When the brown, big eyes opened again, Oikawa was faced with a bright, blinding light. He gasped and covered his eyes with his hand, then flinched of the sudden pain in his arm. What happened? Where was he? He heard a sharp breath near him, and suddenly the room was full of noise.

"Doctor? He's awake!" – "Tooru, do you hear me?" – "Oh my god, we thought we lost you." Oikawa blinked few times, trying to get his blurry sight clear. When he finally perceived his surroundings, he realized that the ones talking were his parents. His mother smiled and hugged him, tears in the corners of her eyes.

"You really woke up", she cried. "I'm so glad. Don't ever scare us like that again." Oikawa didn't understand what she was talking about. He didn't feel or remember anything. Was he in the hospital?

"You were unconscious for eight days", his father said with a worried tone in his voice, petting his back with careful strokes. "What in the world happened?" That was the moment when the memories came back to Oikawa's mind. He let out a quiet, panicked squeal and gripped his head with his hands, trying to make himself as small as he could. His breathing quickened and he started trembling, his mind going blank of terror. He remembered the voice of his torturer, the look at Iwaizumi's face and every single word they said. He didn't hear how his parents called for doctor again, shocked of his reaction. Breathing was hard for him, and he tried to forget everything. He demanded himself to calm down, but it didn't work. He felt like he was drowning, like he couldn't breathe even if he tried to.

"Tooru… Tooru, calm down! It's okay, you are safe now." The calm voice felt like it was far away, too far to reach. Then he suddenly could breathe again. He took deep but hasty breaths and his mind started to clear up. The doctor had put an oxygen mask for him. Even when Oikawa could breathe again, he couldn't completely calm himself down. He gripped the mask with his hands and hold it tight towards his face, like he was afraid of it falling off. His eyes were wide open, and his mind was racing. When the fear was finally fading away, the pain came back. His throat was sore and his legs felt like they were burning.

"Hurts…" he whispered. "It hurts." He wanted to get himself together and act like a grown-up man he was, but he felt completely helpless. "Iwa-chan…?"

"May I ask you to leave?" the doctor asked from Mr. and Ms. Oikawa. "He should rest now." After the worried parents left, the man turned back to Oikawa. "Don't think too much. Relax", he recommended. "It helps. Do you feel pain in any part of your body?"

"Legs", Oikawa said huskily. "And throat. And arms, head…" He took a deep breath from the oxygen mask and tried to get his thoughts in order. "Legs. They hurt the worst."

The doctor nodded and started to adjust different kinds of medication devices. "You were really lucky, having a young and athletic body like that. Your physical strength saved you. And the quick action: it would have been too late if the paramedics would have arrived even a few minutes later." Oikawa was still confused of his words. He had fell unconscious at some point, and the memories before that were quite dark. "Don't think about that too much", the doctor said again when he noticed that Oikawa was going everything through in his head. "Your top priority is now recovering. The police will come here later, but I'll turn them back. They can talk to you when you have recovered. Now just try to rest. Here, hold your legs up like this, it should decrease the pain. It would be the best if you wouldn't take any kind of painkillers right now, your system has to empty itself of the drugs. Will you be fine?" Oikawa nodded, because he didn't really care if he felt pain or not. He was still going the incident through in his head, and now he was only worried about Iwaizumi. Was he still alive? Where was he? Questions in his mind made Oikawa feel sleepy, and a little by little his consciousness faded and turned in to a restless, dreamless sleep.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Holy shit, you look awful." Oikawa was still half asleep when he heard a familiar voice from the door. When he turned his head, he saw Hanamaki and Matsukawa standing on the doorstep. Both of them were holding big plastic bags, and after greeting him they stepped into the room and walked to the bed, sitting down next to it.

"Long time no see", Oikawa sneered and raised his hand a little to greet them. "And I know I look awful, thanks a lot."

"How are you doing?" Mattsun asked. "You really scared us. We just suddenly got a call from your mother, saying that you were in hospital in a critical state. That gave us a heart attack, you know!"

"Sorry, sorry", Oikawa laughed. "I'm better now. I still have to remain here for some time, since I'm almost like an anorectic. I have to gain some weight before they let me go." He didn't mention the panic attacks and other aftermaths that made his days painful and intolerable. He didn't want to remember them.

"Good. The team sent you some gifts", Mattsun told and took a teddy bear out of his plastic bag. "This is from your uni team. They said they miss you." Oikawa took the bear, too stunned to say a word. His former team remembered him even though he only played with them less than a year? He suddenly felt really bad about that he had to quit. He missed volleyball more than anything.

"Aaand this is from Kunimi, Kyou and other kiddos", Makki gave a bag of different kind of sweets and pastries to him. "There is also a collection of their recent games, if you are bored you can watch them. From me and Mattsun you get our presence." Mattsun nudged Makki's shoulder and chuckled.

"Give those cream puffs to him. You can't eat them alone anyway."

"I sure can!"

"You'll never be forgiven by Iwaizumi if you eat his boy's cream puffs."

"Shit, you're right. He would kill me."

"And lastly", Mattsun continued after Makki finally gave the cream puffs to Oikawa, "we have a letter from Iwaizumi. He said you should read it as soon as possible." Without even thinking Oikawa snatched the letter from Mattsun and opened the wrapper with shaky hands. The letter wasn't long and the writing was unclear, but it definitely was Iwaizumi's.

"Dear Tooru

I don't know if you ever will be reading this, but I sincerenly hope so. I'm sorry about everything and will fix my mistakes. I ask you to stay quiet of what happened. Don't call me, don't even text. You can tell to Makki and Mattsun, but not the police. I'll take care of that when I come back, and quit the assassination organization after this one mission. I'll come back soon. Please be okay.

Hajime"

"He went back there", Oikawa gasped, voice as quiet as the whisper. "Makki, Mattsun, have you hear about him? How did you get this?"

"I got it in the mail", Makki answered. "Breathe, Oikawa. You are trembling again." Oikawa hadn't even recognized that, and he took a few deep breaths to calm himself. His hands were suddenly cold.

"Why in the hell would he do that?" he whispered to himself. "Shit. I need to find him."

"You aren't going anywhere", Makki stated with surprisingly calm voice. "Calm down. What are you even talking about?"

"Oi, Makki, the doctor said we shouldn't ask-"

"I want to know what the fuck is going on!" Makki's voice was now a little bit louder, but he lowered it instantly. "I mean, it seems like Iwaizumi is in danger. Or what do you say, Oikawa? You have never been like this, it's driving me crazy. Is there something you can't tell even for us? I think it's time for you to explain." Oikawa looked at his friend for a while, eyes wide open and unable to answer. Iwaizumi had said that he could tell to Makki and Mattsun. Still, Oikawa was hesitating. He didn't even know if he would be able to talk about that. He had broken down yesterday when police had come talk to him, but now he felt a little bit more confident. He just didn't want to think about it.

"Fine", he sighed eventually. "Just… don't ask anything. I'll try to tell everything." He took a deep, shaky breath and closed his eyes for a slight moment. "Well, first of all, I want you to promise something: You won't blame Iwa-chan about anything I'm about to tell." Makki and Mattsun were clearly confused, but both of them nodded. "Iwa-chan isn't working at the store as he had told you. It's way more complicated. You remember when his mother died? I don't know the details, but his father was then a boss of an assassination organization. Iwa-chan was dragged there, and he became an assassin too. I got to know this by an accident, but Iwa-chan told me the truth himself a week… no, two weeks ago. At the beginning of last month, he told me that they were having a renovation in their apartment, and he wanted to stay at my house for a while. I accepted that, of course." A slight smile appeared on his face when he remembered his excitement. "The truth was that somehow I was his next target. He was supposed to kill me, can you believe that? He had a month time, but at the beginning of the last week nothing had happened. That's when Iwa-chan told the truth to me. We decided to run away, and visited you two to say indirect goodbyes." Oikawa was quiet for a moment, trying to gather his courage and keep his voice low, so anyone else than Makki and Mattsun wouldn't hear him. "I don't know what went wrong. We were supposed to have two days time left. Iwa-chan went to buy some baits for us, and when he was gone, someone knocked the door. There were three men, and they intruded to my house and tied me. One of those men was Iwa-chan's father. When Iwa-chan came back, they knocked him out and tied him too. They must have been insane or something… They told that it was just a way to test Iwaizumi's loyalty, and that I hadn't done anything wrong. They cut us, forced me to swallow so damn many kind of drugs and poisons that I don't even remember how long that lasted. It was horrible, you could never imagine it by this crappy imagery." Oikawa felt like he couldn't breathe anymore, and the last words were just a quiet aspirate. "They wanted us to suffer before we would die." He snatched the oxygen mask from his bed's side and pressed it on his mouth, taking a few hasty breaths. He felt weird. He wanted to continue talking, but it was like his body refused to do that. He closed his eyes and pulled the mask's rubber band over his head so the mask would stay still even when he released his hands. "That was when I lost consciousness. I guess Iwa-chan called help." His voice was unclear from behind the mask, but he knew Makki and Mattsun would hear. Oikawa tried to warm up his hands, but they stayed ice cold. He didn't even glance to his friends, afraid of their reaction. It was quiet for a long time. Oikawa closed his eyes and tried to remember the moment when he found out what Iwaizumi was. He shouldn't say anything right now, Makki and Mattsun just needed a bit time, just like he did.

"Hey, Oikawa, calm down again." It was the first thing they said, and again Oikawa realized that he was shaking. Even that his mind was clear, his body was terrified of talking about the incident. "It's okay. We won't blame Iwaizumi."

"That's the first thing you say?" Oikawa huffed, lowering the oxygen mask to hang on his neck and then flinched of the pain in his legs.

"Well, we promised, after all", Makki said and shrugged. "What else should we say? You just told that you were supposed to be murdered. And that Iwaizumi was supposed to do that. We thought that you were just stupid and took too many painkillers at once or something, but this is something else. So are you saying that he went back to his father? To get revenge? He doesn't know that you are alive, after all."

"That's what I was worried about. He'll get himself killed. I must go there!"

"Hold up. If Iwaizumi is an assassin – or was, if you please – isn't he going to be fine?" Mattsun interrupted. "I guess he was trained for situations like this. At least you wouldn't be any help there. I don't know what kind of organization that is, but judging of what I've now heard, I don't recommend any of us to go near them. The least you, Oikawa. Trust your boyfriend a bit." Oikawa ignored the fact that Mattsun calling Iwaizumi his boyfriend made his cheeks burn and furrowed a bit.

"Mattsun may be right for once", Makki sighed. "Do you even know where that place is? If we can't tell to the police, there's nothing else to do."

"We can't tell", Oikawa admitted. "So am I supposed to just wait?"

"Yes, you are."