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The curtains are drawn in the living room of Tobio’s apartment that one Sunday afternoon, casting a dim yellow glow on the walls and the floors and the furniture, and his own skin and Tooru’s. Together and in silence, they sit on the floor, comfortable, backs resting against each other, keeping each other upright even as they occupy themselves with small, meaningless tasks: Tobio with sounds plugged into his ears and eyes glued onto his phone, and Tooru twisting a seemingly-hopeless Rubik’s Cube without thought or care. At first glance, the scene might seem tranquil, but if thoughts could speak without a mouth then the room would be filled with screaming, and it would be in Tooru’s voice.
He twists a layer of the cube once more and in his eyes flashes an entire row of reds, and he sighs. He can feel himself getting anxious, the distraction of his little puzzle toy no longer enough to keep his crossed leg from bouncing even while curled up on the ground. He tries to glance at Tobio without moving his head, focuses on the feeling of warmth his back sends to Tooru’s, but warmth that becomes too familiar eventually becomes cold, and his lips yearn for movement and purpose.
Tooru breaks away from the comfortable position and at once, Tobio is shifting and turning towards him, fingers pulling out a single ear bud. “Where’re you going?” he asks, and how casual his words are, how light his tone is—it stings in ways Tooru never imagined possible.
“Nowhere, just…” He trails off there, casts his glance off to the side, but becomes dissatisfied when Tobio directs his attention to his device once more. It shouldn’t surprise him that Tobio looks so at home, sitting on the carpet of his apartment, and in a way, it doesn't. But he can’t understand, so much that it kills him, why Tobio allows him to feel the same when it’s the last thing he deserves.
“Why are you with me?”
This time, Tobio’s attention is thoroughly caught. His eyes fly up to meet Tooru’s, stays locked with them for a few moments, and he sets his phone down, grabs a hold of the other ear bud. “What do you mean,” he asks, his face and his voice both flat, falling.
“I mean—“ Tooru tries to look into his eyes, but they’re narrowed, intense. He takes a breath and closes them instead, and then opens them only to stare at the cube he grips in a single hand, thumb dragging itself across the sharp edges. “Why are you dating me?”
“Shouldn’t I be?” The answer is quick.
But it’s not what Tooru wants to hear. He feels his eyebrows knit themselves together, feels a hand hold tighter onto the cube and the other dig its nails into the pyjama pants he hasn’t changed since the previous night. “Why are you?” he asks again. “I’m—I’m—“ He doesn’t even know how to word it out at this point, how to tell the truth without rubbing salt into old, still-infected wounds he hides underneath soft skin. “I’m such an imperfect person.”
“Okay, well, when you find a perfect person, go ahead and tell me so I can date them,” Tobio says with a completely serious face, shaking his head when Tooru shrinks further into himself. “Do you hear yourself right now? I like you; that’s why I’m with you. Why would I not date someone I like just because he’s imperfect?”
Tooru mindlessly twists the cube. Another full row of reds come into view.
“Why, am I perfect?” Tobio prompts in response to the silence. “You know better than anyone how easily I get things wrong. How I don’t know how to tell what people are feeling. How insensitive I can be. Why are you dating me?”
“At least you didn’t nearly hit me when I was fucking twelve.”
It comes out so suddenly, without his consent, a sudden spill of blood from an injury, and then there’s nothing but silence. Tobio’s entire form freezes where it sits, lips parted from the impact of the words spat onto the floor, eyes unblinking and glued to Tooru’s bashful face, mind swimming and only half-aware of the sounds that come from Tooru’s incessantly twisting his toy, back and forth, back and forth.
He breathes in. “Tooru, how old are we?”
Tooru’s face is strained, and he seals his lips, bites at the bottom one, instead of letting them give an answer. He twists the cube once, the right side, settling his thumb over the torn-up, faded blue piece that had resulted from a series of careless accidents, unintentional beatings to the plastic thing.
“It’s been years,” Tobio says instead, trying to move closer to his curled toes and tucked knees. “Why are you still thinking about that?”
“Because.” Tooru hastily moves away, unknowingly bangs his object of distraction against the carpeted floor. “It’s—it was so wrong, it was—horrible! I was horrible! You weren’t even doing anything; you were just a kid—“
“You were just a kid,” Tobio throws back at him.
“I was fourteen, and I was your teammate, your captain, and—“ A horrible role model, a piece of human garbage, the scum of the earth, are what he wants to continue with. But he allows himself a pause to catch his breath. His eyes burn as he meets Tobio’s pained gaze. “I can’t believe—why would you trust someone after that?”
Tobio’s face hardens. “Why? Is that it?”
“What?”
“Is that all we are to you? Middle schoolers stressing over volleyball? A terrible upperclassman to a terrible underclassman? Is that all you think you are to me?”
No one speaks.
“Tooru, you are a lot of things,” Tobio says. “You always have been. You can be a jerk, you can have those moments where you think with your feelings and forget to filter the dumb stuff you say. Yeah, you almost hit me in middle school. But who you are isn’t defined solely by the things you did when you were confused and vulnerable. And everything else you’ve done and everything you’re going to do can’t be outweighed by one measly thing you’re not proud of that—let’s face it—didn’t even do much.
“We all have bad sides and good sides. When I was fourteen, I got an entire team to hate me to the point that they wanted to kick me off the court more than they wanted to win the game. But where is that now? Nowhere, because it’s done. I grew up, so did they, and we’ve all changed.”
“Yeah, well you didn’t decide to date Kindaichi or Kunimi, did you?”
“No, I didn’t, but I decided, with a completely sane and conscious mind, to date you. Regardless of anything that’s happened. If you think that makes me fucked up or a masochist, then so be it, but I decided to be fucked up.” He mulls his own words over in his head. “But am I really fucked up for choosing to try and be happy with someone who nearly hurt me when I was a kid? Or am I justified by staying beside someone who actually makes me happy, someone I couldn’t stop thinking about before I even knew who I really was, someone I looked up to, someone who’s done so much good by me, someone who feels so bad about something so trivial he’s crying on the living room floor about it and thinking that I need to break up with him?”
He breathes in, breathes out. “Let it go, Tooru,” he finishes. “You’re allowed to let it go.”
The entirety of his face feels numb, and so Tooru doesn’t realize that Tobio is telling the truth, that his cheeks are drenched with fresh tears, until he feels his own shoulders bounce with a quick, involuntary breath. His fingers shake around the Rubik’s Cube, too feeble to make any more changes to the colours that fall within his view—not that he can look at anything other than Tobio’s earnest, loving face. His heart beats wildly in his chest, completely arrhythmic with his shuddering breaths, and he closes a fist around his wrist, lets the steady beat reverberate throughout his entire body.
“Why?” he asks weakly.
Because if not, what is forgiveness for? Because if not, what is moving on for? What is change for? What are growth and maturity and regret and learning for? Because time heals all wounds that haven’t breeched the flesh. Because despite everything, they’ve managed to come this far and form something beautiful. Because no matter what he thinks, Tooru does not hold all rights to decide who and what Tobio deserves. Because Tobio is certain he deserves Tooru and Tooru deserves him and that he’s completely happy that they do, and that Tooru needs to be too.
Because Tobio knows he can think of a hundred and one more answers to a single-word question. He keeps all of these to himself, however, and looks Tooru in the eyes, tells him the easiest, simplest one: “Because I already did. Long ago, from the moment that Iwaizumi-san sent me home.” He frowns, grabs a sheet of tissue from the box that rests on the couch, and dabs it against Tooru’s eyes and brushes it against his cheeks, unmet by any protest. “If there really is anything left to forgive, then fine: I forgive you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Even if it is, Tooru doesn’t say so. He lightly pushes Tobio’s hand drying his tears away and lurches forward, wraps his arms around Tobio’s waist, buries his face against Tobio’s chest. He whimpers there, might be getting Tobio’s shirt all wet, and he’s sorry but he doesn’t ever want to let go. He takes deep breaths, inhaling through his nose and mouth the natural scent Tobio harbours, fresh from sleep, for no reason other than he can. He’s allowed, and just that knowledge fills him to the brim with a contentment he never thought he’d be capable of feeling.
Tobio lets him stay there, holds him close and softly cards through his mussed-up hair. And when he does pull away, it’s only to cup Tooru’s cheeks and place a firm yet lingering kiss to his forehead before meeting his eyes once again. They’re sad, those normally cheerful eyes, filled with light and life, and he can’t help himself; he lifts Tooru’s face and angles his own head and presses their lips together, cherishes the warmth Tooru’s touch brings to his neck and his exhale brings to his face.
He loves this person, he thinks, this ridiculous overthinking fusspot, worrying about the past of the past when there’s so much joy to bask in, in the past of the present and the future. He doesn’t mind the task of dispelling all these worries, though, if it means he gets to see fright turn to relief and devastation turn to comfort.
“You’re the one who said this before,” Tobio whispers as Tooru locks him in another embrace. “That part of love is accepting everything and anything there is to accept about another person and growing with them despite all the odds.”
Tooru sniffs. “That was about your awful snoring, though,” he mumbles.
“Meh. They weigh about the same to me.”
They don’t; they never have and they probably never will to Tooru. But his heart grows heavy with overwhelming emotion, joy, euphoria—knowing that they do to the one person that matters more than Tooru ever will.
It’s to no ends underwhelming when the sound of the doorbell pushes in between them, but Tobio only sighs in defeat as he starts to get up—not before, however, he glances down at Tooru’s discarded cube and takes it into his hands, quickly and expertly twists and turns the thing as Tooru watches in interest and mild horror, and then places the completed puzzle into Tooru’s hands.
The doorbell rings a second time. “Coming,” Tobio calls out, jogging towards his front door.
Tooru eyes the entire wall of blues Tobio has laid out on his palm, rolls his eyes even as he sniffles once (show-off), and rises on his own feet to draw the curtains back, finally let some of that afternoon sun in.