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“Iwa-chan!”
The door to the locker room slammed open, ricocheting off the wall and echoing into the room. Iwaizumi had been late to practice, so naturally Tooru and left his team in Yahaba’s capable hands to come find him. He was his best friend after all!
Tooru hummed to himself while he walked deeper into the dimly lit room.
“Iwa-chan?”
Tooru rounded the corner before stumbling to a stop in front of Iwaizumi. On the floor. Of the boys locker room?
“Hajime?”
Panic snuck into Tooru’s voice. Why would Iwaizumi be here, on the floor, unless something was wrong. Like wrong wrong.
Ignoring the cracking of his knees, Tooru knelt down to where Iwaizumi was. And once he got down there he realized what exactly had brought Iwaizumi to his knees.
In his hands was a box. An unassuming shoe box, leftover from a pair of old shoes that Tooru has long since replaced.
Tooru feels his heartbeat in his toes.
That’s his Hajime box. His love box. All his sad pathetic feelings from the past ten years of his life and his crush on Iwaizumi poured into this box.
Yes, keeping it at school was stupid but his locker had a lock and he never thought that Iwaizumi would see it and maybe it was stupid and careless but that didn’t mean he deserved this, here, now.
He didn’t deserve Iwaizumi looking at him like he didn’t know who he was anymore.
“Oi-“, the words got stuck in Iwaizumi’s throat as he looked up at Tooru, “Oikawa. What is this?”
Tooru swallowed around the tennis ball in his throat.
“Don’t ask me that. Please.”
Tooru sat back suddenly, butt cold where it hits the tile beneath him.
“Please don’t make me say it.”
Iwaizumi picks up the top letter, the most recent one. Tooru knows because he wrote it yesterday. Iwaizumi cleared his throat before reading the words that would seal Tooru’s doom.
“Hajime,
I hated seeing you get confessed to today. It’s a blessing you don’t have feelings for me because it would suck with how many confessions I get. I don’t know what’s harder not to say to them: that I don’t like them because I’m gay or I don’t like them because I’m in love with you. Both things no one will ever know, not even you. I can’t lose you. I don’t want to lose you but maybe I could do without these feelings. It’s been ten years. I’ve been in love with you for ten years. I’m tired, Hajime. Can you tell? You’d probably yell at me for overworking myself with this too, just like volleyball. I’m sorry, Hajime. I want to be better for you. Please forgive me.
Love always,
Tooru”
Tooru started sobbing almost immediately, and his head ached from where it was buried in his hands but Iwaizumi continued reading, never stopping, never faltering. He could have been reading a weather report for all his tone gave away.
The letter sounded even more stupid in Iwaizumi’s voice than it did when Tooru wrote it yesterday. The silence was thick around them when Iwaizumi finished, but Tooru couldn’t look up, couldn’t break it, couldn’t use a signature Oikawa smirk to get out of this one.
“Tooru.”
All it took was one word and Tooru’s head was whipping up because Iwaizumi sounded wrecked. Like all the emotion he could’ve had while he was reading the letter came out in that one word. And once Tooru’s eyes focused, he realized Iwaizumi’s face wasn’t much better. He looked like he’d been crying just as hard as Tooru had been, but his face was pale like he’d just run a marathon.
“Tooru. What is this?”
“Iwa-Hajime, I- I just- it’s nothing.”
The words tripped over themselves on their way out, trying to stay in and escape at the same time. Iwaizumi’s eyes tilted towards the ceiling, unimpressed with Tooru’s alphabet soup.
“Is this a joke, Tooru?”
“What? Haj-“
Iwaizumi cut him off angrily, paleness of his face being swept away by blotchy redness.
“Is it a joke? Because you know how I feel about you? Some sick prank because you got a thrill out of me having a crush on you? I knew you didn’t feel the same way you didn’t have to do”, Iwaizumi tips the box over towards Tooru angrily causing the letters to cascade to the floor around them, “whatever this is!”
Tooru lunged forward as soon as the box left Iwaizumi’s hands but it was too late, and he was left holding the corner of an empty box. His hands scrabbled on the tile, trying to pick up the letters before they got lost to the ether of under lockers and unidentifiable puddles. Sure, this was the stupidest thing he’s ever done but he still didn’t want to lose them. No matter what he said in the letter yesterday, he loved Hajime and he wasn’t ashamed or regretful for it. Not now, not ever.
“This isn’t a joke, Hajime! This is,” Tooru shook one of the letters that he picked up for emphasis, “everything! Ten years of me being hopelessly in love with you knowing you’d never like me back. I know it’s pathetic. I’m sorry!”
Tooru can feel Iwaizumi’s eyes on him but he refused to look up. Refolding his letters along their creases and putting them gently in his box is much more interesting than whatever pity is gracing Iwaizumi’s face right now. Except soon a pair of hands joined his, gently grasping the letters off the floor before putting them in the box with just as much care.
Tooru wished he was a stronger man, less prone to impulse, less prone to giving into his emotions. But he’s not. So he looks up, then.
And Iwaizumi is looking back.
“I love you too, Tooru.”
Tooru inhaled sharply, air flooding his lungs.
“I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry I made you think that I didn’t or that you couldn’t tell me. I’m sorry that you had to do this. I’m sorry I took so long. Please, Tooru, is it too late?”
A single tear rolled down Iwaizumi’s cheek before falling onto the letter in his hand. His eyes widened when he realized and he looked up in a panic, all shyness of confession gone.
“I’m sorry I-“
Tooru cut him off with a kiss. He wishes he could say it was the most graceful kiss he’s ever given but it wasn’t even close. Tooru’s hands fisted in Iwaizumi’s shirt as he crushed his lips against Iwaizumi’s, more teeth and soul than anything else. But it was perfect. It was the best kiss Tooru ever had because Iwaizumi was kissing back and his hands were in Tooru’s hair and there was nothing that could have been more perfect. They pulled away for air, panting and frantic.
“It’s not too late, Hajime. It’ll never be too late.”