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"I hate you," Tooru mumbles into the upturned collar of Wakatoshi's shirt. He smells nice, perhaps even incredible, compared to the stifling smell of a thousand perfumes that permeated the bar's atmosphere, weighing it down until Tooru could physically feel the air pushing against his chest, restricting his ability to breathe. Ushijima must've taken a shower before receiving Iwaizumi's call to pick him up, again.
"I'm aware, Oikawa," Ushijima replies easily, adjusting his grip on the back of Tooru's thighs, like fixing this particular physical imbalance of theirs may perhaps change the way Tooru has been so dangerously teetering on the edge of an endless abyss for as long as he's known Ushijima.
Tooru knows, on some level, that the only form of hatred he feels for Ushijima is fuelled by his stubbornness, by the fact that everyone around him had told him to just suck it up, by the fact that Ushijima himself has confessed that he does not hate Tooru, that he wishes to be friends, that perhaps they could be more, one day.
Tooru buries his blush in the back of Ushijima's neck, and attempts to forget the way his fingers dig into the backs of Tooru's thighs and just how pleasant that feels, how he wouldn't mind it in other circumstances.
"I hate you," he repeats. Ushijima hums his response, used to the bravado that Tooru puts on, and Tooru bristles, because of course Ushijima can see straight through him, straight through the sticky lies that catch in his throat, even if he still forces them out. Tooru feels as if his chest has turned to glass, for anyone to see how he works, leaving the mechanisms of his heart bare for all to see. It used to be that only Iwa-chan could read him so easily.
He'd always been an open book, to his best friend, with pages slightly worn from the years of constant use, from their frequent exposure to the light. He's easy to read, to Iwa-chan, who has spent so much time with Tooru's pages tucked in his arms that he knows Tooru by heart, can recite his title as easily as his third and fourth chapters.
Now, he feels like the daily newspaper, touched and read by all, and he hates it.
"I hate you," he says for a third time, when Ushijima struggles to open the doors to their dorm building without letting go of Tooru's lethargic and drunken form. Tooru would rather he dropped him, stop being so compassionate, and caring, and be over with it. He's sure he can walk up the few flights of stairs to his own room, that he doesn't need Ushijima's gentle doting to help him up the steps, no matter how much he may look like he wants it.
He opens his mouth to tell Ushijima just that, when something else entirely escapes him, slurred words pressed into the nape of Ushijima's neck.
"I hate how perfect you are."
Ushijima tenses below him, and his fingers momentarily slacken, slipping down the curve of Tooru's thighs. Tooru's arms tighten around his neck to prevent his fall, burying his face into the angle where Ushijima's neck meets his shoulder.
"I hate that you're like this, so honest that you never beat around the bush with me. I hate how your honesty gives you your own special brand of charm. I hate that you look at me like I may have hung up the stars or the moon when all I've ever done to you was shoot you down. I hate that you try so hard to be with me when I'm like this. I hate that you care about me, I hate that you're gentle with me, I hate that despite how I treated you in high school, despite the shitty tosses I've been giving you on purpose, you still want to be around me." He presses his palms to the swell of Ushijima's chest, feeling the erratic beating of his heart. His voice is much, much smaller when he mutters: "I hate that you're still here, because it's getting harder and harder to..."
He trails off, drawing random patterns over Ushijima's collarbone, not quite sure what he wanted to say, not quite sure if he's ready to say it. Ushijima stills, after Tooru's outburst, held on the spot by the weight of Tooru's words. The only aspect of him that tells Tooru he hasn't turned to stone is the frantic pounding in his chest, one that Tooru can intimately feel beneath his fingertips.
"I hate you," Tooru whispers weakly, his fingers curling into the material of Ushijima's shirt, preventing any escape he may have been thinking of, as if running from each other had ever been a possibility.
Ushijima takes a shuddering breath, and Tooru feels it against his hands, against his inner thighs. He grips Tooru's legs with renewed vigour, and begins their ascent to the third floor, undoubtedly mulling over Tooru's confession.
"Isn't that love?" he finally asks, when they pass the threshold of the second floor, and he almost trips on someone's misplaced welcome mat. Tooru resists the urge to squawk, though a few outraged sounds bubble past his lips anyway.
"Love?" he scoffs. "I told you I hated-"
"I heard you," Ushijima interrupts, gently lowering Tooru from his back, until his feet are safely planted on the floor. Tooru studies his surroundings, vaguely noting that they're at his place, and that he should find his keys, lest they block the hallway for much longer. Before he can do so, however, Ushijima's hand snakes to the front of his jeans, where it dips into Tooru's pocket, and Tooru jolts. Ushijima pulls out Tooru's keychains, seemingly unaffected by his own actions, and turns to the door. "It simply sounds like you like me a lot more than you want to admit."
The door to Tooru's room opens with a click, and so does the lock that he'd so carefully closed around his heart.
"'Like' you," Tooru parrots, bringing his hands up to trace his lips, to feel the shape of the words for himself. "That's impossible," he forces himself to argue. Like is a whole other plane than hatred, and it is not an idea he's ever managed to think about while sober. His drunken mind, however, is much more open to the concept. He rolls the words over his tongue once more, savouring the sound of it.
Like. Hate. Like. Hate.
Hate is much, much easier to swallow, but he knows which one tastes better.
Ushijima does not respond. He simply stands where he is, still as a statue, and lets Tooru push past him. "You're not coming in?" Tooru asks, shucking off his shoes. He's wholly prepared to spend the night clutching Ushijima's hand, like he has every time Ushijima has brought him home in this way.
"Do you want me to?" Ushijima retorts. He does not give Tooru any indication that he will follow.
Tooru looks down at himself, at the faded band T-shirt that he borrowed from Iwa-chan years ago and still wears today. There's not much about him that has changed in the past few years, he realises. He's still the same childish and immature person he was in high school, the kind of person who steals others' clothes and pours pepper into people's foods to see their reaction. He's the kind of person to desperately cling to a high school grudge because Ushijima is handsome and overwhelming and a little too perfect, and Tooru feels as if someone has cranked his emotional sensitivity up so high that a mere word from him, from "hello" to "goodbye" has Tooru shooting into the stratosphere, just as it has for the past 9 years they've known each other.
What a complicated train of thought, Tooru reflects, looking back up at Ushijima's silhouette, framed by his door. He doesn't know what he feels, like, hate, like, like, and though his mind is trying so hard to put the puzzle pieces together, the song in his heart tilts his head forward in a nod. It's a minute shift, so timid that he's surprised Ushijima even caught it, in the darkness of the room. But he does, as he's always caught Tooru, from flight and fall and low tosses and drunken nights; another pillar of sorts, one that holds on despite the turbulent act Tooru puts on.
One that Tooru so desperately needs, he almost hates the fact that he does.
Ushijima smiles, a rare little curl of his lips, and Tooru distantly thinks to himself, it's mildly difficult to discern hate from love, when everything Ushijima does sparks an ache in his chest so heavy it makes him want to scream, if only to alleviate the pain for a little while.
He reaches for Ushijima, intertwining their fingers, and pulls him into the room.
He decides, when Ushijima's hands curl around his waist, and the gentle press of his lips makes Tooru forget what exactly he was confused about, that he can leave that kind of reflection for later.