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Tooru stares at the wedding invite Hajime just handed him, its crisp edges and fine black print screaming Hajime and Tooru wonders, as his mouth opens to ask “Will you be my best man?” in the same way he asked if they wanted to play together after school, Tooru wonders how it ended up this way.
//
One night, Hajime comes home mysteriously late, the door clicking shut behind him as he enters the living room.
“Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, shoving another chocolate in his mouth as an alien film played on their TV. He turns around to Hajime and god, Hajime is fucking beautiful— his cheeks are dusted with pink and his hair is ruffled slightly from the wind outside. He wears a dress shirt, rolled up to his elbows, and Tooru decides to keep talking because he thought it would be funny, to tease him. He brings his attention back to his chocolates. “Did you finally get a girlfriend, you brute?”
It’s not until he raises his head and sees Hajime again— Hajime’s shy smile, the red blooming at his ears, the darting pupils— that his smirk falls off his face. “Oh,” Tooru says quietly enough that he hopes Hajime cannot hear the sheer heartbreak in his voice because Hajime is the only one who could detect something from one syllable. His lungs suddenly feel like they’re deflating, and his ears sound like he’s underwater, drowning.
“I hope so,” Hajime says, an unfamiliar fondness in his voice Tooru wishes he couldn’t hear it. “I really hope so, Oikawa.”
The thing is, the two of them had always been a pair, together in every way, partners, roommates, best friends. The thing is, Oikawa never thought there would be an after-Iwaizumi. And yet here it was, and he was in it.
Hajime furrows his eyebrows, jaw clenching. He steps forward toward the couch Tooru hogs, concerned. Now he feels bad, Tooru can tell. A sick part of himself wishes that he’ll feel guilty. “Hey,” Hajime says quietly, “this doesn’t mean anything for us, okay?”
Tooru pretends to chew on a chocolate.
“You’ll always be my best friend, you know that right? I’m not replacing you.”
Tooru can only manage a smile and a nod because he knows, before Hajime, that it’s a lie, just like the one before that.
“Oikawa-“
“Iwa-chan finally admits that I’m an amazing person, huh? You should be so glad I grace you with my presence!” Tooru replies instead, before Hajime can say anything else, and the tense atmosphere sheds itself as he ducks Hajime’s punch, and for a second, he forgets how he feels as if his heart had been shattered by the person that should have been his forever.
//
It is December when they break their promise of forever.
It is a chilly winter evening when Tooru finally faces Hajime after the fight. He barely remembers how it started— probably something minuscule, like his laundry, or his terrible sleep schedule, or how he was transferring universities. Hajime and him, they never truly fought, and if they did, neither would let their ego down enough to talk first. But then, that night, the fight breached things they silently agreed never to talk about, unleashed the worst versions of themselves onto each other.
“Do you really think that I can just not practice and be good at volleyball?”
“Oikawa! I’m just saying—“
“No, Iwaizumi, you wouldn’t fucking understand because you’re not good enough to play for university, so don’t fucking tell me what I should and should not do!”
“Go fuck yourself Oikawa. Don’t take your frustrations out on me— it’s not my fault Ushi—“
“What? What were you going to say, Iwaizumi? Say it right now, I fucking dare you.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Oh really? Because I mean it when I say that you’re the reason we couldn’t beat Shiratorizawa!”
The frosty gusts of wind nip at his ears which his scarf doesn’t cover and it feels like nothing compared to the ache confining itself in his stomach. He turns the lock of the front door, creaking it open. The apartment is dark, but he knows that Hajime is home, because his shoes are placed neatly next to the door, and his winter jacket hangs against the door, leaving an empty space for Tooru’s own.
He knows that it was his fault, ultimately, and that Hajime only kept yelling because he had truly hurt his feelings. He’d hurt him enough that he’d cried, out of shock or out of pain, he couldn’t tell, but he’d cried and swiftly left the house. He knew it was cowardly of him, not to seek Hajime out after the fight, but he’d been angry too, much too angry to come to his senses.
“Hajime?” Tooru calls out into the dark hallway. He hates the way his voice quivers, and the way his heartbeats fasten waiting for a reply. “Hajime, please,” he says, more desperate. “Please, god, I’m fucking sorry. Please, just talk to me.”’
He hears the bedroom door creak open and sees a figure step out, turning on a lamp, casting a warm hue on the white walls. “Oikawa.”
Tooru’s heart drops, because, ever since they started dating, they’d called each others by their first name, unless something was completely wrong. But it wasn’t just that, his tone was off and his hands were fidgeting, and Hajime could not look Tooru in the eye. He feels bile rise into his throat.
“I don’t think…” he stops, unsure how to phrase the statement, not willing to walk closer to Tooru. “The thing is, Tooru, I just don’t think this,” he gestures to the space between them, “can work.”
Tooru’s heart drops and it takes all his willpower not to beg Hajime to rethink his decision, to take him back, because he would do anything. It takes him all his constraint not to say the three words he was always too afraid to confess, and now, he will never be able to say them. “Oh,” he says instead, his throat closing around the syllable. “Okay.”
Hajime looks at him, an expression he can’t read. He laughs once. “Is that… oh. Okay, then.”
“I’m sorry Hajime,” Tooru says, trying to keep his voice steady and calm. “I didn’t mean it, you know that, right? We just lost the game and—“
Hajime smiles at him, real this time, and walks closer, cradling his face in his palms. They’re warm, warmth he’ll never feel again. “I’m sorry too, Tooru. I… I didn’t mean what I said and I want you to know that you will become the best player in the world. Fuck Ushijima and Shiratorizawa.”
Tooru smiles, and he doesn’t know if he feels the warmth of Hajime’s hands, or if he’s crying, now. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah.”
“You’re still my best friend,” he hears Hajime whisper into his ear as he buries his face in his chest for the last time. Tooru wonders when that would turn into a lie.
“I’m sorry,” Tooru whispers back and wonders if Hajime can hear him. “You were the best ace I could have asked for. You are the reason I want to be good, Hajime. You were,” he chokes, “you were the best thing to have happened to me.”
Hajime’s arms wrap tighter around his back and it feels like coming home. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he says, but his voice is deep and calming and sweet. “You’d be stupid if you think I don’t feel the same, Tooru.”
The sky is hollow and the stars are dead and it is December, the day Tooru realizes he will never love again.
//
“I think I want to marry her,” Hajime says when Tooru meets him after a volleyball game, fighting the urge to hug Hajime and feel his warmth against his own body again.
Her name is Hikari and she wears a shiny pink lip gloss and her hair is short yet brown and soft, and Tooru hates how perfect she is for Hajime. Hikari isn’t angry when Hajime cancels their dates last minute because Tooru wants them to see the newest sci-fi film in the theatre, Hikari isn’t angry when Hajime cannot see her because Tooru needs him to watch his next volleyball match, and Hikari cooks for Hajime in their shared apartment and doesn’t leave his laundry all over the floor and Tooru hates how she is everything he could never be. And yet, Tooru knows, he knows that she is exactly what Hajime deserves.
Tooru laughs, face turned away from Hajime so he couldn’t see the strain in his smile and the hurt in his eyes. “Who would’ve thought Iwa-chan could ever be such a romantic?” he taunts, hoping Hajime would not see right through his act.
“Shut up, Shittykawa.” Hajime pats his shoulder, his touch burning Tooru’s skin. “Good job today, you played really fucking well.”
Tooru smiles, real this time, ignoring the pain in his knee.
“You didn’t do something stupid to your knee again did you, you idiot?” Hajime asks, concern gracing his features as his arms ghost around Tooru’s body, worried.
“Aww, is Iwa-chan worried about me?” Tooru asks to avoid answering his question, feigning a shocked expression.
“Stop being so stupid,” he answers instead, dropping the subject. Hajime sighs, eyeing Tooru’s knee, which is no use since it’s in a brace and he wouldn’t be able to see anything. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”
Tooru’s heart drops, because he knows exactly what Hajime is talking about, and he knows that Hajime values his opinion over anyone else’s, even his own. Some part of him realizes that, maybe, if he disagreed, then Hajime would stop, that he would not marry Hikari and Tooru could take him back like the selfish person he is. “Are you happy, Iwa-chan?”
Hajime looks through him, face softening. “Yeah, I am.”
Tooru nods, forcing the bile rising in his throat down. “Follow your heart,” he says, because he could never explicitly ask Hajime to choose him again, because he could never explicitly ask Hajime to throw away his happiness for him.
And sometimes, sometimes Tooru feels like Hajime is lying, and that he still loves Tooru the way he loves Hajime— when he touches his knee with the softest movements and massages away the pain silently, or when he picks Tooru up in the middle of the night because the latter could never get home responsibly, or when he brushes the hair out of Tooru’s eyes and smiles at him like he was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen. Yet the butterflies are crushed when he sees Hajime’s eyes light up, hugging Hikari when she surprises him with chocolates because Tooru never did that, and the butterflies die out when he sees Hajime brush away a speck of dirt on Hikari’s cheek and rearrange her dishevelled hair from the wind and receive a peck in response.
Tooru knows that Hajime doesn’t love him anymore and yet.
//
“Oikawa,” Hajime says one night at his doorstep weeks before they leave for college together. The sky is dim and the rain is pouring and Hajime’s shirt is soaked and he’s beautiful. “I— I was thinking about college, when you weren’t sure where to go, and I realized,” Hajime continues, “that I couldn’t imagine going to college without you. Because I’ve always assumed you’d be there, right next to me, pulling all-nighters for exams and practicing volleyball and eating instant ramen at ungodly hours— I can’t imagine a life without you.”
Oikawa stands by the door frozen, his heart beating out of his chest like a thunderstorm, because a small part of him wishes, hopes, prays— that Hajime is going to say what he has felt ever since he could remember. His heart yearns for Hajime and his body itches to pull him into his chest and kiss him in the darkness of the night.
“What I’m saying, Tooru,” Hajime says, slowly, dark eyes flickering to stare at Tooru. “What I’m saying is I think I’m in love with you and... and I think I have been for a long time and it’s okay if you don’t feel this way because you’re you and I’m me but sometimes— sometimes I think you do—“
And Tooru doesn’t let him speak any longer because he pulls him, soaked shirt and cold, wet hair, into his house and presses their lips together and it feels like he is whole again.
“I love you, Hajime. I’ve always loved you.” Don’t leave me.
//
(Of course, Tooru says yes, because when it comes to Hajime, there is nothing he can deny him, and it almost feels worth it, seeing the bright smile on Hajime’s face afterwards. Almost. )
It is the night before his wedding when Hajime asks Tooru to go get drinks at some bar he’s never heard of, and he agrees without asking because he knows that he will never get a chance like this again.
“Do you think I should be happy, Oikawa?” Hajime asks, downing a shot of god knows what against the too-loud music. He fidgets with the glass and Tooru knows he’s nervous.
“What do you mean?”
“I should feel happy, right?”
“You are happy,” Tooru says, more to convince himself than to Hajime.
“No, I really don’t think I am.” Hajime’s eyes are far away, staring off into something Tooru cannot see. “I don’t understand it. I have everything I want, Oikawa. I don’t get it.”
“You’re overthinking, Iwa-chan, you’re just too dumb to understand,” he jokes.
Hajime doesn’t laugh. He downs another shot. “Y’know, for the longest time, I thought we’d get married, Tooru.”
Tooru’s charming smile drops at this, his hurt lurches out of his stomach, desperate. He feels like choking. “What?”
“I’ve always thought,” he says, turning to stare at Tooru like he did that night all those years ago, “that we’d get married.”
“Stop it, Hajime,” Tooru says, trying to compose himself, his voice betraying him. “Stop it.”
“Why?” he asks, cheeks flushed and eyebrows furrowed. “Because, Tooru, I—”
“You’re being mean. Stop it, Hajime. Not after— not after…” not after us.
“I’d always wanted it to be you, Tooru,” Hajime continues, face flushed and pupils large, his breath so close Tooru can tell it reeks of alcohol. “I’ve always wanted it to be you that I married. I’ve… I’ve always loved you, Tooru.”
And Tooru feels his breath hitch and his vision blur and his heart stops because there is no way Hajime just said that. “Hajime,” he breathes, like a trance. “You can’t just say that.” Because his first instinct is to run away with Hajime and never look back, because Hajime is all he has ever wanted, not volleyball, not first place— Hajime, his pillar, his partner, his lover.
“Tooru,” he pleads, a tear trickling down the corner of his eye, or maybe it was just the lighting.
But then, Tooru remembers reality, and Tooru remembers the fights and the pain in Hajime’s eyes when he’d said words meant to twist his heart the way it did, and Tooru remembers all the ways he is imperfect from his inability to clean the house to his absurd vanity to his anger and hatred and selfishness. Tooru remembers that Hajime deserves someone much better than Tooru could ever be. His heart clenches and he forces himself to look away so he can, for once in his life, make the right decision. Be the bigger person. Be the person Hajime is— kind and strong and selfless. “Hikari-chan,” Tooru says instead, the name wrapping itself like a poison around his tongue. “You’re getting married to Hikari-chan today.”
“Hikari,” Hajime repeats, emotionless. “Yes, Hikari.” He smiles.
Tooru watches how the sun peeks against the distant mountains, lining them in gold as his eyes line themselves in a puddle of tears and the morning comes and it’s Hajime’s wedding day.
//
“Are you happy, Hajime?” he asks, at the end of the reception, his best man speech tear-stained and in the trash, stealing him away from his wife for the last time.
Hajime smiles softly. “I think so, Oikawa.” He doesn’t remember last night.
“I’m happy for you.” He really wants to mean it.
Hajime hugs Tooru, but he falls into his embrace for the last time and it feels like everything he’s ever known. “I hope you’ll be happy, too, Oikawa.”
“You used to call me Tooru,” he whispers, but Hajime doesn’t hear him and only pulls back to offer another smile before another friend pulls him away to congratulate him.
“I’ll never be happy,” Tooru says, more to Hajime than to himself, but Hajime is five tables away from him and it feels like five forevers and it is Hajime’s wedding day.
Fin.