Archive of Our Own

It was, in every sense of the word, springtime.

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the trees swayed in the gentle breeze, their branches heavy and fragrant with pink blossoms. For the first time in ages, students lounged in the university square, spreading blankets over freshly cut grass or strolling hand-in-hand between bustling buildings.

Bokuto Koutarou watched them all pass from his window. They looked like ants from up where he was, all the way up on the fourth floor of the campus apartments. He propped his elbow up on the glass, tucked his chin into his hand, and let out a contented sigh.

The interior of the building was arguably busier than the outside. For graduating fourth-years, the process of packing up had begun; belongings that had piled up over the years were being swept up, organized, and tucked away into boxes, onto bigger and better things. Kamanai, his next-door neighbor, was off to Tomari for her internship at a power plant. Ikkei, who had sat next to him in a bunch of classes, was going to take over his father's car dealership. Kuroo had an interview set up with the JVA sports marketing department (that's right! The JVA!!), and knowing how good Kuroo was at schmoozing with old people, he practically had the job in the bag.

Bokuto wasn't doing too bad for himself, either. He was finishing up the last few classes of his sports psychology program while continuing to train with the volleyball team. They had placed a respectable third in the national tournament, garnering attention from quite a few professional scouts. Bokuto had both landed and nailed a tryout for the MSBY Black Jackals in Osaka, who assured him they would be reaching out once he graduated.

All around him, it felt like everyone was lining up at a starting line, and Bokuto was never one to turn down a race. In one week’s time, he would have his degree, he would have a professional volleyball contract, and the rest of his life would spring into motion. The whole world was practically his for the taking! Really, all there was left to do was—

"I'm sorry," Kuroo said abruptly, crumpling his half-folded t-shirt into a ball between his hands. "You said you're going to what?"

Bokuto turned to him, removing his chin from his palm.

"I said," Bokuto repeated, enunciating clearly this time, "I'm going to ask Akaashi to marry me."

(The words had been garbled by his hand the first time around. He didn't blame Kuroo for mishearing him.)

Kuroo Tetsurou, Bokuto's best friend, roommate, and self-proclaimed number one supporter in everything Bokuto did, did not react to this momentous news except to blink.

Twice.

"Oh. Well. Congratulations," came his eventual response, though it didn't really sound like he meant it. Slowly, he uncrumpled the t-shirt and resumed folding. "I didn't know you two were, um."

Kuroo paused again, closing his eyes briefly, as if searching for the word.

"…Dating."

"Oh, we're not," explained Bokuto, waving the assumption away with a smile. "Not yet, at least. Not until I pop the question."

At this, Kuroo blinked a third time, slowly. He placed the shirt very deliberately on its correct pile, ran a hand through his hair, and shook himself out in a way that reminded Bokuto of a particularly scraggly tomcat.

"Now, you know I admire your confidence, Bokuto. I've always said that," he started, lowering his head. "But don't you think you might be skipping a couple steps here?"

Oh! Bokuto got all the confusion now. He shifted in his seat to turn his full body over to Kuroo, as if to clear the space between them.

"Ahhhh. See, that's what you don't understand," Bokuto explained, gesturing emphatically. "I'm not going to actually ask him to marry me. I'm just going to use a little bit of super-sophisticated psychology to get Akaashi to agree to a date."

Kuroo—though he was one of the smartest people Bokuto knew—was clearly not up to date on the latest advancements in science, because he was still looking at Bokuto like he'd grown a third head.

"Psychology," he repeated blankly.

"It's called the door-in-the-face technique!" Bokuto leaned in, hooking his feet under the legs of his chair. "Picture this. It's a quiet, unassuming evening at Akaashi's apartment. Then—there's a knock on the door. He's all like, 'who is that?' but because he's Akaashi, and he never turns anybody away, he'll get up to check. And when he does, he'll open the door, and I'll be down on one knee with a bouquet and romantic candles everywhere—"

"—And he'll slam the door in your face?" Kuroo finished.

"No!" Bokuto wailed, sitting back. "Listen. The idea is, if I wanted someone to agree to something, I'd ask them for something huge and impossible first. And then, I'd ask for what I really want, because it'll sound like nothing in comparison! Get it? Therefore, if I want to ask Akaashi on a date, I should ask him to marry me first, so that a date seems like a total breeze!"

Bokuto pointed to his temple with a flourish, grinning. "Psychology."

Kuroo took in a slow breath. He let it out in one long, controlled sigh. Then, without a word, he turned to his laundry basket and began to dig through it for another shirt (though Bokuto swore he saw him mouth the word ‘therefore’ as he turned away).

“So?” Bokuto prompted, dragging the word out. “What do you think?”

Kuroo took another few moments to respond, seemingly thinking hard.

"I cannot wait for you to start your sports psychology practice," he finally declared, picking a shirt out and smoothing a wrinkle out of the sleeve. "I'm sending all of my worst enemies to you."

"Awww. Would you really?"

Kuroo let out a huff. "Yeah. Yeah, sure." he shook his head. "Anyway."

He was never one for affection, that guy. Sometimes Bokuto wondered how he had been in a committed relationship for so long. But then again, Kenma was never really all that lovey-dovey, either. The were a good couple that way.

"I admire the effort, but doesn't that all seem a little, I don't know… complicated?" Kuroo continued. "I mean, why try to jedi-mind-trick Akaashi into dating you? Why not just… ask him?"

Bokuto ran a hand down his face. Kuroo was still clearly not getting the picture.

"Because I've watched Akaashi turn down confessions left and right since we were sixteen years old! If romance were volleyball, he would be the best blocker in all of Japan. And I don't have a love-spike that's as strong as my real spike," Bokuto admitted, putting a hand on his chest. "So If I'm going to get through, I need to do something different."

Kuroo's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again (Bokuto thought he saw him mouth ‘love-spike’ this time)— then nodded and just continued on folding.

It was fine. He knew what Bokuto meant.  Bokuto had only lamented over his romantic situation every night for the past four years of university.

"I mean… you know how I feel about him," Bokuto sighed, sinking further into his seat. "I know it's all I talk about—well, him and volleyball," he corrected hastily, as Kuroo's eyes darted up at him. "But it's just… we're graduating this year, y'know? Our lives are about to begin. And I know I’ll have my volleyball contract, and a really cool degree to back it up once I'm done, but even with all that, I just— I can't picture living without Akaashi."

Like it usually did in times like these, Bokuto's mind drifted back to the first day he and Akaashi met. They were so young then, some roundness still clinging to their cheeks, the rest of them scrawny and gangly and awkward. Akaashi was so serious, his hands folded dutifully behind his back, all perfect posture and diligent honorifics.

Bokuto hadn't known anything then. He just remembered wondering what it might take to get the boy to open up a little. It wasn't until the end of the month that he saw any progress, when he took the team out to karaoke and totally brought the house down with his song, by the way. Even still, it took another six months for Akaashi to tell a joke (and about five minutes for Bokuto to REALIZE it had been a joke), and another year to hear his full, unabashed laugh. And it wasn't until his high school graduation, when Akaashi bowed to him, that same perfect posture and diligent honorifics and a new, quiet tremble beneath his words, that Bokuto remembered the boy he'd met, and realized how much time he'd devoted to listening for his voice.

It was only then that Bokuto realized how far gone he was.

Kuroo, sympathetic to his cause (or maybe just the look on his face), softened with a sigh.

"Here's an idea," he offered. "Akaashi’s coming on our graduation trip, right? The beach would be a perfect place to talk to him. You could treat him to a nice day, take him to the coast at sunset, and then I honestly think you should tell him exactly what you just told me."

Bokuto frowned.

"Just… tell him? You seriously think that would work?"

"You've known him for six years, Bokuto. I think he trusts you more than anyone else in the world. Definitely more than anyone else who’s asked him, that’s for sure,” said Kuroo, with a reassuring half-smile. “At this point, I think telling him how you feel is a smaller step than you might expect."

"Oh," said Bokuto, drawing the syllable out.

That was weird. Kuroo was making sense, but more than that, Bokuto’s mind caught on his words. Something about them seemed familiar, like… like he’d heard them before.

After a moment, they clicked, and he jumped up with a snap of his fingers. "Of course! Kuroo, you knew it all along, you genius! I’ve been building up to this for so long, my final request will seem like nothing at all! That’s the classic psychological foot-in-the-door technique!"

Kuroo's smile dropped.

"You're about to learn my foot-in-the-ass technique if you don't quit it with the psychology talk.”

Bokuto winced. He sat back down. He folded his hands in his lap.

"The beach at sunset, you said?"

“The beach at sunset,” Kuroo agreed. He tucked his folded pile of t-shirts into his drawer, shut it with a definitive clunk, and then paused.

Then, he turned to Bokuto with a smirk he always wore when he was about to say something that was only funny in his head.

“Just say what you mean, Bokuto. That’s your cut-shot at love.”

(True to form, Boukto frowned, and Kuroo snickered so hard he had to brace himself on his dresser.)

The cabin they'd rented was small and cozy, with log walls, a sunlit kitchen, and a bathhouse tucked away down a wooden stairwell. Kuroo and Kenma had taken the upstairs loft, which left Bokuto and Akaashi to spread futons on separate corners of the first floor living room. Outside, the sea-gray horizon glowed in the dim morning light, and a gravel path wound through the grassy coastline and down onto the rocky shore.

That was the view from the little kitchen window. Inside, Bokuto and Akaashi worked silently to prepare breakfast, dicing chicken and slicing green onions in companionable silence. Years and years of playing alongside each other had honed their respective senses of where exactly the other was and how to move together. Round and around they went, browning chicken, adding leftover rice, seasonings, shoyu. Akaashi added while Bokuto stirred, two waves on the tide, coming and going in an invisible dance all their own.

No words were needed. There was only the sizzle of the fried rice, the nostalgic smell of oil on a wok, and a soft, unbreakable ache in the center of Bokuto's chest.

He wanted this forever. He’d only been up for less than an hour and he was already certain of it.

"Apparently there's a nice bookshop in town," Bokuto finally said, breaking the silence. He turned to Akaashi, who was washing the cutting board at the sink. "Did you want to go after breakfast? I think Kuroo and Kenma are going to check out the arcade."

Akaashi tilted his head in the way that always subtly widened his smile. "This is your graduation trip, Bokuto-san. We should do what you want to do."

As the tap turned off, Bokuto reached for a dish towel and held out a hand. "And who says I don't want to go to a bookshop?"

Akaashi rolled his eyes and handed him the cutting board. "We both know that you only tolerate the bookshops to appease me."

That was not true. Actually, the greatest achievement of Bokuto's life happened in a bookshop. It was a couple years ago, when he had picked out a book that Akaashi had ended up buying and—AND—loving so much that they went back when a limited-edition cover came out. To this day, it gave Bokuto an adrenaline rush just thinking about it. He’d been chasing that high ever since.

"Well, then let me appease you,” he replied, with a crooked smile. “What if that’s what I want to do?"

Akaashi turned his head away to inspect a fleck of green onion on the bowl he was washing.

“Then I think you need some new hobbies,” he said quietly, though Bokuto knew him well enough to hear the amusement in his voice.

Bokuto grinned as he put the cutting board on the drying rack. “Bookshop it is. And after that, if it makes you feel better… did you see there’s a volleyball net on the beach?”

“Ah. Is there? I didn’t check,” Akaashi replied, handing him the bowl. “I sort of just assumed you’d build one if there wasn’t.”

At this, Bokuto laughed, unconvincingly. “…Right,” he said, slowly wiping across the inside of the ceramic.

He let the steady rush of water fill the room a bit before he ventured on.

“…And, on a totally unrelated, separate note, d’you think you could help me set up… uh…. something on the beach after lunch?”

Akaashi just looked at him, unimpressed.

Fortunately, at that very moment, the footsteps above them forecasted signs of life upstairs. Bokuto took the excuse to avert his eyes to the ceiling and blurt something like ‘wow, it’s about time, I thought they’d never wake up, the rice is getting cold…’ and so on until Akaashi rolled his eyes and mercifully turned away to the fridge.

Despite their promising start, Kuroo and Kenma took another fifteen minutes to come downstairs. In that time, Akaashi cut up some fruit and started a second pot of coffee, while Bokuto finished the rice and washed the rest of their dishes. By the time the four of them finally settled around the kitchen counter, the sun had cut through the morning gray and was now painting the coast in sparkling shades of emerald through the window.

They ate their breakfast there at the counter, elbows jostling, wood creaking from somewhere deep within the sun-warmed cabin. There was a sort of unspoken peace in listening to the distant crash of waves on the shore and beholding the sunbeams coming in through the window—well, save for Kenma, who was naturally at eye level with them, and did not appreciate it.

“What a beautiful day to hit the arcade,” Kuroo finally remarked, bumping Kenma with his hip as the shorter man rubbed his eyes for the umpteenth time.

Kenma, impervious to his ribbing after all these years, just nodded. “We spent all of yesterday in nature,” he argued. “It’s time for a change of scenery.”

“Nature?” Bokuto interjected, cocking his head. “We were on a train for, like, six hours yesterday.”

Kenma turned to him. “Yeah. On a train through nature.”

Kuroo snorted. “That does not count.”

“Does too. The view’s the same.”

“Does not.”

“Does too.”

“Does not!”

This, of course, went on for a bit, and then derailed onto a tangent about cracking the window at nighttime or something like that. Bokuto knew better than to try and follow an argument between Kuroo and Kenma. From across the table, Akaashi caught his eye and smiled into his breakfast, clearly thinking the same.

That ache in the center of Bokuto’s chest was back.

Could the two of them be like this, if they were together? Actually, Bokuto sort of hoped that endless ribbing and arguing was a Kuroo and Kenma thing, and not an all couples thing, because he wasn’t sure he’d ever have the heart to go against anything Akaashi ever said. Akaashi was so smart, after all. Smart and kind and thoughtful and logical; he only said things when he was sure they were true. Bokuto, in contrast, was… a really hard worker, according to all his professors.

But then again, if they were a couple, what else would they talk about? He already enjoyed talking to Akaashi about… pretty much everything, really. It was hard to imagine any of that would change. Somehow, it’d have to be more, though. Right? Couples were like friends but more? Isn’t that what everyone said?

Okay, well, first of all, he’d probably have to spend some time getting all his feelings out after keeping them a secret for so long. So that’d buy them, like, a couple of years, at least. And by then, he supposed they would be actual adults with responsibilities and mortgages and taxes and all that, so they’d have to discuss those a little bit. He didn’t really want to spend his hard-earned life with Akaashi talking about refinancing a home, though. There had to be more to it than that.

He just didn’t know what. Was he supposed to know what? If he was going to ask Akaashi to be in his life forever, shouldn’t he know what? Y’know, in case Akaashi asked? What… what… would he say then?

“-Bokuto?”

Bokuto felt himself jolt back to reality. He looked up from where he had been squashing his rice down with his fork to find all three people staring at him across the counter.

“What?” he said, alertly.

“Are you okay?”

That was Kenma, and if Kenma went so far as to ask him that, Bokuto must’ve had one heck of a look on his face.

“Yeah! Yeah, just spaced out,” said Bokuto, giving an easy grin and dropping his fork. “All good, though.”

Akaashi placed his fork next to his bowl as well. “Are you tired? We did have an early start. We could skip the bookshop and sleep in, if you wanted.”

“No! No. I’m good. Really,” Bokuto assured him, shaking his head forcefully. “Not tired. Just thinking. And with me,” he laughed, as easily as he could, “you know that takes some effort.”

None of the others seemed very convinced by that, but thankfully, they didn’t push the issue. Akaashi just nodded in silent skepticism. Kenma shrugged, in a ‘you’ve got a point’ sort of way, and went back to picking the green onions out of his bowl.

Only Kuroo’s gaze lingered long enough for Bokuto to catch his eye. Kuroo glanced between him and Akaashi, once, a silent question.

Bokuto scrunched his nose sheepishly. Kuroo got the message, and gave him a tiny fist-pump, as if to say, ‘don’t worry, bro, you got this.’

It helped dispel some of the doubt hanging over him. Bokuto exhaled, discreetly enough that it could’ve been just another breath, and rolled his shoulders out. He did have this. All he had to do was get to sunset today. Ask the question. Hopefully get a good response. The rest of it, he’d deal with when the time came.

Bokuto waited until Kenma asked Akaashi about a copy of some new manga to mouth back a quick ‘thanks’ to Kuroo.

Sure, he didn’t know what. But he knew who.

That was enough for now.

The bookshop was called Ampersand. It was a stout wooden building on main street just off the beach, so close that a little bit of sand blew in every time the door opened. The front part of the store was a typical bookshop, with rows and rows of shelves in no discernible order, books stacked between photo frames and candles and sale placards that looked a little too faded to be entirely trusted. This is where Bokuto and Akaashi spent most of their morning, meandering between shelves and running their fingers across the spines whenever something caught their eye.

Bokuto pulled out a book and traced his thumb over the cover. ‘Letters to the Wind,’ it read. The ornate strands of gold on the label had drawn his attention, and the threads stretched onto the front cover, tracing the path of several tiny paper airplanes over a clear blue sky.

“Star-crossed lovers,” Akaashi explained, from over his shoulder. Bokuto jumped a little at the sudden words in his ear.

Akaashi went on, nodding at the book. “He writes to his next-door neighbor over the hedge, but she lives in the past. Eventually, he gets on the same flight she died on 50 years ago, and they’re reunited by fate.”

“Oh. Wow,” said Bokuto, uncertainly. He put it back. “Sounds… interesting. Did you like it?”

“Never read it,” said Akaashi, his lips rising in a half-smile as he floated away.

Bokuto was caught off-guard for a second, but then a grin split across his face and he ran to catch up with him.

“Hey, hey! That was pretty good! What else you got?”

Bokuto had forgotten exactly when it had started, but one day Akaashi began picking out books at the store and making up stories to match the covers. Now it was something of a game of theirs to find a book and come up with an ending. Akaashi was a little more creative, of course. Most of Bokuto’s stories involved volleyball, or explosions, or… volleyball explosions.

“The maid did it,” stated Akaashi, holding up a murder mystery. A well-manicured house decorated the cover, and it looked like there was a suspicious silhouette in one of the windows upstairs. “She was unfairly compensated. It’s something of a commentary on class consciousness.”

“Oh, totally,” Bokuto nodded along. “She used the laundry chute to send his body to the basement.”

“How very symbolic,” Akaashi agreed with a small smile, as he put the book back.

Bokuto felt his heart leap. There was that adrenaline rush he was talking about. See? He loved bookshops.

Akaashi picked out another book and handed it to Bokuto this time.

“She owns a convenience store,” Bokuto said, glancing over the picture of an old-fashioned street market. “And she enters a, um, convenience store competition. Yeah! She wins, of course.”

It was a terrible story, even for his standards. In his defense, Bokuto’s head was feeling fuzzy. Akaashi was still smiling at him, expectant, and uncannily warm.

“It’s a close call, though,” Akaashi finally added, chewing his lip as he examined the picture in more detail. “It all came down to her onigiri selection.”

“Mhm.” Bokuto nodded tightly. “Pickled plum.”

Akaashi hummed contentedly, which of course didn’t help unscramble Bokuto’s thoughts.

They went on like this for a while. Despite a slow start, Bokuto ended up coming up with some absolute page-turners, if he did say so himself (especially the one about the flying mind-controlling wig). But as it always went, nothing could ever top Akaashi’s stories. He was brilliant. It was like there were entire galaxies inside his mind, and he was picking them apart at will with each suggestion. Even when he looked at Bokuto himself, it felt like he was seeing every universe, every past, present, and future they could ever have.

Maybe that’s why Bokuto got butterflies every time Akaashi smiled at him. It sort of gave him the feeling that everything was going to work out. It was the same feeling Bokuto got when a good spike hit his palm, or when he knew the answer to every question on a test. Except, it was… well.

More.

Bokuto grabbed a plain-looking book off the shelf. A simple portrait took up the whole cover, along with the words ‘Poster Child.’ He grinned as he held it up. Akaashi loved a challenge.

“Ah. An artist draws a portrait of his son every day,” said Akaashi, without missing a beat. He was totally in his element. His arms were swinging lightly at his sides, and he’d been wearing a soft smile since they’d started playing. It was all doing terrible things for Bokuto’s heart. “On his eighteenth birthday, she casts a spell to trap him in the drawings. He lives on forever as a kid, because she can’t bear the thought of him growing up.”

“Ouch,” Bokuto said, scrunching his nose and flipping back the cover. “I don’t think I’d like being 2-dimensional.”

Akaashi huffed amusedly. “You barely fit in three,” he murmured, more to himself than anything. He reached for another book. “Your turn again.”

This book had an elephant on it or something-

“Wait, what’d you say?” Bokuto said, barely glancing over the cover. “What do you mean I barely fit in three?”

Akaashi snorted so hard he ended up having to slap a hand over his mouth. He replaced the elephant book, carefully, as if in apology to the shelf for causing a commotion.

“Three dimensions, I mean,” he elaborated obligingly. “You… have a habit of being larger than life, sometimes. Like, um…”

Akaashi looked around again, before another book caught his eye. Wordlessly, he picked it off the shelf and gestured at the cover with a shrug.

‘Lightning in a bottle,’ it read.

The cover was black and gold, with shocks of metallic lightning through the center. The lightning—true to the title—glowed within an iridescent outline in the shape of an old flask. It was really a very pretty book. Bold and eye-catching, yet simple. Powerful.

Bokuto swallowed hard.

“What’s the story there?”

For the first time that morning, Akaashi faltered. Bokuto held his breath as the easy light of his gaze flickered, and his smile dropped a fraction of a millimeter. Akaashi stood frozen for a second—two seconds—then thought about it, and righted himself.

Cleared his throat.

Looked down.

“A man traps a storm in a bottle,” he said, quietly. Then, he smiled again, only this time it was lighter, almost wistful. “And for as long as the storm is in there, it teaches him how to fly.”

The two of them stood in silence for a long, long moment. Akaashi smoothed a thumb over the metallic gold of the cover, gazing at it almost fondly. Bokuto just watched.

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He wasn’t sure what it meant, if he was honest. But somehow, he had a feeling that he did not win this particular round of the game.

As if he was listening in to his thoughts, Akaashi nodded once, decisive, and put the book carefully back on the shelf.

“Would you like to check out the back, Bokuto-san?” he asked, eyes flicking back over to Bokuto.

It was only for a split second, which was enough for Bokuto to see the silent apology in his gaze. Bokuto smiled back, like a reassurance. He wasn’t sure what he was forgiving, exactly, but he’d give Akaashi anything he asked for.

“Let’s do it,” Bokuto replied, and followed him through the shelves.

Further into the bookshop, the room opened up to several scattered tables and wooden chairs. Books overflowed onto these surfaces too, some with their spines still opened to half-folded pages. The main attraction, though, was an adjoining room separated by one large wooden windowpane. ‘Traditional book-binding,’ read a sign in front of the window. Bokuto and Akaashi found seats nearby, watching workers press stacks and stacks of folded pages into old copper machines and sew leather covers on by hand.

It seemed really… tedious, was the word. Yeah. That seemed right. Bokuto looked to Akaashi for confirmation, but found him watching the workers with a deep frown on his face. He seemed a little lost. His eyebrows were etched in a permanent furrow and his gaze was somewhere far off, past the whole bookshop and somewhere in one of the galaxies only he could see.

Bokuto elbowed him.

“You okay?”

This time, it was Akaashi’s turn to jump at the sudden interruption. His hand hit the table with a SMACK, and he flinched hard, frantically looking around to ensure he hadn’t disturbed anyone.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!”

Akaashi shook his head rapidly. “It’s not your fault, Bokuto-san. I was distracted.”

“What’s distracting you?”

At the question, Akaashi went quiet again. He spread his palms flat against the table, inspecting them carefully, like he was looking for a good answer written on the back of his hands.

Whatever he was looking for must’ve been pretty well hidden. Bokuto watched as he chewed at his lip, his eyes darting around the bookshop before landing on the window to the printing room.

“I… got an internship,” Akaashi finally said.

Bokuto gasped and sat up. “The one at the publishing company?” he asked. “The one you said you really wanted?”

“Yes. I mean, no, but yes,” replied Akaashi, quietly, like he was trying to average Bokuto’s volume with his own. “Same company. Just a different department.”

Akaashi needed some practice in announcing good news. Bokuto remembered when he revealed that he’d gotten into the most prestigious literature program in Japan. Or when Fukurodani made it to Nationals that first year Bokuto wasn’t there. Akaashi presented everything like he was delivering a weather report, and just left the reactions up to everyone else.

It was a good thing he had Bokuto.

Bokuto threw his hands up in the air. “That’s AMAZING, Akaashi! You’re going to be a writer!”

Akaashi winced at the loud declaration. “I—will be helping other people write,” he corrected. “Though I suppose it’s a start.”

“Either way, you’re making stories, right? That’s all you’ve ever wanted to do,” Bokuto steamrolled on, earning a considering head tilt. He beamed, plucked both Akaashi’s hands off the table, and tried his best to shake some excitement into him. “This is the best news ever! We gotta celebrate!”

Akaashi looked away. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you right away,” he grumbled. “This is your graduation trip. We’re supposed to be celebrating you.”

“Why can’t we do both?” Bokuto protested. “Celebrate the both of us together?”

Something about that made Akaashi frown. He slid his hands out of Bokuto’s grasp. “What- I can’t just hijack your plans and turn them into mine.”

“Sure you can!” Bokuto shot back. “I do it to you all the time!”

Akaashi opened his mouth to argue, but paused—then shut his jaw again and thought about it.

“…well, yes, you do do that often.”

“See? So we can celebrate.” Bokuto concluded smugly. He looked around the table, his eyes catching on a kitchen cookbook amidst a stack of discarded titles. He grabbed it from the pile carefully and held it up. “Here. Look- I’ll give a toast.”

Akaashi looked from Bokuto, to the cookbook (whose cover image was a singular slice of bread), and back to Bokuto again.

“A… toast,” he echoed incredulously.

“Yeah! Here’s to Akaashi,” Bokuto started, raising the book even higher. “Who’s going to have a hundred and twenty stories printed at his command-“ he gestured with the cookbook over at the army of bookbinders working away behind the window- “and they’re all going to have amazing happy endings.”

Akaashi followed the motion, though his nose scrunched up as he watched the pages being pressed together. “Well. It’d be a bit predictable if they all had happy endings.”

“At least the important ones, then,” Bokuto pushed. “You’ll give those happy endings, right?”

At this, Akaashi sighed, but acquiesced, turning back to Bokuto with a placating smile.

“I’ll try.”

Bokuto could tell that Akaashi was still not all the way thrilled for some reason. This is everything he’d been working toward for years, and yet here he was, shrugging off Bokuto’s compliments like they were just more weight on his shoulders. Bokuto shook his head and pressed harder.

“You can’t try, you have to promise,” he said. “And you can’t lie under a toast, you know. It’s basically an oath.”

Bokuto waved the book over his head. Akaashi glanced up at it, eyebrows raised. His eyes fell back on Bokuto, though, and after a moment, he pressed his lips together, as if he was suppressing a smile. His gaze dropped back to his hands on the table.

He was gently pulling at his fingers, like he usually did when he was thinking hard. Bokuto watched as his silent deliberations pulled his eyebrows together, dissipating the ghost of his humor.

Finally, Akaashi nodded once.

“I promise,” he said, and the silence that followed seemed to hold more sincerity than the question warranted. “All my most important stories will get happy endings.”

Akaashi kept his eyes on the table, like his promise was more to himself than anyone else. Bokuto couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still playing some game far beyond his comprehension.

But a promise was a promise. Especially when Akaashi made it.

“Okay,” said Bokuto, slowly lowering the cookbook. “Then it’s locked in.”

Akaashi just nodded again, resolute.

Behind them, the bookbinders kept working, pressing pages together with iron finality, giving words and lines and stories and worlds a home between minute sheets of paper.

Something about it all suddenly made Bokuto feel very small.

Akaashi’s eyes flicked up, then he offered half a smile and held his hands out.

“Now I get to toast you, right?”

Wordlessly, Bokuto handed the cookbook over to Akaashi, who turned it over, took a cursory glance over the title, then held it up with about half the enthusiasm that Bokuto had had.

“Here’s to Bokuto-san,” he started. “For whom the world is waiting to know, and won’t have to wait much longer.”

Akaashi’s smile, though half-joking, felt grounding, like everything he spoke was fact.

“Everyone will learn, in short time, what I have had the pleasure of knowing for the last 6 years. This man is…” Akaashi trailed off. He glanced up at the cookbook. “…unorthodox.”

Bokuto’s shoulders hunched defensively, but Akaashi paid it no mind.

“Insatiable,” he added, looking at the back cover of the book, which Bokuto knew beheld a tantalizing image of teriyaki beef on- hey!

“Akaashi!” he protested.

“Impossible to silence,” Akaashi went on, his smile splitting wider.

“That-“ Bokuto stopped abruptly to soften his outburst into more of a low hiss- “is NOT true!”

“…And a star, through and through.”

Akaashi finished with a flourish, a glint of humor in his eyes. Something about the combination made Bokuto’s head feel all warm again, despite all the jabs he’d taken along the way. Any remaining words of protest died on his tongue.

This right here. This was the look Bokuto was talking about. Somehow, in all the galaxies of Akaashi’s endless mind, something about Bokuto was still worth knowing, and the thought of that was dizzying.

“Here’s to the secret getting out,” Akaashi said quietly, holding the cookbook out, and oh, how badly Bokuto wanted to grab him and pull him close and say everything he’d been wanting to say for about 6 years now.

But he resisted. There would be time for that later. If he played his cards right, like Kuroo said, there would be plenty of time.

So Bokuto settled for placing his hands on the book, connecting the space between them.

“Here’s to us,” he said.

Akaashi startled, for just a moment, like maybe, just maybe, he could feel the sparks jumping between them, too.

Then-

“To us,” he agreed, holding the book tighter.

Bokuto couldn’t wait for sunset.

But first, lunch.

Kuroo and Kenma bought sandwiches from some deli next to the arcade, and they ate them on the beach along with the rest of the fruit Akaashi had cut up for breakfast. Afterwards, since they were naturally and conveniently on a wide expanse of usable sand, and- oh, look! Bokuto found a volleyball!— they set up a net and played a couple (or a few, or maybe twenty) rounds of 2 on 2.

And Bokuto WOULD have won them all, if it weren’t for a few lucky bounces for Akaashi and Kenma that one time. But whatever. After all their exertion, the cool water beckoned them in, and before they knew it the sun was dipping low on the horizon while they floated on the waves.

There was something so peaceful about letting the tide rock them aimlessly back and forth. They talked about everything and nothing, the day’s events and stories from years’ past, and all the while the ocean rumbled on like it was chatting with them, too.

Akaashi looked positively ethereal, by the way. The light off the ocean ignited all the hints of green in his storm-blue eyes. Water dripped from his curls and dotted his shoulders with glimmering rivulets of silver. It was taking everything in Bokuto not to stare, and he physically had to plunge his head beneath the waves to stave off the urge to run a hand over his skin.

For all his impatience to get to sunset, now that Bokuto could physically watch the sun creep ever closer to the sea, he sort of wished it would slow down. He was still excited, of course. He just… well, he didn’t want this to ever end. Plus, he’d been having so much fun all day, he might’ve forgotten to think about what to actually say to Akaashi at the end of it.

Eventually, though, Kenma towelled off first, citing the dropping temperature, and of course Kuroo was not far behind. Bokuto protested before Akaashi pointed out that he, too, was physically shivering, and so they reluctlantly got out of the water to lay on the rocks and absorb whatever warmth was left within the ground. They spent the rest of their sunlight there, sprawled out on the coast, watching the brilliant sapphire of the sky soften into pale icy blues.

All in all, it had been a good day. A great day, even. There was just one thing that would put the icing on the cake.

As if on cue, Kuroo sat up and stretched wide.

“Ah. Well, I guess it’s time to go freshen up,” he yawned, his head lolling over to Bokuto as he did so. He flashed him a wink and a grin.

Bokuto winked back, but forgot that he was indeed facing everyone, and immediately played it off like he’d gotten a bit of sand in his eye.

Kuroo grimaced and turned back to the group. “Kenma? Care to join me?”

“Not really,” mumbled Kenma, his eyes shut.

Kuroo rolled his eyes and stood up, prodding his boyfriend with a toe.

“C’mon, you lazy ol’ kitten, we’re losing daylight here.”

At that, a single yellow eye opened, and darted from the sky, to Kuroo, then over to Bokuto.

“Oh. Mhm. Sunset.”

Kenma must’ve been in on the scheme, too, because he rose without any further convincing, and wordlessly grabbed the roll of discarded clothes Kuroo stuffed under his arm. Together they gathered the remainder of their picnic set and brushed the sand off their legs before turning and looking down at the two remaining loungers.

“Take your time,” Kuroo said, with another secretive grin. “We’ll just be back at the cabin. Uh- preparing dinner, and all that.”

Akaashi, ever-observant, raised a suspicious eyebrow. “If that’s code for something, just please, keep it in your own space.”

Kuroo threw his head back with a laugh. “Oh, Akaashi,” he tsked. “You’re one to talk.”

Akaashi’s nose scrunched in confusion, but before he could ask, Kuroo grabbed Kenma’s free hand with his own and turned them up the coast.

“Behave, you two,” he said over his shoulder. Kenma turned to nod to Bokuto, too, then the two of them picked their way back up the rocks and onto the path back to the cabin.

And then, there were two.

Hooooookay. Right. Bokuto drummed his fingers on the rock beneath him, suddenly feeling nervous.

“Pain in the ass,” Akaashi muttered under his breath. Bokuto turned to him, but he was still squinting after Kuroo’s fading silhouette.

“Ha. Right?” he agreed, and it sounded uncertain even to his ears. Bokuto cleared his throat and tried again. “Try being his roommate for four years. You won’t believe the things he got into.”

“Probably better than the things he got out of,” Akaashi retorted.

Bokuto laughed, except it came out a little too high-pitched to sound natural. “Oh. Yeah. You wouldn’t even wanna know.”

Akaashi must have noticed something was off, because he turned to Bokuto then, a telltale crease between his brows.

Bokuto cringed inwardly at the sudden attention, but pretended not to notice. He sat up, mirroring Kuroo’s stretches, and did his best to meet Akaashi’s gaze like he was none the wiser.

It was game time.

“Well. It looks like we have some time to kill. Should we… um, take a walk, or something?”

Akaashi was still watching him carefully. His eyes darted from Bokuto’s eyes, to his fingers still drumming a beat into the rocks—Bokuto pressed his hand down flat—then back up.

“If you want to, sure,” he said, slowly.

“Yep. I think I do.” Bokuto nodded, vigorously, then hopped to his feet. “The sky’s too pretty to be sitting still, y’know?”

That, at least, earned a nod of agreement from Akaashi. Now that the sun had dropped below the horizon, the sky glowed a molten orange, throwing streaks of scarlet onto the undersides of passing clouds.

The evening was definitely doing its part. Now all there was left to do was for Bokuto to do his.

At Akaashi’s assent, they started off in the opposite direction as Kuroo and Kenma had gone, hitting the point where the waves rolled onto shore before turning and walking alongside it. The longer they went, the better Bokuto felt, as if the waves lapping at their heels were physically washing his nerves away.

Just say what you mean, Kuroo had said.

Bokuto looked out at the ocean, all its churning depths touching the glowing sky and holding the last glimmers of sunlight like precious jewels on the surface.

When Bokuto was a kid, he’d stare out at the horizon and wonder if the whole world would open up to him one day. It felt like everything he didn’t know was only because he hadn’t learned it yet. As he got older, though, he realized just how much of the world was out of his reach, and sometimes it got too big and vast and overwhelming, knowing he’d never have everything. He certainly wanted everything. He felt it truly, deeply, with every thrum of his pounding heart. He belonged to a world with brilliant orange skies and crashing oceans and bustling cities with lights that filled the nighttime like neon stars.

But somewhere along the way, Bokuto carved out a place all to himself. He found volleyball, the resounding crack of a good shot, the roar of a crowd. He found subjects that he loved learning about—WAY more than certain other subjects, that was for sure. He found friends, and laughter, and warm nights at a bar downtown. He found his favorite meat bun at the konbini a few streets down from his house, and the way the steam rose when he tore it in half.

And he found Akaashi.

Bokuto didn’t want everything. Not anymore. He could do this, just this, forever.

He took a deep breath.

“Hey, Akaashi?”

Bokuto slowed to a stop, and felt himself sink into the soft sand of the shoreline. Akaashi continued for a couple of paces, then looked back when he realized Bokuto wasn’t following.

“Hm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Akaashi deliberated for a split second, then turned to face him.

“What sort of something?” he asked, cautiously.

“A- well, it’s…” Bokuto rolled up to his tiptoes, then back down. “…um. It’s actually a big Something.”

Akaashi frowned and clasped his hands together, but did not reply. Bokuto took another steeling breath and pushed onwards.

“It’s just… we’ve been friends for a real long time. Best- best friends, even, I think you could say. I’d hope.”

Akaashi's face pinched like he wanted to say something, but if Bokuto didn’t get through this now, he might lose his nerve.

“And I was just thinking- or, I guess, I wasn’t just thinking. This is something I’ve been wondering for a while, actually-”

"Bokuto-san,"

“-because it’s a lot of fun, being like this. With- with you. And I was wondering-“

“Bokuto-”

“-Wondering if- or, I guess I’ve been meaning to ask you-“

“Stop,” Akaashi said, forcefully, and it stopped Bokuto in his tracks.

Akaashi had been shifting his weight from one foot to the other as Bokuto rambled on. His brows had begun to crease further, and further, until he was shaking his head with the force of it, until finally he had to interject.

“Stop. Please. Bokuto, don’t do this.”

Bokuto blinked.

He’d noticed Akaashi’s hesitation, of course. But Akaashi had always been careful, even when he was content.

“W-what?”

“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t say it,” Akaashi said, so quickly that he was barely audible over the rush of the waves. “Don’t open that door.”

Now looking at him, he didn’t seem content at all. His shoulders were hunched, his face lax and pale, like all the warmth and light and color of the sunset had drained from his skin.

“But- I thought-“ Bokuto stammered, grasping blindly for some explanation. The waves went on, washing everything he’d laid out from beneath his feet. “You were having so much fun this trip- I mean, I guess it looked like you were having fun-“

"Of course I'm having fun," Akaashi exclaimed, though it came out cracked. He threw his hands up, a gesture to everything in general. "The cabin, the bookshop, the beach, it's all been incredible. Don’t you get it? It's the perfect ending. So just- please. Don't ruin it now."

Akaashi was growing increasingly frantic with every word. He took a step back, and Bokuto felt the gap between them sink like a stone in his throat.

“Ruin it?” he echoed, the words hollow in his ears.

"C'mon, Bokuto-san, be serious," Akaashi laughed, a little self-deprecatingly. "What comes next? You're off to Osaka to play out your dreams. And I'll be in Tokyo, learning how to write other people's stories."

Bokuto frowned, his head shaking, trying to make sense of all this. “I don’t care what you do, Akaashi, I-“

“Well, maybe you should,” Akaashi snapped.

The words died in Bokuto’s throat.

Akaashi never cut him off. But now, his hands were wringing out an invisible cloth and his voice was reaching a near-frantic pitch. "This isn't- we're not kids anymore, Bokuto-san. There's no more summer break or back to school or- or new volleyball club. This is real. This is your life."

"And I want you in it!" Bokuto blurted.

Akaashi looked torn. He shook his head vigorously, like he was trying to shake off the very idea, and his chest heaved with a frustrated breath.

"I will be. You're my best friend, I'll always-“ his jaw clicked shut, abruptly, then opened again- “You'll always be important to me."

Akaashi reached out a hand, then put it back down, so briefly it might’ve just been the wind catching his palm.

"But we're not on the same team anymore. We can't work together. We… we wouldn't work together."

Bokuto watched as he took another staggered step back.

He wanted to follow. He wanted to close the gap between them, to pull Akaashi's hands apart, to make him understand. This couldn’t be right. This was not how it was supposed to go. Bokuto had been wrong plenty of times before, about many things, but never about Akaashi.

At least- never until now.

"I'll always be cheering you on, Bokuto-san. I promise. But you're- you're free now."

Akaashi took another step back, then two, then three. For a moment, it looked like he wanted to say something else.

Bokuto realized, with an ever-sinking feeling in his chest, that he had no idea what that something could’ve been.

Not that it mattered. Without another word, Akaashi turned on his heel, almost mechanically, and strode down the beach without a single glance back.

Needless to say, sleep did not come easy that night.

And Bokuto tried, he really did. He tried not to think about the day's events, to replay them all, inspect every turn for what had gone wrong. It was a good day, it really was. To say that was one thing, but to know it, so deeply and certainly that he felt it soak through his skin like the warmth of the sun, was another. He’d done everything right. How could it have gone so wrong?

When not thinking about it clearly wasn't working out for him, Bokuto switched gears; he thought through everything, tried to make himself so tired, felt every emotion he possibly could, as if the weight of it all would exhaust him into slumber. Instead, it just made him restless, tossing and turning like he was trapped in the endless pull of the waves. As if to echo his woes, a light patter of rain had started up outside, too. It hit the roof in a steady thrum that kept Bokuto's mind in motion like water through a wheel.

It had been a while since he last felt like this. He had gotten way better at controlling his emotions since he'd started university. Classes helped some, and so did his teammates, his friends, and, well… just the act of growing up.

And from growing up alongside Akaashi.

Bokuto heaved a sigh and crossed his hands behind his head, abandoning his stubborn resolve to keep his eyes shut. He stared up at the ceiling, watching dim reflections of the rain-streaked windowpane in the moonlight.

Of course he wasn't doing well. This was Akaashi he was thinking about. How long had he spent planning a future so wildly different from this one? There were endless nights of dreaming and wishing and hoping, all foiled by—what had he said? By the perfect ending.

Bokuto remembered everything that had happened on the beach. He’d replayed it so many times in his head that he was pretty sure he could re-enact it word for word. And of course, it didn't help that Akaashi was not two meters away, silent in his own bed.

Bokuto resisted the urge to look over at him. Surely he'd already fallen asleep. Akaashi was unshakeable, neatly folded and boxed a hundred different ways, opening only the sections of himself he needed at that particular moment. Task focus, he’d always said. He’d probably already crossed tonight off some checklist. He was onto whatever came next.

Not Bokuto. They’d never been alike in that way. Bokuto bled through every wall he'd tried to build, even the ones that were put up for his own good.

…He looked over.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight, but Bokuto could make out a crumpled silhouette, a blanket tossed aside. There was a pillow with a creased indent in the center. Next to it was Akaashi’s backpack, in which Bokuto knew all his clothes were neatly folded and packed into their compartments, already prepared for the next day.

All that was missing was…

“Akaashi?” Bokuto whispered.

He sat up. The mattress in the corner was empty. The room was too quiet, even with the sound of the rain on the windows.

Bokuto peeled his own blanket aside and got to his feet, looking over Akaashi’s belongings. There was no sign of distress, nothing out of the ordinary. Akaashi was just… gone.

Was this a cause for concern? Bokuto had fled from things on his fair share of occasions, but Akaashi was never one to just disappear without a word. No, this was definitely unusual.

In the midst of all these sudden unknowns, the sound of the rain seemed to intensify outside. Bokuto paced to the kitchen and stared out the window. What if Akaashi was out there somewhere, all alone in the cold? He could be trapped, or in distress, and nobody knew he was gone except Bokuto. Deciding quickly, Bokuto strode back to the living room to grab his phone and a sweatshirt. He shoved one arm through the sleeve, turned his flashlight on, headed for the front door as he shouldered the other side of his hoodie on.

A gust of wind met him immediately as he opened the door. It nearly blew him backward, and brought with it a face full of rain. Bokuto stumbled off the porch and onto the soggy grass, realizing only then that he’d forgotten to put his on shoes.

Well. There was no time for that now. He whirled around, the thin beam of his phone’s flashlight illuminating practically nothing but the raindrops in front of him. Even the moon was shrouded by rainclouds, plunging the world into darkness.

“Akaashi!” he called out, and got nothing in return. His stomach sinking, Bokuto blindly took a few steps forward and immediately tripped on the gravel of the beach path. The shock of it sent him sprawling forward, his phone clattering onto the rocks in front of him. He swore under his breath and crawled over to the source of light.

Bokuto thanked his lucky stars that it was still on. He pushed to his feet and staggered down the path, futilely waving his phone through the vast expanse of nothingness around him. His palms stung, his feet hurt, and now he was covered in rain and soggy sand all down his front, and Akaashi was missing.

“Aaaargh,” he groaned at no one in particular. He swung his flashlight again, and was met with only the cold sting of windblown rain. “Why. Why did I have to ruin this! How could I have fucked up something so simple so badly!”

He collapsed onto his butt, right there in the middle of the gravel path that was slowly and surely becoming a stream of rainwater. “Akaashi, I’m sorry,” he called out. “Please, just come back. We can pretend none of this ever happened. And I can go on walks with you and never say anything more, we can cook breakfast and look for funny books and play volleyball and I’ll even let you win sometimes. Just, please."

Bokuto hung his head, letting fat droplets of water collect in his hair and run down his nose.

“Don’t let it end like this,” he pleaded, quietly.

And maybe he was being a little dramatic (or maybe a lot dramatic), but Bokuto stayed like that, feeling the water soak through his sweatshirt and pool beneath his feet, letting all the day’s good feeling wash away with the rest of his hopes and dreams. What a graduation trip this was turning out to be. Everything he’d been working towards, he’d have. All except the one thing he really wanted.

No matter how many good habits he practiced, or how much he grew to understand himself, life was just cruel like that, sometimes.

“Bokuto-san!”

The call cut through the rumble of the rain and the crash of the waves on the horizon. Bokuto’s head shot up, and he looked around for the source of the sound.

“Akaashi?” he called back, dreadful hope rising in his chest.

The voice was coming from behind him, closer to the cabins. Bokuto whirled around, and there was a silhouette rapidly approaching in his direction, its raincoat billowing around him.

“What are you doing!” the voice said again, and this time, it was close enough to recognize.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto shouted, jumping to his feet and waving his arms.

The silhouette of Akaashi skidded to a stop in front of him and ripped off his hood. There he was in all his glory, wide-eyed, his black hair curling in the rain.

“Why are you outside!?!” he yelled.

The question gave Bokuto pause. He lowered his arms. “What- I was looking for you! Why are you outside?”

“What do you mean? I went to the bathroom,” exclaimed Akaashi, clutching his hair in exasperation. “And when I came out, you were gone, and the door was wide open, and all I could see was a tiny little phone flashlight lying on this path!”

The realization hit slowly, and then all at once, like a flame roaring to life at a fireplace.

A dumb and dramatic and totally overreacting flame.

“…Oh,” said Bokuto, weakly.

Akaashi flailed his arms at his sides. “I thought you- you tripped and died, or something,” he said, and his voice sounded shaky, too. “Just- can we please go back inside? You’re soaked. You’re going to get sick.”

Wordlessly, Bokuto nodded and pocketed his phone. He let Akaashi take his elbow and guide him back to the house—which was a lot closer than he remembered going, actually, they were practically still on the front lawn—and together they padded past the kitchen, down the hall, past the bathroom, and finally down the narrow stone stairs to the bathhouse.

There beneath the cabin, where the rain was muted by the earth, Akaashi sat him down on the edge of the tub and assessed his condition. Bokuto was fine, really; humiliated, but no worse for wear. Still, Akaashi gently wiped the dirt from his knees, clearing the abrasions underneath. He took off his sopping wet sweatshirt and tossed it aside, draping a warm dry towel over his shoulders instead. Bokuto hadn’t realized how much he was shivering until Akaashi took his hands to evaluate the scrapes on his palms.

“You’re freezing,” he said, quietly.

“I’m fine,” Bokuto replied, although even the cold stone floor was beginning to feel like ice beneath his feet.

Akaashi’s gaze flicked up, unconvinced. “You packed a rain jacket, Bokuto-san. I know you did. I texted you twice about it.”

Which, yes, was true. But Bokuto was scared and in a rush and didn’t have time to rummage through his duffel bag for a rain jacket when his best friend could’ve been out fighting for his life on the treacherous rocky coast.

Even though he wasn’t.

So Bokuto just said: “Sorry.”

Akaashi must’ve heard the embarrassment in his voice, because he decided not to press the issue further. He just looked down, sighed, and brushed away a small bit of gravel from Bokuto’s hand.

The movement caused a droplet of water to fall free from his hair. It landed on Bokuto’s wrist, and they both watched it roll onto the floor between them.

Akaashi’s hair was soaked, too. His shirt was in better shape than Bokuto’s, but streaks of rain still darkened the front, where Akaashi had neglected to zip his coat up before running out to find him.

Something about that fact made Bokuto feel a little bit warmer.

“What made you go outside in such a rush?” Akaashi asked, quieter this time, looking up at Bokuto again.

The rain had bunched his eyelashes into clumps. His pupils were wide. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek, like he had tried to wipe it clean with his hand.

Bokuto grimaced as an errant stroke grazed the tender part of his palm. “I was just being dumb. I couldn’t sleep, and I looked over and you weren’t there, and… I dunno. I made up some story in my head and got all worked up about it.”

That was met with more silence, though something about it seemed heavier, this time.

Akaashi’s fingers curled into Bokuto’s skin. Bokuto glanced down and realized, offhandedly, that his palms were now clean.

Akaashi didn’t move away.

“You couldn’t sleep?” he echoed softly.

Even his voice had dropped into something fuller, more delicate. Like was the swell of a raindrop before it fell to the ground.

“No,” admitted Bokuto, carefully. "I was… um. Thinking."

Outside, the rain poured on, hitting the roof in sheets and trickling down past the cabin. Within the earthen walls of the bathhouse, all of it seemed so distant.

“What were you thinking about?”

Bokuto looked up. Akaashi was still, quiet, but his attention was fixed on Bokuto. His eyes were dark and unyielding in the grey stone room.

"I think you know," Bokuto said, slowly.

There was another long pause. Akaashi looked away, back down at their hands, at the raw spots on the heels of Bokuto’s palms. He traced their edges, so softly that Bokuto could feel the cool air in the space between their skin.

"Yes. I do," came the eventual response.

The words slipped out, quietly, almost like a confession.

Bokuto, after a moment, frowned.

He thought about sunset, and the beach, and broken words on the coast. He thought of rain on the rocky trail, and the way the dampness on the front of Akaashi’s shirt was beginning to soften at the edges. Drops of water still clung to his hair.

Bokuto thought of that blanket tossed aside, and the empty mattress holding nothing but the dim moonlight in the corner of the room.

Akaashi had been awake, too.

The sudden realization shot like a jolt down Bokuto’s spine.

The silence stretched on. Neither of them moved, though Bokuto’s heart had begun to pound. Akaashi was still avoiding his eyes, seemingly preoccupied with the lines on Bokuto’s hands. It was hard to make out with his face shrouded by his hair, but Bokuto swore he saw the faintest furrow of brows.

Small, careful gestures. That was Akaashi's modus operandum. They signalled the far-away clicking of gears in the furthest corners of his mind. With Akaashi, every though was a dozen weighed options, every choice a domino poised to fall.

The gentle wobble of his chin meant he was chewing on his lip, like he always did when he was seriously pondering one of Bokuto's bad ideas.

Bokuto's… bad ideas?

"Akaashi?" he whispered.

That finally drew his attention. Akaashi's gaze dragged up, slowly, almost deliberately past Bokuto's hands, up his arms, over his chest, past his mouth, and finally to meet his eyes. They were still dark. His pupils were still blown wide.

Somewhere outside, thunder rolled, a low crackle. Inside the stone bathhouse, the silence grew even heavier.

Bokuto opened his mouth, perhaps to ask, perhaps to apologize, but before he could—

"Don't speak," breathed Akaashi, unmoving,

And Bokuto's mouth snapped shut.

For as much time and energy as Akaashi had devoted to learning to read him, Bokuto had been doing the same. Now, in the dim light of the evening, Bokuto recognized the firm set of Akaashi's mouth; an indicator of decision. Like if he didn't do something now, he never would.

As if in slow motion, he leaned in, and Bokuto followed suit, like he was looking in a mirror. The towel slipped off Bokuto's shoulders; he faintly heard it drop somewhere behind him. Bokuto lifted an arm, trance-like, and wiped the dirt off Akaashi's cheek with a brush of his thumb. His vision swam as Akaashi's eyes fluttered shut, just briefly. His hands slid down Bokuto's arms, and then settled at his elbows, warm in a way Bokuto wasn't expecting.

Bokuto didn't breathe. Not until Akaashi was close enough that he could see the light dusting of sun spots on his cheeks. Not until he could feel a small, steeling exhale against his lips.

He wasn't sure who moved first, but when they finally kissed, the trance broke open.

Akaashi tasted like apples and spearmint toothpaste. Bokuto grabbed his waist with one arm and pulled him close, as if he might disappear otherwise. He tilted Akaashi's jaw to fit their lips even closer, swallowing down the sigh Akaashi gave as they melted together. Bokuto met every brush of their lips with equal fervor, six years' worth of waiting and wishing and wanting permeating through the small stone bathhouse.

Akaashi's hands trailed down his front, coming to a rest at the hem of his shirt. His thumbs traced the soft skin of his stomach. Bokuto shivered, but took the hint and leaned back to peel it off. The sudden air on his damp skin chilled him to the core, but Akaashi's hands were there to warm it, trailing fire across his chest and down his torso. Bokuto pulled them up, and they stumbled backwards past the tub and further onto the shower floor. He helped Akaashi get his shirt off, too, crumpling it in one hand before tossing it aside. All the while Akaashi kissed him like he was starving.

The rest was a bit of a blur after that. Layer by layer, their damp clothes fell away, replaced by roving hands and the rapidly warming air of the bathhouse. Akaashi's lips found Bokuto's throat and made him gasp out, gripping the bone of his hip and pulling him even closer. Akaashi groaned into his shoulder and Bokuto felt the heat of it spread, heady and creeping across his skin.

For a moment, Bokuto wondered if he should slow down, savor this moment. Everything he'd ever dreamed of was right there between his stinging palms, almost demanding that he stop and acknowledge it. He wanted Akaashi like this. And like all of today, and in every way he could get him. He wanted this to be what sent him to sleep for the rest of his days; an eternal scarlet sunset, a perpetual glow as the sun dipped into the endless ocean and never ever had to come up for air.

But here, deep beneath the walls of the cabin, far and away from the roar of the ocean and the pounding rain, he knew that this was not that. Akaashi's hands were ever-moving, tracing every curve and crook of Bokuto's body, but not to learn. Not to get familiar with the way he felt.

He was trying to remember.

Don't speak, Akaashi had whispered, and he still meant it; he pressed the unspoken words hot and breathless into the gap between Bokuto's lips. Don't try to change the ending.

Don't ruin it now.

So he didn't. Bokuto bit down on all the words he couldn't say, pressing them into the flesh of Akaashi's lower lip. He slid him up against the cool stone wall, reaching a hand out for the shower handle to mask Akaashi's gasp with the sudden spray of water. He trailed hot kisses down his neck as the air grew thick with mist, then let the spray trickle down his back, into his hair, past his eyes, and between his lips on Akaashi's skin.

And as the cold room filled with steam, so did Bokuto's head, clouding over all his grief, his disappointment, his missteps. Akaashi was right, after all (he always was). They didn't need to say anything else.

He’d just give it his all.

Nothing more.

The rain had stopped by the time the sun rose above the water. Remnants of the storm still dripped from the eaves. But the rest of the world was doused in the quiet, soft light of a new day.

Bokuto made sure to click the door shut behind him this time. He slipped his shoes on. His raincoat was still folded somewhere at the bottom of his duffel bag, but judging by the pale blue of the sky, he was not going to need it this morning.

As he picked his way carefully down the gravel path to the coast, a figure came into view on the rocks. Bokuto squinted, just to make doubly sure it was who he thought it was before he ventured any further onto the beach. Last night's embarrassment was still fresh in his mind.

Akaashi wasn't there this morning when he woke, either. Honestly, Bokuto wasn't expecting him to be. But the sight of the empty bed in the grey dawn had clicked something into place for him, and so he pulled on another sweatshirt, took some time to wash his face and brush his teeth, then made his way outside to look for him once more.

Akaashi was careful. Every gesture was measured, every decision was weighted against a thousand others. He was neatly stacked, tightly ordered, succinctly construed. And he'd kissed Bokuto last night.

He'd kissed him, and he'd gone out in the howling wind and rain, and he'd been up late just as Bokuto had. Akaashi, with all his logic and wisdom and narrative prowess, looked at Bokuto and decided how their story would go. And however brief, or fleeting, or secret, he picked the ending where they were together.

That had to mean something.

Even still, it briefly crossed Bokuto's mind that going after him now might not be the proper thing to do. He had never been in this sort of morning-after situation. The best thing to give right now might've been more space, or time, or a delicate touch that he did not have—especially considering the nature of what had unfolded, which was the very definition of 'it's complicated.' Bokuto supposed with anyone else it would be complicated.

But this was Akaashi.

Everything was easy with Akaashi.

Bokuto reached the sand, and Akaashi's form gained more definition. He had his knees pulled to his chest, staring out at the coast from atop the rocky outcrop they had lounged on just yesterday. That all seemed like a lifetime ago.

Bokuto's footsteps announced his presence before he could say anything. Akaashi noticed, turned away, and quickly scrubbed the wetness off his cheeks.

"I know I owe you an apology," he called out to Bokuto. His voice was raw. "Just let me find the words first."

Bokuto shook his head, even though Akaashi had already turned back to the water.

"You don't owe me anything," Bokuto said, making his way to the rocks. He hopped over to the man and squatted beside him. "I dragged you out in the rain, remember?"

Akaashi sniffed and shook his head. "You are noble to a fault," he muttered.

"Oh, I have many faults."

That drew a wet laugh out of him. Akaashi wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt, but gave Bokuto a weak smile.

Bokuto grinned back, studying his face.

Akaashi had returned to this spot. He was exactly where they'd been yesterday, before the sunset, before everything went awry.

A branch point.

A new beginning.

Bokuto made his decision. He knelt down.

"Can I just ask you one more question?"

"Sure."

Bokuto took a breath.

"Would you marry me?"

Immediately (and quite expectedly, considering the nature of the question), Akaashi flinched away. Bokuto couldn't blame him. He meant it when he said he didn't have any sort of delicate touch whatsoever.

"What?" Akaashi gaped, his tears forgotten.

"I mean, eventually," Bokuto elaborated. "I’m not asking now. I don't have a ring. I don't even know why I'm-"

He got off one knee and shifted to sit down next to Akaashi. "But I am serious. One day, I'll ask you for real. This isn't just some spring fling for me. And it has nothing to do with last night," he added quickly. "Because it's still- y'know, you said don't speak about it."

Akaashi's shoulders were still tense, and his eyes were darting back and forth like he was trying to make sense of what Bokuto was saying.

"I just- I know you said we're not on the same team anymore," Bokuto continued, slower this time. "You're going to do your own thing in Tokyo, and I'll be in Osaka. I know that. But whatever happens in my life, in your life, whatever. I want it to happen to us."

Bokuto held his hands out in the space between them, just like he had yesterday with the cookbook, holding everything that bound them together. It was more than volleyball, or bookshops, or school or picnics or trips to the beach. What they had was already way more than friendship. Akaashi had to see that. He had to know it, just like Bokuto had all this time.

Akaashi was the kindest, smartest, most thoughtful person Bokuto knew, which meant if Bokuto felt something, Akaashi had already thought it over a million times.

"I- I told you I'd always be there for you," Akaashi said, weakly. He helds his hands out, too, but didn't reach any closer. "I'll celebrate all your wins with you, if that's what you want. But they haven't anything to do with me anymore. You are a star, Bokuto-san. And I'm just…"

Akaashi stared at his palms. He pulled his sleeves over them.

"…Akaashi."

Bokuto watched him ball his hands into fists and blink back fresh tears.

Actually, maybe there was something Bokuto knew better than him.

"And who is Akaashi to you?" he asked.

Akaashi looked up, though his gaze was dull. "What- what do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm starting to get the sense that you don't know yourself very well."

Akaashi's mouth went agape at that. He held Bokuto's gaze, brows furrowed, picking apart every word and looking for another meaning in it.

"I- I'm- I'm just me," he stated. "Nothing special."

Ah.

Yep. There it was.

Akaashi woke up at the crack of dawn to cut up fruits for his friends. He apologized to books when he closed their covers too loudly. He never spent more than 20 minutes at a public bench, just so that other people could get their fair chance to sit down. Akaashi opened all his doors and answered every phone call, even to complete strangers, because he couldn't bear the thought of turning anybody away. He was someone who put everyone and everything else first, who gave and gave and gave himself up, and now he truly believed that he was nothing.

That's why he never let anyone in close. That's why he only let himself want things in the dead of night in a tiny stone bathhouse, where nobody else could possibly hear.

Bokuto nodded to himself.

"Well, can I tell you who Akaashi is to me?"

Akaashi turned to him, confused. Bokuto returned the gesture, shifting to fully face him, tangling their feet together. He'd have to right this wrong, one way or another.

"Akaashi is the guy who got drunk on 2 shots of shochu at his first college party, and sang our favorite high school karaoke song the whole walk home."

Immediately, Akaashi recoiled at the memory, but Bokuto pressed on. "He's the man who hates the taste of that zero-calorie sweetener they put in the new sports drinks, so he'll dig to the bottom of every ice chest in the hopes of finding the original flavors, and then he'll sit on his hands during stretches because they're so cold he can barely move his fingers. The Akaashi I know is always writing little stories in his head, and setting up all these dominoes to fall a thousand years from now, so much so that sometimes he forgets to listen to you in the present."

"I am listening to you," Akaashi interjected, jolting up straight like he'd been shocked.

"Only partly," Bokuto replied with a tilt of his head, smiling. "The other part of you is trying to understand where I'm going with this."

Akaashi looked down, like an admission of guilt.

"My point is, you've spent all this time trying to figure out everything for everybody else, and you think part of that means shrinking yourself down to something nobody has to worry about. But you— " Bokuto lifted his chin with a finger, pulling his gaze back up—"Well, I'm sorry to say this, but you failed, Akaashi. Because I love you. And every time I get to see past the worlds you set up for everyone else, I love you even more."

Akaashi was not thinking up stories in his head anymore. His eyes were wide, unmoving, and locked entirely on Bokuto.

"And I'm sorry that being loved means taking up space, and being messy, and- and worrying all the time about whether things are going to work out or not. Seriously, that sounds like your worst nightmare. But if you’re honest, you’d put yourself through it for someone else, so why can’t someone else do it for you?”

Akaashi's brows pulled together, but it took a while for him to find any words.

“Because I’m not-”

He cut himself off abruptly, but the end of the statement shone clearly on his face.

I'm not worth it.

At Bokuto's disapproving stare, Akaashi huffed out a laugh and shook his head, turning away from Bokuto's hand. “I’m clearly not very good at being on the receiving end of this.”

Bokuto shrugged. “It just takes practice. I mean, you of all people should know, Akaashi. You can’t just serve love all the time. You have to work on your receives, too."

At that, Akaashi, with all the grace of… well, Akaashi, opened his mouth, then closed it, then pressed his lips together in a thin line.

“Well, yes,” he started, the corners of his lips turning down in contemplation, “that’s true, I suppose.”

"Then, it's time to start training," Bokuto declared. He leaned back on his palms and crossed one leg over the other. "You can't just keep rejecting people forever. Even if it's not me, one day you're gonna have to open up to someone, whether you like it or not."

 Akaashi's brows ticked up by a millimeter, like he was considering that idea for the very first time.

Beside them, the waves rolled onto the shore. A gust of wind blew through; the last gasp of a coastal rainstorm. It caught the tips of the curling waves, spraying dewdrops of silver into the cool morning air.

Akaashi looked down at his hands. He curled them together. Took a deep breath.

"I want it to be you," he admitted.

Bokuto barely heard it, but his heart leapt all the same. He leaned closer as Akaashi exhaled, a small, subtle bolster to his words.

"If I'm being honest, I've always wanted it to be you. That's why I 'keep rejecting people,' as you so kindly put it." Akaashi shot him a pointed look. "I mean, yes, I'm scared, too, and I still don't think I'm ready for this. Clearly."

He gestured to himself with a wobbly flick of his hand. Bokuto felt a grin growing on his own face.

"But there's only one person I'd ever say yes to," Akaashi continued, his gaze lifting once more. "Even… if that person is going to treat it like a training camp."

“I won't if you don't want to," Bokuto said in a rush.

Akaashi's mouth curled up in an inadvertent smile. “No. I want… to… play. This. I do,” he assured him, gesturing vaguely, like he was trying to mime some sport with his hands. “I… just don’t know how the game is going to end.”

Bokuto tilted his head. He shifted forward.

“When has that ever stopped us before?”

That made Akaashi fall silent. His eyebrows rose again, slowly; his fingers twitched in his lap, as if years and years of sets and serves were replaying in his muscle memory.

They'd won a lot together. They'd lost a lot together, too. Not knowing which would happen was what made it any fun.

“I don’t know how this going to end, either. But I know how I want it to end,” Bokuto went on, “and maybe that’s enough.”

Akaashi took in the words, wide-eyed. Then, he looked to his own hands, then out to the vast expanse of the ocean.

His brows creased together. It was ever so slight, but it was there. Bokuto recognized the look—though this time, it wasn't because he knew Akaashi; it was because he knew himself. He knew what it was like to stare out at the horizon and wonder when the world would open up to you. To realize there was so much of it you could never, ever know.

He slid Akaashi's hands into his own, drawing his attention back to solid ground.

“Look. I’m not asking you to write our whole lives out," he said softly. "All I want is you. And not just the parts that you think are worth knowing. From you, Akaashi, I just want your all."

Bokuto leaned in, pressing the vow into his palms. “And you have my word, whatever happens, I’ll give you mine, too.”

Akaashi met his gaze, a tiny spark of hope in his eyes like the first light on the horizon. Still, he searched Bokuto's face for an answer to some final, unspoken question. For all the millions and billions of universes in Akaashi's head, there would always be at least one unanswered, Bokuto supposed. He waited for it to find the surface.

"I promised that we'd have a happy ending," Akaashi finally whispered.

Bokuto thought back to the bookshop, and the toast over their heads. The weight of their words. A binding oath. Akaashi, true to form, still couldn't even fathom the idea of going back on his promise.

Bokuto smiled. He loved him.

"Then do what makes you happy," he replied simply,

And after a long, long moment, Akaashi finally listened.

When they kissed for the second time, it was softer, slower. Bokuto still felt the heat, an ache in the center of his chest. It was the impossible stretch of a billion trillion possibilities opening up for them; a hundred kisses they'd share just like this one, and the empty space of a thousand chances they'd never get.

He felt Akaashi's touch, gentle, probing, learning. Akaashi was always careful, even when it didn't matter; even when Bokuto bled right through every page he laid out for them, word by word. Bokuto had spent a lifetime learning to listen for Akaashi's voice, after all. He'd find him through every story he'd ever tell.

He felt the roar of the ocean, the crash of the waves on the rocks. Bokuto felt the world tilt them all onto a starting line, a single boundary point between now and the rest of their lives. He had a few plans lined up, of course. He'd see new sights, meet new people. He'd do things he'd been dreaming about forever, and some other things he could've never imagined in a million years.

But for whatever opened up to him past the horizon, Bokuto was ready to face it.

Bring it on, world, Bokuto thought, finding Akaashi's hand and clasping it tight, his still-stinging palms a reminder of the universe he already had. The one he'd fight to keep through everything.

This means more.