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"What are you doing here?" Hajime asks, quite unenthusiastically.
Tooru expected his best friend to show a little more shock and glee in his tone when he showed up at his apartment.
"Is that anyway to greet your best friend? Your best friend who, might I add, flew over fifteen hours to surprise you."
Hajime sighs, "Sorry. I didn't mean it that way. It's just, I'm really busy. I have this big exam in two days. I was literally in the middle of studying." He gestures for Tooru to come inside.
Tooru can immediately see all the papers and open textbooks covering the kitchen table. Hajime sits back down in front of his laptop with an ungodly number of tabs open, including a paused Lofi stream that Tooru assumes he was listening to to help him focus. He vaguely remembers that high-school Hajime always requested that the room he studies in to be dead silent. He must've changed while in university.
"Yeah, no kidding," Tooru comments. "Sorry, I just thought it might be a nice surprise. I've missed you."
"I miss you too," Hajime admits. "I just wish you called first or something."
He keeps staring back at his laptop, switching between tabs, trying to soak in some information bit by bit as he tries to talk to Tooru.
"Kinda defeats the point of a surprise, Iwa-chan." Tooru says softly, not wanting to break Hajime's focus in case it really is something important he's reading in that giant blurb of tiny text on his screen.
"I know," Hajime agrees, "but look, I'm almost done. I can wrap up this chapter in maybe twenty minutes, and then if you want we can go out and grab some food or something."
"Okay, sounds good." Tooru sits down in the chair next to Hajime, dropping his bag on the floor next to him. "What are you studying anyway?"
"It's neuroanatomy," Hajime grumbles. Tooru has to hold back a smile because he recognizes that frown on Hajime's face very well. "It's not so bad. It's just a lot of memorization, you know? And with the test being so close I feel like I don't have enough time to stick it all in my brain."
"Yeah, I totally get it. But hey, this is perfect! I can quiz you!" Tooru offers.
"Really?" Hajime asks.
"Of course! I'd just be sitting around otherwise," Tooru reasons.
"Okay," Hajime agrees. he shuffles around some of the papers on his desk and pulls out a notebook. "We can go over these. They're just some terms and their definitions."
"Starting off easy, I see," Tooru comments as he scans over the words on the page in Hajime's familiar hand writing. His English is a bit rusty since he hasn't practiced one word since graduating high school, and some of these words look impossible to pronounce.
"Yeah, well, you wouldn't be able to handle much more than that," Hajime chuckles.
"Hey! That's not fair! Even though I was just thinking the same thing."
"Are you gonna help me or not?"
"Yes, fine." Tooru scans over the sheet one more time. "Okay, what's an optic nerve?"
"A bundle of nerves that carry visual information. It connects the eyes to the occipital lobe at the back of the brain."
"Correct. Next, what's the olfactory bulb?"
"Mass of tissue that processes smell."
Tooru nods. "Cerebellum?"
Hajime reaches behind his head, placing his hand on his neck. "Connects the brain to the spinal cord. Means 'little brain' in Latin."
"Wow, Iwa-chan's so smart. You didn't even write down that last part."
"Just ask the next question, Shittykawa. You're supposed to be helping me."
"Alright, alright. Jeez, the pressure on med students in no joke. What's a h-hypo-hippo..."
"Do you mean hypothalamus?" Hajime asks, slight amusement in his tone.
"Yes, that."
"The hypothalamus maintains homeostasis by influencing the autonomic nervous system and managing hormones."
Tooru turns the notebook around for Hajime to see. "I don't even understand half of the words you just said, so you'll have to check this one yourself."
Hajime smiles, "Yeah, I got it right."
"Okay. Good job, Iwa-chan!" Tooru encourages.
They continue on like this until they've gone through all of the words on the page. Much to Tooru's dismay, Hajime tells him to flip over to the next page in the notebook with more terms.
"We can stop here if you want," Hajime offers. "I did say twenty minutes."
Tooru is getting tired but that's nothing compared to what he thinks Hajime is feeling. He can't imagine how many hours he spent studying these terms that now their definitions and meanings just fly out of his mouth as soon as he hears the word.
"Well, that's up to you future mister doctor. Do you want to stop studying?"
"It's not mister doctor," Hajime corrects. "If you're a doctor, that's your title. You don't use mister anymore."
"Alright, then. Looks like you just know everything," Tooru teases. "I think you're gonna do great on this test though."
"Yeah, I hope so," Hajime mumbles.
"You don't seem very confident."
"I mean, I know most of what's gonna be on the test, but I can always be more prepared, you know? I want to feel completely ready."
This is the last thing Tooru had in mind when he arrived in California. A part of him feels like he should be complaining about being stuck inside trying to pronounce difficult medical terms in another language. But another, much stronger part of him, wants to keep watching Hajime as he tries to recall the information that's on the tip of his tongue but can't quite seem to remember. Tooru wouldn't call it selfish exactly. He's helping out his friend after all. Hajime's nose just wrinkles up in the cutest way when he's trying to remember multiple parts to an answer that Tooru could look at all day. He also gets to watch Hajime's face light up when Tooru tells him he got the answer right for a term that he was stuck on. Tooru remembers very few moments where he's ever seen his childhood best friend look so excited over something, and he never expected it to be the basal ganglia.
So, instead of telling him to take a break--which is something that Hajime would absolutely tell him to do if their roles were reversed--he asks Hajime about astrocytes.
They continue down the rest of the page, and by the end of it, Hajime has nailed all the terms. He won't admit to it though because when he forgot to mention that the temporal lobe also plays a role in forming memories, he deducted half a point from himself.
"Okay, that's it," Tooru announces.
Hajime lets out a deep exhale while reaching his hands over his head to stretch. "Thanks, Oikawa. I really appreciate it."
"Don't mention it. It's the least I could do for interrupting your day the way I did."
"Oh, my god."
"What?"
Hajime laughs. "I almost forgot that you don't live here. You don't even live in this country."
"Wow, so you can name every region of the brain, except you can't seem to figure out how to use your own."
"No, that's not what I meant. I just got so focused on studying, and I'm so used to having you around that it kinda felt like old times. I totally forgot about your surprise earlier."
"Yeah, I felt that too. Except I still remember what country my best friend lives in."
"Okay, shut up already. I'm tired."
"You definitely look like you could use a break."
Neither of them had realized how much time had passed. The setting sun didn't make them realize anything either. Hajime suggests they order take out and stay in for the night, promising to take Tooru out on the town after his exam since Tooru decided to stay in California for a few more days.
They talk over dinner and catch up on each other's lives, no mentions of any brain structures or regions involved.
"So? Do you feel completely ready? Do you think it's all stuck in your brain now?" Tooru asks, reminding Hajime of his earlier comments about his abilities, back when the sun was still up.
"Yeah, I feel ready. All thanks to you." Hajime smiles.
They continue chatting until they both start to feel tired. They get ready for bed and make their way to Hajime's room where they curl up next to one another since they have an unspoken rule that Tooru will never sleep on the couch when he's visiting.
As he's falling asleep, Tooru thinks back fondly on his time in high school where he would see Hajime every day. He remembers how they used to quiz each other when they would study together, but he's never seen Hajime so determined about anything academic before. He's glad that his best friend has found his passion and hopes that he can achieve his dream. He can only begin to understand what it's like to be a foreign university student and how it's pushing him to go above and beyond. He's so proud of his best friend.