Chapter Text
“Tooru, I’m not going on a double date”
“Oh why not Kei-chan! It will be so much fun, they’re really sweet!”
Keiji was currently scowling at his friend from his place on the sofa in the coffee house, legs crossed so one foot was propped up on his knee. Oikawa was sitting on the armchair perpendicular to the sofa with his coffee cup clutched close to his chest, whilst Suga sipped on his herbal tea beside Keiji on the couch.
Tooru said he’d been at an interview earlier today for some fashion firm that scouted models and really hit it off with these two guys. He’d taken the liberty to tell them he had another friend (this was Akaashi) who he could invite and they could all go out together. Keiji wouldn’t ordinarily have a problem with it per se, but there was one small issue being that he was seeing someone.
And that someone had just bounded through the door.
Keiji tried not to let his face visibly soften at the sight of Koutarou, instead sparing him a look of acknowledgement and a small, very platonic-passing smile before looking back to his friends — expression falling straight.
“I just… I can’t.” Akaashi shook his head, giving Oikawa a sour expression. His friend frowned at him.
“But you’re not seeing anyone, I’m not seeing anyone, it’s a no-brainer!”
“I am.”
“You’re what?” Tooru raised an eyebrow and leant forward in his chair, whilst Koushi made a puzzled expression of his own.
“Seeing someone.”
“ What!”
Koushi and Tooru made the exclamation in synchronicity and Keiji cursed himself in his head. In reality he was keeping his face as straight as possible whilst he tried very hard not to watch Koutarou order his coffee, shifting nervously in his seat to try and decide where he was going to go with this particular lie.
“Yeah, he uh—,” He scratched his eyebrow as if that would help him think, “He works at… at work!”
Keiji held his mug on his lap with one hand and pointed the other at the gap between Suga and Oikawa triumphantly. Well, they didn’t need to know it was a triumph.
“Yes, I’m seeing a guy from work.”
It was the perfect lie. Akaashi worked in an office block a train away that none of them ever visited because he worked from home half of the time. So if he was, hypothetically, seeing someone from work, he would never cross paths with his friends unless Keiji wanted them to. Which he obviously didn’t, so it wouldn’t happen.
This way, he sort of didn’t have to lie about seeing Koutarou either. He could answer the questions his friends would undoubtedly bombard him with completely truthfully, whilst preserving both his and Kou’s dignity and privacy. It was foolproof. Right?
“Why are we only hearing about him now?”
Koushi queried with a pinch his brow, leaning back on the arm of the couch and sitting cross legged with his teacup resting in his lap. Keiji shrugged in response, gesturing slightly with his hand.
“He’s shy, I guess.“ That was the biggest load of bullshit ever, “We want to keep it private whilst it’s… whilst it’s new.”
“Well, what’s he like?” Tooru was bouncing his leg excitedly as he inquired about Keiji’s mystery man, whilst Keiji himself just looked a little nervously between his two friends. He took a sip of his coffee and looked down into the caramel-coloured liquid swirling in his cup. Akaashi smiled softly — much too soft for anything casual — and looked back to his friends.
He was painfully aware that Bokuto was about to approach them any minute, so as much as he wanted to use this opportunity to let them get it out of their system, Akaashi had to shut them up and change the subject whilst also satiating his friends’ desperate need to know. But he couldn’t deny that he had a feeling that both things wouldn’t be achieved.
“He’s… different. And it feels different too, like… I don’t know, it just is.”
Words failed him. How could he describe Koutarou without describing Koutarou? Keiji wasn’t sure he could, because he was exactly what he’d said — different. Koushi questioned him.
“In a good way, or a bad way?”
“A good way. The best way.”
Both Oikawa and Sugawara whimpered a little and relaxed into their seats, suddenly very emotional for Akaashi’s newfound happiness. However, this happiness wouldn't be able to stop Oikawa from teasing with a shit-eating grin taking the place of the much more mellow one he’d previously harboured.
“The best you’ve ever had?”
“Wh— Tooru!” Keiji scolded with a frown in hopes that the topic would be dropped, but to no avail. He was still faced with two pairs of expectant eyes and sighed, defeated. “Yes, he’s the best I’ve ever had.”
Oikawa gaped with a wide smile of disbelief and Koushi gasped, seating his cup between his legs to bring both hands to his face in shock.
“Oh my Christ.”
Keiji felt the need to do some damage control.
“Okay, but it’s not even like—.”
“What are we talking about?”
Oh great, Bokuto was here.
Keiji turned around to face him with an open mouth and words swimming in the back of his throat, but obviously he didn’t have a chance to say them because Koushi had — very helpfully — piped up behind him.
“Keiji has a secret boyfriend!”
Akaashi pressed his lips together and his eyes shut, sighing a slightly annoyed breath through his nose to try and compose himself. He opened his eyes to give Bokuto a very poignant glare in response to his gormless expression and mouthed the words “I’m sorry.”
Luckily for Akaashi, Bokuto seemed to catch on and lowered himself onto the couch with an almost unnoticeable nod and a much louder smile. Very convincing, Keiji thought.
“He does?”
It was a genuine and excited inquisition to both Sugawara and Oikawa, who nodded back at him with zeal.
“Yes, he does! But he won’t tell us anything, or let us meet him.”
Bokuto pouted at that, looking from Oikawa back to Akaashi. He cupped his hands around his coffee cup and slouched a little in his seat, Keiji just shaking his head dismissively at all three of them. He threw himself back on the sofa and shrunk into the cushions, holding his mug close by his chin.
“And it’s going to stay that way.”
“No! Come on Keiji please,” Koushi clutched at Keiji’s knee and whined, “I want to meet the best sex you ever had.”
He let his eyebrows raise and eyelids fall to leave his gaze suggestive when he spoke that last part, smirking as he leant back on the sofa arm again. Bokuto on the other hand, perked up next to Keiji on that same couch — suddenly more or less bouncing in his seat as he leant over Keiji to see Suga. Keiji thought he looked like a puppy.
“Really!” Bokuto aimed the query towards Sugawara with a wild grin, “He said that?”
He then looked at Keiji.
“You said that?”
In response, Keiji narrowed his gaze and folded his arms over his chest protectively, coffee clutched between his thighs.
“I might’ve said that.”
Koutarou screwed his eyes shut and laughed to himself, lowering himself back to his side of the couch. Keiji was unimpressed as he sunk into his place on the sofa, sandwiched between his best friend and secret boyfriend. Secret boyfriend who was much too amused for Keiji’s liking. He swatted him on the thigh in admonition.
“Why is that so funny?”
“It’s not, it’s not!” Koutarou assured, ceasing his laughter, “I’m just really happy for him! And uh—“
Sugawara was squinting at them and now Bokuto was panicking, so he smiled and made eye contact with Keiji.
“And for you, obviously! You lucky dog!” Bokuto shook Akaashi slightly by his shoulder in an attempt to lighten the mood, whilst Keiji just glared at him — infinitely unamused. Sugawara on the other hand was now poking Akaashi on his other shoulder, attempting to coerce him into giving up more information.
“Isn’t he just! I need to know who he is, please Keiji. I’m married now, you have to tell me these things!”
“Koushi.”
It was a warning. That monotonous, stern tone warning his friend against pressing any further, and warning Koutarou against having another fit of giggles over it. Both of them, being friends for each other as long as they have been, knew that Keiji was nearing his limit and backed off. Oikawa however, was about to speak up, but fortunately for Keiji didn’t get a chance to before glancing at his phone and announcing he had to leave.
Luckily, the topic was dropped after that and Akaashi could go about his day without much else occurring. He edited some drafts in his apartment whilst his friends flitted in and out as they usually did. It was a Friday, so most of his friends were in their offices or places of work and the likes, so Akaashi enjoyed the peace. Peace was rare these days.
It was around 4:17pm by the time his friends started filtering into his flat. Fridays were also game nights so they could all wind down from the week and efficiently enjoy their weekend — whether any games actually got played was a separate matter. It was just an easy way to spend time together without feeling obliged to burden everyone else with the weight of your own working week.
Koushi wouldn’t be attending tonight because it was a one-off date night with Daichi to make up for one they missed last week. Marriage looked good on the two of them; it had been about 2 months now since they’d been betrothed and Keiji — for entirely unrelated-to-marriage reasons — couldn’t believe so much time had lapsed already. Because that meant he’d been doing whatever he was doing with Bokuto for about 2 months.
Who, speaking of, was currently buckling his belt in a hurry at the foot of Keiji’s bed. He had a slow day most Fridays so sue him if he’d wanted to get back to the building at lightning speed to have a quickie with Keiji before their friends arrived. Keiji himself was already up and dressed, pottering around the living room before sauntering over to the doorway of his bedroom and leaning against it.
“Behave tonight.” He instructed, more firmly than he probably meant.
Koutarou looked away from his belt and towards him — not realising he’d appeared — with a frown, “I always behave.”
“Yeah just—,” Akaashi didn’t want to say it explicitly, wondering if maybe he was being dramatic about feeling cornered by him and their friends this morning, “Just behave.”
He slipped away from the door and made his way back to the kitchen, whilst Koutarou just stood perplexed in Keiji’s bedroom. Eventually brushing it off as Akaashi having a wobble (he had those from time to time. Bokuto really didn’t mind) he finished dressing himself to a presentable degree. Presentable degree meaning not a lick of hair out of place or slightest smidge of a hickey visible to the naked eye.
Unfortunately, one of them didn’t manage to reach a so-called presentable degree tonight.
In hindsight, it had been foolish for Keiji to wear an oversized sweater with a wide collar, but since it was assumed that the collar would stay where Keiji placed it and not slip, he didn’t give it a second thought. Plus, it was one of his favourite jumpers okay — he was a slut for some exposed-collar-bone action.
It happened when the five of them were seated around the coffee table, the time now around 7pm, as they worked through a gruelling game of monopoly. Akaashi was sitting on a chair opposite the couch where Iwaizumi, Oikawa, and Kuroo were sitting — Bokuto on an armchair adjacent.
Keiji was of course the designated banker which is why he sat slightly away from the rest of his friends, in order to have enough space for the money. Oikawa was scowling viciously as a result of the fact he’d just landed on Hajime’s Mayfair that had 2 hotels and was part of the whole set, so Keiji was organising the bills that had come out of that fiasco.
The banker also kept the houses and hotels in the lid of the box belonging to them, so when Hajime had asked for another hotel, Keiji sifted through those too. Monopoly pieces could be a bit finicky though, so was it really his fault if he dropped a few on the floor? He’d like to think not.
The problem, however, arose when Akaashi leant down to pick them up, and the swoop of his collar well… swooped with his motion.
“Jesus Christ bro, who defiled you?”
Keiji was still leant towards the floor, but lifted his head to frown at his brother who had spoken to him, which honestly made the angle even worse in terms of looking down his sweater.
“What?” He frowned, and Iwaizumi gestured to his own collar.
“You’re fucking covered.”
Keiji immediately bolted upright, eyes wide. He could actually feel himself heating up and turning red, making a very poignant effort to not glance at Koutarou in fervent, fervent panic.
“Oh my God Keiji! You told us you were seeing someone, I didn’t think it was that type of seeing someone.”
That was Oikawa, who unfortunately managed to pipe up before Akaashi could think of anything to say. Then of course it was his brother who said something in response.
“He’s seeing someone?” Iwaizumi looked at Akaashi, “You’re seeing someone?”
Keiji sighed, only then chancing a look at Bokuto and Kuroo who both looked equally amused. Bokuto was a surprisingly good actor.
“Yes, I’m seeing someone. But it’s not—,” He made eye contact with Koutarou and the next thing that came out of his mouth physically pained him, “It’s nothing serious.”
What surprised Keiji after that was that Koutarou was the next one to speak. In fact, Keiji wasn’t even sure if ‘speak’ was the right word to use, it felt more like a very pointed jab. Maybe he deserved it.
“I dread to think what serious is if casual means that. ” Bokuto pointed at Akaashi’s collar bones and he suddenly had an inexplicable need to cover up.
Okay, even if it was his fault, he didn’t deserve to be called a whore.
“Piss off.” Keiji glowered whilst adjusting his glasses, “Can we just drop it?”
All four of them shook their heads in synchronicity and it kind of freaked Keiji out. Kuroo was the next one to add to the misery, as per usual.
“But we don’t want to drop it, Akaashi.” He’d said it in a mocking, sing-song type of tone with his arms folded over his chest and a pout — as if he was a whining school child. Bokuto snickered next to him and Akaashi wanted him dead.
“Yeah ‘Kaashi, tell us what he’s like!”
Keiji swiped his palm down his face in exasperation, as if he was trying to bury himself in his palms.
“In the coffee shop he said he was the best he ever had.” Tooru murmured under his breath and Keiji, for the second time this evening, bolted upright with an accusatory finger pointed towards his friend.
“That was coaxed out of me in confidence, Tooru . Shut your pie hole.”
He just watched as his friend giggled before flitting his eyes to Iwaizumi — who quite frankly looked mortified — and Kuroo, looking vaguely impressed. Bokuto was still beaming like he was in the cafe this morning, almost rocking back and forth on his chair in glee.
“What are you doing man?”
Kuroo asked before Keiji could, and in all honesty he was kind of grateful. He was frustrated, sure, but if this anger and frustration wasn’t mildly directed toward Koutarou — he’d find the rocking very strangely endearing. Well, Bokuto was just kind of like that.
“I’m just very happy for the guy, y’know, I mean—,” He cut himself off with an over dramatic gasp, as if he was coming up for air. Bokuto whipped his head round to Akaashi, “Does that mean he’s better than the other Miya.”
The “other Miya” was what Bokuto coined Osamu because he was actually friends with Atsumu from the gym. Osamu’s relationship with Keiji ended on messy, unfortunate terms. Something to do with what Keiji described to Bokuto as a ‘chronic inability to open the minuscule windows of his mind to the possibilities of my needs’.
The group thought he could’ve been the one for Keiji, but they’d been broken up pretty cleanly for at least a year and a half. Just between him and God, Koutarou never really liked the guy, but that was neither here nor there.
“Bokuto-san…” Akaashi warned, glaring at him.
“Is he?” Bokuto’s grin was wild as he placed his palms on the spheres of his knees, leaning forward. Kuroo looked awfully amused and Oikawa annoyingly smug, and Keiji wished for God to take him there and then.
Upon his scan of the room from which he’d deduced this information, Keiji came to the realisation that he was in enemy territory right now. He felt like the lamb to the slaughter amidst the wolves his friends had magically turned into, almost paralysed by unbelievably piercing eyes on him. God, he felt so exposed.
He needed to get out of that room, he needed to leave, he just— he couldn’t do this, what was he supposed to be talking about? What did Koutarou want him to say? What was he expecting from him?
“I need some air.”
Keiji rose up from his chair and placed tha fake bills down on the coffee table, venturing out to the balcony. Funnily enough, the only pair of eyes he felt burning holes into the back of his head were Koutarou’s. He looked over his shoulder once and caught his gaze, wondering if Koutarou could see the emotion pouring out of them. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted that or not.
There was then an expeditious shift in tone inside the flat.
Bokuto frowned from his place on the chair, setting his own monopoly paraphernalia on the board — for the game had been long forgotten anyway. By the looks of it, Iwaizumi was making a move to go and check on Keiji, but Bokuto stood up first, with a hand out in front of him and a gentle shake of his head.
“I’ll go check on him Iwa, don’t worry.”
“Okay, just—,” He looked worriedly out of the window to where his brother was leaning over the balcony, “Just let him know he can talk to me, and that I promise not to flip out.”
Koutarou nodded and attempted to get a gauge on what the other two were going to do. Game night was clearly not going any further, lines had been crossed and boundaries stepped over — Keiji deserved to cool off. Oikawa seemed to be wracked with the guilt of fuelling the fire and ushered himself into his own bedroom, whilst Kuroo jumped up with a clap.
“I’ll see you at home dude.” He punched Bokuto playfully on the shoulder, to which he just nodded and waved him off with a mutter of agreement. He had more pressing matters right now.
Koutarou stepped towards the balcony himself, shutting the door as gently as he could behind him. Keiji perked up at the sound of the door, turning his head towards the door before rolling his eyes and turning back to the view of the city.
“Kou—.”
“What’s wrong?” Bokuto frowned in earnest, attempting to hug Keiji from behind, only to be shrugged off almost immediately.
“Don’t— I can’t do this right now.”
He was puzzled, turning Keiji around to face him. It wasn’t often Koutarou used his strength to his advantage like this, but he was concerned. Maybe also a little scared.
“Do what?”
“Just,” Keiji gestured, “This.”
”I don’t know what you mean.”
Bokuto squinted and pinched his brow, madly confused at what had happened. Akaashi was mad at him, he could deduce that much, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. He wondered if maybe that was the problem — feverishly searching his brain for anything he could’ve messed up, but he didn’t have long enough to find anything before Keiji scoffed and spoke again.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Keiji clasped his hands together and held them by his face with a fake-smile, speaking in a mocking tone, “ Yeah Kaashi, what was he like? Even better than your ex, Kaashi? Tell us about him, Kaashi! Kaashi this, Kaashi that, Kaashi wants you to drop it!”
Throughout the spiel, Keiji had started gesturing wildly with his hands, throwing them out to the sides with his final exclamation.
“I have to pretend I know nothing though, right? Bokuto responded, matter of factly.
“No, Koutarou— just because our friends don’t know you’re the one I’m fucking, doesn’t mean you have weird, indirect bragging rights.”
The wind swept up his bangs in a violent frenzy, but he couldn’t care less. All he cared about was that he felt hurt and betrayed and that he needed to communicate that to Bokuto. So far, it wasn’t working.
“You were the one telling people!” Koutarou yelled back, voice pitching up an octave in confusion.
“Yeah, that I was fooling around with someone, not that I was fooling around with you. I was being hounded by all our friends to tell them stuff, and I didn’t want to!”
“Interesting.” Koutarou had his arms folded across his chest, unimpressed. Keiji motioned for him to continue.
“So that’s what this is? We’re just fucking? Just fooling around?”
Keiji visibly grimaced, clenching his hand into a fist and leaning away from where he was cowering at Koutarou to stand upright.
“Okay, that’s not—.”
“No, stop. Stop talking. You’ve said enough.” Koutarou was pointing a finger at Keiji now, accusatory, “When I found out you told Koushi I was the best you ever had I was ecstatic. You wanna know why?”
“Why?” Keiji’s voice was small in comparison to the way Koutarou was booming, but if this was going where he thought it was, he honestly couldn’t blame him yelling like this.
“Because it meant I wasn’t crazy. This was just as good for you as it was for me, I was just as good for you as you were for me. I meant enough to you that you told Koushi how good I was — and I was proud.”
Akaashi pulled a face as if what Bokuto had said was simply unbelievable and slapped his hand away from where it was pointing at his chest. His own hands shaped into claws with his elbows tucked into his sides, gesturing frantically as he shouted.
“But you put me in such an awkward position. You knew I was talking about you, yet you still asked about yourself like you were gossip. I didn't want you to be my secret boyfriend, I didn’t want to tell our friends how good you were to me because—.”
“Because what, Keiji? Oh, how could I forget, because we’re just fooling around! ”
“Because I’m in love with you!”
“You—,” Bokuto had started with a yell back, but Akaashi watched as his angry face morphed into one of gentle questioning. When he spoke again, it was almost timid, “You are?”
Keiji nodded with zeal, shunting his glasses up his face to perch on top of his head with both palms.
“Yes. Good God, yes! Koutarou, I'm crazy about you. I’m so mad about you joking with everyone else about who I’m with because it made it seem like it wasn’t important to you. This is important enough to me to keep it a secret — to keep it private — because I love you. I want to keep the intimate details of us to myself, they should be kept just for us. ”
He was sobbing now, unbelievably frustrated, whilst Bokuto just stared at him with a gentle admiration. Bokuto thought he’d never been quite so wrong about a situation in his life. He approached Akaashi tentatively, prying his hands away from teary eyes with one arm, wrapping the other over his shoulders.
“I love you, too.”
He said it quietly with a soft smile, one that grew impossibly softer when Akaashi looked at him through wet eyelashes and whispered.
“What?”
“I said that I love you, too. I just latched onto the way you worded our relationship instead of actually using my brain.” Keiji huffed out a laugh and Koutarou continued, “I’m sorry for confusing you and asking annoying questions, you’re right, I put you in an awkward position.”
Keiji smiled weakly, wrapping his arms up around Koutarou’s torso to hold him close and sniffle into his clavicle.
“I’m sorry for saying we’re just fooling around. You’re so much more than a lay, Koutarou.”
“Yeah?”
He wiped his nose on his hand and searched Koutarou’s features with bleary eyes. Keiji imagined he looked pitiful — eyes red and puffy with tears and (probably) snot drying weirdly into streaks on his face — but he nodded anyway.
“Yeah. Be my secret boyfriend?”
Koutarou grinned, tucking some of Keiji’s wild hair behind his ear without so much as a thought about the state he was in. He thought Keiji looked beautiful all the time, even if his boyfriend thought he was an ugly crier.
“I’ll be your secret boyfriend.”
“Yay.”
Their smiles and voices were small and shy as they swayed in each other’s embrace on the balcony. Keiji thought that it was nice to be able to cry into Koutarou’s shoulder whilst being held with such tenderness; the silence made it all so tangible. The only thought racing through Keiji’s mind at that moment was Koutarou — mainly how much he adored him.
Keiji leant back slightly to look at his boyfriend, the final tear of the night being blinked out of his eye.
“I’m getting cold.”
“Me too.” Koutarou chuckled, leading them back through the door hand in hand. Once they were inside, Keiji composed himself and wiped his face of its moisture before walking Bokuto to the door — lovesick as always.
“Sneak back into my room tonight?”
“Duh!”
He smiled widely, “See you then.”