Work Text:
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Tooru is deeply pondering the physics of an event that appears to be happening in deep, slow motion right before his very eyes—even though he knows it’s not remotely possible that beads of sweat can roll down the glimmering, almost bronze stretch of skin over the most perfect set of toned abs that slowly, that tantalisingly—when Hanamaki rudely flicks him front and centre above his eyebrows.
“Makki!” he cries, pressing his hands to his throbbing forehead. “So rude!”
“When you said you wanted to study in the sun today, I said fine. When you said you’d finally found a nice spot of grass where no one would bother us, I said fine.” Remorse for his actions is nowhere to be found on Hanamaki’s face as he monologues on. “But here? Sitting by the indoor court, specifically in front of this window so you can watch the volleyball team’s practice? Not only neglecting our assignment, but involving me in your lewd gawking? I cannot abide.”
Tooru’s cheeks, already heated and splotchy from the unyielding rays of the summer sun, warm even more at Hanamaki’s accusatory tone. “I’m not gawking! And I’m not lewd!”
“Uh-huh. Pretty sure you’ve got some drool on your face.”
Even though he definitely wasn’t drooling, Tooru wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb anyway. Just to be safe. “Don’t act like you’re all high and mighty, Makki! You were literally telling me the other day how the vice captain has a ‘biteable ass’.”
Hanamaki shrugs, the crinkled material of his flannel scrunching up around his shoulders. “And I meant it. But that doesn’t mean I’m following him around campus, panting like a dog every time his shirt lifts up. It’s like you’ve never seen a man’s torso before.”
“I am not panting like a dog!”
“So you admit you are following him around campus?”
“No—I… Makki, shut up!”
This is how things are going.
Oikawa Tooru is twenty. Oikawa Tooru’s best and only friend is Hanamaki Takehiro—though he questions this decision every single day. Oikawa Tooru has a pimple the size of a crater hiding underneath his fringe that he’s specifically styled for the express purpose of hiding the monstrosity.
Oikawa Tooru is also unpopular, an absolute loser and will die with his virginity intact for the rest of his loser life.
Honestly, up until the current university semester started, he’d made his peace with this knowledge. He’d completely bypassed having hopes of growing out of the awkward teenage phase and wasn’t so green to think that things would be better as he got older, that maybe when he got to college things would start changing in his favour.
It’s not like he’s overtly strange or anything. Sure, he likes space and given the time and platform he might passionately rant about what kind of unknown life-forms he really thinks live out there in the vast galaxy. And yes, when he’s not studying he spends the majority of his time religiously rewatching shows or reading or preparing his costume for the next convention. And granted, maybe one time he stuttered so horrifically in front of a customer at his previous part-time job that he immediately handed in his two weeks notice the next day.
And his life isn’t an American romantic comedy where he spent eighteen years of his life looking like the before version of the makeover montage and people had been shallow enough to bully him for his appearance, but it’s certainly not a coincidence that his classmates only stopped leaving a one seat gap when he finally got his braces off and started wearing contacts over his high-myopic glasses.
So he’s not a conventionally handsome hunk, but he’s also not, like, a creature from the sewers or anything. He’s a bit of a geek and a nerd, but he keeps that to himself. He’s not that embarrassing to be around.
He’s just a little… awkward. And slightly neurotic. And is very possibly bad at making other friends.
He accepted that this was who he was, and he was happier not living in denial about it. He wasn’t good with conversation and it was a complete car crash when he forced it. The thought of putting in effort to develop connections with new people made him feel physically ill, but frankly, quite exhausted too. He wasn’t interested in novel experiences and liked life within his little bubble.
Resigned to an uneventful (but completely satisfactory by Tooru’s standards, really) life with zero romantic prospects, he buried his head in his studies and figured he might as well try to set himself up with a career path that would allow him to be financially stable on his own.
Tooru’s smarter than most. While he isn’t a natural genius and still very much has to put effort into being at the top of his class, he genuinely enjoys reaping the rewards of studying hard and dedicating himself to his education.
The next several years of his life were already planned out. Complete his undergraduate degrees, eventually take the national bar examination and then begin his year of internship for experience. And in between all of that, he envisioned saving enough to buy his own place, learning how to cook more than instant ramen for dinner, adopting a dog (or three) at some stage and then living comfortably ever after.
If he found someone he liked enough to share that life with, and someone that liked him enough to want to be a part of that life, then he would welcome it.
(Or if that was being too optimistic, he would’ve been cool with someone throwing him an eh, good enough before granting him a possibly drunken one night stand—just to experience it at least once. How that would happen without him attending any parties or liking partaking in alcohol is yet to be determined. However, this is beside the point.)
But he wasn’t actively looking to fall in love. He didn’t think he even wanted to be with someone like that.
And then Iwaizumi Hajime happened.
Iwaizumi with his dreamy, million-watt smile that could obliterate the darkest of shadows. Iwaizumi with his gigantic bicep muscles that made Tooru want to sink his teeth into them. Iwaizumi with the captivating way he leapt into the air with arm poised, his immaculate form like someone destined for fame and recognition for the rest of his life, before he swung his hand down and smashed volleyballs into the ground like he could split the earth open. Iwaizumi with every single person (regardless of gender or sexuality or morals or anything) wrapped around his finger because he’s singlehandedly the most kind, magnetic and charismatic man to ever exist and Tooru’s alive at the same time as him, in his proximity too—just one of hundreds desperate to be noticed.
It’s unfair how he’s tipped Tooru’s entire world off its axis and he doesn’t even know of Tooru’s existence, let alone his name. Everyday he unknowingly inflicts damage on Tooru’s psyche and he’s doing it again, right now—like the absolute sadist he is.
Iwaizumi and his rock hard abs that have had the perfect sheen of sweat on them for the last thirty minutes. Iwaizumi and the sliver of muscled, tanned upper thigh peeking out between his shorts and the devastating compression tights he’s wearing today. Fucking hell. Tooru takes a deep breath and has to muster herculean strength to tear his gaze away, even though his brain has already taken a million pictures of the moment.
(What he does with the mental snapshots in his own private time later is his business, thank you very much.)
When he meets Hanamaki’s eyes, the bastard is smirking at him with the smugness of a cat that got the cream.
“Not gawking, he says.”
“Shut your mouth, Makki!”
Tooru suffers.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Tooru’s had crushes before. In first grade, there was Miko-chan who lived two houses down and always wore her hair in two little buns on top of her head, styled with bright pink scrunchies. Because they lived so close and attended the same elementary school, their mothers instructed them to hold hands when walking to school together and cooed and clucked at the display of innocent affection until they safely made it down the street and onto the school grounds.
Developing an infatuation for Miko-chan was to be expected, especially when it was shoved down his throat over and over again that they might fall in love and marry each other someday. But when Miko-chan turned six and Tooru still had four more months until he did too, she told him they didn’t have to hold hands the whole way anymore as she sped ahead and left him to catch up. She also called him a cry-baby—all because he hadn’t learned how to stop being upset at leaving his mother (his favourite person in the world, by the way) every morning.
It took Tooru’s poor fragile heart a few years to recover from the brutal dumping and when it did, it immediately latched onto a boy in his homeroom class, his last year of middle school.
And anyone could imagine what that revelation was like.
Naturally, that crush took even longer to come back from. Since then, it’s been a while since anyone really, truly caught his eye—in both a figurative and literal sense, considering the way he pointedly avoids eye contact with strangers at all costs. However, he does know what it feels like to have his heart racing, to look for someone in every room, to doodle hearts and shared last names in notebooks. He’s familiar with imagining futures together and fantasising about being brave enough to say something.
But this is different.
With how intensely he’s fixating on Iwaizumi—someone he’s never said a proper sentence to, it’s bordering on the verge of insanity and Tooru feels like he’ll die if he doesn’t find out what Iwaizumi’s lips taste like at least once in his life.
He’s never not thinking about him. During class. When he’s shopping for groceries. In Hanamaki’s apartment where they’re meant to be working on assignments together. In the shower, in bed, in all of his dreams. Even when he’s doing something as simple and unsexy as clipping his fingernails.
Some days he feels delirious and physically unwell with the intensity of how much he wants—needs to be with Iwaizumi. Gone are the innocent thoughts of gentle touches and suburban houses with picket fences, replaced by a degenerate obsession to use and be used, to live out the rest of his days with a collar around his neck and the attached leash fisted tight in Iwaizumi’s hand.
He does want a first kiss. He wants a first time and so much more, and he wants it all to be with Iwaizumi and only Iwaizumi. If marriage was in the cards, he’d gladly welcome that too.
He’s losing his mind, maybe. Probably. Definitely.
The spiralling began in April when it’d still been a little cool in temperature and spring blossom petals littered the university grounds, sticking to shoes and painting the campus a soft pink all over.
Doing a double undergraduate degree meant that Tooru’s days were packed to the brim with classes and because the universe seemed to pick on him a little more than the average person, his introductory class to the other half of his degree was situated all the way on the other side of campus. The current seminar was already running five minutes over and Tooru had already gathered his belongings into his arms, leaping up from his seat and beelining to the door the second they were dismissed.
In the haste of everyone else also rushing to leave, another student nudged Tooru a little too far down the auditorium steps, sending him stumbling and his things flying out of his arms.
(God had it out for him. Of this, he was certain.)
As he got down on his hands and knees to collect his things, blushing profusely from the embarrassment, he considered if he really needed academia in his life and how to go about dropping out of college altogether. Would life as a convenience store worker be fulfilling enough? Could he finesse his way into living the life of a sugar baby? Surely there was at least one wealthy older man out there in the market for a gangly virgin with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Tooru stood again to see if he’d missed anything now that the crowd had thinned out when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
He could’ve sworn—somewhere, somehow, against all laws of physics, he heard it.
That heavily sensual opening melody, full of yearning and desire. The sweet feminine crooning of a woman experiencing a love so passionate it stole the oxygen from her lungs. A tune predating his birth, though he’d heard it countless times before through his father’s stereo as his parents slow danced in the living room.
Debuted in 1986, written for a movie about pilots and in-air combat—featured in a steamy scene between the male lead and his love interest.
At that very moment, as Tooru turned around and laid eyes on at what surely was the hottest fucking man he’d ever seen in his life, Take My Breath Away started blasting at full volume in his brain.
“You dropped this,” Iwaizumi said, hand outstretched with Tooru’s notebook in offering.
He couldn’t speak. All sense of language, words as short and basic as thank you were jammed inside his throat as the moment stretched out between them. His mouth gaped open as his eyes darted from his notebook to Iwaizumi’s eyes, down to his patiently smiling, perfectly kissable mouth and back up again. Tooru became painfully aware of the fact that he was a little taller than him and could see the tops of his long, dark lashes.
More of his features were rapidly catalogued in Tooru’s mind in the pause. The boyish cut of his dark hair, cropped and spiky with gel at the crown of his head but softer around his ears. His ears. A hint of collarbone poking out from the neck of his t-shirt, fitted snugly over his obviously toned chest and upper arms. His sharp jaw.
His eyes.
The way he didn’t look uncomfortable with the stifling silence or put off by Tooru’s completely pitiful trout-like reaction.
He just looked kind.
(If not mildly concerned.)
With his free hand, he reached for Tooru’s wrist and the contact sent electricity shooting all through his nerves, a live wire with a current of a million volts suddenly running through it. He burned where Iwaizumi’s fingers touched him, felt the callouses on Iwaizumi’s palm against his own skin as the notebook was gently pressed into his hand. Iwaizumi folded his fingers around it so that he wouldn’t drop it again and stepped back, letting go of his arm.
Iwaizumi grinned, all perfect teeth and blinding radiance, and Tooru felt it like an arrow to the chest. With a small wave, he said, “See ya,” and slipped into the group of remaining students exiting the room.
Like magic, the song followed Iwaizumi out the door.
The next professor had arrived and almost all of the next class had taken their seats before Tooru realised he was still standing there, standing exactly where Iwaizumi had touched his hand, and hastily scrambled out of the room with his heart racing.
He arrived fifteen minutes late to his own next class and bowed a million times for the rude interruption, but found himself not as bothered by the snickers that followed him to his seat as he normally would’ve been.
Hanamaki acknowledged him with a lazy nod, retracting the limbs he’d sprawled over the next chair to save Tooru’s seat. He pulled the chewed pen from his mouth as Tooru unloaded his things onto the table. “Oikawa Tooru? Late to class? Are pigs falling out of the sky?”
“Makki,” he started, but couldn’t find the rest of his vocabulary.
“Did you get beat up for your lunch money on the way or something?” Hanamaki asked, a hint of genuine concern seeping into his voice at Tooru’s lack of defensive retort.
“Makki,” he said again, still breathless.
Hanamaki’s hands came up to squish his cheeks together, turning his head and forcing their eyes to meet. The professor’s voice droned on from the front of the room. “Oikawa. Are you okay?”
“I think I…” Tooru exhaled shakily, hopelessly. “I think I just experienced love at first sight.”
Approximately a hundred heads whipped around at the sound of the slap swiftly delivered to the back of Tooru’s head, thunder loud and echoing through the almost full lecture hall. The teacher’s mouth snapped shut mid-sentence to glare daggers at them both. He let Hanamaki be the one to stand up and bow in apology—not for payback but because his head was still up in the clouds, still sitting love-struck as he replayed the moment over and over again in his mind.
No one had ever smiled at Tooru like that before.
So sincerely, like he wasn’t a faceless being in the way, or a nuisance for asking questions, or public enemy number one because he’d inadvertently reminded the teacher that homework was due simply by turning in his own well before the deadline.
He smiled like Tooru was a friend. Someone he already knew and even liked.
So genuinely. So patiently. So beautifully.
And really—who wouldn’t fall in love with Iwaizumi after that?
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Identifying the handsome stranger, which became Tooru’s only priority after the encounter, had proven difficult when Iwaizumi didn’t appear in person again until about a month later.
Tooru, for those few weeks, was meticulous with his hair and choice in attire and rocked up to class even earlier than he already did, hoping to chance another meeting without any success.
The next time he saw Iwaizumi wasn’t in class, or the dining square in the middle of campus, or out on the lawns or ovals where students gathered to study on nicer days—all areas he’d very casually walked loops around while Hanamaki bitched beside him about all the unnecessary exercise. In fact, it was near a building he never frequented himself; the university’s indoor court facilities and somehow, the last place he looked despite knowing Iwaizumi’s physique couldn’t have come from genetics alone.
Practice must’ve been letting out when Tooru finally spotted a familiar spiky head of hair and stopped dead in his tracks. Hanamaki, trailing closely behind him, slammed hard into his back and let out a surprised sound at the impact. “Dude, what are you doing?”
Tooru clapped a hand over his mouth and backed them up until they were both crouched behind some shrubbery and a wooden bench, Iwaizumi and his team visible through the slats. He stifled a yelp when he felt Hanamaki’s tongue on his palm and yanked back his hand.
Hanamaki turned to peer through the bench as well, making no effort to contort his six-foot body into hiding like Tooru was. “Is that Mr. Love at First Sight, then?”
Tooru wiped the spit onto his pants and hissed out a shhhh. “Inside voice, Makki!”
“We’re outside.”
“They might hear us. Sound carries, you know!”
“You’re being dramatic. Is he the tall one with the thick brows? Didn’t think he was your type, though I will say—great taste.”
He zeroed in on the player with the #2 on his jersey. He had admirable posture despite his larger frame and had an aloof, relaxed demeanor, but Tooru couldn’t admire his height or anything else when Iwaizumi was right there. “No, not him. It’s #1,” he replied, pointing out the number on Iwaizumi’s teal and white jersey. The team captain, to no one’s surprise.
Hanamaki squinted, then gave a low whistle. “Oh, shit. He is good-looking.”
“Right?! Isn’t he?!”
“Yeah. Guess that girl thinks so too.”
Tooru’s head back swivelled around so quickly it was a miracle it didn’t spin right off his shoulders.
In the mere moments that he’d been looking away, the team had begun walking away, hooting and catcalling over their shoulders as a petite looking girl came to stand in front of Iwaizumi who’d stayed behind and now had his back facing Tooru’s hiding spot. Their voices were so low that he couldn’t pick up a single word with his ears strained, but he saw the way her face got progressively more red as she spoke, her shaky fingers as she pulled an envelope from her bag and hesitantly held it between them.
The bottom of Tooru’s stomach vaulted out of him. The envelope could’ve been anything, but he recognised that posture, the mannerisms—the song and dance associated with confessing to someone. Something he’d never been brave enough to do. Something he saw happening to others all the time, and now to Iwaizumi as Tooru watched from afar.
What felt like painful hours with his breath held (but was probably only seconds) passed before Iwaizumi carefully folded his hands over the envelope, pushing the girl’s hands back towards her own body. He bowed and rubbed the back of his head when he straightened again, a nervous gesture that Tooru felt instant adoration for, as well as relief at what was clearly a rejection.
He commended the girl’s ability to offer a bow in response without fully crashing out, though her eyes looked shiny and her lip wobbled as she walked away. Tooru would’ve done no less than submerge himself into the ocean out of humiliation.
“Can’t believe we just watched that happen. You could look a little less happy about a girl getting her heart broken,” said Hanamaki.
Tooru waited until Iwaizumi rounded the corner before he stood up from behind the bench, ankles and knees cracking from holding the crouch so long. “Who said I was happy about it? I’m not that crappy of a person.”
“That giant, shit-eating smile says so.”
He pressed his lips together but it was no use—he really was pleased. He was thrilled that he didn’t have to watch someone he’d been obsessing over for the last month strike up a new relationship right before his eyes, and even more-so for the fact that there could’ve been a plethora of reasons for Iwaizumi to turn her down.
(And maybe, just maybe, one of those reasons could be that Iwaizumi isn’t into women.
Never mind that his hypothetical chances only improved microscopically with that factored in. A man can dream.)
The relief, however, is short-lived.
Because to his great but unsurprising dismay, he learns that Iwaizumi gets confessed to almost every week.
After some light sleuthing, Tooru found him tagged in a photo on the social media account of the collegiate volleyball club and now, more often than realistically possible, it’s like he hears Iwaizumi’s name everywhere. Students with no shortage of appreciative commentary when he walks by, turning heads and catching eyes. Groups collectively tittering about what kind of chocolates Iwaizumi might like and how they’re planning to ask him out. Tooru even happens to catch two other separate occasions where Iwaizumi is stopped by a blushing classmate, various gifts and a letter in hand.
Both times, Tooru’s gut twists with an anxiety and jealousy he’s not entitled to feel as he realises this might finally be the lucky person.
Each time, Iwaizumi turns them down with a politeness that is as honourable as it is upsetting.
Presently, Tooru tries to not stare as yet another girl has her turn of getting her heart broken in his periphery as he speeds through the quad, this one with significantly less grace than the others as she immediately bursts into tears before Iwaizumi even has a chance to fully apologise.
He feels bad for them, but he can’t help but observe with intrigue; with the fascination of a scientist studying new life forms or a researcher monitoring a new development in their environment. It’s foreign to him, this fearlessness that he’s never possessed. When he retires to his own apartment after a half day of classes, he finds himself in his bathroom reflecting on the bravery of his peers—how much courage it would’ve taken to shoot their shot.
Could Tooru do it too? Will he ever be that courageous?
He recalls the movements of their soft, cherry red lips, the way their mouths move around the words. Please go out with me. I like you, Iwaizumi-kun. Please accept my confession. He holds his own gaze in the mirror and steels himself.
He can do this. It’s practice.
“Iwai—” he tries, voice cracking on the first syllable. He clears his throat and tries again. “Iwaizumi-san,” he finally gets out and his face warms just at saying the name out loud for the first time.
He really is the most pathetic person in the universe.
It’s just practice.
He subconsciously reaches up to smooth out his hair, tucking a piece behind his ear like he’s seen the girls do when they’re flustered and looking shy in that incredibly endearing way. Tooru just looks like he’s hiding something. “I know we haven’t really spoken before and you probably don’t even remember who I am, but…”
C’mon, Tooru. Get to the point.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Just say it.
“P-please… please accept my confession!” Tooru shouts at his own reflection, the startling volume of his voice echoing back at him in the tiny room.
Once the reverberations stop bouncing off the tiles, he’s left staring at his own red-cheeked face, breaths huffing out of him from the sheer effort of forcing the words out. It’s just Tooru, standing alone in his home, fake-confessing to a mirror because he hasn’t got the spine to tell his real crush how he feels. Embarrassment immediately claws its way up from his chest.
He abruptly turns on his heel and slams the bathroom door shut, running to his room where he grabs a pillow and screams into it.
Not happening. Never in a million fucking years.
It’s fine. Everything is just fine.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
It’s probably been, and he doesn’t say this lightly, the longest year of Tooru’s life.
The days are long, filled with endless assignments across both of his degrees, rejections from various places with Help Wanted signs in the windows (even though he definitely doesn’t have time to hold down a part-time job right now but he needs something other than instant ramen packs in his body before it shuts down), and late nights spent studying and revising and reading paragraphs of theory until his eyes feel like they’re about to melt out of his head. Even time spent with Hanamaki is spent with their heads in their hands, taking turns trying to hype each other up and losing steam every five minutes.
He’s always had a keen interest in the law—loved learning about aspects like the psychology behind profiling, dispute resolution and the procedural side of things. But there are only so many times he can read the words commits a wrongful action or violates someone else's personal, property, or dignity rights before his overloaded brain explodes into sparks.
And on top of all of it, his stupid feelings for Iwaizumi haven’t waned in the slightest. He’s been spotting him less and less around the campus with how strict Tooru’s had to be with himself, but that hardly makes a difference. If anything, he yearns to see Iwaizumi even more than before and his only solace through the dreary days are his rare sightings of the World’s Most Handsome Man™.
Every now and then he’ll spot Iwaizumi when he and his team are doing laps around the oval. Other times it’s a glimpse of the top of his head in the cafeteria. His voice from a few rows behind Tooru in the auditorium, on the extremely infrequent occasions that he attends in person. His solid back, arm poised to strike in the indoor court that one time Tooru had skipped studying for one afternoon just to catch one of Iwaizumi’s practice games. He thought about that game for weeks after—Iwaizumi’s sweat-tracked neck and enormous biceps taking their place as the stars of Tooru’s late night fantasies.
Once every fortnight is probably how often Tooru sees him these days. Enough to get by and just enough to keep him madly infatuated from afar. Not enough for Tooru to sack up and actually talk to him yet, but he figures he just needs a little more time. Perhaps a sign to push him in the right direction.
The day everything changes, the day the aforementioned sign arrives is right before the winter break starts, when Tooru’s pining over Iwaizumi has now reached its eighth consecutive month.
Some students stay in the city, though most of the students around Tooru’s age are preparing to head home for the break.
Both he and Hanamaki were born and raised in Miyagi, so they always travel back together in between semesters to stay with their families, stop by their old school to greet their teachers (Tooru’s idea) and bother their juniors, the underclassmen from their applied classes (Hanamaki’s idea). The rest of the break is usually spent either gaming with Takeru (because he’s at the age where they can only bond through virtually shooting at things together), or helping his mother out around the house while she tries to fatten him up as much as possible in two weeks.
He hasn’t lived at home for at least two years now, but his bedroom has stayed exactly the same. Nothing humbles him quite like trying to fall asleep with idol posters and shelves of plushies and acrylic stands staring directly at him, and when he tells Hanamaki about it, he receives a smarmy kind of grin in response.
“Don’t act like there isn’t an upgraded shrine in your student housing apartment, Oikawa. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
Tooru gasps with indignation. “How many times have I told you not to snoop around in my bedroom?!”
Several eyes turn towards him with annoyance at his raised voice. Embarrassed, Tooru stutters out an apology before pulling his hood over to conceal his flushed face. Hanamaki snickers beside him, his large hand resting on the overhead bar for stability as their bodies sway slightly with the turn. “Inside voice,” he mimics in a nasally tone. “We’re on a train, you heathen.”
“I hate you,” Tooru huffs.
“Sure you do.”
“You’re the worst,” he grouses, squeezing his backpack between his ankles to make room for other passengers to walk by when the train begins pulling into the next station.
Music chimes as the train slows to a stop, when the hairs on the back of Tooru’s neck suddenly raise—something like an instinctual warning that compulsively makes him peer over his shoulder just as a figure stands and moves closer to the doors to exit.
He recognises who it is before his eyes even properly process the features of the person standing less than a metre away from him. Dark, messy hair squished under expensive-looking headphones. Tanned skin peeking out from the collar of a track jacket. Thick, furrowed brows that raise with surprise as he moves his headphones to hook around his neck and looks up.
Right at Tooru.
Tooru’s frozen in place, body not fighting nor flighting but a third, more horrifying option of his feet being completely rooted to the spot as Iwaizumi’s eyes, mossy green and utterly piercing and catching in the light, meets his for the first time in months.
For the first time since that very first time that Iwaizumi reached into his chest and plucked his heart right from his ribcage.
He’ll probably look away. Tooru’s just in the way of who Iwaizumi’s seen and actually knows, and Tooru’s just a momentary stop for his gaze as it reaches its true destination, but he doesn’t dare breathe until Iwaizumi’s eyes move away.
Instead, they light up in recognition, the skin around the outer corners crinkling with delight. Then, his mouth opens and it still doesn’t feel real, but his voice (the exact same as it is in Tooru’s memories, the one that plays on a continuous loop since first hearing it) says, “Oh, Oikawa, right?”
Iwaizumi’s lips stretch into a smile. Familiar. Dazzling. Heartbreaking.
“Hey.”
Tooru falls forward and hits the floor face-first.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
When he comes to, his head is leaning against Hanamaki’s shoulder, he can feel his glasses haphazardly propped up in his hair and there’s something covering his lap.
He shifts with a groan and Hanamaki doesn’t react to the movement, keeping his eyes glued to his phone. “Finally awake?”
There’s a throbbing sensation behind the bridge of Tooru’s nose. His mouth feels dry. “What happened?”
“You’ve been out for like, ten minutes,” Hanamaki answers. “I need to check if you’re concussed. Do you know your name? Where are we right now? Did you or did you not shit yourself on the bus on our way to the athletics carnival in the sixth grade?”
“Oikawa. We’re on the train. And no—I’ve told you a million times that there was dirt on the seat and it got onto my pants,” he grumbles, pushing his crooked frames onto his nose and looking down at the material over his legs. It’s a club jacket which he knows doesn’t belong to him or Hanamaki since they haven’t willingly participated in school sports since it stopped becoming mandatory physical education. It’s got the signature teal accents of the university’s crest, sharply contrasted over a clean white expanse and if the prominent number one plastered right in the centre of the back wasn’t enough to get Tooru’s heart racing, the crisp lettering of Iwaizumi above it certainly is.
His body jolts upright in an instant.
“Makki,” he says, interrupting Hanamaki’s spiel about Tooru being a liar, that this is a safe space and it’s okay to admit he crapped his pants even though they were both hitting puberty. “Makki, why is this jacket in my lap right now.”
“Because Iwaizumi put it there after you fainted in front of him, which didn’t totally shoot your chances in the foot if I might say so myself.”
Because Iwaizumi put it there.
After Tooru…
All at once, it comes rushing back to him with the force of a thousand slaps. After he fucking passed out when Iwaizumi said his name.
Tooru feels so unbelievably unwell, head spinning as the taste of bile rises into his mouth. He might actually be concussed. That, or the embarrassment of fainting in front of the love of his life has manifested enough power to begin corroding his insides until he dies a slow, torturous death from organ failure.
Hanamaki continues, oblivious to Tooru’s agony. He vaguely registers parts of Hanamaki’s yammering, hearing tried to catch and like a corpse and nice guy but the rest doesn’t even sound like coherent sentences. For the second time this year, he inwardly lays out the steps required to drop out of his degree and wonders how he’s ever going to show his face around Tokyo ever again.
But…
Another piece of the humiliating ordeal surfaces in his memory. The cacophony of mental screaming comes to a momentary halt.
Iwaizumi said his name. Iwaizumi, the most gorgeous man alive, somehow knows his name even though they’ve only formally met once. Tooru’s name actually came out of his mouth, and not because he was referring to a small, freshwater fish for whatever reason. He looked Tooru in the eye and said, Oikawa, right?
“Where did he… Where did Iwaizumi go?” Tooru asks, trying to gather the strength to not pass out again because what does it mean? How does Iwaizumi know his name? What the fuck does it mean?
“He said he had to go because it was his stop, so he couldn’t stick around,” says Hanamaki. “But I told him we were getting off at the same stop and that I’d make sure you’d wake up again. Aren’t I just the nicest friend?”
“But—his jacket?”
“Not sure why he left that, actually. But he did seem genuinely concerned about your possible death through concussion being on his hands, which is why I think—”
Tooru zones out after that, fragments that sound like pocket and note going in one ear and out the other. He’s still in a daze when the train pulls into Sendai station, picking up his bag and following Hanamaki to the ticket gates like his body is being operated via remote control. He makes it all the way back to his parents’ home without remembering the journey—entirely mesmerised by the item of clothing in his hands.
The house is quiet when he calls out a greeting. Absently, he recalls his last text conversation with his mother where she apologised for not being able to collect him from the station. Takeru’s first official soccer game, his mind supplies.
Tooru makes his way to his bedroom, barely acknowledging the eyes of his figurines or posters as he drops his belongings on the floor. The bed creaks under his weight. For a moment, he just sits with the fabric clutched tightly between his fingers.
Then, after a century, he moves.
He doesn’t mean to—or maybe he does, but knows he probably shouldn’t even as he’s doing it, but he brings the fabric up to his nose and breathes in.
The fragrance hits him like a train. The initial whiff of cologne is something earthy and smoky, layered with various notes Tooru isn’t cultured enough to begin to identify but underneath it is what Tooru can tell is all Iwaizumi. A natural and heady scent that has him squeezing his legs together on reflex.
It’s almost ambrosial. Mouth-watering. It’s everything he thought Iwaizumi would smell like and better than he could’ve imagined, and it goes straight to his groin.
His hand starts moving on its own accord, tentatively brushing the heel of his palm against the growing tent in his pants but the even the light pressure, paired with the scent filling his nostrils is enough to send a spark shooting through his nerves, heat pooling and coiling tight in his belly.
He takes another inhale, burying his face deeper into the jacket and moaning softly when the smell invades all of his senses. When the friction isn’t enough, Tooru undoes his pants and frees himself from his underwear, his hand returning to wrap around his shaft. Someone might come home soon, but it doesn’t matter.
Tooru lets his eyes fall shut, imagining that Iwaizumi really is here with him, leaning over him—fully covering him with his musk, his own body. He feels it, really feels the impossibly tangible heat of Iwaizumi’s thick, strong thighs bracketing his shoulders, his swollen, dripping length hovering just over Tooru’s face.
Maybe he would tell Tooru to wait, all authoritative. He would tell Tooru to be good for him, and Tooru would be; he’d be the best god damn boy Iwaizumi had ever seen and earn his place between those legs forever.
Tooru’s never sucked dick or had his dick sucked in his life, but he would try. He’s a quick study. He would swallow the entire thing or die trying, he swears it.
More images flood his brain in quick succession, erotic expressions he’s seen in books and movies interpolating with Iwaizumi’s face instead. Pornographic noises accompany the visuals and it’s too much—Tooru’s already tipping over the edge.
He pumps himself faster and it’s dry but just enough, barely registering his impending climax through the blood roaring in his ears, chest heaving as he pants through his mouth like a dog. It catches him off guard when it finally comes, tearing through him with a force that sends his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
You’re so good, Oikawa, says Iwaizumi’s voice in his mind, praising him through the waves of his orgasm. His cock finishes kicking in his hand, his fingers coated with the last few spurts of his release. You did so good.
When his breathing finally evens out, Tooru opens his eyes again to the sight of Iwaizumi’s jacket still fisted in his hand.
Streaked. With ropes of his cum all over the front.
Fuck.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
It’s a frigid morning, puffs appearing with every exhale but Tooru’s sweating like it’s summer again. His fingers tightly grip Iwaizumi’s jacket as he approaches the indoor court. He really should’ve just passed it to a teammate, or asked Hanamaki to go in his stead. Even hiring a literal other person with his limited funds would’ve been a better idea than standing here now, hands shaking with nervousness as he finds his voice to call out, “Iwaizumi-san!”
They must be about to start practice, other members making their way into the building with their uniforms on and duffel bags in tow. Iwaizumi turns at the sound of his name, eyes locking onto Tooru right away.
After the incident, Tooru spent the rest of the break freaking out for two major reasons.
The first was that he’d committed this absolutely despicable and heinous offence. That he’d not only tarnished Iwaizumi’s belongings but disrespected Iwaizumi himself, too, an unwilling and oblivious party to Tooru’s sick impulses.
And the second was that after coming to his senses, he’d obviously sprinted straight to his laundry, throwing the sullied jacket inside the washing machine with copious amounts of detergent before starting the wash cycle. Exactly fifty-six minutes later, the appliance gave a melodic chime that preluded Tooru’s horrifying discovery as he pulled out Iwaizumi’s jacket, covered in wet papery scraps all over.
Tooru’s knuckles are still raw and splitting from scrubbing the jacket by hand, his third attempt to fix the problem after putting the jacket back in the machine which only made the scraps stick even more stubbornly to the material. Stress hives broke out all over his skin and they’re ever-present under his collar now as he wills himself to not itch. His gaze stays averted, pointedly focused on a spot of grass by his foot because if Iwaizumi looks into his eyes he’ll know and Tooru will be arrested and sentenced to life in prison for his perverted crime.
This could’ve been avoided if Tooru had checked first before washing. If he hadn’t blown his load all over it in the first place. If he hadn’t stupidly passed out and made Iwaizumi feel obliged to pay him a kindness.
If he wasn’t so hopelessly in love.
“I’ll be there in a bit,” Iwaizumi throws over his shoulder, breaking out into a light jog to reach Tooru just a few meters away. Iwaizumi’s red and white sneakers appear just in front of his own shoes, closer than he should be. “Hey! Glad to see you didn’t, you know. Get concussed and pass away. Did you have a nice break?”
He’s funny. Naturally. Fuck Tooru’s life.
Tooru deliberately steps back and holds out the jacket between them, a weak attempt at creating distance because he can’t trust himself to not fall to his knees. “Iwaizumi-san, I… I’m so sorry that I… when you saw—uh, thank you. For the jacket,” he ends up saying. “I just came to give it back to you.”
Iwaizumi takes it into his hands and Tooru’s drop down to his sides, gripping the hem of his t-shirt. “Oh, you didn’t have to…” Iwaizumi’s sentence trails off when he notices the bits of dried paper stuck to the fabric, standing out especially starkly against the shades of blue. Tooru feels his neck and the tips of his ears start to burn with shame. Of course Iwaizumi noticed—even a blind man would probably be able to tell that Tooru fumbled this to a monumental degree.
He launches right into his default, the only thing he can think to do when he’s dug his own grave; dig himself even deeper into the hole with excessive babbling like a god damn fool.
“I washed it because I didn’t want to give it back to you after I’d—um, after it’d been on the floor, and there must’ve been something in the pocket because after I took it out from the wash there were all these wet paper bits stuck in the sleeves—and I’m so sorry because I really should’ve checked the pockets and I’ve probably just ruined something so important to you,” Tooru rambles, his head pressurising and pressurising with heat to the point of near-explosion but he just can’t shut up. His foot is so far in his mouth he can feel it coming out the other end.
Oh god. Stop making it worse, Tooru. Stopstopstop— “I really tried to pick all of the pieces off and washing it again made the pieces stick even more, I’m so sorry, I can go to the head office and explain the situation and if you need me to pay for a new jacket, I can but it might take me a while to—”
“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi laughs—laughs; a beautiful and rough sound that lodges itself right into the grooves of Tooru’s heart. “It’s okay, I promise. It’s just a jacket. I’ve got another one.”
“Sorry,” Tooru mumbles again, looking down at his shoes. He’s almost picked an entire inch off his shirt at this point. He likes his name in Iwaizumi’s mouth more than he’s ever liked anything in his life. “Really. I should’ve looked in the pocket first but I—I wanted to get it back to you as soon as I could. If it was an important form or something…”
“It wasn’t important. I mean, it was a little important,” Iwaizumi tells him and Tooru wants the sky to split open and swallow him whole, maybe get struck by lightning and be instantly pulverised on the spot. But then Iwaizumi adds on, “But it was for you.”
His breath catches in his chest. “For… for me?”
Iwaizumi’s smiling when Tooru finally looks up again, their eyes meeting the way they do only in his dreams. “For you.”
His heartbeat thump-thump-thumps in his ears. Cautiously, he asks, “What was it?”
Iwaizumi reaches out and Tooru almost flinches away but doesn’t. He gently takes the side of Tooru’s hand with the tips of his fingers. He’s so impossibly warm. Tooru is on fire.
“Just my phone number, actually. I was thinking we could get a coffee or something,” says Iwaizumi. “If you wanna go on a date with me sometime.”
Tooru, not comprehending in the slightest, repeats slowly, “You’re asking me. If I want to go on a date.” Swallows around a lump the size of an island. “With you.”
There’s a sheepish hint to Iwaizumi’s voice when he responds, his other hand coming up to rub the nape of his neck. “Yeah, I am. This is a little embarrassing to admit since we don’t really know each other… but I’ve kinda been thinking about how to ask you out for a few months now. Since April, probably.”
And Tooru, once again searing where Iwaizumi is touching him, looking into those eyes that could cause the collapse of countries, weakened by the sight of that perfect smile and hearing Iwaizumi's admission, his confession—
—passes out.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧