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Bokuto Koutarou has had mood swings for a long time. Everyone knows that! His family. His friends. His teammates. Other people. He’s usually an energetic person but more than every once in a while, he’d screw up. He’d mess up. And it’s be a big mess up, no matter what Akaashi or anyone else may tell him, treating him differently, childishly, when he’s in that phase.
In the moment, he likes the treatment. It pulls him towards normalcy.
When he reaches normalcy, after he’s done what he needed to be done, that’s when the regret hits him. That’s when he really beats himself up in the privacy of his room with the radio playing on high and the door to his room locked, curling up on his bed, screaming into his pillow, gripping his arms in a tight grip, pulling at his hair until his fingers slide off from the gel.
Everyone knows he has mood swings. Mood swings which are sudden and semi-predictable. Something everyone has gotten used to. Something everyone finds normal for him, not something that’s a problem when it is. Well, the last one’s his fault, he guesses. He’s the one who decided to hide the aftermath, thinking he’s oh-so-clever because little him had been tired off his family treating him like glass . And look at where that led him? Maybe he could of gotten medications which would of made him not have mood swings. He’s be a better player. Maybe his friends would talk to him more. Maybe he’d be smarter with his classes. Maybe he’d be a better volleyball player. Maybe he’d be in the top three instead of in fourth, longingly looking and pacing like a mangled puppy, longingly looking at something he can never have.
Nobody knows that he gets panic attacks.
They come sudden and quick, about the randomest of things. They used to be much more...visible. Intense hyperventilation. Crying. Days-long phobias of anything . He remembers seeing Sakusa Kiyoomi for the first time when he was a second year at the Tokyo national training camp, with his aversion to everyone except for his cousin and a mask on his face. He yearned to ask are you like me too? Are there days when the lightest touch makes you want to scratch your skin off? When you have to wear that mask because you can’t stop thinking about the thing’s in the air that can kill you if you breath in the wrong set of germs? Do you insult people like that because if you hear one more words from them you’re going to scream?
Sakusa’s cousin, Komori, absently told him once that he appreciates him not asking Sakusa about his mask or cleaning tendencies, as well as keeping a good distance when talking. He hadn’t expected Bokuto to be so considerate of his cousin’s germaphobia.
Germaphobia. So not whatever strangeness Bokuto had been blessed with.
Over time, he managed to make the panic attacks...masked. Oh, they’re still intense. But he knows how to force himself to breathe. He’s developed the self control to not make his hands claw at his throat or fingers to pull at his hair. He’s able to transfer the feeling he suddenly gets after two or more mood-swings that comes during a game to go hide in a bathroom and scream in favor of simply focusing on something, anything , until his team somehow manages to pull him out of his down-turn and partial panic attack.
It’s scary. Every single time. The number of times he’s had them, it’s countless. But without fail, everytime he gets one, it crawls up his throat like something is inside of it, clawes spindly hands gripping the sides of his throat, gripping the lining and digging hands and feet and knocking elbows and knees to reach his brain and encapture him in his hold. When the fear truly holds it, when it settles, when it grows, those are the worse. It makes him feel like he’s going to die. He can’t make himself breathe. His eyes feel like they’re about pop out, the illusion forming of the skin of his face feeling like it’s ballooning and pulling tight and about to explode. His knees shake and he has passed out a few times.
Once again, in the privacy of his room.
He’s going to return to the point that he should of told someone. Akaashi would of been a good choice, but his family would of been better. It would of been smarter. But Bokuto Koutarou isn’t good at anything except volleyball. If he really had to think about it, his mind would probably come up with a bunch of solutions where everything can suddenly turn bad. Telling his parents could get him sent to a mental institute. Telling Akaashi will lose him one of his closest friends. If he told Kuroo, he’d pass it as a joke and scold Bokuto for kidding about those kind of things, that they happen to real people.
That one thought led him to the conclusion that he wasn’t a real person. It also led him to third-year him, about a week after them losing buy a point to Itachiyama at the Spring Nationals and getting second place (positions switched from Summer Nationals), staring at the dustbin in his parents bathroom, at the expired prescription pills still in their orange bottles that his mom cleaned out from the cabinet before she and his dad left for work. It led to him taking one with shaking fingers. It led to him, right there and there, taking all of them. It led to him waking up in his own vomit, small chunks of white half-dissolved, and his parents weren’t even home yet.
The day after was the first time he missed school that year for a personal reason, overcome with guilt and self-loathing and a horrible sickness that had him ending on the toilet more than once. When he went back the next day, no one had asked him any questions. Well, they did ask him if he was good for practice, but that doesn’t really count. He imagined that they would of been suspicious, worried, that he was actually sick for once. He imagined one of them visiting his home, seeing his condition, and instantaneously thinking that something was off. That Akaashi would of noticed his behavior was different, forced, that even though the moments of hesitation are too short to notice, he would of noticed how Bokuto’s smiles are fake, his eyes lacking a joyful glint, and that the surprising absence of his “emo-mode” was because he was already in a mood- had been for two days.
Nope.
He managed to graduate with a surprisingly good grade. Then he began the next leg of his life:
Professional Volleyball. Because if there’s anyway he could somehow live a happy live, it’d be because of his eternal love of volleyball. It had been horrible, forcing himself to step on the side during practice so that Akaashi and the few other second and first years could learn what it’s like to play without their senpais. They were good.
The first and only team he tries out for are the MSBY Black Jackals. He travelled all the way to Osaka, and he surprised even himself when the whole ride there he was calm. He was focused. He wasn’t gripping his jacketed arms in the freezing train with a bruising grip. He wasn’t biting down hard enough on his tongue to make it bleed. He didn’t need to pull the mask out of his bag and stand the whole way because the seats are disgusting and dangerous.
He makes it onto the team. But it’s kinda lonely and not at the same time.
For one, the Jackals are older than him. By a lot. The youngest member besides him is four years older than him. Three of them are foreigners, one of them the coach who is fluent and the other two, players, whose Japanese is slowly improving, but Bokuto can understand them. In that way, he’s lonely.
He’s not lonely because they’re the MSBY Black Jackals. They treat him like a little brother, pampering him, ruffling his hair, hugging him, taking him out for food and drinks (and buying him juice because he isn’t of age yet), and giving him really good tips.
The disappointment that hits him when his mood drops for the first time, turning “emo”, is in the fourth week of joining. It was the pure fear of their looks of pride turning into disgust that had been the only thing keeping the feeling from really overwhelming him.
It had been a pretty small swing, not one that used to have him curling up under the desk his team moved to the gym for him. He had a nice breakfast. He had a nice lunch. Warm-ups were good. The start of practice was good. Then his serves, they just would work . They were too slow. They went out. They ran into the net. He doesn’t remember the words he blurted out. It must of been worse than the usual quip, or the statements he’d make back at Fukurodani, because balls stop bouncing and he could feel all eyes on him. He didn’t see all of that because he’d already opened the gym doors, escaping outside to the cool Osaka outdoors, the too clean air, the quieter surroundings, the emptiness.
Inunaki was the one who came to get him. Not Meian who would be their captain after their current one retires at the (too-young in Bokuto’s opinion) age of thirty-two. Bokuto had been sitting on the sidewalk with his knees drawn to his chest, one hand gripping his leg below the knee while the other tugged at his hair.
“You know” Inunaki had said, sitting down next to him, a good foot away “Tomas used to be like that too. He’s make a mistake and he’d pretty much hate himself for it. He couldn’t really communicate with us early on since he spoke a different type of english and barely knew any Japanese, but we were able to cross the language barrier and help him.” Bokuto had looked at him, hand falling from his hair. He images Tomas, their middle blocker, always having a clever smirk on hand that made him look like Kuroo, with his nasty quick set and funny accented jokes he tells in amateurish but understandable Japanese.
“Tomas-san?” Bokuto asked. Inunaki had nodded.
“It took him a while, but… Let’s not focus on his story” Inunaki had concluded. “I can already tell that this wasn’t the same thing. I don’t mean to be, well, mean, but you’ve had worse days. I’d been wondering when one of your infamous moods would come out, since I have watched some of your matches during the recruiting process to see who I’d be dealing with. You’re very different in person than on video.”
“So what are you trying to get at?” Bokuto had asked, cocking his head to the side a bit, staring at the light haired man.
“You can tell us if there’s anything wrong. The only one of us who didn’t move from somewhere else to Osaka is captain and Meian. Other than that, all of us are basically foreigners. We stay together like family. Heck, all of us live in the dorms together! We share a kitchen! Meian and Coach and Captain are the only ones who don’t live in the dorms, and that’s only because they actually have families. You can trust us, Bokuto.”
Bokuto had been silent for a few moments. Then he’d managed a small, true smile.
“I’m not ready yet.”
A year passes. The Black Jackals are a lot different than his team at Fukurodani. He finds himself feeling...freer. The team is a normal size for a professional team, smaller in comparison to a highschool team with only seven players. But that means they work much better together with practice being longer and being something they do to earn a living. He has less swings in his mood but he does have more panic attacks in his small apartment in the dorm building. His thoughts aren’t as violent because, quite frankly, there’s nothing really to incite those sort of thoughts. He doesn’t have any medication, The community kitchen is all the way down the hall. Barnes somehow convinced him to join him with waxing their facial hair every two weeks so he never had a reason to get a new razor after his old one broke. Yes, waxing hurt quite a bit, but the joy of doing it with overly-tickling Barnes who laughed even when the wax was being applied would shove all of those sort of thoughts out his mind if they happened to follow him.
He grew more aversion to touch. He would stiffen or flinch away from physical contact. He almost felt like crying when one of the day he needed to have his skin to himself no one had touched him. Balls weren’t handled carefully and slowly but they were passed to him in a way that ensured no contact. They let him go shower first and change before they came in.
The advantages of being around people older than him, he guesses.
A few weeks after that, an eighth player joined their ranks, a face he remembers from playing (and beating) them once, and from watching Karasuno amazingly defeat them. Miya Atsumu. Setter. No one would of fitted him as a setter as much as Akaashi had (he should text him again tomorrow- he should be done studying for that one exam in college), but Miya was the closest after him.
He also had no sense of personal space. He would come close to Bokuto whenever he would want, the smile on his face sometimes real, sometimes fake. Bokuto decided to call him Tsum-Tsum straight from day one. The nickname had just blurted from his mouth after he felt the happiness of having someone else his age on the team.
They got along well, he thinks. Miya is a really good setter. According to the others, Bokuto is a really good hitter. Together, they were more than good.
Miya also never got the memo or was never really ale to conclude any of Bokuto’s stranger, unwanted personality traits. He easily dealt with his less than common emo-modes. He either never noticed or ignored Bokuto’s flinching when he wouldn’t want to be touched. He laughed at Bokuto when he came out of his dorm’s with a face mask on, asking him if he was planning to play with a cold before skipping away. Inunaki had given him a slightly sad look before pointing back at Miya and rolling his eyes.
Two years. Two years Miya was oblivious.
Then they got two more players after a year later one of their members transferred teams and then another retired. Both of which were familiar faces: Sakusa Kiyoomi and Hinata Shouyou.
Bokuto was really happy to see Hinata. During his first year at the Black Jackals, Akaashi had called him asking that he come to the annual training camp to help them improve. It’d be really good if they had a professional player there to give them advice. Bokuto had accepted immediately, of course. While he was there, he was able to pick apart so many playing styles and preferences and had been shocked with how much he thought the teams were meh rather than the AH! That he experiences at the Jackals on a daily basis.
He was able to see Tsukki, Hinata, Lev, and Kenma along with Akaashi. It wasn’t as fun with Kuroo not being there, but he was able to make do with chatting with the people he knew and practicing extra with wide-eyed first years, enthused that there’s an actual volleyball player in the same gym as them.
Then he hadn’t seen Hinata for a few more years and then he returns into his life, tanner and a little bit taller and with lean muscles on his body. But still so energetic. It had been like a breath of fresh air.
Sakusa...that was a little bit more of a shocker. He had wondered how the serious man would be comfortable with the Jackals. But then, he remembered, that even though they were an energetic, playful, friendly bunch, they were also smart and considerate. They were able to pick apart Bokuto’s tendencies faster than anyone else had been able to. They’d do more than enough to accommodate Sakusa and his legitimate germaphobia.
He’s happy that the older members never told Miya. And that they now haven’t told Hinata or Sakusa either.
And once again, the cycle started. One wide-eyed look at Inunaki, the man who had become an older-brother of sorts to him, during the start of the first official day of practice in which their two newest players are participating as official members and the libero nods back to him, subtly tapping Tomas on the shoulder and softly telling him something before walking towards Meian. Bokuto nods, satisfied. His skin feels like it’s covered with crawling spiders. He has to resist the hard urge to touch his face. He knows he won’t get any trouble from the older members and Sakusa, but he will from Hinata and Miya. And even though he wants them to know , it’s frustrating. He can’t gather the willpower. He can’t gather enough hope to overcome the fear that rises like a tidal wave when the thought unwillingly permeates his mind.
He didn’t miss the stare Sakusa gave him. Slightly narrowed eyes and then an appreciative nod when he doesn’t offer a hand to shake. It feels like he can see through the smiling face he puts up, straining to keep his emotion happy and thoughts positive so his expression seems real and not fake.
What he loves so much is that he’s allowed to leave early. Coach tells him he can skip practice if its bad, as long as he doesn’t abuse that power. He’s never skipped a whole day of practice. It’s hard for him to get ill. He doesn’t have any friends outside of the team in this part of Japan. He always holds out until he can’t breath and his eyes feel like they’re going to roll out of his skull and his face is going to turn into warm goo that he tells coach that he’s leaving and then walks out as normally as he can before running .
Somehow, he makes it through practice without needing to pull out that card. For the first time in over a year, he slams open the medicine cabinet in his now more than barely furbished apartment. He stares at the empty shelves, barely speckled with dust, and slams it shut, shoving the top of his t-shirt into his mouth to muffle the scream. He stumbles to his bed ,trying to breathe through the sudden panic attack. There really was no trigger for one this panic attack (technically speaking, the one’s with triggers were anxiety attacks, but he’s not one to put names to things that all blend together into the same thing in the end). It takes him a while to get out of it, and when he does, there’s scratches running up and down his arms, sweat plastering his clothes to his body.
“We’re here for you” Inunaki had said.
“I’m not ready yet” Bokuto whispers, his voice a small choked cry. He watches the tears start to dot the floor. He raises a foot and moves it, covering the tiny puddles. He really wonders about himself. Even at times he thinks of himself as the energetic exuberant wing spiker that the rest of the world sees him in. He talked to Kuroo the other day over the phone and they were cracking jokes across the kilometers as if they were once again only ten minutes away from each other by metro. And he...he’d felt normal. He’d smiled. He’d laughed. He’d been in a good mood the whole day. He went to sleep without the sudden emergence of negativity. He woke up this morning fresh and, well, fresh.
And now it feels like he’s going to die. That he’s useless. That everything he does is going to be for nothing. He feels like if anyone saw him now they’d be so ashamed of him. They’d sneer and turn away- it’s so easy to see Kuroo do that, sadly, because he’d seen him do it before to a man he stopped when trying to steal a woman’s purse. Their situations are different, but the expression would be the same. It feels like right now that he’s been living a lie. That he’s been fake to everyone. That his skin is made of slowly melting wax and no one can notice the trails he leaves.
“Bo-kun?” Inunaki yawns, rubbing his eyes before blearily looking at Bokuto through messy strands of light hair. “It’s two in the morning. What is it?” Bokuto swallows the lump in his throat, eyes downcast, hair messily hanging over his eyes. He sniffles. “Koutarou?” He feels Inunaki’s fingers touch the side of his face and bokuto leans into the friendly touch. “Hey, what’s wrong, I’m getting worried. Let’s go to your room- I don’t want Adriah waking up.”
Bokuto lets out the saddest little laugh ever.
“You finally got him?” So it takes three months after getting new players for Inunaki to really get Tomas all to himself . That doesn’t make him feel happier. He just feels sort of...numb.
“Yes. Now, come on.” He closes the door, moving a hand to tightly hold Bokuto’s hand. Bokuto feels bad for waking him up in the middle of the night (more like really early in the morning). He’s led down the hallway, back through the open entryway to his place. Inunaki closes the door behind them, turning the lamp on before pulling Bokuto to the couch. He sits him down before following en suite, wrapping an arm around Bokuto’s shoulders.
“Okay, come on, let it all out.” Inunaki says. Bokuto rests his head on Inunaki’s shoulder. He bites his lower lip.
“I went to the store today” Bokuto manages. Fingers stroke through his hair and it reminds him so much of his mother. She always knew how to comfort him, usually being the only one to be able to touch him when he doesn’t want to be, her touch always safe and welcome. In the training camp of his third year of high school, he had make fun of Yaku along with Kuroo for being so mother-like (before the guy kicked Kuroo in the groin), joking about if liberos are supposed to be this motherly. But Inunaki is the same. His physical looks can be considered soft, like Yaku, but he never holds back. He’s taunted all of their teammates, captain included, quite often.
He does feel safe. It’d be too embarrassing to call him brother out loud, but he can think it at least.
“I...bought some medicine. Just anything I found on the shelves that I recognized. And then….”
“You don’t have to continue” Inunaki softly says, words to quick and voice too strained.
“No.” Bokuto squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m ready. I’m finally ready to talk. If I don’t right now, I won’t be able to do so again.” But when he opens his mouth, the words don’t come out. It seems like he really wasn’t ready-
“Then you took them” Inunaki continues for him. “You took too many. But you failed. Either you threw them up because you regretted it or you w-wanted to succeed” his voice breaks “but...natural reactions.” The stroking stills. “Tell me, Koutarou. Which one was it? I don’t want to have to guess.”
A deep breath. “The second one.”
“....gods, Kou, you need help.”
“I know.” He sobs.
“You need to go to the hospital!”
“No! I don’t!” Bokuto says, turning and clutching Inunaki’s t-shirt, pressing his forehead against the libero’s shoulder. “I-I’ll get sick, but that’s all!”
“How do you know that?” Inunaki’s voice is threaded with fear. Not disgust. For some reason, that breaks Bokuto even more.
“This...isn’t the first time.”
“When.”
“My third year. High school. In...January.”
“Have you thought like this before?”
“Yes.”
“I’m taking you to the hospital-”
“No!”
“ Yes” Inunaki’s voice is absolute. He pushes Bokuto away a bit and even in the dimness his eyes are intense and teary.
Oh.
Tears.
He did that.
“I-” he looks away. “Okay.”
It’s not a quiet drive to the hospital. Before they had left, Inunaki had gone into Bokuto’s bathroom. He heard the libero walking around in there before emerging two minus later. Inunaki d told him that he cleaned up the vomit the best as he could and that he puts some bleach on the floor to disinfect it. He’ll take care of the pill bottles and tablets on the floor when they come back. Bokuto looks down guiltily at this.
On the ride, Inunaki’s grip was tight on the wheel. He asked Bokuto about anything and everything. Bokuto found himself telling Inunaki everything. About how it had started small, near the end of middle school, with tingling skin and halted breathing and then his first panic attack in the privacy of his room. Mood swings taken seriously at first but then passed off as over reacting. Hiding in his room. The pills. His mom comforting him. Never telling his friends. Wanting to scream. Wanting to run. Not wanting to exist like this anymore.
When they reached the hospital, Inunaki told them the truth, refusing for Bokuto to see anyone but a doctor. The doctor, whatever he did was quick. He asked him questions while having Inunaki stand outside. Then gave him a small cup with something inside it. Then sent him to the bathroom. Five minutes after drinking it, he threw up whatever pills managed to stay inside of him.
“Do you want to see someone? A therapist or psychiatrist?” Bokuto shakes his head.
“I can just...talk to you instead?”
“That’ll work.” Inunaki turns to look at him. Above the distant mountains, the black of night starts to look a bit more blue. “I’m happy you trust me, Koutarou. I know this may seem a bit excessive but...you’ve been living alone like this for too long. And I don’t feel safe knowing you’re on your own. I want you to stay with me for at least a month.” Bokuto blinks.
“Do you… do you really think that’d help?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But at least it’s not nothing.”
“...Thank you, Shion-nii.” Inunaki smiles at him.
The next person to learn wasn’t planned at all. And it happened at the worst moment.
Bokuto and Inunaki returned to the dorms, walking to Bokuto’s apartment when they see that the door is open.
“Shion” he nervously asks, the recent use of the other’s given name sitting comfortably on his tongue. “You closed the door, right?”
“Yeah” Inunaki’s eyes narrow. He marches ahead of Bokuto to the door, the younger man following close behind. “HEY! Who’s there?” He calls before stopping right past the doorway. Bokuto turns and looks over his shoulder. He feels the blood draining from his face.
Sitting on the couch, body frozen like a deer in the headlights, is Miya. He’s dressed in his sleepwear and his hair is a mess but that doesn’t change anything. It just makes Bokuto feel mildly panicked but he really doesn’t feel like doing this right now. He’s tired. He really is. One of bottles were sleeping pills, and he’s pretty sure he took some of those. At least some of the medicine must of entered his bloodstream.
“Inunaki-san.” Sakusa Kiyoomi says, stepping out from a blind spot. In both of his hands are two different pill bottles, both of them unlidded from how Bokuto had left them. Even now the man is wearing a mask, coal eyes emotionless. He wonders how his hands must feel, touching those bottles which were subject to sweaty hands, the bathroom floor, and maybe a speck or two or more of vomit. “Bokuto.” Maybe he should get a haircut. In this state, they tickle his nose and makes his face feel a bit greasy.
“Why are you in there?” Inunaki growls. “Get out.” Miya stands up, a sudden change from the frozen state he had been in.
“Now, why’re ya so concerned?”
“Because Koutarou came to me ” Inunaki cooly replies, eyes narrowed and eyes crossed, looking mightier than Miya even with the height difference.
“So is that where he was? Yer room?” Miya taunts. “Know why-”
“Inunaki is dating Tomas” Bokuto blandly replies. He slides past Inunaki and ignores the stares, going to the small kitchenette and grabbing a glass and pouring himself a glass of water. “He took me to the hospital after I told him what I did.” He turns around and leans against the edge of the meter-long wooden countertop with barely any space due to a microwave. He closes his eyes and sips his water. “You can leave now. I’m good now. Inunaki will be staying with me so there’s nothing you should worry about.”
“There is a lot to worry about.” Sakusa replies. Bokuto cracks his eyes open. Sakusa stares back at him. There’s no judgement on the written part of his face. There isn’t really anything. That’s exactly how Bokuto feels right now, kudos to him.
“Shion, I might skip practice today” Bokuto says.
“I’d tie you up if you didn’t.”
“Can you...go outside and explain everything to Miya? I want to talk to Sakusa.” He sees surprise cross over Sakusa’s face, identifiable by the momentary raise of his brow. Inunaki leaves with Miya, closing the door behind them. Bokuto sets the cup back on the counter behind him and stands straight.
“So what’s wrong with you?” Sakusa asks. He walks over to the dustbin and tosses the pill bottles in. “I never took you for someone who’d try and kill themselves.”
“You don’t know a lot about me.” Bokuto says with a shrug.
“So what about you was fake and what wasn’t?”
“...Just about everything was real. You” he struggles to find the right word “You already know about, my uh mood swings.” Sakusa puts his hands in the pockets of the hoodie he’s wearing. It’s a university hoodie,the one he went to, he’s sure. He wonders what he studied. “I’m...not normal.” He states it with a sense of finality. “I’m more than a little messed up.” He wipes his face with his hand.
“I thought you weren’t what I had originally made you out to be” Sakusa muses. “You’re more perceptive than you make yourself out to be. My suspicions began about six or seven years ago. When you were second year. You never asked why I stood in the corner or wore a mask or wiped things down excessively. I wondered at first, especially when you shook everyone’s hands except for mine. It didn’t really strike me until I realized you never initiated physical contact.” Sakusa’s eyes narrow a bit in thought. “You also stared at me excessively.”
“I thought you were the same as me” Bokuto admits. “What else do you guess about me?”
“Paranoia. Anxiety.” Sakusa says with the same tone one would state the news. “You act strangely occasionally during practice. Sometimes I expect you to go into your moods but it never occurs. Coach Foster allows you to leave practice early with only a moments notice. I decided to ask him one day what I’d have to do to skip practice. He told me I would have to tell him two days ahead and give a legitimate reason. He seems to know a little bit about your troubles.”
“They all were somehow able to guess soon after I joined. I had less control back then.”
“That isn’t healthy.”
“It works though” Bokuto says. His eyes shift between Sakusa and the couch. A second-long internal battle later, he strolls over and sits on the couch. “Panic attacks, anxiety attacks- I get those too. They’ve become a lot more common as of recently.”
“You have been leaving practice early more often.” Sakusa sits on the wooden chair by the coffee table tentatively. “Occasionally, you are also very aversive to touch. And I have seen you roaming with a mask on.”
“I’ve tried looking it up before but I couldn’t find anything. I probably have mysophobia- it just comes up at random moments. Other times I can roll around in a vat of bacteria treated mud and I wouldn’t feel the least bit disgusted.” Even with the mask on Bokuto can see Sakusa wrinkle his nose. “And...well, paranoia. It’s not typical paranoia but more like I overthink things a lot.”
“I can relate” Sakusa says. “Now, those don’t fully explain your actions today. I now understand why sometimes you flinch from touch. Why occasionally the senior members wouldn’t touch you. How you are close to Inunaki-san.”
“Ah. I thought you would of forgotten about that” Bokuto awkwardly says. Sakusa’s eyes glint.
“It may not seem like it, but I have considered you at least an acquaintance, if not a friend, since that training camp. You were one of only a few people who have respected my boundaries while treating me like a normal human. I am not a person who easily shows little emotions that don’t require usage, but I do care about the wellbeing of those I consider close. Now, why did you attempt to kill yourself?”
The words ring through Bokuto’s head. Not the last part, but the part about caring. About being his friend. He doesn’t doubt Sakusa’s words, not even for one moment.
“I tried before” he says “You’d probably want to know that. “I’ve considered it a few times while here, I’ve though about it, but I never had the stuff.”
“But you were able to buy something that would let you do the job?”
“...yes.” He looks at the ground. “I just...it’s not really your fault, or Hinata’s, or Atsumu’s. I’ve always been worried how people would be like if they found out about how screwed up I am.” He rubs his eyes. “Honestly, the others and coach? They’re the first to have found out. I never told anyone before.”
“Not even that setter you compare Miya to? Akaashi?”
Bokuto shakes his head. “Not even him. Gods, I wished I could of gathered the will to tell at least someone before. I never even told my family or a doctor. Every time I feel like it, I become so scared. The thoughts, they’re just so vivid. I can see their faces. Their movement. I can hear their words. They all turn their back on my in my mind.”
“So you never wanted to take the chance” Sakusa concluded. Bokuto nods.
“Yeah.”
“So what changed with Inunaki-san?”
“My first panic attack I couldn’t hold back during practice, he’s the one who came out to comfort me. Tomas Adriah, he had something similar when he joined. He thought it was the same but they figured out it wasn’t on their own. They’re nice people, really.”
“And then?”
“He told me I could go to him at any time. And, this was my first real attempt in years . I never really mean to do it, I always hate it afterwards” his hand curls into a fist “And I remembered his words. So I went to him after I woke up.” Sakusa slowly blinks at him. Then he nods.
“You should tell the rest of the team.”
“...I know. I’ll probably have to.” His tone turns miserable. “But I thinks it’s fine if I don’t! It’ll just-”
“Don’t you dare say bother anyone” Sakusa hisses. “Japan might of had a belief of suicide being honorable in the past, but that’s not right. Suicide is wrong. The world shouldn’t be mean enough to someone to the point it makes them want to kill themselves. Imagine what your friends and family would of been like if you died. No note. No explanation. Inunaki probably would of had to explain whatever he knew without you telling him to them so they have at least something to blame besides themselves.
“I’m not saying I know how you feel, though. It’s not the world tormenting you, but yourself. And there are ways to manage that. It’s like my mysophobia. I knew it wasn’t normal. I tried exposure therapy on my own a few times but it always sent me into panic. My dad thought it was a form of self-harm because he knew how much it affects me. I wasn’t. But that little thing made a larger assumption. And maybe whatever we do for you won’t work, but there will be something that will help you ignore it. For me, I can handle shaking hands in the heat of a volleyball match and think nothing of it later. There is going to be something like that for you out there. Perhaps it is talking. Maybe being around friends. But there will be something that will help. And if it doesn’t” Sakusa pauses for a moment. Bokuto has found himself enraptured by the miniature lecture, eyes unblinking and dry. “If it somehow doesn’t work” he rewords the statement “All of the things we try to help you deal with it better, to subdue those thoughts, then that means that everything in existence is a lie because it will work. Understood?”
Bokuto cracks a small small. It’s true.
“Understood.”
The next day, Bokuto tells everyone in segment. His hair is all spiked up and there’s the guilt that always come back with every time he thinks of or tries to do it , but he knows it’s important for them to know. Sakusa managed to make his willpower rise more than ever, determination set in his mind. He’d been scared of their reactions. Of the shock. The disgust. He was right with the shock when he went to Coach first, explaining his mentality and what happens outside of practice sometimes, as well as what happened the night before. After the shock came confusion, then happiness, and then the tears. And Bokuto was being hugged. No explanation was needed.
Then he went to Meian. The same happened there. Actually, Meian-san forced him to go out for lunch with him so that they could get to know each other better. And that was after Bokuto explained everything. Meian never brought it up at the restaurant. He just laughed and smiled at the stories Bokuto told, giving out some of his own. It felt really nice.
After Meian he told the rest of the team during practice, which he forced himself not to participate in because he still is feeling the side-effect: still a bit tired and drowsy, slightly bounding head, hurting stomach.
Miya looked so guilty. Ah, right- Inunaki told him for me . Hinata started crying. Bokuto could see the younger man struggle to pick if he should go to Bokuto or not, trying to think about whether this is a no-touch day or not. Bokuto picks for him, amused by his twitching arms, and hugs him. Three seconds later, Miya joins. Sakusa watches from a distant. Bokuto spots him from over Hinata’s shoulder. Sakusa gives him a small smile and a nod.
Since he has a day to himself and some of the trains are pretty quick, Bokuto takes one to Tokyo. He goes to his family first. He tells them. They cried too much and- Bokuto feels really bad about this- but he felt annoyed by the tears, making an excuse to make them hurry up, saying that he has to leave for something else.
Then he called Kuroo and Akaashi. It’s an emergency he told them, telling them to come to a park he often visited with the two. Separately, of course. This is probably the first time all three of them will be in that park together.
Akaashi’s reply isn’t in words. Just a slow blink behind glasses, biting his lower lip, and then resting his head on Bokuto’s shoulder and gripping his jacket sleeve like if he doesn’t, he’ll fade away. Kuroo looks at him with shock. The disgust, the turn-away, it never comes.
“I’m so sorry” Kuroo says. “I-I never noticed, oh gods.”
“It’s fine” Bokuto insists. “That means I did a good job hiding it.” Akaashi’s grip on him tightens. “But I...I’m finally getting help. Not professional, yet. My team, they’re really nice. They’re good people. They want to try and help me, to get these thoughts out of my head.”
“That’s good” Kuroo says. He leans forward a bit, tilting his head to look at Akaashi. “Hey, Akaashi. You alright there?”
“Not necessarily, no” is his reply. Bokuto understands. Akaashi is someone he trusted more than his own family. There’s was just something about him. It was Akaashi who was the first to really treat him like how he should be. Normal. Not strangely because of his mood-swings and sometimes shifted behavior. “I’m...happy, that Bokuto-san came home to tell us. That he is actually here. But I feel horrible that I was never there. And that...that day you were gone, it wasn’t a cold. I feel like I’ve failed as a friend.” Bokuto wraps an arm around Akaashi and wraps another one around Kuroo, pulling the latter closer to him and securing the former to hi body.
“But you haven’t. I never would of had the courage to tell anyone if it weren’t for you two being my friends. You’ve helped me in ways even I can’t really explain.”
“Stop being so sappy” Kuroo groans. “But seriously, bro- we’re happy you came. Okay? You can call me any time you want. Don’t feel any regrets- I like talking to you. Always remember that. What did I just say?”
Bokuto smiles. “You like talking to me.”
“That’s right” Kuroo growls. “I’ll never be bothered. And I’ll try to be there to pick up the phone, unless you call when I’ve forgotten it, then we’re both screwed.”
“Same here” Akaashi’s muffled voice offers.
Bokuto finds it funny for some reason. His body is light, his mind clear. The thoughts lurk, but he avoids touching them. He opens his mouth and laughs.