Archive of Our Own

Bokuto Koutarou was born, not beneath a starry sky, but in Tōkai University Tokyo Hospital — a modest red-brick building on the outskirts of a town that had four pubs, no banks, one swimming pool, six veterans’ clubs and bitterly resented water restrictions each summer. The hospital was surrounded by beds of bright pink bougainvillea and rectangles of thirsting lawn, and, at the moment of little Bokuto’s birth, the sky above its hot tin roof was the scorching blue of a southern hemisphere noon in September.

And yet, the stars were there. Out beyond the cloudless heat of the troposphere, beyond the stratosphere’s blanket of ozone, beyond thousands of other spheres that spin alongside earth, were the stars. Millions of them, patterning the blackness and orbiting themselves into the precise configuration that would be forever mapped onto the soul of Bokuto Koutarou. 

An astrologer, looking at the pinpricks of destiny as laid in little Bokuto’s natal chart, might on the day of his birth have been able to tell you that this child would grow up to be original to the point of highly eccentric, creative and caring, but with a competitive streak so wide that his siblings would prefer eating Brussels sprouts to playing Monopoly with him. He would love costume parties and have a habit of bringing home any starving dog or flea-ridden cat that crossed his path.

This same astrologer might have allowed themselves a fond smile as they foretold that Bokuto, from his mid-teens onwards, would be a true believer when it came to the stars. Bokuto would like the fact that he was a Virgo (emphasis: highly eccentric) — a sign he would associate with innovative and original thinking, as well as summertime, music festivals and hot young hippies who smelled of patchouli and sex.

On the day of Bokuto’s birth, however, there was no astrologer at hand, and the only person who did make an astrological prediction about baby Bokuto at that time was his mother’s best friend who cradled him with infinite care in her arms. 

“A little Virgo, hm?” she said, her eyes misting. “Don’t expect him to be like anybody else in your family. Virgo are quite different. Aren’t you, little one?”

“Well, he’d better like sports,” Bokuto’s mother mused lightly, “his father already bought him a volleyball.”

“Which is why he’ll probably be an artist. Or a dancer. Won’t you, my treasure?” The woman slipped her finger into the closing star of baby Bokuto’s hand, and for a moment she was uncharacteristically speechless. Then she said, “he’s beautiful. Just beautiful.”

Her heart swelled, and she was determined to set in motion a taste of her own fate. And so alas, a baby boy was brought into the world in the early hours of a December morning the following year under the sign of Sagittarius. He would arrive, petite and perfectly formed, with his skull capped in a finger version of the jet black hair that would eventually curl around the sharp contours of his face.

An astrologer might have predicted that this baby would grow up to be a straight-shooter; playful, but also something of a perfectionist. He would love words, appear at age nine on a kids’ TV spelling contest (which he would win), and usually have a pen wedged behind his ear. 

Always his bedside table would groan under its payload of books (read, half read, to read), and there was a good chance that you would find, concealed within this pile of books, a catalogue from IKEA, since wardrobe-organisation porn would, for this boy, be a life-long guilty pleasure. His memory would be as flawless as a gleaming, stainless steel filing cabinet and even his text messages would be faultlessly formatted and punctuated.

It might also have been accurately foretold, with a sorrowful shake of the astrologer’s head, that this child would grow up to have a scant regard for the stars. To be frank, he would consider horoscopes to be a crock of implausible hog-shit.

“Keiji,” his mother murmured, “welcome to your world.”

Time passed. Moons orbit planets. Planets did laps around the brightest stars. Galaxies swirled. And, as the years went by, more and more satellites joined in. Then one day, as if by magic, there he was: twenty-two-year-old Akaashi Keiji, making his way with an unsteady load of takeaway coffee cups along a left suburban street on a Friday morning in March. 

Akaashi’s destination was the headquarters of Weekly Shounen Jump located in Tokyo, where he worked. Officially, his job description was ‘copy-runner’, although the editor — who was prone to verbal flourishes that in no way resembled the incisive brevity of his journalism — liked to refer to him as ‘our dear, darling cadet-in-waiting.’ 

Although Akaashi’s job was somewhere beneath the very lowest rung of the ladder, there would still have been any number of other bright young journalism graduates who might have seriously considered knee-capping him in order to take his place.

Sure, Weekly Shounen Jump was a great place to work, just as its editor had promised. The staff were hardworking, but not above having some fun. The trouble for Akaashi was that Weekly Shounen Jump was such a great place to work that none of the journalists ever resigned. There were currently three staff writers in the office, and they’d all been in their jobs for a decade of more. In fucking fact, the copy-runner before Akaashi had waited three years for a cadetship before giving up and taking a job in public relations instead.

(Akaashi feels like he might be next.)

By the time Akaashi finished work that evening, it was half past six. His hair fell in lank waves around his face, his skin felt grey, and — thanks to the glitchy printer — there was a spray of ink down his pants. He was hungry too. Very hungry.

Akaashi walked three blocks and turned left into [something] Street, where the after-work drinkers were spilling out onto the pavement. He crossed to the other side of the road, and was just about to pass through the eastern gate of district park when he stopped in his tracks, turned around, and looked back at the series of glamorised warehouses on the other side of the road that made up the markets.

It’s difficult to know what caused him to do this, precisely at that moment. Perhaps the sun was working an angle on his from its current position in Pisces, or the moon and Venus together were tugging on his consciousness from their loveseat in Aquarius. Or maybe Jupier had sent down some kind of vibe where it was stomping about in Virgo.

Or perhaps, it was simply just Akaashi’s subconscious subtly suggesting that there was a way to delay the inevitable moment when he would walk in through the door of his empty apartment, queue up the next the episode of BBC’s latest Emma, think vaguely about calling best-pal Konoha Akinori, but instead collapse with a helping of Vegemite toast for dinner.

Akaashi stood poised, at the very edge of the pavement, and considered. There was time. He glanced inside the basket-weave bag that he carried in the crook of his arm, and was happy to see his black Sharpie pen indeed there, lying in wait, in its own special pocket. 

The district market was a place Akaashi only rarely went to buy food. More often, he entered its cool, high-ceiling space in the same spirit as he would an art gallery. He liked to check out the strange and exotic blocks that filled the enormous Mason jars at the florist’s, and to pass by the fishmonger’s to admire the gleaming sea creatures on their beds of ice.

He sidled up to a timber crate full of watermelons and looked over to the display of Hass avocados. And there it was, perched on a plastic stalk above the fruits. The offending sign.

ADVOCADOS.

Would the woman never learn? Here was a fruit seller who was clearly — no — more than competent. She could stack pomegranates so that they looked like the crown jewels of some far-flung, exotic nation. It made no sense that he would stubbornly and consistently continue to misspell avocados. And yet he did. 

Week in, and week out, Akaashi corrected his error, and the grocer responded by throwing away the amended signs and replacing them with yet another one for ADVO- bloody- CADOS. It was infuriating. But Akaashi was determined not to be beaten. 

He waited until the assistant behind the counter was distracted, then whipped out his Sharpie. Swiftly, he struck out the extraneous ‘D’. AVOCADOS. Ah, yes. This was good. 

Satisfied that the world was now restored to rightness, Akaashi spun around, intending to make a dash for the market’s exit. But he had only taken a few paces when he ran into a giant fish.

It was hard to tell what kind of fish it was, exactly. It was silver-grey with lips rimmed in pink satin ribbon. Its eyes were enormous, yellow and sharp. The fish had large silver gloves for pectorals, and it said, “Should you be doing that?”

Akaashi was just about to get argumentative, when he recognised the human face that was framed by a cut-out oval of silvery fish-fabric.

“Bokuto-san?” Akaashi gasped, incredulous.

“Holy fucking shit. Akaa shi ?”

“Oh my god. You have not changed a single bit,” Akaashi commented, stunned and smiling. 

Bokuto made a doubtful face and glanced down at his fish suit. “Thanks, I think,” he scratches the nape of his neck, smiling sheepishly. “It’s been years, Akaashi.” 

“Nine? Ten?” Akaashi offered, as if he were guessing.

“It couldn’t have been that long,” he chuckles softly.

But it was. It was ten years, one month, and three weeks. And Akaashi Keiji knew this, precisely. 

(and so did Bokuto Koutarou.)

Somewhere in a shoebox, or perhaps an album, existed photographs of Akaashi Keiji as a weeks-old baby, pink and tiny, lying on a rug next to fifteen-month-old Bokuto Koutarou, who looked in comparison like a sumo wrestler in a Winnie the Pooh playsuit. 

As toddlers, in the sandpit at a family day care, Akaashi and Bokuto had shared both their packets of Tiny Teddies and the traumatic experience of being dethroned by younger siblings. In the early years of primary school, both of them took up the habit of playing Volleyball during soccer breaks, earning them a spot in their school’s team.

Bokuto didn’t speak to Akaashi for a full three days after he upstaged him by appearing on national television for that famous spelling bee contest of his. On the fourth day, however, he’d been unable to help himself and had come out of his sulk to punch a classmate who’d be calling Akaashi a nerd. After that, things between the two old best friends had returned, effortlessly, to normal.

But when Akaashi was ten, and Bokuto had recently turned eleven, things began to shift. Bokuto’s father took a job on the farside of the country, so the family naturally sold up and left town.

Despite everybody’s best intentions to stay in touch, the late-night phone calls between both Akaashi and Bokuto’s mothers became less and less frequent, and correspondence dwindled to the obligatory Christmas letter tucked inside a card featuring Santa at the beach in his budgie-smugglers.

The families didn’t completely lose touch, though. Because there had been that Japan Day long weekend, and plans were arranged to meet. Despite the fact that Akaashi had spent the entire stuffy car trip to their destination playing out in his mind the film-worthy scene in which he was reunited with his old friend, he had, upon seeing him, seized up terrified.

Bokuto Koutarou, he saw immediately, had stopped being a slightly goofy boy and had morphed into a young man, almost absurdly good-looking — one of the kind that Akaashi knew from experience it was safest to avoid if one did not wish to duffer the excruciating embarrassment of rejection. So for all of the Saturday, and all of the Sunday, he had skulked about moodily. Bokuto had been equally aloof, setting off on long runs down the beach, or hanging out at the pool.

And then, on Sunday night, their parents had pulled rank and dragged the two of them, sullen and resentful, up the beach to a pop-up amusement park. Maybe it was the nostalgic smell of corn dogs and candy-floss that broke them back down into the kids they really were. Or perhaps it was the jarring collisions in the bumper cars that jerked them out of their self-consciousness. 

Whichever it was, they had ended up on the beach together late at night, alone, feeling the disco beat of the amusement park music as it throbbed through the sand. The stars watched them adoringly.

The following morning, Akaashi was still in bed when Akaashi’s family came over, en masse, to say their farewells. Through the cardboard-thin walls of the holiday cabin, Akaashi heard everything that was going on — mothers’ voices going up and down like scales on a violin, fathers’ voices providing the bass notes. 

He heard his mother say, “I’m sure he’ll be up in a minute, Bokuto sweetie. I know he’ll want to say goodbye.”

But even when his mother came into the bedroom and reached up to the top bunk to shake her son’s shoulder, Akaashi had only hunkered down further beneath the covers. He was too overcome with embarrassment even to show his face. 

Because he was sure that everyone in his family, and Bokuto’s, would be able to see how his lips were swollen from all that inexperienced attempt at kissing (at his defense, Bokuto slipped his tongue in first). 

And, even worse, he felt sure that everybody else would be able to see on the outside of him what he could feel on the inside: something new and worrying, delicious and mortifying, intoxicating and weird. It was as if something had burst open, like multi-coloured popcorn. Akaashi didn’t think he would ever again cram it back down to size.

He probably doesn’t even remember, Akaashi’s brain said to him. Then it said the same thing over again, just in case he hadn’t heard the first time. 
Brain: He probably doesn’t even remember. 
Akaashi: Will you be quiet?
Brain: Why would he remember it? All those pages of your diary that you filled, while he probably just went home and forgot all about it. 

But even while Akaashi was holding a silent dialogue with his brain, he was also managing to keep up his end of a perfectly polite conversation.

From the usual ‘how are your parents’ to ‘how about yourself’. 

“I’m kind of between addresses, but yeah, this is a good city. I’d say it’s home.” Akaashi peered critically at Bokuto’s silverfish suit (which he was still wearing, by the way). “What’s the story here? You’re promoting, um… fish?”

“Oysters, actually,” he pointed out, “just for a couple of days, for a special promotion thing. I walk around saying things like… uh... yeah. I do not think I want to go there.”

Akaashi winced. “I heard you went to drama school.”

Bokuto explained to him how hard it was to make a living as an actor, how he supplemented his erratic wages with stints as a barista, waiter, catalogue delivery boy, school holiday drama tutor.

“That’s a lot harder work than being a fish,” he nods his head, “but less humiliating. And you? You what, patrol fruit signs of the city for correctness? That’s a career path for kids who win television spelling contests?” 

He remembers the spelling contest, Akaashi said, somewhere smugly, to her brain. “I work at Weekly Shounen Jump. ”

“You write for Shounen fucking Jump ? I love that magazine. Would I have read anything you’ve written?”

“Well I haven’t really…” Akaashi began, “I’m only…”

Akaashi searched for the right words, but before he could find them, Bokuto said, “Hey, it’s actually kind of weird having this conversation from inside a fish suit. I finish in ten minutes, though. We could, you know, if you weren’t busy, maybe we could,” he catches himself blabbering, taking a deep breath.

Exhaling, he finishes with a charming smile, “we could grab some udon, head over to the park? Catch up on the rest of the news? But you know, no pressure — just if you’re not expected anywhere, or anything.”

Akaashi almost forgot — he was hungry, and udon would hit the spot. Even so, he managed to pause and tilt his head and let Bokuto see him think.

“If it’s not a good time or anything —” Akaashi smiled and shook his head. “I’m not expected anywhere, Bokuto-san.”

A crisp evening breeze made the upper leaves of the district park’s grand old trees wave as Akaashi and Bokuto passed between the wrought-iron pillars of the eastern gate. Bokuto pushed a beaten-up bicycle with one hand, and though he was out of the fish suit by now, a marine whiff clung to his shorts, his Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt, and his skin. 

Bokuto picked a spot on a gently sloping bank that gave a view down over the city, and where the grass was coppery in the falling sunlight. He set his bike against his bike against a planter box, and proceeded to stretch out on the grass.

Propped on one elbow, he unceremoniously tore open the plastic lid of their meal and took a huge mouthful of steaming soup. Akaashi took a mouthful of soup as well, equally famished. 

“So, Weekly Shounen Jump. What’s it like working there? What was your last big story?”

Akaashi sighed, frustration clearly brinking. “No big stories. Yet. At this point in history, I’m just the copy-runner.”

Bokuto stops himself from taking another spoonful and blinks. “Yes, it’s exactly like what you’re thinking. I am officially the shit-kicker. I’d hoped that a real job would have come along by now, but…”

“Speaking of which, isn’t it about time the new edition is out?” 

Akaashi chuckled, pointing to his bag, which out of the top poked a brand-new, rolled-up paper. Bokuto’s eyes widened in genuine-child delight. “Can I?” he asked politely. Akaashi pulls it out and passes it over to him. 

Bokuto opened it from the back and thumbed through the pages to land — quite expertly — Akaashi thought — at the horoscopes. With a smile, he remembered his teenage obsession with astrology: the one he’d assumed he would outgrow.

It was strange, Akaashi reflected. On one hand, he felt entirely comfortable with Bokuto, as if they’d known each other forever (which in a way, they had). But on the other hand, Bokuto was virtually a stranger to him. He was perhaps only a little taller than he remembered him to be. But his face — it was different. 

How? Akaashi asked himself, as if he had a pen in his hand and it was his job to capture precisely the subtle differences in this new, older, Bokuto Koutarou. 

At first, Akaashi thought of a set of nested Russian dolls. Perhaps looking at this Bokuto was like looking at the biggest doll in a set, when you were familiar with the slightly smaller, slightly different one that was hidden away inside. But no , Akaashi thought. It wasn’t quite like that. 

Rather, it was as if Bokuto — jawbones, cheekbones and brow-bones becoming more obvious and defined. His eyes were still wide and yellow, his features still mobile and expressive, his smile still illuminating the sun even when it wasn’t physically present.

He read intently, his grey eyebrows shuffling together in concentration. At last, he closed the magazine and tapped his fingers on its back cover. He looked puzzled, then shook his head slightly, as if to clear his thoughts.

“What’s he like?” he asked Akaashi, who only returned a lost expression. “He… who?”

“Sakusa Kiyoomi,” Bokuto rolled his shoulders up, as if it was beyond obvious. It took a few seconds for Akaashi to register. When reading Weekly Shounen Jump, he would skip over the features he found pointless, like the gardening column… and the horoscopes. Which were written by the supposedly eminent astrologer, Sakusa Kiyoomi.

Akaashi only knew two things about Sakusa Kiyoomi. One was that he had a special fondness for including in his horoscopes quotations from famous writers, philosophers, and wits. And secondly, he was a notorious recluse. 

“I’ve never met him,” he muses simply, “I don’t think any of us has.”

Bokuto’s eyes widened. “What? Never? None of you?”

“Maybe Iwaizumi-san has — he’s the chief editor. But the rest of us, no. Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t even attend the annual Christmas party. Apparently, Sakusa Kiyoomi lives on an island, but I don’t think we’re supposed to know where exactly. To tell you the absolute truth, I’m not even certain that he’s… real. Perhaps he’s a machine, or a computer in a room somewhere spitting out random phrases."

“Oh, you’re such a cynic, Keiji. ” Keiji? Keiji. Oh god, he called me Keiji. Have a piece of that, brain. 

“Cynic? I thought I was a Sagittarius.” Bokuto thought for a moment. “So you are. You’re born on the fifth of December!” he proudly declares.

Bokuto remembered Akaashi’s birthday. Bokuto remembered Akaashi’s birthday. Hey, did you hear that? Akaashi said, even more smugly this time, to his brain. He remembered. My fucking birthday. Feeling a prickle of warmth rising up his neck and into his cheeks, he gave silent thanks that the day’s light had dwindled into dusk, and Bokuto wouldn’t be able to tell that he was blushing. Hard.

Bokuto flipped back through the magazine to the horoscopes, the frosted sphere held high above the pathways on wrought-iron poles beginning to glow. “Let’s see… Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius. Here we go — Brace yourself, Archer. Throughout this year, Saturn in your sign continues to set off seismic activity deep in your belief systems. Be prepared for career advancements, in which likely workplace change will continue to be a theme throughout the coming months. ”

Bokuto looked over at Akaashi and nodded, as if impressed with his achievements. “So?” Akaashi asked, before scoffing. “Seismic activity in my belief system… what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Keiji, career advancement, workplace change? No?”

“Nothing changes at Weekly Shounen Jump. Absolutely nothing. Except maybe Iwaizumi-san surprising us by coming to work wearing a tie.”

“Well, Sakusa-san says ‘workplace change’. And that man knows every damn thing,” Bokuto snickers, and although there was a hint of self-mockery in the smile, Akaashi got the distinct impression that he was, at least in part, serious. 

“So, what profundities did Sakusa-san have for you this month?” Akaashi probed, wanting to shift the topic, while still staying within the subject of horoscopes.

“I don’t really know what he’s trying to say,” Bokuto admitted. “It says: ‘ Virgo. For Earth bearers, this is a month of readjustment in which you recognise that it is not only the inner workings of others that can be mysterious, but also the machinations of the self. In quiet moments of watchfulness, you may recalibrate your understanding of what truly drives you.’ What do you think that means?”

Before Akaashi could launch into a small monologue about the generic nature of astrological predictions, and how the art of them was in making up sentences that applied to just about any person, in any kind of situation, Bokuto cuts him off. “Hold on.”

A thought. “Do you think I could play Romeo in Romeo and Juliet , Keiji?

That was an extremely specific question. Before he could answer, Bokuto continued. “There’s a production of all-male casted Romeo and Juliet coming up, and they’ve told me that if I wanted Romeo, he’s mine. But the show… it’s not with a big company or anything, like — it’s not even fully professional. It’s a role I’ve always wanted, but the money will be shit.”

There was a small silence. And then, “Do you depend on Sakusa Kiyoomi’s subjective interpretation of stars to make important life choices like these, Bokuto-san?”

Bokuto shrugged. “Oftentimes, yes.”

“I just think that if you want to play Romeo, you should just play Romeo. You don’t have to twist the words of some star-gazing nut to give yourself permission.”

“Sakusa Kiyoomi is not a star-gazing nut. He’s a god,” suddenly energised, Bokuto leapt up from the grass, the grassy bank becoming his stage.

“Shakespeare was a Taurus — earthy, lusty. But Romeo… that bitchass was a whole Pisces. A dreamer, a beautiful dreamer. And nobody’s more into self-sacrifice than a Pisces.” 

This is ridiculous, Akaashi thought. And yet, he couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe you should play Romeo,” Akaashi giggled, “Decision-making isn’t exactly his strong suit, either.” 

Bokuto, without warning, reaches out for Akaashi’s much smaller hands and pulls him up, earning a lighthearted laugh from the latter.

“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet the sun…!” he brings Akaashi closer, flushing the other boy’s cheeks.

It’s all just part of his character.

“It might be time to face it,” Kuroo Testurou had said, one frangipani-scented night in their hotel room, “If you haven’t made it by now… well, what I mean to say is, it might be time for Plan B.”

He hadn’t said it unkindly. And Kuroo hadn’t said anything that Bokuto hadn’t thought for himself. Soon, he’d be twenty-three-years-old, and Hollywood was as far away as it had ever been.

Forget Hollywood. Even the local professional theatre companies were still in an unreachable stratosphere. Over the previous year, the only significant playing gigs he’d had were a walk-ok part in a television soap, a gif at a healthy eating expo in which he played a pepper in a huge inflatable suit.

“Especially if,” Kuroo had added meaningfully, “we’re going to get more serious about each other. Which I hope we are.”

But Bokuto still thought of still round the corner there may wait a new road or a secret gate, courtesy of Sakusa Kiyoomi’s horoscope chosen for Virgo that month.

“I’m not ready to give up,” he said, tone hushed, to Kuroo Tetsurou — Kuroo l, who already had several lump-sum deposits, a share portfolio and income protection insurance.

Kuroo sighed. “I think we’ve got a problem here, Koutarou.” 

Breaking up with Kuroo Testurou hadn’t been easy. Not at all. Bokuto had done it, and Kuroo had been poised and dignified in response. But still round the corner there may wait a new road or a secret gate. 

Bokuto shoved his clothes into the washing machine, fed some coins into the slot and calculated that he was nearing the four month mark of his post-Kuroo life. 

He was still in a provisional phase, not yet having found a hoke of his own. For the time being, he was house-sitting for an artist who’s flown to Cuba seeking inspiration for a new exhibition, in which the artist’s apartment was groovy, if comfortless. 

Every day of the last few months, for Bokuto Koutarou, had been a walk along a tightrope. On one side was the knowledge that Kuroo was right — that it was time to grow up, give up, get a real job. But on the other side there remained the tingling possibility that his dream future still existed.

The director of Romeo and Juliet had been gratifyingly thrilled when Bokuto had phoned to accept the lead role. Bokuto thought that theatrical luminatries may feel compelled to provide him with the break he so desperately needed after seeing him perform. 

Bokuto trusted Sakusa Kiyoomi, real or not. He trusted the stars to guide him home (if home was even a tangible place).

And then there was Akaashi Keiji. In the (something) years he’d seen him, he hardly changed at all. Body slight, eyes mystically full of mischief, still whip-smart as ever, too. 

For the whole evening in the district park, Bokuto had waited for an opening, an invitation, in the midst of their conversation ranging from families, astrology, to Shakespeare. 

When Bokuto asked Akaashi for his phone number, the latter had given it to him willingly enough, but he’d been a little taken aback when Akaashi hadn’t asked for his in return. 

Bokuto thought perhaps they’d be able to laugh together about how the pair of them had slipped away from their parents and found a bottle shop on a street bordering the amusement park.

And how Akaashi — who looked very obviously younger than eighteen — had hovered nervously while Bokuto, who was tall for his age and could do a persuasively deep voice had gone inside and managed to procure a bottle of Stone’s Green Ginger Wine.

They had shared the better part of the bottle as they talked, gradually loosening up to the point where Bokuto was showing off all the accents he could mimic, and Akaashi was reciting Shakespeare.

Bokuto blushed to think about what kind of gormless dickhead he’d been back then. So young and inexperienced; and so when they kissed, he’d probably mauled poor Akaashi half to death without knowing better, which explained why Akaashi had hidden away the next morning and refused to say goodbye.

Bokuto had tried several times, once he was back home, to write to Akaashi. But every sentiment he’d managed to get down on the page sounded stupid, plus he’d been terrified of misspelling a word in a letter meant for a nationwide spelling bee champion.

Seeing Akaashi again after a long time had unsettled Bokuto. It had the effect of joining him up, circling him back, to a much younger version of himself. 

While it had felt food to be reminded of all the energy and confidence of that younger self, it had also felt uncomfortable in a sense — as if Akaashi bad caught him out for failing to live up to the promise and potential of that self. As if he had reminded him of parts of himself that were, somewhat… receding?

Bokuto took out his phone, and wasn’t exactly sure if he was relieved or disappointed that the screen wasn’t showing any more missed calls from Kuroo Testurou. 

In recent weeks, he’d phoned several times, and left messages saying that he wanted to talk. To see if there was any room for compromise. But Bokuto kept reminding himself that, for Kuroo, compromise really meant him being convinced to change his mind to match the former’s. 

Bokuto scrolled through his contacts until he reached ‘Akaashi Keiji’ and tapped on the screen so that the letters of his name glowed; large and clear. 

Then he paused. It was very late; too late to call. But it wasn’t out of the questions to send him a text.

Great to see you the other night… he began, then deleted the words.

“Boring,” he muttered.

Akaashi was someone who could effortlessly pull entire poems out of his mind, who remembered song lyrics from Taylor Swift’s 2012 tracks. If Bokuto was going to write to him, he’d have to write something that was at least half interesting.

I was just thinking about… he began again. Deleted every word. Sighed.

What was he doing? he asked himself, and was embarrassed to have to acknowledge that he was sitting in a lonely laundromat and composing a text, at midnight, to a pretty boy who hadn’t asked for his phone number, and who most likely had a perfectly nice life without him in it.

And so, to the soundtrack of the washing machine’s rhythmic swish, swish, swish, Bokuto put his phone back into his pocket. 

Late summer drifted into autumn. Things ended, and things began. But in the life of Akaashi Keiji, things went on pretty much the same as before. In the mornings, he woke and went to work at Weekly Shounen Jump , and in the evenings, he came back home and went to sleep.

But no matter how often he looked at his phone and willed it to ring, Bokuto Koutarou did not call. 

(or text. the fuck?)

Brain: It’s been ten days now. 

As if he didn’t already know. Akaashi tried to refocus on the words on the daily newspaper.

Brain: Remind me again why we came home without his phone number?
Akaashi: Because, as well as you know, I’m impulsive. By now, I definitely would have called him.
Brain: And? I’m waiting for the punch-line here, Keiji.
Akaashi: Then I would have never known what I know now. That he had no intention of even calling me.

“ This is how Sakusa Kiyoomi’s stars come to us?” Akaashi asked, incredulous, as Iwaizumi plucked out a fax and handed it to him. It was a neatly and closely spaced page of text that appeared originally to have been typed on an old-fashioned typewriter.

Iwaizumi nodded at Akaashi’s question. “Usually comes through overnight.”

Akaashi handed back the fax and Iwaizumi clipped it to his document holder. As he began to transcribe it at fearsome speed, there came the sound of a champagne cork popping in the hallway, followed by some general shouts of delight. Oikawa Tooru strolled into Iwaizumi’s doorway, unleashing a stream of bubbles into a glass.

“Iwa-chan,” he said with a bow, “You are hereby summoned to the tearoom for libations, this instant!”

“But Tooru, the stars,” Iwaizumi groaned, “five more minutes, please.”

“Absolutely not,” Tooru’s voice boomed, holding out the champagne flute invitingly. 

“I’ll do the stars, Iwaizumi-san,” Akaashi offered. Iwaizumi’s face fell into tension, pulled between demands. “Really, go on,” Akaashi urged once more. “It’ll be good for me to get the hang of it anyway.”

Iwaizumi gave in with a sigh, and stood up. Oikawa cheered and slung an arm over the shorter boy’s shoulder, dragging him along.

Akaashi waited a moment, then slid happily into his new place behind the desk. His eyes scan through the different signs’ fates for the month — from Taureans experiencing a surge in romantic possibilities, to Geminis breaking free of the influence of a series of troublesome eclipses, to his very own.

Sagittarius: Beset by the restless thoughts, Sagittarius may be feeling the urge for change, but with Venus in retrograde for most of the coming month, now is not a good time to make changes to your appearance. Delay until May any temptation to alter the colour of your hair or overhaul your wardrobe. 

Nothing more about workplace change, alas. Or about old flames leaping back into his life. He sighed, and looked down the page to the energy for Virgo. This month sees you reaping the benefits of difficult decisions that you have made in recent times. Tread your new path with determination, remembering that temptations to turn back will be amplified by Venus in retrograde, which can bring up wistful, nostalgic thoughts. The final days of the month will especially provide favourable cosmic conditions for choosing well.

What would Bokuto make of this? Akaashi shook his head at the thought of Bokuto’s illogical trust in the stars. But he also had a thought. An interesting thought, to say the least.

If there was anyone who could prompt Bokuto Koutarou to pick up his phone and call Akaashi Keiji, then it was probably Sakusa Kiyoomi.

Akaashi Keiji decided to check over the horoscopes one last time before he officially clicked submit. Sakusa Kiyoomi in his thumbnail picture stared out at Akaashi from the screen, mystically, his eyes dark under his kinda unkempt hair, with two moles neatly aligned as it peeked from the corner of his eyes.

Brain: This Bokuto Koutarou…
Akaashi: Yes?
Brain: I think you like him. Quite a bit.

This would probably be true. But it was no excuse to tinker with Sakusa’s copy.

Brain: But who would ever know?

Akaashi considered. Sakusa’s original fax was on the document spike on the desk, placed there by Akaashi, just as Iwaizumi instructed. Hell, Sakusa Kiyoomi didn’t even read Weekly Shounen Jump. And nobody had seen Sakusa’s April dax. Except for Akaashi and Iwaizumi. But Iwaizumi didn’t even read it. Did he even bother to read them? And if he did, would he even remember the text for Virgo? Word for word? HAving done no more than glance at it before Akaashi took over the transcription.

But, what if Sakusa were to pick up the magazine, just this one time?

Brain: He won’t.
Akaashi: How do you know?
Brain: And anyway, it’s not as if horoscopes are… real. They’re all rubbish. What’s one random phrase compared to another? What harm could it do?

The texture of the air in Akaashi’s office seemed to gather a new charge of possibility. He stared at the page layout on the computer screen for so long that it seemed to shimmer and pixelate before for his eyes.

Brain: Go on…
Akaashi: No. I’m closing the page now. 

Brain: But tomorrow the files will be gone and it will be too late. If you're going to do it, you’re going to have to do it now. NOW. 

Without yet having any definite intent — and without having committed to any course of action — Akaashi selected the copy for Virgo. 389 characters. Provided his changes didn’t make the entry fall much short of that number, or greatly exceed it, there would be no impact on the page setting.

He could write, Virgo — Something or someone from the past will be important in your life this month… 

No, too obvious. Akaashi had seen for himself the way Bokuto read his horoscope: looking between the lines, searching for hiding messages. He needed to remind him of Akaashi himself, but not too directly. He could mention a spelling competition? No, too specific. And anyway, how would you work something like that into a horoscope?

Then an idea popped. Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, he thought, remembering his Little Mermaid karaoke machine. Bokuto would remember their famous living-room rock concert, surely.

His fingers flew over the keys. Were we not beseeched by songbird Joni Mitchell, at the beginning of the Age of Virgo, to leave our apples spotted and our Paradise unpaved. This month, you experience a powerful surge of nostalgia for what once was, which also doubles as an intuition of what yet night be.

Akaashi smiled. Writing hog-shit was surprisingly good fun. But at 273 characters, the entry was too short. He thought back over Sakusa’s copy. It was probably wise to include at least something from the original. So he added, In further news, a change of abode may be on the cards, or at the very least a modest makeover chez earth bearer.

That bulked it out to 390 characters. Perfect. Akaashi read over the copy one more time, jiggled the computer mouse and clicked… save.

“Keiji!” called out Iwaizumi, peering in through the door. Hoping that Akaashi did not look like a child caught with his hand deep in the biscuit tin, Akaashi smiled widely, and closed the page on his computer screen.

“Everything all right?” Iwaizumi asked. “Ah no. Everything’s fine. I just want my first edition to be, well, perfect,” Akaashi replied.

“Very good. Very good to be careful,” Iwaizumi nodded his head, putting on his jacket and fishing out his shirt collar. 

“Actually, perfect timing. It’s all ready to be sent into the ether.”

Had he really just done what he thought he’d just done? 

“Perfect. Good job, Keiji!” 

He had. 

Bokuto Koutarou, perched on a stool in the front window of Turret Coffee Tsukiji, tried unsuccessfully to eke another sip from the cappuccino he’d finished about a arter of an hour earlier. 

In front of him were several newspapers — all of them open to the To Let pages — and also a copy of Weekly Shounen Jump. The magazine was looking dog-eared and water-rumpled, because for over a week Bokuto had been carrying it around with him, trying to understand. But he didn’t get it, no matter how many times he read and reread Sakusa Kiyoomi’s words.

Were we not beseeched by songbird Joni Mitchell, at the beginning of the Age of Virgo, to leave our apples spotted and our Paradise unpaved. This month, you experience a powerful surge of nostalgia for what once was, which also doubles as an intuition of what yet night be. In further news, a change of abode may be on the cards, or at the very least a modest makeover chez earth bearer.

At least the last sentence was clear. In just over a week Bokuto’s house sitting gig would come to an end and he would be homeless. So, yes, a change of abode was on the cards. But, as for the rest of the horoscope? It didn’t make sense. He stared into Sakusa Kiyoomi’s deep-set eyes. Really?  Bokuto asked silently. You really want me to go back there?

It was true that Bokuto’s Kuroo-less days had often been lonely and despondent. But he’d also enjoyed not having to worry about keeping up Cosmopolitan styling standards.

Bokuto stared at Sakusa. But now you want me to go back? To Kuroo?

Was it nuts to make a decision like this based on the stars? Akaashi would have certainly said so. Akaash, he thought. What was going on with him? Having not seen him even once over a decade, he’d now seen him again, and they were able to talk, just like old times.

It wasn’t possible, was it, that Sakusa’s powerful surge of nostalgia referred to Akaashi, and not to Kuroo?

No, it wasn’t, Bokuto realised. Because Sakusa had also chosen to hammer this sentiment home bia the words of Joni Mitchell. It really did seem that Sakusa was telling him, even after everything he’d been through, to call Kuroo Tetsurou and give it another chance.

Bokuto dropped his head to the cafe bench and banged his brow to te timber three times. Quite hard. ON the third bang, he left his forehead touching the magazine. A woman sitting further along the bar looked at him with a mixture of concern and alarm. 

To Sakusa, he said silently: You know what, mate? I think the world of you, and it’s not that I don’t trust you, but before I call Kuroo, I reckon I might just wait to see what you have to say for yourself next month. Alright?

Alright.

For the first few days after Weekly Shounen Jump hit the newsstands, Akaashi had counselled himself to keep his expectations low. Bokuto would need time, after all, to realise that the new copy was on sale. Then he would need not only to read Sakusa’s column, but also to weigh up the possible meaning and interpretations of Sakusa’s word, remember that famous rendition of ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, think for a while, and then decide on a course of action.

But by the time two weeks had passed, Akaashi’s patient hopefulness had ebbed away. Although work days were busy and full, weekends felt long and empty. Questions remained in both instances, though.

Why hadn’t Bokuto Koutarou called? Had Akaashi’s reference to ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ been too obscure? Did he not remember that long-ago concert at Curlew Court? Or was there another reason? Bokuto Koutarou hadn’t seemed, during the evening they had spent together in the park, like a man who was already in a relationship. 

There had been a freedom about him, a lack of constraint. The Bokuto Koutarou Akaashi remembered was such an honest soul, far too constant to behave this way if his heart was tied up elsewhere. Maybe he was just kidding himself that he knew anything about Bokuto Koutarou at all.

And what had he been thinking, tinkering with the horoscopes like that? What if Sakusa Kiyoomi had found out? What if he wrote to Iwaizumi and Akaashi got busted? And exactly how crap would it be to be sprung for taking a risk that had, as it transpired, returned precisely nothing? 

There were many questions, but one thing was certain: Akaashi’s career as an astrologer, brief as it had been, was over. Akaashi looked his mirror self squarely in the eyes. Bokuto Koutarou, he told himself, is a childhood friend, and nothing more.

Brain: Yeah, right. Keep telling yourself that.
Akaashi: Oh, shut the fuck up already.

“Okay then,” Akaashi could see the way Konoha pressed his lips into a tight line, nodding as if he were thinking, “what’s your plan now?”

Konoha didn’t really want to be the one coming up with a plan this time. He now knew everything about his best friend’s potential childhood best friend to lovers trope living in his brain — from the market, to the fish suit, to playing Romeo, the fleeting moment of teenage passion, illegally drunk. 

“Plan?” Akaashi asked innocently.

“You must have a plan,”  Konoha scoffed, “and please tell me it’s a better one than waiting to see if he calls.”

Akaashi chuckled rather sheepishly. “Is that really so terrible?”

“Keiji,” Konoha deadpanned, “that’s fucking pathetic. ”

“But I don’t have his number. I couldn’t contact him even if I wanted to.”

“Rubbish,” Konoha retorted, “Keiji, sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns. Facebook him, track down his parents… whatever, but promise that you will, in some way, shape or form, make contact with that boy. Promise?”

“Well,” Akaashi sang. It couldn’t be long, now, until Sakusa Kiyoomi’s stars arrived ready to be transcribed for the new edition. Maybe, just maybe, he could give the stars one more shot? “There might be a way.”

birkcs and planks — price? delivery????
picture hooks (stick on)
clothes airer (small)
sink plug (55mm)(if that’s even a size)
lightblubs
shower curtain

Bokuto Koutarou, riding his bike to the hardware store, tried to imagine what a reasonable person would make of his list with multiple spelling errors, if they happened to find it blowing about on a street or crumpled up by their feet on the bus. 

Would the finder of the list surmise that it had been made by someone who’d just moved into a rental property, which — like every other rental property of his life — had not a single picture hook on the walls? Would they be able to imagine the stark smell of damp white paint? But also the undertone of mould? Would they imagine the stacks of books, CDs and magazines with nowhere to go? 

‘Balcony’ — the ad for the flat had said. But it wasn’t really a balcony. It was a concrete ledge with a rusted metal railing, only big enough to hold a planter box full of tomatoes, or the clothes airer that Bokuto was shortly to buy, but not both. 

The ad had also said the kitchen was ‘galley-style’, which Bokuto now knew to be code for ridiculously small. The stove was old and dirty, with solid hotplates that would probably take a century to heat up; the bedroom was tiny, and it was best, Bokuto decided, not to think about the bathroom at all.

If only he had a good neighbour. Or person. Anybody , really, who was willing to stay by his side.

“Good afternoon,” Akaashi cleared his throat, “I’m Akaashi Keiji, reporter for Weekly Shounen Jump. ” Although he had not quite known that he was going to say this, he liked the sound of it. It was funny to him, really. How one hand raise can get you such a title; it was truly beyond him.

“That leaves, ah, one more assignment,” Iwaizumi started, “a short profile piece on a talented young performer. Shouyou, Shouyou… Hinata. He is a young performer, but I am reliably informed he is a face to watch. He’s been cast in a Romeo and Juliet production. And if Hinata Shouyou does indeed turn out to be the real deal, obviously Weekly Shounen Jump wants to be part of his journey from the very beginning. Any takers for the profile piece?”

Brain: He might be there. At the assignment.
Akaashi: Who?
Brain: Don’t be cute. Just put your hand up.

“I’ll do it,” Akaashi gave in.

And suddenly, he was there — sliding quietly into one of the red velvet chairs at the back of the dress circle, where he hoped he would remain out of sight. 

The actors were reading from scripts, still getting their mouths around the Shakespearean diction, and there wasn’t a shred of costume or scenery to be seen. And yet something was being created — a spell was being woven from word and gesture and intention.

Having both the leads of equal gender was a bold move to make on account of the production team, but as Bokuto and Hinata spoke their lines, they moved. The actors were circling each other slowly, letting their bodies dictate their movements. Watching Bokuto Koutarou on stage, Akaashi remembered, had always been like watching a seal plunge into water: an ungainly animal suddenly making sense. 

The stage was Bokuto Koutarou’s element.

Akaashi, in the stuffy, velvety air of the dress circle, realised that he could hardly remember what it felt like to be inside those early days of falling in love and having that love returned. In fact, right at this moment, it seemed almost inconceivable that it would ever happen to her again. Because love like this wasn’t something you could make happen. It was a magic spark, and you just had to hope that somehow, somewhere, sometime, you would be there when the match struck the flint.

As with every play, closing scenes resonate deeply within the soul, and so Akaashi sat quite still, not wanting the world of the play to disappear. 

Behind him, the door to the dress circle opened noisily, letting in a wedge of dusty light, revealing a bright-eyed, cheery, Hinata Shouyou. He gave Akaashi a strange little wave, his below tight to his body, it was more the gesture of a nervous teenager than that of the confident, self-possessed young actor Akaashi had just been watching. 

“I’m Akaashi,” he introduced, holding out his hand, “from Weekly Shounen Jump. ”

Fumblingly, awkwardly, Hinata took his hand and shook it. And then, “I’ve never really done an interview before.”

Trying to ease up the young actor’s nerves, Akaashi tried claiming something on his part. “I know Bokuto-san, actually. We went to school together.”

Hinata looked intrigued. He leaned in, eyes widening. “Really? What was he like?”

“Always the performer,” Akaashi told fondly, “since high school, actually. But we lost touch for abit when his family and ours went our separate ways.”

At this, Hinata’s sparkling curiosity morphed effortlessly into sadness. The boy’s face, Akaashi saw, was like an Etch A Sketch. He had the capacity to wipe it clean of its expression and replace it with another. “Are you two still in touch?”

“We see each other around from time to time, I guess,” Akaashi replied lightly, wondering if this was stretching the facts. 

“Have you met his boyfriend?”

The words hit Akaashi hard, harder than he actually thought it would. Actually, it was just the one word. Boyfriend. He felt his heart sinking.

“He’s a model,” Hinata explained, quite accurately taking Akaashi’s silence as a no. “You might have seen him before — Kuroo Tetsurou is on all the ads for Chance wines. And Ophelia glasses. You know the one?”

Akaashi did not know, but he nevertheless felt his heart drop down through another few fathoms of blue. 

“Are they happy?” Akaashi prompted, feeling guilty even as he did so; it was hardly fair to pump Hinata for information as well.

“Well, it’s been a bit on-again, off-again,” Hinata admitted.

“Because?”

“You know about Narcissus right? Well in my opinion, Bokuto might turn out to be the pool.”

And so, in the week that followed, Akaashi worked on his profile of Hinata Shouyou until he had learned it by heart. By the time he turned it in, he had also learned the five locations between district park and Weekly Shounen Jump where he could study the face of Bokuto Koutarou’s boyfriend, the model, Kuroo Tetsurou.

Brain: Hinata said he’s a bit vacuous.
Akaashi: NO HE DID NOT. HINATA SUNSHINE SHOUYOU DID NOT SAY THAT. Not… precisely.
Brain: Okay, genius. But he intimated it. Same thing.
Akaashi: That is sloppy thinking, Brain. It’s not the same thing at all. 
Brain: So what are you going to do now? Hm? Just going to give up, are you? You don’t think Sakusa Kiyoomi might have a little something to say on surfaces and depths, on true love and false?
Akaashi: On the fucking basis of what? The opinion of a gossipy teenager? I think it’s better that we just leave things well alone.

Akaashi’s bicker with his brain was cut short with Sakusa’s latest fax skewed to the document spike in his office, and the month’s horoscopes had been submitted for layout.

And if, in the process of transcription, the entry for Virgo had been slightly transformed, well, Akaashi considered, the risk was minimal. Twice now he’d got away with his little sleight of hand. If Bokuto Koutarou’s relationship with this gorgeous god-like of a man boyfriend was entirely watertight and secure, then the horoscope could have no meaning for him. So what harm could a few alterations do?

Bokuto Koutarou was sitting on the floor of the rehearsal room, an open script on his lap and a half-eaten sushi roll in his hand, when Hinata got back from his lunch break in a tizz of excitement.

“Bokuto-san! Look!” he called out, sitting down beside Bokuto and thrusting something right under his nose. It took him a moment to realise that what he was showing him was the cover of the latest edition of Weekly Shounen Jump. ‘It’s me, it’s me! It’s both of me!”

“You look great, Shouyou!” 

“Don’t I, Bokuto-san?”

He did. The cover of Weekly Shounen Jump was entirely taken up with his mirrored faces. Flicking to an inside page, Bokuto saw a third and more neutral version of Hinata Shouyou , full length this time. The headline read: A face to watch. And beneath it was the by-line: Akaashi Keiji.

From just two paragraphs of the story, Bokuto could see that Akaashi had captured his co-star perfectly, giving the reader a subtle glimpse of the young actor’s innocent arrogance, but leaving them in no doubt about his promising talent.

Being around Hinata was honestly a mind-fuck for Bokuto. One minute he was almost freakishly mature, but the next moment his self-possession would evaporate and he’d be like an eight-year-old child after a sugar hit.

“He’s a really good writer,” Hinata admitted, and Bokuto smiled. “Always was,” Bokuto replied, with an unaccountable little flush of pride. 

When he was only halfway through the article, Hinata tugged the magazine out of Bokuto’s hands playfully.

“Wait, before you take it to show the others, can I at least read my stars?”

“Your stars? ” 

“Yes. My stars. ” 

Hinata chewed his gum noisily as he weighed the situation up. “If you can guess what sign I am, first go, then yes.”

Bokuto thought, but not for very long. He was changeable, versatile and energetic. And after he’d been interviewed for Weekly Shounen Jump, he’d loved bringing back to the whole cast the gossip that the journalist was an old friend of Bokuto’s. He remembered the way he’d laced the word friend with subtext, and also the way this had annoyed and pleased him, in equal measure.

“Pisces,” he declared, already quite certain that he was right.

Hinata nodded his head, clearly impressed. Bokuto smugly held out his hand for the magazine.

“I’ll read it to you,” Hinata decided, flopping down on the stage next to him. “What sign?” 

“You can’t guess?” Bokuto challenged, “I picked yours.” 

Hinata thought. There was more noisy chewing. “Virgo.”

Bokuto blinked, disbelieving. “You’re clueless about emotions, Bokuto-san.” More blinking. “You’re just kind of oblivious sometimes.”

“Oblivious?” Bokuto queried. “Oblivious, how? Oblivious, when ?”

“Like with Kuroo.” 

“What about Kuroo?”

Hianta made a see what I mean face. “He doesn’t remind you of anyone?” Bokuto thought for long enough for HInata, and the latter huffed. “You’re hopeless sometimes, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto bristled. What the hell did Hinata know? “I thought you were reading my stars,” he gestured to the magazine in Hinata’s hand. 

Hinata made up a character on the spot — a dreamy, ditsy stargazer with the faintest hint of a lisp — and began to read.

Bokuto listened closely, and felt a small uprising of goosebumps on his forearms at the mention of a crossroad of the heart. Sakusa was urging him to be wary of disingenuous love, and to be certain that he knew his toadstools from his mushrooms. 

“So,” Hinata let the magazine fall closed on his lap and looked at Bokuto with a glint in his eye, “how much do you know about fungi, fun guy ?”

In late June, as a distant northerly sun hovered over the Tropic of Cancer, the Southern hemisphere shivered through the shortest day of the year. Wine mulled quietly on stove tops, smelling of cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg and cloves, fire twirlers warmed up, and candles were lit, as humans in tune with the rhythms of the year sought out flickering flames to warm them through the longest night.

From somewhere beneath the mound of crumpled clothing dumped on the dining table, Akaashi’s phone began to chime. It rang several times before he could find it among the socks and underpants, pyjama pants and underwear, and he only just caught the call in time.

“Hello?”

“Turn around,” someone said. It was a male voice.

“Who is this?”

“Just trust me,” the caller instructed, “and turn around.” 

Akaashi didn’t like to obey the voice; nevertheless, he did. He turned around. But all he saw was his living room — cream couch, folded throw rug, cushions angled just so, books on the coffee table, television off.

“Excellent. Now walk towards your balcony.”

“Seriously?” Akaashi was starting to get frustrated. “Who is this?”

“Will you please just walk towards your balcony?”

Brain: Akaashi Keiji, have you ever seen a horror movie?
Akaashi: Yeah, I know. But who do you think it is? Aren’t you dying to know?
Brain: The only thing that will be dying tonight is you.
Akaashi: Will you shut up?
Brain: Only trying to look out for you, my friend…

“Sorry, who’s this?”

“Look.”

Beyond the glass of Akaashi’s french door, beyond the moulded-concrete rim of his balcony, across a narrow gap, and standing on the porch of the apartment opposite his own, was Bokuto Koutarou.

“So… I live here. Hey, Keiji,” Bokuto runs a hand through his damp hair. God, Akaashi’s brain yells, he’s hot.

“You’re my next-door neighbour now, huh?”

“It would appear so.”

Akaashi had known that someone had taken the apartment over the past weeks, in his occasional glimpses out of the window, he’d seen signs of life — a scant few items of furniture had gathered together in the living room, and a clothes airer had appeared on the porch.

Bokuto chuckled, “At first I thought, wow, that cute boy looks like Keiji. And then I was like, oh fuck, that cute boy is Keiji.”

Akaashi felt as if his heart was about to explode out of his chest at that moment. And he said it so casually. Cute boy. Cute. CUTE. C-U-T —

“I’m happy that this happened to be a coincidence. Even though it’s in a way, kinda weird…” Bokuto laughed, slightly louder this time.

“I was at the theatre that day, by the way. I saw you perform,” Akaashi wanted desperately to change the subject before he melted before Bokuto Koutarou.

“But you didn’t come and say hello,” Bokuto pouted, “to me.”

“Well, I… you were busy.”

“I’m not too busy, you know,” Bokuto giggled, “for you.”

Brain: Keiji, calm down.
Akaashi: AKFNWNDNENDNJEKEHEKDKWKFNWKKFNE
Brain: I didn’t believe it when it happened the first time. But now there’s a second time… 
Akaashi: It can’t be. He’s got a boyfriend.
Brain: Whatever you reckon, but I’m not so sure.

A sudden and familiar sound resonates in the air hanging between them, and Akaashi looked down at the phone in his hand. It wasn’t his that was ringing, though. It was Bokuto’s.

Apologetically, he put a hand up and said, “I should take this. But hey, Keiji,” he hesitated before picking up the still chiming phone. “Run lines with me sometime, yea? Coming over now is convenient, for both of us.”

“I'd love to, any time. You know where I am.”

“See you around then, Keiji.”

Before Akaashi could say goodnight, Bokuto’s broad back turned against him and walked back inside. 

Bokuto did not say that parting was such a sweet sorrow. He just stepped back inside his living room, leaving Akaashi standing beneath a dismal, city-bound moon.

In the days that followed, Akaashi — having failed to track down an externally mandated curtain protocol — developed his own set of window-covering guidelines. On the other hand, Bokuto had no correspondingly clear pattern: he seemed hardly to close his curtains at all, night or day. 

One evening, while accidentally glancing into the next-door apartment, Akaashi saw a slender dark-haired male figure showing two delivery men where to position a new and very comfortable-looking two-seater couch — a man whom Akaashi recognised instantly. He stepped sideways so that he was concealed by the green damask, and twitched back a section of the fabric so he could peer between its edge and the window frame.

Hinata Shouyou had been right. Even when wearing nothing more exciting than a pair of dark blue jeans and a batwing t-shirt, even with hair rather unkempt and messy — Kuroo Tetsurou was stunning beyond words.

Guiltily, compulsively, Akaashi watched as the delivery man took their leave and Kuroo kneeled down on the floor to cut away the plastic from a tightly rolled floor rug. He gave it a shove and the rug unfurled — wheat-colourred and plush — to meet up with the edge of the new couch. There was no sign of Bokuto in the apartment.

Akaashi knew that he should look away, but before he could make a move Kuroo got up and walked to the window, as if Akaashi’s presence had somehow made itself felt. Kuroo peered through the glass and across the gap. Akaashi froze.

Akaashi: Shit! Can he see me? CAN HE?!
Brain: Well, if you close your eyes, it’s going to be hard for me to tell, isn’t it? 

Had Bokuto mentioned to Kuroo, Akaashi wondered, that his next-door neighbour was someone he knew? Had Bokuto ever mentioned Akaashi to Kuroo at all? And, if he had, would Akaashi’s existence bother Kuroo in the slightest? Akaashi doubted it. For another few seconds he stood still and held his breath, then watched with relief as Kuroo closed the curtains before them.

Soon, Akaashi supposed, Bokuto would arrive home to his surprise: new couch, new rug, new cushions, exquisite boyfriend. Akaashi further supposed — and experienced a little spike of envy at the thought — that the plush new floor rug would obviate any need for Kuroo and Bokuto to venture as far as the bedroom. 

And then he knew, with a sinking heart, that all the horoscopes, mushrooms, toadstools, and jukeboxes were going to fail in the face of that. 

When Akaashi had first moved into the apartment, his father had given him quite a large bunch of keys. There was the key that opened the front food to the apartment block, the one that opened his own front door, and the one for the French doors, but the purpose of the rest was a mystery. Then, on an idle Sunday, Akaashi had discovered that one of them opened the door on the landing, and that behind the door was a steep metal staircase.

The air in the stairwell this night was cold and still, but as Akaashi opened the door at the top, he was hit by a gust of freezing wind. Neither his shirtsleeves nor the thin knit vest he was wearing offered much in the way of insulation.

“Holy shit,” Bokuto said, mesmerised, tagging Akaashi out onto the rooftop. It was nothing more prepossessing than a square of concrete, slick and shining from the evening rain, and furnished with a tilting rotary clothesline, two empty planter boxes and a floodlight with a shattered bulb. Much more impressive was the view, which took in the city, the river, and even the twinkling lights of the distant hills.

“I usually come up here for the fireworks on New Years’ Eve,” Akaashi said, taking a seat. He had long intended to zhoosh the place up, Akaashi told Bokuto — get some outdoor furniture, put some herbs and flowers in the planter boxes. But so far, he hadn’t even managed to replace the bulb in the floodlight.

Standing at the roof edge, Akaashi shivered. Almost absent-mindedly, Bokuto pulled his jumper, neckband first, over his head, and passed it in his direction. Underneath, he was wearing only a t-shirt, and Akaashi saw the skin of his arms immediately pucker into gooseflesh from the shock of the cold.

“No, don’t,” he protested, “I’m fine, really.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re cold,” Bokuto said.

The jumper was of soft grey wool, still warm from Bokuto’s body, as it smelled faintly of sandalwood. “Who else comes up here?” Bokuto asked, taking a seat next to Akaashi as well. 

“I’ve never seen anybody else,” Akaashi admitted, “just the occasional bird.

And then comfortable silence. Akaashi felt that he was at a safe distance to say something that was possibly too close for comfort — took a breath. 

“Bokuto-san —”

“ — Keiji, Koutarou is fine by me. Go on.”

Heart skipping a beat already, but Akaashi continued anyway. “ Koutarou. Look, I watched you on stage with Hinata the other day. I used to watch you on stage when we were kids, too. Back at school, you know… you have… you just have… more candlepower than other people. It’s your gift.”

When Akaashi looked up at Bokuto’s face, it wore an expression of such vulnerability that it embarrassed him. “Keiji, how do you know…” he trailed off, then started again: “I mean, how do you trust that i’s right to follow your calling? Like you, with your writing. You’re a brilliant writer, but you had to wait. You’re still waiting. But how do you keep trusting?”

If it had been anybody else asking, Akaashi might have been able to say something sage or reassuring. But since it was Bokuto Koutarou who was asking, he found that his brain had been reduced to a mess of misfiring synapses. He shrugged helplessly. 

Bokuto sighed. “Last month, Sakusa said…” at the mention of Sakusa’s name, Akaashi’s heart kicked up a gear. “I know, I know. You’re not into the stars. But just… hear me out. He predicted I would come to a crossroad, and he said, wouldn’t it be great if it was as easy to tell true love from false as it is to tell mushrooms from toadstools?”

Although Akaashi could hear his pulse beating fast in his ears, he counselled himself to remain still and quiet, to leave space for Bokuto to say more. While he waited, his ears filled with the conglomerate sounds of the city’s night-time traffic, and the noise of wind brushing through the branches of the big, old trees in the park across the road.

“Kuroo’s amazing,” Bokuto confessed, and Akaashi held his breath, for Bokuto didn’t even properly realise that he never actually introduced Kuroo to Akaashi, or vice versa.

Bokuto continued, “he’s such an achiever. All polish and organisation and rigour. Always. Believe me when I say he doesn’t take weekends off from being good at every bloody thing there is to be good at. It’s no wonder she’d expat the same from me too, you know.”

“But there’s something you’re really good at, too,” Akaashi replied, “and, speaking as your old friend, I'm telling you that if he ever asks you to choose between acting and anything else in the world, even he himself, I hope you make the right choice.”

All Bokuto could do at that was smile. Genuinely.

And it was exactly this conversation that fuelled the occurrence of events taking place the next morning. Perhaps he had done more than enough with the stars. But the fax still stared back at him, longingly, emptily. Perhaps it was time to stop meddling and let destiny simply unfold. With Mars in Leo, he began to type, faithfully.

Brain: Chicken.
Akaashi: What did you just say.
Brain: You heard. Fucking Chicken.
Akaashi: He’s already in a relationship. And I don’t think it’s particularly honourable to mess with that. There’s a thing called brotherhood, you know?
Brain: Right… And is this brotherhood reflected in Juliet telling Romeo to piss off back to Rosaline?
Akaashi: I don’t even know Kuroo. I don’t want to make an enemy of him.
Brain: But you don’t have to be Kuroo’s enemy in order to be a friend to Bokuto’s career. Just restrict your comments — to the professional. 

This was a good point. Akaashi wondered — what if, in much the same way as he had come up with a protocol for opening and closing his curtains, he could make up his own rules? An ethics of horoscope adjustment? A set of guidelines that would permit advice in relation to career matters, but rule out any mention of affairs of the heart?

“That could work,” he whispered to himself. Then he pressed the delete button, and Sakusa’s words were returned to the void. Akaashi thought for a moment, rifled through his memory bank, then began to type.

‘ All we have to decide,’ wrote Tolkien, ‘is what to do with the time that is given to us.’

“Cast it off. It is my love; O, it is my lady! O, that she knew she were.”

“Nope,” Akaashi deadpanned across the gap, “you got them the wrong way around. It should be “It is my lady ; O, it is my love. ”

“Fuckety, fuck, fuck,” Bokuto said, striding his living room. Over a pair of dark denim jeans that made his legs look a bit too skinny, he was wearing the jumper Akaashi had come to think of as the sandalwood jumper.

“Try it again,” Akaashi instructed, and popped another Malteser into his mouth as he sat cross-legged on Bokuto’s sofa.

“All right. It is my lady; O, it is my love. It is my lady; O, it is my love. Hey, can I have one of those?”

“Chocolate must be earned, Koutarou. You’ll need to get through the monologue, without a single mistake,” Akaashi thought for awhile, and then, “twice.”

“That’s just cruel.”

“No it isn’t —”

But before both of them could bicker any further, Akaashi was surprised — and he saw that Bokuto was, too — to hear a key turning in the lock of his front door. Only a few seconds later, Kuroo Tetsurou appeared in the living room doorway, wearing a shimmery deep-green coat that fell almost to the straps of his stupendously platform shoes. His hair was fixed in a complicated updo that Akaashi was fairly certain could only be accomplished by a professional. It was as if Kuroo had stepped directly off the red carpet, and into a profoundly awkward silence.

“Hey!” Bokuto managed to hide his surprise as he immediately got to his feet. He kissed Kuroo on the cheek before asking, “did I know you were coming over?”

Kuroo looked from Bokuto to Akaashi, and back to Bokuto. “The advertising thing was just on the other side of the district park,” Kuroo explained, “so I thought I’d call in on my way home. Say… hello.”

The pause that followed this sentence seemed to stretch, and stretch, and with every passing nanosecond, Akaashi felt increasingly uncomfortable.

“Oh shit, how could I forget! Tetsurou, this is Akaasshi Keiji,” Bokuto babbled, mostly in a rush.

An expression of perplexity briefly crossed Kuroo’s face, but then Akaashi observed how quickly and expertly Kuroo recognised his features. He smiled, but didn’t offer to extend his hand, instead — “pleased to meet you. Akaashi.” There was something formal about Kuroo’s practised good manners that Akaashi found both enviable and irritating.

“My next-door neighbour,” Bokuto further gestured to Akaashi.

“Oh,” the pieces of the puzzle visibly coming together in Kuroo’s mind, “you went to school with Koutarou before. You’re the Shakespeare coach, right?”

“That’s me,” Akaashi chuckled, and for some reason his thoughts jumped to how much Bokuto actually mentioned Akaashi to Kuroo. Did it bother him?

“I’ll get you a glass of water,” Bokuto offered and Kuroo simply smiled in reply. WHen Bokuto had gone into the kitchen, Kuroo took a seat beside Akaashi and queried politely, “so, how’s Koutarou doing with his lines?”

“Beautifully,” Akaashi admitted, “really well. Just a little bit of work needed around the final soliloquy. I mean, if there’s a part of the play you definitely don’t want to stuff up, it’s the tomb scene. Can you imagine, there is crypt, and you’ve got Juliet in your arms, and you completely dry up and have to call for a prompt? Talk about destroying the mood!”

Brain: You’re babbling. 
Akaashi: I know. And see his face? He’s trying not to, but he’s looking at me like I’m a fuckwit.
Brain: What should I do now?
Akaashi: Put your shoes on, babyboy.

And so, by the time Bokuto had returned to the living room, Akaashi had slipped his feet back into his beloved but decidedly unglamorous vlogs and buttoned up the duffel coat that he had. “I should go,” Akaashi told Kuroo plainly, all while trying to muster up a smile.

“There’s no need to rush off on my account,” Kuroo replied, and Akaashi could see that he was being sincere. “No, really, I should go. I had a big day at work, too,” was all Akaashi could say.

At the door, Bokuto hugged Akaashi, and when he pulled away, he shook his head, and said quietly, “that wasn’t meant to happen, I’m sorry, Keiji.”

And Akaashi knew that he’d spend the night half awake wondering what was. 

On the Friday of Romeo and Juliet’s opening night, Akaashi strategically commandeered the office bathroom on the stroke of 4:40pm. Behind the locked door, he took his time to adjust the gel on his hair till he was (mildly) satisfied with the balance. 

There was an essential errand to be accomplished at the markets. And on that night, it had nothing to do with avocados. The florist’s stall at the markets was called Hello Petal, and the woman behind the counter, wearing an apron of vintage ticking, looked like she’d had a long day. Her mascara was smudged beneath her eyelids and her hair seemed tired. Nevertheless, she managed to dredge up a smile for Akaashi.

“What can I get for you?” she asked.

“I need two bouquets, please,” Akaashi replied, “they should match, but one should be a little more… youthful? And the other should be a little more mature.”

The florist looked intrigued. She thought for a moment before she began to move around her flower buckets picking one stem here, another there, in what looked like a kind of waltz.

“And, if you wouldn’t mind, can you find a way to wrap the second one together with this?” Akaashi handed the florist a copy of the new edition of Weekly Shounen Jump, hot off the press. 

The florist examined the binded pieces of paper and smiled, Akaashi inferred, rather fondly. “Got it.”

Squeezing his way into a seat in the middle of the second row of the dress circle, Akaashi observed that the gathering audience was made up of a great many silver-haired women with large earrings and vibrant woollen wraps. THe cheap seats at the back were taken up with younger people, many of whom — in their cable-knit cardigans and thick-rimmed spectacles — looked to Akaashi as if they might be drama students, or university English majors.

And then Kuroo Tetsurou made his way, smiling and apologising, past the seats patrons towards his own designated seat. As he took his seat, Kuroo caught sight of Akaashi, and gave a tiny wave, which the latter returned.

As soon as the curtains parted, Akaashi simply just knew this was not going to be a standard Romeo and Juliet. The bold, extreme move of an all-male cast, with room for diversity in the age range. Minimal costumes, but the make-up was intense, with every actor’s face being artfully painted to accentuate the mouth and eyes.

The director had husbanded his varied resources brilliantly. And within minutes, standing before the crowd were no longer Bokuto Koutarou and Hinata Shouyou, but Romeo and Juliet, with not the least hint of archness in their flirtations. From the start, they portrayed their attraction as soft, sweet and deep, and the poetry of their lines played its proper second fiddle to the emotion.

The director had wittily cast himself in the role of the prince, so that it was someone with perfect timing who delivered the play’s final lines: ‘For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and Romeo.’

The audience applauded loudly. And Akaashi thought, Shakespeare really was a fucking genius. A couplet, as kitsch as a couplet could be, and yet it was enough to fill the heart to overflowing. When the actors took their bows, Akaashi clapped till his own hands hurt.

Bokuto and Akaashi’s eyes met, and all cheers were suddenly drowned away. “Thank you,” Akaashi saw Bokuto mouth, and the former felt his own eyes sting. And when Bokuto diverted his eyes to his proud boyfriend next, Akaashi mouthed, mostly to himself.

“I love you.”

Moments later, backstage, on Hinata Shouyou’s dressing table, he would find a bouquet of palest orange roses, mid-orange hyacinths and hot orange gerberas lay in front his lightbulb-studded mirror, with a note that said, For Mr Hinata, with admiration, from Akaashi Keiji. 

Across the hall, in Bokuto Koutarou’s dressing room, he would find an even larger bunch of flowers: white roses, deep-blue hyacinths and forget-me-nots. The note said, For a word-perfect Romeo, from his favourite Sagittarius. And inside the copy of Weekly Shounen Jump that peeked mischievously out of the bouquet’s wrapping, Sakusa Kiyoomi waited to pass on a message. Mostly… Sakusa Kiyoomi.

His toothbrush still hanging from the side of his mouth, Akaashi opened the door to reveal a Bokuto Koutarou, clearly fresh out of the shower, his grey hair all shiny-wet. Under a rather sharp-looking sports jacket, he wore a pair of nicer-than-average jeans and a pale blue print shirt that was bordering on pretty.

“And where are you off to this fine Friday night after your big break, Mr Bokuto Koutarou, all dressed to kill?”

Bokuto wasn’t himself. He seemed distracted, and clearly not like somebody who just ended his biggest production yet. He ran a hand through his wet hair as he said through a sigh, “Keiji, I need to talk to you.”

Akaashi: Is this going to be good? Or bad?
Brain: Well, we generally don’t like the phrase ‘I need to talk to you.’ It’s too much like, ‘I hope you won’t mind me saying, but…’

“I’m not doing it anymore, Keiji.”

Akaashi knew, immediately, what he meant. Even so, he heard himself ask, “doing what?”

“I’m not pursuing acting anymore. I can’t. I’m really sorry, I know you wanted me to, and I know you went out of your way to talk me into it too. And I really wanted to do this. I really did. But it turns out I’m going to be travelling for a lot of the summer, and there’s no way I can make the scheduling work, and look. Keiji… I just wanted to… tell you. In person.”

“Travelling. Because…?”

Bokuto huffed. “I’ve got a job. A job to act, but acting without all the lines. Kuroo and I, we’re going to be the Chance couple. You know, the winery? They want to sign us for five years to do a series of ads? Television, print, internet. And we have a trip leaving on Monday evening too. All paid and accommodated for. You would not believe what they’re willing to pay me to wear an Akubra hat and a wine glass.”

“Modelling?” Akaashi tried his utmost best to hide his disdain, “you’re going to be a model? Just like Kuroo?”

“Let me explain,” Kuroo said, looking pained. “I need you to understand, Keiji. I don’t know if you’ve read the horoscopes. Probably not, but you’ll never guess who Sakusa quoted at me this month. Go on. Guess!”

Akaashi shook his head miserably. “Shakespeare. Fucking… Shakespeare. Can you believe it?” 

Akaashi could.

“Do it, Koutarou,” Akaashi didn’t even realise that he was choking on the lump in his throat. “I’ll be proud of you, and supporting you, no matter what.”

Bokuto flashed a genuine smile for the first time that night. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something too, Koutarou,” Akaashi desperately wanted to change the subject, and perhaps something closer to the strings of his heart.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you if you remembered that beach night. At the carnival.”

“I was beginning to think we were never going to talk about that,” Bokuto couldn’t help but giggle, “I thought maybe, it was a bad memory for you, or something.”

“You did ?”

“Well, you made it pretty clear that you regretted it. You wouldn’t even come out of your room to say goodbye to me.”

“Koutarou! We were what, fifteen?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to you. It was that I wanted to talk to you too much. ”

Bokuto looked Keiji in the eye, before reaching for his hands.

“That was one of my favourite nights of all time,” Bokuto admitted, although it wasn’t until he heard himself say this aloud that he realised the absolute truth of it. On the beachside, with Akaashi, drunk on Stone’s Green Ginger Wine — it had been another of those perfect snapshot moments that Bokuto knew he’d never, in his whole life, forget.

“Keiji,” Bokuto looked at the scattering of stuck-on stars at the corners of Akaashi’s eyes glittering. “When I’m with you, I…” he began, and then stopped, because he knew that although there were a great many things he would like to say, inside this moment, there were all kinds of reasons that he could not.

Because although he wished there was a way of keeping the things he wanted to say in the bubble of this moment, he knew it to be impossible. So he settled for pulling Akaashi in and landing a kiss on the top of his dark hair, and said, “I’m so glad you’re my friend, Keiji. I’m so glad we found each other again.”

Akaashi: So, I guess that’s really it, then. He’s glad I’m his friend.
Brain: I guess so.
Akaashi: We gave it our best shot, didn’t we?
Brain: We did. We absolutely did. And a friend is no small thing. At least, no friend of Bokuto Koutarou is.

Iwaizumi Hajime hung a stray coat which belonged to God knows who on a hanger on the back of his office door, and he noticed the corner of a folded sheet protruding ever so slightly from one of the pockets. Of course, Iwaizumi knew that the honourable thing to do would be to leave the sheet of paper where it was. But, really, what kind of journalist would he be if he didn’t at least have a look? 

Immediately that he unfolded the page, he knew what it was. And almost as immediately, he wished that he did not know. 

“What the fuck, Keiji?”

Then, after breathing a few times, he asked himself what kind of journalist he would be, if he didn’t check all the facts. Good journos did not jump to conclusions, he reminded himself.

And so an hour later, Iwaizumi sat at his desk looking over all the proof that he needed, but wished that he had not found. He felt numb, for it was clear that what Akaashi had done, he had done with a gob-smacking degree of premeditation. 

The text of the horoscope column, particularly that of Virgo, as it appeared in the most recent edition of Weekly Shounen Jump, was different from the text on the fax from Akaashi’s coat pocket. Under close inspection, he’d been able to see the faint, tell-tale lines of shadow around Sakusa’s fax number at the top of the page: evidence that the document had been doctored.

At quick glance, Akaashi’s fake fax looked the same as Sakusa’s, but on careful examination, Iwaizumi had recognised that the typeface on the fake was very slightly different from that of all of Sakusa’ other ‘originals’.

“Jesus Christ,” Iwaizumi huffed, rubbing at his forehead. Akaashi Keiji was, so far as Iwaizumi had been able to determine, a normal, logical, reasonable and intelligent human being. So why would he go to so much trouble to mess around with the horoscopes?

Iwaizumi paced his office floor; he thought, and he thought. Then he noticed someone standing in the hallway outside his office, looking rather lost. He was wearing a Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt that looked like it had seen better days, and holding a bike helmet as if it were a bowl. Inside it was what appeared to be, mostly, a bunch of weeds. It was Akaashi’s friend. Romeo. The blue moon. Bokuto. That was it.

“Hey, Bokuto, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me. You’re… Iwaizumi-san, correct? I just called in to see Keiji, but I don’t know which office is his. I’m actually going on a trip tonight, but I wanted to leave these for him.”

He held up the bike helmet full of plant material. Iwaizumi saw a few dandelions poking out an arrangement of grasses and stinging nettles, sow thistles and dock, very freshly picked. On the other hand, Bokuto held a couple of slices of wholemeal bread wrapped in cling film.

“Hey, I think you’ve known Keiji for like, eternity — maybe you can tell me what I need to know. Would you mind having a look at something?”

And so Iwaizumi showed Bokuto the evidence that was spread out across his desk. From April through to August, Iwaizumi explained, and October and November, Akaashi had changed the horoscopes, especially for Virgo, and spiked Sakusa’s original faxes.

“I’m not furious, really. But more bewildered than anything. And disappointed,” Iwaizumi admitted, “I suppose this seems pretty funny to you. You’re probably thinking, it’s only the stars — what’s the big deal? ”

Bokuto put down the helmet and bread on Iwaizumi’s desk, and as he started to look through the documents one at a time, carefully, Iwaizumi noticed that Bokuto did not look even slightly amused. Even after a while, Iwaizumi began to feel unsettled by the attention Bokuto was paying to the documents, and by the stony look on his face.

“I probably shouldn’t have shared any of this with you. Or anyone. But I really don’t understand him. I need some perspective here, because I’m at a complete loss right now, Bokuto. Why would he do it? It’s bloody disrespectful to Sakusa. It’s unethical in the extreme. It’s just plain… stupid. And Keiji is anything but stupid. So, tell me. What’s with the Virgo thing?”

Iwaizumi didn’t realise how increasingly agitated he sounded as he spoke. He continued, “What’s with Keiji and Virgo? There must be a Virgoan in his life. But who? Do you know?”

“Yep,” Bokuto said icily, “I do.”

“Well?” 

Bokuto ran a hand through his hair. “It’s me.”

And then, right on cue, as Akaashi came to the open door to Iwaizumi’s office, ready to call out a cheery ‘Good morning, Iwaizumi-san!” and collect his coat that he left at the office over the weekend. But then he saw that Iwaizumi was not alone. In Iwaizumi’s office, wearing lycra shorts and his Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt, was Bokuto Koutarou. 

His face was serious, and so was Iwaizumi’s. On Iwaizumi’s desk, filled with what appeared to be a sem-tangled bunch of dandelions, was Bokuto’s bike helmet. And beneath the helmet was a scattering of pages that Akaashi recognised immediately. 

“Keiji,” Iwaizumi began.

But Akaashi had already turned and fled.

Akaashi: Being eaten alive by piranhas.
Brain: Being burned at the stake.
Akaashi: Being given to Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon as a test dummy.
Brain: Tongue-kissing a fistful of human excrement. 
Akaashi: Ew?! What the fuck?
Brain: What’s the problem? I thought we were supposed to be making ourselves feel better by making a list of everything we could think of that would be worse than what just happened?
Akaashi: Yes! But there’s no need to be so explicit about it. Actually, on second thought, I might even take that one over what happened this morning. I’m going to lose my job, you realise. And nobody will ever employ me again. At least, not a journalist. I’ll have to go work at 7e. Or dog-sit for the rest of my life. And even worse, Bokuto hates me now. And so does Iwaizumi.
Brain: Your phone is ringing. 
Akaashi: No it isn't.
Brain: Akaashi Keiji, someone is ringing your phone.
Akaashi: That is nobody. I don’t want to ever answer my phone. I don’t want to see another living human. Ever again. For as long as I live. Or even talk to one. 
Brain: Which of them would be worse?
Akaashi: Bokuto.
Brain: Then that’s who it will be. It’s just that kind of day.

On this occasion, however, Akaashi’s brain was so very wrong. Akaashi did not even check the receiver before answering. It was the ever recognisable voice of Iwaizumi Hajime.

“So,” he began, and Akaashi — eyes still closed — waited for him to continue. He felt like a prisoner in the dock, waiting for his sentence to be pronounced.

“So… you understand that I have to suspend you. From Weekly Shounen Jump. I’m going to suspend you, on half pay, while I decide what to do. It might still be the case that I have to let you go.”

“Oh.”

“And for what? Over the bloody stars? Akaashi, what the fuck were you thinking? I can’t believe that a writer with so much promise could be such a… dumb arse.”

“I’m sorry, Iwaizumi-san. I really am. The last thing I want to do is give you any dog-ate-my-homework excuses. I know that everything I did was just plain wrong. And I’m sorry. But is there anything I could say that would convince you that —”

“ — I’m going to have to talk to Sakusa Kiyoomi, too. Just the facts, as I see them. And one last thing, Keiji. Not a work-related thing.”

“Anything.”

“How long have you been in love with Bokuto Koutarou?” 

Akaashi had been lying all this time, to Iwaizumi and Bokuto. So the least that he could do was tell him the truth. “For as long as I can remember, I think.”

“Give him a while to process everything, Keiji; as with you. I wish you both all the best.”

“Not that one,” Kuroo laughed lightly, “this one, baby.”

He led the way to the considerably shorter queue — the one for first and business class passengers. But being in the shorter queue didn’t change the fact that it was stupidly early in the morning, and Bokuto was suffering from the slightly cold, creaky, unified feeling — of body and soul — that he always felt when he was forced to be awake before dawn. 

They were heading back to Tokyo on an early morning flight from South Australia, after spending several days posing for the cameras amid alleyways of grapevines. He emailed to Chance all his measurements so that they could have his tight-fitting moleskin pants at the ready. And an Akubra hat in the right size. 

And then there was the proposal. The small ring box found its cozy spot in Bokuto’s backpack pocket. Cameras, reporters, will be all surrounding them as Bokuto got on one knee, and Kuroo would have to act surprised, even though he would know all along. They would get paid for it, too. Once in the spotlight, they were never getting out so easily.

“Koutarou. Are you okay?” Kuroo repeated for the third time that day, putting a gentle hand on his arm.

In the time-honoured fashion of people who are not yet ready to say why they are not fine, Bokuto smiled through a small, ‘I’m fine.’

It didn’t make him feel good to behave this way, but he felt safest to be locked inside himself for the moment. Even though he didn’t know precisely what was wrong with him, he didn’t know precisely what was wrong with him, he did know that, right now, letting out his thoughts and feelings could do nothing but harm.

“It’s just that you seem…” and Kuroo was right, of course. Bokuto did ‘seem’, because he was.

“I think I’ll go get something to read on the plane real quick,” Bokuto sighed, “do you want anything from the shop?”

Kuroo smiled a little sadly. “Just a more cheerful you, baby.”

At the concourse newsagent, Bokuto picked up a packet of blackcurrant pastilles and the year’s next edition of Weekly Shounen Jump. Without thinking, Bokuto opened the magazine to the page where Sakusa Kiyoomi stared up from beneath his curly fringe.

Virgo: Through the ups and downs gone by, earth bearers, you have found your way to precisely the place you need to be. Expect good fortune in your career, especially if your job requires you to be in the public eye. Rest assured that whether or not it is clear to you at this moment, you are on the road where you need to be.

Since he knew from Iwaizumi Hajime that Akaashi had been suspended from Weekly Shounen Jump, and that Iwaizumi himself was now personally overseeing the astrology column, Bokuto was as certain as he could be that these words had been written by Sakusa Kiyoomi himself. Even so, holding the magazine in his hands made him feel a cocktail of different emotions — none of them particularly pleasant.

There was some anger in the mix, though not so very much any more. He no longer wanted to go over to Akaashi’s apartment and dangle him off the balcony by his feet until he explained what the fuck he had been thinking.

Akaashi had fooled him. Brilliantly, and for months. He had made him into a fool. Because looking back over everything that ‘Sakusa’ had written, it should have been obvious to him that a ventriloquist had his hand up Sakusa’s shirt.

But what was this little prank of his really all about? Was it just his way of proving to himself that he was ridiculous to pay attention to his horoscopes? Had he been planning, ever, to reveal this little ruse to him? Or was he just going to keep on laughing at him, privately, forever?

Yes, Akaashi had made an idiot of him, but even worse than that, he had taken something from him. He’d spoiled it: his one little sprinkling of magic in an otherwise pragmatic world — a harmless handful of stardust and mystery, once a month, on the page of a magazine.

For the better part of the year, it had not been Sakusa Kiyoomi’s astrological predictions, but Akaashi Keiji’s false ones, that Bokuto had taken for him compass. This was equivalent to mistaking a satellite for a star, or of typing out a whole page of text before realising that your fingers were resting on the wrong keys. 

So, was it the case — as Sakusa was now suggesting — that Bokuto had arrived at precisely the place he needed to be? Or was he in the wrong neighbourhood altogether?

He was in a place that any number of people would want to occupy. He had moved in with, and was almost engaged to, an incredibly successful and stunning man; he had a new job and was making good money; he was no longer cavorting around promoting oysters in a stinking fish costume.

He ought, he knew, to be happy. But he was not.

Bokuto shoved the copy of Weekly Shounen Jump back into the magazine rack, took out a copy of the magazine next to it and set that down on the counter with his roll of pastilles.

“That’ll be nine forty-five,” mused the young guy behind the counter.

As Bokuto walked away from the shop, eyebrows still furrowed, he processed a thought. Perhaps, Akaashi didn’t actually mess with the horoscopes to fool him or laugh at him.

Perhaps.

The ring box in Bokuto’s pocket sat nicely in the palm of his left hand, while his right covered it to not reveal the jewel within. Burnout Syndromes played before his big moment, and so he decided to relish in the last few moments before he was entitled to be ‘engaged’.

Bokuto Koutarou didn’t know how music worked. He only knew that it did. He knew that it wasn’t only the words, and he knew it wasn’t only the tune. He knew it wasn’t only the small person with the big crazy hair and bittersweet voice, and he knew that it wasn’t only the gleaming black guitar with the ornate mother-of-pearl detailing. He knew it was all of these things together — and something else as well — that was swelling up his heart so that it hurt in the best way possible.

As words went in through his ears and down through his mind and soaked into the deep red sponge of his heart, Bokuto knew that it wasn’t Kuroo Tetsurou who was the one, and it never had been. It wasn’t Kuroo who had nothing going on beneath. It was he, himself. And Akaashi had known it all along. In the person of Sakusa Kiyoomi, he had tried every which way he could to tell him to look deeper, dig deeper, go deeper. Be deeper.

Akaashi.

Burnout Syndromes played a long, instrumental interlude that conjured a montage of memories in Bokuto’s mind. 

There was Akaashi Keiji, dwarfed in Bokuto’s jumper on a cold night on his rooftop, its too-long sleeves flapping like a pair of boneless wings. And Akaashi looking heartbrokenly into the open back of the removal van while Bokuto stood with suitcases in his hands, pretending not to see him.

Akaashi hadn’t messed with his horoscopes to fool him, or to laugh at him. He’d done it because he was trying to tell him something that he ought to have known for a hundred other reasons: he was the one for Bokuto Koutarou.

Burnout Syndromes sang the chorus one last time and sang the final, soaring, bittersweet notes, and when the song came at last to its very end, Bokuto knew what he needed to do.

The spotlight came onto Bokuto and Kuroo’s tables, and Bokuto saw the cameras and eyes all focused on them. He took Kuroo’s hand, but he didn’t turn it over the way you might if you were going to slip a ring onto someone’s finger. He gently turned Kuroo’s hand upwards and placed the ring, box and all, on his palm, and saw the weather on his face flicker from sunshine to rain.

“I want you to have this ring. As a farewell present.”

Immediately, uproars and flashing lights. “Koutarou, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Tetsurou, you are the most stunning man I have ever seen. You are perhaps the most stunning man I will ever see in real life. FOr all my life, I will see you on the billboards of the world and wonder at your beauty. When you are one of those silver-haired men advertising age-defying skin cream, I will look at you and be grateful that I ever had the chance to admire you at close range. You are also one of the strongest and most hardworking people I know. You will be an extraordinary success, and as I watch that success from afar, I will admire it and applaud you. But, I’m not going to marry you.”

“You’re breaking up with me? With a goddamn ring?”

“Listen, Tetsurou. I’m never going to be who you want. I’m never going to be what you want. I can’t promise that I won’t be riding a bike and eating two-minute ramen when I’m sixty. I’m sorry, Tetsurou, but I’m not right for you. But somewhere out there —” Bokuto gestured vaguely in the direction of the city, the country, the world — “is the person who is. I want you to go find them.”

“I don’t believe this, Koutarou. Where the hell are you going?”

Bokuto didn’t answer. He patted the box now in Kuroo’s hand, giving the latter a fond salute and disappearing into the night.

It was 3AM when the doorbell rang again, and Akaashi put down his tub of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream tub and paused his Pride and Prejudice: All editions marathon. He walked to the door and opened it without checking the peephole.

“Question,” Bokuto said in between pants, “why did you do it?”

“Koutarou,” Akaashi felt as if all the life out of him was getting sucked out already, “what are you doing here?”

Bokuto leaned forward, not answering, but instead, probed further, “I need to know. Why did you do it.”

Akaashi bit his lip. “I’m so sorry, Koutarou. I never meant for —”

Bokuto shook his head impatiently. “Not an apology. That’s not what I want. I want to understand, Keiji.”

“You really don’t know?” At that, Bokuto replied with a short, “I think I might know, but I don’t want to guess, either. I want to hear it from you. ”

Akaashi started to say something, and then stopped. Started again. Stopped. At last, he came through with, “I did it because I didn’t want you to stop being you. I did it because I didn’t want you to give up everything you are. I still don’t… want you to do that.”

“But that’s not all of it, is it?” Bokuto pressed, “I mean, why should you care so much? Why would you care enough to risk your job?”

Akaashi’s thick, dark eyebrows drew closer together, and all his features seemed to quiver. “Come on, Koutarou. You know.”

Bokuto could see tears brimming in Akaashi’s lower eyelids, all while swallowing hard, too, in an effort to stop himself from crying. It didn’t work, though. A tear splashed out onto his cheek, and while Bokuto felt a pang of guilt, he pushed on. “I’m starting to get an idea, but I still want you to say it.”

A second tear landed, this time on Akaashi’s other cheek. “I think I might… love you, Koutarou.”

Bokuto reached out to cup Akaashi’s jaw with one hand and brushed a thumb gently across his cheek. “Well, that’s all right then. Because I love you, too, Keiji. And I am so sorry for being too stupid to know. Until now.”

Akaashi sniffed, trying to process what had just come out of Bokuto’s mouth. “Why now?”

And so Bokuto explained it all — how he felt as if Burnout fucking Syndromes was speaking not to him but to his soul, and how he had said goodbye to Kuroo Tetsurou outside the Galaxy Ballroom and how he’d been almost certain that there was had been a look of relief in Kuroo’s eyes, and how perhaps this was to do with Neptune in Virgo, and the spiritual forces of the universe converging, just as Sakusa Kiyoomi said — that it just wasn’t enough.

“But now I’m here. And... can you just promise me that if you ever want me to know something, you will say it to me, straight out? Don’t have an astrologer tell me, okay? And don’t pretend to be an astrologer. It’s all too confusing,” Bokuto finished.

Akaashi made a small laugh. “It didn’t even work. If you think back over it, almost everything I did backfired anyway.”

“And yet, here I am. And here we are. I really don’t know how it works, Keiji. But I only know that it does.”

And then longful eye contact, longful staring. 

Brain: I’m almost certain he’s going to kiss you now. Brace yourself.
Akaashi: I think you’re right. Tongue or no tongue?
Brain: Just anything better than that first kiss y’all had. 

“I love you, Keiji. I always have.”

And Bokuto Koutarou did kiss Akaashi Keiji then. And he kissed him back. And this time, they knew exactly how to do it. And the stars were always there, watching them through it all.