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The fluorescent lights of the grocery store greeted them as soon as the automatic doors slid open. After a long day of practice at training camp, all those lights did was create a pounding in Akaashi’s skull, not unlike what he felt when he found that his teammates accidentally swapped their bag of groceries with an extra bag of volleyballs for the trip. Though, knowing his troublemaker teammates, it wasn’t an accident.
Especially after the wink Konoha-san sent him, all while insisting that it was the “captain and vice-captain’s job to make sure the team was well fed,” shoving the two outside together.
Even so, his company seemed blissfully unaware of the motives of their team as he grabbed a handheld basket. Bokuto-san hummed as he walked the aisles, swinging the basket back and forth as he checked things off the list that the team had decided upon.
They split up in order to work faster, Keiji grabbing eggs and other frozen goods while Bokuto grabbed anything not refrigerated or breakable, like rice. When he was fully satisfied with the ingredients he had gotten, he approached the team captain and placed them in the nearly full basket.
“Hey hey, ‘Kaashi you can wait outside if you want, you know? You don’t have to come through the line and everything, I’ve got it,” the captain said, unloading their basket on the counter next to the unimpressed teenage cashier. Keiji bobbed his head once in acknowledgement and made his way out the door, into the much darker moonlit street.
The pounding in his head receded a bit as the fluorescents faded to the corner of his vision. Keiji found a small bench beside the doors and chose to curl up there, bringing his knees up to his chest and resting his forehead against them. Stupid volleyball players and their inability to prepare for a training camp. If they had just let the groceries be, they wouldn’t have had to go out this late, and Keiji wouldn’t have to deal with fluorescents or Konoha-san making suggestive plans or the pounding of his head.
Keiji let his eyes slip closed as he let out a heavy sigh. Breathing exercises typically helped relieve some of the pain his migraines caused, but on that night nothing seemed to be working. He tried breathing. Drinking more water. Eating a light snack that would not spoil his dinner. Taking a nap. Pressure points. All efforts were fruitless, his head pulsed no matter what he did.
Just as he was almost asleep, the doors slid open once more when Bokuto came out, holding bags full of groceries. Although his head was splitting, Akaashi still stood and held out his hand, offering to take some of the bags from his friend.
“I’ve got it, ‘Kaashi. They’re not that heavy. Besides, your head hurts,” Bokuto reassured, bringing the bags closer to himself so that they were out of Akaashi’s reach. The younger put his hand back down to his side, accepting defeat unusually quickly. This made the captain frown, spurring him to walk a bit faster. He wanted to get back sooner to let the vice-captain sleep off the pain.
Bokuto said nothing more on the walk back, knowing that conversation would only make Akaashi’s headache worse than it already was. Anytime they passed a streetlamp, he would blink hard a few times, trying to get the light out of his field of view.
Soon enough, due mostly to Bokuto rushing back, the dorms were in sight. The captain held the door open for the both of them, ushering Akaashi inside first. The entire team gathered around the large table in the kitchen, but Akaashi moved right past them, swiftly shutting the door to their sleeping quarters behind him, presumably to lay in the dark. The rest of the team looked up at Bokuto in confusion, not aware of the pain Akaashi was in.
“What did you do to him, Bo?” Komi asked jokingly.
Bokuto eyed the team skeptically. “Why would I have done something? ‘Sides, he has a migraine. You guys are the ones who made him go even when he feels like shit.”
At that, the team’s expressions turned to those of guilt. Sure, they wanted to help their captain and vice-captain get together, but they didn’t mean to do it at the expense of their vice-captain’s well being.
Bokuto moved to put the groceries away while leaving out anything they needed for their dinner, as well as…
“Why all the celery?” Konoha questioned. It wasn’t as if anyone on the team asked for it, or it was essential to make dinner. The rest of the team made noises of acknowledgement behind him, with good reason. Maybe Bokuto was having a craving and decided to pick some up without Akaashi knowing?
“It’s all part of my master plan to cheer ‘Kaashi up! He loves celery, he told me so himself,” Bokuto said, proudly holding up around fifteen stalks of celery. “I know it’s a lot,” he continued, “but we can all share some too while dinner is cooking!”
Konoha smirked, fully satisfied with the answer. If the two idiots weren’t going to get together while forcefully shoved together, at least the two were making efforts to please one another. His original plan fell through, but this new development could work perfectly fine for the two of them. The rest of the team knew it as well, they wore similar looks of smug amusement at Bokuto’s antics.
“Do you really think that would work? Maybe we should just let him rest for now, he looked really sick,” Anahori wondered aloud.
At this, Komi laughed good naturedly. “You’ll come to find that Akaashi is never too sick, tired, or annoyed to be around Bokuto. Either way, the plan is already in motion, there’s no stopping him now,” he nodded towards their captain,already beaming from the team’s approval of his idea.
Once the celery was all cut and divided among the team, Bokuto sneaking a bit more on a plate for Akaashi, he carefully brought the plate over to the doors of the sleeping quarters. He knocked gently and waited a few seconds before entering. The room was dark, the only light coming from the crack under the door to the kitchen. Akaashi laid on his futon on his back, hands clasped together pressed to his forehead and knees bent as if he were about to do a crunch.
At the sound of the door opening, Akaashi opened his eyes, squinting through the light. Noticing that it was just Bokuto, he closed his eyes again, assuming the same position he was in before. “Did you need something, Bokuto-san?” He asked quietly. His face twisted in pain at the sound of his own voice.
Bokuto softly laughed while moving closer. “No, I don’t need anything. Neither does the team. I just brought you something, I think you’ll like it? I hope so, at least.”
Akaashi opened his eyes again as Bokuto knelt down beside him. They fluttered closed every few seconds, as if he were on the verge of falling asleep. Maybe he was, but Bokuto figured the action was due more to pain than exhaustion. Then again, pain for extended periods of time can lead to exhaustion, and he had no idea how long Akaashi’s head had been hurting. It wasn’t as if the younger would tell anyone.
“You didn’t have to bring me anything… you can go have fun with the rest of them if you would like. I’m sure they plan to play some games before bed or something of the sort,” Akaashi said, sitting up and maneuvering himself so that the two were facing one another.
“No way,” Bokuto reassured. “Konoha would want us to play never have I ever, then he would make fun of me for never doing anything except play volleyball.”
At that, Akaashi smiled softly, only lifting the corners of his mouth so as to not disturb the pounding of his skull. “You’re probably right,” he whispered. “Then he would make fun of Komi for being a theatre kid, and make fun of Anahori and Onaga for their age, and make fun of me for liking literature.”
“So what I’m hearing,” Bokuto smiled, “is that Konoha is a bully.”
The two laughed together, quieting down after a minute or so. The silence led to both of them staring down to their laps, Bokuto sitting criss-crossed beside Akaashi while the younger's knees were bent up to his chest, similar to his earlier position on the bench. Bokuto heard soft rustling noises and looked down to find his vice-captain roughly pulling at his fingers, tiny popping noises could also be heard from his hands.
“Hey hey, ‘Kaashi stop doing that, you’ll hurt yourself-”
“Sorry,” he cut in. “Sorry,” he whispered again, nearly taken aback by his own outburst. “It’s just easier sometimes. To focus on the pain there, the controllable kind, rather than the kind of pain in my head.”
Was it oversharing on Akaashi’s part? Perhaps. The pulsing in his head made him hazy almost, so it was difficult to gauge what was acceptable to say at that moment. Because of this, he also missed the way Bokuto’s eyebrows furrowed in concern, or the slight downward tilt of his mouth. The captain, not exactly sure how to respond, turns to the plate of celery that he brought in.
“You know, maybe if you eat something you’ll feel a little better,” Bokuto said, picking up the plate from the ground and pushing it towards his friend.
Akaashi carefully eyed the plate. “Did the others touch it?” He asked.
Bokuto couldn’t blame him for being wary, with the amount of pranks their teammates played on the vice-captain. They would constantly try to crack his neutral demeanor, mostly to no avail.
“No,” Bokuto was fast to reply. “I’m the only one that touched it. Either way, it’s hard to mess up celery.”
Akaashi perked up at that. “Celery? But that wasn’t on our shopping list… what would you need celery for?”
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one? I got it for you, silly. Because our dumb teammates specifically wanted us to go out together, even when they knew you weren’t feeling well. So… celery. I wanted to cheer you up,” Bokuto explained.
At this, Akaashi moved to sit criss-crossed like his captain, their knees touching.
“You did?” He asked, eyes never leaving Bokuto’s.
“Of course!” The captain responded amiably, his hand moving over Akaashi’s knee. “I won’t stay for long, I know it must be really bad because you usually just push through it, which isn’t healthy by the way, but I saw the celery in the store by the checkout lane and remembered that time in your room when you said you liked celery-”
“You can stay if you want. I would like that,” Akaashi whispered, picking up the first piece of celery. “And you can have some. There must be at least five stalks on this plate.”
Bokuto beamed, also picking up a piece of celery. “You want me to stay? Really? And you would share your celery with me?”
The vice captain looked up through his eyelashes, eyes still hazy with exhaustion and pain. He slumped forwards, forehead resting against Bokuto’s shoulder. Bokuto felt his eyelids flutter closed. He gave a sleepy nod.
“I would share anything with you, Bokuto-san.”
The older boy laughed, wrapping an arm around his friend as he watched him drift to sleep. “Sweet dreams, ‘Kaashi.”