Chapter Text
"Are you sure, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asked him seriously. He was standing in the middle of his livingroom, his bags around him, ready to head out to the airport.
Hajime nodded, crossing his arms and staring at the Olympics jacket across Tooru's arm. "I'm positive. I'm not letting you throw out something as awesome as this just because I wasn't picked. You'll have fun, and you'll do well. Bring me back a few medals," he replied firmly, meeting his amber gaze.
"...I'm gonna miss you," the brunette pouted, hugging him tightly.
"...Me too..." he whispered, his arms wrapping around Tooru with bruising strength. "...Hit 'em til they break, Tooru."
"...I will, Iwa-chan..."
Watching Tooru go that day hurt more than anything in his life, but there was nothing he could do about it.
I always knew it would be you.
~
Iwaizumi sighed to himself as he shambled down the sidewalk, his duffle over his shoulder and jacket bunched close. His breath fogged across the air in front of him, smoke from an overworked engine. He inhaled sharply, the icy air cutting through his nose and stabbing his lungs as he took step after step, counting the cracks in the sidewalk.
His sneakers halted in front of a window display, a 40% discount on flat screens; the screen was bright and clear, the speakers muffled through the glass as Shittykawa’s ecstatic, breathless voice chattered about the match they’d just won against another country, advancing them in the Olympics.
Hajime wanted to move. It was frigid out and getting late, not to mention that a cold in the middle of season would earn him more than a few lectures from his coaches…
But at the same time, when his eyes finally lifted to the screen tiredly and studied Oikawa, grinning so with sweat dripping from his brow, he knew he just couldn’t move.
An abrupt commercial flickered on screen, jolting him out of his trance, and Hajime forced himself to move once again, joints swinging in rusty, stiff steps with a heavy heart.
~
Hey Iwa-chan! Sorry I’ve been so busy, LOL. Coaches hardly give us a break anymore, ya know? And when we’re not playing volleyball or working out, we’re doing team bonding. Enough about me though! How is college? Missing me yet? ;P I bet you’re completely lost, huh? -Shittykawa Saturday 6:30 PM
Hajime glanced down at the text silently for a while, rolling the phone in his hand as he debated answering him and what to say.
Eventually, he typed back a short reply, not in the mood to entertain his friend; he had too much homework to finish up anyways.
College is busy too, between classes and volleyball. Glad you’re enjoying yourself. You wish. -Iwa-chan Saturday 7:20 PM
It’s fun though, right? Hope you’re not working too hard, Iwa-chan! Ya gotta have some fun, too! No partying at all? You must be really depressed without me, heh? -Shittykawa Saturday 7:22 PM
“Tch. Shittykawa.” Hajime tossed his phone aside, focusing on his school work as best as he could.
It's just more school. -Iwa-chan Saturday, 8:15 PM
Hajime tried to stay in touch with him, but he'd never been good at that with friends and even family; in the end, his contact with Tooru dwindled to simply following him in the news.
~
The first time he agreed to attend a party with his college teammates was when Oikawa posted a photo to his Instagram page; it was a picture of himself and his Olympic team, with the caption We won GOLD! So proud of my team! #squadgoals #wholesquad #bestvbteam
Ah... I would have thought he'd call me before this... What a way to find out.
“Oi, Iwaizumi! You coming or what?” his new setter called, holding up the rest of the team.
“…Yeah," he nodded, standing sharply and stuffing his hands into his pockets, phone silenced in his jacket.
~
Lost about what he wanted from college and clinging to his volleyball scholarship, Iwaizumi often nights found himself sitting alone or with his team in bars; some were louder than others, and he prefered the more quiet booths to sip at some cheap beer, watching people come and go, but never really jumping into the crowd.
He found a little purpose in the form of a woman named Leiko, who frequented one of the shadier bars he hung out at; she had issues, lots of them, and while that wasn't really great for her, it was for him. He needed a distraction, someone to take care of again, and she fit into that agenda almost better than Oikawa did.
They began a more intimate relationship after a week of knowing one another, and for a good few months, Hajime was content; he'd never had a girlfriend in high school, not with Oikawa always around.
His mother was less than pleased with the development, however; she knew Leiko was trouble, especially when Hajime's performance on the court began to decline, and his grades swiftly followed suit.
The few remaining friends he had didn't much care for her either, and his teammates reminded him constantly that she was bad news; she had an issue with alcohol, money borrowing, and ex-boyfriends. It certainly wasn't cheap being her partner, but you could never put a price on love.
-
“You alright?” Hajime grunted, watching Leiko shift in her chair; the woman had been fidgeting all night long, her eyes hardly meeting his.
“What? Um, yeah,” she waved off quickly, downing her beer and waving for another.
“…Really?” he affirmed, brow arching as he sipped from his own bottle.
“Ye-”
“Leiko! Get your ass up!” A mammoth of a man stalked over to their table, clearing the path ahead of him to the side with a powerful sweep of his arm.
She flinched into her seat, eyes wide with panic. “Leave me alone, Ishin. We’ve already been through this,” she gulped, visibly trembling in the booth.
Hajime's chest burned with resentment at the interruption, scowling harshly “Is there a problem?” he demanded, standing and shielding her from the much taller brute with his arms crossed.
“Ge’ outta my way, you punk,” he snarled at Hajime, his vodka-tainted breath puffing into his face, spittle splashing from his fat lips.
The raven lifted a hand and wiped off his face pointedly, lip curling in disgust. “I don’t think so."
"Hajime," Leiko balked, her shaking fingers hooking in the back of his shirt.
Ishin drew himself up to his full height, towering over him. "You think you can stop me, you half-pint midget? Get the hell out of my way before I squash you like a bug."
“Try it.”
“Iwa-chan!”
The man got one good hit on Hajime, right in his gut, before the bar security rushed over; fighting would have meant an end to his scholarship, but he wasn’t about to let the blockhead bother Leiko.
He sat back down with a bag of ice, letting Leiko flutter over him worriedly and enjoying it, despite the burning pain in his stomach; it reminded him of other times, a brunette fretting over volleyball injuries, tutting under his breath in an annoyingly sing-song tone.
-
Despite all of the trouble and baggage that Leiko brought him, he never left her; he saw Tooru in her, the way she held herself, the way she put on a front that everything was going her way, the nights he spent holding her, an inch from shattering to pieces, the way she trailed after him and called him "Iwa-chan"...
They dated for about 11 months, during which a lot of booze, sex, and trouble-making trailed in their wake; it was easy for Iwaizumi to get lost in her, to be happy with his life.
But then something changed.
She started disappearing, sometimes not catching up to him for weeks, until eventually she just stopped coming around altogether.
The last he ever heard from her was a single text, one that smashed his fragile peace of mind:
Goodbye. -Leiko
About four months later, the local hospital called to ask if he would claim a baby.
His baby.
Hajime had no idea when or how, but Leiko had gotten pregnant at some point. He wasn't sure if this was why she ran, or why she didn't tell him. The doctor informed him that the mother had listed him as the father, and that she'd died due to complications with the birth and having drugs in her system.
Hajime didn’t know what to do. He wasn't even out of college; how could he have had a kid? He just found out the girl he loved had died, and now he was supposed to be a single dad?
He went by that afternoon in a daze his chest aching fiercely. The realization didn’t really hit him until he was standing outside of the NICU, a nurse rearranging his arms gently with empathy in her eyes, a crying blue bundle in the arms of another patient nurse.
His son wailed until he was placed in his arms, staring up at Hajime quietly. He bent his head and murmured soft words against the tuft of raven fluff, a calm slowly settling in his chest.
It certainly wasn't going to be easy; he'd never thought of being a father, and being a single dad in the middle of college with a volleyball career? It seemed hopeless. He was almost tempted to give up right there.
But when he looked down at the infant, cheeks red and puffy from crying and watching him with awe, he would never, ever give him up. This was his son.
"Katashi..." he breathed, cradling him closer. "It's okay... It'll be okay..."
-
One of the most difficult moments of his life was the call he had to make next, a pile of second-hand baby supplies sitting in the corner of his tiny apartment.
“Kaa-chan… I have to tell you something,” Hajime professed quietly, his phone caught between his shoulder and ear, his arms cradling his son.
“Did you finally break up with that Leiko? I told you she was bad news, didn’t-
“She…left.” Hajime breathed out sharply, swallowing hard; he hadn't even told her when Leiko took off. He certainly wasn't ready to tell her the truth, needing to keep it to himself; it was his burden to carry, and no one else's.
“It’s really for your own good, Musuko. I mean honestly the amount of problems she has and the trouble she gets you into-”
“Kaa-chan," he cut off, gritting his teeth as he told her, "There's a baby. He’s mine.”
Utter silence met him, static crackling through the speakers. Finally a weary sigh filled his ear.
“…You’re sure it’s yours?”
“He is mine,” he repeated firmly, looking down at his dozing son, cradled awkwardly against his chest.
“…What’s his name?”
Hajime swallowed tightly and shifted. “…His name is Katashi …I know you’re mad,” Hajime muttered, grinding his teeth slightly as his eyes began to burn. “And I know it’s sudden and believe me I’m still… processing it all…”
“…I am. I’m upset with your carelessness,” his mother agreed, her tone softening gradually. “You are still my son, Hajime. And he is my grandson... He must be gorgeous."
Hajime lifted a hand to rub across his eyes, clearing his throat, “Yeah. He’s beautiful, Kaa-chan… I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing. And I just- I can’t do it by myself.” The last part was the hardest to admit. “Not with college and volleyball and him…”
There was another sigh over the phone, and then some rustling as she moved around. “…I’ll fly up to you. Your father will have a fit but he could do with some time on his own anyways. Make sure you have a spare bed in your apartment for me.”
“Thank you, Kaa-chan,” Hajime breathed, relief washing over him as he watched his son. "I love you.”
“I love you too, Musuko. I’ll see you soon.”
---
“You didn’t.”
Hajime crossed his arms and stared at the infant, very focused and making little stressed noises, a stench rising rapidly from his diaper.
“You just had to wait until your grandmother went to the store, didn’t you?” he sighed, gathering the baby into his arms and heading for the changing station they set up. “Hey now, don’t start crying buddy. We’ll get you cleaned up,” he muttered as Katashi squirmed, starting to wail about the mess he’d made in his diaper.
Shit…How did she do that?
He growled slightly as he began to get a headache, gagging at the smell as he removed the dirty diaper and grabbed a baby wipe.
“God, what did you eat?” Hajime groaned, spitting into the trash and opening a window, his eyes watering.
Next he knew was the powder, and then he had to fit the new diaper on him, struggling a bit with getting the tabs on right as Katashi didn’t make the task easy on him.
Finally clean and done, he stopped crying and giggled at Hajime instead as he wiped his face, features still scrunched up from the stench.
“You’re one smelly brat, Tashi,” Hajime grumbled at him, leaning down and kissing his forehead gently.
~
The next few years went by in a blur; as soon as Hajime graduated college, he moved himself and Katashi back near home to get a job and still be close to his mother, who frequently visited them to help out and baby sit. He wouldn't be able to do it without her.
Hajime hadn't thought much about any of his previous life in a long time, too focused on the things in his reach and in need of his immediate attention.
The first time he thought about anything other than Katashi and work was when he caught up on the Olympics with Tooru, who had been joined by some of his old teammates and rivals when Katashi was four, and the boy loved to hear stories about them all.
"Just tell me one more, Tou-chan, please! I promise I'll go to sleep," he begged Hajime, looking up at him with shining eyes.
"Fine," he sighed, smiling sternly, "But you'd better actually go to sleep this time."
"I promise," he nodded eagerly, lying back to prove his point.
"Let's see...You know that I used to be best friends with Oikawa Tooru? And you know how cool of a setter he is?"
"Yeah! He's my favorite!"
"Heh, that's right...Well, he's really just a big dork," he chuckled, tapping his son's forehead. "He loves aliens; he used to wait for hours at his window, watching for when they would come to get him... We would sleep over in his back yard in tents, and open up the top to watch the stars... and he absolutely is terrified of bugs."
"Really? But I love bugs!" Katashi gasped, cupping his cheeks exasperatedly.
"I know! What's not to like?" he implored, tucking an arm behind his head and staring up at the luminescent stars tacked to the ceiling. “He’s got a big ego to go along with it all, too. Girls would always ask him out and bring him gifts, and he was always an amazing player, though he definitely had to work for it… He’s a relatively good guy, though, once you bring him back down to earth.”
“Why don’t girls ask you out and bring you gifts, Tou-chan?” Katashi questioned, tilting his head curiously. “Did you scare them all away? Is that what happened to Kaa-san?”
Hajime blushed at the first question and flinched at the second, looking away from his son for a moment. Once he felt more composed, he turned back to him and replied, “Girls just liked Bakakawa more, Tashi.”
The boy watched him for a moment before glancing away. “…….Was it because of his hair?” Katashi suggested thoughtfully, pinching his chin.
Hajime snorted, ruffling Tashi’s hair affectionately. “Probably.”
He chattered about Oikawa for a while longer before realizing his son was asleep, tucking him into bed before heading to his own.
The raven sighed at the old ache that welled in his chest, running a hand through his hair and lying back into the pillows, exhaustion beating down his depressive insomnia.
~~
"Oikawa's mother wanted me to give this to you." Hajime's mother proffered a thick rectangle of cardstock, his five-year-old at the table wolfing down a bowl of lucky charms.
"Hm?" Hajime glanced up from his duffle bag, inspecting the paper.
"For the charity game tomorrow. I know it's your day off, too. I think you should go," she explained, pinning the ticket high on the fridge. "I'll watch Katashi."
"...Kaa-chan, I don't think-"
"There isn't any need to think about it. You'll go and support your friends," she cut off sternly, staring him down for a moment. "...You're working too hard, Hajime... Just take the time to destress..."
He frowned at her and then shrugged. "Stressed spelled backwards is desserts, " he reminded, kissing her cheek and pausing. "...I'll think about it."
"Good."
"Bye, Tou-chan!"
"Bye Katashi-kun. Be good at school, hm?" he smiled, kissing his forehead and ruffling his hair.
He giggled and nodded, waving him out the door.