FOREVER ୨୧ IWAIZUMI ✔

26 - FIREWORKS

.・゜-: ✧ :-　

"IWAIZUMI-SAN, C'MON! WE'RE GONNA MISS IT!"

Hearty, soft giggles escaped her lips as she gripped his large hands as tight as she could manage, dragging him along while he tried not to spill the chips he had bought for her. They shuffle around in his grasp— but he holds on tight and determined. 

Iwaizumi laughs, a deep and rumbling sound that makes her heart leap. He picks up his pace and jogs right next to her, looking down at her with a certain sense of fondness that is obvious with his gaze. "Okay, okay, I'm coming. We won't miss it, promise."

She grinned, feeling the lines of his palms between her fingertips. It was as if every sense she had was heightened in this moment—a fleeting, memorable moment that would pass before she knew it. Her nerves felt like they were a burning hot white ball of fire under her skin, and with each brush of contact they made, it only served to burn even brighter. "I heard the fireworks this year are going to be super amazing! I can't wait to see them with you."

"I bet they will be," he grinned a boyish grin, but he was quite sure that he wouldn't be watching the fireworks this year. He wouldn't be able to, because he was positive he couldn't take his eyes off her. He wouldn't want to, anyway.

They found themselves sitting down on a grassy hill, with many others lying around them in their own spaces. Single people, families, big groups, and more.

Looking around at all the couples smiling, cuddling, and laughing with each other made the longing in his chest even more apparent—even more painful. She was watching the sky in content, leaning back onto her hands and her legs swinging on the edge of the hill. A pretty smile danced across her lips as she waited restlessly for the fireworks to burst.

She looks so beautiful.

But Iwaizumi already knows this. He has known this from the day they fatefully met in those hallways he used to curse back in his first year when he wasn't able to find his class. The day that has completely rewired his life, and changed it into something completely new, and something strange. This unfamiliar, passionately burning feeling took over each of his thoughts and eventually, was moulded into the shape of one thing—you.

He has known, for a long while now, that he has fallen. Fallen into what, exactly, he did not know. Iwaizumi Hajime has never felt something as deep and real as this was right now, but he has all the time in the world to figure it out.

He has all the time in the world to figure it out with her.

He is not a hopeless romantic. He doesn't dream of romance—contrary to his best friend, who goes through a new heartbreak every three months—nor does he feel the need to ask out every pretty girl he sees. Maybe, all this time, he thinks as he feels her lace her fingers with his, he has waited for somebody to just look at him, and see him.

And she sees him.

She doesn't see the ace of Seijoh, or Oikawa's buddy, or even her upperclassman, but rather, she sees Hajime—the kaiju nerd who owns a t-shirt of just about every American superhero from the DC comics, and the teenager who's biggest accomplishment each day is making his own agedashi tofu. 

She sees so deeply within him and sees every part of him and he has never felt more loved. Love that is bursting at the seams of his heart and fills each crevice in his body each time he gets to hold her and feel her skin.

And he sees her, too.

He has seen her as the cute new girl, and as a clueless foreigner who likes to hang around him. But he sees her now as F/N—a girl who likes food, cute keychains and hates cup noodles. She likes caramel and strawberry and knows nothing about volleyball (and yet she tries for him, something that resonates so deeply within his heart that he fears that one day, it may implode in his chest). A girl who, despite knowing next to nothing about the sport, decided to become their manager, and decided to support him in every way she could, because she is kind.