Archive of Our Own

“Yo, Hajime, you have a Tinder?!”

Through the crossed haziness of his mind, Iwaizumi processes the fact that his housemates and some of their friends are gathered around, staring at his phone which he left lying face up on the coffee table. The screen is on and he can faintly see that it’s lit up due to a notification from the dating app. 

Iwaizumi sits up from his prone position on their sectional sofa. He immediately regrets it when his head starts to spin. He doesn’t want to be the asshole that tells his housemates to end their party already, but he would also like to be able to shower and go to bed in peace. He settles for grabbing his phone and laying back down on the sofa. 

“Um, yeah. Why do you sound so surprised?” Iwaizumi groans, subconsciously taking another swig from the beer he nearly forgot he was holding in his hand. He really should be drinking water instead, but the faucet feels so far away. He’ll settle for the beer; anything to coat his dry throat. Trying to outsmoke his housemates earlier on the balcony was a terrible idea. He may have been able to beat everyone at sports in high school, but he definitely couldn’t beat his peers at smoking weed in college, many of whom had years of experience on him.

“I dunno,” one of his housemates says with a shrug. “You just didn’t seem like the type. Like, you’ve never seemed interested in dating anyone.”

“We know you could get some if you wanted to,” another housemate snorts. If Iwaizumi didn’t already feel so warm from the weed and the alcohol coursing through his body, he’s sure that he would feel himself blush. It’s not that he’s wrong. Iwaizumi isn’t completely oblivious; he can tell that people check him out while he’s jogging through campus. He gets the occasional unsolicited phone number at parties. And it does sometimes feel like his phone is constantly pinging with matches off of Tinder, an app he downloaded only because the guys goaded him into it. And if he swipes through it sometimes when he’s procrastinating or if he hooks up with the occasional Tinder date because he misses having someone in bed with him, that’s no one’s business but his.

“Any good matches on there, Hajime?” A pair of girls wander over and Iwaizumi is able to remember that they’re the girlfriends of his housemate and maybe their neighbor. But for the life of him, he isn’t able to recall their names. 

“Um,” is the best answer he can muster. So instead of trying to string coherent words together to continue the conversation with them, he just unlocks his phone and hands it to the girls. “Y’all can swipe for me if you want.”

The girls coo excitedly in response and grab the phone, settling down on the couch and bowing their heads together as they look through Iwaizumi’s Tinder account.

Their delighted voices and the dull roar of sounds from the other partygoers meld together in Iwaizumi’s mind until it’s nothing more than comforting white noise. He sinks further into the corner of the sofa and shuts his eyes. The start of a headache pokes at his temples.

“Wow, she’s super cute.” He hears one of the girls say. A sound effect indicates that a swipe is being made.

“No, yeah, but he’s even hotter.”

“I think he and Hajime would vibe well, don’t you?”

“For sure. Look at the interests he lists. They would be perfect for one another.”

“Hey, dude. Hajime! You’re gonna spill that on yourself.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t open his eyes but he can feel someone pluck the half-finished beer bottle out of his hand. He hears the clink of it as it’s set down on their IKEA coffee table. The action is so simple, so nonchalant, but it still sends Iwaizumi’s hazy mind reeling into reflection on the past three years.

Homesickness filled every pore of Iwaizumi’s body during his first year at UC Irvine. Everyone promised him that the campus was walkable—it’s a college town after all—but they must have never experienced the true walkability of a place like Miyagi. Back home, owning a car was never a thought that crossed Iwaizumi’s mind. Here, sure, he can get to the essentials by walking or maybe by catching the campus shuttle, but it was nowhere near the freedom Miyagi afforded him and his own two feet, maybe an occasional bus ride. 

He missed his volleyball team. He played on the UCI club team, but he never got close enough to anyone to feel the kind of psychic connection that he once took for granted. The games were fun enough, but there was never the same underlying thrum of adrenaline and ferocity that came with playing official games with some of the best players in the region.

By his second year, Iwaizumi felt a little more comfortable. He moved out into his own place with a couple of friends he made through the dorms and now his living arrangements felt much more like home. It was nice having a kitchen again, and Iwaizumi started learning more about nutrition to supplement his sports medicine studies. He had gathered a nice group of people around himself. He most appreciated the ones who were Southern California locals and would take him to experience the places he had once only seen on TV.

It’s his third year in college now and generally, Iwaizumi is happy. Things are clicking into place for him, academically and professionally. He finally feels like he has a support system in his college friends. It’s not the same as his connection with his old teammates, but he had long given up on finding anything close to what he once had. 

It’s not melancholy, just realism.

Sometimes, he thinks that the intensity of his emotions from his high school days will be enough to sustain him for the rest of his life. He doesn’t expect that anything else will ever compare. Speaking of it in terms of his emotions is a softer way of dealing with the scary thought that maybe he peaked when he was eighteen. Even so, on the day to day, he is happy in California—as long as Iwaizumi doesn’t think too much about the aching hole in his chest that will likely never be filled again.

But the moment that beer bottle is plucked out of his hand, the emptiness becomes painfully obvious and threatens to swallow him whole.

He can’t help but think if he were back home with Hanamaki and Matsukawa, they would have let the beer spill all over himself and made fun of him for it.

Oikawa would have joined in, his laugh loud and obnoxious and unbearable. He probably would have laughed so hard at Iwaizumi’s suffering that he would fall over in his seat, spilling his own drink on himself. Then all of them could switch to laughing at Oikawa, who would be pouting and berating them for letting him embarrass himself.

Iwaizumi would give nearly anything to hear that laugh again.

Iwaizumi has never thought of himself as a particularly “Type-A” person. He’s able and willing to adapt quickly, necessary for an athlete of any kind. It’s good to have a plan for things, if only so that chaos wouldn’t ensue. Because of who his friends were in high school, the burden of planning things often fell onto him. But, on his own, it’s not like Iwaizumi feels an overwhelming desire to control things or to have things in their place. So it was weird when he found himself frustrated with the lack of clarity when it came to dating in college. 

He was an active participant in classic hook-up culture for the past year and a half (It wasn’t a rebound phase, he tells himself. He was just immersing himself in American college life, he tells himself) but found himself getting easily discouraged. 

Why didn’t this joke elicit a laugh, or at least, a fond booing? Why didn’t this topic of conversation spark interest? Why didn’t this caress of a body part make his partner tremble? Why didn’t this crook of his fingers draw out a moan? 

Maybe he was just a bad sexual partner, Iwaizumi thought, but he knew that wasn’t exactly true. Based on the handful of follow-up texts, curiously inquiring about another night with him, he knows he isn’t bad in bed. He is at least satisfactory. At the same time, he knows that he could be better for each individual person he was sleeping with, if he just took the time to learn. He just doesn’t really care to. 

That realization made him feel like such a piece of shit that he quietly ducked out of the dating pool, much to his friends’ disappointment.

If he really sat down and thought about why he was like this, he knows the conclusion he would come to.

If he told a joke that Oikawa didn’t find funny, Oikawa would have teased him mercilessly about it. If he brought something up that Oikawa didn’t feel like talking about, the brunette would have openly said so. If he touched a sensitive part of Oikawa’s body, the taller man would bite his lip and shake prettily, because Iwaizumi knew Oikawa’s body like his own. If he placed his fingers just right, the most lewd and beautiful sounds would flow from Oikawa’s mouth, because Iwaizumi had had hours and days and years to know Oikawa, inside and out. 

He didn’t have time for that kind of learning again. Or perhaps he just didn’t have the desire. 

A stream of sunlight and the sound of a sizzle wake Iwaizumi up. His neck feels absolutely horrible and the moment he moves, his back cracks in multiple spots, loudly enough that his housemate notices from the kitchen.

“Ah, you’re finally awake! Dude, how much did you even drink last night?” The smell of bacon emanates from the same spot where the voice comes from. It takes Iwaizumi another moment to focus his vision on the back of his housemate who’s standing at the stove, pan in hand.

“Too fucking much, clearly,” he mutters, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and pulling off the blanket that someone must have thrown onto his passed out body. If his head didn’t hurt so badly, he would feel incredibly embarrassed that he fell asleep on the couch at a party held at his own apartment. Was he really too drunk to walk the ten feet to his bedroom and flop onto the mattress? He notices the bottle of ibuprofen sitting on the coffee table along with a glass of water. “Thanks,” he says as he tips two pills onto his palm and swallows them with a sip of water.

“I also plugged in your phone,” his housemate says, walking over with a plate of eggs and bacon. Iwaizumi can’t decide whether the smell makes him hungry or nauseous but he gratefully accepts the plate anyway. “It’s been blowing up. Looks like you’ve got a lot of texts.”

Iwaizumi groans, reaching out to put down the plate for now and to grab his phone instead. He unplugs it from the charger and taps on the screen. It’s already past noon and yet, Iwaizumi feels like he could sleep for another eight hours. Once his phone is unlocked, a stream of text messages appear on the screen.

They’re all from the group chat he has with Hanamaki and Matsukawa. The time difference between California and Japan makes it hard for the three of them to ever chat continuously in live time, but they make it work with Iwaizumi usually spending the first fifteen minutes of his days scrolling through whatever Hanamaki and Matsukawa were rambling on about and replying to the messages as needed.

They don’t talk about who’s missing from the group chat.

The last message is from Matsukawa.

From: Matsukawa
>> this has to be photoshopped right? can Iwa wake up already and explain himself???

Iwaizumi’s brow wrinkles in confusion. Unless he accidentally sent the two of them something stupid in his drunken state last night, he has no idea what they might be talking about. He scrolls up past the dozens of texts that were sent while he was asleep. Most of them contain no substance. They’re mainly messages typed in all-caps that beg Iwaizumi to wake up and tell them what’s going on.

Finally, he lands on a message that appears to be the source of all the confusion.

From: Hanamaki
>> um Iwa what the fuck is this
>> [image attached]

Iwaizumi is fully aware that there exists a group chat consisting of only Hanamaki, Matsukawa, and Oikawa. He assumes that there is the same unspoken rule in that group chat where they don’t talk about the conspicuously missing person—in that case, himself. 

The group chat between the four of them has been dead for years.

He has no idea what goes on in that group chat without him and he has no desire to find out. But today, Hanamaki appears to have broken the unsaid promise of confidentiality because when Iwaizumi opens the attached image, he comes face to face with a screenshot of this other group chat, itself containing a screenshot sent by Oikawa.

Iwaizumi’s blood runs cold when he realizes what the image shows.

It’s the first photo from Iwaizumi’s Tinder profile—a photo of him during his surfing phase in a pair of board shorts, sporting a fantastic tan, standing knee deep in the ocean—framed by a light blue border with blue stars littered across the screen. Just below the photo, it displays Iwaizumi’s name, age, and the first line of his bio. Immediately below, it reads: “Hajime super-liked you!”

Iwaizumi can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears as he reads the message that Oikawa sent along with the screenshot.

From: Oikawa
>> [image attached]
>> What the FUCK does Iwaizumi think he’s doing?

Oikawa left Japan two months before Iwaizumi did. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t very long, but those eight weeks were the first time Iwaizumi hadn’t had the brown-haired boy by his side since before he could remember. 

His thoughts felt too loud as he walked down the street from the convenience store to his house; he hadn’t walked this path without a conversation partner for years. His hands felt too idle as he stood in his backyard, listening to the white noise of the cicadas; he hadn’t been out here without a volleyball being passed back and forth in ages. His twin-sized bed felt too large for the first time since he hit puberty; he had shared it with Oikawa only a handful of times since they properly got together after the Spring tournament, but that was enough for Iwaizumi to constantly ask himself, why didn’t he do this sooner?

For how often he and Oikawa were together, Iwaizumi always considered himself an independent person. He didn’t expect that to change just because he and Oikawa had kissed and stammered out their feelings for one another under a clear sky of stars. The last thing he wanted to be was a needy boyfriend. 

But his thoughts became too loud so he would call Oikawa to tell him about them. He hadn’t gotten used to calculating the time difference between Japan and Argentina yet, so he would accidentally wake Oikawa up sometimes. Oikawa always tried to be nice about it, responding at the appropriate times even though he was clearly close to nodding off in between words. Iwaizumi felt awful about that, knowing how hard it often was for Oikawa to fall asleep in the first place. 

His hands were too idle so he would occupy them by tapping out pointless messages to Oikawa throughout his listless days when he had nothing to do but count down the days until college orientation. He hadn’t gotten used to Oikawa’s schedule yet, which was jam-packed between practice and exploring his new country. He felt terrible for forcing Oikawa away from his exciting activities just so he could respond to Iwaizumi’s mundane texts. Whenever he asked about Oikawa’s days, he always had much more to share than Iwaizumi did.

His bed was too empty so he would send Oikawa Snapchats of himself before he went to sleep, blushing furiously as he captioned each stupid selfie with something terribly cheesy like “Wish you were here next to me.” He hadn’t gotten used to Oikawa’s new life yet so when Oikawa would send back an image of himself out and about with some new friend, Iwaizumi would feel a pang of jealousy seep into his gut and squeeze tight. He couldn’t tell if the jealousy came from seeing Oikawa with someone other than himself, or if it was from feeling sorry for himself that he seemed to be the only one unable to move on and meet new people.

The loneliness that came with moving to California didn’t help things. Iwaizumi kept up with this level of communication—it had become second nature at this point, as if any level of virtual interaction could compare with having Oikawa by his side. Even if he noticed that Oikawa’s responses became more curt and less frequent, he didn’t admit it to himself.

It all came to a head on a fucking Skype call. A fucking Skype call. 

Oikawa hadn’t responded to a string of Iwaizumi’s texts, each more urgent than the last. Iwaizumi ended up calling him to make sure Oikawa wasn’t fucking dead. Oikawa had picked up, but not until the last ring before it would have gone to voicemail. 

“What?” he had snapped. 

“Oh, so you aren’t dead in a ditch,” Iwaizumi said, trying to match Oikawa’s tone even as the anger in the other man’s voice made his heart seize.

“Yeah, I’m not.” Oikawa paused. Iwaizumi could hear people giggling in the background. “You don’t need to check on me all the time. You’re not my mom.” The words he had said many times before in a silly and teasing tone had turned mocking, biting.  

“Sorry that I worry about you being alone in a foreign country,” Iwaizumi said sharply back.

“Who says I’m alone?” Oikawa retorted. A feminine voice speaking in heavily accented English could be heard through the phone. The sound was too distorted and her English too accented for Iwaizumi to understand. It’s probably nothing. It’s probably nothing. It’s probably nothing .

“You can still make our Skype call tomorrow?” Iwaizumi said through gritted teeth.

There was a beat of silence, not more than one second long, but in that beat, Iwaizumi swore he could hear the thoughts running through Oikawa’s mind. Oh, shit. I forgot. Fuck, I was supposed to meet my friend tomorrow during that time but I have to call Iwa-chan. Okay, I’ll have to move things around but I suppose I can call him. I should call him. I’d rather be somewhere else but…

“Yeah, of course I can,” Oikawa answered, his voice too devoid of emotion to sound natural. He must be hiding his true feelings on purpose.

“Okay,” Iwaizumi said, willing his voice not to shake. “Talk to you then.” He hung up because if he had stayed on the phone for a minute longer, his voice and his resolve would have cracked.

“I didn’t do it,” Iwaizumi says, pressing his forearm against his eyes. He had finally showered, scarfed down some food, and gotten dressed only to fling himself onto his mattress, willing the time to pass faster so that it would be late enough in the morning in Japan for him to call Hanamaki and Matsukawa.

“Uh, clearly you did,” Hanamaki says, unhelpfully. “There’s no glitch that would make your Tinder account accidentally super like Oikawa’s profile.”

Iwaizumi furrows his brows, putting together pieces of memories in his mind from the night before. “Fuck, I gave my phone to some friends and told them they could swipe for me.”

Matsukawa snorts. “Why did you do that?”

“I dunno. I was so drunk or high. Both, I guess. They’re both in relationships so they missed swiping on Tinder and they were curious about my profile and I wanted them to stop talking to me and one thing led to another so—” Iwaizumi cuts himself off so he can take in a deep breath. “So they probably caused this whole mess.” The ibuprofen has finally kicked in and Iwaizumi’s brain starts to feel like it can function nearly at full capacity now, so he suddenly sits up with a question blaring in his mind. “Wait. How the fuck would Oikawa’s profile show up on my Tinder anyway? He’s in a whole-ass other country.”

There’s a pause on the group call. If they were together in person, Iwaizumi knows that this would be the moment when Hanamaki and Matsukawa would shoot each other a knowing look. 

“He’s in Southern California for some sort of training camp,” Matsukawa says slowly.

“He didn’t tell you that?” Hanamaki asks, much less slowly.

Iwaizumi’s heart starts hammering in his chest and he tells himself it’s the hangover. “No, of course not,” he says. “Why would he?” Oikawa doesn’t owe him anything. Besides, they haven’t spoken since that goddamn Skype call. Still, Iwaizumi would like to think that Oikawa isn’t so petty that he wouldn’t even give Iwaizumi a heads up that he would be in the same country as Iwaizumi for the first time in three years.

Iwaizumi knows Oikawa better than that though.

“Ah, there you are. You finally got connected.” 

The screen glitched out one more time before Oikawa’s face came into focus. He was wearing a t-shirt that was a little too large for him. The collar draped nicely around his fine collarbones. He had a sheepish expression on his face and his eyes darted around. It was sometimes hard to tell whether Oikawa was actually looking at Iwaizumi through the screen, but today, it was especially obvious that he was avoiding Iwaizumi’s eyes.

“Yeah, sorry. The WiFi must have been weirding out,” Oikawa said. He sounded more nervous than apologetic.

Iwaizumi opened his mouth, ready to pepper Oikawa with questions about how he’s sleeping and what he’s eating. Had he been taking care of his bad knee? Were the Argentinian players pushing him too hard? Was he aware of the fact that if he wanted to make it to the top, he would need to learn to take care of himself first?

But before he could get a word out, Oikawa started speaking.

“Iwa-chan, I think we should cool things off a bit.”

Iwaizumi’s mouth snapped back shut. A ringing noise started in his ears.

Oikawa sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “We both have so much going on. Hell, we’re both in foreign countries, with new places to see and new people to meet. Don’t you think it’s—” He sighed again. “It’s been getting harder?”

He didn’t need to explain what “it” meant. Iwaizumi knew. “It” referred to their relationship, if it could really even be called a relationship. What do you call a lifetime’s worth of romantic and intimate interactions squeezed into the span of a month before one party flies across the world and all you’re left with is a grainy image on a laptop screen?

“I—” Iwaizumi swallowed, refusing to let the lump of tears in his throat reach his eyes. He agreed with Oikawa, but the difficulty of it all didn’t matter to him. “And you don’t think it’s worth it if it’s hard?”

Oikawa’s eyes widened, making him look like the paradigm of innocence even as his words chipped away at Iwaizumi’s heart. “I— Well, no— it’s just that—”

“It’s just that you want to break up with me,” Iwaizumi said bitterly, filling in the brunette’s words for him.

“No! That’s not what I said—”

“Coward,” Iwaizumi spat out. The pain in his heart was coalescing into anger. “The hell is ‘cooling things down’? Is being on different continents not ‘cool’ enough for you? If you want to end things between us, then have the respect for me to end it properly.”

Even through the screen, Iwaizumi could see Oikawa’s eyes harden. “If only you had the respect for me to let me go about my own life without checking on me every two seconds,” he retorted, his voice lowered by an octave.

“I’m so fucking sorry for caring about my boyfriend,” Iwaizumi yelled. “Sorry for wanting to make sure you’re okay all the time!” Tears spilled over his lash line but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“I don’t need you to take care of me anymore!” Oikawa shouted back. “I’m sorry for wanting to live my own life without you always, constantly, stuck to my side!”

Something in Iwaizumi broke at that moment. Maybe it was the idiotic sense of competitiveness he had always felt with Oikawa, that he always had to try to be one step ahead. Maybe it was the deranged notion he had of what self-respect meant. Maybe it was just the pure pain of knowing that this was it. Something had just happened that could never be taken back.

“Fuck you. I’m breaking up with you,” he snapped at the screen.

Oikawa’s eyes widened again, this time making him look pained rather than angelic. But before the hurt in his eyes could force Iwaizumi to take back his words and plead for forgiveness, Oikawa’s eyes narrowed again into slits. “No, fuck you, I’m breaking up with you, ” he said, not even giving Iwaizumi a second to respond before slamming his computer shut and ending the call.

Iwaizumi was left staring back at a mirrored video of himself, tears uncontrollably rolling down his cheeks, dripping into his open mouth.

Iwaizumi has to scroll back further in his text chains than he thought to find his messages with Oikawa. The pit in his stomach grows larger when he notices that the last text either of them sent the other is a message from Oikawa.

From: Oikawa
>> My Skype is acting up. Be on in a sec

Seen by himself about a year and a half ago. Those first eight weeks without Oikawa pale in comparison to the past year and a half without him.

Hey, Iwaizumi starts typing. His thumbs immediately stop after that single word. What even is he supposed to say? Sorry for getting your hopes up by accidentally liking you on a dating app? As if Oikawa is still pining after Iwaizumi. Sorry for leading you on inadvertently? As if Oikawa would ever be the one in this relationship to follow behind Iwaizumi.

What comes out instead is Iwaizumi’s most honest thought at that moment.

To: Oikawa
>> Why didn’t you tell me you were in California?

He presses send before he can talk himself out of it and then throws his phone onto his bed. It bounces once before falling into the crack between the mattress and the wall. Good. Sitting and waiting for a response—if he even got one—would probably give him a heart attack. Instead, he takes off the clothes that he had just put on and changes into a pair of joggers and a UCI muscle tee.

“I’m going for a run,” he announces to his housemate. “Just so you know, I’m not bringing my phone. So I won’t be reachable ‘til I get back.” His housemate hums in acknowledgement. Iwaizumi shoves his keys into his pockets, jams a baseball cap onto his head, and heads out the door.

There is enough hustle and bustle around campus that Iwaizumi doesn’t mind not having music blasting in his ears as he makes his way from his apartment to the center of campus. He was a little worried about not having something to listen to to distract him from his own thoughts, but this is better than having his phone on him. He knows that if he brought the device, he wouldn’t be able to stop looking at it, waiting for a response that may never come.

He doesn’t pace himself as carefully as he normally would. The burn in his calves and the scorch in his lungs distracts from thinking about what Oikawa might say. It distracts him from the thought that if Oikawa didn’t respond now, there is a very real possibility that Iwaizumi will never hear from him again.

By the time he starts looping back to his apartment, the sun has started to set. Iwaizumi curses himself for not waking up until noon; it feels like his day has barely begun even though the day is coming to an end. But the evening air is much cooler and the slight breeze starts to dry the sweat on Iwaizumi’s skin as he walks the last couple of blocks to his apartment as a cool-down. The colder air doesn’t do much good for his achingly dry throat though. He taps in the front door code and hops in the elevator, excited to get back home, chug some water, and have his second shower of the day.

The elevator reaches his floor and he starts to shuffle down the hall, his peripheral vision slightly obscured by his hat, so he doesn’t notice that someone is standing in front of his apartment door until a voice—too familiar but too foreign all at once—says a nickname that he hasn’t heard in a year and a half.

“Iwa-chan?”

The last time Iwaizumi saw Oikawa in person was at the airport. He had gone through the hassle of passing through security just so he could see Oikawa off. At his parents’ urging, Oikawa had arrived at the airport far too early, and Iwaizumi didn’t see why he should wait for over an hour, alone at his gate. This way, Oikawa could use Iwaizumi’s shoulder as a pillow as they both scrolled through their phones in silence, in denial about the reality of their situation.

When Iwaizumi saw Oikawa last, they were just kids. Sure, they were both athletes with a good amount of muscle on them, but Oikawa was still just a tall, relatively lanky teenager. His arms were more slender than sculpted. His legs were strong, but slim. His skin was fair and marked only with the trace of acne scars.

When Iwaizumi last saw Oikawa in the flesh, Oikawa had pressed his face into the juncture of Iwaizumi’s neck and shoulder, sucking in a shuddering breath, but he didn’t let any tears fall. For both of their sakes, Iwaizumi had held onto his own tears for until he got home. Iwaizumi had buried his face in Oikawa’s soft hair, trying to burn the smell of his shampoo and sweat into his memory. He had squeezed the brunette’s fingers between his own, kissed his knuckles, and hoped that those physical touches could convey all the feelings that Iwaizumi had for the other man. All the feelings that Iwaizumi had felt for a lifetime, yet still couldn’t be put into words.

Iwaizumi feels his brain short-circuiting, glitching out like that last Skype call. Oikawa is too vivid in front of him, no computer grain overlaying his image, no bad lighting casting odd shadows on his face.

He can’t tell whether Oikawa has changed a lot in the three years since he last saw him in person or if most of the change has come in the past year and a half after they broke up. His wavy brown hair is shorter and doesn’t sweep into his eyes as much. His skin is only a shade or two darker, but the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones are ever so slightly dappled with freckles. Even in his loose-fitting t-shirt, Iwaizumi can tell that his arms and his chest have filled out, sculpted muscles laying underneath his skin rather than the last vestiges of baby fat.

Oikawa’s face is too high-definition. One of the worst things about communicating solely by video calls was how hard it became for Iwaizumi to read Oikawa. His facial expressions and physical idiosyncrasies became unrecognizable through a screen, a continent away. But now, Iwaizumi can see the tiny wrinkle between his brows. He can see the small movement in his lower lip that indicates he’s chewing on the inside of his mouth. He can see the up and down movement of his chest, his breathing a little too rapid to be normal.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Iwaizumi asks harshly. What he really meant was Are you real? Are you really here, in front of me? 

Oikawa blushes before answering, avoiding Iwaizumi’s eyes. “I’ve had your address saved, since that one care package I sent you, and someone downstairs let me in so—”

“No, I mean—” Iwaizumi rips off his hat and drags a hand through his hair, pulling slightly, using the pinch of pain to tell him if he was in a dream or not. “ Why are you here?”

Oikawa pauses for a moment, then holds up his phone. He still has the same planet charm attached to it as when he stepped onto that airplane, three years ago. “Well, you texted me—”

“And you just so happened to be in the vicinity of my apartment? In Irvine, California?”

“You weren’t responding!” Oikawa blurts out. “For over an hour! That was enough time for me to get over here from Los Angeles because you weren’t responding even though you were the one who texted and I was worried! You could’ve been dead—”

Iwaizumi snorts. “Now you know how I felt,” he mutters.

Oikawa’s blush spreads to the tips of his ears. He stares resolutely at his sneakers. “You probably don’t want to see me,” he says. “I get it. This was stupid. I’ll just head out.”

“No. Wait.” Iwaizumi steps forward, both to unlock his apartment door and to physically block Oikawa from leaving. He doesn’t know what he wants—his brain has barely just managed to process the fact that Oikawa is here, in front of him—but he does know that he doesn’t want Oikawa to leave. “Come inside for a bit?”

Oikawa nibbles at his bottom lip but eventually nods. Iwaizumi lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and opens the door. His housemate is inside, lounging on the couch, watching something on TV, and looking at Iwaizumi and his guest with curious eyes.

“Sorry for not giving you a heads up about a guest,” Iwaizumi says. “This is my—” He waves his hand in Oikawa’s direction, searching for a word that would encompass they were and are to one another. “My old teammate,” he finishes lamely. Even if he had all the time in the world to think of a more appropriate descriptor, Iwaizumi isn’t sure he’d be able to come up with one.

Oikawa greets the housemate in his broken English and the housemate waves back in response, too engrossed in his TV program to care much. Iwaizumi leads Oikawa to his bedroom. He doesn’t miss how Oikawa’s eyes dart around the place, searching for every indication of how Iwaizumi has made this place his new home.

“I need to go shower first,” Iwaizumi says, once he’s brought Oikawa to his room. He immediately seats himself on Iwaiuzmi’s twin-sized bed. “Can you entertain yourself for a bit?”

Oikawa’s eyes gleam as he looks around the small room. “Yeah, of course,” he says, an intrigued and excited tone to his voice. Iwaizumi nods, suddenly nervous to have Oikawa in his private space without warning. But it’s too late to back out now. He strips off his sweaty shirt and tosses it into his laundry basket.

He doesn’t miss how Oikawa’s eyes flicker to his bare torso. He lets himself grin a little. Oikawa isn’t the only one whose body has changed over these long few years.

Iwaizumi wipes the condensation off the mirror so he can look at himself. He has a fleeting thought that maybe he should put some product in his hair but he quickly shakes the notion away. There’s no reason to try and look good for Oikawa. He’s not here to be won back. Hell, Iwaizumi doesn’t even know why he’s here and he’s angry with himself for even entertaining the idea that if he just looked good enough, Oikawa would accept him back into his life with open arms. He hates himself for still running his fingers through the strands in an attempt to sort out the chaotic part in his hair.

He’s still grumbling at himself when he steps out of the bathroom and across the hallway back to his bedroom, a towel slung low on his hips.

Oikawa is kneeling on his bed when he reenters, looking at the various photos and momentos he has thumbtacked to his wall.

“You kept the postcards,” he says softly, not looking up at Iwaizumi. His gaze moves on from the glossy postcards he sent Iwaizumi from Buenos Aires. He runs his thumb over a photo of the two of them alongside Hanamaki and Matsukawa. That picture is one of Iwaizumi’s favorites. He couldn’t bear to take it down even though the photos of just him and Oikawa are tucked safely in the back of one of his drawers.

“The scenery is pretty,” Iwaizumi says, meaning for it to come out gruff, but his voice ends up sounding vulnerable. The sun has fully set at this point and Oikawa must not have found the switch for the overhead light because only the warm glow of the desk lamp illuminates the room.

Oikawa finally turns to look at him and his eyes widen. Iwaizumi can see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

“Oh,” Iwaizumi says, feeling a blush rising on his cheeks to match the color on Oikawa’s. He tightens his grip on the knot of the towel covering his lower half. “Sorry, let me get dressed.”

“No! It’s—” Oikawa seems to suddenly realize what he just blurted out and his face turns completely red. “Whatever. Do whatever you want.” He turns his gaze back towards the things on the wall.

Iwaizumi debates for a moment whether he should sit down with just the towel on—anything to get an upper hand over Oikawa—but his embarrassment gets the better of him and he throws on a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top before settling down on his desk chair.

There’s a moment of silence between the two of them. Oikawa breaks it by holding out Iwaizumi’s phone. “It was stuck between the bed and the wall,” he says. “I didn’t look at any of your messages or anything.”

“Thanks.” Iwaizumi accepts it, taking extra care to make sure their fingers don’t touch. He glances at the screen. There aren’t any messages other than a flurry from Oikawa, at first spaced out by up to ten minutes in between each other. The later ones came immediately one after another. Oikawa has never been one to be averse to double-texting.

To: Oikawa
>> Why didn’t you tell me you were in California?

From: Oikawa

>> Why would you wanna know?
>> You’re just gonna fuck with me aren’t you? What the fuck was that Tinder like for?

>> Sorry that was mean

>> Makki told me it was an accident
>> But I didn’t know if I should believe him or not

>> I thought you wouldn’t care I guess
>> But yeah I’m in LA for a training thing

>> Are you in Irvine?

>> Iwa-chan?

[Missed call from Oikawa]

>> Are you ok??

[2 missed calls from Oikawa]

>> Fuck you. You text me and now you won’t even respond?

>> Srsly, are you ok though?

>> Please let me know

[3 missed calls from Oikawa]

“So why are you here?” Iwaizumi asks again, his arms crossed over his chest.

Oikawa looks at him like he’s stupid. “I told you. I happened to be in LA and then you texted me and then stopped responding so—”

“You drove for an hour to see me just because I didn’t reply to your text?”

Oikawa shuts his mouth and looks away. “What? I can’t come see my oldest friend when we’re in the same country for the first time in years?”

Iwaizumi snorts, starting to lose patience. “Wow, I didn’t know you considered me a friend anymore.”

“What? I never—”

“You haven’t spoken to me in almost two years!” Iwaizumi finally explodes, leaping up from his seat. “You started a group chat with Hanamaki and Matsukawa without me. I tried calling you and you never— For all I knew, if not for what they told me, you could have been dead!”

“Because you broke up with me!” Oikawa grips the edge of the mattress, looking like he’s getting ready to jump up and attack Iwaizumi at any minute.

“As, fucking, if!” Iwaizumi yells. “ You wanted to break up with me! I just said the words for you.”

Oikawa’s lips begin to tremble and Iwaizumi cannot do this anymore. If Oikawa starts crying on his bed, bathed in the dim glow of his desk light, Iwaizumi knows he will give in to anything the brunette says. He would probably kiss Oikawa’s feet if he asked him to.

“I think you should leave—” Iwaizumi says. His more mature sense of self-respect still stands no chance against the teary, copper eyes of Oikawa Tooru so he needs to save himself while he still can. He starts walking towards his bedroom door, ready to turn the knob and usher Oikawa out of his life, once and for all.

“I stopped talking to you because I was embarrassed!” Oikawa shouts, interrupting Iwaizumi. He hears a hiccup from the direction of his bed and Iwaizumi knows he’s done for. He turns back around to see Oikawa with tears running down his cheeks and his hands fisting the sheets, as if the tight grip could stop his crying. 

“Oikawa, are you—” Iwaizumi can’t help it. He can’t help the way he instinctively rushes to Oikawa’s side, hands hovering, in search of something he can do to comfort the other man. “Oikawa, it’s okay,” he says in a hushed tone as he kneels on the floor next to the bed, as if he were speaking to a wounded animal.

Oikawa swipes at Iwaizumi’s hands, but there’s no real menace behind the movement. “No! Fuck— Be mad at me!” he shouts, but the teariness of his voice undercuts the force of his words. “I was— I was so stupid. And insensitive. And selfish. I didn’t understand how you felt and I should’ve— I should’ve asked. I should’ve listened. I shouldn’t have been so wrapped up in my own life that I completely ignored how you were doing during such a crazy time in our lives.”

Iwaizumi is a little stunned at the barrage of words. First, because he hasn’t heard this many words from the other man in over a year. And second, because of the substance behind the words. He had spent these past years thinking that he was the one who screwed up—Oikawa technically broke things off with him after all—and sure, he had ruminated about all the things that he wished Oikawa did differently in the relationship, but he never thought that the man would admit to them, let alone without prompting.

“You know I ran into Hinata Shoyo in Rio?” Oikawa says with a dry laugh. Iwaizumi cocks an eyebrow, confused as to why their once-rival is brought up now. “He kinda did the same thing as us. Moved across the world to pursue his dreams.” 

He hiccups, but continues. “I never thought about how lucky I was to immediately have a mentor and support circle in Argentina as soon as I landed. But Shoyo was telling me about how scared he was when he arrived, despite his excitement. He told me how lonely and isolated he felt sometimes, and how there were days when it was really hard to pick himself back up. Days when he just wanted to talk to someone familiar in a familiar language.”

Iwaizumi swallows hard. He feels pinpricks in his eyes. He knows the feelings that Hinata described all too well.

“When he told me that, I had some sort of epiphany, I guess. You must have been so… lonely. So scared.” Oikawa stares at the floor between his feet. “I was so proud of you and so caught up in my own excitement that I didn’t even consider how hard it was for you. I thought that we were both adapting to our new lives at the same pace.” Tears fall onto Iwaizumi’s bedspread. “And I never even let you talk about your feelings about it all. I just assumed we were feeling the same way about our new lives. I didn’t—” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “I couldn’t believe it took talking to someone else to understand you, Iwa-chan, the person I thought I knew best.”

Iwaizumi can feel tears falling from his eyes now too and when he reaches up to tangle his fingers with Oikawa’s, Oikawa doesn’t pull away.

“I’m sorry,” Oikawa whispers, finally turning his head to look at Iwaizumi. “I’m so sorry. For being stupid. For being mean. For shutting you out for years.” His fingers curl around Iwaizumi’s. There are new callouses there that Iwaizumi hasn’t felt before.

“I’m sorry too,” he replies quietly. “For being overbearing. For feeling jealous that you seemed to be moving forward faster than I was. It was really hard for me at first.” Iwaizumi wills himself to take full breaths, instead of the shallow ones that come more naturally as he starts crying. “And I didn’t know how else to cope other than doing what I had always done—taking care of you.”

There’s a flurry of fabric and suddenly, Oikawa is on the floor with Iwaizumi, his hands fisting in the front of Iwaizumi’s shirt. His face rushes forward until all Iwaizumi can see is Oikawa’s round, amber eyes, swimming in unshed tears.

“I—” Oikawa whispers. Iwaizumi can feel his breath on his lips. “Can I kiss you?”

Everything from the past year and half rushes through Iwaizumi all at once. The shock, the hurt, the anger, the denial, the acceptance. The heart-wrenching pain and the unspoken love. It all culminates in this moment, on his dingy apartment carpet, with only a cheap lamp shedding light on the most beautiful person he knows.

The emotions must overwhelm Iwaizumi for a moment too long, because a heavy tear falls from Oikawa’s long lashes as he sits back onto his heels, his grip loosening on Iwaizumi’s shirt. “I’m sorry,” he stammers, his eyes darting wildly around the room. “I’m sorry. I have no right. I—”

“You fucking, goddamn dumbass,” Iwaizumi growls, lunging forward to pull Oikawa into him. Teeth hit teeth and saliva ends up on their chins. But it doesn’t matter. The kiss is furious, messy, hasty, overpowering, and yet, not enough. Not enough to make up for the lifetime of unsaid feelings. Not enough to make up for the months of calculating time zones. Not enough to make up for the year and a half of heartbreak and misunderstanding.

Oikawa lets out a tiny gasp before he leans into Iwaizumi. His familiar hands with their unfamiliar calluses hold Iwaizumi’s jaw, thumbs running over the bone. It’s not enough. Iwaizumi wraps his arms around Oikawa’s waist and practically lifts him until he’s sitting in Iwaizumi’s lap, his knees pressing against Iwaizumi’s hips. Oikawa goes to mouth at the spot right below Iwaizumi’s ear—a sensitive spot for him and he feels a small thrill to know that Oikawa remembers—but he pulls back abruptly.

“You pierced your ears,” Oikawa says, a strange tone to his voice. It’s something close to awe.

Iwaizumi unconsciously touches his ear lobe. Silver studs sit there, small enough that Oikawa probably wouldn’t have noticed until he got up close and personal with them. He had gotten them so long ago that he nearly forgets they’re there. “Oh, yeah. I got them a while ago now. I guess you haven’t seen them since…” He wants to say that it’s because Oikawa hasn’t seen him since.

“Ah.” Oikawa shifts in his lap, brushing against Iwaizumi’s half-hard cock. Iwaizumi swears he can feel Oikawa’s dick twitch even through the layers of clothing. “Um, they look good. Really good.”

Iwaizumi can feel the increasing heat of Oikawa’s body through his thin basketball shorts. It’s not enough. Iwaizumi doesn’t know if anything will ever be enough.

“Take this off,” he mutters to Oikawa while tugging at his shirt. Oikawa’s eyes widen but he nods and strips off his t-shirt as Iwaizumi takes off his own tank top. They stare at one another for a moment; Oikawa, for the first time that night, doesn’t immediately pull his gaze away.

Iwaizumi knows he’s bulked up since college. Working was one of the familiar things he could do to take his mind off of the homesickness and the distance from Oikawa.

Oikawa has too. What had once been a smooth plane of a torso has tanned and been sculpted into defined pecs and abs. Oikawa will never have the body type of a bodybuilder, but his once lithe body is now also chiseled and more obviously shows the effort that goes into his athletic career.

“What? You just gonna stare all day?” Oikawa says slyly. Iwaizumi drags his eyes back up to Oikawa’s face and he’s smirking, that unbearable smirk that just begs for someone to swat it off his face.

“I could say the same to you,” Iwaizumi retorts. Before Oikawa can say anything else annoying and eye roll-inducing, Iwaizumi scoops him up and tosses him onto the bed. Oikawa lands with a little yelp. Iwaizumi thanks whatever is holy that he was actually able to pull that off; all that new muscle does not make manhandling Oikawa any easier.

“Holy shit, you got strong,” Oikawa says. His tone of voice is teasing, but his eyes darken as they trail down Iwaizumi’s arms.

“The fuck? I’ve always been strong,” Iwaizumi huffs as he climbs onto the bed as well, holding himself above Oikawa with his always-strong arms.

“Yeah, sure,” Oikawa drawls. Iwaizumi knows he’s goading him, but he’ll give into Oikawa this time. So he grabs Oikawa’s hands and pins them above the brunette’s head with only one of his own, fingers spanning across Oikawa’s crossed wrists. 

He leans down to murmur in Oikawa’s ear. “Strong enough for you?” He knows that Oikawa is able to escape his grip if he really wanted to, but the way that Oikawa’s breath hitches tells Iwaizumi that he has no desire to do so.

“I guess,” Oikawa says, probably trying to sound unimpressed but he’s failing terribly with how breathy his voice is. His eyes darken even more when Iwaizumi traces the curve of Oikawa’s throat with his other hand. Iwaizumi doesn’t miss the way Oikawa subtly grinds his clothed cock against his thigh which is wedged between the Oikawa’s legs. 

“Does that feel good?” Iwaizumi whispers. The way Oikawa’s eyes widen and his face turns crimson tells Iwaizumi that Oikawa was probably moving his hips unconsciously. It brings a grin to his face. 

“I—“ Oikawa begins but he cuts himself off with a moan as Iwaizumi presses his thigh harder against his cock. He starts rutting harder against Iwaizumi’s leg, now definitely on purpose. 

In a sudden moment of lucidity, Iwaizumi asks, “What do you want?” In his mind, he means What do you want tomorrow? What do you want when we’re apart again? What do you want when you’ll have to face me in the cold light of day?

But Oikawa doesn’t hear these questions that only exist in Iwaizumi’s mind. So instead, he looks up at Iwaizumi with his amber eyes and says, honestly and openly, “I want you to fuck me.”

That’s all it takes for Iwaizumi to fall back into a feral state. 

He releases Oikawa’s hands just so he can pull Oikawa’s shorts and boxers off in one fell swoop. His cock springs out, red and already dripping with precum. It brings Iwaizumi some sick sense of pride to know that he caused that. 

“Take yours off too,” Oikawa whines and Iwaizumi acquiesces. He tells himself that it's only because his hard cock was getting uncomfortable trapped under layers of fabric, not because Oikawa asked with that pretty pout on his face. Iwaizumi shoves the rest of this clothing off of his body and throws it into some corner of his room. He yanks open his bedside drawer and pulls out a half-empty bottle of lube and a condom. Oikawa practically keens as he watches Iwaizumi slick up his fingers. Without prompting, Oikawa hooks his hands around his knees and pulls his legs up towards his chest. Iwaizumi’s mouth runs dry at how delectable he looks. 

Iwaizumi sinks his middle finger into Oikawa who lets out a whimper. He’s tight, feeling like a vice even around just one finger. “Relax for me.” Iwaizumi murmurs, running his other hand along the back of Oikawa’s thigh. 

Oikawa wiggles a little before letting out a shuddering breath. “Sorry,” he says as he loosens a little around Iwaizumi’s finger. It’s still tight but at least Iwaizumi can push in further without feeling like he’s going to hurt the other man. “It’s been a while since I’ve, um, done anything. Being a pro-athlete takes up a lot of time, y’know,” Oikawa finishes with a nervous chuckle.

Iwaizumi suddenly feels incredibly self-conscious of the half empty bottle of lube and the nearly empty box of condoms in his drawer. It’s hard to imagine that he’s been having a more active sex life than the beautiful, godly person laying before him. He’s not sure if that should boost his ego or make him sad. Clearly, he went about processing the break-up very differently than Oikawa did.

But no matter how many gorgeous women or handsome men he had taken to bed, none could ever come close to comparing to Oikawa. 

In lieu of properly sorting through his thoughts on the topic, Iwaizumi takes the chance to insert another lubed up finger into Oikawa’s hole. He’s finally relaxed enough to take it and he lets out a content sigh as Iwaizumi’s fingers disappear inside him. 

“Fuck, Tooru, you look so good,” Iwaizumi murmurs, his arousal overpowering any brain-to-mouth filter he has left. “Bent in half and stretching so nicely on my fingers. You look like you were made for this.”

Oikawa whimpers at the words and somehow pulls his legs even further back. Iwaizumi swallows hard at the sight of Oikawa’s knees practically touching his shoulders. Had he always been this flexible and Iwaizumi just didn’t know? Or had this flexibility come with his new lifestyle as a professional athlete?

It’s hot and slick inside Oikawa. The thought of putting his cock in there makes Iwaizumi dizzy, but he holds himself back. It’s not time for that yet. He wants Oikawa to be shaking and begging before he properly fucks him. So instead, Iwaizumi crooks his fingers just right and is rewarded with an obscene cry from Oikawa. The sound is lewd enough to make Iwaizumi’s cock twitch against his stomach. This was what he was missing all these years. This immediate, instinctual knowledge of where to press his fingers to elicit the most delicious sounds he’s ever heard—he couldn’t have that with anyone but Oikawa Tooru.

“Can you take one more finger for me, baby?” Iwaizumi presses his chest against the backs of Oikawa’s thighs so that he can whisper against the shell of Oikawa’s ear. The pet name slipped out inadvertently, but Iwaizumi’s filter is no longer present and Oikawa is too far gone to care. He nods erratically and bites his bottom lip as Iwaizumi teases his index finger around his rim before slipping it in alongside his middle and ring fingers.

“ Nngh , Hajime!” Oikawa gasps. His eyes nearly roll into the back of his head as Iwaizumi pets his prostate with all three digits. Oikawa’s cock is weeping precum against his toned stomach. “ Hajime ,” he’s practically wailing at this point. He mouths at Iwaizumi’s ear with no real technique, seemingly just desperate to get his mouth on Iwaizumi any way he can. Iwaizumi can feel his earring clink against Oikawa’s teeth. He can feel his breath on his ear as he cries, “Please. I need you to… I need you to— oh my god !” 

Iwaizumi has ducked his head down to take one of Oikawa’s nipples into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the pink nub. Oikawa arches off the bed—further into Iwaizumi’s mouth—as Iwaizumi gently scrapes his teeth against the nipple.

“What do you need, Tooru?” Iwaizumi pulls back momentarily so that the breath of his words can ghost against the wet bud. The chill of it sends a wave of goosebumps across Oikawa’s chest. Iwaizumi moves his mouth to the other pectoral before Oikawa can get his words out.

“ Hah , fuck you. You’re not giving me a chance to tell you,” Oikawa gasps out, though his voice sounds more desperate than annoyed, ruining the supposed effect of his words. 

Iwaizumi hums as he closes his lips against Oikawa’s nipple. The lightest touch of his teeth to the sensitive nub draws out another moan. He doesn’t like that Oikawa seemed to have regained some coherence, enough to have formed an entire sentence. With his fingers still inside Oikawa and his lips still suctioned around his nipple, Iwaizumi presses his thumb firmly against the patch of skin between Oikawa’s balls and his hole, stimulating his prostate from both inside and out. A strangled cry rips out of Oikawa’s mouth as his eyes squeeze shut and his thighs start shaking. It seems like he tries to say something, but the only sound that leaves Oikawa’s mouth is a gurgle that sounds faintly like Iwaizumi’s given name.

Iwaizumi hums proudly. He’s picked up a few new tricks that are clearly effective. Maybe some good did come from his era of sleeping around. 

“What do you need?” Iwaizumi asks again, even though he knows the answer. He’s just being cruel at this point, but it’s too much fun having Oikawa writhing beneath him, only able to say his name.

After another minute of nothing but moans and Iwaizumi’s fingers pumping languidly in and out of his hole, Oikawa finally manages to gasp out, “You. I need you. Hajime, god, please , I need you to fuck me.”

Iwaizumi nods, trying to keep his composure and not give away just how eager he was for this moment to come. “Good,” he murmurs. Oikawa whimpers as Iwaizumi withdraws his fingers so that he can reach for a condom. He rips the packet open with his teeth and rolls it onto his aching cock. After drizzling some more lube onto his dick, Iwaizumi grabs a pillow from the head of his bed, only faintly aware of the fact that he’s smearing lube and precum all over the pillowcase. He nudges it under Oikawa’s hips before throwing one of Oikawa’s long legs over his shoulder so that he can press his cock into Oikawa’s puckered hole.

It’s burning hot. It’s tight as a vice, yet Iwaizumi can’t help but think that he fits perfectly. Like it was made for him. The sensations nearly overwhelm Iwaizumi even though he’s pressing in slower than he usually would, wanting to both savor the moment and to make it comfortable for Oikawa. If Oikawa wasn’t letting out a constant stream of breathy moans, Iwaizumi would be more concerned about the small beads of tears forming in the corner of Oikawa’s eyes.

He finally is able to press his hips flush against Oikawa’s body and he lets out a shaky breath. He feels like his own eyes might be glassy as well. “Fuck, Tooru, you feel unbelievable.” 

Oikawa whimpers. A tear properly falls from his closed eyes now. He doesn’t say anything and a pang of worry runs through Iwaizumi’s chest. Maybe he didn’t prep Oikawa enough. Oikawa did say that it had been a while since he had sex, so maybe Iwaizumi should have taken it even slower. Worse, maybe Oikawa was regretting this whole thing. Maybe he had read the situation completely wrong—

But before Iwaizumi’s mind can go fully into overdrive, he realizes that Oikawa is moving of his own accord, rolling his hips as much as he can with one leg draped over Iwaizumi’s shoulder. He seems to find a rhythm he likes because before long, Oikawa is rocking back and forth on Iwaizumi’s cock all on his own, mewls spilling from his lips, his abs flexing with the movement.

All doubts fly out of Iwaizumi’s mind, replaced only with pure, feral arousal. 

“Oh, baby, does that feel good?” Iwaizumi asks, his voice rougher and deeper than he thought it could go. “Fucking yourself on my cock?”

Oikawa nods, finally opening his eyes to look up at Iwaizumi. His pupils are blown, leaving only a sliver of his caramel irises visible. Unshed tears make his eyes glisten prettily.

“I want to hear you,” Iwaizumi murmurs, holding Oikawa’s leg in a way that would give him more leverage to push himself against Iwaizumi’s cock, but still not moving his own hips in any way that would help the brunette. “I want to hear you say it.”

Oikawa whimpers, his face turning crimson. But his needy movements don’t stop and mere moments later, he whispers, “It feels so good fucking myself on your cock, Hajime.”

That’s all it takes for Iwaizumi to growl, readjust his grip on Oikawa’s body, and slam his entire length into Oikawa. Oikawa screams, digging his nails into Iwaizumi’s forearms as Iwaizumi starts a brutal pace of thrusting in and out of the other man.

“God, I missed you so much,” Iwaizumi gasps, bending down so that he can talk into Oikawa’s ear while pounding into him furiously. Oikawa’s calf is basically next to his head at this point; the other leg is wrapped around Iwaizumi’s back. Oikawa’s flexibility just adds to Iwaizumi’s overwhelming arousal. 

Iwaizumi is vaguely aware that Oikawa’s nails are leaving marks on his skin as he grabs onto Iwaizumi’s back, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the feeling of Oikawa pulsing around his cock, the delicious sounds coming from Oikawa’s mouth, and the overwhelming love he feels for Oikawa in his heart. 

“I missed you so much and all I wanted all these years was to have you again. To touch you again. To hear your voice again. To make you feel good again. You feel so much better than I ever could have dreamed, Tooru. The fact that you’re here, with me, is like a goddamn dream. Fuck, Tooru!” Iwaizumi pants. He can’t stop talking. He’s not sure if the words make sense anymore. He feels a fire pooling in his belly. He knows he’s close but he can’t stop. He doesn’t want to stop. “Tooru, I’m close. Are you—”

“Hajime, it feels so good. I’m so close. I’m—” Oikawa babbles from somewhere near Iwaizumi’s collarbone. Iwaizumi shifts his positioning ever so slightly and Oikawa wails. “Right there! Please, right there ! Hajime, I’m going to— I’m going to— Please, make me cum— Please—!”

Iwaizumi wraps his hand around Oikawa’s cock, stroking it in time with his thrusts. “C’mon, baby, cum for me, good boy, that’s it—” Iwaizumi gasps and mere seconds later, hot liquid erupts, flying across Iwaizumi’s fist and Oikawa’s chest. Oikawa practically sobs as he cums, burying his face in Iwaizumi’s neck as his body spasms uncontrollably. The pulsing of Oikawa’s body around Iwaizumi’s cock is too much to bear and soon after, Iwaizumi feels his own orgasm crash over him.

“Fuck!” he yells as he cums into the condom, buried in Oikawa’s tight, hot hole, biting Oikawa’s shoulder in a pointless attempt to stifle his cry.

Iwaizumi holds Oikawa in his arms as they both come down from the high of their orgasms. Oikawa is openly crying into Iwaizumi’s neck now, his sobs causing his chest to heave under Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi strokes Oikawa’s sweaty hair, subconsciously shushing him and whispering sweet nothings in his ear. The crushing heat of Oikawa’s hole around his sensitive cock pushes him to the edge of discomfort, but he can’t imagine leaving Oikawa’s side even for the brief moment it would take to clean himself up.

But eventually, the cum on Oikawa’s stomach starts to get tacky and Iwaizumi can feel the condom loosen as his erection dies down.

“Sweetheart—” Somewhere in the very back of his brain, Iwaizumi curses himself for letting another pet name slip out, but the forefront of his mind remains focused on the important things. “I’m going to grab something to clean us up, okay?”

“Mmkay,” Oikawa mewls, his lips brushing against Iwaizumi’s neck. He whimpers as Iwaizumi pulls out and Iwaizumi makes quick work of tying off the condom and throwing it in the trash. He manages to remember to throw on his boxer briefs again before dashing across the hallway to grab a washcloth and wet it with warm water.

When he gets back to his room, Oikawa is curled in on himself, nearly pressed against the wall. A shiver runs down his body.

“Idiot,” Iwaizumi huffs fondly as he lays a hand on Oikawa’s upper arm, prompting him to unfurl his body. “You could’ve gotten under the covers if you were cold.”

“I didn’t want to get them dirty,” Oikawa whines softly. He opens up under Iwaizumi’s touch and allows Iwaizumi to clean the cum off of his abs with the washcloth. Iwaizumi also gently wipes down the inside of Oikawa’s thighs to get rid of any last traces of lube.

“Thanks for your consideration, I guess,” Iwaizumi says with a chuckle. He pulls his comforter out from under Oikawa bit by bit and drapes it over the other man before getting into bed himself. “But I would rather you be comfy than my sheets stay clean.”

Oikawa immediately nuzzles himself under Iwaizumi’s chin. Being the taller one, his feet extend farther down the bed that Iwaizumi’s. Iwaizumi adjusts the blanket accordingly so that Oikawa is fully covered. 

“I missed you too, Hajime,” Oikawa says, presumably responding to the litany of adoration that Iwaizumi spouted at the peak of his pleasure. “I missed you so much.”

Iwaizumi presses his face into the top of Oikawa’s head in lieu of a verbal response. The twin bed should feel too small for two fully grown men to share, but to Iwaizumi, it finally feels like just the right size.

Iwaizumi wakes up to a text from his housemate the next morning. He had delicately extricated himself from Oikawa’s side in an attempt to go to the bathroom without waking Oikawa up before picking up his phone from the nightstand. 

>> Dude you could’ve just said that guy was a Tinder date instead of lying that he was your old teammate. No shame here!

He ignores the message in favor of the other notifications on his phone, all from the group chat that had been dead for the past year and a half.

To: Seijoh 4
From: Oikawa
>> [image attached]

It’s an incredibly ugly photo of Iwaizumi hugging his pillow, hair completely askew, and mouth open as he slept. Iwaizumi hopes the stain on the pillowcase is from his drool and not from some more embarrassing liquid from the night before. But his hopes are pointless either way because with how the covers fall around Iwaizumi’s ribs, the scratches on his upper back are abundantly visible. Oikawa must have taken the photo and sent it to the group when he got up to go to the bathroom earlier. Now, the brunette has fallen asleep again, face smooth and content, looking deceptively angelic.

To: Seijoh 4
From: Matsukawa
>> holy shit

To: Seijoh 4
From: Hanamaki
>> holy shit
>> HOLY SHIT
>> !!!!!
>> wait, so does this mean that you two are technically a Tinder couple now??

From: Matsukawa
>> ew noo, I don’t want to have to say that Tinder is what got the group back together
>> wait, you know what
>> we should sell this story. if Tinder sponsors us, i’ll take it all back

From: Hanamaki
>> !!!!!
>> who’s gonna play us in the movie version of this
>> omfg or imagine, a Tinder sponsored wedding

From: Matsukawa
>> you only want that so your broke ass will be able to afford to attend

Iwaizumi grins at his phone, feeling lighter than at any point in the last year and a half. He’s about to tap out a witty response when he feels a gentle grip on his elbow.

“Iwa-chan? What are you doing? Come back to bed.” Oikawa’s sleepy eyes struggle to stay open as they look up at Iwaizumi. His brown irises look more golden in the sunlight streaming through the blinds. “I’m not done cuddling yet,” he says with a pout. It’s shocking to Iwaizumi that he can manage such a manipulative expression when he’s clearly less than half-awake.

“Fine, I guess,” Iwaizumi says with a roll of his eyes even as his smile grows bigger on his lips. He’s not done cuddling Oikawa yet either. He’s not sure if he’ll ever be done.

The smell of Oikawa’s hair and the feeling of his bare skin against his own erase all the pain and doubt and fear from the last year and a half. The beating of Oikawa’s heart against his own prepares him for anything that’ll come in the future. The way Oikawa’s arm wraps around Iwaizumi and the way he presses drowsy kisses against Iwaizumi’s jaw promises that whatever it is, they’ll once again face it together.