Chapter Text
The sound of pencil scratching on paper was the only noise surrounding, save for the obnoxious rattling of the air conditioner and the occasional creaking as Kenma leaned back on his chair in the back room.
Bokuto’s tongue caught between his lips and he leaned back, examining the doodle, before leaning back against the counter and fixing again.
The front door opened and the little bell jingled to alert them of a new arrival.
“Fear not my friends,” Kuroo announced. “Your savior has arrived.”
Bokuto barely looked up from his intense concentration. “‘Bout time, Kubro.”
“Oh shut your trap, Bendy,” Kuroo sneered, dropping the bag of their lunches on the counter and throwing a meatball sandwich at him, landing it right under his nose. “The ink machine isn’t running right now.”
“Hm, that’s strange,” Kenma said, clicking away on his phone and using his tongue to play with his lip piercing as he focused. “It was never turned on in the first place.”
“You shut your mouth too,” Kuroo said, pointing at the blonde and tossing a sandwich at him, landing perfectly in his lap and effectively making him lose focus. “Eat your food or else I’ll eat you.”
“Patience is a virtue,” Kenma said, slowly unwrapping the sandwich and nibbling at it. His eyes never left the screen. “You obviously don't have any.”
“So cruel,” Kuroo sarcastically pouted, then looked over at his co-artist, resting his chin on his shoulder. “Whatcha doin’? Your attention span is that of a fish, what’s so interesting?”
Bokuto hardly acknowledged him, fully absorbed in this sketch. “New design I thought of,” he said, wiping away the eraser shavings. He tapped the pencil on his bottom lip. It was the beginning of a very intricate masterpiece of an owl hidden beneath a bed of sunflowers, with its eyes and some feathers peeking through a gap in the flowers. The petals of the flowers slowly dispersed to nothing as if the wind had carried them away. “It’s not done.”
“I think it looks fantastic,” Kuroo said, shrugging and walking to eat his lunch.
“I’m missing something,” Bokuto whined, leaning back on the counter.
“You’ll figu’ it out,” Kuroo said through a massive bite of food. “You alwa’s do.”
“Eloquence is not your virtue either.”
“Will ‘ou s’op it, ‘enma!” Kuroo yelled with his mouth full.
—
“We’ve got a walk-in coming in,” Kuroo called out, putting the phone down after hanging up. “I call dibs.”
“Come on, you always get the walk-ins!” Bokuto cried, reorganizing his station. Kuroo stuck his tongue out at Bokuto, knowing it would only antagonize him into returning it.
“Stop, you’re literally 4 years old,” Kenma groaned.
“Oh how you wound me, Kenma,” Kuroo said sarcastically, holding his heart just as the bell to the door jingled, letting them know that their walk-in arrived. Kuroo, however, did not care. “I’ll stop when I get this idiot to shut his trap!” he said, pointing at his silver-haired coworker.
Bokuto pulled his eyelid with his middle finger and stuck his tongue out. “Just try it!”
“Excuse me?”
Both the bickering tattoo artists stopped and turned.
“You the walk-in?” Kuroo asked, leaning against the front desk. Bokuto stared at the guy standing at the counter. He was...beautiful to say the least. His eyes were dark and intense and Bokuto felt his chest clench when their eyes met. He felt like a glass door, like he suddenly knew everything about him just by glancing at him. His dark hair framed his face in a messy, beach-curls sort of way that was completely endearing to Bokuto. Bokuto clenched his jaw and shook his thoughts away. Client, client, client! He’s a client!
The guy nodded and Kuroo grinned, sticking his tongue out at Bokuto again who narrowed his eyes.
“You,” he pointed at Kuroo threateningly. “You stop that.”
“What are you gonna do, ‘Bo-chan’?” Kuroo said, mocking their last customer.
“I will deface your precious selfie with Kenma,” he said.
Kuroo gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
Bokuto grinned. “I would.” They had a face off for a few seconds before Bokuto took off running to the back room.
Kuroo chased after him. “Hey! Get back here you piece of—!”
Kenma watched them and sighed, putting his phone away and taking Kuroo’s place at the front desk. “I’m sorry about them,” he said, “They’re incredible artists, they're just childish. Name?”
“Akaashi Keiji,” He replied, his eyes over the blonde’s shoulder, watching the two in the backroom wrestle over a small photograph.
“And what would you like done?”
“Oh,” he said, jerking his gaze away and pulling a little napkin doodle out of his pocket. “Just something like this.”
The blonde nodded, taking the doodle. “Let me go wrangle one of the artists, excuse me.” And he disappeared into the backroom.
Kenma snatched the picture out of Bokuto’s hand and stuffed it in his pocket. Without saying a word, he grabbed Kuroo’s apron and dragged him to the front of the store and left him there to sit back down on his chair.
A grin spread across the dark haired artist’s face. “I’m Kuroo, I’ll be tattooing you today,” he grinned, jamming his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll get this printed for ya and we’ll get right to it, yeah?”
Akaashi couldn’t help but think ‘are all tattoo shops like this?’
After a few minutes, Kuroo had the design edited, printed and transferred into purple ink on Akaashi’s forearm.
“Ever had a tattoo before?” Akaashi shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt, just feels like scratching a sunburn. You’ll get used to it.”
From behind Kuroo, the other artist emerged from the backroom, humming to the music and cleaning his station. He wore a black t-shirt that showed off a full sleeve of tattoos up his right arm and the tattoos down his neck that disappeared under the collar of his shirt. He had small gauges and a septum ring too. His hair was spiked up and dyed silver with streaks of black. Somehow, Akaashi couldn’t imagine him with any other hairstyle than that.
Akaashi looked away but found himself admiring his back again. His shoulders were broad and the ratio of shoulders to waist was enough to make Akaashi weak. His sleeves were tight against his muscles, so much so he almost felt bad for the poor seams.
As much as Akaashi hated to admit, he admired his ass a few times too. He couldn't help it, the rest of him was so…Akaashi shook himself mentally. Akaashi forced himself to look away at the scenery around. The man was working and Akaashi didn’t have the time in his life for another person.
After about 15 minutes, Kuroo grinned when he caught Akaashi’s eyes gazing over his shoulder as his coworker for the third time. “Hey Bo,” he called, drawing the silver haired artist’s gaze like a puppy standing to attention. “Come ‘ere a sec’.” The man bounded over happily, humming some song and leaning over Kuroo’s shoulder. “Can you take over? My hand’s cramping real bad, I don’t wanna mess up the lettering.”
“Sure!” He said cheerily, sitting and pulling gloves on before taking the gun from Kuroo’s hands. Internally, Bokuto was rolling on the floor screaming ‘Kuroo don’t do this to me!’ “Haven’t I told you to stretch your wrists more? You’re so careless.”
“Not my fault I got bad muscles,” Kuroo said, disappearing into the back room. Kenma held up a fist and Kuroo bumped it as he passed. Bokuto couldn’t help but glare at them. Of course Kenma caught Bokuto staring. They conspired against him! The betrayal!
Beside him, Akaashi’s mind was a whirlwind of ‘oh fuck…’ and ‘did I do something? He didn’t seem like his hand was cramped, did he see me staring? What if he did?! What if he knows?! Does he even know I was staring at him?! Oh god what have I gotten myself into…’
“Hey, hey, hey! Sorry for the sudden change of vibe,” the new man beamed. “I’m Bokuto Koutarou, pleased to be inking you.”
“Akaashi Keiji,” Akaashi said. Bokuto grinned, pulling Akaashi’s arm with a gloved hand closer to him on the stand. He was pretty, like...really pretty. Way prettier up close, he was almost scared to touch him. His eyes were the first thing Bokuto met, sharp and observant but dark and thoughtful. Bokuto felt nervous sitting next to him, which felt strange considering he’d never felt like that next to a customer. God why did Kuroo leave him on his own like this...
Bokuto realized he was staring off into space for a little bit and shook himself out of it, before looking at what he was tattooing. It was only three or four inches long across his arm just below the fold of his elbow on his forearm. A sprig of lavender and a small butterfly. The words below read ‘I’d never ask you to change’ in oddly neat handwriting but not nearly neat enough to be typed. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was handwritten by someone that meant a lot to him.
Bokuto smiled when he saw it. “Cute,” he said, before his brain caught up with what he just said. “I-I mean it’s nice! I like the simplicity and the-the words are cute—“
“Thank you,” Akaashi said, cutting him off.
Bokuto’s grin slowly returned before he nodded, “I-it’s cute, I like it…” Akaashi felt his ears burn but he refused to let a reaction show on his face. Bokuto caught sight of Kuroo at the desk who shook his head at him, mouthing ‘smooth, bro.’ Bokuto shot a look at him.
“My grandmother’s favorite flower was lavender,” he said, as if he had to justify himself. Like Bokuto had room to judge, the dude tattooing him was covered in tattoos from his right wrist to his neck, complete with 11 millimeter gauges and a nose piercing. Bokuto didn't say anything and started the tattoo gun up, feeling the familiar buzz in his hand. “She loved watching little cabbage whites fly around the butterfly bush.”
“Oh! That’s so cute!”
Akaashi felt his blush burn a little more. The more he said ‘cute’ the more Akaashi wanted to melt into the seat, but he smiled anyway. “That was her response when I opened up about an important part of my life to her. I just stitched together letters from various cards to make the sentence.”
“I get the feeling she’s passed on?”
Akaashi nodded, looking out the window as he started tattooing. It took everything Akaashi had to not study his face, so he focused on the surroundings of the room. There were shelves of materials and tools on top of picture frames, and there were quite a few plants around. Pasted on one of the walls were lots of oddly cryptic doodles on receipt paper, definitely the work of the two artists. There was no way the other artists that worked there were behind a drawing of Mike Wazowski with extremely buff arms and legs with the words ‘snitches don't get bitches so shut you traps’ under it.
Aside from the cryptic drawings, there was soft music playing. It was very different from what Akaashi would have thought they would listen to, especially given their appearances. Bokuto was humming to the song next to him gently, it was a pleasant sound to soothe the dull pain in his arm from the tattoo gun. The gentle music was suddenly paused and was switched to a far more familiar song with a popular tune. Bokuto stopped and looked up at Kuroo who had a shit eating grin on his face, pointing at Bokuto.
“You know what to do, Bendy,” he said.
Bokuto laughed excitedly, looking back down at his work. Akaashi glanced between them confused at what he was about to experience.
“Put the gun down, it’s sing-along time!” Kuroo said, snatching the phone away from the guy in the back room and dragging him to the front. “Come on, Kenma, it’s more entertaining this way.”
Bokuto didn’t put the gun down, but his face settled into a smile which seemed to be his default setting. It didn’t bother Akaashi, his smile was rather contagious.
Kuroo kicked his feet up on the counter as the other guy leaned against the wall, eyeing his phone in Kuroo’s pocket. “His favorite Disney song is Kiss The Girl from the Little Mermaid and he will sing it every time.”
Akaashi glanced over at the artist and showed hints of a smile when Bokuto started singing it. He did not lose focus on the tattoo at the same time. He sang with his head down and his eyes downcast, as if hiding his face from Akaashi. His voice slowly faded to a soft hum as his concentration took over.
“I can't hear you, Kou!” Kuroo teased, fully enjoying the torment of his artist friend.
“Sha la la la la la la la, my oh my, look like the boy’s too shy!” Bokuto suddenly yelled, throwing his head back as he lifted the gun off Akaashi’s skin, causing Akaashi to jump. Kuroo cackled like a hyena and Kenma snorted as Bokuto continued the chorus at that obnoxious volume, pointing annoyingly at Kuroo as if to say ‘you asked for this.’ “Go on and KISS THE GIRL!”
Kuroo paused his cackling to add in the ‘woah, woah’ before Bokuto’s obnoxiously loud singing continued. Kuroo fell back into laughter, nearly falling off his chair and the blonde behind the counter chuckled a little at Kuroo.
The loud volume continued until the song was over and their usual calm, gentle music returned. Bokuto did an exaggerated bow as Kuroo and Kenma clapped.
Bokuto laughed with a dorky smile on his face and a light color in his cheeks. Akaashi wouldn’t say his voice was bad, his voice would definitely sound very nice if he had been trying. Despite that, he quite enjoyed the performance. It was amusing to say the least. After that whole performance, he suddenly felt comfortable with the three. It felt like he was just hanging out with friends, especially with Bokuto. This was definitely different from what he’d ever imagine a tattoo shop being like, let alone the artists. He expected alternative music at least, maybe intense stares from the artists at least. Maybe this was what tattoo shops were like and Akaashi was stereotyping...
Akaashi studied the tattoos all over Bokuto’s body, namely the ones on his right arm uncovered by his shirt. His eyes landed on one of a volleyball and a jersey that said the number four.
“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said. Bokuto’s gaze snapped up at the honorific, his heart nearly in his throat. So polite… “Did you play volleyball?”
Bokuto blinked before nodding furiously and a somehow brighter smile. Akaashi didn’t think that was possible. “Still do!”
“Really?”
“Yup!” He said, refilling the black ink in the gun. “I play for the Black Jackals, working here was just a job I picked up to fill the gap between high school and tryouts for the Jackals. I liked working here as an intern, and was eventually offered a tattooing position and decided to take it. There’s enough tattooers here to cover for me when I go for practice and away games and the shop is only open from 12pm to 4pm, so it’s not like I miss a ton of work,” he rambled, obviously enjoying talking about both work and volleyball. Akaashi was familiar with the Black Jackals, as one of his friends was on the team as well. He never expected to run into one of Hinata’s teammates in a tattoo shop. “Sometimes people will recognize me from recent games but most of the time the people coming in aren’t volleyball fanatics.”
“Did you play in high school?”
He scoffed. “Of course I did!” He said, jabbing a thumb at Kuroo. “Both Kuroo and Kenma did too. They were on a different team from me, but we played against each other a lot.”
“That’s interesting,” he replied thoughtfully.
“What about you?”
“I played in high school,” Akaashi said, drawing the artist’s gaze again. “I never continued my volleyball career, but I do still enjoy it.”
“That’s cool!” He said with a grin. “What do you do now?”
“I’m a storyboard artist for a film studio,” he replied. “Not a very well known one, but it’s fun. I enjoy it.”
“So you’re an artist too? That’s awesome!” He cried, way louder than necessary. The corners of Akaashi’s mouth tipped up slightly at his enthusiasm and they fell into silence for the next half hour.
“All done!” Bokuto finally said, putting a clear plastic sticker over the tattoo and patting it proudly. “Uncover that in 2 to 3 days and apply ointment to it constantly to keep it from getting dry and itchy. Some of the ink will flake off, but don’t worry! That’s normal!”
“Thank you,” Akaashi said, looking at the black ink on his arm. He smiled looking at it, remembering his grandmother.
“Come back if you want a touch up,” he grinned brightly. “Or if you want another!”