Multifandom Fanfiction

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They’d shared a number of kisses over the course of their friendship. The first had been when they were eight and Iwaizumi had fallen off his bike and scraped his knee. Oikawa was there, because they were always together.

There was some asphalt clinging to the broken skin and Oikawa gingerly brushed it away with the bottom of his shirt, and then he kissed it. And then Iwaizumi smacked him and Oikawa recoiled more from outrage than pain.

“What was that for!”

“You kissed me!”

“That’s what your supposed to do! My mom does it all the time!”

Iwaizumi pouted. Oikawa’s reasoning was sound. Even Iwaizumi’s mother did it too.

“Yeah, but she asks first! Next time, just ask first.”

Oikawa crossed his arms. “Next time I’ll keep riding my bike!”

 The rest were here and there, in the locker room after practice, Good Morning after a night at one or the other’s house, I’m sorry and It’s alright, after losing to Karasuno. They had never done much beyond that, because they’d never really felt the need to. But then came the end of high school, and the reality of universities across the ocean loomed on the horizon.

They had never been separated for so long or with such distance.

“You’ve been making a face all day. What’s your deal?”

Oikawa sat back on his bed with a huff. Iwaizumi continued leafing through an English textbook, though he looked at Oikawa across the room with an eyebrow raised.

“Who’s making a face now,”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes.

Unsatisfied, Oikawa patted the space beside him. “Iwa, come here.”

And Iwaizumi did. “What. What couldn’t you tell me from across the room.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Iwaizumi’s expression softened. He knew what this was about.

“You always say yes but what about in a couple months when yes isn’t enough? You’re not made of money and neither am I, and plane tickets are expensive, but I’ll probably buy them anyway if you’re not around to stop me –”

Iwaizumi shook his head. Took one of Oikawa’s hands and placed it on his right knee, the one he’d hurt all those years ago. “We’re gonna grow up. You’re gonna find a new court to tyrannize and I’m gonna wish I was with you but enjoy what I’m doing too. We’re gonna become a little different than we are now, but I’m always going to say yes. Today, three months from now, ten years from now, Oikawa. Always.”

Oikawa pressed his lips together. “It’s not fair when you get so eloquent, Iwa. It makes me feel inferior.”

Iwaizumi snorted and kissed him. And they kissed for a while, and a while longer, until somehow they’d discarded their shirts and moved from sitting on his bed to lying.

Oikawa thought about how Iwaizumi’s skin was always so tanned. He thought about the time at the beach when they’d forgotten sunscreen – you said you packed it! I thought I did! Well that’s just not realistic because we both know the only valuable thinking you do is on the court! – and he’d burned terribly but Iwaizumi looked like a bronze god. And that evening he’d come down from heaven to grace Oikawa with his presence and rub an aloe-based lotion where Oikawa couldn’t reach. They’d kissed some then too.

It was new territory, kissing with open mouths and hot breath and no shirts chest to chest. Iwaizumi pressed down with his hips and Oikawa pressed up and this was definitely new territory.

Now Oikawa was basically an adult. He knew how sex worked, and he knew how it would work between the two of them. He also knew he most definitely wasn’t now, nor could he guarantee he would ever, be ready for it. Though that wasn’t the right term; comfortable with it was more accurate. Even if he was perfectly comfortable with Iwaizumi, if Iwaizumi was the only person in the world who he would ever even come close to being comfortable with sex with – which he was – the act was something entirely different. It would hurt, for one. He had imagined it, just once, and in this fantasy he’d been on the receiving end and he knew if it were ever to play out in actually, he would be there, too. So he knew it would hurt, no matter how gentle Iwaizumi would most definitely be. It wouldn’t hurt forever, he also knew, but he didn’t know if the promise of it’ll feel good eventually was enough to get past the initial pain.

“Hey, you’re a million miles away,” Iwaizumi said, and Oikawa realized they were no longer kissing. Their legs were still intertwined and Iwaizumi still weighing down on top of him, but he was making a face.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” he continued, and God, Oikawa knew he would never be understood so deeply by anyone else.

“You’re fucking telepathic, you know that?”

Iwaizumi laughed. “I’ve just known you since we were four, and you’re not nearly as emotionally complex as you project.”

Oikawa swatted his shoulder.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Kiss me. All over.”

And Iwaizumi did. His neck, his shoulders, his collar bones; his biceps, his stomach, his hip bones – Iwaizumi kissed them all, tenderly and purposefully. From his hips, Iwaizumi looked up.

“Do you want me to – ”

Oikawa thought instantly of the one girl who’d done that to him in a bathroom stall two years ago at school. It had been a little weird and a little fantastic, but with Iwaizumi –

He stuttered when he answered. “N-not with your mouth.”

Because he wanted to be able to kiss him when he – he’d gone introspective again but Iwaizumi’s soft palm remedied that quickly.

Even though it did nothing to disguise the noises he made, Oikawa was glad the lights were off and the sky darkening by the second. Even with Iwaizumi, even though he was never one to shy away from a spotlight, something like this was embarrassing. When he was close, he dragged nails across Iwaizumi’s shoulder blades and Iwaizumi thought volumes about how he liked it, and when he came he did so panting and red and teary. Even air came difficult in the moments after, but he thought first he wanted Iwaizumi to feel the same.

“Here, let me,” he said, sitting up on arms that felt like he’d spent two hours too long benching in the weight room.

“It’s okay, I’m almost –”

                                                             _

Dean had sex for a number of reasons.

As much as he presented himself otherwise, he was an empath. And feeling his father’s and his brother’s pain on top of his own, which was very much enough by itself, did him no favors. So he looked for release, because even if only for a moment, a single, blissful moment, his mother hadn’t died burning, his father hadn’t been disappointed in him since he was nine – hadn’t died for him – and his brother wasn’t a ticking time bomb he was supposed to stop.

He was just a person capable of making another person feel good. He’d just think god, yes, and that maybe he could keep slogging through if another moment like this was in sight. He didn’t live for sex – he lived for Sam – but the occasional orgasm kept him sane.

He didn’t actually love the game that much, though. He thought a lot of it was kind of obscene, so he generally preferred to do things with the lights off and minimal foreplay. It was really only about the end result, after all. Even kissing, if he wasn’t in the mood, was mostly just gross. The saliva of a stranger all over his mouth and the skin around it? Occasionally it was good, sometimes it was okay, but mostly it was bad. Once, she her lip gloss tasted like strawberry candy and it lingered on his lips till morning. Usually they tasted like beer, which was another circumstantial pleasure.

He didn’t actually love the taste, but it was more tolerable than the harder stuff and it got him where he needed to be: pliant and hazy-eyed with lowered standards. Sometimes though, it just made him sad. One night, he thought he could get past it, but sitting atop her waist half-clothed, he looked down at her and all he could do was apologize.

“You’re beautiful,” he’d said, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands because he couldn’t look her in the eyes.

She’d taken a moment, but sighed and said, “But ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ Somehow, I actually believe you.”

It’d taken all the courage he had because emotional vulnerability was so, so far out of his comfort zone that given a choice he wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, but he still wanted to feel good. “Could we – would you stay anyway?”

And she did. They slept back to back and each time he woke through the night he smelled cinnamon and vanilla.

That night, if he thought about it too much (which he did, of course he did), wasn’t just about exhaustion and crippling depression. It was about being a child; being innocent and being comforted like he hadn’t in years.

 -

 They’ve kissed more than their teammates might think.

The first time, they were twelve, on one of their days off from practice in the summer and they’d spent all morning searching for caterpillars. They come in for watermelon and a break from the sun and humidity, that, once they’re upstairs reading Iwaizumi’s comic books splayed out on the floor, turns into a nap. A half hour later, they wake, and Godzilla resumes defending Japan from another kaiju terrorizing the earth on glossy pages beneath sticky fingers. They talk a little as they read, about caterpillars and the upcoming school year, volleyball and what Iwaizumi’s mom is making for dinner.

“What do you think kissing is like?” Oikawa says, stretched out on his back with his hands folded on his stomach. He’s counting the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on Iwaizumi’s ceiling. “Makki and Hanna got married on the playground the other day and got in trouble for kissing.”

Iwaizumi grunts, uninterested really, but a couple moments pass and he decides he’d like to know too. After all, he and Oikawa compete in just about everything else; he can’t lose here either, even if he is feeling kind of chicken. So he sits up cross legged, and Oikawa follows, and they don’t say a lot, but before they lean in, Oikawa asks, “Should we close our eyes?”

Iwaizumi hasn’t a clue but he says he thinks so.

And it’s exactly what an experimental kiss between twelve-year old best friends should be: scrunched up faces and pursed lips that meet only for a second before they pull away and look at each other again.

Iwaizumi grunts again, shrugging a shoulder, and Oikawa agrees.

“Yeah, don’t really get what all the fuss was about.”

 The second time, they’re fifteen, and its after Oikawa’s knee starts hurting during practice. Aside from sets that aren’t up to Oikawa’s own standard – but still entirely hittable, Iwaizumi thinks – Iwaizumi knows his partner well-enough to see that something isn’t right. He doesn’t mention it during practice, and neither do the coaches; they probably think he’s just having an off day. He’d been kind of tightly wound since Kageyama had taken his place in that match, after all.

They walk home together, where usually Oikawa is skipping about in front of him, going on about his latest girlfriend, but today, he lags behind in strange silence.

Iwaizumi turns to face him and goes for normalcy. “Shittykawa, spit it out.”

Oikawa looks up. Iwaizumi wants to see his face twist into that all-too-familiar shit-eating grin. Instead, he notices Oikawa looks pale. He’s leaning to one side – weight on one foot – and says, in a voice Iwaizumi has never heard before, “It hurts, Iwa-chan,”

They make it home to Iwaizumi’s, because Oikawa’s parents are out of town and he’s staying over, and Iwaizumi helps him up the stairs and onto his bed, leaving him for a moment to retrieve an ice pack from the refrigerator downstairs. He offers ibuprofen too, but Oikawa says he needs to be able to feel it.

“What? Why?”

Oikawa mumbles out an answer that Iwaizumi doesn’t like: that he needs it to hurt to remind him to try harder.

“Don’t be a dumbass. Your play is already suffering; if you continue like this, it’ll get worse and then Kageyama will take your place for good.”

Oikawa flinches and looks away from Iwaizumi, who’s kneeling at his legs and holding the ice pack in place.

“I want you setting for me, not him.” Then he stands and chastely kisses the top of Oikawa’s head, hair unreasonably soft, in one quick motion.  

“Iwa-chan, if you wanted to kiss me you could have just said so,”

Iwaizumi slaps the back of his head and stomps downstairs to start dinner.

 The third time, they’re seventeen, cicadas call loudly, and they’ve come back from a run. They’ve just had lunch, and Iwaizumi tastes like peanut butter and Oikawa like a popsicle.

“‘Blue’ isn’t even a flavor, it’s a color,” he says, and Oikawa sticks his purple tongue out. Iwaizumi makes a face, but Oikawa’s put a hand behind his head and leisurely, like he’d done it as often as he’d served a volleyball, kisses Iwaizumi. It isn’t like when they were twelve.

Oikawa pulls back, triumphant, saying, “See, there is flavor.”

 The fourth time, they’re eighteen, getting ready for bed early because they’ve a match in the morning, brushing their teeth in Oikawa’s bathroom, play-fighting with elbows until Oikawa swallows some toothpaste and hacks over the sink while Iwaizumi, already rinsed clean, cackles behind him till his stomach hurts. Oikawa catches his breath and rinses eventually, and turns to Iwaizumi, who recognizes the danger immediately. He intends to flee from the bathroom, but Oikawa, long-limbed and oddly flexible, manages the get the door shut. Iwaizumi does his best to look intimidating, but Oikawa smiles confidently and ghosts his hands over Iwaizumi’s ribs. Involuntarily, Iwaizumi shudders as Oikawa says, “Please, Iwa-chan. In close quarters like this, you don’t stand a chance. I know your weakness.”

Iwaizumi swallows, mouth parted in a nervous, have mercy smile, but Oikawa will have none of it. The same fingers that deliver the only sets Iwaizumi could ever ask for tickle his sides till he wheezes and tears form. He breaks mostly free and reaches for the doorknob, but Oikawa seizes the opening and then Iwaizumi’s back to laughing and trying desperately to grab hold of Oikawa’s hands while still defending himself. A few misfires, but eventually he gets one and holds it behind Oikawa’s back and the edge of the vanity while he nabs the other wrist and takes them both his is calloused hand. He presses forward with his whole body, still breathing heavy, but finally, finally he can relax.

Oikawa smirks. “I could get free if I wanted to.”

Iwaizumi scoffs. “No you couldn’t.”

Oikawa’s smirk remains, and entirely too confidently for someone with his arms pinned behind him, he leans forward and looks Iwaizumi directly in the eyes as he kisses him. It’s brief, so he can pull back and raise his hands and wiggle his fingers.

“Told ya,” he says, and Iwaizumi expects him to cross his arms over his chest and continue gloating, but he doesn’t. Well, he still gloats, but he puts his hands on Iwaizumi’s sides again, and Iwaizumi sucks in a breath.

“I like them here better. Don’t you?”

Iwaizumi swallows. Looks at Oikawa, all smiles and lidded eyes, and decides this time will be different.

So he pushes forward and they kiss there, in the warm light of the half-bath off the corner of Iwaizumi’s room, with open mouths and think they’ve finally understood what all the fuss is about. Iwaizumi half-wonders if maybe Oikawa understood a while ago, because he moves himself and directs Iwaizumi with a confidence Iwaizumi doesn’t have yet. At some point though, they separate, and Iwaizumi is pleased to find Oikawa’s face – and mouth – as red as his feels.

They hear the front door close and Iwaizumi’s mom call out. Iwaizumi wavers, but Oikawa grabs his face and kisses him hard, and a moment later darts out the door, down the stairs and in into, Iwaizumi suspects, the kitchen, where he’ll be hiding behind Iwaizumi’s own mother. Iwaizumi clambers after him.

 The fifth time, they’re still eighteen, but they’ve just lost to Karasuno. Oikawa knows it isn’t the end for him, but it’s bitter, because it’s the end for him and Iwaizumi.

He’s glad when Iwaizumi turns up at the Shiratorizawa-Karasuno showdown. He’d been afraid to reach out and meet up formally because what if it hurt? He didn’t feel like crying anymore; he’d done enough of that. And it does hurt, them analyzing the match together. Hearing Iwaizumi call him an asshole and laughing because he knows it’s true. Toward the end, Oikawa, unsure, says, “I was imagining it was us out there.”

“Me too.”

They get coffee. Iwaizumi remarks about how little crème Oikawa gets in his.

“I’ve got to start taking care of myself,” Oikawa replies, and Iwaizumi reads between the lines.

“Come back to my place. I’ll make dinner.”

“‘Your place?’ You still live with your parents, Iwa-chan,”

Iwaizumi huffs. “They’re out. We’ll have to stop at the grocery first. Guess I oughtta teach you how to do that too, huh.”

Oikawa smiles, but when Iwaizumi turns and heads out the café door, it slips.

He wants to enjoy these last moments together, so he laughs and teases Iwaizumi like he should, but it’s hard, so after dinner when Iwaizumi puts a movie on, Oikawa excuses himself to the bathroom upstairs, sees the toothpaste on the counter, and cries. He’s in the there entirely too long and knows Iwaizumi is probably getting suspicious, but he’s still surprised when he opens the door to find Iwaizumi flipping through an old comic book on his bed.

Oikawa sniffs.

Iwaizumi pats the space next to him.

Oikawa curls beside him with his head on Iwaizumi’s stomach and tries to breathe without shaking. Iwaizumi puts the comic book down. They’d done this before. Oikawa had cried in front of Iwaizumi more times that he’d cried alone, though he can’t help but think that will be changing. Universities across the world from each other – how could they ever hope to close that distance?

“I know you’re thinking.”

“Iwa-chan had a thought?” Oikawa hides his face in Iwaizumi’s sweatshirt.

“I’m trying to be genuine here, asshole.”

Oikawa has a decision to make – allow Iwaizumi to start this conversation, the one he wants to pretend won’t happen if he avoids it, or try to enjoy one of their last nights together. He isn’t sure he can do either.

He feels a hand in his hair, soft and warm, and though he knows Iwaizumi is offering comfort, Oikawa needs to take more. So he sits up, sets his glasses on Iwaizumi’s bed-side table, and moves to straddle his best friend’s waist.

Iwaizumi is taken aback. He’s perceptive, but Oikawa can be a mystery if he really wants to be, and now, Iwaizumi notes, is one of those times. He waits. Watches Oikawa’s chest rise and fall.

Oikawa puts his hands on Iwaizumi’s chest. He can do this. He wants to do this. He has to do this. There likely won’t be another chance. With worry and separation in the back of his mind, he leans down and kisses Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi kisses him back, moves his hands to either side of Oikawa’s waist, above the hips but below the ribs, which is an incredible relief; Oikawa had half-expected Iwaizumi to say no, we shouldn’t, not like this, or worse, just no, because he didn’t want Oikawa the way Oikawa wanted him. That just because they’d kissed a couple times didn’t mean he’d mourn him from how-ever many thousand miles away. How could Oikawa blame him? They weren’t even twenty, and Iwaizumi was going to move on from volleyball. He was going to study sports medicine in college, but that wasn’t a team sport; Oikawa couldn’t be a part of that world, and maybe that was for the better. Maybe that was what Iwaizumi wanted.

Oikawa feels sick at the thought, and decides that at least for this moment and the few that would follow, he would be something Iwaizumi wanted.

Oikawa kisses him in what he thinks is the sexiest way possible. Tongue, but not too much, just enough to tease, because that about sums up his entire personality, doesn’t it? If Iwaizumi could read his thoughts he would have said no, you’re entirely too much, all the time.

Oikawa holds back tears.

He presses his hips down and wills himself to feel something that doesn’t hurt. He trails wet kisses from Iwaizumi’s mouth to his jaw to his neck – the kind that leaves bruises – and Iwaizumi, who is breathing faster than normal, whose hands roam from Oikawa’s sides to his shoulder blades to his hair, makes a noise Oikawa hasn’t heard before. Oikawa’s chest tightens.

It stops when Oikawa pauses opens his eyes because he stupidly, stupidly wanted to see what Iwaizumi, what Haijime looked like beneath him. It’s everything he’s hoped for – flushed down to his neck, red, shiny lips parted perfectly for his own, eyes shut almost tightly, almost like it was too much and Oikawa would cement this moment, this Haijime in the back of his mind for the rest of his life – but Iwaizumi opens his eyes, why Oikawa didn’t know, and for a reason Oikawa is frustrated he can’t overcome, Iwaizumi blinks and it’s too late, it’s over Oikawa recognizes; Iwaizumi has been snapped from the moment Oikawa had tried so desperately to create, and all the ones he’d hoped would come after.

“Oikawa,”

How could he live without hearing Iwaizumi say his name like that ever again? Say his name at all?

“Oikawa, what’s wrong?”

So it had been his fault after all. He’s given himself away, but isn’t sure how until Iwaizumi brings a hand to his cheek and Oikawa feels him thumb wetness away.

Iwaizumi sits up as best he can, pillows at his back, and looks at Oikawa with the furrowed brow Oikawa had loved from the moment Iwaizumi’s face had first scrunched up when they were five and Iwaizumi had stepped in water with his sock feet.

Oikawa hunches down with his fists in the fabric of Iwaizumi’s sweatshirts and doesn’t care that he sounds like a child.

“It hurts, Iwa-chan,”

Iwaizumi puts his arms around Oikawa’s shaking shoulders.

“I know,” he says. Oikawa raises abruptly; had he heard that right? The tremor in Iwaizumi’s voice?

He finds Iwaizumi is crying too.

“I said I knew what you were thinking, didn’t I?”

Oikawa can’t help it – he laughs. They both spend a moment wiping their faces and sniffing, and then Oikawa says what he’s always felt.

“I love you,”

He’s never imagined how Iwaizumi would react to hearing those words from him because he’s never imagined himself really and actually saying them.

But maybe Iwaizumi has, because he says without hesitation, “I love you too.”

And even though not all of the pain is gone, enough is that Oikawa can grin again, honestly, and says, “Iwa-chan that’s so embarrassing!”

Maybe Iwaizumi hadn’t thought that far ahead, because he balks for a moment, but only a moment since this is Shittykawa after all, and launches himself into Oikawa’s torso so convincingly they tumble off his bed and this time, Iwaizumi makes sure he comes out on top so he can mercilessly dole out payback for that time in the bathroom. Oikawa writhes and shrieks beneath him with smiles Iwaizumi catalogues for when they can’t torcher each other like this every night. Because Iwaizumi is so pleased with himself, he takes Oikawa’s wrists in one hand and pins them above his head, further pleased at the blush that spreads across Oikawa’s cheeks and ears. He basks in his victory and tries his hand at the patented Oikawa smirk.

“You can’t kiss me now,” he says.

Oikawa goes still beneath him, surprise evident.

“Guess you’ll just have to let me do that part.”

Oikawa’s eyes narrow, but he grins and licks his lips.

 .

They don’t actually talk about who won or lost. There’s a jab and a comeback and then they just laugh. They separate to celebrate with their own teams, out for dinner, but Iwaizumi tells Oikawa to come by his room later.

Oikawa makes likes he’s offended, going as far as to summon a faux blush and says, “Aren’t you supposed to take me out first?”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and says, “I want to check out your knee. I know you’ve got your own trainer, but a second opinion never hurt anyone.”

Oikawa leans close, and Iwaizumi breathes once, twice, his sweat and deodorant and the way he’s smelled since they were kids. Feels the hand hot on his shoulder.

“But what if I want it to?”

But then he pulls back and he’s just one big shit-eating grin.

Iwaizumi laughs. “I don’t know why I thought you’d mature,”

Oikawa’s teammates call him over, apparently there’s an interviewer waiting for him, which doesn’t surprise Iwaizumi at all, so Oikawa just says for Iwaizumi to text him his room number.

It’s late when he comes by, and Iwaizumi hounds him about getting enough sleep. Oikawa falls with a huff on the twin bed by the window.

“Who’s the one keeping me up?”

Iwaizumi comes to stand at the foot. “This doesn’t count; it’s for good reason.”

“You think you’re worth losing sleep?”

Iwaizumi forgot how often he rolled his eyes when in Oikawa’s presence. “Sit up, put your feet on the floor, legs a ninety-degree angle.”

Oikawa complies, and in his best nauseatingly-sweet voice asks a third question. “Do you talk to all your players like that?”

Iwaizumi kneels in front of him and then realizes.

“Tell me you’re wearing something under those?”

Oikawa nearly short-circuits thinking up the perfect response but he just ends up laughing and stepping out of his sweats.

“Thank God.” Iwaizumi resumes his place kneeling on the patterned carpet and put his hands on Oikawa’s thigh.

“It’s the other one,” Oikawa says.

“I know. But you can’t be trusted not to fuck yourself up for volleyball.”

Oikawa snorts. A few moments later, Iwaizumi moves to the other, pressing into the tissues carefully. A little longer, and then he uses his thumbs to dig.

“Tell me if anything hurts.” He scoffs and corrects himself. “Tell me what hurts.”

“Is it so hard to believe I’ve learned to take care of myself?”

Iwaizumi moves one hand to the other knee and feels them simultaneously for comparison. “It really is.”

Oikawa doesn’t say anything, just watches Iwaizumi continue his examination. He thinks about reaching a hand up to feel Iwaizumi’s hair.

“Okay, lie back.”

“Oh good, the fun part.” Oikawa winks and Iwaizumi flicks him.

“The first thing you do when we see each other after all this time is feel me up and physically abuse me, Iwaizumi? Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Iwaizumi holds Oikawa’s ankle in one hand and behind his knee above the calf in the other. He puts a knee on the bed and presses forward. Only when Oikawa’s thigh is entirely flush to his chest does he wince. Iwaizumi watches him for a moment, as Oikawa pointedly looks up at the ceiling.

“Fucker,” Iwaizumi says. “You’re supposed to say when it hurts.”

“I didn’t want you to stop,”

They’re quiet for a moment, looking at each other, till Iwaizumi releases Oikawa’s leg and settles between his thighs. He moves forward, slowly, because it’s been too, too long since he’d torchered Oikawa proper. One hand on Oikawa’s right side, the other on his left, and he bends down like he’s going to kiss him. But he stops and breathes, leans back just enough when Oikawa lifts his head to meet, and chuckles at his irritation. Oikawa squints, takes the fabric of his shirt in his fists and finally – because honestly it had been torcher for Iwaizumi, too – they’re kissing.

They’re steady for a beat, until Iwaizumi feels a hand tug his hair and then they’re touching all over and scrambling for purchase to bring themselves closer, as close as physically possible after being continents apart, and mold into one another.

Then Iwaizumi pulls away for just a moment because he really wants to see what Oikawa looks like kissed stupid after so, so long.

“God,” he breathes.

“You haven’t called me that in some time,” Oikawa manages, and Iwaizumi laughs. The texts, the phone calls – they’d been enough because they were all the two of them had had for months on end, for years, but now, to see Oikawa blush for him, feel his mouth open for him? Iwaizumi doesn’t cry, but Oikawa reaches up to kiss his cheek like he had. Then he licks the same spot with what felt like basset-hound level slobber and falls back in hysterics while he watches Iwaizumi furiously rub his face in the shoulder of his t-shirt.

Oikawa’s stomach flips when Iwaizumi looks at him again, and he lets Iwaizumi gather his wrists in one hand and hold them above his head. The other splays out on Oikawa’s stomach and it flips a second time.

“That’s more like it, Iwa-chan.”

 .

 It’s not entirely a grunt and it’s not entirely a groan, the noise that Oikawa makes as Iwaizumi digs his thumbs into his traps. It’s just a noise, Iwaizumi decides, that he likes – proper term irrelevant.

“You’re really tight,” he says.

From his spot on the floor in front of the edge of Iwaizumi’s bed where Oikawa sits so Iwaizumi can work more easily, Oikawa only turns his head enough to give him a side-eye and half-assed grin. Iwaizumi enjoys that he’s capable of doing something Oikawa likes enough to actually shut up.

“I hope you’re doing this yourself, too.”

“How’s that?”

“Put a tennis ball between the muscle you want to work and a wall and press back till you feel pressure that’s uncomfortable but not painful. I do it for myself all the time.”

“It is really a massage if you do it to yourself?”

“This isn’t a massage, asshole. It’s myofascial release. I just haven’t gotten to the part that hurts yet.”

“Are you sure you went to school for this? Massages are supposed to feel good, Iwa-chan.”

“You’ll feel good tomorrow.”

“Have you ever known me to be patient?”

Iwaizumi sighs. Thinks for a moment. “Alright, lie on your stomach.”

Oikawa, still half-sleep, rises with a groan (this time, definitely a groan) and crawls like a child up past their bedtime to the center of Iwaizumi’s bed. Iwaizumi grabs something from his work bag and moves to sit atop his waist. Oikawa hums with his eyes closed.

“This’ll be cold, but it’ll take the edge off.”

He sprays a menthol solution across Oikawa’s neck and shoulders and down his back. Oikawa flinches, but after Iwaizumi’s warm fingers return, he finds the familiar cooling sensation more than pleasant. It doesn’t quite numb the area, but it helps him relax the muscles he tenses unconsciously throughout the day.

“Do you foam roll?”

“Yeah, mostly my legs.” Oikawa mumbles into the comforter.

Iwaizumi works up high for several minutes before placing hands on either side of Oikawa’s spine a few inches above the waistline. They’re exploratory at first, lacking real pressure, but there’s one area that’s particularly sensitive and Oikawa jumps involuntarily.

“One hell of a knot there.”

He works it for a while.

“Sure you don’t wanna betray shorty and Ushiwaka and join our side?” Oikawa says between breathes Iwaizumi reminds him to keep taking.

“What, your trainer’s no good?”

“He’s plenty good, but nobody’s got your hands, Iwa.”

Iwaizumi snorts. “Even if it’s not bothering you at the time, try and hit your back when you roll, too. You’ll end up pulling something when you serve eventually, otherwise. Do the tennis ball for your shoulders when you can’t get with your trainer.”

Oikawa doesn’t respond yet. It certainly is one hell of a knot, and he shuts his eyes and presses his lips together while Iwaizumi applies pressure that’s almost too much. Then Iwaizumi pulls back and Oikawa practically shudders.

“Sorry,” Iwaizumi says, sitting back. “It’s four-thirty. You should probably shower and head back to your room.”

Oikawa turns over on his back and rubs his hands up and down Iwaizumi’s forearms. “Yes, what would they say about you aiding the enemy? ‘Did you see? Oikawa returned from somewhere before the sun came up today – who could he have been visiting?’”

The corners of Iwaizumi’s lips curl. “As if they’d have to wonder.”

Oikawa props himself up on one elbow and reaches to place a hand behind Iwaizumi’s neck. He pulls him down and kisses him. Is kissed back.

“I’ll think about you tomorrow. When my neck –” another kiss. “– and my shoulders –” another. “– and my back –” just one more. “ – feel good.”

It’s not entirely a grunt and it’s not entirely a groan, the noise that Oikawa makes as Iwaizumi digs his thumbs into his traps. It’s just a noise, Iwaizumi decides, that he likes – proper term irrelevant.

“You’re really tight,” he says.

From his spot on the floor in front of the edge of Iwaizumi’s bed where Oikawa sits so Iwaizumi can work more easily, Oikawa only turns his head enough to give him a side-eye and half-assed grin. Iwaizumi enjoys that he’s capable of doing something Oikawa likes enough to actually shut up.

“I hope you’re doing this yourself, too.”

“How’s that?”

“Put a tennis ball between the muscle you want to work and a wall and press back till you feel pressure that’s uncomfortable but not painful. I do it for myself all the time.”

“It is really a massage if you do it to yourself?”

“This isn’t a massage, asshole. It’s myofascial release. I just haven’t gotten to the part that hurts yet.”

“Are you sure you went to school for this? Massages are supposed to feel good, Iwa-chan.”

“You’ll feel good tomorrow.”

“Have you ever known me to be patient?”

Iwaizumi sighs. Thinks for a moment. “Alright, lie on your stomach.”

Oikawa, still half-sleep, rises with a groan (this time, definitely a groan) and crawls like a child up past their bedtime to the center of Iwaizumi’s bed. Iwaizumi grabs something from his work bag and moves to sit atop his waist. Oikawa hums with his eyes closed.

“This’ll be cold, but it’ll take the edge off.”

He sprays a menthol solution across Oikawa’s neck and shoulders and down his back. Oikawa flinches, but after Iwaizumi’s warm fingers return, he finds the familiar cooling sensation more than pleasant. It doesn’t quite numb the area, but it helps him relax the muscles he tenses unconsciously throughout the day.

“Do you foam roll?”

“Yeah, mostly my legs.” Oikawa mumbles into the comforter.

Iwaizumi works up high for several minutes before placing hands on either side of Oikawa’s spine a few inches above the waistline. They’re exploratory at first, lacking real pressure, but there’s one area that’s particularly sensitive and Oikawa jumps involuntarily.

“One hell of a knot there.”

He works it for a while.

“Sure you don’t wanna betray shorty and Ushiwaka and join our side?” Oikawa says between breathes Iwaizumi reminds him to keep taking.

“What, your trainer’s no good?”

“He’s plenty good, but nobody’s got your hands, Iwa.”

Iwaizumi snorts. “Even if it’s not bothering you at the time, try and hit your back when you roll, too. You’ll end up pulling something when you serve eventually, otherwise. Do the tennis ball for your shoulders when you can’t get with your trainer.”

Oikawa doesn’t respond yet. It certainly is one hell of a knot, and he shuts his eyes and presses his lips together while Iwaizumi applies pressure that’s almost too much. Then Iwaizumi pulls back and Oikawa practically shudders.

“Sorry,” Iwaizumi says, sitting back. “It’s four-thirty. You should probably shower and head back to your room.”

Oikawa turns over on his back and rubs his hands up and down Iwaizumi’s forearms. “Yes, what would they say about you aiding the enemy? ‘Did you see? Oikawa returned from somewhere before the sun came up today – who could he have been visiting?’”

The corners of Iwaizumi’s lips curl. “As if they’d have to wonder.”

Oikawa props himself up on one elbow and reaches to place a hand behind Iwaizumi’s neck. He pulls him down and kisses him. Is kissed back.

They don’t actually talk about who won or lost. There’s a jab and a comeback and then they just laugh. They separate to celebrate with their own teams, out for dinner, but Iwaizumi tells Oikawa to come by his room later.

Oikawa makes likes he’s offended, going as far as to summon a faux blush and says, “Aren’t you supposed to take me out first?”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and says, “I want to check out your knee. I know you’ve got your own trainer, but a second opinion never hurt anyone.”

Oikawa leans close, and Iwaizumi breathes once, twice, his sweat and deodorant and the way he’s smelled since they were kids. Feels the hand hot on his shoulder.

“But what if I want it to?”

But then he pulls back and he’s just one big shit-eating grin.

Iwaizumi laughs. “I don’t know why I thought you’d mature,”

Oikawa’s teammates call him over, apparently there’s an interviewer waiting for him, which doesn’t surprise Iwaizumi at all, so Oikawa just says for Iwaizumi to text him his room number.

It’s late when he comes by, and Iwaizumi hounds him about getting enough sleep. Oikawa falls with a huff on the twin bed by the window.

“Who’s the one keeping me up?”

Iwaizumi comes to stand at the foot. “This doesn’t count; it’s for good reason.”

“You think you’re worth losing sleep?”

Iwaizumi forgot how often he rolled his eyes when in Oikawa’s presence. “Sit up, put your feet on the floor, legs a ninety-degree angle.”

Oikawa complies, and in his best nauseatingly-sweet voice asks a third question. “Do you talk to all your players like that?”

Iwaizumi kneels in front of him and then realizes.

“Tell me you’re wearing something under those?”

Oikawa nearly short-circuits thinking up the perfect response but he just ends up laughing and stepping out of his sweats.

“Thank God.” Iwaizumi resumes his place kneeling on the patterned carpet and put his hands on Oikawa’s thigh.

“It’s the other one,” Oikawa says.

“I know. But you can’t be trusted not to fuck yourself up for volleyball.”

Oikawa snorts. A few moments later, Iwaizumi moves to the other, pressing into the tissues carefully. A little longer, and then he uses his thumbs to dig.

“Tell me if anything hurts.” He scoffs and corrects himself. “Tell me what hurts.”

“Is it so hard to believe I’ve learned to take care of myself?”

Iwaizumi moves one hand to the other knee and feels them simultaneously for comparison. “It really is.”

Oikawa doesn’t say anything, just watches Iwaizumi continue his examination. He thinks about reaching a hand up to feel Iwaizumi’s hair.

“Okay, lie back.”

“Oh good, the fun part.” Oikawa winks and Iwaizumi flicks him.

“The first thing you do when we see each other after all this time is feel me up and physically abuse me, Iwaizumi? Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Iwaizumi holds Oikawa’s ankle in one hand and behind his knee above the calf in the other. He puts a knee on the bed and presses forward. Only when Oikawa’s thigh is entirely flush to his chest does he wince. Iwaizumi watches him for a moment, as Oikawa pointedly looks up at the ceiling.

“Fucker,” Iwaizumi says. “You’re supposed to say when it hurts.”

“I didn’t want you to stop,”

They’re quiet for a moment, looking at each other, till Iwaizumi releases Oikawa’s leg and settles between his thighs. He moves forward, slowly, because it’s been too, too long since he’d torchered Oikawa proper. One hand on Oikawa’s right side, the other on his left, and he bends down like he’s going to kiss him. But he stops and breathes, leans back just enough when Oikawa lifts his head to meet, and chuckles at his irritation. Oikawa squints, takes the fabric of his shirt in his fists and finally – because honestly it had been torcher for Iwaizumi, too – they’re kissing.

They’re steady for a beat, until Iwaizumi feels a hand tug his hair and then they’re touching all over and scrambling for purchase to bring themselves closer, as close as physically possible after being continents apart, and mold into one another.

Then Iwaizumi pulls away for just a moment because he really wants to see what Oikawa looks like kissed stupid after so, so long.

“God,” he breathes.

“You haven’t called me that in some time,” Oikawa manages, and Iwaizumi laughs. The texts, the phone calls – they’d been enough because they were all the two of them had for months on end, for years, but now, to see Oikawa blush for him, feel his mouth open for him? Iwaizumi doesn’t cry, but Oikawa reaches up to kiss his cheek like he had. Then he licks the same spot with what felt like basset-hound level slobber and falls back in hysterics while he watches Iwaizumi furiously rub his face in the shoulder of his t-shirt.

Oikawa’s stomach flips when Iwaizumi looks at him again, and he lets Iwaizumi gather his wrists in one hand and hold them above his head. The other splays out on Oikawa’s stomach and it flips a second time.

                                                           -

They’ve kissed more than their teammates might think.

The first time, they were twelve, on one of their days off from practice in the summer and they’d spent all morning searching for caterpillars. They come in for watermelon and a break from the sun and humidity, that, once they’re upstairs reading Iwaizumi’s comic books splayed out on the floor, turns into a nap. A half hour later, they wake, and Godzilla resumes defending Japan from another kaiju terrorizing the earth on glossy pages beneath sticky fingers. They talk a little as they read, about caterpillars and the upcoming school year, volleyball and what Iwaizumi’s mom is making for dinner.

“What do you think kissing is like?” Oikawa says, stretched out on his back with his hands folded on his stomach. He’s counting the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on Iwaizumi’s ceiling. “Makki and Hanna got married on the playground the other day and got in trouble for kissing.”

Iwaizumi grunts, uninterested really, but a couple moments pass and he decides he’d like to know too. After all, he and Oikawa compete in just about everything else; he can’t lose here either, even if he is feeling kind of chicken. So he sits up cross legged, and Oikawa follows, and they don’t say a lot, but before they lean in, Oikawa asks, “Should we close our eyes?”

Iwaizumi hasn’t a clue but he says he thinks so.

And it’s exactly what an experimental kiss between twelve-year old best friends should be: scrunched up faces and pursed lips that meet only for a second before they pull away and look at each other again.

Iwaizumi grunts again, shrugging a shoulder, and Oikawa agrees.

“Yeah, don’t really get what all the fuss was about.”

 The second time, they’re fifteen, and its after Oikawa’s knee starts hurting during practice. Aside from sets that aren’t up to Oikawa’s own standard – but still entirely hittable, Iwaizumi thinks – Iwaizumi knows his partner well-enough to see that something isn’t right. He doesn’t mention it during practice, and neither do the coaches; they probably think he’s just having an off day. He’d been kind of tightly wound since Kageyama had taken his place in that match, after all.

They walk home together, where usually Oikawa is skipping about in front of him, going on about his latest girlfriend, but today, he lags behind in strange silence.

Iwaizumi turns to face him and goes for normalcy. “Shittykawa, spit it out.”

Oikawa looks up. Iwaizumi wants to see his face twist into that all-too-familiar shit-eating grin. Instead, he notices Oikawa looks pale. He’s leaning to one side – weight on one foot – and says, in a voice Iwaizumi has never heard before, “It hurts, Iwa-chan,”

They make it home to Iwaizumi’s, because Oikawa’s parents are out of town and he’s staying over, and Iwaizumi helps him up the stairs and onto his bed, leaving him for a moment to retrieve an ice pack from the refrigerator downstairs. He offers ibuprofen too, but Oikawa says he needs to be able to feel it.

“What? Why?”

Oikawa mumbles out an answer that Iwaizumi doesn’t like: that he needs it to hurt to remind him to try harder.

“Don’t be a dumbass. Your play is already suffering; if you continue like this, it’ll get worse and then Kageyama will take your place for good.”

Oikawa flinches and looks away from Iwaizumi, who’s kneeling at his legs and holding the ice pack in place.

“I want you setting for me, not him.” Then he stands and chastely kisses the top of Oikawa’s head, hair unreasonably soft, in one quick motion.  

“Iwa-chan, if you wanted to kiss me you could have just said so,”

Iwaizumi slaps the back of his head and stomps downstairs to start dinner.

 The third time, they’re seventeen, cicadas call loudly, and they’ve come back from a run. They’ve just had lunch, and Iwaizumi tastes like peanut butter and Oikawa like a popsicle.

“‘Blue’ isn’t even a flavor, it’s a color,” he says, and Oikawa sticks his purple tongue out. Iwaizumi makes a face, but Oikawa’s put a hand behind his head and leisurely, like he’d done it as often as he’d served a volleyball, kisses Iwaizumi. It isn’t like when they were twelve.

Oikawa pulls back, triumphant, saying, “See, there is flavor.”

 The fourth time, they’re eighteen, getting ready for bed early because they’ve a match in the morning, brushing their teeth in Oikawa’s bathroom, play-fighting with elbows until Oikawa swallows some toothpaste and hacks over the sink while Iwaizumi, already rinsed clean, cackles behind him till his stomach hurts. Oikawa catches his breath and rinses eventually, and turns to Iwaizumi, who recognizes the danger immediately. He intends to flee from the bathroom, but Oikawa, long-limbed and oddly flexible, manages the get the door shut. Iwaizumi does his best to look intimidating, but Oikawa smiles confidently and ghosts his hands over Iwaizumi’s ribs. Involuntarily, Iwaizumi shudders as Oikawa says, “Please, Iwa-chan. In close quarters like this, you don’t stand a chance. I know your weakness.”

Iwaizumi swallows, mouth pared in a nervous, have mercy smile, but Oikawa will have none of it. The same fingers that deliver the only sets Iwaizumi could ever ask for tickle his sides till he wheezes and tears form. He breaks mostly free and reaches for the doorknob, but Oikawa seizes the opening and then Iwaizumi’s back to laughing and trying desperately to grab hold of Oikawa’s hands while still defending himself. A few misfires, but eventually he gets one and holds it behind Oikawa’s back and the edge of the vanity while he nabs the other wrist and takes them both his is calloused hand. He presses forward with his whole body, still breathing heavy, but finally, finally he can relax.

Oikawa smirks. “I could get free if I wanted to.”

Iwaizumi scoffs. “No you couldn’t.”

Oikawa’s smirk remains, and entirely too confidently for someone with his arms pinned behind him, he leans forward and looks Iwaizumi directly in the eyes as he kisses him. It’s brief, so he can pull back and raise his hands and wiggle his fingers.

“Told ya,” he says, and Iwaizumi expects him to cross his arms over his chest and continue gloating, but he doesn’t. Well, he still gloats, but he puts his hands on Iwaizumi’s sides again, and Iwaizumi sucks in a breath.

“I like them here better. Don’t you?”

Iwaizumi swallows. Looks at Oikawa, all smiles and lidded eyes, and decides this time will be different.

So he pushes forward and they kiss there, in the warm light of the half-bath off the corner of Iwaizumi’s room, with open mouths and think they’ve finally understood what all the fuss is about. Iwaizumi half-wonders if maybe Oikawa understood a while ago, because he moves himself and directs Iwaizumi with a confidence Iwaizumi doesn’t have yet. At some point though, they separate, and Iwaizumi is pleased to find Oikawa’s face – and mouth – as red as his feels.

They hear the front door close and Iwaizumi’s mom call out. Iwaizumi wavers, but Oikawa grabs his face and kisses him hard, and a moment later darts out the door, down the stairs and in into, Iwaizumi suspects, the kitchen, where he’ll be hiding behind Iwaizumi’s own mother. Iwaizumi clambers after him.

 The fifth time, they’re still eighteen, but they’ve just lost to Karasuno. Oikawa knows it isn’t the end for him, but it’s bitter, because it’s the end for him and Iwaizumi.

He’s glad when Iwaizumi turns up at the Shiratorizawa-Karasuno showdown. He’d been afraid to reach out and meet up formally because what if it hurt? He didn’t feel like crying anymore; he’d done enough of that. And it does hurt, them analyzing the match together. Hearing Iwaizumi call him an asshole and laughing because he knows it’s true. Toward the end, Oikawa, unsure, says, “I was imagining it was us out there.”

“Me too.”

They get coffee. Iwaizumi remarks about how little crème Oikawa gets in his.

“I’ve got to start taking care of myself,” Oikawa replies, and Iwaizumi reads between the lines.

“Come back to my place. I’ll make dinner.”

“‘Your place?’ You still live with your parents, Iwa-chan,”

Iwaizumi huffs. “They’re out. We’ll have to stop at the grocery first. Guess I oughtta teach you how to do that too, huh.”

Oikawa smiles, but when Iwaizumi turns and heads out the café door, it slips.

He wants to enjoy these last moments together, so he laughs and teases Iwaizumi like he should, but it’s hard, so after dinner when Iwaizumi puts a movie on, Oikawa excuses himself to the bathroom upstairs, sees the toothpaste on the counter, and cries. He’s in the there entirely too long and knows Iwaizumi is probably getting suspicious, but he’s still surprised when he opens the door to find Iwaizumi flipping through an old comic book on his bed.

Oikawa sniffs.

Iwaizumi pats the space next to him.

Oikawa curls beside him with his head on Iwaizumi’s stomach and tries to breathe without shaking. Iwaizumi puts the comic book down. They’d done this before. Oikawa had cried in front of Iwaizumi more times that he’d cried alone, though he can’t help but think that will be changing. Universities across the world from each other – how could they ever hope to close that distance?

“I know you’re thinking.”

“Iwa-chan had a thought?” Oikawa hides his face in Iwaizumi’s sweatshirt.

“I’m trying to be genuine here, asshole.”

Oikawa has a decision to make – allow Iwaizumi to start this conversation, the one he wants to pretend won’t happen if he avoids it, or try to enjoy one of their last nights together. He isn’t sure he can do either.

He feels a hand in his hair, soft and warm, and though he knows Iwaizumi is offering comfort, Oikawa needs to take more. So he sits up, sets his glasses on Iwaizumi’s bed-side table, and moves to straddle his best friend’s waist.

Iwaizumi is taken aback. He’s perceptive, but Oikawa can be a mystery if he really wants to be, and now, Iwaizumi notes, is one of those times. He waits. Watches Oikawa’s chest rise and fall.

Oikawa puts his hands on Iwaizumi’s chest. He can do this. He wants to do this. He has to do this. There likely won’t be another chance. With worry and separation in the back of his mind, he leans down and kisses Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi kisses him back, moves his hands to either side of Oikawa’s waist, above the hips but below the ribs, which is an incredible relief; Oikawa had half-expected Iwaizumi to say no, we shouldn’t, not like this, or worse, just no, because he didn’t want Oikawa the way Oikawa wanted him. That just because they’d kissed a couple times didn’t mean he’d mourn him from how-ever many thousand miles away. How could Oikawa blame him? They weren’t even twenty, and Iwaizumi was going to move on from volleyball. He was going to study sports medicine in college, but that wasn’t a team sport; Oikawa couldn’t be a part of that world, and maybe that was for the better. Maybe that was what Iwaizumi wanted.

Oikawa feels sick at the thought, and decides that at least for this moment and the few that would follow, he would be something Iwaizumi wanted.

Oikawa kisses him in what he thinks is the sexiest way possible. Tongue, but not too much, just enough to tease, because that about sums up his entire personality, doesn’t it? If Iwaizumi could read his thoughts he would have said no, you’re entirely too much, all the time.

Oikawa holds back tears.

He presses his hips down and wills himself to feel something that doesn’t hurt. He trails wet kisses from Iwaizumi’s mouth to his jaw to his neck – the kind that leaves bruises – and Iwaizumi, who is breathing faster than normal, whose hands roam from Oikawa’s sides to his shoulder blades to his hair, makes a noise Oikawa hasn’t heard before. Oikawa’s chest tightens.

It stops when Oikawa pauses opens his eyes because he stupidly, stupidly wanted to see what Iwaizumi, what Haijime looked like beneath him. It’s everything he’s hoped for – flushed down to his neck, red, shiny lips parted perfectly for his own, eyes shut almost tightly, almost like it was too much and Oikawa would cement this moment, this Haijime in the back of his mind for the rest of his life – but Iwaizumi opens his eyes, why Oikawa didn’t know, and for a reason Oikawa is frustrated he can’t overcome, Iwaizumi blinks and it’s too late, it’s over Oikawa recognizes; Iwaizumi has been snapped from the moment Oikawa had tried so desperately to create, and all the ones he’d hoped would come after.

“Oikawa,”

How could he live without hearing Iwaizumi say his name like that ever again? Say his name at all?

“Oikawa, what’s wrong?”

So it had been his fault after all. He’s given himself away, but isn’t sure how until Iwaizumi brings a hand to his cheek and Oikawa feels him thumb wetness away.

Iwaizumi sits up as best he can, pillows at his back, and looks at Oikawa with the furrowed brow Oikawa had loved from the moment Iwaizumi’s face had first scrunched up when they were five and Iwaizumi had stepped in water with his sock feet.

Oikawa hunches down with his fists in the fabric of Iwaizumi’s sweatshirts and doesn’t care that he sounds like a child.

“It hurts, Iwa-chan,”

Iwaizumi puts his arms around Oikawa’s shaking shoulders.

“I know,” he says. Oikawa raises abruptly; had he heard that right? The tremor in Iwaizumi’s voice?

He finds Iwaizumi is crying too.

“I said I knew what you were thinking, didn’t I?”

Oikawa can’t help it – he laughs. They both spend a moment wiping their faces and sniffing, and then Oikawa says what he’s always felt.

“I love you,”

He’s never imagined how Iwaizumi would react to hearing those words from him because he’s never imagined himself really and actually saying them.

But maybe Iwaizumi has, because he says without hesitation, “I love you too.”

And even though not all of the pain is gone, enough is that Oikawa can grin again, honestly, and says, “Iwa-chan that’s so embarrassing!”

Maybe Iwaizumi hadn’t thought that far ahead, because he balks for a moment, but only a moment since this is Shittykawa after all, and launches himself into Oikawa’s torso so convincingly they tumble off his bed and this time, Iwaizumi makes sure he comes out on top so he can mercilessly dole out payback for that time in the bathroom. Oikawa writhes and shrieks beneath him with smiles Iwaizumi catalogues for when they can’t torcher each other like this every night. Because Iwaizumi is so pleased with himself, he takes Oikawa’s wrists in one hand and pins them above his head, further pleased at the blush that spreads across Oikawa’s cheeks and ears. He basks in his victory and tries his hand at the patented Oikawa smirk.

“You can’t kiss me now,” he says.

Oikawa goes still beneath him, surprise evident.

“Guess you’ll just have to let me do that part.”

“Iwa, Iwa – wait, please,”

They were entangled on his bed, Oikawa with his back to the pillows near the headboard and Iwaizumi between his open legs. This was new. Sure, they’d fallen asleep together in similar positions watching movies or talking about volleyball, school, Oikawa’s embarrassing bedhead, but that was entirely innocent, and entirely different. Iwaizumi knew this, and so he drew back and looked to Oikawa’s red face for answers. Oikawa didn’t often say please.

“What’s wrong?” He put a hand on Oikawa’s knee. “Are you alright?”

“I – I don’t think I,” Oikawa looked away. “– want to do this.” He swallowed.

Iwaizumi nodded and sat back on his knees. “Okay, that’s fine, we don’t have to.”

“Iwa–”

Iwaizumi smiled. “Really, it’s alright. I promise.”

Oikawa shook his head. “No, I mean – I mean I don’t think I ever want to.”

Iwaizumi looked at him and waited, unsure.

Oikawa took a breath. “I know I suggested it, and I’m the overly affectionate one, but I – and it’s not you! I’ve never been more comfortable with anyone – I just, don’t think it’s for me.”

Iwaizumi took a moment – a painfully long moment, Oikawa lamented while simultaneously acknowledging he most certainly was over-analyzing – and then sat back cross-legged. They were entirely clothed, save for shoes and Iwaizumi’s socks, and Oikawa was grateful because he’d never felt so exposed, even if it was Iwaizumi, his best friend since forever.

Then he spoke, and Oikawa had to concentrate to hear him over the pounding in his ears. “Oikawa, my feelings for you have never been and will never be dependent on whether or not I can get into your pants.”

                                                              -

Dean laughs on and off all the way back to the abandoned farmhouse they’d been holed up in. And then he looks at Cas and settles in for a night of uninterrupted drinking. Miraculously, he’s still conscious when two a.m. rolls around, six beers and two something else’s later, and Cas has taken him shot for shot, but naturally is entirely sober. He’s quiet, and Dean, through the amber haze, notices. He swallows hard, but its just his own spit; he’d set down his last drink a while ago.

“Cas, I promised you you wouldn’t die a virgin, but I don’t think that’s in your cards tonight.”

“Women – humans – are ever complicated.”

Deans snorts.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever understand how you navigate such complex social relationships.”

“The alcohol helps, and cash. But sometimes those don’t work either.”

Cas can see Dean’s eyes, slightly red, twinkle in the firelight, and he feels something about them but can’t articulate what.

“Then it’s just my natural charm,” Dean grins.

Charm. Maybe that’s the word.

“We’ve covered that you’ve never been with anyone, but have you ever kissed anyone?”

Cas’s nerves come back and he looks for anywhere to settle on and study but Dean’s face. But the crows feet around his eyes.

“Ah, come on – you and Uriel never –”

Cas gives him a look and Dean holds his hands up and laughs.

“Well, I think that’s something I can help you with.”

Cas’s eternally furrowed brow furrows further.

Dean drags his chair in front of him, one leg outside and one leg inside Cas’s, and leans close. Cas notes that his eyelids are heavy, and so is the hand on his thigh.

His tone is – is – playful? when he says, “You ever tell Sam about this and I’ll kill ya,” and then, even though he watches and feels it happen in slow-motion, Cas is suddenly kissed.

Dean pulls back, removing the hand that had found Cas’s cheek, but stays close enough Cas still feels his breath on his lips as he asks, “How was that?”

Somehow, Cas manages, “It was not objectionable,” and Dean snickers, and kisses him again, but this time he lingers and pulls their mouths apart only for a moment to say with closed eyes, “Open your mouth,” and when Cas does, “Move your lips.”

After that, the crackle of the fire is drown from Cas’s ears, and he closes his eyes and wishes he wasn’t going to die in the morning. Then Dean separates them and slumps back in his chair, looking – satisfied?

Cas doesn’t know what to say, but he feels “Thank you, Dean.” might be appropriate.

Dean smiles. “You don’t need to say thank you for a kiss, Cas.”

When Ed gets his arm back and his brother his entire body, Edward is overjoyed. To feel his brothers skin, his frail, thin hand in his as they leave the Truth for the last time, Edward’s heart nearly bursts. To wake in the hospital in the following days and there is his brother, his brother alive and in the flesh, really, in the bed next to his, Edward cries. He’s thankful no one is around to see, and Al only wakes up after he’s got himself together, but Al can tell. Ed’s face is still a little bit splotchy. Al smiles and tells his brother everything is alright.

And it is; they return to Resembool, their home, and Al recuperates for two warm, peaceful years. Then, they go their separate ways for a while, both excited and driven to learn and discover alchemy on a whole new level. That’s when things go to shit.

It wouldn’t be fair to blame Al for it, to say that because he wasn’t there to look out for his brother that Ed was bound to slip. Ed didn’t think that at all; he knew completely and entirely that it was himself and himself alone who let himself sink.

It started a few weeks into his travels. He still woke in the middle of the night from nightmares where what was supposed to be his mother is reaching for him in a dark, iron scented room; where Al’s seal breaks; where Al is returned to his body but it’s too weak and he dies. And he still woke in the morning where a for a moment his arm is still metal.

Sometimes he wishes it was. Undeniably there were advantages to having something studier to punch things with. Sure, his leg still ached with the rain and required less than pleasant maintenance, but it wasn’t enough. Shit. If he kept thinking like that he might actually come to a conclusion, but he was more than certain he didn’t want that conclusion.

But that longing is nothing compared to the itch, the burn, the need he feels when he thinks of alchemy, and he thinks of it often. Every day if not every hour; that’s the point of their travels. His gut is empty. His chest is empty. He must fill them with something.

Alcohol and blood. His own blood, coating his teeth slick, and someone else’s – anyone else’s – turning his knuckles pink. And it makes him feel alive again.

He spits to the side, standing unsteadily over the bastard of the night, more human than he’s been in years, and realizes it was the pain.

In the town he’s staying in, a child – a four-year-old girl – dies when a building collapses, unable to be reached in time, and Ed heaves in the solitude of his hotel bathroom. His stomach hollows out and hurts because he hasn’t eaten in days. He weeps until he’s so exhausted black creeps in from the corners of his eyes and then he wakes on the tile floor, alone, sticky with sweat. He leaves the town then, and because he falls asleep on the train and misses his stop, winds up in Central. Shit. He checks his pockets and his coat and his luggage, and even bigger shit. He can’t afford another ticket, but the lose change cold in his hand is enough for something else, something he needs.

It’s dark and dingy and smoke burns his eyes, but the alcohol burns his throat so he can look past the atmosphere. Hours later, long into the night and early into the morning, he’s on his back on the wood floor, scattered peanut shells and broken glass thick enough he could make snow angels. He snickers at this and then the man, the slab of muscle of a man who put him there, sits on his waist, holds a fistful of Ed’s collar and connects blow after blow to his head. When Ed’s unresponsive – still conscious, but he’d given up even before he’d been thrown to the floor – and sufficiently bloodied, the man stands, kicks his side, and leaves. The other patrons pay him no attention once the spectacle’s over, and Ed picks himself and drags himself upright to a table where he signals for another drink. Everything hurts, but at least there’s the anonymity.

“Fullmetal?”

He turns, because he’ll always answer to that, even though he’ll never live up to it again.

“Oh, Colonel.” He turns back and finishes his drink. “Fuck,”

The Colonel doesn’t leave, as Ed hoped he would. Instead, he pulls out the chair across from him and sits, an obnoxiously incredulous look across his face. Ed thanks God – ha – the lieutenant isn’t with him.

“I’d heard some blonde kid was holding out in this hole in the wall, and I’d hoped it wasn’t you.”

Ed raises his hand to signal for another drink but Roy catches it and snaps in down. Ed scowls and Roy’s eyes narrow.

“Don’t give me that look, Colonel. What this blonde kid does now doesn’t concern the military anymore.”

“It concerns me.”

“You’re not my father.” He raises his hand again. His hand; his fleshy, bruised, swollen, human hand.

“I don’t care,”

Ed runs his tongue over his bottom lip, and in one corner its busted and stings from the saliva. “You know some people round here still aren’t that found of the military,”

“You can’t threaten me, Edward.”

“Oh, it’s Edward now?”

Roy gives him a look. “That’s what this is about?”

Ed won’t go there. He’s on his feet and slapping the rest of his cash on the table in seconds, but Roy’s not far behind. Rather, his fist isn’t far behind.

  “What the fuck, Colonel,”

Ed regains consciousness on the Colonel’s couch after being thrown down on it.

“You’re not a child anymore,” Roy replies while shucking his coat and hanging on a hook by the door.

“So you haul off and hit every adult you pass now?”

Ed doesn’t sit up to look at him, but he knows the Colonel is rolling his eyes.

“Stay put. I’m getting you a change of clothes before your stench seeps into my furniture.”

Ed does not stay put. He finds the liquor under the sink and is halfway finished with his first bottle by the time Roy returns with a shirt and sweats.

“Edward!”

Ed sets the bottle down and swallows hard, thankful that everything is blurry and soft again, but the Colonel’s hand on his shoulder is not.

“What would Winry say if she could see you?”

Ed reaches for the bottle again but Roy slaps his hand away.

“She’s better off without me. They all are.” He’s bitter now, and takes Roy’s collar in his sweaty, probably broken hand. “Don’t kid yourself, Colonel. I’m a lost cause.”

“That’s what you want?”

“That’s what I fucking want!” He pushes the Colonel away and takes another messy drink. The colonel snatches it, and Ed snarls and reaches for it, and though Ed’s only a few inches shorter now, he’s heavily intoxicated and uncoordinated and Roy might as well have been Major Armstrong. Fine. Ed could play dirty.

He lunges forward again, knowing his finger tips won’t even brush the glass, but that’s not what he was going for; he plants a sloppy, bitter kiss on the poor, unsuspecting Colonel, and then takes advantage of his absolute shock to grab his arm and pull the bottle within reach. Another long, desperate swig, and then the Colonel swipes it a third and final time and then Ed’s the shocked one when Roy throws it into the sink where it’s suddenly nothing more than pieces. Ed flinches at the sound, and his name when Roy yells it. Ed looks away, suddenly uncomfortable with the closeness he initiated and the spinning of an already unfamiliar room. He runs his hands down Roy’s chest till his fingers catch in the colonel’s waistband.

“Come on Colonel, you said it, I’m not a child anymore.” He moves closer, speaks so his breath is hot on the Colonel’s lips and cocks his head. Over the liquor’s influence he knows he’s being stupid, but then something in his hand pops and fuck! Ed leans in again and kisses him a little softer because he’s desperate to feel, and feel he does the Colonel’s spine go rigid, but then gentle hands push against his blood and booze-stained shirt and Ed fucking hurts, so he does what shouldn’t and kisses harder, and the Colonel lets him finish because he knows Ed needs to. A moment later Ed breaks away and its with a sob, and his face hidden as he looks down, forehead against the Colonel’s chest.

“I’m not… anything anymore, Colonel,” and he knows he sounds fucking pathetic and hates himself for it but –

“Ed, alchemy didn’t create you, and it doesn’t define you.”

Ed pulls back and shit, the Colonel wasn’t prepared for his tear streaked face. “Colonel, it rained out West.”

Then Ed turns quickly to hunch over the sink and puke, but it’s all liquor and Roy notices his ribs against his shirt. He runs a glass of water for Ed to rinse with. Then he guides him with a hand on his back back to the couch.

“What happened,”

“There was a girl,” Ed chokes. God, his head hurts and for the first time in months he doesn’t want it to. “A building collapsed over her and she was all fucking blood and pieces by the time we got to her. She,” Another sob and Roy grimaces. “ – had pigtails.”

Roy takes a breath. “Ed, there were people you couldn’t save even when you had alchemy; there will always be people we can’t save. We’re only human.”

Ed laughs at hearing himself in the Colonel’s words, but it’s sad and he wipes at his face in his hands. He sniffs and swallows and leans back with a shaky sigh.

“Sorry for kissing you, Colonel. And drinking all your booze.”

Sakura wonders how she ever could have genuinely thought someone so pure was annoying. Annoying, annoying she had called him, behind his back and to his face. Now, sitting cross-legged so close their knees touched in front of each other, fingers interlaced, Sakura finds he is almost too bright. The sunsets behind him and the edges of his blonde hair glow, and she could look at his eyelashes forever, even if she went blind.

Naruto wonders when exactly his childhood crush had evolved into something more meaningful; there was no other word for it than love. In a hundred different directions he would love her past the end of time, and his chest blooms with the indescribable joy that comes with knowing his feelings are reciprocated.

I love you, she whispers, her breath on his lips, and even if it’s a serious moment, he smiles wide, eyes crinkling in the corners, and kisses her chastely before pushing forward to put her on her back and hover over her, teeth white and exposed as he laughs. She laughs too, and then reaches up to hold his face, and he will never feel something quite the same as the warmth from her thumbs on his cheeks. She thinks she will never feel something quite the same as his soft, summer-tanned skin beneath her thumbs.

Gai had known Kakashi for thirty years before he saw his face, though that didn’t really describe the experience correctly; Gai didn’t just see his face, he was mesmerized by it. Had it been the right time, and under the right circumstances, Gai certainly would have kissed him. But not here, not now.

At their feet, Kakashi’s most exceptional student was trying desperately to heal his most knuckle-headed student. The war was over and long-gone, and relations between nations had improved greatly, but not all ninja had peace in their hearts. Sakura herself was injured greatly, and could only continue treating Naruto because Kakashi and Gai stood behind her with a hand on each shoulder and transferred their own (dwindling) chakra to her. It went on like so for an hour before Sakura faltered and Kakashi had to stoop to hold her upright.

“I can tell you’re both at your limits. Your chakra will be depleted within minutes.” She didn’t say it was hopeless, but her body began to shake.

Gai took a breath. “Gate of pain, open.”

(Sakura didn’t say that the new chakra burned as it passed through her.)

Later, “Gate of closing,”

“Gate of joy,”

“Gate of shock,”

“Gai –”

“It’s alright, Kakashi. Youth will continue on with him.”

“Sensei,” Sakura interrupted, and Kakashi noted that her shoulders, even if just a little, relaxed. “He’ll be okay now.”

Kakashi looked up at Gai and Gai saw that his mask was down and his face wet; it hit him that his mask had been down when he’d first came upon the scene hours before, but that the urgency of the situation had called his attention more and he hadn’t noticed. Now, Gai thought clearly that his rival had him bested in a competition he could never hope to win in a rematch – he was the most beautiful person Gai’d ever set eyes upon.

“- never been a medic, but I can stabilize you.”

Gai came back to the present to see Kakashi treating Sakura; her wound had been dire, but not to the extent of Naruto’s, so she took only seconds to work on herself while healing Naruto, and even then only with one hand, and only with the crudest technique. In the final stretch, Gai had supplied most of the chakra for Sakura to use, and Kakashi had been able to restore some of his, so he used that, in the form of his lightning nature, to fully cauterize the gash in her abdomen. If her work had been crude earlier, his was primitive. When he finished, Kakashi rubbed her neck and ran his fingers through her hair and then Gai understood.

As Naruto came to, Kakashi pulled himself together and his mask up.

Sakura mustered what strength she had left to tell Naruto, “You missed it. Kakashi-sensie’s mask was off.” To which Naruto bolted upright and started off on a long and loud list of complaints and gripes about how he had nearly died, he deserved to see his face! and Gai smiled. Sakura laughed, and Kakashi looked back at Gai with eyes he could tell were still misty. For perhaps the millionth time, he thought his rival was quite cunning.

Was that what it had been about all this time? Concealing his emotions? Gai wondered if he’d ever actually ask him.

The four only made it half-way back to the village before collapsing, and were hospitalized after a search-and-rescue found them half a day later.

Tsunade herself tended all of them, practically every hour for about three days, and then they were stable enough to be treated by Shizune and Ino. After that, it was regular nurses, and then only a few more days before they were released. By that time, Sakura was, unbeknownst to the Hokage, checking in on the others. Gai had stumbled toward Kakashi’s room, and peered through the cracked door before entering to see if his rival was sleeping, but found him instead pre-occupied with a pink-haired medic.

“How are you feeling?” He heard her ask.

“I’m fine. I suffered the least of it.”

“But you still suffered.” She lifted a hand to his cheek and pulled his mask down to plant a soft, quiet kiss on his mouth.

“You should head back to your room and rest,”

“I will, but first Naruto and Gai-sensei.”

“We’re all in capable hands, Sakura.”

To that, she pulled his mask back up and winked before making her way to the door.

“Oh! Hi, Gai-sensei – I was just on my way to see you! How are you feeling today?”

“Oh, hello, Sakura.” He cleared his throat. “My youth has not yet reached its sunset; I will be back at it in no time! Or it’s five-hundred laps around the hospital when I do get out!”

She laughed and stepped around to examine the muscles in his back and shoulders.

She hummed with some concern. “You’re still quite tight. Deep tissue will hurt, but it’ll help you in the long run. Shizune’s exceptionally skilled in massage therapy; I’ll mention it to her.”

He went to protest, but she interrupted him with, “See you later, sensei, I’m off to see how that knuckle-head is doing. You know how hopeless he is!”

Gai couldn’t help but smile, though –

“Gai, come in.”

Gai blinked and remembered what he’d come there to do.

“Kakashi – are you recovering well?”

“Never mind me. Your chakra network was sent through the ringer. Sakura didn’t say it, but you should still be in bed.”

Gai shuffled to stand in front of the window.

“Gai-sensie!” Loud and filled with love and concern came his star pupil’s voice from the door to the hallway.

“Lee!”

Lee all but tackled him. “They wouldn’t let anyone in to see you but I was so worried! Oh, Gai-sensie!”

  After being discharged from the hospital, they were quite nearly at one-hundred percent. Naruto was as loud and obnoxious – albeit in his own special, endearing sort of way – as ever, Sakura was gearing up to come back to work at the hospital, and Kakashi and Gai were waiting for the next assignment. Gai wasn’t expecting company the first Friday at home after the mission, but Kakashi knocked on his door nonetheless.

“Kakashi,”

“Evening, Gai.”

Gai looked at the brown bag of groceries settled in between the crook of Kakashi’s left elbow and his hip.

“What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it fairly obvious?” He let himself into Gai’s apartment and made for the kitchen, dropping the bag on the counter when he reached it. “Cooking competition.” Behind him filed in Naruto, Sakura, Lee, Neji, and Tenten.

“Gai-sensie we have the utmost faith that you will prepare the tastiest dish tonight! Right Neji, Tenten?” Lee looked back at his teammates, who mumbled uninspired yeahs.

Gai smiled, feeling more human than he had in some time. “Naturally, my pupils. You need only sit back and enjoy the show!”

Naruto slapped Kakashi on the shoulder and grinned on the way to the couch, saying only, “I hope you’re thinking ramen!”

Sakura explained that they would be the judges of both preparation and end result of this night’s meal while Kakashi spread the ingredients from the bag out and filtered through Gai’s cabinets for spices cookware.

“I don’t believe in all our years of rivalry that we have ever faced off over the stove, but don’t you go thinking that means I’m not ready to become the undisputed champion of both this kitchen and yours, Kakashi!”

In no time aprons were fastened and spoons, knives, oil and vegetables of all kinds were flying back and forth. The students founds themselves enjoying the show more than judging, save for Neji, who remained quiet and stoic as always (with the exception of an outburst of Are you really putting cinnamon in a tomato dish?! toward Gai halfway through).

In the end, Kakashi was victorious.

“ – not to say Gai-sensei’s creation isn’t fabulous, it is, but Kakashi-sensei’s takes the cake.” Sakura said in between bites. Even Lee had to agree, with tears streaming, that though by only the smallest margin, his sensei had been bested.

The sun had set long before they’d sat down to eat, and now that they were finished, Kakashi and Gai’s students found themselves pleasantly full and yawning on their way out the door. Gai brought a half-empty bottle of sake out for the two of them to finish before eventually saying goodnight, but, as always, he didn’t expect to see the other man’s face. It had only happened before because he was so emotionally compromised and exhausted on that mission, so it did shock him and he did stare when Kakashi removed his mask to drink in front of him.

Kakashi noticed his gaze. “Hm?”

Gai turned slightly on the couch to get a better look. “Kakashi, was tonight your idea?”

“Oh, I might have mentioned something like it, but Naruto and Lee were the masterminds. You know how they get something in their heads and take off running,”

Gai hummed a laugh, because he had to respond, but really he was still occupied watching his mouth move.

“Gai, I can’t thank you enough for what you did. They would have died for certain if you hadn’t been there.”

Gai smiled. “What are friends for?”

And then Kakashi looked at him differently – why? Gai couldn’t decipher but – and set his drink down and closed his eyes and kissed Gai.

Sakura had been personally requested (and Tsunade had actually agreed) to stay with a newborn in the intensive care unit; she hadn’t given it another thought – of course she’d stay. She couldn’t have predicted that if she had instead gone with the second squad dispatched with Ino’s that she could have saved Ino’s life. Or at least she could have tried, and she wouldn’t have had to hear about it from Choji.

(Choji had never been the emotionally well-put together one – that was Shikamaru. But not this time. Only at the reminder that their sensei had asked him to help care for and protect his child did Shikamaru finally stop sleeping by her grave and eat something for the first time in three days.)

Sakura was another story.

(Sakura and Shikamaru weren’t particularly close – they’d never had a reason to be, really. But now, at the foot of her stone they held each other so there was no distance between them. Neither of them said it was because they were trying to feel what connected them – her – but they both knew it.)

After Shikamaru left, Naruto came to be with her. He probably would have stayed until they’d both starved, but after another two days, Kakashi came. He’d been a neglectful sensei too much of his career, and even though his students were all adults now, he was still needed, and so he came.

She wouldn’t say no to him when he asked her to please come with him; she didn’t want him to think she was being childish. But how could she think something like that – think only of herself at a time like this? She cursed herself for being more concerned with embarrassment than her best friend. Still, she took his hand after he offered it.

In the days, weeks, months that followed, she transitioned slowly from mostly hospital work to more and more field work – missions. It was then that he saw in her the same hurry to die that he’d once been in.

Once again, Naruto tried his best to be there for her, and he certainly was a positive influence, but Kakashi could see that she was still slipping.

She stopped cooking for herself and ate only instant ramen – like another of his students had when he was just a genin – when she did remember to eat. It was almost unreal to him, to watch her neglect herself like that. She’d never in all their years, even when Sasuke first left to find Orochimaru, forgotten basic self-care. She’d stopped blow-drying and styling her hair long ago, but this was on another level. He had to step in; it was his duty to step in; he wanted to step in.

He spoke with Tsunade and they agreed he’d replace one of the members of the team she’d be leaving with the following morning. That had been the easy part. The other involved Kakashi trying his hand at homemade protein balls.

To be fair, he explained their first night while making camp. I don’t normally cook this kind of thing.

“Really,” she continued the conversation. That was good. She hadn’t spoken more than a few words outside of mission specifics since they’d left just before dawn. But still, he could tell it was just small talk. She wasn’t invested (though, it wasn’t like it was the most invigorating topic in the world); did she know of his concerns? Was she trying to convince him she didn’t need them? Or was she so far retreated into herself that this was the most she could offer? Perhaps this was taking all the effort in the world.

In their time as one half of team seven, she’d never concealed her emotions in front of him; neither could remember how many times she’d cried in his presence. Despite that it broke a shinobi rule, she was comfortable and safe with him, both emotionally and physically; she never doubted that if Naruto or Sasuke couldn’t protect her, he would. He’d made that promise to them in the land of Waves so long ago.

What had Ino thought in the moments before her death? Did she think that someone was coming? Someone with unmatchable strength and legendary medical abilities and pink hair? God if she kept thinking like that Kakashi would never leave her alone. What were they talking about? Oh, she was chewing what rivaled her own as the most awful tasting protein ball in history.

“I may not be one to talk, but your powder ratio is off. That’s why they’re chalky.”

“That’s why,” he nodded, accepting, and threw another bundle of twigs on the campfire. They spoke quietly; their other teammate was sleeping on the other side of it.

The next morning they’d only just set out when they encountered the enemy. Since the war, and even before it to a degree, Sakura had always been smart when fighting. She didn’t waste energy on showy moves like Naruto or Sasuke (or himself), but now, she masked the brutality with efficiency. As a medic, she knew precisely where to strike for a single blow to be fatal, and she’d aim just there. Kakashi found that he – and the other member – were hardly needed, at least as far as manpower was concerned. That’s how it seemed at first.

As the hours and days went on, they crept farther and farther into enemy territory, and the number of opponents per person increased accordingly. Sakura did not slow down. Her attacks became less hyper-focused; they’d still kill the opponent, but it wouldn’t be immediate. It might take a few minutes, during which they could signal others or even execute a counter of sorts. Sakura had to know this, and she had to notice that her other two teammates were spending more and more of their time finishing the job. They were falling behind.

“Sakura!”

She looked back at him, and he almost wished she hadn’t. He swallowed and willed his body to move faster.

He caught up with her three miles down the forest path. His nose could tell that it was mostly the enemies’ blood, but the visual was still stocking. It smeared her skin pink and stained every bit of her uniform. He didn’t know exactly how many missions she’d been on since Ino’s death, but he wondered how many times they’d ended like this; how many times she’d felt the crippling, unrelenting loneliness.

“Kakashi,” she breathed, standing over the last opponent’s corpse. “Stop worrying about me. Can’t you see I’m perfectly capable of carrying out my missions?”

Kakashi gave their surroundings a final once over and then stepped into the small clearing where she stood. God, he’d thought the very same thing when Gai voiced his concerns for him back then.

“Sakura, it was never a question of that.”

She shook her head and went on, but still didn’t face him. “I’ve lost a little weight,”

A little? But he didn’t say that.

“You know I’ve studied the mind nearly as much as the body. It’s common when people grieve. Can’t I without everyone breathing down my neck?”

“I know you’re grieving, and you’re right, it is common –”

“Don’t patronize me,”

“But hurting yourself won’t bring her back.”

Sakura whipped around, angry hot tears brimming in her eyes. He should have known what to say to ease her pain but –

“Sakura.” By now, he had stepped closer and taken her by the shoulders. She looked up at him with gritted teeth. “I know – I know that you don’t want to hear it and I know that everything hurts. It still hurts for me, too.”

“If I – I had just been there instead of in that God-damned hospital – if I had just trained her better she could have healed herself –” She dropped to her knees and took fistfuls of dirt and squeezed.

“Nothing has changed! I’m still worthless when it matters most! What good is any of it if I still let this happen!”

It was tragic just how much she was mirroring his younger self. For the second time he wished he could shoulder this burden. He stooped to her eye level and held her face.

“Sakura,” Suddenly the mask covering his was constricting and ridiculous because it was interfering with their conversation, their connection – and he pulled it down without hesitation and continued, “You don’t have to internalize it all; you don’t have to face this alone. That isn’t strength. Letting people in – letting Naruto in,” and then, slightly softer, but not purposefully, “Letting me in – that takes strength.”

She broke his gaze. “I don’t care about that. I just want to be left alone.” She sounded so defeated. She must have felt even worse.

“I wanted that too, but, at the risk of embodying Gai, I can’t let you. For both our sakes I won’t.”

First and foremost he was saying it all for her own good, but secondly, and he acknowledged it was selfish, for himself, because he couldn’t lose another person he cared about.

“Kakashi, how did you do it?” Her cheeks were as tear-stained as he’d ever seen them.

It was so out of character for him – but so was talking this much about something emotion-related – but he kissed her forehead and said, “With time.”

  Back at the village, they wordlessly began living together. It had been several months since her death, but Sakura was still floundering. Kakashi didn’t expect anything else; he’d had years to deal with the loss of his friends and mentors, and she’d only had a few months. He would not rush her.

Instead, he cooked for her, and then eventually, she started coming in to give him tips and suggestions and then she was flipping the pancakes and dicing the tomatoes with him. One afternoon Naruto popped by and the three ate together, and Sakura felt alive for the first time in a long, long while. But by the end of the meal, she’d thought of Shikamaru and Choji.

The next day she – she went out to the fields past the training grounds where they’d learned to pick flowers that complimented each other before they were genin. The Yamanaka flower shop was open, but not for her, not yet. If ever. She gathered two bouquets’ worth.

She stopped by Shikamaru’s first, and found that Choji was with him. They were laying atop the roof staring at the clouds.

“Shikamaru, Choji,” she said quietly and sat with her legs hanging over the roof’s edge and the bouquets on either side.

“Is it okay for me to be here?” she asked. What she meant was do I bring the pain back? Or rather, do I worsen it?

Choji answered. “Of course, Sakura, why wouldn’t it?”

She smiled, mostly for politeness’ sake.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around,”

Shikamaru lit a cigarette and stood to lean over the metal railing. “You’ve been on a lot of missions, lately. There’s no need to apologize.” The last line he said a bit differently, and she realized he wasn’t talking about her absence from the village or their presences.

After the war, things calmed down in the village, though not for everyone. Sakura continued taking new missions – there were still rogue shinobi, after all – but also advanced in position and, accordingly, responsibility at the hospital. She loved helping people, but someone as capable as herself was in constant demand, so it was rare that she had a night, let alone a day off, and the days of the girl who methodically conditioned and blow-dried her hair were long-gone; Sakura had other things to worry about besides split-ends and the attention of an uninterested boy.

Instead, she drained her chakra daily, whether at the hospital or in the field, and crawled onto her bed or sleeping mat with heavy, aching limbs. Often, she didn’t have anything left to soothe her own muscles, and even if she had, the tips of her fingers were both numb and burning, and discouraged her from even trying. Once, she had, and had felt something like electricity travel all throughout her hands and forearms, and it was, to say the least, unpleasant. She didn’t try again after that.

Ino and a few other medics were improving well enough as the months and years passed, so Sakura could afford another night at home. By the time she was twenty-two, she had crow’s feet, but she also had weekends off. Saturdays she found herself tidying her apartment before and after some of the original nine came over for drinks and company, becoming something akin to tradition and one of the things she reminisced about on Mondays and looked forward to on Fridays.

Unwillingly initially, the get-togethers also took place at Kakashi’s. Naruto and most of the other boys’ apartments were too messy to house guests, and none of the girls exactly volunteered (neither had Sakura, but Naruto had made his way over after smelling something she’d been baking one Saturday morning, and within minutes Lee was there, and then Kiba, and the rest followed). They’d relocate every few weeks because once Naruto and Kakashi had come to find her sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands and tears on her cheeks from the stress of it all. Kakashi stood outside and waved the others toward his place (well, told them Sakura wasn’t hosting that night and they both asked and confirmed for themselves that meant he was hosting) while Naruto held her and kissed her forehead.

Sakura didn’t actually drink, and Kakashi didn’t usually, so they often hung back or retreated to the balcony outside when things got rowdy enough. They spoke about her genin days, the war, and everything in between; about things he didn’t tell other people, even things only Gai knew, and only because he had witnessed them, though that didn’t happened right away. It happened after Sakura murmured that no matter how many people she saved, there were always the ones she didn’t. Kakashi had felt from the beginning of the Saturday night gatherings that he didn’t particularly belong there; the crowd was mostly composed of his students and their peers, with the occasional appearance of Iruka or Gai or Tsunade, and he couldn’t help but image his own teammates and sensei in their stead. That was usually when he’s slip away for the night, or at least to the quiet of the balcony. It was after that confession that he felt needed again. Sakura was close with Naruto and Ino, but he had the inclination that she didn’t tell them the kind of things she told him.

He never imaged she would share what she did with him. Sure, she had wept openly when she was twelve, and even fifteen, but that was then, and she had changed. He could see she internalized her struggles more, and if there was ever something Kakashi could relate to, it was that. When he noticed that she was thinning, he refrained from saying she should cook more for herself and less for her friends; if she’d had the time and energy, she already would have. Instead, he cooked for her. And sometimes they cooked together, whether at her place or his. He couldn’t recall the first time it happened, but eventually they started grocery shopping together. Maybe they had run into each other there and walked around while pulling things from the shelves, or maybe they’d just gone one morning after breakfast, because they’d begun staying over at each other’s, too. He did remember the first time that’d happened.

The get-together was at Kakashi’s that night, and after everyone else had cleared out, he found her asleep on the folding chair outside. He brought her in and laid her on his bed and slept on the couch that night. She was mildly embarrassed when she woke in the morning, apologizing quite a few times, but stayed for oatmeal with cinnamon and apples. She saw his face that morning.

Truthfully, he’d become comfortable enough with her presence that he’d pulled his mask down and opened for a spoonful before he realized why she was staring. She blushed, and maybe he did too, but there was no going back from there. He didn’t bother with it when she was around from then on, and she didn’t tell Naruto. She thought back to “blimp lips” and smiled to herself.

It was after chai tea and a movie late one Friday night at her place that Kakashi said he might head home. Sakura yawned, “Why not just stay?” because staying over had happened a few times before. So she brushed her teeth and took her hair down to comb, and he brushed his teeth and changed into a t-shirt that was almost eternally at her apartment, and they went to bed. Sakura didn’t actually think to herself how natural it felt to wake up and see his mess of silver hair on the pillow next to hers, but she understood it.

Weeks and months passed like that, until she was almost twenty-four, and they spent most of their time at Sakura’s. It was a little easier that way; she wasn’t forgetting things she needed in the mornings before work, and it was kind of fun to be at his only every so-often – it felt like a sleep-over, and almost made her feel like a kid again when her joints didn’t hurt. But that might have been because he rubbed her shoulders and neck, and sometimes her back, because he’d realized she more often than not didn’t have the energy to soothe them herself. She taught him how to use essential oils and where and when to apply pressure, and it was almost as if he had her hands.

It was all so painful. Learning the truth of Metphies’ intentions, recognizing his betrayal, the destruction of the world unfolding before his very eyes – Haruo didn’t think he could bear it. But holding Metphies’ bloodied face in his hands as their philosophies warred was right.  

He’d always felt comfort from Metphies’ touch – he was always so sure of himself, and of Haruo. Grasping his slippery red hand that reached out for him, blindly, Haruo longed to feel that again.

He didn’t care that Metphies’ last words might be right, not then. Instead he held him, and forgave him.

He’d used his lightning chakra three times to cauterize a wound. Once on himself mid-way through a mission when he’d just become jounin. The assignment had been going smoothly, but like so many other nights, he lay sleepless. But unlike so many other nights, a thought crossed his mind. He was curious to see if it would work, so he stole away from the rest of the camp and cut his forearm with his own kunai.

Once on Naruto, when Kakashi’d found him in the final valley, intensely injured after his battle with Sasuke. He’d had no choice – Naruto might not have been able to hold out until they’d reached the village. He’d screamed and his eyes had flashed open, and then he was unconscious again and slack in Kakashi’s arms.