oiwa – Moami

He’s losing himself. Hajime sees it immediately. Knows him inside where it gets dark and ugly, has memorized the mile-high walls that crown his king.

He stands by Tooru’s side, a bit behind him. Is silent for a bit. Watches the game, too, but mostly he looks at the boy who cried salty frustration into his shoulder and his bed last night.

Tooru has his knees by his chest. His eyes, never soft when they’re away from togetherness, glint behind the new glasses. Hajime remembers buying them, searching the perfect frame, setting them on Tooru’s nose over parted, still red-shining-from-kisses lips. How do you know, Tooru had said without a smile, Hajime how do you know my lenses, that’s insane.

Loving him is insane, Hajime thinks back at the memory. Down below, the game heats up. Pure, horrible insanity.

He jumps over the seats. They banter, insult a bit, Tooru puts his legs down. Hajime keeps a seat between them and this time really tries to watch the game.

“You don’t have to wear them,” he says after two more points fall.

Tooru turns to him. “What?”

“The glasses. You, I mean. You don’t have to wear them if you – they’re too aristocratic anyways. But you like that kind of stupid shit, so I thought…”

“Oh. No, it’s okay.”

Hajime exhales, slow. “You sure?”

He had asked the same thing last night. Funny how life goes. He drops his head back, eyes going shut, touches his mouth once more. The kiss he’d given Tooru (not stolen, nobody robs Tooru of anything, it’s all granted or gifted) burns there like a secret little fire. You sure, he’d whispered when his nose nuzzled against the one he’d first touched when he’d been three days old. About this? About me and the future and what we could be?

“Hajime, honestly,” Tooru laughs and reaches, ruffles his hair with fingers that are rough and cracked and just a bit soft where they become his wrist. “I’m always sure about the stuff you do.”

All of Hajime’s firsts have been taken by Tooru, and it’s annoying. Whenever something new sprouts in Hajime’s surroundings, fresh hesitation on its leaves, Tooru picks it up and plants it in a pot. He does always end up giving it to Hajime, fine, but it’s really about the principle of the issue.

(All pots are on his mental windowsill, blooming. Colourful.)

So after their first kiss, when Hajime’s seventeen and never Tooru’s first at anything, he can’t help but say something. “That was,” Hajime stutters. Tooru still has a hand in his hair, halfway leaning over his lap, Hajime on his bed and backed against the wall. (Because he surely would have fallen if Tooru had kissed him standing. His mouth tingles. He loves, loves, loves.)

“Yes?” Tooru wants to know. His lips shouldn’t still be pale. Should be spelling Hajime’s name in red.

He clears his throat, shrugs, feeling a bit embarrassed. “Just don’t think that it’ll get better than this. You probably know a way though, you always do. And I suppose you’ve done it all as well.”

Tooru stays silent for a stunning moment.

“Right,” Hajime says. “Forget it. Wanna kiss again?”

“There is a way.” A warm hand slides around Hajime’s neck, and Tooru climbs his lap, bony knees by Hajime’s ribs, jittery adventure alight in his smile. “Never did it, though. It’s all new for both of us after this.”

Hajime wants to reply. He doesn’t get to, which is – which is, oh, it’s okay. Oh, his heartbeat thunders at the press of Tooru’s mouth. I want, his breath hitches when a shy tongue slides against his own, melts Tooru’s taste into the heat of his mouth and pushes inside.

“Again,” he growls when Tooru gasps for air, and then swallows the muffled laugh of his (boyfriend? forever? everything) between slowly blushing lips and newborn licks that sends shudders down their spines.

Tooru has no chance. He closes the door behind himself and is one second into the flat, kicking off his shoes with the feeble hope of somehow making it upstairs. Should’ve known better. As soon as he bends down to tear his sneaker off, laces still tied because hurry, hurry, someone comes out of the kitchen.

“Sweetheart,” his mother says. She smiles. There’s an apron around her hips, the house phone peeking out of a pocket.

“Hey,” Tooru says, stretching the y-sound like a rubber band. “I’m home. Really tired, coach extended the spiking practice again – ”

“We’re having dinner,” his father calls from inside the kitchen. Tooru risks a look inside. The table is all set up with the best cutlery that his mother usually uses when grandma is coming over and has to be impressed with an immaculate house and manners so precise that Tooru feels like royalty for days after. The only other time that his mother makes that kind of effort is when there’ll be a family talk.

Tooru considers panicking, but then decides against it. He’s already in this situation and if this is about what he thinks it’s about, then he can’t escape anyways and getting it over with could make a lot of things easier.

He drops his sports bag and obediently walks into the kitchen.

The smile on his mother’s lips turns into a grin. “Fantastic.” Oh god. Tooru swallows. He sits down next to his father, hands in his lap, and then his glance catches on the big pot in the middle of the table. His favourite stew is simmering lazily, and next to it sits a bowl with milk bread for dessert.

“Mom, am I adopted?”

His father snorts. “You definitely didn’t inherit our sharp perception. You did get your mother’s obsession over your hair though.”

“Very funny. You’re my son through and through, we’ve been over this. Our son, I mean. You’ve got your father’s calves. Careful.” His mother fills their bowls with stew and hands the rice to his father, and everything is quiet and peaceful with the clatter of spoons and forks full of rice. Tooru bears with it for exactly four minutes. Then he can’t take it anymore.

“Training wasn’t extended. I was at Hajime’s place – ”

His mother puts her spoon down. “You know that we love you, honey. We really do. So it’s important to us that Hajime and you are using condoms when you’re together.”

Tooru doesn’t put his spoon down. He drops it into his stew instead, splashing pieces of carrot and leek everywhere. His father sighs. “Watch it, will you. Your mother tried very hard with the stew and I made you a double batch of milk bread. The least you could do is promise us – ”

“Oh my god.”

“ – that you two are going to be safe – ”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

“We’re worried about you, sweetheart. We want you to have fun and get as intimate with dear Hajime as you’d like – ”

“ – when the big first is going to happen and all the times after as well, of course, and if you have any kind of question… well, I’m not an expert on the whole male on male thing, but from father to son, I could – ”

“I’m a good person,” Tooru desperately whispers. “I did my homework all school year. I tutored Kindaichi for his math test. I made Hajime soup when he was sick.”

“ – and as long as our dear Hajime is always wearing a – well, not that I’m assuming that he’ll be the one to, you know, that’s not our business,” his mother contemplates and pushes another bite of stew between her lips.

“None of this is your business!” Tooru raises his hands and voice, throwing both into his parents’ faces. “How did you even know? I’ve been going to his place for years, and we’ve only been together for – I mean. We’re not…”

His father stops chewing. His brows sink low, forming a dark line over bright eyes. “Is he not serious about your relationship?” He looks at Tooru’s mother. “That’s not what Miko told you.”

Tooru can’t believe this. “You called his mother?” He puts his face into his hands. “This isn’t supposed to happen. I was going to come out at some point, introduce him – ”

“Nonsense.” His mother’s hand touches Tooru’s shoulder, squeezes it gently. “We knew about your feelings, sweetheart, you’re not that good at hiding things from us. From him, maybe, but not when you’re in your room and swooning your soul out after a phone call from him. Miko and your father and I knew it was bound to happen. I hope she’s making sure that Hajime knows about protection as well.” She giggles and softly tugs at Tooru’s ear. “And if you two ever need the house for yourselves over a weekend, when you’re both ready, just ask.”

Tooru’s entire face is burning. He opens his mouth to say something. His brain is short-circuiting pretty impressively though, and nothing makes its way out. His parents seem to understand and damn it, why do they have to be like this, of course he knows how to do all of this. (They’re annoying and embarrassing and any other reaction would have terrified him to the bone. He loves them, he loves them.)

“Uh. Thanks then. Can we never talk about sex again from now on?”

“Sure, sweetheart. Do you want some more stew?”

He does. He also calls Hajime after dinner. It turns out that Hajime’s had a similar conversation with his mother and sister and his voice hitches a little bit around the word condom when he confesses that his mother had bought him some. Tooru buries his face in the pillow, smiling from ear to ear. “They’re so embarrassing,” he says.

“Totally,” Hajime says, and then whispers: “We have time though. Right?”

“Yeah.” Tooru closes his eyes, touches his mouth where Hajime had kissed him goodbye earlier. “We do.”

The realisation comes crashing down on Hajime just as he’s one step into his apartment. There’s no time to think though, because Tooru slams the door shut and Hajime against the wall and their lips together in one fluid, flawless motion.

God, Hajime says inside his own head, we won, we’re going to the Olympics, we – his mind attempts to go on, but Tooru’s mouth breathes heat against his lips and Hajime’s too busy melting away, gone, game and set and he’s no match for him.

“The way you looked,” Tooru says, teeth scraping roughly along Hajime’s mouth, leaving a trail of pressure that’ll be soft red-purple tomorrow, and everyone will think it a bruise from the game. Hajime lets them believe. Volleyball leaves traces on him, marks Tooru up as well but nothing is better at painting their bodies in choked breaths and bruises than each other’s bites.

“What – fuck, what about it?” His knees feel like he’s going to collapse. They’re still in their uniforms, hell, Tooru’s cheek is wet when he slides it against Hajime’s neck, desperately clutching at Hajime’s shorts. His nails are blunt, tiny half-moons of ache dragging over his skin. “I need to,” Tooru presses out. He looks up at Hajime again, eyes drinking in his body like he’s hungry, like Hajime is laid out for him to have. And he is. He’s not easy by far, has never been, but Tooru’s always had him inside and out and now Hajime is burning up, salt on his lips and the game’s adrenalin pumping through his veins.

Tooru slides his hand deeper. “Let me,” he whispers, gives a soft lick to Hajime’s mouth, groans like a man starved when Hajime surges to press their tongues into slick-hot touch. “Hajime. I need to, god, thought about you on the court, knew we’d win. I have to, please, let me make you feel good.”

His throat works heavily when he swallows. “Yeah,” Hajime finally says. He brings his fingers into Tooru’s hair, suddenly tight and I have you, I know you need me to lead, “you can, you can, don’t have to ask me.”

Tooru grins at him. He’s not trembling anymore, hands gone calm where they’d fumbled impatiently at Hajime’s waistband moments ago. “You know I always do. ‘s not like you don’t do the same.” And that’s true, Hajime thinks, he can’t imagine to not at least brush his fingers through Tooru’s hair, to search his glance for a yes. He wants to snarl something back, doesn’t get to do it.

The sight of Tooru sinking to his knees never fails to crush the air in his lungs. How Tooru looks graceful with his nose brushing softly along the dark hair above his shorts, how he’s able to love Hajime in his mouth so much that he swallows him down as soon as the fabric’s out of the way, Hajime can’t understand. He closes his eyes, lets go. Tooru smiles around him, lets a dark moan hum through Hajime’s lower body that sets him ablaze, and he needs this so badly that he could cry.

Tooru, as always, breathes carefully and gives.

He lets Hajime jolt his hips forward, nuzzles into the hard grasp that Hajime has on his hair. He licks the sweat away that’s musk and salt and the burn of Hajime’s skin. The corridor’s quiet until Hajime drops his head back and whimpers, lets out that terribly vulnerable noise from the back of his throat, his knees giving in beneath him. Then Tooru’s hands snap to his hips, his mouth twists in a wicked, sweetly dangerous way, Hajime slides into searing heat and deeper and Tooru holds him up the wall as he comes.

He stays boneless for minutes after. Tooru doesn’t seem to mind. He’s licking his lips with tiny noises as he settles in Hajime’s lap, sweat-dripping forehead making a mess by Hajime’s shoulder. “Not enough,” Tooru decides after a bit of silence. “I still can’t believe we won. I wonder when it’ll kick in.”

Hajime doesn’t let him ponder over it. He gently shoves Tooru off, cutting his attempt at a wail short by lifting him with both arms. “Stop thinking,” Hajime tells him quietly. Tooru looks up at him, then, and lets his head fall against Hajime’s chest. His smile is a tiny, hidden thing. “I’ll try.”

“You’ll believe it tomorrow.” For now, I’ll catch you, Hajime thinks and gets both of them to the bedroom.

“So if you’re bisexual, why aren’t you with a girl?”

And it had been going so well. A cascade of ink splotches all over Hajime’s notes when he clenches his fist, snapping his pen clean in half. The other members of his group project are staring, but not at him, their eyes are at the guy who’d asked without any shame and loud enough for the rest of the tiny study room inside the library to hear.

Hajime knows that the question is directed at him. He could just sock the guy in the jaw, never liked him anyways, he’s the kind of person who leeches onto a group for the assignment and all he contributes is his name on the final presentation they’re handing in. The room is silent. Nobody says a word.

The guy snorts and leans closer. “C’mon. You got the choice, after all. Aren’t you making it harder for yourself? Nothing against gays, they’re great and all, but you don’t have to go the hard way. And isn’t your boyfriend gay anyways – “

“It’s not a choice.”

“What?”

They all watch him when Hajime rises out of his chair. Midnight-blue ink falls from his hands and smears on the floor when he takes a step, another, slowly rounding the table past his group members until he’s in front of the guy.

On the other side of the study room, sitting with some psychology post-grads even though he’s only in his bachelor yet, Tooru looks at him with soft eyes of amber and fire.

“I said,” Hajime looks down at the guy, and speaks, “that this isn’t a choice. You should know better than to say that attraction and love are something we have control over. But if you really want to be that asshole, I’ll tell you. And then you’re going to get your stuff and leave, because the only thing that annoys me more than your disgusting attitude is your inability to remember a single law that we’ve discussed in the sixteen hours we’ve been working on this project and you’ve been sitting there like moss on a rock.”

Someone whistles behind Hajime’s back, sharp and impressed. He ignores it, but a grin slips over his mouth when a group member mumbles “Thank fuck, someone said it, the bloodsucker’s getting wrecked.”

Hajime clears his throat, and fuck it, he allows himself to grin in a way that Tooru likes to tease him about because he looks like something with fangs and claws that hasn’t hunted down a decent prey in a long, long time.

“You could give me the world and everything on it to choose from and I’d still only want him.”

The silence breaks with a shout across the room. “I love you too, but it’s still your turn to cook tonight!”

Everyone can see who Tooru is, clear as day and bright like sunlight that catches in his hair during games. Nobody’s blind to his motions, the grit of teeth when he sets, the fluid grace that flows in his muscles when he orchestrates his team. Tooru has never thought about being invisible.

When Hajime joins the same college as he does, Tooru learns what it means. The volleyball team, one of the most prestigious in Japan, only takes one of them. Hajime doesn’t seem surprised or disappointed. His kiss tingles on Tooru’s lips throughout the first practice.

It’s the girlfriend of one of his teammates that points it out. She’s next to Tooru on the bench when he chugs down water, and her face is gentle when she says: “Iwaizumi is your boyfriend, right? I was surprised to hear that, to be honest. You’re so extraordinary, Oikawa. Don’t get me wrong, he’s nice even if he mocks you sometimes, but he’s so average. Almost ordinary.”

Before he could reply, the girl’s boyfriend (their libero, sweet guy actually, even if Tooru hates him for his choice in the opposite sex now) had called her name, and she’d run off. Tooru had stood there, speechless, then dropped his bottle.

He’d understood one thing then – that none of them sees Hajime.

Where Tooru is shrill and colourful like a rainbow in the sky, Hajime isn’t on the spectrum. There’s no red or blue in him, no hue of flower petals, no dark green of the forest, and now that Tooru thinks about it, he can’t describe Hajime as violet, white, night-black or ivory-soft.

It’s sad, Tooru thinks, that none of those people have the receptors in their eyes for something before crimson, after ultramarine. They’ll never get to see the ultraviolet gentleness of Hajime’s fingers on Tooru’s skin, mouth whispering in new octaves of love across his temples until Tooru shivers so hard that he fears he’s going to burst at the seams. They’ll never get to see the infrared loyalty that is Hajime hugging his parents, both families spending holidays together and Hajime locking his fingers into Tooru’s below the table while just smiling when Tooru’s baby niece climbs onto his lap.

And god, it’s sad to know that none of them has eyes brilliant enough to see the gamma rays of Hajime’s words when he talks about becoming a doctor to save souls, when he speaks to his mother in a softness that singsongs love with every syllable, and when he kisses an oath into every inch of Tooru’s skin until the echo of it leaves wave-shaped cuts on Tooru’s heart.

“Mom,” Hajime says when he’s sixteen and sitting on a kitchen chair, watching his mother decorating gingerbread cookies with frosting, white as the snow outside. “How do I know that I love someone?” Even before his mother can reply, he stands, hurrying to check on the turkey with red-blushed cheeks. “I mean,” he murmurs into the oven. “I don’t know – he could be – I mean, sh-she, of course. But how do I know that I want to be with someone forever?”

His mother smiles. She tucks back a strand of brown hair, streaked with grey. “You’ll know, Hajime. One morning, you will wake up and feel calm. It’s not a wild and exciting thing, realizing that you’ve found the one. It feels like coming home.” When she reaches out to brush back a strand of Hajime’s hair, he gives her a nervous smile. “O-okay. Thanks.” – “You’re welcome. Wanna try a cookie?”

“Mom,” Hajime types into his phone when he’s twenty-six. The message is sent, and Hajime quickly deletes the usual notification of ‘this number is out of service’. He looks at the man next to him, soft brown hair, fingers curled into the pillow, glasses on the nightstand. A ring would look good on him, Hajime thinks. Silver, maybe. Platinum. Something that lasts forever.

“Mom,” he types once more, smiling even as the tears come and wake Tooru up. “I wish I could have told you in person, but I hope you’ll read this somewhere up in the sky. You were right. I did it. I’m home.”

“I wonder why I ever wanted a cat. With you, I don’t need one.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Tooru grins down to where his boyfriend glares up at him, brows furrowed into a dark line of confusion. Hajime has this habit of draping himself over Tooru’s stomach or legs while studying, and today isn’t any different. It’s become a reflex for Tooru to push his fingertips all over Hajime’s scalp, to gently pet his hair and rub careful circles onto his skin to release the tension of hour-long university days and training.

When Hajime keeps staring a him just like the cat that Tooru mentioned before – demanding and unblinking – Tooru laughs softly. “Well. You’re stubborn, unique, you sometimes pretend to just be here for the cuddles, your signs of affection are the weirdest I’ve ever come across. Especially when you just put food you’ve prepared onto the table before me and leave again.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Hajime growls. His cheeks have taken an intriguing shade of crimson. Tooru can’t resist running his finger over them, and Hajime makes a gesture as if to bite him. “Stop it.”

“And you are cute,” Tooru says. His voice is still teasing, but there’s a tenderness swaying with it, calm and secure. “I know I had to earn your love, that you’re not like this with anyone else.”

Hajime has fallen silent. His cheek rests on Tooru’s thigh as he looks up at him, the furrow in his brows gone. “Hm. Okay.”

Tooru tries to add “also, you’re fluffy and do that cute squinty-thing when you try to show me that you’re hungry”, but Hajime shuts him up by stretching his body towards his face, giving a tiny kiss to his mouth. “Shut up, and keep scratchin’ my head.”

It takes more than ten years and his last year in high school for Hajime to understand. When he passes by a group of girls, a whispered secret filters through their giggles like sunlight through an ocean of emerald-singing leaves.

“He’s so intimidating! I’m scared.” – “No wonder he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

On their way home, Hajime tells Tooru about the conversation. The late autumn wind has gotten sharp and cold, gold dancing along the horizon where the sun sinks into slumber above the smoke-filled town. Tooru’s hair glows like sweet caramel, and the arch of his fingertips dances in soft circles over Hajime’s wrist.

“Scary, they said?”

“Yeah.” Hajime presses closer to him, his arm sliding around Tooru’s waist, natural, year-long habit having grown into a beloved tradition.

“I see.” Tooru smiles, soft as the upcoming frost from the north. “I think they lied to you, Hajime. It’s not you that they’re scared of.”

A cold breeze whirls over the street. Hajime watches the darkness twitching around the corner of Tooru’s mouth. His body is pliant and his lips gasp when Tooru suddenly hauls him close, pressing a rough kiss onto him, into him, burning on his mouth and licking at his tongue and throat.

“I guess you’re right,” Hajime croaks when Tooru pulls back. “Of course I am!” Is all that Tooru chirps back, face alight and grinning like seconds before.

When Tooru falls asleep against his shoulder that night, Hajime carefully brushes his hair back and looks at his face. The realization comes slow, but somehow, it’s not a surprise. Tooru has always known whom he’s wanted, how, when and how badly.

Fear is a powerful thing, Hajime thinks, closing his eyes and listening to Tooru’s breath.

Or maybe it’s just that he loves so fiercely that the man who’s a beast to others becomes a saint to him.

“You know, there’s a saying about how you’re supposed to kiss someone when it’s midnight on New Year’s eve, because then your love will last forever.”

Hajime wonders why he’s even agreed to celebrate the new year with his own and Tooru’s family. It just ends in him having to put up with shit like this. For example, Tooru standing next to him in a wa coat and fluffy scarf, looking adorable and beautiful while the countdown is being chanted by their dads and their moms and siblings get the fireworks ready.

“Stop it already.” Hajime kicks against a pebble and buries both hands in the pockets of his jacket.

Tooru’s lips curve into a smile, but it looks false and bittersweet as the chocolate mousse they’ve had aftet dinner. “What, Hajime? Don’t you understand what I mean? That I just want a chance to-”

“Yeah, to kiss my sister, alright. I got that. Everyone fucking knows, stop dropping hints at me and coming over to see her all the time.” He’s not even mad anymore. Hajime doesn’t look at the sky, doesn’t care about the first fireworks flying already. He feels stupid, so dumb, how could he love someone like Tooru who keeps so many girls on each hand –

“You are terrible. Terribly, amazingly, impossibly dense.”

“Huh?”

But Hajime can’t shoot the insult on his tongue at Tooru. Because the fireworks go off his a satisfying hiss, roaring up into the night sky and exploding into gold and crimson and gleaming purple on ink-black velvet. Because their families yell and hug each other, because Hajime’s mom winks at him, because –

– this wonderful, infuriating boy is kissing Hajime on his lips, cold on warm, trembling and shy and perfect. Because Tooru doesn’t pull away afterwards to laugh it off but instead looks at Hajime with fireworks-reflecting eyes and stars in his hair, licking his lips and giggling a nervous:

“I kinda really don’t want to kiss your sister. ‘Cause, you know. There’s this boy that I like, and… it’d be pretty cool if we could try and last for-”

“-ever. Shut up.”

Hajime pulls Tooru’s soft, cold face into the trembling frame of his hands and kisses all bittersweet chocolate off his mouth, until the sky fades from black to pink and red and morning.