Archive of Our Own ^beta

As far as Iwaizumi knows, it started like this:

They were at volleyball practice, as they usually were back then. During their first year of high school they had mostly existed on the court, both eager to prove their worth early on but also full of passion. Losing to Shiratorizawa twice during their first year sealed the deal: this was real, nationals were a plausible reality, and they simply needed to focus and work hard. They needed to perfect every last move—serves, sets, spikes, blocks, you name it, they needed polishing and they needed it fast. With the third-years already out of the picture even before the prelims, there were many gaps to fill, and no one was planning on wasting a moment.

Which was what made this all the more confusing—given the circumstances and his ambitions, there was no way Oikawa Tooru, undoubtedly the most ambitious person Iwaizumi had met in his life, would ever let anything distract him during practice. Yet there he was, setting a moment too late and getting yelled at by their coach for being distracted. Again. Two times in a row weren’t a problem when it came to most people, but Oikawa never got distracted. Not on court, at least. He was also quickly becoming their most formidable player, always communicative and eager to improve both himself and his teammates. Practice stalled if he was out of it.

Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. Oikawa just looked away, annoyance blending on his face with something else that Iwaizumi couldn’t decipher. He shrugged and went back to stretching; he’d overextended his arms practising recently and it had earned him a very stiff shoulder, but he was cleared to keep playing as long as he warmed up properly beforehand.

It was exactly six seconds later that Oikawa nearly messed up another set. Their coach made him run a good twenty laps around the court before calming down enough to let him play again, but at least it worked. Oikawa didn’t mess up any more sets that afternoon.

After practice was over Iwaizumi approached his best friend. “What was up with you today?”

Oikawa looked like he’d rather run all the way to Tokyo as punishment if it meant he didn’t have to discuss it. “Bad day.” He was looking everywhere but at Iwaizumi. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Better.” He hadn’t done his post-practice stretching yet, so he got to it, and when he glanced at Oikawa again, his brain short-circuited.

Oikawa getting distracted had been weird, but what Iwaizumi suspected had been the source of his distraction was currently much, much weirder.

He couldn’t be right. He absolutely couldn’t.

He turned around, finished stretching, and pretended Oikawa was looking at him the exact same way he always had.

Surely he would forget about it anyway.

Iwaizumi spent most of his weekend over his English homework, analysing proverbs and pointedly not thinking about what he had noticed on Friday until “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back” promptly flattened the last of his resolve. If God existed, they were probably his English teacher, currently crying from laughing too hard at the world’s cruellest cosmic joke.

So, no, he did not forget about it.

The next time they had practice was a full three days later, which had given Iwaizumi plenty of time to overcome the initial shock of his little ascertainment. Now he was mostly thinking of the cat, and his English teacher who was not laughing when he handed his homework in, so either the joke was not funny anymore or she had no relation to godhood whatsoever—and, well, Oikawa.

As far as talking and spending their breaks together were concerned, things had never been more normal, to the point Iwaizumi couldn’t help but wonder if he’d imagined it (a very distinct possibility, he reminded himself). But the theoretical cat was still very curious, so he decided it was worth at least one actual try.

So he started stretching specifically when Oikawa was still talking to him, when Iwaizumi knew he had his friend’s full attention. He could feel his pulse quickening a little at the thought with a curious nervousness he didn’t recall experiencing in a while.

This is silly, he chastised himself. And it was—but that was only because, caught up with volleyball and school and expectations and life going too fast for him to catch up, Iwaizumi forgot sometimes he was still just a teenager. He had always been told he was “mature for his age”, and that had translated into actively suppressing anything he deemed immature or irresponsible.

He could tell with absolute certainty that this was the epitome of immature and irresponsible, but for some odd reason he did it anyway. He told himself he was supposed to stretch, after all. He could even convince himself that there was no reason on earth he chose that precise moment to raise his arms behind his head and press one elbow down until he felt the familiar pull of his shoulder as it refused to cooperate.

It almost distracted him from the very obvious mess that it was apparently making of Oikawa, whose glance fell abruptly before he stared away, the tips of his ears very bright red.

Iwaizumi froze. He’d never been particularly aware of it before Friday, and even then it’d been just a hunch, because it didn’t feel like it was… enough? A small part of his abdomen showing when he raised his arms couldn’t possibly be distracting, for god’s sake. Surely this couldn’t be it.

And that was without addressing the fact that the one currently (repeatedly) distracted was his best friend.

Right. That was the main thing he had to unpack. He could deal with the mild surprise of his abdomen apparently being attractive later.

He realised how blatantly he was staring a bit too late. A question had probably flown over his head and gone unanswered at some point as well.

Oikawa looked like he wanted to die. Every patch of visible skin from his neck upwards had turned glaringly, brilliantly red. Iwaizumi was beginning to see spots.

Instead, he collected as many coherent thoughts as he could gather and asked him, “What?”

Which could’ve meant anything at this point. What as in “What is wrong with you?” or “What are we?” or “What is happening?” or “What? And also when, how, why, where…” or—

Somehow, Oikawa had the composure to interpret it as, “What did you ask?”, and calmly repeated the question (something about volleyball, because up to that point, most things between them and in their lives had been about volleyball), and Iwaizumi answered, and if it wasn’t for the bright crimson shade Oikawa’s face had taken that was yet to fade, no one would’ve guessed anything had passed between them at all.

So. The cat had been absolutely obliterated, and satisfaction wasn’t doing shit to bring it back. Iwaizumi found himself glancing a lot more than getting sets and spikes required, and a few times his eyes met the other’s as they always did—only at alarmingly increasing frequency, which meant a lot of looking away hurriedly and at least two clumsy sets from Oikawa where he normally made none.

Yeah, things were definitely not normal. They were awkward as hell.

The entire time he was supposed to practise serving, Iwaizumi spent it absentmindedly sending balls flying with unreasonable fierceness above the net, his brain feeling like soup. It kept conjuring questions that felt increasingly like the world’s nosiest interrogation: when had this started? Was it at Friday practice or some point earlier? What did it mean for their friendship? What even was it? Was Oikawa going to say anything, or was he going to take it to his grave? Ever since when had Oikawa been into guys, and why hadn’t he said anything? Was he scared Iwaizumi would be weird about it? Was Iwaizumi being weird about it? What constituted as “weird” in these cases? What are you supposed to do when you may or may not be your best friend’s sexual awakening? Was Iwaizumi supposed to bring it up, then? But what was he supposed to say? He’d done his part to consciously, clearly make things a lot worse. Was he supposed to apologise? Should he keep it up? Why the hell would he keep it up?

… He was tempted. Uncertain why. Just tempted.

He spent the last ten or so minutes of practice sending the ball slamming against the wall in an entirely new mental place. Why was he tempted to tease Oikawa about this? Wouldn’t that make things significantly worse?

The cat was rolling in its grave. Iwaizumi sighed and hit the next spike so hard the ball ricocheted and caught Hanamaki’s failed jump float serve in the air.

Hanamaki blinked at him. “That would’ve been more impressive if it was intentional.”

“Don’t test me or I’ll aim for you next time.”

“There, there.” Oikawa. He had appeared behind Iwaizumi, quiet as a ghost, and placed his hand lightly on his shoulder. The injured one, Iwaizumi noted to himself. Maybe that explained why the touch was so hesitant. It had to, because otherwise he’d spiral even lower.

He wouldn’t allow ten centimetres of skin to ruin their friendship. He’d mummify himself if need be. Anything, anything to make Oikawa act normally around him again.

(“Normal” bugged him a little. Just a little.)

“You’re good at jump serves, Iwaizumi. Maybe you could help him a little?”

He almost had a stroke. Iwaizumi?

He was absolutely going to mummify himself after this. Oikawa had been calling him by the stupid nickname he’d made up for years now. Sometimes, when it was the two of them and conversations turned somewhat more personal, he used Hajime. But this?

Maybe he wouldn’t tease Oikawa about it, after all. Maybe he’d cry and beg him to start acting normally again. Maybe he’d purchase a spacesuit and hide inside it forever.

He mumbled a “sure” despite not being sure about anything at all and found a clear corner where Hanamaki could practise his serves without cannonballing anyone. Even after practice was over, he kept his teammate back a little longer (even though the situation was looking absolutely hopeless) with the pretext that, eventually, he’d do it (clearly he wouldn’t).

Hanamaki gave up half an hour later. “I think I’ll stick to standing serves for a while.”

Iwaizumi shrugged, defeated. Oikawa still hadn’t left; he was setting to the wall at the very other side of the court. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”

“You said that so mechanically I’m not sure you believe it yourself.” He made a pause, and Iwaizumi knew he was being observed. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Oh.” Right. Not everyone could perceive his internal crisis. “Getting better, I think.”

“Need help stretching?”

“Sure.”

They had moved to leg stretches by the time Oikawa made their way back to them. “How did it go?”

“Shit. Didn’t you notice?”

Oikawa raised his eyebrow. “I was halfway across the court.”

Hanamaki stared for a moment. Like Iwaizumi, he was sitting on the floor, legs spread out, arms reaching forward. He looked between the two of them, and then he grinned.

Iwaizumi knew him well enough to know this meant he was fucked.

“Your attention has been very… how do I phrase it,” Hanamaki started.

He didn’t get to figure out how to phrase it, because Oikawa casually put his knee on his back and pressed. Hanamaki wasn’t exactly known for his flexibility, and it made him yelp. “You asshole.”

“You were saying?” Oikawa said, in the same innocent voice their teammate had used. It was still a bit of a joke, then, and Hanamaki didn’t seem to be in actual pain. Yet there was something else there. Something like a warning, or a desperate plea.

Iwaizumi didn’t realise he was blinking at them before Hanamaki glared at him and said, “How about you go help him as well?”

Oikawa rolled his eyes, but he let Hanamaki go and came near Iwaizumi instead. When he pressed his leg against his back it was a much smoother motion, slow and gradual. “Tell me if it hurts,” he muttered.

His knee was probably pressing some nerve that hit directly at Iwaizumi’s sore shoulder, but he didn’t complain. This was the most normal they’d been in the past four hours, and between his jumbled thoughts and the surge of anxiety that came with the smallest implications that something may have cracked he was absolutely not going to risk it.

Between “I’m good” (you’re not hurting me) and “You’re good” (to me, you’re good to me, you’re doing this alright), what he ended up saying somehow was, “We’re good.”

Oikawa removed his leg, and Iwaizumi prepared himself for the worst. He turned, an apology ready on his lips, to instead be met with two extended hands, full of familiar calluses.

He took Oikawa’s hands and let him help him up. It wasn’t the first time they’d held hands like this, so it wasn’t exactly weird, but the way their palms felt when they were pressed against each other didn’t go unnoticed. Neither did the way the touch lingered for a second too long after Iwaizumi was on his feet.

He did his best not to glance sideways at Hanamaki to see how much of this he’d noticed. If he kept pretending nothing was unusual then maybe everyone else would believe it, and Iwaizumi would be allowed to untangle this mess in the privacy of his own head.

He didn’t miss how red the nape of Oikawa’s neck had turned in the meantime.

Iwaizumi knew this was stupid. He understood why perfectly.

And yet he couldn’t help it.

He was beginning to understand exactly why the saying ended with "but its satisfaction brought it back". Despite their apparent return to normalcy, during the next few days he found himself a little too eager to keep testing the waters between him and his best friends. Stretching always did the trick, but so did anything even remotely, vaguely suggestive: anything that lingered a little too long, any touch or glance that could’ve been a second shorter but needlessly dragged on instead. It didn’t matter which one of them started it—it always got Oikawa to blush, no exceptions. Iwaizumi hadn’t even known before just how easily Oikawa blushed, how it only took the smallest compliment or the hastiest touch to get him flustered. Tiny moments that passed as casually as a heartbeat turned him as bright red as the girls that vied for his attention between classes and after matches—and Iwaizumi became aware very suddenly that this wasn’t happening with everyone.

Oikawa only acted like this around him.

It basically flipped the entire situation around overnight.

It also brought up a far more pressing question for Iwaizumi, which was, what was he going to do about it? Sure, teasing Oikawa and seeing him turn all sheepish and embarrassed was fun, and honestly endearing, but if it was a genuine crush then Iwaizumi couldn’t keep toying with it. Sure, his advances (if he could call them that, though he was being so diffident it was mostly just teasing) were playful and Oikawa seemed to know it, because he never brought any of it up. But Iwaizumi wasn’t a fan of leading people on when he wasn’t interested in them, so he decided to stop.

That led to some unforeseen issues: one, it made Iwaizumi a little miserable, because without realising it he’d been genuinely enjoying teasing his best friend; two, it made him realise exactly how many of their playful moments were initiated by Oikawa; three, Oikawa definitely noticed the change, and it made him a little hesitant, which Iwaizumi hated; four, it all brought up even more questions, and these weren’t just about Oikawa.

A fair amount concerned Iwaizumi alone.

Self-reflection had never been one of his strengths, because it required being in touch with his emotions, and Iwaizumi couldn’t think of anything he wanted less than acknowledging he had emotions, let alone being in touch with them. In the end he decided it was ultimately a practical issue far more than it was an emotional one anyway; he waited until everyone had gone to bed, turned on his laptop, and stared at the search bar.

The search bar stared back, unmoved.

Iwaizumi thought that figuring out what his problem was would be a sound first step. After a short twenty minutes of contemplation slowly turning into utter despair, he got to typing.

Am I

He deleted it. No, that probably wasn’t it.

Am I in l

DELETE. That was ridiculously far-fetched. Where did it even come from?

How to tell if you’re 

Hm. Decent start. Felt right. Now he only needed to understand what precisely it was that he couldn’t tell.

… Perhaps phrasing wasn’t the real problem. It was merely the easier one.

Iwaizumi took a deep breath, then forced his trembling fingers to type the full sentence and press enter before he could overthink it any longer:

how to tlel if you have  a curhs on tour best frbned 

His laptop screen stared back mockingly.

Did you mean: how to tell if you have a crush on your best friend

Below, there was hell. Articles, quizzes, videos, blog posts, forums—all boldly displaying a variation of the question Iwaizumi didn’t even have the courage to ask himself. As if it wasn’t the most soul-crushing thing in the world. As if it was a simple question with a simple yes-or-no answer.

He scrolled until he found a quiz that looked stupid enough to give him the benefit of doubt. He clicked on it and went straight down, heart beating dangerously close to his throat.

• Do you take extra care of your appearance if you know you’re going to see your best friend?

Huh? He absolutely didn’t. The fact that he generally didn’t really try that much with his appearance notwithstanding, he also didn’t see a reason to try hard around Oikawa, of all people, who knew what he’d looked like almost every day of his life since they were toddlers. He checked the “no” box.

• Do you catch yourself staring at them?

Uh. Well, yes, but only recently, and only because Oikawa had started staring first.

He contemplated for a second, debating exactly how honest he was going to be. At last he went for a more neutral option: sure, occasionally.

• Is making your best friend happy a top priority?

Yeah, bastard. It comes with being best friends.

The most fitting answer was a little too on-the-nose, but it was true: Obviously, I’m happy when they’re happy.

How could he not be?

• Do you wait for them to text you?

Well, obviously not, because obviously Oikawa would text him. They were best friends, they texted when they were apart, everyone does that with their best friend.

• Do you ever think about your future together?

There’s no future together. Oikawa would go abroad by the end of high school to focus on his volleyball career, they both knew that very well. The plans had been neatly set throughout the year and they would be finalised by the time they graduated. Oikawa wasn’t planning on staying, and Iwaizumi would rather never see him again than hold him back. He checked “no” without even reading the rest of the answers.

• Do other people assume you’re dating?

That was an easy one. No one thought that, and even if they did, they probably found it too unlikely to bother asking.

… With one possible exception.

Screw you Hanamaki. He checked “I don’t think so” just in case.

• How would you feel if your best friend started dating someone else?

Well, not good. Only someone as insufferable as Oikawa would ever willingly tolerate Oikawa. How pleasant could that be?

There was no fitting answer, so he went with the next closest option: “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it”.

• Do you ever wonder what it’d feel like to kiss your best friend?

He’d rather die than consider that.

• Are you currently open to dating other people?

… No? But that wasn’t because of Oikawa, it was purely because no one interesting had come by in a while, since Iwaizumi’s social circle had been very limited this year. His teammates and classmates were the people he saw the most, and he wasn’t interested in any of them. Still, that didn’t mean Oikawa had anything to do with it.

• How does it feel when your best friend touches/hugs you?

… Oh. Hm.

How did he feel? Oikawa’s touch was always welcome, because it was familiar. He’d grown up with it, and casual touches happened frequently. Back when they were kids, they’d slept in the same bed, because the couch was too far away and the floor was too cold. Back then, when life was simpler and these things meant nothing at all, Iwaizumi would warm Oikawa’s hands with his own when they were cold, and take care of his bleeding knees, and brush leaves off his hair in the autumn, and hug him back tightly when they reunited after holidays. Those things weren’t new at all.

It was only recently that touching had suddenly increased again, and with that came all this nervous anxiety he kept feeling whenever a hand landed on his shoulder or a knee bumped against his own underneath the table. Recently it’d also evolved to moments that were simply impossible to ignore: the other day, for example, while passing behind him in a crowded room, Oikawa had placed his palm low on Iwaizumi’s back, and it’d sent him into cardiac arrest.

What did any of that classify as?

He risked skimming through the answers. They were all too casual, distressingly so, except for the one at the bottom: it described the feeling as “electric”.

Fuck straight off.

• Do you want to spend more time with your best friend?

Meh. He already saw Oikawa far more than anyone could possibly survive when subjected to Oikawa. They saw each other at school, went to practice together, spent their after-hours practising together, walked home together, hung out after school, stopped by each other’s houses just to hang out for a while even on weekdays. He practically spent his entire life around Oikawa already.

And he didn’t mind it at all.

• Do you compare them to other people you’ve dated?

For the last question of a life-shattering quiz, this one was extremely easy. Comparing the two girls he’d dated in his life to Oikawa felt so stupid. Those were vastly different people that played vastly different roles in his life.

He checked “no”, took a deep breath, and hit “View results”.

“You’re probably just friends! For now, at least…”

There, Iwaizumi thought. It’d all been clear since the beginning. He wasn’t into guys, so he couldn’t be into his best friend. Simple as that.

So what the hell was the clawing in his chest?

He chose to ignore that and moved to another, equally pressing subject. He didn’t even misspell every other word this time.

How do I know if my best friend has a crush on me?

He clicked on the first blog post that showed up and began reading.

Body language: If they’re more stiff than usual when they’re around you, it might mean they’re nervous because they have a crush on you.

Okay. Awful, horrible, terrible start. Moving on.

Eye contact: If they’re making more eye contact than usual or suddenly avoiding your eyes, both could be a sign of a crush.

Well, contradictory answers are always so helpful. So anything Oikawa did meant he had a crush? Maybe the blog post he’d chosen didn’t deserve to be the first recommended result.

Then again, it had a point with the aversion part.

The next bunch of hints didn’t apply to them. They didn’t hug very often anymore. Oikawa always made sure to look perfect, even if he was going out to throw the trash, so there wasn’t much else to do there. The mannerisms were far too specific for Iwaizumi to have noticed. They rarely complimented each other outside of matches, and Iwaizumi preferred lovingly crafted insults anyway. He couldn’t remember the last time they talked about girls, and boys had never been brought up as romantic interests to begin with.

Physical touch: Do they touch you more often than before? Have they suddenly stopped touching you at all? Do they use compliments as an excuse to touch you?

There you go, being all vague and annoying again. And also right, to an extent. Oikawa had indeed started touching him more often recently, but he’d always been an affectionate person, and not just with Iwaizumi. It was simply how Oikawa was.

The rest of the post was advice on how to deal with it, which mostly consisted of “Tell them!”, which Iwaizumi would simply never do. Their friendship mattered far more than four months’ worth of overthinking every interaction. It’d go away eventually.

… So why was he so disappointed?

He knew he’d been grinding his teeth, hard, because he was beginning to feel it along his jaw. A dull ache echoed across his entire skull.

It couldn’t get any worse than this. He decided he could only bite the bullet and get it over with, now.

He went back to the search bar and typed a much shorter question:

Am I gay?

The problem presented itself right away: his reference for “people of the same sex” was very narrow. One person in total; he couldn’t picture himself with other men, and even letting his mind wander and explore things with Oikawa felt awkward, odd. Not unpleasant, exactly, just out of place. He’d spent his entire life around this person, and thinking about kissing him now was very unfamiliar territory.

He ignored Oikawa and the quiz deemed he was straight. He tried again, this time adding Oikawa to the equation, and this time he was congratulated on discovering he was apparently bisexual, or at least vaguely somewhere into same-sex attraction. Not super into men, according to the axis that the website provided at the bottom, far closer to straight than gay—but still cleanly into the bisexual square.

He celebrated the discovery by turning his laptop off, allowing the earlier disappointment he’d felt to wholly settle in, and then he sobbed until he couldn’t think anymore.

“You’ve been acting weird the whole week,” Oikawa said softly after practice a week later.

Iwaizumi would rather die than explain. His best friend’s eyes were gentle, full of concern, and it was breaking his heart a little. How was he supposed to explain this? “I took a test that said I don’t have a crush on you, which was disappointing, which is probably the single most terrifying emotional response I could have had to that. I’m fairly certain you have a crush on me. And there’s a chance I like guys, which is also terrifying, because I thought this was a thing people know. You don’t just figure it out on a random Wednesday night.”

He would trust Oikawa with his life, but this week-long (and counting) crisis was his alone. He couldn’t talk about it without ruining their friendship, that much was clear.

So he just said, “What do you mean?”

“You just seem really anxious all the time.”

He could lie. He could brush it off. But the sincere, pure worry in Oikawa’s eyes made the prospect heartbreaking for no good reason.

“Something happened recently,” he said, which was true. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I’ll get over it soon. So don’t worry.”

He watched Oikawa’s expression shift until something like acceptance settled there. If Iwaizumi wanted to talk, he would. They both knew how he was when it came to expressing feelings: a little bit of a disaster, but he knew where to go if his thoughts overwhelmed him.

(This time would definitely be an exception, but he’d have to live with that.)

Oikawa reached out and gave his hand a brief squeeze before leaving to go change. It left Iwaizumi standing there, half his palm still buzzing with the aftermath of the contact.

It hurt more than he could put into words.

The worst thing was this: Iwaizumi couldn’t put a name on what it was that terrified him so much. He couldn’t even narrow it down.

He knew better than to trust online quizzes on these things, but he couldn’t shake them off no matter how hard he tried. He didn’t know if he had a crush on Oikawa because it felt so much different to any other crush he’d ever had. With the girls he liked it was stolen glances, getting nervous to talk to them, feeling his heart doing a giddy little jump when a girl seemed to be interested back. He could picture himself going on dates with them, kissing them. Intimacy came easy in his head, and while he was definitely awkward when it came to actually doing things, the prospect was exciting.

This whole thing was nothing like that. It was a mix of dread, depression, and a sense of impending doom. Every touch felt charged yet almost loving, which wrecked him as much as it made him yearn for more. He couldn’t stop glancing at Oikawa, but whenever he stared back he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He couldn’t picture kissing, cuddling, holding hands, going on dates—none of that felt like a real, plausible outcome for the two of them. Yet once a thought occurred, it was hard to shut it out. It stayed there, a gentle reminder of what Oikawa possibly wanted, which was the same thing that was gnawing on Iwaizumi’s poor heart.

He couldn’t do this. Yet whenever his best friend glanced at him during practice, or found an excuse to touch him, or said something and then stared a second too long before getting a response, or when the idiot blushed at every small thing—there was a massive what if hanging over their heads, and it went neon bright whenever Iwaizumi didn’t shy away and instead allowed himself the guilty pleasure of getting to know what was going on on the other side.

He couldn’t get to the heart of it all, but he suspected that, if he let himself actually think about it, he’d figure out it was mainly his sexuality crisis. He was highly suppressing that, and it wasn’t helping, but he didn’t know what it meant or how it worked. It also didn’t help that he was so on the line with it still: he barely liked one boy with whom he couldn’t even picture holding hands, and all this had happened at sixteen after liking so many girls before, and never once giving boys a second glance. Was he faking it? Was Oikawa’s possible crush (growing more and more obvious with each passing day, now that Iwaizumi knew what to look for) rubbing off on him, or something? Was he so afraid of losing his best friend because he couldn’t reciprocate his feelings, that he’d rather convince himself it could work out than exclude the possibility altogether?

It was all so, so stupid, and it hurt so much Iwaizumi was convinced he could pinpoint exactly the line on his skin underneath which his heart was cracking.

Cats definitely have nine lives, because this one came back to haunt Iwaizumi like it held a grudge.

The whole idea of having or not having a crush on his best friend, of liking or not liking guys, of his best friend maybe liking him or not liking him back—it was overwhelming at first, horrifying with implications he’d never entertained before—yet maybe a month later Iwaizumi realised he’d gone back to having undisturbed thoughts again too, without even noticing. He could do homework without the constant distraction of something his best friend had said or done during the day that may or may not have meant something. He could help his mother make dinner without drowning in all he was hiding from her. He could high-five Oikawa during practice matches without feeling like he was leading him on.

It all became… normal, somehow. The curiosity that had sent him spiralling out of control to begin with had settled a little. He was beginning to understand it, and it was far less terrifying now that it was not wild and he could examine it up close.

So what if he had a crush on his best friend? Many people do, if the abundance of internet articles were anything to judge by. Maybe Oikawa happened to be Iwaizumi’s awakening because they knew and trusted each other so well, knew secrets like these would stay safe—or maybe it was because Oikawa was, objectively speaking, overwhelmingly beautiful. And a little bit of an asshole. And the best friend Iwaizumi could’ve ever asked for, if his approach to whatever the hell was happening between them was anything.

Because something was happening. Iwaizumi couldn’t label it. No word he knew defined it right, so he simply decided it didn’t need defining.

He knew he hadn’t been the only one overthinking their situation when Oikawa came over desperate for help over a maths problem, then spent an entire half hour with his chin hovering directly over Iwaizumi’s shoulder, too close but never touching. He wasn’t just nervous, Iwaizumi realised with a painful pang. He was afraid. Terrified, just like Iwaizumi had been (and still was, even if he was beginning to learn what this fear meant). Oikawa rested his hand on the desk a little too close to his friend’s, and there was a brief touch every single time he moved with no exception, and he was acting mostly normal but half the times Iwaizumi asked something about the homework Oikawa hadn’t been paying attention at all.

It was a little funny. Oikawa Tooru, serial heartbreaker without ever even trying, already the most popular boy in the volleyball team by far despite barely being into his second year, whose casual flirting came so effortlessly but when he seriously liked someone he got a little nervous despite acting all confident in front of them. That Oikawa Tooru, that one, was currently chewing his words because of his best friend existing next to him like he had done their entire lives.

Iwaizumi supposed it was a little flattering. It also made him wonder how bad this whole thing could possibly be. Why it terrified them both so much, and yet why it felt so alluring.

He elbowed Oikawa on the side, because at the end of the day, he was still his best friend, and he still cared. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.” Too quick. Iwaizumi knew him too well.

He shifted until he was facing his friend, maths problem forgotten. “Talk to me, asshole. You’ve been acting weird for days.” More like months. “What’s going on?”

That final question came out more worried than he had wanted. Oikawa was looking at him like a wet puppy expecting to be kicked out of the house. He started cracking his knuckles, a very telling Oikawa move that meant he was getting worked up. Either he was going to talk or he’d make them both miserable by failing to pretend everything was okay.

“I don’t know if I can talk about it.”

“Oh.”

He hadn’t planned on sounding this disappointed, but Oikawa caught it, and he flinched, his eyes finally finding Iwaizumi’s again. “It’s not… I’ve just not talked about it with anyone. And I don’t know how to do it now.”

“You don’t have to. And you don’t have to talk to me specifically if you’re not comfortable with that. It’s just good to get things out of your system once in a while.”

“Yeah.” Oikawa went silent, gazing at his hands, his knuckles turned white from the pressure. Iwaizumi was tempted to hold them just to calm him down a little. Then his own heartbeat picked up speed, the realisation too much to deal with in such an already critical moment.

“Is it normal to like someone and yet be absolutely terrified of it?”

Iwaizumi blinked. He hadn’t expected Oikawa to say anything at all. Especially not about this.

“Yeah,” he said, a little breathless. His head was spinning. “Yeah, I’ve… been through that, I guess.”

Oikawa nodded, eyes fixed on the floor between them. Their knees were almost touching. “Did the other person like you back?”

“I… think so. I never did something about it, to be honest. Like you said, I was terrified.” I still am.

“What if that person liked you back? Wouldn’t it be worth a try?”

Huh. What. What the fuck. What are we doing? “I don’t know. There’s probably a reason why it’s so terrifying, right? Maybe it’s a valid reason. Things don’t always work out.”

“Why were you terrified?”

“It was a friend. I was scared of ruining our friendship.” It was maybe a third of the truth.

Oikawa nodded. Iwaizumi wasn’t sure how he got such a sincere answer out of himself. He also didn’t know he could only talk in half truths now that it mattered most. Most of all, he didn’t know he could be presented with a real, palpable chance to work something out, and now that he had he was running away.

“What about you?” he asked quietly.

What he really wanted was a sign they were both talking about themselves. Oikawa could very well be talking about someone else, right?

He seemed very interested in the floorboards. “I think… I think the person I like is very afraid too,” he said softly. “But it’s a different type of fear. I can’t tell if that person is afraid in the same way that I am or if they simply don’t like me back.”

“What do you mean?”

Oikawa looked at him this time—really looked at him, in the eyes, and it felt like staring directly at the sun. “Maybe that person knows I like them, and they don’t like me back, and they don’t know how to tell me.”

It felt like a challenge, all of a sudden, and a very unfair one at that. Iwaizumi stared back, his heart one beat away from jumping out of his chest and straight into the arms of the boy who had caused all of this, and wondered for the first time what would really happen if he kissed him now. If he just leaned in and did it.

The fantasy he conjured in his head was always awkward, stiff, wrong. But this? The real urge, with the real person? It was horrifyingly tempting.

He bit his tongue hard until it ached too much, then he tore his gaze away. How could he ever think this wasn’t about him? And how was Oikawa not seeing it was about him, too?

“Maybe that person is even more terrified than you are,” he said. His eyes were searing, and if he looked up again he wouldn’t be able to hold back. “Maybe… Maybe they do like you back, but that means a lot more to them than just that. It’s not just your friendship that’s on the line. Maybe your friend is figuring a lot of things out along with dealing with the whole crush thing, because of the crush thing.”

He was barely making any sense. He was barely registering the fact that Oikawa had never said anything about that person being his friend.

So there was something shifting between them, after all.

Oikawa was silent. Iwaizumi risked a glance, readying his legs to bolt if this went horribly wrong and he started sobbing on the spot.

What he found instead were the gentlest, most compassionate eyes he’d ever met, gazing right back.

“I see,” Oikawa said softly, and Iwaizumi thought he couldn’t have chosen a better word.

“I’m just saying,” he backtracked, too terrified of Oikawa making a move now. Not that he looked like he was going to, but they’d already said far too much, and the agony in his chest was expanding at alarming rates. He didn’t want to end up doing something stupid out of sheer fear of everything. “I’m probably wrong.”

“I have a feeling you’re not. Anyway.” Oikawa turned around and pulled his notebook back. He was still eyeing the page when he spoke again, gently this time, comfortingly. “I just really hope that my friend knows it’s okay, if that’s the case. I don’t mind waiting until they’re ready, you know. I just want us to be okay, whatever that might look like. These things are terrifying.”

Iwaizumi was acutely aware of how futile it’d be to try and hide anything now. Instead of bolting, he turned back to his desk, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Reality felt flimsy all of a sudden, as if he’d existed outside of it for a while—and the realisation that no, he hadn’t, this was really happening, they really were going to wait, figure things out, perhaps actually give it a try, it all made his head spin. He turned to look at Oikawa and found him smiling softly, hopefully, and it truly dawned on him that this had all really just happened, and they were okay. They liked each other, they were both scared, one more than the other, but they were both willing to wait. They both had a priority, and it was taking care of their hearts. Nothing had to break for this. They just had to be patient and careful.

It wasn’t so bad. Scary, still, but not bad.

“Your friend sounds kind of stupid,” he finally said. “There’s not much to be scared of when it comes to you.”

“Maybe he knows better than you,” Oikawa teased, leaning in.

He couldn’t help it. “Fuck off.”

Oikawa pulled away, laughing like this was the most delightful conversation he’d had in his entire life, and maybe it was, and Iwaizumi couldn’t hold his smile back.

“Maybe he’s terrified of your abysmal performance at maths recently.”

“Which is why I’m getting help,” Oikawa announced, drawing closer. This time, he let their knees touch. “Where were we?”

Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. “So you really weren’t paying attention.”

It had the desired result, and it was so delightful he almost fell over laughing. The absolute, overwhelming joy of being able to finally tease his best friend without feeling like someone was hunting him for sport. The sheer delight of watching as Oikawa’s ears turned bright red, of feeling his elbow digging into his side (he supposed he deserved it).

“My friend should be more afraid, actually.”

“Yeah, sure.”

It earned him the sweetest, most sincere smile he’d ever had the utter luck to witness.

They took their sweet fucking time, much to Hanamaki’s frustration specifically. He’d been watching closely since the first incident happened, and he’d pestered Iwaizumi on more than one occasion about his love life, Oikawa’s love life, their views on marriage—it was seriously getting out of control.

But Iwaizumi had been told pretty clearly that this was okay. If anything, he thought Oikawa had been encouraging on that part. Evidently he was far more self-aware than Iwaizumi, which meant however that he’d been through this already. He probably knew how it felt better than anyone.

Their friendship swiftly went from awkward to something delicate yet warm. The glances and the touches were still there, but they didn’t avoid them anymore; they leaned into it all, all the subtle flirting and the tentative affection. They melted into a new routine, where Iwaizumi’s shoulder became Oikawa’s pillow on the bus back home after late practices, where Iwaizumi was allowed to lay a hand over Oikawa’s when he started cracking his knuckles harder, where they glanced at each other and found the other staring already and didn’t hurry to look away.

It was nice. A little overwhelming in its implications, still, but mostly nice.

A little over a month later, Iwaizumi searched through the depths of his internet history and found that first quiz he’d taken. This time, he answered all the questions truthfully, no matter how cheesy the fitting answers were.

You definitely have a crush on your best friend!

“Yeah, no shit,” he told his laptop.

Yet it made him feel a little warm inside.

It was early spring (in theory; in practice, it was still abysmally cold, and sleet hadn’t quite turned into rain yet) when Iwaizumi finally acknowledged (in the privacy of his own head exclusively) that their current situation was not enough anymore. He wanted more. Now it was a matter of how brave he was.

Not much. So he took the first chance that appeared and got absolutely hammered.

He’d drunk a few times before, but never to the point where he was staggering. He knew he’d overdone it, and spent a full hour laying in a bed at the party's host’s house, waiting for the ceiling lamp to stop spinning like a helicopter at takeoff.

The door clicked open. “Oh, you’re dead too!”

He raised his head slightly and it made him so dizzy he almost threw up. He fell back down. “Absolutely.”

Oikawa flopped on the bed next to him. He sighed, eyes fluttering shut. “What time is it?”

Iwaizumi fished his phone from his pocket and squinted at the screen. “Almost two? I think? I can’t even fucking see.”

Oikawa rolled on his side, took his hand, and turned it so he could see the screen. He was squinting in a way that made him look incredibly ridiculous, and Iwaizumi almost kissed him there and then.

“That looks like a zero, one, four…” He leaned even closer, then groaned and fell back. “One forty-three. My parents are going to kill me if I go home now.”

“You can come over,” Iwaizumi said, a negative sum of thoughts going on in his head as the words left his mouth. “My parents are on a business trip, we’re good to go back whenever.”

“Aw, are you finally flirting with me?”

He landed a hand somewhere. Possibly Oikawa’s face—that was almost definitely his nose. “Fuck off.”

“Hey! That hurt.”

“Sorry.”

“... Fine. I deserved it anyway.”

With plummetingly decreasing thoughts running through his head, Iwaizumi turned around and pressed a sloppy kiss on Oikawa’s cheek. “You absolutely did.”

Oikawa turned on his side too just as Iwaizumi was settling again. His cheekbones were rosy in the dim light of the room, and Iwaizumi became suddenly very aware of the implications of kissing your crush’s face while the two of you are laying in bed together.

Oikawa barely seemed phased. He reached out and threaded his fingers through Iwaizumi’s hair, and it was so unexpectedly tender that Iwaizumi almost cried. “I wish you were this bold when you’re sober.”

“Not a chance.” He closed his eyes, Oikawa’s hand still in his hair. For someone with such calloused hands, Oikawa had a surprisingly soothing touch. He pulled a little closer. Oikawa’s palm rested lower, on the nape of his neck, fingers grazing his ear so lightly he thought he might be dreaming of it.

“How did you figure it out? That I like you?”

He said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, to casually confess to your best friend after weeks of dancing around it. Perhaps it was.

“You’re incredibly obvious.” Iwaizumi opened his eyes. “During volleyball practice. I didn’t know my abdomen was so pleasant to look at.”

The shade of red Oikawa’s face slowly turned didn’t even feel possible. He pulled away, utter mortification dawning on his face, and Iwaizumi laughed so hard he thought he was going to throw up.

“I think I’m leaving now,” Oikawa announced. “I think the last bus is leaving soon. If I ask very nicely then maybe the driver will do me a favour and run me over.”

Iwaizumi smiled. The fondness washing over him was absolutely disgusting. “You can’t die yet.”

“Fucking watch me.”

He pulled nearer again, pressed his lips on the other boy’s shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

“If you say anything else embarrassing on the way I will jump in the street.”

“I promise I will try to be nice.”

Neither of them knew how they made it downstairs, let alone how they even recognised their friends to say goodbye. Hanamaki was staring through their souls as they left, so Iwaizumi winked at him and left him reeling.

Miraculously, they caught the night bus. Iwaizumi huddled into a seat by the window, and Oikawa curled up next to him, head resting on his shoulder. Iwaizumi looked at him as he shut his eyes, unruly hair brushing against his cheek, and felt that familiar sense of overwhelm again, the one that only came in waves when Oikawa was involved somehow.

It was so tender this time it almost scared him.

Almost.

He leaned closer and pressed a kiss on his friend’s temple. He didn’t move, then; he just stayed there for another moment, lips against warm skin, Oikawa’s curls tingling his nose.

He thought he wanted this more than anything in the world. He thought he’d been calling it a crush all along, because it was easier, smaller, less threatening. Yet another lie he fed himself in an attempt to make this painless.

He wondered what he’d think when he was sober. He couldn’t imagine a world where he didn’t feel everything with each fibre of his being. His sober self, lost somewhere in the future, couldn’t possibly be real at any point in time—and definitely not now.

Maybe that was a good thing.

He kissed Oikawa’s temple again before turning back to the window. The town passed by in a colourful, messy, brilliant blur. He saw streetlights and carlights and the moon and a few bright squares where people were still awake, and he wondered how many of them were doing chores at this hour because they were too overwhelmed with the turbulence that came with being so utterly in love, so much that they couldn’t go to sleep.

Yup, he was extremely drunk.

The walk to his place was quiet. Oikawa had sobered up considerably during the bus ride, but his eyes still hurt, so he’d taken his contacts off. This presented a brand new issue—in his state and at this hour, he could barely see ten metres ahead of him, so he clutched Iwaizumi’s elbow for support as he stumbled and swore to never drink again.

“Easy to say that now,” Iwaizumi said. “You’re sixteen.”

“Right. I should save alcoholism for when I have to start doing taxes.”

“Exactly.”

Somehow, they made it to Iwaizumi’s home in one piece. They kicked their shoes off at the entrance and staggered upstairs. Oikawa fell flat on his back on the bed the moment he was in Iwaizumi’s room, looking like he’d been hammered more literally than figuratively.

“How do you get un-drunk?”

“My mom always says coffee helps?”

Oikawa eyed the clock on the bedside drawer, then sighed heavily and sat up. “Coffee it is, then.”

It all felt like a very stupid dream. They dragged their limbs back downstairs, chewed on some stale rice cakes while the coffee was brewing, then lamented their officially ruined sleep schedules before downing one mug each. Iwaizumi couldn’t imagine a universe where he was being this reckless—not because he was the proper type (far from that), but because he was currently shattering every last ounce of control that was remaining in his hands, and he wasn’t sure he could exist in a world where he didn’t feel at least some semblance of being able to control what was happening to him, what he was doing.

He had none of that now. Maybe he should’ve snorted the coffee beans instead of waiting for the coffee to kick in.

They went back to his room, and Oikawa lied back down with zero remorse over the space he was taking up. Eventually, he gave in to Iwaizumi’s merciless glaring and scooted to the side, making enough space for two people to lay side by side.

It wasn’t enough. Nothing was anymore.

The room was dim. The window had been forgotten open but neither was willing to get up just to close it, so it was also cold. Oikawa muttered something about his knee still hurting from yesterday’s practice match, when he landed clumsily after a serve, and the conversation went to volleyball as naturally as it would on any normal day. It was all very non-ideal, extremely stupid, and oddly cosy. Cool, easy, an arm around his shoulders after an exhausting match, a fist relaxing as his palm closed around it, a finger tracing the outline of his ear.

The present was too hazy to touch, so they talked about the future. About Argentina, and Oikawa's wild dreams of the Olympics, and how maybe they weren't wild at all because he was destined for greatness.

“I always envied you a bit. You seem so… set on this. You’ve always known it’s what you want to do.”

Oikawa smiled a little. “That’s funny.”

“How?”

“I’ve always admired you for being the opposite.”

Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. “What, my indecisiveness is that impressive?”

“You call it indecisiveness, but it’s always been more like…” Oikawa paused, trying to come up with the right word. Iwaizumi thought he’d never witnessed anything this beautiful. “More like adaptability, perhaps? Life comes and you just deal with it. You were always so curious, and I guess I was too, but I was too afraid sometimes. You never were. Things came up and you just… went for it. Let things happen without being scared.”

“I am now.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. He’d really lost all control.

“This is different,” Oikawa said softly. Their legs were touching again. “This isn’t something you just… try, I guess. Or it can be, I suppose. You’ve always been on guard when it comes to your emotions, but it doesn’t hurt to experiment sometimes.”

“If you’re trying to flirt right now, it’s not working.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes. “I’m not flirting, I’m offering very solid advice because I have the benefit of retrospect.” 

Iwaizumi froze. He somehow hadn’t considered this before, at all. “When was it?”

“Two years back? Three? I don’t know, I guess I got curious and gave it a shot—nothing too exciting, honestly, but it was nice. It felt good. So I had a mental breakdown about it and then I got over it. It stopped being intimidating when it stopped being this huge mystery that my life depended on. Because it didn’t. It’s just who I am, you know? I like girls and boys. It’s not that earth-shattering once you realise it doesn’t really change anything. It simply opens up your dating pool.”

Iwaizumi had so many questions he didn’t know where to start. Oikawa had never spoken about any of this before, and at no point in middle school had Iwaizumi guessed something so tremendous was happening in his life. Part of him felt extremely guilty. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Oikawa shrugged. “We were in middle school. People are extremely fucking stupid about these things in middle school. I was afraid you all would think I’m trying to hit on you or something. I spent my days in a gym full of other boys and I was terrified of what would happen if any of them found out.”

Iwaizumi punched him on the shoulder. “I’m not ‘any of them’, asshole.”

Oikawa smiled, a mix of guilt and sadness in his expression. “I know. I know a lot better now, but back then I couldn’t risk it. If anything went wrong with you of all people…”

“That would never happen.”

“Look who’s talking. You think we’d fall apart or something if we gave this a try and it failed? You’re you, Hajime, for god’s sake, you’re you. You’re my favourite person in the world. I’m not thirteen anymore, I know we’ll be alright. I’ll make us alright by force if need be. So what could possibly go wrong?”

His heart was steadily beating its way out of his chest. “Everything?”

“Nothing, you idiot. Nothing. I wouldn’t let it go wrong. You matter to me more than anything. If things went wrong, we’d fix them.”

Was it the alcohol that made him say all these things? Was it fishing truths out of him that sober he was too careful to utter? Was he still so drunk he exaggerated everything?

No, Iwaizumi thought. Oikawa’s eyes, bright in the darkness of the room, were clear, honest. The earlier haze he’d observed in the kitchen, when they both were struggling to keep themselves upright, was starting to fade. And yet he was saying things now that he’d had the chance to say at any point during their night, and he hadn’t.

Maybe it wasn’t Oikawa who was feeling braver. Maybe Iwaizumi was finally in the headspace to listen to these things, and Oikawa had caught up faster.

He wasn’t entirely sober, and things would fluctuate warily in the morning (or whenever they managed to wake up, if they slept at all at this rate), but he seemed to mean every last word.

He was barely thinking. He wasn’t nearly as sober as he thought Oikawa might be. If anything, he thought he was feeling increasingly worse. He wasn’t too sure how hangovers worked, but he didn’t think he was experiencing one just yet.

No, he clearly was extremely, incredibly drunk.

And with that excuse in mind, he leaned in and kissed his best friend.

Oikawa went completely still for a singular endless moment before he kick-started back to life like god himself had punched it right back into him. His hands reached up to cup Iwaizumi’s cheeks, and he kissed him back like the world depended on it.

Iwaizumi had avoided imagining kissing his best friend before, and when he had, it had been… okay. A little uncomfortable to think about, almost illegal. Not unpleasant, but nothing special, either.

The real thing, the actual process of kissing his best friend—he had never felt like this in his life.

He blamed the alcohol at least partially. Surely this was making the experience more… everything. Surely the way his hands were everywhere, restless, trying to hold Oikawa as close as humanly possible, the way every last inch of skin tingled with something he didn’t even have the words for, the way his eyes were searing behind his eyelids, the way he could feel a heartbeat and a pulse and he couldn’t be sure if it was his own or not—surely a kiss couldn’t do all that. He’d kissed people before, and it’d been fun, but never this. Kissing had never made him want to sob before. Was that normal?

He pulled away, took a look at Oikawa—breathless, flushed, with his eyes wide with so much emotion that it hurt—and he broke down.

It was bound to happen, eventually. He blamed the alcohol for this too, for the timing and for what had ultimately triggered this.

In the midst of the tears and Oikawa’s hand finding his own, he registered an entirely new feeling in his chest, yet another thing he didn’t know the word for: something between the most immense relief he’d felt in his life and the realisation of something he’d been vastly, severely underestimating. The weight of the whole world, crushing on him at once.

At least he calmed down quickly enough to apologise.

“It’s okay,” Oikawa muttered, still clearly worried. His hand, rough yet gentle as always, was back in Iwaizumi’s hair, and it was helping a little. It was helping a lot, actually. “Don’t rush things. It’s okay if you’re not ready yet.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve just…” Words were very insufficient, weren’t they? They never came to him when he needed them. “I think I just didn’t know… I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

Oikawa let out a soft laugh. “I’m assuming you’ve had your great moment of self-realisation, then?”

“... Yeah. Something like that.”

“Congratulations and you’re welcome.”

“You suck.” He kissed him again.

It was easier this time. Less eager, more tender and slow and careful. There were many things to figure out, he realised—likes and dislikes and boundaries and everything else in the world. But there was also time—a lot of it, if their current pace was anything to go by. Their hands wandered leisurely, cautiously, always aware of how new this still was between them. It wasn’t as fragile as it appeared, probably, but they still treated the ground carefully.

And there was also Oikawa, who was still, against all odds, the same Oikawa that Iwaizumi had always known. He still made offhand comments that made Iwaizumi short-circuit, which made Oikawa laugh, which was easily the most wonderful thing that had ever happened in the history of the universe and made embarrassment so much more bearable than it should be. He still flirted, and he still turned into a tomato the moment Iwaizumi flirted back. He still liked closeness and affection, and he still sought them out, and Iwaizumi was more than happy to indulge him, despite the fear and hesitation lingering behind every advance. Mid-sentence kisses, fingers brushing hair off, hands exploring whatever body part they happened to find purely because it was there, and it was all allowed and welcome and okay.

And it wasn’t terrifying at all. Iwaizumi didn’t look at him and see a boy. He didn’t think he wasn’t supposed to be doing this because he had always been into girls and this couldn’t just change on a random Wednesday evening and alter his life forever.

All he saw was his best friend. His stupid, beautiful, amazing best friend. The person he’d grown up with, the only one he thought he might know better than himself, and the only one who might know him back just as well. The one person he’d witnessed scraping his knees and running away from bugs like they would eat him. The same person he’d seen in every possible state—afraid and frustrated and angry and petty and disgusting and broken and put back together a little too hurriedly before he found his footing again. Every last thing, he’d seen it all.

And now he got to see this too: his best friend, flustered, in his bed, leaning closer because he could, because this felt right.

He thought maybe he was terrified because he felt so, so impossibly much.

He then thought he could deal with one thing at a time. One step at a time.

He said that to Oikawa as well. Even this drunk, even this joyous, he knew things wouldn’t be the same in the morning. He’d cower. He’d consider running away. He might even do it.

Oikawa held his hands to his lips, pressed a kiss on his knuckles.

“Save for the running away part, this is okay with me. You’re unsure, this is new, it’s okay. We’ll take it slow, yes? One step at a time. And if at any point you change your mind, if you want to stop…” It visibly hurt him to say the words, but he said them anyway, and Iwaizumi knew he meant them all. “That’s okay too.”

He leaned back in, kissed him again. He was shivering and it was nice in a very weird way. He was also in so much pain he thought he might cry. “Thank you.”

“Always, my love.”

My love. It came out of his mouth so easily, so naturally. As if it had always been there, waiting for the chance to be uttered against Iwaizumi’s lips.

My love.

He’d like to say it back, eventually.

Waking up the next morning (noon) was exactly as nerve-wracking as he’d imagined. Even drunk, he was apparently very self-aware. He woke up with the worst headache of his life and an overwhelming urge to puke, so he didn’t even pay attention to the fact that Oikawa had been asleep next to him. He only registered the fact after he’d gotten his insides out, showered, downed two painkillers and changed into clothes that he hadn’t been wearing for sixteen hours straight.

Then he stood at the threshold of his bedroom, took a look at the sleeping boy in his bed, and it hit him.

Hard.

He staggered downstairs like he was being hunted for sport. Everything was spinning and every movement hurt and the only thing he could think about was Oikawa and the fact that they’d slept in the same bed—mostly clothed, sure, but still—and also the severe lapses in his memory.

At least he didn’t find himself regretting anything. No, when he finally calmed down he realised he was less upset and more scared. He was terrified again, this time because the thing had happened after all, and now there wasn’t any treading to do; now there was a wholly new situation to figure out, and he didn’t know how. He couldn’t deal with these things, he didn’t know how. Was he supposed to just go up to Oikawa and casually ask, “So, what are we?”. He couldn’t even picture it.

You couldn’t picture a lot of things, his aching mind told him, and yet so many of them happened yesterday.

And he might not remember them too clearly, but he remembered how he’d felt all the way through. That, he remembered with extreme precision.

He remembered the fear slowly turning to nervousness. He remembered it all mellowing down, more and more until he was just hanging out with his best friend, and they were casually confessing like it wasn’t the most important thing that had ever happened to him, and then he remembered somehow getting to kissing. And he remembered feeling every single human emotion all at once, hitting him like hailstones, before it all stopped because Oikawa was holding him and somehow that made sense and it grounded him until all he could tell was that this was all right. He remembered playful kisses and stray touches and Oikawa smiling so widely he could barely kiss him back.

He remembered not worrying too much for a while. He missed it.

He didn’t realise Oikawa was awake and in the same room as him until he heard a raspy “Morning” and turned to find his best friend absolutely battered.

“Morning. You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Oikawa groaned.

He made his way to the kitchen and began munching on the remaining stale rice cakes. As if nothing was happening—as if it was any day of the week, of their lives, and Oikawa had slept over because they did this sometimes.

Weren’t things supposed to change now?

“I’ll go shower,” Oikawa announced, chewing meditatively—as if there weren’t any more pressing issues in the house. “I feel like shit.”

“I’ve left painkillers on the bathroom sink,” Iwaizumi said, because this was apparently the conversation they were having now.

“You’re an angel,” Oikawa said, leaving the kitchen to head back upstairs.

Yeah, sure. Whatever.

My love.

Fucking whatever.

He lost track of time until Oikawa came back downstairs and huddled next to Iwaizumi—not touching, but almost. His hair was still damp, and he’d stolen a hoodie and sweatpants from Iwaizumi’s closet, which would’ve normally meant nothing (this happened literally every time Oikawa slept over, he showered and then stole Iwaizumi’s clothes without asking, he even had his own toothbrush in this house, none of this was supposed to mean anything) but now meant a little bit of everything. Oikawa, curled up by his side, looked completely unbothered.

… For the scary part, this was surprisingly chill.

“I still feel like shit,” Oikawa announced.

“Me too.”

“Let’s never drink again.”

“Deal.”

But then what about what we did last night?

He decided it wasn’t time to bring that up, but he had a feeling that if he didn’t, Oikawa would anyway. At the moment, the silence between them was amicable. It was all so painfully normal.

He realised he was being aggressively perceived. “What?”

“Are you alright?”

“No? I feel like I’ve been run over by a high-speed train. Twice.”

“Me too, but that’s not what I meant.”

Yeah, Iwaizumi knew that. He sighed, shifted a little in his seat, broke eye contact. “I’m basically terrified. I don’t know how to process anything. And I’m also very weirded out by how normal this all feels.” He gestured between them.

Oikawa examined him for a moment. “You didn’t run away, though.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“See? You’re braver than you thought.” It would’ve sounded like mockery coming from anyone else, but Oikawa clearly meant it. His heart clenched.

“We didn’t change, exactly,” Oikawa continued quietly. “We’re simply trying things out. Seeing what works. We didn’t become different people overnight. You think of change as something that happens instantaneously, but more often than not it’s a gradual process. That’s how it is for us, right? We’re still understanding this. Both of us.”

So he did remember. Possibly more than Iwaizumi did. And he knew Iwaizumi well enough to voice his thoughts when Iwaizumi himself wasn’t even sure how to string them together.

“I know,” was all he said, gently.

He held out his hand, feeling a little like he was holding his entire heart there. Oikawa took it, threading their fingers together. It was easy and simple and okay.

They were okay.

Oikawa was running his thumb over Iwaizumi’s knuckles. He seemed a little nervous now, which was stupidly endearing, and despite his revived terror of everything Iwaizumi found himself smiling. “What is it?”

Oikawa blinked, as if he wasn’t aware of how palpable his anxiety was. “Oh. I was thinking…”

“Hm?”

“I want to kiss you,” he blurted out, looking like he was about to die of embarrassment. “If you want. If that’s okay.”

It was more than okay. Iwaizumi was terrified, he had never felt more scared in his life, but he was also jittery with excitement—and something else, deeper, fonder.

“That sounds okay,” he managed.

Oikawa looked about to faint with relief. “Cool. Awesome.” He reached out, took Iwaizumi’s face in his hands, and pulled him near without another word.

The moment their lips touched Iwaizumi remembered why he’d felt so elated the previous night. This was it. It was everything he could’ve possibly asked for—gentle, sweet, slow, allowing him the space to breathe and feel and decide if he wanted this or not. Oikawa was disgustingly considerate, way too kind—Iwaizumi loved it, loved him, and it was all so, so incredibly normal and okay.

He guessed it was this normalcy that kept tipping him off. He’d always thought this type of thing came like a tsunami: headfirst, uncontrollable, way too big for him. All at once, overwhelmingly vast and so, so much for one person to handle. A very large wave on the surface, and below, a current dragging him into the ocean to complete the drowning experience.

This wasn’t a wave, exactly—or, if it was, it was a rather gentle one. It rocked back and forth, softly, allowing him to step in and then out if it wasn’t what he wanted. It seemed too vast at first, unapproachable and intimidating, but up close it was warm and inviting instead.

He was allowed to want this. He was allowed to reach out for it, too. He wouldn’t drown; this was merely a swim, and the shore was always there if he changed his mind.

And he didn’t even need to be drunk in order to deal with it. He could kiss Oikawa sober and enjoy it and feel good and not be engulfed by guilt or shame or fear or anything but delight.

They could kiss all they wanted. They could try other things, if they both felt like it. They had agreed to take one step at a time, and they’d see where it would lead them. They were allowed to not take this seriously and test things out, knowing they both understood the other enough to be careful and not overstep.

He felt like shit, his head still hurt, he was tired and even his bones were aware of it—but kissing Oikawa was making him feel so impossibly light. Where everything else took herculean effort, this was surprisingly easy. Slow, gentle, thoughtlessly tender. He didn’t have to think twice or put any effort into anything—he just sort of went for it. He threaded his fingers in Oikawa’s hair, let his other hand run down his spine until it rested comfortably on the small of his back, felt Oikawa shiver at the touch and he smiled and kissed him again. And again, and again, and again.

Perhaps he’d been too afraid, because right at that moment, with his best friend’s hands on his waist and his lips on his jaw and his laugh in his ears and his soul exposed yet still intact, there was nothing to be afraid of.

The next couple of weeks went on like that: they acted as normally as they could at school and practice, both agreeing to keep their situation to themselves until it turned into something more easily definable, because neither of them was feeling like explaining something that seemed so natural to them; and then whenever it was just the two of them, they allowed themselves to act however felt more naturally, which at the moment mostly meant being sickeningly affectionate. Iwaizumi had never considered himself to be a particularly emotional person, let alone such an expressively loving one; even in his past relationships, he’d been a lot more reserved—not shy or inhibited, necessarily, just… offish, perhaps? He wasn’t sure how others perceived him on that front, but he knew for a fact no one would describe him as effusive.

With Oikawa, it was another story altogether. If Iwaizumi wanted to do something, he did it. There was no second-guessing what was off-limits and what wasn’t, partly because Oikawa would tell him if he overstepped any boundaries and partly because this was the boy he’d known his entire life—he knew casual affection was okay with him because he’d spent his whole life watching it happen.

Two weeks in, late on a Tuesday evening, Iwaizumi’s mother knocked his door and popped her head inside, a curious little smile on her face. “You have a visitor.”

There was no one on earth who would visit this late on a weekday, and there was no one else his mother would allow in on a school day. Oikawa came in, waited until they were alone before pressing a quick kiss on Iwaizumi’s lips, then stayed for half an hour and actually managed to pay attention, which was admirable. Iwaizumi was beginning to wonder if his trouble with maths had perhaps been just an excuse to spend more time together all along. 

He didn’t mind it, exactly.

Oikawa stopped by the kitchen and the living room to greet Iwaizumi’s parents before he allowed his friend to usher him to the door. Usually (as in, the past two weeks) he’d kiss his friend and go, but today he lingered at the exit, a little crease between his eyebrows.

Iwaizumi resisted the urge to kiss it away. “What’s up?”

“Have you told your parents about…” He gestured awkwardly between them. “Us? You?”

Iwaizumi blinked. It wasn’t an irrational question by any means—it was the way Oikawa was asking, though, that was moderately alarming. “No. Why?”

Oikawa leaned in, glancing down the hall to make sure they were alone. “I don’t know. Your mother was smiling at me earlier.”

“My mother always smiles at you. She loves you.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m delightful like that. But I think it’s a little more than that.”

“More, as in?”

“As in, like she knows something. Your father too, but your mom looks more certain.”

Iwaizumi registered a faint ringing in his ears. His parents had shown no sign of knowing anything to him, but that might have been because Iwaizumi had been avoiding them a little bit recently. Just a little bit.

“Iwa-chan?”

He snapped out of it. “Maybe I should talk to them.”

Oikawa nodded. He was leaning against the doorframe, which Iwaizumi thought was both unreasonably and unfairly attractive. Yet his expression was full of badly concealed concern.

“I didn’t want to worry you. I just think they already know something, and if me being here right now means anything, they’re cool with it.”

Oikawa was aware, of course, of how much this meant to Iwaizumi. He loved his parents, they were always supportive and he’d always depended on them. He was proud of who he’d become thanks to them.

He wanted to tell them. He had to, and he ached when he looked at them and knew he was hiding something so tremendous. He was experiencing something new and raw and fragile and profound and amazing, something very close to love that he didn’t quite understand yet (he didn’t even fully understand himself yet, but he was trying) but held so dear in his heart because it meant the world to him, and he couldn’t find the words or guts to explain it to his parents.

“I don’t really know what to tell them,” he admitted. “I mean, some things I understand, but some others…”

Oikawa glanced back into the hall again, then drew closer, hands reaching up to cup Iwaizumi’s face. His thumb traced Iwaizumi’s cheek, and Iwaizumi melted into the touch, hands reflexively moving up to hold the other’s, fingertips brushing over the tender skin of his wrists, feeling the pulse beneath. Only Oikawa still had the mind to keep an eye on whatever else was going on in the house; if his parents walked in now Iwaizumi wouldn’t even notice.

He could read Oikawa’s face easily. He knew that, during the past two or so weeks, they’d spent enough time making out to solidify that Iwaizumi was at least a little bit attracted to guys. The problem was whatever came after Oikawa. They weren’t exactly dating, at least for now, but whatever they had was a little too dear to him, and he suspected this went beyond all the firsts it encompassed. He couldn’t imagine dating anyone else, girl or guy, which was an issue because it made exploring his sexuality extremely difficult. Either he only was attracted to Oikawa specifically, or he wouldn’t figure out the specifics anytime soon.

It was a little terrifying, actually terrifying, how much he felt, and how utterly unclear it all was.

“I know,” he grunted. He knew he was in denial. He knew he was avoiding thinking about the difficult things, preferring to covet in the delight of what he had with Oikawa and nothing else.

Oikawa peeked farther into the house once again, then leaned in and kissed Iwaizumi, promptly cutting off his stream of thought. It was incredible how comforting Oikawa’s presence was, both in its familiarity and in the genuine, conscious effort Oikawa was clearly putting into making this as easy as possible.

“I—”

He stopped, awestruck with his own self, his own sheer thoughtlessness. Oikawa pulled away. “Hm?”

“Nothing. Thank you.”

“Always, my love.”

There it was again. My love. It came so easily to Oikawa, and it was just a nickname, granted—Oikawa was very fond of those, kept using them with Iwaizumi whenever things got a little more intimate between them. It wasn’t the same as I love you, probably, but it was as close as they got.

He leaned in again, finding Oikawa’s lips with his own briefly, before pulling as far as he could without feeling like it was tearing his heart in half.

“Go home,” he said. “I’ll see if I can talk to them.”

“Let me know how it goes?”

“Sure.”

Oikawa nodded. Then he leaned in and pressed a last, hasty kiss on Iwaizumi’s mouth that made him smile against his will.

He knew what they had was a little too vague to call love, but maybe Oikawa felt it, just a little. He was a tiny bit too eager sometimes, and it got him flustered every single time, but Iwaizumi thought it was adorable.

“Go home, idiot.”

Oikawa did leave after that, and Iwaizumi retracted back into the house, heart suddenly thudding in his chest. Even in the comfort of Oikawa’s hold, he hadn’t forgotten that he had some pretty substantial news to break to his parents, at least officially.

He dragged his feet to the kitchen and found his mother mutilating a chicken over the sink. “Need help?”

She looked up and smiled. “Did Tooru leave?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you cut me some onions?”

Very fortunate choice of vegetable, Iwaizumi thought. If he started bawling halfway through his confession, he could pretend it was the onions. He grabbed a knife and a cutting board and set to work, chewing the insides of his cheeks the entire time. He was mostly waiting for his mother to speak first, and he’d try to lead the conversation from there. He didn’t know a better way of saying something so impossible. He couldn’t just casually bring it up, like it was no big deal.

Fortunately, his mother was curious enough herself. “Everything okay with Tooru’s homework?”

“Yeah. Just the usual maths, but he got it.”

“Hmm.” She seemed lost in thought, which was equally opportune as it was horrifying. Iwaizumi was discovering a lot about himself these days, and perhaps the most important thing was how much of a scaredy cat he was. “He’s been coming over quite a bit, hasn’t he?”

Iwaizumi swallowed hard. This was it. “Has he?”

She shrugged. “More than usually, anyway.”

“... Is it a problem?”

“Oh, not at all!” She smiled, and Iwaizumi was relieved to find it was genuine. “He can come over as much as he wants. I was just curious, is all.”

His heart plummeted. “About what?”

Now his mother looked nervous too. “I assumed… Well, maybe something’s come up. With volleyball or friends or…”

His knuckles around the hilt of the knife had turned white. So his mother did know something. Better say it now, then. If he hid it longer it’d hurt her too, and Iwaizumi had no reason to think he needed to hide this from either of his parents. Sure, he didn’t expect them to cry tears of joy, but they wouldn’t kick him out of the house either.

He took a deep breath. “Something’s happened, actually, yes.”

His mother’s head whipped to the side. She clearly hadn’t been expecting him to admit it, which pained him a little. “Oh?”

Iwaizumi put the knife down. “Can I tell dad to come here too? I want to tell you both.”

His mother nodded. She reached out, then remembered the chicken she’d been gutting and changed her mind. Her gloved hand hovered between them, almost there but not quite. “Of course, darling.”

He dragged his feet to the living room. His father’s eyes were glued to the television in a way that seemed far too forced.

He wasted no time. “Can you come to the kitchen for a moment? I want to tell you and mom something.”

His father blinked, his surprise a mirror image of his wife’s. “Sure. Everything okay?”

“... Yeah. Sort of.”

They made their way back to the kitchen. Iwaizumi resumed cutting the onions, because doing something with his hands always helped. It took some of his attention away from the big, scary thing and grounded him sufficiently to allow him to utter words.

Which he didn’t, because he didn’t know where to start. With the corner of his eye, he saw his parents exchange a concerned glance.

“So? What is it, love?” his mother asked, worry seeping into her voice this time despite her attempt to keep her voice light.

“It’s not something bad,” Iwaizumi hurried to assure her. “I just… well.” He took a deep breath, relaxed his grip at the handle of the knife as much as he could. “I’ve been… well, I’ve sort of been… seeing someone? Recently? Just for a couple of weeks, really, nothing too serious…”

He was interrupted by his parents’ twin exhales of immense relief. “That was it? God, Hajime, I thought you were on steroids.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Nothing.” His father had moved to the other side of the counter, opened a box of cereal, and began munching on it like popcorn. “We were just worried that something serious was happening. I mean, at your age, relationships are a big thing, but…”

“Nothing like steroids.” But his mother, Iwaizumi realised, looked nowhere near as done with the conversation as his father. She looked like she was trying to see somewhere behind him, eyes bright with a curiosity Iwaizumi wasn’t sure he’d inherited until Oikawa had pointed it out. Did he ever look this bright too, this invested?

“So who’s the lucky girl?” his father asked, still casually chewing on his cereal. But then he made a pause, and his expression shifted a little. He glanced at his mother, then turned back to the box. “Or boy?”

Iwaizumi short-circuited. “What?”

His father shrugged, looking a little nervous. “It could be a boy, for all I know. Who cares? As long as you’re happy, kiddo.”

He was holding his breath, heart beating its way out of his chest. His mother was staring at him with such a deeply compassionate look it made him think he’d throw up.

He was vaguely aware of the ringing in his ears. He could tell he was visibly shaking. His eyes stung. Yet he forced the words out. “It is.”

His parents froze simultaneously. “It is what?”

“A boy.” It left him like a landslide. He bit his tongue hard before continuing. “The person I’m seeing. It’s a boy.”

The silence was very, very heavy. And then—

Before he knew it, his mother was peeling her gloves off and pulling him close into an oxygen-depriving hug. Behind them, his father put the cereal box down, understanding dawning on his face. “Oh, darling.”

He hugged his mother back, barely aware of what was happening at all. “Is it okay?”

“Of course it’s okay, my love, are you serious? Of course it’s okay.” She pulled away, cradling his face in her palms. “I’m sorry it took you so long to tell us.”

“No, no, it’s fine, you didn’t…” He hadn’t expected this reaction, and now he felt overwhelmed with a mix of shock, relief, guilt, and a strong urge to cry. “I just… I only realised very recently, and it’s still… It’s weird. I don’t really get it yet. Like, labels and stuff… I don’t know. But… I’m happy.”

It was the one thing he knew for sure. The only words that came out of his mouth without trembling. I’m happy.

It came out easily because it was the truth.

“If he makes you happy then that’s all that matters,” his father deducted, and seeing the dramatic part of the conversation was over, he went back to munching cereal straight from the box. “Back to my question, now: who is it?”

His mother paused, hand halfway through the glove she was putting back. “Seriously?”

“It could still be someone else!”

His mother looked exasperated. “Who is it, darling?”

He blinked, uncomprehending. “What?”

“Your mother is convinced she’s figured it out,” his father explained, his mouth full of cereal. “I keep telling her, that boy’s been your best friend your entire life, it could very well be someone else and you’re just… sharing it with him?” He made a face. “Putting it like that now, I have to admit it sounds unlikely.”

“I’ve been saying,” his mother said, glove finally slipping into place. “It’s Tooru, isn’t it?”

Hearing her saying it like that made Iwaizumi’s heart do a little backflip. He cleared his throat, overly aware of how hot the nape of his neck felt. “Yeah.”

His father sighed, then reached into his pocket and slipped a thousand yen bill towards his wife. “Fine. You win this.”

She was smiling triumphantly. “I told you, it was obvious. Every time Tooru’s come over in the past month Hajime has given me this look like I’ve caught him committing a crime.”

“I haven’t.” He remembered he was supposed to be cutting onions, and turned back to the cutting board. His knuckles weren’t pale around the hilt this time.

“You absolutely have. You haven’t looked at me like this since you brought that girl over last year. I’m not stupid.”

“Okay, that’s enough.”

“Door stays open from now on,” his father announced. He put the box back on the counter, looking askance at his son.

Iwaizumi felt like his entire face was burning. “It’s not like that, dad.”

“I don’t care what it is, if I hear a single sound I’m taking the whole door off its hinges.”

Between the onion-incuded tears that were beginning to well up in his eyes and the utter mortification he was presently experiencing, Iwaizumi decided it was a good time to promptly end this conversation. “Fine, fine, door stays open, no worries dad.”

“Awesome.” And with that, he went back to the living room.

Just like that.

Iwaizumi turned to his mother. “Were you seriously betting on this?”

She shrugged, looking far more relaxed this time. “Well, it was extremely obvious to me, like I said, but your father disagreed. He was honestly convinced you and Tooru had decided to try out steroids. Don’t ask me why. He was dead set on it, too. As if locking yourself with your best friend in your room half the evenings of the week means you’re snorting things. You could do that outside.”

He hadn’t expected his mother, of all people, to be so… open. So casual about topics like these. His parents were far from old-school, but they were still parents, notoriously prone to avoiding taboo topics like drugs and relationships.

Clearly he’d been wrong about this one.

“We’re not doing much,” he said through his teeth, face burning again. “I promise. It’s still all very new and I don’t even know what I’m doing. You have nothing to worry about.”

His mother chuckled. “That’s good to know.”

Later, when dinner was finally steaming, Iwaizumi turned his phone on and found a couple of unanswered messages from Oikawa. The first was just a casual “How did it go?”, but the second radiated concern through the screen.

Everything’s okay, Iwaizumi typed. They were betting on whether we’re dating, in fact.

His phone rang moments later. “Who won?”

He smiled. “Mom. Obviously.”

“So she was looking at me weird. I knew it.”

“She said I looked suspicious every time you came over recently.”

He heard laughter from the other end of the line, and it warmed his heart. “Well, she’s not wrong.” Oikawa paused for a moment, and Iwaizumi took the time to curl in his bed, phone held close to his ear like Tooru himself was there.

“Hajime?”

“Hm?”

“I’m very proud of you, my love.”

He’d held back his feelings this entire time; he was not going to break down now.

“Shut up.” And then, quieter, “Thank you.”

As far as Iwaizumi knows, it ended like this:

It didn't.

Oikawa moving to the other side of the world, in a place with no space for Iwaizumi's dreams, was supposed to be the end. The distance would be draining enough, but there was also the fact that they saw, for the first time, just how conflicting their priorities in life were. Both wanted what was blossoming between them to keep growing indefinitely; both saw very clearly that not only their futures (especially Oikawa's, with his larger-than-life dreams and lifelong dedication to them) but also their wish to see the other bloom to their fullest potential left very little space for them. Burden upon burden came up and piled up until the horizon of their relationship was completely obscured, and Iwaizumi started seeing his days with the love of his life as something a little too finite for comfort.

It wasn't until he broke down in front of his mother, in the same kitchen he'd first confessed he liked his best friend in a not-so-friendly way, and she held him close like she hadn't done since he was a kid, that it dawned on him: it didn't have to end.

His mother's words: “You love him and he loves you. It's worth at least the try, isn't it?”

“But it'll fail anyway, won't it? It's too far, there's a time difference, flights are too expensive…”

“But you wouldn't let these things stop you, right?” his mother said softly.

“... No.”

“Do you think Tooru would?”

That shut Iwaizumi up. Did he really think that?

Oikawa Tooru—the same person who was willing to move across the world before he had even turned eighteen to chase an impossible dream; who never took the easy path despite his bold claims; who had seen Iwaizumi at his lowest and taken a chance on him anyway—was really, really bad at one thing, and that was giving up.

They were almost home from their last ever high school match when Iwaizumi exhaled and said: “One more thing.”

Oikawa glanced back. “Yes?”

“You know how we were talking about how neither of us wanted to do long distance?”

Oikawa visibly tensed, but he only said, very carefully, “Yes.”

“I changed my mind.” Oikawa blinked at him, and Iwaizumi knew he had to finish what he'd started now. “I know it's going to be terrible. I can't even imagine not seeing you every day after spending a lifetime across the street from you, and I'm going to miss you so much it's probably going to ruin me. But I think breaking up would ruin me worse. And I think you're worth—no, I know you're worth the try. You're worth the world to me.”

Oikawa just stared at him, for so long that Iwaizumi started worrying he'd misinterpreted something. Then Oikawa broke down.

“Oh my God—”

“You can't just say things like that out of nowhere, you dumbass!”

“God, I'm sorry.” He was laughing as he took Oikawa's face into his palms, pulling him closer as Oikawa's hands found the small of his back. “I didn't expect you to be so dramatic.”

“You just told me I'm worth the world and I'm the dramatic one?”

“You're the one crying.”

“You're crying too!”

He was. “You started it.”

“Fuck off. Of course we're going to try, what did you expect?”

Iwaizumi shrugged. “I didn't know what to expect. You already have enough going on with moving to the other side of the ocean with your terrible Spanish—”

“You suck—”

“—and it's going to be difficult enough as it is.” Iwaizumi breathed out, heart splintering in his chest along with the words that were coming out next. “I shouldn't ask this from you.”

“I don't care,” Oikawa said, and Iwaizumi was taken aback by the unexpected urgency in his tone. “If you ask me to try, I will. I don't care how painful it's going to be. You're worth it as much as everything else.”

As much as everything else. Meaning, as much as his childhood dreams. As much as the goals he'd worked every day of his life for. As much as the blood, sweat and tears he'd shed over volleyball over the past decade, if not more.

Iwaizumi was worth it, it being the world.

Not a bad equilibrium between them, all things considered (and there were so many things to consider).

So Iwaizumi held his whole world in his hands, and said, “Should we give it a try, then?”

And his best friend and boyfriend and whole world kissed him and whispered: “I think we should.”

(Spoiler: there's no end, because the universe is ever-expanding and endless, so of course it works out.)