One moment, he had been enjoying a beer at the local bar, celebrating a friend's birthday. Mere hours later, he was trapped in the dark, each rise of his chest growing shallower and shallower. His throat was parched, his legs pinned beneath rubble, but he held out—if only because of the smallest ray of light filtering through the concrete that had once been his student apartment.

Dust made him sneeze. The action made his lungs hurt.

He sneezed again.

Powder...?

His eyes rolled upward, growing round at the crack in the rubble that had widened ever so slightly. I'm saved! If he could, he would have laughed. Or cried. Perhaps both. "H-help!" he rasped. "Help—I—I'm down here!"

"Oikawa?!"

Oikawa flinched. "Iwa-chan?! Iwa-chan, is that you?!"

"Yeah! Fuck, hold on. Oi! Oi, over here! My—my friend is trapped!"

A rescue team! His chest swelled in relief. He wouldn't die here. He wouldn't die unable to feel anything beneath his waist and inhaling fine dust. They would take him to a hospital, fix him up, and send him to the closest camp for displaced citizens.

"Here?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

"Yes! He's under here!"

It was like being born. Light swept over him, and Oikawa had to blink furiously to adjust to the sun.

The first face he saw was Iwaizumi. "Oikawa!"

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa burst into tears. "Oh my god, Iwa-chan! I was so scared!" Dread hit him again. "Where's the monster?! Is the monster gone?!"

"It is," confirmed one of his rescuers. He smelled of cigarette smoke and gasoline—a normally deadly combination. But nothing was normal now—nothing ever would be normal again, and it terrified him. "Don't worry—you're safe now."

Swallowing his fear, Oikawa gave a wobbly grin. "Great. I can't wait to get back to campus. If there's even one left."

Iwaizumi looked away, eyes red-rimmed. "Don't count on it."

He pouted. "But we have a volleyball game next week."

Oikawa talked as the workers hauled the debris off his fragile body. They were probably tired. A normal conversation was just what they needed. Just what he needed, too. "... So then I got out of escape room single-handedly, and you know what Iwa-chan said to me?"

"No," said the leader of the rescue team, whose name Oikawa had learned was Sato. He had a wife and a three-year-old son, both of whom he hadn't seen since the initial attack. "What did he say?"

"You tell this to everyone," Iwaizumi gruffed. He was sitting on a chunk of Oikawa's apartment building, knee bobbing up and down so quickly that Oikawa thought it was blurring at times.

"Because it's so worth telling! Anyway, he said..." Oikawa trailed off when he realised that Sato had stopped moving, his mouth pressed into a grim line. "Sato-san? What's wrong?"

Sato licked his lips. They were chapped. His face was caked with dust. He and his team must have been digging people out from the destruction all morning. "The... The rubble pinning you down... It's too heavy. We can't get you out without special equipment. It might be a while, though. We're stretched too thin."

Panic flared within him, but he forced it down. Instead, he just smiled as he always did, as if Iwaizumi's gaze wasn't boring holes into the side of his head. "Ah, that's fine. All good things come to those who wait, right?"

Iwaizumi swore.

"Iwa-chan, cut the language."

"Like you've ever cared!" Iwaizumi yelled, passing a hand through his spiked hair. His voice cracked. "Are you in pain?"

At first, Oikawa said nothing. Am I in pain? What... a good question, Iwa-chan. He tried to move his toe. There was no response. The tears threatened to come out again, but he shoved them down. No need to get anyone else upset by crying. Iwaizumi was barely holding it together as it was. "Not yet," he said, finally.

Iwaizumi's face fell. "You—"

"But," Oikawa interrupted, reaching out a hand. "I can still hold your hand."

Sato was speaking on the phone, ordering a vehicle to be sent here immediately.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Iwaizumi slipped his fingers between his and squeezed.