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Iwa-chan’s friends must really love him, Tooru thinks to himself, only a little bitterly. This hotel isn’t anything special, but for a group of college students to be able to buy out a block of rooms for their friend’s twenty-second birthday is a feat in itself.

He berates himself for the ugly tone of his internal thought; after all, he has no right to be the only one who is allowed to do nice things for Iwaizumi. 

Tooru landed in LAX a few hours after he was originally supposed to. He was stuck on the tarmac in Buenos Aires for an ungodly amount of time; the flight included an inexplicable layover in Denver that naturally had its own delays. But at least he had finally made it to Los Angeles physically in one piece, even if his patience lay in tatters. 

Landing in LAX was also nerve-wracking. He had never been to this airport before, even though it’s the largest one in Southern California. Every time he had visited Iwaizumi before, he landed in Santa Ana, the closest airport to Irvine. Iwaizumi’s friends had booked the ticket for him, so Tooru couldn’t do much but blindly trust that they weren’t sending him to an unknown airport to kidnap him or something. They assured him, yes, Los Angeles is where he is supposed to go because as they said, “There is nothing to do in Irvine past 10 PM other than get boba or Insomnia Cookies.”

Over the past several weekly video calls, Iwaizumi had hinted at the fact that he wanted Tooru to be there for his twenty-second birthday. After all, it would be the first birthday during which both of them would be legally allowed to drink in the United States. So given that Hajime’s eyes got increasingly wishful with every call, it wasn’t a surprise when Tooru got a message from an unknown number conveying the details of Hajime’s birthday celebration, imploring him to come, and urgently telling him to keep it all a secret.

What was a surprise, however, was that the message was in Spanish, a language Tooru is much more comfortable speaking than English. He was shocked and paranoid for a moment—half-convinced that they were somehow surveilling him—until the friend told him about how often Iwaizumi mentions Tooru, and about how over the years, they’ve come to know many random facts about Tooru, including the fact that he mainly speaks Spanish nowadays.

Tooru had begged the friend, as his liaison to the rest of the group, to let him pay for some part of his travel or lodging. After all, he’s the working professional here; the rest of them are students (and based on how often Iwaizumi moans and groans about the cost of university in America, Tooru bets that at least some of these friends are equally broke). But they repeatedly refused, telling Tooru that because this is all for Hajime, it’s fine. This is their birthday gift to Hajime, who deserves it all, and more.

Tooru can’t disagree with that.

He was supposed to meet up with the group of friends at the hotel and surprise Iwaizumi there, in a more quiet, controlled environment. They would then head over to the club together, Iwaizumi and Tooru squeezed side by side in the back of a cramped Uber, thighs and shoulders touching, Iwaizumi’s breath on Tooru’s cheek, hands mere centimeters away from one another.

Well, that’s what it was like in Tooru’s imagination. 

But now that Tooru is late, he is left to Uber from the airport to the hotel alone, the last of the Southern California sunset slipping beneath the horizon. He stumbles through the explanation to the front desk receptionist about how no, his name isn’t on the reservation, but yes, he’s supposed to be staying here for the night, but no, the friend he’s visiting isn’t even the one who booked the rooms, but yes, he—kind of—knows the person who did.

Tooru would like to thank his good looks or his youthful charm or his wisdom when it comes to navigating foreign countries, but the receptionist is probably just nice. Or maybe she just takes pity on Tooru, whose skin is greasy from hours of travel, whose hair is mussed from the static caused by the airplane headrest, and whose eyes are frenzied and anxious to get to where he is supposed to be. She eventually trusts him enough to hand over a key card so Tooru can finally get up to the hotel room and shower after his long day of travel.

But a glance at his watch tells him that he doesn’t even have time to savor the hot shower—not that the water pressure is great anyway—before he needs to get ready and head over to the club. 

Something in him tells him to impress Iwaizumi—it’s just because they haven’t seen each other in person for so long, Tooru tells himself, of course he would want to flaunt how well he’s doing, how much he’s tanned, how much he’s been working out—so he would rather spend more time primping that meticulously showering. He runs his round brush through his hair, making sure the wave of his bangs lays exactly right. He dabs concealer under his eyes, dark circles having formed from the long hours of traveling. He pinches his cheeks to get some color into them and spritzes cologne on his pulse points before he’s out the door, clad in an aqua blue button-down and white skinny jeans.

Either everyone was lying to him about Los Angeles traffic or he just happened to be lucky (it better be the latter; the universe has saddled him with enough traveler’s bad luck already), but Tooru makes it to the club listed in record time. Unlike at the hotel, he doesn’t have to negotiate with the bouncer. All he needs to do is say Iwaizumi’s name and flash the invitation that Iwaizumi’s friend sent him before he’s being waved to the front of the line. His ID is checked and a holographic wristband is wrapped around his wrist. It’s different from the plain yellow wristbands that everyone else in line is receiving, and it allows him to be waved through the entrance and up a flight of stairs without issue.

At the top of the stairs, the ground-shaking, ear-shattering music of the dance floor below is more muffled. But once his wristband is checked by another bouncer and a glass door is pushed open, another wave of music crashes into Tooru’s ears, though more hip-hop and R&B rather than the EDM playing downstairs.

Tooru isn’t one to get nervous in social situations. On good days, he knows he’s hot and talented and that everyone should want to flock to him. On bad days, he has had enough practice at faking the same emotions to get through the day. But today, he’s completely the odd one out. The dim multicolored lights make it hard to pick out anyone’s faces, even one he knows as well as Iwaizumi’s. The heavy bass obscures people’s voices, making it even harder than usual for Tooru to hear and understand the snippets of English that float between drum beats. And, he doesn’t know if Iwaizumi’s friends have some sort of plan for this supposed surprise; would he ruin months of planning by just walking further into the throng of people? Potentially bumping into Iwaizumi without the fanfare that his friends had planned for?

So Tooru hovers near the door he entered from, nervously glancing at the unread text message he had sent Iwaizumi’s friend when he arrived. He doesn’t blame her for not seeing it; there’s no way she would hear a ringtone in this room and from the looks of the other partygoers, it’s entirely possible that she’s too inebriated to respond even if she had read it.

But thankfully, on the third time that Tooru glances at his phone and back up, there’s an olive-skinned, curly-haired girl in a shiny fringe dress dashing over to him. Her big hoop earrings and bangles sparkle in the colorful lights.

“ ¡Hola! Eres Tooru, verdad? Soy Daniela, pero llamame Dani. ¡Mucho gusto!” (Hi, you’re Tooru, right? I’m Daniela, but call me Dani. Nice to meet you!)

“ Si, mucho gusto, ” Tooru replies and is promptly pulled into a hug from the girl he’s been communicating with for the past few weeks. She smells like strawberries, but also tequila and cigarette smoke. Her aura is so warm and friendly that Tooru is sure that he could babble away with her all night, forming a quick friendship, but he has more pressing matters on his mind. “¿ Dónde está Iwa-chan, uh, Hajime?” (Where is Iwa-chan, uh, Hajime?)

She points towards the wall covered in floor-to-ceiling windows, showing a grand view of the Los Angeles city skyline. Right outside is a long and narrow balcony which is packed with people standing practically shoulder to shoulder, all holding plastic cups or e-cigarettes or both.

Iwaizumi is standing among them, holding a red plastic cup, laughing and looking absolutely radiant.

A tap of Dani’s hand on his shoulder brings his attention back to her. Two shots of what looks like tequila have suddenly materialized in her hands. Or maybe she had left to get them. Tooru isn’t sure how long he had been staring at Iwaizumi, but it seems entirely reasonable that it was long enough for her to have walked away and come back. It seems entirely reasonable that Tooru was so engrossed in the image of Iwaizumi, glowing and smiling and looking on top of the world that he forgot about everything and everyone else around him. 

“ Toma un trago conmigo antes de salir,” she says, pushing a shot into Tooru’s hand and gesturing at a plate of limes on the side table next to them. She raises an eyebrow suggestively. “¿ Vienes de Argentina verdad? Puedes tomar tequila, ¿sí?” (Have a drink with me before you leave. You came from Argentina, right? You can drink tequila, yes?) She rips open a little packet of salt with her teeth and offers some to Tooru as well.

Tooru grins at her. “Claro que si.” (Of course.) They lick the backs of their hands simultaneously before Dani pours some salt onto the wet patch. Almost with the beat of the music, they lick the salt, down the shot, then shove slices of lime between their teeth. Tooru is about to turn and leave but Dani whips back around with another brimming shot, pressing it into his hand without hesitation. Her big brown eyes are eager and her grin is devious, so Tooru can’t back down now. He has his pride, after all.

So Tooru is three tequila shots deep by the time he escapes Dani’s insanely high alcohol tolerance and makes his way to the sliding glass door that separates the oppressively hot interior from the blissfully cool night air. There are no lights out here, so the city skyline shines ever brighter. But the multicolored lights from inside provide enough illumination for everything and everyone to be perfectly visible out here.

Everyone out here is beautiful, but none as much as Iwaizumi Hajime.

Tooru has seen his best friend in sleeveless shirts before. He’s seen Iwaizumi in muscle tanks—a glorified name for old t-shirts with the sleeves unceremoniously hacked off. He’s seen Iwaizumi in undershirts before which hugged his body but also made him look ratty and sloppy. He’s even seen Iwaizumi in a basketball jersey before, the one time that he was inexplicably asked to sub in on the Aoba Johsai basketball team for a game when one of their players had been out sick. Apparently, to nobody’s surprise but Tooru’s, Iwaizumi performed amazingly.

But he has never seen Iwaizumi in a sleeveless top this tight before.

Calling the shirt black feels like a disservice; it has a sheen to it that almost makes it look metallic and under the multicolored lights, it’s nearly iridescent. It’s so figure-hugging that Tooru swears he can see the dips and curves of every single one of Iwaizumi’s abs through the fabric, peaks and valleys that are somehow made more explicit, not less, by the clingy top. It leaves his wonderfully chiseled arms on full display, the muscles dancing and flexing under the lights as he reaches here and there for a hug or a smoke or a drink. Have his arms always been that muscular—that toned and cut like diamonds? Had simply not come across via the grainy video that Tooru had gotten used to seeing him through?

Girls and boys surround him and stare at him. If Tooru is being petty (and he is), he’d say they’re ogling Iwaizumi. But the liquor drenched part of his mind says, who can blame them? After all, if he were left to his own devices, Tooru would be staring unabashedly too. But he has other priorities right now. Specifically, to get Iwaizumi to stare back at him, and him only.

He wants his voice to come out loud and clear, confident and sexy. To blow away all the beautiful people that literally stand between him and Iwaizumi. To be able to cut through the music, so loud that it sends shockwaves through Tooru’s body. 

But maybe it’s the fact that Iwaizumi looks so happy and content being swallowed up by his friends. Maybe it’s because Iwaizumi is laughing with his eyes closed, leaning into one of his friends to take a drag from his vape pen, nudging another friend with his elbow to sneak a sip of their seltzer that Tooru almost feels bad interrupting the reverie that he is clearly in. Maybe that’s why Tooru’s voice comes out more unsure and tremorous than he would like it to when he calls out, “Iwa-chan.”

But the way that Iwaizumi’s slate green eyes snap to Tooru just at the sound of his voice erases all doubt from Tooru’s mind. The way his eyes widen in wonder and the way they sparkle—not just from the lights overhead or from the city in the distance—makes Tooru remember that he is absolutely, definitely, unquestionably the most important person to Iwaizumi in this room, if not on this planet.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi breathes, his voice soft yet somehow piercing through the din of the party. Maybe it’s a miracle that comes with being the birthday boy. But Tooru thinks that, more likely, it’s because he would be able to pick out the sound of Iwaizumi saying his name even through the most deafening of sounds. Through sirens and air horns, through hurricanes and earthquakes, through thousands of miles of unforgiving earth and daunting oceans, Tooru would be able to hear Iwaizumi say his name.

Iwaizumi pushes his way past his throngs of friends, his broad shoulders and determined gait cutting through the crowd easily. At some point, he must have set down the red plastic cup he was holding because by the time he reaches Tooru, he is able to throw his arms around Tooru’s waist and have nothing in his hands but fistfuls of Tooru’s shirt. At any other time, Tooru would have scolded him for mussing up his top and tugging it half out of his pants, but right now, all he can think about is how warm and solid and physically here Iwaizumi feels in his arms. All he can do is wrap his arms around Iwaizumi and bury his face against Iwaizumi’s neck and breathe in the warm and comforting and nostalgic scent of his best friend.

“What the fuck ? What the hell are you doing here?” Iwaizumi says, still in that breathy, wondrous voice. Even curse words sound soft and tender in this voice. Tooru swallows hard, wondering how drunk Hajime must be to grab the open collar of Tooru’s shirt in order to haul himself upright. Why else would Iwaizumi hold onto his shirt like that? Thumbs graze over Tooru’s collarbones and chest as Iwaizumi runs his hands down the collar, tracing the edges of the triangle of bare skin. Why else would Iwaizumi do this, if not for the liquor and smoke clouding his mind?

“No reason,” Tooru says with a shrug, though the big smile on his face gives everything away. Tooru uses the sarcasm, the teasing, to distract from how red his cheeks feel. The damn tequila. “Is today a special day or something?” 

Hajime snorts, his eyes sharpening and losing the delighted and drunken dreaminess that they held when he first laid eyes on Tooru. “No, this is just a typical night in California. You know, the private club, open bar. It’s all normal,” he replies with equal amounts of sarcasm.

“Oh damn, your friends flew me out all this way just for a ‘typical’ night?”

Iwaizumi whirls around, staring at his friends. Tooru drags his eyes up from Iwaizumi to look at the same thing Iwaizumi is: his friends gathered around with their phones out, recording the shock and awe and unadulterated joy on Iwaizumi’s face.

“But you guys already booked all the hotel rooms and this club,” Iwaizumi says in English, in a voice that sounds almost choked up. “Did you really also—?”

“You’ve told us so many times that you wanted your best friend here for your birthday, so of course we had to make it happen!” one of the guys exclaims in English loud and clear enough that even Tooru could pick up on the meaning hidden behind each and every single one of the words.

That Iwaizumi has friends who love him very much.

To his own shock, Tooru doesn’t even feel jealous at that fact. He no longer feels petty or bitter or envious. On the contrary, it warms his heart to know that even without him here, Hajime is thriving and being loved.

But Tooru is still a little petty. He’s still a little selfish. The fact that Iwaizumi has amazing friends won’t stop Tooru from clinging to Iwaizumi’s side for the rest of the night. Everyone else can love him, but only Tooru can have him, he thinks to himself with a pout on his face.

“What’s wrong now, Shittykawa?” Iwaizumi asks, flicking a piece of hair away from Tooru’s forehead as Tooru is practically wrapped around Iwaizumi’s left arm. “You can’t be looking like that on my birthday.”

“Says who?” Tooru asks, sticking his tongue out at Iwaizumi.

“I’m the birthday boy,” Iwaizumi says, the affront in his voice nearly genuine. “So what I say is the law for tonight.”

“And what exactly are you saying?”

“That I only want to see you smile on my birthday.”

Tooru’s petty pout falters. “Oh. Don’t waste your birthday wish on that.”

“I can wish for whatever I want,” Iwaizumi mutters, his glance averting from Tooru for the first time tonight. “And I wish for you to be happy.”

Tooru’s heart pounds. He blames it on the heavy bass of the music. “Wish that for yourself, dummy.”

Iwaizumi hums noncommittally, and Tooru is about to release his latch on Iwaizumi’s arm just to grab the front of his shirt and shake him until he agrees, when Iwaizumi is saved by two red solo cups shoved in front of their faces.

Tooru at least has the dignity to inspect the liquid and start to ask what’s in the mixed drink, but Iwaizumi chugs it without a second thought—urged on by the whooping and hollering of his friends—and Tooru refuses to be beat by Iwaizumi so he follows suit. Thankfully, it tastes like some delightful combination of yakult and Sprite and alcohol.

Despite the fact that Tooru could hardly taste the alcohol in the drink, let alone feel the burn of it as it slid down his throat, his vision turns fuzzier not long after he sets down the now empty cup. Iwaizumi started drinking long before Tooru (now that he’s met his friends, Tooru wouldn't be surprised if Iwaizumi was woken up this morning with a handle of vodka shoved into his face), and has also been smoking various substances, but Tooru definitely feels like he’s less sober than Iwaizumi. At least, based on the way he feels an inexplicable desire to to clutch onto Iwaizumi’s shoulders—holding fistfuls of his shirt, making it ride up on his waist, exposing the deep V of his hip bones—he should be drunker than Hajime. If he isn’t drunk, he shouldn’t want so desperately to hold onto Iwaizumi for safety and comfort. At least, that’s what Tooru tells himself.

With that rationale, maybe Iwaizumi is as drunk as he is. After all, his hand seems superglued to the dip of Tooru’s waist, subconsciously gathering an increasing fistful of the turquoise fabric, revealing an ever-growing sliver of Tooru’s bare skin. The grip is both comforting and possessive, as if Iwaizumi is as anxious to keep Tooru by his side tonight as Tooru is to keep Iwaizumi. 

It makes sense, right? That when the two of them are drunk and high and vulnerable, they gravitate to the person in the room that they have known the longest, that they feel the safest with. It has nothing to do with the fact that Iwaizumi’s hair is sweaty and mussed, looking like he’s just emerged from a round of warm, afternoon sex. Nothing to do with how red and plush Iwaizumi’s lips look, dyed from the cherry red soda he’s been mixing with his vodka. Nothing to do with the fact that Iwaizumi’s hand has migrated from Tooru’s waist to his hip, his thumb running back and forth absently on the slice of bare skin that he exposed.

The night only gets hazier, the people only get drunker, the liquor only gets sweeter. At some point, Tooru and Iwaizumi are carried by the flow of the crowd back inside where the music is louder, the lights are dimmer, and the air is hotter. The fact that it suddenly feels like they’re back in the middle of a hot and humid Argentinian summer doesn’t stop Tooru from keeping a hand entwined with Iwaizumi’s the whole time, their palms sticking together with sweat. It feels natural. It feels good to do so.

It doesn’t stop Iwaizumi from pressing his chest up against Tooru’s back, his groin to Tooru’s ass, as a song with a deep bass and sultry rhythm comes on. It doesn’t stop Iwaizumi from placing his hands on Tooru’s hips, tracing the curve of Tooru’s hip bones with his thumbs. It doesn’t stop Tooru from leaning his head back onto Iwaizumi’s shoulder, his lips a hair’s breadth away from Iwaizumi’s ear and Iwaizumi’s mouth ghosting along Tooru’s jaw.

Despite how close their lips and ears (and hands and legs and chests and bodies) are to one another, no words are exchanged. Tooru tells himself it’s because the music is too loud and he doesn’t want to shout to be heard. It’s not because he’s scared that if any words come out of either of their mouths, it will be something that will ruin the magic that seems to be enveloping the two of them. It will be something about how friends shouldn’t be grinding up on one another, hands roaming and breaths hitching. It will be something about how they shouldn’t ruin two decades of safe, comfortable, easy friendship with something that might fill the yearning hole in their souls but could also send their hearts to ruin. It will be something about how tonight is an exception, they can never do this again, they will never speak of this night again. And Tooru can’t risk that. 

But his alcohol-deluded mind will let him risk craning his hands behind him to wind fingers through Iwaizumi’s belt loops, to pull him impossibly closer to himself. He will risk pressing the tiniest of kisses to the juncture of Iwaizumi’s jaw and earlobe—a testing, teasing kiss. He will risk letting himself release a soft sigh—that sounds more wanton and needy than he meant it to be—as Iwaizumi ducks his head to press a kiss along Tooru’s throat.

Because they’re twenty-somethings, and some physical actions between friends can be written off as drunkenness and horniness mixed into a dangerous elixir. Words and feelings, on the other hand, especially ones that have been buried and guarded for over a decade, are more dangerous.

Tooru remains pressed up against Iwaizumi like this, until the overhead lights turn on and everyone in the room groans or screams at the sudden onslaught of light. Tooru had thought that he only dared to remain practically glued to Iwaizumi’s chest because of the dimness of the club room making all decisions seem like good ones. But even with the fluorescent lights, announcing the impending closure of the club and the end of their reservation, Tooru can’t bring himself to tear himself away.

Thankfully, it seems like Iwaizumi feels the same. When the lights come up, he groans and buries his face in Tooru’s shoulder, all while wrapping his arms around Tooru’s waist and holding him tight.

“No, I don’t wanna,” he mumbles, like he’s a petulant child waking up in the morning and whose mother has just thrown open the curtains.

“I don’t think you exactly have a choice, Iwa-chan,” Tooru replies, nudging with his elbow so that he can look up and see staff members of the club coming upstairs to usher them out.

The two of them—still practically attached—walk through groups of Iwaizumi’s friends to get to the exit. All the friends are trying to coordinate a fleet of Ubers to come and take them to the hotel with varying levels of organization and success. Despite the ringing in his ears and his tenuous grasp of English—especially when spoken so quickly and so slurred—Tooru can pick up snippets of the conversation.

“Should we get them their own car?” someone asks with a not-so-subtle glance in Tooru and Iwaizumi’s direction.

“Uh, if you’re gonna pay for it. It’s, like, over $50 at this time of night in this part of town.”

“Yeah, no. They’ll squeeze in with us.”

“What if they start making out in the car?”

“It’s Hajime’s birthday! Just let it happen.”

Tooru’s face burns, but Iwaizumi seems to not have overheard it because he doesn’t react. True to their word, Tooru and Iwaizumi end up squeezed in the backseat of an Uber with two of Iwaizumi’s friends. Tooru, despite being the tallest of the group, ends up behind the driver’s seat which has seemingly been pushed as far back as humanly possible.

Normally, Tooru might make a fuss about it and pout and whine, but he stays quiet this time. Largely because Iwaizumi notices his discomfort and wordlessly pats his lap, letting Tooru swing his long legs over Iwaizumi’s thighs for the duration of the drive.

It appears that their car was one of the last to leave because all of Iwaizumi’s friends who are staying in the hotel for the night as well are already gathered in the lobby, waiting for them. They are all giggling for some reason as Iwaizumi exits the car first and reaches out a hand to help Tooru out as well, as if Tooru were some debutante in a poofy dress, needing assistance to simply step out of a vehicle (but Tooru doesn’t complain; after all, it means that he can hold Iwaizumi’s hand again). 

They swarm the elevator—thank goodness it’s too late in the night for any respectable hotel guests to be around—and follow Tooru up to his floor. Iwaizumi doesn’t make a move to press any other floor’s button, and neither does anyone else. Tooru only assumes that it’s because the block of rooms they booked are all on the same floor.

Iwaizumi’s hand is still held tightly in his own.

He keeps waiting for the moment that Iwaizumi will let go and peel away from his side, announcing that this is his room and that he will see Tooru in the morning. Every step down the ugly hallway carpet makes Tooru’s heart seize, waiting for the moment that their sweaty palms will slip apart and their fingers will disentangle.

Finally, the moment comes where Iwaizumi audibly swallows and hesitantly unfurls his fingers from around Tooru’s hand.

“This is my room,” he says, quietly and almost sadly.

“Ah,” Tooru says, equally quiet and sad. Suddenly, he realizes that he doesn’t even know what room number he’s in; he had just been blindly following Iwaizumi, not wanting to leave his side before it was absolutely necessary. He fumbles through his wallet and emerges with a key card, bearing the exact same number as the room they are currently standing right in front of.

“Wait, Iwa-chan, this is my room.”

Iwaizumi blinks blankly at him. “What are you talking about, Idiotkawa? This one’s mine.” He whips out his own key card which has the exact same number written in Sharpie on it.

The group of friends standing behind them abruptly burst out into giggles. Tooru and Iwaizumi turn around—Iwaizumi with a fire in his eyes that conveys how he demands answers and will possibly behead someone to get them—to see the friends running haphazardly down the hall, dispersing into their own rooms and slamming the doors shut before Iwaizumi can chase after them. The last person to disappear into their room calls out:

“Thank us later, Hajime!”

Iwaizumi groans and buries his face in his hands. Tooru shifts his weight between his feet, unsure of what to do and how to hide the growing heat on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Tooru blurts out. “I literally came up here earlier before the club and I didn’t notice any of your things. I must have been in too much of a rush. Obviously, there was a misunderstanding or something so I can just go buy a hotel room for myself and—”

“Don’t be stupid, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi mutters. “You’re literally swaying on your feet—” Tooru doesn’t tell him that it’s from nervousness, not drunkenness. “Just come inside and we’ll figure things out. Worst case scenario, you crash here. It’s not like we haven’t slept in the same room before.”

He fails to mention that they’ve even slept in the same bed before. But that had been in their childhood bedrooms, with their parents just down the hall. That had been when they were children or preteens, small enough to fit onto a twin size bed together, young enough to have thought nothing of it.

But they are neither small nor young now. Iwaizumi is broad and tall and handsome and chiseled. And the single queen bed in the hotel room somehow looks smaller than either of their childhood beds.

Now that Tooru isn’t in a rush to shower and get dressed and get out the door, he can see Iwaizumi’s belongings in the room. To be fair, it makes sense why he hadn’t noticed them. The duffel bag is packed neatly and placed next to the TV cabinet, hiding it from view from the front door. On the other hand, Tooru’s toiletries are scattered across the bathroom counter, a reflection of his frenzied state from earlier.

“I’ll call the front desk,” Tooru stammers, making a beeline for the telephone on the nightstand. “See if there’s an empty room available for me.”

Iwaizumi has sat on the foot of the bed, hunched over so that Tooru can’t see his face. Can’t see his expression. “Don’t bother,” he says in an unreadable tone. “I don’t want you to waste your money.”

“It won’t be a waste. I don’t wanna be in your space, especially on your birthday—”

“Since when have you ever cared about not being all up in my space?” Iwaizumi snorts, finally turning to look at Tooru. His eyes are fond.

Tooru shrugs, looking away. The fondness makes his cheeks burn. “I’ve matured, I guess.”

“Yeah, right,” Iwaizumi retorts. 

There’s a pause between them—a heavy, loaded pause.

“What if I want you to stay?” Iwaizumi finally says, softly, tentatively, cautiously.

Tooru’s heart pounds again. There’s no music to blame it on this time.

“Is that your birthday wish?” Tooru asks. There’s a tease and a joke hidden in the words. To hide the fact that what Tooru really wants to say is yes, please, I want to stay here with you too.

“It can be,” Iwaizumi says with a blush and a shrug. “If it’ll get you to stay.”

“But you already wished for me to be happy.”

“Well, would it make you happy to stay?”

Iwaizumi blurts out the question fast—as if wanting to get the words out before he lost the nerve to do so. His fists are clenched in his lap and his mouth is a little agape. His cheeks are ruddy with something other than alcohol and his eyes are wide, like he can’t believe what he just said.

And Tooru can’t quite believe it either. He hasn’t exactly processed the words themselves, let alone the true meaning behind them, but Iwaizumi’s vulnerability makes him drop open his mouth and drop down his defenses and say what he wanted to say all along. “Yeah, it would.”

Iwaizumi covers over the tender underbelly of the moment with another shrug, a grunt, and a vague gesture towards one half of the bed. “Take whichever side you want.”

Tooru looks down at himself and the way that his shirt is half-pulled out of his pants and half-sticking to his body with sweat. “I’m not getting into bed like this, and you better not either!” Tooru points accusingly at Iwaizumi, whose hair is damp and skin is sweaty and lips are wet and muscles are bulging and—

“Well, then go shower, Shittykawa. I’ll go after you,” Iwaizumi grumbles. “Do you want me to tell you to do every single little thing?”

If that means he’ll say everything in that deep, gravelly voice, then yes, Tooru would like him to tell him to do every single thing, no matter how small the task.

But the alcohol is starting to fade from Tooru’s mind (and he thinks that he would never admit this fact, no matter how inebriated he might be) so he just presses his lips together and nods before scurrying into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. He avoids looking at himself in the mirror—knowing that his face is going to be unbearably red and blotchy—as he quickly strips and hops into the hotel shower for the second time that night.

Maybe it’s a good thing that the water pressure is kind of shit and the hot water is more accurately described as lukewarm because otherwise, Tooru would be much more inclined to spend longer in the shower. And if he were to spend longer in it, it would become more and more tempting to wrap a hand around his cock—half-hard since the moment that Iwaizumi pressed up against him, the bass sending vibrations through both their bodies—and jerk off the to the thought of the man sitting just beyond the tiled wall. But Tooru is still drunk enough to worry a little about slipping and falling in the shower, and drunk enough to really want to curl up under the blankets, so he rinses off and hops out.

Which is when he abruptly realizes he didn’t bring his pajamas into the bathroom.

Tooru groans and wraps the now damp towel around his waist, securing it by rolling the top over once. He can’t help but think that it is better for him to do this than Iwaizumi. He thinks he might spontaneously combust if Iwaizumi emerged from the steamy bathroom, clad in nothing but a towel hung low around his hips. 

But an equally scorching vision greets him once he exits the shower.

Iwaizumi is where Tooru left him: sitting at the foot of the bed. But the small differences make the biggest impact. 

Like how his shirt is off, pooled on the floor next to his feet. The fabric shimmered on every contour of Iwaizumi’s body, but it is still nothing compared to how his tan skin glistens and glows in the dim light. The peaks and valleys of his chest and abs are even more prominent in the dramatic light coming from the single sconce on the hotel wall.

They’re made even more prominent with the way that Iwaizumi is leaned slightly backwards without the support of his hands; the obtuse angle of his body is held up entirely by the strength of his core, rippling and flexing so deliciously in the light. As if the scene couldn’t get any more sweltering, Iwaizumi is leaned back like that because he’s fumbling with the fly of his jeans, made up of a row of buttons rather than the typical zipper. There’s a trail of dark hair, framed perfectly by Iwaizumi’s hands, leading to places that Tooru has thought about only in the dark of the night, in the middle of his bed.

“Um, I’m done with the bathroom,” Tooru announces, hoping to pop the tension ballooning in the room.

But when Iwaizumi looks up and stares at Tooru’s bare chest instead of his face, it appears that the tension doubles in size. The ogling doesn’t really seem one-sided anymore.

Tooru supposes that part of his fascination with Iwaizumi’s body is that it’s new. They’ve grown up together, so Iwaizumi’s body had never been new to Tooru before. They’ve bathed together, changed together, stripped down on hot Japanese nights together. But now it’s been years since they’ve seen each other at this state of undress. It’s only natural to be curious, right?

But it’s not exactly curiosity that bubbled up in Tooru’s belly as he watched Iwaizumi tug at his waistband with his bottom lip between his teeth. And it sure isn’t curiosity that now flares in Iwaizumi’s dark eyes as they shamelessly roam the bare expanses of Tooru’s chest and shoulders and abs and hipbones. It’s been an equally long time since Iwaizumi has seen Tooru this naked. Since then, Tooru has become a pro athlete, a minor celebrity, and the occasional model (for sporting goods, but it still counts). He knows he looks different than before.

He knows he looks good.

A faint inkling of this idea has been percolating in the back of Tooru’s mind for most of the night, but he is finally just barely sober enough to take the pieces of evidence and observations he has gathered throughout the night (throughout the past decade of his life) to make one simple inference that changes everything.

Perhaps he wants Iwaizumi. And perhaps Iwaizumi wants him too.

But before he can say or do anything—not that Tooru has any idea what to say or do—Iwaizumi clears his throat and looks away. “Okay, cool,” he mumbles, picking up his shirt off the floor and hurrying towards the bathroom. He walks faster than necessary. He slams the door harder than necessary.

Tooru changes into a pair of boxers and a slightly oversized t-shirt. He didn’t bring pajama pants—he wasn’t planning on sharing a room or a bed with anyone, let alone the person that he fantasizes about more often than he would like to admit. He has to remind himself that it’s Iwaizumi, he won’t mind Tooru’s bare legs. They’ve certainly seen each other in much less.

But Tooru still tucks himself into bed to cover up his legs before Iwaizumi comes out of the bathroom.

Iwaizumi comes out of the bathroom with the towel slung around his neck, using one end of it to dry his hair, somehow still spiky despite the water dripping off of it. Unlike Tooru when he came out of the shower, Iwaizumi is dressed in a pair of black sweats and a Godzilla t-shirt that should be too small, but is so threadbare and worn that it still stretches to fit over his chest.

Tooru knows the shirt should be too small because he had given it to Iwaizumi years ago, before Iwaizumi’s shoulders had fully broadened and his chest had become so nicely defined.

“You still have that shirt?” Tooru asks, a little dumbfounded, staring open-mouthed at Iwaizumi for completely different reasons than earlier.

Iwaizumi’s face turns bright red. “It’s my sleeping shirt,” he mumbles, scrubbing the towel through his hair one more time before draping it across the back of the hotel desk chair. “What? I like it, okay?”

“Clearly,” Tooru snorts. “By the looks of it, you should’ve thrown it away ages ago.”

“I never would’ve thrown it away. You gave it to me.”

Tooru’s heart stutters and his face likely turns as red as Iwaizumi’s.

“Okay, well, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t get you a gift this time,” Tooru stammers. “Who knows how long you would’ve kept whatever I gave you, even if it was dirty and falling apart.”

Iwaizumi yanks the duvet out of its tightly tucked corners at the foot of the bed before sliding underneath to join Tooru. “What are you talking about? I thought that you being here was your gift.”

Tooru waves a hand in the air dismissively. “Your friends planned everything. Your friends paid for everything. I didn’t do anything. All I had to do was show up at the right place at the right time.”

Iwaizumi literally smacks Tooru’s hand out of the air. “Stop that. You had to take time off. You had to make room in your insane schedule. And you had to take, what I’m sure, was a disgustingly long flight to get here. Just to celebrate my birthday.” He trails off a little, sounding like he’s coming to his senses. Like he’s risen to the top of a pool and is able to take his first breath of air. Iwaizumi’s hand, now on the bed, inches ever closer to Tooru’s, the same hand that he just hit out of the air and is now laying limply on the mattress. “Just to celebrate me,” he murmurs, wondrously and shyly. The tone is uncharacteristic; it’s vulnerable; it’s rare. Only Tooru gets to hear this, to see this. 

It’s Iwaizumi’s special day, and yet, Tooru feels like he’s the special one for getting to experience this.

The soft fabric of Iwaizumi’s sweatpants grazing against his bare leg under the covers. The fresh and boyish scent of Iwaizumi’s body wash hanging in the air. The valleys and peaks of his face and neck in the one-directional light, the last vestiges of baby fat melting into defined bone structure.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Tooru says after a hard swallow. His throat is suddenly dry. Suddenly, it’s hard to get words out. Something about how Iwaizumi’s pinky finger starts to curl around his own makes it hard to speak. “It’s your birthday—of course I would come. And I wanted to see you, so everything worked out perfectly.” Tooru pauses, gathers his thoughts, and decides to be honest. “I always want to see you. There’s not a moment when I don’t wish I could see you.” He curls his pinky around Iwaizumi’s as well.

A sign of a childish promise. Or the forebearer of further physical touch. Tooru thinks it might be the latter this time.

Like the touching of a cable to a battery, the firing of a synapse between neurons, the striking of flint against steel, the few centimeters of skin to skin contact is enough to change something in the air. To make it heavier, hotter, thicker. To make it so that Tooru swears he can feel each nerve in his body—feel how every single one is telling him to get closer to Iwaizumi, to press himself against the man, to try and absorb every cell of him into himself so that maybe they could finally form the two halves of a whole that they were always meant to be.

And like with many other things, Iwaizumi seems to be thinking, feeling, dreaming of the exact same thing that Tooru is. Based on the way his eyes—green normally, hazel now in the light, gray when he moves into shadow—flicker to Tooru’s lips, Tooru knows what’s coming.

If he thinks, truly and honestly, about every moment alone with Iwaizumi Hajime over the past two decades of their lives, he should have known that this was coming years ago. It should have felt inevitable, preordained. Like it was written down in the stars at the beginning of time that one day, two boys would be born only forty days apart and that they would be so inseparable that eventually, their lips would meet, as naturally as an apple falls to the earth.

“Kiss me?” Iwaizumi asks. If his voice wasn’t so soft, so nervous, it might have sounded like a demand.

Not that it matters; Tooru would have obeyed either way.

But he’s Tooru, and he’s Iwaizumi, Iwa-chan, Hajime . So Tooru must tease. “Geez, yet another birthday wish?” he says. He tried his best but there’s not even a hint of snark behind his words. Instead, they come out breathy, anticipatory, on the edge of a freefall. “You know it’s way past midnight, Iwa-chan. It’s not your birthday anymore.”

“I know.” Iwaizumi audibly swallows. Tooru swears he can hear the whirring of Iwaizumi’s brain, the pounding of his heart. Maybe it’s just the hum of the ice machine down the hall or the thudding of footsteps from the floor above, but Tooru would like to believe that Iwaizumi’s body is reacting the same as his own—as if they are about to leap off of a cliff together. “I wanted to ask you so many times tonight—fuck, not even—more like so many times in the past few years , but it never felt right. Or I was too scared. Or I felt like I was an idiot, like I was going crazy, thinking that maybe you felt the same way too.”

Tooru’s heartbeat reverberates through his body.

“And tonight, I wasn’t scared,” Iwaizumi is babbling now. His eyes look frenzied, gleaming and darting like a deer in the headlights. “I felt good— everything felt good. But maybe I was still an idiot because I had this thought that maybe if I asked you to kiss me at that party you would do it just because it was my birthday and because it was my stupid birthday wish or something. And I didn’t want that. I don’t want that. I want you to kiss me because you want to too. Not because you wanna do something nice for me or because you wanna fulfill a dream of mine that I’ve had probably as long as I even knew what kissing was!”

Astonishment and adulation, elation and excitement, destiny and desperation whirl in Tooru’s chest, combine to form words that he’s been yearning to say since the moment that he and Iwaizumi’s souls were formed from stardust.

“Kiss me,” he echoes. 

And Iwaizumi, Iwa-chan, Hajime —with a strangled noise that sounds like a man gulping down water for the first time in days—surges forward to fulfill that demand.

He tastes like the toothpaste brand they’ve been using since they were children. He tastes like the last shot of liquor they took before stumbling out of the club. He tastes like the yearning and longing and craving that Tooru refused to admit and define for far too long.

He regrets it now—he could have known this taste, this feeling for years and years and yet, he deprived himself of it simply out of fear of rejection. Of fear that the most important person in his life would cast him out for the sin of loving him a little too deeply and a little too fiercely.

But the way that Hajime coaxes Tooru into opening his mouth so his tongue can slip past his teeth and the way he lets out little breathy moans against Tooru’s lips and the way that his hold on Tooru’s pinky has become a grip on Tooru’s wrist tells Tooru that his fears were unfounded. Hajime loves him—just as much, just as fervently, just as profoundly—as Tooru loves Hajime.

They’re both propped awkwardly on one forearm—the one connected to their linked hands—and it’s partly because that arm is going numb and partly because Tooru wants so much more of Hajime that he heaves his body upwards and swings a leg over Hajime’s hips, sitting against his thighs without ever breaking the contact between their hands or their lips. Hajime lets out a little groan as he scooches upwards on the bed so that his torso is propped up by the headboard and so that he’s more easily able to lick into Tooru’s mouth with ever increasing passion.

Tooru slips his hands under Hajime’s shirt, so threadbare that it feels like a feather floating on the back of his hands. His fingertips graze over Hajime’s body, as warm and firm as Tooru dreamed. Muscles that weren’t there the last time Tooru touched Hajime’s bare chest ripple and flex under his fingers. Every ridge of hard muscle that he traces sends another wave of want through Tooru’s body.

“Tooru,” Hajime chokes out, detaching himself from Tooru’s mouth for what seems to be the first time in ages. His eyes are glassy, his pupils are blown, and he’s heaving for breath. Tooru doubts that he himself looks any different.

“Yeah?” Tooru asks, his voice equally ragged.

“Um,” Hajime’s face turns scarlet as he gestures vaguely towards his crotch. “Uh, I’m sorry.”

Tooru looks down to see a noticeable bulge in Hajime’s sweatpants. One that matches the one in his boxers.

“Oh.” Tooru’s face burns equally red. “Um, it’s okay. I mean, same, I guess. Um—” Tooru doesn’t know exactly what to do. It’s not every day that you make out with your best friend moments after you confess your decade-long love for one another. It’s not every day that you have one of the hottest men possibly to have ever existed right under your fingertips. Tooru doesn’t exactly have experience handling this situation.

But his body seems to know what to do. Or, at least, what it wants to do. Because his hips buck forwards (he’ll later say it’s because he was trying to get himself into a less compromising position. It’s demonstrably untrue.), grinding against Hajime, extracting a half-strangled, half-wanton moan from Hajime’s mouth.

Tooru didn’t even know Hajime could make a sound like that. He didn’t even know how much he had wanted to hear a sound like that.

So he does it again. Bucks his hips upwards and forwards like he does into his fist in the dead of night, when he thinks about black hair and tan skin and gray-green-hazel eyes. But he doesn’t have to imagine this time—the man himself is right under him. And it’s not his lonely, pining hand that he’s sliding against, but rather the equally excited cock of the handsome man before him.

Hajime lets out less of a moan and more of a gasp this time, his head tilting backwards and his hand fisting in the sheets. “Fuck,” he pants out. “This is— You are—”

His shirt is rucked up to his collarbone and Tooru is desperate to get it off. Hajime must understand—maybe it’s the near psychic connection they seem to have, maybe it’s just the feral gleam in Tooru’s eyes—because he practically rips the shirt off of himself before pawing at the hem of Tooru’s. Tooru obliges and strips himself of his shirt as well before diving back down to connect their lips once more. Their chests pressed together, slide of skin against skin, makes everything better, makes everything more intense. 

Hajime’s hands run up Tooru’s ribs, where it would normally be ticklish but his firm touch just makes it feel intimate. Like he’s carving the shape of each of Tooru’s bones into his memory. His thumbs slot between their bodies and flick at Tooru’s nipples. Tooru whimpers—he might have been embarrassed at the sound if his brain didn’t already feel so foggy with nothing but Hajime, Hajime, Hajime .

“Fuck, Tooru, if you keep doing that—” Hajime groans between heaving breaths. Between nipping at Tooru’s bottom lip and tracing each crevice of his mouth with his tongue. “I’m gonna— I’m gonna—”

Tooru looks down at himself. Sweat creates a sheen over his chest and stomach. More importantly, he hadn’t even realized that he never stopped grinding his clothed cock against Hajime’s. If anything, he must have escalated his thrusting because a wet mark stains the front of his boxers and Hajime’s sweatpants.

He’s caught glimpses in locker rooms. He’s imagined it multiple times. His subconscious has conjured it in more dreams that he would admit to. But now he has the opportunity to witness Hajime for himself. Tooru sits up, hooks his fingers under Hajime’s waistband, and pulls his sweats down to reveal Hajime’s leaking cock, as thick and weighty as Tooru’s wettest dream. 

“Wait, Tooru.” Haijme’s hand darts forward to grab Tooru’s wrist. His eyes look almost alarmed. “Um, I don’t… I don’t want to…”

“Oh!” Tooru starts to pull Hajime’s pants back up but Haijme’s other hand around his other wrist stops him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. I wanna— It’s just—” His face somehow turns redder than before. “I wanna—you know—do stuff, but I just don’t wanna have sex tonight. I don’t have lube. I don’t have a condom. We’re in a—” He releases his grip on Tooru’s wrist to wave a hand around. “Kinda shitty hotel. And I had always imagined, you know, somewhere nicer, for, um, our first time.”

A grin spreads across Tooru’s face. He leans forward, lips inches away from Hajime’s. “Oh, so you’ve imagined us having sex before?”

Hajime rolls his eyes even as his face burns scarlet. “So what if I have?” he mutters.

“Such a romantic, Iwa-chan,” Tooru giggles, pressing a quick peck to his lips before sitting back on Hajime’s lap. His cock remains hard and red, curved up towards his toned stomach, framed by the black waistband stretched around the middle of his thighs. “Well, if you don’t wanna have sex tonight…” Tooru flutters his eyelashes up at Hajime. “Can I blow you instead?”

Hajime lets out a choked sound and drags his hands down his face. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve thought about you saying that,” he croaks out.

Tooru takes that as a yes and pushes Hajime’s sweatpants all the way down before settling on his stomach between Hajime’s legs. He’s given blowjobs before but never has one felt so important before. Nervousness nearly settles in Tooru’s stomach before he remembers that this isn’t make or break—Hajime isn’t going to suddenly fall out of love with him because he gives a bad blowjob. And yet, he wants— needs— to make this as good for Hajime as possible.

He takes the base of Hajime’s cock in his right hand, holds it at the right angle for him to comfortably lean forward and take the tip of it into his mouth. With how Hajime throws his head back against the headboard with the first experimental suck, there’s likely no way that Hajime will be disappointed with this.

But Tooru is ever competitive, even when there isn’t a rival in sight. He can’t just blow Hajime; he needs this to be the best blowjob Hajime has ever had.

With one swift movement, he swallows the rest of Hajime’s cock. Even with his fingers circling the base of Hajime’s cock, keeping him about an inch away from meeting Hajime’s pelvis, Haijme’s cock touches the back of his throat. He’ll work his way up to the whole thing, he promises to himself. 

But for now, he alternates between hollowing his cheeks around Hajime’s cock and releasing the suction to lick up and down the length of it, leaving glistening trails of spit in his wake. Precum beads at the tip of it, and Tooru licks it up eagerly. The salty taste of it just adds to the haze in his mind that crowds out all thought but making Hajime feel good.

And it certainly seems like he’s feeling good. Tooru has only been able to catch glimpses up at Hajime through his lashes but it seems like his mouth has yet to fully close since Tooru started blowing him, letting out a non-stop stream of moans and half-garbled praise. His eyes are lidded, fluttering between being closed in ecstasy and looking reverently at Tooru. His hand has ended up in Tooru’s hair, carding through the brown locks in a way that’s both comforting and possessive at the same time. The firm presence of a palm on the back of his head keeps Tooru close to Hajime’s cock at all times.

Not that Tooru wants to leave. He’s gathered enough saliva in his mouth at this point; he’s gotten used to the feel, the taste, the weight of Hajime enough to relax, to push aside his gag reflex, to remove the crutch of his fingers at the base of Hajime’s cock and swallow him all the way down, feeling his length push so deliciously into the back of his throat.

“ God , Tooru.” Hajime’s fingers tighten in his hair, sending delightful pinpricks through his skull all the way down to his own cock which twitches in his boxers. “Fuck, baby, yes .” 

In a clearer state of mind, Tooru may have commented on the pet name; he may have blushed or teased Hajime for it as a way of covering up how much he likes it. But he can now physically and mentally do nothing more than moan at the sound of it, his throat vibrating with the sound around Hajime’s cock.

“Oh, baby, god, fuck , I’m getting close.” Tooru can tell. He can tell by the way Hajime’s grip on his hair turns vicious, possessive, desperate to keep Tooru on his cock. He can tell by the way Hajime’s cock jumps in his mouth and leaks down his throat. He can tell by the way Hajime’s hips start moving, grinding, thrusting, urgently and frantically; his fingers curled around Hajime’s jutting hip bones do nothing to halt it, not that he would want to.

“Tooru—” Hajime chokes out, almost as a warning. His hand moves to Tooru’s shoulder and attempts to push him off, but Tooru shakes his head as best he can with Hajime’s cock still in his mouth. He wants every part of this experience. He wants every part of Hajime.

“You’re gonna— You wanna swallow?”

Tooru nods this time, the movement causing Hajime’s cock to drag ever so slightly over his teeth. Maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s the final sudden deep dive of Tooru’s mouth on Hajime’s cock, sending it thrusting back into the back of his throat. Maybe it’s just the thought of Tooru so eager and willing to swallow his cum that heaves Hajime over the edge with a shout of something that sounds like Tooru’s name and a desperate grip on the back of Tooru’s neck.

Salty and bitter liquid spills into Tooru’s mouth and he swallows without a second thought. It rounds out his understanding of Hajime. He’s known what Hajime looks, sounds, and smells like. He’s found out what he feels like under his fingertips. And now he knows what he tastes like.

He knows everything about Hajime. Hajime is his everything.

Tooru half-expected that Hajime would flop against the headboard, eyes closed and chest heaving with the aftermath of his orgasm, but instead, seconds after Tooru has swallowed, he’s being abruptly yanked upwards and his mouth pressed against Hajime who seems desperate to lick out the remnants of his own release with how eagerly he’s kissing Tooru’s open mouth. 

“That felt so good,” he groans against Tooru’s lips. His hands hurry south to pull Tooru’s boxers off of him. His hand is around Tooru’s cock, spreading precum down the length of it before Tooru can even think to respond. “You made me feel so good.” 

How is it that Tooru feels more boneless than Hajime should be after his orgasm with a single swipe of Hajime’s thumb over the tip of his cock? And yet, that’s how Tooru feels as he collapses against Hajime, his face buried in the crook of his neck as Hajime strokes his hand up and down Tooru’s cock, loose enough to glide easily, tight enough to cause the most amazing friction against the length of Tooru’s cock.

“Hajime,” Tooru whines against the shell of his ear. “Hajime, Hajime .”

With Tooru’s arms around his neck and his hand still on Tooru’s cock, Hajime tips them backwards so that Tooru is laying on his back on the bed, his head inches away from the foot of the mattress. His hand has yet to disconnect from Tooru’s cock. He resumes his stroking as he latches his lips against the side of Tooru’s neck, sucking hard enough to bruise.

The litany of soft yet obscene praise fluttering against his ear. The slick and steady strokes up and down his aching cock. The scraping of teeth and caressing of tongue against his throat. All of it piles up, builds up, winds up a wave in Tooru’s stomach that crashes without warning. That sends white shooting over his stomach and sends white blanking out his mind.

The only physical thing he’s certain of at this moment is that a gasp of “ Hajime ” bursts from his lips as he hurtles over the edge.

When he comes to, it feels like he’s surging out of the surface of a pool, with a heaving breath and a burst of warm light. Hajime is there to welcome him, a firm arm wrapped around his shoulders, propping him up. A wad of tissues is crumpled in his hand and a gentle smile is on his face.

“Felt good?” he asks, as if Tooru’s eyes aren’t still bleary with pleasure and as if he isn’t still trying to catch his breath.

“Yeah,” is all he manages to say before nuzzling against Hajime’s side.

“Get under the covers,” Hajime says, his usual gruff efficiency back in his voice. Tooru obeys, not needing or wanting to grumble about Hajime telling him what to do like he normally would. It’s probably because Hajime pulls the duvet up over his shoulders before getting underneath it himself, his legs immediately tangling with Tooru’s.

There’s a brief moment of quiet when Tooru curls his arms under Hajime’s armpits to bring them as close together as humanly possible. Hajime lets out a contented huff and presses his nose into the top of Tooru’s head. One hand lays on Tooru’s hip, the thumb tracing over the bone, while the other dangles uselessly behind Tooru’s head, the bicep it’s connected to serving as Tooru’s pillow.

Tooru licks his lips in preparation to use them for speaking again. The haze in his head has cleared enough for him to consider the questions that floated in the back of his mind throughout the whole thing. “What does this mean? For us?”

Hajime looks down at Tooru with the most hopeless, withering look on his face. It doesn’t at all match what comes out of his mouth next. “What do you think it means?” he asks. “It means that I’ve been in love with you for years, idiot. And that I finally got my shit together enough to tell you.”

“Wait, you never properly told me that,” Tooru detaches himself from Hajime and scoots backwards so that the full force of his pout can be aimed at him. “All I remember is you saying all sorts of nonsense and then kissing me. At no point did you say, ‘I’m in love with you, Oikawa Tooru.’”

“I guess if you have to be that specific, then yeah, that didn’t happen,” Hajime groans, rolling his eyes dramatically. But after his irises have completed their circle, they land back on Tooru, no longer teasingly scornful, but rather tender and earnest. Gentle, yet intense. “If that’s what you want to hear, then fine—I’m in love with you, Oikawa Tooru. Have been for a long time.”

Tooru doesn’t know what he expected was going to happen. He goaded Iwa-chan into saying these exact words after all. But they sound so different falling from Hajime’s lips than from his own. They sound like scripture; they sound like a solemn vow.

And Tooru must reciprocate.

“I’m in love with you, Hajime,” he murmurs, hoping that he was able to inject as much love and fondness and adoration into his voice as he feels in his heart. He hopes that it’s able to stir as many emotions in Hajime as Hajime’s words did in him.

By the sound of the small chuckle that Hajime emits and by the looks of the fond sparkle in his eyes, it seems like Tooru has accomplished his goal.

“So, are we boyfriends now?” Tooru asks, a little teasingly. After all, “boyfriends” almost sounds too trite a word for what they are to one another. Partners, maybe would be better. Soulmates, perhaps.

Hajime snorts. If Tooru had meant his question, maybe he would have felt offended at the response. But he didn’t. And he knows that Hajime knows that too. Labels don’t matter to them. No label could ever encapsulate the maddening, world-ending love they have for each other. “Hell no,” Hajime scoffs. “I’m not letting our anniversary be the same day as my birthday. If it were the other way around, you’d throw a fit about it!”

Tooru points accusingly at the electric alarm clock on the bedside table. “It’s not your birthday anymore,” he retorts again. “Stop trying to make your birthday last longer than it is!”

“If our anniversary was on July 21st, would you be okay with that?”

Tooru huffs and pouts, and Hajime knows he’s won.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hajime says with a laugh. He pulls Tooru close again so he can nuzzle the top of his head. Tooru is taller than Hajime and he usually likes it that way. But he also likes the feeling of being surrounded by Hajime’s embrace, even if it means his feet poke out a little past the covers at the foot of the bed. “I’m gonna take you out to a nice dinner, maybe even something cliche, like a movie, unless you can think of something better. A real, proper date. And that can be our anniversary, okay?”

Tooru huffs again, this time in shy delight rather than bratty indignation.

“Promise?”

Hajime laughs into his hair again. A soft, fond sound. 

“Promise.”