Chapter Text
Bokuto knows that progress isn’t linear. He knows this from his own experience, his ability from being absolutely clueless on the court, to being on top of his game.
However, he hadn’t internalized the fact that it was like this for everyone. That life, in general, is a constant back and forth.
In the months that he’s spent with Akaashi Keiji, this crazily flexible concept of progress has become abundantly clear in all facets of his life.
Because Akaashi Keiji, despite all of his calm stares and preparedness, is still a work in progress.
Bokuto can see it in the way he pauses at the gym door, sometimes refusing to go in. In the way he stares off into the distance. In the way he slams down his laptop like it’s personally offended. In the way he very rarely takes trips home.
Sometimes Bokuto will see him looking up “Fukurodani Volleyball”, these are usually on the worst nights. When Bokuto tries to distract his boyfriend from his aching shoulder by playing Ghibli movies. Akaashi searches up the terms when he thinks Bokuto’s asleep.
He can see it right now at this very moment. The two of them sitting on a wide picnic blanket on greenery just outside of Gensen. Akaashi’s fingers are trembling slightly as he fidgets the volleyball around in his hands.
“You don’t have to set for me today,” Bokuto says, stretching out onto the soft blanket.
“I said I would.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to.”
Bokuto can feel Akaashi’s shoulder press into his, “But we planned to do this. You like it when I set for you.”
“I love it when you set for me,” Bokuto amends instantly.
His golden eyes dart to the darker-haired boy. The writer still isn’t looking at him, face turned down toward the volleyball in his lap. The sun is setting and the purples and pinks of the cloud paint them both in lovely shades of oversaturated pastels. Bokuto shifts his weight to one hand, allowing his left to reach Akaashi’s cheek. Soft, warm, gentle he guides the other’s face so they're directly staring at each other.
“It means enough that you’re here for me right now,” Bokuto’s eyebrows knit together as a familiar flash of disbelief crosses Akaashi’s face. “And I’ll say that as often as you need me to Keiji.”
Bokuto knows that progress isn’t linear for his boyfriend, that it ricochets him back to a stage of self-doubt and insecurity. His golden eyes watch closely as Akaashi halts just as the two of them are about to get onto the crowded charter bus.
Just past Akaashi’s tense shoulders, he can hear the loud rambunctious chaos that is his volleyball team. He can see through the windows that Atsumu and Suna have already started a tug of war over a bag of chips.
“I don’t know about this,” Akaashi says quietly, only loud enough for Bokuto to hear him. In response, the wing spiker moves from where he had been standing behind Akaashi, electing to stand next to him instead. Bokuto keeps his eyes trained on the entrance to the charter bus, though his hand slips itself into Akaashi’s thin ones.
He squeezes, and Akaashi squeezes back.
“Are you sure this is okay? I know this is a big tournament we’re going to” Akaashi reiterates, this time loud enough for Ukai and Takeda to hear. The two had been standing off to the side, checking over what Bokuto assumed was an itinerary as the team loaded themselves onto the bus.
Takeda pushes up his glasses, “Of course it is!”
Besides him Ukai nods eagerly, his eyes holding a seriousness in them that Bokuto sees mainly reserved for the pep talks before games. “You’re just as much a part of this team as we are Akaashi.”
Bokuto can feel the tingling feeling that starts in his fingers, traveling through his veins and staggering his heart. It’s a familiar feeling, a pleasant one despite the sheer shock that penetrates his whole being whenever it occurs. It always happens when Akaashi touches him. A simple caress, a slight pull, a kiss.
This time, it’s Akaashi holding onto his hand as they walk onto the bus.
The writer isn’t actually holding his hand per se, it’d be more accurate to say that Akaashi is grasping at his fingertips. The touch is light, fleeting almost; as though the darker-haired man is thinking of pulling away any second.
Bokuto isn’t surprised by the pensive look on the other’s face. Instead of talking, Bokuto curls up his hand slightly, allowing his thumb to softly, purposefully brush Akaashi’s hand before relaxing. The touch itself was simply a reassurance, light enough to say that this was fine, short enough to not trap the other.
His heart stutters as Akaashi responds with a slight squeeze.
The touch, however, stays the same. Light and almost intangible.
Bokuto finds himself happy by the fact that the last empty seats were just across from the team managers. Both of them were too engrossed in their own conversation to give them anything other than smiles and nods.
Akaashi still has that somber look as he takes; steals, the window seat. The two sit quietly as the bus starts, Akaashi looking out the window as the campus passes by while Bokuto watches him.
Akaashi’s hold becomes more stable in his hand. His slender pale fingers begin to intertwine between Bokuto’s more callused ones. Bokuto lets out a quiet sigh of relief at the slight change in their atmosphere.
“Is this bringing back memories?” the spiker asks quietly. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of asking such a question, it felt like he would be crossing a line. It was about as comfortable as tossing oneself into a freezing lake with a cinder block around your ankles. Now it just had the uncomfortable bite of jumping into an unheated pool.
Akaashi had long since shown that he didn’t mind the questions, still, Bokuto waited: bated breath and freezing underwater. Hesitant to break through to the surface.
“It does,” Akaashi responds softly, gently. As though he knows how much it takes out of Bokuto to ask that. To further that, Akaashi leans onto his boyfriend’s shoulders, once again cording Bokuto with tingles.
“Not bad ones, though.” Akaashi continues. A small smile takes over the writer’s, the ones that are bittersweet to Bokuto. Because, yes beautiful-amazing-hung-the-stars-and-the-moon Akaashi is smiling, but it’s sad and tragic at the corners of his work-in-progress boyfriend’s lips.
“I actually really enjoyed the bus rides to games,” Akaashi says. “Washijo always fell asleep on them, so the team kinda transformed into something… free and normal. We stopped being machine-like volleyball players and just became high schoolers.”
“Washijo sounds like a bucket of dicks,” Bokuto says instantly, a smile appearing on his lips as Akaashi snorts.
“That’s one way to say it,” he politely responds, though Bokuto can see the wicked gleam in his eyes. “But the rides were always the best. We would always have food and talk, Konoha and Komi would–”
Akaashi's voice becomes intangible, his mouth moving but no words coming. Bokuto watches quietly as Akaashi blinks rapidly as though trying to figure out a strange scene unfolding in front of him. His nose crinkles, his fingers fidget, and his eyes water. And through it all, Akaashi’s eyebrows knit closer and closer together, angered by the murkiness of his emotions.
“Hey,” Bokuto interrupts the ever-closing eyebrows. “It’s okay to feel happy about the memories you had, and it’s okay to miss him, it’s even okay to be angry. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Akaashi nods, his mouth decidedly closing. Bokuto doesn’t feel deprived for too long, as though, almost in penitence, Akaashi rests his head against him.
Bokuto isn’t a progress expert. He’s well acquainted with it for sure. He knows the guilt, the sadness, the insecurity that comes with it. He’s seen it mirrored in himself, and his teammates. He isn’t surprised to see the phases mirroring in Akaashi throughout the months of knowing him.
He however forgot to leave out one emotion, mainly because he didn’t often find himself engrossed in its hold.
But there is no other way to describe Akaashi at the moment, other than angry. It’s silent, and it could even be passed over. But it is most certainly there. In the way his hands have pushed themselves so deep into their pockets, in the way he holds his jaws, in the set of his eyes.
Akaashi is angry, and an unfamiliar sense of worry takes over Bokuto’s body. Similar to how he feels watching a horror movie.
Akaashi’s anger isn’t directed at him. Bokuto’s not sure exactly what he would do if it was. Instead, Akaashi is staring straight ahead of him at the back of a man shorter than he is.
His hair sticks out at odd angles and is cut incredibly short at the sides.
When looking back at his boyfriend's old high school pictures, he can tell how much Akaashi has changed. Be’s a bit paler, less built. But most different is how he holds himself. If he had to choose an extreme metaphor to convey it, Bokuto would say that the AKaashi from high school held himself like a newborn deer. Wobbly, curious, and unsure. The Akaashi in front of him now is deer that has survived the close calls of hunters. Wary, sure of itself, aware of the world around him.
Bokuto looks back at the short man ahead of him.
To him, it looks like Komi Haruki hasn’t changed much at all.