Iwaizumi had always been by Oikawa's side. Never, not once had he left.
Oikawa didn't know how to live without him, he didn't know how to be alone. He had always had him by his side.
Now he was expected to go put on a suit and tie and stand up in front of friends and family and say some stuff about his best friend, his boyfriend, his husband.
But what was he supposed to say?
That Iwaizumi was a great partner?
He was so much more than that. He was Oikawa's whole life.
There wasn't anything he could say, he couldn't even think of trying to say anything without sobbing for hours afterwards.
How was he supposed to get up in front of people and talk about him?
Even the thought of him made his chest seize up, made breathing difficult.
He wanted, so badly, to hear the door open, and for Iwaizumi to yell "I'm home!" Just like he did every time he got home after work, even though volleyball was their work, Iwaizumi had insisted he could take an extra job just so they'd have a bit more spending money.
It was that goddamn extra job that cost Iwaizumi his life, and Oikawa the love of his life.
If he would have been home earlier, Iwaizumi would have never been in that damn car when the storm hit, he never would've been stuck driving through the sleet and snow with their crappy little car that really couldn't take driving in snow like that.
When Oikawa had gotten that call from the hospital, he had nearly passed out.
That couldn't be right.
His Iwa-chan, brain-dead.
That wasn't right, he'd walk through the door any second and complain about the terrible weather, kicking off his boots and shaking out his coat.
But he didn't walk through the door. He would never walk through that door again.
Now Oikawa slept on the couch.
He couldn't touch that damn bed without thoughts of Iwaizumi flooding his head, seizing up his chest and stopping his breathing.
And he had to go give a speech at a funeral.
Iwaizumi would have hated the stuffy funeral his parents had taken over planning, because for all their grief, Oikawa was feeling double, because though Iwaizumi was their child, he was Oikawa's partner. The one who he had always been with.
Oikawa was sobbing again, sobbing into the stupid suit jacket, lacking anything else to soak up the tears. He knew he was getting tear stains on it, but it didn't matter, he didn't want to go to the damn funeral anyways.
He didn't want to do anything, he wanted Iwaizumi, but that wasn't going to happen.
Oikawa couldn't even remember the last time he had kissed Iwaizumi. It had to have been when he left for work, right?
He wished he would have taken more time to remember it and enjoy it.
As he sobbed, he thought he heard the door open and shut and Iwaizumi call out to him, but when he rushed to the door, there was no one there. There was one less pair of boots, one less coat, one less of everything there was supposed to be two of, one less of everything there had always been two of.
Weeks later, Oikawa was laughing to himself in the hospital as a grim-faced doctor delivered the news to him.
A brain tumor, that was just great. The remnants of Iwaizumi he had been hearing, that had been torturing him, the occasional I'm home's, when he thought he was hearing his footsteps, it was his brain.
It was kind of ironic.
And so he laughed, because he had nothing else to do. He had cried all the tears he had, so he laughed.
He had an inoperable mass in his brain that was slowly killing him, right after the love of his life was hit by a truck and died in the hospital.
It was the same hospital.
They had both been extremely successful. They had futures so bright their parents would joke they needed sunglasses, they were headed for at least a decade, if not more, on the national team. Oikawa was on the path to captain.
Now they were both down for the count.
Twenty three years and six months. That was how old Oikawa was when he died of organ failure, due to the spreading of the cancer in his brain to the rest of his body. Just one month after his husband, who had died at the same age.
A month, tortured by hallucinations and faint whispers of the love of his life, Oikawa had been happy to go.
He was going to be with Iwaizumi again.
They were successful, they were supposed to play volleyball together until they couldn't anymore.
Though, in a way, they did.
They had been promising young men, with their whole lives in front of them, cut short by a snowstorm and their own body turning against them, all brain and bodily functions shutting down.
It was tragic, really.