oiwa – Page 2

The sharp ring of his phone has Tooru jolt awake with a gasp. He sits upright in bed, heart chasing behind the fading remnants of a nightmare, and his pulse thunders underneath the flow of his blood. The display of his phone is alight in neon blue when Tooru grabs it and falls back into his sheets. There is only one message. It’s just a few words, but they’re enough to have Tooru’s mind go still and ice-cold.

They didn’t take it well. I’m coming over.

Minutes later, his phone rings again. Incoming call. Tooru waits five seconds, and the alarm dies out. It’s their signal, and god, hearing it in a situation like that hurts so fucking much. Tooru pushes his blankets back and uses the light of his display to sneak out of his room. The stairs don’t make a sound below his feet. There’s a shadow waiting behind the front door, silent, motionless.

Tooru opens. “I’m sorry,” he says, “come in. Tell me what happened.”

But Hajime’s eyes are tired and crimson-swollen, his lips parading a shameful hint of blood from teeth digging into them. “No. Don’t wanna talk about this shit anymore.” He brushes a hand through his hair, glancing up at Tooru. “Can I stay tonight?”

Tooru’s answer is to cradle Hajime’s cheeks between his warm hands, trembling and scared, and to kiss his lips as if this was their last night on earth.

It still takes an entire night of weaving their bodies into a skin-tight hug, one that holds together souls and minds, for Hajime to say another word about it. The morning sun rises when he rests his soft lips against Tooru’s forehead and whispers: “I don’t care if they hate me. I’m so sick of hiding that I love you. They gotta live with it, because – because I can’t and won’t stop loving you.”

“We’ll find a way.” Tooru’s voice is quiet and calm, but his fingers shake where they rest on Hajime’s heart. “And if it means you staying here until we graduate, we’ll do that.”

They both know that it won’t be that easy. Hajime buries his face into Tooru’s warm shoulder and doesn’t say anything. But the smile that Tooru’s mother gives them when they come downstairs the next morning, hand in hand – well. Maybe it’s a start. Maybe it’s something like hope.

Tooru lies as naturally as he breathes. Years ago, when they were still children and far too naive and innocent, Hajime used to get upset about it. He remembers screaming and stomping his foot when Tooru said something untrue, and he knows that Tooru yelled something back that has stayed in Hajime’s mind, burnt into the core of his soul.

“I just lie ‘cause I want you to be happy.”

It hasn’t changed.

“I’m fine, Hajime.” Tooru smiles as if he’s just won the lottery, all white teeth and sweat on his forehead from hard training. Hajime’s hands wrap the bandage around his knee in practiced motions. “Of course,” he replies.

“I don’t need your help. Honestly, I don’t need this from you. You don’t have to treat me like I’m fragile or something, it’s not like I’m going to break.”

“Done.” Hajime shuts him up with a soft press of their lips. They rarely kiss during training, so Tooru’s breath comes to a sharp halt. His eyes are molten amber when Hajime pulls back, fingers touching Tooru’s warm cheek.

“I know you don’t need me,” Hajime says. His lies are bad, obvious, as if a bird was trying to use its wings for swimming. But Tooru still leans against the warm touch of Hajime’s hand and nods. “Yeah. I don’t. Let’s go and play.”

Tooru’s lies are perfect, except for Hajime. However intricate and delicately planned the castle of Tooru’s illusion may ever be, however hard he tries – Hajime finds a gap to push his hand through, and rest it onto Tooru’s heart. Maybe Tooru will never speak the truth.

Hajime doesn’t care. He reads Tooru’s wishes from the light in his eyes, and that amber-gold has never betrayed him once. They will be fine.

“I feel like I’ve been your boyfriend forever.”

Maybe Hajime intended for his words to sound romantic, but in Tooru’s head they ring all possible alarm bells. He jolts up from where he’s been resting his head on Hajime’s stomach, lazily eating some chocolate and wearing the most hideous aliens-and-Christmas sweater ever.

Hajime gives him an amused grin. “What? You alright there? I just said that it feels like we’ve been together for like, an eternity.”

“Are you bored with me?” This isn’t a joke, not to Tooru. He bites his lip, licking off the rest of sugar and whole milk chocolate, staring at his boyfriend. The snow outside falls in silence. Christmas is tomorrow, and they enjoy the last calm hours before both of their families come over and bring boasting life into the flat.

Hajime watches Tooru’s concerned face for a second.
“Well? Are you? You sound like you’re fed up.” Tooru begins to fidget. He reaches for Hajime’s cheeks, tea-cup-warmed fingers tracing his lover’s jaw. The worried line of his brows soften. “I love you, you kno-”

“I know! God, that’s not. Okay. Listen.” Hajime sighs, lips curling into a grin. “This is going to be embarrassing. Don’t interrupt me.”

And Tooru listens, mouth slightly open, as his boyfriend sits up and kisses his forehead. “I just meant that I feel like I know what an eternity with you feels like already. We’ve been doing this relationship-thing for some time. And… I think… that a ‘forever’ with you sounds like the best future I could wish for.”

Tooru is glad that their families are only coming over tomorrow. That way, he can spend his entire evening curled on Hajime’s lap, hands cradling his face like he’s a star fallen from the sky, and Tooru’s lips pressing snow-soft kisses onto his mouth with a whisper of “yes, yes, I want us to be forever”.

Tooru honestly never expected the day to come. He’s just never taken Hajime for someone who’s even interested in something like romance, or actual love. So he’s more than just a little surprised when Hajime enters the classroom, flops down on the chair next to him and says: “I have a date after school.”

“Oh,” Tooru says. His chest hurts all of a sudden. “That’s nice.”

“Are you happy for me?” Hajime watches him, arms crossed, something like a smirk playing on his lips. He’s probably really happy, Tooru thinks. And I’m a terrible person for wanting to know why a stupid, annoying girl is better than me.

“Yes,” is what he presses out, forced, but with a smile that flashes over his lips last-second. “Of course I am! Heh, you managed to find a cute one, didn’t you?”

“You could say that.” Hajime’s grin widens. He turns towards the blackboard and doesn’t say anything else as their teacher enters the classroom. Tooru feels like crying. He’s so stupid. He’s had his chance. Outside, snow starts to fall.

Training goes so-so that day. He’s not having one of his better days, and the team notices. Nobody calls him out on it. Hajime plays like a young god (but doesn’t he always, Tooru catches himself swooning), and he still wears that goddamn beautiful smile when they’re already in the changing room.

Tooru only notices that he’s alone with Hajime when he’s finished dressing. He turns around and Hajime stands there, opening the door to the snow-dotted sky, grey and white fluff. “C’mon,” he says. “We need to get going.”

“Right. Your date.” Tooru hates how small his voice is, how vulnerable. He clings to the strap of his bag and stares at the ground while walking past Hajime.

A warm, rough hand slips into his own. Hajime curls his thumb around Tooru’s freezing wrist and gently strokes along his skin. The touch sends sparks down his spine, but he doesn’t understand, why – why –

“Let’s go. I don’t wanna spend our first date out in the cold.” The clumsy kiss that is pressed to Tooru’s cheek moments later touches the corner of his mouth, and Tooru feels like he could fly. Hajime’s voice has gone scratchy. “’Cause, you know. I got a date with someone really cute. His name’s Tooru.”

“You’re – t-terrible.” And now there are tears on his cheeks, wet and stupid and Hajime kisses them off, a tremble in his lips that tells a story about being nervous and afraid and gathering all courage that he has and god, Tooru loves him. “I know,” Hajime smiles. “Let’s go.” – “Y-yeah. Okay.”

Tooru follows, his fingers warm and safe in Hajime’s grip.

Iwaoichristmasweek’15. Day 1: Snowmen.

Tooru is on his third energy drink when a quiet howl resounds outside his bedroom window. It’s been snowing all night, a shimmer of white resting on top of the roofs and chimneys of his hometown. The clock on his nightstand whispers 03:00am in neon digits. Tooru isn’t in a hurry when he rises from the bed, emptying his energy drink in one last gulp, and lazily walking over to the window. He keeps the blanket wrapped around himself; it has gotten ice-cold, even though it’s barely two weeks before Christmas.

When Tooru pulls the handle and opens his bedroom window, another howl echoes through the garden below.

“You’re gonna wake the neighbours! Shhhh!” Tooru lifts a finger to his lips, leaning slightly over the sill to frown at the dark figure that sits in the snow.

Hajime’s storm-grey fur is dappled with snowflakes. He looks a bit like an inverse appaloosa, Tooru thinks and grins. But when the large wolf cowers down to aim for a jump, Tooru hastily waves both hands.

“No, no! You’re not getting back in yet! I can’t risk you thrashing the entire room when you turn back human. My parents are gonna go insane, and they won’t believe that it was me sleepwalking and destroying all my furniture again.”

The wolf’s ears drop slightly. Tooru sighs. “I think it’s just another hour or so. Sorry. Hang on.” Then, the animal tilts his head, and jumps up. Tooru quirks a brow. “What are you doing? Don’t make any noise – Hajime? Huh?”

And minutes later, Tooru has to cup a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t laugh.

In the garden, his silly werewolf of a boyfriend has pushed up a pile of snow with his nose. The snow-sprinkled tail hangs low and tense in concentration as Hajime buries almost his entire face in the snow and presses it together into something that looks like – oh. Tooru smiles. He’s such a sap.

“Idiot,” he whispers, and blows a kiss into the garden. “Hurry up. I want to kiss you again.” The wolf shows his teeth and huffs. Tooru can already see his fur going thinner, the facial features changing. It won’t be long. He can’t wait.

In the morning, when Hajime is back in Tooru’s bed and warming up his cold now-human feet, the snow-sculpted heart in the garden is still there.

“I’m an athlete, for fuck’s sake. My body’s not supposed to look like that.”

“That,” Tooru says, without looking up from his book, “is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard you say.” He licks the pad of his finger, turns a page in his book and only then glares up at Hajime. “Who planted this stupidity into your head?”

“It’s true, though.” Hajime shrugs, pretending not to care. But fuck, he does. He’s been playing volleyball for as long as Tooru does, he started weight lifting in college and it’s going really well. It’s not that he’s weak – his spikes have been getting more violent and harder to receive, he’s built muscles, has gained agility and power and has overall physical abilities.

But his lower stomach is still fucking chubby.

Chubby! Why that?! I’m working so hard, Hajime thinks and pushes all air out of his lungs, trying to flatten his body as he looks into the mirror. How can an athlete like him still have baby fat or whatever this is? Maybe he’s bad at –

It takes Hajime a few moments to notice that Tooru hasn’t said anything else. When he turns around, another complaint sitting on the tip of his tongue, Tooru is staring at him. Hajime’s mouth snaps shut. He freezes. Tooru, he –

“You don’t even see one glimpse of how beautiful you are.” Tooru has moved to lie on his stomach, chin propped up on a hand, and he’s looking at Hajime as if he was some kind of miracle. Hajime knows that shimmer in Tooru’s eyes, the softness in his expression, how he tilts his head just slightly and how his perfect lips curve into a smile.

It’s the same look that Tooru wears every night before they sleep. The look he has when he tells Hajime “I love you”, and Hajime mumbles back “m-me too” because he’s still embarrassed about saying it.

Tooru heaves himself off the bed and steps forward. Hajime doesn’t move when warm fingers touch his shoulders, tracing down his broad chest and along the skin of his stomach, hitching from a sharp inhale of breath.
“It’s natural to have that. Doesn’t make you a worse athlete.” Tooru leans forward, making their foreheads touch. He keeps smiling as Hajime feels a red-hot blush rise in his cheeks.

“And you’ll always be gorgeous. I just wish you could see it. That you’re just – “

The only way to shut Tooru up when he gets so embarrassing is a kiss, and Hajime is willingly making that sacrifice before he’s going to combust. What an idiot boyfriend he has. Stupid, wonderful idiot.

All animals are irresistibly drawn towards Iwaizumi. He doesn’t know why, and he’s awkward and overly gentle when petting them. For a long time, Oikawa is jealous of all those little creatures that Iwaizumi touches as if they’re something precious.

But it gets better when Iwaizumi starts kissing him as if Oikawa is his entire universe, stars and moons and the light rising over the earth in the morning.

“Are you hurt?” is the first thing that Tooru says to him when he finds Hajime sitting in the palace garden, hidden underneath a bush with his bloody knee and twisted ankle, the crimson-purple flowers he’s tried to steal for his mother’s birthday carefully wrapped in a linen cloth next to him. But Hajime just shakes his head, and doesn’t flinch away when the other child touches his knee. “I’ll help you,” the boy says, and Hajime later learns that his name is Tooru and that he’s the crown prince or something boring.

Tooru asks him to come back. And so Hajime does, the next day, and the one after that.

“I never want you to leave,” is what Tooru says when he arrives at their secret meeting spot behind the water fountain with hands that are raw from training with a sword and eyes that are tired from hours of studying. Hajime promises that he won’t. Tooru hugs him for the first time and cries a bit. Soon, they lie on their backs and watch the sun set. Hajime goes to talk to that old man in town the next day, the one about whom his mother says that he used to be a guardian of a mighty ruler, that he knows the art of killing and fighting.

It turns out that she is right. And Hajime begins to learn.

“Kiss me,” is what Tooru whispers when they are seventeen and it’s a night that gleams from millions of stars, and Hajime has earned his place in the palace guard yesterday by taking down four of the King’s best men, one after another.

Hajime closes his eyes and breathes, slow. Tooru’s lips are soft that night, and every night after that.

“No!” and years later, Tooru’s voice echoes through the throne hall when Hajime stands before him, his sword drawn, the dagger of a man buried between his ribs and blood dripping onto Tooru’s lap. That is when Hajime turns around as the guards take that traitorous nobleman down. He smiles, his blood falling.

“Are you hurt, my love?” He says, quiet, and only Tooru hears it through the roaring crowd. Hajime closes his eyes. He hopes that he will wake up again.

“Hajime, look! It’s snowing!” Tooru flattens himself against the window of the locker room. “I can’t believe we’re going to have white winter holidays!” He smiles and tries to gets his face closer to the glass, squeezing his nose completely against the cold glass.

Behind him, Hajime gives a low grumble. “Yeah, yeah.” There’s a rustling of clothes and footsteps as Hajime walks up next to Tooru, finally finished with changing clothes. He’s always so slow after training, Tooru thinks, always the last one. But that’s alright. That way, Tooru can watch the soft shift of his muscles when he pulls off his shirt. That way, he can stare from the corner of his eyes, at the man whom he’s loved for – well.

He can’t remember not loving Hajime. It’s so bad. The feeling is warm, his heart burns and sends sparks and god, Hajime is all he’s ever dreamt of.

“Oooh, look!” Tooru peels himself off the glass and whirls around, pulling Hajime by the wrist – “careful, you idiot!” – and out of the locker room. “That’s so pretty!”

They’re standing outside, and Tooru smiles. A snowflake touches his nose when he lifts his head. It’s not much, but the white shimmer is gently covering the whole earth in frost and cold. “It’s going to look beautiful tomorrow,” Tooru says.

“Yeah,” Hajime says next to him, and his hand slides into Tooru’s. “You look beautiful.”

“I – w-what?” Did he just –

Hajime… blushes. It’s something Tooru has never seen before, and he stares at his best friend, lips slightly parted, and his fingers grip Hajime’s more tightly when his friend tries to pull away. But Hajime doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t take it back. This – this wonderful, stupid idiot stares at Tooru as if he’s the winter wonder here, and then he leans in and breathes a soft kiss against Tooru’s trembling lips.

“It’s really pretty,” Hajime says, very quiet. When he starts walking and pulls Tooru behind himself, the redness has crawled all the way into his neck and up to his cheekbones. “C’mon. It’s cold.”

Tooru can’t speak. He just follows, wordless, and rubs an arm over his face to keep those stupid warm tears from flowing. But Hajime’s hand is in his own, where Tooru has wanted it to be for years, an eternity, and that’s all that matters.

“Those are glasses.”

Tooru lifts an eyebrow and rests one hand on his tilted hip. “So attentive, Hajime. Yes, they are.”

“Glasses,” Hajime echoes. “Which means you see better now.” He’s starting to sound a little bit like a parrot, Tooru thinks and can’t keep himself from snickering. But instead of scolding him for it, Hajime just stares at him as if he’d just stripped naked and tried to dance on the table (hey, that was just once, okay. College is a crazy place.)

But suddenly, just when Tooru is about to wave a hand in front of his boyfriend’s face, Hajime jolts. “Okay. So. Yeah.” And strangely, he turns away from Tooru and lowers his head. “That’s fine.”

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like it,” Tooru says and raises his other brow as well. What is up with Hajime? Maybe he thinks Tooru’s ugly now? Oh God. The sting inside his chest is ice-cold. “Don’t you like me with glasses…?”

“No!” Hajime whirls around, cheeks burning, and it looks like he’s shielding his face from the sun because he holds his hand up really awkwardly. “I just. You always look good. I just. I mean, you see better now, right. Uhm.”

This is getting weirder by the second. Tooru grabs his boyfriend’s hand and peels it off his face. “Come on, I can see something’s bothering you. Are they that ugly – put your hand down, what are you even – wait.”

And somehow, it hits him. Tooru lets go of Hajime and his eyes widen. No. That can’t be – or can it? Hajime’s face has taken on the colour of a sunset, and he rubs his neck, staring to the floor. Tooru swallows, hard, and gently takes his hands. “Are you – why won’t you look at me?”

“Because maybe you won’t find me attractive anymore.”

Tooru blinks. That is – “…the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He sighs, and lightly presses his forehead against Hajime’s. “Look. Hey, look at me.” And when Hajime does it, Tooru smiles, soft and mischievous. “I know how you look when you come, and I know that face up close. I know you drool when you sleep. Glasses won’t change how much I love you.”

“You honestly turn every love confession into an insult.” Hajime gently punches him into his ribcage but still grins, and then he snatches the glasses right off Tooru’s face to kiss him, lifting his head up high to reach him.