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Oikawa Tooru, age forty six, has lost everything. He lost the match between Karasuno and Seijoh back in his glory days as a champion setter; he lost his knee to overtraining, and is now forced to wear a knee brace everywhere; he lost the love of his life, Iwaizumi Hajime, to a beautiful woman capable of bearing his children. Now, here he stood in his apartment in San Diego, empty save for a few boxes scattered around him. It had been a month since his wife passed, and he was about to lose the strong roots he had established here in California.
“Tooru I’m sorry, Takeru is here with his wife and the kids and we just can’t handle any more visitors til at least next week,” Oikawa’s sister sighed over the phone.
“Our flight is tomorrow!” Tooru complained, “we have nowhere else to go til the lease for the new house is signed!”
“Why don’t you call Hajime?”
The grip on Tooru’s cell phone tightened. He hadn’t spoken to him in fifteen years.
“Neechan, you know I can’t do that,” he growled.
“Well it seems you have no other options. I’ll see you tomorrow, Tooru.”
With that, she hung up, leaving a panicky Tooru to come up with a backup plan.
“Stupid sister,” he grumbled, tossing more pots into a box.
“Daddy?” a soft, alarmed voice came from the front door. He rose to find his daughter standing in the doorway with an alarmed look on her face. He swallowed thickly, she had her mother’s eyes…
Sweetheart, go pack your things, only take what's necessary," he instructed firmly. He could see her alarm slowly turn to surprise.
"Are we moving?"
He nodded, "it's for the best."
"Where are we going?"
He sighed, glancing down at the phone in his hand. Iwaizumi’s phone number in the dial pad, he just didn’t have the courage to hit the green button. Instead, he tossed his phone aside and went back to boxing up cutlery.
"Miyagi," he finally replied.
“Oh,” she murmured softly, “um, it’s rather sudden…”
“Our flight leaves tomorrow,” Tooru dismissed, sending her upstairs to pack up her room. Gathering his courage, he stared at the numbers on the screen of his phone, not moving even when he could hear his daughter’s screams of frustration upstairs as the new information sunk into her head. He really should have told her sooner, but what’s done is done, he thought to himself as he reached for the abandoned cell.
With every ring of the phone, the sweat on Tooru’s palms intensified. Would his number even still be the s-
“Hello?” the voice on the other end groaned, thick and groggy and very much Iwaizumi’s. Tooru felt his heart clench and the breath was knocked out of his lungs. Wow, he answered the phone. He was talking to his best friend and his first love. Well, he wasn’t really talking, as Tooru had trouble finding the strength in his voice to speak.
“Hello? Is this some kind of joke?” the man on the other end grumbled.
Oikawa became very aware of the time difference between the two countries, and it was likely he had waken the other man up. He felt even stupider for doing this with each ticking second. He should just give up and find a gutter to sleep in for awhile.
“I’m hanging up now-”
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa finally spoke up, voice cracking and filled with tears.
There was silence on the other end for several seconds, but soon enough the former setter could hear a sharp intake of breath, as well as the rustling of sheets on the other end of the line. There were several more beats of silence as the tension in the small kitchen grew.
“Oikawa?” Iwaizumi finally gasped in response. Oikawa could feel the tears well up in his eyes as he hiccuped softly from the sudden rush of emotions flooding his system.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Iwaizumi hadn’t changed a bit, Oikawa noticed as he stepped off the plane at Haneda airport. His hair was still spiked up with too much gel, his gray-green eyes observing his surroundings far more diligently than necessary, his muscles...fuck, did they get more toned?
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa murmured, walking towards the shorter man. His hair was beginning to turn gray at his temples, and his skin was worn from the sun, but he was still just as beautiful as the last time they were together; that spring day, when he ran and never looked back. he felt a stake in his heart from the memory, causing him to briefly lose his footing before restabilizing, wincing from the pain in his knee.
“Oikawa…” Iwaizumi gasped when their eyes finally locked.
Overcome with emotion, Oikawa ignored his painful injury and bolted toward the dark haired man, throwing his arms around him and weeping joyfully.
Iwaizumi was becoming misty eyed from being reunited with his best friend. The past fifteen years had been hard on the former ace. He had spent the last ten years as a single dad, pining for the man whom he had loved for many years; the same man currently crying in his arms.
“I missed you so much,” the taller man sniffled, and Iwaizumi could only rub his back in consolation, relishing in the warmth of Oikawa’s arms.
“Daddy?” a soft voice interrupted their moment, and as quickly as it began, Iwaizumi could feel the warmth start to recede as Oikawa pulled away to face the little girl.
“Iwa-chan, this is my daughter, Emi,” he introduced, squeezing her shoulder gently.
Iwaizumi took a good long look at the girl at Oikawa’s side. She was timid, with her father’s thick brown hair and that trademark Oikawa pout on her face as she clung to her father’s arm.
“Y-you’re a father…” was all Iwaizumi could force out. Did that mean he was married? His wife must be beautiful, judging by his daughter’s appearance.
Oikawa smiled weakly, “yeah, she’ll be eleven in July. Crazy how fast they grow, huh?”
Iwaizumi nodded as the three started towards the baggage claim.
Emi slept the whole way back to Miyagi, while Oikawa and Iwaizumi sat in silence, the former taking in the surroundings of Japan. He missed home.
“So, Iwa-chan? Do you have any more kids, besides the twins?” Oikawa asked, bracing himself for the answer. He really didn’t want to think about him and Haruka…
“Nah, Hayato and Daijirou are more than enough for me to handle,” he sighed, “they’re first years at Seijoh and they’re an absolute nightmare. Like, Kyoutani level nightmare.”
Oikawa shivered, flashbacks of the infamous mad dog-chan raced through his head.
“I guess that’s what happens when you grow up in two different homes. Messes you right up, huh? I suppose I only have myself to blame for that one.”
Oikawa’s head whipped over to his best friend.
“Two?”
“If you read my texts from ten years ago and didn’t change your fucking number, you would know that Haruka and I divorced five years after we were married, dumbass.”
“Oh. Um, I-I’m sorry-”
“I was in love with someone else, but I married her so I could hopefully move on.”
“I suppose that’s the same with me and my, uh, I guess she’s not my wife any more…”
“Newly divorced?”
Oikawa shook his head softly, “widowed.”
Iwaizumi gripped the steering wheel, gnawing at his lip as he processed that one word that carried more weight to it than the past few sentences spoken.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he finally spoke.
“Thank you, I think Emi’s being a real trooper right now which is helping me along. Having her around makes me feel less lonely, yknow?”
“Well that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
“So rude, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa protested.
Iwaizumi could only laugh, “asskawa, I meant you’ll never be alone again. Not as long as I’m here.”
The tender tone in the normally gruff man’s voice had Oikawa whipping his head to look out the window, praying he wouldn’t see the heavy blush on his face.
The Iwaizumi household was quiet when they arrived; the boys were with Haruka for the week. Emi was given Hayato’s room for the time being, and she happily curled up in bed, fast asleep.
“She’s probably jet lagged,” Oikawa explained, holding a mug of coffee in his weary hands. The two men were in the living room catching up on the fifteen years apart.
“It’s eight hours, right? The time difference, I mean.”
Oikawa nodded, “she might be grumpy for the next little while, but usually she’s a pleasant kid.”
“Pleasant? There’s no way in hell she got that from you,” Iwaizumi replied sarcastically, a teasing glimmer in his eye.
“I can be a very pleasant person!”
“Pleasant? You ran away during your fucking best man speech, left nothing but an empty bottle of tequila on the floor of the hotel, and ignored me for fifteen years. Explain to me how that’s pleasant?” Iwaizumi growled, the pain of the past fifteen years stinging in his chest.
Oikawa glared into his mug, long chestnut bangs covering his eyes.
“It’s no more pleasant than watching the man you love marry a beautiful woman and not being able to do anything because he just looked so happy.”
There was a very long, awkward silence, Oikawa could feel the tension building in the room. Squeezing the coffee mug tightly, Oikawa could feel the thick tension shatter all at once, when he finally raised his head to find his childhood best friend with his head buried in his hands, shoulders shaking violently.
“I-Iwa-chan?” Oikawa placed a hand on his thigh, causing the former ace to rip his hands away from his face and throw his head back in laughter; tears streaming down his face.
“You fucking piece of shit,” the older man laughed, punching his best friend in the shoulder, “you idiot. You’re such a stupid shit.”
Oikawa huffed, “that’s no way to respond to a confession, you brute!”
Iwaizumi was in hysterics at this point, clutching his stomach as it started to cramp up.
“Oikawa, I’ve been in love with you since we were kids! You stupid ass.”
“W-wha….”
“I thought if I was with Haruka long enough, I’d get over you,” Iwaizumi explained, wiping the tears from his eyes, voice still shaky from the laughing fit, “we divorced because it didn’t work. I still loved you.”
Oikawa’s jaw dropped, “I married Maria to get over you. I mean, of course I loved her dearly, but she just wasn’t you, yknow?”
“I never loved Haruka,” Iwaizumi confessed.
There was a long silence as both men processed the sudden confessions.
“We’re both idiots.”
Iwaizumi nodded in agreement, a heavy blush on his cheeks.
“I love you, Asskawa.”
“C’mere and show me, then, Iwa-chan~!” Oikawa smirked in response, eye hooded and full of a mixture of lust and adoration. The seductive expression turned into one of surprise as a horny Iwaizumi crawled into his lap, licking his lips predatorily.
“Gladly.”
That night was a clashing of lips, the tearing of clothing as the two men were too impatient to properly undress, sweat slicked skin on skin, heavy breaths puffing from their lips, mingling with each other’s names as they both felt themselves tip over the edge and into a world of pure bliss.
“I love you so much,” Iwaizumi whimpered.
Oikawa had waited forty six years to hear that.
It was a perfect spring morning, the sun was shining, the cherry blossoms were out, and in the gardens, there was a wedding. A wedding so important it prompted one Oikawa Tooru to fret for days to ensure everything was perfect.
Standing at his best friend's side, Oikawa adjusted Iwaizumi Hajime's aqua blue bow tie. Aqua blue. The colour they wore together for three straight years. It suited him.
A gentle breeze blew, ruffling the boys' locks.
"Thanks," he mumbled.
"Hey, I'm just doing my job as your new husband," he grinned, hoping his best friend would notice the look of pure joy in his eyes.
He did.