Work Text:
Bokuto Koutaro is 28 when he announces his retirement from professional volleyball in a heartfelt Twitter post, thanking his teams and his fans for a wonderful 8 years. He tells them how proud he is of his career and asks for their continued support as he moves forward toward other pursuits. He expresses his hopes for the next generation and wishes everyone well, signing off with his signature catchphrase.
Over the next several days, he goes through the motions of meeting with his management, his team, reporters and fans. He does several interviews, a sort of farewell tour his agent set up to help transition him out of the spotlight, and he answers their questions with as much grace and professionalism as he always has. He’s boisterous and charming and he consoles them with jokes and smiles. He deflects when they ask about his future plans, only says he’s taking some time to be with friends and family. They ask if he has any regrets. He reiterates that he’s proud of his career and grateful for the opportunities it afforded him. They thank him for his time, for both the interview and the decade of exciting volleyball.
He thinks about the regret question when he’s back at his apartment unpacking the boxes of gifts from fans and arranging the trophies and medals he’d finally brought home after emptying his locker. He really wouldn’t change anything about the course of his life, but there is one thing he wishes he still had. One person he let go even though he hadn’t wanted to. He wouldn’t let himself call it regret though, because it was what Akaashi had wanted. How could he regret a choice that wasn’t entirely his? They had agreed to break things off to focus on their own careers. He had no right to hold Akaashi back from his dreams, and he certainly didn’t have the right to ask him to wait for him as he barreled on towards his own future.
That didn’t mean he didn’t miss him at times.
He pulls his phone out to check his upcoming schedule. He still has his endorsement contracts and a few charity events lined up. A text pops up on his screen from one of his teammates reminding him of the party they’re throwing him and asking if he’s going to be bringing anyone special. The innocuous question sets off a chain of emotions in his chest. Bitterness, because they must know he hasn’t been on a date in months. Curiosity, as he considers who he could invite on short notice. Resignation, as he decides he isn’t even interested in entertaining a date to an event where he’d be the center of attention and pulled in a dozen directions, leaving any potential date to fend for themselves most of the night. He reconsiders while scrolling through his contacts and passes Konoha’s name. His former high school partner was always a blast at parties, and he wouldn’t have any romantic expectations.
Thinking about high school inevitably brings a vision of dark curls and hooded eyes to the forefront of his mind, though. Someone special. He scrolls further until he hovers his thumb over Akaashi’s contact card. It’s been 5 years since they last spoke. The last Bokuto had heard, he was on his way to being a big shot editor at a small publishing house that was on the rise. Konoha was as good for gossip as he was for parties. He shakes his head and shoots a text to the former spiker after all.
Konoha responds immediately, refusing to miss what’s sure to be the biggest bash of the volleyball world. Bokuto tells his pro teammates he’s bringing a friend and gets the rest of the details. They tease him for not being able to find a date, which does not help him stop thinking about Akaashi. After a night of revelry he only half remembers the next morning, he resolves to stop being a coward and reach out.
His phone sits on the island in his kitchen, open to his Contacts, Akaashi Keiji centered on the screen. Bokuto stands several inches away with his arms folded across his chest and a look of fierce concentration on his face. “It’s just a text, Kou. You have literally sent millions of texts in your life. You have sent Akaashi millions of texts in your life.” He places his palms flat on either side of the device and exhales. “So you haven’t talked to him in five years. So what? That doesn’t mean you aren’t still friends.” He sighs, folding over himself and resting his cheek on the cool granite, staring at the sleek frame of the mobile. “He just hasn’t called or texted because he knows you’ve been busy. He probably doesn’t hate you.”
He snaps upright again, planting his fists on his hips. “He’s probably just waiting for you to text him first. You’ve always reached out first. You’ve got this.” His fingers dance in the air, hovering just above the black screen. He bites back a groan as he unlocks the device again and opens the message icon on Akaashi’s contact card. His heart beats an erratic rhythm against his ribcage as his thumbs fly over the keyboard. He already decided he was going to do this and once he starts typing, he doesn’t give himself time to think or back out. He hits SEND without even proofreading it, praying he hasn’t made any egregious errors. Cautiously, he peeks at the message.
To: Akaashi Keiji
From: Bokuto Koutaro
Subject: Hey, hey, hey!
Akaashi! Long time, no talk! How are you? I’m great! You probably heard already, but I retired from professional volleyball the other day. They threw me a huge party. Konoha came out! I’ve missed him. I miss everyone from the old team. We got talking about you. Congrats on the promotion, btw! Anyway, I have a lot of free time now and I was wondering, if you’re ever free, if you maybe wanted to grab a coffee sometime? Catch up? It’d be so great to see you again. Let me know! -Bo
He sets the phone down and sinks into the stool at the island. As far as first contact goes, it isn’t bad. He hopes it doesn’t sound terribly desperate. He tries not to let his leg shake while he waits for a response. He tries not to obsessively check his phone for a response either; it’s early enough in the day, Akaashi might be busy at work. He tries not to think about how Akaashi hasn’t reached out either.
Bokuto reminds himself that it isn’t in Akaashi’s nature to make the first move. With the sole exception of their breakup, Bokuto had been the one to initiate everything in their relationship. He had confessed first, right after graduation. He hadn’t wanted to go off to university without Akaashi knowing how he felt, how he was glad to have had the best setter for two years of his life and how he was head over heels, stupidly in love. He hadn’t expected Akaashi’s furious blush, and it only endeared him to Bokuto even more when he stammered an admonishment for keeping him waiting so long before confessing. They made the most of the brief time they had before Bokuto left. That summer was the best of his life.
His phone still hasn’t gone off so he decides to burn off his excess energy with a quick run. It helps to clear his head of thoughts of high school and old flames and by the time he’s walking his cooldown laps around his building he’s forgotten why he went for the run in the first place. He takes a lengthy shower just because he has the time now. When he emerges, running a towel through his damp hair, the notification light on his phone is blinking.
He nearly slips on the smooth hardwood in his haste to check the alert. His heart soars when he sees Akaashi has replied.
To: Bokuto Koutaro
From: Akaashi Keiji
Subject: Re: Hey, hey, hey!
Good morning, Bokuto-san. Congratulations on a great career. It would be great to see you too. Let’s definitely catch up soon. -AK
Bokuto’s head is buzzing. Akaashi replied. Akaashi wants to catch up. Akaashi wants to see him. Bokuto isn’t even embarrassed at the loud hoot he bellows, pumping a fist triumphantly in the solitude of his apartment. The response fills him to the brim with unbridled confidence and he decides to test the waters of this tenuous reconnection.
To: Akaashi Keiji
From: Bokuto Koutaro
Subject: Re: Re: Hey, hey, hey!
Awesome! Maybe we could even go out for drinks, like old times? That would be so fun! -Bo
Again, Akaashi doesn’t answer right away. Maybe the idea of getting drinks together was too forward. Bokuto stares at his high ceiling as he thinks about the first time they got drunk together. That had been the first time Akaashi had come to visit him at school. They hadn’t seen each other in two months, one week, and five days, not that Bokuto had been counting. It was the first time they’d spent time with people other than their Fukurodani teammates. He had been so excited to introduce Akaashi to his new friends and teammates, and they welcomed him just as warmly, and a touch reverently. They were awed at how Akaashi navigated Bokuto’s eccentricities and they clamored him for tips. There were some methods he obviously could not share, trade secrets as his boyfriend and all that, but he happily told them the best thing was to just ignore Bokuto or distract him with something else. Bokuto insisted he did not still need managing, but it warmed him to see Akaashi getting along with the new people in his life.
His phone vibrates again.
To: Bokuto Koutaro
From: Akaashi Keiji
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Hey, hey, hey!
Sorry, Bokuto-san. Things are a little hectic at the office this week. Let me check my schedule and get back to you? -AK
He tries not to let the response get him down. It’s not a rejection. If Akaashi says he’ll get back to him, he will. He tells Akaashi there’s no rush and to text him any time.
Still, he also remembers the darker side of that first visit. It had been the first time they’d fought. It was Bokuto’s fault for not realizing sooner, for being so blinded by his love for Akaashi to not see how much he was hurting. He didn’t like to remember the way Akaashi had raised his voice, crying his insecurities and insisting he wasn’t good enough. He much prefers to remember the rest of the weekend after the fight, where he had spent many hours proving and convincing him otherwise.
He doesn’t hear back from Akaashi until the end of the week. He says he has a free weekend at the end of the month, but had planned on going home to visit his family. Bokuto insists he keep those plans. He figures he should visit his own family, too, and if they have time, maybe they can get together while they’re both in town. Akaashi immediately requests they make time for dinner at The Flying Tiger.
Bokuto’s heart dances in his chest. The significance of the little dive bar is not lost on him. In the early evening, they are open for dinner, the cheap bar fare attracting plenty of broke young couples and families with young kids. It’s the same place they went on their first official date.
Two weeks later, it feels like fate when he is sitting across from Akaashi Keiji in the same peeling-paint, cracked leather booth they’d shared the first time. They even order the same meals, though that could easily be chalked up to the fact that the limited menu hasn’t changed in ten years and neither have their tastes. The only difference from that first time is the beers they are now more than old enough to order.
Bokuto hasn’t stopped smiling since greeting him on the sidewalk. Akaashi is smiling too. He can’t suppress the well of hope that springs up in his chest as they talk like no time has passed between them. “You look great, Akaashi,” he sighs midway through the meal.
Akaashi glances up at him with a quirked eyebrow. His sleeves are pushed up his forearms to protect them from the grease and sauce of the massive burger in his hands hovering over his plate, his mouth full of the ravenous, too-large bite he’d taken. And yeah, ok, Bokuto could see how maybe that wasn’t the most attractive look, but he doesn’t care. He is just so happy to see Akaashi, in the flesh, smiling and joking and eating and just, still being Akaashi after all these years.
He swallows his burger and wipes his mouth with the napkin in his lap. His eyes are bright as he takes a sip of his beer. “You don’t look so bad, yourself.”
They descend into giggles at the ridiculousness of it all and Bokuto feels warm all over as they talk well after the meal is done. They ask after family and old friends. Akaashi sees Konoha and Suzumeda a few times a year, and his family always asks after Bokuto. He doesn’t say it with any shame, so Bokuto doesn’t feel any guilt about it either. He tells Akaashi about some of his favorite matches of his career and the foreign places he loved most. They try to cram a half a decade’s worth of updates into an hour conversation, but soon enough he realizes their waiter is getting anxious about their loitering.
“Man, I think I just gained ten pounds,” Bokuto groans, leaning back in his chair to give his stomach room to stretch.
Akaashi grins at him with his chin in the palm of his hand. “Shall we go walk it all off?”
“That’s probably for the best,” Bokuto sighs.
Akaashi waves down the waiter, and that’s when Bokuto notices it. They’d been dining and chatting for almost two hours and he only just now catches the glint of metal on Akaashi’s left hand. His heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach like a stone.
He doesn’t have long to dwell on it because the waiter arrives with the check and they have to argue about who is paying for dinner. Bokuto wins in the end, though Akaashi insists he’ll treat next time. Bokuto tries not to think that there shouldn’t be a next time. His eyes keep drifting towards the ring and he swallows the pain it brings him.
Rationally, he knows he has no right to be upset. They had parted on mutual terms, and it wasn’t like they had promised to wait for one another. He certainly hadn’t expected Akaashi to wait. Still, he is hurt that Akaashi never even told him, that he didn’t even invite him to the wedding. Come to think of it, he’s surprised Konoha never mentioned it either. Akaashi eyes him curiously as they get up from the table, and he hopes he can’t sense the change in his mood.
They make their way toward the park after they leave the restaurant, Bokuto doing his best not to spoil the mood any more than he already has. He’s quiet and contemplative as they walk, though, which despite all his growing up is still rather uncharacteristic of him. He never imagined being so subdued around Akaashi, but he keeps his face bright and pleasant to mask the hurt he feels deep in the pit of his stomach. It gets harder when they pass by the tree where they’d had their first kiss, and he feels a stab of nostalgia at the memory. It wasn’t like he’d never had other relationships after, but he didn’t think he would ever love anyone as much as he had loved, still loves, Keiji.
“Bokuto-san, is something troubling you?”
He tries not to flinch. Akaashi had always been able to pierce through his moods no matter how hard he tried to hide them. He’d thought he’d gotten better at not wearing his heart on his sleeve as he got older, but of course Akaashi would pick up on his sullenness and call him out on it. He settles for shrugging his shoulders and shoving his hands in his pockets. He decides honesty is the best way to go, since he’s never been able to hide anything from Akaashi. “I was really excited to see you tonight,” he says. “It almost feels like no time has passed at all. I had hoped-” He pauses on the little wooden bridge over the stream that runs through the center of the park and leans against the railing. Akaashi mirrors him on the opposite railing, his hands free and curling around the weathered edges so that the fading light catches on the band of his left hand. Shaking his head, Bokuto sighs. “Obviously, time has passed, and things have changed. I’m sorry Akaashi, I have always been so selfish. Even now, I guess I’m just jealous. Of your new partner,” he adds, as if Akaashi wouldn’t understand exactly what he meant. He forces a feeble smile and he hates that he can’t be perfectly happy for his best friend. “And I’m mad at myself for ever letting you go in the first place. It’s my one regret about going pro.”
Akaashi regards him with a curious expression, his thumb absently spinning the ring on his hand, before he nods understanding. Bokuto isn’t sure what he expects to hear, but it isn’t, “I am sorry you regret it, because I don’t.” Bokuto feels ice form in the pit of his stomach, and it must show on his face because Akaashi shakes his head in the way he always does when he has more to say. His face softens with a gentle smile as he tightens his grip in the railing. “Do you remember this spot?” he asks.
Bokuto lets his shoulders drop. “Like I would ever forget.” It was on this very bridge that Akaashi had told him he loved him for the first time.
Akaashi nods again and looks up the bridge towards the rest of the path. “I was so scared. I didn’t know how I was going to lead the team without you, how I was going to handle a long-distance relationship, or how I was going to do either while also trying to get into college and figure out my future on my own. I was always so insecure and unsure of myself, overthinking everything and expecting the worst out of every scenario. I felt like I would never live up to anyone’s expectations of me. Rationally, I knew that I wasn’t disappointing anyone, that I was just projecting my insecurities onto other people, but still, I was terrified.”
Every word is a blade carving shallow wounds to Bokuto’s heart. He had always known Akaashi could be anxious and prone to overthinking. His analytical mind was his greatest assert as a setter, and Bokuto had always relied on it to control the flow of a game. But to hear him admit he’d never felt good enough? Bokuto ached to think he hadn’t been supportive enough to prove to him otherwise.
Akaashi is looking at him again. Despite the gravity of his words, he is still smiling. “It wasn’t your fault,” he insists, as if he can read Bokuto’s thoughts loud and clear. Maybe he can. “You never made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. In fact, I believed I could take on the world because of you. But that scared me, too, in a different way. It scared me how much I loved you. I wondered if I could even live without you.”
Bokuto remembered that, too. It had been the catalyst to their first fight. Afterwards, he was sure he had convinced Akaashi that he was more than enough on his own, that he would always have Bokuto’s support no matter what, but the thought had already burrowed its way into their minds. Which was why they separated on amicable terms once Bokuto’s professional career started to take off a few years later.
“You know, I was honestly a little relieved when we became too busy for each other.” There was no malice in his voice, no cruelty laced into his words. That didn’t keep them from stinging, though. “When we broke up, even though it was a mutual agreement, it still hurt, and it was scary, and it brought back all those insecurities I’d pushed down for years. But then I remembered that first fight, and your words of encouragement, telling me I was enough, and even though I was terrified, it was also freeing.” He closes his eyes and tilts his chin toward the orange sky and he looks…peaceful.
Bokuto has plenty of memories of Akaashi in quiet moments. Sleeping with their heads on each other’s shoulders on the bus after a hard game an hour from home, curled up with a dozen blankets watching a movie after finishing homework or a difficult test, sitting in the shade in the park reading a book, a weekend trip to the onsen he had surprised Akaashi with after he’d finished his first semester of grad school. In all those memories and others just like them, Akaashi had never smiled quite so serenely as he smiles now. Bokuto’s heart constricts. On the one hand, he loves seeing Akaashi so happy. On the other hand, if that happiness came from being free of him…
“For the first time,” Akaashi sighs, “I was free to discover myself. It wasn’t something I had ever entertained because I didn’t think I liked myself. But just like you, I poured myself into my career. I met new people and made new connections in my industry. I made new friends, had other relationships, and before I knew it, I fell in love again.”
Bokuto wills himself to breathe. As painful as this is, as much as his heart is breaking, he’s glad to know there is someone who can make Akaashi smile like he is. He forces himself to speak, and is proud when his voice barely quavers. “Akaashi, I’m really happy for you.”
“Bokuto.” Akaashi is laughing as he steps across the bridge, closing the gap between them and taking Bokuto’s trembling hands firmly into his own. Bokuto tries not to think about how long it’s been since those soft, slender fingers have been in his, since their bodies have been pressed so close together, how none of it should be happening given everything Akaashi has just confessed. His brain doesn’t even register the lack of honorific as Akaashi looks up at him through thick lashes that have somehow gotten thicker in the five years since he’d last seen him, his smile snuffing out the sun. “I finally learned how to love myself,” he says, squeezing their hands tightly together, and the vice around Bokuto’s heart clatters to the earth. “I had been such an insecure mess for so long. I never saw myself the way others did, they way you did. It took being away from you to truly understand why you loved me so much, to become someone worthy of that love.”
“’Kaashi,” he whispers his name like a prayer, freeing his hands so that he could cup Akaashi’s face. “You have always been worthy of being loved.”
Akaashi wraps his hands gently around Bokuto’s wrists, but doesn’t pull them away. “I know. Like I said, it took me a while, but I know that now. And I’m never going to forget it as long as I live.”
Bokuto could feel the cool metal against his wrist. He tips his head toward it in question. “But the ring?”
Akaashi blinks. Then he laughs so hard his eyes crinkle into dark crescents and Bokuto has to drop his hands to his shoulders to steady him. “My grandfather’s,” he explains. “He passed away a few years ago and left it to me in his will.” He brushes an errant tear from the corner of his eye with the finger the band adorns. “I took to wearing it because it threw off potential suitors when I went out with coworkers, especially after a rough deadline.”
Bokuto shakes his head in disbelief. “And no one questioned it?”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m taken.” Akaashi’s cheeks dust the lightest pink. “It might be awfully presumptuous of me to say this, but you’ve always been the only one for me. And,” he says, placing his ringed hand along Bokuto’s jaw, “if you’ll still have me, I’m yours.”
“Of course, Keiji,” he chokes back a sob, “of course. I love you, so much. I never stopped loving you.”
Akaashi slides his hand behind Bokuto’s head and pulls him down so that their lips are finally reunited. “I love you too, Koutaro,” he sighs against Bokuto’s mouth when they part and Bokuto can’t restrain himself from wrapping his arms around Akaashi’s shoulders and crushing him in a powerful hug. He’s filled with a dizzying sense of déjà vu from the first time he heard those words slip from Akaashi’s lips a decade ago. He presses a smile into soft, dark curls as he feels Akaashi’s arms encircle his waist. He knows this is just the first of many tender moments to come, and this time, Bokuto isn’t letting go.