Archive of Our Own ^beta

The gym is quiet at night.

Each slam of leather on the wooden floor echoes off the walls and ceiling. The ball bounces before inevitably rolling to a stop, leaving only the erratic rhythm of Tooru's breathing—growing heavier and more labored by the minute—to fill the empty air.

He can’t stand it. Each moment of stillness is a swirl of too-loud voices in his mind, so he reaches once again for the ball cart. Taking one of the remaining three, he makes his way to the end line, ignoring the way his muscles groan in protest as he gears up for his next serve.

The ball has barely left his palm when he hears the gym door swing open.

“You're really an idiot, huh?”

Tooru winces as he lands on the ground with much less grace than usual, a flash of pain shooting up his left knee. He feels a spark of irritation underneath his skin as he watches the ball barely skim the top of the net.

“Go home, Iwa-chan,” he mutters, too exhausted to put up a facade. He ducks underneath the net to take the ball, but Iwaizumi beats him to it. All of a sudden they’re face to face, and Tooru can no longer avoid the frustration written in his friend’s gaze.

There are no sharp jabs or yells of protest: just a silent staredown between them. For a brief moment, Tooru remembers being three years old and thinking that the most fascinating thing in the world was the color of this boy’s eyes: a kaleidoscope of the deepest shades of the soil and grass above it.

A voice, buried deep inside him, tells him that hasn’t really changed.

Iwaizumi sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he says: “You're not going to stop even if I tell you to, aren't you?”

Tooru’s first instinct is to protest. The second thought he has is I’d do anything you ask of me in a heartbeat. But if that were really true, Tooru wouldn’t even be in the gym right now, stubbornly working on perfecting his serves long after dark.

So he settles for the third, simplest answer. “No.”

Iwaizumi glares at him. He looks tired, Tooru realizes with a pang of guilt, but he’d come all the way here nonetheless. Or perhaps he’d been waiting for Tooru all along.

Suddenly, he grabs Tooru by the arm and yanks him to the bench. Tooru yelps in protest, but he lets himself be sat down anyway, shoulders slumping as Iwaizumi kneels down in front of him and rolls down his left brace.

His frown deepens when he sees the tinge of red at the bottom of Tooru’s kneecap. But Iwaizumi's touch is gentle, a sharp contrast to his features, and that somehow shatters something inside Tooru more than his roughness ever could.

His movements are so deft and sure that Tooru doesn’t even realize that at some point, Iwaizumi’s hands begin to shake. His brow is furrowed endearingly, the laser-sharp focus in his expression mirroring the one he always wears during games, and all the voices in Tooru’s head suddenly go quiet.

Once he’s finished, Iwaizumi sits down on the bench beside him, just an arm's length away, and Tooru knows from his body language alone that he has no intention to leave him behind.

“Hey, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, softly into the silence. “Let’s go home.”

Their houses have always been less than a stone’s throw apart.

It was a fact of nature, like how they were born on the same street, underneath the same summer sky. They had been laid next to each other as babies in a crib, brought to school hand-in-hand on their first day of kindergarten—it only made sense for them to walk home together ever since.

But as Tooru had learned, theories and truths alike could crumble. There was no aether filling the universe through which light would travel. There was no Nationals awaiting his team at the cusp of spring. And soon, there would be no Iwaizumi Hajime to walk by his side on the path they’ve followed for the past three years.

Tooru had made his choice, and Iwaizumi would soon make his. But like a comet about to split in two, the fissure had already been created. And then all they would be are two halves of a whole, the remnants of a once-perfect, synchronous orbit.

The thought spins around in Tooru’s head. It weighs down on him along with the gravity of their earlier loss, spreading throughout his chest with an unpleasant, burning ache.

Iwaizumi, still facing straight ahead, sees through him anyway.

“You probably won’t be truly happy until you’re an old man.”

Tooru whips around to gawk at him. “What the hell? What kind of curse is that?”

Iwaizumi plows on. “No matter what kind of tournaments you’ll win, you’ll never be completely satisfied. You’ll be that annoying guy who chases volleyball forever.”

“You always have to throw in an insult, don’t you?” Tooru scoffs, even though he hasn’t detected an ounce of ridicule in Iwaizumi’s voice—only his open, forward honesty.

“But,” he continues, voice catching ever slightly, “keep going without a second thought.”

Tooru stops in his tracks only a beat after Iwaizumi—they’ve always been like this, so close in step—and looks at his best friend, outlined against the night sky. Iwaizumi turns to face him fully, jaw set, the intensity of his gaze greater than that of a thousand supernovas.

“I couldn’t be prouder to have you as a partner, and you’re the absolute best setter!”

It hits him, then, eyes widening at the sheer earnesty of the statement. Tooru’s in—he’s in—

“Even if the team changes, that will never change.”

They look at each other, Tooru with certainty and Iwaizumi with faith. Truths and theories alike could crumble. But Tooru has always trusted in Hajime more than anything else in the world.

Suddenly, Iwaizumi's expression shifts, gaze darkening and eyebrows scrunching together in challenge. “But when we fight, I’ll still give my all to defeat you.”

Tooru stares at him. Then he smiles, his chest suddenly feeling lighter than it has in weeks.

Perhaps they had already diverged paths a long time ago: maybe at the start of high school, when Iwaizumi first picked up a book on physical training, or even years ago, in elementary, when Tooru watched Jose Blanco play for the first time. Perhaps they’ve just been orbiting each other ever since.

He thinks of being eight years old, basking in the glow of a television screen and newfound excitement. Of being thirteen, riding the wave of desire to break limits and reach the top. Of being eighteen, still on his way, at the precipice of change yet grounded all the same.

Iwaizumi has always been there from the beginning, and Tooru will see them through to the end.

“Bring it on.”

It’s a promise that might take years to fulfill, but when their fists collide, Tooru remembers this: even when comets break apart, some find their way back together again.

There are things that change with time and distance.

One of Tooru’s fears before leaving for Argentina was that Iwaizumi would become one of them.

The thing is, he’d been right—just not in the way he’d expected. Their friendship remained as natural, as constant as the waves meeting the shore, and yet.

Their dynamic had shifted ever so slightly, and it had thrown Tooru’s world off-kilter, starting with the embrace that had nearly knocked him over in Terminal B of LAX.

He’d barely been able to manage a teasing “Aww, so affectionate, Iwa-chan! Missed me that much, huh?” before Iwaizumi rolled his eyes and replied: “More than you could ever know, Shittykawa.” And of course Tooru had been left speechless afterwards, because Iwaizumi had then smiled at him, so unbelievably soft that Tooru nearly burst into tears on the spot.

Now, they’re sitting on the beach, Iwaizumi’s hand casually resting on his thigh, and Tooru thinks he might actually drown in the newfound affection if the evening tide doesn’t swallow him first.

Oblivious to his dilemma, Iwaizumi leans back and stifles a yawn. Tooru huffs out a quiet laugh. “Time to head back?”

Iwaizumi cracks another boyish grin. “Yeah.”

On the way back, Iwaizumi walks closer to him than ever before, his fingers brushing Tooru’s more often than not the infinitesimal space between them.

When they finally make it to the dorm, Iwaizumi immediately plops down onto the floor. "You can take the bathroom first.

“Nonsense, Iwa-chan,” Tooru replies. “You go ahead, I know you’re sleepy. Besides, I take much longer in the shower than you do.”

“Fine, fine.”

Fifteen minutes later, when Iwaizumi emerges with a towel around his waist and his dark hair plastered to his forehead like a wet puppy, Tooru giggles and tells him as much. And then he sees the rivulets of water tracing the planes of his stomach, the little droplets clinging to his sharp jaw, and thinks: Iwa-chan grew up handsome.

Their eyes meet, and Tooru realizes he’s been caught staring. He waits for the shame to rise, expecting to be met with a glare of irritation, but Iwaizumi’s gaze is only searching.

Tooru looks away, because he’s not sure himself of what Iwaizumi is going to find.

When he enters the bathroom, he’s hit all of a sudden with the familiar scent of Iwaizumi’s body wash. It’s unmistakably the same brand he’s used since middle school: he must have brought some with him from home. The fragrance isn’t even that strong, but to Tooru, it’s dizzying: a stark reminder that Iwaizumi is just outside the door and not an entire continent away.

He spends longer than he should in the shower, the fragrance soaking into his skin, a deeper sensation sinking into his bones.

It’s dark when he steps out of the bathroom, fluorescent light leaking into the shadows of the room. He can only barely make out the outline of Iwaizumi at the edge of the twin-sized bed, a large, Tooru-sized space left between him and the wall.

He hears the subtle hitch in Iwaizumi’s breathing when he crawls into bed beside him, their legs inevitably pressing together. There must be some metaphor, Tooru thinks, in the way they’ve both grown too big to fit together like this after sharing a bed since they were kids. But he can’t bring himself to care, not when the distance between them has narrowed down to a hair’s breadth, the fabric of Iwaizumi’s shirt tickling Tooru’s arm…

“Iwa-chan,” he whispers. “Is that my shirt?”

He reaches out, and sure enough, his fingertips trace the familiar letters of his name on Iwaizumi’s back. Iwaizumi shivers underneath the touch.

Emboldened, Tooru allows his hand to drift towards the front of the jersey. He skims across the number 17, the letters SACB, and feels Iwaizumi's pulse thrumming swiftly underneath the fabric.

And then Iwaizumi rolls over. With the lights out, all he can feel is the puff of Iwaizumi’s breath on the bridge of his nose and the rapid beating of his own heart.

He thinks, Did you know that missing you feels like I’m missing a lung?

And, I know this isn’t home, but this is the closest I’ve ever felt to it.

How can I ever be apart from you again after this?

Instead, he pauses, then says, “You’re my best friend.”

Tooru feels like there’s some answer, some all-encompassing truth behind it all, a single phrase to sum up a lifetime of knowing Iwaizumi Hajime like the back of his hand and still wanting more. It’s at the tip of his tongue, threatening to spill over, like the first crack of sunlight on the horizon at dawn.

But for now, there is no light in this room; only the current of electricity crackling between them. And then Iwaizumi’s lips are on his, and Tooru gives himself up to the darkness.

“Iwa-chan!”

Hajime lifts his head from where he'd been poring over a textbook. His gaze softens as it lands on Tooru, the furrow of his brow melting away. “Hey.”

Tooru curses the stationary bike and copy machine in between them as he nearly trips making his way towards his husband. He stops in his tracks when he spots the corkboard just above Hajime’s desk. It’s chock full of data sheets and graphs, lists and sticky notes, but in the middle of it all, there’s a picture of Tooru, bright-eyed and mid-laughter, clutching his Olympic gold with one hand and holding on to the love of his life with the other.

There’s the sound of a laptop closing shut, and then the love of his life in question stands before him. His expression is brimming with fondness when he looks up, and their shoulders brush as he leans in to press a kiss to the corner of Tooru’s mouth, sturdy fingers wrapping around his wrist.

“Welcome home, Tooru.”