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"I guess this is it, huh?"
"Don't sound so morbid, Shittykawa! We're not dying."
"I know," Tooru smiles softly, sadly, "but it kind of feels like we're running out of time, right?"
To this, Hajime does not reply. Does not trust himself to. Instead, he does what he has been for years - he runs away. Lets himself take the backseat, content with the tepid comfort of skirting around certain topics and leaving them alone. He's always been the kind of man to leave things as they are.
Not Tooru, though. Never Tooru. Tooru has always been the kind of man who will charge headfirst into anything, even if it means stumbling along the way. And boy, has he taken a few rough nosedives in his tender seventeen-going-on-eighteen years. True enough to form, Hajime has been right there for him every time, not always able to break the fall, but unfailingly ready to bandage and suture and mend. So why does he feel like he won't be able to fix this one?
Sighing, Hajime turns his head minutely where he lies in the coarse grass, glancing contemplatively over to where his best friend lies parallel. Quickly, Tooru brings an arm up to cover his face, but not before Hajime catches the telltale sparkling in those tawny doe-eyes, an imminent sign of tears threatening to spill over.
"Hey, hey," Hajime props himself up on an elbow, "we're not running out of time, Oikawa. We're just getting ready to... start a new chapter."
The smallest gasp leaves Tooru's lips - and what beautiful lips they are, plush pink and finely sculpted - the most loving craftsmanship of the divine creator. Ever so slowly, Tooru lowers his arm, revealing a galaxy of teardrops clinging to those heavenly lashes, and of a sudden, Hajime feels as though his breath has been stolen from him.
"Iwa-chan, I th-"
"It's you."
Hajime doesn't look at - barely even notices - the clear night sky with its infinite agglomeration of stars above his head. Why would he, when he's had the brightest star by his side all along? Why would he, when his best friend's dazzling luminosity drowns out the darkness anyway? Why would he, when he can see it in Tooru's eyes right now, reflected in those coppery depths, those ever-expanding pools of stardust and aspiration?
"It's always been you. Fuck, Oika - Tooru. I can't believe I didnt - I never -"
Smiling through the tears now running down his face, Tooru chokes back a sob and presses a chaste kiss to the corner of Hajime's lips.
"Iwa-chan," his voice is the breathiest of whispers, and had Hajime not been just a few centimetres from Tooru's face, the words (so laced with longing and a lifetime's worth of suppressed emotion) might have been swept away with the balmy summertime breeze.
"Am I being ridiculous? I've loved you for as long as I can remember. Shit - so long, that loving you feels like the most natural thing in the world. I guess that's why I - why I never even realised," Hajime manages to croak these words out around the lump growing in his throat. He feels as though he could be swallowed by the cosmic storm that is Oikawa Tooru, and he's perfectly okay with that. He wants it. He wants to let himself sink into this boy, wants him with the very core of his being.
And so Hajime tells him.
"Listen, Tooru. I know we don't have much time left until - until we both leave for college" he pauses while Tooru suppresses a sob behind his hand, "but I want you to know this: no matter how - fuck, this is embarrassing, but - no matter how far apart we are, I'll never love you any less. You're too much a part of me for me to ever let that go. So, if you'll have me - can I be yours?"
"Oh, Hajime," when Tooru leans in, Hajime picks up the familiar scent of rose soap and nutmeg, and it feels like coming home. Brushing slender, calloused fingers against his jaw, Tooru murmurs, "you were mine all along. All you had to do was ask."
"See? We're not running out of time. We've got the rest of our lives to look forward to."
Who needs the stars, anyway, Hajime finds himself faintly thinking as he kisses his confessions into Tooru's mouth, when I've got my own galaxy right here?