Chocolate Pancakes.

“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.

“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.

“Why do you still care?”

Hajime is silent. His fingers brush white ointment onto Tooru’s split lip. His soft skin bleeds red.

“Because someone has to?” Tooru asks, rough. “Is it a chore to care for me?”

Hajime pulls the bloody shirt over Tooru’s head. He stuffs him into one of his own sweaters, fingers shaking in rage and fear and why-couldn’t-I-protect-you. Because Tooru doesn’t let him, that’s why. Hajime wants to bite that fake smile off his pretty red lips.

“Stop. Just – god, stop. ‘m not worth it. You’re wasting your time. Hajime, stop.”

And he takes Tooru’s bruised knuckles and leans them against his forehead. It takes minutes to find his voice, a scared little thing in the back of his throat. When he speaks, it’s a sentence that’s twelve years old, and finally falls out.

“You’re worth it, idiot. All of if. You’ve always been worth it. Shit, you – you go and get into fights or hook up with people just to, what – feel something?” Hajime breathes. Tooru is quiet, stares at him, and he’s so beautiful in Hajime’s old sweater and with a hint of a blush on his cheeks that Hajime’s heart breaks.

He swallows, and kisses the soft space between Tooru’s knuckles. “Let me make you feel. Just once, let me try, ‘kay? I’ll do anything. Just lemme keep you safe. Can’t stand seeing you bleed.”

For a long time, Tooru’s breath is the only noise. Then, something drips onto Hajime’s hand. “Okay.” Tooru says, voice tiny. “Okay, Hajime.” And he cries.

“Hey, Haji. Do you think we’ll be forever?”

A typical Tooru-question, Hajime thinks, but of course he replies. “No. Nothing’s forever, not even the universe we live in. Move your butt, don’t wanna spill food.” He balances a tray full of sandwiches and two protein shakes to the couch table, then slumping down on their old couch just as Tooru pulls his legs out of the way. The window is right in front of them; the meteor shower will begin soon.

“Aw, come on! You’re not fun anymore since you started studying physics.” Tooru pouts, arms crossed over his chest. And then, soft, quiet: “So no forever.”

Hajime thinks that he’s gorgeous in his low sweatpants and baby blue alien shirt. That’s his boyfriend, his lover. Somehow, Hajime’s allowed to adore him, he’s the one who Tooru loves to tease and drive to insanity and kiss, late at night, when he’s done counting stars.

Hajime sighs. “Hey.” Tooru’s dark eyes go wide when Hajime presses a reverent kiss to his jaw, his temple, lips moving until their lips are inches away.

“No, I don’t believe in forever,” Hajime whispers. Tooru trembles below him, fingers catching Hajime’s hair. He sighs, says “…but? Please, Hajime.”

The first meteors fall. Tooru curls against his chest when Hajime promises into the soft skin of his neck:

“But we could be a lifetime.”

‘Lavender.’ – fic. iwaoi.

Iwaizumi Hajime / Oikawa Tooru.

Rating: General Audiences

Characters: Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime, Sugawara Koushi, Sawamura Daichi

Tags: Alternate Universe – College/University, Brief Mention of Blood, no character death or serious injuries, Fluff, Angst, Getting Together, Fluff and Angst, Mental Instability, Mental Breakdown, Hurt/Comfort

Chapters: 1/1 (complete)

Words: 5,457

Summary:

Graduation ends, college begins, and Hajime lives through a kaleidoscope of moments with Oikawa. They’re still teammates, friends, and now roommates, even as the world changes and old memories transform into something else, new and confusing and breathtaking.

Tooru, his heart whispers.

Read on ao3.

‘Lavender.’ – fic. iwaoi.