Archive of Our Own

hajime walks into his dorm, closing the door behind him. the hinge squeaks and he reminds himself that he needs to get that fixed, the way he's been reminding himself every day but never getting around to it. he dumps his bag on the table, keys clanging against the glass, the sound echoing through his apartment.

heading into the kitchen, he rummages through the cupboard for something to eat before remembering that he had forgotten to go grocery shopping on tuesday. the only thing left is some instant ramen which, he decides, will have to do. it's warmer by the stove but still he shivers as the water boils.

three loud raps sound on the door.

blinking, hajime turns off the stove, wondering who it is. he goes to open the door and suddenly, a large cardboard box is thrown at his face.

“what the fuck?” he swears, as the contents of the box goes flying. on the other side of the door is tooru, looking—

—furious, his hands clenched into fists, glaring at him with a ferocity that he usually saves for the volleyball court. hajime glares right back, temper flaring.

“what the fuck is your problem?” he grits.

“what is my problem?” tooru screams, “what’s your problem? what the fuck is this?” he thrusts a note into his face and his own familiar handwriting stares back at him. you left this at my dorm, it reads and hajime finally notices what’s strewn all over the floor.

an old mixtape (that you had spent hours pouring over), a pair of red (clumsily) knitted gloves, a small milk bread plushie (you had both emptied your wallets at the arcade after school for), a larger alien plushie (that you won at the festival, shooting hoops) and a soft, well-worn black hoodie (you swore, at one point, it had belonged solely in your closet).

“this,” he says, “is your stuff that you left to clutter up my dorm. oikawa, i fucking told you to take your stuff when you left!”

“and i told you to fucking burn it. none of this stuff is even mine, iwaizumi.” tooru shoots right back, his eyes lit with anger.

“burn it yourself then!” hajime replies, tempted to shut the door in tooru’s face. he’s infuriating and hajime ignores—

—that he’s shaking from anger. tooru retorts back nastily and it devolves into screaming incoherent insults at each other.

hajime finds himself reaching out to grab his collar and between one moment to the next, they’re kissing, violent and angry. tooru’s fingers are tangled in his hair, pulling harder than necessary while hajime bites into his mouth. their teeth clack together, neither of them willing to give the other an inch and it’s messy and vicious (and perfect).

a loud bang of a door startles both of them and they break apart, panting slightly, silent save for the laughter of others filtering through from the hallway.

hajime looks down, unable to bring himself to look tooru in the eye. he feels more than sees when tooru shifts away from him, bending down to pick something up. hajime swallows and glances at him

he’s holding the hoodie in his hands.

“why did it come to this?” tooru says, his voice soft but hajime can hear the way he chokes over the word this. “hajime?” he asks because of the two of them, tooru has always been the brave one, the one to walk two steps in front, eyes closed and hajime—

—doesn’t say anything.

tooru’s shoulders slump and he lets the hoodie fall to the ground. “nevermind.” he mutters, turning away but hajime can see the bright sheen in his eyes, the way his teeth are clenched and more than anything else hajime hates it when tooru looks like this.

“wait,” hajime says, his throat surprisingly tight, voice wavering. he reaches out to clasp tooru’s wrist, “wait.” he repeats.

tooru doesn’t turn to face him. “what?” he asks, voice deceptively calm, but hajime can see that he’s shaking, small tremors that run up his body and—

—hajime takes a step forward. “stay,” he says, voice breaking. tooru doesn’t react and hajime holds his breath, hoping that it didn’t come too late, before tooru whirls around and suddenly hajime has an armful of him.

they crash to the floor in a tangle of limbs. hajime can hear tooru sobbing in his ear and he wraps both arms around him, pressing his lips to tooru’s soft brown curls, whispering words they should have said to each other long ago. the floor is hard and cold but tooru is warm in his arms, so hajime holds him and doesn’t let go.

you don't know how to love

it's late and it's cold. you stare into the hard glass of the table as if it could be set alight by your glare alone. but, of course, that is not enough.

(the way you are not enough)

your eyes are burning but you clench your teeth and refuse to blink, the back of your throat bitter and rough. say something, he screams, the way he hardly ever does, frustration clear in his voice, in the way his hands clench into fists.

(the way you are so familiar with, the sound of a volleyball thudding against hard wooden floors, the way your body screams for you to stop but

but nothing.

sometimes you think, all you can do is stop and that's it, that’s the end.

the end of all that you are)

you say nothing. your fingers dig into the flesh of your palms, red crescents blooming where they touch.

(after all, what can you say? what words can you find when you alone is not enough to make him stay?)

he says your name and it's spat out like a swear word, like you are something dirty and disgusting.

(you are)

you used to like the way his mouth closed around your name. you wonder when that changed

(you wonder when he realised that a name like yours didn't deserve to be said like that.

Like it was something precious and loved)

you don't know how to love, you say and it chokes you up, a wave of something you cannot (will not) identify rising up your throat. you can't be seen like that, you think, frantic.

(he can't see you like this, falling apart and fragile because if you aren't strong then what are you?)

(nothing)

you run into the (our) bedroom, slamming the door behind you. it’s cold but your face is hot

(he always said you were an ugly crier and you have never felt as ugly as you do in this moment)

he is banging on the other side of the door. this close he must be able to hear you crying, your breathing harsh and erratic. he asks you what you mean, if what you both had was a lie or if it was just another mask you put on

(somedays, you don’t know where your mask ends and where you begin.

you wonder if it ends at all.)

hajime, you say, his name tasting like regret on your tongue, like ash after the fire has all burnt out, cold and dirty and alone.

(because how can you say you love him, when you cannot even love yourself?)

he quietens and you realise belatedly that you said that aloud. figures, you think, that you can't even do this right

tooru, he says, and it sounds different.

(it sounds as fragile as you feel)

please let me in, he says.

(you don't know if you can, if you know how,

or maybe that if you do, all he'll find is nothing)

please, he is pleading, don't give up on us.

(please

don't give up on

us, me, you)

you open the door.

you know from the very first time you meet him. you are five years old in this lifetime, playing quietly by yourself in the sandpit when he runs up to you and asks to play with you.

he looks the same. the same wide, brown eyes, messy locks (you used to run yours fingers through them, teasing them into an even worse state) curling across his face. he smiles at you and you feel like crying. (tooru, you want to scream, to pull him close, to hold with your own two hands and never let him go-) but you are five and you feel the gaze of your mother (a kind and lovely woman who deals well with your idiosyncrasies because sometimes you forget you are five, without the weight of the world on your shoulders) on you.

you nod and pat the sand beside you. you tell him to join you (you want to tell him to never leave). he sits down beside you, warm (and alive), and starts chattering in your ear (you never thought you'd miss this so much) about some show on television because he at least is all of five years old.

you remember little else from the rest of that day, the rest of those few hours spent with him, (for what could be more momentous, more notable than this). you spend the rest of the time in a daze, only replying briefly when he speaks to you, too caught up in his warmth, basking in his mere presence.

the time passes too quickly, the melting colours of the sky signalling an end to your day (it was red the last time around, a deep, fiery blood-red). as your respective mothers call for you, he turns to you and asks will we see each other again?

(it's too late by the time he reaches you. you can barely feel the pain anymore and you have fought enough battles to realise that that is a bad, bad sign. he isn't crying, but his teeth are clenched together in a way you know that means he is holding them back, that he is being brave again for others, for you.

he holds you tightly and you can feel his warmth, as if he can chase the cold away by his mere presence. he is muttering under his breath, eyes looking over you, still looking for ways that he can fix things, like he always does.

there are things that even you can not fix tooru, you say and you force yourself to smile. if nothing else this is what you want him to know, that you may have died saving him but it was he that saved you first, that it was he that fixed you, loved you and gave you a place in this world.

his fingers brush your cheek gently before he pulls away from you. there is nothing that i can not fix, he says and there is steel in his eyes, in his voice and it steals your (faltering) breath away.

he starts to murmur in foreign tongues, the words falling harshly off his lips in his haste. you think it sounds beautiful. you can feel his power in the air as his voice crescendos, the crackle of electricity that threatens to sting and burn, wild and dangerous just like he is.

take my heart, take my body, he is screaming now, take my future, take my past.

what are you doing, you whisper, feeling a chill.

fixing this, he says, determinedly. there is this look in his eyes that you have never been able to argue with and here, now, you find that you still can not argue with.

will we, you choke, your mouth dry, your breaths coming out short and shallow, will we see each other again?

he smiles, warm and bright like the sun, and nods. you may have to come and find me again though, he says voice hoarse, but yes, we will see each other again.

you grip his hands tightly. i will find you, you say.

there is a light and then darkness)

he is gripping your hands tightly as he blinks up at you, waiting for your answer. you smile and squeezes his hands in yours.

of course, you say.

(i've found you.)

you move into your new home in the middle of winter. it's cold and dreadful outside, the snow blanketing everything, dull and monotonous but a small thrill still runs through you when your fingers brush against the new nameplate next to your door.

iwaizumi it reads and you smile, comforted.

it has been a long time since you left miyagi, going to tokyo for university and getting lost in the bright lights of its buzzing city. recently though, you have longed for your roots again and standing here now, smiling at your name on the door, you decide that it was a good idea to come back.

the property you found is old but homely, not too far from where your childhood home is, which pleases your parents who still live there. you though, you just feel like you belong there, as if this place was waiting for you.

there is something about this place that draws you to it and you can feel it’s call in your bones.

you settle in slowly to life in miyagi again. you find your rhythm around the clockwork of your job and finding time between the cracks to visit your parents. it's one such visit where you find yourself reminiscing with your mother over a steaming cup of green tea.

“you were such an awkward child, hajime,” she says, smiling fondly, “we were worried, you know, that you were never going to make any friends.”

you laugh along with her, “really? i don't remember it being that bad.”

“it wasn’t,” she replies, “we were worried for nothing after all seeing as the very first day in daycare you became very close to another boy in your group, oh what was his name again-”

“i don't remember that either,” you say, “maybe we're both losing our memory in our old age.”

later, when you've both had your laughs and you get up to leave she mentions it again.

“pity everyone grew up and didn't keep in contact.”

“yes.” you hum, pressing a kiss to her cheek. you think no more of it.

it's about two months into your move when you start hearing things in the house - and you don't mean the in the creak in the staircase or the whistle of the floorboards during those particularly windy days. it’s the tinkle of soft, melodious laughter in the air, the repetitive thump of a ball against a flat surface vibrating through the walls, the smell of lightning during a storm even when it's been dry for days.

it's warm though, the presence, or whatever it is, filling up the small corners of your house until it becomes a home brimming with a satisfied contentedness.

you are at a loss for what to do. while there are many guide books for how to get rid of unwanted supernatural guests, there's no such guide for how to deal with a friendly one.

you settle for leaving some incense on the windowsill, with a short note. i know i’m not hearing things it reads thank you. you aren't sure what you are thanking it for but you feel as though it needs to be said anyway.

it's not long before you hear it's, his you think, laughter tickling your ear but this time you can make out one word.

iwa-chan.

you remember. it's like an overwhelming wave, flooding your senses and you go under, staggering a little with the realisation because how? how could you have forgotten-

“tooru,” you whisper, “tooru.” his warmth envelopes you again, comforting in a way you had always associated with the house but you realise now it had always, always, just been him.

thank you iwa-chan.

his soft voice brushes against the edges of your mind.

slowly, the warmth fades away and you are cold, alone.

he is a storm

there is a raging torrent in his eyes
so fierce, so intense, that the
water chills you until it burns
a physical brand against your skin

you smoulder under his gaze
caught, helpless, small
he is a giant in your
eyes, sky-high and ascending

the fire licks his flesh,
bleached white bone turning
into black ash, that you
press against his lips

you watch him
inhale, exhale, inhale,
exhale, fall and then
rise

the storm rages on