Work Text:
"You would have to leave me
and come back years later in a dream
just before morning"
- 'For a Poem', Miriam Levine
Memory is a funny thing, you see.
Tooru is eighteen, in an almost brand-new apartment in an unfamiliar city that doesn’t know yet how to hold him the way his childhood bedroom does-- or did, before he up and packed his life into boxes and planted his feet down on soil eleven thousand two hundred something miles away.
He remembers to bring a volleyball magazine he hasn’t opened in two years in his carry-on and has a pan in one of these boxes he’s never used but will need to learn how to. He’s forgotten about bringing floss, the Spanish dictionary he’d covered in notes, and his glow-in-the-dark stickers he had bought just for this apartment.
Jetlag is pulling him to the couch, but Tooru needs to find his blanket before he crashes for the next few hours. Gambling on the first box out of the three boxes he hadn’t shipped to San Juan, he drags a pen he found in his pocket through the tape. It’s too dark for him to see what the soft fabric in his hands is, but he knows it from touch alone. Tooru feels two weeks younger when he pulls the sweatshirt over his t-shirt and staggers to the couch, eyes threatening to shut. It’s never been his to keep, but for once, he’d like to imagine it is.
He can picture it too, just as he’s falling asleep to his heartbeat and the sounds of cars outside of his window-- the dream he set free to the sky.
Tooru is breathless as he pushes his way through the crowd, the ever-changing strobe lights cutting through dark making it hard to find the table. There's not a drop of alcohol in his body yet, but there's a weightless giddiness that turns him into a worm on a string, pulled along by the pounding pulse of the beat and a single thought. It's been two years. It's been two years, and finally he's made it back to Japan. Made it back to—
Over the thrumming music, he hears: "Hm, let's go ‘truth.’ "
"What's something that you regret?"
He stops in his tracks, testing the words in his mouth. Tooru could almost swear it's his own voice asking it too, if his throat hadn't dried up the second he saw Iwaizumi-- dress shirt rolled to his elbows, the top two buttons unbuttoned at the hollow of his throat. His presence is bigger now, with a casual confidence that Tooru wants to unravel yet has no right to. He feels older than twenty; they both do.
Even through the throng of people dancing around him, their eyes meet for a second. Iwaizumi, an unsurprised blank stare. Tooru, his heart sinking to the floor. He could have pretended the look was a trick of light, a neon illusion or a fleeting dream, but a spotlight cuts across ruffled dark hair just then. Iwaizumi doesn't answer the question. He takes a shot, lips curling into a rueful smile before he turns away.
The table erupts with laughter, getting even noisier when they spot Tooru just a few feet away. Akaashi nods at him, dodging around Bokuto's frantic waving as Bokuto shouts something about joining the next round of truth or dare. Kuroo has his chin propped on Tsukishima's head with a wide grin. Beside Akaashi, Sugawara whispers something to Daichi and slips out of their booth. All the while, Iwaizumi keeps his eyes fixed on his empty glass.
"I'm getting him a drink," Sugawara calls cheerfully, already pulling Tooru away by the sleeve.
"Don't take too long; you owe me a dance!" Kuroo laughs, before cutting into a loud whine. "Tsukki—!"
Tooru turns around long enough to stick out his tongue. "Yeah, yeah!"
Sugawara drags him along to the bar and has him sit down as he busies himself with ordering a tray of drinks for their table. Tooru's mind is running in circles. He must have been kidding himself when he first hopped into the taxi. What part of him thought that he could fix things, pretend that he made different choices? He doesn't want to do this now— not when the night is still young and his friends are around him and the person he loves is the closest they've been since he first left Japan— but Sugawara doesn't say anything when Tooru starts laughing to himself.
It's funny in a way that isn't really funny, a joke that isn't a joke but a twisting of a knife— oh it stings. A burning searing rod slides between the ladder rungs of his ribcage, slots itself so neatly into the tenderness of his heart. There is an ocean of strangers between them and a million unspoken words.
Tooru has never known his hands to feel as empty as they do in this moment.
In some ways, nothing changes.
Nothing drastic at least. Tooru braces himself for arctic silences and long stretches of time before they relearned how to be around each other. Iwaizumi had said that he would respect Tooru's decisions, but he wasn't going to be disillusioned if it meant that he needed space. He didn't expect Iwaizumi's call three days before his departure, offering to drive him to the airport for his horrendously early flight to Argentina. The creeping anxiety and guilt he had kept in the pit of his stomach broke way to relief.
Why did he think that Iwaizumi didn't care about him anymore? They've been best friends for longer than they've meant anything more than that to each other, and not even a breakup should have altered that fact. Tooru should have known better than to doubt him. He sighs when Iwaizumi’s car pulls up to the curb and stands up to greet him.
"You look like shit," Iwaizumi says bluntly, raising an eyebrow at Tooru's shadows.
He rolls his eyes. "You're offering to load all my boxes in the car by yourself? That's so kind of you Iwa-chan! I'll be waiting in the car then!"
"Hey! Shittykawa--"
For all of his protests, Iwaizumi doesn't say anything else as Tooru slips into the passenger seat and closes his eyes. By the time he catches another snip of lucidity, they're on the highway. Through heavy eyelids, Tooru sees the streetlights cast ever-shifting shadows across Iwaizumi's face. There's a weight on his hands that wasn't there before, fatigue maybe, although he'd like to think perhaps it was Iwaizumi's hand over his own. He falls asleep again to the imagined comfort.
It's goodbye for real this time, one that Tooru wants to delay and prolong at the same time.
"Did you get me any coffee?"
Iwaizumi hands off his rolling luggage and frowns as Tooru steals his cup instead, taking a few sips. "It's probably best you sleep on the plane anyway. I bet you didn't even sleep last night," he says, snatching the coffee back.
"Did you?"
"If I did, I probably wouldn't be here right now."
"You didn't need to see me off," Tooru protests faintly.
"I wanted to."
As much as Tooru wants to bask in the rare sentimentality, it'd do them both a disservice. It's as much a start of a new chapter as it is the end of another one. Iwaizumi, all weary but just as fierce and a solid presence around Tooru as he's always been, has done his best. It's Tooru's turn. He yanks Iwaizumi close and pulls him into a hug, pressing his cheek against the other’s in favour of a kiss.
"You're going to do great in Argentina. Don't forget me when you're all famous," Iwaizumi mumbles into the collar of his jacket.
Tooru pulls far enough away to smile genuinely at him, one almost all too fond. "You'll be the first to know about it all."
He doesn't look back as he goes through the gates. Without a doubt, Iwaizumi will watch him until he's out of sight.
Sugawara sends Tooru back to the table with the tray of drinks. As much as he wants to go dance, he's got a lot of catching up to do with the others. Tooru just barely dodges a group of teenagers bouncing drunkenly in a circle, soaks in the frenetic life all around him as it pulls a smile across his face.
It seems they called their game short, leaving only Kuroo, Tsukishima and Daichi at the table. Kuroo spots him first. "More drinks!" he crows, whisking the tray from Tooru's hands before nudging him into a free seat.
"The others?"
"Somewhere out there." Tsukishima shrugs.
Tooru stretches a fist to Daichi, who fistbumps him back in casual greeting, and settles back in his seat. "Are you good, man? Iwaizumi said something happened between you two, but didn't mention what," Daichi asks.
What's there to say really besides: 'I moved eleven thousand two hundred something miles away, but not before cracking the Earth in half.' Or maybe: 'there was a 50/50 chance and I chose the wrong answer.'
He settles for the simplest truth. "We broke up."
"Oh. Oh—! I'm sorry. Recently?"
"It was a while ago. It's just a little awkward."
"If you're uncomfortable—" Kuroo starts to say, but Tooru shakes his head.
"We're all adults here; it's fine. I'm not going to ruin our reunion just because of a personal problem."
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Kuroo's voice drops into a low whisper. "Don't tell Daichi, but he's paying, so we might as well make the most of it." He winks cheerily as Tooru muffles a snort with his hand.
Daichi looks horrified. "Who said?!"
A faint smirk dances on Tsukishima's lips as the three of them knock their drinks against each other’s'. He can't help it this time; Tooru laughs even harder than he means to, allows himself to make this moment as golden as he can.
Everything comes all too soon, and not soon enough. Argentina was once a hope for his distant self and now it’s just two weeks away.
Pacing back and forth, Tooru holds up two shirts in the fading golden rays of the afternoon sun through his windows. Just behind them is Iwaizumi, sprawled over his galaxy bedcovers and phone in hand. Tooru doesn't know where to look, how to take this moment in and preserve it in the amber light. He's saying something about how the grey t-shirts are shades apart, ( ‘this is important Iwa-chan’ ), but even he has a hard time keeping track of where one thought bleeds into the next until--
"There’s a choice to be made."
Between the t-shirts, Tooru assumes. "I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
"I'll respect any decision you make." Iwaizumi sits up properly now. "Long distance is hard, but if you're willing to try, we can make it work."
So, not the t-shirts. It would have been easier if it was. Tooru sets the hangers down on his boxes, stalling for words and settling for ones harsher than he’s ready to say but ones no less true than if he planned them. "And if we can't?"
"Trust me. We will. It's us after all."
The way he lays it out, so simple. As if a solution can be as easy as a wave of a hand, something that would come true because it just could, because they wanted it so badly that the universe rewrote itself to make it a fairytale ending. Tooru is a dreamer, but only when the dreams are his, when the only person he'll let down when he fails is himself.
All he can say is: "I... I can't.”
“So that’s it. Are you sure?” Iwaizumi's words are flat, carefully measured. Tooru can't tell if the disappointment is just in his head or if it's truly there. He could plant a shovel in that heart of his and keep digging in for years in vain.
“Argentina... and you.. and--"
Iwaizumi is up before Tooru can even finish his sentence, hand over his mouth and trapping him flush against the wall. "That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if you're sure that you don't want to try— don't want to give it a shot. Are you sure?" Iwaizumi repeats.
Is he? Can he let this go? Tooru swallows. He takes this aching dread, longing, and fear, and shove it into the pit of his stomach. It doesn't matter if he's sure or not. He can't ask Iwaizumi to stay by his side when there could be a million better opportunities out there for him, not when Tooru might one day be the one who holds him back. Tooru pulls back Iwaizumi’s hand and prays he doesn’t notice his trembling resolve.
"I'm sure. I promise."
The afternoon sun throws gold into his eyes as Tooru watches Iwaizumi leave from his window. For all that he chases after his dreams, he watches this one slip out of his grasp with eyes wide open. He can't miss a single thing, commits to memory what he's known since youth. Smiles wide, even as his lips press into a thin line. Tooru doesn’t call out to him, not even when he realizes that Iwaizumi had left his sweatshirt on his pillow.
Here. Start here: this is where you walk away. Where you gave up one dream for another. Where you keep one dream in your pocket and give this one up to the sky.
In the end, he throws both grey t-shirts into the box and the sweatshirt for safe-keeping. He doesn’t make a choice at all.
With Kuroo's talent for getting himself into absurd situations and Tsukishima's deadpan as he recounts Hinata and Kageyama's antics, Tooru's voice is almost hoarse from laughter and he ends up choking on his drink more often than he'd like. He's comfortably tipsy, the world soft and fuzzy at the edges as the lights and music keep him grounded in the moment. Daichi is in the middle of recounting one of his police academy disasters when Bokuto bounces by.
It takes a second to realize he's shouting: "I'm stealing you on Akaashi's orders!"
"But—!" Tooru glances at Daichi and company, but to his surprise it's Tsukishima that sends him off.
"Your leg's been bouncing this entire time," he points out. "The story ends with Daichi tripping over the barrier anyways."
"The youth have no respect these days," Daichi groans dramatically. He knocks a foot against Tooru's chair. "For real though, go ahead! I think I'll go find Koushi too."
Before he can say anything else, he's passed from one pair of hands and into another for the second time this evening. He catches Kuroo and Daichi waving at him before Bokuto pulls him past dancing couples and swaying groups with more finesse than he would've expected.
Just by the bar, Akaashi is swaying along with the music slightly, fizzy drink in hand. "Watch Akaashi for me, will you? I'm going to see if they'll let me try the poles!" Bokuto says excitedly, ushering him towards Akaashi.
Tooru stumbles several feet before coming to a stop. "Bokuto says he's going up to the poles. You think he'll make it?" Tooru asks offhandedly, pressing a hand against the wall to keep him stable.
Akaashi takes another sip from his drink, unfazed. "Knowing him, probably."
There's an awkward pause between them, which has Tooru feeling more and more restless the longer it goes on. Even in high school, the two hadn't interacted enough to become anything more than acquaintances. Despite this, he's still reluctant to leave, not before hearing him out.
"You should go talk to him," Akaashi finally says. "The more you avoid it, the more obvious it gets."
"It's not that easy—"
"It could be though." Tooru stares at Akaashi, who stares at him back with a serious expression. For a second he can almost see Iwaizumi in him, stable and reliable in their own ways as they cut to the heart of the issue. "This is just a suggestion of course. I won't make you, but it's not every day we're all here together."
"Akaashi, you're in university right? And Bokuto... volleyball as always I'm guessing." Akaashi nods. Tooru continues on, "You and Tsukishima both... even with the distance, you're still together with your partners."
There's an unspoken 'how' that Tooru can't bring himself to voice, but one Akaashi seems to hear anyway.
"Sometimes it's as simple as faith and trust— if not in yourself then in each other," Akaashi says. “Did you let go because that was something you both wanted, or because you yourself were too scared that it may not work out even if you did try?”
For a while, Iwaizumi is the first to know everything.
Despite Tooru's intensive research and studying from months prior to his arrival, he hits the ground running. It's one thing to learn about it on paper, and an entirely different thing to have it become your life. Blanco has him attending practices frequently and sitting in on other college matches around San Juan and the local area. Even with his blunders and missteps, life there is vibrant and captivating. More than once, he ends up spending hours just talking about his trips to the mountains.
In return, Iwaizumi catches him up with updates from home. While not a cure for homesickness, Tooru would be worse off without their frequent messaging, time differences be damned.
“Your mom keeps telling me about all the things you’ve left behind. She says I could take it to college since you’re not coming back for a while.”
“I’ve only been gone for a month, and she’s already giving away my things! It’s taking the idea of spring cleaning to another level…” he groans.
“If you want, I can hold onto them for now,” Iwaizumi offers. At this, Tooru becomes suspicious; there's no way Iwaizumi would pass up an opportunity to mess with him. “I’m not keeping everything though. You’ve got too much junk.”
And there it is. “Hey--!” he whines.
Iwaizumi rolls over and his head peaks back into the frame. He's trying to hold a serious look together, but Tooru's pout cracks and it isn't long before a full-bodied laugh takes hold of them both. Tooru wants to bottle this sound and keep it with him, wants to take this dream and put it back in his pocket again.
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe they could have made this work. Maybe Tooru didn't need to—
Half a year goes by and the silence Tooru was so afraid of lands in his lap. He can't tell if the self-fulfilling prophecy comes far later or earlier than he expects, but it hurts the same nonetheless.
School picks up for Iwaizumi, who also has to split his time between classwork, practical work at a local clinic, and his part-time coaching job. There's rarely a moment for him to catch longer than an hour break, and Tooru can't bring himself to take that time away from Iwaizumi. To his credit, Iwaizumi tries anyway, sends him pictures of dogs on the streets, casual thoughts and observations, and even songs and shows Tooru would enjoy (he does). In the end, it's not enough.
Daily conversations turn into weekly calls which turn into single text messages every five days. It gets harder and harder to keep these dying conversations alive. Did he drop something along the way and never picked up the slack?
Tooru composes texts with too much deliberation now, intentionally responds late out of guilt. Eventually, Iwaizumi's responses putter out, taking a hint that Tooru isn't quite sure if he meant to give. He spends more time collecting things to send to Iwaizumi rather than sending them, has albums and wishlists filled with thoughts he'd never voice aloud.
He's happy, is the thing. Or so he thinks. Happiness isn't supposed to feel like guilt, isn't supposed to be staring at a white ceiling and trying to recreate a galaxy where there's nothing but empty space. Tooru does the only thing he knows how to: fills up time. He learns how to cook, buys ten plants, works out, goes to practices, and even attends evening classes at a local university.
It's not enough, even when it should be.
With December nipping at his heels, Tooru comes to the reluctant conclusion that he can't afford to return home that year. He'll have to settle for sending a box over, picking sweets and trinkets he knows his family will gush over. There's a card for each of them in there too. Tooru gets a present for Iwaizumi out of habit, a new sweatshirt to make up for the one he stole and the other alien keychain from a matching set he bought.
This will be the first year they celebrate apart since... since Tooru can remember.
When Christmas rolls around, Iwaizumi sends him a picture of the Christmas trees on display in the park near Aoba Johsai. Underneath, a simple 'Merry Christmas.' It's harder than he expects to crush the disappointment of waking up the next day without a call from him. He sends a selfie from a Christmas party he attended, but can't bring himself to come up with a better message than the obligatory one. New Years isn't any better. Tooru is naive to think otherwise. He barely resists an urge to send an 'I told you so' out of spite. It's not fair. Long distance wouldn't have worked anyways. The universe doesn't rewrite its rules for just anyone, and he's never quite been in its favour.
It takes him a full week and a half before he starts composing his overdue response.
Tooru's apartment is broken in now, his belongings scattered across any surface he can get his hands on. Iwaizumi's sweatshirt lost its scent three months ago, but Tooru pulls it over his shirt, just like he did his first night in Argentina. He crawls under his galaxy comforter and stares at his white ceiling. Empty. Too empty.
Tooru starts writing his text in his head: 'Today, I went to the movies. A new alien movie came out, did you know? I think you would know. I'd tell you what happened, but I don't remember the plot. I couldn't stop wondering if you saw that trailer for the sequel to that series you've rewatched twenty times.'
Another draft: 'I'm sorry I couldn't make it home for the holidays this year. Would we still have gone to shrines together? Did you find someone new? I hope you did. I hope you didn't.'
And another: 'I sent you something for Christmas anyways. You'll probably throw it out when you see it, but maybe you'd laugh before you do. That would be enough for me.'
He grabs his phone, and settles for "Sorry, I've been busy. Happy belated New Years :)" . A finger hovers for ten whole minutes over the ‘send’ button before it gets sore and he just presses it. Tooru stays awake shopping for glow-in-the-dark stickers and trying to think of other things than Iwaizumi Hajime.
Despite Akaashi's advice, Tooru is not the one who approaches Iwaizumi first or at all. It's only at the end of the night, when the others are grabbing the coats and parting ways, that they're even within vicinity of each other. There's nothing covert or remotely sneaky about the glances Tooru sends Iwaizumi's direction, catching his eye more than once, but he's still too afraid to make the first move— so he doesn't.
"We booked hotel rooms for tonight. You can crash with us," Sugawara offers Tooru with a kind smile.
Before Tooru can respond, Iwaizumi speaks up. "I'll take him.” It sounds like a death sentence. Tooru would write it into a novel if he could.
The tension between the two must have been palpable all night, considering how the others stopped what they were doing to look at them. Paying no mind to their stares, Iwaizumi guides Tooru's arm into the jacket sleeve he had been struggling with and wraps an arm around his shoulder to prop him up. Tooru isn't so drunk that he'd fall over any sec, but he leans heavily in anyway.
"Weren't you supposed to come with us?" Kuroo asks, almost frighteningly coherent considering how many drinks Tooru had seen him go through earlier.
"After the truth-or-dare shots?" Iwaizumi snorts as Bokuto gives him an all too eager thumbs up. Somewhere behind him, Daichi is mumbling about how he has a point. "Our houses are close and we're both home for the holidays this year. I'll just drop him off."
"You're okay with that?" Sugawara directs the question to Tooru, who nods vaguely.
It's surreal, all of it, and yet Tooru doesn't want to protest. "Hm? Yeah..." he responds, trying not to slur his words.
The others leave it at that, trusting Tooru who barely knows if he should trust himself at this moment. At the very least, Iwaizumi never let anything happen to him. That much is certain when it comes to the two of them, estranged or not. They head to the exit, calling out their goodbyes and extracting at least one promise of clubbing again before Tooru returns to Argentina.
Iwaizumi has him sit down on a bench near the exit, more gentle than he needs to. It's unfair how even this stirs up heartache, kindness that feels bittersweet. "One sec, I just need to find my keys."
"Iwa-chan," Tooru giggles incoherently. It's their first words to each other in who knows how long. How brusque, lacking any sense of finesse. "You have to keep track of these things—"
The teasing dies away when Iwaizumi's hand pops out of his pocket, car keys dangling around his pointer finger. While Tooru can't quite bear to look at Iwaizumi right now, the keychain is neutral ground. A childish cartoon-like alien, glow-in-the-dark green with overly-large eyes swings slightly. It's a green blur to him through the haze of alcohol, but Tooru doesn't need to see it to know what it looks like— not when he has the exact copy on his own keys.
Let this be a trick of light.
"Oh," he whispers. "You kept it?"
Iwaizumi looks at it too, curls his fingers around the green almost possessively. "I kept everything."
Let this be real.
Tooru reaches out before he knows it and has one hand just over Iwaizumi's. Iwaizumi lets him, thinking perhaps that Tooru intended to examine the keychain. His other hand goes past the keys and touches Iwaizumi's face gently, turning it towards him. Tooru leans in, can feel Iwaizumi drawing closer. Breath ghosts over his cheeks. A world of distance between them, and—
Iwaizumi abruptly wrenches away. Tooru scrambles to get his bearings, brushing nonexistent crumbs and dirt from himself. "Sorry—" he begins to say.
"Don't. Just don't; that's not fair at all."A long sigh comes from Iwaizumi as he helps Tooru stand up. This time, Iwaizumi grabs his wrist over his jacket, avoiding touching him any more than he has to. The careful distance has Tooru's heart crashing to the ground again. "Let's go before I change my mind."
Graduation is both as dramatic and tedious of an affair as they expect. Tooru loves the ceremony of it all, surrounded by familiar faces and the goodbyes to their rose-coloured youth. The speeches drag on, all motivational inspirational sayings that could have been ripped straight from the internet, promising bright futures and other things that make students all wide-eyed. Tooru gets dragged off for photos, and it takes Iwaizumi the better part of an hour to find him by the gates in yet another group picture.
"Come on, let's go. I have something to tell you," Iwaizumi whispers into Tooru's ear, who shivers and nudges him back with his foot.
"Smile first. Talk later," he says through smiling teeth. Iwaizumi doesn't smile in time, but he stops fidgeting just long enough for the camera shutter to go off. The students all collectively breathe out at the same time, or so Tooru would like to say if he weren't dragged off so quickly.
Iwaizumi leads them away from the mob of students and into the relative privacy in the shade of a massive tree. He sits down on the grass, while Tooru remains standing. “I’m staying here for college,” he says finally.
It had taken a while for him to figure out what he wanted to pursue, but Tooru wanted to be one of the first to know.“What did you decide on?"
“Sports medicine. Patching you up every time you push yourself a little too hard or do something stupid made me realize I’m actually pretty good at it.” At this, Tooru whacks him gently on the head with his rolled diploma.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tooru says indignantly. He leans back against the tree, or where he thought it was— and trips backward on a root. Iwaizumi grabs his hand quickly, but it isn't enough to stop Tooru's rough landing."Ow!"
Iwaizumi shuffles closer to him and lets Tooru lay down on his lap. He brushes the grass out of soft tufts of hair. “What would you do without me?” he huffs softly.
“I don’t know,” Tooru nearly laughs, but the sound catches roughly in his throat. “I don’t know.”
The drive home is over all too quick. Neither of them say anything to each other, but Tooru fights to stay awake just in case. Cutting through the heart of the city, familiar roads and neon shopfronts blend together into a kaleidoscope of colour. He watches Iwaizumi from the corner of his eye sometimes. If Iwaizumi ever looks back, Tooru doesn't catch him.
Just as Iwaizumi pulls up in front of Tooru's house, he finally says, "Coming today was a mistake."
Tooru, whose hand is already on the door handle, visibly flinches. He had a feeling it was too hopeful to think that maybe they were on their way to being okay, but the abrupt nature of it has him reeling back.
"Is it because I was there? Was it because I nearly kissed you?" he spits, less angry and more hurt.
"You didn't mean that. You're drunk, and I'm not holding that against you."
Protests crawl up Tooru's throat. "At the club, you said--"
"I will never regret loving you, and I'm not about to start now," Iwaizumi responds coldly, his words cut to an edge so sharp Tooru has to hold back a shudder. "Is that what you thought?"
Tooru jerks upright in his seat. "Of course I did! With the way you looked at me, how could I not?"
Iwaizumi looks even more incensed than he was earlier, jaw tense and cut sharper from the shadows in the car. "Let me tell you something. When I let you choose between trying and giving up, I thought you would fight. It was too late for me to take back what I said, that vow that I would respect your choices, so I let you walk away. I could handle that, so long as it meant that we still had a connection, even across all that distance."
"Instead, I didn't just lose my boyfriend— I also lost my best friend, " Iwaizumi says softly. The fight drains out of him then. He sags heavily against the back of his chair and covers his eyes with his forearm.
"You never said anything..." A weak excuse, said with an even weaker voice.
"I told you to trust me that we would make it work because I trusted you. You've fought for so many things that finding ways to make our relationship, romantic or otherwise, work long-distance seemed so obvious at the time," he shrugs with feigned casualness. "Maybe that was a mistake too."
It was the final blow that knocks out any argument Tooru previously had. "Hajime..."
"Get out. Please." Without any fire, Iwaizumi sounds defeated. Tired.
Tooru stumbles out of the door, already half-opened from earlier. Before he can compose an apology, come up with anything to say back, the car is gone.
Time is a funny thing, you see.
Tooru is twenty now, spends his holiday break drifting from room to room. Two years isn't long enough for his childhood home to look any different than it did back then, but this place doesn't belong to him the way it did before. The arrangement of stars on his bedroom ceiling form different constellations. He still remembers them, the ones he created in middle school. Tooru is older, needs to avoid hitting his hip against his desk and relearn how to exist in this space.
Time doesn't stop for anyone. Very little in this world is willing to compromise.
There's more grey littered in his parents' hair now, more than enough for a candy bar at the convenience store. Takeru has a mouth on him now and has gotten too good at Mario Kart, but still doesn't know better when Tooru lies that he's just letting him win. His sister is just as beautiful with more laughter lines around her mouth. And Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi, halfway through college and on his way to America soon— in a couple months, and then two years later for real.
“Did you let go because that was something you both wanted, or because you yourself were too scared that it may not work out even if you did try?”
He's eighteen. He's twenty. He's every iteration of himself and a product formed from a collection of choices. Tooru sets a butterfly loose that golden afternoon and its wingbeats find him full circle.
No one said he had to give anything up. No one said that he had to let one dream go to keep the other one, that he couldn't choose to keep both. The world does not compromise, and he didn't need to either. Why that afternoon out of all the moments did he think he was being unselfish?
And that's the thing, isn't it? Tooru made this mistake before, let go of a dream before seeing it to the end. He lost it with his eyes wide open, and he's still losing it right in front of himself. It's not fair for him to write their history over, to pretend he didn't walk away or how he might walk away later down the road.
Time changes many things, and yet Iwaizumi had driven him home, told Tooru the truth when he didn't owe it to him. The fact that Iwaizumi still cares.... remains true.
Given the same choice in a different time, what would he choose?
Even four days after New Years, the streets are alive with families and couples before the sun has broken through the cold winter morning. Tooru's hands are freezing, locked in a loose fist around the handles of a gift bag. Fresh snow crunches underfoot, still falling lightly and brushing against his eyelashes. Cheeks flush from the cold, there's a livewire of restless energy running through him.
He knows this route with his eyes closed, but he has them wide open. Tooru needs to commit everything to memory again, rewrite streets of old with the streets of today.
Awake. He's awake.
Maybe he should have called. Maybe he should have waited another day. All the maybes he could possibly come up with crowd in all at once, a party of doubt shivering in the cold just outside of a house he knows almost as well as his own. No. He made this choice— follow through.
Before he can overthink even further, Tooru rings the doorbell.
It only takes 12 seconds for the door to fly open.
'I will never regret loving you' Iwaizumi had said, and it's impossible to do anything but agree. Iwaizumi, dressed in rumpled sweatpants and and oversized hoodie with his hair swept to the side and up in a fierce cowlick, looks just as gorgeous as he did eight days ago.Tooru nearly smiles at the sight; he would if his heart wasn't pounding enough to rattle his ribs.
"I know I probably don't have any right to talk to you right now, but I have something to tell you," he rushes. Then a shake of his head, both to shake the snow from his hair and to steel himself for a possible rejection. "Just give me ten minutes, and if you don't want to hear it, I'll leave."
To his surprise, Iwaizumi steps aside without hesitation. "Come inside, you idiot. I'm going to freeze. What is it?"
Tooru closes the door behind him. He doesn't take off his shoes, doesn't ask to be more welcome than he should be. "Here. It's not a Christmas present or anything because it's yours but..."
He passes the bag off to Iwaizumi first. There's no tape to keep it sealed, so Iwaizumi reaches in and pulls the contents out, dropping the bag on the floor. In his hands, the sweatshirt— a little ratty and worn from its original condition two years ago. Tooru can still see discoloured spots on the sleeves from when he accidentally spilled bleach on it.
"You've had this the entire time?" Iwaizumi's voice is quiet, bordering a whisper.
"I should have returned this to you a long time ago."
There's a pause as Tooru watches Iwaizumi carefully fold it back up, setting it gently on a stand nearby instead of putting it back in the bag like he expects. He steels himself, pulling courage and words from their proximity. It's too early to take this dream back from the sky, but he stretches for it nonetheless.
"I let you go before because I thought I would hold you back, but Akaashi— well, he was right. I was just too scared that even if we did try, things would still fall apart. In a way, it did, even after we tried. At least, that's how I saw it." Tooru wants to look away. He can't. Not when Iwaizumi is right there. Not when this could slip right from his hands again. "Maybe the truth was that I should have believed in us a bit more. I'm not asking for forgiveness, but I can't give up on this. I won't make the same mistake twice."
A soft sigh. “You know that I’m going to America after I graduate, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“And that doesn’t change your mind?”
“Not this time. Not even if you tell me you’re going to the moon.” Tooru can't help his small grin, which gets even wider when Iwaizumi rolls his eyes in fond annoyance. “Although, you’d have to take me if you were.”
"This isn't just something too good to be true?" Iwaizumi asks disbelievingly. It stings a little to hear the doubt, but Tooru knows he deserves it after all this time.
"You don't need to say anything now. I can wait. Plus, maybe you can ask the gods at the shrine." At Iwaizumi's questioning look, Tooru adds,"let's go to do Hatsumode. I still need to make up for last year."
"That's not the only reason."
He shrugs and smiles. Of course it's not. "I won't go without you," Tooru responds.
When Iwaizumi looks at him, radiant even in the grey of winter, it makes everything and anything seem possible. Somewhere out there, a dream is breaking free from the sky and hurtling back towards the ground. This time, Tooru will be there to catch it. To put it, not back into his pocket, but right next to his heart.
"That's all you had to say."