Work Text:
Bokuto is excited. Everything has been coming up aces for him in the last few months. He graduated college without failing any classes. He was scouted by several professional teams. He signed his first contract. And now he stands at the threshold of his shiny, new downtown apartment, his signing bonus well-spent on the security deposit and first couple months’ rent.
Down in the lobby, Kuroo is unloading the last of the boxes and furniture from the box truck they’d rented to help him move. They had already brought up the bulkier items like his bed and the couch. He’d made a fuss about keeping it because they’d both gone in on it when they moved in to their first place freshman year, but Kuroo insisted on the grounds that Kenma’s place was already fully furnished and anyway he hated that couch and refused to allow Kuroo to bring it when he moved in. Bokuto felt like that was a lie, memories of the smaller man spending plenty of afternoons curled up dozing against the arm of the sofa while Kuroo sat on the floor in front of him going through lab reports. Still, he was grateful he wouldn’t have to go furniture shopping while he was trying to get settled.
He returns to his best friend and grabs another pile of boxes. He’s pretty sure they’re the last and he’s also pretty sure he can bring them all up in one go. As fit as he is, moving an entire apartment up two flights of stairs is pretty tiring. He hopes the elevator gets fixed soon.
“Bro, be careful with those!” Kuroo hollers as Bokuto takes off up the stairs with the wobbly stack.
“I got it, I got it!” They aren’t heavy, just awkward, and precariously balanced. He adjusts his grip on the bottom box as he rounds the corner on the landing for his floor and holds his breath as the top box tips dangerously forward. “Whoa!” He leans back to encourage it to settle back on the middle box, sighing with relief when it does. He gives it a second to be sure it isn’t going to change its mind then hastily steps forward. The boxes are piled higher than his head and he doesn’t hear the jingle of keys that should have alerted him to the fact that there is another person in the hallway.
The next sequence of events happens in slow motion. He gets three steps down the hall. He collides with a wall that he did not remember being there. He falls backwards. The boxes go flying. The topmost box hadn’t been taped shut, and the contents (hastily packed laundry) are strewn across the hall. He blinks in horror as the boxes clear his view and he finds the “wall” is a person, and that person is likely equally flabbergasted to find themselves on the floor surrounded by an explosion of jerseys and jackets and gym clothes in various stages of clean.
“OH MY GOSH I AM SO SORRY!” Bokuto cries as he scrambles on his hands and knees towards his unfortunate victim.
The stranger gingerly pulls a stray sock from his shoulder and Bokuto prays it’s a relatively clean one. He hadn’t been very discriminating in the way he had just scooped up his clothes and tossed them into the nearest box when he was clearing out his room at their old place. His old Way of the Ace shirt obscures most of the guy’s—his neighbor, he supposes—face, and he’s grateful he knows at least that shirt has been recently laundered. He reaches forward to help extricate the poor man from the cotton shrapnel, but his hand freezes before he can grasp his shirt.
Long, slender fingers peel the fabric away, revealing the most beautiful face Bokuto has ever seen. Dark curls bounce gently as the shirt is removed from his head with a huff, and eyes the color and sharpness of steel pierce him with a menacing glower. His lips are set in a thin line and Bokuto forces himself not to lick his own as he imagines how pretty they would look like if he smiled.
Abruptly, he realizes he’s staring, and the guy is definitely glaring at him. “Sorry,” he stammers again, scuttling backwards to put distance between them. He doesn’t think his neighbor is secretly a serial killer, but that fierce, borderline murderous, stare sends shivers down Bokuto’s spine. And then the pretty neighbor boy gets to his feet, dusting his long, beautiful hands off on his dark skinny jeans and wow, his legs are really long, too. How tall is this guy? Not as tall as Bokuto, not a lot of people are, but damn.
He leers down at Bokuto as he retrieves his keys from the tangle of clothes on the floor. His other hand tightens around the plastic take-out bag that surely had taken a tumble along with them. “Please be more mindful of where you are walking,” he says, low and husky, and Bokuto swallows thickly. Was there nothing about this guy that wasn’t beautiful?
He doesn’t get a chance to reply before the keys slide into the lock and the pretty neighbor boy disappears through the door. Bokuto stares at the door and his heart falls into his stomach with a thud as it slams shut behind him. He wonders if it’s too late to cancel his lease and find somewhere else to live.
“What the hell happened?” Kuroo appears at the end of the hall with one of his side tables, surveying the carnage with wide eyes.
Bokuto groans as he collects the stray articles of clothing and returns them to a box. “Met my neighbor,” he says, gesturing to the door of 205. “I was trying so hard not to drop the boxes that I didn’t realize there was a person in the hall.”
“Oh no,” Kuroo gasps, horrified on his behalf. He balls up a pair of shorts and tosses them into the open box.
“Oh yes,” Bokuto whimpers. “He definitely hates me now.”
They get the rest of the laundry into the boxes and bring them the last ten feet to his door on the opposite side of the hall, 204. Kuroo pats his back consolingly as he recounts the tragic interaction. “It’ll be fine, man. Maybe you won’t even cross paths.” He shrugs. “Remember the girls across from us at our last place?”
“There were girls across from us?”
Kuroo nods. “Exactly.” Bokuto scrunches his face, not making the connection. “We almost never ran into them in the two years we were there. Trust me, you’ll both forget all about this in a few days.”
Bokuto sprawls on the couch and groans. “You don’t know that.” He flinches at the disapproving stare his best friend sends his way. “Besides, you didn’t see him. He is gorgeous. He is going to haunt my dreams for weeks.”
Kuroo sneers. “Gross.” Bokuto throws a pillow at him.
Despite his concerns, Kuroo was right. He has no idea what his neighbor’s occupation is, but it doesn’t get him up earlier than Bokuto at any rate. Or if it does, he certainly doesn’t leave his apartment before Bokuto heads to the team’s facilities. He meets his new teammates without stumbling through introductions (or stumbling into them) and assimilates into the rotation easily. There are a lot of meetings throughout the day. His agent has dozens of endorsement offers for him to review and interviews to schedule. There are game tapes to watch and general team shenanigans in downtime. It’s everything he’s ever wanted and it definitely keeps him busy enough he doesn’t even think about accidentally running into his neighbor again.
(He was right, too, though, and several times over the next week he wakes up sweaty and sticking to his sheets in the middle of the night, with images of dark curls and dark eyes burned into the back of his eyelids.)
He settles into his new routine within a few days. Practice has him up early most days, and keeps him late most evenings. He hangs out with his teammates some nights, goes out with Kuroo on the weekends, and really, everything is great. It’s a couple weeks before he crosses paths with his gorgeous neighbor again, and he is even less prepared for the encounter the second time.
It happens over the weekend, when the team has no games scheduled and no practice. Kuroo is busy and Bokuto is restless, so he decides to finally scope out the clubhouse at the apartment complex. The facilities have been recently renovated and all the equipment is up to standard. It’s not the high-tech stuff they have at the team facilities, but they’re decent. There are a handful of treadmills and weight machines, as well as a respectable rack of free weights and a couple benches. He also notes a sign for a sauna and nods appreciatively. They certainly milked every cent out of the one-time facilities fee they charged at lease signing.
The one thing he isn’t expecting, that most definitely isn’t included in the charge but he would have gladly paid extra for, is the view at the far end of the gym. Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling wall mirror that runs the width of the room, lean arms pulled taut over his head before he bends in half to brush his hands across the matted floor, is his Pretty Neighbor Boy. He’s at the end of his workout, judging from the sheen of sweat along his arms and neck, the fabric of his tank top dark at the small of his back where it has pooled. Bokuto’s eyes trail the curve of his spine as he stretches and he nearly chokes as he is presented with the holy vision of the most perfect ass he has ever seen, hugged snugly in the tightest yoga pants to ever exist. He straightens and pulls one of his legs up behind his head and Bokuto is on the verge of a heart attack because those pants highlight the toned muscles of his calves and holy shit how is he so flexible?
He must have made a noise, or moved enough for the demigod to catch his reflection in the mirror, because he drops his leg and turns toward Bokuto with the grace of a dancer. He tilts his head slightly to the side and Bokuto goes rigid under his intense gaze. Recognition alights in his eyes as he nods once, lips curving slightly. “Ah. Laundry Boy. In 204, right?”
Laundry Boy? Bokuto rubs his neck, abashed at the unfortunate reminder of their first meeting. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, again, about that.”
Pretty Neighbor Boy—he really needs to get his name so he can stop calling him that in his head—waves him off with a flick of his slender wrist. “No harm done,” he says, placing the hand on a cocked hip as his eyes flit over Bokuto from head to toe. Something unreadable passes through them and Bokuto is very conscious of the fact that they are the only two in the cozy little gym. “You probably could have though," he muses. “Clearly you work out, but I haven’t seen you down here before.”
Bokuto hasn’t even picked up a single weight yet and he’s already sweating. His face feels like it’s on fire, and his reflection in the mirror behind the guy from 205 reveals an embarrassing flush on his cheeks. So much for playing it smooth. He settles for shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts and meeting his gaze head on. “Usually I work out with my team at our practice facilities,” he explains, gaining confidence with each word as he remembers he’s a professional athlete and he can be calm and collected when it counts, beautiful stranger or no. “We had a weekend off but I still wanted to get my reps in and I figured I’d come use the equipment here since I’m paying for it and all.” He shrugs and hopes he comes off as nonchalant.
His neighbor nods as if this is all plainly evident. “Not a bad idea to get your money’s worth.” His eyes slide towards the weight bench and he tilts his head towards it. “Need a spotter?”
Bokuto knows it’s reckless to lift without a partner, and he wasn’t planning on doing anything too strenuous, but this feels like a peace offering, a way for them to get past that awkward first meeting and he desperately wants to put that horror show behind him. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, that’d be great.” Then he remembers he walked in on the guy doing his cool-down stretches and he bites back a well of panic. “I mean, if you don’t mind. You were probably finishing up, right?”
Those perfect lips tilt up as he lifts his shoulders. “I’m in no rush.”
Bokuto’s elation at being granted a few more minutes in the presence of that heavenly body is hastily replaced with regret when that face is hovering above him as he strains beneath the bar. His dreams seem like children’s scribblings compared to the very real work of art bending over him, encouraging him through his reps. He’s torn between wanting to impress Pretty Neighbor Boy and hurrying through the reps so he can run as far and as fast as possible to burn away the excess energy building up beneath his skin. He opts for doing only half his usual reps to get through the ordeal.
“It is my day off,” he laughs when 205 eyes him skeptically as he returns the weights to the rack. “I’m not actually supposed to even do that much, but I want to stay limber.” That’s not entirely a lie. Rest days are important, after all, but he’d had no specific instructions against light workouts. He still has way too much energy though, and he stretches his legs to prepare for the treadmill. He doesn’t need a spotter for that. “I appreciate your help today though…” he trails off before he can call him something embarrassing like “gorgeous” or “Pretty Neighbor Boy.”
“Akaashi,” he offers without hesitation, sensing Bokuto’s inner turmoil. “Akaashi Keiji.”
“Akaashi,” he repeats, breathing it like a sigh. A beautiful name for a beautiful man. He blinks as he realizes he still hasn’t introduced himself either. “Oh, I’m—,”
“I know who you are,” Akaashi says, cutting him off with a grin. “Bokuto Koutaro. It’s a pleasure to officially make your acquaintance.” His face softens as he offers Bokuto a slight bow. “I’ll leave you to the rest of your workout. Don’t overdo it.”
“Yeah. Ok,” he says, lamely. “Thanks! See you around!” Akaashi nods, retrieves his bag, and throws one last glance over his shoulder as Bokuto watches him walk out of the gym. He really hopes his staring wasn’t that obvious. Seriously, those yoga pants were criminal.
(When he gets back to his apartment an hour later, thoroughly drenched and somehow still buzzing with restless energy, he calls Kuroo to scream about the situation. Kuroo cackles.)
That day at the gym was just the first of many seemingly random encounters. He starts running into Akaashi at the mailroom, in the hallway at the end of the day, the gym on several occasions, and the laundry room on plenty of others. That last became a running joke between them given their first meeting. “So, you do wash your clothes,” Akaashi had teased him the first time they crossed paths in the laundry room. Bokuto only turned a little red.
They start talking more with every encounter, especially when they end up at the gym together. He learns that Akaashi is so flexible because he grew up dancing in his mother’s studio, but he also played soccer in high school and college. By his own admission he was a decent forward but he’d never had enough passion to pursue the sport professionally. He preferred writing and got his degree in sports journalism. Bokuto nearly trips on the treadmill when he mentions his occupation because of course he’d heard of Akaashi Keiji. He’d written a beautiful profile of the national team when the Olympic lineup was announced.
“Hey, hey, hey! One day you’ll have to write about me!” he crows.
“I prefer to keep my personal life and professional life separate,” he replies drily, but there’s a shine in his eyes like he would actually love to get that scoop someday.
Bokuto also teases him about how much takeout he orders. He hasn’t failed to notice all the takeaway bags and containers Akaashi brings home on the occasions they arrive home at the same time. They sometimes eat together in the clubhouse lounge when they do laundry on the same night. “Seriously though, where do you put it all?” He frowns at the lithe body sitting cross-legged in the plush chair across from him, cheeks full of onigiri.
Akaashi smirks at him. “Why do you think I’m in the gym so much?”
“Definitely not the company,” Bokuto laughs.
“It’s certainly not a deterrent,” he says, stuffing another bite of rice into his mouth with a significant look at Bokuto’s arms. Bokuto tries not to choke on his barbeque.
A few months into their acquaintanceship, Bokuto is startled out of a rainy day drowse by a loud banging in the hallway. Curious, he opens his door and the sight that greets him sends his heart to the stratosphere. Akaashi stands in front of his own door, his forehead resting forlornly below the brass numbers, and while Bokuto hates to see him looking so dejected, he also can’t form a coherent greeting because Akaashi is drenched from head to toe, the sudden storm clearly having caught him off guard on his way home from the store. Everything clings to him, from his hair to the white V-neck to the tastefully ripped jeans that Bokuto hates (loves) for the way they hug his ass.
He clears his throat, as much to steady himself as to alert his neighbor to his presence. Akaashi doesn’t jump at the sound, just rolls his head to the side to meet Bokuto’s eyes. “Uh, everything okay ‘Kaashi?”
Akaashi snorts. It’s insanely cute. “Yeah. I often lock myself out of my apartment, banging my head against the door for fun.”
Bokuto grimaces. Ok that had been a dumb question. “Seems like there are better ways to have fun,” he says, hoping something close to their usual banter will help lighten the mood. Akaashi can be difficult to read, but Bokuto thinks he made the right call when his neighbor’s face softens with a tired smile.
He straightens off his door and shrugs. “I suppose there are,” he answers.
Bokuto jerks his head towards his open door. “Wanna come over and dry off? I can call maintenance for you if you want.”
Akaashi pulls his lower lip between his teeth as he considers, and shit, did he do that on purpose because holy hell that is obscenely attractive and he is soaked to the skin and Bokuto starts to have an internal crisis. He was just trying to be a good neighbor but he did not think this through. The offer was out there though and he couldn’t take it back. Especially not when Akaashi nods and steps across the hall. “I appreciate it.”
“No problem!” he cries, probably a touch too loudly by the way Akaashi’s head leaps back at the sound. “You can put your groceries in my fridge if you need to. I should have room. I’ll go grab you a towel.” He starts to turn toward the hall, realizes a towel definitely isn’t gonna cut it with how wet Akaashi’s clothes are, and swallows. “Actually, I’ll get you a change of clothes. Clean ones, I promise,” he adds with a nervous laugh, their inside joke feeling heavy on his tongue. Or maybe it’s just his tongue that’s heavy in his head. He hopes he can survive the next hour.
He grabs a T-shirt and an old pair of volleyball shorts that haven’t fit him in years. Akaashi is nearly as tall as he is, but he’s slimmer, and the smaller shorts will probably fit his waist better than any of Bokuto’s current shorts. He leaves them and a towel on the counter in the bathroom and ushers Akaashi in a moment later.
He goes to the kitchen for a drink because his throat is parched. He isn’t sure his voice will support him if he tries to call maintenance now.
Akaashi emerges and Bokuto resigns himself to an early grave. He hadn’t actually looked to see what shirt he had grabbed, but it’s probably karma that he’d handed Akaashi his Way of the Ace T-shirt. It was the first thing he’d ever seen on him, after all. He also thought nothing could make his legs look any better than those illegal yoga pants he prefers at the gym, but now he can’t take his eyes off the milky skin taunting him below the hem of his high school team shorts. Had his AC stopped working? It is way too warm in his apartment.
He forces himself to look at Akaashi’s face, and the grin that alights his lips is amused and knowing. Bokuto isn’t able to form a word as Akaashi drops the towel from his hair to his shoulders and gives him an appraising look. “Everything ok, Bokuto-san?” Oh, that bastard.
“Great. Everything’s great.” And really, it is great. Three months ago, he never would have believed he’d have his dream man in his apartment wearing his clothes and smiling at him with something akin to hunger in his eyes. That would be too much to hope for.
Akaashi takes a step towards him and quirks his brow in that way that sets Bokuto’s blood on fire. “Would you prefer if I wore nothing?” Bokuto short circuits. Flashes of dreams flutter at the edge of his consciousness and he swallows them back with a whimper. Akaashi grins, taking another step towards him and tilting his head back, exposing the length of his neck. “Are you interested in me?”
Something explodes deep within him. Everything is too hot. His ears, his face, his neck. Everything is burning. He can’t. He is going to die. He makes a strangled sound as he brings his hands to his face to hide. “Akaaaaashi!” he cries.
He hears Akaashi’s gentle laugh inches from his face. Slender fingers wrap around his wrists and tenderly pull his hands down. “I apologize,” he says, and the heat is gone from his eyes. “If I crossed a line, I will stop, but you are just too much sometimes, you know that?”
Bokuto remembers how to breathe and finds his voice again. “Me? Do you even know what you do to me?”
Akaashi smirks. “I had my suspicions.” He shrugs. “But if it’s not mutual, I promise I’ll back off.”
Bokuto shakes his head, perhaps a touch violently. “It is very much mutual, but you are so hard to read, you know that?”
Akaashi slides his hands up Bokuto’s arms and laces them behind his neck, tangling his fingers in the soft hair at the nape, sending a shiver down Bokuto’s spine. His eyes are hooded as they dart between his eyes and his lips. “Guess I’ll have to be very clear with you then.”
Bokuto forgets all about calling maintenance as he slips his arms around Akaashi’s waist and leans in until he can feel Akaashi’s grin against his lips. “I appreciate it.”
The clothes end up on the floor after all.