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For quite a while now, Hajime will look at Oikawa and think of Richard Siken’s “You are Jeff”. Specifically the last part. The last stanza that is centered around the idea of a beautiful boy and being in love with him.
….Maybe he should have realized what that might have meant earlier but sometimes Hajime could be just as dense as the rock that made up his last name, Iwaizumi. Even he could admit that.
He had read the poem during an English class a year or two ago. The teacher had assigned every person to find one poem written in the language that really spoke to them. Something they could deeply relate to and immerse their feelings in. His report had nearly gotten a 100, with only minor points being taken off for grammatical and spelling errors.
(A note had been written on the printed front page of his essay by the teacher in her favorite orange pen. She used that pen whenever she thought her students had really put in exceptional effort into their work. Expert work, Hajime! I could almost feel the yearning through the page!! It was accompanied by a cheeky winky face on the side that seemed weirdly knowing.)
So, yeah. He definitely should have realized his feelings earlier.
He knows now. He definitely knows now and even if he hadn’t come to terms with it before, the view in front of him would surely knock the truth into his head.
The two friends are sitting on Oikawa’s bed. Well, laying. They’re laying down together on Oikawa’s bed. But, for the sake of Hajime’s sanity, he says that they are sitting together in order to save himself from blazing red cheeks and a stutter he knows the other boy wouldn’t let him live down. Sitting is much less intimate than laying together even if the thoughts running through Hajime’s head aren’t exactly platonic.
Oikawa’s face is getting hit by the setting sun shining through the window. It’s soft and so so bright and makes Hajime want to brush the back of his hand against the boy’s cheeks. To feel if he burns just as bright as Hajime’s love for him. In the sunlight, Oikawa’s brown hair seems brighter and his eyes look almost amber, like they’re glowing.
He isn’t smiling. His face is relaxed, neutral. Just how Hajime likes it. Because as much as Hajime loves the boy’s smile (his real smile, the one he saw after Oikawa had been given the Best Setter Award in middle school), Hajime adores this view even more. He knows that he is the only one allowed to see this version of Oikawa. The one at peace and quiet. It is so different from how he acts with other people, even the team.
This is Oikawa’s best look, he thinks.
The boy is happy, but he knows he doesn’t have to show it. He doesn’t have to put on a spectacle for his best friend. Oikawa can allow himself to smooth his face out, drop the smile, and lower his eyelids.
The Oikawa at school is known for being bright and loud and so all-encompassing it seems he takes over the entire room. People are drawn to the Oikawa at school, like if they look away they will be burned at the stake for heresy.
The Oikawa here, with Hajime by his side, has always been comfortable and tender. Himself. With Hajime, he is himself. And god, Hajime still can’t look away from him.
Even now, Hajime feels like he is burning up, like he is the one burning at the stake. And he wants more of it. More and more until the only thing left of himself is ashes so long as it meant he could exist in the same plane as this beautiful, burning boy.
He can barely even stop himself from getting closer, from carding his hands through the other boy’s silky soft hair. Can barely stop himself from laying a hand on that boy’s cheek and placing a kiss on his forehead.
Can barely stop himself from telling Oikawa that he is in love with him.
He remembers the poem again.
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him.
And you know what? They’re not in a car, but maybe life is just like one. Maybe this bed could be his and Oikawa’s car together. The thing that will take them places and be the cause for their growth. Hajime and his beautiful boy have already spent so much time on this bed through the years. It’s almost transported the two from when they were 7 years old to now when they are 17, just like a car would.
Or maybe Hajime is just gay and pining and overthinking everything because looking at Oikawa has always simultaneously made his brain stop and forced it to function at 400% capacity. It’s probably that.
The line is honestly out of order anyways, but it’s always been the first thing to come to mind whenever he sees Oikawa like this. Like Oikawa is this great being, ethereal in mind and body and soul. Like Oikawa is the Grand King of life just as much as he is of volleyball — the Grand King of Hajime’s life.
And you’re trying to choke down the feeling.
Holding back his love for Oikawa has always felt like choking to Hajime. Even when he was 9 and reveled in being dirty and was more interested in catching bugs and bumping up a ball to his best friend instead of admiring the length and curl of that same best friend’s eyelashes.
Even then Hajime was head over heels for this beautiful, beautiful boy.
And even if Hajime had still yet to actually confess that love to him, he still made sure to convey it whenever possible. In his own patented Hajime “I couldn’t be prouder to have you as a partner” Iwaizumi way, of course. Trying to choke back those feelings of love and enamoration felt like Hajime had been hiding away a part of himself. A core part that would ruin him each day more and more as he tried to push it away.
Oikawa had always been an important part of his life. It only made sense that the love he felt for him would be too.
And you’re trembling.
This line always seemed ironic to him. Because loving Oikawa can sometimes feel like he is trembling, but Hajime’s last name is not Iwaizumi for nothing. The first part, Iwa, contains the kanji for rock. Something that is known for sturdy and unmoving, never wavering or trembling.
Even greater is what comes when you add his and Oikawa’s names together. Hajime + Tooru, like they’ve been carved into a tree like in some western movies. Obstinate. Dauntless.
With his best friend, Hajime has always felt dauntless.
With his best friend, Hajime is truly able to live up to the name Iwaizumi.
In the same moment that these sickeningly poetic thoughts blink into his mind, Oikawa turns his head slightly to look at him. He almost jolts back, not expecting the other boy to stare at him like this. Especially after thinking such embarrassing things about him. Seriously, if Makki and Mattsun could tell what he was thinking they’d never let him forget it.
Oikawa blinks at him. Once. Twice. His mouth twitches and opens slightly before closing again, one corner tilting upward into a mix of a slight smirk and soft smile that shouldn't look as good as it does.
The boy’s eyelashes flutter and Hajime feels the urge to count them.
By now, the two have been just looking at one another for minutes on end, neither of them wanting to break the silence. They barely even breathed for fear of ruining the atmosphere.
It felt passionate. Intimate. Hajime wished the other boy would just hurry up and do something before he snapped and did something embarrassing just to get this over with.
He nearly does, too. But, then Oikawa opens his mouth.
“Hajime,” he starts, licking his lips as if what he’s about to say has dried them out, “you’re beautiful.”
His heart stops.
Then, it beats all at once.
Beautiful. Hajime. Beautiful. The most beautiful, angelic, gorgeous person he has ever known has just called him beautiful.
Hajime thinks of the poem again.
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.
His eyes widen and he looks, really looks, at Oikawa. At Tooru. His best friend almost since birth. His most precious person in the world.
Is this…
Tooru’s smile widens. Yes. It is.
Tooru has managed to say everything that Hajime has been dying to for months, years. Possibly the moment Hajime first met the other boy.
And he did it with a smile. Tooru has confessed his feelings for Hajime, confessed that he thinks he is beautiful. Tooru has said that he loves his best friend, a beautiful boy, all without saying that he loves him.
As Tooru moves his hand to touch pinkies with his best friend, Hajime thinks that both of them were the beautiful boy in the poem all along.