Work Text:
Tooru leans heavily against Kenma’s desk and scowls down at him.
“I still just can’t believe sometimes that you’re with him. I wouldn’t even be able to let him anywhere near me let alone live in the same apartment as him. I’d have to be dead first.”
“Well it’s a good thing I’m the one dating him then, isn’t it Oikawa.” Tooru made some more comments about the unlikely pairing of Ushiwaka and Kenma. Kenma snarked back at him. They went about their work. Then Tooru went home that night and found a notice on his door.
It’s been three weeks already since Tooru had to move out of his apartment, supposedly temporarily, thanks to someone in the building doing something incredibly stupid and rendering the entire complex unstable and unacceptable for living. So he’s living out of a duffel bag, going through every person he works with and only managing to stay with them for a day or three, at max, before one of them - sometimes it’s him and sometimes it’s the other person - can’t handle the pressure of living together with a coworker any longer.
Kenma is his last chance to not wind up living in a hotel for the foreseeable future but Tooru still hesitates before he knocks.
“Well,” Kenma says with no small amount of amusement when he opens the door. “You must be dead since I clearly remember you stating you wouldn't be able to live in the same apartment as Toshi.”
Tooru has to stop himself from visibly gagging. His face curdles because UshijimaWakatoshi does not deserve a cute nickname like that.
Ushijima pauses on his way to the kitchen and looks at them curiously. "Is something wrong with Oikawa?"
"There is a lot wrong with him, don't worry about it Toshi. Also I think we just found that roommate we've been looking for."
Ushijima thinks about it for a moment and then nods, pleased. "Good. Welcome home then Oikawa."
He enters the kitchen and Oikawa visibly shudders.
"I hate you," he hisses even as Kenma steps aside and waves him inside. "I don't know why I ever thought you were a decent person."
"I am going to enjoy this so much." Is Kenma's only response.
He starts insisting on things like family dinners to ‘make Oikawa feel welcome here’ and Ushijima, being the absolute sweetheart that he is, is all for it. And why stop at dinners? Let's watch Oikawa's favorite movie for movie night! Let's bake cookies together! Oikawa come plant shopping with me I want the apartment to feel like it's your space too. Oikawa is livid.
He hates it he hates all of it he hates Ushiwaka and he hates Kenma and he hates his job and he hates the fact that no one he tries to complain to shows him the tiniest bit of sympathy over it (Akaashi and Mattsun fucking cried they were laughing so hard and he would be even more pissed if he wasn't a little proud of making stoic marble faced Akaashi show so much emotion)
He hates it so much and what he hates most of all is that he knows he doesn't really hate it. He hates that he actually kind of likes feeling wanted, like someone will be concerned if he doesn't come home at night, or that someone will want to make sure he doesn't end up dead in a ditch somewhere, and he definitely hates that he really enjoys having someone who will keep the fridge stocked with his favorite sports drink and will make his favorite dinner without asking because they know he's had a rough week, and he hates how nice it feels to see two other toothbrushes on the counter and two other pairs of shoes in the genkan and the little row of houseplants that Ushijima waters and talks to every morning and the neatly organized cabinet full of Kenma's games and the way there's room for Tooru's alien movie collection as well and he hates it he hates it he hates it and he won't admit that he loves it.
When he gets the notice in the mail that his apartment building has finally been completely repaired and reopened and he can call for an appointment to resign his lease he hates the way his stomach drops and curls in on itself like that one plant of Ushijima's he can never remember the actual name of but Kenma refers to it as Feathers so that's what the rest of them do and he hates that he got used to having a 'the rest of them' in his life in such an intimate way even if there are just two others. He hates the way that Ushijima just knows something is wrong with him the moment Ushijima looks up from the table and sees Oikawa standing there and the way he's Ushijima now and not Ushiwaka.
And when he goes back, because of course he goes back how can he not, he hates that his apartment, his wonderful, luxurious apartment which has always been a fortress of solitude, just feels empty now, and there's only one toothbrush on the counter and no one else's shoes to trip over and the fridge is only full of food he likes and there's no plants on the windowsill and there's no one else's clothes mixed in with his own and there's no Ushijima waking up too early to drag him on a morning run and no Kenma keeping him up too late with the light of his game system and there's no one's thighs to tuck his cold toes under and no one to complain about his choice in movies and no one else's choice for him to complain about and he never realized how lonely he was before.
And he's still being woken up far too early and staying up far too late but his only company is the uneasy feeling in his stomach and his damn insomnia that hadn't felt like so much of a burden when he had people just as far off the 'normal' scale as he had been to share it with and he hates the way he lingers outside Wakatoshi's favorite store to buy plants at and that he passes Kenma's favorite gaming store every day he goes to work and for something that was never anything and he would be caught dead before being a part of he sure feels like he just went through one of the worst breakups of his life and he hates that he can't even talk to Kenma normally at work anymore and this is worse than dating and breaking up with one of his friends.
But what he hates most of all is that he cares enough about all of this to hate it. It was never supposed to get that close, never supposed to be anything more than a playful flirtation or two with Kenma and a distant hatred of Ushijima, but now he's miserable and he doesn't know why, because he doesn't want to know why, doesn't want to know if Kenma and Ushijima are just as miserable as him, doesn't want to think about what it would mean if they were, what it would mean if they weren't, what any of this means at all. He just wants to go back to what it was before, and he doesn't want to have to want that, doesn't want to have to want anything at all, but he does, and even though he pretends not to, or pretends not to know why, he can't stop himself from laying away at night and wishing
He doesn't want to think about the hows or the whys or the whens of Ushiwaka becoming Ushijima becoming Wakatoshi and Toshi is still unfairly adorable for the jerk but it's fitting too and Kenma has been Kenma since the day he flounced into Kenma's little work area and introduced himself and Kenma said "I know who you are" and refused to clarify for months and months but now he's not just Kenma; he's Kenma and he has a spot somewhere inside what Tooru figures is probably his heart or soul but whatever it is Wakatoshi is there too and they carved out a hole like the way waves carve at cliff walls and now its there and he's here and his sanctuary of solitude looks more like a solitary cell and he doesn't think about. Except for when he thinks about it all the time.
And people are starting to notice. Iwaizumi keeps texting him to make sure he's eating and sleeping, and he keeps getting sidelong glances from Akaashi and Makki, and people at work keep treating him extra gently and then there's Kenma, who isn't just Kenma, but Kenma who can't look him in the eye anymore and who's been quieter than normal in the office and Tooru knows that most of their coworkers can't see the difference, but he can, he can and it's killing him because the last thing he wants is for Kenma to be sad but he is and it's all Tooru's fault and he would leave and stop shoving himself in Kenma's face, but leaving means losing the last piece of him that tooru has and he can't do that he just can't and he hates himself for being so selfish but he can't give either of them what they want so he's going to settle for this instead.
This being eating alone at his kitchen counter staring blankly at the fridge while Wakatoshi's favorite television show plays in the background and dragging himself to bed far too late only to drag himself back out of it far too soon so he can go to work and avoid looking too closely at Kenma who looks like he slept even less than Tooru did but he can't look too closely because then he'll want to sit near him and bask in his presence and make horrible jokes about Wakatoshi's precious plant children - and he'll ask how Feathers is doing because he kind of misses that thing even though he still doesn't actually know what kind of plant it is and he really should have asked when he had the chance - and he'll never want to leave. Which he doesn't get to do, doesn't deserve to do because he did just that. He left. And now he has to see the way Kenma, who never paid him much attention before, doesn't even look at him now. Eventually, though, eventually he stops remembering what it was like to wake up to coffee made and come home to meals ready and argue over movies and tuck cold toes under warm legs. He stops remembering the exact way it was but can still feel that it's missing. That he misses them. He hates that the most. That he misses them. When there shouldn't have been anything to miss. And when Wakatoshi picks Kenma up one day after work and he manages to catch Tooru's eyes it's the cruelest thing ever because he knows, just by that one fleeting glance before Wakatoshi's face went neutral and his hand pressed protectively against Kenma's lower back, he knows they miss it too.
So he did it. He did the one thing he knows he shouldn't do. He let someone get attached to him, which is the worst possible thing because even if they think they want him around, no one does for long. No one wants to put up with his insecurity and his cruelty and his insomnia and his issues long term, they just don't. But sometimes people trick themselves - or maybe he tricks them - into thinking that they do want him, that they can see past all that to something that's worth having, worth valuing, and Tooru knows the truth. He knows that he's not worth much of anything at all, and that someday all that affection is going to turn itself on its head, because people fall out of love for the same reasons they fall in and he can't be someone's manic pixie dream girl, he can only be their worst nightmare. He'll tear them apart eventually, so he always tries to leave before the attachment begins but he fucked it up this time, he stayed too long and laughed too loud and now they think they know him and want him anyway, but they don't they can't, and Tooru has no choice but to poison that, for their own protection, but he doesn't want to , not again, maybe not ever again, but he has no choice because this is the grave he dug himself and he dug it for them too and this is the last kindness he can offer them, the last cruelty.
So there's nothing else to do. Nothing else he can do. Because despite being a poison that slowly corrodes everything he touches until there's nothing but a rusty, crumbling, vagueness where there used to be life those two are still here and he can't be. So he does it. Because he was the one to leave them but he never actually left them. He hovered, too close to cut off but not close enough to recapture. A lightning bug dancing just out of reach and illuminating the tiniest piece of the world around them. But this time. This time he'll go. He'll take his bag and step into the cool morning and leave. For good. For real. It's better for them all this way. Kenma won't have to curl in on himself. Wakatoshi won't have to shutter the swirls of emotions in his eyes that, had he not seen them himself, Tooru would hardly believe he was capable of. The strap of his bag digs into his shoulder and he grips it tightly where it crosses his chest, like it's a piece of his armor and if he drops it, he'll lose his nerve to leave.
The first morning that Kenma comes to work and Tooru isn't already there isn't much of a surprise. The third is. And by the time they've gone an entire week without Tooru shuffling quietly to the other side of the office to avoid looking at Kenma while his entire soul reaches out for him, Kenma is beyond worried. And he can't tell Wakatoshi this, because Wakatoshi is sad enough without knowing just how much Tooru has been avoiding Kenma, just how much he's been trying to extract the roots he laid down in their lives, but he has to say something because a miserable Tooru who's close at hand is much better than a Tooru who could by lying somewhere in a ditch for all they know, and if he wants to be gone that's fine but Kenma needs to know that it's what he wants and not what he thinks he has to do. He's had enough martyrs in his life already without Tooru adding to their numbers. So he does the only thing he can think of and he calls Iwaizumi, who didn't know the whole story but had enough pieces of it to guess, and just needed one last little shove for him to step in and intervene, and Kenma is exactly what he needed. Except that Iwaizumi hadn't known that Tooru was gone, and has no way of knowing where he would go, because when you disappear you don't do it in a place where you told your own best friend you would be, not if you're doing it right and Tooru was never one to half-ass things.
Iwaizumi isn't sure who exactly to ask, who to turn to, when he realizes that he doesn't have the slightest idea where Tooru has gone to. He knows all the places he would have gone to once upon a time but all those other times Tooru has never been trying to hide from Iwaizumi, not really, not even the time he 'trying' to hide from him. Iwazumi doesn't want to bring Tooru's family into this because he doesn't think he's missing, not truly. He's waiting to be found which is a dick move and so totally Tooru that Iwaizumi just rolls his eyes at it. But Makki and Mattsun don't know where Tooru is and Akaashi looks back at him with sympathetic eyes when he realizes just how serious Iwaizumi is being. He runs through all the places Tooru would have gone, then all the places he could have, and then he starts searching the places Tooru wouldn't have gone. Because with Iwaizumi looking for him Tooru would have to pull out all the stops. It's not a simple task, when has anything involving Oikawa Tooru ever been simple for anyone involved? But he does it. Not because of the worry that crept into Kenma's tone when he asked Iwaizumi in a small voice if he knew where Tooru was. Not because of the weary way that Ushijima guided Kenma away with the smallest of backwards glances at Iwaizumi. Not because of the sharp line of something that tasted like fear and felt like crushed glass in his stomach when he thought about not being able to find Tooru for real and forever. But because Tooru, despite his actions and how much he fights to believe otherwise, deserves to be looked for and found and dragged home by his stupid messenger bag and planted on Kenma and Ushijima's doorstep and Iwaizumi was determined to make it happen.
And it hurts, just a little, when days go by and Iwaizumi still can't find him, because it means that whatever has been going through his head this time, whatever voice was whispering in his ear, it was louder than all the times Iwaizumi was there for him, all the times he told him, in no uncertain terms, with words and actions and headbutts and cups of tea that he can tell Iwaizumi anything, and that Iwaizumi will always be there for him. It hurts to realize that this whatever it is with Kenma and Ushijima is strong enough to make Tooru turn his back on not only them but Iwaizumi as well, and it hurts more to think that Tooru is so broken that he thinks the only way to move forward from love is to run away from it. So Iwaizumi searches and searches and when he finds him, when he finally catches the right wind and it blows him to the right place, when he finally sees Oikawa dragging himself through a street so far away from their home, the relief hurts even more. He doesn't say anything, because he knows that anything he says won't be heard. He just wraps his arms around his friend and then takes him home. And while he waits for an explanation or a protest or an apology or anything at all, he will do what he does best, and love this broken boy while he puts himself back together.
What he fails to understand, what the grand Oikawa Tooru has always failed to understand, is that there are countless ways to love someone and that you love them because of their faults not because they are faultless. You love them because their quirks and insecurities and problems and worries and the way they laugh at dog videos and roll their eyes at romcoms and how they never remember to untie their shoes before they take them off. You love them even when they are crushed and shattered and nothing more than pieces of themselves collected in a delicate bin waiting to find their glue to put themselves back together. He doesn't need fixed and that's another thing Iwaizumi knows that Tooru has never quite understood. He may be in pieces but he isn't broken . He's scared that someone, anyone, will look at him, see everything he is and isn't and still accept him. He's scared that Ushijima and Kenma see these pieces of him, these weird little puzzles with odd edges and unusual shapes and sharp biting corners that can hurt even the wariest handler, and still wants to keep him around. There's always someone better in Tooru's eyes, some new model just around the corner waiting to replace him, and he forgets, that stubborn asshole who throws himself into everything even when he pretends he doesn't forgets that some people keep others forever.
And when Tooru asks, Iwaizumi tells him all of these things, quiet words exchanged on the train going toward home. He tells him about the boy he met when he was a kid, the nervous one who loved aliens and volleyball and hated bugs but went bug hunting with Hajime anyway. He tells him about the boy who went to school with him, who played at his side, who he missed when they went to separate universities, but who came back to him anyway. he tells Tooru about his best friend, and then he tells him some more. He tells him about a man who found the quiet, nervous guy at the office and struck up a friendship, never talking too loud but also never treating him like he was made of glass. He tells him about a man who makes a joke, and through a twist of fate ends up fulfilling it. He tells him about a man who sees his worst enemy, the embodiment of all his insecurities, and then moves past all that and sees the person beneath, the human soul that lives in that body. And who, once they've seen someone that way, can ever not love them? Who, when they look at a pile of fear and defenses and see through the cracks to the shining, marvelous creature within, can ever turn away from it? He tells Tooru what lies beneath the monster in the mirror, and maybe Tooru cries a bit, and maybe Hajime does too, but it's the nice kind of crying, the kind that feels a little like healing and a little like laughter and a lot like renewal. And then the train pulls into the station and there's a life to be lived, and Tooru can't run away from it this time.
He literally can't run away from it because as soon as Kenma got the text that Iwaizumi found Tooru and was bringing him back he left work and went straight to Toshi's side and told him as much as he could in sentences broken with relief and cracked with worry. Relief that Tooru was found and worry that he would be lost again before Iwaizumi got him back. He never once worried that Toshi would be upset with him for keeping this secret for so long. Toshi knew him, knew the way Kenma hoarded pieces of himself and others tight to his chest like a dragon with shining coins, knew the way that Kenma pruned the thorns and vines of others' personalities back so that Toshi could see the flowers instead. Wakatoshi watches the train come in with a wary sort of morbid fascination. He would like Tooru to return, he misses everything about the other man in a way he hadn't realized he would until weeks after his name stopped falling from Kenma's lips. But there's also a jagged hole in his chest, somewhere just to the side of his lungs that hurts when he breathes a little too hard or thinks about Tooru and sometimes it hurts when he watches Kenma sleep curled against his side and he wonders if Tooru is asleep or, if he were here, if he would sit with Wakatoshi and debate quietly with him over what to watch now that Kenma has finally dozed off. Iwaizumi steps off the train with the strap of Tooru's bag tight in his hand and Wakatoshi's fingers tighten around the hem of Kenma's hoodie like it's an anchor. Or maybe it's a lifejacket because Tooru steps off the train and Wakatoshi, for all the life in him, can't remember how to breathe under the drowning pressure of those tired brown eyes.
Kenma doesn't wait to remember. He's drowning, he's suffocating, he's dying, but he's also running forward, shoving through the crowd, because Tooru is there, and no matter how hard Kenma tried to give him the space he thought he needed, it's been like living in a desert and Tooru is the first water he's seen in weeks. He's shoving and dodging and this platform is endless but then Iwaizumi is stepping aside and all Kenma can see is Tooru, all he can smell is Tooru's detergent, all he can think is Tooru, Tooru, Tooru . And then he's not the only one there, not the only one barreling into Tooru and wrapping his arms tight around him, and Kenma can breathe again because this is right and this is good and this is how the universe was supposed to be, Tooru and Kenma and Wakatoshi and nothing will ever take that away from Kenma again. Except that Tooru isn't returning the hug, he's just standing there, and then he's trembling and his chest is heaving and Kenma knows a panic attack when he sees one but he can't move to tell him it's okay or to let Wakatoshi know what's happening, because Tooru is panicking and it's their fault, Kenma's fault and everything was supposed to be better once they had him back but they never even stopped to find out if they really did have him or if he was there because Iwaizumi told him to be and not because he wanted to, or if he was there to leave again the right way, and all the air that Kenma was breathing like a drowning man is gone again.
It's Iwaizumi, again, who saves them and Kenma thanks him for it somewhere in his mind in a corner that isn't shutting off because they did this, they tried to shatter Tooru before he could even put himself together again and he's going to hate him, hate them, and maybe it would have been better to let him stay a martyr because feeling Tooru trembling in his arms while he tries not to completely shake apart at the seams is somehow worse than all these weeks and months of not feeling him at all. But Iwaizumi's hand sneaks between them, presses against Tooru's chest. Iwaizumi's voice washes over them all. Words of bug hunting and scraped knees and volleyballs all pieces for a puzzle Kenma is just now realizing he never had the full picture for before and he's cursing himself for that oversight. And then it's Wakatoshi's hand carefully settling against Tooru's chest and his words of plants and movies and moments that Kenma never knew about are settling over them all and Kenma wonders about the picture they're making now, four grown men huddled far too tightly only a step or two from the train that's about to depart, three men huddled against a fourth like if they give him a moment he'll leap back on that train just as the doors slide shut and will disappear forever this time.
When the train leaves it's like a breath of fresh air, because the train is gone but Tooru is still here, and they're still broken and they still have a lot to talk about and it's going to be a lot of looking themselves and each other in the eye, which neither Tooru or Kenma are good at, but they're going to do it anyway. Kenma isn't sure where they're going when they leave the station but Iwaizumi is leading them away and all Kenma has to do is follow and hold tight to Tooru. They end up in a café next to the station and Iwaizumi is herding them into seats and ordering for them and Kenma kind of feels like a kid but it's nice to be taken care of, especially since Tooru is the one who needs their attention right now. It's ugly, the way Tooru starts crying in public, and the way Kenma and even Wakatoshi follow him, and Iwaizumi looks like he might soon, and people are looking at them but Kenma doesn't care for once, he's only looking at Tooru. Because this is the moment where they could break forever or they could put themselves back together and they could start something new and better than any of them imagined they could have, but first there's work to be done.
Work has never been something Kenma particularly enjoys but he's made an effort for Toshi in the years they've been together and he finds he's willing to make that effort for Tooru too. If only Tooru is willing to let him. He refuses to make an effort for someone who won't accept it. He doesn't know how to tell Tooru this, how to use the words right, how to say just how much he wants this to work out, how much he wants Tooru to stay here with them. Tooru is the one for flowery speeches. Toshi is the one for blunt observations. Kenma is the one whose words are often daggers and pinpricks, little flickering things that slide in and cut deeper than planned. So, instead, he sits as close as he can and leans his head against Tooru's shoulder slowly, carefully in case Tooru isn't ready for it, and tries to say the kind of things that would normally fall from Tooru's lips with his actions.
It's Wakatoshi who does most of the talking. He says, in that blunt way of his, that he's sorry for anything he's done that would make Tooru think he was unwanted, by him or just in general. And then he tells Tooru that leaving the way he did, without so much as a backwards glance, without an explanation or even a goodbye, hurt Wakatoshi. Hurt Kenma. He tells him that he wants to try this all over again, that he wants the movie nights and the bickering and the toothbrushes on the counter, but only if Tooru wants it too. He's willing to do whatever it takes but only if Tooru is willing too. He doesn't want to be some half-hearted project. He wants to love Tooru the way he loves Kenma, all-encompassing and marvelous. And he wants Tooru to love them back the same way. But if they can't have that, it's okay. Wakatoshi just wants Tooru to be happy, but running away is not the way to achieve that, on any of their parts. So he lays everything out on the table, strips himself and Kenma bare and asks that Tooru do the same.
It's harder for Tooru. He doesn't know how to make the words that usually fall from his mouth like stars from the sky and light up the conversation come now. He slips his hand into the warm pocket of Kenma's hoodie beside him and it's an awkward angle but it grounds him. He still has no idea what to say and, unfortunately, he doesn't have a Wakatoshi to say it for him. Doesn't have someone to take him apart and leave him vulnerable for the world to see. He wants it to happen though. As much as the idea terrifies him to the point he can feel the panic inching around under his skin he wants them to know him. So for the first time in a very, very long time he does something that changes him, something that makes Iwaizumi's eyebrows raise in surprise, something that he never imagined he'd do to Ushijima Wakatoshi of all people. He bows his head and apologizes sincerely. That alone bares him in a way that he never thought possible.
Iwaizumi goes home that day, and he doesn't wait to make sure Tooru's okay or that he's made his bed or eaten all his veggies or anything. He just watched the impossible happen, and he knows that everything's going to be just fine, one way or another. And that night he gets a text from Tooru, just a thank you, but in that one text there's over twenty years of friendship and the devotion they put into one another. So a week later, when Tooru asks him to help move his stuff back out of his apartment and into Wakatoshi and Kenma's, he doesn't say I told you so, he just smiles and demands to be fed in payment.