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Like most of the embarrassing things in Hajime’s life, this can be tracked down to Matsukawa and Hanamaki’s mere existence.
It had been a good, uneventful night𑁋 the whole team sat in a circle over the futons and tatami mats, laughing and joking and unwinding after a long week of intensive training camp before returning home.
They end up talking about volleyball, of course𑁋 discussing new plays and the world cup and who is the best libero and who has the nastiest spike.
Everything’s going fine until Hanamaki decides to take part in the ongoing dispute about who is the best outside hitter of all time.
“Tetyukhin’s good, yeah, but have you seen his face?” he says. “The guy looks like he could murder you in cold blood, no regrets, no shed tears. I’d be scared shitless to play next to him.”
“Pfft, please. Iwa-chan looks scarier and you’ve never– ouch.”
“Watch out, Shittykawa,” Hajime says with a good-humored smile, lightly punching him in the arm, “or one day your words might come true.”
It’s while he is grinning at Oikawa that Watari shrugs and says:
“Tetyukhin looks like a russian mafia boss but he’s not the worst looking volleyball player out there.”
And that, right there𑁋 That’s when, wiggling his eyebrows, Matsukawa opens his mouth and, unaware of the hell he’s just about to unleash (or perfectly aware of it, who knows), he asks:
“Who would you say is the best looking?”
And then, because they share the same defective, atrophied brain cell, Hanamaki corrects:
“Who would you say is the best looking between us?”
He can’t help it: Hajime snorts, rolling his eyes, wryly amused by what should have been one of Makki’s idiotic and promptly forgotten comments, but it turns out he’s the only one. A small silence has formed after those last words, and to Hajime’s chagrin, it doesn’t sound like a condemning one.
Uh-oh.
“As in… who I’d date?” Kindaichi asks, turning a little bit red.
“Sure,” Hanamaki shrugs undisturbed, a volleyball spinning in his hands.
“I know who my last choice would be,” Yahaba says slyly.
“The fuck are you looking at,” Kyōtani barks returning his glance.
And then, to Hajime’s utter horror, Yuda pipes up: “Oh, we should vote, guys!” and five minutes later Hajime finds himself holding a piece of paper and waiting for his turn to use their only pen.
What the𑁋 he thinks, watching his teammates.
Some of them look a little sheepish (in fact Kindaichi seems on the verge of combustion, if his sweaty forehead is anything to go by) while others look clearly amused or, in Kunimi’s case, as impassive as always (which, given the current situation and Kunimi himself, seems good enough).
Even Kyōtani, who looks ready to fucking bite anyone stupid enough to talk to him right now, is playing along. He’s actually one of the few that writes his choice as soon as he’s handed the pen as if he didn’t even need to think about it.
And Hajime𑁋
Shit.
The pen’s tip rests over the paper, blue ink slowly gathering on it as seconds tick by.
It’s not that he doesn’t know what name to write𑁋
“Hey,” Oikawa says quietly, pressing their shoulders together and unintentionally making Hajime draw a clean line over the paper. “You okay?”
𑁋it’s that he most certainly does, and has actually known for the best part of the last two years, but𑁋
Hajime closes his eyes. Oikawa lowers his voice, unobtrusive and calm.
“Iwa-chan?”
Nobody’s paying them any attention.
Hanamaki and Matsukawa are unsuccessfully trying to get the others to bet on the results and the two or three of them still waiting for their turn with the pen seem to be thinking about their decision or just enjoying the duo’s show.
Hajime opens his eyes and meets Oikawa’s steady gaze with one of his own and, for one moment, it feels as if they are the only ones in the room.
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely, and then, with slightly messy but firm strokes (and with his heart beating so fucking hard), he writes Oikawa’s name down.
Fuck it, he thinks, heartbeats slower but still loud inside his chest. He looks down at Oikawa’s name. It’s been an impulsive decision but what’s done is done, so Hajime just hands him the pen and folds his paper in half. Sighing, he relaxes his shoulders and cracks his neck, and then he shares a few words with Yuda and tells Kyōtani to stop picking fights when his growls become a bit too loud. He saves a stray sock from being buried under a futon and lends Shido his water bottle and tosses the volleyball to a bored-looking Kunimi when Makki tosses it to him and, all through this, he carefully watches Oikawa out of the corner of his eye. He sees the way he goes still, upper body slightly bent forward, pen immobile in his elegant hand, and observes as Oikawa looks down at his piece of paper in the same focused way he analyzes the court for two intense and silent minutes before he swiftly writes his choice, neatly folds the paper and passes the pen around.
“Did you write your own name in there?” Hajime asks with a crooked smile when Oikawa meets his eyes.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Oikawa asks back.
His smile, just like Hajime’s, is a slow and teasing thing, one Hajime’s known by heart for many, many years.
“Is that what you’ve done?” Oikawa adds curiously, arching a thin brow.
“Wouldn’t you want to know,” Hajime says dryly.
Oikawa snorts.
When they’re all done, Hanamaki (who is using a green hairbrush as a mic and has proclaimed himself as tonight’s host) moves along the circle and gathers all the papers with ridiculous bows and pompous thank-you’s. He puts them inside his sneaker and, making a great show of it, shakes it and randomly takes the first one out. He sits up straight and clears his throat with an ornate flourish and then, projecting his voice, he formally says:
“Welcome, gentlemen and Kyōtani, to the first Seijoh Voting Fest to find the best looking slash most datable slash most platonically (or not) wanted volleyball player Aoba Johsai has to offer. Now, following strict measures to protect everyone’s anonymity–” sure, Hajime hears Yahaba say under his breath, “–I, your most humble, most honorable, most handsome master of ceremonies, begin the count.”
Oikawa rolls his eyes.
“So! Starting now a beautiful tradition that will last forever and a day–”
“Wait until I’m made captain,” Yahaba mutters again. Hanamaki keeps talking, though, unfazed by the multiple interruptions.
“–and that will undoubtedly help endless future generations to bond over the shared trauma of this rite of passage–”
“Fucking true,” grumbles Kyōtani.
“–want to remember all of you that there’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and that every single one of us is fucking awesome and cool–”
“Bro,” Matsukawa says with theatrical feeling.
“Can I go to bed now?” Kunimi asks with a deadpan expression.
“No,” Kindaichi whispers loudly.
“–also want you to know that if I could, I would have voted for all of you. Well. Except Oikawa, probably. You’re welcome, cap. And now, without further delay–”
“Finally,” someone whispers even louder.
“–the very first vote of this tremendous, magnificent, extraordinary night none of us will ever forget goes to… drum roll… thanks Mattsun…”
Someone groans and Hajime rubs a hand over his face, trying very hard not to do the same when Matsukawa starts tapping the volleyball in an increasingly fast motion to provide the requested drum roll. Hanamaki’s long and apparently never-ending speech has only served to make Hajime reevaluate his choices and lament every single one of them. It’s as if he’s just realized that this is all real. Very, very real. He’s started to feel slightly nauseous imagining the moment Oikawa’s name gets called out, nerves gathering and churning inside his body the longer Matsukawa’s tapping keeps going on, and suddenly he wonders if it’s too late to snatch Hanamaki’s sneaker and get his vote back, his body frozen in place trying to make a choice in the middle of a fight-or-flight response. He should have written Watari’s name. Or Yuda’s. Or his own. Even Ushiwaka’s, as a public protest against this stupid idea and a way to make Oikawa fume.
God, he groans inwardly. This is what regret tastes like, isn’t it?
“…so here we go, gentlemen and Kyōtani– Seijoh’s shortest ace, the one and only Iwaizumi Hajime!”
Hajime’s mind stops.
… What, he thinks, and then, a little more elaborately: What the hell, and then, immediately after that: Shortest– You piece of shit, you are a very dead man, Hanamaki Takahiro.
Slowly (very, very slowly) Hajime removes the hand from his face and sits very still.
Right in front of him he sees Kindaichi’s ears turning an obvious shade of red and Hajime thinks he sees someone else stirring in his peripheral vision but he’s too busy trying to rein his own blush in to think about anything else.
God.
He knew it was a bad idea the moment Matsukawa had opened his mouth.
“I– Um,” he says eloquently. “Thanks?”
Matsukawa wolf whistles, but he’s the only one to make a sound. Hajime avoids everyone’s eyes and feels like everyone is avoiding his too. The air is kind of awkward despite Hanamaki’s claims about there being nothing to be ashamed of, and the only thing Hajime wants right now is to dig a deep, deep hole and disappear.
Okay, he thinks to himself, trying to stay calm. So one of his teammates thinks he is the best looking or most datable or whatever between all of them and this is probably one of the most embarrassing and still strangely flattering moments of his whole life, but it’s fine. He is fine.
No big deal.
None at all.
He’ll probably be able to look them in the eye in approximately four of five years, give or take, and surely if he manages to stop thinking about how hot his face feels it will actually stop looking like a fucking bonfire, so𑁋 everything’s fine.
Yup.
Everything’s perfectly fine.
Everything’s well under control.
As if trying to prove his own words to himself, Hajime dares to throw a look at Hanamaki and mentally swears when he sees him looking right back.
“Well, well, well, who’d have thought that our great ace is bad at handling compliments, huh,” he says with a sassy smile, and Hajime’s one hundred percent going to go all Tetyukhin on him and kill him in his sleep, no regrets and zero tears shed, thank you very much. “But anyway! The night has just begun!”
He looks like he’s having the time of his life, the bastard, and the feeling only grows when he resumes his host speech and unfolds a second piece of paper and the smirk on his face spreads as if he’d just received the best fucking news of his life.
“Oh. Oh ho ho,” he says, and Hajime doesn’t need to hear anything else to know what’s coming next. Please, just kill me now, he thinks biting down his tongue. “Oh man, would you look at this– Okay, so now in the lead with two votes out of two… A big round of applause for our volleyballplayerkiller, the great Iwaizumi-san!”
This time Watari (sweet, good, traitorous Watari) cheers and Matsukawa nods at Hajime and gives him a thumbs-up.
“Way to go, man.”
Someone to his left does a shitty job at stifling a laugh.
On his right, Oikawa sports a shit-eating grin bigger than the Tokyo Skytree.
Mortified, Hajime resists the urge to bury his face in his hands and hide his burning blush.
This is torture.
Pure, unnecessary, outrageous torture.
And, sadly, it doesn’t stop at that.
His name comes up a third time, and then a fourth, and, as Hanamaki keeps calling out his name (a fifth time, and a fucking sixth) Matsukawa keeps congratulating him as if Hajime were the employee of the month and Matsukawa his boss, and Oikawa keeps grinning shamelessly and Watari keeps on cheering as if Hajime had just spiked the winning point in a final match and, after the fourth vote, Yuda and Sawauchi join him and then, one by one, the rest of the team loosens up and soon they’re all laughing and whooping loudly every time Hajime wins a new vote, their previous embarrassment all but forgotten now that they see they’re all in the same boat.
Hajime would like to say that this is better than the awkward and silent situation from a few minutes ago but then they start talking𑁋 gentle jibes and honest compliments and all the reasons why they’ve chosen him𑁋 all the small, trivial things they like about him but also the real, deeply significant ones, and somehow it makes everything much worse.
Hajime feels his cheeks burning, self-consciousness and deep gratitude for their words piling up in his gut and leaving him tense and unable to talk.
“He’s really dedicated.”
“And easy-going!”
“I admire how he fights to get better. He’s inspired me to get better too–”
“He is kind,” Kindaichi says with a soft blush but confident stance. “He always has a kind word for you. Being the ace– it’s not just being strong. It’s being there for your teammates to lean on you.”
“His self-confidence.”
“The way you can trust him in and outside the court, you know?”
“Yes–”
“Yeah, exactly that–”
“He doesn’t give up on you,” Kyōtani says when Hanamaki calls out vote number ten, aggressively tugging on a loose thread from his futon and barely looking up. “Even when you fuck up. He takes the time to teach you. I respect that.”
“His sportsmanship.”
“His honesty.”
“His will to learn,” Watari says with clear, earnest eyes.
“Those arms.”
There’s an abrupt pause after Matsukawa’s unashamed words, and then they all burst out laughing. Even Hajime cracks a half bashful, half exasperated smile, the knot inside his guts finally loosening up too.
“Come on, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, discreetly leaning into his space so no one listens. Their legs touch, easy and warm, and Hajime can see a mischievous glint dancing in his smart eyes. “A few words for your fans?”
“Piss off,” he replies easily, lopsided grin broadening, gently shoving at Oikawa’s face and making him laugh.
“Oh, man. I can’t believe I didn’t get a single vote,” Hanamaki sighs over Oikawa’s laugh when he picks the last piece of paper from the depths of his shoe. “I’m gonna lodge a complaint to the person in charge. This is vote rigging.”
“You are the person in charge,” Yahaba stresses.
“Don’t worry, man,” Matsukawa says, giving him a clap on the back. “You have my vote.”
“Aw, thanks m– wait. You literally voted for Iwaizumi.”
“Well. So did you,” Matsukawa says after thinking for a sec, both staring at each other.
“…Fair enough,” Hanamaki nods after another one second pause to think about it, and then they solemnly lock eyes again. “You are my number one, Mattsun– after Iwaizumi, of course.”
“Of course,” Matsukawa says understandingly. “You’re my number one too–”
“–after Iwaizumi.”
“Of course.”
“I love you, man.”
“Love you too.”
The team booes and someone playfully throws the volleyball at them but Hajime’s stopped listening because he has come to the sudden and too late realization that, if everyone’s written his name down, then the only vote left (the only different one) is his, and𑁋
Suddenly, the placid touch of Oikawa’s leg against him burns like fire.
Suddenly, there are too many things going on in his head.
Hajime turns a little too brusquely to his right but Oikawa’s looking at Hanamaki and Matsukawa with a teasing smile and laughing eyes, and a moment later Hanamaki’s unfolding the paper and incredulously asking “What the hell–” and suddenly everything’s going too fast for him to react.
Hanamaki says it a second time, deeply offended (“What the actual hell ”) and then a third, and Matsukawa, curious, looks over his shoulder and then, moving his sleepy eyebrows and drawing a lazy smile, he reads out loud:
“Oikawa.”
There’s silence.
In the middle of it, Oikawa’s eyes meet his with the unfathomable force of collapsing stars. Time slows, seconds slowing down until they stop, and all Hajime can feel is the sting of Oikawa’s look, the dryness of his mouth, the cold fear that swells inside his chest before it implodes. Words pile up in his throat, stuck, explanations and excuses that would be of no use because he knows that Oikawa knows , that he’s figured it out right away, long before the rest of the team has even had the time to process it.
Hajime swallows.
Then time restarts, the team erupting in a loud chorus of laughs and whistles and claps, indisputably the loudest ovation so far.
“This is definitely rigged–”
“Well done, Captain!”
“No fucking way–”
“Come on, Matsukawa-senpai, don’t lie!”
“Cheers, Oikawa-san!”
“Oh, the treason…”
“Speech, speech, speech, speech!”
“Alright, little vandals, I think that’s fucking enough.”
They all instantly freeze𑁋 arms still half raised in the air, some hands cupped around mouths, the volleyball softly hitting the back of Shido’s head after describing a long, perfect arch and then bouncing off the floor before noiselessly coming to a stop.
Slowly, all at once, they all turn to look at Mizoguchi.
“Dang,” Hanamaki says.
Mizoguchi doesn’t look pleased, hair disheveled and the desperate homicidal look he usually saves for Kunimi’s laziness or Matsukawa and Hanamaki’s jokes taking his eyes, and even though seeing him like this is usually unbearably funny, this time something on his face invites them to contain their laughs.
“Do you have any idea of how late it is?” he asks rhetorically. Wisely, nobody talks. “I want all of you in your futons in two minutes and sleeping in three,” he says, slow and low. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Come on guys,” Oikawa says with two claps, standing up. “Sorry sir.”
They pick up the ball and Hanamaki’s shoe and a couple of shirts that are lying around and, for some unknown reason, Matsukawa’s (clean) underwear and then they all stand up too.
“Sorry, Mizoguchi-san.”
“Yessir.”
“Sorry!”
Mizoguchi watches them like a hawk, and as they move around rearranging the futons to their original positions and get into bed, they hear him mutter kids these days and when the heck did I become a babysitter and I’m too young to be doing this shit.
He waits until they are done and then he switches the lights off with one last warning.
“If I hear one single word you’ll be running twenty extra laps every day for the next four weeks, got it? Before and after school.”
No one makes a sound.
“Good.”
They keep quiet even after he leaves, the fatigue of the last days finally catching up with them. Someone yawns. Watari mumbles good night, already half asleep, just as Kyōtani starts snoring and then, gradually, the room fills up with the various sleeping sounds of fifteen teenage boys or𑁋 well, fourteen, really, since Hajime remains wide awake.
And he’s not the only one.
Three futons away he can hear Oikawa stirring silently𑁋 the telltale rustle of the sheet the only audible sound.
Hajime waits, and then, a long time after Kunimi stops moving (always the last one to get to sleep), he hears Oikawa getting up and carefully sliding the door shut after him when he leaves the room. Hajime gives him a few minutes but when Oikawa doesn’t return, he pulls the blankets back and gets up too.
He knows he can’t be practicing (too late, too loud) so Hajime walks down the corridors until he reaches the open door to the backyard. Oikawa’s there, back against the wall and head tipped back, eyes peacefully closed. Hajime lets himself watch him for two heartbeats, aching and breathless. Then he speaks.
“Looking forward to those extra laps?”
Oikawa startles but he doesn’t look surprised to see him there, which means he was expecting this. He doesn’t turn to look at him, either, just giving him a sidelong glance when Hajime steps away from the door and moves to lean next to him against the wall. The night air smells like fresh pines and earth, and dew clings to Hajime’s thin cotton shirt.
They start talking at the same time.
“Okay–”
“So–”
“–Iwaizumi?” Hajime asks.
Oikawa doesn’t answer right away but then, softly, he says: “Yeah.”
Hajime swallows. Then, pressing further, wanting to make sure, needing to know, he says:
“No Iwa-chan?”
“…No,” Oikawa confirms, a soft breath again.
It’d have been plain and clear that way, Hajime thinks, imagining it.
Just Iwa-chan.
Just Oikawa clowning around, winking when Makki read the name and making Hajime roll his eyes and tease him back𑁋
Just one childhood friend jokingly choosing another, no further meaning at all, Oikawa’s name for him out in the open for everyone to admire.
But𑁋
Oikawa hadn’t written Iwa-chan.
He hadn’t, and Hajime can only think about one reason why he would have written Iwaizumi instead.
“So,” Oikawa says looking at him, intentionally copying Hajime’s words. “…Oikawa?”
There’s a faint pink blush covering Oikawa’s cheeks, a strong and somehow fitting contrast with the resolution in his eyes. He looks tender and exposed, headstrong and trustworthy, the same boy Hajime’s grown up with and watched and fighted and liked and lov𑁋
“…Yeah,” he says in a hoarse voice, feelings forming and exploding in a million sparks inside him.
Oikawa doesn’t give him time to say anything else.
“I like you,” he breathes. “I like you, Iwa-chan. I’ve liked you for a really, really long time.”
“Oikawa–” Hajime rasps out.
“It’s true. Everything they’ve said– it’s all true,” he says hoarsely too. “You are funny and loyal and make people belong. You are clever and hardworking and so kind, Iwa-chan, even when you think you are not. You go down fighting and take every defeat as a challenge and every mistake as a chance to improve. You know when to back off and when to push and when someone just needs to hear that there’s always a next time. I like your stubbornness and your boyish smiles and how you play dirty every time we fight. I like your tenacity and your laugh and the way you kept blushing when hearing how everyone back there is at least a little bit in love with you too.”
“ Please–” Hajime asks (begs) in a rough voice.
“You are–”
But he can’t keep talking because Hajime kisses him, a burning heat spreading over his cheeks and his ears and his chest, worse than any other he’s experienced tonight.
Oikawa pulls three millimeters back, surprised, but Hajime doesn’t relent and gently kisses him again, following his mouth, and this time Oikawa leans into him too, warm and malleable and softly kissing back.
This is new for both of them and so they move slowly and carefully, almost shy, briefly pausing and resting their foreheads together, lips parted and breathing subtly into each other’s open mouths.
They feel giddy and in awe. Hajime kisses him, and they keep kissing over and over again, sighing and mumbling and feeling the other’s smile pressed against their lips. Then they grow a little braver, always dauntless𑁋 with a callous thumb caressing Oikawa’s cheekbone, a warm palm settling over Hajime’s nape, a bold tongue slowly licking a bottom lip (biting and sucking and kissing it), and with hot mouths opening together, panting and exploring and hesitantly learning the best way to fit.
It’s better than anything Hajime has ever imagined.
It’s everything Hajime’s always wished for.
“I like you,” he says, because it’s obvious at this point but he needs to say it too. “I like you too.”
Oikawa hums, soft lips kissing him, making Hajime’s stomach heat up and his fingers itch, desperate to touch, give, feel.
“Tooru,” Hajime says.
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa drawls.
“Just go to sleep,” Mizoguchi implores.
They pull back as quick as lightning. Mizoguchi’s standing at the doorstep, one hand over his eyes and fingers strongly pressing down on his temples.
“Just– Please,” he says without looking at them.
They bow as red as New Year lanterns and brush past him with quiet yessir’s. They retrace their steps back light-footed and without looking at each other, and when they finally stop before the closed door of the sleeping room they share one single look and burst into silent and uncontainable laughs, all the giddiness, the absurd happiness, the exhilaration and the memory of Mizoguchi’s face making them laugh and laugh and laugh until their sides hurt and their knees go weak.
They end up leaning into each other, Hajime’s laughs crashing against the side of Oikawa’s neck and Oikawa’s arm over Hajime’s broad back, fingertips reaching the skin over his shirt’s neck. Eventually, the last of their ghostly laughs shakes their bodies and, slowly, they let themselves fall into each other, shoulders fitting together like puzzle pieces.
“I meant it, you know,” Oikawa says when he finally sobers up.
Their fingers brush, not quite intertwined, and Hajime sees him swallow down before staring at him.
“I like you,” he says, raw and simple.
Predictably, Hajime feels his face burn up, but he stares firmly back with a half crooked, half hopelessly in love smile.
“I meant it too,” he says and, not caring about those extra laps (…or Mizoguchi’s mental health) he interlaces their fingers and kisses him one last time.