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“So, does Iwa-chan still have a crush on me?” Tooru leers as they trample down the hill behind Iwaizumi’s mother’s house, leaning too far to the right, pressing the weight of his side into Iwaizumi’s own. “I’ll understand if you do—I’ve only ripened with age, after all.”
Tooru might as well be drunk with the new information Iwaizumi’s mom had shared with him earlier—“I still remember the days Hajime pined after you in high school,” she had cooed, affectionately ruffling Iwaizimi’s hair, “And now you’re an Olympian!”
The newfound information is still rampaging through Tooru’s ribcage, leaving him lightheaded and short of breath.
Beside him, Iwaizumi snorts, his lips tugging up at the corners in the familiar way they always have whenever Tooru heckles him. “Shut up, idiot,” he grumbles, voice low and a little rough, draping over Tooru’s shoulders like a warm, arousing embrace. “I was sixteen.”
Iwaizumi says it as if everyone had a crush on a Tooru when they were sixteen, like it didn’t mean anything, like he was just young and hormonal.
But Tooru notices the way Iwaizumi doesn’t deny having a crush on him now.
He also notices the way Iwaizumi’s side presses back against Tooru’s, and the way the apples of his cheeks have blossomed beneath the golden lamplight. He notices the way Iwaizumi bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling, a habit he still has even now, at twenty-seven.
Tooru has always noticed Iwaizumi.
From his messy dark hair to his stormy eyes, the way he pushes carrots to the side in his bento and how he touches his right wrist when he’s nervous. The way he has always gravitated to the color blue and how he sneaks glances when he thinks Tooru isn’t looking.
Like right now.
Iwaizumi is peeking over at Tooru from beneath the hood of his lashes, and when Tooru looks back, confident and pleased beneath the attention, Iwaizumi glances away—too fast, too twitchy, completely caught in the act.
Tooru’s heart races, a thunderstorm full of electricity pulsing through his chest. His mouth parts around a smile as he pokes Iwaizumi in the arm, wrapping deft fingers around a broad bicep. “That’s not a no, Iwa-chan,” Tooru sing-songs, delighted. “So, you do still have a crush on me, huh?”
This time Iwaizumi’s normal defensive maneuvers rise to the occasion.
He catches Tooru in a headlock even though Tooru is taller and wider now. Tooru squawks and grabs onto Iwaizumi’s forearm, tries to twist away, can’t. Iwaizumi laughs and Tooru squirms, and then they lose their balance, sneakers slipping on the damp grass, and they go tumbling down to earth in a pile of broad shoulders and strong limbs.
It’s like high school again, like ten years ago, before they both flew across the sea to different destinations, different paths that always managed to converge at the same point, bringing them back together. To here, this moment, collapsed in a heap of familiar affection on the side of a hill behind the house they used to spend entire days playing in when they were children.
When Tooru catches his breath, he finds his legs twisted with Iwaizumi’s, finds their ankles locked and his body half strewn overtop Iwaizumi’s own. Iwaizumi still has an elbow around Tooru’s neck, and they’re close, close enough for Tooru to smell the mix of aftershave and sweat on Iwaizumi’s skin and to feel the brush of his breath against Tooru’s chin.
Close enough to see the way Iwaizumi’s eyes flicker down the bridge of Tooru’s nose to his mouth.
Tooru bites his lip and exhales, pulse so loud in his ears that it makes him woozy, skin tingling with the longing that comes with being in love with his best friend for nearly fifteen years.
“You know,” Tooru begins again, this time breathless, winded, hopeful. “You still haven’t said no, Iwa-chan.”
Iwaizumi’s throat bobs, tongue sweeping over his lips. Tooru stares, transfixed, wanting.
Waiting.
There is a beat of silence, and then Iwaizumi speaks again. “I haven’t,” he says bravely, arm relaxing around Tooru’s back, palm sliding over his shoulder. “Are you gonna do something about it?”
Tooru shivers, feeling as if he’s just won another gold medal on the world’s stage.
“Yeah,” he breathes out, heart in his throat.
And then he leans in.