Archive of Our Own

“And Hinata manages to dig Kageyama’s first class serve once again. From a position that would be impossible for a setter of any lesser calibre Miya gets the ball in play and he smashes it right down the line!”

“That was a nasty one! I don’t blame Heiwajima for thinking that one was going out.”

“And Bokuto, the Black Jackals’ ace, is celebrating with the crowd after a truly incredible straight that skimmed the very back of the court. Look at them cheer for him.”

“He’s really made a name for himself with such flashy displays of power, has the Jackals’ number twelve, but he’s not all muscle. There’s a razor sharp awareness of the court inside his head that’s always watching for the best way to overcome the Adlers’ top tier blocking.”

The squeak of shoes against the gym floor is truly transcendental. Five years fall away in an instant, until he’s poised in the middle of the court, taking a moment to assess the situation across the net as the players brace themselves for the next ball. Akaashi knows his skills are rusty but for a moment he feels like he could jump right down onto the line and pick up his position like it’s only been days instead of years. For a moment his skin itches with the need, the euphoria of scoring after a brutal volley flooding his senses until he can taste it on his tongue.

It’s a fleeting moment and then it’s gone but it lingers like a plucked note in the air, like the echo of a whistle as the referee deems the ball out and with one call shifts the momentum of the game. Akaashi feels like he has been pitched off balance, hands gripping his trousers as he drops into his seat. To think he’s late to one of the biggest match ups of the year; the Black Jackals versus the Schweiden Adlers, the bloody rivals of two of Japan’s biggest volleyball teams. Adrenaline is thick in the air as voices clash, the ball smacked over the net by Miya Atsumu’s truly incredible serve.

The ball flies wide and even Akaashi from up in the stands thinks its going to go out, inhaling sharply as it curves wickedly inwards and bounces on the inside corner, the poor libero Heiwajima on the opposite side staring at the scoreboard in disbelief. Akaashi huffs as a familiar figure pumps his fist into the air with a triumphant yell, unable to stop the smile at Bokuto in celebration. It always made him feel best as a setter, when he could make his team feel like they were on top of the world like that. Hinata screams himself hoarse as he leaps on Miya, every bit Bokuto’s disciple even now, and it’s the oddest feeling brewing in Akaashi’s chest.

There’s the swell of pride at seeing Bokuto in the environment he thrives in – where he was always meant to be – but it’s weighted with the pull in his gut that Akaashi is not so unaware of as to not call it envy, even if it’s a hollow feeling. That used to be me out there, his mind supplies and he has to swipe away the thought, leaning forward as the ball flies over the net, Miya effortlessly tossing it so that it meets Bokuto's leap into the air. Bokuto smacks the ball right across the court and chokes off the blockers. He really is a genius that Miya, the way he can come from a point of complete disadvantage and make a difficult play look so easy. Akaashi knows because he’s been there enough times and knows its challenge.

That could never be you, though, could it?

But Akaashi never intended to go pro. It’s not that the stirring in his gut sours his pride at seeing his old teammate out on the national stage, the feeling less of a  wound and more of a shallow cut. He simply misses the days of high school when all he ever knew was keeping his grades high and winning volleyball games. Hot summers with his shoes sliding against the court, plucking at the threads of his players to get them playing at their best with the sweat dripping down his back. Crisp, cool winters running through the morning frost, chasing Bokuto’s bright, echoing laughter towards the clubroom. Nostalgia is a funny thing, equally warm and cold at the same time, like summer and winter all at once, and it feels strangely disjointed here as he sits in this pocket carved out of time.

In this moment Akaashi is seventeen and twenty-two all at once.

Miya sets the ball so cleanly, Hinata acting as a decoy at the net as Bokuto leaps into the air, and for one crystal clear moment he’s shining there the way he did the first day Akaashi walked into Fukurodani’s gym hall, before he slams the ball across the court in a lightning quick move that reverberates around the high ceilings of the court. The crowd around him roars as Bokuto whips around with his arms in the air, the team around him exploding with joy. Even Akaashi can’t fight the smile that takes him then, clapping his hands together.

It’s funny, because he foresaw this fives years ago. No, maybe even before then, back at the beginning when Bokuto first turned to him and said, “Can you toss for me, Akaashi?” He, a fresh-faced first year right out of middle school, had been so flattered he had spent the night tossing the ball for the Fukurodani ace before he was ever the ace, warmth blooming inside him as he received that thousand-kilowatt smile for the first time. He, having spent a lacklustre few years with his passionless middle school teammates, struck by the radiance of Bokuto like a rabbit in the middle of the road as the car headlights hurtle towards it.

“Your tosses are the best.”

It’s almost like a tunnel stands between then and now and Akaashi can see either end of it, remembering how he had pictured this very scenario at only seventeen. How he had stared into the air in wonder and thought, he’s a star. People never really got it then, thinking Bokuto too temperamental, too easy to falter when something didn’t go his way, but Akaashi’s high school self knew with the same clarity that he has now, looking down upon the court from the stands. It sends a shiver down his spine. He’s not normally so sentimental like this.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the game, winding his fingers tighter in his trousers as Kageyama makes a truly daring set that Hoshiumi powers across the net at the perfect spot in the centre, Inunaki and Hinata falling over one another in an attempt to chase it. Professional volleyball really is something else, the move of play so quick it’s difficult for the eye to keep up, and there’s a rising excitement rippling through the crowd as the match winds tighter and tighter with the points racking up.

Next to him Udai Tenma rocks forward, eyes wide as he peers out at the court. He’d taken some convincing to come, begging off on deadlines, but now all reticence has been stripped away as he stares at the match with such an intensity it’s as if he’s afraid he’ll blink and miss something.

Is that what he looks like? Akaashi wonders. He looks around and sees that most of the crowd are the same, leaning forward, expectant and breathless with the tension building in the air as each team grabs excruciating point after excruciating point. There are a few familiar faces he has spotted in the crowd, clearly as enraptured by the return of the Karasuno pair now that they take their places on opposite sides of the net, as they were when they were once setter and spiker, the Quick Freak duo of Karasuno.

“Hinata really is something else,” says Udai. “It makes me proud, you know, to think I inspired him into this.”

“Even if he has surpassed you?” he asks.

Udai smiles. “I was part of that journey in some small way. That’s got to count for something.”

And Akaashi can’t help but laugh at that. His eyes fall back onto the game, onto one particular player; but it’s not Hinata he looks at. No, his gaze is stuck to the back of number twelve as he motions for the crowd to clap for him, his palms coming together in time with the rest of the crowd. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The atmosphere crackles with electricity.

In the end one team has to win. In the end it comes down to two points, brutally fought for and earned by the team in black. For the first time in three years the MSBY Black Jackals take the final set, and with it the tournament, the crowd surging to their feet in adoration as the players bound towards one another in celebration.

Akaashi smiles, rises from his seat, and then turns to walk away.

*

Akaashi likes volleyball in middle school. More than the crowds and the flashy plays and the thunder of balls being slammed against the floor, he enjoys the game of it. Enjoys the arrangement of people like pieces on a chessboard and plucking the strings behind the players until they dance to his coaxing, friend and foe alike. His teammates have skills but they’re more interested in the latest video games and trips to the beach than focusing on practice so he has to take into account that Ueda’s spikes start to falter after a set, and Harada can only hit straights accurately maybe fifty percent of the time, and if he’s not careful about balancing the sets to either of them they’ll break into fighting over their rivalry. But the challenge of it is fun, calculating in mere moments the play that is going to be most effective for the win.

In hindsight he probably should have recognised his own vanity, thinking himself so special as to be able to control the game like that. But back then Akaashi had not been so concerned with self-reflection, too busy looking outwards for something. Anything that could truly capture his interest.

It finds him in the sunlit gym hall during Fukurodani’s open day. Awkward and quiet, Akaashi shuffles in with the other new potential first years, the squeak of shoes and shouts of teammates familiar yet different. He thinks, maybe I’ll go to Suzumeoka, and then he sees him. The boy who soars into the air like he has wings at his back, the light parting around him to halo him in a soft sunshine glow. With a spike that sends the ball spinning too quickly past the blockers on the other side of the net, he lands with a flourish as the smack reverberates through the hall. Akaashi feels goosebumps race along his arms.

“Hey, hey, hey!” the boy yells in triumph, pumping his fists into the air.

Fukurodani, Akaashi thinks, with a certainty he has never felt before in his life. I want to go to Fukurodani.

Akaashi does not believe in fate but there is something portentous about this moment. The moment he sees a star cross his path and thinks that maybe, just for a little while, he could bask in its glory.

*

He’s quiet as he makes his way out of the stadium. He didn’t come with the intention of making his presence known – especially not with the team clearly in a celebratory mood on their post-win high that he doesn’t want to interrupt – and he knows he can always catch up with Bokuto later and catch him off guard by revealing he was there watching. But there’s a strange pull in his chest, like he’s going the wrong way even though he knows fine well where the exit is. To get home he needs to get a bus and then a train and the one leaving from the front of the stadium only comes every half hour so he should really get moving. Still, he finds himself smiling as he steps out into the fresh air beyond, wind tugging at his hair. It was a good match. He feels more fired up than he has in a while.

It is, as he really should have predicted, Hinata who picks him out. He always was eagle-eyed, Bokuto’s little disciple.

“Akaashi!” he screeches, and then he’s hurtling towards him with his hands outstretched, bouncing on his heels with bright eyes. “Were you there? Did you watch the game? Did you see us win? Astumu set the ball just like that and I just went bam! Ha, did you see Kageyama’s face?”

Akaashi buries his hands in his pockets, standing from his seat at the bus shelter to greet him. Hinata is older now, broader across the shoulders and tanned golden brown, with a confidence that matures him, but he’s still every bit the explosive cannon that Akaashi remembers. “You played very well, Hinata-kun,” he says. “It was a good match.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the shine of reflecting glass and watches as the bus pulls up towards the stop. He wants to take the time, to catch up, but he’s not here to impose his way into the Black Jackals’ celebrations so he takes a step forward only for Hinata to swerve into his way.

“You’re not leaving, are you? Does Bokuto know you’re here?” Hinata’s head swipes left and right, looking for the rest of his team. “We already saw some of our old teammates but I didn’t realise you were here, too.”

“This is my bus. I should really –”

“No, no! You need to come out with us! We’re going for drinks. Come on.” Hinata grabs his wrist and tugs and it doesn’t surprise him one bit that he’s every bit as tenacious as he always was.

A couple enter the bus and then the doors close. Akaashi watches it pull away with a chug, the smell of gas lingering in the air as Hinata drags him off towards the other side of the stadium where a cluster of men are standing. “I really don’t want to get in the –”

“Bokuto-san!” Hinata bellows. “Look who came here to see us!”

And there’s no escaping it now. Akaashi’s heart stops for one full moment and his breath catches on the inhale as a familiar set of broad shoulders turn around, golden eyes locking with his. There’s a moment where time hangs in limbo as Bokuto stares back at him – when it feels like the entire world stills all at once – and then just as quickly time is flowing again.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto yells, running towards him. The grin is wide across his face, eyes sparkling and arms out stretched. “Akaashi, did you watch the match? Did you come to see little old me?”

Akaashi doesn’t know how to react to such a boisterous display of emotion that reminds him of being on court, Bokuto pumping his fists in the air after a successful spike has blown away his opponent’s blockers. He’d thought, well, he’s not sure what he’d been thinking exactly. But as he catches the curious eyes of Bokuto’s teammates looking on, he realises it had been something like, I’m not a part of his team anymore.

Reeling himself in at the last moment, Bokuto tilts his head and gives him an owlish look. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Akaashi bunches his hands into fists within his pockets, resisting the urge to look away. “I wasn’t sure if I could make it. I was a little late, to be honest.” But his smile grows in the face of Bokuto’s widening grin. “You know I couldn’t miss it, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto thumps him on the back hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs and he gasps. “Alright! Did you see my amazing cross? Did you see it? Did you? Betcha thought I was gonna get all down because of those blocks but I’ve got real good at finding my focus now, huh?”

“I don’t doubt it. You never needed me there.”

He makes a little squawk. “What are you doing, being all modest and stuff? You were my setter for a reason, you know?”

And it’s ridiculous, the way his chest warms at being referred to as Bokuto’s setter.

“Hey, we’re all going out for dinner and drinks to celebrate. You need to come along.”

“Oh, no, Bokuto-san. You should go with your team. We can always catch up later.”

“Pfft. Half of ‘em know you anyway,” he says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder in their direction. “Besides, I hardly ever see you these days what with my schedule and all.”

“I have work in the morning,” he says with a beleaguered kind of desperation.

“It’s fine! It’s just a couple of hours.” Strong Akaashi may be, but he’s no match for the solid of wall of muscle that is Bokuto Koutarou as he drags Akaashi back to the lingering members of his team, the rest having already gone ahead. A masked Sakusa eyes Hinata wearily as he jumps around Miya, the two of them cackling maniacally.

They’re certainly an explosive combination all together. Akaashi’s rather glad he’s not the setter anymore, although he gets the impression that Miya thrives off that chaos. As he steps up by Bokuto’s side, he catches Miya’s eye and stiffens as those sharp eyes rake over him, his smile quirking to one side.

“You adopt a stray, Bokuto?”

“Akaashi’s joining us for dinner. You guys remember Akaashi, right?”

Sakusa clearly doesn’t, from the way he furrows his brow and then turns on his heel. Miya, on the other hand, appears to be calculating things through before he lunges forward so suddenly it catches Akaashi off guard, slinging an arm around Bokuto’s neck. “Should I be worried? Ya tryin’ to bring yer old setter back?”

Bokuto blinks. “Huh? So you remember each other, then? Good. Good! Let’s get going. I’m starving!”

“Are we going to the same place again?” pipes up Hinata. “I want prawn tempura!”

As they all turn to leave Akaashi catches Miya’s eyes once more and resists a shiver. There’s just something about him that puts him on edge. He remembers the wild Miya brothers and the way they dominated nationals with their bold, flashy plays. Remembers the way Miya could watch another team’s play with those cunning eyes of his only to pull out his own version of the move a few turns later, and somehow he had managed to hone it down into flawless precision. Nothing crushed those teams more than him toying with them like that.

Akaashi narrows his eyes. So maybe he’s not playing volleyball much anymore. So maybe he’s not a first class professional player. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to just let someone like Miya play with him for sport.

“Nice to see ya again, Akaashi,” he says over his shoulder, clinging to Bokuto’s side.

“Likewise,” he replies and wonders why it feels like he’s always facing Bokuto’s back.

*

Not all the players are delighted when they realise Bokuto has taken a shine to the young first year setter. Certainly not the team’s third year regular setter, anyway, who glares in distrust when Coach Yamiji suggests starting a game with the new duo to throw off their opponents who have no stats on the pair of them together. Akaashi stares back dispassionately as the setter tries to pick a fight with the coach only to get himself sent to the bench. He should have trained harder if he wanted to stay on the court, Akaashi thinks. Bokuto had spent hours after each practice honing his spikes, begging Akaashi to stay and toss to him well into the night. If he and Bokuto are beginning to operate like a well-oiled machine, well, it’s because they fought for it.

“I know this is your first game,” the coach says to Akaashi, “but I’ve seen you in practice. Anything you can do in practice you can do out there. So go and show them what you’re made of!”

Akaashi steps onto the court with his Fukurodani teammates around him, rubbing at his fingers as he takes in the spectators in the stands; at the intense gazes of the team on the other side of the net. A strange tension thrums within him; a potent mix of nerves and anticipation.

“Come on, Akaashi,” says Bokuto, eyes shining as he bounces on his heels. “Let’s get every point!”

“I’m not sure that’s realistic, Bokuto-san.”

“Not with that thinking it’s not!”

It all goes so quickly. The whistle of the referee and the opposing team’s serve flying over the net. Shoes squealing and grunts of breath. Komi digs the ball into the air cleanly and Akaashi’s focus narrows down to the swirl of colour above him. The noise of the court strips away, until there’s nothing but him and the ball in the air and the awareness of Bokuto at his side. Rather then let himself get overwhelmed, he thinks only of what he can do as a setter. “Bokuto-san,” he calls, and it’s muscle memory, ten fingers on the ball and hoisting it into the air, just the perfect height.

Bokuto flies. Gasps sound on the other side of the net as Bokuto whips the ball across the court in a nasty cross spike that has the opposing blockers blinking in shock. Bokuto turns to him and shouts out a, “Hell yeah!” in triumph and Akaashi blooms like a flower turning towards the sun, allowing himself a small smile of satisfaction.

Fukurodani win the game in two straight sets. Akaashi stays on the court the whole time.

*

Thankfully, Akaashi is not the only tag-along to the Black Jackals' celebrations. The bar they pick is pretty big but even so they have to cram around the tables, making the space feel cramped with so many bodies, and Akaashi feels overwhelmed by the number of faces he recognises. Udai doesn’t accompany him, bowing out due to Suzuki breathing down his neck about his deadlines, but there are so many Karasuno alumni there it looks almost like a school reunion.

There’s the old trio of guys who were in the year above him on Karasuno’s team, Kiyoko the manager sans her glasses apparently now married to their former wing spiker Tanaka, his raucous older sister with the blonde hair, Yachi who looks less like the frightened little girl he remembers and more like a confident young woman as she congratulates Hinata warmly, and even the old coaches have turned up. Miya Osamu nods at him as he bludgeons his way through the crowds to pester his twin brother, their bickering lost to the wall of noise from so many chattering voices.

Akaashi doesn’t know where to sit. What to say. He almost turns and leaves until he spots a similarly aggrieved face in the corner of one table, looking into his drink with his shoulders hunched over his phone. Fair hair longer and shoulders broader, himself now a professional player, Tsukishima is sitting in the corner of the revelry like he can ignore them all if he tries hard enough.

“Tsukishima-kun,” he says, dropping into a seat opposite. “It’s been a little while.” Since Kuroo’s last birthday, he thinks, when he had made a point of driving out to see him. He’s glad that they’ve all kept in touch, even if they don’t see each other often. He’s even more glad Tsukishima took their lessons at summer camp to heart, all the way into Division 2 of the V.League.

Tsukishima’s lips curl slightly, tilting his gaze up from the blue glow cast by his phone. It immediately drops as there’s a thump and then Tanaka roars, echoed by Hinata and Bokuto’s voices. “They never change,” he grumbles.

“It’s nice to know that not everything changes,” he says. “Although I can’t deny that Hinata is far from the scrappy kid he used to be, even if he’s every bit as –” Miya Atsumu squawks, dropping his head onto his arms as his team erupt into laughter, led by Hinata himself “– boisterous.”

“Hmm,” says Tsukishima, adjusting his glasses. “You’ve changed.”

Akaashi smiles. “I’m megane now too, see,” he says, mimicking Tsukishima’s gesture and the man tsks but it lacks the bite it used to.

“You didn’t think about continuing with volleyball?”

Akaashi swirls a finger around the rim of his glass, considering. “I suppose I wanted to focus on my studies.” Really, no one has ever asked him, as if they’re not really surprised that he gave up after high school. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to make of that. At any rate, it’s true, so that's that.

Tsukishima arches a brow. “There is room for both.”

“I suppose there is.”

They catch up for a while until Hinata and Tanaka drag him away, Akaashi snickering at the stricken look he flashes before he’s pushed towards the old third years, every bit as sour-faced as the boy he remembers from that warm summer years ago. Akaashi watches the scene unfold for a while, nursing his drink, thinking it’s probably time to go when it has reduced down to puddle of warm beer at the bottom of his glass. He checks his watch, calculating train times, when an unexpected figure drops down in front of him.

“Fukurodani’s setter, huh?”

Akaashi stares back at him impassively. “Miya-san,” he says.

They haven’t seen each other since the second round of Nationals. It’s kind of a sore point.

Miya Atsumu slouches into his hand, gaze raking over Akaashi like he wants something. “Haven’t seen you for a hella long time,” he muses. “Though I’ve heard enough, I suppose.”

Akaashi’s not even sure what he’s supposed to say to that so he says nothing at all, draining the last of his glass and then letting it thud onto the table.

“Sendai’s quite a bit from Tokyo.”

“Five hours, roughly. Perhaps a little less.”

Miya whistles. “That’s some dedication for someone about to walk out like you were never here.”

Akaashi fixes him with his most imperious look. “Is there something I can help you with, Miya-san?”

“I dunno.” His cheeks are flushed with colour and his eyes are drooping just enough to suggest he’s a few drinks into his night. “Can you?”

Before Akaashi can respond Bokuto bounds over with an exclaimed, “Hey, now, what’s this! Are you guys catching up?”

Miya turns to watch him as he flips out a chair and flops into it backwards, arms leaning over the back of it, and then says, “How does it feel seeing your old setter and your new one sitting together, Bokkun?”

Akaashi’s cheeks are warming. He’s not quite sure what Miya is trying to imply but he knows it can’t be anything good. Inarizaki were known as the foxes for a reason and Miya is every bit its likeness now, eyes sly and grin curving wickedly at Bokuto as he taps a finger against the table.

Bokuto merely tilts his head, as if he hadn’t even realised. Of course, Akaashi hasn’t been Bokuto’s setter for years, that period of his life too short to mean anything. “Ha! That’s pretty cool, isn’t it? Man, I’ve been lucky to have such great teammates in my life, huh?”

Miya’s grin widens even further, sharp as a knife as his gaze flickers to Akaashi. “Yes, but the important question is, who do you like better? Which of us have you enjoyed playing with more?”

Bokuto’s eyes widen as he realises the trap he’s fallen into, Akaashi’s face a mask of perfect composure even as he seethes inside. “Uh… Ha ha, that’s funny. You guys can’t be compared. I’m not even gonna try!”

Akaashi’s chair squeals as he stands sharply, drawing both of their gazes to him. Miya is sitting too close to Bokuto, practically leaning on his shoulder. “I’m just going to – going to get some air.”

He strides off before Bokuto can protest, but not so quickly that he misses Miya saying, “He’s really not as calm as he looks, is he?”

*

“I need to get better.”

It’s said at random, Bokuto chewing on his onigiri as he gazes out the window at the baseball team practising out on the field. The hitter up to bat smacks the ball far out into left field and runs, the defending team quick to fire the ball back to the second baseman, but the batter stops before he can get caught out, his team cheering him on.

“Better at Maths? I offered to tutor you, Bokuto-san.”

“Ha ha, Akaashi, you’re a real funny guy,” Bokuto says with a sigh. “It was one time! And you know that’s not what I meant.”

“Hm,” he says, peering over Bokuto’s shoulder as he observes the game. The sky is a crisp blue, perfect for outdoor activity, but it’ll make the gym feel stifling after a few sets. “Your straights could use a lot of work.”

“Akaashi!” he yells, startling a group of first year girls walking by. No doubt Akaashi will get more nosy questions about his relationship with the third year. Apparently it makes him ‘cool’ to always be hanging around with his seniors, as if he’s ever cared about anything like that. “I just want to know I can rely on them, you know? It’ll get predictable if I always use a cross.”

“I think it already is.”

“Ack! Couldn’t you be a little gentler about it?”

“Would you rather I was gentle, or would you rather I was honest?”

Bokuto turns from the window to look at him, tilting his head in that way of his. His eyes crease as he breaks into a laugh, clapping Akaashi on the shoulder with a little too much force. “Don’t ever change. I like you just fine the way you are.”

Oh. Something squirms in Akaashi’s gut. He knows Bokuto is well-intentioned, that he makes friends with everyone, that he has no idea how meaningful those words are to Akaashi who does not make friends so easily. No one has ever just casually told him they liked him before. It makes his cheeks warm, gaze roaming over the earnestness in Bokuto’s eyes as he smiles. There’s something pure about how open he is. How unafraid he is to express exactly what he feels. The complete opposite to Akaashi who shrouds everything behind his mask of comfortable indifference.

“I’m going to perfect my straights,” Bokuto announces, clenching his fist. “I’m going to get them just right and then you and me are going to dominate Nationals. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Bokuto-san.”

That’s Bokuto. Always striving to be better. Always grasping for new heights. It makes something burn in Akaashi’s blood. Makes him want to push himself harder; to reach higher; to try and grasp a star right out of the sky. Maybe if he fights hard enough he can skim its surface.

Years later he’ll think back on this moment, Bokuto smiling in the soft sunlight shining through the window, and think that he’s very lucky to have been a part of one of these moments. It is not every day that one gets to witness the birth of a hero.

*

He’s not sure why he hasn’t left yet. Maybe it’s just that he can’t leave without at least letting Bokuto know. Stronger he may be, more resilient than Akaashi could ever have imagined in a way that fills him to the brim with pride, but he’s prone to overthinking these things and he doesn’t want Bokuto to feel bad on his big day. So he hangs around outside, sucking in cool night air and listening to the hum of traffic as the sweat dries on his skin. It’s so warm inside, the heat packed in between so many bodies in the same space. Out here feels calm. Like he has space to think.

The door slides open and then, “Akaashi?”

He turns and doesn’t know what to do with the odd flutter in his stomach as those golden eyes land on him, Bokuto backlit by the warmth blooming from within. It’s where he belongs, after all, in the midst of so much noise and light, the centre of the perfect storm that is the Black Jackals' maelstrom of a team. It’s certainly not out here, in the dark, cool night, with nothing but the hum of electricity wires and passing cars, wearing a bemused expression as he closes the door behind him.

Bokuto has forgone his jacket and Akaashi almost stumbles back into the old habit of telling him off like he’s back in second year again but he reels himself in at the last moment. Akaashi’s in no place to be scolding a professional athlete, and besides, the flush is still high across Bokuto’s cheeks even in the darkness, his shock of hair deflated with sweat. A bit of air won’t do him much harm, he supposes. It’s not really his place to worry about it anymore.

“I thought maybe you had left.”

Akaashi smiles at that, watching a black cat scamper along the pavement across the other side of the road. “I wasn’t going to leave without telling you how amazing you were.”

“Yeah? Hell yeah.” Bokuto’s laughter booms into the night, a bird startling from the wire drooping above. “I have a good team at my back, you know? So the ace has gotta step up and have theirs too.”

He’s matured a lot in the years since Fukurodani. The old Bokuto would only have thought of himself, of his position as the star of the show. Akaashi wonders if he realises that it only makes him shine even more for it, a lump forming in his throat as he steps into the pool of orange light cast by a streetlight like it’s his own personal spotlight and his eyes start to glow the amber of the setting sun.

“Hey, you’re not – upset, are you, Akaashi?”

Akaashi blinks, sitting up from where he’d been slouching on the low wall in front of the bar. “What makes you say that?”

Bokuto scratches his temple and utters out a laugh. “I don’t know. You just seem kinda quiet is all.”

“I’ve always been quiet, Bokuto-san.”

“Not with me though! It was always, ‘you need to practice keeping your straights in the line, Bokuto-san, or ‘you messed up your serve too many times in that match’. Even after we won!” He spots Akaashi’s expression and grins. “Don’t get me wrong, it was great! You made me a better player. I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for you.”

His grin is wide and earnest, eyes sparkling with it as he sticks his thumb up, and it’s so Bokuto it makes heart wobble. Akaashi feels tears prick in his eyes and he doesn’t really understand why. He’s content with the path he’s on. Sure, he wanted to work in literature rather than manga, but if he works hard enough to make a name for himself he knows he’s got a good chance of making the switch in the future, and Akaashi has never feared a little hard work. He has friends, and a pretty nice apartment, and he still sees Bokuto every now and then, along with his other Fukurodani ex-teammates. It’s not like he was ever foolish enough back then to think it wouldn’t end. If anything it had been a weight around his neck towards the end, dragging him down with a sense of impending doom.

Sometimes he still tastes the sourness of that last bitter defeat, out on the centre court at the finals of Nationals. It hurt way more than any loss that came after, even once he became captain in his third year. Nothing came close to knowing he had just played his last game by Bokuto’s side, as his setter. The weight of it had crushed him, until the crowd around him came rushing back, the yells and screams and jeers, his exhaustion crashing down on him all at once until he didn’t think he had the strength to drag himself to the locker rooms. He remembers Konoha urging Bokuto to look forward. Remembers telling him something similar, in the resounding quiet that followed after so much chaos, unable to claw back his own emotions as he had choked around his words. Because even after the game was over, Akaashi had still considered himself Bokuto’s setter.

“I couldn’t have brought out anything that wasn’t there,” he says at last, when it looks like Bokuto’s finally going to break the silence, his posture shifting. “It was all you.”

Bokuto releases a noise of frustration from the back of his throat. “You’re still like this, huh? Thought you’d have got over it by now.”

Akaashi merely raises his brows as Bokuto crosses his arms over his broad chest, the streetlight emphasising every line of honed muscle he has become from years of relentless training. “You’re always looking down on yourself. You’re normally so smart that it’s weird. It’s like –” he frowns, looking up as he thinks “– like you can see everyone in the room but you.”

People have always liked to say that Bokuto Koutarou is stupid. Akaashi has never liked those people.

“I…” Speechless for a moment, he meets Bokuto’s burning gaze and huffs out a nervous laugh. “I am just average, Bokuto-san. I was always an average player and I was lucky to be in such a brilliant team. Even now, I feel grateful that I –”

“No, no, no! Akaashi!”

He blinks, startled.

“My dude, you can’t seriously –”

“Hey, Bokkun, are you out here?” Bokuto cuts off, head swivelling to see none other than Miya Atsumu poking his head out of the door, lips curling as he spots the pair of them. “Shouyou-kun is looking for you,” he says. “Should I tell him to hang back?”

Akaashi stands, Bokuto turning back to him. “You should return to your party, Bokuto-san. I need to get the train anyway.”

“But –”

“It’s fine. We can talk later. Congratulations on your win. You deserve it.”

He can feel the weight of his gaze on his back as he walks away, hears their voices murmuring low, bickering over something. It doesn’t matter now. Akaashi is no longer Bokuto’s teammate, but Miya is, and Miya is someone who can pull him into the light where he will shine his brightest.

Akaashi returns to the shadows, singed by the briefest touch of flame.

*

Akaashi spends a lot of his free time reading novels. Which, between homework and volleyball team practice and being roped into Bokuto’s demands for extra training afterwards is not a lot, but he enjoys quiet time to lose himself in other worlds where he is not just an ordinary high school teen, but a hero on some grand adventure, slaying dragons and taking back his crown. Reading so much gives Akaashi a heightened sense of what it means to have a narrative. Of the general shape of an arc; the rise and fall of a story.

It’s inevitable, really, that he would begin to apply this to volleyball. It’s difficult not to. On court, as Fukurodani blast their way through qualifiers and earn themselves a spot on the national stage for the second time in his high school career, he can’t help but think there’s a structure to the game. That if this were a story, the team’s constant practice, fuelled by last year’s loss when Akaashi was still mostly confined to just a bench warmer, would earn them the hero’s right to victory. It’s a very easy trap to fall prey to, for anyone.

But Akaashi has always had his two feet planted firmly on the ground. Winning has always been as much about luck, personal condition on the day, and how the particular match up falls, as it is about powering your way to the top through sheer determination. Perhaps it’s why that semifinal game shakes him up so badly. Knowing how easy it is for that narrative to go slipping right out of his hands, he can’t help but cling even harder to the notion that he needs the victory. To how the difference of two points can plummet the story from a hero’s journey into a tragedy.

And then there is Bokuto, who looks at his narrative in the face and laughs as he rips it to shreds. It makes Akaashi bolder. Makes him want to do the same. “We are the protagonists of the world,” he declares with his hands held aloft to the sky, bright lights from above streaming down on him, and there is nothing and no one that could deny them.

It hits Akaashi like a lightning bolt over the head as he sits on the bench for the first time since first year, watching the skill and precision of the third years as they rally together without him against Mujinazaka. Watching as Bokuto grabs his own narrative by the hands and spikes it across the net, defiant of any author who might think otherwise of his role in the story. Watching him grow into an ace that leads his team from the front, like the commander of the army in the latest series Akaashi has been devouring between practice sessions. Bit by bit he is growing more secure of himself, growing stronger, roots burrowing deep into the earth until no one could hope to shake him loose. Until Akaashi is completely shaded by the spread of his canopy.

Soon Bokuto will not need me anymore, he thinks. And: I am not the true protagonist of this story. No, if Bokuto is the hero, the dashing commander on his white horse leading the hordes to victory, then Akaashi is nothing but a supporting role. His loyal lieutenant who falls in the last battle, perhaps.

Akaashi has never believed that he was the hero, truly, but standing in the shadow cast by Bokuto’s vibrant light he lets himself, for a little while. We are the protagonists of the world. It has a nice ring to it. He thinks of it even now, as he reads manga after manga, and wonders just how much brimming potential still lingers beneath Bokuto’s surface, waiting to break through. If, in those fleeting two years, he was able to bring any of it out at all, or if he had just been deluding himself with his own vanity.

So like any good supporting character, Akaashi plays his role. He sits by Bokuto’s side in the aftermath of the most memorable match of his career – and it’s fitting, perhaps, that it’s one of his worst given that he ended the first set screaming himself hoarse from the bench – and tells him that he needs to learn how to psych himself up before a match. That it’s time he take the responsibility for his own moods onto his own shoulders, as the ace who leads his team. Soon Bokuto will not need him anymore and they both must be prepared.

What Akaashi doesn’t realise is that of the two of them he is the one who will learn this lesson last.

*

Akaashi sees Bokuto Koutarou for the first time in two years at the age of twenty-one, freshly graduated and due to start his job as an editor after a summer internship at a publishing house out in Kyoto. The Fukurodani volleyball team are making a point of having a reunion after they missed the year before, a chance to gather the various alumni into one room for a night of drinking and dancing and catching up on the past. Nerves coil in Akaashi’s gut but he pushes them away. It’s just a catch up with friends. No use in getting himself worked up over it.

“Akaashi!” he hears as soon as he enters the bar, a rowdy, packed place in Tokyo’s bustling nightlife district, and feels the slightest ripple of guilt when he realises it’s Komi calling his name and not the one person who’s been lingering on his mind since he first agreed to this meet up a month prior. “My god, look at you. It’s not even fair, is it?”

Konoha’s sharp eyes run over him as he snorts into his glass, patting at the empty seat beside him. “Yeah, if you asked those girls over there which one of you was the actor who do you think they’d pick?”

“Oi!”

The years fall away in a matter of minutes, Akaashi sinking into an old rhythm with his former teammates who he hasn’t seen for a while now except for Konoha, who he catches every so often for the odd lunch or drink. The group of them get steadily more boisterous until even Akaashi is laughing at the way Washio sways on his feet as he winds through the crowd to order another round at the bar, his cheeks flushed with the warmth of so many bodies packed in together.

Kazuma is somehow even taller than he remembers when he approaches Akaashi that night, perhaps pushing past 190cm now as he introduces his girlfriend; a sweet, doe eyed girl called Kasumi who clutches at Kazuma’s hand, the two of them a picture postcard of a perfect couple. Akaashi congratulates him on making one of Japan’s top sporting universities on scholarship and is completely taken aback when Kazuma grips his hand and shakes it in earnest.

“It’s all thanks to you, Akaashi-senpai! If you hadn’t showed me how important it is to keep improving I would never have got in.”

Akaashi shakes his head. “I didn’t earn that place. You did, Kazuma-kun.”

“Hey, hey, take the praise you cold-hearted bastard!” Konoha yells, slamming his beer on the table.

“I’ll be awaiting your league debut, then.”

“You can count on it!” Kazuma says, eyes sparkling.

All in all it’s a good night. It’s a good night and Akaashi will go home warm and sleepy on the alcohol, only feeling the slightest tinge of regret that they couldn’t get the entire team together, but he will know it is not because he doesn’t want to be there, but that he has moved onto bigger and better things. Or so he thinks, until he returns from the bathroom to a chorus of cheers, followed by the screeching of a familiar voice that makes his stomach drop and his legs stiffen in the middle of the crowded room.

Across the way he stands, arms spread wide as he flits around the table, greeting each of his old teammates. For a moment Akaashi can only watch, his whole body turned towards him like it’s reaching for the sun. He’s tanned from training abroad, his hair trimmed a little shorter than he used to wear it, his shirt only highlighting how his body has become more honed from all the practice. As always he is the life of the party, the one they all gravitate towards. Even Akaashi cannot fight that gravity, pulled in by it at twenty-one as much as he was at seventeen.

Suddenly Bokuto looks up and he stills. Akaashi releases a breath. For a moment neither of them move, simply taking one another in across the span of the years, as if needing that time to catch up on what has changed. Then just as quickly Bokuto is moving again, waving wildly and yelling, “Akaashi!” across the room.

He’s aware of the heads turning in his direction as he pushes through the crowd towards him, unable to fight his smile. It’s warm in the bar, his cheeks are hot, and he feels like he might be burning up. “Bokuto-san,” he says once he’s in ear shot, his limbs loose with the alcohol. He feels a little like he’s floating away.

Bokuto roams his face again, pausing for a moment, and then he looks a little flustered. “Since when did you wear glasses?”

Oh. Akaashi has become so accustomed to them he has forgotten Bokuto has never seen them. That he does not know him as Akaashi-who-wears-glasses when that is how his university friends and his internship colleagues and his new manager-to-be have come to know him. How Akaashi has come to know himself, from so many times spent looking at himself in the mirror in the morning to ensure he is presentable. “A year and a half or so, I think.”

“Oh.” Bokuto takes another moment. “Well, you suit them! I like it a lot!”

Konoha snorts into his drink again and Akaashi narrows his eyes at him.

“Come, sit,” says Sarukui. “Tell us all about your time with your new team.”

And as Bokuto launches into stories about his antics with various team members that he trains with on his university team, and how he has recently been scouted by the MSBY Black Jackals, one of Japan’s strongest teams, Akaashi lets himself bask in this small slice of the past, pleased beyond measure to know that he had been right. That Bokuto is a star on the path to greatness and Akaashi is only grateful that he has been invited in to witness it.

As the evening draws to a close, he gets up to leave, only wobbling a little but enough to have his table cheering and hollering at his expense. He still has to get a train home, after all, taking his time disentangling himself from his former teammates on his way to the door. The air outside is cool, welcome after the torrid heat of inside, and he’s halfway down the street when he hears his name, turning to see Bokuto standing in the doorway across the road.

“Let me walk you to the station,” he calls, jogging towards him.

Akaashi nearly refuses but part of him doesn’t want to. Wants to let this drag out a little longer, to have this one moment with Bokuto for himself. “Only if you put on your jacket, Bokuto-san. I can’t have you catching a cold before your first Division 1 game.”

“Ah, right!” Bokuto shrugs it on, light glancing over the muscled planes of his chest beneath his shirt before he zips it up.

Silence falls between them, broken only by a drunken man spilling from another bar further down the street, singing off key. Cars rush past in a blaze of lights, the neon colours of Tokyo swirling through his tired eyes. The alcohol is catching up to him and he feels too light-headed. He wishes he could find words to say but he’s always relied on Bokuto for that. Maybe just a little too much, it seems, wondering if that old connection between them is completely gone.

“Hey, Akaashi –”

“Bokuto-san –”

They both peter out into nervous laughter.

When he doesn’t continue Bokuto plunders on. “It was really fun seeing everyone again. I didn’t realise how much I missed it, you know?”

Akaashi hums in agreement, heart beating traitorously loudly. He doesn’t think he can do this again. The years have given him some distance. A net around his heart. But just the sight of Bokuto in person is spiking through it with ease and he feels ill with it, the anxiousness burning deep in his belly. It’s a ragged ache, how much he has missed Bokuto, but he’s not sure how he would even find the right words to explain it.

“We haven’t spoken in a while, huh?”

“I suppose we haven’t,” he says evenly.

“Aaah.” Bokuto throws his hands up behind his head. “I guess I didn’t realise it until I saw you tonight but you’ve grown too, haven’t you?”

Akaashi looks at him curiously.

Bokuto grins at him, blinding as ever. “You a smile a lot more easily now. I’m glad.”

And Akaashi realises in that moment that it doesn’t matter how many years pass. It doesn’t matter where he ends up. There is a part of him that will always careen into Bokuto’s orbit, even when they have both completely fallen away from one another and all he ever sees is snippets of Bokuto’s games on the TV. Even when he is nothing but a hazy memory to Bokuto, the star ace of Japan’s volleyball circuit. Akaashi will remember it fondly, treasure it like the photograph he has tucked into his wallet.

“I am glad that I got to watch you reach your potential, Bokuto-san,” he says as they part ways at the stairs leading up to the platform. “Keep aiming for new heights. I will be watching.”

*

After the Black Jackals' victory Akaashi doesn’t hear from Bokuto again until he gets an invite through Udai to Hinata Shouyou’s birthday party many months later. Akaashi tears his eyes away from the manuscripts that have been starting to give him headaches and pinches his nose, listening to Udai over the phone.

“Everyone is invited, apparently. Shouyou said he wanted his old mentor there. Was quite insistent, actually.”

Akaashi drums his fingers on his desk, thinking. Since Hinata’s debut game they’ve kept in touch over social media, mostly via Hinata tweeting him pictures of the latest manga he’s been reading and apparently bragging about how he knows the editor personally. Akaashi is flattered even if he thinks it’s a little exaggerated. Akaashi isn’t the one being dubbed ‘Ninja Shouyou’, who has taken the volleyball world by storm once again, two years after disappearing off the face of the earth.

“You need a break,” says Udai. “You’ve been doing too many long nights. Come on, it’ll be fun. I hear the Black Jackals throw the wildest parties.”

In the end he caves, going so far as to attempt styling his hair and pulling on some ripped skinny jeans from his university days. These days he doesn’t bother making too much of an effort, preferring to be taken on his skills than his looks. But, well, he knows what he’s thinking of even if he refuses to admit it to himself.

The party is held in a large hall hired out by the team, the place swarming with new and old faces alike. Hinata is wide eyed when he hands over his gift and he screeches over the music playing as he holds his signed manga aloft in the air. Akaashi laughs at him, catching more than a few of those around him off guard. Even Kuroo eyes him curiously, leaning over Kenma who has bought Hinata so many gifts that he’s surrounded by designer bags and merchandise bearing the Bouncing Ball logo.

He barely sees Bokuto beyond the initial greeting, a wide eyed grin followed by a brief hug that sets his heart to thudding wildly in his chest. Then he’s gone, swallowed up by the crowd as he flits from person to person, ever the life of any party. Akaashi doesn’t really mean to but he drinks more than he normally does, hoping the alcohol making its way down his chest into his stomach will alleviate the tension in his gut.

That night Akaashi watches Bokuto in his element for the first time in years and burns. The flames that were stoked all those years ago refuse to die, smouldering on within him until he thinks he might catch fire. Instead he downs his whisky and lets it cloud his thoughts. Lets himself forget for just a moment, that he’s not hopelessly, helplessly alone.

*

Five Minutes with Black Jackals’ Bokuto Koutarou

January 2018

Today we catch up with the MSBY Black Jackals’ newest recruit, wing spiker Bokuto Koutarou. Bokuto, once a top-five ace during his high school volleyball career with powerhouse school Fukurodani Academy who led his team all the way to the Spring Interhigh finals, was then recruited into a professional programme before being scouted by none other than the Black Jackals. Now you’re playing with one of Japan’s top teams. How does that feel?

Bokuto: Amazing! It’s like a dream come true, honestly. But I’m ready to fight my way to the top and take the Jackals to victory.

Interviewer: Those are fighting words from a new player.

Bokuto: Well, yeah. You have to aim high or what’s the point? I don’t want to rest on my past victories. I want to keep climbing higher and higher until I reach a new ceiling.

Interviewer: That’s certainly an impressive way of looking at things. I notice that two of your current teammates, Miya Atsumu and Sakusa Kiyoomi played with you during your high school days. How does it feel playing with old rivals?

Bokuto: Awesome! The amazing thing about going pro is that everyone challenges you and keeps you motivated and that’s not just your rivals – it’s your teammates too. I love getting to play my favourite game with such a great team. It’s all I could really ask for.

Interviewer: One last question. Your Twitter has exploded with followers since your highlight reel went viral. What a lot of your fans want to know is whether you have anyone special in your life?

Bokuto: [flustered] Someone special? Ha, no. I don’t have any time for romance right now, unfortunately! My main focus is on my game right now and how I can improve my skills.

Interviewer: How dedicated. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us.

Bokuto: Thank you for letting me be here!

*

Akaashi’s entire high school routine seems to revolve around Bokuto. They meet up most mornings and walk to school together, they hang out between classes with the other third years and watch their opponents' games to discuss tactics, they practice after school, and sometimes even for hours after that at Bokuto’s demand. When Akaashi finds out Bokuto is failing Maths he even corrals him into the library to study until he finally gets himself a passing grade. In hindsight he recognises it’s probably not smart to build his entire life around one person. But Akaashi looks back on the memories now fondly, glad that he can say that at least in that time of his life, he really made the most of it.

On one of those days Bokuto agrees to leave practice on time, Coach Yamiji warning him off getting an injury before the looming Interhigh. Akaashi thinks maybe he’ll have some time to actually study seeing as his assignments are mounting up, when Bokuto stretches out and sighs. “I’m starving. Say, let’s go the convenience store and get those meat buns, what do you say?”

“You could always study for your Biology test next week.”

“I’ve been studying!” he says. “I have. I even wrote out my notes. Highlighted ‘em with the pens you got me, too.” His eyes sparkle as he leans into Akaashi’s space, eager and bouncing. “Come on, Akaashi, don’t leave me on my own. It’s not often we get to just hang out like this.”

And it’s that that does him in. Not the pleading or the wide eyes, which he has had the past two years of countering on the court to grow used to. But the idea that Bokuto wants to spend time with him, just the two of them, without volleyball being involved? His stomach twists pleasantly as he shakes his head fondly. “If you’re paying, Bokuto-san.”

“I have to treat my junior, don’t I?” he says, already racing off with his bag slapping against his leg. “Hurry up! If we don’t get there on time the store will close!”

They’re only just out of practice, clouds heavy and dark across the sky as they leave the gym behind, but Bokuto shows no sign of being tired. Akaashi can feel it in the air before it happens; the build of warmth in the atmosphere so close that the sweat clings to his skin as he jogs after Bokuto, feeling the strain in his legs. Even as he runs Bokuto yells out to him, laughter bellowing from his chest that earns them more than a few looks from those out on the streets, most of them sensible enough to be carrying umbrellas, or wearing rain jackets.

They almost make it, the store in sight down the road when the first drop splats against the cheek. It’s so cool, ice cold in contrast to his flushed skin, and he relishes the feel of it. In moments the clouds split and the trickle of drops gushes into a downpour, rain thundering against the pavement and the fluorescent lights of the convenience store shimmering in the puddles formed. The water seeps through his clothes until they stick to his skin as he throws an arm above his head to shield his eyes from the onslaught.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto yells in triumph as he lunges under the fabric awning shaking beneath the pounding of the rain. He spins, arms out, laughing as the water drips from his lashes.

Akaashi ducks under, doubling over as he breaths hard with exertion, and peers up at Bokuto above him. What he sees catches the breath in his lungs, caught on the lantern glow of his golden eyes and the way his usually gelled hair has flattened to his head with the rain, the same shade as a storm cloud. Any words he might have had flee from his mind, struck by the thought of Bokuto like sunlight breaking through the sky after a deluge. The rain lashes down around them, the wind sending it in towards them, but he can’t bring himself to move.

“Huh?” Bokuto tilts his head. “Akaashi? You alright there, buddy?”

Akaashi jerks himself out of it and straightens, trying to keep his eyes on Bokuto’s face and away from the way his Fukurodani track jacket clings to the firm muscles of his shoulders. “I told you to bring your umbrella this morning,” he says. The last thing he needs is the team’s ace getting ill just before Nationals. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

Bokuto rubs the back of his neck and laughs, bright and unaware of Akaashi’s reverent gaze tracing every movement. “I left it in class again. Next time!” Then he swipes his hair back, causing it to flop around his forehead in a way that makes him look younger. Softer, somehow. “Are you okay? You look a bit flushed.”

“We should probably get home, Bokuto-san. Before we both end up ill.”

“Alright, alright!” Bokuto waves. “Come on, let me walk you home.”

“It’s out of the way. It will take you longer to –”

“I’ll be quick.”

And Akaashi’s never been able to fight Bokuto’s gravity, surrendering to it as they stand side by side beneath the awning, waiting for the rain to subside enough for them to dash out into the street, the air tinged with the earthy scent that follows rainfall. Through the thick wall of cloud spears of golden light break free, dappling the damp tarmac with glittering light. Bokuto drops Akaashi at his door and jogs on, leaving him to stand in his sodden clothes and watch him disappear down the street.

*

“You know, out of all of us I never thought you would go pro, Tsukki,” says Kuroo.

Tsukishima grunts, his hair still damp from his shower, fresh off a win with his Division 2 team the Sendai frogs. He has mellowed out somewhat in his twenties, but only by a little. “You didn’t have to drag Akaashi all the way out here.”

“Nonsense. Akaashi wanted to come, didn’t you?” Kuroo says, looping an arm around his shoulder.

“You only asked me because Kenma refused to come with you.”

Kuro tsks.

Akaashi snorts, turning to Tsukishima. “Congratulations on your win. I watch your games online whenever I get the chance but I am glad I was able to come and watch in person this time.”

Tsukishima adjusts his glasses and Akaashi thinks he catches a flush across his cheeks. He’s still every bit Kuroo and Bokuto’s unwitting apprentice. Akaashi still thinks of that moment during summer training camp, when Bokuto had described how it felt to truly connect with the game. When it became a hunger to win, beyond just an ordinary hobby. He has always felt a certain kinship with Tsukishima, as the sane one amongst so many ridiculous personalities. As yet another disciple captured into Bokuto’s orbit. Tsukishima clearly found his moment and he hasn’t quit the game yet, so that has to count for something. Perhaps Konoha had not been so off the mark, when he had said that Bokuto’s oddities could be genius, when viewed from another light.

There’s our Tsukki, Bokuto had once exclaimed. Akaashi might have rejected it at the time but he still considers Tsukishima his in some way he can’t explain.

“At least I still have an actual job,” he says. “Bokuto is always texting me tips. Telling me what I did wrong and how I can improve.” He grits his teeth and Kuroo erupts into laughter.

“Hey, I think his game is starting soon, actually.” Kuroo pulls his phone out of his pocket. “We should watch.”

Tsukishima tries to look reluctant but as soon as the first point is won he’s pulling the phone closer to get a better look as Kuroo sniggers over his shoulder.

Later, as they wait at the train station, Kuroo glued to his phone and likely texting Kenma, he suddenly glances up and says, “You know he still talks about you all the time.”

Akaashi glances at him out of the corner of his eye. A little girl wails until her mother hauls her into her arms, the cases of tourists trundling past him on their way to the turnstiles. The hustle and bustle makes it easier to look distracted, makes it easier to pretend that Kuroo’s words are not all he can hear.

“He’s always telling people how he knows the editor of that manga of yours. Looks awfully proud about it, too.”

Akaashi doesn’t know what to do with this information, pretending to be preoccupied with checking the board above him for his train when he already knows what time it leaves and from which platform.

“I was kinda surprised to hear you two don’t talk as much these days.”

He keeps his face schooled. “I am very busy these days, Kuroo-san, as is Bokuto-san. It is unfortunate but it is how these things fall when people become adults with adult lives.”

Kuroo snorts. “That what you tell yourself? Honestly, Akaashi. I never met anyone as blind to themselves as you.”

“Just because I wear glasses now, Kuroo-san –”

“Oh, for the love of – I’m not going to tell you how you should live your life, so don’t take this the wrong way, but have you ever thought about seeing someone?”

Akaashi frowns, not taking his meaning.

“You know, a therapist or something. Just, someone to talk it out with, since you’re so determined to keep it to yourself.” At whatever he sees on Akaashi’s face Kuroo holds up his hands. “It’s just a thought. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Akaashi frowns. “I know there isn’t. But, Kuroo-san, therapy is for people with real problems. I’m not going to waste someone’s time when there are people out there who need it far more than I do.”

Kuroo pinches the bridge of his nose. “I give up. Man, Akaashi, if I could hold a mirror up or something and let you see what everyone else sees.” He shakes his head, huffing a laugh. “But I’m not gonna meddle. You wanna grab food before we get the train?”

Akaashi considers for a moment before he nods. He’s not sure what just happened, exactly, only knows that he trusts Kuroo’s judgement enough that when he gets home he ends up googling therapists in his area, considering. Perhaps it might be good to talk things over with someone who’s actually paid to deal with his bullshit. He sure as hell isn’t dumping it on anyone else.

*

If there’s one singular moment of perfect, photographic clarity in Akaashi’s mind, it has to be graduation. Not Akaashi’s graduation, of course, that nothing but a damp firework sputtering out into the quiet of his third year of high school. No, it’s not his own graduation that sticks out in his mind, but Bokuto’s, and that should have been a sign then and there who the true protagonist of this story is and always had been.

There’s a photograph tucked into his wallet to this day, of himself, Konoha, Komi, Sarukui, Washio, and of course, Bokuto in the centre with a blinding grin on his face, not that he’s ever needed it to remember. Indeed he takes it out rarely for fear of it fading, a blessed memory captured in a moment of stillness that almost feels a lie, for Fukurodani as a team were never still. It eats at him later, the quiet of the gym the first time he enters it as a third year surrounded by a brand new team, and he wonders if he had been foolish to pick a friendship group entirely of third years.

But no. It is better to have lived the moment and watched it pass than to have never experienced its warmth at all. Bokuto taught him that, he thinks. Fukurodani taught him that. Task focus. Let the rest of the world fall away and concentrate purely on that one moment. That one point. On only what Akaashi himself could do, with his own two hands and his intuition.

Bokuto accepts his graduation certificate with a fist pumped into the air and a bellowing exclamation that sets half of the school to laughter, the team clapping furiously for him. Akaashi hangs back to let the third years have their moment, the five of them clustered together in their uniforms for the last time as the cherry blossoms bloom just for them. It’s happy and it’s sad and he doesn’t know how to balance those conflicting emotions, smiling even as his eyes begin to water.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto shouts, flapping his hand. “Get in this picture now!”

Of course his team wouldn’t forget him. It’s why he loves them – each and every one of them who have accepted him into their boisterous, ragtag fold – and at their centre is their shining beacon, Bokuto Koutarou himself. Akaashi does not let himself dwell on what he feels for Bokuto.

“Gather in, gather in,” says Yukie, waving her hand as she holds up the camera. “You guys look great!” She snaps a few photographs then checks them. “I think we should keep one for the clubroom. Can’t let those first years come in not knowing the best team we ever had, huh, Akaashi?”

“Nah.” Bokuto slaps Akaashi’s back and he stumbles into Washio, who steadies him with broad hands. “Akaashi’s gonna go out there and avenge us, aintcha?”

“Whatever you say, Bokuto-san.”

Konoha huffs. “We’ll be watching you, captain. You better not let the Fukurodani name down.”

And if there’s one thing Akaashi has truly learned from his seniors as part of the volleyball team, it’s to never back down from a fight. So he squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, and says, “I’ll do my best.” He won’t have Bokuto, or Konoha, or Komi, but he’ll still put his all into the part of the game that he can do. Because that’s all he has left to offer.

“Aw, man, seeing Akaashi fired up is getting to me!” says Komi.

“Enough of this now,” says Konoha, attempting to elbow him, but Akaashi can see the moisture shining in his eyes.

Later, when the festivities are done and over, Akaashi finds himself straying to the trees that line the walkway into the academy, pink petals littering the ground around his feet as he drops onto a bench beneath their sprawling canopies. There’s a soft breeze blowing that stirs at their leaves, reminding him that time is always pushing forward. He’s sad but he’s trying very hard not to be because he’s proud of his team. He’s proud of what they achieved together. Maybe they couldn’t quite take the pinnacle but they came so close that he got to taste it, and besides, he knows Bokuto isn’t done growing yet.

“Akaashi?”

The voice is so hesitant he almost doesn’t recognise it, turning slowly. When he does his breath snags, gaze caught on Bokuto standing in between the cherry blossoms, pink petals floating around him as the sky blazes gold and orange with the setting sun. His tie is loose now, top button of his shirt undone, blazer sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Like this he is too much, like every colour burning up all at once, and his focus sharpens down until Bokuto is all he can see, all the broad, quick lines of him coalescing into a sight he can’t look away from.

“Aren’t you coming to dinner with us? We’re going out to celebrate.”

Akaashi blinks at him. “I didn’t want to interrupt your moment.”

For a moment Bokuto doesn’t say anything, simply staring back at him. Then he strides forward and drops down beside him, their thighs brushing as he leans back with a sigh. He radiates warmth and it’s only then that Akaashi realises the cold has been steadily seeping into his bones, the sky darkening around them into the dusky plum of twilight.

“You know,” Bokuto says eventually, eyes on a flock of birds flying in formation across the sky as if he knows that Akaashi needs the space, “I didn’t think about it until now.”

“Think about what, Bokuto-san?”

“How we’re all going and leaving you on your own.”

Akaashi hears himself gasp, jerking his head up to rake his gaze over the soft, almost wistful smile on Bokuto’s face. “I haven’t been the best captain, have I? I think you’ve been more captain than me, these two years you’ve been here. You’re the one who kept us all together when I was letting my emotions get the better of me. I don’t know how many games we won because you could see what the rest of us couldn’t.”

Akaashi scoffs. “You’ve grown so much. At Nationals –” he licks his chapped lips “– at Nationals you led us all the way to the top, just like you promised.”

“Aaah. Not all the way though.” Bokuto’s eyes flutter closed, squeezing. “I wanted to get there with all of you.” They open again, tilting towards him with a focus he usually reserves for volleyball. “I wanted to get there with you.”

Stoic he may be, but Akaashi’s only human, and he can’t stop the first crack in his facade as his hand claps over his mouth, a single tear rolling down his cheek. Bokuto startles, hands splaying in front of him as he stutters out apologies but then he stops when he sees that Akaashi is laughing, shoulders shaking with the force of it. He drops his hand, turns to properly face Bokuto with his grin wide and his eyes leaking tears.

“I am glad that I got to do this with you, Bokuto-san. I do not regret a single moment.”

“Well, gee, Akaashi. That’s –” Bokuto utters out a laugh, rubbing his neck. “I’m glad I got to do this with you, too. And I’m sorry that I can’t do it with you any longer. I’m sorry that we’re all going off and leaving you here.”

Akaashi shakes his head vehemently. “Don’t be. Never do that.”

“Huh?”

“Do not look back, Bokuto-san. Do not dwell on the past. You must keep looking forward. Keep growing stronger. I want to see you reach new heights.”

Bokuto’s smile grows. “Well, you’re just full of compliments today, aintcha? Feels strange, to think this is the last time.”

They spend a little longer on that bench with the cherry blossoms falling, one last day where Akaashi can still call them ace and setter, as the last rays of valiant sunlight fall to the domain of night. The sky is a deep indigo blue, littered with the first suggestion of the Milky Way twinkling far beyond the realms of his imagination, and he swallows past the lump in his throat, reminding himself how very lucky he has been to bask in the light of a star.

Together they are quieter than they have ever been and Akaashi’s thoughts are so very loud.

*

“Whoa, would you look at that!” exclaims Hamasaki, punctuating this with his beer bottle against the table of the bar. “That’s some serve.”

“Hm,” says Akaashi, not quite drunk but on his way there. “It’s a little off. I don’t think Miya-san is quite warmed up yet. It gets far scarier than that once he hits his groove.”

“You know volleyball, Akaashi?” he says.

“Don’t you know,” says Suzuki, leaning on her palm, her wedding ring gleaming, “that Akaashi used to play for some top tier team back in his high school days?”

“That right?” says Hamasaki, impressed.

Akaashi merely shrugs with a small smile. “We did okay.” He likes his colleagues. They’re good people and easy enough to get along with that he doesn’t mind spending time with them outside of work. But he has trouble really opening up. With revealing anything about himself that one couldn’t glean from a basic introductory conversation. He’s not sure why he’s like that. It’s just like he opens his mouth and the words lodge in his throat, and he's unable to get them out. It’s not like anyone really cares about him overly much, anyway.

Akaashi played volleyball once but that chapter of his life is over.

Miya is something else, even stronger than he was back in high school. From anywhere in the court he can set the ball, a smooth, clean arc as it spins into the air and then number twelve leaps into the air, cutting the ball into the back corner of the court. The crowd erupts, the commentators indulgent with their praise of the Black Jackals’ setter and wing spiker pair. They’re even tipping the team to take the league title this year, despite the Adlers’ domination the last three years.

“Damn, that’s some skill.”

Akaashi picks at the label of his beer bottle, not so much participating in the conversation as he is a spectator. Somehow that seems to be how he lives his life, always watching but never doing. Cleaning up the words but never writing them. Always drifting from one day to the next without the purpose he once had, like whoever is writing his story has gone off plot, direction spiralling away.

An editor he may be but he has no idea how to get his narrative back on track.

*

“Sensei,” he says quietly, removing his glasses so he can rubs at his eyes. It’s late, the sky tar black beyond the window, and he’s tired. “I have emailed you my comments but I wanted to talk you through them so you would not get disheartened.”

His mangaka gulps through the phone. “Is it that bad, Akaashi-san?”

“No, no. Not at all. It’s just, hm.” He rocks back, looking to the ceiling of his office where an ominous water stain has been building for a while. “The new ability just came out of nowhere. It’s good that Hiro is finally taking responsibility and I think readers will really respond to that but I think it needs more development. Take some time to consider how Hiro learns how to use this new power and how he might struggle with it at first. Nothing should come that easily.”

“Oh, okay. Do you think it needs another chapter, then? In between?”

“That might be best,” he agrees. “A bit of time spent with Hiro in introspection wouldn’t hurt. It will break up the action.”

“Okay. I’ll have a think about it.” He can hear the dejection in his tone down the phone but there isn’t much he can do. Sometimes a little honesty is necessary, if one is to improve. They might be on one of the biggest magazines in Japan but Akaashi is not content to rest on laurels when there’s always a better story to be told.

“Please do,” he says and hangs up, pressing his knuckles into his eyes. His shoulders are stiff, back sore, and he can’t remember the last time he got up from his chair.

Akaashi shuts down his computer, grabs his jacket, and leaves his office.

*

It’s the quiet that does him in. Akaashi is in his element as the calm point amongst the storm, the one who helps his teammates channel their boundless energy into points. He does not know how to be the one on centre stage, the rallying force that pumps up these wide eyed first years both eager and frightened all at once. If Bokuto is the light, then Akaashi is his shadow, allowing him to shine that much brighter. Without Bokuto Akaashi fades.

Still, he made a promise and he isn’t going to let go of it that easily. Their new first year wing spiker shows promise, a big, lumbering boy of long limbs and 186cm called Kazuma, and there’s no one who can coax out his talent better than Akaashi. Onaga is in second year now, and his game sense is growing with every match they play, until he’s able to use his height to block out their opponents with a finesse he lacked the year before. Bit by bit the team begins to come together under Akaashi’s careful eyes.

But it’s never quite the same. Akaashi takes lunch on his own, maybe speaks to a few of his classmates between one lesson and another, the noise of the hallways like the static of a TV that’s lost signal. There’s none of the same easy camaraderie, Bokuto and Komi and Konoha filling the silence so that Akaashi doesn’t have to, content to drift in their orbit. It’s hard not to see his school as the ghost of the previous year, the spot by the lockers where he used to meet Bokuto after class so they could walk to practice together, or that particular table where he and Washio used to study for their Literature exam in companionable quiet. The silence hangs over him everywhere he goes, until he throws himself into volleyball even harder than he did the year before.

“You’ve been working hard, Akaashi,” Coach Yamiji says to him one evening after practice, when his legs are shaking from the exertion. “I knew you would make a good captain.”

Akaashi isn’t so sure but he accepts the praise, letting it soak into his skin the way the sweat soaks his shirt. Maybe if he hears it enough he’ll start to believe it.

It’s more relief than anything else that they get through to Nationals. He doesn’t think he could take the shame if he had to face his old teammates and explain why he had ruined their long-standing consecutive record. Centre court looks different for the third time, this time at the helm of a team much different from the one who had attended the year before. There are new faces and there are familiar ones: Kenma and Tora of Nekoma, Hinata and Tsukishima of Karasuno, Sakusa and the Miya twins and many others he has come to know in his days as a member of Fukurodani volleyball club.

They lose to Inarizaki in the second round, a lacklustre performance in comparison to his second year that he tries to make better by reminding himself that Inarizaki power their way past Karasuno in the next round, riding the height of the Miyas’ innovative tricks all the way into the finals. But still, it hurts. The colours once so bright fade, his teammates walking off court with their heads low. Akaashi is quick to scold them. To remind them that they must learn from this loss and grow stronger, to hold up the Fukurodani tradition of pouring heart and soul into every point.

“We’re sorry we couldn’t take you further, Akaashi-senpai,” says Kazuma and he blinks the tears from his eyes with a small smile.

“Don’t look back,” he says, reaching up to ruffle his hair. “Keep moving forward. Keep thinking about how you can improve your game and take your team to the top.” He’s a future captain-to-be, Akaashi thinks, and he’ll keep an eye out for him in the coming months and years. It’s difficult not to compare him to Bokuto, just a little.

“Tough luck, sport,” says Konoha after he has showered and changed into his tracksuit to watch Nekoma brawling against Itachiyama. “You raised a fighting team.”

Akaashi smiles softly, watching his team point and exclaim as Kenma dumps the ball right over the net, shocking the opposing blockers who were expecting Tora from the right. “I did my best,” he says. “That’s all I could do.”

Konoha huffs. He has cut his hair since Akaashi last saw him, the shorter style making him look older. More mature. There’s a confidence about him that university has given him. “He wanted to be here, you know. He was whining about it for days.”

“Bokuto-san has more important things to focus on,” he says, letting his eyes fall closed for just one moment so that the squeak of shoes on court become his, and the smack of the ball from a figure high in the air, encased in glowing light.

Don’t look back, he had said, and meant it.

“I never really got you two,” Konoha confesses, hands in his pockets. “Bokuto just plucked you out of nowhere on the first day like he had claimed you as his setter and you just… went along with it. Like, anyone else might have got sucked into his nonsense for a while just to get on the team but then I found out you were sensible. I thought for sure you would tire of him but you were the only one who could keep up with him.”

“I knew he was going to be great even back then,” says Akaashi. He’s tired but it’s the good kind, worn out from a hard three set game that took his everything to fight through. “I was happy just to see him at his best.”

Konoha arches a brow. “Did you ever think about telling him that? I know why you didn’t back then, but now…” His gaze turns speculative as it roams Akaashi’s face. Then he throws his chin up with a snort. “Heh. Ah, what am I saying?”

“I told him that he has to keep looking forward. I am not interested in pulling him back to sate my own desires.”

It is the closest he has come to revealing himself, worn to the bone by his last year of school and standing before one of the few people he would genuinely call a friend.

“You know,” says Konoha, “for someone as terrifyingly smart as you are, you are terrible at taking your own damn advice.”

Akaashi looks over at him, at the pull of his mouth into a smirk.

“You really think you have nothing to offer?” Konoha shoves at his shoulder. “It’s like you have this blind spot in your vision for yourself. I used to wonder how you could just read the blockers in a fraction of a second on court. Used to wonder where this clever little first year came from, right out of nowhere, undaunted as he took his place amongst his seniors like he belonged there.” Konoha laughs and shakes his head. “You have no idea how everyone else looks at you, do you?”

The tears well in his eyes but he blinks them back, swallowing heavily. What can he say to that? Akaashi knows his strengths well and it’s because he knows what he’s capable of that he’s aware of his weaknesses. It’s fine. He has better grades than most of his class and a volleyball career that anyone would be proud of and he wouldn’t swap any of it for the world but at the end of the day he’s just Akaashi. Just the shadow, riding the wave of others’ ripples.

“Right, enough of this.” Konoha says. “We’ll take the team out, get some food. It’ll be good to see how the old man is doing anyway.”

And for a little while Akaashi maybe feels it. The way his team thank him for all the work he has put into fostering their abilities. Into building them up into the best they can be, the way a setter should. So he accepts their gratitude even if he’s not sure he really deserves it and wonders what Fukurodani will be like when there is no one left to remember that a star once graced those halls.

Life moves on, he supposes, and that is that.

*

“Akaashi-san, I think you were right! I want you to read the new chapter. I think you’ll like this one better.”

Akaashi is already reading through it, eyes roaming from one panel to the next. Hiro struggles to hone his new ability, feeling the pressure of the villain closing in. In his darkest moment, broken and bruised and left for dead, he is found by his childhood friend and fellow hero Ume, who helps him to his feet. Her face is drawn in harsh lines, not with the delicacy that is usually reserved for a male character’s love interest.

You don’t get to give up now! You made a conscious choice to fight and you must keep making it, again and again! That’s what being a hero is.

Hiro trains until his hands bleed under his watchful mentor, struggling to control his ability. He loses and loses and picks himself back up only to lose again. He grows stronger. He fights harder. And then, light bleeding in through some of the mangaka’s darkest panels, Hiro successfully blasts away a lower tier villain, clutching his fist in victory. The last panel of the chapter: Hiro with Ume by his side, his mouth pulled into a defiant line. Akaashi runs a hand over his mouth, the whir of his fan deafening in his office.

“Akaashi-san?”

“It’s good,” he breathes. “It’s really, really good.”

*

On Twitter, amongst the fervent volleyball fans, a clip gets circulated around from the Black Jackals’ official account. It is a highlight reel initially made by a fan, of some of the funniest moments taken from the season’s interviews with the team. There is Hinata, talking about his selfie with notable setter Oikawa Tooru of the Club Atlético San Juan, a collection of zoomed in shots of Sakusa’s face in the background set to Wii music, and Bokuto reacting to his chest receive, gasping when he sees the clip and saying, “I look really cool here, don’t I?” as Miya sighs wearily beside him.

One of these clips features an interview for a notable sports magazine, Bokuto, Miya and Hinata all in the same room. The reporter mentions that they each knew one another during their high school circuit and asks them how it feels to reunite. Somehow they get onto the topic of setters and that sways onto Miya’s acclaimed ‘genius setter’ status.

“As the team’s ace, how do you feel about working with Miya as a setter, Bokuto-san? Do you think he’s the best setter in the game right now?”

Bokuto taps a finger against his lips and then grins as he nods. “Tsumu-Tsumu is amazing!” He flashes a cheeky look at Miya and then adds, “Definitely the second best setter I’ve ever worked with!”

Miya chokes, the clip freezing on his face, overlaid by a static noise in the background. It becomes a meme, soon spread everywhere across every platform on social media. His fans start carrying banners with that image on it to games.

On the same day that the video goes viral, #miya2ndbestsetter and #osamuthehottertwin trend on Twitter.

*

Akaashi’s own graduation passes uneventfully, but for the moment where Kazama runs up to him bellowing out, “Akaashi-senpai!” in a way that is so reminiscent of older days that he finds himself almost catapulted into the past. Now 189cm and still growing, Kazama looms over him, his dark eyes watering. He has rallied the rest of the team, gathered around him like lost puppies, and he cannot help the swelling of his heart, marred by a vein of guilt. They are good kids. Good players. Akaashi wishes he could have led them better.

“Take care, Akaashi-senpai,” says Kazuma. “We’re going to miss you.”

“I’ll be back to watch you next year at Nationals,” he says sternly but he’s smiling. “So you better be even better than this year. I want to be impressed.”

Kazuma stands to attention, expression open and earnest, and Akaashi reaches up to ruffle his hair. “Thank you for seeing me off, Kazuma-kun. I am glad we got to play volleyball together.”

The cherry blossoms fall once more but Akaashi is less sad this year than he was last. It is another chapter left behind but he cannot help feel like he is starting late, like the rest of his friends have left him in the dust. He’s running and running but all he can see ahead of him is empty road and hollow streetlights, his footsteps echoing out into silence.

Akaashi plucks his second button off his blazer, rolling it between his fingers as he gazes upon Fukurodani’s gym hall from outside, the low sun setting the windows alight, and thinks about how he might never play volleyball again. Not seriously. Not like how it became his life for the three years he spent here, the thing that drove him harder than he’s ever worked in his life. Because Bokuto had ignited a fire within his belly that he owes to him not to let die, even if he’s going to be focusing on his studies now more than his game.

With one last look upon the dream that’s already fading with the dying light, Akaashi tosses his button towards the gym, watching it roll and land amongst the cherry blossom petals where his heart still lies. Akaashi turns and walks away alone.

*

Akaashi is surprised when his phone buzzes.

Bokuto-san

hey

hope u don’t mind but I heard from kuro u were gonna be in sendai next week

wanna meet up

haven’t seen u in aaaaages

It takes him a while to answer, his thumbs hovering over the screen as he thinks it over. The instinctive part of him dredges up some excuse, halfway through typing it up when he stops. His therapist told him that he needs to stop running from everything and take a chance every now and then. Akaashi doesn’t want to be the kind of person who runs from his life. Who runs from a friend.

“But what if they don’t want me to be there?” he says, wringing his hands as he perches on the edge of the sofa in her office. “What if I’m –” not enough too dull boring getting in the way “– me.”

“Sometimes you have to take that chance, or else you’ll let life pass you by. Besides,” she says with a soft, knowing smile, “I think you’ll find that people do not see you that way at all, Akaashi-san.”

Bokuto-san

Is Thursday okay?

I have a conference the day before.

The reply comes quicker than he expects, buzzing in his hand.

hell yeah!!

we can go out after practice

Akaashi smiles at his phone. Bokuto never says what he doesn’t mean, so if he has asked Akaashi to meet up it’s because he wants to. He repeats this over and over in his head until it feels like a mantra.

A protagonist doesn’t run from their friends, after all, and he wants to be sure that after all this time he can, at the very least, call Bokuto a friend.

*

University is a whole new environment than high school. It’s overwhelming at first, the lack of structure. Here no one will chase him if he doesn’t go to class. Here he is an adult, free to set his own rules, to be as diligent or as self-indulgent as he likes, and that’s a strange thing to contend with after the stringent routine of school and club. It takes him a while to settle into it but once he does he kind of enjoys that freedom.

A new rhythm of his life takes shape, one of long nights studying in the library before exams and fuelling himself through all nighters on endless coffee, video game tournaments with his room mate and some of the friends he has made from class. The people around him are vibrant, easy-going, colourful and clever. Akaashi tries new things, from skiing to chess to camping in Hokkaido, to even dipping his toe into the waters of dating when a friend of a friend with bright eyes and a brighter laugh asks him out one night after a study group.

It’s fine and it’s nice but he feels very little for the sweet boy who takes him to the cinema and for ice cream afterwards. It doesn’t last long but after it’s all over he still calls Yoshida a friend, and that’s something.

Still, he can’t fight the sensation of drifting. Even as he lives through it he thinks to himself, I will likely not remember very much of this time in my life at all, and he’s not sure what to make of that. Somewhere along the way Akaashi has lost direction, letting himself be carted along by the waves of others.

*

Akaashi’s head is swimming and his stomach roils. Somewhere between the whisky and the sake he’s started to feel a little ill, dragging himself out to the cool quiet of the seating area outside the toilets, kneading his fingers together as he concentrates on not upending the contents of his stomach. Akaashi doesn’t normally drink like this and it’s now that he remembers why. The muffled thump of pounding bass drills into his skull as he rocks back and lets his head fall against the wall, hearing someone shout, “You’re getting old, Shouyou-kun!”, followed by hoots and cheers.

Footsteps sound out to the side of him and he turns to see Bokuto approach, quieter than normal as he stands a few feet away, watching him with a worried look on his face. Akaashi is quite certain that he despises the role reversal. He feels pathetic, screaming insults in his own head.

“Look, I know I’m not the best at noticing these things,” Bokuto begins, “but you can’t tell me there isn’t something wrong. You’re not – you don’t look happy, Akaashi. And I know you so you can’t tell me it’s just your face.”

“I am not so sure you would understand, Bokuto-san.”

Akaashi looks up and it feels like a punch to the gut. Bokuto mouth pulls downwards, his shoulders drooping in a way that is so reminiscent of one of his low moods on the court that Akaashi’s already running the scenarios in his mind before he can stop himself. Which reason is it this time? Only this time it’s something he has said. He is the one to have caused Bokuto to look at him so dejectedly and it makes the bottom drop out of his stomach.

“You know, Akaashi, a lot of people think I’m dumb but I never thought that you –”

“No, no! That’s not what I meant!”

Bokuto blinks, looking taken aback by his vehemence.

Akaashi sighs, removes his glasses, and scrubs at tired eyes. “It’s… What I mean is that I’m not sure you have ever felt the way I do.”

“Yeah?” says Bokuto, tilting his head. “What way is that?”

“You read manga, don’t you, Bokuto-san?”

Now Bokuto’s brows furrow even deeper. “Yeah?”

“And when you read manga you usually root for the hero, right?” Akaashi has spent a lot of time reading manga lately. Has spent a lot of long nights into the wee hours thinking about what makes a manga good. “You want the hero to win at the end of the day, even if you don’t want it to be easy for them. You want to see them succeed because they worked hard.”

“Right. I mean, of course, but what has this got to do with –”

“Sometimes I feel like I am not the hero of my own story.”

A heavy silence falls after that, pressing down so that the space between them almost seems to widen. Akaashi’s gaze skims over Bokuto’s face, unsure what to make of the uncharacteristically pensive look on he finds there, but he can’t bring himself to look for more than a few moments before he’s staring down at his hands squeezing at his thighs, wrinkling his trousers.

“I don’t understand. How can you not be the hero if it’s your story? Akaashi, you edit manga. You gotta know that, man. You set your own rules.”

Akaashi shakes his head, smiling when he feels like doing anything but. “But that’s just it. I don’t write the stories. I merely read them and suggest ways to make them cleaner. I’m passive. I don’t do anything but drift through my life. I barely remember most of it.” His memories of university are hazy, fine but mostly uneventful. “There’s only one time that stands out clearly.”

Bokuto’s voice is remarkably soft when he says, “And which time is that?”

Akaashi looks up then, into golden eyes. “My second year of high school. Playing volleyball with you, Bokuto-san.” His lips quivers but he holds because Akaashi Keiji has long since mastered the art of holding himself together. “I think you were the hero of my story and without you it has lost all meaning.”

Bokuto’s eyes widen until all the whites show, his mouth dropping. It is a rare thing, to render the great Bokuto Koutarou speechless, but here he stands guttering like a candle in a stiff wind and Akaashi doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry so he does neither, staring up a Bokuto with a mask of complete and utter calm. He doesn’t know what he wants – what he wants Bokuto to say in response to the ugliness he has just dropped at his feet – but it isn’t this. Bokuto deserves better than someone he used to be friends with offloading his problems upon his shoulders.

Akaashi stands. He feels awfully composed considering the chasm ripping open inside his chest. Like maybe he just needs to draw a line under that chapter of his life and move on. But he doesn’t even make it two steps before Bokuto’s small voice stops him.

“Is that –” Bokuto licks his lips; a nervous gesture. “Is that really what you think?”

Akaashi fixes him with a cool look. “It is nothing, Bokuto-san. I think nostalgia and the alcohol have got me a little muddled is all. Please do not think any further on it.”

“But you –”

Akaashi doesn’t let him finish. He turns and strides away, too fast for Bokuto react. He walks and walks until he’s running despite his layers, running until his lungs burn from his depleted stamina and his muscles quiver from having consumed too much drink. Even his body is no longer what it used to be, as if it has given up on him.

Eventually he stops, looking to the sky. He breathes hard, focusing on steadying his heartbeat. His eyes close, squeezing tight. Enough of this now. Enough.

*

Bokuto-san

I was just wondering if you were free over the next two weeks?

I have some time off work and I thought we could

Akaashi scowls and mashes the back key until the words are gone. The blank screen stares at him, cursor blinking.

...

Akaashi throws his phone on the bed and leaves it.

*

The buzz of his phone wrests him from a terrible dream. There are only snippets lingering in his mind as he rolls over in bed, more exhausted than ever, golden eyes piercing through him. All he remembers is how Bokuto had turned away from him, walking past him like he didn’t even recognise Akaashi. Like he had been just another face in the crowd. His gut twists and he cards a hand through his hair as his other hands slaps across his night stand for his glasses. The room sharpens, a thin sliver of light carving his bed in half, dust motes swirling in the air. His phone buzzes again and he groans.

Flipping it over, he sees it’s from Kuroo. Of course. The years might have stripped away the veneer of Akaashi’s relationship with Bokuto to reveal the rust beneath but somehow the bond between he and Kuroo is stronger than ever.

Pain-in-the-ass-Kuroo-san

what did you do to him???

Do you know what time it is?

wakey wakey dickface

he’s doing that thing he used to do back in high school where he looks like someone kicked his nest out of a tree

what did you say to him

Nothing.

bullshit you didn’t

you wanna explain to the black jackals why their ace is watching a volleyball game in utter silence rn

you remember what he was like

when he used to go into his moods

Beep. Beep. Beep. Akaashi drops his phone into the covers and buries his head into his pillow. He’s just gone and fucked up even more. All that progress that Bokuto has made and Akaashi had to go and pick it to pieces just so he could have his moment. “Selfish, selfish,” he mutters to himself. This is exactly why he didn’t want Bokuto to know he had gone to the game, back when he was playing the Adlers. Why he was happy to draw a line under his days at Fukurodani, keeping it to the club’s yearly reunion. Akaashi is too sensible to be living in the past when he knows fine well that the world moves on.

His bed vibrates, loud and insistent, and he slaps a hand over his face. He contemplates not picking it up but then he considers how much worse it will be if he doesn’t.

“What,” he grumbles into the phone.

“Look, man, I’ve never bothered with your shit until now but I draw the line when you let it affect Bokuto. He deserves better than that.”

Akaashi drags his hand downwards, lets the tips of his fingers press into his eyes. “I know. I know he does.”

“I’ve never actually asked you but maybe now’s the time to finally bite the bullet. Is this because you have feelings for him?”

Time stills for a moment, but for the erratic thump of his heartbeat. In the cool gloom of his bedroom it feels like a safe place to finally give voice to what he’s been holding close for so long, letting Kuroo pry it from his clutching hands.

“I love him.”

There’s a rattling breath through the line, followed by a sigh. When he speaks again the anger has bled from Kuroo’s voice. “I thought it might be something like that. Say, you ever thought about telling him that? Seems if anyone deserves to know it would be him.”

“No. No, I do not think I will do that, Kuroo-san.”

“Any reason why?”

“It would be grossly unfair of me to burden him with that after all this time. Bokuto-san has his own life now and I have mine. We are not in high school anymore.”

Kuroo whistles. “You’re damn good at the robot thing, you know? You almost have me convinced.”

Does he? The truth is Akaashi doesn’t even have any tears. He just feels hollow, like a cavern has collapsed in his chest and everything is pouring down into it; down, down into an endless abyss that leaves him void of all feeling. Maybe a robot is exactly what he is.

“Look, I’ll talk to him but I was never as good at picking him up as you.”

Akaashi’s answering laugh sounds manic. “That was a long time ago.”

Kuroo hangs up on him.

*

On the bus to Nationals Akaashi can feel Bokuto twitch with nerves next to him, his thighs bouncing as he points out every sight on the road. It’s not that he gets nervous, exactly, so much as he gets himself so worked up with anticipation that he doesn’t sleep properly and then it throws him off his game the next morning. There’s no way Akaashi’s letting that happen this time. Not with everything on the line. This is the last time, he thinks, looking over Bokuto’s profile lined in daylight as he wriggles in his seat. They’re going to win this whole thing because it’s the last time and he wants to hold onto this precious memory forever in his hands. He wants it for Bokuto. He wants it for himself even more.

Akaashi pulls one of his earphones from his ear and jams it into Bokuto’s, who startles with a yelp. “Akaashi?”

“Listen to the music. Focus on that instead of what’s ahead. Right now there’s nothing we can do until we get there and you need to get yourself in the right frame of mind before that happens.”

“Oh. Thanks!”

It takes a while but he can feel the moment where the tension bleeds from Bokuto’s body, tapping his finger against the window sill to the beat of the song and bopping his head. From there he eases down, until his head is drooping to the side as his eyelids flutter. In stages Bokuto falls asleep, mouth parted as soft puffs of breath leave with every exhale, daylight washing over the soft lines of his face.

The music shifts into something wistful, strings of an acoustic guitar plucked like the threads around his heart. Akaashi spends the rest of the trip in quiet contemplation as he lets himself simply look without fear of being seen. He charts the broad jawline, the long slope of his nose, and the curve of his lashes throwing shadows long across his cheek, committing the sight to memory.

Akaashi’s second year of high school is a fever dream, there and over in one blinding moment like a supernova bursting into colour before it fades into darkness.

*

It’s five hours from Tokyo to Sendai. It’s five years from Fukurodani Academy to the Black Jackals. It’s five sets between win and loss and five seconds to miss that final point. It’s five; the number of Fukurodani’s vice-captain and setter for one blinding, beautiful year. It’s five; like an identity branded into his heart, the only number that holds any meaning for him. Black and white and gold.

“You always pick five,” Udai muses in the wake of the staff betting pool. Akaashi’s not even sure what they’re betting on, aware that his final deadline to have the latest manuscript submitted is in five days.

“Five is a good number.”

It’s five years since Akaashi watched Bokuto step into the light of the future and five years since he last set a volleyball into the air on centre court. It’s been five years, and in not one of them has he forgotten what it felt like to stand beneath the trajectory of a shooting star.

*

Akaashi arrives at the court just as practice is winding down, sitting down on an empty seat to wait for Bokuto and his team to finish the last of their practice serves. It’s different like this, without spectators, the lights overhead blazing to account for the stormy sky beyond the stadium taut with the promise of rain. He sits there for a while as the players make their way off court, only himself and a few others scattered in the stands. His eyes drift over the familiar field of a volleyball court, thoughts drifting towards the past.

Grinding his teeth, he kicks himself for doing it again and makes his way back down towards where the locker rooms are. He drops onto a bench just around the corner from the door and pulls out his phone, reading some of his emails as he listens to voices grow louder, punctuated by laughter.

“Yeah, but Kagayama’s not your setter anymore, Shouyou-kun. Besides, he was not the best server in the game back then.”

“Still!” insists Hinata. “We beat you, didn’t we?”

“Ah,” says Miya in his unmistakable Kansai accent, “but Karasuno had you then, too.”

Hinata makes a funny noise, somewhere between an exclamation and a squawk, and Akaashi smiles as he imagines him blushing.

“What about Oikawa Tooru?” he hears someone else say. “He’s supposed to be pretty notorious, is he not? You played with him in Rio, didn’t you, Shouyou?”

“Oh, Tooru is amazing!” Hinata agrees. “His serves are terrifying!”

“Not bad on the eyes, either,” agrees Miya. “Of course –”

A familiar voice calls out, “Hey, wait for me! Hold on!” Footsteps thump against the ground.

“– if we’re talking about the hottest setter from back then you certainly had it luckiest, didn’t you, Bokkun?”

“Eh?”

Akaashi stiffens as their voices grow louder, footsteps sounding just beyond where he’s sitting. His hands clutch at his phone, swallowing heavily. Inunaki appears first, waving the others off as he heads to the door. He doesn’t even notice Akaashi on his bench.

“Akaashi was definitely the hottest player at Nationals. Whew, I don’t know how you managed to get to the finals with him on your team. I’d have hit on him myself if it hadn’t been so obvious he was madly in love with you.”

Bokuto stutters, the flash of black MSBY jackets there before his back appears into view, the stark white text of his name drawing in Akaashi’s eye, his head turned to a smug looking Miya with Hinata at his side. “Akaashi’s not in love with me!”

Akaashi drops his phone, hearing it clatter to the floor. He doesn’t even remember standing, only knows the roar of his own pounding blood in his ears and the way his hands shake. Bokuto stares back at him wide, round eyes, his mouth hanging open. Hinata’s eyes are nearly as huge and even Miya looks surprised, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Bokuto takes a step. Says, “Akaashi.”

Akaashi swipes up his phone from the ground, turns and runs out into the rain.

*

On the clubroom wall a photograph has been pinned to a cork board amongst a variety of fliers and pictures of past members of the Fukurodani volleyball club. It’s the same one as the one he keeps in his room, taken by Yukie on the day of third year graduation. Every time Akaashi enters he stops to look upon it, Bokuto’s beaming face as he gathers in his team. Akaashi stands on his left, his face mostly impassive but for the subtle curling of his mouth. Most notable about it, he thinks, is the fact that he is not looking at the camera. Instead his face is tipped towards Bokuto, a snapshot of his need to capture everything on that last, desperate day.

The door slams open and he starts, looking at Kazuma as he drops his ball to raise his palms in apology. “Sorry, Akaashi-senpai!” The ball bounces once and then rolls towards Akaashi’s feet, who picks it up and spins it in his hands. Kazuma looks past his shoulder, pointing.

“That’s your old team, isn’t it? You went to Nationals last year.”

Akaashi swallows past the lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

“That’s amazing!” says Kazuma, eyes sparkling. “You were vice-captain as a second year and the starting setter? You’re so cool!”

Akaashi shakes his head. “We had a good team.”

Whatever he sees in Akaashi’s face makes Kazuma’s gaze soften. “You must miss them, huh? I bet you guys were close if you were training together all the time. Was it hard, being the only second year?”

And for a moment Akaashi lets the sigh leave him, lets his shoulders slouch. “All the time,” he says. “I miss them all the time.”

*

Akaashi stands and watches the rain for a while, mesmerised by the pattern as it falls, the way it dashes against the road. The sky is dark, marbled in grey and black, the pavement shining amber and blue-green with the reflection of the traffic lights. He breathes in the scent of it, chest heaving with the force of each exhale. Sometimes he feels so much older than his age, like he has already watched his best years unfold before his eyes. He’s tired but too alert all at once, like he’s back in his university days of consuming caffeine to get him through his assignments, jittery and on edge.

A figure runs toward him, splashing through puddles and sending ripples across the thin layer of surface water. There’s a violent slash of red against the deep cobalt blue of the surroundings that draws his eye in. He’s breathless, shivering from his sudden awareness of the cold. The figure ducks beneath the shelter of the overhang and lowers his umbrella, revealing a familiar face with golden eyes, and damp silvery locks curling around his hears.

“Hey, look, Akaashi. I remembered an umbrella this time.”

Akaashi can’t even scold him for his stupidity at getting himself wet. He sucks in air, knowing what’s about to come out but unable to stop the words any more than he can stop the deluge pouring from the sky.

“Bokuto-san, I’m in love with you.”

Bokuto’s smile drops inch by inch, staring at Akaashi with wide eyes like he’s been caught in the headlights. Akaashi’s gaze drops to his throat as he swallows, his own fingers curling together and squeezing to ground himself to this moment. The weight of those words are finally lifted but he’s not sure he feels any lighter. The twisting of his stomach keeps him rooted to the spot.

“Oh. Oh,” Bokuto gasps finally. “Akaashi, I –”

“It’s okay,” he says, glad for the rain to mask his tears. “I know it is selfish of me to burden you with this now, when you have been nothing but a good friend to me, but I need to say it now, or else I never will. I’m in love with you, Bokuto Koutarou, and I think I have loved you since the moment I met you and I’m so so proud of what you’ve become –” his breath hiccups and he scrubs at his face “– and I missed you more than anything in this world.”

“Hey, hey now.” Fingers curl around his hands and pull them from his face. “Hey, Akaashi.” It’s said so gently, like Akaashi might break. “You must think I’m so stupid, huh?”

“I’ve never once thought you were stupid.”

Bokuto laughs but it’s a softer version of his usual pealing merriment. “But you must, because I’ve been so blind, haven’t I? To not realise, all these years. Akaashi you – even after all this time? And I never even.” He’s babbling, voice a little higher than normal, fingers still kneading Akaashi’s hands. “I missed you too, you know. I could feel this rift forming between us and I thought, well, I thought maybe it was what you wanted. That you were done with high school and ready to move onto the adult world. You’re so smart and sophisticated, you know? And here I am still playing volleyball.”

Akaashi isn’t sure what is heart is doing now, some off tempo kilter that should have him sent straight to the hospital.

“But it was me, wasn’t it? I left you back then and never came back. Left you all alone.” Bokuto reaches up, wipes a tear from Akaashi’s cheek. His golden eyes are incandescent in the lantern hanging on a hook above them, swinging wildly in the wind. “I got so wrapped up with my own life and my need to be the best that I missed… you.”

“I told you not to look back,” he says crossly.

Bokuto tilts his head, smile forming. “Ah, but, Akaashi, you’re not my setter anymore, are ya?”

Hurt fissures inside his chest and it must show on his face because Bokuto grabs his shoulder, hand warm and firm, and the next thing he knows Bokuto is leaning in and pressing his mouth forcefully to his. He feels hot breath and the hint of tongue, damp hair tickling his temple, and the grounding point of borderline pain where Bokuto’s fingers press into tendon and bone. Bokuto moves to pull back but Akaashi grabs him and reels him in, hands latching onto his hair as he attacks Bokuto’s mouth with a feral noise. All of his feelings pour into the kiss, years of built up emotion tumbling down all at once.

Bokuto pushes him back, pressing him into the wall with the lean lines of his body, hot even through their wet clothing as a hand cups his jaw to tilt his face just so, kissing him deeper and deeper until his tongue is pushing into his mouth. His groan vibrates through Akaashi, rumbling through his own chest. His hands claw everywhere; Bokuto’s back, his wet hair, his neck and shoulders and face, fisting his jacket with stuttering breaths as Bokuto bites at his lip, a thumb over his pulse point that’s fluttering like a hummingbird.

Bokuto’s lips are red when he finally pulls away, chest heaving. His hair is in complete disarray, and his eyes blazing like two twin suns. God, how Akaashi aches in this moment, staring back at him as he awaits his fate.

“I don’t need to obey you anymore, Akaashi,” he says finally, voice hoarse enough to send a shiver through him. “So I think I might allow myself to look back, just this once. The view’s pretty nice, if I do say so myself.”

Akaashi utters a noise from the back of his throat, unable to sort through all that he’s feeling. “Bokuto-san…”

Bokuto shakes his head. “I don’t really like the sound of that from you. Kuroo told me –” he swallows again, a trickle of water trailing down his throat. The rain has petered out into a faint drizzle, the water still across the road until a car sloshes through it and sends ripples careening outwards. “Kuroo told me that you needed me to tell you not to call me that anymore. I thought it was your way of trying to maintain a professional distance between us but that wasn’t it, was it? You didn’t think I would want you to call me anything else because I never dared to ask.”

Akaashi can only stare at him, glad for the wall at the back bracing him up because his legs are unsteady, hand splaying against brick.

Bokuto reaches up, a finger tracing across his lip. “Do you think maybe you can start calling me Koutarou now? It has been a few years and I think I would like people to know that we’re close.”

“Koutarou,” he breathes, relishing in the way Bokuto shivers. He can feel his composure settling back over him the same way the city settles after the storm, an old woman shuffling down the pavement carrying a shopping bag. “I will only call you Koutarou if you’ll call me Keiji.”

“Keiji.” Bokuto smiles around his name. “Keiji, I can do that.”

Together they walk back beneath Bokuto’s red umbrella as the drizzle fades, the colour rippling in the reflection of a puddle as he steps through it. Akaashi is reminded of the old superstition about love blooming between those who share an umbrella and wonders if reading so much manga has turned him into a romantic.

*

“Are you going to go for that literature job?”

Akaashi hesitates, drawing Bokuto’s gaze. “Actually… there’s a promotional post that I’ve been thinking of. Suzuki says I have a pretty good shot of getting it. It’s in the manga department.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “I have been enjoying working with my authors so far. I think I’d like to where see I can take it.” It’s not the path he imagined but he finds he doesn’t hate it.

“Hell yeah!” Bokuto pumps his fist in the air. “Then we should go out and celebrate.”

Akaashi smiles. “I haven’t got the job yet.”

“Still!”

*

Despite everything the air is heavy between them when they enter into the gloom of Bokuto’s apartment, Akaashi’s sodden clothes dripping across his floor. They don’t speak and with every second that passes the tension seems to notch higher. Akaashi has never felt so unmoored in his life, except perhaps for that one moment in the semis of the Spring Interhigh when it hit him how little time he had left. It’s in his nature to analyse the situation, to take in every detail and turn it over until he can make sense of it, but his brain feels like it has been blasted by too many volts of electricity and everything is crackling white noise.

Bokuto pads through to the bathroom and flicks on a light, Akaashi’s breath catching on the way his wet shirt clings to every line of his broad shoulders; a back he has been staring at for years. There’s the thump of a cupboard door and then a towel is being tossed in his direction, which he accepts numbly and rubs at his dripping hair.

“You need to get out of your wet clothes before you catch a cold,” comes out of his mouth like a habit.

Bokuto pokes his head out of the door, eyes flicking over his face before a small smile grows. “Trying to get me out of my clothes, Keiji?”

Warmth blooms across his face and neck and Bokuto throws his head back and laughs, that familiar booming laugh that makes Akaashi’s heart throb. Then he’s crossing the room, tugging on the bottom of his shirt and throwing it over his head as he does. It lands on the floor but his mouth is too dry to scold him, taking in a body that has been sculpted by years of relentless training, and the smiling eyes of the man he has been chasing after for years.

“Hey, can I touch you?”

It’s said softly, reverentially, and Akaashi nods, waiting to see what he’ll do. Bokuto seems almost a little nervous, fingers skimming his jaw before he’s leaning in to press a kiss to his forehead. His lips fall down to his cheekbone, then his neck, eliciting a soft sigh from Akaashi who throws his head back, eyelids fluttering. Bokuto teases at his shirt, and finding no resistance, tugs it over his head. Akaashi is not ashamed of his own physique, having maintained lean muscle through jogging and the gym, but it is something different to have Bokuto’s eyes roam over him so carefully. It leaves him raw and exposed, fighting the instinct to hide himself.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?”

Akaashi blinks, looking up into his burning gaze.

“I knew it back then because everyone used to tell me. ‘Bokuto who’s that junior of yours that you’re always with? Does he have a girlfriend?’ I used to get annoyed at the thought of anyone taking you away from me but I don’t think I realised then what it meant.” He laughs, a callused thumb spreading across his collarbone. “You were my setter, after all.”

I’m still your setter, he thinks but does not say.

“And then I saw you after a couple of years and I hadn’t realised until then just how long it had been. Akaashi – no, Keiji. You.” Bokuto exhales heavily, nose burrowing into his neck for a moment as his arms come around him. “They kept stealing glances at you, everyone in that bar. And I.” He pulls back again so he can look in Akaashi’s eyes. “You were something else, all grown up and smart and your glasses. You, with your proper adult job and the way you smiled so easily when Komi talked about his first day on set and I just thought that you had moved well past Fukurodani by then.”

“Bokuto-san.”

“Koutarou. It’s Koutarou, remember? I thought you called me that because – because I was just your teammate. Just your senior. I thought I had gone and messed it all up by letting us grow apart and that I was better letting you live your life.”

“Koutarou.”

“Yeah?”

“You talk too much,” Akaashi says before he crashes their mouths together, his hands on either side of Bokuto’s face as he pushes into him.

“Less talking, yeah,” Bokuto breathes between kisses, broad hands pushing him backwards into the bedroom until he’s crashing down over Bokuto’s duvet, Bokuto climbing over him all 190cm of corded muscle. Akaashi pulls him down, gasping into his mouth, attacking with the ferocity of years held back, his tongue running along the roof of Bokuto’s mouth until he shudders and grinds down, the press of his arousal suddenly there against Akaashi’s thigh.

“You know,” Bokuto rasps out, wiping over spit-slick lips, “I think I’m glad I never knew back then. If I had I’m not sure I would have ever been able to focus on volleyball.”

And Akaashi can see it, years falling away as he pictures the two of them in their school uniforms, fumbling for the first time in his childhood bedroom, or Bokuto pressing him back against the supply cupboard after practice, his hands skimming beneath his shirt tentative and exploring. Would it have been different, to have known and loved Bokuto in that way, free of the ache that has haunted him all these years? Akaashi isn’t sure but even if had, he’s not the type to dwell. Task focus. The here and now. What Akaashi can do now, in this moment, and nothing more or less.

Akaashi loops his hands around Bokuto’s neck and pulls him down like he’s trying to account for lost time. Like he’s trying to show him the depth of his feeling in a way he’s never known how to express. Like he’s afraid that if he lets go the dream will shatter before his eyes.

*

“And once again Bokuto looks into the crowd after such a beautiful play. He’s a man of the people, is the Black Jackals’ number twelve.”

“It looks like he’s searching for someone in particular this time. Is that a friend of his that he’s looking at?”

“If my eyes don’t deceive me that looks like Bokuto’s old high school setter from Fukurodani Academy, here to support his former teammate. He was with Bokuto the year his team reached the finals of the Spring Interhigh.”

“It must be weird for him watching from that position.”

Amongst the crowd Bokuto finds him and points into the stands, beaming as the crowd shouts his name in adoration. His other hand pats over the left side of his chest.

On the court he is no longer Bokuto’s setter but in every other way that matters he is his partner.

*

Twelve is the number Bokuto wears the first time Akaashi sees him leap into the air, witnessing the birth of a star, black on white. Twelve is the number Bokuto wears as he takes to the stage for the Black Jackals’ with the crowd chanting his name, white on black. Twelve is the number of Bokuto’s apartment in Sendai, where Akaashi’s things begin to linger. A toothbrush here, a shirt or a jacket there.

Twelve is the number of years he has known Bokuto when they finally move in together and twelve is the number of years he has worked before he ends up Editor-in-Chief at his manga serialisation that publishes some of the biggest titles in the industry.

Twelve is the number Bokuto tattoos on his wrist, the number that Akaashi kisses each night they spend together. Twelve is the number he chooses now, when asked for the number of months it will take for Yoshino and Honda to get together as part of the staff betting pool.

“Hey, Keiji,” Bokuto says one night, the number twelve freshly inked and bandaged as he leans to the side on his pillow and stares back at him, “do you think we were the protagonists, after all?”

“Of our story, Koutarou,” he murmurs as his eyes flutter closed, warm and content.

“Of the world,” Bokuto insists.

And he’s smiling even as he drifts into a sleep filled with memories of standing on centre court, lights flashing before his eyes. The most popular title in his serialisation right now is a story about a high school volleyball team, written by none other than Udai Tenma himself. It’s Akaashi’s favourite, now on its twelfth volume.

“Of the world,” he agrees.