Archive of Our Own ^beta

“How long are you going to be in here?”

Tooru tilts his head backwards to see Koushi standing in the entry way. His eyes drop down to his feet, watching him move the stardust aside to bring himself closer to Tooru, enough so that he can see what he’s up to. Well, he knows what he’s up to, but that doesn’t stop him from looking anyway. Tooru smiles and grabs a handful of stardust, playfully tossing it towards Koushi and watching it twinkle across his face and neck, most of it melting into his starlight hair and the rest brushing off of his skin. “I’m having fun, what’s your hurry?”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Koushi’s eyes tighten, glaring at how casual Tooru is about the rules he’s not yet broken, but is getting close.

Tooru reaches for a small sphere, something that looks almost like a snow globe, palming it into his hands before he channels energy into it and expands it right before their eyes. Koushi watches a star filled orb grow into a looking glass. “Where are we?” he asks, because Tooru has done this before.

“We’re in America. Land of the free. Or of dreams. That’s what they like to call it,” Tooru snorts. “But, it’s interesting to look at the differences between one land versus the other, and they’re just across some imaginary border. Or an ocean. It’s such a small distance, and yet you get drastic changes. In appearance, the clothing, the culture. Koushi, look!” Tooru beckons another floating orb into his palm and expands it, blowing it up to the same size as the first one and pointing. “Do you see that? Two people, on either side of the same land and they’re entirely different.”

Koushi can’t help but smile when he sees Tooru light up the way he does over this fascination. For as long as he can remember, Tooru has loved watching them. These humans, that are so flawed and clueless about so many things. He loves studying what they study, from psychology to history, to linguistics and religion. He laughs at what they’re wrong about, finding out where they went wrong and how the truth became distorted. The things they’ve done to benefit their kind, or destroy it.

Humans are chaotic, simple creatures, with aspirations to be righteous and complex, and Tooru loves watching them scramble about like ants under a magnifying glass. Everyone around him had a small fascination, until they saw the ugly sides of humankind. All the dark things they would do, the lengths they would go to for selfish, poorly justified reasons. But Tooru thought it to be engaging, watching them fall over themselves to be on top, to be right, to be remembered.

“They always chase after the same clock, but none of them have the same amount of time as another.” Tooru collapses America and tosses it into the air, watching it mix and mingle with the millions of other orbs around the room. He brushes a good amount of stardust from his shoulder and commands another one to come into his hands. “I wonder what it’s like for them. Are they always aware that they’ll die? Do they live each day racing to get things done because they know they’ll die?”

“You’ve been alive for many centuries, Tooru,” Koushi sighs. “What more is there to know about a sole planet? Why do you want to know?”

“Death.” Tooru reaches up above his head to reach for Saturn, softly dragging the pad of his finger across the rings. “We understand the definition, not the concept. We’ll never know what it’s like to die.”

“I guess we’ll never know what living is like either, hm?”

Koushi pulls Saturn from Tooru’s fingers and places it back in it’s spot. “Now c’mon. You can come back to your humans after we finish with the next constellation arrangement.”

“You know, Koushi,” Tooru pushes up from his seat and follows Koushi out of the miniaturized representation of the Milky Way and back into the open, where all the other galaxies and extent of the expanding cosmos floats around them, “humans managed to discover so much about space right from their own soil. I wonder what any of them would say if they knew we were the ones who controlled it all?”

“Why don’t you ask Kenma?” Koushi looks back at Tooru and snaps his fingers, a star appearing into the palm of his hand. “We all were born from stardust, but not before we lived a life chained to gravity. Kenma was human before he came here.”

Tooru frowns and stands opposite of Koushi. “I would have assumed Tobio might have been the human, for as insufferable as he can be.”

“I thought you liked humans?”

“I’m interested in them,” Tooru agrees, to a point, “but they’re all selfish, disgusting little mongrels. Some just happen to be more tolerable than others. Like Kenma.”

Koushi smiles at Tooru’s obstinance, and returns back to his new constellation. “A God of Chaos is really a suitable title for you,” he hums as Tooru helps him align two stars side by side. “It’s funny though, you’re always up here, with me.”

“It gets old, when you sit around the materialized destruction born from millenniums of the same thing across the universe. I think I could tell you how many broken ships—both sea and air—I have floating about, and what planets they’re all from. Symbols of peace spoiled into symbols of war put up like a hall of fame? It’s nice. Just, boring. I want something new.”

Tooru pushes the last star into Koushi’s palm and watches him twirl his hands around the space holding them together, before he expands it studying it, deciding what he likes and doesn’t like about it. There’s a process to this whole constellation arrangement thing. Koushi tried to explain it to Tooru once, but some parts were just things he did, not really knowing why.

“And these humans, provide you with something new?”

“Did you know that they create fictional beings and try to kill them? On a weekly basis! They’re called comics!” Tooru’s eyes light up, fingers wiggling in empty air while Koushi puts the finishing touches on his work. “An entire world that sells propaganda about it, dreams about it, prays for it. World Peace. And yet, they only receive excitement when something chaotic is happening. They create more destruction in their attempts at peace. It’s glorious to watch them. It’s a planet just for me, Koushi. Maybe I do love humans.”

“Don’t lie to yourself. You love feeding off of their misery,” Koushi wrinkles his nose. “Tooru, keep your curiosity under wraps, would you?”

“I wouldn’t be the God I am if I kept my curiosity contained.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know.” Tooru just smiles at him, and Koushi doesn’t say anything more as he claps the constellation into completion, but they both know what he means in detail.

Because Tooru is drawn to chaos, misery, madness. He’s drawn to the disgusting parts of things that no one wants to face, and his curiosity only grows. What he knows of humans is everything he’s observed inside of this space, a place that both exists and doesn’t, and it’s beginning to bore him. He wants more.

Koushi knows he can’t stop him, but his gut feeling tells him Tooru will run into trouble if he keeps this up.

Tooru is only concerned with getting as close to these humans as he can.

So for the first time in thousands of years after his discovery of them, he makes his way down to earth.

Tooru loves it. He loves breathing in the air, feeling grass and rubble beneath his feet, water across his skin, leaves in his hair. He’s not sure why he waited so long to come down and see what he’d been missing, but now that he’s here, this is all he wants to do.

But, this isn’t his favorite part.

His favorite part is watching the humans interact up close. From their body language to their verbal communication, the way some of them care about their appearance and others don’t. How riddled they are with social anxiety, and narrow minded when they cross each other, silently judging whether the other is judging them.

Tooru laughs at it all. He can’t help but mess with a couple of them, like making some drop their coffee or their wallets, or making them shove each other in busy places and watching them go from self-righteous peace keepers to violent fist-throwers in a matter of seconds.

It’s nice that no one can see him. Although he does want to interact with them some more, he’s not ready to materialize. Besides, he wants to create a persona that is the perfect human, and he hasn’t quite decided on what look to go for yet.

Tooru makes his way down to the slums of the worst cities to see the thugs in action, the mafias and the gang wars controlled to the areas that the police won’t touch. The gunshots are loud but no one emerges from their homes to take a look, resigned to fear and acceptance that this will never stop, and no one will help. He makes his way to the richest spots of the world, where black market trades are happening behind closed penthouse suites and all of them feel invincible. The gunshots are quiet here, and the clean up crew makes it look like nothing happened, and all of them walk away with the concept that what they’re doing is necessary.

Everyone wants to feel important.

Tooru realized that up above, but it’s even clearer now that he’s here.

Human emotion is fickle, and fragile, and while humankind thinks they are inherently good, Tooru could beg to differ.

“It’s not that they’re all bad,” Kenma says as he thumbs over a dead star in his lap. “Everyone wants the same thing, but they all want to be different. You can’t fully understand them, whether you are one, or whether you watch them.”

“Do you remember anything from your life as a human?” Tooru asks him quietly.

Kenma tilts his head up, eyes wide and flickering with remembrance. “Sakura,” he says. “They appear for one week a year. Looking at them makes it feel like time stops, and that things are okay for just a while. It’s beautiful.”

Tooru holds Kenma’s gaze for a moment or two, no words to be said in response.

“It’s a rarity that you’re ever speechless,” Kenma deadpans.

True. Tooru hardly ever runs out of words. But he can’t think of anything to say, because he’s marveled by the idea that some trees could have such an emotional impact. He wants to see the reactions for himself.

Kenma was right, the trees are gorgeous. And people all around take time to stop and stare, to sit under them, sleep even. It’s a place where Tooru doesn’t feel an inkling of ill will, or negativity projecting outward.

That doesn’t mean he can’t feel it at all. Most of them, bottling up feelings and stuffing them further into the corners of their minds because the gorgeous site in front of them makes them feel like all of it will go away if they don’t think about it.

As though it could actually work.

Tooru watches them all, one by one, in groups, funnel up and down the street. At some point or another, they all looked at a clock—be it a watch or a cellphone—and took off with some place to be.

There it is again. Humans being bound by time.

Tooru remembers watching the hustle and bustle on Wall Street, and how crazy things got with any kind of shift in the stock market. It took Tooru a day or two to figure out how it worked, but once he did, he was right in the mix of it all, smiling as they scrambled around like rabid animals, desperate to make a buck.

Here, time feels slower, and to Tooru, almost at a stand still. But people still have some place to be. Either home, or work, school, anything.

“A comic book would be nice to read right about now,” Tooru sighs, recalling an issue on the world famous Superman that he’d been looking at only a little while ago—three months, in human time.

Tooru’s boredom reaches a point where he has to do something. So when a group of boys walking by complains about how they don’t want to have anywhere to be but money to spend, Tooru blows a nice bill towards them and watches them all scramble beneath the Sakura trees to grab it. They end up ripping it in half and one kid tears his shirt, but the squabble doesn’t last too long, because someone jumps in to stop it, grabbing one kid by his torn shirt and yanking him loose from the rest.

“You guys are pathetic, fighting over damn money! Scram!”

Tooru pouts, watching this gruff looking guy snarl at these kids—Tooru thinks they’re in middle school—and scaring them off. The man then turns to the kid who took the worst of the beatings and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a pack of tissues and pushing it at him.

“Money ain’t worth a fight like that,” he says stiffly.

“Why aren’t you scolding them?!”

“I saved your ass from losing a tooth. Now shut up and hold still.”

Tooru stares at this guy like he’s seeing Koushi’s galaxy room for the first time.

A complete stranger helping another stranger. It’s not something Tooru hasn’t seen before, those rare moments of altruism that make humans seem like they might be worth saving if shit were to ever go wrong in their solar system. It isn’t the fact that he’s randomly stopping to help this bratty kid out.

Tooru can read people. It’s not like mind reading—a power he read about in a comic that apparently a lot of humans want to possess. Mind reading isn’t real, at least the kind that humans want to obtain. Everything that lives thinks in not just words, but images, sounds, feelings. Trying to make verbal sense of a thought as clouded as that doesn’t work simply. Tooru can look at a person and see their intentions. Just like that group of kids. They all were friends until money was put in front of them, and then they all sacked the weakest link.

But staring at this human in front of him, currently lecturing the kid he saved and putting a bandage on his cheek, Tooru is completely perplexed.

He can’t find a stitch of ill will in his body. There was no other reason as to why he pulled that kid from the fight, other than he was worried about his well being. Tooru has seen quite a lot of humans in his months roaming about over their shoulders and such, but he has never run into one like this.

So naturally, Tooru latches onto him, curious as to why he can’t feel any negative presence in any part of him.

He studies his face, seeing the dark hazel eyes, sharp as they cut back and forth, the way he walks, slightly hunched over and a little angry looking, but he stops on his way home to give the rest of his food to a family of stray cats in a nearby alleyway. Tooru twitches, watching him trek his way down the street and back towards a pretty shabby looking apartment. It’s not a complete shit hole, but it isn’t anything luxurious. Maybe cozy is the word Tooru is looking for, but he’s less concerned with the space and more concerned with this guy’s existence.

He didn’t even feed the cats to feel good about himself. He just did it because they looked hungry and he had food. And what’s more, he gave up a pretty decent meal for some cup ramen and a glass of water.

Tooru stares at him, watching him glare into a textbook.

“So he’s a student,” he assesses, leaning over his shoulder to see what he’s reading.

“History major,” Tooru wrinkles his nose. He’s spent enough time picking his way through libraries to know that the history section is one of the most convoluted areas of study. Winners write the stories that get taught down the line, and Tooru could laugh at how people grow up with the wrong kind of information and swear up and down that they know what they’re talking about.

He wonders why then. Why they continue to study if they don’t know what the truth is? How much history has been lost on them, things they’ll never know about, and yet they dedicate their lives to hopefully finding something. Most people can’t even correctly recall what they did the day before. How can they properly record such gaps in time accurately?

Tooru kind of wants to ask him. But materializing in the middle of his living room would be problematic. He might choke on his ramen, or faint, or call the cops and have them tell him he’s crazy because Tooru doesn’t really exist.

He puts off appearing in front of him, and continues to observe him.

It’s not necessary, but Tooru watches the way he sleeps. Light movements and soft breathing. He watches the way he eats—he mostly chews on his right side and always takes a bite too big. Tooru watches the way he takes notes in class. He’s right handed and has chicken scratch for penmanship but he’s diligent about making them the least bit legible.

Tooru learns his name.

Iwaizumi Hajime.

He’s simplistic. He acts impulsively, but not stupidly so, and sticks to his guns without faltering. He’s no sheep, ignoring the masses and what they run to, but he isn’t looking to stand out as some unique, special snowflake like the rest, who try to break free from societal norms.

Tooru could almost call him boring, because there is nothing chaotic about him. But he’s the furthest from it. In a world full of misery, he’s neither for it nor opposed to it. He just exists in it, with no ulterior motives. Tooru watches him give his umbrella up to a middle schooler who walks the same path he does, because she forgot hers and she was already somewhat wet from the rain. He watches him show up forty five minutes late for class because the clerk at his favorite bakery needed help unloading boxes into the back stock room.

Tooru can’t get a grasp on it. He doesn’t feel anything from him but purity. Living day to day without blurring them together. Sure, he got angry, and sad, and he was happy, and he could love, but his overall being is good, and whole.

“Kenma, did you ever meet anyone like that?” Tooru asks about his new discovery that he can’t seem to shake.

“I’m sure I did, just none that I can recall,” Kenma shrugs.

“You’ve had your fun, Tooru. You really need to call it quits. You know we can’t be mingling down there for too long,” Koushi warns him, but as usual, Tooru doesn’t listen. He’s way too invested in figuring out more about this university student that doesn’t seem to fit the profile of every other human he’s come across.

“He’s gorgeous…”

“Shh, he’ll hear you!”

“I think he already did!”

Tooru glances up from his seat along the short wall. He’s sitting here because he’s waiting for Iwaizumi, but that doesn’t stop all of the passersby from taking notice of him. Oikawa decided it was finally time to materialize into a form that people could see, so he drummed up an appearance and here he is.

He’s gorgeous from head to toe. Long and lean with definition, hair a neat mess—when you’re a God, certain rules don’t apply—in a chestnut brown that matches his eyes, and a smile so perfect it knocks people on their ass.

A group of teens are ogling him from a distance, and the second he smiles at them, they’re sent running, too intimidated by his beauty. Tooru knows he looks good, and he purposefully set it up that way, because people notice beautiful people, right? Iwaizumi has to notice him. All these other people have, staring at him for a moment too long, and Tooru swears he saw a few cameras go off.

He doesn’t mind at all. Call it vain, but he wants to look good, and he likes this appearance, so there.

Iwaizumi does show up. A little late, probably because he did another good samaritan deed, but he’s here, walking down the usual path with his headphones in, and Tooru shifts his weight along the wall, eyes gently peering up from the comic between his fingers. Iwaizumi should be looking at him, staring at him, marveled by his appearance.

Nothing.

Iwaizumi doesn’t even notice him, eyes glued to the ground as his fingertips tap against his backpack straps in time with his music.

Tooru stares at him, but still, nothing. Iwaizumi walks right by him as though he hadn’t materialized with some ethereal appearance. Tooru was deemed irresistible. He’d checked himself around the world to make sure it worked, and it worked.

Iwaizumi ignores him, heading to campus without stopping to look back. So Tooru waits for another opportunity to catch his attention, and it takes him a whole day more before he finds out that Iwaizumi actually spends his long breaks on campus, tucked in the corner of the library with some food and his laptop.

“Mind if I join you?”

Iwaizumi finally looks up at him, and Tooru watches his eyes widen just a fraction. Good, Iwaizumi likes his appearance, that much he can tell.

“Uhm… not at all,” Iwaizumi says, and he probably doesn’t realize that he’s borderline frowning, but Tooru easily slides into the seat next to him, folding open a bag of treats that he randomly picked out from the cafeteria. Iwaizumi is probably a little perplexed. There’s a whole bunch of seating around the entire library, considering it’s meant to hold a good amount of students during exams, so it’s huge, and this random stranger approaches him in a tiny corner on the fourth floor.

“Oikawa. Tooru,” he says it a little forced, still not used to the addition of a last name. He saw it somewhere and liked the way it sounded, and since humans didn’t walk around going by the first names only, he figured he should have a last name, too. “Nice to meet you,” he smiles, and Iwaizumi pulls up from his laptop to look at him.

“Iwaizumi. Hajime.”

Tooru rips open a bag of chips and crunches down, extending it out to Iwaizumi. “Hungry? I don’t mind sharing.”

“No, I’m… good,” Iwaizumi shakes his head, offering a small smile of thanks.

Then Tooru rips out a comic and reads beside Iwaizumi in silence, exaggerating his smiles when he knows Iwaizumi is glancing at him. His head is full of questions right now, wondering why this gorgeous guy chose this specific spot, why they already know each other’s names and nothing else, and why he’s currently reading a Marvel Comic that’s clearly in english.

“Multilingual,” Tooru answers when Iwaizumi stares at the pages.

“Oh,” Iwaizumi breathes, a little caught off guard. He flushes and looks down at the table, avoiding Oikawa’s eyes and tapping his fingers against the wood. “How many do you know?”

Tooru withholds the truth that he knows all of the Earth’s current dialects—roughly 6,500 and declining—and just smiles around the simple number of four.

“You really like American Comics, huh?”

“Their stories are always about justice fighters. But no matter how many times they win, someone tries to stop them. It’s entertaining,” Tooru explains with a roll of his wrist, crunching down on another chip. They’re salty, and he likes the crunch, so he grabs another one, and then another.

“What’s your major?” Iwaizumi asks.

Tooru pauses around a mouthful of food, and thankfully he’d crammed enough into his cheek that he can’t speak right away, because for all of his plotting and planning, he didn’t think of something as simple as that to whip out when he was asked. But thankfully he has something to resort to, and it’s guaranteed to work in his favor.

“Art,” he coughs, and clears his throat with a smile. “I’m an art major. You?”

“History.”

“Why?”

Iwaizumi blinks, and blinks again, like he’s never been asked that question in his entire time at University. Tooru patiently waits and crunches down on another chip, watching Iwaizumi rack his own brain to come up with an answer. “I guess… I’ve always been fascinated by timelines. Everything becomes history, no matter what field.”

“History is always told by the winners, isn’t it?”

“If it’s war,” Iwaizumi clucks his tongue, “but that’s all anyone wants to focus on. There’s more to history than chaos. And, I don’t think it has to repeat itself, if we don’t let it. But I won’t know that unless I learn about it, right?”

Tooru lifts his head and leans back, once again taken by surprise. And his face must have been obvious, because Iwaizumi looks at him and his jaw drops open, cheeks coloring even more than before. “Uhm…Why’d you choose art?” he asks, pushing the attention away from himself.

“Close your eyes.”

Iwaizumi stares at him for a moment, quirking a brow upward, but when Tooru insists, he obliges, rolling his eyes shut.

“Where are you right now?”

“The library…?”

“What color are the walls?”

“Beige?”

“Nope. They’re blue. Don’t open them. Stay with me.” Tooru watches Iwaizumi squeeze his eyes shut tight. “They’re a deep blue. What’s in front of you?”

“My laptop.”

“Wrong again. Stars. Billions of them. All around you, like a night sky. See it?”

Iwaizumi’s entire face relaxes, lips pulling up at the corners just slightly. “Okay, I see it. What now?”

“What’s beneath you?”

“The…nothing.” Iwaizumi was about to say the floor, but he’s finally getting the gist that Tooru wants him to seriously play along.

“Then we’ll put something there. How about the ocean? Or a planet? Maybe a fleet of ships suspended without gravity? Whatever you want. Go ahead.”

Iwaizumi conjures up something, and from there, his imagination seems to take hold of what Tooru had planted. Small twitches flash across his body. Tooru lights up, knowing his little game worked so well on Iwaizumi. He would be lying if he didn’t mess with Iwaizumi’s imagination just a bit by pushing some of his Godly powers onto him, making his chair vibrate, or putting a flash of light in front of his eyes. But it works wonders, because Iwaizumi’s lips split into a grin, and a second later his eyes are shooting open and he’s gripping the table like a vice, head twisting to look right at Tooru as though he’d just seen what was inside his head the whole time.

But he’s back in the boring old library, with beige walls and a table, laptop in front of him with a sleeping screen, and Tooru is smiling at him over his interlaced fingers. “Have fun?”

Iwaizumi is speechless.

“Thoughts are made up of the five senses. Imagination, uses the five senses. I can put something, on paper, or a canvas, and have it reach all of your senses. I can tell a story, read your mind, convince you of a lie, whatever I want to, with this,” Tooru holds up a pencil, “and no matter how different we are up here,” he taps his finger against his temple, and grins, “I can make you feel the same things, right here,” his index finger lands on his chest, right over his heart.

Tooru smirks, knowing full well what his captivating smiles look like, and he watches Iwaizumi shift in his chair, eyes unable to run away. He swallows so hard his Adam’s apple jumps, and his dark hazel eyes twinkle with something Tooru could call interest.

“Are you falling for me yet?”

“You did not make that entire show an effort to pick me up,” Iwaizumi stares at him incredulously.

“Did it work?” Tooru waggles his eyebrows. Iwaizumi bursts into laughter, the sound digging into Tooru’s gut and pushing something unfamiliar there. But it’s not a bad feeling, so Tooru ignores it and laughs along with him.

Tooru leaves that day with a smile on his face, because after quite a while of observing the planet, searching the planet, and studying everything he thought it had to offer, he finally found a little anomaly.

Of course, Koushi’s warning does ring in Tooru’s head about three or four times before he becomes a professional at drowning him out. Tooru can’t help it. Should he be lingering on the Earth plane for so long? No. Should he be messing with humans? No. Should he be constantly showing up wherever Iwaizumi is and making casual conversation? Absolutely not. But that doesn’t stop him from doing it anyway.

He gets used to being called Oikawa, so much that it feels a little strange to him when he floats his way back up after a week of being gone to hear the name Tooru roll off of everyone’s lips.

Rather than traveling the world for his daily ventures, he sticks to Iwaizumi. He builds himself a class schedule and crashes the courses, unnoticed. He moves into an apartment—because Iwaizumi suggested that he come over to study once and Oikawa was not going to come up with some excuse—and fills it with furniture, making it look as though he’d been living there all year long.

Iwaizumi gets used to being around him, too. He throws jokes around more often, adopting nicknames for Oikawa—a little unconventional, but then again, it’s Iwaizumi—and making a habit of keeping his phone closer. Whereas he used to hardly use it, now it’s glued to his palm, or in his pocket.

Oikawa texts him during class, after class, back at home, even up in the stars. Iwaizumi’s replies are short and lacking all the latest emoji craze, but the point is, he responds.

“You’re cruel,” Koushi flicks through the phone with a quirked brow, his other hand full of stardust.

Oikawa showers himself in the tiny suns, wondering if he should add light freckles to his complexion, the kind you can only see up close. He shoots up from his laid back position when he realizes he only considered it because Iwaizumi had mentioned that freckles are kind of cute. It was said in passing, between a conversation about Oikawa’s “struggle” to properly convey all the details of his live model in class, but since then, Oikawa’s eyes had been following around all kinds of people with freckles.

“Me?”

“Yes you, playing with this boy’s heart.”

“I’m not playing with him. I’m observing him, and I needed to get closer.”

“Why?”

“He’s not like the others, Koushi. He doesn’t respond to me. I’ve made myself ultimately, undeniably irresistible. Human nature would turn savage to get their hands on me and he just,” Oikawa flails his hands over his head, “dismisses it! I can’t read him. He’s a cluster of matter wrapped about the same kind of soul as the other seven billion wastes of space on that planet and yet he’s so different. It’s intriguing.”

Koushi stares at Oikawa, before setting the phone back into his palm and giving him a small smile. His thumb traces underneath Oikawa’s eye towards his cheekbone, before he feathers his fingers through Oikawa’s hair, riddling his tresses with starlight. “I stand corrected. This is cruel.”

“What is?”

Koushi doesn’t answer him directly. He retracts his hand and takes a step away from Oikawa, moving to return to his work. “Just don’t forget that he’s human, Tooru.”

Oikawa flinches. Once again the name feels foreign to his ears.

Oikawa starts calling him Iwa-chan when he decides he needs some kind of affectionate nickname. They’ve been friends for almost a year now, and Oikawa’s extended time in Japan sort of mixes into his everyday speech, and thus the nickname is born.

Iwaizumi says he hates it, but when Oikawa uses it for the fourth time, he easily sees the way Iwaizumi’s ears burn red and lips twitch at the corners, and it sticks.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whines, rolling his head off of the table. “I’m tired.”

“You’ve said that five times now.”

“I don’t want to do this.”

Oikawa has a portfolio due. It’s his last year in University, and because he’s made himself an enrolled student officially—because why not—he needs to submit his work. But he’s missing a personal piece, a little something that sums up what he’s learned over the years, why he chose the major, what art really means to him.

Oikawa Tooru is a supposed twenty-one year old university student, majoring in Fine Arts and Illustration.

Tooru is a God of Chaos. Gods of Chaos don’t give a flying fuck about what a piece of art could mean to them, not unless it’s hanging in their hall of fame, prize won by igniting a world war or snagging it before the oldest museum in history burns to ruins.

So while he could whip up some masterpiece in five seconds by snapping his fingers and blowing a kiss at the canvas for good measure, he won’t. He also talked himself into getting Iwaizumi to help him, meaning Iwaizumi has to see some progress at least.

“You said you like stars, right? Why not do something with that?”

Oikawa frowns behind his hand. He should have made himself some kind of astronomy major, now that he thinks about it. But knowing him, he’d start rattling off about stars that exist in galaxies humans have not, and will probably never discover.

He looks up at Iwaizumi, watching him scribble something down into his notebook. It looks like notes for an exam, something important.

Which is exactly why Oikawa pulls his chair around to sit right in front of him, pulling Iwaizumi’s face away from his work and staring straight into his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Inspiration,” Oikawa says. It can pass, he’s done weirder things both around and to Iwaizumi as inspiration. So Iwaizumi sits still, holding his gaze and waiting for him to do whatever he needs to.

Things become eerily quiet around the apartment, a little thanks to Oikawa drowning out other sounds to really look at Iwaizumi. Oikawa presses his thumb between Iwaizumi’s brows, then both thumbs, smoothing them across his brow bone and down to his cheek bones. It’s as though he’s drawing out Iwaizumi’s face to burn it into his memory.

Iwaizumi stiffens under his touch, but he doesn’t move. What he doesn’t know is Oikawa actually is mapping him out in even more detail, the pads of his fingers catching every pore, every line, every feature.

Oikawa’s fingers dance gently, tapping their way down his jawline and to Iwaizumi’s throat and back.

Iwaizumi’s skin is tawny and warm, his eyes a deep, dark hazel, jaw caught between relaxing and stiffening under Oikawa’s touch. It’s obvious that he feels something, and that little something is making Oikawa’s hands linger longer than they need to.

“Freckles,” Iwaizumi suddenly says in quiet. “I didn’t know you had freckles.”

Oikawa smiles, and nods. “You’ve never been this close to me before?”

Iwaizumi slightly shakes his head, as much as he can move it in the space between Oikawa’s hands.

“You can do this too y’know,” Oikawa says in a teasing, encouraging tone, eyes flickering with intention. It’s been an entire year since he met Iwaizumi, and he’s hardly ever been persuasive enough to get him to do something. At least not without great effort. He would dance around the entire apartment if he got Iwaizumi to cave into his human instinct and just respond to Oikawa’s charm.

“I’m not the artist.”

“I know.”

“So…”

“Anyone can look at a person and attempt to paint them.”

“Not everyone can do that well.”

“True. But this, isn’t exactly necessary,” Oikawa says, continuing to press his fingers along Iwaizumi’s temples and the bridge of his nose.

“So then why are you…?”

“I told you. Inspiration. You’re beautiful, Iwa-chan. I’m burning you into my memory. Transforming you into my muse.”

Iwaizumi turns about eighty shades of red and lowers his eyes down to his hands, balled into fists in his lap. Oikawa holds the urge to smile, gliding his thumb just underneath Iwaizumi’s lower lip.

“You sound ridiculous.”

“C’mon that was movie worthy smooth.”

“Oh my god,” Iwaizumi bursts into laughter.

It punches something deep inside Oikawa’s core, beneath his ribcage, and it rattles around, so unfamiliar and uncomfortable that he pauses his hands in place and stares down at his feet, glaring holes into the floor and willing his body to regain its bearings.

But now he knows what he wants to paint. A part of him was using that little trick to get Iwaizumi to flinch, maybe open up that head of his and let Oikawa peek inside. Of course, he got nothing. Instead he felt a wave of dizziness and a churning feeling in his core.

Oikawa wonders if he is crazy to think that maybe Iwaizumi isn’t human. He confirms he’s crazy when Iwaizumi stares at him with soft eyes and an even softer smile, bold enough, comfortable enough to reach his hand up and smooth his thumb over the light freckles beneath Oikawa’s eyes. Iwaizumi is definitely human, which means Oikawa’s problem is himself.

Back in his true home, he asks Kenma about it, because Koushi would subtly reprimand him.

Kenma stops fiddling with a planet’s orbital rings to look up at Oikawa with sharp eyes. “You should come home, Tooru,” he says quietly, voice thick with warning.

Oikawa ignores him and returns down to his apartment once again. The warning festers like a virus in his system, but he tunes it out and rolls onto his side, closing his eyes and replacing everything with thoughts about comics. They seem to be his go to when his mind is fuzzy.

Shit. Heroes might be crazy, too. Always coming back for a fight no matter the risk.

Oikawa stares up at his ceiling for the rest of the night, that unsettled feeling swirling around in his chest. Why can’t he let go of Iwaizumi? He should be bored by now. He’s just one measly human, unable to be deciphered like the rest. Oikawa has spent an entire year down here, doing human things, eating human food, and above all, watching Iwaizumi.

Emotion.

He’s feeling emotion. Human emotion, to be precise, and it’s disgusting. It’s a heavy weight on his chest that pulls and tugs and burns, threatening to travel its way up to his tear ducts and engulf his sinus cavities in flames. He really has been here too long.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’ll work on fixing Iwaizumi’s memory and wiping his existence from the planet. He can’t stay here.

“Oikawa, the drive is only pretty if we leave when traffic isn’t there.”

“I’m almost done, Iwa-chan. Just give me a second…” Oikawa trails off, taking a step back to admire his work.

Okay, so four months ago he told himself Tomorrow. But then Iwaizumi called him in the middle of the night with a crazy idea that he wanted to do something after graduation, and he couldn’t think of going anywhere without Oikawa, and because human emotion has plagued Oikawa’s dark heart, he caved in and said yes.

“You really put that up now?”

“What better time to do it!”

“I should be embarrassed that I have this on my walls, and yet…” Iwaizumi tilts his head at the painting, “I feel lucky.”

Oikawa practices a slow inhale to keep his chest from feeling like it might split open. His little inspiration moment with Iwaizumi led to his final piece for his portfolio, and when he showed Iwaizumi the finished product, all Iwaizumi had to say was that he definitely wanted to have it once everything was said and done.

It was beautiful, a starry sky wrapped about a silhouette that might as well have been Iwaizumi, constellations across his cheekbones, sewing his lips shut. Nebulas across his ribs and stardust falling from his hair.

It left Iwaizumi speechless. It left his board of review speechless. Pretty much anyone who saw it asked Oikawa what his inspiration was. He smiled and told them that Iwaizumi was influential.

Truthfully, he was mesmerized by the resistance Iwaizumi had to the foundation of human nature contrast to the power he had over a single God. He figured he’d spare everyone the details.

“Lucky?”

“You’ll be famous y’know. In a gallery and all that. And I’ve got a personally made piece already.”

“Don’t turn around and sell it for profit,” Oikawa teases.

“Not a chance. It’s priceless.”

Oikawa holds his breath this time, peeling his eyes away from Iwaizumi’s and looking down at the floor. Disgusting. He feels so vulnerable. Since when did Iwaizumi get so damn bold? Saying smooth things like that, that’s always been Oikawa’s thing.

“C’mon,” Iwaizumi says. “I already packed up the car.”

“Kay.” Oikawa follows after him, stopping short to take one last look at the painting on the wall. He liked it up until a few moments ago.

Iwaizumi expects that he’ll have a gallery someday. That he’ll sell for millions and take part in charities and all that.

It leaves a bitter taste in Oikawa’s mouth over the reality that by the time that should happen, he’ll be on his next millennium in age.

“Stop laughing, Koushi. It’s not funny,” Oikawa snaps, eyes steely and arms folded across his chest as Koushi doubles over and snickers, clutching Mars to his stomach to keep from dropping the poor planet.

“Tooru, I knew you could be foolish, but this is just downright adorable.”

“Will you help me or not?!”

“You’re spewing nonsense,” Koushi sighs, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Human emotion is no different from emotion itself.”

“What? Of course it is. I haven’t felt a thing in ages. Probably never.”

“All life across the cosmos feel emotion. It’s expressed in different ways, sure. Some emotions are felt more than others, yes.” Koushi carefully places Mars back into orbit above his head. “You’re not used to feeling this way because you never have.”

“You talk as though I’m having some kind of emotional awakening,” Oikawa snorts.

Koushi stares at him impassively.

“Stop,” Oikawa whispers, “are you actually implying… that I care about him?”

“I’m not implying anything,” Koushi shrugs. “And you would do well to listen to our warnings when we tell you that you really need to pull back. I’m no longer saying this for that human’s sake, but for your own, Tooru.”

Oikawa swallows the urge to tell Koushi anything else that might make it seem like Koushi is right. Oikawa refuses to believe that he’s losing control. So what if he’s feeling a little emotion? It’s to be expected, he’s spending all his time on Earth, with a human, doing human things.

Yeah, it’s perfectly normal.

“We’re almost there,” Iwaizumi encourages, grabbing and pulling back on a tree branch, a hand pressing to Oikawa’s back and guiding him through the thicket.

“What are you showing me?”

“I already said it’s a surprise,” Iwaizumi grumbles. Oikawa could easily see his way through the blindfold, but for the hell of it, he decides to render himself completely blind, at Iwaizumi’s mercy to be lead through this trail.

It was supposed to be a vacation, kind of like the one they took at graduation the year before, only it was pushed back into July versus early June. Oikawa suggested they take the vacation, Iwaizumi suggested the dates and the places.

The entire trip has been filled with Iwaizumi unusually taking the heavy load. Doing all the lifting, the paying, the moving. Oikawa said it was no big deal to just run to the convenience store down the way for some milk bread and juice for dinner, but Iwaizumi insisted—even argued—on having a meal fit for kings.

Oikawa isn’t blind. He can clearly see Iwaizumi trying hard for a reason. What scares him is that he isn’t entirely sure what that reason could be.

“Do you take all the pretty girls down this trail?”

“I’ve never taken anyone down this trail,” Iwaizumi answers, voice a little too close to Oikawa’s ear. He doesn’t sound too pleased by the joke.

Oikawa shudders, goosebumps raising across his skin. He twitches when Iwaizumi grips onto his elbow and pulls him downward. His insides leap around like crazy when Iwaizumi grabs onto his hand, a smile in his voice as he tells him they’re almost there.

“Okay, pull off the blindfold.”

“Are we there?”

“Just. Pull it off.”

Oikawa pulls it off to see Iwaizumi shuffling his feet, eyes turned down towards the ground. Even under the night sky, Oikawa can see how red Iwaizumi is, blushing from the tips of his ears down to his chest.

Behind him is a building. It looks like a shack, not too shabby on the outside, big enough to be something like a small home. The door has a vintage deadbolt and an extra latch with a padlock, and there’s even a small porch to the left of it with a bench perfect for two.

“It’s not what you think,” Iwaizumi blurts, probably because Oikawa’s face is written with confusion. “Uhm. Follow me.”

Iwaizumi whirls around and sticks keys where they go, unlocking the door and pushing inside. The inside is a stark contrast to the outside. The walls are neat, not a scratch to be found, the floor a polished, dark wood, sturdy and quality enough to be inside of a home that belongs behind giant gates and giant guards.

There’s a bed in the corner of the room-- a small, tucked away corner that’s probably space for a bathroom and closet. The kitchen nook is to Oikawa’s right, sealed off from the main attraction of this custom home. There’s a staircase just over the bed that leads to what feels like the roof. It’s simple in some ways, brilliantly elaborate in others, and it leaves Oikawa speechless.

“What is this place?” he asks.

“Where we’re staying for the rest of the trip,” Iwaizumi answers, setting his bag down by the door. “My uncle had this place built as a getaway space for my family. It was his original intention. Only, my family ended up in different parts of the country, too spread out to make use of it all. So he downsized it, and gave it to me.”

“This is still a lot of space,” Oikawa mumbles, looking around at the pretty high ceilings. Goosebumps prickle along his skin when his eyes pass over the single bed in the entire place. Unless there’s another room in this building, which Oikawa is sure there isn’t, there must be a message he’s completely missing.

“There’s a roll out in the closet,” Iwaizumi answers, as if on cue.

“Can you read my thoughts?”

“No, I just know you.”

Oikawa bites his tongue. That’s funny. Iwaizumi seems to hold confidence in those words. Would it kill him if he found out how wrong he was?

Oikawa looks for something to say to bulldoze over the awkward misstep.

“I don’t mind sharing.”

Oikawa wonders if there is any other God in the expanse of the universe that has ever embarrassed themselves bad enough to want to dive into a black hole and just float around for the next twenty thousand years.

“Let’s… go up,” Iwaizumi gestures upward, eyes darting around at any space that isn’t where Oikawa is standing.

Oikawa follows him, breathing uneven, mind scrambling to sort out his erratic emotions and feelings. It’s all so human and it makes him feel vulnerable. A part of him feels like breathing fire, because maybe that would be easier than this unsettled anxiety bouncing in his rib cage.

The door in the ceiling at the top of the stairs leads to a room, much smaller than the first floor, but perfect for a comfy, cozy setting. Iwaizumi presses a button against the wall, and Oikawa watches the roof tiles pull back to reveal the night sky overhead. The piece of glass between them and the outside keeps the heat of the room in, but does all the magic that the stars are supposed to.

Oikawa swears he read about a scene like this in some kind of romance novel.

“This place is beautiful. Why haven’t you ever brought anyone here?”

“Because it means something.” Iwaizumi doesn’t look at him when he speaks. His voice gets even quieter, like someone might be nearby to hear them. “And not everyone means something.”

“Iwa-chan—“

“I’m not trying to show off. I brought you up here for a reason.” Iwaizumi shifts his weight, swinging the keys to the place on his index finger. “I used to come here a lot. It helped me think. Inspiration, or something like that. And after you gave me that painting, I remembered the attic, and…” Iwaizumi gestures up at the sky, riddled with millions of diamonds.

Oikawa looks up at them, his face falling. In a single blink he could make his way to any of those stars, probably name them all. There might even be a few that he’s helped Koushi create.

“You’re not impressed.”

Oikawa whips his head around, hands shooting out and flailing in front of Iwaizumi. “No! No that’s not it! I just… you really think I’m worth all of this?”

Iwaizumi bites down on the inside of his cheek, like he’s debating something in his head. Oikawa waits for him to sort it all out, looking back at the sky and doing his own bit of thinking.

“I missed your birthday the first time because I didn’t know you well enough. And I missed it the second time because I never asked. I didn’t want to miss it again.”

That takes its toll on Oikawa, punching the air from his lungs and zapping the strength in his knees.

Of course.

Today is Oikawa’s Birthday.

Oikawa made it up on the fly back when Iwaizumi finally asked him, joking that it was no big deal when Iwaizumi looked annoyed that he completely missed his birthday. It wasn’t real, but then again, Oikawa Tooru wasn’t real. He was a creation, meant to follow Iwaizumi around and figure out what made him different than the rest of the humans.

That’s right, Oikawa came down here with a purpose. He was supposed to meddle with humans, make chaos, watch them scramble and be none the wiser that they were being treated like flecks in a snow globe.

But that all derailed because he found a person with a heart of gold, that didn’t fall for his cheap tricks and games. Oikawa ended up being dragged around by him, and enjoying it.

“Happy birthday, Oikawa.” Iwaizumi holds out the keys to dangle in front of him.

“Iwa-chan you—“

“Don’t worry, I’m not giving it to you. This just means that you can come here when you like, for inspiration and all. Or for a getaway. Whatever the reason.”

Oikawa can’t find the words to explain what’s happening to him. His palms feel sweaty, his head is filled with screaming thoughts, his chest feels like a jackhammer has been shoved inside of it. His stomach is doing backflips like an olympic gymnast and there has never been a time until now where he feels like he might pass out because he can’t breathe.

So he does what instinct and desire tells him to do.

Oikawa steps forward, lips slanted over Iwaizumi’s with haste and adrenaline, nothing else on the brain but the words “Do Something”. For as many millenniums as he’s been around, he’s never felt a need to do anything romantic. Before Iwaizumi, a kiss was a laughable concept meant for mortals.

He was so wrong.

This kiss was going to either throw him back into the stars or suck him into the depths of the ocean, but either way, he was going to memorize the taste and shape of Iwaizumi’s lips before he went.

Iwaizumi pushes back, and Oikawa changes his mind. He’ll stay right here in this attic and kiss him until the sun comes up. The kiss is gentle, but it burns enough to set Oikawa’s skin on fire, growing even hotter wherever Iwaizumi’s fingers press down.

He doesn’t break for air until Iwaizumi needs it, the latter dropping his head down and shaking it, apologies wheezing out from his lungs.

Feeling like he needs oxygen and actually needing it are two different things. Oikawa feels a little guilty for depleting Iwaizumi’s air supply without letting up.

“Whoa,” Iwaizumi breathes.

“Iwa-chan, I’m sorry I—“

“No, don’t. Me too. I didn’t know how—I mean I was trying to—“ He’s still trying to catch his breath, but his eyes say it all. Oikawa doesn’t need Godly powers to figure this one out, and that’s probably the worst part.

Oikawa apologized for kissing him out of the blue.

Iwaizumi apologized for not telling Oikawa the truth sooner.

All of the warnings from Koushi and Kenma were to avoid this. A human falling in love with a God. Because there’s no way that has a happy ending. Oikawa’s entire life is built around lies and magic and for as much as he wants to tell himself that Iwaizumi didn’t fall for the charm, at some point, he did.

He’s not special. He’s special to Oikawa.

Human emotion is no different from emotion itself.

Oikawa came down to earth and fell in love.

“Iwa-chan, you can’t.”

“What?”

“You can’t love me.”

Iwaizumi pulls his hand away from Oikawa’s, taking a step back to glare at him without the proximity to invite anything else besides anger. “That’s your response?”

“I’m sorry. Let me explain—“

“No need.”

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa chases after him, abandoning the rooftop and descending the stairs in a panic. He manages to grab Iwaizumi’s arm to keep him from making it to the doorway. Iwaizumi hesitates for a fraction of a second, but that’s all Oikawa needs to throw his arms around him, keeping him from moving.

“Listen to me. It’s not you it’s—“

“God, you’re awful. Just shut up,” Iwaizumi snarls, twisting his head away.

“I love you,” Oikawa rasps, close to Iwaizumi’s ear, arms squeezing tighter and eyes squeezing shut. He’s thousands of years old and forcing those three words out of his throat felt like sitting in the center of the sun. “I love you, too.”

“Then why…?”

“If I told you…”

“Please don’t tell me you’re joking about all of this. I will legitimately throw you off of the cliffside.”

“I’m not.” Oikawa shakes his head.

Sure. He could tell Iwaizumi that he’s a God, and all of those things. Or he could leave Iwaizumi with some sweet memories before he erases them all. It’s what he should do.

He should tell Iwaizumi that he loves him, that he cares about him, that this night is perfect, and let him fall asleep happy, and when he wakes up, Oikawa will have been nothing more than a silly little dream that would fade into the deepest parts of his subconscious.

Oikawa is selfish. He’s in love and he’s selfish, and Iwaizumi kissed him, and he wants to kiss him again.

Somehow the danger in being honest only makes Oikawa inclined to be truthful.

“Will you listen, and hear me out until the end?”

Iwaizumi slowly nods, feeling Oikawa let him go and take a small step back, evening out his breathing and twisting his fingers together as he tries to find a way to explain this.

Where does he start?

“I’m different,” Oikawa begins.

“Different.”

“My name is Tooru.”

“I know that.”

“But it isn’t Oikawa.”

Iwaizumi blinks, face screwing up. He looks both unimpressed and slightly confused. He probably assumed that Oikawa was going to explain that he was part of the witness protection program. Oikawa wishes it was only that.

“Uhm… did you ever study mythology?”

“Briefly.”

“Well, my name derives from… that,” Oikawa flails his fingers, “you know, like Gods of stars, and seas…chaos…”

“What does your name being the same as some mythological God have to do with any of this?”

“My birthday isn’t in July,” Oikawa continues, “uhm. Technically I don’t have a birthday, because the timeline on earth is completely different than the Universe, which is ever expanding. But if I had to roughly estimate in earth years, I’m probably close to eight millenniums by now?”

Iwaizumi is frozen in place, eyes wide, jaw dropped in what looks like horror. It’s not every day that you get the news that the person you’re in love with happens to be a God.

“I know, it’s a lot to take in. And you probably think I’m crazy—“

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Iwaizumi’s voice wavers, edging on something close to hysteria, the way his breathing is growing more erratic by the second. “Is this some kind of game?”

“What? No! I’m—“

Oikawa stops short. Of course it’s easier for Oikawa to comprehend things beyond Earth’s atmosphere, he’s a God. Humans think and dream about things beyond the stars, but seeing is ultimately believing. Right now Oikawa just sounds ridiculous, especially since he’s pulling this stunt after a confession.

He stops talking and takes a step back, opening up the palms of his hands. By some miracle Iwaizumi hasn’t moved an inch, and Oikawa wastes no time. Iwaizumi’s jaw snaps shut when a planet, not from this solar system, hovers in the palms of Oikawa’s hands.

Within seconds, they’re no longer standing inside of the small get away home, but they’re now surrounded by clusters of stars. Millions of them, suspended in space.

Most people would have fainted by now, but Iwaizumi is still standing, his eyes wide, hands stiff at his sides as he looks around them.

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Oikawa sighs, “but this isn’t exactly something I can introduce myself with. I created a persona to blend in with the human race, but ultimately I’m—“

“A God,” Iwaizumi whispers, looking around at the stars and planets.

“I’m in textbooks at your local library. Some believe in me, some don’t. But I’m real.”

“This is real,” Iwaizumi says it, more for himself than anything else.

“This is real,” Oikawa confirms. “All of this is real.”

“Why?”

Oikawa lets Saturn fall from his fingertips, and with a flick of his fingers, they’re both standing off to the side of a walkway, where Iwaizumi can see a copy of himself walking, and a copy of Oikawa watching him over the top of his comic book.

“Originally, I came down to this planet to cause chaos. It’s what I do. I liked watching humans, because all of you had one thing in common. Chaos. You all thrived off of chaos. And then I saw you. You didn’t feel the same way everyone else did, and I had to know why.” Oikawa switches the scene to the library back at the University, staring at copies of themselves sitting at the table.

“I created an alias to get closer to you. I wanted to crack you open and figure you out. Didn’t really work though.”

Iwaizumi turns to Oikawa, the both of them returning to the room like they hadn’t just gone on some ethereal journey.

“I’m bad news, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says after a beat.

“Get out,” Iwaizumi blurts, “I need to think.”

“You—“

“Don’t. Don’t say anything. Just go. I need a few days to decide if I’m fucking insane or not.”

“You’re not insane—“

“I fell in love with a God. Do you realize how crazy that sounds?!” Iwaizumi hisses, teeth clenching, voice lowering like it’s some kind of sin. “Ten minutes ago I was trying to work up the nerve to kiss you. Now I’m trying not to throw up, or pass out, or wake up and find out I was dreaming. So just. Give me time.”

“Okay,” Oikawa nods, turning to head for the door.

“Hey.”

Oikawa twitches. It feels weird when Iwaizumi doesn’t use his name.

“How will I find you?”

Oikawa smiles. Iwaizumi hasn’t said it out loud, and he’s probably angry, hurt, and tired, but those words mean there’s only a matter of time before Iwaizumi will want to see him again.

“Just tell me you want to see me, and I’ll come running.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

A little over a week has passed, and Oikawa has never felt bound to Earth’s clock as much as he does right now. He keeps peeking on Iwaizumi for brief moments, seeing him doing his everyday routine. Working, hitting the gym, making dinner. Living like Oikawa doesn’t exist.

Oikawa considers wiping his memory right there, seeing Iwaizumi up and functioning, perfectly okay.

The selfish side of him drops his hand back to his side, and he continues to float around the world to distract himself, stopping in on festivals, conventions, tourist attractions.

If he went home, he’d only crumble in front of Koushi and his pride can’t take that right now.

Two weeks go by, and Oikawa is agonizing over how slow time is going while sitting on the floor of his apartment. All he had to do was continue to lie to Iwaizumi. Suppress the Godly powers. Never go home, immerse himself in the enigma that is Oikawa Tooru. Then they would have been happy, and in love, and things would be perfect.

Oikawa keeps his mind miles away from the reality that one of them is immortal.

“Uhm…Oikawa?”

Oikawa scrambles off of his floor and snaps his fingers, looking down at Iwaizumi and seeing him standing in the middle of his apartment, hands folded together nervously. He’s looking up, blushing because he probably feels silly that he’s talking to his ceiling.

But as promised, Oikawa comes running, appearing before Iwaizumi with his hands behind his back.

“You rang?”

“Wow. So you definitely just. Did that.”

“Appeared in your living room? Yeah, I can do things like that.”

“Have you…?”

“You don’t want that answer.” Oikawa smiles. If Iwaizumi knew how many times Oikawa had stopped by the apartment to pay an uninvited visit, he might think Oikawa is creepier than anything else.

“Right. Uhm. You. I’ve been thinking.”

Oikawa stays silent.

“You. Did you ever use any… powers on me? At all?”

“Never. There were a few circumstantial moments where I might have used them around you, but never on you. I pretty much acted human,” Oikawa replies. He vowed not to use any powers around Iwaizumi, so to not make a habit of it. Looking back, he’s proud of himself that he withheld the thing he used to use the most.

Iwaizumi’s face seems to relax after that answer. “Listen… I know I freaked out back there, at my uncle’s place.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Good. Because I don’t care,” Iwaizumi looks up from the floor, jaw set and mind made up. He tilts his head up and looks Oikawa straight in the eyes. “I don’t care that you’re a God, or that you’re eight thousand years old. I still… have to get my head around that, but I don’t care.”

Oikawa lowers his hands from reaching for Iwaizumi, growing cautious as the brunet tries to step towards him. “I’m not one of the good guys, you know. I’m destructive. Literally. I’ve caused world wars that make Earth’s look like child’s play.”

“Okay.”

“Iwa-chan. I made actual planets go to war with other planets.”

“Okay…” Iwaizumi mutters. “I still don’t care.”

“I don’t age. And I’m selfish. So even when you get old and grumpy, I’ll still look like this.” That’s not true. Oikawa could easily change his appearance, but he’s partially vain, and he’s also trying to scare Iwaizumi out of making a mistake. A mistake he’s partially encouraging. “And if you want space, I won’t give it to you.”

“Fine.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Do you love me?” Iwaizumi asks him in the quiet of his home.

Oikawa takes a step towards him, bringing Iwaizumi’s face into his hands. “By some force in this universe, I do.”

“Okay, then the rest doesn’t matter.”

“You’re pretty rational for someone who just scored a God.”

“To me, you’re still Oikawa, the idiot art major from University.” Iwaizumi tilts his head up with a smile, lips sliding against Oikawa’s like they were meant to this whole time.

Oikawa can’t find it in him to say the words out loud, so he presses them into Iwaizumi’s mouth instead, because for Iwaizumi, he would be anything he wanted him to be.

It’s surreal for the both of them, this new, technically forbidden kind of love.

And yet, they make it work.

Iwaizumi goes about his daily routine, working in time for Oikawa in between, and at night, he comes home to him, safe and sound, where they act as though nothing outside of their four walls exists.

Oikawa isn’t above using his powers freely now, but Iwaizumi refuses to let him completely take advantage of it all, like free trips to anywhere in the world. They at least have to pay for food. But when they get the time, they go sight seeing. Oikawa tells Iwaizumi stories about things that happened when he was still considered young, in galaxies the human race will never find.

Iwaizumi teaches Oikawa to cook without the use of magic, and Oikawa gives Iwaizumi the sensation of being bathed in stars, something unreal and inexplicably breathtaking.

“I want to touch you,” Oikawa admits into his forearm from the edge of the tub, leaning over the side as Iwaizumi kneads at his shoulders.

“You are touching me,” Iwaizumi says, noting the fingers that are walking themselves along Iwaizumi’s thigh.

“You know what I mean,” Oikawa sighs, lifting his head and sliding his mouth against Iwaizumi’s like he’s been doing so for years. “Don’t humans crave sexual stimulation?”

“Uhm, no, not all of them,” Iwaizumi shakes his head, “and don’t say it like it’s some kind of medical term, that’s weird.”

“Okay, don’t you crave it?” Oikawa’s voice drops to a whisper. “Don’t you crave me?”

“You know I do,” Iwaizumi whispers back, thumbs pressing along Oikawa’s jawline, fingertips working their way down the nape of his neck to his shoulders. Oikawa practically starts purring under Iwaizumi’s touch.

“What gives? You’re not getting any younger. Aren’t you pent up? You’ve been with me for over a year now.”

“I’m fine,” Iwaizumi kisses his cheek and continues turning Oikawa to putty. “Once I start, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

Oikawa’s lips clamp shut, dropping his head onto Iwaizumi’s shoulders as his fingers work their way further down his back. More and more it’s becoming Iwaizumi that’s the smooth one, and Oikawa being rendered speechless.

“Say, do I get bragging rights that a God is hot and bothered for me?”

“Not until you out do me in bed. Which is impossible.”

“Challenge accepted.”

Oikawa loses the battle, but he couldn’t care less. It’s a drug, to feel Iwaizumi’s skin on his own, rhythm and heat intertwined between bedsheets and pressed against walls and headboards, loud or quiet, easy or rough. It doesn’t matter.

They drown themselves in each other, different from the way they did when they were being a sweet couple in love, telling stories and jokes and doing cliche things that couples did.

They burn passion like scars into their skin with their eyes, their teeth, their nails, their words. They brand love on one another, white hot and irreplaceable until they’re both boneless and blissed out, floating on a bed of stars with the world beneath them.

It’s a high neither of them can get anywhere else, because it isn’t meant for anyone else.

“I love you,” Iwaizumi breathes along Oikawa’s skin, against his fingertips, his palms, his throat, his chest.

Oikawa overestimated the power of immortality, because anytime Iwaizumi makes love to him he feels like he could die happy the next day.

“No one but you,” Oikawa melts the words between Iwaizumi’s shoulder blades. “It’s only ever been you.”

Both of them pass sweet nothings between soft touches, sighing against each other’s mouths and laughing until sleep pulls at their eyes.

It’s a paradise that neither of them knew they could have found. And they both wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“Why am I here?”

Oikawa looks around, seeing Koushi standing beside Kenma, their heads hung low, apologies in their eyes.

“You’ve been unruly for long enough, Tooru.”

Even Gods have a pecking order. Oikawa completely disregarded that the higher ups would come for him at some point, or that they would even care. He was just one God amongst hundreds of thousands. What did he matter?

“Alright, get it over with. What’s my punishment?”

“Choose,” their voices are stern, lacking empathy and any sense of kindness at all. “Love, or Power?”

Oikawa freezes. That sounds too easy.

But then he thinks about it.

Of course they wouldn’t make it that simple. Oikawa has to choose: either he gives up on being a God and lives out a life with Iwaizumi, powerless and weak and mortal, or he gives up Iwaizumi, and keeps everything.

“Choose,” they repeat.

He was a fool to think that a mortal and a God could ever make things work. He was a fool to think he could have both without consequence. He’s selfish, to have kept Iwaizumi all to himself, and fill his head with dreams and desire, love that feels eternal. He knew what the stakes were, he just didn’t care. And he used Iwaizumi’s love drunk dismissal of the fallout as reassurance that his decision was okay.

Oikawa closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

There’s always a catch to paradise. No matter how much you treasure it, it never lasts.

“You did the right thing,” Koushi says, fingers swirling clouds into a planet. He’s been building this one for some time now, and he seems pleased with the result. He rolls the planet into Tooru’s palm, his other hand sliding along his shoulder.

“No,” Tooru sighs, looking at the planet with distaste. He sets the planet ablaze in the palm of his hand, before he crushes it back into stardust, letting it fall back into nothing. “I just made a choice. It wasn’t right or wrong.”

“I was trying to console you. You didn’t have to destroy my planet.”

“I don’t want your consolation,” Tooru snaps. “I want to destroy a million planets. I want to rip this universe apart from the inside out, but I made a choice.” His smile is pinched, face written with hurt and anguish. “I chose to be a God. I’m just doing my job.”

Koushi sits down next to him, taking Tooru’s hand into his own and tracing his thumb across his palm. “I know you’re hurting.”

“Don’t. There’s not a single one of you who can show me any sort of kindness that I would care to receive.”

“That’s a lie. And you know if I could have done something to change this for you, I would have.”

Tooru’s eyes fall to his lap. “You warned me.”

“That doesn’t matter now—“

“You warned me, and I did it anyway.”

Koushi watches Tooru flick his fingers, expanding a star in front of them to something like a screen.

“Promise me one thing,” Iwaizumi says in the quiet of the bedroom, legs entwined beneath covers.

“Anything,” Oikawa whispers through a smile, pressing a kiss to Iwaizumi’s collarbone.

“No matter what. You won’t erase my memory.”

Oikawa lifts his head, rolling Iwaizumi onto his back, abandoning the sweet mood from cuddling. “Hajime, I don’t have a need for that.”

“You say that, but you don’t know it. And I get it. You’re a God, there’s always going to be that rift between us. So just promise me that you won’t take away the time I had with you. I don’t care if it’ll hurt, I don’t want to forget you.” Iwaizumi squeezes out the last of it with a strained voice and glassy eyes.

Oikawa melts them together that night with an intensity born out of the fear that one day he would have to make that choice.

Koushi curls his fingers around Tooru’s and grips tight, biting down on his lower lip when he watches Tooru’s tears turn to crystals as they fall from his chin.

“Do you think you made the right choice?” he asks quietly, rubbing his thumb across the back of Tooru’s hand.

Tooru forbids himself to look back at Iwaizumi. It would kill him to see Iwaizumi hurting over this, so much that he would run to the higher powers and beg for the alternative. To give up everything he loves about being a God for a hopeful longevity in human years by Iwaizumi’s side.

But that doesn’t stop him from aching to his very core that he had to let go of a love he never thought he’d find, that burned brighter than any star he’d ever come across.

Tooru can hold the sun in his palms, rearrange planets, string together stars in constellations and destroy it all with a snap of his fingers. The part of him that would give it all away was smaller than the part of him that couldn’t.

He just hopes Iwaizumi doesn’t hate him for it.

Of course he does.

Tooru hates himself for it.

“I told you, Koushi. I just made a choice. I set myself up for ruin long ago.” Tooru catches one of his teardrops into his palm and shatters it between his fingers, watching the shards float before his eyes.

“I fell victim to my own game, that’s all.”

Tooru falls back into his routine of being a God, burying Iwaizumi into the corner of his mind until he can function, returning to his stable self, emotions under control and desire for power and chaos on the mind.

Time feels slower. He was so used to Earth’s clock that being up here again feels unreal. He feels drowsy, and craves food. He sighs a lot, and misses the feeling of chewing on pens, or scribbling in the corners of papers. He misses being kissed, and held. He misses jokes, and watching shitty reality TV, or going hiking, or long drives with hours and hours of music.

He misses Iwaizumi. Even if he is adjusting back to his ways before, he still misses him and the way he smiled, the way his hands felt against Tooru’s face, against his hips, in his own hands.

He misses hearing “I love you” every morning and night.

He misses paradise.

Tooru was sure he could stave off the cravings until they dwindled into nothing but twitches beneath his skin, but curiosity gets the better of him, and after what feels like ages, he finally takes a peek.

He has to know if Iwaizumi is okay.

“Koushi. I have to look.”

Tooru expected him to try and talk him out of it.

“Do you want me to be with you?”

Tooru smiles, and nods his head, linking his hand with Koushi’s as they walked into the room full of stars.

Tooru doesn’t descend to earth to see Iwaizumi, he just takes a peek from up above. He knows if he gets too close, he’ll be too tempted.

He almost snaps the scene shut when he sees Iwaizumi’s face, but Koushi clenches his hand and encourages him to keep looking.

Iwaizumi looks older, proof that time has gone by.

But it isn’t the change in appearance that makes Tooru’s throat tighten, and his heart drop into his stomach.

Sure, the subtle gray in his hair means that decades have passed, but he’s smiling, arms folded around children, and then around what is most likely his husband. He’s living a good life, in a nice home. He looks happy.

He didn’t wait.

He didn’t wait for Tooru to come back. He picked himself off of the ground and made something of himself, found love again, things Tooru could never do.

It makes Tooru jealous. Jealous of the husband, who gets to hold Iwaizumi the way he used to. Jealous of Iwaizumi, who got to mend his broken heart and move on. Jealous of humans, because even though their petty lives are powerless and short, they can be happy.

How could Tooru have even expected Iwaizumi to wait on him? To wait on a God who chose power over him, who considers time to be a restriction for those that die?

Tooru used to tease humans, because they chased after a clock. He teased them, because they were bound to dials that went in circles until they ran out, and now he is jealous, because his will continue to spin in solitude.

Tooru has to be happy for him though. It would kill him inside of Iwaizumi spent the rest of his days agonizing over someone like him. Iwaizumi isn’t that kind of person, thankfully. He’s strong enough to keep his head held high.

Tooru’s heart swells, seeing Iwaizumi after all this time. He doesn’t bother hiding the tears this time, because they aren’t from guilt or despair. His heart feels full, and he’s happy, because Iwaizumi is happy. The rest doesn’t matter.

“He looks happy,” Koushi smiles. “He’s beautiful.”

“You’ve never seen him before?”

Koushi shakes his head. “We never peeked in on your life on Earth. I gave you privacy.”

Tooru closes the current day, and flicks his fingers a few times to pull up the past. “I’ll show you. He’s probably the best thing to happen to this entire Universe.”

“For you to say that, he really must be something special.”

Tooru smiles warmly as he opens up the first time Iwaizumi made eye contact with him.

“He really is.”

Oikawa regrets it.

He should turn around and go home. He chose power. The higher ups are probably plotting ways to turn him back into stardust. But his curiosity prickled his skin and Koushi encouraged him, and he couldn’t turn it down.

He had to see him.

Not through the eyes of Koushi’s galaxy room, but with his own eyes.

So he ventured his way back down to Earth, taking a little while to roam about the planet and see what had changed. He even stopped by Iwaizumi’s little lodge, seeing it upgraded from when he was last there. It was remodeled, now a full two stories instead of one.

Oikawa doesn’t miss the art supplies all gathered in a corner. He wonders who those might belong to.

It takes him about two whole days on Earth to find the courage to bring himself to Iwaizumi’s doorstep. He does it on a day when he’s home alone, sneaking himself in to look at him up close.

He’s aged a little, no longer the twenty something year old Oikawa is used to waking up to every morning, but he’s still breathtaking, looking strong and proud, dark hazel eyes as intense as ever.

Oikawa hates that his immersion in emotion has rendered him this sensitive. He rubs furiously at his eyes to wipe the tears away and he smiles, reaching out to grab Iwaizumi’s face and bring it into his hands.

Since Iwaizumi doesn’t really know he’s there, his touch is transparent, but it’s okay. He promised he wouldn’t do any more than look at him.

Oikawa loses out to his desires when he so badly wants to feel the heat of Iwaizumi’s skin on his own.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Iwaizumi breathes, “showing up here after over twenty years.”

Oikawa materializes in front of him completely, a sheepish smile on his face. “You knew I was here?” He pulls Iwaizumi’s face into his hands for real, using his thumbs to wipe away his tears.

“I missed you, idiot.”

Oikawa doesn’t even try to stop the sob that jumps from deep in his chest. “I missed you too. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—“

“Don’t. I should be thanking you,” Iwaizumi sighs. “You didn’t erase my memory.”

“I promised you,” Oikawa sniffles. He fails to choke another sob back when Iwaizumi’s face screws up. “You’re so beautiful.”

“I’m an old man now, idiot…I’m starting to wrinkle and shit.”

“You’re gorgeous, every part of you. Every little wrinkle,” Oikawa laughs, pressing a series of kisses from his forehead down to his cheeks. “You’re as beautiful as the day I met you.”

“God, you’re disgustingly sappy as always.” Iwaizumi wipes his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “How are things up there?”

“Same as they’ve always been. But what about you? You’re a family man now,” Oikawa notes.

“Yeah, I am.”

“I’m glad,” Oikawa breathes, pressing his forehead against Iwaizumi’s. “I am sorry. But I’m happy for you. You deserve happiness.”

“I told you to quit apologizing. We knew the stakes. You’re just the one that got away, is all.” Iwaizumi grins. “That doesn’t mean I stopped loving you.”

“I was so angry I destroyed a planet, Iwa-chan.”

“I almost forgot. That’s still really weird to hear.”

“And yet you’re still so calm,” Oikawa giggles. It feels natural to tilt Iwaizumi’s head up and slide their lips together in a kiss that holds an irreplaceable love. Iwaizumi sighs against his mouth, then presses another kiss against Oikawa’s cheek, and then to his palm.

“Oikawa.”

“I’ll love you.”

“Always.”

“More than you know.”

Iwaizumi presses his hand over Oikawa’s and squeezes it tight. “Can I ask you one more favor?”

“Anything.”

“It might get you in trouble—“

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa breathes, “I’m jealous it isn’t me.” Oikawa will do anything to atone for not being Iwaizumi’s one and only. He’ll bring the edges of the Universe together if Iwaizumi wished it.

“Visit me. It doesn’t have to be very often. But. I’m not gonna be around forever. There’s going to be a day where I can’t do any of this anymore, and I don’t want to regret not having done it enough.” Iwaizumi looks up, dark hazel eyes soft and serene, glassy and red around the edges. “Let me love you until the clock stops, okay?”

“Everyday,” Oikawa doesn’t even stutter. “I’ll give you a kiss every day. Twice a day. As many times as you want. We’ll go get coffee and take naps with scratchy blankets and do all the things old people do. I’ll come get you every morning and tell you how beautiful you look, and I’ll tell you I love you before I go home. Okay?”

“Thanks.” Iwaizumi smiles, using his sleeve to clean off Oikawa’s messy face and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “You always bend for me.”

“You get your bragging rights. You made a God fall head over heels for you.”

“Damn I’m good.”

Oikawa pulls his arms around him and sways back and forth, a soothing rocking motion that lulls the both of them quiet. “I’ll make this paradise last, Iwa-chan. I promise.”

Iwaizumi smiles. “I know you will.”