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“Out.”
Iwaizumi’s face is a thunderhead, and the two men beside Oikawa obey without delay, bowing and scraping their way out through the large mahogany doors at the entrance to the office. They don’t even spare Oikawa a pitying glance as they leave him to weather the storm brewing behind the boss’s dark eyes.
Better him than them. It wasn’t their fault anyway. The rookies had just been following Oikawa’s orders. He would take responsibility for his error.
He straightens his back, chomping down a grimace as the motion pulls at a blooming bruise under his shirt.
Iwaizumi doesn’t miss it.
He leans over his desk, pressing his fists into the polished top, likely in an effort to keep them from adding to the collection of cuts and bruises already swelling Oikawa’s jaw. “Are you a fucking idiot?” he snarls. It sends a shiver down Oikawa’s spine.
“No, sir.” The fastest way to appease a pissed-off Iwaizumi was to fall back on formality. A habit they rarely kept up in private, as they were now, but one that Oikawa felt best suited to prolong his own existence.
It has the desired effect. Iwaizumi’s eyes are still a wind-tossed sea, but he was no longer adrift in his rage. He was gaining control over it, giving it direction and following it to calmer waters. He changes the subject. Asks a question with a clear answer.
“Are you trying to start a turf war with Karasuno?”
He’s still angry, so Oikawa doesn’t roll his eyes like he might if they were tangled up in bed and Hajime asked a silly question. “I was just establishing our boundaries.”
He hadn’t actually gone out looking for a fight. Kindaichi had alerted him to the rumor that his former protégé was back in town. He hadn’t thought Kageyama would have the balls to return to Seijoh territory after being so gracelessly removed from their ranks, but he trusted Kindaichi’s intel.
He’d been lucky they let him walk away at all, but Oikawa hadn’t spent a year guiding him in the ways of their business to just squander it because of a personality problem. He’d never thought Kageyama would find a family that would have a use for him either, but there he was, lurking about Rei-san’s bakery wearing Karasuno black.
The bakery was technically neutral territory. The various gangs and criminal organizations of the city may have fought endlessly over claims on certain blocks, getting into weekly and sometimes daily scrapes that the common people knew to stay out of, but everyone respected Rei-san. That she was nestled between three rival organizations was a moot point.
Oikawa wasn’t stupid enough to cause a scene on her doorstep, so he’d waited until Kageyama and his little ginger friend had made their way to the next block before he made his move. Kageyama had no right being in Seijoh territory, not with the crow emblazoned on his back. Maybe Oikawa had one final lesson to teach the kid. Maybe he’d let his anger get the better of him. Maybe he’d underestimated the strength of Kageyama’s new allies and taken more hits than he’d anticipated.
“I didn’t ask you to do that.” Iwaizumi’s voice pulls him out of the memory of the afternoon’s events.
Oikawa considers this. Iwaizumi doesn’t ask him to do much, he just does things because they need doing. Not that Iwaizumi won’t snap a neck or pull a trigger if needed, but Oikawa is the one who gets his hands in the muck. Who chases down traitors and snitches and plants moles and makes house calls.
He gets himself bloodied and bruised to keep Iwaizumi on the proverbial throne.
“And you’ll never have to.”
With a look, Iwaizumi orders Oikawa to sit. Oikawa obeys, also without a word. When he rounds the front of his desk, he towers over Oikawa, gripping his chin between rough fingers and tilting Oikawa’s head from side to side. He clicks his tongue against his teeth and his scowl deepens, but the fury from before is muted. In its place is exasperation, the long-suffering chagrin of someone who has spent half his life cleaning up Oikawa’s messes.
He drops his hand and stalks over to the large liquor cabinet at the side of the room. Still not speaking a word, he pulls down two glass tumblers and uncorks a crystal decanter. He pours two fingers of the amber liquid into each glass and immediately downs one. He refills it and recorks the bottle and brings both glasses back to his desk. He hands one to Oikawa. A peace offering.
Despite his prickly exterior and the scary face he shows the world, he never could stay mad at Oikawa for long.
Oikawa’s eyes follow him back behind his desk as he digs out the first aid kit he keeps in the top right drawer for emergencies. It had been a while since his office had been turned into a makeshift triage station, and Oikawa wasn’t hurt that badly that it needed to be one now, but his head is a little dizzy watching Iwaizumi come back to the front of his desk, in front of Oikawa, to kneel at his feet.
No, not Iwaizumi.
Behind the desk, to everyone in their ranks and to everyone in the city, Iwaizumi was Seijoh’s Boss.
Here, on the floor, risking wrinkles in his tailored slacks and stains on his pristine white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, was Iwa-chan.
Oikawa sips the whiskey, feeling the warmth spread through his chest, and watches as Iwa-chan falls into the routine of patching him up. Because it is routine. Oikawa does the hard, dirty work so Iwaizumi can focus on more important matters. Work that often ends up with him coming home covered in blood, usually someone else’s but sometimes his own.
He hadn’t gone out looking for a fight today, but that doesn’t mean he’s never done it. He picks his fights with more care, because he doesn’t want to cause any real trouble for Iwaizumi or Seijoh as a whole. But there are some things he only gets to witness when he gets a little roughed up, a little battered, a little bruised.
The alcohol on his tongue hasn’t had time to numb the sting of the alcohol-soaked cotton pressed gingerly to his brow, but he doesn’t flinch. Iwa-chan is always gentle when he takes care of Oikawa, a stark contrast to the severe man who heads their organization. The only shred of that terrifying man exists in the firm set of Iwa-chan’s jaw as he dabs the blood away from the cut on Oikawa’s forehead with fierce concentration. His touch is tender as he cleans around the bruise swelling on Oikawa’s jaw, uncharacteristically so to all but his silent patient.
The silence is uncharacteristic, too. When it’s just them, Oikawa never seems to run out of things to talk about. But right now, he doesn’t want to break the spell of Iwa-chan tending his wounds. He holds his breath as his best friend, his partner, his fearless leader takes his free hand between his own. Iwa-chan presses kisses along the cracked knuckles, licking the blood off his lips even as he rubs disinfectant into the creases. He wipes them clean and bandages the worst split fingers with a delicacy that their enemies would never believe he was capable.
Oikawa swallows the rest of his whiskey in one gulp and offers his other hand for the same treatment. Iwa-chan takes it and looks directly at him when he presses his lips to Oikawa’s fingers. He feels Iwa-chan’s smirk against them when his eyelids flutter shut, a soft gasp escaping his lips and heat flooding to his stomach unrelated to the drink they’d shared.
He only relishes the feeling for a heartbeat before he opens them again and returns Iwa-chan’s heated gaze. He can’t look away; he won’t. Oikawa doesn’t take his eyes off him as he bandages the cuts on his right hand. As he presses kisses along his palm, his wrist. He doesn’t look away when Iwa-chan stares back, affection and intent swirling in the storm of his eyes.
This is the Iwaizumi of Seijoh that no one else sees.
Perhaps he hadn’t needed to press so hard with Kageyama and that ginger shrimp today. Perhaps he could have handled it with more finesse and less emotion. He could have left well enough alone.
But if he had, he wouldn’t have gotten to glimpse this.
After all, Hajime only emerges in the calm after the storm. Only for Tooru.
And well, Tooru has always loved to weather the storm.