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Akaashi wanted to say that he was surprised, he really did. He wanted to say that he was frustrated, annoyed, and perhaps even angry. He searched deep-down into the recesses of his soul, but once more all he could find was an immense feeling of acquiescence that had become so common when dealing with Bokuto’s shenanigans.
He knew something like this was going to happen, it was inevitable. From the moment Bokuto had sprung on him after practise, garbling something about flowers, he’d known. At the time he’d ignored the other, merely throwing his bag over his shoulder and strolling out of the gym, not wanting to miss the next bus home.
Then the texts had started coming through. First one an hour, then every half an hour, then every ten minutes, until Akaashi’s phone was just continually buzzing as one message after another made its way into his inbox.
From: Bokuto-san
To: Me
Subject: rlly imprtnt
Akaashiiii do u like flowrs??
From: Bokuto-san
To: Me
Subject: Wots ur fav?
Sunflwrs?
He’d groaned, and tossed his phone from one hand to another, contemplating how to get Bokuto to stop sending him types of flowers he thought may possibly be Akaashi’s favourites. It was stressful, and frustrating, and all Akaashi had wanted was to do some studying, get into bed, and perhaps read some more of Sputnik Sweetheart.
So he responded.
To: Bokuto-san
From: Me
Subject: Flowers.
Unfortunately, Bokuto-san, I’m allergic to the vast majority of flowers, and so I do not have a favourite. Please remember to get a decent amount of sleep tonight.
And the texts had stopped, and Akaashi had thought that was the end of it. Surprisingly easy considering it was Bokuto he was dealing with, he may have finally mastered the other boy.
That was until he opened his locker and had a myriad of fruit and vegetables fell out at his feet. Staring at the health foods rolling around on the ground, Akaashi let out a heavy sigh and reached into the jam-packed locker to grab an apple. He’d missed breakfast this morning, so at least there was that.
He didn’t mention anything to Bokuto, he didn’t know what the other would do if he told him to ‘not fill his locker with vegetables’. The reaction was an unknown, and when it came to Bokuto, unknowns were extremely dangerous. Instead he took some of the vegetables back home for his dinner that night and pretended to ignore the presumably sly looks Bokuto was giving him throughout the week.
Bokuto stormed in late to practise, a pink flush on his cheeks and a grin adorning his face that meant he’d been up to no good. Akaashi though it was best to ignore the smile, nothing good ever came of that smile.
“You’re late, Bokuto-san.”
“Yeah, sorry.” the other shrugged, smiling in a way that indicated he wasn’t sorry in the slightest. “I had an errand.” He practically preened when saying it, chin tilting back in pride. Akaashi repressed a shudder at whatever horrendous prank was surely going to come back to bite him in the arse.
“I don’t know what ‘errand’ you had to run, Bokuto-san, but don’t be late for practise again. This is exactly why you’re only in the top five.”
Bokuto whined in distress at his words, moving slightly so that the sunlight streaming in hit his face. Akaashi tried not to stare at the way Bokuto's jaw seemed to sharpen and scoffed at the twist in his stomach. Those feelings were over, he reminded himself, and he turned away to continue tossing for Yamato.
Practice had been rough and long, training for the inter-high brought the team more difficulties than they thought it ever would –especially with how much Nekoma had improved since the last training camp.
Akaashi had spent another evening throwing extra tosses to Bokuto, and as fantastic as it was when their new move worked out, it was pretty tiring dragging Bokuto out of one of his ‘funks’ when it didn’t go exactly how he wanted it to. He was about ready for a long bath and a deep sleep.
Or he would be if his clothes weren’t strewn across the clubroom floor along with who knows what else. A tendril of rage curled up in his throat as he turned to see Fukurodani’s captain desperately attempting to sneak out of the room. Akaashi reached out, grabbing Bokuto’s collar and dragging him back into the clubroom, not caring about the choking sounds the other made as he dangled from his grip.
“You’re very lucky, Bokuto-san.”
Bokuto garbled out a confused noise.
“I have a spare uniform at home. Do you know what that means?”
Akaashi assumed the noise he heard was an attempted ‘what’.
“That means you’re going to tidy all of this up, then wash my clothes, and bring them in freshly dried and pressed tomorrow.”
He dropped Bokuto to the floor and stepped over him neatly, being certain to send him an aggressively foul glare over his shoulder to let the message sink in. He was too furious to pay attention to the slight discomfort in his left shoe.
By the time he was halfway through the bus journey the discomfort was near unbearable, a constant nagging annoyance in the back of his mind that only furthered his current frustration towards Bokuto.
Taking his shoe off on the middle of public transport wasn’t very well an option, not if he wanted to continue getting this bus anyway. So he was forced to settle with it, hobbling off the bus and homeward where he could finally find the source of his aggravation.
A small folded letter with a crudely drawn owl on the front was the last thing he expected to find jabbing into his foot. Opening up the letter, he had to suppress a smile when he saw the entire letter was written in capital letters with various owl doodles fluttering about the margins.
Reading through it, the smile was impossible to hide.
‘Akaashi!!’ the letter read, ‘You’re so amazing! I have a really big crush on you! I really like the way you always look sleepy! It’s really cute and it makes me think about what you look like when you sleep I think you’d be adorable and I’d really like to sleep next to you sometime!! Not in a creepy way though!! I mean it in a cute way… cute like you! Please don’t think I’m weird! I like you a lot!
Loads of love from Bokuto your secret admirer!!!
PS I like your tosses!
PPS Your hair looks soft too!
PPPS Just cause I like your tosses doesn’t mean I’m on the volleyball team.
PPPPS But if you like someone on the volleyball team maybe someone with really cool hair and who is totally awesome and cool then I might be???’
Choking back a laugh at how ridiculous only Bokuto could be, Akaashi gripped the letter, feeling both an immense wave of exhilaration over the letter and guilt at having punished Bokuto earlier. He rushed upstairs and to his room feeling light headed and over-excitable.
Bokuto obviously wanted this whole endeavour to be a secret, so he would see how it played out. He went to bed unable to control the giddy feeling in his chest.
“Oh, hey Akaashi.” Bokuto smiled and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around Akaashi as the other stared blankly at him.
Nodding his head in greeting, Akaashi slowed to walk beside his teammate. “How was your night Bokuto-san?”
“It was good. It was fine. It, yeah.” Akaashi frowned, the other teen sounded frantic and nervous, maybe he was regretting his note?
No, he thought to himself, Bokuto may be reckless but he wasn’t thoughtless. He’ll have thought it through; he’ll know what he wants. Akaashi hoped anyway.
“Okay. Do you have my clothes?” He raised an eyebrow at Bokuto and stopped in front of his classroom.
Bokuto didn’t make eye contact. Akaashi frowned.
“Did you forget them?” he sighed and looked into the near empty class, “It’s fine, you can bring them in tomorrow.”
His frown deepened as the other boy shook his head and let out a small, nervous giggle. The spiker unzipped his bag and pulled out a carrier bag, handing it to Akaashi.
“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said softly, “this is your volleyball jacket.”
Bokuto nodded and smiled.
“Where’s my uniform?”
“Well, I thought maybe you’d like to wear this instead of the blazer?” Akaashi stared dead ahead as Bokuto resolutely didn’t make eye contact.
“I already have a team jacket. Where’s my uniform?”
Bokuto fished in his bag once again, slowly pulling out a plastic bag that was immediately snatched from his hand. Pulling out his blazer, all Akaashi could do was stare. Bokuto had somehow managed
to shrink his uniform from a men’s medium to a child’s small.
It was kind of impressive, actually.
He looked up at Bokuto, words of spite ready to roll off of his tongue, until he saw the terrified and downtrodden look in the other’s eyes. He’d tried. He had.
He may have been an idiot, but he was one who tried to rectify the problem he caused, and looking into his over-sized owlish eyes and at his usually happy-go-lucky face slumping down into a dark frown, when it fit a bright smile so well, Akaashi found all of his anger replaced with a flurry of butterflies and the sudden desperate need to see him smile again.
“I suppose I’ll just have to buy another one.” The words fell out of his mouth before he could even think of them, Bokuto’s face snapping up into a look of shock. “Thank you for trying, Bokuto-san. Here’s your jacket back.”
“It’s fine!” Bokuto grinned, smacking Akaashi on the arm. “You can keep it, I have a spare!”
He rushed off before Akaashi could refuse, and the setter was left speechless in the doorway to his classroom.
If Bokuto grinned a little too hard when Akaashi wore it at lunch, the dark haired teen didn’t mention anything.
When Bokuto had asked Akaashi if he’d stay behind for extra practise, Akaashi hadn’t expected the first five minutes to consist of Bokuto silently staring at him.
He felt – uncomfortable. Something he had never felt in Bokuto’s presence before. His cheeks were stained pink and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the moment, if all the stupid little Bokuto things the other had been doing were building up to this moment. Was Bokuto going to confess? Coughing quietly, he palmed the volleyball in his hands, feeling more and more conscious of himself with each passing second.
“Bokuto-san-”
“Akaashi-”
“Ah, you go first Bokuto-san.”
Bokuto let out a nervous laugh, seeming unable to look Akaashi in the eyes as he rocked back and forth. Akaashi spun the volleyball. The laugh lingered in the air and Akaashi felt like it was choking him.
“Would you like-”
“SHIN PADS.”
“Uh, what?” Akaashi’s face twisted into one of confusion, of all the things Bokuto was going to say that was not any of them, his fingers gripped the volleyball tightly. Bokuto looked as though he’d burst a blood vessel.
“I need new shin pads.” He mumbled out, “Would you like to shop for new ones with me?”
Akaashi thought his heart had stopped; he nodded slightly, “Of course, Bokuto-san.”
He tossed the ball. Bokuto spiked it perfectly.
-
He’d never been this nervous before. That was a lie, Akaashi had been just as nervous before big games and piano recitals. The point was that he was just as nervous as he was before big games and piano recitals. It was just Bokuto, and it was the same hang out they’d been doing for the past two years.
He steeled himself. Took in a deep breath of air and knocked on the door.
There was a pause, a moment of silence. Then, the sound of a scuffle, somebody half tumbling down the stairs. A faint voice called out that they’d “got it” and the door swung open to reveal a flustered looking Bokuto.
A flustered looking Bokuto wearing a pair of cargo shorts and an exercise top with a cartoon owl and ‘let’s have a hoot!’ printed on the front. Akaashi looked down at his skinny jeans, newly bought cardigan, and t shirt of some American band called ‘Porches’ and back to Bokuto.
“I thought we were going -”
“Shopping. Yeah! C’mon Akaashi!”
He herded Akaashi through the door and up to his room, where in the centre of the bed there sat a laptop open on a sports equipment website and a half full bowl of popcorn.
Ah, Akaashi thought.
He’d been severely mistaken.
Looking at Bokuto and the set up in the room it was safe to assume that this wasn’t a date. This was just, Bokuto. Excitable, enthusiastic Bokuto, who hated being alone. Akaashi couldn’t even be frustrated, at least the spiker wanted to be with him.
He sat down on Bokuto’s bed, grabbing a few pieces of popcorn to pick at whilst Bokuto rambled about the top market equipment. He tried to ignore how light headed he felt when Bokuto pressed their thighs together, or moved in close to reach the popcorn bowl across from him.
“You look really good today.”
Akaashi side eyed Bokuto, who continued to stare intensely at a pair of bright red shin pads, his face nearly matching them in colour.
“Yeah, I know.” Akaashi shrugged, plucking at his cardigan sleeves. He wanted to see how far he could push the other one’s blush – almost as a punishment for giving Akaashi the wrong idea. He wasn’t spiteful. Not often, anyway.
Okay, maybe right now he was being a little spiteful, and if he was completely honest, right now he was feeling a little smug to go with it. There was practically steam coming from Bokuto’s head he was blushing so much and Akaashi couldn’t help but internally grin at the win.
“I mean, you always look good to me Akaashi.”
Akaashi choked on the popcorn he was eating, he could barely breathe and couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of Bokuto’s mouth. It wasn’t the words that shocked him really, he thought as Bokuto smacked a hand on his back to help out, it was the way that the other had said them. Akaashi was used to the random compliments he’d get from Bokuto, the other always wanting to spread some joy to his teammates, but this one. This one was practically pornographic. The soft way Bokuto had said Akaashi’s name had the other blushing down to his toes and he couldn’t help the thoughts that suddenly rushed through his head.
As Akaashi’s breathing calmed down, he turned to an overly concerned Bokuto who was practically falling over himself in fear.
“Are you okay? What happened? Did it go down the wrong way? Akaashi are you listening, can you hear me, are you alright? Akaashi?”
At the barrage of questions, Akaashi found himself closing his eyes, a small smile emerging on his face.
“I’m fine Bokuto-san. Thank you. I do think I should probably go home though, it’d getting late.” Bokuto nodded dejectedly and left the room to grab Akaashi’s bag.
The moment the spiker left the room, his phone buzzed aggressively on the bed drawing Akaashi’s attention to it. He gazed absently at the screen for a moment, not taking the words in, before doing a double take and reading the lit up screen.
The intricate set of emoji’s Akaashi presumed meant ‘Kuroo’ had sent Bokuto a message that simply said: “Result: some sik makeouts and then Brokuto, you get your stoic-faced Angel. Lunch tomoz?”
Looking away from the phone, Akaashi left Bokuto’s room to find the other in the hallway. They walked to the door in silence, and just before Bokuto could open his mouth to say goodbye Akaashi leaned in and kissed him.
“See you tomorrow, Bokuto.” Akaashi left, glowing with the after feeling of the kiss and the memory of the smile Bokuto had had on his face.
Despite the past month’s distresses, Akaashi felt pretty fantastic today. He’d kissed Bokuto. The other had kissed him back (and considering from the grin on his face, enjoyed it too.) Walking into class, he felt on top of the world.
At least he did until a speeding Asaba barged into him, knocking him to the ground as she shrieked down the corridor. Pushing himself up, Akaashi watched her go with a confused expression that could just as easily be mistaken for boredom. He shrugged and walked into the classroom, certain it couldn’t have anything to do with him.
Certainty be damned.
Akaashi felt rage bubbling through him as he took in the scene in his homeroom. The room was in a state, students screaming and cowering, papers flying about and desks clattering to the floor. And at the centre of this mess, tied to Akaashi’s chair no less, was a squawking, flailing, terrified, Horned Owl.
Bokuto was dead.
Akaashi turned to storm out of the classroom, ready to find the culprit, when a large hand clasped him on his shoulder. He turned and looked up to his teacher, immediately resigning himself to his fate. Bokuto could be dealt with later.
An hour and a half later, Akaashi emerged from the teacher’s lounge with a week full of detention and an even stronger urge to kill Bokuto.
Akaashi knew that, despite his otherwise stoic expression, he had a tendency to illicit fear in others from a single glance if the mood took him. Right now, he didn’t think it was possible for him to channel any other emotion.
Never in his entire schooling career had he ever had a detention. Ever.
He was furious. Bokuto’s hair brained scheme had resulted in him taking the fall, and when the setter finally found him, he was going to put the Fear of Akaashi in him. If he thought it'd be alright to do this crap just because Akaashi had a crush on him, well he clearly didn't know Akaashi well enough.
Practically flying down the corridor, Akaashi slammed open the gym doors and stared at Bokuto from across the room.
The third-year had been practising alone from the looks of things, the sea of volleyballs surrounding him showing the sheer amount of serves he’d been attempting. His face had been set into a steely gaze, so focussed on his practise he barely registered Akaashi entering, the moment he did his face broke into a huge grin.
“Hey Akaashi, do you wa-”
“How dare you.”
“What?”
“A week of detention, Bokuto-san. Explain yourself.”
The grin immediately fell from Bokuto’s face. Akaashi stood across from him, rubbing his fingers together and gazing resolutely at the wing spiker.
Neither of them spoke.
The silence stretched on until Akaashi caught sight of a movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Bokuto walking towards him carrying a large plastic bag. He handed it over to Akaashi and refused to look him in the eye, jumping slightly on his toes the whole time.
Akaashi looked between Bokuto and the bag in his hands, face changing from furious to his usual deadpan as he clutched the plastic.
“Bokut-”
“Open it!” His voice cracked, and he still hadn’t made eye contact with Akaashi.
The vice-captain sighed, realising that they’d never progress if he didn’t do this. He opened up the plastic bag and pulled out a giant toy owl with “YOU’RE OWL I NEED” shoddily stitched onto the front.
Akaashi looked at the owl, then to Bokuto, then back at the owl.
“I stitched the writing myself.”
“Ah.”
The silence stretched between them, Akaashi looking at the owl’s uncomfortably stoic expression with one to match. He felt rather than saw Bokuto begin to fidget beside him.
“So, uh, so, do you like it?”
Looking up in surprise, Akaashi nodded slightly.
“It’s very good, Bokuto-san. Um but I don’t quite-”
“GO OUT WITH ME!” Bokuto blurted out, his face a blotchy red and looking as though he may run any moment. “Please.”
Akaashi blinked once. Then once more. He looked at the owl he was holding and read the stitching again: “YOU’RE OWL I NEED”.
“Did you just, uh.”
“Y-yeah. I like you a lot Akaashi. Would you go out with me?”
Akaashi smiled at the owl, and pulled it closer to himself, feeling ever so slightly embarrassed in his elation.
“I’d love to Bokuto-san,” the captain grinned massively, poofing his chest out and preening, “But I have detention.”
Bokuto deflated.
Akaashi smirked.
“The only way I’d be able to is if someone else…” he gave Bokuto the side eye and sighed dramatically.
“I’ll confess my crimes Akaashi!” Bokuto was yelling, striking his ‘hero’s pose’ and staring forward resolutely, “I’ll take your detention for the good of our relationship!”
Akaashi smiled and laced his fingers into Bokuto’s, “My hero.”