Chapter Text
Iwaizumi lived in a world of silence.
Or rather, due to his profound hearing loss, the world was much quieter for him than it was for most other people. That may have seemed sad to some people, but Iwaizumi, at the ripe old age of seven, thought those people were stupid. Hearing was terrible. The moulds of his hearing aids always hurt his ears when he kept them in for too long, and when he did wear them, everything was so loud, from the clicking of keyboards on the computers at school, to the jumble of voices when everyone in a room seemed to be talking all at the same time.
Most days, Iwaizumi chose to forget his hearing aids, lose them at home, or simply refuse to wear them. At home, there was no need for them; his parents also had hearing loss, so they tended to communicate through sign language, though they did speak aloud and encouraged him to do the same to practice lip reading. Neither of them wore hearing aids. His parents got by just fine, and so would he.
He only wished the rest of the world could understand that.
---
The first time he went to watch a volleyball match with his parents, the roar of the crowd was overwhelming, even without his hearing aids.
It wasn’t something he’d ever been interested in before. He hadn’t played or watched a match, hadn’t even held a volleyball. He was pretty sure he’d had the chance to play it at school once, but he’d happily chosen football instead. Sitting at this match, thoughts of other sports couldn’t have been further from his mind.
Iwaizumi wasn’t used to understanding what was happening through hearing, but there, it was obvious. From the second the ball left the server’s hands, there was nothing – there was a hush over the crowd, the movement of mouths ceasing for those few moments that the ball was in the air. Then the ball hit the ground on the other team’s side, and the room came alive with noise once more.
Points flew by quicker than he could have imagined. There was something transfixing about the way the ball was kept in the air by the fastest touches, the way the teams worked together to keep it alive. There was power in each jump, each spike, and a trust between those spikers and their setter, their defenders, that transcended words.
Before he knew it, the ball was hitting the ground to the loudest cheer yet, and the players were leaving the court. Pulling on his mother’s arm, he caught her attention and began to sign. Did they win or something?
His mother laughed, ruffling his hair. No, silly. That was just the first set. There’s at least two more.
Iwaizumi was astounded. If that was the noise the crowd made after their team won a single set, what would it sound like if they won the entire match? He wanted to know. As the players regained their breath and the captains and coaches talked them through their tactics, he turned to his mother again. I want to play volleyball. More than knowing what it sounded like, he wanted to know what it felt like to make the crowd roar like that, to know that it was because of him.
He spent the rest of the match with eyes darting between the match and the audience, taking in every second, every muffled sound.
---
That was what led to his first session at the Little Falcons Volleyball club. Unlike his school, this wasn’t a specialist club, so the other children would most likely be able to hear everything. As usual, he’d refused to wear his hearing aids, and he refused to let himself regret it, even as he struggled to lip-read the instructions of the coaches from across the gym. Still, it wasn’t that hard to watch the other kids around him and copy whatever they were doing.
While they were stretching, a hand came waving in front of his face. It took all of his willpower not to growl at the Hand Waver when he turned to look at him. There were so many ways to get his attention that didn’t involve blocking his entire line of sight. “What?” he said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. Not growling was kind enough in Iwaizumi’s opinion.
“I was talking to you. You looked confused, and I’ve not seen you before. I’m–” Iwaizumi was sure he said his name there, but names weren’t always easy to catch with lip reading alone. Not that he needed a name for him; The Hand Waver worked just fine.
However, not wearing his hearing aids did mean one thing: nobody was going to know about his hearing loss. At least, not unless he told them. They had to find out at some point, and maybe if this boy knew, he would leave him alone so they could play. “I didn’t hear you. My ears work different to yours. Face me if you want me to know what you’re saying.”
The Hand Waver’s mouth dropped open stupidly, and he could see him say, “Oh,” as the realisation began to dawn on him. However, instead of move away, his brow scrunched in concentration for a moment before he took Iwaizumi by surprise. Carefully, he raised his hand to his forehead, index finger and thumb pressed together, then turned his hand slightly and brought it down again. Sorry, it said, in the language Iwaizumi understood better than any voice or movement of lips. When he spoke again, he did so clearly and directly towards Iwaizumi. “Did I do it right? I hope I did.”
“Where did you learn that?” Iwaizumi couldn’t decide whether to be impressed or more annoyed. A part of him wanted to keep this to himself, because it wasn’t fair that this boy should be able to hear and sign. Fortunately for the other boy, the curious side of him won. “It was right.”
“We learn a sign every week at school. The important ones, and signs for finger spellings.” He raised his hands and produced a few signs in quick succession. “I know thank you, sorry, my name is, help…”
As annoying as it was that the Hand Waver had waved in his face, maybe he’d judged him too soon. He’d never considered someone who could hear normally might be interested in learning to sign even if they didn’t need to, and the Hand Waver seemed almost over-enthusiastic. “What’s your name?”
“Oh! Its…” his face turned serious again. My name is Oikawa Tooru. What’s your name?
It was slow and a little sloppy, especially where he was trying to sign his whole name out, but it was understandable all the same. Oikawa Tooru. He wondered whether Oikawa would be able to decipher his own name. He wasn’t sure he would, but he knew he wanted to let him try. Iwaizumi Hajime, he signed slowly, deliberately, giving him as much chance as possible.
“Iwaizumi…Hajime?” He grinned at Iwaizumi’s enthusiastic nodding. At first, it seemed sweet and filled with joy, but it soon turned into a challenge. “Okay. I think I’ll call you Iwa-chan!”
“Then I’ll call you idiot.” He signed the words alongside his speech because he could, because he wanted Oikawa to learn the sign for ‘idiot,’ and know it was meant for him.
By the indignant look on Oikawa’s face, he was just about to start complaining when his attention was taken away from Iwaizumi and directed at the coaches, who were giving more instructions. Immediately, Oikawa was grabbing him by the hand, pulling him closer. Iwaizumi watched his face as he did. He missed the beginning of the explanation of what they were about to do, but it didn’t matter. Oikawa would fill him in if it was important. He was sure of it.
---
“Wow, Iwa-chan’s room is so big!”
As it turned out, Oikawa didn’t actually live very far away from Iwaizumi. After spending a few weeks attached at the hip at volleyball, Iwaizumi asked his parents if Oikawa could come over for a play date after practice. If he’d realised it was so close, he wouldn’t have bothered – he would have knocked on the door and asked if Oikawa could come and play. That was likely what he’d be doing the next day, and the one after that, and the one after that. As long as Oikawa wanted to come, he would come knocking.
Because, as much as Iwaizumi hated to admit it, he really, really liked Oikawa. He liked the way he chose him as his partner every week, even though he was friends with everyone. He liked the way he was absolutely terrible at volleyball, but made up for it by putting in more effort than anyone else in the club.
Not that he would ever tell Oikawa those things, because more than any of that, Oikawa Tooru was insufferable.
He was wandering around Iwaizumi’s room, picking up anything he could find, making some comment about it, then putting it back in an entirely different place. Iwaizumi ignored him, throwing himself onto his bean bag and turning on his Gameboy. His parents had bought him Pokémon Crystal for his birthday, and he’d heard there was supposed to be a Pokémon that was like Godzilla. Though he hadn’t managed to find it yet, he did have a Typhlosion, which had fire exploding out of its back, and that was almost as good.
Suddenly, his Gameboy was plucked out of his hands. “Oi!”
He looked up to see Oikawa squinting at his screen. Then he looked directly at him, said, “You chose the wrong starter,” then dropped the Gameboy on Iwaizumi lap to continue his exploration.
Iwaizumi grumbled, but otherwise accepted that some people would have different opinions to him, and sometimes, those opinions would be wrong. He played his game and waited for Oikawa to get bored.
It wasn’t long before there was a hand waving in his face yet again. Why did he keep doing that? He snapped at it with his teeth, and it disappeared from his sight, quickly replaced with Oikawa’s face. “What are these?” he asked, holding a case about the size of his fist in his hands.
Panic shot through Iwaizumi immediately, and he lunged towards Oikawa, grabbing at the case. “Give it–”
Oikawa held it out of his reach, made even more curious by Iwaizumi’s reaction. He opened it up to peek inside. “Oh,” Iwaizumi saw him say as he looked down at the contents, then up at Iwaizumi’s empty ears. “Are they–”
“I’m not wearing them,” Iwaizumi snapped, reaching for the case once more and succeeding this time. He glared down at it like it had personally offended him. “I don’t like them, so I’m not wearing them.”
He could feel himself getting defensive, but any moment, Oikawa was going to realise that Iwaizumi was actively choosing not to hear. Then, there would be questions, or judgement, or confusion, and Iwaizumi would remember why most of the people he was friends with all had hearing loss, too–
A hand. In his face. He dropped the box. “Stop doing that!”
Oikawa’s eyes lit up. “I know that one,” he said, copying the sign for stop. Then, his face turned to something sadder. “Are you annoyed at me? I don’t really care if you’re wearing your hearing aids or not, as long as you still want to play with me.” Sorry, he signed after a moment’s thought, though Iwaizumi didn’t think he knew what he was apologising for.
At his words of acceptance, Iwaizumi felt himself relax just slightly, enough to wave his own hand in front of Oikawa’s face. The other boy jerked away as if by instinct, then looked back towards Iwaizumi. “Annoying, right?” Iwaizumi asked. Idiot.
Immediately, Oikawa recognised the sign, and Iwaizumi could see him warring with himself as to whether to be offended or apologetic. “How should I get your attention then?”
“Tap me, or stand somewhere I can see you that’s not directly in front of my face.” He hated talking about this. Pushing himself up off the beanbag, he went and grabbed his bug hunting nets. “Let’s go and do something fun.”
They spent hours outside. He was pretty sure Oikawa enjoyed it after he got over his initial fear of tiny legs and eyes and what if it poisons me, Iwa-chan!? and it can’t poison you, Idiotkawa, they don’t have venom. Worry about it biting you instead. Oikawa wouldn’t touch them after that, but he was very good at sneaking up on them and catching them in his net, and very enthusiastic every time Iwaizumi tried to teach him a sign for a different bug. As they wandered round the forest, Iwaizumi looked over at Oikawa periodically to see him signing beetle, butterfly, or grasshopper for the fiftieth time that day. Something about it made Iwaizumi feel warm.
By the end of the day, both boys were falling asleep on the sofa, stomachs full of food and head knocking together as they dosed. When Oikawa’s dad came to get him, tears sprung into Oikawa’s eyes. “I want to stay with Iwa-chan,” he said to his dad, though he looked at Iwaizumi as he spoke.
Iwaizumi looked at Oikawa, hesitating. He considered doubling down and turning to his parents to plead their case, but he decided to be the grown up in this situation. “It’s okay, Oikawa. We can play again tomorrow.” He looked up at Oikawa’s father, then to his own parents. Right?
To his surprise, they were already looking at Oikawa’s dad, saying something that Iwaizumi couldn’t quite work out at this angle. Oikawa’s hand latched onto his arm, and when he looked over, his eyes were ping ponging between the adults. Giving up on following the conversation, Iwaizumi decided to watch Oikawa’s face instead. It soon turned from hopeful to victorious.
“I can stay tonight, Iwa-chan! Your parents said!”
Iwaizumi looked to them for confirmation, and when they nodded encouragingly at him, he turned back to Oikawa, letting himself smile.
With the promise from Oikawa to be come home in the morning in time for his piano lesson – he had one every Sunday, along with drama on Wednesday evenings and their volleyball on Saturdays – Oikawa’s father left them for the night. Iwaizumi found Oikawa some pyjamas he could borrow, and his parents found him a toothbrush and set up a futon for him to sleep on.
Before they went to sleep, Iwaizumi’s parents let them stay up and watch a movie. Oikawa insisted on some American movie about aliens. Iwaizumi usually preferred Japanese movies, but it was nice to know that they both had to read the subtitles to understand what was happening, and Oikawa was fixated on the screen, except from to tell Iwaizumi how amazing it was.
When they climbed into bed, the light had been off for about five minutes before Oikawa was pulling at his blankets, trying to get his attention. “What?” He could just about make out Oikawa’s lips moving, but he had no chance of working out what he was actually saying. “I can’t understand you, idiot.”
Oikawa seemed to take the hint, and quickly they were being blinded by Iwaizumi’s bedside lamp. Once their eyes had adjusted, Oikawa signed a single word. Scared. His eyes were wide, and Iwaizumi was sure they weren’t far from tearing up. He was curled in a little ball on top of his futon.
“Scared of what? There’s nothing scary here.”
There was something meek about Oikawa, sat on the floor, eyes downcast, that felt wrong to Iwaizumi. He was always so confident, so sure of himself. “I don’t like sleeping away from home. It’s really big in here. My room is smaller. There’s less places for monsters to hide.”
As ridiculous as this was – Oikawa was the one who said he wanted to stay! – he knew he had to solve the problem immediately. “Hey, come up here,” he said, reaching out his hand. Oikawa took it, and when he climbed up onto the bed, he didn’t let it go. “I’ll protect you. Nothing can get you if you’re up here with me.”
He motioned for Oikawa to turn the lights off, lying back down properly. Oikawa didn’t do it straight away, instead looking at Iwaizumi like he hung the moon. “Thanks, Iwa-chan,” he said, then quickly moved to turn out the lights. Oikawa didn’t sign it, but Iwaizumi suspected that was more to do with him not wanting to let go of his hand, which was still held tightly in his grasp, than not wanting to sign.
After that slight hiccup, Oikawa seemed to fall asleep quickly, his breathing evening out before Iwaizumi’s eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness once more. It wasn’t long before his own eyelids were drooping shut, and he fell into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.
---
“What’s wrong, Iwa-chan?”
They’d been playing out on the street one day after volleyball, practicing their passing, when Oikawa caught the ball in his hands, bringing Iwaizumi’s attention to his face, and asked him the question. He’d been trying to hide it since they’d got home, but something happened at volleyball that had been bugging him ever since.
All of the other children at their club knew by then that Iwaizumi had hearing loss. For the most part, he’d simply told them, although some had to find out when they shouted for him to look out for a stray ball, or to communicate to him during a point in a game, and he seemingly completely ignored him. For the most part, they hadn’t treated him any differently to anyone else, though none were quite as accepting or willing to learn and understand as Oikawa was.
Still, there was always an outlier, and that outlier had come in the form of a new kid joining the team – Kuroki Satoshi. He was a little older than Iwaizumi and Oikawa, around nine or ten, and he was taller than anyone else. Iwaizumi had immediately admired that, though he tried not to let it show.
However, as soon as he’d opened his mouth, it had become apparent that Kuroki wasn’t someone he wanted to spend much time around. Iwaizumi had been in the middle of explaining to him how they liked to switch positions during little practice matches when Kuroki interrupted him in the middle of a sentence. “Why do you sound like that?”
Iwaizumi hadn’t understood what he’d meant. He could hear himself a little bit whenever he spoke, and had also heard his voice through his hearing aids before, and he’d never noticed a difference between how he sounded and how anyone else did. “What do you mean?”
The boy had smirked like something was funny. Iwaizumi hadn’t been laughing. “You know, your voice sounds all weird. Is there something wrong with you or something?”
Frankly, Iwaizumi still thought it was impressive of himself that he hadn’t immediately kicked this boy in the shins, because he’d sure as hell wanted to. Before he had a chance to reply, Oikawa had come skipping over, signing, Come play, and grabbing Iwaizumi by the arm to pull him away.
He looked over at Kuroki once again, who was watching Oikawa’s hands. Oikawa noticed him watching too, and added for his benefit, “We’re going to start now, so lets go.”
Understanding had crept onto the boy’s face. “Yeah, okay.” Then, he’d turned away without another word.
There wasn’t anything particularly unkind about his response after Oikawa walked over, but Iwaizumi had been left with a sense of unease as practice went on. Did his voice sound weird? Nobody had ever mentioned it before, but he hadn’t really spent too much time around other children who didn’t have hearing loss other than Oikawa. Maybe he did sound strange.
Unfortunately, he was then put into a group that was simultaneously with Kuroki and nowhere near Oikawa. They’d been practicing serves, and directly after their first one, someone had grabbed him by the wrist from behind, making him jump out of his skin. When he turned, he’d been unsurprised to find that it was Kuroki’s fingers closed around his arm. “Why are you deaf?”
Iwaizumi had bristled at the question. It was none of his business, and he didn’t intend to answer. A couple of the other children looked their way curiously, but didn’t intervene.
He pulled his wrist away and tried to escape the conversation, but Kuorki wasn’t done. “Bang!” he had shouted, right near Iwaizumi’s ear. “Could you hear that?”
He couldn’t, but he wasn’t about to tell him that. “I could hear that you’re an idiot,” he said, patience long gone.
“Huh,” Kuroki replied, not sensing the sarcasm. “What if I…” the rest of what he was saying was lost on Iwaizumi, as the idiot had put his hand directly in front of his mouth.
At that point, one of the other boys, Haru, pulled Kuroki away. They seemed to be close, and when Haru looked back at him, he said, “Sorry about him,” and Iwaizumi was left to their training drill in peace.
After that, Iwaizumi had found it much harder to concentrate on what his was doing. While Kuroki left him alone for the rest of the session, his ridiculous questions and presence nearby left Iwaizumi feeling on edge. It was the first time he’d ever wanted volleyball to be over so he could go home. He’d looked across the gym to where he knew Oikawa was training with his own group, and saw the other boy was already looking back at him, his expression unreadable at a distance. Are you okay?
Iwaizumi didn’t bother with a properly signed reply, just gave him a thumbs up and returned his attention to the court.
Of course, Iwaizumi should have guessed he wouldn’t be able to hide his thoughts from Oikawa. He’d felt his eyes watching him closely ever since that thumbs up. I’m fine. He walked over to Oikawa to try to take the ball out of his hands, but Oikawa lifted it easily out of reach.
“You’ve been really quiet since we got in the car.”
He looked Oikawa in the eyes. They were wide, worried, and Iwaizumi dropped his gaze. While he didn’t really want to have this conversation, there wasn’t anybody else he trusted to ask the question to. “Do I sound weird when I talk?”
Weird? No! Oikawa signed emphatically, dropping the ball and allowing it to roll down the path. He didn’t sign anything more, and Iwaizumi grew impatient, looking back at his face. “You sound like you.”
“But does that sound different to other people? There must be something, otherwise Kuroki wouldn’t have said anything.”
Oikawa looked ready to start a fight. “What did he say to you? I’ll never set the ball to him again if he was mean to Iwa-chan–”
Please, Oikawa. He needed to know. “Just answer the question.”
Iwaizumi watched as Oikawa’s cheeks puffed out in annoyance, but he sighed after a minute. “Iwa-chan sounds different, but it’s a good-different. I like the way he sounds. It’s not Iwa-chan’s fault if stupid people don’t like his voice.”
He thought about that for a moment. It was obvious, when Oikawa put it like that. Kuroki’s questions were all pretty stupid, and Iwaizumi only had enough room for one stupid kid in his life. “You’re right. I don’t care what he thinks.” Then, he grinned. “At least he didn’t wave his hand in my face like some other idiot I might know.” He pushed his own hand up into Oikawa’s face, then into his hair, messing it up as much as he could before Oikawa pushed him off.
“Iwa-chan,” he could just about make out from his lips as he squirmed. Not fair! Once he’d escaped, he looked at Iwaizumi, annoyed. “That was months ago, and I didn’t know! Let it go already.”
Iwaizumi just laughed, feeling so much lighter than he had since that conversation. Who cared what some random kid thought of his voice? He had the best, most annoying idiot in the world on his side. That was all he needed.