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“Hey, Akaashi! Set to me!” Bokuto said. Afternoon practice had finished, and Akaashi and Bokuto were the only ones left in the gym. The sun had set already, leaving a rapidly darkening sky in its wake, but Bokuto wasn’t hungry and he figured Akaashi wasn’t either. Besides, Bokuto couldn’t deny the little something else that had been worrying his mind lately: how Akaashi’s gaze burned holes through him and left him trembling with some unknown desire.
And that was only his eyes.
“Pleeeaaassseee?” Bokuto begged, trying not to sound as shaky as he felt, pulling on the naivete he strove to perfect, and often hid under, pouting as Akaashi looked at him indifferently.
Akaashi rolled his eyes, then picked up a volleyball. Bokuto grinned, inexplicably proud of himself. He backed up for a running start, then leaped. He felt the ball curved perfectly in his hand, felt the time slowing, until it was just him looking over the net, frozen midair. Then time snapped back and he slammed down, hard, onto the polished wooden floor. He landed lightly and turned, meeting Akaashi’s dark eyes, and whooped, seeing the fierce triumph glinting in his eyes.
For the next few minutes (maybe even an hour, Bokuto lost track), Akaashi tossed and Bokuto spiked. It was times like this when Bokuto felt that he knew Akaashi even better than himself, the way he moved instinctively to match Akaashi’s tosses, when they stood bare before each other, the masks they wore to the world of Bokuto’s naive excitement and Akaashi’s sarcasm ripped away and each ball slotted perfectly into his grip, because they were one.
When they both finally stopped, worn out and panting hard, their sweat dripping, Akaashi looked up at the bright lights in the gym. He looked peaceful, unguarded, almost, as he turned to Bokuto with a slight grin, and Bokuto was struck with the sudden earth shattering realization of how great his setter was, how reliable, how amazing of a friend he truly was. Bokuto stilled, his breaths ragged in the silence, staring at Akaashi.
Akaashi turned, feeling Bokuto’s gaze on the back of his neck, then glanced at him. “What, you aren’t going to cheer like you always do after how great you were?”
Bokuto leaped to his feet with newfound energy. “Akaashi thinks I’m great!”
Akaashi rolled his eyes.
Bokuto grinned and began dancing in a circle around Akaashi, demanding, “Am I great? Am I great?” until Akaashi finally muttered a halfhearted yeah under his breath. Bokuto sighed, satisfied, then sprung back up to proclaim his greatness. But before he even realized what he was saying (although he later admits he thinks the pickup line is great), out of his mouth spilled, “Did you come out of an owl’s mouth?”
Akaashi snorted, stared at Bokuto. Bokuto continued grinning even though he felt his palms sweating even more which was totally gross and his heart rate increasing until he thought for sure it was going to burst out of his chest and felt his gaze being pulled like a magnet to the river of muscles that was Akaashi’s back. Then the brunette, with no change in his expression, said flatly, “I’m not an owl pellet.”
“Well, you are hot!” Bokuto cried, unable to contain himself. Bokuto’s and Akaashi’s eyes both widened. “Wait, no, that’s not the ending!” Bokuto sits down again, scratching his chin and furrowing his brows deep in thought before he finally remembered. “Because you’re a hoot!”
Akaashi stared at him, dumbstruck. “Was that just a pickup line?”
Bokuto panicked; was Akaashi impressed or not? He didn’t change his expression from his usual neutral one but he did clap, slowly, which did look somewhat disbelieving, but the white and grey haired boy pushed that out out of his mind. “Wasn’t that awesome? Admit it, you totally liked it!”
“You may want to practice it a more few times.” Akaashi smirked, and Bokuto’s breath whooshed out in relief. He worked up the courage to meet Akaashi’s gaze again, then realized something. Akaashi was smiling. At Bokuto. Akaashi never smiled. The most he ever did was roll his eyes, really.
The pickup line worked! Bokuto was ecstatic. “Hey, hey, hey!” he cried. And now all he had to do was ask Akaashi out on a date!
Which was a lot harder than he had thought. Bokuto frowned, and was almost upset at the daunting task before him, but realized being in his emo mood would likely scare Akaashi off, or, even worse, drag Akaashi on a date with him solely out of pity, not because the thrilling sensation of falling in his stomach everytime he looked at Akaashi was mutual between them.
Despite the slippery feeling in his stomach, he decided to finish what he’d intended to do. “Would you like to go on a date with me?” he said, loudly, exuberantly, as if he’s not nervous as all and as if his whole body wasn’t playing a discordant symphony of nervousness, panic, and that perpetually hyper part of him wasn’t screaming: YOU JUST ASKED AKAASHI KEIJI OUT, WHO’S THE GREATEST? BOKUTO!
“Change your pickup line first,” Akaashi said, rolling his eyes once again (Bokuto had pointed out several times that Akaashi’s eyes were likely going to get stuck one day but it seemed to be a habit ingrained into the Akaashi family).
“If I change it, will you go out with me?” He added a wink in for good measure, and held his breath, mentally repeating pleasesayyespleasesayyes over and over again in his head. When he dared look up again, he couldn’t hear through the white roar rushing in ears but saw Akaashi’s lips moving then stopping. Bokuto awkwardly scratched at his head in bewilderment, but making sure not to mess up his hair. Lipreading had never been his forte. “Uhhh, say it again? I didn’t hear you...”
Akaashi growled–literally growled, uh oh–and snarled viciously, “Yes! You dumbass, don’t make me say it again–” Bokuto shrieked and stepped back. “You’re turning into Kageyama! Don’t kill me, I’m too important for my team!”
Akaashi rolled his eyes–again–but Bokuto was too happy to care. Glee filled every part of him, and he made no attempt to hide it now, leaping into the air, high enough that he could have sworn he was inches from the ceiling, cheering for anything and everything under the sun. But today must have been the day for saying stupid things because when he landed, he glanced into Akaashi’s dark eyes and blurted out, “Can I hold hands with you now?”
Without waiting for an answer, too eager to care anymore, he grabbed Akaashi’s hand and hauled him up, then coyly batting his eyelashes at him, bravado gone, he asked quietly, hoping against hope, “Can I kiss you?”
Bokuto didn’t miss the flush of pink that spread throughout Akaashi’s cheeks and the quick nod he gets in reply. Then Bokuto stopped thinking, tilted his lips at just the right angle to meet Akaashi’s, and kissed him.
***
Bokuto and Akaashi were holding hands when they entered the gym for practice the next morning, and they didn’t miss the smirks and money exchanged from teammate to teammate. “You were betting on us?!” Akaashi demanded, marching up to the nearest boy and snatching the money out of his hands.
Bokuto gasped a little. “Everyone’s psychic! How did they know we’re dating?”
Akaashi sent him loads of bad tosses in practice after more money was exchanged. Bokuto couldn’t figure out why.
And at the end of practice, Bokuto couldn’t resist anymore. He marched up to Akaashi, cupped his face in his hands, ignored the surprise in his eyes, and kissed him, happiness exploding in his chest like a thousand suns. The whole team cheered.