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god-fucking-dammit-mizutani · 6 years ago

Text

Where We Were

For Oikage Big Bang 2018

Words: ~12,400

Art: @artchiboku made a darling piece to accompany this fic for the event! They’re a huge sweetie so please go look at it and leave some love!!!

Summary: It’s been a little over a year since Tōru left Tobio, presumably, for the last time. Fate has other things in store for them.

Notes: @deadfreckledboys thank you for stepping in to help me beta this monster!! And for keeping me together when I kept thinking, “This isn’t good enough, I can’t do this!” It was a struggle of a last few months trying to navigate deadlines and work slights, but I’m so glad I did this and finished something (close... to on time). Thank you to @oikagebigbang for hosting this event!!! It was a lot of fun and everyone was very sweet!! I also put together a list of song I used to write this if you wanted to listen~. This fic was heavily inspired by this one though.

Read it on AO3 here!

~*~

Fog overtakes the city for what feels like eons, and so when Tobio stirs awake to find the sight outside of his window particularly obscured in a dark, white haze he can think of very little else but, Again?

If he squints, Tobio can piece together the fine veins of the once majestic oak where it’s barren branches rest along his windowpane. It might still be impossible to see them, he imagines, if not for the murky halo of light from the street lamps still dutifully glowing down below, casting an ombre halo through the dark.

Vision still logged with sleep, Tobio tosses away the comfort of his cotton sheets. The first sting of cold races along his skin like an ice bath. It sends a zing throughout his blood, but it seems to lose power before hitting his brain. His eyes droop against the burn of the waking world and it is with immeasurable strength that he hoists himself out of bed, padding across the room to begin his morning routine.

Tobio yawns around the toothbrush in mouth, reaching under his pillow to kill his alarm just as the jingle begins to play it’s first, soft note. He remembers someone telling him, already in the process of switching the settings on his phone, that gradually waking up was a benefit to his health, but Tobio’s never quite gotten used to that process. He could change it now, Tobio supposes, when they’d never know. But he doesn’t.

(Because, maybe, he’ll have to change it back one day).

He still doesn’t feel quite awake by the time he’s pulling on his shoes in the doorway, just blearily remembering to grab a hoodie from the front closet before locking the door. Taking the long route to his starting point is a new habit. It comes to him naturally now, but it’d taken almost all year before he didn’t have to think it through. He could change the location, probably, but he likes the running path through the local park. It’s quiet in the early hours of the morning, and cleaner than most public places in the city.

And maybe, while he won’t let himself think it, he’ll run into someone there.

Tobio’s surprised when he plops his water bottle in his usual hiding place under the slide, that it is alone. Usually by now Tōru’s thermos is already there, proudly declaring, “Train like a BEAST; Look like a beauty”. It’s the only sign really that he still lives in the same city. It is always gone before he gets back. Tobio wonders if Tōru was deterred by the thickness of the fog today. Around him the park is little more than shadows under opaque clouds.

Or, perhaps, he’s just running late. Unlikely, but possible.

It’s not exactly Tobio’s business. Not anymore.

He progresses his day by taking the first few minutes to stretch, and if he takes a little more care on every movement today, if he checks over his shoulder a beat longer than he should, well, there’s no one there to take notice.

His water bottle is still the only one there after his first round. And on his second lap, there’s no sign of a second soul.

Tobio frowns.

He finishes off the rest of his water, and after a few minutes more of stretching, sets back on his way home.

By the end of the week, Tobio’s certain he’s been running the trails completely by himself.

Maybe Tōru went somewhere on holiday. Or he got sick of that routine, Tobio reasons. Perhaps he abandoned the park altogether, for a better place.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

On Sundays, Tobio’s cool down walk takes him through the city center to pick up his weekly groceries. Always on Sundays. It had been a habit he’d picked up over the last few years, because Tōru had insisted on them doing it together and only once a week.

“It’s like a weekly date,” Tōru would sing, slipping his arm through Tobio’s just until the first throng of people came into view.

Unconsciously, he looks to his empty side and is just a little blindsided when Iwaizumi Hajime blinks back at him from the entrance of the nearby coffee shop, looking just as openly mistified.

“Tobio,” he says, which could be a question—something like is that really you? He isn’t sure, but guilt washes over Tobio with a suddenness that dries his throat.

He hadn’t contacted Hajime since—since then. He never really did before, the few times he and Tōru had taken breaks in their relationship. It felt like a breach somehow—a custody contract Tobio doesn’t remember signing but keeps to anyway. But those had been short tiffs, practically water breaks, and mostly in the late years of high school to early college. Never a year; never after they’d come to live together.

Hajime stares at him, haggard, and the gnawing sensation turns Tobio’s hands clammy. “You look good,” Hajime says after a beat.

Tobio can’t say the same back without lying. The bags under his eyes seem fresh, haunting, but the grays in his hair are old now and still growing relentlessly. Hajime used to point them out in the middle of his banters with Tōru, detailing exactly how he’d receive each one from his best friend until Tōru had had enough and bought him a tote bag full of black hair dye. Tobio doesn’t think he’s used a single box.

He looks down.

“I was—” Hajime falters for a moment. “Do you want to get coffee?” When Tobio looks up at him, Hajime’s already holding a cup of something with the logo from the store behind him, but he looks vaguely imploring in the way that even Tobio notices and so he nods.

They sit in a booth by a window, even though they can barely see much outside. A waitress comes by and Hajime tells him to order breakfast if he hasn’t eaten yet. Tobio gets a cup of tea instead and Hajime, still nursing his coffee, gets the same.

“It’s been a while,” Hajime starts. Tobio opens his mouth to say something more, but then he notices his old classmate’s eyes, averted just slightly down in something like a wince and that’s when he looks down himself, at the hoodie he’d pulled from the front closet this morning and --

Hajime recognizes it. Of course he does.

Tobio tugs the zipper up higher towards his collar bone, even though it's reached the maximum zenith of teeth to latch onto. The action brings him a moment of relief from the anxiety in his stomach, the shaking in his hands, like he's hiding from the dark eyed stare studying him across the table.

Everything on the hoodie is quintessentially Tōru, as if it were custom fit to his tastes. The little green alien busts would be decent enough of a tell that someone pulled it from Tōru's closet before even the splattering of peace sign silhouettes and little spiral globes spanning across the front and back. Tōru always found delight in pointing at the little spheres and telling him, "They look just like volleyballs!" Tobio hadn't realized they weren't.

"He's been asking about you," Hajime starts, eyes flickering down to his untouched tea cup. He doesn’t say who. Tobio knows, innately. “He wants to, uh, see you…”

Tobio deflects his own gaze out the window and swallows down, hard. Over the rooftops outside the fog has taken on a peachy tinge, the sun just beginning to ascend over the misty city. Everything is still and quiet outside the frantic beating of his heart.

“Does that—” He swallows down on his pulse “—does he want to get back together?”

Hajime looks as if he’s wincing again, eyes zipping down to his hoodie and back up again without answering. “I wouldn’t say—that’s not…” He slides his arm up the table, fingers grabbing and shaking the sugar container for a moment. He dumps a little too much into his tea and stares down at the table with an interest that concerns Tobio. “That’s not exactly the case,” Hajime admits.

Tobio fidgets with the ruined cuffs of the sweater, flexing his thumbs between the stressed holes there. He bunches the fabric into his palms before allowing it to escape just so he may collect it again. Tōru’s brother-in-law had been responsible for one of the thumb holes, had cleared through the fabric with the burning end of a cigarette bud. He’d been skunk-drunk and thought it was funny, but Tōru had never been forgiving. He’d tried sewing the hole up, but after a single wash the stitches had given way to a slightly larger one. Eventually, Tōru had crafted a matching hole for the opposite cuff.

“Look, Tobio-chan! I’m a genius!” He’d been so proud.

Hajime startles him with his stare, a pointed intensity that Tobio hasn’t felt since they been on opposite sides of the courts. His throat burns.

“I have a favor,” Hajime says.

Sometime just before lunch, Tobio trudges his way back home. Instead of groceries, a deep, dark tiredness weighs down his arms. He leans down to untie his shoes, but even that is too heavy a task for his body, and so he lets himself slump against the wall. The unsmooth paint peppers his face like little thorns, but it distracts Tobio from the prickling feeling in his chest.

Tobio stomps the door shut with the heel of his running shoes. The slam echoes for a moment, and then leaves him only with with the ring of tinnitus in his ears. They reach for a sound, something lighthearted or haughty, a welcome home, but there is only silence.

There is only ever silence now.

He nuzzles his way under the collar of the hoodie and breathes in.

It had felt like a betrayal the first time he'd taken it out of Tōru's closet, the insistent voice in the back of his head telling him he would notice, that Tōru would come back soon and use this as fodder against him. Months had passed by then, though, and Tobio had reached for it—for something—and it had helped, for a moment, dull the indelible ache of missing him.

The hoodie smells nothing like him now, the unique scent of Tōru obscured under a healthy layer of ocean breeze and the fresh bite of winter air, but he remembers the warm curve of Tōru’s neck, the remnants of day-long cologne clinging to his skin, hibiscus shampoo that Tōru seemed absolutely incapable of washing from his hair. The smell had lingered on his pillow after Tōru left, had lulled Tobio to sleep in his absence for long enough, so he closes his eyes and breathes in again, calling for the scent on the tip of his memory and it is close.

Close enough.

Oikawa Tōru exists only to make Tobio's life tumultuous. He absolutely believes this to be a rule imparted by the universe at large, as a punishment for some misdeed it believes he perpetrated.

It is the only explanation that brings Tōru to his doorstep a week from his meeting with Hajime, glaring down at Tobio through the long slope of his nose. He lifts a finger to tap against Tobio's chest, a rough little push he can feel through the fabric of his sweatshirt—he made sure of it, today, that it was his own—and it feels like a pinprick against his heart. Lilac sunlight struggles in through the smog late this evening just to brush highlights into Tōru's hair, all the way down to the wisps that curl around the shell of his ears.

“You're the worst,” Tōru says, his voice quivers and it extends down the length of his arm, a residual tremor from the accident Hajime explains to him. “What kind of person doesn't visit his boyfriend in the hospital.”

The accusation feels like a stab.

“Ok, ok,” Hajime urges. Tobio moves back instinctively as Hajime pushes the taller man inside with a bump of his shoulders. “Stop badgering him already.”

Tōru fumbles through the foyer and frowns. Tobio watches the clench of his jaw, the minute shake in his shoulders. Changes, Tobio thinks, are obscure, but he wonders what Tōru's eyes catch, if a lamp is too far to the left or a bulb burns with a different temperature than he remembers.

Tōru sheds his shoes at the lip of the foyer. Without so much as a glance back, he stomps his way down the hallway as if he lives there.

Still lives there.

Hajime crosses into his vision, slipping the burden of a large duffel bag from his shoulders. “This should be all his stuff from the hospital,” Hajime informs him. It hits the floorboards with a loud thud, and Tobio winces impulsively. “I grabbed some necessities from his apartment; extra clothes, his glasses. I talked to the landlord and got his mail forwarded to my place, so I'll take care of ‘em when I get back. Just until he's back up on his feet.”

Tobio nods. He wonders if Tōru's condition is communicable because his hands shake where he has yet to relinquish his hold on the doorknob, the metal clattering about where the bolts don’t hold it tight enough.

Hajime scratches the back of his head. “Maybe this…was a mistake,” he relents. “I can still cancel my flight.”

Gaze forward, Tobio pushes, “It’s fine,” and his voice does not belie him this once.

Hajime doesn't seem heavily convinced, but his fingers release their hold on the duffel bag straps. Down the hall, Tōru's voice calls, the contents of his yell muffled by layers of wall.

“He's been dealing with it,“ Hajime says, a little rueful smile tugging the edges of his lips up. “The way he does everything that frustrates him.”

“Ignoring it,” Tobio supplies. Hajime nods, but Tobio knows him well enough to read his exasperated smile for the fondness underneath. It is, likely, a condition for dealing excessively with Tōru.

“It's your birthday soon,“ Hajime mentions offhand. He taps along the lining of his jeans and frowns. “Follow me to my car?” He makes a gesture towards the hallway and a halting motion to Tobio. “Just let me tell Oikawa I’m heading out.”

Parking is hard to find so late in the evening on their street and so it is a mild trek out to Hajime’s car. Frost clings to what little green has survived this late into winter. When Tobio strays off the sidewalk, it crunches satisfyingly under his shoes.

“His parents and sister were here until yesterday,” Hajime rubs his hands together, warming them through the friction of his gloves. “When I said you were willing to help out, I think they were pretty relieved. There’s not many people who can put up with Trashykawa for long enough.” Hajime gives him another rueful smile. “The doctors thinks it'll be good for him to be around something familiar.” He drops his hand into his pocket and one of the lights from a silver Honda Civic blinks at them a few cars down the road.

Hajime starts his car first, exhaust fumes almost indistinct among the fog still lingering. He dives around the front seat and pulls out a thin, long package. It's neatly wrapped in unassuming brown paper. Something smaller clatters around inside when Tobio pulls it to his chest.

“Thank you,” he says.

“I think you'll like it,” Hajime beams at him mildly, plopping back into the driver’s seat. He leaves the door open, both feet planted on the pavement and smiles up at him. Numbness seeps in through the thin material of Tobio’s sneakers, but there is a warmth in Hajime’s stare that keeps him rooted there. “Shittykawa helped me find it,” he shifts uncomfortably after the admission, clearing his throat. “Don't worry about mentioning it.”

“How has he been?” Tobio ventures to ask.

“We text,” he says, clicking on the heater, fans whirring to life inside the engine. Hajime's ears look bright and pink. “I make sure he's eating when I can. He's got a studio all the way across the city and it's just… It's been busy,” he admits, Hajime's gruff tone is laced with a hesitant sheepishness.

“I just—” Hajime furrows his brows, visibly contemplating his words before he continues, “I just want you to know that if I thought this wasn't good for Oikawa, I'd have him on the plane with me tonight. You know—” Hajime's stare is heavy, single hand resting on the steering wheel going white knuckled as he adds, “He loved you, Kageyama. He's just… an idiot.”

Tobio doesn’t remember leaving the heater on when he had left, but the apartment feels particularly warm when he shuts the door behind him, locking the cold on the other side. It is welcomed, though the sudden change in temperature agitates a small migraine in the space between his eyes. Tobio pushes his thumb up and against the skin there, attempting to relieve it with the icy sting of his fingers, and he almost misses it, the dulcet call of, “Welcome home.”

Tobio follows the voice into the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe when he catches the caller standing before his refrigerator with a perplexed stare.

“How come,” Tōru starts, his cadence that high pitch he reserves when he's asking questions that do not have answers, fingers reaching out and unclipping one of the cards Tobio had set up on the fridge, “my mom sent another new year’s card to only you?” He turns the card from back to front several times. Tobio had been surprised, too, when the card came in the mail this year. Parents were always fond of him, and Tōru's mother had in no way been an exception. Tōru looks back to the fridge again, in search of something he cannot find. “Didn’t she send one already?”

Tōru holds the card up, towards his face, and keeps it there. Tobio takes to reading Tōru’s face instead, reacquainting himself with old frown lines and the healing cuts along his lips. His cheekbones look sharper, but Tobio thinks he still looks well and it feels like yet another stab.

“Stop staring, Tobio-chan,” Tōru lilts, the edges of his lips quirked up, a single dimple on display. “It’s creepy~!” He imitates a shiver, wrapping his arms around his body to protect himself from an invisible chill.

Tobio's fingers flex at his side. He is almost afraid to look away, as if Tōru's presence in his kitchen is only fixed there by his stare.

“Say something,” Tōru demands. Tōru raises a finely maintained eyebrow at Tobio, then smiles, “Or did my roguish good looks stun you into silence?”

Tobio watches the pink of Tōru's tongue lick along his lower lip where the stretch of his smile had aggregated one of the cuts.

“You should take the bed,” Tobio decides and Tōru pulls a sour face. “Please sleep well, Oikawa.”

Tobio had taken nothing to bed with him save for a small throw blanket already tossed messily over the couch, and the small pit of dread settled tightly in his belly, but it is the first time, since he can remember, that Tobio sleeps past the first set of alarms on his phone. Awareness creeps every so slowly through his mind, but a heaviness lays thickly over his body and—

Oh.

Tucked around him is the comforter from the bedroom. Tobio blinks, squeezes his eyes, and blinks again. Outside is still dark, hazy, and settled against the swell of his hip is a crown of oak brown hair that, when he jostles slightly, only seems to nuzzle in closer. Tobio watches, heart wavering with a mix of emotions, the way Tōru breathes in softly, murmuring incoherently in his sleep, cuddled up against Tobio’s waist on the farther side of the couch.

When his alarm goes off once more, Tobio chooses to disarm it, but he doesn't move any more than resting his head against the couch pillow, relaxing the minor strain in his neck, and lets himself sleep in.

When he next wakes up, the gloom outside his window had been mildly dispersed by the winter sun and Tōru is no longer alongside him. His heart stutters despite his efforts to calm it, and Tobio startles himself, quite gracefully, off the couch.

“Good morning,” Tōru’s voice sings across the apartment. Tobio hears the sizzle of something burning in the frying pan and the smell of bacon reaches his nose and sets off a growl in his stomach. He follows the smell, after a decent tussle with the comforter wrapped around his legs, into the kitchen where Tōru busies his attention between two hissing burners. He shoots Tobio a glance over his shoulder when the younger man shuffles up to sit at one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “Sleep well?”

Tobio grunts, absentmindedly running a finger down the seam in the marble wallpaper lining the countertop. Tōru had been adamant when they decided to move in together, that they needed a breakfast bar. It was quintessential to being a modern adult, he had reasoned.

Tōru drops a pile of bacon on a plate already lined with paper towels and then flips a single egg on to it’s own plate. He pushes that one towards Tobio. It is mildly disturbing, the way Tōru reaches for a fork without missing a beat and lets it drops it beside the plate.

“Are your parents still coming in on Wednesday?” Tōru asks. He slides up along the breakfast bar and reaches along the counter for the basket of bacon. He stays there, leaning over the counter and dipping the piece into the egg yolk. Tobio watches the yellow liquid spill out and stream down the expanse of his plate.

“Thursday,” he replies. He cuts himself a small piece with the flat side of his fork and takes a bite. It is enough to feel full, fighting against the nerves welling inside him, and Tobio swallows a second time as if there’s something tighter woking itself down his throat. Tōru watches him.

“Your birthday’s on Wednesday,“ he challenges Tobio. When he bites down on his next helping of bacon it crunches loudly.

Tobio glances over at the old calendar across the room clipped to the side of the refrigerator. At the end of the month is a clutter of black sharpie marks, but Tobio spots the one proudly declaring his birthday with tiny little, red marker hearts, sitting in the center of the week. It had been Wednesday, last year.

He clicks on his phone and swipes over to the calendar app and searches quickly for the 22nd. “It's Thursday,” Tobio relays. Then thinks, “Maybe I should have them wait until the new year instead.”

“Why?” Tōru furrows his brows.

Tobio stares. “I'd have to leave you here. Alone.“

“Nonsense,” Tōru scoffs, reaching over again for another bacon slice, “I'll go with you.” He holds a hand delicately up to his heart, “Your parents love me.”

Loved. Tobio swallows the correction down with a glass of milk when Tōru offers him a drink.

Tobio's parents had loved Tōru, had made despairing jabs at their son's expense, that it was a miracle someone like Tōru loved their son, as obsessive and insensitive as he was. And for all that he protested that Tōru wasn't very different, mildly Tobio had wondered himself how much longer Tōru would stay in his orbit.

(Longer than he expected.)

“Don't sleep on the couch tonight,” Tōru tells him, the hook of his mouth pointing downward. “I don't sleep well when,” Tōru mutters the rest inaudibly, the very tips of his ears shading in a nice pink. Alone, Tobio knows.

He wonders if Tōru had learned to sleep without him, or if he fills his bed with bodies that aren't Tobio himself. He wonders if Tōru tells them, “I love you,” just before he curls around them, if he pushes his toes up and under their pajamas bottoms until they shriek from the nipping cold on their skin. He wonders if they ask about him, and if Tōru tells them, “I loved him,” and the thought churns his stomach too much to eat.

“I'll think about it.”

Tōru huffs at his lack of a real answer, running a hand frustratedly up and through his hair.

He has cut it since they last met, Tobio realizes, and such a simple thing aches.

Because Tōru knows.

Hitoka had been furious with him last November.

Her hair had been sheared into a bob that sat higher on her cheek bones and she'd sat by him, smiling expectantly for the entirety of their morning commute. All she'd gotten was a cold shoulder and while her anger had lasted merely a couple minutes, the event had simmered on Tobio's nerves all day.

"I didn't recognize her," he'd muttered to Tōru that same night, scowling at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Water clung to his face where he'd washed away remnants of toothpaste. It had been a mild winter, but a chill still lingered in the air, invited into their apartment through a crack in the bathroom window and Tobio shuddered, reaching for the face cloth hung up nearby. Tōru at his side had been warm, particularly where their elbows touched. "I don't notice things about people," he'd admitted. "Most of them look the same anyway." Tōru had met his eyes in the mirror at that, fine eyebrow raised high in question. His electric toothbrush hummed in the silence. Even indirectly Tobio could feel, still remember, how heavy his stare had felt. "They do," Tobio had insisted. In the glass he could see the pink rising in his cheeks and it made him all the more frustrated. "It's like I remember the way people look as a package, but when they change something I can't...." "They just look like a different blob?" Tōru had leaned up, brushing further along Tobio, to rinse off his toothbrush. It beeped, acknowledging when Tōru had properly aligned it with the charger. Tobio nodded. "So how do you remember people during games?" "That's different," he grumbled, knitting his eyebrow at mirror-Tōru. “Everything's more distinct on the court." Tōru had snapped his fingers against his forehead then. "Doesn’t that mean you're just focusing better?" Tobio shrugged. "So if I get a tan next summer," Tōru had joked wryly, only a single corner of his mouth perked up, "I'll have to carry a volleyball around the house so you don't think we're getting robbed?" He leaned over towards the sink and turned on the faucet. He'd cupped his hands and splashed a moderate amount of water along his face. Tobio had handed off the cloth he'd just finished using and Tōru’s fingers brushed his as he accepted it. His reflection sneered, "Good to know." "That's not it." Tōru's eyes had narrowed at him in the mirror and Tobio had looked down to the puddles on the countertop, lingering on the slow path they took towards the ledge. He fumbled to find words, to get his point across, but nothing came to him. Tōru had left him there, after that, in a mild huff and Tobio had felt sick, glaring at his reflection. But Tōru had come back, not too long after, with a fresh cloth. As he had soaked up the remnants of water along the sink’s edge his scowl had dissolved into something tempered. "You're hopeless, Tobio-chan," Tōru had sighed. He swiped the towel along the counter one last time and lingered next to Tobio, taller still after all these years. Tobio looked at him then, unsure, and Tōru hadn't hesitated to steal a short kiss. "I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing if I had to carry a volleyball around for the rest of my life." He'd taped Tobio's cheek with his hand with a quick, “Good night," and left Tobio, red faced and heart singing, alone in the bathroom. But Tōru needn't had fret over it. To Tobio, he'd glowed just as brightly off the court as he did on it, that Tobio was never able to forget him, even if he tried. (And he had.)

The futon gives Tobio little comfort, spurs an ache in the crook of his back by the second night, but he sets it up beside the bed as a compromise. His sacrifice brings little reward.

Tōru, it seems, is perpetually tired.

He'd been a bubble of energy their last few days together, always on the verge of tipping over some imaginary edge. But the steam that had been pushing him seems spent now, and Tōru barely seems able to lift himself from the bed for more than breakfast before laying out along the chaise of the couch.

It's always where Tobio leaves him, and always where he finds him late in the evenings, huddled under a heavy duvet he'd procured from the couch’s storage space.

It's enough to make Tobio's heart twinge, and yet he always seems to find reasons to run an extra lap in the mornings, to goad Shouyou into practicing with him despite their coach expressly forbidding it over the holiday season. If Tōru sees the intent of his excessive scheduling, he is at least too tired to show it.

“It's like the fog leaked into my brain,” Tōru admits one night.

Tobio can see his laugh, breathy and short, in little puffs of condensation against the glass of the living room window. A whistle cuts in through the silence, that night’s college volleyball match still roaring in the background. Tobio glances at its bleary reflection in the window just over the tallest hairs of Tōru's head. In the dark it looks as if someone has dyed his upper tips in electric blues and yellows.

Tobio says nothing and Tōru laughs again like there's a joke only he is privy to. When he leans back the top of Tōru’s head falls easily into the crook of Tobio's arm and he rests there, as if he belongs.

“I'm going running with you next time,” Tōru tells him authoritatively.

Tobio breathes in. The scent of Hibiscus tickles his nose and he frowns. Tōru must see his expression in the glass, too, for he delivers a swift pinch to the side of his thigh.

“I'm going,” he insists, the same hand now resting on the plump of Tobio's leg, just above his knee. Tōru is still watching the window, the first soft patter of rain beginning to pepper at the pane. His jaw looks set and Tobio knows there's no reasonable argument that will keep Tōru at bay. “Besides,” he continues, lifting his chin in that way that makes him look like a petulant child, “I cleared it with my physical therapist and she thinks it’s a great idea.”

And that's hard to argue with, especially when Tōru looks back up at him directly, warm brown eyes imploring, yet firm. Shadows of his lashes stretch along the expanse of his eyelids, beautiful and dark, and Tobio isn’t sure how he’s ever said no to this man in his whole life.

Tobio looks like his mother.

At least it's been said enough that he has no reason to believe otherwise. Quite possibly, they have the same temperament, too. Her eyes on him are as sharp as the wind outside, howling at it cuts by and leaving a chill against Tobio’s cheek where it rests on the window. Even through valiant efforts, the sunlight filtering directly on him barely abates the cold but it is just strong enough to sting his eyes and so Tobio closes them. "How was your trip?" Tōru asks beside him, the hum of his voice as steady and high as it always has been, but the bounce of his leg jostles against Tobio's own. He shuffles it away when the friction of his jeans on his ankle makes his teeth ache. "We got in just fine," Tobio's father says without missing a beat. "I always enjoy taking the train. So scenic." Tōru hums in acknowledgement. "What have you been up to this year?" Tobio cracks an eye open just in time to watch his mother deliver a swift, barely passable smack to his father's arm. He smiles back at her lightly and murmurs a short, "Oh right." "We heard about your accident," his mother says, locking her steely gaze into Tōru. She leans forward onto one arm on the table, her frown lacking any sort of sympathy. "So sorry." "A few weeks in the hospital and some scars, but I'm fine," Tōru says, shrugging. Tobio's father hums as if he's unsure by the answer. "I thought your mother said you'd had some memory loss." Tōru swallows. The thumping at his side increases in tempo and Tobio closes his eyes again. "I'm fine," Tōru says and he sounds fine, as far as Tobio can hear in his timbre, but when Tōru grabs for his water glass it quakes in his grasp, little droplets of water scattering on both his and Tobio’s pant legs. "Lost over a year, she said," his mother adds in. It feels as if half the contents of Tōru's glass is now seeping into Tobio's pant leg. His hand finds Tōru’s bouncing knee and rests on it steadily enough that it calms the tremors, if only mildly. Tōru's hand feels cold when it clenches around his. The smile on his face when Tobio looks up is still unnaturally unperturbed. "Excuse me," Tōru says politely. He squeezes Tobio's fingers a moment tighter and then stands to leave. "I need to use the restroom. " Tobio watches him leave, rolling his head along the window until the back of it rests on the glass, hair cushioning against the still present chill there. Tobio's mother taps the table, clicking her tongue. Tobio doesn't look back. "You should have come home this year," she insists. Tobio nods. "Not that we mind coming to see you out here, but it'd be nice if you'd come home sometimes." She reaches across the table, her cool soft hands resting on his, fingers twitching lightly. His mother used to trade beauty secrets with Tōru over dinners, discuss volleyball and television programs instead of sharp glares and he wonders if maybe, she was hurt, too. "Your mother was worried," his father puts in, almost hushed. “Is this alright?” His mother's other hand comes down and taps the table cloth with the tip of her nail apprehensively. “Are you okay, Tobio?" He feels more exhausted telling everyone, “It’s fine." Tobio tips his head to look at her, and then averts it to the outside. "What happens if he remembers," she pushes, "and then he leaves you again." Her nails just barely nip him where she holds on tightly. "You were so…. oh, I never want to see you that sad again, sweetie. You've been doing so much better since the break up, I don't —I don't want you to get hurt again like that." "We didn't." His mother blinks at him, both hands now holding his, gripping along his wrist, and this time Tobio meets her sharp stare with his own. Even when his throat burns he manages to say, "We didn't break up." "Tobio—" Tobio's father brings a hand to her arm then and her grip slackens until it finally gives way. "I love you, Tobio," she says softly.

Tobio breathes in, let's his hand skirt along the edge of his mother's knuckles, until she takes hold of his hand again, sending him a weathered smile. "I know," he says, and he does. Tobio may resemble his mother in her sharp features and curt temper, but he thinks that's about where it stops. She is always clear in what she means, how she feels, and Tobio is left wanting.

Tobio says, “I love you, too, mom."

Tōru doesn't come back.

Tobio pats his jean pockets, entertaining the idea of texting him before he remembers Tōru's cellphone is nothing more than a broken screen and exposed wires in the bottom of a mostly forgotten duffel bag.

But he doesn't have to worry too long. His phone buzzes with a new text alert. This is Tōru, the little bubble tells him before going off again. Borrowed a phone. I'll meet you back home. Tell them I wasn't feeling well.

His mother watches him across the table, her free hand drumming on the cloth again and he can practically feel the nerves leaking in to his own body where their hands connect. Tobio smiles weakly.

He sends his parents off a little later into the evening, waving them down through the train windows as they take their seats. He exchanges weight on either side of his legs while he waits for the initial take off.

Tobio rubs his hands together, berating himself for putting his gloves in the wrong jacket. It had been just brisk enough to ignore when they’d left their apartment earlier on, but now they ache from excessive cold.

Their apartment, he thinks wryly.

He'd been standing here with Tōru last year, huddling in close for warmth and then slinking away to find a nearby cafe for warm drinks. Tōru had bought him a small cake from the glass case, profusely apologetic that he lacked any funds that year for a proper present.

The train makes a sharp, metallic clang as the gears rev to attention and his parents wave frantically, excitedly, as if they might never see him again. Tobio returns their gesture with half the vigor.

His hands fall back into his pockets to hide from the numbing cold and his parents faces slip away into the long, dark night as the train barrages down the tunnel.

Tobio licks at his bottom lip and remembers how much sweeter the chocolate cake had been when he'd tasted it from Tōru's smile under the twinkle of christmas lights and he had thought it was enough back then to have Tōru with him, forever.

“Oikawa,” he calls, slamming the door shut behind him and clicking on the foyer lights.

Silence greets him.

The rush of fabric as his jacket slides past his arms is almost deafening. Tobio's eyes flutter to the floor. Two house slippers sit there, untouched since the morning. No other signs of a second occupant greets him, the black duffel bag the only reminder someone had been there. Something heavy plummets from his chest to his gut and twists like angry serpents fighting for a meal.

He doesn't bother to flip on the rest of the lights as he rushes into the living room, fingers skimming the stucco walls on his way. At the mouth of the hallway his feet smack down on a stray windbreaker that seems to jump up and tangle around one of Tobio's legs. The burn of hitting the floor joins him a moment later, stinging his hands and knees, but his body knows these aches from years of diving along laminate floors and so, as he always does, Tobio picks himself back up and rushes towards the bedroom, tugging the windbreaker from his legs as he goes.

There is already a light on in there when he pushes through the doorway. Clothes and belts and shoes flood the little bits of floor space, strewn about with an emergency that tightens Tobio's windpipes. He rushes to the closet doors and stills.

Tōru blinks up at him.

“What are you doing?” They both ask.

“I just got home,” Tobio says, drinking in as much air as his lungs allow him. “And no one answered so I thought—”

“Someone was robbing us?” Tōru titters.

Tobio clenches the windbreaker in his hand and says nothing. In the light he can see now that it is Tōru's, the other having not even shed his shoes before coming to his current position, cross legged before his closet doors, stuffing his hands into a pair of old, abandoned jeans.

Tōru seems to notice his gaze and smiles, almost bashfully. “I was looking for something.”

Tobio manages to drop beside him before his knees buckle in relief. Tōru scoots a short distance away, moving the jeans out of Tobio's reach defensively. Tobio glares. “Let me help.”

Tōru sniffles. “Absolutely not.” His hand wiggles around in the jeans momentarily before he frowns and it emerges, empty. “Besides I've looked everywhere already.”

He pulls his knees up to his chest, looking petulant in every way. Tobio leans forward to grab at the forgotten pair of pants, but Tōru shoos him away. Then he narrows his eyes. “Did you go through my closet?”

“No,” Tobio says, fiddling with a nearby shoestrap.

He looks miserable and puffy eyed, Tobio notices. He swallows, an apology for his mother on the tip of his tongue, an explanation for her behavior, but what comes out instead is, “Were you crying?”

Tōru stares at him. “No,” and he sniffles again.

“Was it important?” Tobio wonders, fingers slipping along the plastic edge of the strap. There's a slight crack along one side that he unconsciously favors.

“Yes,” Tōru whispers, a sleeved hand coming up to wipe at his eyes, aggravating the already swollen flesh into an angrier red. Tobio swallows down his thudding heart when he catches the pattern of alien busts and not volleyballs and peace signs along the sleeves. He’d taken care to bury the hoodie back in Tōru’s closet, hoping that he wouldn’t notice it had ever been moved.

Tobio hopes it stays, even if Tōru doesn’t.

“If you tell me what it is, I can look for it later.”

Tōru snuffles, the tips of his ears burning a bright red and mutters, “Don't worry about it.” Tōru stares forward, rapt and resolute, into the near empty closet and lets out a disheartened huff. “I feel like someone's playing a practical joke and any minute now they'll jump out the closet and everything will pick back up where it was.”

Beside him Tōru's presence is warm and steady, and it pulls him in until their shoulders just barely bump together. Tobio trains his own gaze ahead at the closet and wonders how many times the same thought had run through his mind.

“Hey, hey, Tobio-chan~” Tōru leans the rest of the way in, knees falling along Tobio's lap and his hair tickling the curve of his neck. Tōru wrings his hands, thumbs pulled up and through the little cuff holes and he whispers, “Happy Birthday,” in a way that almost belies his tear stained face. Tōru's laughter skirts along the curve of his neck and Tobio can barely suppress a shiver. “Sorry I didn't buy you anything this year.”

His hair is soft when Tobio rests against it, smelling sweeter than anything he could conjure in his memories, and breathes it in as deeply as his lungs allow him. Tōru giggles at the sensation and Tobio tries to commit that, too, to memory, hoping it'll nestle into his mind like pop songs on the radio.

“It’s alright.”

(It is the first time, in a long time, that Tobio enjoys the silence when it settles in between them.)

He remembers Hajime's gift the next morning, the little brown package still sitting by the spice rack in the kitchen where he had dropped it. In his hands, the contents rattle and shiver audibly and Tobio digs his nails under one of the folds in the wrapping job and rips it open after several tugs.

Tobio barely notices the other presence until the fridge door plops closed and Tōru asks, “What's that?” He pours juice into an older cup still on the counter.

“A present,” Tobio says and it comes out like an awed breath, “from Iwaizumi.”

Tōru's fingers are cold when they slip along the nape of his neck and slide softly up and through the back of his hair. Tobio leans into the touch without thought, enjoying the sensation of nails just barely ghosting along his scalp.

“Nekoma,” Tōru reads, resting his drink back on the counter and pulling the dvd case from Tobio. Tōru's fingers still in his hair. “The battle of the trash heap, huh?” Tōru clicks his tongue playfully and places it back into Tobio's hand, but his eyes linger on the cover.

“Maybe we'll finally get to watch it this time,” Tobio says.

“Sure…” Tōru's eyes are dark, unreadable, when Tobio glances up at him, eyebrows narrowed as if he's trying to recall something. His fingers give another light scratch against Tobio’s scalp before Tōru retreats into the other room. He steps back a second later, fingers drumming on the doorway trimming for a second and he points one of the fingers that should be holding his glass accusingly at Tobio, “Don't forget to thank Iwa-chan for that! A recording that old isn't easy to come by.”

The images of him and his teammates, his opponents, oddly photoshopped along the cover stare up at Tobio. He and Shouyou are easy to spot, young and energetic even when frozen in time. Half of Shouyo’s face bends around the spine and Tobio almost thinks to send him a picture of it to mock him.

He's not sure if the DVD is authentic, can’t quite remember if there had even been a cover on the original copies. There had been a pre-order, he remembers vaguely, for the televised program. Kiyoko and Hitoka had reminded them for weeks, kept a manila envelope out for the team to leave money and order slips, and still Tobio had forgotten to secure one of his own. He never quite found the patience for online auctions or internet scrounging to find a proper copy after that either. He had tried burning his own from Shouyou’s that last winter. He'd been disappointed when it had turned to static right after the first round when he attempted to show Tōru, Shouyo’s version irreparably scratched.

He'd burrowed a proper copy from Kōshi when he'd seen him on Christmas last year. He'd been excited to show Tōru, had left the recording in the console player for weeks, but by then he'd known, Tōru wasn't coming back.

It's a very nice gift, much nicer than the one’s Iwaizumi usually gives him. Last year’s gift card is still in his wallet, and Tobio has no idea if the funds are even accessible anymore.

“Shittykawa helped me find it,” Iwaizumi had said.

Tobio frowns, turning the disc over in his hand, a thought itching quietly in the back of his head and slowly Tōru's steely expression clicks. Unfamiliar.

Tōru hadn't recognized it.

Sleep does not come easily to Tobio that night. More than the burn in his back where the futon refuses him proper support, is the dark pit of anxiety that seems to never bottom out, and never empty. It must be far past midnight. He breathes in, sharp, steady, then let's it back out in a huff.

When he opens his eyes, something flutters in front of his vision, grainy and darker than the ceiling. It is a minute before he recognises it as a hand, Tōru's arm bent slightly around the bed frame. His fingers squeeze together and seem to beckon at him and instinctively Tobio reaches out.

Tōru's face leans over the edge next, and though it is almost too dark to tell Tobio can imagine the soft, sleepy grin half buried in his pillow. Tōru squeezes again, this time the act comforting, loving, his palm turning until he securely fits his digits between each of Tobio's own. His skin burns pleasantly wherever Tōru's fingers touch.

“Come up,” Tōru whispers, tugging lightly as if he can pull Tobio up just like that. Tobio shakes his head and Tōru lets out a haughty little breath, fingers releasing their hold. “Fine. “

Tōru is beside him suddenly, flush and warm at his side. The flat of Tōru's chin rests atop his head, breath tickling his hair and Tobio breathes in, arms wrapping instinctively around the other's torso, pulling him taut, fingers sinking into the fabric of his pajama shirt. Tobio can't quite make out Tōru's soft murmurs, isn't even sure he's saying anything in particular, but it fills in the silence, eases the tight coil in Tobio's gut.

And he thinks, if time could just stop here — now — he'd be perfectly content.

His arms are empty when he wakes up. Which, he's used to now.

Should be. (He isn't quite used to it.) He throws one arm far to the side, turning on his back. One of the tree branches taps gently on the window, barely a foot above him where he lays now just beneath the ledge. Tobio's always been a leaden sleeper, dropping like a stone wherever he lays, but Tōru's always been restless, and somehow even in sleep Tobio's always instinctively found ways to accommodate around his roaming habits, so he is barely surprised to find himself quite a distance from the futon. The bathroom door opens a second later. Tōru's feet tread gently on the carpet, padding his way over toward Tobio. "Good," Tōru says, "you're awake". His voice is soft, as if he's still being cautious to not wake him. Tōru's hair has already been brushed in that almost careless way he likes to pretend is natural. Tobio knows better. He kneels down beside him on the floor, already adorning his joggers and running shorts with the matching, mint jacket. Tobio recognizes the set, the one with the little galactic planet logo on the back with holo glitter, declaring Out of This World in circular print around it. Tobio'd gotten the set for Tōru for their last anniversary. Somewhere behind him, Tobio's phone goes off. "Time to get up," Tōru sings, feathering fingers along the fringe of his bangs. It is cruel, so very cruel, and then Tōru shoots him with a small, sleepy smile, fully visible now and up close, and reminds him again to get up. Tobio bites down on his bottom lip, pulling his eyes up and away, willing the tears at the edge of his vision to dry swiftly. "Hey —" Tōru starts, but Tobio flings his arms over his face, smacking the gentle fingers from his hair and hiding effectively from Tōru's stare. "Go away, " Tobio demands—practically croaks—at Tōru. "I'll get dressed.”

It is his feet that carry him left when Tōru continues forward, chasing a path he had grown used to.

“The park's this way, “ Tōru tells him. “Dummy,” he adds with a snide little smile, fingers lacing through Tobio's and he tugs him back, beckoning him to follow. Tobio does.

Until a few block down, and Tōru's feet weigh him to the cement. Tobio looks back at him, over the stretch of their arms, halfway in the street already.

Tōru's eyes look vaguely wild, lips pressed together tightly. His hold on Tobio doubles and pains him, but instead of letting go Tobio squeezes back.

“Let's go,” he says, and Tōru nods. But he stays on the sidewalk. “What?”

“Here,“ Tōru says, not looking up. His brows knit together, eyes distant as if there's a memory he cannot quite recall on the tip of his tongue. “It was here —” Tōru swallows audibly. Tobio can barely feel any circulation in his hand now. “—There was fog… I didn’t see them and then the car... it didn’t stop and I—”

His eyes finally meet Tobio’s, but he’s not sure Tōru actually sees him.

Tobio walks the distance back between them, shoulder bumping carefully against the other. Where their hands connect, Tobio pulls Tōru back along with him, retracing their path back the few blocks over. Tōru eases his hand eventually, pulling up alongside Tobio and slipping their joined hands into his pocket where they sit, protected from the cold.

Over Tōru's head, just before they take the right to the park this time, Tobio sees the edges of his apartment building and wonders, briefly, what business Tōru had on the other side of the city from his own apartment, so early that morning.

Shouyo texts him sometime in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve. Several other texts flood in from Shouyo’s phone, their tone implying that at least Ryunosuke and Yuu had taken possession of it to harass Tobio to join them for an evening of drinks and catching up.

Flurries had dotted the sky since the early morning and Tobio's content to watch them flitter and fly from the comfort of his couch. Tōru smiles at him from the far end, legs huddled in what seems uncomfortably close to his chest, adorning the same gaudy alien hoodie he'd procured from the closet the other night. He is vibrant against the gray outdoors.

Tobio declines.

We said it'd be tradition, the next message reads.

You're single this year no excuses!!!, says the last. He kills his phone's power after that.

It startles him when Tōru plops himself right between the couch pillows and Tobio's back.

“Did you know the first recorded UFO sighting was in 1639?” He keeps his far elbow bent on the cushions, holding his head up to stare beyond Tobio’s hairline at the screen. Still, he is close enough that Tobio can feel his breath along the shell of his ear. On screen is an alien documentary, but Tobio doesn't have the mind for it. Tōru continues without waiting for an answer, “Though some people say they've been mentioned as early as the bible.”

Tōru prattles on, his fingers dancing unmindfully along the bend in Tobio's waist. Where Tōru touches him, his skin tenses and tingles. Tōru might as well be planets away, but his presence on earth is still warm and comfortable against Tobio’s back. He leans into it, tilting his head up to watch Tōru’s face instead. Under his chin is a small litter of scars Tobio knows wasn’t there a year ago. He wonders if they are painful and swallows down the urge to kiss each and every single one better.

Tōru blinks at him the moment he notices his stare. “What?”

“It’s boring,” Tobio says. “Aliens are stupid.”

“Oh?” Tōru sings, removing the hand on his waist to tap a single finger to Tobio’s nose. “Maybe it’s because you’re stupid, my dear Tobio-chan.”

“No.” Tobio’s glare fuels Tōru’s laughter. His finger follows up the curve of Tobio’s nose and runs through his hair.

“Well, you know,” Tōru starts, hand curving down Tobio’s cheeks, palm resting upon the full expanse of it and he smiles, wickedly, “you kind of look like an alien.”

Tobio sputters. “I do not,” he protests. But that only seems to amuse Tōru. He takes hold of Tobio’s other cheek and pushes and pulls against the flesh until Tobio’s lips pucker like a fish, then pulls his mouth into a long smile.

Tōru only laughs harder as Tobio tries to shake him, and he can’t quite stop himself from himself from joining in.

Beyond him the sun peaks in the sky, chilly beams clinging about Tōru's face as his head lulls back. Tobio's heart swells. Tōru looks soft, delighted as he is, and Tobio fears that touching him may ruin the moment—that Tōru would slip through his fingers like the falling snow.

And then, Tōru kisses him.

His fingers on Tobio are cool, a vibrant contradiction to the heat pooling in his cheeks, and welcomed. A thumb taps on the plump skin of his cheek bone and then caresses down, curling at the base of his neck. Tōru's mouth is warm, and when he breathes, “Tobio,” between them it is so sweet, tooth achingly saccharine, and Tobio purloins a second taste, a third, and then loses count.

He could lose many things—a year’s worth of things if luck grants him it—to the scent of hibiscus shampoo and a tongue so sweet it might drive out all the bitterness.

But he doesn't.

His fingers remember the measure of every curl in Tōru's hair, his palms the exact plump of Tōru's cheeks. He can feel every nuanced change, and it is enough to make his heart throb.

“Tōru,” he manages to croak. Tōru pauses, sitting back just enough to stare him down and Tobio almost chokes. Liquor had never been one of his vices, but Tōru’s eyes are as fine and dark as a spiced rum as they catch glints of the winter sun, and Tobio thinks he would be perfectly content to drown in them, to stay unendingly intoxicated.

But that he also cannot.

Unsatisfied, Tōru leans back in, the warmth of him so sorely missed that it almost burns, is almost enough to throw away pride and reason, but instead Tobio's finger clutch the pillow under his head and shoves it between them.

“Tobio-chan!” Tōru shouts, equal parts miffed and confused.

“Don't,” Tobio manages. “Don't.”

“Don't what? Kiss you?” Tōru huffs.

Tobio cannot see him, Tōru obscured completely by the cream pillow, but he can feel where the other's hands clench around the couch’s edge, can see the knuckles turning white and pink. Tōru's arms shake mildly and Tobio wonders if he's about to cry, or if it's still the effect of his accident.

“I don't get it, Tobio-chan,” his voice is only a whisper, but there’s a quiet whine under his breath. “I kept asking for you, back in the hospital, you know?”

Oh, definitely near tears Tobio decides.

“Iwa-chan… he said that you'd want nothing to do with me.” Tōru chuckles, joylessly. “But then you did. And I thought, I thought maybe you still loved me after all, and we could just go back.”

“I have to—” Tobio barely manages to breath,” I have to go—”

He pushes Tōru away with the plush of the cushion and storms his way down the hall, trying his best to ignore the prickling sensation in his half asleep legs.

He loses against them at the front hallway, dropping on his back end upon the lip’s edge there that divides the room into the foyer. Tobio slips his shoes on as quickly as he can. Tōru doesn't seem to be following him.

The black duffel bag stares up at him before Tobio can reach for the door. He doesn't know what possesses him to kick it. Perhaps it's the ever insistent reminder in his doorway that things had changed, that even if today Tōru loved him, well, perhaps tomorrow he would not.

He kicks it again.

This time it falls forward and something chimes on the tile as it slips from a carelessly closed front pouch. Tobio leans over to grab for it and his heart simultaneously freezes and breaks. He catches himself on the far wall and turns the object around between his thumb and pointer finger.

It's a ring.

A simple, little band with a single diamond embedded deeply into the gold, but Tobio knows exactly it's intent.

It’s an engagement ring.

He swallows, turning the band around several times. The entryway light catches along the inner curves, beaming back at him brightly.

It doesn't suit Tōru, he thinks, despite it's simple beauty. Tobio would have bought a bevy of diamonds, for someone like him. Something gaudy, yet beautiful. But he didn't.

Someone else had. Someone who didn't know Tōru.

(Someone who wasn't him.)

“We should go,” Tobio says, hand slipping into the pouch of his sweater. The duffel bag sits heavy against his waist.

Tōru blinks up at him then and Tobio cannot meet his gaze, and so he turns away. “I think someone’s waiting for you.”

Before Tōru can make any vein protest, Tobio insists, “You need to go.”

The television clicks off.

Tobio gets the address from Hajime and sets the location in his phone. They take the bus all across town. It chirps like a confused bird, grating on Tobio’s nerves until their stop finally comes up, only a short block around the corner from Tōru’s apartment. In his pocket the ring sits heavier than the duffel bag across his shoulders. Tōru’s head is tilted back the whole way over, gaze climbing up and trained on the long faces of the older architecture.

Hajime, always reliable, makes sure to send Tobio the building code with his texts, but it fails to be useful when someone on their way out smiles at Tōru and keeps the door open for them. The key is found easily enough in Tōru’s personal effects.

For one person, the shared living space is comfortable. The windows are wide, almost the length of the far wall, flowing through with natural light from the near-dawn sky. He can see just a peek of the sun, over the top of the adjacent building’s roof. Tobio looks for signs of life around them, but none greet him.

Tōru picks up a book sitting on the dresser that is pushed up against the wall by the door. He lets it plop back down, the smack of it on the glossed over wood sounding like a gunshot in the silence. Tobio glares back at him, but Tōru shoves his hands into his pockets and shrugs.

“I don’t see anyone,” he says. The door shuts heavily behind him, and this time they both jump. Tōru places a hand over his heart, and looks at Tobio, wide eyed. “Is it a ghost?”

Tobio frowns in reply.

Barely an hour later, Tōru watches him under droopy eyelids from where he’s strewn himself and the rest of his belongings across the double bed. It must be a gift, Tobio thinks, to appear absurdly bored at all the possibilities the last year has brought him.

But then again, Tōru has never been a standard of normalcy. Point in case: the little poster above his head declaring, “Surround Yourself With People Who Will Lift You Up!” that depicts a tiny stick figure being abducted by an alien spaceship. The rest of the apartment, however, is decorated with a more classy taste, only a few odd trinkets popping out to the eye.

“So,” Tōru drawls, “what makes you think there’s anyone else coming back here?”

Tobio taps one of the figurines closest to him, some anime girl from one of Tōru’s shows he could never really get into. Dust lingers on his finger when he lifts it back up. He wipes it off on his pants with a face.

It is not the only thing in the apartment that looks unloved.

“Well?”

Tobio twirls in the stool seat, eyes sweeping over the apartment again. Even he can see, it hasn’t been very well lived in as of lately.

“C’mon~” Tōru trills, pushing up into a sitting position. “Share with the class, Tobio-chan!”

Tobio dips his hand back into his sweater’s pocket. The ring burns where it slips between his fingers and into his palm, hand clenching unconsciously until the ridges bite into the fatty flesh there. As if there’s a string between them, the feeling mimics in his heart.

He doesn’t see why someone wouldn’t be waiting for Tōru.

Tōru huffs, grabbing for one of the pillows from the head of the bed and pinning it against his chest with his now raised legs. His head rests on it as he continues to glower at Tobio across the small room. Tobio stares back, silent.

After a while, Tōru sighs. “Fine. Keep your secrets. But—” he pats the place next to him with pleading eyes that are unfair “—come sit with me?”

Tobio can’t deny him that, and so he drops off the stool and joins Tōru on the bed. He scoots further back until his back hits the wall, the tip of his hair tapping along the poster’s edge.

Tōru pushes back on the bed, slumping against the wall just a hair's breadth from Tobio. His hand wraps tighter around the band. It is a reminder his heart needs, but doesn’t, necessarily, want.

“We should eat soon,” he says. Tōru, unexpectedly, laughs.

Tobio watches him, the little lines visible along the edge of his mouth and the vision of Tōru shaking with uncontrolled laughter causes him to ache.

“Of course!” Tōru titters, “The first thing you want to talk about is dinner.”

Tobio breathes in through his nose instinctively, and the sound comes out like a little sniffle. There’s a weight on his chest he cannot ignore any longer and his hand squeezes ever so tightly, he can barely feel the jewelry in his grasp now.

Tōru will probably never laugh with him again.

Tōru will never push him off the bed in his sleep again.

Tōru will never buy his favorite buns from that one shop three bus stops out of his way, pretending he ended up there by accident because he’s actually really sorry for the last argument he started.

Tobio doesn’t recognize the first hiccup as coming from his throat, but Tōru startles. He can feel his face pinch against the sensation of crying, all thoughts on keeping the tears at bay, but it doesn’t work.

“Tobio-chan~” Tōru coos. The fabric of his hoodie feels comforting on Tobio’s skin where Tōru cups his face, the pad of his thumbs peeking through the tattered old holes in the cuffs, and softly wiping his cheeks dry. His fingers feel as if they’ve caught an ever permanent frostbite, nipping where they touch him, but Tobio doesn’t mind.

“Tobio-chan,” he says again. “Breathe for me, okay?”

Tobio breathes in deeply, but it doesn’t seem to help more than give fuel to tears. With no resistance against him, Tōru manages to pull him to his chest. The lean strains Tobio’s back, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t adjust further than latching his fingers together behind Tōru's broad back and squeezing in closer.

When he breathes in again, the scent of expensive laundry soap and too spicy cologne and curry tickle his nose and eases something inside him. Something he’s missed.

Home.

“I’m sorry I laughed at you about dinner.” Tōru whispers and Tobio can feel the breath of his laugh fan along the fringe of his hair. Blunted nails run cautiously along the curve of his scalp, fingers catching in and untangling threads of hair.

Tobio shakes his head.

He slips the hand still holding the jewelry out from underneath it's hiding spot and holds it up for Tōru to take. Tobio feels him shift to accommodate grabbing the trinket without compromising their position. There is no relief when Tobio relinquishes the ring into Tōru’s awaiting hand.

There's a slight hitch in his breath when Tōru asks, “Where did you find this?”

“In your stuff,” Tobio mutters. “The duffel bag.”

Outside the door, feet shuffle by, and momentarily it feels like his heart has stilled just to listen. The stranger passes on without even a test of the knob.

As if sensing his thoughts, Tōru's fingers return to petting his hair.

“No one else is coming here,” he says finally, certainly. Tōru’s cheek is cold, too, when it comes to rest atop Tobio’s forehead. If the position pains his neck, Tōru gives no tell. “Don’t you think Iwa-chan would have known?”

It's a sob that follows the question, heart wrenching, and it leaves cracks in Tobio's heart, along the already jagged edges. He squeezes, fingers digging into Tōru's back unconsciously, mind chanting, I don't want to let go.

I don't want to let go again.

But despite himself, Tobio pulls back. Tōru smiles at him, the edges wobbly at best, and it should not be an earth shattering realization that for all his bravado, he is scared too, yet somehow it is.

Stars burn in his eyes, a sickly green cast against wine-dark, and Tobio notices them in the lack of sunlight now, latched to the ceiling above them. He remembers owning a set of similar decals in his childhood bedroom, a make-do nightlight against the monsters hiding under his bed, in his closet.

“Sorry,” Tōru murmurs. “I thought we’d finally gotten it right this time. I just—” he wipes at his eyes with the back of his hands “—woke up with this idea of what tomorrow was supposed to be like, but it's already gone and it feels—” he presses his lips together tightly and breathes in. “It feels like some body snatcher froze me in time and took over my life and then dropped me back off without so much as a rundown.”

The poster by his head crinkles where his hair tickles the edge and he looks, so unimaginably small, distant, though it would take barely any effort at all to touch him. Tōru breathes out for a long while, disturbing a tuft of his own bangs. “I don't know what I did Tobio-Chan—”

“You left,” Tobio answers, briskly. He busies himself watching the makeshift sky, imagining the way Tōru would choose to lay out the stars, wondering if he’d hold up a picture on his cellphone to make sure he’d gotten some cluster of galaxies just right, and then plucking them off one by one to try again. Tobio furrows his brow at them, trying to remember from nights stargazing, stretched out along the fields back home in Miyagi, recalling Tōru’s excited prattle, just which one he might have been going for. “Because of me. I think.”

He can hear Tōru when he breathes in, nose absolutely stuffy with snot.

“I'm—not good,” he presses. His voice—his hands—his heart quiver in tandem. He swallows. “I don't get things all the time, so you must have put up with a lot.”

One of the stickers above them sits on its last leg, ready to drop where the binding agent isn't sufficient, a single edge still fighting to keep hold. Tobio wonders if he could make a wish on it, if it were to fall.

I want to go back.

“It was Christmas, I think. We had plans, maybe. I think. We usually don’t so I didn't…I don't think I remembered—some of the guys were in town and I—you were texting me, but I didn't read them until—”

Oh, he's crying again.

“You said—one of the last things you wrote was that I probably didn't love you enough—but I—”

“Did you?”

Tobio nods.

Tōru stares at him a while, considering him quietly. “Did you tell me that, Tobio?”

“No,” Tobio whispers. “I was—I was waiting until—”

“Until what?”

Tobio swallows. “Until you came home.”

“What's with that?” Tōru laughs, a bitter little thing. His eyes shine like dark embers in the limited lighting, moreso from the swell of tears gathering under his eyes. It's a very unattractive face, but it looks well on Tōru regardless. “Hey Tobio-chan,” he implores him softly, “if I didn’t come back, would you have just kept waiting?”

The answer seems obvious to Tobio. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

Tōru looks at him, eyes steely and wondering, and it feels like his mouth has gone dry. Tobio wants to touch him again, to feel the swell of his cheek against the palm of his hand, to kiss the square of his jaw, his forehead, his lips until they both forget.

But he doesn't.

“I love you,” Tobio says instead. He breathes in, pushes his gaze to stare down at the mattress instead. He can't recall what the globs of color were meant to be even though there had been light not but an hour ago. “Even at your worst,” he swallows, “even if you don’t love me back— for me, it’s just always been you, Oikawa. So I’ll wait. ”

Tōru stares at him and Tobio thinks he can see a galaxy of stars behind it. “You know one of the last things I remember thinking?”

Tobio shakes his head.

“‘I want to be with Tobio-chan forever.’” Tōru snorts. He holds the ring up between the two of them, pinning the band between his thumb and forefinger. Tobio’s eyes follow the path the ring takes as Tōru rolls it along the curve of his thumb, pale lights catching and gleaming in the dark gold surface. Tōru pulls it back a second later, cupping the ring in his palm and away from Tobio's sight. “Seems like I probably never stopped.”

There is an audible thump where Tōru hits his head back against the wall. “I must have kept this the whole time,” he sniffles. “How pathetic.”

Tobio tilts his head, not quite understanding and Tōru slips the ring into his jean pocket with a haughty sniff.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I'll explain it to you later.”

Street lamps flicker to life outside. Tonight they are unobscured by any fog, yet they do little more to help lighten up the studio than Tōru's stickers. But what little does smuggle it's way in sits softly along Tōru's face, catches brightly in his eyes.

Tobio leans back against the wall with him, unsure. Tōru's hand finds his.

“Let's go back,” Tōru says, resolutely. His eyes look back at Tobio and his mouth quirks up along one side. Tobio adds Tōru's dimples to the list of things he'd like to kiss. “I think… that’s what we’ve both wanted. Make things right. Go back to where we were.” He takes a reconsidering pause, wrinkling his nose. “Maybe just a little before that.”

Tobio squints. “The couch?”

“I hate how endearing I find your stupidity,” Tōru scoffs. “I'm asking you out.” He pauses, “Again.”

Tobio stares until the request sinks in and then finds himself nodding. Tōru hikes one of his legs against Tobio's other side, straddling him. His free hand curls around the curve of his jaw, tilting Tobio’s face up to look at him, as if he hadn't been rapt enough.

“You want to know something funny, Tobio-chan~?” From this distance Tobio can read the mirth in Tōru's eyes. “I just realized you were right about something.”

Tobio frowns. “That's not funny. “

“But it is,” Tōru insists. “Because someone was waiting for me.”

The breath of his laughter ghosts over Tobio's lips when he leans forward, only to be replaced a second later by Tōru's own. There's a smile in his kiss, sweeter than chocolate or hibiscus, and Tobio makes sure to press his own smile along the underside of Tōru's jaw, his forehead, his dimples, before returning to his lips.

Above them, unable to keep hold, the little star finally gives out. Tobio barely notices it, until Tōru laughs, brushing the stray decal from his hair before kissing him again.

#Oikage #Okbb2018 #kageoi #tumblr ate the italics again and I'm #just don't have that energy lmao #as always I'll maybe come back and fix the emphasis but I probably won't lmao #sparkle garbage #I love how the minimum was like 5000 and just about everyone was like #'you mean per chapter?'#this is the longest thing I have written in YEARs and probably the longest oneshot of my lifeeeeee #long post

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