Chapter Text
When Hajime Iwaizumi left Japan, he felt numb. Yes, he would miss his parents and his old teammates. But he didn’t feel as if he really had a connection to Miyagi. Not since Tooru Oikawa had left four weeks before to fly out to Argentina. He didn’t miss Shittykawa. No way. Why would he? It’s not as if the whole prefecture, hell the whole country, felt empty after his best friend left. No way. Not one bit.
Okay. Maybe he missed Oikawa a little bit.
A lot. It was a lot.
Even while he was still in Japan, whenever he was doing something, no matter how small or menial, he always half-expected Oikawa to chime in and say some stupid shit. The absence of Oikawa’s remarks filled him with a stabbing silence. The kind that sat deep in his chest. It was sharp with no signs of dulling. It made him angry. For YEARS, he had put up with Oikawa’s endless whining and complaining. Why was it that Iwaizumi felt hollow when the whining didn’t come from Oikawa but the wind outside?
“Iwa-chan, you’ll never settle down with a pretty girl if you wash dishes like that! She’d be horrified!” Iwaizumi could even hear his laugh that would follow.
Instead, all Iwaizumi could hear was the house's hollow creak that swayed with the almost-fall breeze. Summer was coming to a close.
Oikawa had always reminded Iwaizumi of summer. Green leaves. Warm breezes. Blueberry popsicles from the convenience store that was just around the corner from their childhood homes. Both of them were full of promises for a bright future. It made sense that when Oikawa left, so did summer. The leaves on the trees had started to turn orange and fall with the same grief over summer that Iwaizumi felt.
Oikawa was like a hard drug. When he left, there was no gentle weaning off. No recovery period, just withdrawals. One day he was there, and the next, there was nothing. Going cold turkey from Oikawa felt worse than anything Iwaizumi had ever felt before. There was no in-between with Tooru Oikawa. It was always all or nothing. He either put one hundred percent of himself into something or none at all. Oikawa had dedicated his whole life to volleyball, and everyone, including Iwaizumi, knew that wasn’t going to change after high school. It only made sense that Oikawa would follow his passion, even if that meant leaving to move across the world to a foreign country with a language he barely understood.
And, damn, did Iwaizumi miss him.
The distance, however difficult, didn’t mean that Oikawa had no way to annoy Iwaizumi. Oikawa would FaceTime Iwaizumi every day. One day, two weeks after Oikawa left for Argentina and two weeks before Iwaizumi left for California, like clockwork, like every other night at exactly 9 pm, Iwaizumi felt his phone vibrate with Oikawa’s dumb smiling face filling the screen. Iwaizumi felt his heart jump up into his throat. Part of him wanted to decline that FaceTime. Oikawa would be fine if he didn’t answer. Another part of him, especially his traitorous heart, lit up when he saw the incoming call. He was still his best friend. While, yes, Oikawa left him behind, he also left his family and friends. The last part of him knew that if he didn’t answer, Oikawa would be off his game at practice later today because he would think that Iwaizumi was mad at him for some reason and then blow up his phone after practice, demanding an answer from Iwaizumi.
He accepted the call.
“Iwa-chan!” There he was. Tooru Oikawa. Shining alongside the sun by an open window in his apartment in Argentina. He held a teal mug that Iwaizumi knew had the Aoba Johsai logo facing Oikawa, steam floating up. Oikawa looked like an ethereal being, even through the grainy texture of the FaceTime call.
“What do you want, Shittykawa?” Iwaizumi said as he propped his phone up against the lamp on his desk, taking a seat in front of it. Iwaizumi had just been in the process of learning more English for when he was leaving for California.
“Aw, Iwa-chan, you make it sound like you don’t want to talk to me! We don’t have to talk right now if you're busy,” Oikawa offered, a pout forming on his lips.
“How did you sleep?” Iwaizumi dodged. He reached to take a sip of his own mug sitting next to him on his desk. Instead of whatever steamy concoction Oikawa continued to hold, his tea had gone woefully cold. He sighed as his question was answered. After Iwaizumi had asked if he had eaten yet, Oikawa broke out into his annoying musical laughter.
“Iwa-chan, you keep saying you’re not my mom, but if you keep asking me questions like that, I might think I’m on the phone with my mom and not you!”
“Okay. I’m hanging up now. Goodbye, Oikawa.” Iwaizumi reached toward his phone as if he was going to turn it off. He wasn’t going to, but he wanted Oikawa to think that he would. Prick.
“Aw, Iwa no! Don’t hang up!” Oikawa yelled, the speaker cutting out a little bit. Iwaizumi’s hand retreated to the paper he was working on.
The conversation continued like normal. Oikawa would ask Iwaizumi about his day, and Iwaizumi would ask what Oikawa had planned for his day. The twelve-hour time difference made it so that one would be starting his day as the other finished his. It worked out alright. But Iwaizumi still felt half empty even when Oikawa was on FaceTime with him. He would never admit it to anyone, nor himself, and especially not Oikawa. But he knew that as long as he was apart from Oikawa, he would always feel this way.
Half an hour had passed before Iwaizumi noticed. He listened to Oikawa ramble about his teammates or Argentina or food or whatever else was on his mind at the time. Today it was the weather.
“Iwa-chan, it’s spring here, so that means that I’m going to go through two summers with no winter in between! How cool is that?” How cool that Iwaizumi’s summer left for another summer abroad while he was left with the cold approach of winter along with the missing warmth of Oikawa’s presence. This is how Hades must have felt whenever Persephone left the Underworld for the summer above.
“It’s good for your teammates that they don’t have to see how horrible you are with layering your clothes for cold weather. Seriously Oikawa, for a pretty boy, you suck at dressing yourself,” Iwaizumi responded. Oikawa gasped at his answer. Iwaizumi gave an almost imperceptible smile at Oikawa’s shock.
When he didn’t hear the normal witty retort that would usually fly back at him, he raised his head to look at the picture on his phone. Oikawa was looking down into his mug as if it held all the answers to all the questions the universe has ever asked.
“Iwa,” Oikawa paused, taking a deep, shaky breath, “do you really think that I’m pretty?”
Iwaizumi froze. His breathing stopped as he was asked that question. Did Iwaizumi call him pretty? Yes. But did Iwaizumi think he was pretty? He didn’t want to think about that, so he decided to push that thought to the very back of his mind.
“I don’t know. Go ask your fangirls.” Another dodge.
Iwaizumi saw an emotion he had never seen cross Oikawa’s face before. He had no idea how to describe it. Was he sad? Angry? That didn’t make any sense. Oikawa was just teasing and being weird like he normally was, right?
Right?
Before Iwaizumi could ask what was wrong, Oikawa moved on to continue the conversation. The call continued like normal. Oikawa seemed as perky as ever. Maybe even more so than usual. Iwaizumi tried to push away the thought that something might be wrong. If Oikawa was upset, for whatever reason, he would tell him. He hoped so anyway.
Iwaizumi never felt both freer or lonelier than when he moved to Irvine, California by himself. For the four weeks that Oikawa was gone, Iwaizumi couldn’t help but feel stuck to Miyagi. He felt even more irritable than ever. Every small move that his parents or teammates made set him off. He knew that behind his back, they talked to each other about him. They all knew that it was because Oikawa left. Iwaizumi tried not to feel guilty, so he tried to reign in his behavior. It worked for a while. Until it was time to get on that plane. He had to fly out by himself because his parents had to work. They couldn’t take a week off in the middle of August to fly across the world to move him to California. He knew this and was fine with this.
Iwaizumi was standing in a large space that was all black. He turned his head to try to examine the room. It seemed like an infinite void, and he was standing on the only solid spot. He looked up and saw that the only light source came from a decent size saucer in what could only be described as a ceiling. Not much of a room after all.
What is the opposite of a black hole? Iwaizumi thought to himself. He tried to turn to look behind him, but his feet were stuck to the floor. He looked to see that his bare feet were slowly sinking into the spot he was standing on, the solid beneath him starting to feel like thick, heavy mud. He tried to lift one foot. He still continued to sink. He tried again, harder. He began to sink faster, the quicksand-like mud pulling him farther down. Iwaizumi, panic starting to build, bent over, pulling at his legs. The abyss was to his knees. He tried to dig around his legs, swatting at the muck, hoping his hands and arms wouldn’t be caught in the same onslaught of pitch that his legs were. Iwaizumi tried to yell out of frustration.
But no sound came out.
Iwaizumi stood as straight as he could, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled up to the light, hoping it was a hole and maybe someone would hear him. Still, no sound came out. He could feel something building in his chest, climbing its way up his throat. Iwaizumi gagged, trying to expel whatever was suffocating him. He felt something leave his throat when he gagged. He looked down to see white petals in front of him before they, too, were swallowed by the darkness. The abyss was now up to his naval. He was sinking fast. Iwaizumi felt hot tears fall from his eyes. He had no idea what he was going to do. This was it. This is how he was going to die.
“Hajime!” A voice called out above him. The voice was familiar, but Iwaizumi couldn’t place why. His head snapped up at the sound to see half of a figure hovering above him, leaning into the void towards him, a hand outstretched. Iwaizumi, feeling a spark of hope, reached an arm towards the figure, trying to grab a hold, the inky black to his chest. Their hands were too far apart, and the darkness was up to his chin as he struggled.
The last thing he heard before the blackness closed over his face was the voice calling his name once again.
Iwaizumi sat up in his bed, gasping for air, now in his bed in his dorm room. The void was gone. Echoes of the voice were still ringing in his ears as he patted around his bed, trying to find his phone. The phone revealed that it was 3 am. He still had several hours before he had to be awake for the day. However, he had a feeling that no matter how hard he tried, he would not fall back asleep.
Iwaizumi swung his legs over the side of his bed. He let his feet touch the floor, grounding himself to the fact that he was not dreaming anymore. "Dream" was far too kind of a word to describe what he just experienced. "Nightmare" was closer but did not capture the horror and panic either.
Iwaizumi reached up to rub his tired eyes when he realized he was still shaking. He tried to brush it off. He tried to stand up so that he could go to the restroom and splash some cold water in his face, but when he rose, he felt his legs start to wobble underneath him. He grabbed onto the bed frame to help steady himself.
The trek to the shared restroom with his neighbor in the next dorm over was hazardous, to say the least. Iwaizumi grabbed onto every solid surface he could hang on to, not trusting his legs to get him to the restroom by themselves.
When he had finally planted himself in front of the sink after the bright lights of the shared bathroom temporarily blinded him, he leaned the front of his hips against the sink, his arms braced on either side of the sink.
He looked like shit. He felt like shit. His face was red and wet from crying.
Iwaizumi turned on the sink, letting the water flow freely into the bowl. He had jumped when the water first hit the sink, the sound far too loud in the eerily quiet bathroom. Staring at the water, he tried to collect his thoughts. What was that nightmare about? Who had yelled to him? Why couldn’t he yell back to the voice? Why did he cough up white flowers? Why was the voice so familiar? Iwaizumi cupped his hands under the water and threw it at his face as he leaned over the sink, the water sufficiently waking him up.
Iwaizumi cut off the water, turned off the light, and left the bathroom. His legs, while still more wobbly than he’d like, carried Iwaizumi back to bed without any help. He sat on his bed and stared at his feet. There was no way he would be able to go back to sleep tonight. Iwaizumi rose again and began to fix himself a pot of coffee. No point in trying to go back to sleep. He figured that he’d need something to do for the next few hours to keep his mind off his dream, and he could not even fathom trying to get ahead for any of his classes right now.
He ended up FaceTiming Oikawa.
He would never admit it to Oikawa, but he really wanted to see a familiar face and talk about nothing right now.
Oikawa answered on the first ring.
“Iwa-chan! I’m honored! You never call me first!” Oikawa exclaimed. While Iwaizumi was relieved to see and hear his friend’s voice, his blood ran cold. His voice. Oikawa’s voice was the same voice that called out to him in his dream. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? His lungs expelled all the air from his chest. It felt like he got kicked in the stomach.
“Iwa-chan, are you okay?” Oikawa asked, noticing his friend's face had filled with horror. Iwaizumi felt his mouth open and shut a few times. Was Iwaizumi okay? He didn’t know. Right now it felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest.
“I… I’m fine.” Iwaizumi was trying desperately not to make it seem like he was struggling for breath. Iwaizumi took a second to take in Oikawa’s appearance. His usually pristine hair was in a rough mop on his head. Oikawa had dark circles under his eyes. He looked like shit too.
“No, you’re not. What happened? Why did you call me? Isn’t it 3 in the morning in California right now?” Oikawa said, shaking his head, hair falling into his eyes.
“Yeah, it is 3 am. And it’s dumb. If I tell you why you’re just gonna be a bitch about it, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi huffed out, looking away from the screen. He turned on his bedside lamp. He laid down on his back, keeping the arm with his phone in his hand in the air.
“Tell me now, Hajime. I’m not kidding. You look terrible. You’re never going to get a girlfriend if you look like that. So spill.” Oikawa had the most serious expression Iwaizumi had seen since their last volleyball match in high school. Against Karasuno. Iwaizumi sighed, knowing he couldn’t dodge this conversation. And for a rare moment, Iwaizumi allowed himself to be vulnerable to Oikawa.
He told Oikawa about his nightmare. The darkness that swallowed him whole. How his voice was gone. The arm that reached out to him. And how that arm was too late to save him.
What Iwaizumi didn’t tell Oikawa about was the flowers and the voice that called down to him. Oikawa’s voice. He didn’t want Oikawa to know about those things until he himself knew what that was about. Maybe he would never tell him those things.
Iwaizumi didn’t realize he had started to cry again until he felt the hair above his ears started to feel wet against his scalp. He shut his eyes tight as he told the rest of his story.
The whole time Iwaizumi was describing what happened Oikawa was focused on his friend. He hung onto every word that Iwaizumi spoke. When Iwaizumi had finished the story, he took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of freshly brewed coffee coming from the coffee pot that had just shut off.
“That sounds awful, Iwa. I’m sorry,” Oikawa whispered on the other end of the phone. When Iwaizumi opened his eyes, he saw that his friend was on the verge of tears as well.
“It’s not your fault I was stuck in a pit of despair in my dreams, stupid,” Iwaizumi mumbled, looking away from the screen. He heard Oikawa’s laughter, musical-like wind chimes in a summer breeze, through the phone. The sound made his chest feel tight, as if he was about to start crying again.
“I know that, silly. It still sucks to see my best friend hurting.” Oh no. Oh god, no. No no why did that make his chest hurt more?
“Wh- whatever, Shittykawa, it’s not a big deal so just let it go,” Iwaizumi said, his anger building. Why was he getting mad? His best friend is concerned about him, and Iwaizumi is mad at him ? He wanted to feel thankful that someone cared, but ever since he realized the voice from his dream was Oikawa, he felt as if he had been plunged into ice water and still had not come up for air.
“Fine. If it’s not a big deal, then I’ll let it go.” Oikawa said, his tone turning dark. Iwaizumi was confused by the shift in Oikawa’s attitude. Iwaizumi felt a nagging at the back of his head to call Oikawa out on it.
But he didn’t.
“Fine.” Iwaizumi paused, watching his friend’s lips form a thin line and his brows knit together. “How did you sleep? I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Oikawa half-heartedly perked up after that. He answered that Iwaizumi did not wake him up and that he had trouble falling asleep. While Oikawa then told him about his plans for the day, Iwaizumi got up from his bed and fixed himself a cup of coffee, adding more sugar and cream than he usually would, hoping that it would give him more energy on top of the caffeine.
Their conversation flowed normally from that point on. They had talked the evening before as routine. Iwaizumi would get a FaceTime from Oikawa at 4 in the afternoon, just as he was getting back to his dorm from his last class. He and Oikawa would talk as Oikawa was getting ready to go to bed and prepare for the next day. It had become a routine, something stable in Iwaizumi’s chaotic new life.
Something he could rely on. Just as he had relied on Oikawa in high school.
It only took Iwaizumi an hour to drink the whole pot of coffee while on the phone with Oikawa. After finishing the last cup, he laid back on his bed in the original position they had started their conversation. Arm up in the air while Iwaizumi looked at his best friend. Unfortunately, it was time for the call to end. Oikawa was going to have to leave his apartment soon so that he could make it to practice on time.
“Okay, you have to get going to practice now, Shittykawa. I don’t want to be blamed in case you can’t play well today because you were worried about me.”
“Iwa-chan, I’m always worried about you. You’re my best friend, after all.”
“Whatever, loser.”
“Aw, you know you love me. Okay, I really have to go now! Bye, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa’s face disappeared from the screen.
Iwaizumi was now facing his lock screen which was a picture of Oikawa and him from their high school graduation. He stares at the screen, frozen in the same position until the screen goes black. He lifts his head from looking at his phone to looking at the ceiling. He lets his arm go limp, phone and hand hitting his chest.
Fuck. Iwaizumi thought to himself. I really do love him, don’t I?
Iwaizumi thought back to the four weeks he spent without Oikawa in Japan. The painful four weeks that had made his world transition from beautiful, bright summer to a cold fall that would immediately be followed by a harsh, freezing winter.
Iwaizumi had too many questions floating around in his mind with no answers in sight. Why had those four weeks been so painful? Was it because this was the most time they have spent apart since they had met in elementary school? Since Iwaizumi’s family had moved into the house just a few doors down from Oikawa’s? Why did he hear Oikawa call out to him in his dream? Why did his chest hurt while he was talking to Oikawa?
What was he supposed to do now?
Keep it a secret. He was going to keep it a secret.
He had no other choice but to keep it a secret. He was currently six THOUSAND miles away from Oikawa and separated by a five-hour time difference. There was no way that he could let this slip. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut when he was on FaceTime with Oikawa.
How hard could that be?
Really fucking hard, apparently.
Iwaizumi always had trouble expressing his feelings. But now, all his waking thoughts were consumed by perfect brown hair and chocolate eyes.
While his professor was droning on and on about the functions of the deltoid muscle, he was reliving the past summer.
Running through the streets they grew up on. Laughing as they stormed into the convenience store and bought blueberry popsicles to eat as the summer heat raged. Quickly lapping at the sickly sweet juices as they started to run down their hands. He remembered how Oikawa’s lips looked as he took the popsicle into his mouth. He didn’t think much of it then, except watch for what was probably longer than he should have at a time where he considered himself very strictly straight.
He could see the Oikawa clearly in his mind. The scorching summer sun sinking in the background. The orange and gold tones lit Oikawa’s hair on fire. His smile was so wide as he laughed. His face, even covered in shadows, lit a fire in Iwaizumi’s heart. Oikawa could have asked Iwaizumi to do absolutely anything at that moment, and he would have done so without even thinking about it.
Iwaizumi would do anything to keep a smile on Oikawa’s face.
Unbeknownst to Iwaizumi, one of the few friends he had made during his time in California, Alex, had noticed Iwaizumi’s recent mood decline.
“My guy, what is up with you? You’ve been staring at the same picture of the leg muscles for at least ten minutes,” Iwaizumi started to interrupt them to argue, “DON’T- don’t say that you’re reading because there are no words on that picture.”
Iwaizumi sighed, knowing that he’s been caught in his thoughts. “Nothing is ‘up.’ I’ve just been… lost in my own thoughts lately.”
“You know that I’m here for you, right? I know that you talk to your friend from Japan all the time. I’m sure he’d say the same thing.” Alex placed a hand on Iwaizumi’s forearm, physically reminding him that they were there.
“Thanks. I know. But I can’t talk to him about this, unfortunately. It’s… It would be too…” Iwaizumi paused, trying desperately to find the right words to describe why he couldn’t tell Oikawa about his recent slump.
“Embarrassing?” Alex guessed.
“Yeah, I think so. I would ruin everything if I told him about what's going on,” Iwaizumi said, staring down into the textbook in front of him. Even if Oikawa still wanted to be friends with Iwaizumi if he suddenly confessed his feelings for the other man over 6,000 miles away, Iwaizumi didn’t think he could live with himself if Oikawa didn’t feel the same way. He couldn’t lose his best friend that he has had since he was a child.
But on the other hand, Iwaizumi didn’t know what he would do if Oikawa did feel the same way. Would they just stay friends? But that’s not what people who are mutually interested in each other do. They date. Would they date? How would that work with such a distance between them? If Iwaizumi hadn’t been so emotionally constipated in high school would they be together right now? But what if it was all for naught? There’s no way that Oikawa would feel the same.
“Okay, buddy. I think you need to stop thinking for a minute.” Alex shook Iwaizumi’s arm, bringing Iwaizumi back to the real world. “I know it won’t work to get this off your mind forever, but there's a party on Saturday that I think you should go to and get your mind off of whatever just sent you spiraling,” Alex offered. Iwaizumi groaned at the thought of a party. “You don’t have to stay the whole time. Come out, have a couple of beers, talk to some people, and then you can go right back to sulking in your dorm.”
“I haven’t been sulking,” Iwaizumi grunted. He has been sulking.
“Whatever, man, at least try to come out?” Iwaizumi paused, then nodded. Alex lifted their hand off of Iwaizumi’s arm. “Awesome. I’ll text you the details. I gotta get going, see you later.” And just like that, Iwaizumi was alone, still very much staring a hole into his textbook.
Hopefully, the party would get his mind off of Oikawa for a night. Or at least a couple of hours.
The party was in two days. He could handle his emotions for two days.