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Bokuto stands on the floor near the stage, the concert going on around him the liveliest one he’s ever been to. The band is jumping around, banging their heads as they strum their guitars and beat their drums. Hundreds of people around him scream the lyrics to the songs they play, trying to match the energy of the men on stage.
As he jumps and sings along, shoulders bumping into Kuroo’s next to him, Bokuto wonders quietly what this would all look like in color.
There’s a strange quirk to the world they live in. People see color until they turn five years old, and after that, you can only see color when you touch your soulmate for the first time. After that, you can see color until one or the other dies. Bokuto thinks of it like a challenge; if you don’t find your soulmate, you don’t get to see color again.
Bokuto misses colors. A lot.
Life with color was so much more exciting. Sure it’s been nearly 13 years since he last saw them and he wouldn’t remember many memories from back then anyway, but life in black in white is so dull.
Bokuto doesn't have many memories in color, but he does remember the colors themselves. He’s never told anyone but Kuroo, but Bokuto remembers the names of colors and exactly how they look; and Bokuto knew a lot of colors.
He imagines that the strobe lights crawling over the crowd are deep reds and loud blues, and the lights on the stage are a light, almost yellow, green. The shade of gray of the person’s hair in front of him suggests that they have dark blonde hair, and Kuroo’s shirt seems like it’d be a scarlet red.
Bokuto ignores the pang of longing in his heart and continues to jump, laughing when Kuroo messes up the words loud enough for Bokuto to hear. Three more songs pass, each of them ones that Bokuto knows all the words too, but doesn’t like as much as others.
The lead singer announces that this is the last song they're playing for the night, and Bokuto recognizes the first chords immediately as his favorite song. He leans into Kuroo in excitement, and Kuroo pushes him off with a smile on his flushed and sweaty cheeks.
Kuroo pushes Bokuto a little too hard for him to quickly right himself, and he bumps into the person beside him by accident. Bokuto blinks, turning to the person to apologize, and two things happen at once.
First, his eyes land on the boy with an irritated expression on his face and Bokuto realizes that he’s extremely attractive.
Second, he sees colors.
It’s blunt, the way his vision switches from black and white to bright colors in the span of the half a second it took for him to blink. The “I’m sorry!” he was about to say dies on his lips, and he watches as the frown disappears from the other boy’s face almost instantaneously.
Lights flash and people dance around him, his favorite song playing live, but Bokuto cannot bring himself to look away from the boy’s eyes.
The color alone is nearly too much for Bokuto to handle. Cyan, cerulean, teal, jade, emerald; no named color has the correct dark shade of blue, yet light hue of green to match his eyes. They’re like the color of the ocean Bokuto visited when he was three years old, or the color of the sky when he and his dad watched the sunset until they could see the stars when he was four and a half.
From the sparkle of excitement in the boy’s eyes and the pink flush on his cheeks that makes Bokuto’s insides churn, he has no doubt in his mind that this boy is his soulmate.
The colored lights flash on his sharp features and black curls; red and blue with the green from the stage, just as Bokuto had imagined. The boy bites his lip, dragging Bokuto’s attention down to his soft, rose colored lips.
Bokuto wants nothing more than to grab his beautiful, mysterious soulmate’s cheeks and kiss him, but that would be weird, so he rubs his neck bashfully and laughs.
He can’t believe it. He finally found his soulmate.
The boy doesn’t move his gaze from Bokuto’s eyes until someone else bumps into his back. He turns to the person in annoyance, then looks around and after a few seconds, brings his gaze back to Bokuto.
Raising a hand from his side, the boy gestures for Bokuto to follow him; when Bokuto nods, he turns on his heel and starts making his way through the crowd. Bokuto quickly turns to Kuroo and tells him, lips close to his ear so he can hear, “I’ll be in the lobby.”
He looks down at Kuroo’s shirt for a split second, and it’s a dark scarlet, just as he thought. Kuroo smiles at him, giving a thumbs up before turning back to the stage. Bokuto turns around to follow his mysterious soulmate, and his heart drops when he can’t find his head among the crowd.
Suddenly in a hurry to find him, Bokuto makes his way through the crowd in the direction of the lobby. His frantic hunting eases into a calm search almost supernaturally, and he feels this connection that’s almost like a string pulling him in the direction of the boy.
Bokuto can feel the string pulling taut, and suddenly, he’s feeling a warm, slender hand slip into his own. He looked up and he already knew exactly who it was, even before he met the dazzling blue eyes of his soulmate.
The boy smiles, and it takes every fiber in Bokuto’s body not to collapse at the alluring sight.
After a minute of pushing past people, muttering apologies that no one can hear over the song still being played, the boys make it into the lobby. Bokuto notes the dark grey tiles of the floor and the bland tan colored walls before looking at the boy who hasn’t turned around yet.
Bokuto takes this moment to study the strong set of shoulders and the lean body of the boy. His head of black curls is downcast, his hand still grasping onto Bokuto’s like he’ll lose him again in another crowd.
Loosening his grip, the boy lets Bokuto’s hand slip out of his and turns around. Raising his chin, his eyes connect to Bokuto’s once again, and Bokuto isn’t ready for it.
He’s even more beautiful in proper lighting.
Bokuto’s ears ring from the transition from ear-bleeding loud to extremely quiet, and he swallows before opening his mouth.
“I’m sorry for bumping into you,” he says, and loudly; but the boy in front of him doesn’t flinch, so he probably still can’t hear well either.
“I’m not, soulmate-kun,” the boy says, a tiny smirk on his lips and his voice enchanting. It is soft and melodic, saying the word “soulmate” with a weight that tells Bokuto that the boy is just as delighted as he is.
“My name is Bokuto Koutarou,” Bokuto says, smiling his happiest smile.
“Akaashi Keiji,” he replies, his face too bright a red for it to just be flushed from the concert.
Bokuto looks in his eyes once again, sea green clashing with the gold he remembers his eyes being, and there’s not a doubt in his mind that he could ever end up with anyone else.
When Kuroo finally spots him a while after the concert ends, approaching Bokuto against the wall with a smirk on his face, it takes him a second to notice the black haired boy he’s talking to. Bokuto hands that boy his phone to put his number inside, and once he gets it back, he bids farewell to the supposed stranger and walks with Kuroo to the car.
Kuroo doesn’t ask, and it only takes a moment for Bokuto’s excitement to catch up with him as he spills what’s on his mind.
“I found my soulmate.”