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The first thing he notices is the strange dusty blue of the sky. Akaashi never wakes early enough to know what the sky is supposed to look like, so he files this current shade of just blue enough to be melancholic, but not bleak away next to it’s not fair to call it morning if it’s this pitch black and mysterious misty haze for future reference.
Despite the golden leaves still clinging to the trees, it feels as freezing as the dead of winter.
Tilting his head back, he breathes in the fresh air. The rush of cold in his lungs makes his eyes water, but it loosens the iron grip of his pounding headache. Akaashi sighs, and the early morning is chilly enough that his breath puffs out in his face.
Everything is too bright and surreal, and Akaashi knows it’s because he’s only conscious because of the too big cup of coffee he had a couple hours ago, but he can’t help the anxious twitching of his fingers for a pencil and a sketchbook. Outside feels too big and too vast after hours of sitting at the cramped up library desk, squinting at his glaring laptop screen and cursing himself for not scrawling out a neater data table.
Just when Akaashi begins to contemplate the benefits of dragging himself out of bed earlier every morning--it’s so quiet and it would be the perfect time for sketching, if only every morning could be as bitingly sharp as this one--he hears the loud slapping of feet on concrete followed by the faint sound of some sort of death metal.
His headache rears its ugly head when the tapping only grows louder.
Akaashi pulls out his phone, squinting at the screen and wondering who in the world is awake and jogging at five thirty in the morning.
Whoever it is, they have shit taste in music, he thinks when the heavy guitar only grows louder.
He buries his chin in his soft woolen scarf, suddenly feeling the cold wind blow through and wishing he were in bed right now. Or that he was in bed and could actually sleep instead of being hopped up on caffeine and antsy as hell despite being so fucking tired he could barely keep his head up.
The river across the street looks really cold. Akaashi is contemplating whether or not diving in head first might wake him up some when the jogger comes barrelling into his field of vision, fanfare of heavy metal and all.
His ridiculous hair is all Akaashi can think about. That, and his horrible taste in music. The black and white streaks of this mysterious morning jogger’s hair are sticking up like one of his art brushes, and Akaashi feels faint horror when he wonders how much earlier the man must’ve been awake if he’s had time to style that mess before he left.
Akaashi hopes the glare he levels in the man’s direction is enough to convey everything he feels about the situation--namely, how dare you look so cheerful for being up and jogging at this ungodly hour of the morning while I sit here and suffer?
If the man is bothered, he doesn’t show it.
Instead, Akaashi is greeted with a bright smile and a brief wave of the hand, gorgeous golden eyes actually locking gazes with his own sullen glare.
Akaashi is keenly aware of his own general unkemptness in this moment--the flyaway curls of his hair that he’d stopped trying to tame after realizing everyone was too busy in lectures taking notes to look around, the dark bags probably under his eyes, the general lethargy and grumpiness that was all he could muster up his emotions to feel…
The man is gone in the next moment, taking the hammering of his sneakers and the blaring of his stupid music with him.
Akaashi is already committing that smile to memory, thinking of the exact curve of his lips and vaguely wondering if he’d ever see the guy again. (Probably not, he thinks, because hell if he’s going to get up this early ever in his life.)
It’s only when he finds himself drawing the mysterious morning person’s face, over and over on his biochem notes at lunch, never quite capturing the tilt of his head or the gleam in his eyes, that Akaashi realizes that he’s utterly and completely fucked.
The smile is always easy. Akaashi could draw that eager grin in his sleep, now, if he wanted. The white row of straight teeth and the slight lean on one side that makes the smile just a bit cocky turn out exactly the way he remembers it.
The hair is also easy. Akaashi is usually meticulous with his art, and when he had more time he used to spend hours perfecting lineart until it was as clean as he could make it, but with the mysterious jogger’s hair he lets his pencil fly out in messy scribbles.
It never looks the same, every time he tries to draw the man, but that’s what makes it so perfect.
It’s the eyes that always elude him. Akaashi has been called a perfectionist by enough people in his life that the label seems to fit well enough in his own mind so it frustrates him to no end when his sketches always come out lifeless and dull because he doesn’t quite seem to be able to capture the gleam in the jogger’s eyes.
He starts to wonder if maybe he’s remembering things wrong, if maybe everything just seemed so bright and different that morning because he felt so dead on the inside.
But then he remembers that damn look on the man’s face, not even unfazed by Akaashi’s glare, and he knows there’s something wrong with the way he’s drawing it.
He sighs, flipping to the next blank page in his sketchbook and fills it with doodles of eyes he can spot in the cafeteria around him. It’s almost satisfying, how easy it is in comparison, but it does nothing to ease the twitch of frustration in his fingers.
When Akaashi finds himself wondering if sodium chloride flames would be the right colour to try for the man’s eyes instead of writing anything down in his lab that he realizes he had a bit more of a problem than he’d thought.
Any day this week won’t do--he has an orgo midterm Friday and shuffling around like a zombie with thoughts as slow as molasses would probably be the best way to go about failing that course.
And as much of a problem he has, a weekend full of blessed sleep without morning classes or too much homework is too much of a sacrifice.
So Akaashi makes a note on his phone to set the alarm for 5 a.m. again on Monday, wondering why he hates himself the entire time.
Even though he finds himself reaching for the sketchbook whenever the professor’s voice drones on for too long in class or when he drops his bag down in the library, Akaashi forces himself to make meticulous notes, making flow charts for recognizing isomers and colour coding functional groups to distract himself from the bright flash of golden gleaming eyes that he just can’t seem to get himself to stop thinking about.
He aces the midterm. It's the easiest one he's taken since high school.
He tells himself this is a positive sign, goes to bed Sunday night at ten, but doesn’t fall asleep until two a.m. anyways.
Why is everything white? is added to his list of skies he's seen. Akaashi squints, trying to blink the sunlight away. He's about five minutes early, but only if the jogger keeps to the same schedule every day, which he might not.
It’s cold. He looks down at the steaming cup of coffee in his hands, wondering if it would be too pathetic to bring it up closer for warmth because his face feels like it’s going to fall off from the cold.
Akaashi keeps shooting glances down the street he first saw the jogger on. Nobody shows up, and there is no music blasting somewhere off into the distance.
When his jeans start to feel uncomfortably wet from the melting frost, Akaashi starts to wonder if maybe this was all a huge mistake. He leans back, even the freezing bench feeling comfortable with how tired he is right now. His eyes start to droop, and he tells himself he’ll just rest for a little bit--the jogger didn’t seem to be coming around any time soon anyways…
Akaashi wakes up to sunshine.
He rubs his eyes, confused. He takes a sip of his coffee but nearly spits it out once he realizes that it’s absolutely freezing.
Pulling out his phone, Akaashi’s eyes widen and he shoots out of the bench because it’s already 8:30, which means that he’s late for his first lecture and he’s missed the jogger. Dammit, he thinks, taking off at a jog towards campus. It's frustrating that he missed the jogger again, but mostly he hates himself for being somehow unable to get up in the morning like normal people and stay up.
The back of his jacket is still damp and his ass is still wet and if he catches a cold from dozing off outside Akaashi swears he’s going home and recycling all the sketches of the stupidly fascinating jogger.
His throat feels awful and he’s sneezing but somehow, Akaashi still finds himself doodling. He decides that it’s not worth it to throw out the entire sketchbook and he hates ripping pages out with a passion.
So he keeps sketching--and it still doesn’t turn out the way he wants it to--and mutters curses under his breath.
After a week of coughing and an entire tin of tea, Akaashi feels well enough to try again. He tosses the nearly filled sketchbook into his bag and runs out the door. It’s nearly 5:30, and if he misses the jogger again he’ll probably waste more time he could be using to study filling up the rest of his sketchbook.
He glares at the bench before carefully wiping off all the frost and settling down. Today, he drank half his coffee already before he left, and he drains the rest of it now, hoping that it’ll help to keep him awake even though he can feel his eyelids drooping already.
Akaashi wonders when his life became so sad that seeing a random hot jogger was considered so interesting that this was the second morning he deliberately got up at too-early o’clock to see.
But then he hears the sound of faraway music--classic rock this time--and despite everything he feels a small smile quirk up.
He pulls out the sketchbook, pencil poised and ready for the moment. The brief thought that this might be a little creepy occurs to him, but it’s not like Akaashi is stalking the guy or anything so he brushes it away. At this point, it’s mostly his pride as an artist on the line, even though actually talking to the guy would be a nice bonus.
And then, just on time, the jogger rounds the corner.
His hair is down today. Akaashi chokes a little on nothing when he notices how cute that smile is under that mop of black and white hair. His pencil is moving almost of its own accord, and he realizes that drawing the man’s hair down is just as freeing as it is spiked up.
Even though every muscle in his body is screaming at him to go back to bed, Akaashi manages a slightly painful smile when the jogger approaches.
The jogger smiles back, hand jumping up again like last time to give a small wave.
Akaashi finds himself waving back.
Then, he realizes that he forgot to draw anything at all, and the jogger is already turning, jogging further and further away and…
“Wait!” Akaashi calls out.
Shit.
He clamps his mouth shut, but it’s too late because the cute jogger is already turning around. And he’s coming back. To the bench. Where Akaashi is sitting. With the sketchbook filled with almost creepy, basically obsessive sketches of the man in question lying open on his lap and some half done sketches clearly visible. And it’s like his mind goes completely blank because he has no idea what to say.
“Yeah?” the jogger asks, tilting his head (and his stupid mop hair falls into those gleaming golden eyes when he does it too) quizzically.
Shit, Akaashi thinks again.
And then, for lack of anything else to do, he blurts, “Your eyes are really hard to draw.”
The jogger looks confused for a second and Akaashi feels mortified. Did he seriously just say that? Maybe going home and sleeping and pretending that all this was a dream and never happened would be a good idea right about now.
It catches him off guard when the jogger starts to laugh instead of calling him out for his idiocy. His laugh is deep and he seems genuinely amused by the comment.
“You’ve been drawing me?” the jogger asks, sounding more excited than creeped out. “Can I see? Please? Do I make a good model?”
Akaashi offers a small, hesitant smile and hands over the sketchbook, hoping he doesn’t have anything particularly embarrassing in there.
“Whoa!” the jogger exclaims. “There are so good! Wow, I look so damn cool!”
The egotistical comment would be annoying if Akaashi didn’t find himself agreeing. He’s only relieved that the jogger didn’t take one look at just how many sketches there were peppered throughout the book and leave.
“They’re not that great,” he admits, side eying the stupid dull art as the jogger continues to flip through.
“What? How could you say that! This is so awesome!”
Akaashi shrugs. “Your eyes are hard,” he says, pointing to the awkward slanted tilt of the eyes in one of the sketches that he can see is horrendously inaccurate now that the subject is sitting right beside him.
The jogger’s grin doesn’t waver. “That’s because they’re so unique,” he says. “I’m Bokuto Koutarou,” he adds, sticking out a hand.
Akaashi pulls his own out of his jacket pocket for the shake, and, unsurprisingly, Bokuto has a strong grip and warm hands.
“Akaashi Keiji.”
“Well, Akaashi, it’s nice to meet someone who can see how awesome of a model I am.” He even winks, and Akaashi feels like he might just melt into the bench.
“It was just an artistic study, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says, unsure of what else to say.
Bokuto raises an eyebrow. “Oho is that so?”
“...Yes…” Dammit, Akaashi thinks, a blush starting to heat up his face. Damn his complete and utter lack of social skill.
“Well, if you ever need more inspiration, you should totally call me,” Bokuto says, holding out a hand as if waiting for something.
It takes Akaashi about a second too long to realize that he was looking for Akaashi’s phone. His eyes widen.
Akaashi fumbles with the phone in his pocket. “I’m a very studious person, Bokuto-san,” he says, and hands the phone over. “Are you sure you’re up to the job?” He wonders what Bokuto sees in him--frumpled clothes and morning induced grumpiness and all.
Bokuto laughs again, tapping rapidly as he enters his number in. “Of course! Part of being an awesome model is being dependable!”
There is a strange warmth that Akaashi is beginning to feel despite the chilly wind still blowing through. Bokuto hands the phone back with a flourish, and there’s no hiding the blush on Akaashi’s face anymore when their fingers brush when he accepts it.
“Thank you,” he finds himself saying.
“But you should treat me to some hot chocolate as payment.” The grin on Bokuto’s face never, ever wavers.
Akaashi blanches.
A brief glance down at his phone tells him it’s only 6. He could probably still catch some sleep if he goes home now, and he doesn’t think he could think of anything interesting to say at this point… “I’m very tired right now, Bokuto-san,” he starts.
Bokuto actually pouts. And it’s actually cute what the hell.
“On the weekends, I sleep until noon sometimes,” Akaashi admits, and Bokuto’s eyes widen, “and my next class isn’t until 8:30, so even though I’d love to go get hot chocolate, I would really like to go home and sleep.”
There is a brief silence.
“Please,” Akaashi adds, hoping he hasn’t just ruined everything with his stupid inability to wake up at normal times in the morning.
Then, “Did you wake up this early just for me?” Bokuto asks, sounding dumbfounded for once.
Akaashi nods, once, his mind too hazy to care if he’s being creepy.
“Whaaaaaaaaat! Akaashi!” Bokuto practically screeches.
“Yes, Bokuto-san?”
“You’re so cool!”
“...thank you?” is the only think Akaashi can think to say. But you just met me, he doesn't say.
Before he can wrap his mind around what’s happening, Bokuto is pushing him up and out of the bench. “Please get lots of rest!” he cries as he continues to push Akaashi down the street. “And please go get hot chocolate with me after school!”
Akaashi tries not to fall on his face as he twists around to see Bokuto’s frantic face. “Yes, of course Bokuto-san,” he mumbles.
He stumbles off on his way to his apartment. When he looks back, Bokuto gives him an excited salute.
As he walks, he thinks he can hear the sound of Bokuto loudly singing along to his music as he runs along.
They get hot chocolate and Akaashi is much more composed. Bokuto laughs at every single thing he says. Akaashi finds himself laughing a lot, too. His cheeks hurt from it, even when Bokuto gets too excited and knocks a cup of hot chocolate all over the sketchbook that held all the failed sketches of him.
Akaashi waves away all of the frantic apologies, somehow not feeling angry at all when he throws the soaked sketchbook in the trash.
“I’ll just draw some more, Bokuto-san,” he says.
That’s when Bokuto shuts up and Akaashi dares to lean in to peck him on the cheek. He decides Bokuto’s face right in that moment--golden eyes wide and mouth slightly open in shock--is the first thing he’s going to draw.