Archive of Our Own

Iwaizumi was in the middle of a well–deserved nap when the call arrived.

He felt his world shift, as if everything was rocking around him. He flailed in reflex and found himself sprawled on his desk in a very undignified manner, obviously having just faceplanted on his papers as his chair was unceremoniously shoved away from it by his dear, dear subordinate.

He lifted his eyes, meeting the unimpressed gaze of said subordinate.

“I could have you fired, you know,” he muttered, begrudgingly getting up.

From his vantage point, a foot still poised on the leg of Iwaizumi’s chair, Kindaichi shrugged.

“Well, yes,” he admitted. “But you won’t”.

The sound that left Iwaizumi’s throat was a wail of equal part desperation and resignation.

Kindaichi was right, after all. He could never fire him. His days in the precinct would be a lot harder without him around to bully into doing things he didn’t want to do.

“What do we have?” Iwaizumi glanced around. The office was empty. Still dark outside. Didn’t bode well for whatever it was that got him woken up in that hateful manner. “And what time is it?”

Kindaichi beamed. There was something scary about his ability to be that cheerful in the middle of the night.

“It’s 2 AM,” he skipped towards the door, keeping it open for his commanding officer. “And we have a case downtown”.

This time, Iwaizumi wailed in pure, unadulterated desperation.

2 AM calls always had been, and always would be, a pain in the ass.

Kindaichi filled him on the specifics in as they drove downtown, Iwaizumi barely managing to stay awake in the car, nursing a cup of coffee like it was the only anchor tethering him to the cruel reality of his days. Or nights, in the specific case.

There had been an accident, Kindaichi said. A car attempting a pass, and another careening down the hill. No casualties, luckily, and even the second driver was alive and well, just bruised and a bit battered, but a witness had been convinced that it wasn’t a random accident, and that was the reason Homicides was called in.

That, and because karma hated Iwaizumi, probably.

The scene was packed with people when they parked, and Iwaizumi just. Hated. It . It was 2 AM for God’s sake. Why weren’t people home? Why couldn’t they just let him do his work?

“Let’s get this over with, Kindaichi,” he muttered, stepping out of the car. “I just want to go home tonight”.

His partner fell in step with him, a spring in his walk that was just plainly unkind to all the rest of humankind who wasn’t an optimistic unicorn like the kid.

“Captain roughed you up today?”

Iwaizumi hummed.

“Still for that body we found last week, the Kobayashi murder. We’re getting nowhere with the case, and you know how he is,” he sighed. “Besides, I think he wants to climb a few steps up the ladder with the upcoming round of retirements and promotions. He wants the record of our unit to be as immaculate as snow, and now we landed ourselves a case with no leads and no suspects”.

“Still, it isn’t your fault”.

“Go tell that to Irihata”.

Kindaichi laughed.

“I don’t fancy one of his monologues, Iwaizumi, sorry”.

Iwaizumi mock-frowned.

“No respect for the elders”.

Detective Watari – upstanding member of the Forensic Investigation Division – couldn’t help but snicker.

“Youths these days, mh?”

“Don’t rub it in, Watari,” Iwaizumi sighed. “Do you have something for us? Tell me you have something for us, please”

Watari hummed, hugging his folder to his chest.

“Sorry, my boys are still finishing with the prelims, you’ll have to wait until we process the car and everything. But I can tell you something you have already”.

“I’m not getting any younger here, Watari”.

“A pissed-off victim. Please go talk to the guy before he gets himself accidentally strangled by one of your men”.

Now that Iwaizumi focused on it, there was a constant bitching, a voice rising acute and petulant from somewhere beyond the police lines. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed before, because now that he had he couldn’t hear pretty much anything else. Too drowsy, maybe. Or it was a primordial survival mechanism.

“This bad?”

“I think Kyoutani is out for blood. Keep him in check, Iwaizumi, or we’ll have a murder on our hands”.

Just his luck, Iwaizumi wondered. Never a nice evening, during the night shift. Never a nice, easy cat stuck on a tree. Always overdoses, mob hits, men killing their ex-wives, mysterious murders that got his boss’ shackles up.

And now a victim who couldn’t help but drive half of the cops of the city mad.

Just. His. Luck.

He pinched his nose, fighting the beginning of a night-shift-induced migraine.

“Just thirty-five more years before I can retire,” he sighed. “Let’s go, Kindaichi. This is our cue to step in”.

He ducked under the police tape, letting his ears lead him to the source of the commotion. He could work with a stressed and frightened victim. He was a professional. He could do it.

“Iwaizumi, I’m so glad you’re here”.

He faltered for a moment, catching a familiar voice. From behind an agent, a familiar face smiled in relief and waved a hand.

“Hanamaki?”

Hanamaki excused himself from the officer and stalked off in his direction.

“Are you the one who’s driving my men mad, Hanamaki?”

Hanamaki gave a rueful smile.

“Sorry, not me,” he tutted. “But I still feel responsible, because I’m the one who insisted it was not an accident”.

Iwaizumi came immediately awake. When Kindaichi had first briefed him, he had been ready to discard the notion as the fantasy of a sleep-deprived, delusional witness. But he had known Hanamaki since high school, and he wasn’t one for useless scaremongering. It still didn’t mean that it was something serious, but at least he deserved the benefit of doubt.

“Kindaichi, why don’t you go talk to the victim as I take Hanamaki’s statement?”

Kindaichi regarded him with a look of somber betrayal, but he didn’t complain, bless his unicorn soul that Iwaizumi wasn’t above exploiting, some of these days.

“How’s Matsukawa?”

Hanamaki smiled. He always smiled, when his family was mentioned.

“Issei’s fine. He’s home with Takara, you know. You’re still invited for dinner, if we can make our schedules match up,” Hanamaki paused. “And how’s… Minoru?”

Iwaizumi paused for a moment.

“I’m not seeing him anymore. Didn’t work out”.

“Man, I’m sorry,” Hanamaki patted him on the shoulder. “I thought you really liked him, this time”.

“I did. Sadly, he didn’t like my working hours,” Iwaizumi wasn’t in the mood for wallowing in pity over his sadly non-existent love life, so he maneuvered the conversation back on track. “So, care to tell me what happened here to drag me out of the safety of my desk?”

Hanamaki nodded. That was what Iwaizumi liked about his friend. He could be a total spatz sometimes, and he had this thing for internet memes and if he started talking about his husband and daughter there was no force able to stop him, but he was also capable of focusing on the problem at hand.

“We were coming home from the hospital, me and Oikawa. The victim,” he explained at Iwaizumi’s arched eyebrow and blank stare. “It’s later than the usual end of my shift, but it has been a hell of a day in the ER, so. It’s not that unusual, actually, for Oikawa. Me, I’m more inclined to go home at the right time. Issei gets cranky if I don’t”.

Iwaizumi nodded non-consequentially, letting him ramble on, pausing to take some short note on his pad.

“I was following him, Oikawa, I mean. And then out of the blue there was this car that passed me. I noticed because he was going over the limits, I’m sure of that. And then it flanked Oikawa’s car, and I got the distinct impression that the driver was trying to run him out of the road”.

“How so?”

Hanamaki frowned.

“He wasn’t actually trying to pass him, he was just… standing beside him? And as he got closer and closer, he kept on swaying toward Oikawa’s side of the road. For a moment I thought he was drunk, but then, it looked deliberate, you know? Like when you walk near someone and he’s forced to move aside to let you pass. Only, he wasn’t passing Oikawa, even when he slowed down”.

“And then?”

“Then a truck came in the opposite direction, and Oikawa swerved to avoid a crash. His car hit the guardrail, then the other car, and then spun out of control and out of the road. The bastard is lucky he didn’t break his neck in the impact”.

Iwaizumi nodded.

“Did you happen to notice make and model of the other car?”

“A black sedan. Or blue. Dark color, I’m sure. I didn’t get the plate, I was busy trying to understand if Oikawa was alive”.

“Understandable,” Iwaizumi reassured him. “Maybe we can pull out the plate from some cameras in the area, don’t worry about it. So, this Oikawa, has he got a name?”

“Sure,” Hanamaki didn’t miss a beat. “Oikawa Tooru. He works with me at the hospital, in the ER. We were both on shift tonight. He’s a friend”.

“Has he got enemies?”

“Not that I can think of?” Hanamaki looked pensive for a moment, then shrugged. “Oikawa is a good doctor and a friendly guy. If he has problems or some skeletons in the closet, he does an impressive work of keeping them under wraps”.

“Okay, don’t sweat it. Maybe it was an accident and we’re just overthinking everything,” Iwaizumi said, sounding hopeful.

God he really hoped it was an accident.

“Give me a call if you think of something else, will you, Hanamaki?”

“Sure. And you should go and save poor Kindaichi from Oikawa’s claws, before the kid starts to cry”.

Iwaizumi turned around, and indeed Kindaichi was starting to sport a look of quiet desperation on his face.

Who was this Oikawa Tooru, if he could drive even Kindaichi up the wall?

“He can be a bit intense,” Hanamaki said in lieu of an apology, as Iwaizumi stalked off in the direction of his partner, determined to see this through.

It turned out, intense wasn’t the right word to describe Oikawa Tooru.

Pain in the ass was more like it.

When Kindaichi registered that Iwaizumi was moving in his direction, he looked like he could piss himself from the joy. Iwaizumi watched him square his shoulders, set his jaw and say, “the detective in charge of the scene is coming, maybe you can talk with him, I’m sure he can give you all the information you need”, before he turned tail and ran.

And so Iwaizumi found himself facing Oikawa Tooru for the first time in his life, in the middle of a cordoned off road, next to the wreckage of his car, at 3 AM during an anonymous night shift.

It turned out, he wasn’t ready for it. Not in a million years.

“So, you’re the one in charge here”.

Iwaizumi held his head higher, his shoulder straighter, and managed a smile out of the how-to-deal-with-difficult-witnesses handbook.

“Correct,” he answered smoothly, finally taking into account the man that was in front of him.

The first thing he noticed was that he was annoyingly tall. Not so that he towered over him, but just enough that he had the advantage of a handful of centimeters over him, meaning Iwaizumi had to crane his neck to look him in the eyes. He looked tired, with purple shadows under his eyes and pale complexion, and his clothes were rumpled, no doubt because of the long working day and the incident. He had an angry red bruise on his cheekbone, already turning purple at the edges, a painful-looking welt on his neck, no doubt from the seatbelt, several thin scratches on his face and hands from the glasses flying around, and his hair was tussled up from running his hands through it one too many times.

He was, all in all, a rather handsome man, one that would have earned an interested double-take had Iwaizumi met him in any other place rather than the middle of the street at 3 AM in the night.

“So you can tell all these goddamn morons to just let me go home ”.

He was also absolutely making his best to drive him out of his mind, apparently.

“I know you’re tired and you have every right to be, but if you could just see––” he tried, but Oikawa just wouldn’t let him talk.

“No, you don’t understand. I just came off a shift of more than twelve hours . Do you understand? Can you people here even count to twelve?” Oikawa sighed, bewildered. “I can’t believe it. I appreciate you doing your job, Detective, I really do. I appreciate hard work. I love hard work. Hard work is probably one of my favorite things in the world except for milkbread. You can say that hard work is a kink of mine. But it’s 3 AM and I just can’t stay here one more minute listening to people asking me stupid questions about this stupid accident”.

“Our witness doesn’t think so, Mr Oikawa,” Iwaizumi went again for professional. It was for the best, he told himself. No use headbutting the suspect in the face. No use kicking him. No use for violence. Just plain old professionalism. He could work with it.

“Yes, well, Makki can be a little overbearing, you know? He worries so much for me these days. Can’t we just call it drowsiness on my account, write me a nice ticket because I was too tired to be driving and go home? I sure do have better things to do. I’m tired, officer, and I just want to go home”.

Iwaizumi hadn’t heard him, he quickly decided. It was for the best.

He just went on with the interview as scheduled in his mind, browsing through the possibilities for the upcoming question.

“Do you have any enemies that you know of, Mr Oikawa?”

Oikawa threw up his hands in indignant disbelief.

“Are you actually serious, Detective?”

Iwaizumi nodded. It helped, not talking. If he didn’t talk he wouldn’t be calling Oikawa names and earn himself a disciplinary note.

“Okay, okay, if you insist I’ll just amuse you. What’s next, juggling balls over my head? A unicycle?” Iwaizumi didn’t looked appalled by the proposal, and Oikawa threw his hands up in disconcert. “Alright, alright. I don’t have enemies,” he paused, catching his breath. “Look, it’s probably just a big misunderstanding, just Makki being overprotective as usual. Can I go home now? I have a shift tomorrow evening and I would like to sleep at least a couple of hours without you cops around”.

“Could you just cut it with the crap and actually cooperate with us for five minutes straight ? ”

Iwaizumi’s voice steadily rose as he talked, and at the end he was practically screaming in Oikawa’s face.

As he realized it, he took a step back and a deep breath.

The man looked bewildered, as he couldn’t believe that he had been actually yelled at by a policeman.

Iwaizumi was too tired and pissed off to care about it, at the moment.

“You talk like you’re the only one getting kept up but I hate to break the news to you, everybody here is up and working to understand what happened to you, and your childish behavior isn’t helping anyone. So, if you could just cooperate for a minute, you’ll be able to go on your way and possibly never cross my path ever again, so that we’ll both be happy”.

“Do you,” God help him, Oikawa was almost smiling by now, a small and amused tilt of his lips, like he thought it was fun to have driven Iwaizumi past the point of no return and exhausted his reserve of patience for the upcoming month. “Do you usually talk to all your victims like this?”

“Only to pretentious assholes who deserve it,” Iwaizumi scribbled a number on his notebook and pushed the paper in Oikawa’s hands. “This is our Human Resources direct number. Feel free to file your complaint as the upstanding citizen that I’m sure you are. In the meantime, Yahaba will take your statement so you can get the hell away from my men and let us do our job”.

As he turned and walked away, Iwaizumi could see that Yahaba had stepped in and that The Asshole was actually talking to him.

Good , he thought. Maybe something good would come out of that nice internal investigation that would surely result from that evening.

See, that was the reason Iwaizumi hated the night shift.

Kindaichi looked at him with a mixture of awe and desolation in his eyes.

“You know that Irihata won’t be pleased with this stunt, do you?”

Iwaizumi was too tired to think.

He bashed his head against the steering wheel, and resolutely kept his mind set on those thirty-five years till retirement.

Iwaizumi would have actually been more than happy to forget all about that disastrous night call and about one Oikawa Tooru, given the possibility.

There hadn’t been any call from the Human Resources, luckily. That had surprised Iwaizumi, actually, because he had taken Oikawa for someone that would have jumped at the opportunity to keep telling his ear off for the treatment he received.

Instead, two weeks passed in total and blissful silence, the file of the accident forgotten under a pile of other identical files growing taller by the day on Iwaizumi’s desk. Iwaizumi spent those two weeks working every possible angle about the Kobayashi murder that still was unsolved, only to come up more empty-handed and frustrated each day.

He had also totally forgotten that they were still waiting on the pending forensic analysis on the Oikawa case, at least until he got a call from Watari, saying he had to come to the garage.

“You’re not going to like what I have, Iwaizumi,” was his grim prophecy.

Iwaizumi banged his head on the desk in response.

“Everything fine?”

Kindaichi stuck his head out of his cubicle, promptly followed by the equally inquisitive face of Kunimi, their technical analyst. At least, Iwaizumi thought he was inquisitive. It wasn’t always easy to decide, with that kid.

“Peachy,” he grumbled in response. “Watari wants me downtown for the Oikawa case”.

Kindaichi scrunched his nose. That made Iwaizumi feel better, actually. If the mention of Oikawa’s name was enough to elicit such a reaction from Kindaichi, who was the better of the two of them, he was justified in feeling a constant hum of annoyance at the thought of having possibly to deal again with the asshole.

It took an hour to finally muster up the courage to get up and drive to the Forensics Building, Watari’s castle. He let himself in, greeted the nice secretary at the entrance and then proceeded to get lost a couple of times in the maze of corridors of the building.

When he arrived at the garage, Watari was waist–deep under the hood of Oikawa’s car.

Iwaizumi knocked on the large metal doors, not willing to scare him by just letting himself in.

“I thought I was paged by Forensics, but it was Transportations”.

Watari laughed. When he emerged, he had grease stains up his arms and even on his shaved head. Iwaizumi tossed him a rag to clean up.

“Yeah, see if the next time I’ll be so quick in sending you the results you need, Iwaizumi,” it was a hollow threat, since everybody at the precinct knew that Iwaizumi was Watari’s favorite detective.

“I bring coffee as an apology”.

“Bribery, you mean,” Watari said, hands already closing on the Styrofoam cup. He inhaled the aroma and groaned in happiness.

“What do you have for me, Watari? Please, tell me it was an accident so I can close this case and never see Oikawa again”.

“I’m sorry, man,” Watari cradled the coffee to his chest, almost as if he was afraid Iwaizumi would withdraw his caffeine benefits now. “It wasn’t. Someone was definitely trying to kill Oikawa”.

Iwaizumi stood for a moment in somber silence, wishing his nice day a heartfelt goodbye.

“Why do you say that?”

Watari motioned him toward the car as he began speaking.

“There are scratches and chips of a metallic blue paint, consistent with the witness’ statement that the car was a dark sedan. We’re running mass spectrometry on the paint, and then I’ll have Kunimi run a search against whatever database they store this crap in, see if we are lucky enough to identify a specific car brand,” he pointed at the scratches. “But that wasn’t it. Look at the passenger door and tell me what you see”.

Iwaizumi crouched, looking intently at the upholstery of the car. He was about to say that he wasn’t seeing anything in particular, other than the fact that Oikawa was a cleaning freak, but then he saw it, in the shadow of the handle. It was small and hidden by the overcast shadow, but it was unmistakably there.

It was also, unmistakably, a bullet hole.

“ How ,” he managed, face turning pale, gripping the metal of the door with too much strength.

Watari pointed at the driver glass, which was in pieces all over the anterior seats of the car.

“Oikawa said that the window broke before the impact. It was in the statement he gave Yahaba that he couldn’t see well what he was doing because he had his eyes closed because there were glass shards flying around. I thought it was because of the impact with the guardrail or with the other car, but this bad boy here tells a different story. Ballistics already has it, so we should get their report back in no time. It’s ruined, so we won’t be able to obtain a perfect match with a specific gun, but at least it should give us make and model of the gun”.

“So I guess it really was an attempted murder”.

Watari shrugged.

“Guess so,” he answered laconically, patting the battered hood of Oikawa’s car. “Not my call to make but yes, it was”.

Back in his car, Iwaizumi called Kindaichi to update him on the development. His partner reacted with a moment of silence and a breathless “ fuck ” uttered into the receiver.

“I know, right?” Iwaizumi could already feel the dread creeping up on him. It was going to be a very long day. Hell, it already was, and it was only mid-morning. “I’m going to the hospital, hopefully I’ll catch Oikawa there. He needs to be warned that someone is out for his life”.

Kindaichi paused.

“If you take Oikawa, I’ll spare you Irihata, then”.

“You’re a lifesaver, you know?”

“A man gotta work to earn his pay,” he laughed, before closing the call and leaving Iwaizumi in his car, with little to no desire to start it and go to the ER to see Oikawa.

The ER was, as usually, packed to the brim. The city hospital was always tethering on the fine line of too many patients and too little money , a step away from collapse, and it showed in its overcrowded triage. Iwaizumi used his badge to push his way through the crowd of lamenting people, sidestepping mothers with their crying children and menacing old ladies. He flashed the same badge at the nurse at the door, and told her he was looking for Dr Oikawa.

He was on call, the nurse said, and he would probably find him in Trauma 2, since there had just been a road accident and a couple of patients have been whisked to their ER by the guys on the scene. Her face told clearly that she would have loved to spend all day long bitching about who took that decision, overworked as the ER was, so Iwaizumi promptly excused himself, preaching official and urgent business with the doctor, thank you for your help.

When he managed to identify Trauma 2, Oikawa was just leaving the room, keeping the door open for the gurney to follow him.

He froze as he recognized Iwaizumi in the hallway, but was quick to regain his composure. He turned toward the nurses, giving them a wide smile.

“They’re waiting for him in the OR, so you’d better go. I’ll be there shortly, as soon as I finish with another small question”.

They didn’t question him, and why should they? He looked every inch the respectable and caring doctor that he probably was.

Iwaizumi forced himself to relax and prepare for the upcoming confrontation.

“Are you here to apologize, Detective Iwa-chan?”

“I’m actually here on official business–– wait a moment,” Iwaizumi squinted at Oikawa. “ What did you just call me ”.

“Detective Iwa-chan,” Oikawa countered with an unmistakable undertone of glee in his voice, entwining his hands in front of himself, head tilted on one side.

Iwaizumi’s body shook with the conscious effort he made not to punch Oikawa in the face.

“First of all, don’t ,” he growled. “Second, I’m pretty sure I never even told you my name”.

“I asked Makki, of course,” Oikawa explained, smug and satisfied like a cat with a bowl of cream. “I have a bad memory, you know. All these names, I keep forgetting them,” he tapped with a finger at his temple, lips curling in a perfect smile, his eyes closed in two small quarter-moons of happiness. “So I use nicknames. Pretty handy, mh?”

Iwaizumi sighed, one of those deep, suffering sighs that were meant to tell the world how done with its bullshit he was.

And Iwaizumi was so, so very done.

“Look, Mr Oikawa––”

“Only Oikawa, please. Mr Oikawa is my father, and only when my mother is really pissed off”.

“Oikawa ––” Iwaizumi seethed. “Is there somewhere private we can talk? As I was saying before, I’m here on official business”.

“This way, then,” Oikawa quickly moved down the corridor, and then into what looked like the tidiest office Iwaizumi had ever seen. Freak , he thought, his mind wandering back to the mess of files and paper cups on his desk back at the precinct.

Oikawa dropped on his chair, spinning around before turning toward Iwaizumi, still standing on the doorstep.

“You can come in, you know,” he motioned to the chair on the other side of the desk.

Iwaizumi moved uncomfortably for a moment, before finally crossing his legs and planting his hands firmly on the polished wood of Oikawa’s table.

“So, Iwa-chan,” The Asshole began, smiling with condescendence. “What is so important that you make me miss the surgery for the aortic dissection I just managed to call back from the dead?”

Iwaizumi was sure that Oikawa was referring to something very impressive by the air of importance of the words that he had used. He was also sure that he couldn’t care less if Oikawa was missing out on all the fun, because he was missing out too.

“The accident wasn’t an accident”.

Oikawa’s smile faltered. For a moment, it looked like the fake smile of a porcelain doll, something carefully constructed to hide every trace of other emotions from Oikawa’s face. It looked like a mask, and it was dangerously slipping.

Then Oikawa regained control on his facial muscles, and smiled again with that insufferable air of fastidious perfection.

“Again with this nonsense? I thought you had already closed the case, since I haven’t heard from you for two weeks”.

“Forensics has been busy,” Iwaizumi was getting the feeling that Oikawa didn’t want to understand what he was saying. Denial was a common reaction, and an understandable one in the current situation, but his job there was to make sure that he understood the danger he was in. “But we got the results of the exam of your car today, and there was a bullet stuck in the passenger door. So, unless you have an explanation for where and when a bullet lodged into the door of your car, that rules out the accident”.

Oikawa froze, akin to a deer caught in the headlights. He just stood there, hands elegantly poised on the desk surface and frozen in an aborted movement, wide-eyed, and unable to speak.

“A bullet”.

Iwaizumi watched his composure crumble in the beat of an eye, and almost felt sorry for him.

“Are you––” Oikawa licked his lips, voice trembling, hands trembling even more. He took them away from the desk, hid them in his lap. “Are you sure?”

Iwaizumi just nodded.

“Jesus Christ”.

Oikawa rose, pacing the length of the office. He looked like a caged lion: majestic and utterly terrified.

“And now what”.

Iwaizumi straightened up. This was actually something he was able to do. This was his job, and he was good at it.

“Now you cooperate with us with the investigation. We can protect you, and we will do our best to catch the guy behind all this. There’s no need to panic”.

“I’m not panicking!” Oikawa squealed. Iwaizumi politely avoided pointing out how panicky his objection was.

“Sure thing. Now, Oikawa, I’ll ask you again: can you calm down and cooperate with me here?”

Iwaizumi knew he was being brusque; he also knew that he just wasn't cut out for kind and comforting. That was Kindaichi; he was the one with the penchant for making old ladies wanting to adopt him, and for making mothers of four pouring their hearts open to him and spilling over a lifetime of secrets and worries.

Iwaizumi was more of a tough love type, stoic and unflinching in the face of the most brutal of murders. He didn't do feelings, when on the job.

That's why the sudden surge of tenderness and worry that came as Oikawa started sobbing was unprecedented and startling in itself. Even more so because it was Oikawa, who had been labeled pain in the ass extraordinaire five minutes into their first encounter.

Iwaizumi stood frozen on his spot, not knowing how to react.

“I'm–– God, I'm sorry. I know I'm not the most sensitive one,” he managed to stammer out, feeling his pockets and hoping that something would magically appear out of thin air, anything to present to Oikawa and stop his misery.

Oikawa sniffed in a handkerchief that he had magically produced from a pocket of his coat. He even managed a wobbly and humid laugh.

“No, you're just doing your job, I understand,” was the chastised murmur. It made Iwaizumi feel even more of an ass.

“Still,” Iwaizumi scratched the back of his head, confused and embarrassed by that display of feelings. He tried to remember what Kindaichi did when someone was crying. “Maybe you need a minute? Fresh air? Something hot to drink?”

Oikawa shook his head.

“No, thanks. I have to get back to work as soon as possible, we're short-staffed these days,” he smiled apologetically, pulling himself together by sheer willpower. He stood behind his desk, face still blotched red, and took a deep shaky breath. “So, on with the questions, Iwa-chan”.

The spark of admiration for the iron grip that Oikawa had on his feelings outshone for a moment the flash of annoyance at that stupid nickname.

“Why don't we go back to your enemies, Oikawa?”

The man sighed.

“Look, I know you don't believe me, but I don't have any enemy. At least, not that I know of. There's Ushiwaka––”

Iwaizumi’s pen paused.

“Who?”

“ The Ushijima Wakatoshi, renowned plastic surgeon. He’s an old rival of mine dating all the way back from med school. But I can't really see him doing anything like that”.

Iwaizumi shrugged.

“Still, we'll check with Mr Ushijima,” he assured. “Anything else come to mind? A patient, or a relative, maybe? I know some people just can't accept that sometimes you doctors can't work miracles”.

Oikawa’s face darkened in thought for a moment, and Iwaizumi stood hopeful. But then the doctor shook his head, tension unraveling from his shoulders, and Iwaizumi sagged back in disappointment.

“Not that I think of, I'm sorry. I've had some complaints over the years, as anyone,” he confessed. “But nothing stands out, I'm sorry”.

Iwaizumi scribbled an absent-minded note on his pad about having Kunimi work on that.

“We'll need access to the record of your patients of the last six months, just in case. I'll have our technical analyst work his magic on them, see if he comes up with something more”.

Oikawa nodded. He still looked pale and unsure, even if he had calmed down during the course of their conversation. No wonder, his world had just pulled an one hundred and eighty on him. One was bound to some degrees of shock.

“I'll have my secretary compile a list of the files, but for the actual records you will need to refer to the central administration, because we hand them back once we discharge a patient”.

“We will, thank you for your cooperation,” Iwaizumi stood, ready to leave. He fished a card out of his pocket and laid it on Oikawa’s desk. “This is my work phone. On the back there's also my personal phone, for emergencies. Feel free to call for anything you may need”.

Oikawa stared at it in silence.

“I mean it,” Iwaizumi insisted. He even went to the point of putting his hand on Oikawa's shoulder and squeezing a bit, in sign of support. “I know it's a stressful moment. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know,” he paused. “Obviously, call me if you think of something useful to the investigation, too”.

Oikawa smiled, and it struck Iwaizumi how different this smile was, how genuine and soft around the edges.

“Thank you, Iwa-chan,” he said, slipping the card in the pocket of his coat and rising gracefully to open the door for him. He stood on the doorstep, watching the detective leave. “I'll be in touch, then”.

Iwaizumi regretted all the misplaced life choices that had led him to his current place.

The phone rang.

Iwaizumi shoved it in the deepest recess of his desk.

The phone kept on ringing.

Iwaizumi got up and went for a coffee, found the coffee maker with an out-of-order sign, fell even more into despair.

The phone stopped ringing.

He carefully slipped back on his chair, took out the phone, laid it in the square middle of the desk, and proceeded to glare at the offending piece of technology.

The ringing resumed.

“Maybe it's important,” Kindaichi interjected on the fifth ring, with a pained expression on his face.

“Maybe I could hack into the phone and set it to autodestruct every time this Oikawa guy try to call you,” Kunimi offered.

“Please do,” Iwaizumi answered from his misery, faceplanting on his desk. “He keeps calling. You don't understand the hell my life is right now”.

“I think we do pretty well, thank you,” Kunimi retorted, before turning back to his black and green screen of data. Kindaichi threw an apologetic glance at his boss, before turning back too in a valiant if useless attempt at pretending he was looking at the data instead of Kunimi’s face.

Iwaizumi groaned but didn’t correct him, because they really couldn't possibly understand. He had anticipated a call: people usually had a lot of questions, after the initial shock had worn off, and he had long learned that giving explanations by phone came easier to him than talking with traumatised persons face to face.

He hadn't anticipated that Oikawa would take his offer of help as permission to pester him at any time.

Just the day before, Oikawa had called ten times , mostly about the most trivial things. The lunch he was having, a patient coming through the ER, and on one memorable occasion the color of the underwear he wore.

Iwaizumi had pointedly decided to ignore all of it. Especially the underwear part.

It struck him anew even now, as he looked at his phone like he could talk it into silence by sheer willpower alone, that Oikawa must have been a very alone man, if he had all that spare time and need to talk someone’s ear off, even if it was Iwaizumi’s.

“Iwaizumi,” was the laconic answer, in the end, when Kunimi and Kindaichi combined glares managed to finally push him to answer.

“Iwa-chan!” came Oikawa's gleeful chortle. “I was just thinking about you”.

“Any news about the case?”

“Nope, but I was thinking––”

“Too bad,” Iwaizumi grumbled, and he closed the call.

Immediately the phone began ringing again.

“ What ”.

“That was rude, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa mirthfully laughed into the phone. “Maybe it was important”.

“Oh, was it?”

Oikawa hummed along an unspoken melody.

“Yes, in fact it was,” he confirmed. “I was wondering if you had already spoken with Ushiwaka”.

Iwaizumi’s head throbbed painfully. He wasn't built to handle all this stress, he really wasn't. What had possessed him when he decided to enter the Academy, God only knew.

“I'm not at liberty to discuss the details of the case with you, Oikawa. You'll be updated when there's something relevant to report”.

He could feel Oikawa's pout just by the quality of his whining.

“Iwa-chan, I'll remind you that I'm the poor, traumatised victim here! I need constant reassurance that you valiant law enforcers are working to keep me safe!”

“It's difficult to find time to work with all your pestering,” Iwaizumi relented, at last. It was true that Oikawa had been traumatised when they had last spoken in person, and he had the rights to be. Maybe it was true, that he needed someone to talk to. Iwaizumi just was the sacrificial victim. “I was planning on swinging by his clinic after I leave this afternoon, his secretary says that there's a spot in his schedule in which he can see me”.

A pause followed his words.

“Oh,” Oikawa sounded actually mystified that Iwaizumi had answered one of his questions without throwing a couple of insults in the middle. The last words, when they came, were more subdued. “That's great, I guess. I'll leave you to it, then. Bye, Iwa-chan”.

Iwaizumi laid the phone on the desk, and waited with trepidation.

It stayed silent.

The twin cries of joy that came from Kindaichi's booth were, however, truly unnecessary.

True to his word, at 5.30 PM Iwaizumi left the office and drove to the address of Ushijima's clinic. It was a tall building, all polished metal and shiny glass, and Iwaizumi felt an unwarranted sense of guilt in pushing the clear glass panel of the door open, leaving a smudged print in his wake.

Ushijima's office was even more striking. Iwaizumi was led there by the same secretary whom he had spoken on the phone to, who assured him that the doctor would be coming as soon as possible.

The desk was glass, polished to shine. The whole wall behind the desk was polished glass, too, overlooking the nearby park, so that the owner of the room could forget that he still was inside the city and focus on billowing trees and happy family outings. The chair he was sitting in was some design hellish product that was probably too cool to be comfortable, at least for his uncultured ass. The computer hummed with an almost impalpable bzzzz , and Iwaizumi was reminded of his own whirring piece of technological trash carefully lodged on his desk.

Everything in the room spoke of more wealth than what Iwaizumi could hope to own in his whole lifetime and the man, Ushijima Wakatoshi, was the perfect complement for that room.

He strode inside the office with the confidence of the owner, barely sparing a glance at Iwaizumi. His secretary was behind him, tablet in her hands, typing furiously to keep up with his boss' words.

“--and please let Mrs Imai know that the next time she decides to sunbathe, she’d better avoid to reach the melting temperature of silicone,” Ushijima stopped at a cabinet, pulling out a bottle of what looked like a very expensive liquor. He took out two glasses, then put one away when Iwaizumi shook his head. “That would be all, Mrs Sasaki”.

The secretary disappeared in a flurry of excuses and clicking heels, finally leaving Iwaizumi alone with the infamous Ushiwaka.

Silence stretched on for a couple of uncomfortable moments.

“Mr Ushijima, I'm detective Iwaizumi. Thank you for making time to meet me”.

Ushijima dismissed his words with a flick of his hand.

“Don't mention it, detective. Sorry for the delay, there has been a bit of an… problem with one of my client’s breast implants. I actually only have fifteen minutes before the next one arrives, so I'd appreciate if you could keep this interview extremely short,” happy to have cleared the air, Ushijima reclined on his chair and took a sip from his glass. “So, what was this about?”

Iwaizumi straightened in his chair, pulling out his notebook.

“I’m here for an ongoing investigation. I need to ask you some questions about your relationship with Oikawa Tooru”.

Ushijima paused, looking confused by the question.

“Well, that’s fairly quick, then. I don’t have any relationship with Oikawa Tooru”.  

Iwaizumi considered the statement for a moment, trying to understand where the lie was, if one was present.

“Pardon me?” he articulated then, when it looked like Ushijima had no interest in being more forthcoming on the matter. “I was under the impression that the two of you were acquainted, at least. I think that Oikawa’s exact words were my nemesis ,” along with other several words, every one less kind that the previous one.

Iwaizumi carefully avoided to mention the last part.

Ushijima shook his head, incredulous.

“Look, detective, I don’t know what Oikawa told you, but sure as hell he isn’t my enemy,” he wasn’t even annoyed, just exasperated. “It’s just this big thing he made up in his own head during the first years of med school”.

He stood up, standing in front of the glass wall, looking at the park underneath.

“You see, Oikawa is a decent man, and a good doctor, but he doesn’t do well with someone being better than him. And I was better than him then, and I am now, and he just can’t accept the fact that he’ll stay forever underpaid in that ratty city hospital and I have my own private clinic in a nice neighborhood,” he shrugged. “That just how it is, with Oikawa. He has too much useless pride to know when to quit”.

There was something in that picture of Oikawa that didn’t sit well with Iwaizumi; maybe it was the unimpressed tone of Ushijima’s voice, or his certainty as he proclaimed himself the best. Or maybe it was something else, the uneasy feeling of wanting to offer a rebuttal, but not being in the position – professional or otherwise – of being able to.

He didn’t know Oikawa that well, after all. All he had was notes on a case, and the incessant murmur of Oikawa’s voice in his ear every time he called, sometime with his voice full of laugh and some other times with a quiet quality to it that spoke of hidden depths. He had impressions, spots of color on a white canvas, but nothing definitive, not a clear picture of the man, and it wasn’t enough to say that he knew him.

“Are you sure there’s nothing more? Envy on some level? An old grudge? I know first-hand how overbearing Oikawa can be”.

Ushijima regarded him with pity.

“Detective, I can charge five hundred a consult,” he smiled, and opened his hands to encompass his office, his clinic, and Iwaizumi’s miserable life. “Do I look like I can envy anyone?”

There wasn’t anything else that could be said, after something like that. As he drove home, Iwaizumi thought about the fact that not once, during their conversation, Ushijima had asked about Oikawa’s health and what had happened to bring a detective to his office asking questions about the man.

His home was quiet when he arrived, as it usually was. He put a frozen pizza in the oven, letting the kitchenware work its magic and hand him a perfectly cooked meal with little to no effort on his part.

He wandered to the living room, collapsed on the couch and closed his eyes, relishing in the quiet and silence of his own house. Too quiet at times, perhaps, but that was the way it was. Living on his own had his pros and cons.

When the phone rang, he was ready.

“Iwa-chan!” came the joyous squeal. Iwaizumi had to fend off a treacherous smile. The moron’s happiness sure was contagious. “I was expecting a call from you”.

“J’st got home,” Iwaizumi stretched his legs, letting his head loll back on the cushions. He yawned. “Tired, long day”.

Oikawa paused for a moment and, when he resumed, his voice was uncharacteristically softer. Nicer. Iwaizumi relaxed into it.

“I’m sorry. I guess I should let you rest, then, if I want you to keep working on the case”.

“Nah,” Iwaizumi yawned again. “’m waiting for my dinner to be ready. I can talk to you for another couple of minutes”.

“I knew it, you’re falling for my charms,” Oikawa joked. Iwaizumi paused for a moment, because that comment had hit too close to home for his comfort.

Maybe it was the lingering discomfort of the conversation with Ushijima, he thought. That has to be it. No other explanation for the warm unfurling in his chest as he listened to Oikawa rambling on about his day at the hospital, talking about a particularly difficult patient that had monopolized the best part of his afternoon.

The timer beeping was Iwaizumi’s cue to tell Oikawa that he would talk to him again the next day. He accepted it gracefully, for once, without whining and sobbing for a couple of minutes.

“I almost forgot, Iwa-chan!” he added then, as an afterthought. “Did you speak to Ushiwaka?”

It took some juggling on Iwaizumi’s part to extract his dinner from the oven and not drop the phone at the same time, even avoiding a second-degree burn to his hands.

“I did,” he confirmed, looking around for a plate. There wasn’t any in sight, so he resorted in cutting the pizza while still on the baking tray. “He’s a royal douchebag, I won’t deny it. But I don’t think he’s the one behind the assault. Beside, Kindaichi said that his alibi checked out, he was operating the night of your run-in”.

Oikawa hummed, soft voice in his ear.

“Thought so. Good night, Iwa-chan”.

Iwaizumi closed the call with almost a lingering taste of disappointment in his mouth. Then he looked at his hands, his sad excuse of a dinner, and his empty house, and almost scoffed a laugh.

Yes, sure. Falling for a victim was just was he needed in his life.

The days stretched on, apparently unfazed by the life-changing revelation that Iwaizumi Hajime was somehow harboring a crush on a victim of violent crime that he was the leading investigator of. The man himself, however, was anything but unfazed by the revelation.

It was, all in all, a disaster.

He tried to distance himself from Oikawa. He really tried. He reverted to the rude and tough policeman of the beginning, refused to keep talking on the phone for more than strictly necessary, and sent Kindaichi in his stead whenever Oikawa requested assistance for something that could be case-related.

(It hadn’t been. In both instances, Kindaichi had returned empty-handed and with the singular notion that Oikawa had been disappointed that it was him and not Iwaizumi that had showed up.)

He threw himself with renewed energies into trying to solve the case. If he did, if he closed this case, if he made an arrest, maybe the calls would end, and the soft voice talking and laughing and making him feeling needed would disappear with them. Maybe they would both return to their worlds, never to meet again, and Iwaizumi could have some breathing space from all these stupid feelings and needs he didn’t know he felt before, and couldn’t unfeel now.

When his phone rang at 7 AM, in a crude re-enacting of their first, disastrous meeting, and it was Oikawa’s name lightening up the screen, Iwaizumi wanted to be mad. He had just returned home from a long, long night-shift. He wanted to be angry and finally drive him away from himself, like a wounded beast that only wanted to retreat and lick wounds in the comfort of his den.

He answered, though. He still hadn’t managed to shake the reflex off.

“ Iwa-chan ”.

Something in Oikawa’s voice sounded off and it alerted Iwaizumi, dissipating the tendrils of sleep that were still lingering in his mind. He sat up, more awake, pressing his phone to his ear.

“Oikawa?”

“Iwa-chan,” he said again, voice broken, and it broke something inside Iwaizumi too. A dam, holding back feelings and thoughts that weren’t appropriate, that weren’t right.

And with that dam, everything broke loose too.

“Oikawa. Oikawa, listen to me. What’s happening?”

“I think there’s someone here”.

Blood froze in Iwaizumi’s veins. He was off his bed before he even registered he was moving, urgency making him rush through the room and down the stairs.

“In the house?”

“No, outside,” Oikawa’s breathing was laboured, and his voice jarring from the panic. “I saw a shadow from the window. It was watching me”.

Thanking all the gods in the world for small mercies, Iwaizumi climbed in his car, jamming the key in the ignition and starting the engine with more energy than required. The car roared to life, and he was off.

“Oikawa, I want you to calm down. Close the door and get away from the windows. Do you have a windowless room?”

“Bathroom,” he whimpered. Iwaizumi heard the click of the lock closing, and then hasty footsteps and jagged breathing. “I’m here”.

“Good,” he aimed for soothing, trying to craft his voice into something that could reassure Oikawa, a tether to his sanity. He didn’t know if he had succeeded. “Stay there, Oikawa, I’m on my way. I’m coming. Do you hear the car?”

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa gulped, voice rising into panicky notes. “I’m scared”.

“I know,” I’m scared too . “But you need to calm down. Breathe for me, Oikawa”.

“ Hajime–– ” Oikawa breathed into the phone and it was like a punch to the chest, landing square in the middle. There was nothing more to say.

Iwaizumi sped up, hoping to make it in time.

He didn’t waste his time in parking, leaving the car haphazardly in the middle of Oikawa’s driveway, engine still running as he ran out. Gun in hand, he stalked towards the house.

His heart was up in his throat as he did a rapid inspection of the perimeter. There was no one in sight, so suspicious figures lurking nearby, no cars parked along the street. The door, when he tried the handle, was still firmly closed. The knot inside his chest relented a bit, but still. He needed to see Oikawa. He needed to know that he was alright, with that stupid hair and stupid face and broad smile and childish nicknames.

“Oikawa, it’s me!” he yelled, knocking on the door twice for good measure. “Open the door”.

Silence came from the other side. Iwaizumi wasn’t up for waiting, not with his stomach tied up in knots, not if Oikawa was in danger.

The door broke on the second kick.

He heard a strangled sound coming from the back of the house, through the living room. He followed the sound, like the first time he had ever seen Oikawa, following the thin thread that held them together. He followed his voice, hoping that he wasn’t too late.

The door of the bathroom was locked. Iwaizumi paused for a second with the hand on the handle.

“Oikawa, I’m Iwaizumi,” he called, voice low in his throat. “I’m coming in,” and he threw it open.

Only to find himself almost brained by a broom.

The first thing he registered was Oikawa’s eyes, wide with panic in the barely lit room. He looked haunted, face pale and aghast, before he dropped the broom and threw himself at Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi found it hard to remember that Oikawa was taller and bigger than him, at that moment. As he closed his arms around his shoulder, crushing him against his chest, he found that Oikawa felt extremely fragile and breakable as he shivered and cried against the collar of his shirt. He held him, probably bruising his back with the strength of his grasp, with his need to protect him and reassure himself that everything was fine.

The beast that burned in his chest relented, if for a single moment.

Oikawa was fine and in his arms, and the beast conceded that it was enough, at least for now.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa was laughing and crying, face red and blotched, nose scrunched up. Iwaizumi moved back a lock of hair that stuck to his forehead and thought, beautiful . “Iwa-chan, you broke my door, you brute”.

The words startled a strangled laugh out of Iwaizumi too.

“I did,” he said, crushing Oikawa back against himself, slotting his cheek against the soft hair on top of his head. “I’m sorry”.

“You’d better be,” Oikawa murmured. His fingers grasped at Iwaizumi’s shoulders, holding him in.

Neither of them moved till the sirens of the police cars stopped in front of the house.

They stood side by side, watching as Watari’s men took photos and measurements outside of Oikawa’s house.

“I can call the smith, having him replace the door in a couple of hours,” Oikawa said, looking straight ahead. For one that just had a nervous breakdown, he now looked remarkably put together. Iwaizumi couldn’t help but admire, once again, the force of nature that Oikawa Tooru was. “I’ll have the city police foot the bill, of course”.

It was a joke, albeit a weak one. Iwaizumi lifted the corner of his mouth in answer, appreciating the effort.

“You can’t stay here, Oikawa”.

Relief washed over Oikawa’s face, but he was quick to dissimulate it. He returned his look on the scientific personnel crawling around like a very busy ants’ nest.

“You only said it because you know I’ll chose the most expensive door I can find. Something outrageously tacky”.

“Sure, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi shrugged. “You could stay with Hanamaki, just for a couple of nights”.

Oikawa tched.

“Yeah, not happening,” he spat out.

Iwaizumi was starting to feel frustrated by this train of conversation. He had already tried several times in the last hour to bring up the issue of security. Oikawa couldn’t stay in that house, and it had nothing to do with the broken door.

Forensics has already found several footprints that didn’t belong neither to Iwaizumi nor to Oikawa. Some of them were several days old, preserved by the dried soil and lack of rain of that unusually long and dry summer.

Oikawa’s house wasn’t safe anymore.

“Why not?” Iwaizumi asked, without bothering to keep his frustration from his voice. “I’m sure he’ll take you in for a couple of days as we work the leads we have”.

Oikawa looked at him like he was stupid.

“Makki has a husband, a daughter, and a dog. As sure as I am that he would take me in, I don’t want to put them all at risk by living with them when I have someone targeting me. This is something about me , and I’m not going to risk someone else’s life”.

And I don’t want you to risk your life , Iwaizumi thought, frustrated.

He waited in silence for a moment before speaking up again.

“You could stay with me, then”.

Oikawa’s head turned toward him so quickly that Iwaizumi flinched in sympathetic pain for the whiplash that he was bound to get one of these days.

“Are you serious, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi didn’t know what possessed him to say those words, but now all he could do was to play it cool. No, he wasn’t sure that living under the same roof as Oikawa was a good idea, and it was probably so unprofessional that wasn’t even contemplated in any code of good workplace conduct, but he couldn’t take the offer back now that it had been made.

“Why not? This way you are safe, and I can do my job. Two birds with a stone, it’s just a practical arrangement”.

A shadow passed in Oikawa’s eyes. Disappointment?

“And you’re the soul of practicality, aren’t you Iwa-chan?”

If I was, I wouldn’t be dealing with this stupid attraction, Oikawa .

Iwaizumi just shrugged.

“I guess,” he moved toward the car, throwing the door open with a tad too much enthusiasm. The hinges groaned out their disappointment and lack of interest for Iwaizumi’s current predicament. “Come on, I’ll get the paperwork done and assign someone to watch over you during the day when I’m at work”.

“I can stay alone for a couple of hours. Or are you my mom, Iwa-chan?”

Oikawa graced the abysmal state of the interior of the car of the most disdainful look he could muster, before slipping into the passenger seat. He sat on the front of the seat, trying to get in contact with the smaller amount of surface he could manage. Iwaizumi was torn between horror and hilarity at the sight.

It turned out, the idea of having Oikawa over for a couple of days was so royally bad that no-one at the precinct had the words to comment on it.

Irihata tried to suggest a hotel, or one of their safe houses, but that was the most serious of the attempts of dissuasion that the police station staged upon hearing it. Kindaichi patted him on the shoulder in a manly show of support and told him not to be an idiot, Kunimi snickered – snickered! Iwaizumi didn’t even know that his muscles had the ability to do it – before turning back to the code passing on his screens, and Kyoutani and Yahaba just sighed and shook their heads before muttering something about a betting pool and Watari being his usual lucky bastard self.

For the sake of his own sanity, Iwaizumi didn’t press the issue any further than that.

Oikawa stood the examination gracefully, as it was to be expected. He smiled and waved and flirted with the coffee intern and managed to completely piss off Kyoutani in the couple of hours that it took Iwaizumi to arrange everything.

Iwaizumi dragged him bodily away before Mad Dog could rip Oikawa’s throat out with his teeth. What an unfortunate outcome for their protection detail, if their protégé was to die by the hand of one of the officers of said detail.

The drive home was surprisingly silent. Iwaizumi told himself that he was only imagining the constant hum of charged air in between them, and kept his eyes resolutely on the road in front of the car. Oikawa drummed his fingers on the armrest, looked out of the window with an unusually pensive frown, and said nothing.

When he parked his car, Iwaizumi was feeling restless, the kind of nervous energy that was worked out by a good run, with the mental burnout that came with physical exhaustion.

He would go, he decided. It was past time that he did something. First he would help Oikawa settle in, and then he’ll go work out.

With that renewed resolve in the front of his mind, Iwaizumi managed to carry all of Oikawa’s bags inside and into his bedroom without ridicule himself too much. He ducked out immediately after, with a harried promise to be back and the reassurance that there was someone posted outside the house at any time.

The run had the benefit of finally clearing his mind from the lust that the image of Oikawa in his bedroom had awakened only minutes before. With the comforting pull and burn of overexertion in his calves, it was easier to put everything in perspective. As he doubled over, trying to catch his breath, it was simple to recognize that it was all in his head, this misplaced attraction for Oikawa.

He returned home at a more sedate pace, mind lighter than it had ever been in the days before.

He turned the corner, and promptly froze on the spot.

There was smoke coming out one of the windows.

His mind was racing to consider all possibilities as he sprinted home once again. Could it be possible that whoever was after Oikawa had already found him? He had been careful not being followed from Oikawa’s house, in the remote case their suspect was still there, still observing, but had he been careful enough ?

Or maybe there had been some electric short circuit. It was something that he always postponed, working on the electrical system of the house, and what if something had blown up in his absence?

He barged inside, out of breath, and what greeted him was the sight of Oikawa in the middle of his kitchen, standing under the sprinkler of the fire system, looking thoroughly wet and miserable.

“I tried to cook,” was the sad explanation.

Iwaizumi doubled over again, but this time it was with laughter.

“I didn’t know that that stove even worked ,” he tried to breath, but dissolved into a fit of giggle instead.

Oikawa crossed his arms to his chest, doing his best to look annoyed and imposing even with rivulets of water trailing down his face.

“Oh, well, excuse me for trying to do something nice, for once!” he sniffled with disdain. There was some trace of hurt underneath it, still, and Iwaizumi forced himself to regain some form of composure.

“Oikawa,” he said, resting his hand on Oikawa’s shoulder. He smiled, wide and warm. “Thank you, that was really, really nice of you,” he declared. “Even if you almost managed to burn my house down”, he added then, as an afterthought.

Oikawa pouted.

“Mean, Iwa-chan,” he stuck his tongue out, insult already forgotten. He then turned around, surveying the status of the kitchen, the water dripping down the counter, the burned shell of what looked like the mangled remains of curry. “ ... I made a mess, didn’t I”.

“Nah, could have been worse,” Iwaizumi reassured him. “We’ll dry everything and then order some food to be delivered. But first I have to take a shower”.

Only at the mention of the shower Oikawa seemed to register that Iwaizumi was still in his workout attire. His eyes slid over him and, once he looked, his stare lingered. On his arms, mainly. And then his chest. And then...

Iwaizumi coughed before they both turned any redder than they already were.

“I really should go shower and change”.

It took a moment for Oikawa to snap out of his reverie. He blushed a vivid scarlet, and then promptly turned around, busying himself with picking up a very drenched magazine.

“You should change too,” Iwaizumi suggested, because being that wet couldn’t possibly be comfortable for Oikawa. Plus, the breadth of his shoulders was more than a little distracting, with his wet dark shirt clinging to it. “I have some house clothes you can borrow, if you want. They’re in my closet. Only, don’t open the third drawer, it’s where I keep my gun”.

Iwaizumi then proceeded to a very hasty strategic retreat in the comfort of his shower. He double-checked to have closed the door, opened the water and banged his head once or twice against the wall. What a good idea, suggesting that Oikawa borrowed some of his clothes.

What a good idea indeed, because when he came downstairs again, after a decent amount of time, Oikawa smiled up from the floor where he was sitting, an old sweater from the police academy that was too big on his shoulders, and Iwaizumi felt his own heart increase two sizes.

The same, unresolved tension that had been there in the car was there, too. Iwaizumi could feel it buzzing the whole evening, even as he and Oikawa did the most mundane of things, like ordering Chinese take–out and watching a popular drama that was on TV.

(Oikawa swore left and right that he had never seen it, but then again, he called all the characters by name.)

It was a relief, when sleep caught up with them. It has been a long day, and Iwaizumi had only slept a couple of hours before the call from Oikawa. It took all of his willpower to stand up and shuffle toward the closet, pulling out a pair of clean bed sheets.

“I’ll take the couch,” he announced. Before Oikawa could say anything, Iwaizumi kept on talking. “The bedroom is less easily accessible from outside, and they’ll have to pass through me to get there. I want you to feel safe,” he finished with a smile.

Oikawa still looked unconvinced, but let himself be led out of the room. They parted in silence.

Even when he was lying on the couch, sleep still deserted Iwaizumi. His mind kept replaying random snippets from the evening, small moments, inconspicuous, really. A brushing of shoulders, twinkling hazel eyes, the songlike quality of a laugh.

The domesticity of the evening was what bothered him more than everything else, because he could see dozens of nights like that, of evenings spent without doing anything, just content with the presence of Oikawa by his side.

He longed for more evenings like that. And even as he longed for them, in the in-between place between wake and sleep, he knew that he couldn’t have them, not in a million years.

It was a fact that they learned soon, during academy even, by the words of others that had gone through it before them: there was no fairytale love story, in the police. One had to do their job, and once it was over, it was over.

The lights in the hallway came on, alerting him.

The words came after, softly spoken, and those ignited a different kind of fire.

“ Iwa-chan ”.

Oikawa was leaning on the doorstep, profile cast sharp against the light, looking at him like Iwaizumi was the one that hung the moon and stars. Iwaizumi’s treacherous heart did a little somersault at the view.

How nice it was, to be regarded with such warmth by Oikawa.

How stupid it was, to consider it something else than what it was: an adrenaline-fuelled delusion on Oikawa’s part, and a horrible decision on Iwaizumi’s.   

“Is there a problem?”

Oikawa shook his head. He looked almost feverish, pupil blown and cheeks red.

“Iwa-chan,” he said again, taking a tentative step into the room.

The connection sparked and hummed, coming alive once again, and Iwaizumi thought that it had been stupid, on his part, to ignore it for the better part of the last weeks. It was there, and it was strong, and it kept them together.  

Iwaizumi found that breathing was harder now.

Oikawa stood poised for a moment, still uncertain, still insecure. Then he seemed to steel himself, strengthening his own resolve, and stared into Iwaizumi’s eyes.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight, Iwa-chan,” he breathed, voice suddenly dropping to a gravelly register, something that was unheard of, and it made Iwaizumi’s veins tremble in his wrists.

There was no mistaking Oikawa’s intention, and it made him come alive, willing to burn everything that stood in between them, every centimeter that kept him away from Oikawa.

“This is a bad idea,” he wavered, trying to regain some composure, but he was already shifting on the couch, sitting straighter, straining to get closer to Oikawa.

“ I know ,” desperation mingled with desire into Oikawa’s voice. “Come here, Iwa-chan,” he opened his arms, and the look on his face was equal part lust and terror, affection and despair. He begged, “ please” , and it was all it took.

At once, Iwaizumi was closing the distance between them, shoving Oikawa against the wall behind him. He fisted his hands in his hair – finally, finally – and he kissed him hard.

The sound that left Oikawa’s lips was a breathy yes , and Iwaizumi tasted and swallowed it together with the moans that followed, and felt his whole body thrum in synch with Oikawa’s, felt them slot together, almost like they were made for it.

“Tonight––”

“ Yes ,” Iwaizumi sighed, lips never leaving Oikawa’s even as he pushed him backwards, hands skimming under his clothes, feeling the hard planes of his chest, feeling his skin burn with the same desire he felt. “I’m not leaving”.

He pushed him up the stairs.  

Iwaizumi was the first to wake up. He stood there, still groggy, looking at the pale light filtering through the curtains. It was still early, he thought. He should still be sleeping, but found that he couldn’t.

He glanced at Oikawa, still sleeping undisturbed beside him. He was curled up on his side, an arm under the pillow, the other thrown over Iwaizumi’s chest, long legs tangled together with the covers. He was smiling, a content and placid expression on his face, and Iwaizumi felt the same warm feeling unfurling in his chest.

The night before had been one in a lifetime. Iwaizumi had never felt so in synch with someone, almost as if they had known each other for a lifetime. They had fallen into a comfortable rhythm and, when Oikawa had climaxed underneath him, Iwaizumi had watched him through it and he was sure, he was sure he had never seen something that beautiful in his whole life.

It had been perfect, the night before.

It had also been a mistake.

Iwaizumi knew it. He had known it also the night before, but all his alarms had been shut off by the pressure of Oikawa’s lips against his own and the comforting weight of his body against his.

He looked at him now that he was free to think, free to reason without insistent hands touching him, searching blindly for him in the dark, and he could see with startling clarity that the man he had in his arms now was beautiful, and kind, and driven. It wasn’t someone that Iwaizumi could hold for himself, it would have been like trying to catch sunlight with bare fingers.

It wasn’t someone who could ever settle for Iwaizumi.

He watched him into the morning, watched his minute shifts and changes in the patterns of his breathing. He watched the light move across the bed and then his face, highlighting the pale freckles that dusted his face, and felt an almost overwhelming impulse to bend and kiss that same freckles, commit them to memory.

He felt him stir, disturbed by the light, and slowly blink into awareness. Hazel eyes focused on his face, and Oikawa smiled.

“Hello, Iwa-chan,” he murmured, still soft and pliant from sleep, warm as he moved up to demand a kiss.

Iwaizumi let himself be kissed once, and then again, and then pushed Oikawa into the bed, and kissed him some more. He slid his hands under the hem of his shirt, over planes of warm soft skin, and promptly forgot once again about his worries.

Breakfast was an intimate affair, with Oikawa standing too close, stealing bits and pieces of Iwaizumi’s food, sipping his coffee and bitching about the lack of sugar, smiling with the kind of mischievous smile that would normally earn at least a scoff, but that morning elicited only fond eye rolls, playful shoves and coffee-flavored kisses.

He was weak, Iwaizumi decided. Very weak to the siren call of soft brown eyes and a dazzling smile. When Oikawa leaned against his side, pressing miles of soft warm body against him, he couldn’t shove him away, even if it would have been the right thing to do.

Kindaichi called at mid-morning, apparently to check in on the protection detail, actually to check in on Iwaizumi. He knew, in some mysterious way, and it made Iwaizumi feel guilty.

“Maybe you should swing by the office, you know,” Kindaichi suggested, voice guarded as he expected Iwaizumi to fall into the trap and say that no, thanks , he would just work from home, and he’d see them all tomorrow. It was the fact that he was actually tempted to just do so, that spurred Iwaizumi into agreeing to actually drop by.

He closed the call and smiled apologetically at Oikawa.

“Sorry,” he sheepishly said, scratching the back of his neck. “Kindaichi asked––”

“Yes, I heard,” Oikawa shrugged from where he was sprawled on the couch. Iwaizumi’s eyes trailed his long legs, abandoned arms splayed on the cushions, and he had to look away. From the satisfied light in Oikawa’s eyes, his misstep had not gone unnoticed. “I can wait here for a couple of hours as you work, Iwa–chan”.

Iwaizumi nodded.

“Probably will be more than a couple of hours,” he admitted then, feeling guilty. At Kindaichi, at Oikawa, at himself. Guilty as charged, whatever the world wanted to charge him with.

Oikawa cocked his head, considering.

“Maybe then I can come with you,” he mused, rising up from the couch. He crowded Iwaizumi’s space, eyes twinkling with mischief. “So I won’t get bored, you know”.

Iwaizumi swallowed hard, and put his hands on the warm flesh of Oikawa’s hips under his shirt, feeling muscles shifts over bones under his hands.

“God forbid you get bored”.

It took two hours before they were decent enough to leave the house and, really, Iwaizumi should have felt more embarrassed by it.

Kindaichi’s gaze was searching and all–knowing; as he ducked to enter the room, carefully avoiding direct eye contact, Iwaizumi distinctly felt as if he was lying to his mother.

“That in the corner is Kyoutani’s desk, you can use it if you want, Oikawa––”

“Oh, I know this man”.

Iwaizumi turned around. Oikawa had stopped on the doorstep, and he was looking at the board that still held the scant information they had on the Kobayashi murder. It made Iwaizumi feel a bit dizzy, that this whole debacle with Oikawa had almost made him forget about the Kobayashi murder.

“Do you?”

“Sure. A junkie. He came to the ER a couple of months ago, pretty beaten up. He dead?”

Iwaizumi nodded.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Oikawa was regarding the board with a sort of somber concentration, the same look he had on his face whenever he was at work.

“His name didn’t come up in the files you gave us”.

They hadn’t found a connection, albeit such a weak one, between the Oikawa and Kobayashi’s cases. Iwaizumi was sure that he’d remember, given that both cases haunted him in their own, different way.

Oikawa twirled around, pensive.

“He wasn’t technically assigned to me, but I was called in because he tried to sign himself out against medical orders and his doctor was in the OR,” he explained. “I told the officer that was with him that it wasn’t a good idea, with the status of the patient, but they didn’t listen to me. I guess I was right”, he shrugged.

Oikawa’s words took a moment to register, because Iwaizumi’s mind was elsewhere – on his hands, playing with a pen he had picked up in passing from Iwaizumi’s desk, and on his lips, tilted downward in a pout. Then something clicked, almost with the audible sound of a turned–on switch.

“An officer,” he said, slowly. Oikawa lifted his head from the pen he was playing with, sending it skimming on the floor, and didn’t bother getting up to pick it up again. “You said there was an officer with him”.

“Mh, sure. Same uniform as you, Iwa-chan,” he confirmed. “I remember it well, because it was a slow night in the ER. Not so much to do for me. And he was handcuffed, so, pretty hard to miss”.

Iwaizumi’s heart skipped a beat.

“ That’s funny , because there’s no record of an arrest in Kobayashi’s file”.

Oikawa’s face said that he wasn’t following with the point, but Kindaichi was.

“One could ask why someone forgot to file a record of the arrest,” he smiled, laying back down on his chair, sliding few inches lower. “Well, Irihata can be happy. A corrupt cop is always nice to have on one’s resume, especially if you’re the one signing the arrest warrant”.

“Yes, but we have to catch him, first. Oikawa,” Iwaizumi put both his hands on Oikawa’s shoulders, regarding him very closely. He backtracked a moment later, when he realized he could see a faint blush underneath the very pale freckles on the bridge of Oikawa’s nose. From the heat he was feeling, his face was probably in a worse shape. “Can you recognize the man if you see him?”

Oikawa’s look was one of disdain. The effect was somehow hampered by the blush still reddening his face, but he still conveyed the meaning well enough.

“Well, yes, of course. I have a pretty good memory for names and faces, you know”.

Iwaizumi nodded.

“I’ll have Kunimi prepare a file with all the cops of the city. Can you wait here for a bit, Oikawa? Then we’ll go home”.

The smile that graced Oikawa’s face was a private work of art. Iwaizumi felt his heart skip a beat at the sight, at the beauty of that expression, and then the icy feeling of seeing where this thing was heading.

It was a full-blown disaster, and he was standing in the eye of the storm, patiently waiting for the wind and tempest to engulf and suffocate him just to have a taste of what it meant to dance in the rain.

“Don’t worry, Iwa-chan,” he purred, a small and intimate expression that was meant only for Iwaizumi. “I can wait for you as long as I have to”.

Kindaichi was watching them with a pensive frown on his face.

“Iwaizumi,” he called, after a moment. “Captain wanted to see us”.

Iwaizumi frowned. He had talked to Irihata a few hours before on the phone, and the Captain hadn’t mentioned anything about a meeting.

“I guess,” he answered tentatively.

“We should go,” Kindaichi insisted. He pushed his chair, standing up. “ Now ,” he added.

Iwaizumi sighed.

“Do you mind?”

Oikawa shrugged and smiled.

“Go, sure, I’ll just wait here”.

Once out of the office, Kindaichi bypassed Irihata’s door, going straight for the stairs. Iwaizumi was forced to run to keep up with him, feeling more annoyed by the minute. He had figured out that Irihata was just a convenient excuse to talk without Oikawa overhearing, but still.

A not so small part of him was dreading this conversation. He knew, as a general principle, that Kindaichi was trying to do the right thing, and he was his friend, and he was worried about him, and the fact that he couldn’t hold it against him bothered him even more.

He couldn’t hide the spark of annoyance that coursed through him as Kindaichi closed the door of a empty interrogation room, effectively trapping him in the room.

“Do you know what you’re doing, Iwaizumi?”

The whole point was, he didn’t. But this didn’t mean he was happy to be forced to acknowledge the thing.

“Yes!” he barked in annoyance. “Yes! No”, he backtracked then, and it made him even angrier. At himself for being so stupid, at Kindaichi for being so perceptive.

At Oikawa, for being so easy to fall in love with.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m flying blind,” Iwaizumi spit in a growl. “Why, because you do, Kindaichi?”

Kindaichi’s face was the most serious he had ever seen. He stood in Iwaizumi’s face, looming on him. It was these times, when the usually friendly agent became this intense doppelganger, even though it rarely happened, that Iwaizumi was forcefully reminded that Kindaichi was barely his junior, and it was just two years of experience that set them apart.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” Kindaichi seethed, eyes coming alive with rage and hurt. “Or have you forgotten Kunimi?”

Four years before, their IT unit had been the focus of an intense attack from a group of hackers, that then resulted in a wave of violence and several arrests. Kunimi, as the senior agent, had taken the brunt of it.

Kindaichi had been the one detailed to his protection.

It hadn’t ended well for anyone, that time.

It felt like a slap to the face, that naked rage. Of course, Iwaizumi hadn’t forgotten. It would have been quite hard to, given the way Kindaichi still carried himself whenever Kunimi was around, with the wounded grace of an animal expecting a fatal blow to come at him at any time.

“And he was one of us, Iwaizumi! Don’t you see?” Kindaichi opened up his arms, with a desperate edge to his voice. “It never works. There are too many emotions involved, the risks, the attachment. And then everything ends when we catch the bad guys, like a nasty withdrawal crisis, because you had so much riding in on it and you are left with something that’s too mundane to compare with. And someone gets hurt”.

You get hurt , he didn’t say, but.

Iwaizumi’s rage suddenly deflated. He felt empty then. If he couldn’t love Oikawa, and he couldn’t be angry at Kindaichi, what could he possibly do to fill the void?

“What do I do now?” he asked, forlorn.

Kindaichi regarded him with wide, sad eyes.

“You walk away, Iwaizumi,” he said, and it hurt him. It still hurt, four years later. “Before it’s too late”.

Oikawa was staring at him, had been since they had left the precinct. He was perceptive, Oikawa. It had taken him a split second, when he and Kindaichi had come back to the office, to realize that something had changed in the brief time they had been out of the office.

There hadn’t been any more smiles, or soft words, once he had caught on on that. Oikawa had been the image of professionalism itself, perused the list of photos that Kunimi had sent from IT, flagged down some names, and kept his distance.

Now that they were back home, it seemed like there wasn’t enough space for both of them. They were sitting at the opposite ends of the dinner table, uneaten lunch laid out in front of them, and they weren’t speaking.

Iwaizumi didn’t dare to start.

Oikawa didn’t have the patience to wait.

“So, care to tell me what happened, Iwa-chan?” he burst out, crossing his arms against his chest. “Because this isn’t working, clearly”.

Relief washed through Iwaizumi. Maybe they were on the same page, he and Oikawa. Maybe it would be easier than he expected to.

“Do you think so too?”

Oikawa gave a brisk nod.

“Of course. This thing where you don’t speak about your problems, Iwa-chan?” he shrugged. “It isn’t working, clearly. So you have to tell me if I did something wrong. You have to tell me if there’s a problem, so we can work to solve it. That’s how a relationship works”.

The words were like a sucker punch delivered right where it hurt the most. Iwaizumi visibly recoiled from the words, pushing his chair away from the table and bolting from the room, leaving Oikawa looking outraged at the table.

He heard him follow after the moment it took him to recover from the surprise, heard frantic steps following him. He considered, for a moment, leaving the house altogether. It would be easier, to run away.

“Iwa-chan!”

But it wasn’t fair to Oikawa, he guessed. It wasn’t fair to both of them. He had to clear the air, made him see his point. Maybe he’d get angry now, but Iwaizumi was sure that once the whole situation had resolved Oikawa would see the reasoning behind it. It was for the best, after all. The best for both of them.

“Iwa-chan!”

“I heard you!” he retorted, stopping in the middle of the living room. Oikawa appeared in the doorstep a second later, face red in anger. “I heard you just fine the first time, Oikawa”.

“Then you could have answered, you know. Like a normal person, which is clear that you’re not, otherwise you would have just––”

“Don’t you see it, Oikawa?” Iwaizumi stood in the centre of the room, shoulder squared like he was expecting a physical attack. He looked Oikawa in the eyes. “ This has to end”.

“What is this , Iwa-chan?”

“This. Us ,” he gestured in between them, at the empty air. “This relationship, as you called it. It can’t work”.

It took a moment to register. Iwaizumi could see as understanding dawned on Oikawa’s face, and how he reacted, retreating from him, putting back a mask much like those first few days. For a brief, painful moment, Iwaizumi longed to take back his words, forget everything, and just erase that mask from existence once again.

He didn’t, however.

Oikawa held himself with icy composure, arms crossed across his chest.

“I thought last night worked out just fine,” he said matter–of–factly, and it didn’t fail to make Iwaizumi blush in shame.

“Last night was… a mistake,” he stammered, trying to come up with something that wasn’t the flashes of the night before his mind had conjured at the mention. “I shouldn’t have let you––”

“Funny, I thought you were a willing participant . My back still remembers your willingness , Iwaizumi”.

He didn’t escape him, how Oikawa has reverted to use his real name. He should have been satisfied, that he had finally done it. It was what he had asked several times.

Iwaizumi just felt hollow.

“Oikawa, can you just be reasonable?” he pleaded.

Oikawa just seemed more annoyed than before.

“Reasonable? I am being plenty reasonable!” he shouted in a sudden outburst of anger. “It’s you who keeps telling that this, whatever it is, can’t work, but you can’t know it! How can you decide, after less than one day––”

Iwaizumi threw his hands up. They had this something, he and Oikawa. This something that kept pulling them together, pulling out more one from the other. It had been passion, the night before. Right now, it was anger; it ignited inside Iwaizumi, kindled by the angry words Oikawa had just spat at him.

“Why can’t you see it? It’s all wrong!” he growled, taking a step toward him. Oikawa didn’t budge, and they found themselves right into each other’s space. “Now you think I’m some hero, your knight in a shining armor, but once the glamour of novelty and the fear for your life disappear, once the case is closed, you’ll see me for what I am: a normal man . And that’s not going to be enough”.

Oikawa stood in silence.

“You actually have it all already decided, haven’t you,” he said. His voice was still icy, but it had a softer quality this time.

Resignation.

Iwaizumi dropped his arms. Suddenly he was feeling very tired of that confrontation.

“Yes”.

“And there’s nothing I can do to make you change your mind, I guess,” Oikawa took a step back, removing himself from Iwaizumi’s space. It seemed to suck out the last wisps of his resolution.

“... No”.

Oikawa shook his head. The icy fire in his eyes was back, when he gazed right into Iwaizumi’s face.

“Then you shouldn’t have bothered even talking with me , since it’s already set, isn’t it? You should have just booked me a room somewhere and left me like some stupid abandoned dog,” he seethed.

“Don’t be stupid, Oikawa, you can still––” Iwaizumi took a step toward him, but promptly recoiled as Oikawa whipped around, teeth bared in a savage growl.

“What? Stay here? Yeah, sure,” he laughed, hard and unforgiving. “I won’t stay here and be reminded every moment of what I can never have. Book me a hotel room, Iwaizumi,” he stated, unmoving and unmoved. “Or I’ll leave and I swear to God you’ll never see me again”.

Iwaizumi managed to nod at that. He wouldn’t risk it, even if it could be a hollow threat. But then again, he didn’t think it was. Oikawa was a proud man, and he didn’t go back on his words, even if he said them in the spur of the moment.

He still wouldn’t risk Oikawa’s life, not over something this stupid. He had to protect him, even from himself; and to do that, he had to let him go.

“I should probably go back to the precinct,” Iwaizumi murmured, feeling numb. He couldn’t remember why he had thought this was a good idea, he couldn’t think straight at that point. “I have to run the leads you gave us––”

Oikawa barked another laugh. This time it broke at the end, trailing into an angry sob that wrenched another painful tug to Iwaizumi’s gut.

“Yes, you should. Go away, Iwaizumi. Let me leave with my pride intact, at least”.

Iwaizumi nodded again, stuck in the motion like a robot. As he turned, he stopped on the door.

“Kyoutani’s outside, if you––”

“ Go! ” Oikawa screamed, and this time he was almost crying.

Iwaizumi stood frozen on the spot and then, without another word, he left the house.

Back at the precinct, Iwaizumi was miserable. Kindaichi had the good sense of avoiding him as they both went over the case once again, compiling a list of the names Oikawa had highlighted earlier.

“I’ll go talk with Kunimi about these names,” was all he managed, before turning tail and running away from the office.

Iwaizumi was fine with it.

He didn’t need the company, now.

He just needed to forget Oikawa.

Kindaichi knocked on the IT door, feeling the usual restlessness at the idea of seeing Kunimi.  

He stood there, a small smile on his face, even when the other opened the door.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked, feeling shy.

Kunimi shrugged.

“You never do,” he said, throwing the door open for him and gesturing for him to follow.

Kindaichi ignored the somersault his stomach did.

Oikawa stood in the middle of the room, hands on his hips, surveying his clothes.

He could do that, he thought, starting to collect an old sweatshirt; he folded it, and put it away. It was an easy task, mechanical even.

It didn’t require concentration, or some coherent thought on his part.

That was fine, that was more than fine.

In a couple of hours he would be out of that damn house, and breathing would come easy once again.

There was a name, continuously popping out of his files. Iwaizumi couldn’t put his finger on the link; something was still escaping his mind.

A junkie, Oikawa had called Kobayashi. But then again, even if there had been trace amounts of drugs in his system, there was no record of any conviction.

He sifted through the names once again, keeping that detail in mind. There was an agent from the DEA, somewhere in the list.

There was a knock on the door, and Iwaizumi lifted up his head in time to see Kyoutani letting himself in.

“Why are you here?” he asked then. It was so soon, he mused. Oikawa couldn’t have possibly already left, and the safe house he was going to be transferred to wasn’t ready yet. “You should have been on watch for another couple of hours”.

“See, this name keeps recurring,” Kunimi pointed to the screen.

“Yes, I thought it was curious too––” Kindaichi fumbled with his notes. “And the times of the shifts actually match. Can you pull up the report from Ballistics, see if the gun may be a match?”

Kunimi just nodded, already tapping away on his computer.

“Here we are,” Kindaichi strained to read the small prints on the screen, and paled.

“I have to call Iwaizumi”.

Oikawa was stuffing his clothes in a bag when he heard the door opening. He felt feet shuffling in the hallway, the sound of the door locking, and stuck his head out of the bedroom, squinting into the dark stairwell.

“Is there a problem, Mad Dog-chan?”

Kyoutani looked more bewildered than ever at Iwaizumi’s question.

“ … You sent the guy to replace me, boss. Said you needed me on the Kobayashi case”.

“ I sure didn’t ,” a cold, distant feeling of impending doom seized Iwaizumi’s chest. “Who replaced you?”

As his phone lit up with an incoming call, even before Kyoutani spoke, Iwaizumi already knew the answer to his question. It was there, in front of him, blinking mockingly from the papers spread in front of him.

“Iwaizumi, listen to me––”

“Not now, Kindaichi,” Iwaizumi was frantic. There was Kyoutani’s voice in the background. Why was Iwaizumi with Kyoutani? Kindaichi was confused.

“Are you out of the office–– never mind. We have a name, Iwaizumi”.

The voice who answered wasn’t Kyoutani. Oikawa froze mid-stairs.

“Oh, no, Oikawa,” the man calmly hung his jacket. He turned around and his face split in a large smile, large as a gaunt abyss. “There’s no problem at all”.

Oikawa remembered a name tag on a police uniform, few words spoken with arrogance.

He opened his mouth and a single, scared word came out.

“ Maeda ”.

Iwaizumi ran. There was nothing more he could do now, so he ran.

Out of the office, and then to his car. Kindaichi argued about it on the phone, told him to wait for backup, no need to stupidly rush home and get himself killed with this heroic machism.

Iwaizumi didn’t even hear him, didn’t even think about heroics or anything like that.

He just had to get to Oikawa, and get him away from Maeda before it was too late than it already was.

The house was dark and quiet. No blood on the stairs, no body arranged at the door to greet him; it was an improvement over all the dramatic scenarios that Iwaizumi had imagined, but still.

Maeda could have abducted Oikawa, for all he knew. Be miles away, in a secluded location, torturing him, his body never to be found again, a case bound to go cold in a couple of months, tormenting Iwaizumi for the rest of his miserable life...

His hands were shaking as he stepped out of his car.

It was his home, but it felt alien. It had been violated, Iwaizumi knew it. He could feel it, the malicious presence seeping into the walls as he cautiously drew closer to the door, opening it. It turned on his hinges without a sound, opening to a dark hall.

As he swiped to the hall, he noticed the coat on the hanger. In the kitchen, the kettle was still warm, and two cups were missing from the cupboard.

Maeda had taken his time, gone through his things, taken what he wanted, left behind anything he didn’t deem interesting enough.

It made the blood in Iwaizumi’s veins run even colder; this wasn’t the work of a simple criminal.

It was the work of a disturbed man.

He left the kitchen, turning toward the living room.

There were two figures, silhouetted by the faint outside lights in the otherwise dark room.

The light in the room came on.

“Ah, Detective Iwaizumi,” Maeda smiled, waving at Iwaizumi with a broad smile on his face. He was holding Oikawa at knifepoint, and the man looked terrified. Terrified, but still alive. Iwaizumi breathed in relief. “We were waiting for you. Couldn’t possibly play without all the main actors on scene, could we?”

He gestured to the chair in front of him. The two missing teacups had been arranged on the small table in between, and there were still tendrils of steam rising from them. Iwaizumi could smell his favorite brand of black tea.

“Oikawa, are you alright?” Iwaizumi asked instead, ignoring the proffered chair.

Oikawa visibly shivered at his words. It looked like he was ready to throw himself at him, consequences be damned, and Iwaizumi really prayed he didn’t do something too reckless.

“I’m so sorry, Iwa-chan––” he mewled, voice thick with panic, but a sharp tug on his hair silenced him.

Maeda pulled on his hair until he had his neck stretched, bared in front of him, and put his knife to his throat.

“Shush, lover boy,” he said, turning back to Iwaizumi. A manic light shone in his eyes and Iwaizumi knew, without a single doubt, that there was no turning back from this point. “Let the grown-ups do their talking”.

Oikawa froze, biting his lips to stop a whimper of pain.

Iwaizumi took a deep breath.

“Let Oikawa go, Maeda,” he tried to be reasonable. He held his gun in front of him as a shield, but his words were conciliatory. “My men know you’re here, and they’re coming with backup. You can’t possibly outrun all the cops in the city”.

A shadow passed on Maeda’s face, but he quickly resumed that eerie smile.

“Well, that complicates my work, then,” he shrugged. “I’ll just have to cut this shorter,” he said, and he pressed the knife.

“ Don’t hurt him! ” Iwaizumi could hear the desperation thick in his own voice, the broken edge of his words. He kept himself very still, even though every muscle in his body strained to fight. “Please, Maeda, don’t hurt him”.

Maeda, the bastard, he laughed . He tightened up the hold in Oikawa’s hair, stretching his neck to the point it looked ready to snap broken. Oikawa whimpered, lips pale in the effort of not crying. Iwaizumi could see the horror in his eyes, and the certainty that he would die there.

It broke him once again, that he hadn’t been able to protect him.

“And so even you have a weak point, Iwaizumi,” Maeda laughed. The blade touched Oikawa’s neck, drawing some blood from the shallow cut. He tensed up in reflex, and Iwaizumi cringed. “I thought you were made of sterner stuff, but all it takes is a pretty boy in distress and you’re lost. I’m almost disappointed,” the smile disappeared from his face, and then he regarded Iwaizumi with cold hostility. “But it works in my favor, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn't’ have to end this way, Maeda. Let him go, and we can try to negotiate a better term with the DA”.

“Don’t bullshit me. I’ve been one of you for too long, I know the DA won’t cut any deal for a corrupt agent. Especially not now that both he and Irihata are stepping up the ladder. No, thanks,” he pressed the knife more firmly against Oikawa’s throat, making him whimper in pain. “I’ll take my chances here”.

Iwaizumi growled, rage boiling underneath his fear.

“I won’t let you have him, Maeda”.

The man cocked an eyebrow.

“Like you have the power to stop me now, right,” he scoffed. “I have lover boy now. Like I had Kobayashi then”.

He had to let him talk, Iwaizumi thought. Give Kindaichi enough time to arrive with backup in tow. Try to keep them both alive, thread the waters, keep them afloat.

He searched Oikawa’s eyes and held his gaze, and he willed all of his strength into that single stare to say, I won’t let you down .

Oikawa was silently crying; Iwaizumi didn’t know if he had got his message.

“Why did you do it, Maeda? Was it for the money?”

The man watched at him in disbelief.

“ Of course it was for the money, what else?” Maeda rose and he moved, bringing Oikawa with him. He was shielding himself behind him, and Iwaizumi silently cursed: he didn’t have a clear line of sight for shooting Maeda down. He’d risk hitting Oikawa in the process, and he wasn’t going to accept it. “Do you know how much people are willing to pay for drugs these days? And not old plain cocaine, oh no. Opiates , Iwaizumi, they’re the future. People are so scared of pain, they’ll do anything to avoid it”.

“And Kobayashi had access somehow,” he reasoned. Maybe if he could just make him talk some more, maybe he’ll lower his guard, and then Iwaizumi could make his move.

“He was a small fish, but he had contacts high inside the hospital. The idiot thought he could get away on my watch, so we struck a pretty sweet deal. I turned a blind eye, let him run his business and kept other dealers away from his spot, helped him climb the social ladder, and I got half of the money. But then the pig got greedy, thought he could play me,” Maeda lost his focus for a moment, eyes fixed on the distance. He shook his head. “So I had to cut him down”.

“Why going after Oikawa, though? We weren’t even close to him. We wouldn’t have even thought of questioning him, if you hadn’t tried to kill him,” that was the whole point, wasn’t it? They wouldn't have been there, had Maeda never pursued Oikawa. His accident had been the falling tile that had started the whole domino.

“Yes, I agree that was a sloppy mistake on my part,” Maeda dismissed the point with a shrug. “But you were sniffing around Kobayashi’s corpse, and you know what they say about your unit, at the precinct,” Iwaizumi didn’t know, actually, but he wasn’t going to ask now. “I didn’t know if there was a report of that night in ER that could bring you to me, so I had to tie up the only loose end that was still around,” Maeda tugged on Oikawa’s hair almost affectionately. “I’m sorry, lover boy. You just were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that night at the hospital”.

Oikawa’s eyes told him how much he wanted not to .

“Let him go, Maeda,” Iwaizumi gritted again through clenched teeth. He strengthened his hold on his gun, hoping to have a clear line.

The smile on Maeda’s face told him that the man knew what Iwaizumi was trying to do, and wasn’t going to let him.

“I know what you’re doing here, biding your time, hoping that lap dog of yours get here fast enough with a SWAT team in tow to take me down with a nice, clean shot from outside. Why don’t you just shoot now, Iwaizumi? Maybe you’ll kill me,” he nudged at Oikawa’s shoulder. “Or maybe you’ll kill lover boy here”.

Iwaizumi gripped his gun more tightly but hesitated, finger frozen on the trigger by the idea of accidentally hitting Oikawa. Maeda’s smile just grew larger, and his eyes hardened.

“Drop your gun, Iwaizumi, or I’ll kill him”.

Iwaizumi lowered his hand. Painful centimeter after painful centimeter, till it hung limply by his side.

The gun fell from his numb fingers with a metallic clank.

“Good boy,” Maeda cajoled. “Now let it slide toward me”.

“No,” Iwaizumi said, voice raw and broken. He had been stripped of everything he had, and he was barely standing on his feet. “No, I won’t”.

Maeda’s smile froze. The blade pierced Oikawa’s neck again, this time closer to the delicate blood vessels under the pale skin, and blood trickled down, collecting for a brief moment in the hollow in between his clavicles and then dribbling down into his shirt collar.

This time, Oikawa cried in anguish.

“I said, let it slide toward me , Iwaizumi,” Maeda demanded again, voice hard and unflinching, his hand still uncharacteristically gentle when it was fisted into Oikawa’s hair. “Be a good boy, Iwaizumi. And I’ll let lover boy go”.

Oikawa looked so hopeful then that it almost broke Iwaizumi. It was a physical reaction, almost akin to a knee jerk. He reacted in tune with Oikawa’s body, felt that same spark of hope warming his chest, and moved in response.

He would die nonetheless, he guessed. At least he could try to save one of them, to save Oikawa, and even their score.

He kicked his gun, letting it slide on the floor. It stopped just short of Maeda’s grasp; the man stalled for a moment, before kneeling to pick it up. At the same time, he forcefully shoved Oikawa away from himself, making him stumble across the floor.

Iwaizumi was ready.

He closed his hands around Oikawa’s shoulders, pulling him against himself, bruising the shape of his hands on his back as he held him with all his strength. And Oikawa answered, body coming alive as he clawed into the hug, nestling his face against Iwaizumi’s neck, breathing in long, panicky gulps.

He was still shaking in shock. Iwaizumi closed his eyes, and breathed in relief, and thought that if he was to die, at least he got to hold Oikawa one last time.

“What a nice picture you make,” Maeda’s mocking voice cut through the haze of the moment.  Iwaizumi tightened his hold on Oikawa’s shoulders, pushing him behind. He stood in front of him, shielded him.

“You know, Iwaizumi, you could have shot, and you’d have walked away as a hero. But you chose to save lover boy,” Maeda calmly armed the gun. The click echoed loud in the silent room. “And now you’re both going to die”.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi squeezed his hand, calling for attention. “When I say run, you run and don’t question me”.

“Iwa-chan––”

Of all the times to be his stupid stubborn self, Oikawa sure had to pick up the worst one.

“No, Oikawa. This time you need to promise me”.

“Hajime––”

Oikawa was playing dirty, wasn’t he? But there wasn’t enough time. Iwaizumi had to do this right, for once. He had to save him.

“Promise, Oikawa!”  He insisted, words barely an angry, exasperated whisper.

“I promise!” Oh God, Oikawa was crying. “I promise, Hajime”, he choked out, pressing his wet face in the curve of Iwaizumi’s back.

Well, too late to apologize for the tears. At least it would be the last time he made him cry, one way or another.

“Good,” Iwaizumi smiled to himself. “I love you, Tooru,” he whispered, squeezing his hand once again, and felt him freeze in surprised response.

And then he shoved him hard toward the door. He didn’t say run, but it was clear enough. Without waiting to see if Oikawa had made it, Iwaizumi jumped toward Maeda.

The first shot caught him squarely in the shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to stop his momentum. With a savage growl, Iwaizumi collided against Maeda, sending them both sprawling on the carpet, grappling to take a hold of the gun. Iwaizumi had the advantage of weight and muscles, but Maeda had the unfortunate advantage of a longer reach, and he wasn’t wounded and tired.

Iwaizumi grunted and wheezed as he received an elbow in the throat, blacking out for a second. When he came back to his senses, Maeda was closing in on the gun.

He grabbed him, sending him toppling once again, and used his grasp to propel himself forward. He kneed Maeda in the side, in the ribs, everywhere he could reach, trying to outreach him.

If only he could––just–– grab that stupid gun ––

He touched it, felt the still hot metal of the barrel under his fingertips, and then he felt it cruelly vanish.

When he looked down, Maeda had the gun, and a manic grin on his face. This close, he couldn’t possibly miss.

He heard the two rounds explode in the close quarters, and it took a moment to register the pain. Dazed, Iwaizumi pressed his hands on his own stomach, feeling blood gushing out of the wound.

He stood still, for a moment. And then he collapsed.

Maeda grunted, extricating himself from the dead weight of Iwaizumi’s body. He stood, taking into account the pain blossoming in his side and ribs. The idiot couldn’t even die without raising a fuss.

And now he still had to hunt down lover boy, and Oikawa had a head start.

Luckily, he hadn’t heard the front door opening. Oikawa had run deeper inside the house. He was a wounded, panicked beast, grieved by the loss of his lover. And as a panicked beast, he was irrational and fragile.

Maeda licked his lips, already tasting the high of the hunt.

He tried to move, but he found that he couldn’t. Iwaizumi had his hand tight around his ankle and, even now that he was laying in an enlarging puddle of his own blood, he was trying to stand again.

He made it to his knees before Maeda hit him across the face with the butt of the gun, sending him sprawling again.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” he stood over him, disgust written on his face. He put his boot on the wound on Iwaizumi’s abdomen and he pushed, hard and cruel, eliciting a shout of pain.

“Just stay here and die, Iwaizumi”.

He lifted his gun, and two more shots echoed in the room.

Iwaizumi looked, dazzled, as Maeda collapsed to the floor. Behind him was Oikawa, a gun in his hands, and a hardened look on his face.

“I remembered where you keep your spare one,” he said, as a way of explanation.

Iwaizumi would have laughed, had he had the breath to do so without bleeding to death. Oikawa seemed to sense it, and his lips wobbled in a tentative smile.

He moved, gun still in his hand, and kneeled down to check Maeda for a pulse. What he felt must have satisfied him, because he was suddenly dropping the gun as if the thing was burning, and moving over to Iwaizumi.

Oikawa surveyed him with a doctor’s eye, taking into account the wounds on his shoulder and abdomen, the bruises and split lip on his face, and Iwaizumi looked back at him with the same intensity. Oikawa looked shaken, and a bit bloodied on the side, but still remarkably alive. Iwaizumi couldn’t care less about whether he himself died or not, right now.

He lifted his uninjured arm, cupping Oikawa’s face in his palm. His fingers left faint traces of red where they brushed against the hard lines of his cheek and mandible.

“Oikawa––” it hurt to talk. But he had to. “What I said today––I’m so sor––”

“Don’t,” Oikawa hissed, pressing his hands to Iwaizumi’s abdomen. The spike of pain was enough to shock him into silence and drop his hand. “And don’t you dare die on me, Hajime. I’ll never forgive you for telling me you love me, otherwise”.

He sniffled, and Iwaizumi could feel something wet on his own face. Once again, as he looked at Oikawa crying face, he was struck by the same, stupid thought. That man was beautiful. It made something swell inside his chest, that he had been lucky enough to meet him and be loved by him, albeit for such a brief period of time.

“Sorry,” he managed around his wounds.

“This is my job, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa was pressing now with single-minded effort. “You let me do my job. And then, once you’re healed, we can try and make everything work. Make us work. And maybe it won’t, and we’ll be miserable, and you’ll hate me and I’ll hate you and everyone will tiptoe around our break-up, but at least we’ll have tried Because I see what we can be, Hajime, and we can be glorious . What do you say?” he managed a watery smile, his hands still drenched in Iwaizumi’s blood almost up to the elbow, still holding his life inside him by sheer willpower. “Doesn’t it sound good?”

It did. There, on the floor of his living room, it sounded as the best thing in the whole universe, and Iwaizumi managed to smile.

Epilogue: two years later

“Tooru, help me set the table, will you?” Iwaizumi stuck his head out of the kitchen, flour all over him. “Hanamaki and Matsukawa will be here soon”.

There was barking coming from the garden, a lilting child’s laugh and a knock on the door.

“Or they may be already be here,” he sighed. “Can you at least get the door?”

“I’m going, I’m going!” Oikawa rushed downstairs, hair still damp from the shower and glasses askew on his nose. “It’s not like I’m late on purpose, you know?”

“Liar,” Iwaizumi laughed, giving his husband an affectionate peck on the lips and straightening the lapels of his shirt. Oikawa just couldn’t come home on time, it seemed. There was always someone who needed him at the hospital, and Iwaizumi couldn’t hold it against him, because his dedication was one of the parts that he loved the most about him.

The dopey smile that graced Oikawa’s face was enough gratification.

“The door, Tooru,” he nudged him again, affectionately. Oikawa went with a humored rumbling, and Iwaizumi retreated to the kitchen to religiously supervise the cooking going on in there.

He had spent the last two hours carefully sifting through recipes and videos on YouTube, and he wasn’t going to let his efforts be in vain.

“Uncle Tooru!”

A happy shout came from the hallway, and Iwaizumi felt inevitably drawn to it.  

Takara – Hanamaki and Matsukawa’s daughter – was clinging to Oikawa’s neck, as he made her spin and lifted her. Once she spotted Iwaizumi peeking into the hallway, she wiggled her way out of Oikawa’s embrace only to run and collide against Iwaizumi’s knees.

“Uncle Iwa-chan!” Iwaizumi cringed at the nickname, but then again, Takara was the only one allowed to call him that way these days. It had been banished from their shared bed, lest Oikawa wanted to find himself sleeping on the couch for the following week.

Iwaizumi scooped Takara in a tight hug, laughing merrily as small chubby hands twisted in his hair.

“And how’s my favorite girl?” he asked, putting her down so that she could trail after him into the kitchen. “Are your parents treating you well?”

The little girl nodded solemnly.

“Yesterday we went to the zoo!” She declared happily, dangling her legs from the stool on which she had climbed. “Do you know that tortoises can live up to one hundred yeaaaars ?”

“Really? That’s, like, really old, right?”   

Takara nodded again.

“I guess so. Dads say that it’s a lot, so I guess it’s true”.

A thundering noise, followed by a happy bout of bark, told Iwaizumi that Moon Moon, Hanamaki’s Irish Setter, had made his way to the kitchen, probably eluding the surveillance of his owner.

The dog barked happily, bouncing around Iwaizumi and licking his hands when he could reach them as the man crouched to pet him.

Iwaizumi was the weakest link in the chain, and he was aware of his weakness. And little girls and dogs had the tendency to exploit him mercilessly.

For example, those theatrics had earned Moon Moon a still warm dumpling, and the dog sat to happily eat his treat as Hanamaki walked into the kitchen.

“Moon Moon, leave Iwaizumi alone, you filthy sycophant,” Hanamaki patted his dog’s head in quiet resignation. “And you, Iwaizumi, stop trying to get my dog fatter than he already is”.

“And whose fault is that?” Iwaizumi was happy to see his old friend. It had been a while since they’d managed to make their collective schedules match, and although Oikawa assured him that Hanamaki was fine, he was a relief finally see him after a long time.

“Hey, Issei’s the soft one. I’m the bad cop, do you hear me, you obese quadruped?”

The setter wiggled his tail, and Hanamaki sighed.

“No–one respects me in this family, Iwaizumi,” he mock–lamented, bringing a tragic hand to his face. “No–one, I say”.

The dog barked. Iwaizumi was inclined to agree with him.

“A real tragedy, man. Can you put the salad on the table?”

“Shouldn’t your husband be the one helping you?”

Iwaizumi shrugged.

“My husband is useless,” he deadpanned. From the other room came said husband’s whine of outrage. “See?”

“I think uncle Tooru is sad, uncle Iwa–chan,” Takara said. Iwaizumi nodded and leaned down to be level-eyed with the little girl.

“I think it would help if you run and give him a biiiiiig hug”.

As the girl trotted away to comply with her important duty, Moon Moon hot on her trails in the hope to get some more food, Iwaizumi breathed out a smile.

“She grows up fast,” he said, feeling more relaxed that he had in months.

“Now you just sound like Issei’s mother, Iwaizumi,” Hanamaki began, but then he paused. It took him a moment to continue in a quieter voice. “We’re thinking of adopting another. Issei wants a second one and I thought, well, why not? A bigger family, with him. I’d like that”.

Iwaizumi hid a smile. He could see it, that bigger family. His best friend and his family. What a time to be alive.

“I’m happy for you, you know?”

Hanamaki ducked his head, gracefully accepting the compliment.

“And you?” he asked, after a pause. “Aren’t both of you ready enough to start your own family?”

Iwaizumi looked at Oikawa playing with Takara, letting her ride on his knee as he bounced her around, making the little girl giggle and squeal in delight. He thought of quiet whispers in the dark of the night, of hands clasped together and warmth shared in between two close bodies, and the quiet certainty that forever wasn’t so lonely of a place, now.

Iwaizumi thought about all these, and smiled, playfully showing his shoulder against Hanamaki’s.

“We’ll see,” he said in a quiet smile, and he meant it.

There was no hurry, after all.