Work Text:
Akaashi regarded his Thursday evenings as sacred. After a long week of classes and shelving overdue novels in the campus library, book club brought him a much needed break from the uninterested stares of the students in the English class he TA’d. Sure, he wasn’t the most extroverted, but even Akaashi could certainly get down with a quiet circle of readers who actually cared about metaphors and motifs. Now a junior, he’d been the club’s president since sophomore year, though he preferred the word “facilitator.” Just your average guy trying to make Russian literature accessible to half a dozen Literature majors.
That week, the group was knee-deep in War and Peace. Everyone had settled in, pens and highlighters at the ready, when the door to their study room burst open.
A tall, broad-shouldered boy with the strangest white hair stumbled in, his massive gym bag smacking the doorframe. He was slightly out of breath, wearing a rather stained white hoodie and holding a bright pink smoothie very precariously in the room full of books.
“Sorry I’m late!” he announced loudly. Akaashi had never seen this guy before in his life. “Weird place for volleyball practice!”
Akaashi blinked. “Um. this is Tolstoy.”
The stranger looked around. “Cool. Is he the coach?” Half the club stifled laughter.
“Tolstoy,” he said carefully, “is the book.”
The boy’s grin faltered slightly. “Oh. Book club. Huh.” He glanced at the table stacked with the library’s thick hardcovers. “Guess I got the date wrong.” Akaashi thought it was probably a little more than that, considering the school gym was halfway across campus.
He took a closer look at the young man, who was swinging his gym bag awfully close to their refreshments table. Something about him seemed familiar… the hairstyle, the curve of his arms… had Keiji seen him in a magazine before, or around campus somewhere, or…?
Oh, he thought as the realization hit him. That was Bokuto Koutarou, a senior and the school’s star player on the volleyball team. Akaashi had played volleyball in high school, so he went to the university games whenever he could. Bokuto was something special.
Still, part of him hoped the lumbering fool would leave before he knocked over the coffee pot or something. Alas, the other part got the better of him.
“Why don’t you stay?” he offered, trying not to sound too interested in the idea. To alleviate the suspicion of the other book club members (whose names he could barely recall), he added, “But you’ll have to catch up.”
He expected him to decline, but instead, Bokuto shrugged, dropped his gym bag onto the floor, and slid into an empty chair.
“Sure. I like stories.” he grinned.
Keiji’s stomach flipped at the sharp white smile, and he adjusted his glasses.
“Name’s Bokuto. Nice to meet you, Coach Tolstoy.”
Soon after, Bokuto raised his hand like it was a classroom. Akaashi was pleasantly surprised to see him contributing so eagerly, though.
“Yes, Bokuto?”
“So…is there, like, actual war in this book? Or is it more of an, um, alliteration?”
Someone giggled. Did he mean a metaphor? Akaashi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, there’s war. And peace, shockingly.”
Bokuto nodded solemnly, jotting it down in very large handwriting as if he’d just cracked the Da Vinci code. “Got it. War… and peace. Makes sense.”
To Akaashi’s dismay, the meeting did descend into some chaos after that. Their discussion proceeded for another five whole minutes before Bokuto interrupted again.
“So, wait, this Tolstoy guy–” at least he’d gotten a handle on who that was, Keiji mused. “–he wrote this when? Like, medieval times?”
Akaashi turned, bewildered. “Excuse me?”
“You know. Like Julius Caesar era.” The group exchanged muffled giggles. Keiji nearly choked on his coffee. Bokuto’s wide-eyed sincerity left him speechless.
Finally, he managed a soft laugh he hadn’t meant to let slip. “Nineteenth century.”
Bokuto scribbled it down: 1900s.
By the time the meeting ended, Akaashi was convinced he would never return. Still, he found himself wondering about Bokuto all through his walk home. Was he more than the dumb athlete his interviews made him out to be? He was, of course, a totally different type than the usual bookworms Akaashi hung out with, and that type might just be Keiji’s type, he was realizing. He did have a very nice smile… and quite impressive arms… But he was very loud and brash and had interrupted book club, of all things, his sacred space. Akaashi couldn’t tolerate such a distraction. If Bokuto didn’t shape up, he'd have to be out of the club.
Akaashi would have to help, he decided.
He also decided he liked his teeth and his arms, but nothing more.
~~~
Akaashi cornered Bokuto that weekend at the library during his shift shelving books.
“Are you still interested in book club, Bokuto-san?” he asked politely. A few students glanced over from their tables, eyeing the athlete and his unusual friend. Bokuto looked up from where he was crouched in front of the manga section, three brightly colored volumes stacked in his lap. He lit up when he saw Akaashi.
“Coach Tolstoy!”
“Please don’t call me that here,” Akaashi muttered, glancing around.
Bokuto grinned sheepishly and leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial stage-whisper. “Sorry, Akaashi.”
Akaashi fought the blush creeping up his neck at hearing the ace say his name. Focus, Keiji. “Ahem. So, book club?”
“Oh! Yeah!” Bokuto sprang up, the manga tumbling to the floor. He dug into his gym bag and triumphantly pulled out a battered copy of War and Peace. Akaashi blinked.
“Where did you get that?”
“I borrowed it! From the library!” he said proudly.
“This library? That’s a reference-only copy.”
“Oh.” Bokuto blinked down at the sticker on the spine. “Well, I’m referencing it.”
Akaashi pinched his nose again. Before he could lecture the oblivious boy on library policy, Bokuto’s expression shifted to hesitance. “This might surprise you, but I don’t do this very much. Um, read, that is. I’m not annoying you guys, right? I don’t want to mess up your, like, book club vibes.”
Akaashi’s chest tightened—he wasn’t sure if it was irritation, pity, or, heaven forbid, fondness. “If you’re willing to actually participate,” Akaashi said carefully, not giving away his own eagerness. “Then yes, you should stay.”
Bokuto brightened immediately. “Really? Yes! I promise I’ll read all of it. Or, you know, most of it. At least half. Okay, maybe a quarter. But with passion.”
Akaashi allowed himself a small smile despite his better judgment. “We’ll work on the definition of “all.””
~~
As planned, the volleyball star reappeared at the circulation desk the following evening, waving that same battered copy of War and Peace. “Coach Akaashi!” he stage-whispered. “Sorry, practice ran late,” he said. Hot, Akaashi thought, then scolded himself. Bokuto slid the cold drink towards him. “Here, you’ll need it. These Russian names are a workout.”
Akaashi’s sigh was almost fond at this point. “If you don’t stop calling me coach, I will revoke your library privileges.”
Bokuto’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”
Akaashi narrowed his eyes. “Have a seat back here, Bokuto-san. But you have to be quiet.”
Bokuto came around the desk obediently, though “quiet” for him meant whispering at the volume of a normal conversation. Bokuto sprawled out on the large desk, elbows knocking dangerously close to Akaashi’s neatly arranged notebook. He cracked the book open in the middle.
“So… where are we?”
Akaashi flipped open his own copy, carefully marked with sticky tabs. “Page four hundred sixty-two. The start of Book Ten.”
Bokuto’s eyes widened. “We’re reading ten books? I thought it was just one!”
“Fifteen, actually.”
“Fifteen?!” he yelped.
“Shhhhh,” Akaashi corrected him.
“That’s like, a whole year of reading.”
“Less whining, more reading,” Akaashi murmured, nudging his glasses up his nose.
Bokuto huffed dramatically but leaned over the text. After about two minutes, he frowned, tapped the page, and whispered, “Hey, what’s a ‘balalaika’? Is that, like, a battle move?”
Akaashi bit back a laugh. “It’s a musical instrument.”
“Oh. Huh. Cool.” Bokuto scribbled it into his notebook in letters so large they nearly took up the whole line. Akaashi peered over before catching himself.
“Your handwriting is, um. Very bold.”
“Thanks!” Bokuto beamed. “Coach says my spikes are bold too.”
Akaashi suppressed another chuckle. “Focus, Bokuto-san.”
Akaashi tried to return to his own book, but his eyes kept flicking towards Bokuto, who was leaning closer and closer to Akaashi as though he might absorb meaning through sheer proximity.
Finally, Akaashi exhaled and nudged his copy closer to him. “Here. I’ll explain this passage.”
Bokuto’s shoulder pressed fully against his now, solid and warm. “Sweet! Teamwork.” Akaashi was very pleased with the contact, and pretended to be too intent on his explanation to move away from Bokuto’s touch.
As Akaashi dove into the nuances of the book in the simplest words he could scrounge up, Bokuto’s eyes widened like a little owl. Instead of zoning out like Keiji had expected, the athlete leaned forward, elbows on the tiny table, listening as if Akaashi were narrating an epic sports match. He began nodding happily along to everything the younger boy said.
“You really do know everything!” he exclaimed when Akaashi stopped.
Blush warmed Akaashi’s neck again. “Certainly not.”
“Yup,” Bokuto leaned closer across the table, his voice dropping to a real whisper. “You’ve got this little, uh…” He gestured to Akaashi’s glasses. “…professor vibe going. Makes me wanna take notes on whatever you say.”
Akaashi’s breath caught. Was that flirting? That was flirting. That was absolutely flirting.
“That’s… that’s not. Focus on the book, Bokuto-san,” he managed. He adjusted his glasses to hide his increasingly red face.
Bokuto grinned wider. “Okay. But it’s true, see? Just like a coach. Tough love.”
For the next half hour, they actually managed to get some reading done, though Bokuto’s notes were filled largely with doodles of volleyballs and arrows pointing to names with captions like Suspicious?? and Would not survive Ushijima’s serves.
“Bokuto-san,” he couldn’t help himself. “Who is that supposed to be?” he tapped one silly looking stick figure with the end of his pen.
Bokuto leaned back and took a deep breath, preparing for the task ahead of him in pronouncing the character’s name. “Count…Buzz off?” he attempted.
Akaashi burst out laughing, hiding his blushing face behind his book.
Bokuto beamed. “I knew I could make you laugh.” Indeed, he was laughing so hard that other students in the library began to stare. “Shhhh, Akaashi! Look who’s being loud now,” he teased.
Their moment was interrupted by the sound of someone dropping a stack of books pointedly at the circulation desk. Akaashi winced, remembering his librarian duties. “I should do a little work before we continue, Bokuto-san.”
“Can I help?” the other boy asked eagerly.
Akaashi should really have told him no—it was against library rules—but then he imagined the clumsy athlete lumbering around the shelves, trying to whisper and probably failing, and for some reason the thought didn’t irritate him as much as it should have.
“You can… carry a few. Quietly.”
Bokuto saluted. “Yes, Coach Akaashi.”
Akaashi sighed.
As they shelved books together, Bokuto hummed cheerfully under his breath, occasionally glancing over at Akaashi with that same bright smile. Keiji tried very hard to ignore the flutter in his chest when Bokuto (nearly) whispered, “Check this out, there’s a whole shelf of poetry!”—just the genre that really got Akaashi going.
Akaashi pulled a misplaced book off the shelf and nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of Bokuto’s eye staring at him from the other side.
“Hey, Akaashi,” the eye said. “If I finish the rest of this book by the end of the week, do I get a prize?”
Akaashi arched an eyebrow. “Like what, Bokuto-san?”
“Dinner. With you.”
Akaashi met the eye slowly.
“That’s… ambitious.”
“So is reading War and Peace.” Bokuto stood up straight, and the eye was replaced by the white-haired boy leaning cross-armed over a higher shelf. He looked entirely too smug for someone who had recently confused Napoleonic Russia with Ancient Rome.
Akaashi looked back at his book cart, trying to hide his smile. “We’ll see how far you get.”
“Challenge accepted,” Bokuto said, foregoing his whisper altogether.
Akaashi really wanted him to win.
~~
Next week’s book club rolled around in no time, and Akaashi was more than prepared with the stack of notes he had accumulated over his further study sessions with Bokuto Koutarou. What Akaashi was not prepared for was Bokuto Koutarou showing up early for once.
The white-haired athlete was already in the club room chatting with the other members when Akaashi arrived. A notebook lay in front of him, pages covered in the messy handwriting and suspicious little stick figures wielding swords that Keiji had gotten so used to seeing.
“Akaashi!” Bokuto cheered. “Check it out—I took notes!” Every head in the room turned towards the president as if to ask, You invited him back?
Akaashi cleared his throat and set his bag down calmly, though the reddening tips of his ears betrayed his smile. Once everyone settled, Akaashi opened the discussion with a carefully crafted question about the philosophical implications of the war.
Bokuto’s hand shot up immediately.
“Yes, Bokuto?”
“So, I discovered something,” Bokuto said seriously. “Every time a battle scene comes up, I get way more into it by doing sound effects to keep track.” He demonstrated with an enthusiastic “WHOOSH—BAM!” that made two of the club members jump.
“Sound effects?” Akaashi repeated.
“Yeah! Helps with the immersion. Like, here–” Bokuto flipped to a dog-eared page and read aloud a passage about troops advancing. Then he slapped the table dramatically: “BOOM! Cannon fire!”
The group dissolved into laughter. Akaashi’s nose twitched with a smile.
“Bokuto-san,” he said, as firmly as he could manage. “This is a literature analysis group, not a radio play.”
Bokuto grinned unabashedly. “But you gotta admit it makes it more exciting!” A few others nodded their amused agreement. “See?” Bokuto said triumphantly.
They pressed on. Akaashi tried to redirect the discussion to themes of fate and free will. “So, this chapter revealed a lot about Natasha’s existential crisis. What did you all think of it?”
“She’s not really so naive, right? She’s just, like, figuring out her place on the team?” Bokuto proposed tentatively.
Akaashi blinked, impressed, and decided to ignore the volleyball metaphor. “That’s… a very good observation.” Bokuto grinned widely.
When Akaashi moved to Pierre’s role in the chapter, Bokuto listened for a solid two minutes before raising his hand again.
“Okay, but I have a theory,” Bokuto announced. “What if Pierre is like… the team captain, and everyone else are his players, and war is the big tournament?”
The room went silent. Akaashi gave him a long, unimpressed look. “That is—” he started.
“—actually kind of brilliant,” interrupted another student. “It fits the whole structure-versus-chaos thing.”
Another student chimed in. “And the morale stuff! Like, leadership dynamics.”
Suddenly the whole group was buzzing. Akaashi sat back in horror, realizing with reluctant awe that Bokuto had somehow managed to make War and Peace more engaging in fifteen minutes than he had in weeks. When the meeting wrapped up, half the club left chatting animatedly about strategy and “line-ups” of Russian nobles.
Bokuto slung his gym bag over his shoulder, looking pleased as punch. “Akaashi, did I do good?” he asked eagerly.
Akaashi gave him a real smile then. “It was great, Bokuto-san.”
“It’s not so hard to understand when I think about it like that. Plus, you make this stuff sound exciting. Like… it’s much better to hear you talk about the book than it is to actually read it. Not that it’s not, like, super interesting!” Bokuto added frantically.
“You’ve done an impressive job. I haven’t seen the club talk like that, well… ever,” Akaashi admitted. “I’m very happy to have you here, Bokuto-san,” he confessed softly.
The athlete looked at him sheepishly still. “Funny thing, wasn’t it?” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Me ending up here by accident. Wrong flyer and all that.”
Akaashi’s stomach flipped. “You don’t have to keep coming if it’s not your thing.”
Bokuto’s eyes widened. “That’s not what I mean.” He stepped closer, his voice softer now. “I don’t want to stop. I like it here. I like being around you. You make books feel like they matter. And I kinda want to prove I can do it. To impress you.”
Each statement was more straightforward than anything Keiji had ever said in his life. For a long moment, Akaashi just stared at him, heart pounding. He wasn’t used to such confessions—especially not from tall, handsome athletes who could have been literally anywhere else on a Thursday night. In his usual fashion, Bokuto kept talking to fill his silence.
“I don’t think I ever said thanks. For letting me stay. For, you know…not giving up on me.”
Akaashi looked up at him, cheeks warm. “Well, you didn’t give up on the book.” Their eyes locked.
“Dinner this weekend?” Bokuto stage-whispered jokingly.
“You still have three books left,” Akaashi replied.
Koutarou’s grin was boyish and bright. “Guess that means more study sessions.”
Akaashi smiled, sliding a bookmark into Bokuto’s hand. “I’ll hold you to that.”