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There’s this memory Oikawa has, and it doesn’t haunt him exactly, but he has been thinking about it more and more recently. He’ll be at practice, on the training courts for the Olympics, and it’ll hit him again like nostalgia or just déjà vu.
In the memory, he’s a kid. Maybe eight or nine—the age when his mother would take him to the park with Iwaizumi and then sit on the nearby benches with the other moms to watch while they played. He and Iwaizumi would find long sticks that had fallen from nearby trees, and they’d call them swords and they’d play the same game every time.
The game was simple: there was a dragon, somewhere in the distance, and they must fight it. It was unclear why they had to fight it, but they knew they had to. Except halfway through their great journey through the park, Oikawa would betray Iwaizumi in some way, becoming a demon king trying to foil Iwaizumi—the brave knight—and his plan to slay the dragon.
They’d end up fighting each other with the stick-swords, and it was the grandest battle; every time was more dramatic than the last. They’d fight like it was the only game they had ever played. They knew each other’s favorite moves, they knew when the other would parry or would slash to the right or left.
Sometimes Iwaizumi would win, and evil would be vanquished; Oikawa would stand back up and say he had been possessed the whole time and now he’s back on Iwaizumi’s side. Iwaizumi would gratefully accept him, saying he knew all along that the demon version of him wasn’t the real him. They’d continue their quest to the dragon.
Other times, Oikawa would win, and evil would spread throughout the kingdom like a plague. Iwaizumi would be converted to his side through the power of sweet words and a stick-sword pressed to the hollow of his throat. They’d continue on to the dragon, but now they want to slay it to steal gold instead of to save nearby villages.
In the present, Oikawa thinks back to this memory and he’s not quite sure why it comes back to him. He’s not quite sure why it feels so important again. He’s no longer a child, he no longer fights imaginary dragons, he’s not even in Japan, and he doesn’t talk to Iwaizumi anymore.
He doesn’t talk to Iwaizumi at all, and that’s maybe the worst part of it all. He’s gotten ahold of every dream he’s ever dreamt: he’s at the Paris Olympics, he’s the starting setter for one of the best teams at the tournament, he’s clawed his way up from an unknown high school in Japan to being one of the best players in the world. He’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted.
He’s also lost everything else that mattered. He moved to Argentina, and for a while he was supposed to come back; for a while this whole damn plan was temporary. And then it wasn’t. Then it wasn’t temporary: he moved permanently, he changed his citizenship, he made it to the national team. None of that are things that can be undone.
And somewhere along the way, he lost Iwaizumi.
There wasn’t any one specific moment that Oikawa can pinpoint to blame for the loss. There wasn’t one fight—
Or, that’s not quite right. It’s just that Oikawa wants to believe that the last fight they had wasn’t the last straw for either of them. He wants to believe that it wasn’t his fault. He wants to believe that it had just happened, out of his control, like so many things are. He wants to believe they had just drifted apart.
This is not the truth, and somewhere deep down, he knows that. Somewhere in the recesses of his heart, where memories of Iwaizumi live and where he tries to never look, he knows that it was his fault.
It had been just before the Olympics in Tokyo, four years ago. Things had already been strained between them—had been since Oikawa confessed that he was thinking of changing citizenship. He had brought up the idea tentatively, unsure of himself, unsure if this was the right decision.
And Iwaizumi had given him his support, because Iwaizumi had never been anything less than his first and greatest supporter. He had never been anything less than the eight year old boy who lightly hit him with a stick-sword and, upon winning the fight, said, “I knew the real you was in there. I’d never give up on you.”
Oikawa thinks maybe he hadn’t been looking for support, in that moment, though. When he was still deliberating over the decision, he thinks maybe he turned to Iwaizumi because he wanted someone to tell him no. He wanted someone to stop him. He wanted someone to miss him.
In that first conversation, Oikawa had swallowed Iwaizumi’s support down with a smile and said something along the lines of, “Thanks, Iwa. I knew you’d have my back.”
Iwaizumi had told him, truthfully, “I’ve always got you,” and then he had ended the phone call only minutes later. He had ended it, Oikawa could tell, because there was something choking him and he was fighting tears that he didn’t want Oikawa to see. He didn’t want Oikawa to ever regret the decision he was about to make.
He hasn’t regretted it once since changing his citizenship. Argentina has given him things Japan never could have. But when he first told Iwaizumi he was thinking about it, he had wanted Iwaizumi to ask him to come home. He had wanted Iwaizumi to love him enough to ask him to stay.
Which, he knows, was incredibly unfair to Iwaizumi. He knows that. He knows it was unfair to silently ask that of someone who loves him enough to let him fly free. Iwaizumi has always loved him so unselfishly, always been so supportive, and while Oikawa is forever grateful for that—
He also misses Iwaizumi so much. He doesn’t regret his decision; he regrets that he couldn’t have both Argentina and Iwaizumi at the same time. He changed his citizenship, and he left for good, and he broke up with Iwaizumi. He let go of everything that tied him to Japan.
No, it had not been a slow distancing that pulled them apart. It started with Oikawa begging Iwaizumi to give him some terrible, bitter limit; it had been Iwaizumi refusing to ever tie him down. It had been Iwaizumi asking if he could visit during the Tokyo Olympics and it had been Oikawa saying he was too busy and Iwaizumi asking if he even wanted to see Iwaizumi at all and Oikawa had said, “Don’t try to distract me.”
The way Iwaizumi had gone so still, gone so quiet, will haunt Oikawa forever. “So I’m a distraction now.”
What Oikawa should have said: “No, of course not, that was a bad choice of words. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
What he should have said, again: “Of course I want to see you, I want to see you so bad that it aches in me like someone has carved out a hollow where my lungs had been, and I love you.”
What he said, instead: “I’m just trying to focus on winning right now.”
“Right,” Iwaizumi had said, low and rough and strangled in the back of his throat.
And that was that. Things that were not said: “I’ve always got your back. We’re a team. We’re together in this, even if we’re on different teams. I’m with you. That dragon of distance has nothing on us.”
No—that was all that was left.
But oh: Oikawa is thinking about it again. Or, he’s not really thinking about that fight, or the break up, or the strangled attempt at being just friends that failed so badly and hurt so deeply.
He’s thinking, instead, about stick-swords and imaginary dragons and pretending to fight until one of them convinces the other to switch sides. He’s thinking about grand adventures across lands of evil, jumping at every shadow and holding hands for comfort in the huge four-oak tree forests. He’s thinking about when Iwaizumi hit him too hard and it left a bruise and Oikawa had thought it was cool looking, which did not stop Iwaizumi from crying out of guilt.
He doesn’t know why any of this is coming back to him, other than the fact that he knows he’s going to see Iwaizumi again at their first Olympic game against Japan. He knows he’s going to have to face Iwaizumi, even if he’s not on the actual court. They’re going to have to see each other whether or not Oikawa is ready for it.
Their breakup had been four years ago. Oikawa has moved on, in some ways. In other ways, his old best friend is probably the love of his life and that’s not easy to get over. Maybe there’s no way to move on from that, not really. Maybe he can only push it away.
He tries to distract himself with training, but eventually the captain of the team pushes him off of the court and demands that he rest. “Go explore the city, or take a nap, or read a book, or something,” he demands. “Literally anything other than training or doing things that involve working your body to its limits.”
Oikawa rolls his eyes, but lets himself be walked out to the showers, where he quickly showers and gets dressed, and then is glared at until he leaves the locker room to go somewhere else.
He doesn’t really have a destination or anything he specifically wants to do, so he ends up just wandering out of the Olympic Village to go explore the city. He just kind of walks, taking random turns as he feels like it, letting himself fall into the depths of the city without worrying about how to get back. He has a map on his phone, and he can always call someone if it gets that bad.
Or, the map on his phone or calling the captain of the team if he got irreparably lost was the plan until his phone died. He did kind of have a rescue plan in mind, it’s just that he didn’t anticipate Spotify taking up so much battery and the music stuttering to a stop before cutting out entirely as his phone battery gives up.
“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, and no one in the crowd around him seems to hear.
He glances around his surroundings, finding absolutely nothing that he recognizes. He’s near some kind of park, greenery to his right and a bus stop at the corner of the street he’s standing on. Briefly, he considers getting on the bus and asking for directions, before remembering he doesn’t speak French and getting on a mysterious bus line is a terrible idea.
Okay. This is probably fine.
He starts walking towards the bus stop, where he’ll at least have some kind of location marker. He’s good in a crisis, totally. Also someone will probably come looking for him eventually, right? His team won’t just abandon him.
He doesn’t know how long he’s standing at the bus stop looking entirely lost and out of his element before someone comes up to him, tentatively tapping his arm. He flinches at the touch before turning to the side and finding a young girl, maybe eight years old, staring up at him with wide eyes.
She says, in perfect Spanish albeit stumbling over his name a little, “Are you Tooru Oikawa?”
Oikawa blinks. “Yes.”
The little girl grins wide, missing two of her front teeth and looking like he’s made her day. “When I grow up, I want to play volleyball too. I told my teacher that on career day and he said that it was a big dream, but I think I can do it, ‘cause you can.”
Oikawa blinks again, and then he smiles back at her. He kneels down to make eye contact, his cheeks a little flushed. He forgets, sometimes, that he’s a little famous amongst people who follow volleyball.
“I think you can do it too,” he tells her. “You just have to keep working hard, okay?”
“I work the hardest at practice!” The girl looks at him so brightly that Oikawa can’t help but laugh a little. “The other kids have slow days sometimes, but I’m always working hard.”
Oikawa nods sagely. “I believe you. What’s your name?”
“My parents told me not to tell people my name unless I really know them,” she says. Then she thinks for a moment. “But I guess I know you now. My name’s Camila!”
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Camila,” Oikawa says, offering his hand out to shake. She shakes it timidly, still looking at him with those wide, watery eyes like she can’t quite believe this is happening. “Where are your parents?”
She turns to look behind her, where an older man is watching over her fondly. “My grandpa is right over there. Do you want to meet him too?”
Oikawa chuckles a little. “I’d love to.”
She nods, then skips over to the man. He’s graying, with deep laugh lines by his eyes, and he has a kind, warm gaze that immediately sets Oikawa at ease. Camila takes his hand and kind of leans into his side a little, pressing her head against his waist.
“Hi,” Oikawa says, looking from Camila to her grandfather. “I’m Tooru Oikawa—your granddaughter seems to know who I am.”
He laughs, a full-bellied, deep laugh. “She watches all your games. She wants to be a setter too.”
Oikawa looks down at her and smiles. “I’m sure she can be.”
“Thank you for being so kind,” the man says, smiling at him. “She’s always a little nervous around new people, but you set her right at ease. We’re here to watch your opening match tomorrow, and a few other games.”
“Thank you for all your support,” Oikawa says, the words falling out easily. He’s familiar with meeting fans, with thanking them, with being charming and kind. Then he gets an idea, which is maybe a little taking advantage of his fame, but he’s also, admittedly, so lost. “Could I ask a favor?”
The man nods, not even thinking about it. “What do you need?”
“I’m, ah, a little lost—” Oikawa grimaces a little— “and my phone is dead. Could I use your phone to call someone to come find me?”
“Oh, of course,” the man says, digging through his pocket to grab his phone. He unlocks it, opening a phone app, and then hands it over to Oikawa. “We’re happy to help out, aren’t we, Cam?”
Camila nods gravely, and Oikawa smiles. And then he realizes that the only phone number he has memorized these days is Iwaizumi’s number. Everyone else in Paris at the moment is only ever contacted through speed dial or text message. He only has Iwaizumi’s number memorized because they had been thirteen and each other’s first contact.
There’s something strange about that realization. They haven’t really, truly spoken in probably three years, but at the end of the day, the only phone number that Oikawa has memorized reaches Iwaizumi. There’s a kind of ghost in this knowledge, in the idea that their friendship had cut so deep that he held it to his heart in the form of a memorized number—and that the friendship is gone, but the phone number remains.
Fuck it, Oikawa thinks, and then dials Iwaizumi’s phone number.
He’s half praying that he didn’t actually forget it and isn’t now making up numbers in some semblance of Iwaizumi’s contact, and for a moment, he almost thinks that’s what happened.
Then: “Hello?”
Oikawa exhales the name more than says it, as everything comes rushing back: “Iwa.”
There’s silence on the other side of the line, and Oikawa almost thinks that Iwaizumi’s hung up on him. But he hasn’t—he would never. “Oikawa?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” Oikawa says, swallowing. “I’m sorry, it’s just—yours is the only number I have memorized.”
“So you need something.”
Oikawa wants to cry. He sounds so familiar, but older too, like he’s grown up and away. He has, Oikawa knows, but he’s never had to face that fact before. He’s so far away, even if he’s only a few words apart from him right now.
“I’m lost in Paris and my phone is dead and I don’t know how to get back to the Village,” Oikawa admits. “And I would really appreciate your help, yeah. Preferably before this very kind stranger wants his phone back.”
More silence.
Then Iwaizumi bursts into laughter. It’s bright and easy and Oikawa misses him so badly that it hurts. He feels that laughter deep in his chest, somewhere deeper than heart or lungs or bones or muscle. He wants to take that laughter and hold it in his hands forever, bottle it up like lightning bugs on a summer night.
“I’ll come get you,” Iwaizumi promises. “Where are you?”
“Uh.”
“Dumbass,” Iwaizumi says, amusement still laced through his voice. “What do you see around you?”
“There’s a street sign? I’m on the corner of Charles Floquet and Joseph Bouvard, I think. There’s a statue nearby, and a bus stop. And I think the Eiffel Tower is behind me?”
Oikawa can practically hear Iwaizumi rolling his eyes. “You think? It’s huge, Oikawa. It’s either there or it’s not.”
“Okay, okay. It’s there. It’s behind me. I’m on the street near the park.”
Iwaizumi half sighs and half laughs. “Alright, I’ll come get you. Wait there. Do not move.”
“Heard. Not moving.”
“You’re ridiculous.” Iwaizumi laughs again. “Give this stranger their phone back—I’ll see you soon. I don’t think I’m too far away.”
“Thanks, Iwa,” Oikawa says softly. “I’ll see you soon.”
Iwaizumi hums, and then hangs up the phone. Oikawa hands the phone back to the man, who has been talking in a hushed voice to his granddaughter. “Thank you so much. Someone is coming to get me now.”
“Good, good.” The man turns the phone around in his hands a couple times, and then pockets it. “Would you like us to wait with you or are you okay on your own?”
“Oh, I’m alright,” Oikawa tells him, always with unwavering faith in Iwaizumi. “He’s coming soon.”
The man nods, then looks down at Camila. “Say goodbye then, Cam. We’re going to go meet your parents now.”
Camila smiles, wide and toothy. “Goodbye, Tooru Oikawa! Thank you for meeting me!”
Oikawa chuckles. “It was my pleasure, Camila.” Then, to her grandfather, “Thank you so much for your help.”
“No problem at all,” he says, and then they’re off on their way, with Camila glances behind her every now and then to wave. He waves back, smiling to himself, and then resigns himself to waiting for Iwaizumi.
As promised, it’s not a long wait. It’s kind of a marvel that Iwaizumi isn’t that far away.
“Oikawa!”
Oikawa turns at the sound of his name, and oh: there’s Iwaizumi, walking towards him, looking a little out of breath; his hair ruffled by the wind and his eyes bright. He looks good like this, looks even more handsome than Oikawa remembers him being all those years ago. Just as Oikawa has, he’s grown up even more, gotten stronger, gotten more confident in the way he moves through the world.
“Hi,” Oikawa breathes out. He’s not sure Iwaizumi even hears him. Louder, “It’s really good to see you.”
Iwaizumi smiles, a little smaller than Oikawa would like, but a smile all the same. “It’s good to see you too. You wanna head back now?”
Tentatively, both afraid of and eagerly anticipating the answer, “What’s the other option?”
“Dunno,” Iwaizumi says, shrugging. “We could walk around a bit. See the Eiffel Tower, which, really, should have been your first landmark when you called me.”
Oikawa snorts. “I panicked a little.”
“Yeah, you’ve never been good in a crisis,” Iwaizumi muses. He starts walking, turning towards the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. “I don’t know what else I should have expected.”
“Rude.”
Iwaizumi laughs a little, his arms swinging at his side as he walks. He looks comfortable, at ease, despite the four years of distance between them. Despite having set a rule of no contact three years ago, and despite both of them determinedly, carefully, tragically sticking to it ever since.
Oikawa hurries to catch up to him. They walk in silence for a moment, and in some ways it feels awkward, because they haven’t spoken in three years and Oikawa has so much that he wants to tell Iwaizumi, so many ways he wants to fill the silence, but he can’t bring himself to say any of it. In other ways, it feels perfectly normal, perfectly comfortable, because it’s Iwaizumi and time spent with Iwaizumi has always been time well spent, even if it’s been years since he’s had it.
He thinks—not for the first time since their breakup—that maybe he took Iwaizumi for granted, a little bit. It’s just that he’d always been there at Oikawa’s side, always been his biggest supporter. He’s always been the one who didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t give up on him.
No matter what awful thing Oikawa did or said, no matter how despondent he got about his future, Iwaizumi had never once doubted him. Sometimes Oikawa thinks Iwaizumi just never lost that instinct from their games as eight year olds: “I knew the real you was in there. I’d never give up on you.”
Iwaizumi had always been the knight in shining armor, the hero of their games. Oikawa had always been one stride behind, the human-turned-demon chasing after Iwaizumi’s bright light, trying to ruin him. Iwaizumi never let him; he always found a way to save him instead.
Now, that memory comes back to him again, just as it had done during practice earlier. But now instead of wanting to serve the ball so hard that it cracked the court floor and took away the nostalgia of it, Oikawa just kind of wants to lean into it. He wants to go back in time and tell himself to treasure Iwaizumi just that much more.
“Hey,” Oikawa says suddenly, and Iwaizumi looks over at him with a questioning look. “I was actually thinking of you earlier.”
Iwaizumi looks away. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Oikawa confirms. He’s silent for a moment. Then, “Remember when we were kids and we played that game? With the knight and the demon and the dragon and all that?”
Seemingly despite himself, Iwaizumi smiles a little. “I remember. That’s what you were thinking about?”
Oikawa hums an agreement. They walk in silence a little further, until the Eiffel Tower fully comes into view. Iwaizumi keeps sneaking glances at Oikawa like he thinks Oikawa can’t see him. But Oikawa is doing the same thing back: he’s always keeping an eye on Iwaizumi.
“I was thinking about how we always argued over who got to be the one to actually kill the dragon,” Oikawa says.
“I think I won that argument most of the time,” Iwaizumi says. He’s smiling.
“You won most of our arguments,” Oikawa points out. “I think you were the only person who could really challenge me like that. Or, you were the only person who wanted to.”
Iwaizumi shrugs. “Someone had to do it. Eight year old you was a spoiled brat.”
Oikawa makes an indignant noise, looking over at Iwaizumi, offended. “Rude!”
“It’s the truth,” Iwaizumi says, but he laughs as he says it.
Oikawa smiles, studying Iwaizumi’s side profile for a long moment. He looks older, more tired; but there’s a glow to him, too. He looks happy.
Iwaizumi looks over, just the smallest flick of his eyes before he turns away again. “You’re staring.”
“It’s just…” Oikawa looks away. They’ve reached the Eiffel Tower, and they’re standing under the shadow amongst the two hundred other tourists there. “It’s good to see you.”
Next to him, Oikawa can hear Iwaizumi’s rattling breath. Then, “I’ve missed you.”
They stand there in silence for a long moment, just staring up at the tower in front of him. The rest of the people milling around them have no idea what’s happening with the two of them, have no idea of their history, and they don’t care. They lose themselves in the crowd, letting themselves get lost amongst the flood of people, but never separating. It’s easy, like this, where no one but them cares, to forget their history.
“You know—” Iwaizumi starts slowly, and Oikawa braces himself for the worst, braces himself to hear that Iwaizumi doesn’t want to repair their relationship now— “I really kind of thought it would be taller.”
That startles a laugh out of Oikawa. “It’s, like, 300 meters tall. Towers don’t get much taller than that.”
Iwaizumi flushes, glancing at Oikawa, and oh, Oikawa is not over him. He’s beautiful and Oikawa is not over him at all. It’s been three years of radio silence across different time zones, and he is not over Hajime Iwaizumi.
“I dunno,” Iwaizumi says, looking away, unaware of Oikawa’s sudden, awful epiphany. “I just feel like I expected something more impressive. Maybe I just don’t understand architecture.”
“Clearly,” Oikawa snorts.
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Now who’s being rude?”
“I’m just telling it how it is,” Oikawa says, unoffended. He smiles, staring up at the tower: the way it cuts into the sunlight, the way it shadows them in such a strange pattern, the way that he feels so small next to it. “I really have missed you, Iwa.”
Iwaizumi is quiet, and Oikawa can feel his stare prickling at the side of his face and neck. He’s about to ask what Iwaizumi is thinking so damn hard about when Iwaizumi speaks again.
“You remember that game you were talking about earlier?”
Oikawa blinks at the sudden change in topic, but nods anyway.
“I used to tell you that I would always bring you back from your demon side or whatever. I said I wouldn’t ever give up on you.”
Oikawa smiles a little. “You did. You were very noble about it, too.”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes, and Oikawa doesn’t really get his point even if he’s enjoying the nostalgia of the conversation, and then Iwaizumi continues. He says, soft and forgiving, “I’m glad you made it here. I’m proud of you. I never doubted that you would.”
“Oh,” Oikawa murmurs. He looks over at Iwaizumi, who stares up at the tower as if it will give him the answers to some unspoken question. He swallows. “Even though I’m playing against you?”
Iwaizumi shrugs. “You’ll always be the best setter I’ve ever played with, and you’ll always be my—” he cuts himself off there, taking a breath before continuing— “But that doesn’t change the fact that I want my team to beat yours.”
“Thanks,” Oikawa says quietly. Then, louder, “We’ll win again this time, though.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Oikawa studies him for a moment. “What were you about to say? After the best setter thing.”
Iwaizumi sighs, closing his eyes. In the light, he looks a little like he’s glowing, like he’s magic, like he’s part of another dream. Oikawa has had so many about him.
“I—you’ll always be my first love,” Iwaizumi says. He doesn’t sound sorry about it, doesn’t sound quiet or meek. It’s just the truth. “You know that. Even if you don’t want to hear it.”
And that—that unlocks something desperate and awful in Oikawa, something that he’s been repressing for far too long. He has been wanting Iwaizumi so badly over these years, and every time he thinks that he’s moved on, something circles back to remind him that Iwaizumi is still the boy who fought imaginary dragons with him and that is not a friend who can ever be replaced. Who in the world could ever write him a new childhood?
“Why wouldn’t I want to hear that?”
Iwaizumi turns to him with a frown. “Because we broke up. Because you broke up with me. Because you didn’t want this anymore. Because you grew out of it, even if I didn’t.”
“That’s not—” Oikawa stops, feeling like he’s choking on the words, feels like his throat is closing up and his eyes are watering too much to speak. Has Iwaizumi believed that this whole time? “That’s not what happened.”
Iwaizumi studies him for a moment. “Oikawa…you don’t need to do this. We’re here for the Olympics. We don’t have to be here for anything else.”
“I wanted to see you,” Oikawa chokes out. “This whole time, I’ve wanted to see you. I’ve looked for you everywhere, but every time I thought I saw you, it was just like seeing a ghost.”
Iwaizumi swallows visibly, looking at Oikawa intently, like he’s trying to unravel him, figure out all his secrets. Figure out if Oikawa still loves him.
And he does. He does—so much.
“It’s like chasing after a ghost of who we were,” Oikawa continues, not sure how he’s still managing to speak. “I don’t know how to find you and so I just keep chasing that knight in shining armor who didn’t give up on me.”
Iwaizumi’s face is stone, his hands impossibly still at his sides. Oikawa wonders briefly if he’s even breathing. Iwaizumi says, quietly, “I still haven’t given up on you. I don’t think I ever could.”
Oikawa could deescalate now, could make a joke out of it and change the topic. It would be safer, it would keep them in their neat little boxes of no contact. He says, instead, “You always believed in me the most.”
“It went two ways.”
“It did.”
Iwaizumi exhales, finally breaking eye contact and looking away, back towards the Eiffel tower. More to the sky than to Oikawa, he says, “The end of that game we played. It always ended with us slaying the dragon. No matter who dealt the killing blow, you or me, and whether or not it was for evil or good, we always slayed the dragon in the end. The fight always took both of us. We were in it together.”
“Yeah,” Oikawa says, unsure of why Iwaizumi is bringing this back up. “That’s right.”
“But you stopped wanting to play the game before I did,” Iwaizumi continues, as if he hadn’t heard him. “You found volleyball and only wanted to play that, and so I would entertain myself with bug catching until I got really into volleyball too.”
Oikawa looks at him, studying the firm line of his mouth, the sharp curve of his jaw, the way the wind tangles his hair. He misses him so much, and for the first time in years, he’s there—and it’s doing nothing to lessen the hurt.
“Maybe that’s why,” Iwaizumi says quietly. “Why I let you break up with me without trying to fight it. It’s a smaller example, but, but you’re always growing up, growing out of things—growing greater than what I can give you.”
Oikawa can feel his heart clenching, some awful grief rising from lungs to throat to tongue. How could Iwaizumi believe that about himself? How could Oikawa let him think that?
“I didn’t grow out of you,” Oikawa manages to say, and he thinks he deserves an Olympic medal just for the fact that he’s not crying. “I could never. Iwa, towards the end, I never meant—Hajime, I have never not needed or wanted you. No matter how old we got, that never changed.”
Iwaizumi looks at him, unsure. “And now?”
Oikawa swallows. There’s on the precipice of something else once again. They’re standing in the shadow of the greatest tower in the city of love and Iwaizumi is asking if Oikawa still wants him. And the answer has always, always, unequivocally, been yes. Yes, Oikawa wants him.
“I don’t want to pressure you,” Oikawa says quietly, “with my…feelings. You don’t need to burden yourself with this now.”
Fight me, Oikawa begs internally. Protest. Push me past the limit. Challenge me. Ask me again.
But Iwaizumi, as well as he has always known and understood Oikawa, is still not a mind reader. He tells him, instead, voice thick and heavy with something undefinable that Oikawa is all too familiar with, “Okay.”
Oikawa takes a shaky breath. For a moment, he’s sixteen again: staring at Iwaizumi for longer than friends do, his eyes trailing the muscle of his bare back in the locker room, brushing their hands together while they walk, draping himself over Iwaizumi as often as he can get away with it, and never, ever telling Iwaizumi his feelings. It was Iwaizumi who confessed, while Oikawa spent a year agonizing over him.
And he’s twelve again, too: practicing his serves in the gym, Iwaizumi at the other end of the court receiving every single one perfectly, Oikawa never asking him to go easy on him, just setting his jaw and working harder, working until Iwaizumi can’t receive them consistently. And later, practicing bumping the ball alone in the park, silently hoping that Iwaizumi will set aside his bug catching net in favor of helping him. He doesn’t, until Oikawa tugs at his arm and asks.
And he’s eight, too: a stick in his hand that’s really a sword, Iwaizumi at his side as they charge towards an old oak tree that they’ve decided is a dragon; Oikawa saying, “I’ll keep you safe,” and Iwaizumi saying, “I’ve got your back,” and the two of them grinning at each other. With the verbal confirmation that they’re on each other’s side, they slay the dragon.
And then, at twenty four: begging Iwaizumi to understand him without having to say anything; silently praying and praying and praying simultaneously that Iwaizumi would understand his decision and, at the same time, that Iwaizumi would stop him. Begging Iwaizumi to love him enough to support him in leaving, begging him to love him to the point of making him stay in Japan.
At twenty four, too: trying to silently communicate across a Skype call that he needs his best friend and his boyfriend right now, that he needs someone to tell him it’s going to be okay and that they’re not going to give up on him or his dreams, no matter what flag they take shape in.
Trying, at the same time, to silently ask Iwaizumi to limit him in a way that Iwaizumi doesn’t know how to do, while also trying to ask Iwaizumi to push him forwards in the way that Iwaizumi has always been so good at. Never saying any of that, and just letting Iwaizumi go.
Iwaizumi knows Oikawa so well that sometimes Oikawa forgets he can’t actually read his mind. He doesn’t actually always know what Oikawa wants or needs. Sometimes he needs to verbalize things, speak them into existence, before they can happen. Iwaizumi has never denied him before, but he has to ask if he wants it.
He says, “Ask me again.”
Iwaizumi dares to look at him. “Why?”
“Because I want to change my answer.”
Iwaizumi shifts his stance so that he’s standing facing Oikawa directly. There’s something grave about his expression, like if Oikawa were to fuck this up now, he would shatter and never recover.
One more chance, Oikawa begs. I’ll keep you safe this time.
Iwaizumi asks, brave and quiet and steady and small, “Do you still want me?”
Oikawa exhales, long and slow. “Yeah. I do. I always do.”
“Oh,” Iwaizumi breathes out. He sounds a little in awe. He stares at Oikawa for a moment and Oikawa shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. He says, “You know, Atsumu and Bokuto keep trying to set me up on dates.”
Something in Oikawa’s stomach curdles and rots. “Ah.”
Iwaizumi is quiet for a moment, taking a long breath and then exhaling. “I go on all these dates with other guys and just can’t…I’ve got this ex, you know, that I can’t stop comparing them all to. They never quite measure up to him.”
Then he falls silent, and what the fuck is Oikawa supposed to do with that?
Iwaizumi smiles wryly and Oikawa swallows down his every regret that he’s had in the last four years, his every piece of heart that’s missing him, his every kind of love for him.
“You kind of ruined me for anyone else,” Iwaizumi tells him. He doesn’t sound mad about it. He doesn’t sound like he regrets it. He doesn’t sound sad, either. He just sounds like he’s known this forever.
For a moment there, Oikawa looks over at Iwaizumi and sees something uncertain written over his face. A feeling that Oikawa knows is his doing. He also knows that Iwaizumi will always be his own undoing.
Oikawa swallows, looking away. He can’t stand to see that four year long aching anymore. He looks up at the Eiffel Tower, that great towering statue climbing up into the sky and breaking open the clouds.
He doesn’t know what gives him the courage to say it, or what makes him want to—other than the deep, bone-held love he carries for Iwaizumi. “So say if I were to, hypothetically, ask you out again, do you think I’d measure up to this ex of yours?”
Iwaizumi is quiet for a long moment, for long enough that Oikawa almost thinks he’s just going to ignore the question. Maybe that would be for the best. Maybe they shouldn’t try again. Maybe it’s better to get back to the Olympic Village as soon as possible and then continue not talking. Maybe it’s better to stop this conversation here, before it can hurt any more than it already does.
Then, “I’m not moving to Argentina. You aren’t going to convince me to do that.”
Oikawa exhales. “I know. I’m not moving to Japan.”
Iwaizumi closes his eyes as Oikawa watches him carefully. When he breathes out, long and slow, he opens his eyes again to look at Oikawa. “You still think it’s worth it? Still think it’s possible?”
“Yeah,” Oikawa says quietly. The soft din of the crowd around the tower and the cars nearby are all dulled in this moment, like all the world is lost but for the two of them. “I do.”
Iwaizumi looks at him and Oikawa thinks maybe this is it. This is what he’s going to be left with. Iwaizumi will walk him back to the Olympic Village, and that will be it. That will be everything. They’ll see each other when Japan and Argentina play, and they won’t look at each other, and it will hurt so badly, but Oikawa will let him go if this isn’t what Iwaizumi wants.
But as always, Iwaizumi has a habit of challenging his every fear. Dragons or demons or insecurities or inabilities or changing citizenship. When they were young, Iwaizumi protected him by saving him from all the imaginary bad in the world. Now that there are real, deep fears in their lives, Iwaizumi loves him best by pushing him to face them.
“What about you?” Oikawa asks, after a moment. “Do you think it’s worth it?”
Iwaizumi steps forward, putting a hand on his chest. Just a feather-light touch, but a touch that makes Oikawa’s heart skip a beat anyway. “You’ve always been worth it to me. If you’re giving me another chance at this, I’m not giving up on it now.”
Oikawa swallows, putting a hand over Iwaizumi’s hand on his chest and slotting their fingers together. “Could—could I take you on a date then?”
Iwaizumi smiles. “It’d be a shame to be in the city of love and to not go on at least one good date.”
“Yeah,” Oikawa says, laughing a little. “It would be.”
Yeah. It would be a damn shame. So Oikawa steps back, taking Iwaizumi’s hand and interlacing their fingers. It’s both so familiar and so new. He nods towards the street, and then begins to lead Iwaizumi towards a coffee shop he had passed in his wanderings earlier. Iwaizumi falls into step next to him, squeezing his hand tightly, and they’re together, on the same page, covering each other’s back from all the dragons in the world, for the first time all over again.