summary: Iwaizumi x F!Reader. you might be his girlfriend—but she's his girl.
word count: 2.4k
cw: hurt/comfort. a lot of reader insecurity. fear/mention of emotional cheating but there is none
a/n: this actually fills @akimind's request for my 500 follower event one million years ago but the formatting is tooo hard so. here it is!!! iwaizumi + angst + college au + "that's not what i said." LOVE YOU SORRY HOPE IT HURTS AND IS ALSO ENJOYABLE. <<<<3333333
You didn't mean to fall in love with your boyfriend.
You hadn't gone into this expecting Hajime to become your boyfriend at all, actually. You liked him. Liked how easy it was to be with him. How warm he was when you let your touch linger on him and pretended it was more than a flirty friendship. You hadn't ever predicted it would become so, because Hajime was hung up on his ex-girlfriend.
They'd traveled over oceans to be together, coming to Irvine from the same prefecture in Japan. They had still been together when you met him, her head tucked beneath his chin, his arms wrapped around her waist. Your first thought was "oh, he's beautiful." Your second thought was "they look like they're made for each other." You shoved the first thought deep inside a secret crevice of your brain and stuck out your hand to introduce yourself with a bright smile.
The strain of new adulthood got to them, though, or so you assumed: you were never privy to the gory details of the breakup. They remained friendly, in the same friend group, and it just always seemed obvious to you that they would someday reconcile. It wasn't until two years after their break that you were able to start showing regular, platonic affection to Hajime without feeling like an attempted homewrecker.
It was just before graduation, having dragged him away for a late-night bite to eat so neither of you would starve to death studying for finals, when everything flipped on its head. Your plan to energize the both of you had backfired; you were yawning every other sentence and came close to laying your head on the table before Hajime put his palm down in front of your face.
"Come sit next to me," he'd said, so you maneuvered around into his side of the booth and been promptly pulled into his side. You had looked up at him, murmuring a sleepy question that was more wordless noise than actual English, and that was it. Something you didn't understand softened his gaze, and then he tilted his head to the side and brushed his lips over yours.
It was a perfect first kiss.
In the weeks following it, you had bounced violently between insisting to yourself that he hadn't meant for you to read too far into the kiss and your natural instinct to go after what your heart wanted. And the more he proved that it wasn't a one-off anomaly, that he could kiss you right out of drought into a superbloom, the more you were convinced. Iwaizumi Hajime wouldn't knowingly break your heart.
When Hajime asked you to be official, wildflower bouquet in hand, the lights of the now-empty graduation pavilion shining down on the both of you, you said yes, your whole heart and none of your brain in the matter.
As you entered your apartment hand-in-hand with him, greeting all the friends who had gathered there to celebrate the end of undergraduate school, you remembered that the key modifier in "Iwaizumi Hajime wouldn't knowingly break your heart" was knowingly. He seemed happy enough announcing the development to everyone else, and then she had walked in, carrying a bottle of wine that almost slipped from her grasp when she saw your proximity. He had dropped your hand—just for a second, but it had happened, and then picked it back up like his sentence hadn't died in his mouth at the sight of her.
He'd always gotten a little defensive when people mentioned their relationship, his features shutting down into a blank, tight expression. Though they obviously weren't as close as they had been for most of their lives, they were still both part of your friend group, and he always seemed to laugh just a little harder at her jokes, kept eye contact a little longer, got embarrassed more easily around her. You didn't want to be jealous or insecure or possessive, but it just felt more increasingly obvious that you were a rebound, a cheap, temporary dupe meant to fill in until Hajime realized and returned to the love of his life.
It was hard to be angry at him, though, because you knew with every fiber of your bleeding heart that he wouldn't do this to you on purpose. You knew he thought he cared for you, that he thought he had moved on. He did a good job almost every day coming very close to persuading you of it, enough to keep you from breaking up with him and leaving him behind, but never quite erasing your insecurities for more than a few weeks at a time.
One of the first mornings you woke up in his bed, well rested and sore in all the right places, he was missing. You got up, mourning the softness of his sheets and the scent of him on the pillowcases, and slipped into one of his shirts before leaving his room to explore.
He was cooking, shirtless in the kitchen, and if that wasn't one of the yummiest things you had seen in your life.
"Good morning," you said, leaning against his counter.
"Very," he returned, flipping an egg in the pan. "Looking like that. I think—I mean, it seems like that shirt always gets chosen to be the boyfriend shirt." He had narrowly avoided saying her name, but you had heard it threatening to tumble out of his mouth. You bit back a response, but your smile still dropped, and he spent the next hour making allusive, sorry overtures without either of you actually acknowledging the slip.
You never wore that shirt again. He gave you another one, you accepted it, and life moved on.
Except you had somehow become mired in the past with a relationship that was long over, and without university or a job to distract you—you were starting at the end of September, which felt aeons away—it was eating you alive, especially as Hajime left for a preliminary return trip to Japan.
"Did you hear how Mattsun and Makki greeted him when he landed?" You sit in the car on the way to the airport, packed in with Hajime's ex, successfully hyping yourself up to see him again until she addressed the group.
"Oh, yeah," you laugh. "So funny." You haven't had a conversation with Hajime that had more depth than "how are u? miss u" for the trip's duration. She's your friend, too, though you've never been close, but there's something unbearable about admitting it to her now, when you're so unsure of your relationship's current status. It has to mean something that he was keeping her updated and active in his life, didn't it?
You find solace in knowing that you don't blame her at all. If you could find an ounce of resentment for her in your heart, you would probably have left Hajime by now—isn't that the mark of a truly evil plot-pushing girlfriend?
You cry when you see him again.
"Happy tears," you assure him, and hide your face in his shoulder.
Later, alone in his apartment, you bite your lip when Hajime asks if you want to sleep over.
"Okay, babe, I don't want to pressure you," he says, and you can feel yourself tensing up as he speaks. "But I feel like you've been—off all day. Is everything okay?"
You blanch and focus on the cowlick on the right side of his head, the one that's endeared him so much to you, so you don't have to look him in the eyes. Too much is bubbling up in your throat, your brain thrown into overdrive, and he's staring at you with so much worry in his eyes it's just not right to leave him hanging:
"No."
Hajime makes a noise you don't understand, low in his throat. "Is it because I didn't call enough while I was gone? Because I can explain that, I promise."
"No," you rush to explain. "I don't—it wasn't you, exactly. I've just—ever since we started dating—I think you still love her."
You're picking at your nails, a bad habit you've had since you were small, and he takes your hands in his, smooths his thumbs over the torn cuticles.
"I don't," he says, finally, neutrally, though his face hasn't formed into the cold mask you're used to seeing when she's brought up. "Ever since we started dating?"
"Before," you admit. "I always thought you would get back together. You just seemed so made for each other."
"But we weren't," a little pucker between his eyebrows forms. "So—what did you think when we started dating?"
"When you first kissed me," you say, "I thought maybe it was a one-off. That you wanted something casual. And then it got more serious, and I thought maybe I could just suppress my insecurities until they went away, and I mean, I really thought you liked me."
"I do," his voice grows more agitated, his lips thinning out.
"Yeah, but..." You trail off. "You would do things that made me think, oh, he's just the perfect guy, they just looked so amazing because I was jealous, and then every so often I'd see you interact with her and it wasn't like how we are at all. I know the insecurity is my own fault, that's not on you, but I feel like it's holding both of us back."
"What do you mean holding us back? You don't think you make me happy?" He snaps, and you wince.
"Not like you are with her! Every time she comes in the room you get this look on your face, like you're speechless. Like-like the songs, Haji, I just..."
He lets go of your hands, crosses his arms.
"Do you really think I'd do that to you?"
"No, Haji, I know you'd never cheat. That's why I fell in love with you! You're a good guy, but I don't want you to wake up one day and break both our hearts because she's meant to be your girl and I'm just your fucking girlfriend." Your eyes sting, your chest heaving by the end of the sentence.
"You love me?" He's quieter now, giving you a little more space to breathe.
"What? That's not what I said."
"Yes, it is," he says, a little smile growing at the corners of his mouth, as though he can't control it. "You love me."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand why you're focusing on that," you wipe at your eyes with the back of your hand. "It's true, I just don't get it."
"Because you make me happier than she ever did," he promises, crowding you up against the counter and motioning for you to jump up to sit on top of it after you can go no further. "I'm weird when she's around because she's my ex, sure, but not because I still want her. It... ended badly. It's a miracle we didn't pull the entire friend group into it, and I never wanted to make her look bad to them, so I'm always trying really hard to look, uh, normal around her. We're on better terms now, but I haven't wanted her in years, honey."
"She knew about what you were doing when I didn't," you mumble, feeling small in the stormy release of emotions. "And she knows so much about you I don't in general."
"We grew up together," Hajime reminds you. "It would have been one of the guys. I know I didn't tell her anything. You can check my call history, my texts."
You shake your head. "I believe you."
"Really?" He arches a brow, and you laugh and push gently at his shoulder.
"Yes, really."
"You know how long I had a crush on you before I did anything about it? I thought you weren't interested, and then you finally started being even more affectionate with me than you were with our other friends, and I took the chance."
"Rookie numbers," you preen under his gaze. "I liked you... pretty much as soon as I met you. But I suppressed it 'cause I didn't want to be a homewrecker."
"You're sweet," he chuckles. "I promise, you have nothing to worry about there. I'm never gonna wake up and not be grateful to see you drooling on my bed."
"You're the worst, you know that?"
"Yeah, yeah," he looks at you fondly, swiping his thumbs under your lower lashes. "You love me, though."
"Oh," your lips part. "And the not calling in Japan?"
He scrunches his nose. "I was trying not to spoil anything. I wanted to, uh, discuss it with you first, but you should know my friends and family are all waiting to embarrass me if I have to turn everything around now."
"Okay? I'll consider your dignity, but I make no promises," you tease. He drops his head to your shoulder for a moment, taking a deep breath, and you wind a hand into his hair, petting him until he straightens.
"So, you know how I have that paid internship opportunity back home?" You nod, not wanting to be reminded. You'll do it for him, but... long distance sucks. "I went to their office and turned it down. I want to go through with my doctorate."
"Oh, that's huge!" You gasp. "That's incredible, I'm so happy for you!"
"So the part that has to do with you is, um," he says, "you're planning to stay here, right?"
"Yeah," you say, "my next step is like a twenty minute commute, thankfully."
"I want to finish my schooling in the States," he tells you, "and then after that, I want to go wherever you go."
"Hajime," you start, but he puts a shaking hand on your knee, and that shuts you up.
"I love you," he says seriously. "It's like I said, okay? You make me happier than anyone else. I know you're the one for me, if you'll have me. If not, I get—"
You grab his face and smash your lips into his, and if that doesn't get the message across? You don't know what will.
Why is it always about Orpheus turning back foolishly and never about Eurydice following him out of the Underworld, likely knowing she was doomed. That Orpheus went all this way, singing the story of their love, hopeful that he will return her to the surface and finally build their life together— but they will not. She knows her Orpheus will turn back. And yet she still follows him, all the way to the top, because the simple pleasure of seeing his back again is enough for her. Isn’t that a foolish thing to do for love?
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