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Iwaizumi learns at a very young age that Oikawa is fragile. He can feel the cracks in his palm as they stand in his front garden, watching Oikawa’s dad cram his belongings into the boot of his car and drive away. Oikawa’s trembling like a hummingbird, eyes wide and brimming with tears that he keeps dashing away, determined not to let anyone see. It’s useless, though. His eyes are red rimmed and his cheeks and shirt are tear strained and if he spoke his voice would be raw. Before they were in the garden they were in Oikawa’s front room, watching telly, and before his dad was cramming his belongings in the boot he was arguing with Oikawa’s mum, telling her that he couldn’t do this anymore and he had to leave, and before Oikawa was doing his best to stay strong he was pleading with his dad, asking him over and over not to leave him please dad please don’t leave me, the words sounding more like prayers than anything else. All Iwaizumi can do is squeeze his hand and invite him over for tea. His mother keeps giving Oikawa soft glances that make him clench his fists under the table, and when Iwaizumi’s dad comes home and ruffles their hair as he passes, Oikawa breaks. Takes a big shuddering gasp and runs up to Iwaizumi’s room, throwing a choked ‘thank you for the food’ over his shoulder as he goes.
“His dad left,” Iwaizumi says softly by way of explanation as he gets up to follow him, “and he doesn’t think he’s ever coming back.”
He finds Oikawa under his bed, tears streaming down his face and sniffling, swallowing down great sobs.
“Sorry, Iwa-chan,” he stutters, wiping his nose on his sleeve, “I’ll be back down soon.”
Iwaizumi shakes his head and crawls into the small space next to him, thankful for once that his mum makes him hoover under his bed.
“You’re allowed to be sad. I’d be sad, too,” Oikawa manages a shrug, and Iwaizumi flicks him between the eyes. “You’re allowed to be sad,” he says again, and Oikawa looks at him properly, “I’d be worried if you weren’t sad. I know it seems really really bad right now, but it could be a lot worse. He could have died or something. You’ll still be able to see him if you want to. And if you don’t then you can come here and spend time with me and my dad. You’re pretty much my brother already.”
Oikawa gives him a watery grin then hides his face in Iwaizumi’s shoulder, “Thanks, Iwa-chan.”
“What are friends for?”
Friends are there to stop you from hurting yourself. From systematically destroying yourself from the inside out. And Oikawa, Iwaizumi thinks, is determined to do that. He catches him running at 9pm on a Saturday night after a full days training, and really that wouldn’t be too bad, if he hadn’t run home at 7, dropped his stuff off, and carried on again. He catches him by the back of his shirt, yanking him to a halt.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” he shoves a bottle of water into Oikawa’s hands, cap off and ready to drink.
“Running, what are you doing, Iwa-chan?” he gulps it down, droplets spilling down his chin and along his throat and beneath his collar and-
“Trying to make sure you don’t die of exhaustion,” he manages after a pause, eyes skittering back up to Oikawa’s flushed face. “You can’t keep doing this, you know. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“No pain no gain, Iwa-chan, you know that.”
“Of course I know that, but this is different-”
“How? How is it different?” Oikawa sounds strained, his eyes are narrowing and Iwaizumi knows he’s right.
“It isn’t a competition, Oikawa!” he’s yelling and the house across the streets from room light turns on and he’s barrelling Oikawa into his house, shoving him into the kitchen. “It’s not a competition,” he says again, “well I mean, of course it is at the end of the day,” and the scowl on Oikawa’s face grows, “but its sport, Oikawa. It’s not personal. We don’t care whether you can run faster or longer than him and-”
“Than who?”
“Kageyama, Oikawa, who else?”
“So you’ve noticed?” Iwaizumi must look confused because Oikawa stands up and starts pacing, and there’s a grin on his face that makes Iwaizumi’s skin crawl. “That he’s good!” Oikawa’s hands fly up so fast he almost hits Iwaizumi in the face, “that he’s pretty fucking incredible, actually! That he has potential. Potential to be better than me, to replace me, to be better than I am and ever could be. I can’t let him waltz past me, Iwa-chan, I can’t just let him-” he falters and his voice cracks a little and there’s a pit in Iwaizumi’s stomach that introduces itself as ‘guilt, it’s really nice to meet you’.
“Oikawa,” his voice seems far too loud in the quiet kitchen, “Oikawa, we’re your team.”
“I know that. You fractured my nose telling me that. And I haven’t entirely forgiven you for that you know, my nose has never been the same and now my whole face looks a little off kilter and that isn’t the point, but I know. I just can’t help thinking that one day you might,” he stops, eyes darting this way and that, dampening his lips, “you might leave me. Want to follow him. That you’ll forget me and just… leave.”
He swallows roughly and pulls Oikawa into a hug, “I can’t speak for all of them, but I’d never.”
“Iwa-chan, you big softy,” Oikawa’s voice is wobbly, and Iwaizumi can feel his hands trembling as they clutch at the fabric of his shirt.
“You tell anyone and you’re dead,” his voice is still scratchy, but Oikawa laughs, and it’s nice.
Oikawa’s thundering up the stairs and barrels into his room, throwing himself on Iwaizumi’s bed.
“What’s wrong?” he asks from his spot on the floor, text books strewn on the floor around him.
“She broke up with me,” his voice is muffled by the pillows, but the hurt is still evident.
“And?”
“I liked her.”
“You like all the girls you date.”
“But she was different,” it comes out a whine as he rolls onto his back, arm flung dramatically over his eyes.
“How so?”
He shrugs awkwardly, says nothing.
“Oikawa-”
“Why don’t they stay?”
“I don’t know, Oikawa,” and usually he’d tack on a ‘maybe it’s because you’re an idiot?’ or ‘because you’re so fucking annoying’ but there’s something here that’s different to all the other times Oikawa’s come to him complaining about a breakup.
“They all leave me. It’s never me breaking up with them. They all find something they don’t like and fuck off and it’s not fair. It’s like my families cursed or something. I’ve inherited the ‘you’ll never find a solid partner’ gene.”
“That’s not true. If it is then you can break the bad news to Takeru. I’m sure you’ll find someone eventually.”
“At least I’ll always have you, right, Iwa-chan?” Iwaizumi glances up from his work and Oikawa’s hanging off the bed, upside down and grinning at him, “you won’t leave me will you?”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and swats at him, “I’m trying to do work, if you’re gonna be in here either shut up or find some of your own work to do.”
Oikawa pouts and rights himself, wrapping his arms around Iwaizumi’s neck and nuzzling into his cheek, “Iwa-chan,” it’s a whine, and Iwaizumi can feel Oikawa’s eyelashes against his temple and his lips curving into a smile against his skin, “you have to promise.”
“Promise what, you idiot?”
“That you won’t ever leave me.”
Iwaizumi’s mouth twitches with things he wants to say, should say, but can’t. Not yet. “Fine. If I did you’d probably hunt me down anyway,” and really that means “of course, you’d probably die without me, and I think I’d miss you more than I’d ever be willing to tell you”, and maybe Oikawa knows that, because he presses a smacking kiss to Iwaizumi’s cheek and rolls over, saying something about a nap, and curls up on Iwaizumi’s bed.
He can see it before it happens. He knows Oikawa so well that he almost senses it, in his stance in his face in the set of his shoulders. He sees it before it happens, and it’s doubly as painful when it actually happens.
They lose to Karasuno, and it’s Oikawa’s fault. Iwaizumi doesn’t think that, and he’s sure that the rest of the team doesn’t either, but Oikawa does and that’s all that matters. One messed up receive and it’s all over. Iwaizumi feels his heart stop as the ball smacks into the court, he can see the moment Oikawa’s heart breaks, the moment he knows it’s all over, and he can’t take it, has to look away, but their loss surrounds them like a shroud in the form of the scoreboard, the crowd, the opposing team, their coach and managers faces. So he shuts his eyes and tilts his head back and loses himself to white noise. Steels himself. Oikawa will need him soon.
Soon proves to be that night in Oikawa’s kitchen surrounded by takeaway boxes. He’s been himself, which means he isn’t himself, since it happened, all fake smiles and consolation and putting on a brave face. Iwaizumi knows that inside he is screaming, he is drilling it home that it is his fault, he caused this, and he let the team down.
“We need to talk,” Iwaizumi says, and Oikawa’s head snaps up and there’s fear swimming in his eyes, “well, you need to talk.”
“Talk about what?” his laugh is hollow, and the fear is brighter, “the fact that we lost?”
“Yeah, Oikawa, the fact that we lost. The fact that it’s not your fault that we lost. I know what you’re thinking and it’s not true. I know that you’re gonna beat yourself up about it, you’re gonna let it eat at you, you’re not gonna process it. You’ll wallow in it and you’ll let it haunt you for the rest of your god damn life, and you can’t.”
Oikawa’s face scrunches up, “how can I not? No matter how you look at it I fucked up, Iwaizumi.” And that actually makes him flinch because Oikawa hasn’t called him that in years. “I let you down, I let the team down, and I let the school down. I’m the captain,” he falters, “was the captain. I should’ve been strong until the end and I wasn’t. I got… complacent or something, and then I fucked up.”
“You’re not perfect, Oikawa.” Iwaizumi stands, starts clearing up plates and boxes, “and the sooner you remember that the better. What you did was no worse than anyone else on the team who conceded a point during that match.”
“But what they did doesn’t matter as much as what I did!” chair legs screech against the floor as he stands, fists landing heavy on the table top, “it was my responsibility to lead them all to victory and look at where we are now!”
“Sit down,” Iwaizumi’s voice is soft as he comes back for more boxes, but Oikawa grabs his shirt, hauls him up against the table,
“Why aren’t you angry with me, Iwa-chan?” he hisses, and Iwaizumi’s so close that he can count his eyelashes, see the redness in his eyes, the almost non-existent spattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose.
“Because you didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing to be angry at you about.”
Oikawa’s lip trembles and he sets Iwaizumi down, hands fisted loosely in his shirt as he leans against him, forehead pressed against his as he lets out a little sigh, tears dripping onto the table between them. “Sorry, Iwa-chan,” he stutters, wiping his nose on his sleeve, “I’ll be back to normal soon.”
Iwaizumi shakes his head and bring his hands up to Oikawa’s cheeks, brushing the tears away with his thumbs.
“You’re allowed to be sad,” Oikawa shrugs, and Iwaizumi sighs. “You’re allowed to be sad,” he say again, and Oikawa glances up at him, and God Iwaizumi feels like he’s seven years old all over again, and it makes him grin a bit. “I’d be worried if you weren’t sad. I know it seems really really bad right now, but it could be a lot worse. You could have injured yourself. You’re still able to play. And if you don’t want to you can come over and hang out with me. You pretty much live here already.”
Oikawa gives him a watery grin, and then a laugh, and then a then a kiss, before he hides his face in Iwaizumi’s shoulder, “Thanks, Iwa-chan.”
“What are boyfriends for?”