"Akaashi~!"
Akaashi had come home to an empty apartment after work a couple of hours ago, expecting it, but never really getting used to the quiet.
Especially now that Bokuto was here, it was strange not to hear his voice bouncing off of the walls or his laugh hiding within the window curtains for him to reminisce on.
Bokuto had texted Akaashi telling him he was craving tea from the shop a few stations away and asked if he wanted anything from there, to which Akaashi told him no. But now, as he was standing in the middle of his bedroom with fairy lights in his hand and an empty stomach to boot, he wished he did.
There was no way he was going to inconvenience him now, he was probably on his way back already.
Thankfully, to end that same quiet Akaashi found himself trying to avoid, Kuroo leans on the doorframe and looks at Akaashi standing on a desk chair and setting up the lights in his bedroom, his hands in his pockets, thumbs tapping the leather of his belt.
The black button-up he was wearing is slightly wrinkled and the first three buttons are undone as he slumps against the doorframe as if he was here after a night at the club, standing there with that same, polished yet messy flare that Akaashi liked a lot.
"Hey. What are you doing, nerd?" Kuroo asks, and Akaashi presses his thumb against the tape holding a wire up. "Getting your room ready for date nights with Bokuto?"
"Shut up, moron," Akaashi says, reaching over to press the lights along the ceiling. "I'm setting these up for him, yes, but not for that."
"Why?" Kuroo raises an eyebrow, though Akaashi could barely see it with his hair covering his face.
"He's scared of storms." Akaashi rips off a piece of tape with his teeth and grimaces as a piece gets stuck to his lip, peeling it off. "I went to school the other day and found him under the desk trying to hide from it. I think these will help when I can't be with him."
Kuroo stares at him, his expression bored as if waiting for Akaashi to say something surprising.
"And you two have the audacity to pretend like you're not in love with each other. The literal nerve. The gaul. The gumption you've got."
Akaashi rolls his eyes and his cheeks heat up in response to Kuroo's dumb comment.
"Where'd you come from?" Akaashi asks, knowing Kuroo mentioned he was doing something with Kenma today, but never really saying what.
"Dinner with Kenma," Kuroo says, leaning on the doorframe of Akaashi's bedroom. "It was a celebration!"
"What for?" Akaashi asks, just to make conversation as he steps off of his chair and drags it to the middle of the wall.
"He graduated two days ago," Kuroo announces, and Akaashi's eyebrows jump as he looks at him for clarification, though he knew he shouldn't be surprised if they were talking about Kenma.
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's crazy, right? He's our age and is moving on already."
"Did he tell you his plans for the future?"
Kuroo shrugs and looks out the window into the navy black of the nighttime, the clouds prominent and grey as they sit in front of the moon, blocking her vision.
"He wants to be a CEO. Own his own company." Kuroo says, nodding to himself. "He's been interning at a firm for a few weeks now. They seem to really like him."
"He's doing very well?"
Kuroo nods again and crosses his arms over his chest as he stares at the floor. There's a rift in the room, and Akaashi squints as he looks at Kuroo, his eyebrows stewing in the middle of his forehead.
"He said he was going to stop racing after he got a job. He's been looking and getting responses."
Akaashi is quiet as he thinks about it.
He never really knew Kenma to the extent of Kuroo, mostly seeing him at races and talking with him when Kuroo was too distracted to pay attention to their conversations. Despite him still being around, and despite Akaashi never really considering him a close friend, he still felt that weird sense of longing in his chest at the thought of Kenma dropping racing.
Kind of like when your friend leaves your house after hanging out all day. It was a strange sense of mourning for something that wasn't even dead.
Akaashi nods anyway, though Kuroo was obviously feeling some type of way in how he was looking at the floor.
"You're upset that he's quitting?" Akaashi asks, and Kuroo shakes his head.
"I'm so proud of him, 'kaashi. It's just kinda sad that I won't have a reason to go to street races anymore."
"You can come with me to see Bokuto."
His mood changed quickly as he makes a face like he smelled something really bad. "And third wheel? Gross."
Akaashi huffs and steps off of his chair, dragging it to the corner of the wall, only to step back onto it to finish setting up the lights around the lining of the room. He was happy that he got Kuroo to make another face rather than the misplaced and troubled one that was plastered on there before.
"I hate you. We aren't into each other like that." Akaashi says, though the truth in his words was standing on rickety fault lines, ready to collapse any second.
"As you're setting up fairy lights in your room for him to feel safe during storms when you're not around. Tell me you're not in love with him." Kuroo crosses his arms and Akaashi pauses once there is a knock at the front door, almost on cue.
Kuroo rolls his eyes and shoulders off of the doorframe to go answer it, looking back at Akaashi until his neck didn't physically allow it anymore. "Ri~ght."
Akaashi's heart beats in embarrassment as Kuroo's voice gets louder once he greets Bokuto at the door.
Damn Kuroo.
"Bokuto! I was wondering when you'd come."
Akaashi sticks the end of the fairy lights on the corner of the wall, sure that he pulled something out of a socket at the reach. He practically leaps off of the desk chair and drags it back to where it came from as the front door shuts, grabbing the caterpillar book (in which was named Pumpkin Head and the Fantastic Butterfly, to Akaashi's amusement) and placing it on his bed, peeking his head out of the door.
Bokuto was tired, looking at Kuroo as they spoke to each other in the genkan. Kuroo's voice was loud and prominent like stereo speakers were in his chest, while Bokuto's was lower and sounded like it needed rest, too.
"Welcome back, Bokuto," Akaashi calls, and he doesn't want to admit how happy it made him for Bokuto to immediately perk up at his face.
"Daisy!"
Kuroo purses his lips at Akaashi behind Bokuto's shoulder at the immediate loss of his attention, as Bokuto bounds over to him, while Kuroo makes a beeline straight for the bathroom to shower first.
As usual.
"Hi!" He starts. "How was your day? I went—"
As much as Akaashi would have loved to listen to Bokuto, he finds the silence even better so long as he was looking into his bedroom and watching the fairy lights.
A small and breathless wow escapes Bokuto's lips as if he was admiring something in an art museum, and he steps into the room, his eyes following the line of the lights. Akaashi turns the main light off and turns to look at them, too, thinking they looked pretty in the dark like this. Bokuto seemed to think so, too, so that made him smile a little.
"I, um..." Akaashi begins, letting Bokuto look at them from behind his shoulder. "I found your book, and...stopped to get these today, too, just in case it rains and I'm not home to be with you."
Bokuto is quiet and Akaashi looks at the wall for help, though it doesn't give him any cue cards like he was kind of hoping it would.
"You said...you said I reminded you of the stars sometimes." Akaashi feels his throat go dry and he suddenly thinks this was a bad idea as Bokuto doesn't say anything. "...I thought these might help."
"Thank you."
Akaashi turns over his shoulder to face him and Bokuto is staring at the lights above them, eyes flickering in the dark.
"Nobody ever really does stuff like this for me!" Bokuto looks at the ground and then back up to Akaashi, a small grin on his face as he reaches forward to take Akaashi's hand. "I'm sorry for making you do this, but...this makes me really happy, Daisy! Thank you."
Akaashi smiles, and finds himself lacing their fingers together, lightly swinging them to hopefully make Bokuto feel less guilty.
"I'm always gonna be here to help you. I did this because I wanted to. Don't worry about it."
Bokuto lets go of Akaashi's hand and steps forward to hug him, slightly hesitant in the way he looked at the floor again, but still engulfing him in a warmth that Akaashi had been missing today.
"I truly don't deserve you, huh?" Bokuto asks, breathing out a smile, and Akaashi pulls back a little to look at him, his stomach full of butterflies and Bokuto was too generous with his heart it made Akaashi's chest hurt.
He smiles again, one of the ones that remind Akaashi of white flowers blooming in the spring.
"You deserve better." Akaashi finds his hand over the curve of Bokuto's cheek, letting his thumb trace the apple of it and Bokuto is looking at him so fondly, it truly feels like they were outside, letting the stars coalesce above them as the world lets them have their peace. "I'll do everything I can to be the best. So don't forget about me, okay?"
Bokuto leans into his touch and Akaashi feels his breath escape him as Bokuto looks at his mouth again, like he was waiting. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but Akaashi assumed the words were too heavy to leave his mouth yet.
His breathing is slow.
He's okay.
The two of them are caught in a sort of heaviness that Akaashi normally would have tried to flee. He would have tried to elude the way Bokuto looked at him, or felt in his hands, or changed the world around him with just a grin.
It was weird how easily he could turn everything around.
He normally would have tried to run from this exact moment especially, as Bokuto leans in slightly, as if trying not to break a barrier that was already cracked in the first place.
Akaashi would have let him shatter it completely, anyway.
"'kaashi...Can I...?"
Akaashi's heart is the only thing he could hear now, the room quiet and amplifying everything.
He slows his breathing and nods, letting a small yeah leave his mouth as Bokuto touches the tip of his nose to his.
Slow, cautious, curious.
Bokuto's breath flutters over his bottom lip as he gets closer, his skin warm.
Akaashi can't think about what will happen after this, or in general, really.
And Bokuto kisses him beneath the fairy lights in his bedroom, making his heart beat deliberately in his chest and his cheeks flush in rose petals. Akaashi felt that same sinking feeling that he liked to hide from as Bokuto kissed him again, and again, his hands like bonfires to his skin as he gets lost in him just as easily as Akaashi seemed to stray within him, lightly squeezing his waist.
All of that time and frustration and longing that Akaashi has kept bottled up in his chest was slowly spilling from his mouth, in the way he pushed into him, in the way he held him and wanted nothing more than him. He was scared of letting it escape it all at once, trying to stop the flood from his heart while Bokuto smiles into the kiss, making Akaashi's butterflies flutter up from his throat and perch on Bokuto's shoulders.
The world is put on pause and he is the only thing Akaashi could focus on, an addictive drag of nicotine that gives him that head high and makes his bones feel like jelly.
Addictive. That's the right word for him.
Akaashi is blurred as he lets his hand trail to the nape of Bokuto's neck, trying to pull him closer as if he would miss him if he didn't.
The flowers that he tried to keep from growing end up blooming too quickly in depravity, and pink petals fill his chest and erupt from his skin as his lungs are lined with a fire he'd only ever get from Bokuto.
Bokuto leans forward as Akaashi kisses him again, his spine subtly curving with the burden, lips moving slow and ardent with a faint neediness to it that Akaashi hadn't recognized in himself until now.
Like he was yearning for it.
Bokuto pulls back slightly, ghosting his bottom lip over Akaashi's own as he tries to think for a moment, as if debating. They speak silently in the quiet, Bokuto's eyebrows pulling together as he lets his heart slip away from him in the thickness of the room, before Akaashi closes the gap one more time.
Honey drips from his lips as Akaashi kisses him slowly once, twice, and once the beating of his heart becomes too much to bear, he pulls back to breathe, maybe try to think, too.
Think, think...oh.
...Oh.
Akaashi pulls back completely and covers his face with the back of his hand, hoping some of the scarlet would drain before he turned the lights back on, looking at Bokuto. He is smiling and pink covers his cheeks, too, warm.
"Um...it's l-late," Akaashi says, and Bokuto nods, trying to hide that dumb grin as Akaashi takes a breath and tries to think. "I'm going to shower first, okay?"
"Okay! I already showered before I left, so I don't need help today!" Bokuto says, and Akaashi wonders how he was still a functional human being after something like this, but he rushes past him into the bathroom anyway, shutting the door behind him, leaving Bokuto to himself.
Akaashi looks in the mirror, finding the color in his face almost laughable.
He takes the coldest shower he's ever had, falling from his euphoria, his mind reeling.
~❀~
The thing with Bokuto was that he never felt old.
With someone so timeless and precious as Bokuto, Akaashi could never say he got old. Time always bled into itself when Bokuto was around, an infinite loop that Akaashi didn't want to break anytime soon. There was always a certain novelty that Akaashi didn't think he'd ever get used to. He made him feel things for the first time, think about certain things that he's never really thought about, and Akaashi wasn't really sure how he was supposed to go about it.
Especially now, as they're watching their makeshift stars within Akaashi's room, he feels new.
Foreign almost, like he didn't belong.
Akaashi had slipped into a territory he knew next to nothing about, and while most people would figure things out without asking questions, Akaashi had a million that were begging to break from his head.
His heart thrums in confrontation while Bokuto has an arm thrown around his shoulder, but it was hard to feel like they were on the roof again, watching the stars because Bokuto wanted to see the constellations. Last time, he didn't have so many questions, he wasn't worried so much, he wasn't as nervous.
This was too new.
Akaashi sighs through his nose, and Bokuto shifts in response, slightly uncomfortable in the silence, though he knew Akaashi's head was full with something in the quiet. He decides to break it first.
"...You're thinking."
Akaashi blinks and stares in the corner of the ceiling, his own words crashing in his mouth, but his lips were sealed and he could taste the smoke from the collision. He nods, just barely, and Bokuto turns his head a little towards him.
"You can talk to me about it," Bokuto tries, and Akaashi is reticent in the dark. Bokuto pouts, trying to figure it out before he tells him in hopes to help. "Daisy..."
That damned name again. It even sounded different. Akaashi felt stagnant in a sea that was moving, wanting to wade against the tide all the same. He needed to keep up.
He needed to know.
Akaashi swallows and sits up with assertion, looking down at Bokuto, his eyebrows worrying in the middle of his head. Akaashi was fretting while Bokuto is staring at him, just as frightened it seemed, probably worried that he did something wrong.
Akaashi just asks, trying not to get caught in the tension that was threatening to smother them both if he let it.
"Did you mean it?"
Bokuto's eyebrows come together, before he blinks. "Mean what?"
"Kissing me," Akaashi says, losing his train of thought as quickly as he'd caught it for this conversation. "Did you..."
Bokuto leans up on one elbow, and Akaashi flushes at the closer contact and the way Bokuto was looking at him, gold flooding into Akaashi's head.
"I meant it." Bokuto nods, his eyes flicking back and forth between Akaashi's. "Why wouldn't I?"
Akaashi looks at the sheets rather than Bokuto and feels himself on the brink of bursting, not really finding any valid reasons for him not to. Bokuto was very transparent with his heart — Akaashi has learned — and while there wasn't anything explicitly said, he already knew.
So really, why wouldn't he?
"Because—" Akaashi somehow finds a way to fight the feeling, though Bokuto was just as stuck as he was, just on a different end of the spectrum.
"I like you a lot, Akaashi."
He stops, his voice overshadowing his thoughts and taking up the empty spaces in his head.
Akaashi knew that, yet...
It still felt like he hadn't before, hearing him say it out loud like that.
I like you a lot, Akaashi.
Akaashi is overwhelmed, his butterflies making a mess of colors all over his stomach as Bokuto smiles at him once Akaashi finds himself grinning all the same. He ducks his head to try and hide it, though Bokuto doesn't really let him.
There is a warm hand on his cheek, gently guiding his gaze back up into Bokuto's. Akaashi's heart soars above the clouds as Bokuto softly presses their noses together, letting Akaashi think.
"I want to be with you." Akaashi shuts his eyes, his voice barely above a whisper, and Bokuto smiles big, though Akaashi wishes he could see it.
"Like partners?"
Akaashi nods. "Like partners. Let me?"
"As if I'd say no to you."
Bokuto's smile fades a little as he tilts his head a little, slightly hesitant as Akaashi keeps quiet, wanting to close the gap already, but trying not to push things.
It was getting so hard not to push things.
Bokuto slowly kisses Akaashi beneath the fairy lights again, while the other finds his way around the newness and tries his best to get used to the feeling of kissing Bokuto.
Though, for that one, he knew he couldn't.