Work Text:
Akaashi Keiji is perfect; polite, pious, proud—
“Procacious,” his mother spits, and the word stings almost as much as her palm against his cheek. His teeth ache and he waits for his eyes to burn but they don’t. They haven’t in weeks, and his mother’s stare is harsh, intent, hungry: she’s waiting for him to cry and beg her to forgive him, to repent, to be fearful of what will come if she doesn’t pardon him. He refuses, holds his ground and her stare and he feels a little smug when she grinds her teeth, flares her nostrils, whispers for him to go to his room and get on with his homework or so help me God- As he climbs the stairs his stomach rumbles and sinks as his dad watches with heavy eyes: Akaashi Keiji has fallen from grace and his wings have been picked clean.
+
Bokuto is the sun, he finds himself thinking more often than not. Bright, warm, cheerful, near blinding at times. Nothing seems to faze him or stop him from doing what he wants, be it team mates or teachers or, Akaashi can only imagine, his parents. He bounds into the gym a ball of white hot energy, talking on and on and on about things that Akaashi can only catch snippets of as he slinks away into the locker room, Bokuto hot on his heels.
“Today can we-” he starts as Akaashi strips down, but pauses and Akaashi can only guess why, his undershirt halfway over his head when Bokuto says, voice quiet and serious: “Akaashi, have you lost weight?”
The question shocks him. Makes his skin crawl and his bones ache as he stands frozen for a minute, undershirt balled up in his hands. He fights the urge to glance down because he knows he will see pale skin, a little rib, maybe more rib than before but— he turns to glare at Bokuto, to open his mouth to ask him why he thinks that and even if he does think that what gives him the right to ask about it so plainly, but suddenly Bokuto’s right there so close that Akaashi could kiss him and his palm is warm against his cheek and it feels very right but at the same time it all feels so wrong-
“What happened to your eye?” Bokuto says as calm as Akaashi has ever seen him and it cracks like a whip down his spine and he’s jerking away and upright, polite pious proud Akaashi, telling him nothing it’s fine I was practicing at home and miscalculated I’ll be out warming up for some tosses and running away before everything goes to shit and takes it with him.
+
“Stress,” he tells Bokuto at lunch.
“About what?” Bokuto says through a mouthful of food.
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
Akaashi glances over at him and his chest feels heavy and warm and lazy; like he does on a Sunday morning when he wakes before his alarm and is allowed to bask in the sunlight streaming through the curtains, caught between asleep and awake and everything is blissfully perfect.
He shrugs, takes another bite of his sandwich. “Maybe not everything, but most things.”
“But you’re smart,” Bokuto says, and instead Akaashi hears his father saying that it isn’t enough, that, when I was at school, and it was the better school, Keiji, you’ve already let yourself down in that regard, I was top of the top sets for the top subjects and- “and you’re amazing at volleyball,” volleyball? Really Keiji? I’ll give you a year and then you’re quitting, do you hear me? No son of mine is giving up top tier universities for volleyball of all things- “and you’re just really lovely, honestly. What’ve you to be stressed about?”
Akaashi blinks, swallowing the last bite of his sandwich. “You think I’m lovely, Bokuto?”
Bokuto blushes and squirms a little, spilling rice down his trousers, and Akaashi thinks he’s rather lovely too.
+
So far this year he has been lucky with volleyball. The team scrapped evening practice and instead they meet up at the weekends, which suits Akaashi fine and his parents are married to their law firm and the idea that their sweet, darling Keiji does nothing on Saturday and Sunday but study, use the home gym, eat, and study some more. He laughs a little as he slips out of the front door and sprints to school, meeting the team outside the gym with a nod and feeling that he can only assume is freedom.
They practice hard, as always. Bokuto’s bouncing between elated and inconsolable keeping Akaashi on his toes all day, and having to step in as captain for most of it. Bokuto moons over him for it, which makes everything a little bit better, and he’s so busy that he forgets that his parents sometimes come home for lunch until it’s too late.
“Keiji,” echoes around the gym and he freezes, his lungs seize, his heart pounds somewhere between his ears and wow, he thinks, maybe this is what death feels like. He turns slowly, dampening his lips, and schools his features as he meets his mother’s gaze. She’s the picture of grace, all sleek black lines in a severe suit, sharp heels, perfectly painted pointed nails drumming his heartbeat onto her sleeve. “It’s time to go.”
He doesn’t bother to argue. He gives Bokuto a stern look that says no, don’t, please as he grabs his stuff and follows her to the car, his ears, neck, chest, eyes burning. She’s silent the entire drive and he takes this time to pray.
+
She almost kills him. She screams and asks his dad what they did to deserve such an insolent child who can’t do the one thing they’ve asked of him.
And Akaashi snaps. Yells back, his throat hoarse and voice high and cracking as he tells her it’s his life it’s his life it’s his life. Not hers. Not theirs. And all he wants is to be happy. Why is that such a crime?
She throws a glass across the room and it barely misses him, making his dad swear and his mother shriek, out of frustration or fear at how close she was he doesn’t know or care. And he runs. Barricades himself in his room as his dad calms her down and puts her to bed.
“Why can’t you give it up, Keiji? That’s all we want.”
“And what’s next,” he whispers back. His dad sighs and creaks down the hallway.
He waits an hour before he dares to sneak out to the bathroom, cranking up the shower as hot as it can go and standing under the spray, relishing the sting of the water against his skin. He clambers out half an hour later, skin prickling at the onslaught of cool air and he wipes the condensation from the mirror, stares at himself, red faced and wide eyed and almost painfully young and helpless and afraid and he wants to cry. He looks in the mirror and says his own name and all he hears is a death rattle.
+
Bokuto is waiting outside of his house when he leaves on Monday morning.
“Grounded?” he asks as they walk to school.
“She’s given me a term as an apology for almost killing me with a whiskey tumbler.”
Bokuto’s silent for a moment, and when he speaks his voice is shaky. “Akaashi, is it safe for you to be living there?”
“I don’t know,” and Akaashi honestly doesn’t, “but I don’t really have all that much of a choice, do I?”
He gives Bokuto a smile, and Bokuto’s face crumples like somebody has just broken his heart.
+
Akaashi doesn’t see him again until the end of school as he’s trudging home.
“Akaashi!” He blinks and looks up from his phone, his mother having texted him to say that she and his father are both working late and they’re very sorry but there’s food in the freezer he can reheat if he’s hungry. As he looks around for Bokuto he wonders when texts like these started to make him happy. “Akaashi, you’re coming over to mine to study.”
“What?”
“I know, you’ve never been to my house before, have you?” Bokuto says as he steers Akaashi out of the gate and in the opposite direction of his home.
“Bokuto-”
“No. You’re coming to my house to study and have food with me, maybe watch a movie. We’re going to de-stress you, Akaashi, if it’s the last thing we do.”
He gives up because he wants to. He hasn’t done something like this since middle school, when his parents were softer and kinder and happier for him to be happy. And Bokuto looks like this is the greatest thing he’s ever planned and he seems so excited that Akaashi probably couldn’t say no even if he wanted to.
“Here we are,” Bokuto says after about ten minutes of walking. His house is nondescript, not small, cosy looking. The lights are on and as they approach Akaashi catches a whiff of something mouth-watering. And he freezes.
“Wait, are we eating with your parents?”
“Of course we are,” Bokuto says as he unlocks the door, grinning at him. “They’re nice, don’t worry.”
Akaashi’s palms are sweating as he enters, follows Bokuto in removing his shoes, pads after him into the kitchen, not really taking anything in, too busy thinking about how not to mess this up.
“Koutarou! There you are.” Bokuto has his mother’s smile. She beams at her son and hugs him tight, asks him about school and practice and whether he’d heard back about that project he was worried about. And then she spots him. Her brows arch a bit but her smile doesn’t falter, and she whispers something to Bokuto that makes him squawk and flush bright red. “You must be Akaashi.”
He swallows hard and nods, starts to extend a hand, but it’s crushed against his chest as he’s pulled into the tightest hug he’s ever experienced in his life. He’s frozen stiff until he’s released, her hands moving to his shoulders and a warm smile on her face. “It’s so lovely to meet you. Koutarou’s told us all about you; always going on and on about how smart you are and how you’re the brains behind the team and just a joy to know, really. We probably have you to thank for his miraculous recovery in the attendance department! Thank you so much for taking care of him, Akaashi.”
What he wants to do is thank her. Because nobody has ever been that nice to him before; no parent has ever said that he was any good at anything, and his heart is beating so hard that he’s amazed she can’t hear it and his brain has borderline short-circuited. But what happens is he opens his mouth and all that comes out is a rather strangled sob. She doesn’t do what his mother did when he cried, which was hand him a tissue and pat him on the head and tell him to stop that nonsense. She pulls him into a hug again and rubs his back as he cries onto her shoulder and tries to articulate why he is crying and that he’s sorry and he didn’t mean it. Bokuto’s still in the room, his brain supplies, and shortly after his brain also says that maybe this was his plan all along. Not to make him cry, of course. But to make him feel valued and loved by someone in his life that qualifies as a parental figure.
Eventually his sobbing subsides and she lets him go, disappearing to get him a blanket and telling Bokuto to get him a warm drink and some tissues and to make himself useful. He gives Akaashi a small smile and opens his mouth to say something, but then his mother re-appears and asks Akaashi if he’s any good at cooking, and if he is would he like to help make the meal for the evening.
“Akaashi’s a really good cook!” Bokuto supplies when Akaashi’s brain fails him yet again. “He makes all his lunches himself and they’re super tasty.”
“Are you saying my lunches are sub-par, Koutarou?” Akaashi grins as Bokuto stammers and tries to correct himself in the face of his mother’s faux wrath, and even manages to laugh when Bokuto tries to steal a few bites of the stew before it’s served and gets a whack on the head for his trouble.
Bokuto’s father arrives just in time for the meal, and Akaashi freezes for a moment when he enters the kitchen. He blinks, Bokuto’s father blinks, and then:
“Akaashi I take it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The man breaks into a grin and ruffles his hair as he passes to take his seat.
“It’s wonderful to finally meet the miracle worker that turned our son into a borderline respectable member of society. Marvellous job you’ve done, lad.”
Akaashi can feel himself go pink, and is honestly quite amazed he doesn’t burst into tears again. It might have something to do with Bokuto grabbing his hand under the table and giving it a squeeze and a smile to go with it.
+
He ends up staying the night. His experience with sleepovers extends to, well, nothing.
“I’ve never stayed at a friend’s house before,” he tells Bokuto.
“Well you can either sleep on a futon on my bedroom floor, or,” Bokuto clears his through, clasps his hands behind his back, and gives Akaashi a look. “Or, you can share my bed with me.”
“Your bed.” Bokuto blinks. “Please.” Bokuto blinks again. “Unless it’s a problem?”
“Not at all!” Bokuto practically yells, grabbing his hand and pulling him upstairs, shouting something to his parents about video games and ‘male bonding time’, that gets a great bellow of a laugh out of his father.
‘Male bonding time’ consists of working their way through Bokuto’s substantial amount of sweets that he has hoarded in his bedside table and playing video games until 2am.
“Thank you, by the way,” Akaashi yawns, curling into Bokuto and blinking drowsily. They’re both crammed into his far too small bed, legs tangled together, Akaashi’s head pillowed on his chest.
“What for?” Bokuto’s fingers have been lazily skimming over his back for half an hour, and his breath rustles his hair on the exhale.
“This,” Akaashi’s fingers tangle in Bokuto’s shirt, “for making me feel, well,” he swallows hard, “loved.”
Bokuto’s fingers still for a moment, and then: “Akaashi, I’d make you feel loved every single day if you’d let me.”
That stuns him for a minute, because it’s the most poetic and level headed thing he’s ever heard Bokuto say in his life. He pulls back a little, gets a good look at Bokuto’s face. He looks so sincere in the grainy glow of his television and the moonlight streaming in through the window. He looks so sincere that it makes Akaashi grin so hard it hurts.
“Okay,” he says, and he kisses him.