Work Text:
"Udai-san, the faster you finish these last few panels, the faster we can go home," Akaashi tells him, as he pores over the initial draft. "Your ideas are good, and you just need to fill in these last panels. And then we can forward them to the main office in time for the Festa. We don't have a lot of time, it's in a week."
"I'm trying!" the other man mumbles, eyes wide as he erases what seems to be his fiftieth iteration of a sketch. "I just can't get the eyes right—"
"Where's the issue coming from?" Akaashi asks, and Udai begins to explain something along the lines of how the eyes are disproportional and the line work isn't matching the reference pose and Akaashi takes off his glasses for a minute — rubs his eyes and tries offering guidance. He himself isn't good at art, and he's not sure why he's even trying. "Can you finish this by tonight?"
"What's the time right now?" Udai asks, frantic. "Give me six hours. I'll be done."
"Six— Udai-san!" Akaashi tries to protest, but he's already occupied in drawing again. He's caught between trying to dissuade him from staying that late — he's already had back problems, and there had been delays in weekly serialization due to that — and trying to get him to complete his work faster so they can go home and sleep at respectable timings.
In a way, he can't even blame him — ever since the announcement had come that Meteo Attack was now going to be published in the main magazine, and the anime announcement had been dropped without any prior consultation with them, the entire week passed in a flurry of trying to cope up with deadlines and quickly finish all of the work. There had been mentions of providing Udai some assistants of his own, but nothing had actually been finalized yet.
He looks at Udai, slightly resentful as he props open his laptop and starts reading all the emails he's left unchecked — there's a readership poll from the last edition where Meteo Attack had finally managed to break into the top ten, an article from Volleyball Weekly announcing that Tsukishima Kei had been scouted to EJP Raijin (which Akaashi adds to a starred folder and makes a mental note to congratulate him over text), some junk about insurance and what not.
He shuts his laptop down, and takes his glasses off for a minute and goes to sit down on the couch — the couch in Udai's studio is comfortable, and Akaashi is about ninety percent sure that he probably just sleeps here on late nights. There's a stab of sympathy for him, and he finds himself relaxing back and laying his head on the armrest.
Just for a few minutes. He'll put his head down for a few minutes and when he gets up, he'll feel a little better.
"Akaashi," Udai calls out, and he jerks his head to look at him. "Do you need anything? Should I adjust the temperature? I have some blankets in the closet if you would like them—"
"No, sorry," Akaashi answers, quickly scrambling up and searching for his glasses on the coffee table. "Do you need my help—?"
"Not at all — it's actually going well," Udai smiles at him. "Sleep for a little bit. I'll wake you up."
"Is that alright? I should be helping you—"
"You get crabby if you don't get your sleep, Akaashi," he laughs, and he gets back to drawing — Akaashi curls up on the couch after much protesting, expressly instructing him to wake him up after ten minutes.
Akaashi knows before he's waken up that he's slept for far longer than ten minutes.
When he slowly gets up, a heavy blanket falls off of him — really, Akaashi should maybe just take Udai's advice and actually buy a weighted blanket of his own — he quickly slips on his glasses, to see Udai talking to someone on his phone.
"Yeah, sure," he's answering. "I'll make it there, don't worry — just got something to take care of. Tell Tsukishima I said hi. See you in about twenty?"
"Udai-san?" he interjects, and Udai turns to see him standing there — he's clutching his shoulder from sleeping in an awkward position, and he's got messy hair and rumpled clothes — before finishing his call. "Are you—?"
"Done!" he answers cheerfully. "Don't worry about submitting the panels late — I did it in person, and they were fine with it, said they were good! Work's done, Akaashi. We can go home now."
"What's the time—?"
"It's about 7:40?" Udai informs him, as he starts packing up — shoves charcoal pencils and his stationery into a tote bag and goes on to hunt for his cardigan, before finding it wedged between the table and a stack of magazines. "Is there a train running to your home now, or do you want me to order you a cab?"
"I'll probably have to walk home," Akaashi admits. "If I take a vehicle now, I'll fall asleep again. What about you, Udai-san? Going home?"
"Tanaka and Tsukishima are in Tokyo right now," he answers, shoving his arms through his cardigan and getting up. "Tsukishima's younger brother has a match going on, and it just finished — they invited me to get dinner and drinks with them, so I'll probably get a cab there."
"Ah, I see. I'll get going now—"
"I may have called someone in to pick you up — Akaashi, please don't be mad," Udai confesses. though he sounds absolutely shameless and proud of himself. "He texted me about being in the neighborhood and asked if he could pick you up for dinner and I said yes and please don't kill me."
One thing Akaashi has gotten to know about Udai Tenma ever since he started working with him, is that he has the same persistence and commitment to annoying Akaashi about his life the way old women nag at their daughters. Akaashi finds it somewhat endearing on good days, but today, he wonders if he should maybe just do everybody a favor and throw Udai out the window. He knows the readers would probably appreciate him doing so.
This may or may not take the cake for the nosiest thing he's ever done.
"Udai-san, why—?"
And there's a knock on the door, and Udai looks excited as he gestures for him to open the door. Akaashi considers murdering and maybe hiding both the bodies as he stalks over and opens the door.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Bokuto Koutarou's voice greets him, smile growing even wider and happier as he sees Akaashi. "Keiji!"
"Bokuto-san?" Akaashi blinks, before he's pulled into one of Bokuto's infamous bear hugs — he hugs tightly, and he's so warm and comfortable that he finds himself wrapping his own arms around him. "You're here? In Tokyo?"
"Hinata said he was coming down here to pick Kageyama up, and asked if I wanted to come along — so I joined him! They'll be heading off to Miyagi soon, and I thought I could meet you and Kuroo and Kenma and maybe the rest of our team too!" he smiles, before peeking his head in and waving at Udai. "Hi, Udai-san! Your hair's looking really nice!"
"I have to get it cut," he laments mournfully, fingers running over a long lock. "I keep putting it off. Nice to see you, Bokuto-san. How's it going?"
"It's going real good! Hinata said that he was going back to Brazil soon, to join a pro team in the Brazilian leagues! We've got a bunch of new players trying out for us next week, I can't wait to see them!"
"Hinata's leaving?" Akaashi frowns, as he follows Bokuto back into the studio — Bokuto's dressed warmly enough for the weather, and he's got a backpack on. He begins packing up all of his stuff — jacket, laptop, phone charger, umbrella. "I'll have to get him a farewell present."
"Yeah, do that — convey my best wishes to him!" Udai shoos them out and waves at them, locking the studio doors before grabbing his bag and coat and leaving. "See you next week, Akaashi!"
Akaashi and Bokuto are left standing in a dark hallway, and Bokuto is still smiling as they walk out of the building and into the snow. He takes Akaashi's backpack from him, hoists it up onto his other shoulder as they trudge through the snowy walkways.
Akaashi is dead tired on his feet, and he really just wants to go home and sleep for the next forty eight hours before he's forced into confronting the horrors of real life.
"Should I get us a cab?" Bokuto asks. "You're shivering, Keiji."
"I'm fine," he tries answering, but Bokuto is quick to take off his own jacket and drape it on Akaashi's shoulders — slaps a cap onto his head as they walk. "Bokuto-san, how did you even come here? Did you walk?"
"Ran!" Bokuto answers. "Kageyama's place isn't too far from here, and that's where I'm staying right now."
"You're staying with Kageyama-kun?" Akaashi asks curiously, and Bokuto nods as he begins to rub Akaashi's hands — Akaashi's own hands have grown a little softer, while Bokuto's hands are rough, more callused than they used to be. But his hands are still the warmest things Akaashi's ever held. "You could've called, Bokuto-san. I would've prepared the guest room."
"That's fine! I didn't want to burden you," he replies, rubbing the knobby knuckles persistently. "This was kind of sudden as a trip. I was going to spend it in Osaka, but Hinata asked me this morning, and I said yes! I couldn't disturb you so suddenly!"
"You're never disturbing me, Bokuto-san," he tells him, and Bokuto's face breaks out into a soft smile, slightly shy as they walk alongside each other. "Please don't think that. I like talking to you."
"I like talking to you too, Keiji! Have you eaten dinner yet? Should we get something to eat here?" he asks, as they take a right turn and duck into one of the side streets.
"I was planning on going home and eating — I'm tired," Akaashi admits. "Is that alri—?"
"Of course that's fine!" he exclaims, somehow still energetic after a long day — Akaashi assumes he spent most of it on a train with Hinata, but that's still a tiring journey to make. "Lead the way, Keiji!"
After about fifteen more minutes of walking, where Bokuto's face gets even more pinker than usual and Akaashi has to will himself not to reach out and touch the blotches on his cheeks, they make their way to one of the smaller apartment complexes — it's one of the cheaper ones, mostly used by college students and office workers. It's still nice and roomy, with the only problem being the fact that it's a little farther off from the Shonen Vie offices.
And the heating. The place gets cold sometimes, and Akaashi finds it easier to camp out at convenience stores or buy groceries and hang around outside for as long as he can before he needs to return.
They kick off the snow from their shoes before entering, and Bokuto looks around like a kid in a toy store — he hasn't seen the place before, because the last time he came to Tokyo, Akaashi had camped out in Kenma's house post graduation before he found a place and moved out.
"Do you have any warm clothes?" Akaashi asks, as he takes their bags — after much hesitation from Bokuto because "it's fine, Keiji, I can carry my bag!" and "I'm already staying with you for tonight, it's alright!" — and deposits his bag in the guest bedroom.
The guest bedroom is a curious place — not quite a storeroom and not quite a study. It's got a decent enough bed, but it's piled full of books on the shelves, from textbooks to newspapers to old copies of manga and notebooks, and there's dust on the bed sheets. Frankly speaking, the whole house feels dusty and unclean, and Akaashi feels embarrassed about the state of it, and how terrible of an adult he must seem like to him.
"I do! I'll take a shower too, and then we can eat!" he answers cheerfully, not in the least phased by the state of the room or the house. He's sitting comfortably on the couch — a gift from Konoha, back when he first got the place. It's warm and soft and it's the perfect place to take a nap.
"Sure," Akaashi replies, and Bokuto gets up disappears into the guest bedroom once again — Akaashi prays to all the deities in the world that the power doesn't go out and that the water remains hot as he goes to the kitchen, getting ready to see what's in the fridge and decide on what he can make for dinner for the two of them.
There's hardly anything.
There's yesterday's leftovers — fried rice and some sort of chili tofu — which he was planning on reheating and eating tonight, but there's no way he can feed Bokuto those. There's half a head of cabbage, about a dozen tomatoes, some frozen bacon, some ginger and garlic — and he's frantically searching for something, anything he can use to make anything filling enough for tonight before he can go grocery shopping tomorrow.
He rifles through the fridge, and his panic is building when the same things turn up — he can't feed him tonight. He drops to the floor, clutching at his hair in frustration. He's wondering if it'll be rude for him to go on a midnight grocery run, or order food from outside when Bokuto comes out of the room — freshly showered, wearing a warm sweater and joggers, hair down and looking bright eyed as he waddles into the kitchen.
"Something the matter, Keiji?" he asks, peering into the fridge and plopping right down next to Akaashi on the floor — he pats Akaashi's arm, still warm and soft from his bath. "You don't look alright."
And his face looks so open, so trusting and accepting that Akaashi can't really do anything but pour out everything — he doesn't want Bokuto to see him like this. Doesn't want him to see him flailing about and struggling to be an adult and how he can't even stock up his flat and how everything is cold and dreary and he's tired and he feels like a complete failure.
Through all of it, he keeps rubbing his arm — when he's done, Bokuto offers him nothing but a warm smile.
"Keiji, how about you go and take a bath?" he asks — no, suggests to him gently. "Let me take care of dinner tonight. Does that sound OK to you?"
"But you're a gu—"
"I'm also your friend!" he smiles, before his face suddenly turns questioning — "Wait, you do consider me a friend, right?"
"I do," he hiccups, and Bokuto helps him get off the floor — gently pushes him in the general direction of his bedroom. "I do, but—"
"Go," he says, and Akaashi goes.
He sits under the spray of hot water for what seems like a few hours, willing away the tension from his shoulders and back as he takes a few deep breaths — he comes out of the shower with pruny fingers and his skin feels wrinkly and blotchy as he searches for anything warm enough to wear, and something that won't look ratty and old.
When he comes out, feeling more under the weather than ever — god, he wants this dismal, dreary weather to end, wants to see clearer skies and have nice winds and doesn't want to constantly feel like he's punching under his weight — he can hear the sound of Bokuto moving in the kitchen, opening cabinet doors and the fridge and gathering things.
Bokuto is still in the kitchen, and he's grinning.
"Keiji!" he says, cheery. "You worried too much for nothing! There's enough for dinner tonight!"
When Akaashi puts on his glasses, there's already items on the counter — oil, the cabbage and tomatoes, shio noodles he'd forgotten he'd bought a while back (he doesn't even like shio noodles, he's not sure what they're doing in his kitchen cabinets), ginger and garlic and bacon.
"I'm sorry?"
"Leave it to me, alright? I'm eating a nice meal with one of my favorite people in the world — keep me company while I cook, Keiji!" he answers genially, as he grabs a knife and begins to chop the cabbage into thin strips. "Come here and talk to me! How's work been going?"
And Akaashi stands alongside Bokuto as he continues prepping the vegetables — he offers to do it, and Bokuto simply pats his hands and asks him to trust him.
"Just talk," he says, as he pauses his chopping. "I like listening to you talk, Keiji. Talk about anything you want to. I'll listen."
"—and then he tried to tell me that it was logical!" Akaashi waves his hands about as he rants about his coworkers and the latest plots of whatever manga has been coming out in the magazine. Bokuto giggles a little bit as he chops the tomatoes into smaller, bite sized pieces.
"How is not giving the main character any powers in any way logical?!" Bokuto laughs. "Not even a weapon?"
"No! Just his fists!" he rolls his eyes, and Bokuto snorts. "He's fifteen years old, there's no way you're leaving him alone with no weapons!"
"That's stupid."
"If he were like Hinata, I probably would," Akaashi admits. "I'd be terrified to give him weapons. But this one is a good fellow, he'd be fine, I think."
"Keiji, you got a mortar and a pestle? Or something I can use for crushing vegetables?" Bokuto asks, and Akaashi shuffles through the items in the shelves before victoriously unearthing the given vessels.
"Are you grinding something?" he asks. "There's a blender over there."
"Yeah! I'll be needing ginger-garlic paste for the recipe, but I like making it rather than buying it," he admits. "It tastes better when it's fresh, rather than when it's coming out of a tube or bottle, and I don't think we'll be needing enough to justify using a blender."
He starts peeling garlic and ginger — this time, Akaashi objects, peeling the garlic himself as Bokuto starts slicing the ginger into tiny pieces. Once Akaashi's peeling job is considered passable, Bokuto chops them finely too, and adds them all to the mortar, and starts grinding.
"I didn't know you knew how to cook, Bokuto-san," Akaashi admits, washing his hands — he flinches at the cold water. "Did you learn in college?"
"Yeah!" Bokuto nods vigorously, handing him a kitchen towel to wipe his hands. "My roommate, Enjoji, was a clumsy fellow — he almost burnt down our kitchen once! The cops came and our warden scolded us and we both almost got our scholarships revoked! Plus we were both athletes; he plays football! So, we both learnt how to cook for that. It's been pretty helpful!"
"I'm sure," he nods. "And now you live in the MSBY dorms, right? Do you cook there or—?"
"Sometimes!" Bokuto replies, taking a pause from grinding — he adds in some more of the ginger, and continues. "Tsum-Tsum doesn't like eating anyone's cooking except for his brother's, and Omi-Omi just doesn't eat if he's not the one making it. Hinata likes my food! Says it's just the way he likes it. Wan-san eats with us, sometimes — if he's not out on a date."
He leaves the mash in the mortar, and looks over all the ingredients one more time — the tomatoes and cabbage are neatly chopped and sliced, the bacon has finally thawed and become softer, the ginger-garlic paste is good to go.
"Do you have any deep frying pans?" he asks, and Akaashi pulls one out from the back of the cabinet — it's a little bit dusty from unuse, and Bokuto wipes it down with a tissue before he coats the base of it with oil and places it on the stove.
"Keiji, do you not cook often?" he asks, as he adds the ginger-garlic paste and bacon into the pan. He stirs it, frying it shallowly as he waits for it to brown properly on both sides.
"Not really?" Akaashi admits. "Work keeps me busy. Gets difficult to cook all the time, especially when it's only for a single person. It's easier to just eat at the office."
"That's not very healthy!" Bokuto fusses over him like a mother hen. He adds the cabbage and tomatoes after he deems the bacon well prepared enough. The smell of it is already really good, and Akaashi can feel his mouth watering. "Keiji, you need to be careful! I want you to take care of yourself!"
"I will," he gently replies, even though he knows that the chances of him doing so are rare. He tries to change the topic — "Bokuto-san, the food."
"Can you fill a glass full of water for me, Keiji?" he asks, mixing the vegetables and the meat together — he hands him a glass, and Bokuto adds it slowly to the pan. "Another one, around half full, please."
He repeats the motion, and after Bokuto tears open the package of noodles and adds them, he becomes curious.
"Why did you add the meat and vegetables before the water and noodles?" he asks. "I thought it was the opposite? Water and noodles first, and then any sort of extra things?"
"I used to do the same thing!" Bokuto tells him, sounding pleased to talk about this topic. "Hinata taught me this a while back! Adding and stir frying the vegetables and meat half way helps make it richer, and makes it a little more flavorful. So, when you add the water, it steeps in better and tastes even better!"
After about a minute or so, Bokuto beckons Akaashi over — opens the lid like Akaashi hasn't been practically salivating for the past fifteen minutes.
"It's done! Here's the Bokuto Koutarou special tomato shio ramen!" he smiles, and he starts looking for two bowls to place the food into — Akaashi quickly grabs two ceramic bowls, and two sets of chopsticks.
"I'll serve—"
"Keiji, don't play games with me," he rolls his eyes affectionately, as he starts serving the noodles into the bowl. "I know what you'll do."
And Akaashi can't really refute his claims, not when he's been guilty of doing it in the past before — placing just a tad bit more on his plate sometimes. He likes watching him eat — doesn't mind eating a little less, because eating has always only ever been a necessary thing, has always only ever been a task he needs to get done to move on to the next one.
Bokuto enjoys everything he does. That extends to eating too — savoring the meals he eats, snacking mindlessly on fruit and chips and chocolate bars sometimes, learning how to make a good meal even better. He's a good partner to eat with, with his jokes and laughs and
"I want you to eat well, Keiji," he quietly answers, and Akaashi takes the heaping bowl he's given — he doesn't point out the disparity in the quantity of food, but thanks him as they both make their way over to the living room. They dig into their meal with gusto, having had a long day.
"It tastes nice," he tells Bokuto, and he grins at him.
"Just nice?"
"Very nice, then," Akaashi modifies, a smile playing on his lips. They've just switched on the television, when Bokuto starts singing along to the song playing on the channel — some girl group performing at an year end event, and Akaashi's actually enjoying the impromptu concert he's getting when the apartment decides to ruin his image once and for all, and the power goes out.
When the power goes out, the only thing Akaashi can think is — there could not be a worse time for this to happen.
"I-I'm so sor—"
"Keiji," he answers in a placating tone — even in the illumination of only the moonlight, he can still make out a soft smile on his face. "Stop. I'm eating a nice meal with one of my favorite people in the world. A power outage is not going to lessen the fact that I'm feeling really, really happy right now."
They eat in silence, but it doesn't feel awkward or forced — there's a sense of ease to it now, and when they're done, the bowls are placed on the table and hands are washed quickly before coming back to the couch.
"Keiji, d'you have any blankets? Something a little warm?" he asks, voice a little shivery as he asks. "I think your heater may or may not be working right now. We should get warm."
And now they're huddling under blankets, sitting close to each other — Bokuto had thrown a fit when Akaashi tried to hand him the warmer blanket, and now it's ended up with Akaashi leaning against Bokuto's shoulder as Bokuto shows him photographs of Osaka.
There's a lot of the MSBY members — Hinata appears in almost all of them, with Miya Atsumu and Inunaki Shion appearing in some of them too. Sakusa Kiyoomi remains elusive, and Akaashi laughs hard at Bokuto's stories about them.
He's in the middle of telling Akaashi about how Atsumu had attempted to introduce Joffe to Japanese food, and messing up the recipe so badly that the first things to come out of Joffe's mouth were all sort of English curses — followed by Adriah translating and Atsumu cursing him out in Japanese before he tried his own food and then proceeded to quietly throw the food into the trash.
"How do you mess up udon?" Akaashi asks incredulously. "His twin runs a food establishment! Surely he at least knows how to cook basic noodles!"
"He swears he didn't do anything, but I swear I saw Wan-san mixing something into the broth!" Bokuto starts, before pausing.
"Keiji, you're shivering," he says, and he looks at his own hands — they are indeed shaking, and Bokuto grabs his hands and rubs them. "Keiji, you need to be warmer. Do you have any more blankets?"
"I—not really," he admits. "I haven't been home for a while now, and the ones that are there are probably dusty. I'll just need to shake them out—"
"You have dust allergies," Bokuto shakes his head, instead pulling him in a little closer. "Can I—I can— if it's alright with you, I could maybe hold you?"
This is how he will die, Akaashi thinks. He will die in the arms of the person he lov—likes best, and he's going to seriously die right here. This is how the story of one Akaashi Keiji ends.
"I—alright," he acquiesces, and Bokuto guides him to sit in front of him — Akaashi can feel his arms wrapping around him as he covers them both with the blanket, and has to attempt not to hyperventilate.
The two sit in awkward silence for a little bit, before Bokuto immediately starts talking about organizing some sort of reunion party for all of Fukurodani — it's a welcome reprieve, and they indulge in discussion for a little bit before they fall back into silence.
"Bokuto-san, did you really just come here because Hinata asked?" Akaashi asks, sleepy and warm and slightly uninhibited, hunched up under the blankets. He's propped up against Bokuto, and he can feel every exhale he takes against him.
"What do you think, Keiji?" he asks, as his voice softens. "I want to know what you think."
"I—I don't think this was a spur of the moment thing," he admits, remaining stock still in his arms. "I don't think you were telling the truth."
"You're always good at things like these, Akaashi," he smiles, and he can feel the curve of his lips against the top of his head. "Always have been. Then tell me, now. What do you think I came here for?"
There's a minute of silence as he sleepily ponders over his thoughts, as he tries to phrase it accurately.
And then Bokuto presses a kiss into his cheek, and all his thoughts come to a screeching halt.
"Is this alright?" he asks, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. "You're taking too long, I can hear the gears of your brain turning. Is this enough of an answer, Keiji?"
"I—no. It's not, Bokuto-san."
He turns back, now sitting to face Bokuto, properly looking at him — Bokuto looks a little bit crestfallen, but not for long as Akaashi surges to kiss him properly.
He freezes as Akaashi places a freezing hand on his cheek, tilts his head lower so he can kiss him comfortably. As if he's suddenly woken up, he starts kissing back — gathers Akaashi even closer than he already is, clinging to him. Wraps his legs around him, lets his hands wander into Akaashi's hair. His glasses are knocked askew as they kiss.
When they both come up for air, Akaashi's left gasping — Bokuto doesn't let up even then, peppering kisses all over his cheeks and forehead and neck. He proceeds to hide his face, blushing wildly and his smile is big and wobbly.
"I think this is enough of an answer," he says with a tiny, fond grin, looking down at him — somewhere between the third and tenth kiss, Bokuto propped Akaashi up higher on his lap, a little above him — and Akaashi stifles a laugh as he looks at Bokuto's smile.
“You’re too nice to me sometimes, Keiji,” he tells him, voice muffled into his hands.
“I really like being nice to you, Bokuto-san. All the time," he replies, feeling relieved and glad like he hasn't for a while now. His smile must be wide now, and he takes off his glasses and places them on the coffee table behind them.
"You seem a little smiley now, Keiji," Bokuto whispers into the quiet, and nuzzles into Akaashi's chest — he must be hearing his heartbeat now, wonders how fast Bokuto's must be.
"That's because I'm happy," he says, and Bokuto smiles bright enough to light up the whole dark room. Akaashi wonders why any lighting would be needed at all when he's around.
"Do I make you that happy, Keiji?"
"Very much so," he replies, and leans his head down to rest his forehead against Bokuto's.
"I like the thought of that. I like seeing you happy," Bokuto confesses to him, and it might be one of the loveliest things he thinks anyone has ever said to him.
"Then you should stay with me, Bokuto-san. Make me even happier."
"Of course I will," he grins, scooping Akaashi up and spinning him around the room — Akaashi yelps, before grabbing him tightly and letting himself be spun around. He laughs a little bit, and tries not to cry as he hugs him.
"Keiji," Bokuto tells him seriously, when they're curled up under Akaashi's warmest, softest blankets in his bed — the guest bedroom had long since been forgotten about. "Keiji, I forgot to tell you something."
"What is it, Bokuto-san?" he asks patiently, turning to face him.
"I love you," he answers, and Akaashi would choke on air if he wasn't so tired and content. "You asked why I came to Tokyo, right? I wanted to see you."
"I love you too," Akaashi murmurs, holding Bokuto's face aloft in his hands. He leans in a little bit, and Bokuto closes his eyes — he lets himself look all he wants, lets himself trail all over his face and eyes and lips.
"Are you still going to kiss me, Keiji?" he asks, after about five minutes, opening his right eye.
"Yes. I'm just savoring the moment, Bokuto-san.”
"Oh. Take your time, then," he says, and Akaashi smiles as he leans in and kisses the edge of Bokuto's lips.