Work Text
*this is a coincidence, as far as coincidences go.
the artificial neon lights of tokyo seem louder than they’ve ever been before, thinks hajime on his way home. his mind’s buzzing with the chaos of the city, all thoughts scattered and faded into obscurity in the back of his brain. yes, he’s drunk and completely out of it. honestly, he has no idea how exactly he’d gotten there, to the point of drinking himself into a slumber in the outskirts of ikebukuro, fairly far away from his apartment. but it doesn’t really matter, not now. all that’s important right now is that he gets home. somehow. he doesn’t know how yet, but he’ll surely figure that out in no time.
hajime’s staggering, his steps hesitant. he’s unable to control his body. his legs are heavy, his heart is beating out of his chest. oh god. he hasn’t been this goddamn drunk in a while.
everything’s blurry and suddenly, hajime just wants to cry.
life isn’t fair. nothing’s fair. he hates his damned life. he hates his damned job. why is he even here? why did david have to die? was it hajime’s fault? did he ruin david? poor david. a sob wrecks itself out of hajime’s throat. poor david. he deserved so much better.
“hey.” a soft voice shakes hajime out of his thoughts. he raises his bloodshot eyes to meet the stranger’s.
“david,” hajime croaks out.
“uh.” the stranger has the prettiest eyes hajime’s ever seen. soft brown eyes. they gleam like stars in artificial light.
“poor david,” hajime continues, “he’s dead. dead. all because of me.”
“oh. well. i really don’t know what to say to that.”
“he was very dear to me. he doesn’t exist anymore, and that’s my fault. i probably over-watered him. i didn’t even water him that often. fucking cacti. i fucking hate them.”
the stranger in front of him looks taken aback for a moment but then bursts into a fit of laughter. in hajime’s dazed state of mind he notes that he’s got a pretty laugh, but that’s honestly not the point right now.
“this is no laughing matter,” says hajime accusingly.
more wheezing.
“i’m truly sorry, but,” the stranger seems unable to finish his sentence due to the funniness of david’s tragic death apparently.
“this is not funny.” hajime absolutely refuses to see the hilarity of the situation.
the stranger is wavering and leans against hajime’s knee, trying to catch his breath.
“i sincerely apologize for my inappropriate reaction to your traumatic experience,” he says, grinning.
hajime stares at him, eyebrows furrowed. getting a good look, he notices that there are grey shadows under the stranger’s eyes, his skin’s chalky white, cheeks hollow, cheekbones sharply sticking out. so basically, he looks like shit, but also fucking mesmerizingly stunning at the same time.
hajime huffs. makes a drunk decision. reaches a hand and says: “i’m iwaizumi.”
“tooru. pleasure to meet you.”
*
hajime has always believed in coincidences. he knows that this is one, too, but jesus christ, he was not expecting to see this man ever again.
he is even prettier when hajime’s sober. so naturally, he finds himself staring. he doesn’t know why he even remembers this guy. he’s just a random dude who had listened to drunk hajime’s blubbering with a soft smile on his face, and made sure hajime got home safe. damn, he’s pretty.
and now they meet again. fate, as some would say.
“hello.”
“hi again.”
awkward silence. hajime’s never been good with words. “thank you for the other night, i’m sorry i was a bother.”
tooru gesticulates with his hand. “honestly, that was nothing, no problem. i’m glad i could help. had nothing to do anyways. besides, i had fun. you’re a fun drunk, iwa-chan.”
hajime doesn’t mention that at 2am, oikawa probably should have been sleeping, but instead says in the most offended way possible: “
iwa-chan?
”
“what? iwa-chan fits you. iwaizumi’s way too long and troublesome.”
“is not. maybe you’re just a dumbass.”
“asshole. by the way, just out of curiousity, are you wearing lenses?”“who are you calling an asshole, you piece of trash, huh? nope, no lenses.”
tooru offers him close-mouthed smile. it never reaches his eyes.
*
these days hajime never has the time to read newspapers. he picked the daily habit up from his mother but work’s been so hectic, and he’s always so tired, so he skips the majority of the articles, paying no attention to the comics, obituaries, missing persons’ lists, opinions; he focuses solely on the most important, current news.
*
they haven’t exchanged numbers. they don’t even know each other’s full names. but yet, they keep coincidentally running into each other.
it’s like the universe is plotting to get hajime to believe in destiny or fate or some shit.
it’s hajime’s first day off in a while. it’s fucking miserable to be a CBDO, honestly. and now, he’s in a nameless bar, trying to forget everything, trying to peacefully nurse a drink, and tooru’s there.
the other man hasn’t noticed hajime, it seems.
tooru’s sitting a few tables to his left, with a man hajime doesn’t recognize. he scoffs. might be a date, but why jump to conclusions. also, why does the possibility bother hajime so much? he decides not to think about that.
he keeps an eye on them anyway. in all honesty, tooru doesn’t seem very comfortable. even though he appears to be eating, his posture’s rigid, one leg bouncing constantly.the next moment, tooru’s up and purposefully moving towards the toilets.his date seems unfazed, picking up the newspaper left on the table by tooru, then raising his eyes to meet hajime’s. like he knows hajime is looking.hajime should really mind his own business, goddammit.they keep eye contact for a whole five seconds. time seems to slow. the man smiles and lowers his gaze to the newspaper.hajime drowns his drink.tooru takes his time. when he returns, even in the dim light hajime can see his colorless face and the way he wobbles while walking.tooru grabs the newspaper from his date’s hands, and lets it drop on the floor. they share a few words but hajime cannot hear them. they take their leave, the other man’s hand resting on tooru’s lower back. *
at this point he's truly starting to believe in fate.
*
what was he thinking? was he thinking
at all
? clearly, he was not. he fucked up. oh god. he’s probably going to get fired now. kiyoko, his boss, is infamous for not giving second chances. he blew it. totally. what if he goes back begging? maybe she’ll let him stay? fuck. fuck, why is he such an incapable fucker?
the door opens and someone rushes into a stall next to him. hajime pays them no mind.in what world is he a good example of a good employee like yachi told him he was yesterday? what the fuck was he supposed to do now? what in the fuck does one do after they screw their whole future over with only one word?it sounds like the person in the stall is puking their guts up. hajime relates. that’s exactly what he wants to do. for some reason he doesn’t leave right then, just leans his forehead against his hands, blocks out the sounds from the stall next to him, and wallows in self pity.he’s awaken from his numb state by a ringing phone. hajime gets up, ready to go.a familiar voice stops hajime from leaving, though.“what?” tooru asks, hoarse and weak. “who is this?” then, “how did you even get this number? i told you to leave me be.” silence. “i don’t care.” more silence. “don’t worry. it’s all fine.” a cold, choked giggle. “yeah, i wish i never existed, too.”tooru is long gone when hajime finally leaves.
*
an alley of glimmering light. banners and countless signs on the lampposts, walls, staircases. ragged flyers of faces no longer there, telephone numbers to call, colourful pleas of help in the search of lost boys. he passes them all.
*
hajime meets tomiko on a quiet day in the middle of ikebukuro. she’s just spilled the contents of her purse on the pavement, and hajime bends down to help her pick them up.
she accepts his assistance with grateful silence.he offers his hand in greeting. “iwaizumi hajime,” he says.“oikawa tomiko.” she smiles.and so, a friendship is born. it has never been easy for hajime to befriend people, but tomiko is genuinely so simple to get along with. she just roasts him, and he pretends to be offended.hajime learns that she’s a single mother of a 9-year-old takeru, who’s very passionate about volleyball. that gets a big smile out of hajime. he used to play too, in high school. wing spiker. it’s been so long since then.he also learns that she loves pizza and apples and sudokus, and that she had had an emo phase back in the day.tomiko learns that hajime adores godzilla, knows the majority of girls generation’s discography by heart, and despises his co-worker tendo.
*
the first time he sees tooru after their last encounter a year and a half back, tooru’s bent over in an alleyway, emptying his stomach into a dumpster, a lacerated newspaper at his feet.
you could say that this is fate, hajime decides.“tooru,” he calls.the other man looks up, panicked. his brown eyes are wide, pupils blown. tears are befogging his eyes, streaming down his hollow cheeks. he looks downright terrified. then the look is gone.“iwa-chan,” he says, completely casually leaning against the grey wall beside him. “how’s david?”“david’s dead, tooru. i threw him away.”“you monster, iwa-chan, how could you?”hajime knows something is wrong. tooru looks like absolute shit. how should he deal with it, though? he steps closer. tooru trips backward. hajime furrows his brows.“c’mon, iwa-chan, stop frowning. you’ll get early wrinkles.” tooru’s voice is wheezy. he coughs. the splashes of red covering tooru’s fingers don’t go unnoticed by hajime.“come with me, you stupid dumbass.”
*
he’d given tooru his jacket and thrown the lacerated newspaper away. now, he’s in hajime’s bed, wrapped in flowery bedsheets, properly cleaned up. hajime hadn’t asked anything, even though he’d so desperately wanted to, still does.
what in seven hells had happened to tooru?helping tooru get undressed for a bath, he’d seen scars on his wrists, scars on his inner thighs, scars scattered everywhere. some of them remind him of his own; it’s just that the scars on hajime’s wrists have flowers of ink blooming all around them; bitterness is longer etched into the wounds.
*
tomiko calls. she has something important to say, can they meet up? he tells her he’ll be away the whole weekend, can it wait?
*
hajime cooks udon.
tooru appears in the kitchen like a ghost, trying to make himself appear small, knees wobbly, arms protectively wrapped around himself. he’s wearing one of hajime’s shirts.“hi,” he says in a tiny voice.hajime’s been sightlessly gazing at the wall. “hello.”“how are you?” he continues.“better.” tooru’s eyes are lowered, he’s refusing to look up.“sit.” hajime knows he probably shouldn’t order tooru around but he has no idea how else he should speak, so he tries his best, using his softest voice. tooru obeys.hajime serves them breakfast. tooru tries to eat, starts to silently cry in the middle of his meal, and after it’s done, runs for the bathroom.
*
it’s been a long day, hajime just wants to go home and sleep it off. instead, he ends up stuck in an elevator with the most annoying dude in the entire universe. the name’s kuroo. a police officer. talks so much. way too much.
“... and so i told him to fuck off, you know, and he said he’d call the cops on me which was funny because, like, i
am
the cops, bro, i’m literally here to arrest you …”
“... and obviously, i told her she was stupid, like she was the one who refused to get on the sled, dammit …”“... like he doesn’t wanna help us at all. like he truly wanted to fucking go, is what i’m saying, can you believe …”“... had been so long and there was blood everywhere and i think i almost …”“... and i swear honest to god, i’d rather stab my own eye out with a fork than spend a minute in the same room with him …”“... like five years back and we still haven’t found anything, like no leads, literally nada …”“... there was a snake. it was so glittery, damn, i never knew snakes could be this pretty, what was i saying again, yes, she still calls to see …”
*
they don’t talk about it but it’s been a week and tooru’s still there. hajime doesn’t mind. the more the merrier, you know.
*
“why don’t you have a phone?”
“i don’t really need one, iwa-chan. if i want to call, you’ll lend me yours, right?”
*
“remember when i wanted to meet up and tell you something? it was a couple of months back, and you were out of town for a few days? something to do with your job, i guess? anyway, remember, even longer ago, that one night we got really fucking drunk, we promised to always be honest, and to not keep secrets. kind of stupid of us, if you ask me. what are we, fucking high schoolers? anyway, that’s not my point. i wanted to tell you something. if you’re thinking i’m about to confess my undying love for you, too bad. you’re wrong. sorry for the spoiler. i mean i love you, i truly do. i’m so glad you exist. ew, i’m going soft, this was not meant to turn out this way, i promise. uh. fuck. so basically, a secret i’ve been keeping - i used to have a brother. he was a little piece of shit, all pretty and mighty. a setter if you’re interested. he was the one who taught takeru. had serious body image issues, though. they weren’t taken seriously enough, since he was a boy, you know. well, that’s it. he’s gone now. we put flyers everywhere and shit. he just disappeared one day, you know. literally into thin air. left nothing behind. god, i still hope he comes back. everyone thinks he’s dead but fuck. no. too feisty for death. i just wanna know what happened. i just want closure. and for him to come back. anyway, yeah. gotta go, takeru woke up. visit us sometime, ok? and call me back, dipshit. i love you, see ya.”
*
“oh, and his name? it’s tooru. just a heads up. in case you’ve met any toorus lately.”
*
he doesn’t say anything, but suddenly, he notices
everything
. tooru only eats whenever he’s around. there are laxatives in his drawer. he spends extensive amounts of time brushing his teeth, and never smiles with an open mouth. the lack of a telephone or a laptop or any personal belongings, really.
when hajime finally googles him, a whole new world opens up before him. he sees pictures of a healthy-looking tooru, headlines of “keio alumni, a former star setter has gone missing”, finds articles from the newspaper he reads daily, goddammit.how the actual fuck had oikawa tooru managed to erase himself from existence? considering the fact that he’s sleeping in hajime’s bed at this very moment, all the new information seems surreal to hajime. it can’t possibly be real. it can’t. it’s impossible.what the fuck, do you mean hajime’s been sheltering a missing person for months?
*
he goes out to the alley of glimmering light. tooru’s face is plastered on the lampposts, on the walls, on the staircases, as clear as a day. to think he didn’t see, to think he never paid enough attention to tooru, one of the lost boys.
*
“tooru.”
“iwa-chan?”“please, tell me what happened to you.”“oh, iwa-chan, that’s a terrible story. it would definitely ruin the mood.”“please.”
*
“there’s nothing notable to see, iwa-chan. really. it’s quite an ugly story, honestly. i developed an eating disorder at seventeen. it ruined me. i’m not pretty anymore, iwa-chan. my teeth are fucked. i can’t do anything without being reminded of how i’ve failed myself.
then, when i was nineteen, finished with high school, new to college and tokyo, young and naive, a boy came around. god, iwa-chan, he was like a dream. he made me feel things. the way he said stuff made me weak in the knees. he told me i was pretty just the way i was. he wasn’t repulsed by kissing me.there’s obviously a catch to that, huh? yes, there always is. that boy had fallen foul of the law. and maybe sanity.i was weak, i couldn’t see what was happening, so i let it all go down.he was a controlling bastard, too, and i was ready to do anything for him. i’m so ashamed, iwa-chan. i was so stupid.he wanted me to leave my old life. he told me everything would be different once we begun again. i believed him.so i did the do. disappeared. wasn’t that difficult, considering my knee had just shattered, leaving me in a worse mental state than ever before. i felt nothing.so fast forward a couple years, i was still purging daily, depressed, and in an abusive relationship. i don’t really know what clicked the switch. actually, i’m lying. i know. you did. when we met two years ago, and you were piss-drunk, mumbling something about david, the cactus. i hadn’t seen any beauty in anything for years, but honest to god, you were the most beautiful person i’d ever met. cliche, but your eyes drew me in. one green and the other brown. interesting, isn’t it, iwa-chan? so, anyhow, i decided it was time to take my leave.so i pulled another disappearance. it didn’t go as well as the first one because i was weak and had nowhere to go. he found me.i had nothing else to do but to disappear again. and here i am now. i don’t know how i’m still alive. i’m sorry i’ve bothered you for so long, hajime.”
*
tears are slipping down hajime’s cheeks, leaving wet trails in their wake, soft sobs wrecking through his body.
“please come back.”
*
“hey, tomiko, i gotta tell you something. call me back, ok?”
*
hajime finds himself constantly craving tooru’s touch. he finds he enjoys pressing his mouth to tooru’s forehead, enjoys slipping his hand into the soft brown locks, enjoys ravaging him through and through, over and over again.
*
a smile so big you can see it shining back in his eyes, stretches over tooru’s face.
*
“i know where your brother is.”
*
kuroo catches hajime later that day, in the doorway of hajime and tooru’s shared apartment.
“hey, iwaizumi. tomiko called. one hell of a situation, heh? do you mind if i step in for a moment? there’s something we got to talk about.”
*
tooru raises his eyes from the newspaper in his hand, a grin curving on his lips. “iwa-chan. iwa-chan. iwaaaaa-chaaaaan.”
“what?”“lets go get ourselves davids. it’s a competition to see who’s the best plant daddy.”“you’re on, trashykawa.”“oi, rude.”