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“Go away.”
“No,” Hajime says.
“I don’t want you here.” The blanket nest in front of him shudders and piles up even more. Hajime shrugs and drops himself onto the bed, crossing his legs to be more comfortable. “Don’t care. I won’t leave.”
“Respect my privacy,” the grey woolen blanket on top of the nest grumbles.
“Usually, yes, when you’re fucking yourself up over something, no.”
“What if I’m naked underneath?”
“I’ve seen worse.” Hajime tries to pull at the fabric, but Tooru is prepared and holds against it with all his might. If he’s adamant on staying inside, there’s no violent way to get him out. Hajime lets go and goes back to just sitting in front of the blanket nest, but he’s not leaving. Hajime remembers that position from when they were children, clear as daylight. Tooru does it when something’s wrong, when his brain dances along the sharp edge between brilliant and insane once again, when worries seep into his bones like an infection.
Hajime’s found Tooru curled up like this when his dog died, when his dad didn’t come home, when he told Hajime that he’d thought about kissing a boy and how Hajime please, please couldn’t find him disgusting now.
He hadn’t found Tooru disgusting. Hajime remembers wishing to be as brave as Tooru, without success until now.
This hasn’t happened in a long time. Hajime swallows, forcing the darkness that scratches at his heart down.
“Come outta there. This is ridiculous.”
There’s a motion in the blanket that could be the shake of a head. Hajime groans. This is not how he wanted the evening to go, especially not with tomorrow coming up to be the most important day for Tooru in a long time – maybe ever.
“Tooru.”
“Just go away. Leave me alone.”
“Not gonna happen. I’m fucking worried about you.”
There’s confusion dipping low in Tooru’s voice. “Why?” he asks, words muffled from the layers of fabric. Hajime can only see a fluff of his soft hair peeking out at the top. A small flare of pain lights up his ribcage, pounding below his heart. This isn’t good. It’s been going downhill since he came home to find Tooru inside his room, the small living room of the flat they share empty, and Hajime is sure that he’s heard Tooru cry before he knocked at the door. All of this and Tooru taking fifteen minutes before saying a single word to Hajime has his blood coil and shiver.
Of course he knows what this is about. It doesn’t make it any easier.
Hajime takes a deep breath. “If you’re nervous about the training tomorrow, don’t be. The other guys who try out next to you should be. When they see you enter, they’re gonna be running like scared little boys.” He pauses and waits for a reply, for a smug retort about how Hajime must be swooning about Tooru (he is, but in secret inside his soul), but nothing comes.
Again, different approach. “C’mon, you just want me to spoil you because you’re trying for the national team tomorrow. Fine. I’ll do that, but just so you can blow them off the court, got it? This won’t become a habit or even one of your stupid traditions. I got some food and your favourite candy from the supermarket-“
“What if they don’t want me?”
Hajime’s mouth snaps shut. This isn’t at all what he’s wanted to hear. Tooru is the first of the two of them to start a good bickering, and now he doesn’t. Being best friends with Tooru comes with chaos, destruction and the most genuine and terrifying emotions Hajime’s ever had to deal with, but screw anyone who says he doesn’t care about the mess of darkness and star-lit nights that Tooru has always been. Hajime feels his teeth grit together, and he has to loosen his jaw before making a decision. Shit. He clicks his tongue, pushing the anger deep into the pit of his stomach so it won’t ruin everything. He knows his own temper. Easy now.
The bed creaks when he moves closer towards Tooru.
“They’re fucking lunatics if they don’t take you in.” His voice is softer than he wants it to be, and it trembles a bit.
Tooru’s silhouette shifts. The blanket that covers his curled up body slides down, but he snatches it and pulls it back up. Hajime can’t see his face. Tooru’s hiding it underneath grey wool, pressing himself against the headboard as if the world’s after his throat.
It’s hard to tell if this is one of Tooru’s games or if it’s serious, and for once, Hajime hopes it’s the first option.
“There are better people out there.” Tooru says it as if Hajime’s stupid, as if this is something he should know and believe in. “Geniuses. People who play like they don’t even have to work for it.”
Idiot. Idiot. “Look. Hey, look at me.” Hajime reaches out, but stops himself before his fingers touch Tooru’s knees that stand between them like a wall. Better wait some more, as much as he wants to. “Everyone’s gotta work for it. Every single person. You’re just harder on yourself than everyone else, and that’s what makes you the best. You’re gonna change this game’s history, a’ight?”
“I won’t. And this really isn’t the time for jokes, especially not your bad ones.” Tooru shakes his head again and slinks deeper below the blankets. “How embarrassing is it to get into the short list and then not into the team? Almost. Almost good enough, yeah, that’s who I am.”
He looks so lost underneath all that fabric, Hajime thinks. His vision narrows down on nothing but the nest of blankets, drinking in all the useless details, struggling to find a solution. Tooru’s hair is wet, he must have showered before Hajime came home, and it makes his stomach twist hard when he realizes that Tooru didn’t even take the time to brush or dry it. Let alone prepare for tomorrow by looking his best. This is bad.
“Hey, this ain’t a joke. And I’m hilarious, by the way, you just don’t appreciate it. Anyways, stop being like that, so – so damn negative. You’re good.” Hajime breathes out and chooses his words as careful as he rarely does. “Really, really good. Not almost. Good enough.”
Tooru is quiet for a moment. Hajime almost dares to believe that this was all, that it was just a short stumble along the abyss, feet slipping away and Hajime’s hands catching them. It’s not.
A shiver runs through Tooru’s body. He pulls the blanket closer, and it makes him even tinier. “But I’m not brilliant like them. And your sugarcoating isn’t getting me anywhere-”
“I’m not fucking lying to you!” Hajime growls, his voice sharper than he’s wanted it to be. “No sugarcoating anything, this is my opinion. I’m the last person to tell you lies.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did. Almost. What’s wrong, you weren’t like that when you heard that you’re gonna get into the choice training?” Had something happened that Hajime didn’t hear about? No. It’s worse. It’s Tooru’s head that’s fucking him up.
The shake of Tooru’s head lets the blanket vibrate. “I didn’t,” he whispers, “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t know what – I was preparing for tomorrow, you were gone, I checked the shoes I wanna wear and. It just… the thoughts came.” Silence stretches between them for a moment. Hajime lets him talk. He needs to hear this. Tooru continues after a soft inhale. His hands draw the blanket closer from inside. “You’re not a liar.” Another pause. “But you’re always trying to make me feel like I’m more than I am.”
Because you are, Hajime thinks. More than you could ever imagine.
“Tooru.” He reaches out, he can’t help it anymore. His fingers touch Tooru’s ankle. “Can I?” There’s no answer. Hajime waits, counts his own heart beat, one, two, three, then his hand wraps around the tender arch of Tooru’s foot that sticks out of the nest of blankets. “D’you honestly think I’d lie to you about this? That I’d fuck with you over something like that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Talk to me.”
“Go,” Tooru says quietly. “I’ll deal with myself.”
Fuck, why does this have to be so hard, he could just kiss Tooru, could just kiss it all away, but he can’t-
“Then vent to me. You know I can listen.”
Tooru says nothing.
Please, Hajime thinks, talk to me. It’s moments like this, thick and white like milk, an ironic sweetness, that make Hajime hate himself for ever wishing Tooru to be quiet for once like he used to. An eclipse crawls over his chest, bringing a ring of clouds that slides over his heart without a sound. Back then in middle school, he sometimes wished that he had the courage to kiss Tooru’s voice away. He’d wished for silence and a chance to bind them together with more than just friendship. It didn’t happen.
Hajime never became that brave. And Tooru kept talking, pouring a river of words into their bond that Hajime sometimes refused to call by that name, and now they’re tied, connected. It’s hard to know him so well that Hajime can’t keep himself from hurting with him, within him, his teeth bared at an enemy that doesn’t exist outside of Tooru.
There’s no fight this time. Tooru’s sadness dwells inside himself, and it’s not the first time that Hajime wonders if it would be easier to be with Tooru if he didn’t love him enough for both of them.
“Are you scared?” His question is soft.
Nothing.
Tooru doesn’t push him away, but he’s not meeting Hajime’s eyes either. He doesn’t say yes, doesn’t deny, doesn’t laugh it off. Then, slowly, his arms are sliding out of the blankets that he’s wrapped around himself, and his feet twitch forward to touch Hajime’s crossed legs. His skin is icy cold when it presses to Hajime’s. He looks so tiny, Hajime thinks. As if he’s drowning in the blanket and could vanish into nothing but pale skin if Hajime blinks one time too often. A muscle in Tooru’s ankle jumps, the pale skin arching along his bones with a grace that can cut glass or itself into pieces.
“Tooru,” Hajime tries again. “Are you-“
“Yes.” Tooru almost spits it at him, flicking the end of the blanket in his direction with a kick of his feet. Hajime doesn’t even attempt to duck. The fabric flops over his lap, warmth from Tooru’s body flooding out from underneath.
Hajime closes his eyes and exhales. There it is. “Why? And don’t tell me that you won’t say it. I’ll make you. I won’t let you wallow in self-pity and whatever you’re afraid of.”
“Go away,” Tooru mumbles. Weak, so weak, he shouldn’t ever sound like that.
“No. Don’t wanna.” Hajime gets even closer and now he can reach Tooru’s hand. He takes it, fingers lacing up with this own. The last time they did this was back as children, and Hajime had learned that he wouldn’t see his grandmother again because she was gone forever. Tooru’s hands are thinner, bones and skin that Hajime wants to press his forehead to in worship.
“Please.” He never begs, and it makes Tooru lift his head. Hajime stares at their joined hands, darker and pale, warm and bruised. “Tell me. I want to help. Don’t do this shit on your own.”
“To lose again.”
Hajime stares up at him. The blankets slide off Tooru’s cheeks. His face is hollow.
“I’m scared to lose again. To lose everything,” he whispers.
Tooru looks bad. His eyes are circled in red, a faint trace of blood gleams on his mouth. Bitten raw. Again. He closes his eyes and leans his head against the wall. Hajime watches how his throat moves as he swallows, and Hajime hears his words even through the chaos of ‘let me make you okay again’ spinning in his mind.
“I can’t ruin this. I want to be on that team. I can play for Japan, I have the chance. I have to do this. If they don’t take me in, who’d want the second best? I can’t – can’t be the second choice. This is the biggest chance I’m going to get, and you know it. My career depends on this. I have to play. I need to play volleyball, and I have to be in that team. This is the only way to be the best.” Tooru swallows and rubs a hand across his eyes. “And I swore myself that I – it’s something I gotta do. There are promises attached to that step in my life and I have to keep them.”
“Why? What happens if you don’t?”
Tooru shakes his head. The sadness in his eyes darkens the amber of his iris. “I can’t tell you.”
That hurt more than Hajime wants to admit. “I’m your best friend. I won’t laugh.”
“But you could hate me, and I’m not risking that. Sorry.” Tooru buries his face back into the blankets, and his shoulders tremble.
Outside, it begins to rain.
Hajime wants to pull him close until their breath flows as one, until Tooru is warm and safe, until the shiver of his sharply silhouetted fingers fades away and makes room for Hajime’s hands to hold.
He’s not going to let Tooru drown in his self-loathing. No fear, not when he’s going to conquer all of them tomorrow. Tooru won’t tell him like this? Fine. No need to. He’ll find out one way or another. Hajime pushes the pain in his chest deep into his guts and takes a moment to think. One last try.
„They’re not gonna choose someone else,” he finally says after a long breath. “They can’t. Have you seen yourself play? Of course you have, because you watch all your past matches and overanalyze every damn move you’ve made. Don’t you see how good you are-“
“How can you be so sure?” Tooru mumbles, dull against the wooly blanket. Hajime’s mother has knitted it for him, when Tooru and Hajime moved out to go to the same university. It was a good coincidence that they offered Hajime’s major here. He didn’t allow himself to think about anything else. They’re together. Friends, still, even with a traitorous heart like Hajime has one. Tooru won’t know anyways.
“Because I know what you can do.”
“I’m not good enough-“
“Yes you are. Have always been.” Hajime sighs and rubs tiny circles onto Tooru’s ankle. Tooru’s hand is cold inside his own. “Just – get out of there. Come here. Look at me, really look at me.”
“I don’t get it. You – how can you believe in me like that?” Tooru whispers into the cave of his arm where he’s buried his head. His body trembles in waves, a slow violence rolling through his muscles.
This is enough.
“I’ll be right back.” Hajime stands up. His words aren’t going to do anything, and this problem just won’t solve itself. Sure, it’s only inside Tooru’s head, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a real issue.
Tooru peers at him. “You’re leaving?” His voice is tiny. He swallows. “Okay. Sorry.”
“I said I’m gonna come back. And I’m taking this.” Before he walks out of the room, Hajime pulls the key out of the lock. “So you don’t cut me out again. I aint’t leaving you all alone. Got it?” He hurries to get into the kitchen, mostly so that he can get something and doesn’t have to hear the possible protest that Tooru throws at him.
Stupid fucking idiot. Hajime doesn’t have any hope that he’s ever going to learn that friends don’t just leave when things are difficult, and much less when the problems are monsters inside your own head.
It only takes a few moments until the heating pad is done in the microwave. A shrill ‘ding’ announces that it’s fully warmed up. Hajime wraps it around his hands, trotting back to Tooru’s room as the warmth seeps through his fingers and palms.
Tooru gives him a strange look when he comes back inside. At least he’s not completely hidden underneath the blankets anymore and has now moved to sit in the middle of the bed. One of his brows rises when Hajime sits down by his side, still rubbing the pad between his fingers and all over his hands.
“What’s that?”
“Need to get my fingers warm.”
“Uhm.” Tooru tilts his head, brows now pulling together into an elegant line. “What for, exactly? Are you trying to warm up my ice-cold heart?”
At least he’s making a joke, even if it’s a weak one. Hajime looks at him and gives a tiny smile. “To help you, idiot,” he says, freeing one of his hands to softly knock his knuckles against Tooru’s forehead. “Turn around and drop your head forward. Relax. If you don’t let me talk to you, I can at least do this.”
Tooru’s eyes lower. His fingers clench into the blanket, hard, whiteness spreading through his skin. He licks his lips and winches at the touch. “I didn’t ask for help. You don’t have to do this.”
“I do it ‘cause I fucking want to. Turn around.”
“What are you going to do?” Tooru asks, but he obeys, turning his back to Hajime and letting his head fall forward. He’s pale everywhere, even all over the soft arch of his neck and the curve of his shoulders that rise from below his shirt.
Hajime settles down behind Tooru and reaches around him. “Here. Rest your hands on this.” He places the heating pad in Tooru’s lap and before Tooru can say something, Hajime cups his neck with both hands.
The shudder that churns Tooru flows through his entire body. “O-oh. That’s.”
Hajime gently increases the pressure. “It’s nice, right? Hold the heating pad tightly and focus on me.” Don’t say anything if you don’t want to, Hajime attempts to add, but then he doesn’t. Tooru doesn’t seem too good with talking right now. The heat isn’t just for his muscles, and the touch of Hajime’s fingers isn’t only a measure to coax words out of him.
“When I was little, I had a lot of headaches.”
Tooru snorts and glances at him over his shoulder. “I’ve known you since you were three. You think I don’t know that?”
“I said keep your head down, idiot. Do what I tell you.” Hajime begins to work his hands over Tooru’s neck. He lets his thumbs descend along the edges of Tooru’s spine, following the path of his thoughts and motions to where the collar of his shirt begins. “My mother found out that massaging my neck kept me from crying, and that warmth calmed me down. She did this most nights before I went to sleep, until my headaches stopped when I went into middle school.”
“It feels good.” Tooru’s head falls forward again, and Hajime thinks that he saw the hint of a smile on red-bitten lips. “You okay with doing this?”
“I wouldn’t have offered otherwise, now enjoy this, for fuck’s sake.” Hajime clicks his tongue impatiently and drags his fingers back up, carefully pressing them into the soft hollow below Tooru’s skull.
“Mhmm. Ohh, that’s, that’s… good.”
Hajime just smiles.
His skin melts into Tooru’s. He doesn’t know how long he’s massaging the tension out of Tooru’s neck. He doesn’t count how many times his fingertips trace along the shadow below that soft hairline, how many times his thumbs press circles into the skin that Hajime wants to kiss. But Tooru gives in to his touches. He becomes warm and pliant, his shoulders relax, strain falling out of his muscles with every new stroke of Hajime’s fingers next to his spine.
When Tooru says something, it sounds loud even though his voice is low. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Are you feeling better?”
Hajime lets his hands rest on both sides of Tooru’s neck, and he feels when Tooru swallows. “You okay? Still thinking about it?”
“That’s not it. You – you did really well.” There’s an invisible tremble in Tooru’s words, echoing through his shoulders that begin to shake.
There has to be something else. Hajime reaches and takes the heating pad out of Tooru’s lap, setting it aside as he tries to talk casually. “Don’t praise me as if I’m your employee or something, that’s weird. Anything else that’s bothering you? Something you wanna tell me, maybe?” He doesn’t know why he’s asking for that in particular, and it doesn’t matter now.
Because Tooru jolts, his body betraying him for any masked reaction, even if his words try something else. “No, no! How’d you get that idea? Heh, I bet you just wanna get your hands back on me.” It sounds like a joke, but Hajime misses the usual lightness. Something stirs in his guts. It can’t be.
“If you’re asking that nicely, I may even do it again. Want that?” He slides his hands over Tooru’s shoulders again, rubbing a bit, but Tooru doesn’t relax anymore. Hajime sighs and gently nudges the hollow below his hairline.
“Changed your mind?”
Tooru doesn’t say anything. Great. Hajime was almost there, getting him to calm down, and now this. “Okay. Got it. I guess you’re not talking to me at all anymore. I honestly don’t get you, who messed up your head?”
He pulls his fingers back, and Tooru makes a noise. It’s dark and raw, echoing from deep within his chest, and it’s unlike anything Hajime knows from him. “Hey, what is it? Still losing your shit?”
Tooru doesn’t answer, making Hajime frown, and this is really testing his patience now. Tooru usually shoots back a witty reply after a comment like that. He seemed fine just a moment ago, what went wrong? A new silence worms its pale way into the space between them and Hajime refuses to let it spread. “Come on now, I’m sure they’ll take you in. There’s no reason not to-“
“I’m not a good person.”
Hajime’s heart jumps hard in his chest. “What?”
Tooru doesn’t move, but his body curls into itself more tightly, like an animal hiding from the world. “I don’t deserve you. Not as a friend, not – not as anything. I should deal with this on my own, I shouldn’t depend on you. But you’re always here, you’re just staying and I don’t know why, so it’s kind of your fault, too.” He laughs. There’s no happiness in it, and when Hajime tries to turn him around, Tooru pulls his shoulder out of Hajime’s grip.
“Don’t. You’ve done enough. Seriously, you’re gonna make me think that,” Tooru laughs again, words coming out as a choked sob, “that you’re not just doing this because we’re friends.”
There’s a sting between his ribs, just below where his heart beats far too quickly. Of all people, he’s fallen in love with this one. “Tooru. Hey.” Hajime lifts a hand and rests it on Tooru’s back. God, has his spine always been that noticeable? He’s thin, Hajime thinks. Paying for success with flesh and bones. “What the hell do you even mean? Of course we’re friends,” liar, when did he get so good at this, “and fuck you if you think you’re a burden or something-“
“I’m sorry. I tried really hard, but you’re just – you’re you, and you’ve always been there and you refuse to go away, so what else was supposed to happen? I didn’t ask to feel like this, I didn’t want to ruin everything.”
Somehow, Hajime doesn’t think that this is about volleyball anymore.
He feels a shiver rip through Tooru’s body. It’s a soft thing, quiet and thrilling like an argentine echo of moonlight on water, and it follows the curve of Tooru’s bowed neck down to where Hajime’s hand shields his spine. Is he – oh.
He’s crying.
“I don’t know anymore,” Tooru says, and oh, his voice breaks, cracks. “It’s all or nothing, and I don’t know if I can do this. I just – God, I can try so hard, but in the end it’s for nothing. I just fuck up again. But this time, it’s – I’ll fuck up the team, and you, I’ll ruin you and us but there won’t be an us anymore after this, because of me, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that to you. I swore that it would be anyone but you. Because you’re my friend and I can’t… feel like that for you.“
Tooru breathes, and then he’s choking on a sob. Hajime feels his own body move with Tooru’s whispered words, as if Tooru sings them into his veins, masqueraded with a cry into his crossed arms.
“If I fuck this up, too, it’s over. And I can’t do that.”
“Ruin what?” Hajime doesn’t know how the words come out. His tongue moves, his mouth opens, but he can barely hear his own voice.
“What we are. Friends.” Tooru’s breath hitches, and a sob comes out of his throat, a few words with it. “I tried not to feel like that for you. I swear. But you’re by my side and you don’t hate me no matter what I do, you don’t even know that I lo-“
“Don’t say it.”
“What?” Tooru licks his lips, staring at Hajime with eyes wide and wet from tears.
And Hajime smiles. Fucking hell, they’re so stupid.
Suddenly he knows what to do. The thought spreads inside his mind, bright, warm. It’s easy. His blood sings in his veins.
Hajime exhales, slow. “Look at me. Tooru. Tooru, please.” His voice has never been so soft, and neither has his heart. “Hey. Trust me.”
It’s strange to see tears glint on Tooru’s cheeks and lips when he lifts his head and looks at Hajime. “I don’t want your pity. I said I can deal with this.” He rubs an arm over his face, sniffing loudly. “Just get it over with. Tell me that I’m disg-“
“No. I won’t.”
Tooru flings the blanket away. “You don’t fucking understand!” His jaw his a hard line, teeth gritting like ivory in the dim light. He’s hurting and his mouth is bitten red, a flame against bloodless skin, and Hajime wants to drown his sadness with his mouth and a heart that’s belonged to Tooru for not long enough. “You don’t know anything,” Tooru says, and his crying burns in Hajime’s chest.
This is so much like them that Hajime almost laughs at the irony. Years, it took them years, and here they are, ruined and strange from bone to soul and woven together, somehow, with a string of stars that Hajime feels with every beat of his hopelessly lost heart.
“I think I understand,” he says, and, “Tooru, listen.” It’s strange, because Hajime’s the loud one, the one who’s flooding their friendship with honesty and emotional outbreaks, but Tooru is crying and sobbing so hard, wild and angry-
Tooru grabs Hajime’s shirt, hauling him close, their foreheads almost smashing together. “Just say it already! Tell me that I have to stop, tell me to fuck off, anything, I can’t – I can’t stop if you don’t say that you hate this. You…” He chokes on a sob, his eyes widening as if he can’t breathe. “Why don’t you – I’m so sorry for lov-“
Hajime reaches to hold his cheek and kisses his forehead.
“I don’t want to hear it until tomorrow.” His lips touch Tooru’s temple, the tip of his nose. “If I’m any good at guessing, you swore something to yourself, right? And if this is any part of it, I don’t wanna know. Not until you’re on that team.”
Tooru is silent. The gold of his eyes has gone dark and shines as tears stream down his face. Hajime isn’t sure if he understands, but he’s going to. He will be fine. Things will be okay, somehow, and damn him to hell if he won’t fix this and everything they were and are.
“Tomorrow,” Hajime says and presses their foreheads together. Tooru’s breath hitches against his lips. His eyes flicker, something lighting up inside. He’s beautiful. Hajime reaches out, touching as gently as if he could break him apart, his thumb catching at the red edge of Tooru’s lower lip.
“You’re going to that training, and you’re gonna get into that team.”
“Hajime,” Tooru murmurs.
God, he’s everything he never knew he’d love one day.
Hajime swallows his fear until he can taste courage on the tip of his tongue. Finally, he thinks. It’s about time. His mouth grazes Tooru’s temple, and Hajime kisses the high of his cheekbone with trembling lips.
“When you’re in that team, you can tell me what you wanted to say. That’s a promise you can give me right now.”
Tooru grabs his shirt and hugs him. It’s tight enough for Hajime to gasp for air, hands curling around the arch of Tooru’s ivory-sharp spine, his lips in Tooru’s hair that smells like sweat and salt and mint.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Hajime feels tears sink into his shirt where Tooru cries the words into his shoulder, soft and vulnerable and with a smile on his tired lips. “And you better listen to my words.”
Hajime lets himself fall back. He doesn’t care that Tooru tumbles on top of him, he doesn’t care that the alarm clock on the nightstand speaks a taunting 3 a.m. All that matters is Tooru almost suffocating him, whispering stupid things about best friends and I wish I would have, until Hajime says “go to bed or I won’t come see the training with you.”
He doesn’t fall asleep for a long time. Tooru clings to him with fingers that wear nails full of bite marks, and he shouldn’t be pretty with red-rimmed eyes and traces of tears on his cheeks. He still is, that idiot.
Hajime somehow switches the lamp on the nightstand out and stares into the darkness.
Tomorrow, he thinks. Enough.
The gym is way more crowded than Hajime expected. He can easily find a seat, but still, it’s strange to have so many people around to watch Tooru try out for a place on the national team. My best friend, Hajime thinks and bites his lip, sliding around in his seat. Maybe more than that in about an hour. Fuck. He’s nervous.
At least the gym is closed to the general public, so everyone who’s here has to have some kind of relation to one of the players, the coach or the ones who try out for a place in the national team, and all those spectators are rooting for their favourite. Well, in one way or another. Hajime isn’t shouting down to the court like some other people a few rows below him. Embarrassing, he thinks and leans forward, propping his head up on his hand after his elbow’s find a comfortable rest on the seat in front of him.
Breakfast with Tooru had been quiet this morning, and Tooru’s only few words had been in the car in front of the gym. “Here’s your pass to get in,” he’d said and pressed a sheet of paper into Hajime’s hands.
“Good luck. Not that you’ll need it.”
Tooru’s smile had been tiny, but there. “I know. Just watch me.”
Then he’d leant in for a kiss to Hajime’s cheek, faint as a touch of breath, and left to run for the gym’s side entrance.
Hajime isn’t sure whether the blush on his cheeks is gone yet, even minutes later, but it’s not like anyone can see. His skin burns where Tooru’s mouth grazed it. It’s going to be okay.
The potential new players are gathered on the sidelines of the court, and two men are talking to them. One of them is the coach of the national team, black jacket zipped up all the way, his face stern. Hajime swallows. He’s seen that man on TV, shouting orders at his players as they battled and fought on an international level. It’s almost surreal to be in the same hall as him. The test players are listening to him as he explains something, hands behind his back, and his aura has to be truly intimidating up close if he’s impressive on a screen already.
Hajime’s eyes wander a few meters further, and his heart flutters.
Tooru is at the far outside of the group. His eyes are closed. He’s listening to every word, Hajime can tell by the way his head is tilted towards the coach, but there’s something off about him. When Hajime realizes what it is, he sinks deeper into his seat. Shit, he thinks, and his cheeks heat up into flames all over again.
Both of Tooru’s hands are wrapped around his neck. His thumbs are massaging his spine, from the collar of his shirt gently tracing his vertebrae up to where his hair begins. Hajime clenches his fists. Idiot, idiot, he knows exactly that Hajime’s watching, and even if this helps to calm Tooru’s nervousness, Hajime wants to punch him a little bit. With his mouth.
Softly, while holding his hand.
Goddamnit.
The group suddenly shouts, and Hajime’s head whips over to the coach. The man has stopped talking. He nods at the players once more and moves to sit on the bench. It’s starting. Hajime bites at the nail of his thumb and leans forward.
The players head for the court, spreading out for a practice game with each other. The actual team isn’t here yet, but this is way more interesting. Hajime suppresses the urge to jump down onto the court and shake the coach’s shoulders. There’s no need for a practice game, there’s someone down there who just belongs into the team-
Tooru’s the last to take his position. One of his hands still rests on his neck. Then Tooru stands motionless, eyes wide open. He lets go of his neck and brushes his thumb against his lower lip. Damn him, idiot, and that’s when Hajime knows that he’s hopelessly, most definitely-
The referee whistles. Hajime clenches his fists and holds his breath.
Tooru’s hands fall into a receiving position.
The game begins.
Hajime remembers the last time they’d lost together. His fists uncurl, hands moving to squeeze the cold railing so hard that his knuckles go pale.
In the end, Hajime shouts Tooru’s name across the entire court. It doesn’t matter if he’s embarrassing himself, and he couldn’t care less about the desperation and horror that slowly dawn on the older players’ faces as they realize what they’re dealing with.
Tooru doesn’t play – he wages war.
He brings out the spiker’s abilities, calls the right signals, accommodates perfectly to this new team and their different speeds, strengths, styles. Within just one game, he rises from a simple follower to a soldier, and by the end of the third match, his toss commands the team like an obedient army. His hair is dark with sweat, shirt riding up his stomach because the ones they got for practice don’t fit his tall frame right, and he’s never looked more breathtaking than in this moment.
The third game ends. Seven points account to Tooru’s serves. His team has won every time, with only one third set being played. The other players stare at him in silence when the referee whistles.
Hajime doesn’t know when he stood up from his seat, but his fingers are no longer in fists, they’re up in the air and his lungs are screaming when the coach calls Tooru aside and sends him off the court.
When Tooru heads to the exit, he looks up at Hajime. His grin is unmistakable.
Hajime runs. He moves past a group of people that stares at him like he’s crazy, and he almost falls on his face on the way down the stands and towards the exit. Tomorrow is today, the game’s done, Tooru is-
He’s standing outside, his hair ruined and sweaty and his face bright in the early morning sun.
“You did it, you fucking-“ Hajime reaches, his arms are around Tooru’s waist, he’s laughing and grinning like an idiot and wants to lift Tooru up.
Tooru kisses him.
It’s a good thing that Hajime hasn’t pulled him into the air yet. He would have dropped Tooru right there and then. Hajime blinks, stares. The mouth against his own is warm and salty. That’s a kiss. Tooru is – he has. Oh.
Hajime’s heart is still thrumming when Tooru leans back and smiles at him. “You said tomorrow.”
“But, uhm.” What are words? “You just. You didn’t’ say anything.”
And there it is, that tiny smug grin curling around Tooru’s lips like the light does along the horizon. “Do I have to?”
No, he doesn’t, Hajime decides as his cheeks take the colour of the jersey that Tooru will soon be wearing. Words are a waste of time and breath, as Tooru gently teaches him while they’re standing in front of the sports hall and Hajime listens to the soft whisper of Tooru’s lips.