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Oikawa isn’t sure when it happens exactly, but it’s somewhere in between all of his clients – couples who are ready to buy their first home and want help decorating – that he realizes that maybe what he has with Iwaizumi, the late night talks and loud dinners and playful banter and constant messaging, isn’t enough. His attention is snapped back into the real world when a new client, a couple again, walks in.
The thought doesn’t resurface until a few nights later when Iwaizumi is in some other part of Japan taking pictures of Oikawa doesn’t know what. He comes to the conclusion that he’s fine with how things stand, but he’ll be damned if he takes a happy life away from Iwaizumi. It’d be unfair. Doubts and insecurities sing him to sleep that night.
In the following weeks, Iwaizumi notices. He notices that the loud dinners get quieter and messages don’t come as often, that Oikawa sleeps sooner and the banter doesn’t seem so playful anymore – but he stays silent, refusing to take jobs that’ll keep him away from home.
Oikawa, for all of his brains and calculations and magnificence, fails to notice how Iwaizumi’s eyes linger on him longer each day. Iwaizumi can tell that something is bothering the former setter and even though he watches in hopes of figuring it out, he’s lost as to what the cause of such distress could be.
Slowly, their relationship starts to fall, untended and unnourished, only feeding oil to the fire of Oikawa’s doubt about his ability to make Iwaizumi happy. There’s less laughter in their shared apartment and more tension, words left unspoken lest they cause the wire to snap and cause an explosion of words that’ll end what they have permanently.
Finally, it all comes to a finale three months, five days, seven hours and twelve seconds after Oikawa first has his revelation back in his office.
He’s out with a client. It’s a late night and he’s walking her home, worried about her safety and eager to climb into his bed back at home. Unbeknownst to him, Iwaizumi has also finished work and is returning home when he spots the two walking.
Red hot fury burns in Iwaizumi’s gut, teeth clenching and jaws tightening as hands turn to fists. Anger and impatience drive Iwaizumi forward, blinding him to his own reminder to tiptoe around Oikawa. Now he only has one goal, find out what’s going on with them, find out what’s happened, what has his best friend so tangled up, and most importantly, where there relationship stands.
“Oikawa Tooru” he growls. He can’t help the curling sense of satisfaction that echoes in his chest when he sees the woman stiffen in fear.
“Iwa-chan” Oikawa responds, head whipping to look at Iwaizumi, eyes widened and mouth hanging slightly open in surprise.
“Iwa-chan my ass. We’re going. home Now” he commands reaching the pair, grabbing Oikawa’s wrist in a vice grip. Oikawa frowns.
“I can’t now Iwa-chan, I’m –“
“Going home” Iwaizumi seethes. Turning and dragging Oikawa with him. He’s not about to have this fight, whatever fight it’s about to be, out in the open. He’s never been one for public displays anyway.
“Sorry Mayuri-chan. I hope you can get home safely from here” Oikawa calls back, letting himself be dragged away. His eyes roam over Iwaizumi’s back, memorizing every details one last time, committing them to memory. He knew this was how things would end up.
Safe in their own apartment, Iwaizumi slams his hands against the door on either side of Oikawa’s head, caging him in. “What the hell Tooru? What is sticking up your ass?” He knows he’s being crass, but he can’t focus, his anger has been mixed with built up frustration and desperation. He wants everything back, everything they had when they were happy, before Oikawa got some funny idea in his head again.
Oikawa looks down, unable to look Iwaizumi in the eyes. “You shouldn’t be dating me” he confesses with a sigh, but his mind is already on the subject and with those words, it’s like a damn’s broken.
“The hell.”
“You won’t be happy if you stay with me Iwa-chan. You deserve to have a beautiful wife who can give you all the kids you want and a big house with a yard and a dog. I can’t give you any of that. You need to be happy Iwa-chan, I won’t let you sacrifice that for m-“ Oikawa never gets to finish, cutoff by Iwaizumi’s hand that’s been slapped over his mouth, the sound ringing in the dark.
“Who the hell said you could decide that shit for me?” Iwaizumi asks with a glare, finally understanding what’s been consuming Oikawa the past months.
Oikawa won’t have that though; he won’t let Iwaizumi burden himself – so he does the only thing he can think of. He punches him. Iwaizumi stumbles back in shock, hand clutching his jaw as he looks up at glares at Oikawa.
“You don’t understand Iwa-chan.”
“I don’t understand? If anyone doesn’t understand it’s you” he yells back, grabbing Oikawa by the front of his shirt and slamming him against the door. “I don’t need all that shit.”
“You do. You can’t throw your future and happiness away for some stupid relationship with your childhood friend” Oikawa fires back, clutching Iwaizumi’s shirt back and using his height to push the other man back, Iwaizumi’s feet catching on the lip of the entryway causing them both to fall. He hisses as he falls on his back, eyes widening when he feels wetness falling onto his face. “You need to be happy Iwa-chan.”
“You” Iwaizumi growls, this time without heat, the fight knocked out of him by the tears that are starting to fall. He uses the strength that’s he’s spent hours – years – honing and flips them, sitting on Oikawa’s thighs and taking his face in his hands. “Do you love me?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Do you love me?” he repeats unrelenting.
“Yes but it doesn’t matter Iwa-chan!” Oikawa yells back, Iwaizumi simply let’s his forehead drop and rest on Oikawa’s looking him straight in the eye as he talks.
“As long as you are in love with me, I don’t care about marriage or children – I will be your family. So no need to cry Shittykawa.”
Oikawa’s tears only increase, eyes shutting tight as he leans up so that their noses touch and their lips are only a breath away from each other. “But Iwa-chan.”
“You make me happy Tooru. This relationship isn’t stupid or pointless. You’re all I need. You’ve always been enough. Haven’t I said it before, you’re the best partner, that hasn’t changed.”
“Iwa-chan” Oikawa sobs, tears running freely, hands clutching the back of Iwaizumi’s shirt.
“Tooru” Iwaizumi calls back, voice soft as if speaking to a young animal in distress. Without another thought he begins to kiss Oikawa repeatedly. His lips, his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead – his whole face; he holds Oikawa as he falls apart.
Oikawa doesn’t know what’s what anymore, his resolve to bring their relationship to an end crumbling, only leaving confusion about his future actions left in its place. But there’s nothing to worry about because later, when the two are tucked in bed in the darkness that’s only broken by the moon’s soft glow through the window, he’ll realize that he’s been stupid and that he won’t leave Iwaizumi, that he can’t leave him. They’ve been together for so long, been through so much that they have become part of each other.
And years later, when this fight has been long forgotten, Iwaizumi will kneel before Oikawa and ask to marry him – a hooting Matsukawa and Hanamaki with them – and Oikawa will break out into tears (later he’ll whine to Iwaizumi for making him ugly cry in public) and say yes. When they’re newly married, sleep tugging at their tired brains, Iwaizumi will mumble into Oikawa’s hair words that had been said year before.
“You are the best partner I could boast about and as long as you are in love with me, I don’t care about marriage or children – I will be your family.”