#[method acting: wait until it's late at night in your timezone to answer this one specific ask. Purposefully make typos]

[scxttershot]

Send “ø” for a LATE NIGHT text. catman!

Floyd - Tomcat. U up still??

[is typing...]

Floyd - I'll regret this in the morning. Drungk. Drunk. Very. Thinking about your eyes. Don't take this the sappy way or nothign. They're just s o fucjing green. Like emeralds. I can see my reflection.

[is typing...]

Floyd - How did you get all the good genes

[amarimaryllis]

I Liked You So Much, We Lost It (Iwaizumi x Reader)

Pairing: Iwaizumi/Reader

Prompt/Summary: You and Iwaizumi are so in love with each other that the only way the universe can separate you both is to put 8,577 kilometers worth of land and sea between the two of you (spoiler: the universe actually does put 8,577 kilometers worth of land and sea between the two of you).

Tags: Fluff, Angst

Note: I used she/her pronouns for the reader, Lots of timeskips, Inspired by Ysabelle’s “I Liked You So Much, We Lost It”, Sequel to “I Like You So Much, You’ll Know It” but can be read as a standalone fic

Warnings: Angst, Very Slight Manga Spoilers, Slight Canon Divergence (you won’t even notice it if you don’t read into it so let’s shhhh, I mean this entire fanfic is a canon divergence but let’s not 😌)

Almost everyone in Aoba Johsai knew that you and Iwaizumi were together. So many people had invested themselves in the friends to lovers situation that you guys had that it was impossible for them to not find out that you guys were finally together. Nearly three years of you guys just tip-toeing around each other and it finally paid off.

You guys were practically inseparable since the day that Iwaizumi brought you to the convenience store to shelter yourselves from the rain. If one was to see either of you, it was sure that the other would come around eventually. You guys were so deeply in love with each other that nothing could separate you. However, months had passed, and in a few weeks, it would be time for you all to graduate. You never really knew what Iwaizumi’s plans were after Seijoh. You just trusted that everything would fall into place as it always did.

“Hajime, why are you avoiding my gaze?” You pout from the floor of his bedroom, sitting with your legs crossed as you basked in the warmth that his hoodie brought.

Iwaizumi looks up from his work to give you a small smile. “You look too cute in my jacket.”

“And?” You blush slightly, but you don’t let him fully change the topic.

“It’s distracting, and I have this final project to finish.” Iwaizumi turns to look back at the paper.

“Project? Didn’t we finish them all last week?” You raise a brow, trying to take a look at the paper before Iwaizumi hastily pulls it away from your view. “Hey, Hajime… What is that?”

“It’s nothing.” Iwaizumi’s body is tense, avoiding your gaze as he fiddles with the pen.

“Okay.” You can feel your heart beating quicker. Worry filled your veins, but you try to tell yourself that you’re probably just overreacting. “I trust you.”

Iwaizumi sighs before he stands up and goes to your side. He plops behind you, pulling you in between his legs before he wraps his arms around your waist and rests his chin on your shoulder. “I’m gonna miss this.”

You smile at his touch, closing your eyes to bask in the warmth that he emits before his words sink. “You’re talking as if I’m gonna be leaving.”

You giggle lightly before you turn around and wrap your arms around Iwaizumi’s neck, pressing your forehead onto his. “I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry.”

Iwaizumi looks conflicted as he stares into your eyes, his grip on your waist getting tighter with each passing second. You can see his eyes swirl with a million different things, and it scares you. What was it that had him acting like this?

“Hajime—“

Iwaizumi cuts you off with a kiss.

It’s desperate. The way his lips move against yours, searching for something, longing for something. His lips were soft against yours, but the emotions you could feel swirling inside him made his movements hasty and thoughtless. It was like he was trying to forget something, erasing whatever it was that ate him up on the inside as he deepened the kiss.

He pulls away, giving you a chance to breathe before he’s hoisting you up and dropping you on his bed, hovering on top of you as he gazes into your eyes.

His eyes were teary, and this prompts you to speak. “Hajime what’s wrong?”

Iwaizumi drops to your side on the bed before he pulls you on top of him as he wraps his arms around you. “Promise me.”

“Promise you what?” The serious tone laced in Iwaizumi’s words makes your heart beat quicker, the fear of something—you didn’t know what exactly made you feel afraid at that moment—settling itself deep into your chest. “Hajime, what’s going on?”

“Promise me you’ll stay with me.” Iwaizumi whispers, his arms wrapping tighter around you as if he was afraid that you were going to disappear. “Please.”

“I promise.” You grab Iwaizumi’s cheeks with your hand before you press a quick peck on his lips. “Now tell me what’s going on. You seem so stressed lately, and it’s kind of making me worried.”

“I’m…” Iwaizumi’s voice is strained as if the words stuck in his throat were laced with thorns that wound him as he struggles to let it out. “I’m gonna study Sports Sciences.”

You giggle lightly. “Why are you worried? You’re gonna do great—“

“In California.” Iwaizumi whispers, but you hear it nonetheless.

It doesn’t sink in. You don’t want it to. As the anchors of that statement plunge deeper into the ocean of your system, the currents that try to keep you alive raise themselves to fight against the weight of the anchors. It’s futile, the waves of emotions, thoughts rage until they’re slowly drowning you in the uncertainty of your future. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“What?” Iwaizumi sits up, which in turn makes you sit up as well. “No. I’m just… I don’t want to lose you just because I’m leaving.”

“Then why are you so stressed?” You could feel your eyes well up with relief, but no matter how much you look on the bright side, there’s still that gnawing feeling in your stomach. “You’re not losing me unless you break up with me, idiot.”

“Hey, don’t cry.” Iwaizumi pouts lightly at you, making you laugh at the way he looked. He smiles, his heart swelling as he sees you laugh. “Are you sure you’re okay with it? I’m gonna be all the way in California. The timezones won’t match. I’ll be busy on some days. I won’t be here to hug you or kiss you. Which is pretty damn unfortunate cause I really like kissing you—“

“Iwaizumi Hajime.” Iwaizumi stops when he hears you call his name while grabbing his cheeks.

“Yes, love?” Iwaizumi responds immediately. It was as if months of being with you had trained him to do so when you called out his full name.

“I love you, and kilometers of land and sea isn’t gonna change that.” You smile before pressing a kiss on his lips. “Stop worrying.”

“Do that again.” Iwaizumi says as he eyes your lips.

“Do what?” You decide to tease him, acting as if you didn’t know that he wanted another kiss.

“Y/N.” He groans as he glares at you playfully. “You know what I mean.”

“But I don’t.” You have a shit-eating grin on your face.

“Fine, be like that.” Iwaizumi huffs before he pulls you for another kiss.

You can feel him smile against your lips as you wrap your arms around his neck.

That was 10 months ago. Iwaizumi left in July, making it a total of six months that you haven’t seen him in person. The first month went off without a hitch. Video chats every day, messages shared regardless of the other’s time zone, and other methods of communication were used just so you guys felt like you were still there with each other in person. Unfortunately, it didn’t go that well.

If you were to describe what happened, you would say that you could compare it to a candle. It burns brightly at first before it slowly melts the way and the candle comes crashing down, snuffing out its flame with its own wax. Each month that passed was a step closer to the end that you both desperately tried to ignore.

You laid in your bed, snuggled into your blankets as you tried to seek warmth. The jacket that Iwaizumi gave you that you wore provided no warmth. It may have eased the cold that the rain brought, but it did nothing to ease the winter that stormed within your chest. Despite the bitter cold, you held on. After all, every winter has to end, right?

You frowned as you looked at one of the pictures that Iwaizumi was tagged in. A blonde girl with her arm around his shoulder, and Iwaizumi with a bright smile. The kind of smile he used to wear in pictures with you.

You could feel anger in your veins, jealousy mingling with it as it brought your blood to a light simmer. You were being unreasonable, you knew that, but six months without Iwaizumi was getting to you, and seeing some other girl doing what you desperately wanted to, but not being able to, made an envious feeling grow in your chest. It didn’t help that she wore the jacket you knew all too well: A jacket you gave Iwaizumi before he left for California. Your eyes teared up at the fact.

You shut your phone and your eyes, ready to turn in for the night before the familiar ringtone fills your ears. You wait. You don’t answer immediately. You let the phone ring a bit more. Your irrational side coming out to play as you hoped that maybe Iwaizumi would feel just as cold as you if you answered him later than you usually did.

You pick up.

“Good morning, love.” Iwaizumi’s face pops up on your skin, a bright smile on his face as the beginnings of the morning sun kiss his skin. The background was moving, and the camera was unstable, which meant that Iwaizumi was probably walking to his class somewhere, “I’m sorry for calling at this time. It’s probably late there but I missed— Wait, are you okay? You look like you just cried.”

You saw that Iwaizumi had stopped walking, the background behind him as stagnant as the words stuck in your throat.

“Hey, baby, what’s wrong?” Iwaizumi furrows his brows. “Talk to me.”

You begin to speak. “I don’t think—“

The lightning strikes outside, and a bright flash fills your room. You laughed bitterly in your head, perhaps it was a warning from the universe.

You change your approach. “In the hundred different futures you imagined… In the Dateko game…”

You struggle to find your words.

Iwaizumi smiles, but it looks quite forced to you. “The hundred different futures I imagined with you when you cheered for me in the Dateko game?”

“Yeah.” You almost feel guilty as you finalize the words you’re about to say in your head.

“What about those?” Iwaizumi asks, ever the patient and understanding boyfriend he was, but you could see it. The glint in his eyes that he had whenever he wanted to finish something. The look he had in his eyes whenever he just wanted to get things over with like they were some sort of… Inconvenience.

“Did you...” You shift in your bed, second-guessing your words as you sit up and fiddle with the hem of Iwaizumi’s jacket. “Was there a future that went like this?”

“Like this?” Iwaizumi looks confused. “Where I call you in the middle of a street? Not really? That’s too specific, honestly.” He chuckles and your heart sinks.

“No, not that.” You say solemnly. “A future where we don’t work.”

“What?” Iwaizumi looks stunned, and for a second, your heart races at the sight of him looking as he did before… Before he went to California. “What do you mean? Y/N?”

“I just—“

“HAJIME!” You could hear a woman’s voice on the other side. Years of learning English made sure that you understood what she said without a problem “Ready to go?”

Iwaizumi looks away from you as he turns to the source, a smile painting his face. “Of course, just give me a second.”

Your heart sinks in realization.

That’s how he smiled at you in the past.

“I’m gonna go.” You choke out as tears flow down your cheeks. “Have a good day, Iwaizumi-san.”

You shut the phone.

You cry. You didn’t need to hear it fall from Iwaizumi’s lips. You didn’t need to have it confirmed. You knew him like the back of your hand, and you knew that he had feelings for that girl, whoever the hell she was. You knew that he probably only kept you because he didn’t want to hurt you. It wasn’t like he didn’t love you anymore. He probably did, it’s just that he found someone who was… There. Someone who wasn’t in a different place. Someone he could hug anytime he wanted to. It’s unfortunate that it wasn’t you, but maybe you should’ve seen it coming.

So you let go, and it was timely. What started underneath the rain, ended under it. The warmth of the first confession was washed away by the droplets, leaving nothing but the cold to soak deep into your system as you sobbed into your bed, hastily pulling the jacket off of your frame.

You make sure that Iwaizumi never gets to contact you. You had left him a message: a cruel “I’m breaking up with you, I’m sorry,” and nothing more. Maybe that would hurt him enough to make him feel less guilty about making moves on the other girl. You knew it was stupid to just leave him like that, but you just wanted it to stop. You hated the feeling of uncertainty. You hated the feeling of not being able to do anything. If you had to hurt yourself in the process of finding your peace of mind, then so be it.

Years pass and you’ve graduated. You’ve moved on. It wasn’t an easy process, but you pulled through. There were moments you just so wanted to desperately call Iwaizumi and crawl back into his arms, apologizing and all, but you stop yourself each time. You cut off all contact with him, you weren’t going to waste that. However, you knew that no matter how moved on you are, some part of you will always love him… And that’s okay. You’re okay. That’s the only thing that mattered.

Currently, you were in a convenience store, grabbing a quick snack before you went to the stadium to watch the volleyball match with Oikawa, who arrived from Argentina a few days back and wanted to meet up. The setter was probably looking for milkbread in one of the aisles, so you took your sweet time in picking a drink and snack because the setter would probably be shocked by the new variety of milkbread choices that popped up while he was still in Argentina.

Your phone buzzes.

Flatass: I’m at the table near the back, slowpoke. Get your ass here.

You roll your eyes with a grin before you text back.

You: You’re just jealous I have more ass than you.

You don’t get a reply. You shrug and pay for your items before you walk to the back of the store to eat with Oikawa.

“Oikawa—“ You stop at the sight.

Instead of Oikawa on the chair, it was Iwaizumi, still as handsome as he was years ago.

“Hey.” Iwaizumi smiles. “Do you mind if I watch with you guys? Oikawa had an extra ticket and who was I to decline—“

“I don’t mind.” You smile, nothing but happiness filling your chest as you reunite with an old friend.

A/N: I like to pretend that this part of the storyline doesn’t exist 💖. Also, this was written before Iwaizumi Hajime (27) Athletic Trainer was a thing so please excuse the ending.