Archive of Our Own

chapter one

Ushijima Wakatoshi loved his life. It was simple, it was relaxing (mostly), and it was quiet (not so much anymore). He loved his life. Truly. 

His days were pretty simple: he woke up by eight thirty, sometimes he’d sleep in until nine if his first class wasn’t until later, he’d make himself a simple breakfast and then gently mist his plants. He talked to them a lot (his neighbour thought he was weird) about his day, work, school. He’d narrate his ideas and talk through project plans to help himself organise his thoughts a little better. It also helped him feel less lonely, the feeling that he was talking to someone. After his classes he would either head back to his dorm or pick up a quick bite to eat before heading to work. Sometimes he would go for a run. Never at the same time and not as consistently as he probably should have, but he went to the campus gym semi-regularly so he didn’t think it was that big of a deal.

Today was no different from his usual. 

He woke up ten minutes to nine. His room was tinted grey, his white semi-sheer curtains whitewashing everything. Blinking slowly, his bedroom took a moment to come into semi-focus. He pulled his duvet over his head and groaned, wishing it was Saturday already so he wouldn’t have to go to class. He’d been up late working on an essay for his political communication class last night. He’d gone to bed too late and now his head hurt and his body felt like it weighed ten tons.

He rolled onto his back and flung the blanket down, dropping his arms on either side of his body with a thump. He didn’t want to today. He stared at the ceiling, tracing the faint bumps along its surface. As much as he loved the freedom of being on his own, there were a lot of times when Wakatoshi wished being an adult didn’t come with having to be responsible. With a quiet groan he rubbed his hand across his face and threw the duvet off completely before he could turn himself into a burrito and skip his classes altogether. He swung his legs out of bed and took a moment to gather the willpower to get up and be a person. He stood with a groan and a long stretch, reaching his arms high above his head and leaning a little to either side. He padded out of the bedroom of the apartment-style dorm, running shoulder first into the doorframe mid-yawn.

“Morning Fuyumi.”

He gently stroked the creeping philodendron on the stand just inside the living room. He thumbed the glossy, heart-shaped leaves, checking to make sure she was still doing all right. Fuyumi was an old friend, even though there had been a few versions of her since he'd moved into his dorm. When he first moved for school, along with all of his clothes and the other things he would need, he’d brought his best friend from home: a baby philodendron he’d named Fuyumi after his elderly neighbour’s dog. She’d been the only decoration in his dorm for a long time. He’d gotten really upset when her leaves had withered and browned. He’d gotten a replacement and named it Fuyumi too, not being able to bear naming it anything else. The sprawling plant had kept the same spot in his living room since he’d found the stand of drawers at a secondhand store at the end of his first year. Currently, he was speaking to Fuyumi III; it had taken him awhile to figure out how to properly care for her. If he was lucky, this Fuyumi would see forty with him.

He made the round, greeting the little pointy aloe plant on the coffee table (Hiro), the Pinstripe Calathea (Shima) and the rubber tree (Kou) on the window sill. Next was Mikan, the Columnea hanging in the planter hooked to the ceiling, then the Kalanchoe on the bookcase (Akio), and finally he said good morning to Hisui, the Jade plant he kept on his little kitchen table.

He pulled down a bowl from the cupboard beside the sink and emptied the box of mildly gross cereal he’d been working through into it, then turned to fetch the milk from the fridge. He honestly didn’t have much of an appetite in the mornings, but today was the late day of his week and he really wanted that cereal gone. He’d bought it by accident when he last went shopping, thinking the box was his favourite because it was the same shade of yellow. Turned out the store had changed where the one he likes goes. After a week of eating off-tasting breakfasts, he was glad to finally stuff the bag into the trash and break down the box of bland betrayal. He sat down at the tiny table, saying his thanks before tucking in. 

“I wonder if Himiko-san would get upset with me for calling in tonight,” Wakatoshi said to Hisui.

He pushed his breakfast around the bowl for a moment like he was waiting for an answer. Hisui of course, didn’t give one. He looked back up at him.

“Probably not,” Wakatoshi answered himself. “But I’d hate to leave him to do all the returns and sorting by himself. We all know Suna won’t help.”

If he even shows up.  

There was silent concurrence from the others. Suna was a good worker, Wakatoshi didn’t mean to say that he wasn’t. But, Suna tended to call in more than he showed up. And when he did come in he was usually more baked than a burnt cherry pie. If Suna was there this evening he’d be pleased, but he wasn’t willing to bet anybody on it. He sighed down at his soggy bowl of broken dreams and stuck another spoonful in his mouth. 

He washed his dishes once he was done and passed the dish cloth over the table to mop up any milk he may have spilled while eating. He checked the time on the microwave. 09:18 stared back at him in blocky green numbers. He walked back through the dorm to his bedroom to start getting ready for class. He pulled on a pair of black, well-worn jeans and dug around in his dresser for his favourite shirt. He grinned when he found it. It was super soft and kind of loose from how long he’d had it and how often he wore it. He hung the rust coloured shirt around his neck, moving into the bathroom to start brushing his teeth and fixing his hair. After spitting and rinsing his mouth out he spent a solid fifteen seconds getting his shirt the rest of the way on, not having noticed that he’d put it on backwards in his bedroom. He hopped into a pair of socks once he was back in his room and after opening his curtains to see what the weather was like, he pulled a white cardigan out of his closet. He looked himself over quickly in the full length mirror resting against the wall and nodded at Haru, the ZZ plant on his dresser.

He rooted around in the living room to find the right textbooks for the two classes he had and got his bag together. He said a less than enthusiastic goodbye to his houseplants as he got his shoes on, and then he was out the door. 

He regretted not staying in bed almost immediately. The weather, though sunny, was getting colder. Not that he minded particularly, but colder weather meant snow, and he wasn’t the biggest fan of all the drama that came with doing anything in the winter. There were also way too many people out for his comfort level. He knew it was because of the weather. It had rained most of last week. But just looking at the group of girls sitting on the stairs outside his dorm building was enough to make his hands sweat and his spit thick. He took a deep breath as he neared the main doors to try and calm his racing heart and pushed them open. He skirted the group, keeping his eyes on his feet as he muttered a quiet ‘excuse me’ as he went by.

A yawn crawled up his throat as he made his way across the quad to the Social Sciences building. His first lecture was going to be long and boring. He was not at all excited. He’d hated his political legal theory class since the start of the semester. It was another—the main—reason he hadn’t wanted to get out of bed this morning. He was convinced his professor hated him, though he had no clue why. He hadn’t done anything wrong, he didn’t disrupt class and he handed his work in on time.

People were so confusing.

He pulled the door to the lecture hall open and quickly stepped to the side, lowering his eyes as he let the students coming out pass through the door first. He held the door for a minute, waiting for the couple of stragglers to scurry inside. He made his way quickly to his classroom. He hated getting stuck in the halls, too many people crowding around. And they always walked too slow. It set off his anxiety of being late. There were about ten other people in the room when he got there and he made his way up the rows to the third from the back and took his seat right on the end. As ten o’clock approached more and more people flooded through the door. The level of noise in the room rose higher and higher, people catching up with their friends about what they’d been up to over the weekend.

Wakatoshi got his materials set up, pulling out his textbook, a notebook and his favourite style of pen, and his laptop. He logged in, clicking onto the web browser and typing in his school email. The one redeeming quality his political legal theory professor possessed was that he emailed everybody the slides for the day’s lecture. It made following along a hell of a lot easier, especially since Wakatoshi couldn’t actually see the board from where he sat. He got the presentation set up and opened his notebook to a fresh page, putting the date at the top and the title of the lesson.

There was still five minutes until the class was due to start. He slumped down in his seat a little, scanning the room and watching people talk to their friends. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and cycled through the same three apps to make himself look busy. He didn’t have any friends to talk to in this class. He didn’t have friends in any of his classes actually. Everybody he talked to were in different majors and he didn’t share any classes with them. He wished Tendou was in one of his classes. The red-haired man was great for filling silences. Wakatoshi didn’t share that talent with him either. 

The professor walked in a few minutes later and the room quieted down, the flutter of things being taken out of bags as he set up his own things the only noise. Once the projector finally hummed to life the professor started talking, and Wakatoshi could almost feel himself checking out. His mind wandered, slipped through different thoughts but never lingering on any of them for too long. He blinked himself back into focus, clicking through a few slides to get to where the professor was. As the next two and a half hours droned on he tried to take as many notes as he could. But his brain was too tired to catch every word, so he ended up with a lot of truncated, shorthand bullet points that were probably going to confuse him later. He rubbed his eyes when the lecture wrapped up. If he kept on this way, his foreign policy class was going to suck.

He did. It did.

He could have cried when the class ended. He packed up the rest of his things and looped his bag over one shoulder, slowly making his way down the rows to leave the room. He had two hours before he had to be at work. He was going to forgo his lunch/dinner and take a nap. Once he was out of the lecture hall he beelined across the quad to his dorm building. He made straight for the elevators, jabbing the button in the futile hope that it’d make the thing come down faster. He rode it up to the seventh floor and made his way all the way down the hall to the last door on the right. His shoes were off and his bag was sitting on a kitchen chair as soon as he was through the door. He set an alarm for an hour and a half from now and promptly face planted into the couch cushions. He reached up to the arm for the throw blanket he kept there for such occasions and unfolded it over himself. 

It felt like he’d been asleep two seconds when his alarm went off. He stared at his phone as his alarm continued to blare through his living room. His eyes flitted to Hiro and he had the sense that the aloe plant was judging him. So, he sat up, immediately missing the warmth of the blanket as it fell off his shoulders, and silenced his phone. With a stretch and a sigh he stood up to make himself something quick and put together something to eat on his break.

He walked out the door with his dinner in hand and his backpack over his shoulders, now empty of school supplies and containing his lunch bag and a water bottle. He ate as he walked to the university library. The air had grown colder now that the sun was starting to set. He breathed in the fresh air and looked around at the changing leaves on the trees lining the paths through campus. He preferred being out later in the evening a lot more than any other time during the day. There were a lot less people around, and the atmosphere just felt different. It felt like he was being let in on some hidden world, walking under the maples during golden hour. The hazy orange sunlight and the calm air, the chilly hug of mid autumn the universe’s best kept secret.

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets once he finished eating and dug his nose into the collar, trying to block some of the cold wind from his face. It just made his eyes water. He praised the library’s heating system when he walked through the glass doors, pulling his face out of his coat and making for the staff room at the back of the first floor. He set his stuff in his locker, noting the absence of Suna’s things, despite the fact that the other student’s shift was supposed to have started at four. He sighed and closed the locker door Suna had left open the last time he’d been at work and left for the floor.

He clocked in and then went to hunt down Himiko-san. He found the elderly man at the main desk. 

“Ah, Ushijima-kun.” Himiko-san smiled as soon as he set eyes on Wakatoshi.

“Himiko-san,” he greeted.

“You look tired, my boy.”

“It’s nothing. What would you like me to do tonight?”

“Perhaps you can get started on the returns? They’ve all been sorted, Suna-kun just forgot to put them away last night.”

Forgot. Of course.

Wakatoshi nodded and left to collect one of the trolleys of books to return. He waved off Himiko-san’s thanks and his attempt at an explanation for why he hadn’t gotten it done earlier in the day. Wakatoshi understood, and really, he preferred that Himiko-san man the desk. He’d been working at the library since he was in his thirties. He was seventy-two now and Wakatoshi knew he couldn’t do as much as he used to. Even compared to his first year he’d noticed Himiko-san’s energy levels waning. It was much better—not to mention safer—for the man’s health if he cut back on his responsibilities. 

He checked which section he’d grabbed and made his way over to the art history section. At least Suna had sorted the books before he left last night. It made it a hundred times easier for Wakatoshi to put them away. He pulled the trolley along behind himself as he walked down the aisles, stopping every once in awhile to put a book back in its home.

He repeated the process until he was through the five return trolleys. When that was finished, he put them in the back storage room so they would be out of the way until he needed to collect the ones sitting out in various corners of the floors and switch them out. He stopped by the main desk, leaning against the top to watch Himiko-san work on the computer. The man noticed him a moment later and gave him a slightly sympathetic grin.

“Ushijima-kun, would you mind going to the organic chemistry section? Some first years came in earlier and I’m afraid they’ve made a bit of a mess of things.”

He hid his sigh and gave a little nod. He hated first years. Nobody payed any attention during the orientation tour to how the library worked, so none of them knew how to properly look for or put back the books they needed. They always left stuff everywhere and never put things in their proper places. And they ate. So much. There was a massive sign as soon as you walked in the door that said no eating or drinking allowed. Wakatoshi was fairly certain that their literacy was selective. The eating thing wasn’t exclusive to the first years, though. He’d seen fourth years and even post-graduate students breaking the rule. But overall, it was the first years that made the biggest messes. The older students at least knew what a garbage can looked like.

He started at the aisle farthest from the study tables. He hated those too. They were always full of people and even though he knew they probably weren’t, it always felt like they were staring at him whenever he was around. It made his skin crawl. They were also really loud most of the time, which made concentrating on work a little harder. 

He set to work, meticulously scanning the shelves and reorganising where necessary. It was time consuming and tedious. A bit of a mess had been an understatement. He kept his eyes on the shelves more and more as he neared the tables. They were full again today, and they were occupied by the people that made Wakatoshi the most uncomfortable. They were the judgmental and rude sort, and he knew that because several of them had made comments about him directly to his face over the two and a half years he’d been in school. As a rule he kept his head down, but when any of them were around he just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. His hands were trembling enough to make him fumble a couple of books when he got to the aisle directly beside where most of them were gathered. He thanked everything that they seemed to be too absorbed in their conversation and he made it through the next two aisles without being noticed. 

He relaxed a little bit as he got to the area with the less occupied tables. His shoulders drooped a little and he could feel some of the tension release from his face as whatever expression he’d been wearing smoothed out. 

“Oh, look at that face,” someone cooed at the table at the end of the aisle.

Wakatoshi kept his eyes on the books. He’d heard people talk like that when with pets, or when looking at animal pictures and it made him curious about what the person who had said it was doing. He really liked animals. But he didn’t look over. Because that would be weird. He didn’t want to look like he was eavesdropping, even though the person hadn’t really tried to keep their voice down.

He rounded the next aisle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blue denim jacket with a grey hood and brown hair.

He heard that same voice many more times over the course of his shift. Sometimes there was an answer, delivered at a lower volume but just loud enough Wakatoshi could pick up on the rasp in their voice. Around eleven the voices disappeared. He assumed they’d left for the night. Wakatoshi finished his shift at eleven thirty and waited for Yachi-san and Akaashi-san to show up for the overnight before walking out with Himiko-san. He was dead tired by the time he flicked the lock of his front door. He hoped tomorrow would be a better day. 

(If only he’d known just how much his quiet life was going to change in the next twenty-four hours, he really wouldn’t have gotten out of bed that morning.)

chapter two

He was having a really good day so far. He’d gotten a proper amount of sleep last night, the konbini on campus carried his favourite cereal, and he had comparative politics of development today. It was his only class and it started at noon, and he wasn’t scheduled to work, so come three o’clock the day was his to do with as he pleased.

He ate his breakfast—the right one now, thank god—standing up. He paced around the kitchen and living room as a sort of cool down from his morning run. He was glad he’d forgotten that he’d shoved his debit card in with his scan card to get into the dorm building. He’d stopped into the little store as he’d returned to campus and had just happened to see his favourite cereal as he was walking to the fridges in the back. It had been a little awkward to run back with the convenience store bag of water, a small box of protein bars and a family size box of cereal, but it had been early enough that the only people to see him were the poor, unfortunate souls who’d thought it would be a good idea to take eight a.m. classes. Most of them were probably first years; they’d learn eventually.

He took a quick shower to wash the sweat and dirt off his skin once he’d downed the rest of the milk in his bowl. When he got out he wrapped a fluffy towel around his waist and grabbed an alcohol wipe from the medicine cabinet, then darted across the hall into his bedroom. He threw on underwear and the crewneck sweater he’d started sleeping in since the temperature dropped, trying to save some of the warmth from his shower. He sat on the end of his bed and hiked his right knee up. There was a pretty decent graze splitting the skin, though he was pleased that it wasn’t bleeding anymore. He opened up the alcohol wipe and cleaned the area. It had probably been cleaned well enough in the shower, but he liked to be sure when it came to stuff like this. He looked at his palms when he was done. They were mostly just red, but the few shallow abrasions on the heels of his palms looked fine. 

He’d tripped while running through the small park not far off campus. He’d been distracted by a dog prancing proudly back to its owner with a small branch and had missed the crack in the running path that he was always careful to avoid. The toe of his shoe had gotten caught in the lumpy, cracked concrete and he’d pitched forward straight onto his hands and knees. 

It would be nice to say that this wasn’t a common occurrence, but that would be a lie. His eyes flitted to the thin scar from a stray cat he’d been scratched by a month ago, and then to the faint tick on his knuckle from when he’d misjudged his distance from the bedroom door and accidentally punched the knob. He was a lot clumsier than most people thought upon first meeting him. Himiko-san said he was like a bear cub sometimes, lumbering around and running into things. It wasn’t his fault his depth perception sucked. (Not really anyway.)

He slipped his pyjama pants on and collected the used wipe and its package, stopping in the bathroom to throw them into the little garbage can beside the toilet. He grabbed himself a drink and a small snack from the kitchen and then curled up in front the tv. He still had three hours before class started, enough time for a movie, he decided. He sacrificed his comfortable position in favour of routing around the drawer in the kitchen he stored important papers in. He made a quiet sound of content when he found the handwritten instructions Tendou had made for him for casting his phone to his tv. He sat back down, carefully following each step until the log in screen for Netflix displayed on both his phone and the tv screen. He consulted the paper again for the username and password Tendou had provided him, and then once he was in, he selected the profile his friend had made for him.

He scrolled through for a minute before picking something random that he thought he might like. Watching movies wasn’t something he’d done very much growing up, so he didn’t really know what he liked to watch. The movie wasn’t bad. He was pretty sure he was going to have to watch it a second to time to get what the plot was about, but other than that he enjoyed it. 

The movie ended and he checked the time on his phone, popping a chip into his mouth. He jerked off the couch and nearly choked when he saw that he only had fifteen minutes to get to class and sprinted for the bedroom to get dressed. He jumped into a pair of pants that were a little too tight. There was no time to look for better ones so he tore through his dresser for a suitable shirt. He pulled a white henley out and shoved a balled up pair of socks between his teeth, rushing out of the room to find what he needed for class. He got his bag together in record time and checked the microwave: 11:52. He shoved his socks on and jammed his feet into his shoes, stopping just long enough to make sure he had his keys, wallet, and his phone before jogging out to the elevator.

He ripped across the quad, his bag bouncing against his back with every long stride. He’d never been so thankful that one of his teachers from high school had gotten him into running. His legs were long and he was fast, and his stamina was great from years of exercising. He knew people were staring at him, a few people shouting encouragements as he passed them.

He streaked by the graphic design building, nearly running a group of exiting students over.

“Push it Ushiwaka-senpai!” He heard.

He knew it was Goshiki, he recognised his voice, but he didn’t slow down or even lift his arm to wave at his kouhai. He took the stairs into the hall three at a time. He slowed his pace a little once he was inside, not wanting to get into trouble for running in the halls. His classmates were just starting to settle into their seats when he walked through the door. He scurried to his place on the far side of the middle row, flushing as people stared at him. He tried to calm his heavy breathing as he made his way up to his seat, thinking the sound of his breathing was a little embarrassing. A few girls two rows above his leaned forward to whisper to the girls sitting in front of them, all of them keeping their eyes trained on his chest as he approached. 

Did he have a stain on his shirt? As soon as he sat down he checked. His brow furrowed when he saw nothing but clean white. What had they been staring at then?

He forgot about it as the prof walked in and he hastily pulled out the things he needed. This had to be his favourite class. They talked about other countries from all around the world, looking a little deeper into their political systems and how they compared to Japan’s. Their teacher had made a game out of last week’s lesson, so instead of taking notes they’d gotten to play a big game of life basically. Countries had been assigned to groups of people and they’d dressed up in their country’s colours and competed against the other groups, the prof giving them challenges related to the political system of their country and he’d asked them trivia questions at random, usually as they were distracted. They’d been allowed to ‘go to war’ with the other countries. This was done via dodgeball-style water balloon fights in the quad. It was a lot of fun.

This was the only class he liked. Well, his politics and culture class wasn’t too bad either.

The next three hours flew by. His notes got a little shaky at one point when the professor did a dramatic reenactment of some scandal overseas, his body shaking too much from his laughter. He covered his mouth at one point, hiding his smile when he noticed a group of students across the centre aisle watching him. A few of them had their eyes blown wide and that age old insecurity about his face being scary crept back in. Other than that though, the class went fine. 

His walk out of the building was a little uncomfortable. He walked to the campus garden where he usually met up with his friends whenever their schedules allowed. He knew his expression was a little pinched when he walked up to the group seated on the grass.

“What’s wrong, Ushijima?” Reon asked as he neared them.

His face heated and he hesitated before answering, “My underwear is riding up.”

Semi snorted. Giggles floated around the group, but they were drowned out by Tendou’s cackling. Goshiki leaned around.

“Don’t worry, you can’t even tell!”

Tendou cackled again. Wakatoshi scowled as he took a seat on the grass, trying to readjust his underwear as subtly as he could. 

“These pants are too tight,” he grumbled, “I don’t know why I have them.”

“Hey, they make your ass look great!” Tendou said enthusiastically.

My ass doesn’t feel great, he wanted to tell the redhead, but he kept his mouth shut and took the wrapped parcel Shirabu held out to him instead. He opened it, the smell of chocolate reaching his nose. A stack of three chocolate chip cookies, still warm, sat in his palm.

“I made too many in class today,” the other shrugged.

“Thank you.”

He broke off a chunk and tossed it into his mouth, humming at the taste. He licked a bit of melted chocolate off his thumb. Someone coughed and cleared their throat. Their conversation picked back up, but Wakatoshi was only half paying attention. Shirabu was a very good baker, a fact that had surprised him when they’d first met. Goshiki tried to rope him into talking about an anime they were all watching, but that was another thing he had no experience with, so he kind of just agreed with whatever Goshiki said and stayed out of it as much as he could. He pouted when he finished his last cookie and stared at the saran wrap, trying to will another one into existence. 

He got up after a minute to throw out his garbage. As he neared the metal trash can he looked up when he heard giggling; a group of girls were watching him from behind their hands. He averted his eyes and tossed the cling wrap quickly and pivoted to return to the group. The girls giggled again. He wiped his mouth and his cheeks, thinking maybe he had chocolate on his face and no one had told him. His hand came away clean though. His shoulders hunched.

He didn’t know why people kept staring and laughing at him today. Was his face really that funny to look at? Maybe it was his clothes, he thought. Those stupid tight jeans and stupid tight shirt. He looked ridiculous. That had to be it. He’d probably made a fool out of himself this morning, coming into class the way he had. He ran his hand through his hair and tugged on it as his skin began to prickle. His throat tightened as that familiar off feeling settled in. His skin felt too tight and too loose at the same time. He wanted to peel it off. He picked at the skin around his fingernails instead.

Next best thing.

He became more aware of his body as he walked. He was too tall, too large. His hands were too big for his body, his right foot turned inward slightly as he walked. He could feel the material of his pants rubbing against his legs. It tingled and burned and he wanted to rip them off. His shirt felt like spiders scuttling across his back. He hated it.

“Hey, Wakatoshi-kun, your phone is ringing.”

Tendou’s voice brought him back into focus. He sat back down, squirming uncomfortably, and dug his phone out of the front pocket of his bag. Yachi’s name flashed across the screen. The call rang out before he could answer, but it started ringing again as the girl called back before he had the chance to call her. He picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Ushijima-kun!” He blinked at the frazzled sound of her voice. She’s panicking again. “Is there any way you could come in?”

“Is everything all right, Yachi-san?”

“It’s roll out and it’s just me and Himiko-san and I tried to call Suna-san but he won’t pick up the phone and Akaashi-kun said he has an emergency—”

“Is that emergency six feet tall and named Bokuto Koutarou?” Wakatoshi interrupted.

He heard Yachi take a breath, which had been his intention with interrupting her.

“…maybe,” she murmured.

Wakatoshi sighed. He didn’t want to go into work, he was feeling way too uncomfortable now. But he could hear the noise in the library in the background, and he knew that despite Yachi being more capable of handling things than she gave herself credit for, two people during Roll Out was not enough. The three of them probably weren’t going to be enough, but it was better than nothing.

“Can you give me twenty minutes?”

“Thank you so much, Ushijima-kun!”

He gathered his things and said goodbye to his friends and got up to leave the garden. He walked back to his dorm and quickly put some food together. He debated changing, but he didn’t want to leave Yachi and Himiko-san alone much longer than he had to. He slung his backpack over his shoulder again and left. He speed walked a little on his way to the library, and when he got inside, he felt his mood plummet even further.

He hated Roll Out.

He weeded his way through the hoard of Faculty of Medicine students and tried not to elbow people out of the way too harshly. He stopped short in the staff room when he saw Yachi and their boss sitting in there. Himiko-san gestured at him to close the door and he unintentionally slammed it in his momentary surprise. So they were hiding. Great. If that wasn’t the biggest, flashiest sign about how the night was going to go. He put his stuff in his locker and joined his boss and coworker in the farthest corner from the door. They were playing a game of cards. He assumed they must have been hiding out for awhile. 

“So how are we doing this?” He asked.

Himiko-san placed a card on the pile. “I’m going to need you two on the floor for a couple of hours. One of you will need to take over the desk eventually. Some new books were ordered last week and they’re supposed to come in tonight.”

Yachi placed her last two cards down, effectively winning the game. She collected all of the cards and reshuffled them, dealing three piles of five cards, placing the rest in the middle. Wakatoshi pulled over a milk crate to join them at the makeshift table. He placed his pairs face down in front of himself. He turned to Himiko-san.

“Do you have a nine? Is it a good idea to stay in here much longer?”

“Go fish. Eh, let them lose their minds a little while longer. Builds character. Do you have a two?”

“Go fish,” Yachi said.

“Do you think anyone else will be able to help out later tonight?” He asked as he handed the girl his seven of hearts.

“Akaashi-kun said he might be able to come in, but whatever’s happened with Bokuto-kun this time sounded pretty bad. Suna-san still won’t answer the phone,” she said.

Wakatoshi sighed quietly. If it would only be the three of them, they’d make do. He really didn’t want to pull Akaashi away if they didn’t have to. Bokuto had had it rough the past year, he knew. Sometimes it was nothing serious, but there had been a close call or two that had nearly sent Akaashi into a breakdown, so if Bokuto called everyone tried to leave them be as long as possible regardless of why he’d called. Suna not answering was no surprise. 

They continued their game of go fish. The sounds of distressed students floated in under the door, but all three of them ignored it until the game was done. Wakatoshi had won. He was quite good at go fish. Eventually Himiko-san sighed and they all shared a look. Tonight was going to suck for all of them. Roll Out always did. But they had a job to do, no matter how much they’d rather leave the general student body to their own devices and go home. At least, that was what Wakatoshi wanted to do. Yachi silently packed up the cards and they stood to go. She put the deck in her locker. Wakatoshi was the first to the door and he held it open for Yachi and Himiko-san to pass through first. Yachi gave him a joking glare as she walked out, silently communicating ‘how dare you make me go out first’. Wakatoshi stuck out his tongue at her impulsively. He flushed a little, because Tendou stuck his tongue out at people not him, but it made the younger girl laugh so he ignored his embarrassment for now.

Wakatoshi took one step out of the staff room and knew he was in for a major headache. The sheer volume of people in the library was insane. First years to fourth years to graduate students and beyond were crammed into every available space. It was nearly impossible to not run into someone. He was pretty sure someone was crying by the classic literature section.

Roll Out was the absolute worst, for everyone involved. It made him glad he wasn’t in any sort of medical program. Every year—not always at the same time, it was a little early this year—the medical department did a mass assignment of projects for every program in its department. Students ended up in a mad scramble and spent as much time in the library as possible. Which made his job a billion times less enjoyable. He’d wanted to work in the library because he thought it would be quiet work he could do on his own. His first Roll Out had been a very rude and very unappreciated surprise. 

Once he, Yachi and Himiko-san made it to the main desk, the older man took his place at the main monitor and dispatched him and Yachi to different areas of the library. Usually there were more people working during Roll Out and they would all get different sections of the library’s three floors to cover. Since it was only the three of them, Himiko-san would take the first from the main desk, Wakatoshi would take the second floor and Yachi the third. He ascended the stairs to the second floor and waved Yachi goodbye as she continued up. He stopped to take stock of what he would be working with and took a deep breath before diving in. 

He started by walking around and collecting books off of trolleys to put back in case someone else needed them. He passed by tables to do the same, as well as to silently make his presence known to the students around the floor. He was there to help them in any way that he could, that was his job for the night. He grabbed a stack of research journals and dodged hustling bodies on his way to the aisle the books belonged to. As he was putting them away a short, soft-spoken girl approached him. She looked to be near tears. He asked her how he could help as gently as he could; he did not want to deal with breakdowns this early into the night. It was only four o’clock. People could start crying at like, seven thirty. 

“Could you show me how the elibrary works?”

“Sure.”

He followed the girl out of the aisle and back to the table her stuff was at. She’d managed to claim an entire corner for herself, which was more than a lot of people could say at the moment. She sat down and woke her laptop up. She was already logged in to the university’s main hub page, which made his job a little bit easier. Not really, but that was what he told himself so that he wouldn’t start crying before seven thirty. He crouched down beside her and spent the next half hour softly explaining how to find the elibrary, how to navigate its different functions, and how to access the virtual copies of the books in the library. She thanked him, thankfully no longer looking two seconds away from bawling her eyes out, and he smiled at her with a nod.

His knees were stiff from crouching so long. He hobbled the first couple of steps away from the table, and went to find something else to do. He was called over by another group of students. He was asked to find them some books, and he turned to go hunt them down. When that was done he had three whole seconds to himself before someone else wanted his attention. 

He despised the Faculty of Medicine.

He spent nearly two hours running around the library for the books people were too lazy to get up and grab themselves. He really didn’t mind if the student who asked him was clearly neck deep in work, or in reading another book and they didn’t want to pause to go look on their own. He knew what it was like to get into a rhythm while working and then have to break it. You never really fell back into it. It was the students who demanded he get them a certain book, or the ones who weren’t actually working that he wanted to say no to. 

Around seven he escaped to an overflowing trolley and hauled it off, hoping to put it away without anyone seeing him. He looked over his shoulder as voices came closer around the corner. He quickly grabbed a pile of books that went in the same aisle and made off with them, legging it down the back aisle to the one he wanted. There were two people there, but he ignored them. They were being quiet and seemed absorbed in their work, so Wakatoshi wouldn’t invite trouble onto himself by asking if either of them needed anything. He started putting the books away. He bent down to put one on the bottom shelf.

“Holy shit.”

He heard someone choke on their drink and mentally rolled his eyes as he stood back up. People should learn to drink slower. Actually, they should learn to follow the library’s very largely printed rules and not bring drinks into the library in the first place. He turned to put a book away on the other side of the aisle. There was a furiously whispered conversation between the two farther down. Something in the back of his brain started going off when relative silence returned. He thought he maybe should have paid a little more attention to it when he nearly ran right into someone.

“Hey.”

Wakatoshi looked into brown eyes and a wide, sideways grin. There was a funny quality to it; he wondered if the guy just had a weird smile. 

“When do you get off? Let us take you out to eat, our treat.”

He blinked at the guy, and then glanced briefly over to the other. He was still sitting with his laptop open on his knees, but he was watching the two of them intently. It took him a moment, but when his eyes met green ones a shade darker than his own, it finally clicked who was talking to him.

Oikawa Tooru.

Wakatoshi’s brow furrowed, remembering the other student’s question. He frowned.

“I can buy myself dinner, thanks,” he said slowly.

Oikawa’s lips twitched and Wakatoshi turned and walked away. He blinked down at his shoes, wondering why on earth Oikawa Tooru would be talking to him. He’d heard of the guy before, of course. He didn’t think there was a soul on campus who didn’t know who Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime were. They were the campus’ it couple, stars of the volleyball team. They were also total assholes who liked to play around with people. Iwaizumi had also broken someone’s jaw last year in a fight. There wasn’t a party they weren’t at. They were always surrounded by people. 

Not the kind of people who spoke to Wakatoshi. 

He shook his head, trying to put the strange interaction in the back of his mind. He resolved to avoid that section of the floor for the rest of the night. He didn’t want to run into either of them again. He finished the trolley, going back out into the crowd to let himself be swept up by frantic students. 

It worked…for about seven minutes. Oikawa was there, leaning against a pillar, when he turned around after helping a first year find which aisle they needed. The brunette was just watching him. When he noticed that Wakatoshi had seen him he offered that strange sideways grin again and waved jauntily. Wakatoshi kept moving. His shoulders got progressively more tense as each time he looked up, Oikawa had placed himself in his line of sight. Frustration boiled in his stomach. Why was he following him? What did he want? Wakatoshi didn’t want anything to do with either of them, so why was Oikawa doing this? He had no reason to speak to Wakatoshi, let alone invite him out for dinner. They didn’t run in the same social circles, they weren’t in the same major.

At least he didn’t think so. He wasn’t sure what major either Oikawa or Iwaizumi were in, or what year. He’d never paid that much attention to the pair. He’d only been curious enough in his first year when someone had mentioned them to ask who they were talking about. After that, all he’d heard of them was campus gossip, although he had seen the fight Iwaizumi was in last year from a distance. To be honest, he hadn’t really believed all the rumours until then. 

He was swallowed by a large group of students on his way to the aisles near the stairs. That was where Yachi found him. Well, to be most accurate she ran face first into his diaphragm. She stuttered out an apology as he steadied her. 

“It’s all right, Yachi-san. Did you need something?” He asked.

“Himiko-san asked me to find you. The new books have arrived, he’d like you to take over the front desk.”

Wakatoshi nodded and gently turned Yachi around. “This floor should be okay for awhile. You might have to check in every once in awhile, but you shouldn’t need to stay down here.”

“Don’t worry Ushijima-kun, I’ll manage.”

He smiled down at her, receiving a beaming one in return. It was good to see her so relaxed. He worried about her quite often. When they reached the stairs Yachi returned to the third floor and Wakatoshi joined the flow of students making their way down. Himiko-san had already left when he reached the desk, so he took a seat behind the main computer. There was a sticky note stuck to the bottom of the screen and Wakatoshi squinted a little to read it. 

The papers for the new shipment need to be catalogued and the books need to be added to the online site. Please do as much as you can but don’t feel like you need to do it all. If you could get the catalogue done that would be a great help to me.

Doing the catalogue was more than okay with him. He could leave the headache of inputting all of the new books into the elibrary’s registry to Suna. The second year would probably hate it. Served him right for ignoring the phone during Roll Out and leaving everything to the three of them. Wakatoshi would get everything organised and filed away properly for Akaashi, so that putting the new books on the shelves wouldn’t take him ten years.

There was a box under the desk that hadn’t been there yesterday, so Wakatoshi pulled it out to see what it was. Himiko-san had left another sticky note, labelling the box as the paperwork for the new arrivals. He fished a pair of scissors from the drawer and used one edge to cut the tape on the box and opened the flaps. There were four bundles of papers, wrapped in a protective sleeve of brown parcel paper and held together by large rubber bands. He pulled out the one on top and swivelled around to grab the mouse and wake the computer monitor up. 

He clicked through until he found the list of books they were getting. He printed it out, along with several sheets of the labels for the books’ call numbers. He grabbed them from the printer and removed the rubber band from the stack he’d placed on the desk and got to work. He highlighted the books on the list as he found the correct papers, fixing the call number labels to the front sheet, as well as the bright orange paper toward the middle of the packet. He finished each set of papers with the library’s bright red stamp and the date of arrival, then put them off to the side.

He was only bothered twice by students who needed help, but other than that the next two hours were peaceful. He’d nearly forgotten about the incident upstairs. His shoulders relaxed and he let his mind quiet down with the repetitive routine of checking off a book, finding the correct call number, and stamping the packets. 

His peace was ruined by a brunette in a sky blue hoodie.

“You’ve got pretty strong looking fingers. I wonder what else you could use them for,” Oikawa purred.

Wakatoshi sighed, blinking up at the man in both frustration at being bothered and confusion. Why did Oikawa want to know about his fingers? 

“I can hold a spoon properly with both hands,” he said, his tone a little flat.

Oikawa blinked at him, his head tilting to the side minutely. He moved his mouth like he was going to say something, but no words came out. 

“If you don’t need anything I have work to do. Please leave.”

Oikawa blinked again. Then he mechanically turned and walked away. Wakatoshi watched him over the top of the desk, just to be sure the guy actually went away. Then he rolled his eyes. 

Seriously, what was with people today? Must be something in the water.

chapter three

Wakatoshi remembered what peace was like. 

He had not known it since Roll out.

It seemed like Oikawa and Iwaizumi were everywhere now. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say they were following him. There was a tiny voice in the back of his mind that told him maybe they were, but he tried his best to ignore it. They had no reason to follow him. They had no reason to pay any attention to him at all. If they were doing either, it couldn’t be for a good reason. He knew what they were like. And people like them didn’t talk to Wakatoshi. Not to say anything nice, at least.

It was starting to mess with him a little bit. At least one of them was at the library when he was. There had only been two shifts in the last two weeks where neither of them had been there. They lurked around corners and suddenly appeared in the parts of the library he was doing work in. He was pretty sure he’d seen Oikawa during one of his morning runs but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure. At that distance everything was fuzzy. Oikawa had somehow gotten his name. Wakatoshi had no idea how. None of his friends went anywhere near them, so he didn’t think they’d told him (plus they didn’t actually know about any of what was going on). They’d both tried to talk to him almost every time they were around, and he’d been nearly run ragged trying to dodge them.

He walked out of his dorm building into the chilly October air. His breath misted in front of his nose as he sighed a deep breath. It didn’t help that Oikawa and Iwaizumi had chosen to dabble in psychological warfare right as debates were starting. He had to do them every year, and every time without fail he hated it. He wasn’t very good at public speaking. He could never quite get the hang of getting his ideas across in an easy to consume, coherent way that didn’t sound like he’d memorised a textbook. He always got really nervous too. Presentations in general gave him anxiety, but having to come up with a response on the spot had made him puke, twice. 

Not during class, but still. It was the principle of the thing. The point was, he was already stressed out, he didn’t need the two of them added on.

He pulled out his phone when he felt the vibration in his jacket pocket. It was Tendou, asking if he wanted to hang out later. He glanced up to make sure he wouldn’t run into anybody before typing out his reply. Of course, just as he was replying to another text, he ran right into someone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking up to make sure the other person was okay. 

“Yahoo, Ushiwaka-chan!” Oikawa smiled.

His fight or flight instinct kicked in. His eyes darted around, but there was no one around that he knew well enough to ask for help. His neighbour from across the hall was walking with a group of people and just happened to look over just as Wakatoshi spotted him. Wakatoshi made what he hoped was an SOS expression, and the guy’s eyes narrowed. Wakatoshi’s hopes mounted. That particular neighbour was pretty cool. Sawamura didn’t judge him like everybody else—apart from his friends—did and Wakatoshi knew he was a nice guy. 

Sawamura took one look at who he was talking to and moved his friends along.

He shot Wakatoshi a sympathetic look over his shoulder as the group walked away. A lightly tanned hand appeared in front of his face. He blinked and moved back, whipping his attention back to Oikawa. The brunette was pouting slightly, but once Wakatoshi’s attention was back on him he brightened up again. 

“I resent you for trying to use Dai-chan as an escape route, but I’ll forgive you if you let me take you out for lunch.”

Sawamura and Oikawa were friends? Shit.

“Um.”

He tried to come up with something to say but he was drawing a blank. A line from an American tv show Semi had been watching a few days ago popped into his head. Oikawa leaned closer and raised a brow. The expression made him look unfairly attractive. This close, the vaguely honeyed scent of the man’s cologne invaded his nose. In his state of mild panic he blurted the line out.

“I think I’ll live.”

Oikawa recoiled a little, his eyes widening. Wakatoshi didn’t stay any longer. He sidestepped Oikawa and legged it down the sidewalk. He didn’t stop for anything. He power walked in the direction of his class, walking on the grass if the other people sharing the sidewalk didn’t move out of his way first. 

Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? He was frustrated at the situation, and he was frustrated at himself. He knew what Oikawa and Iwaizumi did to people like him. Everything was one big joke. Of course, it wouldn’t seem like that at first, but he’d seen the aftermath of the games they played with people enough times to know that they were trying to do the same thing to him. He wondered where they got off on it. Was it getting people to believe them? Or was it what happened when they found out the truth? Did they get their kicks out of watching people cry over them, or run out burning with shame because they’d believed the lies, they’d eaten right out of their hands without hesitating.

He refused to be their next fix. If they wanted to mess with someone so badly they could go find someone else. The next campus clown would not be him. He got laughed at enough already. 

He thought that. He wanted that. And yet…

And yet he liked the way Oikawa smelled. He liked how animated and genuinely happy he looked when he was talking with Iwaizumi. He liked the sleepy look on his face when the pair stayed at the library until Wakatoshi got off, even though them following him got annoying. Iwaizumi always ended up carrying both of their bags and wrapping an arm around Oikawa’s waist, gently herding him out the door before he could fall asleep at one of the tables.

And he liked how relaxed Iwaizumi was around Oikawa. He’d seen Iwaizumi in a fight; brutal and violent and unforgiving. He’d seen Iwaizumi around campus, and every time there was something stiff about the way he talked to people. But when he was around Oikawa he just…melted. He spoke softly, and he smiled. That was something else he liked about the man. Everything about him was so private, but he’d been privileged enough to see what Iwaizumi was like when the rest of the world couldn’t see him. He liked his eyes too. He usually didn’t think green eyes were all that special—his own eyes were green after all—but Iwaizumi’s were nice.

They were slowly chipping away at him, which wasn’t allowed to happen. It was exactly what they wanted. They still annoyed the hell out of him; it was terribly difficult to get any work done when they were around every corner sometimes faster than he was. And what made him the most angry was that he knew, he knew it was all a game for them. They wanted something from him, but whatever it was Wakatoshi refused to give it. And here he was despite that knowledge, slowly softening around the edges.

He tried to put the whole thing out of his mind as he pulled his things out for class. He didn’t want to become their next victim. He couldn’t let his guard down. He knew that if he did, he’d let them in and they’d ruin his life because he wanted to believe all the pretty words they’d string together for him. He’d follow along and do as they asked and everything would be great. Until they pulled the rug out from under him and the ending he knew was waiting would come. 

It’d happened to him once, in high school. He’d had a lot more faith in people when he was sixteen. He’d learned his lesson before his next birthday had come around.

~~ . . . ~~

He was curled up on Tendou’s twin bed, one of the redhead’s plushies tucked under his chin and a pair of his socks on his feet. They were fluffy and warm and hot pink. Tendou had decided halfway through their hangout that he wanted to have a sleep over, so they’d gone out for snacks and spent way too much money. They’d also stopped by Wakatoshi’s dorm to pick up his pyjamas and dump his school stuff, seeing as tomorrow was Saturday. Wakatoshi usually didn’t like sleeping in socks, but Tendou always saved the softest pairs for him, so he could survive one night.

They were marathoning Ghibli movies while picking at Mount Cavity (as Tendou had called it). Tendou was sitting on the floor making towers out of chocolate bars like one would make a house out of cards. Sometimes Wakatoshi felt that Tendou should have gone into physics instead of culinary arts. He had no idea how the towers were staying up. Tendou delicately placed their last chocolate bar on the top of his third tower.

“So,” he said, still focused on his task. “What’s on your mind?”

Wakatoshi glanced at the back of his head before looking back at the tv screen. “Nothing.”

The chocolate bar was a little too heavy and the tower toppled. Tendou watched the bars crash onto the floor and shrugged. Then he turned around and rested his forearms on the mattress, his chin resting on top. He had a soft look on his face that Wakatoshi had learned meant he was concerned.

“You’ve been so jumpy lately,” he spoke in a murmur, “we’ve all noticed. And you’re quieter and more fidgety than usual. What’s going on?”

He averted his eyes and hugged the stuffed toy closer to his chest, curling up a little tighter. Tendou’s expression saddened the longer he didn’t speak. He hated that he was worrying his friends, but he didn’t want to drag them into his messes.

“Did something happen?” Tendou asked just as softly. “Is it your parents?”

Wakatoshi shook his head. “Not this time.”

“Okay.”

Tendou didn’t push anymore. Wakatoshi would talk when he was ready, he knew. He glanced at his friend quickly, but then he decided against voicing his question and just dug the lower half of his face into the plushie’s head. But Tendou, Ushijima Wakatoshi expert that he had become, knew exactly what he wanted to ask, and Wakatoshi had never been more grateful that he and Tendou didn’t need words to understand each other.

The redhead got off the floor and climbed onto the bed, crawling over Wakatoshi’s bent legs to wedge himself between the wall and his back. One arm wiggled underneath him while the other and his leg were thrown over Wakatoshi’s stomach and thigh, wrapping around him like a koala. They continued watching the movie like that in comfortable silence. When that one ended they let whatever suggested movie Netflix had queued up play, both too comfortable to get up and grab the remote.

“Oikawa and Iwaizumi,” he started. Tendou didn’t say anything, just fiddled with Wakatoshi’s sweater. “They’ve tried to talk to me. It stresses me out because I know what they want, but I don’t, if that makes any sense. You know what they’re like, what their friends are like.”

“Don’t I,” Tendou muttered.

“Debates are coming up but I haven’t been able to focus because they’ve been following me around for two weeks—”

“Hold up!” Tendou removed his leg and shot up, leaning over to look him in the face. “They’ve been stalking you? For two weeks?”

He opened his mouth to deny it, but then he took a moment to really think about it. They showed up at his workplace all the time and followed him through the library. Oikawa had started popping up along his running route. Their whole group had started hanging out on the green in the quad closest to the path he took to get to the Social Sciences building. Was he being stalked?

“I’m telling Semi.”

Tendou got up and stuck his hand through the peak of Mount Cavity where his phone had apparently been buried. Wakatoshi didn’t have the energy to stop him. When the message was sent he dropped his phone carelessly back into the pile of candy and resumed his previous position. He hugged Wakatoshi a little tighter. 

“If they do anything, you come straight to one of us. Okay? I don’t need my best friend getting beaten to a bloody pulp because Iwaizumi decided you looked at him the wrong way.”

“I will.”

“Good. Pass me the sour gummy worms, pretty please.”

~~ . . . ~~

In the morning they shared a healthy breakfast of dry cereal before Wakatoshi changed into the clothes he’d worn yesterday and packed his pyjamas into the tote bag he’d brought them over in. Tendou took the bag out of his hand before he could leave and stuffed a third of Mount Cavity—which was still standing in the middle of the floor—and a tower’s worth of chocolate bars into it wherever they’d fit.

Provisions for his travels, he’d called them.

Tendou crawled back into bed, sprawling as far as the dimensions of the bed would allow, which wasn’t far. Nine in the morning was apparently too early to be out of bed on a Saturday, so Wakatoshi walked out of Tendou’s dorm with a sleepy wave from his best friend as a goodbye. He closed the door quietly, figuring there were probably other people down Tendou’s hall with like minds and knowing this particular building’s problem with slamming doors. He looked up at the sound of voices a couple of doors down. He froze as he met eyes with Iwaizumi across the hall.

The man was watching him with an unreadable expression. He gave Wakatoshi a once over, and then his eyes flickered between him and the door he’d just come out of. Wakatoshi could see the moment he tensed up—though he had no idea why he did—and then those intense green eyes were glued on him again. Although for whatever reason, they were focused on his neck.

Wakatoshi turned and walked away. 

He frowned to himself as he walked out of Tendou’s dorm building toward his own. Why had Iwaizumi tensed when he’d seen him come out? Maybe he and Tendou had run into each other and didn’t get along. Clearly Iwaizumi knew someone who lived down that hall, so it wouldn’t be a stretch that his friend and one of his maybe-stalkers had crossed paths a time or two. The two not getting along would also match with what Tendou had said last night. Wakatoshi only knew about the one fight last year, but for all he knew, Iwaizumi could have been in countless since then.

He shook his head. Thinking about it was useless. He didn’t think he’d ever understand what motivated Iwaizumi, or Oikawa for that matter. Nor did he want to.

(So he kept telling himself.)

chapter four

He clenched his jaw as he walked into Matsukawa’s dorm room. Possibilities raced through his mind at a breakneck speed, and he didn’t like most of them. Were Ushijima and Tendou dating? Were they fuck buddies? God, he hoped not. He hadn’t seen anything on Ushijima’s skin that suggested they’d done anything, but he’d come out of Tendou’s room in the same clothes he knew Ushijima had been wearing yesterday. Tooru had described the white cable knit sweater the younger student had been wearing in great detail. Mostly that it emphasised his arms and made him look extremely huggable. 

Which…he wasn’t wrong.

Hajime was pretty sure the third year had just gotten up. His hair was fuzzy from sleep and his olive eyes were all soft and tired. Hajime wanted to bundle him up and put him back to bed. He wanted to run his hand through Ushijima’s hair, though that feeling wasn’t a new one. Hajime wanted to know what it was like to wake up next to Ushijima, to see his face when he first opened his eyes. He wanted to hear what his voice sounded like in the morning. He was willing to bet it was deeper than Hell. Ushijima’s voice was low when he spoke normally, it nearly raised goosebumps across Hajime’s skin to think of what it might sound like raspy with sleep.

It made him jealous to think that Tendou got to know all of that. Got to see him when he was most vulnerable. He’d probably seen Ushijima shirtless. The thought made him angry. He wanted to be that close to Ushijima. He wanted that sort of relationship with him.

He wanted a relationship with Ushijima period. But so far, every attempt he and Tooru had made to ask the guy out on a date had failed. Utterly.

“Here they are. Tell the guy to get his head out of the stars every once in awhile yeah? The next time he forgets something here I’m keeping it,” Matsukawa said.

“Sure.”

Hajime took the pair of kneepads the other was holding out to him. 

“I’m serious, Iwaizumi. He better keep good track of his wallet.”

“Thanks, Mattsun.”

He left his friend’s dorm. As he passed Tendou’s he paused a moment in his step before shaking his head and moving on. If Tendou and Ushijima were dating, he and Tooru would just have to accept that and get over it. But that didn’t stop him from praying that they weren’t.

He’d had a crush on Ushijima for a long time. A lot longer than he was willing to admit to anyone aloud. 

In his first and second year he’d never studied in the library, hell he’d never even set foot in the place. If he’d needed something he’d always used the elibrary. But during his third year he’d needed a quiet place to study for a big test and the library was the only place he thought his friends (and Tooru) wouldn’t immediately think to look for him. He’d have no distractions.

And then he saw Ushijima sitting at the main desk helping another student with a faint smile and a whole new distraction formed.

He’d taken one of the tables closest to the main desk, even though any books he might have needed were on the second floor. But he’d wanted to keep the stranger with the soft looking hair and tan skin in his sights. He’d been going to the library ever since. His crush had only gotten stronger over the last year. Ushijima had hit one last growth spurt. Hajime wasn’t the shortest guy around, but he’d always liked guys who were taller than him. He’d also filled out really nicely. Any traces of awkward teenage gangliness and baby fat were long gone by the time Ushijima’s third year started. He’d had muscle before, but now his biceps rivalled Hajime’s. His chest was another thing.

Hajime had quite literally choked a couple of weeks ago when he’d seen it.

He thanked every god in existence for whatever had possessed Ushijima to dress the way he did that day. White really was a nice colour on him. The tight shirt he’d been wearing had framed the curves of his body very nicely, and very clearly. He’d choked on his drink when he’d seen the man’s chest, and he’d nearly drooled looking at his back. He didn’t think he’d breathed for a solid thirty seconds when he noticed Ushijima’s skinny jeans. His thighs were a godsend. He’d had very unholy thoughts about the guy’s ass. If he ever voiced any of them he was sure his mother would hear of it somehow and be on the first train out of Sendai to come wash his mouth out with soap.

He’d wanted to run his hand through Ushijima’s hair that day too. It had been messy and windswept and beautiful. Though, unlike today, the scenario in which he would be touching Ushijima’s hair was much less innocent. He’d gotten a haircut recently and Hajime thought he looked really good with the undercut.

His crush had been a secret, even from Tooru, until about two and a half months ago. He and Tooru were in an open relationship and had been ever since they were at the university together. They only ever dated another person if both of them were on board though. He’d kept Ushijima a secret because they’d just gone through yet another messy break up. Hajime hadn’t really wanted to date the guy, but he’d known Tooru had been into him. Apparently it’d been a sex thing all along and Tooru had understandably taken it poorly. But then he’d slipped up talking to Makki while he was drunk and the truth came out. 

Tooru hadn’t said anything at first, but Hajime was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear anything about it. After a couple of weeks he’d asked about it, and Hajime had come clean about it all. Who it was, when it started. Tooru had apologised a million times for getting Hajime to date someone when he was interested in someone else. He’d smacked him upside the head and told him he was being stupid. A few days later he’d asked Hajime to show him who Ushijima was. He’d avoided it for a month, mostly because he was a little embarrassed about all of the teasing he was getting. 

And…he was terrified that Tooru wouldn’t like him too, because he was pretty sure he was almost in love with the guy despite having never talked to him.

And then Tooru had followed him to the library without him knowing. The guy was smart, he wasn’t in aerospace engineering for nothing. He’d guessed that was why Hajime had suddenly started studying at the library all the time. It had been unexpected, but he’d been pleasantly surprised when Tooru had taken one look at Ushijima’s face and declared he was the most stoically adorable thing on the planet in his cardigan and worn out jeans.

He’d wanted to kill the guy for following Ushijima around, although now he’d be a hypocrite if he had. 

“You’ve been waiting for him this long! Why wait?” Tooru had asked that day when the library had been stupid busy.

“Tooru he doesn’t even know who we are, that would creep even you out,” he’d hissed.

“I’m asking him out.”

That had been failed attempt number one. He was starting to lose hope now that they were on failed attempt number twenty-two.

Yes, he was keeping count.

It hurt that the guy he really liked wouldn’t go out with him. Them. And now he might be contending with a possible boyfriend. The universe had something against him. He was convinced. 

He entered his and Tooru’s apartment building and rode the elevator to the fourteenth floor. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and let himself inside, kicking his shoes off and stepping into his house slippers. He could hear the shower running. He put Tooru’s kneepads into his kitbag and slipped into the bathroom, quietly shedding his clothes. He pulled the stall door open and stepped in behind his boyfriend, who was still facing the shower head. Hajime plastered himself to Tooru’s back and wrapped his arms tight around his waist. He pressed his cheek against his wet shoulder and stared at the shower tile forlornly.

Tooru’s hands came down and rubbed slowly from Hajime’s hands up to his elbows and back down. Hajime felt the brush of his hair as he turned his head, but he didn’t move from where he’d placed himself. 

“What happened,” Tooru murmured. 

“I think he’s with Tendou.”

“What makes you say that?”

Hajime traced small circles on Tooru’s skin with his index finger. He sighed. Tooru gently pried his arms from around his waist and turned to face him at the sound. Hajime bit his lip and stared down at their feet as a frustrating well of tears gathered in his eyes. Tooru’s hands found their way to his cheeks and he leaned into them. 

“I saw him come out of Tendou’s room this morning. He was still wearing what you said he was yesterday.”

Tooru hummed and brushed a stray tear off of his cheek. The last two weeks had worn on him, and this morning had been the icing on the cake. It was all coming out now in tears he didn’t want anyone to see.

“Well, we can ask around. There’s no harm in doing that much,” Tooru said softly.

“I don’t want to invade his privacy, Tooru.”

“Hajime, if it kept these tears off your face I’d kill a man.”

He raised his eyes to look into his boyfriend’s face. His expression was dead serious. He felt a warm wave of love surge through him. What he had ever done to deserve Oikawa Tooru, he would never know. But he was so glad to have him. He pulled Tooru into a hug and dug his face into the man’s neck. A hand found its way into his hair, the other rubbed his back slowly.

“Thank you.”

Tooru chuckled breathily. “You don’t need to thank me for this, Hajime. I may not feel as much for him as you do yet, but I want to get to know him. I really think he could be something great.”

Hajime loved him. So much. He didn’t know what he would do if he ever lost Tooru. Eventually they finished their shower and dried off, dressing in comfortable clothes. Tooru made them breakfast and then they cuddled up together on the couch, one of Tooru’s ridiculous alien shows on. He laid his head against his boyfriend’s shoulder, readjusting his side of the blanket they were sharing. He was warm and mostly content. He would be upset if they really didn’t have a chance with Ushijima, but at least he would always have Tooru. Of that, Hajime was as certain as the sun rising in the east.

chapter five

Wakatoshi was extremely suspicious. The last week had been quiet. Too quiet in fact. He hadn’t seen Oikawa or Iwaizumi anywhere, which was odd. Although, the oddest thing about his week had to have been the fact that Suna had shown up for all of his shifts at the library. It was kind of funny actually when he thought about it. He had gotten so used to being followed that not having two shadows too many put him on edge. 

The feeling had gotten progressively worse the longer the two were MIA. Shirabu said it was a good thing. Semi had spread the news of Wakatoshi’s maybe-stalkers to the rest of their friend group and none of them had been impressed. Goshiki had been confused about who they were talking about, but Shirabu had told him not to worry about it. He’d forgotten what his normal life had felt like over the last couple of weeks. It was nice to be able to enjoy going to work again without being interrupted twenty times, or walk to class without being accosted on the sidewalk. He could hang out and laugh with his friends without looking over his shoulder and he could focus on his school work again.

Because of the removal of two very large distractions, he’d been able to prepare at least somewhat adequately for his debates. He hadn’t scored very high, but he definitely could have done much worse. His grade wasn’t low enough to warrant a call from his parents, so in his eyes it was as good as one hundred percent.

He was still unsettled though. Where had Oikawa and Iwaizumi gone? Had they finally given up on him and moved on to the next poor, unsuspecting soul?

“I just feel like something is about to happen,” he told Haru as he folded his laundry on his bed. “Like, it feels like the world is holding its breath, if that makes any sense.”

Haru’s branches swayed gently in the faint stream of air from the baseboard heater so it looked like he was nodding along.

“What do you think they wanted from me?”

Haru’s leaves fluttered. Wakatoshi sighed and frowned down at the boxers in his hand.

“Yeah, I don’t know either.”

He finished folding the last thing in his laundry basket and returned it to its proper home before putting away the sorted piles of clothes. He went back out into the living room and pulled out one of his textbooks. It was his day off from both classes and work, so he figured he might as well use the time to read ahead a little for one of his more technical classes.

As he read he found himself not quite able to get into it. His mind kept wandering off, and he made it through only two pages in nearly an hour. He kept rereading paragraphs, but the information didn’t want to stick in his brain. His mind returned to questions about Oikawa and Iwaizumi. 

He wondered what programs they were in. They’d been part of the crowd during Roll Out. He wondered if one of them was in one of the medical programs, or maybe they both were. If they were he wondered what programs they were in. Oikawa was charming and could talk circles around anyone. Wakatoshi thought he might have made a good doctor. Iwaizumi on the other hand… His bedside manner would probably suck. He should not become a doctor in Wakatoshi’s opinion.

His imagination conjured up an image of the two in pale blue scrubs and his face flushed. He’d never really understood the appeal of a uniform, but he was maybe starting to understand. Maybe neither of them should become doctors. 

He shook his head to clear the thoughts and tried to refocus on his readings. After another fifteen minutes he slammed his textbook closed with a loud groan. Hiro’s pot jumped with the force of the heavy book closing.

“Sorry, Hiro,” Wakatoshi murmured as he returned the pot to its proper place. 

He tucked his feet under himself and leaned into the back of the couch. This was getting ridiculous. Oikawa and Iwaizumi had finally left him alone. That was what he’d wanted from the start, wasn’t it? Shirabu was right, this was a good thing. They could go and dump their unwanted attention on someone else. He repeated that to himself over and over, but every time it left a bad taste in his mouth and an uncomfortable feeling in his chest. 

He didn’t know what it was but he didn’t like it. For some reason, the thought of not having Oikawa or Iwaizumi paying attention to him unsettled him in some way. 

He shook his head. It was just because he’d gotten so used to them being around him. That was it. He didn’t actually want their attention. He knew they’d only given it to him as a joke. A failed one at that. His brain once again betrayed him and brought up all the times they’d tried to talk to him. Oikawa had been forward, but Wakatoshi had the sense that he was usually like that. Iwaizumi had been respectful the few times he’d been the one to approach him. Wakatoshi would even say he was nice. Though Oikawa could be a little aggressive in his attempts, he never pushed past a certain point. He seemed to be very good at reading when Wakatoshi had had enough of him and backed off. They’d seemed genuine whenever they tried to talk to him. 

But then again, they were supposed to. It wouldn’t work if they didn’t appear honest. But what reason did they have to even play a joke like that on him? They’d never talked to him before. They probably hadn’t even known he existed until a couple of weeks ago. Were they really messing around with him? The doubt had been growing for a day or two now. He hadn’t wanted to consider it, he’d heard the rumours surrounding the pair. But that was the crux of it, wasn’t it. All he had based his beliefs on was rumours and here say. 

The thought that maybe they were being genuine scared him almost as much as if they were pranking him. Because if they were being truthful, then Wakatoshi had been downright mean. And he never wanted to be mean, to anyone. He knew what it felt like to be on the other end of it and he’d promised himself a long time ago that he wouldn’t be that person.

But, his brain continued to argue with itself, could the word of that many people over that many years really just be rumour? That was a lot of people spreading the same story around. 

He groaned again and dropped his head into his hands. It was all giving him a headache. 

~~ . . . ~~

The next morning he woke up and made himself breakfast. He was too tired to go on a run, so he took his food to the living room and turned on the tv. His brain was overworked and burnt out, so he settled for something easy to follow and still strangely entertaining: children’s cartoons. He ate his cereal wrapped up in his fluffy throw blanket and watched a show meant for people eighteen years younger than him. It was quite enjoyable.

He sat and watched the brightly coloured programs until he needed to get ready for class. He hummed one of the songs the characters in the show had sung as he put jeans and a thick hoodie on. He got his bag together and put his jacket on and left his dorm. He was still humming the song as he walked across the quad to his first class of the day. The sky was grey and overcast and the wind was biting. He hunched his shoulders a little and stuffed his hands in his pockets to try and keep them warm. There weren’t many people out today, the weather not at all inviting. He wondered if it might rain later. He liked the smell of the air after it rained, and it was a peaceful sound to go to sleep to.

He didn’t notice anything odd as he walked to Hall 7, the world seeming as normal as it ever was. He picked up on the strange atmosphere after he’d shrugged out of his jacket and sat down in his regular seat.

People were whispering. And they were staring at him.

He tried to be subtle as he looked around the room, but it didn’t really matter. Every way he looked someone was looking right back. His skin heated with all of the attention. Nervousness churned in his gut, curdling the cereal he’d eaten for breakfast. He tried to act natural as he pulled his laptop out of his bag and set up his notebook, but he could feel that his movements were a little stiff; his hands were starting to shake.

Why was everyone staring?

He swallowed thickly and rubbed his hand through his hair a few times. His bottom lip found its way between his teeth and he gnawed on it pretty aggressively. He willed the professor to hurry up and slumped in relief when she walked through the door. Most of the class took their eyes off of him when the lecture started, but there were still a few—more than a few—who kept looking back at him every few minutes. He flipped his hood up and tried to make his world narrow down to the paper in front of him, the pen in his left hand, and the professor’s words. He propped his arm on the desk and rested his head on it as he wrote down what she was saying, not letting his eyes stray from his paper.

It kind of worked.

He’d never packed up so fast in his entire university career. He was one of the first people out the door. He kept his head down as he walked to his next class, not wanting to know if everyone in the halls were staring at him too. What was going on? Nothing special had happened on Monday or Tuesday, yesterday he hadn’t left his dorm at all. What was he the centre of attention for? It was freaking him out.

He was the first person in the room for his next lecture and he got set up in record time. He kept his hood up and put his head down, using his arms to shield his face from view. He could hear the whispering start up again as more and more people entered the room. He hated this. What was going on? He heard when the people who sat on either side of him took their seats. Neither of them spoke. In fact, no one in his general area said a god damned thing. That confirmed without a doubt that they were talking about him. But why? 

He was the first out of the room again when their professor dismissed them, but it wasn’t because he’d packed up first. No one had moved when the lecture had ended. He could see out of the corner of his eye that everyone was watching him. His hands were well and truly trembling by the time he stepped into the hall. He’d clearly missed something but he had no idea what it could possibly be. Just as he stepped outside of the building his phone vibrated.

[SHIRABU]

Fruit Bowl. ASAP

He’d sent it to their entire group chat. He wondered if people were being strange in the second year’s classes too. He changed direction, walking toward the Arts buildings. Fruit Bowl was the campus cafe. Fruit Bowl wasn’t its actual name, but it was frequented most by the arts students and they regularly had renditions of bowls of fruit hung on the walls done by the university’s students. Some of them were progressive pieces; there were a few from both a couple of students’ first year and their last. It was a pretty out of the way place and was mostly empty at this time of day.

He ran into Reon on his way to the cafe. They walked together in silence. He kind of wanted to ask if there had been anything weird about his morning, but he kept his mouth shut. Shirabu was already there when they walked in. Reon went to order himself something and Wakatoshi joined Shirabu at the booth he’d picked in the back. When he sat down at the far end the younger man plunked a drink and a plain doughnut in front of him.

His stomach was too twisted up from nerves and he didn’t do anything other than say thank you, but Shirabu didn’t seem to mind. He was preoccupied with something, clearly. Semi was the next to walk through the door. He ordered something too and joined Reon in the waiting area. They walked back to the table together and each took a seat, Reon beside Shirabu and Semi beside Wakatoshi. Tendou came in next. He made straight for the table. He was in sweatpants and a heavy grey sweater. Wakatoshi assumed he’d just crawled out of bed.

Goshiki showed up five minutes later. They all sat around in a slightly awkward silence. Wakatoshi picked at his doughnut, butchering the thing, while Goshiki slurped obnoxiously on his drink.

“Does anyone know what the hell is going on today?” Shirabu asked finally.

Silence met his question.

“Think you should take that as a no,” Tendou said.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

Shirabu posed the question directly to Wakatoshi this time. He sighed and rubbed his face with both hands, shaking his head.

“Is this about the whispering?” Semi asked.

“What whispering?” Tendou looked between them all with a confused look.

“People have been whispering about Ushijima all morning,” Reon said.

Well, that answered that question. The whole school was talking about him and nobody knew why. Fantastic. What a wonderful Thursday this was shaping up to be.

“I take it none of you know why,” Tendou trailed off.

“Maybe it’s because people think Tendou-senpai and Ushiwaka-senpai are dating.”

Everybody turned their eyes on Goshiki, who wasn’t even paying attention to them.

“Huh,” Shirabu deadpanned.

Goshiki looked up from his sandwich. “Yeah, some guys were asking around about Ushiwaka-senpai last week. Yesterday they came up to me and asked if the two of you were dating. I told them you weren’t and that Ushiwaka-senpai hasn’t dated anyone all year.”

“What two guys? When did this happen?” Semi pressed.

“They came up to me after class yesterday. And I don’t know who they were, third or fourth years if I had to guess.”

“Well, what did they look like?” Shirabu asked impatiently.

Goshiki took his time replying. “One of them was a little shorter than me, green eyes, big arms. The other was taller than him, brown hair, a little off-putting really.” 

“Don’t tell me…” Tendou muttered.

“Oikawa and Iwaizumi?” Reon asked.

“Has to be,” Semi said.

“But why would they want to know if Ushijima-senpai is dating anyone?” Shirabu asked.

“Wakatoshi-kun,” Tendou called carefully. “You said they tried to talk to you. What exactly was it they were trying to talk to you about?”

The table silenced and all eyes were on him. He shrank into the back of the booth a little and frowned. 

“Um, the first time Oikawa asked if they could buy me dinner. He’s also asked if he could take me out for lunch. They’ve asked me if I wanted to hang out once or twice, and Iwaizumi’s asked me basic questions a few times. If I like to read, stuff like that.”

“No. Fucking. Way,” Shirabu muttered. 

“And, what did you say,” Tendou continued in that same tone of voice.

“No. Well, yes to the reading question.”

“Oh my god.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Ushijima, you’re really kind of dense, aren’t you?”

“Huh? What’s going on?”

Tendou just sighed and reached across the table to pat his hand. He stole a chunk of his doughnut on the way back.

“They followed you around for two weeks,” Semi sighed. “They’ve been asking you out, for weeks.”

He sounded a cross between angry and completely done.

“You had no clue, did you?” Shirabu asked, his eyes disappointed.

“They asked if he was dating Tendou-senpai…because they want to date him?” Goshiki asked.

“Yes.” Reon nodded. 

Wakatoshi’s mind did that thing from the movies; record-scratch-freeze-frame. 

They wanted to what? 

No. Impossible. They couldn’t honestly want to date him. So that was their joke then. He was willing to forgive Reon calling him dense if it meant that it had prevented him from becoming a laughing stock. If this was how people acted knowing he’d gotten Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s attention, he’d hate to find out how they’d behave if he’d fallen for their prank.

He’d never been so glad for the stress of Roll Out preoccupying most of the space in his brain. If he hadn’t been so distracted, who knew what would have happened. 

Silence consumed the group. Wakatoshi began to eat his doughnut, sipping his drink between every few bites. Nobody seemed to know what to say. They sat looking around at each other once everyone’s food and drinks were finished. Tendou was the first to stand and the rest followed after. They disposed of their garbage in the bins by the door and walked out into the wind. It was starting to rain, so they didn’t hang around. Wakatoshi went back to his dorm and made it through the main door just as the sky opened and rain was blown in sideways sheets by the wind.

He didn’t pass anyone on his way up to his dorm. He made it inside and toed his shoes off, hanging his jacket up and setting his bag against the wall. He made sure the door was locked and then went straight for the bedroom. He was going to take a very long nap, and then decide if going to class tomorrow was going to be worth it or not.

chapter six

He didn’t end up going to class. He stayed inside all day Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday. He was forced out on Monday by the fact that he had no food in his dorm and needed to go grocery shopping. His only class for the day had been cancelled, so he only had work to worry about in the afternoon. He dragged himself out of bed and got dressed into warm, comfy clothes. He grabbed his cloth shopping bags from the hall closet and fit his feet into his shoes. He stuffed his phone, wallet and keys into his jacket pockets and left.

It was chilly for nine thirty in the morning. The sun was out in a clear blue sky, but it didn’t do much to warm him as he walked. He made his way off campus to the nearest station and waited against the wall for his train to arrive. It was blessedly empty, all of the morning commuters and high school students already gone through. He sat down in a row of empty chairs and stared out the opposite window at the city passing by. He hoped four days was enough time for the student body to have moved on from the excitement of Thursday. Nothing had happened since then, so hopefully they found the situation boring enough and forgot all about it.

He didn’t like being the centre of attention. He was still a little miffed that they’d taken to asking other students about him. They were taking this prank a little too far, even going so far as to involve Goshiki in it. He put his head in his hands and leaned forward. Why did it have to be him? He was so confused now. Were Oikawa and Iwaizumi that persistent that they’d try for three weeks to get a prank rolling, or were they being completely serious in wanting to date him? 

That then begged the question of why they would want to date him in the first place. He wasn’t popular, he didn’t party or drink or smoke weed. He wasn’t attractive like they and the rest of the people they hung out with were. Wakatoshi liked curling up on his couch and reading, he liked his houseplants and he liked going on walks. He was a home body. The complete opposite of everything he knew Oikawa and Iwaizumi to be. What could they have found so appealing about him that they’d want to take him on a date? He didn’t understand.

He’d thought himself in circles by the time his stop arrived. He got off the train and wove through the crowded streets to the family run grocery store he liked to shop at. He grabbed a cart and mechanically went down the aisles, grabbing stuff without really thinking about if he needed it or not. He grabbed another carton of milk, and then looked over at the ice cream freezers. He still had most of the chocolate and bagged candy from Mount Cavity that Tendou had shoved into his bag when he spent the night, but there was no junk food as comforting as a tub of ice cream.

He bought two.

He walked slowly down the rest of the aisles, picking things up off the shelf and then putting them back five minutes later. He didn’t need half the stuff he bought, and most of it wasn’t even remotely healthy. But he’d been stressed out lately, he deserved some junk food as consolation. 

He and the cashier worked together in silence, her scanning his items and shoving them down the rollers and him carefully bagging everything. He gave her the best smile he could come up with—which probably wasn’t a very nice one to look at—and took his groceries. He checked the time on the digital clock on the train schedule board when he got to the station. It was only just past eleven. He had time to get home and put everything away before he had to leave for the library. 

He almost didn’t want to go back to campus. Out there—on the train, in the grocery store, in the street—he could pretend like nothing about the last three weeks had happened. His life was totally normal. He was a regular adult like the rest of the people around him doing the menial, everyday tasks of a fully functioning member of society. There were no classmates whispering about him, there was no one following him around, no one asking him on dates that may or may not be real. 

He could just be, out here. He was just another face in the crowd. There was something freeing about not being seen. There were no expectations, there was no judgement. He didn’t need to act a certain way, or dress a certain way because there was no one to put a show on for. He could just be Wakatoshi in the crowd. It was part of the reason he’d chosen the university he had. Back home in Miyagi, his father was a fairly well known municipal politician. Growing up, and up until he’d left for school, it had felt like everybody knew who he was. All eyes were on him. His parents had only reinforced and perpetuated that feeling.

Up until three weeks ago, how his university life had been going was his dream life. He was at the bottom of the barrel, a nobody to those thousands of people. It was perfect. 

All of this stupid maybe-joke business was ruining that dream.

As he rode back to the university station, he couldn’t get his mind off of the possibility that he really was being asked out. He couldn’t lie to himself anymore. Three weeks of relative close proximity to Oikawa and Iwaizumi had made him curious about them, and he’d started to develop a small interest in the pair. He was going to ignore the fact that it was both of them he was interested in and not just one or the other for now. Adding that self-discovery to the list was a bit too much for him to handle at the moment.

If he was being truly honest, it wasn’t Oikawa and Iwaizumi themselves that he was frustrated with. Iwaizumi he would freely admit intimidated him. He knew the man packed a punch and wasn’t afraid to resort to blows if he needed to. Wakatoshi had seen him when he was displeased and it was not an inviting expression. Oikawa was intimidating in an entirely different way. Where Iwaizumi was physically intimidating, Oikawa was disorientating. He was entirely beautiful. He was charming and sweet and nice, and he handed out smiles like they were free samples. But there was always something lurking under the surface that belied his easy friendliness. He’d seen a glimpse of it in a clip of one of the school’s volleyball games he’d seen while scrolling through his instagram feed. There was cunning there, and a manipulativeness Wakatoshi couldn’t decide was good or not. 

But over the three weeks they’d been tailing him they’d been rather tame considering Wakatoshi’s original expectations. He’d seen Oikawa trip over his own feet, he’d seen Iwaizumi get flustered. No, as people the two of them weren’t the issue.

The problem was the uncertainty surrounding them. They’d been shrouded in a veil of rumours and speculation for years. Wakatoshi didn’t know if there was anyone on campus other than the men themselves who genuinely knew anything about them. Their friends were mean and they never stepped in to curb their behaviour at all, so Wakatoshi had assumed they were probably the same way. Everyone had known they were dating practically since the beginning, so all of the people who had tried to get close to either of them and come away crying had kind of asked for it. But he’d heard of the two actively pursuing people. Hell, he was sitting right here. That disconnect in his brain of they’re-dating-but-they’re-trying-to-date-other-people had at some point turned into the assumption that they’d been doing it as a prank. A lot of the people who had fed the fire of that rumour were younger than he was, so the detail that they preyed on people who probably didn’t know who they were yet was added to the pile. 

The experiences he and his own circle of friends had had with Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s had also factored in, none of them being positive. 

It was all a big, jumbled mess. He didn’t know what to believe, or what to do. 

He wondered if he should give them the benefit of the doubt. He was afraid to, though. It was possible the soft, intimate moments he’d been witness to between them had just been him seeing them as they were together, and not really as they were. What if everyone else what right? 

He groaned to himself, earning sideways glances from the other passengers on the train. He cursed the day Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s parents ever decided to have children. His life would have been so much easier if they hadn’t. (He knew the world didn’t really work like that, but he was Stressed.) He shuffled off the train with his bags and lugged them the long fifteen minute walk back to his dorm. He manoeuvred the bags in his left hand onto his wrist so he could grab his scan card, but before he could the door opened. 

Sawamura stopped short before taking notice of Wakatoshi’s full hands. He stepped to the side with a lopsided grin and held the door open for him.

“Thanks, Sawamura.”

“No problem.”

Wakatoshi stepped past him into the lobby of the building. Sawamura called him back just before he reached the elevator. He turned back around to see the fourth year student had come back inside and was making his way over.

“Hey, are you doing okay?” Sawamura asked.

Wakatoshi’s brow furrowed. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“I just, there was a lot of talk going around last week… I meant to check in over the weekend but I never got the chance.”

“Oh,” he muttered. “Um, it was a little overwhelming, but I’m all right now. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

“I know you don’t like being in the spotlight much, it must have been uncomfortable.”

Wakatoshi nodded.

“If you ever need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

With that their conversation ended and Wakatoshi watched Sawamura walk back through the lobby to go wherever he’d originally been headed. 

As he put his groceries away he thought back on his short conversation with his neighbour. Sawamura was a really good guy. He was dependable and kind. He remembered then that he and Oikawa were friends. Sawamura wouldn’t be friends with him if all of the rumours about him were true, would he? Wakatoshi didn’t think so. So maybe they really weren’t that bad. He stuffed the empty grocery bags back into the hall closet and pulled out some homework he hadn’t finished from Thursday. He put everything else out of his mind and concentrated on his work, and then on his textbooks when he’d finished with it. Had no clue what he’d missed on Friday, so he just read a few chapters of the textbooks for the two classes he skipped.

Around four he started to get ready for work. He was only covering for Akaashi for a couple of hours so he didn’t bother making anything to take with him. He left his sweatshirt on, but he changed into more work appropriate pants. He filled his water bottle and grabbed a quick snack on his way out. The walk to the library wasn’t as bad as he was expecting it to be. A couple of people watched him as he walked by, but most of the people he passed just kept on going like he wasn’t even there. It had always amazed him how quickly human beings were able to move on when something was no longer interesting to them. He was thankful for it in this instance; maybe life would go back to normal for him now.

With Roll Out having officially ended last week the library was back to its usual number of students. It was delightfully quiet and every available corner wasn’t jammed full of wrung out students. He clocked in and took his water bottle to the main desk; no sense in using his locker. Himiko-san had him man the desk because he ‘needed to get his steps in’. 

He took his place in the rolling chair and tried to figure out what whoever had been at the desk before him had been doing. There was mostly just clerical work to do, so he spent the first little while of his shift squinting at the small print on the computer. A few students had come to ask him for help finding things. He usually would have just sent them on their way with directions, but sitting down for too long without moving made his hips hurt, so he got up to show them. He had a few returns to log into the computer, and he started sorting the few in the lone trolley beside the desk when he ran out of things to do. At six, one of the fourth years who worked casually came in and Wakatoshi was free to go. He grabbed his water bottle and waved to the shorter woman as she went to put her stuff away. 

As he rounded the desk a student came up to ask him if he knew where the anatomy books were. He gestured for him to follow and Wakatoshi took him up to the second floor. He led the guy through a couple of aisles until he found the right ones and left him to it. As he walked back toward the stairs, his name being mentioned caught his attention. It was coming from the pair of study tables a few aisles down from the one he was cutting through. He thought about just walking away, but curiosity eventually got the better of him. He approached the end of the aisle to hear better, but stayed out of sight.

“Iwaizumi, you don’t honestly have feelings for Ushijima do you?”

“I mean come on, the guy’s a total weirdo.”

“So what if I do?”

Someone scoffed. “You have Oikawa Tooru in your bed every night and you want that? This has to be a joke.” 

“What Oikawa and I do is none of your business. And don’t talk about him like that.”

“Do you guys need to spice up your sex life, is that it? I can admit Ushijima is objectively attractive, but you could do a hell of a lot better.” 

There was no response. The conversation continued, but Wakatoshi had heard enough.

He knew it.

He blinked shameful tears out of his eyes and rounded the corner. He glanced briefly at the table, just long enough to see Iwaizumi glaring harshly at one of his entourage, just long enough for his eyes to flicker over and do a double take, just long enough for him to realise he’d been caught. 

He hustled to the stairs, apologising quietly when he ran into someone’s shoulder. He flew down the stairs and snatched his forgotten jacket from the main desk, throwing it on one arm at a time as he hurried for the main doors. He could hear his name being called behind him. He knew it was Iwaizumi. He didn’t stop and he didn’t slow down. He didn’t want anything to do with the man. He’d been right from the start. It had been some big joke just to get him into bed. He bitterly wiped tears off his cheeks as he walked away from the library, laughing at himself for daring to think someone had actually been interested in him.

“Ushijima!”

He ignored him. He could hear Iwaizumi’s sneakers pounding on the sidewalk as he tried to catch up with Wakatoshi’s long strides.

“Ushijima, hold on.”

Wakatoshi was getting ready to start running. He could feel the well of shame and anger like a lead weight on his chest. He didn’t want to hear it. Why had Iwaizumi come after him?

“Ushijima, please wait!”

His resolve finally snapped.

“No!” He whipped around to face a stunned and pale-faced Iwaizumi. “Stop, okay, just stop. I’m not going to be part of your stupid game. If you’re that desperate to sleep with someone go call your boyfriend. I’m not going to be another notch in your bedpost,” he cried.

Iwaizumi’s eyes widened. Wakatoshi turned to walk away. 

“That’s not what you are. What you heard in there was absolute bullshit. None of that was true.”

He shook head and properly walked away, but Iwaizumi just kept following him. 

“Could stop walking and listen for a second, please?”

He kept going. He hadn’t made it very far when Iwaizumi suddenly stopped him with a strong hand wrapped around his wrist. In Wakatoshi’s moment of stunned delay, Iwaizumi’s hands moved to his waist and tugged on his hips so they were facing each other again. Anything he was about to say got stuck in his throat as he was held close to the shorter man’s chest.

“We’re not trying to mess with you, we’re trying to date you because we like you!” Iwaizumi snapped. “You’re not some game or a one time thing. Not to me. We like you Ushijima, a lot, and we’d really like it if you’d give us a chance and go out with us.”

Wakatoshi’s eyes were blown wide at the conviction and the plea clearly identifiable in the man’s voice. Iwaizumi was looking at him with green eyes full of determination, but also fear. He was pleading with Wakatoshi to say yes. He was afraid of him saying no. His brain was firing on all cylinders; half of it was distracted by Iwaizumi’s hands. They were big and warm where they pressed into his sweater, and Wakatoshi acknowledged absently that he really liked the feeling of Iwaizumi holding him by the hips. He was still burning with embarrassment from the comments he’d overheard, but he could feel himself wavering. He didn’t know what to do. He was still confused about the whole thing and having Iwaizumi so close was not helping him focus. He could pick out the freckles faintly dusting his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, and there was a thin brown band in the iris of his right eye. His original assumptions, the things he’d seen firsthand, and what had happened a few minutes ago all warred in his mind. 

Apparently his subconscious had already come up with an answer that surprised him most of all. His mouth ran away with it before his brain could catch up and wrangle it back.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Iwaizumi blinked once, twice, and then a tentative, crooked smile slowly spread across his face.

“Yeah?” He asked in a quiet, disbelieving tone.

Wakatoshi hesitated, and then nodded stiltedly. “Yes.”

Iwaizumi’s smile was genuine and blinding. He squeezed Wakatoshi’s hips and tugged him a little closer so they were nearly pressed flush together.

“We’ll pick you up at your dorm. Saturday, at six.”

He nodded, a bit dazed. Iwaizumi just looked at him for a second, his eyes roving over the planes of Wakatoshi’s face before he stood up on his toes and leaned in close. His breath died in his lungs when he felt Iwaizumi’s warm lips against his cold cheek.

“See you soon,” he whispered against his skin.

Wakatoshi shivered, and he was totally going to pretend it was because of the temperature. He watched Iwaizumi walk away, still very much dazed. He blinked into the growing night, turning on wobbly knees to walk back to his dorm only when he couldn’t see Iwaizumi anymore. He didn’t remember the walk back to his dorm building. His brain was stuck trying to figure out what the hell just happened. 

Did he really agree to go out with Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru?

Did Iwaizumi Hajime really just kiss him on the cheek?

What was his life coming to.

When he got into his dorm he absently flicked the lock and slumped a few inches down the door.

“Guys,” he said to his houseplants. “I think I’m in trouble.”

chapter seven

He waited until he knew Ushijima couldn’t see him anymore to have his freak out. He couldn’t have wiped the wide smile off his face even if it was to save his life. He did a quick turn to make sure he was alone before scrunching down into a ball, clenching his fists beside his head.

“Yes!” He whispered into his knees.

He got a date with Ushijima. He got them a date with Ushijima. This was hands down the best night of his life. He had to go tell Tooru. Right now. He unfolded himself and walked the rest of the way back to the library. He couldn’t believe it. Ushijima had actually said yes. Holy shit. He cleared the first floor and bounded up the stairs to the second. He felt like a helium balloon; if someone let go of his string he’d float away. The table he’d been working at came into view, and not even the group of assholes who’d interrupted him to shit talk Ushijima could bring down his good mood any. 

Oh, he was angry at them, yes. He was fucking livid. But he was more overjoyed at the fact that Ushijima, the guy he’d been crushing on for over a year now, had finally said yes. 

He ignored their attempts to talk to him and packed up his stuff. They shut up when they realised he wasn’t going to talk and that something had clearly happened.

“Holy shit. You actually have feelings for him.”

Hajime looked up from shoving his laptop case into his bag. “I do.”

He zipped his bag closed with an air of finality and slung it over his shoulder. He started to walk away without saying anything else. But then the angry and slightly childish side of himself reared up. He paused a few paces from the table. He knew they were all watching him. He decided that just this once, he would take a page out of Tooru’s book and spun around. He fixed his most pleasant smile onto his face.

“Eat a dick and choke.”

Then he walked away.

He almost skipped out of the library. There was a bounce in his step and he whistled to himself the whole way home. He got some strange looks from people on the street but he didn’t care. He had a date with the boy he liked. Nothing could touch him now. He whistled in the elevator, and he whistled as he walked down the hall, swinging his keys around one finger. He unlocked the door and shoved his bag in the front closet with his coat and flung his shoes off. He could smell food cooking and skipped his way into the kitchen. He wrapped himself tight around Tooru, digging his toothy smile into his shoulder blade.

“Jeez, are you really that excited about muscle groups? I could hear you coming all the way down the hall,” the brunette chuckled. 

“We have a date,” he said happily. 

“We do?”

“Mhm-hm.”

Tooru glanced over his shoulder with furrowed brows. He took one look at Hajime’s beaming face and turned around in the shorter man’s arms. 

“We have a date,” Tooru repeated, looking at his boyfriend scrutinisingly.

Hajime watched Tooru’s thought process play out on his face. He knew the moment he’d figured it out. He gasped quietly.

“We have a date.”

Tooru’s chocolate brown eyes widened and a moment later a smile of his own broke out over his face. He brought his hands up to cup Hajime’s cheeks and leaned their foreheads together. They stayed like that, pressed together and smiling dumbly until a bitter smell cut through the euphoria permeating Hajime’s mind.

“Uh, Tooru, I think the food is burning,” he said.

“Shit.”

He let go so the other could spin around and attempt to save their dinner. He smiled when Tooru pouted endearingly at the charred remains of…whatever he’d been making.

“I’ll order us take out,” he said and pulled the menu for their usual place off the fridge.

While Tooru scraped the pan off into the garbage, Hajime ordered their usual meal from the place down the street. While they waited for their food to be delivered they got the couch and tv set up for their usual Monday night run of shows. Hajime payed for the food at the door and they dished out however much they wanted of everything for themselves, and then moved to the living room together. 

The first show came on and Tooru snuggled up against his shoulder, his plate hugged close to his chest. Hajime tried to focus on what was happening, but his mind was still stuck on Ushijima. He had no idea what they were going to do for their date. Neither of them really knew what he liked, so he supposed they could go for the cliche dinner date. That way Ushijima could pick out a place that he liked. He was so excited. He and Tooru were going to date the fuck out of Ushijima. They’d knock his socks off with how good they’d be to him. Saturday was going to be the best date the third year had ever been on, Hajime would make sure of that. 

He came down from the clouds at the sound of Tooru’s laughter. He was looking up at Hajime from his spot pillowed against his shoulder. There was adoration beside the amusement in his eyes. He smiled softly.

“You’re going to be bouncing off the walls the next few days aren’t you?”

Hajime grinned sheepishly and he could feel the tips of his ears reddening. Tooru sat up and placed his empty plate on the kotatsu, readjusting so he was sitting pressed right up against him. He dropped a hand into Hajime’s hair to run his fingers through it gently. 

“I haven’t seen you this happy in a really long time,” he murmured. He pressed a kiss to Hajime’s cheek. “I’m glad.”

Hajime leaned into his boyfriend, sighing. “I really want this to work. I really, really like him, Tooru.”

“I know. And it will. How could he not love you?”

“He has to like you too,” Hajime said, focusing his eyes on the other. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure. People seem to know something and nothing about him all at once. I want to learn all his secrets.”

Though he’d said it playfully, Hajime knew Tooru was being honest. Ushijima really was kind of mysterious. When they’d asked about him, most of the people they’d talked to had confirmed that they knew who they were asking about, but other than that they knew nothing. Daichi had been the only one they could have relied on to give them information, but the guy had steadfastly kept his lips sealed. There had been an almost brotherly protectiveness in Daichi’s eyes when Tooru had tried to pry at least something other than the fact that they lived in the same building out of him. He’d told them if they wanted to know anything about the younger man, they’d have to ask him themselves. Hajime was glad Ushijima had such a good person in his corner, but god had it been frustrating. He’d been ready to throttle their captain at one point.

He and Tooru folded around each other and turned their attention back to the tv. They remained silent through the next hour-long show, and it was only on a commercial break during the last one of the night when Tooru spoke up again.

“When is it? The date,” he asked.

“Saturday. We’re picking him up at six.”

“Sounds good.”

chapter eight

He was an anxious mess all week. He was sure that if his plants were human they would have smothered him to death by now. Well, three of them were already poisonous… 

The point still stands.

He was fidgety and nervous leading up to Saturday. He knew his friends knew something was going on. He’d decided not to tell them that he’d agreed to go on a date with Iwaizumi and Oikawa. They already weren’t the biggest fans of the pair, he didn’t want to make things worse. He found himself constantly distracted, both with thoughts of this coming Saturday and of Monday. He flushed cherry red every time he thought about Iwaizumi redirecting him by the hips and kissing his cheek. 

He never thought he’d like the idea of being manhandled.

…The more you know.

He’d looked out for the pair over the days leading up to the date, but either they weren’t around for once, or he did see them and he immediately dissolved into a puddle of nervous goo and chickened out before he could talk to them. He wanted to know what they were doing on Saturday. He didn’t know if he was supposed to dress a certain way, if he was supposed to bring something with him. He didn’t know the protocol for a first date. 

He was pretty Sawamura knew about the date. The older student had been smiling at him a lot more recently. And there was this little twinkle in his eye that Wakatoshi didn’t really know how to interpret, he just knew it unsettled him a bit.

Friday night he could barely sleep. He was so nervous he felt like he had to pee every twenty minutes, but he was also getting excited. 

As soon as he woke up Saturday morning he sat cross-legged in the middle of his bed and stared at his closet. He checked the weather almost compulsively, trying to figure out what he should wear. It was mid-October, and they were going out later, so layers were probably a good idea. He rifled through the hangers, trying to find anything that might be acceptable. Would a hoodie be too casual? He was inclined to think so. He didn’t want to overdress, but he also wanted to look nice. He kept looking, pulling out anything that could work and laid the articles out on his bed. He went through his dresser next, pulling out pairs of pants and different shirts. He pondered over them for probably way too long, trying out different combinations. Nothing was satisfactory to him though. None of the outfits he laid out struck him as ‘the one’. 

He went back to his closet and his dresser to dig around and try other things. At the bottom of his dresser he found a turtle neck he hadn’t worn in forever. Honestly, he’d completely forgotten he had it. It was soft, the fabric a little stretchy, and such a dark shade of plum that it was nearly black. He hummed at the back of his throat as he considered it. He looked at the pile of clothes on his bed. He spotted the pants Tendou had said made his ass look good. 

Jeans and a nice shirt. That would work.

He refolded everything he’d pulled out of the dresser and hung the other things back in the closet. He set his outfit aside and left the bedroom to make himself a late breakfast. 

He turned the tv on and navigated his way to Netflix. There was still over six hours until Oikawa and Iwaizumi would be there to pick him up. It was Saturday and he had nothing to do to occupy his time. Movies, on average, were just over two hours long. If he could find at least three movies to watch, then the day should fly by and he’d have something else to focus on so he didn’t psych himself out before the night could even start.

~~ . . . ~~

Over the course of his move marathon he’d turned himself into a burrito on the couch. He was sprawled out across the cushions, swaddled in three different blankets. He wiggled his hand out from under them to grab his phone off the coffee table. It was four thirty. He looked back at the tv screen and decided if he really wanted to finish the movie he was watching. He sighed and turned it off, deciding he could start getting ready. 

He jumped in the shower quickly. He got back into his pyjamas once he’d dried off, thinking it was still a little too early to get dressed. He dug around in his bedroom for a cologne one of his cousins had bought him a million christmases ago. He’d never used it, but he remembered that the one time he’d sprayed it he’d liked the way it smelled. 

He found it buried under his bathroom sink.

At twenty after five he ducked back into the bathroom to make sure his hair was dry and all facing the same direction. The turtleneck was a little tighter than he remembered it being. It still fit well, but it hugged his body pretty much everywhere. He pulled his jeans on and a pair of socks and then went to brush his teeth. He didn’t use too much of the cologne, finding one spritz was probably enough. He didn’t want to go out smelling like the fragrance section of a department store. He paced around until a quarter to, and then he stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom. He’d purposely left this part until it was nearly time for him to leave in case he started to second guess himself.

He picked at his shirt, turning to scrutinise his reflection. He snapped himself out of it and turned out the light before he could sink too deep. He grabbed his wallet, phone and keys, going around to check that he’d turned everything off. He slid into his shoes and went to grab his usual jacket, and then grabbed the longer one beside it instead. It was black and would match a bit better. It was also thicker, so his lack of layers shouldn’t be much of an issue so long as they weren’t going to be outside for hours.

With five minutes to go he locked his dorm room door and walked down the hall to the elevator. His nerves made another appearance as he waited for it to get to his floor. His stomach was trying to crawl its way up into his throat; he was glad he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. 

He could see Oikawa and Iwaizumi standing at the bottom of the stairs when he pushed the building’s door open. He thought they both looked nice. He found it a little funny that his and Oikawa’s coats were almost the same, only the brunette’s was a light tan colour instead of dark like his. He shot them an awkward smile as he descended the stairs. 

“Hey Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa said warmly.

“Oikawa-san.”

He took a moment to drink in the sight of Oikawa Tooru in glasses. They looked very nice on him. He turned and greeted Iwaizumi who smiled at him. They set off, walking in the direction of the train station. They didn’t speak much on the way. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Iwaizumi was repetitively clenching and unclenching his hands. He had a slightly angry look on his face. Wakatoshi panicked a little bit, his mind trying to tell him that they already regretted going on this date. He felt Oikawa’s arm brush against his own and he turned to see that the other man had moved closer.

“What Iwa-chan isn’t saying is that he would like to hold your hand.”

“Tooru,” Iwaizumi hissed.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I misinterpret your brooding?”

“I don’t brood.”

“Yes you do.”

“I do not.”

Oikawa leaned close to his ear and stage whispered, “Yes he does.”

Wakatoshi was trying to fight down a growing smile at their back and forth. He felt his face colour at the original reason for the silly conversation. He glanced down at Iwaizumi’s left hand. His own fingers twitched. Before he could think too much about it he wrapped his hand around Iwaizumi’s fingers. He hoped that was okay. He had no idea what he was doing. Maybe he should have asked first. He stared down at the sidewalk ahead of them, but he could see the smile on the shorter man’s face. He startled when Oikawa grabbed his other arm and looped his own through it. Their silence was less awkward the rest of the way to the station. 

They boarded a train and found a place to stand with enough room for the three of them. Oikawa tugged them off at a stop in a busier district of the city. The crowds were much larger and there were so many bright lights when they emerged from the station. His grip on Iwaizumi’s hand tightened fractionally. 

They walked in a random direction. 

“Where are we going?” He asked after they’d been walking for nearly five minutes. 

“We were thinking dinner,” Oikawa said.

“Where?”

“You decide.”

Wakatoshi blinked, a little shocked that they would let him choose where to go for their date. He turned his eyes to the neon signs around them, but he couldn’t make out what most of them said. He wished they’d gone somewhere that he was a little more familiar with. At least with the shops and restaurants closer to the university he could usually pick out which one was which by their colours since he had trouble reading their names. Here, he had no clue what anything was. Everything was just a big fuzzy mess of burning colour. He squinted without really realising that he was, trying to read the signs closest to them. A hand suddenly appeared in front of his face.

“Here, put these on,” Oikawa said, holding out his glasses.

“Why?” Wakatoshi asked, taking them gingerly.

“Because I want to test something.”

He looked at Oikawa for a second longer before hesitantly fitting the man’s glasses across his nose. It felt a little strange to be wearing them, not familiar with the weight of anything extra on his face. He blinked as his eyes watered a little bit. The world was still a little blurry, but it was a lot more in focus than it had been before he put them on. He walked a little wide-eyed down the street. He hadn’t been able to see this clearly since he was nine. He looked around at everything like he was seeing the world for the first time again. In a way, he kind of was.

“Do you have glasses, Ushijima?” Iwaizumi asked.

“No.”

“Do you wear contacts?”

“No.”

“Can we ask why?”

That was Oikawa. He caught sight of some street performers near the next crosswalk. They were playing music to a small crowd. 

“Mother says they’re evidence of an imperfection. They’re not allowed,” he answered distractedly.

Neither of his companions said anything more for a minute. 

“Hey, there’s a sushi place across the road, did you want to go there?” Iwaizumi asked.

“Sure.”

He liked sushi. They walked to the crosswalk with the street performers and he watched them as they waited to be allowed to cross. He was tugged along when the light changed and he left the street performers behind. He blinked as his eyes started watering more and more. 

“Here,” Oikawa said, reaching for the glasses perched on Wakatoshi’s nose but leaving his hand in the air. 

He took them off, a little disappointed. Oikawa smiled at him; Wakatoshi thought it looked a little sad, but he had no idea why it would be. He handed them over.

“You’ll strain your eyes even more if you wear them too long.”

Wakatoshi hummed to say he understood, but he was still a little sad that he was back to looking at everything through the dirty bottom of a warped glass bottle. They entered the sushi restaurant and found a table for three. Wakatoshi was a little overwhelmed at the amount of things they made. They eventually settled on drinks and food and they made small talk as they waited. 

He found it surprisingly easy to talk to them. He wasn’t uncomfortable. They hadn’t made him feel like a third wheel. They were a lot different than what he was expecting, and yet not so. He’d seen them interact with each other before, so their banter and easy ribbing was no surprise to him. But they were a lot nicer than he thought they would be. Halfway through dinner he had one of the biggest shocks of his life: star athlete and resident heartthrob Oikawa Tooru was convinced aliens were real. He went off on a ten minute tangent about them, going so far as to recommend documentaries to him. He glanced at Iwaizumi and he only received a look that said ‘I’m sorry’. It was kind of cute though, the way he talked about it.

“Are you into astronomy then?” He asked when the tirade was finally over.

“Yeah. I have a telescope back at my parents’ place. I used to use it all the time as a kid, I still do when I go back.”

“He had glow in the dark stars on his ceiling until he left for university,” Iwaizumi chuckled.

Oikawa elbowed him in the ribs. Wakatoshi had secretly wanted those as a kid. He’d always thought they were cool. He didn’t say that though. Instead he asked,

“So, is it more of a hobby or…”

“I’m in aerospace engineering.”

Wakatoshi choked a little on his drink. He blinked at Oikawa, who was looking at him a little smugly. He had kind of figured Oikawa was on the smarter end of the spectrum but not that smart.

“That’s…very impressive,” he said.

Oikawa looked a little shocked, like he wasn’t used to people telling him that. Wakatoshi didn’t think he should be. His program was far from easy. It was very impressive. 

“What are you majoring in?” He turned his attention to Iwaizumi.

“Sports medicine.”

“So you got stuck in roll out.”

Iwaizumi shot him a confused look. “Roll out?”

“When the faculty hands out projects to all of the medical programs. That’s what we call it at the library.”

“Ah, yeah. So glad I won’t have to worry about that next year.”

It took a second for the meaning of the words to process. Wakatoshi looked back up at the pair.

“You’re graduating this year?”

“Iwa-chan is. I took a year off after high school so I’m only in my third year,” Oikawa said.

Wakatoshi was a little disappointed by that. It was already nearly November. Graduation really wasn’t too far off. They lapsed into silence. Wakatoshi’s mind wandered a little, and the other two just ate quietly. He was starting to feel awkward again.

“Do you have a favourite thing, Iwaizumi-san?” He asked.

There was a slight pause as they both processed the sudden question.

“He’s obsessed with Godzilla,” Oikawa groaned.

“Hey, he’s cool!”

He’d seen one of the Godzilla movies with Tendou forever ago. He agreed, he was pretty cool.

“Do you think Godzilla counts as an alien?”

~~ . . . ~~

They walked through a nearby park, working off their dinner. He was once again sandwiched between the two of them. Iwaizumi was holding his hand again and Oikawa had his resting lightly at the small of his back. He’d kept it there since they walked out of the restaurant. They walked in a comfortable silence, the background noise of the city at night adding a certain ambiance to the atmosphere. He’d had a really good time tonight. He found himself hoping as they slowly looped back around at the end of the park that there would be more dates in the future. 

As they reached the halfway point of the park his good mood took a slight hit. Though they hadn’t done anything to make him feel like an outsider, he still worried that because of their history, there wouldn’t really be any room for him if this night went anywhere further along the line. He’d asked them about the rumours he’d heard over the years, mostly for his own peace of mind. He was happy to hear that they’d never tried to date anyone as a joke, but learning about all of the trouble they’d had over the last couple of years had made him sad for them. He’d practically condemned Iwaizumi for getting into that fight forever ago, but after explaining that he’d only hit the guy for bad mouthing Oikawa, Wakatoshi wasn’t so against it anymore. 

His new worry was that their past failed relationships were an omen for how theirs would develop.

“What going on up there?” Oikawa asked, poking his forehead.

Wakatoshi met his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay with a third person?”

Oikawa smiled. “Darling, we don’t go out with people if we aren’t both interested.”

The hand on his back slid around to hold his waist and he was pressed more firmly into Oikawa’s side. Iwaizumi threaded their fingers together and squeezed his hand once. He looked between them both. They were both at ease, not a hint of worry in either of their faces. He felt some of his own worry settle, but a part of it still lingered in the back of his mind.

Their train back to the university was pretty much empty. They sat together, and Wakatoshi yawned and leaned into Iwaizumi a bit. The older man didn’t seem to mind. Their walk back to his dorm building was peaceful. The sun had long since set and he could just see a handful of stars tossed across the sky. He wondered if Oikawa knew any constellations. They reached his dorm sooner than he would have liked. As they said their goodbyes Iwaizumi pressed a kiss into the back of the hand he was still holding. Oikawa did the same, feather-light and tingling, at the corner of his jaw.

“Sleep well, Ushijima.”

“You too.”

He walked inside and only let the wide smile he’d been hiding break loose once the elevator doors had closed behind him. He smiled down at his shoes as he walked down the hall to his dorm.

“You had a good night then?”

He startled, looking up to see Sawamura leaning in the doorway to his own dorm. He had a knowing look on his face that confirmed Wakatoshi’s suspicion the he’d known about the date the whole time. 

“I did.”

“Good. If they ever get too annoying, just send ‘em my way. I’ll straighten them out for you.”

Wakatoshi’s head tilted slightly in confusion.

“I’m captain of the volleyball team. It comes with certain privileges.”

Wakatoshi almost laughed. “I’ll let you know if I’m ever in need of your services.”

Sawamura chuckled. “I’m glad you had a nice time. They’re good people. Have a good rest of your night, Ushijima.”

He bid his neighbour goodnight and unlocked his front door. He got ready for bed, feeling light and airy. When he finally laid down, huddled under his duvet, he let himself think back over the entire night. It had been a lot of fun. He hoped they got to do it again. A smile creeped across his lips as he thought about the new numbers saved in his phone. He thought about all of their conversations, about what Oikawa had said to him in the park. He shoved his face in his pillow.

Darling. He liked the sound of that.

chapter nine

It took an hour for Tendou to figure out something significant had happened in Wakatoshi’s life. It was Monday afternoon, and they were all sprawled out on the grass of the school garden basking in the autumn sun. He hadn’t thought he’d been acting out of the ordinary, but Tendou had been sending him increasingly suspicious looks as time wore on. He was half paying attention, half in the clouds as his thoughts drifted back as they so often did to his date with Oikawa and Iwaizumi. The memories left a warmth in his blood. It oozed thickly through his veins, heating his skin against the chill of the late season air. He smiled when he thought about holding Iwaizumi’s hand. He blushed when he thought of Oikawa’s arm around his waist. 

He’d woken up to a text from the taller of the two yesterday. They’d had a conversation that didn’t really make much sense on his end when he read it back later in the day. He’d been half asleep still when he’d decided it would be fine to reply to the man. 

He picked at the small lunch he’d bought himself in the cafeteria of the Social Sciences building while his friends debated the qualities of the anthill in the middle of their circle. He was nearly there with coming to terms with the fact that not one, but two people were interested in him, and that those people were Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru. He still couldn’t wrap his head around it. There was still a tiny voice whispering in the back of his mind that they could be playing a joke on him, but he was getting better at ignoring it. Iwaizumi had apologised again for the things that had been said in the library and had tried to reassure him that what those people had said wasn’t true. 

He wanted to believe that. So, he did his best to block out the negative thoughts still floating around in his brain and just paid attention to the good feelings he was having. 

He almost missed it when his group of friends was getting ready to split up for the afternoon. He was the last to collect his garbage and his backpack, the others already standing around him. He darted over to the nearest trash can to empty his hands and once he got back everyone was saying their goodbyes. He waved at Reon and Goshiki as they walked away. An arm latched around his shoulders and he knew without looking that it was Tendou. 

The redhead said goodbye to Semi and Shirabu for the both of them and then started dragging him out of the garden. He hummed merrily as he marched Wakatoshi in the direction of his dorm building. Wakatoshi’s stomach did a small flip. He knew what was going to happen when they got to Tendou’s room.

They calmly set their bags down once they got inside and toed off their shoes. Tendou took a seat in his desk chair and Wakatoshi took the bed, sitting with his back against the wall and hugging one of his friend’s plushies to his chest. He glanced at Tendou to see his eyes narrowed, gaze intent as he stared him down. 

“Spill.”

Wakatoshi looked away and bit his lip. He shrugged as if to say ‘what’s to tell?’. Tendou threw his hands up.

“Something is going on. You’ve been smiling like a dope all day!”

They stared at each other in silence, locked in a standoff. Tendou stared unblinkingly, and if Wakatoshi hadn’t have been able to see the other man’s chest moving he might have been convinced he was a wax figure, he was so still. He could feel his resolve wavering. He couldn’t lie to save his life and he knew Tendou would be able to see through it like a clean window pane if he tried. Plus, he didn’t really want to lie to his friend, it made him feel guilty. But his friends didn’t like Iwaizumi or Oikawa, and Wakatoshi did. He didn’t want to chance his best friend having a bad reaction to the news. Wakatoshi valued all of his friends, but Tendou’s opinion mattered to him the most.

“I went on a date on the weekend…” he eventually admitted. “With Oikawa and Iwaizumi.”

Tendou finally blinked; it was slow and dramatic, just like the silence that took over once Wakatoshi had stopped talking. 

“They took you on a date?”

“Hm.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re smiling about it?”

“Like a dope.”

Tendou sat back in his chair and his gaze went distant. Wakatoshi said nothing, letting things process, giving it time to sink in. 

“They didn’t try anything you didn’t like, did they?” He asked.

“What do you mean?” Wakatoshi’s brow furrowed. “They let me choose what we had for dinner…”

Tendou’s face went blank. “That could not have gone farther over your head.”

He was confused now. Tendou groaned, sounding entirely put upon. Suddenly he got up and went straight for the door. Wakatoshi called out to ask what he was doing, but he got no answer. He got off the bed and caught the door just before it closed all the way and stuck his head out into the hall, finding Tendou storming down the corridor. He stopped in front of one of the dorms across the hall and pounded his fist against it. 

“Matsukawa open the door, I know you’re in there!”

There was no response for a moment, and then the door handle flicked down and the door was pulled open. A tall guy with curly black hair leaned against the door frame, a strange smirk curling his lips. 

“Tendou-kun, what could possibly have you screaming my name so loud? Have you perhaps come to give your answer to our proposition?” The guy drawled.

What Wakatoshi could only think to describe as a Cheshire grin tugged his lips up higher. Proposition? Tendou floundered for all of a second before he powered on, ignoring the guy’s words completely.

“What are Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s intentions with Wakatoshi-kun? If they’re trying to be even slightly funny by taking him out—”

Matsukawa’s expression changed. “Oh, did they finally ask him out? Jeez, that only took a year.”

He rolled his eyes like he was being sorely inconvenienced. Wakatoshi’s eyes widened and something in his chest stumbled. A year? Was Matsukawa trying to say what he thought he was trying to say? He was too afraid to ask. Just then a second head popped out into the hall, this one bubblegum pink. The newcomer looked at Tendou quickly head to toe, and then his eyes landed on Wakatoshi’s half hidden form. 

“Hey, when you eventually decide to murder Oikawa, we’ll help you hide his body. We know a good place.” He winked.

“Good luck, Ushijima-san. We wish you good fortune and all the patience in the world.”

Both men put their hands together in front of their chests and bowed to him. Wakatoshi blinked uncomprehendingly at them. They stood back up, and their attention was once again back on his best friend. Tendou looked unsatisfied and quite frankly, frustrated. He opened his mouth to speak, but he shut it with a clack as Matsukawa’s hand ghosted over his arm.

“Don’t worry, Tendou. They mean no harm,” He said softly.

The redhead nodded once and spun on his heel, walking quickly back in the direction of his dorm. Wakatoshi stepped back inside to give him room to come through the door. Just as he reached it, Matsukawa’s deep voice floated down the hall, his tone back to the same lilting one from when he first opened the door.

“And Tendou-kun, our offer still stands. Whenever you’re ready.”

Wakatoshi stared in mild shock as Tendou slammed his dorm door closed, his face as red as his hair. Tendou started muttering to himself and pacing the length of the room. Wakatoshi sat back down on the bed, utterly confused. With a final loud groan Tendou pushed his way onto the bed with him. He threw his blanket over them both and held it tight under his chin. They laid facing each other and Wakatoshi let his eyes wander over his friend’s flushed and pouty face.

“Did you have fun?” Tendou eventually asked.

“I did.”

“Tell me about it.”

With that, Wakatoshi’s fear of Tendou being angry or disappointed with him melted away. He recounted the events of Saturday night, a warm feeling blooming in his chest. 

chapter ten

The rest of October and November flew by. Between work, his friends, midterms and Oikawa and Iwaizumi, Wakatoshi’s life was pretty hectic. Tendou had demanded almost immediately to be properly introduced to the ‘hooligans that were stealing his Wakatoshi-kun away’. The four of them had grabbed lunch together at a nice cafe just off campus. Iwaizumi had made a serious effort to prove himself adequate in the redhead’s eyes, but Oikawa had…not. Over the month and a half that he’d been seeing them, Wakatoshi had learned that Oikawa very much enjoyed getting a rise out of people. His best friend was no exception. He’d been extremely touchy the whole meal. It was still something Wakatoshi was getting used to—being touched so affectionately and so frequently—but he enjoyed it. He liked when Oikawa ran his strong fingers through the longer hair on the top of his head, and when he lightly scratched his trimmed nails through the short hair at his nape. During the lunch Oikawa had found any and every excuse to touch him somewhere, and sometimes he didn’t even pretend there was a reason.

Iwaizumi had kicked him once or twice under the table, but after awhile Tendou had apparently gotten used to it and continued on like normal. Oikawa hadn’t stopped touching him though. That was another thing he’d learned about him. About both of them actually. They both liked to keep a hand on him at all times. And if they couldn’t use their hands, they’d press their bodies close to his, hook an ankle around one of his own, or stand as close as they could. 

He found he didn’t mind that either.

It had become part of his daily routine to talk to the pair. One of them usually texted him to say good morning. He’d started running occasionally with Oikawa, so on those mornings it was Iwaizumi who messaged him. But on the days that he wasn’t feeling up for exercising it was pretty fifty-fifty. They texted him all the time, all day long. Oikawa sent him selfies and pictures of Iwaizumi doing random things. He had pictures of him cleaning, sprawled out on the floor during volleyball practice, staring blankly at some guy with very messy hair alongside Sawamura. (They both had their arms crossed and they were making almost the exact same face. Wakatoshi thought they were both scary.) Wakatoshi sent them pictures of his houseplants. Sometimes he’d try to catch the sunset on his way to work. 

They’d become a pretty permanent fixture in his life. 

Even his coworkers had taken notice. Akaashi had brought it up one day in early November.

“You’ve been happier lately, Ushijima-san,” the second year had said. “Does it have anything to do with Oikawa-san and Iwaizumi-san?”

There was a knowing look in his blue eyes that had told Wakatoshi the man already knew the answer. Yachi had been happy to hear about it. She’d stumbled across him and Iwaizumi one evening while he was on a break, sitting beside each other at one of the first floor tables, Iwaizumi’s face entirely too close to his own. Suna had found out when the two were talking at the main desk and Oikawa had come in, calling his name in a weird tone. The second year had taken one long look at Oikawa and then patted him heavily on the shoulder.

“Good luck with that.” And he’d walked away.

Breaking things to his friends had taken…awhile. He’d approached Reon about it first. He’d been a little unsure in the beginning, but ultimately he supported it. Goshiki still wasn’t a hundred percent sure he knew who Oikawa and Iwaizumi were, but he’d very enthusiastically told him to go for it. 

He saved Semi and Shirabu for last. He told them together, and he brought Tendou along with him for moral support. It had gone about as well as he’d expected it to. Meaning they’d blown up in his face. As they were walking back to Wakatoshi’s dorm, Tendou had told him to give them some time. They’d come around sooner or later. 

He was starting to lean toward later.

Much later.

It saddened him that two of his closest friends had an issue with the people he was seeing, but tried not to let it affect him too much. Oikawa and Iwaizumi made him happy. He didn’t want to let go of them yet. 

They’d been on a few more dates since their first. They’d all been lovely. He’d gone to their apartment off campus for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot bigger than he’d expected two university students to be able to afford, and then he’d learned that it was a condo that Oikawa’s parents had bought for the two of them to use for school. It was comfortable and homey, smelling like honey and spice. He really liked hanging out with them there. They’d ordered take out and watched movies for a few hours until it got dark and Wakatoshi had to head back if he wanted to be up on time for class the next day. 

The three of them had gotten a lot closer as the weeks went by. He’d learned about them and them about him. He knew their favourite foods, started being able to recognise their habits. Oikawa had asked him about his plants and about his other interests. Iwaizumi readily indulged in his habit of turning into a couch burrito at every possible moment, joining him in the cocoon of blankets and more often than not falling asleep on him.

And where in the beginning he was greeted with warm smiles and gentle touches, now he got hugs and hello kisses. He’d gone beet red the first time Iwaizumi had kissed him on the mouth. Now both of them kissed him as much as possible to try and get a reaction out of him.

He was floating on cloud nine.

Until his parents called.

It was the usual, nothing unexpected. They’d asked about his grades, his father had pressed him to start looking for internship opportunities for next year. They’d told him they’d be away for the Christmas holidays. Again.

It was the same thing every year, he wasn’t sure why this year it was suddenly disappointing. 

~~ . . . ~~

A week before they were due to be set free for Christmas break, Wakatoshi was invited over to Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s for dinner. He shoved his face into his scarf as he walked in the direction of their apartment building. His boots crunched over the salt put down on the sidewalk to try and deter ice from forming, the sound melding together with the cars on the road and the voices of other people. Snow floated gently on the breeze, catching in his hair and melting in his eyelashes. 

He liked the way winter smelled. It was clean and sharp; the cold air felt nice in his lungs. He walked along the sidewalk with his glove-covered hands in his pockets. He wobbled as his foot hit a patch of black ice and he nearly fell flat on his ass. A passing mother with her two children grabbed his arm to stabilise him, and he thanked her with a slightly embarrassed smile.

The building was nice and warm when he got inside. The elevator played a random bit of piano music as he rode it up to Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s floor. He nodded politely as he passed one of their neighbours, and when he reached the right door he pulled one of his gloves off to knock. 

He was met with a smiling Oikawa in a red sweater. The apartment smelled like vanilla and nutmeg when he walked inside. He unlaced his boots and hug up his jacket, unwinding his scarf from around his neck and shoving it into one of the pockets with his gloves. He stepped into the pair of house slippers one of them had bought for him and stepped up out of the genkan right into Oikawa’s arms. The brunette bumped their noses together. 

“Hi.”

“Hello, Oikawa.”

He was dragged into the apartment by the hand and they settled on the couch together. Some cheesy American Christmas movie was playing on the tv, the volume low. Oikawa had been watching them a lot lately to try and practice his English. Wakatoshi didn’t know if he liked them or not, but he sat through them because Oikawa seemed to enjoy them. Oikawa sat against the arm of the couch and tucked Wakatoshi into his side. He rested his head against the older man’s collarbone, bringing his knees up to scrunch himself into a half ball. Oikawa’s arm rested across his shoulders, his fingers tracing nonsensical patterns over the sleeve of his shirt. 

“Hajime said he was going to be a little late, he needs to talk to his professor about something.”

Wakatoshi nodded and kept his eyes on the tv. There was always one thing that fascinated him about the Christmas movies they watched: the scenery. Real towns or not, the places shown in the films were beautiful in the winter. He’d always wanted to go to the States—his parents had been loads of times—but he’d never gone. Maybe one day. They watched the movie in comfortable silence. Toward the part when the male love interest starts to realise his feelings for the protagonist, Oikawa turned and kissed the top of his head.

“What are you doing over the holidays?” He asked into his hair. 

“Mm…I’ll probably go down to the bakery near campus Christmas Day and pick something up. I like their hot chocolate, they put candy canes in it. Maybe I’ll find something to watch, probably play some music and read a book.”

It’s what he’d done the last two christmases. 

“Alone?”

He nodded. “Tendou’s family goes to Paris every year. Reon has family spread out over three prefectures and he goes to visit with all of them. Semi and Shirabu are heading home and I think Goshiki’s parents are taking him skiing.”

“What about your parents?”

“They haven’t been home for Christmas since I was twelve.”

Another kiss found its way into his hair. Oikawa kept his face pressed into the top of his head. He didn’t say anything, so Wakatoshi assumed he’d gone back to watching the movie and did the same. When the movie ended, another one came on right after. The plot was nearly identical when Oikawa brought up the little info screen the channel provided. 

“Let’s go start dinner,” Oikawa said.

Wakatoshi grudgingly stood up and followed the slightly shorter man into the large kitchen. The warm yellow lights reflected off the white countertops, making that side of the combined kitchen-living room seem infinitely brighter. Oikawa pulled a bunch of stuff out of the fridge and they set to work. They stood side by side for awhile, working in tandem to start prepping the sides to go with their dinner. Iwaizumi’s class still had another hour and a half to go, and then he would need to talk to his professor, so when they finished all of the prep work they could do, they put the half ready food in the fridge. Wakatoshi had his back turned to Oikawa as they cleaned up, so he was totally unaware of the man slowly twisting the dish towel in his hands.

He jumped as a loud snap echoed through the kitchen. His right butt cheek stung and he whipped around with wide eyes. Oikawa was smiling at him mischievously. Before he could get a word out Oikawa snapped the towel at him again, catching the top of his thigh. He narrowed his eyes and Oikawa’s smile got bigger. Wakatoshi brushed off his hands in the sink and turned to face him. Oikawa bolted, and he chased him laughing through the living room and back into the kitchen. They made two laps around the large island before Oikawa suddenly changed direction, stepping toward him instead. He looped the dish towel around Wakatoshi’s neck and dragged him down into a kiss.

His eyes widened in surprise for a fraction of a second, and then he relaxed into the other man’s body. They kissed slowly for awhile, standing in the middle of the kitchen. Oikawa pressed forward, pushing him back so he was leaning against the island. He took a step forward, eliminating any space that may have been created between their bodies as Wakatoshi moved backward. Oikawa pressed their mouths together a little harder, his kissing getting a little quicker, more insistent. The towel disappeared, replaced by Oikawa’s hands carding through his hair and coming down to hold either side of his jaw.

He did his best to keep up. He could feel a tingling sort of heat building in his stomach the longer they kissed, and he let out a full bodied shiver when Oikawa’s tongue ran along the seam of his lips. He opened his mouth a little uncertainly. He’d only ever kissed three people in his life—two of them lived in the apartment he was standing in—and never like this. It was an odd sensation when their tongues met. The slide was smooth and wet and the sounds their lips made brought a flush to his cheeks. Oikawa’s hands dropped to the collar of his shirt and his fingers twisted in the fabric. Slowly he started to walk backward, pulling Wakatoshi along with him. They walked blindly, still kissing, and he worried that they were going to run into something. 

He could tell they’d moved into another part of the apartment when the amount of light hitting his eyelids changed. It got darker for a moment before brightening again, though still dimmer than the kitchen and living room. Oikawa continued to pull him until he ran into something and they both fell. They bounced a little, Wakatoshi shooting arms out to stop himself from collapsing directly on top of Oikawa. They shared another searing kiss before Oikawa pulled away and crawled backward on his elbows. Now that his eyes were open, Wakatoshi could see that they were in a bedroom. He looked back into Oikawa’s eyes, seeing how dark they’d become. 

He knew what the man wanted. 

He could feel the humming in his veins and knew he wanted it too. His house slippers fell off his feet with a dull thud and he shuffled his way up Oikawa’s body. They met in the middle, Oikawa’s tongue invading his mouth right from the start. He had Wakatoshi by the cheek, and he lowered onto his forearms as Oikawa properly laid back.

Their bodies pressed together, and he could feel every hard line of muscle in his abdomen. Oikawa’s legs bracketed his hips. He started getting nervous a few moments later when Oikawa nudged him with a knee. He didn’t know what he was doing. He’d never had sex with anyone before. He wanted to do it, but he was worried he’d do something wrong. Something just also didn’t feel right. He didn’t know what it was, but something in the back of his mind told him that there was something that needed to be changed. That he wouldn’t be comfortable until it was.

Oikawa’s mouth left his to pepper kisses against his jaw and down his neck. Wakatoshi shuddered when his lips hit a certain point, and as soon as he felt it Oikawa attacked the spot. He sucked on Wakatoshi’s skin and brought his hips up at the same time, rolling into him. A high pitched whine escaped his throat. His head suddenly weight fifty pounds and he dropped it onto Oikawa’s shoulder. His breathing was heavier than when they started and he dug his face into the man’s neck. Oikawa paused his assault, and then gently pushed him back a few inches. His eyes found Wakatoshi’s, but he had no idea what he was looking for. Oikawa pressed upward and tugged on him simultaneously, and Wakatoshi suddenly found himself on his back with warm hands under his shirt, burning his skin. Oikawa pressed open mouthed kissed up to his ear and rolled his hips again. Another high sound left Wakatoshi’s mouth.

“Do you like this better, darling?” Oikawa whispered into his ear.

With another roll of the man’s hips, the nagging feeling in his mind went away. He settled, his body relaxing as he let Oikawa take control of the situation. Oikawa hummed lowly, the vibration raising goosebumps across his arms. 

“That’s it, relax. I’ve got you, darling. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

His brain went a little foggy listening to him talk. His shirt was pushed up higher and higher, Oikawa’s lips and hands meeting in the middle as one trailed down his skin and the other up. It was pulled off entirely and dropped somewhere on the floor. His hands fisted the sides of Oikawa’s sweater and he turned his head, knocking his nose into Oikawa’s soft hair. Brown eyes rose to meet his, and then Oikawa was coming back up to kiss him again. Tentatively, Wakatoshi slipped his fingers under the red fabric to feel the soft skin and hard muscle underneath his sweater. Oikawa hummed into his mouth at the touch, and the sound encouraged him to keep going. 

He opened his eyes when Oikawa leaned away, watching him sit up on his knees and pull the sweater off. Skin on skin felt amazing. He lost track of time as Oikawa kissed him everywhere. The rest of their clothes were lost somewhere in the haze and he nearly lost his mind when slick fingers worked him over. He fisted the bedsheets, hearing the sounds of Oikawa talking to him but not hearing any words. There was the crinkle of a foil package, and then a wanton, unholy sound ripped out of his throat as Oikawa slid slowly in, bottoming out with a gentle roll of his hips.

His skin was on fire. Every nerve in his body was attuned to the feeling of Oikawa. His breath against his skin, the muscles in his back under his hands, every inch of him. He dug his nails in, trailing long lines down the man’s back as he worked up to a fast pace. He’d never been so vocal in his life. His whining mixed with Oikawa’s grunts and the sound of their skin meeting. He arched off the bed, a silent scream clogging his throat as Oikawa hit something. 

“Tooru.”

His hips stuttered, then quickened. 

“Say it again,” he breathed against Wakatoshi’s ear. “Say my name.”

He drilled into that spot that made him see stars and he really did scream this time. 

“Tooru!” It came out as a high pitched moan.

He held on for dear life as Oikawa rocked hard into him, slowly inching him up the bed.

“God you’re perfect. So good for me.”

Another wave of heat crashed through him at the words. His legs clenched around Oikawa’s waist. His body was tensing, muscles coiling as the heat in his stomach wound tighter and tighter.

“That’s it baby, come on. You can do it.”

Oikawa lost his rhythm, but none of his force. Wakatoshi’s toes curled and he twitched violently as he tipped over the edge. He called Oikawa’s name loud enough it bounced off the walls, but he didn’t care. His brain was a puddle between his ears. He was just along for the ride as Oikawa pistoned his hips one, two, three more times. All of the tension seemed to melt out of his muscles as he lowered himself to lay over Wakatoshi’s heaving, sweaty body. They were hot and sticky, but neither of them moved for a few long moments. Eventually Oikawa pulled away and out, getting off the bed to toss the  used condom. He grabbed the sweater he’d been wearing off the floor and used it to wipe up the mess over Wakatoshi’s stomach and between his legs. 

He squirmed at the feeling and Oikawa kissed the inside of his knee. He blinked slowly up at the ceiling as Oikawa crawled over him and covered them both with the blanket. He turned his head to look at he other man. He ran a hand through Wakatoshi’s sweaty hair, a soft look on his face. He leaned forward to softly kiss him on the nose before folding him into his arms. Wakatoshi curled into his chest, very tired all of a sudden. Oikawa’s hand running over his side eventually lulled him to sleep.

~

Hajime unlocked the door, the sound of one of Tooru’s movies playing through the apartment. He kicked his shoes off, his brow furrowing when he found the living room empty. So was the kitchen. All the lights were on, so he was sure Tooru and Ushijima were home. He walked over to the kotatsu and grabbed the remote, turning the tv off. He noticed the bedroom light was on at the end of the hall. He went around and turned off the rest of the lights around the apartment before making his way to the open bedroom door. It was only just after eight thirty, he didn’t think one of them would have fallen asleep already.

Just in case he walked quietly. He poked his head around the doorframe and forgot how to breathe. Tooru and Ushijima were laying, curled together, in the middle of the bed. Clothes littered the floor, and it didn’t take a genius to guess what had happened while he was out. He entered the room and closed the door quietly. Tooru turned to look over his shoulder and smiled. Hajime could see his fingers playing with Ushijima’s hair.

He shuffled over and sat on the edge of the bed, gazing fondly down at the younger man’s sleeping face. He looked so peaceful. So relaxed.

“He just fell asleep,” Tooru whispered. 

Hajime nodded to acknowledge the words. He brought his own hand up to rub Tooru’s back when he noticed the red lines marring the skin. His eyes widened as he looked at them. They ran from his shoulders to his hips. They were still bright red and fresh and Hajime’s heart was in his throat. He looked at Tooru with shocked eyes.

“He—” He couldn’t even get the words out. He’d thought for sure—

“Beautifully,” Tooru murmured.

Hajime blinked at his boyfriend’s back, and then at Ushijima. 

Holy shit.  

After giving himself a minute to process he got up and shed his own clothes, leaving his underwear on. He turned the light out and climbed into bed behind Ushijima. He settled one arm around the younger man’s waist and fit one of his legs between Ushijima’s knees. He smelled like sweat and sex and vague traces of his cologne.

“Hajime,” Tooru whispered just when he thought the man had fallen asleep too.

“Hm?”

“Let’s keep him.”

A smile fought its way onto his face in the dark. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He belongs here.”

~

Wakatoshi woke up to soft breath hitting his face. He opened his eyes, blinking as he looked into Iwaizumi’s sleeping face. He looked softer when he was asleep. Wakatoshi stared quietly. He brought a finger up and gently traced the curve of his mouth. Deep green eyes opened and he froze. They just stared at each other for a long minute before Iwaizumi pushed past his hand and kissed him.

“Morning, beautiful.”

He flushed, mumbling a good morning into his lips. 

“Did you have a good night?” Iwaizumi rumbled into his shoulder, working his way up to his ear. “Did he make you feel good?”

Goosebumps pebbled his skin as the man’s raspy voice vibrated right into his ear. Iwaizumi placed butterfly kisses across his neck, his hand wandering anywhere he could reach. His fingers dug gently into the meat of his ass and that heat from last night began to simmer low in his stomach. He breathed unsteadily into Iwaizumi’s shoulder, his hips twitching forward when the man’s fingers ghosted over the hair below his navel. Iwaizumi pressed closer, and Wakatoshi could feel him against his hip. He dragged his fingers over the thin material of the man’s boxers, pinching the tight material between his fingers. 

Foggy with sleep and growing heat, things started to go a little hazy again. He pressed his mouth against the column of Iwaizumi’s throat. He was fairly certain he’d made some type of noise. 

“You sure you want to do that?” Iwaizumi asked him.

His only answer was something he remembered Oikawa doing last night. He sank his teeth gently into Iwaizumi’s neck, but not enough to hurt. 

“You’re gonna kill me.”

Iwaizumi readjusted their position so Wakatoshi was on his back beneath him. He glanced briefly at Oikawa, who was still sleeping soundly. Iwaizumi kissed him.

“You gotta try and be quiet.”

He nodded, and they kissed for another moment before Iwaizumi opened a drawer in the nightstand. He kicked his underwear off and spread Wakatoshi’s legs a little wider apart. Iwaizumi barely stopped kissing him the whole time, swallowing the sounds he made. Everything about it was lazy and gentle. They rocked together, breathing the same air. Iwaizumi kept it tame, but he ground deep, making Wakatoshi dizzy on every forward thrust. Iwaizumi’s forearms laid on either side of his torso, his sweaty forehead resting on Wakatoshi’s collarbone. 

He had one hand fisted in Iwaizumi’s dark strands and the other grappled at the bedsheets uselessly. He blinked his eyes open dazedly when fingers slipped into his own. Oikawa held his hand and moved in to kiss his cheek. 

“Does it feel good, darling?”

His answer was a drawn out moan. He writhed as his body tensed, and Oikawa kissed him as Iwaizumi fucked him through his release, following a moment later. 

What a way to wake up.

The three of them stayed close together until Wakatoshi eventually got uncomfortable. They cleaned up, and Oikawa lent him a pair of pyjama pants and a hoodie to wear. They ate breakfast on the couch and then cuddled with the tv on.

“We were supposed to make you dinner,” Wakatoshi mumbled into Iwaizumi’s shirt.

“It’s okay.”

He spent most of the day with them before dragging his clothes off of their bedroom floor and heading back to his dorm. He texted them when he got home, and then jumped in the shower. When he got out he changed into some comfy clothes and huddled under his duvet. He pulled up Tendou’s contact and hit call. He picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hello.”

“You told me to tell you if anything ever happened with Oikawa and Iwaizumi,” he said.

“Wait, what happened? What did they do, are you okay?” Tendou shot off questions rapid fire. 

“I had sex with them.”

“…that is so not what I meant by that.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long time. Then Tendou sighed.

“Congratulations.”

chapter eleven

He was pruning Haru’s branches when he got a text.

[IWAIZUMI]

Come to my house for the holidays.

He blinked down at his phone, rereading the message to make sure he hadn’t been mistaken. Iwaizumi wanted him to go home with him…for Christmas… 

Break started in three days. Most of his floor had already cleared out, Wakatoshi being one of the only ones left. He looked back down at his phone. He didn’t know what to say. He kind of wanted to go with him. It would be nice to spend the holidays with someone for a change. But he was terrified at the same time. Going home with Iwaizumi most likely meant meeting his family. The prospect made him nervous.

I wouldn’t want to impose.

You wouldn’t. Plus…my mom kind of already expects you to be with us.

He blinked. He’d told his mother?

Us?

Tooru’s parents went on an extended anniversary vacation so he’s coming with me too. 

If you want to come that is. You don’t have to.

We’d really like it if you did.

He thought it over for the rest of the day. 

Should he go? Wasn’t it a bit too soon? They’d only been seeing each other for a couple of months. Was that long enough to warrant being introduced to family? He didn’t know. Iwaizumi seemed to think so. He didn’t really want to spend another Christmas by himself, accustomed to it as he was. But he also didn’t want to be in the way. He also hadn’t purchased any gifts for either Iwaizumi or Oikawa. He wasn’t sure if that was something they’d want to do with him, or if it was still too early. They’d learned a lot since their first date, but they were still getting to know each other. Even if he did want to get them something, he had no clue what they might have liked. 

He decided late that night that he’d tell Iwaizumi that he appreciated the invitation, but he would have to decline. He didn’t want to impose on the man’s time with his family. He rolled over in bed and reached for his phone where it was charging on the nightstand and pulled up his conversation with Iwaizumi.

But as he started typing out the message, he thought again about what would happen if he did go. He wouldn’t spend a holiday meant for spending time with family alone on his couch. He would be surrounded by people, and laughter, and joy for the first time in years. And he would get to spend three weeks with Oikawa and Iwaizumi with no interruptions. He watched the cursor blink on and off.

He deleted the half written text.

If you’re sure it won’t be any trouble, I would like to spend the holidays with you.

~~ . . . ~~

Two days later Wakatoshi sat on his couch with his backpack and a duffle bag packed with anything he might need over the break. He was getting nervous as he waited for one of them to text him that they were downstairs. His phone chimed in his hand. 

Ready when you are Ushiwaka-chan~

He huffed out a quick breath and stood to gather his things. He said one last farewell to his plants and laced up his winter boots, then he was locking the door and making his way down the hall. Oikawa and Iwaizumi were waiting for him outside, their own luggage resting at their feet. They called a cab once they reached the main street and he leaned into Oikawa as the early morning wind bit at his cheeks. They loaded up the trunk and all squished into the cab’s backseat, Iwaizumi telling him which train station they were heading to.

He watched the city pass by, his fingers twitching in his gloves. He listened to Oikawa and Iwaizumi talk as they rode to the station and while they waited for their train. He took the window seat when they boarded, Iwaizumi took the seat next to him and Oikawa the one across.

“You’re going to have so much fun!” Oikawa started as soon as they started moving. “Iwa-chan’s mom makes the best Christmas cake.”

The brunette spent most of their three hour train ride talking about past holidays he and his family had spent with Iwaizumi’s when they were children. His nerves didn’t properly kick in until they were off the train. His stomach was doing flips and the sweat forming on his palms went cold in the chilly December air. He huddled into his coat as they waited for a cab in the pickup line, trying to keep warm and hide his growing anxiety. What if Iwaizumi’s parents changed their minds and sent him away? What if he made everything awkward for his family. He didn’t want either of those things to happen. His bags were taken from him and he was nudged in the direction of the open back door of a waiting cab. 

He was lost in his head as Iwaizumi gave the driver his address. He stared out the window, watching houses and shops decorated for the season pass by in a blur. He blinked back into reality as he started to recognise the neighbourhoods they drove through. He sat up a little straighter as a familiar single storey home stood proudly on the street corner they stopped at briefly. It was his friend Kawanishi’s house. They’d lost touch after high school. He wondered if the man might have come home for Christmas too. He stared out at the streets he used to walk to get to school what felt like a lifetime ago. 

“Are you all right?” Iwaizumi asked.

“We’re close to Shiratorizawa,” he said.

“You know it?”

“It’s where I went to high school.”

“Say, Ushiwaka-chan, you didn’t happen to play volleyball in high school, did you?” Oikawa asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

They entered the neighbourhood closer to Aoba Johsai. A few streets in they turned off and drove down a quiet street and the driver pulled over. It was funny how the world worked, he thought. He’d grown up in such close proximity to the men he was spending his break with, and yet they’d never met before this year. 

Once the fare was paid they unloaded the car and Iwaizumi led the way up to the front door.

“Tadaima!” Iwaizumi called when the three of them had squeezed into the front hall.

“Okaeri!” Several voices shouted back. 

“Here, these are for you.”

A pair of bright yellow slippers were held out him. He slid them on and grabbed his bags from where he’d set them against the wall. They went upstairs and he looked around at the hall they walked through until they reached one of the doors at the end. He smiled when he took a look around Iwaizumi’s childhood bedroom.

There was an old sports bag forgotten under the desk, various medals and awards hug up on the wall across from the twin bed. He stepped up to a large cork board hung on the wall to get a closer look at the things pinned to it. There were photos of people he didn’t know, of Iwaizumi and Oikawa. There were several pictures of the pair with the people who lived across the hall from Tendou; the ones who had made him blush. There were newspaper clippings and a page with diagrams and the names of several different bugs. Stuck up in the corner under the wooden frame was a picture of what he thought must have been their high school volleyball team. He took in the line underneath the number of Oikawa’s jersey. 

“You were captain?”

He felt them step up at his shoulder. 

“Yeah. That was a good year,” Oikawa reminisced. 

Someone calling them from downstairs had them leaving the bedroom. He wrung his hands as they walked down the stairs, and he jolted when Oikawa set his hand on his shoulder in reassurance. They entered the living room where several people were gathered. He had the strongest urge to hide behind someone, but he was the tallest person in the room. Iwaizumi’s mother stood up and greeted him warmly. She had a wide smile on her face as she welcomed him; Iwaizumi’s smile.

He was introduced to his father next, and they shared a polite handshake. Iwaizumi’s aunt and uncle were also there. He tried to keep up with their questioning, but it got a little overwhelming after awhile. 

“What was it you said you were taking again?” Iwaizumi’s father asked.

“Political science.”

The man hummed. He scanned Wakatoshi’s face for a moment. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to Ushijima Takashi, would you?”

“He’s my father.”

“Oh, you poor thing.”

Iwaizumi’s aunt slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes blown incredibly wide. Wakatoshi could see the mortification on her face as she stared at him.

“I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” she muttered.

“It’s fine.”

She wasn’t the first person he’d met who didn’t like his father. 

In fact, later that night as they laid under the blankets on the floor (they’d pushed three futons together because the bed was not going to fit all of them), Oikawa and Iwaizumi brought it up again.

“Your dad’s a dick,” Iwaizumi said.

“I know.”

“Like, a complete asshole,” Oikawa added.

“I lived in his house. I am aware.”

“He really didn’t need to cut funding to—”

“There are a lot of things he probably shouldn’t have done.”

~~ . . . ~~

The first week of break went really well. He got along great with Iwaizumi’s parents. He’d met some more of the man’s family and he got along with them pretty well for the most part. They’d had lunch with Oikawa’s older sister and his nephew on their fourth day in Sendai. Before bed one night Oikawa’s parents had called to check in on him and he’d been introduced over the phone as soon as his mother had discovered that he was there.

“It’s nice to meet you, Oikawa-san,” he’d said a little awkwardly.

‘Oh please, just call me okaa-san.”

A few days before Christmas the three of them laid in bed, the mid morning sun warming them where it came through the open curtains. He was laying on his stomach with his head between his arms, Oikawa and Iwaizumi close beside him. There was a leg thrown over his thighs, one of them was rubbing his back. 

“So, my uncle’s an optometrist.”

Wakatoshi blinked slowly as Iwaizumi’s voice brought him back from the edge of sleep.

“His office does discounts for students. And he knocks off half the cost for family anyway.”

He turned his head to face the older man. “What are you trying to say?”

“I can’t tell you what to do, and I won’t force you to go. But would you think about maybe going to see him?”

“I’m fine.”

“But you’re not,” Oikawa said, his tone gentle but firm. “You squint enough to give me headaches. If my glasses work well enough for you then I know your vision is pretty bad. You can’t keep walking around half blind. And as cute as you look in my glasses, you can’t keep borrowing them forever. You need your own.”

All he could hear was his mother’s voice telling him that he couldn’t ever show he had flaws. He wasn’t allowed to have glasses because that would mean there was something wrong with him. They couldn’t run the risk of someone discovering he wore contact lenses. Twelve years of strict rules and expectations weighed on his shoulders.

“Just think about it.”

~~ . . . ~~

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed at a Christmas dinner. 

He’d barely not smiled the whole day. Neighbours had been in and out all morning to give the Iwaizumi’s their holiday wishes (and a fair amount of alcohol). A small pile of gifts had been handed out while a movie played on the tv. He’d felt guilty that he didn’t have anything to give anyone, but he’d been placated with hugs and cheek kisses.

“Worry about it next year,” Oikawa had told him.

In the afternoon the entire Iwaizumi clan had gathered in the house. There were children running around and playing games, too many names to remember and a lot of teasing. It was all directed at his Iwaizumi though, so he hadn’t minded it all that much. He’d been allowed to help prepare dinner, which had been fun. It had just been him, Iwaizumi’s mother, and his grandmother in the kitchen for a solid two hours. They were incredibly kind women, and they’d turned the occasion into a sort of lesson, giving him cooking advice and tips. And the customary ‘I’ll cook for you anytime, just tell me what you like to eat’ from Iwaizumi’s mother. 

They were spread out through the dining room and the living room as they ate dinner. The three of them, along with the cousins their age and the older teens all had to eat on the floor. The table was reserved for the kids so they could safely make a mess where it could be easily cleaned up, and everyone else found space on a couch, a chair or against an available patch of wall. He’d been dragged into a conversation about fishing with one of Iwaizumi’s more distant relatives. He felt warm and happy the whole evening. After dinner dessert was served, and Oikawa was right. Iwaizumi-san did make the best Christmas cake. 

Everyone pitched in to gather dishes and haul them into the kitchen. When the family with younger children left for the night, the bottles of sake and beer were cracked open and the party got even louder. They’d congregated in the living room and Wakatoshi stood under the threshold separating the living room from the dining room to keep away from drunken flailing limbs. He nodded at the elder Iwaizumi-san as the man walked back into the kitchen with a few of the empty bottles, receiving a friendly pat on the shoulder when he came back through. 

Thirty minutes later Iwaizumi was asked to grab more alcohol. When he came back with two more bottles of sake in his hand, they were both confused when the adults gathered around were suddenly pointing at them and cheering. His eyes found Oikawa’s across the room and the man smiled at his no doubt confused expression. The brunette gestured above his head and Wakatoshi looked up.

There, taped to the top of the doorway, was mistletoe.

It hadn’t been there an hour ago.

A large palm wrapped around his bicep and he looked down into Iwaizumi’s amused green eyes. That hand moved to the back of his neck and Wakatoshi flushed a brilliant shade of red as Iwaizumi kissed him in full view of his family. Louder cheering and clapping made him duck his head from embarrassment. 

He had to help more than one person into a cab and read their addresses off the I.D. in their wallets.

He helped pick up the living room once all of their guests had left, smiling tiredly with the rest of them. He, Oikawa and Iwaizumi trudged up the stairs well past two in the morning. They got changed into their pyjamas carelessly; Iwaizumi didn’t bother with a shirt and both Wakatoshi and Oikawa decided it was too much effort to put pants on. They collapsed into their combined futons, settling under the blankets and cuddling together. Iwaizumi used the left side of his chest as a pillow and Oikawa draped himself over Wakatoshi’s right half, playing with is hair absently.

“Hey Ushijima,” Iwaizumi said just as he was about to fall asleep.

“Hm?”

“Will you be our boyfriend? Officially.”

It took his brain a moment to process the question, and then he was wide awake. He looked at Iwaizumi, who was gazing up at him with clear eyes. They held eye contact for a few long moments. He felt Oikawa squirm against him the longer it went on. His grip on both of them tightened.

“I’d be honoured.”

finis