Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Can I tell you a secret?” an eight-year-old Oikawa Tooru whispers in Hajime’s ear, sitting on the edge of the cinderblock wall behind their houses, heels swinging. A nine-year-old Iwaizumi Hajime shrugs, chomping on the wooden stick of his long-gone popsicle. Tooru pouts. “Come on, you’re supposed to want to know a secret!”

Hajime shrugs again. “You’ll tell me anyway.” He flicks the gnarled stick into a bush behind them. “I can wait you out.”

Tooru huffs, banging their shoulders together. “No fair, Iwa-chan. It’s a really big secret!”

“Everything’s big to you.” Tooru hmphs, crossing his arms and turning away. Hajime picks at a scab on his elbow. Tooru heaves a sigh, rolling his head with his eyes.

“Fine. I’ll tell you.” He props his chin on Hajime’s shoulder, filmy breath adding to the early July humidity. “I’m adopted.”

Hajime shoves him away with a hand to the face. “Get off – I don’t even know what that means!”

Tooru squawks. “Rude, Iwa-chan!” He lifts himself by his planted palms to spin a quarter turn to face Hajime, legs straddling the wall instead of kicking in front. Hajime squints at his face – his eyes are downcast, lip bit. Maybe this is a big secret. “It means my parents aren’t my real parents,” he says, voice small. Hajime frowns.

“What? Of course they are. They tuck you in at night, yeah?”

“Well, sure, but I’m not theirs. Okaa-san didn’t come back from her sleepover at the hospital like yours did with you.” He plays with his fingers, digging a nail into the groove between blocks. Hajime turns more towards him, folding up a leg on the wall between them. “Some other lady did, and then Okaa-san picked me up from there and took me home.”

Hajime swishes the idea around like mouthwash, then spits it over the side of the wall with a loogie. “Okay.”

Tooru’s nose scrunches. “Okay? That’s it? This is a big deal, Iwa-chan!”

Hajime shrugs, holding his folded-up ankle with both hands. “Doesn’t change who tucks you in at night.” He wriggles around to slide off the wall into Tooru’s backyard. “C’mon, I wanna play Treasure Planet. I call Jim.”

Tooru gasps. “No way! You were Jim last time!” He falls off the wall after Hajime, leaving the idea of other mothers on the cinderblocks.

Of course, as Hajime learns growing up with Tooru, nothing that big is ever that simple.

A thirteen-year-old Tooru, now Oikawa, sprawls across Hajime’s bed, cicadas chirping out the cracked window. A fourteen-year-old Hajime flops next to him, the long day of their first double practice beating at his bones. They just breathe together for a minute, a moment – Hajime doesn’t keep time. But Oikawa can never sit still that long.

He flips onto his back, arm flung over Hajime’s shoulders, elbow poking in the dip of his spine. Hajime grunts, but doesn’t move, calves screaming. “Hey,” Oikawa says. Hajime grunts again. “Guess what.”

“You’re a dumbass,” he bites into his pillow.

Oikawa doesn’t respond, and that’s enough to set Hajime on edge, shoulders tensing. The arm on his back shifts – he’s playing with his fingers, fiddling them in empty air. “I’m trying to find my birth parents,” he mumbles, secret to the world.

Hajime shoves up, propped on his hands to gape at Oikawa. The action sends Oikawa’s arm back to its owner; he curls on his side with the momentum, back to Hajime. Hajime glares at the shell of his ear. “Why?” Oikawa shrugs, more of a hunch and release. Hajime knees him in the back; Oikawa wails. “Stop being a little shit and talk to me,” he growls. “What’s gotten into you?”

Oikawa curls in tighter. “I dunno.” His shoulders heave with his heavy breath. “Okaa-san told me my real mother’s name the other day. Because I kept asking. I just.” He ducks his head. “I wanna know.”

Hajime narrows his eyes at the exposed nape of Oikawa’s neck. “She’s not your real mom. Your mom here is your real mom.” Oikawa doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. “And what’re you gonna do if you find her? Leave home to move in with some stranger? Beat her up? Drop an egg in her mail slot?”

Oikawa shakes his head, won’t stop. “I dunno, I dunno, I dunno.” Hajime shifts around to sit cross-legged facing Oikawa’s fetal curl.

“You’re such an idiot.” He props his legs over Oikawa’s waist, leaning back against the wall. He laces his fingers over his stomach and closes his eyes. “May you find what you’re looking for,” he curses. Oikawa sniffs and hooks a loose grip around one of Hajime’s dangling ankles.

Oikawa rarely talks about it as they get older and their lives grow in scope, daily complexity cutting more facets into them. It’s not just bugs and ice cream anymore, there are teams and girls and boys and work and goals and futures. They keep straining forward together, but sometimes, sometimes, Hajime can feel Oikawa hanging back, staring into the past with his particular hunger. He tries to tug him on, but he knows him too well. It’s always on bad days he finds six Google tabs open on Oikawa’s laptop, iterations of the same name photocopied onto faces and jobs and phone numbers and locations.

Their third year, they start to be written in Korean.

“So, who’s got plans after graduation?” Oikawa asks over tea one Sunday. Hanamaki and Matsukawa nod from across the table.

“We’re going to visit my host mother over in Korea for a few days before university starts,” Matsukawa says, flicking Hanamaki’s shoulder. “He’s been begging to go back since the plane landed in Sendai two years ago.”

“I would cross any ocean in this universe for Jeong and her manju.” Hanamaki tears off a pinch of Matsukawa’s coffee cake and pops it in his mouth. “The plain of high heaven has been remade in her kitchen.” Matsukawa rolls his eyes and looks to Hajime for guidance. Hanamaki plows on. “What about you two?”

“Oh, nothing concrete.” Oikawa flaps a hand. Hajime narrows his eyes. “Going out of the country sounds exciting.”

Matsukawa’s eyes smile for him. “If you want to tag along, just ask.” Oikawa pouts; Hanamaki grins. “I’m sure Jeong would love it, she’s always whining about how big and empty her place is when she doesn’t have a kid to host. She’s about as subtle as you.”

“No respect! This is your captain speaking!”

“Former captain.” Hanamaki flicks crumbs in his hair. “You can’t threaten us with extra laps anymore. Whatever will you do?” Oikawa kicks him under the table, but Hanamaki just smirks.

Oikawa clutches Hajime’s arm, propping his chin on his shoulder. “Iwa-chan, they’re being mean to me!”

“Good.” He shoves a paper napkin into Oikawa’s open mouth, biting down a smile as Oikawa coughs and sputters. He looks over to meet Matsukawa’s unblinking stare. “You sure she wouldn’t mind?”

Matsukawa nods. “Positive. Might be a tight fit with all of us, but it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before.”

“I’ll have to ask my – mom.” Oh. He glances at Oikawa, picking wet paper off his tongue and refusing to meet his eyes. “But if he goes, I go.”

Matsukawa chuckles. “I assumed so, you two are a package deal.” He pulls out a pen from his pocket to write a note to himself on his wrist. “I’ll call her tonight and make sure she’s fine with two more mouths to feed.”

“Great.” He forces a smile. “Sounds like fun.”

Oikawa and Hajime have their passports already from a joint family vacation to Hawai’i a few years back, so it’s only a matter of convincing their parents they won’t get murdered and to pay for the plane tickets, please. Matsukawa gives them his old host mother’s contact information, and after a conversation with her about empty nest syndrome, allergies, and kids these days, they’re happy to kick their sons out of the country for a week. It’s only a few hours from Sendai to Seoul. The months until then trickle by.

The night before their flight, Hajime goes over to the Oikawa house, entering without knocking (he hadn’t knocked on their door a day in his life). The Oikawa parents don’t get up from the couch, but Oikawa’s mom glances back and calls out, “Tooru-chan! Hajime-kun’s here!”

“Yeah, I know!” Oikawa’s voice filters down from his room. Hajime rolls his eyes and flicks a few fingers in an abbreviated salute at the couch, then takes the stairs two at a time up to Oikawa’s room.

He’s sitting at his computer, half-packed suitcase behind him, closing out tabs on a browser. Iwaizumi kicks a (flat, scarred) nearby volleyball and beans him right between the shoulderblades. Oikawa lets out a strangled yelp, falling over his keyboard. “Man down!”

“Oh, put a cork in it.” Hajime stops the rebound with his foot and passes it aside, crossing the room to tap his toes behind Oikawa. “If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, you deserve it.”

“I’ve never done anything that wrong in my entire life.” Hajime snorts from somewhere deep in his throat so hard it hurts and sits on Oikawa’s upper back, still bent over his low desk, to read the screen, a hand keeping Oikawa’s head pinned to the desktop. Oikawa struggles and fights him off, but Hajime has seen what he needs to see.

“I knew it.” He flops down on the floor next to Oikawa’s cushion, back to the monitor, propping an arm back on the desk so he can glare at Oikawa’s ducked head of hair. “What were you gonna do? Sneak away to the bathroom while we’re at some museum and run to their house? By yourself?”

“They don’t live in a house, it’s an apartment.” Hajime slaps his shoulder. Oikawa doesn’t squawk or squeak or pout or move. Sirens start screaming in Hajime’s head. “Haven’t you ever wondered? Where I come from?”

Well. They haven’t had this conversation in a few years. Hajime takes a moment to think about it, watching Oikawa roll a pen back and forth on his desk.

“I know you whine like your mom does when your dad tries to cook breakfast.” The pen stops rolling. “I know you make your tea like your sister, and tie your ties like your brother.” Hajime frowns at his sprawled legs. “I know both you and your dad won’t shut up during a movie, which is why I’m never watching anything with both of you ever again.” He sighs and slouches back on the desk. “And, well, there’s a lot of other things, but it comes down to, no, I haven’t. Because I know where you come from.” He glances over – Oikawa still won’t look at him. “But… but, I know, this is important to you, for some dumbass reason. So I’ll be damned if I let you go it alone.”

Oikawa doesn’t say anything to that, but he hiccups and pitches sideways into Hajime, burying his face in Hajime’s sweatshirt. Hajime lets him, not moving even when he feels a damp spot soaking through to his skin.

They get through airport security with an hour to waste at the gate. After five minutes of solid bitching, Oikawa finally leaves to go find a bathroom. Hajime watches him blend into the crowd and out of sight, then rounds on Hanamaki and Matsukawa.

“Hey.” They pause their conversation about windows versus aisle seats. “There are two things you need to know before we get to Korea.” Hanamaki cocks an eyebrow; Matsukawa tilts his head. “First: Oikawa’s adopted.”

“I see,” Matsukawa drawls.

“And his birth parents are in Seoul.”

“Oh, shit,” Hanamaki says with a cringe.

“Yeah.” Hajime shoves his hands in his pockets. “You don’t have to do anything about it while we’re there, but I didn’t want you going in blind.”

“Huh.” Matsukawa slouches down, stretching out in a long diagonal line in the cheap airport seat. “I mean, I knew something was up with his family – anyone who’s seen him with his parents could tell you that, but. Huh.”

“He’s never… met them, has he?” Hanamaki asks with a grimace. Hajime shakes his head. Hanamaki winces harder. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” Hajime shrugs and bends a knee up to prop his foot on the edge of the seat, ignoring the dirty looks from the older couple across the gate. “I have no idea how it’s gonna fall out, but, well. Now you know.”

“Now we know.” Hanamaki tilts his head to stare at the ceiling. “So is he actually Korean, then?”

Hajime shrugs. “To be honest, I don’t know a lot about them. Tried to avoid it. But I know he’s been digging up stuff a lot on his own for years, and it’s only been Korean recently.”

Matsukawa snorts from the other side of Hanamaki. “Of course he has. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he knew their shoe sizes.”

Hajime’s mouth quirks in a smile. “Of course, his real parents don’t know how much he knows. It’d break their hearts. So now it’s just us.”

Hanamaki rubs his face, groaning. “What’re we going to do with him.”

“Do with who?”

All three of them jump – Oikawa always had a way of sneaking up on people. He puts his hands on his hips, eyebrows raised over a grin. “Were you talking about me?”

“Just betting on whether you fell in or not,” Hajime says, teasing second nature. Hanamaki snickers. Oikawa rolls his eyes and falls back into his seat on Hajime’s left.

“Come now, I’m much too graceful for that.” He tucks his feet under him to the side away from Hajime and moves Hajime’s arm around his neck so he can smush his cheek in the dip of his shoulder, eyes closing. “Wake m’up when it’s time to board,” he mumbles. Hajime sighs and settles back so the armrest between them doesn’t bite so much into Oikawa’s stomach. Hanamaki pouts on his other side.

“No fair, I wanted to take a nap on Iwaizumi.” Hajime looks to the ceiling for strength, then heaves a sigh and drapes his free arm on the back of Hanamaki’s seat. He grins and burrows in – there’s a fight over which way he’s leaning for a moment, but they stop when Hajime gives them twin whacks to the head. Hajime and Matsukawa exchange a glance over Hanamaki; Matsukawa grins his slow cat-with-the-cream smile, then digs in his bag for the book he packed. Hajime gives in and rests his cheek on the fluffy top of Oikawa’s head, the hum of the airport activity buzzing around them.

Seoul from over Oikawa’s shoulder through the plane window looks like someone poured a bucket of white Lego blocks into a cup and left their kids alone with it for a century. Curved green hills, not too different from the mountains back in Sendai, frame apartment skyscrapers and high-low tiered neighborhoods, radio towers the only thing breaking up the treeline. They just get a flash of the city before the plane glides on to the airport outside the metro area. It’s a decent distance away, so they’ll have to take a train in, then a bus around to the neighborhood where Matsukawa’s old host mother lives above and behind her family cafe. They don’t have a lot on the itinerary officially, but Hanamaki and Matsukawa have already collected a host of places to revisit, and Matsukawa promises no downtime – if they’re bored, Jeong will put them to work in the cafe. A fair trade for room and board.

The three of them keep up easy conversation from unboarding through the train ride to the bus, but Oikawa stays glued to the windows, staring out with that particular hunger. Hanamaki flashes him worried looks when he’s not looking. Hajime and Matsukawa frown at each other. Hajime has to stop Oikawa’s leg from twitching four times.

“I love this place,” Matsukawa says when they’re almost there. “There’s always something new when I come back.” He jerks a thumb out the window behind him and across the bus from Oikawa and Hajime. “That was a blank wall two years ago.” Now it’s a brightly-painted abstract mural with blue monkeys swinging between pink and green trapezoids. It’s innocuous enough, but Oikawa looks up and jerks, face washing out. Hajime frowns – there’s only a few people on the sidewalk in front of the mural, and none of them look related to Oikawa. But he recovers before anyone but Hajime notices, adjusting his bag on his lap as the bus squeaks back into gear, rolling past the mural.

Oikawa smiles at Matsukawa. “Well, that’s a city for you, yeah? Never the same place twice.” His leg starts to fidget again; Hajime slaps a hand over his knee to force it still.

It’s a few blocks uphill from the bus stop to Jeong’s cafe, past windows covered in foreign letters, bundled-up shop attendants selling an early spring harvest, a convenience store, a women’s boutique spilled out onto the pavement in racks of coats. It’s a little chillier than home, but Hajime barely notices as he takes in this small bite of the city. “So this is Seoul,” he mutters.

Matsukawa catches it on the wind and smiles back at him. “Oh, this is just a taste of it.”

“Speaking of taste.” Hanamaki rubs his hands together and licks his lips.

Jeong’s cafe is trendier than Hajime expected, dark wood tables and pop art on the old stone walls. It’s busy, but the lady behind the counter, just past middle age with smiles tucked in her wrinkles, cries out, face lighting up. “Issei-ai!” She comes out from behind the counter in a flurry of flour and customers to throw herself at Matsukawa, already braced for impact. He laughs and drapes a long arm around her shoulders. “Orenmanida, Imo.” She draws back to chatter at him in Korean while the other three stand awkwardly at the door, blocking traffic. Hajime has the distinct feeling of being too big for his skin.

Matsukawa calms her down, though, directing her out of the way, his friends strung along like koi to bread. “Imo,” he says, switching to Japanese, “are you going to let me introduce my friends?”

“Ai!” She lets go of him to embrace Hanamaki, her shift to Japanese as squeaky as the bus brakes as just as smooth. “Taka-yah, it is so well to see you again!” He pats her back, hunching a little so he doesn’t tower over her so much.

“Same to you,” he says, “I missed you and your food.”

“He hasn’t shut up about it since last time,” Matsukawa supplies. She laughs, wrinkles deepening, and lets Hanamaki go to look him up and down with a critical eye – then catches Oikawa from the corner of it. “Ai, you have brought me a beanpole!”

Oikawa smiles and holds out his hand, stumbling in Korean, “Hello, Jeong-sa- Jeong-ssi, I am Oikawa Tooru-” She cuts him off by bypassing his outstretched hand and going straight for a bonecrushing hug, Oikawa wheezing over her head.

“No friend of Issei-yah’s will be calling me that,” she scolds, backing off after just a second of strangulation. “You must call me Imo.”

Oikawa recovers quickly, and he smiles again, deeper. “Okay. Imo.”

She rounds on Hajime last – he’s already set his stance for her grip. “And you must be Hajime,” she says into his chest. “I am glad to see one of the new boys know how to eat.” Oikawa squawks; Hajime laughs.

“Trust me, Oikawa can eat, don’t let looks fool you. It’s nice to meet you, Imo, I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“And I you.” She steps back and props her fists on her hips to consider her new houseguests. “Welcome to Seoul, boys. It is good to be seeing you.” She looks at Matsukawa and slips into Korean for a breath. He nods and picks up his dropped duffel bag as she waves and runs back to her counter.

“She’s too busy here to show us the house, so she’s leaving that to me,” Matsukawa explains, leading the way through the crowded cafe to a tucked-away back door. “We’ll just drop our stuff off and head out, unless someone wants a nap or something.”

“I’m okay,” Hajime chimes with Oikawa’s “Not me!” and Hanamaki’s “Let’s go!” Matsukawa takes them through a storage room into a courtyard of dormant plants and a budding gingko tree, around it to a rickety staircase leading up to the second story above the cafe.

Jeong’s home feels bigger than it looks, old cedar-framed windows letting in natural light and city noise from below. Unlike the modern dark wood of below the cafe, this is honey-colored walls and green carpet – a seventies throwback. Matsukawa takes them up another story and opens the left door on the landing. “Welcome home.”

Jeong already laid out four futons in the room, two by two, taking up ninety percent of the available floor space. Hajime throws his bag on the farthest one from the door next to Oikawa’s. It’s a tight fit, as promised, but it’s nothing they can’t deal with. At least they don’t have Kindaichi’s snoring to block out. “Bathroom’s the center door if anyone needs it,” Matsukawa says with a thumb over his shoulder. Hanamaki runs. “Anyone opposed to wandering until Imo can break away to feed us?”

Hajime shakes his head; Oikawa flashes a thumbs-up. “We better not wander too far,” Hanamaki calls from the bathroom, “I wanna eat!”

Jeong’s kitchen is just as magical as promised. Not only is it the food of the gods, but it’s got some kind of sleeping potion in it. They all crash soon after eating that night, ungraceful in their sprawl – Oikawa doesn’t even get out of his jeans. Hajime’s the first awake, as per usual with them, and helps Jeong get a dawn breakfast together before she has to start the bread downstairs, fumbling through new Korean vocabulary terms over coffee. When the other three drift down, one by one, they eat what’s waiting and head out for a day on the town.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa have a list of places they want to visit again, for family souvenirs, food, and miscellaneous. Hajime and Oikawa are dragged along for the ride, which works for Hajime. He hasn’t been in a new environment in years, so it’s all he can do not to be overwhelmed by the new smells, the people, the sticks-and-stones letters. He’s forgotten what it’s like not to understand passersby. Their Japanese chatter gets a few second glances, but tourists are common enough in this trendy slice of the city that they pass without comment. Oikawa is unusually quiet, every passing face getting a heavy inspection. Hajime has to keep one eye on him so he doesn’t do anything stupid.

Even with Oikawa’s mood, it’s a good, easy day. It’s nice just spending time with the four of them, no homework or practice or classes in the way. Sometime in the afternoon, they duck in a side alley between two halves of one of the multitudes of murals in the city (they haven’t run into the monkeys again, yet). “You think it’s still here?” Hanamaki asks.

“It’s been here every time before,” Matsukawa answers, running his fingers over the bricks at hip height. “It’s too small to – ah.” His fingers pause. “Here we go.”

“What’s it?” Oikawa asks, hovering at Hajime’s shoulder. Matsukawa’s long piano hands frame the scratches in the old brick – familiar characters.

“Put my name here back in junior high,” he explains. “Taka added his last time, so only thought it was fair you two got a chance to do the same.” His eyes smile. “It’s like vandalism, only no one’ll notice.”

Hajime laughs and pulls out his pocketknife (buried in his toothbrush holder against airport security). “It would be my pleasure.” He flicks it open and crouches down to add his name in line with theirs, flakes crumbling to the pavestones. Oikawa flops down beside him, whining about sore legs. They all ignore him – Hajime from habit, Matsukawa and Hanamaki because they’re having a Moment.

“You gonna kiss me against the wall like last time?” Hanamaki asks in a low voice. Hajime snorts, but his back is turned to them, so they don’t notice.

“Sure,” Matsukawa says. All Hajime hears from Hanamaki is a little eep, followed by twin sighs.

“Ow-ow!” Oikawa catcalls. Hajime pitches forward, forehead knocking against the brick as he succumbs to giggles, a nine-year-old facing cooties on the playground. Someone kicks his back.

“Shu’up,” Hanamaki growls, muffled.

Of course, they’re in public, so they break away after just a few seconds, but Hajime keeps laughing long after, scratches finishing with a shake. He hands his knife over to Oikawa, turning to the side to lean back against the wall and grin at the other two as Oikawa catch his tongue in teeth. They’ve separated now, skin raw pink in the wind, gloves still linked. He sighs with the end of his laugh and leans his head back, staring at the clouds through the bare fingers of a reaching tree, smile sticking like the scent of kimchi – everywhere in this town.

“Iwa-chan.” He flops his head over to raise an eyebrow at Oikawa. “Help me.”

He’s in too good a mood to give him grief that he can’t cut his own name into a wall with a knife. He rolls onto his knees again and takes it from him, nudging him aside with his shoulder. He digs the shallow furrows Oikawa’s traced in deeper, baked clay scratching up his arm. When he’s done, Oikawa hugs him around the neck, smashing their cheeks together. “My hero,” he croons.

“Don’t ruin it, jackass,” Hajime grumbles, pocketing his knife again and standing up, Oikawa dragging after him. He shakes him off like cat hair and turns to the others. “Ready?”

“When you are.” The other two hover close enough that it’s not totally obvious Hanamaki has one of Matsukawa’s hands in his sweatshirt pocket, continuing on down the alley. Hajime smiles after them, shoving his bare hands in his own. Oikawa falls into step beside him, humming some nonsense tune and looking to the sky.

He knows it’s coming at some point. If he hadn’t gotten himself turned around in the slopes and gentle curves Matsukawa led them on, he might have been able to prepare for it. As it stands, they take a left out of a side street onto the main road of the neighborhood, a tributary joining a river, and are slammed with blue monkeys and pink trapezoids. Hajime hears Oikawa’s sharp intake next to him and bites his cheek.

“Hey.” They all look to him. “You wanna take a breather over there?” he asks, pointing to a gelato shop across the street from the mural. Oikawa’s eyes are pure white and cinnamon circles, pupils pindrops in the afternoon light. Matsukawa and Hanamaki shrug as one.

“I wouldn’t mind some gelato,” Hanamaki’s unending appetite says. Matsukawa takes his wrist and runs down the street, his rare louder laughter and Hanamaki’s affronted cries to slow down swallowed by the sidewalk crowd. Hajime smiles after them – whips to Oikawa in case he’s thinking of doing the same. But he’s still staring at the mural, frozen, hunched in on himself. In the end, it’s Hajime who takes his sleeve and drags him on.

Oikawa gets himself in order long enough to point at what he wants, Matsukawa taking control of cashier communication. The place is packed, so it’s easy to wave the others on to find their own seats, Hajime leading Oikawa by his shirtfront to a tiny table by the window, throwing him into a chair and slamming down across from him.

“All right.” He kicks Oikawa under the table – he yelps – good. A normal reaction. “It’s way past time you told me what’s up with that.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the mural. Oikawa picks at his hazelnut gelato with his flat spoon.

“It’s – it’s my mom’s.” He rubs his temple. “Since she and my dad moved here, she’s been getting more popular as an artist. She’s got a blog.” His face stays flat as he sticks the spoon in his mouth and swallows. “It’s how I found her,” he says in a tiny voice.

“Oh.” Hajime looks closer at the mural. “Well, you definitely didn’t inherit any artistic talent.”

Oikawa snorts, back of his hand slapping to his mouth. “Right?” Hajime watches him with slitted eyes as giggles escape like exhaust from a backfiring engine, spurting and ugly. He rubs a leaking eye. “I’m really-”

“Don’t.” Oikawa blinks at him, mouth hidden behind his hand, fingers in a loose curl. “I expected you to be weird during this trip. If you apologize for that, I’ll beat your whiny face in.”

Oikawa smiles, eyes crinkling over his palm. “So violent, Iwa-chan.” He drops his hand and stirs his softening gelato. Hajime takes his first bite of his – lime and grapefruit scoops swirled together. He grinds his teeth on it.

“So.” He clears his throat. ‘I guess this… lady. She’s got a name.”

Oikawa bites his lip. “Chiyoko. Maeng Chiyoko.”

Hajime nods and concentrates on his gelato, leaving Oikawa to his hazelnut and cinnamon layers.

Hajime isn’t sure how they do it, but they spend the entire day on their feet, and even though they’re all still in club shape, they’re exhausted when they stumble back to Jeong’s. They stay awake long enough for her to force showers and food on them before Hajime crashes face-first on his futon with a long moan. The other three move around him as they get ready for bed, him half-dozing, half-listening as their quiet voices wash over him, mixing with foggy dream images. Blue monkeys swing between honeywood rooftops, chattering in his friends’ voices.

“My boys, you know we know exactly the tomfoolery you two get into?” the one with Oikawa’s voice chirps.

“Exactly?” Hanamaki-monkey screeches.

Matsukawa-monkey chuckles. “What can I say?”

“Issei-”

Oikawa-monkey clears his throat in that obnoxious elementary teacher manner of his. “The point, gentlemen. Is that you don’t have to restrain your public or private displays of affection around us.” Something kicks Hajime’s side; he jerks off an eave back into Korea. He grunts and flails a hand in the direction of the kick, but gives up after a few empty fists.

“Go ‘head an’ spoon or wha’ever,” he grumbles, hugging his pillow to his face. “Can’ be grosser than catchin’ Oi’awa with his las’-”

Oikawa falls on him, a buck sixty of muscle and glitter. He yelps and elbows Oikawa in the gut, struggling for purchase under the duvet without opening his eyes. Oikawa has the upper hand in mobility, but this isn’t Hajime’s first rodeo, and with a heavy flip and a freed arm, he’s got Oikawa in a headlock through the sheet, a squealing pig for the slaughter. He slings a leg over, letting the sheet and Oikawa’s kicking feet tangle him up. Oikawa’s been crying uncle, but Hajime’s too drowsy for it to register, keeping his ivy hold and hiding his face from the light against his back, temple brushing the goddamn baby lotion of the skin above his collar. (He’ll go to his grave before he admits this, but Oikawa has the softest skin he’s ever felt – and he’s held newborns.)

“If you’re trying to set an example, it’s a pretty shitty one,” Hanamaki says from above, not a monkey anymore. Hajime relaxes his grip on Oikawa so he’s not choking anymore, but he keeps him and his talcum powder held tight. “You look a little stuck, hanger-kun.”

“Get him off me,” Oikawa whines.

“Not a chance.” The monkeys are creeping back like fog. “I got a black eye last time I tried to take away the thing he latched onto for the night – and that was my leg.” Heavy cloth shifts; the monkeys are jumping on a cloud bed now. Matsukawa-monkey says, “C’mere, Taka.”

“Sure, all right.”

“Iwa-chan, at least let me under the covers!” Oikawa-monkey pouts, fingers prying at Hajime’s. He holds the edge of the cloud-bed tighter.

“Don’ make m’fall,” he grumbles. Oikawa-monkey heaves a sigh and wiggles in his hold so his head is on the pillow, too.

Hajime is the first one awake the next morning again. Oikawa had managed to steal all the covers in the night, backwards over him. Hajime would feel bad about his sleep-clinging habit, but Oikawa’s used to it by now, and after all the times he’s made Hajime pet his hair to put him to sleep himself, it’s only fair. Hajime extracts his arms bit by bit, static crawling over his numb skin.

When he’s free, he pushes himself up to one hand, looking around at his sleeping friends in the early dawn light. Flipped from them, Hanamaki is Matsukawa’s big spoon, reddish hair tufting out from their two-layered covers, Matsukawa’s curls tousled on their shared pillow. He smiles and looks down – Oikawa is just as picturesque, mouth open, arms and legs entangled before his sideways sprawl, hair splayed in brown clumps. Hajime runs a hand through it, thumb brushing over the skin behind his ear down his jaw. He used to wonder if Oikawa just used too much lotion, but even he wouldn’t think to rub it in here. It’s just naturally like that. Oikawa sighs in his sleep, fingers winding together more in front of him. Hajime gets up to brush his teeth and help Jeong with breakfast again.

The neighborhood Jeong’s café is settled in is right next to the old palace, one of the more popular tourist destinations in the city. Old buildings have always been more of his mom’s cup of tea, but Hanamaki wants to go to get rid of his last visit’s rainy impression. Hajime knows Oikawa won’t rest until he’s embarrassed them all in some public fashion – plus, he bought a selfie stick the day before he wants to test out.

After they help Jeong unload the morning’s produce shipment, they head out for the day, sandwiches packed in Hajime’s backpack for a free lunch. They get to the nearest palace gate just after it opens, joining the small crowd gathered there as they shuffle through onto the grounds. Most people keep going straight to the pale stone parade grounds and red buildings a distance away, but they drift right to the paths winding along artsy streams through budding trees and random gazebos, the human noise fading to bird chatter and tumbling water. Hanamaki and Oikawa’s excited conversation tumbles along with it, their energy bounding ahead of Matsukawa and Hajime.

“Don’t get too far ahead, children,” Matsukawa calls. Hajime laughs as Hanamaki throws an exaggerated face back. Matsukawa sighs. “Can’t take him anywhere.”

Hajime smiles, a weird chill emotion surging in his chest. “I’m gonna miss you guys, at uni.”

Matsukawa hums. “We won’t be too far.”

“It won’t be the same, though.”

Matsukawa sighs, rolling his eyes. “Geez, you’re being a downer today, Hajime-kun.” Hajime bristles; Matsukawa cups a hand to his mouth and yells, “Hey! Get back here! Iwaizumi’s being depressing!”

“Aw, again?” Oikawa bounds back, thumping to a stop on top of Hajime, arm around his neck – Hajime stumbles to stay upright. “Cheer up, Iwa-chan! I’m here!”

“How is that supposed to cheer me up, moron?” he snaps, but Oikawa just laughs and lets him go, spinning him around to dig in his backpack. Hajime lurches with his force and glares at Hanamaki, sidled up by Matsukawa. “I blame you for this. You got him riled up.” Hanamaki grins, unrepentant, arm winding around Matsukawa’s.

“Hah!” Oikawa zips up his backpack with a sharp tug. “Iwa-chan, gimme your phone.”

“What? No!”

Oikawa pouts, extending his new selfie stick from its collapsed rig. “Aw, don’t you want something with the fearsome foursome to remember us by when we’re all split off at different schools or whatever?” Oikawa flutters his eyelashes at him.

Hajime narrows his eyes. “I’m leaving.” Hajime announces, turning on his heel and marching back the way they come.

Someone grabs the handle on his backpack, hauling him back. “Not so fast, shortstop,” Matsukawa drawls, using his height advantage to keep him from running away. “You can’t lose us that easy.”

Hajime gapes at him. “I trusted you.”

“Your first mistake.” He pins Hajime to his side. “I got ‘im!”

“Great, get him over here!” Matsukawa drags him to a break in the trees where the white sky and trained brook flow through. Hanamaki and Oikawa are already prepped, Oikawa’s lime phone case a second sun in the air. All three of them capture him – he struggles, but more for his image than because he wants to escape. His ears burn, squashed between Oikawa and Matsukawa on either side, Hanamaki behind. “Smile, Iwa-chan!”

He doesn’t fight it.

Hajime loses ten years from his life in a day. Not in the stressed out, unhealthy way, but in the feeling-eight-years-old-again way. The four of them run around the expansive palace grounds like kids let loose for summer. There’s little danger of running into Oikawa’s birth parents inside tourist walls, so Hajime lets go of worry for the first time since he met him, playing pretend courtier and yelling about period K-dramas and dessert and what would be the fanciest, most useless thing Matsukawa and Hanamaki can drag back to Japan for their new apartment together. Oikawa forces them together for more selfies than the day he got his first phone with a front-facing camera, but if Hajime is pressed, he can’t say he minds. The selfie stick is an absolutely absurd invention, but if it was designed with anyone in mind, it’s Oikawa Tooru. They eat their sandwiches on the cobblestone banks of a stream, arguing about tomatoes and kimchi. The food calms them down long enough to take a guided tour of the inside of some of the buildings, Matsukawa murmuring translations when they care. Matsukawa and Hanamaki touch more than usual – a hand on a wrist, straightening a scarf, a hip check, a hair ruffle. Back at home, where small town rules deem that everyone knows everyone’s business, they’re more restrained, but the scatterings of strangers through an anonymous cloak over them. Even if the Chinese family covers their kid’s eyes or the throng of Thai student titter, who are they going to tell?

When Hanamaki hops to peck Matsukawa’s cheek on their way out around mid-afternoon, Hajime pinches the back of Oikawa’s wrist to keep him from his usual catcalling. He yelps and frowns at Hajime, who hunches his shoulders higher. “Let them be.”

“Aw, is my little Iwa-chan a secret romantic?” He buries his face deeper in his sweater collar. Oikawa laughs. “You’re such a softie.”

“I will kill you in the night.”

“You tried that last night, and yet here I stand, a perfectly whole specimen.”

“I’ll do it when you least expect it.”

“No you won’t, you’re way too predictable.”

Hajime snarls; Oikawa grins. Point to the captain.

When they get back, they take the way in the house from the back instead of through the café. Jeong will come up when she’s done, but they all want to give her a break from fussing – and to take a nap. Being eight again is draining.

“I feel like I’m spending more of this vacation asleep than awake,” Hanamaki groans, curling up on his rumpled futon. Matsukawa sprawls perpendicular to him, shoving his head into the forward half of the S-curve of his body. Hajime sees half of Hanamaki’s smile, other half hidden in white linen, as he twists his fingers in stringy loops.

Hajime glances up in the middle of taking off his jacket in time to catch Oikawa’s wince as he sits down across from him, favoring his right side. “Knee not happy?” he asks. Oikawa shrugs, face closed off. Hajime sighs. “C’mere, you, gimme it.” He only struggles with himself for a second before he scoots closer to Hajime, leg outstretched. Must be bugging him a good bit, then. Hajime cuffs up his pant leg, shoving it so he can reach bare skin but not constrict his hands too much. “If it was bothering you, you should have said something,” he says as he lifts the leg in his lap, foot sticking out behind him, bare calf in the dip of his cross-legged hip. Oikawa shrugs and falls to lie on his back.

“Wasn’t really a thing until we were almost back,” he hisses as Hajime pushes cold fingers up to feel it out. “I think it was all the stairs.”

Hajime hums, lost in his hands-on inspection. He’s taken Oikawa to his physical therapy sessions more times than he can count; it wasn’t long into it that he started asking questions about what they were doing and why. He had a knack for it, which everyone but him saw coming. It was Oikawa’s main therapist who convinced him to try for the university program she studied in, only a few train stops away from Oikawa’s fancy-ass school.

“Hey, when you’re done with the ingrate, think you could put your magic fingers to use on my shoulder?” Hanamaki asks, head tilted back to look at them upside down.

“I’m not a masseuse,” Hajime growls.

Hanamaki huffs. “Could’ve fooled me.” Hajime frowns, but his fingers find a spot that makes Oikawa whimper, and he snaps his focus back to his current patient.

(In the end, he works on the old tendonitis in Hanamaki’s shoulder and Matsukawa’s strained ACLs. It’s just good practice.)

Because of the easy afternoon, they don’t crash and burn after food that night, but stay up past Jeong’s bedtime, talking about speedreading and the weather and parades and the Star Wars franchise in the dark. Hanamaki is the first to fall asleep, followed by Oikawa drooling on Hajime’s shirt, but Hajime can’t seem to do the same. He cranes his head all the way back – Matsukawa’s still awake, too, carding his fingers through Hanamaki’s hair while he stares at the far wall. He meets Hajime’s eyes and smiles, mouthing, “Can’t sleep?” Hajime shakes his head. Matsukawa slides his arm out from under Hanamaki’s neck with care. Hajime takes his cue and moves Oikawa’s head from his chest to a real pillow, grabbing a sweatshirt when Matsukawa does, tugging it on as they creep down the steps.

Matsukawa leads him through the kitchen to the glass door in the wall, where Jeong has a tiny balcony overlooking the street with some withering succulents in clay pots and a plastic lawn chair. They ignore the chair and sit on the cold weather-treated wood, feet dangling through the balcony railing. Hajime twists his arms around the twigs of the railing, resting his forehead on one, staring down at the swept-clean street below. Matsukawa throws his hood up and looks to the cold stars.

After the inexplicability of Oikawa being his best friend, Matsukawa has always been Hajime’s favorite team member outside of practice. Hanamakk is a good guy, but Matsukawa knows how to be quiet and stay quiet without worrying if it’s awkward. They kick their heels on the support of the balcony and enjoy the late silence.

Of course, talking wasn’t inherently a bad thing. “Thanks for letting us tag along,” Hajime says after an indeterminate time.

Matsukawa hums. “I’m glad you could come.” He smiles at the sky. “I love Taka, but he can be exhausting sometimes.”

Hajime grins. “I know the feeling.” He raises his eyebrows. “So, love, huh?”

Matsukawa arches one of his in return. “You think we’d still be together without that?” Hajime opens a hand, still smiling.

“Just never noticed you say it before.”

“Guess you haven’t been paying close enough attention.” Hajime shrugs – probably true. “It’s nice, though. Loving somebody. You should try it sometime.”

Hajime shrugs again. “Not in a rush for that.”

Matsukawa hums, an actual tune. “Y’know, now that we’re out, I guess I can tell you this.” Hajime turns his head so his temple rests on a slat, facing Matsukawa’s unturned face. “We had a running bet whether you and Oikawa would ever give in and date each other.”

Hajime huffs. “Of course.” He curls into his shoulder, frowning at the bitten cuffs of his sweatshirt. “I dunno. I guess you could say I love him, but it’s like – like loving my hands, or my favorite shirt, or my teddy bear when I was a kid. It just sort of… is.” He waves a hand in the air, fingers reaching for the words. “I don’t want to do all the cutesy hand-holding shit with him you and Hanamaki go for, but…” His fist clenches. “I’m not sure I’d be okay living without him.”

Matsukawa sighs, not quite a laugh or a hum. “And he would probably lose his pants without you.” Hajime’s hand falls to his knee. “I guess it’s different, then.”

“There’s no two people that interact exactly the same.” He ducks his head further down on his smile. “But it’s nice, having someone I don’t have to explain myself to.”

“I can get behind that.” They fall silent again, wind whistling down the street, but their balcony is a little warmer for the moment.

Hajime laughs at a new thought. “So, did anybody win that bet on us?”

Matsukawa barks a laugh, head knocking on the wood. “Yeah, actually. Kindaichi was too good for us.”

“Too pure?” He locks his swinging legs together by the ankles. “What did he win?”

They talk like that as the moon sets over Seoul, socked feet dangling, until their yawns are wide enough to convince them to go back to bed.

It’s a little warmer outside when they wake up, the sun showing its face again, so they take three buses around the city to one of the several mountains that form the Han River valley for a day hike. Hajime hasn’t been really hiking in forever, and he’s ready for rocks and tree roots underfoot again. Oikawa puts up a front that he’s anti-nature, but when they jump off the last bus and wind through the parking lot at the trailhead, he falls into step just behind Hajime as Matsukawa and Hanamaki’s easy pace drops them farther and farther back along the dugout two-abreast path. For once in his life, Oikawa isn’t chattering about something inane Hajime doesn’t care about; his company can almost be considered pleasant.

Of course, that never lasts. “I think we should move in together,” he says right the fuck out of nowhere.

Hajime yelps and trips on a root, stomach dropping as the ground comes up to meet him for a hot second before he’s choked – Oikawa’s grabbed his hood. Oikawa hauls him back to his feet, biting back a smile as Hajime flails for balance, coughs for air. “What?” he gasps.

“Oh, don’t act so put out, you’ve got a drawer of underwear in my room.” Hajime strangles nothing as Oikawa pushes him on to keep walking, fingers splayed on his shoulderblades. (Hanamaki has the backpack today.) “It’s just delaying the inevitable, separating us like you want to do.”

“I would kill you in the first week.”

“No you wouldn’t.” He jumps up on the bank of the trail so he can walk comfortably by Hajime, stepping around moss and saplings. “You like me too much.”

Hajime puffs up, hunching in on himself, shoulders up. “Shu’up.”

Oikawa laughs, a clear sparkle Hajime hasn’t heard in a while. “It’s okay, you big bear, I like you, too.” He swings around a tree by a hand, leaves shaking dew down from above. “Seriously, Iwa-chan, it’s silly to pretend like we won’t drive whoever our roommates would be up the wall until they kicked us out after the first term. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘bite the bullet’?” he chirps, saying the last three words in English.

“I taught you that one.”

“See? Always two steps ahead of me.” He hops down and steals Hajime’s arm to hook his around it, hip bumping Iwa’s waist with each step. “Maybe I just want to be closer to you.”

“The only way we could be closer is if you sewed us together here,” he says with a forceful hip check, dislodging Oikawa from his side with a squawk. The trail narrows as it goes up some natural stone steps for a length. Hajime shoves ahead to take the lead. “I think it might be good not to live together, even if it’s just for a term,” he admits to the granite. “They always say you shouldn’t room with your best friend.”

“Yeah, but they’re not us.” Oikawa flicks an acorn at his back. “I already know you crunch ice and wake up super early and leave your nasty socks around. There’s nothing else to be scared of.” Hajime glares under his arm at Oikawa’s wrinkled nose. “I’d prefer it be your stinky socks than a stranger’s.”

“You’re so weird.” They crest the incline, and Oikawa jumps back to his balancing act on the side of the trail. “You also know I already signed up for campus housing.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t paid for it yet, right? You can always back out.”

Hajime frowns at the side of his face. “Okay. What’s up.”

Oikawa pouts at nothing, more frustrated than petulant. Hajime waits, fingers linked inside his sweatshirt pocket, bare ears raw. (He only realized on bus number two that he left his hat at Jeong’s.) Oikawa weaves through the edge of the forest, brow furrowed, as he tries to find his words.

“I guess…” He ducks around a tree. “I guess I’m starting to understand that I- I’m lost, without you.”

Hajime stops in the middle of the trail. Oikawa keeps on for a few steps before he figures it out and spins around. He frowns at Hajime. “What’s with that face?”

Oh – Hajime’s grinning his teeth off. “And you called me the romantic.” He can’t stop smiling.

Oikawa curls his lip and bends to scoop up a stone, chucking it at Hajime in a smooth circle. Hajime dodges it, laughing, a piece of the blue sky chipping down and lodging in his eye, crossing the space between them. “I am baring my soul to you and you’re just gonna laugh at me?” Oikawa cries, stomping his foot, fists clenched at his sides. He dips for another rock to bean at Hajime; he bats it away with a slap and tugs on Oikawa’s coat hem.

“Oh, get down here, you dolt.”

Oikawa’s cheek puff up, but he hops down as requested. Hajime slings an arm around his neck, ruffling his hair and banging their foreheads together. “You’re such a fucking idiot,” he laughs, scrubbing his hands through Oikawa’s hair like he’s a newly-met dog. Oikawa whines and fights, but Hajime lets him go as fast as he catches him. Why can’t he stop smiling? “I’ll talk to Okaa-san when I get home.”

Oikawa swipes over his hair to get it back to its usual tousle instead of a Hajime-tousle – freezes. “Really?”

“Sure.” Hajime steps aside to let three other hikers coming down the trail pass by. “I can’t let you get lost by yourself, can I?”

Oikawa blinks a few more times, then grins, flower petals blowing across Hajime’s blue sky. “Glad you can see it my way.” Hajime shakes his head, but he doesn’t feel like arguing, pushing on up the trail before Hanamaki and Matsukawa can catch up. “Hey, do you think we can get bunkbeds?”

“Just because we’re childhood friends doesn’t mean we’re children, Oikawa. Unless you want me to start calling you Tooru-chan again?”

“Why, Iwa-chan, I thought you didn’t want to be my mom anymore?”

Hajime’s eye twitches before he snaps a fist out into the soft side of Oikawa’s gut. He wheezes, but laughs, running ahead and away from Hajime’s reach, dancing over fallen leaves and chanting, “Okaa-san, Okaa-san!” as he runs deeper into the woods.

It’s another exhausting, exhilarating day in the Korean March sunshine, running over the mountain, talking about bedspreads, dragging Oikawa away from lacquer trees before he can break out in a trip-ruining rash, and hiding from Matsukawa and Hanamaki just to watch them dance. They revealed themselves when their stomachs growl loud enough to blow their cover; lunch is late and based on more of Jeong’s sandwiches. (Sometimes, with all of his silly habits and flirtatious manners and general bitch-ass attitude, Hajime loses sight of why Oikawa is such a big factor in his life. Sometimes he needs a day like this, cold sun on their faces and spring green all around, to remind him with a thump to the head.)

They get back to Jeong’s at the pre-dinner rush, but this time when they try to sneak through the café upstairs, she slaps her serving tongs to Matsukawa’s chest and throws off her apron, face scrunching up as she snaps at him in Korean. She only switches to Japanese with an afterthought, “Of course, your friends may come with.”

Matsukawa smiles, looking over his shoulder at them. “She wants to take us to a barbecue.” Hajime’s mouth waters at the thought; Hanamaki moans. Jeong’s eyes crinkle. “Can we at least change shirts first?” he asks her, tugging at his sweat-damp collar. She laughs and waves them on, following them up to get out of her work clothes as well.

The barbecue place she takes them to is two blocks away, tucked into an alley and red-lit. It’s only half-full – it’s still early – but they’re obviously close friends, as the woman at the front door cries out and embraces Jeong on her entry, joking and laughing too fast for Hajime to follow. She must have met Matsukawa before, since she fusses over him, too – Hajime doesn’t need to speak the language for him to know she’s exclaiming over how much he’s grown. She doesn’t keep them long, but sits them at a corner table with a griddle in the middle, letting off more heat than the air conditioning. Hajime takes a worn cushion between Oikawa and Hanamaki on one side, Matsukawa and Jeong across the way. Her Japanese has gotten better through the week – well, not more complete, but less rusty, like she had to remember how to ride a bike after ten years on foot. She hasn’t had a host child for the local junior high’s foreign exchange program in a few terms now, so she’s out of practice, but that was nothing a few evenings couldn’t fix.

“So, Issei tells me you are playing sport at university,” she says to Oikawa. “That is very impressive!”

Oikawa flashes a grin. “I’m an impressive person, Imo. Ow!” Hajime shakes out his hand as Oikawa pouts, rubbing his arm.

“Don’t listen to him, Imo,” Hajime says with a brow quirk. “He’s a workaholic who doesn’t know when to drop it cursed with a pretty face.”

“Don’t forget a huge narcissist!”

“And a competitive sadist!”

“Betrayal!” He falls on Hajime, who lets him do it. “Disgusting, disgusting betrayal!”

Hanamaki and Matsukawa grin, hi-fiving over the grill. Hajime props his elbow on Oikawa’s head slouched down to stomach level and reaches for his water. Jeong laughs, full-bellied and throaty.

“Ah, I am glad Issei-yah has such good friends as you.” She wipes an eye with the heel of a leather hand. “When he was first with me, he was all big feet and hands, so shy and-”

“Imo,” Matsukawa moans, burying his face in his hands.

Hanamaki leans in. “Oh, please, do go on,” he says with his leopard grin. Jeong leans in with him, infringing on Matsukawa’s bubble. He leans back against the wall behind him, face still hidden behind long fingers, as Jeong and Hanamaki trade embarrassing Matsukawa stories. Hajime and Oikawa smirk and try to puzzle out the menu on their own.

Hajime wakes up the next morning to protesting thigh muscles and whiny friends feeling the same pain. Three straight days of running around a hilly city has taken its toll. They wake up slow – slow enough that Jeong is already in the café when they drag themselves into the dining room. She stuffs them with tea and pastry, letting them finish waking up before she puts them to work.

They may not have a lot of work experience, and customer service is rather difficult when they don’t speak the language, but anyone can clean. Hajime and Oikawa end up on opposite sides of the front windows, Hajime bundled up on the outside, climbing over tables with glass cleaner and paper coffee filters, making faces through the suds. Hajime has started to recognize some of Jeong’s employees – one of them practices her Japanese on him as she sets out the outdoor tables. He’s happy to coach her through pronunciation and common phrases as she fixes his Korean ones. She laughs at his tripping tongue with good nature, light brown braid slapping her back every time she turns. She’s nice, but when he looks back at the window to find Oikawa gone, his stupid-sense dings at him. It’s Saturday, they fly out tomorrow, and he hasn’t had a spare moment before now to embark on his stupid parental quest. He excuses himself with a newly-learned phrase and goes on the hunt.

He’s not in the dining room, the stockroom, or the kitchen, but there’s a draft coming from the back door. There. “What do you think you’re doing,” he growls down the dirty back hall. Oikawa freezes, one foot out the courtyard door, and turns on Hajime like he’s the killer in a slasher movie. Hajime crosses his arms. “Really, Tooru-chan?”

Oikawa curses under his breath. “I thought you weren’t going to stop me.”

“And I thought you promised not to do this alone.” He raises his eyebrows. “What did you tell them, that you were going down to the corner store for milk?”

“Maybe.” He looks at his hand clenched around the doorknob. “What’s it to you?”

Hajime rubs a temple. “Fuck, Oikawa. Stop being such a baby.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m gonna tell them I’m going with you, don’t you dare move.” Oikawa huffs, but steps back inside and closing the door to keep the cold air out. Hajime grinds his teeth, then runs to find the first familiar face.

Hanamaki is in the stockroom, rotating flour boxes. He looks up when Hajime storms in. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Oikawa is about to make a really shitty life choice and I have to go make sure he doesn’t kill himself for it,” he says in a panting rush.

Hanamaki stares, kneeling on cold tile, then flashes him a thumbs up and digs back in the cardboard box. “Just another day, then. If you’re not back by dark I’ll send the neighbor’s dogs after you.”

“Thanks, Taka.” Hanamaki jerks and spins on his knees, but Hajime’s already gone, running back before Oikawa’s nonexistent patience runs out.

Luckily, he’s still where Hajime left him, leaning against the wall with his head back and eyes closed. Hajime taps his arm. “Are we doing this or not?”

Oikawa doesn’t answer out loud, but his eyes pop open, and he pushes off the wall to duck out the door. Hajime follows, closing the door behind him.

Oikawa has Google Maps pulled up on his phone, following the data-eating blue line around streets that almost look familiar after three days running them. They walk in silence for a long while, Oikawa sucked into his phone, Hajime watching the buildings grow taller and the people get less fashionable. It’s not shady, not yet, but they have definitely been spoiled in Samcheong-dong. It’s also a fuck length’s farther than Hajime cared to walk that day, but Oikawa keeps going, fast and tireless. He’s shaking, eyes blown wide, lip in his teeth. Hajime’s scared to touch him for three whole blocks before – oh, he’s an idiot.

He drags Oikawa by the collar into the next convenience store they pass. Oikawa bleats out a protest, but Hajime ignores him and hauls him to the plastic-wrapped pastry section, shoving two milkbreads into his hands. “Hold.” He stomps over to the freezers and grabs a popsicle at random – looks like it might be chocolate – and stomps back, snagging the milkbreads from his stunned hands and dropping them on the counter. Oikawa trails after him like a lost kitten as he fumbles with the foreign banknotes to match the numbers on the disinterested cashier’s register. He mumbles out what he hopes is a thank you in exchange for what he hopes is the right change, scooping it all up and pushing back outside. “Here,” he growls, thrusting the milkbreads in Oikawa’s face, ripping open his mystery ice cream – a fudge pop covered in hazelnut chips. He bites into it, the cold shocking his system through his teeth.

They keep walking on, Oikawa’s plastic crinkling. “Thanks,” Oikawa says to his milkbread. Hajime grunts, snapping off another chunk of fudge pop.

Hajime’s chomping on the wooden stick when Google’s blue line ends on a red flag. They stop. It’s a plain old apartment building, about eight stories tall, whitewash fading. Hajime looks up at it, over at Oikawa, tongue spinning his stick around. “Well. Now what?”

Oikawa swallows the last bite of pastry, licking his lips of crumbs. He crunches the wrapper in his fist. “I…” He sucks in a breath. “They’re apartment six-oh-five.”

Hajime doesn’t ask how he knows that. “Okay.” But Oikawa doesn’t move, rooted to the asphalt. Hajime crunches his stick.

“You’re going to ruin your teeth,” Oikawa whispers.

“I don’t really care,” Hajime stage-whispers back. Oikawa inhales – exhales. Steps up to the line, spinning the empty wrappers in his hands. Hovers two fingers over the call button for ‘05’ in the sixth column by the front door.

“What should I say?” he asks the wind.

Hajime answers, “Whatever you want. You’ve been rehearsing this, right?”

“Of course, but-” He chokes off, steps back. “No.” Hajime’s heart swells. “No, I can’t.”

Hajime chucks his gnarled stick into the leafless shrubbery. “Okay.” Oikawa rattles in one more breath, staring up at a random sixth floor window, then turns on his heel and runs back the way they came. Hajime sighs and takes off after him, jogging a few paces behind until he works it out.

Honestly, they lucked out when they fell into the same year as Hanamaki and Matsukawa. When they get back, breathless and drained, the other two don’t ask any questions, just pour them coffee from behind the counter and sit with them in silence at a corner table, feet propped on the windowsill or each other’s laps, watching the street flow by. Hajime pulls Oikawa’s bad knee into his lap to feel it out over his jeans, more comfort than treatment. Oikawa sighs like he’s letting out a year of his life, melting back into his chair and closing his eyes. Hanamaki meets Hajime’s eye with a questioning eyebrow tilt. Hajime shakes his head and mouths, “Didn’t even knock.” Hanamaki nods, Matsukawa acknowledging the information with a head tilt.

Once coffee is done, it’s back to work. Jeong may not know what’s going on in Oikawa’s head (few people do), but she can recognize when a boy of hers needs something to do with his hands. She makes him polish her silverware – menial, senseless, detail-oriented, empty work that he can do with his eyes closed. Hajime finishes up the windows and joins him, just sitting near him, existing in his space.

“You know, I have half a mind to be offended,” Matsukawa says as he flops down at their table during a break in customers. “Am I the only one who’s not on a first name basis from you now, Hajime-kun?”

Hajime blinks. “Huh? I’m not-” Thanks, Taka. “Shit.”

Oikawa perks up. “What happened?”

Hajime rubs his forehead with the hand not tainted with silver polish. “Shit. I did that, didn’t I?”

“What? What did you do?”

“Called Hanamaki ‘Taka’,” he groans into his hands. “Not even Taka-san or Taka-kun. Taka.” Matsukawa chuckles; Oikawa gasps.

“I want to call him Taka! That’s so cute!”

“I know, right?” Matsukawa leans back in his chair, stretching his feet out. “It’s adorable.”

“I’m gonna need every one of you to stop,” Hanamaki barks as he stalks up, kicking Matsukawa’s chair leg. Matsukawa laughs louder, catching his beltloop with two fingers before he can run away, nuzzling into his side. “I am not adorable.”

“You’re absolutely precious, Taka-chan,” Oikawa croons, poking his other side with the butt of a spoon. Oikawa shines a smile at Matsukawa. “Does this mean we can call you Issei now?”

“There was never anything stopping you. Tooru.”

Hajime plants his face on the table, silverware rattling. “I can’t believe I’m friends with you lot.”

“Aw, Hajime-kun, don’t be like that!”

“Yeah, Hajime-kun, lighten up!”

Someone heavy and warm leans over him and sings in his ear, “Ha-chan!” Snap, goes Hajime’s elbow into Oikawa’s belly. He groans, collapsing over Hajime’s back. Matsukawa rubs his head like a pet while he’s pinned down, still laughing.

“I will slaughter each of you in your own beds one day,” he growls to the table, but they just poke his sleeping bear more. At least Oikawa’s laughing like normal again, even if it’s at Hajime’s expense, even if he can feel a wet drop or two down the collar of his shirt.

Late, late that night, something soft and warms curls around Hajime’s back, breath in his ear pulling him out of sleep and into drowsiness. “I’m sorry for dragging you across the city for nothing,” Oikawa whispers into his shoulder, arms tight around his waist. “I guess I don’t deserve to know where I come from.”

Hajime grumbles, fumbling for a grip on Oikawa’s forearm. “Don’ say tha’, i’s no’ your faul’.” He strokes his thumb over the velvet of the inside of Oikawa’s wrist as he buries deeper into Hajime’s shoulder – he must be all the way under Hajime’s duvet. “M’proud a’you. I’d do i’ again.” Oikawa sniffs – his shirt is soaked. How long has Oikawa been there? “I got you, s’okay.”

Oikawa nods, hair brushing Hajime’s neck. He falls back to sleep, still stroking Oikawa’s wrist.

Oikawa’s gone from Hajime’s futon when he wakes up the morning of their flight out of Korea, rolled back to his own, facing away from Hajime. Hajime swipes at his sleepers – the back of his shirt is stiff with dried salt. He sets his jaw. Enough.

He runs through a shower, making his excuses to Jeong in the kitchen. He wants to go out and get future birthday presents for his friends without them interrupting, he’ll be fine, he’ll be back in an hour or so, he doesn’t need every store to be open, just the ones that matter. She waves him off with her spatula after forcing some kind of red bean buns (there are dozens of kinds) in his hands as he jumps out the door, taking the stairs two at a time.

He remembers the crosstreets by the apartment building and pulls up directions on his phone while he’s still in range of the café wifi, saving them before setting off at a jog, earbuds in and blaring an old favorite band of his dad’s. He’s wearing his sweatpants, ratty plane sweatshirt on over an old practice shirt. A morning run through the city isn’t so strange.

It’s thirty minutes to cover the seven kilometers to the apartment building. Hajime’s pace is too fast, sweat dripping, but it’s better than stopping and thinking about what he’s doing. He runs right up to the gated door, only pausing a second to regulate his breathing before pounding a fist on the ‘05’ button on the sixth row, ripping one of his earbuds out.

It’s a long, long second before he gets a response. “Anyoung haseyo?” a confused male voice filters through the speaker.

“Is this the Maengs?” he asks, dredging up the name from gelato, too rushed to try Korean.

“Ah – hai?”

“I know this sounds weird,” he pants, his whole weight on his fist on the call button, “but my name is Iwaizumi Hajime, and I know your son.”

Another long, long second. “We don’t have a son,” the voice answers, still confused but in lower, perfect Japanese.

“Yes, you did,” Hajime snaps, heart still pounding. “He’s almost eighteen and he was born in Miyagi in the summer and you gave him up and-”

“What do you want.” There’s no confusion anymore, no tonal shift between words. Hajime flaps a hand in the air, slaps it to his leg.

“I just want to talk.” He wheezes a laugh – Oikawa would murder him for this. “I come in peace.”

He waits. The song on his one earbud switches. The door buzzes open next to him. He throws the hopefully-thank you Korean phrase at the speaker before throwing open the gate and ducking inside.

It hits him in the elevator. What the fuck is he doing? They don’t know him – he doesn’t know them. He doesn’t know their faces, or the man’s name, or if they’re crazy or rude or allergic to cats or headed to church –

The elevator dings for the sixth floor.

It’s not hard to find their apartment number, but lifting his fist to knock is the most strenuous thing he’s done the whole trip. But he does, three sharp raps.

The door swings open – he looks down. A girl is there, probably middle school, still in her pajamas, hair tumbling around her face, lip curved in Oikawa’s pout. He stops breathing. He had expected Oikawa’s smile, maybe, his eyes, his nose, but not his pout.

“Uh- hi,” he stutters out.

“What do you want,” she sasses him, and oh hell, she’s Tooru when he was ten and still Tooru. He swallows.

“Ah – are your parents home?” Shit, he’s talking in Japanese – he blinks. So was she.

“Okaa-san!” she cries into the apartment. “There’s a stranger at the door!”

“Ayumi, please.” It’s the male voice from the speaker downstairs, approaching behind her. “No yelling in the house.”

Oikawa’s biological father has dark hair half slicked back, like he’s constantly running his fingers through it, wide shoulders and cinnamon eyes that harden when they connect with Hajime’s. “I hope you’re not here to cause trouble.”

Hajime shakes his head and blurts out, “He’s taller than you.”

Maeng-whatever’s face shifts between emotions too fast, like Oikawa after a vexing loss. Shit. “Come in and have some tea, Iwaizumi-kun.” Hajime nods, toeing off his shoes as mini-Tooru keeps glaring at him, arms crossed, toes tapping.

The apartment’s nice, if a little small and cluttered. Most of the clutter is art, bright geometric patterns like the monkey mural, leaning in canvases against the wall, behind the TV, stacked on the bookshelves and the kotatsu – everywhere. Pinned in pastels on construction paper under fridge magnets. On a napkin under the third resident’s hand.

The artist herself shoots to her feet from her spot at the kitchen table, eyes as stricken as Hajime feels. They’re not the same Oikawa-cinnamon as his dad, but they’re large and round, light brown waves of hair fluffed around her head. She stares at him – he sees Oikawa’s startled look, the one where his test grade was a letter lower than he expected or when a girl dumps him.

He sits down across the table hard and holds his head in his hands. “Holy shit.” He glances at the kid. “Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, Hajime-kun. I don’t quite know where to begin,” Oikawa’s biological mother says, wringing her hands on the tabletop. She bends her fingers back, one by one, and he can’t take this.

“His name is Oikawa Tooru.” Her hands still. “He’s been my best friend since we could walk, he’s got your hair and his eyes and-” His eyes dart between them. “Damn, he looks just like both of you.”

His mom – Chiyoko – sucks in a raggedy breath – he’s thrown back to the sidewalk just outside, just yesterday. The tea service rattles as Maeng sets it out and pours four cups. The daughter – shit, she’s Oikawa’s sister – takes the fourth chair at Hajime’s left, half-eaten cereal bowl there, still glaring but softer. The ‘I’m still upset but I don’t know why’ look. He jerks a thumb at her. “She’s his spitting image, I swear on my ancestors’ graves.”

The adults share round looks. The sister kicks him under the table. “I’m right here, moron.”

Chiyoko whips to glare at her, but Hajime laughs, sick tension easing. “Oh, hell, she is.” He pokes her shoulder. “He’s a little brat, too.”

She wrinkles her nose, precisely three folds. “Who is this guy, anyway?”

Hajime looks to the parents, sipping his tea. They make it way stronger than the Oikawas. Chiyoko twists her fingers in her hair, staring down at her cup. Maeng clears his throat. “Ayumi, you remember how we used to live in Japan before we moved here?”

She rolls her eyes. “Appa, I was six, not dumb.” Hajime hides his grin behind his cup. Precocious to a fault.

“Stop backtalking me, young lady.” She rolls her eyes again. Hajime winks at her, and she giggles. “Well, before Okaa-san and I were married and had you – well, you had an older brother.” He looks down at the table, too. “But we – we couldn’t support a child, then, and Okaa-san’s family wouldn’t take us in – take me in.” Oh, Hajime knows that self-blame. “I wasn’t very rich, and they didn’t like that I wasn’t Japanese.”

“But we’re still not rich, Appa,” she whines, “I can’t even have a dog.”

The two men chuckle. Chiyoko is still staring at her untouched tea. “Yes, but imagine what we were like then if I’m saying this now,” he continues. Her face scrunches – deep thought – before it clears in lightning understanding. “We didn’t want to put him in an orphanage.” Hajime blinks – Oikawa in an orphanage? “But we found a nice family through a service who would take care of him, and-”

“They are good to him?” Chiyoko interrupts, fists tight on the tabletop, red eyes fixed on Hajime. “We made the right choice? Is he okay? Happy? Healthy?”

Hajime blinks at her, her particular hunger, and is more breathless than kilometer four. “I think you did,” he answers before he thinks. “The Oikawas love him. You could never tell he wasn’t theirs, except that he’s a hand taller than them.”

“So he’s a tall boy, then?” Maeng smiles. “You said he was taller than me.”

Hajime nods. “He’s one-eighty-four centimeters, last we checked. We play volleyball together at our high school – well, we did. He was our captain. He’s going on to play at university level in Tokyo.” Oh – he digs in his pocket for his phone. “Do you want a picture?”

They struggle for words, but Ayumi brightens. “I do!” He grins and thumbs through his gallery for one of the selfies taken at the palace the day before yesterday that isn’t weird or blurry, then slides it across the table to her, yanking his earbuds out of the jack. She picks it up and squints at it – her eyes widen. “Holy shit!”

“Ayumi!” Chiyoko gasps. Hajime throws his head back with his laugh, belting out of him.

“That one’s my fault, I’m so sorry!” He scratches his scalp and watches Chiyoko’s hands tremble as she reaches for his Godzilla phone case. Her long fingers fly to her mouth. Her shoulders heave. He stops laughing. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, hair flying, and passes the phone along to her husband. “You – you said his name is Tooru?” she asks in a tiny voice. He nods. “Tooru,” she breathes.

“This is Gyeongbokgung Palace,” her husband says, drawling each word out, brow furrowed. “Is he here?”

Hajime bites his tongue. Should have picked an older picture. He nods. “We’re on a post-graduation trip with some of our friends,” he says. “We’ve been here a few days. But we leave this afternoon.”

“Then he knows you’re here?” Maeng’s grip tightens around Hajime’s phone. “Did he send you?” Uh-oh, he knows that look, too.

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” he says, slow and calm, settling Oikawa down after a shitty overworked practice in the locker room. He extracts his phone from his rough hands. “He’s probably still asleep right now.”

“How did you find us?” Oikawa’s cold calculation. “That’s a lot of legwork to do just for a friend.”

“He’s my best friend. But I didn’t find you. He did.” He scrolls through his gallery a few swipes before locking his screen. “But he – couldn’t.”

“Take me to him.” Chiyoko’s nostrils flare. “Take me to my son.”

He looks hard at her face, her clenched jaw, the red around her nose and eyes, her flyaway hair – her husband’s ramrod-straight posture, eyes blazing, lips parted. Word by word, he strings out, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

They both cry out – What? Why not? But Hajime knows both of their faces too, too well. He shakes his head. “He’s not ready for this,” he explains, “and if I’m being honest, neither are you.” He pauses. “She’d be fine, by the way.” Ayumi beams as his flick of his fingers, a drop of milk slipping out of the corner of her mouth, but her parents are too keyed up for the joke. They sit in tense silence, glaring fire and ice at him, but he’s had worse – he’s had both from the same eyes. “Maybe another time, in a few years, but I think right now it would-” he glances at Ayumi- “mess him up.” And you’re still raw, he thinks, but they probably wouldn’t believe him. “I’ve been looking out for him forever,” he tells his lukewarm tea. “It’s second nature to check his moves before he makes them.”

The table is quiet, the parents lost in their thoughts, hands woven together on the table. Ayumi shovels cereal in her mouth, watching the whole thing like an afternoon K-drama. Which, Hajime guesses, it kind of is.

“Thank you,” Chiyoko chokes out after a while, “for coming.”

Hajime nods and drains his tea. “I apologize for the intrusion. Maybe next time will be more pleasant.” She nods, head bowed, but Maeng watches him stand and stick his phone and earbuds in his sweatshirt pocket, not rising as Hajime leaves the way he came. Ayumi hops off her chair and follows him to the door, her former animosity popped away like soap bubbles.

“Sorry, my parents are such a drag, oppa,” she says, voice lowered. He huffs into his hood.

“They have every right to be.” He frowns at his shoelaces. “You got a pen?” She bounces over to a basket by the door, digging in the odds-and-ends basket she pulls out a stub of a pencil and hands it over. He pulls out a receipt from his pocket for two milkbreads and a fudge pop, flipping it over to scrawl his email on the back. “This’ll be our secret, okay, Ayumi-chan?” He hands it and the pencil over. “If you want to talk to me, about whatever, I’ll be right there.”

She beams and hugs him around the neck, cheek pressed to his like velvet. “Thanks, Hajime-oppa.”

“Of course. Now go hug your parents, they need it.” She nods and folds up the receipt tight, sticking it in the tiny breast pocket of her pajamas (moons and stars) before flouncing off.

He hears the beginnings of a wail from Chiyoko and lets himself out.

“Hajime-kun, you were gone for an awfully long time,” Hanamaki drawls when he finally gets back to what’s passed as home. “Did you fall in a fountain somewhere?”

He shrugs, dumping his two shopping bags on Jeong’s kitchen table. “Got a little lost, is all.” He slaps Matsukawa’s wandering hand away from a bag, his phone buzzing in his pocket as the messages he missed when disconnected from the Internet catch up. “Where’s T- Oikawa?”

“Still asleep.” Matsukawa sips his coffee. “Sleeps like a fuckin’ princess, that one.”

Hajime hmphs. “I’ll go get him. Pour me some of that, yeah?” He takes his bags back after pulling out Jeong’s present – his mom always said you can’t go wrong with a dish towel for an older lady – and hauls them upstairs.

Oikawa has his back to the door, huddled up on Hajime’s futon. Hajime drops his bags on his duffel and nudges Oikawa with his foot. “You awake?”

There’s a long moan – only barely, then. He sits down behind him, frowning at the patch of forehead visible at the top of the duvet. He combs his fingers through wild bedhead, the weird warm waves that had been cresting in his ribcage hitting high tide. Oikawa leans into his touch. Oikawa in an orphanage? It makes him want to throw up, his fingers trembling the slightest.

“I got a question.” Oikawa cracks an eye at him. “Can… can I go back to calling you Tooru? For real?”

Oikawa’s forehead furrows, and he wiggles around to lie on his back, both eyes open. “What’s up, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime looks away, hand curled on Oikawa’s shoulder. “I just – I dunno, it’s weird to call someone whose whole family I know by their family name.”

Oikawa blinks. “I’ve been telling you that for years,” Oikawa breathes with a soft smile.

“Yeah, well.” Hajime huffs. “I guess it finally sank in.”

“Now? Geez, how long will it take you to learn anything at that pace?” Hajime frowns at him, but Oikawa’s smiling, eyes still a little sleep-unfocused. “There was never anything stopping you, just your silly pride or whatever.” He cocks his head on the pillow, hair halo bending with him. “Want me to call you Hajime, too?”

“You’ve never called me Hajime a day in your life.” He grins. “I’d like to see you try to change that habit.”

Oikawa laughs, his pure sparkle. “I can’t, you’re my Iwa-chan.” He sits up, their torsos aligned while their bodies face opposite directions. “You can call me whatever you want,” he says, ruffling Hajime’s hair. Hajime ducks away, hiding his smile.

“Does ‘shithead’ work for you, huh?” Oikawa sticks out his tongue and rolls over to get to his feet, stretching and yawning. “Tooru.” He turns. “Thanks.”

Tooru smiles. “Anytime, Iwa-chan.”

They only have a few hours until they have to begin the long trek to the airport, and they should get out and see more of the city. But at Jeong’s café, the city comes to them, bright faces and bubbly laughter lightening the pop art and red bean pastry air. They spend their last bite of time in Seoul on the patio, bottomless coffee mugs, making up stories about the customers and passersby. They eat enough of Jeong’s pastries that she threatens to make them pay, but they know she never will. She’s got Hajime’s dish towel tucked in her apron pocket, already dusty and spotted. He smiles whenever he sees it – he likes a gift that gets used.

It takes forever, but before they know it, it’s time to pack up their shit and go back home. Jeong wipes her tears on Hajime’s dish towel as she hugs them all goodbye, giving them some last snacks for the road and leaning out the door as they walk to the bus stop. Taka and Tooru walk backwards, waving; Hajime holds Tooru steady by the elbow, dragging him on. Issei flips up his coat collar, shoulders hunched. When Jeong is out of sight, Taka sticks his hand in Issei’s coat pocket, bumping arms with every step.

It’s a quiet trip home, the rush of jumping transportation from bus to train to plane negating need for too much conversation. They get to the gate a little bit early again, but this time, Taka leans into Issei for his nap, Tooru draping over Hajime like a starfish. Hajime props his feet up on his stacked duffel bag and backpack, checking the notifications on his phone with the shitty free airport wifi. It’s mostly texts from his mother, asking their progress, facebook notifications, a few spam emails. He cleans out his inbox – his thumb freezes over a new name.

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Hajime-oppa!!!

HI HAJIME-OPPA!! I know you said to talk to you whenever and you probably didn’t mean TODAY but I couldn’t wait! Thanks for coming by today! I know Okaa-san and Appa were really weird, but once they got over themselves they were really glad you came. I already found some of your volleyball games on youtube! I don’t know anything about volleyball but it looks like you’re really good!! Do you think you can teach me the rules sometime? I don’t have a lot of Japanese friends to talk to since I moved away when I was so little, so I hope you don’t mind if I talk to you a lot to practice! I wanna go back someday because this place stinks hard and I miss it :((( Do you think I could visit you when I do? Do you think nii-san would want to meet me? Would he like if I called him nii-san, or should I call him Tooru? Would that be weird?

Write back soon!!!!!!
Ayumi *

“Who’s that from?” Tooru asks, one eye cracked from his spot on Hajime’s shoulder. He backs out of the email, still smiling.

“Nobody. Go back to sleep.”