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i.
Hajime is 8 when a little boy with little horns wanders into his secret hideout.
“Hey!” Hajime calls from his perch up in his favorite tree. “You can’t be here!”
The boy looks up at him, startled, then frowns. “Why not?” he demands.
“This is my secret hideout!” Hajime informs him.
“Well it’s not very secret,” the boy huffs. “And the woods don’t belong to anybody.”
“But I was here first!” Hajime insists, leaning forward in agitation. “Go play somewhere el—ah!”
Hajime suddenly finds himself falling as he loses his balance and pitches forward off of the branch. He hits the ground with a sickening crack and cries out in pain as he feels something in his arm snap.
“Oh my god!” the boy says, rushing towards Hajime in alarm. “Are you okay?!”
“I think I broke my arm,” Hajime mumbles as he sits up gingerly. “Ah, my mom is gonna kill me…”
Before he can worry about how he’s going to explain himself, though, a band of sparkling light wraps around his arm and the pain immediately fades. Hajime looks up with wide eyes and sees the magic disappearing back into the boy’s fingers.
“How did you do that?” Hajime demands, leaping to his feet and staring at the boy in awe.
“Well,” the boy says, puffing his chest out proudly, “I don’t know much magic yet, but I’ve been working really hard on that one.” He peers at Hajime’s arm with concern. “Did it really work?”
Hajime moves his arm around and nods. “It feels great!” He looks back at the boy, whose eyes are shining excitedly. Hajime bows. “Thanks. I’m Iwaizumi Hajime.”
The boy looks at him in surprise before responding with a bow of his own. “I’m Tooru,” he says carefully.
“Hmm…I guess I wouldn’t mind sharing my secret hideout,” Hajime decides, taking a step back. “It gets kind of lonely sometimes anyway. Now it can be our secret hideout!”
Tooru’s eyes widen in shock. “Really?”
Hajime shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, you kind of saved my life, so I owe it to you anyway, don’t I?”
A kind of sad understanding lights in Tooru’s eyes and his shoulders slump. “I didn’t save your life, though…,” he says. “I just fixed your arm. You don’t owe me anything.”
Hajime frowns. “Fine, we’ll just share it as friends then,” he declares, looking around for some sticks to play with. When he looks back at Tooru, the boy is frozen in shock.
“What’s wrong?” Hajime teases, pressing one of the sticks into Tooru’s hand. “Haven’t you ever had a friend before?”
Very slowly, Tooru shakes his head.
Oh.
That makes Hajime kind of sad, but he thinks it would probably be rude to say anything about it. “Well, now you have one,” he replies matter-of-factly, sliding back into a sparring stance. “Now prepare yourself!”
Hajime and Tooru spend the next few weeks meeting in their secret hideout and playing all manner of games together. Sometimes Hajime shows Tooru what his mom is teaching him about swordsmanship, and sometimes Tooru tells Hajime what he’s learning about magic. They learn and play and explore and solidify their friendship quickly.
Times passes in this way until one day, they accidentally stay out too late and the forest starts to get dark.
“I’ll walk you home, Tooru,” Hajime offers, jumping down from the rock they’ve been sitting on and offering his hand to help Tooru do the same. “It’s too dark to walk home alone.”
Tooru’s eyes dart to the side. “Oh…um…shouldn’t I walk you home, Hajime?” he asks nervously.
Hajime makes a face. “Nah, my mom would just make me walk you home anyway,” he replies. “Come on, lead the way!”
Tooru plays with the hem of his shirt and doesn’t move. Hajime frowns. “Are you scared?” he asks. When Tooru doesn’t respond, Hajime grabs his hand and starts pulling him along. “It’s okay, there’s nothing to be scared of if we’re together!”
Tooru is unusually quiet until they get to the edge of the forest, when he pulls his hand out of Hajime’s and takes a step away. “Thanks for walking with me, Hajime, I can go by myself now.” He turns to quickly walk away but Hajime follows behind him.
“It’s okay, I wanna see where you live anyway,” Hajime says easily. Tooru still seems scared so he’s not just going to let him walk home in the dark by himself.
As they walk, though, everyone seems to give them a wide berth, and Hajime wonders if maybe it’s not the dark that Tooru is scared of.
They wind further and further into the city and Hajime starts to wonder just how well-off Tooru’s family is. He’s staring up at the castle as they pass by it and suddenly he walks into Tooru, who’s stopped by the gate and is staring at the ground.
Hajime frowns. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
Tooru’s reply is so quiet that he almost can’t hear it. “This is…” Tooru swallows. “This is where I live.”
Hajime’s eyes widen. He opens his mouth to say something incredulous when Tooru finally looks up, wearing an expression so sad and fearful that Hajime suddenly realizes what he’s been scared of all along.
“Wow, you walk a long ways to get to our secret hideout,” he announces instead. Tooru looks at him with an expression of such shock and relief that Hajime knows he made the right choice. “But don’t think that means you can stop showing up! We still have to keep watch over it, okay?”
Tooru nods slowly.
“See you tomorrow, then!” Hajime says with a big smile as he turns to head back to his own home on the outskirts of the city.
Something catches his sleeve. “Thank you, Hajime,” Tooru says quietly, and is gone before Hajime can turn back around.
As Hajime starts to walk away from the castle, a group of kids runs up to him, staring in awe. “You work for the royal family?!” one of them asks.
Hajime scowls. “I don’t work for them,” he snaps. “Tooru is my friend.”
There’s a beat of silence before a couple of them laugh. “Come on, no one else is around, you can tell us the truth.”
“Yeah, no one is actually friends with him.”
“He thinks he’s better than everyone else, but he’s not even strong or anything.”
“Well, he’s better than all of you,” Hajime says angrily, hands curling into fists at his sides.
The others fall silent again, their expressions a mixture of anger and fear as they realize that Hajime isn’t backing down from his position and could, potentially, get them in trouble. They start to disperse, giving Hajime the same wide berth they had given Tooru, but not before Hajime catches a couple mutters of “brown-noser” and “how much do you think he’s paid?”
That is the day that Hajime decides he will always protect Tooru, no matter what.
ii.
Hajime is 18 when he and Tooru are sprawled out beneath the stars on a cool summer night.
“Iwa-chan?” Tooru says softly. Hajime hums in acknowledgment, loathe to break the comfortable silence they’ve settled into. Tooru hesitates a moment before speaking again. “Do you think…I’ll be a good king?”
Hajime sits up, immediately recognizing that this isn’t a casual question. It’s not something they talk about often, and when they do, it’s usually late at night like this, when Oikawa’s insecurities become too heavy to bear by himself. Hajime only wishes he wouldn’t wait until he’s collapsing to lean on him.
“Of course you will be,” Hajime replies just as softly. “You’re incredibly strong, Oikawa, stronger than anyone I know. And you have a good heart.”
Tooru huffs out a humorless laugh. “Do I, Hajime?”
Hajime frowns. “Yes,” he says firmly, “you do.”
Tooru sits up to face him, and Hajime is taken aback by the raw fear in his best friend’s eyes. “I don’t know if I do.” Hajime opens his mouth to respond, but Tooru cuts him off. “I want more,” he whispers quietly. “I always want more and it scares me how badly I want it, Hajime.”
“That’s not inherently a bad thing, though,” Hajime points out gently. Tooru just shakes his head.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he says, and Hajime pretends not to notice that his voice cracks as he continues, “you don’t know what it’s like to always have these thoughts in your head. About what you could do better, about how you could be better, and how that inevitably, always, leads to how you could be better than other people, and when I’m king I’ll be able to use that power however I want…”
“Hey,” Hajime says, leaning forward to place a hand against Tooru’s cheek. “Stop acting like it’s going to happen that way. Have you had these thoughts for a while?” Tooru nods silently, looking ashamed. “And you still haven’t changed. The fact that these thoughts scare you, Tooru, is proof that you have a good heart.” Tooru looks unconvinced, and Hajime’s heart hurts. He ducks his head down to meet Tooru’s gaze. “You don’t have to face these things alone, yeah?” Tooru’s eyes shine in the starlight. “I’ll always be here for you.”
Tooru falls forward to bury his face in Hajime’s shoulder and Hajime’s arms wrap around him to hold him there. He murmurs encouragements until Tooru stops crying and they lay back against the grass again, Tooru’s head still pillowed on Hajime’s shoulder as they point out constellations to each other and make up some of their own.
And for the moment, the stars are enough to make Tooru’s worries seem small.
iii.
Hajime is 20 when Tooru is crowned.
The ceremony is performed with the appropriate amount of pomp and circumstance, which is to say, far too much. Hajime has already been standing at Tooru’s side for hours before he is finally called to ascend to the throne, and when he is, the room watches him straighten and hold his head high with pride. But Hajime alone feels the squeeze to his hand that Tooru sneaks in before he leaves his side, and Hajime alone sees the fear hidden behind the determination blazing in his eyes.
For all the length of time it took to get to this point, the coronation itself is surprisingly quick. Tooru takes his place on the throne and the crown takes its place on his head. The room bows, but Tooru doesn’t. The crown sits heavy on his head, but Tooru is strong and he sits tall and Hajime couldn’t be prouder.
And then, after another bout of long-windedness, it’s Hajime’s turn. Tooru had insisted that his first act as king would be to knight Hajime and make him the head of his personal guard. His advisors had protested, but when Tooru threatened to abdicate if they didn’t allow it (which later got him a lecture from Hajime for being overdramatic), they relented. Which is how Hajime now finds himself kneeling before his best friend—the king—as Tooru takes the blade offered to him by an advisor and dictates the oaths for Hajime to swear by. And Hajime repeats them and swears them with conviction; not because he is giving his heart to the king, but because he is giving his heart to Tooru.
Tooru dubs either of Hajime’s shoulders, and when Hajime stands before him, he holds out the sword to him.
“Iwaizumi Hajime,” Tooru says, his eyes fixed on Hajime’s. “This blade can only be wielded by the most skilled of warriors. I know that you will wield it better than any. May you never have to face a difficult opponent, but know that if you do: the more infuriating your opponent, the greater the weapon’s destructive power.”
Hajime doesn’t break eye contact as he accepts the sword and bows. They both know that the significance of the blade’s power is not lost on him, and a hundred, a thousand, a million annoying Iwa-chans and teasing insults and overdone statements of self-confidence run through his mind. And yet he can’t bring himself to feel anything but affection.
You know you’re never truly infuriating, his eyes try to say.
But someday I might be, Tooru’s eyes seem to say back.
Hajime feels something twist in his gut as he turns to stand beside the throne. The sword sits heavy in his hand.
iv.
Hajime is 23 when he leaves.
It starts out with little things. Tooru stays up later studying his magic, works himself harder practicing spells that take too much out of him. He listens to his advisors less and pays attention to his own interests more, and usually all it takes is a stern reprimand and a maybe couple smacks from Hajime to get him back on track, but it’s a worrying pattern.
The first thing that truly makes his blood freeze happens a couple years after the coronation.
It’s during a strategy meeting and Tooru is being particularly difficult about something that Hajime doesn’t even remember anymore. “You’re being ridiculous, Oikawa,” he finally snaps when Tooru tries to defend his flawed line of logic for the third time that meeting. Tooru turns to him with a wide smile.
“Iwa-chan,” he says brightly, “you should at least call me Oikawa-sama, don’t you think?” And Hajime’s heart stops in his chest.
Because Tooru is only half-joking.
Hajime levels him with a hard, serious stare. “Over my dead body.”
The smile slides off of Tooru’s face.
After that, Tooru starts to withdraw from him. He spends more time in his study and sends Hajime on longer missions. Every time they see each other, the circles under his eyes are darker, and so is the look in them. This goes on for almost a year before Hajime finally breaks.
“Oikawa, I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore!” he shouts when returns from a mission to find him passed out over a tome on necromancy. When did he pick that up? Hajime wonders, his heart heavy with sadness and fear. When did we drift this far apart?
When did he pull this far away from me?
“Can’t watch me do what to myself, Iwa-chan?” Tooru snaps back at him. “Can’t watch me push myself to new heights? Can’t watch me getting better and better at what I do? What, Iwa-chan, are you jealous?” He laughs, and it’s a hollow, chilling sound. “I’m more powerful than I’ve ever been, and I can only go up from here! Why do you keep trying to drag me down?!”
“Tooru.” Hajime’s voice breaks. “Look at yourself. This is exactly what you were afraid of becoming.”
“Greatness scares people, Hajime,” Tooru says evenly, the darkness in his eyes swirling. “But I’m strong and I overcame that fear. You’re strong too, Hajime. Why do you keep holding yourself back?”
“This, this is not greatness!” Hajime snarls, gesturing to the castle where his advisors and aides have either been dismissed or fled, the kingdom where his subjects have begun to fear him. “Greatness comes from goodness, and goodness comes from selflessness! Not this self-centered bullshit you’ve been pulling, and not from power, either! Power is only great if it’s used for good. You used to think that, too, Tooru.”
Tooru sighs dramatically. “Are your morals really that important to you, Hajime? Fine, then.” Tooru looks him in the eye and his smile is wicked. “I guess you’ll just have to stop me.”
“I’m trying, Tooru,” Hajime grits out in frustration (in desperation). “I’ve been trying for years.”
Tooru’s hand ghosts over his shoulder as he passes him to walk out of the room. “Then I guess you’ll have to try another way.”
Hajime isn’t sure whether or not he’s imagining the plea in his words.
Leaving is hard. Hajime lives in denial for a time and focuses on training without a clear goal in mind. Ignoring the goal he’s supposed to have. But when he runs into a band of warriors aiming to take down ‘the Grand King,’ he knows he can’t avoid it anymore.
(He still ignores the word kill. He refuses to think it will come to that. He can’t think it will come to that, or he won’t be able to do this. And he needs to. He has to. He’s the only one who can.)
v.
Hajime is 26 when he finally returns to the castle.
Hajime is 26 when he finally sees Tooru again.
“Ah, Iwa-chan, I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me!” he complains from high on his throne, too cheerfully for the pout on his face to be believable.
“Oikawa,” Hajime replies, trying to keep his voice neutral. “Please. Stop this now. You can see your kingdom, can’t you? See your people, the people you swore to protect, how they fear you? This can’t possibly be what you want.”
Tooru sneers. “People fear what they can’t understand,” he says condescendingly. “My power is impossible for them to comprehend.”
“Whatever happened to being a good king?” Hajime pleads.
“I am a great king!” Tooru hisses.
“You are a tyrant!” Hajime yells, hands curling into fists at his sides. He feels the sword on his back thrum with power.
Tooru’s eyes light up. He feels it too.
“Well then, righteous knight,” he drawls, a smiling curling around his lips, “why don’t you put me in my place?”
Without warning, Tooru vanishes from the throne and reappears inches away from Hajime’s face, quicker than the blink of an eye. He places a hand on Hajime’s chest as he leans forward to whisper against his ear.
“I’ve been looking forward to this…Hajime.”
With another flicker of darkness, Tooru is halfway across the room again, gesturing airily towards Hajime. “Well, go on then, draw your sword. It would hardly be fair of me to attack you unarmed, would it?”
Hajime growls as his hand reaches back to grip the hilt. The weapon pulses with energy again.
Tooru smirks.
Hajime barely has time to raise his sword in front of him before Tooru flicks his wrist and a dozen daggers materialize in the air, hurtling at Hajime with a speed he’s hard-pressed to match. He manages to deflect most of them, but one grazes the side of his head and cuts sharply into his skin. Hajime registers the pain, but it’s a dull, fuzzy thing at the back of his mind.
Because nothing hurts more than the aching realization that this is what they’ve come to.
The rest of the battle is a blur. Hajime doesn’t have time to think about anything but staying one step ahead of Tooru, and most of the time not even that, just keeping up with his attacks enough to keep from losing. He doesn’t know how long they fight for, but he knows when Tooru’s stamina starts to fade.
All those late nights and difficult spells, huh, Tooru?
They come to a standstill, chests heaving as they stare at each other across the charred hall.
Hajime has to try one more time. He has to.
“Tooru,” he begs. “Please.”
Tooru’s face twists into a snarl. “You,” he says as a thick darkness winds its way around his arm, “don’t get to call me that.”
I’m so sorry, Tooru, Hajime thinks as his heart fills with immeasurable pain and sadness. I promise, in the next life—in every life after this, I will save you. I will not fail you again.
I promise.
Hajime drives his sword through his best friend’s torso.
fin.
Hajime is 18 when a hand quietly slips into his before their match.
“Nervous?” he asks, a smile on his lips as he glances up at Tooru.
“Of course not, Iwa-chan,” Tooru replies lightly, “the team with the stronger six is stronger, right?” He smiles back at Hajime. “And I know we have the stronger six.”
Hajime snorts at that. “Damn straight,” he agrees, squeezing Tooru’s hand before he lets go to give him a push and follow him onto the court.
The team with the stronger six is stronger.
Hajime thinks back to all the times that Tooru has pushed himself too hard, taken all the burden of success on his own shoulders, overworked himself, hurt himself trying to be perfect. He thinks of all the blood and sweat and tears his best friend has shed in pursuit of perfection and he worries that he hasn’t done enough.
But when Tooru turns to him and says “I learned from the best,” with an obnoxious (adorable) wink and an air of complete confidence…
Hajime thinks that this time, he was able to save him.