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It’s a known fact to even the smallest of children that everyone has a red string tied around their finger, though not everyone can see theirs.
“Isn’t it tragic?” One of Hajime’s cousins says, swinging her feet while she and Hajime sit perched on the pier, their arms folded over the lower railing of the fence that’s supposed to protect them from falling in. “Imagine you meet your soulmate and don’t even know they’re them! I think I’d die if I missed mine .”
“Good thing you wouldn’t know,” Hajime says, rubbing his fingertip over the twist of red thread around his pinky, his eyes carelessly tracking the endless stretch it does away from him out of habit. It’s not soothing exactly, to follow the seemingly infinite length of the bright red string, but it’s something close to it. Like wiggling a loose tooth when you’re little, or rubbing an old familiar scar.
“You just don’t care because you can already see yours,” Kita grumbles.
“You’re only eight,” Hajime says, like eight is endlessly younger than him and not less than a year. “You’ve still got plenty of time for your string to appear.”
“Maybe,” Kita says, shrugging noncommittally, and then their mothers are shouting for them before anything else can be said.
That same year his parents divorce is finalized and his mother moves them to Sendai where he meets Tooru.
The red string looped around his pinky sags on the ground between them, ending looped around Tooru’s. Tooru doesn’t mention it. Hajime doesn’t know if it’s because he can’t see it or not, but something keeps the words ‘Hi, you’re my soulmate,’ from pushing past his teeth.
It feels too big. He’s nine. He’s seen what happens when you find your soulmate in movies and tv, has heard stories from his older cousins. He knows.
So. He doesn’t say anything. But when Tooru loops their hands together and says “I think we’re gonna be best friends, Iwa-chan,” and pulls him along, he follows.
They go through the rest of elementary school, and then middle school and high school the same way, with Oikawa dragging Hajime along with him and Hajime following.
In elementary school they make “phones” out of soda cans and string and hang them between the windows of their houses, try to talk to each other through them late into the night until their mothers cotton on and make stop.
In middle school they make a blood oath, sticking themselves with a safety pin and pressing bloody palms together, swearing that they’ll always love volleyball and being teammates more than anything.
In high school they learn the gut wrenching feeling of making it almost to their goal and then falling short. Hajime learns what it feels like to watch Oikawa fall, to watch him get carried out by paramedics, to press his face into his mother’s stomach while curled up on their couch, crying into the fabric of her blouse because there’d been absolutely nothing he could do when Oikawa went down and the feeling of helplessness is crushing him.
They finish high school and Oikawa starts looking for apartments in Tokyo, plotting them out on a map to make sure they’re more or less equidistant to their respective college choices. He doesn’t ask if Hajime wants to move in before he starts doing this, before he starts planning out their life in a new city, in a new apartment, together.
Hajime hadn’t really expected him to ask. He just says “I’m taking the bedroom,” when Oikawa informs him that a proper two bedroom might be slightly out of their price range.
“Cute that you think you can have the bedroom. I need the closet. You keep all your clothes in a laundry basket and don’t deserve it,” Oikawa says and kicks at Hajime from where he’s draped across the couch, his feet in Hajime’s lap and his laptop perched on his stomach.
“Guess you’ll need to downsize your hideous wardrobe then,” Hajime says and laughs when Oikawa makes an offended noise.
He lets Oikawa have the bedroom in the end.
After college Oikawa goes to Argentina to keep playing volleyball and Hajime to California to study under Coach Utsui. Oikawa clings to him at the airport, wraps his freakishly long arms around him and doesn’t let go, pretending like he’s not crying into Hajime’s shoulder.
“You’re such an ugly crier,” Hajime says, patting at Oikawa’s back and squeezing tight. The red thread hangs loose between them and Hajime wonders how it’ll feel to have it stretched between two continents. As irrational as it is, he imagines it stretching and breaking under the strain, and the feeling makes something in his stomach sink, wanting to swallow him whole at the very idea.
“You better not forget about me,” Oikawa says, muffled and rubbing snot into Hajime’s shirt. It’s disgusting. Hajime doesn’t even think about pulling away.
“You’re too much of a lunatic for me to ever forget,” Hajime says and squeezes even tighter. “I’ll get to where I’m going first, so call me when you land, okay?”
“Okay, mom.”
“Your mom’s awesome so that’s not the insult you want it to be, Shittykawa.”
“Ugh,” Oikawa says, disentangling himself from Hajime finally. “Go get on your plane before it leaves you and we have to do this shit all over again with the next one.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hajime says, and with one last squeeze, this time to Oikawa’s hand, he turns away, walking away from Oikawa instead of following for the first time since he was nine years old.
California is hot and dry and Hajime hates it a little bit, though not nearly as much as he wants to.
His roommate’s name is Brittanie (“With an ie!” she chirps brightly, like that’s not ridiculous,) and she isn’t his friend, per say, not in the way that Oikawa or the rest of Seijoh VBC were, but she’s nice. They get along better than Hajime had expected after several nights spent falling down a rabbit hole of roommate horror stories online. She’s in a band and makes Hajime come to their shows sometimes, and bakes at all hours and insists that Hajime eats whatever she makes or else she’ll ‘literally turn into a baked good, I swear to god, just do me a fucking solid and eat some dude.’
She tries to set Hajime up with her girlfriends, and then, when Hajime blinks at the third attempt and says “I’m incredibly gay,” she changes track and starts attempting to set him up with men.
“I have a soulmate,” He says, eventually, after they’ve smoked a joint and crashed on the couch, and Brittanie hums an understanding noise and passes him the pint of Ben & Jerry’s non dairy Phish Food along with the spoon.
“Where is he?”
“Argentina,” Hajime says, feeling the enormity of the distance settle on his shoulders all at once. He takes a bite of chocolatey marshmallowy ice cream in an attempt to distract from it.
“Shit, that’s far as fuck. Why isn’t he here with you?”
“He’s following his dream.” Hajime says, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. “He loves volleyball more than I ever did. I just loved playing with him.”
“Shit, man, that’s love. Wow.” Brittanie says and thumps her head back against the couch.
“Yeah,” Hajime says, staring at red wrapped tight around his finger, “Yeah, I guess it is.”
They talk on the phone at least once a week. Usually it’s more than that, but Oikawa insists they have at least one scheduled phone call so that ‘they don’t get so busy they forget about each other.’
Which is ridiculous, and Hajime tells him that. It’s not like Hajime is going to forget Oikawa.
“How’s California?” Oikawa asks through the phone, all forced cheer, “Is it all sex, drugs and rock and roll like the movies?”
“What movies have you been watching?” Hajime asks, his phone wedged between his shoulder and ear as he finishes up the day’s dishes.
“That’s not an answer to my question, Iwa-chan.”
“No to the first, though my roommate did share her illicit drugs and keeps taking me with her to her band’s shows. I think I might be on a real dark path, Oikawa,” Hajime deadpans and grins a little at the snort he hears through the phone.
“What would your mother say?” Oikawa says, and then, quietly, “I miss you.”
“Yeah,” Hajime says, turning off the water and stepping away from the sink, “Me too.” He leans back against the ugly formica countertop and stares hard at the red thread around his finger, wishes for a second that he could give it a tug and drag Oikawa there from a continent away. “You should come visit. Whenever you get the chance. I’ll even let you drag me into trying to track down celebrities.”
“I want to find a Kardashian,” Oikawa says and sniffs.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You are! I can tell, you crybaby,” Hajime says, feeling overwhelmingly fond.
“You’re the worst. Let me have my feelings in peace,” Oikawa complains and then blows his nose, the sound disgusting through the phone.
“You hate peace. You get bored too easily.”
“Ugh. The worst,” Oikawa repeats.
Oikawa doesn’t get a long enough break to come visit until a few months later. He clings to Hajime for several long minutes in the airport and then demands they go to the beach.
They sit side by side, shoulders bumping, Oikawa digging his feet into the sand and tipping his head towards Hajime’s until their skulls press together.
“We’ve never talked about it,” Oikawa says, quiet enough it’s almost swallowed up by the sound of the ocean.
“Hm?”
“You know.” Oikawa waves vaguely between the two of them.
“Do I?” Hajime asks, frowning a little. He feels a little bit like Oikawa started a conversation without him and he needs to scramble to catch up. It’s disconcerting in the way that it isn’t disconcerting, in the way that it’s a normal occurrence he’s been dealing with since he was nine years old.
“I always thought you did,” Oikawa says, frowning back at him. “Maybe- I don’t know. Maybe I was projecting.”
He takes Hajime’s hand and loops their pinkies together, red against red.
“Oh,” Hajime says, suddenly feeling a little breathless. Oh. “You never-”
“Neither did you.”
“We were-”
“Nine, yeah,” Oikawa agrees. “It was always okay, because you were always there. But now… I just keep thinking that maybe- if I know if you know- if I know where we stand- it might be easier.”
“Where-” Hajime starts, then stops and has to try again, “Where do we stand? Where do you want us to stand?”
Because here’s the thing, the thing that no one tells you when you’re little and finding out about this stuff: Not everyone gets to be with their soulmate. Not everyone wants to be with their soulmate.
“Together,” Oikawa says, placing his other hand over Hajime’s. “I want us to stand together. To be together. Like always.”
“Like always, huh?”
“Well,” Oikawa grins, “Maybe not quite like always. I was thinking there could be a lot more long distance phone sex than has ever been involved.”
“We haven’t even kissed yet,” Hajime points out, because someone needs to be normal and remind Oikawa that he’s kind of putting the cart before the horse here.
“And whose fault is that, huh?”
“Yours,” Hajime says, mostly just to be difficult. “It’s definitely yours.”
Oikawa makes an offended noise and shoves at Hajime’s shoulder. “My fault?! Mine?” He half shrieks, startling a group of scavenging seagulls nearby. He pays them no mind, grabbing Hajime by the front of shirt and dragging him in.
Oikawa’s mouth is warm against his own, his lips a little chapped and clumsy. Their noses bump awkwardly and Oikawa tilts his head, slots their mouths together again, and- and Hajime doesn’t have a whole helluva lot to compare it to, but it’s- it’s good.
He ends up pressed back into the sand, Oikawa above him and lit up by the sun behind him, cheeks flushed and mouth shiny and red.
“We’re idiots,” Oikawa says, laughing a little as he droops forward and presses his forehead to Hajime’s. “We could have been doing that for years.”
Oikawa goes back to Argentina and Hajime stays in Irvine. They talk on the phone every day and Hajime does his best to convince himself that the distance doesn’t somehow feel worse now.
He discovers he’s incredibly bad at self delusion.
“You’re being a sad sack,” Brittanie says, lips pursed as she smudges eyeliner around Hajime’s eyes. “Fuck, your skin is so nice. What the fuck. That’s not fair.”
Hajime makes the executive decision to ignore at least half of that. “I’m not being a sad sack.”
“You are. You were like a ray of weirdly curt sunshine for the entire time your boytoy was here and now you’ve been a sack of sadness for months.”
“I’m not,” Hajime tries to insist, though he doesn’t really feel it. He groans and flops backward on the couch, making Brittanie bitch about how he’s ruining her artistry.
“You know,” Brittanie says later, when she’s finished experimenting with Hajime’s face and is by the door, zipping up her boots and grabbing her keys to leave, “You don’t have to be here to do sports medicine.”
“Come pick me up,” Hajime says into the phone when Oikawa answers.
“Wha?” Oikawa’s voice is a little fuzzy around the edges, like he’s just woken up. It makes Hajime’s heart feel like it’s trying to jump from inside his ribcage.
“I’m at the airport.”
“You’re what?” Hajime hears the rustle of blankets through the phone, the thump of Oikawa throwing something aside to get at his shoes. “Iwa- Hajime, what the fuck are you doing at the airport?”
“Waiting for you to come pick me up.”
“Oh my god, you better not be fucking with me. If I show up at the airport and you’re not there I will come to Irvine and beat the shit out of you. I’ll get that weird roommate you have to help me too. I’m sure she will. She liked me.”
“I’m not fucking with you,” Hajime says, “It’s humid as fuck here by the way. How do you live like this?” Hajime asks and hears the distinct sound of Oikawa’s front door slamming.
When Oikawa finds him, perched on the curb in the pickup area outside the airport, he grips Hajime by the shoulders and shakes him a little bit. “Oh my god, you’re actually here.”
“No, I was just getting your hopes up only to smash them for kicks, Tooru.” Hajime doesn’t even bother to try to hide his grin, snagging Oikawa’s hands and lacing their fingers together. “Of course I’m actually here.”
“I might not let you go back,” Oikawa says, stepping in closer, bumping their noses together.
“Well that’s good, considering I don’t want to.”
“What about California?”
“You’re not there,” Hajime says, lifting one of Oikawa’s hands, kissing across his knuckles until he presses a feather light kiss to the knot around Oikawa’s pinky.