Chapter Text
Akaashi Keiji didn’t believe in love at first sight. He didn’t believe in soulmates or wishes upon a star. The thought of the cosmos governing who or how he loved was a laughable one. Instead, he remained practical in his dreams and sought answers in logic and reason: two principles that guided the decisions he made—no matter how big or small.
Then it happened. Abruptly, unexpectedly.
Akaashi Keiji found himself pulled in by a star’s unshakable gravitational force.
And in that moment, standing there in the City Gymnasium weighing his options for the future, he knew. It was an idle, fleeting thought that crossed Keiji’s mind.
Bokuto Koutarou was a star.
He was the one.
His perception of the universe and its functions became muddled the longer Keiji remained caught in orbit, a place where logic and reason didn’t hold up. Bokuto was someone who challenged everything he thought he knew, existing with a kind of intensity so unfamiliar to him. It was the kind, though, that Keiji wanted to learn—wholly, completely, irrevocably.
But life was never allowed to be so simple.
Because, growing up, Keiji had been taught one very important thing: don’t be greedy. He was never meant to take more than what was allotted to him, always favoring selflessness over selfishness. A principle that conflicted with the very essence of the star whose orbit kept him entrapped.
Thus began an eight-year battle between head and heart; a war waged within the confines of his own mind over what to do when you found yourself drawn to someone whose existence defied the balance you thought the universe was meant to maintain.
It became five times Akaashi Keiji told himself not to be selfish, and the one time he changed his mind.
⭐️
one.
If someone asked him why he chose Fukurodani, Keiji wouldn’t lie.
It was because of Bokuto.
Mostly.
Not because of some infatuous crush he had on his upperclassman, but because Bokuto played volleyball in a manner previously unknown to him. His enthusiasm was enthralling; his expertise invigorating. After three years of following the rules and doing what he was told—and surrounding himself with teammates who did the same—Keiji welcomed the challenge of competing alongside the antithesis of the comfortable volleyball he was used to.
So this is what it means to be a star.
Keiji knew that he himself wasn’t celestial; but after his first practice as a member of the Fukurodani Boys’ Volleyball Club, he decided that his role would be making the team’s star shine a little brighter.
He just hadn’t realized how much work it would entail.
Bokuto Koutarou was a menace.
The pair were alone in the gym, the other members of the team having given up an hour before. Despite the time and the faint rumbling of hungry stomachs, there appeared to be no end in sight. Because, where Keiji found himself losing stamina, Bokuto seemed to be gaining it—looking more enlivened every time he landed a clean cross shot.
And who was Keiji to refuse a star?
So he continued on, offering up a “nice kill” or “good job” as needed. A piece of him wondered if he complimented Bokuto enough times, his teammate would find his performance satisfactory and announce that it was time to go home. It was a logical thought, but a laughable one, too.
Bokuto wasn’t satisfied with words of affirmation alone. He wanted results; and results required practice. Lots of it.
Even in the time it had taken Keiji to bring his shirt up to wipe the sweat off of his face, his partner had become impatient.
“Akashi, one more!” Bokuto called.
“It’s Akaashi,” Keiji corrected. His tone was polite, mostly—as it always was when talking to someone his senior. He could feel the agitation working its way through him, though. Not because Bokuto had gotten his name wrong (again); but because Keiji had offered to help out with hitting drills for “a little bit.”
There was nothing little about what they were doing now: still practicing an hour after their teammates had announced their departure. The ache in Keiji’s hands was a reminder of the extra time logged, of the extra touches he’d taken as the ball went from setter to hitter.
(An ache he feared would only grow when he returned home and took to his desk to complete his assignments due in the morning.)
Yet, when Bokuto waved a ball in his direction—signaling that he was ready to begin again—Keiji squared his feet and told himself that the dull throbbing in his fingers had yet to reach its pinnacle. It was a sign to keep going, just a little longer.
He was a setter, after all.
It was his job.
Keiji’s sense of duty meant that a night like the present wasn’t an isolated experience either. In the month since he’d joined the team, staying late to help Bokuto had become routine.
(Perhaps it was really just an expertly laid trap that Keiji couldn’t break from; but if someone asked—and they often did—why he stayed late to help Bokuto, he’d claim a selfless obligation was the reason. A partial truth.)
Konoha Akinori had been quick to tell Keiji that he didn’t have to stay behind, that he didn’t owe anything to Bokuto. “Sometimes,” his upperclassman had said when he’d caught Keiji in the hallway the day after his first post-practice practice with Bokuto, “the bastard needs to be told ‘no.’”
Keiji had shrugged in response, telling Konoha that practicing with Bokuto wasn’t something he minded doing. It helped him improve his own skills, after all. If he wanted to make the starting lineup as a First Year, then practice was necessary; and there was no better way to elevate his performance than by setting to the Ace.
Buried just deep enough that he prevented the thought from fully surfacing, though, was another reason. A more selfish one.
Keiji liked having Bokuto to himself. He liked knowing that, when they were alone together in the gym, that their attention was reserved only for the person standing a few feet away. It was the most intimate experience Keiji’d had in his limited years of life.
Still, as he watched Bokuto complete a perfect hit down the line, he reminded himself that his selfish longings were just that: longings—things that weren’t meant to exist beyond the confines of his mind. He needed to put an end to the practice before his thoughts wandered any further.
“Bokuto-san,” Keiji said when his teammate went to toss him another ball. “I think it’s time we stopped.”
“But I haven’t gotten into my rhythm yet,” Bokuto was quick to counter with. “I need to keep working.”
Keiji sighed. As he thought over a response, he tried to draw on all the advice he’d listened to Konoha give for dealing with Bokuto—advice he’d largely ignored. “There’ll be plenty of time to try tomorrow. Besides, I can hear your stomach growling from here.”
Bokuto gave a laugh, head tilting back and shoulders moving up and down when he did. Then he straightened himself: a sign that he was going to concede. “You win this round, ‘Kaashi,” he said. “Maybe I should buy you dinner as a thanks for helping me out.”
The world went still.
Keiji was aware of Bokuto staring at him, likely waiting for him to answer; but any response remained trapped in his throat. He knew to expect the unexpected when it came to his teammate. This, though—standing in the gym together and each trying to steady their breathing after a laborious hour of extra practice—was something he hadn’t accounted for.
Is he asking me out on a date? Keiji wondered to himself, still too caught up in his own head to say anything aloud. He wouldn’t ask me out on a date, would he? Why would he ask me on a date?
Stop.
You’re being irrational.
It doesn’t matter.
It’s not a date.
Say something.
“That’s alright.” Keiji brought his hands together, beginning to toy with his fingers when he finally managed to speak. “I have homework.”
“C’mon, Akaashi, don’t be lame.”
“Maybe another time.”
He was treading dangerous waters, he knew that; but if he postponed plans now, Keiji figured he could come up with a better excuse to use the next time an offer was given. Whether it was for reasons of self-preservation or self-sabotage, though, he didn’t know.
Keiji didn’t like not knowing.
He didn’t have time to dwell on the unknowns; his attention was instead drawn toward Bokuto, who had begun to walk over to where Keiji stood. He wore a devious expression on his face when he said, “No excuses. You’re comin’ with me.”
Then—likely for effect—Bokuto tossed a sweaty arm around Keiji and pulled him toward the gym’s exit. They made it halfway before Keiji stopped; Bokuto stopped with him, arm still keeping a firm hold.
“Bokuto-san.”
“Hmm?”
“We have to clean up the gym first.”
The noise his teammate let out in response was somewhere between a whine and a groan. A sound that caused Keiji to roll his eyes and slip himself out of Bokuto’s grip so that he could begin picking up the balls that were left scattered around the gym.
“The sooner we clean up, the sooner we can eat,” he reasoned with his upperclassman, who remained sulking several steps from the exit. “If it takes too long, I’m just going to go home.”
Keiji didn’t know what had inspired him to be so bold with Bokuto. Perhaps, he decided as his teammate joined him in putting the gym back together, it was because he felt responsible. As someone vying for the starting setter spot, perhaps this was his way of showing that he could handle the team’s Ace. He could control him. Another responsibility that balanced precariously on his young shoulders—one Keiji knew he would need to secure in time. Redirecting Bokuto’s focus to cleaning the gym felt like the first step in fulfilling the sense of obligation he felt.
(Perhaps it was also a selfish excuse to spend more time alone with him. Keiji wasn’t ready to admit that one, though—aloud or to himself.)
In the end, Bokuto helped clean up the gym—picking up balls, taking down the net, going so far as to sweep the floor. And after they gathered their things from the club room, Keiji agreed to dinner. He didn’t know where his teammate lived in relation to him or to the school, but the distance didn’t seem to matter to the boy who chatted amicably alongside Keiji as they walked down the street.
“Bokuto-san,” Keiji said when he saw the train station come into view. “Where are we going?”
“Hmm,” Bokuto responded, not breaking his stride when he did. “What if we got on a random train, then got off at a random stop and picked the first place we saw?”
“That sounds like a terrible idea.”
Bokuto kept walking, but turned to look at Keiji with something akin to horror spread across his face. “What’s wrong with my idea?”
“The trains stick to a precise schedule; getting off at a random spot could make it harder for either of us to get home.”
His response was logical, practical—which meant Bokuto had a rebuttal waiting. “That’s part of the fun,” his teammate said with a grin. “Trying new things is exciting, you know?”
“It would be easier if we went somewhere in between where we both lived,” came Keiji’s calculated response. A rebuttal to the rebuttal. A reubttaled rebuttal, “My family lives in Kamikitazawa, so—”
“That means we’re basically neighbors, ‘Kaashi!” Bokuto’s voice contained an excitement that Keiji hadn’t been expecting, a joy that caused his insides to twist. “We’re from Minamikarasuyama!”
Oh, Keiji realized then. They were basically neighbors. A short ride on the Keiō Line and they could cross into the other’s district. Just a zip and they’d be there.
The realization that settled over him as the two entered the station was a troubling one—the knowledge that he and Bokuto could easily, feasibly see one another making his palms sweat. That he and Bokuto could go to and from school together, that they could—
Keiji told himself to stop; it was useless to dwell on what-ifs. Choosing a place to eat was more important than the thought of Bokuto’s face being the first to greet him when he stepped on the train in the mornings, and the last to say goodbye long after the sun had gone down. Now was not the time to think about the little distance it would take for him to seek out Bokuto when they weren’t in school or in practice.
Keiji knew there would be plenty of time for reflection later, likely as he lay in bed unable to quiet his mind long enough to sleep. It was how his nights typically went. Sleep was a luxury Keiji’s mind seldom let him enjoy.
Calculating down to the minute the amount of sleep he would enjoy tonight would have to wait. Instead of dwelling on the more-distant future, he needed to worry about the future happening in front of him. One that involved Bokuto and himself finding a place to eat.
Keiji brought a hand to his face to cover a yawn before asking, “Have you made a practical decision yet, Bokuto-san?”
His teammate shrugged. “I’ll just go with you to your stop.”
The solution was so practical it made Keiji suspicious.
“But,” Bokuto added. “I’m picking the most exciting place I can find and you’re not allowed to tell me ‘no.’ Got it, Akaashi?”
There it was.
“Alright,” he conceded.
Anything Bokuto might have said in response was drowned out by the sound of Keiji’s own heartbeat reverberating in his ears.
He couldn’t help but wonder, as they navigated their way through the station together, if he’d just agreed to his first date.
“This is your idea of exciting, Bokuto-san?” Keiji asked some time later.
They wandered the aisles of the FamilyMart just outside of Kami-kitazawa Station.
“Anything can be exciting if you don’t take yourself so seriously,” Bokuto responded as he tossed a bag of salt and vinegar chips into the basket Keiji had agreed to hold. So far its contents contained lots of snacks and little of anything with actual substance to it.
Keiji should have known better. “I suppose you’re right,” he said with a shrug. He tried to steer the pair in the direction of the steamed meat buns near the front of the shop. They weren’t his favorite, but he figured a stomach full of dough and pork would give him greater energy for the night ahead than the mini chocolate chip cookies Bokuto had just added to the basket.
Even when he tried to do something exciting—something outside of his carefully curated routine—practicality still guided his decisions. Sometimes it was a blessing, but today it felt like a curse.
Let go, he tried to tell himself as he listened to Bokuto make casual conversation with one of the workers. Have fun.
But even as he sat beside Bokuto on a bench outside of FamilyMart several minutes later, steamed meat bun his teammate had paid for in-hand, Keiji worried that fun was just a cover for greed. That he was letting a selfish indulgence go too far.
The moment felt intimate, even more so than the liminal space the Fukurodani gymnasium had become earlier that night. Here, he and Bokuto existed in a world alone. They laughed and joked and teased one another like boys who’d known each other for years—not boys who’d only officially been acquainted for a month. This fact—this reminder that everything they were was still so new—casused Keiji to rejoin reality.
The gilded walls he’d felt build up around him as he sat with Bokuto outside of FamilyMart turned out to be nothing but fool’s gold.
And a fool was something Akaashi Keiji never wanted to be.
So, when he looked over and saw a bit of chocolate smudged in the corner of his teammate’s mouth, Keiji had to steady his hand. He had to resist the urge to wipe the chocolate away. Instead, he said, “Bokuto-san, you have chocolate on your face.”
His stomach twisted at the sound of Bokuto’s laughter—a final nail in Keiji’s proverbial coffin.
“I’m making it my mission to teach you how to have fun, Akaashi,” Bokuto said before wiping at the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. “You have to stop taking yourself so seriously.”
Keiji gave a laugh of his own, but it was the nervous kind. A forced laughter meant to clear the air that had grown heavy between them. “There’s nothing wrong with being practical, Bokuto-san.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting something, either. Just because I don’t need to eat an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies doesn’t mean I don’t want to. That’s the difference between us, ‘Kaashi; I don’t separate my wants and needs. They’re all the same to me. So,” Bokuto said as he nudged the bag of cookies in Keiji’s direction. “What do you want?”
Akaashi Keiji wasn’t someone usually rendered speechless. His practicality meant that solutions to any situation he found himself in were constantly being developed and adjusted in his head. For all the planning that he did, though, he hadn’t been prepared to hear Bokuto Koutarou—his teammate, an acquaintance he hardly knew—ask him what he wanted while they sat on a bench together less than two blocks from Keiji’s family home.
“I’m sure I’ll figure it out someday,” he said as he stood up. A simple response to an impossible question.
“Ughhhhh.” Bokuto stood up, too. “I’m not lettin’ you get out of this one.”
“Then ask me again another day.”
He was prepared to give his goodbyes after that, figuring that he would walk back to his home just as he assumed Bokuto would walk back to the station. Instead of a goodbye, though, he heard Bokuto ask, “How come you never stick around after helping me? You’re always gone before I can ask you to do anything fun. Well, even more fun than helping me, obviously.”
Keiji turned his head away, not wanting his teammate to see the way his cheeks flushed pink. “I just want to catch the earlier train so that I can—”
“Yeah, yeah, do your homework. I know. But,” Bokuto added with a nudge to Keiji’s arm that caused him to turn, “starting tomorrow we’re riding the train together.”
“Why?” Keiji asked.
Bokuto shrugged. “Because I want to.”
Oh.
Oh no.
Standing there, hands clutched around an empty meat bun wrapper, Keiji felt it again—that unstoppable gravitational pull. The same one that had led him to Fukurodani. To Bokuto.
I like him, came his first thought.
I barely know him, came his second—a thought he would let outweigh the first.
He would keep his little crush tucked away, a secret for himself alone. Besides, Keiji reasoned as he prepared to give Bokuto his goodbyes, why ruin a budding friendship with selfish longings and hasty confessions? It didn’t matter what he wanted; he needed to assess how his relationship with his teammate would change with time.
To jump headfirst into the unknown was illogical; and illogical was something Akaashi Keiji never wanted to be.
🌟
two.
“Really?” Keiji heard Konoha ask from the seat across from him. “You’re still hung up on him?”
The two sat together in the lobby of a Tokyo hotel. They were alone, the other members of the team having retreated to their rooms shortly after returning from the day’s competition. Konoha had pulled Keiji aside upon their arrival and claimed there was an urgent matter he needed to warn his teammate about.
What had begun as a “Just letting you know, Bokuto wants to give you The Talk,” though, had quickly turned into the interrogation Keiji now found himself sitting in.
Bokuto remained nowhere to be found. Typical.
“I never said I was hung up on him,” Keiji told his teammate with a shrug. “I was merely commenting on how well he did today.” It was a partial truth, the kind Keiji found himself often telling whenever it came to Bokuto. A way to praise his teammate without making it obvious that—for the last year—his crush had only grown worse.
And Keiji had done nothing about it.
“Sure,” Konoha responded. The expression on his face could be described as equal parts amazed and bewildered. Keiji knew he was unconvinced, but couldn’t bring himself to argue further. “He should be down here once he’s done watching himself on film thirty times. That’ll be my cue to go.”
Despite the way Konoha talked about him, Keiji knew that his teammate had the same respect for Bokuto that he and the rest of the Fukurodani members had. Their match against Mujinazaka earlier in the day had reaffirmed that. After watching his performance, no one could deny that Bokuto Koutarou was meant to be the Ace.
Keiji was simply grateful he had the opportunity to play alongside such a star.
“Dude,” Konoha said. “You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?”
“He helped me get out of my own head today.”
“And now he’s the only thought in your head. Gross.”
Keiji seldom let others help him. He preferred to provide assistance to the people around him as opposed to letting them assist him. It was all part of that voice in his head telling him not to be greedy; to be selfless instead of selfish.
Today, as he’d heard his coach call for a change in players, Keiji hadn’t asked for help. He’d kept going, trying to pull himself back up the cliffside even after he’d begun the freefall. It was then that he’d felt a hand, a sturdy grip tightening around him. Then: a voice.
A single star visible against the midnight sky.
Everything Bokuto had said to him, both as he watched Keiji walk off the court and after the match had ended, wasn’t something Keiji had asked for. When he’d felt himself losing his footing, he hadn’t prayed to a pantheon of gods he didn’t believe in for someone to save him. There’d been no fairy godmother to bibbidi-bobbidi-boo him back to who he knew he was supposed to be, no genie with a magic lamp ready to grant him three wishes.
There had been Bokuto.
And that was enough.
Even though Keiji hadn’t asked for help, he was grateful that it had come in the form of a boy with horn-shaped hair and a laugh that caused even Keiji’s stony exterior to break.
He was grateful, too, that the view from the bench had taught him something new—both about himself and about Bokuto. Keiji had spent his first year with the team trying to control Bokuto, trying to appease his teammate out of a sense of duty. He’d felt the pressure of a thousand stars balancing precariously on his shoulders.
That wasn’t the way it was meant to be.
He did not control Bokuto; he was not obligated to help just because the star hitter needed a less-than-celestial setter. Everything that was to come, Keiji knew now, was because he wanted to do it. The only life he controlled was his own.
Funny, he thought to himself when he looked over to see Konoha doing what could only be described as sneering at him, how Bokuto had been the first to teach him about the difference between wants and needs.
“If you don’t tell him how you feel, I’m telling him for you,” Konoha leaned forward to say. His expression hadn’t changed.
“I don—”
“Nope, we’re not playing this game. I’ve spent too long watching this weird mating ritual for you to make any more excuses.”
“I’m not going to rush into things,” Keiji said. He wasn’t the person he’d been a year ago; he’d changed from the boy who’d stood with flushed cheeks and wide eyes when Bokuto announced that, from now on, they would be riding to and from school together. Before, they’d been acquaintances—two strangers whose orbit neither seemed to want to shake.
Now, Keiji knew they were more. They were friends, perhaps each other’s closest friend. He wasn’t going to risk that, not when he had someone in his life that he could be himself with. Bokuto, despite the chaos that followed wherever he stepped, was a comfort in Keiji’s life.
As his friend, not as anything more.
A high school crush wasn’t worth losing someone like that over.
“I don’t think you’re rushing anything,” Konoha responded a moment later. He looked as if he wanted to say more on the matter, but was silenced by the sound of a familiar voice calling out to him and Keiji. “Well, that’s my cue. Good luck.”
Keiji watched Konoha stand and begin to walk toward the elevator, his teammate doing what he could to avoid Bokuto. As things typically went with Bokuto, though, he stopped Konoha for an exchange Keiji couldn’t make out from where he sat. But, just as quickly as it’d begun, the two parted, leaving Keiji to watch as Bokuto approached with a toothy grin on his face.
“So,” he said as he took over the seat that’d been previously occupied by Konoha. “Bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here.”
A small smile began to spread across Keiji’s lips, the kind Bokuto always seemed to know how to draw out of him. “I know you’re just going to tell me anyway, so there’s no point in guessing.”
“But if you had to guess…”
Keiji sat up a little straighter. “I would guess that you want to talk about the team.” He knew what was coming, having listened to Konoha go over the main points of The Talk. Still, waiting to hear the words from Bokuto directly brought on a new set of nerves. It made it all the more real.
“Obviously we’re going to win the rest of our matches,” his teammate started in true Bokuto fashion. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we only have two more days of the tournament.”
Keiji knew better than to interrupt Bokuto, so he let him continue.
“It’s not my decision, even though it should be; but you are going to be the next captain, right?”
There it is.
“Only if the team wants me to be,” came Keiji’s response. It was calculated, practical—the same words he’d been rehearsing since Konoha had told him that The Talk meant a talk about Keiji becoming the next team captain. “I won’t accept the role just because you think it’s the most logical decision.”
Bokuto leaned back in his seat and groaned. “Come on, Akaash’. You really think the team doesn’t want you to be captain? No one would know what to do if you weren’t there.”
“I’m nothing special, Bokuto-san. I just do what’s asked of me.” It wasn’t self-pity or depreciation, it was the truth. At least, the truth according to Keiji. There were stand-out players across the league—Kageyama, Miya Atsumu, Iizuna from Itachiyama—that Keiji looked up to. They performed at a level he never could.
Keiji knew his role wasn’t to be a star. He was meant to be quiet, calculating; the one who was able to solve a problem the moment it arose. He didn’t have to have flashy techniques to do his job; all he had to do was follow the directions his coaches and teammates gave him. Which meant—
“If they ask me to be captain, I will accept,” he told Bokuto. “But only if they ask.”
“Who else would it be? There’s no one like you, ‘Kaashi.”
Keiji bowed his head, not wanting his teammate to see the flush of pink tingeing his cheeks and his ears. “Thank you,” he said. Then he gave himself a count of five to compose his features long enough to meet Bokuto’s gaze. “There’s no one quite like you either, Bokuto-san.”
“Ha! I know, right?” He gave a laugh before his expression turned serious—something so rare for Bokuto to be. Keiji felt himself sitting up even straighter. “Anyways, when I come back to visit next year, I can’t wait to brag to the First Years about how I got to hit your sets first.”
“You’re going to come back?”
“‘Course I am! What kind of question is that? When you least expect it, Akaashi, I’ll be there.”
Keiji felt the warmth on his cheeks deepen. “So long as you’re not trespassing on school grounds, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Ughhhh, stop being so practical! Don’t you want to see me?”
There it was again. Want. Keiji knew he wanted to see Bokuto next year, regardless of where the future took his teammate. He also knew that he needed to let Bokuto branch out, to step outside the microcosm the Fukurodani Boys’ Volleyball Club had become.
The world was waiting for Bokuto Koutarou.
Keiji wouldn’t be the one to hold him back.
“Of course I’ll want to see you, Bokuto-san,” he began. “But you have a future that shouldn’t be limited to what one person wants.”
Bokuto seemed to find Keiji’s response humorous. “So you want me to stay in Tokyo with you?”
Fuck.
“That’s not what I said.”
“But you said you wanted to see me, and you’re in Tokyo for at least another year, so—”
“I want you to do what makes you the happiest, Bokuto-san!” Keiji snapped. His voice was curt, harsher than he’d meant for it to be. “Sorry. I just meant that you being gone will be an adjustment for me, but that’s not what’s important. What matters is that you’re making the choice to do what you want. I don’t control or make your decisions for you.”
“And if I decided that I wanted to stay?”
Keiji shrugged. “Then that’s your decision to make.”
“Hmm,” his teammate hummed in response before standing up from his seat. “Well, that’s all in the future anyway so it doesn’t matter. Want to find some food and watch the match replay with me, ‘Kaashi?”
The tension that’d begun to grow between them dissipated once Keiji stood up, too. “I’m only watching it once,” he warned, though the smile on his face betrayed the serious tone he’d hoped to convey. “You’re on your own after that.”
Bokuto simply laughed in response.
I don’t need to confess anything right now, Keiji decided as he walked with Bokuto to one of the hotel vending machines. Everything is as it should be.
🌟
three.
Bokuto did not stay in Tokyo after high school.
He was quick to get scouted, and even quicker to accept an offer to join the Osaka-based MSBY Black Jackals. From the moment he announced his decision, time seemed to speed up. No matter how hard Keiji tried to selfishly slow it back down, the clock ticked just a little faster than the universe intended for it to.
Graduation came and went.
Keiji became the next captain of the Fukurodani Boys’ Volleyball Club.
Seconds and minutes and hours continued to pass until the day it came.
The day they stood together on a train platform wrapped in an embrace—clinging to one another like a lifeline. As if the tangibleness of the other was the only thing tethering them to this world.
“You’re gonna visit, right?” Bokuto asked. He was the first to pull away, though kept a hold on Keiji’s arms with both of his steady hands. “I’m staying in the team dorm, but I doubt they’d mind a visitor.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” Keiji said in response. “But, yes, I’ll come visit.”
He didn’t know when he’d board an Osaka-bound train of his own, but it was a promise to himself as much as it was one to Bokuto. He would visit. Distance would not uproot the sturdy foundation he knew they’d spent Bokuto’s last two years of high school building.
This foundation, though, was the reason he held his tongue.
Be mine, he wanted to say when he saw the train come into view.
“Call me when you arrive,” he chose instead.
Confessing his feelings for his best friend as Bokuto boarded the train that would take him to his new life was the most selfish thing he could do.
And selfish was what Akaashi Keiji told himself never to be.
🌟
four.
The gym was quiet when Keiji entered it.
He should have known better than to expect a cacophony of voices, should have known that the sounds of last year’s summer were nothing more than a memory. Still, old habits die hard—or so the saying goes. There was no reason for him to cross the threshold into the building marked with a 3; but that was exactly where he found himself on a Monday night in July.
When he looked around the space, though, he realized he wasn’t alone.
Ha, Keiji thought to himself as he walked over to where Tsukishima Kei sat on the floor stretching his legs. So I’m not the only one who can’t let go.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Tsukishima,” he greeted.
“I didn’t expect to see myself here either,” the other boy admitted. He finished his stretch and stood up. “But—”
Tsukishima stopped. Keiji heard it too: the sound of conversation growing louder as an undetermined number of footsteps approached.
“Even if the coaches know you’re here, they’re still going to kick you out, Kuro.”
Keiji recognized that voice.
Kozume Kenma.
“I’d like to see them try.” It wasn’t Kuroo Tetsurou who responded, though. Keiji felt his body stiffen, anticipation building as he waited for the familiar figure to pass through Gym 3’s entrance. Beside him, he noticed Tsukishima had also gone rigid—more rigid than his usual stance.
They had visitors.
Kuroo came through first.
Kenma followed, annoyance over being dragged into the schemes of his former teammate wearing on his face. Keiji could empathize.
Bokuto brought up the rear. When Keiji saw his former teammate—his best friend—time came to a halt. It was the first they’d seen one another since that day on the platform two months before.
Keiji hadn’t realized just how much a person could change in such a short amount of time.
Bokuto had always had an aura to him, a certain glow that was befitting for a person like him. When Keiji saw him now, the look in his honey-colored eyes was a match for the sun. His smile felt cosmic. Beyond his face, Keiji noticed that he stood taller—that he looked more sure of himself. He’d always been confident, but this Bokuto was even more so. He was someone who had taken the first steps toward the person he was always meant to be. In two months, Keiji saw just how much his best friend had grown up.
(If anyone asked about the warmth on his face, Keiji would blame it on the weather. No one had to know that the sight of Bokuto like that made his cheeks flush pink.
Focus, he warned himself as the newcomers approached.)
Aloud, Keiji gave an “Oya?” when the five gathered in the center of the gym. He cursed himself the second the word slipped out; another habit that needed to die hard.
“Oya Oya,” came Bokuto’s conditioned response.
With a smirk, Kuroo gave the final, “Oya Oya Oya.”
“I’m leaving,” Tsukishima and Kenma said in unison.
In the end, only Kenma managed to successfully leave the gym after announcing his departure. He took his chances the moment Bokuto called for a scrimmage, sneaking out before Kuroo could convince him that they needed a second setter.
“Akaashi, you’re with me,” Bokuto announced.
Kuroo scoffed. “You think you’re such a big shot now, don’t you? I’ll still kick your ass, dude.”
“Bring it on!”
Keiji looked to Tsukishima, who merely rolled his eyes as the other two continued their banter. They knew better than to interrupt Bokuto and Kuroo whenever their nonsense began. Keiji guessed Tsukishima was thinking the same thing: if they let them go on long enough, the intruders would give up on a scrimmage in favor of some other ridiculous competition that neither Tsukishima nor Keiji would have to participate in.
At the end of camp last summer, it’d been shogi. During downtime at Nationals in January, Kuroo had produced a deck of cards. Keiji still wasn’t sure what game they had played that day, all he knew was that Bokuto had been hopelessly and utterly defeated—a fact that meant Keiji’d been forced to listen to his teammate complain.
And to help him plot revenge.
Now, Keiji and Tsukishima stood by while the other two moved their conversation away from volleyball—as expected.
“No way you could eat more yakitori than me,” Keiji heard Bokuto say. “I’m a freakin’ professional athlete. I’ve trained for this.”
“Yeah right. You’ve been there for like two months.”
Just as Keiji found himself tuning out the pair, he heard his name. “Akaashi,” Bokuto called. “Back me up.”
“I’m not getting involved in this, Bokuto-san.”
“Tsukki—”
“I’m going to take a bath,” came Tsukishima’s response. “Excuse me.”
“You know...I should see where Kenma went,” Kuroo was quick to add once Tsukishima had begun to make his way to the exit. Keiji thought he saw him give Bokuto a nod, but he couldn’t be sure.
Weird.
And just like that, five had gone down to two. Keiji turned to face Bokuto; Bokuto turned to face him.
“Hey, Akaashi?” his former teammate asked once they were alone. “Wanna set for me?”
The moment felt familiar when he brought his shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face. Despite all the work that went into setting for Bokuto, Keiji missed it. He missed the glimpses he would catch of the Ace mid-air, missed the echoes of “Hey! Hey! Hey!” that would be carried throughout whatever venue they found themselves in.
“Man, your sets are still the best, ‘Kaashi.”
He missed being praised so directly by someone like Bokuto.
“Your cross has gotten better,” Keiji responded with a compliment of his own. “And you can mix your shots without forgetting how to do one or the other.”
Bokuto laughed. “Well, duh. I’m just your Totally-Normal-Ace now.”
“I suppose you’re right, Bokuto-san.”
They continued on until Keiji announced that he had reached his limit. The clock indicated that it was just after nine, too late for the dining hall to still be open to grab a snack. He would figure something out. The vague feeling of hunger that had started to settle in his stomach was unimportant; what mattered was the man standing before him and the mess they’d left the gym.
“We need to clean up,” he told Bokuto.
“You never change, do you, ‘Kaashi?”
I guess not, he thought to himself.
When they’d finished putting things away, Keiji decided he could no longer ignore the obvious. “Why’d you come back?” he asked.
Bokuto shrugged. “Dunno, just felt like it. Plus Kuroo said he wanted to crash the training camp, and I wasn’t gonna turn that down.”
“I’m surprised you had time to visit.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
They’d left the gym in favor of the warm July night. As they walked with no destination in mind, Keiji found himself faltering at Bokuto’s question. “I just meant that you probably have practices and training and team bonding, or something of the sort,” he clarified.
Bokuto didn’t seem fazed. “Things are more flexible in the off-season. Kuroo’s letting me stay with him, but I have to leave in the morning to make it back for team lift.”
Oh.
Keiji should have known Bokuto’s visit would be short-lived. Hell, he’d just said as much to his friend. Hearing Bokuto confirm it, though, still stung. “Well, I don’t want to keep you up,” he said after a moment. “I’ll help you find Kuroo-san, and then—”
“I wanted to see you.”
“What?”
The pair had stopped walking. From where they stood, Keiji could hear the sounds of whom he assumed was Hinata Shoyo yelling about something. Likely to his teammates, or to his rivals. Really anyone who he’d convinced to keep practicing with him long after the sun had gone down.
(No wonder he and Bokuto-san get along so well, Keiji thought with amusement.)
The sound of the Karasuno Second Year’s yelling was a momentary distraction from the real problem—that Bokuto had snuck his way into a training camp because he wanted to see Keiji.
“Am I not allowed to want to see you?” Bokuto asked, effectively garnering the rest of Keiji’s attention. “It’s been like two months; that’s a long time to go without seeing someone.”
“You’re allowed to want to see me,” Keiji told him. He willed himself to keep walking, to find Kuroo so he and Bokuto could go home. It wasn’t what he wanted, but Keiji told himself it was what he needed to do. What a hypocrite he was—telling Bokuto to act on his wants while he denied his own.
“But?”
“But what?”
Bokuto brought his arms above his head in a stretch before letting them fall back to his sides. “There’s always a but with you, ‘Kaashi.”
“I’m just trying to be practical, Bokuto-san. Of course I want to see you, too, but—”
“Nope,” Bokuto cut him off with. “No more buts. If you want something, then take it.”
That’s easier said than done, Keiji wanted to tell his friend. To take what he truly wanted was to deny someone else their dream. It was nothing more than a selfish longing to tell Bokuto that sometimes, when the intrusive thoughts wouldn’t quit his mind, he wished Bokuto had considered signing with the Tokyo-based Adlers instead of the team on the other side of the country. It was unfair.
And so Keiji kept his lips sealed and his heart guarded.
Being there to watch Bokuto succeed in the life he’d built for himself was more important to Keiji than confessing how he really felt about his friend. A schoolboy’s crush wasn’t worth ruining someone else’s future over.
He didn’t communicate as much to Bokuto, though. Instead, he said, “I’ll think about it.”
And he would; because, if nothing else, the one thing Akaashi Keiji excelled at was thinking.
Thinking and overthinking and thinking some more.
His thoughts were the reason he found himself inside a mental labyrinth that boasted no way out. He was trapped within the confines of his own mind where the only thing left for him to do was think.
🌟
five.
Time was a funny thing. Just like distance, it could make the heart grow fonder. It could also cause what was once shiny and new to dull its way to obscurity, making insignificant what had once seemed so strong.
Keiji had expected that to happen with Bokuto. Not because he was a pessimist—which he would argue he was not; but because that was the natural order to things. It would only be realistic that the longer the two spent in their separate corners of the country—making their separate friends and carrying out their separate lives—that they would drift apart.
Two years out of high school, Keiji found that the universe had once again proven him wrong.
He lay across the bed in his Tokyo apartment, phone in-hand and readings for a class he hated scattered across the mattress. His glasses—a recent addition—balanced precariously on his nose. Keiji pushed them up before he gave a response to the device he held.
“I was accepted to both internships,” he said, waiting for the celebratory cheers from the other end before he continued. “I think I’m going to turn down the one in Nagano, though. It would be such a hassle to move for part of the year.”
“I thought you said you wanted to move?” Bokuto asked.
Keiji gave a shrug, then said, “I want to move out of this apartment; but I can’t afford anything better unless I find a roommate.”
On the other end of the FaceTime call, Bokuto sat himself straighter. Despite the distance and the poor Internet connection, Keiji knew he was scheming. He could see the wheels turning from where he lay.
“I bet I could find you a roommate. What about Kuroo?”
“Moved in with Kenma,” Keiji reminded him. “Konoha has a roommate, Sarukui lives on the other side of the city, and Komi is busy with his career.”
He’d practiced his speech in anticipation of Bokuto asking, had memorized the lives of his friends and former teammates to explain why rooming with any of them wasn’t feasible.
“Oh, and Washio’s in Nagano, but he lives in his team's dorm,” he added before Bokuto could ask. “But you knew that.”
Onscreen, he watched his friend rub his chin once: his thinking face—which was different from his scheming face, Keiji’d learned. “Man,” Bokuto said. “If I could, I would totally be your roommate.”
Keiji couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of Bokuto and himself being roommates. “Do you think we’d get along?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t we?”
Keiji considered it. Why wouldn’t they be comptable? The very nature of their friendship was one he often heard described as weird or surprising. Yet, Keiji knew that the man staring at him through a phone screen on the other side of the country was his best friend.
Still, living in the same space left room for unchecked desires. For selfish longings that Keiji told himself were useless to confront. He’d made it this far without telling Bokuto how he really felt; he was prepared to go a lifetime without saying those words aloud. There was enough for him to worry about—finishing university, completing an internship he hoped would lead to a job. And, hopefully someday soon, finding a new place to live.
There was no time to pencil in “have a crisis about the crush I’ve had on my best friend since he bought me meat buns and chocolate chip cookies after practice when we were teenagers” into his already busy schedule.
“Because I know you don’t wash your socks regularly. You think wearing the same pair will bring you fortune in your next match,” Keiji finally said, returning to the question Bokuto had asked. “I won’t let you bring your lucky socks anywhere near my apartment.”
It was a joke, mostly. A thinly veiled attempt to make light of a situation he knew would cause him to remain awake tonight, staring at his ceiling and dwelling on useless what-ifs.
“I did that, like, three times in high school, ‘Kaashi. I’m an adult who handles my own laundry now, including my socks.”
The mood lightened between them after that. Despite the easy jokes and witty banter, though, Keiji found himself wondering what it would be like to have Bokuto in the same space as him. To have his best friend sitting on the opposite side of the bed instead of the opposite side of the country. There was a longing there that never seemed to go away.
I miss you, he wanted to say. Come home.
“Tell me more about your new teammates,” he said instead. “Have the Miyans still been giving you a hard time?”
As he listened to Bokuto share a story about an elaborate prank he’d been attempting to pull on Miya Atsumu, Keiji tried to act as though everything was as it had always been. That time and distance hadn’t dulled the gilded fortress he and Bokuto played pretend in.
It was a terrible lie to keep telling himself—one that was bound to break the longer he tried to weave such a narrative together.