Curate, connect, and discover
did i ever tell you guys about my delinquent!iwa with a heart of gold x rich girl & oikawa's younger sister!reader?? where tooru and reader are the sheltered children of one of the wealthiest families in the prefecture meanwhile iwaizumi, who means well, can't help but run with "the wrong crowd" — they're not really all that bad. they're just boys. they're his childhood friends, of course he's sticking by them.
anyway, tooru, in typical tooru fashion, decides he wants to join their little group. your older brother has always been charming, so it's no surprise that he manages to endear himself to their little group. now your older brother is running around with the same delinquents your father criticizes at the dinner table. tooru never lets you join them, even if you beg and threaten to snitch (which you'd never do, and maybe that's why he doesn't take your threat seriously)
after a particularly nasty fight and everyone in the group has to scatter to flee from the cops, where does a bruised and battered iwa end up? hopping the gate to enter your parent's property, throwing rocks at your bedroom window. he thinks it's oikawa, but he knows he's made a mistake whenever you step out onto the balcony outside your bedroom. before he can run off, the fight he just got done with has finally taken its toll on his body and he finds himself knocking out onto the grass.
you drag him in. your parents are gone at one of their charity galas and it'll be a late night. you're home alone. you're home alone in your family's mansion, and it took all of your strength to drag this unconscious delinquent inside, and the marble floors are surely gonna get dirty, and—
—you patch him up.
you patch him up, and when he wakes up half an hour later, he's got hello kitty band-aids on and you're not letting him leave 'til he eats the ramen you made him. you're stubborn, just like your annoying older brother, so iwa begrudgingly eats the meal you took obvious care in making for him.
and somehow, he keeps finding himself coming back to you. sometimes under the guise of needing to see tooru, sometimes because you take a stern tone of voice different from your usual gentle cadence when you chastise him for getting roughed up & how if he refuses to take care of himself, at least let you apply some ointment to his cuts.
iwa knows he's in too deep, though, whenever he sees you taking care of a kitty one night.
"is that yours?" he asks, never having seen you with any pets. the kitten is cute, sure, but looks a little rough. skinnier than baby cats should be, that's for damn certain. looks almost like the strays 'round his neighborhood.
"nope. i saw her wandering around, looking all lost and lonely. she stops by occasionally, along with others."
"others?"
you nod, stroking the kitten's fur, smiling serenely as you watch her lap at the saucer of milk you provided. "there's a couple of dogs i pass by on my way to school." that explains why he once saw dog treats spill out of your school blazer pocket.
"you have a thing for taking in strays." he's joking, but his smile fades when you sadly answer him,
"yeah. but they never stay."
iwaizumi knows that in the eyes of your neighbors and the people in your social circle, he's your stray.
is he going to stay?