Work Text:
There’s always something new to discover about Oikawa, Iwaizumi finds out over the years.
Like when the sun snares that windswept chestnut hair, it blooms across those silky strands with tendrils of light, covering that beautiful head like a soft, almost imperceptible halo. Or like when the moon catches those chocolate eyes just right, it illuminates those gold flecks floating away in those brown oceans, like they’re bits and pieces of stardust that got locked away in this perfectly imperfect human being.
But there’s always something to rediscover about Oikawa, Iwaizumi also finds out over the years.
Like how those hands that whisper the sweetest promises of forever could also etch the most fervent declarations of desire into his skin, make him writhe and moan and beg till his voice was hoarse and his body and mind were riding on a perpetual high. Or like how those pretty lips that sent flutters rippling across his heart could also make his veins scream for oxygen when everything
fell
apart.
When Oikawa broke, Iwaizumi shattered with him.
It was sudden, the family said. One day, he was up and gone. Without a trace, without a note, nothing. It was sheer luck, the police said. If that officer hadn’t dared to trek the extra one mile on that godforsaken beach, they would have never found him. He’d be taken by the ocean, swept out to the middle of nowhere, gone. It was a mystery, the psychiatrists said. No signs that anything was wrong. As if everything was perfectly fine.
When it really wasn’t.
For days, Iwaizumi found himself lying in front of Oikawa’s framed photo, a picture of him smiling one of those rare, genuine smiles and flashing a peace sign, those cheeks and lips lifted up just a few millimeters, those fingers posed just perfectly, the dyes unadulterated, untainted, almost as beautiful as the real thing.
Almost.
But they’d never be enough.
The dyes couldn’t breathe or live or be there. Iwaizumi couldn’t place his head on that chest anymore, listen to the melody of a heartbeat, feel that euphonic voice waft into his ears, indulge in the addicting warmth of his best friend, his lover, his sun, moon, and stars, his universe, his everything.
Iwaizumi never knew he could cry so much.
Until now.
Maybe this made up for all the years he stayed so strong, being the shoulder to cry on, the arms to come running into, the ears that would listen.
Or maybe it didn’t. After all, the only shoulder he could cry on, the arms he could come running into, and the ears that would listen to him-
Was gone.
“I love you,” he’d whisper. Those were the only words that would rise to his lips, that’d surface from the numbness and swim through the necrosis that had settled into his mind. “I love you.”
He could never utter that name. It was as if it were too sacred, too holy, as if merely thinking that one word was sacrilege. No matter how hard he tried, nothing but I love you would come out.
And soon enough, nothing more would be heard from his lips.
After Oikawa left, nothing was the same. The days that had been filled with sweet laughter and loving embraces and lingering kisses- god, those kisses, the ones that made his heart flutter and made him feel like they were sixteen all over again-and the nights that had been filled with the most beautiful moans and heated touches and naked intoxication were all dead now, stored away six feet in the ground.
And no matter what Iwaizumi did, he could never revive those moments.
He could only relive them, over
and over
and over
again.
They had danced together, slow and steady, one night. The balcony of their apartment wasn’t all that large, but they had managed to make it work. After a minute or two of Iwaizumi tripping over Oikawa’s feet and nearly cussing up a storm and Oikawa trying to guide him on the steps and barely managing to keep him calm, they had fallen into a lulling rhythm, their bodies melding together perfectly, their feet gliding, step by step by careful step.
Iwaizumi remembers how Oikawa closes his eyes and how those eyelashes graze his pretty cheeks and how the luminescence of the full moon hovering overhead veils his head with a beauty that was beyond divine and how he simply glows. Iwaizumi still recalls himself seriously pondering the possibility that Oikawa was not a human being, but an angel sent down from heaven to grace the earth with that heart-stopping smile and those breathtaking eyes and perfectly sculpted hands and-
He nearly gasps like the air’s been knocked out of his lungs when Oikawa stops for a moment and opens those eyes, and Iwaizumi knows in that moment, he’s drowning. He’s in love with this beautiful creature named Oikawa Tooru, and he never knew how deep he was in this love until he was drowning.
Iwaizumi runs his tired, aching fingers over letters. Simple little sticky notes and cards filled with doodles and scribbles that no longer made any sense, although they must have at some point.
And then, he finds a box full of those, a whole collection of neatly folded paper covered with neatly printed vows and confessions and musings, all collected during their college years. If love was something that could be translated to words, those letters captured its essence.
I miss you, begins one letter. Iwaizumi’s eyes wander across the countless sheets, and the more he reads, the more the tears threaten to escape from his eyes.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Iwa-chan?
I’ve been lonely.
I wish you were here with me.
I need you.
I can’t live without you.
I can’t wait to see you.
I love you.
I’ll always love you.
From now until the end of forever,
I’ll always,
always,
always
love you.
They never drank all that much, Iwaizumi realizes absentmindedly as he pops open a bottle of liquor, the smell stinging his nose. Even as college kids, they knocked back shots only on the occasional visit.
Maybe they didn’t need drinks because they were so drunk on each other.
Amidst the haze of a hangover, Iwaizumi remembers the first time they made love.
They’re eighteen, stupid and crazy and head over heels for each other, about to head off to different universities in a week’s time, and both of them should be gone by now but they still reach out for every possible second together.
It starts out with a kiss. It’s kinda cliché, just like in the movies, when Iwaizumi considers it. An innocent kiss. And then another kiss. And another, and another, and every time their lips brush, they go deeper, longer, farther, till all they’re breathing into their lungs is each other and that fire is burning, spreading through their veins, and with every touch, it only blazes hotter.
Iwaizumi’s memory falters once the clothes are stripped off and left abandoned on the floor of his room. All he remembers is a wave of pleasure and heat that builds with every second until it crashes into him at once, knocking the ground out from underneath his feet and leaving him gasping and breathless with stars crossing his eyes and a pleasant blankness in his mind.
A smile nearly rises to his lips at the thought.
As spring fades into summer, Iwaizumi finds himself fading in and out of reality. He’d lose himself in the memories, only to find that whenever he reached out to grab Oikawa, the illusion would fall apart, and he’d be awake again.
He sometimes locks himself away from everything and indulges in those memories. Oikawa’s no longer here, but he’s still present in Iwaizumi’s thoughts.
After a while, Iwaizumi realizes that all the color has bled out of his life. It’s not even black and white anymore, just varying shades of grey.
Everything had faded to a dull, drab noise, and one day, Iwaizumi knows that it’s time to go.
It’s probably the same place that Oikawa stood in all those months ago. Probably the same place where he peered down into the nothing below. Probably the same place where he had walked forward-and disappeared.
After a few moments of inhaling and exhaling and gathering his final thoughts, Iwaizumi begins walking. He’s about to disappear too.
He edges forward, step by step by careful step. He’s mere millimeters from the precipice now. Maybe he’d rest forever on that lovely sand, or maybe he’d be swept out to the middle of nowhere by the ocean. Maybe the police would never find him. Maybe the psychiatrists would know why he had left.
He exhales one last time and takes one last step.
He closes his eyes, and in the back of his mind, he hears the wisps of a familiar voice. Hajime, welcome home.
He plummets down, and as the world fades to a sweet black, he can’t help but smile one last time.
I’m home, Tooru.
I’m finally home.