Work Text:
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN WE DON’T TALK ANYMORE??”
“Ah.”
The line is quiet.
“So you saw the interview?” Hajime mumbles bashfully into the phone.
“Did I-” Tooru cuts himself off. He takes a minute to breathe and act like Hajime didn’t have the nerve to ask that. “Makki and Mattsun sent me the link as soon as it went up, in the group chat– which I saw you have muted by the way– and in our private messages.” Never mind the fact that Tooru sniffs out any content of the man he can find, their weekly facetime calls have been feeling like crumbs, and he is a starving man when it comes to Iwaizumi Hajime.
When he returned from practice to the onslaught of messages, he was met with a sit-down interview with the athletic trainer and immediately kicked off his shoes and cuddled up on the couch to watch. What he wasn’t expecting was for the interviewer to ask him about whether or not they keep in touch, and for Hajime, in return, to tell them that outside of group chats, they haven't talked much. Which is not true, they spend all of their time off together, one of them always making the trip to go see the other.
His old spiker grumbles, “Tooru, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I thought he was asking how often we texted!”
Tooru runs his hand through his hair, whining dramatically, “Iwa chan, it’s bad, the fangirls on Twitter have been calling us divorced! They’re saying their ship is going down.”
“Tooru, they only started shipping us in the first place because they saw how close we were at the last Olympics and thought that we’d be cute together. They’ve been running purely off of you mentioning me in interviews, but there’s no basis there; cute interactions don’t mean people are together.”
“Huuh??” Tooru shrieks. “No basis? Iwa chan, how could you say that? We’re literally engaged!” He instinctively holds up his hand despite Hajime not being able to see it through the phone, the large diamond sitting on his ring finger sparkling proudly.
Hajime chuckles deeply, “You know the general public doesn’t know about that, though.” Tooru kept his ring tucked safely away in his bag during games and while traveling so he wouldn’t lose it, so people didn’t know he had one at all. Not to mention, they had a lengthy conversation about it when they first became official, and they decided not to confirm anything to the public. Their friends, family, and trusted coworkers know. It wasn’t anyone else's business. He didn’t exactly want people to think that they weren’t together, though. Tooru knows better than anyone that people see a seemingly single Iwaizumi Hajime and suddenly don’t know how to act.
Tooru pouts, “I don’t blame them, we are cute together, and they don’t even know the half of it. I would lose my mind on Twitter. com, too!”
“Can’t argue with that.” Hajime chuckles from the other end. “Don’t let what other people say bother you too much, though. As long as you and I know what we have, everyone else is irrelevant.”
Tooru smiles softly. “You’re surprisingly romantic when you want to be, Iwa chan.”
“I try.”
The sound of someone yelling in the background could be heard before Hajime let out an exasperated groan. “Sorry, Tooru, I’ve got to go. Hinata and Kageyama are fighting and they’ve brought Hoshiumi’s feral ass into it.”
Tooru huffs amusedly, “they never change, huh?”
“Never,” Hajime agrees. “I love you, I’ll see you soon, okay? My team is gonna kick your ass at the Olympics in two weeks, I hope you’re ready to cry.”
He rolls his eyes competitively. “So romantic, Iwa chan. Besides, my team is going to whoop your team's ass, no sweat.”
“We’ll see about that, Tooru.”
“We will.”
They talked for a bit longer before finally hanging up.
Tooru sighed and got up from his couch and walked to the bedroom, more than ready to go to bed.
He missed Hajime a lot. Living on a different continent from his husband felt absolutely unbearable some days, and as much as he loved volleyball, a small, hidden part of him was looking forward to settling down from the sport someday and getting to be with Hajime whenever he wanted. Until that day came, he would have to make do with a phone call and an occasional visit. At the very least, even over the phone, his husband was great at calming him down when things got a bit hectic.
Tooru just hoped that things could stay calm.