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Akaashi curls his hands around the cool glass of beer before him and smiles, taking all of twenty-four-year-old Bokuto in. He doesn’t bother to hide his stare, the way he looks to all his favorite parts to see how they’ve changed in the time they’ve been apart. Everything he finds soothes the aching, empty hole in his chest: the deeper laugh lines at his mouth, the broad width of his shoulders toned with the fine-tuning of professionals, the rounds of his cheeks chiseled away to reveal a hardened jaw.
“Hi Bokuto-san,” he says quietly, smiling softly at how Bokuto’s shoulders relax. “It’s so nice to see you.”
Bokuto grins and leans forward, a whiff of hair product sharply reminding Akaashi of early mornings, of thick strands between his fingers.
“I’m really happy you came, Akaashi.”
“I—” he stops as the waitress steps to their table, food balanced expertly on each hand. She smiles apologetically and slides their food across the table, leaving with another smile and a nod. Bokuto doesn’t wait and swipes the biggest piece to place on the hot grill between them.
He smiles wryly and reaches for the closest piece, meeting Bokuto’s eyes as he looks up through his lashes, chopsticks ready to reach for a second.
“Do you want the biggest piece, Akaashi?” Bokuto asks as he reaches to turn it over. Akaashi adds a few more pieces to the grill.
“What if I said yes?”
“You won’t,” Bokuto smiles and slowly reaches forward. “You never did.”
“It’s been a while, maybe I do now.”
The words are sobering and the corner of Bokuto’s smile twitches, flickers like a candle before it’s extinguished. The wound in his chest throbs as Akaashi’s fingers tighten on his chopsticks. He swallows and reaches for his beer, the cold enough to douse the heat that starts to bloom in his chest at the sharp words.
“The piece I selected”—Bokuto swipes the piece as Akaashi completes the ritual, falls into the routine—, “is the better piece.”
He studies Akaashi as he chews, his keen gaze searching Akaashi’s face for something. When his mind begins to try to figure it out, he stops it short. That’s no longer his place, he isn’t allowed to do that anymore. They eat in quiet and Akaashi can tell they’re both just relishing being with one another again after a year and a half apart.
It was for the best, he tells himself again, has told himself every day for nineteen months and two weeks, every day for five hundred and ninety-three days. He’d said it to Bokuto that day too.
It’d been a Tuesday, the middle of the day when he called. He knew Bokuto was on a break for lunch. It was probably cruel to do it when he had to go back to practice, when he had responsibilities to attend to, but hindsight never helped the present.
“This isn’t going to work,” he’d whispered, holed up in his small apartment, buried in one of the oversized sweatshirts he’d stolen from Bokuto’s closet. “We have to move on. You… you deserve to be happy, Bokuto-san.”
“Don’t do this. You make me happy, Keiji.” Bokuto’s voice had been quiet. He hadn’t cried, at least not on the phone. “Please, whatever you’re worried about just tell me. I’ll fix anything, do anything for you.”
But that had been the problem.
After dinner, they head out. Akaashi had promised to come over, to catch up. His hotel was only a few blocks from Bokuto’s new apartment and the offer of more time together was too enticing to pass up.
“It’ll be like old times, like when we were kids,” Bokuto had said to convince him. He’d sounded hopeful, he'd sounded happy, and Akaashi could never deny him too much. Especially not when so out of practice.
They walk quietly, comfortably through the streets. It’s late enough that the Saturday-night crowd mills along the downtown area. They separate only to move smoothly through the groups, finding their way back to each other’s side again and again. The night air is cool, the bite of winter only just present, enough that Akaashi can use it as an excuse to stick closer to Bokuto’s body heat.
They turn down a quieter road, apartments and small homes tucked just away from the busier bars and restaurants.
“Why’d you do it, Akaashi?” Bokuto asks, stuffing his hands in his pocket and looking both ways before stepping into the street. Akaashi unthinkingly reaches out to force him to pause before he doublechecks, the ghost of a habit long gone. He yanks his hand back, curling his fingers till his nails dig uncomfortably into his palm as he presses it into his chest, hoping to still the thumping of his heart.
It’s not quick enough. Bokuto sees it and stares passively at Akaashi’s hand before continuing across, hurrying the last few steps as a car turns down the street. He stands and waits, watching from across the lanes, the steps that lead up into his small home beckoning for Akaashi to follow.
Their eyes meet as the car whips past in a rush of wind, Akaashi’s coat flapping up in its tailwind. He blinks and Bokuto is still there, checking both ways before shifting forward.
“I’ll be okay without you, Akaashi,” he calls. He isn’t smiling or angry and Akaashi swallows as the words pierce deep into his chest. “But I know I make you happy. We were happy, I know we were, and I know you’re not happy now, I can see it in your face. Komi said you’re not dating and you work nonstop. That—”
“You love me too much.” He interrupts. The street is empty; no one is around so he doesn’t bother to lower his voice. He doesn’t need to hear Komi’s words from Bokuto. Komi’d been sure to share them with him first, almost every week, rude and direct and worried.
Bokuto laughs and runs a hand through his hair before he shrugs.
“Yeah, I probably do,” he admits as his mouth quirks into a smile. “But you love me just as much.”
“You would have done anything for me.”
“I still would.” Bokuto looks both ways again and jogs back across. He reaches for the hand still curled into Akaashi’s chest; fingers warm as they gently envelop it. “I told you that I would love you until the day I die and I meant it.”
“Eventually it will get better,” Akaashi says quietly, not for the first time. Just like the hundreds of times he’s said it before, it continues to ring false, the ache only growing bigger, the emptiness only spreading further.
“No, it won’t.” It’s blunt. “In fifteen years, I could be with someone else but if you came back to me, I’d leave them. No matter who they are.”
Akaashi scoffs and curls the hand tighter against himself, the other gripping tightly, painfully at his wrist. “That’s terrible, Bokuto-san.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Bokuto laughs and slips his other hand gently around his wrist. “But it’s true.”
Akaashi steps back, easily breaking Bokuto’s hold on him.
“That’s my point.” Akaashi’s heart pounds in his chest, Bokuto’s magnetic pull keeping him from running, keeping him to a single step. “You would abandon things that are important to you for me.”
“Wouldn’t you do the same for me?”
Akaashi’s lip trembles.
“If you asked me to quit volleyball or to move to Tokyo and you’d be with me, I’d do it. I wouldn’t even have to think about it. If my alternative is without you, I won’t choose it.”
“You should never give up everything you’ve worked for so quickly.” Akaashi scolds, pursing his lips.
“You’d never ask me to,” Bokuto leans down, pushing a hand into his hair and guiding his head back so he's forced to meet Bokuto’s wide, earnest eyes. “We love each other, don’t you trust me?”
Akaashi swallows. “I am selfish.”
Bokuto rolls his eyes, “If you were selfish, we’d both still be happy.”
“I’m sorry, Bokuto-san,” his lips tremble again and tears brim at the corners of his eyes, hotly running down his cheeks as they spill over. Bokuto tugs him into his chest and he buries his face into Bokuto’s shoulder. “I couldn’t ask you to hold on for me. I couldn’t ask you to try long-distance anymore. I wanted to tell you to choose me, to visit me when you should have been resting, to turn down that offer to Germany, to stay close to me and I couldn't do it, I couldn't do any of it anymore.”
“Come upstairs with me. Please.”
“It’s a bad idea.” The words are muffled but Bokuto still laughs, his arms sliding around Akaashi as his chest shakes.
“Those are my favorite kinds, Akaashi.”
- - -
Akaashi toes his shoes off and follows Bokuto in, eyes snagging on the familiarity within the apartment, on all the pieces of him still present. He stands still, sees the books he’d lent years ago neatly stacked on a shelf, the couch they’d picked together comfortably set in the middle of the living room, and can't bring himself to move from the entryway for a moment too long.
He swallows and moves further in, guilt pinching uncomfortably at his shoulders. In a fit of anger with himself one evening months and months ago, he’d stuffed anything that reminded him of Bokuto into a box, stuffed that box in the back of his closet, burying it with books and clothes he’d never wear but was too attached to to donate.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner,” Bokuto says, heading into the adjoining kitchen. He pokes a head out when Akaashi doesn’t immediately answer. “Are you still hungry?”
“I’m fine, Bokuto-san. Thank you.”
Bokuto steps out and stares at him again, eyes running down Akaashi’s body. He looks disappointed at whatever he finds and Akaashi wraps his arms around himself, feeling uncomfortably bare beneath that assessing gaze.
“You’ve lost weight.” The simplicity of it grates on Akaashi’s nerves. He hasn’t had much desire or time to go to the gym and cooking for one when the leftovers used to be packed away to share is depressing. Take-out costs money that he isn’t hungry enough to spend.
“You look quite healthy, Bokuto-san,” he says instead, forcefully unclenching his jaw. “I hope you’ve been continuing to expand your cooking abilities since we’ve last seen each other.”
Bokuto grins and ducks back into the kitchen before emerging with two glasses of water. He sets them on the coffee table—the one that Akaashi had convinced him matched the couch and TV stand well—and plops down onto the couch, lounging back with a careless arm thrown across the back. He regards Akaashi with a look that still isn’t quite happy and Akaashi fights the urge to flee.
I’ll be okay without you, he’d said. Akaashi doesn’t doubt it but Akaashi hasn’t been okay without him.
Their friends wouldn’t take sides, they promised, but Akaashi knew they had. Komi had ratted him out, giving Bokuto every advantage in their first meeting since the breakup. He’d known what he was walking into, and to a degree, so had Akaashi. It was a spectacular year of volleyball for the Jackals and Bokuto was healthier than ever. Akaashi knows because he'd still never missed a game. Self-harm, Konoha had whispered during the first and second and third games they'd watched together after the break-up. He'd stopped saying it out loud by the fourth, but his eyes still made his thoughts clear.
In June of this year, Volleyball Monthly had done a spread on the Jackals, asking all sorts of probing questions into their personal lives. Akaashi wasn’t proud of this, but he’d kept the article, traced the image of Bokuto’s smiling face, imagined his eyes were still a little sad. He’d known better because Konoha had told him he was dating again, a woman with long dark hair and a pretty smile who worked close to the stadium. Bokuto hadn’t mentioned her in the article, not even when they’d directly asked about his dating life. He’d said he’d preferred to keep his private life private, that there were people he loved that didn’t like the spotlight like he does.
Akaashi desperately hoped that person was still him, but he knew it probably wasn’t. He still maintains that he is not delusional. All the same, Bokuto is still open, honest, and earnest in everything he does and says and Akaashi still loves him so much that it hurts.
“Are you… are you still seeing…”
The smile slips off his handsome face.
“Komi’s not the only one sharing secrets then,” he says, swallowing. He runs a hand through his hair, further mussing the gelled spikes. “No, I’m not seeing anyone. It was never serious though. You said that I needed to move on and you’re almost always right, so I tried to but… I still just wanted you.”
“You said you were okay without me.”
“No, I said I will be.” He sits forward as if he’s expecting Akaashi to try to run again, as if he needs to be ready to jump up to catch him. “I’m not yet. I’m alive and I’m working hard but every night I come home, and I try not to call you. It’s fucking pathetic. I’m fucking pathetic, Akaashi.”
Akaashi swallows and forces himself into the living room and onto the couch, trying not to look or feel like a scared, wounded animal. It must be a passable job because Bokuto visibly relaxes, a ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
And, oh does Akaashi miss his smiles. The wide, cock-sure grins when he does something he’s proud of, the small, gentle smiles when he’s tired. Akaashi misses the one he’d get after they saw each other after a long while most, the one that Bokuto had given him when they first slid into the booth at the restaurant, the one that said oh have I missed you.
I told you that I would love you until the day I die and I meant it. Akaashi’d said it back. Promised it. Meant it. Permanently etched Bokuto into his very being at seventeen.
“It’s been nineteen months, Bokuto-san. Tell me everything I've missed.” He finally says, leaning forward to take Bokuto’s hand in his, hoping it’s enough to calm the fear that Akaashi will slip away again.
His shoulders relax and Akaashi gets to see all of those smiles again as he tells him, proudly, how hard he has worked, how he feels when he walks onto the court these days, how he likes the risks Miya is willing to take in a game but how he still misses Akaashi’s sets, still wishes they could play together sometimes.
“I’d like that,” Akaashi says and Bokuto’s answering grin glows, radiating so much happiness that Akaashi feels it warm the empty part of his chest again.
By midnight, they’re tired. They’ve moved closer, Bokuto’s arm still slung across the top of the couch, directly above Akaashi’s shoulders. They’re so close, almost touching and Akaashi wishes they could again, that it would be as simple as shifting into one another.
“You’re right,” he confesses after Bokuto asks him to share what he’s missed. “I do work too much. I don’t eat enough. Konoha forces himself into my apartment to bring me food twice a week and complains at me another two days a week. He says I’m a jerk but he won’t leave me alone.”
Bokuto laughs and leans forward, resting his forehead against Akaashi’s shoulder.
“They make me go out for drinks with them every few weeks. They are all so proud of you, Bokuto-san.”
“And you?”
Akaashi smiles and flips Bokuto’s hand palm up, following the lines with his thumb.
“I am so very proud of you. The most proud, in fact.”
Bokuto’s hand turns and threads their fingers together as he lifts his head to meet Akaashi’s eyes. With his free hand, he slides a hand into Akaashi’s hair, loosely curling it around the back of his neck. It’s warm, settling, and Akaashi swallows.
“I’m proud of you too. I read all the manga you edit. Udai-san is an incredible storyteller and I can tell you’re a big part of that, Akaashi.”
When he leans forward and kisses him, Akaashi feels the string strung too tight within snap and the hole in his chest stirs to life, full again. He kisses Bokuto back in earnest, letting himself be pulled forward into his lap. They break apart, both far too tall to be comfortable on the couch, but Akaashi can’t make himself move away.
“I still love you.”
“Always, Keiji. Always.”