Chapter Text
“Akaashi Keiji. I play setter.” The first-year folded his fingers into his hand. His voice was soft but strong. In the line-up of new volleyball members, he was neither the tallest nor the strongest. But sometimes his averted gaze would sweep across the gym, eyes piercing and masked in thought.
“I like him,” Bokuto whispered.
“You like all setters, Bokuto.”
“Yeah. But I like him.”
His name was Akaashi Keiji. He played setter.
“Again, Bokuto?” Konoha leaned back against the wall. Komi hung his head low. Washio’s frown deepened. His good friends formed a trio of disappointment.
“I can’t help it! The spikes felt good this morning, but I don’t remember what I did!” Bokuto’s hand stung bright red.
“Try bending your knees more.” Akaashi Keiji, setter, fiddling with his water bottle. “Don’t worry about spiking. Just bend your knees.”
Bokuto forgot about forgetting. He bent his knees, digging into the ground. He leapt high into the air. The ball shattered the attack line, and he remembered. When he landed, he grabbed Akaashi by the shoulders. Akaashi had firm muscles, but a sharp boniness to his figure.
“Akaashi, I did it! Did you see that? I did it!” Bokuto shook him. Akaashi glanced at the wall.
“I saw,” he said. Bokuto’s hands felt too hot. He released him. He grabbed a fistful of his shirt, knuckles lodged against his heart. He felt too hot.
“Akaashi,” Bokuto said. “Toss to me again.”
“Do you always practice this late?” Akaashi spoke softly. They walked through the academy gates, where the cherry blossoms blanketed the grounds. Above, the line of pink blossoms spread out delicately against the blue sky.
“Usually later. But I figured you would need me to walk you to the station, since you’re new here. Rely on me!” Bokuto puffed out his chest. Akaashi looked away.
“Didn’t you get lost when you went to the convenience store?”
“That’s a secret, Akaashi!”
“Then why would you tell me?” Because Akaashi’s tosses were precise and neat. Because Akaashi had told the coach not to take him out of the match, the mood couldn’t be called off his game. Because Akaashi sighed and slid his book into his desk when Bokuto visited him during lunch.
“You got a petal on you,” Bokuto said. “Hold still.”
Akaashi slowed in his step, partially closing his eyes. Bokuto touched the frail petal resting in Akaashi’s hair. The world held still, cottoned by the pink blossoms and fragrant scent. Akaashi Keiji was a first year setter. Bokuto did not know Akaashi’s favorite color, favorite food, or even favorite volleyball brand. He only stared at the frail strands of his lashes, casting a thin shadow over his eyelids.
“Hey, Akaashi! You’re here early—whoa!” Bokuto stumbled into the club room door. He nearly tripped over a stray jacket, the arms tangling around his ankle. Akaashi sat on the bench, already dressed in his track jacket and shorts. He had a magazine in his lap, the cover touting a swimsuit version.
“I was cleaning my locker and found this hidden in the back,” Akaashi said, flipping through the pages. “A former student left this, probably.”
Bokuto stumbled and straddled the bench. His knees touched the cold wood. Akaashi flipped through the pages of the magazine, setter fingers pinching the glossy corners. Akaashi’s face was stoic and indifferent. A woman flung back her hair. A man gripped her thigh, a dark trail of hair on his chest. The pages ended on Akaashi’s white shorts. Akaashi flipped the page. His form wasn’t relaxed, but it wasn’t rigid. Something about his casualness stirred a strange feeling inside Bokuto’s stomach. He swallowed it down.
“Hey,” he said, voice hitching. “Hey, Akaashi. Do you like—this stuff?”
“This is the same thing on sale in combini stores. It’s nothing special.”
“No,” Bokuto said. “Do you like. Looking at the guy. Too.” His hoarse voice drifted away from him. Akaashi stared down at the figures in the magazine. His mouth parted. Footsteps resounded down the hallway and familiar laughter echoed into the room. Bokuto twisted around, heart racing.
“Shoot,” he said. “Wait, shoot.” He snatched the magazine from Akaashi’s lap, stumbling to his locker. He thrust the magazine behind his bag, slamming the locker door shut. Akaashi had somehow gotten trapped between him and the closed locker. He smelled like soap. His dark hair fell shortly before his ears and he breathed through his parted mouth, gaze averted to the floor. The club room door opened and Bokuto leapt back.
“Hey, Bokuto, Akaashi. You guys are here early.”
When he opened his eyes, he felt sick. On the other side of the road, he could see his team clustered around a food stand, pooling together their change. The light ached in his eyes. The pool had been endless fun, but the glittering pool and bobbing floaties and red and white umbrellas had all twisted into a mess.
“They wanted to buy you something to drink,” Akaashi said softly, “before we brought you back.” He sat upright on the bench. He had dark blue swim trunks and a thin jacket zipped to his chest. His sharp collarbone protruded over his thin sternum. Bokuto rolled his head and felt the short bristles under his neck. Akaashi's towel.
“Are you mad?” Frustration and disappointment welled inside him, clogging his throat.
“I told you to drink something,” Akaashi said, a note of unruly exasperation slipping into his tone. Bokuto remembered Akaashi speaking, curled book on his knees, but he’d been busy flying over the hot cement with Komi following on his heels. The pool had shone brightly and glistened.
“Do you hate me?” Bokuto mumbled. The sun bounced off the metal poles from the food stand. He slammed his eyes shut, trying to stop the lethargic pain from gripping his skull. A sick wooziness claimed him. He thought he could feel, even in his daze, cool fingers brushing strands of wet hair from his forehead.
“I wouldn’t hate you for that.” He thought he heard Akaashi whisper something, in the tone like he was talking about something else. The dizziness swirled and touched his eyes. The waves of the pool still trembled in his mind.
“Kuroo!”
“Eh.”
“Don’t ‘eh’ me! Kuroo, look, we have a new setter! You won’t win a single game this time!” Bokuto grabbed Akaashi by the collar, pulling him away from his bag. Akaashi fixed his jacket and nodded politely at Kuroo.
“We have a new setter, too. He’s—somewhere.” Kuroo glanced behind him at the milling students in red track suits. “Probably hiding. Well, he won’t get to play much, anyway.”
“Why not? I want to play against your setter!”
“You’ll have to settle for my blocks. Kenma’s still a first year. And our upperclassmen have a hard time acknowledging his skills.” Kuroo shrugged, his grin tempered. “Well, you know how it is.”
Bokuto didn’t. He glanced at the Nekoma team, where their third years guffawed at some joke. Akaashi watched them with his hands in his jacket. Bokuto tilted his head, eyebrows arching, and waited for an explanation. Akaashi could always explain things to him, turning twisted messages into simple translations. This time, though, Akaashi’s eyes flickered over him.
“It’s fine if you don’t understand,” Akaashi murmured. His shoulders seemed stiff. The coaches called for them to gather, schedules in their hands.
Bokuto wiggled his fingers above his futon. Even though he had practiced hard, energy buzzed through him. The new setter from Nekoma hadn’t played in the end, but he had blown past Kuroo’s blocks with Akaashi’s flexible tosses. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the sting of the ball against his hand, the fiery burn in his chest. He heard rustling beside him. Akaashi had returned from the baths before the other first years.
“I’ll be sleeping next to you,” Bokuto said, twisting around to fall on his stomach.
“Is that so,” Akaashi said. The towel slung over his neck. In the dampness, the curls of his hair had flattened slightly. He looked disdainful but peaceful, a new looseness to his movements. He had a fresh glow and droplets of water dripped down his neck, following the lines of his throat. Bokuto hugged his pillow to his chest.
“Akaashi,” he said, trying to clear his mind. “We didn’t get to see the new setter from Nekoma today, huh.”
“It seems that way. They weren’t an easy opponent to beat, even if we kept your mistakes to a minimum.”
“Don’t say it like that, Akaashi!” Bokuto buried his face into the pillow.
“If you don’t want me to say it, I won’t.” Akaashi spoke with indifference. When Bokuto looked up again, Akaashi had already slid underneath his covers. He stayed still in the perfect middle of the futon, quilt snug against his shoulders. His bag had been zipped shut. Bokuto sat up on his elbow.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“If,” Akaashi said, “you don’t want me to say it, I won’t.”
“Are you saying—” The other first years began to stream into the room. When Bokuto glanced over, Akaashi had already closed his eyes.
“It’s not really my place to say,” Kuroo said, chewing on a watermelon slice. “But I heard Daisho from Nohebi started going out with a girl.”
“So?” Bokuto took a deep bite from his watermelon. Akaashi had tried to wander off to wash his hands, but Bokuto had pulled him down to sit beside him on the concrete steps. While he and Kuroo talked, Akaashi wiped his hands warily with a damp towel.
“Just don’t know where he finds the time. That guy practices hard, too.”
“Ohhh, that’s right, isn’t it? I’ve never really dated anyone before. But sometimes, there are girls at my school who say I’m cool!”
“Is that right, now? Are you sure you’re not mishearing?”
“It’s right! Right, Akaashi!” Bokuto twisted around. Akaashi glanced away.
“Nyaha. I can’t gloat, though. Haven’t been in a serious relationship myself yet.” Kuroo bit into the pinkish rind. “Haven’t found ‘the one’ I want to be ‘the one,’ in other words.”
“You just date whoever tells you that you’re the coolest, right?” Bokuto blinked.
“Maybe for simple-minded owls. Me, I don’t know who I would like.” Kuroo shrugged, his lanky form a solid wave. “But I’ll figure it out. You start thinking about them all the time, you want to go to different places with them and only them, that sort of thing. Well, I’m an old-fashioned romantic.”
“That sounds smart,” Bokuto said, reaching for his third slice. “But we spend all our time at practice.”
“You’re right about that. Oh, but not all the time. There’s a festival next week. If we start practice earlier, we can go there and play.” Kuroo grinned. “All the guys will want to take their dates there. Maybe you should try to find one, too.”
“Why? I just want to go with Akaashi.” Bokuto chewed through his watermelon. “Hey, what did you mean by simple-minded?”
“It’s hot!” Bokuto said this loudly, but the air conditioning from the convenience store washed over him in a stiff wave. The cashier greeted them with a smile.
“Don’t wander too far,” Akaashi said, shoes squeaking on the floor.
“I won’t, I won’t!” Bokuto wandered to the far end of the store, closest to the broad strip of clear windows facing the empty parking lot. Akaashi had been asked to buy drinks for the team, and Fukurodani Academy had a big team. Bokuto wanted to go with him. The smell of tar melted into the woody scent from the encroaching thickets of trees.
Bokuto tapped along the ice cream display, hot fingers smearing across the numb surface. He poured the hot coins into his palm, counting off the burning metal. Enough for two. He gleefully opened the case and grabbed two ice creams cones. Akaashi, cool and efficient as always, had already purchased the drinks. He stood in front of the row of glossy magazines, the plastic bag swinging at his knees.
“Do you like her?” Bokuto asked, pocketing the change and pointing to the magazine. “She’s cute, right?” The top row of magazines sported the same model, who smiled charmingly from the pink cover under a spread of flowers.
“I suppose,” Akaashi said. “We’ll be late if you continue to dawdle.” He spoke carefully, like he tiptoed around Bokuto’s feelings, but Bokuto wouldn’t have been hurt by Akaashi’s likes or dislikes. He wanted to know more about Akaashi. He followed closely on his heels, the door sliding open with a soft click.
“It’s hot!” This time, it really was hot. The tyrannical heat rose like a wall. Bokuto fumbled and ripped open the plastic for his ice cream. He had bought two different flavors, but he gave the one he liked better to Akaashi.
“Thank you,” Akaashi said, blinking. “Is this why you came with me? To buy ice cream?”
“Nope!” Bokuto licked his ice cream, the sweetness melting over his tongue. “I just thought it’d suck for you to do this alone.”
“Did they ask you to do this when you were a first year?”
“Once, but I got lost and bought the wrong drinks. Don’t tell anyone! It’s a secret, Akaashi!” Bokuto swiped his tongue across the ice cream from his mouth. Akaashi only nodded, already digesting the information. Akaashi was smart. When Bokuto visited him at lunch, he sometimes had a book out, reading and underlining words. But Akaashi wasn’t smart in the way some students were mean smart. Some of the students who scored highest on the tests would force a mock modesty, but laughed the loudest at simple mistakes. Akaashi was nice smart. He used his smart for volleyball and Bokuto loved volleyball.
“This melts quickly,” Akaashi murmured. The ice cream dripped down his pinky, following the trail of his hand to his upper warm. He stretched out his small tongue, darting to catch the droplet of ice cream. More had already spilled onto his fingers, and he sucked at the joints, caressing the folds of his hand. He glanced at Bokuto.
“Yours is melting, too,” he said. Bokuto looked down, hand now covered with sticky ice cream. He easily crammed the bigger chunks into his mouth and balled up the trash. His fingers stuck together, quietly reluctant to pull apart. He smelled sweet. Akaashi walked beside him, footsteps even and cans clicking together.
“Let’s go to the summer festival together, Akaashi. I heard there’s gonna be candy.”
“That’s not surprising.”
“So you’ll go with me?” Bokuto wouldn’t be upset if Akaashi refused. But he also twisted his head back and forth, new nervous energy inside him. This felt important.
“I have no other plans.” That was Akaashi speak for yes, or at least, he wouldn’t complain if Bokuto stopped by before the main event. The hot sweat rolled down Bokuto’s neck. The slope of the road was harsher than he remembered, the white paint chipping away. Sometimes Akaashi pulled ahead, surging forward to gather momentum in the climb. Bokuto could have run faster after him, though Akaashi slowed down every few steps.
But he watched the broadness of Akaashi’s back, the dampness of his fingers still catching underneath the sunlight.
Kuroo had been sacrificed to the bustling crowd. The visitors flapped their paper fans against their sweat-slick tendrils of hair. The team members who escaped the whirlwind of festival games had found a small clearing to watch the fireworks. Bokuto crammed together with Washio blockading his right and Akaashi crumpled on his left. The announcements rolled out in the ancient speakers, the compassionate voice of the announcer diluted into a mechanical drone.
“It’s hot,” he told Akaashi.
“What?” Akaashi had to speak louder over the crowd. Even at volume, his voice had the same quality of thin ice forming across water. He hoisted a cup of shaved ice in one hand, which he pulled away from Bokuto’s inquiring gaze. Bokuto had demolished his own fried food a while ago, but his stomach still growled. He pouted. Akaashi ignored him.
Those around him had their heads craned towards the sky, awaiting the legendary fireworks. When they finally began, in a burst of gold and red, Bokuto still kept his eyes on Akaashi.
The brief light flickered over the edges of Akaashi’s face. The lines of his forehead, nose, and mouth became visible at another burst of lights, and disappeared into darkness while the fireworks fizzled away. Akaashi still licked at his shaved ice. Cherry, he thought he had heard Akaashi request at the stand, but the ice appeared colorless under the dazzling flood of colors. His ears rang from the popping. The force of the fireworks pressed tight against his arms and chest.
Akaashi’s eyes flickered to his melting ice. During the flashes of light, he curled his finger around a droplet and licked his finger. The fireworks had cast them all into a stop-motion film. Akaashi started at his fingertip in one burst, and had licked the joints of his fingers in another.
“Akaashi,” Bokuto said. He spoke only in his normal voice, but it must have carried. Akaashi’s eyes flickered towards him, like he was uncertain what he had heard.
“Are you having fun?” Bokuto said. Akaashi followed the motions of his mouth, but he became distracted when his ice melted in a rivulet to his fingers. A drop splattered on the grass, and Akaashi licked his finger again.
“Wait, I have something,” Bokuto said, because someone had handed him a packet of tissues in the early afternoon. He dug through his pockets until he found the packet.
“Tissues, I got tissues,” Bokuto said, even louder. Akaashi had both hands cupped around the ice, attention diverted to the flow. Bokuto leaned forward and Akaashi extended a hand to grab the offered present.
Bokuto felt something soft on his mouth.
Cherry, he thought.
He couldn’t control the expression on his face. He didn’t know if he was making a face, if his mouth was contorting. He could feel Akaashi’s finger lightly pressed against his mouth, the way it felt sticky and cold and warm. His face must have flushed because his ears were too warm and his collar was clamped too tight around his neck. He thought he could feel the faint dampness on the joint of the finger. Akaashi stared at him with surprise, eyes flung wide open. But he must have seen something in Bokuto’s face, because the strict line of his mouth turned to something softer. Akaashi removed his hand slowly, and carefully took the tissues. Three tissues later, Bokuto received the packet again in the palm of his hand.
Akaashi bent his head forward. He ran the tissue alongside his fingers. The strands of his hair tinted blue, red, gold under the fireworks. Bokuto finally turned to look at the sky. His cheeks blazed hot. The fireworks burst like a roar above him and thundered in his chest.