Archive of Our Own ^beta

Hajime saw him from miles away.

In the moments before dawn, the coast was quiet—only the sound of waves rolling ashore, incessant. Deep blues covered the beach, covered the stretching plains of sand and the sea, the last of the night lingering before morning broke.

Down the shore, against the waves, the man stood.

His back against Hajime, hair flying in the briny wind—his ankles dipped in water, waves washing up the soles of his feet and pulling away with scattering sea foam before returning, and leaving, and returning. His hands in his pockets, his shoulders loose. He was looking out at the sea. In the moments before dawn it was as though he had come from the stillness, as though he had come from the deep colors of the fading night.

Hajime’s feet dug into soft sand. The salty wind brushed through his hair; sand flew up in the wake of his footsteps. There, echoing the waves until it filled his ears was the pounding of his own heart. Hajime curled his fist.

“Oi.”

Oikawa turned. A pause, then his eyes widened in shock.

Hajime punched him.

Hajime was called to his professor’s office on an early November afternoon.

It was a cold, gloomy day. The sky was pale, the clouds heavy; it was going to rain. Hajime burrowed further into his coat as he walked past the sandy buildings, the bare trees lining the paved sidewalk. He knocked on the door.

“Come in. Ah, Hajime.”

“Excuse me.”

Hajime closed the door behind him. His professor waved him over. Sitting next to him was a man he didn’t recognize, who nodded to him. He was tall, his brows thick, his long hair tied neatly at his nape. Hajime felt that he had seen him before but couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

“This is the student I was telling you about,” his professor said to the man. Then, turning to Hajime, “This is Pedro Guerra. You may have heard of him.”

Pedro Guerra, the renowned photographer who had spent years traveling around the world before finally returning; widely acclaimed, his exhibition was now touring the Americas. Hajime remembered, now, seeing the brochure a couple weeks back. The exhibition had only been a couple of minutes away by bus. He had wanted to go and hadn’t been able to squeeze out time.

Hajime blinked. He bowed slightly towards Pedro, a habit he kept even after three years in California.

“Pedro was a student of mine,” his professor said. “He will be traveling with his exhibition to South America next. Argentina, is it?”

“Buenos Aires, yes. And then a couple spots further down, before the final stop back at Buenos Aires again.”

“I was thinking perhaps Hajime could go with you.”

Hajime looked towards his professor, who continued.

“Not all the way. Just Buenos Aires, maybe one or two more locations…you get the idea. Hajime is a student in my photography class. Very good work, very instinctual…let him help you with your exhibition, take him around, show him things. Hajime studies sports science, don’t you, Hajime?”

“Ah, yes.”

“He can give you tips on how to maintain your physics,” his professor said to Pedro, chuckling. “You will need it. Do you know any Spanish, Hajime?”

“Yes. I’ve been to Ushuaia once.”

“Wonderful.” His professor clasped his hands together. “Hajime, I know you are no aspiring photographer, but think about it. Now, do you have anything in the next half an hour? No? Come sit, then, come sit. It’s going to rain. You arrived at a good time.”

“So,” Pedro said, “Do you enjoy photography?”

The professor had brought out cookies and black tea, and they’d chatted in the warmth of the office. Outside, the rain poured heavily and then ceased; Pedro’s hotel was in the same direction as Hajime’s dormitory, so they walked back together. The sidewalks were wet, tinged dark after the rain. The sky was still pale, the air chilly, coldness nestled within humidity.

“Ah, yes.” Hajime put his hands into his pockets. “I started taking photography class my first year here. I’m not an arts major, but I like it, so I never dropped it.”

Pedro smiled, amused.

“It’s good that you never dropped it, but just so you know, I wasn’t questioning you. You don’t have to be madly in love with photography to come.” He nodded. “I didn’t start studying photography until my third year in college. Looking at it like this, you’re one step ahead of me, even.”

“Ah. I wouldn’t say so, not really.”

Pedro laughed.

“Mr. Guerra—”

“Call me Pedro.”

“Pedro. Are you going home, heading to Buenos Aires?”

“Yes.” Pedro smiled, tilted his head back. “It’s a nice arrangement, isn’t it? Two exhibitions in Buenos Aires, the first and the last in South America. I wanted to show my hometown a little favoritism.”

“It is,” Hajime agreed. “It’s always nice to go home. I’d like to go home soon, too.”

“Hajime, you are from Japan?”

“Yes.”

Pedro nodded. “You remind me of Japan.”

A little surprised, “You’ve been to Japan?”

“Well, yes, when I took photos all around the seven continents, but that’s not really what you remind me of. When I was in Buenos Aires—one, two years ago? I met a volleyball player. He was from Japan, too. I think he is of a similar age to you. There was this sense of stillness in him, like…like first frost. You have it, too.”

The world plunged into silence.

“A volleyball player from Japan,” Hajime echoed.

“Yeah. He plays at a club there. I don’t remember his name, but he was from…ah, what’s the prefecture called—it sounded like it started with an M—”

“Miyagi.”

“That’s it!” Pedro turned to him. “Where are you from, Hajime?”

Hajime’s heart pounded in his ears. Echoing, deafening, the crashing of waves against a rocky cliff—water broken into a thousand pieces. Pedro’s voice was far away. The world moved in slow motion, like watching from the bottom of a pool, blurry, light reverberating through translucent blues, one beat slower.

“I’m from Miyagi, too.”

Three years ago, Hajime and Oikawa had a fight.

It wasn’t their first. It wouldn’t, Hajime was convinced then, be their last, either. They had known each other their whole lives and they’d fought each other the entire length of it: at the park, in Oikawa’s bedroom, at school, in Hajime’s backyard—had scratched each other with chubby fingers as babies, had bit and head-butted each other until they learned how to throw punches and sock each other in the stomach. They’d left scars on each other’s bodies. They’d sat in Oikawa’s bedroom together and laughed, fingers skimming over the marks: look at this one, you were what, five? I think I bit you then. No, I think it was a nail. I think you’d just clipped your nails that day so it was super sharp, Iwa-chan. Did I? It looks like a tooth mark to me.

This time, it was by the vending machine. They were waiting for the bus; they had stayed late after school to study. Dusk had fallen, and the vending machine glowed in the dark like frost. The sky was clear, the stars twinkling. It had snowed two days ago.

Oikawa sat silently beside him.

He had been silent ever since they’d lost their match with Karasuno. Grew still, gazed outside the classroom windows—there was a sharpness in the silence, a bird poised to fly south at the first hint of winter in the air. It nagged at Hajime.

“Oi.”

Oikawa turned. His eyes were as still as the surface of a frozen pond, clear as ice. Hajime frowned.

“What are you on about?”

“Huh?”

“You’re so quiet. You’re never this quiet unless you broke up with someone, but didn’t you already break up with your girlfriend five months ago?”

“Mean, Iwa-chan! And I’m always quiet!”

“Right. And the sky is red.”

“The sky is blue, just like how I’m always quiet and graceful!”

“Quit it, Shitty-kawa. What is it?”

“Really, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Iwa-chan.”

And this nagged at Hajime even more—that Oikawa stifled it, pushed it down so that it brewed underneath calm waters like an undercurrent until it wound him into a corner and swallowed him whole. That Oikawa’s eyes were still as clear as a frozen pond and Hajime couldn’t see past the surface, couldn’t break the facade, couldn’t touch whatever was underneath. That Oikawa wouldn’t let him.

“Stop being an idiot and spit it out.”

“Iwa-chan, you’re just attacking me now—”

“Why do you always keep it to yourself? What good does it do you? Are you going to continue with this until you break again, just like that time you almost punched Kageyama?”

Oikawa’s mouth thinned. “This has nothing to do with it.”

“It will if you keep at it!”

“Keep at what? Shutting up like all the times you told me to? I thought you’d be the happiest, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime didn’t remember throwing the punch. Remembered fragments, only: a fist to his jaw, the ringing in his ears, hurling Oikawa into the vending machine, bottles of drinks clattering as they dropped. Oikawa’s face in the white glow of the vending machine. He had torn his mouth, was charging forward. The blinding glow of headlights—arms around him, forcefully pulling back, voices shouting at his ears. The driver. The bus had arrived.

Hajime didn’t talk to Oikawa for two weeks. They passed each other in the corridor and Oikawa looked forward; Hajime ignored him. Oikawa laughed, talked with people, shouted across the classroom, napped at his desk. He gazed out of the window, silent and still, like a bird perched on the tip of a branch—the moment of suspension before flight.

Then Oikawa didn’t come to school.

A day, two, three. Hajime slowly grew alert. Days became weeks and Hajime turned concerned. He found Hanamaki and Matsukawa in the classroom next door; they shrugged. His mother promised to ask for him and couldn’t reach the phone of the Oikawa household. January turned into February; the cherry trees by the school entrance budded, laden, boughs stretching into the warm air. Hajime texted Oikawa. The messages were left unread. He called Oikawa. The phone calls didn’t go through. No one saw him. No one knew where he was.

The cherry trees bloomed on the morning of graduation: the blossoms unfurling in the warm air, a shower of soft pink. Oikawa never came back to school. Spring gave way to summer and the petals fell, the leaves sprouting, growing heavy, a thick foliage of green. The cicadas crescendoed.

Oikawa was gone.

Their flight was scheduled for the 22nd. They would fly down from San Diego to Buenos Aires and land early in the morning.

“Pack light clothes,” Pedro told Hajime. “It will be summer there.”

His professor had told him to think about it. But it wasn’t so much thinking as instinct, a pull, a bird flying south every winter: yes, he will go. He would be helping Pedro with his exhibition at Buenos Aires for three weeks, after which Pedro would head south for the following stops and Hajime was free to return to California. It would be the middle of winter break, then.

A volleyball player of his age from Miyagi in Argentina.

It might be Oikawa; it might not be. It was a possibility and yet it did not allow questioning; Hajime followed it like the ancient routes of migration, the magnetic forces of the earth, a direction he found with his eyes closed in the dark not with reason but something deeper. He lay in his bed in the dorm. The lights were off; he could see the sea from the window but was too far away to hear the waves. In the silence, the darkness swelled with the humming of the heater.

What was his last memory of Oikawa?

The fight; the memory flew by in fragments and colors. But no, that wasn’t it. Further, further—Hajime lay in bed and listened to the quiet darkness, to his own breathing.

What was his last memory of Oikawa?

The vending machine. Still, it was by the vending machine. They were waiting for the bus; they weren’t talking, it was the two weeks of cold silence. Oikawa sat on the far side of the bench. He had ear-buds in his ears, a warm drink in his hands. His fringe fell in front of his closed eyes. Wind blew, and locks of hair flew. His hair was getting long, Hajime had thought. It was time for Oikawa to trim it.

In the darkness of the plane, the memories came like water. Surging, a flood; sinking Hajime in the quietness, in the stillness of the air.

It was okay. Hajime knew how to float.

Sneaking out and riding bikes when they were fifteen. Sharing ice-pops when they were four. Oikawa’s eyes widening in shock as he turned to Hajime after he slammed his first successful spike, his palm ruddy from the impact against the volleyball—shouting, excitement, disbelief, and it took Hajime seconds to realize he, too, was shouting, uncontrollably, and Oikawa was laughing—what a familiar laugh it was, high and loud and carefree, the one Hajime had listened to ever since he was a baby. Oikawa laughed like he was filling the blue sky up with it.

It was like flipping slowly through old photographs, only the colors hadn’t faded at all: the clear eyes, the smile, the brown hair. The pure happiness, the rush of excitement: they were so young, then, but it hadn’t felt like it—didn’t feel like it now, at twenty-one, reliving the memories like standing in the waters of a river. The anger an old hum, familiar, like an ache in the muscle. Like the shape of space between bones.

He was heading to Argentina.

South, south.

He did not know Oikawa’s address. He did not know which province Oikawa lived in. He did not know whether Oikawa was in Argentina at all.

His heart pounded in the darkness. Hajime listened.

Blinking awake to the darkness of the plane. Waking up to the smell of stillness, to the soreness in his legs; remembering he had fallen asleep. His eyes getting used to the dark.

Where were they, Hajime wondered. He pushed the window up a sliver.

Bright, blinding blue.

It was the South Pacific Ocean. The sea glittered; tiny waves rose and dipped on the surface, but thirty-five thousand feet up in the air it was just an endless expanse of blue, of turquoise, of a color deeper than the sky that pushed boundlessly on. Hajime had seen the ocean in California a thousand times but never had it been like this, shining under the sun, wider than he’d ever known it.

Hajime couldn’t look away. He leaned towards the window, as though to keep it close: the sliver of bright blue in the dark, glowing.

The gallery where the exhibition was to take place was a stony building, with grey floors and white walls. It sat just off the center of the city. Hajime helped arrange the photographs, asked questions; Pedro answered them. Photos of mountains and cities; photos of people, of a stray cat, of sea foam, of the tips of towering skyscrapers against an empty sky—in black and white or vivid color; in blurry patches or crisp lines.

“Do you have a favorite?” Hajime asked.

“What a wonderful question,” Pedro laughed, putting away a photograph of volcanoes from Iceland. “And a difficult one, too. Give me some time and let me think about it?”

“Of course.”

“Hajime, you study sports science, yes?”

“Yes. I’m studying to become an athletic trainer.”

“Ah. I hope this isn’t crossing a line, but why?”

“I used to play volleyball,” Hajime said. Paused. “I think I just want to do something with sports, still.”

Pedro nodded. It felt like more than a nod. Around them were neat boxes of photographs, some half-open, some still sealed; here and there pictures scattered across the floor, colors spilling out onto blankness. The tiny exhibition lights cast soft, golden hues on the white walls. The staff were talking somewhere down the corner and the voices echoed, faint, in the silence of the gallery.

“Hajime. Do you know why I wandered all around the world?”

Pedro took him around the city, but mostly, when Hajime had time, he wandered Buenos Aires alone.

The colorful houses, the walls painted bright blues and yellows and reds; the elegant buildings with tall, arched doors and framed windows; the cafes, the restaurants, the markets and the stalls that lined the roads with trinkets and ceramic plates and vibrant knit works, the bakery two corners down that sold pastries fresh from the oven late afternoon. Hajime walked the streets, passed the people of the city, looked over his shoulder at profiles he thought familiar, silhouettes that reminded him of one in particular. He glimpsed into stray alleys and narrow corners. He searched the faces in the sea of people, 15 million of them walking through the streets of Buenos Aires.

Only after he arrived, both feet on the land, did he realize how utterly clueless he was. He didn’t know whether Oikawa lived in Buenos Aires or if Pedro had only seen him visiting; he didn’t even know whether it was Oikawa whom Pedro had seen. He peeked around nearby gyms and local volleyball clubs. He skimmed the faces of the crowd who visited the exhibition: there was an old Japanese couple, and a young girl who came from Tokyo on her own. The rest of the people passed by in a blur of colors, in the vibrancy of the city.

Hajime walked down the street, one step after another. He looked over his shoulder. It was an old gesture, muscle memory, and only when it came back did Hajime realize it had once been gone—the memory flaring into color the second he turned his head, coursing through time and pinning him to the spot, the world suspended: Miyagi and Buenos Aires, the past and the present overlapping.

Three days before the exhibition ended in Buenos Aires.

Hajime packed his gear, hung the camera around his neck, and headed out of the hotel before sunrise. The streets were cast in the darkness of the night, the contours soft; Hajime called a cab and headed south, south, until the colorful buildings petered out and were replaced by thin trees and sandy roads. He got out of the cab, thanked the driver, and walked the rest of the journey on foot. South, south.

My favorite beach, Pedro said, is the one in Mar Azul, when it’s so early in the morning no one else is there.

Pedro had mentioned it only in passing, but Hajime wanted to see. He reached the edges of the beach and took off his shoes, held them in his hands, walked barefoot through the sand dunes. He’d thought five in the morning was early, but it seemed it wasn’t early enough: someone was already here, a silhouette down by the shore. It’s okay, Hajime thought. I can share with one man. He walked towards the sea.

He had been in Argentina for two weeks and a half. He had walked down countless streets; he had searched the faces of thousands of people. He had stood in the center of the hubbub, the city whirling around him in a flow of color: foreign language, foreign architecture, foreign people.

But, for some reason, Hajime was not worried.

Pedro had invited him to breakfast this morning. But he had wanted to come to the beach, so he had declined.

The cab had taken him to Mar Azul. Now, his feet would take him to the shore.

His toes sunk into soft sand. Deep blues of the lingering night covered the plains of sand, the long grasses, the lapping waves afar; the sky was just beginning to pale. The wind blew, cool from the night and humid from the sea, salty. The sea foam caught the first hint of dawn and seeped the colors in, blushed a soft purple.

Quiet.

Only the sound of the rolling waves.

Still looking out at the sea, the man at the shore turned—a slight angle. His hair flew in the briny breeze. The silhouette overlapped with something and Hajime was struck, all the way down his spine, as though by lightning.

Hajime’s lips parted.

His heart pounded in his ears. Then he clenched his fists and began marching.

“Pedro.”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t start learning photography until you were twenty-one?”

“No. But then I did, and it was too late, but at the same time it wasn’t late at all.”

When they were fifteen, Hajime and Oikawa pushed their bikes out one night and rode through the fields. Hajime didn’t remember why, only that they did; only the coolness of the night, the sweet scent of summer, the puddles on the road catching the specks of stars from the night sky above. It had just rained and the air was clean, tinged with the sweetness of grasses. Oikawa laughed and hushed them even though he was the one making all the noise. Their bikes skidded on the wet paths. Hajime yelled at Oikawa to be careful, idiot, forcing his voice low.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said, “do you want to fly?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ll show you, but you have to buy me an ice-pop.”

“I thought you liked the yogurt drink better.”

“I do, but ice-pops cost more.” Yelping as Hajime sped up and raised his fist, “Also it’s summer! It’s going to be super hot!”

“Whatever, it’s not like you can actually fly.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Sure.”

They were riding up a hill. They reached the top; Oikawa didn’t stop. He looked over his shoulder, smiled, slowly lifted his hands from the handle. Hajime realized what he was going to do and he opened his mouth to—

Oikawa flew.

Downhill, arms outstretched—the wings of a bird, riding the wind. Riding the sky full of stars, scattered all around them, riding the crisp night air and the sweet summer scent as the fields billowed in the wind, waves, rolling as Oikawa flew past them. Oikawa laughed; it echoed through the night. He whooped, voice high, calling out to Hajime—

Hajime couldn’t hear what he said. He’d pedaled on, one step, two—and the last thing he remembered before he, too, sped downhill, not so much flying as falling, was the split second of stillness on the top of the hill, the world suspended in perfect clarity: the rolling fields, the crisp air, the stars, Oikawa laughing far down on his bike, the sweet scent of summer all around him.

On Oikawa’s cream-colored fridge was a magnet of an inari sushi.

Hajime blinked. Frowned. Reached past the magnet and grabbed some ice from the freezer, wrapped it in cloth. Went back to the balcony, where Oikawa sat facing outside.

He stuck the ice to Oikawa’s jaw. Oikawa yelped.

“For your jaw,” Hajime said. Threw himself onto the chair beside Oikawa. Muttered, “Shitty-kawa.”

Oikawa pressed the ice to his jaw, moved it around. Winced.

“Did I break anything?”

“I don’t think so.” Another wince. “Your punches grew heavier, didn’t they, Iwa-chan?”

It tugged at something, the Iwa-chan. Hajime stilled. Then scowled.

“You deserved it.”

“Yeah.”

The sky was pink, the color growing rich and deep behind the clouds like a ripening peach. It softened the streets and the rooftops of the houses, the beach—a thin strip of sand and sea from Oikawa’s balcony. It softened Oikawa. He had always, in Hajime’s memories, had a sense of softness in him, had always been supple, but now his hair was dampened and his t-shirt loose, billowing in the cool morning air. His eyes quiet. He had grown taller in the past three years. His shoulders were broader; he’d put on more muscle. He had tanned, too, under the Argentina sun, though he was still paler than Hajime, who had tanned in California. His hair still fell in front of his eyes, like it always had.

I recognize him, Hajime thought, and realized he had feared he wouldn’t.

“You couldn’t have told me you were leaving?”

Oikawa shifted. The ice rolled against his cheek.

“I was going to,” he said, quiet. “I didn’t know how to. Then we fought and I thought, now I won’t—like a prank. It’s childish, I know. But I didn’t realize until it was too late, and then I didn’t know how to call you again.”

“But you were going to?”

Oikawa’s eyes flew to Hajime’s. Hajime held his gaze and tried not to look away.

“Yeah,” Oikawa said.

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

Oikawa laughed. It came out so easily his eyes widened, and Hajime couldn’t remember why they had even fought. What had it even been about?

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, you jerk.”

“Mean, Iwa-chan!”

Oikawa did not have practice today, but Hajime had to return by noon. Oikawa called a cab for him; Hajime let him. They walked down the street together. It was easy, to have him back by his side—like water parting by the shin and coalescing once more. Oikawa put his hands in the pockets of his shorts. Hajime could see it: Oikawa walking down these streets for the past three years, billowing t-shirt against the sandy walls of the houses, slippers on the sun-warm pavement.

“Where is Iwa-chan’s hotel?”

“Just off the center of Buenos Aires,” Hajime said. “But I’m not going back to the hotel right now. I’m helping at a photography exhibition.”

Oikawa’s eyes widened. “Is that why you’re here?” In Argentina?

Hajime grinned. “Yeah.”

So many questions in Oikawa’s eyes. But the cab had come, turning around the corner. Hajime took out his phone. They exchanged numbers. The cab pulled over and slowly stopped by the street. It was a story for another time.

It was okay.

They had time now.

“You know,” Hajime said, ducking into the cab, “you should come see the exhibition. It’s pretty cool.”

Oikawa’s mouth fell open. His eyes turned serious. Hajime shut the door. The cab started and as the scenery began to roll past, Hajime looked back: Oikawa stood, still, at the corner of the street, watching—growing smaller and smaller until the cab took a turn and he disappeared.

Oikawa came to the exhibition the day before it ended. Hajime had texted him the address. Oikawa was dressed in a nice shirt; he looked nervous. He babbled away as Hajime led him around. The crowd was thin, the gallery quiet, and they found Pedro halfway down a corridor.

“So you do know each other!” Pedro exclaimed.

Oikawa and Pedro chattered away. Hajime went to look over the exhibition, answered questions from patrons, glanced at the two of them. They were standing in front of the picture of a café in Bulgaria. Pedro was talking, and Oikawa listened, nodded. Laughed. Pedro clapped him on the back. Oikawa said something. The exhibition lights dusted his hair golden, framed his face against the shadows. The colors vivid on the white wall in front of him.

Hajime went to them when the exhibition closed. They were still talking. Oikawa noticed him, gave him a little wave.

“Well,” Pedro said, “I will leave you two to it. Hajime, we will say our goodbyes tomorrow. Tooru, I hope to see you again.”

They clasped hands and bid farewell. Hajime and Oikawa walked through the corridors to the front door. Photographs lined the walls; the encased glass caught the golden lights, bands reflected across the black and white, the colors.

“Do you have a favorite?” Hajime asked.

Oikawa stuffed his hands into his pockets. Brows furrowed in thought, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

“Ah, it’s hard to choose—he’s been to so many places!” He looked at Hajime. “Does Iwa-chan have a favorite?”

“Yeah. The one on the top of the Andes, I think.”

“As expected of Iwa-chan!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

They reached the entrance. Hajime pushed the doors open, and they stepped into the warmth of the late afternoon. The sun washed the cobblestone streets and the corners of the buildings in honey-gold. Faint sweetness suffused the air; the bakery two corners down was putting out fresh pastries.

They stood in front of the gallery, half-cast in shadows, the sun warm on skin.

“The exhibition ends tomorrow, huh.” Oikawa squinted against the sun. “Are you still staying afterwards, Iwa-chan?”

“Yeah.” Hajime paused. “Actually, I’m still looking for a hotel, so it depends.”

“Eh?!”

“My room is only booked until tomorrow, so I’ve been looking for the next one.” Hajime crossed his arms behind his head. “Haven’t found one yet, though.”

Oikawa stared at him. His cheeks were flushed in the afternoon heat. He looked away.

“Do you want to stay at my place?”

Hajime stilled. He turned to look at Oikawa and met the side of his face.

“There is a spare bedroom in the house.” Oikawa turned to him, smile suddenly bright. “It will be just like when we were kids! Sleepover!”

“Oi.”

Oikawa’s smile faltered.

“Yeah, I’ll stay at your place.” Oikawa’s eyes flew to his, and Hajime felt heat in his face. “Just stop making light of it when it’s more than that. I hate it when you do that.”

Oikawa stilled, eyes widening, and he looked away. His face was pink; he was smiling. Hajime wrapped a hand around his own burning neck. They walked in the direction of Hajime’s hotel, but Hajime didn’t feel like going back just then. The evening was still young; the sun was still up. They could wander the city, they could go to the market; they could go to the bakery and buy pastries and sit at the café until dusk set. They could walk through the narrow alleys, past the colorful walls of the houses, the arched windows and elegant balconies—turn right, go through, on and on. They could go anywhere. They could do anything.

Hajime remembered standing under the California sun for the first time.

Burning—hot on the back of his neck. He was sweating. He sheltered his eyes with his hands, squinted: the bright shop signs on both sides of the road, the dark asphalt, the ochre earth of the faraway hill—the sea, a sliver of blue, a blur of a color under the bright, bright sky, glinting like an illusion. He couldn’t feel the water here, couldn’t feel the coolness of the salty wind—couldn’t hear the waves. Only the sweltering air, the searing heat against his skin.

He was here in California.

In the middle of a foreign land, a foreign language, foreign faces—Hajime squinted again and couldn’t remember what he was looking for. The colors were bright and loud and they clamored all around him as he walked down the street. He was walking to campus. He remembered applying, remembered taking the plane—remembered standing in the middle of the airport as passersby flowed around him, as though stranded. The memories were distant now. Hajime tried to recall what he’d felt at that moment and came up empty.

Hajime wiped at his sweaty face. He started walking down the street, alone.

He did not look over his shoulder.

Oikawa’s house stood on the side of a quiet street with sandy walls and a balcony. It wasn’t especially spacious, but in the mornings the sun flooded the living room and painted the walls lemony-yellow.

A small staircase spiraled up the second floor from the side of the living room. Hajime walked through the house, learned it like the inside of a ribcage: the kitchen at the left with its wooden table and two chairs, the two bedrooms on the second floor parted by a single wall, the balcony full of potted plants, thick greens burying the balustrade. Somehow it made sense, that the couch sat adjacent to the large windows and the sun inched across its arm during the day, that there were three cartons of milk in the fridge, that the curtains in the spare bedroom were deep blues, just like the ones in Oikawa’s bedroom back in Miyagi.

Hajime unloaded his luggage in the spare bedroom, shrugged off his backpack. He sat on the bed and lifted his head. The window was wide; he could see the edge of the sea.

Oikawa peeked in.

“Iwa-chan, are you ready?”

Oikawa took him to breakfast at a small café. He charmed the middle-aged lady and got them extra churros; he raised a victory sign to Hajime. It was like seeing Oikawa in high school charming girls in the hallway. It was at once oddly endearing and irritating and nostalgic.

“I forgot how annoying you were,” Hajime said, fond.

“Where did this personal attack come from?” Oikawa dipped a churro in chocolate sauce, took a bite. “Speaking of, Iwa-chan. You brought a camera? Do you take photos now?”

“Yeah.”

“Eh! Seriously?”

“I’m not a photographer, though.”

“But it looks so professional!”

They wandered around town and Hajime showed Oikawa how to use the camera. Oikawa took photos of everything from horrible angles and with terrible focus. They talked; yes, Oikawa does play professionally at a volleyball club in Buenos Aires. Yes, it was an inari sushi magnet on his fridge; no, he still didn’t like them, but the shop didn’t sell anything else. Yes, the wine here was good. Yes, he’d tried it. Yes, he’d gotten drunk. No, Hajime was never going to pry those stories out of his mouth. Spanish rolled fluently off his tongue with an Argentinean lilt; it sounded beautiful, Hajime thought. His Spanish was so much better than mine.

“What about you, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa licked his lips, pressed his face close to the camera. “What are you doing now?”

“I live in California now.”

Shocked, “Eh?”

“I go to school there.”

“Eh?!”

The pieces came one by one, like the dappling of sunlight through trees. Some Hajime searched for, some Hajime recognized: Oikawa still drank more milk than should be humanly possible. He went for a morning run even when it drizzled. He couldn’t cook anything other than miso soup; he tried making pancakes for the both of them one morning and burnt the pancakes, the pan, and the bottom of the top cabinet. Oikawa looked like he was going to cry. Hajime laughed harder than he had in three years.

There were photographs of people Hajime didn’t recognize on the shelves. Oikawa told him the stories: this was their team captain, he played in Canada now; this was when Oikawa visited a vineyard and the family who owned it happened to have lived in Japan for twenty years, and they’d given him a bottle of wine for free. They walked around the city and Hajime tried to picture the past three years: Oikawa walking down the streets in thick clothes in winter; buying churros from the café with broken Spanish, gesturing, trying to piece the sentence together; slowly tanning under the sun. Oikawa showed him the house he’d once mistaken as his own, the painted wall on the side of the street that had been blank when he’d first moved in, the shop at the corner of the market where he’d bought his inari sushi magnet—how excited he had been at seeing it. How he’d first found the churros and chocolate sauce too sweet. He wouldn’t tell Hajime the drunk stories but spent forty minutes at a crossroad telling Hajime how he’d once lost his way and walked the opposite direction in the middle of summer after spending twenty minutes looking for a shop just to buy a pint of ice cream, and it didn’t even taste like the flavor it was supposed to be.

“What flavor was it supposed to be?”

“…I don’t remember now. But that’s not the point!”

Sometimes, when Oikawa had practice, Hajime tagged along. Oikawa’s serves had grown more powerful; his setting was more precise. He clapped his teammates on the back, laughed, shouted across the court; he demanded the best of them and brought out their best. He served, leaping into the air and slamming the ball down—it coursed through the air and struck the floor and rebounded high into the ceiling to the second floor. It was a service ace. His teammates whooped. Hajime watched it and held his breath.

They were at the beach one early morning. Hajime was showing Oikawa how to adjust the lens. Oikawa pressed the button to look back at the pictures he’d taken.

“Iwa-chan is so much better at this than I am.”

“You’ll get the hang of it.”

“Are you surprised that I play professional volleyball here?”

Hajime lifted his gaze. Oikawa fixed his eyes on the camera. Hajime remembered the moment he’d heard about the volleyball player from Miyagi in Argentina, the world plunged into silence—the only sound left a calling, a pull through his body. It had been a possibility then and yet it hadn’t felt like one, not even for one second.

It had felt like the truth.

“No,” Hajime said. “I always knew you would do it. I always knew you could.”

Oikawa’s eyes flew to his, his fingers stilling on the camera. Hajime held his gaze.

“What if I want to take a picture of a seagull, Iwa-chan?”

“Get the sand dunes right and then we’ll talk seagulls.”

“Eh!”

Hajime woke up in the middle of the night.

The wind blew in from the windows, soft. It had just rained. The evening had been sweltering so Hajime had opened the windows, and now the curtains bellied slowly in the wind. The cool, moist air reminded Hajime of the night they rode their bikes in summer, under a starry sky.

Lying in bed, he listened to the darkness of the night, the quietude around him.

On the other side of the wall Oikawa was sleeping. Hajime imagined: Oikawa in the bed, eyes closed, the layout of the room the same as his only in opposites. If Hajime listened closely he could hear, almost, the soft sound of waves lapping ashore on the sandy beach afar.

What did the beach look like at midnight?

It wasn’t so much a decision as it was a knowing, an acknowledgement of the movements his body was going to take. Hajime lifted the covers, pulled on a shirt, walked around the bed, and headed downstairs. He was tying his shoes when footsteps came, and he looked up. Oikawa was standing at the bottom of the stairs, mid-step. They blinked at each other.

“Did I wake you?” Hajime asked.

“No, I just woke up on my own. Where are you going, Iwa-chan?”

They walked to the beach together. Barefoot on the wet sand, shoes in their hands; they walked along the coastline, leaving long trails of footprints behind. The waves lapped at their ankles and left sea foam around their toes. The night was cool and quiet; above them, the stars blinked.

They sat down and watched the sea. Wind blew, soft and briny.

“It’s like the night we rode our bikes,” Hajime said. “Do you remember? It was summer. You let go of the handle as you went downhill.”

“Oh, that night. Iwa-chan bought me ice-pops afterwards, didn’t you?”

“Did I?”

“Yeah.”

The lapping waves; the twinkling stars.

“Iwa-chan.”

“Hm?”

“You’ve taken a lot of photos, right?”

“Not really a lot.”

“What’s your favorite photograph that you’ve taken?”

Hajime turned to Oikawa to answer. But Oikawa had leaned back—had closed his eyes, his face tilted to the night sky. The wind brushed through his hair, ruffled it, and the locks flew—slowly, gently. His fringe had fallen in front of his eyes. It was getting long. It was time for Oikawa to trim it.

“Iwa-chan?”

Hajime opened his mouth. The words came clumsily. “It’s…it’s hard to choose.”

Oikawa laughed. “Right?”

“It’s okay not to have a favorite, I think.”

“Of course it is.”

When they were thirteen, Oikawa decided that volleyball players needed to have good stamina and that, in order to train, he was going to go running every morning at five. In the classroom, Hanamaki and Matsukawa and Hajime placed bets on how long Oikawa would last. Two weeks, Hanamaki said. One month, Matsukawa said.

He wasn’t going to stop, Hajime said.

In the end, Oikawa did stop—three months later, only because there was going to be a blizzard and his mother did not want him running in the snow storm at five in the morning in the dark. That morning, Hajime waited thirty minutes for him at the crossroad where they usually met. No one came. In the end they ran into each other by the convenience store. Oikawa’s eyes widened.

“Iwa-chan?”

“You didn’t go running this morning?”

“No,” Oikawa said. “My mom didn’t let me.”

His eyes were red, his nose ruddy. He’d stuffed his hands into his pockets. Hajime knew they were trembling underneath.

He sighed.

“Come on.”

Oikawa blinked. “Where?”

“To school, idiot.”

They walked in silence down the street. Oikawa trailed behind Hajime. The streets were still dark; the sky was heavy. It was going to snow again soon. Hajime reached into his bag and found the can of milk tea he’d bought; it was still warm. He tossed it to Oikawa.

Oikawa yelped. “What’s this?”

“For you.”

“But it’s yours—”

“Just drink it, you idiot.”

Silence. Only the sound of their footsteps in the dark, and then the sound of the can popped open. Sniffing. Hajime looked over his shoulder to make sure Oikawa was there. To make sure he was drinking. Somehow it had become a habit, to always look for him.

They were sitting in the kitchen one morning when Oikawa said, “Tell me about California.”

Hajime looked up. They were sitting across from each other at the wooden table. Hajime had made breakfast: toast sliced in halves, jam. He had found instant coffee in Oikawa’s cabinet and had made himself a cup. Oikawa was drinking milk.

He wasn’t drinking milk now. He was looking at Hajime.

Hajime put down his coffee.

“What do you want to know?”

Oikawa considered it.

“What is it like?”

They had walked down the streets of Mar Azul and Buenos Aires and Oikawa had told him the stories in words, in gestures, in the way he turned his head twice at the painted wall every time he passed it, a habit newly acquired—in the way he laughed, loose and sure under the blue sky. In the photographs, in this house, Hajime tried to piece together the years of Oikawa’s life he wasn’t in. Here they were, sitting in the kitchen—the upper left of the ribcage, a space wedged between bones—sitting in the lemony light of the morning, searching for each other in fragments and colors.

Not whole, but not broken, either.

Slow, the colors overlapping like a developing film.

What is it like?

Hajime counted the facts: he lived in San Diego. He studied sports science. The sandy buildings on campus, the thin trees that lined the paved sidewalk. The streets under the California sun, the shop signs and the clamoring colors as he walked down the dark asphalt road, along the ochre earth.

“It’s bright,” Hajime said.

“Bright?”

“The colors.” Hajime paused. Thought about it. “I can see the sea from my dormitory.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It is.”

“Why did you go to California?”

The hot sun on the back of his neck. Squinting against the white sky. Trying to remember but coming up empty; stranded, in the middle of foreign land and languages and faces.

“I think I was looking for something.”

“Did you find it?”

There was a strip of white at the corner of Oikawa’s mouth. Hajime wanted to smile.

“No,” he said. “But I think I’m close.”

When Hajime was nineteen, he met Ennoshita in California. Ennoshita had come to California to study film. His school was a two-hour drive north of Hajime’s, but it was closer than the distance between Japan and America and one person more than Hajime had thought he would ever meet on this continent. He had only recognized him from the last day in the Spring High qualifier matches in his last year of high school: the guy from Karasuno who substituted for their captain.

It was Ennoshita who’d called him from across the street. Ah, you—Seijoh’s ace!

They exclaimed and grabbed coffee at Starbucks. Hajime was in a kind of stunned stupor; in the two years he’d been in California, he had never met anyone from their volleyball circle back in Japan.

“Really?” Ennoshita said, blowing at his coffee. “People are all over the place, it seems. Hinata is going to Brazil.”

Shocked, “Brazil?”

“Yeah. Kageyama is thinking of going to Italy in three or four years, too. Asahi stayed in Paris for a while to study fashion. Nishinoya—our libero—he’s been over all of Japan and half of Europe already. Last I heard he was working on a farm in Australia, saving for New Zealand.”

Eyes wide, Hajime leaned back and let out a breath. He’d always known Karasuno was a crazy bunch, but this was way more than he’d thought possible.

“And I thought California was far away,” he said. Ennoshita laughed.

“Right? I was hesitating, too, when I was still deciding whether or not to apply. But then Nishinoya put his hands on his hips and said he was going to see the world, and suddenly California sounded like nothing.”

Hajime imagined: speaking the words under a wide, wide sky, against a world larger than all of them.

“I asked him why and he just said, why not?” Ennoshita took a drink from his coffee. “He said, to be free is just to know what you’re looking for.”

Hajime. Do you know why I wandered all around the world?

Just because. Just because I wanted to. Why not? Sometimes, the answer isn’t the one you thought you were looking for.

Hajime made the decision sitting in the kitchen one afternoon.

He was alone in the house. Oikawa had gone to practice, and Hajime had stayed to look over and tidy his photos on the laptop. He’d finished, wanted to make himself a cup of tea—pushed the chair back as he stood up when he lifted his head and saw the kitchen.

Pale afternoon light fell in through the large windows, washed the kitchen soft. Hajime saw every detail, felt them more present than they had ever been: the glint off the sink, the slight angle at which the faucet was turned, the nicks at the bottom of the wooden shelf, the black burn marks on the top cabinet fading into the dark amber of the doors. The two plates left to dry on the rack; they’d had eggs for breakfast that morning, and droplets still clung to the surface, had pooled at the bottom of the frame. Hajime saw them like the beating of a heart: quiet, pulsing, steady. Only if you listened closely.

It wasn’t so much a decision as it was a shift, the sun inching one slight degree back and suddenly the light fell from behind the profile perfectly, brought out the smooth brightness against the shadows. Hajime felt it, a bird feeling the call of migration, felt it with his body—he knew the destination; he knew the direction with surety. But it was more than that. Hajime wanted to go.

He wanted to do it.

It would require a miracle. A mundane one, but a miracle nonetheless.

It was okay. Hajime would not be stranded in the middle of hopes. He would find the planks and the ropes; he would build a raft. Hajime placed the pot on the stove for the water to boil. He opened his laptop.

Oikawa came back from practice late evening, soaked in sweat. He called out at the door as he toed his shoes off and shook out his damp hair. Hajime was cooking dinner in the kitchen. He yelled.

“Don’t shake your sweat everywhere, it’s gross!”

“Eh! Iwa-chan, you can’t even see me!”

“I know you’re doing it!”

Oikawa showered, and Hajime brought dinner to the table. Oikawa came out of the bathroom, hair wet, a towel around his shoulders. They clapped their hands together and said their thanks for the food.

They ate; they talked. Oikawa laughed.

“Hey, Oikawa.”

“Mm?”

“Do you think you can get a couple days off?”

Oikawa looked up at Hajime, putting rice into his mouth. “What for?”

“I want to take you somewhere.”

Oikawa blinked, his chopsticks still in his mouth.

The air was warm, suffused with the rich smell of dinner.

“Iwa-chan.”

“What?”

“You’re not kidnapping me, are you?”

“What are you talking about? You’re a bigger guy than I am.”

“Iwa-chan is stronger, though.”

“It’s a good thing you remember that.”

“I’ll ask,” Oikawa said. He placed the chopsticks down. “Where are we going, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime wanted to smile at the way Oikawa said it. Where are we going?

“Ushuaia,” he said.

Ushuaia sat three thousand and ninety-eight kilometers south of Buenos Aires, at the tail end of South America. The bus ride down was two and a half days long. They left in the evening. It would be twelve hours before they reached the first stop.

Oikawa had picked the seat by the window. He’d brought a shawl with him and insisted it was only in case the air conditioning grew too cold, he was not sleeping, he was going to talk Hajime’s ear off and keep him up all night. Hajime smacked him in the back of his head and confiscated his shawl.

The coach had allowed Oikawa the couple days off.

It was a miracle.

Oikawa was looking out the window. The myriad of buildings in Buenos Aires had petered out as they left the city and smoothed out into flat, endless plains with shrubs. The night fell, and for a second they were back in high school: riding the late bus home after practice, the occasional bright lights from the shop signs below flooding in and illuminating Oikawa’s profile in the dark—then they were back, in the warm summer air of Argentina. The stars had risen high in the night sky. The bus glided silently down the highway, through the rolling plains, three thousand and ninety-eight kilometers south.

South, south.

Birds flying every winter in search of warmth.

Oikawa had dozed off. He kept knocking his head against the window. Hajime took out the shawl he’d confiscated and draped it over Oikawa’s shoulders. Oikawa stirred; still asleep, he shifted and leaned his head against Hajime’s shoulder.

Hajime stilled.

In the darkness of the night, in the stillness of the air, he could hear his own heart.

It was okay. Hajime knew how to float. He let Oikawa sleep against him. The bus engine whirred; Oikawa’s head was heavy on his shoulder. Hajime looked past him to the night sky outside. The stars shone in the dark above the endless, desolate plains, sprinkled like salt.

They arrived two days later at dusk. The air was cool, the wind wafting in with the chilliness from the sea surrounding the Antarctic. Faraway behind the town sat the mountains, capped with thin strips of snow, lines soft in the shadows of the falling night.

“Hah—” Oikawa stretched. “It’s cold!”

“Put on your shirt.”

“My muscles are all stiff. I don’t think I can feel my legs, Iwa-chan.”

“How does that affect you putting on your shirt?”

“So unsympathetic!”

They checked into the lodge, unloaded their luggage into their room, took quick showers. Then they walked down the streets around town. The night had fallen, and the ships by the dock lit up one by one, tiny lights afloat, dipping along the waves. They found a small restaurant and had fish for dinner. The town by the harbor had lit up: the windows of houses and inns, the street lamps—a cluster of fallen stars nestled at the bottom of the mountains, reflected in the surface of the sea, thin golden streaks dragged long like the tail of shooting stars, blurry.

They walked along the dock. The wind blew, soft and salty.

“Where are you taking me tomorrow, Iwa-chan?”

“To the mountains.”

“Eh!”

“There’s something I want to show you.”

“In the mountains?”

“Not really. You’ll see.”

“What does that even mean?”

The ships bobbed gently with the waves. The lights rose and dipped, rose and dipped in the dark purples of the early night.

“You’ve never come here before? To Ushuaia?”

“No, I mostly stayed in the center and the north. I’ve been to San Juan. It was pretty nice. I might go there someday. You couldn’t see the sea there, though.”

“You like the sea, huh.”

“Yeah. Iwa-chan could see the sea in California, right? Straight from your dormitory.”

“Yeah.” Hajime looked to the dock. “It’s pretty nice here, though, isn’t it? We’re at the southernmost city.”

“It’s like we’re at the end of the world.”

Hajime stilled. He turned to Oikawa. Oikawa was looking out at the sea. The golden lights from the dock framed his face against the purple sky, the darkness of the early night, and the wind blew, ruffling his hair—locks flying. Sensing his gaze, Oikawa turned. His fringe had fallen in front of his eyes.

Slowly, Hajime reached out.

Oikawa grew still. Hajime’s fingertips touched his fringe, brushed the skin between his brows—pushed the locks of hair away from his eyes. Oikawa let out a soft breath. He was looking at Hajime. His eyes caught the lights from the dock, clear, a night sky of their own.

There, Hajime thought.

Quiet, the moment he found it. Just like this.

The Martial Mountains sat north of Ushuaia along the Beagle Channel coast. Lingering patches of snow covered the top of the bare, rocky frame. They dressed lightly and warmly. The trail they were hiking was not a difficult one, and Hajime led the way; Oikawa followed.

One step at a time.

The ground was solid underneath his feet. The rocky earth sloped down both sides of the trail, and the thin path wound on in front of him, turning into another corner, stretching into the sky. Hajime put one foot in front of the other. Slowly, surely, until his breath started to grow heavy and he could hear his own heartbeat, felt the rhythm beneath conscious thought that pushed his legs on—he was going somewhere his body recognized, muscle memory, a call that resounded in his bones, a pull like the direction of migration, marked out by the earth in one broad stroke. Above them the sky stretched boundlessly on, clearer than Hajime had ever seen it. The path was not familiar, but somehow it felt like going home: climbing up the slope, past the colossal rocks and the short shrubs, turning along the winding trail—a song on the tip of the tongue, forgotten yet recalled in an instant.

He looked over his shoulder. Oikawa was quiet; focused, steps steady, looking around the scenery they were passing by. The motion had once become habit and it had come back as though it never left, the turning of his head as instinctual and natural as a bird catching the wind as it leapt into the air. Oikawa caught his gaze.

“Iwa-chan?”

“We’re here.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.” Hajime looked out. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

A sweeping blue, the sea becoming one with the sky.

The rocky earth slanted off underneath their feet, and far down beyond the foot of the mountain was the tiny town of Ushuaia—sitting by the harbor, a cluster of houses and streets. The azure waters of the bay expanded and pushed out, the Beagle Channel opening into the Antarctic Ocean, flanked on both sides by deep green mountains, silhouettes fading as they stretched into the horizon—until the blues of the sea and the emerald of the mountains blended into the wide sky, colors spilling out of their frames into a thousand shades of blue.

Oikawa’s lips parted, soft.

“I’ve been to Ushuaia once,” Hajime said. Oikawa turned, eyes widening—Hajime recognized the look, knew the thoughts behind it because he had thought them, too: they had been on the same land, they had been this close to each other, once, without even knowing. “It was the summer after my first year in California, with a program from the school. I hiked this trail. I didn’t take a picture of this then, but if I did, I think it would have been my favorite.”

Oikawa looked at Hajime. He turned back to the sea. The wind blew through his hair, damp with sweat at the edges. His windbreaker billowed, and under the sky it was as though he wore the thousand shades of blue on his shoulders—turquoise and azure and teal and every hue between the sky and the sea, the colors flying behind him in the wind. They were utterly and completely alone, standing on foreign land under a foreign sky, and for the first time Hajime felt free. He could go anywhere. He could do anything.

“Iwa-chan.”

Hajime looked at him.

“When are you going back?”

Oikawa’s gaze was still on the sea. He was afraid, Hajime realized. Had slept on this question for weeks, had stifled it and pushed it down and wound himself into a corner, all alone. Again.

But Hajime had an answer, this time.

“I don’t know.”

Oikawa’s eyes flew to his. Hajime felt the beginning of the pull of a smile, fought it back. “I haven’t ordered a return plane ticket.”

Oikawa’s eyes widened. Like a child, the way he looked at Hajime—like he was given a sweet and couldn’t quite believe it was his, was afraid still that someone would take it away. Hajime grinned.

“I’m going back, of course. I still have school. But when I had the chance to come and I heard that you might be here, all those weeks ago…do you remember when we were thirteen and you decided to go running every morning? The day you stopped because a blizzard was coming, you ran into me by the convenience store—it wasn’t a coincidence. I was looking for you. I didn’t know where you went so I looked all over the neighborhood. It took me an hour before I found you.” Hajime laughed, letting out a breath. “I’m always looking for you, it seems.”

Oikawa stared at him. Slowly, color bloomed high on his cheeks and then he was blushing furiously all the way down his neck. He made a noise like he was dying and crouched, covering his face with his hands, hiding it between his knees. Hajime laughed. He crouched beside Oikawa, leaning his head against his shoulder and the laughter came bubbling out from deep in his belly; he couldn’t help it.

“Iwa-chan, don’t just say that out of nowhere—”

“It’s okay,” Hajime said, still laughing. “You’re pretty when you blush.”

A moan. “I’m going to die, you’re going to kill me—”

“I’ve wanted to ask since day one, but do you have a girlfriend?”

“And I thought you’d never ask! No I don’t!”

“That’s some grand declaration there, hunching all on yourself.”

“If Iwa-chan is just going to tease me—”

Hajime leaned in and kissed the back of his neck, the blush, the skin warm. Oikawa turned ruddier. He was sniffling. Hajime laughed again, kissed again at Oikawa’s nape, wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Pressed his face to the nook of Oikawa’s neck. Leaned into the warmth as Oikawa cried under the blue sky, the colors expanding above them—on and on, clear, boundless.

Hajime stood by the shore.

It was moments before dawn in California. The coast was seeped in deep, deep blues; the waves rolled, pushing ashore and then pulling back, sea foam scattering, soft and pale in the lingering night. Hajime’s toes sunk into the warm sand. The wind brushed through his hair, briny, bringing with it the smell of the sea.

“The California sea really is blue, huh.”

Oikawa was looking out to the ocean. He had come to visit during summer, the volleyball off-season in Argentina. He had never been here before but he didn’t look out of place: barefoot, hair flying, it was as though the last of the night had seeped him in its own colors, as though he had come from the quiet warmth of the deep blues.

“Yeah,” Hajime said. He looked back to the sea. “I think it’s bluer, though, in Argentina.”

“Hm.” Oikawa tilted his head. “Maybe just a different shade.”

Hajime considered it.

“Maybe.”

The sky was just beginning to pale. The waves rose and embraced the colors, the first hint of pale purples.

“Do you come here often, Iwa-chan?”

“Not so much before. I come here more often now.”

“Oh.”

“I took my first photo with a professional camera here.”

“Eh! Really?”

“Yeah. It was the first assignment for the class.” Hajime raised his hands, framed the view with his fingers. He squinted. “I think it was here?”

“Let me see!”

A little piece of his life in the past three years. Hajime would take him around: the sandy buildings on campus, the trees that lined the sidewalks, the pavement that darkened after a rain. The street he once walked under the burning sun, the bright signs. The Starbucks where he always grabbed coffee when he was going to be late to class. Hajime would tell him the stories in fragments and gestures, in a language once foreign but now familiar. He would show him. He would show him all of it.

There was no hurry.

They had time.

Oikawa had leant close, had hooked his chin on Hajime’s shoulder, was squinting—Hajime tilted his head and kissed him. One second of surprise and Oikawa kissed him back, hands on his shoulders—light, sure. It was the most natural thing, to reach out and pull each other close. To touch. To close the distance between them and stay, like going back home.

Hajime pulled back. Oikawa blinked. He was blushing; he looked determined and very sweet. Hajime laughed. Oikawa blushed deeper.

“You really are pretty.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s a nice color on you.”

“Stop it, Iwa-chan.”

“Come,” Hajime said, reaching out—finding Oikawa’s wrist, slipping his hand into his. He threaded their fingers together, took a step back—tugged Oikawa along. “Let’s go down to the sea.”

The last of the night was fading; the sun would rise any moment. In the blues of the night, hands linked, they headed towards the waves.