Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Akaashi! Akaashi!” 

“What is it, Bokuto?” the boy replied as he shut the door of his locker.

“Coach just announced that we’ll be getting a surprise practice match with Nekoma today! Hmm, I wonder how good Kuroo’s blocks have been lately,” he said, rubbing his chin.

Akaashi took a closer look at his friend, inspecting him from head-to-toe. The ace had yet to even put on his jersey. “You don’t seem like you’re ready to practice volleyball with them. What’s on your mind this time?”

“Aha! You’re so smart!” He slung an arm around Akaashi and pulled him closer. “As soon as coach told me the news, I went straight to call Kuroo about it. Turns out, his coach isn’t with the team today, due to schedules or stuff. So...” 

The captain ran to his locker, grabbed a bag from it, and came back as quickly as he left. He zipped the bag open then showed off the contents. 

Akaashi’s eyes widened at the thought of what they were about to do. “You can’t be serious—“ 

“Oh, I am very serious.” He grinned.

Right after finishing their warmups, the door to the gym opened up. And there stood their friends and rivals, with the  opposing captain leading them. 

“Bokuto!” Kuroo dropped his bags and spread out his arms.

“Kuroo!” shouted out the former as he did the same.

Once they met up, they both performed a special, secret handshake that no one knows how they had the time to choreograph. It was more than a handshake, honestly. They were high-fiving, crossing arms, and fist-bumping, among other gestures. 

“These are the captains?” Was a sentence that was all too familiar to these two, and this moment just allowed the question to pursue even more. 

The Nekoma team gathered around the other side of the net to begin their preparations, while Fukuroudani started to scheme on how to begin their plan—though it’s mostly just Bokuto.

“So, you’re telling me you want to have a water gun battle with Nekoma?” Their coach asked in disbelief. 

“C’mon, Mr. Yamiji! It’s not everyday Kuroo and the others come here!” Bokuto pleaded.

“Can’t you do this during the weekends? Invite each other to your houses or something.”

Bokuto started to frown, his eyes turning a bit watery.

“Coach, looks like he’s about to experience one of those mood swings, so uh—” whispered Komi.

“Dammit! We can’t have him acting like this again especially in a match. Can’t you guys do the thing you always do?”

“No.” Akaashi leaned in closer to the two. “This is one of his more ‘dramatic’ swings, sadly. The normal persuasion won’t be enough I’m afraid.”

Yamiji sighed, “One round.”

Bokuto turned to his coach and away from his other teammates trying to console him.

“I will let you all goof around for one round. All of you will clean up after the mess you made, then we are back to schedule. Understand?”

The captain perked up and a grand smile that went from ear to ear lit up on his face. “Yes, sir! Thank you sir! I—“

“Bokuto!”

“Ah, right! I will go and set up immediately!” He ran back to the locker-room to bring out the “weapons” he had shown earlier to Akaashi.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” the coach said.

The other members let out small chuckles while nodding.———————————————————————————————————— 

Bokuto had sort out the plan of action with Kuroo. The game was styled with a Freeze Tag theme. The goal is to freeze every last person on the other team, while at least one person on your own survives. When a player is shot by someone on the opposite team, they become “frozen”. However, being tapped by someone on your team “thaws” you out. Tables, chairs, and other things they use during their normal practices are set around the court as cover for them. 

Each team was given time to think of a strategy.

“I say we go headfirst and just try our luck! They can’t stop us all!” exclaimed Bokuto.

“They have guns. They can totally stop us,” Akaashi said.

“We have guns too!”

“Yes, but even if we do shoot them, they can just thaw each other out, since they’re standing together,” Washio added.

“Hmph! You guys are no fun...” Bokuto crossed his arms and pouted.

“Alright! So our plan is—” Kuroo tried to announce.

“We should split up and form a surprise attack surrounding them, while others will stay here, so if anything goes wrong, there’s at least one person left,” said Kenma quietly.

“Eh? That does sound like the optimal plan, but isn’t it kinda cliché?” Yamamoto asked.

“I play a lot of shooter games and it never fails... unless my teammates have bad WiFi—or are dimwits,” he said as he eyed Yamamoto.

“What are you implying?!”

Yaku got in between the both of them. “Alright, alright, that’s enough. Kenma’s plan sounds like the best one, unless anyone else thinks they can top it?”

A whistle from coach Yamiji blew that signaled the start of the round.

As per idea of Bokuto, he started running towards the other side while shouting out, “Chaaarge!”. Alone. 

“Bokuto—” Akaashi tried to call out.

The captain, however, was unsurprisingly immediately shot by water from several guns. The force caused him to take a step back. And now he was frozen in place.

“Great. Just great. Bokuto, if this was real life, god-forbid you’ll be this dumb,” he continued, then other members proceeded to laugh once more.

“So, boss. How are we gonna get him out of the situation?” Anahori asked Akaashi as he pointed to their captain.

“Just leave him there for now. Nekoma is probably thinking we’ll try to free him as soon as possible. We can use him as bait to draw some attention away.”

The team nodded then went back to formation.

“Akaashi! Help me out!” shouted Bokuto.

The co-captain sighed and began running towards his friend. Streams of water tried striking him, but he swiftly moved behind Bokuto and proceeded to use him as a human shield. He didn’t tap Bokuto, meaning that the latter was still frozen in place.

Nekoma still kept trying to shoot through the “shield”, so Akaashi had to explain the plan—where Bokuto is to be used as a decoy—fast.  A few more seconds of attempted shooting, and Yamamoto has had enough of this. 

He charged forward without hesitation towards the captain and co-captain of Fukuroudani. Akaashi quickly tapped Bokuto, so he could move and help out while the former makes an escape back to their base. 

Bokuto blasted Yamamoto with his gun before the other could even properly aim his own, and now the Nekoma spiker was down for the count (until someone frees him again, of course).

The Fukuroudani captain went back to doing his shenanigans and dual-wielding two pistols, aiming wherever. 

“Looks like he’s enjoying himself,” Sarakui said.

“Yep. Anyway, we better wrap this up in a bit. Coach is looking impatient now.” said Akaashi as he glanced to the side at where Mr. Yamiji was.

The man had his arms crossed while he tapped one of his feet on the ground nonstop. 

As the owls were getting ready to head out, each member suddenly got striked with water one by one, until only Akaashi was left. He looked at where the water came from—behind one of the tables that lay on its side that was supposedly meant to serve as one of the things to cover the court.

“Dude! You were supposed to take him out!” whispered a voice.

“Water won’t squirt out of this thing! I think it’s jammed!” argued another.

Akaashi had to act fast. He made a run towards the left side of the table and ambushed the two—who are now revealed to be Inuoka and Yaku—before they could even notice. 

“Aww, damnit!” Inuoka cried out.

The co-captain chuckled at the two who were now soaking wet. He turned back to thaw out his friends, but was met by two more Nekoma enemies standing between them. One was Kuroo, clapping between certain intervals in a menacing sort of way. The other was Kenma, standing right beside the captain.

Akaashi left no time for error and shifted his gun towards them. He pulled the trigger, but alas, the water didn’t have enough pressure to even make it to them.

“Looks like you went a bit overboard against those two.” Kuroo pointed to Inuoka and Yaku. “You’re out of ammo, so there’s no point in stopping us. Let’s end this quickly.” He raised his gun.

Akaashi put on a look of confusion. “Why are you acting like this?”

“He wanted it to look like one of those action movies,” said Kenma.

“Oi! We aren’t supposed to break character!” Kuroo said, in a tone that was rather goofy and childish.

The Nekoma captain groaned and cleared his throat. “Well, uh—that was unexpected. But as I just said, we’ll be finishing up now.” He tightened his grip on the trigger.

Before even getting a chance to click it, water came crashing on the side of his face. Some water was aimed at his eye, so he took a moment to stop in order to try and recollect his blurred vision.

Bokuto was standing there, with gun in hand and arm still raised. Behind him were several members of Nekoma standing still, implying that the Ace had somehow been able to solo against everyone. 

He moved his arm facing Kenma. Instead of a flinch or anything, the setter just stood there with both of his arms up in the air.

Admitting his team’s defeat he said, “I surrender. I don’t wanna bother changing again.”

“You’re no fun, man.” Kuroo pouted.

“Alright, Fukuroudani won! Now all of you clean up and get ready for that planned practice match!” Coach Yamiji turned to the Nekoma students. “I’m sure your coach would be very upset—and mad— if he found out this was all you did.”

The team looked around one another and immediately got to cleaning. 

Soon, the sun started to set and it was time for the two teams to part ways once more until they meet again, whether in another round of practice or an actual tournament game.

Bokuto and Kuroo were the last to say goodbye (as always). They did their special, secret handshake again. And after that was done, Kuroo smiled and crossed his arms.

“Hey, we’re having a rematch of that battle and I ain’t gonna lose!”

“Hah, in your dreams!” Bokuto laughed.

“Anyways...”

“Nekoma court next week?”

“Definitely.”

The two captains shared another laugh. As the bus left, Bokuto continued to wave it off. Meanwhile, Akaashi managed to listen in on their previous conversation.

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me...