Work Text:
“Bokuto-senpai,” something drawls as he comes out of the room, and Bokuto looks up in alarm to see a dizzy Akaashi tottering out of the dentist’s office. Bokuto-senpai. Is this what he’s been missing out on all along? The sweet, sweet sound of Akaashi calling him senpai? He burns it into his memory. “Bokuto-senpai, you’re really here.”
“‘Course, Akaashi,” he gentle lets the man fall into his arms and looks up in worry at the nurse, who merely blinks at him and smiles.
“I was worried you wouldn’t come,” Akaashi whispers, and leans the back of his head against Bokuto’s shoulder.
“Why would I not?” Bokuto gently asks him as the nurse hands him a bag of medicine and explains what they’re supposed to do. There’s a lot of medicine.
“Bokuto-senpai,” a voice whispers into directly his ear and a full-body shudder runs through Bokuto. He struggles to keep his breathing under control. “Did I ever tell you that your hair is very pretty? It’s two different colours, Bokuto-senpaaaai. How does it work?”
“Magic,” he chokes out, and he white-knuckles the plastic bag. “Come on, let’s go. You’re lucky you don't live too far away from here. I can’t imagine what made you think I was a good person to come pick you up.”
“I trust Bokuto-senpai,” Akaashi looks straight at him and it’s kind of funny, if Bokuto has to say so himself. The two sides of Akaashi’s jaw is swollen and bruising, and it looks like he’s perpetually wearing a Snapchat filter. He snaps a picture for posterity's sake.
“You trust me?” Bokuto presses the button for the ground floor and feels unnaturally touched. Akaashi is holding onto his hand and leaning his body ever so slightly into his arm, and it feels wonderful. Is this what a touchy Akaashi is like? He’s usually so reserved and quiet, Bokuto can hardly tell what he’s thinking sometimes.
“I do,” Akaashi nods seriously, then winces. “I also trust ducks.”
“Ducks?” Bokuto blinks.
“Ducks,” Akaashi confirms, and says no more on the matter.
“Hey, Bokuto-senpai,” Akaashi slurs as Bokuto helps him into the car. “My mouth really hurts.”
“You got your wisdom teeth removed, Akaashi, of course it will. You’re lucky you only had to get your bottom teeth removed,” he says gently, as he for once fears being too loud will be detrimental to Akaashi’s well-being.
Akaashi blinks at him, then declares, in a muffled whisper- it seems opening his mouth too wide hurts- “you should kiss it better.”
“I- I should what?” Bokuto wheezes, and slams his head into the roof of the car. “Akaashi, maybe you should rest a little.”
“I am resting,” Akaashi insists. “I’m looking at the ducks.”
What’s with this boy and ducks? Bokuto thinks, eyebrows furrowing. He looks around the city, but for the life of him cannot tell where Akaashi is seeing ducks. He just closes the door and walks around to his side, sliding into the seat- and then Akaashi bursts into tears.
“Akaashi! What’s wrong?” Bokuto cries out and leans across the seat, hands grabbing at Akaashi’s shoulders, for they are now shaking with silent sobs.
“I wanted Bokuto-senpai to sit next to me,” Akaashi whispers, and looks at him through red eyes. Bokuto feels immensely guilty for no apparent reason and hunkers down in his seat.
“I have to drive,” Bokuto gestures at the steering wheel and wonders if this is what Akaashi feels like dealing with his mood swings on a regular basis. He resolves to send Akaashi a fruit basket when he’s feeling up to it again. And maybe a stuffed animal in the shape of a duck, lord knows what he was on about anyway. “I’ll sit next to you when we get back home, okay?”
“Home?” Akaashi blinks at him.
“Yeah, we live together. You came to the same college as me, and since I couldn’t stay in the dorm anymore, we thought we’d move in together,” Bokuto starts the engine and pulls away from the side of the road. “Silly Akaashi. Don’t you remember?”
“If we live together,” Akaashi’s words are very slow, and almost as though he’s trying to figure out some complex puzzle. “Why do you still call me Akaashi?”
Bokuto makes a left. “What do you mean?”
“Shouldn’t you call me Keiji?”
Bokuto nearly crashes the car. “You’ve never told me you wanted me to,” he wheezes, and slows down the car. At this point, he fears if he goes any faster than this slow crawl, he’d end up killing the both of them.
“I want you to call me Keiji,” Akaashi says firmly, or as firmly as you can with gauze in your mouth.
Bokuto takes deep breaths. In, out. In, out.
“I want to call you Koutarou.”
Bokuto slams on the breaks. They stop dead in the middle of the small road, and Bokuto thanks his lucky stars that there’s no one following behind then. “Akaashi, you can’t-“
“Keiji.”
Bokuto has been in many a competition. He has stared down the likes of Ushijima with something to prove. He can handle any pressure. He was the ace of Fukurodani and he is the ace of his college and yet somehow here he is, cracking over one single solitary word. Keiji. “Keiji,” he amends, and Akaashi’s face bursts into a goofy smile that’s a bit stunted at the edges.
“Say it again.”
“Keiji,” he repeats.
Akaashi nods in agreement. “From now on, Koutarou-senpai, please call me that.”
Koutarou-senpai. Bokuto abruptly forgets how to breathe, but is suddenly startled by the loud honk behind him that reminds him he is in the middle of the road and staring at a pretty, pretty boy- who is pretty still, even with the swollen jaw.
“The ducks are coming,” Akaashi stage whispers, and looks urgently at Bokuto. “You must go."
Bokuto helps Akaashi into their flat and sits him down at the table. He makes sure he takes his meds, and drinks his water, pulls the gauze out of his mouth and throws it away. Thankfully, Akaashi seems to have mellowed out a bit, for he doesn’t resist any of Bokuto’s attempts, nor does he make any weird comments. He even drinks the cold soup Bokuto offers him without complaint.
He’s as good as drunk, Bokuto reminds himself. He has no clue what he’s doing or saying.
“Alright, Ak-Keiji,” Bokuto helps him up. “You should take a shower now, then we will get you to bed, okay?”
“Are you joining me?”
“Hah?”
“Are you joining me in the shower?” Akaashi continues, looking at him blankly, as though he hasn’t said anything out of the ordinary.
Bokuto’s head explodes. He can’t take any more of this, he can’t- his pretty setter is blinking casually at him, head slightly tilted. They’re friends, they're best friends, maybe, but they're friends. They’ve always just been friends.
Bokuto has always maintained a respectful distance between him and his pretty setter, because that’s what they were. Teammates. He could laugh and ruffle his hair and sling his arms around his shoulders but he could never hold his face or let his touch linger or look a little too long, too hard at his face.
And now that same Akaashi he always held himself back from is innocently asking him to do things he's always wanted to do. It’s torture. It’s a new brand of torture. He thought it was bad when Akaashi moved in and Bokuto could see every morning the sleepy face of his friend, with his bedhead and ill-fitting shirts, and how sometimes Akaashi would wear his shirts because he likes it when they're oversized. They would slip off his slimmer shoulders and Bokuto would have to excuse himself to scream into a pillow.
“Keiji,” Bokuto pushes him to the bathroom. “You’re really lucky I’m a nice guy. Go shower.”
Akaashi comes out the shower and turns on the television silently, so Bokuto uses the time to get a shower in himself, refusing to tug one out to Akaashi’s soft eyes and his “are you going to join me?”, because he’s a good, strong individual who doesn’t take advantage of his friends when they are hopelessly drugged up.
When he comes outside again, he’s towelling off his hair. He’d forgotten to bring in a shirt, so he steps out into the cold air of the living room without one. Akaashi’s gaze swivels towards him, but Bokuto gets the feeling he’s not really looking at him at all.
“Koutarou-senpai, where are you?” he asks, and Bokuto blinks at him dumbly.
“I’m right here,” he disappears into his room and pulls on a shirt before coming out again. He pokes Akaashi in the forehead when the man doesn’t register his presence again.
“Where?”
“Right here?” Bokuto raises an eyebrow.
“Where?”
“You’re looking at my face, Keiji,” Bokuto takes his hand and places it on the side of his face. He shudders; his hand is warm and calloused from years of volleyball.
“That’s not your face. It’s flat,” Akaashi says matter-of-factly. “Koutarou doesn’t have a flat face.”
“I…” Bokuto is dumbfounded. Is it his hair…? He doesn’t have his hair up anymore now that he’s washed it.
“Your hair is dark too. It looks like the bag we use for our trashcans,” Akaashi pets his face and leans in close to whisper conspiringly into his ear. “I didn’t know trashcans could talk.”
“Aghkaaaashi,” he whines, and knocks his forehead against his. “You’re being both very mean and very sweet to me right now. I can’t handle this. C’mon, let’s go to bed.”
Bokuto half carries, half drags him to his room, but as he opens the door and helps him into the room, Akaashi pulls his face down close and says, “will you bring back Koutarou? I like him.”
“You do?” Bokuto is oddly touched. Sometimes, he worries that all he’s doing for Akaashi is annoying him; he’s too loud and too angry, he screams in his sleep and has a hard time focusing.
“Yes,” Akaashi nods. “I love him a lot. Will you tell him I said goodnight?”
Bokuto nearly drops the poor man. He settles instead for sitting him gently onto his bed and smiling. “I’ll let him know. I’m sure he loves you too.”
Akaashi smiles at him; if his jaw hadn’t been swollen up, one might even say he was beaming. “Thank you, trashcan-san.”
A muscle twitches in Bokuto’s cheek, but he doesn’t say anything, just turns out the light and closes the door.
“Morning, Keiji,” Bokuto yawns as he troops out of his room and sits himself down at the table. “How’re you feeling?”
When there’s no reply from the other boy, Bokuto blinks his eyes open blearily and sees a swollen-faced Akaashi staring at him, completely red.
“What is it?” Bokuto rubs the sleep out of his eyes and gets up to grab a cup. “You bite yoursel-“
Oh. Ohh. Bokuto drops his cup into the sink, but thankfully it doesn’t smash. Right. Akaashi probably remembers nothing of last night, which means he doesn’t remember asking him to call him Keiji.
The awkward silence is horribly long.
“Um,” he says, and turns to Akaashi, clutching the mug a little too tightly. “You…yesterday, you asked me to call you by your first name. When you were…out of it. And you wanted to call me Koutarou and I-“
“I’m sorry,” Akaashi bows his head slightly. “That must’ve been rude of me to presume, Bokuto-san.”
His heart pangs, a feeling of inexplicable loss. “No, no, I don’t mind. I’ll call you Keiji if you want,” Bokuto rubs the back of his head. “It was quite nice for you to call me Koutarou too. I mean, we’ve been friends for a while. Best friends, y’know!”
Akaashi is still completely, adorably red. “I don't think I could get used to it. What else did I say last night? I don’t remember anything.”
“You talked a lot about ducks,” Bokuto wonders if he should say anything about the love you part. On one hand, it was something he did say. On the other hand, it felt strangely…personal. Bokuto wants to keep that memory to himself.
Akaashi blinks. “Ducks?”
“Yeah,” Bokuto stirs his coffee and sits back at the table, playing around with his spoon. “And um…”
Ah, he’s really cute when he’s all red, Bokuto thinks fondly as he sees Akaashi look down at the ground, scuffing his feet on their floor. Their floor. What a riot, that he’s managed to be here six months and not jump Akaashi’s bones truly spoke of his character and restraint.
I love him a lot. Will you tell him I said goodnight?
Bokuto smiles. It’s a soft one that doesn’t split his face as it usually does, and he once again swings back out of his chair and crosses the room in two swift strides. “Make sure you take your medicine, okay? Eat a little bread; you can’t take your antibiotics on an empty stomach,” he says gently, and pushes Akaashi’s fringe out of the way.
He presses a kiss to his forehead; Akaashi splutters, gasps and squeezes his eyes shut simultaneously in an adorable display of emotions.
“I love you too,” Bokuto grins proudly at him. “I’ll kiss you properly when you’re better.”
Akaashi blinks up at him, his mouth turning down at the corners slightly, making it look like he’s pouting. It’s another sight Bokuto burns into his brain.
Akaashi moves his hands up to cover his face in shame. “I’m never letting you pick me up from my appointments again,” he says, and Bokuto feigns hurt.
“But it was the best thing I’ve ever seen, Keiji! You were all, oh, I want to call you Koutarou-senpai and I love him a lot. Is that what you’re like when you’re drunk? We should get you drunk more often, then,” Bokuto says fondly and ruffles his hair once more. “You even asked me to join you in the shower.”
Akaashi squeaks.
Bokuto grins.
“I mean, that can definitely be arranged,” he continues blithely, grinning at how red the tips of his ears are getting. “I’m sure you wanna see all this,” he gestures at himself. “Dripping wet and-“
“Koutarou,” the use of his first name effectively shuts him up. “Please stop talking.”
“Offended and hurt, Keiji, that is a black mark in my books,” Bokuto presses a kiss to his head and meanders off back to his coffee. “I’ll have you know I’m irresistible.”
“I know,” Akaashi deadpans.
Bokuto blinks at him, and then it’s his turn to blush. Akaashi’s smug look makes up for it, though.