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It’s a beautiful spring morning in May Park. The air was still just a little too cool, but the cloudless sky let the bright sun warm his skin enough for Tooru to enjoy the subtle contrast. Or, he would have been enjoying himself, if he had been able to sleep at all last night.
Tooru closes his eyes and he’s back in the athletic complex gymnasium, standing beside two other athletes from his team as their coach changes their lives.
You’ve been invited to play on the national team, boys. He had said. You’ve been vinted to represent us at the Olympics.
His heart thunders away in his chest and the skin of his face and neck flashed between too hot and too cold, waves of excited (nervous?) heat washing over him.
I should call him.
With shaking hands, he peels the clear case from his phone and slides the photograph of Hanamaki and Matsukawa to the side, revealing a tiny piece of paper with a few unassuming numbers scrawled across it.
Should I call him?
He pinches his eyes shut for a second and steels his nerves.
Will it matter to him anymore?
The line rings a few times. Tooru holds his breath.
“Oh my GOD, it’s four in the morning here, Shittykawa, you’d better be dead or—”
“Iwa-chan. I’m going to the Olympics.” Tooru whispers it, like if he speaks too loud someone else will hear, and that will mean it’s not real anymore.
The line is silent for two seconds, then there’s a slam, a louder slam, lots of swearing, and a screech.
“Tooru! Tooru, holy shit, are you serious? That’s, that’s AMAZING! How do you feel? Wait, Crunchy, calm down, TOORU OH MY GOD.”
Tooru has to hold the phone further away from his face, because Hajime is shouting into the phone now and the sound of his cat screaming in the background is not helping things.
“I think I blacked out when I got the news, Iwa-chan, and then I cried until I couldn’t breathe, you have no idea…” Tooru is pursing his lips around a smile, trying not to laugh as Hajime tries his best to get Crunchy under control. Ah, shit, he’s gonna cry again now…
“That’s okay! That’s okay, because YOU’RE GOING TO THE FUCKING OLYMPICS.” Hajime is shouting again now. Tooru remembers him saying something about it being four in the morning in California.
“Should I tell him?”
The line goes silent. There’s a meow from Crunchy, and Hajime shushes her.
“Are you…talking about Ushijima?”
Tooru’s stomach swoops unpleasantly at the sound of his name.
“You know he’s going to the Olympics, too, right? He’s on the national team for Japan. Well, they haven’t gotten their invitations yet, but I’m the trainer for the national team, I got the roster before it was officially announced…”
Hajime falls silent, letting the realization sink in for Tooru.
“You’re going to play against him again. At the Olympics, too.”
Tooru opens his mouth to say something, but the sound he manages to make is more of a croak than anything else.
“Are you ready, Tooru?”
Am I ready?
Ready for what? To compete with Ushijima across the net again? To see him? To be seen by him?
Am I ready?
“I don’t know.”
—
Ushijima Wakatoshi has a soul mate.
Or at least, he thinks he does. Probably. Maybe.
He hopes so.
Soulmates are complicated things, and they’re hard to find, most of the time. A fine red string tied around your little finger, connecting you with the one you’re…meant to connect with.
Nobody is born with a string, though that doesn’t mean you don’t have a soul mate out there in the world, waiting to meet you. That delicate thread will only appear when all parties involved are open to the idea, the changes it brings, the responsibilities, open to the idea of falling in love. Sometimes people know one another for decades before it appears. Some people never find their soulmate, perhaps because they just aren’t interested in that kind of love. Some people have more than one soulmate. The little red thread is a complicated thing.
Ushijima Wakatoshi thinks his soulmate hates his guts.
They were both young when he first met Oikawa Tooru, and it had been a rocky start. They started out as rivals and, on Tooru’s side, they had stayed that way. On Wakatoshi’s side, he had just wanted to get closer.
It occurred to him in their final year of highschool that Tooru might be his soulmate. It wasn’t a major revelation to him; rather, it felt like everything was settling into place, pieces he’d always had in his hands but that he was only just now seeing how they fit together. Oikawa Tooru was his soulmate, and Oikawa Tooru also hated his guts.
Oikawa Tooru is wild and strong, decisive and capable and a little bit dangerous. He’s also beautiful, soft, and just as delicate as he needs to be. Wakatoshi is in love with him, and he thinks he’ll never be loved in return.
That’s okay, though, he thinks. He thinks that loving someone is making the right decisions for them, even if it means removing himself from Tooru’s life so the other man can be happy. But it doesn’t stop a pang of fear, of longing, of grief, the iron rod that strikes through his body and chills him to the bone every time he sees someone else’s love. The way Hoshiumi jumps and hollers every time Hirugami picks him up from practice, or when the Tanakas visit Tobio every once in a while (the wife’s name is Kiyoko, Wakatoshi remembers this is because the husband will not shut up about her).
Wakatoshi is swaying back and forth on the hammock he’s mounted on his apartment balcony, enjoying the cool night air and trying not to nod off. It had been a wild day with the Japan national volleyball team, everyone slowly falling into a rhythm after two months of practice together.
He had opted to go home and rest instead of moving from ‘excited at practice’ to ‘excited at the bar’, which would inevitably wind up as ‘excited and also stirring up mischief on the street’. Last time that happened, Hinata had tried to do pull-ups on a door frame, Bokuto tried to one-up him by attempting a backflip, and one of them had told a poor drive-thru employee that they loved her. He wasn’t mentally prepared for that again.
A stray grape flew through the air and startled him out of his half-nap.
“You got the team to spend all that money on your super-special mattress that Iwaizumi recommended and you’re going to fall asleep in a hammock?”
Kiyoomi plopped down on the wicker arm chair across from Wakatoshi and got to work on his bowl of fruit. Wakatoshi chuckled in response, popped the grape into his mouth, then the two of them fell into a companionable silence.
Another grape hit him. Apparently, he’d been nodding off again.
“Your phone’s ringing.”
Wakatoshi fished his phone from his pocket and blinked at the bright light shining in his face. His phone? Was someone calling him? He didn’t feel totally awake, was really pretty confused and useless in his current state, which is probably why he answered the call without looking at where it was coming from.
“Uh, hello?”
“Ushiwaka?”
Wakatoshi feels his heart stop when he hears the voice. There’s no way. It can’t…
“Wuh, uh, Oikawa? Is that, wait, is this Oikawa?”
A scoff. “Yes, it’s Oikawa, dumbass.”
Kiyoomi raises his eyebrows. He’s evaluating. Judging. Wakatoshi stares at him with wide eyes and Kiyoomi doesn’t break eye contact as he aggressively bites into a strawberry.
“It’s…good to hear from you. I hope you’re doing well.”
“I’m doing great, actually.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”
Silence. Wakatoshi forgets to breathe until Kiyoomi throws another grape at him.
“I’m going to the Olympics.”
Tooru says it with such a flat tone, that he almost sounds disinterested.
“Congratulations, Oikawa!” Wakatoshi blurts it out louder than he meant to. He tones it down when he speaks again. “I…uh, I can’t say I’m surprised, though. You’re an exceptional player.” Softer, this time. “You always have been.”
“I guess I’ll see you there.” Tooru speaks as if it’s the most uncompelling thing in the world.
“Do you know when—”
The line goes dead.
It was the first conversation Wakatoshi has had with his soulmate in four years, and just like that, it’s over.
He swings in the hammock for a few seconds, still holding the phone up to his face.
He catches Kiyoomi taking aim with another grape and glares. Kiyoomi decides against it, and pops the grape into his mouth with a flourish.
“Hmm. Who was that?”
Wakatoshi slowly brings the phone down. He feels that familiar cold drop down his throat, he can’t breathe right, he can’t speak, he can’t move the way he wants to.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
Without a word, he rolls out of the hammock and trots back into their apartment, already knowing he won’t be able to sleep that night.
—
“Toto talked to Ushiwaka.”
“WHAAAT?”
Tooru is laying on his bed staring at the ceiling, phone dropped on the pillow beside his head as Hajime, Makki, and Mattsun babble away in their group call. The Olympics are nine weeks away.
“Are you okay, Tooru?” Mattsun, oddly enough, appears to be the cool and collected one among them. “What’s going on?”
“He called to tell him about the Olympics.” Hajime is obviously speaking around a mouthful of food. What a brute.
“Wait, Ushi’s going to the Olympics, too, right? Are you gonna see him?”
“I have no idea.” Tooru mutters, rolling over and curling his arms around himself.
Tooru tries to let the tension seep out of his body as he listens to his friends discuss the situation. He had made it to the Olympics, he had called Ushijima, and…
“Do you still think he might be your soulmate?”
Fucking Mattsun.
“Soulmate or not, I’m not sure why you haven’t hopped on that yet, he’s obviously into you, Toto.”
“Shut up, Makki.”
While they argued over the apparent gravity of romantic feelings versus getting that dick , Tooru did his best to collect his thoughts.
Wakatoshi has always been my soulmate.
Tooru had known this from the beginning, and it had terrified him.
The idea of being literally tied to another person and the responsibility that came with it. Being trusted with holding someone’s heart in your hands for your entire life, and not breaking it, not even once. And finding a soulmate so young…
Tooru had big dreams. Dreams that didn’t involve making decisions with his rival across the net in mind.
So he pushed, and he climbed, and he shouted, and he ran, ran, ran, as fast as he could toward his dreams, just as he’d always planned to, and he left his soulmate behind, never once seeing the fine red thread that connected them but knowing it was there.
And now?
Now.
What now?
“Tooru? Still with us, buddy?” Mattsun’s voice cut through the dark clouds gathering in his mind. He blinked awkwardly for a few seconds, coming back to the moment and trying to remember what had been said.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” His voice was weak. Why did he sound like that?
Hajime and Makki were silent, content to let Mattsun take the reins. Mattsun, despite being the absolute snarky terror he is, had always been the most emotionally mature out of all of them, at the end of the day.
“Do you still think he’s your soulmate?”
“What does that even mean?” Tooru doesn’t mean to sound as angry and afraid as he does. Makki chirps out, ‘that’s not a no’ but quiets down quickly when Hajime snaps at him again.
“What do you think it means?”
What do I think it means?
He thinks back to their highschool days, to…
“You should have…”
“...I can’t be with him, Mattsun.” He whispers. “I can’t leave San Juan to go where he goes. To do what he tells me. I can’t let that red string drag me around.”
There’s some shuffling, a scratchy meow, and some swearing from Hajime. Crunchy must have gotten somewhere she isn’t supposed to be.
“I don’t think that’s what he’s going to want, either, Tooru.”
“How do you know?” Tooru snaps. “He spent all of our highschool years trying to tell me what to do, where I should go, how I should be. If it was up to him, I’d be in Japan, playing exactly the way he tells me to, and that’s not what I want.”
He’s rambling now, but it feels good to get it out.
“If that thread shows up, what am I supposed to do? Is that thread going to follow me back to Argentina? What am I supposed to do?”
“Kageyama and that ginger twink made Brazil to Italy work.” Makki pipes up. “No worries there. Oh, god, can you imagine how the phone sex must have gone?” There’s a retching sound, and Hajime starts swearing again.
Tooru involuntarily imagines phone sex with Wakatoshi and his whole body heats up.
“If it doesn’t work out, Tooru, then you leave him.”
Makki and Hajime shut up as soon as Mattsun speaks again.
“These are all your decisions, Tooru.” Mattsun’s voice is soft, but stern. “You decide if you want to give it a chance. See if the thread appears. You decide if the relationship that comes from it works for you. And you decide if you’re going to stay.”
“We’ll be here for you, too.” Makki is speaking softly, too. It’s a stark departure from his normal chaotic, condescending tone, but a welcome change right now. “You aren’t making those decisions alone, Toto. If you wanna hit it and split, we’re here to enable your escape.”
“Makki, you horny bitch.” Hajime sounds more exasperated than ever. “Anyway. Yeah, Tooru, that soulmate stuff isn’t going to put you on lockdown. People are who they are, but there’s a million different ways people can turn out as they grow up, too, and the universe can’t account for all of that. You don’t have to keep everything you’re given.”
Tooru sniffles, loud and ugly and wet. When did I start crying?
Mattsun chuckles, and for a second it almost sounds like he’s crying, too. “Yeah, Haji’s right. That was one of Yaya Iwa’s things, wasn’t it?”
Makki hums thoughtfully. “Yeah, I think so. What was it she actually said, Haji?”
“It’s okay to only take what you need…” Hajime starts.
“...and leave behind what you don’t.” Tooru finishes.
“What a smart old lady.” Mattsun says wistfully. “So, Tooru. If you want my opinion, I think you should at least give it a shot. The fact that we’re still even having this conversation tells me you aren’t ready to leave this behind.”
“And we’ll be here to help you take and leave whatever you need, whenever you’re ready. We’re always here.”
“Ready to take that di—”
“HANAMAKI I SWEAR TO SHIT—”
—
The next two months are rough for them both.
Wakatoshi tries calling Tooru once, two weeks after the first phone call, and he gets sent to voicemail.
Tooru types up and deletes text messages at least twice a week. He never sends a single one.
Tendou hears the news and immediately starts making cookies that are supposed to look like Oikawa. There’s a reason he’s a chocolatier and not a baker.
Hajime, Makki, and Mattsun hold a biweekly council to evaluate Tooru’s current mental and emotional state and reorganize their plan of support as needed.
Both Wakatoshi and Tooru train themselves to the bone, only sleeping until it’s time to train again.
Hinata, always exuberant and with more social energy than anyone Wakatoshi knows, brings up the rest of the ‘monster generation’ one day after practice in the locker rooms.
“Yamayama! Are you excited to see Oikawa at the Olympics next month? You two are gonna get to face off again, it’s gonna be AWESOME.”
Wakatoshi freezes at the sound of Tooru’s name. Kageyama scowls and shoves Hinata away from him, their little red thread flickering between them.
“I’m excited to beat his ass.”
“YEAH. I’M SO EXCITED!” Hinata bops about and shouts for a few seconds, then trots away to follow Kageyama to the showers as he babbles on about watching a match over dinner that night.
Wakatoshi’s hands are shaking where he holds his crumbled uniform shirt in front of his chest. Kiyoomi reaches over and lays a hand on his shoulder.
It startles Wakatoshi, and when he looks up, Kiyoomi is looking back with as much concern as he can muster in those dark eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Wakatoshi doesn’t think he can speak right now. So he shakes his head.
And Kiyoomi walks away.
—
The air around them on the court is so still, it doesn’t feel real.
Tooru is still hunched over from absorbing the impact of his fall back to earth following the final serve of the game. Wakatoshi is on the other side of the net, craning his head around over his shoulder to look at where the ball hit the court, just barely in bounds in the back left corner.
Noone breathes for what feels like an eternity. And then…
And then— “Argentine setter Oikawa Tooru has just scored a service ace.”
“Argentina is taking home the gold!”
The stadium roars to life, but Tooru barely registers the sound. He still hasn’t moved from his crouched position at the back of the court.
We won.
Wakatoshi turns to look at him with wide, bright eyes. They only hold eye contact for a second before someone wraps their hands around Tooru and lifts him into the air.
We won!
A fan tries to hop the barrier and run out onto the court to get to the team, but security catches them. Tooru glances over and realizes it’s Makki, and yes, he’s definitely scream-crying. Hajime rushes past them, grabs Makki’s hand, and then they’re both coming at Tooru full-speed.
“YOU FUCKING WON!!!”
Hajime almost knocks him over with the force of his impact. Tooru feels big, warm hands on his face, wiping away his tears, and When did I start crying?
“We won, Iwa-chan! We, oh my GOD, we did it! We WON!”
Hajime is wiping away Tooru’s tears and Makki has his arms wrapped around Tooru’s waist, trying to pick him up and really not succeeding. He settles for draping himself across Tooru’s shoulders and screaming right into his ear.
“Mattsun’s in the bathroom so we’ll have to give him shit later but right now HOLY FUCKING SHIT, YOU WON!”
Tooru thinks they’re going to bring the building down with the force of their excitement, if they’re not careful.
—
They’d won.
Well, technically, they had lost. Argentina had won.
Wakatoshi couldn’t tear his eyes away from Tooru’s face. His scrunched up, tear-covered, smiling, splotchy red face. He should be more upset than he is, he thinks, maybe even devastated at his own team’s loss.
But he has spent so many years sacrificing what he wants to make sure Tooru could be happy. What’s one more volleyball match in pursuit of that goal?
He feels happy. He feels proud.
“Toshi.”
Kiyoomi nudges his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
He knows this isn’t his win. Knows that Tooru isn’t his to be happy for, to be proud of, or exited about, but he decides he can let the warm feeling in his chest linger for a while, at least until he steps off the court. He watches Iwaizumi Hajime wipe a few tears from Tooru’s cheeks, then he turns and starts following the rest of the team off the court, and the warm flush of excitement and exertion fades away, and his skin crawls with grief and disappointment.
He’s about to step across the line when Hinata leans over the edge of the court barrier and shouts, barely audible over the continuing roar of the stadium crowd.
“Whoa! Ushiwaka! You’ve got a thread!”
And he freezes.
He stares at Hinata for a few seconds, and Hinata stares right back like he thinks he’s communicating. Kiyoomi turns around to regard him and his eyes go wide, then flicker up to look across the court behind him. Atsumu appears behind Hinata and smirks.
“Oooh, fraternizin’ with the enemy, then, huh?”
Wakatoshi’s hands twitch. His chest feels too tight. He feels warm all over again, but this time it’s not a good thing. He hears a whoosh in his ears that has nothing to do with the crowd around them.
He looks down to his left hand and sees the thinnest band of red looped around his little finger.
He follows it with his eyes. It’s trailing down across the floor and extending back across the court, dancing like a spark as it slides across the lacquered floor to connect with…
Oikawa Tooru stands at the midline with one hand raised and curled around the net. A thin red thread is looped around his little finger. His face is still red and splotchy, and he’s still crying, just a little bit.
Atsumu is next to Wakatoshi now, and gives him a rough push. He stumbles out onto the court.
“Can’t say I blame you. He’s a good-lookin’ guy. Go get yer man, Toshi!”
There’s only nine meters between him and Tooru, but as far as Wakatoshi is concerned, it could go on forever. The edges of his vision blur and the only thing he can focus on is Tooru, standing there and waiting . Distantly, he thinks he hears the noise in the stadium quiet down, as if everyone is holding their breath to see what happens next.
He takes one step. Then another. Eventually he makes it to the net, though he doesn’t remember how he got there. Chestnut eyes look like they’re on fire. Bright, determined, decisive. Now that they’re this close, he can see that Tooru’s hand is trembling. Wakatoshi lifts his own hand and realizes he’s shaking, too. He tangles his fingers in the ropes of the net and takes Tooru’s hand in his. Tooru doesn’t pull away, and Wakatoshi is feeling so many things right now, he’s not sure if he’s going to cry or be sick right here on the Olympic court.
Wakatoshi still isn’t sure this is real. Is he hallucinating? Did he overexert himself during the match? What’s happening?
Tooru speaks. Or rather, he whispers, and his voice is low, but as steady as Wakatoshi has ever heard it.
“I’m ready.”