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There’s a certain kind of sound people make when they eat pavement. It’s visceral, in the way only human mistakes can be - a scraping, tumbling, broken kind of sound. The skateboard goes skittering off on its own in one direction, the skater goes rolling across the ground in the other, and the spectators all wince in sympathy. Or laugh, if it was a particularly humiliating fall.
Hajime is well acquainted with this noise, a side effect of being friends with Oikawa Tooru since even before they both learned how to stand on a skateboard for longer than two seconds.
So when he hears the familiar sound of his best friend becoming best friends with the ground, Hajime lets out an exasperated sigh, digs around in the first aid kit he keeps strapped to his waist, and pulls out one of the dozens of alien bandaids that are crammed in there alongside other Oikawa related first aid supplies.
“I almost got it that time,” Oikawa says, already scrambling to his feet.
“You almost broke an ankle, is what you did,” Hajime says, and hands Oikawa a bandaid. “Come on, it’s getting late.”
Oikawa ignores him in favor of haphazardly slapping the bandaid on his scraped knee before chasing after his board. How convenient, that his jeans already had a hole there - a side effect of Oikawa’s tendency to skate hard and crash harder.
The skateboard rolled all the way to the fence, where the lights of the skatepark don’t quite reach and the weeds grow thick and wild. Oikawa hadn’t managed to complete his third rotation that time, and had over shot his angle, which was how he and his board had ended up rocketing off the half-pipe entirely. Oikawa fumbles around in the shadows for a minute before returning, board in hand. His triumphant grin slides into a frown as he plucks grass from the wheels, no doubt already thinking about how he could improve.
The bandaid is already dangling off his knee.
Hajime grabs Oikawa’s wrist before he can hop back on the half-pipe, and drops to his knees before Oikawa can question him. He hooks his fingers through the frayed hole in Oikawa’s jeans, holding him still. With his other hand, he reaches into his first aid kit and fishes around for another bandaid.
He peels the old one off and presses the new one over the scrape. It’s not bleeding, but Hajime doesn’t take chances. Not with Oikawa. Not anymore.
The old scar on his knee from his last bad fall is faded, hardly visible in the skatepark’s dim yellow light, but Hajime would be able to find it even in the dark. His chest grows tight as his thumb slides from the bandaid over to the scar; a distinct line of raised tissue, long and jagged.
A side-effect of his ambition.
Hajime only realizes he's been lingering too long when Oikawa pokes him on the nose. Hajime startles and blinks up at him, brows drawing together. Oikawa flushes.
“You’re going to get wrinkles from frowning so much.”
Hajime frowns harder and pushes Oikawa’s hand away, his own face burning. “You’re the reason I frown so much. When are you going to learn how to properly put on a bandaid?”
“But Iwa-chan, I don’t need to learn how when you’re always here to do it for me! You’re the first aid expert, after all. What would I do without you by my side to patch me up?”
“It’s just a bandaid,” Hajime says, rolling his eyes. Trust Oikawa to take a tender moment and crumple it up like old homework. He gets back to his feet, brushing off his irritation. Oikawa has been weirdly clingy ever since Hajime picked up Matsukawa’s extra longboard and realized he could grow to appreciate the more relaxed style of skating, which offered a very different experience from the intense adrenaline fueled danger he grew up on alongside Oikawa.
Hajime wishes Oikawa would just come out and say what he’s feeling. All this dancing around their feelings is getting old.
“One more time,” Oikawa tells Hajime, and it’s not phrased like a question, but he’s still asking for permission, in his own way.
Hajime is tempted to say no, to physically drag him home as he has many times before, but Oikawa’s eyes blaze with infectious determination. He had been close to nailing the trick.
"One more," Hajime relents, and the bright, relieved smile Oikawa gives him almost makes his moment of weakness worth it.
They scramble up the half-pipe together, Hajime first, then Oikawa. The ladder to the top is rusted, and so rather than risk injury on something as lame as a busted ladder, they climb up the vert itself with a running start. This skatepark has been neglected for years, left to rot while everyone flocks to the shiny new park a few blocks over. During the day, they use that one - all their friends skate there, and it’s where you go to be seen, which is all Oikawa wants some days . It’s where you go to show off. Where you can size up the competition.
It also has security cameras.
This one, on the other hand, was discovered by Oikawa and Hajime back in middle school, and has been abandoned for as long as they’ve known about it. The entrance is padlocked, but there’s a thin gap in the fencing behind the bowl, hidden by overgrown bushes. While occasionally graffiti artists or other skaters will sneak in, most of the time it’s empty.
Hajime sets his longboard to the side and reaches a hand down to help Oikawa up. Then Hajime sits near the edge, legs crossed. He pulls his board onto his lap and watches Oikawa spin the seafoam green wheels of his own board.
“You can do it,” Hajime tells him. It’s not empty encouragement, but a firm belief in Oikawa’s ability. An indisputable fact. The sun rises every morning, gravity’s a bastard, and Oikawa Tooru can and will do anything he sets his mind to.
“I know,” Oikawa says with his usual smug confidence, smiling at him before setting his board down, right foot on the tail to hold it in place. He puts his left foot on the deck, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes, his gaze is focused and intense, his whole demeanor starkly different than the playful teasing from earlier. This is Oikawa the skater, who rules the park like it’s his kingdom. Oikawa with no masks, no walls, no fake smiles, and nobody to lie to or put on a show for.
Oikawa leans forward, and for a moment, it’s like time has frozen, like Oikawa is hovering over the precipice of something. Greatness, perhaps.
And then he drops in.
Hajime’s heart swoops and soars as Oikawa builds momentum, gaining more and more air with each pass back and forth. When he’s in the air, the world goes silent for a few heartbeats. Time seems to slow to a crawl. There’s nothing but dark sky at his back, nothing tethering him to earth but gravity. Hajime holds his breath.
And then noise comes rushing back as the wheels make contact with the ramp once more, and Hajime exhales.
Oikawa makes it look so effortless sometimes, but Hajime knows it comes from years of practice. Oikawa didn’t have people in his life to teach him how to skate; nobody passed their love of skating onto him, or guided him from a young age. Nobody handed him a skateboard, or taught him the names of tricks. His skill is something owed entirely to himself, and everything he has accomplished was cultivated through hours upon hours of observation and trial and error.
All those hours are paying off now. Oikawa is able to easily pull off so many of those tricks they mastered on Hajime’s PlayStation 2 growing up. Each time he leaves the ramp, it’s like all that time playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater into the early hours of the morning have come to life, like he’s working his way down a checklist of tricks, building up in complexity as he works his way towards his newest obstacle.
Oikawa will never be satisfied until he has mastered everything there is to master. Even then, Hajime is convinced Oikawa would just make up new, impossible tricks, just to keep chasing that high. There is always something bigger, something more challenging, on the horizon.
Maybe Hajime is biased, but that’s the secret to what makes Oikawa such a brilliant skater. Not his skill, which is undeniable, but his hunger to prove himself. Oikawa hates lagging behind other brilliant skaters to an unhealthy degree, but he’s also only ever improved when there was someone to compare himself to. Whether it was Hajime when they were first teaching themselves, or the other skaters at Seijoh Skatepark, or even himself when Hajime switched to longboarding and nobody else in town could keep up with him, Oikawa’s persistent need to be better, to be exactly what he needs to be to reach his next goal, is what pushes him beyond most people’s limits.
This latest trick is only the most recent example. He decided that he needs to learn it in order to beat his rivals, so that’s what he’s going to do, even if it takes him a hundred tries. Even if it takes him a thousand. Lesser skaters would have looked at prodigies like Kageyama and Ushiwaka and given up long ago.
Oikawa doesn’t know what it means to quit.
Hajime recognizes the exact moment Oikawa decides he is ready to try it again, because it’s exactly when he would have made that same decision. They’ve polished the same instincts over the years, riding the line between confidence and caution like it’s a handrail, learning the exact moment when it’s time to take a leap of faith or else crash and burn.
This time, when Oikawa flies, his hand reaches under him to grab his board, and he spins, once, twice, three times, realigns himself, and then lands. For half a heartbeat, victory screams inside of Hajime’s chest, and he has to grip the edge of his board to hold it in. He did it, he thinks, relief and pride blossoming inside him.
And then Oikawa’s board goes flying out from under him. He slides across the flat bottom of the half-pipe before rolling to a stop faceup, limbs splayed like a starfish.
He doesn’t get up.
Hajime’s heart lurches. He’s sliding down the ramp before he even realizes.
Oikawa still hasn’t moved, but when Hajime rushes to his side, he sees that he’s conscious. His eyes are screwed shut in pain or frustration or more likely both, but he’s conscious. Hajime lets out a shaky breath.
“I got it that time, Iwa-chan. I got it but-”
“I saw,” Hajime manages. He feels a little unsteady. He knows falling is part of skating. Hell, he’s fallen more times than he can count. You can’t learn if you don’t fuck up first. It’s practically the first thing they learned. But seeing Oikawa fall and not get right back up never gets easier. Seeing him fail never gets easier.
Oikawa sighs and opens his eyes.
“What happened?” Hajime asked, reaching a hand out.
Oikawa grabs Hajime’s hand and pulls himself up with a wince. “Just landed harder than I expected. Foot wasn’t placed right.” He frowns. “Now, where’d my board get to this time? I want to have a word with that traitorous thing.”
Oikawa takes a step and crumples to his knees. Hajime’s at his side in an instant. “Sit,” he tells him, pushing Oikawa the rest of the way down. It says a lot that Oikawa doesn’t protest, just sinks to the ground in defeat, staring angrily at his knee.
“Stay,” Hajime adds. “I’ll go grab your board.”
Oikawa nods hollowly, still glaring at his knee like it betrayed him.
Iwaizumi nudges him with his foot until Oikawa looks up at him. “You got it though.”
Oikawa’s expression shifts and he flashes Hajime a smile. It seems genuine, which is good. “Of course I did! Didn’t you have faith in me?”
Reassured that Oikawa isn’t totally spiraling, Hajime gently kicks Oikawa's (uninjured) leg one more time, then makes his way over to where Oikawa’s board ended up. The stickers are the only reason he’s able to find it. He’d made fun of Oikawa when he first insisted on the more expensive glow in the dark kind, but now he’s grateful for them, because it means he doesn’t miss it in the dark.
The damage, on the other hand, is impossible to miss. The deck is splintered a little bit where the rear truck is attached. If it had been just that, the board probably would have at least held up enough to get him home, but one of the truck’s nuts has been lost to the weeds and there’s a loose wheel. Hajime inspects it for additional damage as he makes his way back to Oikawa, detouring over to where their backpacks are leaned against the backside of the half-pipe’s deck along the way.
Their bags are resting where they always are; under their names, spray painted onto the sheet metal panel a few years ago. Hajime puts his hand on the cool metal, recalling the moment when he and Oikawa declared this place was theirs, and they were going to leave a permanent mark on it. This place has left permanent marks on them in return. Not just in the scar on Oikawa’s knee, but in both of their souls. No matter what changes, they’ll always have the memories they’ve built here.
Hajime frowns at his own sentimentality. Maybe Oikawa’s not the only clingy one.
Oikawa is still where Hajime left him when he returns, two backpacks and a skateboard in hand. He hands the skateboard to Oikawa wordlessly. Oikawa runs his fingers fondly across the underside of the deck. He’s broken countless boards over the years, but it’s been a few months since the last time, and this once has a lot of memories attached to it. Hajime had made it for him for his birthday. He'd labored extensively over the deck, gluing and molding the layers of wood, cutting and trimming and drilling holes for the trucks. He had talked to local skate shops to pick out the best wheels, had carefully trimmed the grip tape, and had painted the underside himself - an alien with Oikawa’s signature wink. He spent weeks making sure it was perfect. And it had been, until suddenly it wasn't.
It’s his fault the board is broken. His fault that Oikawa is hurting. If he hadn’t let Oikawa try again… Hajime tries to crush the guilt worming its way into his conscience. Guilt won't change what happened, and Oikawa made his own choices. Hajime wasn't arrogant enough to believe he could really stop Oikawa from doing something he'd set his mind to.
Oikawa gives Hajime a weak smile. “Well it’s like I always say. If you’re gonna hit it…”
Hajime rolls his eyes and drops Oikawa’s bag next to him. “We’re going home.”
“So bossy,” Oikawa says, but he shoves his skateboard into his backpack. There’s no point in arguing with his board broken and he knows it.
Oikawa pushes himself up to his feet.
“Can you walk?” Hajime asks.
Oikawa tests his weight on his leg and winces, but nods at Hajime. He picks up his bag and slings it over his shoulder. The skateboard sticks out comically, but it leaves his hands free.
Hajime grabs his longboard from where it’s still waiting at the top of the half-pipe, and they make their way out of the skatepark, slipping out the broken fence the same way they came in.
Oikawa walks slowly, doing a horrible job of covering up his obvious pain. After an excruciating couple of minutes, Hajime puts his longboard down, holding it in place with one foot. Oikawa’s brows furrow. “Are you leaving me? I guess that’s understandable…”
Hajime huffs. “Get on.”
“What?”
“Get on the board, Oikawa.”
Oikawa gets on, gripping Hajime's shoulder for balance. “Are you going to push me or-”
Hajime moves his backpack to his chest and then gets on the board in front of Oikawa.
“Oh,” Oikawa says in soft understanding. He immediately grabs onto Hajime’s hoodie to steady himself while Hajime pushes off.
It’s awkward at first, but luckily the way home is mostly downhill, so they’re able to cruise without Hajime having to work hard. And at least Oikawa isn’t putting too much stress on his knee.
They haven’t shared a skateboard like this since they were kids. If Hajime hadn’t switched over to longboarding a few months ago, they never would have both fit on one board. As it is, it’s still a tight fit. Oikawa’s hands move from where they’re clutching Hajime’s hoodie to wrap around his waist instead. Hajime’s glad Oikawa can’t see his face, because he’s sure the blush would be impossible to ignore.
The silence they settle into is comfortable, and so is Oikawa’s body pressed against his. The city streets are so empty that Hajime almost fools himself into believing he and Oikawa are alone in the world.
He lets himself imagine a world where he doesn’t have to share Oikawa with skateboarding. Where it’s just the two of them, and nobody and nothing in between them.
And then he decides he doesn’t want to live in that kind of boring world. He wants the whole world to see Oikawa - to know how incredible he is. He wants to see Oikawa flourish and grow and conquer every challenger.
He wants all of that and more.
He wants Oikawa’s arms wrapped around him, the way they are now. He wants to never stop seeing the gleam of victory in his eyes, never wants to stop hearing his delighted laugh when he watches Hajime eat pavement doing a simple kickflip. And he wants new experiences too. He wants to know what Oikawa looks like when he beats Ushiwaka, wants to see him invent new tricks that nobody else can do. He wants to show Oikawa the joys of cruising on a longboard down empty streets, wants to show him that they can still skate next to each other, even if they’re skating apart.
At the bottom of the hill is a 7-11, its bright light spilling out into the street and sparking an idea in Hajime’s mind. He lets them slow to a stop outside. The automatic doors slide open, letting a gust of cool air out.
“Earth to Iwa-chan?” Oikawa questions when Hajime shows no sign of continuing. Hajime steps off the board, unzipping his backpack and digging around for his wallet.
“Wait here,” he tells Oikawa, then hurries into the 7-11.
“Buy me food!” Oikawa calls after him.
---
Oikawa is sitting on Hajime’s board when he emerges from the 7-11 four minutes later, bag of ice in hand. He wraps the ice in the spare t-shirt that has been lining the bottom of his backpack for weeks and sets it on Oikawa’s knee. Oikawa looks up at him.
“This isn’t food,” he says.
Hajime lifts the plastic shopping bag in his other hand, and a grin breaks across Oikawa’s face.
While Oikawa happily and hungrily tears through an entire loaf of bread, Hajime sits down next to him and works on the whole reason he stopped at the 7-11 in the first place.
As nice as sharing the longboard is, Hajime can tell Oikawa is getting restless. The duct tape, super glue, and spare bolts he got from the 7-11’s car repair aisle aren’t a permanent fix, but he hopes it’ll at least be enough to get Oikawa the rest of the way home.
“Here,” he says, handing Oikawa’s board to him.
“When’d you learn to do that?” Oikawa asks, wide-eyed. Hajime shrugs nonchalantly. It’s not like he learned it all at once. He can’t point to a single day and say “that’s when I learned how to fix my mistakes.” It took a long time to build up enough understanding and experience to get this far.
“You really are a first-aid expert now,” Oikawa jokes, “if you can fix up boards as well as people.”
Hajime grins. “You’re not the only one thinking about the future, you know.”
“The future?”
Hajime leans back and looks up at the sky, not trusting himself to look at Oikawa when he admits the idea that has been brewing in the back of his mind these last few months. The future is looming over them both. Graduation will arrive before they know it, and with it, adulthood, with all its career paths and long term plans.
“When I made you that board I realized I like making skateboards. And fixing them, too. I think I want to help skaters reach their best potential, and help them stay safe. I know it’s not glamorous, but…” he takes a deep breath, prays he won’t crash and burn. “Well, when you make it to the Olympics, you’ll need someone to make sure you don’t kill yourself or break your board in the middle of a run.”
Oikawa is silent for a long time. When he finally speaks, it's slow and cautious. “Iwa-chan, skateboarding isn’t an Olympic sport.”
Hajime tears his gaze away from the dim stars and looks at Oikawa. “It will be. And when it is, you’ll be there.”
“And you’ll be there too?”
“Of course I will, dumbass, what did I just say?" Hajime bumps his shoulder against Oikawa's, rocking the longboard. "Just because I’m not going to try and go pro doesn’t mean I’m done with skating forever. Just because I picked up longboarding doesn’t mean I don’t care about what you do.”
“I never said that,” Oikawa protests, eyes wide.
“You didn’t have to. I know you, Oikawa. You’re scared that if you don’t need me anymore, I won’t have a reason to stay and I’ll leave you behind. You think I don’t need you the same way you need me.”
Oikawa looks like he’s been slapped. Hajime feels a little guilty about that, but he needs Oikawa to understand. Just because they’re on different paths, doesn’t mean they’re not still going in the same direction.
“But none of that is true,” Hajime continues. “I never want you to stop chasing the next trick, even though you’ll never be satisfied. You’re the best skater I know, and the best friend I could ask for.”
Hajime raises a clenched fist. After a moment’s hesitation, Oikawa bumps it with his own, just like he has a thousand times before, and like he will a thousand times again. For a moment, time slows to a crawl, like it does when Oikawa is in the air.
And then Oikawa grabs Hajime’s shirt, yanks him forward, and kisses him.
Oikawa kisses like he skates. Like the world will end if he doesn’t get it right, but like he knows he doesn’t have to worry, because he’s prepared for this his whole life. He kisses like kissing is a competition, and the winner is whoever deprives the other of oxygen first.
Hajime kisses back just as fiercely, because dammit, Oikawa, love isn’t a competition, but if it was, he isn’t about to admit defeat so easily.
Hajime loses himself to Oikawa's kiss. Their hands find their way into each other’s hair, wrap around each other’s backs, skim up underneath their shirts, skin pressed to skin, like any space between them is too much space. Every breath he takes comes from Oikawa’s lungs. He doesn’t know where his lips end and Oikawa’s begin. The world falls away until it’s just the two of them, sitting on Hajime’s longboard, wrapped in each others’ arms, and Hajime decides that maybe he can be a little bit selfish. He can share Oikawa with the world, as long as he gets to carve out a space just for himself. Just for them.
“Hey!”
Hajime and Oikawa spring apart. Hajime wipes his mouth, looks around for the source of the voice, and sees the 7-11 cashier shaking her fist in their direction.
“No loitering, you hooligans, or I’ll call the cops! I see those skateboards - it’s illegal on this street, you know!”
Oikawa scrambles to his feet and bows at the woman. “Sorry! Won’t happen again!” He turns to Hajime, mischief dancing in his eyes. “Race you home!”
And then he takes a running start, throws his board down, and skates away like his life depends on it.
Hajime offers the woman a short apologetic bow as well, stuffs the shopping bag and the ice into his backpack, and chases after Oikawa on his board.
It only takes him a few minutes to catch up - Oikawa is starting to slow as his adrenaline wears off and the pain in his knee returns.
“Hello, Iwa-chan!" he says, slightly out of breath. "Nice to see you finally caught up."
Hajime pulls his longboard up next to him so that their bodies face each other.
“How’s your knee?”
“You’re such a worrywort, Iwa-chan. My knee is fine.” Oikawa pushes off the ground to demonstrate. “You kissed it better, after all!”
Heat rises to Hajime’s cheeks that has nothing to do with exertion. “So you admit I’m better?”
“That’s not what I said! You’re twisting my words!”
Hajime laughs. He reaches a hand into the empty space between them, fingers outstretched; a peace offering. Oikawa grabs it, entwines their fingers. His hands are rough, a side-effect of pavement scraping them raw so often, but the way he gazes at Hajime is soft and tender.
It’s not exactly safe, skating while holding hands, but Hajime doesn’t care. It’s worth it, to see Oikawa’s smile mirroring his as they skate together under streetlights and stars. He looks happy. Truly, weightlessly happy.
And if they fall? They won’t fall apart, they’ll fall together. If they fall, then they’ll just get back up, as they have every time before.
Falling is a part of life, after all. And the act of getting back up? Of climbing back onto the metaphorical skateboard even when it hurts you? Taking that leap of faith, even knowing the potential side-effects?
That’s love.