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i.
"G'morning, Sleeping Beauty," Takahiro announces in greeting, his voice in a low drawl. It's their second day at their final training camp and the sun hits Tooru's face the moment his teammate slides open the blinds. He opens his eyes with a scowl. "Nice to see that your beloved Iwa-chan has finally kissed your groggy ass awake. How goes thine night with thy Prince?"
"Maybe 'Belle' would be the more appropriate name, don't you think?" Issei interjects, almost helpfully.
Tooru sprawls his limbs out on Hajime's rolled out futon, movements like a cat stretching on a languid morning. The first years have long since left the room to set up the equipment in the gym.
"After all those times good ol' Iwaizumi's had to put up with Oikawa complaining about him being so gruff and brutish, I wouldn't put it past him to name him as the Beast."
"You've got a point there, 'Hiro–"
"But is Oikawa even a Beauty though?" Hajime asks as he joins in on them snickering, hand not yet leaving its place in Tooru's hair.
Tooru untangles himself from Hajime's blanket to shoot his best friend a quick glare for his defiant act of betrayal. Hajime merely grunts and pats his head once more before the three of them burst out in hysterical laughter.
"Rude!"
ii.
"You look ugly when you cry," Hajime tells him the day Seijou loses its spot at Nationals, but mostly because he doesn't like to see his best friend so sad. Tooru knows he's lying. Tooru is a pretty face on most days, if not all.
To Hajime, he knows, Tooru is always beautiful.
They're walking home later that evening when Hajime decides to begin their conversation anew, breaking the silence that had fallen over them since the two had left the school gym. The words spill out of Hajime like a dam, and Tooru only manages to splutter dumbfoundedly at the sudden onslaught of the other's words. Hajime goes on, undeterred, voice as steadfast and as solemn as though speaking an oath.
"You're the best partner that I can boast about," Hajime says as he raises his head to look up towards the sky, gaze bright with pride and the faint light of the streetlamps that catch in his eyes. The moon is their sole witness for tonight. "You're a really amazing setter."
He says it like a comfort. Like a fact.
Still, it doesn't make the bitter sting of defeat hurt any less. Oikawa Tooru is a boy who yearns for more; with stars in his eyes and his head in the clouds. Why would Hajime ever think he could be consoled with the thought of anything less than victory?
"Even if your team changes from now on," Hajime continues as he turns to face him, lips graced with just the slightest upcurl of a grin, "that fact will never change–"
And really, really, Tooru should have seen this coming.
"–but when we fight, I will defeat you with all my strength."
"I wouldn't want it any other way," Tooru agrees, and throws Hajime his brightest smile back.
iii.
Hajime confesses to Tooru first.
It happens as they're preparing for the annual school festival. Their section has decided by a vote to perform a play – an original creation set in a western medieval world. Issei has been working on the script alongside Takahiro for days now, and the rest of their class had all been surprisingly efficient with their hands to make for a believable set of costumes and props.
Tooru is entrusted with a post on the guard tower – a role unfitting for him in Hajime's honest point of view, since his childhood friend seemed to be more suited to the position of the demon king, if not the overly dramatic damsel-in-distress. Still, what with volleyball practices getting in the way of nightly rehearsals, this was the best compromise Tooru was able to strike with their president instead of his initial casting as the princely protagonist.
Hajime, too, plays a minor role as a fellow knight in shining armor, though he stays closer to the ground and stands guard in front of their kingdom's poster-painted-medieval gates. Takahiro brings along his pet cockatiel as an additional prop – a sit-in for a carrier pigeon from their alluded-to time period – and Hajime helps babysit Maro-chan whenever her owner has his hands full with Elmer's glue and scraps of recycled cardboard.
"How do I look, Iwa-chan?" Tooru asks once he steps out of the home-ec room, clad in a costume sewn by the expert hands of the girls in their class. Hajime does little else but stick his tongue out in mock disgust before stepping inside the classroom to take his turn. Tooru had, as usual, gone first.
Later, once everyone is finished donning their medieval apparel for a dress rehearsal, their class heads over to the auditorium to do a full run of the skit. Hajime makes a show of scribbling onto a coffee-stained piece of parchment after hearing news of an impending riot to overthrow the king, and he stuffs the message into a sugar-frosted fake glass bottle for quick delivery.
Maro-chan, however, despite the past five days of babysitting and animal-training done by both Hajime and Takahiro throughout the week, seems entirely uncommitted to her role and thus refuses to do her part in the play.
This leaves Hajime to do the next best thing.
He tosses the bottle across the stage, throwing it over his head to reach the guard on the other side of the high tower. The message fortunately reaches Tooru with ease, but it also not-so-fortunately lands a hit straight on the other boy's poor nose. Well.
Hajime became Seijou's ace as a spiker and not for his setting abilities, anyway.
Tooru yelps at the impact, rubbing at his sore nose – the sole casualty from Hajime's slip-up. At the very least, they were lucky enough not to draw any blood.
'Sorry,' Hajime mouths to him, breaking character to shoot the other boy a silent apology.
Tooru pouts, face drawn up in its usual boyish pettiness, but he carries on with his role and proceeds to open up the wrinkled note in the now-broken bottle anyway. It is crumpled, worn, dog-eared at the edges. He brushes off specks of sugar-glass shards in an attempt to read the poorly written and very hurried chicken scratch of Hajime's handwriting, face softening as he makes sense of the other's words.
It reads: You look beautiful today as always. I think I could be in love with you.
iv.
He will cherish these days in all the times that they have left.
Tooru pockets it like a treasure, the way Hajime feels against him, the way that he smiles as Tooru holds him close to his chest, the way he thinks it says to him I love you. If Tooru nuzzles closer, he will strain his ears to listen, and the soft grunting snores that couple the steady sound of Hajime's deep breathing comes to Hajime as sweetly as does a lullaby.
Listen, Tooru hears in the way Hajime's heart proudly sings, this is the way I have always loved you.
Tooru buries the love he's developed for Hajime in the deepest chamber of his heart. He tucks it away like a memento - his dearest, most precious thing - the same careful way he always did with their faded highschool polaroids and his cringey unsent love letters and the storybook Hajime first gave to him as a gift when they were five – with its pages browning, dusty and aged with the corners worn dog-eared at the edges.
This is a memory that Tooru will keep with him forever, like a secret he will carry to the grave.
v.
"Shittykawa," Hajime greets when he comes to send Tooru off, red-faced and sweaty after rushing over to the airport as soon as he'd finished his turn marching off the stage. Tooru's missed the ceremony in favor of checking in for his flight but, he reasons, what is a meager highschool graduation compared to a ticket towards his future? Argentina waits for no one.
"So rude, Iwa-chan," Tooru tuts, lips curled down in his signature moue. "Is that really how you want me to remember you for the last time?"
"Quit being so dramatic," Hajime fights the urge to roll back his eyes. "I'm flying out tomorrow, but you don't hear me complaining about having to see your snot-nosed face on my last day in Japan."
"But you're going to California."
"So?"
"It's not the same."
"Of course it isn't, idiot," Hajime chides, grabbing Tooru's hand and cradling it softly in his. His fingers press against the other's palm. Hajime lowers his gaze, voice dropping to a tone just a little above a whisper, "but at least then, I won't be so far from where you are."
Tooru catches sight of the frayed threads of Hajime's uniform, the bare space on his faded gakuran. "Iwa–"
He's interrupted by the sound of a woman's voice ringing out over the speaker, a perfunctory announcement declaring it's time for him to board his flight. Tooru shakes his head, averting his gaze slightly as he tilts his head to listen to the instructions on the intercom.
"See you on the other side of the world, Tooru," Hajime says to him at last. He learns what it means to press his weight against the other boy's fingers, to cradle his heart as it beats loudly in his open palm. He holds it out like an offering, an invitation – a gift.
He lets go.
"I'll be waiting then," Tooru answers back with a smile, following the other's lead as Hajime walks him towards his gate. His fingers curl protectively around the button he now holds in his hand. "Hajime."
Hajime shrugs him off with a wave, tipping his head back with his mouth wide open in a carefree smile as he laughs and says Yeah, sure, and okay like it's no big deal at all, but it is.
It is.