“You have crazy eyes,” Oikawa says offhandedly, setting a glass down and leaning hard on a wooden table, long legs crossing over each other elegantly.
“I do not,” Iwaizumi retorts. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Mhm,” Oikawa pushes his head into the other man’s line of vision, dodging as Iwaizumi unfolds his arms to make an attempt at pushing him away, his gaze locked on the other side of the deck all the while. “Nothing’s happening, that’s why the vein in your forehead is about to pop. You’d think he’d notice the big dumb guy staring at him this whole time.”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” says Iwaizumi, casually posing his arm to rest on the table, open palm up.
“Maybe he has noticed and he’s just ignoring it?” Oikawa squints, dropping his (prescription, but don’t you dare tell anyone) sunglasses down his nose for dramatic effect. “A braver man than me, then.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Iwaizumi says, but his fingers twitch, not quite a fist and not far from being one. His eyes are an olive orchard burning. As Oikawa said: crazy.
You are: oblivious, blithe, gorgeous. The tops of your shoulders are sun-warmed and you’re swirling a glass of red in your hand, the contented lilt of your smile familiar to him after many nights watching your favorite wine stain your lips. He sees you sway a little, your eyes popping wide as you realize all too quickly that you might be a little further past tipsy then you’d thought, and the bastard you’re talking to puts his hands on you. One on your shoulder, one on your waist to steady you.
Hajime’s always had a penchant for parkour when he’s drunk, and you and he have been taking sips of each other for days now. He slams a palm down on the hard wood, momentarily airborne as he jumps over the table and cuts through the other people standing around to get to you.
“Hey,” he says, grin looking a little feral as he watches the hands on your waist come off. The guy’s movements are jerky, looking at him like what the hell, man? Iwaizumi has no idea why.
“Hi, Haji,” you say, your lips curling into a warm smile. “This is Naoto. He’s from the same place I am, actually.”
“Cool,” Hajime says, extending a hand to shake like he learned at networking mixers at UCI. Naoto stares at him for a second and then takes it cautiously, wincing as Hajime crushes his fingers in his best arm-wrestling champ grip. “Good to meet you.”
Naoto clearly does not think it is good to meet him. He steps back upon release and makes a rushed goodbye to you, citing a group of friends he suddenly needs to find urgently. You smile and wiggle your fingers at him vaguely, already far more focused on the sun setting over the waves past the terrace than you are on whatever is happening between the two of them. Hajime steps up behind you, sliding a hand over your waist, his palm covering the surface area touched by Naoto. You put a soft hand over his, stroking slowly over his calloused knuckles, and hook your other arm back to tug him forward so he’s pressed against your back, bending so he’s cheek-to-cheek with you, watching the water undulate.
“You havin’ a good time?” His voice is a little rough from the clear liquor he and Oikawa were drinking paired with the effort of keeping his voice quiet, his concern just for you.
“Yes, sir,” you say, taking another sip from your glass. You hold it across your chest and he wraps his fingers around the delicate stem, putting his mouth right over the print yours left. “You?”
“Of course,” he says. “It’s beautiful out here. I think Shittykawa got sunburnt on the beach, though.”
“His fault for being pale,” you wave your left hand dismissively. He wants to pin you like a butterfly, your wrist arched gracefully against the darkening sky. “He has all those fancy skin creams to stop it from flaking, too.”
He feels a little bad for abandoning his best friend, but when he turns his head to check on him, the other man has reunited with Makki and Mattsun, who are all clustered together while taking photos of the two of you. Oikawa’s features specifically are spelling out something very smug and that will be very annoying for Hajime later. Iwaizumi concludes that he will probably survive thirty seconds without direct entertainment from him.
“He gets bad flush, too,” he thinks aloud. “Maybe it’s nothing.”
“See?” He hums and rubs his thumb over your top where he’s holding you with the right hand, soothing circular patterns. He can almost feel you purring. “I can always tell when you’ve started drinking for the night because Kawa gets red and you start running around and climbing things.”
“I don’t,” he protests, but it dies in his throat. You shake in his arms as you laugh.
“You always do. You tried to climb up my balcony once, remember? You said you could beat the elevator up.”
“I would’ve done it if security hadn’t come out,” he grumbles. You take your glass back and put it on the railing. It’s perilous, but Hajime doesn’t say anything. If it spills over your outfit, he’ll follow you back to the room and help you change.
“When I met you, I didn’t expect you to be the crazy type,” you say, turning so your lips brush his skin as you speak. “You seemed so steady compared to Kawa.”
“Only crazy about you,” he says. You sigh happily and melt back into him. He exhales slowly, a controlled breath, and wonders how a bastard like him got so lucky.
got me thinking about how saying goodbye is impossible and your entire body is going to reject it and say no, i can't do this, but it doesn't change the fact that they're leaving, but it doesn't matter because you can't do this right now, you just can't, and you won't think about how it's your last chance until it's way behind you, it's just fucking survival instincts, and how that whole time logan was probably dead and tom just kept trying to give the siblings a chance to say goodbye to their father, because saying goodbye is just as important to them as it is to him, and how shiv is going to regret not looking at her dad one more time just as much as roman is going to regret looking at him
the intimacy of sleeping together, but not in a sexual way. the intimacy of feeling the warmth of their body in a cool room. their hands hugging you tightly. the intimacy of synchronized breathing. sleepy half-kisses. feeling safe. feeling warm. waking up and realizing how much you love them. how precious this is. finding the happiness on the tip of your fingers, brushing their hair. closing your eyes again. pulling closer. falling asleep.
something about vi never wanting anyone in her life to change. something about jayce not caring at all how much viktor has changed so long as he's alive. something about the way vi associates radical change with death, perceiving jinx's continued existence as a kind of necromantic horror—the way jayce would shatter fundamental laws of nature without a second thought in order to give viktor the best chance at survival, in whatever form that may take. transformation as rebirth vs murder, hextech vs shimmer. nature has made us intolerant to change, but fortunately, we have the capacity to change our nature. and then jayce, realizing that he hasn't changed at all, not really—that he is a scientist at heart, and he shouldn't have tried to be anything else. and then vi, realizing she has become someone unrecognizable—never thought my sister would turn bluebelly. and for both of them, it's too little, too late.