Marked (BokuAka)

48. Nothing

Bokuto's POV:

Nothingness.

Only a black, blissful void of emptiness.

Would that count as something? When the absence of something leaves a pit of nothingness in its place, isn't the nothingness something?

Oh well. Return to the empty bliss.

"Bokuto?" A muffled voice echoed around the abyss, curling around Bokuto's consciousness. "Bokuto, please. I saw your eye twitch."

Slowly, the voice, whoever it was, tangled up Bokuto's thoughts, forcing them into a false, mind-rendered body. He floated in the nothingness, but he added a something to it. But the nothingness was bigger. Stronger.

He began to slither into the void again, the magnetic, irresistible pull of true peace calling to him, but the foreign voice continued to call out. "Bokuto! Seriously! Snap out of it! I can't carry you and I don't know if we should tell the police! I need your advice."

A heavy feeling clung to his torso, warm and welcoming. Arms. A hug? How? There was no one else.

The void began to flicker, memories flashing through it. Someone... someone he knew. She had multi-coloured hair, much like his own, and spectacles perched on the tip of her nose. "My love. Koutarou."

And memories clicked into focus. "Mom?"

He was sad for some reason. One he couldn't remember. "Yes. I love you. You know that, right?"

"I love you too. What's wrong? Why are we... here?" Reasoning returned, questions swirling. He wasn't supposed to be here. There is somewhere else, someone else. This isn't the world he'd grown up in.

"I'm not sure. You chose this place. But," She flickered into another form, blood spotting the front of her favourite t-shirt, spectacles missing, eyes pale and dead. He gasped, but she returned to her original look. "I need you to know this. I love you. I accept you. And your father will too. Live your life to the fullest, Koutarou. Goodbye, my amazing, stunning son."

She began to fade, slipping into the swirling black below. It was stealing her. "No! I'm sorry!" More memories popped into place. She was dead. It was his fault. He didn't get a chance to say he loved her. "I love you! I love you! I love you!" Power of three. Made it all the more sincere.

She smiled at him, spinning down, down, down into nothing.

The shutters of his vision began to open, close, open, close, open. A pretty boy with curly, raven-coloured hair looked at him, holding him. His mouth opened and closed in sync with the voice. It was a pretty voice, suiting the pretty boy. "Bokuto-san. Finally." He hugged him as the weird pressure did before in the nothingness.

"Akaashi." Everything returned, the spectacles and ring in the display case. He turned around to see a normal shelf of clothes behind him, hiding years of crime behind it. "Holy shit, I'm so sorry!"

"No, no." His pretty, stunning soulmate smiled. "Don't worry. I'm just glad you're okay." He lowered his brows. "Are you?"

"Am I...?" Bokuto shut his eyes, thinking intently. Am I? Am I okay? As he looked within himself, he decided he was. Okay, that is. Not happy, certainly not feeling neutral or normal, but he was okay.

He hadn't killed his mother. Akaashi's mother had. It wasn't any purposeful thing that he'd found the body. It was just chance that he was home first.

He was sad. He could feel a sinking of his stomach, sadness digging into his skin. Deeper than that, his soul. But the knife that was stabbing into his gut, twisting, twisting, wringing his insides into a hole that absorbed all, was gone. The hole still hurt, but it wasn't worsening. It wasn't screaming incessantly. It had the opportunity to heal.

"Let's get out of here."

"The room?"

"The house." Akaashi smiled, sadly. It was bittersweet, like sour lemonade. "C'mon. Have you had any dinner?" Bokuto looked up, shaking his head. "Okay, well... I know a good ramen place. We can get some and go to the park? It's a nice day out."

Bokuto didn't react. No head movement, no smile, no words. But he did blink, which Akaashi took for a yes as he walked out of the closet and grabbed a quilt.

"For a picnic," Akaashi said.

"Thank you, Akaashi." Bokuto smiled, and he began to sniffle, tears coming to his eyes again. I love him so much.

"C'mon. It'll be fun." Bokuto trailed after Akaashi, gloomy mood slowly lifting and dissipating.

My mother wouldn't want me to give up on everything. "Yeah. Yeah, let's go!"

Akaashi grabbed a leather wallet on the way out, pocketing it and smiling. "Also, if you have any money on you," He grinned. "You owe me some meat buns for beating you."

Bokuto snickered, the reminder of the debt bringing with it reminders of their run. The first time he really realized he loved him. A reminder of Washio's soulmate and a reminder of why he was doing what he was doing.

To stop others from dying.

To avenge his mother.

An eye for an eye.

A life for a life.

She would be arrested shortly.

Even if it was the last thing he did.