Work Text:
BANG!
“Uwahhhhh! This is stupid!” Hinata cried, falling back onto his ass. Iwaizumi stepped away from where he was spotting Hinata, walking around the front of the equipment. “It was a good try,” he said. “We might try the same weight tomorrow too. Unless you’re wanting to go back down a weight level?” He leant down to start removing the weights from the bar.
Hinata threw a look over his shoulder to where Kageyama was watching them from the water fountain across the room; he wiped his mouth dry before shooting a grin at Hinata. Hinata snapped his head away, “No. If I’m going to beat Kageyama, I can’t go down,” he muttered, glaring at the weight in front of him.
Iwaizumi sighed, shaking his head. “Yes, but you’re also not going to beat Kageyama if you punch too high above your body’s ability and injure yourself.”
Hinata groaned, rolling back to lay on the floor; Iwaizumi could almost feel Sakusa’s disappointed stare from where he was on the treadmills. Iwaizumi placed the weights back onto the correct racks before walking over to where he left his notepad, scanning over the messy writing as he looked for anything worth noting. “Okay, Hinata, I think I’m going to get you to-“
“Iwa!” a voice yelled as a body slammed through the door of the gym. Iwaizumi looked up, glaring at the intruder - who not only interrupted his session, but also his sentence. “Miya, this better be important,” Iwaizumi said sternly.
“It is! I promise!” Atsumu entered the room hastily, Suna following close behind. Both men wore unreadable expressions: Iwaizumi was just praying that this wasn’t another stupid prank the two were pulling (and Suna was coming to record) as they made their way over.
They stopped just short, but way closer than Iwaizumi was expecting them to come - which only gained a raised eyebrow of suspicion from Iwaizumi. “Iwaizumi, Have you seen or heard about anything on the news at all?” Atsumu asked, his voice a few notches below its usual level of guaranteed-centre-of-attention. Iwaizumi crossed his arms, shaking his head.
“I literally spent every second of my day monitoring you lot and planning your schedule. When would I even have time?”
“So you haven’t seen what happened in Argentina today?” Suna said, his eyebrows creased.
“What- No.. How would I? What happened in Argentina?” Iwaizumi’s arms fell to his side, his fists clenching in frustration. He hated when people beat around the bush.
By now, the three had gained attention from the rest of the gym, most of the men stopping their workouts to observe. Hinata had even risen from the floor to listen.
“There was a massive car crash. Like, massive highway pile up kinda car crash,” Atsumu blurted, Suna proving his point by thrusting his phone towards Iwaizumi, displaying a birds eye camera shot of a highway in disarray. Cars and other vehicles lay littered across the span of the roads, some on their sides, a few completely flipped over. Smoke spewed from the destroyed vehicles, and debris was scattered across the entire scene. Iwaizumi shook his head. “Jesus Christ.” he cursed. Atsumu and Suna watched him stare at the image for a few seconds longer before Atsumu spoke up again.
“They started releasing information about the crash. And it was found that one of the vehicles, a bus, had the Argentina national volleyball team as passengers.”
Iwaizumi was still staring at the screen when the words registered in his head. He slowly raised his head to look at Atsumu. “Miya, if this is some sort of sick joke-“ He began lowly, only to be cut off by Suna.
“It’s not, Iwaizumi-san. We only just saw it.” He pulled his phone away, manoeuvring through tabs until he presented a recent news update on the crash, big bold words stating ‘Men’s National Volleyball Team discovered in highway crash.’
Iwaizumi reread the words over and over again. He felt Hinata lean in beside him, and then lean away. A quiet “Holy shit.” escaped his mouth.
“No but..” Iwaizumi muttered, looking away from the phone. “Oikawa.. he was..” His attention snapped back to read the headline one more time before urgently pushing past the players gathered around him, ignoring their calls as he raced towards the gym door.
He crashed into the locker room, snatching his bag from the bench in the centre and rummaging through it to pull out his phone. Throwing his bag back to the bench, he quickly turned on his phone. He took a moment to stare at the lock screen, a photo of Oikawa that Oikawa himself would complain about if he ever saw it. Iwaizumi secured it during one of their FaceTime calls; Oikawa had just finished getting ready for bed and was staring down at his phone, pulling a stupid face over something Iwaizumi had said.
Iwaizumi’s breath shuddered as he swiped the phone to unlock it, immediately opening his messages with Oikawa to reveal no new ones. His fingers flew across the screen, typing out a quick ‘pls call me’ before pressing send.
He stared at the message as it marked as delivered, and he waited for about five seconds for a reply before he grew impatient and smacked the call button. He brought the phone to his ear and began pacing the room as he waited through each ring of the tone, begging for the familiar chirpy voice. “Come on,” he muttered to himself, free hand clenching into a fist so tight his knuckles turned white. Just as the voicemail message sounded from his phone, the locker room door burst open.
Suna and Atsumu entered, but he could make out shadows outside the door that suggested a few more members of the team. Both of them wore worried expressions as they moved cautiously into the room. “Any luck?” Atsumu said, only to earn a glare in response. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, a few names have been released of the people that have died.”
Iwaizumi stopped in his pacing to fully turn his body to Atsumu, rage pinching his expression. “And how the fuck would that make me feel better?” he hissed, his knuckles growing impossibly whiter. Atsumu put his hands in front of him in defence.
“I think he means that since some names have been released, it means that the families have already been informed.” Suna quickly added. “They aren’t allowed to release the names of the deceased without making sure the families have been told.”
Iwaizumi chuckled bitterly. “Okay, so I can crossed deceased off my list, but critical condition or heavily injured are still possibilities.” He watched as both Atsumu and Suna’s expressions changed into something like guilt.
“Sorry.” Atsumu said. “Probably should keep my mouth shut.”
“You do that.” Iwaizumi said, raising his phone and hitting ‘dial again’ before turning away from the two. Once he was out of sight of the others, he squeezed his eyes shut and ran a hand across his face, distress written across his features.
After the third time of being sent to voicemail, Iwaizumi groaned and sunk down onto his knees. “This can’t be fucking happening.” he chanted, his fingers shooting into his hair to pull at the strands. “I gotta call someone. I gotta do something.”
A gentle hand pressed to his shoulder, and Iwaizumi tore his gaze from the ground to look up into the warm and concerned eyes of Yaku. “Let’s go to the break room. Get you some water,” his soothing voice persuaded. Damn those motherly tendencies. Iwaizumi allowed himself to be escorted out of the room, passing the worried gazes of the JNT on his way to the break room.
He was pushed – gently - into an armchair, Hinata sitting on the couch nearby, Suna sitting beside him. They were staring at something on Suna’s phone. Iwaizumi remained frozen in his spot, shell shocked and paralysed with worry, his expression grim.
Shortly, Yaku entered his field of vision, kneeling in front of Iwaizumi and offering the man a cup. Managing to lift an arm, Iwaizumi took it, surprised to find it warm in his hand. He ripped his gaze away from a spot on the wall to look at the cup’s contents, finding the familiar honeyed look of tea. Briefly, Iwaizumi was plunged into a memory: one of him and Oikawa, during their last morning together when Oikawa had come home for the holidays. Oikawa had a very structured way of making cups of teas, with exact measurements of milk, honey and sugar. Iwaizumi had told Oikawa it tasted like a normal cup of tea, never wanting to admit the truth of how good that cup of tea had been. Oikawa had too big of a head anyways. In the present Iwaizumi brought the cup to his lips, and mourned the memory of his boyfriend. His boyfriend had been here, in Japan, safe with him. But now?
Yaku removed the cup from Iwaizumi’s hand as soon as he saw the object begin the shake in the athletic trainer’s grip. He watched Iwaizumi pick his phone back up, fingers texting at a rapid speed. Yaku sighed, turning to look at where Suna and Hinata were watching the news. “Anything?” He asked, moving closer to have a look for himself.
“No, they’re just discussing the cause of the accident,” Suna replied.
“Which was?” Yaku asked.
“Not important right now.” Iwaizumi butted in, glaring over at where the three were watching the news. “Does it say where they were taken to? A hospital?” Iwaizumi scooted closer until he was at the edge of his chair. Suna shook his head, eyes scanning the information present on his phone.
Iwaizumi sighed, rubbing his hands across his face and leaning back into his seat, head angled up so he could glare at the ceiling. Thoughts flooded his head, images of what could have happened flashing through his mind. Oikawa hurt, Oikawa broken, Oikawa dying-
Brzzt Brzzt
His thoughts snapped clear the moment his phone began vibrating. Immediately all eyes in the room were on him, watching as he slowly reached for his phone. He held his breath as soon as he noticed the absence of Oikawa’s number printed on the caller ID, but rather an unknown caller. However, he did notice the little words underneath the number. Argentina.
This is it, Iwaizumi concluded, this was the phone call from the San Juan police, informing him that Oikawa had passed in a fatal car crash. That Oikawa would never return home to Japan ever again, never return home to Iwaizumi. All iwaizumi’s plans for the future - their retirement, the engagement he had planned from the very moment Oikawa agreed to dating him, the family of dogs he had planned (names already picked) - all these plans would never step into motion, because Oikawa was dead. His breath came out in shudders as he answered the phone and brought it to his ear.
”Hajime?”
A quiet sob escaped Iwaizumi’s lips.
“Tooru.”
————
The very next day, Iwaizumi sat in the Tokyo International Airport, his fingers fumbling with each other as he remembered the phone call he had the day prior. Oikawa had called him from one of his teammates’ phones in an Argentinian hospital, where the whole team had undergone a check up in response to the car crash. Luckily, his whole team came out relatively uninjured, with only one member who broke a rib in the impact. Oikawa himself had a few scratches from broken glass but was otherwise unharmed. Iwaizumi had cried in relief throughout the entire phone call.
After the crash, the team was given time off to heal, mentally and physically. And Oikawa had jumped on the first flight to Japan to spend that off time with Iwaizumi.
That night, Iwaizumi had been plagued by nightmares: ones of Oikawa’s funeral and ones of him seeing Oikawa in a hospital. The ‘what if’ scenarios replayed in his mind over and over again, and it spread from his dreams into real life, burdening him all throughout his morning.
Even here, sitting at the airport, Iwaizumi couldn’t help but create situations in his head. The plane crashing, the plane being hijacked. It all ended in Oikawa’s final moments.
Iwaizumi shook his head, rubbing the palm of his hand into his eyes. He took a deep breath, prompting himself to look up and across the airport towards the gates, suddenly locking gaze with chestnut brown eyes.
Iwaizumi was on his feet in an instant, and he saw recognition in those eyes.
Oikawa dropped his carry-on bag, his longs legs suddenly moving into a sprint. Relief flooded Iwaizumi’s features as he began his own hastened walk.
“Hajime!” Oikawa cried out, jumping up and into those strong arms that would always catch him. Iwaizumi buried his face in the others neck, breathing in the familiar scent of Oikawa. He let out a sob, his hot breath puffing against Oikawas neck. “Haji.. Iwa..” Oikawa murmured, pressing his face into Iwaizumis brown hair. Hands grasping at every inch of fabric they could manage to reach, afraid if either of them let go then the other would disappear.
Iwaizumi pulled his face away to stare into those eyes, the eyes he loved so much. “You’re here.”
“I’m here.” Oikawa confirmed, his own eyes sweating tears - though he still managed to crack a smile.
“You’re safe,” Iwaizumi breathed, and Oikawa nodded in response, pulling Iwaizumi’s head closer and into a much needed kiss. A kiss that tasted like salt - thanks to the tears - but felt like exactly what Iwaizumi needed. Oikawa was here, he was safe, he was home.
As if he read Iwaizumi’s mind, Oikawa whispered against his lips, “I’m home, Hajime.”