Notes: The title is from "Umbrella" by Rihanna because I apparently am incapable of having titles that aren't song lyrics.
"This is a stupid idea," Hajime voices, not for the first time.
Oikawa, the idiot currently dragging him along in the dead of the night towards what will likely be a waste of time or will somehow result in their gruesome deaths, turns that stupid amused smile on him, tutting, "It's gonna be spooky, and you know it!"
Hajime swats half heartedly at him, but Oikawa dodges out of the way, somehow managing to keep their hands clasped together. "I'm not scared, Trashkawa! I just think sneaking out to visit a graveyard in the middle of a school night is a little more than ridiculous."
"Sure, sure," Oikawa placates him airily. He feels his eye twitch. "Anyway, it's a staple of Halloween, Iwa-chan! A couple of dashing young teenagers looking for a night of spooks head to their local cemetery-" Here, he whirls around and continues gesticulating wildly with his hands, including the one clutching Hajime's, "only to find themselves afraid for their lives!"
"'Dashing young teenagers'?" Hajime can't help but raise his eyebrow at the choice of words.
Oikawa regards him for a moment and then concedes, "Well, one dashing young teenager and his troll." The finger-pointing makes it quite clear which one is which.
This time, Hajime's fist makes contact, and Oikawa spends the next few minutes whining about his cruelty.
"Yeah, yeah." He rolls his eyes. "It's not even Halloween yet," he points out only one of the many flaws in this plan. "We've got two weeks left."
"Oh, poor, ignorant Iwa-chan~" Oikawa laments entirely without sympathy, shaking his head lightly. "Any real spookmaster would know that you must do these things before everyone expects you to." He expertly ignores Hajime's muttered, "that's not even a real word" and goes on, "Also, tonight's a new moon, and I heard from Mattsun that those are totally scarier than full moons!"
Hajime looks at said moon and then glances around, quickly realizing that the lack of the ever present moonlight coupled with their intended destination is actually starting to freak him out. Just a bit. "Why didn't you invite him then?" He shoves it down and focuses on the growing aggravation he feels at Oikawa's next words.
"It wouldn't have been as much fun," Oikawa admits freely. "Mattsun doesn't get scared as easily as Iwa-chan~!"
He lunges forward and traps Oikawa in a headlock before ruthlessly grinding his knuckles into the idiot's thick skull. "Say that again, Assikawa."
"Oww! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, Iwa-chan!" Oikawa pleads desperately, laughing even as he struggles, and Hajime finds himself joining in despite himself.
He eventually lets go, and spotting the massive gate to the graveyard just up ahead, he says, "We're here."
Oikawa spins around, and upon seeing it himself, his face lights up in a way that almost makes up for Hajime's general uneasiness with the whole idea. "What're you waiting for? Let's go!" And with that, he snatches Hajime's hand from its default position and drags him forward for the second time that night.
The gate looms ominously before them, but Oikawa wastes no time utilizing his volleyball enhanced jumping power to completely hop over the fence. "C'mon, Iwa-chan!"
"I already regret this," he mutters to himself. In the end, however, he leaps to the other side with little fanfare, and Oikawa rewards him with a pleased grin.
Interlocking their fingers again (and Hajime tries not to wonder when this became a thing since he's partly grateful for the small comfort), Oikawa pulls him along through the closest pathway lined with graves. A thought occurs to him as he glances around the admittedly very creepy setting. "What gave you this idea anyway? We don't usually do anything for Halloween." The foreign holiday only recently gained popularity in Japan, and it still isn't exactly something kids his age get into.
"Oh, I saw it on an American horror movie, and I wanted to try it," Oikawa says nonchalantly.
Hajime resists the urge to face-palm. "You and your shitty taste in movies..." He's not certain, but he blames Oikawa's fascination with aliens on horrible foreign films, too. Oikawa's mom has the same fixation on them, after all. He can forgive her, though, because Oikawa's disgusting personality is all his own making.
Oikawa sticks his tongue out at him. "At least I have a taste! All you do is watch boring documentaries."
Okay, yeah, so Hajime watches some educational programs from time to time. "Still better than your b-movie horror flicks," he says, not about to budge on this.
Oikawa opens his mouth to say something, but it's drowned out by a very loud, very sharp crack.
Hajime starts, looking around warily for the source of the noise. "You didn't invite anyone else, did you?" He asks the equally startled Oikawa.
"No," he says, voice little more than a whisper.
It's then Hajime recalls that while Oikawa is obsessed with scary movies, he still gets scared of the monsters in them. It's likely the main reason he roped Hajime into coming, and wow, how did he not realize this sooner? Just goes to show that Hajime was right, as usual, about this being a stupid idea, and when is he going to stop being so weak willed towards this moron?
"It's probably nothing," he says decisively. "A squirrel or something."
Oikawa snorts. Then he visibly regains his composure, puts on a teasing grin. "Aww, were you frightened, Iwa-chan? Scared it was a ghost or an axe murderer or an old enemy come to take his revenge or a-"
"Shut up, Shittykawa." Hajime kicks him. "You're the one who dragged me here, so take responsibility."
Oikawa huffs, rubbing his backside. "You know, lots of people would love to have the amazingly handsome and brave Oikawa Tooru accompany them to such a creepy place! A neanderthal like you should be thanking me."
"Right," Hajime says, an angry tick mark appearing on his brow. "Anyway, we came, we saw, there's nothing here, so let's go."
"Waiiiit," Oikawa pleads hurriedly. "We can't leave yet!"
Instantly suspicious, Hajime asks, "Why?"
"Uhhhh," Oikawa stalls.
Hajime surveys the surrounding gravestones and the shadows they cast with a skeptical eye. "Did you invite anyone else, Assikawa?" He asks again.
At this, Oikawa laughs an obnoxious fake laugh. "Of course not, Iwa-chan! You really are scared, aren't you? Ahahaha-"
Ignoring Oikawa's increasingly pitiful attempts at deceiving him, he begins searching any possible hiding places nearby.
Almost immediately, he is greeted with the sight of Matsukawa and Hanamaki squatting behind one of the larger stones (dressed as a shitty vampire and werewolf, respectively) and craning their heads to stare up at him awkwardly.
"Looks like the jig's up," Matsukawa says unnecessarily around his plastic fangs.
From beneath his fuzzy ears-headband, Hanamaki replies, "Seems so."
Hajime graces them with his best unimpressed stare. "What are you two doing," he says, and it's sort of a question, even though he can probably guess.
The two of them rise to their feet, costumes still just as crappy in full view, and Hanamaki explains easily, gesturing to a frantic Oikawa, "Romeo over there wanted us to scare you, so you'd jump into his manly arms and allow him to woo you with his bravery or something."
Before Hajime can even begin to process this, Oikawa cuts in, indignant, "Oi, it was your idea in the first place, Makki!"
"It kind of was," Matsukawa points out.
Hanamaki shrugs. "I had to do something to force these two lovestruck morons to realize they're in love with each other."
"Wait. What?" Hajime blurts out - because everything stopped making sense as of five minutes ago. And really, what?
Hanamaki sighs in exasperation, and Matsukawa looks close to copying him. "Let's let them figure it out from here," he suggests, guiding Hanamaki towards the exit.
"Figure what out- wait!" Hajime calls after them, but Matsukawa just waves at him over his shoulder and rushes out of sight, leaving he and Oikawa alone (to figure something out, apparently.)
Hajime returns his gaze to a fidgeting Oikawa, and the implications of the past few minutes finally sink in. He feels heat crawling up his neck. "Oikawa?" He prompts.
A matching flush on his own face, Oikawa looks anywhere but at him, remaining silent. Knowing very well that Oikawa will only talk when he's ready, Hajime waits him out.
He doesn't wait long.
"I like you, Iwa-chan," Oikawa confesses. And after that first hurdle, it's like a tidal wave of confessions. "It's probably more than 'like' at this point, honestly, because I've had it pretty bad for you since middle school, and I always wanted to say something or ask if you felt the same but I could never tell-"
"Oikawa."
"-and I didn't want to ruin our friendship, so I kept quiet, but I got tired of not saying anything for so long-"
"Trashkawa!"
"-so when Makki suggested the graveyard thing, I thought of that cliche thing, you know, when the girl clings to the guy? And I figured, 'hey, Iwa-chan could be the girl' but not really, just that you'd get scared and cling to me-"
"Tooru!"
"-so I asked Makki and Mattsun to help out, and I knew you'd come because you always do, but then-"
At a loss as to how to calm the idiot down (the idiot who is maybe probably in love with him), Hajime headbutts him - gently.
Oikawa reels back from the force of it, clutching his nose which is thankfully not bleeding, and exclaims, "Wha- what the hell, Iwa-chan?"
"Listen!" And Oikawa finally shuts his trap. Hajime sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. He doesn't even know where to begin, really. This is a lot to take in. Nevertheless...
He regards the moron in front of him waiting nervously for his answer, and he gets angry all over again as he realizes why. "Iwa-chan probably hates me now, and our friendship is ruined," Hajime says, pitching his voice high and mimicking Oikawa's usual whiny tone. "That's what you're thinking right now, isn't it?"
Oikawa flinches but otherwise doesn't deny it.
Even more irritated at this unusual meekness, Hajime puts him in another headlock and mercilessly digs his fist into Oikawa's head.
"Oww, stop it, please, I'm sorry!" Oikawa halfheartedly attempts to bat his hands away.
"Not until you stop this stupid defeatist attitude," Hajime tells him, unrelenting. "Since when have you ever given up when things got tough? If the game isn't going your way, do you just stop trying? Do you just accept your defeat?"
"No," Oikawa manages as he struggles. "But-!"
"No 'buts'! This is the same thing, Oikawa. Don't tell me it isn't."
Eventually, he mutters, "Okay," and Hajime releases him.
Turning to face him properly, Oikawa steels himself and says, "I love you, Iwa-chan. Please go out with me."
Smiling and more than a little embarrassed now that his rage has faded, Hajime looks him squarely in the eyes and says, "Okay."
Oikawa's mouth opens in shock, and despite the creeping joy behind his eyes, his confusion wins out as he asks, "What does that mean?"
Scratching his neck, Hajime explains, "It just- feels right. I've never thought about it before, or I never really let myself think about it, probably for the same reasons as you. But my heart is beating really fast right now, and something just kind of clicked when you confessed to me, like some piece finally sliding into place - like something that was always meant to be, you know?"
As soon as he finishes, Oikawa knocks him off his feet in what was likely supposed to be a hug. He hits the ground hard, only marginally softened by the grass, and Oikawa's entire weight lands on top of him, a knee only narrowly missing his crotch and his chin digging into Hajime's shoulder.
Oikawa latches onto him in a way he hasn't done since they were kids, but the face hovering above Hajime's is decidedly not childlike. "Did you mean it, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa scarcely whispers.
"Yeah," he says simply - because it's a simple truth. The sky is blue, his name is Iwaizumi Hajime, and he is in love with his best friend. Only realizing now doesn't make it any less true.
Oikawa smiles, and it's one of his rare, truly genuine smiles. Hajime feels a familiar flare of heat at the sight and thinks yeah, this is nothing new. "Can I kiss you?" Oikawa breathes, closer now.
"Yeah," Hajime says again, and any thoughts after that are lost in the incredible sensation that is Oikawa's mouth against his.
"Really, guys," a voice breaks their haze abruptly. "Really."
Hajime groans, beyond mortified as Oikawa laughs, burying his face in his shirt.
"I knew you were probably a kinky couple, but making out in a cemetery? For shame." Another recognizable voice chimes in.
"Oh my god, just go away," Hajime says in a fairly impressive rendition of Oikawa's usual tone, and said boy laughs even harder.
The next day, Matsukawa and Hanamaki recount the story to the entire team, and Hajime never lives it down.
End Notes: I've been reading lots of IwaOi fanfiction in my free time, and somehow this happened. Hope you enjoyed~