Chapter Text
“Alright, take care.”
Akaashi stared blankly at the file in his hands. The indicator on the side clearly read what he assumed to be a name: ‘Bokuto Koutarou.’
He looked back at the man sitting at the brown desk.
“What is this?”
The suited man looked up at him blankly. “Exactly what it looks like. He’s your assignment.”
“I don’t…”
“Oh, are you…?”
Akaashi blinked as the man stood up from the desk twirling a pen in his hands.
“You’re new here, huh? Let’s see…” he glanced down at his documents, sticking his tongue out in concentration before looking back at Akaashi with an easy smile. “Akaashi Keiji-kun.”
Akaashi nodded warily, clutching the folder in his hands as it was the only thing he could physically hold on to.
“There’s already Kei-chan so…” The man tapped the pen on his chin before making a noise of realization. “Keiji-chan!”
Akaashi stared at the man, feeling his fingers twitch in nervousness. “Excuse me?”
“Your name, duh,” the man hummed, seating himself back in the office chair. “Anyways, since you’re a newbie, I should probably call someone to help you out…”
In an instant, a shadow appeared from behind Akaashi and he jumped, looking back to see a shorter man with bleached hair standing astutely in the illuminated doorway.
“Kozume-chan?”
The shorter man responded with a curt nod.
“Could you please help Keiji-chan get adjusted? He’s new here.”
“No, wait,” Akaashi shook his head, hands still clutching the file. “I still don’t know what I’m doing here or why… who ARE you people?”
“That will all come in time,” the man smiled, straightening some papers on his desk. “Now, if you please?”
This ‘Kozume-chan’ gave Akaashi a quick look out of the corner of his eye, before nodding once and turning to disappear out the door.
“Wai—” Akaashi started, beginning to run after him.
“Ah, and Keiji-chan?”
He stopped, looking back at the man at the desk whose hazel eyes now seemed illuminated from where Akaashi stood.
“It’s Oikawa-san to you.” the suited man gave him a sad smile before swiveling around in the chair. “Don’t let go of that folder.”
Akaashi blinked a bit helplessly as light washed over him from the doorway.
He didn’t know where he was going or where he was headed, but his feet carried him towards the direction he presumed ‘Kozume-chan’ was at a steady pace. The shining light behind the door lead to an open space where the two were walking in sync.
He couldn’t see anything but blinding brightness, and he felt extremely lost despite the fact he didn’t really remember anything about anything except for his own name. Honestly, what was he doing in a random office room out of the blue clutching a folder as if his life depended on it?
He stared down at the folder in his hands, half tempted to let go of it and run aimlessly into who knows what direction elsewhere. Surely, listening to the words of strangers was not a good way to start for having some kind of amnesia, right?
“Don’t let go of that folder.”
Akaashi jumped. He didn’t think ‘Kozume-chan’ could talk at all much less give him orders in that kind of tone.
“Ah… mm,” Akaashi agreed quietly, feeling his fingers shake on the files, suddenly scared of letting go. He couldn’t see the boy ahead of him, but he could feel his presence somehow. “Um… Kozume-chan…?”
“Call me Kenma. Oikawa always gives us guardians really crappy nicknames.”
“Guardians?”
“Yeah,” Kenma responded curtly and it seemed as if he came to a stop, prompting Akaashi to stop walking as well. “We’re here.”
The brightness around them slowly melted away and Akaashi blinked, finding the two of them in a park on a bright, sunny day. He gaped at his surroundings, a bit surprised that their walk through the eternal abyss of nothingness brought them to someplace far away from the office room where they started.
“Where—?” Akaashi began but stopped upon seeing Kenma.
The short boy with bleached blonde hair was no longer standing next to him and instead, in his place stood a small, black-haired child. The only feature he could tell belonged to the Kenma he had known for those brief moments were his large, amber eyes. Akaashi began to point a finger at the child in shock before realizing that he was reverted to a younger version of himself as well, messy curls and all.
Kenma smiled a little upon seeing Akaashi’s expression. “I was kind of stunned too, the first time.”
“How…?”
Ignoring the question, Kenma pulled some paper out of his… white kimono? White kimono? When did they get changed into kimonos? They were previously in the same style of suit as Oikawa.
Clearing his throat and then ultimately deciding against talking, Kenma thrust the papers towards Akaashi.
Taking them in his hands, Akaashi read the words on the paper carefully.
“Being a Guardian Angel/Reaper; contrary to popular belief while you were alive…”
Akaashi blinked. “I’m dead?”
Kenma shrugged. “Some of us remember. Some of us don’t. All depends on how we died.”
Nodding slowly, Akaashi continued:
“...your sole purpose is not to just protect, but also to document. Given to you are files on the person you will accompany. You are to document on the human that you are given. All documentation in this file will automatically be sent to the briefing room for organization. Not only do you have the power to take the life of your person at any moment, but you should keep from being spotted. You are technically invisible to them, but not completely, so be wise. Touching your human or interfering in their lives other than in instances of great peril is prohibited.”
Akaashi began to think this was too much work already. He skimmed down to the end.
“Humans are frail creatures. As a human in the past, it is the guardian angel/reaper’s duty to keep their person safe from fatal dangers until it is time. If there is no proper documentation, the guardian angel/reaper’s duty continues until the right documentation is eventually provided even at the expense of multiple human lives. Good luck.”
Akaashi looked up helplessly at Kenma. “What am I supposed to document?”
“Nobody knows for sure to be honest,” Kenma shrugged. “All we know is that those who document ‘properly’ disappear and we never see them again. At least… that’s what Oikawa says.”
“Who is he?”
“Oikawa?” Kenma inquired, looking up at the bright blue sky. “The same as us probably? But, he knows what he’s doing most of the time so he’s basically our leader I guess.”
“…our?”
“There’s others of us too.”
Akaashi furrowed his brows in confusion. There were still many things he didn’t understand. He didn’t get why they had been assigned to complete this task and why ‘properly’ documenting made them disappear. Would that be better than staying here doing the same thing forever? Babysitting people for an indeterminate amount of time hardly seemed like an enjoyable pastime. Did he have to fulfill a higher purpose that he didn’t understand for entities he had no knowledge of?
“What if…” Akaashi frowned, clutching his folder and the papers in his hands. “What if I decide to just kill off whoever this Bokuto Koutarou person is? What then?”
Kenma’s eyes shone. “You’ll just get another living person assigned to you. Over… and over again.”
“Have you done it before?”
Kenma looked intently at Akaashi before gesturing with his hands to take the papers back. “Who knows?”
Akaashi didn’t know it was possible to get chills once a person passed away, but at least he had his answer now. Tightly gripping the file in his hands, he looked at the indication with the name once more, swallowing thickly.
“Well, I kind of feel like it’d be boring documenting for the rest of eternity so I guess I’ll do my best,” Akaashi said softly.
Kenma smiled and then pointed towards the jungle gym portion of the park. “That’s him.”
Akaashi looked towards where Kenma was indicating and found himself looking at a boy who seemed to be about his age with white and black hair spiked up like some kind of overgrown fern in a garden. The boy was bouncing around from one section of the jungle gym to the next with another boy who had straight, black hair jutting out at odd angles like a messy comb.
“I’m… looking after a toddler??” Akaashi asked, incredulously.
Kenma shrugged. “Some of us get assigned young people, some of us get assigned old people.”
“Is that why we look like toddlers now too?”
“You’re getting it.” Kenma said, taking a few steps back from Akaashi. “Except, I’m headed back. So, bye.”
Akaashi’s eyes widened, turning to his senior. “Wait, I still need…”
He looked around finding himself alone on the outskirts of the park. Akaashi sighed deeply, looking down forlornly at the files in his hand. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a look inside for starters.
Eyeing an empty bench, Akaashi made his way over to open the file about Bokuto Koutarou. Judging by where Kenma had pointed, it had to be one of the two kids playing around on the jungle gym. He had a hunch which one it was--the one his eyes had automatically drawn to--but he needed to make sure.
Suddenly being reverted to the age of 5 or 6 out of the blue made getting up onto the bench difficult. After hopping onto it with moderate strain and effort, he huffed, flipping open the folder wide.
The contents were sparse. There was a small photo of the boy as a baby and then one at 1-year-old, 2-year-old, 3… the papers didn’t say anything specific other than the birthdate, his current favorite colors, his height, and his weight at every point in his life until now. Just as Akaashi had expected, the boy he would be taking care of was the animal planet disaster of zebra hair on the swings now. He squinted, looking at the two as they laughed like a bunch of midget maniacs. Well, it wasn’t as if the other boy’s hair was any better.
Closing the file, Akaashi continued staring as the two boys made some contest about who could swing highest. He sighed, throwing his head back up to view the sky. There were only a few clouds out and it was a clear, sunny day. The perfect day to nap and do nothing.
What was he even supposed to be looking out for? Some kind of natural disaster? Kidnappers? Thugs? What in the world was he supposed to do as someone as short and tiny as this Bokuto boy? He definitely couldn’t fend off a potential attacker as an equally small child.
He found himself sighing again. Honestly, what was the point? Being a babysitter for the rest of time was boring, but there weren’t any repercussions for not keeping these people alive either. Would it be too bad to let a few die here and there?
Akaashi heard a squeal and a gasp before a sickening crunch. He jolted up, looking for the two boys and found rooster-head rushing towards Bokuto as Bokuto curled into himself, whimpering quietly.
Wide-eyed and intrigued, Akaashi made sure he was holding onto the folder before leaping off the bench and making his way towards the two. Upon reaching them, he saw that Bokuto’s arm was either broken or sprained, and he presumed that the dolt had jumped off the swing in his enthusiasm.
“Sh-should I call your mom??” the bedhead asked, in obvious panic.
Bokuto didn’t answer, his face twisted in pain. Instead, he merely whimpered, curling into himself more.
Being closer to the two, Akaashi was able to recognize some key features of them he hadn’t noticed before. The uninjured one had slanted eyes and was thinner while Bokuto looked to be rounder and rougher overall. The two were covered in dirt from head to toe and had t-shirts and shorts on along with rugged sneakers.
Akaashi stepped closer to look at the wound. Slant-eyes didn’t seem to notice him at all, merely looking past the curly-haired boy standing in front of him. Akaashi reached out to touch Bokuto’s arm, but recoiled remembering the conditions of being… well, whatever he was. He wasn’t supposed to touch except in times of great peril.
Akaashi looked down at the boy and narrowed his eyes. Didn’t this sort of count as a time of great peril? I mean, obviously, Bokuto was in pain and there was the possibility that he could die from breaking his arm. Akaashi blinked. Actually, he didn’t know whether people could die from breaking bones. So, should he just let this one sit?
Akaashi mused over it for one moment longer before deciding against intervening and backed off from the two boys. Right as he did so however, Bokuto looked up and they locked eyes: teary goldens to modest greens. Akaashi froze.
“I’ll go get your mom!” Akaashi heard in the background, but failed to register as Bokuto sniffled, brought his knees together and continued to stare directly at him.
One thought flashed persistently through Akaashi’s mind. ‘Can he see me?’
Time seemed to stand still for a moment too long until Akaashi heard a woman screaming Bokuto’s name, and after ripping his gaze away from Bokuto’s, he stood aside to let the mother rush in to grab her child.
“Kou?! Kou, my baby, what happened??”
Bokuto whimpered and sobbed, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks, burying his chubby face into his mom’s shoulder. The mother rubbed the boy’s back and bounced him around a bit before asking the friend for details.
The three of them made their way to a car nearby where they were greeted by another middle-aged woman who Akaashi presumed to be the friend’s mother. They exchanged a few hurried words before Bokuto was carried into the vehicle. Akaashi watched the car drive away into the sinking sunset, most likely to a hospital somewhere.
Akaashi sighed, releasing shoulders he didn’t realize were tense. Well, that could have gone better. Now what was he supposed to do?
Just as if on cue, the same medium-length black haired boy seemed to appear out of thin air next to him.
“How was it?”
Akaashi groaned. “I’m so lost. What am I supposed to do? I don’t think he’s going to DIE but, he did get hurt.”
Kenma nodded. “Yeah, I saw. Oikawa said to keep an eye on you because you’re new.”
“Am I fired?” Akaashi murmured with a little grin, feeling as if he were way too dead for this kind of trouble.
“No,” Kenma gave a soft smile. “He just wanted to make sure you weren’t completely lost.”
“But, I was.”
“Well, you did rush to help, didn’t you?”
“Mm…” Akaashi responded tiredly. “Wasn’t much help.”
“I think that was a good call leaving that arm alone,” Kenma said, inviting Akaashi to start walking with him again. “You have good instincts.”
“You think?”
“I totally ignored my first human.” Kenma mumbled. “He was this big, lumbering tall… half-Russian, half-Japanese… green-eyed… nuisance.”
Akaashi snorted. “Nuisance?”
“Yeah, I got him sometime in his middle school years,” Kenma continued as their surroundings became a blinding white once more. “He was so awkward and obnoxious being the only one above six feet in his classroom, I didn’t even want to bother.”
Akaashi noticed the two of them were reverting back to how they were before, their childlike features disappearing one by one. His robes dissolved into the same suit he had been wearing previously.
“So, it was totally my bad I didn’t see that car coming and well, with a target as big as him—”
Akaashi stared at Kenma with wide eyes. “Did he end u—”
“Welcome back, you two.”
Akaashi stopped walking, setting foot in the same office once more. He had a feeling he would need to get used to being here. Oikawa was sitting at the desk just as he had been when Akaashi had left, twirling a pen in his fingers.
“How was it Keiji-chan?”
“It was…”
“Ah, ah!” Oikawa interrupted, wagging a finger in front of them. “Don’t tell me…” The man pat some spare folders on his desk and raised an eyebrow at Akaashi. “Document it.”
“…right.”
After Kenma promised he would return to introduce Akaashi to the others, Akaashi sat down in a spare couch in the room and the moment he opened the folder, a pen magically appeared in his hands. The sole intention to document something had willed it into being. Akaashi stared at it in quiet amazement before wondering what he would write.
By all accounts, there wasn’t much he COULD write. He had barely spent an entire afternoon with the kid much less gotten to know him as he played some kind of rough housing game with the other child. Akaashi stared blankly at the paper before him and frowned. He had to write SOMETHING.
If only the kid hadn’t been a complete wreck, then Akaashi would have gotten some actual good information…
A lightbulb went off his in head.
It wasn’t much, but before he could stop himself, he wrote a statement on the blank paper that was now producing lines for him to write on top of.
Bokuto’s weakness #1: Gets overexcited to the point of injury.
He stared at it a moment longer before shutting the folder closed. Well, it was a start.
Oikawa was waiting for him, writing something down on the desk with a free hand outstretched. Akaashi placed the folder in his hands and watched the man swivel around in his chair and place it in the shelved section with the rest of the B’s.
On cue, Kenma was behind him and ready to take him to meet the rest of… people like them.
They entered the brightly lit doorway once more and began walking to who knows where. Akaashi was pleased to see that his body wasn’t undergoing age changes again. He wondered if Kenma’s current human was also the age of Bokuto.
“Kenma?”
“Hm?”
“What’s your current human like?”
Kenma paused and then looked straight ahead. “I don’t have anyone assigned right now.”
“Oh,” Akaashi murmured, feeling the grooves of the fingers in his left hand with his right. “Did you like your humans?”
Kenma gave him a strange look. “What do you mean?”
“Like… I don’t know, when I was thinking about what to do with Bokuto, he was… well, he was just a mess so I didn’t know what to think of him to be honest. I was completely satisfied with letting him die. But then, I think… I think he stared at me for a bit? And it felt weird like it wasn’t me who was doing the watching. And I felt like I could come to like this kid if I spent more time with him.”
“Mm…” Kenma responded, focusing on the path ahead of them. “Not really. Besides, he was probably spacing out. Our humans usually can’t see us.”
“Why not?”
Kenma looked Akaashi in the eye. “Cause they don’t like seeing death.”
“Aren’t we keeping them from dying?”
“Yeah, but, we’re also the ones who kill them in the end.”
Akaashi felt his pace slow as he let those words sink in. He was new to all of this, and yet, it felt so natural, the easy flow of life and death in the hands on a single entity.
He remembered the large, golden eyes of the boy on the playground. Eventually, he’d have to end the life of something that small… something that was once so bright-eyed and chipper. Akaashi didn’t really know how to feel about that.