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He returns to his apartment late in the evening, nearly half past ten, a long night of assignments and readings stretching ahead. Despite nearly four hours of practice, Iwaizumi does not feel hungry; a heaviness sits deep within him, solid and, at least for the moment, impenetrable. He knows that whatever food he eats tonight will be nearly forced down.
It's a sensation that has become increasingly familiar to him over the past few weeks. A tension that seems to filter down the back of his neck, spreading across his shoulders, oftentimes settling in somewhere between his chest and the pit of his stomach. He realizes that it occurs most frequently at night, late nights, like tonight, when he walks home alone under an inky canvas of black sky. Nights when he returns to an empty apartment, a dark apartment, and, for a brief moment, standing under the cold glare of the overhead lights, feels only an unbearable pressure.
After depositing his keys and bag at the door, Iwaizumi slumps down at the kitchen table. He's considering what meal would be the quickest to prepare, when he glances at the screen of his phone: 22:37, Monday, July 12. No new messages. At that, something catches in his chest; a thumbprint bruise on his heart. He exhales a shaky sigh out through his nose, trying to focus on its slow warmth. Steady his mind, quell his own frustration, and get on with his night. Affording himself one final, grounding breath, he sets his phone facedown on the table and gets up to start dinner. He wonders if it’s even worth it to try and study tonight.
He manages to eat more than he initially expected, but abandons any pretense of working. Iwaizumi instead turns into his small living room, making his way over to the record player in the corner. It's a near-instinctual response, his body gravitating towards the only certain comfort currently accessible to him. Whatever music he plays right now will determine what direction the night will take: how soon he could safely go to bed without a leaden weight on his chest, and the onslaught of his own thoughts keeping him awake.
As he sifts through his box of records, one in particular catches his eye. Iwaizumi stares down at the cover, recalling the last time he listened to it: over a year ago, sitting on the floor of his childhood bedroom in Miyagi. He remembers the windows thrown open, the sweet spring air permeating the room as a flow of music streamed out. It had been nighttime then as well. He hadn’t been alone.
I really am a masochist, Iwaizumi thinks. His hands begin to move, almost of their own accord, as he slips the record out of the sleeve and places it on the turntable. For a split second, he hesitates; the tone arm hovers over the outermost groove, shaking slightly in his hand.
Fuck it. He exhales, sharply, then sets it down.
There are a few seconds of warm crackling before the familiar melody of a solo piano pours from his speakers. Immediately, Iwaizumi is granted a small relief, as if some internal strain begins to ease. He finds that his breath comes a little smoother, and the sinking force within his stomach recedes. Throwing himself back on the couch, he stares up at the ceiling and resists the bitter urge to check his phone.
It’s been three days since he and Oikawa last messaged each other, a fact that Iwaizumi can no longer deny as the root of his recent anxiety. It's unsettling, unnatural, even, this recent shift in their dynamic. Ever since Oikawa and Iwaizumi received their first cell phones, they texted each other every day, nonstop, hundreds of messages between them. Most were sent by Oikawa, in rapid bursts of chatter, with Iwaizumi never failing to respond. He would feign annoyance at the absurdity of being sent over twenty texts at a time—many just single characters or intricately composed kaomoji—but, in all truthfulness, he couldn’t imagine what his day would look like without them. Those lines of text were a constant in his life, tethering him to Oikawa's ineffable presence during the brief periods in which they were physically separate.
For a while, after Oikawa left for Argentina, nothing really changed. Iwaizumi figured they talked even more than they did in high school, video-chatting and calling one another nearly every other day in addition to their standard, high-volume texting. As Oikawa slowly acclimated to life in a new country, they settled on weekly calls, trading life updates for hours on end. This routine continued smoothly: through fall, and winter, and even when Oikawa chose to stay in Argentina for New Year's. It was only when the final days of spring blurred into a hectic, feverish summer that their steadfast pattern of communication started to falter. What began as a hairline fracture, a few rescheduled calls and overlooked messages, feels now like a stark chasm. The new distance between them, between their words, is irrefutable.
Iwaizumi watched as their once-constant stream of texts was reduced to sporadic bursts of messages, followed by hours, and now days, of silence. Their phone calls were far less frequent as well; just a half-hour or so squeezed in between classes or practice, whenever a chance arose. He takes some relief in the fact that when they do manage to talk, their usual rapport returns quickly. No matter how brief, their conversations are still marked by well-versed banter and the occasional, quieter words of encouragement. But he knows they both sense it—a gradual pull apart, a lingering hesitation, a novel uncertainty introduced to a relationship that had been as easy and natural as breathing.
Iwaizumi is well aware of how packed their schedules are, and how vast the time difference between them remains. A part of him is almost embarrassed at how clingy it makes him feel, experiencing a physical reaction to the stinging gaps of silence that now seem to define their correspondence. Yet nothing can subdue the gnawing doubt in the back of his mind, the dark spots of apprehension that cloud his head and make him wonder how much worse can it get.
The song changes. Iwaizumi closes his eyes, wanting to think of anything other than phone calls and time zones and stunted conversations.
He remembers this song. He had played it for Oikawa, on that night in his bedroom, as the spring air mingled with the faint notes of the piano. They sat on the floor against his bed, illuminated by a single lamp and the wash of the moon. It was well past midnight; they were tired, drunk with drowsiness. He remembers Oikawa leaning over to rest his head on Iwaizumi’s shoulder, fitting himself close by his side. Eyelids heavy in the half-light, he asked Iwaizumi to explain why he liked this song, this album, why he chose to play it here, now, just for them. And so Iwaizumi told him—described to Oikawa, in low tones, how single notes were threaded together to create musical phrases, how just a solo piano could cast every emotion imaginable from the simple press of finger to key. Oikawa hummed and gave a small nod, and Iwaizumi knew no matter how close he approached sleep, he was still listening.
He remembers the soft heat of Oikawa’s breath on his neck, the brush of his nose against his lower jaw. And in the momentary silence between the end of the song and the start of the next, Iwaizumi reached out, slowly, resolutely, to graze his thumb across the side of Oikawa’s hand and lace their fingers together.
Neither of them spoke, nor moved. They remained close and still, hands linked, for the remainder of the song. And then he heard Oikawa's voice.
“I think sometimes I hate change," he said, with a quiet certainty, as if he had been considering this for a while now. Oikawa paused, and turned his face further into the crook of Iwaizumi's neck, to bury his next words and any implications they held. “Because I don’t want this to change. I don’t want us to change.”
Iwaizumi had remained silent, but wrapped his arm around Oikawa, pulling him in close until his head lay firmly against Iwaizumi's chest. He remembers feathery strands of hair on his chin, the steady rise and fall of Oikawa’s back as he breathed. He remembers Oikawa lifting their laced hands up to his heart, as if to cradle them in the space between their bodies.
“Tell me we won’t change.”
Oikawa’s whisper was near inaudible against the fabric of Iwaizumi’s shirt. But he heard the plea in it, the last grasp at a promise that some things, one thing, could remain constant.
He remembers he did not answer. He could not answer, because change is inevitable, unrelenting, impervious to desires or promises. Change was something they accepted as soon as their post-high school paths began to diverge, across a sea of time and space, pulling them forward at the price of pulling them apart. Iwaizumi knew this, and he knew Oikawa knew it, too; an intimate and painful understanding carried within him at the precipice of his new life. So Iwaizumi did not—could not—say any of this to Oikawa. Instead, he tilted his head down, gently pressing his lips against Oikawa’s brow, hoping that whatever assurance he craved could be found in that moment together.
The song changes. Iwaizumi opens his eyes, feeling a sheen of wetness across his cheeks. He stares upwards briefly, letting the glare of the ceiling light burn spots in his vision before throwing an arm over his eyes. The tightness across his chest is now being replaced by a surging well of emotion. He feels anger and confusion and desperation and above all, desire—for a familiar hand in his, a breath against his neck, and the warmth of someone he thought he would always know by his side.
He can’t be sure when exactly his feelings towards Oikawa evolved into such visceral want. Suddenly, every glance, every touch, no matter how casual, threw a flame across his skin and a vice grip around his heart. And he knew, he fucking knew, that Oikawa felt it too: when they were near each other, and every particle of space between them would ignite and beg them to close the distance; when they were apart, persisting in each other’s minds as a complete image of their ideal selves.
Iwaizumi now views his time in high school as a chronology of missed chances; hundreds upon thousands of unresolved gestures, hinting towards a deeper intimacy. He remembers the little things, like how Oikawa would hook his chin over Iwaizumi’s shoulder whenever he wanted attention, drape his legs across Iwaizumi’s whenever they sat down on the couch, brush his fingers against Iwaizumi’s whenever they stood close, hold his face in front of Iwaizumi’s and gaze intently into his eyes whenever he was excited. Iwaizumi now imagines reaching over his shoulder and running a hand through Oikawa’s hair, grazing his fingers down the bare skin of Oikawa’s long legs, grasping Oikawa’s hand within his own, reaching out to cup Oikawa’s face, returning his gaze, and pressing their lips together. He imagines the raw comfort of holding Oikawa—when he wakes in the morning, when he falls asleep at night, while watching a movie, while listening to music, during the sunset, beneath the twilight stars of Miyagi, at any time, any place.
The song changes. The last track on the album. Iwaizumi rubs at his eyes with his sleeve, curses in frustration. The pressure within him, the pressure of 18,000 kilometers, of a 12-hour time difference, of trailing conversations, of restless nights, of unrealized touches, is released. Hot tears seep down his face as he comes to the stark realization that he is now haunted: by an ineffable presence, by phantom comforts, and by the ghost of a reality that could have been theirs. How much has changed between them, truly? When they see each other again—when would they see each other again? —what kind of desires, what kind of possibilities, would remain?
He wants to believe that the threads once binding them together, now fraying and fallen, can be woven anew and held against any distance or force of change. He has to believe that there are some things change doesn't take, sacred moments that are held infinite: such as the two of them, sitting on the floor of his bedroom, holding each other to the melody of a solo piano.
The final song ends. Iwaizumi steadies his breath, chest rising up, then down, then up again, as he listens to the faint skip of the record. After a few minutes, he raises his arm away from his face and checks his phone. Midnight in Japan. Noon in Argentina. A thought begins to form in his mind, a reluctant vision growing clearer after the violent catharsis of remembering. Slowly, resolutely, Iwaizumi types out a short message; his finger hovers over the screen for the briefest of moments, before hitting send.
With that, Iwaizumi gets up from the couch and turns off the record player. He makes his way to the bedroom, finally ready to sleep. There's nothing left to think about.