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On a balmy spring night, Matsukawa Issei breathes out a handful of smoke, spreads out the day’s edition of the Karasu Shimbun on Tooru’s dinner table, and says, most unimpressed, “You made the headline.”
Tooru scrunches up his nose. “Do you have to smoke in here?” he asks, but doesn’t chide further. Matsukawa isn’t rude, per se. And Tooru has owed him too many times tonight.
“‘The metropolis’ biggest dreamer.’ Congrats—you’ve got all of us fooled.”
“Ah, yes.” He hops off from the couch, goes over to the balcony and slides its door open, because cigarette smoke is one of those things that sticks long after it’s dissipated, and like hell Tooru will get the smell on his clothes. “Of course that’s what you praised me for and not the fact that I’ve been doing my job well. Perfectly, even.”
“Really?” Matsukawa entertains him.
“Yes, really,” Tooru insists, without looking back. Along with the fresh air comes the smooth rumble of traffic below, swelling as cars pass by the apartment and fading with distance, guided by streetlamps light, the rise and fall not unlike breathing (and maybe it’s how cities breathe). Always in motion. He watches them over the railings, rises to the tips of his toes, down and up and down, and thinks of pitching into a run.
The windchime peals, a miniature solar system suspended overhead, and the teru teru bouzu tied to it weighs it down on one side, several planets lower than the other. Tooru taps his fingers against it as he listens to the hum of Shibuya nightlife. Even this late, things are never quite silent—still, it makes him miss the cicadas in summer. He turns the doll upside-down, after some musing, decides that he’d prefer the sound of storms to the noise of the city. Rainfall has been sparse lately, anyway.
He looks over his shoulder to the crinkle of rustling paper. Matsukawa is folding up the newspaper, always neat with any form of literature. “You can’t keep getting off on my dreams forever, you know.”
Tooru groans. “Please never phrase it like that again.”
“Only if I get the bed this time.”
“Fine.” He even pouts to match his tone. “I’ll get the futon.”
“Seriously, though. Jump into someone else’s dream and don’t play hero for once.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing, Mattsun?”
When Matsukawa snuffs out his cigarette on the flower-pot astray Tooru had bought just for him, he’s already got his answer.
“Nah.”
“Oh?” asks Tooru.
“You get curious, restless,” Matsukawa says, “but someone always ends up with better dreams, in the end. And it’s not you.”
* * *
He mulls it over for a couple of days, the next few weeks—
And, one day, when Tooru dozes off after his third cup of coffee, he thinks, oh, why the hell not. He curses Matsukawa for being wise again, walks into a stranger’s dream, some faceless someone he’d probably passed by on the sidewalk without a second glance, and determines to keep it that way.
No running. No chasing the rabbit. Just dream, as much as he can borrow—
He stands by the train platform, peering up at the sky and it’s instinct, at this point, like glancing at road signs or tracing maps. Time slows down and accelerates for no reason in particular, gravity dependent on reminiscences, and the sky is indifferent enough to double-check the time and place.
(Starless, navy blue with a hint of light on the lower edge near the horizon, and it’s the same sky Tooru greets almost every day.)
An announcer’s voice lists the ingredients for profiterole, of all things. He gives in to a harmless peek, a little sideways glance to see who’d dream about such things, and finds him in the crowd.
Of course the one time he plans to be impersonal is when he can’t, because it’s Iwaizumi Hajime who steps up to the yellow line just a few spaces beside him.
And Tooru recognizes the dream as his. Old J-Rock thrums in the background, and billboards display volleyball matches instead of ads. The vague smell of grass and dirt mingles with the tiles, steel, and concrete all around. The cicadas sing their racket, and when he knows where to look, there are stars like the ones they could glimpse back in Sendai, flecking the sky this side of Tokyo, constellations only they’d know how to find.
When a train rushes past the platform, a name spills from parted lips like he couldn’t help it: “Iwa-chan,” Tooru calls, reaches out, and Iwaizumi finds him before Tooru catches the sleeve of his jacket.
The dream breaks afterward, empty spaces crumbling like fine grains of sand.
* * *
He goes on an impromptu 4AM run.
How sentimental, for most dreams are constructed of yesterday’s experiences as a way for the brain to sort new memories, but Iwaizumi carries with him his past, his childhood.
(He hasn’t changed at all.)
Tooru kicks up the pace when he realizes he sounds all sentimental, too.
* * *
The next day, Tooru finds him at some quaint little café with a view of Shinjuku Gyoen, sitting at one of the outdoor tables. Overhead, a clear, vivid blue stretches from one infinite point to another, low chance of rain, the lightness somehow more cavernous than nighttime.
It’s always summer in his dreams.
“You couldn’t have just called, could you?”
This is what Iwaizumi Hajime says when they meet for the second time this season, all other reunions since New Year’s scattered and countable on one hand.
Care for a walk? Tooru offers, instead, with a cup of matcha in one hand and milk tea in another. He tuts before grinning all breezy. “You wouldn’t be able to see my face, then. And what a tragedy that would be.”
He notes the black coffee Iwaizumi’s already ordered, the smudge on the rim because he’s never been a delicate eater, and passes him the matcha, his true favorite. Hands already open, Iwaizumi accepts the offer and makes to stand.
(“You get curious.” Matsukawa’s words come over him again as he frenetically sorts through the reasons why Iwaizumi would choose black coffee at his regular tea shop, and he concedes this time.
Because that must be it, just that.)
It’s a good day to be out; they stick to the sidewalk, past the lampposts at rest and well-trimmed hedges, the trees and their shadows, a kaleidoscope of sunlight shifting as the leaves rustle. When a breeze drifts by, it tastes like a hint of their suburban hometown.
Under the rumble of passing cars, their steps blend in like the city’s undertone, the thumping footfalls and clip-clop of hooves and claws clicking on pavement. Tooru dodges a kitsune’s lashing tails as they’re chasing their wayward child. Always too good with kids, Iwaizumi catches the little rascal in gentle arms and gets an earful of thank you’s from a harried parent.
“What was with yesterday?” Iwaizumi then asks, balance steady on the sidewalk. He even hops over a crack in the pavement without so much as a misstep, and Tooru mimics his steps. “I didn’t call for an appointment. Isn’t that illegal, intruding on someone’s dreams like that?”
“Not if it’s an emergency.”
“Yeah? And what made it so?”
Tooru takes a hearty slurp of his milk tea. He tries to not recall the embarrassment (and pain) from tripping up on his run because he’d pondered this too much.
“Your dream broke too easily. I know you missed me and it was such a pleasant surprise to see my face again, but I’ve been here since we were five, and”—Tooru gestures back to the café—“you’re drinking black coffee when you’ve always preferred tea. In a dream, no less, which means it started recently—or a new habit, even.”
“I could be just trying new things.”
“Seeing as you’ve had the same favorite food for twenty years, I highly doubt that.” Tooru tilts his head and fiddles with the straw wrapped in his other hand. “You’ve been having trouble sleeping. With your profession, that might be an emergency.”
He doesn’t expect Iwaizumi to laugh. It sounds a bit tired, but nothing forced. “Gods, you’re still the same,” Iwaizumi tells him. “Making a mess of tissues and straw wrappers. You better not make anyone clean up after your mess.”
“So I was right,” Tooru says, smug.
Iwaizumi gives up a small grin. He hasn’t so much as sipped his tea.
A roof pulls over their heads with no shortage of fluorescent lights and signage. They come to a staircase and step down, down, and pass through the turnstiles. The train bound for Chuo will be arriving shortly on platform two. Please wait behind the yellow line. Fingers dance along the railing, metallic cool to the touch, and Tooru flicks off the dust he’s unwittingly picked up.
“So what’re you doing here? Other than to brag.”
Tooru hums. “I charge by the hour.”
“Not even a discount?”
“Hm, if you’d ask nicely…”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Well, you couldn’t be worse than Hanamaki.”
“What did our dear pediatrician do to you?”
“Gave me a pot of sagiso. He’s been dabbling in hanakotoba magic—apparently, this one means ‘my thoughts will follow you into your dreams’ or something—but the only thing it did was make me dream about—”
“—cream puffs,” Tooru mutters, and laughs. “That explains yesterday!”
They settle into some natural sort of ease by the way an old friend’s laugh and the crinkles that reach his eyes, because it’s Iwa-chan, and there are few things more contagious. Effortless, for this burst of a moment, their steps and sidesteps in sync.
(Except for where Tooru nearly trips over the street curb, because Iwaizumi’s laugh has its way of getting under his skin, gruff and not smooth at all and charging through every damn barrier, and Tooru learns that time spent apart only makes it worse.)
So he thinks to save catching up for another day, if ever at all, because he has a job to do and jitters to exhaust.
They throw their (now empty) drinks into a trash can. Walking up right behind the yellow line, Tooru clicks his tongue at the place Iwaizumi has (and will) lead them to. “A workaholic, even in your dreams…”
Iwaizumi scoffs. “You would, too, if you could.”
“Please! My dreams wouldn’t be this ordinary.”
At this, Iwaizumi looks up at the non-existent ceiling, a brilliant night sky beyond that they’ve only seen in pictures and documentary films, auroras and all, a consequence of letting Oikawa Tooru run amok in his dreams for twenty or so years.
“Could be,” Iwaizumi admits. He shrugs like it’s nothing to be surprised about. “I know it’d be nerdy, most of all.”
Tooru squawks. He has no time to fuss, though. When the next train comes, clanking on the tracks, there’s a dreamer to guide, after all. Wherever we need to go.
He turns to Iwaizumi—shall we go, then?—and the smile he musters up isn’t camera-ready, vulnerable at the edges. He’s had practice with a wide variety, smiles and laughter and poised words, urging all kinds of stray dreamers to take his outstretched hand, let him guide the way with confident strides and a firm, gentle hold, despite the callouses that remain on his palms—
But this is Iwa-chan, just Iwa-chan, who only quirks a brow at him and knows. Tooru forgot that he never had to use any falsities, with him (and maybe he never, ever will).
So hands stay by his sides. They board the train separately, with enough passengers to fill the seats but not to stifle. Like it’s a habit, hands link to pull each other under nearby grab-rails before parting once more.
* * *
“How long has it been?”
“Hm?”
“The insomnia.” Tooru gestures vaguely with his free hand. “Pretty sure it’s an acute thing.”
Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow. “You’re the dreamwalker here. Why don’t you find out?”
Fair point.
It still sounds like a challenge more than anything.
Iwaizumi’s somewhat learned to lucid dream from the time he’s spent with Tooru, so nobody in the train seems bothered by their talking. Colleagues past, new, and in-between are reading a magazine or two, typing fervently on their phones, thinking hard and spacing out, sitting hushed in wait for the next station among a sea of others Tooru doesn’t recognize.
He wonders how many of these phantoms Iwaizumi’s talked to and made acquaintances and friends with, in real life, without Tooru in the picture.
(He thinks of how much of him he’s missed, in just eight months.)
“I worked with someone who only dreamed of train rides, once. Except all the passengers were faceless and it woke her up every time,” Tooru says.
“That sounds unsettling.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare, though.”
“Yeah?” Iwaizumi asks with genuine curiosity. “What was it?”
“Oh, she did have chronic nightmares, but they stopped a couple of weeks before. Turned out she asked a baku to eat them. Over time, it ate her good dreams, too.”
He peers at Iwaizumi, calculates his minute reactions.
“You’re a good doctor. You wouldn’t risk your patients—you would’ve contacted a baku if it was about nightmares, dreams in general. You didn’t, because you’re having trouble falling asleep in the first place.”
Iwaizumi says nothing, to that, but he gives up a smile like he can’t help it. As if he’s relieved, and maybe a bit proud that Tooru could crack some of the mystery. Iwaizumi’s never been as talkative as Tooru, but he’s assertive and not one to keep quiet, either, especially when it’s between the two of them. He’s not sure if it’s the fatigue or the eight months they’ve left unspoken.
So Tooru settles to peer out the windows, where sceneries pass by them like a trip down memory lane. The skyscrapers Tooru had constructed in ages past tower in the distant cityscape (because he’d dreamed of bigger things, higher things, even then), mountain ranges from when Iwaizumi was a fan of Bear Grylls stand farther beyond (and Tooru suspects he still wants to climb Mount Fuji, someday), while a thistle field in half-bloom pink and purple sprawls all around them (a memorial of Adventures in Miyagi, by one Iwaizumi Hajime). It is nothing novel or new; homes usually aren’t, that way.
Strings of fairy lights wrap around power lines poles, zelkova trees that daring seven-year-olds would climb nestle their roots, and the freckled moon peeks through a noon sky. Tooru presses a hand to the glass and it gives away at the millisecond touch. Leaning forward, the wind up in his face and hair, he blinks up—at the sky, looming gray, at the clouds that cast shadows and heavy with a chance of rain, and remembers how a certain childhood friend has never been fond of thunderstorms.
He peeks at the track ahead—
“Iwa-chan,” Tooru calls, pulling back. Beside him, Iwaizumi’s worlds away, caught in a trap of remembrances, and Tooru shakes his shoulders to no avail.
“Iwa-chan. Iwa-chan—Hajime.”
That jolts Iwaizumi out of his trance. “What did you call me?”
“Iwa-chan, where are we going right now?”
Iwaizumi frowns. “The hospital.”
“Do you remember the way there?”
“Wha—’course I do. What the hell, Oikawa?”
“There’s nothing in front of us,” Tooru says. “It’s a blank paper. The dream isn’t continuing like it should.”
At once, Iwaizumi understands, because even when they were kids Tooru had shown him everything he knew, and instinct is something they’ve polished in and out of court. If it were Tooru, he would’ve spoken it aloud—the directions to the hospital, the things he might pass and touch along the way—but Iwaizumi just closes his eyes. Tooru wants to take his hand, and how embarrassing it is that the guide is the one seeking hands to hold (but maybe just this one in particular), but he keeps to his own for now. When the dream ripples, new grounds and skies crawling ahead of them and roots sprouting to prevent landslides, he focuses on keeping it from snapping altogether, because he’s built this world as much as Iwaizumi has. Because Iwaizumi remembers him and keeps every part of him here, all this time.
He touches Iwaizumi’s shoulder, when the horizon has settled as far as they can see.
* * *
“I figured something out.”
“Hm?” Tooru asks, yawning.
It is the next morning, a drowsy Saturday that calls for sleeping in on the weekend, when Iwaizumi phones him not long after his dream ended not too badly. Sleep aside, Tooru knows he hasn’t been getting enough dreams; with Matsukawa traveling to some remote location for obscure photoshoots (“There are banshees and Irish fairies here. Those bloodthirsty European spirits. Crazy.”), he’s left with Hanamaki, who’s too painfully conscious of his dreams, and taking a certain advice led to—well.
“I figured out why you stumbled into my dream in the first place, ‘emergency’ aside.”
“I’d call it having an excellent intuition,” Tooru says, rummaging through a pile of blankets for his glasses. “I could easily sense a troubled dreamer kilometers away.”
At the other end of the line, Iwaizumi chuckles, still as sleepy. “Don’t inflate that ego of yours even more. Open your door.”
His glasses are a tad smudged but he puts them on, anyway. What else is new. He slips down from the bed, landing with a dull thump of bare soles on too-cold floor, holds back a shiver, and stretches his calves.
“You got a surprise for me?” Tooru singsongs, walking to the front door in his drowsy and bed-headed glory.
“Something like that. Trust me, it’s just as much as a surprise to me.”
And when Tooru does open the door, still in the pixelated Star Wars shirt he’s worn to bed, the blanket he’s dragged all the way, and peeks out past the bleariness in his eyes, it’s with the thought: well, it’s six in the morning. It’s just Iwa-chan, after all, who’s too honest and straightforward to mastermind any evil plan. (He always knows the perfect gift for Tooru, too, birthdays and Christmases and no matter when.) So there’s no need to fear (or even anticipate). So calm down, heart rate.
Except it’s just Iwa-chan, out in the hallway and leaning against the entrance to the apartment next door, blinking up at Tooru like he’d very much rather be sleeping.
Still, Iwa-chan raises a hand to wave once, breaking out a grin, and chuckles when Tooru can only gape unattractively in turn.
* * *
“But—when?”
“Two days ago.”
“But I know everyone in this building!”
“Well, I guess you do.”
* * *
Tooru puts both hands on his hips, overlooking the entirety of Iwaizumi’s living room, and declares everything is barbarically under-furnished.
“As expected of a caveman like you, I suppose,” he even adds, turning up his nose with a haughty hmph. “‘S no wonder you can’t sleep. It’s so bleak here.”
From the kotatsu, feet tucked under the heated blanket and one arm loosely wrapped around an ancient Godzilla plush, Iwaizumi flips through the television channels before settling on the weather report (because Iwa-chan is an old man). He snorts behind his cup of coffee.
“What, you invited yourself over and now you’re a feng shui expert?”
“Magic doesn’t mean you can completely ignore science. Like psychology.”
“I’m the last person you should tell that.”
“Did it start when you moved, then?” Tooru asks. He’s named the two cacti on the windowsill Hajime-chan (because it pricked him) and Kyouken-chan (the one with the tiny yellow blossoms). He nudges Kyouken-chan away from the other by a push of his finger. “Or some days before?”
Quiet answers him. The ceiling lights stay off for a particularly overcast morning, sunlight filtering through in muted colors, and a forecast warns of cumulonimbus clouds this afternoon; that tsuyu, the rainy season, will come early to this side of the Kanto region. He watches Iwaizumi in the tranquil hues, shadows playing with half-lights and the gleam of a too-high forehead, calm before the storm.
(He thinks, something happened and you didn’t know when it matters the most.
He thinks, you used to make sure he always, always had good dreams.)
“A month, I guess? Maybe two.” Iwaizumi frowns, thoughtful. “And you? Whose dreams have you been getting off on?”
Tooru gapes.
“You—that—you did that on purpose! You and Mattsun!” he shrieks, pointing an accusatory finger as Iwaizumi chortles into his drink. “You conspired about that, but you didn’t know where you were moving to?”
“You forgot something.”
“What.”
“They’re Makki and Mattsun,” Iwaizumi emphasizes. Leftover laughter spills into a grin, and there’s some playful fire in his eyes that promises revenge. “Maybe they thought if they were stuck with each other, we had to be as well. And this place isn’t bad, you know. I think I might come to like it.”
Tooru huffs, crosses his arms and peers out the window, down the streets revving up for the day and ahead at the horizon peeking from the slits between skyscrapers. Iwaizumi’s apartment has better views, too.
He claps, once. His head throbs slightly from the lack of dreams.
“Right. We’re doing this,” he says, in his overly-cheery captain voice.
* * *
Iwaizumi stares at the shop’s owner. “Ushiwaka.”
“Ushiwaka-chan,” Tooru corrects, sneering.
“Please do not call me that,” Ushijima says. His disapproving scowl is closer to a pout, with the white clover tucked behind one ear. He’d probably wear a flower crown, too, if that red-headed jubokko had his way with him, though the youkai is suspiciously absent. Ushijima grabs a cloth from the counter and wipes off the dirt on his hands. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“You work in a flower shop,” Iwaizumi says.
“A garden—and part-time, yes. It’s a family business.”
“Since when?”
Ushijima tilts his head. Tooru watches on, if a bit amused.
“My grandfather was a son of Aranyani. I believe he started the shop, with his gifts.”
Iwaizumi opens his mouth, closes it, caught between that’s not what I meant and who?
Tooru flicks his wrist. “Anyway, we’re not here for the normal orders. Do you have anything useful around or have you gotten duller with your botany magic?”
“That...is the usual business here. We do not sell plants for vanity or arrangements.”
Tooru gestures at him, all the while looking at Iwaizumi as if he’s proven an inside joke.
He finds it less amusing later on. Iwaizumi’s harmless question about Hajime-chan and Kyouken-chan back home snowballs into a deep conversation about plant life and on the care of your succulents (which, fine—he supposes it’s what would happen when you place two people with similar hobbies together and they’ve grown up enough to put aside past rivalry), and Tooru, in turn, gets ignored for most of the time, which greatly displeases him.
They do settle with one of Tooru’s ideas: lavenders. “I raised them myself,” Ushijima says. “They should be as effective as the lavender scent oil you mention.” From the botany witch himself, they get a pot of aloe vera (“for protection and healing”), poppy (“sleep, oblivion,” to which they stare at Ushijima dubiously), and a small fern (“shelter”). At the end of it, Iwaizumi shoots Tooru a look like he’s crazy.
“You’re taking care of them, too,” he tells him.
Their visit lasts longer than planned; the forecast, announced by a local weather spirit on the TV that morning, holds true as rain pours by mid-afternoon. A drizzle, when they step out of the shop and its awnings; a downpour, halfway home.
Steps speed up just like old times. Iwaizumi’s jacket, previously tied around his waist, was certainly never made for two, but he curses, yanks Tooru closer despite all deliberate sidesteps and makes it their shelter. Tooru’s glad that Iwaizumi cares so much about the plants and had insisted to have them delivered safely tomorrow.
They could’ve stopped, for a while, and stowed themselves away in the bus stops and cafés and corner stores they’re dashing past. Instead they just run, just run, just run.
The dreamless nights must be getting to him, because Tooru laughs, no reason at all, in the face of the storm. He throws his head back, tastes the cloudburst on his tongue and the howling sky in his ears. When the hand gripping his own tightens, he wonders if Iwaizumi thinks he’s gone mad, like those who can neither dream or borrow others’, or if it’s from the thunder.
(He holds back, anyway; they splash through puddles like childhood, and it’d be inconvenient if one of them were to slip.)
* * *
He sits back against the balcony railings, shivering and hair still damp from a bath.
“I’m serious. You’re responsible for them.”
It’d be good to tuck in somewhere warmer, but it isn’t like Tooru has always made the wisest choices. He would like to watch the sky tonight, city lights like moored stars.
“You said it like we adopted a dog or something,” he says, across phoneline statics. “I remember how you wanted a dog back in high school. You still want one?”
“Nah. Work’s too busy.” Iwaizumi pauses. “A dog would be nice, yeah. I’d adopt a big one, because the small ones would be too yappy. You’re already more than enough for that.”
Tooru reaches out a hand, pinches a speckle of light and closes one eye, pretends he’s got a star, some supernova-to-be, in his palm. He hums.
“Does that mean I can come over whenever?” he then lilts, for once ignoring the habit of using banter and idle insults to cover up true intentions. “So I can water the plants and stuff.”
When the windchime tinkles, softly, right above him and out of reach, he looks up. He rises to his knees, careful with his right one, and inspects the teru teru bouzu—a bit worn, inked smile blurred and one green eye more faded than the other, the spiky hair drawn in black ink now washed gray, probably from wayward raindrops.
Iwaizumi’s voice comes over once more. “Now I’m worried for the plants’ well-being.”
At this, Tooru hums again, thinks of running in the rain and the hands held all the way, and turns the doll right-side up.
Sitting back down, he yawns into the receiver.
“I groomed a bunch of unruly high school students into one of the best teams in Miyagi. And my ex-team on Toray,” Tooru mumbles through a sleepy grin. “Those plants stand no chance.”
“Of surviving in your care, yeah.”
“How rude!”
The chilly breeze might be the only thing keeping him awake, by now, but the empty spaces in non-dreams are never ideal for rest. Blinking up, he finds the top bar of the railings and muses if some greenery there would look aesthetically pleasing.
“Hi, Iwa-chan,” Tooru just says. Maybe it’s the most belated greeting he’s ever given.
“Go to sleep, dumbass,” Iwaizumi just tells him, after some silence.
He groans. “You were supposed to say ’hi’.”
But he dozes off, then, to the answering hum of a warmth he’s known all too well, home-like. To the softest click and thud as Iwaizumi navigates his kitchen, probably, in utmost quiet, like he’s keeping in mind how Tooru’s always been a light sleeper.
He can’t dream. He’s never dreamed (and maybe that’s why he shoots for the stratosphere, with his other dreams).
So Tooru knows it’s nothing but real, when Iwaizumi greets him right back.
* * *
At the train station, Tooru stops in front of a glass-walled map and traces a finger over the lines, the roads and rivers, following railroads and crossing waters until he reaches the edge of the map. To Sendai.
“So, Iwaizumi-san, why did you quit the team?”
When he peers around for the timetable, suspended from the ceiling in its usual place, an interview with one of Japan’s pro-league spikers is taking place instead.
“It was shocking news,” the reporter continues. “Especially considering Toray Arrows had lost a formidable setter, Oikawa Tooru, several months ago.”
Tooru cranes up his neck, rewatches the polite smile come over Iwaizumi’s face, the quick, miniscule jerks of his legs, volleyball sneakers tapping a nervous rhythm on the floor, and sees no more of that.
“It’s always been in the back of my mind,” Iwaizumi answers, anyway. “I went to med school, though I haven’t done my time in residency yet, and—yeah, it’s always been in the back of my mind.”
“But you’re childhood friends with Oikawa-san, yes? Is it because of his recent injury?”
He traverses deeper into the station, its underground belly, lost among the crowds.
“No. We’d played volleyball since we were kids and while we were almost always on the same team, I played for Toray because I loved volleyball. And I still do.”
This time the background music is something classic, like the ones his mother would request on their old-timey radio. The sky, when he finds it, is a humble midnight blue with pinpricks of lights, for once not much of a show-off, just what they saw when they’d climbed the roof of their houses at times when sleep was fickle.
If Iwaizumi had built the grounds as they were back in Sendai, it’s fair that Tooru would build their skies.
“I know where we need to go,” Tooru says, when he finds him in the crowd once more. Iwaizumi tips his head and keeps him in his sights. He always has.
“Well, maybe,” Tooru admits. One hand on his hip, he cradles his chin as if in deep thought and hums. “‘We never know unless we try.’ That’s what you used to say, right?”
Iwaizumi sighs, just as much at himself. “I called you to my dreams, huh.”
“Not this one right now. I think I just kinda fell right into it,” Tooru tells him, honest. He breaks into a wide grin. “But, aww, Iwa-chan couldn’t sleep without me! How sweet!”
That gets him an eye-roll. “Shut up. A patient came in some time ago and they reminded me of you.”
“They couldn’t be as handsome, so you wanted to see the real thing.”
“You’re still so crappy.”
He smiles. “And you’re doing well.”
When the next train arrives on the platform, it bears no warning and no destinations are named.
(So Tooru sets it for them: Sendai, Miyagi.
Home.)
Tooru boards it first, reaches out a hand and lets Iwaizumi take it as he is, takes him as he is, all his one hundred and seventy-nine centimeters, and helps him onto the train. He almost tumbles off balance from the train’s sudden take-off, but Iwaizumi hauls him right back up to his feet.
With a deep inhale, breath heavier than anything he’s ever taken running across the court, Iwaizumi looks right at the camera, as if he knows Tooru is on the other side of the screen despite all his insistence not to watch.
This time, Iwaizumi smiles as he guides Tooru to stand by the same grab-rail.
“Some things are more important to me, I guess.”