Cherry Lips

Then -

"And if ever I get to going
Can I count on you to forget how
I never cared about anything?"

---

Oikawa had comma-print dimples. When they peeked from his cheeks, Iwaizumi would stop and take a breath, but his eyes would flicker ahead and drink in the shades of his laugh.

"You sigh a lot, Iwa-chan." Oikawa would say, not quite raising his lips enough for oxygen to rush down into the other boy's chest and soothe his aching lungs.

He both wanted and loathed the breath-inducing smile: wanted it to make the hammering smell and sight and touch of all the things his brain labelled Tooru to pause; loathed the way his chest would hitch just enough to be noticeable.

And he knew that Oikawa noticed. It was in his smile, and the victorious light in his eyes. It was in the grip tightening around Iwaizumi's throat.

"Well I guess it's a side effect of prolonged exposure to you, piss ant." And when his palm would shove into the soft strength of the setter's shoulder, Iwaizumi would quickly pull it back again before his heat could soak into his skin. He hadn't wanted to subject himself to that. A dependence upon a smile was bad enough, he thought.

He hadn't expected to become dependent on a whole person; neither had he expected to find that he had been so for a while.

But Iwaizumi found himself waiting for the times where they would walk home together, or pass each other in narrow hallways with only enough time for a smile. His was always too slow; he found that he put too much thought into it, whereas Oikawa could muster one in a second, each smooth and sweet enough to envy.

He didn't though. Iwaizumi didn't want a smile like that, not for himself and especially not from Oikawa. He didn't want a smile to become practiced, because, he thought, it would have lost its meaning.

A messy, tired smile from Oikawa, lopsided and unique, would be beautiful.

"Iwa-chan!"

He loped along the hall with a bright smile, dimples deep in his cheeks. Iwaizumi wondered if he'd ever see a messy smile from him, and doubted, in the broken sunlight streaming through the windows, that he would.

Careless fingers dug into his shoulder with a burning touch that was too freely given; Iwaizumi scowled, and hid behind the familiar expression. "What?"

The other boy frowned slightly, lips springing back up into a smile as he shook his head and began to babble a smooth flow of words that roared in Iwaizumi's ears as he tried to adjust to the sudden burn of Oikawa within an arm's reach. "So rude, Iwa-chan. Honestly, it's like you don't want me around..."

His lips shaped fluid syllables, a smattering of freckles forming across the bridge of his nose that hadn't been there before. The sun glared through the window onto Iwaizumi's back, making him shift on his feet. "...So anyway, I was thinking that later..." Beneath the skin of his chest, Iwaizumi could feel his heart hiccup a rhythm that fractured from the breathy rush of his thoughts into a myriad of hot and cold flushes.

A smile. His lungs drank greedily, thankful for those comma-print dimples in a way that Iwaizumi couldn't be. It wasn't the smile he wanted.

"...yeah, basically." Oikawa finished, looking at Iwaizumi expectantly with an expectant expression. The way he had moved his arms as he spoke had rumpled his shirt around his shoulders, and Iwaizumi wanted to smooth it out. He didn't, and put his hand on the back of his neck to stop himself from doing so.

"What?" he said bluntly, unable to think of a decent excuse.

The setter's hair shifted slightly as he shook his head in mock disappointment. "Iwa-chan." The nickname was firm, brown eyes laughing slightly above the curve of his cheeks. "I asked if you were coming round later. Unless you don't want to - I mean you're obviously thinking about something else." They widened slightly, his lips twisting into a teasing question." A girl perhaps?"

Iwaizumi frowned "No!" He clenched his teeth, looking away from the boy and feeling sick at the way he could no longer even pretend that this was a phase. He was interested in only one thing, it seemed, no matter how he tried to appreciate the smiles and laughs of the girls in his glass, or the gentle touch of their hands against his arm when he held the door open for them in the hallway; and it seemed that that thing was Oikawa Tooru, with his stupid faux smile and swift movements, and the way that he would grin when he looked at the sky.

He wanted to scream that the sky wasn't the only thing deserving of that smile. That the sky couldn't truly appreciate something so beautiful, because it was already looking at itself. But he didn't, and wouldn't.

"No?" Oikawa quizzed, scooting back into his field of view.

He rolled his eyes, holding back the urge to push him away. "No to the girl, yes to the house part."

A giddy hand grabbed his own from his side, sending hot tingles up his arm as Oikawa lifted them together in a clumsy celebration, cheering quietly in the hallway. Iwaizumi's cheeks roared, a mirror to his stinging ear tips. He pulled away, disentangling their fingers to the sniggers of the other boy, who seemed to put a margin of effort into making it as difficult for him as possible.

"Anyway, Iwa-chan," Oikawa rushed, taking a sidestep into the centre of the corridor and letting his hand fall back calmly to his side, "I have to go. Education calls." He grinned, and this time Iwaizumi could swear that there was a hint of colour to those cheeks.

That was how their conversations would go: Iwaizumi left holding the burning ghost of the other's touch with timid fingers, Oikawa pulling ahead with that bright, bright smile; smooth, practiced, fake.

And Iwaizumi would swear that time could be gauged by how often his eyes would flick down to those lips, hoping that he would see something different, knowing that it was unlikely and hating himself for being grateful for even the bland offering he was given (as if bland was a word that could be applied to Oikawa in even the loosest sense).

When he saw the messy knot of his real smile, Iwaizumi wished that he hadn't.

It was too broken for the perfect man in front of him, and tears didn't belong where they carved a path down rose tinted cheeks.

Because marble didn't cry.

A/N: I have an ICT GCSE tomorrow but I'm too ill to be able to give even a single fuck tbh.

Someone skipped out of my maths class today singing "Only one month left in this shithole", which pretty much sums up the opinion of the yeargroup.

I'd like to apologise to future me in advance, and I hope that the cardboard box I end up in is at least duct tape reinforced.

(the spelling mistakes should be gone now, sorry for the repost)