Work Text:
“Akaashi, do you think Konoha shaves his pubes?”
The question is the verbal equivalent of a gun going off in a crowded room, except there is no gun, it's just Bokuto Koutarou, and the only other person in the room is Akaashi Keiji.
Akaashi Keiji, who is feuding with the violent urge to silently leave said room or silently smother Bokuto's face with a pillow, and is left to stew in the resulting silence until one of the two wins out.
It’s not even late. The cool blue clock displays 9:47pm. This is a one-am-after-four-days-straight-of-playing-two-full-sets-daily-during-inter-high question, not a barely ten o'clock on Tuesday one.
“Bokuto-san,” Keiji stretches each of his words, eyes glued to the pitifully incomplete English essay in his lap he’s been glaring at for the last two hours. "The thought has never crossed my mind. Not once.”
"Really?" Bokuto flops onto his side from where he’d been lying starfished on his back. His sparkling eyes watch Keiji, head resting on his outstretched arm, tired strands of hair fanning out against the beige carpet, but Keiji doesn’t notice any of that because he’s writing his essay. “Because I’m pretty sure he does.”
“I don’t want to know how you’ve come to that conclusion.”
“He wears briefs. Like tiny ones. Really tiny. Although I can’t be sure because Anichi does too, but I’ve seen hair so I don’t think he shaves his.” Bokuto wiggles onto his elbow and rests his head in his cupped hand.
“Do you?”
Another gun goes off.
The foreign letters melt into limp strings under Keiji’s pen. He grips it and glares harder. “I’m not answering that.”
Bokuto shuffles bodily and collapses next to Keiji. The quiet warmth of his loud body rolls over Keiji’s exposed knee. He shuffles some more, some more, stumbles as he rolls, then drops the back of his head onto Keiji’s thigh, heavy, warm. A shiver passes down Keiji’s spine because he was stuck with his essay and he’s finally remembered the English word recalcitrant.
“I did it once,” Bokuto grins, all teeth, “I used my sister’s razor but it ended up being so itchy and hot and uncomfortable I couldn’t pay attention in class and practice sucked. Like it was fine because it’s volleyball. But it was horrible. The worst.”
“Bokuto-san, you can’t concentrate in class under normal circumstances.”
“Hey," he warns as he worms his neck further up the slope of Keiji’s thigh.
Bokuto’s sparkling eyes watch him, the seam of his mouth a pressed line, the arch of his brows rounded. He worms further so his shoulders also rest on his thigh and his back arcs prettily, but Keiji doesn’t actually think that because he’s writing his essay.
“Hey, hey.”
Keiji squints at the offensive paper. Bokuto’s hair obscures the word recalcitrant.
“Hey, hey, hey.”
A sudden pressure between Keiji’s brows knocks his focus to the side. With a short glance their eyes connect, but Keiji’s needy essay demands his attention, so he gives it back to it. Bokuto watches him, reading the foreign words on his face with vulnerable fascination as Keiji reads the ones on his paper with scornful contempt.
Bokuto stretches his arm to scratch his fingers through Keiji’s hair. His hand is heavy and his nails are rough and his calluses feel strange and he’s never done this before, but it feels like he has, so Keiji allows it. He doesn’t allow his shoulders to drop or his head to list sideways and he certainly doesn’t allow his eyes to flutter closed because he’s holding his pen and the paper is still in his lap and he’s trying to write his essay.
“Do you ever think about stuff like that Akaashi?”
“Mhm?”
“Do you want to know things about other people?”
“Not particularly.”
Bokuto makes a low sound, his fingers rhythmic. “That’s okay I guess. People are hard.”
Keiji doesn’t want to know when exactly Bokuto shaved and suffered through practice, because Bokuto grieves about a million things in a day, but Keiji can’t recall a single one when he lamented that specific misery. He doesn’t want to know why Bokuto has observed the bodies of other boys so closely. He doesn’t want to know why Bokuto is watching him owlishly, or why there are stars in his eyes as he gazes up at him, the same ones he has on the court, during practice, when they're alone-
(Though he kind of does.)
“Some more than others,” Keiji agrees.
Bokuto's heavy hand stills over the side of his face, his palm square enough to envelop his cheek and his fingers wide enough to touch the shell of his ear. Keiji doesn’t melt into it, but he does watch the bob of Bokuto’s throat and wonder what it would be like to put his mouth there, if his skin would bruise attractively under his lips or if Bokuto would gasp softly and grip his hair tightly because he’s not really writing his essay anymore.
Simply because he's curious, Keiji lets his finger draw fleeting lines over the simple planes of Bokuto’s face; the sharp edges of his cheekbones, his nose, his jaw, his brow. Bokuto’s sparkling eyes watch Keiji as his lips part under his wandering finger, and he doesn’t hesitate, Akaashi Keiji doesn’t hesitate, but the barest hint of heated breath stays his hand as it curls around his skin.
Keiji's eyes slide up. When they connect with Bokuto's they stick, those stars glittering as Keiji ghosts his finger across his lower lip. Keiji bears down and his finger slips a little, barely a touch along the pink flesh hidden behind. The dampness on his skin doesn't spark pleasant heat in his belly, but he does it again because he's never done this before and it feels like he has and Bokuto's allowing it so it must be fine.
Bokuto wets his lip as Keiji drops his fingers to the soft skin under his jaw, exposing the softer skin of his throat. He offers it willingly, a deep vibration against Keiji’s hand as he says,
"Akaashi."
Keiji doesn't want to know why Bokuto breathes his name like an invitation. He doesn’t want to know if Bokuto can taste the salt of his skin on his tongue. He doesn't want to know if the sweetness of the melon bread Bokuto ate an hour ago lingers on his lips or if the sound of Keiji whispered against his own would taste sweeter.
(Though he kind of does.)
So he pushes them together.
The angle’s awkward and their noses bump and his neck kinks and Bokuto frantically buries his heavy hands into Keiji’s shirt, shoving them so tightly together his spine cries out against being folded in half, but the discomfort is barely a shadow because Bokuto’s lips taste faintly like sugar, but they mostly taste like him, and Keiji doesn’t enjoy that anymore than he enjoys sugar, except he does and he’s pushing rougher, boldly burying his own hands into Bokuto’s shirt and hair.
Bokuto tips Keiji’s weight forward and tosses him onto his back, stealing the startled yelp out of his mouth as he rolls on top of him with an indulgent hum. His thighs (heavy, warm) cage his waist and he kisses with all the fierceness of his cross, minus the precision, mouth moving against his lips, coaxing them apart as he swipes over the seam with his tongue. Keiji can't watch Bokuto's back curl or make his neck change colors from down here, but that’s fine because his pen is lost and his paper has vanished and he's not writing his essay anyway.
Every wet brush of Bokuto’s tongue against his, every wandering touch, and every low, gasping breath into his mouth pulls him apart; cleaves his focus, twists his clarity. His hands explore the body he’s observed so closely, those awful, weak noises he’s only ever made late under the covers climbing up and out of his throat freely. Bokuto licks into him and he licks back, and it’s gross, it’s messy, but it’s good and they definitely haven’t done this even though it feels like they really should have a long time ago.
He thinks he hears his name somewhere between the sounds of their lips working together and he might say Koutarou but he’s not really sure of anything right now because this is different and it’s new, it’s-
A pressure rolls against the pleasant heat in his belly and it’s equally warm, terrifyingly more pleasant, and- it’s a lot, it’s really a lot. He gasps and Bokuto steals that out of his mouth too which is okay, but his hands are low and his thighs are heavy and it’s too much because his pen disappeared and his paper is gone and he hasn't finished his essay-
The pressure is gone.
“Hey, hey, hey.”
Careful fingers brush through his tangled hair.
“Hey, hey.”
A thumb passes lightly across his cheek,
“Hey.”
and Keiji blinks into clarity.
Bokuto smiles. “There you are.”
Clouds cover the stars in his eyes as he watches Keiji, but the sparkle is still there behind them. His cheeks are a lovely pink, his lips darker, and their chests heave deep, labored breaths together even though their bodies don’t touch.
Keiji cradles his face in his hands, brings him down to touch their lips together, and Bokuto doesn’t taste like sugar anymore though somehow his lips are still just as sweet. Bokuto smiles into it and doesn’t push when Keiji lets go. He taps their foreheads together, lets them rest there, then throws himself to the side and onto his back with a painful thump.
“Hey I know more about you now. I think that’s kind of cool," Bokuto says as he scratches his stomach and adjusts himself in his sweats, which Keiji doesn’t notice because he’s looking for his essay and he thinks he saw his pen under the bed but he's not sure.
“I suppose.”
“Are you going to tell me if you shave your pubes though?”
“No.”
“You haven't- wait, is that your answer?” He fumbles excitedly, then shoves his arm out, paper in hand. ”Here’s your essay by the way.” Keiji plucks the offering from his hand, locates his pen (under the bed), and they both end up settling into the way they were before, Bokuto sprawled across the floor and Keiji cross-legged against his bed.
Only Keiji pushes a rebellious wisp of hair off Bokuto’s forehead as he begins to chatter away about nothing, and the hair doesn’t actually stay in place, but there are a lot of things about Bokuto Koutarou that are always moving, always changing (growing) and Keiji knows enough things about him to know that when it’s just the two of them that’s okay.
And whether those things are changing on the court at nationals or in Keiji’s bedroom at 10:12pm on a Tuesday,
that’s okay too.