Chapter Text
June 2021
UTC+09:00
In retrospect, Hajime should have known this was coming.
It’s quarter to eight in the evening and he should be at home, really, taking a nice, well-earned bath after a full day’s work of babysitting the six-foot-tall children known as the Japanese Men’s National Volleyball Team. Instead, he’s sandwiched between Bokuto Koutarou (Manchild #4) and Hoshiumi Kourai (Manchild #5) on a bench that is definitely not meant for seating more than one full-grown athlete.
“Remind me why we’re here again?” Yaku inquires from one end of the table, leaning on one elbow. He’s still wearing a pair of sunglasses that have no business being worn in a restaurant, much less at night, but Hajime had learned to stop questioning his clients’ taste in fashion after Kageyama showed up one morning wearing salmon plaid jorts and a straight face.
“It’s for an emergency strategy meeting!” Hinata whisper-shouts, his face flushed. The reality was that their hitter had rung up their group chat about a dozen times only minutes after practice ended, then proceeded to send twice as many text messages containing variations of the word “emergency.” This resulted in more than half the team, Hajime included, running back to the station in a frenzy to find Hinata jumping up and down, evidently not in danger.
The team’s reactions had ranged from a very relieved-looking Komori to an irritated Sakusa. Kageyama had been in the middle of shaking the dear life out of the poor guy when Atsumu stepped in.
“Since y’all are here already,” Atsumu drawled, “Samu jus’ opened a new Onigiri Miya shop a couple blocks down. Omi omi and I were gonna have dinner there, but I s’ppose y’all could tag along. Right, Omi-kun?”
Sakusa, pinned under the weight of Atsumu’s arm around his shoulder, merely shrugged and turned around.
“S’been a while since I had Osamu’s onigiri,” Aran said with a smile. “I’m down.”
“Me too,” Suna agreed. “Count me in.”
“Myaa-sam's onigiri sounds great!” Bokuto cheered. Then he turned to Hajime, eyes pleading. “Can we please go, Iwa-san?”
Hajime frowned. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because you’re our athletic trainer, duh!”
“Yeah, Iwaizumi-san’s like our mom!”
Hajime sighed, pinching the brow of his nose. “Onigiri isn’t really a problem dietary-wise. As long as everyone gets home early and gets enough rest for practice tomorrow…” He hadn’t even been able to finish because the hyperactive crew was already skipping ahead of him, so he resigned himself to a late night and trailed along, chatting amicably with Suna and Aran.
The shop had already closed, but a few loud shouts and the other Miya twin poked his head out the door, mild amusement written on his features.
That had been half an hour ago. Now, Osamu finally emerges from the kitchen, balancing a plate of onigiri on one hand. “Sorry it took a while,” he says as he delivers the food to their table, smack in front of a drooling Kageyama. “I let the staff leave early since we’re still on soft opening, and Tsumu said it was jus’ gonna be him and Sakusa-kun.”
“S’all good, Samu samu,” Bokuto says around a mouthful of beef shigureni. He groans in delight and reaches for another onigiri. Hajime makes a mental note to watch out for the team’s food intake, feeling some sense of responsibility over their pre-Olympic diets.
“So,” Yaku continues, examining his half-eaten salmon rice ball. Hajime swears he hears him mutter something along the lines of “stupid docosahexaenoic acid” before he takes another bite. “What exactly is this emergency strategy meeting for?”
Hinata freezes in the middle of stuffing himself full with tamagoyaki. “Oh!” he brightens, and says something unintelligible, what with all the egg in his mouth.
“Slow down, Hinata,” Hajime says. Hinata salutes and nods, his cheeks straining with effort as he rapidly chews his food then swallows everything in one big gulp. He then brandishes his phone, a determined grin on his face. “The Olympic lineups for the South American teams come out at eight A.M.”
The atmosphere in the restaurant shifts. The players begin to talk amongst themselves, but their voices are drowned out by the suddenly too-loud beating in Hajime’s chest.
“But it’s barely eight P.M. here,” Kageyama says, his face deepening into a scowl. “Hinata, you moron, why’d you gather us all here if we have to wait twelve more hours!”
“That’s in Argenti—” Hajime swallows. “Or Brazil time. Twelve hours apart.” His head is spinning. UTC-03:00. Twelve hours behind Japan, four hours ahead of Irvine. A conversion that comes to him as naturally as breathing.
Hinata nods sagely. “Which means we’ll find out in about…” He squints at his phone. “Right now!” He shoots up, and all of a sudden he’s got the whole team surrounding him, each of them trying to get a glimpse of Hinata’s phone screen.
“Wait—hey!” Hoshiumi growls as Hyakuzawa unknowingly steps in front of him, completely blocking his view. “Let me see!”
There’s a loud “Oof!” as Hoshiumi jumps Hakuba, half of his body clinging onto the tall blocker’s shoulders.
“Where is it?” Atsumu demands, glaring at the screen from above Hinata’s shoulder as he furiously refreshes his phone. Then Hinata jumps, nearly knocking Atsumu backwards.
“Hey, ow—”
“The Brazil roster’s out!” Hinata cries, eyes glued to his phone, oblivious to the whining Atsumu behind him. “Santana—no way, that’s Heitor’s primo—”
Hinata spends a few minutes reading out the names and reacting accordingly, reciting all that he remembers from his time in Brazil.
That is until Kageyama grabs the phone from him, eliciting a squawk from his partner. He squints at the screen, his face inscrutable. Then he glares at Ushijima.
“Carrot beard is here,” he mutters. Ushijima nods thoughtfully in response.
“Carrot beard?” Komori asks, eyebrows raised in confusion.
“Kageyama’s terrible at names,” Kiryu clarifies. “Probably some opponent he and Ushijima faced in Rio.” The two veteran Olympians begin discussing something that sounds like an old game, mostly punctuated with oomphs! and wha-pams! that are pretty much undecipherable to anyone else.
“Argentina’s out too,” Suna drones, having done the sensible thing that is using his own phone to look up the roster.
Atsumu immediately parades over to him. “Wonder who’s their startin’ setter, eh?” His face scrunches up at the same time Hinata’s eyes grow wide.
“Oikawa Tooru?!”
The room falls dead silent at the exact same time Hajime’s heart drops to his stomach.
Iwa-chan. A familiar voice, one he’s known since he was old enough to remember, yet more fragile than he’s ever heard before. What do you think about Argentina?
And then chaos ensues. Voices piling on top of each other, barely audible to Hajime’s ears because all he can hear is Oikawa Tooru Oikawa Tooru Oikawa—
“I knew it! He told me! He was gonna come back and beat everyone!” Hinata cries, jumping up and down in glee.
“Calm down, Hinata, we haven’t even won the Olympics yet,” says Yaku amusedly.
“Oikawa Tooru…” Suna frowns. “Is he Japanese?”
“He’s from Miyagi,” Hyakuzawa confirms. “Never played him, but my senpais at Kakugawa used to talk about him all the time. Called him ‘The Grand King.’ They said we were lucky we never got put in the same bracket as him.”
A scoff. “Grand King? Who does he think he is? I’ve never seen this guy’s face at Nationals—” Hoshiumi starts, and Hajime feels an old stab of rage resurface in his chest. But he can’t, not now—
“He could have made it to Nationals,” Ushijima says suddenly, and the ire in Hajime’s throat dissipates into shock. He looks up. Ushijima’s gaze is fixed on the far wall, pointedly away from Hajime.
“Ooh, Ushiwaka, you went against him? Did he give you any trouble?”
“A number of times,” Ushijima says, his eyes meeting Hajime’s for a brief moment before flitting away. Then, in an attempt to direct the attention away from himself, he tilts his chin towards a silent Kageyama. “So did Kageyama and Hinata.”
Hinata shudders. “Just thinking about it makes me want to run to the bathroom all over again.”
Kageyama scowls at his former high school teammate, but when he speaks, it’s with caution. “He’s actually…really good,” he says flatly, but there’s a faint glimmer in his eyes. “He was, uh, my senpai in middle school. Along with—”
“Middle school? That’s crazy!” Bokuto looks excited. Then he pouts. “Wait, has everyone here played Oikawa? Not fair! How come I never met him?”
“Not me. No idea who the guy is.” Atsumu grumbles.
“I heard he’s a brilliant setter,” Aran says. “I woulda thought ya’d at least heard o’ him, Atsumu.”
Atsumu scowls. “I don’t need ta compare myself to other setters, no thank ya.”
“Oikawa Tooru, killer serve,” Sakusa muses, unconsciously flexing his wrists. Atsumu whirls around in shock. “You too?”
“I swear he was on Monthly Volleyball at some point,” Kiryu muses. “Uh…if you’re gonna hit it, hit it until it breaks?”
Bokuto’s eyes widen almost comically. “No way. I loved that quote. I’ve been wondering where it was from for ages.”
Yaku cackles. “Nekoma used to make fun of it all the time.”
“Aren’t you guys from Tokyo?”
“Yeah, but we got to play a couple of practice games against his team when we’d go up to Miyagi for training camp. Actually, now that I remember, weren’t you his ace, Iwaizumi-san?”
Every head in the room swivels towards Hajime. He realizes he’s the only one of them still sitting down, onigiri untouched.
His ace. Oikawa’s ace. He thinks of all the Argentinian games he’s watched over the years, every perfect set to a perfect spiker. He doesn’t know if he can be called Oikawa’s ace anymore—hasn’t known for years.
He thinks of a finger pointed at him like an arrow through his sternum; a long, perfect set with an almost reverent, prayerlike desperation. The last one he’d ever get.
Hajime exhales. He may not be Oikawa’s ace anymore, but Oikawa, he knows with a firm sort of weight in his soul, will always be Hajime’s setter.
“Yeah. Yeah, Oikawa was my setter.” He sees Hinata smile at him, Ushijima’s subtle nod, and Kageyama—god, how Kageyama has grown—look at him with an understanding learned from over a decade.
“You guys were always so in sync whenever we played Seijoh,” Hinata grins. “I used to think, ‘if only Kageyama-kun had as much faith in me as Oikawa-san had in Iwaizumi-san—’”
“Oi! Dumbass!”
“Okay, say that you believed in me then!”
Kageyama flushes red.
“Yo, give us the details, Iwa-kun!” Atsumu says, interrupting the freak duo before they can fall into god knows what—a fistfight or each other’s arms, maybe, no one can ever really tell.
Hajime feels the back of his neck grow warm. “Huh?”
“This is an emergency strategy meeting, right? What’cha got on Oikawa Tooru that can help us beat him, eh? C’mon, or are ya still too loyal to yer partner—”
“Shut up, Tsumu,” Osamu strolls over and stuffs a tuna onigiri into his brother’s mouth, effectively silencing him. Hajime looks at him gratefully. He supposes that the discomfort on his face must’ve been evident, but he’s too relieved by the interruption to care.
“Hey, hey, Hinata-kun! Tell me more about this Satana guy!” Bokuto calls.
“Ah, Santana-kun?” Hinata perks up. “Hmm, okay. He’s a great server, first of all—his hybrid serve is kind of like Atsumu-kun’s—”
Atsumu swallows his food in one giant gulp. “Eh?”
Sakusa smirks. “Thought you would’ve accepted that there are better servers out there, especially after training with me.”
“Not fair, Omi omi! Shouyou-kun said like my serve, not better—”
And with that, their setter moves on to his next scuffle.
Hajime watches from afar, mind still reeling. The fact that Atsumu, who had only known Oikawa Tooru for the past five minutes from mere word of mouth, immediately made the connection that they were partners—it stirs something in Hajime’s gut, something not too comfortable but not too unfamiliar, either.
The feeling doesn’t leave for the rest of the night, not even when the conversation starts to dwindle, punctuated by the more than occasional yawn. Bokuto and Hoshiumi, somehow back to their seats, both begin to doze off, their heads lolling towards Hajime. He lets them lean on his shoulders, even when Bokuto’s ridiculously spiked hair tickles his nose. He silently thanks Hoshiumi’s decision to leave his similar haircut, which he’d only seen in pictures, back in high school.
High school. Hajime thinks of another head on his shoulder, brown curls brushing against his cheek; the soft, familiar scent of botanical shampoo. Suddenly he’s hyperaware of Bokuto’s jawline digging uncomfortably into his collarbone, Hoshiumi’s cheekbone squashed against his shoulder. He glances at the clock on the far wall. Five past nine.
He nudges the two boys awake and stands. “Hey, everyone,” he says, “It’s time to head home.”
“Aww, c’mon, we just finally got Ushijima to tell us somethin’ ‘bout Carrot Beard—” Atsumu whines.
“It’s like you’re begging to get sick,” Sakusa grumbles, already padding towards the exit. Atsumu, a petulant frown on his lips, gets up and follows him.
“Yo, Samu,” he calls to his twin from the door. “Thanks for lettin’ us stay.”
Osamu waves his hand in acknowledgment. “I know ya can’t resist my good food. Call Mom up from time to time, ya hear?”
“I always do!” Atsumu yells, then dips behind the curtains.
Hajime waits for the rest of the team to file out until it’s only him left inside. “Thanks for the meal, Osamu-san,” he says, and ducks through the exit. Most of the team are already rounding the corner to the station, but he starts when he sees Ushijima hovering a few paces away.
“Iwaizumi,” he says, face as impassive as ever. “I am sorry to hold you up for a bit longer, but…” He begins describing a pain in his right shoulder, and Hajime’s mind goes into autopilot, instantly diagnosing Ushijima’s condition.
“It’s nothing much to worry about,” Hajime reassures, “but we can work through a couple of stretches tomorrow morning and see how you do in training. If the pain really bothers you tonight, you can apply cold compress for about 20 minutes.”
It’s subtle, but Hajime sees the tension flood out of Ushijima’s body as his shoulders relax a little. “Thank you, Iwaizumi,” he says with a small bow. “Apologies again for the trouble.”
“No problem,” Hajime replies. “It’s my job, after all.” They begin the walk to the station in comfortable silence.
Years ago, when there was only Miyagi, Hajime would’ve left him in the dust out of spite. There’s a voice in his head that sounds like his childhood friend exclaiming Iwa-chan! With Ushiwaka, of all people?! How dare you fraternize with the enemy!
But there was California, and Takashi Utsui, and some faint sense of concord you can only get when you meet a familiar face in a completely foreign country, after being alone and heartachingly homesick for months at the mere age of nineteen. And now there is Tokyo, and the upcoming Olympics, and full-fledged camaraderie within the Japanese National Team, where childish arguments and high school rivalries fade away at twenty-seven.
And there is no Oikawa to tell him otherwise. There hasn’t been, not for a long time, even though Hajime hasn’t completely gotten rid of his annoyingly melodic voice in his head. Because even though it’s been nearly half a decade since he last saw Oikawa Tooru in the flesh—in all his ridiculous, awe-inspiring glory—the years that have chipped away at the mountain of all that belonged to Iwaizumi Hajime at five, fifteen, and twenty-five leave Oikawa Tooru untouched, as if he is a spirit, a god, stubborn and unmovable and eternal.
The lights of the station entrance come into view. Ushijima begins to walk in the opposite direction until he remembers Hajime’s existence, and turns to him abruptly.
“See you tomorrow, Iwaizumi,” he says with a nod. “Send my regards to Oikawa, too.”
Hajime freezes. In that split second, he thinks he must look like a deer in headlights, the fluorescent glow harsh on his pallid expression.
Ushijima notices. “He is your best friend, right?” The words are simple, and honest. And so is the answer.
“Yeah. Yeah, he is.”
It’s not that Hajime hadn’t seen it coming.
He’d always known Oikawa would make it. Even when he was barely an adult, at the precipice of change, when his entire world was shifting and rearranging to form the pieces of a future unknown, one thing had always, always been certain.
It’s more of the fact that Oikawa was coming back—back to Japan, and inevitably into Hajime’s life—that shook him to the core. But if Hajime were being a little more honest with himself, Oikawa had never not been a part of his life. He thinks of a childhood promise he once thought would turn flimsy and eventually snap—stretched out across years and hemispheres, oceans and continents, chances and lifetimes. He finds, instead, that it remains taut and sturdy, like the faith in his best friend that has never wavered.
Except he hasn’t really been the best at showing it, has he?
Lying on his bed, Hajime reaches for the phone on his bedtime table, ignoring the screen time limits he’d set in order to maintain a healthy sleep schedule. He thumbs past his chats on LINE until days turn into weeks and he finally finds the contact name he’s been looking for.
Tooru. No more, no less. A name he’s known before he even knew how to say it.
He presses call.
Three counts before the line clicks, and Hajime feels dizzy. He hears a small breath and—
“Iwa-chan?” And there it is. That normally breezy voice, now soft and tentative—the one only Iwa-chan gets to hear—and Hajime has to hold himself down lest he flees down all twenty-something flights of his apartment's stairs and into the humid Tokyo night.
“Hey, Shittykawa,” he breathes, grin splitting his face like a knife. “Congratulations.”
〰〰✈︎
November 2013
UTC-07:00
“Iwa-chan!” There’s some movement and then a muffled yelp as something drops with a solid clunk. An exasperated smile tugs at the corner of Hajime’s mouth.
“Clumsykawa,” Hajime huffs.
“Hold on, let me just…” The camera clicks on, and there’s a blur of brown hair at the bottom of the screen as Oikawa bends to pick up the unidentified fallen object. His expression is sheepish as he enters the frame, item clutched in one hand.
“What is it this time?”
A head rolls out of Oikawa’s palm.
“No fucking way,” Hajime whispers. It’s terrible. It’s hilarious. It’s the remains of that cursed E.T. bobblehead Hanamaki and Matsukawa had given Oikawa as a graduation—and parting—gift.
“Please don’t tell Makki and Mattsun,” Oikawa pleads, and he’s whimpering, which tips the scale even more towards the hilarious side. Hajime has to look away, a fist over his mouth, to keep himself from bursting into laughter. Then he realizes this is Oikawa fucking Tooru, and so he practically doubles over, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
“Mean, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa cries. “Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I can’t hear you laughing at me, you know! Just because you think E.T. is ugly—”
“As if you don’t think the same, dumbass!”
Oikawa gasps and places a hand over his chest. “I would never.”
“Crappykawa. You said he reminds you of me, and you call me ugly!”
“Iwa—E.T.-chan isn’t ugly!”
“Oh yeah?” Hajime switches his camera on even though he knows Oikawa will probably diss his ratty old Aoba Johsai T-shirt and unkempt hair.
There’s silence on the other end of the call—Hajime wonders if the dorm internet is messed up again, because Oikawa’s frozen on screen. But his eyes widen, and eventually, he speaks. “Your hair.”
“Shut up, I know it’s a mess,” Hajime grumbles.
“No, it’s longer,” Oikawa replies, voice a tone lower than usual. Hajime sneaks a glance at his own webcam-quality mirror image. It frowns back at him.
“You should shave it all off,” Oikawa decides, his usual self-satisfied smile back on his face. “Since E.T.-chan doesn’t have any hair!”
“Shittykawa.”
“I already told you, I prefer Crappykawa.” He’s sulking, the audacity of him. He’s also really, really trying his best to stick E.T.’s head back in.
“You’re a shitty friend,” Hajime retorts. “Breaking your best friends’ gift for you.”
“Iwa-chan didn’t give me E.T.,” Oikawa says pointedly. This would be the part where Hajime cuffs the back of his head, but he can’t, so he scoffs instead and tries to ignore the small thrill that runs through his spine at Oikawa’s indirect admission.
Of course Hajime considers Hanamaki and Matsukawa to be some of his closest friends, and he’s sure Oikawa feels the same way. But before Makki and Mattsun—before Seijoh, and Kitagawa Daiichi, and the first kids’ volleyball club they’d joined at the age of six, there was just Tooru and Hajime. No more, no less.
“I got it!” Oikawa finally cheers, holding up the figurine to the camera so that all Hajime can see are two large pairs of eyes surrounded by wrinkled skin.
“His head is tilted.”
“Adds to the charm, don’t you think?”
Hajime grunts, leaning back in his chair to grab a textbook from the shelf beside him.
“Studying already?” Oikawa pouts.
“Because I have classes, unlike you, you dumb jock,” Hajime replies as he skims through the pages of I Had A Lot of Injuries. I Don’t Want You To Have Them Too. Frankly, his brain isn’t registering a single word.
“Stop acting like you have brain cells, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whines. “Just because you fooled the admissions panel of UC Irvine doesn’t mean you can fool me!”
Hajime flips to the next page aggressively.
“Look at you, your eyebrows are sooo scrunched together! See, you do look just like E.T.-chan~”
“Aw, c’mon, you’re not even gonna ask why I called?”
“To annoy the fuck out of me,” Hajime replies dryly, refusing to look up from his book. It doesn’t help that he’s practically memorized the look of Oikawa’s pouting face, down to the downwards quirk of his right eyebrow.
“Iwa-chan.”
“Iwa-chaaaaan.”
“Iwa-chan. Blanco let me play as the starting setter today.”
Hajime promptly drops his book. Once he’s picked it up, he’s met with Oikawa’s wide, wide grin on his computer screen. “Who’s the clumsy one now, huh?”
For once, Hajime ignores the jab. “Holy shit, Oikawa, that’s amazing.”
Four months. Four months was all it took for nineteen-year-old Oikawa Tooru, who was born, raised, and had lived in a little Sendai neighborhood all his life, to become a starting setter in the Argentinian league.
The pixelated Oikawa on his screen practically glows. “Is it really?”
Hajime rolls his eyes. “Maybe not when I tell everyone about how you cried to me on the phone every day when you left.”
“Not true, Iwa-chan! You cruel, heartless monster!”
Hajime shrugs. “It makes everything a little more amazing to me,” he says, open and honest, and Oikawa’s mouth drops open slightly before his features soften and he smiles, big and genuine.
Four months ago, Hajime was still in Japan. The months between Oikawa’s flight to Argentina and his own to California had been strange at best and depressing at worst. How he kept himself together while hearing Oikawa’s uncharacteristically weak voice, interspersed with static over the yawning distance between them, Hajime can no longer recall. All he knew then was that whatever anguish he felt while thinking about his eventual departure had to be a thousand times worse for Oikawa himself. Hajime was home. Oikawa was not.
Except home did not feel like home—not without Oikawa dragging him to the grocery for milk bread for the nth time in a week, or Oikawa lounging on his bed (Hajime on the floor) as he hammered away at his pink PSP, or Oikawa tossing him volleyballs in the old playground they’d claimed as theirs since they were four.
The thing is, if Oikawa was feeling even a sliver of the ache that had built its home in Hajime’s chest the moment he realized his best friend—whom he’d never been apart from for more than a week—was moving halfway across the world, Hajime would drop everything in an instant just to be by his side. Even just as that firm, steady voice at one end of the phone line. And so he did, even if he had to stay up at ungodly hours to watch stupid alien movies with Oikawa for the millionth time, or text Oikawa while he was eating breakfast to remind him to get enough sleep, or listen as Oikawa stumbled through his awkward Spanish because he was still too afraid to practice with anyone else.
He remembered this one conversation he’d had with Oikawa back then—a rare moment of quiet, honest humility. “It’s going to be a steep uphill climb from here, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa had said over the phone, hushed like it was a confession. It was around ten in the evening in Argentina, and ten in the morning in Japan, but when Hajime closed his eyes, he could pretend that they were in the same timezone, in the same room, whispering together under the glow-in-the-dark planets on the ceiling of Oikawa’s childhood bedroom.
“It will,” he’d replied. “Just take it one step at a time, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Oikawa had breathed, and though Hajime had not been able to see him then, he could still picture his eyes, clear and twinkling like the stars. “I will.”