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The thing here is this: Iwaizumi Hajime is no stranger to attention.
It’s unavoidable; he was the vice-captain of a powerhouse volleyball team, and he was also considered as the team’s most consistent point-getter. Never mind that he was shorter than his six-foot-something-tall teammates—his height was still note-worthy for his age, and he had the build that made up for it. He was—is—not too hard on the eyes either, a fact that he was made aware of, so it’s safe to say that Iwaizumi Hajime is well-acquainted with the flustered double-takes, the not-so-subtle once-overs, and of course, the prolonged gazes.
But Iwaizumi Hajime is only used to receiving static expressions of interest, of appreciation and attraction that both lacked impetus to develop because his stoic façade is enough to drive most admirers away. He seldom received confessions while growing up, and if he did, they usually arrived in the form of unsigned pink envelopes shoved into his locker, never through stunted conversations that would at least allow him to associate a face with the sugary sweet sentences scribbled on the crinkled letters he gets after training. It was Oikawa who was more accustomed to those kinds of interactions (much to Iwaizumi’s displeasure), who was more well-versed in dealing with girls and boys alike who had the guts to ask someone to date them, who was more inclined to bask in the near-constant declarations of so-called love or whatever high-school students think they felt towards someone they’d never spoken to. Iwaizumi—thankfully—didn’t have experiences like that, but at the very least, being best friends with the prefecture’s best all-around volleyball player meant that he had a general idea of how those things usually go.
That had been in Japan, though, and it would take Iwaizumi not even three weeks into his first year of university to realize that no pink envelope from Miyagi could have possibly prepared him for the kind of attention he would be subjected to in the Golden State.
It all started with Jenny, a Bio major from his CHEM 1A class who candidly asked for his name when their lecturer was running late. At that time, he had yet to learn how to keep himself from stuttering when giving out his name, still unused to introducing himself as Hajime to strangers because they always stress the wrong syllables in Iwaizumi and think it’s his first name, but Jenny didn’t really look like she minded. The gleeful tone she used as she butchered her pronunciation of his name was odd, however, partly because it didn’t sound right from a person he had only properly known for less than a minute, and mostly because she seemed too delighted at her newest discovery. Iwaizumi didn’t understand why, but he didn’t have the chance to find the words and ask her about this observation because the lecturer had already entered the room and started to spew out announcements he had trouble keeping up with.
The moment that class ended, Iwaizumi gathered his things and hastily stuffed them inside his backpack to catch his lecturer before he left. He needed to ask him to repeat his earlier reminders just to make sure he took note of them correctly, but before he could do just that, Jenny intercepted his path with a bright grin and a “wanna eat lunch together, Hajime?”.
It took him a while to properly process that question, what with him defeatedly eyeing the man he needed to speak with who had already stepped out of the room, which Jenny immediately picked up on.
“Oh! Were you going to ask him something? Sorry for holding you up—just—well, you can ask me instead! So, do you want to get lunch?”
Iwaizumi wanted to tell her that he was still in the process of adjusting to the language, and that the speed at which she was speaking made it difficult for him to understand her slew of questions, but the promise of eating lunch with someone else for the first time also seemed promising, so instead of voicing any of his concerns, he had responded with a simple “okay.”
But as it turned out, “lunch together” apparently meant “lunch with you and me and four other girls”—girls whom Iwaizumi only vaguely recognized from the same CHEM 1A class. He didn’t know why Jenny chose to withhold that information from him, but he was already hungry and tired of having to keep up with conversations he could only barely make sense of, so he didn’t make a fuss out of it. Only when Microbio major Elena started shuffling closer to him did he start questioning the motive behind this impromptu lunch get-together, and only when he started noticing how Public Health major Suhana kept averting her gaze with a shy smile every time they made eye contact did he successfully connect the dots.
(He'd always been a little dense—something Oikawa never failed to rib him for—but hey, at least it didn’t take him a full year to ascertain that he was being hit on, right?)
They asked him if he wanted to eat with them again after their next general chemistry class. Iwaizumi politely declined.
Iwaizumi thought that this refusal was the end of it, but little did he know that this would only be the beginning of his journey to being one of UCI’s many heartthrobs—all thanks to Jenny posting a blurry picture of them during lunch on Instagram which included his whole name in its caption. The byproducts: multiple friend requests being sent to him on Facebook, more girls asking him out for lunch, and stolen photos of his side profile being surreptitiously airdropped from one phone to another like contraband.
Now, four years later, Iwaizumi is already in his last term of his undergraduate career, and he has yet to find a successful countermeasure for the specific chunk of his university’s demographic that is hellbent on scoring a date with him (or two—or more). He doesn’t even know why they aren’t tired of him yet; it’s not as if there’s a shortage of pretty things to fawn over in the Orange County, but alas, over the past several terms, he’s found his name multiple times under comment sections of posts in UCI's Premiere Meme Stream and in anonymous submissions to various Twitter accounts dedicated to tagging campus crushes. Being cornered by students inside and outside the School of Biological Sciences has become a commonality, and while Iwaizumi could say that he’s gotten more proficient in English over the years, what he truly mastered is the art of hedging a resolute and unchanging “no, I can’t go out with you” when turning down all these people.
(And it’s not as if he could ask Oikawa for advice on how to deal with all this. For one, it’s not exactly a great conversation to have while he’s in the middle of eating dinner and Oikawa is getting ready for bed. He’d also rather not have himself be reminded of all the ways people tried to court Oikawa, of all his previous romantic endeavors, of all the times Iwaizumi stood aside and watched people do something he simply couldn’t do.)
But there are just those who are stubborn enough to not know when or how to take no for an answer. Case in point: the two girls who are currently trying to sweet-talk him into tagging along with them to the movies.
“Ah, I’m not free today,” he says as he scratches the back of his neck, already itching to sidestep out of this encounter.
“That’s okay! We can schedule it for when you’re free!” says Dorothy from his E115 class two terms ago—a great lab partner overall, but her brand of humor is something Iwaizumi had always struggled to process. Right now, Iwaizumi appreciates her enthusiasm and the subtle persistence, but he also finds it frustrating—even after four years—how California is nothing like Japan where people are expected to read the fucking air.
“I don’t think I’ll be free this week,” Iwaizumi tries again, but the girl who introduced herself as Sophie and wears a highly conspicuous ECONOMICS! lanyard (what an Econ student is doing around their department, he has no idea) hastily cuts in.
“That’s fine, we don’t really mind! We just really want to hang out with you—”
“—and it’s your last term, isn’t it? What’s some fun with new people—"
“Listen, I appreciate the invitation, but I’m gay.”
He is rewarded by two identical expressions of shock—or disbelief, perhaps a mixture of the two—but Iwaizumi knows that what he’s just said is not the reason for it. It’s the admittance itself, the declaration of the one thing he was happy to keep as a secret for the rest of his life, that took them by surprise because—
“But, you never said—”
“—and wait, really? All this time? You—you’re actually—”
Iwaizumi finds it quite relieving to finally get that weight off his chest, though he also deems it anticlimactic, how he chose this place—the weirdly-lit corridors of BS3—to witness the first time he lets that word publicly stumble out of his lips.
(He distantly recalls a memory from the summer of 2012: two bodies side by side, sweat-slick and maybe just a little bit sunsick; the pink splattered on Oikawa’s face; his eyes, so blindingly bright, so captivating, so perceptive when he asked him,
“Why are you looking at me like that, Iwa-chan?”
Because you’ve always been beautiful, but you’re perfect like this. Because I want to freeze this moment and stay with you forever. Because I think I like you, and not in the way a friend should. Because I think I’m—)
“—gay. Yeah. You don’t have problems about that, do you?”
He asks, mostly because he knows that even if the people of this city are less likely to give him shit for what he just claimed to be, he is, at the very core of his being, scared. It had taken him too damn long to accept it, to reconcile the label with its meaning and all it entailed, to understand that it would be a word constantly associated with him one way or another: Iwaizumi Hajime, Miyagi-born-and-raised, ex-volleyball player, Sports Science major, gay. And it was quite eventful, when all that happened. He had been half-drunk, tearful as he stared at an Instagram post of Oikawa with the Argentine sun painting him in beautiful gold, when it just clicked. He sobbed into the chest of his confused dormmate then (bless Dustin for his patience), and in the throes of his brutal awakening and drunken haze, he sent one Line message to Matsukawa about his life’s latest development in barely understandable English before promptly passing out.
Word eventually got to Hanamaki who was equal parts understanding and infuriatingly smug, but that was the last time Iwaizumi spoke of it to anyone, really. Dustin—what a great guy he is, what a wonderful roommate he had been in sophomore year, seriously—swore that he wouldn’t say a word to anyone because it wasn’t his secret to tell anyway, and Iwaizumi believed him.
And now here he is, with said secret recklessly spilled to two random people he can only consider as acquaintances, all in the spirit of trying to stop girls from going after him.
“No! Of course not! We’re just surprised because you never really said anything like that before!” Sophie amends, and beside her, Dorothy nods in barely masked dejection. Iwaizumi figures he ought to be a little guilty, but he’s not. He’s pleased, in all honesty.
But something flickers in Dorothy’s eyes, a spark of an idea that Iwaizumi knows he would not like, and the relief he has only started clinging to fizzles into nothingness.
“Oh, but we can invite Josh if you like—”
“Yeah! And, uh, do you know—”
“I’m really not available,” Iwaizumi quickly interrupts with added emphasis on the negation, and in one last desperate attempt to escape, he reaches for the phone in his back pocket and unlocks it, smiles briefly at his home screen—a slightly blurry photo (courtesy of his mother who was visibly shaking in her effort not to choke on a sob) of him and Oikawa standing in front of the gates of Sendai Airport, teary-eyed with one arm wrapped around each other’s shoulders due to their parents’ insistence—and shows this to the two girls who just won’t leave him alone.
“I have a boyfriend.”
If Iwaizumi were starring in a movie, this would be the perfect time to take a screenshot of the smile on his face that looks more like a grimace. It would make one great reaction photo, that’s for sure, but for maximum effect, editing ‘it was at this moment / that he knew he fucked up’ onto the photo in big, bold, white letters would be great.
“Oh, Hajime! We’re so sorry, you should have just told us that you had a boyfriend all this time—oh this is so embarrassing…”
Iwaizumi no longer offers a response to this, confident that this time, his silence would be taken as their belated cue to leave. And it works; he releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding as he watches the two girls scurry off, and he’s so utterly glad that this excuse didn’t fail him today that the gravity of what he had just done doesn’t sink in until he’s lying flat on his bed.
I just told two random people that I’m gay. I just told two random people that I’m dating Oikawa.
Idealistically speaking, one white lie isn’t too bad, but Iwaizumi fails to take into account how quickly said white lie would spread. Apparently, a significant number of people think that the news of Iwaizumi being (a) gay, and (b) off the market is a much more important matter than their approaching midterm exams. He even reads at least two indirect tweets about him on his Twitter timeline (he must be the only Japanese student who outed himself out of nowhere in the past twenty-four hours, right?), and come next day, he’s almost completely positive that everyone in his M114L class knows about his updated sexual orientation—if the amused looks they send Iwaizumi are anything to go by. He even bumps into Dustin sometime during his break, and Iwaizumi rediscovers the strength of his lanky friend when he slaps Iwaizumi’s back happily upon greeting him.
(“I’m so glad you finally told him what you feel, man!”
“… Me too.”)
And there’s that whole other thing about how fucked it is that Iwaizumi honestly likes it, the idea of people acknowledging how he belongs to Oikawa and Oikawa to him, even if his guilt makes itself known every time he whispers Oikawa’s name under his breath.
The only good thing about this whole shit-show is that the news essentially deterred most people from trying to pursue Iwaizumi. He doesn’t know what Dorothy and Sophie both did for things to escalate this much—he reckons he should probably have a word with them—but also, what’s the harm, right? He has yet to tell Oikawa about the mess he was catapulted into, and given its severity, Iwaizumi is mostly decided on not telling his best friend about how he used him as a fake-boyfriend without prior consent just to get people to stop from asking him out, so what’s the harm in playing along when Oikawa is five hours and five thousand five hundred miles away?
Well, you see, here’s the catch: Oikawa is scheduled to visit him.
In a little over three weeks.
Here, in Irvine, after four years of making do with pixelated screens, tinny voice calls, and conflicting time zones. Oikawa was hellbent on planning this since a couple of months ago, saying that he has to properly meet the Californian sun responsible for Iwaizumi’s tan, and that he needs to be with Iwaizumi to commemorate his last term as an undergrad before he dons the coveted black regalia, so it’s only justified for him to spend a large portion of his earnings as a professional setter in the Argentinian League on this trip. Iwaizumi, though initially reluctant because of the travel costs, was excited, and he even made an effort to buy two extra pillows and new sheets for his bed just so Oikawa wouldn’t make any pissy comment about their sleeping arrangements. Oikawa already spent far too much—even with Iwaizumi forcibly pitching in with the money he’s saved up from his job in the campus’s recreational center for Oikawa’s plane ticket—so he disregarded the option of letting Oikawa stay in an overpriced hotel room and merely hoped that they’d still fit in one bed.
Unfortunately for him, life has a funny way of playing out, and what was once his primary concern (see: the size of his bed) has now become the least of his problems.
But Iwaizumi doesn’t really have anyone to blame for the clusterfuck brewing before his very eyes; if anything, it had been the fault of his subconscious for having his Oikawa-related daydreams well within recollection’s reach, always ready to terrorize his thoughts and influence his usually-objective decisions. Admitting his sexuality is one thing, roping Oikawa into this narrative is a whole bigger can of worms altogether, and—hell, he truly is fucked, isn’t he?
Sighing, Iwaizumi buries his face into his hands and stays in that position, exploiting the quiet of his room to wallow in self-pity just for the sake of it. He wishes he had more time to think, but his internal clock is already notifying him that somewhere out there, a certain someone is probably just about to have his post-practice dinner, and whatever semblance of calm he has managed to delude himself into having is disrupted by a far-too-familiar chime.
Tooru
[14:43] iwa-chan are you free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Iwaizumi knows that assimilating into a strange place and familiarizing himself with foreign tongue requires him to understand the importance of semantics, but if he were to be honest, having known Oikawa practically his whole life has trained him to do just that; ‘are you free’ is Oikawa’s roundabout way of asking permission to call him, nonchalant enough to give him an easy out; the number of exclamation marks tells Iwaizumi that he has something to share, significant enough to warrant a phone call; and the absence of kaomojis is indicative of his giddiness or excitement, which could only mean Iwaizumi must be the first person he’s texted about this.
With all things considered, Iwaizumi knows that talking to Oikawa given his current predicament is unwise, but this doesn’t stop him from running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to make himself look presentable before he opens Facetime and dials the bane of his existence.
In the end, Iwaizumi doesn’t tell Oikawa anything about how he was able to lie to two girls about his relationship status all thanks to his home screen, how this snowballed into having a respectable percentage of UCI’s population think that he snagged a boyfriend who is actually as hot as him (their words, not his), and how this entire ordeal happened because he somehow gained popularity in the last 4 years of his stay on American soil. It was another conversation he couldn’t bring himself to have with his best friend, and by the time his mind started to entertain the thought of coming clean to Oikawa, he was already neck-deep in midterm delirium, far too gone to even think about anything beyond his biochemistry lab requirements and individual research milestones. In fact, his survival can only be attributed to Kenneth, the Software Engineering major he is currently sharing an apartment with who was previously coerced by his mother to download an app that reminds him to drink water in half-hour intervals. It sounded ridiculous, but Kenneth did have a history of passing out all thanks to dehydration, and Iwaizumi did have the tendency to rely exclusively on Starbucks bottled drinks, so the reminders were very much welcome.
But, truthfully speaking, Iwaizumi can’t actually use midterms as an excuse for not telling Oikawa about how he’s been playing pretend and fake-dating him for the past couple of weeks. It’s not as if he and Oikawa stopped communicating altogether; exams be damned, Oikawa would fly to California if Iwaizumi didn’t respond to any of his messages after twenty-four hours. That leaves him with the excuse that he completely forgot that he lied, but he can’t say that either; now that his friends believe he’s a taken man, they’ve started to become hyperaware when it comes to his near-daily calls with Oikawa. He’s slowly gotten himself accustomed to hearing jabs at how often he picks up his phone, and he’s lost count of the amount of times said friends tried to peek from over his shoulder to at least have an idea of what kind of boyfriend Iwaizumi is. Unfortunately for them, Iwaizumi is always quick to angle his screen away from their eager eyes despite the fact that he’s pretty sure none of them can understand hiragana, not because he has anything risqué to hide, but because there’s actually nothing to show.
Because they can’t deduce what kind of boyfriend Iwaizumi is from messages he’s sent if he doesn’t even have a boyfriend in the first place.
However, much to Iwaizumi’s dismay, the curiosity didn’t stop there. Even in-between group study sessions, he’s had to dodge inquiry after inquiry about the elusive boyfriend, his friends too eager to know more about whoever stole his tsundere heart (“Please do not ever call me a ‘tsundere’ again.” “But you are a tsundere!”). Admitting that he lied would have already been too incriminating, so he settled with half-truths instead, twisting them to his advantage and subsequently digging himself a deeper hole.
In retrospect, he really should have just been honest to Oikawa because surely he would understand the woes of being constantly pursued, right? Iwaizumi was a witness to the ridiculous stunts he’d pulled over the years to escape from persistent admirers, and while Oikawa has never gone as far as lying about having one of his friends as his partner without asking for their permission first, that shouldn’t matter! The point is that even if Oikawa holds this against him for the rest of his life and tells every breathing person that ‘Iwa-chan told his schoolmates that I’m his boyfriend!’, he’d also probably get where he’s coming from, so Iwaizumi should have at least told him something—anything—before they see each other again after four whole years.
But it’s too late for any of that. Fuck pathos: Iwaizumi should simply accept that he will always be foolish when it comes to all things Oikawa, one-sandwich-short-of-a-picnic brand of stupid, pathetic and hopeless because that’s all there is to it. Pining over the only friend he still remembers from his childhood just fucked him up like that, enough that Iwaizumi would rather keep up such an absurd act than own up to his idiocy for a taste of what it would be like to call Oikawa his.
And now here he is, fresh out of his last Friday class with his nails bitten to the quick, anxiously sitting inside an overpriced cab bound for Santa Ana to see his fake boyfriend best friend for the first time since August of 2013.
Iwaizumi’s on edge, alright, but scared shitless might be a better descriptor. It may be because of the cup of coffee he downed not too long ago, but his palms are clammy enough to hinder him from typing properly and hey, isn’t that just great, Oikawa has landed fifteen minutes ago and he can’t even reply to the excited stickers the little fucker is spamming him with because he’s so, so nervous—
I won’t tell him, Iwaizumi decides in a split-second moment of clarity as the airport comes into view. I’ll hide him from my friends. I’ll bribe Kenneth into not saying a single word about him sleeping in my room. I’ll take him to places respectably far from campus to avoid people I know. I won’t tell him anything.
That, of all things, calms him down somehow. In all fairness, this plan didn’t sound half-bad. Iwaizumi might even be able to pull it off if he prayed hard enough, but he doesn’t get the chance to iron any of the details out, much less consider how completely flawed and improbably successful said plan is before he is snapped out of his thoughts as his cab pulls up in front of Arrivals.
From here on out, Iwaizumi functions on autopilot. He pays for his fare. He hops out of the car on shaky legs. He walks to the column numbered ‘10’ and subtly checks if he’s managed to sweat through his sleeves.
And then he waits.
Iwaizumi hears him before he sees him, his tinkling laughter amid the bustle, the delighted ‘Iwa-chan!’ that cuts through the crowd—so ridiculously out of place, so reminiscent of home. It’s incredible, how a voice can turn him into a puddle of sentimentality, how three syllables can unearth two decades’ worth of longing. He knows—he’s always known—that his heart was never completely his, that it’s always belonged to another, but to be brutally reminded like this is just cruel. Being in love, Iwaizumi thinks, is so fucked.
He looks up and rests his case.
You see, there’s nothing remarkably picturesque about the John Wayne Airport in the afternoon, yet the sight of Oikawa standing in front of him, with his pale blue pullover and his wind-swept fringe and his subtle Argentine tan, has to be the most beautiful thing Iwaizumi has laid his eyes on in recent memory. He feels his breath being punched out of lungs as he watches Oikawa practically run towards him, annoyingly long limbs flailing around before launching all 185 centimeters of him into Iwaizumi’s arms.
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa breathes out against the crook of his neck, the smile audible in his voice. “Iwa-chan.”
“Shittykawa.” Iwaizumi routinely replies, unable to bite down the grin that is taking over his face and the hint of fondness that coats the nickname because he understands, always has, what Oikawa is trying to say.
With this, Oikawa clings to him harder, pulls him closer as if he were to let go, and because he hasn’t seen his best friend in so long, he allows himself to embrace the boy back. At the back of his mind, Iwaizumi notes that Oikawa smells like a thirteen-hour-flight, like drying sweat and something foreign, something Iwaizumi has not been introduced to, but he’d be damned if he lets himself pull away. Instead, he savors the contact and recommits it to memory before the spell is broken.
“Iwa-chan, we have to take a picture right now, I promised to send them to ‘kaa-san and oba-san the moment I see your grumpy, brutish face when I land! Wait, is that a stubble—okay, you know what, just hand me your phone right now—”
He immediately reaches for Iwaizumi’s pocket with no hesitation, as if the years they spent apart did nothing to correct his perception of personal space and boundaries when it comes to his best friend, and Iwaizumi, still unable to properly process that Oikawa is right beside him in the flesh, could only stare in surprise as his phone is unlocked without so much as a pause.
The camera app is launched and Oikawa wastes no time to at least warn Iwaizumi before snapping photo after photo, his thumb relentlessly tapping the shutter without regard for how Iwaizumi is still gaping, bug-eyed and utterly confused. But Oikawa ignores this, only wraps an arm around his waist (his waist?) to pull him closer, forgoes any insult about his “grumpy, brutish face”, and smiles brightly at the camera. But Iwaizumi is not too keen on having his gallery overtaken by unflattering selfies, so he does end up schooling whatever expression he is making into an acceptable grin. Pleased, Oikawa takes a couple more, shooting a wink and a peace sign here and there whereas Iwaizumi only tilts his head in a different angle after every three photos, before he is satisfied.
“Okay, I think that’s enough.”
There’s probably at least a hundred of new, blurry, Santa-Ana-geotagged photos mingling with his post-lab worksheet screenshots in his camera roll right now, but Iwaizumi doesn’t have the heart to complain, not when the mere thought of seeing his face next to Oikawa’s is enough to make him giddy, so he only shakes his head.
Without being prompted, he grabs Oikawa’s suitcase and heads towards the direction of where the cab he’s booked is supposed to pick them up, pointedly ignoring the smug little smirk being directed at him.
“Such a good host you are, Iwa-chan, you haven’t even insulted me yet! Are you trying to go easy on me or did you really just miss me that much?”
And because it would be too incriminating to admit that the latter is true, Iwaizumi goes for his default response when Oikawa is being the little shit that he is. “I’d rather not deal with you whining and I’m saving my breath since I’m stuck with your ass for the whole damn week.”
“So rude!”
“Only to you.”
If one were to ask Iwaizumi about this exchange, he would admit that the ease at which their back-and-forth operates is almost unnerving, but he surmises that it’s stupid of him to even consider that a measly four-year separation would put a strain on their carefully established dynamic. He should be glad—and he is—that things are going smoothly, that there has been no need to deal with any awkward pauses, that the oceans between them have been reduced into mere inches, that the Oikawa before him is different and the same as the one he parted ways with all those years ago.
Iwaizumi lets these thoughts comfort him until relief settles into his bones, and only then does he acknowledge the warmth in his chest, the pesky little thing that threatens to burst out of his ribcage. He’s so happy that it almost hurts because if the first few minutes he’s spent with Oikawa are indicative of how the rest of this week would go, then surely, surely, things wouldn’t go wrong—
“Iwa-chan…?”
—which, admittedly, is a mistake on his part. Iwaizumi should’ve known better than to think that shit wouldn’t hit the fan.
Overcome by white-knuckled dread, Iwaizumi could only stand in horror as his eyes flit over to the screen of his phone still nestled in Oikawa’s tight grip, a singular photo mockingly displayed. There is no mistaking the interface of Instagram; Iwaizumi knows what Oikawa has done, and he knows what Oikawa has seen, judging by the blurs of ‘HAPPY 4 U BRO’ and ‘we finally see the boyfriend!!!!’ and the assortment of heart emojis that take up half of his screen. He then curses how ridiculously attached Californians are to their social media because really, his account is supposed to be abandoned, how are all these people so quick to flood the comment section of the first post registered on his account since 2015?
“You’re popular?”
Now that is not the initial reaction Iwaizumi was expecting.
Iwaizumi, still at a loss, opens his mouth to try and come up with anything to say, but Oikawa has started to get that look in his face, the one where a whirlwind brews in his eyes as he assesses all the current details presented to him before evaluating the whole picture. Thing is, Iwaizumi doesn’t want him to see the whole picture, but Oikawa beats him into speaking before he could even formulate a reply.
“And what are they saying?”
“Listen, I can explain—”
“Boyfriend?” Oikawa squawks, and the whirlwind in his eyes has dissipated only to be replaced by a hurricane, biting and not-at-all tranquil when he asks, “They know me as your boyfriend?”
Iwaizumi doesn’t know what to make of Oikawa’s tone, unable to discern if he is disgusted or just genuinely confused, but he figures that appeasing Oikawa should be his priority lest he blows up in the middle of Terminal C.
“Okay, calm down, I was going to tell you about this," (lie) “but I figured it would be better to do it in person,” (another lie) “so can I just explain it now? From the start?”
"I didn’t even know you were gay!” Oikawa exclaims, and because Oikawa has a tendency to fixate on certain details, he adds, “I can’t believe you hid this from me!”
In Iwaizumi’s defense, withholding such information from his best friend was necessary especially since it is Oikawa who ruined him for anyone else. Telling Oikawa that he is, in fact, gay would mean voluntarily setting himself up for a compromising situation because how else would he have responded to Oikawa if he had asked him ‘does that mean you aren’t immune to my charms, Iwa-chan?’.
So he accepts the smack Oikawa delivers to his bicep, scratches the back of his head, and smiles sheepishly. “Now you know.”
Oikawa only glares at him, but Iwaizumi now understands that the heat in his eyes is not malice but a warning. Or a demand, one to tell him to get on with it, to let him understand what on Earth is going on. Iwaizumi can’t blame him for it; he knows he owes Oikawa that much, so he lays it all out. He tells him about how forward girls in America can be, how he’s somehow managed to attract the attention of a lot of people (“Really? With that face?” “I will literally punch your teeth off.”), how he’s never truly considered how difficult it is to reject one person after another until he’s had to do it for twelve consecutive academic quarters, and how he just wanted to be left alone before he’s good to graduate. He admits, with a regretful sigh, that he did not mean to use Oikawa’s name (or more accurately, his face and his identity as Iwaizumi’s childhood friend) like that, he really just needed a little white lie to get out of that situation, how was he supposed to know it would spiral out of his control?
“I didn’t call you to talk about it because it was embarrassing,” Iwaizumi eventually confesses after a brief pause. “It was—it was messy. I’m not the type to get caught up in those kinds of things.”
And I didn’t want you to mock me is what he doesn’t add. Iwaizumi figures he’s said enough.
But the mockery never comes, and neither does the irate. Instead, Oikawa stares at him like he’s looking for something, like he’s rediscovering a new part of Iwaizumi somehow, but it’s gone before Iwaizumi could make sense of what that look could mean, inevitably replaced by mirthful eyes and a mischievous smirk that tells Iwaizumi he’s in even deeper shit.
"Well, Iwa-chan, might as well keep up the act while I'm here!"
In front of them, the cab Iwaizumi booked not too long ago slows down to a stop. Around them, passengers and locals continue their own businesses. Oikawa looks at him with gleaming eyes. Iwaizumi wonders if he’s somehow misheard.
"You're not... mad?"
"Why would I be?" Oikawa replies with a grin—one that Iwaizumi is all too familiar with; it’s the same grin he sports when he’s scheming like a little brat, or the one he wears when he wants to finish a set through service aces alone. It’s dangerous, and paired with that glint of his eye that always did kind of do certain things to him, Iwaizumi could only put one hand on the car door and hold it open, gesturing for Oikawa to step inside.
"You'll convince people that you're in a loving relationship with the great Oikawa-san, and you won't be able to be mean to me in front of anyone because I’m supposed to be your boyfriend!"
Iwaizumi ignores him. In lieu of a response, he opens the trunk of the cab and flings Oikawa’s luggage inside, taking no notice of the affronted gasp he hears. He doesn’t have the capacity for that—he doesn’t even know what to think. This isn’t how he expected things to go. This isn’t what he prepared for. He was already going to bribe Kenneth for fuck’s sake.
He wordlessly takes his seat next to Oikawa, and without wasting any second, his possibly-touch-starved best-friend-turned-stage-boyfriend scoots over and diminishes the distance between them into none, propping his chin on Iwaizumi’s shoulder like he belonged there. Iwaizumi hates how that makes him feel. Iwaizumi hates how desperately he wants Oikawa to stay there.
“Come on, Iwa-chan! It’s a win-win, isn’t it?”
Iwaizumi quickly realizes that there is nothing remotely win-win about introducing Oikawa to new people, though he supposes that this particular encounter is his own fault. He’s made no move to inform Kenneth about Oikawa visiting him out of nowhere (which is a dick move of him to be honest), so there is no one to blame but himself when Kenneth starts appraising Oikawa with no hint of subtlety before shooting Iwaizumi a lopsided smile that makes him want to hide.
“So—the boyfriend?”
And Oikawa, fuck him really, fuck him for thriving in circumstances where Iwaizumi is just about to explode from embarrassment, clears his throat and flashes Kenneth that calculated half-smile he’s perfected at age fourteen, the one that made all the female middle-schoolers in Kitagawa Daiichi swoon, the one that’s always made the crowd cheer louder for Aoba Johsai. Iwaizumi has never been a fan of that smile in particular, but he can’t deny the effect it has on other people—the effect it has on Kenneth now.
“Yes, I’m Tooru Oikawa, the boyfriend.”
Oikawa says this in heavily accented English, but that’s not the part Iwaizumi is focusing on. It should be embarrassing, how his heart leapt to his throat when Oikawa called himself the boyfriend, how the sound of that declaration carefully sutured him back together. He must look like a lovesick fool, and the stars that are surely in his eyes should be enough to reveal the depth of his affection for the man standing by his side, but he isn’t looking at him.
Iwaizumi has never been gladder that Oikawa isn’t looking at him.
“Ah, nice to finally meet you, I’m Kenneth,” Iwaizumi briefly notes how Kenneth’s hands are shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants as if he doesn’t know what to do with them, and it amuses him, even if just a tad bit. “I wish I could say Hajime has told me a lot about you, but your boyfriend is pretty secretive, so…”
He doesn’t know if Oikawa’s conversational English is good enough to understand all that, but the laugh that Oikawa responds with seems to be enough for Kenneth, so Iwaizumi decides to worry about that later. He should first probably thank Kenneth for being chill with the suddenness of Oikawa’s visit, promise him a beer for not being weird about this—
“I know it’s been a while since the last time you saw each other, but, uh, I usually have trouble sleeping, so I hope you two can keep it down? If you can?”
It takes Iwaizumi a while to realize what implications that request holds, and once it dawns on him, he resolutely pushes Oikawa to the direction of his room, red-faced and undeniably horrified by the thought of Kenneth assuming he and Oikawa are going to do things. How is he supposed to face his roommate every morning for breakfast now that he’s convinced Iwaizumi and Oikawa were going to make up for lost time by dicking each other down? And rather loudly at that?
Baffled, Oikawa only sputters in surprise as Iwaizumi manhandles him carelessly, eager to get him out of Kenneth’s sight before he says anything more mortifying than any allusion to sex. Iwaizumi hears Kenneth snickering, undoubtedly entertained by the reaction he’s getting, and Iwaizumi—well, he takes back every good thing he’s said about his roommate. Kenneth should forget the free beer he doesn’t even know he was supposed to get; Iwaizumi isn’t getting him shit.
“Iwa-chan—”
“Later,” Iwaizumi cuts him off before he turns around and heads for the doorway to pick up the suitcase Oikawa didn’t bother to hold on to, still refusing to acknowledge his roommate who looks too pleased at Iwaizumi’s behavior. And because Kenneth is probably at that stage where he would rather choose interacting with any breathing, conscious, person—even the ones who are perfectly capable of turning all of his morning alarms off if annoyed to a certain degree—than debug whatever algorithm he is currently running on his laptop, he reaches for Iwaizumi’s shoulder and gives him a pat, offers an “I support you, man” with a leer, and shoots Oikawa a mock salute before walking back to his own room.
“What was he trying to say, Iwa-chan? I think he said something about sleep, but I didn’t understand the rest.”
“Don’t worry about it. He was just being a little shit.”
And because they arrived in Iwaizumi’s apartment long after the sun has set, Iwaizumi essentially had to force Oikawa to get some rest and stay in for the night because apparently the little fucker was drunk on airport coffee and had barely slept a wink in the last eighteen hours. He had no choice but to force-feed Oikawa with reheated leftovers from the night before because a) ordering takeout or delivery would take too much time; and b) they’re university students, Iwaizumi may be a Sports Science major but even he doesn’t get to restock their fridge as often as he’d want to.
“I take it back. You’re not a great host. Not even a traditional Californian meal on my first night here.”
“I don’t even know what a traditional Californian meal is? I’ll take you out when you’ve had at least eight hours of sleep, Shittykawa.”
“You can’t call me that now, Iwa-chan! I’m your boyfriend, remember?”
Oikawa has taken to enunciating the word boyfriend with a certain lilt: smug with a touch of mischief and just the right amount of feigned innocence, as if he knows what it does to Iwaizumi but won’t admit to it. He’s a dickhead, that’s what he is, and Iwaizumi doesn’t know if he wants to smack Oikawa for being a little shit about the whole thing, or if he wants to smack himself for secretly enjoying the way Oikawa calls himself his boyfriend.
Anyway: Oikawa passes out five seconds after his head hits the pillow, which Iwaizumi counts as a great thing because that way, Oikawa doesn’t get to see how awkwardly he maneuvers himself on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. He briefly contemplates moving to the couch, but Kenneth would undoubtedly find that questionable and Oikawa already has his limbs wrapped around him like a half-octopus, so he stays there and tries not to move. He also tries not to stare at Oikawa’s features while he sleeps. He fails.
Oikawa had been hellbent on being given a proper Californian welcome, so in an attempt to be a “good host,” Iwaizumi figures there’s no better way to induct him to the life of a struggling UCI student than to drag him to In N Out for brunch the following day. When he voices this suggestion out to Oikawa, he gets an oddly contemplative look that almost makes him want to head to Tender Greens instead, but Oikawa instantly perks up once he remembers that he is on vacation, so his dietary plans can go fuck themselves for the meantime. The sentiment rubs Iwaizumi the wrong way, but he’s still got a long way to go before he becomes a licensed athletic trainer and of course Oikawa knows that, of course he would use that excuse against Iwaizumi before he could even say anything about Oikawa wanting two (two!) orders of the classic Double Double and a heap of fries.
“Are you even supposed to eat all that? Is this even allowed?” Iwaizumi asks him, not bothering to hide the incredulity in his voice while Oikawa salivates at the sight of his burgers. He’s obviously not the healthiest health junkie in the city, but just thinking about the number of calories this one meal contains makes Iwaizumi sick.
“Even a professional athlete can have cheat days, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa easily replies, already taking a bite of his first burger. “And of course I can! Watch me.”
Oikawa has always been the guy who sees things through, so it comes as no surprise that he manages to wolf down everything he’s ordered—and with room to spare. For the sake of his cardiovascular health, Iwaizumi then ropes him into an on-the-spot tour of UC Irvine, taking no shortcuts to ensure that Oikawa burns all the calories he’s just ingested. Oikawa clings to him the entire time, a little too invested in playing his part as Iwaizumi’s boyfriend, and when Iwaizumi calls him out on it, he only responds with “better safe than sorry, Iwa-chan!”. It’s a shitty excuse, but Iwaizumi doesn’t have the capacity to analyze Oikawa’s responses yet, so he just brings him to Aldrich Park because, well, it looks like a place Oikawa would want to take a million pictures in, and he was right. He spends at least two hours in the area, having his limbs manually positioned by Oikawa according to his liking for the perfect picture. They don’t get a perfect picture until after they’ve tallied in over two hundred photos.
The both of them then stop by BS3 because it kind of seemed fitting, albeit a little sad, to show his newest pitstop to the boy who’s always reminded him of home. This is also where Iwaizumi anticlimactically announces that he’ll be studying all Sunday; ergo, Oikawa would have to deal with being stuck in Iwaizumi’s room with an Iwaizumi who won’t respond to his whines. Iwaizumi gets a pout for that, of course, but once he tells him that it’s just so he can take Oikawa out without feeling an ounce for guilt, the smirk he gets almost makes him regret being nice.
Come Monday, Iwaizumi breezes through his class with his focus obviously lying elsewhere, mind completely preoccupied by nagging worries all concerning his man-child of a best friend. He’s not sure what he’s more afraid of: Oikawa accidentally setting their kitchen on fire, or Oikawa finding something embarrassing lying around in his room—not that there is any, but one can never be too sure. Iwaizumi knows it’s a little unfair of him to have such little faith in him—he did survive in Argentina all on his own—but old habits really just die hard.
He comes home to Oikawa in one piece, and after swapping his shirt with a tank that gives him more room to breathe, they both leave the apartment and take a cab to the Irvine Spectrum because cliché tourist spots are always a safe bet. Oikawa beams at the sight of the Ferris wheel as if he hasn’t seen a single Ferris wheel in his life, but Iwaizumi doesn’t chide him for it. He’s happy, really, that Oikawa actually looks like he’s enjoying himself. In fact, he’s so happy that Oikawa actually coerces him into posting another photo of them on his Instagram account—and not a blurry one this time.
On Tuesday, Iwaizumi finds himself being cornered by the silly group of friends he’s made in the series of E117 courses he’s taken over the past academic year. University has taught him that shared hardships forge great bonds, and according to Linh, the first person in BIO SCI E117A whom he chose to interact with because of her uncanny ability to document everything that happens in their classes, seeing the same set of faces for three consecutive quarters is enough to consider each other the best of friends, and Iwaizumi just went with it. By now, Iwaizumi has gotten the hang of not freaking out over the nonchalance associated with everything and everyone, so for the promise of camaraderie, he’s resigned himself to just letting things happen.
Anyway, his Tuesday officially starts after the first seminar of the day, when Linh and the rest of the gang all gather around him like overeager hounds hungry for the first taste of meat. It’s Aaron who cracks first, and with it comes his signature back-slap that makes Iwaizumi stumble forward.
“So, the boyfriend?”
Iwaizumi has lost count of the amount of times he’s heard this weirdly phrased question over the past few days. It’s become almost everyone’s greeting to him, but he still struggles to come up with a response every time somebody asks.
Today, however, Iwaizumi decides to simply tell the truth.
“He’s at home,” he says, recalling how Oikawa looked with Iwaizumi’s blankets cocooning him, frame hunched over the laptop he’s taken hostage from its owner. “He’s watching stuff on Netflix.”
“You spent a whole weekend with your boyfriend and all you’re telling us is that he’s watching stuff on Netflix?” Daniel exclaims right before he pulls Iwaizumi’s collar to search for something. He sees Daniel’s brows furrow when he doesn’t find what he thought he would, and ignoring how warm the tips of his ears feel, he pushes the prying hands away.
“He knows I won’t be able to tour him around a lot,” Iwaizumi defends himself, “so he’s milking my Netflix subscription while I’m in class.”
“Okay, we’ll forgive you for not giving us an elaborate update about your honeymoon if you introduce him to us over lunch.”
They then force themselves to fit inside Aaron’s sedan and drive to Iwaizumi’s apartment to fetch Oikawa for a proper Taco Tuesday. Iwaizumi texts Oikawa for a head’s up, but he doubts it would do them any good. To make up for it, Iwaizumi already apologizes in advance for the amount of time his boyfriend would take to get ready.
But it’s all worth it when he sees Oikawa walk out of their bathroom once he checks up on him, dewy-skinned like he almost always is, clad in a shirt under a jean jacket and pants that make Iwaizumi gulp.
“I’m finally meeting Iwa-chan’s friends.” Oikawa sing-songs as he slings an arm around Iwaizumi. “What kind of embarrassing stories will I get from them, hmm?”
“Cut it, Shittykawa.”
He gets a tut for that. “Can’t call me that in front of people, Iwa-chan! That’s not a great endearment for your boyfriend, isn’t it?”
(And there it is again, the casual use of that word.)
Unsurprisingly, introductions prove to be a nightmare. Iwaizumi did not expect anything less; considering how his friends reacted when they found out about his quote-unquote secret relationship, he just knew that they would be as rowdy as one could get. Getting Oikawa to fit inside the cramped car already proved to be a difficulty, but establishing an understandable mode of communication while everyone asks Oikawa about both San Juan and Miyagi? It’s shaping up to be an impossibility, and it’s all thanks to Naomi, the bubbly half-Japanese student in his E117 classes whom he’s had the pleasure of meeting, that the conversation somehow works out.
Consequently, this makes her the person Oikawa responds to the most. Iwaizumi can’t blame him; she has an emotional spectrum capable of rivalling that of Yuda and Kyoutani combined, so any conversation with her is amusing. Her Japanese is also passable, making her Iwaizumi’s favorite person to talk to because switching to native tongue when his limited English vocabulary fails him never became an issue to her, which is great!
But of course, like everything else, this thought bites him in the ass the moment Oikawa calls him by his godforsaken nickname once they start choosing what to order—for everyone to hear.
“You call him Iwa-chan?” Naomi gasps a little too theatrically; for added effect, she slams her hands on the table. “That is so cute, what the fuck, it makes me want to gag.”
This obviously attracts the attention of some of the other patrons, and Oikawa—fucking Oikawa—preens. Iwaizumi wants to leave and never go back to this taco joint ever again. He would also like to melt.
Beside Naomi, Daniel regards them blankly and blinks. “Why? What did he call Hajime?”
“He called him Iwa-chan!”
Iwaizumi hates how his automatic response to that is it sounds wrong coming from her lips. He risks a glance at Oikawa to see if they’re somehow thinking about the same thing, but his face reveals nothing. Across them, Daniel still looks confused.
“Don’t you watch anime, you nerd? Why do you look like you’re hearing ‘-chan’ for the first time!”
It’s important to note that Naomi has to tilt her head at a noticeable angle just to make eye contact with Daniel who is raising his arms in surrender. “I watch it dubbed, I’m sorry!”
This conversation quickly spirals into a heated argument re: subbed anime vs. dubbed anime which, admittedly, is entertaining to listen to. As this transpires, they get their tacos served to their table along with their drinks, but just as Aaron tries to dig in, Linh swats his hands away to take a photo of all the platters before she lets him get his share.
“Your friends are funny,” Oikawa comments as he assesses how Iwaizumi holds his taco. “I like them. I can’t believe you even made friends.”
“I can’t believe it either.” Iwaizumi supplies before taking a bite—
“Oops.”
He gets a good amount of sour scream smeared onto his nose all thanks to the stunt Oikawa pulled, though he should count himself lucky that none of the tomatoes or the grated cheese found their way to his shirt. His fist clenches as a reflex, ready to punch Oikawa’s shoulder just as he’s done a thousand times before, but one look at the crinkle of Oikawa’s eyes has the irk leaving him in one exhale.
“Now I finally get why Hajime rejected everyone who tried asking him out,” Naomi suddenly interjects, startling Iwaizumi enough to spill some of the toppings to his lap, fuck. When did they stop talking about anime?
“You two look great together! No wonder you’re both so whipped!”
Iwaizumi chokes on his taco and feels something lodged in his throat. He doesn’t dare meet Oikawa’s gaze.
Wednesday features a trip to the Anaheim Parking District where they eat more food and take even more pictures. By then Oikawa has already resigned himself to the fact that he would have to work extra hard once he gets back to San Juan to keep himself in tip-top shape, but he tells Iwaizumi this in a way that suggests he doesn’t regret the sheer amount of fish and chips he’s just gobbled up. By the time they reach Iwaizumi’s apartment, they’re both too full to actually do anything else, which leads to them passing out before the clock even strikes twelve.
When Thursday rolls around, Iwaizumi’s friends reach a consensus to deal with their post-midterm burnout by getting drunk, and because they now consider Oikawa as an honorary member of their group, the invitation is extended to him as well. Iwaizumi is fully aware that none of them are the type to go out on a Thursday when Friday is just a good night’s sleep away, which leaves him certain that the impromptu night out is more of a send-off to Oikawa than anything else. He finds it touching, especially since he’s pretty sure Oikawa only offhandedly mentioned the date of his flight once when they ate tacos two days ago. For this reason, he ditches his impulsive plan to take Oikawa to Newport Beach and gives his friends the OK.
The pub they choose is one Iwaizumi knows all too well, so once they sit themselves around the table they’ve claimed unofficially, he immediately turns to Oikawa and tells him, excitedly, “You have to try their Stoner Tots.”
“If Iwa-chan recommends it, then sure,” Oikawa replies with an enthusiastic nod, even though Iwaizumi is a hundred percent positive that Oikawa doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about. This somehow brings Iwaizumi’s attention to the dimmed yellow lights that line the ceiling, how they warm Oikawa’s features in a way that makes him look softer, and with the way he eyes the people that mill around, how they spark in interest and curiosity as he takes in the fragments that have been making up Iwaizumi’s life for the past few years, Iwaizumi swears he falls a little deeper.
They each order a bottle to start with, but Iwaizumi doesn’t miss the way Oikawa pauses at the sight of the selection to choose from. Oikawa wouldn’t admit to it, but Iwaizumi’s pretty sure his alcohol tolerance is pretty low, what with him immediately pursuing a career in professional volleyball before he could even legally drink back in Japan. He also doesn’t miss the way Oikawa gasps once he realizes what Stoner Tots actually are, mouth dropping at the sheer amount of cheese it’s come with.
It doesn’t take long for Oikawa to start looking flushed. While the rest of the group have only started talking in slightly louder volumes, Oikawa has already gone way past that, loose limbs draped all over Iwaizumi like they’re meant to be there. He does acquiesce, however, that this doesn’t really deviate from normal Oikawa behavior. There exists a space adjacent to Iwaizumi that’s reserved solely for one person, forcibly carved and claimed by this little dickhead when he was but a young, unruly child, and it’s just been there since. Sometimes, Iwaizumi finds it terrifying, how at ease Oikawa always seems to be when he glues himself to Iwaizumi like this, and Iwaizumi doesn’t know why the epiphany hits him now of all times, but fuck, if acting like this is easy to them, then why can’t it be real?
The answer comes to him before he’s even finished phrasing the question in his head.
Because it’s not easy, Iwaizumi divulges to his own naivete, and it won’t be. Oikawa is chasing the stars and Iwaizumi is contented with following downstream drifts and their paths have simply diverged long ago. What they have, what they still have—Iwaizumi can’t risk losing that by wanting more. Not when the universe was already gracious enough to lend him a place in Oikawa’s life, one step away but just not close enough. Besides, there’s also that one fact Iwaizumi often forgets, the one vital fact he should always acknowledge and pin to the back of his mind:
Oikawa loves him, but not in the way he desperately hopes for.
Which is fine. Iwaizumi gets that. He’s made peace with that a long time ago; his memory just needs to be refreshed every once in a while especially when his thoughts take a traitorous turn.
But Oikawa just loves to make things so fucking difficult for him, like this, with the blush high on his cheeks and the giggles spilling out of him as he aims a Stoner Tot to Iwaizumi’s nose, snickering at the cross-eyed glare Iwaizumi sends him. His eyes look alive and he’s smiling like he’s never smiled before, and Iwaizumi only swats at him—a painfully rehearsed response, a perfected defense mechanism—to give his hands something else to do because seriously, what good would it bring to hold Oikawa close?
Unfortunately for him, Oikawa is as attuned to his habits just as Iwaizumi is attuned to his, so before his hand could even make contact with whatever part of Oikawa’s face he had been aiming for, there’s already a warm weight pressing against his chest, a mess of hair under his chin, and fuck, fuck, why is he doing this to me?
“Hey, no PDA in front of those who are pitifully single,” Linh complains, though the sound of her phone’s camera shutter along with the smirk on her face betrays her demand. Beside her, Aaron rests his chin on his palm, eyes calculating as he scans the position both Iwaizumi and Oikawa are in before he jolts upright.
“I think you should kiss your boyfriend, Hajime,” he says, and without taking notice of Iwaizumi’s shock, he adds, “You’re never this affectionate around anyone, might as well do it while he’s here, you know?”
Naomi delivers a harsh nudge to his side with a shit-eating grin that jostles Oikawa from where he’s huddled against Iwaizumi, prompting him to look up and—shit, he must be much more inebriated than he’s initially thought because there’s no way Oikawa is looking at him expectantly, eyes dark and wanting. The alcohol is probably playing tricks with him again.
But the dare has caught up to everyone in the table, and in seconds they are all egging Iwaizumi on, completely oblivious to the turmoil gnawing at his insides. Iwaizumi knows this is nothing to them, or at least, nothing but harmless fun; they’ve all heard and seen and actively participated in things far more risqué, so what’s a kiss between two people who claim to be together?
Iwaizumi doesn’t know how to get himself out of this one, but one look at Oikawa tells him that he is actually capable of being selfish because—well, this is all an act, isn’t it? They’ve both had too much to drink and it’s his last night before he leaves for Argentina to chase bigger dreams and everything they’ve done over the past couple of days were all in the spirit of pretense, so, fuck, what’s one more?
Oikawa leans in. Iwaizumi closes the distance.
“You know, we didn’t get to go to Disneyland. Or any of the beaches.”
Iwaizumi hums in reply because he doesn’t think there’s a response apt for that. Besides, there’s nothing to say, really. Yeah, he kind of fucked up with the itinerary; Oikawa probably thinks his trip is a waste now because seriously, who throws away their first time in California to do a favor for a friend without stopping by the coastlines? Who flies to California to be someone’s fake boyfriend for a vacation without even making a pitstop to fucking Disneyland? No one, that’s who, and right now, Iwaizumi doesn’t really want to hear Oikawa say anything about how he’s baited him into squandering his own money—
“But I got to be with you, so I guess that’s still a great thing.”
Oh.
Oh.
“I can hear you thinking, Iwa-chan. I didn’t say that to make you feel bad, you know. I can always go back.”
A vague recollection of a specific lecture from several quarters ago springs to the front of his mind, sudden and insistent. He remembers bits and pieces of it—how it mentioned the physiological relationship of physical and emotional pain, how it affirmed that the body is capable of responding to psychologically distressing stimuli, how it claimed that heartache is no mere metaphor. There’s no clear neurological pathway to explain this phenomenon, but it’s real, and Iwaizumi knows this because there’s no other explanation for the way his chest constricts, the ache sharp and heavy and searing, there to remind him that words can hurt him like a fist to the head.
He feels a puff of breath against his neck and it still smells like the beer they had been drinking just a couple of hours ago and Iwaizumi knows that he shouldn’t turn his head to the side for the sake of self-preservation, but he does anyway, and the sight of Oikawa meeting his gaze with the warmest eyes he’s ever fucking seen makes it so hard for him to breathe.
“Yeah,” he whispers, wincing at the way his voice cracks. “Yeah, then I can come visit you in San Juan, too.”
That makes Oikawa smile, and it’s as much reprieve as this moment can offer, but something in his eyes shifts, and—
“Listen, Iwa-chan, about what happened a while ago—”
No, no, no, Iwaizumi isn’t ready to have this conversation, not yet, not now, not ever, not after he’s made the horrible mistake of looking into Oikawa’s eyes the moment his lips touched the corner of his mouth, not when all he saw as he pulled away was unbridled disappointment—possibly at himself, more likely at Iwaizumi. The wound is fresh and has yet to scab, and so in one last attempt to keep himself together, Iwaizumi doesn’t give him the chance to finish his sentence and immediately cuts him off.
“You’re all packed for tomorrow, right? You won’t have enough time to do that unless you wake up early.”
Iwaizumi sees it again, the dregs of the same degree of disappointment he found in his eyes but now paired with something akin to regret. He hears Oikawa sigh, and fuck, Iwaizumi wants to kiss him, wants to pin him to his bed and ravage him, wants to keep him there, build a life for them inside this twenty-square-meter room they can turn into their own universe.
(But Iwaizumi knows these things are nothing but wishes you’d expect from a child who doesn’t know any better, not from a grown man on the cusp of turning twenty-three.)
“Yeah, I already packed.”
For a moment, Oikawa looked like he was about to say something, but whatever it is he’s wanted to say is gulped down and Iwaizumi doesn’t have the courage to know what those words could possibly be.
“Okay, Good night, ‘Kawa.”
Iwaizumi doesn’t wait for a reply. He knows enough has been said.
The following morning passes by like a blur: Iwaizumi wakes up at seven, tries to make a decent breakfast to the best of his ability, and finds time to have a chat with Kenneth who wishes Oikawa a safe trip before he runs for his first class. Iwaizumi opted to skip his classes for the day to see Oikawa off, and now that the both of them are left alone, a strange liminality blankets the space they share, stifling enough to keep Iwaizumi on edge. He doesn’t know how to deal with it, doesn’t know how to act around Oikawa who’s just standing there, toeing the thin line of normalcy, humming as he fixes the last of his things before he has to go.
Iwaizumi thinks it’s unfair, how he had to spend four years here in Irvine and deal with the superlatives of being alone only to let Oikawa pervade that life he built and change it for good. His room wouldn’t feel the same from now on. He’s going to have to sleep with two extra pillows to fill the gap in his chest like an embarrassing sap.
They both get themselves ready with Oikawa’s casual chatter intermittently interrupting the quiet every now and then (which Iwaizumi appreciates), and once done, this is how he finds himself standing outside of his apartment before noon instead of being holed up in his biochemistry lab: with Oikawa standing by his side, clad in an oversized hoodie that smells suspiciously like his cologne.
Aaron eventually arrives with his sedan and a wave; after finding out that Iwaizumi paid for his commute when he picked Oikawa up from JWA, the man threw a fit, insisting that as a good and loyal friend, he should have been the one Iwaizumi asked to help him out. Iwaizumi couldn’t tell him that the reason he didn’t ask any of his friends that own a car for a favor is that he actually had no plan to inform them about Oikawa’s arrival, so to appease him, Iwaizumi let him assign himself as their driver for today but not without forcing him to accept gas money.
The ride is by no means silent; Aaron’s speakers have been blasting DJ Khaled tracks ever since they entered the car and conversation is easy. Iwaizumi has no recollection of whatever the hell they had talked about, though, and despite having exchanged anecdotes with Oikawa as they drive through Santa Ana, none of it actually registers in his head. None of it feels real. He has yet to process that Oikawa is leaving.
But Iwaizumi is not given the time to make sense of what’s happening. Soon, Aaron steps on the brakes and hops out to take Oikawa’s suitcase out of his trunk and offers Oikawa a fist bump and they all get out of the car to walk to Terminal B and Iwaizumi—Iwaizumi has so much to say. Iwaizumi doesn’t know where to start.
He looks at Oikawa with an urgency he’s never felt before, his heart arrhythmic in its demand to be recognized, to be known, and he’s not sure what Oikawa sees reflected on his eyes that makes him take a step closer, but god, Southern California mornings look incredible on him and Iwaizumi wants to hold him, wants to fucking kiss him—
Iwaizumi doesn’t realize what on Earth just happened until Oikawa has pulled away, hands still cupping his jaw, thumb swiping at his cheekbone reverently. Dazed, he brings a finger to his lips, chasing the warmth of Oikawa’s mouth that he’s already started missing.
“Hajime,” he whispers, and it hurts, it hurts like hell, how distance just is; he’s no longer just one step away from Oikawa—Oikawa’s around him, pressed tightly against him, everywhere—and it’s still not close enough. “If you want to make this real, you know how to reach me.”
And as if he hasn’t dealt enough damage, he places another kiss to his cheek, soft and tender, before pulling away with a giggle tumbling out of him. “I’ll text you right until takeoff, okay? I’ll call you when I land.”
He takes one last look at Iwaizumi, fringe as windswept as it is in each and every memory Iwaizumi has of him, and turns away.
Iwaizumi feels the ghost of his kiss even after he’s faded out of his view.
“I will never forgive you for not telling us first,” Matsukawa rasps out on the phone. He claims to be irritated. Iwaizumi hears the smirk in his voice nonetheless.
“You wound me, man,” Hanamaki chimes in. “Can’t believe we were the last ones to know.”
And because Oikawa is a little shit—always has been, always will be—he doesn’t hesitate to help orchestrate Iwaizumi’s demise. “It’s okay, Makki! Even I didn’t know we were dating until people congratulated us on Instagram!”
It’s a story they’ll never let go, that’s for sure; he could be pushing sixty and these fuckers would still find a way to bring this up and point fingers at him as they collapse into a fit of laughter. Iwaizumi could only hope Oikawa never tries to tell any of his friends from Irvine. He should find a way to unfriend Naomi from his account.
But for now, he only regards the three pixelated faces on his laptop screen, lets his eyes flit over to where Oikawa is already meeting his gaze the same way he’s always had, and lets himself smile.