Chapter Text
It’s been almost three months.
Almost an entire season has passed since Oikawa last saw his best friend.
He's sitting on the couch in his small apartment, his back to the door and the small kitchen, absent-mindedly tapping his fingers against the brace on his right knee. There is a sports channel running on the small TV, but he’s not really paying attention. Instead, his mind wanders – as it does a lot these days – back to what he now calls “better times.” The best times of his life, probably, if he’s honest. A tight-knit team he could trust, at a school he enjoyed going to (despite his constant whining) and, most importantly, the unwavering presence of his rock, his pillar, the one who kept him sane.
Now, Oikawa feels like a feather tossed into the wind, tied to nothing and fluttering around aimlessly, afraid to get caught up in anything tumultuous for fear of losing control.
He’s realized long ago that he is nothing without Iwa-chan.
He reaches for his phone, lying silently beside him, and flips it open. The screen is blank, and a small red light blinks dully at him to remind him to recharge the battery.
It’s been like this for a couple of days, Oikawa just hasn’t had the motivation to plug it in. What’s the point, even?
It’s not like Iwaizumi is going to text him.
And it’s not like anyone else’s texts matter. He’s socializing all right – during classes, breaks, time spent on campus. But no more than he needs to. He still gets girls’ phone numbers way too easily, but he rarely ever actually texts them. Because what’s the point?
He seems to be thinking that a lot, lately. What’s the point. He’s not sure he knows anymore.
He’s practicing harder than ever, because of course this new, national level university team is extremely hard to get into but even harder to maintain once you’re actually in – a fact he had always speculated but never actually taken two seconds to think about. And now he’s living it, exhaustion and all.
Still, exhaustion is better than boredom – boredom leaves doors wide open for the thoughts Oikawa really doesn’t want and can’t face. Not like this. Not now. Not alone.
So he pushes, and he pushes, and he keeps them at arm’s length, just far enough out of his reach for them to vaguely unsettle him on bad days and oddly motivate him on the better ones.
Better days are getting fewer and fewer.
He knows he’s reaching his limits. Classes are tough, but interesting enough – it’s just hard to focus through constant exhaustion. Practice is tough, but challenging – and he knows he’s pushing too hard.
When he returns to this too-big empty apartment that is now his home (could he ever call it that?), he plunges himself into studying until he falls asleep. On days that he doesn’t, one or two glasses of something or other usually help. The headaches that follow these nights he takes as punishment for slacking.
It’s sick, but it’s working. For now. Although he can’t deny that control is slipping from his fingers. It’s only a matter of time.
Three months, and he’s practically broken.
He has no idea how he’s going to survive three years.
~~~
He sighs and gets to his feet, dropping his dead phone back onto the couch. He blinks against the tiredness of his weary eyes and turns to switch off the TV. Then he sighs again and slowly moves towards the bathroom, killing the lights on his way into the hall. He almost trips over his volleyball bag, which he dropped carelessly in front of the bathroom door earlier that day, in an effort to remind himself to wash his uniform. He rubs a hand over his eyes, moaning softly. Of course he’d forgotten about that.
He stands there for a second, almost lost, staring down at the bag. Then he decides that his uniform can stand one more day of practice – it’ll never be dry by morning, anyway. He thinks for a second about his spare clothes, but he hasn’t needed them yet and they’re at the bottom of a box that he really thinks he’s not ready to open. A box that might still… smell like Iwaizumi, because he helped him pack it.
He knows he’s being ridiculous, but he can’t do this. He’s not going to force himself.
He shoves the bag aside with his foot and goes to brush his teeth and take his meds.
An exhausted face blinks back at him from the mirror. All day he spends smiling like nothing is wrong, and every night the muscles on his face hurt from it. All day he pressures his knee like nothing’s wrong, and every night he takes pills for the pain that stops him from sleeping. It’s a working system, albeit one that’s deteriorating, failure slowly closing in.
He’s just so tired.
He reaches for the small box with his pain medication, and realizes it’s way too light. With a groan, he remembers the small post-it note that he put next to the door just a couple of days ago, reminding himself to get another prescription.
So much for that.
He exhales in a long sigh, then makes his way to the large empty bed in the room across the hall. He doesn't bother to undress, simply pulls the covers up over himself. What's the damn point?
Maybe tomorrow he’ll charge his phone, call his parents – but just thinking about it makes him pretty sure he won’t.
He’s just. So. Tired.
~~~
He’s not quite sure why he wakes, but he knows immediately that there is another person in the room with him. Which makes no sense, even to his tired brain, which is frantically trying to put a time and a place on the sensation of his existence, slightly overwhelmed by the sudden stream of consciousness.
He turns around, and light from the living room hits him in the face through the door that’s been cracked open. He holds up his hand to shield his eyes as they adjust, and the dark silhouette of the intruder starts to take form.
Oikawa blinks, and then he forgets to breathe.
Because it can’t be.
It can’t be.
The intruder pushes the door open a little wider and slides into the room, peering down at the bed.
This can’t be a dream, because his knee is throbbing and his headache is definitely real, and he can smell yesterday’s clothes and sweat on his own body. There are too many sensations for this to be a dream.
And yet, Oikawa finds it almost impossible to believe what he is seeing.
“…I still had the spare key,” a voice says, soft and subdued, trying hard not to disrupt the night around them. “Sorry for waking you.”
That voice. His voice.
Oikawa would know it anywhere. He’s heard it whisper and scream and laugh and cry, he knows it like his own.
“…I-Iwa-chan?”