bokuaka one shots

tell me i'm a monster

"Tell me I'm a monster," he huffs a laugh, soft and solemn. "Everyone else does." 

Keiji doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to think. How could he think that? How could Bokuto think that of himself?

Bokuto Koutarou, Keiji will say with absolute certainty is the farthest thing from a monster walking this earth. Monsters are ugly, twisted creatures. Bokuto is beautiful, he's stunning. He hoards nature's beauty and leaves everything else looking dull in comparison.

But beyond looks, he is kind, and he is loving, and his smile makes Keiji's heart do backflips. He gives homeless kittens part of his lunch and he chases stray balloons that have gotten away from crying children. He's so far from the definition of a monster, Keiji can't even fathom them together.

Keiji lifts a hand, knuckles barely brushing the soft skin of Bokuto's cheek. The touch is fleeting, light, it leaves a pearlescent burn against his fingers - they ache to feel more and hold longer.

He says, "You're gorgeous." And he means every syllable.

-

Akaashi Keiji has grown up with the stain of intolerance clinging tight to his household. 

For generations it has been there, even as hard as his uncle Kai tried to scrub it off by dating an Avian, it persisted. His family is a normal family - in their beliefs at least. They may be in the top one percent regarding income, they may isolate themselves from the average family, putting themselves on a pedestal unreachable by the grubby hands of the middle class, but if there's one thing people from all levels of economic class can agree on, it's that they don't tolerate monsters. 

His parents, pretentious in their snobbishness, find their common ground with blue-collar workers from the factories they exploit when it comes to hatred - after all, who can't bond over the mutual fear of heathens? Of disgusting creatures to be shunned? 

Keiji himself has grown up on the stories of brutish Avians that killed people and stole children from their beds. He grew up terrified of a winged terror slipping through his window in the depths of night, taking him to the rancid cave where all Avians lived in squalor, pulling off his limbs with their inky-black talons and eating the baby fat from his legs. 

He was told that they could be anyone he passed on the street, even the most innocent looking child, the sweetest barista, the most trustworthy shopkeeper. He was told to be careful. Be careful Keiji. 

When he was ten, he asked his mother a most pressing question, "If Avians are dangerous, why are they allowed to be out and about with us?" 

She had stalled with an answer, lips parted, eyes wide. Maybe because she hadn't expected her ten-year-old son to be thinking so critically about what she considered to be a given fact of life. Maybe because she was summoning a justification for her actions and didn't quite have the words yet. Keiji hadn't thought about it much at the time when she answered,

"Well it's quite hard to tell them apart from us, now isn't it?" 

He can see now that it was a vague, non-answer at best. A repeat of the ideology he'd been raised on. But at the time, he'd seen no other option than to accept it at face value - obviously, if the government can't tell you apart from the general population, they can't arrest you. 

It had made perfect sense. 

It would be three years later when he really, truly questioned his parents for the first time - many kids grow up asking questions, it's just human nature, but it was never an option for Akaashi Keiji. And with his newfound power, he would bring about the gradual fall of his family.