Chapter Text
Autumn’s first cold snap digs its teeth into Iwaizumi. Blood and gold stains the leaves into a cinnamon color scheme, and the wet morning is frozen over as he exits the shrine. No grass grows in the building’s centuries-old shadow, which carves a black path toward the adjacent cemetery.
Iwaizumi passes by the older tombstones before his heart guides him to the one he was looking for. It’s a newer stone – just five years old. He crouches to trace the inscription with fall-bitten fingers, then he flattens his palm against the icy grass. “I always think I’ll never stop talking once I get here,” Iwaizumi says. “But then I’m here and I can never think of anything to say.” He laughs and frost billows from his lips. “It’s not like you haven’t heard me say it all before.”
He kisses his palm and presses it against the stone, his fingers dark against the grey. “Please don’t be upset about what I’m going to do today, Tooru.” Five years of day-and-night despair leaves his voice weak. “I just wanna see you again. No matter how I can.”
Iwaizumi rises from his crouch. “See you soon, baby.”
He's texted Akaashi a few times, but he doesn’t know what the guy looks like once Iwaizumi arrives to their agreed meeting place at the local café. A few patrons sit on the outdoor patio and brave the weather to enjoy the scenery of vibrant leaves. Iwaizumi picks Akaashi out of the crowd; he sits hunched over a laptop with a massive pair of headphones. He wears a stylish plaid shirt over a neutral hoodie, and his trainers are bright white. Iwaizumi feels a bit embarrassed in his work boots and sweats paired with a Carhart jacket.
Akaashi invites Iwaizumi to sit with him once Iwaizumi has ordered a black coffee; the caffeine doesn’t help his nerves about this situation. Iwaizumi says, “This is a little more formal than what I expected from ghost hunters.”
Akaashi chuckles. “Every job involves paperwork at some point – and meetings. I handle those and the main camera operations. What do you do if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Roofs,” Iwaizumi grunts.
“An art form, really,” Akaashi says. It’s nice of him.
Iwaizumi says, “So, what do you need me for? I know we’ve been talking about Tooru for like, a month now, but is there anything I can do to help your – er, investigation?”
“I’ll be honest, Iwaizumi-san.” Akaashi takes a sip of his frappe. “As you know, I work for Chance Encounters Paranormal Services. Our popularity has increased in this area, and regarding hauntings, I’ve heard the most talk in conjunction with the Oikawa family home. Even so, when I saw that photo you posted of you and Tooru, you were honestly one of the only people willing to talk about him.”
“It’s a smalltown,” Iwaizumi says, voice quieting. “The loss devastated everyone.”
“I can only imagine. Have you visited the Oikawa home since it was repaired and turned into a historical sight?”
Iwaizumi grimaces against a short bout of sunlight before the clouds meld together once more. “Not often. I really only go on the anniversary of…” He swallows around the hard lump in his throat. “Of the fire.”
Akaashi hums sympathetically. “So, today then.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know the care-taker? Ushijima-san?”
“We graduated together. We weren’t like, good friends, but he was always respectable and serious. Guess you’d have to be, working somewhere like the old Oikawa house.”
Akaashi makes a face. “He wasn’t as open to talk to me, though he was willing to get onboard about the investigation once I told him you were involved.” He raises his brows in excitement. “He mentioned some intriguing evidence as well.”
Iwaizumi studies him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, Ushijima-san won’t entertain the idea of ghosts, though he says when he brings his dogs to work, they often bark over nothing. He also talked about a specific place in the house – should he place any plants there they die by nightfall.”
Iwaizumi checks his memory. “It’s the hallway, isn’t it? The one leading to Tooru’s room.”
Akaashi’s eyes widen. “Yes. Have you seen this phenomenon?”
“Tooru’s mother had trouble keeping plants alive if she put them by the window in that hallway,” Iwaizumi explains. “She didn’t understand it.”
Akaashi strokes his chin and taps away on his laptop for a minute. “We might be dealing with a generational haunting.”
Iwaizumi hikes a brow. “You mean, the house could have been haunted before –” His breath hitches. “Before Tooru?”
“It’s certainly a possibility. The home is so old; I’ve already found plenty of people who died there in my research.”
Iwaizumi’s frown is tinged with fear before he pushes it down. “I’m only interested in one person.”
“I understand.” Akaashi checks his Apple watch. “The rest of the team should be finished setting up our equipment for tonight. Would you like to come meet them?”
Oikawa’s family home is traditional with curved eves and a dark color palette; all the shades of a storm cloud. However, a noticeable difference arises from the back of the house, where the fire started. That portion of the home might have been replaced by the same materials and colors, but there’s just something off about that section.
Iwaizumi turns his attention to the garden pond instead. In their youth, he and Tooru named every koi fish and dared each other to touch one. They spent long, autumn days lounging beneath the maple tree in the garden. Tooru often wore Iwaizumi’s hoodie as he laid his head on Iwaizumi’s shoulder, and they half-dozed as they compared each other’s hands. Iwaizumi has a scar in the center of his hand from crawling over a nail in his father’s workshop as a baby. Tooru used to trace the scar, and in the later years, he would kiss it.
Two Mercedes vans sit in the drive – one is pastel-blue while the other is sleek black with a satellite dish atop the vehicle. Akaashi knocks his fist against the black van’s backdoors, which open to reveal at least a dozen screens climbing the walls. Iwaizumi recognizes the Oikawa family home’s interiors on the video streams.
A guy with outgrown blonde hair swivels in one of the two chairs in the van. An apple pie sits half-devoured on the counter as he pulls off his headset. He’s wrapped up in the fluffiest blanket Iwaizumi’s ever seen, and there’s also a black cat in his lap.
Akaashi says, “Iwaizumi-san, this is Kenma. He’s our technology specialist.”
“Nice to meet you,” Iwaizumi says with a light bow.
“You, too.” Kenma speaks in a soft mumble, and he keeps his head tucked down when he looks people in the eye. He pets the cat and says, “This is Kenzo.”
“He’s Chance Encounter’s mascot,” Akaashi grins.
Iwaizumi chuckles. “It’s nice to meet you, Kenzo.”
Kenma says, “Akaashi, if you’re headed into the house, could you adjust Camera 7? The one in the foyer. It keeps fogging up.”
“Interesting. I’ll take care of it after I put my things in Bokuto’s van.”
Akaashi shrugs off his backpack and opens the backdoors of the retro, blue van. “Bokuto – one of our lead investigators – built this van from the ground up.”
Iwaizumi peeks in curiously. It’s certainly a small living space with one multiuse counter and tons of storage containers, but Iwaizumi has never seen a cuter space. String lights hang from the walls and a guitar lays on the bedspread. Iwaizumi says, “He travels by himself?”
Akaashi ducks his head with a bashful smile. “I live in the van as well.”
“Oh. Cool.” Iwaizumi shrugs.
“Kuroo and Kenma live in the other van, but they always come over for coffee if we’re investigating a park or something.” He tucks his backpack away before shutting the doors and leveling with Iwaizumi. “Remember, you’re welcome to leave at any moment if it gets too difficult. You’ve already helped so much by telling me what you remember about Oikawa.”
Iwaizumi pulls from the reckless bravery of his youth – when Oikawa was there goading him on. “I’ll be all right.”
They venture to the house’s screen door and step inside to stack their shoes up. While in the foyer, Akaashi studies Camera 7 and wipes the fog off with the edge of his hoodie. Iwaizumi must admit that it does feel a little humid in the space, more so than outside. So vividly can he hear the patter of him and Oikawa chasing each other around as children, playing with festival sparklers. He gets sick with grief for a moment.
Akaashi leads him through a trail of wires on the floor, over the tatami mats. They reach the kitchen where two men are huddled around what looks like a batch of remotes. The taller guy in the red tracksuit looks up with a lazy smile. “Ah, Akaashi. Who’s this?”
“Iwaizumi,” he introduces himself. “Oikawa’s – friend. Best friend.”
“I see.” The guy arches a brow. “Sorry for your loss. I’m Kuroo and this is Bokuto.”
“Hey,” Bokuto says. He’s a stout guy that probably gives amazing hugs. “Are you gonna stay with us for the lockdown?”
Iwaizumi nods. “Yeah. I just hope I don’t get in the way.”
“Nonsense,” Kuroo flaps his hands. “We’d love to have you.” He smirks. “Besides, everyone should go on a ghost hunt at least once in their life.”
Akaashi snorts. “Yes, it’s quite the glamorous lifestyle.” He comes over to where Bokuto sits at the kitchen table and Bokuto wraps an arm around Akaashi’s waist before kissing his belly through the hoodie. Akaashi grins and ruffles his hair.
Iwaizumi says, “Are those remotes?” He nods to them on the table.
“No, friend,” Kuroo shakes his head. “These are EMF readers. They measure electromagnetic fields.”
Iwaizumi blinks. “So, ghosts, in this case?”
“Precisely. This isn’t the only equipment we use, but we try to test all of it before an investigation.” Kuroo crosses his arms. “The problem is that all of our EMF readers stopped working once we brought them into the house.”
“Scary,” Bokuto hisses. Even Akaashi looks surprised.
Iwaizumi says, “I guess that’s not supposed to happen.”
“It’s never happened before.” Kuroo sighs and puts his hands on his hips. “I had hoped the only trouble we’d have would be Camera 7, but it looks like we’ll have to come up with some new ideas before tonight.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Bokuto says. “We always do. But first!” Bokuto slaps his hands on the table as he rises from his seat. “I need some hot chocolate.”
The five of them sit around to drink coffee and hot chocolate in Bokuto’s van. With the backdoors open and the string lights twinkling, the sun drops over the group as the sky turns the color of a bruise. Kuroo sits in a lawn chair with Kenma on his lap; Bokuto and Akaashi are wrapped up together in yet another fluffy blanket. Iwaizumi finds himself laughing along to Bokuto’s jokes. He then finds out that Kuroo and Kenma are rich and do all their work for their investments on the road.
They all migrate to the tech van afterward, where Akaashi pulls his laptop out. “First, we’re going to look at all the people who died in the house.” He clicks around before pulling up an aged photograph of a dark-eyed man. “Sakusa Kiyoomi. Died in August of 1919 at the age of twenty-five; he died in this house.”
Kuroo strokes his chin. “What happened to him?”
“He was diagnosed with clinical influenza,” Akaashi explains. He then clicks the next slide on his computer. “The Miya twins – Atsumu and Osamu. Atsumu died in 1948 from tuberculosis and soon afterwards, Osamu died from unknown causes. Both passed in the house. ”
Iwaizumi’s brows crease. “That’s terrible.”
From his own laptop, Kenma says, “While on bedrest, Atsumu fell into fits of delirium and often called out the name of someone nobody else knew.”
Bokuto leans forward. “What was the name?”
Kenma grins. “Omi.”
“Holy shit,” Kuroo says. “You think he saw Sakusa?”
“Perhaps he was comforting him,” Iwaizumi guesses.
Kuroo snorts. “Or annoying the hell out of him.”
“Osamu was said to call for his brother after Atsumu died. Days after he started doing this, Osamu was found deceased in the living space with no exterior nor interior trauma.”
“Sounds like a broken heart,” Bokuto says. “How sad.” He pulls Akaashi a little closer to him.
“At this point in the timeline, only the caretaker resided at the home.” Kenma clicks to another screen to reveal a man with snake-oil charm; every angle of him sings of sharp delicacy. He sits in the garden out back for his portrait, and Kuroo squints at the painting. “Anyone else think it’s a little weird he had this painting done in the garden where there’s so much color? Why did he want this painted like the ass of a raincloud?”
“Might reflect his mood,” Kenma says, typing away. “He died from an undiagnosed sickness – possibly cancer – at the age of 24 in May of 1953.”
Akaashi pulls his laptop around for everyone to see. “Tanaka Ryunosuke and Nishinoya Yu.”
Bokuto blanches. “Akaashi! Those are kids. I did not agree to little spirit babies.”
Iwaizumi hikes a grin. “Do ghost kids scare you the most?”
“Without question! They’re trapped in the in between with all this energy they don’t know what to do with, and who do you think they release it on? You guessed it. Us.”
“Anyway,” Akaashi says. “In 1963, Tanaka and Nishinoya died at five-years-old when they both drowned in the garden pond.”
“Jesus,” Kuroo hisses. “Were they playing or something?”
“Nobody knows,” Akaashi says. “And last but not least –” He clicks to a photo Iwaizumi is more familiar with. “Oikawa Tooru.”
Like the world is empty, Iwaizumi takes his time studying the family portrait. Everyone’s dressed in white. Oikawa had a hell of a time getting that bowtie on and Iwaizumi was no help. Oikawa considered not even going to the shoot, but Iwaizumi told him to march his ass down there for his mother’s sake if nothing else. His parents sit on a loveseat with Tooru propped on one armrest and his sister on the other. Oikawa’s nephew sits between Oikawa’s parents, and he must have done something adorable before the camera snapped. Everyone is laughing; Tooru always looked so handsome when he laughed, half-regal. Alive.
He comes back to himself and realizes everyone’s watching him. Kuroo says, “’Best friend’, huh?”
Exhaustion spills from his words. “That a problem?”
Kuroo snorts. “Exhibit A.” He sweeps a circle around Kenma, still in his lap. He points to Bokuto and Akaashi. “Exhibit B – B as in Bokuto, who made me suffer all throughout high school because he wouldn’t grow the balls to ask Akaashi out. He couldn’t grow them if they were a chia pet.”
“Gotcha,” Iwaizumi says, going for casual though he’s relieved to be among similar people.
Akaashi says, “Oikawa is an interesting case because the authorities never actually figured out where he died in the house.”
“They never discovered how the fire started, either,” Iwaizumi adds. “They knew it began in the back of the house – probably Tooru’s bedroom.”
Kuroo squints. “But they didn’t find Tooru’s body in the bedroom?”
“They didn’t find one period,” Iwaizumi says. “Said it was impossible with the extensive damage the fire caused.”
Kuroo digs deeper. “They didn’t find anything when they were renovating the place?”
“No. Whatever was left of him was lost.” His back swoops into a tear-drop shape. “I volunteered. I spent days looking for anything, but there was just… nothing.”
Bokuto gives him a gruff rub on the shoulder. Iwaizumi smiles in appreciation.
Kenma says, “Are we ready, then?”
They all hop from their seats as night settles over the home. Darkness drags long, black fingers down each street. The wind rises like a choir, and whether they are praising or damning Iwaizumi for thinking this might work – well, he’s about to find out.
“Lockdown time,” Kuroo grins.
