(I'm really not sure if this one makes any sense)
In the first life, they are childhood friends, and Hajime cannot imagine a life without him.
"Hey, Iwa-chan, where are you going after graduation?"
Hajime glances up at him after a brief pause. Oikawa isn't looking, though; one elbow is propped up on the desk Hajime is using, upturned palm cradling his chin. He's staring out the window facing the school's courtyard—Hajime strains his eyes to catch whatever it is that seems to have grabbed Oikawa's attention, but notices nothing out of the ordinary.
"Iwa-chan?"
He isn't quite sure what to say, wonders if 'I'll go wherever you go' is too—much.
"We're third years now," Oikawa says eventually, when Hajime doesn't answer. "We have to start thinking about our 'future'." He says the word with sarcastic relish, mimicking the tone of voice their homeroom teacher had used when he'd taken them and the rest of the third years aside.
You can't play volleyball forever, was the gist of it.
"Can you imagine me with an office job?" Oikawa laughs, feet kicking off the ground and head tilting backward, his chair teetering precariously on two legs. Hajime's brows knot slightly, 'watch out or you'll fall, idiot' hanging on the tip of his tongue.
He can't. Imagine it, that is. Oikawa stuck behind a computer desk for hours every day, maybe taking a smoke break on the rooftop of the company building, loosening a tie tied too tight. Dating a couple of girls here and there, marrying one. Having children and a family. Settling down. Mundane. Boring.
Hajime shakes his head.
"Wouldn't suit you," he says. The characters on his notes for Modern Japanese literature bleed onto the pages. Hajime reads the same sentence twice, but nothing sticks.
"That's mean. Sixty percent of Japanese high school students end up with office jobs, you know, and you're saying I don't fit even into that sixty percent?"
You're different from them, you're special, Hajime wants to say. "Those are bullshit statistics," he says instead.
Oikawa laughs as he leans forward. Hajime can feel him breathing warmly in his direction. He keeps his eyes on his notes, tries not to look up.
"I'm thinking of going to college. Get a volleyball scholarship."
Hajime blinks. "Okay."
"Or maybe I'll get scouted as a model."
He snorts loudly at that. Kusokawa.
Oikawa laughs again, but falls silent after. The classroom clock hanging above the blackboard ticks several seconds and Hajime tries concentrating on his notes for once.
"I don't really know," Oikawa admits quietly. "What I want to do."
Me neither. But it doesn't really matter—just so long as you're there.
"Wherever you're going."
Oikawa blinks slowly, the look on his face questioning.
"You asked me," Hajime says with a long-suffering sigh, "where I'm going after high school."
A conflicting number of emotions cross Oikawa's face ranging from bewildered to confused, but eventually the corners of his lips tug at a smile, and then wider, until he's outright beaming.
"Right," he says, relieved. "Of course."
ii.
In the second life, Oikawa is a model and Hajime your average white collar office worker.
