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In Bokuto’s household growing up there is always some sort of fruit out, ready and waiting to be eaten by whoever passes by. Sliced apples after practice, a bowl of grapes when he comes downstairs to take one of his many study breaks. His favorite is when less hardy fruits come in season and his mother delicately slices fuzzy peaches or sweet strawberries or tart cherries, a bowl sitting empty nearby to discard stems and spit out pits.
Only once Bokuto is out on his own in the world, practically living at the Black Jackals training facilities and returning to his tiny studio apartment late into the night to eat something filling from the take out place on the corner and crash into bed, does he start to realize how special that fruit was. He never thought about the time his mother must have spent picking out ripe fruit at the market, cleaning, coring, peeling and slicing, just to give him something that would be eaten and forgotten in an instant. Bokuto can’t imagine doing all that for himself, let alone doing it for someone who wasn't even really paying attention.
Bokuto thinks, maybe, you have to love someone a lot to do all that for them.
---
The next time he’s home for a long weekend he offers to go with his mother to the market, filled with questions about everything they pass in the produce section. When they get home, she shows him how to remove the tops of the strawberries without losing any of the fruit, laughing at his clumsy first attempts to get it right.
“What brought this on, Koutarou? You’ve never helped with the food before.”
“Well, I’m an adult now, aren’t I? I should learn to do these things instead of relying on people to take care of me all the time.”
“Ahh an adult now, hmm?” She smiles and pulls his head down to kiss his cheek, squishing his face to her’s. “You’ll always be my little boy, even if you do learn to cut your own fruit.”
Bokuto tries another, mimicking what she showed him—one shallow cut here, another across. The top comes off, half the berry still stuck to it.
“Gahhh! I really thought I had that one!” Bokuto tries to fix it, cutting away in uneven notches until the mangled fruit is laying in pieces, separated from the stem now but hardly appetizing.
“Here, here.” His mother takes the next one. “Like this.”
She stands by him in the kitchen for the next hour, patiently showing him again and again until every berry he touches comes out perfect.
---
Bokuto and Akaashi’s schedules rarely align, so when they do get the time to visit each other it’s special, but this time, THIS TIME, Bokuto really wants to make it extra special. It’s their 3 year anniversary and Akaashi has just successfully passed another term at university. He has some time off before the next term starts and should be arriving in Osaka in...an hour.
Bokuto checks his phone again. Yes, that is the time.
Bokuto catches himself sliding into a defeated mood. Why had he let himself get carried away, getting into a friendly competition with a couple other wing spikers and practicing his line shot long after team practice ended? He knew Akaashi was coming and had a whole plan to cook dinner to be ready for him when he arrived, but now he was never going to make it home in time.
He shake’s himself out of it. He knew what Akaashi would say, they had talked about this together: Find a way to work around it, don’t let himself get down. How could he still do something special for Akaashi?
He dashes off the train and down the streets towards his apartment, popping in to the local grocer to see if anything strikes him with inspiration.
As he quickly scans over the store, a sweet smell hits his nose. He turns, following the smell to where a pyramid of large, jucy looking peaches is on display.
He has an idea.
Quickly grabbing a couple of perfectly ripe ones, just like his mother showed him, he heads to the ice cream freezer. After paying, he calls in an order to the chinese place he knows Akaashi likes to indulge in when they are both too lazy to cook.
Back at his apartment, he puts away the groceries, takes the fastest shower known to man, and has the peach pitted and sliced all before he heads out again to meet Akaashi at the station.
Akaashi, as always, looks radiant.
Yes he has bags under his eyes from studying for his exams, and yes there is dried drool on his chin from where he must have fallen asleep on the train, but Bokuto has never seen anything better, so he tells him that.
“Thank you, Bokuto-san. You look very nice too. Did you cut your hair?”
“Yes! I’m glad you like it, my mom says it makes me look more mature.”
Bokuto poses for Akaashi, who smiles wider.
“Very mature indeed.”
Bokuto takes the larger of Akaashi’s bags, hand itching to reach out and take his hand as well, but he knows he should wait until they are back in the privacy of his apartment. It’s still nice, walking through the streets in the cooling summer evening, catching up face to face for the first time in months. The back of Akaashi’s hand brushes his own, never lingering but he doesn’t move further away.
When they get back to the apartment and take off their shoes, Bokuto sees the bowl of peaches he prepared sitting on the counter and remembers his surprise.
“Akaashi! I have something for you, look!” He holds out the bowl of peaches. “They smelled so perfect and I thought they would be good with some of that dairy free ice cream you like!”
Akaashi has an unreadable look on his face, standing still where he’s just slipped on house slippers by the entrance.
“That’s very kind of you to think of me, Bokuto-san. I really do appreciate it but, I’m allergic to peaches.”
Akaashi scratches at his cheek with one finger. Bokuto deflates.
“Ah Akaashi I'm so sorry, this was supposed to be special and I already fucked up, and I thought maybe I could fix it, but no! No! I messed that up too.”
“Bokuto…”
“How did I not know you were allergic to peaches? You must have told me before, that should be something a good boyfriend would know, what if you were dying?? Dying and I didn’t know why?!”
“Bokuto, it’s not all that bad, my throat just itches a little—”
Bokuto turns away, crouching down, leaning his forehead against the edge of the counter, hidden from Akaashi.
The intercom buzzes.
“Bokuto, are you expecting someone?”
Bokuto takes a deep breath. Another. “Just dinner. I was going to cook for you, but I ruined that too.”
“I see.”
Over the sound of the buzzing in his head, Bokuto can hear Akaashi answer the intercom as it starts buzzing again, and then a few seconds later pull open the door and thank the delivery person. Akaashi walks into the kitchen to stand next to him, placing the paper bag on the counter next to them. He stands silently for a moment.
“Bokuto. Could you help me with something?”
Bokuto looks up at Akaashi, leaning with one hip against the counter next to him.
“Could you get a paring knife?”
Bokuto pulls himself to his feet, still feeling like useless garbage, but it would be even worse if he couldn’t help Akaashi when he was asking him for something. He grabs the knife from the sink where he tossed it earlier, carefully washing it before returning to Akaashi’s side.
Akaashi turns with him to face the bowl.
“Bokuto-san, I am allergic to peaches, but it’s really just the skin that is the problem. I don’t eat them at all because it's hard to peel a peach, it takes time and you have to be very delicate so you don’t leave bruises. Then you have to eat it quickly so the fruit doesn’t go brown, so I don’t usually like to bother. These peaches you’ve gotten smell delicious. If you are willing, do you think you could peel them for me?”
Bokuto can feel his heart clenching in his chest.
“Of course I can, Akaashi.” He would do anything Akaashi asked of him. “I’ll peel every peach in the world for you. The apricots and nectarines too, if you like!”
Akaashi laughs, presses his face to Bokuto’s shoulder, arm coming up to wrap around his waist.
“Let’s just start with the ones here, I think. We can talk about the rest later.”
Akaashi keeps his arm around Bokuto and his chin on his shoulder as Bokuto carefully removes the peel from each slice of peach and discards them, only letting go when Bokuto moves to the sink to rinse the slices, removing any lasting peach fuzz. They end up on the kitchen floor, feeding slippery skinless peach slices to each other before dinner, Bokuto wondering how many peaches must be in the world and Akaashi providing his own insight.
Bokuto thinks, maybe, he would like to take the skin off peaches forever for someone who loves him.