eventually, with the sun

i.

when he’s ten years old, tooru plays with a volleyball for the first time. he goes over to hajime’s house, clutching the newly bought ball in his hands. hajime’s in the backyard with his net, peering into some bushes.

tooru comes up to him, bounces the ball on the back of hajime’s head. hajime yelps and nearly falls. “what was that for?” he whines, turning around.

tooru grins. “look what i have,” he says eagerly.

hajime frowns. “that’s a volleyball,” he says. “what, did you get it just to hit me with it?”

“no.” tooru pouts. “i’m gonna play with it! i wanna become a famous athlete one day.”

hajime scoffs. “i’ve never seen you do something like that a day of your life.” it’s true, because the only relatively good thing tooru is good at is running, and that’s when he puts one of hajime’s beetles down the back of his shirt and tries to convince him it’s a sign that the aliens are coming.

tooru huffs. “well i am!” he says. “i saw a game on the tv the other day, and it looked so cool.” he feels his cheeks brim up with excitement, and can’t bring himself to even try to tone it down. “i’m going to be just like them!”

“yeah, right,” says hajime.

but he’s watching, anyway, when tooru says, “you’ll see,” and tosses his ball up into the air. it flies, and then falls, and he tries to receive it with his arms.

it lands on his face instead.

“ow,” tooru moans.

hajime is bent over, and laughing. he puts his net down to balance himself out. he actually clutches his stomach and crouches as he does, and during most cases tooru would scold him for being mean.

instead he just watches as hajime laughs, and it makes up for the sore spot on his cheek.

ii.

tooru is the best person hajime’s ever met, but he’s never going to tell him that. if he did, it would just make his ego bigger than it needs to be.

hajime loves the beach. tooru does too, but it becomes a nuisance when they go there for the first time after he’s gotten into volleyball. hajime, somehow, has found himself getting into volleyball too. that had started with tooru begging him to practice with him, because, “it’s no fun when i play on my own!” and that somehow evolved to hajime actually enjoying it, and tooru bringing over his annoying volleyball every time he came over, and for some reason hajime could never bring himself to say no.

he brings his volleyball when they go to the beach together, too. tooru says, “now we can play beach volleyball!”

hajime sighs where he’s started to bury himself in the sand. “can’t we just take a break for one day?”

tooru pouts; but then hajime’s dad says that he’ll play volleyball with tooru, and so that’s okay. hajime picks at the rocks and the shells near the shore as the sound of the ball getting hit back and forth plays in the background.

after a while, that stops and footsteps pad behind him. hajime turns around to see tooru, in his white hoodie and shorts, watching hajime play with his shells.

“are you finally done?” hajime asks.

“it’s not as fun without you,” says tooru.

hajime rolls his eyes.

but tooru helps him collect the coolest shells and pebbles, gets himself clawed by a crab at one point and sand all over his front. hajime has to turn away so tooru doesn’t see him giggling.

the sun sets and washes pink and purple and gold all over the sky. one of their parents says how beautiful it looks, and they get a stranger to take a picture of all of them against it. when that’s done, tooru grabs the camera, says, “stay there, iwa-chan.”

hajime rolls his eyes. “are you gonna try to be a professional photographer, too?”

“shush.” tooru brings the camera to his eyes, fixating on him. it makes hajime feel the sun on his back. “smile, iwa-chan!”

hajime is tempted not to. but he does, for the briefest of seconds, and hears the shutter go off the moment he smiles.

iii.

tooru doesn’t know why hajime blames him for everything when it’s very clear that hajime does everything of his own accord.

“it’s very clear that you do everything of your own accord,” he says, when they’re second years in middle school and hajime is harping about the new bruises on his calves and blaming tooru for getting him to join the team this year.

hajime mutters, but tooru hears it the first time. he bends down and cups his ear and says, “what was that?”

“i guess,” hajime says again.

it’s after practice and he’s sitting on the ground, rubbing at the red spots on his knees. tooru sighs but bends down and wraps his arm around hajime’s shoulders. “don’t be baby,” he says. “we’re buying you knee pads the next time we go out!”

“you’re paying for them,” hajime grumbles.

tooru winks. he’s not sure if hajime sees it, but it’s the sentiment that counts. “i’ll do anything for my iwa-chan!”

“unfortunately,” says hajime.

“hey.” tooru stops as they enter the boys’ locker room. “if i was sitting down all bruised and stuff, you’d help me out, wouldn’t you?”

hajime taps his finger to his chin. “i don’t know,” he says, glancing upward. “maybe?”

“what does maybe mean?”

“it’d depend on if you deserved it or not.”

hajime laughs when tooru drops him, feeling affronted. he must look it, too, because hajime just takes one glance at his face and ends up laughing even harder. but he’s clutching his chest and tooru doesn’t log the times he makes hajime laugh so much, really, but something burns inside him like this is the first time he’s seeing it and he doesn’t want to stop.

he kneels down and reaches for hajime’s hand again. hajime takes it, says, “oh my god – sorry, but you should’ve seen the look on your face! and the – ” he coughs like he can’t believe himself. “when you dropped me it just made me laugh more.”

“don’t tell me you’re a masochist, iwa-chan,” says tooru, resuming their trek back to the lockers.

“of course not. you better not drop me again.”

“i can’t make any promises.”

but tooru carries him back all the way without fail.

iv.

it’s almost exactly three years later when they’re walking back from school and hajime turns to see the way tooru looks when he smiles from the side, afternoon sun auburn on his hair, pale orange against his nose. hajime’s whole world stops and the first thing he thinks is, this wouldn’t be happening if we had volleyball practice today, and his heart is the only thing he hears.

they stop at tooru’s house first. they usually do, and sometimes hajime will go home right afterward, sometimes he’ll stay a little longer. today he stands at the front porch, staring, as tooru goes on about the third year girl in his class, or something or other.

tooru turns his head just as he’s about to go inside. “something wrong, iwa-chan?” he asks. his tone is light.

hajime blinks.

“i have a problem,” he says.

“oh?” tooru steps down so he’s closer to hajime, tilts his head to the side. the way he’s watching hajime makes hajime think this will be alright, tooru’s calculating gaze speaking as loud as the light spilling over them.

hajime coughs. “i think i’m in love with my best friend.”

tooru’s eyebrows fly up.

“do you have a best friend i don’t know about?”

he cries out when hajime punches his shoulder, shouts, “no, dumbass, i meant you!” but tooru’s just laughing, eyes crinkling at the sides, and hajime feels his ridiculous heart do that again. the stopping, the skipping. so he laughs, too.

“i think i have the same problem,” says tooru, once he’s collected himself. his cheeks are pink, though, and his eyes are glistening.

hajime says, “you have a world of problems.”

tooru puts his hand over hajime’s mouth, takes another step closer to him. “we were having a moment, iwa-chan,” he says. his voice is low and teasing.

hajime takes his hand off his mouth, leans forward. he covers tooru’s mouth this time, but with his own. he feels tooru’s mouth curve as he does, wants to taste it more, too.

v.

hajime doesn’t buy him meals, or hold doors open for him, or let tooru grab his hand in public unless tooru’s really, really whining about it. tooru fills his bag with chocolates on valentine’s day and as hajime opens up his bag during practice and dumps them all out, tooru mocks from the side, “someone must really love you, iwa-chan!”

everyone’s laughing at him, but later after practice hajime corners him into a hard kiss when they’re alone, and tooru kind of doubts that hajime’s really mad at him.

it’s hard to say that they won’t let go, because tooru’s a realist. but as their third year comes and he practices harder, there are even nights when hajime will stay up with him. watch opponents’ games with him. fall asleep on tooru’s shoulder as tooru stares at the tv screen and doesn’t realize until a couple of hours later.

hajime tells tooru he pushes himself too hard, sometimes tries to get tooru out of it by cuddling up to him or kissing him. tooru laughs and says, “this isn’t like you, iwa-chan,” and hajime grumbles about wanting tooru to take care of himself.

it doesn’t work all the time but sometimes tooru will let it happen, will crawl into hajime’s smallest spaces because hajime wants to crawl into his, and then they’re kissing all over each other and saying how good they were at practice and hajime will hit him when tooru tells him he needs to scowl at the ball less and look at it more like a friend.

hajime will roll his eyes but grin and say, “like that?” and tooru says, “yes, like that,” and hajime leans up to kiss him. tooru indulges him, indulges himself, says, “but you don’t like the ball like you like me, do you?” and hajime will hit him again.

but he’ll be beaming up at tooru, in a way that tooru knows is only for him, and it’s worth more than anything else in the world.