Work Text:
Iwaizumi Hajime is a study in color.
His eyes are an anomaly, changing color depending on the time or location or lighting. A deep sap green under the shades of trees in early summer, perylene green in the dim light of the late evening, terre verte in the light of his dance studio, jadeite under the spotlight when he danced for crowds of people.
Oikawa sighs, eyeing a palette half-filled with nothing but failed shades of green. Frustrated, he throws the paper he’d been using as a swatch test, and, for the third day in a row, leaves behind a painting with blank eyes.
-
When he and Iwaizumi were five, his mother came home one day with a small box, encased in red wrapping paper. The second she set down the box in front of them, small excited hands began tearing open the packaging to reveal four tubs of paint.
They had looked at each other with are you thinking what I’m thinking laid out so clearly on their faces, and immediately raced for the box of scratch paper in the living room.
(Oikawa has always loved how he and Iwaizumi have always communicated with the barest glances, a special brand of telepathy perfected in the years they spent together)
Once, they got in trouble for painting on the floors, when the papers his mother laid out didn’t prove to be enough to contain their combined imaginations, and the only reason Oikawa didn’t cry was because Iwaizumi’s hand was held tight in his, the blues and greens and yellows and reds of their hands mixing together in the sticky sweat of their palms.
-
“You haven’t painted in a long time.”
Oikawa glances up at Iwaizumi, pushing up his glasses. He looks refreshed despite the slight unruliness of his hair and the flush of a satisfying round of exercise on his cheeks. His skin is shining with a thin sheen of sweat, hair sticking to his forehead, but he quickly comes up with a towel to dry it off.
There’s concern in his eyes. Oikawa smiles fondly.
“I just haven’t been painting in public, Iwa-chan.” he reassures, automatically handing Iwaizumi a bottle of lemon tea he’d bought in advance. “And I’ve been busy so I haven’t really had time to update my Instagram, but I do have a project underway.”
“You have time to post your selfies.” Iwaizumi scoffs, taking the proffered drink with the ease of familiarity. “I thought you only posted your artworks on that account?”
“Well, my face is a work of art so—”
Iwaizumi levels him with an irritated glare and Oikawa quickly throws up two peace signs to appease him. Iwaizumi mercifully lets him off the hook without injury.
“Are you going to the retirement concert?”
Oikawa grins. “Of course I am. I would be a horrible boyfriend if I didn’t!”
Iwaizumi laughs and twists the cap with a quick flick of his wrist. Oikawa’s smile falters. He quickly busies himself with putting away his textbooks.
“So where is it?”
“Huh?”
“You said you’ve been working on something. Show me.”
Oikawa shakes his head. “It’s a super-secret project. Not even Iwa-chan is allowed to see.”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Dork.”
“Rude!”
-
When he and Iwaizumi were eight, Oikawa watched the fire in Iwaizumi’s eyes slowly wane as they painted together, only to burn for something else. On the third playdate cut short, he bullied his way into the car, determined to see what it was that took up so much of Iwaizumi’s time as of late. His mother dropped them off at the local dance studio that Iwaizumi’s mother worked at, and Oikawa was only left standing there in shock as Iwaizumi went to stretch with the other kids.
Oikawa begged his mother to let him enroll, if only because the idea of Iwaizumi diverging to a path that did not have Oikawa in it made his chest constrict awfully tight.
(In hindsight, maybe that’s what doomed him to fail from the start.)
He easily grew frustrated when his limbs refused to obey him, and the stretching exercises made his joints ache. Even when Iwaizumi would pull him aside after classes to help him get a better feel of the steps, he still couldn’t get his body to move the way he wanted.
(Oikawa remembers being miserable, but more than that, he remembers how Iwaizumi’s eyes hardened in focus as his body went through the motions, how fluidly he transitioned from one step to another, how he smiled when he finally mastered their recital choreography.)
There were only two things he gained from that horrid summer: he had no words for how breathtaking Iwaizumi was when he danced, and he was not Iwaizumi’s shadow, or vice versa.
Iwaizumi continued to pursue dance, and Oikawa contented himself with sitting in the audience, cheering the loudest for his best friend.
-
As an artist, he has to admit that, objectively, Iwaizumi is beautiful.
He has spent an inordinate amount of time just watching him by virtue of being his best friend, but as of late he’s been noticing more and more just how aesthetically pleasing his best friend looks. His eyes are slanted, pinching slightly at the edges, cheekbones resting high on his face, a button nose. Since becoming the lead dancer of Aoba Johsai’s dance club in their senior year, he’s been shedding baby fat faster than most of their peers, giving way to a toned body, muscles burgeoning beneath his clothes. His face isn’t perfectly symmetrical, nor is his body ideally proportioned, but Oikawa never tires of staring at him. In movement or in stillness, Iwaizumi has him captivated, and he doesn’t even know it.
Iwaizumi meets his eyes through the mirror of the dance hall and Oikawa ducks his head to the open page of his journal, notes fading into endless sketches of Iwaizumi.
Iwaizumi Hajime is beautiful, and Oikawa Tooru is hopelessly in love.
-
At twelve years old, he received a set of watercolor paints; colors in square pans beyond the four he knew as a child. He realized that colors like blue and green and yellow and red were no longer specific enough, with new names like alizarin crimson and phthalo blue making a home in his vocabulary. He eagerly continued to discover new colors, becoming more smitten as he immersed himself in the world beneath his paintbrush.
He bought more materials using the money he’d collected from two years’ worth of holidays and special occasions; brushes capable of finer or thicker lines than the one that came with the set, paper hardier than the ones he kept stealing from his father’s printer.
On Iwaizumi’s birthday the following year, he presented him with a painting of him, hands wringing anxiously behind him as Iwaizumi’s eyes wandered all across the paper.
(Oikawa recalls that painting with embarrassing clarity: a body all out of proportion, mismatched eyes, streaks and blotches of paint not even properly blended together.
And yet…)
Iwaizumi grinned at him and rushed over to his mom in the kitchen, frantically tugging her sleeve and asking her to have it framed.
-
A month later, he starts again; trails pigment along the faint pencil lines of Iwaizumi’s neck, his face, applying the base color before building up more translucent layers of shadows. Here, Iwaizumi is looking from over his shoulder, bag swinging outward with the momentum of his turn. He paints the bow of his lips with a slight hint of pink, parted slightly in surprise, and wonders if they are as soft as they look, as sweet as they were in his dreams.
It always feels so intimate, painting Iwaizumi like this, like he’s bringing the image to life from a few specks of graphite and pigment on paper to the Iwaizumi Hajime that breathes and exudes life through everything he does, from his passion for dance to the way he so earnestly cares for people.
I love you he whispers as he crafts the pale imitation, like it will possibly give him the strength to say those exact words to the real thing.
His phone beeps, a notification flashing across the screen, and Oikawa stands.
-
There was a period in Oikawa’s life when all the colors of the world dulled, the images faded behind the blocks of text in his books. For twelve months he remained crouched over numbers and concepts instead of sketches and paintings and stared into the mirror every single day, trying and failing to convince himself that he was happy with the monotony of his new life.
(It will be a year before he learns how to smile again.)
-
The stage is bathed in a dim cobalt violet light and Oikawa can just barely see the silhouettes of dancers as they tiptoe into position, graceful even in haste. In the crowd, people squeal and shout out names of performers. Once or twice, he hears Iwaizumi yelled over the clamor and he puffs with pride.
When the lights flare out, Iwaizumi is center stage, a sight to behold. He and some other dancers are sitting backwards on chairs, legs hooked at the ankles. They’re all wearing a patchwork of white and black leather with two broad swipes of black paint decorating each cheek. A hollow thump-thump-thump of a drum starts up and all the dancers’ shoulders begin to jerk in sync to the beat. The ones on chairs hop to stand on the seat in one smooth move and the music picks up, lyrics and more instruments coming to life. Oikawa watches, awestruck, as Iwaizumi’s hips and shoulders gyrate, weight shifting from one foot to another, confident despite the limited space.
In a well-choreographed transition, he jumps off the chair in time for the dancer beside him to leap up on it. The crowd cheers as the music shifts; something slow, piano and sax notes blending into a low, sultry melody. Iwaizumi stalks to the front, hands deftly sliding up the front of his jacket and fingers closing around the zipper tucked beneath his chin.
Oikawa winces as the screams reach fever pitch. The jacket comes completely off—predictably, he’s wearing a tank top underneath—and is quickly tossed to the side, the act not even interfering with Iwaizumi as his body undulates, to match with the rest of the dancers. Oikawa shakes his head, an exasperated smile on his face. Honestly, he’s lost count of how many times Iwaizumi’s lost an article of clothing in these performances.
Not that I’m complaining though. he thinks as his eyes appreciatively run up Iwaizumi’s biceps. They flex with his movements, snappish and staccato, shadows dancing along the slopes and dips of his well-sculpted body.
The music fades with a sharp rattle. All of the performers freeze. Even the crowd goes silent with anticipation.
Oikawa goes bug-eyed when Iwaizumi hooks fingers underneath his tank top and pulls.
-
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whined, tugging futilely against Iwaizumi’s iron grip, “I thought you loved me.”
“Ever think about going into theater?” Iwaizumi retorted. “They’d absolutely adore you.”
Oikawa rolled his eyes. He knew he’d be paying for that paintball incident someday, but this was too much punishment. “I thought that by now you’d know that I have two left feet.”
“Not true. Anyone can dance. I’ll prove it to you right now.”
Iwaizumi propped him against the handrail running parallel to the floor-length mirrors, stepping back when he was sure he wouldn’t run away. Iwaizumi took a breath and stood with feet shoulder-width apart, interlacing his fingers and reaching upwards to stretch, lifting up on his toes every now and then. Without warning, he bent over, touching the floor with his palms, knees locked. Twenty seconds later he effortlessly slid to the floor, legs extending in front and behind him in a perfect split. Oikawa’s jaw fell slack.
“You should probably stretch too.” Iwaizumi said, like his balls weren’t being squished by his own weight and the floor. Oikawa awkwardly shuffled into a side lunge, switching to stretch out the other leg after eight counts.
“I hope you’re not hoping to start with backflips like we did last time.” Oikawa mumbled after Iwaizumi had finished his reps. Iwaizumi grinned at him sheepishly. Oikawa’s tailbone still throbbed at the memory.
“This is a slow song, and you’re pretty flexible. So I figured this dance style would be more suitable for you.” he reassured, alternatingly rotating his feet at the ankles to ease out the joints.
“I’ll demonstrate the whole routine for you first.” Iwaizumi said, then pointed to the speakers plugged into his phone. “Play the music when I tell you to.”
He bent slightly at the waist, left leg extending in front of him with the toe pointed. His arms curled loosely over his abdomen, shoulders hunched inward. Iwaizumi nodded subtly and Oikawa pressed play on his phone screen.
The music came on, an airy female voice singing in a language Oikawa couldn’t quite identify, voice echoing and splitting, the layering of vocals and effects lending an ethereal quality to the song.
There was a break in the music, a short intake of breath, and when it resumed, Iwaizumi moved along with it, the extended leg sweeping in a perfect arc around him as his body uncurled and bent back, arms opening and chest puffing out, fingertips touching above his head.
The song slowed, the singer lingering along vowels with a vibrato, and Iwaizumi suddenly dropped to the floor, like a marionette with its strings cut. He bent his knees and lifted his pelvis off the floor, rolling it with every beat of the drum. He flattened back down and sat up without using his arms, core muscles rippling beneath his shirt. Oikawa had to actively remind himself to breathe every few seconds.
In time with a crescendo of instruments, Iwaizumi stood and spun, smoothly transitioning into a pirouette. Oikawa watched, all baited breath and wide eyes, as Iwaizumi’s body flowed through the music, like the rhythm itself was synchronized with every beat of his heart. He moved purely on instinct, like his body was no longer his to command.
Iwaizumi pivoted on the balls of his feet one last time, and as the song faded to a stop, he finished with one hand raised his above his head while the other extended towards Oikawa, like he was reaching for him.
Oikawa just barely stopped his hand from reaching back. Hurriedly, he cleared his throat, clapping politely.
“That was amazing.” was all Oikawa could think to say, awe limiting his vocabulary to the simplest adjectives. “I didn’t know you could do ballet.”
Iwaizumi gave a small bow. “Hinata gave me some pointers in our last dance workshop.”
Oikawa sifted through his memory, linking the name to an excitable redhead he’d met two weeks ago. “Isn’t he too short to be a—”
“Don’t you dare.” Iwaizumi sharply cut him off. “He’s already shaping up to be one of the best. You’ll understand when you see him dance.”
Oikawa gulped, bracing himself for humiliation as Iwaizumi grasped both his hands and pulled him forward.
“Let’s see if you can do better Mr. 184 centimeters.”
-
The curtain pulls back and all the senior dancers run out, waving at the spectators. Most of them are already full on crying, tears streaming down their flushed faces. Iwaizumi’s eyes are shining, but he’s keeping it together, and even catches a Godzilla plushie someone from the crowd throws his way.
Once the stage managers allow it, Oikawa jumps on stage to greet Iwaizumi, handing him a bouquet he had jokingly bought. Predictably, Iwaizumi punches his arm for his trouble, but takes the flowers anyway, tucking mini-Godzilla between the roses.
“So…that was new.”
“The other seniors said it had to be special since it was the retirement performance.” Iwaizumi mutters, the brilliant red dusting his cheeks and neck more from embarrassment than the heat of the performance. Oikawa grins.
“Well I’m sure every angle of your naked torso will be on top of everyone’s social media by tomorrow.”
Oikawa expertly dodges the punch, and the next.
“Fucking stand still, I can’t kill you while I have this.” Iwaizumi adjusts his grip on the bouquet and Oikawa smothers a laugh, placatingly holding up both hands.
Someone calls out to Iwaizumi and they turn to look. Oikawa doesn’t recognize him, but he’s waving Iwaizumi over, urgency in his expression.
“Hold up, I think we need to do one last huddle.”
Oikawa nods and watches him go. The person Iwaizumi is talking to is tall, with the top of Iwaizumi’s head barely reaching his nose. The guy seems famous too, fans anxiously hovering a respectable distance from him. There is no sign of the other dancers. Oikawa taps his foot when he and Iwaizumi continue to exchange words, impatience creeping up.
Suddenly, the other person grabs Iwaizumi by the shoulders, and Oikawa’s eyes go wide, as does everyone else’s, when he pulls him in for a kiss.
-
Oikawa took a deep breath, mustering up the courage to finally give the painting to Iwaizumi. He’d pored over it for weeks, spending most of the summer break perfecting every detail of Iwaizumi’s features, looking up watercolor tutorials and video lessons, until he was finally happy with it.
He unrolled the paper again, smiling as Iwaizumi’s pouting face stared back at him. Even now, he could see small mistakes: some areas of uneven and splotchy colors, the slight disproportion of Iwaizumi’s eyes, lines that he’d messed up and hastily disguised. Still, he was absolutely proud of this one, and he quickly rolled it up, excited to see Iwaizumi’s reaction.
He ran to meet Iwaizumi in the track and field bleachers where they always had lunch, but as soon as he turned the corner, he saw that Iwaizumi wasn’t alone.
The stranger had his back turned to Oikawa but he could see that he was wearing the middle school uniform, handing a piece of paper to Iwaizumi with one hand, the other keeping a sketchpad tucked to his side. Oikawa bit back the growl rising in the back of his throat when Iwaizumi smiled and patted the shorter boy on the head.
The kid left soon after, dashing to the first year wing. Oikawa scowled at his retreating back and trudged over to Iwaizumi, who was still smiling fondly at the paper in his hands.
“What’s that, Iwa-chan?” he asked in what he hoped was simply a curious manner, keeping both hands and the painting hidden behind him.
“A first year gave it to me. He said he was in the art club with you?” Iwaizumi answered, looking up at him. He handed the paper over as he spoke, but Oikawa didn’t take it, staring hard at the sketch.
There was no two ways about it; it was a stunning likeness of Iwaizumi, rendered in cheap ballpoint pen. The areas in black and the shading were filled out with perfectly consistent hatchings and cross-hatchings, the lines and curves of Iwaizumi’s facial features rendered with varying thicknesses, creating a lovely depth to the image.
Drawings like these were the ones Oikawa spent days on, and even then he couldn’t remember producing something so beautiful.
Kageyama Tobio the kanji at the bottom right said. The name was familiar. Oikawa remembered most of the art club’s members fussing over his sketchbook, fighting for a turn to see the contents. Oikawa gulped, suddenly finding his throat painfully dry.
“It’s amazing actually.” Iwaizumi said, driving the thorns further into Oikawa’s heart. “He said he saw me in the library yesterday and couldn’t resist making a quick sketch.”
He tried to keep his expression neutral, but something must have showed because Iwaizumi was looking at him weird, head tilted the way it did when he was worried.
“Oikawa?”
He shook his head. Behind his back, he crushed the paper between clenched fists. “Wait a bit, Iwa-chan, I just need to throw something.”
-
When Oikawa tore out every single page in his sketchbook and threw it in the trash, he thought of Kageyama, of his monstrous improvement after just a month of being in the art club, of how sensei’s attention gravitated so easily to his artistic genius, of how he could so effortlessly imitate landscapes and people and still life while Oikawa struggled to even get Iwaizumi’s face right, a face he’d known nearly all his life.
There was no hope for him. Not when there were geniuses out there.
He threw out his watercolors and brushes and thought of how Kageyama would only continue to improve, of how years and years of practice for him would only take weeks for Kageyama.
When his hands finally closed on the one thing he had left to throw away, he was just barely clear-headed enough to see that it was the very first brush he ever bought with his own money; synthetic hair and a faux-wood handle, the bristles fraying after years of service.
He held it tight in one shaking hand, and instead of subjecting it to the same fate as all the others, he shoved it inside the deepest depths of his drawer and slid it shut.
-
Heartbreak, for Oikawa Tooru, is a crumpled painting of Iwaizumi Hajime tossed in the trash, his lone paintbrush sitting forgotten in a drawer beside his bed, the sight of Iwaizumi Hajime kissing someone else.
He does what he has always done best all these years: he runs away.
(This is what he does not see: Iwaizumi hurriedly pushing the other boy away, an apology, a rejection, Iwaizumi quickly turning to where Oikawa stood, only to find him no longer there.)
-
Iwaizumi knocks on his door, and he knows it’s him because he heard his frantic yelling at the front porch, asking his mother for him. Oikawa opens the door if only to prevent a commotion and Iwaizumi stands there, paint and makeup horribly smudged. Oikawa tries not to think too much about why that is.
“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi starts, and he’s panting, a confused angle to his brows. “Why did you—”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“What? No! Oika—”
“You were gay and you never even told me?”
“I was going to but—”
“I thought we were best friends?” Oikawa snarls and Iwaizumi flinches. Oikawa indulges the vindictive pleasure he gets from the pain in his expression. “Keeping secrets like that from me, that’s not fair, Iwa—”
“Will you just please just listen to me first?!”
Oikawa stops, so do the hissing voices in his head, and there’s nothing left but the sound of Iwaizumi’s breathing. A part of Oikawa wants to refuse, but there are frustrated tears in Iwaizumi’s eyes and the guilt weighs Oikawa down enough to keep him silent.
“That was honestly nothing.” Iwaizumi insists, eyes locked on his, pleading for Oikawa to believe him. “I think it was just the heat of the moment thing, you know. He apologized after and confessed that he’d been crushing on me for a while but I turned him down.”
He struggles to hide the relief that sweeps over him. Quickly, he tugs Iwaizumi into his room and closes the door. There are no words and Iwaizumi is compliant as Oikawa pulls him into a hug, burying his face into the crook of his shoulder. Iwaizumi doesn’t speak, but Oikawa knows he’s waiting for an explanation.
“I know this is awful of me to say but,” he whispers, soft enough to give Iwaizumi the chance to ignore him. “I don’t…I don’t like the thought of Iwa-chan being with someone else.”
Iwaizumi sighs, voice taking on a reproachful cadence as he says, “And since appeasing you is my life’s purpose I suppose I’ll just have to be single for the rest of my life?”
Or you could be mine. Oikawa thinks.
“Stay with me tonight?” he says instead, because it is all his measly courage can afford.
Iwaizumi responds by bringing his arms up around Oikawa’s waist.
Oikawa doesn’t even bother laying out a futon for him. They sleep in Oikawa’s bed, facing each other, hands entwined between them, the way they always used to sleep as children. Oikawa misses it; when having Iwaizumi beside him was all he needed to be happy, when being his best friend was more than enough.
“I’m sorry I never told you about my...” Iwaizumi whispers, sometime in the night, and leaves the statement dangling. Oikawa already knows what he means. “I wasn’t ready. To be fair, no one else knew.”
Oikawa feels hatred burn in the back of his mind, clings tighter to Iwaizumi’s hands. “That was awful of him to kiss you like that in public.”
Iwaizumi shrugs and smooths his thumb over Oikawa’s pale knuckles. “I’m fine with it now. He didn’t mean anything bad by it. Though things will be pretty awkward between us for a little while.”
Oikawa’s smile takes a bitter edge. How Iwaizumi can so easily forgive, he’ll never understand, but he figures they won’t be here right now if he isn’t.
Later, when Iwaizumi’s breathing has evened out into the rhythm of sleep, Oikawa leans in close, stops just shy of Iwaizumi’s lips, and wonders when he became such a hypocrite.
-
He wakes and Iwaizumi’s still asleep. They’ve untangled sometime in the night, and Iwaizumi is curled up in a ball, his back facing him. Oikawa had lent him a shirt after his shower last night, and he discreetly leans in to rest his forehead on the space between Iwaizumi’s shoulder blades, skin tingling at the reality that Iwaizumi is bathed in his scent.
He reaches with a gentle hand, tracing a span of skin exposed by the shirt riding up. He wants to draw this, paint it, immortalize Iwaizumi’s image in every conceivable medium. He backs away and stands, carefully draping the blanket over Iwaizumi’s body and pads across the hallway into the opposite room.
His brother’s old bedroom had been refurbished into a temporary studio for him after Takeru was born and his brother moved out. He takes in the painting he had carelessly left on the easel the night before and tears it from the pad, setting it on a desk in the corner of the room along with the other paintings of Iwaizumi he has yet to finish.
He sketches on a fresh sheet, pencil just barely scraping against the paper as he recalls the image of Iwaizumi curled up under his sheets. The pre-mixed paint from last night had dried, but a spray of water revives the pigments. He dampens his brush before swiping it through the lavender. He makes it monochrome today, just for practice. He works in silence, concentration peaking as he lays shadows across the dip of Iwaizumi’s nape below his hairline. He paints softened triangles to imitate the dips and pockets of shadows in the fabric of his shirt, the galaxy-printed comforter, wondering if maybe he should’ve tucked Iwaizumi in, if he should’ve turned the heater up before he lef—
“So this is what you’ve been working on?”
Oikawa jumps at Iwaizumi’s voice from directly behind him, scrambling to stand. Ice shoots through his veins when he sees Iwaizumi hovering over the pile of paintings on the desk. “When did you—”
“Calm down.” Iwaizumi drawls, eyes dull and voice rough from the eddies of sleep. “Why didn’t you wanna show me?”
Oikawa doesn’t answer, doesn’t know how. Iwaizumi doesn’t wait, carefully brushing aside the paintings on top of the pile to see the ones underneath, humming curiously at the sight of his own likeness in various poses. “Are these not finished on purpose or…?”
Oikawa quickly steps towards the desk, batting away Iwaizumi’s wandering hand and gathering the paintings into a relatively neater pile. “I had a hard time with the colors and getting the pose and lighting right and stuff.” he answers quickly, a tremor in his voice.
Iwaizumi tilts his head at him. “I could’ve modeled for you, you know. You only had to ask.”
Oikawa’s head jerks up, but Iwaizumi’s already glancing around the room. There is another chair in the room that’s close to the window overlooking the view of the forest behind their house. Iwaizumi walks over and sits, leaning back with the temerity of someone who knows they won’t be doing much of anything anytime soon. Their eyes meet. Iwaizumi quirks an eyebrow at him, and the command in his gaze draws Oikawa in, obediently returning to his workstation and flipping to a new page.
“I’m just gonna warn you,” Oikawa says as he sets the pad back on the easel, “this’ll take a while.”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes but clearly adjusts to a more comfortable position. “I know how to stay still for an extended period of time.”
“With how much you wriggle around? Could’ve fooled me.”
Iwaizumi grumbles something about how it was called krumping, but doesn’t protest further, and Oikawa takes that as his cue to begin.
Iwaizumi is a surprisingly well-behaved model. He is still and perfectly poised, not even complaining when Oikawa spends a good five minutes at first just staring at his face. He swaps the pencil for his brush and mixes colors, the perfect ratio of flesh tone, yellow ochre, vermillion, and ultramarine to paint the skin he was so familiar with.
“You got a tan,” he comments lightly, blending in more ochre than he usually would. Iwaizumi’s lips twitch.
He brings his brush up to the paper and diligently follows how the light swathes over Iwaizumi’s elegant figure, strokes over the outlines with varying pigments and shades, occasionally dipping his brush back in water or dabbing it with tissue. Companionable silence envelops them, and the tension leaves Oikawa’s body, the flourish of his fingers and wrists becoming easier as time passes.
His hair is a burnt umber, the early morning sun kissing his tresses, and Oikawa jerks his wrists to simulate his spikes, a technique he’s perfected in all the years Iwaizumi never bothered to change his hairstyle.
He leaves Iwaizumi’s eyes for last, as always, and looks away from his easel to stare at him. Iwaizumi’s face is professionally blank, but a corner of his lips twitches upward when their eyes lock. In this room, this lighting, Oikawa sees a gray-green hue, and shaky hands swirl the puddle of payne’s gray and olive green until the color comes close.
He takes his finest brush and leans in close to trace over the circles of Iwaizumi’s irises, careful to leave white areas of highlights to emulate the dampness and shine of human eyes. He dips his brush in a well of payne’s gray, applying the last touch of shadows beneath Iwaizumi’s lids.
He straightens slightly, staring down at the Iwaizumi on the paper, looks up at the one sitting on his brother’s old armchair near the window. Unable to resist, he includes the slip of trees visible through the glass, using the same earthy shade as Iwaizumi’s eyes.
He paints the last leaf with a sense of finality, one last flick on his brush. He sighs deeply and sits back, leaning heavily against his chair. Iwaizumi’s stillness shatters with an inquiring angle of his head.
“Done?” Iwaizumi asks, lips barely moving.
Oikawa nods, not really trusting his voice. Iwaizumi rises from the chair with a soft grunt, body twisting to revive stiff limbs.
“Can I see?” he asks as he walks over. Oikawa backs away just enough to give Iwaizumi a clear view. His breath hitches and Oikawa’s face burns, anxiety worsening the longer Iwaizumi stays silent.
“It’s beautiful.” he whispers, and when Oikawa dares to look, there is a soft expression on Iwaizumi’s face, one he’s only seen once before but can’t quite place.
You’re beautiful. Oikawa wants to correct, and Iwaizumi stares at him expectantly, like he’s waiting for him to respond.
He opens his mouth.
“Tooru! Hajime! Breakfast!”
And it promptly snaps shut at the sound of his mother’s voice. Iwaizumi glances at the door and Oikawa turns away.
“You go on ahead. I have to tidy up first.” Oikawa says weakly.
There is a poignant pause. Oikawa hears his feet shuffle, but he obeys in the end, leaving Oikawa with his hands shaking on his lap.
-
On their graduation day, Oikawa carefully rips the paper from the pad, his last painting of Iwaizumi, and applies one final touch, the strokes of the characters shaky from his fear. It dries by the time he finishes dressing and he rolls the paper up and ties it with a red string, resolutely tying the knot before descending the stairs.
After the ceremony, Iwaizumi runs to where he is and he runs to him until they meet in a bear hug. Iwaizumi picks him up and spins him around, his laugh ringing in Oikawa’s ears, and that is how their family finds them. Their teary-eyed mothers are already taking photos. Oikawa doesn’t pay them any mind and holds Iwaizumi like it’s the last time.
Later, when they’re walking to the parking lot together, his brother sneakily slips him the rolled up piece of paper. Oikawa waits until the last possible moment. When their parents have separated and they’re the only ones left to say goodbye, he hands it to him, palms up, like it’s some noble offering.
There is exasperation in Iwaizumi’s eyes as he takes it. I think I already know what it is, Oikawa. his face says and Oikawa tries so hard to appear sheepish. Something falters in Iwaizumi’s expression.
His brother calls from behind him and Oikawa quickly bids Iwaizumi farewell as he runs to his brother, sparing him a grateful glance as he steps into the car.
-
Iwa-chan,
I’m going to apologize in advance for the things I’m about to reveal in this letter, and to apologize for not being able to say these to you in person. I want you to know at that I tried, I really did, but I just couldn’t get the words out when I’m with you. Heck, I can’t even get through this letter without my hands shaking like crazy.
I love you. I only realized it three years ago, but I think I’ve been feeling this way about you for all my life.
You won’t have to worry about things getting awkward. I just received the acceptance letter for Musashino two weeks ago. I’ll be leaving in a week.
Iwa-chan, you are truly one of the best things to ever happen to me, and I’m sorry for ruining what we had. I honestly thought I’d be selfless enough to be happy with staying your childhood friend, but it just got harder and harder everyday.
I don’t want you to hate me, but I would understand if you did.
Oikawa Tooru
-
His phone rings all throughout dinner and the food prepared in his celebration suddenly tastes awfully bland in his mouth. He’s sweating terribly and he resists the urge to vomit, panic settling deep within him like a terrible fever. He shuts off his phone with hands that have gone numb and drinks a glassful of water, but it does not help.
Two hours later, he’s alone in his room, looking into the blank screen like it’ll swallow him alive.
Not even a minute later, his ringtone starts blaring. With trembling fingers, he accepts the call.
“You’re an asshole, Shittykawa!” Iwaizumi yells on the other end, spitting venom and fire and righteously so. “You fucking coward. Leaving me with this then running away? Don’t you have any decency at all?!”
“I couldn’t.” Oikawa chokes, in the way he knows he would if only he’d dared confess in person. A growing numbness spreads from his sternum outward, and he braces himself for Iwaizumi’s hatred.
“Stupidkawa, Uglykawa, Trashykawa, dumbass Oikawa, you idiot!”
Oikawa closes his eyes, resignation setting in.
Iwaizumi sobs on the other end and chokes out, so softly and so broken down that Oikawa is sure he misheard:
I love you too.
-
“Why do you still have this?”
Iwaizumi looked up him, then at the framed painting Oikawa held in his hands, swiped from the wall in front of Iwaizumi’s desk. He shrugged and went back to laying out the spare futon. “You gave that to me for my birthday years ago, remember? Hurry up and shower, I wanna sleep already.”
Oikawa’s lips contorted into a nasty sneer. “You should’ve just thrown it away. It’s an eyesore.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Where’s the drawing Kageyama gave you?”
Iwaizumi sighed irritably, dropping the blanket on the floor. “Probably in the attic with the rest of my stuff from middle school, I dunno, why?”
His fingers tightened around the frame. Iwaizumi’s eyes flashed and he grabbed his wrist, wrenching the painting from his grip and tossing it on his bed.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
Oikawa could feel Iwaizumi looking him over, nerves wired for the slightest hint. He stubbornly turned his head away. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”
“Bullshit.” Iwaizumi hissed. “You either tell me now or we sit here and play QnA until I find out what’s wrong with you.”
Oikawa glared, baring his teeth and standing to his full height. “I think I won’t sleepover tonight after all.”
Iwaizumi glared right back, not even the slightest bit daunted by the fact that he had to look up now. “You’re jealous of Kageyama.”
This time, Oikawa couldn’t hide the flinch that wracked his body. Iwaizumi’s glare darkened, fingers slowly peeling from Oikawa’s wrist.
“Is that why you haven’t been painting lately? Because you think he’s better than you and that there’s no point?”
“You say that like it’s not true?”
“Huh?!” Iwaizumi barked, and on any other occasion, Oikawa would’ve obediently stood down.
Instead he just laughed, a hollow and haunting sound.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” he growled, and he knew that wasn’t fair to say—especially to Iwaizumi, who had struggled with dancers and coaches who questioned his skill, his height, who had overcome all the odds just to get to where he was—but something had finally snapped, and he didn’t know how to stop it. “I worked and practiced every single day but no matter how much effort I put all his works just ended up being better than mine! You wanna know how fucking frustrating that is?! He started with art the same age as me and he’s younger and I spend so much time practicing but he’s so much better than me and he doesn’t even try!”
Oikawa couldn’t even recall what he said after, all he knew was that he was finally releasing a year’s worth of pent up frustration and insecurities and honest-to-god jealousy. His vision went red, and he didn’t even see it coming until Iwaizumi grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed his forehead against his nose.
The pain blinded him for a moment, but Iwaizumi reeled him back by slamming him against the wall, rattling the small trinkets on his shelves. Oikawa could feel blood dripping down his nose, onto his shirt, onto Iwaizumi’s hands.
“So what if you think he’s good? If you wanna be better than him then practice harder!” Iwaizumi shook him harder, as if doing so could drag the demons right out of him.
“You love doing this, it’s so much more than a hobby to you! The only way he’ll become a better artist than you for sure is if you give up!”
From their proximity, Oikawa could see the blazing fire in Iwaizumi’s eyes, every wrinkle on his face as his lips pulled back in a grimace, the twinge of desperation licking at the edges of his expression.
(Oikawa isn’t even sure if he this moment correctly, if those are Iwaizumi’s exact words. He knows that one day the memory will decay even more, but he knows he will never forget these: the hummingbird wingbeat of his heart, the sudden gasp of breath like the first taste of the freshest air, the way his eyes widened in the way reserved only for the most awe-inspiring art.
He will never forget the feeling of falling in love with Iwaizumi Hajime.)
-
“We’ve been pining over each other for years. I think we can make a long-distance relationship work.”
Oikawa laughs and it is a dry and slightly pained set of exhales. The regret still sits bitterly in the back of his throat. Iwaizumi looks uneasy, like he himself isn’t sure of the truth behind his words. Oikawa quickly reaches out to clasp his hands tightly around Iwaizumi’s, tearing his gaze from his empty coffee cup.
“After everything we’ve been through, do you seriously think there’s anything in this world that will make me let go of you?”
Iwaizumi blushes carmine, a shade Oikawa thinks suits him charmingly. “Asshole. It’s almost scary when you put it like that.”
Oikawa smiles, then leans over to kiss his cheek. He’s slightly surprised by his own boldness—and if the burn beneath his lips is any indication, it’s clear that Iwaizumi is too—but Oikawa will be damned if he let an opportunity like this pass him by, not after he’s spent all these years pining when he could have had it from the beginning. “I’ll make it work, I promise.”
Iwaizumi glares at him, one hand slipping from Oikawa’s hold to clamp around his wrist. “We’ll make it work. Don’t go carrying all the weight, asshole. This is supposed to be a two-way thing.”
Oikawa looks down at the lines of Iwaizumi’s hand, traces lightly across the jut of bone of his wrist as he hums happily. “I’m counting on you then.”
Iwaizumi smiles at him fondly, then his eyes widen at something behind Oikawa. “I think it’s time for you to go.”
Oikawa turns to see his brother waving from outside the coffee shop. He sighs mournfully.
“On a scale of one to ten how inappropriate is it to have a goodbye make-out in front of my family? Because if it’s below five I’d still go for it.”
“Tooru.”
“Hajime, could you just imagine all the sex we could have had if only—”
“I’d really rather not think about that when your family is right there and you are literally minutes away from leaving.”
“Webcam sex is a thing, apparently.”
“Tooru!”
“No fun.” Oikawa pouts, and Iwaizumi’s glare cranks up to a clear threat of murder. “For real though. Call everyday. Or text, at least?”
The furrow between his brows softens from indignation to determination. “Everyday. Skype too, when we have time.”
“Deal.” Oikawa grins as he stands and slings his bag over his shoulder. Iwaizumi follows after but neither of them makes a move towards the exit.
Oikawa indulges in the moment a little longer, relishing in how Iwaizumi looks at him, fondness and affection and love all rolled into the soft curve of his smile and the sparkle in his eyes.
“I love you, Hajime.” he says, and he wants to say those words all the time, every single chance he gets. Iwaizumi’s expression flickers; surprise, then embarrassment.
“I love you too, Tooru.” he mutters shyly, hand reaching up to scratch the side of his flushed neck.
Oikawa gently pries Iwaizumi’s hands from his neck and holds it tight. “I could get used to that.”
He leans in without even thinking about it, like it’s the most natural course of action. He watches Iwaizumi’s lashes flutter against his cheeks as his eyes slide shut, their lips slotting together like the most finely cut puzzle pieces. He follows suit and his whole world shrinks to the singularity of Iwaizumi’s lips. The kiss feels like the first time he held a paintbrush after a year of thinking that he’s laid the artist inside him to rest: first fear, uncertainty, then, much stronger, an overwhelming happiness and just knowing that there is nothing more right that this.
They part hesitantly and when Iwaizumi opens his eyes, Oikawa sees all the colors of the earth.