Archive of Our Own

Having Oikawa Tooru as your best friend is like fighting a constant battle.

Sometimes, Iwaizumi wonders why he bothers.

“For the love of God, Crappykawa,” he says, eyeing the mess of pillows, blankets and six-foot tall man-child that stands on his doorstep. “It is three. In the fucking. Morning.”

The monstrosity nods and points at the sky. Cushions balance precariously in its arms.

“Look at the stars, Iwa-chan,” it says simply, and Iwaizumi sighs and holds out his hands for a pillow.

There’s no stopping Oikawa when he gets like this, Iwaizumi grumbles to himself. He’s awake now anyway, thanks to the barrage of knocking that had assaulted his ears a minute earlier.He should really get the doorbell fixed.

Anyway, whatever his best friend has planned, it can’t be too adventurous, especially not at such a wretched time of night. It would be unfair not to let him in, after coming all this way; his house is only a couple of blocks over, but the night is cold and who knows how many pillows have fallen to their abandon on the journey? Besides, by now, this is pretty much normal.

(Or that’s what he tells himself, as Oikawa pushes past him and totters up the stairs, arms full of bedclothes and that damnable grin lighting up the whole hallway.)

***

Iwaizumi dislodges his third slate of the evening passing blankets up to the rooftop, and he isn’t so sure about this anymore.

“My mom is going to kill me,” he hisses, fixing Oikawa with the glare he spent years perfecting, solely for the other boy’s benefit.

(Unluckily, due to the aforementioned years of exposure to this particular scowl, Oikawa is liable to take it with a pinch of salt.)

“It’ll be fine,” he says, dismissing his concerns with a wave of his hand. “Your mom loves me. Who doesn’t? – ow, Iwa-chan, you’re so violent.” He rubs his arm, pouting, as Iwaizumi throws the last of the pillows at him and manoeuvres himself onto the window ledge. “I’m coming up now.”

(Oikawa wolf whistles at his arms as he pulls himself up, to which he receives a satisfactory slap.)

Iwaizumi shuffles awkwardly across the slates, scowl disintegrating into the widest of grins, and together, they sort themselves into the perfect position.

By this, of course, Iwaizumi means not falling off the roof, and being a suitable distance away from Oikawa as to not make his heart do that funny thing it’s been doing recently. When it seems to condense all the muscles in his chest at once, and then skip a few beats, and somehow tell his brain to seize up and only send out the stupidest of messages.

(Highlights include telling Oikawa his hair was soft, and then ruffling it incessantly. This would have been bad enough on its own, but the presence of Makki and Mattsun had resulted in a cacophony of catcalling; not only in front of their classmates, no, but also in front of the volleyball team.

And that time his heart had lent itself to his shoes, which steered him straight into a lamppost, a very obvious bruise and a laughing fit every time Oikawa had seen him for a week.)

His heart does this now.

Iwaizumi tells it, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.

(An indignant squeal from Oikawa – “I wasn’t even saying anything, Iwa-chan” – confirms that he did, in fact, say this out loud. Iwaizumi makes a vow not to say anything ever again.)

***

Oikawa is right.
The stars are beautiful.

Even more beautiful, however, is the way they reflect in his eyes, the pure, unadulterated wonder spreading across his face. He’s almost extraterrestrial, a beautiful being of worlds above.

(Iwaizumi’s aware that this sounds like a line from some shoujo manga, but with Oikawa, he can’t bring himself to care.)

He could count galaxies in Oikawa’s eyes. That is, he thinks, if he ever gets close enough; if he's ever that brave, if he steps past the unspoken boundary that consists of girlfriends and nights out and secrets locked away. If he's ever allowed to. If Oikawa ever lets him.

They’ve done this since they were kids, climbing onto each other’s roofs to gaze at the heavens. Since they sprouted long legs and broad shoulders, it hasn’t happened often, but Iwaizumi would be lying if he said he didn’t miss it; a time when walls came down and hearts were spilled, linked-pinkie promises forged beneath the stars.
A frequent occurrence these times are no longer, but Iwaizumi rests safe in the knowledge that he’s the only one who’s ever seen Oikawa like this. Not some untouchable, godlike entity. Just a boy, entranced by the sky.

(Sometimes, however, there are walls that even he can’t manage to break down.)

“Iwa-chan?”
Oikawa’s voice cuts through his thoughts, bringing Iwaizumi down to earth with a bump.

“Yeah, Crappikawa?”

“Do you think there are alternate universes out there?”

Oikawa asks questions like this when he’s tired, Iwaizumi knows, or when he’s thinking too much about things no one else can decipher. It’s become more frequent after they lost to Karasuno a few weeks back; now that volleyball doesn’t consume every minute of their waking days, it’s harder and harder to find things to talk about. Even in the club room (they haven’t brought themselves to abandon it just yet), silence hangs round them like a cloak, only punctuated by the squeaking of shoes on a court that is no longer theirs.

Volleyball was why they’d become friends in the first place, all the way back in elementary school, and now its absence leaves a space Iwaizumi doesn’t know how to fill.

It’s never been like this before. Every awkward conversation makes Iwaizumi want to tear his hair out, but these questions are often worse; they seem like more than just a silence-filler.
Oikawa’s voice becomes quiet; his gaze focused, almost piercing. It’s similar to the look in his eyes when it was his turn to serve, and the court would go deathly silent, waiting for the killer blow that would snap whole matches from the jaws of defeat.

Oikawa is searching for something. And for the first time, Iwaizumi’s not sure what.

It scares him, so normally, he shrugs the questions off. Perhaps it’s an effort to forget; to return to easier times, when a bad movie or an adventure in the woods could capture their minds for hours on end. They’d continue talking about their classmates or the mountains of homework awaiting them, questions forgotten in bliss; but tonight seems different. There’s something in the air that dims the mundane, renders those thoughts insignificant.

He finds himself wondering about times where things were different, when he didn’t know Oikawa, when his life didn’t revolve around the boy lying by his side.

Incensed by his silence, Oikawa rolls onto his side to face Iwaizumi. “Alternate universes. You know.”
(At Iwaizumi’s lack of response, he sighs.)
“Universes like this one, but different. Like maybe we live in America, or we play tennis instead of volleyball.” Iwaizumi still isn't listening, instead captivated by the curve of Oikawa’s nose, or perhaps the dimples in his cheeks. He continues nonetheless. “Maybe there are two suns, or humans don’t exist. Or Makki and Mattsun finally get together.” A tiny smile quirks his lips as Iwaizumi snorts, and he’s seized by the sudden urge to touch them, trace the stubble on Oikawa’s chin.

“Anything could happen. You know?”

He nods, but his thoughts are chained to the roof they’re lying on, and what would happen if Oikawa inched a little closer and let those lilting lips touch his.

“If you had to choose an alternate universe, Iwa-chan,” he whispers, “what would be in it?”

And Iwaizumi tries; he really does. But he can’t imagine any universe where things are different from the way they are now, with Oikawa’s face so close to his and the scent of his shampoo mixing with the cool night air.

There is nothing.
Nothing apart from this: the galaxies in Oikawa’s pupils, the breeze playing in his stupid soft hair.

He doesn't have the words to shape this thought, so he finally closes his eyes. “I don’t know,” he says heavily.

And Oikawa rolls back to face skywards, grin dissolving in the dark.

The starry sky is cloudless still, but wonder no longer dances across his face. Iwaizumi can’t shake the feeling that he was supposed to say something beautiful, that he’s disappointed him somehow. But he’s never been very good at that, rousing speeches have never been his forte, and Oikawa knows it.

(You’ve always taken my words away, he wants to scream, but he doesn’t.)

And so, because it's easier than bridging the silence with words he cannot control, Iwaizumi rips his eyes from the boy lying next to him and takes in the universe instead.

He wonders if it ever ends.

He wonders if there are hidden planets out there. Solar systems, maybe even galaxies, each with their own races and people; losing volleyball matches, hiding their feelings, lying next to each other on rooftops.

And most of all, he wonders if there’s an alternate universe out there somewhere, where another Iwaizumi is brave enough to move his hand a little left and grasp another Oikawa’s hand in his.

***

At lunch the next day, nothing is mentioned of their midnight escapades, nor the question that still lies unanswered between them.

But Oikawa is quieter than usual. Only Iwaizumi notices, because he’s had a lot of practice with noticing these kind of things; as Makki and Mattsun fight over a lunch box, he nudges the other boy’s shoulder.

"Hey, Crappikawa," he asks gruffly, the question blunt and unassuming. "Are you alright?"

“Aww, Iwa-chan is worried about me!” comes the reply, along with the peace signs that Iwaizumi will always (love to) hate, slapped away with a signature scowl. No one in the club room bats an eyelid; it’s their usual routine. But Oikawa’s laugh dies quickly as he turns away, nibbling on a fingernail, and Iwaizumi’s left wondering what the hell just happened there.

Matsukawa quirks an eyebrow at him. What’s going on?

Iwaizumi shrugs helplessly, panic building up inside, uninvited.

There’s nothing he’s been stressing about lately. How should I know?

For a moment, it’s silent, and Matsukawa looks at him, worry creasing his brow. Iwaizumi can almost sense the awkward questions coming next.

But then Makki steals Mattsun’s cream puff – “get the fuck away from that, you absolute bastard” – and chatter floods the club room like nothing had happened, like a door hadn’t slammed straight in Iwaizumi’s face. Like a wall hadn’t appeared right before his eyes.

(And if the chatter misses one very distinctive voice, not one person comments on it.)

***

Time goes on, and there is no more stargazing.

There are more important things to focus his eyes upon, Iwaizumi convinces himself. Like finals, for example. And graduation.

(And whatever the hell he’s going to do with his life after that.)

Whatever vague hopes of going pro he’d harboured are swept away as he and his fellow third years say goodbye to the gym, shut the door of the club room one last time. Afternoons are filled with studying and frantic revision; rifling through books at the library and drowning in oceans of impossible homework.

They speculate about what Karasuno’s third years are doing now – if they’re dealing with this workload and training for nationals, Iwaizumi could almost not be jealous – and watch the matches together, screaming from the stands or before the TV screen.

(Even Oikawa gets emotional when they beat Shiratorizawa, even though “it’s Kageyama-kun, Iwa-chan, why would I be happy that he won?”

“Aw, look, he’s crying,” Mattsun says when they get back to the library, and is rewarded with a dig in the ribs.)

It’s a bittersweet feeling. Neither of them can shake the notion that it should be them on the court, receiving those freak spikes and watching Ushijima’s face fall – but they’re not, and it hurts to know that they never will be again.

Yet life goes on.

Exams don’t wait for third-years with their heads stuck in a ball game, the counsellor tells them, and they swap lunchtimes in the club room for study sessions, deadly quiet in a library without screaming underclassmen – or any signs of life. And they’re still together, and Mattsun still sings terribly off-key and Makki still steals everyone’s food and Iwaizumi keeps them in check like he always has, but sometimes it feels like they’re all on different planets.

Drifting away is an awful feeling, Iwaizumi learns. It seems like volleyball had been their gravity.

Especially for Oikawa, Iwaizumi knows. The setter stares and looks away, bites his lips and nails like he’s nothing better to do; he looks like he's tying himself in knots without the volleyball in his hands. Iwaizumi wonders how long this will go on for, how long until he shares the load of whatever he’s carrying - ballgame related or not - or it breaks his back.

But it's different. Because for the first time in years. Iwaizumi doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

He practises after the kouhai leave, and he’s applying to a university in Tokyo for the volleyball team. They’re all getting over their loss to Karasuno. Yet somehow, there’s something hanging over Oikawa; something more than the stress of exams and finding a flat in town.

There’s no reason he should be acting like this.

Unless…

No, Iwaizumi tells himself firmly. That could never be it.

Watching Oikawa fidget in English class, in the library, on the way home, he turns the thought over in his mind.

He’d just tell me, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t let that get between us.
If he feels the same way…

But Iwaizumi knows Oikawa like the back of his hand. His whole life has been spent analysing, watching closely, searching for signs of overwork; he prides himself on cracking the walls built around him, breaking façades to let emotions tumble out.

This feeling is new. And whatever it is, it tastes like charcoal in his mouth, because it’s foreign and it’s lonely and he doesn’t understand.

Iwaizumi sits and watches the walls go up, and he doesn’t know how to knock them down.

Gradually, they stop meeting up to play volleyball in the park, and turning up unexpectedly to training just for the sake of it. Oikawa stops ringing his doorbell at ridiculous times of night, or any time of night; the collection of terrible alien movies grows dusty, the blankets stay on the bed. Conversations peter out, alongside surprise meetings and shared lunches and all those little things Iwaizumi never knew he’d miss.

We’re just getting older, he convinces himself, as he realises Oikawa hasn’t stayed over in more than two weeks. Growing apart is only natural.

(Iwaizumi had always hoped they’d be the exception to that rule.)

Life goes on. And maybe their paths are separating a little, and maybe it hurts a little more than he cares to admit. But it doesn’t stop Oikawa from practising serves late into the night like he always has, and it doesn’t stop Iwaizumi from turning up at half past eleven to drag him home again, either.

So maybe not much has changed.

That’s what Iwaizumi tells himself, when the silence as they walk home becomes too much to bear.

***

Maybe it’s because they’re aiming for different universities.

Maybe it’s because they lost to Karasuno, and Oikawa doesn’t think they're strong enough.

Maybe it’s not to do with him at all, Iwaizumi thinks.

But there are two weeks until graduation and Oikawa still isn’t talking to him, and Iwaizumi’s fucking sick of making up excuses.

After all they’ve been through together. The pinkie promises and the midnight conversations and the flights and the falls. After all of this, Iwaizumi’s learning that it doesn’t take much to knock a friendship down.

Being best friends with Oikawa Tooru may be like fighting a constant battle, but it’s one that Iwaizumi’s fought for years and years. Since they first met on the preschool playground, and he stood up to the kids who pushed Tooru down for having girly hair and glasses. Since the Oikawas moved in only a block away and Iwaizumi turned up at their door with a stag beetle as a house-warming present. Since they tossed a volleyball together for the first time, playing in the street until darkness fell and splashed the sky with stars.

Since they spent their first night on the rooftop together, making constellations out of poster paints, not wondering about any universe but their own.

Entering middle school. Joining the team. Practising together for nights on end, meeting genius kouhai; crying on the way home, receiving awards, graduating; flying up through high school with girlfriends and volleyball matches, making promises that no matter what happens, they’ll always stay together.

And they have. Through every lost game, through every injury. Through every yelling match they’ve had over what kind of ace am I and will I ever be good enough, they’ve stayed together. They’ve always been there, to slap each other on the back, to shock away the misery, to help each other up and face the day.

Because they’re best friends, and that’s what best friends do.

Except ‘friend’ has never really been a good enough word, has it?

To Iwaizumi, Oikawa is more than that. Oikawa is cups of tea on Sunday mornings and sweaters with grass stains. He is tangled limbs beneath too many blankets, potted plants sprawling over window ledges, butterfly nets and poems forgotten in time; stinging skin after spiking, a voice like violin strings and a place where lost thoughts go. He is nights spent hopping rooftop to rooftop with calloused feet. He is promises, forged beneath galaxies of stars. He is all the things that mean the most to Iwaizumi: the comfort, the band-aid on the wound, the background music that keeps his head up high.

And maybe, just recently, Oikawa has come to be that word that all the songs speak of. The word people have killed for and died for and longed for and lost, the word they’d scorned together in grade school, hand in hand on the swings sticking tongues out at classmates in line.

Maybe, Oikawa was love.

And now suddenly, Iwaizumi thinks, Oikawa is nothing.

***

There have been no narcissistic comments. There is no one to yell at for singing too loud. Iwaizumi’s missing all the things he loved to hate, and it’s like there’s a black hole where his heart should be; eating away at him, filling the void with bitter thoughts and tears impossible to shed.

The library is altogether too quiet, and Iwaizumi is going to explode.

“I think I’m in love with him,” he confesses bitterly, the fifth time Oikawa rejects their invitation to study.

Matsukawa nods.

Iwaizumi looks up at him, and the other boy seems tired. Like maybe there’s a black hole inside him too, and Iwaizumi’s never even realised it.

“He thinks so too.”

And that simple sentence fills him to the brim with something he can’t describe, something that’s just empty, and it takes all the willpower he has not to just break down and start howling into the table because Oikawa is not cups of tea on Sunday mornings or violin strings and new kneepads or any of these stupid, stupid memories Iwaizumi can’t seem to forget. He’s not some extraterrestrial being from an undiscovered world.

He is just a boy.

And because of his feelings, that boy is no longer his.

***

Later that night, after trying and failing to concentrate on anything other than him, Iwaizumi gathers the pillows off his bed and takes a walk.

He’s not quite sure how it happens, but suddenly he’s standing outside a door, a door past the point of familiar, a house he hasn’t visited in oh, so very long.

Oikawa’s sister answers the bell. He hadn’t known she was home from university.

How would you have known? his thoughts whisper bitterly. He hasn’t spoken to you in a month.

He shakes them away, stepping onto the doorstep he stood on all those years ago. Beetle jar clasped firmly in his fingers and no idea of the boy he was about to meet, gapped teeth and soft hair and battles just waiting to be fought.

“Is Tooru in?” he asks quietly, watching moths fly from the alcoves above.

“No,” she says, illuminated in the hallway glow.

So he’s at the gym, then. Not really a surprise.

Iwaizumi is about to leave, but she’s not done. “He’s, uh, out with friends… sorry, Hajime-kun,” she implores, eyes filled with guilt instead of galaxies. Her voice is wavering, and he knows why.

(The Oikawas are all good liars, but Iwaizumi’s had a lot of practice.)

And sure enough, as he says goodbye and she shuts the door behind him, he looks up and sees the light in Tooru’s bedroom flicker.

It takes every ounce of self-restraint he’s got not to pick up a stone and throw it; scream and cry, pour every damn feeling he’s got onto the ground. Lay it all bare.

I love you, he wants to scream. Come back.

Iwaizumi’s never been very good at words, but he’d swap any number of soliloquys for a clumsy confession, an apology, and a chance to ruffle that stupid brown hair. A return ticket back to earth, to how it used to be. But the light clicks out, and he's left facing a dark house. Uninviting, cold. It’s a fucking battle, and Iwaizumi’s not sure how long he can go on fighting. ***

Graduation sneaks up on them silently, and the day is upon them before they know it.

Walking through the corridors with Mattsun and Makki, listening as they insult (or flirt with each other – Iwaizumi has never been sure), it dawns on him how much he’s going to miss this place.

The corridors, akin to a rugby scrum. The club room, inexplicably draped in various items of Oikawa’s kit. Who knows? Maybe even the spirit-numbing monotony of the library.

He’s in a sentimental mood, ok. Even the site of multiple meltdowns and Makki’s longstanding vendetta against the photocopier – may his geography report rest in peace – could be remembered fondly someday.

… Ok, so maybe the uniform is hideous. And not having to wake up every day at 6am will be a plus.
But he may as well have spent his whole life traversing the halls, because the times spent here have been the best he’s ever had, and there’s no way he could deny it.

“Look, Makki,” he remarks as they pass a cluster of lockers well-known as the ‘corner of regret’. “That’s where you threw up in first year.”

“Do you think I don’t remember man? Do you really?” Makki asks exasperatedly, rolling his eyes.
“I couldn’t get the taste of cream puffs out of my mouth for weeks. Weeks, I tell you. And don’t you say anything,” he grumbles as Matsukawa snickers, “because you were just as bad.”

Iwaizumi shudders at the memory of the two of them retching, side by side, empty donut packets littering the floor around them. It was around the time where they were just beginning to hang out with each other, when the freedom to buy food from the village shops hadn’t quite lost its shine. Perhaps it had been what had finally sealed their friendship; the fact that no matter what happened, nobody could be more humiliated than this.

(Though god knows Makki and Mattsun had tried.)

Images of Oikawa flood his brain: the setter shrieking as he was bombarded with water balloons; his face beetroot red as they serenaded him – complete with roses and god-awful music – on Valentine’s Day; the strangled yelling from the locker rooms as he finally noticed the absence of his kit and had to chase them round the court half-naked to get it back.

However, despite their attempts, nothing had ever topped the cream puff incident. Oikawa had laughed until he’d wheezed.

(Iwaizumi had been less amused when, later on, the vice principal supplied them all with mops and the culprits immediately excused themselves to the nurse’s office, leaving both him and Oikawa to clean up the mess.)

They’ve come a long way since then, he thinks. Through volleyball matches and team outings and the absolute horrors of results day, they’ve always been together. Though maybe now they’re missing a member – and he tries his very best not to dwell on it, not to think of the empty space where Oikawa should be – today is graduation day, and he couldn’t be happier to have these absolute idiots by his side.

Behind him, Makki elbows Mattsun in the ribs, to which he responds by shoving Makki into the wall. Iwaizumi sighs and grins fondly. Some things never change.

“Just kiss already,” he teases, another inside joke that never fails to get them spluttering.

But he’s not prepared, and he probably never wouldbe prepared, for Mattsun’s sly smirk and the following “don’t mind if I do.”

Iwaizumi’s jaw drops. And, shameless as always, Matsukawa grabs Hanamaki by the wrist and starts making out with him, in the middle of the god damn corridor.

(…About time.)

Underclassmen laugh and stare around them, and suddenly Iwaizumi’s brain explodes with Oikawa’s voice from that night, centuries or maybe just weeks ago; talking about alternate universes, and cracking jokes about Makki and Mattsun hooking up.

Right up to the end, he’d sworn they’d get together.

And now it’s happening, and it fills Iwaizumi with sadness that Oikawa’s not even there to see it.

***

He’s always been an ugly crier.

Snot dribbles from his nose. His eyes go bloodshot. His violin voice slides up and down scales, punctuated with hiccups and sobs; every brick in his façade comes crumbling down at once, revealing the convulsing wreck beneath.

Oikawa’s tears have never mattered too much, because Iwaizumi’s always been there. Help him from the rubble, wiping brickdust from his cheeks; pulling him to his feet again to face another battle.

But even Iwaizumi has no idea what to do when Oikawa is breaking down in the middle of the courtyard, still clad in graduation robes, and it’s all because of him.

He hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t said anything.

He’d sat silent and watched as Oikawa walked up to the three of them and asked another Iwaizumi if he’d cried yet, called another Iwaizumi ‘Iwa-chan’, acted like nothing had changed between them; as if his presence had been constant throughout the past few weeks, just like it always had.

He’d felt the rage and confusion bubbling up in another Iwaizumi’s chest. And he’d harboured it until it burst out in an explosion of ‘where the fuck have you been?’ and ‘how the hell can you walk up to me and call me by that name?’

This other Iwaizumi had yelled and clenched his fists, and he’d said nothing, despite the fact that all he wanted to do was forget this ever happened; pull Oikawa into a tight hug and never let him go, ever, ever again.

Because he’s used to this. It’s what happens every time Oikawa joined them in the corridors or cracks a joke with Mattsun; what happens every time he tells himself it’s not his business to know. He’s spent the last two months trying to separate himself from the anger, the rage, the knowledge that whatever Oikawa’s going through, he doesn’t fucking deserve this. Neither of them do.

And then reality calls. Shocked silence surrounds them, empty as an alternate universe, and he realises who invited it.

Not another Iwa-chan.

Him.

And Iwaizumi watches the horror, and the hurt, and worst of all the guilt spreading over Oikawa’s face; lips start to tremble and the façade begins to break, and Makki and Mattsun are staring wide-eyed and dropped-jawed, and they stretch their arms out to stop him as he takes a step forward, wishing he could bite his words back from the air.

“I’m sorry,” he says desperately, trying his best to reclaim what’s just been lost. “I didn’t mean -”

But through his tears, Oikawa’s gaze has gone horrifyingly cold.

“It’s ok, Iwa-chan,” he says as he turns away. “I know you did.”

And Iwaizumi watches him walk away, head held higher than a king, and feels every ounce of happiness he’s ever had drain from his feet into the courtyard where all their memories were made.

It’s a battle. It’s always been a battle.

And Iwaizumi knows that he’s just lost.

***

If you’d asked the Iwaizumi who’d knocked on the new kid’s door, all those years ago, what his high school graduation would be like, stargazing would probably not come into the equation.
But here he is. And hey, it’s a lot better than the Iwaizumi-from-a couple-hours-ago’s take on things.

(He’s not entirely sure what happened, but he sure as hell isn't complaining.)

***

Drifting in the shock of his own words, white noise filling his ears; he makes his way home alone, treading holes in the path he’s walked a million times before.

It’s not the first time Iwaizumi’s shouted at Oikawa, but it’s the first time the words drown out everything around them, turning the air to ice. The first time that loathing, the glare reserved solely for Ushijima or Kageyama, has ever found his face; the first time he’s ever been truly shut out, and deserved every bit of it too.

And all because I couldn’t hold myself back, Iwaizumi thinks miserably, curled into a ball on the sofa, head in hands. Because being friends just wasn’t enough.

Friends. Best friends. Captains. Kings.

Not fucking enough.

But why wasn’t it? his brain supplies, his stupid brain that seizes up and thinks about Oikawa’s lips and hair and the fact that they’ve been together – practically the same person – for so long, and how a couple of inches closer and a kiss or two couldn’t really make much of a difference anyway; and he’s crying, he can’t help it, thinking about how these thoughts have brought everything crashing down around him.

Why should they? Why couldn’t this be simple?

All those weeks ago, sitting on a rooftop and gazing at the stars, he’d thought about kissing him like it was the most natural thing in the world. And maybe the charcoal feeling was Oikawa thinking the same, and that’s when things had gone wrong, from that very night; because Iwaizumi couldn’t be brave enough to move a little left and grasp Oikawa’s hand in his, and then maybe none of this would have happened. Or maybe it would have anyway, and maybe Oikawa doesn’t even like him back, and his pulling away has it’s nothing to do with this at all and Iwaizumi doesn’t know, because he’s fucking sick of maybes -

A knock on the front door shatters the silence, and possibly everything he’s thinking at that moment too.

(They had their doorbell fixed last month. He can’t remember the last time he heard someone knock.)

And he opens the door – fumbling with the key, because somewhere along the line his hands started to jitter and he has no idea how to stop them, but fuck it, doesn't matter now – and he is waiting there, all wringing wrists and messy hair, a million apologies in eyes that should only hold stars.

Oikawa catches Iwaizumi’s eye, and opens his mouth. And then they’re both talking at the speed of light, hearing and not hearing at the same time, and it all falls out: an unintelligible mess on a doorstep that reminds Iwaizumi very much of another such meeting, many, many years ago.

“I’m sorry,” Oikawa says quietly once it’s over, when silence has descended once more.

Iwaizumi almost laughs.

(Oikawa’s never been good at apologies. Iwaizumi’s always had to do it for both of them; when he smashed a vase and lied through gapped teeth in grade school, or when he accidentally-on-purpose tripped Kageyama into a door in petty rage. But he’s never heard such an abrupt acknowledgement; two words summing up three months, spent tearing hair out and punching bruises into the wall. Anyone else would think it wasn’t sincere.

But then again, Iwaizumi’s had a lot of practise.)

He nods, and Oikawa looks up from the ground.

“Can I come in?”

And Iwaizumi grins, at the parallel, at the sentence he hasn’t heard in so, so long.

“You forgot the stag beetle.”

***

Iwaizumi dislodges a fourth slate, climbing up onto the rooftop, and almost slaps Oikawa for laughing at him.

Almost. But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t want to break this moment.

Whatever the hell it is.

There are tearstains on both of their cheeks, and the air is fragile, and he’s swearing as he drops pillows off the gutter; but Oikawa’s whines as he throws a duvet in his face are something he’s dearly, dearly missed, and he knows he wouldn’t swap them for the world.

(Another pillow falls, taking down a bundle of blankets with it. Iwaizumi curses.

“Rude, Iwa-chan,”
“Shut up, or you’ll be going down next.”)

And so they talk. They talk finals, they talk studying; they talk rubbish, they talk rot. Oikawa laughs until he cries over Makki’s photocopying incident, and almost falls off the roof as Iwaizumi describes their impromptu confession – “I fucking called it, do you reckon they’re making out right now” – and then updates Iwaizumi on the team, describing every little detail. Supposedly, they’ve locked Kunimi and Kindaichi in a cupboard several times now, to no apparent avail.

Some things never change, he thinks fondly, as Oikawa describes this incident in animated detail.

They talk. And they avoid some subjects, like Iwaizumi knew they would, and they both end up in tears again, like Iwaizumi knew they would. And maybe it’s not exactly like it used to be, but he can live with that. He can live with that, because deep down inside, he never expected to receive a return ticket, let alone have Oikawa on the same flight. ***

“I’ve decided against alternate universes,” Oikawa says, a little while later when the conversation has dwindled into comfortable silence and drowsiness descends like a cloak upon the roof. “I like this one too much for it to change.”

And Iwaizumi shakes his head a little, eyelids heavy with sleep, feeling the black hole stitch itself shut in his chest.

He knows it’s not that simple. His chest still condenses every time Oikawa looks at him. Even after everything they’ve been through, the shouting, the breaking and the mending, he still wants to ruffle that god damn stupid hair.

But what they have now – narcissistic comments, nights on the rooftop, and ok, maybe a little bit of violence here and there – is worth a million morning kisses, and Iwaizumi’s never going to let it slip away again.