Work Text:
When Akaashi got the acceptance letter for his top choice school, he expected to be overjoyed. It wasn’t that he wasn’t excited. Of all the schools he’d applied to, they had the best program for his desired course of study, with excellent connections to the biggest publishing houses and literary magazines. He would be well-placed to find a job after graduating. It was also fairly centrally located in the city, a short train ride away from anything he could need or want. Honestly, he was relieved, since the program was very selective, and he absolutely wanted to go.
There was just one tiny, little problem. It was a silly thing that should have been a non-factor but it consumed Akaashi’s thoughts until he worried he would dislocate his fingers from tugging on them so much. Perhaps “little” was not the right word to use. The thing and the source of the thing had grown so large in a year. Akaashi thought he had a handle on it, but sitting there across from him in the diner they’d spent many evenings after a grueling practice, golden eyes bright and glistening above a chest that was somehow even broader than Akaashi remembered, was Bokuto Koutaro. Fukurodani’s former ace, Akaashi’s best friend, and also his big fat crush.
“You got into Meiji?” Bokuto howled with glee. “That’s awesome! I’m so proud of you, ‘Kaashi!”
Akaashi nodded, feeling the heat in his cheeks and hoping the older boy took it for excitement and not the furious blush at the praise from his former senpai. “Thank you, Bokuto-san.” He’d told him about the other schools too, but of course he would focus on the one school that meant something to both of them.
“Ah, you’re so smart! It’s no wonder they want you!” He slurped his milkshake loudly. Akaashi stifled a chuckle. Some things had not changed in the year since Bokuto graduated. “You’re gonna come, right?” His eyes lit up and Akaashi forced down the urge to smile like a giddy schoolgirl. “It’d be so cool if we were back at the same school together!”
Akaashi absently twirled his straw in his glass. He would be lying to himself if he said Bokuto’s presence on Meiji’s volleyball team wasn’t a major pull, but he couldn’t imagine the spiker would be too keen on him following him there. He certainly wouldn’t want some former kouhai hanging around all his new college friends and teammates just because they had been close in high school. “You don’t think it’d be weird?” he asked, surprised at how small his own voice sounded.
“Eh? Akaashi, it’s your dream school! There’s no way it could be weird!” The tightness in his chest abated at Bokuto’s earnest reply. He didn’t know why he was so tense. It wasn’t like they’d gone radio silent after Bokuto graduated. They still texted most days. Mostly Bokuto excitedly recounting his practices and the classes he was taking and sharing pictures of neat things he’d seen on campus. The past year hadn’t really been all that different from the two before, come to think of it.
“OH!” Akaashi jumped at Bokuto’s sudden shout. “If you come to Meiji, we could totally room together!”
His hand froze, straw pausing in its circuitous route through the remaining creamy dregs of his milkshake. The sounds of clinking silverware and people chatting and the bustle of the kitchen all faded away behind the rush of blood in his ears. It took a solid five seconds for his heart to start beating again and he remembered to breathe. “You want me to live with you?” he asked, keeping his voice as level as he could.
“It’d be so fun, right?” Bokuto smiled so brightly Akaashi knew there was nothing he could do against the star’s gravitational pull.
Which is how he found himself, two months later, lugging boxes up two flights of stairs into a dingy two-bedroom apartment two blocks away from campus. Bokuto had offered to bring them up, but Akaashi insisted he was more than capable of carrying his things himself. He hadn’t lost all his own muscle in the few months since retiring from the volleyball team. Bokuto had been disappointed when Akaashi told him he wouldn’t have time to try out for the team, but he made Akaashi promise to still play with him at least once in a while.
Despite his insistence, Bokuto still ended up bringing the last few boxes up for him while he took a short break for water in their cozy kitchen. It was a good thing, too, because when Bokuto walked by with the box full of his books Akaashi’s throat went dry at the sight of the spiker’s arms straining with the heavy burden. He simultaneously regretted not letting Bokuto carry more of his things as well as ever having agreed to move in with the man in the first place.
He'd thought he could get over his infatuation in a year of separation, but standing in the kitchen he would be sharing with his crush for at least the next year, flushing like a love-struck high schooler (which he supposed he wasn’t too far removed from), he was the physical representation of the old adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Not for the first time, the thought came to him that this was a bad idea. Why had he ever agreed to this?
He went through a mental checklist of pros to the arrangement. It was cheaper to split the rent in an apartment than to live alone. They were already familiar with one another, so there would be no awkward “getting to know you” phase like there might be with a randomly assigned college roommate. Bokuto could show him around and help him get familiarized with the new area faster than he could learn it on his own. He really wanted to be close to Bokuto again.
Wait, no, that was the opposite of a pro. That was exactly why he should not have agreed. His traitorous heart would not survive such proximity. He was going to slip up and do or say something embarrassing and ruin their friendship forever.
A week into their cohabitation, Akaashi became convinced he’d made the wrong decision. There was no fight, no serious offense or grand revelation, but he was sure he would not survive at any rate. Not without some ground rules. Because when Bokuto emerged from the bathroom after a post-practice shower clad in nothing but a towel, Akaashi nearly choked on his takeout.
“Whoa, hey, careful there!” Bokuto rushed to his side to clap his back and dislodge the errant grains that Akaashi had involuntarily inhaled. “No need to rush,” he laughed.
“Sorry,” Akaashi coughed. “I was…distracted.” He chugged his bottle of water to give himself time to get his erratic heart under control before leveling his roommate with a stern gaze. “Bokuto-san, please be more modest around the apartment.”
“Huh?” He glanced down at his own body, naked save for the crisp white linen cinched tightly to his waist and leaving nothing to the imagination. He tilted his head with a quirked eyebrow. “What’s the big deal? It’s not like you’ve never seen me after a shower before.”
That was true. He’d seen Bokuto in nothing but his skin hundreds of times. Still, it wasn’t the same. How did a person get so much broader in just a year? Akaashi hadn’t slacked off either, but he was all lean muscle, fine tone, where Bokuto just bulked in places Akaashi didn’t even know could bulk. And everything from his arms to his chest to his abs were far more defined than they had been in high school. In short, he was cut like a Greek statue.
He was not about to say any of that out loud, of course. Instead what he said was, “We are no longer teammates. This is our apartment, not the locker room. It would be bad if you got in the habit of walking around like that in case we ever have guests.”
Bokuto’s lips scrunched to the side, like he didn’t quite buy what Akaashi was saying, but in the end he agreed. Akaashi’s heart was granted a reprieve.
Aside from the rule against nudity in common areas, they also set up a cooking and cleaning schedule. Their class schedules were full enough they really only saw each other in the evenings or the few times a week they met up for lunch. On rare occasions, Akaashi would stop by the gym to watch the volleyball team practice. He could do his assigned readings just as easily from the bleachers as he could in the library or on his couch. It only hurt a little watching Bokuto fly on the court without him. He was the star who would go on to achieve greatness. Akaashi would make his own greatness off the court.
Their busy schedules really were a blessing for him. He didn’t have time to dwell on his persistent infatuation with his roommate, and he only had to deal with a handful of love-related crises in the first month. It was going into the second month when he had to deal with a crisis of a different sort. One he hadn’t encountered in over a year.
He felt the shift one Sunday afternoon when they were in the kitchen doing meal prep for the week. Usually he was hyper aware of Bokuto on these days anyway, because they were so incredibly domestic it twisted Akaashi’s insides and threatened his rational sensibilities. It had gotten a little better, week after week, but he still sensed every motion, every breath, every minute detail that came with proximity. For one thing, Bokuto hadn’t bothered to style his hair. In itself, that wasn’t odd. He sometimes left it down if they had nowhere to be. But paired with the serious set of his eyebrows, the tension in his jaw, Akaashi knew immediately he was dejected about something.
His suspicions were confirmed when he turned to collect the vegetables Bokuto was chopping, only to find him staring blankly ahead with the knife stilled on the cutting board, the pepper only half sliced. “Bokuto-san?” The spiker jumped and nearly dropped the blade. “Careful!”
“Sorry! Sorry,” he cried, gently setting the knife on the counter.
“Is everything alright?”
Bokuto pursed his lips as he thought how to answer. He sighed. “It’s stupid.”
Akaashi took the knife and nudged him aside so he could finish chopping the peppers. “If it’s bothering you, it isn’t stupid.”
“You’ll change your mind once I say it,” he muttered. Akaashi gave him a sideways glance, and he flinched apologetically. He eyed the knife in Akaashi’s hands warily. He spoke again once the vegetables were cut and the knife was safely out of reach. “I just feel like I never see you anymore. I know,” he said, raising his palms in a placating gesture as Akaashi opened his mouth to retort. “I know we live together, and it’s great, really. But I just feel like, in spite of that, we don’t spend as much time together as we did in high school. Like I said. It’s stupid, but I miss you. I miss us.”
Akaashi’s heart hammered in his ears. Bokuto missed him? He swallowed the affection that welled up within him. He supposed it made sense. The same busy schedule he was grateful for had the opposite effect on Bokuto. “It’s not stupid,” he said, washing the chopped vegetables again to give his hands something to do.
Bokuto’s arms were folded across his chest and he was looking away with a frown. Akaashi hated that look. It meant he wasn’t really listening to what Akaashi was saying. His eyes were focused on his gym bag near the couch and he tilted his head as he considered it. “Hey Akaashi? Will you come toss for me for a bit?”
Akaashi followed his gaze. His fingers twitched at the thought of holding a volleyball again. Of tossing for Bokuto again. How long had it been? “Okay,” he said.
Ten minutes later they were at the park up the road from their apartment complex. Akaashi took a couple passes to get back in the feel of it, but then he was tossing like he’d never quit. Bokuto slammed every ball over the net like it was match point in a championship game. It thrilled Akaashi to see how much his form had improved from so close, but something was still off. There was no celebration, none of the usual glee he had when he hit a perfect spike.
After about twenty minutes of near-silent spiking, he heaved a sigh with his hands on his knees. “Yup,” he grinned, finally, though it wasn’t all cheer. “Your tosses are still the best.”
Akaashi frowned. There was still something bothering Bokuto that he didn’t seem to want to talk about. “Bokuto-san?”
He waved him off as he walked over to a nearby bench to rest for a moment. Akaashi followed him and waited.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last, and Akaashi’s chest tightened. “I shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you to come here. I understand if you hate me for it.” His shrugged shoulders made him look so small, which was an impressive feat. Bokuto was always so impressive. “It was selfish of me to expect you to follow me. I just thought, I dunno. I was excited when you said you got accepted here. And I really missed you and I had hoped you missed me too.” He scratched at his nose while continuing to avoid looking directly at Akaashi. It was adorably endearing. “I’d always thought maybe there was something more between us, and that when I left those feelings would go away. But when they didn’t, I had hoped that maybe this could be a new start for us.”
Akaashi listened calmly to every word. His heart swelled with an overabundance of fondness and melted all his nervousness away. Somehow, it was very Bokuto-like to make an apology sound like a confession. “Bokuto-san, forgive me, but you’re an idiot.” The taller man’s head snapped toward him with wide-eyed shock. Akaashi smiled and the shock turned to fluster. “Need I remind you that I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions?” Bokuto shrugged sheepishly and looked away with a pout. “I really am in the best program for my studies. You know Meiji was always my first choice. You being here was not the sole factor in my decision, but it is certainly a nice bonus.”
Bokuto’s eyes kept darting to the side to look at him, but he remained facing forward instead of turning to look at him directly. “So, you don’t hate me?”
Akaashi chuckled, feeling warmth spread across his face as Bokuto’s ears reddened. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
At that, Bokuto did finally look at him. All the uncertainty fell off him as the tension finally left his shoulders. “Oh.”
“Perhaps we are both idiots,” Akaashi grinned. After all, he hadn’t even noticed his best friend was just as enamored with him as he was.
“Yeah, I guess we are.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a small smile. His eyes brightened again and he finally resembled his normal self as he offered his hand to Akaashi. “Wanna talk about it over dinner?”
Akaashi reached out and grasped Bokuto’s hand, lacing their fingers together like they were made to fit. “I’d like that, very much.” As Bokuto gave their hands a gentle squeeze and led them home, Akaashi was finally convinced his decision had been right all along.