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Hajime loses his grip on reality at three in the morning with the bookshelves of the college library casting shadows across the otherwise empty desks and the floorboards creaking under no one’s weight. He’s held it together for at least two years longer than any of his friends. He’s held it together for at least twenty years longer than his best friend. But there’s still something harshly disconcerting about having no control over the downwards spiral of his life.
Hajime is a well put together individual. It’s the one thing he’s prided himself on since before he was old enough to be worrying about that kind of thing. For all his flaws (and no doubt, he could list more than a few), Hajime does not cave under stress. He has plans; lists and lists of things he’s done, needs to do, will do when he has the money. He colour-codes the dates on his calendar, highlights important deadlines on sticky notes above his desk and keeps copies of his timetable in at least three different places. He’s used to dealing with the repercussions of risk-taking – years of being Oikawa’s personal caretaker has its toll – but Hajime has never once flipped the coin or rolled for a double six on his own behalf. But they say there’s a first time for everything.
Anterior cruciate ligament, Hajime thinks bitterly as the words swim across the page in front of him. How ironic that the very reason he chose medical science in the first place is the straw that finally breaks his back. He slams the textbook shut on the image of a swollen knee and pretends he doesn’t see Oikawa, scrunched up in pain on the floor of their middle school gymnasium, when he closes his eyes.
The tears are almost welcome when they race their way down Hajime’s cheeks – an instant relief from the burning behind his eyelids that he’s been fighting off for what feels like years. (It probably has been years, he realises the more he thinks about it.) As relaxing as it feels to relinquish control, Hajime can’t shake the feeling of weakness tugging at his sleeve. It isn’t right, it isn’t who he’s supposed to be, but god if he could just take one break.
And like that, in an empty library at three in the morning, Hajime rolls the dice.
~
“Yeah, the tall one. Left-handed. With the hair, you know.” Hajime slumps against his bedframe, knees tugged to his chest and toes digging through the soft carpet.
“I know who Ushiwaka is, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa’s exasperated whine is muted slightly down the phone line but Hajime can still imagine the pout on his face. Oikawa’s lucky Hajime isn’t there to punch it off. “I just don’t understand why you want to talk to him.”
“Branching out and all that. College is supposed to be the best years of your life and I can’t very well live up to that with you as my only friend.” It’s a half-hearted joke – probably more truthful than either of them are willing to accept. Hajime hopes the huff of laughter he gives is enough to soften the sting.
“You have Mattsun, don’t you? Iwa-chan, you’re not that socially inept!”
“Shut up, ‘Kawa,” Hajime growls – force of habit – and pushes his legs out straight in front of him until the carpet tickles the back of his knees. “Matsukawa’s coming with us anyway. Listen, I’ll update you later.”
“Wait, Iwa-” Oikawa’s voice is lost in the tap of Hajime’s finger when he hangs up. He usually allocates an hour for talking to Oikawa, but rolling the dice and all that. Unsure of what to do with all this free time, he leaves his timetable face down on his bed and winds up playing Mario Kart with Matsukawa until his fingers feel like they have the shape of the Wii remote buttons permanently imprinted on them.
Ushijima is apparently not the ‘hanging-out’ type, but extra volleyball practice is enough to coax him into socialising. If Hajime’s being honest, Oikawa’s words ring in his ears as he and Matsukawa trudge across campus to the gymnasium. Why is he going to such lengths to talk to a former rival?
He really does wish he knew, but when they step into the gym to the repetitive slap of leather on plywood he decides there doesn’t have to be a reason. Old rivalries mean nothing under the sickly white light of the college gym with the resounding vibration of spike after spike after spike. This still feels like home.
They’re an hour and a half later than Hajime’s schedule would usually allow, but New-And-Improved Hajime doesn’t care for such things. Campus is still well-lit, but no longer bustling with activity and Hajime finds himself basking in the emptiness of the evening. His palm stings and he digs his nails into it until his whole hand goes numb. Moments like these, he’s never been happier to be alive.
It’s Matsukawa who sees him first, squinting and shielding his eyes as though the figure is masked by the glare of the already-set sun. (He isn’t. Matsukawa is just dramatic.)
“Isn’t that the genius first year setter? From Karasuno?”
Hajime blinks his gaze up from where it was fixated on their sneakers hitting the ground in perfect unison. He stares down the line Matsukawa creates with his right arm, index finger outstretched to lead the way.
Hajime makes a choking noise in the back of his throat which he hopes Matsukawa takes as recognition, rather than the blatant surprise it comes out as. It is Kageyama, looking for all the world as though this is the most logical place for him to be.
“Would’ve thought he’d go elite,” Hajime says, frowning at the unmistakable hunch of Kageyama’s shoulders.
“Guess we all thought that of Ushiwaka though,” Matsukawa points out.
“I didn’t really think anything of Ushiwaka until tonight.”
Hajime misses the frown that Matsukawa probably tosses his way. He is aware it seems ridiculous – everyone thought all sorts of things of Ushijima, everyone had an opinion – but Hajime isn’t Oikawa with grudges like thunderclouds over his head, or the tiny Karasuno ginger with far too much awe at everything, or Aoba Johsai’s coach with stiff words of encouragement before matches they were destined to lose. Hajime just doesn’t care about Miyagi’s ex-top spiker.
“But you thought a lot of Karasuno’s genius setter.”
It should be a question. Hajime thinks that’s definitely the kind of thing that should be posed as a question. It isn’t.
“He was my kouhai. I thought a lot of things of a lot of people in middle school.”
Hajime pretends Matsukawa isn’t stifling a laugh in his peripheral vision. He pretends his statement doesn’t sound like exactly what it is. He pretends he never thought more of Kageyama than anyone else.
He doesn’t pretend Kageyama isn’t standing right in front of them. It’s been two and half years since Hajime has seen him; five and a half years since they’ve even spoken off the court. And now he’s standing there, large as life instead of on a grainy television screen. Hajime is not passing up this opportunity.
He barely registers the question Matsukawa calls out to him, focused as he is on speeding forward before the figure disappears. He throws an excuse over his shoulder without looking and hopes it’s enough to convince Matsukawa to return to their dorm alone. He doesn’t have time to care anyway. Hajime is a man on a mission.
“Kageyama! Oi, over here!”
Kageyama stumbles, feet faltering beneath him, and doubles back to find the source of Hajime’s voice. Hajime takes in the way he stiffens until his eyes are the only thing left moving, widening almost imperceptibly. Hajime is close enough now to see the rise of Kageyama’s chest when he sucks in a shocked breath.
“Iwaizumi-san?”
It sounds so ridiculously formal compared to the Kageyama inside Hajime’s head – the one that calls him by his given name and traces goosebumps into his skin. Hajime has to remind himself why it would not be appropriate to ask the Kageyama outside his head to do the same.
“You- you’re studying here?” Hajime finally manages to string together something of a sentence, his hand subconsciously shifting to brush the back of his head in a sudden spurt of embarrassment. Kageyama nods as an affirmative grunt passes his lips in place of an answer. The Kageyama in Hajime’s head is a lot more talkative. Hajime finds that he doesn’t mind.
They fall into an awkward silence – only disturbed by the crunching of pebbles as Kageyama swirls his toe amongst them. Hajime is sure the hair at the back of his head is standing up at odd angles from how violently he’s been rubbing it.
“Well, uh, I should go. Because. Y’know,” Kageyama says, blinking at Hajime as though he can convey far more through his eyes than he ever could via his mouth.
“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’ll, um, see you round probably.”
Kageyama’s nod is as stiff as the set of his shoulders and he turns away like a soldier under the gaze of a harsh general. Hajime watches him walk – or rather march – towards what Hajime presumes is his dorm until he disappears around the corner of a building.
Hajime’s own walk home is somewhere between the most uplifting exercise of his life and the worst alone time he’s ever had. He flits between thoughts of Kageyama smiling the way Hajime’s only ever seen him smile at his ginger friend; how easy it might be to convince Kageyama to join him for a cup of coffee; and, weirdly enough, how Oikawa would feel about the whole thing. Hajime’s insides are a nest of frenzied baby birds, clamouring to be fed though Hajime still doesn’t know how. He can’t decide whether he wants to hug himself or hit himself.
~
In the end, it doesn’t take anything to convince Kageyama to go out for coffee because, by the time Hajime makes it to his favourite place a week later, Kageyama is already there.
Securing a seat next to him is the easy part. Coffee in hand, Hajime marches over like he isn’t terrified of being rejected and pulls out a chair as soon as Kageyama confirms that he is alone. Striking up conversation; maybe not so easy, but Hajime is content to let his eyes do all the work. Kageyama’s lips are captured around the mug he’s drinking from and Hajime watches, fascinated, as his tongue darts out to collect the droplet of coffee that forms on the outside of the rim. His fingers drum on the table behind the book he’s focused on and Hajime stares at his eyelashes shifting as he blinks. Hajime doesn’t know what to say.
“What are you studying?”
Hajime nearly spills coffee down his shirt in shock. Kageyama striking up conversation – let alone small talk – is a foreign concept as far as Hajime is concerned.
“Medical science,” he says, leaning back in his chair to regard Kageyama from further away. Their eyes meet properly for the first time in five and a half years and Hajime feels goosebumps prickle his skin. He rubs his hands over his forearms to force the hairs to lie flat and returns the question to Kageyama.
It falls easy after that, words flowing naturally like there was never a gap to begin with. They talk about everything under the sun and stay seated in the coffee shop far longer than Hajime intended to take a break from his revision. (It took a roll of the metaphorical dice in his head to get him down here in the first place. A second roll confirms he’s staying as long as it takes to make Kageyama smile.)
It becomes ritual; coffee and chatter at the window seat whenever they both have time. They never plan it but somehow end up sitting together far more regularly than Hajime thinks he can chalk down to coincidence. He learns more about Kageyama in the hours they spend together than he did in a year’s worth of volleyball practice and he thinks he falls a little more in love with those pretty eyes every time he sees them.
Hajime calls Oikawa later and they talk about Ushijima and volleyball and the never-ending stacks of assignments that make it impossible to find the time off to visit each other. Hajime doesn’t mention pretty boys in coffee shops. It sounds far too cliché, even to his own ears.
~
Hajime is loud. Anyone who knows anything knows Hajime is loud. Tough and angry and altogether oozing confidence are the attributes he’s known for. He doesn’t deny that he plays up to the rumours – yells and punches and speaks his mind with reckless abandon. But for all his confident spurts, Hajime is a giant wuss when it comes to Kageyama. He can fumble his way through conversations, hash out jokes and witty comments when the situation calls but Hajime does not do romantic.
It’s in the coffee shop that he does it – his favourite one, made even more special by the addition of his favourite person to match – because, in addition to being a giant wuss, Hajime is apparently also a sap. He nearly backs out the first five times he tries to start the sentence but dice tumble across his mind, racing to be the first to display their upturned numbers.
And Hajime goes in for the kill.
~
Two months later sees them sitting on Hajime’s dorm room floor, board between them and paper money scattered everywhere. Kageyama has snagged nearly every set on the board, building up to hotels wherever Hajime’s game piece lands. Hajime has managed to secure himself the railway stations and not much else.
So when he gets sent to jail halfway round the board, it’s more a relief than anything. He slides his piece across the board and grins at the fact that he’s avoided coughing up half his savings for one more round. Not that it’s all hardship for him. Kageyama is a special brand of adorably smug when he wins board games. (Two months of dating has taught Hajime this much.)
Hajime always pays his way out of jail. He never rolls for fear of wasting too many turns on aiming for a double. But Kageyama’s fingertips are cold as they glide across Hajime’s palm, nestling the dice safely inside his fist and Hajime finds himself rolling before he really has time to think about it.
They watch the first die come to a standstill, six dots blinking up at the ceiling. The second spins on its vertex for far too long and Hajime becomes acutely aware of his proximity to Kageyama; the way that their knees are touching over Kageyama’s ever increasing pile of money; the spike of adrenaline when Kageyama brushes Hajime’s thigh as he leans to retrieve his 200¥ salary; the fact that they are alone in this dorm room under no real time constraint, playing probably the most domestic board game of the century. And despite the cold fingers that have somehow found their way to rest slightly above Hajime’s ankle, he feels warm all over.
The die finally rolls itself to a halt, not far from the other. The two boys lean forward in unison, heads barely brushing as they peer at the result.
Double six. A lucky roll.