Chapter Text
When Oikawa Tooru's knee gave out, Iwaizumi was the first there to put ice on the injury and take care of him. Yet no matter how he protested, Iwaizumi was right there, treating his injured friend through it all. It had become a very routine procedure for the ace: go to school, go to practice, scold Oikawa, resume practice, treat Oikawa when it was all over with.
Bending Oikawa's knee back slowly to keep it flexing to work out the tension, Iwaizumi seldom made eye contact at first. But as the injury got worse, Iwaizumi began to look up. And as Oikawa began to break down from the pain, Iwaizumi began to make eye contact.
And as Oikawa Tooru had to go into surgery for the first time, Iwaizumi Hajime knew he was in love.
That was back then. Way back then. So far back then that Iwaizumi could only remember the important moments. Not much of practice stuck out in his head anymore, most of his memories involved Oikawa, watching as his nimble fingers tossed the ball into the air and allowing Iwaizumi the opportunity to slam it down on the other side of the net. They were a team, not in the sense that they were teammates with Kindaichi, or Watari. They were a team in the sense that they were in sync. They were the people that onlookers would point at and say: they're a dream team.
A dream was right.
Iwaizumi Hajime was thirty-nine years old, and somewhere in the past nineteen years, he lost touch with Oikawa Tooru. College. Busy Schedules. Conflicting plans. Oikawa Tooru had gone to chase his volleyball dreams after high school, even with his knee injury, and he'd found himself among Olympians. Iwaizumi would watch the Japanese Olympic team every four years, silently cheering on his old teammate, and silently scolding him for agitating his leg.
While Oikawa went to chase his dreams, Iwaizumi found himself chasing something more practical. Physical therapy. It was helpful, it paid well, it interested him and it suited him. He learned about muscles and joints quickly and he was able to apply it easily. He was good at what he did.
His life was very fulfilling. At least.
Thats what he told himself.
At the age of forty, Iwaizumi found him flipping through magazines upon his return home from work. Athletics, sports and anatomy alike, he collected them in hopes of learning something to help his patients. Even popular tabloid like magazines would offer something beneficial. When he entered his apartment that night after work, a cozy one-bedroom studio in a tiny complex of other young professionals and doctors, he found himself frowning at the words headlining part of one of his periodicals.
"End of an Era: The Amputation of Oikawa Tooru."
Iwaizumi read the headline aloud and sunk himself down on to his couch. His lips curled around the rim of a beer he'd retrieved from the fridge, opening to page forty-six as the cover suggested. It was a rather painful read for him, and yet a part of him didn't really find it all that astonishing. Oikawa had been pushing himself over all these years and rarely sought out rehabilitation when his knee acted up. A recent game he had pushed himself too hard -- and at his age, not surprising -- and upon being rushed to the hospital, it was revealed there was no saving his leg at that stage.
"Idiot..." Iwaizumi sighed as he knocked back a long swig of his drink, resuming reading the article. Oikawa stated in an interview that once he became fitted for his prosthesis he would be returning to his hometown to stay with his family for a while. "If I were there this wouldn't have happened, god dammit."
And he truly believed that.
"Hajime-san, we've had to rearrange your patients today. Nakamura-san is going to be coming in tomorrow instead of today, we've...had a rather urgent call that you clear your schedule." The receptionist handed Iwaizumi a clipboard with his usual patients, followed by the word classified written at one in the afternoon. His eyes narrowed as he examined the schedule over, and the procedures before handing it back to the girl.
"Classified? What patient can be so important that it's classified?" he grumbled as he adjusted his sleeves. "And why are they coming to me?" The young girl shrugged as she took a few steps backwards to walk out the door. He rolled his eyes and shrugged. If it was urgent they could have at least called him, couldn't they? "Alright, fine. Send whoever it is in when the time comes. Don't know why their hospital didn't contact me, seriously."
"They, ah," the girl nearly squeaked as she held her clipboard in front of her face, blond hair bouncing as she almost hid behind it. "Said they were transferring from another prefecture. Moving here actually and they were due for an appointment."
Iwaizumi sighed, combing a hand through his hair. "It's alright, Hitoka. I'm not mad at you, just annoyed at the so called urgency. But things are fine."
When one o'clock rolled around Iwaizumi found himself sitting in the rehabilitation center with other therapists working with their clients -- and he was sitting on a bench playing sudoku. When one-fifteen rolled around, Iwaizumi had finished the puzzle. Some big shot urgent client he had, late for his own appointment. Normally, the facility would call the patient at this point, reminding them of their appointment, but this big shot hadn't left a name, a number -- anything. Just the notice that they would show up for an appointment and Iwaizumi would need to keep his afternoon free for them.
Right when he was starting to get annoyed as one thirty-two ticked past, his receptionist peeked her head back and waved a hand and smiled. "Iwaizumi-san, your one o'clock is here! Looks like he's in a wheelchair still, so you may need to help him!" Finally getting to his feet and tapping his shoes against the soft carpet to adjust them, Iwaizumi started to head out toward the lobby to greet his new patient.
"Can I at least have his file now?" Iwaizumi asked, leaning over Yachi's desk, his hand stretched outward to take the clipboard from the young, blond girl.
"His instructions did say to avoid giving it to you until he was on his way in," she said, giggling softly as the metal board made its way into Iwaizumi's hands.
As the glass door of the facility opened, Iwaizumi found himself wrapped up in the sheet stating the information for the patient. Recent above knee amputation (AKA) due to an untreated injury. The patient in question had undergone preliminary therapy in order to cope with the residual pain of the amputation and he was being transferred as per his family's request. Simple enough, Iwaizumi was going to be responsible for assisting in teaching him to walk again, nothing he wasn't used to. Age -- huh, same as Iwaizumi. Birthday -- July twentieth. . .
Everything on the page began to seem very familiar to Iwaizumi. Blood type, height, weight. . .It was all incredibly nostalgic for him and it was only when he got to the name that he realized.
"It's good to see you, Hajime."
Looking past from the clipboard Iwaizumi gazed forward and it was as if looking into the past. Familiar, somewhat scheming but gentle umber eyes glinted in the florescent light as he gazed upwards at Iwaizumi from the confines of a wheelchair. Auburn hair swept to the side boyishly as it had been for all these years, hung loosely over those eyes allowing the heavy bags beneath them to protrude just slightly. He rose a hand, swinging it weakly as he waved to the therapist. Over his lap was a blanket, where only a single leg stuck out visibly, resting against the foot pedal.
"...Tooru." Iwaizumi gasped, feeling a weight fall upon him and exploding into the flutters of thousands of butterflies in his gut, his heart, his head -- his everything. His breathing halted, lingering in his throat struggling to remember how to suck in oxygen.
And like that, Iwaizumi was seventeen all over again.
Oikawa sat on one of the benches with his leg extended. Iwaizumi's hands were careful as they pressed against the muscle of his thigh trying to test his reflexes. He had a prosthetic already fitted for him but he was hardly in a position to start walking right away. It was so abnormal, looking at Oikawa this way. He had worked with many recent amputees, but Oikawa was a different case. He had last seen Oikawa face to face twenty years earlier, legs solidly intact, peppering a volleyball back and forth in the quad of his dormitory. Now, sitting before him, Oikawa was minus one leg and he wouldn't be tossing to him any time soon
"I guess," Oikawa said softly as Iwaizumi began to gently massage the muscles to stimulate blood flow. "After we fell out of touch I just never really knew how to care for the injury as well as you did. Yui did what she could, but, she never quite could figure out how to relax it as well as you could." Oikawa's voice was gentle, the hiss of pain interwoven through his words, fighting through the disturbance. Iwaizumi could tell, naturally, but he wouldn't address Oikawa's willingness to tough it out. He would've called him something foul had they been teenagers, but they were adults now.
"Yui?" Iwaizumi asked as he gestured his hand. "Without pushing it too much, let me see how much you can move your leg from side to side." He withdrew his hands entirely, watching as slowly and jerkishly, Oikawa began to inch his leg from side to side on the slick bench. "Is Yui your wife?"
"Ex wife. You remember her? The captain of Karasuno High's girl's team." Oikawa spoke softly. From the moment he sat down, Oikawa hadn't looked at Iwaizumi. Perhaps the shock on his former colleagues face had made him concerned, worried even that Iwaizumi had never wanted to see him in the first place. "We got divorced a couple years ago, she'd noticed my struggle with sexuality was still haunting me into my thirties. Pulled me aside and said, 'Tooru," Oikawa rose a hand, raising his index finger, eyes closing almost in mimicry. Iwaizumi's hazel eyes darted upwards as he found Oikawa's leg had stopped moving, but he was momentarily distracted by the smirk on his face. "'We both agreed, it's a marriage of convenience. You've given me two great children, and I couldn't ask for more. So just tell me already! Tell me you're gay, and I won't annoy you ever again.' Of course," Oikawa paused, chuckling a bit. "She never really annoyed me."
"If you don't mind my asking," Iwaizumi asked softly as he twitched his hand again to see how well Oikawa could lift his leg. "Are you?" There was a hesitant jerk of Oikawa's leg -- following by a his as the skin peeled away from the surface, having momentarily stuck in place. "Easy, don't force it."
"Ah, I wasn't repulsed by sex with Yui, if that's what you're asking." Oikawa murmured, actually sounding embarrassed. "But isn't this a bit personal, Iwaizumi?"
"It's not entirely unnecessary for how I'm going to help you." Iwaizumi said, gently lifting the stump that remained of Oikawa's leg. "But I'm curious, as an old friend and as your therapist."
"Old friend?" Oikawa asked with a faint laugh as he leaned forward, finally convincing Iwaizumi to make eye contact with him. "Why not just come out and say 'old flame' instead?"
"You haven't changed much, have you?" Iwaizumi asked, his hands pulling free from Oikawa entirely. His eyes were still the same lovely shade of brown, but stress was clear in how he gazed at Iwaizumi as if he were prepared to let loose and start complaining about his hardships. They were tired, but incredibly focused from years of being trained on volleyballs. While he'd been the nation’s sweetheart setter, Oikawa was still notable for any position he was given at the sport. "Still a tease, still trying to test my patience, huh?"
"Iwaizumi Hajime," Oikawa said quietly. He too saw the age in Iwaizumi's eyes. The eyes that showed years of loneliness, the attempt at dating people of all genders in an attempt at finding love, only to resign himself to solitude. Bored of the dating scene, bored of trying to find someone. The eyes of a forty year old bachelor who'd just seen his first and only love again. "You've always been my Achilles tendon, and now you're back and I'm weak in the knees."
As poetic as it had sounded, Iwaizumi couldn't help himself but snort, holding the back of his hand to his mouth. A sarcastic, but genuine laugh rippled out of him as he pulled back from Oikawa, resting his hand on the ankle of Oikawa's left leg. "Your Achilles tendon is in your heel. Not your knee."
"I never said it was in my knee!" Oikawa nearly gasped, voice cracking despite its depth. He held a hand to his chest, almost horrified by the accusation.
"Weak at the knees." Iwaizumi corrected. "Knees are not heels, even if they sound alike in English." He pat at Oikawa's leg again, sighing although humored.
"I'm still weak in the knees, Hajime." Oikawa said softly. "And it's all coming back to me, thanks to you."
And at forty years of age, Iwaizumi Hajime realized something very important. After twenty-three years, he was still head over heels in love with Oikawa Tooru.