Work Text:
“Now boarding, Flight NH 740 to Osaka.”
Tooru stretches, arms lifted above his head as he works out the stiffness in his body from sitting in one place for so long.
He reaches over to unplug his phone from the charging port. Last night, his phone hadn’t charged properly, the shitty cable he’s used throughout all three years of high school finally choosing today of all days to give out.
He’s using a spare, left over from the last time his sister visited their parents’ house, Takeru in tow. He’ll have to buy a new cable, once he reaches San Juan, but for now, he will take this small piece of home with him, tucked securely in the front pocket of his backpack and he navigates through four different flights at five separate airports.
Beside him, Iwaizumi stirs. His face is scrunched adorably, cheek resting against Tooru’s shoulder where he’s fallen asleep. The former ace yawns as he scrubs a hand down his face.
Iwaizumi’s own flight isn’t taking off for another couple of hours, but he’s come to the airport with Tooru earlier, so they can have as much time as possible together before they each go their separate ways.
“Now boarding Group One. Please have your boarding pass and identification ready.”
As soon as the gate agent finishes speaking, there’s an ordered sort of shuffling as dozens of bodies at rest are now thrown into motion. Tooru watches with a detached sort of interest as passengers throw away their snack wrappers, fill up their water bottles and start lining up to board the plane.
It’ll be a while before it’s his turn, in Group 4. For now, he is content to sit there, letting the bustle of activity surround him.
Outside, the sleek body of the Boeing 737 glimmers in the early morning light. The large floor to ceiling windows allow bright splashes of sunlight to pour through unfiltered, and Oikawa watches as Iwaizumi shifts so that one lands perfectly across his hair, haloing the short spikes in gold.
It’s an image he’s seen dozens of times before. Iwaizumi, suspended in midair, backlit by the bright ceiling lights of the gymnasium as he jumps to hit one of Tooru’s perfectly placed sets.
Beautiful, his mind supplies.
This is what he will miss most about Japan, he thinks. He will miss his parents, his sister, the life he’s built here, of course. But this—getting to see this softer side of Iwaizumi, the one that no one else is privy to, the small quirks of personality he lets slip when it’s just the two of them—is a privilege he won’t get to enjoy anymore.
“I can hear you over thinking. Stop it.” Iwaizumi grumbles from where he’s still plastered against Tooru’s side, and Tooru laughs quietly to himself. He may know Iwaizumi as well as he knows himself, but the reverse is just as true.
“I’m not,” he says, reflexively, but the welcome interruption works to nudge his mind away from the path his thoughts had started down on.
“Boarding Group Four, please start lining up.”
Tooru blinks. It seems like it had just been a second ago that boarding first began. Time is slipping away from him, and he finds that as much as he’s tried to brace himself, nothing can truly prepare him for the moment of separation hurtling inevitably closer, a bullet train pulling into a busy station.
He hadn’t realized before now just how hard it would be.
That’s not quite true.
He hadn’t wanted to come to terms with how Iwaizumi is moving too, to sunny Southern California.
For the first time in his life, they won’t be just a couple doors down from each other. No more walking together to school, getting lunch together, volleyball practice together until the late hours of the evening. No more walking down the street to Iwaizumi’s house to play video games on the weekends, grabbing a snack at the conbini on the way back to their houses, laying on their backs underneath the stars, making up stories for their own constellations until their breaths synchronize to the same beat.
They’ve always been a pair. Oikawa-and-Iwaizumi. Setter and spiker. Number one and number four. Captain and Ace.
One day from now, he will be somewhere in the airspace between Tokyo and Frankfurt. Two days from now, he will step foot in San Juan for the first time. Three days from now, he will wake up in his new apartment, in a new country, without anyone he knows who lives in the same city or even on the same continent aside from the man whose tutelage he’s followed there.
Four days from now, they will cease to be Oikawa-and-Iwaizumi. Or even Tooru-and-Hajime.
Four days from now, and then after, they will be Tooru (Argentina) and Hajime (California). Tooru of San Juan and Hajime of Irvine, complete with all the necessary geographical appellation.
And yet. Wherever they end up, they will always be two different iterations of the same heart.
Fate’s cruel, Tooru thinks, to have them realize their feelings for each other now, right when they’re each departing for their own crossroads.
The next few years will be hard, but Tooru wouldn’t have it any other way. He would no sooner tell Iwaizumi to stay for him than give up chasing his own dreams. And he knows he’ll cherish it all the more when they are finally able to be together for good.
“You got everything you need?” Iwaizumi asks, for the third time. He’s got his hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie as he stands with Tooru in line, shuffling forward in increments as passengers are slowly permitted to board the plane.
Tooru rolls his eyes. Despite his prickly exterior, Iwaizumi can be such a mother hen sometimes.
“Yes, Iwa-chan. What are you, my mother?” he asks, flashing a softer version of his trademark tongue-out smirk that’s precisely engineered to piss the other boy off in three...two…one...
“Shut up,” Iwaizumi retorts, right on cue, and Tooru laughs, delighted.
“I’m just trying to save you the international shipping fee if you end up forgetting something you need and have to get it mailed to you,” he says, and Tooru can hear the genuine concern underneath the exaggerated irritation.
“I know,” he replies, voice impossibly fond.
He’s a meticulous packer, Iwaizumi knows this, but it’s these small instances that remind Tooru that he doesn’t have to shoulder everything himself, that he has a partner he trusts and who supports him unconditionally.
The pair lapses into silence. They’ve known each other for so long that they don’t need to fill up all the spaces between them with words. Just being near each other is enough, sometimes.
Tooru turns to Iwaizumi, but it’s the other boy who speaks first.
“Guess this is it then, Shittykawa.” Tooru can tell that Iwaizumi is trying not to cry, and he blinks rapidly to keep his own eyes dry. He is not going to embarrass himself by being one of those people who cries at the airport gate.
“Yeah,” he replies, quietly. There’s a dull, hollow ache spreading through his chest, as his feet carry him inevitably closer to the point of departure.
So this is what it feels like, to leave half his heart behind.
“Send me pictures of your new apartment.”
“I will. You, too. And I want to see how California’s beaches compare to the ones here.”
“You’re on.”
“Alright.”
There are only a handful of people in front of them now. They move towards each other at the same time, drawn together like the kiss of the waves against the shore.
He clutches onto Iwaizumi, the fingers of his right hand fisted in the short hairs at the nape of his neck. Iwaizumi’s scent envelops him, a hint of wood sage and sea salt, comforting and dependable as the boy who wears it.
"I'll miss you," he says, voice muffled into the crook of Iwaizumi's neck.
"I know. I'll miss you too," the other boy responds.
Then, a short brush of their lips, and before Tooru realizes it, it’s over. He’s thankful he’s already said what he wanted to say this morning, curled up in bed together as he traced the constellation of freckles on Iwaizumi’s back. There’s no time for a longer goodbye, and besides, he doesn’t think he could properly express everything he’s feeling at the moment.
“Next,” the gate agent calls. The person in front of him steps forward to scan their ticket.
There is no more time left. Reluctantly, Tooru lets go.
“See you, Iwa-Chan!”
“Safe travels, Tooru.”
It’s a small thing, but he and Iwaizumi had decided early on that they would not say goodbye, because this isn’t a goodbye. They will see each other again, when their respective schedules have settled down. And in the interim, they have video chat and text to help bridge the miles and timezones between them.
Tooru doesn’t look back as he walks down the skybridge, shoulders facing forward. He doesn’t look back when he steps over the small gap that separates the skybridge from the plane itself.
It’s a small step. It’s the crossing of a shallow river in northeastern Italy, the point of fording uncomplicated but significant nonetheless.
Miyagi has always been too small to hold his dreams. He’s grateful for the time he’s spent growing up there, but it’s time for him to move on. He’s known for a while that he’s never going to be satisfied in Miyagi, in Japan, even, not when he’s always playing second fiddle to Tobio.
And he knows he is better than Tobio. If not yet, then he will be, with time.
Argentina is the difficult path, but it’s the one he’s chosen to take. There are no guarantees there. Not that there are in Japan, but at the very least, he has a possibility of retreat. An option to fall back on, if volleyball doesn’t work out.
He has no idea if he’s going to even make it, but that’s just the way he likes it. One foot on the edge of the sheer precipice behind him, eyes forever facing forward.
There’s nowhere left to go now but onwards and upwards.
He settles into his seat for the first leg in an almost two day long journey. It’s a window seat, the wing of the plane just visible at the corner. Outside, the sky is blue. When he shifts his head, the glare from the sun striking the wingtip dances in his eyes, and he blinks away the afterimages that overlay his vision.
In the center of Argentina’s flag, there is a small yellow sun, bracketed between two stripes of sky blue. As the plane lifts off, Tooru smiles. Only time will tell if he too will become a cautionary tale, if he will fall, like Icarus, who dared to fly too close to the sun.
He can hear them already. That Oikawa Tooru, they’ll say, with a shake of their heads. He always wanted too much, and look where it got him.
He’s looking forward to proving them all wrong.
Here, he’s no longer Aoba Johsai’s Oikawa Tooru. Seijoh’s setter and captain. No more Grand King and his Knights of Bluecastle. They’ll always be a part of him, just a phone call away, but he’s moving on now.
Here, he can be Tooru. Just Tooru.