The first Infected that Hajime kills is to save his own life.
The last he kills is to save Tooru’s – and when the knife slides into his own throat and blood dances through his vision, he can still see tears gleam in Tooru’s eyes, alive and warm, and they are the last he sees.
growth
(hint: each type of flower is meant to represent a specific character)
The detail and lighting in this is so beautiful.
“You just fuck Oikawa because he’s pretty, right?”
Hajime drops the ball that he’s wanted to serve. The newest member of his university team has stepped next to him, watching him practice alone after official training’s over. Hajime’s never liked the guy. Now, he takes a deep breath, and swallows the wild animal rising in his throat deep down his chest.
The guy leans in closer. His grin has Hajime’s blood roar inside his veins. “I mean, he’s practically a girl, I guess. Pretty face, long legs. I get it. I get why you’re doing it, it’s convenient. But honestly, no matter how nice his lips would look around a dick, I don’t understand – “
“Yeah,” Hajime says, and turns. He stares down at the guy, letting his fingers curl into fists, his eyes going dark. “You don’t understand.”
And Hajime thinks of Tooru’s smile when he goes home to his family, when he hugs his mother and father and lifts his baby sister into the air, stroking her fuzzy hair. He thinks of the laughter echoing through the gym, Tooru’s hands gently guiding his little nephew’s fingers to touch the ball just right, Tooru’s mouth shy and warm against Hajime’s, Tooru curling in the bed they share and falling asleep with quiet peace on his pale skin and stars glinting in the freckles along his neck that Hajime has the unbelievable privilege to kiss.
His fist crashes down so hard that the guy falls right over. There is a horrible crack, echoing through the gym, and blood smeared over Hajime’s fingers. He steps closer, standing above the guy who whimpers like a child and holds his broken nose.
Hajime’s voice is a dark, wild snarl. He doesn’t hit the guy again, but he grabs his collar and lifts him to his feet – and his teeth are bared, white, ferocious.
“You don’t know anything about him, asshole. And I swear, if you talk about my fiancé like that ever again, I’ll break more than just your nose.”
It’s barely the hint of a touch, when Hajime drags his nail along the soft skin of Tooru’s thigh, along a swirled galaxy of spit-slick bruises, but Tooru whines like it’s all he has, all he needs to crumble and break for this man who owns him down to his naked soul. “Hajime,” his throat works around the name, lips red-fucked from Hajime’s cock earlier, the taste still heavy there, warm, lingering. “Please, oh please, I need – “
“I know.” The kiss on his hipbone is feather-light. But oh, Tooru jolts from it, tries to speak, and fails miserably. Because Hajime’s fingers curl deep inside him, sliding and fucking dragging over the soft rim of his hole that Hajime’s fucked open so well, where he’s made him come and spread him pliant and dripping wet.
And when Hajime’s dark voice growls “you’re the sweetest thing, darlin’, falling apart for me like that” into his bared neck, Tooru sobs. He shatters, white behind his eyes bursting, his skin and broken whimpers and everything, anything, it all belongs to Hajime. The fingers have stilled for a moment, and Tooru’s throat is raw when his back arches, bends into any form that Hajime wants him in, anything to get him deeper, oh please.
But Hajime’s grin is warm and his chuckle rumbles through Tooru’s skin when he kisses Tooru’s thigh once more, and says: “Not yet, love. I’m not done with you yet.”
It’s so stupid, but sometimes I wish we were still children.
He loved catching bugs with that little net, beetles and butterflies and even a worm, one time. I don’t think I’ve spent a single summer without him. God, I was such a crybaby, and he knew. Of course he knew. He put a beetle on my arm, and would make fun of how I froze right where I was sitting. But when I started crying, he’d stop laughing and take it away.
He never really hurt me, back then. He never has until now.
I hope he won’t ever forget those summers. Well – at least I’ll remember, even if he doesn’t.
I couldn’t ever forget how Hajime became my friend.
“My father called,” Hajime says when Tooru comes into their dorm room.
It’s all he needs to say. Tooru drops his bag, slams the door shut and strides over, falling down on the bed where Hajime’s sprawled out. “Tell me.” He kisses the corner of Hajime’s mouth, curls himself into the curve of Hajime’s chest where it hurts the most. He smells like lavender and sweat. Hajime turns his head to bury his nose into the warmth of Tooru’s neck.
“We didn’t talk long.” He speaks slowly, carefully. Every word weighs on his tongue, iron-heavy and thick. “Of course he asked how mom is. If she’s got a boyfriend. Told him to fucking call her himself, but I know he won’t.”
“And then?” Tooru’s chin is pressing into his scalp, hands warm and still on his shoulder blades. Hajime feels small. It had taken months for Tooru to convince him that opening up didn’t mean that someone was going to ram their claws up his soul and twist until he bled. Tooru is patient when he wants something. He never lets Hajime doubt that he wants him, always has, maybe always will.
Hajime closes his eyes, breathes into the dark. “He asked if I still had a boyfriend.”
The warm hands on his back twitch. “Haji,” Tooru says, gentle.
“I said yes. He hung up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Hajime whispers into Tooru’s skin, and his fingers go tight and angry in Tooru’s shirt. “Just – don’t be sorry for… for – “
“For loving you?” Tooru says, and then: “Never. Not for that.”
“Good.” His blood still aches and coils, but Tooru then kisses the edge of his mouth again, and Hajime lets him. Tooru gives him the silence he needs. He’s simply there, all evening, until it’s dark outside and Hajime kisses him back.
Tooru has been biting his lips ever since Hajime first met him. He does it when he’s nervous (surprise quiz in class), excited (important volleyball game) or crying, silent tears on his cheeks, words stuck in his throat – when he thought Hajime would reject his brave, wonderful confession after training, after years.
And during that last time, Hajime had wiped his tears and pressed their foreheads together, whispering: “If you keep biting your lip like that, I’ll kiss you every time you do it. You’re ruining your skin. Alway make me care for you.”
Tooru had stared at him, soft mouth red and eyes tear-dark. Then, he’d smiled, choking on one last sob. “I’m sorry. But – but I think a kiss could make it better.”
Of course, Tooru still bites his lips nowadays – but he does so with a smirk at Hajime, and a soft noise in the back of his throat when Hajime kisses him gently.
“He said he never loved me,” Tooru says. “It’s over.” His eyes are red.
“Come in,” Hajime says and wraps an arm around him, just before Tooru begins to cry. “You can stay here. I’m so sorry.” He lets Tooru into his apartment.
He’s not good with words, has never been able to weave them so brilliantly like Tooru does. They’re playing on their university’s team, Tooru shines brighter than ever before, and Hajime loves him like never before. It doesn’t matter that Tooru’s had a boyfriend until now, a guy who’s always kissed him a bit too roughly (for Hajime’s taste) and who treated him like arm candy (Hajime thinks that Tooru deserves to be treated like a King, not some pretty thing).
But that doesn’t matter now. Tooru looks tiny on his couch, wrapped into Hajime’s former baby blanket that’s ragged and paled out, the brilliant red faded to soft pink. Hajime returns after five minutes in the kitchen and he brings a stack of pancakes, drenched in chocolate syrup, and a cup of tea.
“You… ‘s that for me?” Tooru’s eyes are wet. They’re big and silver-shining in the dim light. Hajime sits and pushes the plate into his hand, a fork into the other, the tea staying in his hand. “’course. Your favourite comfort food.” He tries a smile, but fails. “God, I’m sorry. I can beat him up. You can stay as long as – “
Tooru hugs him. Hajime can barely put the tea away before tears sink into his neck, trembling fingers curled into his shirt, shivers wrecking Tooru’s body. “Thank you. Just – thank you. I – I’m nothin’ without you.”
Hajime lets him cry all night. Tooru eats all the pancakes, licks the chocolate syrup from the plate and falls asleep on Hajime’s lap. It’s been fifteen years since they met. Hajime closes his eyes and counts the beat of Tooru’s heart. One. Two. Three.
Fourteen years of loving Tooru.
Ever since they were kids, Iwaizumi’s said the same thing to Tooru again and again
“But I should be dead,” Hajime coughs through the soot and dark smoke in his lungs when Tooru pulls him out of the ruins of his burnt house and lays him down next to his unconscious parents and sister. He laters learns that it was a short circuit in the power lines that almost killed them all. Tooru’s skin doesn’t carry a single burn, his eyes alight and blazing like the flames.
“Yet you aren’t dead,” Tooru whispers into his ear before Hajime faints, and when the police and firefighters arrive, they find a burning house and the rescued family lying in front of it. Alive. All of them. Hajime’s arm is burnt and he lives.
“But this is impossible,” Hajime whispers against Tooru’s pale skin as he watches the black lines crawl over it, ink-dark tattoos coiling over his boyfriend’s skin as if they were alive, symboles and runes and ancient power pulsing through Tooru’s smile.
“Yet it is real,” Tooru mumbles into their kiss and pulls Hajime deeper into himself, throwing his head back with a howl as he lets himself be devoured, kissed, heat and sparks tingling down Hajime’s spine, thighs around his waist.
“But you are human,” Hajime says when he and Tooru are in the forest at night and Tooru dances for him, midnight-black smoke and silver sparks flowing around him like water, spinning, spiralling, framing his naked body.
“Yet I am not,” Tooru says, and smiles. “And yet you love me, and I, you.”
“But what are you?” Hajime asks into the softness of his mouth.
“If it would matter, Haji, you would not be here. And you would not kiss me.”
So Hajime takes what once was impossible, and closes his heart around it.
Moami 