Chapter Text
May is already too hot. Hajime’s clothes cling to damp skin, the rainy season arriving just slightly early this year and bringing along its stifling humidity.
It’s a good word for how Hajime feels, stifled.
He has plans, of course. They are pretty big plans actually. Oikawa had not been the only one determined to go overseas after high school. Hajime had worked quite hard the last three years and would be going to a university in the US. But for now, at the beginning of what promises to be a long and dull summer without two out of three of his best friends (Tooru already in Argentina and Makki away for university in Tokyo), he feels as though rather than moving forward, he’s stuck running in place.
It’s made him a bit lazy in the time that has past since his high school graduation earlier in the spring, at least by his own standards. No one else would ever dream of calling Hajime lazy, least of all Issei, who keeps heaving long suffering sighs every time Hajime complains about his own allegedly idle behavior.
“You’re resting!” he insists. “Aren’t you the one always telling us to rest and recover properly?”
Issei has a point. Hajime’s struggle though is that he feels less like his muscles do at the end of a game and more like they feel in the middle — coiled, tensed, poised to strike. All around him everyone else is moving into position, and he’s ready too. But he’s also being told not to move. To wait. To delay.
He’s working, so that’s something. It’s a pretty easy gig at the local corner store, but he wants to save up as much as he can before leaving. He also does some odd jobs around the neighborhood for extra cash, but mostly that’s been Tooru’s mom. For her he would do it for free, but she never lets him, always finding a way to smoothly tuck a few too many bills into his hand or shirt pocket before he leaves.
He feels a little bad. It hadn’t been easy for her when Tooru left, and it won’t be easy when Hajime does either. He had spent his entire life trekking the short stretch of sidewalk between their two houses, with Tooru always either walking just ahead of him or dragging along right behind.
There had been nearly nineteen years now of hot summers. Most had been spent catching beetles and walking to the park and eating popsicles and tromping loudly through the Oikawa’s large garden, alternating between playing monsters like Hajime always wanted or aliens like Tooru always wanted.
Then more recently it had been afternoons of training followed by nights finishing their summer break homework with Makki and Mattsun and playing cards and eating watermelon until the night had grown dark and they all crashed together in a big pile on the futons laid out in Tooru’s room.
The Oikawa house feels as much like his home as the Iwaizumi house does by now, and this is the last true summer he will spend in either. Hajime tries not to think about any of it too much, either the persistent itch he has to leave immediately or the ache he has at the thought of leaving at all, but there’s not much else to fill his head with as he bikes to work.
His shift runs through the late afternoon and into the evening, and if he’s honest, it’s dull. The heat bleeds into the shop a little more every time the door opens, and it makes him start wilting against the counter. He puts his chin in his hand. The oscillating fan, his last line of defense, ruffles his hair and the corners of the pages in his book. He slowly turns another page.
The obaasan who owns the store pretty much lets him do as he pleases as long as the customers get served, the place stays tidy, and all the money is in the register at the end of the night. So Iwaizumi uses his downtime to read. It’s mostly science fiction novels written in English, or sometimes translations of other books he’s familiar with. He is usually fairly confident in his skills in English, especially reading, but he also knows he’ll be thrown into the deep end of immersion in just a few short months. It never hurts to be more prepared, he figures.
The bell on the door chimes as two other customers enter, and Hajime greets them with a loud “Welcome in!” before even looking up. He reaches out and feels for his bookmark without his eyes ever leaving the page, then his fingers close around it and jam it into place. He lets the book fall closed and then finally looks up.
The two people who have entered are staring at him. That’s the thing that immediately catches his attention. But he quickly understands why. The one to the right is close to Iwaizumi’s height but just a bit broader through his shoulders and hips, and he has cropped-short black hair. The one to the left is a few centimeters shorter, and his slightly shaggy silver hair and perfectly milky skin make him even more unmistakable. They are Karasuno’s most recently graduated captain and vice captain.
They seem to be frozen and blink at him in what he can only assume is surprise, and Hajime, similarly caught off guard, blinks back.
“You’re Seijoh’s ace, aren’t you?” Captain-san asks when he regains his voice.
“Formerly,” Hajime says, and it seems to break the bubble of tension. Three sets of shoulders collectively relax, and Captain-san huffs a short laugh at himself.
“Would you grab me a tea, Dai?” his Vice-Captain asks with a smile that Hajime thinks suggests mischief, but “Dai” just snorts and moves toward the back of the store where the drink coolers are.
Vice-Captain moves slowly toward the counter then leans down on it and looks up at Hajime through pale lashes. His eyes are too pretty, warm brown that tips a little toward olive. Hajime can’t quite keep that gaze, so his eyes flit to the side and catch on the lone beauty mark just above his cheekbone instead, right next to his left eye.
“Fancy seeing you around here, Iwaizumi-san,” he says.
His chin rests in his hand, echoing Hajime’s earlier pose, but Hajime feels like he certainly can’t have looked quite that… well, he doesn’t know a good word for it really, while doing it. Vice-Captain’s back settles into a natural, elegant curve in a way that’s entirely unfair, and his long, delicate fingers either rest against the side of his head or splay over the wooden counter. Hajime feels his throat tighten and swallows.
“You remember my name?” he asks, all quiet breath and a tinge of disbelief.
The corner of his lips pulls up into a lopsided smile that draws Hajime’s attention to his mouth – his pretty, pretty, blasted pretty mouth.
“Of course I do,” he says.
It hits him like a burst of cooling air, like plunging into a shaded pond in mid-July, like the snap of a garden fresh cucumber cooled in a mountain stream.
Mr. Refreshing, his brain supplies, remembering Oikawa’s stupid nickname for him. Mr. Refreshing, indeed.