you, in every season

by Watanabe Maya

(Here, Hajime remembers: once, he was in love with his best friend.) \\ iwaoi. post-hanahaki au.

this took me a month to do and i rushed to finish within the last few hours of Oikawa Day! hope I'm not too late (it's still the 20th in Argentina acc to the world clocks so that's gotta count! ahaha) this oneshot was an Adventure™️ and for that i wanna thank my dear friends E for being my sounding board for all my dumb ideas and rants, Ha-chan for hyping me up as this fic was still in its early stages, and an anonymous friend who actually inspired the whole thing when he started talking about his orchids. this did not actually end up as an orchid fic lol

TW: there's a short bit of body horror that happens in the middle of some sexy scenes but if that ain't your thing u can just stop reading at "Brown hair brushes his face" and skip ahead to "The spring comes to a halt."

disclaimer: i don't own hq

---

His mother takes the Christmas wares out in December.

"Sorry, Hajime darling," she tells him with a wry smile, as she haphazardly decorates the tree just two hours before the end of Christmas eve. Baubles, red and shiny and silver, hang precariously at the edge of plastic pine leaves. Hajime picks up the star and tiptoes wordlessly to reach for the summit.

"I've just been so busy with work, I haven't had the time," she explains. "They asked me to take on extra shifts at the hospital and I just couldn't say no. Besides, your father will be flying home the day after tomorrow so we can celebrate the holiday with him properly by then."

Hajime, at six years old, says nothing about the matter. "It's okay," he says, placating his mother's worries with a half-hearted shrug before he busies himself with setting up the plastic star. Hajime fumbles slightly as he puts it on. His mother smiles in appreciation of her son's attempt, of his amateur hands and his boyish wonder.

" Kaa-san will try to be earlier next year, okay?" she promises. The topper tilts awkwardly down to the side. The tree sags from the pull of its weight.

"'Kay," Hajime nods, but doesn't expect too much. It was like this last year, too, he thinks. And the year before that. And the year before that. This has been life in the Iwaizumi household for as long as he could remember – celebrations done at the tail-end of the occasion, birthday greetings sent an hour past the next midnight, the house decked in red by the morning of the 26th.

Everything, always, just a little too late.

. -❁- .

Hajime is cooking dinner when the doorbell first rings. There's butter melting in the pan and onions chopped finely on the board. He hears it ring once more as he minces the garlic and tosses it in with the shrimp – its soda marinade now flat after having been left out for the past two hours.

The bell chimes again.

"Coming!" Hajime hollers as he twists the knob and lowers the heat. He isn't expecting anyone tonight but whoever's outside is getting impatient. The doorbell rings incessantly, each interval falling shorter than the last. "Who's th–"

There's a stranger standing outside his doorstep. An attractive stranger. Hajime catches himself staring at a man with chestnut hair and caramel eyes and a disarmingly bright smile.

"Ya-ho, Iwa-chan!" the stranger's cheery voice greets him. Hajime stares back and blinks, mouth agape and brow raising as his eyes glaze over with poorly hidden confusion. Iwa-chan? "I'm home!"

Oh.

"Sorry," Hajime tells him, gaze drawn to the furrow now forming between the other man's brows. Hajime raises his index and points to his neighbors down the hall, "you must have gotten the wrong unit."

He shuts the door.

"Iwa-chan?" the stranger calls out loudly from the other side. Hajime hears the doorbell ring again as he turns to make his way back to the kitchen. "Hey!" The stranger knocks, frantic. "Hey, Iwa-chan!"

"There's no Iwa-san here," Hajime explains out loud, shifting his attention back onto his sauteed shrimp. "You can try next door. We have name plates outside every unit."

"Ha-ha, good joke, Iwa-chan–"

"My name is Iwaizumi," Hajime corrects him.

"I know that, Iwa-chan!" the stranger yells, before taking to pounding his fists against the door. The shrimp sizzles without resistance over the fire. A puff of steam blows up in the air, smoke trails billowing into the vent of the exhaust. "Now let me in! It isn't funny anymore!"

"Please keep it down, you're disturbing the neighbors."

There's a muffled curse in what Hajime picks up as Spanish, and he wonders then if this stranger is actually a foreigner flown in from abroad. He didn't have an accent when he spoke Japanese to him earlier, but maybe he just had trouble with reading kanji. Or maybe he was drunk? Hajime couldn't tell.

He turns his attention back to his dinner. Hajime serves his shrimp onto a plate and scoops a small serving of rice into his bowl. The knocking-slash-pounding dies down eventually. The worst has passed, Hajime thinks, and he imagines the other has gone off to search for the apartment unit of his long-lost Iwa-san. He claps his hands twice in prayer.

"Iwaizumi Hajime."

Hajime whips his head to face the door.

"Iwaizumi Hajime," the stranger's voice calls out to him again. Hesitant, almost. "Please let me in. I have nowhere else to go."

"Do I know you?" Hajime asks the moment he opens the door a second time. He looks down and finds that the stranger has plopped himself on the floor outside his entryway, back leaning against a navy suitcase that blocks the path in the middle of the hall.

"Are you still mad at me?" the stranger asks, brown doe eyes looking up to meet Hajime's bewildered ones.

"How could I be mad at you?" Hajime asks him, curious. Intrigued. He leans against the door frame and tilts his head to the side. "I don't even know you."

"Of course you know me, Iwa-chan," the stranger huffs. "I'm your best friend."

"You're not Issei."

"What the hell, it's Mattsun ?!" A shriek assaults his earbuds. Hajime bemoans the state of his hearing upon witnessing the stranger cycle through a brief theatre act of his emotions. "If you were betraying me for anyone, I'd have placed my bets on Makki." He sighs. "Listen, Iwa-chan, I'm really sorry I didn't go home last January but it was an emergency oka–"

"Wait, no," Hajime promptly cuts the other man off, "I mean, I'm sorry but I really don't know what you're talking about."

Before the stranger can continue, Hajime raises a hand in a placating gesture.

"Look," he says, "I'll let you in for now. You said something about needing a place to stay, right? We can talk over dinner."

. -❁- .

"Yo."

"Mattsun!" Attractive Stranger cries after swallowing down a mouthful of rice. He looks irritatingly handsome despite the puff of his full cheeks. "Tell me why Iwa-chan's suddenly calling you his best friend instead of me?"

"Because I am?" Issei's voice cuts in smoothly. Hajime directs his attention back to the screen of his tablet, propped up against a flower pot they've set to the side on the dinner table. He'd given up on making conversation with Handsome Stranger after ten minutes of the latter's incoherent rambling that they'd decided to call a friend for help. "I'm your best friend, right, Iwaizumi?"

"Right," Hajime affirms with a nod.

"He's mine too!" Takahiro declares proudly, forcing himself into view to peck his boyfriend's cheek the same time he raises his middle finger to flip the rest of them off. Melodramatic Stranger lets out a scandalized gasp.

"See?" Issei remarks with a smug grin, unperturbed by the seemingly-usual dramatics of the other man. "I'm everybody's best friend."

"Makki, you bitch, you're supposed to be on my side," the man hisses. Hajime watches Foul-mouthed Stranger wail verbose complaints in between bites of his grilled shrimp tails. "Also, Iwa-chan says he doesn't remember me at all. Not even my name! What's up with that?"

The teasing comes to an abrupt stop. Eyebrows raise slightly at the other man's admission. Takahiro's mouth shapes itself into a small 'o.'

"I was just gone for a year and suddenly everyone's replacing me–"

"Right," Issei clears his throat to speak in an attempt to clear the air, the tone of his voice now suddenly somber. He brings his hand up to scratch his chin. "It's been a year since then, huh?"

A nod. Takahiro hums. "No wonder."

"A year since what?" Good-looking Stranger asks, bottom lip jutting out as he frowns. Issei's eyelids dart to the side in thinly veiled panic. "Hey. Fill me in?"

"Uh–"

"Since I got the surgery," Hajime announces.

"Surgery?!" Dramatic Stranger echoes and whips his head around to face Hajime so quickly it threatens to give him whiplash. "What do you mean you got surgery ? Iwa-chan, why did you need surgery?"

Hajime shrugs, not wondering what all the fuss was about. "It was–"

"An emergency!" Takahiro screeches, flailing his arms to pull their attention back onto the grainy Facetime call onscreen. "Our boy got real sick with some nasty respiratory shit whatever so they had to drug him and stuff. But don't worry, he's all better now. The memory loss was a shitty side effect but better an amnesiac than a corpse, am I right?"

"But why would Iwa-chan get memory loss from a respiratory illness?"

"I don't know, man," Takahiro replies and keeps his hands up, still, in surrender. "I'm no doctor but I think the hospital slipped up and OD-ed him on the anesthesia so he forgets things sometimes."

"We should sue them," Issei remarks lazily.

"On it, babe," Takahiro answers with a wink.

Hajime rolls his eyes. Likewise, Gorgeous Stranger pointedly ignores their flirty banter. "Why didn't anyone tell me?" he wonders.

"You were really busy last year, weren't you?" the pink-haired boy explains. "So busy you couldn't even come back and pay a visit to poor ol' Makki and Mattsun. We missed you too, thanks. And we didn't want to make you panic all the way in Argentina for nothing. Besides, the problem was already solved."

"You didn't think to warn me about the amnesia?"

"Didn't know when you'd be back," Issei shrugs.

"Forgot," Takahiro grimaces, almost sheepish. "And Iwaizumi's been adjusting, we already got used to it."

"Sorry, 'kawa," the both of them say in unison.

Attractive Stranger pouts but forgives them anyway. Takahiro claps his hands loudly to shift the mood.

"Alright," he says, "Now that that's settled, I think some introductions are in order. Iwaizumi, this is your best friend–"

"Childhood best friend," Issei interrupts. "I'm the current one."

Takahiro rolls his eyes, but Hajime doesn't miss the way he almost looks fond. "Yeah, yeah, sure, we know you are," he says, waving his hand around flippantly. "So, Iwaizumi, this is your childhood best friend Oikawa Tooru. Oikawa, you know Iwaizumi."

. -❁- .

At fourteen, Hajime first learns of the limits of a love that cannot last.

He falls headfirst under the heat of the summer. It's a late afternoon at a time he's walking home from practice, stumbling into step next to a boy humming along to the latest single by Otsuka Ai. They had passed by a convenience store three blocks earlier, tempted by the promise carried by the loose change they stored in their pockets.

(And while the boy had greedily snatched up a pack of milk bread off the snack aisle and paid at the cashier when he thought Hajime wasn't looking, Hajime had spent his allowance to treat the two of them to a matching pair of pink soft serve instead: the boy, a sweet strawberry-vanilla; Hajime, his usual sakura-matcha.)

"Thanks, Iwa-chan!" the boy tells him, licking the edge of his cone before it threatens to drip down onto the pavement. His cheeks are flushed pink from the heat. Hajime watches as a bead of sweat forms at his temple, slipping down delicately to trace the curve of his jaw. The boy grins then, lopsided and bright. Beaming. "You're the best!"

"Tooru," Hajime says, to the boy with his bubblegum pop and head caught up in cotton candy skies. There are fingers running over the fragments of his memory, sticky with the residue of his melted ice cream. "I think–"

A cough.

Tooru turns his head to look at him once again. Hajime lets the confession die at the tip of his tongue. The blood rushes to his ears. He feels his heart shatter beneath the weight of a realization; hears the cry of the cicadas, screeching, lonely for a mate in the idle hours of the summer.

"Yes, Iwa-chan?"

Hajime says nothing to him then, just stifles another cough into his fist and catches the bitter taste of flower petals as he swallows down the words in his mouth.

. -❁- .

Eyebrows XL [11:42]

Hiro says he's sorry

Me [11:42]

why would he be sorry

Eyebrows XL [11:43]

He's sorry he lied

I'm sorry i went along with it

In conclusion: we're sorry we lied

Me [11:44]

ah

Eyebrows XL [11:44]

Still tho

I don't think u should tell oikawa about it

Correction

U don't think u should tell oikawa about it

Me [11:44]

huh?

why not?

Eyebrows XL [11:44]

U told us not to, last year

Before u passed out

Me [11:45]

oh

Eyebrows XL [11:46]

Yeah

Eyebrows XL [11:51]

I'm still ur best friend right?

Me [11:51]

lol sure

Eyebrows XL [11:52]

B-)

. -❁- .

"Good morning, Iwa-chan!" Oikawa chirps as Hajime walks into the living room, a hand scratching his stomach idly. He's out on the balcony when Hajime sees him, the sun catching in his hair as he bends over to water the plants.

"Morning."

"Do you still remember me?"

Hajime scowls. That's not how his memory works at all, but it's too early in the morning for this and he's too groggy to bother correcting him at this point. He goes along with it. "You're Oikawa Tooru."

"Bingo!"

A beaming smile.

"Coffee's out on the counter," Oikawa tells him, familiar with Hajime's appliances already three days into his stay. "Thank you for playing Oikawa-san's morning quiz! Go claim your prize."

"Yeah, yeah," Hajime grumbles, a yawn escaping him as he shuffles to the kitchen area. He pours himself a cup; busies himself with smearing mango jam over his toast. Hajime takes a sip and lets the bitter liquid rouse himself fully awake.

Oikawa will be here for a month, they'd agreed, spending the holiday back home in Japan only until their off-season ends. Hajime had insisted he stay over instead of booking a hotel after the first night. It's the least he could offer, Hajime thinks – a courtesy of sorts to help the other cut costs. He had a spare futon tucked away for guests, anyway. Besides... it's what childhood best friends do, right?

He doesn't dwell on it. Hajime sneaks a quick glance at the clock as he drains his cup and rinses it off in the sink, before heading towards the bathroom for a quick shower.

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa hollers, his voice thin over the sound of the balcony doors sliding shut. "I'm going to the gym now! Need me to pick up anything on the way back?"

"Nah."

"Okay! I'll take the key with me then!" Hajime picks up the faint rattle of the keys. The sound of the front door clicking open. "I'll be home in an hour!" Oikawa announces. "See you after work!" A pause, and then, "Don't forget me today as well!"

. -❁- .

"What are all these?" Oikawa had asked the first night he'd moved in, eyes glued to the viridescence – an exhibit of potted greenery put out on display.

"Uh–" Hajime begins with great eloquence, eyes narrowing in exasperated regard, "plants?"

Oikawa crosses his arms over his chest as he pouts. "Seriously, Iwa-chan, I know at least that much," he huffs, "What do you take me for, an idiot?"

Hajime clamps his mouth shut to keep himself from saying yes.

The other man waves his arm around to gesture towards the plants on the balcony. "I mean, since when did you turn your apartment into a greenhouse? I never pegged you to be the type to have a green thumb," Oikawa sighs wistfully, a played up attempt at reminiscence. Hajime lets him ramble on, only half-listening as the other man goes to add, To think, Iwa-chan, the last time I was here, the only place I could find leaves in your unit was the refrigerator!

Hajime rolls his eyes, not bothering to look up as he plucks off a handful of thyme. Oikawa returns the courtesy by turning away from him to admire the pot of marigolds.

"Got into it last year," Hajime explains, attention now fixed on increasing his meager harvest. "Hanamaki suggested I do it. I had a lot of time on my hands when I was recovering."

"It must've been hard."

"Hm? Nah." The corners of his lips tug upwards faintly with pride. "This guy was pretty easy to grow, actually. Thyme only needs a bit of care except for a regular light pruning after the first year." Hajime gestures to the pot of pansies on his left. "Same for this little fella, she already started sprouting after ten days." He points to the bluebells closer to Oikawa. "That one, though, took me half the year just to germinate. She was pretty stubborn, but it looks like I am, too."

"Sounds like you cared for them a lot," Oikawa hums. "And look at them now," he coos, a small smile on his face, a mirror to his pride, "blossoming so well under Iwa-chan's gentle care."

Hajime clears his throat awkwardly, cheeks flushing from the other's sudden praise. "Yeah?" he scratches the back of his head, "I guess."

"What about this one?" Oikawa asks, oblivious to Hajime's flustered state. With his two hands, he holds up a potted shrub with red-tinted branches and leathery green leaves. "Is this one new?" he wonders, curious.

"Ah, no," Hajime replies, voice even once again as he gathers his bearings. "He's the oldest one actually. The first plant I decided to look after."

Oikawa turns the pot around in his palms to inspect it, taking in the sight of its full leaves contrasting against the buds still closed up as though waiting for the coming of spring. "How come it isn't flowering yet then?"

Hajime takes the kurinji off Oikawa's hands; gently sets it back down to its place. "Careful," he warns. "You shouldn't jostle this one too much."

Oikawa tilts his head. "Does it have a name?"

"No?" Hajime fixes him a flat stare. "I don't name my plants, Oikawa."

"Iwa-chan!" A scandalized gasp. "For a year you've raised this child, and you never bothered to name them all this time?" He even makes the effort to look mildly horrified. "What kind of father are you?!"

"A damn good one–"

"My, my, no wonder you're already in your rebellious phase," Oikawa remarks out loud, directing his speech to the potted plant now on the floor. He moves to a squat and pretends to console the now-pitiful shrub, running his fingers gently over the leaves. "You poor thing, I can't believe your father has neglected to even give you so much as a name. "

Hajime scoffs and tells the other off for being ridiculous. "Shut up," he quips.

Oikawa ignores him. "In what season do these start to flower?"

"Autumn." Sometime in September, Hajime thinks, or a little bit after that.

"Not spring?" Oikawa's voice lilts up in surprise. Bewilderment. His lips jut out in his signature pout. "I thought autumn was when all plants wither, not bloom."

Hajime shrugs. "Some breeds do."

"This one must be special then."

"Yeah, it is," Hajime agrees. "Don't worry about it too much. It'll bloom when it's ready."

"And when would that be?" Oikawa presses on and likens the shrub to the memory of the orchids he'd seen back in his childhood. Apparently, his mother had cultivated her own collection in a makeshift greenhouse they'd set up in their backyard. It only took them three weeks at most, he says.

Hajime doesn't bother to wait for Oikawa to face him.

"Don't you know, Oikawa?" he begins, and his voice is softer now when he speaks, "Some flowers take a lifetime to bloom."

. -❁- .

The water is cold when it bounces against his skin, droplets falling against the pavement and kissing the granite in whitewashed murmurs. Hajime rushes towards the station and takes a seat at the bench underneath the awning. His eyes are drawn to the nearby trees surrounding him; watches the leaves droop down from the weight of the water. He lets himself listen to the patient whispers of the earth. The world falls hushed in a gentle shower. A quiet mercy from the sky.

In the warm alcove of Sendagaya, Hajime sits alone and watches the rain.

"Hey."

A voice calls out to him and jolts him out of reverie. Hajime turns his head to find a familiar mop of chestnut brown hair.

"Hey," he echoes back.

Oikawa is standing five meters away from him, two umbrellas in hand and a pensive look in his eyes. A smile forms on his face once Hajime meets his gaze and the world shifts in that moment like sepia steeped into color – a split-second polaroid beginning to take shape.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa greets with a warm voice, jogging lightly in a rush to meet him. He hands the extra umbrella out for Hajime to take. "You left home without an umbrella this morning. So I figured–"

"Thanks," Hajime says and swallows down his surprise. "How'd you find me?"

"Best friend senses were tingling," Oikawa explains as Hajime gratefully accepts his offer. He sticks out his tongue in petty victory. "Beat that, Mattsun."

Hajime laughs. "You didn't think to wait just in case I'd take the bus instead?"

"Dunno," Oikawa shrugs. "Didn't want to risk you walking home in this weather."

"Do all best friends go out of their way to give their friends an umbrella in the middle of a storm like this?"

"Only the best ones," Oikawa declares haughtily with a sniff. "The best best friends."

"Yeah, sure," Hajime agrees, unclasping the umbrella and clicking it open with his thumb. The knob loosens under his grip as he pushes the runner up the shaft. "Don't think I'm taking this against our 'best best friendship' though," Hajime says as he notes the way the mechanism refuses to lock into place, "but I think this umbrella's broken."

Oikawa's face falls.

"Oh no, sorry, Iwa-chan, I didn't check–"

"Don't worry about it," Hajime waves it off, folding the umbrella back into place as he ducks underneath the cramped space of Oikawa's hood. Oikawa shuffles to the side to give him room so they can share. Like this, they walk the rest of the road home in silence.

"I'm thinking of going home next weekend to Sendai," Oikawa says as they're rounding the corner of Gaien Nishi-dori. "I'll visit my mom and say hi to Takeru. Wanna come with?"

"Sure," Hajime replies, and the smile Oikawa gives him in return is enough to rival even sunshine.

. -❁- .

The calm that washes over them does not last for very long.

"The plants!" Oikawa gasps once they make it to the front door. Hajime stops in the middle of toeing off his shoes at the genkan and looks up at him in confusion.

"The what ?"

"Iwa-chan, the plants!" he shrieks again and points to the direction of the balcony doors. "We have to water the plants!"

"It's...raining?" Hajime points out, wondering when all common sense had seemed to fly over the other man's head. "They're literally being watered by the sky right now."

Oikawa ignores him in favor of rushing to the living room. Hajime watches in horror as the other man picks up his potted monstera and hurries out to the balcony.

"Oikawa, no!"

"But it's free water!" he insists as Hajime chases after him, braving the storm to hold it up under the pouring sky. "Setsuko-chan must be thirsty!"

"Who the hell is Setsuko-chan?!" Hajime yells.

"This child obviously!" Oikawa shouts back, having taken the liberty to name Hajime's houseplants in his stead. Hajime watches him hold the plant up higher in a vain attempt to collect more rainwater.

"But I already watered her yesterday," Hajime explains, holding back a groan as he tugs on Oikawa's arm to lead him back inside. "You're not supposed to overwater house plants! Too much water will kill them."

At this, Oikawa lowers the pot and looks at him curiously. His eyes dart up briefly in thought; earnestness. At the back of his mind, Hajime can't help but liken him to a fleeting picture of innocence.

"Then water them again today and don't water them next week?" Oikawa suggests.

"That's not how it works, moron."

. -❁- .

Eyebrows XS [03:52]

Heard from Oikawa u're going home this weekend!

Wanna get the squad together for some drinks?

It's been a while...

Issei's treat btw hehe

Me [04:08]

sounds great

what time?

. -❁- .

"Oh my, Hajime-kun is that you?" a woman gasps as she looks up at him in surprise. Hajime shoves his hands in his jacket pockets as he bows his head slightly to greet her. She has the same doe eyes as her son, her brown hair styled in a flawless braid and tucked neatly over her shoulder to the side. "My, how you've grown!" She tilts her head up to grace them with a warm smile. "And my Tooru too! Come in, come in."

Oikawa enters the house after giving his mother a quick peck on the cheek. Hajime shuffles in quickly after to follow suit. The air is cooler in Miyagi than he last remembers.

"It's been so long since you two last visited," she says, closing the door in a graceful motion, "and here I was moping about thinking I've been forgotten by my two dearest boys!" She puts her hands on her hips and hovers by the doorway. "Tooru, reply to my texts won't you?"

"But I always send you pictures on LINE–"

"Selfies don't count, dear," she tuts. "Talk to me more. Tell me about your day. What do they make you eat over there in Argentina? I want updates!" his mother raises a finger up to point at him as she demands, "Better yet, call me."

"Yes, ma'am," Oikawa replies with a mock salute.

"You too, Hajime-kun," she says and turns to address him. "Your mother worries about whether or not you're receiving her messages."

"Uhm–"

"We see the read receipts, sweetie," she smiles at him again, though her gaze hardens with the underlying weight of authority. "Please give Kaho-chan some peace of mind and reply to her more often. My husband brought home some dorayaki from his trip yesterday. Would you two like it together with your tea?"

Hajime nods at her dumbly. Oikawa cuts in with an eager Yes please! and mirrors his mother's smile as she leaves the boys alone to prepare their snacks in the kitchen.

There's a radio playing in the background, a tinny sound that makes Matsubara Miki's voice sound like a confession from far far away. Oikawa explains that his mother has taken to blasting love ballads in the sanctuary of her backyard-turned-greenhouse ever since that one time she read an article on how music was conducive for plant growth.

"Does it work?" Hajime asks and ponders on whether he should do the same for the benefit of his own balcony garden.

"She claims her cauliflowers sprouted thanks to Ohashi Junko's 'Telephone Number,'" Oikawa answers with a small shrug, noncommittal, "so...I guess."

Oikawa turns the television on, flipping through the channels in search of something to keep them entertained while they wait. Hajime sits with him in silence and lets his eyes wander. There are pictures hung up on the walls, immortalizing memories from a lifetime so dearly cherished – Oikawa's parents on their wedding day, Oikawa in what looks like his high school graduation, Oikawa's sister cradling the small figure of a baby named Takeru.

He finds himself in one of them too; a stray memento from their middle school years, of two boys with scabs on their knees and a volleyball in their hands. Oikawa flashes a peace sign in the photograph while Hajime stands next to him with an awkward smile on his face. Hajime doesn't remember much of it, to be honest.

"Something on your mind?" Oikawa asks, settling for a documentary on koi fish featured in Niigata. Hajime can only pay attention to half of the commentary going on as it's delivered by the program host onscreen.

"I don't know," Hajime admits, sighing, "it's just–"

"Just?"

"It's just that we're best friends, supposedly, but all of this seems so new to me," Hajime explains, the guilt a heavy weight in his chest. He rubs the back of his head sheepishly. "I feel kind of bad. This must be awkward for you, Oikawa. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," Oikawa frowns. "It's not your fault. It's not like you wanted to forget–"

"I don't even remember what your favorite color is anymore."

Oikawa stops to take a look at him, eyes curious and wide. He says nothing for a good minute and simply tilts his head wordlessly to the side.

"Take a guess, then," he prompts Hajime gently, waiting.

There's something odd about Oikawa's stare. Strange in the way one hollows out their cupboards and sees the lonely mark of plates once stacked up atop one another, the stain of them like a footprint impressed against the carpentered dark wood. It reminds Hajime of ringlets on a coffee table from a mug left out for too long. The burden of the weight of things once left behind.

"Is it...green?"

The world stops, time freezing over as the answer slips past his lips. Hajime hears the other boy let out a long-held-in breath, notes the way Oikawa's expression washes over with pure relief at his response. His eyes crinkle with mirth as he flashes Hajime a small smile.

A nod.

"Yes of course it's green, silly Iwa-chan," Oikawa teases, voice softening in a way that is both bittersweet and familiar. "You know, the same shade as your eyes."

The conversation dies out and is quickly replaced by the sounds of Oikawa's mother's return. They catch up with each other over tea and indulge in the sweet red bean paste of the dorayaki. Oikawa whips his phone out to show off his latest photos from his adventures in the past month, while Oikawa's mother is eager to share gardening tips after discovering Hajime's recently acquired interest in what is now their shared hobby.

In the distance, Hajime still hears Matsubara Miki sing over the cheap radio speakers, Stay with me, her voice lilts, haunting, as she cries for a love lost at midnight and mourns the way the seasons inevitably come to pass.

. -❁- .

They visit his own mother in the house next door. She greets them both with wide eyes and thinly-veiled disbelief, and Hajime can only imagine the kind of thoughts running rampant in her mind.

"Hi there, Tooru dear," she says, pursing her lips in the way Hajime knows she's trying to carefully parse through her words. He doesn't quite understand why his mother looks at Oikawa as if she'd never expected him to be in here, right smack in the middle of his own home, looking at his childhood best friend like he's some kind of alien, some foreigner – or worst of all, some stranger. "What a lovely surprise. I didn't know you and Hajime–"

"It's okay, baa-san ," Oikawa says, waving a hand with a reassuring smile. "I know about the memory thing. Iwa-chan and I are getting reacquainted."

"Oh," she says and visibly relaxes when Hajime nods back at her in affirmation. "That's—well, it's good to see you both getting along well. Feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen then, Tooru-kun," she addresses Oikawa, "I think we have some of that milk bread you like from the store."

Oikawa squeals with delight and abandons the two of them for the kitchen. Hajime loiters with his mother by the genkan , watching as Oikawa swiftly maneuvers the Iwaizumi residence with practiced ease. Effortless.

"Will you two be spending the night?" she asks.

"Maybe next time," Hajime says, and hands her a dotted yellow paper bag – in it, a small pot of morning glories he'd grown in his apartment back in Tokyo. "We're having dinner out with Hanamaki and Matsukawa, but I wanted to drop by and give these to you first. Is tou-san home?"

"Not until next week," she says and accepts the gift carefully. She takes a peek. "These are lovely, Hajime. Are they–?"

"Ah, no," Hajime shakes his head. "I'm fine now, kaa-san. Really."

"If you say so," she concedes, but not without warning. "Love affects people in many different ways, after all. Some are just predisposed to it more so than others..." her voice trails off as she looks up to face him. "I just want you to be happy, you know."

"Yeah," he says and smiles back at her, a brittle comfort, "don't worry, kaa-san, I know."

. -❁- .

The summer they turn eighteen, the boys take a tour around Miyagi.

It's a roadtrip their group had been planning since the start of their senior year: to send each other off with a farewell gift of a memory before Hajime goes away to attend university in Irvine and Oikawa migrates to pursue professional volleyball in Argentina.

(He does not remember this, of course. Not now. Not ever.)

"One for the road, right?" Takahiro remarks with a pun, grinning.

Issei takes to driving, having been the last of them to get his license but the first to gain actual real life experience. He'd been handling deliveries and supply pick-ups for their funeral home business over the past two months since their graduation. That, plus the added fact that he was the only one who was able to get permission to borrow the family car.

Beside him, Hajime rides shotgun, while the two losers from their previous jankenpon round sit cramped together at the back. Tooru falls asleep in the backseat, conked out with his cheek squished against the glass as he rests his head against the window. Hajime lowers the radio volume so as not to wake him; stifles a cough into his fist so as not to make much noise.

"Any plans of getting rid of that?" Issei asks, not daring to look away from the road lest he miss the exit to Shiroishi and consequently miss the fox village – the first stop on their itinerary. In response, Hajime cracks open the window and scatters the petals into the wind.

"Gross, Iwaizumi," Takahiro pipes up from behind him, languidly watching the purple blossoms as they dance over the Tohoku Expressway. The colors mix together before disappearing into the monotone of the asphalt. "You know you're not supposed to litter."

"Shut up Hanamaki," Hajime retorts hoarsely. "Quit comparing my feelings to garbage." He uncaps his water bottle and takes a sip. "And what else was I supposed to do with them? Your boyfriend wanted them out."

"You know that's not what I meant," Issei frowns. "Don't you think maybe you should confess already? Hanahaki doesn't run in our family, but from what I know, that sort of unrequited love thing seems pretty miserable."

"Yeah, man, you sound like you're getting worse."

"What's the point of confessing if my feelings aren't even returned?" Hajime shoots back in a low whisper. "I wouldn't be like this if he already liked me back. That's not how it works."

"Then what're you gonna do?"

"Will you take the surgery?"

Hajime replies with a firm shake of his head. "I won't get the surgery," Hajime says and coughs again. He flashes a tired smile as his two friends sneak glances at him with worry. "I won't," he swears, breathing out the words with an unwavering resolve and a lightness in his heart, "I don't want to."

He'd already decided on this since the first night he let the flowers fall, had lain alone in bed as he pondered over his future and the cost that came with bearing the weight of all his emotions. Hajime was only fourteen then – fourteen years old and yet so impossibly in love – when he made the decision in the small solace of his bedroom, sheets speckled with the dreamlike blue-violet petals of a kurinji.

And even now, four years later, his feelings remain unchanged. Here, hunched over in the passenger seat of Issei's rented-out Toyota sedan, Hajime finds himself coming back to the same answer:

He does not want to lose Tooru.

He does not want to forget.

. -❁- .

Ice crackles as it sinks into the liquid. Long fingers crack open a beer can, pouring its contents into a glass. Condensation forms on the surface in beads. They're drinking together at an izakaya, the four of them seated at a low table with the tatami. Hajime watches as Oikawa reaches for his drink, tips his head back and chugs, apple bobbing as he swallows.

"Take it from me–" Takahiro says in conclusion, now wrapping up his latest anecdote of another job hunt interview gone embarrassingly wrong, "–when they ask you if you have any questions for the company, don't treat it like a beauty pageant and thank them 'for that wonderful question.'"

Hajime chuckles. Beside him, Issei buries his face into his hands so as to muffle a poorly-concealed snort. Oikawa makes the effort to nod along with faux sympathy, cheeks flushed red from both beer and laughter.

"Did you just laugh at me, Issei?" Takahiro gasps and hones in on the motion, before his hiccups turn into whines, "Oh my god, babe, you asshole, you said you wouldn't laugh–"

"I wasn't laughing!" he puts his hands up in mock surrender. "Right, Iwaizumi?"

"Yeah, it was one snort," Hajime agrees, throwing him under the bus as he refers to the offending sound. Issei clutches his chest, feigning hurt from his act of betrayal.

"That counts as laughing, jerkface!" Takahiro grouses, "What a boyfriend you are."

"Yeah, yeah," Issei remarks bitterly and redirects his gaze to throw Hajime a pointed look. "And what a best friend you are," he says before Hajime offers to clink his glass against Issei's and they both shout out a whooping cheers regardless, downing the rest of their drinks in a show of reconciliation and inebriated solidarity. Takahiro drunkenly sobs into his folded arms and ignores the rest of their performance.

"Now, now, Makki," Oikawa coos, "at least now you know better."

"Eat shit, 'kawa," Takahiro bites back with a slur, "I saw you laughing too. I don't wanna hear it from you–"

"Don't be like that," the brown-haired boy tuts. "Of course you'd want to hear from me! I'm here to help you. Let's focus on the future. You still have other interviews coming up right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well," Oikawa sniffs and squares his shoulders in an attempt to project more confidence, "if you ever find yourself in a situation where you're faced with another question you can't solve, then just ask yourself: what would the great Oikawa-san do–"

"And just do the exact opposite of that," Hajime cuts in to finish for him, earning himself a slap on the arm from Oikawa and a wheezing applause from the rest of the table.

"Rude!" Oikawa squawks while Takahiro raises his glass up towards Hajime for a toast. Nice kill, the two of them cheer in jest before Issei calls for a waitress and orders them another round.

"Classic Iwaizumi," Takahiro says.

Issei hums, "I knew we could always trust you to keep our captain's ego in check."

"Like that time he made Oikawa promise to treat us to ramen in case he messed up his serve against Karasuno?" Takahiro brings up his drink now refilled, amber liquid swirling in the glass before he takes another sip. "Good times."

"Oh yeah, I even got a free side of gyoza–"

"Mine had extra chashu pork–"

"Uh, sorry," Hajime interrupts, unable to keep up. "What are you guys talking about?

"Really, Iwaizumi? That too?" Takahiro blurts, aghast, unable to quell his outburst. He slams his palms loudly against the table and hollers, "I can't believe you forgot that too!"

"Must've really loved his shoyu ramen, huh," Issei dryly remarks.

Takahiro tells his boyfriend off with a pointed finger and a stern Shush, babe. The taller man shrugs, all poker-faced and nonplussed, then moves to change the topic by regaling the group with a new story of his mortician misadventures. Across him, Oikawa resumes sipping his drink and pops a noriten into his mouth, blissfully unassuming.

Hajime pushes his weight onto his elbows and leans closer to whisper to Takahiro. "Sorry," he mutters.

"Nah, it's cool," Takahiro waves his hand to ward off the other's concerns. "Oikawa spat his food over my face that day because he kept talking with his mouth full. Real nasty barbarian shit. You weren't missing out on much, man."

. -❁- .

Oikawa is heavy.

Hajime is forced to face this reality after hauling the athlete's figure down three blocks and up two flights of stairs, all eighty-two kilos of muscle and a toned arm slung over his shoulder the entire time. Hajime had sobered up quickly enough after the first fifteen minutes. Oikawa leans against him and nearly seems to give up on walking altogether. He is, ironically, a lightweight.

"Iwa-chan, so nice," Oikawa mumbles in a slur, sighing contentedly against him. "Why is Iwa-chan suddenly so nice to me?"

"I'm always nice to you," Hajime answers, basing his response off of their interactions in the past few weeks. "What are you talking about?"

"No, you're never nice. Ever since we were kids. You're always nagging at me. Always scolding," Oikawa rambles on and Hajime lets him. "Sometimes I used to think you're like my mom."

"Really?" Hajime says, playing along. "Well, if you were just as stubborn before as you are now, then you probably deserved it."

"Yeah, I did," the other man chuckles, "I was probably the most bullheaded teenager to ever walk this planet."

"Then you shouldn't complain."

"But I did anyway. And that never stopped you from looking after me," Oikawa says, voice soft like a confession. "Iwa-chan would always go out of his way to take care of me. Lecturing me whenever I pushed myself too hard. Staying behind after practice to help me with my sets. Waiting for me with a spare umbrella in the rain because I used to always forget to carry my own–" Oikawa continues and whispers the words into the cold air, "Iwa-chan is always so nice to me."

"So am I 'always nice' or 'never nice'?" Hajime asks, teasing, "Which one is it?"

"Always nice," Oikawa says, the weight of his arm tugging down on them lightly. "The nicest ."

Hajime's heels scuff against the sidewalk. He readjusts their positions, unbothered about the possible looks he could get from any strangers passing them by. After all, they're in Sendai now and it's a quarter to eleven in the evening. There's hardly anyone around.

It's nothing at all like Tokyo, a city that never sleeps. Here, in the quiet ruins of their castle town, Hajime doesn't think twice about allowing himself to pull Oikawa in closer just to keep the drunken man from falling. Here, they're away from their neighbors' prying eyes, every word spoken like a secret to be tucked into the shadows of the night, save for the faint glow of the streetlights that shine distantly like a pale halo of familiarity. The light of it, like a refuge. A comfort.

"Hey, Iwa-chan," Oikawa says and trails off.

"Hm?"

"Do you remember that time in middle school when you headbutted my face in the gym?"

"No, sorry," Hajime replies, "I don't remember."

"That's fine," Oikawa tells him anyway, "It was when Tobio asked me to teach him how to do a jump serve. I got so fed up with him for not listening to me whenever I said no. I almost punched him but you stopped me," Oikawa continues, "I was so scared then. I thought you were mad about how I almost used violence against an underclassman. That you would tell me off for being so petty and jealous and so low–"

"I'm sorry I really don't know what you're talking about."

Oikawa takes this as his cue to simply carry on.

"But instead you got mad at me for believing that I was fighting all by myself. You taught me that the team with the better six is stronger," Oikawa answers, voice warm as he reminisces fondly. "And just like that, you made me feel invincible."

They stop walking. Oikawa slips his arm off of him and brings it back to his side, holding himself upright as he wills himself to face Hajime.

They're standing alone in the middle of an intersection. Oikawa's brown eyes shine iridescent underneath the lamplight. Hajime's eyes are drawn to the soft pink of his lips. His cheeks are flushed red from the residual alcohol.

"...Oikawa?"

" Hajime ," Oikawa calls out to him for the first time and his heart stutters with the feeling of something inexplicable – want? Longing? A brief moment of suspended disbelief?

Affection?

"Hajime," Oikawa says again, past the flicker-flame of hesitation; hands trembling as he reaches for his. Oikawa's knuckles are pale and bone-white. "Hajime," he hears his voice call out right then, and before Hajime can will himself to give the boy an answer, and before either of them can do anything else, Oikawa ducks his head down, quick and low, a stolen fraction of a moment, and he kisses him.

. -❁- .

("Hajime," Oikawa says to him then, in a quiet whisper underneath the starlit Miyagi sky, "I was always at my strongest whenever I'm with you.")

. -❁- .

Oikawa pulls away first.

"Sorry," he says, for once apologizing this time, and his brow furrows as he plasters on a feigned smile. Hajime stares back at him, mind reeling from the lingering taste of Sapporo. He licks at his lips. Oikawa's nose crinkles. "Did I read the mood wrong?"

He hates this.

Hajime feels like a boy short of turning sixteen, like a child in the face of his first love – hopelessly and almost pathetically at a loss for words. He hates how Oikawa had just rendered him speechless.

He hates that he doesn't know what to say.

"Nevermind, you don't have to say anything," Oikawa promises, seeming to understand. He wears a pinched expression on his face. Hajime watches as it eases slowly into something more patient and forgiving. Oikawa lets go of Hajime's hand and in exchange extends an olive branch. "Let's just forget about this."

"Oikawa, I–"

"No, really, it's okay," Oikawa tells him, eyes on the street as he lets Hajime follow him down the rest of the way home. His voice is hoarse so he clears his throat. "It's late," he says, "let's just go back."

. -❁- .

"Good morning, Iwa-chan!" Oikawa greets brightly at his front door the next day, a plastic bag in his hand and a cheery smile on his face. Hajime wonders briefly about the shocking absence of dark bags under the brunet's eyes, considering the fact that Hajime himself is now nursing an altogether terrible hangover despite not having consumed as much alcohol as Oikawa the night before.

In the house next door, Hajime overhears the sounds of his neighbors as they start their morning routine: of Oikawa's mother heading out into her greenhouse; the static of the radio when she finally turns it on. Hajime thinks of the time it had taken to grow her own garden, mind drifting deep in thought. Oikawa calls Hajime's attention back towards him and lifts the plastic bag up higher, shaking it around slightly for more effect.

"Time for Oikawa-san's morning quiz! Do you know what this is?" he prompts, "Hint: I got you your favorite!"

"Is it food?"

"Hm, not as precise as I've wanted but–" Oikawa pauses, cupping his chin as he pretends to calculate the other's points, "ah, who cares, you pass!"

Oikawa unpacks the plastic bag at the dinner table, laying out an assortment of small cups holding dashi stock, bonito flakes, and spring onions. Hajime watches as Oikawa opens up the paperbox packaging, deft fingers unwrapping the tape and flipping open the cover to reveal the main dish.

"Ta-da!"

"...Tofu?"

"Yup!" Oikawa beams. Hajime blinks back at him. "Now I know you're hungry so–" Oikawa claps his hands, "let's eat!"

"Uh," Hajime begins slowly. Carefully. "I don't eat tofu."

Brown eyes go wide.

"What?" Oikawa says. "No way!"

He shakes his head. "I've never eaten it."

"But it's your favorite food!"

"No. My favorite food's yakiniku."

"What the hell, Iwa-chan, that's Bokuto's."

"So? Bokuto doesn't own yakiniku," Hajime tells him, headache now intensifying from the confusion. "Are you saying two people can't have the same favorites now?"

"Yes."

"That's so stupid," Hajime grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose to ease the pressure threatening to build up underneath. Hajime takes a minute to mutter curses under his breath. "Christ, Oikawa, who knew you were so full of shit."

Oikawa crosses his arms and huffs, "Well, okay fine, it's not impossible but–"

"Shut up, Shittykawa."

"No!"

"What."

"My mom made this. You've eaten her tofu before," Oikawa insists, and transfers two servings of the food into their bowls. "You probably just forgot about this too. But when we were kids, my mom made agedashi tofu for dinner the first night you slept over and you ate it all up. She's been serving the same dish every time you'd visit."

"Oh," Hajime responds dumbly. He watches how Oikawa takes care to plate the tofu carefully so as not to break it, pouring in the stock and sprinkling the condiments with practiced ease. His gaze flickers up briefly to look at him.

"Well, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa prompts and gestures to the freshly prepared dish. "Go on. Eat it. You'll love it, I swear."

Hajime takes to his seat. He cuts his portion in half with the edge of his chopsticks, the lacquered wood slicing through the silken tofu with ease. Oikawa props his chin atop his hands and watches Hajime dutifully shove the fried tofu square into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he does.

"How is it?" Oikawa asks, brows raised expectantly. His lips curl up into a cheeky smile. "Good, right?"

Hajime doesn't have it in him to speak. He takes the next piece and swirls it around to absorb more of the dashi, before bringing it up to his mouth and taking another bite. Oikawa grins proudly before focusing on eating his own serving, content with taking Hajime's silence as enough of an answer.

Neither of them bother to attempt conversation. Music fills the room, a distant song blaring from the speakers next door. Hajime reaches for seconds. Yamashita Tatsuro's voice cuts in a smooth tenor. Hajime chews on his food, reflecting – thinks of plants watered every morning, leaves beginning to sprout; fingers dancing over a keyboard, notes running through the brass.

Outside, the radio plays on, a garden full of flowers continuing to grow, and it all goes up, and up, and up.

. -❁- .

His mother texts him a week later when he's back in Tokyo, together with a photo of a brown-haired girl and the rest of her profile attached.

You're already at that age, her message says, why don't you think of settling down?

"What are you scowling at now, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks Hajime when he finally catches sight of him, having paused midway from sneaking in a pack of milk bread into the grocery basket to give him a look. Said look is in fact a warning between you can tell me if something's troubling you and smile or else you'll get wrinkles sooner looking like that . Hajime thinks he's pushing it.

"Nothing." Hajime waves it off and tucks his phone back into his pocket. "Just something annoying, don't worry about it."

. -❁- .

Hajime kisses him in the night.

They are warm hands and calloused fingers, a lopsided smile, the bright flush of his cheeks – a face he can't remember. Tooru is all course lines and smooth features. His skin simmers beneath the burn of his touch. Hajime pulls away first, gasping for air.

His body arches in time with Hajime's every movement, careful and deliberate. Tender. Hands wrap around Hajime in a vice grip, impossibly gentle. They move up slowly and slip themselves underneath his shirt. He takes it off. Does not pull away.

When Tooru locks their lips together again, Hajime lets their tongues meet.

He pushes Hajime down onto the surface, the world beneath him turning sparse – a blank oblivion. The haze of forgetfulness is washed away by the forgiving embers of memory. Tooru kisses him in corners — the edge of his lips, the dip in his shoulder — and presses into Hajime firmly, once.

Halfway through, Tooru speaks to Hajime in a whisper. His words are more breathless than drawn out, vowels wrapped loosely from his tongue and dripping warm and honey-like. Hajime listens to him closely and without warning, sucks in a breath in anticipation of what's to come next. Closer. Tooru tilts his head and ducks low to press a kiss to his neck, traversing the distance between his lips to his collarbone.

Hajime registers little else but the searing heat of skin against skin, the singe of Tooru's fingertips, hands pressed against his thighs like an unspoken command. Tooru bites the curve of his ear, teeth scraping against the cartilage. Open, he says, for me, for me, for me, and Hajime obliges.

Tooru digs his knee into the crook of his legs, sweat pooling between their tangled limbs. Hajime lets him trace rivers into his spine, hands fisting into the sheets as Tooru rests his palm over his own. Hajime lets him. He takes in the ache of him; lets himself come undone.

So good, he hears Tooru say in the fractal of a moment, a low noise at the back of his throat, a murmur of the highest praise. You're always so good to me. Tooru turns him on his back to face him, and like this, he places his index against Hajime's lips. Hajime gives in quickly without force. The curve of a finger as it enters gingerly in an open mouth.

How much more can he take? Hajime wonders. Tooru asks him out loud. The world moves in slow motion, a hand never leaving his mouth. Hajime wills the words to come and forces himself to meet his gaze. It comes out of him, purple and stilted. A mirage. A dream. The finger stays.

Hajime swallows.

Brown hair brushes his face. A hand cups itself around the sharp edge of his jaw. Tooru smells like a meadow and tastes like a secret – sickly sweet and saccharine. He pushes into him again, harder, rougher, deeper. Hajime lets him. He feels the air get knocked out of him and sapped viciously from his lungs. There's a petal in his mouth and then two then three and then suddenly he's coughing out a flower and then two and then three.

They scatter around them – bright pink, blue-violet, black striped with opulence. They stain his throat with the scarlet of a memory. Thick stems clog up his airways. Vines twist themselves around his ribs, all-consuming. Relentless.

Tooru pulls away from the kiss and watches on with a curious fascination. Hajime feels the pinpricks of thorns clawing up his esophagus, blue-green rosettes tumbling out; spindles scraping against soft tissue. Hajime keeps coughing, the plants keep crawling out, and from his mouth spills the blade of a century. Another seed sprouts. Parasites take root in the muddy soil of his lungs, an inevitable series of bloom after bloom after bloom after—

A voice calls out to him. The spring comes to a halt.

"Hajime."

He wakes up with a start.

"Hey."

"Tooru?"

"Yeah, it's just me," Oikawa says, so close Hajime can see the way his lashes line his eyes, the way the light slopes into bronze when it's captured in his irises. "You were having a nightmare."

"Oh." He blinks back dumbly. That's right. Oh.

"You were calling out to me in your sleep."

"Sorry," Hajime mutters in a rasp, voice soft and thick with a dream. "Did I wake you?"

"No," Oikawa tells him, a small attempt to stave off his worries. He spares him a smile. "I wasn't sleeping."

"What are you doing still up, then?"

"Watering the plants."

Hajime blinks. "At–" he pushes himself up and squints, turning to the left to read the clock by his bedside, "–...two in the morning?"

Oikawa shrugs, a transient honesty. "Couldn't sleep."

There are bags under his eyes. Hajime notes the dark circles heightened by the lamplight reflected against his pale face. Oikawa runs a hand through his hair, distracted. Hajime purses his lips; a plethora of words unbidden, trapped in a solitary gaze.

A voice breaks the silence.

"Wanna go to a Lawson's?" Oikawa offers, tilting his head as he turns to face him. Hajime feels himself get pulled out of his stupor. Catches sight of a pensive smile.

"Right now?"

"Why not?" Oikawa reaches out to offer his hand, and raises his free one to mime out his list. "Neither of us can sleep anyway. I'm craving milk bread, some ice cream, and we need to replace your bad umbrella."

It's ridiculous, really, Hajime thinks, as he feels himself falling breathless once again under the magic of the hour, the wind leaving his lungs in the quietest form of a laugh. Sure, he says and accepts the other's offer, rubbing away at the corners of his eyes to rid himself of the remnants of a dream. Hajime pushes himself off of the bed. The clock now reads a little past three A.M.

"Come on," he tells Oikawa then, taking his hand before dawn breaks into early morning, "let's go buy a new umbrella."

. -❁- .

In the winter of last year, Hajime wakes up after the fact and the first thing he sees is white.

He feels lighter, somehow. There's an ache in his ribs, he can't help but note, the sensation dulled by the morphine but still too much to possibly ignore. Hajime looks around the room, an empty space save for the hospital bed and a leather ottoman reserved for visitors. There's a flower vase left out by the windowsill – clear glass half-filled with water, with green leaves and flower buds just a shade shy of violet, patient and waiting, on the cusp of a bloom.

"So they're gone now, huh," Hajime speaks out into the silence, the realization hitting him as he brings a hand up to his chest, a hollowed space in place of sheer sentiment.

"You're awake," a gruff voice says, familiar. Hajime spots Issei's figure first by the doorway. Takahiro stands next to him with a sober expression, a hand hovering gingerly over the knob. There are coffee stains all over his shirt. Hajime remembers spilling his drink all over him right before he passed out. A crowd had formed around them then, blood-stained petals spilling from his mouth and onto the pristine linoleum of the cafe floor tiles.

Faintly, he recalls the tremble of Issei's hands, grip tight with fear as he held Hajime upright to keep him from choking; the panic in Takahiro's voice as he watched the scene unfurl, eyes not leaving Hajime's wilting form as he called for an ambulance.

(Even more faintly, still: a name on his lips, muttered between labored breaths – a boy he'd once loved. The agony of waiting. The song of the sirens.)

"I thought I told you I didn't want to," Hajime tells them off, tiredly.

"Yeah," Issei says. He agrees, "You did." A quiet murmur filled with the unbearable weight of regret. They enter the room and take to the bench. Neither of them turn their gaze up from the floor. "I'm sorry," Issei tells him then, softly.

"So why did you–"

"What else were we supposed to do?" Takahiro interrupts and all but screams out. Hajime's brows raise by a fraction. "Just let you hack out flower petals from your left lung and watch you fucking die ? We're your friends, Iwaizumi, you can't get mad at us for not wanting to be accomplices to your own suicide–"

"I'm not mad," Hajime crafts his reply with great care, hands raised in surrender to quell the other boy's outburst. After all, how could he be? Hajime hardly remembers what he'd felt back then, or whom exactly he had such feelings for. All he has left are the bandages wrapped around his torso – an empty wound that fills with the quiet beating of his worn-out heart.

Briefly, he wonders how long he'll have to stay still to let them heal.

"Sorry," Issei cuts in, if only to say it again. He still refuses to look Hajime in the eye.

"I'm not mad," he repeats, and continues after a thoughtful pause, "but I don't think I can say I'm grateful to you either."

"That's fair," Takahiro nods. "So how are you feeling?"

"Numb," Hajime shrugs. "A little loopy, too, though that's probably just the anesthesia wearing off."

"How much can you remember?"

"Honestly? Not a lot."

"How bad?"

"There's a couple of gaps in my memory right now, I think," Hajime explains, "like someone blotted ink all over a photograph or ripped out the scenery entirely. Just a lot of black in places where I know someone else used to be."

"Do you–" Issei speaks up again. His lips are dry and chapped. "Do you want to know? About…" He stops to hold his tongue.

Takahiro continues for him, an attempt to make amends, "We can try to help you remember, if you want."

Hajime shakes his head. Maybe it's better this way, he decides, if they don't.

"That part of me is gone now," he answers back with a rueful smile. Acceptance. He looks down at his hands, gaze wistful as he traces the fine lines in his open palm. A bittersweet resignation. "But whoever that person was, I'm glad I loved him a lot."

. -❁- .

He meets Sakamoto Anzu on a Thursday, as per his mother's wishes. She seems pleasant enough, Hajime surmises at his first impression. She is tall and slim. Her chocolate brown hair parts at the center with soft curtain bangs that delicately frame her face. She wears a light blue blouse, almost aquamarine in the light, and she has a sweet tooth. Hajime discovers the last fact when she enters the restaurant and orders her dessert first immediately before anything else.

"So, Hajime-kun, I heard you used to live overseas?"

"Yeah, California," he replies, stiffly, "I studied at Irvine."

"Cool. What'd you do?"

"Sports science. I'm an athletic trainer." She nods appreciatively before cutting into her shortcake. "How about you, Anzu-san?" Hajime asks in return to be polite.

"Just 'Anzu' is fine. I'm a musician," Anzu says then, a small tug on her lips as her mouth curls up with a proud smile, long fingers tucking a strand of hair behind her ear gracefully. "Violinist for Yomiuri Nippon."

"Concertmaster?"

"Nah." She wrinkles her nose, her pretty face a fleeting moment of staged imperfection. "Principal for second."

"Impressive."

They continue like that for a while, a casual back-and-forth of the things that make up their daily lives, of their interests and pastimes. Hajime tells her about his favorite songs, the kinds of genres he often finds himself listening to on his commute; about that action flick he saw last week – Crow's Angels – and how he thinks she'd enjoy it too. He finds that Anzu likes long walks in parks and hates the languid heat of summer, that she's a morning person and prefers hot chocolate over iced coffee; mountains over the beach. That her favorite trip was Hong Kong for their performance tour in October three years ago. That she likes her eggs scrambled over her toast. That she's only ever been in love once.

"He was my best friend," Anzu confesses with a waver in her voice. The way a magpie flaps its wings and flocks away at the brink of daylight. Fresh like a wound that had scabbed over but he'd picked at too soon. "I never told him. It had always been unrequited."

"Oh."

"The flowers were yellow," Anzu says and points to a tattoo hidden discreetly in the subtle dip of her clavicle, a permanent reminder etched deeply into her skin. A love to last a lifetime. "I got the surgery when I was sixteen."

(Somewhere inside of him, something else blooms.)

"Did it hurt?"

"The hanahaki or the tattoo?" Anzu asks, speaking around a laugh, "well, not like it matters, they both stung like a bitch. Did you know your pain tolerance just lowers when they do it so close to the bone? I still have nightmares about it sometimes, too. I wake up and touch myself here," she points to the space beneath her heart, a phantom ache, "and I ask: am I hurting again? Then I realize that I'm not, I never was, and that I was just looking for an excuse to do so. Like I've missed the feeling. Sorry, I'm probably not making much sense. Am I–"

A shake of his head. Hajime looks at her — a comrade in arms, a fallen victim to first love — and he gestures, No, it's okay, as if to say, I know what you mean. Go on, go on.

"Okay, so–" and she pauses to take a sip of her water, "–so I'd read my diary. I call it a diary but really it was just a memory log of all the things about that guy. I made sure to keep one right before my surgery, since I didn't want to deal with the side effects. You know how it is. As you can see, I put a lot of effort into managing my crush business," she jokes and chuckles again. "That amnesia thing they warn you about in the books? It's true. Mostly. But it didn't really matter to me, really, because whenever I saw him again – like, even just passing by each other in the school hallways? – I'd feel that ache in my lungs, still."

That love was such a big part of me, Hajime reads the familiar look in her eyes, there's no way I could let myself forget.

"It's nothing like that suffocating feeling when the flowers used to be there," Anzu explains, miming the action with her hands in an attempt to illustrate her point, "but I know it's traces of the same sensation, the breathlessness. Or maybe it's the ghost of it. Because, you know, what the heart forgets, the body remembers, and all that." She shrugs, "I figured maybe that was my body's way of reminding me just how deeply I felt for him back then, and how I was grateful for it, even if it hurt."

Hajime nods back mutely. Anzu lets out a long sigh, ending her story with a single clap of her hands.

"Well, there you have it, I guess the cat's out of the bag," Anzu says. "Sorry I turned the atmosphere between us heavy so suddenly, but at least now you know: I can't fall in love with you, Hajime-kun, though it's been awfully nice meeting you," she laughs again, breezily. "I understand if you wouldn't want to marry me; honestly, I can't see myself getting married to anyone either. But I think you're cool so it'd be nice if we can still stay friends. Wanna kiss and make up, at least?" she offers with an easy smile. "For closure?"

She leans over the table to cup his face, her hand resting on his cheek. Hajime lets her. He tilts her head to the side and kisses her gently on the mouth, closed-lipped and with wanting. At this proximity, Hajime can smell the sweetness of her perfume – the fragrance of camellias dabbed faintly on her wrist.

Anzu pulls away first. She stares back at him meaningfully and with silence. Her voice is quiet when she asks:

"Are you in love, Hajime-kun?"

No, Hajime tells her with an adamant shake of his head. Reels back. He points to himself and tells her about the scars from his own surgery. Admits that they're the same. "It's impossible for me now."

(That love was such a big part of me–)

"Oh?" Anzu breathes out in surprise. She wipes the edge of her mouth to clean up the smear of her lipstick. "How strange," she comments, fingers tracing her lips, thoughtful; features softening with a gentle understanding. She packs up her belongings. Hajime watches as she swings her purse over her shoulder and leaves behind a generous tip to add to his share.

She looks up at him after that. Hajime can't help but recognize that look – honey eyes warm and knowing, almost as though they're on the edge of spilling a secret.

"It's strange," Anzu begins again with a smile, her fair face washing over with a patient recognition, "because when I kissed you, it was like your mind was thinking about someone else."

( There's no way I–)

"Well, don't be a stranger, Hajime-kun," Anzu says right then, breaking the moment. Over the course of their conversation, the skies outside had already turned grey. The forecast, Hajime remembers, had spoken of a thunderstorm. He escorts the girl as she walks out of the entrance and opens up her umbrella; Hajime stands guard and promptly waves her off. At the last minute, Anzu turns around to wave at him back. "You have my number," she tells him then, "let's keep in touch."

. -❁- .

When the rain pours in Tokyo, it does so without grief.

The road darkens where it falls wet, flooded gutters running as water travels the narrow distance and seeks out the closest drain. Hajime stands outside the restaurant and loiters by the entryway, taking shelter underneath the canopy to avoid getting himself drenched. There's nobody else in sight. He takes out his phone and flips through his contacts.

Oikawa picks up after the first ring.

"Iwa-chan?"

"Hey," he greets back, hoping his voice doesn't blur into static on the other end of the line. Hajime looks up towards the rainclouds and watches the way the water falls – a spectator to the downpour. "Sorry about this," he says loud enough to overcome the drumming beat of the storm, though he can hardly hear himself over the whistles of the wind, nor the low rumble of the thunder, "but it's raining right now and I left the apartment–"

"–without an umbrella this morning," Oikawa finishes for him, voice smug. "I know. You forgot to take one with you," he teases, "Iwa-chan is so forgetful nowadays."

"Yeah," Hajime agrees, though he can't help but scratch the back of his head sheepishly, embarrassed. Hajime's just glad that Oikawa isn't there to see it. "Yeah, so could you–"

"–come fetch you and bring you an umbrella? Sure," That teasing tone again. Hajime briefly considers the possibility of the other man having been an esper. "After all, I am your best friend, of course I'll come help you. Make sure to text Mattsun to update him about this news."

"Great, thanks," Hajime says, "I'm at the Arb–"

"Arbor Restaurant along Aoyama, right?" Oikawa cuts in smoothly. "Don't worry, I know the one."

"Right."

"And you're alone right now? By the restaurant entrance."

"Uh, yeah?" Hajime runs a hand through his hair in confusion, gelled up hairstyle be damned. "Look, it's okay, no rush. I can wait. How long will it take for you to get here?"

Oikawa clucks his tongue and then fusses, "Don't do that, Iwa-chan, you'll look like a gorilla if you mess up your hairstyle like that."

Hajime freezes, shell shocked into silence. He takes a moment for him to catch his breath.

"What the hell?"

The sound of a laugh. Hajime imagines the way the other boy smiles into the receiver. "Turn around, dumbass," he hears Oikawa tell him, and so Hajime does, and suddenly he finds that he no longer needs to imagine the sight of it anymore.

Because there, waving at him from right across the other side of the Gaien Higashi-dori, is the familiar figure of Oikawa Tooru – standing underneath an umbrella, a spare already waiting in hand.

. -❁- .

They still get wet on their way to the apartment.

Hajime is drenched by the time they arrive. He's looking a little worse for wear, but it's clear that Oikawa isn't faring any better. They deposit their umbrellas in the nearby rack. Hajime trudges through the genkan as Oikawa takes off his shoes, the fabric of their clothes clinging to their legs, dripping puddles all over the floor. Not even the umbrellas were enough to protect both of them from the narrow slant of the rain.

"How did it go?" Oikawa asks, rummaging through the closet to dry himself off with a towel. "Did Sakamoto-chan reject you?"

"I need a shower," Hajime tells him in lieu of a proper response. "You first or me?"

Oikawa tells him to go on ahead. Hajime doesn't say much else besides a small grunt of thanks, a nod of affirmation, and slips into the bathroom. He peels off his shirt and wrings it around his neck, hands rolling up the hem as he pulls it up over his head. The world around him moves slow as molasses. Anzu's words are a solid echo in his mind.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa chirps and interrupts his thoughts, not bothering to knock on the door before he comes in, "you forgo–"

For a brief second, their eyes meet. Oikawa stares back at Hajime owlishly, gaze falling down onto his naked torso. His bare chest. His scars.

Shit, his scars .

Hajime hears the way his heart pounds inside his chest; swallows down the lump forming at the back of his throat. His mouth feels dry. Oikawa is still looking at him. Hajime's voice comes out hoarse when he finally wills himself to speak.

"Oikawa–"

"You forgot your towel," Oikawa says, voice clipped. Strained. "Here." He places it down on the countertop next to the sink and promptly shuts the door. Hajime listens to the soft click of the knob as he leaves. Doesn't go after him.

. -❁- .

Oikawa leaves in a week.

The days pass them by in a rush. Oikawa avoids Hajime like the plague; eating his meals separately and dropping hasty excuses to leave from heading out to the gym to making plans with old friends to sneaking out for last-minute groceries when Hajime so much as walks into the same room. Hajime lets it slide every time, accepting all his flimsy reasons, and waves Oikawa off awkwardly as he watches his figure walk out the door .

Still, he knows he can't let them keep going on at this for long.

Hajime catches Oikawa out on the balcony on a Wednesday morning – his silhouette stark against the sunbeams trickling through the paper thin glass windows, past the distorted shadowmarks of curled trellises, the metalwork of the blacksmithed window grills. He keeps the body directed away from the door, the sun to his face and the apartment to his back, humming along some unfamiliar tune as he tends to the plants, oblivious to the fact of Hajime's presence nearby.

Does he even know, Hajime wonders, watching Oikawa stand alone in a garden of old memories, a makeshift greenhouse once carved out of desire, how long I've kept on waiting?

Oikawa startles when Hajime slides open the balcony doors, crouching down low as he keeps himself preoccupied. The humming stops. Hajime watches as the setter's hands run hesitantly over the gardenia leaves. He takes a step towards Oikawa and speaks up behind his back.

"Do you know?" Hajime asks, "The person I had hanahaki for?"

"No," Oikawa answers curtly, his voice as sharp as a dagger. "You never told me."

Oikawa busies himself and pretends to water the plants. He tends to the hydrangeas first and then moves on to the pansies, the air around them blanketed by the heavy weight of silence. The solemnity of it. Hajime doesn't dare to take a step closer. Time stretches around them. Like this, Oikawa is so far away from him. A world between.

"Time for Oikawa-san's morning quiz," Oikawa announces all of a sudden, and places the watering can down on the floor. The sound of it shatters the fragile tranquility of their shared space, their brief illusion of peace. "I have three questions today." He points to the leaves of the potted kurinji, the buds a minute sliver of violet and blue. "You said this one's the oldest," Oikawa tells him, "how long have you kept him?"

How easy it would be for him to lie right then, Hajime thinks, to say I don't know and throw out another convenient excuse; a cop-out of an answer. His hands grip feebly on the edge of his shirt, a clenched fist, burning with temptation. Restless.

He doesn't.

"Since we were six," Hajime admits instead, stopping himself short of blurting out loud the whole truth of it: Since the day that I've met you. "I don't remember much of the details, to be honest. But I was told I'd had the seeds for years now," he confesses, a remnant of their forgotten past. "They sprouted when we were fourteen."

"And when did you have the surgery?"

"January, last year."

"So…" Oikawa pauses and takes a stuttering breath. Hajime waits for the dreaded question and runs his tongue over his chapped lips; licks them once when they feel dry. When Oikawa finally asks him, he does so softly, "Was it me?"

His voice trembles when he speaks. Oikawa sounds just as scared as Hajime feels. Hajime notes the state of his hands gripping onto the curved rim of the clay pot, knuckles white against the vibrant shade of terracotta.

"It all makes sense now," Oikawa continues, tone sharp with the blade of accusation. "Why you've been so nice to me ever since I came back...why you changed...why you forgot. Were you trying to make amends, Iwa-chan? All this time?" His grip tightens around the pot. "Was it pity?" he bites out. "Did you know?"

"No, never, I–"

"I love you, Hajime."

Hajime bites his tongue. Turns his gaze away.

"I loved you too," he confesses, deeply and truly, once upon a time. In another life, again, perhaps. "I just regret never letting you know."

"It's fine if you don't...anymore, I mean," Oikawa amends quietly. Hajime keeps his eyes glued to the sight of the cityscape in Tokyo; an orange nostalgia dyed by the skyline. "It's not your fault. Not anyone's fault, really, but I understand."

Hajime's gaze flickers back to Oikawa. "If you understand, then why do you sound like you're about to cry?"

"Because you threw it away so easily!" Oikawa screams, turning away from the potted kurinji to face Hajime at last. "I wish you'd told me, you idiot. I wish you'd waited." His voice is thick and mangled with tears. Oikawa bites down on his quivering bottom lip. "Just a little bit longer." His eyes wobble. The dam breaks. "I wish I knew."

A choked sob – heavy with emotion; shoulders wracking as Hajiime watches Oikawa unburden himself from the sheer weight of it all.

"Maybe I hadn't realized it yet back then, and I'm sorry," Oikawa apologizes, "I'm sorry that it took me so long. That it took me a whole twenty-six years before I could wake up one morning and find myself realizing that I was in love with you."

(Everything, always, just a little too late.)

"But then you just…" Oikawa's face crumples beneath his strong mask, "you gave up on me just like that, Iwa-chan. You didn't tell me about the flowers."Oikawa bows his head, brown eyes dark as he turns his attention to the ground. He sounds defeated. Hajime doesn't understand. "You never even gave me a chance." Oikawa forces out a laugh, a low noise at the back of his throat – small and yet bitter. "Who are you to decide who I can and can't love?"

"I don't get it."

Oikawa lifts his head. His eyes are still wet and red-rimmed.

"When I was alone in the rain," Hajime begins, "that day I went out to meet with Sakamoto, the first thing I could think about wasn't the rejection. It wasn't even the damn weather," he recalls, "it was you. The first thought I had in mind was that I wanted to see you."

A brow raises in surprise. Oikawa listens to him expectantly, a quiet witness.

"I don't even know why." His hand trembles in a tightly-wound fist. "I just thought that, because I was hurting, maybe you would make it better. You being around always made it better–" Hajime shuts his eyes. "But that doesn't make sense to me."

He goes on.

"Who are you to me anyway? I know we said we're best friends, but the truth is I barely even know you," he says. "It's impossible for me to love you, Oikawa." Not since he's had the surgery. "I'm not supposed to feel anything for you now. Not anymore."

Hajime continues.

"But I don't get it, because here I am so desperate to get to know more about you," he says, "I catch myself still looking for you wherever I go. That time I called you to come pick me up? I second guessed myself right before I clicked on your name to dial your number." In hindsight, he considers, perhaps the smarter choice back then was for him to have spent on a taxi. "'How on earth would you be able to get here?', I thought, 'Where would you find me?' and 'How would you find me?' But then you did. I called you once and then you just did." Hajime holds back a sigh, the hitch of his breath, long-suffering with the edge of frustration. "I don't get it, Oikawa," his voice cracks as it hangs onto the last word, the mere mention of his name, "I don't–"

"We're doing this all wrong, aren't we?" Oikawa cuts him off with a watery smile. Hajime looks back at him and commits the sight of it to his memory. Oikawa pulls away and recalibrates their distance, resets the small space of their interstice and the time lost to them in between. "God, Iwa-chan," the brunet snorts, "we're such idiots."

Oikawa reaches out to hold him. Hajime lets himself be held.

(Here, Hajime remembers: once, he was in love with Oikawa Tooru.)

"Let's try it again, shall we?" Oikawa suggests, hopeful-hearted and eyes chock-full of wonder. He reaches out his hand. He says, "Hi, I'm Oikawa Tooru, twenty-six years old, starting setter for the Argentina National Team. I like volleyball and milk bread. I believe in aliens." Hajime purses his lips as he waits to let Oikawa continue. "And I'm in love with you."

Oikawa grins, not a care in the world.

"I love you, Iwa-chan, even if it's impossible for you now to love me back." Hajime watches as Oikawa intertwines their fingers, a hand kept in his. A touch braver. "So don't worry," Oikawa promises, "I've got enough love for the both of us." Enough to last a lifetime, he winks, before prompting, "Your turn."

"Iwaizumi Hajime, also twenty-six." Hajime frowns. "You already know everything about me."

"Yeah, I do," Tooru laughs and squeezes his hand again. Hajime comes to terms with reality and unravels the memory of a familiar feeling – of buds forming, green leaves beginning to sprout; the blue-violet of a flower as he watches how it finally begins to bloom. "But it's alright," he hears the other boy say, "Tell me again, anyway."

---

notes on flower meanings:br /

apartment/balcony gardenbr /

- kurinji, according to local lore, means secret lovebr /

- marigolds are a symbol of grief, despair and mourning; also used as a remembrance flower during the victorian erabr /

- pansies symbolize memories (purple), loving thoughts (yellow), and souvenirs (white)br /

- bluebells for humility, gratitude, constancy, and everlasting lovebr /

- thyme for chivalry, affection (young love/deep friendship)br /

- morning glories for love, life, death, love in vainbr /

- gardenias for trust, gentleness, love and respect for a partner, secret love, joy; if white, purity, clarity, innocencebr /

- hydrangeas for heartfelt emotion (pink), apology (blue), desire to understand someone (purple); apology/gratitude in hanakotobabr /

- monstera for honor, respec and longevity (chinese symbolism); suffocation (western cultures)

dream (feat. rare blooming plants)br /

- agave/century plant is known as the tree of lifebr /

- rotschild's slipper orchid has no specific flower meaning attached to it but orchids in general can be taken as emblems of integrity, elegance and friendship (chinese); love, luxury, beauty, strength, refinement, fertility, thoughtfulness, and mature charm (western)br /

- gibraltar champion is a rare flowering perennial of the genus silene, silenes carry symbolic meanings of gentleness, youthful love, or less commonly, a snare

anzubr /

- apricot blossoms (namesake) for elegance, faithfulness, pure heart, luck, happiness, loyal lovebr /

- yellow acacias (hanahaki) for true friendship and can indicate secret lovebr /

- camellias (perfume) for love, devotion, affection, and admiration

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thank you for reading :) happy birthday oikawa!