Work Text:
I dreamed I forgot you
but to dream you was remembering.
Leila Chatti, I Dreamed I Forgot
Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture
May 2020
There’s a new café in town, which serves you fragrant coffee and sits you on stone benches under the shades of old trees. What kind of trees they are, Hajime will never know, because all he does know is that they’ve been there since he last passed under their awnings a full eight years ago, covering him from the sun as he found himself warmed by an entirely different thing. This is not good. Come on, Hajime, get it together. He sighs out a breath, then desperately wills his surroundings not to turn into a sappy memory lane.
And of course, he fails.
You can’t really blame him for that, because everything around him here is an undoing. This close to Oikawa’s family home, Hajime can’t decide if the memories currently clogging up the air are just as bittersweet as his coffee or just downright bland, even as they close up his throat every time he tries to swallow his perfectly-brewed flat white. It’s a shame, really, because the café’s barista truly knows what he’s doing, and this even used to be his favorite order anywhere. He’d surprisingly developed a taste for milky coffee when he was living in California, but then it took him a while until he’s able to stomach any kind of milk-based anything since his return to Japan two months ago.
And it’s not like he avoided it like the plague or hurled it out every time he accidentally drank or ate one. It’s not like he suddenly developed a bad case of lactose intolerance at the ripe age of (almost) twenty-six. It’s not. It’s a different matter altogether, a slightly sweet but wrong taste in his mouth that—once again, drowns him helpless in memories.
“Iwaizumi. Hey, Iwaizumi.”
There’s a convenience store with its rows of cheap milk breads, and an eager, long-fingered hand reaching for a couple of them at once. A late-afternoon walk home, from school or the public pool or the ramen shop, the same one done a thousand times without losing its warm grip on hands or hearts. A golden boy made out of thunder, strolling every street like he owns it, born to wield his reign on the world’s stage through grit and cultivated talent. A welcome-back kiss, received and returned in the back of a rented car somewhere near Laguna Beach, and a final farewell taken not ungracefully in the same exact place four years later.
“Hey, Iwaizumi, helloooo? Are you okay?”
Hajime snaps back to the present, to his friend and former teammate snapping a finger right in front of his face. “Ugh. Stop that, Matsukawa. I’m fine,” he grumbles, turning his head in a brazen show of annoyance. “I heard you the first time, okay?”
“Did you, though?” Matsukawa leans forward, a knowing smirk on his face. “What did I say to you, then? Before you spaced out and went all dopey-eyed on me?”
“First of all, I did not go dopey-eyed. And you were saying something about this place being close to Oikawa’s new house or some shit along those lines. Am I right?”
Beside him, Hanamaki snickers. “Oh, hey! He was listening, all right,” he declares, all while sipping his horribly purple drink with a loud noise. “You know what? I’m even willing to bet that the reason he got all weird like that is because being here is like a lovely trip down memory lane for him.”
“Oh, Takahiro.” Matsukawa laughs. “We are really in it now, thanks to you.”
“Goddamn you two all to hell.” Hajime scowls at them, but Hanamaki only wiggles his eyebrows in response, pleased with himself, while Matsukawa almost snorts out his coffee right back into the cup. It’s almost like Hanamaki just pulled the words right out of Hajime’s mind, and he now feels like throwing something. “I think you both should shut up. Especially you, Hanamaki,” he cuts in, going for the kill. “You know you’re in no state to bet anything. How long have you been unemployed for, exactly?”
At this, Matsukawa laughs even harder, a scandalized mock-gasp thrown in for good measure, while Hanamaki just calmly shakes his head. “Oh no, Iwa-chan,” he says, “In this household we don’t call what I currently am ‘unemployed’.” He wags a finger at him sternly, like he’s teaching a child the importance of not using swear words. “I am just ‘in-between jobs’, okay? In other words, I am waiting for something better to come along.” Hanamaki smiles, then raises his tall glass like it was a champagne flute. “It’s good to have high standards in life, you know.”
“What a load of fuckin’ bullshit,” Hajime scoffs. “And don’t call me that.”
“Oooh, why not? Because only one person in the whole entire world can do so?”
This time, Hajime does throw a packet of sugar at Hanamaki’s direction, who yelps and tries to avoid it without much success, almost poking himself in the eye with his metal straw. It’s unopened, fortunately, a sweet trove of luxury that Hajime doesn’t allow himself to taste. Not here, anyway. Not where the tree’s shadows are as familiar to him as his own. Not when he can still see himself running from the rain two blocks down, taking refuge with a beautiful boy when he was eighteen. Not when he can still feel the shape of their every kiss in the cool, almost sultry air; and not when he almost slipped and banged his head on the café’s stairs when he first arrived because he thought he saw him in the crowd.
Not when he’s actually here, in his hometown and first flying ledge, sipping overpriced coffee with his two best friends who know just how to rile him up for the sake of calming him down. It’s almost a weird form of support, chaotic and annoying as all hell, but Hajime is still thankful for it regardless. It’s the first time, he thinks, his full laughter at Hanamaki’s antics surprising even himself. The first time he truly feels like himself again, in this street where he once got broken open and was put back together by the capable hands of the best setter he’s ever known.
It’s the first time he feels like himself again, despite everything here reminding him of what he lost.
In the spring before they both left for college, Hajime and Oikawa lived on different streets for the very first time in their lives. The latter’s grandmother had died a few weeks earlier, just shortly after their high-school graduation, and she’d left her big house on the other side of town to Oikawa’s father, her eldest son. It was a spacious, mostly-traditional Japanese house that had been in their family for more than three generations already, so it really didn’t feel right to put it up on the market nor leave it unmaintained. Oh, you poor little rich boy, Hajime used to tease when Oikawa came to him crying and resisting the change, his firm hands surprisingly gentle against Oikawa’s tears. Everyone else on our street would have jumped at the chance to move uptown, you know. Better environment, better transport access…
Well, good for them, then! Oikawa would yell hotly in return, punching one of Hajime’s pillows in sullen frustration. They’re welcome to switch places with me any day. Who knows, maybe they just don’t have anything worth staying here for.
Oh, and you do?
And then Hajime would break into laughter at the deepening pout on Oikawa’s face, pink blush staining the tops of his cheeks as he called him names he didn't mean. Stupid Iwa-chan, he’d tell him, all huffs and folded arms. You’re such a musclehead. Must I spell everything out for you?
Yeah. Go on, why don’t you? At this point, Hajime would just inch closer, daring Oikawa to look him in the eye and tell him what he wanted to hear. Come on, Tooru, tell me. Weren’t you the school womanizer? This kind of shit should be easy for you.
But it’s different with you, Iwa-chan, came the answer. Oikawa took up the challenge in the end, like he always did when it was Hajime pushing him forward. You’re different. I become only myself when I am with you. You know that.
I know. And that’s all I want, for you to tell me as yourself. What do you have here that is worth staying for?
After this, it would take a few more seconds before Oikawa finally answered, before he laid down all his usual romantic arsenal of sugared words and plastered smiles to form nothing but raw honesty. You, he’d say, over and over again, even when the time and place around them changed. It’s you I want to stay for. It’s you I want to stay with.
Me?
You, Iwa-chan.
Me, Tooru?
Yes, you. You, Hajime. Always you. Again and again, you.
It will never not be you.
Oh, but now we both know that it will, Oikawa.
Like everybody else who’s unlucky in love, Hajime remembers the ending more than the start.
It was an autumn day, made even gloomier by a cliché sort of rain that lazily tapped their car’s windshield and blurred their view of the beach. Hajime could only make out a faded sky above blue-gray ocean, fringed by even more colorless sand, and suddenly he couldn’t really remember how they both had gotten here. He’d woken up this morning to a text from Oikawa, agreeing to his last night’s request to meet for a date, although the latter had actually arrived at Orange County almost a full week ago. Meet me near Laguna Beach, he’d said, uncharacteristically curt, I’ll send you the location details later.
There had been no time to rent or borrow a friend’s car, so Hajime had quickly jumped onto the Line 79 bus and assured himself that an hour of commuting was a reasonable price to pay. When he finally arrived at their meeting place, Oikawa gave him a hug that lingered just a few beats too long, then insisted on paying for his coffee before setting down the boardwalk with his arm around Hajime’s, loose and warm and familiar. They talked a bit about their families, their volleyball jobs, their future plans—and it all just felt so normal that when Oikawa proposed hanging out inside the car until the sudden rain cleared, Hajime thought it was for a long-awaited make out session, not a blunt, premeditated breakup.
“How the fuck did we get here, Tooru?”
Oikawa sat behind the wheel, not talking. There was a slight tremor in his hands when he lifted his coffee cup, and the eyes behind his glasses were a dull, cloudy sort of brown. “Oh, come on, Iwa-chan,” he said, voice breaking toward the end, “You can’t say you didn’t see this coming.”
“I didn’t say that.” Hajime sighed. “I just thought that I could… You know, that I could—maybe—”
“Fix this?” Oikawa supplied, one edge of a smile creeping up. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you again, Iwa-chan, but you can’t fix everything. And certainly not this.”
In the distance, Hajime could hear thunder, rumbling against the sky like a fierce approval. The raindrops hitting their car were also getting stronger, a clap instead of a tap, then like a thousand different screams at once. And he wanted to scream, too, because Oikawa was right—he had seen this coming. Both their graduations were already a few months’ memory now, and Oikawa had immediately gone pro after college, still shooting for somewhere beyond the stars. Every other week, he kissed Hajime good morning through his shiny phone screen, luggage not yet unpacked in a new city, and told him stories about his growing serves and world-star teammates. Wait until I come home to Irvine, he’d croon, because Hajime was always the constant one, Wait until I come home to you.
But when he did come, it was never for long. Always restless, always moving, and yet Hajime bore no resentment. Who am I to stop the course of rivers? he thought, even as he welcomed another goodbye in stations or airports or the high windows of a bus. Rivers must run, birds must fly, and Oikawa Tooru must reach all seven skies with his hard-bloomed talent. And if Hajime has to become the rock he must discard along the way to reach the ocean, then so be it.
So be it.
“Pity, then,” he told Oikawa, head resolutely not turning to face him. “Because we were the one I wanted to fix the most.”
That day, Hajime got out of Oikawa’s rented car and into an Uber home with a wet face that he told himself was only because of the rain, and tried his hardest not to think about the war and regret already dawning on Oikawa’s face.
Don’t you ever dare tell me it was a mistake, Tooru.
They didn’t exactly keep in contact after that. The used-to-be constant barrage of calls and messages quickly turned stale over the course of a few weeks, then just fizzled out into nothing altogether. When Oikawa’s sister got married for the second time the next spring, Hajime didn’t go, claiming his trainees' packed volleyball season to explain his reluctance to take a few days’ leave. His congratulations were received warmly but briefly via an overseas phone call, and he almost had to bite his own tongue when Oikawa told him how much both their families had missed him.
Yeah? Not more than I missed you, I’m sure.
Some nights, Hajime thought that if he’d just endured a little longer, or fought a little harder, they could have made it (he still does). He usually spent those nights alone in his bare one-bedroom, nursing a cold beer or two to try to take the edge off, but still—a sharp, empty crater opened behind his gut every time he recalled the real reason why he let Oikawa go. It wasn’t the distance, or the time difference, or the quickly-growing fan boys and girls. It wasn’t any lack of trust on both their parts, either.
It was the fear.
If I can’t keep up with you, I’d rather not be with you at all.
And if God only favors the brave, then I must be the most miserable sinner out there.
Inside his own car today, Hajime sings along to the radio. He drives with both hands on the wheel, the way he always has to remind himself to do after Oikawa no longer stays a staple on the passenger seat. The lively notes of a city pop feels only half-foreign on his tongue, and this is a new car, so there are no textbooks written in Spanish or an old Seijoh VBC jacket not in his size draping over his backseat like they belong there. Like the promise of another life, ready to catch him in its wave if only he had been bold enough to seize it.
If they had been bold enough to seize it.
The residential road ahead of him is a familiar one, still with the same smooth asphalt and stately Japanese homes lining the street like a welcoming committee. Hajime plunges deeper into the intersecting lanes, eyes unconsciously searching for one particular house, although the more distance he covers, the more he realizes that this whole area feels like hazy fragments of a dream.
Nothing lasts forever, and all humans forget. That’s undoubtedly true, but Hajime never thought that eight years is a long enough time for the best memories of his life to start disappearing without the slightest of warnings. In each place he lingers, all the houses around him blur into a ghost-like substance, like sheets of gray fog he can never catch in his hands. He gradually slows the car down into a half-crawl when he passes a military-style villa, then finally stops altogether in the middle of a serene lane he’s not sure he’s ever been in. A neat, low-rise house near the corner of the street looks like it could be Oikawa’s, but its wooden veranda doesn’t circle the front door like it used to. The fences also seem different—but then again, Hajime cannot immediately remember what color it used to be painted in.
It could be black, or it could be dark brown. It could be both—a starless midnight sky with tea-colored sides, or it could even be white. As white as the smile Oikawa gave him when Hajime visited his new house for the first time, as white as the fresh sheets on his low bed, as white as the enduring keys on his grandmother’s grand piano. You unlatched your house to me but I was the one welcoming you in, Hajime told him that day, branding each word into a bare shoulder. And you’re never gonna leave, no matter where we go.
Oh, good. Oikawa still retained some of his cockiness, even as he shivered between Hajime’s arms. Because I don’t ever want to leave, either. No matter where we go, I’m staying with you, Iwa-chan.
No matter where we go, we go there together.
And Hajime took that as a promise, as a given, not realizing that this was his first mistake in a long line to come. What people say in the thickest heat of a moment is not something he should plan his whole future around, because seasons change and memories fade, and didn’t he himself forget the things he thought were important to him? Didn’t he also let the cherished details about Oikawa melt from his mind until only the most faded traces remain? Didn’t he also fall out of love, albeit in his own slow, obstinately miserable way, even though he still thinks that nobody will ever understand him the way Oikawa did—the way he still does?
Didn’t he also walk away from him, in the end?
Outside, the late spring sun shines a muted color, washing the street and the houses in the palest of afternoon yellows, but Hajime feels blinded regardless. He brings his hands to his face and swallows the urge to scream, burying himself in the realization that people move on, that he moves on as well, and that the fact can break him like a punch to the stomach, that it can make itself known in the most unsuspecting, littlest of things. Like a missing paint color, or the shape of a terrace, or an unrecalled house number. Or like the telltale curve of a boy’s handwriting, the direction of the sheets’ stretch in the mornings, or the way old piano keys feel against his fingers. He can forget them all. He has forgotten them all, memories purged by distant years like they were never there in the first place, but ironically, this is also a reminder that there are some things he didn’t forget.
There are things he just can’t forget, no matter how much he tried.
Dear Oikawa,
I drove along the street where you used to live today (or at least I think I did), and I couldn’t even recall your house number. Crazy, huh? Was it forty? Forty-four? A hundred and four?
Shit, I can’t remember. I guess I am getting older, after all.
“Twenty-six is not even halfway old, Iwa-chan!!!” Huh. I can almost hear you
Anyway, I heard your family still lives there. Your mother and father, your sister and her family when they come to visit. Oh, and especially Takeru, when he’s home from boarding school. How has he been these days? Is he still playing volleyball?
He’s a high-schooler now, isn’t he? Sometimes it amazes me, the speed in which time travels. Imagine, in just one year from now, or maybe two, your little nephew will leave his teenage years behind like we left our old selves in the dust. He will soon go to college, be legally able to drink, fool around and fall in love, if he hasn’t already. A bold child like him—I think he’ll adjust to life after high-school fairly easily. He has what it takes to survive tough conditions—you know, since he has you as his uncle—and so I think he’ll be happy.
I hope he’ll be happy. I hope he finds his purpose in life, and I hope he’ll bloom into a happier version of himself—the way I never did. You know, after things ended. I never did. Even though I had four years already. Even though I had distance and strained silence and a weak memory, a move to a skyscraper and a string of lukewarm dates. I had everything. I got myself everything I needed, see? Everything. All the better to forget you with.
All the better to remember you still.
Always,
I. Hajime
In all Hajime’s time away from home, Sendai has pretty much stayed the same. Compared to Tokyo, it still wakes up at a later time, shades passersby with the many trees lining the streets, and quiets his thoughts just enough that he finds himself running with no prearranged route this morning. He still has a weekend to get through before he’s expected back in Tokyo with the men’s national team, and he’s determined to enjoy his days off in Miyagi as much as he possibly can. The 2021 Tokyo Olympics is looming on a near horizon now, getting clearer with each day that passes, and Hajime doesn’t know when he’ll actually have the time to come back here again.
Although… Where is “here”, exactly?
Fucking hell. Hajime curses inwardly as he stops right in front of Aoba Johsai High School, chest heaving and calves still smarting. The entrance gate has changed a little—sporting a sturdier fence with shinier paint job—but other than that, the building complex looks exactly the same as he remembers. There’s the sycamore tree under whose shadows he and his friends once tried smoking (only Hanamaki could tolerate the taste), and whose leaves extend right up against his first-year classroom window at the leftmost corner. The path toward the gym at the back is still lined with shrubberies, and Hajime wonders if the double doors leading inside still creak when opened.
Hurry, Iwa-chan! Stop dawdling!
Shut up. You and your fangirls were the ones holding us up, Shittykawa.
Aww… Are you jealous?
Tch. In your dreams, ugly.
At the highest floor of the building, the half-moon arch of the music room still sits, its east-facing glass impossibly radiant at this time of day. Hajime can still make out the room’s layout inside his mind—a baby grand piano in the center, a few guitars in one corner and a set of drums in another. The shelves along the wall are filled with music sheets and books and other trinkets, always messy at all hours of the day, and most of the chairs inside are either upturned or scattered crookedly like spiky obstacles jutting out from the floor. But despite the apparent chaos, this was Hajime’s favorite place at the school after the gym—especially when Oikawa was sitting beside him at the piano bench and looking at him like he was the reason why melodies existed.
I kinda suck at this, you know, he used to always say, because it was true. He had been years out of practice, and except for certain compositions from the Romantic age, he hadn’t even taken to classical music really well. So stop looking at me like that.
Like what?
Like I’m the highest dream you could ever reach, he’d reply. Like you could forget the world and stay here with me.
And then Oikawa would laugh, despite the dreamy, not-quite honest dare and the tensing air beneath. Silly Iwa-chan. He’d give Hajime a light kiss on the cheek, his lovely smiles all-knowing and real. If I was that sort of person, you would never love me back.
Well, maybe I would. Just try me, Oikawa.
See? Oikawa laughed even harder. Brighter. Lovelier. You’re just proving my point. Look at us—constantly pushing each other, breaking each other’s limits. If I ever stopped running toward what I want, you would never forgive me. And I would never forgive you if you did that, either.
Remember, Hajime: We are the wind beneath each other’s wings. And love, to us, means flying.
That’s true. In present-day Sendai, Hajime kicks the air once more, sprints down the familiar boulevard, and keeps Oikawa’s declaration close behind his chest. The wind picks up behind him, propelling him forward, and he takes the city roads one by one like it’s conquered land despite the non-existent touch against his back. And now, even if I have to fly alone, I’ll still fly for you.
(After all this time, I’ll still fly for you.)
Tokyo, June 2021
“Iwa-chan??”
It is summer now, high sun surfing the sky in downtown Tokyo, but the hospital corridor Hajime is walking on feels cold and colder still the moment he sees Oikawa at the other end of it. Earlier, when he was waiting to consult his physician colleague on a trainee’s treatment plan, he felt time moving sluggishly in an everlasting lull, but now it seems to freeze despite the second hand on his wristwatch ticking abruptly away. He even has to remind himself to breathe, because there’s a weight around his chest that tightens halfway between fear and anger, making his thoughts scatter wildly. What if this is all just a product of his imagination? What if this beautiful mirage disappears in a few minutes and he will lose whatever temporary connection he had with Oikawa to bring his image here? What if—what if he actually doesn’t mind living in a dream if this is his reward?
Oikawa looks good, he has to admit. His brown hair still waves the same way he remembers, although cut a bit shorter at the sides. His shoulders are broader, more sturdily set, and he walks toward him with all his familiar purpose and excitement, reserved only for the best friend he’s known forever. “Iwa-chan, long time no see!” he says cheerfully, and suddenly Hajime wants to run—although he’s not sure in which direction. How dare he, the little voice in his head grumbles, How dare he appear again in my life like he belongs in it?
How dare he still look at me like he used to?
“Iwa-chan! What are you doing here?”
Hajime takes a steadying breath, preparing to answer. The anger is irrational, he knows, and so he swallows it whole for now, only putting the slightest bite of steel in his voice. “Oikawa,” he replies by way of greeting, inclining his head perhaps too formally. He’s proud to say that he doesn’t sound broken, just a little dumbfounded and begrudgingly—even a little pleasantly—surprised. “I should be the one asking you that question. The Olympics are still more than a month away, so why are you already here?” And why didn’t you tell me?
“Well, you know—my mother got sick a few weeks ago,” Oikawa begins, with a half-smile that says all is well even as the leftover glint in his eyes mirrors the quickly-rising worry inside Hajime’s. “It’s nothing too serious, but she needed surgery. It was done a couple days ago—successfully, thank god. But yeah, I still wanted to see her, as well as help my dad take care of some stuff, so I got here last week.” He shrugs. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I meant to, I swear, but—”
“It’s okay, Oikawa.” Hajime’s right arm twitches, and he instinctively curls his hand into a fist. “And I’m sorry to hear about your mother. Is she okay? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, we’re good, she’s fine now.” There’s a small smile on Oikawa’s face that’s quickly morphing into something genuine, and Hajime relaxes. “Don’t worry so much, Iwa-chan. She’s getting discharged tomorrow.”
“Oh, great. Can I see her?”
“Ah, well—not today, I think. She was sleeping when I left the room. Maybe tomorrow, before we go home?”
“Sounds good.” Hajime nods. “We have Wednesdays off, so we don’t have practice tomorrow. Can I come in the morning, around 10?”
“Yeah, that’s perfect. We’re probably leaving around lunchtime.”
“Okay. Will you guys be staying in Tokyo for a while, or—”
“Yes, we will. I’m renting a serviced apartment in Kichijoji ‘til the end of the week.” Oikawa folds his arms, throws his stare toward a nearby window. “My sister’s coming here on Saturday, and they’ll be driving home to Sendai in the afternoon, I think.”
“And then you’ll be flying back to Buenos Aires, is that it?”
At the semi-rhetorical question, Oikawa laughs lightly. “So perceptive, Iwa-chan!” he praises, turning around to face Hajime again. “You’re absolutely right, I’m expected back on Monday. We have no time to lose if we’re gonna crush your team in the Olympics, you know.”
And just like that, Hajime is suddenly eighteen again, pausing on the way home from a loss and an embarrassing crying session with the other third-years. It was night already, a somber evening lit by a crescent moon and a row of street lamps who poured out light like it was faded smoke. Do it, and don’t look back, he remembers himself saying, once he realized that Oikawa would never be happy unless he devoted his life to the pursuit of what he loved best. You’re the greatest partner I’ve ever had, and the best setter I’ve ever known. Even if we’re never on the same team again, that will never change.
(Even if that means you’ll never stay with me, that will never change.)
Oh, but if we ever play against each other, I’ll grind you into the dirt, Hajime continued, and it is another promise stacked on top of other ones they’ve told each other throughout the years. From yes I will never let you eat alone at school when they were six years old, to when we’re together, we’re invincible in middle school volleyball, all the way to no matter where we go, we go together when they softly but urgently turned words into kisses. They never go away, and they are fine examples of the things Hajime will never forget. Even now, in front of Oikawa who feels both new and familiar like a rediscovered stranger, Hajime counts them out one by one and intends to keep them, no matter where their dynamics may go after this.
And so he hides a laugh behind a scoff, puts on a brave face without trying too hard. “You can practice all you want, Oikawa,” he challenges, “We’re not gonna be defeated that easily.”
“Oh, I know.” This time, Oikawa’s smile is sharp but true, warmed by the force of their long-time promise. “And that’s exactly why I’m going to enjoy every second of that process.”
“Good, then. I’m also gonna enjoy seeing you fall over yourself trying.”
“Ugh, always so mean, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa scrunches his nose at him, but it is the only comeback he gives for now. They stand looking at each other for a while, glances soft but not untroubled, and let the rest of the world resume turning. All around them, patients wait, their families pace, and nurses in scrubs walk on brisk legs. Hajime can smell again the sterile, lemony scent of the floors and the spicy-sweet musk from a rose bouquet when a girl passes him by, as well as Oikawa’s familiar perfume. It’s been almost five years, and yet nothing feels exactly different, he thinks. This is still Oikawa, this is still love, and there is still time.
There is now, finally, time. Even though it’s as countable as days on a tray, when it comes to Oikawa, Hajime has never been good at resisting his impulses.
“Walk with me?” Hajime finally suggests, nodding his head toward the hospital’s glass doors. “My business here is done. I gotta get back to work.”
“Sure.” Oikawa nods after a pause, then gives him a smile that promises mischief. “Race you to the exit?”
“For fuck’s sake, Oikawa, this is a hospital.”
“So?”
“So nothing.” Hajime clicks his tongue, throws away caution completely unlike an old lover, and bares his teeth into a smile. “Prepare to lose, Shittykawa. Winner gets a free drink?”
“Oh, I’ll do you one even better.” Oikawa smirks. “Winner gets a free dinner—tonight, 7 pm. I’ll text you the location later. Don’t be late, Iwa-chan.”
“So, who is the injured trainee that brought you to the hospital today?” Oikawa swirls the wine in his glass, seemingly mesmerized by the way it catches and drowns the overhead chandelier’s light. Dinner turns out to be a rather fancy occasion, served on a rooftop restaurant with carpeted floors and marble-accented tables, waited on by servers in white jackets. Around them, large windows look out onto bustling train tracks while skyscrapers glitter in the distance, making Hajime feel a little dizzy. He would never agree to come here if he was the one paying, not when he could probably eat more satisfying dishes down below with more than half the price, but he thinks he might understand why Oikawa likes this sort of place, likes being as close as he can get to an open sky.
“It’s Hyakuzawa.” Putting down his dessert fork, he gestures at Oikawa to finish what remains of their shared chocolate cake. "He hurt a finger while blocking during practice.”
“Ah, shoot! I was hoping it’s Tobio-chan.” Oikawa breaks off a piece of the cake while pouting, bits of fudge sticking to his upper lip. “Or maybe Miya Atsumu. You know what, I’ve only ever seen his picture once and I already don’t like him. He looks like he gets on everyone’s nerves.”
“My god, Oikawa. Your personality is as despicable as ever.”
“‘Despicable’?” Oikawa laughs, loudly. “Wow, Iwa-chan, congratulations on finally expanding your vocabulary! Good for you! Consider myself impressed.”
Hajime sighs, rolling his eyes as he wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Shut up or I’ll fucking punch you into the night through those windows.”
“Oooh, scary.” With a graceful hand, Oikawa polishes off the last of the cake from the dessert plate and eats it all in one bite. “Still as violent, aren’t you?”
“Only with you.” Hajime leans back in his seat, throwing his used napkin forward until it lands lightly beside his dinner plate. “You bring out the worst in me, you know that.”
Oikawa laughs again at this, the happy sound squeezing Hajime’s heart until it aches. “So mean, Iwa-chan. Who’s the one bringing out the best in you then, if not me?”
“Probably some cute girl I haven’t met yet,” Hajime replies, and he can’t help but chuckle at Oikawa’s incredulous scoff. “What, dumbass? You have a girlfriend too, I heard.”
“Well, I had one, sweetheart. I broke up with her last year.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“Just plain old incompatibility, I guess.” Oikawa shrugs, propping his cheek on one hand. “It can be terribly hard sometimes, finding someone who really gets you.”
Tell me about it. “Yeah? No one wants to put up with your shitty habits, is that it?”
“I do not have shitty habits, Iwa-chan!”
“Yeah, suuure.” Hajime draws out the word, letting out a low laugh at the annoyed look on Oikawa’s face. “So are you saying that you don’t talk shit behind someone’s back, assume the worst of other people before even meeting them sometimes, or hold a petty grudge over some guy who has done you nothing wrong except telling you that you should have gone to Shiratorizawa?”
“Oh, please!” Oikawa scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Okay, yes, I do all of those things on the regular, but it’s not without reason. Do I need to remind you, Iwa-chan, how that guy used to call our high-school team weak? Weak, when we were literally the six stronger ones compared to his one-man show team? Give me a break.” He dramatically pauses, shaking his head. “You were evenly matched with him in terms of power and jumping skills, our blockers were hella good, and I’m willing to bet all my worldly possessions that I was ten times better than their bowl-head setter. We were not weak,” he continues, reiterates. “We may have lost to him, but we weren’t weak.”
“Okay, yeah, but I think that’s enough dissing— “
“And let me ask you this as well, Iwa-chan.” There is nothing stopping Oikawa when he goes off on a serious tangent like this, so Hajime just sighs, all-knowing, and waits for more. “Can you even tell me that Miya Atsumu-chan does not get on people’s nerves sometimes?”
“Okay. Okay, yes, he does,” Hajime concedes, a short laugh following not far behind. “You should have seen him bickering with Sakusa. Anyway, he reminds me of you sometimes, you know?” He snickers. “Big, bratty men who think being pretty gives them special permission to be obnoxious.”
“Oh, so you think he’s pretty, huh?” Oikawa rebutts, all narrowed eyes and high-curving smirks. “What’s the story there, Hajime? Did he tickle your brat-tamer radar or something? Did the little naughty boy make Daddy mad?”
“Well, what if he did?” replies Hajime, despite the prickly heat on the back of his neck. “Are you jealous?” Please don’t say yes. I’ll crumble into a hundred different stars if you say yes.
“So what if I am?”
It’s not a yes, not really, but Hajime’s whole body still exhales in response, accepting the fact that he has long since known but refused to admit. When Oikawa laughs in that satisfied, frustratingly cute way he does whenever he gets to have the last word in a conversation, Hajime returns to the thought of how easy it has been, being with Oikawa again. Yes, they haven’t seen each other in four, almost five years, and yes, there are new angles of maturity and a haunted kind of shadow on both their faces, but he feels like the bond between them is still very much the same. This is the same Oikawa whose hand he always clutched during playdate naps when he was a toddler, the same Oikawa who he used to fuss over for going to bed late, the same Oikawa who was his captain and best friend and lover and so, so much more. Hajime had come to the dinner with guards in his eyes and tight walls around his heart, expecting to have to stop himself from falling in love with Oikawa again, when in reality, all his prearranged countermeasures were no use. Nothing has really changed. This is still Oikawa, he is still Hajime, and what he feels for his best friend has always been there. There is nothing to prevent from starting again, because it has never stopped. He has never stopped.
This is the reason why it’s never the same with other people, why every stilted conversation with someone new just makes him miss Oikawa more. Even after the constant reminders, the stubborn memories, and the precious little details that went forgotten, this is why he is now right back where he belongs, in this safe little world of their own. He is drowning again in their half-hostile and half-playful but always honest banter, and he doesn’t want to ever resurface. He knows it is pointless to resist, has always been pointless to resist, so now he doesn’t even try. Everything in him is eager to fly toward Oikawa; all his mountains tilt for him and his rivers run in his course. He just wants to stay right here, in this very moment, watching Oikawa’s smile rise and fall like the truest living daylight he’s ever seen.
And so, when Oikawa has paid the check and asked him if he wanted to chase the night somewhere else, Hajime doesn’t even pay the advancing time any mind. “Let’s go,” he says. “Where to?”
“So eager, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa teases. “What if I tell you that the next place is a surprise?”
“Meaning, you’re not going to tell me until we arrive there?”
“Exactly.”
...............
“Oh, come on! Don’t you trust me, Iwa-chan?”
Finally, with a sigh, Hajime drains his wine and stands up. There is a new lightness in his body, one that wraps and propels him forward, buoyant, like a push into open water. Outside, the skyline is flickering in neon fractions of night secrets, but he finds a steady answer in the midst of it all. The only answer he knows how to give, because despite every chance of drowning and endless below-depth chases, he can’t deny that he’s always loved rivers.
And that he will most likely continue to.
“Yeah, I do.” He smiles. “Always.”
I’ve gotten so good
about not flinching at the sound of your name
that people don’t know I’d still throw myself
mouth-open into the ocean
for the chance to drown somewhere you might see it.
Trista Mateer, "Baggage", from Honeybee