Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is how it ends.

Keiji sips at another glass of wine in the kitchen and sets it next to his tablet’s darkening screen. He stares at the clock’s time slipping past 1 a.m.

When the lock clicks, he doesn’t startle. Haru hurries in, a surprised but harried smile lighting his face when he sees Keiji there at the counter.

“Hey, Keiji,” he says. His voice is a light, calming tenor. It sounds completely normal – as if nothing has changed, as if he’s done nothing out of the ordinary, as if tonight is like any other night.

Keiji swallows down the familiar feeling of disappointment.

“You weren’t waiting up for me, were you?” Haru asks, setting down his bag by the counter.

Keiji taps at his tablet screen in response so it brightens up to show panels of rough sketches. “Just wrapping up some edits,” he replies easily.

“Aw. You’re too good to your artists. You should give yourself a break sometime. You work too hard.”

A smile spreads across Keiji’s face at the familiar reminder. Haru walks over and wraps an arm around Keiji’s shoulders, pressing a light kiss against his temple. It’s sweet and comfortable, and Keiji can’t help but lean into it.

But then he feels the brush of Haru’s still-damp hair against his skin, smells the fresh scent of soap and a foreign shampoo. He forces the smile to remain on his face, but Haru doesn’t see its stagnant transformation from this angle.

Instead, he hovers there by Keiji’s shoulder.

It’s only when he fully steps back that Keiji realizes Haru had been expecting something, an acknowledgment of his gesture — a kiss or perhaps some other form of affection. And it is yet another instance in a series of instances just like this, split seconds in time in which there is a disconnect between them, in which Keiji has fallen short, has proven too distant, or too cold, or too unaware.

“Come to bed soon,” Haru calls over his shoulder as he steps farther away. This time, his voice has dropped a register, not so light now, not so normal. It is flat and uninterested – not due to the influence or the actions of anyone else – but solely because of Keiji and what he lacks and what he is unable to give.

As his tablet screen darkens again beneath his absent gaze, Keiji’s frozen smile melts, bleeding off his face as he takes the last sip from his wine glass.

And that’s it. A decision made. A bookend to three years of a growingly lukewarm relationship that he’d been unable to, at its simplest, sustain.

And, in the end, it is a slow withdrawal. It is precise and calculated, as are most things that Keiji does. Where he’d encouraged himself to wade into the tide of his relationship with Haru, welcoming the building strength of it as it drew him in deeper until he was nearly submerged, his retreat has been nearly as peaceful as his initial ingress.

Surprisingly, there is no undercurrent of compulsion to return, no riptide sucking him back in. Perhaps his desire has run dry, leaving the tide a limp, weak thing from which he can easily step away.

Yet even as he settles into his determination to follow through with his decisions, to finally find a way to surface from days and weeks and months of quiet misery and dread, for some reason, he still feels like he’s drowning.

///

The morning after, Keiji wakes up early. Haru has already left for work.

Keiji is tempted to procrastinate, to prolong this torture of letting go, but then he thinks – again, again, again – of the wayward text he’d gotten yesterday morning that was the impetus for his decision.

>Babe, dinner date after you’re done with practice?
>I’ll treat you to your favorite spot. <3

As soon as he read it, he knew it wasn’t meant for him. Keiji didn’t consider himself one for endearments, didn’t usually inspire them from significant others, let alone cute emojis.

But he didn’t mention it, and Haru didn’t bring it up. Instead, Haru had come home late, smelling like the fresh scent of soap and a foreign shampoo.

So, with the confidence derived from near-crippling anxiety and stress that leaves no room for doubt, Keiji gets up, quickly logs into his work email, and sends the draft email he’d crafted yesterday to request the day off work. His supervisor is quick to respond, so clearly surprised — and actually worryingly pleased that he might be taking time for himself — that she approves immediately despite the short notice. She might have already seen the edits waiting in her inbox, but she doesn’t comment on it.

Keiji packs up his things with harsh efficiency, leaving behind shared items and distantly lamenting at how few things are his alone. The trip to Kenma’s is quick and familiar, and he barely pays attention as he types in the code to access the penthouse elevator. He finishes bringing in his luggage and a couple of boxes of books and miscellanea in just a few trips from the cab. By the end of it, he’s exhausted in more ways than one.

Hours later, Keiji somehow arrives early at the restaurant Haru had mentioned in his text.

Instead of heading to the entrance, he redirects to the cafe across the street, and he sits, and he waits. In that time, his obligatory tea grows cold, his palms sucking up the heat from the paper cup held firmly between them, but it’s not warm enough to thaw the cold spikes of dread digging deep into his gut.

Then, there.

Keiji watches as his boyfriend takes a seat at the outdoor patio with another man. They talk and smile and laugh and lean toward one another like twin suns. In the evening light, Haru’s light brown hair looks golden, the other man’s gray spikes like platinum. Together, even from this distance, they paint a lovely picture.

And it would be clear to anyone, even from behind the thick pane of glass of a nondescript cafe across the street, that they’re intimate.

Keiji feels surprisingly numb. And it is only because he mistakes that numbness for courage that he tosses his tea in the bin on his way out the cafe door and crosses the street to face them.

Of course, as soon as he steps over the curb on the other side, the nerves hit. He begins to sweat beneath his shirt. He starts pulling compulsively at his fingers against their joints, so he folds his hands behind his back as he steps forward.

He fights the urge to trace his steps in reverse, like rewinding a cassette tape. Given the choice, he would gladly retreat to the cafe where his heart officially shattered into sharp, jagged pieces like it hadn’t slowly been wrenched and twisted for weeks now; back to Kenma’s to grab his things from where he’d settled them in the guest room like evidence of the hardest decision he’s ever made; back to his and Haru’s shared apartment where he’d been so embarrassingly pleased to sign his name next to his boyfriend’s on the renewed lease; back to a time when he never confronted his suspicions or stared truth in the face like he was ever brave enough to do anything about it.

He’d happily reverse his push against the tide, allow it to draw him in again, even if it meant being swept away entirely.

But then Haru looks up, and it’s too late to turn back.

Keiji tries to meet his gaze, but he notices the stranger across the table lift his face up to smile up at him.

Of course, the man is terribly handsome. With only a quick glance, Keiji takes in his spiked hair up close. He hadn’t noticed the streaks of black from the roots, as dark as his own; the warm, striking gold eyes; the strong and angular cut of his jaw. He registers the athletic build beneath the button-up: the broad shoulders, the strong lines of his forearms exposed by pushed-up sleeves, the width of his fingers laced with Haru’s over the table.

Altogether, this man is not a surprise of a favored choice in contrast to Keiji’s own lean figure kept fit only due to sporadic morning runs, the sparse diet of an overburdened editor, and, more recently, an abundance of stress and barely concealed depression.

Yet there is something about this man that looks vaguely familiar, like they’d met before. Keiji doesn’t have a minute to think about it further when he turns back to Haru.

Juxtaposed with this other man’s bright and open expression, Haru’s is stiff with shock. He goes horribly pale in an instant as he pulls his hand away from across the table. When he stands, his chair squeaks gratingly on the patio stone. “Keiji! What - what are you -”

“Haru,” Keiji says. He’s horrified when tears suddenly spring to his eyes, and he swallows to try to remove the lump filling his throat.

He’d rehearsed this speech over and over again since getting that text yesterday. He’d practiced more still even as he waited for Haru to come back home last night from presumably getting drinks with his colleagues, but instead quite obviously returning from fucking someone else.

Yet now, in this critical moment, despite practicing the words straight for 48 hours, Keiji is at a loss while finally confronted with the hard truth of his relationship laid bare before his eyes.

“You all right, bro?” the other man asks. He looks up from his seat at Haru to Keiji and back again, expression naked with confusion, seemingly blind to the heart breaking into pieces right in front of him.

“Haru, I packed up my things,” Keiji says, forcing the words out.

Despite the careful, monotonous tone to his voice, he feels the hot itch of tears slide down his cheeks. He almost doesn’t realize what’s happening; he so very rarely cries. He lifts his glasses to roughly wipe at his eyes with his shirt sleeve pulled down over his knuckles.

“Wait - no -” Haru says, his voice strangely loud even in the open air, yet it is as firm and decisive as always.

He holds his hands up like he needs to be on the defense, his eyes – a beautiful light brown that always used to light up at Keiji’s presence – are darkened with intensity as he stares back. He has always been the handsome one between them, warm and sociable and inviting where Keiji tends to be cold and distant. Yet now, he looks almost ugly in his desperation, and Keiji is unsure what to make of that.

Shaking now with uncertainty, Keiji has no choice but to continue with his practiced speech. He reaches into his pocket.

“Here is my key,” he says. “The place is yours, of course, as it was from the start. I have somewhere else to stay for a while.” His voice is no longer as steady as he’d like, and his glasses are fogging up with the heat of the flush of humiliation spreading across his face and the tears still filling his eyes. When Haru doesn’t take the key from his outstretched hand, Keiji places it awkwardly on the table and nudges it toward him.

He vaguely registers the other man pulling up to a stand now too, a frown drawing his thick gray brows down into a distressed V. He’s as tall as he is broad, and Keiji tries not to feel intimidated. He’s almost in the clear.

But then the man says, “Hey, hey - what’s going on? Haru, who is this?”

Keiji wants to snap at him. He wants to say, I’m his boyfriend, but he’s not – at least not anymore.

In the end, this has nothing to do with this other man. Keiji had come here to face Haru when he wouldn’t be able to deny his actions. Mostly though, Keiji had wanted to do this in public so he would actually go through with the breakup rather than let himself be talked around.

“Keiji, please wait!” Haru says when Keiji turns to leave.

He reaches for Keiji’s hand and traps it there between his own. They’re so comforting in their familiarity that Keiji’s expression crumples from the weight of the pressure building in him.

“This isn't what it looks like. I swear. Bokuto’s just a friend!” Haru cringes at the cliche of his own words as Keiji tries to pull his hand free.

The other man, Bokuto, makes a choked sound as he stares between them. When Keiji glances his way, he struggles to blink back the next rush of tears now that his already used, tear-wiping sleeve is being held hostage.

Bokuto’s eyes are wide with shock and a hint of what looks like concern as he looks back at Keiji, and Keiji feels a bit self-conscious at the mess he must be right now.

He notices then a bit of ketchup at the corner of this stranger’s lip, and for some reason, it’s a jarring sight. Keiji is tempted to offer him a napkin.

“Haru, what the fuck,” Bokuto says loudly, turning to look across the table. He straightens his shoulders and frowns, and it’s such a contrast to the bright, open expression he’d worn just moments before that Keiji stares at him a bit apprehensively.

Even still, Keiji is gently trying to pull his hand away to end this evening at last. Then Haru grips more firmly and pulls, nearly dragging Keiji as he leads them away from the table and around the corner of the patio into an alley – and away from the uncomfortable looks being sent their way.

“Come on,” he says on the way. “Will you let me explain?”

“Please let go,” Keiji says. He is most definitely a mess now as anger sets in, and he would prefer to retreat somewhere where no one can see him in this state. “There’s no need to explain. It’s been clear that you’ve been cheating on me for a while. You haven’t even tried to hide it. Why do we need to talk about this further?”

“Because I love you!” Haru exclaims.

Strangely, Haru is starting to tear up too, and for some reason, Keiji hadn’t expected that. They’d been together for a while now, but he’d just assumed that Haru’s infidelity had been a clear indication of feelings lost – or long unreturned.

Then Haru says urgently, “I love you. I love you so much. This was just a mistake. I’ll make it up to -”

“A mistake?”

They turn to look at where Bokuto is standing in the mouth of the alley. Somehow, despite how broad a figure he cuts in the dusk light shining from behind him, he seems to shrink before their eyes. The lines of his shoulders, the bright lift of his face from earlier, even the tips of his spiked hair seem to droop.

Keiji’s attention is torn between Haru holding his hand and the complete transformation of this unassuming stranger bearing witness to the worst day of Keiji’s life.

With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, Keiji takes a step back, finally pulling his hand away and ignoring the tear tracks on Haru’s face.

“You were the mistake, Haru,” he says finally. His voice sounds cold, even to his own ears, and for once it’s on purpose rather than by accident.

He turns and walks away, each step echoing like thunder in his chest. He pauses only when it looks like Bokuto won’t move to make way for his exit. Instead, he remains there, frozen, eyes downcast. Keiji sees tears start to drip down his face.

Keiji doesn’t think then before pressing a hand gently to his arm to direct him to the side. Bokuto moves without much further coaxing.

But then, to Keiji’s dismay, Bokuto continues moving by following him in a dejected amble for a few more blocks, even after they’re out of sight of the restaurant. Haru doesn’t come after them.

Keiji might have felt more than dismay at this man, this other man, trailing behind him listlessly. But it’s been nearly two full days of anxiously mentally preparing himself and then actually forcing himself to suffer through a confrontation, to address what he believed to be months of infidelity and perhaps longer still of a flagging relationship, and he is utterly spent.

And so he mindlessly guides Bokuto by the arm when he nearly walks right over a child on the sidewalk and, in one close call, tugs on him when Bokuto almost walks into the pole of a traffic light.

Eventually, Keiji pulls to a stop at a nearby park.

He prods Bokuto until he takes a seat on a bench. Bokuto then bends forward and promptly buries his face in his hands. Unsure what to do with this distraught man, Keiji sits a bit away from him on the bench, wary of leaving him like this.

When he looks up, it’s surreal seeing the radiant and colorful array of evening light over the treeline, the warm glow of the streetlamp overhead as the day darkens around them, the passersby moving on at leisure. It’s like nothing has changed when absolutely everything has changed.

Keiji feels exposed and vulnerable out in the open, like everyone nearby knows what has happened, that they might see the details there on his face if they just turn to glance at him.

This wasn’t what he’d planned. He was supposed to deliver his breakup speech, leave his key, and then head straight back to Kenma’s where he’d been promised that there would be vodka and junk food ready for him.

But now, here Keiji is, listening to the sniffles of the man who his now-ex-boyfriend had cheated on him with.

He feels suddenly hollow, all at once aware of just how drained of emotion he is after being full of them for so long. It’s like he’s a blank slate, lacking in color and empty of substance now that he’s no longer with Haru – like he’s just waiting to be filled in by whatever mess the world has for him next.

It seems, then, that that mess is Bokuto, who starts to sit up.

“Are you all right?” Keiji asks hesitantly. He digs into his pocket and hands Bokuto a couple of tissues from the packet he’d brought with him. It’s too late for Keiji to use them for himself now anyway; his shirtsleeves are already a bit damp from his own tears. Still, he tugs them restlessly over his knuckles out of habit. The damp spots are cool against his skin.

“Oh, thanks. That’s nice of you,” Bokuto says, his voice hoarse. His fingers are warm where they brush against Keiji’s. He is not surprised that Bokuto is someone who blows his nose loudly. “What’s your name, anyway?”

Reluctantly, a part of him wary of giving more of himself away to this man, he says, “Akaashi Keiji.”

“Bokuto Koutarou.” Bokuto says with a nod as he pockets the used tissues.

Keiji notices that bit of ketchup at the corner of his lip again, but he doesn’t quite feel it’s his place to point it out at this very moment. He had half hoped it would be wiped clean along with the tears, like maybe between them they could erase evidence of this night ever happening.

“So, am I the other guy in all this, then?” Bokuto asks.

Keiji blinks back at him, caught off guard. “Pardon?”

Bokuto leans against the bench seat, tilting his head back to gaze straight up at the darkening sky. Keiji watches as he blinks a few times, looks at the vulnerable line of his throat, his Adam's apple jumping with a heavy swallow.

Then Bokuto sits back up and turns his attention directly to Keiji. He seems less sorrowful now than plainly put out. His eyes run from Keiji’s shoes and up his jeans and shirt to his face, tracking slowly like he’s cataloging all of the things that are different between them.

Keiji absently wonders what he sees. Staring back, he takes in the bright gold eyes that meet his again, the expressive features, the easy confidence of his posture, the unfairly fit form.

They are a study in contrasts, and it is clear to Keiji then what he is missing by comparison. He’s the first to look away.

“You just don’t seem like the type to cheat on somebody,” Bokuto says finally. Keiji might have taken offense to something about the words if they hadn’t been said with such misery. “That means it’s me, right? I’m the other guy here.”

Keiji considers that, the simple egotism of the statement and the oddly honest way in which it was delivered. Despite himself, he feels a stir of sympathy. “No, Bokuto-san,” he says.

As much as he’d like to berate him, it was clear that Haru’s infidelity had been a shock to Bokuto as well. Everything Bokuto seems to think and feel flits clearly across his face and in the lines of his body. And what Keiji sees there now is resignation to go along with his miserable tone.

“I think,“ Keiji says, “you would have to have known you were an accomplice in Haru’s indiscretion to be ‘the other man’ in the way you appear to mean.” Then, after a brief pause, he asks hesitantly, “And you didn’t, did you?” He did not intend for the question to slip out, but it has now, and he is desperate to hear the answer.

Bokuto leans forward to rest his forearms on his knees, his hands dangling at his wrists between them. He squints his eyes at Keiji with an intense sort of focus that takes Keiji by surprise. “No. Of course not!” he says. Then he purses his lips as if insulted. “Was it you then? Did you know he was cheating on me?”

“No,” Keiji replies, voice quieter now despite himself. He picks at his fingers, looking down at them then so he doesn’t have to put himself on display any more than he already has. “I wonder now if you were even the first. We’d been together for over three years.”

“Three years!” Bokuto cries, sitting up again so quickly in his apparent distress that Keiji just stares at him. “Oh, Aghashee!”

Keiji winces. Part of it is at the butchering of his name, the other part is due to his humiliation and the subsequent heartache that rises fresh in his chest like a reopened wound when he would have preferred anger to stifle it in its stead.

“It’s all right,” he says placatingly. He can tell he’s disassociating, his tone going colder, distant, as he considers the facts laid before him and attempts to view them objectively. “I had the feeling that he wasn’t as invested as I was, even from the beginning. I’m not terribly exciting.”

He glances up and sees Bokuto’s shocked eyes swimming with tears again. He can’t help but smile reassuringly back at him, touched at the compassion he sees there. It’s such a surprising thing to see from perhaps the last person Keiji would have expected to see it from in this situation that it makes him feel gracious.

“Don’t worry about it, Bokuto-san,” he says gently. “I can’t quite blame him for overlooking me when he had you.”

At that, Bokuto’s eyebrows rise up nearly to his hairline. His mouth opens and closes like he’s at a loss for how to respond. And then he bursts out, “What? Why would you even say that!” He turns so his body is fully facing Keiji’s. “What he did is not okay no matter what! He cheated on you! On the both of us!”

“I suppose part of the latter is my fault,” Keiji says, feeling suddenly guilty about the fact that Bokuto is defending him when he’s just as much a victim of this scenario as Keiji. “I had the suspicion that he might have been seeing someone else for a while now. There were the usual red flags: coming home late, being secretive about texts, or walking out of the room to take calls and talking vaguely around what they were about.”

He can’t help that his voice grows softer with each word as he lays it all out. There were so many other little clues that he’d noticed but refused to put together for fear of what the final conclusion might be. And now here they are.

“He smelled like someone else’s shampoo,” he adds, thinking about last night.

Instead of looking mollified, Bokuto looks gutted. “Oh my god. Those were my texts and calls. My fucking shampoo!”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Keiji says quickly. “I only meant, if I’d confronted him sooner, perhaps things might have ended better for you. For all of us.”

But Bokuto is shaking his head as he stares back. After a long beat, he says, apropos of nothing, “You know what? You’re really pretty.”

Keiji blinks back at him, dumbfounded. “What?”

“Yeah!” Bokuto replies, nodding firmly as if to back himself up. “You’re super good-looking. And you seem really nice. Too nice, especially after what he did. He’s a piece of shit and an idiot, apparently. Three years! Fuck, bro.”

Keiji coughs out an incredulous laugh - first at the completely strange string of thoughts, and second at being called ‘nice.’ Throughout their relationship, that was never a word that Haru or any of Haru’s friends would have used for him. Keiji has always been too blunt and too brusque to be considered ‘nice.’

“It was a long time,” he agrees for lack of anything else to say. He doesn’t know why he’s still here, sitting on this bench with this stranger, one he should be avoiding at all costs or angry with. Yet he’s somehow finding laughter over tears in this strange situation they’re in together.

“Hey. Give me your number, will you?” Bokuto says suddenly.

Keiji turns to stare at him. “What? No. Why?”

“No - yeah. We should trade numbers. It’s the off-season, so I’m free tomorrow, and I’m gonna take you out for coffee. It’ll be good for both of us! Closure, or some shit. Here, come on. Give me your phone.” He holds out his hand and makes an impatient beckoning gesture with his fingertips.

Keiji sees callouses there and along his palms, rough and masculine, and he feels something in his gut twist a bit at the sight of them. He tries desperately not to picture those very fingers skimming over Haru’s skin, or about the fact that those fingers had probably touched Haru intimately more recently than Keiji’s.

His own fingers are long and slender, his palms soft, but his knuckles are wide and his nails are a mess - the only evidence of his stress from work and otherwise manifesting even as he continuously tries so hard to keep his composure.

Later that night, when Kenma looks at him judgmentally over a shared bottle of vodka, Keiji will blame it on not being in his right mind that he pulls his phone from his pocket and hands it over to this bright-eyed man.

Bokuto slants a crooked smile at him once he’s plugged in his phone number. “There. I texted myself so I have yours too. And I’ll send you the details. You can’t bail on me, ok? I’ll be a wreck. I’m not even kidding.”

Keiji just nods because Bokuto is slowly pulling to a stand, looking down at him so openly and so earnestly even after everything that has just happened between them. And again, under the beam of Bokuto’s bright demeanor, even after everything, Keiji is again struck by a fleeting sense of familiarity.

“Okay cool,” Bokuto says with a last nod, drawing Keiji from his thoughts. “See you tomorrow!”

Strangely, as Keiji takes one last look at that bit of ketchup on the corner of Bokuto’s lip before he turns to leave, he’s momentarily struck by the realization that he would be hard-pressed to refuse him anything.

///

Keiji is lucky that the next day is a Saturday because he is terribly hungover when he meets Bokuto. And by that time, it’s so late in the morning that it’s nearly the afternoon. He is swimming in an oversized shirt, wearing his most broken-in pair of jeans, and has topped it all off with a cardigan for comfort. His glasses are a bit smudged, probably from getting tears all over them through the drunken night, but he’s too strung out to wipe them off.

Bokuto, on the other hand, is somehow a bright sight when he walks up in a beanie allowing wisps of gray hair to escape beneath it, fancy-looking moto joggers that show off his long legs, and a t-shirt with a gold sports team logo on it that does nothing to hide his broad, muscled form. He has an effortless sort of athletic style and the confidence to go with it that makes him look like he just walked out of a magazine.

Keiji hadn’t realized people actually looked like that in real life. He stares in bewilderment as this man approaches, looking pleased that Keiji is there.

He tries to recall if Bokuto had looked like this last night, but Keiji can’t quite remember. That may have been due to the heartbreak, the stress amnesia, or perhaps from all the subsequent vodka. Regardless, he works to keep an even expression as Bokuto waves enthusiastically while he crosses the street.

This morning, Kenma had asked why Keiji was using up energy to meet with Bokuto in the first place. Keiji had thought back to that eager and earnest way Bokuto had extended the invitation. And then he imagined Bokuto waiting at the cafe with that dejected slump he’d been in while on the park bench yesterday. Just picturing it, Keiji had felt his heart twist like it wasn’t already broken enough – like there was still more left of him to give.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto exclaims with a grin as he approaches the table. “You actually came! I wasn’t sure if you would.”

Keiji is absently relieved that Bokuto does indeed know how to pronounce his name properly, but daunted in equal measure at the amount of energy he’s exhibiting. “Hello, Bokuto-san. I surprised myself as well.”

“Oh shit. You look like you feel worse than I do,” Bokuto replies as he takes a seat. He laughs, but it’s not demeaning in the least, and Keiji tries to smile politely back. He must not succeed, if Bokuto’s smile full of pity and understanding is any indication. “No offense! I drank an entire bottle of whiskey with my friend last night and feel like shit.” Despite his words, he’s still smiling.

The metal of the chair squeals against the sidewalk as Bokuto scoots it closer to the table, and Keiji can’t hold back his wince. “Ah. It sounds like we had a similar night,” he says. “Though mine involved my friend’s cache of exorbitantly expensive vodka split between two lightweights.”

“Aw! Lightweight!” Bokuto exclaims. Then he leans forward. “Don’t worry. I know what'll make you feel better. I have a great plan!”

Keiji eyes Bokuto’s shining grin with barely concealed suspicion. “If you mean to exact revenge on Haru in any way, I’m afraid I must decline to participate. I’d like to put all of this behind me as soon as possible.” He pauses. “I wonder if it’s even a good idea for us to see one another like this if I’m being honest.”

“No, no. It’s a great idea!” Bokuto insists, shaking his head. He winces, placing the heel of his palm to his temple.

Keiji nudges a cup of water toward him, and Bokuto nods in thanks as he takes a quick sip.

“Listen,” Bokuto says. “We’re bros in this now. I was talking about it all night with Kuroo – that’s my BFF – and I was telling him about everything. I told him about how you even helped me out when I was in a bad way right after realizing that Haru, well, you know, is a piece of shit. And I came up with a great plan! Seriously. I’m proud of this one.”

Keiji takes a few sips of his own water. He has a feeling that he will not feel the same about whatever idea Bokuto has devised. “All right then. Let’s hear it.”

“I’m gonna set you up!” Bokuto exclaims, slamming a hand down on the table. The glasses of water rattle from the strength of his blow on unsuspecting wood, and water sloshes over the rim of one of them. Bokuto uses his bare hand to scrape the water off the side of the table and then wipes his fingers on his pants.

The words seem to echo in Keiji’s hungover brain. “I’m sorry? Did you say you plan to ‘set me up’? I must not have heard you properly.”

“No, you heard right! I know a bunch of people through work. Are you into women too? No? Okay. Just guys then. Even better! I know a ton of really great guys! As hot as you, even!”

“Your friend approved of this plan?” Keiji asks, desperately glossing over Bokuto’s compliment for his own emotional wellbeing.

“Well, not exactly. But he was there when I came up with it.” Bokuto looks at him expectantly, like he believes praise is due or excitement or something Keiji just does not have it in himself to give – not now, and maybe not ever – because Bokuto’s idea is ridiculous.

“Bokuto-san, I don’t even know where to begin with you,” Keiji says finally. “We thought the same man was faithful, but instead, he was cheating on us both. I came here for coffee and to put this behind me once and for all. But it’s becoming clearer and clearer that I will get neither of those things.”

He doesn’t mean to be short, and he would get up to grab his own coffee, but suddenly he fears that if he stands up right now, he might throw up on the sidewalk. To stave off the feeling, he props an elbow on the table and rests his head on his palm to support it as he stares balefully across the bistro table through smudged lenses.

“Oh, you’re cranky,” Bokuto says, smiling indulgently. “I’ll still get you your coffee! But hear me out first. What you said is exactly why this is a great idea. I know you said I’m not ‘the other guy’ here, but I am. I was only seeing Haru for a couple of months. But you were with him for three years, Akaashi. That means, whether I knew it or not, in the grand scheme of things, I was the other guy, and I won’t be able to sleep at night if I can’t make up for it. Just a cup coffee won’t cut it!”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Keiji protests. He powers through his headache and raises his voice slightly when Bokuto nods insistently. “I assure you, this sense of obligation - you feel that way because I made the unfortunate decision of confronting Haru while you were there too. And - and I only realized later that I shouldn’t have done that. It was selfish and insensitive of me to spring the truth on you. I thought - I had hoped it would be easier, that I’d get angry if I saw him there with someone else. I thought it would help me to cut ties all at once.” He’s quiet for minute, and then he adds, “I’d been meaning to do it for a while, but I hadn’t been able to summon up the courage.”

Bokuto takes that in as he sits back and crosses his arms. Keiji deliberately does not focus on how Bokuto’s biceps pull at the hem of his shirt sleeves. Keiji may be heartbroken, but he isn’t blind.

“I mean,” Bokuto says contemplatively, “it’s not like you knew whether I knew he already had a boyfriend or not. And I didn’t! In case you were wondering.”

Keiji nearly smiles at Bokuto’s suddenly concerned expression, but his head is pounding, and moving his face more seems like such a chore. “I know, Bokuto-san.”

“Okay, good. Because I really didn’t. I had no clue you were in the picture! But it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that I have a great plan. I’m gonna find you someone a million times better than Haru, and it’s gonna help you get over him. Trust me!”

Keiji can already see that Bokuto is stubborn and full of conviction, and his efforts are clearly coming from a good place. And maybe it’s the hangover, or maybe it’s the broken feeling he keeps stuffing down deeper in his chest, but in the end, Keiji just sighs. He can already imagine Kenma staring at him in the way that is uniquely his in how it’s full of loving judgement.

“You’re determined to pursue this ridiculous plan of yours?” Keiji asks.

Bokuto nods quickly. “Yes! Yeah. I mean, it’s a ridiculously good plan though, right, Akaashi? I think that’s what you mean. Besides,” he says, grinning smugly, “I’ll just blow up your phone until you give me the okay. I’m a really fast texter.”

Keiji rubs his temples and squints in reproval. “I could just block you and put an end to this quite quickly.”

Bokuto narrows his eyes in return. “Say ‘yes,’ and I’ll get you your coffee right now.”

Keiji has never in his life agreed to something so stupid so quickly for so little in return.

///

Keiji had never thought this would happen to him. He may immerse himself in different and often fantastic worlds every day through his artists’ work, and he may recently be spending more time playing some of Kenma’s beta worldbuilding games, but he is quite the realist in every other sense.

Yet, even with all of the hints stacking up until they became less like hints than outright evidence, he’d somehow still allowed himself to be made a fool. He’d ignored that evidence, used warped logic to excuse the lies and inconsistencies, and now here he is – newly single and crashing at Kenma’s and trying and failing to build up his alcohol tolerance again on most nights.

In the end, he realized that he had skewed his own reality. And now he isn’t entirely sure he can trust himself.

The entire week after the breakup, he finds himself just going through the motions. It’s all he can hold onto when the world has crumbled around him into something he doesn’t recognize outside of what’s left of his routine. He pretends to sleep, tries to stomach food under Kenma’s watchful gaze, and ignores Haru’s texts and calls and voicemails.

Apart from that, in trying to block out anything unpleasant that he will overanalyze until he falls into a state of oblivion, he throws himself too much into his work. The artists seem overwhelmed and concerned with the abundance of frantic attention.

By Friday, his colleagues are nearly pushing him out the door. Keiji had mentioned plans for happy hour, and they seem determined for him to follow through.

He’d delayed it for as long as he could, citing a busy work week and the depression that is his due, but Bokuto was true to his word and was quite the fast and prolific texter.

Keiji does reply, albeit minimally, to the slew of messages about:

The weather:
> its chilly today akaashi
> bring a sweater!!!

> omg full moon rn akaashi!!
> wowwwwww

His job:
> have u seen my updated stats for this season yet?!!

> akaashi u haven’t heard of me?
> im a pro vball player!
> google me!!!

> (image attached)
> bokuto beam!!

His teammates:
> i shit u not
> sakusa is walking around with a cat nose and whiskers on his mask
> looks like sharpie haha
> akaashi i dont think he knows!!
> no one is saying anything about it help im dying

> i think atsumu did it lol

> omg sakusa checked himself in the mirror
> it was my fault
> i couldnt stop laughing
> hes freaking the FUCKK OUT
> we cant find atsumu lol!!!

And numerous reminders about their upcoming happy hour:
> dont forget!!
> friday at 6!

> u cant bail ok???
> ok??

> omw
> see u soon

When Keiji arrives at the bar, he isn’t greeted with the anticipated warm welcome the texts had forecasted. Instead, Bokuto has his arms folded on the tabletop and his forehead resting on them.

“Hello, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says hesitantly as he slides into the booth across from him.

Bokuto jerks slightly in response, but he doesn’t lift his head. He’s again dressed in leisurely athletic clothes from what Keiji can see, but now that he knows what Bokuto does for a living, he takes the style and the muscles more in stride. In turn, Keiji is wearing a simple outfit of slim slacks and a tucked-in button-up beneath a cardigan that was appropriate for a day at his desk redlining storyboard sketches.

Keiji stares for a while, unsure about what to do. He doesn’t know this man in the least but for the single terrible thing that ties them together, and his demeanor tonight is vastly different from when they met for coffee over the weekend. Though that first evening they met, when Bokuto had been slumped similarly to this on the bench, he’d come out of it eventually, as if he’d needed to process whatever was in mind.

So Keiji gives him time. He texts Kenma to see if he wants Keiji to bring him takeout when he heads back to the penthouse, and then he takes a look around at the restaurant’s sparse dining area.

It’s only in doing so that he suddenly spots a man sitting at the bar looking in their direction. When their eyes meet, the other man raises his brows and smiles lightly as if caught out. Much to Keiji’s consternation, he gets up and starts to wander over.

The man is tall, leaner than Bokuto, but no less attractive with his sharp features and a rakish sort of smile beneath the side-swept fringe of dark hair. Wearing a trim, tailored three-piece suit, he looks like he just came out of work as well. As he makes his way to their booth, he slings his suit jacket over one shoulder with an air of confidence that makes Keiji suddenly self-conscious about his own attire.

“Akaashi-san, right?” the man asks. He pokes at Bokuto’s shoulder until Bokuto grunts and shifts to make room on his side of the bench, all while keeping his arms and head down. Bokuto seems entirely unconcerned by the intrusion. “I’m Kuroo Tetsurou - Bokuto’s friend and keeper. Well, the latter for as long as this whole breakup mess is a thing, anyway.”

Keiji stares at the hand gesturing back and forth between himself and Bokuto. “Hello, Kuroo-san.” He pauses. “Should I leave?”

“No!” Bokuto suddenly exclaims, sitting up with a heaving breath. But then all he does is frown down at the tabletop.

“Bo,” Kuroo says, angling a lopsided grin at him. “You can’t invite a guy out and then just sulk all night.”

“It’s all right,” Keiji says, pulling his glass of water closer for lack of anything better to do with his hands. He doesn’t like the implication of Kuroo’s words, and it makes him feel contrary. “You’re welcome to take a moment if you need it, Bokuto-san.”

Kuroo watches with calculating eyes as Keiji takes a sip of water. “He gets like this sometimes,” he says lightly. “It’s why I followed this sweet ol’ beefcake tonight. For emergency hugs. In case you decided to bail. Because he’s a big ball of guilt tonight.”

Keiji feels a hint contrition that he’d entertained the thought of staying in at the last minute, but here he is, and he decides he doesn’t much like that someone might have read him, even if entirely by chance.

“I don’t get like this as much anymore though,” Bokuto mutters at the table.

Kuroo’s eyes soften as he swings an arm around Bokuto’s shoulders and tugs. “Not as much at all, bro. And, honestly, I’d say it’s warranted.”

Bokuto tips sideways at the invitation until his temple is resting into the crook of Kuroo's shoulder. He finally lifts his gaze and blinks owlishly at Keiji across the table.

“It might be all night though,” Kuroo adds, squeezing his arm around the bulk of the man resting against him.

“I’ll need a drink then,” Keiji says, feeling slightly more at ease at the sight of their affection.

“Fries,” Bokuto says.

“We can get fries,” Keiji agrees.

Bokuto sends him a shaky smile, brightening out of his guilty gloom. Yet it lingers, like a bookmark in Keiji’s mind, as the reminder of why they’re here together at all.

“I can’t drink tonight because I’m not gonna wanna stop,” Bokuto says, “and I have an early practice tomorrow.”

“That’s fine. I don’t normally drink too often. But I’m treating myself,” Keiji replies, looking away to study the menu.

“You can drink as much as you want, Akaashi. We’ll look out for you!” Bokuto says, finally sitting up and pulling his own menu closer.

Kuroo is looking between them in clear bewilderment as he withdraws his arm. “This is the strangest dynamic I have ever witnessed,” he says as if talking to an unseen fourth party.

“You keep saying that,” Bokuto says, frowning at him.

“I don’t hate it!” Kuroo says, raising his hands up defensively. “I just figured this guy might be stringing you along for some reason. Like for revenge.”

Keiji is uncomfortable with the way Kuroo is surveying him as if with his gaze alone he can peel back Keiji’s layers. But Keiji already feels like he’s been flayed open since the breakup. He worries what else may be exposed without his knowledge beneath those sharp eyes.

As much as he feels outwardly composed, he feels suddenly outnumbered by these two men with clear forces of personality compared to his own. He considers texting Kenma to join them, but he’s doubtful his friend would show up. He pulls his phone from his pocket anyway. No harm in asking – or rather, bribing him with the promise of food.

“I appreciate the honesty,” Keiji says, glancing up, “but I don’t have the energy for that. Bokuto-san, I’m getting cheese on the fries.”

“No dairy!” Bokuto protests.

“Then we’ll get two orders.”

“Ok, ‘Kaashi,” Bokuto concedes with exaggerated patience. “You should get a burger too. Have you been eating?”

“I will be eating shortly,” Keiji replies, unsure how to respond to that.

He glances down self-consciously at himself under Bokuto’s gaze. He supposes he’s lost some weight considering recent events, but Bokuto wouldn’t know the difference. Keiji still forces himself to run most mornings, at any rate, if only for the mild stress relief the activity provides, so he doubts he’s lost what little muscle mass he has. Though it’s nothing compared to the sheer bulk before him.

“I’m getting the cheese fries,” he adds since it seems that Bokuto may have missed that detail.

“And a burger,” Bokuto says again.

“Why don’t you get the burger?”

“Because I'm getting a garden salad with extra grilled chicken breast and the salmon with three of the veggie sides. I didn’t meet my green portions yet today. But you need something with protein.”

Keiji eyes him warily. “Why are you telling me what to order?”

“Because you look tired and underfed and don’t have trainers and nutritionists looking out for you like I do! Especially after a breakup when you need them the most!” Bokuto says, eyes going wide with his insistence. Keiji is surprised into feeling touched. “Or is it Haru’s fault? Did he not feed you? That piece of -”

Keiji pinches the bridge of his nose and says sharply, “Can we please not talk about -”

Kuroo cuts in lightly. “I’m getting the veggie burger if anyone’s interested.”

“Tell me again about your new vegan diet, Tetsu,” Bokuto snaps.

“Oh my god. Why are you being rude to me?” Kuroo says with a dramatic expression of hurt. “I came here to back you up!”

“No one asked you to do that! You just followed me here!” Bokuto says snidely. “Besides, I’m just gonna figure out Akaashi’s type today so I can set him up with his first dude.”

“No thank you,” Keiji says.

“You promised!”

“I did not,” Keiji replies, though he might be lying.

Everything seems to be a blur these days. Even now, sitting across from this man in particular is throwing him for a loop despite the fact that he’d come here of his own free will. He’s not sure he can really trust himself. He risks being rude and texts Kenma again below the lip of the table.

“I got you coffee!” Bokuto cries.

“You took advantage of my hungover state.”

“Aghashee! I wouldn’t!” Bokuto whines, but then he tips his head to the side, considering the words. “Okay, maybe I did. But I still got you coffee. It was a big one - you drink a lot of caffeine, huh? And anyway, it was for a good cause. I got to tell you about my plan!”

“This is all still very weird,” Kuroo says, smiling skeptically at Keiji. “Are you as weird as this airhead?” Rather than looking offended at the thumb pointing in his direction, Bokuto just blinks at Keiji as Kuroo looks expectantly across the table.

Keiji ignores them and turns to their server as soon as she arrives. “I’ll have a Sapporo and cheese fries please.”

“And a burger,” Bokuto adds. “You like pickles, Akaashi? No? No pickles please!” And then he rattles off his own order of half the menu before Keiji can say he doesn’t want the burger.

Keiji pretends not to notice the way Kuroo continues to stare between them with clearly growing amusement until it’s his turn to order. Then Kuroo very obviously and obnoxiously flirts with the server. Keiji is not surprised that she warms up to him quickly, especially when Bokuto adds his bright smile to the mix.

After he gets his beer, Keiji finds that he’s nearly through with it before their food even arrives. He tends to drink absentmindedly just to have something to do with his hands, especially among people he doesn’t know well. Though the alarming speed at which his drink is disappearing is made more apparent when Kuroo eyes him as he takes a slow sip of his own still nearly full glass.

“Akaashi, didn’t you say you were a lightweight?” Bokuto asks, looking mildly concerned.

Keiji nudges his glass slightly away as if it has betrayed him. He opts for picking at his fingers beneath the table instead. “I did.”

“Okay,” Bokuto replies slowly. “Just checking.”

“I’m all right,” Keiji says, but he can already feel a flush spreading across his cheeks, and it’s not solely from his sudden mortification.

“I drink and eat my feelings too. Your burger will be here soon,” Bokuto says. His tone might have come across as condescending if it hadn’t been delivered with such an earnest expression.

“Should I leave?” Kuroo asks, grinning.

“What? Why?” Bokuto asks. He seems to fail to catch the repetition of the question and its context. Keiji, however, does not, and he levels an unamused expression in Kuroo’s direction. Kuroo looks unphased.

Though Keiji hadn’t received a response to his text earlier, he soon spots a familiar mop of black roots and blonde hair pulled back in a half bun heading their way. Keiji nearly sags with relief, but that would make him feel like Kuroo is winning.

“You should stay,” he tells Kuroo. “I told my friend to come by.”

“I thought we were setting you up here, Akaashi-san,” Kuroo says, interest lighting up across his face.

Keiji levels him with an even stare. “He is not for you. He is likely going to dislike you immensely,” he says.

Kuroo looks surprised. “Oh ho ho,” he says with a slow grin. Before he can say anything else, Kenma is sliding into the space Keiji makes for him on his side of the booth.

“Warm,” Kenma says quietly to him as he sinks into the dip in the vinyl of Keiji’s vacated spot. Then he brings his Nintendo DS up to his face.

“I got cheese fries,” Keiji says. Kenma nods minutely, and Keiji slides the last bit of his beer over to share. “Help me. I’m stress drinking.”

Kenma shoots him a look. “You have two more weeks of being a hot mess until I make you get back on your own two feet again. Why are you holding back?”

Keiji refuses to be phased. “We have company,” he says evenly.

Kenma darts a quick look up at where Bokuto and Kuroo are eyeing him with great interest. His face begins to shrink into a scowl as he directs his gaze back to his DS.

“It’s rude to stare,” Keiji snaps protectively, though part of him is also worried that Kenma will just up and leave without him.

“Who’s this, then?” Kuroo says with the same slick smile he’d directed to their server earlier. Where she had shown interest, Kenma’s scowl just deepens. In response, Kuroo looks oddly delighted.

Bokuto stares at Kuroo with a strange look on his face.

Keiji begins to sweat as he looks among them. He pulls the glass of beer back and finishes it off, making eye contact with their server and nodding for another.

Kenma sighs next to him. “Since this is your fault,” he says, raising his voice just enough to carry across the table to Bokuto, “you can make up for it by carrying him home.”

Bokuto’s smile dims a bit as he glances quickly at Keiji and then back to Kenma. “I know - and I’ll take care of it.”

Kenma looks at him for another beat, suspicion written all over his face. When Bokuto’s good-natured expression, though slightly muted now, doesn’t waver, Kenma returns to his game.

“This is Kenma,” Keiji says belatedly. He unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt and adjusts his fringe so it doesn’t stick to his slightly sweaty forehead.

Their food arrives then. Keiji pushes the burger at Kenma, despite Bokuto’s frown.

“Onto business, then!” Bokuto exclaims after taking a rather monsterous bite of salad greens.

Keiji takes a drink. He feels strange looking at the mess of oily salad dressing coating Bokuto’s mouth and slides a napkin across the table.

Bokuto picks it up without looking down. “Thanks! So what’s your type, Akaashi?”

“Ooh, can I guess?” Kuroo asks.

“If you mention -” Keiji starts to say, his empty stomach churning.

Kuroo shakes his head, a more serious expression spilling over his features, and if Keiji didn’t know any better, he might think it looks kind. “Nah. Old news, yeah?” He perks up. “Questions first! We should get to know him better, right, Bo?”

“Yeah! Uh - what’s your favorite color?”

Kuroo laughs and says, “What do you do for work?”

“Oh! That’s a good one,” Bokuto says, nodding. “I already told you what I do too!”

Reluctantly, Keiji says, “I’m an editor.” He dips a fry into where the cheese has pooled unevenly on one side of the basket.

“For a top shounen manga company,” Kenma adds. He cuts the burger before him down the middle and unceremoniously drops one half on top of Keiji’s cheese fries. Keiji frowns before moving the burger half onto a napkin, but it’s already coated with cheese along the bottom. He takes a big sip from his next beer.

“Oh, that sounds fancy!” Bokuto says. “You seem like a writer. With lots of books and shit. Maybe that’s because of your glasses though.”

“Editor,” Keiji corrects.

“Sure,” Bokuto allows, nodding. “Very cool! I know a lot of cool guys that could be in the running for you!”

Keiji frowns at him over the lip of his glass. He’s not sure why Bokuto is so easily friendly, so instantly willing to do so much for and give so generously to a veritable stranger, let alone one connected to him in the way that Keiji is. Perhaps it is as simple as misplaced guilt, yet Keiji can’t deny the sincerity that Bokuto positively radiates with every word and every action. It’s almost a welcome distraction but for the cloud of their circumstances hanging above them.

“So, what do you look for in a guy?” Bokuto asks.

He has already polished off his protein-laden salad and is onto his second dish. Keiji watches with growing fascination at how much he can put away, but he supposes all of those muscles need to be fueled by something.

“Someone smart like you? Haru was -” Bokuto cuts himself off, shooting Keiji an apologetic look as he grows quiet. Kuroo shoulder-bumps him sideways, which seems to brighten Bokuto up enough for him to add, “I bet you like funny guys. Like the clever kind of funny!”

Keiji goes for another sip of his beer and frowns when he sees it’s empty. Kenma takes it from him and places it at the end of the table without looking up.

Keiji knows he’s growing a bit flushed. He’s drinking pretty quickly, but Kenma is here, so he feels ok with ordering another.

What may have started as a light happy hour is starting to feel like how it used to be when he went out regularly with his friends. A vague sense of remorse hits him then at the loss of that routine camaraderie in favor of cozy nights in with Haru.

“I don’t know that I have a type, really,” Keiji says. Even Haru, with his broad shoulders and lean waist, his sharp sense of humor and ability to carry on an interesting conversation with anyone, was not necessarily his type, per se. Though Keiji always did love his soft hair and the bright way he looked when he appreciated something Keiji said.

“Everyone has a type,” Kuroo says, smiling that dangerous little calculating grin.

Before Keiji can make a rebuttal, Bokuto nudges Kuroo in the side hard enough that he makes a choked sound and hunches over. “Dial down the strength, bro,” Kuroo says.

“You don’t have to have a type, Akaashi,” Bokuto says, ignoring him. “I don’t! I like everyone!”

“That’s true,” Kuroo concedes. “You have a talent for somehow finding something good in everyone you meet.” It’s a surprisingly sincere and thoughtful observation, despite its snide delivery, and it shifts Keiji’s view of him a bit. He notices with a vague sense of curiosity that Kenma has paused his game.

“Well, there is something to like in everybody,” Bokuto replies like it’s obvious. Kuroo rolls his eyes as if to object.

They haven’t known each other for long at all. Still, Keiji is constantly surprised at the small moments when Bokuto is sweet in a way that might seem at odds with his large and intimidating figure, especially to a stranger. But one look at that genuine, shining smile is enough to broadcast his true colors. He comes across as carelessly honest and oddly enthusiastic about things at random, all while somehow being rather intense at the same time.

Keiji wonders distantly how Bokuto and Haru met in the first place. And he thinks again with an awful wrench in his chest that he’s not really surprised that this is the man who’d been on the other end of Haru’s texts and calls and late nights away from home. Being around Bokuto is like a breath of fresh air among the normalcy and conventional nature of everyone else.

“How’d you and Haru meet anyway?” Keiji decides to ask. From the way the table goes quiet, he realizes that he had perhaps zoned out of the conversation for a while.

“Oh - uh -” Bokuto rubs his hand against the back of his neck as leans back and darts a glance first at Kuroo, then at Kenma’s bowed head, before his gaze finally lands back on Keiji. “He interviewed me during a home game press circuit,” he says, his tone careful as his eyes search Keiji’s face.

“Oh no,” Keiji says. Kenma’s hand is suddenly resting on his knee as if to steady him. Keiji looks at him. “He interviews quite a few athletes. You know how charming he is.”

As a sports writer, Haru straddled the line between cool and dorky. Keiji had always thought it was attractive, that rare blend of charisma and the ability to geek out endearingly over things he was passionate about. Many of their interests had aligned, so it had been easy to join Haru in his enthusiasm. He also just had a way of making people feel seen and heard, even when there were so many other things to pay attention to instead.

For Keiji, who was often so deep in his own head or outwardly reserved, interest from someone like Haru was something precious. He’d always been bewildered at ever holding Haru’s attention, and throughout their relationship it had been his biggest desire, and perhaps his most difficult struggle, to keep it. He realizes now that he perhaps hadn’t been as successful at maintaining it as he’d hoped, despite how hard he’d tried.

“He may not have slept with all of them,” Kenma replies.

Bokuto makes a distressed sound, setting his fork down with a clatter.

Kuroo coughs when he chokes on a bite of his vegan burger. “Wow. Way to break it to him easy.”

Kenma shoots him a withering glance. “He doesn’t care for bullshit.”

“I meant Bokuto,” Kuroo says.

“Bokuto slept with him,” Kenma shoots back. “I was saying maybe there weren’t other Bokutos.”

“But you’re implying that there may have been,” Kuroo replies. “That he wasn’t the only one.”

“There already was more than one after Akaashi,” Kenma says.

A smile creeps across Kuroo’s face as he takes a sip of his drink.

Keiji looks away from them to take in Bokuto’s distraught expression over his own glass. “Your salmon will grow cold, Bokuto-san,” he reminds him.

Bokuto looks quickly down at his plate and pushes his food around. “Are you mad at me, Akaashi?” he asks, his face still downturned.

“Not at all,” Keiji replies. He tips his beer again, but then he realizes he’s finished the third one too. He rests it gently back down on the table, feeling Kuroo and Kenma watching him. He says next to reassure them, “I promise.”

And he means it. Part of losing Haru was losing someone to focus his attention on as much as it was losing a focus on himself. Bokuto, with his large presence, his constant texts, and his insistence to meet up and stay in contact, has been filling that bereft emptiness with a particular brand of palpable and genuine interest that has felt refreshing.

“I appreciate you taking me out and being so kind, actually,” Keiji adds, waving lazily in reference to their surroundings.

Bokuto smiles crookedly at him. “I’m gonna fix this,” he says, and it comes out like a promise.

Keiji smiles in thanks at the server when his fourth beer arrives, and he takes a quick gulp. By his elbow, his cheese fries are getting cold, but he’s not terribly hungry now.

“There’s nothing to fix,” he says, and he’s getting too tipsy then to recognize his own lie.

///

Though Kenma had offered up Bokuto’s services to carry him home, and while Bokuto insisted that he would be a sturdy crutch, Keiji assured them that he was perfectly able to take care of himself. Kuroo just laughed.

Still, instead of catching the train, Kenma had his driver, Futoshi, come get them. Bokuto half carried him into the car, despite Keiji’s insistence that he didn’t need any help. He was only between very tipsy and a little drunk. He ended up passing out in the service car though, and Futoshi had to help him inside after the alcohol really hit him on the way home. Keiji gets a bit grumpy about it with Kenma though, because now won’t ever be able to look Futoshi in the eye again.

His phone buzzes as soon as he crawls beneath the covers. Before he sets it aside to pass out, he checks it blearily and is surprised to find that he is not actually surprised that the messages are from Bokuto.

> drink lots of water akaashi!!

And then:

> u really ARE a lightweight huh? hahahaha

And then:

> but thats not a bad thing!
> ur a cheap date! lol
> i meant that in a good way
> srry!!!
> its cute!
> ur dates will think its cute!
> srry
> goodnite

Keiji lazily types out a response:

< Goodnight, Bokuto-san. Thank you for the night out.

He gets a last string of messages he doesn’t end up responding to:

> akaashi!!
> go 2 sleep
> water!
> goodnight!!!

He finally sets his phone down when Kenma comes in to put a glass of water on the bedside table. Keiji rolls toward him, eyes heavy, but he musters up a smile. “Thank you.”

Kenma offers up one of his own rare smiles, and it fills Keiji with a bit of warmth. “I didn’t mean to gang up on you at dinner with your friends,” Kenma says. “I just want you to be happy.”

“They’re not my friends.”

Kenma stares at him.

“Really.” Keiji says. “Remember who Bokuto is? The other one is his best friend, apparently. I shudder to think what being around them for longer than a couple of hours must be like.”

Kenma shakes his head slowly as he turns to look at the glass of water. “I don’t remember the last time I saw you happy.”

“I just broke up with my boyfriend,” Akaaashi says, too tired to feel defensive. “I’ll be fine in a couple of weeks of treating myself into a numb stupor.”

“I meant before that, even,” Kenma says.

Keiji swallows. He thinks, of course, of Haru and his beautiful brown eyes and his charm and his easy way with people, even with Keiji. He thinks of the soft way Haru kissed, the sweet slip of their mouths together, the comfort of familiarity between them when they fucked from three years of learning how to be with each other, how to fit together. He thinks next of the recent series of late nights at work and more late nights alone.

And then Keiji thinks of the time before Haru – when he’d been excited about his new job and working with artists and worldbuilding, despite it not being his first-choice subject area. He thinks of when he’d still played volleyball with his friends from high school or went out for drinks with his graduate school group or tried new restaurants around the city with his colleagues. He almost forgot what it was like to be without Haru – what it was like to be around other people.

But tonight, he might have gotten a little of that back.

He looks up at Kenma sitting there on the edge of the bed quietly, waiting, patient and understanding. “I’ve been neglecting you, Kenma,” he says.

“I don’t mind being neglected,” Kenma says. “Not if you were happy.”

“But I love you.”

“Wow. I think you’re actually drunk,” Kenma says, laughing softly.

“But I’m honest when I’m drunk.”

“Then tell me honestly,” Kenma replies, his tone shifting. “Were you happy with him?”

And Keiji thinks, just for a miserable, indulgent few seconds, about what Haru is doing right now, where he is, if he’s with someone else. There’s a pang in his chest, but dull, like the ache of an old wound flaring up on a rainy day, as if it is a distant thing.

Perhaps it’s the drunken daze making him numb – numb enough to peer at his life in this moment like he’s behind another type of thick-paned glass looking in, but instead of gazing past a cafe window from across the street, it’s like staring down from above a skylight.

In the grand scheme of things, maybe this was a blip – maybe he was the blip. Just a transient character in Haru’s story, forgettable and then forgotten.

Numbness slowly fades into heartbreak again, the pang in his chest becoming raw, like it’s opening back up at Kenma’s question. Because he wants to say ‘yes’ and have it be an easy answer, but now that it’s over, he’s not sure.

Had he been happy?

“I thought we were okay,” he says. Because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how he feels now, let alone how he felt then - even though his eyes are opened to the fact that, for Haru, the answer was clear.

“‘Okay’ is not ‘happy,’ Keiji,” Kenma says, and it is such a familiar reminder that Keiji had not ever really considered too deeply before, no matter how many times Kenma has mentioned it over and over and over again in the past few years.

And Keiji finds he still doesn’t have anything to say in response. So he just says, “I’m going to work on that.” He eyes Kenma’s even expression, the glow of his eyes reflecting the light from the bedside lamp. “Thank you for coming out for me tonight, Kenma.”

This time, Kenma’s smile is almost relieved, and he pats Keiji lightly on the head once before he leaves.

///

The following week, Keiji ponders how surreal it is seeing Bokuto in his office.

Bokuto fills the space in a way the other editors, artists, and writers he works with do not. His eyes are bright with energy, fresh from his morning practice, and he keeps making absent noises of interest as he eyes the shelves full of reference materials, draft and published works, and some company manga merch.

“This couldn’t have waited until the weekend, Bokuto-san?” Keiji asks. He hits send on the email he’d left open on his screen in favor of watching with a hint of self-consciousness as Bokuto peruses every detail of his office with an unwarranted level of enthusiasm. Bokuto doesn’t touch anything, but he leans close to every object and his eyes dart from title to title on the spines of publications on his shelf between glances back at Keiji as if to check that he’s still there.

At Keiji’s question, Bokuto turns fully around, raising his brows. “Of course not! We gotta set this plan in motion!” He heads over and takes a seat on the chair across the desk, lightly setting down a white paper bag with a minimalist onigiri symbol printed on the face. “Besides, I have a flexible schedule, so I figured it’d just be easier to come to you.”

“That's - well, that’s very considerate of you,” Keiji says, for lack of anything else to say to protest Bokuto’s presence. He catches his supervisor, Asami, walking by for the third time through the clear glass of his office door and wall. Her eyebrows are raised with interest as she peeks in on her way by. Keiji sighs internally, anticipating a non-work-related chat after his lunch hour ends. “You could have let me get you lunch this time though.”

“Nah,” Bokuto says, waving that away as he moves to unpack the bag. “I was craving Myaa-sam’s food anyway. He makes the best onigiri!”

“He works at this restaurant?”

“Oh! No, he owns it! Miya Osamu - of Miya Onigiri. He’s my teammate’s brother. When you come to one of my games, you’ll see his stand at the arena too.” Bokuto takes a bite of his first one and squints at Keiji until Keiji moves to unwrap his own. “Anyway. My friend Yukie - we go way back - said this would be a good, quick lunch for you. She’s a nutritionist! So you should get this all the time when you’re busy.”

Keiji tilts his head in question, but he’s finding himself distracted because the onigiri is good. It’s fresh and warm, the rice fluffy and tasty, and the salmon filling is still tender. He feels his appetite suddenly rear up and decides that he may very well eat this for lunch every day now. “Yum.”

Bokuto stares, his mouth hanging open. “Did you say just ‘yum’?”

Keiji glances up, chewing his next bite slowly as he processes Bokuto’s question. “Did I?”

Bokuto laughs, tilting his head back with the force of it before covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “Oh my god.”

Keiji blushes, but he refuses to feel embarrassed as he takes another bite. When he swallows, he says finally, “Are you sure you want to set me up with your friend, Bokuto-san? I only recently broke up after a long-term relationship, however disastrous it may have been. I’m not certain this is the best time to see anyone new.”

“That just makes this the best time, Akaashi! To help you get over him. Or for a good ol’ rebound. Seriously.”

“I’m not sure I’m the rebound type,” Keiji replies, though he’s reluctant to keep talking when he can keep eating this onigiri.

He’s always been monogamous – unable to date around when he makes the decision to actually open himself up and be with someone.

“That’s fair, I guess. But maybe you should try it? Take your mind off of - of the breakup,” Bokuto says, very obviously skipping over saying Haru’s name, “and meet new people. And I know the coolest people!”

Keiji finishes the first onigiri and reaches for another under Bokuto’s pleased gaze. “I’m not going to lie to you, Bokuto-san, but I don’t think I share nearly as much enthusiasm as you have for meeting new people, no matter how cool they may be. Meeting with you was a stretch for me, and even that is still a question mark I carry.”

It’s quiet as they eat. Then Bokuto says with a contemplative expression, “You know, you’re a lot meaner than I thought you were at first.”

Keiji feels the sharp pang in his chest at that, and his next swallow goes down with difficulty. He knows he’s blunt and honest to a fault. Haru used to ask him to tone it down, especially among their friends. Keiji would try to mitigate his own inadvertent rudeness by holding back his input or keeping to himself at their gatherings, but then he just tended to appear aloof.

He wonders if that’s why he and Haru began spending less time with one another’s friends. And now, without Haru there to remind him to be nicer, Keiji seems to be falling back into his bad habits.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I only meant -”

But Bokuto shakes his head, grinning broadly with what looks like delight. “No! It’s funny! You seem - I don’t know - more yourself or something today. Comfortable? And it’s great! You’ve just seemed tired and sad the other times we met up, is all. Well, I guess you still kinda look like that. Eat your onigiri, Akaashi!”

Keiji feels light with sudden relief, and a reluctant smile pulls across his face. “Who’s the mean one now, Bokuto-san?” he says lightly, unwrapping the onigiri.

Bokuto seems delighted at the response, and his pronunciation becomes messy with it. “Still you, Aghashee!”

Keiji outright laughs at the response and the mispronounced name. It’s a small thing, and it comes from a place that he realizes feels like it had been buried since even before the breakup.

Bokuto’s eyes positively shine at the sound.

Keiji feels lighter then at the sight of that broadening grin, at the warmth of his own laughter still bubbling under the surface deep in his chest like there’s so much more where it came from - just waiting. It makes him feel strange, like he’s settling into his own body in a new way.

He takes a big bite of his next onigiri to suppress the feeling, but he can’t seem to hold back his own smile.

///

And this, perhaps, is how it really ends.

Later, Keiji will look at the routine of his days and weeks and months before this. And he’ll find that, where misery and dread, distrust and discord seeped into him, like an ocean’s tide turned cold in the night, suddenly there was a sliver of warmth cresting the horizon.

He had waded with eyes wide open into the listless current of his relationship with Haru, struggling through the onslaught of wave after wave of that misery, that dread, hoping to find the promised peace past the tumult.

Now, as he retreats, defeated, he floats like flotsam after a shipwreck back to shore beneath the warmth of that rising sun. When he surfaces again, he sloughs off the cold, the numbness, the growing stagnation inside of him like dripping seawater.

And still, waves continue to crash, drawn to the moon’s inexorable pull, even as the sun rises. The water climbs up the shore, again, again, to where he stands and tries to recover. Sometimes it sweeps in and reaches his toes, sometimes his ankles, each wave an inevitable ebb and flow. Yet, beneath the rising sun, the water grows warmer.

The first tide of his relationship, in the end, never quite made him tremble, never made him fall. And in its wake, Keiji remains, a part of him waiting for the onslaught of the next as he stands there – time passing, time healing – growing ever steadier on the shore.

///

(end of part 1)

Chapter Text

“You really don’t have much, huh, Akaashi? It’s all books!”

Keiji averts his gaze from where Bokuto hauls two boxes of said books in through the doorway behind him - and away from how his shoulders pull at the fabric of his hoodie as he does. He’s still not sure why Bokuto is here and Kenma is not, but then he thinks on it further and isn’t surprised in the least. He honestly didn’t need any help, considering that he’s pretty minimal with his personal belongings, but Bokuto had insisted.

“I suppose. I wasn’t willing to make a trip back to Haru’s for furniture I’m not particularly attached to,” he says, his voice losing volume with each word. It’s awkward enough talking about his ex with Kenma, let alone with Bokuto.

Bokuto eyes him warily before he bends at the knees to set the box down by the bookshelf in the living room. “Well, he shouldn’t get everything. It was all his fault, and they’re your things too! We should go get them. I’ll come with you!”

Keiji can’t help but smile. He’s no longer taken aback at Bokuto’s enthusiasm or his generosity, but it still is a thing of wonder sometimes. “It’s all right. I’d prefer not to hold onto the things that might make me think of him.”

“Oh, that makes sense. Three years really is a long time, huh?”

“I suppose,” Keiji says. “Though I’ve always been in long-term relationships. I can’t seem to date around. I’m not built for it, maybe.”

Bokuto leaps over the back of the couch to plop down heavily on the cushions. The new couch creaks beneath his sheer muscle mass, and Keiji stares at him balefully.

Sorry, Bokuto mouths silently with a sheepish smile. Then he says, “I don't date around either.”

“Oh?” Keiji asks, genuinely curious. “I don’t imagine it’s hard for you to get dates. My neighbor seemed to be into you on the way in.”

As Keiji had led Bokuto up to his new apartment, Bokuto had had his biceps on full display beneath the thin material of his team’s hoodie as he hauled the weight of the heavy boxes in his arms. Coupled with his eye-catching spiked-up hair and his warm smile, Keiji wasn’t surprised that they’d received attention from the building’s other residents.

“Oh, yeah. Wasn’t that funny?” Bokuto says with a laugh.

He sits up and rips open the Onigiri Miya bag he’d brought over. It tears messily right down the middle from the force of his pull so all of the onigiri spill out onto the coffee table. Keiji tries not to be bothered. He truly is grateful to Bokuto for helping him move, especially when it seems as if Bokuto is determined to constantly feed him. The pile of onigiri is larger than when he’d visited Keiji’s office over the last two weeks.

Still, Keiji frowns.

Bokuto doesn’t notice. Instead, he says almost absently, “It still weirds me out when people want autographs.”

The woman in the stairwell had stopped them on their way up and had tried flirting quite obviously, yet Bokuto had mistaken her attention as that of a fan of his pro career. He’d offered to sign something for her, much to her confusion, and ended up autographing a bit of her mail with Keiji’s pen before continuing merrily up the steps. In his wake, Keiji quietly apologized to her with a small bow before following.

“I’m sure,” Keiji says, accepting the proffered onigiri. He takes a seat next to Bokuto on the couch.

“So how’d it go anyway?”

“How’d what go?” Keiji says after swallowing his own bite.

Moving his things inside hadn’t taken long at all with Bokuto’s help, and the onigiri is still warm and as full of flavor as the first time he’d tried it. He leans back into the couch, pleased at its soft give behind him.

“Akaashi,” Bokuto says, drawing out the vowels. “Pay attention. Your date!”

Keiji would rather not dive into this topic in particular. Yet Bokuto is looking at him so eagerly and had been kind enough to set up the coffee date in the first place that Keiji finally says, as kindly as he can, “Bokuto-san, what were you thinking?”

Bokuto’s eyes widen, and then he laughs. “Well, I was thinking that Suga is super pretty like you, and he’s hilarious and - what’s the word Hinata used - quirky! And the stuff around your office is so cool and weird, I figured you’d get along! Isn’t he so nice?”

“He is terribly out of my league,” Keiji says, ignoring the offhand compliments that Bokuto is so good at tossing his way.

“What!”

Keiji doesn’t answer for a moment as he moves on to his next onigiri. The pickled plum variety is one of his favorites from Onigiri Miya - just enough plums to not be overwhelmed by rice, and savory with a hint of sweetness from its original flavor.

“He is,” Keiji says once he swallows. “He’s also frighteningly perceptive and knew right off the bat that I wasn’t up for a date. He ended up asking me all about the breakup, and it was the most mortifying yet somehow refreshing conversation I’ve had with someone about a relationship. And now, I’m sorry, but I can’t ever see him again.”

It’s true. Suga was rather alarmingly beautiful, yet beneath his radiant smile was a hint of frenetic energy that was both intriguing and unsettling. He asked rather straightforward questions in a way that left Keiji spilling all of the details that made him realize the truth of Haru’s infidelity, yet Keiji had walked into those very questions heavily guarded. At the end of answering with too much honesty, he’d stared in confusion as Suga looked back with a sated yet undeniably compassionate smile, as if his youth and angelic face were fed by the troubles and gossip-worthy rag he gleaned from others.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Bokuto says quickly, raising his hands in surrender. “So let’s prep you for your next date.”

“What next date?” Keiji asks.

“What do you mean ‘what next date’?” Bokuto says, eyeing Keiji hesitantly.

“Bokuto-san. I cannot go on another date with one of your friends.”

“What do you mean? Why not!”

“I - I am -” Keiji pauses to gather his thoughts. And then he hates the thoughts he comes up with, but Bokuto is waiting patiently, blinking owlishly over the last of his onigiri. “First, if the next one is as gorgeous as Suga-san, I will feel terribly inadequate. Second, it has been three years since I’ve been on a date or met someone new like this. I - I was not adept at it back then either. And I would rather not share any other reasons if it is all the same to you.” He stops there and lets it hang between them. He starts pulling at his knuckles self-consciously.

Bokuto just keeps blinking over at him, and then he reaches forward. Keiji leans back instinctively, but Bokuto just puts one big hand over both of his to ease his fidgeting. “You’re nervous?” he asks, a disbelieving smile spreading across his face.

“Of course I’m nervous!” Keiji bursts out.

Bokuto’s eyes go wide in surprise.

“Sorry,” Keiji says quietly.

“No, it’s cool! I just wasn’t expecting that is all,” Bokuto replies. “Wow. Guys like you get nervous on dates?”

“What? Of course I - what do you mean ‘guys like me’?”

Bokuto laughs easily, sitting back and taking his warm hand back with him. “I mean, look at you!”

Keiji glances down at his rather faded jeans and his one-size-too-large sweater. He feels his glasses slipping down his nose from his self-conscious cold sweat at the attention and sits on his too-long fingers so he doesn’t pull at them again.

“And you always seem so calm about shit. Like nothing phases you.” Bokuto’s voice trails off a bit at the end, and he brings one hand up to cradle his jaw in an exaggeratedly considering gesture. “Huh. You do get cranky sometimes, I guess, but it’s so funny. And you really are a lightweight, but you still drink a lot with strangers. Good thing it was just me and Kuroo and your friend last time. You should be more careful about that, Akaashi!”

“Yes,” Keiji says, sighing and leaning back into the couch. “There are apparently countless reasons for guys not to want to date me.” Or who may want to cheat on him, he thinks.

“Akaashi, no!” Bokuto shouts. He turns to fully face him, curling one leg up onto the couch and holding it tucked up against his chest with one forearm. “That’s not what I meant at all! You gotta stop doing that!”

“I’m not - doing what?” Keiji asks falteringly.

“That thing where you sound like you’re being funny, but you’re saying super shitty stuff about yourself!”

Keiji stares back for a moment, but Bokuto seems to expect an answer. “I’m not.” Bokuto makes a strangled sound and clutches at his hair with one hand. “No need to be so dramatic, Bokuto-san. Please calm down.”

“Like that!” Bokuto exclaims, straightening up and pointing in his face. Keiji stares down the finger until Bokuto withdraws it slowly, looking sheepish. “I mean, you’re so funny in a weird way. Like, mean, but in a nice way, you know? That’s why I thought you’d get on with Suga! And you’re both just so pretty. I could totally picture you two together.” He pauses. “Not in a weird way, though.”

Keiji pushes his glasses up his nose. “Well, thank you for setting me up with someone as lovely as Suga-san, but I wasn’t looking for a pep talk. I was looking for an end to this plan of yours.”

Bokuto’s expression transforms from sheepish to exaggeratedly charming. “About that.”

“No, Bokuto-san.”

“Look, this will work out great! His name is Ennoshita Chikara, and he’s a physical therapist, so he’s really good with bodies!”

“Oh, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says, shaking his head and staring at him incredulously.

“In a good way!”

“I, unfortunately, know what way you meant.”

Bokuto shrugs. “He’s super cool and artsy and shit, like you. It’s gonna be great! Plus, there’ll be more coffee, Akaashi.”

“So I take it that you already told him I would be there?”

“Saturday at 2,” Bokuto says slowly, finally reading Keiji’s tone properly, it seems. “It’s - I mean, it’s not for another week, at least! I’ll be away for a match in Hokkaido, but I’ll be back the after to catch up with you.”

“You should just cancel the date. I don’t need more coffee.”

Bokuto frowns. “You always need coffee. Whenever I text you, you’re always like, ‘brb I’m gonna get a coffee.’ Akaashi, you have some right there on your counter, and it’s almost 5. Doesn’t that fuck with your sleep? Did you eat anything else before I came over even?”

“I’d need to be able to sleep for anything to disrupt it, Bokuto-san,” Keiji replies. He rubs his forehead with his knuckles. “Fine. You helped me move and brought me Onigiri Miya. I suppose can survive one more coffee.”

“Yes!”

“It’s one coffee. I just don’t have the energy to argue about this with you any further.”

“Oh. Were we arguing, Akaashi?” Bokuto asks, looking bewildered.

Keiji can’t help but smile. “No, Bokuto-san.” He eyes the comfortable way Bokuto is sprawled against the arm of the couch, one leg curled up, his arm now resting over the back seat.

Keiji draws his own legs up. The couch is just long enough, despite both of them being quite tall. Still, he lightly kicks at Bokuto’s shin so they share the middle seat more evenly.

Bokuto grins and scoots over a bit. “So, are you still nervous?”

Keiji adjusts his glasses. “I’m always nervous.”

“What! Are you nervous right now?”

Keiji tilts his head to the side slightly to consider that. “No,” he says finally.

“Okay,” Bokuto replies, his growingly concerned expression melting into a smile in response. “Well, there’s nothing to be nervous about anyway. I talked you up to Ennoshita, so he’s probably already like half in love with you.”

“What? Why would you do that?” Keiji says with mild alarm. “What did you tell him?”

Bokuto has that bewildered look on his face again. “Nothing! I mean - nothing bad. I said, like, that you’re hot and smart and funny. Only the good shit!”

Keiji is torn between being flustered at the offhand praise and feeling suddenly tense from the pressure of it. He presses his face into the couch, feeling his glasses skew as they’re pushed into the cushion.

“Akaashi?” Bokuto says hesitantly, nudging Keiji’s leg with a socked foot across the couch. “Are you freaking out? Or are you cranky again? Or…?”

“I’m all right,” Keiji says, forcing himself to sit upright. “Thank you for saying those nice things. It just feels like a lot of pressure, but I’m fine.”

Bokuto shrugs, still looking a bit confused. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. With the date, I mean. Seriously. Ennoshita’s really cool, but I don’t think he wears nice clothes like you do. We all kinda wear sports shit all day. You always look so nice! Even when we got coffee that first time, and I was worried you were gonna keel over right there outside the cafe, you still looked good. And your sweaters look real comfy. Plus, it’s easy to talk to you, you know? Like, I never feel stupid telling you things!”

Keiji doesn’t realize he’s wringing his hands again until Bokuto taps at them with his fingertips as he leans in to catch Keiji’s gaze. “You seem to get kinda stressed out about a lot of shit, huh? But you’re probably better off during dates than you think. You seem calm on the outside all of the time, anyway, so you can give your hands a break.”

Keiji deliberately holds them lightly clasped in his lap. “Thank you, Bokuto-san. Really. Let’s just not talk about this anymore, please.”

Bokuto smiles lightly. “Whatever you want, Akaashi.”

And after that it’s quiet. Relatively, anyway. Bokuto fills the silence with a rundown of practice today and stories of his teammates and new changes to his physical conditioning regimen to build up strength for the upcoming season. But still, it feels quiet.

Keiji’s head is always buzzing, a cacophony of noise - his body wound tight. It’s as if his entire being is full of and fighting distraction and worry in equal measure as he notices people around him, second-guesses his actions and his decisions and where he’s headed next. But right now, Bokuto’s one-sided conversation is almost soothing, even with its punctuated moments of enthusiasm and excitement.

So Keiji just takes it in. It strikes him as almost strange. He can’t quite put a finger on it. Haru loved to talk. He would run his interview questions and interesting findings from his background research past Keiji before meeting with a new athlete or coach for his next article. He’d invite long discussions and rebuttals and new insights.

Keiji sometimes had a hard time keeping up. It wasn’t for his own lack of knowledge or understanding, or lack of a desire to put in his two cents, but he thinks now it was out of a feeling of insecurity about needing to feel relevant in the discussion. There was an underlying pressure to pitch back ideas or be ‘on’ in a certain way, and trying so hard like that sometimes left him exhausted.

But now, sitting here with Bokuto, there are no expectations at all to contribute beyond mild attention and acknowledgment, which Keiji is happy to provide if only to encourage him further.

Bokuto will often invite Keiji’s insights or reactions, but it is only that – an invitation, and one without pressure or obligation. And he always reacts immediately with a bright grin, pleased with anything Keiji is comfortable with providing.

Keiji takes a moment to tilt his head slightly and smile at an anecdote about Tsum-Tsum and Omi-san that has Bokuto laughing before he can even finish his story, the sound born from a full-body build-up. Bokuto’s shoulders straighten, one hand moves to his chest as if to contain the laugh, his head goes back to release it. And Keiji watches as Bokuto’s eyes slip closed, as if even his own body tries and still can’t contain his joy.

For once, Keiji is able to push aside thoughts of looming deadlines, his artists’ concerns, how he’s probably not getting enough sleep. He’s full of the fresh onigiri Bokuto brought, feels sated and slow and relaxed in an apartment that already has begun to feel like home – the sound of Bokuto’s laughter tapering off yet somehow still filling the space with warmth.

Just the thought of this being available to him, that he can let go for just a while, not have to work so hard every second, is an odd sort of relief. It allows him to relax into the unhurried cadence of Bokuto’s voice carrying throughout the living room, his eyes bright where they focus on Keiji.

For once, Keiji’s presence alone seems to be enough, and so he listens and unwinds.

///

“Bokuto-san.”

“I’m almost done, Akaashi!” Bokuto is making a mess of Keiji’s kitchen trying to prepare katsudon for dinner.

Keiji is resigned to the fact that he’s going to find breadcrumbs in the deepest crevices of his tile floors for weeks to come.

“The wait is gonna be totally worth it!” Bokuto says.

“No, I -” Keiji pauses, scrolling through the onslaught of texts causing his phone to buzz incessantly. “I’m curious as to why Haru has been getting a slew of parking tickets and was drawn aside by a police officer for suspicious activity outside of his office.”

Bokuto drops the bowl of pork cutlets, spilling them across the counter. They’d already been egg-washed and floured, so there’s a puff of white powder that rises before him, lightly coating his eyelashes and eyebrows. He turns to stare at Keiji with wide eyes as the flour settles. “What? I didn’t do anything!”

Keiji lifts a brow. “Apparently it’s one single policeman who’s been following him around over the past couple of weeks.”

Bokuto nods at Keiji’s phone. “Is that Haru?” he asks, his shoulders going stiff as he holds his hands poised over the counter like a surgeon prepping for the OR, but instead of gloves, he dons a slurry mess of flour, water, and egg up to his forearms. “Is he texting you?”

“No,” Keiji says, suddenly uncomfortable. “We don’t - I haven’t been responding to his messages. Or calls.”

“But he keeps texting you still? What the hell! It’s been months! Are you reading them? What’s he saying?” Bokuto’s shoulders curl inward as he turns to fully face Keiji then.

Something about the tense lines of his shoulders and the way his eyes narrow make Keiji’s stomach churn. It isn’t that he’s afraid in the least for himself then, but he’s surprised that intimidation is within Bokuto’s repertoire of expressions and postures, that it can rise up in this way, let alone for Keiji.

He decides to ignore the questions. “Bokuto-san, what did you do?”

At the question, Bokuto straightens, his expression lightening in an unconvincing display of innocence. Then he turns to gather the spilled pork cutlets to plop them back into the bowl. “I didn’t do anything,” he says.

“What Haru’s friend has shared contradicts your claim,” Keiji says.

Bokuto is actively avoiding his gaze now as he goes to wash his hands – and arms – off.

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji says, raising his voice over the sound of the running water. “I’ve gone along with your plan to set me up. You said you weren’t going to do anything to get back at Haru. What is going on?”

Bokuto shuts off the water with a snap of his hand over the handle and turns to him as he grabs a dishtowel. “Seriously, I didn’t do anything,” he says, but he looks smug. “It was Suga!”

“What? Suga-san? Coffee-date Suga-san from weeks ago?”

Bokuto laughs. “Yeah! He and Sawamura - we go way back. Sawamura’s a police officer these days.”

“Why is someone named Sawamura involved in this?” Keiji asks, growing increasingly distressed. Not only is Keiji meeting strangers for coffee, but details about his personal life now seem to be leaking away from these strangers to police officers.

Bokuto leans back against the counter and whips the towel over his shoulder. He folds his arms across his chest. “Look, I know you felt weird about your date with Suga, but he took a shine to you. So did Ennoshita by the way. They went to the same high school!”

Keiji shifts on his feet uncomfortably. “Yes, I know. It came up during our coffee date.”

Ennoshita had been as great as Bokuto had described him. They’d actually hit it off pretty well, had similar interests, and never ran out of anything to talk about. Ennoshita had a dry sense of humor, the kind wherein it was hard to tell when he was being funny, but Keiji enjoyed the unsettling tone of it, the way it made his mind light up. Still, they’d left off lukewarm at the end of their date, though they did trade numbers to keep in touch about upcoming films and book recommendations.

“Ennoshita was a bit bummed you’re just gonna be friends, Akaashi,” Bokuto says, looking at him carefully.

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji says in a firm tone, again ignoring Bokuto’s words. “The traffic tickets? The line of questioning with regards to suspicious activity? At his office?”

“Fine, fine. I guess Suga was telling Sawamura about you, and Suga kind of asked him to just, you know - fuck with Haru a bit.”

“‘Fuck with Haru a bit,’” Keiji echoes faintly.

Bokuto doesn’t even try to withhold his grin. It’s positively gleeful - so much so that Keiji is struggling to tamper down on a smile of his own that tries to surface out of instinct. “See? People love you, Akaashi! You don’t seem to think so, but these guys are willing to go to bat for you even after just one date!”

Embarrassment at eliciting such a response from Bokuto’s friends rears up over the urge to smile. But a part of him is warm with the comfort of leaving them with a good impression when he has had a rough history of not endearing himself to Haru’s friends in the past.

Still, Keiji rubs at one temple with two fingers. “Bokuto-san, please make Suga-san – and police officer-san – stop this immediately.”

“Why?”

“Bokuto-san!” Keiji exclaims with exasperation.

Bokuto raises his brows, shrugging in half-hearted agreement. “Fine. Your call!” he says. He turns to the stove to heat up the skillet, but he pauses to glance over his shoulder. “You know, when you say my name like that, I feel like I’m talking to my high school principal again.”

“I am not surprised in the least that you're familiar with such a tone,” Keiji replies, but he’s biting back a smile again.

Bokuto just shoots a last grin back at him before he focuses on the stove.

Later, after eating over the coffee table as they flipped through shows, Keiji finally sets his chopsticks down and sits back, satisfied.

Bokuto glances at him, a smug smile on his lips. “Good, huh? The best katsudon you’ve ever had, right?”

“Yes, Bokuto-san,” Keiji replies dryly. “It was actually quite worth the mess you made of my kitchen.”

Bokuto’s eyes widen. Keiji feels his stomach drop and opens his mouth to apologize for the backhanded delivery of the compliment, but then Bokuto explodes into laughter, one hand pressing to his chest as if to contain it. “Akaashi! Read the room!”

Keiji can’t help but truly smile at the reaction. With the warmth of fondness winding inside him, he eyes the bit of rice on Bokuto’s chin as he goes back to finishing up his own bowl. Keiji reaches for one of the linen napkins he brought from the kitchen and tosses it onto Bokuto’s spiked hair. “You eat like a child.”

Bokuto shakes his head until the napkin slips off into his lap, but then he grins a messy, open-mouth grin before wiping at his face with it. “It’s because I’m a child at heart,” he says easily.

“Did you eat all your green portions today?” Keiji asks. He eyes the leftover side dishes of overly brined cucumbers and a lackluster salad - his own sad contributions to their dinner.

Bokuto sets his empty bowl down on the table and waves dismissively. “Oh yeah. I got all that in earlier since I was gonna make you my mom’s recipe. Protein dinner!” He pauses. “Um, but thanks for the veggies!”

Keiji shakes his head. “I’ll buy prepped sides next time,” he says.

Bokuto shakes his head, picks up his chopsticks, and shovels some of the cucumbers into his mouth. “No! This is fine.” His mouth puckers up though, like a child’s might, and Keiji hides a smile behind his fingers when Bokuto turns to hide his face.

A show starts back up again, and they refocus on the TV. Bokuto has come over now a few times after practice on days when they don’t have lunch together, and it strikes Keiji sometimes just how comfortable it is between them now. Being with Bokuto was easy to begin with after that first night they met, and every meeting following it has felt natural, as if they’ve known each other for much longer than they have.

It helps, perhaps, that Bokuto is so easily entertained despite how drab Keiji’s life is in comparison to Bokuto’s with his clear charisma and wealth of friends and the spotlight on him from his career.

The one offering Keiji feels he has is from his work. Whenever Bokuto comes by, finds endless amusement in the way his colleagues’ gazes stray toward his clear office door for a glimpse of this apparently well-known volleyball star, or how Asami will stop by specifically to drop off merchandise in case Bokuto wants it, as if he is a kid visiting for Take Your Child to Work Day.

But Bokuto only seems to have eyes for items related to Keiji’s projects. With every visit, he always spends the first few minutes exploring the small office space. He’ll reach out to toy with something, dwarfing it in his broad hands, eyes darting to Keiji beseechingly until Keiji offers to gift it to him. So far, Keiji has relinquished his Zombie Knight Zom'bish figurine, a company stress ball in the shape of an owl, extra issues he worked on that have his name listed in awfully small fine print, among a few other miscellaneous items. Bokuto always packs them carefully away at the top of his gym bag every time “because I don’t wanna crush them!”

And here, in Keiji’s new home, Bokuto fits in like he’s always been here. Though Keiji supposes he has been, since Bokuto was technically his first visitor by virtue of helping with the move. And now here he is still, making dinner for them and forcing Keiji’s sub-par side dishes down his throat.

Keiji, filled with fondness then, says, “Bokuto-san.” His voice is barely louder than the television running through commercials in front of them.

“Hm?” Bokuto asks. He was typing quickly on his phone, but he sets it down at Keiji’s request for attention.

“Why don’t you set yourself up with any of the men I’ve been meeting? They’re great, really,” Keiji assures him, “and you were right about knowing a lot of cool people. I apologize for doubting you.” He casts a teasing smile across the couch.

Bokuto laughs. “Right? You totally doubted me!”

Keiji rolls his eyes. When Bokuto turns back to the TV, Keiji pulls his legs up and stuffs his socked feet under Bokuto’s thigh. It’s warm there. Bokuto radiates heat like a furnace.

“Are you not interested in dating anyone else yet?” Keiji asks when Bokuto doesn’t speak up again.

Bokuto doesn’t look at him. Instead, he squints his eyes ahead as if trying to capture every word of the migraine medication commercial on screen.

Keiji wiggles his toes until Bokuto shifts and turns to look at him. “What’s wrong?” Keiji asks.

Bokuto shakes his head. “Nothing’s wrong! It just feels weird trying to date anybody right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Bokuto pauses, and eventually he sighs and leans back. “I feel weird about it, is all. Like, people are so shitty sometimes.”

Keiji swallows down that now-familiar sharpness in his chest, still present and struggling to rend and tear inside him weeks after the breakup. “I hope you don’t still feel guilty about me and Haru,” he says evenly. “I told you it’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

“I feel like I should have though!” Bokuto bursts out. “I do this, you know? I feel like I’m known for it - for being kind of stupid about people.”

“That - doesn’t sound like you,” Keiji says doubtfully.

“No - yeah - it’s true,” Bokuto says insistently. “Haru aside, I can’t seem to make anything stick with anybody. I mean, I know what I’m like. I’m not an idiot.” He cuts a self-deprecating smile at Keiji, and it looks so strange on his face when he normally seems so confident and cheerful, if not completely elated.

“What you’re like?” Keiji prods, pulling one foot from under Bokuto’s thigh to kick at him lightly with it.

Bokuto catches it by the ankle and doesn’t relinquish his grip, instead settling Keiji’s foot onto his lap. “I know I’m way too much for some people.” Keiji frowns, and Bokuto laughs lightly. “Well, you’ve met me, right? I’m too loud, too dumb, and too focused on volleyball. I always say the wrong shit, and my schedule is too fucked for something real with anybody.”

Keiji stares, dumbfounded. The words spilling from Bokuto’s lips are all completely antithetical to everything he knows about this man.

But Bokuto isn’t done. He’s still staring straight ahead at the TV, but his eyes are glassy. “I travel a lot for matches or for promos, you know? And sometimes I stay late after practice when I wanna work on something. Who wants that, right? I can’t tell you how many talks I’ve had with past partners about priorities and shit. I guess I’m just not very good at thinking about other people over volleyball sometimes.”

“But you’re a professional athlete,” Keiji says sharply, irritated despite himself.

Bokuto shrugs. “It’s fine. Once the - the excitement or whatever about being with a pro wears off, people get over me real fast. I think that’s probably why it worked for a while with Haru. It was nice that he was a sports reporter. He knew about what it means to be an athlete. And he didn’t seem to mind the schedule and fans and shit. But - I guess the schedule part didn’t bother him because it meant he could be a fucking piece of shit more easily.” He stops and cuts an apologetic smile at Keiji.

Keiji looks at where Bokuto is absently swiping his thumb across the side of his ankle above the bone. “You are so ridiculous,” he says.

Bokuto lightly squeezes his ankle, his eyes going wide. “Akaashi! Ouch!”

“You’re probably the kindest person I’ve ever met,” Keiji says firmly, and that makes Bokuto clamp his mouth shut in surprise. “You go out of your way to help people – to an astounding degree, honestly. And you’re unfailingly caring and generous. I mean, that alone is why we’re friends in the first place. You make me meet new people, and you buy me food and mess up my kitchen and then force-feed me. And you look at things so creatively – in a clever way that I’m certain people take for granted. Things seem new – and better – through your eyes, Bokuto-san.” When Bokuto just stares at him, Keiji says, “And you love volleyball. You should never apologize for something you love. Ever. It’s something I really admire about you, actually – your passion and enthusiasm. It’s infectious.”

“Oh,” Bokuto says almost meekly. “Really? You think all that? About me?”

Keiji feels suddenly awkward at his outburst. He shifts uncomfortably and tries to pull his foot away. Bokuto only lets his ankle go after one last squeeze.

“Of course I do,” Keiji says. “I - I apologize if that wasn’t clear already. I know I am not terribly forthcoming with how I feel sometimes.”

“No, no - you are! I just - we are friends, huh?” Bokuto says, beginning to smile again, as if his expression wants to return to its natural state.

That their friendship was what Bokuto latched onto from what Keiji has said is not a surprise, but it does light a spark of warmth in Keiji’s chest. He forces himself to speak past the strange feeling of being exposed, like a live wire. “Of course we are.”

Bokuto looks away. When he speaks again, his voice so uncharacteristically soft that Keiji can’t help but stare at him. “You know, Haru must’ve been fucking crazy,” Bokuto says slowly. “He had you - for a long time before he ever was with me. And I just can’t figure out what the hell he was thinking, Akaashi. I really can’t.”

Bokuto looks up then and meets Keij’s gaze. And the intensity of his stare makes it feel like he can see right past whatever expression is frozen on Keiji’s face as he looks directly back, caught off guard by that confession of sorts and feeling exposed, raw even - but safe. And it isn’t uncomfortable to be looked at and seen. Not with Bokuto. Not at all.

For days, weeks, and months now, Keiji has asked himself over and over what had gone wrong, what the single thing was that he had done that had tipped Haru from apathy into infidelity. He has spent so many nights wondering this – Bokuto, and perhaps others – were what Haru opted for rather than talking to Keiji or breaking up with him altogether. And Keiji keeps coming up short.

Hearing the questions he’s held so close to the heart voiced by someone else, by someone as honest and as genuine and as kind as Bokuto, makes Keiji feel like the broken pieces and sharp edges inside of him are finally beginning to fit back together – closing up and filling the space that’s felt hollow and bereft since the breakup. He’s not sure why, only that Bokuto is like a balm – effortlessly soothing and safe at the simplest word, the barest touch.

Keiji thinks then about what he had said when they first met, about how he couldn’t blame Haru for overlooking him when Haru had Bokuto.

And Keiji thinks then that, like Bokuto said, yes, Haru was fucking crazy. He was crazy for ever being fortunate to be with this man and somehow letting him go.

Without thinking too hard about it, Keiji shifts so he’s sitting next to Bokuto, close enough to feel the heat of his body along his side. Then he leans over, tipping until his temple rests lightly on Bokuto’s shoulder.

And then, as Bokuto’s arm settles warm and heavy around him, easily accepting and effortlessly affectionate, Keiji lets go, just a little bit, to melt into the warmth of this safe and comforting space.

///

And this is how it starts.

Keiji will think about it later, after days and weeks and months of routine onigiri lunches and evenings of messy home-cooked meals and the comfort of constant companionship.

He’ll consider the growingly familiar warmth, an expansion of the heart, beneath the light of bright eyes that had begun to thaw at the numbness that crawled inside and settled there like an old friend.

And as much as being with Haru was like tiptoeing into the tide, into lapping waves of ice-cold water that Keiji slowly grew accustomed to with a precise and calculated sort of awareness and determination, this – well.

This is something different altogether.

This – with Bokuto – feels like being ankle-deep in water warm from the summer sun’s light, the inviting swirl of it climbing from the tips of his toes up to his ankles. And the slow rise gives him the choice of stepping away, of retreating, or of allowing him to sink in deeper.

Still, something about it too is like standing with his back turned, full of trust, convinced of the ocean’s peaceful lull while seeing a shadow spill across the sand before him - the only hint of the wave building from behind.

But Keiji won’t quite recognize it for what it is until much later.

///

“So. Two strikes so far, huh?” Kuroo says. “Need a pinch hitter?” He turns from Bokuto to Keiji, raising his eyebrows up and down.

Keiji resists the urge to throw a balled-up napkin at him. Bokuto has no such reservations and elbows Kuroo in the ribs. Keiji hides his smile by taking a sip of his drink at the growing familiarity of their antics.

“Watch your strength, Bo!” Kuroo says, curling over his side. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

“I’m just trying to find the right fit!” Bokuto exclaims, defensiveness spilling across his face. “I know a lot of great people, okay?”

While Kuroo suggests a few names from their circle of mutual friends, Keiji pulls a dish of dumplings closer and nudges it toward Kenma to share.

“So many fish in the sea, so little time,” Kenma says quietly. His eyes flicker from Keiji to across the table and back again.

Keiji isn’t sure if he’s being judgemental or if the expression is leftover from his initial feelings about arriving at an already half-filled booth earlier in the evening. “It’s an endeavor doomed to failure,” he replies easily, and he picks up his own chopsticks. He’s ravenous.

Kenma props an elbow on the table and his chin on his palm. He watches as Keiji eats dumpling after dumpling. “Depends on what you mean by failure.”

“Hey!” Bokuto says, his voice loud and drawing both their stares. “I haven’t failed yet! We’re not done!”

“I think I’m done, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says, setting down his chopsticks. But then Bokuto pushes one of his own two plates of dumplings toward him. Keiji considers it, then shrugs and picks up his chopsticks again.

“Look, I may play volleyball,” Bokuto says around his own mouthful, “but I still understand baseball metaphors just fine. And the saying is ‘three strikes and you’re out,’ not ‘two,’ Akaashi. I get one more! At least!”

“I find it very interesting that I never solicited the second blind date, let alone a third,” Keiji replies, eyeing Bokuto over his glasses. He stuffs a dumpling into his mouth.

“And I find it interesting how you two share food these days,” Kuroo says. He mimics Kenma, elbow on the table, chin in hand.

Kenma scowls and sits back. “No one asked you,” he says.

“No one ever asks me, and that’s the problem,” Kuroo replies. His smile is smaller than normal as he tips his head toward Kenma. Keiji frowns. But then Kuroo snaps his fingers. “I’ve got it. Seriously, you all should give me more credit.” He slaps the back of his hand against Bokuto’s shoulder. “Set him up with Miya! And now tell me I’m a genius.”

“Tsum-Tsum?” Bokuto says, expression brightening up. “Oh, he’s the best! But - uh - he kinda has a thing for -” he clears his throat. “I’m not supposed to -”

“No,” Kuroo says, rolling his eyes. “No, keep the worst-kept secret among the Black Jackals to yourself if you want. I meant the other one. The chef.”

Keiji tries and likely fails to hide his blush at the topic of conversation. He can feel Kenma’s eyes boring into the side of his head.

“He’s hot as fuck too,” Kuroo goes on, “but less in your face about it.”

Keiji glances at Bokuto, who has an odd look on his face, his chopsticks hovering before his nose and his dumpling strangely left uneaten despite being in close proximity to his mouth. Keiji feels a strange, hot coil in his stomach when Bokuto doesn’t immediately respond.

It hasn’t bypassed his notice that he has had hard misses with two of Bokuto’s lovely friends. And now, if the next contender is twins with Miya Atsumu, Keiji is certain this man will be out of his league. Again.

He’s seen numerous photos of everyone on Bokuto’s team. Ever the prolific texter, Bokuto sends at least one photo to recap his day, and Keiji almost feels like he knows each of the team members despite never having met any of them yet. And while most of the photos are terribly unflattering or a little too blurry, all of the teammates are still as unfairly good-looking as Bokuto.

“No, yeah,” Bokuto finally says after a pregnant pause that has everyone turning to look at him for approval. “Yeah. That would - I think that they’d really - uh -”

“Don’t hurt yourself, bro,” Kuroo says, his smile turning a little bit sharp. But it evens out again when he turns to Keiji. “Seriously, if no one tells me I’m a genius after this one, I’ll foot the entire bill next time.”

For some reason, Kuroo’s eyes dart to Kenma. When Keiji looks at Kenma too, he finds that Kenma is staring back at Kuroo, an undercurrent of something there that Keiji can’t quite identify.

Then Kuroo claps his hands together, making Keiji turn back to him. “Shit. I’m gonna live off of this one for a while,” he says, and then he laughs at himself, and it’s such a surprisingly endearing sound.

“You sound like a hyena,” Kenma says quietly, but he’s smiling, just a little, and Kuroo just laughs harder. Across from him, Bokuto’s strange expression melts in the face of that cackle as he joins in, shoving at Kuroo’s shoulder. His eyes are as bright as ever, maybe a bit hesitant still as he glances at Keiji next as if seeking the green light.

Keiji allows a small smile, and Bokuto’s eyes light up brighter still.

And the moment then is so warm, so welcoming - the sight of new and old friends comfortable together in this too-small booth, the scent of their drinks and food wafting through the air, the sound of chatter and laughter from the tables around them a welcome complement to those coming from their own.

And even as Keiji tries to swallow down those ever-present errant feelings of self-doubt and that strange hot coil in his belly at Bokuto’s slow response about this next date, still, he listens to Bokuto’s laugh at Kuroo’s expense, and Keiji can’t find it in himself to regret agreeing to another setup.

///

Miya Osamu is everything Keiji might have dreamed up in a man. He has a subtle, sharp sense of humor that’s wonderfully surprising and catches Keiji off guard. And he has a way of poking and prodding at Keiji as if wanting to watch him squirm, but it’s more coaxing and teasing than intrusive.

And, strangely, it isn’t unpleasant. Especially when it’s softened by a charming laugh and the brush of a clearly competent hand from across a table over coffee. It doesn’t hurt that he’s gorgeous.

Their coffee date leads to a dinner date later in the week once Miya closes up his shop.

The day after, Keiji tells Kenma over lunch, “He’s great. Bokuto said Miya-san was thoughtful and funny, and he is. He has a quiet sense of humor, unless he’s talking about his brother. In which case he is wonderfully vitriolic.”

“So Bokuto thinks you’re thoughtful and funny?” Kenma replies, and he eats a big chunk of pickled ginger. Keiji stares, waiting for a change in expression, but Kenma only meets his eyes evenly. He has the strongest palate of anyone Keiji has ever met.

“No,” Keiji says slowly, lifting an eyebrow. “I said Miya -”

“Look,” Kenma cuts in. “I don’t know him very well, but it sounds to me like Bokuto is telling you something here.”

Keiji smiles absently, looking down at his katsudon. It reminds him of Bokuto’s version, which is actually better than this. Keiji will have to remember to tell him. Bokuto will be terribly pleased to hear it. He also will probably want to make it again immediately after the compliment, so Keiji makes a mental note to pick up ingredients for the dish after work today.

“Yes, that he’s blind,” Keiji says, a curl of fondness leaking into his words. “He keeps setting me up with these men who are terribly out of my league.”

“No,” Kenma replies slowly, mimicking the cadence of Keiji’s earlier response with a raised eyebrow to match it. “I think he’s setting you up with people he thinks are worthy of you.”

“I don’t think that’s -”

“He is,” Kenma insists, cutting him off again. And that alone is strange enough that Keiji looks up at him. “Kuro told me.”

“Kuroo-san told - wait. ‘Kuro’? Since when do you talk to Kuroo-san? And call him ‘Kuro’?” When Kenma doesn’t reply and looks down at his own food, Keiji says, “Kenma? You two talk?”

“He comes by for lunch sometimes.”

Thrown, Keiji frowns. “What? Why?”

“Anyway,” Kenma says, waving a hand to dispel the tangent. “Kuro was telling me that Bokuto keeps asking everyone for their top-pick single friends so he can set you up with them. But he’s also been shutting down every single one. Kuro said he’s being ‘ridiculously picky.’ His words.”

A pleasant feeling warms Keiji from the inside that Bokuto might view him as at all comparable to his other friends. That he might think Keiji worthy of – well, worthy at all. “He has too big a heart for his own good,” he says softly. And then softer still, “Why doesn’t he date these people?”

Kenma is quiet then as they finish their meal. And then, when Keiji has almost put the topic out of mind, Kenma says, “That seems obvious, Akaashi.”

Keiji shakes his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Kenma says, and then he pauses. His tone is soft with the particular brand of kindness that Keiji normally only hears when he’s had a little too much to drink and Kenma is carefully choosing his words so they land lightly. He goes on, voice slow, “It seems like you and Bokuto get along well.”

Keiji shakes his head again at the shift in their conversation. “I suppose we’ve bonded over -”

“No,” Kenma cuts in sharply as if Keiji just isn’t understanding something. “Not because of that.”

Keiji swallows then. Because it isn’t that he doesn’t understand, but instead, perhaps, that he isn’t yet willing, or ready, to acknowledge what Kenma means. Keiji is, after all, heartbroken – not blind.

He and Bokuto have indeed grown closer, and they see one another multiple times a week, more so than Keiji sees even Kenma. But Keiji still isn’t sure what to do with this topic in particular, with where it might be headed, so he aims to deflect as he says, “Well, I have a date with Miya-san again.”

“Another date?”

Keiji doesn’t respond for a moment. The pleasant feeling he’d had when thinking of Bokuto’s katsudon and their budding friendship is suddenly fading beneath an odd sense of guilt, despite the fact that he’d actually been looking forward to this third date. “Yes,” he says.

Kenma hums, and there’s an upward lilt to the sound.

Keiji feels the sting of defensiveness run up his spine. “What’s that sound for?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Kenma replies, but something in his tone belies his words. “I’m just surprised is all.”

“By what?”

“That you’re going on a third date with Miya. That you’re going on a date with someone who isn’t Bokuto.”

Keiji wasn’t moving before, but he freezes nonetheless. “What?”

“You heard me,” Kenma says, and any caution that had been in his tone earlier has disappeared.

“Yes,” Keiji says. “I heard you, but I want to know what you mean.” When Kenma sighs, it’s a quick exhalation of breath, as if he’s growing frustrated, but Keiji doesn’t relent. “Kenma?”

“I mean,” Kenma says sharply, “Bokuto. The sweet professional volleyball player you spend all of your time with these days who dotes on you. Who feeds you and makes you laugh and says nice things to you and invites your best friend out too.” When Keiji doesn’t respond, Kenma goes on, “You went on a few dates, and you’re lined up for another, but none of them are with the one guy you’ve been going on real dates with a few times a week for the last couple of months.”

Keiji swallows, his eyes wide as he stares across the table back into Kenma’s unyielding gaze. “We’re not – I haven’t been -”

Kenma’s expression softens. “You really have, Akaashi,” he says.

Keiji doesn’t respond. Instead, he considers the words because Kenma never speaks lightly. And he is very rarely wrong – especially about anything to do with Keiji. Keiji has the sense that Kenma may know him better than he knows himself, even after growing apart in the years he’d been with Haru.

“Why would he ever - I’m just -” Keiji says, unable to string a thought together.

“Keiji,” Kenma says. “Take a breath.”

And Keiji is quiet. And he breathes. And Kenma waits. And after a few more minutes, Keiji finally says, “Bokuto-san is - he’s so - good.”

Kenma doesn’t reply. He clicks his chopsticks together absently and watches Keiji’s face.

“It’s a bit ridiculous,” Keiji continues. “He’s like the lead in a story who does everything right - and yet is met with adversity anyway.” Keiji’s smile is brittle when he thinks of Bokuto’s slumped figure in the mouth of that alley the night they met. “And still, he’s so - good.”

Kenma blinks slowly. This is the longest in a while that Kenma has spent without multitasking with his attention turning partially toward a screen, at least as far as Keiji has seen, and the full force of his gaze feels like a spotlight. “You’re good too though,” Kenma says.

“Not like that,” Keiji says, shaking his head. “I don’t know that anyone else is like that.”

“To you, maybe,” Kenma says, his mouth curling.

Keiji sighs, but Kenma’s smiles always have a way of drawing a mirror image on his own face. “He deserved better, Kenma. He - deserves someone perfect.”

“Perfect is stupid,” Kenma says.

Keiji laughs. It’s a dry sound, but it relieves the growing pressure in his chest. It’s a heavy feeling there, the weight of a realization buried beneath heartbreak and not too small a dose of uncertainty.

“Perhaps perfect is better than -” Keiji trails off and gestures weakly at himself. “Haru used to say -”

“Please,” Kenma says sharply. “You deserved better too. Haru never said anything nice.” The snap to his tone and the increase in volume shuts down anything else Keiji might have said. “Sorry. He was nice sometimes, I guess.”

Keiji opens his mouth, but he cuts himself off before a sound escapes him. The desire to defend Haru and the sense of obligation to speak for a man who is no longer his boyfriend has diminished enough that he’s able to hold back now. He can let the truth lie there in the open, even when it still hurts, and see the reality of it without the urge to hide it behind a veil of appeasement to keep a failing relationship on its feet.

Kenma pushes at his food with his chopsticks. “Sorry,” he says again. “I don’t mean to talk about him like that.” He looks up, and he must see something on Keiji’s face because he goes on without pulling any punches: “I just didn’t like him.” And then, before Keiji responds, he says in a light tone, “I like Bokuto though.”

“That’s - I’m glad,” Keiji says, faltering on his words at the abrupt jump in conversation back to Bokuto. “I hoped you would become friends. He’s - friendly.” Keiji feels a blush rise to his cheeks at his awkward delivery. The word feels so inadequate, yet somehow also incredibly exposing for some reason now that he’s said it in this context.

“Sure,” Kenma replies. “Friendly.” He rolls his eyes and nods at Keiji’s plate. “Just - finish your food. Bokuto will text me if you lose a pound while he’s out of town. Kuro gave him my number.” He finishes on a grumble, looking down so his hair hides his face. It doesn’t work as well as it used to back in high school since he ties it half back these days, so Keiji can see the red stain at the tops of his ears even though his face is turned downward.

Keiji bites back a smile. And, despite the feelings sparking in his chest, he grants Kenma the same favor as the one granted to himself and lets the topic rest there.

///

Bokuto’s hair is still wet from his post-practice shower when he shows up at Keiji’s door. Dark dots line the shoulders of his gray t-shirt like he hadn’t taken the time to towel off properly before heading over – like he’d been in a rush to come by.

The thought of it makes a pleasant curl of warmth wind through Keiji’s chest.

He steps aside to let Bokuto in and doesn’t allow himself to focus on the nervousness he’d felt all day knowing that Bokuto would be coming over. The confusion and uncertainty leftover from his lunch with Kenma had settled like a stone in his stomach over the past few days. But now, with Bokuto right in front of him, somehow those feelings seem to melt away.

He doesn’t think too hard about the sudden relief he feels at seeing Bokuto standing there filling up his doorway with his loud greeting of “‘Kaashi! I missed you!” and his still form-fitting casual clothes and his broad, cheerful smile. And his quick but engulfing hug quickly dispels any last thoughts of doubt and caution.

They haven’t seen each other for a couple of weeks, their schedules not quite matching up between Bokuto’s pre-season regimen ramp-up and Keiji’s final days of a work project.

They’ve opted for delivery tonight, which arrived shortly before. And after they eat, they relax over a few beers that Keiji has stocked in his fridge – Kirin, which Bokuto prefers.

“So how was it?” Bokuto asks around the lip of his bottle.

“How was what?”

“Akaashi!” Bokuto exclaims, pulling his beer away from his lips. “Are you gonna do this every time?”

“As long as you keep forcing me to go on all of these blind dates, yes.”

Bokuto is oddly quiet at that, and then he blurts out, “Tsum-Tsum said Myaa-sam liked you. A lot. ‘An embarrassing amount,’ he said.”

Keiji looks down at his plate, pushing around panang curry over the rice he didn’t finish. He should be pleased. He liked Miya as well. Quite a bit. Yet unease begins to unfurl inside him like a blossom. “Oh, really?” he asks neutrally.

“Yeah!” It’s quiet for a moment again, and then Bokuto asks, almost hesitantly, “So, are you gonna see him again?”

“Who?” Keiji asks, tilting his head to the side.

“Akaashi! Seriously!”

Keiji takes a sip of his own beer and smiles around it at Bokuto’s impatient expression. He says, “I guess so. We made plans for dinner this week.”

Bokuto is nodding before Keiji finishes speaking, tipping his beer back too. Keiji watches the line of his throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. “That’s - really great,” Bokuto says once he swallows. There’s a strange, faltering beat to his words as if they’ve almost been swallowed down too.

“Yes,” Keiji says.

For some reason, the silence then is awkward in a way he hasn’t felt with Bokuto before past the first evening they met. He’s only had a couple of beers, not as quickly as that one regretfully unforgettable happy hour night with Kuroo and Kenma, but he still feels slightly flushed.

“You know,” Bokuto says slowly, leaning forward to place his empty bottle on the coffee table. Keiji tips his head toward the kitchen in question, but Bokuto refuses another. “Myaa-sam is busy a lot.”

Keiji takes that in. “Yes,” he allows. “He’s opening up a second spot here in the city, he said.”

Bokuto’s eyes rise toward his hairline. “Oh, he told ya that, huh? Cool. Cool. He sets up a stand at the arena for the Jackals’ home games too.” He rests his forearms on his knees to support himself, but his face is tilted toward Keiji’s. The wash of blue from the TV casts shadows over his features, making them look stark in the dim living room lighting. “He might not have a ton of time for dates and stuff.” He pauses again, then says, “But that’s just because he’s such a hard worker! Which - is good! It’s good.”

“Yes,” Keiji says slowly. “I admire that. He’s driven.”

“Oh, sure.” Bokuto nods quickly. “Tsum-Tsum also said he’s kinda selfish though, so just, you know, be careful of that.” At Keiji’s frown, Bokuto sits up, waving his hands quickly as if to dispel the words. “But I know he’s great. And - I mean - he feeds you a lot of his food, right? Yeah. Is he feeding you enough though? Is he making you pay, Akaashi? I can pay for you. Or maybe he doesn’t need the cash, since it’s his own business, right? Duh. Stupid.”

Keiji knows he’s staring, but he can’t seem to help it. Bokuto stares back as if entirely unaware of himself.

Then his expression shifts, scrunching inward just once, like a wince, before it evens out. He must have suddenly had an inkling of how his words sounded because he says quietly then with a hint of reluctance, “Those - are all good things about him though.” He turns back toward the TV, but his shoulders are slumped inward, his smile missing from his face. “He’s ‘driven,’ like you said, and he’s - he’s a successful guy. Does pretty well - financially and all.” He pauses, runs a hand through his still-damp hair. “It’s good, you know? That he’s serious about his business. Because then he can support you too, and maybe you won’t have to work so late anymore, right, Akaashi?”

And Keiji isn’t sure what’s written across his face, but he imagines he sees a hint of it on Bokuto’s when Bokuto turns back to meet his gaze. Keiji feels a pang in his chest then that is unlike any he’s felt in quite a while - familiar and frightening at the same time. It’s that unfurling of a blossom of warmth, tendrils of fresh growth spreading throughout his chest, lighting up places that he thought might be left dark and stale, forgotten.

“So - so you’re gonna see him again, huh?” Bokuto asks again. His eyes are so bright, so fixed on Keiji’s that he swallows.

“I don’t know,” Keiji says, words spilling from his lips without thought. “Maybe. I thought you wanted - wasn’t the point of all of this to find someone new? To get over Haru?”

“Yeah! Yeah,” Bokuto replies in a rush. “Totally. It totally was. So this is - great! A second date.”

Keiji holds up three fingers, feeling self-conscious.

“Oh, three? Wow. Third date. You’ve been busy while I’ve been away, huh? I’m glad - happy for you. This is - exactly what I wanted,” Bokuto says, his voice growing soft as he turns toward the TV again.

Keiji finds he’s trying to steady his breath. He feels like his skin is so sensitive at that moment for no reason, covered with goosebumps and his clothes scratchy and rough. He wants to wipe that look off Bokuto’s face to make him smile again like he always does. He wants – he just, very suddenly, wants.

“Well,” he says, “they were only two dates. One of them was over coffee, so that doesn’t quite count, I suppose. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything in particular. I - may not go on the third, after all.”

Bokuto turns to look at him again quickly, eyes widening a bit as he shifts forward in his eagerness to agree. “Yeah! Yeah, that’s true. They probably don’t count. You’re always right, Akaashi.”

“So,” Keiji says, and he feels a smile pulling at his lips, despite how much he tries to contain it.

“So,” Bokuto says, staring back, his eyes drop, just for a second, to Keiji’s mouth.

Then he looks up again, and there it is. That smile grows across Bokuto’s face that Keiji had so desperately wanted to see, had wanted to put there himself.

And, somehow, Keiji had done it – brought that smile back. Just him, with barely any effort at all. With, perhaps, a mere hint of an offer, of just this – himself.

It feels, all at once, like a relief – and a release.

And still, greedy in a way he isn’t sure he’s ever felt before, he still wants. And he wants more.

Keiji doesn’t know who moves first, but later, when he replays this in his mind over and over and over again, he’ll think it was him – that he, ever careful and calculated Akaashi Keiji, was the one who crossed that line. The one who shifted forward, who instigated this kiss, this first kiss, invited this change and dove headfirst into the unknown.

Yet he never truly falls.

Bokuto is already there to catch him. He surges forward halfway into the space between them, his hands reaching to cup Keiji’s face as they meet in the middle. It’s a harsh, hard mash of lips in the desperate rush to get close.

He breathes in the clean scent of Bokuto’s shampoo and the simple fragrance of the soap on his skin, takes in the unidentifiable and growingly familiar scent that is just Bokuto. He listens to the sound of Bokuto’s breaths, his deep inhales, his slow exhales, and it’s almost like time has slowed, just for them – just for this.

And then, all too soon, Bokuto pulls away.

Keiji’s heart flips in his chest, but Bokuto draws back only enough to gently tug Keiji’s glasses off and place them onto the coffee table. The gesture seems so at odds with the strength and the heft of his hands, the broad swathe of his palms, that Keiji stares after them, almost bereft.

But those hands quickly return, cupping Keiji’s face with that same gentle sort of motion, and then those gold eyes meet his again. And this time, when they hold in a moment of hesitation, of caution, Keiji grabs Bokuto by the collar of his shirt and pulls him back into a kiss.

This time it’s softer, careful, exploratory where it had been fast and desperate just before.

Still, from there, the heat returns tenfold. It’s a beautiful, sweet, slick glide of lips and tongue, and Keiji is immediately addicted to this feeling, the taste of him.

Bokuto nips at his lip and smooths at the spot with a flick of his tongue. Keiji shivers, unsurprised that Bokuto is relentlessly good at this. In response, Keiji tilts his head and opens his mouth to invite Bokuto in deeper.

And for just a moment, from the forwardness of his own invitation, Keiji fears he’s moving too fast, wants too much. He feels suddenly flushed with doubt, inside and out.

But before he can complete a single thought about being the one to draw back this time, Bokuto pulls him forward. He guides Keiji closer until they’re flush together and then holds him there, the broad curve of his arms engulfing Keiji’s form and keeping him close.

And any doubts, any hesitance that Keiji may have felt, evaporate in the delicate heat of that touch. Bokuto’s hands tighten around Keiji’s waist. They’re like brands against his skin as they dip into the sliver of exposed space between his jeans and his sweater. They flex there, gripping tight and then relaxing as if Bokuto can’t help how much he wants this too.

And that - the thought of Bokuto trying to hold himself back, that someone - that Bokuto - might want him that much lights Keiji up down to his toes, electricity zinging through his arms down to his fingertips.

Keiji shifts closer, gives into the kiss then, basks in it even as heat rises in his chest, rearing up - wanting more.

It’s been a while since he’s felt quite like this, sheer desire rushing through his veins, quieting the ever-present buzz of his thoughts with a level of volume he hadn’t known he’d possessed. All he knows is that he craves more, like this feeling had been caged within him for so long, growing in its captivity. And now that it’s released by Bokuto’s touch, it’s overwhelming.

Keiji realizes then that he’s trembling, his entire vibrating with the force of his desire, and so he grips Bokuto tighter, his gesture like a plea. And that seems to be all Bokuto needs to take them further. He shifts just enough to settle sideways on the sofa, his hands guiding Keiji into straddling his lap.

Keiji takes a moment to line himself up where the heat pools in his dick against Bokuto’s hot, hardening length through his sweats.

And then Bokuto’s mouth is on his again.

There is such strength in Bokuto like this, hints of it in the tense line of his shoulders beneath Keiji’s roving hands, in the groan that escapes him like he can’t help but release the sound, in the firm but easy press of his thumbs into the juts of Keiji’s hip bones peeking over the waistband of his jeans as they slip down at Bokuto’s encouragement.

Keiji knows his breath is coming out fast, but he doesn’t care. He runs his hands up and down Bokuto’s chest, feels how firm it is, revels in the way it heaves against his palms with heavy breaths in return as Bokuto sighs into their kiss.

Bokuto slides one hand up Keiji’s back to cup him behind his neck and just holds him there for a moment, his tongue sweeping hot and slick in Keiji’s mouth, and that – that does him in completely.

In that moment, it’s all Keiji can do but hold on tightly and allow himself to be swept away.

He grinds his hips forward, and Bokuto’s hands drop immediately back to his hips to encourage him, to shift him just enough so they line up perfectly, to hold him steady as Bokuto starts to thrust upward against him.

And it feels so damn good to be held like this, to be full of so much want like this. The sounds Bokuto makes are so low, so deep from within his chest that they’re rough as they surface between kisses, and Keiji can feel each one grow like a rumble there against his own chest.

Bokuto breaks off their kiss and says, “Akaashi,” on a breath. It’s not in protest. It’s a plea of his own as he holds Keiji’s hips tight and thrusts up again. His eyes are near glowing with heat, and Keiji wonders for a short moment at the transformation he’s seen.

Gone is the sweet giant of a man he’s come to know. In his place is a Bokuto who moves like his athlete’s body is designed to – all sleek and smooth motions, subtle strength coming to the forefront as he looks up at Keiji and licks his lips. Then he lets go of Keiji’s hips to grip him around the waist and turn them so that Keiji is lying beneath him.

“Fuck,” Bokuto says, looking down at him as he settles between Keiji’s legs.

Keiji bites his lip to hold in a sound at how it feels to have Bokuto looming over him, breathing heavily against him, his hair falling over his forehead in wisps. And all Keiji wants then is to be closer, to feel Bokuto’s skin against his, to act and not think and just feel. He pushes at the hem of Bokuto’s shirt impatiently until Bokuto finally pulls it off.

Beneath the flexing motion of his abs, Keiji can see the tent at the front of his sweats, a spot of precum darkening the material. He reaches forward, but Bokuto nudges at his hand in favor of shoving at Keiji’s own sweater until he sits up to pull it off along with his t-shirt. Only then does Bokuto kiss him again, slowly pushing him back down into the cushions. One forearm rests next to Keiji’s head as Bokuto uses the other to unbutton Keiji’s jeans.

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji breathes out, reaching between them to get his hand beneath the waistband of Bokuto’s pants. Bokuto cock is a welcome hard and hot weight in his hand when he finally gets a hold of him. He’s not sure he even realized how much he wanted it until this moment, but now it’s all he wants. He’s slow with the first few gentle pumps of his fist as he adjusts to the thickness of him, and he wraps his legs around Bokuto’s waist to pull him closer.

“Oh shit,” Bokuto pants against his mouth as Keiji swipes precum from the head around his palm to slick the way down Bokuto’s shaft. He starts to pump Bokuto steadily, twisting his wrist when he gets to the head and thumbing over his slit. “Fuck yeah, Akaashi. Holy shit.”

Keiji jerks his hips when Bokuto’s hand tugs at his briefs to free his cock. He pulls it away only to lick a wet stripe along his palm. Keiji bites his lip to cover a moan. He’s so turned on and so hard it almost hurts, but Bokuto’s hand is on him then, and it feels so good he can’t hold back a groan as he tips his head back.

Bokuto shifts to skim his lips along Keiji’s neck, trailing a path to the soft spot beneath his ear. They’re wet, sucking kisses that only amplify the pleasure of Bokuto’s broad hand jerking him off with just the right amount of pressure, making Keiji buck his hips, desperate for more.

“Akaashi,” Bokuto says hoarsely, lips against his neck, and Keiji squeezes a little tighter, trying to get him closer to the brink. “I’m not gonna last long. Shit. You feel so good. You look so good like this, Akaashi.”

“Are you gonna cum for me, Bokuto?” Keiji can’t help it that he’s dropping the honorific when Bokuto’s picked up the pace, jerking him harder, sliding the pad of his thumb over the slit of his cock. “Oh my god. Please,” he says, and he feels Bokuto’s teeth graze against his skin as his hand tightens his hold imperceptibly at the plea. He says again, “Please.”

Bokuto pulls away just enough to dislodge their hands so he can sit up and slide his dick against Keiji’s. Then he wraps his hand around them both. He fucks into his own hand, the friction of Bokuto’s cock and his calloused palm and the slick glide of them against each other sends Keiji ever closer to the edge. He can’t help but buck up into that grip, using his own hand to pump them both around the tip, running his palm over the head of Bokuto’s cock first, feeling the wet slide of his precum slick the way onto his own.

And Keiji feels suddenly, sharply, the sting of the flush on his skin, the fever of it rooted deep inside him, spreading, cutting sharply throughout his body like a brushfire caught in the wind, the blaze of it uncontainable, irreversible. He can’t catch his breath, a near-insurmountable want rises from low in his gut, climbs up into this throat, and escapes from him in a moan.

At that, Bokuto hums from deep in his chest, a low, satisfied sound, and leans forward to steal a kiss, lips wet and mouth open to take Keiji’s, and Keiji moans again when Bokuto bites his lip and twists his hand on an upstroke.

And Keiji’s desire, the sheer blaze of it ignites within him, uncontainable. He comes with a sharp exhale like a punch of breath, white flashing behind his eyes as hips jerk toward Bokuto’s, his back arching into the space between them.

When his head starts to clear, he only vaguely hears Bokuto going still above him and chanting low under his breath, “Fuck fuck fuck,” as his hips stutter forward. He cums warm and wet between them onto Keiji’s chest.

After that, it’s silent but for the sound of their heavy breaths and Bokuto’s light, sated groan as he shifts up onto his knees to sit back onto his heels between Keiji’s legs. It smells like sweat and sex and cum, the air heavy with it.

Keiji feels the weight of Bokuto’s stare as he pushes his fringe away from his sweaty forehead.

“Fuck,” Bokuto breathes out. His eyes are terribly bright as he runs a heavy gaze over the mess on Keiji’s belly and chest.

Keiji blinks up at him as he tries to come down from it all while he stares back at the light sheen of sweat along Bokuto’s muscled torso and the disarrayed mess of his gray and black hair from his own wayward hands.

And again, that strange ping of familiarity dings in his mind, stronger this time. Bokuto’s figure eclipses the dimmed ceiling light, the loom of his body making Keiji feel warm from more than just the heat on his skin, and Bokuto’s golden eyes are so bright, like twin stars.

And a memory takes shape then, as if it’s only now coming into focus. It’s one from long ago, and it hits Keiji in flashes: The strap of his school bag gripped tight in one hand. The yellow of the high school gymnasium’s overhead lights. The scent of salonpas and sweat in his nose. The squeaking sound of sneakers against the vinyl floor and a coach’s whistle. The sight of a boy leaping for a ball – high, high, higher still, until –

“Was that - are you good, Akaashi?” Bokuto asks, breaking Keiji from a vision from over a decade ago.

Keiji clears his throat, his heart racing, his body exposed here beneath Bokuto’s form. “Bokuto-san,” he says, “will you please get me a towel from the linen closet?”

“Uh,” Bokuto says, still staring down at Keiji before he shakes his head quickly as if to clear it. “Oh, yeah! Yeah. Let me just - yup!” He tucks himself gingerly back into his sweats and lumbers off toward the hallway.

Keiji has barely a moment to compose himself. He swipes at a drop of cum on his chin and rests his hand on his chest so he doesn’t get any on the new couch.

And as he comes down from maybe the best orgasm he’s had in a while, he thinks suddenly, with a heart-flipping rush of panic in his chest at what they’ve just done, that he is an unforgivable fucking mess.

Bokuto returns with a damp towel, and Keiji is absently grateful. He doesn’t meet Bokuto’s eyes as he says, “You can - stay, if you want. It’s pretty late.” He darts a quick glance up to find Bokuto watching him carefully, but at Keiji’s words, a small smile spreads across his face.

“Thanks,” Bokuto says. “Yeah, I’d - that sounds good.”

And after that, it’s almost like nothing happened. They finish their movie, talk easily about nothing important, and have some snacks Keiji had bought prior with their evening in mind. Later, Bokuto takes the couch like he’s done before when he has a day off or late practice the next day and drinks enough to warrant staying over.

So, yes, it’s almost like nothing happened.

Almost. As if Bokuto isn’t in a spare change of sweats from his bag. As if there isn’t a cum-stained towel sitting at the top of Keiji’s hamper. As if Keiji hadn’t just been intimate with the first person who wasn’t Haru in over three years right here on his new sofa. As if that person wasn’t Bokuto, whose relationship with Haru overlapped Keiji’s and who is the first person Keiji has gotten close to in years.

And if Keiji notices Bokuto stealing weighted glances at him a number of times throughout the night, he thinks even Kenma wouldn’t fault him for keeping it to himself. Not when his mind is whirring, spiraling in the absence of the post-orgasm haze from earlier.

He’s startled from falling too deep into his own mind when he notices Bokuto shifting on the other side of the couch to get closer again. Keiji freezes, and Bokuto’s hand hovers, outstretched – again, always – over Keiji’s own that lay folded in his lap.

When he looks down, Keiji realizes he’s pulling on his fingers. He looks up quickly into the familiar light of Bokuto’s smile.

“You’re all right, Akaashi,” Bokuto says, and he sets his hand down lightly on top of Keiji’s. “No need to be nervous around me, remember?”

Keiji exhales slowly, evenly, and then, on his next inhale, he breathes in that scent of Bokuto’s shampoo, the subtlety of it layered only lightly with the scent of sweat and a familiar, growingly pleasant scent of just Bokuto. It’s like time has stopped again, waiting, letting Keiji settle with the warmth of Bokuto’s hand over his own, stilling his fidgeting and calming his nerves.

“Right,” Keiji says, and he breathes. He lets Bokuto’s hand rest there, covering both of his, until the urge to fidget evaporates – along with the uneasy, anxious buzz of his thoughts.

Later that night, when Bokuto’s settled on the couch, Keiji leaves his bedroom door cracked open – just in case Bokuto needs him – and slides into the cool sheets of his bed.

It only surprises him the next morning when, despite the way his heart flips in his chest as he replays what they’d done in his mind over and over with heat and guilt and desire at war within, he slips easily into an undisturbed sleep.

///

Bokuto is an unrepentant early riser. Keiji has learned that he passes out quickly - can go from startlingly engaged to out cold out in all of five seconds. No more than six hours later, Bokuto can be just as energetic as if there had been no interruption.

Keiji does not fare nearly as well. When he walks out the next morning, he’s wearing his glasses, but he’s still bleary-eyed and half asleep.

Bokuto is sitting at the kitchen counter and humming, but he stops when Keiji walks out. He stands up and walks right up to where Keiji is trying to flatten the errant waves of his hair. He sets his hands on Keiji’s hips and pecks him on the cheek. It’s a soft brush of lips, quiet, like it is in that early hour of the morning when the world has yet to wake. When there’s just the smell of fresh coffee wafting from the kitchen, the smell of sleep on a lover’s skin, sunlight a physical thing as it seeps in through the window.

And Keiji freezes.

It’s like he’s still caught halfway between sleep and wakefulness, unable to fully process Bokuto’s hands on him, let alone so early in the morning. They’re hot, even through the fabric of the sweatpants he pulled on. Hot, like they’d been last night on his bare skin when he’d -

“I made you coffee,” Bokuto says, his voice quiet and still sleep-rough. His lips are gentle and warm where they slide up from Keiji’s cheek to graze at his temple for one more kiss right there before he pulls away. As he steps back, he takes his hands with him, but Keiji still feels the warmth of them linger.

He swallows, looks down in case he’s blushing, and leads the way into the kitchen. “Thank you,” he says stiffly.

Three years. It’s been three years – probably a bit longer than that, to be honest – since Keiji has been with anyone but Haru, has shared a morning like this with anyone but his ex. Sure, Bokuto has stayed over in the past, but not like this, not after just –

“Are you hungry?” Bokuto says. “I made you miso rice and eggs, Akaashi. I’ll clean up too, don’t worry!”

When Keiji glances over his shoulder to where Bokuto leans against the counter, there’s a bowl next to him, which Bokuto nudges pointedly.

“Oh,” Keiji says. “Thank you.” He swallows again.

“You okay?” Bokuto asks, tipping his head to one side. “You look kinda flushed. Did you not sleep well?”

“I - I actually slept very well, Bokuto-san. Thank you,” he says again, and he feels himself really turn red now at repeating himself.

He turns to grab silverware, but he saw Bokuto’s eyebrows climb, and he knows he didn’t do a great job at hiding his blush.

Once he turns back, he finds that Bokuto’s still staring at him, slight concern on his face, and he finds he’s at a loss for what to say.

He’s uncomfortable in a way that he normally isn’t with Bokuto again, like when they’d talked about Miya, but now it’s just them and no one else between them.

Despite the ease of last night after – well, after he’d felt his heart thump in his chest and somehow fell easily to sleep, now his thoughts are buzzing. His mind is coming awake. He’s taking in this beautiful man in his kitchen who stood up when he came out of the bedroom and gave him a good morning kiss and made him coffee and breakfast.

And Keiji’s heart thumps, thumps, again, again.

He can’t help himself. As he looks back at Bokuto leaning easily there, those eyes searching his face, he can’t help but question it – question if Bokuto’s just being kind. Because Bokuto is, if nothing else, so, so kind. So generous. So good.

Too good.

And he wonders if Bokuto’s going to make sure Keiji has slept well and wakes up happy and has coffee and has breakfast - and then if he’s going to leave. If he’s going to leave now that Keiji crossed the line right there between them after everything and made it so that they can’t go back to how things were. He wonders if Bokuto will leave now that things have changed - and never come back.

And the thought of it, the idea of it clanging through Keiji’s brain makes him suddenly nervous. It makes him feel so much in a way that he hasn’t in a while, and he says, “Bokuto-san - ”

“Akaashi -”

Keiji snaps his mouth shut, and Bokuto laughs lightly.

“Sorry,” Bokuto says. He folds his arms across his chest. “You first.” His biceps pull at the hem of his sleeves, and Keiji thinks, a little wildly, of how he had run his hands over them, how he’d clutched at them while they –

“Last night was a mistake, right?” Keiji blurts out, hoping to say it first, to let Bokuto know that he recognizes what happened, that he understands. “I didn’t - I mean. I’m sorry. We probably shouldn’t have -” he trails off, his voice growing quiet as Bokuto’s smile fades, his expression evening out in the pregnant pause between them.

Something strange passes over his face. It’s a quick thing, a shift of his features, his lips pressing tightly together, eyes narrowing, before he smiles again lightly. “Right. Right! Yeah. Yes.”

“Yes,” Keiji repeats. “We can - can we just - ” he pauses, scrambling for what to say to keep Bokuto here despite what they had done – what Keiji had done - despite what has changed. “Can we just go back to how things were before -”

When he trails off again this time, it’s with the tone of a question, and Bokuto just smiles and smiles like the expression is frozen on his face.

“Sure, Akaashi,” Bokuto says, his voice low. It’s a rough sound, not unlike the soft, sleep-rough tone from just moments before, but it’s heavy, and Keiji’s stomach sinks with its weight. But then Bokuto says next, “‘Course. Anything you want.”

Still, that frozen smile remains. And Keiji is drawn to it less from the charm of compulsion than the cloying pull of dread. It’s unlike any he’s seen on Bokuto yet. It fits so oddly on his face that Keiji looks away.

He doesn’t know what it means, that smile, when even from the start he has known what every smile on Bokuto’s face has meant.

Bokuto is like an open book, willing and ready to give and to give and to share and to welcome in strangers who are raw and broken, shattered things. And looking at that mask of a smile, Keiji feels so terribly unsettled, nervous, anxious.

He knows he has messed this up now, a good thing, a great thing, and he can’t seem to get it back on track. He’s done this before.

This was how it started, he thinks. This was how it ended. With Haru.

Keiji had made a mistake – there had to have been one that finally tipped the scales – and the rest, their entire relationship had snowballed from there. And Keiji had thought, had hoped, maybe, that perhaps his friendship with Bokuto would be different. That Keiji might be enough, might not mess it up enough to –

But then Bokuto says, “But - you can’t bail on me, okay?”

The familiar words resound in Keiji’s memory, echoing as he looks up sharply.

Bokuto’s smile is smaller now, but suddenly, again, familiar and fond. A hint of humor threads through his tone as he finishes his line, “I’ll be a wreck.”

And the book spills open to the page in Keiji’s mind forever marked with the moment this all began - when he’d met Bokuto for the first time. When he’d looked at Bokuto’s dejected form on that park bench, feeling his heart break and seeing the same feeling mirrored in this perfect stranger.

And since then, from that inauspicious first meeting, Bokuto had always been the one to reach out the proverbial hand. And every grasp of his palm since then, every smile, every gesture, like the one weighted in his words right now, is a new moment that takes them further and further from the precipice of being just strangers to set them on more solid ground.

Now, that stranger from months ago is a stranger no longer. He is much, much more. And, just as he’d been hard-pressed to refuse Bokuto’s offered hand then, Keiji finds himself unable to do so now.

He nods. “Okay, Bokuto-san,” he says quietly.

Keiji takes in Bokuto from across the kitchen, the easy and sweet expression on his face familiar and comforting once more beneath his still sleep-rumpled hair, limned and glowing in the warm swathe of the morning light.

And he watches the sun rise in Bokuto’s growing smile. “Of course,” Keiji says.

///

Keiji initially thought he knew how it started. He thought he could recognize the moment - the downhill slope, the sudden slip, the fall. He thought it started with a smile - one for him alone, born from an offer, of just this – himself.

But then he realized that wasn’t quite true.

This is how it really happens:

It starts with a boy flowing with the current of his parents’ expectations, allowing himself to be swept away with the responsibility of his future.

It starts with a visit to a high school and a lukewarm interest in keeping up with at least one activity in preparation for university applications.

It starts with stepping into a gymnasium. It’s a gym bag over one shoulder, yellow lights, Salonpas and sweat, sneakers squeaking and a whistle blowing.

It’s seeing a boy leaping for a toss, the arch of his spine, the curve of his arm, the shine of his golden eyes gleaming brighter than the overhead lights shining down on him like a spotlight.

It’s an idle fleeting thought – he is a star – and then: SLAM. The ball smashes into the ground. The boy lands in a crouch. He pumps a fist into the air with a triumphant shout, “Hey, hey, hey!”

Then he pulls to a stand and looks over his shoulder.

Keiji only realizes then that he had made a sound, his mouth is still in the shape of a small ‘O’ of surprise in its wake.

And just before the other boy turns away, Keiji sees it there, for the first time in his life, writ across his face as if in a harsh, bold font: desire, passion, love.

Keiji’s surrender to the riptide of his first path halts with a crash, an echo of the first, like he’s been caught unaware and tumbled by a wave.

SLAM.

His entire world shifts on its axis. Up becomes down. Left becomes right. Forwards becomes backwards.

It’s the first time he’s ever felt this way – as if he’s been sinking his entire life beneath the pressure of someone else’s current, and suddenly, here he is, watching this boy turn away and being swept, suddenly, into a realization that he can follow his own current – and seek his own direction. That there may just be desire, passion, and love of his own.

It feels like a relief. Like a release.

Still, that’s only how it starts.

///

(end of part 2)

Chapter Text

The next time Bokuto comes over for dinner, his hair’s dripping again. It’s so wet that Keiji presses at the bridge of his glasses with his middle finger. He stares with exasperation at the dark splotches on Bokuto’s shoulders where the gray material of his shirt has turned nearly black.

“Akaashi! Hi! You look nice!” Bokuto says in a rush.

“And you look very wet,” Keiji replies, but he smiles in response anyway at the greeting because he’s only in plain work clothes that Bokuto has seen now multiple times. Bokuto, wet t-shirt aside, looks fresh and put-together even after clearly rushing out from his practice facility after showering. He’s in sweats again. As Bokuto does impatient calf raises there in the doorway, Keji’s eyes slip down to how his thighs pull at the fabric around his legs.

“Are you gonna let me in?” Bokuto asks. When Keiji darts his eyes up, Bokuto’s eyebrows are raised high and his eyes are wide.

Keiji reins in a blush at being caught staring and steps to the side. “You need to dry your hair after you shower, Bokuto-san,” he says brusquely to cover for himself. “Or you’ll get sick. And then I will get sick.”

“Aghashee!” Bokuto says, his voice near a whine as he shuts the door and trails behind Keiji to the linen closet. “I don’t want you to get sick.”

When Keiji draws out a towel, Bokuto tips his head forward, so Akaashi goes ahead and helps towel his hair dry. If he’s fighting back a smile, half fond and half relieved at the normalcy of the atmosphere between them, Bokuto can’t see it as he starts talking about his day with his hands braced on his knees.

Keiji had been nervous since Bokuto had spent the night last week. He still remembers, though it’s been years now, that after being with Haru for the first time, things had changed drastically. They’d danced around each other for weeks, and afterward, it had been as if there were more questions than answers about what they were to one another, where they were headed, what Keiji should do next to keep Haru interested.

But he should have known better. This is Bokuto, and Bokuto has never given him a reason to be nervous before. After that night, Bokuto had still been there in the morning – with breakfast, with a kiss, with a step back when Keiji had asked for one even if it had not been in so many words. And here Bokuto is again, as if nothing has changed, as if there are no answers are needed, as if Keiji shouldn’t feel any pressure at all to even ask the questions in the first place.

And so he takes a breath, and he dries Bokuto’s hair, and he lets his nerves settle.

And he thinks, to sustain this, to keep this easy atmosphere for as long as he can when he’s lost so much already, Keiji can compartmentalize that night, file it away, and only return to it later when the need and that wave of want crests again – as it will, as it does now, often, in the secrecy of the dark when he can pretend he is not at risk of accidentally pushing another person away.

When Keiji draws the towel away, Bokuto looks up past clumped strands of black and gray hair, the glow of his eyes bright with humor and something Keiji can’t quite identify.

“Thanks, Akaashi,” he says. It’s a quiet tone, and strangely intimate.

Keiji swallows, turning away to take the towel to his hamper. “Of course,” he says.

Over dinner, that strange intimacy feels like static buzzing along his skin. It doesn’t make Keiji nervous, but it does make him hyper-aware of everything: the sideways glances Bokuto slides his way, the casual comfort of knocking elbows, and the warmth of Bokuto’s thigh along his own here on the sofa as they eat.

It seemed natural for them to sit close to one another, like it was stranger to sit on opposite ends of the sofa. And now, it’s as if Keiji can not only sense more, but that he feels more – as if this night, despite many nights just like it over a handful of months now, is different.

He knows what it is. He knew what it was the other night when he’d bridged the distance between them – when he’d chosen intimacy over self-restraint, desire over deliberation, and selfishness over common sense. It’s the thread of want that winds through him still, despite already having been with Bokuto once. And, even now that he’s trying so hard to ensure he hasn’t ruined everything good between them, it draws him in further, like a riptide that, again, may only serve to drown him.

“I can hear you thinking,” Bokuto says, elbowing him lightly. “Also, you ate my dumplings while you were thinking.”

Keiji looks down. His plate is still half full, but his fork is halfway over Bokuto’s. “They were good,” he says.

Bokuto just laughs and transfers the last one onto Keiji’s plate. “I’m done anyway!”

Keiji eyes a splotch of sauce staining Bokuto’s mouth and instinctively forgoes passing him a napkin for reaching out and brushing it away.

Bokuto’s jaw is freshly shaven. There are no bristles beneath the pad of Keiji’s thumb, just smooth, soft skin. He only realizes he’s staring – again – a few beats later. He registers that he’s just resting his hand there, cradling the sharp angle of Bokuto’s jaw, the bit of sauce long wiped away and replaced instead by the slow crawl of movement beneath his fingers as Bokuto’s lips tip up into a smile.

“Thanks,” Bokuto says. He looks amused rather than bewildered, which is how Keiji feels as he just stares and stares, wondering at his own thoughtlessness, at this reckless impulsiveness when normally he is so resolutely calculated.

He sits back slowly, as if still magnetized forward, the pull of Bokuto’s attention seeming to drag him further in. Swallowing past the dryness in his throat, he looks away, his appetite gone in the midst of the flood of something unfamiliar – though not necessarily unwelcome – filling him in its place.

This is not the slow pull that he’d felt with Haru, the gradual ease into a relationship of Keiji’s own choosing. This is something else altogether, creeping up and rising without Keiji’s typical consideration and sound judgement.

“You’re a messy eater, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says. His voice is a bit rough, so he clears his throat.

“I know,” Bokuto says. “So are you though!” His smile grows as he reaches out in return. His palm feels so broad against Keiji’s jaw, the rough slide of his thumb lighting up Keiji’s nerves. Bokuto draws back, a grain of rice there on his thumb. He winks as he bites it off his fingertip.

Keiji is at a loss for words. Luckily, Bokuto doesn’t seem to expect anything as he sits back.

And then Keiji can barely even swallow as he mirrors him and sits back too.

This is not what he had planned. He hadn’t meant to lean in, to get closer. He had meant to step back instead, just a bit, just to take a breath and realign his thoughts on a more sane and realistic track.

It has been a few months now since his breakup with Haru – a few months of knowing Bokuto, of having another friend he’s as close to as he is with Kenma. And Keiji is wary of losing someone else in his life now, hesitant about crossing a line, worried about showing the faulty parts of himself that drove Haru away – especially when he might expose those sides of himself to someone as bright as Bokuto.

Especially after realizing that he had perhaps been a bit in the dark before him.

He thinks then of the reason he had invited Bokuto over. The desire to share, to open up a memory dogeared for its importance, for someone who was an open book from the start. That desire, among others, has been nearly overwhelming for the past week – even in spite of the nerves overtaking him after what transpired between them.

Yet the truth of their acquaintance, of Keiji’s past and the serendipity of his present with Bokuto, is the sort of secret he is unwilling to keep when the thought of it brings him such warmth – enough that it is worth sharing, like a favorite book, worn from being paged through by rough fingertips in the mind and heart.

Keiji speaks before he can think on it further and dissuade himself from moving forward. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he says.

Bokuto’s attention swings immediately in his direction, his large form twisting, one arm coming up to settle on the backrest of the couch behind Keiji’s shoulders. It positively radiates heat, and it takes an effort for Keiji not to lean into it, to move closer still.

“Me too!” Bokuto exclaims, eyebrows going up, his expression so painfully earnest that Keiji feels his chest constrict with endearment. And then Bokuto seems to reel himself in. “But you go first, Akaashi.”

Keiji bites down on a smile at the conciliatory tone, his curiosity rising at Bokuto’s clear excitement. “Well, it’s rather hard to explain,” he says slowly. He feels doubt curl in the back of his mind. “I –” he pauses, thinking quickly. “I’d rather show you, actually.”

Bokuto tips his head to the side, his hair slips softly over where confusion wrinkles his forehead. “It’s a present?”

Keiji smiles. “Not quite. Just – I think you’ll like it. I think you’ll laugh, really.”

“A surprise, then!”

“Yes, I suppose it is that.” Keiji pushes up to a stand and moves toward his desk and the file cabinet beneath it. He rummages around, searching, but he soon realizes that it’s missing and where it must be. “I must have left it at Haru’s,” he says under his breath.

“I’ll get it,” Bokuto says immediately.

Keiji peers over his shoulder at the sudden change in tone. Bokuto is still seated as he was, arm thrown over the back of the couch as he watches Keiji instead of the TV, but the terseness of his voice is echoed in the tight line of his shoulders, the stiff smile on his face.

“I don’t mind going,” Keiji says, but he finds he’s not actually certain how he feels.

He still thinks about it, sometimes, the home he left behind. There’d been comfort in its familiarity, perhaps as much as he finds comfort now in his new home, in this new life without Haru.

Even still, there hangs the specter of his own failures from his previous relationship adding weight and pressure, like a spotlight is on him to correct his mistakes this time, despite what he already has done wrong in his relationship with Bokuto.

“You do though,” Bokuto insists. “I can tell.”

Keiji shuts the file cabinet door slowly. “I can manage,” he says. When he sits back down next to Bokuto, Bokuto taps at his fingers, where Keiji is tugging at his knuckles.

“I’ll go with you then,” Bokuto says.

“I couldn’t ask that of you, Bokuto-san,” Keiji replies, his hands stilling in his lap.

“You didn’t. I’m offering! I’ll be tied up in meetings and press shit soon since we’re heading into the new season, so how about this weekend? I’ll text him now.” He waves his phone, smiling normally again.

Keiji simply nods, swept up in the easy confidence Bokuto exudes, in the depth of his own gratitude for this level of generosity. “Thank you,” he says, but his sincerity doesn’t feel like nearly enough.

Keiji doesn’t know what Bokuto says in his text, only that he nods just once after typing for a minute, and then he sets his phone face down on the coffee table.

“Was there something you wanted to say as well, Bokuto-san?” Keiji asks, remembering Bokuto’s excitement from earlier.

Bokuto doesn’t look at him immediately. Instead, he stares fixedly at the TV, his elbows settling on his thighs, his hands folded lightly between his knees. A strange look crosses his face. It’s a quick thing, a shift of his features, his lips pressing tightly together, eyes narrowing, before he smiles again lightly.

“Right! Yeah. Yes.”

Keiji watches him carefully, notes the way his brow tightens with frown lines before it evens out.

“How’s – uh – how’s Myaa-sam?” Bokuto asks.

Keiji gets the sense that this was not what Bokuto meant to say, his tone much less enthusiastic from earlier when he’d declared his desire to speak, but Keiji answers anyway. “We decided to just be friends.”

“Oh!” Bokuto says, voice going high as if he’s surprised and his eyebrows arching over eyes that dart in his direction. “Really! That’s – oh.”

“It’s all right.”

“Well,” Bokuto says, but then he pauses. He looks down at his hands. Keiji watches his knuckles turn white with a tight grip before color floods back in on a release of pressure. “I still know tons of other great guys, Akaashi, who I could set you –”

“If it’s all the same to you, Bokuto-san,” Keiji cuts in quickly, “I think I need a break from meeting anyone else.”

At that, Bokuto’s shoulders ease, lines of tension bleeding away. Keiji hadn’t even realized that he looked stiff beforehand.

“Yeah!” Bokuto exclaims. “Good! I mean – are you sure?”

“I’m sure. But thank you. For everything.”

Bokuto is nodding before Keiji can even finish thanking him. “Of course. Yeah! Anything for you, Akaashi! But we’re still gonna hang out a lot though, right?”

Keiji offers a light smile and smiles wider still when Bokuto’s expression brightens in response.

Still, Keiji finds that he is mildly confused, perhaps concerned, that Bokuto seems to have thought that their time together has only been a product of his promise to set Keiji up with one of his friends – and to find a replacement for Haru.

And maybe it did begin that way, but a part of Keiji had known, perhaps even from the start, that he was never going to settle with any of them. He had never been the rebound type, after all. And he hadn’t been ready.

Besides, he’d already had Bokuto to contend with and his lingering guilt, as well as his constant companionship a few times a week for lunches or dinners – all warm smiles and a large presence – and Keiji thought that was enough, for now.

And so, like always, when Bokuto asks something of him, just as it had been from the start, and after everything that has come after it, Keiji finds that he can do nothing but agree and say, “Of course, Bokuto-san,” and mean it with his whole heart.

///

When Keiji steps beneath the broad awning of his old apartment building, Bokuto is already standing there, arms folded and shifting from foot to foot like he’s antsy.

Instead of a usual bright greeting, when Bokuto’s eyes land on Keiji, he jogs over and says, “He’s not gonna be there. He said he’d leave the key under the front mat for us.”

It occurs to Keiji then that he doesn’t know how much Bokuto and Haru have been in touch. He’d steadfastly avoided talking to his ex entirely. But Haru was Bokuto’s ex too, and Keiji had selfishly compartmentalized that bit of information away as much as possible. It had taken little effort though. Something about Bokuto made it easy to forget the sordid impetus for their friendship and the circumstances around its continuity, especially months later after growing closer.

“Hello, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says pointedly. “I appreciate your company today.”

“Hi, Akaashi,” Bokuto says almost reflexively. “Of course! Did he reach out to you too? I told him not to.”

“He did not. He –” Keiji pauses. “He’s always been considerate.”

“He’s selfish,” Bokuto replies firmly.

The glaringly obvious proof of that point stands at over 190 cm before Keiji right now, but he allows that fact to slide past. Keiji supposes that he has always been a bit too gracious to Haru. Again, the proof point stares back at him with a concerned yet agitated expression.

Keiji gestures toward the lobby doors and adjusts his messenger bag over his shoulder. “Shall we?”

When they get upstairs, Keiji catches one glimpse of the man walking down the hall toward them – the familiar gait, the casual brush of a hand through sleep-tousled brown hair, the upward flick of warm brown eyes – and it’s like the crest of a wave of cold water rushes over him. It feels like he’s drowning again.

He’s only startled out of the feeling when Bokuto’s hand presses hard against his sternum, shoving him back.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Bokuto says as he steps forward. His tone is oddly quiet, reserved, weighted with tension.

“I live here,” Haru says easily.

It is such a familiar motion, the way Haru’s shoulders draw back and his chin tilts up, like he used to do sometimes before he walked out of their apartment just before heading to an interview. But instead of looking at himself as if to don his confidence like armor, he stares down the hallway at them. His eyes dart from Bokuto to Keiji, then to the hand Bokuto still has on Keiji’s chest.

Keiji steps back from the warmth of that hand, suddenly self-conscious. “Hello, Haru,” he says.

Bokuto spares one glance back at him over his shoulder before taking a step to the side as if to block Keiji from Haru’s view, or vice versa.

In response, Haru tips his head exaggeratedly to peer past him, eyebrows raised. “Hi, Keiji,” he says lightly.

Bokuto makes a frustrated noise and shifts to block Keiji entirely. “You said you weren’t gonna be here!”

Haru straightens, his eyes tracking lazily back to Bokuto as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “You’re here early. And you didn’t give me an exact time either,” he replies easily. His eyes meet Keiji’s over Bokuto’s shoulder before slipping away again. “I figured you’d be here later. Keiji doesn’t like waking up early on the weekends.”

“I know that!” Bokuto says, the volume of his voice rising, the sound of it echoing in the hall uncontested.

Keiji’s attention darts from the way Bokuto’s back tightens in front of him to what he sees of the appeasing smile spreading onto Haru’s face over Bokuto’s shoulder.

It’s not Haru’s kind smile either. Instead, it’s the one Keiji knows means Haru is out of patience but trying to be civil.

“You ‘know that,’ huh?” Haru asks, clearly forcing humor into his tone. And, still, that smile spreads. He looks at Keiji again.

Keiji swallows. He knows what this looks like, what Bokuto’s reactions might imply with his stance, his defensiveness, and his acting as an intermediary. And the knowledge that Keiji has been intimate with both of these men hangs over him as he stands there, immobile and speechless, fully aware of the mistakes he’s made with the both of them.

He glances down, half to avoid looking at Haru’s expression any longer and half to settle his own thoughts, and he sees that Bokuto’s hands are balled into tight fists.

At that, Keiji is pulled immediately from his paralysis. He reaches out to tap at knuckles turning white with pressure, the action an echo of Bokuto’s own constant gesture whenever Keiji fidgets nervously with his fingers.

“It’s all right, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says, forcing his tone to be light. “Would you mind waiting downstairs? I’ll be quick.”

Bokuto whirls around to face him. “What? Akaashi!”

“It’s fine.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I won’t keep him long, Bokuto,” Haru interjects, and Keiji shoots him a quick glance. Haru raises his brows in response, then smiles again, like this is an inside joke.

Keiji feels his chest tighten at the familiarity of this too – of speaking with a look, of having an easy understanding with someone else in this way. But, unlike so many other times in the past when that sense of shared understanding felt so warmly intimate, it rubs Keiji the wrong way now that it is at Bokuto’s expense.

“You don’t get to –” Bokuto starts, but Keiji quickly cuts him off in an attempt to separate them.

“Since you’re here, perhaps you can just let me in,” he tells Haru over Bokuto’s shoulder. Then, to Bokuto, he says again, “I’ll be quick.”

He taps on Bokuto’s clenching and unclenching fist one more time, an appeal for trust, and Bokuto sighs loudly, dropping his shoulders. “Ten – no, five minutes,” Bokuto says, pointing at him, “and then I’m coming back up for you, okay? I don’t trust him!”

Keiji feels his face start to flush at Bokuto’s protective behavior in Haru’s presence, but he nods sharply in an effort to speed things along. “Five minutes.”

When Bokuto walks off with a few last glances back, Keiji leads the way toward the apartment. He feels Haru’s eyes on his back, and he tries to tamp down on the unease whirling in his belly, writhing up his chest.

There are a number of things Haru could say now, after seeing him and Bokuto together. Despite Keiji’s relief that Bokuto had offered to come with him today, he can’t help but feel self-conscious about what it looks like, what it might mean to Haru, what it might mean period.

It has only been a few months, after all. Haru may have been guilty of infidelity, but perhaps Keiji too was guilty in his own way now.

As he pulls to a stop by the familiar door, Keiji looks up to meet Haru’s gaze, which has already landed and settled on him in return.

Keiji steels himself then. Haru, though he was always considerate to Keiji, did also have a tendency to snap back defensively when he felt he’d been slighted in any way. And so Keiji waits for the condemnation or a snide remark, if only for Haru to even out the playing field between them after Bokuto’s display.

Yet, as they stare at one another, his entry into the apartment held hostage by Haru’s whim in the pause of his key at the lock, Keiji sees the moment Haru makes the conscious decision to refrain from saying whatever has been on his mind since seeing Keiji and Bokuto there in the hallway together. Instead, he shakes his head and inserts the key.

“It’s good to see you, Keiji,” is all he says.

Keiji just nods, afraid he’ll collapse from relief if he speaks then, and follows Haru inside.

It’s like walking into a time capsule. Though it has only been a few months since he had last been here, it already feels foreign. It’s as if a different version of himself had lived here – one who used to stay up waiting for Haru to come home under the pretense of working late on his tablet, drank wine he hated, and stared at a clock that ticked forward but felt like a countdown.

In the end, he hadn’t had much to move out. And as he looks around, it looks like nothing is even out of place – as if nothing is missing, as if an entire person had not just months earlier left not only a partner but an entire life and hopeful future behind.

The idea of it is jarring, frightening even, that Keiji can recognize so little of himself here. The realization hits him that he’d left so small a mark that perhaps he had been so little a part of Haru’s life that he’d made no dent in this space even when it had been shared.

And it is clear then, more than ever in the days, weeks, and months of sleepless nights and dark daydreams, that perhaps Keiji really had just been a blip, a transient character in Haru’s story, easily forgettable and then, predictably, easily forgotten.

What hurts worse is that Keiji had always thought that Haru had been everything to him in return. Keiji had consciously waded into their relationship and invested in their life together. But it’s so clear now too that he had been wrong to do so – had been wrong about what they were to one another, especially when it is suddenly so clear that Haru has moved on so easily, as if Keiji had never even been here.

It strikes him again, as it did early on, that perhaps his view of reality is skewed. He may be logical, analytical, and calculated, but something was not right here, and he never even noticed. Not until it was already too late.

A lump in his throat makes it difficult to swallow, and Keiji makes his way toward Haru’s desk, quickly rummaging through the drawer beneath it. His eyes are dry, but still his vision blurs as he searches for the right folder.

When he finds it, some of his mental clarity returns through the cold haze. As he peers between the sleeves, his eyes catch on the gold Fukurodani Academy crest at the top of the recommendation letter, his name inscribed on the greeting line in crisp black ink.

Yes, he thinks, Bokuto will most definitely be pleased. He thinks Bokuto might even laugh. The coincidence of it, the potential crisscrossing trajectory of their lives is so tangible a thing right here in his hands. What could have been. What happened anyway. Something dated, kismet, nearly unbelievable. The mere idea of it breaks through the heavy feeling in his chest and allows him room to breathe.

“Find what you were looking for?” Haru asks.

Keiji nearly jumps. He snaps his head up, and he wonders how long he’d been staring down at the letter. He lifts the file out and turns, waving it lightly before he places it gently into his bag.

“Bokuto might break down the door at any moment,” Haru jokes, turning the face of his watch in Keiji’s direction.

Keiji manages to smile. “He is – quite enthusiastic,” he says. Fondness curls in his voice, and he can’t bring himself to try to mute it – not for Haru, not for anyone or anything.

Haru’s smile slips. The appeasing front he’d carried since the hallway when facing Bokuto slips with it, and Keiji feels almost distant from Haru then, numb with a certain painful sort of disbelief, like the cracks between them are fracturing more still to create a chasm. So much has changed in so little time, this distance so easily widened when Keiji has spent so long trying and failing to hold this man closer.

This is an end, Keiji thinks helplessly. The length of his blip, his part in Haru’s story, will be over as soon as he walks out of his home of over three years. He knows he won’t ever be returning here again.

In the pregnant pause that hangs a beat too long between them, Keiji says, “Thank you for letting me come by.”

“Of course,” Haru says, following him to the door. He watches as Keiji reaches for the handle, and then he says, the words slipping out in a rush, “We were good together, weren’t we, Keiji? For a while there. A long while, I thought. We were doing okay.”

Keiji looks over his shoulder, his mind drifting to Kenma and fond head pats and a sad smile.

(“Are you happy?”)

“We were okay,” Keiji agrees.

“I really did love you, you know,” Haru says. He smiles again, and this time it isn’t wrought with a feeble attempt at keeping the peace. It’s a small thing, but genuine, almost charmingly shy. It is reminiscent of their first dates together, of first moving in together, of waking up at the same time even though they had conflicting schedules – just to be together a little bit longer first thing in the morning. It is a remnant of something Keiji realizes he held onto for too long when it was clear it had long disappeared before the end.

“I loved you too,” Keiji says, and it’s in the past tense, heavy with the bittersweet memory of a failed love.

When he walks away from Haru for the last time, the sound of the door closing between them feels like the period at the end of a sentence, at the end of a chapter, at the end of a story. He only wonders whose story he’s stepping into now.

(“‘Okay’ is not ‘happy,’ Keiji.”)

Keiji adjusts his bag over his shoulder and heads back down to return to Bokuto.

///

When he walks back outside, Bokuto is pacing. His head is ducked down, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his team jacket.

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji says.

Bokuto whips his head up, a smile lighting his face like it’s automatic before it evens out again. “You okay? Did he try anything, or - ”

Keiji smiles easily back, relieved to have walked out for the last time. “No. It’s done,” he says.

Bokuto nods quickly. “Did you punch him?”

“What?” Keiji asks blankly.

“He deserves it.”

Keiji is startled into a laugh.

“Don’t! Don’t laugh!” Bokuto says. “It isn’t funny!” He shoves his jacket sleeves up his forearms like he’s thinking of doing something terrible.

Keiji reaches out, pressing his free hand to Bokuto’s chest reassuringly. “Please take a deep breath, Bokuto-san. I found what I came for. Everything is fine.”

“Why are you so calm?” Bokuto asks. He looks inordinately upset.

“I’m –” Keiji pauses to consider. And it isn’t that he’s calm. He thinks he may be a little numb, perhaps even overwhelmed enough that his ever-buzzing mind is utterly blank. “It was just – strange – seeing him again after so long.”

“So you forgave him? Just like that?” Bokuto’s accusatory tone makes Keiji’s stomach twist beneath an already raw feeling in his chest.

Defensiveness rises in his throat, and he fights to rein it in. He reminds himself that Bokuto is merely being a good friend, and he is perhaps feeling uneasy from seeing his ex as well.

“We barely spoke, to be honest,” Keiji replies, aiming for a calm tone. “It was more like a goodbye. It’s nice to have closure, I suppose.” Bokuto looks ready to speak again, so Keiji holds up a hand and gestures down the street. “Should we go? I’d rather not linger here,” he says.

Bokuto stares for another beat before he shrugs, frustration holding steady in his form as much as in his expression.

They don’t part at the station. Instead, Bokuto follows Keiji onto his train. But where he is normally a comforting presence, now he is quiet and looming, like a heavy cloud about to break and cast ruin below.

When they arrive at his apartment, Keiji brings his bag into the living room and sets it on the couch. He thinks of the file within it, suddenly hesitant to draw it out. It doesn’t seem like the right moment, not with the tension that still hovers between them after seeing Haru together.

He turns to where Bokuto stands in the doorway. Bokuto fills the space as he usually does, but he still carries that cloud of tension as he shifts from foot to foot. Then he blurts out, “I don’t get why you’re not angry with him.”

Keiji withholds a sigh. “Because it’s over, Bokuto-san,” he says.

Instead of mollifying him, Keiji’s words seem to agitate Bokuto further. His eyes are intense, darker, transforming gold into copper in the morning light pouring into the room from the open windows. “You should’ve told him you’d never forgive him, Akaashi!” he cries. “You should’ve let me come in with you!” He steps forward then, his larger form for once seeming aggressive.

It’s so uncharacteristic, so different from how he normally is, that Keiji takes a startled step backward. “Why are you acting this way?” he asks.

Perhaps at registering Keiji’s retreat, Bokuto takes his own step back again and runs his hands through his hair, messing up the sharp peaks. “Are you thinking of getting back together with him?”

“Pardon?” Keiji asks, staring incredulously. He’s floored that Bokuto would even think such a thing. The pristine condition of the apartment despite his entire life being removed from it not too long ago is so fresh in Keiji’s mind that the mere idea of it is absurd.

“Is that why you don’t want to be set up on anymore dates? Why you wanted to go back there? Is this what you wanted to tell me the other night? Have you –”

“Bokuto-san, stop,” Keiji says firmly, but his voice shakes.

He’s growing increasingly flustered at the line of questioning, at the level of protectiveness, at the accusation, at the apparent insistence that Bokuto has any right to step in any more than he has already. As if he hasn’t done enough – both good and bad, inadvertently or not. As if Keiji deserves this shield of protection at all when he’d made his own choices.

And perhaps, in the end, that is the crux of it – what Keiji deserves.

He had chosen to stay in his long-term relationship. He had stepped further into its ever-cooling tide despite his best efforts to infuse it with heat when he knew, deep down, that it would only ever be lukewarm at best. That he was only ever mediocre at best. The proof of that was evident in his inability to maintain Haru’s attention even when he’d tried so hard and for so long.

A thought comes to mind – idle, fleeting. It is a hint of a realization of something that has been growing despite his self-preservation instincts fighting to bury it – all tied to a hope on a tether to a file folder in his bag. It centers on a memory long forgotten and recently surfaced – of desire, passion, and love.

“I can’t believe this!” Bokuto bursts out. “This is why I went with you! You’re not mean enough, Akaashi – only to yourself! Why do you do this?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Keiji says reflexively.

And perhaps, again, this is merely what Keiji deserves – for what he’s been unable to achieve. Despite his attempts to hope and to try and to find something for himself, it has been years since seeing Bokuto in that high school gym. And since then, nothing has changed. Keiji still lives like he’s tied to the current of someone else’s tide – carried further out to sea.

He could fight it. He could. But, instead, he’s frozen in the cold, unable to redirect or veer off on a new course – even with the light of a star shining for him, warming him for all of these months. His fear, his inadequacy, and his inability to change merely sharpen those still-broken pieces that he holds stubbornly tight, allowing them still to cut and rend inside him since the breakup.

And in this moment, in this raw and jagged state, Keiji finds himself at a complete loss beneath the weight of Bokuto’s words – and facing a sudden realization that he has, perhaps, been holding onto a desperate thread of hope. That maybe he has harbored that hope for years, and for years and years later still – for desire, for passion, for a love of his own.

And now, looking back into the spotlight of Bokuto’s gaze, Keiji sees the care there for something as small as this blip that was Keiji’s presence in Haru’s life like it is the greatest tragedy Bokuto’s ever seen. And it’s like Keiji’s failure manifests there like a specter between them, the end of his relationship with Haru the evidence of his attempt to find something of his own, and losing it.

He glances away from Bokuto’s agitated expression, disappointed in himself for even humoring the possibility of having this – him – when he’d already failed once so spectacularly.

Because how could someone who is as warm, as bright, as exceptional as Bokuto want to stay when Haru, who Keiji had been with for over three years, did not?

“You’re better than this,” Bokuto says insistently. “Better than him!”

“And what if I’m not?” Keiji says sharply, staring down at a stray thread on his sock, his thoughts still whirring. “Maybe it was my fault, Bokuto-san. Have you considered that?”

“No,” Bokuto says, shaking his head quickly. “No way. You –”

“I,” Keiji says, voice shaking with the amount of work it takes to keep his tone, his entire self, steady as words suddenly spill from his lips, “work too hard and too late – often. Too often. Haru used to mention it all the time. And I’m too rude with people. Blunt and unforgiving – obtuse, even. In case you have yet to notice, I also overthink things to the deleterious point of a near meltdown. I’m odd at times, perhaps mean-spirited, like he said. I – I can be honest about that, and I –”

“Akaashi, no!” Bokuto says, his voice growing in volume. “Those are not bad things about you! It isn’t fair that you’re making excuses for him at your own expense. He was a fucking idiot for saying those things, for making you – letting you ever think those things about yourself! He didn’t love you. Not like I –” he breaks off with a sharp inhale. When he speaks again, his voice is softer. “It’s just – he was a piece of shit, okay? Believe me.”

Keiji struggles to parse through the onslaught of Bokuto’s words, the shift in his tone and in the direction of their conversation, unable or unwilling to digest the way Bokuto corrected himself lest he drown in that single, stuttered gaff.

“Haru could have been awful today,” Keiji says. He aims to adjust for fairness because Bokuto seems to be biased in Keiji’s favor when Keiji had his own part to play in the end of their relationship, even if Haru had cemented that end in stone. “He could have said a number of hurtful things from an arsenal of three years together when we were at the apartment, but he didn’t.”

Haru had always prioritized winning where Keiji had always favored peacekeeping. During rare arguments, it was easier for Haru to mention Keiji’s faults when they were clearly apparent rather than for Keiji to snap back. Later, Haru would regret his words, and he would apologize profusely for any harsh truths he surfaced to win his case. Keiji, appreciative of the acknowledgment, would forgive him and, in turn, would learn from it. He valued those arguments if only to better recognize how to self-regulate, to edit his words, to find ways to make things work and solidify things between them again.

With Bokuto, however, it is so vastly different. Things feel too easy in a way that makes it all too difficult. Keiji never knows when he’s doing something wrong or when he oversteps because Bokuto makes it seem like Keiji never can, like Keiji never will. And the uncertainty of when the other shoe will drop – especially when Keiji is so good at messing things up – constantly hangs over him and fills him with dread.

When he looks up, Bokuto is looking back at him, eyes rounded with compassion – or pity – to such a degree that it strikes an involuntary spark of frustration in response.

“That isn’t a point in Haru’s favor, Akaashi,” Bokuto says insistently before Keiji can speak again. “You shouldn’t even have to worry about that. You shouldn’t have that hanging over you – not ever. Of course Haru could have cut you down. You said it yourself. He was your boyfriend for three fucking years. He probably knew you best. And even if the things he said were true, the truth doesn’t have to hurt. It shouldn’t, not like that, and not from someone who says they love you.” Bokuto’s voice softens into a gentle tone that is almost grating, because Keiji can’t look away from him. “He wasn’t doing you a favor by not hurting you, Akaashi. Can’t you see that?”

He pauses then, and Keiji can’t bring himself to speak past the painful lump in his throat, the blur before his eyes past the sting behind them.

The rational part of him registers the truth of the words, but he shoves it away in favor of preserving what’s left of his still-shattered heart. If he lets those words sink in, it is as if he is allowing three entire years of his life, years and years since high school even, to wither beneath the weight of his inadequacy – a waste.

Bokuto’s mouth twists into an ugly line. “The more I learn about him,” he goes on in the heavy absence of a response, “the more I hate him. He was a piece of shit for more reasons than just cheating on you.”

Keiji, desperately latching onto anything else to focus on but himself, says, “I doubt you’ve forgotten, but he cheated on you too, Bokuto-san. Why are you making this all about me?”

Bokuto gestures at him, huffing out an incredulous laugh. “Because he did this to you!”

Keiji mimics the gesture at himself. “Perhaps this is just how I am – always. You seem to have a deluded vision in mind of who I am. In case you missed it, I am a veritable mess. I am merely an overworked, sleep-deprived man who values his career over his loved ones. The result of which was driving his boyfriend into another man’s arms. I am –”

“No,” Bokuto says sharply. “Fuck that. No. You’re perfect. Exactly as you are. And you don’t feel like a mess always – not with me. Do you?”

Keiji is unsure of what to do with that, with the heavy and pointed tone infused into Bokuto’s voice. He is afraid of what it means when he can’t immediately refute the statement and says without thinking, “That's only because whatever this is isn’t – we’re not –” He trails off, mind suddenly moving at miles a minute. The sound of his own voice laying those words out in the open is like a deafening rush in his ears.

Bokuto eases his shoulders back where they’d curled forward and grows taller with it, his eyes narrowing, expression tightening as if he knows what Keiji was going to say. “Not what, Akaashi?” he asks quietly. “Tell me what this – between us – isn’t exactly.”

“It isn’t real,” Keiji bursts out. The painful truth of it draws the jagged edges of his shattered heart up his throat, making his voice crack. “It’s not real! This never should have happened. I don’t know why you keep – why you’re even –”

“Because I – I care about you!” Bokuto exclaims. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes!” Keiji exclaims.

“But why?” Bokuto shouts back, frustration painting his face more harshly than Keiji has ever seen it. “Because of what happened with Haru? Because it was me that broke you up?”

Keiji shakes his head. “No! Not just that. I don’t care about you and Haru. That doesn’t matter anymore. It’s – you – you’re you, Bokuto-san. You’re a star. You’re generous and kind and – and I’m just...this.”

He gestures at himself helplessly before shoving his glasses up over his forehead and digging his palms into his eyes to block out the sight of Bokuto’s expression before him.

“You’re the kind of person who someone ends up with at the end of the story. Alright?” Keiji says, quieter now. “And I’m just the one whose boyfriend cheats on him and leaves him behind. That’s where this ends. We part ways. You’ll go on and find and be happy with someone else who is perfect like you, and perfect for you, and I will remain here – like this. Just – just like this. And I – I can’t.”

When he lowers his hands and looks up, his face is a little wetter and his eyesight a little blurrier, but his heart still wrenches at the sadness written across Bokuto’s face – plain for Keiji to see even without his glasses on.

“Oh, Akaashi.”

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Keiji says. He attempts to dry his face with the cuffs of his sleeves, and then he stares down at them, startled at seeing the wet threads.

“Then please listen to what I’m trying to tell you,” Bokuto says. He ducks his head down until Keiji looks up enough to meet his gaze. “Haru was a fucking idiot, okay? He’s the one who was stupid and made the mistake of letting you go. You’re the one who deserves the happy ending in this story. You’re the – the – I can’t think of the word right now, but this is your life we’re talking about here. It’s about you. Not him! He’s nothing! And what you said – about me? He cheated on me too, remember? And we weren’t even together for long in the end. No one ever sticks around. You’re the one who –”

Keiji is already shaking his head before he cuts Bokuto off. “It was different for you,” he says. “And you know what? Perhaps you were the other guy, all right? I told you from the beginning. You’re only doing all of this out of a sense of misplaced guilt. Haru was supposed to be it for me. I let myself – I thought that if I could just – if I could –”

He trails off when he finally registers Bokuto’s expression, which cuts him off as swiftly as Bokuto’s words had earlier.

Before him, Bokuto looks absolutely stricken, stunned into silence, and Keiji suddenly wants to take back every word he has said.

Bokuto had been hurt too. And now here Keiji is – throwing it in his face because it is the only thing he can say to make Bokuto understand how terrible he feels, to make Bokuto feel as awful as Keiji does right now, and he hates himself for it.

He buries his head in hands, digging his palms into his eyes to stem the tide of his tears and letting out a sound of pure frustration. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he says into his hands. “That was unforgivable. I didn’t mean it. I –”

“Akaashi.” When Keiji doesn’t look up, he feels warm hands wind around his wrists. “Akaashi.”

Keiji takes a shuddering breath and allows his hands to be drawn away. Bokuto releases him, but he steps forward, no space now between them, and pulls him into his chest.

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji says. His words are muffled from how he buries his face into the crook of Bokuto’s neck. “You know I don’t actually believe that, right? You’re too good. I know you could never hurt anyone. You’ve done more for me than I – I only meant –”

“I know,” Bokuto says. The sound of his voice, the light rumble of it from Bokuto’s chest, is somehow immediately calming. “It’s alright. It’s okay.”

“It isn’t,” Keiji says, laughing to stifle the next rush of his own tears as he pulls away. Bokuto keeps him close though, his warm hands on Keiji’s shoulders work to fight back the cold rush inside that Keiji has been struggling to force back on his own.

“It will be,” Bokuto replies. His tone is confident, as if he knows this for sure, as if he is certain. His hand, when he reaches out and settles it at the crook of Keiji’s jaw, is broad and warm, steady and reliable.

And Keiji is helpless against the way his own body, his own traitorous heart – in spite of his ever-calculated and protective mind – sends him forward, closer, back into the certainty and comfort of Bokuto’s embrace.

///

This time, when they fall into bed together, it’s different.

When Bokuto kisses him, Keiji feels an overwhelming rush of relief. And when Keiji deepens the kiss, he isn’t driven only by selfishness and the greed of want, but by the chase for release, for absolvement. Still, there is that – the selfishness, the greed, the desire to have this, if only for right now.

But the heavy weight of facing truths too hard to bear fades beneath the growing heat between them. And Keiji melts into it.

He languishes in the rough glide of Bokuto’s hands over his waist, the small of his back; Bokuto’s mouth trailing wet kisses along the column of his neck, along his jaw, back to his lips; the slow roll of Bokuto’s hips against his and the deep rumble of a moan when Keiji meets each one with his own.

Their clothes become a trail of evidence of relinquishing tension, releasing inhibitions, discarding months of questions and doubts and fears to focus only on this, the present, without the layers of their shared history between them as a barrier.

Keiji welcomes Bokuto’s mouth opening against his, his tongue slipping past the seam of his lips. And he allows himself to be guided by the firm and growingly insistent press of Bokuto’s hands sliding back down to his hips to flex there, as if Bokuto is trying not to grasp too hard or move too fast.

But this could never be too much, Keiji thinks, and he kisses Bokuto deeper to invite more – everything and anything that Bokuto is willing to give him.

When Bokuto pulls him down onto the bed, his arms are so strong and heavy. Keiji couldn’t pull away now if the thought even crossed his mind. But it doesn’t. He lies along Bokuto’s body, grinds against the heat of Bokuto’s cock stiffening against his hip, and swallows the sound of Bokuto’s moan with another kiss.

Then Bokuto rolls them, letting Keiji relax into the pillows as Bokuto settles in the V of his legs, muted sunlight seeping in past the curtains to shine a light across so much skin, casting shadows along the contours of his body. He watches Bokuto smooth his hands along his thighs, spread them further and hike Keiji’s knee over his hip to shift closer still.

And when Keiji tilts his face up again, Bokuto is already looking back at him with soft eyes, bright and understanding and tender even in spite of having just seen firsthand and over the past few weeks and months the peeled-back layers of the truth of Keiji’s horrible mess of a life.

And he’s still right here, full of easy forgiveness and acceptance in a way that somehow soothes the nakedness of being so vulnerable and laid utterly bare. It should feel unexpected and startling. Instead, when he thinks about it, it is entirely expected – because this is Bokuto. It is pure-hearted, startlingly perceptive, and exceedingly generous Bokuto.

And so Keiji sinks into him, into this – drowns in the scent of sex and sweat and Bokuto, and lets the roar of it muddle – just for now, just for this – the buzz of his trepidation and doubt.

Last time, he thought, if he got the chance again, he’d take his time. He’d trace every line of Bokuto’s body, every inch of skin. He’d watch every expression at every press of his lips, every sucking kiss.

But he can’t seem to slow down.

Not when it feels like this is a gift – like it could be taken away as much as it has been given, as if it is not only the first time but like it could be the last.

And so he takes. And Bokuto lets him.

Bokuto lets him kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. And he lets Keiji shove him onto his back so Keiji can sit astride his waist. And Bokuto lets him reach toward his bedside table for a condom and lube and waits, patiently – always – as Keiji warms it between his fingers and reaches behind himself. It’s a familiar motion, but it’s foreign with those bright eyes watching his every move as if savoring every moment of this – almost as if it is a gift for him too.

And the thought of it spurs Keiji on faster. The stretch of the first finger hurts just a little, but the spotlight of Bokuto’s attention and the anticipation and desire curling warm and heavy low in his gut layers pleasure over the pain. It helps him relax into moving quickly from one finger to two.

Bokuto’s hands guide him in a slow grind over his cock turning slick from the lube dripping from Keiji’s fingers and ass, making the slide easier, hotter.

And Keiji finds a rhythm between fucking his own fingers and rolling his hips faster to tease Bokuto into full hardness beneath him – until one of Bokuto’s hands snakes back behind Keiji, tracing the cleft of his ass to slick a finger in the lube around his entrance before sliding in too.

Bokuto’s fingers are thick, hot like the rest of him, and Keiji can’t help but tip his head back, moan at the feeling of the first one breaching him alongside his own. Bokuto’s name is on his tongue, his own voice pleading for once, naming his own desire – for this, for more, for Bokuto. And he almost can’t contain himself when he gets it, when Bokuto responds with another finger pressing deep and an insistent hand gripping Keiji by the hair and drawing him into a hard kiss.

“Bokuto,” Keiji says, panting for breath as he pulls his own fingers away, greedy with what he has and wanting more. He’s unable to help but want more with Bokuto, always, despite his own cautionary nature, especially now with Bokuto beneath him looking like that and making him feel like this.

Bokuto’s eyes are dark with arousal and intense with focus as he keeps fucking two fingers in and ups it to three in the absence of Keiji’s. Keiji’s breath stutters out of him again as he plants his hands down on Bokuto’s chest and rides those fingers, lets them open him up further, get him ever closer to his climax.

“Akaashi, touch yourself for me?” Bokuto says, but his voice is so quiet and so deep it’s more of a command, low and rough. Keiji keens at the sound of it just as Bokuto curls his fingers and presses relentlessly at his prostate.

Keiji braces himself with one hand and gets his other around his cock. He doesn’t start slow, just uses the precum gathering at the tip to slick the way just a little, and jerks himself off fast, nearly sobbing at the overwhelming sensation of Bokuto’s fingers inside him, Bokuto beneath him, saying his name.

“Come for me, Akaashi,” Bokuto says then.

And Keiji, as in nearly everything else, finds himself unable to refuse Bokuto anything, even in this – especially in this – as his hips stutter in their rhythm to the pulse of Bokuto’s desire and at the peak of his own pleasure.

As he cums, warmth sears through him. The world is bright behind his eyes, blinding. And through it, he feels Bokuto there holding him steady.

When he blinks his eyes open again, Bokuto is guiding him onto his back, but he doesn’t move away.

“Bokuto,” Keiji starts to say, but Bokuto just kisses him. And then he shifts to press one kiss to each of Keiji’s eyelids. And Keiji keeps them closed to let him, takes the moment to breathe through the tremble in his thighs, the shake of his hands as he slides them across Bokuto’s shoulders and into his hair. He languishes in the trail of hot and wet kisses Bokuto presses along the column of his neck, his collarbone, and then his lips. When Bokuto presses his broad palms into Keiji’s thighs, Keiji just spreads them open for him to settle there again.

Bokuto pulls away then, pressing up onto his elbows over Keiji and looking down at him, a small smile on his face. “Let me have you, Keiji?” he asks. He presses back errant waves of Keiji’s hair falling over his brow, his touch gentle despite the burning heat in his gaze.

And Keiji can’t bring himself to speak. He just pulls Bokuto in by the shoulders and kisses him again, willing and needy with Bokuto right here, asking for him, wanting him. Keiji is burning not only from his own pleasure and the desire for more, but also with his own desperation to give back all that he can, even if it’s just this: himself.

Bokuto presses in, in, slowly, so slowly, and Keiji thinks of all the ways he’s opened himself up to this man. And he tilts his head back, and he gives himself over into the expanse of Bokuto’s hands as they glide across his skin, guiding him, coaxing him closer as they move in tandem to get ever closer to the brink, to an edge, to fall – together.

And it’s this, perhaps, that Keiji had been waiting for, had needed, had wanted all along. Body and mind and heart and soul for once aligned after years of forcing it and settling and avoiding.

It’s Bokuto gripping him beneath his knees and spreading him further open, thrusting deeper, deeper. It’s the feeling of vulnerability and being laid bare, open, so open, and taking and wanting in equal measure.

It’s Bokuto’s eyes slipping shut above him from the pleasure of this moment between them, his breath fighting for space against Keiji’s as he leans into the pull of Keiji’s arms around him to get closer, closer, again, again, more, more.

And then it’s Bokuto eyes opening to meet his own, the light in them like twin stars peering down and shining on Keiji as if, yes, Keiji is just this: himself. And still, even so, because of rather than in spite of it – an entire world.

///

Afterward, Keiji fights to catch his breath. Bokuto kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him one more time for good measure. When he pulls away, the sunlight streaming in behind him from the window limns him in light, makes him shine golden to match the bright smile on his face.

At the sight of him, like this in his bed, Keiji’s heart is a thundering stampede in his chest. It’s so loud and so harsh a beat that he presses a hand to his sternum as if to calm it and looks away as Bokuto rolls right off the bed.

And when Bokuto disappears into the bathroom to wipe himself off and freshen up, Keiji stares up at the ceiling, his breaths slowing, his skin cooling – and his thoughts pour in again.

He doesn’t mean to make the same mistakes. He doesn’t mean to succumb to the buzz and the jitter of the whir of his mind. He doesn’t mean to just wipe himself off with tissues from the bedside table and get dressed while waiting for Bokuto to return from the bathroom, as if he’s about to leave when they’re in his own apartment. He doesn’t mean to put his glasses on as if to clear his head, as if to clear his vision of a dream-like delusion cast like a shadow over reality.

But he does. He does. He keeps making the same mistakes. He keeps chasing what he can’t have only for a single prolonged moment of pretending he can keep it.

And so he sits on the edge of the bed, his fingers curling wrinkles into the hem of his shirt, his eyes burning a spot into the rug when he hears Bokuto’s footsteps approach as he tries to temper the force of his guilt at the mess he keeps making for the both of them.

“Akaashi?” Bokuto says. His voice is quiet, but his presence is as large as always.

Keiji can feel him fill up the room as he draws near, his shadow in the sunlight looming, the warmth of his body radiating. He watches Bokuto's bare knees settle on the carpet before him and only looks up when Bokuto ducks his head to catch his gaze.

“Akaashi?” Bokuto says again. “What’s going on?” His hands are hot like brands where they settle on Keiji’s knees. It’s a comforting touch, familiar even after so little time, and Keiji wants to lean in, to fall back into Bokuto’s arms. He knows, deep down and even closest to the surface within, that he wouldn’t have to fall far – because Bokuto is always there to catch him.

“Was this a mistake, Bokuto-san?” Keiji asks.

It’s quiet then. And when Bokuto responds, his voice is strangely lacking any inflection. “A mistake,” he repeats.

It hasn’t been 10 minutes since Bokuto rolled out of Keiji’s bed. Keiji still feels sparks crawling through his legs, satiation a warm curl in his chest and fulfilling low in his gut. But the sweat has dried, the mess has been cleaned away, and the drunken haze of arousal now muted.

And in the aftermath, Keiji remembers what it’s like to feel a cold, creeping tide lapping at his ankles even during a slow withdrawal, the lonely sensation of wet skin newly exposed to the air after he finally steps away, and he hopes, distantly, that he can still fix this before that happens again.

Maybe he can set them back on track after again crossing over the line between friendship into whatever it is that Keiji has selfishly pushed them toward.

And maybe they’ll be okay.

Okay is not happy, Keiji.

Keiji shoves the memory of Kenma’s words to the back of his mind again. No, okay is not happy, but okay is easier. It’s safer. And friendship with Bokuto is better than nothing at all. Keiji can live with that.

When he finally looks up to meet Bokuto’s gaze again, it’s not there to meet his own.

And it’s jarring, the sight before him, like Keiji has stepped into the wrong room, because Bokuto doesn’t look like himself then. He looks suddenly like he did that first evening when they met, history overlapping with the present to depict a dejected figure – shocked and hurt and devastated. His expression is hidden, but his head hangs low between his shoulders, his warm hands sliding slowly off of Keiji’s knees.

“No,” Bokuto says, his tone sharp this time. “No. It wasn’t a mistake to me.”

And when he looks up to meet Keiji’s eyes, Keiji feels cold, colder than he’s ever felt. He realizes that in the time he’s known Bokuto, it was him or Haru calling Bokuto a mistake. Keiji is horrified at the thought that he is the cause of this expression he sees now on Bokuto’s uptilted face.

“Is that all you think of me, Akaashi?” Bokuto asks, and Keiji swallows. “About this? Us?” Bokuto gestures between them, his eyebrows climbing. “Do you even want me? Did you ever?”

He smiles then, but it’s a brittle thing in how it settles there – the crooked line of his lips, the sheen growing in his eyes making them bright in a way Keiji never wanted them to be, not like this, not because of him.

Bokuto suddenly shakes his head and huffs out a laugh. “No. Of course you didn’t,” he says, his voice low as if he’s talking to himself as he stares down at his knees. “I’m such an idiot. I’m the rebound. Fuck.”

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji says in a rush.

But he doesn’t know what to say, how to explain himself, how to wipe away that expression from Bokuto’s face, to make it light up again.

This time Keiji has nothing left to offer as he sits there on the edge of the bed, having made the mistake of giving what little he had already in a moment of weakness, of indulgence, of selfishness as he took what he needed for himself. And in the aftermath, Bokuto is the one suffering for it.

“I can’t do this,” Bokuto says into the silence heavy with all the things Keiji does not have the bravery to say. “I’m really sorry, Akaashi. I can’t – I gotta go.”

Keiji’s fingers twitch, the urge to reach out, to hold onto Bokuto a near-overwhelming compulsion, but he’s learned by now when to let go – what it feels like to reach out and to try and to try for so long only to realize later that what he so desperately tried to grasp onto has already slipped through his fingers like water. And so he doesn’t reach out, doesn’t even try – doesn’t have anything to let go of at all as Bokuto cuts his eyes away.

Keiji watches as Bokuto pushes up to a stand, watches as he hastily pulls on his clothes, watches as he walks out of the bedroom without a backward glance.

And then he listens for the snick of the front door closing.

It comes, like he knew it would, and he stares down at the carpet where Bokuto had been on his knees. Then he buries his head in his hands and lets out a sound of pure frustration and self-deprecation. No one can hear it anyway. But no one is there any longer to pull him out of it either.

///

Bokuto doesn’t text Keiji after that. He doesn’t come over. He disappears completely.

Of course, it could be because the V. League’s pre-season has kicked off. Bokuto is likely knee deep in the press circuit and in exhibition matches, caught in the frenzy of sponsorship commitments and a regimented training schedule.

But Keiji knows that isn’t it.

(And if he has poured over news articles and video clips and practice matches online just to get a glimpse of Bokuto, then that is no one’s business but his own.)

Still, he manages. The following weeks barely take any adjustment with Bokuto gone – erased, like he had merely been a blip in Keiji’s story, a transient character passing through briefly and then forgotten.

But he isn’t forgotten. And that’s the issue.

Keiji doesn’t have homemade meals painstakingly prepared according to revered family recipes that leave his kitchen a mess. He doesn’t go to Onigiri Miya to pick up lunch for himself but to a subpar onigiri vendor a few extra blocks away. He doesn’t have office visitors but for the exception of nosy drop-bys from Asami asking after Keiji’s usual lunch companion.

He does, however, still go out for drinks with Kenma and his hanger on.

“Still not dating anyone new, Akaashi?” Kuroo asks, eyebrows raised and looking at the empty spot next to him. “Not interested yet in dipping your toes back into the sea, then?”

“Still here, pain-in-the-ass Kuroo-san?” Keiji replies after taking his time to swallow around a mouthful from his donburi bowl. “Kenma isn’t bored of you yet, then?”

Kuroo shoots a quick glance at Kenma, who is already glaring at him. “I was just asking!” he says, raising his hands up and smiling appeasingly. And then his face falls. “You’re not getting bored of me, are you, Kenma?”

Kenma redirects his gaze to his phone screen. “You’d know if I were bored of you,” he says.

Kuroo looks at Keiji with a fond yet mildly nauseating smile. “Ominous,” he says, as if drawing Keiji into an inside joke, as if Keiji would ever want to be a part of whatever is going on between them.

“What’s ominous is that you have yet to humble brag about your vegan diet,” Keiji says. “Have you abandoned it already?”

“You all are unfairly rude to me,” Kuroo says, sitting back. But his smile is pleased. “I’ve decided to ditch being vegan and go for being pescatarian, actually. The sea is a marvelous thing. So many fish. So little time. And I have a very ravenous appetite.”

“Boring,” Kenma says.

“I’m specifically talking about food!” Kuroo says, dropping his facetious smile. “Okay, I wasn’t. And maybe the metaphor was weak, but I was trying to ease into things! I’m a nice guy like that.”

“Spit it out then, nice guy,” Keiji says.

“He has tickets to the MSBY season opener,” Kenma says.

“Kenma! I was building up to the big reveal!” Kuroo cries.

“You were slow,” Kenma replies, but Keiji can see the hint of a smile that he tries to hide by ducking his head down.

From the way that Kuroo smiles again, more naturally this time, it’s clear that he sees it too. “Fine. Yes, I have tickets to the MSBY match,” he says, before nodding across the table at Keiji. “And you’re coming with us.”

Keiji shakes his head and pushes at what’s left of the rice in his bowl. “I highly doubt Bokuto-san would want me there. Perhaps you should invite one of his – friends.” He tries not to blush as the inadvertent slip, the emphasis on the word, the implicit question there.

Unsurprisingly, Kuroo picks up on it. Surprisingly, he doesn’t act like a shit about it. “Bokuto’s not dating anyone,” he says. His voice becomes gentler, kinder, in the way that makes his presence not so grating. “And he’d want you to be there, Akaashi.”

A few weeks ago, Keiji wouldn’t have doubted it. Bokuto had mentioned the opening match constantly, reminded Keiji nearly every time they got together or in his slew of texts reminding Keiji about their plans to get together, and slipped it into conversation as bluntly as Kuroo’s failed metaphorical conversation starters. Keiji had assured him every time that he would be there, of course he would, he wouldn’t miss it for the world.

But now, after everything, the decision to be there or not is not so simple. He wants to go. Of course he does. He hasn’t seen Bokuto in a couple of weeks now, and though he’s not in the same place as he was after breaking up with Haru, somehow this feels worse. Still, he’s functional – somehow moving forward even as his heart feels the absence of the one person who’d warmed it over the past few months.

Keiji glances at Kenma, who’s already looking back at him. “You think I should go too?” he asks.

Kenma shrugs. “Your choice,” he replies. But then he tips his head. “Would it make you happy?”

Keiji considers, and then he smiles, just a bit.

Kuroo raises his eyebrows. “Am I missing something here? I feel like I’m missing something here.”

“Not everything is about you, Kuroo-san,” Keiji says, just because he can, just because he feels lighter at sitting here with friends, even with one of them missing.

“Arguable,” Kuroo says, but he smiles back.

Keiji slides his eyes back to Kenma, who had tipped his face up to glance at Kuroo and seemed to get stuck staring at his smile. When Kenma notices Keiji’s attention, he turns back to meet his gaze. His lips crinkle into a mullish line at being caught out.

“How did you know that this –” Keiji gestures between Kenma and Kuroo across from him, “was what you wanted?”

He was talking to Kenma, but of course Kuroo speaks up. “Sometimes it’s just – easy,” he says. He settles his chin on his fist as he looks back at Keiji. His expression then is perhaps the most sincere that Keiji has seen yet, and the reason for it is the subject of his constantly sliding gaze.

“Excuse me?” Kenma says, tone dry.

“Not like that,” Kuroo says quickly. “But simple. You know?”

Kenma stares for another beat before he shrugs. “I’m simple,” he says. “You’re easy.”

Kuroo smirks. “Well.”

“Please stop,” Keiji says, but he’s biting back a smile as he watches them in turn.

He sees Kenma’s head dip just a bit toward his screen, but the side-eye sent in Kuroo’s direction doesn’t bypass Keiji’s notice. When he glances at Kuroo, he sees the normally rakish smile ease a bit more toward fondness again.

And Keiji thinks then that they’re both clearly right. Sometimes it is easy, simple. And a new thought belies the undercurrent of his constant sense of uncertainty and the lingering specter of his fears. Perhaps he’d mistaken desire and want for selfishness and indulgence. Perhaps he’d so skewed his reality during his relationship with Haru that, in the aftermath, now he’s overcorrecting.

Because nothing with Bokuto has ever been a question, and yet Keiji had found the simplicity of being with him, the ease of it, confusing.

But maybe that was because it was merely what it was – simple, easy – as some things are meant to be.

“All right, then,” Keiji says before he can think about it further.

Kuroo drags his gaze up to meet Keiji’s. “‘All right, then,’ what?”

“I’ll go to the MSBY match.”

Kenma nudges at his foot under the table with his own and then turns his full attention back to his phone. Keiji stuffs the last clump of rice from his bowl into his mouth and pretends that he doesn’t notice that Kuroo’s smile, like the rest of him, inside and out, is indeed quite nice.

///

Miya has a stand at the stadium, and he greets Keiji with a hug. His shoulders are still broad, his hands still a little rough and firm with confidence and competence, his smile – like the rest of him – still gorgeous.

But the hint of infatuation Keiji had felt during their dates is a pale comparison to the feeling he still holds close to the chest. It’s the feeling wrapped in hope that he clutches now instead of buries deep down – the one that drew him here this evening, the one that he hopes to confirm by seeing the man who’d crashed into his life and left a lasting impression.

Bokuto had called himself a rebound, and Keiji had frozen at the complete fallacy of the statement. He hadn’t thought that, not for a second. But the truth of it, that Bokuto was anything but a rebound – that he was much, much more – was more frightening a realization than Keiji had been able to face then.

“Ya all right, Keiji-kun?” Miya asks. His hands are quick and deft, shaping onigiri with precision despite his attention directed at Keiji.

Keiji hides a smile when he notices that hovering patrons have their gazes trained on the menu and Miya’s figure in equal measure.

“I’m alright. I suppose I’m a little – nervous. I haven’t been to one of –,” he catches himself and opts for a different direction with his wording, “MSBY’s matches before.”

Miya raises his brows, and he seems to focus on shaping Keiji’s order for another moment. Then he says, “Ya know, Kuroo-san may’ve mentioned why he’d suggested we give it a go.”

The way Miya’s words are phrased pings Keiji’s curiosity. “What do you mean?”

Miya’s smile is understated, yet where his brother’s brilliant grin on a poster nearby speaks volumes, so too does his. It’s just a small uptick at the corner of his lips, but when he glances up through his eyelashes through hooded eyes, even as his hands keep working, his eyes shine with humor. “Well, it was made clear ta me from the start that ya might’ve had yer eyes set on someone already.”

“I –”

“Or was it the other way around?” Miya says, cutting him off. He sets the onigiri down and nudges the compostable takeaway box toward Keiji across the small counter. Then he waves off Keiji’s attempt to pay him. “Maybe it was that Kuroo-san said somebody else had their eyes on ya, and so he claimed dibs and all that for ’em.”

“Dibs,” Keiji repeats slowly.

“Ah – helpful as always, Miya-san,” Kuroo says in a sing-song voice as he grabs Keiji’s box. His smile is at its widest and most irritating as he swings an arm around Keiji’s shoulders and starts pulling him away. “But we’re going to head to our seats now. Don’t want to miss that pre-show for some horribly exaggerated gossip!”

“Of course,” Miya says. “Good ta see ya, Keiji-kun. And good luck.” He salutes before grinning one more time at Keiji and turning to his next customer.

“Good –” Keiji frowns up at Kuroo. “What did he mean?”

“If I tell you, you have to call me a genius and buy the next round of drinks.”

“He knew Bokuto would get jealous,” Kenma says from Keiji’s other side. He has his hands stuffed into his hoodie pockets. “Miya would have been a good fit for you. It’s why Kuroo suggested him as your third blind date.”

“Kenma!” Kuroo exclaims, finally releasing Keiji as he steps back to drape himself over Kenma’s shoulders this time. “Will you never let me do the big reveal?”

Kenma doesn’t hide his grin. His nose brushes Kuroo’s cheek when he turns his head, and Keiji is not surprised at this point that Kuroo’s disgruntled expression melts into a smile. “This is more fun for me,” Kenma says.

“Well, if it’s fun for you,” Kuroo replies, but the bite to his tone is softened by the smile he can’t quite hide.

“Please don’t use me to flirt with each other,” Keiji says.

Kenma’s smile turns sharp.

“Please,” Keiji says quickly before Kenma can speak. “Be nice to me. I’ve been going through a crisis.”

“You’re always going through a crisis,” Kenma replies, but his tone is kind, and he doesn’t say anything else as he supports Kuroo’s weight over his back and on his shoulders and leads them toward their seats.

They get to their booth in time to catch the announcer calling out the names of the MSBY players. The crowd is already roaring, the stadium’s charged energy palpable.

He sees familiar faces below and reflected on the big screen across from them, but he’s waiting to see one in particular. When he does, he wonders if it’s an exaggerated response, the crescendo of sound rushing in his ears, the excitement of the home court resounding in the staccato beat in his chest, the spotlight shining down on one man as he cartwheels and then flips across the court.

Bokuto lands and raises his fists skyward, triumphant even before the match has begun, and Keiji doesn’t even realize he’d been wearing a smile until he feels his cheeks hurt with how wide it is across his face.

He remembers seeing Bokuto for the first time – as if he could ever forget that night. But he also remembers that ping in his memory, even during the worst night of his life. It was that memory of a high school gym, smaller than this stadium, but no less bright for the reason Keiji was there – the presence of a boy, now a man, beaming back at him.

Back then, Keiji had seen that boy – his passion and desire and love for a game of all things. And he remembers thinking in that moment he’d never forget the feeling that surfaced within him – of seeing a star so bright, recognizing such potential to shine brighter, and wanting to be the one who made a star like that shine at its brightest.

And he’s chased that feeling ever since.

His jobs, his relationships – Keiji thinks now that they were all just stand-ins. By comparison to this – to him – there before him, Keiji realizes they were all mere echoes of brilliance. They could never hold a torch to Keiji’s original source of pure light.

He has always been analytical. He considers, deliberates over his options, makes calculated choices and informed decisions. But this – with Bokuto – this is spiraling out of his control. It had been too easy, all of it. Spending more and more time with him is effortless. Even being intimate with him had been as natural as breathing, and still he wanted more.

And where everything else required such effort, such careful thought, Bokuto was always an answer in a sea of endless questions. Keiji kept expecting the equation of this man to be difficult, the formula an enigma. Instead, it had always been as simple as one plus one all along.

It feels then like an abrupt shift. It is as if Keiji is kicking away from the depths of everything his life had ever been. For this. For him. Bokuto. To chase the shine of a star, the light of it, glimmering above the water’s surface. Where Keiji had been drowning in an idea, suddenly he now sees that the reality is even better and within his grasp.

And it scares the hell out of him.

But more than his fear, Keiji feels desire. And it’s so strong it veers toward irrepressible passion. He wants so much that, for once, he realizes he’s willing – more than – to dive in, straight through the barrier of his past, his insecurities, his doubts and deep into the unknown.

Because living without Bokuto is hard, and taking the chance to reach for him is harder still. But Keiji takes in the sheer focus in Bokuto’s eyes on the big screen as the camera pans to him. He watches as Bokuto plants his feet and draws his arms back – as he leaps and flies and spikes the ball so hard the sound of it hitting the court echoes even amidst the din within the stadium. And Keiji thinks then that it may be hard to hope for something new, to ask for what he wants, to try for it – again – but it’s not impossible.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Bokuto’s yell is faint from up here, but Keiji latches onto the sound. And Bokuto’s smile is as bright as ever as he looks up into the crowd, inviting others to join in his joy, to partake in his passion.

“Bokuto Beam!” Kuroo yells next to him, nudging his arm. Even Kenma is smiling, and Keiji, caught up in the fervor of the feeling rising within him, lifts his arms and points his fingers to mirror the gesture along with everyone else.

And Keiji misses Bokuto then, dearly. He misses Bokuto despite having him right there within his view, only as present as a phantom limb. And Keiji is fully cognizant of the hyperbole of his own feelings, but, for once, he is staunchly unafraid to own them.

He stands there gripping the railing, beaming back down at the famous Bokuto Beam, a cheer escaping him without a hint of self-consciousness.

And he is being loud. He hears his voice carry, sees Kenma’s smile aim in his direction and Kuroo’s unfiltered grin. But he also feels elated, exuberant, and, for once in his life, he feels suddenly bright – all on his own.

He had mistaken this feeling for something else – muddied it with a skewed version of what he thought his life should be like, feel like, based on the expectations of others around him.

But this isn’t merely that. It is nothing so arbitrary, convoluted, or expectant as the pressures his adult life made it out to be.

This is simpler, surprisingly easy to embrace, uplifting, something shining from within.

Perhaps he didn’t need Bokuto to have it, but, Keiji realizes, it was because of Bokuto that he ever found it at all: happiness.

///

And this – this is how it really ends. Or perhaps how it truly begins.

Keiji will look back on all of his time – the days and weeks and months of time after Haru – of time afterward spent with Bokuto.

And, in that moment, this is how it feels:

Keiji stands knee-deep in the warmth of stinging seawater as it swirls around him. The shadow of a wave grows before him, spilling along the shore. Behind him, the wave hovers. He looks over his shoulder, watches it climb higher still, blue water mixing with the blue of the sky, almost indistinguishable as he looks up, up, up.

It’s nearly the moment of impact. He can feel it on the horizon. There is the curl of that ever-growing wave casting a bit of shade as it eclipses the sun. There is his healing – healed – heart, once broken, now laid bare, now open.

He gazes directly back into something that could crush him completely – for once brave and unafraid, bolstered by comfort in himself and trust in another, even here, before the crash, knowing that it looms. It might flatten him beneath its might, make him tumble, make him fall.

Still, he doesn’t tremble.

Instead, he thinks then, simply: I didn’t know it could feel like this.

And the wave crests. As it curls above him, the sun peeks through again, warming his uptilted face, his smile. He knows, as he has for months now, that he won’t ever truly fall.

Keiji closes his eyes. He waits to be engulfed. He welcomes it.

This, he thinks past the roar, is happiness.

And only then, hand-in-hand with the thought – not before and not after, not with precedence nor like an afterthought – comes a second conclusion, like a realization, like a resolution: This, too, is love.

///

This time, Keiji texts first. In the past, fear had held him back from seeing what was right in front of him. Doubt had made him second-guess whether he deserved the chance to try for it. Now, love makes him reach out.

Bokuto had been there for him, constantly, consistently. He had always extended his hand out first, fearless. He had laid open a cupped palm, cradled Keiji's heart gently, so gently, and been patient, so patient. He had allowed Keiji the time to heal, had given him more time still overlaid with care and love to smooth over the jagged bits that poked and pricked and tried to break Keiji from the inside. Not just from Haru, but from himself – all the ways he’d grown to see himself in the warped mirror image from his self-doubt and insecurities.

And now it’s Keiji's turn to reach back.

The response to his text arrives in a flood of messages that make Keiji’s phone buzz for a distractingly long time on his desk. He’s already smiling before he turns it over to check the screen.

There is only one person who ever has so much to share with him.

> akaashi!!
> hi!!
> i cant believe u havent been to my place before!!
> this is so crazy
> today??

> im done with practice @ the usual time
> come over right after?

> oh right
> heres my address

Then:

> sry about last time
> im glad you texted

And toward the end of the work day:

> ur still coming over right?
> don’t forget!

Later, when Keiji arrives at the MSBY dorm building, he doesn’t dally outside or in the lobby or in the elevator bay. He takes a deep breath and walks right down the hall to Bokuto’s door and knocks, but he finds he’s not filled with dread or nervousness or anxiety. He only clutches the strap of his bag with one hand and lets the other rest against his thigh.

It’s only after he knocks that he checks his watch and realizes he is 30 minutes early.

Still, the door swings open. Bokuto is there, freshly showered, his hair dripping, a smile on his face like it hasn’t been weeks since they’d last seen each other and ended things on too-raw and too-wrought a note.

“Akaashi! Hi! You look great!” Bokuto says. He steps forward, but then he stops abruptly. He pats Keiji’s shoulder after the awkwardly aborted hug, and Keiji bites back a smile.

He didn’t know his heart could grow in his chest quite like this when it already felt ten times too large at just seeing Bokuto’s face again after so long.

“Thank you, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says. “It’s good to see you. Where are your towels?”

Bokuto stares at him, and then he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh – over here.”

Keiji follows Bokuto inside and takes a towel from the closet. Then he gestures for Bokuto to duck his head down so he can dry his hair. Bokuto complies easily, and Keiji rubs the towel into his hair gently and gathers his thoughts.

He hadn’t practiced what he’d say. He didn’t have a script. All he has is a feeling and a memory and – for once, finally – a hope. And yet, there is no pressure. He isn’t nervous. He is, he thinks with some surprise, excited.

And then a thought occurs, and he says, “Did practice end early today?”

It’s quiet for a beat. “No. Uh – I was too distracted,” Bokuto says. “Coach told me to just go home.”

Keiji’s hands still only briefly, but it’s enough for Bokuto to lift his head, taking the towel with him as he straightens.

“I apologize for causing you any trouble,” Keiji says.

Bokuto’s already shaking his head. “No! It’s not your fault! I’ve been distracted a lot for a while.”

“You seemed in top form at your match,” Keiji replies. He watches Bokuto’s face, waiting, and he isn’t disappointed at the sunrise of a smile that brightens Bokuto’s face.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto cries. “You came to my match?”

Keiji can’t help but grin back. He’s glad he made Kuroo swear not to tell Bokuto about his presence that night. “I promised you, didn’t I?”

“You did! Holy shit! I didn’t think – well, I’m glad that you – wasn’t I great? You saw my Bokuto Beam then! Did you see my service ace? More than one! So many!”

“Five,” Keiji corrects.

“I’ll do better than that next time!” Bokuto says.

“I’m certain you will.”

“Now I definitely will,” Bokuto says. Keiji smiles again. His cheeks hurt.

He doesn’t realize that it’s been quiet for a while until Bokuto clears his throat and drops his gaze. Keiji feels his cheeks flush at the fact that he’d just been standing there, smiling back into Bokuto’s bright grin, and saying nothing at all – just staring.

“I’m really glad you texted, Akaashi,” Bokuto says. “I’ve been – I wanted to talk to you.”

“I wanted to talk to you too, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says.

“Me first though, okay? Please?” Bokuto asks.

Keiji feels a twist in his chest at the request. Bokuto has always let Keiji speak first. He always is so willing and ready to hear him, always accepting and focused – always putting Keiji before himself.

So Keiji just nods. He would be hard-pressed to refuse Bokuto anything right now – ever, really, now that he thinks about it.

Bokuto nods back as if to steel himself. “It’s just – I have something to say to you, and it’s all I’ve been thinking about this whole time I haven’t gotten to see you.” He pauses, and then he reaches for Keiji’s sleeve to tug him toward his sofa. “Here. Sit here,” he says.

Keiji makes himself comfortable and shifts so he can face Bokuto.

In front of him, Bokuto runs his palms over his thighs before he takes a breath. “I hope you don’t get mad at me for this, Akaashi. Because I’d like to see you again, if you’ll let me. I’ve missed you! But – okay. Maybe what you said last time was right. Maybe all of this really was a bad idea.”

He looks down at his hands, and he tugs at his fingers restlessly, like he has picked up Keiji’s mannerisms. When Keiji reaches out to tap on the back of his hand, Bokuto looks up again.

“And I realized,” Bokuto goes on, like he barely even noticed what he was doing, “that you’ll probably always compare me to him – Haru – and think of him when you’re with me. He’s – he’s smart and hot and funny in a clever way and not too loud or too emotional or too much in general. And maybe it was out of guilt, why I wanted to keep seeing you after that night we met. Maybe at first, but only at first, okay?”

Keiji nods, if only to encourage him. And he thinks about it then. Maybe a small part of him does compare Bokuto and Haru, but not in the way Bokuto seems to think. Of course they’ll always be inextricably tied. But with Bokuto, Keiji sees light and acceptance and safety and comfort. And it opens him up in a way he hadn’t known was available to him or even possible before.

Haru, others he’s dated before – no one else has been able to do that for him and make him feel this way. He had started to close off his hopes of finding a light like he’d felt even within himself when he was just a child, seeing for the first time what desire, and passion, and love for something – maybe someone – could feel like.

That is, until Bokuto.

“I just remember looking at you when you came up to us at dinner and dumped Haru,” Bokuto says. “You were doing that thing with your hands, but you were honest and sad at the same time. And then you let me follow you and made me feel better when – you know, it was your story ending then. I was just – just a thing on the side. And I remember looking at you, just holding it together, and I couldn’t let you go, Akaashi. I looked at you and just – I wanted to know you.

“I didn’t know I’d fall for you. Or maybe I did as far back as that night. I don’t know how these things work. But I did in the end, or at the beginning. Fall in love with you, I mean. And I can’t help it that I love you. I didn’t mean to. But I don’t regret it. Even if I’m just I’m the other guy. Even if I’m just your rebound.”

“You weren’t, Bokuto-san. You aren’t,” Keiji says, unable to help himself then.

Bokuto just shakes his head. “I think I am.” He scrubs his hands over his face and blinks a few times, like he’s blinking back tears. “But I’m glad to be your rebound, Akaashi. That I got to have that with you. I never meant to hurt anyone, being with Haru. Especially you. You deserve the best. Because you’re the protagonist of your own story, Akaashi. It’s your story, okay? And you’re the most important person in it.”

Bokuto pauses, and then he smiles. It’s a small, hesitant thing on his face as he looks up through his eyelashes, the sight of it like the sun breaching the skyline at dawn.

Keiji lets the words hang in the air, momentarily thrown by the word choice, by Bokuto choosing these words – for him.

Then Bokuto says, “I looked up the word I wanted to use the last time I saw you. ‘Protagonist.’ I used it right, didn’t I?”

Keiji swallows. He has trouble speaking for nearly a full minute because this is the most beautiful confession he has ever received. “You did, Bokuto-san. Perfectly,” he manages to say.

Bokuto nods. “Good. Good. That’s – that’s all I wanted to say. And I hope you think about it with that big brain of yours. Because you deserve the best. You really do. And you should treat yourself like you deserve the best.”

And then, after all of that, Bokuto just – looks away. He looks over the couch toward his desk, like he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s said all of these things – these wonderful things – and is looking to latch onto anything else to possibly talk about. As if he doesn’t expect anything back from Keiji – not one thing.

It’s then that Keiji’s eyes catch on a little stress ball there on the desk next to a pen holder. It’s in the shape of an owl – from one of Keiji’s first small-batch mangas that he’d worked on. As he drags his gaze around the room, he sees evidence of himself everywhere – like he’s left his mark in this place he’s never even been to before.

Bokuto had always come over to his apartment. He had stepped across the line first over and over in so many ways, reaching out and letting Keiji give back only when he was comfortable with doing so. And, in turn, Keiji never felt like he was giving up too much, never felt a sense of loss of a part of himself just to have the grace of someone else there next to him.

He glances at Bokuto now, at how he meets Keiji’s gaze: calm, waiting, patient – always.

And Keiji knew he was in love before this moment. He knew it deep down, perhaps for months. He knew it when he’d pushed Bokuto away the last time they’d been together. He knew it when he went to Bokuto’s volleyball match, when he reached out after weeks without him and then showed up at Bokuto’s door.

But still. He didn’t know it could feel quite like this.

He didn't know that love could be so easy. That it wasn't always a willing sacrifice, that it could be as simple and giving and comforting as this has been all along. He didn’t know it could come with an almost absent sort of reciprocation that feels as natural as breathing.

He just didn’t know.

He takes another look around. He sees the Zombie Knight Zom'bish figurine standing next to a framed V. League Rookie MVP award, as if this little toy is as treasured a keepsake as something as that. He sees manga issues that he remembers have his name printed within them – not even on the cover but in fine print toward the back of the publication – decorating a shelf and one right there in front of them on the coffee table.

And still, Bokuto waits, letting Keiji see all of this laid bare, letting Keiji fill this space, to take his time, to get comfortable.

And Keiji’s heart swells. Because he just didn't know.

But he does now. He does now.

Bokuto loves him.

Keiji had found happiness, in large part because of this man. And now he is in love with him. Perhaps he always had been.

“I’ve been wanting to share something with you,” Keiji says then.

His voice is steady even as a wave of emotion crests over him, the sound of his love rushing in his ears. He wants it to crash. He wants to tremble with it, to be engulfed by it.

Bokuto’s brows are furrowed. His head tips to the side. Keiji holds up a hand in a gesture for patience and then opens his bag. He pulls out the file folder and draws out the letter. He sees the moment Bokuto’s eyes alight with familiarity at the Fukurodani Academy crest as Keiji hands him the letter.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto exclaims, his tone awed as he holds the bit of paper carefully in his hands. “This is from my high school! Fukurodani! I was the ace of the volleyball team there! And the captain!”

“I know,” Keiji says, happiness manifesting in a smile on his face. He can feel it, the spill of his joy as he looks at Bokuto now, takes him in with the light inside nearly as bright as that which he sees always in Bokuto’s eyes. “I saw you.”

“What!”

“I saw you when I visited Fukurodani. I’d been accepted to your high school and toured at the end of my last year in middle school. I watched your team play. And I fell for you then, I think, for the first time, Bokuto-san.”

“You – for the first –”

Keiji continues even as he takes in Bokuto’s wide eyes, his high-arched brows. “And then over and over again over the last few months. I believe a part of me has always loved you. I think, perhaps, I didn’t even realize what was happening because it has been happening nearly my entire life.”

“Akaashi?” Bokuto says, his voice faint. “What are you –”

“I love you,” Keiji says, his voice even, confident, unafraid, without doubt. “I’m saying that I love you, Bokuto-san.”

“What? No, Akaashi. Didn’t you hear me earlier? I said you deserve the best. Someone much better than me and –”

Keiji gently takes the Fukurodani letter back, effectively cutting Bokuto off there, and places it carefully on the coffee table next to them. When he straightens in his seat, he finds hope in the way that, rather than sitting back, Bokuto leans forward as if he can’t help it, as if he’s as drawn to Keiji as much Keiji is to him.

“That’s you, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says. “And I hope you will realize one day that you are the best person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, of calling a friend. You asked me before if I wanted you, and the answer was always yes. I was just – I was afraid to want you. I couldn’t imagine you could possibly ever want me back.”

“You didn’t think I could –” Bokuto shakes his head slowly, as if baffled.

Keiji smiles – again. “When I saw you at Fukurodani, saw how you played, how much desire and passion and love you had within you, it surpassed any light I have ever seen in my life. Not just then, but ever since then. You were – are – a star, Bokuto-san. And nothing in my life to this point has ever shone as brilliantly as you do to me.”

Bokuto doesn’t say anything back. Instead, he looks utterly stunned. But where Keiji had hurt him the last time they were together, now, his eyes shine with unshed tears and the love is there, as, perhaps, it has always been.

And this time Keiji is ready to see it.

He thinks then that he must have been blind, crazy even, to not have seen it before because Bokuto stares at Keiji like he’s staring at his entire world.

“I think I’ve been searching for you my entire life, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says. “And I’m sorry for ever making you think you were a rebound. Can you – will you ever forgive me? Could you possibly still want me – love me – as I love you?”

And Keiji is ready for any answer, but now he dares to hope.

Bokuto just laughs. The sound is wet with unshed tears that make his golden eyes shine brighter. “Of course I want you. Of course I do, Akaashi! I never stopped. I don’t think I ever could.” He swallows. “Don’t you know? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Keiji takes a moment, lets Bokuto’s compliment sink in, lets it warm him. He can accept it now and embrace the happiness that flows through his veins. He adjusts his glasses, but he’s not nervous, not really. Not with Bokuto. And not when Bokuto is looking at him like this.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. I really do love you. I have for a long time. I was just afraid,” he admits.

Bokuto’s eyes are crinkled by the size of his smile as it takes over his face. His lips curve upwards, the edges reaching for the down-tipped corners of his eyes – a perfect circle of happiness.

“I know, Akaashi,” Bokuto says gently. “I didn’t want you to be afraid.”

“I’m not anymore.”

“I’m glad. Because I love you too, Keiji.”

“I know, Koutarou,” Keiji says, smiling back.

“Can you say it again? For real?”

Keiji tips his head in question, but then the haze of confusion quickly clears. He laughs then, and Bokuto beams. “I love you, Koutarou.”

Bokuto reaches out then, slowly, not as if he’s afraid of scaring Keiji, but like he’s moving through the molasses of disbelief.

Keiji leans closer and bridges the last gap between them. He never imagined he could have this – all of this – happiness and love in such equal measure. But here it is, a moment – one that stretches onward, no end in sight, tethered to this beautiful man before him who smiles into the space between their lips.

And so Keiji leans into Bokuto’s touch, cradled in that fleeting moment between a look and a kiss. He thinks then that he could stay here, just like this, hidden in the expanse of the safety and comfort of Bokuto’s palms where his heart already lives, and never find himself wanting again.

When Bokuto kisses him, stars explode behind his eyes.

///

And this is it.

Love. Love. Love.

The promised peace past the tumult.

Keiji had always imagined he’d drown in love, that it would be all-encompassing, overwhelming, engulfing to the point of sinking.

And perhaps it is that, at times.

Like being sucked into an ocean of feeling, welcoming the tide, drawn compulsively forward into someone else’s current, and being entirely surrounded by desire and passion. And, all told, perhaps it is like sinking, drowning, being overwhelmed and succumbing to it until it fills every inch of the lungs, the heart, the mind, the soul.

But – with Bokuto – this isn’t only like that.

For Keiji at least, this is familiar now. He had been falling, perhaps for his entire life, and now, years and years later, he has realized that he can never really truly fall – not when Bokuto is always there to catch him.

And that – that is nothing like drowning.

Instead, it’s like he had been enveloped in the cool, healing depths of the sea, until he sees, suddenly, sunlight pierce through the water – a proverbial hand slipping down past the surface. And it’s reaching back toward that warmth, palms fitting together, fingers entwining, like jagged and broken pieces fitting together again to make a whole.

It’s like the upward rush into the warmth of the shallows – and the refreshing breath of that first inhale upon breaking the surface. And looking up into the sun, the brightest star, it feels like the light is a welcome greeting to dry his tears and chase the cold away from his bare skin.

And Keiji thinks what a joy it is to be a world for a star to shine on – together, protagonists of a story yet to unfold.

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