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from the moment they were born, they were like planets in orbit - circling each other endlessly and drifting so, so close.
✧✧✧
it begins like this: in a park, in days of greenery and warmth and innocence. a knightly encounter with a stag beetle that oikawa, in all his delicacy, is not able to conquer: a swollen ankle, obnoxious sobbing and the first time of many, many, many that iwaizumi sees oikawa’s face scrunched up and quivering with unshed tears. iwa-chan! oikawa cries, and reaches out with his tubby little fingers. and iwaizumi reaches right back, smelling like dirt and grass and sunshine.
then: oikawa is fifteen, when his limbs turn gangly and messy, when he misses his serves more often than not, when he plucks his eyebrows overzealously and looks comically surprised for an entire month, when his voice begins to break in the most unflattering of ways, when he realises he is in love with his best friend.
the realisation comes in the pressing weight in the pit of his stomach when iwaizumi smiles (oikawa truly, honestly fears he’ll end up coughing up all the milk bread he ate for lunch). it comes in the rhythm of i love you, i love you, you, you, you’s coursing through his veins and threatening to burst forth from his lips when iwaizumi tosses his head back, eyes crinkling, and guffaws like the absolute buffoon he is.
it comes in the gentle silences of walks home with weary gaits and stinging palms, twin silhouettes bathed in the red and orange light of the setting sun. it comes in the unwavering hand of quiet understanding pressed against his back when he himself doesn’t even know he needs it: before a match to calm him, during a match to anchor him, after a match to soothe him.
oikawa is fifteen, unsure and in love with his best friend, and to him it seems the only option is to run. because surely a smile, a laugh, a touch, isn’t supposed to hurt this much. surely he, in his pubescent haze of lust and recklessness, is simply mistaken? and even though his heart feels like it is beating out of the confines of his chest - too big for a body too small - oikawa pretends not to feel it and wills himself numb. time heals all wounds, after all.
and so: the next six months are spent going to school early and leaving only after his palms are blistered and raw and his legs buckle beneath him, walking home alone with only the stars and feeble street lights to guide him, eating lunch anywhere and everywhere but their spot on the rooftop, feigning sickness and refusing to reply to any of his texts.
he dedicates his entirety to conveniently needing to relieve himself whenever he comes looking for him, donning glasses in hopes to disguise himself from the demon darting through the corridors screaming ‘assikawa!’ with a vengeance. consequently, oikawa resigns himself to at least some form of communication with iwaizumi; for all that he is stubborn, iwaizumi has light years on him in being bull-headed and unflinchingly persistent. (and there are only so many days he can manage a sprint of ten laps looking for cover around the school, after all.)
from there, it becomes an acute caution in all instances of possible contact, lest their skin brush and he explode in a cloud of limerence. it becomes stilted conversations that just don’t flow the way they used to, a pervading tension in every interaction that leaves him feeling frustrated and wrong, because why can’t these feelings just go away? it becomes drifting apart and always smiling fake smiles, fake, fake, fake. oikawa wears them like armour. and eventually, iwaizumi stops trying to claw his way in.
from the moment they were born, they were like planets in orbit - dancing around each other, pulled apart by gravity and never meant to touch.
✧✧✧
but later, much later: in a time when oikawa's skin no longer resembles the cratered surface of a celestial body, when his contrived exuberance mellows into quiet, simmering passion, and when he finally laughs freely from deep within his chest. in a time when iwaizumi's body has grown taut and strong (but not at all vertically, to his utter dismay), when his temper has cooled into a fire that spurs rather than immolates, and when his features have sharpened but his eyes have softened.
in a time when they move in perfect harmony and the ball connects seamlessly, passing from his hands to his like a familiar and well-loved melody. when they have grown into their uniforms, stepping onto the court with pride and a 1 and 4 emblazoned boldly on their backs. when there is no more hesitation in their eyes and their smiles.
in that time, oikawa will lean in, pausing, posing a question of can i?
a hand splayed on iwaizumi’s shoulder
(is this how they do it in the movies?)
his head tipped downwards
(for optimum angle, right?)
his minty breath fanning iwaizumi’s face
(before: shit, shit, gum! makki, do you have gum?!)
and because iwaizumi has never cared for oikawa’s overthinking - he will snort, like the absolute buffoon he is, pulling them together carelessly and most inelegantly.
(but it's not careless - oikawa knows that now. he knows that iwaizumi has been thinking about this for months, years, in the same way that he's had their very scene painted behind his eyelids since he was eighteen, fifteen, five.)
there's a rough tug on his scalp that he is certain rips out some of his hair, there are chapped lips pressed against his, there are calloused fingertips running along his cheeks, and there is nowhere else they were ever meant to be.
they fall together - like gravity - oikawa thinks, before he closes his eyes.
✧✧✧
from the moment they were born, they were like planets in orbit - divergent trajectories leaving them circling for eternity, gravity pushing them apart.
but, oikawa says, fuck gravity - their planets collide, crash and burn, and he wouldn't have it any other way.