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i.
Morning crawls unannounced across the horizon, bright as a sunset and fresh as any new day. For everyone but a few brave (or foolish, it remains to be seen) souls chancing a run, undisturbed, in the early light. Under any normal circumstances, Iwaizumi Keiko is not one of these brave souls. Neither is her husband, who falls promptly back into sleep after pulling their car into the driveway and wading into the stillness of their house, in equal parts exhausted and unwilling to engage in the birdlike chatter his wife so loves with her neighbour/best friend. Because this isn’t a normal circumstance — after all, it’s not everyday one takes home their premature firstborn for the very first time, not three days after one’s best friend takes home her firstborn child. Not a normal circumstance at all, Keiko decides firmly, blinking away sleep as she rocks Hajime rather violently after ringing the doorbell.
He’s a bit of an odd one, she’s already discovered, preferring wide, sweeping embraces over soft and gentle cradles. “He’ll be strong when he grows up,” his father had laughed, shrugging away his surprise at the baby’s firm grip around his pinky. “He’s strong already,” his mother had countered, observing the hazy, befuddled manner Hajime struggled to keep his eyes open, not that he could really see much either way.
Steps echo, distant and muffled, from behind the Oikawa household’s front door. Hajime blinks wetly, chubby arm stretching out to grasp the sound, tiny fingers fisting as a lock clicks and the door opens. “Keiko!” Oikawa Megumi beams in surprise, already reaching out to draw Keiko into a one-armed embrace, other hand skimming knuckles quick and featherlight over Hajime’s head. Hajime wrinkles his nose, and both women laugh.
“Megumi,” Keiko says over Hajime’s burble, “meet Hajime.”
“He’s adorable,” Megumi enthuses, “loud and alert for a baby, too, but he doesn’t seem like he’s going to cry — the complete opposite of Tooru. He almost never makes any noise except when he cries; he’s a terribly inconsistent sleeper, you see.”
“Poor thing,” Keiko murmurs, both women hushed and excited as they head towards the nursery. And, true enough, open the door to Tooru’s wails; plaintive and miserable, prompting both mothers to switch into that peculiar state of mind where nothing else matters but stopping an upset child’s tears. Neither notice Hajime falling silent as they enter the room, eyes seemingly untroubled with remaining wide open in the face of Tooru’s loud sobs.
Megumi is baffled, on the verge of desperate as she tries to hush her baby, Keiko being a little too preoccupied to help — Hajime had grown quiet and fidgety in Tooru’s presence, fingers fisting and unfisting, kicking and stretched towards the other infant, and.
Wait.
Both mothers meet each others’ gaze, an unspoken agreement passing between them as they set their sons into Tooru’s cradle. Hajime lets out a single cry, piercing in the sudden quiet; Tooru had ceased his sobs, eyes still bleary and mouth wobbly, but mittened fingers undeniably reaching towards the other boy in his cradle. Hajime starts to burble, and Tooru quickly joins, high-pitched and screechy still, but sounding infinitely happier than before.
“Well, would you look at that,” Megumi says. Keiko nods along, surprise and happiness and pride knotting in her chest, echoes of he’ll be strong when he grows up and he’s strong already waging muffled wars in her head. And, unbidden, another thought silencing the former two completely:
Strong so he can look after others.
Keiko smiles, following Megumi to a table across the room, leaving the two babies in the cradle now that they’ve settled. Blankets rustle as the two worm into more comfortable positions — Tooru on the side nearest the window, Hajime on the side nearest the door — as Megumi murmurs something about “fated friends” and “little protectors”.
The sun continues to rise, dawn bathing the curtains and lulling two babies to sleep. Tooru’s mitten comes off somewhere along the way, testament to Hajime’s stronger-than-expected tugging, flighty fingers finally stilling when the tip of his tiny pinky meets the end of Tooru’s own.
And so passes Oikawa Tooru’s and Iwaizumi Hajime’s first morning together, all even breaths and teeny, stuttered heartbeats, the comforting chatter of their mothers ready to welcome them into the new day at anytime.
ii.
“Look, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa Tooru whispers, pointing out faint green outline of a star mobile circling languidly above the two, “the sun is green. Do you think the aliens did it?”
Seven years old with an imagination more befitting of someone twice his age, Oikawa had developed an endearing — if the intensity is a touch alarming — fixation for space and, in particular, the aforementioned aliens.
“ ‘Course not, Tooru,” Iwaizumi Hajime, the so-called Iwa-chan whispers back, “aliens aren’t even real. It’s ‘cause they were green on the packet when we opened ‘em, duh.”
Iwaizumi is also seven years old, with pragmatism more often seen on children much older than he. Which would be curious, if he didn’t spend so much time with Oikawa, a factor which probably assisted greatly in cultivating the practicality he sports so instinctively today.
“And I’d know, ‘cause I’m older,” he continues, chest puffing smugly — or, as much as a seven year old’s chest can puff, which happens to be a lot; Iwaizumi’s lung capacity is nothing short of impressive — and, okay, maybe he is still clearly his own age around Oikawa.
But, not to be outdone by anyone, not even Iwa-chan (especially Iwa-chan, Oikawa decides, nodding twice for emphasis to himself), “yeah, Iwa-chan? Well, I’m totally smarter!”
“Please.” Iwaizumi huffs, not-so-discreetly letting out the air he’d been holding up in his chest. “You’re totally not. You think aliens are real.”
“Well, you think Godzilla is cool!” Oikawa shoots back, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out Oikawa’s pouting, even in the dark. Iwaizumi snorts, ready to unleash the super-cool, undeniable evidence proving Godzilla’s, well, coolness, when Oikawa’s mother pops her head in the door, slanted light spilling in from the hallway as she does.
“Boys,” she says, speaking over Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s simultaneous “Mom, we’re supposed to be in outer space!” and “I didn’t even do anything this time — Oikawa’s the one who finished the milk bread!”
Ignoring her son with what can only be a well-practiced sigh of resignation, she lifts a single brow at Iwaizumi, non-verbally articulating in that mom-way she has don’t make me tell your mother about that, before continuing. “I know you both ask for these weekly sleepovers, but that’s going to stop if you just keep fighting every time.”
Speaking simultaneously again, Oikawa cries out “don’t make Iwa-chan go home!” as Iwaizumi yells “okay, okay, maybe I did eat the last one! Don’t make me tell mom!”
“Well, then,” Megumi continues, laughing inwardly at the looks of sheer consternation decorating both the boys’ faces, “so long as we’re clear. Don’t stay up too late.”
“We won’t,” they chorus as she shuts the door, though the loud shove and subsequent squawk she hears just before the door clicks shut argues far more convincingly to the contrary.
***
Oikawa has a problem. A problem that is very much to do with his best friend’s atrocious sleeping habits. Not only does Iwa-chan tumble all over him in the night (more often than not finally deciding on tucking his head against Oikawa’s chest, arms splayed across the bed, both their legs tangled into a fleshy bundle) he also has the nerve to burst into raucous laughter at Oikawa’s bedhead the next morning.
“You look like a scrawny bird,” Iwaizumi squeezes between peals of laughter, “and I didn’t even touch your hair last night!”
The last part is a lie, Iwaizumi knows, but Oikawa doesn't have to know that. He also doesn’t need Oikawa to know about how he still mumbles in his sleep sometimes, small and soft and scared, and Iwaizumi only ever ends up sprawled on top of him because he falls asleep ruffling Oikawa’s fluffy, feathery hair. Because Oikawa’s really annoying, but that doesn’t mean he ever wants him to be sad. Besides, it’s funny laughing at the way his hair looks the morning after.
“Mean, Iwa-chan!”
But Oikawa’s smiling, sort of, a little tug at the lips given away by the dimples on his cheeks, and Iwaizumi grins back as he gives Oikawa’s hair one last ruffle before heading downstairs. Speeds up a little as he hears Oikawa yell after him, drawn out and whiny; Iwaizumi laughs as he hears the oof! from Oikawa’s room signalling Oikawa’s botched attempt at chasing after him.
Back upstairs, however, Oikawa is rubbing his bumped head, carefully ignoring how much more ruffled his head’s gonna look because of it as he heads down the stairs — mindful of the railing this time — for breakfast, and. Stops. He surveys the kitchen, mentally ticking things off as he goes.
Table set for four? Check.
His mom’s cooking wafting in delicious waves from the stove? Check.
His dad, acting like Oikawa can’t see him laughing at his son’s hair (Oikawa pouts a little at this) — Check.
But where is Iwa-chan?
Oikawa scours the kitchen once more, then again, just to be sure. No Iwa-chan. He darts into the living room, then the laundry; knocks patiently on the bathroom in case Iwa-chan needed to go.
(He doesn’t, it’s empty.)
Oikawa starts to worry a little at this point. Iwa-chan never leaves before breakfast! He’s about to corner his mom and ask if she knows when the front door unlocks, feet tapping along a familiar, plodding rhythm as it makes its way towards the kitchen, and Oikawa lights right back up as he sprints after the falling footsteps.
“Iwa-chan! Where’d you go? Don’t leave me for the aliens!” he wails, taking a second to drink in the bug-catching net slung across Iwa-chan’s shoulders, his dinosaur t-shirt and UFO-shaped bug box Oikawa got him for his birthday before leaping onto Iwa-chan’s back, sending them both crashing next to the dining table.
“Dammit, Oikawa, I should be saying that to you,” Iwaizumi grumbles from the floor, shooting a dirty, betrayed look at Oikawa’s dad, who does nothing more than laugh at the two on the ground.
“Look, though, I found Iwa-chan,” Oikawa ignores Iwaizumi’s complaints, “and he even said a naughty word!”
What leaves Iwaizumi’s mouth after this proclamation, however, puts his previous line to shame. It also bans the two from their next sleepover, but Oikawa decides the ruddy, flustered look on Iwaizumi’s face is worth it as he laughs and laughs, almost spoiling his appetite for breakfast as he bloats himself with air and the successive forehead flicks Iwaizumi unleashes onto him.
iii.
Iwaizumi’s alarm goes off at just before six in the morning, and he groans, ignoring the grumble of his belly and creak of his shoulders as he rolls over, nearly knocking the offending alarm clock to the ground in his attempt to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Key word being attempt, because at this particular moment his phone chirps — the annoying Piyo-chan jingle Oikawa set it to when he first got it, and never bothered changing back — three times in quick succession before ceasing. Letting out a quick breath of relief, Iwaizumi lets his eyes fall back shut, willing himself to relax —
— as this time, his phone bursts into song, a ringtone Iwaizumi had assigned specifically to Oikawa and Oikawa alone, wanting to be warned well in advance for the multiple unnecessary times Oikawa saw fit to exercise his prerogative (Oikawa’s words, not his) in alerting Iwaizumi to every little update as he made his way through the day. They never should’ve gotten phones at all, Iwaizumi laments, first day of middle school today be damned. Let Oikawa bubble over on his own, he decides vindictively, grunting. The phone continues to ring.
Iwaizumi picks up his phone.
“Yahoo, Iwa-chan, good morning! Are you well? How’d you sleep? I almost couldn’t sleep at all I was so awake, do you think it’s obvious, Iwa-chan, I sure hope it’s not —“ Oikawa lets out all in a breath, and Iwaizumi thinks to himself, bubbling over, indeed.
Out loud, he quips, “you, losing sleep? I’d never have guessed.”
“Too true, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa bounces back, “I’d never look sleep deprived when I have you to wear the look for me.”
Iwaizumi snorts, telling Oikawa to hurry up and get dressed, already before he makes them both late for school. He doesn’t respond to Oikawa’s indignant (yet true) accusation of him having just woken up, too before hanging up and heading for a shower.
***
After a quick breakfast and decidedly less quick goodbye to his mother — yes Mom, I have everything; No Mom, I don’t need to tuck my shirt in, it’s under a gakuran anyway; okay Mom, I’ll have a good day, love you too — Iwaizumi heads out, an “I’m off” breathed out as he jogs into the cool morning air. Autumn must be coming in early, he thinks, remembering the rasp of his bones (he’d just hit an early growth spurt) in protest to the cold, the longer-than-usual time it took the water to heat up for his shower.
There’s another thing, too, a lingering strand of thought niggling at the back of his brain, unclear and still tangled up in the dredges of sleep. Iwaizumi gathers vaguely that it’s an important thing, in a really gut-feeling, instinctive sort of way, but also registers that it’s completely unrelated to his musings of the weather, so he discards it for further rumination later. He has more important things to attend to, after all, like his first day of middle school and making sure Oikawa’s got a spare muffler in his bag ‘cause he gets cold really easily and Iwaizumi’s only brought a spare pair of gloves, and. Speaking of Oikawa. He’s awful quiet this morning, Iwaizumi realises, shooting a glance to his side and coming up with…
… empty space. Shit.
The feeling in his gut lurches up, swamping him with the strangest sensation of his heart and his throat suddenly switching places as he comes to the inconceivable, yet undeniable conclusion that oh my god, he’s forgotten Oikawa.
Iwaizumi turns about face, steeling himself for Oikawa’s inevitable outcry at being left behind before biting the bullet anyway and sprinting back down the road. His mom’s out on the Oikawa’s front porch when he comes to a screeching stop in front of the house, deciding not to inspect the effect that would have on his brand-new school shoes. “Hajime?” Keiko looks up, smile quizzical but distantly bemused as she takes in the sight of her son wheezing in front of her. “What’s wrong? Did you forget something…?” and Hajime gulps at the smirk lurking just below the surface of his mother’s face, realising that he is, after all, in front of Oikawa’s house and not his own.
Staring resolutely at his shoes — damn, he’d scuffed them after all; on his first day, too — he mutters, “I forgot Oikawa” as at that precise moment the front door bellows open, mother and son startled as, lo and behold, there stands Oikawa Tooru. Not for long, though, because no sooner did Oikawa land his gaze on Iwaizumi, announce loudly (and just a tad breathlessly) “there you are, Iwa-chan, we’re gonna be late! We’re off, Mom! Aunty,” nodding at Iwaizumi’s mother, before yanking Iwaizumi’s hand into his own and tugging them both haphazardly out the yard and down the road. “Ah,” Keiko murmurs after them, knowing this time, “so it goes.”
***
Later that night, Iwaizumi checks his messages just before bed, having set his alarm for the next morning and burrowed comfortably into his blankets. He blinks, reading through the three texts Oikawa sent him earlier that morning, face heating up hotter and hotter with each progressive one. They read, as follows:
rise and shine, iwa-chan (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ we start middle school today! take care of me this school year too, okay?
i mean it, iwa-chan!! we’re gonna join the volleyball team too this year after all, and naturally i’ll need you to have my back so we can take the world by storm ~♪ ~♪ ~♪ !!!
you’re gonna yell at me for taking ages to get ready again, but let’s keep walking to school together too, okay, iwa-chan? please and thank you !!! — your best friend forever, oikawa tooru ♡
Iwaizumi falls asleep with his head buried beneath his pillow, too, but it does nothing to assuage the bright-eyed, grinning visage of one best friend forever still burning beneath his eyelids (and also on his cheeks).
iv.
Mornings become infinitely better, Iwaizumi discovers, once they start high school. More precisely, just before the start of their second year, when Oikawa finally gets over his theatrics and confesses back to Iwaizumi (who had kissed the former goodnight on his birthday, a quick brush on the forehead after whispering night, see you tomorrow, love you leaving a flustered and adorable Oikawa to draw from that what he will. Predictably, Oikawa had shown his face to Iwaizumi only sparingly for the next couple days, looking sleepless and wired and wrecked all at once, to Iwaizumi’s deepest satisfaction).
It’s not only the mornings — there are afternoons too, filled with volleyball and ringing laughter, the smack of ball meeting palm and the softer contact of fingers running over knuckles, all their unspoken ways to transmit the words well done and always. And then there are the evenings, studying together and huddled beneath the kotatsu, or Iwaizumi’s low table, sprawled across each other’s beds with their books (Iwaizumi’s personal favourite). Staring out his window on the nights they don’t sleep over, spotting Oikawa ducking guiltily behind his curtains for doing the same, late night calls and hushed conversation when one of them — usually Oikawa, but Iwaizumi’s taken up Oikawa for a couple calls of his own over the years — finds sleep a breath too far away, occupying the empty spaces between fingers where someone else’s might fit into instead (perfectly, Oikawa adds on multiple occasions).
But far and away Iwaizumi’s favourite are the mornings, the times Oikawa sleeps over so all Iwaizumi has to do is turn over and smother him awake with sleepy, smiling kisses.
“Your morning breath’s in my face again, Iwa-chan, gross,” Oikawa mumbles one such morning, but undoing any plausible authenticity by reflexively pressing further into Iwaizumi’s touch as he does. “Not as bad as your bedhead fuzz up in my face,” Iwaizumi counters, pulling the other onto his chest so he can dig his face into said hair.
Oikawa doesn’t respond, humming instead as he traces nonsensical, dreamy patterns across Iwaizumi’s ribs, and Iwaizumi doesn’t even think Oikawa’s aware of what he’s doing, so he forgives him for the chill of his fingers darting lightly under his shirt. “Well, whatever,” he says, “we can fix up later.”
Stretching out even further on top of Iwaizumi, Oikawa makes a noise that sounds vaguely like “agreed,” planting a loud, open-mouthed kiss just above Iwaizumi’s collarbone. Iwaizumi smiles, and feels the action mirrored by Oikawa against his skin.
***
Oikawa likes sleeping over at Iwa-chan’s, likes falling asleep and waking up to the other feathering him with kisses all over his face. He likes spooning Iwa-chan, too, appreciates the way Iwa-chan relaxes into his touch more than he knows how to express with words, so he lays tiny, little kisses against the base of Iwaizumi’s neck, wrinkling his nose and and smiling at the wispy hairs there, tickling his face.
As much as he likes fooling around with Iwa-chan in the mornings they wake up next to each other, though, Oikawa admits — if only to himself — he has a particular fondness for their morning routine after they get out of bed.
Will forever light up at the way they’ve learned to move around each other; Oikawa leaving Iwaizumi’s uniform on his bed while the other showers, only to find his own located where he’d placed Iwaizumi’s once he returns from a shower of his own. The way Iwaizumi’s mother greets them both for breakfast, rice for Oikawa and agedashi tofu for Iwa-chan, a large bowl of miso for them both to share, which works out because Oikawa loves soup but can never finish it himself and because Iwa-chan never touches the miso until after he’s eaten everything else.
The way Iwaizumi’s stopped telling him off when Oikawa moves to do the dishes after eating (although a part of him wonders whether Iwa-chan had ever, in fact, admonished him for this at all. Perhaps it was Aunty Keiko…? Well, never mind.), reaching around him instead for a tea towel, drying each item as Oikawa passes it over.
How they both say “I’m off,” at the same time before school, looking at each other, grinning then repeating “We’re off,” simultaneously as well. Iwaizumi’s mother laughs them off, his father clasping Iwa-chan’s back and poking Oikawa’s forehead on the occasional time he’s still there when they leave, too.
Most of all, Oikawa basks in the comfort that this is routine for them, unquestionable and undoubtable; it helps him fall asleep on the nights when he’s on his own (sticking the words goodnight, love you! on a paper facing his window, beaming as he imagines the helplessly warm, I’m-so-in-love-god-help-me look he knows must flit across Iwa-chan’s face when he sees). The matching stop looking and start moving, good morning he sees taped onto Iwaizumi’s window when he wakes up the following morning never fails to make him laugh; and the way Iwa-chan’s almost always waiting at the porch by the time he does head down the stairs and out the door whispers that this is theirs for always, the way he twines his fingers with Iwaizumi’s on their walk to school and the way Iwaizumi wordlessly squeezes his hand back feeling a lot like an affirmation of the unspoken promise.
Because Oikawa Tooru really, really loves Iwaizumi Hajime, and Iwaizumi Hajime really, really loves him back.