Archive of Our Own

At the living room table, Bokuto Koutarou, eight, bites back tears, knowing that if he cries, he’ll smudge the penciled-in kanjis on his notebook paper, and then, he’ll have to redo them. 

"Come on, Kou-chan," Bokuto Hibiki, fifteen, says from beside him, tapping the eraser of her glittery mechanical pencil against the side of her forehead, "we’ve been at this for almost two hours now."   

Bokuto Koutarou, eight, sniffs, wiping his sleeve across his face, eyes filling up, blurring the hiragana and the sloppy kanjis and his scratchy pencil markings. 

"I’m so bad at it," he whimpers, "I’m so stupid."

"You’re not stupid", Bokuto Hibiki, fifteen, leans forward on her elbows, eyes cast down on the sheet of paper, "having a hard time in school doesn’t make you dumb. Anyway, we’re all bad at something. Like how Nee-san’s bad at cooking." 

"Hey!"

Bokuto Akemu, sixteen and brandishing a spatula, swears loudly from the kitchen, leaning backwards to glare at them through the entrance between the two rooms, dark hair pulled into a high, messy ponytail, up and away from the stovetop. "I’m not bad at cooking!"

"Whatever you say," Bokuto Hibiki says, a whistle in her voice, looking away from the kitchen and back to Bokuto Koutarou, eight years old and not growing fast enough. Not yet fifteen, sixteen, not yet old enough that recipes are memorized and reading is easy. Bokuto Koutarou, eight, hasn’t gotten enough practice yet. 

"Take a break," Hibiki says, climbing to her feet, flattening the wrinkles and creases of her pleated uniform skirt and brushing eraser bits onto the floor in the process, "Kemu, is dinner ready yet?"

"How about you use some basic critical thinking skills?" Akemu asks plainly, "clearly it’s not. And why don’t you cook for once, you leech? Especially if you think I’m so bad at it."

"Wow, how rude," Hibiki hums, hums like the static air before a thunderstorm, and Bokuto Koutarou throws aside his pencil and his worksheets because while he’s not good at reading or writing yet, not good at school yet, his father, an weather expert, has taught him all the warning signs of a brewing storm: the smell of incoming rain, the buzz of electricity, the way the wind curls and the leafs turn belly-up. "You know, I bet Tunafish Boy from Keiko’s brother’s judo team doesn’t know that those notes in his locker are actually"- 

"You shut your stupid mouth! Who even told you about that?"

Akemu’s face is hotter than the skillet, spatula clenched in a fist so tight, Koutarou wouldn’t be surprised if it left an imprint. 

"Nobody needed to tell me, I just used my critical thinking skills," Hibiki hums, skipping into the kitchen, waltzing right into the storm. Bokuto Koutarou watches Akemu’s face, scrunched eyebrows, reddening cheeks, shoulders stiff as her eyes trail her sister. 

"What’s critical thinking?" Koutarou asks, still trying to piece together their teenager-language, what a Tunafish Boy is, and what one has to do with cooking, "and what’s a leech?" Bokuto Akemu and Bokuto Hibiki, in tandem, turn to look at him, Hibiki with a hand on the refrigerator door, Akemu a hand on the burner dial. Four golden eyes wide, two mouths slightly open. Argument, interrupted. 

"They’re worms that bite you and suck your blood," Hibiki says, baring her teeth and bringing her hands up beside her face, fingers curled like waiting claws. She doesn’t look much like a worm, though, more like some sort of shaggy lion, one that had recently given itself poofy, lopsided bangs while at a sleepover, to the horror of its mother, who would have gladly cut the lion’s mane however it wanted it cut. "You know what a leech is though, you got ‘em all over you once down at Ojii-san’s while you were trying to catch fish. Nee-san knows too, she once even had one"- 

"I will vomit in your food," Akemu says, smacking Hibiki in the side of her head with the back of her palm, but it doesn’t look like it was that hard, for Hibiki just laughs, lowers her hands and skips over to retrieve plates from the overhead cabinet, standing on her tiptoes, reaching, reaching. 

Koutarou joins them, drags over his step stool to better watch Akemu. Hands pressed against the countertop, he asks questions as she moves through the steps, asks her how she knows what she’s doing without a recipe, how she’d learned to make the onions turn that particular jellyfish clear, translucent, Akemu calls it. How the chives and the spices combine to make that aroma, Akemu will say, odor, Hibiki will correct, that smells like warm summer evenings, sweetgrass and fruit trees and bonfire smoke. How she remembers the ratio of water to rice. 

"Learning to cook is just like learning how to read and write, Kou-chan," Akemu says as she turns off the burner and lets him crack an egg over a portion of rice, taking the leftover shells in her palm, "it just takes practice. And it helps if you find something to love in it. It’s no fun cooking meals if you’re not going to enjoy eating them."

"Yeah, Akemu loves reading," Hibiki says, thumping the plates down on the table behind them and cackling to herself, "you should see all of the light novels she keeps under her bed!"

Akemu hurls a potholder at Hibiki, it flies with surprising force, sideways like a throwing star, Hibiki dodges, laughing her loud hyena laugh, blowing her self-cut bangs out of her face. 

"Stop. Going. Through. My. Stuff!"

"Stop leaving it where I can see it then!"

Koutarou laughs, looking from one Bokuto sister to the other, not sure of what the joke is but knows it’s sometimes useless to ask- he’s only eight, and doesn’t speak teenager yet, as much as he’d like to. They finish laying out all the food just as their father gets home from the university, kissing Koutarou on the top of his head and thanking the girls for preparing such a wonderful meal, to which Hibiki says you’re so welcome, earning another slap from Akemu, who’s promptly yelled at by their mother, from where she’s standing by the front door, peeling off her pointy work shoes. And when the five Bokutos sit down for dinner, say their thanks, Koutarou holds his chopsticks like he’d learned to, takes a bite, and memorizes the taste of the overcooked rice and oozing egg yolk, of sloppily cut spring onions and too much garlic, memorizes it so easy that maybe, after dinner, remembering a few kanjis will be easy too.

"Hey, Mura-san," Bokuto Koutarou, eleven, says, moving his thumb down the page of his school workbook, "what’s this one mean again?"

Murata, the only one of Bokuto’s youth league teammates who also goes to his elementary school, groans, rolling his eyes and leaning over to take a look. The group of them are sitting around the perimeter of the gymnasium, their bags and coats all strewn about, watching the tail end of the practice before theirs and cramming in their homework before their coach appears to tell them to start running laps.

"You mean you don’t know?" Murata snorts, "Bokuto, that one’s so easy!"  

"Ha! If you don’t know that one, what others don’t you know?" Another one of his teammates snickers, craning his neck over to look, "Bokkun’s lucky he’s semi-decent at volleyball." "You know, you should probably think about some athletic recommendations, you can’t take the middle school test if you’re illiterate." 

"Huh?" Bokuto says, brain stumbling over some of the words, scrambling for the meaning of semi-decent and recommendations, and illiterate. His teammates just laugh, Murata snorts, and Bokuto, who knows the difference between kind and mean laughter, snatches his booklet away from Murata and the others’ prying eyes. "I was just joking," he says, quickly, but Bokuto doesn’t think that they believe him.

The coach appears moments later, sends the group of them scrambling for their belongings, running onto the court where volleyball takes over, a whole lot more fun than homework. Something Bokuto is good at, and getting better at, getting so much better at quicker than anybody ever expected. On the court, school forgotten, hard work pays off, and Bokuto gets to be, for once in his life, the best at something. 

"Look, this is the word they want you to write," Kikuchi, Ushimi Middle School blocker by day, peer tutor by later in the day, says, stabbing the back end of his pen onto Bokuto’s paper, "this one, here. Hinderance." 

"Hinderance," Bokuto, fourteen, repeats back, leaning across the desk to look at the worksheet, "Kiku-san, I don’t even know what hinderance means."

"Good grief," Kikuchi sighs, "it’s, like, an obstacle, Bokuto."

In the gymnasium, Bokuto leaps, the soles of his sneakers squeaking, and he hits the ball across the net, a practice match, three on three, Kikuchi on the other side, arms raised. A hinderance, Bokuto thinks to himself, an obstacle. 

The block is stopped, hits off Kikuchi’s fingertips, Bokuto groans as he falls back down to earth, landing squarely on the balls of his feet, feeling the pressure in his knees. 

Rep it again! The coach calls out, and Bokuto hustles back to his spot. 

"Bokuto," the libero says, yawning, "just because you’re incapable of slowing down doesn’t mean we should all have to keep up."

"Incapable?" Bokuto asks, but doesn’t miss the libero rolls his eyes, snorting and shaking his head as he stalks off back to starting position.

"You’re too intense, Bokuto," the Ushimi Middle School setter says, tossing a volleyball into the air and catching it, "you know coach doesn’t care if we’re trying, he’s too busy with the first and second years." 

The setter is correct, but the thought hadn’t occurred to Bokuto. 

"But, the more reps, the more practice we get," He says, "don’t we wanna be the best?" 

"Who cares?" The setter groans, tossing him the ball, a slow underhand, "we’re graduating anyway, and we’re not all as insatiable as you are."

Bokuto catches the ball. 

"What’s insatiable?"

The setter shakes his head. 

"Forget it,"he stands up as the coach’s whistle peels out across the gymnasium, "the season’s basically over." 

Out of all the people Bokuto Koutarou has met in the first three months at Fukurodani, the one who feels closest to a friend is quitting the team. 

"I mean, you can’t quit something you never actually joined," Yukie says, from where she’s standing in the Bokutos’ kitchen, searching through the lower cabinets for the garbage can, her bangs pinned up messily above her forehead, too short to brush aside, but long enough they’d block her vision any other way. "I was only doing it because my sister was paying for my dinner every time I did. But now that Suzumeda’s there, everything’s how it should be."

"But"- 

"Bokuto, I don’t like sports," Yukie says, kicking the cabinet closed and turning around, digging her hands into her sweatpants pockets, thrown on under her uniform skirt the second they’d arrived, "I was never the right person for that job. It’s just not my nature."

"Your nature?"

"It’s not me," Yukie says. "Look, you’re great, and I like hanging out here, it beats spending any amount of time with my sister. But I can’t stay if you’re going to drill me about quitting something I was never going to do in the first place.

Bokuto nods, leaning back on his hands, unconvinced. He finds it impossible that, after two months of coming to practices, she can still say things like I don’t like sports and mean it. She seems to enjoy practices, gets along with everyone, and nothing about being a manager requires to do anything athletic. There’s no reason to leave if the only reason is it’s not in her nature.

"I think it could be your nature, though," he says, "It’s not like having two managers would be a bad thing. It would probably be good, actually!"

"I don’t like sports," Yukie repeats, and comes to sit down beside him, close to the bag of Thai takeout they’d bought with the last of Yukie’s dinner money from her sister. She digs out her school notebooks from her nearby backpack and thumps them down between them, folding one open, revealing her well-ordered notes, simple and easy to understand. 

"Why not?" Bokuto asks her, Yukie raises an eyebrow. 

"Please, Bokuto, I told you to drop this." 

"Okay! I will!" He says, too quickly, turning away from her, staring down at the table, the chips, the notebooks. But it’s not something he can stop thinking about. Yukie, though, maybe a mind reader, sighs. 

"Look," she says, "It’s not that I don't like sports, I just don’t like the culture. I don’t like… being made to feel bad about not being good at something, especially when there’s no reason I have to be good at it in the first place."

There’s not much he can say to that. Because, slouching, looking down at his schoolwork, he knows exactly what she means. That’s what he’d initially liked so much about Yukie, how she just gets that part of him in a way other people don’t, the way his family, no matter how much they love him, never will. The struggle of something being so hard for you that’s so easy for everybody else. But because they share so many of the same problems in the classroom- drifting attentions, bad memories, bad grades- he had never stopped to think that there must be some places where Yukie struggles and he doesn’t, and the other way around. 

Here, now, lies one of them. 

"But," Yukie says, as if sensing his disappointment, "Coach Yamiji asked if I would fill in for Suzumeda when she’s at physical therapy."

"So you’re staying?" Bokuto sits up, un-hunching his shoulders looking at her, and Yukie looks back, a somewhat surprised expression on her face. She shrugs, pushing escaped bits of her bangs out of her face. 

"Don’t get your hopes up," she says, "but… I dunno. I don’t like sports, but I do like all of you." 

The Fukurodani captain, their setter, is one of those people who wears his reputation like a cape. He’s so charismatic, one second years say, as they watch him shake hands with another captain under the net after a match, beaming despite their loss. So conscientious, the starting libero says, one summer evening after practice. Just so damn likable, Konoha says, one evening leading up to the spring tournament, punting a volleyball with his toe as he says it. The ball hits a light, Komi swears, Saru and Yukie laugh, Washio snorts. Suzumeda, from where she’s sitting in her folding chair, Coach Yamiji’s computer opened on her lap, rolls her eyes. Jee, wonder why that frustrates you so much. 

Kaori, shut up. I swear-

But Bokuto doesn’t know how he’d describe the Fukurodani captain, doesn’t know if charismatic and conscientious and so damn likable apply. Because while he’s nice on the surface, friendly and smiling, the way he talks sometimes makes Bokuto feel like he’s back at Ushimi Middle, not at Fukurodani. Just little things. The way he laughs when Bokuto makes a mistake, but not the sort of laughter that Konoha and Saru and Komi use, not all in good fun. The way he snorts when Bokuto and Yukie have to retake math exams, Bokkun, if you’re going to be our ace, you’re going to have to try a little harder off the court, as if he doesn’t know that Bokuto is trying so hard, as if he hasn’t seen him reviewing flashcards with Komi in the club room, practicing kanjis on the white board with Saru in the athletics office, heard him reciting math formulas on their warmup jogs. 

"You’re relentless, Bokkun," the captain says one night, just before nationals, when Bokuto asks him to practice, just for a little while. "A real force to be reckoned with, you know that?" 

Bokuto does know that, but can never tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. From coaches who call him unyielding, who call him ostentatious, it sounds good. From the captain, who reluctantly agrees to the practice that they both know they need, setting his things down beside the outside door, it sounds like maybe it’s not. 

They rep Bokuto’s cross shot, and Bokuto leaps, and every motion is a prayer that this will pay off, that this work will amount to something, that soon, he’ll play volleyball and love it like he’d loved it as a child, love it like his coaches do, love it like his upperclassmen do. The kind of love that understands as opposed to asks. 

The captain calls it only a few minutes in. 

"But"- Bokuto starts, because they haven’t figured it out yet, they’d agreed that they’d stay until they figured out this set up, they’d stay until this felt like one motion as opposed to multiple stagnated steps, as the captain had complained earlier. 

"Bokuto, it’s late," the captain says, "Take the hint and go home. If we were going to get it, we would’ve by now."

"But"-

"See ya," The captain says, collecting his things, and Bokuto watches him change his shoes, and exit the gym, plucking the key from the sill on his way out. C’mon, Bokuto, with haste, I have to lock up.  

Back straight against the wall, Bokuto Koutarou, sixteen, stands as the new first years introduce themselves. There are three of them, two of them from the Fukurodani middle school, both blockers. The other one, dark curly hair, quiet expression, steps up last, his words careful and precise, introduces himself Akaashi Keiji, setter. 

Setter. Fukurodani’s setter-captain had graduated, and their other setter, focused on his exams, doesn’t come to practice much anymore. So at the end of the session, once Coach Yamiji has collected his things and gestured for the captain and vice-captain to join him in the athletics office, Bokuto slinks up to Akaashi Keiji, hands behind his back Akashi-kun, could you please help me practice spikes for just a little bit? 

First year Akaashi Keiji, who corrects him it’s Aka-ashi, agrees, somehow. Despite the looks Konoha and Komi, past victims of too-long practices, throw their way. Akaashi hands off the broom he’d been pushing and steps onto the court, stretching out his calf. Suzumeda, whose mantra stretch before you practice sticks in Bokuto’s brain like a pushpin, would approve. He tells Akaashi as much, it’s good you always stretch before practicing. Suzumeda’s always going on about how important it is, maybe she’ll like you, and she doesn’t really like anyone. 

It doesn’t take long for Bokuto to realize that hard-to-please Suzumeda and the rest of the team will like Akaashi Keiji, for he’s clearly been paying attention during practice. It’s obvious, the way his simple skills translate: straightforward, easy to understand. His setting is patient and attuned to those around him, and Bokuto hits the ball over and over with the sort of confidence he’s been missing, and hadn’t realized he’d been missing, and he lands on his feet and turns to stare at Akaashi Keiji, whose tosses are, despite their simplicity, the best. 

Akaashi-kun, do you like volleyball? 

It’s a question that seems to surprise Akaashi, who’s sitting across from Bokuto in one of the first year classrooms, eating his lunch, a book opened beside his bento box. 

"Not particularly," Akaashi says slowly, not looking up from his book, "although, I hope that doesn’t perturb you." 

"Perturb?" 

"Bother you." 

"Oh, no, it doesn’t,"Bokuto says quickly, leaning his elbows forward on the desk. 

Normally Bokuto eats outside with Konoha, Yukie, and the others. But today, the summer rain pounds at the rooftops and splashes off the leaves of the campus cherry trees. Today, Yukie is making up a quiz, Saru has class representative duties, and Washio is absent. And when Bokuto had hunted down Konoha, Suzumeda, and Komi in one of the second year classrooms, Komi had gestured frantically at him from the desk, Bokkun, proceed with caution! Don’t come any closer unless you want to be bored to death!

I’m sorry you don’t have any taste, Suzumeda had said to Komi from where she and Konoha had been watching something on Suzumeda’s smartphone, and had then said, quieter, to Konoha, that’s the guy I was telling you about, the one who came in second despite the messed up engine, confirming Bokuto’s suspicions that they’re watching race cars again. 

Oh, yeah, deodorant guy. 

He has a name. 

Yeah, but he’s also in that deodorant commercial. Konoha had slicked back his hair with one hand, holding his bangs away from his forehead and plastering on a grin, sticking his armpit near Komi, who had kicked him hard in the leg, gagging. Smell like victory!

I’m going to wait for Yukippe, Bokuto had said, and Komi had yelled after him no, come back! Save me! But Bokuto had kept walking, knowing that Komi’s distress was most likely exaggerated. Anyway, it’s not like Komi will hate him for leaving, for these Fukurodani teammates are a lot better than his Ushimi Middle teammates. For while they poke fun at his mood swings and his excitability, their teasing is void of malice, it comes from a place of understanding, and Bokuto knows, on runs, even if he’s going too fast he’ll look behind him to see them attempting to keep up. 

Despite that, though, the particular combination of Konoha, Suzumeda, Komi can sometimes make Bokuto feel like an intruder, although it’s not their fault. The way Suzumeda and Konoha, having known each other a long time, have their own little language, the way Komi and Suzumeda spar with their words, sometimes to the point of conflict, the way the three of them have a sort of easy, flowing banter, always knowing what to say. 

Bokuto hadn’t made it to Yukie’s classroom, for he’d passed an open first year room, glimpsed Akaashi sitting inside, and had decided that that was a good an option as any. But it occurs to him, now, looking at Akaashi’s book and the way he fixates on it, that Akaashi is a little like Suzumeda and Komi sometimes, with his big words.

"You know, Akaashi," he says, setting down his chopsticks across his bento container, "I don’t really like playing volleyball all that much either." 

Akaashi looks up from his book, dog-earring a page.

"You don’t?"

"Not really,"Bokuto says, shrugging, I’m good at it! And I like being good at something, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing before." "But… I dunno. I think you have to be really good at something to love it. Like, be able to do everything! Right now, I can’t do everything, and that’s no fun."

"Huh." Akaashi says quietly, looking at him weirdly, head slightly tilted. He pushes some of his hair out of his eyes with one hand and shuts his book with the other. "So you dislike volleyball due to not being the best at it?"

"That’s harsh! Who said I wasn’t the best?"

"You did, Bokuto-san," Akaashi says, no longer eating, just looking at Bokuto with a that same weird expression, "but… you truly believe that you can only find enjoyment in an activity after you master it? I believe it would become somewhat boring, without anything left to learn."  

It sounds incredibly smart, the way Akaashi says it, his intelligence all built in to his words and tone and accent, and Bokuto pushes his hands against the desk, his chair tilts backwards, rocking on the two back legs, suddenly very concious that he is the upperclassman here, and he's supposed to have all the words of wisdom, not Akaashi.   

"But the whole point is to learn it all!"

"Bokuto-san," Akaashi says, "I think the odds of that happening, for anybody, are pretty insurmountable."

"Insurmountable?"

"Impossible to overcome."

"Huh," Bokuto says, "Well, I don’t think so. I’m going to prove that wrong, I’ll show you, Akaashi! If there’s anyone who can master everything, it’s going to be me."

Bokuto needs above an eighty on Monday’s Japanese Literature exam. 

His teacher had told him so sternly, throwing around the clause about athletics participation being conditional upon academic performance. It’s unfair, that she’s testing them after a long weekend when so many people, most of his teammates included, have plans, and double unfair that Yukie can’t study with him, as she’d be spending the long weekend at her father’s.

Look, I’m sorry, she’d said before practice, across the semicircle of second years sitting on the gymnasium floor, pausing from flipping through a stack of order forms, trust me, it’s the last place I want to be. I’d rather be at your house. I’d rather be in a volcano, an erupting one. Underwater. With sharks. On Mars. 

I can’t come over there? Bokuto had asked, while also attempting to rationalize the logistics of the underwater shark-infested martian volcano of Yukie’s imagination.

He doesn’t deserve to meet you, any of you, Yukie had said tersely, flipping over another one of the order forms, Komi, is your tutoring center open this weekend? 

Komi, whose sometimes coaches Bokuto and Yukie through their schoolwork behind the front counter of his family business, had shaken his head. Explained how his mother and grandparents were getting out of town for the weekend for the first time in forever to visit his brother, leaving Komi and his older sister to hold down the fort. 

You’re welcome to join us, Komi had said, but I doubt anything will get done. I’ll be pretty busy, and my sister’s a shit tutor. 

He’d had a point- for as much as Bokuto likes spending time at Komi-san’s Laundromat and Dry Cleaners, the place is full of distractions, especially for Komi, juggling customers, chores, family matters, and his own schoolwork. Tutoring Bokuto would have been the least of his priorities. 

From there, the conversation had turned to their literature teacher, Saru and Bokuto attempting to explain to the others just how much she hates their class. Suzumeda had stopped by on her way to the girls locker room to comment about how that teacher adores Komi for being such a wonderful orator, but, for some reason, keeps telling Suzumeda that she needs to emote more, which had made Konoha laugh so hard he’d wheezed. At some point during the conversation, Akaashi had appeared out of nowhere, as if saying the word literature three times fast had summoned him. And once Saru had briefed him on the topic and how they’d gotten to it, Akaashi had gone and done the last thing Bokuto had ever expected him to do. 

He’d offered to help.  

So that’s how Bokuto winds up at the library half-way between his and Akaashi’s neighborhoods, looking at Akaashi from across a small table tucked into the back corner of the building, up against a wall decorated with messy children's art projects.

Outside of school, Akaashi looks different, and Bokuto can’t exactly place what it is. Maybe it’s his clothes, for Akaashi’s swapped his regular Fukurodani uniform for a t-shirt with some sort of joke on it that he’d explained to Bokuto when they’d met outside the library, but Bokuto still doesn’t understand.

"You’re wearing glasses!" Bokuto says, looking up from his notebook, the thing he was missing clicking in his brain. Akaashi glances up from own homework, first year math Bokuto remembers from this time last year. 

"I’ve been wearing them this whole time," Akaashi says. 

"But- you don’t use them at school!"

"I wear contact lenses."

"Oh. That makes sense." Bokuto flips his paper around towards Akaashi, "Akaashi, what’s this mean here? There’s no furigana."

Akaashi takes the page, squinting despite the glasses. 

"It’s an outdated kanji, that’s why,"he says, penciling in the hiragana beside it, and then scratching out a different character at the top of the page, "you know this one?" 

Yes? 

Akaashi raises an eyebrow, and Bokuto gulps, the lie caught. 

"It’s perfectly fine not to know," Akaashi says, "the whole point of school would be rendered obsolete if you knew everything already." He jots down the furigana for the new kanji, handwriting sloped and neat, "now do you know it?" 

"Oh, yeah! That makes sense." 

And it does, surprisingly enough. Bokuto takes the paper back, moves his pencil down the lines of writing, occasionally pausing, interrupting Akaashi’s work, Akaashi leaning over, still squinting, easy corrections, easy advice. It’s somewhat of a shock, how patient he is, what a good teacher is, although he’s such a patient teammate that maybe it shouldn’t be this surprising. Bokuto had been a little nervous about today, seeing as not only is Akaashi younger than him, but he wears his smartness like clothing: obviously, where everyone can see it. Reminding Bokuto of the sort of people who had always made him feel bad for struggling. 

Komi, despite sometimes assuming Bokuto knows things when he doesn’t, doesn’t often make Bokuto feel stupid. Especially when they’re doing math over the sound of rattling dryers and washing machine jingles, forcing Bokuto to remind himself that Komi has had to work a lot harder than most to get to Fukurodani, that he hadn’t had the privilege of cram schools or tutors, that his good grades aren’t just natural, even if studying is a lot easier for him than it is for Bokuto or Yukie. 

But Akaashi is different, somehow. Strips things to their bare bones without it feeling like he’s talking down. There’s no exasperation, like there sometimes is with Komi. Akaashi takes in the facts, and he responds to them, no emotions involved, no judgement. 

"You know, maybe it’s a good thing that Komi was busy, and Yukippe had to go to her dad’s," Bokuto muses, "not that that’s good, she’d rather be in an underwater volcano- but you’re a good teacher, Akaashi!" 

He notices that Akaashi flushes slightly at the compliment, eyes not moving from where he’s staring intensely at his math. 

"Thank you." He says simply. 

"Really!" Bokuto leans forward, peering at Akaashi’s face, his glasses slightly smudged on the lenses, "has nobody ever told you that before?" 

"Not that I recall."

"Well, this was good then!" Bokuto says, "it’s like, the world working out good for both of us!"

"Serendipity."   

"Huh?" Bokuto sits up, moving away from Akaashi, as he sounds strange, like he’s forcing himself to speak. 

"The word you were looking for," Akaashi says, standing up, his chair sliding back on the carpeted library floor, "when something works out well by coincidence. Serendipity." 

It’s a good word, and Bokuto tells Akaashi as such, and that he’ll remember it. He’ll remember it so well that, when the time is right, he might even use it too. 

The miso dissolves just right into the dashi, Bokuto watches the residue disappear from the whisk as it hits the sides of the too-low saucepan, lumps gradually spreading out and combining with the broth. 

"You’re getting texts,"  Yukie says from beside him, where she’s leaning her back against the counter, jostling her chopped carrots in a small ceramic bowl.

"From who? "

"Akaashi. He’s asking if you have videos from the Itachiyama qualifier game."

Bokuto’s not sure what Akaashi would even do with that, especially on a holiday, or why he would think Bokuto would have it in the first place. The one to ask is Suzumeda, with her smartphone and her diligent record keeping. 

"Just call him," Bokuto says, knowing Yukie’s track record with relaying messages, "and you can cut the spring onions, we’ll need them soon."

Yukie nods and makes her way to the refrigerator, and Bokuto pours the dissolved miso into the larger pot, broth simmering, listens to the dial tone from the phone, on speaker, and the faint splash as the miso mix combines with the stock, just the right amount, or so he thinks, he double checks the recipe scratched out on the back of a receipt by Akemu before she’d left to meet Hibiki at the train station. 

"Hello?" Akaashi’s voice says, and Bokuto’s hands slip on the saucepan handle, he yelps, and Yukie laughs as the remainder of the miso liquid pours out into the pot. 

"Akaashi," Bokuto says, setting the emptied saucepan down on the stovetop, looking at the upturned phone beside Yukie’s carrot-strewn cutting board, "what do you want game footage for? It's New Years Eve, aren’t you doing anything fun?" He gestures to Yukie in front of the open refrigerator, "grab the mushrooms, they’re already cut, no, the blue bowl."

"I’m hosting relatives," Akaashi says plainly, "although, it isn’t all that fun." 

"Well that’s no good!" Bokuto says, "New Years Eve is my favorite holiday! There’s so much good food! We’re cooking my dad’s family’s soup recipe, you should see how many dumplings we had to make! And my sister is bringing us super fancy osechi from Kyoto." 

"She is?" Yukie asks, setting the bowl of chopped mushrooms and a bundle of spring onions down on the counter beside the cutting board. "You didn’t tell me that!"

"She is, she sent me pictures this morning! Wanna see?"

"Is that Shirofuku-san?" Akaashi asks, clearly surprised, and Yukie shoves Bokuto out of the way and leans over the phone, fiddling her hair back into its former ponytail. 

"Yep, it’s me," she hums, "Akaashi-kun, if you’re having a bad New Years Eve, you should just ask to come here, it always works for me. The Bokuto family loves taking in strays."

"I don’t think it would be polite to invite myself to someone else’s holiday, though." Akaashi says. Yukie grins. 

"You calling me impolite?" 

"That- That is not what I meant." 

"She’s just joking with you," Bokuto snatches the phone off the counter, "Yukippe, you should clean off the cutting board it’s gross." 

"I was going to," Yukie makes a face but turns on the faucet regardless, and Bokuto leans up against the counter, holding the phone up near his mouth and listening to the water slam against the cutting board, the scrape of the sponge against plastic. 

"You really could come here, though," he says to Akaashi, "it’d be sad, if you don’t have a good New Years Eve. This is my favorite holiday, you know." 

"You just said," Akaashi says "that is a very kind offer, Bokuto-san. But I am assisting my parents tonight." He pauses, quiet on the other end, and Bokuto checks the broth, still burbling, awaiting the mushrooms, the taro, the carrots, the burdock and, eventually, the hand-rolled soup dumplings they’d prepared earlier. Bokuto’s father had demonstrated for Yukie while launching into his spiel about the history of the recipe, prepared for New Years by him and Bokuto’s grandmother in the teeny kitchen of the only restaurant in their tiny coastal town down in Oita prefecture, an oyster hut that, on New Years, served as a community gathering place, a headquarters for a potluck to beat all potluck, kitchen on the premises.

Seeing as the oyster hut owner had died of lung cancer in the narrow window between Akemu and Hibiki’s births, Koutarou had never gotten to participate. However, the soup can be replicated in any sort of kitchen, and enjoyed by any sort of person, which it has been. By some of his father’s students otherwise stranded for the holidays, by some of Akemu and Hibiki’s previous boyfriends and classmates, by the occasional neighbor or family friend, colleagues from the company his mother runs, or the university where his father works.

"Akaashi-kun," Yukie says, breaking the silence, and snapping Bokuto’s attention back to the phone, "if you really need game footage, call Kaori. She’ll definitely answer you. Actually, you’ll probably be doing her a favor." 

"Oh. Yes. That." Akaashi says, as if he’d forgotten. "Thank you, Shirofuku-san."

There’s a pounding at the door, and Hibiki’s voice shouts from outside, "Kou-chan, open up, Akemu forgot the key!" 

"I didn’t forget the key you moron, I knew people would be here." 

"I’ll let them in," Yukie says, scurrying away, and Bokuto looks back towards the phone, a little relieved, but not sure as to why. 

"I hope you have a good New Years Eve, Akaashi," he says, "you should at least have some good food. Oh! Yukippe and I are going to the temple tomorrow morning, you should come with us! Konoha and Suzumeda will be there, maybe Washio and Komi too."

"Well... would I be imposing?" 

"Imposing?"

"Unwelcome." 

"Never!" Bokuto says, "you’re always welcome! I’ll send you the address, okay? Come. Please." 

"Alright," Akaashi says softly, "I will see you tomorrow morning, then." Bokuto closes the phone and sets it down on the counter, knows he should be pivoting his attention back to cooking, begins to chop the spring onions Yukie had left behind. But Hibiki slams into the kitchen, setting her things down on the table, messing up his hair. Akemu is not far behind, phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear, Come over whenever, just bring something to share, preferably alcoholic — Yeah, Hibi just got here, it’s just us, Kou, and his friend —They’ll be back tomorrow, they got a hotel — No, Keiko, my brother is seventeen and can’t go with you to bar— well, sucks for you, it’s us or the sister-in-law. 

Yukie resumes her chopping, and Hibiki, after a frenzied greeting, helps combine the vegetables and the dumplings in the pot, Akemu assuring her they’d made enough for Keiko too. The Bokuto sisters’ laughter mixes with the kitchen smells, the bubbling of the soup broth, the tap of the northerly winds against the windows. Bokuto turns off the burner as Yukie and Hibiki unpack the osechi box, singing the praises of the datemaki and the mochi rice cakes, Akemu sings poorly to the 80s music leaking through the iPod speaker. Though the hubbub, as Bokuto dips the heavy ladle into the soup pot, as Yukie retrieves paper napkins from the cabinet above the refrigerator, they almost don’t hear Keiko as she bursts through the door using her decade-old key, oh, I’m with the Bokutos now and everything is alright! Koutarou-kun oh my gosh you’ve gotten tall, who’s your friend? 

"I’m Yukie, I’m a stray cat, or, a stray owl, I guess," Yukie says, "they take me in too." 

"It’s what they do best," Keiko says, setting a wine bottle on the table and moving to wrap a seated Hibiki in an enthusiastic hug from behind, "Oh, how some things never change. Hibi-chan, move back to Tokyo and stop traveling so much, I miss you." 

"You can’t tell a fish to stop swimming," Akemu says, "she gets ill if she’s not on an airplane once a week. Her carbon footprint is, like, a carbon Bigfoot shoe."  

"‘Kemu, you’re turning into your dad!" Keiko laughs, resting her chin Hibiki’s head, arms looped around her shoulders, "Kou-kun, Yukie-chan, treasure being teenagers, you’ll never have friends like this again."  

The meal is set: The old Bokuto soup recipe complete, Keiko’s jagged-cut spring onions sprinkled on top and too-big carrot chunks swimming around with the mushrooms, the Kyoto osechi spread out across the kotatsu, fancy wine stolen from Keiko’s sister-in-law poured into three mugs (Koutarou and Akemu had forgotten to unpack the glassware). The five of them sit down to eat, a loud, tandem thank you, clapping their hands together before digging in, the New Years Eve broadcaster’s voice high and pitchy on the television, and Bokuto Koutarou brings the soup broth to his mouth, taking a sip, salty, rich, warm, and remembers all over again why he loves, loves, loves New Years Eve. 

The Kawahori blockers have him figured out. Before this tournament, the final of his second year, Bokuto’s cross shot, his cross shot, the shot that got him into Fukurodani in the first place, it’s worked for him. But the Kawahori blockers seem to know where he’s going and where he’s aiming, and their arms rise up on the other side of the net, a wall, a blockade, a hinderance. An insurmountable hinderance.  

Bokuto feels the ball on his fingertips, he’s in the air, suspended, he slams, but the wall is there, extended arms, reaching fingers, and his heart sinks as he falls back to the ground, everything a downward motion. High to low. 

The practice following, and Bokuto doesn’t know what to do with himself. The third years are gone, busy studying for exams, and while his cross-shot still works against his Fukurodani teammates, it feels pointless, useless now. Bokuto’s eyes meet Yukie’s from where she’s standing beside Suzumeda in her folding chair. But he doesn’t want to talk to Yukie, because Yukie doesn’t like sports, she doesn’t get this, and he slinks away from Konoha and Komi’s watching eyes, off to the corner of the gymnasium, underneath a small plastic table where Yukie had set the water cooler earlier. He feels like a kid, a kid who can still curl up in kitchen cabinets and cardboard boxes, hiding from his sisters. He shuts his eyes, knowing he probably looks like an idiot, like someone who will be a terrible captain come April, like someone who hasn’t practiced enough that the things that are supposed to be easy are. 

He opens his eyes slowly, and he peeks over at Akaashi pushing a broom across the length of the gymnasium. What was it, that he’d said, weeks, months ago now? About there not being a point, if there’s nothing left to learn? 

"Akaashi?" He calls, and Akaashi turns, jolting slightly, looking down at him from where he’s leaning slightly against the broom handle. "Practice spikes with me, for just a little bit?" 

"Implore," Akaashi says, handing the textbook back to Bokuto from across the desk, "it’s… it’s like, begging someone to do something, but not in a pathetic way. In a meaningful way." 

"Well, that’s confusing," Bokuto says, taking the book from Akaashi, staring at the circled word. 

"Doesn’t have to be," Akaashi says, "when we have been practicing for hours, I… implore you to take a break."

"Hey! I thought all that practice was good!"

"It is," Akaashi says, "it’s just an example."

"It’s getting late, Bokuto-san," Akaashi says from beside him, wiping a bit of hair out of his eyes, "we should get going soon." 

Akaashi has a point. The sun has long set outside the gymnasium, and Konoha and Suzumeda, who’d stayed back with them for a bit, Suzumeda to record them with her smartphone and Konoha to avoid his sister’s violin lesson, have left too.

"Just three more times," Bokuto says, earnestly, "really, only three. You can count down."

Akaashi raises an eyebrows. 

"Come on, Akaashi! I implore you!" 

And Akaashi laughs, a nice, soft laugh, that slips out for just a moment. 

"Well, in that case," he says, and he tosses the ball, and Bokuto leaps, he floats, and when he hits the ball, it moves at a perfect angle, just as he’d intended, and he falls back to the ground knowing that two more straight shots aren’t necessary, he’s gotten as far as he can tonight, but two more reps can’t hurt, can’t hurt, can’t hurt, opposite of hurt. 

"Persevere," Akaashi says, leaning down from the rung above Bokuto on the stands, textbook in hand, where they’re watching the tail-end of the girls’ practice, "to keep going when something’s difficult." 

"Like, to keep trying?" 

"Yes," Akaashi says, as the whistle blows across the court, "like, when you have your mood swings during matches, the rest of us persevere until you get back on your feet."

"Hey! That’s not a very nice example, Akaashi," Bokuto says, setting the textbook down beside him, and Akaashi shrugs.

"We do though, it’s simply an observation."  

"Bokuto"- Komi gasps out, hands on his knees as the group of them come to a stop outside the gymnasium, "who the hell engineered you? Fucking insatiable."

"Insatiable?"

Komi doesn’t seem to hear him, taking a swig from his water bottle instead, back of his hand wiping sweat from is forehead. "This pace is masochistic." 

"Komi, just because you can’t keep up doesn’t mean you get to complain," Suzumeda says from her folding chair, where she’s got a thin blanket wrapped around her shoulders atop her Fukurodani jacket, and Komi rounds on her. 

"You don’t get to talk, Blanket. And who the hell put you in charge? What even is this training regimen, your equivalent of the twelve trials of Hercules?"

Akaashi snorts, and Bokuto turns to look at him. Of course, Akaashi probably understands what Komi is saying, understands his big words and far-flung references. 

"See, Akaashi-kun agrees with me," Komi says, elbowing Akaashi in the arm and pointing his water bottle between Bokuto and Suzumeda, "you two are hazing the first years." 

"I’m fine with the pace, though,"Akaashi says, looking over at Bokuto, and Bokuto feels a lump forming in his throat, "we ought to be held to high standards." 

"Yeah, you forget Akaashi’s weird too," Konoha chirps, shoving Komi lightly in the shoulder. "This is just a taste of what a Bokuto captaincy will look like. Bokuto, you picked a vice yet? Because I won’t do it, but I think"-

"Okay, enough of that," Suzumeda says, standing up from her chair, "three more laps. Bokuto, set the pace?" 

"We’ll persevere, Komi!" Bokuto says, slapping Komi on the shoulder, and Komi rolls his eyes, wiping away a smile. "Akaashi, that was the right use of it, right?" 

Akaashi nods, and Bokuto grins as the group of them set off to run again. 

"Inquire," Akaashi says, his voice slightly muffled by the collar of his jacket, "a more formal way to say ask."

"Well, that’s easy," Bokuto says, taking his book back from Akaashi, beside him on the bus on the way back from a practice match, "still, use it in a sentence, your sentences are always funny." 

"I am not trying to be funny, though, Bokuto-san," Akaashi says, "I may inquire as to why you think I’m funny when I’m not."

"See! Akaashi, that’s funny!" Bokuto laughs, and Akaashi flushes, like he always does with compliments, looking down at the book splayed out across his lap. 

"Uh, Coach?" 

Bokuto pokes into the office, hands behind his back, looking around at the gray paneled ceiling, neat desk cubicles, as Coach Yamiji swivels around in his aging black rolling chair, pointing at Bokuto with an expo marker. 

"Bokuto-kun. Do you finally have my answer? "

Bokuto pauses, playing with his fingers behind his back. It’s a question he’s talked about to Konoha, to Saru, to Yukie, to Suzumeda. A decision that feels both easy and hard.

"I just want to… inquire about something." 

"Inquire away," Coach Yamiji says, standing up, "walk with me." Bokuto follows him past the cluster of neat desks, past a rickety trophy case full of what looks to be mostly track and field awards, little golden runners permanently posed with one foot off the ground. He follows him out the door into the hallway.

"It’s about the vice captaincy." 

"Bokuto-kun, if you’re having this hard a time making the decision, I can make it for you," Coach Yamiji says, inserting a few coins into the nearby vending machine, "I’ve done that before, for past captains. Or you can talk to Suzumeda- but you’ve done that, right? 

Bokuto nods. 

"Yeah. I think I’ve made the decision, though, I just wanted to make sure that everyone else thought it was alright. Suzumeda and Konoha think it’s good, ‘specially because so many of us are going to graduate in March. But I’m not even sure if it’s allowed, like, if there are rules and stuff." 

A can thumps at the bottom of the vending machine, and Coach Yamiji bends to pick it up, turns around, snapping back the tab, the drink hissing against the aluminum. 

"Spit it out, son." 

"Are second years allowed to be vice captains?" Bokuto inquires. And Coach Yamiji smiles, a very kind sort of smile, and lays his free hand onto Bokuto’s shoulder. 

"Implied," Akaashi says, circling the word on Bokuto’s literature homework, "this is an unusual use of it, but it’s when… something is expressed indirectly." 

Bokuto twists his mouth, staring at the word on the paper. 

"Like… use it in a sentence, Akaashi." 

"When I say it’s late after practice, that is me implying I want to leave." 

"Hey!" Bokuto sputters, but it makes Akaashi’s mouth turn up at the corners, "you always agree! You can say no, you know." 

"I know," Akaashi says, looking back down at his homework, "I would say no if I wanted to."

I’ve been thinking, Bokuto says, as he locks the door to the gymnasium, the key slippery in his gloved hands, "about who’ll be vice captain next year. Coach Yamiji has been saying for a while I’m supposed to choose." 

Hmm, Akaashi hums, hands in his jacket pockets, standing a meter or so away on the asphalt, shimmery from the recent rain. "Do you want my advice?"

"Nope!" Bokuto shoves the key into his pocket, turning on the step and hopping down onto the ground, "I already chose. I just haven’t told them yet." He jogs to catch up with Akaashi as they start their walk to the train station, "Konoha says I should just get it over with. That even though it’s an unusual decision, it’s the right one."

"Oh. Shirofuku-san is going to be honored," Akaashi says, and Bokuto catches the way his mouth turns up at the corners, smiling at his own joke, and Bokuto laughs. He tilts his head upwards, swinging his bag along side him, his breath a puff of smoke in the frigid February air. 

"It’s unusual because normally, the captain and the vice captain are both third years," he continues, stealing a glance over at Akaashi, who stops, shoes centimeters away from a puddle. As if frozen. He turns his head, staring at Bokuto, wide-eyed.

"Are you talking about me?" 

Bokuto feels the grin move across his face, pinch at his cheeks. 

"That’s what I implied." 

"Redemption," Akaashi says, across the desk in his new second year classroom during lunch, turning Bokuto’s book back towards him, "as in, making up for something you regret." 

"Like… apologizing?" 

"No, it’s more about the action," Akaashi says, "say I missed out on being one of the top three high school spikers in Japan. I would get my redemption by working hard, and making it in the next year."

"Hey! That’s about me!" Bokuto says, the recent magazine headline kicking the reminder into his brain. He slams his book shut, and Akaashi shrugs, looking back down at his lunch. 

"Well, it’s what you said you wanted to achieve." 

Bokuto knows these blockers, knows them despite their new haircuts and new numbers. He’d spent the morning pouring over the bracket with Akaashi and Suzumeda, seen the school’s name written out. Throughout the Kanto region tournament, their paths have been narrowing and now, Bokuto leaps, looking across the net at the Kawahori blocker, the same one as last year. 

Bokuto-san, Akaashi’s voice calls out, and Bokuto knows, somehow, in this instant, as his shoes push off the ground and his arm extends, that this is going to work. That the long nights spent practicing with Akaashi, long afternoons spent practicing with the others, are about to pay off. And the straight shot whizzes past the blockers, hits the ground, and Bokuto falls back to earth but his heart soars upwards, the scream swells in his lungs and he turns, Komi behind him is yelling and Akaashi is there, fists clenched, a loud, uncharacteristic scream, Akaashi knows it too, and Bokuto feels Komi’s hand slap his back, hears Konoha whooping, and Bokuto looks at Akaashi and understands, fundamentally, what he’d meant, so many months ago now. 

"Akaashi!" He yells, "it’s our redemption!" 

And Akaashi’s expression breaks like a rainstorm, his jubilant yell a deluge, all emotive and expressive, and Bokuto feels his heart tumbling as Akaashi’s arm braces around his shoulder, as the team huddles together, as he feels Akaashi’s fingertips pressing into his upper arm. Something pinches in his chest, and Bokuto knows they’d both been right. That volleyball is so much more fun the better Bokuto is at it, but this feeling in his stomach, as he falls in love with volleyball all over again, he knows that this is not the last time he’ll experience it, as there’s so much more to learn. 

Akaashi has been different ever since the qualifiers. 

Bokuto’s not really sure what is different about him, but Bokuto sure has been trying to figure it out, finds himself glancing over at Akaashi across the gymnasium, at lunch, on the team bus. The evenings after practices with Akaashi feel different too, the nervous anticipation for nationals seemingly having followed Bokuto here, slipping underneath the door and latching onto his clothing like burrs or brambles, digging their hooks into his skin whenever Akaashi is around, staying no matter where he goes, even when there’s no volleyball involved, even on the weekends. 

"And… Shariki rounds the corner, you heard it hear first, folks, Suzumeda’s lost cause pulls into fourth place for probably the first time in his career!" Komi crows from the front counter. Bokuto looks up from the just-completed card game to where Komi, Suzumeda, and Akaashi are watching some race car event on Akaashi’s iPad, Komi’s shout having made a few patrons glance up from their phones, their laundry baskets, their magazines. Komi pays them no heed, moving to greet a woman approaching the counter, slipping from his showy narrator voice to his customer service one with apparent ease. 

"You sure there isn’t anything we could be doing to help?" Saru asks, once Komi has handed over the woman’s dry cleaning. Bokuto tosses his small stack of playing cards across the table to Washio as Komi sits back down in his chair, turning his back on the washing machines and the weekend patrons to look at the five of them sitting at the flimsy plastic table that has lived behind the counter ever since Konoha had decided that joining Komi at work was a good idea back in their first year. 

"Nah, you’re good," Komi says, leaning backwards, elbows on the counter, and glancing to his right at Suzumeda, "but Suzumeda could go empty the coins in machine six."

"I’m busy," Suzumeda says, not moving her gaze from Akaashi’s iPad. Bokuto can see a thin sliver of it through the gap between Komi and Suzumeda’s shoulders, a few blurry race cars rounding the corner of a pixilated track. 

"Suzumeda. This is my family business on the line." Komi says, a massive smile on his face, and Bokuto watches as Suzumeda's eyes flick away from the iPad, her scowl deepens, and as she stands abruptly, the plastic chair legs wailing against the linoleum. 

"Fine," she says seizing the handle of the coin bucket that sits underneath the counter, "Komi, if I come back here and anything has happened to Shariki, I am going to stab you. I’m not missing him make podium."  

"From all I’ve heard about him, I promise you, he won’t," Komi says, holding out a key in Suzumeda’s direction, and she rolls her eyes, snatching it from him and huffing out through the threshold between the back counter area and the rest of Komi-san’s Laundromat and Dry Cleaners. Komi scoots to the opposite end of the counter, beaming, to talk to a customer, leaving Akaashi alone with the race.  

"Bo, you playing another round?" Yukie asks, as Washio slides him a newly-dealt stack of cards. Bokuto, though, as if preprogramed, shakes his head, passes his cards to Konoha, who pounces on them, having been purposely excluded in the dealing. Instead, he takes Suzumeda’s vacated seat beside Akaashi. On the screen, he watches the overhead view of the race cars, which makes them look like they’re going much slower than they probably are. 

"Who are we rooting for?" He asks, and Akaashi indicates a white race car towards the front of the track. It turns a corner, the car behind it making an unsuccessful attempt to pass. He watches for a few minutes as the broadcasters prattle on too-fast, as the cars drive in circles, around bends in the track, watches for enough time to remember why he's never been interested in Suzumeda's car races. "Why does she like this? Bokuto asks, to himself and to Akaashi, "it takes forever, and they go in the same loop." 

"Well," Akaashi says, adjusting the iPad, "I can recognize the appeal. There are so few drivers, so interconnected stories play out over the course of a season. However, this is not the highest league. I don’t quite understand why she prefers this to the best racers in the world."

Bokuto shrugs, watches the cars for a minute- maybe it’s better in person, maybe it’s better if he knows who the drivers are, maybe if they were the top league, the best drivers in the world, it would be more exciting. He looks to Akaashi to ask him what one of the numbers up top means, but stops, as Akaashi is watching so intently, thick eyelashes partially blocking his gray eyes which, maybe due to the glow of the iPad, look silver. Akaashi moves his thin, fine hands to the crooks of his elbows, long fingers tapping against his arm in a simple rhythm, away from his face, revealing the way his jaw curves, his mouth twisted in concentration. 

"Yes, Bokuto-san?" Akaashi asks after a moment, turning to meet his eyes, and something falls in Bokuto’s chest, the realization that he’s been watching Akaashi instead of the race and, despite that, he can’t look away from Akaashi’s expression, eyebrows scrunched together, silver eyes staring, a moment suspended in time. 

"Take that you suckers! You absolute fools!" Konoha yells, and the moment snaps, Bokuto whips his attention around to where Konoha slams his playing cards against the table, "and you really thought you got me with the queen of spades, Washio. Ammeters! All of you!" 

"This is why we didn’t want you playing," Washio says, Saru and Yukie nodding in agreement. "Sarukui, do you know any three player card games?" 

And the announcer on the iPad cries out as Suzumeda’s white car, in a burst of speed, a misjudged turn, skids, spins, and slams into the far wall, the driver throwing up his arms in frustration as the announcers croon. Bokuto looks back to Akaashi, at his raised eyebrows, an expression that’s an odd combination of amusement and horror, the sort of expression only Akaashi can make. 

"Should we tell her?" Akaashi whispers, nodding his head towards where Suzumeda is arguing with one of the washing machines, attempting to shut the coin drawer. 

Bokuto shrugs, something pinching at his heart, like some sort of leech. 

"Suzumeda-san," Akaashi calls, his voice flat and low, but the expression on his face, mouth turning up at the edges, gives him away, "your car just crashed."

Suzumeda slams the coin drawer with shocking force, a few of the patrons looking over towards her, and she bolts back to the front of the counter, heaving the bucket onto it and rounding on Komi at the register. 

"What did I tell you? What did I say?" 

"Hey- to my credit, he's not making podium." Komi says, "I don't get why you're surprised, your dude hasn't placed top four all season."

"He would'a if the safety car wasn't deployed week six. You see things too narrowly, Komi, he's in a terrible car, he's got more potential than all those other drivers combined." 

"Hey, Kaori, why don’t you also tell us his mother’s maiden name?" Konoha yaps from the table, "and his star sign? And his home address?" 

"You’re feeling brave," Suzumeda snaps, the tone of someone with nothing left to lose, "You know, I don’t think following one driver’s season is any weirder than knowing the entire Girls Generation discography, and only buying sneakers if Taeyeon likes the brand." 

The others around the table all burst out laughing, even stoic Washio, Saru resting his forehead on the table, Yukie’s arms wrapped around her stomach, cackling, Konoha flushing red, sputtering as the others laugh, not at him, though, it's the sort of laughter that Bokuto's come to associate with his Fukurodani people, all a result of understanding one another intrinsically. Beside Bokuto, Akaashi laughs too, quiet but emotive laughter, lines scrunching around the corners of his eyes, and Bokuto feels his own laughter swallowed as he watches Akaashi, laughter making his features so different, so lovely, and the nervous pre-nationals energy creeps up again like a slow-growing vine, strangling his throat, his chest, his lungs. 

The first night of training camp comes, and Kuroo pushes his first years out of the third gym, Yaku and Fukunaga having already gone ahead. 

"See ya, lover boy," he cackles to Bokuto, and he pats Bokuto on the back before waltzing out of the gymnasium, Lev what did I tell you, scram, practice is over. 

Bokuto stares after him. Kuroo doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Kuroo never knows what he’s talking about. A noise, and Bokuto turns to see where Akaashi pushing the cart of volleyballs back into the corner of the gymnasium, the wheels squeaking against the hardwood. 

"Oh, I can help with that!" 

But Akaashi just shakes his head, says something about already being finished, so Bokuto ducks out to retrieve the key that Kuroo had, somehow, gained access to, tucked underneath a rock just outside the gymnasium door. As Akaashi exits, he flicks off all the lights, casting the campus into darkness, Bokuto has to squint to see the lock. He shoves the key into his pocket, making a mental note to return it to the coach’s office on their way back, but it’s a thought interrupted as he tilts his head back, looking up at the stars, feeling the soft summer breeze at the nape of his neck, the noise of far-away frogs croaking moves with the wind, fireflies poke up through the grass. 

Tokyo doesn't have these sorts of sounds, smells, doesn't have this many stars. It's the Oita prefecture of his childhood summers, with the fish and leeches and distant lapping ocean, before volleyball had opened its jaws and swallowed Bokuto Koutarou whole, devoured his school vacations, his weekends, his every waking moment. 

"Are you coming, Bokuto-san?" Akaashi asks, and Bokuto nods, shaken from his trance, falls into step beside Akaashi. 

"I just really love summer nights," he says, listening to the flutter of the leaves and the distant coo of an owl,"Akaashi, I think if I didn’t live somewhere with fireflies, I wouldn’t believe they were real. Like, I’d think someone made them up, they’re just too close to being like magic." He pauses, watching a few of the bugs glowing in the tall grass beside the narrow walking path, one of them rising in front of him. Akaashi moves his head slowly, eyes trailing the bug.

"I love summer nights almost as much as I love New Years Eve."

"I know you love New Years Eve," Akaashi says softly, his voice the same intonation as the faint summer breeze, sounds like how the firefly lights look. And Bokuto’s heart stumbles in his chest, and Kuroo had been right. It isn’t Akaashi who has changed since the qualifiers. It’s Bokuto. 

"How’d you know that?"

"You told me," Akaashi says, "on the phone, last year. With Shirofuku-san." 

"Oh yeah!" Bokuto laughs, his laugh sounding silly, like it’s not his own. "I guess I probably did. You have a good memory, Akaashi." 

"I think I’m just too ruminative," Akaashi says, now fully stopped, watching the firefly. 

"Ruminative? I’ve never even heard that one before." 

"I think too deeply about things,"Akaashi says, and Bokuto watches him stretch out a hand, capturing the firefly on the side of the knuckle of his pointer finger. The bug holds open its wings as it crawls, flashing its little light soft and slow. 

"What’s that got to do with your memory, though?" Bokuto asks.  

"I dwell on things I find important," Akaashi says, and the firefly lifts off, a small golden speck rising in the summer air, and Bokuto’s heart taps a message against his ribcage, the moonlight casts neat-edged shadows across the soft angles of Akaashi’s face, and something in Bokuto’s chest swoops, like an owl, like a firefly. 

"How do you know if you like someone, like, more than friends?" Bokuto asks Yukie the next morning in the Shinzen cafeteria. A few of the Ubugawa players are awake, sitting at a table on the far side of the room, chatting amongst themselves, but besides them, it’s just Bokuto and Yukie, in the kitchen, a position Bokuto has found him and Yukie in so many times over. Laughing crudely,  Yukie sets the container of gatorade powder she’d been holding onto the counter beside her.

"You’re asking the wrong person,"she says, "I don’t have an answer for you."

"But you always have an answer." 

"Not in that realm," Yukie looks between the container and the cooler next to it, then proceeds to dump the entirety of the powder into the water. "What’s brought this on all of a sudden?" 

"I don’t think it’s all of a sudden," Bokuto says, a conclusion he’d come to last night while lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and thinking through every single interaction he’s ever had with Akaashi Keiji, "I think it’s been a long time, actually. Maybe since we beat Kawahori."

Hmm, Yukie hums, "well, I think only you can know." 

"I think I do know, though," Bokuto says, pushing bits of his hair out of his eyes, no attempt yet made to spike it up, as he watches Yukie stir the gatorade, "also, that looks disgusting, are you supposed to add that much powder?" 

"It’s extra electrolytes," Yukie says. 

"What’s an electrolyte?" 

"Good question." 

She hops off the stool, and Bokuto lifts the cooler for her, following her into the back of the kitchen where she pulls open the tall, stainless-steel refrigerator door.

"Are you sure you don’t know, though? Bokuto asks again, setting the cooler into the fridge, "not about what an electrolyte is, about how to know if you like someone." 

"I think you already have your answer, Bo," She says, slamming the refrigerator door shut, "Don’t worry, I won’t tell Akaashi." 

"Thanks," Bokuto says, before realizing exactly what she’d said, "wait, I didn’t"-

"Didn’t have to!" Yukie grins, "you’re an open book, Bo, easy to read." She laughs, as if she finds something about this statement incredibly funny. Bokuto doesn’t know whether to be mad at her, or relieved that he doesn’t have to explain himself. So instead, he follows her, watches her fill another cooler with water, he picks it up out of the sink, and then watches as Yukie dumps another completely inappropriate amount of powder in. Bokuto hands her the stirrer. Yukie thanks him, and stirs on. 

The Itachiyama players are interesting to watch in a way most other schools aren’t. Bokuto had once pointed this out to Suzumeda, who’d nodded, and said something along the lines of they coach different over there, you can tell. Washio said that too, when he went to their first year training camp. 

"I hate Komori," Suzumeda says now, leaning her chin into her hand, and Bokuto follows her gaze downward as Komori dives, arm extended, fist making contact with the ball. It’s somewhat absurdly early for a practice match, but Suzumeda had notified the three of them that this might be their last chance to watch Itachiyama for a while, as their schedules overlapped so often. So here they are. 

"It’s no good to hate people for no reason," Yukie says through a mouthful of potato chips, her feet kicked up on the seat in front of her. 

"Yeah, Suzumeda," Bokuto chimes in, "and Komori’s really nice." 

"I think what Suzumeda-san means to say is that she hates that someone who is both exceptionally skilled, and communicates so well, exists as an inevitable obstacle on our way to Nationals," Akaashi says, and Bokuto looks over at where Akaashi is sitting next to him, eyes focused on the court below. 

"Wow," Suzumeda says, "what are you, Akaashi-kun, psychic?" 

"I’m just intuitive."

"Akaashi, you’d say that Itachiyama is pretty insurmountable, right?" Bokuto asks, remembering the word, pulled from a long-ago conversation, and Akaashi shrugs. 

"Fairly. But… I do like to be optimistic." 

"You don’t sound all that optimistic, though," Yukie stands as the whistle blows down below, stretching her arms over her head and yawning, "who has practice matches this early? I’m getting drinks, anyone want anything?"

"I told you, if it was too early for you, you didn’t have to come," Suzumeda says, but stands regardless to follow Yukie to the vending machines, leaving Bokuto sitting there in his stadium seat beside Akaashi, who is flipping through Suzumeda’s left behind notebook, her horrible, horrible handwriting, messy highlighter and busy pen scribbles. 

In a way, Akaashi as a vice captain had been a smarter choice than even Bokuto had known. He hadn’t anticipated the amount of time the four of them, captains and managers, would be spending together. If the vice captain were anybody else, with the exception of maybe Washio, Bokuto and Yukie are convinced Suzumeda would have killed one of them by now. But Akaashi and Suzumeda are sort of alike, in similar ways that Bokuto and Yukie are alike, so the four of them balance out two sides of a teeter-totter, creating their cohesive leadership team, as Yamiji had put it. 

"How does she even read that?" Bokuto asks, leaning in towards Akaashi to look at the notebook in his lap, the sleeve of Akaashi's odd graphic t-shirt brushing up against Bokuto's windbreaker. 

"I believe these notes are only intended for her to be able to relay them, so the legibility does not matter as long as she can make them out." Akaashi folds the notebook shut, "Bokuto-san, have you been watching Sakusa-kun’s serves? He’s improving tremendously, you should practice your serving as much as possible before November." 

"Yeah, I'm goin'a," Bokuto says, and then, a small thought nudging in the back corners of his mind, "Akaashi, do you think he’s better than me?" 

Akaashi raises an eyebrow, looking up from the closed notebook, and suddenly, their faces are very close. Bokuto can see a little scar that cuts across the bottom of Akaashi’s left cheek, and the smudgy marks on his glasses lenses, smeared from ineffective attempts to wipe them clean. 

"He’s one of the top spikers in the country, Bokuto-san."Akaashi says, his mouth turning up at the corners, a subtle little thing that Bokuto thinks he probably wouldn’t notice from people he doesn’t try to notice things about. 

"But so am I!" 

Akaashi looks away quickly, back down at the notebook on his lap. 

"I think out of all of the opponents we face, aside from Kageyama-kun from Karasuno, Sakusa-kun is the closest one to a master," Akaashi says. 

"But Akaashi!" Bokuto says, a memory disrupted from the cubbyholes of his brain, "didn’t you say once, that you didn’t think it was possible for someone to be able to master everything?" 

Akaashi turns his head, shoulder again pressing into Bokuto’s, Bokuto watches as he drums his fingers against his arm, silvery eyes looking straight at Bokuto with that Akaashi intensity. And his mouth curls up on the edges, what looks like a smile but feels like something else. 

"You said you’d prove me wrong," Akaashi says, eyes narrowed, grin a challenge, the words sitting in the little space between them, like a flying, hovering creature, a hummingbird, maybe, a firefly. Right there, centimeters away, for Bokuto to grab, shove in his pocket for safekeeping. Safekeeping until some time after Nationals, after graduation, after his first season of professional volleyball, when he can return them, after he’s proven to Akaashi that he’s the kind of ace that can do anything. 

How do you know if someone likes you back? He asks Yukie, on their way out of the school building a few days later. The summer heat is mostly gone, October blowing in, and Yukie shrugs, tugging her jacket closer towards her. 

"Dunno," she says, "I told you, I don’t have advice on this stuff, all I can do is listen." 

"But you always have advice."

"I just don’t know if I’ve ever liked anyone like that," Yukie says, taking a big step to match strides with him. "Or if I ever will. So I don’t really know how you’re feeling." 

"Really? Not ever?"

That's somewhat of a surprise. Maybe it's because Akemu and Hibiki talk about boys so much, and have been ever since Bokuto can remember, so he'd just assumed Yukie and her girl friends talked about that sort of stuff too. But Yukie's never had a boyfriend or girlfriend that Bokuto's been aware of, an odd thing, as she's a certain kind of authentic that people like, stubbornly herself. 

Yukie shakes her head. 

"Don’t make me feel weird about it." She says, "I don’t usually tell people that, you know." 

"You don’t?"

"Nope," Yukie hums, "I’m going to have to soon enough, though." 

This conversation feels familiar. Feels like a conversation he'd had with Hibiki, a long time ago now. She'd been home from university and had caught him fiddling with a miniature toy skateboard, running it along the ledge on his desk, the little wheels spinning against the wood. She'd made a joke, something about how she thought no sport could hold a candle to volleyball, asked where he'd even gotten the toy, and Bokuto, face unexpectedly flushed, had shoved the little fingerboard in his desk drawer and mumbled something about how one boy on the soccer team knew all the tricks, how to make it move like a real skateboard, and Bokuto was determined to learn them all too.

He'd then looked at his sister, at her shaggy sheepdog hair twisted back into sorry excuses for braids, and with a little burst of courage had said I think you and Nee-san would call him Skateboard Boy. 

So Bokuto has the slight suspicion, here, that Yukie is hiding that she's being somewhat brave. Sharing what she doesn't usually share. 

"You shouldn’t have to share if you don’t want to," Bokuto says, trying to make his voice sound all serious, "I mean, I'm happy you shared with me, but, like, I don't think you should feel like you have to." 

"I know I don't have to." Yukie says, "You're easy to tell stuff to. But I think I'm going to be put in a situation soon where I'm going to need to address it with someone else," 

It sounds ominous, and Bokuto opens his mouth to ask if she's going to explain any more, but a voice cuts across the Fukurodani campus, ay, Shirofuku, wait up! And just like that, Konoha is there, wedging himself between them, bag thrown carelessly over his shoulder, gasping for breath, a shoelace untied. 

"You should probably fix your shoe," Yukie says simply, and as Konoha looks down at his sneaker, Yukie throws Bokuto a look, a look that he thinks, given the context, answers the question he was just about to ask. 

"Call. Him." 

Bokuto is sitting across from Yukie, the leftovers of their mediterranean takeout between them, which he takes another bite of, pointedly ignoring her.

"Bo. I’m not leaving until you call." 

"I don’t want you to leave, though," Bokuto says through a mouthful of food, "how about you call for me?" 

"I’m not calling for you," she says, "I can’t invite people to other people’s homes. Anyway, if it's you who asks, he’ll say yes." 

Bokuto leans his forehead against the table, glancing up at Yukie, who looks completely unaffected as she plucks a dolma from the plastic container and pops it into her mouth.

"How do you know he’s going to say yes?" Bokuto mumbles. 

"Just call him." Yukie says, standing up, "want me to leave you alone while you do it?"

He nods, and watches her until she’s away in the kitchen, then grabs his phone, staring at Akaashi’s contact. He’s never been nervous about inviting Akaashi anywhere before. It’s been second nature, he’s been inviting Akaashi to things since the day he met him. To extra practice, to temple visits, to team sleepovers, to post-season karaoke, inviting him to be his vice captain. Bokuto closes his eyes, presses the button, holds the phone up to his ear. His heart thumping, palms sweating. 

"Hello, Bokuto-san?" Akaashi’s voice says into the phone, and Bokuto squeezes his eyes shut even tighter, pleading his blood pressure to go down, wondering when this thing that used to be easy had become so impossibly insurmountable. 

"Akaashi. What are you doing for New Years Eve?" 

Akaashi doesn’t answer right away. Bokuto can hear faint background noise, maybe a television, maybe the whisper of Akaashi’s breath. 

"As of right now, I don’t have any plans," Akaashi says, "why do you ask?" 

"Do you want to come here? For New Years Eve, I mean?" He blurts out, "you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but we’ll have a ton of food, but if you’re busy I"- 

"Bokuto-san," Akaashi says, and the way his voice hits up against Bokuto’s ear makes his eyes open and his words catch in his throat. Bokuto sits in Akaashi’s silence, an agonizing silence that stretches from Tokyo all the way around the world and back, over oceans and continents before returning, "I would love to come." 

Bokuto shoots his arms into the air, sure to not let the phone fly out of his hand. Positively giddy. 

"What are you so nervous about?" Hibiki laughs from the living room, where she’s standing in front of their mother’s sun-shaped mirror, playing with the small bits of hair that frame the front of her face. "You’re all jumpy over there."

"I’m not nervous," Bokuto Koutarou says, too quickly, looking up from his phone where he’d been waiting for Akaashi to text him back, and Hibiki turns around from the mirror, staring at him, gold eyes wide. 

"Wait- you are nervous!" She yelps, "Kou-chan, I was joking! What’s this all about?" 

"Nothing!"

"KEMU!" Hibiki yells, Akemu pokes her head around from the kitchen. 

"You do seem nervous," she says, "double checking all the groceries with me, insisting on cooking everything. Who you trying to impress, Shirofuku? Because I’m pretty sure that girl would be impressed by convenience store ramen, Kou, last year she asked me the recipe for an instant coffee." 

"It’s not Yukie," Bokuto Koutarou says, standing up, deciding to escape upstairs, but them clamps a hand to his mouth, realizing his error. Hibiki shoots across the room towards him, Akemu’s bottle opener clatters to the counter, and his sisters are teenagers once again. Or maybe they’ve been teenagers all along. 

"What happened since I last saw you!" Hibiki squeals, pinching his cheek between her thumb and pointer finger, "all this international travel has kept me out of the loop. Our Kou-chan’s got a crush? So? Are you going to share?" 

"Ge’off me," Koutarou wriggles, and Hibiki lets him go, brushing her choppy hair out of her eyes. 

"Kou, please! Tell us!"

"You’re already teasing me, though!"

The doorbell rings, and Hibiki launches herself towards it, Koutarou steps in front of her, pushing her behind him, "get away, you said you’d leave us alone!"

"You’re not allowed to keep secrets from me, baby brother!" She crows, "I’m your adult supervision for the evening, so I will answer the door to welcome our guests."

"You’re hardly an adult." 

"Tell that to the tax bureau."

Bokuto makes one final attempt to push her away, but Hibiki steps in front of him, forcing him behind her and hauling the door open. Bokuto braces himself, regretting everything, regretting inviting Akaashi when he knew Akemu and Hibiki would be here. 

But Yukie is standing on the front step, looking pretty nonplussed by the commotion, holding a Tupperware container in her hands, a backpack dangling off one shoulder. 

"Oh, Shirofu-kun!" Hibiki throws the door open even wider, beaming, and Bokuto exhales in relief, he’s saved, "so nice to see you, it’s been, what a year? Did you do something to your hair? It looks so pretty." 

"It’s Yukie. And yes, I grew out my bangs," Yukie says, stepping inside, "you cut yours, it looks nice."

"You’re being generous, Yukie-chan, it’s a mullet," Akemu calls from the kitchen, and Bokuto watches Yukie as looks between the three of them, head tilted, sets her backpack down beside her shoes and then opens her mouth-

"What was the yelling?" Yukie asks, and, before Bokuto can stop her, "did he tell you about Akaashi?"

"Yukippe!" Bokuto yelps, betrayed. He opens his mouth to say something else, but Yukie just grins, stepping out of the genkan and handing her container to Hibiki. "Bo, I’m doing you a favor, it was going to be obvious once he got here."

"Wait- Akaashi as in your vice-captain Akaashi? The setter?" Akemu asks, leaning up against the wall beside the opening to the kitchen. 

"Yeah, that Akaashi," Bokuto mutters, "it’s not like there are any other Akaashis that I know." 

"I think that’s sweet," Akemu says, "and very like you, volleyball-brain Kou-chan." 

"It’s not just about volleyball, though." 

"Ha, what’s it about then?" Hibiki leans her chin into Bokuto shoulder, "elaborate." 

"No!" Bokuto shakes her off, "I’m not talking about this with you!"

Yukie says something to Akemu about helping cook, and Akemu, despite the fact she'd only been in the kitchen retrieving one of her weird fruity beers from the refrigerator, beckons Yukie over, leaving Bokuto standing in the front with Hibiki, with her new short haircut and big grin. 

"Please don’t say anything," Bokuto whispers to her, and Hibiki smiles, her grin shifting into something more earnest, without teeth. 

"Wouldn’t dream of it," she says, "I’ve embarrassed enough of Nee-san’s boyfriends to last a lifetime. With you, I learn from my mistakes." She laughs, "Look at my baby brother, all grown up." 

In that moment, despite the fact that he's taller than her now, despite the fact that high school will be over in three short months, Bokuto doesn't feel all that grown up. He feels twelve, little toy skateboard wrapped in his fist, attempting to put words to a feeling in the best way he knew how. His sister easing herself down onto the bed, Kou-chan, have you talked to anybody else about this? A shaken head. A soft exhale. Well, you've got to be very brave to trust people with your secrets, and really smart to know this about yourself so young. I'm honored that you told me. It had been the most serious he'd ever heard Hibiki speak to him directly- before that, she'd only ever been serious with other people, overheard phone calls and hallway conversations. 

It had made him feel very grown up. 

He looks at Hibiki, her choppy hair, bushy eyebrows, expression on her face a doctored calm. 

"Thank you" he says, "I'll tell you all about it later." 

Akaashi arrives, thankfully, while the girls are occupied, rolling soup dumplings on the low living room table and listening to Akemu’s probably-not-boyfriend-anymore make excuses over the speakerphone. They wave at Akaashi from the table, voices hushed, as the not-boyfriend doesn’t seem to realize that anyone other than Akemu is listening.  

"Do you want to help me cook?" Bokuto asks shutting the front door behind Akaashi, who’s dressed up nice, a dark green sweater, white collar poking through, not one of the silly t-shirts he always seems to wear outside of school. "You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, you’re a guest." 

"I’m a guest," Yukie hisses from the table, brandishing her lopsided dumpling towards him, "I don’t hear you telling me I don’t have to cook." 

"You could use the practice." 

Yukie scowls, turning back to the phone and the dumplings, hissing you're not supposed to be rude to guests. 

But Akaashi says he’d very much like to help, and follows him into the kitchen, stopping over at the table to say something quietly to Yukie first before he enters, wringing his hands together. 

"Who are they talking to?" Akaashi asks, at a normal volume now that they’re away from the living room. He begins chopping the scallions slowly as Bokuto finishes dicing the mushrooms, with the exhausted knife that’s probably older than he is. 

"My sister’s… boyfriend? Well, I guess he’s not going to be her boyfriend for much longer." Bokuto shrugs, "I never met him, so I don’t really care." 

"Nice to know how much I mean to you, Kou-chan," Akemu’s voice says, and she slides into the kitchen to join them, formally introducing herself to Akaashi and retrieving a beer, proceeding to lean up against the refrigerator and watch them like she’s watching a television show, her eyes feeling like laser pointers on Bokuto's back. The steam from the stock rises, fogging up the small kitchen window, the aroma, the odor, of the miso and the bonito wafting as Bokuto pours in is mushrooms, Akaashi’s neatly chopped scallions, Yukie’s butchered carrots. The boiling water bubbles and spits as Bokuto stirs, as Yukie darts in, sets the dumplings down, and flits back to the living room, as Akaashi gives Akemu a summary of their season from his perspective. 

"You’ve got that recipe memorized, Kou-chan," Akemu comments, leaning her weight against the refrigerator door, disturbing a magnet, which she bends over to pick up off the floor. 

"Did you actually break up with Accountant-san?" Koutarou asks, reducing the heat.  

"Well, with how obnoxious Hibi’s being on the phone, he’ll probably break up with me." She stretches her arms above her head and then snatches her empty beer bottle off the counter, swinging it between her fingertips before setting it down in the recycling bin and exiting the kitchen. 

Kou-chan? 

Bokuto feels the blood rush to his face upon hearing Akaashi’s voice, hand gripping the wooden spoon so tight he wouldn’t be surprised if it left an imprint. He turns to look at Akaashi, who, without anything left to do, is holding a salt shaker, looking at Bokuto, blank expression. 

"It’s what they called me when I as little!" He bursts out, words stumbling, "It’s sort of embarrassing"- 

"I don’t think it’s embarrassing," Akaashi says, setting the salt shaker down and turning his face away and Bokuto wishes he wouldn’t, wishes he could see Akaashi’s expression, wishes Yukie had had an answer, back in October, when he’d asked her how you tell if someone likes you back.

Hibiki and Yukie spread the food out across the kotatsu, Bokuto uses the ladle to dole out the soup, hands Akaashi his bowl first, withholds Hibiki’s until she makes room for him by the prawns. Yukie connects her iPod to Akemu’s speaker, and plays her terrible, terrible music that makes Hibiki laugh so hard that soup nearly comes out of her nose. 

"You’re a good cook, Bokuto-san," Akaashi says quietly on Bokuto’s right, and Bokuto glances over as Akaashi sets his now-empty soup bowl down on the tabletop. "I did not expected that from you." 

"Why didn’t you expected it?"

"Well, it’s something that requires a lot of attention to detail." 

"I can pay attention to details, though." He has been, for several months now. Paid attention to the way Akaashi’s mouth curls up at the edges when he’s trying not to smile, the way he pauses before speaking, the way he stares at his work with a sort of single-minded intensity. How when met with obstacles and hinderances, he takes a breath, and trudges forward.

"I taught him everything he knows," Akemu says, pointing the bottom of her beer bottle in Akaashi’s direction, "about cooking, at least. Well, maybe our parents did, but I helped." 

"I taught bad words in English," Hibiki adds, "Shirofu-kun— do you have any idea what the lyrics of this song mean?" 

"No, I don’t know French," Yukie says, "I just like the instrumentals. And it's Yukie." 

"Well, Yukie, this is Spanish, and wildly inappropriate. Akaashi-kun, grab me that notepad behind you there, yeah, that one"- Bokuto eats another spoonful of soup, listening to Hibiki interpreting the song lyrics in real time, Akaashi and Yukie looking on, somehow not embarrassed in the slightest, laughing, Akemu too, rolling her eyes but rewinding the song according to Hibiki’s instructions. 

Although Keiko had apparently told Koutarou’s sisters that she would be sticking it out with her niece this year, she bursts into the house just as Akemu makes the executive decision to revoke Yukie’s music privileges. I heard that the evil accountant broke our Akemu’s heart! Oh, Yukie, nice to see my fellow stray again, and who’s your other friend, Kou-kun? Nice to meet you, Akaashi-kun, I’ve probably been crashing their dinners longer than you’ve been alive.

Despite the fact that they hadn’t planned for her, there’s a seat made between the Bokuto sisters, food set aside preemptively by Hibiki, an extra plate, and extra bowl, an extra set of chopsticks. And despite the fact Keiko had kept the door open far too long, bringing in a heavy draft, despite the wind blowing winter against the windowpanes and the way the kotatsu bleeds warm electricity, Koutarou thinks it somehow feels like a summer evening. When the sun has just sunk behind the mountains, when the fireflies have just woken to dance, the owls to sing. 

And Bokuto Koutarou looks at Akaashi, his eyes slightly obscured by his eyelashes, easy smile, easy warm summer-breeze laughter that makes him look so lovely. Bokuto looks quickly away, feeling winter hearth heat on his cheeks that he’ll explain away, it’s just the steam from the soup broth, just the kotatsu, the space heater, just his heart misfiring.  

On the TV, the clock turns to midnight, and the six of them step outside to watch the fireworks shoot off in the distance, to listen to the bells ring out across Tokyo. Bokuto pulls his jacket closer towards him, feels Akaashi’s arm press slightly against his, and wonders if, like shooting stars, people could wish on fireworks. He knows what he would wish for. 

"I’m going to head out," Yukie says, and Bokuto turns to look at her. He’d fully expected her to spend the night, just like she’d done the previous two years. 

"Are you sure?" Bokuto asks, Yukie nods, and Hibiki turns towards the house, 'Kemu, Keiko, come help me with the dishes, but Akaashi follows them too, and Bokuto finds himself standing just outside his front step with Yukie. Her hands are in her coat pockets, backpack slung over her shoulders, dark hair splayed out across her cheeks. 

"Why are you leaving?" He asks her, and Yukie takes a step towards him, taking one of his bare hands in her gloved one, brushing her thumb against the back of it. 

"It’s a new year," she says, "I should go try to make up with my sister." 

It’s a part of Yukie that Bokuto fundamentally doesn’t understand. And doesn’t know if he ever will. A reminder that, for as much as they have in common, there’s always something they don’t. Yukie doesn’t understand Bokuto’s need to compete. Bokuto doesn’t understand her relationship with her family. For while his sisters argued, especially when they were younger, it was never bad enough to cast one out of the house, bad enough that it ruined things that were supposed to be important, like family meals, like holidays. 

"But you always stay," he whispers, "and my sisters like you so much."

"Bo, that’s part of the problem," Yukie says, so sadly that Bokuto’s heart almost breaks, high to low, "let me hold out hope that I’ll have this some day, okay? I know it’s a stupid thing to hope for, but it’s a new year. I’m going to hope anyway." 

"It’s not stupid." 

"Tell your family thank you for me," Yukie says, "Your parents too. I’ll see you tomorrow at the temple. Good luck with Akaashi."

"But if you don’t make up with your sister?" 

"Kaori said I can stay at her place," Yukie lets go of his hand, adjusting the zipper on her thick puffy jacket, "she’s mad at her parents right now too, even though she won’t tell me why. And Konoha will probably show up if I go over there, so we can Facebook-stalk my mom’s secret boyfriend some more." She sighs. "That’s one of your good qualities, Bo. You actually tell people how you feel. No secrets." 

"I… I haven’t told Akaashi, though." 

"You will though, right? Before the end of the school year?"

"Yukippe, I've never been so nervous about anything before. Ever. In my whole entire life." 

Oh. Yukie says softly, taking a step towards him, bringing a hand up to rest on his shoulder. "Bo… trust me on this one. You don’t have anything to be afraid of." She smiles, but she looks so, so, sad, and Bokuto feels himself sniff back a tear. 

"You shouldn’t be sad on New Years," he says. "Being here shouldn’t make you sad." 

"It doesn’t make me sad, Yukie says, it makes me so unbelievably happy. But that’s what’s sad about it. Can I come next year too?" 

"You can come every year," Bokuto says, "Keiko-san does, you never have to ask. And you and Keiko-san are wrong, you know, you’re not a stray, never have been." 

Yukie hugs him, stands on her tiptoes and drapes her arms lightly around his neck, pulling him into a feather-light hug before drawing back, wiping underneath one eye with a gloved hand. 

"I don’t know what I did in my past life to deserve you," Yukie says, "I get why Akaashi likes you so much. He’s got very good taste." Bokuto stares at her, processing her words, but before he can speak, she shakes her head, interrupting him. "Go inside. You’re leaving Akaashi alone with you sisters for too long." 

"Oh, yeah! Hibiki!"

"It’s Akemu-san you have to worry about, she’s had about ten of those beers," Yukie says, turning, waving, "thanks again."

"Be safe, I’ll see you tomorrow." Bokuto waves, and then lets himself into the house, forcing himself to look away from the window, knows he’ll want to yell after her.  

Voices drift from the kitchen, the faucet spits, the wind taps at the kitchen window, he hears the pop of a bottle cap, no doubt one of Akemu’s beers, and Bokuto walks as quietly as he can towards the kitchen. In front of the sink, Hibiki wields the dish soap and a sponge, Akemu handing her dishes one by one, her iPod touch singing through the speaker next to her, Akemu and Hibiki’s shared account on shuffle, loud eighties music shouting over the faucet. Akaashi is standing on Hibiki's other side, holding a dishrag, drying off one of the soup bowls. 

"Akaashi, they shouldn’t be making you clean!" Bokuto says, and three heads turn towards him at once. "Keiko-san’s here, make her do it!"

"Ah, Kou-chan. We saved you the big pots," Akemu says, fumbling with a plate that Hibiki catches in one soapy hand.  

"Nee-san’s had too much to drink. Kou, take over for her while Keiko’s in the bathroom." 

"I’m going through a breakup," Akemu snaps, "Happy New Year to me, right?" 

"New year, new boyfriend," Hibiki sings, passing the plate to Akaashi, "or more accurately, new financial quarter, new boyfriend. What ever happened to Salmonella Guy? I liked him." 

"He took a job in Okinawa. And why was he your favorite? You only met him once." 

"I met him twice," Hibiki says, reapplying dish soap to her sponge and holding it underneath the faucet, "second time was at the bar with the marzipan."

"That was Hospital Guy."

"Was it? No, I swear that was Salmonella Guy." 

Bokuto pushes past the two of them to stand beside Akaashi, no longer attempting to make any sense of the conversation. The Bokuto sisters talking in code, like they used to do when he was little, referring to classmates and teachers via a series of pseudonyms.  

"It was Hospital Guy," Akemu presses, "Remember, because he told us that story about the kid with the snake bite?"

"Oh, wait. Yeah. Because he was right after Chinchilla guy." 

"Did I forget to tell you? Chinchilla guy had a kid." 

"No shot." 

"Yeah. Five months after the wedding. Remind me to show you the name later, it’s like Keiko’s brother’s wife chose it while drunk." 

"Do you… understand what they are discussing?" Akaashi whispers, and Bokuto shakes his head, taking the dish towel from Akaashi. 

"I’ve given up asking who anybody is," he says, hopefully quietly enough that neither sister can hear him over the water, "sorry they’re being like that, and sorry they made you clean."

"It’s fine, Bokuto-san," Akaashi says, "It’s a nice change of pace for me, spending a holiday with such a zealous family."

"Zealous?"

"Lively," Akaashi moves to take another dish from Hibiki, but Bokuto intercepts it.

"I cooked. That means you two clean," he says to his sisters, "C’mon Akaashi, I can set up your futon."

"Booo," Akemu calls "Stop using my own logic against me!"

"Yeah, Kou-chan, nee-san just had a breakup."  

"I don’t know how you keep all those guys straight without using their names," Bokuto says, moving behind the two of them towards the living room, and Akemu snorts, seizing the spray attachment on the sink and aiming it toward him. 

"I didn’t raise you to be rude, Koutarou." 

"But… you didn’t raise me?" 

"Out!" Akemu presses down on the handle just as Hibiki turns off the faucet, a few dribbles of water fall out onto the floor. 

“Okay, good night, happy new year,” Bokuto grabs Akaashi’s wrist before he realizes what he’s doing, feels himself flush. He leads Akaashi up the stairs, pointing to his bedroom before retrieving the spare futon from the hall closet. When he enters, Akaashi is standing in front of his desk, leaning forward slightly, examining something. 

"What’cha looking at?" Bokuto asks, and Akaashi startles, turning around as Bokuto lays out the futon on the floor and then steps over it, walking over to the desk. He’s lived in this room his whole life, and it’s somewhat obvious. Years of keepsakes sit along the shelf above his desk, eighteen years worth of cards, tickets, magazine clippings, tacked up on the bulletin board, medals from high school, middle school, elementary school, dangle off pushpins. 

"You keep your birthday cards," Akaashi says. 

"Yeah?"  

"Just a detail I noticed," Akaashi says, tapping his fingers against his arm. "Was Shirofuku-san alright?" 

"I hope so," Bokuto says, sitting down on his bed, watching Akaashi examining a small toy skateboard that sits on top of the desk. He wishes Yukie had stayed. He gets why she left, and it’s nice to be alone with Akaashi, as alone as he can be with the girls bantering downstairs, but he still has wishes she’d stayed. 

"You know," he says, watching as Akaashi sets the skateboard back on the shelf, "people always used to tell me that I was spoiled, for having two parents and two big sisters who love me so much. But I never understood what they meant until I met Yukie."

"You are a tad spoiled," Akaashi says, sitting down on the bed beside him, and Bokuto laughs, elbowing Akaashi in the arm. 

"You’re just joking, Akaashi." 

"No, I’m not," Akaashi says, looking down at his hands, "don’t answer me if you shouldn’t. But… what happened, with Shirofuku-san’s family? I feel as though I am usually fairly intuitive about that sort of thing, but besides her parents being separated, and her disliking her father, I had no idea."

It’s a good question, and one that was inevitable But it’s a hard one to answer, as Bokuto feels like he knows both a lot and a little. Knows the feelings associated with the events a lot better than the events themselves. Also, some of the events he does know about he thinks he shouldn’t share without asking, even with Akaashi. 

"I forgot that you never met her sister," Bokuto says, if feels like a safe place to start, "she was a third year when I was a first year." 

"I didn’t know she has a sister."  

"Yeah," Bokuto slides his hands between his knees, peering up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers peeling from his ceiling, suddenly very conscious of them, and how young this room feels. "She was really involved with the athletic department, I think she played tennis. But Risa- Yukie’s sister- she liked things done a very certain way. And I don’t think Yukippe could ever do anything Risa’s way. Not ever, in her whole entire life." Bokuto leans back, falling against the duvet cover, staring up at the ceiling, at the stickers and the underside curve of Akaashi’s jaw. "And if you didn’t do things her way, she could be super scary, and not in a good way."

"Can people be scary in a good way?" Akaashi asks, and Bokuto nods, his neck an awkward angle, and wonders how he can feel so happy and so sad at once, and then thinks maybe, that’s what Yukie had been trying to describe. 

"Suzumeda can be, and Washio too. And you can be a little scary, Akaashi, in a good way." He exhales, crossing his arms behind his head, feeling the friction of the duvet cover against his sleeves. If he’d been trying to invite over a boy he likes, more than likes, and get him to like him back, he’s probably doing a pretty bad job. Sitting in his childhood bedroom, calling him scary, and talking about a girl. 

"I am scary?" 

"You used to be," Bokuto says, unsure of why he’s saying this, unsure of why he’s blowing his chances, "you use such big words sometimes, so everyone knows you’re super smart, and smart people can be scary. Like you, and Suzumeda, and Komi, and sometimes even Kuroo."

"Is… Is the word you’re looking for intimidating?" 

"That sounds more right," Bokuto hums, "Yeah. That’s it. Intimidating. You always know everything, Akaashi." 

"But I didn't know you thought that about me," Akaashi says slowly, looking down at his hands, resting on his knees, his knuckles all defined sloping angles, sharp corners. 

"I don’t anymore, just when I first met you," Bokuto says, "now I know, well, that you’re Akaashi. You’re not trying to make anyone feel stupid, or make yourself feel smarter, you just have a way with words."  

He glances over at Akaashi, hoping he hasn’t just made a fool out of himself, hoping he hasn’t scared him off. But Akaashi smiles, a very small, almost sad smile, moving one of his hands through his hair, long fingers through his curls, tilting his chin up towards the ceiling, stargazing. 

"That is probably the most honest thing anyone has ever said to me, Bokuto-san," Akaashi says. "I… I found you intimidating at first as well." 

"You did?" Bokuto pushes himself upwards, weight braced against his forearms as he sits up to look at Akaashi beside him. "Really?" 

"Well," Akaashi says quietly, still looking up at the ceiling, "you were a star player, asking me to practice individually. It was a bit intimidating."

"A star player?" He’s never heard Akaashi talk like that. Normally, it’s all about the ways Bokuto can improve, the ways Bokuto can learn. "Wait- but Akaashi, you’d only seen me practice the one time, how’d you know I was any good? Was it that obvious?"

Akaashi doesn’t respond, and when Bokuto glances over at him, he finds Akaashi looking back with his silvery-gray eyes wide, mouth scrunched on one side, and Akaashi is nervous. It’s all written out across his face, easy to read. 

"I’m not intimidating anymore, am I?" He asks, half to know, half to give Akaashi an out from the question, give him something else to say, and Akaashi’s face relaxes, and he shakes head, a flush across his cheeks.

"Hardly," he says, but says it fast, as if it’s a slippery fish he can’t quite keep a hold on, and Akaashi stands up, brushing his hands against his pants, fingers splayed out across the corduroy. "Bokuto-san, can you direct me to the washroom?" 

Oh, yeah, Bokuto points him in the direction of the bathroom door, and Akaashi moves to leave, but stops in the threshold. 

"Bokuto-san?"

"Yeah?" Bokuto asks, now sitting up on the side of his little twin bed, looking at the back of Akaashi’s neck as he turns his head to glance over his shoulder. 

"Thank you." He says, with no explanation, leaving Bokuto sitting there, feet pressed into the rug, feeling very big and very tall and very young, unsure of what he’d been thanked for. 

"I can’t believe you didn’t make any progress," Yukie says, hitting Bokuto on the top of his head with a thin magazine she’d taken from Suzumeda, "I literally left you two alone on New Years for this exact reason." 

"We talked for a long time, though," Bokuto hisses, looking around the bus, making sure nobody is listening in. Akaashi is sitting up front with Onaga, far enough away, but Konoha, always listening, is dangerously close, just a few rows ahead. 

"Bokuto. Come on," Yukie says, "I’m going to say it again. You have absolutely nothing to be afraid of." 

"How can you know, though?" 

Yukie thumps him on the head again with the rolled-up magazine. 

"How is it that you're so emotionally intelligent in every area besides this one?" She asks. 

"You sound like Suzumeda." 

"Oh my god don’t say that to me," Yukie laughs, "wow, look at you, all witty. Love has changed you." 

"Shhh! I’m not in love!" Bokuto hisses, very cognicent of Konoha in front of them, of the flush in his cheeks and the rattle of his heart bumping along with the bus. 

"Oh, you’re not?" Yukie nips, "It’s that what you’ve been telling me for months? That you’re somewhat interested? 

Coach Yamiji’s voice interrupts them from the front of the bus, as he stands, clipboard in hand, putting an end to all of their conversations. Bokuto steals a glance over at where Akaashi is sitting up ahead on the aisle, and his heart tumbles as Akaashi glances behind him, in Bokuto’s direction, their eyes meeting for a second before Akaashi hurriedly turns away. 

It doesn’t take long into the Mujinazaka match for Bokuto realize that Akaashi is struggling. That something in his head is different, that he’s overthinking something. He watches as Akaashi and Anahori switch off, remembers— you might struggle with things other people don’t, but they might struggle with things you don’t. It’s been an easy concept to apply to other people, but not as easy to apply to Akaashi. Not until Akaashi had called him intimidating, and Bokuto had been reminded that the sort of things he takes for granted about himself, they come off a certain way to other people. 

Here, though, Bokuto remembers, reminds himself. And knows that Akaashi will persevere and come back, which he does, and the win feels more deserved than their past wins, as they’d had to overcome more than blockers. 

Afterwards, Bokuto joins a quiet Akaashi on a bench between the court and the sub arena, and as Akaashi mumbles through held-back tears, about his regrets about the match, Bokuto watches, and remembers the big lesson he’s learned these past two years— that identifying your weaknesses just means you know what you’ve got to learn. 

He tells Akaashi as such, we’ll just have to take our feedback from the match, and then nail it down more during practice. That’s what we’ve always done. It is what they’ve always done- on the court and off- spikes and vocabulary. And as Akaashi’s strangled tears dissipate, and the rest of the team arrives, Bokuto knows, for once, he’s taught Akaashi the same lesson Akaashi’s been unknowingly teaching him. 

“Is everybody else asleep?” Bokuto whispers, peaking an eye open to look at Akaashi, on the floor of the hotel room, faint streetlights outside pouring in through a crack between the window blinds and the floor. Akaashi’s hair is splayed out on his futon pillow, pressed up against the side of his face as he adjust his position, leaning on his side to peer over at Bokuto. 

“I think so,” Akaashi whispers, eyes aglow in the low lighting of the room. “As nobody is complaining about Washio-san’s snoring.” 

Bokuto laughs, re-situating himself in his futon, leaning up on his arms, head rested in one of his hands. 

“We should sleep, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says, “Tomorrow is imperative, after all.” 

Bokuto knows Akaashi well enough at this point to guess the meaning of the word. He flips onto his back, staring up at the low hotel ceiling. Normally, he’s one of the first asleep, but tonight, some sort of nervous energy buzzes in his chest, like a loose insect, a firefly, maybe half to do with the impending finals, half to do with Akaashi, and his voice at nighttime. 

“Akaashi,” He whispers, “You think we’re going to win tomorrow?” 

Akaashi shrugs, rubbing one eye with the palm of his hand. 

“I like to think we will,” Akaashi says, “But that depends on you, does it not?” 

“Depends on you too,” Bokuto says, “Depends on everyone!” 

“True,” Akaashi says, his small smile visible in the dimness of the room, and the nervous energy in Bokuto’s chest fizzles, and he moves again to lean on his side to better look at Akaashi, brushing a bit of his loose hair out of his eyes. “You know, Onaga-kun has won us the last two matches.” 

“He just got the last points!” Bokuto yelps, but remembers to keep his voice low, Komi on his other side sprawled out in sleep, mouth slightly open. Akaashi laughs, eyes crinkled, and the fireflies in Bokuto’s chest hit their wings against his insides, and he thinks if he opens his mouth again, they’ll all fly out.

“Also,” Bokuto says, bugs be damned, “It’s good, that he’s good. For next season, when you’re the captain. If you want to go to nationals, you’ll need good players like Onaga-kun. And you know Saru’s cousin, right? Nagi-kun? If he’s here next year, he’ll be real good too.” 

“I sure have been hearing a lot about him,” Akaashi says, “Feels like very specific foreshadowing.” 

“Foreshadowing?” 

“Implying that something will be important later,” Akaashi says, “Like in manga, when a plot point is hinted at beforehand.” 

“Oh, okay,” Bokuto says, “That’s a good word. How do you even know so many good words, Akaashi?” 

“I read frequently,” Akaashi says, moving slightly underneath his blanket, shoulders shifting, hair pressing up against his face. “You know that, though, Bokuto-san.” 

Bokuto had known that. But he likes Akaashi and his big words, and likes adding them to an ever-growing mental list. Because with Akaashi, every new word a reminder that the world is bigger than Bokuto knows it to be, that even after he feels as if he’s perfected something, there’s still so much more to learn. 

Maybe Yukie had been right. Maybe he doesn’t like Akaashi, doesn’t have a crush on Akaashi. Maybe he’s head-over-heels in love, loves Akaashi the same way he loves summer evenings, the same way he loves New Years Eve. 

All he knows is that he’d like to keep learning from Akaashi forever and forever. 

"Goodnight, Bokuto-san," Akaashi whispers, and Bokuto flips over on his back, tugging the blanket over his face, feeling the heat in his cheeks and the murmur in his heart, as awake and alert and alive as he is on the volleyball court, suspended midair.

The loss is a different sort of heartbreak. It’s not a quiet heartbreak, like the type Bokuto has felt for Yukie. Not the sort of heartbreak that had come with all of the tough losses along the way. This feels excruciatingly final. Excruciatingly personal. As if something was stolen from them as opposed to never having been obtained in the first place. 

Bokuto had promised, silently, months ago, that he’d prove that he could do everything. But that promise is not yet kept. Konoha wipes away tears, and Bokuto watches Akaashi’s eyes, swimming, feels Konoha’s fist press into his back. 

Hey, Konoha says, words clear over the flickering cameras, over the roar of the opposing team, over the crowd and the footsteps and the ruckus, and Bokuto listens to him, Konoha’s words earnest and oh so kind when kindness is probably the last thing on anybody’s mind. And Bokuto looks up to the overhead lights, and promises, to himself, to Akaashi, to Yukie, to Konoha. He’s a normal ace now. No more highs to lows. 

They arrive back at Fukurodani that evening, debrief in the gym, Bokuto leans his head into Yukie’s shoulder and listens to Coach Yamiji. He’d told Akaashi, a few nights ago, that he wouldn’t be so disappointed if they were to lose, because he’d keep playing volleyball regardless, but now, that feels like a lie. Because Coach Yamiji scans the nine of them, the starters who stayed back plus Yukie and Suzumeda, and says something that maybe they’ve all been thinking. 

"This has been an incredible season," he says, "in part because for most of you, it was your last. And next season, I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be a massive challenge. But look at what you’ve built." 

"You’ll just have to persevere," Bokuto says, removing his head from Yukie’s shoulder, and Coach Yamiji smiles. 

"Thank you to our captains, and to our managers," Coach Yamiji says, and Saru leans over to clap Bokuto on the back, Komi hoots, and Bokuto sits up straight, playing with his hands in his lap. 

"Can I say something?" Yukie asks from beside him, and Yamiji nods, and Bokuto feels Yukie inhale, exhale. 

"I don’t talk about myself a lot," Yukie says slowly, "maybe that’s because before this, there was never really anything I wanted. But…" She breathes in, out, and Bokuto glances over at her, willing her to be as brave as he knows she can be. 

"Those of you who knew me my first year probably remember how wishy-washy I was about joining this team," Yukie continues, looking upward slowly, "This might not make sense to most of you, but not being good at things like this, not being athletic or strong or competitive, it was used against me. All the time. So thank you all, for making me feel stronger here instead of weaker."

Konoha claps, Coach Yamiji smiles, and Bokuto leans into her again, hugging her around her shoulders. He feels Yukie’s smile on her cheek, pressed to his head. And while there are parts to Yukie he’ll probably never understand, he thinks he might get that one. The thrill of feeling strong in a place you once felt weak, of having ownership over what you can’t do, finding people who make your shortcomings feel like opportunities. And he opens an eye to look at across the circle at Akaashi. 

"I think that’s the only kind of team worth having," he says, removing his head from Yukie’s shoulder, "teams that make everyone stronger. And we’re leaving it in good hands. Akaashi, you’re the best teacher, so you’re going to do great." 

Akaashi hugs his knees to his chest, Konoha beside him thumps his hand on his shoulder, Onaga nods earnestly, and Coach Yamiji sighs. 

"It’s been a heck of a season," he says, "go home, get some rest. Second in the whole country. Incredible leadership, and absolutely incredible teamwork." 

The others leave, mostly all at once for the train station, Bokuto hears Komi’s bike wheels against the gravel. Konoha lingers in the doorway clearly waiting on Suzumeda, who’d been finishing some conversation up with Coach Yamiji. Bokuto waves to them at the door, Konoha waves back, looking past him towards the locker room doors before Suzumeda appears, snapping something to Konoha and tugging him out, nodding a goodbye at Bokuto. He thinks that Suzumeda might have just provided him a great service, and that she probably knows it.  

Coach Yamiji leaves his office, rolls his eyes at Bokuto, and sets the gym key on the windowsill beside the door, tells him to not stay for very long, and to leave the key with Akaashi. 

Bokuto nods, something buzzy in his chest, waits until coach Yamiji exits and Akaashi pushes out of the locker room door, changed into his sweatpants and sweatshirt, hair in his eyes. 

"Bokuto-san," Akaashi says, "I know volleyball isn’t over for either of us, but I can not practice tonight. I’m exhausted." 

"I don’t think I can practice either," Bokuto says, "I was just waiting for you." And in saying it, Bokuto realizes, he's been waiting for a long time, without really knowing it.  For the season to be over, for the excuses to disappear, for the reason they spend time together to not involve volleyball or homework or thinly veiled excuses. For him and Akaashi to just be Bokuto and Akaashi, no titles involved, no titles at stake. 

"Did you mean it?" Akaashi asks, sitting down on the bottom rung of the rolled-out bleachers, "earlier, about me being a good captain next year?" 

"Of course I did!" Bokuto says, crossing the gym to stand over by Akaashi. Because ignoring the fact that Bokuto might be a little, a lot, in love, he knows Akaashi as a person and knows Akaashi as an athlete, has watched him all year, paid attention to the details. Leading and teaching quietly where Bokuto did it loudly. 

"I truly believed we were going to win," Akaashi says, hands clasped together, toes of his sneakers digging into the hardwood. "As if it were preordained. We had come so far. It’s a bad habit of mine, thinking of my life as a storybook."

"You think about your life like a story?"

Akaashi looks up from his hands, face slightly flushed, mouth opened. Caught. He hadn’t meant to say that, obviously, but it makes a lot of sense, so much sense Bokuto’s surprised he hadn’t realized it, as he’s been getting better and better at guessing what Akaashi’s thinking.

"Sometimes," Akaashi says, bringing a hand to the back of his neck, "as some people say, old habits die hard."

"It’s not a bad habit, though," Bokuto says, moving his hands behind his back, twisting his fingers together and coaxing his breaths quiet. "It’s nice. I think it’s a good way to think. It makes everything that might not be important feel important… makes the sad things less sad." 

Akaashi stares at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. Bokuto wishes, for a moment, that he had better words, maybe he could explain himself better. But Akaashi always seems to know what he means. So Bokuto sits down beside him on the bleachers, looking up at the gymnasium lights.  

"I’m disappointed we lost," Bokuto says, feeling the tremor in his chest as he looks back to Akaashi, at his silvery eyes and quiet, contemplative expression, "more than I thought I’d be. But… if I think about it like you do, like if this is a story, that just means the best is yet to come, right?"

How do you ask a question without asking it? How to you imply, how do you inquire, how to you implore? Bokuto’s heart stumbles in his ribcage, like it had, once, a few months ago on the court, that qualifier game when he and Akaashi had perfected their straight shot.

Usually, it’s Akaashi with the words. It’s Akaashi with the advice, the insight, the intuition. But Bokuto leans forward, hands on the slippy wood of the bleachers, looking at Akaashi straight on, at his eyelashes and the small scar at the base of his cheek, the ghost of freckles around his nose.  

"Don’t you think? That the best is yet to come?" 

It’s one swift motion. As if choreographed. Akaashi’s hands rise to Bokuto’s face, and Bokuto is pulled forward, hands slipping below him on the varnish, Akaashi’s mouth pressed to his. Bokuto’s heart stops, and then rattles back to life, a tourniquet, a tambourine. Akaashi pulls back, stilled, fragile expression, and Bokuto can feel the heat rising in his own face. He adjusts one of his hands, moves it from the surface of the bench to the angle of Akaashi’s waist, leans in and kisses him again. For real this time. Feels Akaashi’s hands move to the back of his head, long fingers pushing through Bokuto’s hair, sticky with gel and sweat. 

Bokuto is the one to pull away this time, heart fit to burst, staring at Akaashi, slightly dazed, not sure of what to say, not sure of saying anything will break this moment that, oh so like Akaashi, feels like it’s borrowed from someone else’s life, borrowed from the light novels underneath his sister’s bed. 

"You really like me? Like- like that?" 

Bokuto asks it before he thinks it, words slipping out, no thought to the vocabulary, and Akaashi’s face breaks like a rainstorm, expression relaxing, coughing out a laugh as he leans forward, resting his forehead on Bokuto’s chest, shoulders shaking with strangled laughter. 

"Yes, Bokuto-san," Akaashi chokes out, laughter indistinguishable from tears "I do. I really, really like you. So much." 

"Good. Because I like you too so much," Bokuto whispers, heart hammering, the words feeling silly since he’s known them for so long, so many months voicing this to Yukie, of imagining this scenario, and what would happen. He should have practice by now, should know what he wants to say, should have everything memorized. But in the moment, feeling Akaashi’s arms against his palms, the wave of nervous-calm, it scrambles his brain, and he opens his mouth and just says what he can’t think until spoken, "Akaashi, it’s serendipity." 

Akaashi’s cheeks flush red, spreading to his ears, and he leans backwards, bringing his hands to his face. 

Bokuto straightens his back, sitting upright, something in his stomach plummeting. 

"Did I say something wrong?" 

"No," Akaashi says through his fingers, "I… I think I have experienced every emotion a human is capable of experiencing in the span of three hours." 

"Is that a good thing?" 

Akaashi stands up, his face very red, slipping off the bleachers and onto the gymnasium floor. 

"How do you just say things?" Akaashi asks, not answering the question, his voice so different, the only noise in the expanse of court around them, "how?"

"Things like what?"

"Just… things," Akaashi says, very imprecise for someone so precise, "like that time you told me that you wouldn’t have believed fireflies were real without proof."

"Akaashi, what does that have to do with anything?" Bokuto asks, still sitting, looking at this Akaashi, so different than any other Akaashis he’s learned- face scarlet, hair messy, words, for once, jumbled and nonsensical. 

"I’m not as good with words as you think I am," Akaashi says, and he holds out a hand, inquiring, imploring, and Bokuto jumps down, threading Akaashi’s long fingers through his own, the friction of Akaashi’s callouses against his palm the only thing convincing Bokuto that this is real, not a post-nationals induced fever dream. He stands there, just staring at Akaashi’s hand in his, not sure of what to do next, what comes next, but Akaashi turns toward him, bringing his free hand up slow hand to brush his thumb across Bokuto’s cheek before lowering it, fingers splayed across Bokuto’s shoulder. 

"You’re quiet," Akaashi says, his voice low and humming like the air before a summer rainstorm, the sort that’s been begged for by the arid earth, the parched trees and the drooping, desperate flowers. 

"I’m just… Akaashi actually likes me, like, likes me likes me, Bokuto says, The Akaashi!" 

"Of course I do," Akaashi says, "you make everything seem possible, Bokuto-san, it’s an enviable quality." 

As if that isn’t what he’s felt Akaashi for so long. As if Akaashi doesn’t turn obstacles into opportunities, make everything that had never been achievable feel achievable. Bokuto feels his smile move through his chest, pinching at his cheeks, underneath his eyes, and he moves his hand to trace the little scar on Akaashi’s jawline, and he kisses Akaashi again, in the center of their court, for once in his life lost for words.