Chapter Text
Iwaizumi Hajime doesn't think of himself as disabled. Sure, his medical papers at the family doctor's office list him as having a "severe medical condition," and "brain damage," but that didn't count, not really. He's fine. You can't look at him and tell he's any different from the next teenaged boy. Some hush-hush early childhood physical therapy, exercises, and study techniques cleared that right up. He has good hand-eye coordination, thanks to volleyball, and those study techniques combat any processing problems he might have. He hasn't even had to go to a physical therapist appointment since he was six. Back then, he didn't really understand that physical therapy was different from the PE classes in school, so it didn't sink in that he was "really" disabled as a child. He could go about his days just like anyone else, so he doesn't think much of it.
The doctors had warned him that puberty could be a difficult time in particular for him, that all of the changes his body would be undergoing might upset the equilibrium that he's somehow managed to find. But they encourage him to keep up with his volleyball team, saying it's important he stays active, and between volleyball and Oikawa constantly hanging around, that is hardly difficult to do.
Iwaizumi had thought that the change his doctors warned him about would have been something dramatic, or at least really noticeable, which is probably why he doesn't realize it when the symptoms start creeping in, slow and quiet. It's little things, at first. Stuff he could easily brush off.
His legs start aching a bit longer after a good run, but it isn't very much, just a slightly annoying pinging, and he ignores that easily enough. He figures it's just because he was pushing himself a little too hard, or because he had tried out a new route that day, something simple.
When the headaches start kicking in, oddball pains that don't seem to have any particular purpose, he brushes them off, too. "I stayed up really late last night studying," he reasons, making sure to drink more water throughout the day. "I've been eating too much junk food," he tells himself another day, even though he doesn't eat much junk food unless hanging out with the team. "It's just my body being silly today," he thinks, not letting it bother him.
When his mom asks if he's alright, noticing something seemed a bit off, he shrugs. "Puberty is just messing up my chemical levels, it's no big deal, it happens to all boys my age," he says, grabbing his bento. "Thanks for lunch!" He calls out behind himself, heading out the door to meet Oikawa to walk to class. "It doesn't hurt bad enough that I can't ignore it, so nothing can be wrong yet," he thinks, pushing the niggling sense of worry as far away as he could.
Even when he starts to lose his balance here and there, tripping on nothing on his walk home from school, he figures it's just because he was tired. He spent all day at school, then volleyball practice, and had to deal with Oikawa's antics as well! Anyone would be tired after that, he thinks, shoving Oikawa a bit off the path for no reason, smiling when he earns himself a "Mean, Iwa-chan! Iwa-chan's so mean!"
He finds himself losing his balance in the shower that night, too, his legs slightly shaking. He has to steady himself against the wall when he steps out onto his bathmat, dripping water everywhere. But that's just because it had been a really long day, he really was tired, and showers were slippery anyways. Everybody slipped right after they got out of the shower sometimes. That's perfectly normal.
It becomes a little harder to brush off when it starts becoming a regular occurrence, and he needs to steady himself against the wall more and more often. It's a good thing his bathroom is small, so at least the walls are close by. The niggling worry in the back of his mind grows harder to push down… but no, this is perfectly normal. He's just tired. His hands are only shaking because he's pushed himself hard today.
It was when his legs give out completely for the first time that he cann't push his worry down anymore.
He's one of the last ones to get into the locker room showers for a rinse off, and tells the others to go on ahead without him, that he'll catch up. He's been taking short runs after practice, with the story that he needs more time to cool off, in order to stagger when he gets in the locker rooms compared to the rest of his team. He doesn't want to slip in front of the others – that would be too embarrassing – even if a few well-aimed death glares would stop anyone from saying anything easily enough. It's a simple fix.
He walk into the showers, towel slung over his shoulder, his hands and legs shaking a little bit, but that's just from overexertion, he's sure. He hasn't stopped moving his legs since practice ended, keeping his muscles warmed up. Some foreboding part of his mind whispers to him that something bad was going to happen when he stopped… but he has to stop moving eventually. He moves to toss his towel over the top of the stall door, and pauses in front of the faucet to turn the water on.
Apparently, his legs decide that is the perfect time to stop working completely.
He collapses quickly to the floor, fumbling against the door for something to steady himself, but not catching on anything. Instead, he only succeeds in smacking his shoulder roughly against the door with a slam, and his towel falls down over his face right before the shower starts, soaking him with water.
He has never been so glad to be the last one in the locker rooms, teasing and all.
"Shit," he hisses between clenched teeth, rolling out of the way of the lukewarm spray as soon as he can. His shoulder aches, his backside stings, and he can't feel anything from his thighs down for a few seconds. He leans back, gently setting his head against the wall, and breathes heavily. This does not bode well.
Eventually he manages to get up, turning off the water and half-heartedly wringing out his soaking towel. He leans against the wall and wrestles to put the same clothes he'd worn before back on, the damp towel hanging over his head, grumbling to himself as he went. "This is ridiculous," he hisses, shoving his feet into his shoes and pulling the laces tight, shoving them inside the shoe rather than tying them. "Fuckin' useless legs," he adds, punctuating it with a sharp slap to the side of his calf, making sure feeling was good and firmly back.
He grumbles angrily the whole time he walks back to his house, forgetting about the others waiting for him until his phone blows up with texts after he wakes up from a nap later that night.
"Sorry, I totally spaced. Next time, guys."
…
He wakes up the next morning, and decides that he's not going to let this change anything. He is still perfectly normal. Plenty of people live fulfilling lives while living in denial, right? No reason why he can't, too.
He can't be a burden on anyone, either. He already receives so much help from those around him – his parents, his coach, his teammates, his friends. And they are plenty busy with their own lives, too. He can't bring himself to pile anything more on top of that.
So he starts to find ways to pretend that absolutely nothing is wrong, and he does it so well, he almost fools himself, too.
He still works just as hard as the others in practice, though he starts taking his showers at home rather than in the locker rooms. Best not to risk that happening again. He goes for his runs, and times them so he comes back just as the others are finishing up, laughing it away as "I just have too much energy, you know. Gotta balance out my strong arms with strong legs!"
Hanamaki laughs, grinning as he jokes suggestively, "Oh yeah, gotta balance out all that arm exercise, wouldn't want one side to be stronger than the other," and Matsukawa smacks his shoulder with a snort. Iwaizumi rolls his eyes at them, and the others shrug and accept it, thinking nothing of it, Iwaizumi's excuse making sense. He walks with Oikawa back to their houses, separating from him when their paths diverge, going home to shower and collapse into bed, exhausted.
Because he's too tired to study all the time, though, his grades start to slip, and when coach threatens him with benching, he takes it meekly with promises to do better. He has to be strong enough to hide it, to not be a burden, strong enough to keep it all together. He has to.
He starts declining after-practice hangouts with Oikawa more often, explaining that he's got to spend that time studying and that they both know Oikawa would only distract him constantly. Oikawa chirps with laughter and shakes his head, calling Iwaizumi his "favorite self-improvement barbarian."
"Whatever, we'll see who's the barbarian when I get into a good university and you don't because you've been staying up all night watching matches again!" Iwaizumi jokes right back, rolling his eyes at his best friend. Rather than hanging out every night of the week, it slowly declines to two or three times, and Iwaizumi forces his exhausted brain to study because he has to at least keep up with his classes.
But rather than getting easier, things only get more difficult. Showers are quickly becoming the bane of his existence, and his hands are starting to shake so bad he's afraid he'll drop his shampoo bottle and crack it. When he gets out of the shower now, he has to move as quickly as he can to sit on the seat of the toilet, just to try and catch his breath, to give his body a bit of a reprieve for how difficult it is to just stand in some water for a while and clean himself.
It's when he goes to get out of the shower one day, and has to use the towel rack to steady himself on his way to the toilet to rest, that he realizes he can't do it on his own anymore.
His legs decide to collapse out from beneath him when he tries to take a step, and the towel rack groans, the wall cracking underneath the sudden heavy weight it has to bear, before Iwaizumi releases it and slides down against the wall, heavily, to sit down on the bathmat. "Can't even make it to the toilet," he groans in a monotone, helplessly pulling his towel down from the rack to drape over his head to mope. He stares angrily at the tile floor, spits out his frustration with his next word, "Useless." It doesn't make him feel any better, though, and he feels like just voicing it drains all of his energy. He sighs as he lets his head rest against the wall with a muffled thump. "Fucking useless," he whispers despondently.
After allowing himself a moment to mope at his very existence, he dries off slowly, every movement feeling like he's swimming in syrup, and taking far more energy than it should, until he finally manages to haul himself up onto the toilet, to more easily get dressed. The crack next to the towel rack, him slamming against the wall, it had all sounded so LOUD, but no one had come running, so it must have been in his head. He pulls his clothes on slowly, feeling like everything he does now is slow. It's when he tiredly goes to slide his towel back onto the rack, and it rattles loosely in the wall, that he decides he needs to get some help. His doctor, his parents, someone. He can't live in this denial anymore. He can't keep it up on his own. He isn't strong enough.
He avoids looking at the long-since-not-fogged-up mirror as he leaves the bathroom, firmly closing the door behind him.
"Useless."