See you on Mars

5

         There was a soft knock at the wooden door as a nurse slowly opened it. The nurse scanned the room and eyed Iwaizumi who was fast asleep. She squatted next to his bed and gently shook him in an attempt to wake him up. He opened his eyes and looked at the bed next to him to find Oikawa also fast asleep. He turned in his bed still feeling a cold hand on his shoulder meeting eyes with the nurse.
   "Yes?" Iwaizumi asked, a little freaked out. He wondered what she could possibly want and impatiently awaited his answer.
   "I have some good news for you" The nurse smiled removing her hand from his shoulder. "You can start classes now, an opening was just made, I needed to tell you early so you have time to get to class."
   "Now that you're saying it, I never thought of it. How do the others wake up on time?" Iwaizumi asked. There were no clocks in the room and he never heard any alarms go off, granted he was a heavy sleeper.
    "I usually wake them up" The nurse said 
     "Really? You must be really quiet because I never heard you."
    "yeah, I make it a point to not wake anyone else up" Iwaizumi just nodded, a little creeped out. "I'm going to go wake up the others'"The nurse said, walking away. She woke up the others and walked out of the room.
   "You're up Iwaizumi?" Yahaba asked
   "Yeah that nurse woke me up, apparently I can start classes today."
  "Congrats, now get off your ass and get going" Mattsun smiled sadistically
   "mmm" Iwaizumi just hummed. He stood up and stretched his arm over his head. Iwaizumi felt a pair of eyes on him and looked around to see who they belonged to. He saw Oikawa looking up at him and said his usual "Good morning sleeping beauty" He softly smiled to himself for some reason he was happy that Oikawa was awake, morning just wouldn't feel right without him.
   "Where are you going?" Oikawa asked, he looked around and saw everyone else awake yet his attention was still fixated on the boy in front of him.
   "Classes just had an opening so I'm going to my first class" Iwaizumi said, he'd never admit it but he was kind of excited that he was well enough to go to classes, he knew that in this world it didn't mean much yet it filled him with a sense of hope. Oikawa on the other hand, felt a ping in his chest, he tried his hardest to be happy for Iwaizumi but part of him was going to miss having the Iwaizumi around all the time. The pretty boy didn't want anybody to die but he still hoped for there to be an opening in classes so he didn't have to leave Iwaizumi's side every day.
       "Oh, well have fun," Oikawa said, putting on a fake smile. As much as he wanted Iwa to stay with him he knew that was selfish so he pretended to be happy for him. Mattsun, Hanamaki, Kunimi, Yahaba, and Watari all left the room with Iwa following them unsure of where to go.
    "Going to miss your boyfriend?" Atsumu asked mockingly
     "As a matter of fact, yes, yes I am" Oikawa stated catching Atsumu off guard
     "Woah, didn't expect you to be honest there pretty boy"
      "Yeah well, he's not my boyfriend but I am gonna miss him. It'll be weird not having him around all day"
     "What're we  not good enough for you?" Atsumu teased
    "No it's not that it's just-"
     "You don't have to finish, it's painfully obvious that you like him." Oikawa blushed and nodded
     "Yeah, but I want him to make the first move" Oikawa whined
     "Good luck with that, you know how stubborn he is. He probably doesn't even understand  what having a crush is, he can't except his own feelings, you said it yourself so even if he did realize it what makes you think he'd have the balls to make the first move"
    "Fair, I mean he probably likes me and doesn't even realize it," Oikawa bragged.
    "Wow, your ego is bigger than your brain" Atsumu smiled to himself trying not to laugh at his own jokes.
   "At least I don't laugh at my jokes" The brunette defended himself.
   "Yeah because your jokes aren't funny" Atsumu replied, proud of the quick comeback he came up with
   "I'm hilarious, maybe you just don't have a sense of humor"
   "Both of you knock it off, it's getting annoying," Osamu said. Unknown to the two bickering boys, Osamu was awake and listening to their whole conversation.  Oikawa quieted down, not wanting to annoy Osamu while Atsumu kept going, shifting his energy now to his brother.
    "Don't tell me what to do" He sighed, Atsumu hated being told what to do, and even more he hated those directions coming from his brother. He could take criticism, sure and didn't care for the opinions of others but that doesn't mean being ordered around wasn't annoying. Instead of starting a fight with his brother, Osumu rolled his eyes and ignored him.
   "You know what you should do" Oikawa started ignoring his poor taste in words, he could feel Atsumu getting frustrated. "You should talk to Iwa Chan when I'm at my checkup later, you know maybe put some ideas in his head" The brunette winked.
     "Why should I? Is there something in it for me?" Atsumu bargained, he would do it for free but was curious as to just how far Oikawa would go to get Iwaizumi on the same page.
     "What do you want me to do? We're in a hospital so money won't help you and it's not like I can make you something. Is there something that you want?" Oikawa asked, he thought that it was a possibility he could get the Miya twins to do it for free so he didn't want to offer something in case they actually took it.
    "Yeah, you're right there's nothing you could give me so we could just count it as an IOU" Oikawa hesitantly agreed, 'It can't be too bad,' Oikawa thought, 'I mean what's the worst he could ask for? What are the chances we make it out of here where he could ask something real? Yeah Yeah agreeing was definitely the best bet he'll never remember and I'll get what I want without having to give him anything in return'.
   "What time is your checkup anyway? Is it when they come back?" Osamu asked
    "Yeah it's just a little bit after they come back, I mean I can't tell time but if I had to guess they're only there for about two hours"
    Iwaizumi was walking down the hallway following the other patients on his way to the class.
   "Are you excited?" Watari asked. Iwaizumi almost blurted out yes but wanted to keep his cool and composure so he just did a slight nod. They turned the corner and the class was the first room on the left, room 203. Mattsun opened the door and there were twelve desks in the room with none currently occupied. There was a man with short black hair, glasses, and a blue medical mask standing in the front of the room behind a desk.
  "Hello, you must be the new student, I'm your teacher Mr. Takeda. Your name is Iwaizumi, Hajimine right?" Mr. Takeda's glasses fogged up and he wiped them off before looking at Iwaizumi who had nodded his head. "Great, so I think the only open seat is right there in front of the board" The desks were in rows of three with four in each row. Iwaizumi's seat was the first in the middle row. Iwaizumi took his seat and sat down while the others took their seats mostly being in the back of the class.
    The door opened and the girls in their age group walked in. Iwaizumi felt his heart skip a beat as a beautiful girl walked through the door and took her seat to the right of Iwaizumi. She had black hair and bangs, gray eyes, glasses, and a beauty mark placed right under her lip. She smiled at Iwa and he could tell that all eyes were on her.
   "Alright, as you can see we have a new student, Would you like to introduce yourself?" Mr.Takeda asked, waving his hand signaling Iwaizumi to stand up.
    "Hello, My name is Iwaizumi, Hajimine, I'm 17,  and my favorite sport is volleyball"
    "Since Iwaizumi is new, how about we go around and say names. Let's start with you" Mr. Takeda said, pointing to the girl with black hair and glasses.
   "Hello" The girl said softly "My name is Kiyoko, Shimizu" The girl behind her looked really nervous as she said her name.
    "I'm Yachi Hitoka" The girl said with a shaky voice, The girl had blonde hair and brown eyes. The rest of the girls went around and said their names and once they were done Mr. Takeda began the lesson.
     "So, as you guys know, this is a rather small hospital so we only have one class for you guys so most of it is just making sure you remember your old skills. So we're going to start a new book today. We're going to read the first five chapters, then we'll talk about them." Mr. Takeda said as he walked around handing out the books. Iwaizumi opened the book and began reading, him being a fast reader finished before everyone else so he looked around to see if anyone else was done. He saw that Kiyoko had finished and decided to write her a note.
   'hey' he wrote, crumbling up the paper and passing it to her. She opened the paper and wrote back
      'hello'
     'so how long have you been here?' Iwaizumi wrote with kyoko replying,
      'about 5 months how about you'
       '2 months, your name is Kiyoko right?'
              'Yeah, and you're Iwaizumi, Hajimine. Is it alright if I call you Hajimine?'
              'Yeah it's fine,'
    'Thanks, you're a fast reader huh'
    'Yeah, I like to read a lot so speed comes with experience I guess'
    'Oh, I like to read too. What's your favorite book?'
    'I'm not really sure, I have a few favorites but my favorite genre is probably mystery or horror'
    'I love fantasy books with princesses and knights. It's always fun dreaming of a world better than your own. We're forced to live here and we're forced to go through pain which I think is so dumb. Sometimes I want to dream of a life I'm not forced to live, somewhere I'm not stuck in a cage and I get the great open lawn.'
    'Honestly, I dream of another world a lot, but for now there's nothing we can do, I know it feels like a cage sometimes but it's not. You might not be able to decide everything that happens but you can choose your reaction.I know being here sucks but it could be worse, at least we were able to be in the hospital and be taken care of, a lot of people can't say the same'
    'I guess it could be worse, but it doesn't make it a good situation.'
     'Yeah, so how long do the others usually take to read?'
            'Depends, but they'll probably be finishing up soon'
      Iwaizumi pocketed the note as he looked around and saw everyone closing their books.
         "For the assignment you're going to be doing I'll be choosing partners, This project will be done with 100% class time so don't worry about doing it on your own time. First pair, Kiyoko and Iwaizumi, next is Yachi and Matsukawa, Velarti and Hanamaki, Sasiki and Kunimi, and Haibia is with Yahaba."
    Iwaizumi looked next to him at his partner and looked down at his hands. He did a slight smile to himself and looked back at his teacher awaiting directions.
   "This is just a simple project, write a paper about the book and what it means to you and I want you to see examples of symbolic items, for example in lord of the flies we have the conch shell the boys pass around so they talked one at a time, that could be used as a symbol to represent the democracy. You have a week to turn in this assignment, but I want you to start with what you just read to try and make predictions or try to detect foreshadowing" The class nodded and turned to find their partners who they began dividing up the work with.
    "So, how do you want to do this?" Iwaizumi asked the pretty girl next to him,
    "How about we write notes while we read, and then we could read them over at the end and decide what to use in the paper." Kiyoko suggested as Iwa nodded his head in agreement
   "Do you use partners often?"
   "No, actually this is the first time we've used partners all year. It's actually really unusual so I'm not sure why he did it"
   "Oh"
   "Hajimine, how many chapters should we read?"
    "How about we read up to chapter 10"
     "OK, we should be able to finish before our class is over"
     "The classes go by that fast?"
      "Yeah, there's only one teacher and one room that every age group has to share"
     "Wow, that must be tough on Mr. Takeda"
      "Yeah, It's a really small hospital and it's not like everyone has Tuberculosis, they're trying their best but sometimes I wonder what it would be like at a bigger hospital where there were more patients and more classes"
    "That sounds nice, but that also means more death, I don't think I'd be able to handle it." Iwaizumi sighed. He thought that even though the hospital was small and there weren't a lot of classes, at least he didn't have daily deaths to deal with.
   "That's why I want to be a nurse one day" Kiyoko daydreamed. "I didn't always want to be a nurse though, a few years ago I didn't have any goals. I guess I was just content with living like I was. I'd run hurdles and manage the boy's volleyball team and that made me happy, but then I contracted Tuberculosis and was taken here. A boy from the volleyball team I managed came here too, his name was Tanaka but he passed after just a month of being here. He loved me and was all over me and even though I didn't realize it at the time, I loved him too.  I don't want anyone to feel like I did, the feeling of regret you feel when you know you could make someone's life better. I wish I knew I loved him before it was too late."
   Iwaizumi heard her words, and they shook him to his core. Why? Why did he feel those words so much? He huffed and thought of an appropriate response. "That's a good reason for becoming a nurse" 'That was such a lame response!! That's a good reason for becoming a nurse? What the fuck? I should show some form of empathy, it's not like I didn't feel it but how do I express that I felt it?'
    "I guess it's a pretty good reason," Kiyoko said, snapping Iwaizumi back to life, "What do you plan on doing when you grow up?" Hajimine hadn't thought about what he wanted to do with his life. If he was being honest with himself he didn't have high hopes of making it out of the hospital alive.
    "I'm not really sure. I think I want to do something with sports but I'm not exactly sure what I want to do." Iwaizumi didn't want to bring down the mood by telling her what he was thinking besides, there was some truth to that. If he happened to make it out of here he might want to do something with sports considering he had a lot fun while he played volleyball.
   "What sports did you play?"
    "I was the ace of my high school volleyball club"
   "Alright class, that's about it for time, have a good rest of your day and make sure to get plenty of rest." Mr. Takeda said as all of the other students stood up and began heading for the door.
   "I guess we forgot to read the chapters," Iwaizumi siad "Do you want to read them on our own time?" Kiyoko just nodded and stood up. Yachi ran up next to kiyoko and began talking to her. Iwaizumi left the room and the other boys were waiting to the left of his door.
   "Dude how did you get so lucky?! I got stuck with Yachi. She gets nervous from everything I do, she freaks out when I turn the page because she thinks I'll get a papercut. I keep having to reassure her that I'm not going to murder her" Mattsun complained
   "I just got lucky I guess" Iwaizumi shrugged.
   "Lucky doesn't even begin to describe it dude, I got Velarti, I mean she's alright but she's nothing compared to Haibia and Kiyoko. They're both total babes" Hanamaki said
   "Hey Iwaizumi, do you like Kiyoko" Mattsun teased
   "Yeah bro you guys were talking up a storm"  Hanamaki continued
   "Not to mention the note passing" Kunimi added
    "Like her? I barely know her. Liking someone solely for their looks is a shallow thing to do." Iwaizumi said. He had a thought of Oikawa who he recalled saying that happened to him all the time and how much it sucked.
    "I see our Iwa Chan is too much of a man to like someone's looks" Watari replied. He meant it sincerely even if it didn't come across that way. As they approached the door yahaba walked a little in front of everyone and opened the door.
     Oikawa was lying in his bed reading some magazine and looked up to see his friends coming in. His face lit up when he saw Iwaizumi and he smiled and said "Iwa Chan! How was the class? What were the kids like? Were there any cute girls?"
    "Calm down Shittykawa." Iwaizumi said, taking a deep breath "The classes were fun and the kids were super nice. As for cute girls there was this one really pretty girl named Kiyoko. We got partnered up for a project together and she's super nice. We were passing notes and she said that she wants to be a nurse one day"
     Oikawa's face dropped but he put on a fake smile and pretended to be happy for Iwaizumi. "Oh sounds like fun" He smiled adding a fake chuckle at the end in an attempt to sell the act.
    "What's wrong?" Iwaizumi asked only to be cut off by knocking at the door. The nurse wheeled over a wheelchair that Oikawa sat in. They left the room and Iwaizumi looked around to see if anyone had any idea what he did wrong.
   "Do you guys know why Oikawa is upset?" He asked
    "You probably broke his heart" Hanamaki said
    "Broke his heart?" Iwaizumi asked
    "Yeah, talking about another girl like that while you call him Shittykawa" Mattsun said "Must be rough on him"
   "He's the one who asked if there were any cute girls, I just answered" Iwaizumi defended himself
    "But you shouldn't have said yeah, he obviously wanted you to say no" Hanamaki continued
    "I- Why would he want me to say no?"
     "How dense can you be? Pretty boy obviously has a crush on you" Atsumu said
    "He does?" Iwaizumi asked blush creeping its way onto his face.
    "Obviously, dude he calls you Iwa Chan, his face lights up whenever he sees you, when you're not here you're all he talks about, and did you see his face when you talked about another girl?" Atsumu asked trying to spell it out for him
      "So what do you think of him?" Yahaba asked
      "I- Uh I- I don't know" Iwa said and that was the truth. He didn't know how he really felt, sure he liked Oikawa but did he like him like that? 'Do I like Shittykawa? I mean yeah he's really pretty, and nice, and funny but that doesn't mean I like him. He's just going to end up dying so there's no point even if I did like him. Which I don't' 
     "You really don't know?" Atsumu questioned
   "I'm sorry but I don't-"
    "You're an idiot"
     "I'm a what" Iwaizumi said anger rising in his voice
     "You're so stupid, just accept your feelings, lying to yourself isn't doing anything."
      "I like him, but I don't know if I like him like that"
     "Well what do you like about him?" Yahaba asked
     "Well he's really nice, he's funny, he's really caring, he's really pretty, and he's super charismatic. He brings the best out in everybody and he can light up a room just by smiling. Oikawa told me once how mean the people at school are to him and I just want to be his friend and make things better, but I don't want him to get too attached because I'm probably going to end up dying at some point. When he gets out of here I don't want him to be sad when he thinks of me so it's just best to not let him get too attached."
     "You're a pussy," Atsumu said. Iwaizumi didn't say anything and sat there with his head down until Hanamaki intervened

    "Damn it Atsumu butt out, it's not your relationship so you shouldn't try and control him" Osamu said weary of his brother's metaling. The door opened and Oikawa walked into the room capturing everyone's attention. He sat on his bed and the nurse walked in behind him.
    "So I have some good news for you Mr. Hanamaki" The nurse started "Your last test came through and turns out you're clear. You're going to leave tomorrow morning, your mother has been notified and will be here at 7 am. Pack your stuff tonight please and I'll come get you in the morning."Hanamaki stared in disbelief as a smile made its way onto his face. The nurse left the room and closed the door as everyone looked at Hanamaki who was speechless.
    "Wow, so you're leaving tomorrow huh" Mattsun said staring down at his thumbs.
     "Yeah, it's going to be so crazy," Hanamaki chuckled "I've been in this hospital for two years now, it's so weird to think I'm going to go back. If I'm being honest I didn't think people left here alive." 
    "It's going to be different not having you around Hanamaki" Mattsun said, he didn't sound excited though. As much as he wanted to be happy for him he was scared at how Hanamaki was leaving him. "You've been here for the whole year I've been here, but I am happy that you finally get to leave." Matsukawa put on a fake smile to hide his fear
    "I really want to see you again" Hanamaki started "I really want to see you again... so I'll wait for you"
   "How are you gonna do that? You can't write letters to me since we're not  aloud to get mail, and you're not aloud to visit"
    "So?" Hanamaki said, putting a sparkle of hope in Matsukawa's eyes. "Everyday, I'll wait for you at the coffee shop on 12th street. I'll wait there everyday, I'm usually there anyway so it's not that big of a deal"
    "Oh, Ok," Mattsun said, staring down. He felt kind of bad knowing Hanamaki could be waiting for someone who might never come. He's really going to wait for me even though I'll probably never make it out? That's just like him, he's such a good friend.
    "Mattsun, you'll get to see me again, so why do you look so upset?"
    "It's just, what if you're waiting there forever but I never come? I don't want to waste your time"
    "It's not a waste of time, and that's not going to happen. I know that sometimes this world can be cruel, sometimes your reality changes, against your will. Sometimes change is scary but you can't cower in fear. Looking away from something doesn't make it disappear it just makes you not able to see it. I know that I might not see you again but it won't be a waste of time because I know that you're trying. Even if you don't succeed you never can lose, you can only lose when you give up."
    "What are you a cheesy school guidance counselor?"
    "I'm sorry that did sound chessy didn't it"
    "Yeah but it's ok, I'm gonna miss you regardless of how stupid that little pep talk was"
    "Mattsun," Hanamaki started, "What do you think comes after death?"
    "I don't know, I've never really thought of it because I've always kept the mentality of whatever happens happens you know"
    "Same, I never gave much thought to it until I saw it lurking around every corner. I started thinking about it and I wanted to think nothing, but now that I met you I want to think that there's something. Sitting here and thinking about it won't change the outcome though. If there's one thing I'm sure of though, it's that this isn't going to be our final goodbye"
    "I really hope not..."Mattsun sighed under his breath.