composition by each contestant. They submitted their sheet music beforehand and would receive both a technical and subjective score of their performance. Only the top three would move on to the final competition in France.
Oikawa hadn’t told him much about this part, and he knew next to nothing about the song Oikawa had composed. He had also been oddly vague when discussing the judging, his confidence from earlier waning under a layer of anxiety. Iwaizumi had assumed it had something to do with his father, but he hadn’t asked. Even if he had, Oikawa wouldn’t have answered.
He was nervous, yes. He knew Oikawa would be crushed if he didn’t make it through, and the consequences from his father would be dire. But Iwaizumi needed to hold onto hope, for both of them. He needed to be there for Oikawa to rely on if he needed him.
After they finished their breakfast, they headed to the concert hall about an hour before the competition was set to begin. They had chosen to wear clothes a tad more formal than they were used to, but Iwaizumi couldn’t help but feel underdressed as they walked past people dressed in what looked to be fine silks and leather and pearls.
They walked into the building containing the concert hall and stopped to consult a large map that was a few feet away from the door. In addition to the auditorium, the event hall also contained a sporting arena, an auditorium for plays, and a variety of banquet halls. The competition venue was in the left wing of the expansive building, so they began to head in that direction.
Iwaizumi had been eyeing the crowd since they walked in, and was about to turn away for good when his eyes caught on a strikingly familiar face. He felt his frantically beating heart burst out of his chest and fall to the ground, and it kept every fiber of his being to keep his knees from going down with it. He watched his former volleyball coach laugh lightly as he walked next to an unfamiliar stranger, and somehow he seemed to feel Iwaizumi’s gaze on him and turned to look at him, equal surprise gracing his features.
He grabbed his friends’ shoulder and whispered for them to save him a seat. They gave him odd looks but heeded his words anyway. Iwaizumi turned back to his coach, who also excused himself and made a beeline to Iwaizumi, who led them both back outside once he approached.
Neither of them said anything as they walked to a small sitting area devoid of life, and sat down across from each other on a bench overlooking the city beyond the event hall. It was a long while before his coach, Hirose, began to speak.
“It’s been a while, Hajime. How has Tokyo been treating you?”
Iwaizumi paused for a moment, his fingers bound together tightly in his lap. “Well enough.”
“I see.”
“Why are you here?”
“Ah, I came to meet with a rival coach. Nationals are coming up soon.”
“Did they make it this year?”
“We sure did,” Hirose smiled. “They’ve worked hard, and they’ve been doing well, thanks to their senior’s hard work and advice.”
Iwaizumi felt his jaw tighten, and he struggled to calm his temper in the face of someone older than him.
“We actually played a practice match before I saw you. The team is still around here, and I’m sure they’d love to see you—,”
“No thanks.”
Hirose pursed his lips before turning to face Iwaizumi. “Listen Hajime, no one has any hard feelings about what happened anymore.”
“Oh yeah? What about me? I’m still pretty mad about it.”
“Are you upset with me or your teammates?”
“Myself, mostly, but I’m also pretty mad at you still,” Iwaizumi retorted, any efforts at remaining civil abandoned.
“What, for getting in a car accident?” Hirose asked, a bit of bitterness seeping into his tone. He was supposed to be their wise coach who any player could rely on, but it was times like this that made the mere decade between them obvious.
“For refusing to pick up any of my calls and leaving me to manage the whole team myself on the day of our last qualifying match, actually.”
“You know that was out of my hands—,”
“The accident was, yeah. But sending me a one line text telling me about it and then expecting me to cover up for you while our game was less than two hours away? I feel like maybe you could have done a bit more, especially when you got off with nothing but a fractured leg.”
Hirose sighed. “I’m sorry. I should have taken more responsibility, I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” Iwaizumi fumed. He hadn’t been there while he tried to keep calm for two straight hours, having no idea if his coach was on the brink of death or not. The tension of facing the toughest team in the prefecture coupled with soothing the worries of his team that were wondering where the hell their coach was on the most important day of their team’s career would never be something Hirose would know.
And he wouldn’t know how Iwaizumi’s heart had shattered when his team had looked at him, eyes swimming with betrayal and anxiety after they had just lost the first set, and had learned from a player’s mom that their coach was in the hospital and Iwaizumi hadn’t told them.
Obviously, their performance had suffered after receiving that mental blow, and they suffered a humiliating defeat in the next two sets. Iwaizumi had been the obvious choice to blame, and it took all he had to keep from collapsing onto the floor as his teammates gazed at him with contempt, their words laced with vicious barbs born of shock at Iwaizumi’s deception and the crushing sting of their loss.
Iwaizumi had given up his role as captain early after that, and hadn’t spoken to anyone on the team save for Makki and Mattsun. He couldn’t bring himself to try out for Fukumoto’s volleyball team either, convinced that he had no right to the sacred bond of a team. But Hirose didn’t know that, and he never really would.
His coach struggled to make sense of his standoffishness, and Iwaizumi felt a bit of pity as he watched the man flounder for something to say. The man had never been the best at pep talks. Even still, Iwaizumi’s heart was already in knots of anticipation and anxiety, so he stood and gave Hirose a sharp bow.
“Thank you for being my coach for three years. But respectfully, I think the end of it ruined my life for a while.”
Hirose stood up, his eyes downturned in remorse. “Iwaizumi, I can’t grasp the full scale of how my actions impacted you. But please, allow me to apologize.”
“Apology accepted. I have to go now.”
Iwaizumi felt fingers grasp his arm as he turned to leave, and found Hirose looking at him, his lips in a tight line.
“I…. are you still playing, at least.”
“No.”
“You… you’ve quit entirely? Because of me?”
“I did, but not entirely because of what happened.”
“You did… so you’ve gotten back into it?”
“Yeah. I’m... studying to be an athletic trainer now. And I’m helping coach a team of my own now.”
“Oh, well, that’s great! That suits you, you’ll do well, very well.”
Iwaizumi turned to face his former coach, a small smirk appearing on his face. “I know. I’ll be a hell of a lot better than you, at least.”
Hirose looked shocked at Iwaizumi’s bold words, but eventually broke out into a dry laugh.
“I have no doubt about it.”
Iwaizumi took his leave shortly after, walking back into the event hall and consulting the map again before hurrying towards the concert hall. His conversation with Hirose had lasted longer than he had thought, but as he walked he felt as if some of the knots in his heart had untangled, and his steps had lightened, and allowed him to push forward to his friends and lover faster.
He texted Makki to ask where they were sitting, and received a text back a few seconds later directing him to the middle of the center section. Iwaizumi walked down the narrow aisle and scanned the rows of heads before spotting his friends and doing an awkward shuffle past the other impeccably dressed audience members and sitting next to Mattsun.
The competitors would be playing in a randomly selected order, and Iwaizumi’s fingers itched to text Oikawa and ask when he was going. He couldn’t though, as Oikawa had strictly forbidden him from contacting him, since that would supposedly ruin his very fragile state of mind.
A man walked onto the stage as the lights dimmed and pulled on his glasses before standing in front of a microphone to greet the audience.
“Welcome everyone to the 44th Cassia Vincas International Competition for Young Violinists. Today you will join us as we wait and see which of Asia’s violin prodigies rise to the top and qualify for the final competition in Lyon, France.”
“We will begin with a preliminary round in which our forty contestants will play a repertoire selected by the organizers of the competition, and the twelve highest scorers will move on to a gala concert this evening in which they will debut their original compositions in front of a committee of seasoned professionals. I hope you all will join me in encouraging the youth to display their shining qualities, and will root for them all to be able to stand tall on the world stage.”
Polite applause chorused throughout the room after the man stepped away from the microphone, and a young woman with a very professional air came forward and called the first contestant forward.
Even to the untrained ear, it was clear that the young violinist on stage was a master of her element. The ways she played complex melodies and how her fingers danced along the strings was both passionate and carefully controlled, and she played through the repertoire with a surefire confidence despite being the first competitor to stand upon the stage. She was met by smattering applause from the audience when the final note rang throughout the room, though the judges at the front of the room remained fixed in their seats, unperturbed by the awe around them.
The performances that followed were similar, every musician clearly an expert, with few deviations that were notably better or worse than the majority. After hearing the same songs so many times, Iwaizumi felt like it was slowly easier to tell where people messed up, even though he had only listened to the originals a few times before coming to watch the competition.
The three of them began to grow antsy after more than two thirds of the participants had gone and Oikawa had yet to show up. There had been a brief fifteen minute intermission around the halfway mark, but it had still been a few hours with no sign of the one they had come to see.
As if he had heard Iwaizumi’s thoughts, Oikawa’s name was the next to be called. Iwaizumi wasn’t sure if it was just in his head, but he felt as if the air changed when Oikawa walked onstage, an effortless elegance guiding his smooth entrance into the center of the stage. Half of his hair was tied back in thin braids that met behind his head in a ponytail and his clothes were artfully smoothed and draped across his lean figure. Part of his performance already began before he even placed his bow on his violin.
Immediately, Iwaizumi felt a sense of relief after Oikawa played the first few notes. There was an air of confidence around Oikawa that most of the other competitors had lacked, though it wasn’t overbearing and left room for a sense of humility that allowed his expressions and movements to align with the music he produced. Even as the songs sped up and slowed down, reached dramatic crescendos and slowed to a morose tune, he never faltered, and he delivered every song with the same tenacity, even as the repertoire stretched on and Oikawa was certainly beginning to tire.
The applause that graced Oikawa after the final song was overwhelming, and he dipped into a gracious bow before taking his leave with his head held high. Iwaizumi was certain that Oikawa had given the best performance of the night, despite his own bias, and he felt pity for the boy who walked shakily onto the stage after him. How did one even begin to try and top a performance like that?
Most of the other performances blurred together in Iwaizumi’s mind, save for a few that were really good or really bad. When the first half of the competition finally ended, the trio followed the rest of the hall out of the auditorium.
They wandered away from the concert hall, unknowingly tracing their path from the night before as they traversed the area looking for a place to get lunch before the gala that evening. Results would be posted in about an hour, though Iwaizumi had no doubt Oikawa would be moving forward.
After they settled on a Mediterranean restaurant, Makki and Mattsun went inside to secure them a table while Iwaizumi rummaged through his pocket and pulled out his wireless earbuds. He plugged one in before calling Oikawa to ask if he wanted takeout brought to him at the venue, since he doubted the boy would leave to get anything himself.
Oikawa answered after a few rings and only spoke long enough to tell Iwaizumi what he wanted and exchange brief words about how felt about his performance. He seemed to match Iwaizumi’s confidence in his performance, and Iwaizumi hung up with a small smile.
The trio lingered in the restaurant for a lot longer than they needed to, not that eager to go back and sit in the auditorium for another few hours. Iwaizumi figured twelve performances would be much more bearable than forty though. After they had enough of stalling, they paid for their food and Iwaizumi picked up the takeout he had ordered for Oikawa.
Makki and Mattsun got held up in a line for an ice cream vendor that had setup down the street from the concert hall, so Iwaizumi went ahead to deliver Oikawa’s food on his own. He checked his phone to see Oikawa had texted him to let him know he had made it to the next round, as well as directions about where to find his changing room behind the auditorium. Iwaizumi followed the directions carefully as he wandered back into the concert hall, taking a left down a hall mostly filled with disappointed contestants taking their leave and a few gala performers trying to walk off their nerves.
Iwaizumi scanned the names on the signs taped onto each door before stopping in front of one very familiar to him, knocking a few times before he heard someone tell him to come in from the other side.
Oikawa was lounging on a small couch at the far side of the room, the first few buttons of his shirt undone and his violin laying in its case on the couch beside him. He moved it once Iwaizumi walked in and patted the space next to him. Iwaizumi put the food on the low coffee table in front of the couch before sitting down next to Oikawa. He said nothing as Oikawa dug through the bag greedily, immediately taking a long sip of the lemonade Iwaizumi had stopped to get from a stand on the walk back.
“Where’s your dad?” Iwaizumi asked, the room noticeably empty of any sign of the sinister figure that had been lurking at the periphery of Iwaizumi’s life for the past few months.
“Who knows,” Oikawa answered, rolling his eyes. “Probably gloating in my success as his own to the other poor schmucks who didn’t get through.”
Iwaizumi tilted his head as Oikawa continued to plow through his lunch undeterred. He had been so tense and riddled with numerous anxieties before then, even yesterday at the festival, but here he was only hours away from his final competition, eating without a care in the world.
“I thought I would break your concentration by coming here.”
“For the first competition, yeah. But I know my piece is better than anything anyone else could possibly come up with, so there’s no reason for me to be afraid. Actually, more than anything, I was worried my dad would say something if he saw you here.”
As soon as the words left his lips, the door to the dressing room opened and a man with almost unbearable intensity stalked into the room. He bore a striking resemblance to Oikawa, though his thinning hair was mostly gray and everywhere Oikawa was soft and warm this man was sharp and frigid.
He took one glance at Oikawa and Iwaizumi before his face contorted into a vicious scowl.
“I thought I told you to stay focused. What is this supposed to be?”
“My lunch break,” Oikawa responded smoothly, barely looking up from the styrofoam carton in his lap. “You can’t expect me to perform while starving.”
“Your performance earlier was already sloppy. Need I remind you what will happen if—,”
“I know, you haven’t shut up about it for the past month. Give it a rest.”
Something dangerous flickered in the hard lines of Oikawa’s father’s face, but he restrained himself to only clenched fists and a set jaw. He spun on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut instead of responding further. Oikawa sighed once they were left alone once more, setting his food down with a slight tremor in his hands.
“I think you should go now,” Oikawa said softly, reaching for his violin at his side.
“Are you seriously going to rehearse? At least finish eating first.”
“My performance was sloppy. I placed fourth. Honestly, it should have been lower, but my presentation helped soften the blow a bit.”
“Oikawa, that doesn’t—,”
“It does matter. I need to focus if I really want to place in the top three.”
Iwaizumi’s lips flattened into a thin line as he watched Oikawa begin to clam up, hot frustration evaporating the last bits of patience he had in him.
“What was he threatening you with earlier, when you cut him off?”
Oikawa didn’t answer, instead wiping his hands with a napkin and standing with his violin in his hands.
“You should go, he’ll be back soon.”
Iwaizumi stood as well, his own anxieties and irritation finally reaching their breaking point.
“Oikawa, what the hell is your problem?”
“What do you mean?” Oikawa asked, his voice taking on a dangerous note, but Iwaizumi didn’t care.
“You never tell me anything. I only ever find out about the things that are hurting you from other people or when you literally can’t hold onto your secrecy any more.”
“I don’t want to worry you.”
“Worry me? Oikawa, I’m your boyfriend. It’s not a burden for me to just care about you.”
“Even if I did tell you it’s not like you can do anything about it. This is my battle.”
“We’re supposed to be partners,” Iwaizumi retorted angrily. “We’re supposed to be on the same side. But it feels like you never take that commitment seriously. I feel like all the time I’ve spent trying to be there for you and worrying about you, and doing all I can from the sidelines while you continue to push me there is something you take for granted. I’m tired of feeling like the only one taking this seriously.”
Oikawa’s eyes widened, hurt flashing through the warm brown and rendering it a much darker shade. “I’m not taking this seriously? Are you serious?”
Iwaizumi sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I let you in, I tell you what’s bothering me, but you never do the same. I know it’s difficult to be vulnerable, but if you really loved me I feel like maybe you would have learned to lean on me a little instead of only coming to see me with those gaudy fake smiles. I thought we were past that.”
“…. Do you mean that?”
Suddenly, Iwaizumi felt tired. He wasn’t sure what he meant, and even though he had finally let out the feelings he had kept bottled up for so long he felt his heart grow heavier.
“I…. I don’t know. You have to compete soon. Let’s talk about this again later.”
Iwaizumi didn’t wait for Oikawa to respond, heading straight for the door. He already had one foot outside when he heard Oikawa call out from behind him.
“Hajime, I love you. I really do.”
Iwaizumi said nothing, and let the door fall shut behind him with a small click.
The time between the exchange of biting words and the feeling of being settled into a plush chair in the concert hall passed in a muddled daze. Iwaizumi snapped back into full consciousness only when the lights around them dimmed, shrouding the stage in a cocoon of gold that made it stand out among the sea of dark, watchful eyes encircling it.
The first contestant, the twelfth finisher in the previous competition, stood upon the stage shakily and began with a fast-paced song that was clearly composed to showcase the musician’s technical prowess. It was impressive how easily the song varied between quick and slower pacing, but Iwaizumi felt nothing after the song ended, not even a slight semblance of emotion conveyed by the notes that had rung throughout the room.
Every song debuted on the concert hall’s stage after the first few were tinged with something shockingly personal about the one playing it. Some expressed feelings of deep melancholy or small windows into the cycle of their entire lives through the scarce minutes they spent onstage. Others made it clear that they were truly masters of their craft, their pieces sounding as complex and intricate as those composed by the greats that they had been tasked to play during the first half of the competition.
As Oikawa’s turn drew nearer, Iwaizumi struggled to come to terms with the opposing feelings churning within his mind. He mentally criticized himself for letting his emotions get the best of him right before Oikawa’s big moment, and he was beginning to regret the severity of the words he had used to express his discontent. He was angry, and lonely, and frustrated, and he had every right to feel these things, but he hadn’t wanted to ruin Oikawa’s competition for him. As the girl in fifth place played the last few notes of her composition, Iwaizumi felt his breath catch, hoping that Oikawa would pay little heed to his harsh words.
Oikawa had put together his perfect appearance when he walked back onstage for the second time, and the confidence in his gait and upturned chin set Iwaizumi’s mind a little at ease.
“Oikawa Tooru, Sonata of Two Stars.”
The song began softly, the notes lingering upon something vaguely sweet, and as Iwaizumi craned his ears to try and capture the feelings the song had been written with, his heart stalled. The wistfulness and mystery, the beginnings and the first rush of something new were familiar. As Iwaizumi listened to the nostalgic tone of the song, how it wrapped around his shoulders and pulled, urging him to move forward as the song picked up something greedy causing the momentum to pick up its pace.
It had been like that for Iwaizumi at first too. The first moment he had laid eyes on Oikawa had been an epiphany of sorts, and every moment since then trying to fully grasp the depth of their growing feelings for one another. The song stalled in places where things grew rocky between them, it slowed in others where time seemed to filter past them in slow motion, lost in each other’s company. Mounting passion led the song to its booming crescendo, where the light of their two stars finally met and entwined, the light practically shining from the notes that rang in the air and blinding Iwaizumi’s heart and mind.
From then on the song was sweet and vibrant and hopeful. It was all of the promises they whispered to each other in the dark, the thawing of their hearts and worries as they began to confide in each other more and more. The love they shared was put onto full display, yet Iwaizumi knew he was the only other person in the room that could truly pick out every intricacy tucked into the chords of the melody, the only one who could truly feel their love in every part of his soul.
But where the song should have concluded joyfully, an omen to the continuation of their love, a sharp melancholy took hold. The previous sweetness was overtaken by sharp threads of insecurity and anxiety, and they began to take over the piece. Gone were the sweet nothings and secretive laughter, instead replaced by anxious thoughts that knew no end, spiraling into an uncontrollable frenzy that echoed throughout the room and sent the air quivering with unease.
But then it stopped, and the song slowed. There was no comfort found, only uncertainty, and like the dark expanse of the night sky in a city of lights playing at stars, the song ended with the knowledge that something was there beyond the curtain of darkness, but whatever it was he could not see.
The unsatisfactory and depressing final notes contrasted sharply with the hopeful beginning, and the overall contradictions that had riddled the piece left the audience struggling to find a medium between awe at the technical prowess required to coherently perform such a piece, and confusion at exactly what feelings they were meant to be left with. Iwaizumi himself couldn’t concentrate on any of the other performances, certain that the song he had just heard was not what was meant to be performed that night, and that he was the one at fault for the sudden change.
His feet were leading him straight to the dressing rooms as soon as the lights brightened the room after the final contestant’s performance. If someone had asked Iwaizumi about anything that occurred between the moment Oikawa stepped off of the stage to the moment he was in front of his dressing room door, he wouldn’t be able to answer. Even when his hand was on the doorknob, he wasn’t jolted back to reality until he heard yelling coming from inside the room.
“How could you be so irresponsible?” Oikawa’s father demanded. “If you really needed to make alterations to your piece last minute you had plenty of chances before your actual performance.”
“I didn’t know it was going to change until I was up there playing,” Oikawa responded wearily. “And what does it matter? The crowd loved it.”
“Who gives a shit about the crowd? The judges are the ones you need to worry about. They aren’t going to take too kindly to you going off the rails.”
“I played every note perfectly, and then I improvised a bit due to the circumstances. They can’t be too harsh on me.”
Oikawa’s father scowled, and Iwaizumi could feel his heavy steps pacing around the room from where he was pressed up against the door.
“It will be fine,” Oikawa said, confidence clear in his tone. “No one can compose anything better than I can.”
“Yes, but they sure can play better than you. These competitions value perfection over emotion, you know that.”
“This gala is supposed to display emotion—,”
“Ever since that stupid boy came into your life all you ever talk about is feelings and passions. You’ve lost your edge. You won’t last in this industry with how soft you’ve become.”
Oikawa began to protest but Iwaizumi heard his father slam his hands down on something, most likely the coffee table.
“Pack your bags after the results are announced. I’ve realized that you need a lot more help than I thought.”
“What? That wasn’t what we agreed on! You said that as long as I passed through to the final competition I could stay here in Japan!”
“You won’t make it. And besides, you need discipline to truly make something of yourself. You won’t survive long on such flimsy things as love and passion.”
“No. I won’t leave my family, and I won’t leave Hajime.”
“Don’t test my patience, Tooru. You know what will happen to you, to Aiko if you don’t heed my advice.”
“You bastard, you fucking bastard,” Oikawa sputtered, and Iwaizumi cringed at the defeat he could feel in Oikawa’s words.
“This is for your own good. The program in California is much better suited to you than Fukumoto. Pack your things and I will come drive you to the airport in three days.”
Iwaizumi backed away from the door as it opened to let Oikawa’s father through, and he was left blissfully unnoticed as the older man turned and headed down the hall in the opposite direction.
He stayed there for a while, heart beating cold blood that spread through his veins and left him frozen in place. Oikawa was leaving? And to somewhere all the way across the world no less.
Despite his shock, Iwaizumi was unable to stay still when he heard soft sobs travel out into the hallway. He stalled in the doorway for a moment, his heart shattering further as he saw Oikawa crumpled on the couch, hands covering his face as his whole body shook. Iwaizumi rushed over and pulled Oikawa into his chest, and the other boy seemed overcome with emotion to be surprised.
They remained like that for a long time, and Iwaizumi’s eyes leaked tears of their own as he tried to keep his own body from trembling as he steadied that of his lover’s.
Eventually, Oikawa was able to gather himself together enough to talk.
“My dad told me recently that he’s gotten in contact with Takeru’s dad. He’s some rich asshole that owns this big cyber security company. He keeps threatening to tell him about where Aiko and Takeru are, and if he does I just know that the bastard will try and take custody of Takeru, just to spite her.”
“Couldn’t you just fight back? They can’t take Takeru without a good reason.”
“Aiko can’t afford some fancy pants lawyer to fight the legal team that guy probably has. Even with my help, I don’t have enough to support the three of us and get people to fight for us in court.”
Iwaizumi’s hand curled into a fist where it was resting in his lap. He moved it to take Oikawa’s hand in his own, unsure how else to comfort him when he himself felt so powerless.
“So you’re going to go?” Iwaizumi asked quietly.
“I… I don’t have much of a choice.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this might happen?”
“I thought I could avoid it. I thought I could deal with my dad myself. But I got too impulsive. Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“I hate competing. More than anything. I only do it to appease my dad so he’ll leave the three of us alone. But when I got up there that second time, after I thought about how much I’ve been hurting you, and how I’ve been putting my family through being stubborn and staying here, I felt so defeated. I didn’t know why I was fighting so hard to stay here. And so I played what I felt, instead of what I should have. I know I haven’t been opening up to you, so I decided to tell you I feel in the only way I know how.”
Iwaizumi felt something inside him crack, and he squeezed Oikawa’s hand weakly. “I was hurt, yeah, but it would hurt a lot more if you left. I know Takeru and Aiko feel the same way.”
“I know,” Oikawa said, resignation clear in the stoop of his shoulders and his tired voice. “But I don’t know what else to do. I can’t let someone take Takeru away from Aiko. I messed up, so now I have to go.”
Iwaizumi began to grow frustrated with how easily Oikawa was conceding to his father’s demands, how easily he was giving up everything he had fought so hard to preserve. He grabbed Oikawa’s face and forced him to meet Iwaizumi’s eyes.
“Is there really nothing you can do?” Iwaizumi asked, his voice breaking at the thought of being apart again.
Oikawa’s silence was enough of an answer, and Iwaizumi lowered his head for a moment to catch his breath. He looked back up at Oikawa, struggling to keep his tears at bay.
“Then go,” Iwaizumi said. “But I promise you, I’ll come after you and I’ll bring you back. One day.”
Tears erupted down both of their faces, and they held each other close, as if burning the memory of holding each other into their bodies would somehow soothe the ache of being separated by the sea, waiting for their barren, cold winter without each other to finally end.
—————————————————————
two years later
Even though he was miles away from the sea, Iwaizumi could have sworn he could hear the sounds of the waves crashing as he gazed out the window of the library. He had come to get some work out of the way before the weekend, but it appeared that anticipation for his trip to the beach with his friends this weekend was overpowering any concentration he may have had.
He closed his laptop and took a little while to put all of his books and computer away before putting his backpack on and taking his leave. It was a nice day out, albeit hot, but he had grown used to it after spending a year in California.
His senior year had gone off to a smooth start, and he had found it much easier to transition back into life in the States over the summer than he had his first year here. Now, he barely batted an eye as he ordered an iced coffee from the café on campus, finding it much easier to communicate with the locals after spending so long in their midst.
Sipping his drink, he stopped under a tree to text one of his friends and ask what time they would be leaving the next morning. He also saw that Makki had sent him a picture of his and Mattsun’s cat, so he took a few moments to type up a reply.
Iwaizumi had spent another year at Fukumoto before transferring to finish his next two years of school in the U.S. Makki and Mattsun had moved into a smaller apartment back home in Miyagi, seeing no real point in staying in a city they weren’t particularly fond of if Iwaizumi wasn’t around anymore.
While he waited for the speech bubble alerting him of Makki’s typing to morph into a text, he was approached by a short girl with long blonde hair and a radiant smile, who bashfully asked if she could have his number. This happened to Iwaizumi every so often, and yet he was still just as terrible at keeping his composure every time.
She was very pretty, and she seemed nice enough, but the thought of bright brown eyes and the pale blue seaglass fastened to the worn leather around his wrist put an apologetic smile on his face and he turned her down politely. The girl was wearing a UC Irvine shirt, and though he had never seen her on campus he hoped that for his own sanity he never would again.
Before Oikawa had left for California, they had decided to break up since Oikawa had figured his dad would make communication very difficult. It had killed them both to do so, and even though it had been so long Iwaizumi’s heart was still in the same hands it had been all those years ago.
He had searched for Oikawa relentlessly as soon as he had arrived in California, but struggling to bridge a culture gap and homesickness had put a damper on his efforts. He had never stopped looking, and had increased the intensity of his search after he had gotten fully settled, but still he had found no sign of Oikawa.
These thoughts plagued Iwaizumi until he was lying in bed in his dorm room, his roommate snoring softly at the other side of the room. He missed Oikawa, more and more everyday. But missing him in the late hours of night wasn’t going to help find him, and so Iwaizumi resigned himself to a night of fitful sleep.
Iwaizumi had opted to drive their group of friends to the beach. They took a road they had traversed many times, and the entire trip took only a half hour. As soon as they pulled into the parking lot, his friends in the back burst out of the car and began unpacking the umbrellas and towels they had brought with them. It was only a few weeks since the year had started, but they were already in need of a break and eager to take advantage of the last lingering traces of summer before the fall rolled in.
He and hisnfriend who had been sitting in the passenger seat next to him, Sam, had both signed up to surf with an instructor, so they separated from the rest of their group to get on their surfing gear and pick up their rental boards from a shop on the street next to the beach. They chatted about their summers as they walked, and Iwaizumi eyed an ice cream store for later as they walked along the storefronts in search of the surf shop.
It didn’t take long before they found it, and were welcomed in by a man with long blonde hair leaning lazily over the counter to take to another employee who was fiddling with one of the displays. He straightened when they walked in and greeted them with an easy smile before walking to the back to grab their boards. The other employee pointed them to a changing room near the back for them to change into the swimsuits they had brought, and they did before walking back out and collecting their boards.
“Ah shit,” Sam frowned, board under one arm and phone in the other. “Those idiots forgot to bring sunscreen.”
Iwaizumi couldn’t help but chuckle. “Of course they did.”
“They want us to get some before we go down there.”
“I can go,” Iwaizumi said. “I was planning to get a drink anyway.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind going with you.”
“No worries. Take my board though, will you?”
“Thanks, man. Don’t be late though, you know they don’t wait long before heading out,” Sam reminded him, taking his board under his other arm. Iwaizumi simply waved as Sam hurried to the beach and turned to navigate the stores again for somewhere he could get sunscreen.
He was distracted by the sound of music spilling out of an open door a few shops away. He approached it curiously, and it looked to be a music studio of some kind. There was no one at the front desk when he walked in, and so he followed the music further down the hall past the desk, hoping no one would yell at him for intruding.
Now that he was closer, the familiar notes of the violin drew him closer, and he felt as if the song that was being played was even more familiar to him than something simply on a meaningful instrument. He stopped in front of a door that was cracked open a bit, and as he leaned forward his eyes widened.
Even though it had been two years since he heard this song filling the expanse of the concert hall, he still recognized it immediately. Every moment that was captured within the notes played back to him as he stood at the door. As the song approached its final mournful measure, Iwaizumi couldn’t bear to hear their story end on such a tragic note again, so he pushed open the door, and the music halted when he came to stand in the doorway.
Oikawa looked different now. He had cut his hair much shorter, had swapped his glasses for what seemed to be contacts, leaving his wide eyes out on full display. They stared back at him, no doubt taking in the small changes that he had missed in the two years they had spent apart. After a few moments, it became unbearable to stand even those few steps apart, and they rushed towards each other and crashed into each other’s arms.
Iwaizumi held Oikawa tighter the longer they held on, still in disbelief that he was truly in his arms. He didn’t know that he had begun to cry until he moved his head away from where it rested on Oikawa’s shoulder and left his shirt damp. They didn’t speak for a long time, satisfied to stand in the middle of the room and bask in each other’s presence.
“I looked for you everywhere,” Iwaizumi said softly, running his hands over Oikawa’s cheeks.
“I had to erase all evidence of myself to get away from my dad. I would have left California too, but I knew you would come looking for me here, so I stayed.”
“I found you. I told you I would.”
“I know,” Oikawa beamed. “We promised to see the ocean together. I knew you would come here.”
Iwaizumi’s eyes softened. He took Oikawa’s hand in his, and felt his heart melt further when he gazed at the small metal ring still right where he had left it. He kissed Oikawa’s fingers gently, and held his hand in both of his own.
“We’re safe now, right? He can’t get you anymore?”
“No, no I don’t think he can. We’re safe.”
It was the cusp between summer and fall, the beginning of a new year of school, the end of the lasting remnants of homesickness from leaving Japan. But even still, standing in the small music room with Oikawa, the wind swirling around them through the open window carried the scent of fresh spring flowers, the chirp of songbirds celebrating their homecoming, a return to the place called home. With the promise of spring came a promise of home, and a sense of belonging as their arms wrapped around each other once more, safe and peaceful as the children sitting beneath a willow all those years ago.