Akaashi's 18th (and the events that followed...)

19. 6,118 Miles

Iwaizumi's phone rang from his desk.

He sighed, putting down his homework before picking it up and reading the time. Who the fuck was video-calling him at ten p.m.? Not his teacher, surely? Had he accidentally fallen asleep during his work and he was late to school for his lecture?

Oh, Oikawa. Of course. Iwaizmumi accepted the call immediately. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be asleep now?" Where Oikawa was, it was... two a.m.!

"Couldn't sleep." Oikawa said plainly. "Besides, you'd have been busy up until now anyway."

"Not too busy to call you at an appropriate time! Baka! Go back to bed." Iwaizumi paused, half hoping that Oikawa would go to bed and get a good night's sleep, half hoping that...

"No, please Hajime~" Oikawa drawled. "I want to see you. We haven't spoken properly in ages. It's been nearly two months since we met up for the New Year."

"Fine," he huffed. "I've wanted to call you for a while too-"

"Hajime!" Oikawa interrupted sharply, eyes fixed on Iwaizumi. "Is your hand okay? What happened to it?"

"Oh," kuso. Oikawa wasn't supposed to find out - he had enough to worry about - but Iwaizumi hadn't had time to hide it before the call without looking suspicious. He shoved his clenched fist behind his back, cringing as the bruises on his hand brushed his back. "Just went a bit too hard at the boxing ring."

"There's a boxing ring on campus?"

"Yeah," Iwaizumi lied. "The sports science college is joined to the applied sports college, and we get free passes to go and train if we want to."

"Have you played any volleyball?"

"No, not since..." not since I last played with you.

"Iwaizumi Hajime," Oikawa said in a mock-serious tone. "Don't you dare tell me you've replaced volleyball with," he shuddered, "boxing."

"Iwaizumi?" Iwaizumi heard his name on the other end of the line, but it wasn't Oikawa's voice. "So this is Iwaizumi, who you were calling for today?"

Despite his face being illuminated only by the light from Iwaizumi's phone screen, Iwaizumi caught Oikawa's flush through the camera. "Si, este es el, yes this is him," Oikawa said after a beat, his flawlessly blended Spanish accent surprising Iwaizumi. "Hajime, this is Pedro, our no.8 middle-blocker. We've been boarding together ever since a fire reduced his apartment block to ashes."

"Hey," Iwaizumi waved through the camera, which Pedro returned.

"He was calling out for you today, amigo," Pedro said, eyes alight with mischief. "We won today's match against UVT Voley. He was yelling 'Hajime, get the last!' as he set the ball to our left wing." He grinned through the camera.

"Pedro!" Oikawa whined, and Iwaizumi smirked at this new information. He and Pedro would be good friends in the future, if they ever met.

"Miss me that much, neh?" Iwaizumi teased, laughing. However, he stopped as soon as he saw Oikawa's face fall, before it was covered by a pair of quivering hands.

Iwaizumi waited for a minute, watching Oikawa hide behind his hands, listening to the shaking breaths rattling through the microphone until he couldn't take the silence any longer. "Oi, you alright?"

"I just miss you so much, Iwa-chan~!" Oikawa blurted out.

At the mention of his childhood nickname, Iwaizumi's head snapped up, suddenly wide-awake. He squinted at his phone, catching a wet trail glistening from the corner of Oikawa's eye down to his chin, noticing the way Oikawa bit his bottom lip to keep it from trembling, as it did on the few occasions that he was ever upset. Iwaizumi was brought back to the last time he had heard the man cry, when they had just lost the fateful match against Karasuno.

"I- I miss you too, Tooru. I wish I could be with you right now; I'd help you get through this."

"You already are," he received a wan smile from Oikawa.

"I mean really there, boke." He looked Oikawa in the eyes - or as close as he could. "I want to be with you right now, to punch you in the back of the head and tell you to get on with it." But was that really what he wanted to do?

At least at that, Oikawa laughed slightly. "I'm sure you would. Hey," his eyes lit up a little. "After all the matches we've played these past two months, Coach is giving us a few days off before we start preparing for play-offs, so I have a bit of spare time. D'you want to go see our kouhais' match back over in Miyagi? Just for a couple of days..."

"Yes-" Iwaizumi started eagerly, his whole body relaxing as he sighed. "Yeah, let's go. I can get away next Monday; I have the day off every-"

"-every two weeks," Oikawa nodded. "I know. And, the first match of Spring Nationals is on a Monday. However, I googled the flights and we can make it. Tokyo is sixteen hours ahead of you and twelve ahead of me, so if we wanted to go, we'd have to leave Friday, 4pm where you are, 8am where I am, to get there by 8pm on Saturday their time, then stay until 8pm on Monday and make it back home."

Iwaizumi stared at Oikawa, stunned, as he reeled off the information. But he wasn't finished. "It'd be tight, and we'd have to get multiple flights, which is expensive - not to mention the awful jetlag, but... I'm earning decent money, and I've been saving up my pesos in case an opportunity like this came up, so... I'd do it if you did." Oikawa stared at Iwaizumi through the camera, searching for an answer.

(Word count: 936
(Total word count: 22,642)