Work Text:
“Clear your Saturday.”
Akaashi looks up from his stack of papers, jotted notes creased around the edges. Beside his desk, his supervisor blankets his vision, folder in hand and eyes long flitted elsewhere.
Akaashi puts his pen down and sits at attention.
“It’s clear,” he answers.
His supervisor flicks him a cool glance. “You’ll get the details Friday night, so be prepared. If you can’t make this shift, we’ll find someone else.”
“I’ll be there,” Akaashi says, but the man has already brushed past, disappearing between the errant stacks of unpacked boxes and a hundred manga volumes.
There’s a sound of commiseration from the cubicle next to his—Masuda, who wouldn’t save a baby if it meant he’d have to work overtime—and Akaashi tilts his head with a delicate smile. “Don’t mind,” Masuda says, “he’ll let up a bit after you’ve been here long enough.”
Akaashi wonders if Masuda is pleased with his life as it is, lounging comfortably on an aged cushion, trapped between two grey, lifeless dividers.
“I don’t mind,” Akaashi can only say. “I’m sure he will.”
The sensation of landing the job eludes him nowadays; the exhilarating cocktail of disappointment and anticipation in getting his letter in the mail. It was standardized, impersonal, but it was something. It used to be something. And Akaashi isn’t the type to complain, not now, not ever. He would stuff that letter in his pocket and walk into his workplace with his head held high and a mantra between his ears that wouldn’t let him suffer less.
It’s just that he can’t quite grasp the texture of that silvery little dream of his as well he could before. He can’t remember when the days bled into weeks, into months, into years, and the details seem to graze his fingers and slither on by. The lights in the office were suns in the dark, but his eyes had accustomed, and now they’re just lights.
But it was alright. It’s perfectly manageable; he can take his name being called, he can turn off his thoughts when need be, he can sit at his desk and keep his Saturdays, his Sundays, his evenings and his mornings free because this is something that others bleed for. He wasn’t allowed to forget that.
Drip, drip, drip.
He picks up the receiver for his massive desk-side telephone, and dials a number stapled to his corkboard.
“Hello,” Akaashi slides in the moment he hears a breath. “It’s Keiji. I’d like to talk to you about the event this Saturday.”
“Ah,” says the voice, silky, lit by the sound of someone chewing in the background. “My consolation prize?”
“Not at all, sensei. You’re a finalist. Being featured by us will greatly—”
“—Mhmm.” He’s eating, definitely eating, and Akaashi catches the voice curdle around its mouthful. “I know the drill. Funny that you can’t think of anything better to say than that bull, though. Let me tell you, the way it’s going, you’re never going to get out of that department.”
Akaashi must have fallen silent for far too long, heat prickling behind his skull, because Masuda shifts uncomfortably in the cubicle beside him, straining to overhear.
“Sensei,” he speaks softly, kindly, because he’s good at his job when he wants to be, “would you have space in your schedule tomorrow for a visit? If it’d be more comfortable for you, I’m happy to meet you at your house.”
“I’ve shit to do too, you know,” the mangaka replies. He really had the most lilting voice, the one that Akaashi occasionally wishes he had so he’d sound more persuasive, and it was entirely wasted on his personality. “Friday night, when I’m out of the studio. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” says Akaashi. “I’ll ask for your address from the competition team.”
“Sure. Do whatever you want.”
“Will you have a propos—”
There’s a low giggle in the background, and the line clicks dead.
“Akaashi?”
“Yes?” If one more person calls his name in the next thirty minutes, someone will be harmed.
“Everything alright? If you need some tips, I’ve got plenty, you know. Just a seat away.”
“You know what, Masuda-san?” Akaashi closes his eyes. “I think I can manage.”
- - -
The hours pass by in flashes. In moments of consciousness, Akaashi can feel prickling at the edge of his skin, the relief of the room when it hits seven. There’s a miasma of exhausted murmuring, but there are a few moments of laughter here and there and chairs being scraped against the tiled floor.
Masuda crumples a wad of paper and pats Akaashi’s shoulder as if they were friends.
“Don’t work yourself too hard,” he says as he leaves, “they’re gonna need you come Saturday.”
“Care to lend a hand, Masuda-san?”
The man laughs, louder than he has all day, and turns the corner.
Alone with his sticky notes and comments dancing along the edges of a blurring manuscript, it only occurs to Akaashi when it hits ten at night that what he’s feeling is hunger. His feet pace him back out of the dimly lit building; the night is oddly clear, and Akaashi decides to brave the wasted time and heads for the station nearby instead. It’s only a few stops until he gets off where he wants to be: the food street famous amongst his alma mater’s students. The area wasn’t particularly clean nor safe, but the food was tucked away in secretive corners and when the time was right, the food hawkers would open for a few hours when the police were off duty, and they sold the best snacks in all of Tokyo.
The air crisp with the scent of a spring shower’s passing, Akaashi hums as he walks, his hands finding their way into his pockets, free of paper, pens, and burden.
- - -
The shower had a short stay earlier in the day, but Akaashi can’t bring himself to mind his loafers kicking up small sparks of light from the glittering pavement. His hunger had faded a little, the whistle of night owls and his gut aching with a sudden wave of words, moments, notes along the wind that he had lived along these tiny, speckled paths.
“Well, look who it is!”
Akaashi turns, letting his body bring his gaze around and the wry smile creeps into his lips before he realizes it. The old lady that he and Bokuto used to bother the most for extra croquettes peered out from under a piece of maroon tarp. As he got closer, he took in the deeper crinkles about her eyes, the mistier gaze, and the voice that called him was softer than he recalled. But her smile was wide, warm and Akaashi’s throat tightened.
“You’re an awful boy, Keiji,” the auntie tuts, and Akaashi can only nod. “Koutarou comes by sometimes to see me, but you’ve disappeared!” From a small toaster oven behind her, she pulls out a paper bag stuffed to the brim and presses it into Akaashi’s hands. “Half with vegetables,” she tells him, “because I know you don’t eat well.”
There are four in there, all his favourite flavours, and he bites into them with a stuffy nose and the old lady watches him with satisfaction as he does. The oil seeps through the packet and over his hands; the juice from the grilled beef flicks onto his cheek, and Akaashi scrubs it away with the back of his palm.
“I missed you, auntie,” he says after the first croquette disappears. The old lady chuckles in that knowing way of hers and hands him a tissue.
“Of course you do. You just forget it sometimes.” Those were her last of the day, and she reaches for a cloth to scrub down the table. “But that’s the job of youth, isn’t it? The world would stop if we were too busy missing everybody. Why, when I was your age, I was going to set off and spin Japan on its head with foreign curry recipes.”
“But I love your curry bread,” Akaashi says with the wrong words, but she understands, he thinks, with the way she smiles at him like he deserved the world.
“It’s not quite the whole of Japan,” she says, “but I think Tokyo is enough. I put the meat on those bones, didn’t I? You and all your scrawny classmates.” She’s close enough to knead a knuckle into Akaashi’s shoulder and he winces in pain. “Still too skinny. You need to smack more of those awful yellow balls.”
When was the last time he touched a volleyball?
Bokuto’s cackle flashes through his mind like a poltergeist, and Akaashi, although not the type of person to mark the days’ passing, feels behind his eyes the two-month absence of his best friend. Bokuto was busy, of course, as was Akaashi. Circling each other around the same city, but the streets are chasms, the zebra crossings guarded bridges, and Akaashi wonders how it could be so easy for everything to slip away, whilst forgetting was the hardest thing in the world.
The griddle is spotless now, and the auntie catches his eye before he turns to go.
“How is Koutarou doing?” She asks. She knows perfectly well.
Akaashi’s goodbye sounds too much like a farewell to his own ears. The night is silent, with the last of the stores closing up and the life migrating to warmer, boozier pastures. He knows that he should still be hungry, so he eats as he walks, fingers cupping the fried bread to catch the crumbs. Akaashi does his best, but his stomach feels full to bursting by the time two are left and on a whim, because all the photos on his phone are either sent by others or of strange home appliances, he lifts the last two croquettes up at the sky and takes a photo of them against the backdrop of a sleeping street.
Carefully, more carefully than he’s been with any of his work, Akaashi cradles them all the way back to the office. The manga department’s tiny pantry is clean and empty with everyone’s lunches gone, and he sets the croquettes in a clear bag with his name scribbled loud and clear on all sides. He warrants that it’ll be a few more hours until his back starts hurting too much to keep working, and it’s been a while since Akaashi’s been able to catch the last train home anyway. The capsule hotel staff in Shinjuku two streets down already know him by name.
The chair he sinks into drinks hungrily away at his odd reverie, the melancholia, the nostalgia seeps into the gritty wool and the paperwork swims back into focus. The lingering taste of frying oil clings to the edge of his lips, and Akaashi remembers that he’s an office worker. Office workers work.
That is, until a violent flash cracks through the cubicle and Akaashi the Office Worker has to pause and squint at the tiny notification on his phone.
‘Keiji.’ It says. ‘Croquettes. I’m STARVING.’ Followed by a picture of Bokuto Koutarou looking sadly into the camera, his hair down and the gym lighting harsh on his complexion. The intermittent fasting is ruining Bokuto’s life, as Akaashi has been frequently reminded, but the absurdity of it all creeps into the godless hour and Akaashi bursts into laughter. He laughs from his belly at the silly pout, at the ridiculous amount of sweat on Bokuto’s face and his awful bangs, and the hollowness of the office as well as the scent of old ink on paper in every breath—Akaashi’s favourite smell.
He texts back faster than he knew his fingers could move, and when the light fades with his phone locked again, Akaashi frowns, because a wild idea has barrelled into his mind and is taunting him. He might not even be entirely sane to suggest it, but it’s late, the twilight hour calls, and madness is afoot.
He hasn’t called this person in a while, although arguably out of a promise to leave him well alone until the deadline approaches, and he’s almost zen with anticipation. Akaashi still can’t quite grasp the wide-eyed brilliance of all the futures he could’ve lived the first time he stepped into his dream company, the taste of excitement long faded from his tongue, but he can tell the moments when life beckons, the bright phone-lit moments of pleasure keep the nectar dripping just enough to taste.
The line connects after three rings. A tired, but most certainly awake voice answers.
“Akaashi-san? Please don’t tell me that it’s the deadline. It’s dark outside.”
“No, not at all,” Akaashi reassures him. He marvels at the calm in his words, although his nerves feel as if they’re alight. He tucks the phone into the crook of his shoulder and reaches for a pen.
“Now that your serial’s almost ending, Udai-san, I was wondering … have you ever considered doing a manga about volleyball?”