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Iwaizumi tried to scrub the weariness from his eyes as he wandered into the nearby convenience store at two in the morning. He had volunteered for the trip and was happy to scout out cold medicine and some comfort food for his ailing mother. That didn’t mean he didn’t wish it weren’t the middle of the night.
Speeding through his shopping list, Iwaizumi was headed toward the sleepy-looking cashier before the freezer section caught his eye. Ice cream was out of the question for his mother, but he had a long night ahead of him and he’d be damned if he didn’t want something to look forward to.
One pint of green tea ice cream made its way into the basket, and Iwaizumi turned to head for the checkout when he nearly plowed into the one other shopper crazy enough to be out at this time of the night. “Oh, sorry, man. I wasn’t looking and I —” His jaw dropped when he encountered the most tired-looking person he had ever seen still standing upright. “Are you okay?”
The other guy, around Iwaizumi’s age with mussed brown hair and bloodshot eyes, gave him a dopey smile while he grabbed a Super Bucket of rocky road and slinked away to check out. As he walked away, he said something Iwaizumi couldn’t quite make out.
Pushing the weird encounter out of his mind, Iwaizumi checked out and slipped the shopping bag over his shoulder and headed for the exit. As he touched the door handle, he paused when he felt a prickle of sensation on his wrist.
Holding up his hand, Iwaizumi stared at the telltale strokes of hiragana surfacing on the inside of his wrist. He knew it would happen one day, but seeing it manifest for the first and only time in his life was almost surreal.
It took a minute, but the words finally clarified enough to make out. Iwaizumi choked when he murmured them under his breath. “‘God, I wanna take a bite out of those arms’.” He glared at the words. “Who the hell says shit like that?”
Knowing his alleged soulmate had to be someone he interacted with very recently, Iwaizumi cast a suspicious look over his shoulder in the general direction of the cashier, but somehow he doubted a middle aged man with glasses thicker than the walls of a shark tank could even see his arms, let alone be the person who was destined to be his perfect spiritual foil.
However, movement caught the corner of his eye, and Iwaizumi spied the guy from before settling onto a bus bench on the curb, spooning ice cream into his mouth straight from the bucket.
The run-in from before replayed in his head in slow motion, and all he could do was throw his head back and laugh. His stranger of destiny looked up at him, with his cheeks puffed up and a spoon dangling from his lips.
Catching his breath, Iwaizumi sat on the bench next to him and held out his hand. “Iwaizumi Hajime.”
Popping the spoon from his mouth, the guy returned the gesture with wide eyes. He swallowed hard and said, “Oikawa Tooru.”
Curiosity burned in Iwaizumi’s belly, and he gave into the urge to pull Oikawa’s wrist close enough to check his inner arm. He had a feeling it would be there, but Iwaizumi couldn’t help but snort when he saw his own words emblazoned on pale skin.
“Those have to be the worst first words ever.” Iwaizumi sprawled himself against the back of the bench and took in the vast stretch of night sky, the stars drowned out by streetlights. Somewhere in that vast span of lights, the powers that be decided the unkempt ice cream goblin on the bench next to him was meant to be at the center of his life.
“So, what now?” Iwaizumi asked. He peeked over Oikawa’s shoulder and chortled. “How did you eat that much so fast?”
Oikawa gave him a smug look and tapped the tip of Iwaizumi’s nose with his spoon. “I have good taste, Iwa-chan.”
Iwaizumi groaned. “At least I don’t have that tattooed on my body forever. I think it’s actually worse.”
“I think you’ll love it.” Oikawa slapped the lid back onto the bucket of ice cream and dug a sharpie out of his bag. He snatched Iwaizumi’s hand and scrawled a phone number on there in the girliest handwriting Iwaizumi had ever seen from a dude.
Oikawa stood when a taxi stopped at the curb and gave Iwaizumi a jaunty wave. “By the way, I do bite. By invitation only, but your odds are pretty good.”
Iwaizumi gawked as the taxi pulled away. They had been acquainted for all of fifteen minutes, and Oikawa was already one of the weirdest people Iwaizumi had ever met. The stranger part, however, was that Iwaizumi wasn’t averse to diving into the deep end of it.