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A snowflake floated without conviction in the air, which didn’t even bother to be frosty for real, and melted instantly when it touched Hanamaki Takahiro’s nose. He sighed with irritation, pulling up his hood and quickened the pace even more. He forgot to take an umbrella again. This winter was more like autumn, with its constant rain mixed with cold and damp days when staying at home was a blessing. The snow would be at least cleaner than all this mud and the streets would look nicer, or so he thought. Snow could cheer him up with its tinge of magical atmosphere. This undecided weather was slightly too much for his nerves right now.
He had two interviews today and as much as he tried to stay all cool and composed about the whole looking for a job quest, there were moments when it was frustrating beyond belief. Still, he had to remain positive. He just needed some mood boost. The route to their apartment was around fifteen minutes from where he was, so he took the phone out and quickly chose the most used number.
“What’s up, Hiro?” Issei’s tired voice filled Hanamaki’s ear almost immediately. The voice he knew so well that he was sure Matsukawa was smiling right now, a little smirk which turned up the left corner of his lips. “You survived the second interview?”
“Not so sure,” Hanamaki sighed. “It might be my ghost talking to you now. If you don’t find me in the apartment when you’re back home, go and look for my corpse in that alley near the park.”
“Will do. Don’t worry, you will have the best treatment, what with your connections in the funeral company. You knew where to look for a boyfriend, didn’t you.”
“Yeah, I saw you in high school all these years ago and thought to myself, this one would have the most promising career, I’d better secure him for myself,” Hanamai mused, his mouth already arching into a crooked smile. “And here I am, taken care of in this life and the next one, what is not to love.”
“You’ve always been the smart one, babe,” Issei chuckled. “But seriously, Hiro? Tell me about the interview. On a scale from one to five?”
“Four, I guess?” Hanamaki sighed. “I’d like this one, Issei. Let’s hope the feeling is mutual.”
“If it isn’t then forget about the bitch, it doesn’t deserve you.”
“Sure thing.” He was already grinning so widely. That was exactly the effect his boyfriend had on him. It was always like that, all these years they spent together. Lots of easy companionship, laughing and everydayness without drama. Something Hanamaki wouldn’t exchange for anything else. “But I think I deserve some creampuffs for all the suffering I experienced today.”
“You do? That’s new. Do you even like sweets?” Issei teased. “Truth be told, I bought three or four but thought I’d eat them all by myself.”
“Think again if you want to get lucky tonight,” Hanamaki advised him amicably and shuddered when another gust of penetrating wind almost blew his hood off. “Fuck this weather, if it is snowing it could snow for real and not such shit…”
“You know that if it was snowing, you would be cursing the snow,” Issei reminded him, his voice full of tender irony. “You don’t like snow any more than rain. You just have enough of everything so come back home.”
“I could like snow today! Just for a change,” Hanamaki argued, still smiling. “Hey, remember that summer when Iwaizumi…”
“…Gave snow to Oikawa?” Matsukawa chuckled warmly into Hanamaki’s ear. “Sure, it was the one right after high school, before his departure. We moved in together to our first rented flat that summer.”
“Yeah,” he muttered back.
Sure, everything that concerned him and Issei was the essence of his life. Yet, some part of him was always following that second love story, the one without fulfilment, the one that never got its realisation. Still floating in the air, somewhere between the oceans and the seas, desperate and full of longing, without hope. It was never given a chance and maybe that was why Hanamaki felt so protective over it.
Even if he strongly believed Oikawa and Iwaizumi were simply two idiots.
*
“Aaand, there he is,” Matsukawa muttered in a stage whisper, rocking on the chair by Hanamaki’s desk, his blazer thrown carelessly on the tabletop as it was too hot to wear it on that warm spring day.
It was one of their last days of high school, exams already written, and education at that stage finally completed. It was a lunch break and after a year and a few months of being a couple, no one from Hanamaki’s class batted an eyelid when Matsukawa came into his boyfriend's classroom to spend that time together. Especially because this year Oikawa was in the same class, so Iwaizumi was also coming more often than not and the four of them sat together, teasing each other mercilessly, plotting strategies for upcoming matches and joking around while eating lunch.
But as the school year was coming to an end, Oikawa was spending less and less time fooling around with them, just like today. He sat by his desk near the window, seemingly dozing off while bathed in the warm sunlight, so longed for after winter that didn’t want to leave for much too long. It softened his features even more, shading some of the planes on his pretty face while bringing the lines up. He was not a handsome teenager anymore but a downright beautiful creature, Hanamaki could admit that. Oikawa Tōru was something else and it was no news for anyone in the school.
Their captain was irritatingly close to perfection at everything despite his personality. He could be petty and simply shitty if not kept in check. But he was brilliant and learnt with ease, he was a damn genius on the volleyball court and even without the sun swooning over him like now, he was ridiculously pretty. Still, after three years of high school, everyone got used to that. Brilliance couldn’t blind them all the time, so they acclimated to Oikawa’s talents, to his beauty and to the simple conviction that he would go further and be more than most of them. Everyone shrugged at some point and moved on. Everyone but that one person.
Hanamaki followed Matsukawa’s amused gaze and of course, Iwaizumi was standing a few metres away. He just entered their classroom, replied to a few polite greetings with his laidback confidence and then stopped in his tracks, just for a moment, when his searching gaze found Oikawa. It was just a few seconds, something so easy to miss, but Hanamaki and Matsukawa were the closest friends of these two, they saw more than they would like to and finally, they weren’t idiots. So it was easy to spot that moment when Iwaizumi’s face softened and morphed into uncontrolled awe. It was mind-boggling because all of them got used to Oikawa after three years while Iwaizumi knew the boy for almost his whole life and still seemed to be caught off guard in the moments like this. It didn’t matter how many years spent together Iwaizumi had under his belt – they apparently did nothing to help him develop any sort of immunity.
It was amusing and it would be sweet, a little exasperating that neither of them made any move to change the status quo and push their relationship forward, if not for the headphones in Oikawa’s ears. If not for the textbook on which he rested his elbows, if not for his lips mumbling Spanish words under his breath.
Hanamaki guessed it was the reason why Iwaizumi bit his lip, something raw flashed in his green eyes, something Hanamaki didn’t understand, but he knew it reached as deep as it could, deeper than any kind of infatuation could put roots. Just a fraction of a second later Iwaizumi scowled, eyes sharpening again and his grouchy attitude coming to the surface as it usually did.
He came up to Oikawa’s desk and unceremoniously took the notebook from under Oikawa’s arms, making the other boy jump in his seat in surprise, almost falling off the chair.
“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa pouted. “I’m trying to learn here. You don’t have to…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Iwaizumi muttered, looking into the notebook and not at Oikawa in a way that Hanamaki thought couldn’t be anything but very deliberate. “You’re still on these airport phrases?”
“I’m revising!” Oikawa gasped exaggeratedly, offended. He tried to pry the notebook from Iwaizumi’s hands but the shorter boy easily dodged the attempts, sitting down on the chair standing by the desk before Oikawa’s.
“Sure,” he said but it sounded more teasing than indulging. “So how is a passport?”
“Pasaporte,” Oikawa sulked.
“Baggage claim?”
“La recogida de equipaje.”
The quizzing continued and at some point Iwaizumi closed the notebook but still asked question after question, nodding at the right answers and correcting Oikawa twice, having their captain scrunch his nose in displeasure. It made Hanamaki think of how often these two learnt Spanish like that together, knowing it was only one of them who would need it. But it was so typical of Iwaizumi to be always there, shoulder to shoulder with Oikawa, guessing his needs and wishes halfway, even if he grumbled about it, threatened to beat his friend up and generally acted as if his complete adoration was a secret unknown to anyone. Maybe he really did believe it was. Maybe he didn’t want to admit it to himself, either.
Oikawa’s gaze went softer and softer as the questions got faster and Hanamaki thought to himself that the volleyball team’s captain understood all of it, too. And he was smart, he surely didn’t delude himself by convincing himself it was anything other than it was in reality. Oikawa consciously decided not to do anything about it, precisely because of these Spanish words he exercised with such determination. Suddenly, the spring atmosphere got heavier with all the desperation and denial.
“Let’s go onto the roof,” Hanamaki muttered, elbowing Matsukawa who was also observing the scene. “The amount of pining will give me ulcers.”
*
Hanamaki fluffed his pillow and made himself even more comfortable, which felt almost ridiculously over the top at that point. It was more than enough that he was finally in his warm bed and had an undisputable perk in the form of his boyfriend’s well-built body to which he could cling with a happy sigh. The day seemed ridiculously long and the trial period in his new job was quite awful so their apartment gave the aura of a safe haven even more than usual. Issei teased him that he was coming back home as if he had to force his way through a jungle, a desert and an unwelcoming tundra, not just a few train stops.
“You aren’t that wrong,” Hanamaki muttered into Issei’s nape. “I’m sure that most of the wild animals which could attack me in the jungle would still be more friendly than some of the clients.”
“And they would kill you to eat you, not just for fun,” Matsukawa noted matter-of-factly, although his voice became softened with sleepiness. “Can’t blame them, you are delicious.”
“Of course I am,” Hanamaki agreed cheerfully. “Still, I made it back to you in one piece, like a real hero.”
“I promise to worship you tomorrow, too sleepy now,” Matsukawa yawned apologetically and earned himself a kiss on the back of the neck.
Hanamaki closed his eyes, his breathing calming down further. But the sleep didn’t want to come.
“Iwaizumi called me today,” he murmured. Issei hummed to let him know he was still listening. “He’s going to stay in Tokyo till the Olympics now, wants to meet up soon.”
“Good,” Issei mumbled but it was heartfelt. Hanamaki knew how much his boyfriend missed their two best friends from high school times. Reunions were rare but always fun and touched some tender chords inside them, more than they were precisely willing to admit. “Is he still single? There was that guy… Or was it a girl last time?”
“Difficult to say, the name was too unisex to guess and you know how he is,” Hanamaki sighed and then changed the timbre of his voice a little to pretend he was Iwaizumi, “It’s nothing serious, we aren’t really dating, he or she is just a friend, blah, blah, blah.”
Issei chuckled into his pillow.
“Remember that one time some girl put that photo of Iwaizumi on her Instagram?”
“That black and white one? In bed, with crumpled sheets? Sure I do, it was so hot,” Hanamaki giggled into Matsukawa’s nape. “Oikawa almost combusted. He called me and gave me a lecture about how inappropriate it was, how that person was violating all social rules and whatnot, only to gush over Iwaizumi’s body in that photo a second later.”
“They are so hopeless,” Issei sighed, fondness mixing with exasperation in his voice. “You would think they moved on, after all these years, but hell if they did.”
“They fucking didn’t, even for a millimetre,” Hanamaki agreed, scrunching his nose. “Today Iwaizumi was also speaking mostly about Oikawa’s match from yesterday as if no one on earth had anything better to do than watching every damn game the bastard played in. Like, I love Oikawa and I love volleyball, but you have to be a crazy psycho fan to be able to recap every damn action he took part in.”
“Or to be Iwaizumi.”
“I’m afraid these two are exchangeable terms by now.”
“Mmm.”
“That’s depressing,” Hanamaki mumbled. “It has always made me sad. Why didn’t they…”
“Not this again,” Issei whined and turned to take Hanamaki into his arms, planting a kiss on his forehead. “I know you are a hopeless romantic deep down, Takahiro, but these were their choices. And still are. They are close, I have no idea how close, exactly, but they are dating or fucking other people and let’s just hope one day they will find someone to outshine Oikawa for Iwaizumi and vice versa so that they can be happy, finally.”
“I’m not…”
“Sleep, Hiro, there is nothing you can do either way,” Matsukawa pulled him even closer to his chest and it was enough for Hanamaki to finally start drifting off to sleep.
Still, he was more than sure it was impossible to find someone who could be more for these two than they were for each other.
*
“If you see something streaming down from my ears, it will be my brain,” Hanamaki warned them, licking his fingers clean from the remains of a watermelon popsicle he barely managed to eat before it melted in the heat.
“Aren’t you dramatic, Makki,” Oikawa murmured from his spot on the grass where he tried to make himself comfortable in the shade of a branchy oak. The air was almost completely still and the dark green leaves barely whispered above their heads. Oikawa finally sat up, giving up on trying to lie down as Iwaizumi and Matsukawa did, the former on his back and the latter on his belly, lazily enjoying the scorching day. “We could go to a pool.”
“No money,” Hanamaki sighed. “If we’re still planning the trip to Akiu Great Falls and all that, I need to save a bit. I really don’t want to have to find a job almost immediately after school and have no holidays at all.”
“We are definitely planning that,” Oikawa said authoritatively, fanning his face with his hand. “I’ve never been there and I have to make as many memories as I can before moving away.”
It was visible that he blurted it without thinking and his gaze immediately travelled to Iwaizumi who was lying there in the grass, seemingly unperturbed by anything.
“But isn’t it a strange direction for you, Oikawa,” Matsukawa teased, tilting his head to look at the captain. “I thought you would choose something city-like. You always whined about visiting Hakodate because you were ill when we went there on a school trip. Why such wilderness? You don’t like this kind of thing and you hate the heat, is that a penance of some sort? Not saying that you wouldn’t deserve it…”
“I’ve been to Akiu as a kid,” Iwaizumi interrupted when Oikawa started huffing. He was still lying with arms under his head, and a small frown marring his otherwise calm features. “It was… I don’t know, it’s probably not that impressive when compared with so many things, even other waterfalls, but it was great. You could believe in magic there.”
“Aww, Iwa-chan, aren’t you poetic,” Oikawa cooed and had to dodge the punch that Iwaizumi threw with eerie precision, considering his eyes were still closed. “We will go to a magical place where wishes can come true.”
Of course, knowing it was a special place for Iwaizumi, it was no wonder Oikawa wanted to go there, no matter what kind of a story he was selling as the real reason.
“Shut up,” Iwaizumi murmured without heat. There was probably enough of it in the air already. It was too hot even for Iwaizumi to get riled up, even if he was the only one of them who enjoyed that weather.
Oikawa didn’t dignify that with an answer and without a preamble, he nestled his head on Iwaizumi’s chest.
“Oi, Shittykawa, it’s too hot,” Iwaizumi complained but did nothing to push the other boy away. No matter how much Oikawa clung to him these days and no matter how much Iwaizumi grumbled, he never really fought with those displays of physical affection, not anymore. Hanamaki wondered if that was resignation or something else, something lined with desperation or even fear because it would become the past soon.
“Bugs are creeping all over me, Iwa-chan! You would have to groom me later and take all of them from my hair. It’s in your best interest to let me lie here on your manly chest,” Oikawa pointed out.
“Do you even hear what utter nonsense you spew?” Iwaizumi wanted to know but still didn’t throw Oikawa’s head off his body.
“Ants could kidnap me, Iwa-chan, and take me to their anthill.”
“Gods, have you had heat stroke already or what?”
“They would eat me, Iwa-chan! To the bones!”
“I would send your bones to Argentina, don’t worry,” Iwaizumi grumbled and Hanamaki decided it was enough of listening to these idiots’ banter. His patience reached its limits and he rolled over to his boyfriend, taking his phone out of the pocket to show Issei a few silly photos he had seen in the morning and didn’t manage to send them to him. They were snorting over the phone, murmuring comments to each other with their sides pressed and it was easy, it was light and fun, matching this hot summer day. Their path seemed easy enough. There were only welcoming hopes and dreams ahead of them, ready for the two of them, together. It was normal and ordinary and it was what Hanamaki wanted.
At some point, he raised his head and looked at their friends. Oikawa’s head was still pressed to Iwaizumi’s chest, right above his heart. His eyes were half-lidded and for a second Hanamaki thought he was falling asleep or dozing off already, if not for Oikawa’s long finger, tracing complicated patterns on Iwaizumi’s chest and torso. It didn’t seem absent-minded, more like some kind of magical spells Oikawa tried to weave into the grey fabric of the t-shirt, into Iwaizumi’s tanned skin underneath it. Hanamaki smiled lightly to himself. Were they possessive hexes, meant to claim, to make Iwaizumi never choose anyone over Oikawa? Or some more loving, protective spells that were supposed to assure Iwaizumi’s happiness, no matter where he would go and how far from his best friend?
Hanamaki tore off his gaze and kissed his boyfriend’s ear lightly.
“I want soda, let’s go buy some,” he muttered and Issei only nodded, already standing up.
When they were back with cold cans, Oikawa’s fingers stilled, his palm flat just under Iwaizumi’s left pectoral. This time it was Iwaizumi’s fingers moving, combing through Oikawa’s hair slowly. Gently.
“Are they still pretending they are just childhood friends?” Hanamaki murmured but Matsukawa only smirked and used two freezing cold cans to touch Oikawa’s nape and a patch of Iwaizumi’s uncovered stomach, and the world erupted in chaos and curses.
*
“Oh, by the way, have you seen that silly material about Oikawa-san that some Argentinian talk show broadcast and our gossip press copied?” Yahaba chuckled as they were saying their goodbyes after god knew how long phone call about everything and nothing in particular
“Please, tell me he didn’t make an idiot of himself,” Hanamaki sighed. “Or even worse, that it’s not some kind of a drama. It’s fun to tease him and all but last time a real drama happened he was phoning us for a month to discuss it and then Iwaizumi couldn’t live it down for twice as long.”
“Typical, isn’t it,” Yahaba laughed aloud. “No matter how aggressive Iwaizumi-san always pretended to be and how critical towards Oikawa-san, he has always cared for everything that concerned our captain more than the said captain himself.”
“Well put,” Hanamaki agreed. “Not that it changed much.”
“But the material I’m talking about is simply silly.” Yahaba’s cheerfulness was infectious. It felt like high school all these years ago when they made fun of Oikawa mercilessly, all being smitten with him this way or another, appreciating him as their captain and hopelessly admiring his skills. Sure, only fellow third-years dared to tease Oikawa in his face but did enough of it for the whole team to feel satisfied. “See, it seems he is dating some big fish this time, a rich and powerful man…”
“Yeah, I heard more about it than I would exactly like to,” Hanamaki moaned. “He’s some businessman from Buenos Aires and apparently wants a younger, handsome boyfriend to show off to his equally stiff and boring colleagues.”
“Well, sounds like something Oikawa-san could milk but judging from that video he doesn’t seem to be into that guy,” Yahaba pointed out.
“No, it’s the same old story,” Hanamaki said. “He enjoys the attention, he tries to convince himself that maybe this will finally be the big love affair that will sweep him off his feet, and quite quickly gets irritated with people he dates or they have enough of never coming in the first place for him.”
Yahaba hummed with understanding.
“So they were spotted somewhere in the city, Oikawa-san with a bouquet of some fancy roses, you know, Hanamaki-san, not like ordinary ones, and I don’t know how many of them there were, really pretty. And so the journalist chatted them up, the camera was showing Oikawa-san and the guy, preening like a damn peacock, as if he owned Oikawa-san because of these flowers.”
“Poor fucker,” Makki chuckled without sympathy. As if anyone could buy their ex-captain.
“So Oikawa-san stood with that bouquet of roses, almost bigger than him, and the journalist asked him what his favourite flower was.”
“Let me guess, he said he didn’t like flowers at all,” Hanamaki grinned. That would be a typical Oikawa, showing his current boyfriend or girlfriend their place.
“Better! That older guy was all puffing his chest proudly and embracing Oikawa-san possessively and then Oikawa-san, without batting an eyelid, shot that it was a wild carrot,” Yahaba burst into laughter.
Hanamaki blinked slowly.
“Are you sure he said that? A wild carrot?”
“Yeah! I even checked it and there is such a flower, it’s a white wild flower, nothing special, only its shape is charming, it’s…”
“Yeah, I know what it looks like,” Hanamaki muttered, rubbing his face. He wasn’t even sure if it was exasperation blooming in his chest, some longing for things that didn’t even concern him or a buzz of anticipation. “I think that damn boyfriend will be Oikawa’s ex soon, that is, if he isn’t already.”
“Yeah, that’s what I…”
“And if we aren’t witnessing some crazy ass reunion during the Olympics, I’m going to throw a fit and close these two idiots in one room till they get the situation between them straight.”
“Hanamaki-san?”
“Maybe ‘straight’ is not the right word here,” Makki snorted at his own terrible pun. “Well, Shigeru, let’s see what happens but I think I should make a bet with Issei.”
A wild carrot. Hanamaki shook his head. Sometimes he mused if Oikawa remembered, if he moved on after all and only the possessiveness kept him close to Iwaizumi all this time. Apparently, Hanamaki was wrong. And in some twisted way, it pleased him beyond belief.
*
“Your ideas are the worst, Oikawa,” Hanamaki sighed, looking at the broken-down bus on the roadside. All the passengers were hiding in the shadow of a few trees lining the road, while the helpless driver was circling the damn vehicle, talking animatedly on the phone. It had lasted around an hour by now and from what Hanamaki managed to overhear, there was little hope for a spare bus to be provided soon, and the emergency road service had better places to be, apparently. In this heat, the accidents could have occurred more often than normally and they were much more serious than their bus’s malfunction, most likely. It didn’t look like their trip to Akiu could happen today.
Oikawa winced from where he sat on the grass on the side of the road, hugging his backpack tightly to his chest. Hanamaki knew that his captain didn’t like when things were going against his wishes, when he didn’t have control over the course of action. And that trip was something he planned for a long time and now it all went to shit because of a coincidence, a stupid breakdown of an inanimate object. The hot weather didn’t help with the level of irritation and disappointment, and although Hanamaki felt almost sorry for how Oikawa’s brown eyes were filled with sadness and something close to desperation, he had no patience to cheer him up when he himself was nearly melting with all that heat pouring from the sky. Only one person was equipped to deal with their captain in the moments of crisis and he was now engaged in checking something on his phone with Matsukawa.
“It’s not my fault the bus broke down, Makki,” Oikawa drawled through clenched teeth. His hand was tapping against his bare knee. While both Issei and Hanamaki managed to go through different stages of redness during that crazy summer and, like it or not, acquired a darker shade of tan, Oikawa was still fair and only subtle freckles dotted his skin here and there. Hanamaki remembered the captain during their first year of high school and how he went radiant pink and his skin peeled off after a few days marked by the burning sun. They teased him to no end about it.
“I guess it’s not,” Hanamaki agreed, having no strength for any resemblance of a fight. “I wonder if we could travel to Akiu at all today. I have no money to stay somewhere overnight so I guess coming home will be the only option.”
Oikawa fixed his gaze fiercely on the ground, saying nothing.
“Okay, we have an idea,” Matsukawa called and both he and Iwaizumi approached the other two. Issei extended his arm, showing them his phone. “It’s not ideal but if we go through the fields, and the map says it should be possible, we could at least reach this shrine, see, this one. At least then it will be a trip to somewhere.”
“It’s some tourist shit and all that,” Iwaizumi backed Matsukawa up with a shrug. “And then there is another bus line going nearby so we could get back home today as planned.”
“It’s around a two-hour stroll, so nothing dramatic but in this heat, well, it’s your choice,” Issei added, raising his eyes from the phone to the other two boys.
“I’m not ecstatic,” Makki scrunched his nose. “But at least we will be doing something and not just waiting in the same heat. Let’s go.”
“Oikawa?”
Oikawa nodded curtly and stood up without a word, putting his backpack in place.
“Fine,” Issei said and smiled at Hanamaki. “It might still be worth our time.”
Iwaizumi, the good boy that he always was, went to the bus driver to inform him they changed their plans so that no one would worry they were dying somewhere on the side of the road and tried to search for them when the new bus arrived. Then the four of them started walking and soon turned right into a dirt road across the fields, Matsukawa and Hanamaki at the front. It felt almost unreal in the heat, with the sounds of the road and people waiting by the broken bus disappearing. Only the barely audible whisper of the wind in the rare treetops could be heard, together with cicadas and other insects. The air was thick but there was still something exhilarating in the fact that they were young, free and together, and they could simply walk like that.
Hanamaki bumped his shoulder with Issei and when the other boy grinned at him, he kissed his boyfriend, just because he could.
“Where is your hat?” Iwaizumi mumbled behind them but his words were still clear when no other sounds muffled them.
“Forgot it,” Oikawa muttered back, still visibly unhappy. Then he yelped, “Iwa-chan! I don’t need… Hey! And what about you?”
Hanamaki turned to the two and obviously, Oikawa had Iwaizumi’s cap on his brown locks, his cheeks pink for reasons very different from the sun, at least at this point.
“I’m not so sensitive, I mean, I’m not that easily burnt,” Iwaizumi spluttered, his face and neck scarlet as if to prove his words wrong. “You have to take care of yourself more and since you always forget…”
Matsukawa snorted quietly. They continued walking, their pace easy enough not to get dizzy in the scorching weather. Oikawa perked up enough to start whining and although it was annoying, it was much better than the silent gloom.
“Seriously, who needs such summers? It’s too much, it’s overly dramatic,” he complained between pants. They were all athletes, Oikawa being the brightest star, but in this weather, even their bodies were quickly pushed closer to their limits. “I hate summer, it’s too blinding and annoying.”
“That’s because similarities push each other away,” Iwaizumi snorted but his eyes were squinted with a real grin. “Dramatic and annoying, aren’t you describing yourself, Crappykawa?”
“Mean, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa huffed. “Then you will be winter, with your cold heart and crude manners, not caring for anyone and anything when you freeze them to death!”
“Do you even hear yourself.”
They made a few stops to drink the remains of water they had and at some point Iwaizumi took off his t-shirt, making something resembling a headscarf for himself.
“You will burn your shoulders, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa protested, although it didn’t escape Hanamaki how Oikawa’s gaze slid over the expanse of Iwaizumi’s naked chest and torso. There was guilt and hunger mixed there and a dose of desperation that was enough to make Hanamaki turn his eyes away.
“Nah.”
“Don’t be stubborn, take your cap back…”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m perfectly fine and I won’t get a heatstroke, I love such weather, you know it,” Iwaizumi’s voice was firm but patient. There was that gentle timbre in it, the way he talked only to their underclassmen and to Oikawa when he knew the captain was worried about something for real, unsure and easy to get hurt. If there were any other occasions Iwaizumi used such a voice towards Oikawa, Hanamaki didn’t know about them. It wasn’t his place to know. “I just don’t want to get dizzy.”
“So you are feeling dizzy? Seriously, Iwa-chan, I…”
“It’s fine, Tōru,” Iwaizumi interrupted him and the way he said Oikawa’s first name was both like a caress and the ending of the discussion. “I can take care of myself.”
“Don’t I know it…”
Matsukawa started to talk about his siblings at some point and no matter how much Hanamaki liked the two little gremlins and sympathised with them, it was a free comedy with how Issei made fun of their school adventures, so no one complained for a while. But not for too long.
“Iwa-chan, as we decided that you are the personification of cruel winter,” Oikawa pointed out as he and Hanamaki walked behind the other two. “Can’t you summon some snow? I miss snow so much right now. I would do anything for a little blizzard. I mean, is there anything more beautiful than snowflakes? Little, unique and cold snowflakes?”
“Oikawa, you hate snow, too,” Issei smirked. “Remember when you complained in winter that…”
“Lies and slander! You know nothing about my feelings, Mattsukawa Issei!” Oikawa gasped dramatically but Hanamaki saw how his lips curved into a grin, amusement glittering in his eyes. “I love snow. At least today, there is nothing I crave more and that’s the fact.”
They continued their march and banter, at least the three of them. Hanamaki started to worry that Iwaizumi’s silence meant he didn’t feel well in the end and was close to commenting on that when Iwaizumi stopped, observing the edge of the field carefully. It was difficult to determine what he was studying there as only wildflowers grew in that patch of grass, simple weeds that still made their walk nicer.
“Iwaizumi? Let’s go, it’s not that far anymore,” Matsukawa urged him, visibly tired from the heat and walking.
“Iwa-chan?” Oikawa seconded, unsure and worried, as if Iwaizumi was to faint into crops face first any moment.
But Iwaizumi paid no attention to their questions, just jumped over the shallow ditch and started to pick up some plants, almost aggressively and with a fierce expression, brow knitted as if that was the toughest game and the hardest opponent to defeat.
“Damn, he did go crazy,” Hanamaki concluded, although he wasn’t so sure they should joke right now. “Is it a symptom of a stroke?”
“And is it reversible because we still have to take him home…” Matsukawa agreed quietly but they didn’t get a chance to go further in their divagations as Iwaizumi came back to them, a bunch of unimpressive white flowers in his grip, with some of the long and thin stems yanked with roots. He pushed it into Oikawa’s hands, seemingly nonchalant and unperturbed. If not for the scarlet blush on his cheeks. If not for his raw gaze escaping Oikawa’s penetrating stare.
“You wanted snow, dumbass,” he announced and turned his back to Oikawa, walking away briskly, hands in his pockets, backpack on his bare back as his t-shirt was still decorating his head rather ridiculously. A picture of not giving a damn.
Oikawa opened his mouth, probably to tease, but Hanamaki would never know what he wanted to say because nothing came out. Oikawa looked at the weeds and slowly licked his lips. Each flower was built into a fragile shape with delicate arms on which white lace of petals stretched out, creating shapes that looked exactly like huge snowflakes. Iwaizumi gave Oikawa snow, just as he desired.
It was silly, it was dramatic in that way Oikawa and Iwaizumi always had been, with nothing happening between them while at the same time, the universe seemed to spin around them. They didn’t want nor need an audience, it seemed, but somehow were also unable to stop showing their feelings with zero care if they were surrounded by people or not. And at that time Makki knew he would remember that day for precisely this moment: Oikawa standing with his bouquet of weed in the middle of nowhere, in Iwaizumi’s worn-out cap and with rosy blush dusting his fair complexion. It was nothing, a little more of their usual teasing and banter. Sure.
When they reached the town, found a shop and drank a little pond of water measured in bottles, Oikawa disappeared for a while and came back with funny-smelling balm for sunburns. He sat on a bench in the shade with Iwaizumi sitting right on the pavement between his legs, with his back to Oikawa. The captain applied the salve on Iwaizumi’s shoulders, nape and back gently, murmuring something to him, too quiet for Hanamaki to hear.
“Don’t be stupid, Tōru, none of this was your fault,” Iwaizumi grumbled in reply, the back of his head falling against Oikawa’s stomach, eyelids fluttering in something dangerously close to a bliss-out expression when the setter’s long fingers kneaded his flesh delicately. “We will go to Akiu next time. Or you will go alone when you visit Japan, right?”
Hanamaki didn’t catch the answer but it made Iwaizumi tilt his head and grin at Oikawa in a way that probably was meant to be teasing but came much too soft.
Not that he would like to listen. Some things were too important to be said in anything but a whisper.
*
Their was an ordinary love story. Somewhere around their second year of high school, Matsukawa approached him after practice, bumping their shoulders together as he usually did.
“Let’s go for okonomiyaki,” Issei proposed with a lazy, smug grin, knowing very well it could be anything and Hanamaki would go, just not to part yet.
“The two of us,” it wasn’t really a question because he already knew, a certainty started to bloom in his chest some time ago and now there was no place for anything else. His smile could split his face in two. “Without idiots?”
“Without idiots,” Matsukawa agreed fondly because they loved their friends but it didn’t change the fact that this time they didn’t want them around. “Unless you want to have someone to tease and make fun of.”
“I guess tonight I will find ways to entertain you alone,” Hanamaki smirked and it was how it all started.
They went on dates that were still full of jokes and laughing so hard they were spasming on the floor. There were also kisses and much more later, fingers exploring and mouths learning, everything coming to them at the right pace, at the right moment. They finished high school, tried further education with different results, found jobs and earned enough to move in together. They managed to simply be , somewhere in the eye of the storm, with the world changing around them while they changed only as much as they wanted to.
He said something like that all these years ago to Iwaizumi, days before Oikawa was supposed to travel to be the star in the other hemisphere's night sky, to kindle the imagination and dreams of other people.
“This is the matter of wanting something, no? Seriously, I don’t get it,” Hanamaki complained. “You are into him, he is into you. Sure, he is moving away but who knows, maybe he’ll be back before we know it.”
“He won’t,” Iwaizumi replied with conviction made of steel.
“So maybe you will go there, too? It’s not written in stone that you have to stay in Japan all your life, right?” It wasn’t his business, true. But something in that second love story, always somehow intertwined with his and Mattsukawa’s one, was screaming for fulfilment with desperation that touched those nearby all the same. It was cliché, it was ridiculous and yet Hanamaki found himself invested and wanting to make it happen. It was too real, too special to be shrugged off as a teenage infatuation or at least Hanamaki wanted to believe that. “What, you need even more drama? Or are you scared?”
For a fraction of a second Iwaizumi looked helpless and fragile, only to blink and be his typical firm and grouchy self again.
“I can’t ask him to, to promise me things,” he said after a moment of gnawing at his bottom lip. “When I’m not really… Not…”
“Not sure if you are in fucking love with him? Give me a break, Iwaizumi,” Hanamaki sighed.
“No,” the other boy rubbed his cheek with frustration. “It’s like… I’m not a complete person yet. Fuck, I don’t know how to explain that to you, Takahiro, and I know it sounds so fucking embarrassing I feel like dying but this is the truth. I can’t expect him to make promises to me when I don’t know who I’m going to be and how much I will change and…”
“No one knows that, you utter idiot,” Hanamaki interrupted him and it came out almost tenderly. “Everyone changes, especially with all the moving, college, finding a job and all that shit. You are not different than the rest.”
"I know,” Iwaizumi glowered at him but it only made Hanamaki want to hug him more. “I know he could break up with me later if he wanted, okay? But I don’t want to make him do that.”
“You could break up with him, too. You could want that.” Saying it he knew Iwaizumi would only snort at that and he didn’t disappoint.
“I couldn’t,” he only said with a shrug.
Reasoning with Oikawa was doomed to failure even more.
“You know he would wait for you. Or, I don’t know, join you there,” Hanamaki said when the two of them were eating popsicles on a high railing close to the railroads. They mindlessly swung their legs, talking about their deepest secrets as they always did, since that one time during the first year when Hanamaki came to school once with his face puffy after a whole night of crying.
“I do know,” Oikawa replied with conviction that whole cities could be built upon. “If I ask him, he will do anything for me. Damn, Makki, he gave me snow in summer.”
“So? You don’t want to be happy?”
“So in a few days, I’m going to another part of the world and I can’t ask him to do anything like that for me. Because I know he would and I know this is how he is built, he will stay with me, for me and I can’t steal things from him, do you understand? When I know he would be ready to give me all that, I can’t let him.” Oikawa’s voice barely raised over the noise of the city pulsating around them. He licked his popsicle pensively and he looked sad but even more determined. Hanamaki knew him too well to hope there was anything that could be said to change his captain’s mind.
“This shit makes absolutely no sense,” he added anyway and Oikawa chuckled and they stopped talking about it, took a dozen of selfies with stupid faces and their popsicle sticks in even more stupid places, put them on their respective Instagrams and then snorted a lot exchanging comments they got under the pictures.
So maybe in the end it was better to have an ordinary love story, not the one made to change history or whatever shit there was wrong with Oikawa and Iwaizumi. Hanamaki’s romance wasn’t the one to write novels about but he preferred it that way, when after Oikawa was gone and they stood at the airport, he could hide his tear-stained face in Issei’s shoulder.
*
It wasn’t that he thought about it all that often. But Oikawa and Iwaizumi remained their closest friends, no matter the distance and not seeing each other as often as they would like to. Oikawa had girlfriends and boyfriends, the colourful press happily followed his shallow romances that never led anywhere. Iwaizumi slept with different people, always so careful not to hurt anyone apart from himself. But he enjoyed his life, that Hanamaki was sure about. Still, only when the two met, their chat group exploded with photos, happiness and dopey satisfaction. It seemed to fly over Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s heads that they needed each other to be that happy. They must have not realised that after such meetings, Oikawa was singsonging for hours on the phone, recapping the whole stay in San Juan or Irvine respectively. Iwaizumi was less grumpy for a few weeks, making bolder plans and achieving even more on the high wave of excitement caused by his best friend’s closeness.
“I wonder if they fuck,” Issei said once, yawning when they lay cuddled in bed. “You know, when they meet once in a few months or a year or so. Do they fuck and then try to forget about it? Or what? Pretend they don’t want to? I can hear how Oikawa is panting on the phone before Iwaizumi’s visit. And how Iwaizumi’s even more clipped and huffy when he doesn’t see his captain for too long.”
“Who knows,” Hanamaki muttered. “It must be crazy, to feel something like that…”
“You wound me, Hiro,” Issei gasped in a way that would make Oikawa proud. “You want to say that you don’t feel that way about me?”
“…And can’t be together, you shithead!” he snorted, elbowing Issei non too gently into the side. “I know what it means to be head over heels in love, you huge sap.”
And he really, really did.
*
It was almost funny because Hanamaki expected a huge scene. Gestures that would fit prime time on television, melodramatic reunions with lots of shouting, preferably in the rain, running after each other and all the drama he wouldn’t be able to see either way as it wasn’t his love story, not really. He was there at the Japan vs Argentina match, his face painted in blue and white, cheering for his captain. Because Oikawa would be his captain forever, that was how he ruled, the court and people who crossed paths with him. And he saw how huge displays caught the Japanese athletic trainer’s longing gaze, green eyes so beautiful when he looked to the right and not at his own team. He saw how the Argentinian first squad setter’s concentrated stare flickered to the benches before every serve, seeking something there that only this one person could give him.
“If they are not going to do anything about it,” Hanamaki started later when he was preparing a little party for their whole high school team, with the Olympic Medalist as the main star on the menu. He was putting glasses on the low coffee table almost aggressively.
“Then what? Hiro, give me a break,” Issei sighed. “Yeah, they would be great together and I agree that they are very special to each other but they have lives on different continents, both are ambitious and…”
“So they don’t want a normal life? This?” Hanamaki waved his hand around their tiny flat.
“Not everyone wants that,” Issei observed gently.
People started coming, there was a lot of shouting and laughing, especially when Oikawa appeared, missed so much by their friends who hadn’t seen him in years. Iwaizumi grinned from his place on the floor, his eyes following Oikawa’s every move but he simply joked with the rest, chuckling at anecdotes their kōhais told. Oikawa was full of energy, preening and moaning when they teased him, old habits dying hard. Yet, something about him seemed tense and nervous, although he did his best to hide it. When he disappeared in the kitchen at some point and didn’t return for long minutes, Hanamaki followed him and found the volleyball star looking idly at the box with herbs that Issei used when inspiration for cooking struck him. Which didn’t happen all too often..
“You have a really lovely apartment,” Oikawa said quietly and Hanamaki hummed in reply, standing next to him with his back against the counter. “All these little things that… I don’t know, make it a home. Home of two people.”
“Yeah, that’s how many of us live here,” Hanamaki replied but he didn’t find it in himself to tease. “I guess you could have it, too.”
Oikawa shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know how to use these herbs.”
“Oikawa.”
“It would make sense only with that one person,” he whispered. “I want that, you know? The laundry that needs folding and complaining about throwing my stuff everywhere and…”
“And having someone to always come back to, someone to wait for when he is away. Someone to make every day count,” Hanamaki sighed. “I get that, Oikawa. I really do and let me tell you, I don’t know what it feels to win medals and be the hot shot but I know I would be fucking lonely without Issei being the constant in my life.”
Oikawa hummed, his breath hitching and it took him a moment to add, “He is offering me that, Hiro. He says he is ready to be everything I could need him to be, while he already is. I don’t want all these posh greenhouse flowers, I want my wild ones when they count and I want someone who won’t think even for a moment about how his shoulders will burn later because he is ready to give me what I need. And I want to give him everything humanly possible in return.”
“Then take what he offers to you and be happy, finally.”
“I don’t know how,” Oikawa laughs quietly, sadly. “I want to but I don’t know how to make it work.”
“That’s for you two to discover,” Hanamaki pointed out.
“But how do you agree to accept after years of denying, of-of rejecting?” Oikawa raised his brown eyes at Hanamaki and they were liquid now, glittering with plea and desperation. And so Hanamaki had to say goodbye to the magnificent scenes and drama that he could live through thanks to these two, enjoying his own romance possessively.
He cuffed Oikawa in the back of the head.
“Normally, you idiot,” he smirked at the half-assed huff. “You want normal then give him normal. Let him love you and for fuck’s sake, love him back. He deserves that.”
“He deserves each and every universe there is,” Oikawa hummed in agreement and Hanamaki could only shake his head. He tugged Oikawa’s sleeve and they came back to the room where the company was slightly drunk and yelling more than strictly necessary instead of talking. Iwaizumi grinned at the very sight of his best friend, the light in his eyes exploding the very second they landed on the Argentinian setter’s features.
“Remember that trip to Akiu that didn’t happen?” Oikawa asked suddenly when there was a natural lull in the conversation. The remaining ex-third years nodded, Iwaizumi’s gaze sharpening immediately. “Before we went there I promised myself… That I would make a wish by the waterfall there since it was such a magical place.”
Iwaizumi smiled at that. He must have remembered his own words from the past.
“We were at the shrine that day,” Issei pointed out soberly. “It was even a better place to make a wish.”
“Yeah, but I thought that the universe wanted to tell me something when it didn’t work out, that trip to Akiu. That I shouldn’t pursue that dream and that it would be unfair to make a wish,” Oikawa continued and although their younger friends didn’t understand what their captain was talking about, they listened with their gazes sliding between Oikawa and Iwaizumi. “So I made my decisions and I’m not saying they were wrong but… I think that maybe the universe told me something more important on that day, only I was too stubborn to listen.”
“That sounds so like you, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi replied immediately in a knee-jerk reaction, even though he looked at Oikawa without blinking, mesmerised.
“Mean, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whined but he started to smile and it was a smile that could compete with that scorching sun these years ago. “But this one time you might be right, horror of horrors. I just… I want…” He fought with words, voice shaking a little despite the grin.
And as it always happened during all these years, Iwaizumi was there to help him. He took one of the well-kept setter’s hands into his rough palm with a smile that radiated from his whole figure, so boyish and desperate as he observed the moon he was dreaming about for longer than he could probably remember falling into his lap.
He pressed Oikawa’s hand to his lips, accompanied by the gasps of the rest of the team.
“We will go to Akiu as planned, only nine years later,” he chuckled, his chest rumbling with laughter and something that went deeper and further than Hanamaki could determine. “And you will say your wish. It will all be as it was meant to be.”
“Aww, Iwa-chan, a secret romantic,” Oikawa laughed back and ignoring the rest of the people in the room as he so often did, simply and without a preamble, cupped Iwaizumi’s face and kissed him on the mouth, long, lingering and wet, too intimate for this audience that didn’t care in the slightest, cheering and cackling. “I want normal, Hajime. Give me normal.”
“Normal is impossible with you,” Iwaizumi snorted, his cheeks scarlet but eyes burning with such joy that Hanamaki had to blink, very fast.
A heavy arm embraced him and there it was, his own happiness surrounding him. Hanamaki smiled at Issei who chuckled at him.
“So what now, when your favourite soap opera came to an end?” he teased and Hanamaki had to elbow him.
“I’m looking forward to the sequel,” he revealed with a dramatic gasp and joined Issei when he started to laugh.