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The call arrived at three and twenty-eight in the morning (not what people would describe a calling time. Three and twenty-eight in the morning was a sleeping time.) quick as lighting. Only a ring, and then it had stopped. If Iwaizumi hadn’t been already awake for only God knew why – it wasn’t like he had homework to catch up, and he wasn’t sure as hell practicing at that damned hour. He wasn’t Oikawa and he actually cared about his sleep routine. Sleep just seemed to elude him when he needed it the most. – he wouldn’t have heard it all. But he was, awake, that’s it, and that half-ring irked him wrong.
Who is the asshole calling now?
No one with self-care apparently.
When he grabbed his phone, sitting comfortably on his bed table while charging, and saw who the aforementioned asshole was, he couldn’t count himself surprised.
One (1) missing call(s) from ‘Trashykawa’
Of course it was him, he sighed.
Ignoring the nagging voice in his brain (which sounded a lot like his older sister one. And that wasn’t a surprise, either, because Nakao spent more time scolding him than eating milk bread, and everybody knew that Nakao loved milk bread with a passion that rivaled Oikawa’s – a fact that actually annoyed the setter, and it was always funny to see the two of them fighting over who ate more milk bread. Or baked it better. At least he would get free food, since he was forced to be the judge – and that she would always bring a slice with her) that told him that this wasn’t actually normal, that this was something weirder than usual (and Oikawa was pretty weird, and they both together were pretty weird. The important difference was that, while Iwaizumi was weird only around the other, Oikawa was weird at any time. He and his conspiration theories.), he swiped up the screen, his finger hovering for a second over the ‘call back’ button, before he hit it shrugging.
He waited for the other to pick up.
One ring.
From the window he could see the crescent moon. It was a clear night and the stars shined gently, little gems embedded on the deep blue sky. The branches of the tree in his garden waved happily, meaning that a nice, feisty wind was blowing outside.
Two rings.
He could feel that his eyes were tired, heavy from fatigue and lack of sleep. Tomorrow I’ll have dark circles, he thought. Oh, well. I don’t really care.
He did care. Just a tiny bit. After all, he had a reputation to maintain. Iwaizumi was the responsible one, he didn’t want Oikawa joking around and implying who knows what.
Three rings.
The same Oikawa wasn’t answering. He frowned. Maybe he has, for some kind of miracle, already gone to slee-
“Hello?”
Relief overwhelmed him. He hadn’t even realized how worried he had been before hearing Oikawa’s breathless voice.
His shoulders relaxed.
“Oi.”
The other didn’t reply, and Iwaizumi stayed silent as well.
Both of them didn’t talk.
After a few minutes, a loud beep announced to him that the call had been terminated.
Iwaizumi didn’t sleep that night, thinking about what had just happened.
Sometimes silence weighted more than words.
(When he got to school the next day, if Oikawa was less talkative than usual and Iwaizumi didn’t yell at him as much as usual, well, nobody said anything, and it wasn’t their damn business anyway.)
*
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa greeted him, and his voice had a cheery inflection in it that shouldn’t have made Iwaizumi’s heart pound out of rhythm but that it still did.
“What?” he deadpanned.
“Do you think aliens reproduce sexually or asexually?”
A beat. He let go the loose string of his jersey that he had been playing with, and slowly blinked. What the actual fuck.
“Why the heck are you calling me at – Iwaizumi took the phone away from his ear to look at the hour and groaned at how late it was – two in the morning to ask me about… aliens?!”
Iwaizumi thought about going to see a specialist, because if the very remote case of him crushing on that idiot was, well, not so remote, then he would need serious help.
It had been three weeks from that first weird call, and, while it would have been lying if Iwaizumi didn’t admit that he had thought about it more often than he had wished to, in the end it had been overshadowed by all his other duties, first of all the incoming Inter-High. Volleyball practice had been particularly intense, and for a good reason, too. This was their last chance to beat Shiratorizawa, go to the Nationals and win. Their last try. And they wouldn’t waste it on anyone.
So, they practiced, and then practiced some more, until their legs gave out.
Iwaizumi was too tired to think about anything else that wasn’t schoolwork and the incoming matches.
He could feel Oikawa’s pout. “Well, you answered me.” Iwaizumi held a sigh. He isn’t saying anything that isn’t true, his mind supplied. Don’t care, he retorted, then realized he was arguing with himself and stopped.
I seriously need to sleep. I’m going crazy.
“If I knew I was going to listen to you talking about aliens I wouldn’t have.”
“Mean, Iwa-chan, you’re awful,” Oikawa whined, and Iwaizumi let out a smile, glad the other couldn’t see him. He was pretty endearing sometimes. “Nobody is forcing you to stay, Trashykawa. You can hang up.”
A loud gasp came from the other side.
“I would never Iwa-chan.” Iwaizumi pictured his best friend bringing his right hand to his chest, right above his heart, his mouth comically opening wide, his head shaking right and left, hair flying around as he did. Then, for further graveness, Oikawa repeated it. “Never.”
“I’m so moved now, really.”
“No need to be, Iwa-chan, you know I’m a gentleman.”
“Gentleman my ass.”
“See. I’m such a gentleman that I’m not going to hang up, even though what you said was totally uncalled for.”
“You’re uncalled for.”
“Mean. I like your sister better.”
“You don’t.”
“I don’t.”
Iwaizumi didn’t answer, too occupied to stop his lips from turning up and shaping into a smile, before giving in, and there was a lull in the conversation, similar to the one of some nights ago, yet gentler. Softer.
Iwaizumi didn’t know what to do. Was he supposed to ask Oikawa what was going on? He wouldn’t say the truth, and you know it. Yes, he knew it. But should he try?
Maybe, Iwaizumi was scared of knowing.
Maybe, and this ‘maybe’ sounded a lot like the truth, he was scared that, if he asked Oikawa, the other wouldn’t call him anymore.
This time, Oikawa broke the silence, just before it became too heavy.
“So, asexually or…?”
Iwaizumi groaned.
*
The next time, it was Iwaizumi that called.
Neither of them talked, but it was okay.
Iwaizumi wouldn’t have been able to say anything anyway.
He was too busy trying to keep his tears silent.
*
(Grief was weird.
You’d wake up one day and everything would be just the same as the day before, except for a single missing piece.
It was like you were in a march and everybody was playing their own instruments, enjoying life as its best: there was the trombone, blasting loud as ever, and the drums added the rhythm and made everyone shake. But when it was time for the clarinet solo, the clarinet never came, and, after a second of awkwardness, the bass picked up the pace and filled the silence.
Yet it was still wrong.
Everybody was waiting for that one instrument, but that instrument didn’t play, in the end, leaving everybody bewildered and confused, asking “where is it, where is the melody, why is he not playing?”.
Why there was silence instead of music?
Iwaizumi kept looking for the clarinet in every room of his house, but no one was there.
Grief, he found out, was dissonance.
Grief was dissonance and an empty hole you cannot fill.
What do you do when light hits the crystal and it breaks?
How do you fix the broken?
How do you find the missing?)
*
His sister’s funeral happened in a sunny day. There was some kind of irony in that.
Iwaizumi found himself smiling.
It was bitter.
*
The phone rang.
He ignored it.
The phone rang again.
He turned around and blacked the world out.
*
“Hey, Iwa-chan, it’s me, your favorite person! I bet you miss the sound of my voice. I have found this interesting theory about the Big Foot and I bet you’ll love it! I know you say you hate them, but Oikawa knows better. So, call me back.
I’ll answer.”
*
He answered.
*
Practice had been hellish that day. His whole body ached as he took a hot shower, hoping the water would loosen up his muscles.
Iwaizumi almost sighed. This feels good.
He let his eyes close, and just stood there, under the endless stream of water, vapor surrounding him.
This is good.
The image of Oikawa’s focused eyes that he had had when he had tossed to him the last ball of the match flashed in his mind. The way those usually casual features would sharpen, how his smile from goofy and sheepish would turn intense.
A shiver travelled through his whole body along the little drops of water, from the head, reaching his shoulders and there wrapping tight around his neck, then caressed his chest and went down to his feet.
He turned off the water.
His legs were starting to give in anyway.
As he toweled his hair, his phone started vibrating on the desk.
Iwaizumi ignored it in favor of throwing the towel on the ground and grabbing his pajama shirt.
I’m so tired, he yawned. His bones cracked as he stretched his back, and he made his way to the bed.
Once under the soft blankets, he closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
Ring, ring, ring.
Ugh.
Iwaizumi opened his eyes. Fuck.
Fuck, why couldn’t anybody let him sleep, for God’s sake?
The phone stopped ringing, just to start again.
Unwillingly he reached out with his arm and grabbed the damned thing, pressing ‘receive call’ without even look at the screen.
“Whatever you want, whichever asshole you are, choose another fucking hour, I swea-”
“Iwa-chan?”
It wasn’t that the person who had called was Oikawa – because of course it was him. This, he thought, felt like a horrible déjà vu. – that stopped him on his tracks.
No.
What stopped him was Oikawa’s voice.
Instead of screaming his name like he usually did, with that sing-song intonation he put into it, which always managed to annoy Iwaizumi even on his better days (and those days were as rare as they came), Oikawa had muttered it, in a breathy, pained voice that left no room for arguments.
“Oikawa?”
When the other didn’t reply, he got up, sleep completely forgotten.
A dark hole started spreading out in the pit of his chest, gnawing at him, growing and growing.
“Trashykawa, answer to me, damnit!”
“Iwa—Hajime, it hurts.”
His first name startled him. Oikawa hadn’t used it since they were eleven.
Iwaizumi put his shoes on and without even grabbing a jacket he ran out of his room, went down the stairs in series by two and get out of his house. “I’m coming.”
Oikawa – the fucker – dared to laugh. “Shut up,” he snarled, then “talk to me.”
“A-always, always contradictory, Iwa-chan. Do you want me to talk or shut up?”
“I’m not being contradictory, I’m being wistful.”
“Ah, yeah?”
“Yeah, Trashykawa. Do you know what that means, at least?”
“Hey, of course I know. I am smarter than you.”
“Believe whatever you want, Trashykawa.”
He didn’t say anything as he focused on running toward the gym. He hadn’t asked where the other was, but he didn’t need Oikawa to tell him. He knew that he was there, because, somehow, the setter could find every reason in the world why he should stay at school and practice more.
“Talk, Tooru, come on,” he pressed, as the other didn’t reply. “I can’t believe I’m asking you this but talk.”
For a while the silence kept festering and Iwaizumi feared that his friend had fainted.
But then he talked.
“I- I really messed up this time.”
It was just a whisper, but enough to sink Iwaizumi’s heart.
I really messed up this time.
“My knee- my knee is hurting an- and I don’t know what to do.”
Iwaizumi ran faster.
“What if,” Oikawa began again, interrupting himself for a second, his voice breaking “what if I can’t play volleyball anymore?”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
Iwaizumi himself was surprised by the firmness of his own voice.
“You mess up a lot of times, idiot. You mess up when you wake up late to class because you have been staying up until late to watch those shitty documentaries you love.”
He ignored Oikawa’s ‘they’re not shitty!’ and turned right. He was almost there.
“You mess up when you forget to eat for days and then feel dizzy during practice. Don’t think we have never noticed. You’re not as subtle as you think you are.”
He saw his school.
“You mess up when you try to charm some girls even though it shouldn’t be the right moment to.” Saying this made Iwaizumi’s insides flame up with jealousy. He swallowed it down, as he always did and as he always would.
“You messed up this time too? Well, then, you fucker, you’ll survive it.”
He hung up, the gym’s door right in front of him.
It was slightly open. He pushed it and entered. Inside, on the ground beside the changing room, his head leant on the wall, phone in hand, eyes closed and face wet, laid Oikawa.
Having heard him, Oikawa looked up at him. A grimace spread on his face. It took a moment for Iwaizumi to realize that it was supposed to be a smile. That idiot. That stupid, dumb, unreasonable idiot.
He ran to the other side, and gently took Oikawa’s hand into his own, separating the cold fingers so that they wouldn’t make a fist anymore. He was shaking, and from this close he could see that his lips were bitten and slightly bleeding. His eyes were red and puffy, and his forehead beaded with sweat.
Shit, shit.
He had never seen him like that.
I’m scared, he admitted to himself. And he was. Because a broken Oikawa wasn’t his Oikawa. Because his knee really looked bad. Fucked up.
The air was suddenly too thin. He gasped, trying to take it in, but he coughed instead. Why are those stupid lungs not working?
Oikawa whimpered. “Hajime?”
That was enough to ground him.
Iwaizumi gritted his teeth.
He needs me now. Panic later. Focus now.
“I’m here, Tooru. I’m here.”
Oikawa’s grip on his hand got tighter. He pushed himself off the wall, and let his body fall onto Iwaizumi.
Iwaizumi cradled him as his setter – his, his, his – wept and cried and yelled.
“I’m here.”
*
Later he called the ambulance (something he should have done before, he knew it, but whatever.) Deciding that the pavement wasn’t the best place to let his hurt friend lie, he picked him up, extra careful about not jostling his leg.
“Hey,” Oikawa exclaimed. “You don’t need to pick me up, I’m an adult.” Iwaizumi snorted. “You’re eighteen, Shittykawa. I wouldn’t count that as being an adult.”
He put the other down on the bench gently.
Oikawa didn’t let his hand, so Iwaizumi didn’t, too.
“Also, adults are supposed to be responsible. Never heard of that?”
He expected Oikawa to answer him back, but no answer came. He turned around to face him.
He was looking at his knee, and the hand that wasn’t holding Iwaizumi’s was clenched on his side.
And his eyes.
“Stop it.”
Oikawa blinked once. Then he raised his head. “What?” he mumbled. Oikawa doesn’t mumble, he thought.
“I said,” and he plopped himself next to the other, “stop it. Stop overthinking. We’ll fix it.”
Don’t think I’m giving up on you.
We’ll fix it.
Don’t think about anything else.
Oikawa gave him a quivering, sad smile. Something broke inside Iwaizumi.
Please, please.
Don’t think.
Don’t smile like that.
We’ll fix it.
“How do you know it?”
Iwaizumi paused.
How do I know it?
He looked at his friend. His friend, who had gone through everything life had thrown at him and still made it out alive.
His friend, who didn’t think himself as ‘talented’ but still gave his all, nothing less, and tried his best.
His friend, who never cried.
His friend, who made a fool out of himself just so others could feel better, just so the atmosphere after a long day would lighten. Because, if they can find the energy to laugh, Iwa-chan, then they can still go on.
His friend, who, when Iwaizumi’s sister had died, had waited for him, and called him every night, even though Iwaizumi had never answered.
His friend, who also happened to be the boy Iwaizumi had been in love with for the past two years of his life.
How do I know it, he asks.
Nobody knew Oikawa better than him.
That was his strength.
Iwaizumi shrugged.
“Because it’s you.”
Because it’s you, and you’ll never give up.
*
(“Nice pajamas, Iwa-chan.”
“What- oh. I was in a hurry, idiot. I didn’t have time to dress.”
“Don’t worry, Iwa-chan, no one will know that your pants have little, cute, innocent, nice bu- ”
“Another word from your lips, Shittykawa, and I’m dropping you.”
“You’d never.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Mean. I hate you.”
“You don’t.”
“I don’t.”)