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“Iwa-chan!” came Oikawa’s distressed cry.
Iwaizumi Hajime, at seventeen years of age, would say that, with twelve years of Oikawanese under his belt, he was qualified to understand when Oikawa was being serious and when he wasn’t.
That was why when Oikawa banged open the door to his bedroom, effectively shattering any hope Iwaizumi’d had for a calm Saturday afternoon with a single word, he was more worried for himself that he was for his childhood friend.
Iwaizumi didn’t bother with lifting his gaze from the novel he was reading, vainly hoping that Oikawa would leave if he ignored him.
Iwaizumi felt his bed dip with the weight of another body.
No such luck, it seemed.
“Iwa-chan! It’s a tragedy! A complete and absolute tragedy! My life is ruined!” Oikawa whined right next to his ear.
With an irritated sigh, Iwaizumi surrendered to his fate. It’s not like he had wanted an afternoon to himself or anything like that, after all.
He glanced briefly at the number of the page he was on, memorizing it. He snapped the book shut, the sound bouncing off the walls of his room like a death sentence, before placing it on the study desk by his bed, right by the ever-growing pile of homework he had intended to take care of that afternoon.
With a deep breath, Iwaizumi steeled himself to deal with the annoying asshole that was his best friend and the stupid stunt that he had decided to pull (because there was no doubt in Iwaizumi’s mind that this was something Oikawa had brought upon himself. Iwaizumi merely wondered why Oikawa just had to drag him into all of his messes).
Iwaizumi turned, lips already forming a scathing remark that would puncture Oikawa’s ego with deadly intent, only for his chest to deflate like a ballon, what were intended to be words coming out a jumbled and jittery mess.
Iwaizumi felt a blush creep up his neck and he rapidly slammed his hand over his lower face to try and hide it as much as he could.
Oikawa was observing, head tilted to the side in interest, the desperate façade dropped. A sly grin curved his lips.
“What is it, Iwa-chan? What’s wrong?” Oikawa drawled, an amused glint in his yes.
Breathe, Hajime, breathe.
“You are what’s wrong!” Iwaizumi snapped, still slightly flustered. “What the hell have you done to your hair?” Iwaizumi exclaimed, trying to hide his very obvious blush behind a façade of anger. Just the usual.
Oikawa’s hair, normally slanting across his forehead in upturned waves had been cut an inch too short for that to happen. Iwaizumi was briefly reminded of Oikawa’s middle school years, where his hair had been shorter (no doubt his mother’s doing). But he couldn’t remember a time when his hair had been this short.
But the worst part was, it suited him. The new haircut made the sharp lines of his jaw and cheekbones even more pronounced, making him look -dare he say it- mature and giving him an aura of stability, instead of the irresponsible charm he normally exuded.
Iwaizumi knew that by now he could put a tomato to shame.
It definitely suited him.
Which meant he could never know, or his ego might inflate to the size of Jupiter.
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whined. “Hairdressers are evil. I’m never going back to one. They ruined my hairstyle!”
He was pouting, and this time, alarms rung in Iwaizumi’s head. This one was partly real.
“Hey,” he said, and Oikawa’s brown eyes rose to meet his. “It’s fine. It’ll grow again.”
“But until it does, I’m gonna look stupid.”
“No, you’re not.”
Iwaizumi hadn’t realized what he had said. The moment he had seen Oikawa about to slip into one of his moods, he had immediately reacted, without thinking of the consequences. Oh God, what had he done.
“You think I don’t look stupid?” Oikawa asked, a teasing tone lilting his question.
Shit.
“I never said that,” Iwaizumi rebuked immediately.
“But you did~,” Oikawa sing-songed with a smirk. “I bet you think I look good too.”
Shit.
“All right, forget what I said. You look absolutely awful. All of your fans will leave you. You’ll never be popular again after this,” Iwaizumi jabbed while trying to keep a straight face, his blushing subdued to the minimum.
Or so he thought.
“But Iwa-chan, you’re blushing!” Oikawa laughed delightedly.
“I am not, it’s just hot in here.”
“Iwa-chan, it’s mid-November.”
“You know I don’t feel the cold much.”
“I also know that you only blush when you’re embarrassed,” Oikawa countered.
“That’s not true,” Iwaizumi replied, but it didn’t have much strength behind. Sometimes, it was easy for Iwaizumi to forget that Oikawa was as well versed in Iwaizuminese as Iwaizumi was in Oikawanese.
Oikawa flashed a smug smile, the bastard.
“So you think it looks good, huh?”
Iwaizumi didn’t answer, a scowl marring his face, eyes forward.
“I knew it~” Oikawa drawled.
Iwaizumi turned violently, ready to smack Oikawa only to find him uncomfortably close to his face.
“What do you like best?” he murmured dangerously close to his ear, his voice causing shivers to run down Iwaizumi’s spine.
So Iwaizumi did the rational thing. He shoved Oikawa, hard, and watched as his face contorted into an expression of astonishment before his butt hit the floor by Iwaizumi’s bed.
For a moment, silence hung heavy in the air, due to Oikawa’s surprise and Iwaizumi’s embarrassment. And then Oikawa’s expression turned childish again, the one he put on while trying to ensnare people into his trap, though it didn’t quite have the same effect with the new way his hair fell around his face.
“Mean, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa whined, putting on his best pouting face, the one that got his mother to indulge him in everything he wanted. The Iwaizumis were quite inmune to it, though, thankfully. “That hurt!”
Iwaizumi snorted and rolled his eyes.
“You deserved it. What’s this about invading my personal space?”
“Iwa-chan, we’ve been over this.” Oikawa said, with the voice people us to explain something to a very dumb child. “You like it.”
Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow, trying to feign nonchalance while fighting the blush that still adorned his cheeks. So much for having a tan complexion.
“I think I didn’t even get the chance to grasp the concept of personal space, much less experience it…” Iwaizumi grumbled lowly.
“What was that, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa said, smug grin poised on his face.
“I said get your ass off the damn floor.”
Oikawa chuckled as he stood, plopping down by Iwaizumi again and making the bed bounce.
“Oi, don’t do that. You’ll damage the mattress!” Iwaizumi exclaimed, glaring at Oikawa, who answered with a cheeky grin.
“Iwa-chan, are you my mom?”
“No, you dumbass, but mine will have my head if anything happens.”
Oikawa laughs, the sound high and clear.
“Iwa-chan’s mom is scary, like her son.”
“I still don’t understand how she likes you better than me.”
“Simple! I am adorable and perfect and you are all grumpy.”
A smack resounded across the room. Oikawa rubbed the back of his head.
“Ouch, Iwa-chan…” Oikawa muttered. “You always act so brutish…”
Iwaizumi felt his eye twitch.
“Want me to hit you again?”
Oikawa grinned brightly as he scooted away from Iwaizumi’s reach.
“No, thanks!”
Both of them fell into a comfortable silence after the exchange. Contrary to popular belief, Oikawa could shut up and behave normally for quite extended periods of time, so it wasn’t that rare of an occurrence.
Iwaizumi felt himself relax, now that he wasn’t on the end of Tooru’s attention anymore. His fingers itched to get back to his novel, but he quenched the thought, knowing it would give Oikawa the perfect grounds to pester him again. He wanted some peace and quiet to himself. And maybe a bit of time to sort out his feelings.
Resting the back of his head against the wall he closed his eyes, and concentrated on regulating his breathing, using the trick he and Oikawa had developed through the years when they wanted an escape from reality to calm themselves down. As he counted the breaths and focused on his heartbeat, Iwaizumi couldn’t help but be flooded with memories of Oikawa, from the silly ones that made him want to smack the stupidity right out of his body, to the moments Iwaizumi knew he wouldn’t forget, even in old age. The thoughts sent a warm tingle to his fingers and he felt his mouth twitch with what could have been the beginning of a smile.
Oikawa had always been a constant in his life, the force that Iwaizumi contained but that still managed to propel him forward. He wondered when his feelings had morphed from “someone very annoying to kill time with” to “I want to be with you forever, no matter how annoying you can get”, but sometime along the line, it had happened. What Iwaizumi couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out was if those feelings held a nature that was beyond friendship’s territory.
Iwaizumi heard a rustle to his right and popped an eye open to see what it was.
Oikawa had started fiddling with the plush Godzilla he had given Iwaizumi for his last birthday, making it move it’s round lizard paws in a way Iwaizumi couldn’t help but label as cute. Little roaring sounds fell from his lips as Oikawa made his way across the bed with the toy, right until it bumped against Iwaizumi’s thigh.
Iwaizumi felt the chuckle leave his chest as Oikawa rose his coffee colored-eyes to meet Iwaizumi’s grey-green ones.
“Iwa-chan-” Oikawa said, but Iwaizumi didn’t let him continue.
“It does suit you, you know?” He said, before he lost his resolve.
Oikawa’s face morphed into an expression of surprise, but it vanished in the time it took Iwaizumi to blink, being replaced by Oikawa’s signature coy look.
“And what it is it that suits me, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa said, playfulness dripping off his every word.
And if Oikawa had expected Iwaizumi to repent and take back his words, then boy was he in for a surprise.
“Your hair,” Iwaizumi stated firmly. “It looks good. Makes you look older and more mature, somehow.”
Oikawa gaped like a fish out of water. For him to get Iwaizumi to admit something he had been teasing him about, and a compliment, at that… It was definitely something worth remembering.
“Oikawa?” Iwaizumi asked, tentatively.
Oikawa lunged at him, tackling him down onto the bed.
“Oi, Shittykawa, be careful!”
“But Iwa-chan just said I looked terribly dashing and handsome with my new haircut.”
Iwaizumi spluttered.
“All right, first of all I did not say that. Not at all. Second of all, cut down on the damn milk bread, you’re heavier than a fucking elephant.”
“Rude!” Oikawa pouted right next to his face, not moving from where he was squashed against Iwaizumi’s chest, but there was no bite behind it. Instead, a warm fire had lit behind his eyes, melting Iwaizumi’s reservations and telling him everything he needed to know about how Oikawa felt about the situation.
Oikawa burrowed against his chest and Iwaizumi lifted his arms to wrap around his idiot of a best friend, whom he might or might not love, but who he definitely wanted to stay right by.
Oikawa nudged Iwaizumi’s jaw with his head and Iwaizumi took it as his cue to start lightly petting Oikawa’s head, taking a while to adjust to the new length of the silky strands that slipped between his fingers.
Iwaizumi continued until Oikawa fell asleep, tension leaving his form until his body lay limp against Iwaizumi’s side. Iwaizumi relished seeing Oikawa like this, more human than king, realizing and appreciating the fact that he was one of the few people that the Great King felt comfortable enough with to drop the annoying and overbearing façade. Iwaizumi silently thanked the hairdresser with the too-long scissors for the opportunity to see Oikawa like this, before he himself drifted off to sleep, face buried in Oikawa’s hair.