Archive of Our Own

There’s a baby staring at Akaashi. She’s wearing a little pink hat that looks like an owl’s head, and her jacket matches. Her big, wide eyes are fixated on him, unaware of everything and everyone else on the train.

Akaashi tries not to stare back, but he can feel her looking at him. Her gaze is nearly overwhelming, and he can’t concentrate on his textbook. With some trepidation, he looks up and locks eyes with her. She blinks at him, and then her mouth spreads out into a wide smile.

He’s a little surprised. Most of the time, kids don’t react to him. But the baby’s smile is earnest, and over the hum of the train he can hear a little giggle. The baby’s mother is sitting beside the stroller, and she looks up when she hears her daughter’s noise. She sees the interaction between Akaashi and her child, and smiles too.

It’s probably okay to wave, right? He warily lifts a hand and waves a little hello. The baby is delighted; she sort of stretches her head over to one side, looks up at her mom and then back to Akaashi. Her tiny smile only grows bigger. Akaashi can’t help but give her one back. This is pretty rare, and it’s kind of nice.

Then the baby catches sight of Bokuto, who is waving both his hands at her with a big grin. She giggles again, louder. Bokuto pretends to look away, then swings his gaze back to her, and the baby laughs so loud it draws a chuckle from her mother.

It’s their stop next, and as the mom stands up to push the stroller out, she tells her child, “Say bye!” The baby doesn’t say anything, but continues to smile at Bokuto and Akaashi both as she’s wheeled out.

“That was a cute kid,” Bokuto remarks. “She got you to smile!”

“I think she mostly liked you,” Akaashi retorts. “I didn’t know you knew how to interact with a child.”

“It’s not hard. You just smile at them, they like that.” As if to prove his point, he flashes a smile right at Akaashi. Of course, anyone would be moved to be on the receiving end of a smile like that. Akaashi looks away and tries not to react as he goes back to his book.

They’re silent for a little while longer. It’s only a few more stops until theirs. Then Bokuto blurts out: “I bet you’d be a good dad, Akaashi.”

Akaashi frowns and bites back a bemused laugh. “Uh…why? I mean, why do you think so?”

“I don’t know, you’re just a real reliable type. Everyone can count on you, and you’d make sure your kid had the best of everything.” Bokuto blinks his big, expressive eyes at him. “Don’t you think?”

Akaashi has never really thought about it. He’s only sixteen, who thinks about having kids at a time like this? It’s not a terrible idea, but it’s so far away, making any plans now would be a waste of time. Will Akaashi even get married? Will raising kids work the same in the future? What if he has a kid and they never smile at him?

Beside him, he hears a snort of laughter. He scowls at Bokuto, who’s doing a poor job of concealing his grin. “What?” he demands.

“You just got such a serious look on your face, and you weren’t blinking,” Bokuto laughs.

Akaashi really hopes he isn’t blushing. “Well, you asked me a weird question,” he huffs, and slams his book shut. “Like kids are even something I should be thinking about.”

“If it’s my kid, I’m putting them on the court with me as soon as they can walk,” Bokuto declares. “I’ll teach them everything! Line shots, cross shots, everything until they’re better than me!”

“You have to be consistent before you can teach anybody anything.” He’s mostly kidding, but it gets the desired reaction out of Bokuto anyway.

“Akaashiii,” Bokuto whines. “You know that if I have a kid they’re going to inherit all my volleyball power. They’ll multiply it, and then when they make the big time I can tell everyone ‘That’s my boy!’ Or ‘That’s my girl!’ I don’t really care which.”

Their stop arrives, and Bokuto follows Akaashi out of the sliding doors. He always walks close to Akaashi’s shoulder. Depending on the day, it’s either suffocating or comforting; today is more of a comfort.

“Akaashi, would you want a boy or a girl?” he asks.

“Why are we still talking about this?” Akaashi replies, glancing around to see if anyone’s overheard. There are a few other students from Fukurodani who got off at the same stop as them. He really doesn’t want to deal with gossip if someone were to eavesdrop and get the wrong idea.

“I would want one of each. Or maybe two of each. Oh wait, maybe three of each, then I could have my own volleyball team! Can you imagine six of me on the court?”

It would be…interesting, to say the least. Six Bokutos might be fun, in its own way. But a lot to manage. Akaashi tries to picture it, and hears an endless echo of “Hey hey hey!” in his mind.

“Hey.” Bokuto checks Akaashi with his shoulder. “Are you listening? Answer my question.”

Akaashi sighs. “I think…a girl might be nice,” he says after a moment’s thought. “But I wouldn’t really care either way.”

“A girl would be fun! She’d have your curly hair.” Bokuto reaches out and gently tugs on a bit of Akaashi’s hair, and doesn’t even flinch when Akaashi smacks his hands away.

They only have another block or two before they have to go separate ways. It’s cold out, and beginning to show signs of snow. Akaashi is eager to be home, and he shoves his hands deeper into his pocket and shivers.

“…You’re right, I like the idea of a girl,” Bokuto says, staring up at the gray sky. Before Akaashi can say anything else, Bokuto jumps in front of him and looks him straight in the eye.

“Hey, do you want to come over? I need to study for that test at the end of the week and I can’t focus without your help.”

Bokuto has been asking him to come over a lot lately. It makes sense; he’s trying to get into a good university, after all.

“Um…yeah, sure. But you have to promise to actually study.”

Akaashi isn’t sure, but it sort of looks like Bokuto lights up. “Yeah, of course I will! Come on, you can stay for dinner if you want.”

It doesn’t sound too bad. Instead of turning down his street, he follows Bokuto the rest of the way home.

When Bokuto meets up with Akaashi after school, after his last exam of his last year of high school, Akaashi finds himself wishing that he was a little older. A year older, in fact. Old enough to not have one more year of high school, of volleyball without Bokuto. He wishes there was something he could do to make sure their time together never has to come to an end.

“I’m gonna miss playing volleyball with you, Akaashi,” he says as they make their way to the train station, the same route they’ve walked together for two years. “It won’t be the same playing without someone I like on my team.”

“You like lots of our teammates,” Akaashi tells him.

“Not like how I like you.” Bokuto leans forward and looks over at him, and they both stop. He grins. “You know what I mean? Like…you know. I like you.”

Akaashi feels his brain stop. It’s never this quiet in his head. He can barely hear the traffic or any people around them.

The way Bokuto is looking at him, it’s such a familiar stance. His voice has such a familiar tone. It’s so him. How many conversations have they had exactly like this? Only…what has Bokuto just said?

“…What?” he says after a lengthy pause.

“Sorry, that was a little weird, wasn’t it?” Bokuto stands up straight, rubs the back of his head and glances down at the sidewalk. “I couldn’t think of how else to say it. But I guess maybe I should have given you a little more warning.”

“What?” Akaashi repeats, stepping in front of Bokuto before he can stop himself. His ears hurt with the pulsing of his heartbeat in them. He has to be misunderstanding this.

Now Bokuto looks confused. “I’m…just trying to say I like you, Akaashi. That’s all.” He seems a bit sheepish now, and a pang of guilt stabs Akaashi in the heart. “Sorry. It was weird, wasn’t it?”

“N-No…it’s not weird.” Akaashi doesn’t know what to say. There’s too many emotions and he can’t untangle them.

Why him? Why pick Akaashi? Bokuto is always trying to impress girls. Is this like a prank someone put him up to, something just to tease him?

Why is Bokuto saying this now, right before he’s about to go off to university in a completely different city? Right before he leaves, when Akaashi can’t follow him yet? Why now, when there’s no more time? When they could have been here, together, for the last two years?

“Hey, I’m sorry, Akaashi,” Bokuto says, and reaches out to gently touch his arm. Akaashi realizes he’s been gripping his bag strap with a growing tension. He tries to relax.

“No, it’s…it’s okay.”

“Let’s just forget I said anything.”

If it’s a joke, then Bokuto sure is letting it go on long enough. He can never keep up a prank for long before he starts laughing. If it’s not a joke, then Akaashi is the reason why a slump is coming on, and he knows that look. The slump is coming quickly.

“I…” Akaashi starts to say, twisting his bag strap in two hands. “I…don’t want to forget you said anything.”

Bokuto blinks at him.

Akaashi takes a breath. Either this is just a joke, and he’s about to lose his best friend by outing himself, or this is real, and it’s the realization of a wish that Akaashi has held quietly in his heart for too many days to count.

Bokuto is going to leave either way. So he forces himself to look into his eyes and say, “It’s not weird. I…like you too…Bokuto-san.”

The change is instant. It’s just like pulling Bokuto out of a bad mood on the court, the way his eyes light up when he sees that Akaashi has sent the ball to him. And Bokuto’s running up to slam it home, dispelling all the gray clouds in Akaashi’s mind with one decisive motion.

“You mean it? Really? This isn’t a joke, right? Did Kuroo tell you to say that?” Bokuto blurts out, all in a ramble.

“What?” Akaashi can’t help but laugh a little. “No, he didn’t. I’m being honest.”

“Oh!” A pause. “Akaashi, really?!” And before Akaashi can answer, Bokuto runs forward, grabs him by the waist, and lifts him up in the air.

Bokuto swings him around a little until Akaashi is dizzy from both the spinning and the rush of emotions in his chest. When Bokuto sets him back down, he gathers him up in a huge hug, pressing their cheeks together. Bokuto is only barely taller than him, and definitely a little wider, but in this moment he feels enormous. Like he could swallow Akaashi up in an instant.

Akaashi has a momentary flash of panic. What if Bokuto tries to kiss him right here in the middle of the sidewalk? For all Akaashi knows, people are already staring. They haven’t gotten that far from school, someone has definitely seen by now. Maybe even overheard.

His instinct is right, and he swiftly manages to cover Bokuto’s mouth with a hand right before his lips lands on Akaashi’s cheek.

“Not here,” he says quietly. “Why don’t…why don’t you come over? We’ll…talk about it.”

Bokuto nods vigorously, and Akaashi can feel his skin warming up underneath his palm. They let go of each other and continue on their way towards the train. Bokuto is hanging much closer to him, but he doesn’t grab his hand or hug him or do any of the hundreds of things Akaashi knows he is thinking about. It’s an impressive amount of restraint.

Bokuto goes to university, and Akaashi stays behind to do one very strange Bokuto-less year of volleyball. They make him captain, and he remains starting setter. The team has a new ace, who is very good, but he’s not Bokuto. Fukurodani makes it to nationals again, although they don’t win, but that’s fine with Akaashi. If anything, it might have hurt more to win without Bokuto.

Long distance is all they can do for a few years, and it’s only after they’ve both graduated university and Bokuto gets his first pro contract that they can finally live together. By then, they’ve each spent so many sleepovers at each other’s dorms and apartments that it’s barely an adjustment to share the same space every day. And then, when Bokuto proposes to Akaashi, it’s just like when he confessed. When he asks, he says it so bluntly. Like it was just there, on his mind. Like one of his many thoughts that end up outside of his head, his familiar, constant ramblings.

Never in a million years could Akaashi have predicted that one day he would get married to the volleyball star he’d seen in the Fukurodani gym. Never once would he have guessed that he’d caught a glimpse of his future husband. That isn’t to say Akaashi thought they’d pass each other by. Only that he was going to cherish what little time he had in Bokuto’s orbit, clearing the path for the blindingly bright comet Bokuto was until he was too big for Akaashi to stand beside.

But Bokuto’s gravity isn’t the kind that crushed. At least, it never felt that way to Akaashi. It draws him in closer, spinning and increasing until they’re the same size, until they’re two halves of an equal pair. For so long, Akaashi had accepted his role in Bokuto’s deep shadow, unseen and implicit. But at some point, Bokuto had reached out, taken Akaashi’s hand and pulled him in.

Sometimes Akaashi gets lost in his head, wondering if maybe this is still a joke that Bokuto started the day he confessed after school. A prank that had been going on for the last several years that Bokuto would give up on at any moment.

But then there are nights like tonight.

They’re lying in bed together, and Akaashi holds Bokuto’s strong hand in his. He sees the gnarly scar on Bokuto’s finger where his wedding ring had cut deep into his skin as he blocked one of Ushijima’s spikes during a game. He remembers how upset Bokuto had been to leave the game and have the ring cut off, how he actually cried and told Akaashi he was sorry. He remembers that even though he’d bought Bokuto a new one made of silicone (because “I can’t just play without my ring, Keiji! That would be like going out there without my jersey!”) he still kept the pieces of the old one in his bedside drawer.

It probably wasn’t a prank.

Bokuto’s hand closes around Akaashi’s. “Hey,” he says. “What do you want for your birthday?”

That was soon, wasn’t it? He’s been so busy he hasn’t even noticed. “I don’t know. Maybe a nice dinner without your teammates tagging along?”

“I swear I did not tell Tsum-Tsum we were having our anniversary there,” Bokuto whines. “He showed up on his own!”

Akaashi stifles a laugh. “I know,” he says. “But I don’t really want anything else.” In reality, he learned long ago that telling Bokuto he didn’t want anything was actually meaningless. No matter what he said, somehow Bokuto would present him with a perfect gift, or a perfect day, or some other surprise that he must have spent days planning. It seems to make Bokuto happy, coming up with surprises for him. So Akaashi never asks for anything, not really, because he knows Bokuto would never let him go without being doted on.

“Okay.” Bokuto sits up and pulls out his phone. “Where do you want to go? I’ll make a reservation.”

Akaashi lists off a couple of places he’s been thinking of trying and lets Bokuto have the final pick. He takes out his own phone and starts going through some emails, as much as he’d like to ignore them. Work can’t always wait. They’re quiet for a while, sitting beside each other in their own worlds. It’s not often Bokuto is quiet like this. It’s nice, albeit a bit strange.

“Hey, Keiji?” Bokuto’s voice sounds a little odd too.

“Hmm?”

“So…I was talking to Kuroo today. He was telling me about how he wants to do like a youth volleyball clinic. For kids and stuff, you know? To get them interested in volleyball.” Bokuto turns his phone off and looks over at him.

“Yeah?”

“He wanted me to come teach them stuff. And I said yeah, of course! And…it kinda…got me thinking….” Bokuto starts fidgeting restlessly. He spins his wedding ring with the pad of his thumb.

Now Akaashi puts his phone down. “About what?” Bokuto is glancing back and forth between Akaashi and his own hands. He has literally never looked this nervous since their wedding day.

“It’s totally fine if you think it isn’t the right time, and you don’t even have to answer right now if you don’t want to, but…like…I know we’ve talked about a lot, but not actually made any plans and…do you wanna…have a kid?” Bokuto looks straight at him with a steely, determined gaze. He’s serious. And he’s vibrating with nerves. If Akaashi has to guess, he figures Bokuto must have been working up the courage to ask this for days.

He has no idea why he says what he says next. “Are you going to get me pregnant?”

Bokuto opens his mouth to respond but then stops. His face goes simultaneously blank and red, and an odd, crooked smile appears on his lips. A devious sparkle appears in his eyes, one that Akaashi is intimately familiar with.

Akaashi suppresses another laugh. “Did that do something for you?”

“No!” Bokuto exclaims, the blush spreading down his neck. “I mean…come on, I’m being serious here, Keiji.”

He doesn’t even have to think about it. He’s been thinking about it, maybe for longer than Bokuto has. It’s just never seemed the right time to bring it up. Bokuto is away so often, and Akaashi is so busy with work, how could they make time? But no matter how many times he talks himself out of it, he’s back with a better argument the next day.

It’s never the right time. But we can make it work.

Kids are so expensive. But Koutaro is making good money right now.

I don’t know how to raise a child. But does anyone know how?

What if I’m a bad father? But Koutaro would be a great one.

So he nods. “You know what…yeah.” Saying it out loud sends an odd warmth spreading through his body. He finds he can’t stop smiling as he says again, “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

“Really?” Bokuto practically crawls on top of him, his face inches away. “You mean it, really? You’re not just saying that?”

“I mean it!” Akaashi feels his smile growing wider. Bokuto kisses him, over and over, his lips getting fiercer and stronger each time.

“We’re gonna have a kid!” Bokuto exclaims. “We’re gonna be dads! How many do you want? You know what, let’s just start with one and see what happens!” He hugs Akaashi as tight as he ever has and Akaashi doesn’t even care that it feels like his ribs are being crushed. Bokuto’s excitement is infectious. His mind is racing with possibilities.

Bokuto kisses him again and says, “I love you, Keiji, you’re the best.”

Akaashi makes a snap decision and asks, “Are you going to impregnate me or what?”

“What? No, we gotta adopt—oh. Oh!”

It almost kills the mood. Almost. But then Bokuto is kissing him again, hard as he can, and saying, “Yes, yes, of course I will! Right now!”

As usual, Akaashi’s instinct is right. There was no mistaking the look in Bokuto’s eyes when he’d teased it earlier. Bokuto starts biting his neck with primal abandon, and Akaashi happily takes all that Bokuto has to give.

Even though Akaashi knows that adoption processes aren’t quick, he can’t help but be antsy. He’s made himself sick and sleepless with worry that their applications wouldn’t go through, that they wouldn’t pass their home inspections, or that the interviews would find them unfit. But there never turned out to be any problems. All they can really do now is wait.

Even after passing the inspections, Akaashi doesn’t stop fixing up the house. Udai teases him relentlessly, saying that he’s nesting. Which Akaashi can’t really deny. When he’s not working, he’s rearranging everything, clearing out a room for the nursery, shopping for furniture and clothes and anything else he can think of. He makes lists, dozens of them, and finds them scattered all over the apartment more often than he’d like. He calls his mom once a week asking for advice, for guidance, for anything he may have missed.

Bokuto comes home today with a huge shopping bag and sets it with a thump on the coffee table, loud enough to jolt Akaashi out of the stupor he’s been in, staring listlessly at his email inbox. There hasn’t been any news from the adoption agency. He’s trying to be patient, but he refreshes his email app once every half hour.

“Oh, you’re home,” Akaashi says. He pulls off his glasses and rubs his face. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Keiji, look at this.” Bokuto sits down next to Akaashi on the couch and digs into the bag. “I got a bunch of free stuff from the team!”

He pulls out a little newborn-sized onesie, black and gold and emblazoned with the MSBY logo. He holds it up with a proud smile. “I didn’t even know they made these! Isn’t she gonna look so cute? Here, hold this.” He sets it in Akaashi lap and pulls out even more onesies of the same style, each one a little bigger than the last.

“Babies grow out of stuff pretty much right away so they gave me a ton of sizes. And look! Little socks—this hat—isn’t this baby jacket cute as hell?” Bokuto piles everything into Akaashi’s lap, who’s finding himself a little speechless.

“And look at the best part,” Bokuto says, grinning wide as he digs out something from the very bottom. He pulls out a small, baby-sized volleyball, blue and yellow and a perfect replica of the balls Akaashi remembers so well from high school.

“Her first volleyball!” Bokuto announces. “It’s little so she can practice holding it, we’ll get her a real one when she gets big enough, but the best part, Keiji, is that the team says when we pick out a name for her, bring it back in and they’ll get it printed on here.”

Akaashi gently takes the little ball from him and holds it in his palm. It’s almost comically small, barely bigger than a softball. He imagines a tiny infant learning to use their hands holding it clumsily but with purpose. He imagines the hands growing bigger and learning to hold a bigger volleyball, maybe even learning to set it.

For whatever reason, he starts to cry.

“Oh come on, Keiji, don’t cry,” Bokuto says with a gentle laugh, scooting closer to wrap him in a hug.

“I’m not,” Akaashi insists. He takes off his glasses again and wipes his eyes. “It’s just…really sweet, is all.”

“Isn’t it?” Bokuto agrees. He gives Akaashi a tight squeeze and leans in to kiss the side of his head. “I just hope she likes volleyball when she grows up, or she might think this little thing is stupid.”

“Nobody can hate volleyball when you’re around.”

Bokuto laughs as Akaashi gives him a tearful smile. Bokuto reaches up to wipe away the tears from under Akaashi’s eyes and gives him another kiss. “You seem a little stressed, everything okay?”

“I’m…I’m fine,” Akaashi insists. He starts folding up the baby clothes and thinks that he should look up the right detergent to use to wash them. “I just wish there was any news.”

“She’ll come when she’s ready.”

“You’ve really got your heart set on a girl.”

When they filled out their forms, there had been a section to indicate a gender preference if they wanted. Neither of them had the heart to mark either box lest it slow things down, so they’d left it empty. But every day, Bokuto speaks of their “daughter”, of “she”, of “her room” or “her name”. He says he’s manifesting it, and Akaashi hopes he’s right.

“Well, of course!” says Bokuto. “I’ve always wanted a daughter.”

“Mmm…that’s not true.”

“What? How could you know that?”

“Remember when we were going home from school that one time, and that little baby waved at us?” Akaashi asks. Bokuto blinks at him, his expression blank.

Akaashi continues. “We talked about if we’d want kids. You said you didn’t care if you had a boy or a girl.”

Bokuto looks up to the ceiling, lost in thought. He’s silent for so long Akaashi almost says something, but then his eyes snap back down and he says, “Oh right, I remember now! Wow, I can’t believe you remember that, Keiji.”

Of course I do.

“But then,” Bokuto goes on, “you said you’d prefer a girl, and I guess at the time I thought if that’s what you wanted then that’s what I wanted too.”

Akaashi feels a strange heat creep into his chest. “What do you mean?”

“Well…I kinda always thought that…nah, forget it.” Bokuto laughs and takes the folded clothes from Akaashi’s lap, setting them gently back in the bag. Akaashi takes hold of his hand.

“No, tell me.”

Bokuto groans a little and sits back in the couch. “You’re gonna laugh.”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

Bokuto gives him a look. Akaashi gives him one right back. Akaashi sidles up closer, pressing himself into Bokuto’s thick, muscular chest. “Please?” he says, as sweetly as he can.

Bokuto makes a noise like a grunt and a sigh, and a furious red blush overtakes his face. “I just…I had a crush on you for so long and I thought about marrying you a lot back in high school, okay!?”

“What?” This is something Akaashi doesn’t know. He’s always figured Bokuto’s feelings began during his third year.

“Yeah, just…you know.”

“For how long?”

“…Since the second I saw you?”

Akaashi feels his breath catch in his lungs. This is the first he’s heard of this. That day his friend dragged him to the Fukurodani game back in middle school is one of his most treasured memories. Not once has he ever forgotten his first glimpse of Bokuto, and not once has anything ever changed him so suddenly. He still can’t believe sometimes that Bokuto even gave him a second glance.

“Really?” is all he finds himself saying now.

“Yeah, just…you know, you walked in, and I just thought wow, he’s so pretty! Like really, really cute, and I never thought it was possible for a guy to look that cute. And then I found out you were a setter so that was an easy excuse to talk to you, and then your sets ended up being the best I ever had…when I found out you were coming to Fukurodani I was so happy, Keiji.”

Akaashi sniffs to hold back the new wave of tears that are coming. “You never told me that.”

“Well, I thought you might make fun of me.” Bokuto actually looks a little sheepish. It’s not something Akaashi is used to seeing on him. “I mean, isn’t it kinda lame to just not tell someone else how you feel?”

“I don’t think it’s lame. Not at all.”

“Still…I’m sorry I kept it from you.” He averts his eyes. “Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not mad.” Akaashi gently pets the top of Bokuto’s head and is rewarded by Bokuto leaning into his touch. He keeps leaning until eventually most of his weight is on Akaashi, tipping them both over on the couch. Bokuto adjusts his position until he’s laying with his head on Akaashi’s chest, his arms wrapped around his waist. All the while, Akaashi keeps running his fingers through his hair.

“Good, I’m glad!” Bokuto says as he squeezes Akaashi’s body and nuzzles his face into his chest. “Because man, you would definitely laugh if you knew how bad I had it back then! Kuroo blocked my number for like a week because I wouldn’t stop texting him about you.”

Akaashi feels mortification creeping into his chest. “What?” he asks flatly.

“Yeah, I was real annoying about it and he said that he would tell you himself if I didn’t. And wow, I used to go nuts over you when you first put the uniform on. I eventually got used to it, but I was a mess.”

“What about me in the Fukurodani uniform could possibly have been attractive?”

Bokuto looks up at him, his gaze dark and serious. “Keiji. You didn’t wear knee pads.”

“…And?”

“I could see everything. Every single centimeter of your long legs.”

Akaashi opens his mouth. Closes it. Raises an eyebrow. “Kou…everyone was wearing shorts.”

“You don’t understand, Keiji.” Bokuto puts his hands on either side of Akaashi’s face and stares him down. “Thinking about your legs used to keep me up at night.”

Akaashi’s whole face goes bright red and he sputters out, “Wh-what…!”

“Sorry, is that weird to say?”

It shouldn’t be, not really. It’s not as if Akaashi never found himself staring at Bokuto’s compression knee pads, or lost sleep at training camps when Bokuto inadvertently cuddled up to him, or looked for Bokuto’s T-shirt to ride up when he was jumping. It’s been long enough since they were awkward teenagers that maybe they can now admit to these things.

“A little, but…also, not that weird,” Akaashi mumbles, averting his eyes from Bokuto’s intense yellow gaze. “I mean…there was that one day it was really hot out so you and Sarukui-san and Konoha-san all went out to the fountain after practice and dumped water all over each other…I came out and saw you all with your shirts off and I thought I was going to faint.”

Bokuto’s eyes go wide and he laughs. “I remember that! I thought you were having a heat stroke or something!”

“No…” Akaashi says with a small smile. “Just…the view.”

“Who looked the best when you saw us?”

“Oh, come on, you know the answer to that.”

Bokuto raises an eyebrow and grins. “It was me, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t even realize the others were there at first.” Akaashi’s face is suddenly peppered with kisses.

“Well if I’d known all that I would never have worn a shirt at all!”

“As much as I would have loved that, it would have made me useless in a real game.”

Bokuto wraps his arms around Akaashi again and squeezes him tight. He’s heavy on top of Akaashi, but it’s a comforting and familiar weight. It presses all the anxiety and stress right out of him. For a while they’re just quiet, as Bokuto snuggles into him and Akaashi presses kisses into the top of his head.

Suddenly, the tranquility is broken as Bokuto sits up with a start, gasping loudly. “Keiji!”

Akaashi blinks at him, his heartrate beginning to climb again. “What?”

“Keiji!” Bokuto yells again, leaning down and putting his hands on Akaashi’s shoulders. “When we have a baby, when are we going to have time to have sex?”

It takes a moment for Akaashi to process that. Truthfully, it hasn’t crossed his mind. “Whenever we get a chance, I guess. Probably not too often.”

Bokuto’s face falls. “Yeah, I was afraid of that. Damn…okay, that’s fine, I guess.” He goes back to cuddling, but his grip is tighter, his nuzzling a bit more insistent, and his whole body has definitely gotten warmer. Akaashi stifles a giggle and rubs Bokuto’s back in long, soft strokes.

“We don’t have a baby right now though…and might not for a bit longer.”

Bokuto’s face pops up, and it’s bright red with anticipation and excitement. “Soooo…now? Can we now?”

Akaashi pretends to think about it, then pulls Bokuto’s face closer for a deep, leisurely kiss. “Yes, now is good.”

Before he can say anything else, Bokuto jumps to his feet and pulls Akaashi up off the couch, then hastily leads him by the hand down to their bedroom.

It’s the middle of the work day when Akaashi gets the email. A notification goes off on his phone, and though he’s been checking every one obsessively for weeks, he’s too focused right this minute to give it a second glance. It’s only after the fifteen minutes he needs to finish his train of thought that he picks it up.

There’s an email in his personal inbox from the adoption agency. His heart explodes in a rapid flutter and he hastily opens it. The subject line takes his breath away and it’s a good thing he’s already sitting down, because his knees would have buckled.

Congratulations! is all it reads, and that’s all he needs to see to know that it’s happening.

The email tells him that they have a baby available for adoption, and that he and Bokuto are welcome to come by and meet her to make their decision.

Her…it’s a girl. It’s a girl. Akaashi’s hands are shaking as he quickly calls up the agency. He should probably call Bokuto first, but all that he can think about is making the appointment, of letting them know that yes, of course they will come, of course they will have her. Without even meeting her, he knows that she’s the one.

He gets ahold of the woman they’ve been working with for months. The same woman who helped them put in the application, who organized all their interviews, all their home visits, the woman who told Akaashi to call her any time of day if he had any questions. She holds back her own excited laughter as she tells Akaashi that yes, there’s time available today to come in and meet the baby.

She’s not quite a newborn, about a month old already. The mother chose not to name her, so that part would be up to Bokuto and Akaashi.

“Thank you…thank you!” Akaashi says breathlessly into the phone, then scrambles to his feet, grabbing his jacket. He just barely remembers to stop by his boss’s office to tell him that he needs the rest of the day off. The whole office knows he’s been waiting for the call, so he’s encouraged to take a few days if he needs it.

Akaashi dials Bokuto’s number as he races to the train station. At this time of day, Bokuto is usually pretty deep into practice, and it can be next to impossible to reach him. The phone rings and rings and goes to voicemail.

“Come on…” Akaashi begs. He tries a third time to no avail.

There’s one more thing to try, though he hates to do it, and it might not even work.

When Hinata answers his phone, there’s a hint of worry underneath his cheery greeting. “Hey Akaashi-san! What’s going on?”

He sounds out of breath. Akaashi probably got lucky and caught him during a break in practice. “Hinata, is Koutaro there?”

“Uhhh…” He pauses, as if searching the gym. “Yeah, he’s just serving. Why, need me to get him?”

“Can you ask him to answer—actually…I’m sorry, Hinata, could you give the phone to him?” Akaashi steps onto the train as it pulls up. He’s too excited to sit, so he grabs an overhead handle and tries to calm his racing heart.

There’s another pause, and then Hinata gasps, as if connecting the dots. “Oh my god!” he exclaims. “Did you get a baby?”

“Yes, but please keep your voice down? I want to be the one to tell him.”

“Ohhhh right, of course, of course! One sec, I’ll get him for you!”

There’s the sound of Hinata’s shoes against the court floor, his excited breaths, and distant volleyball sounds in the background. Other voices drift by him, and slowly fading in, Akaashi can begin to hear Bokuto’s voice. His heart races.

“Bokkun!” comes Hinata’s voice. “Come here, come here!”

After some rustling, Bokuto’s voice answers him. “Hey Keiji, what’s up? Sorry I missed your call, I was really in the zone over here, you should have seen th—”

“We have a girl.”

There’s a split second of silence before Bokuto bellows in his ear, “A GIRL?!”

Akaashi blinks, the sound making him go dizzy. He’s pretty sure everyone else on the train could hear that. “Yes!” he replies, and he suddenly finds he can’t stop smiling. “Yes, and we can go meet her today. Are you able to get out of practice?”

“Yes, yes, I’m coming right now!! Where are you? Should I meet you somewhere? Do I need to bring anything?”

Akaashi can hear him running and Hinata yelling, “That’s my phone, Bokuto!”

“Shoot, right—Keiji, let me call you back!!” The line goes quiet. It feels like an eternity before the phone is ringing again, this time from Bokuto’s own phone.

“Where are you?” Bokuto asks, out of breath with excitement.

“I’m on the train headed to the agency. You can meet me there; I’ll wait outside.”

“Got it, got it.” He laughs, the sound manic and joyful. “It’s really happening, you’re not playing a prank on me?”

“I would never. It’s real, it’s happening.”

Akaashi can’t stop himself from pacing back and forth outside the agency. He’s checked the train schedules from the gym and if Bokuto had gotten on not long after their phone call, he should be here soon. His mind runs wild with every passing minute that Bokuto isn’t there.

Maybe he just got held up leaving. Maybe the trains where he was were delayed. Maybe he tripped and fell down the stairs and is languishing in a heap somewhere waiting for help. Maybe he stepped off the curb without looking and—

“Keiji!!”

Akaashi looks up and Bokuto is sprinting down the sidewalk at him, his jacket hanging sloppily on his torso, looking like he came straight from practice without even changing. As Bokuto crashes into him with a huge hug, Akaashi realizes that’s exactly what he did. His dear, beloved husband is dripping with sweat and flushed red with exertion. But it doesn’t matter, because Bokuto is picking him up and squeezing him tightly and swinging him around in a wide circle.

“I’m so sorry it took me so long to get here!” Bokuto says as he sets him down. “I almost ran out without any of my stuff so I had to go back and get it and then I thought I lost my wallet—well, whatever, it doesn’t matter! I’m here now!”

Akaashi finds himself grinning wide, his heart doing giddy flips in his chest. “You’re here now,” he agrees. “Come on, let’s go meet our little girl.”

Before he even sees her for the first time, Bokuto already knows that this girl is the one. He won’t need to see any others, he won’t need to think it over. From the moment Akaashi called him, in his heart he knows she’s a perfect match.

Seeing her only affirms his decision.

She’s asleep in a carrier, completely swallowed up in a fluffy yellow blanket. Her cheeks are round and rosy—perfect baby cheeks, Bokuto thinks—and she’s got jet black hair that curls just a little in the same way Akaashi’s does. In fact, she looks like she could be his biological daughter. He’s pretty sure that when she opens her eyes, he’ll be greeted by beautiful dark irises.

The carrier is on a chair in their agent’s office; they brought her over from the small nursery room to meet her prospective parents. Bokuto kneels down on the floor in front of her and doesn’t hear a word that either Akaashi or the agent are saying to each other. He’s enraptured by the baby, so small and so quiet, and in an instant he loves her. He wants to reach out and touch her, pick her up, let her feel his hand in her tiny grip. But he can’t bring himself to do anything to wake her. As if touching her would break some sort of spell, as if she might actually disappear if he does even a single motion out of step.

He feels a gentle touch on his shoulder and he looks up. Akaashi is smiling at him, then kneels down beside him.

“Keiji,” Bokuto whispers, “look at her.”

“I see her,” Akaashi whispers back, and when Bokuto glances over at him, there are tears rolling down his cheeks. Tears accompanied by the biggest smile he’s ever seen on Akaashi’s face. The last time he saw Akaashi smile like that was when Bokuto proposed to him.

“She’s perfect. I want her.”

“Me too.”

They stand up at the same time and turn to their agent, declaring in unison, “We’ll take her!”

The agent laughs and says, “I thought you might say that. I went ahead and had the final paperwork printed and ready before you got here.”

“S-so it’s okay? It’s all good?” Bokuto looks between Akaashi and the agent frantically. “We can take her home? With us, today?”

“There’s still a few final things to sign, but yes, you two have passed all your interviews and checks and I personally have every confidence you will be wonderful fathers.”

Thinking back on it, she has been working with them for months, helping them with every step of the process. It sort of feels like the end of an era. Bokuto is overcome with the urge to hug her, but he restrains himself.

“First things first,” she says as they take seats around her desk. She slides a piece of paper across to them. “Why don’t you give her a name?”

Bokuto blinks at her, then at Akaashi.

“Oh,” Akaashi says, somewhat sheepishly. “I forgot to tell you…her mother didn’t name her. We get to do it.”

They’ve talked about this. They decided they won’t change the baby’s name if there already was one, but they’d spent hours deciding on what they’ll go with given the opportunity. In truth, neither of them expected to get to do this, but now it was here.

Akaashi hadn’t taken Bokuto’s name, and Bokuto hadn’t taken his. It was something they talked about, and in the end decided that simply neither of them wanted to. Akaashi half-joked that it would have been weird to see his own name discussed as part of the MSBY team, and Bokuto just plain liked the sound of “Akaashi” since for years, that was what Bokuto had called him. (Akaashi said, also, that since by then the Bokuto Beam was firmly established, Bokuto couldn’t just change it. “Akaashi Beam” didn’t have quite the same ring.) So their names remained, though obviously, with a child, a decision had to be made.

They went back and forth for weeks, but eventually, it was Akaashi who came up with the best solution. “Let’s do this,” he’d said. “We’ll give her your last name, but we’ll have one of my kanji in her first name.”

Bokuto’s eyes had lit up then. “That’s perfect!” he’d exclaimed. “I already found this one name I really, really like, and I think it fits! But you have to tell me if we can spell it that way.”

“Show me, then.”

The name, however, had not fit. There was no way to spell it with any of Akaashi’s kanji. Bokuto had said that was fine, he’d think about it a little while longer, but Akaashi had seen the way his face had fallen. They discussed other names, but nothing ever made them as excited as that first suggestion.

“You know, Koutaro,” Akaashi had said one night after dinner, “I think I like your first idea for her name.”

“But the spelling—”

“It’s fine. She doesn’t have to match us perfectly.” He’d smiled at Bokuto, reached across their table, and taken his hand. “And if you spell it phonetically, we have the same first two letters.”

Bokuto had squeezed his hand and said, “Okay…but only if you’re sure.”

“I can’t imagine any other name for her.”

So now, Bokuto hands the pen to Akaashi. “You write it. Your handwriting’s better than mine.”

Akaashi notices, when he passes the pen over, that Bokuto’s hand is shaking. With his left hand Akaashi holds his, and with the other hand he writes the name they picked.

Bokuto Akari.

When he’s finished writing it, exactly the way they envisioned, Akaashi looks over at Bokuto and finds him wiping away tears.

They finish up the last of the paperwork, and finally the agent flashes a big smile at them. “You’re all set! Congratulations, you two.”

“Thank you for everything.” Bokuto stands up and can’t resist reaching over to shake her hand. He wants to pick her up in a huge hug, to tell her she’s part of their family now too, to keep calling them and keep staying in touch because it feels like she worked just as hard as them to make this happen.

She laughs and smiles at them. “Here,” she says, putting out a hand. “Give me your phone. Let’s take a picture.”

The picture goes out to everyone instantly. Bokuto drops it in the MSBY group chat, Akaashi sends it to his mother, Udai, and some close work friends. Their phones are both blowing up as they sit on the train heading back home, the carrier sitting on a seat between them. On the floor is a massive bag of diapers and formula from the agency. They were even allowed to take the carrier with them since they hadn’t brought their own, on the condition it was returned eventually.

Akari—their daughter, their actual real daughter—sleeps the whole way home. She isn’t fazed in the slightest by the movement of the train, the idle chatter of people around them, or even Bokuto’s excited yelling as he video calls with Hinata and Atsumu. (Akaashi offers a sheepish apology to the surrounding commuters with a wave, but no one seems truly bothered. They can put together the pieces of Bokuto’s excitement well enough). Bokuto puts the phone directly in her face so they can see her, and she doesn’t stir. Akaashi takes that as a good sign. If Bokuto’s volume level doesn’t bother her, she’ll do just fine.

“Okay this is our stop, I gotta go!” Bokuto says into the phone. He gets to his feet and takes the formula bag; Akaashi handles the carrier.

As they walk home, Akaashi can barely keep his eyes off her. Amazingly, she’s still asleep. He wonders what she’ll think, in her little infant brain, to open her eyes to a completely new environment and no people that she recognizes. He hopes it doesn’t cause her distress. Maybe they should have woken her up back at the agency, so she could take a look at them there, where things were familiar? Would she be scared? Would she even know?

Bokuto slings his arm over Akaashi’s shoulders. “Overthinking,” he declares with a grin. “Your forehead is all wrinkled.”

“Is not,” Akaashi replies, but Bokuto’s touch does calm him a little. It’ll be fine. It will be.

When they get home, they set her carrier on the couch, and finally, she opens her eyes.

She yawns, her tiny baby mouth stretching wide, and blinks at nothing. Her eyes are deep, dark brown, wide and curious, looking at everything and focusing on nothing.

“Hi there,” Bokuto says sweetly, with a gentle, quiet tone. He reaches in, setting his hand atop the massive blanket that’s covering most of her body. She looks at it, then at him, and hiccups.

“Akari,” he says again, in a slightly singsong lilt, “We’re your dads. We love yoooou.”

Her mouth moves a little, like she’s trying to make an expression.

“Was that—did she smile at me, Keiji?” Bokuto whips his head around, eyes wide and sparkling.

“I think she tried to,” Akaashi tells him, with a smile of his own.

“Do you think…I can maybe hold her? Or will that upset her? Will she start crying if I touch her?”

“You won’t know until you try. Go on.”

Bokuto swallows nervously and turns back to the carrier. He gently pulls down the blanket, to absolutely no reaction. Akari is still just looking at him, half-asleep. With the blanket gone, they can see that she’s wearing a little onesie with big, cartoonish stars all over. Bokuto unclips her and gently moves her arms free. She makes a noise, but doesn’t look perturbed. He takes a breath, then reaches in and lifts her up.

She only makes a tiny grumble as she’s moved, but as Bokuto cradles her in his arm, holding her head steady just the way Akaashi taught him, she relaxes instantly.

“She hardly weighs anything,” Bokuto whispers excitedly. “Keiji, look at her.”

But Akaashi is only looking at him. Bokuto holds her so naturally, with barely a trace of fear, like being a parent was written into his bones. And she fits there, so small and sure in his massive arms. She moves her own arms around aimlessly, like she isn’t quite sure what to do with them, and yawns again. She closes her eyes, and drifts back off to sleep.

“Keiji!” Bokuto exclaims in another whisper. “She fell asleep on me! Look!”

Akaashi gets out his phone. “You want a picture, Dad?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

Neither of them sleep at all that first night. It isn’t because of anything Akari does or doesn’t do. They’re just too excited and nervous to do anything except watch her. She wakes once and fusses for a bit for some food. Akaashi is there immediately with the very first bottle of formula; secretly, he’s glad that he gets to be the first one to hold and feed her. Bokuto watches intently, marveling at how much she can eat.

When the sun comes up, Akaashi is the first to feel the crash.

“You should get some sleep,” Bokuto tells him. “You might not get much of it from now on.”

“That doesn’t bother me, I’m used to running on no sleep,” Akaashi replies, barely stifling a yawn. They’re sitting side by side in bed, where they’ve been for the last few hours in an attempt to sleep. Akari sleeps soundly in her bassinet, unaware of the two pairs of eyes that have never once left her.

“I’m still pretty wired, I’ll stay up a little longer.” Bokuto grins and puts his arm around Akaashi’s shoulders, pulling him in for a side hug. “I’ll protect you both.”

Akaashi laughs a little at that. “Okay, but if she wakes up and you need me, you wake me up too, okay?”

“I can handle it. I’ve been a dad for—” Bokuto checks his watch “—ten hours now. I’m an expert.”

“Okay.” Akaashi lays down on his side so both of them are in his line of sight. He feels the adrenaline seeping out of his body and exhaustion begin to wash in. Still, there’s so much excitement. It feels like just yesterday he and Bokuto were lying right here and talking about adoption. Now it’s real, and they have a daughter, and they’re going to raise her together.

Akaashi scoots a little closer to Bokuto and reaches out for his hand. Bokuto lets him hold it and cradle it to his chest, and Akaashi finally drifts off to sleep.

The first few weeks are a blur. All things considered, Akari is not really a difficult baby. When she cries, it’s easy enough for Akaashi to figure out what she needs. As expected, she sleeps most of the time, and about half of that time is on Bokuto’s chest. He almost never has her out of his hands. The first time they all go out to the store together, Bokuto wants to carry her the whole time, insisting that she weighed nothing and it wouldn’t be a big deal at all.

Akaashi brought the carrier anyway, and about halfway through their trip Bokuto finally set her down in it, his arms shaking from exertion. Seven pounds isn’t much, unless you’re holding it for over twenty minutes.

They settle into a routine. They’ve both taken paternity leave, so they’re home most of the time. Akari has her fussy nights, and they take turns getting up to sit with her. Bokuto changes her clothes at least four times a day, and not even out of necessity. He’s bought so many that he wants to take her picture in every single outfit. Akaashi reads to her a lot, sometimes from the baby books she has, and sometimes from his own books. One time Bokuto caught him sneaking a look at his email and reading that out loud to her; he immediately closed Akaashi’s laptop and took it away.

“No work,” he said as he left the room with it. “Nothing will catch on fire without you there, Akaashi. Well, maybe our house would. But you’re here with us, in our house. The magazine will survive.”

After about a month, Akaashi starts to worry that Bokuto will get antsy to return to practice. His coach insisted that he take all the time he needs, and while Bokuto doesn’t say anything about going back, Akaashi worries that it’s in the back of his mind. Then again, this is the first time he’s seen Bokuto so laser-focused on something that’s not volleyball. He certainly still watches old games on his phone (while letting Akari see, as much as she can understand what she’s looking at) and he definitely talks to his teammates every day. But there’s none of that raw energy thrumming underneath his skin, desperate to get out. If anything, it’s coming out in the form of being the most relaxed new father Akaashi could have ever imagined.

One night, Akaashi is folding laundry on the couch (it’s all he ever seems to do these days) while Bokuto has Akari sitting on his lap, her head propped up against his chest. She holds the little volleyball they got stamped with her name; to their delight, she chews on it constantly. She loves it almost as much as the stuffed owl doll that’s never far from her side. On the TV is some movie they’ve been trying to get through in snatches for the past four days.

“Hey, Keiji?” Bokuto says.

“Hmm?”

“Can we take Akari down to go meet everybody tomorrow? Like to the gym. I already asked them if it was okay, also Sakusa made sure everyone got their vaccines up to date.”

Akaashi feels a little sting of panic in his chest. Is this it? Is this Bokuto wanting to go back to work and leave them? “Sure,” he says. “If you want.”

There’s a bit of silence. “What are you thinking about?” Bokuto asks, peering directly into him.

Akaashi looks over and guilt overtakes him. He should never have even let the thought enter his mind. “Nothing, just…I know you must miss going to practice.”

“Well yeah, a little, but that’s why we watch so many games.” He takes hold of Akari’s arms and gently holds them up. She looks up at him and blinks. “I show her all of mine, you know. Then I just remember what it was like doing those plays and it’s like I’m really there!”

Despite everything, it brings a smile to Akaashi’s face. He’s definitely overheard Bokuto giving their daughter a play-by-play when he doesn’t realize Akaashi is listening.

“All right,” he says, a little more earnestly this time.

“I told her all about how Papa Keiji was the best setter in Tokyo.” Bokuto moves Akari’s hands roughly in the motion of setting a ball. “So you gotta show her.” He grins. “I don’t have any videos of you, you know.”

“I haven’t played volleyball since high school,” Akaashi replies with a slight smile. “I don’t want her to see me embarrass myself.”

“You won’t. Tsum-Tsum is a good setter but he’s not you. His tosses are nothing like yours.”

Akaashi feels his face growing red and his chest tightens. He tries not to look at Bokuto—who he knows is looking at him—as he replies, “Is that so.”

“I mean they’re still really, really good. But I still like yours. I kinda miss them sometimes.” A pause. “So…you wanna come do some tosses with me? And show off our daughter?”

Akaashi finally turns to look, and Bokuto and Akari are staring back at him with the same wide-eyed expression. He barely stifles a laugh. Akari doesn’t make much in the way of facial expressions yet, but when she does it’s astounding how much she looks like Bokuto. It’s almost like she’s deliberately trying to copy him. She definitely smiles like him, with a big, wide open mouth.

“I’d like that,” he says.

Everyone is so enraptured by Akari that they barely give either Bokuto or Akaashi so much as a hello. Hinata is all over her, he can’t stop talking about how cute she is, how much she weirdly looks like Akaashi, and how good the MSBY onesie looks on her. Sakusa hangs back and tries to tell everyone not to crowd her, but there’s definite interest in his eyes, almost a sparkle. When Atsumu says he wants to hold her, Sakusa tells him he’ll either infect her or drop her.

“I know how to hold a baby!” Atsumu insists angrily. Akari, who had just been sitting in her carrier looking at everybody, suddenly goes wide-eyed and screws up her face.

“Quit shouting or you’ll make her cry,” Sakusa says, and to his credit Atsumu immediately lowers his voice and tries again.

“I’m sorry, Akari-chan,” he tells her sweetly, a big smile plastered across his face. “Don’t cry or your dads won’t ever let me babysit ya.”

Hinata reaches into the carrier and lets her grab onto his finger. He smiles at her, and she rewards him with a big smile of her own.

“She smiled at me!” Hinata exclaims. He looks up at Bokuto. “Did you see that? She smiled at me!”

Bokuto grins. “She likes you, Shoyou!”

“That’s cheating, everyone likes Shoyou,” Atsumu says, only slightly betraying his disappointment that he did not get a smile.

“When are you coming back to practice?” Sakusa asks, staring pointedly at Bokuto. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” Bokuto replies, “I just don’t know when yet. I’m not just gonna leave Keiji alone with Akari all the time, he’s gotta work too. But you know…I’ll let you know.”

Akaashi watches the team fawning over their daughter and feels a sense of unease. He’d been hoping that coming here wouldn’t stir up any feelings of regret in Bokuto, that he wouldn’t step back into the gym and realize what a horrible mistake he’d made. It isn’t like they haven’t talked about it extensively. It isn’t like they don’t have a rough plan. But plans can only be plans. Reality followed its own path.

He feels Bokuto watching him but chooses to ignore him. Eventually, Bokuto gets up and hands the carrier to Hinata.

“Here, hold her up so he can see. I’m gonna show her what her dad can do.”

“Oooohh, are you gonna show her some spikes?!” Hinata exclaims excitedly. Atsumu gets up and stretches his arms.

“Guess you’ll need someone to throw some balls for you too?” he suggests with a grin.

“Yeah, Keiji’ll do it!” Bokuto declares, and gestures for Akaashi to follow him out to the court.

Atsumu deflates, almost visibly, and simply says: “Oh. Fair enough I guess.”

It’s strange, walking out onto the MSBY practice court. Akaashi can’t remember the last time he set tosses for Bokuto, only that it can’t have been too long ago. And he certainly hasn’t done it here, in this professional team gym, with the rest of Bokuto’s professional level team watching him. He feels like he ought to be nervous, or self-conscious, but Hinata is holding up Akari, and her big, dark eyes are watching him intently.

Akaashi never needed attention in the way that Bokuto did. But in this moment, with his daughter’s gaze fixed pointedly on him, he feels a surge of energy and determination.

It takes no time at all for the muscle memory to come back. Setting a ball for Bokuto to spike is as natural as breathing. They might not be the pro level tosses he’s used to these days, but he goes after each one with a familiar eagerness that brings Akaashi right back to high school.

If anyone is saying something from the sidelines, he doesn’t hear it. All he hears is the sound of the ball hitting the floor, all he feels is the weight of the volleyball in his hands, and all he sees is Bokuto jumping and spiking with laser precision. It’s nice. When he does take a second to look over at Akari, he sees Hinata saying something to her and pointing out at the court. As if to say, See your dads out there? Aren’t they cool?

After a while, Meian comes out to tell them that’s enough, the rest of the team needs the court back. They all say their goodbyes, and Akari finally does give Atsumu a smile.

The months pass. Akari gets bigger all the time, and no matter how much she grows, she seems to always want to grow more. Akaashi can tell that she desperately wishes she could crawl. Bokuto tries to encourage her as soon as she’s able to sit up on her own, and she wants to, but she can’t quite figure out how to make her body move that way, so she always end up crying.

If she looks more like Akaashi between the two of them, she’s definitely taking after Bokuto in the volume department. Akaashi would never describe her as particularly difficult, but when she is in a mood, she’s in it full force. It mostly doesn’t bother him, loud noises never really have. In fact, Akari is fairly easy to placate.

Case in point: she almost always wants to eat more than she’s supposed to. Depending on how tired she also is, Akaashi can distract her from food with her volleyball. If the volleyball doesn’t work, reading to her is the next best thing. But that usually only works for a little while, and if she’s still upset about not being allowed to overeat, he’ll let her watch one of Bokuto’s volleyball game recordings. Strangely enough, she does have favorites.

If absolutely none of them work, then he just has to let her cry. And when she cries, Akaashi feels like the whole world is collapsing into a black hole. Even when he knows it’s just a baby expressing itself in one of the few ways it knows how, even when he knows she’s not really in pain or trouble, he hates it. He wants her to never cry, not for anything.

Bokuto has gone back to practice in a sort of part-time capacity. Instead of practicing every day, he goes three days a week, and is always home in time for dinner.  There’s still time before the season starts in earnest, and by then they’re both confident that between Akaashi and daycare things will be fine.

However, when Bokuto comes home tonight, he finds them both crying.

The first thought he has is panic. One of them must have gotten hurt. He drops his things by the door and rushes over to where Akaashi is sitting on the couch with Akari in his arms. She’s crying – not hard, and not very loud. Just the wailing she does when she’s frustrated. Bokuto has heard that one a lot; she’s not in pain, and his chest eases.

Akaashi is crying with big, fat tears rolling down his cheeks that he’s not bothering to wipe away, and his face is red and tired. That’s what he does when he’s truly upset, not stressed or irritated but actually sad.

“Hey,” Bokuto says softly, sitting down beside him and wrapping one arm around his shoulders. “Hey, what’s wrong, Keiji? Did something happen?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Akaashi replies miserably. “She’s mad at me.”

“What?” Bokuto resists the urge to grin a little; the thought of Akari being mad at Akaashi, wonderful, perfect dad that he is who never lets a moment pass without thinking of her well-being and happiness, is so ridiculous it’s comical. But he tries not to laugh when Akaashi is upset. It never diffuses the situation in the way that Bokuto hopes it will.

“I think her teeth are hurting her,” Akaashi mumbles through tears, “so when I gave her the volleyball earlier she started chewing on it, and I don’t want her to tear it, so I took it away and gave her the teething toy and she got so upset, she threw it at me.”

Bokuto wonders how good of a throw it was and decides to ask later. Before he can ask more questions, Akaashi goes on.

“So I gave her the ball back and she doesn’t want it now and she won’t stop crying.” He looks up at Bokuto with red, teary eyes. “She’s mad at me. I should have just let her chew on it.”

“No, Keiji, she’s not mad at you,” Bokuto assures him, leaning over to kiss his warm, teary cheek. “I promise you she’s not! Here, you want me to hold her for a sec?”

Akaashi nods after a moment and gently passes her over. Akari cries even harder, for whatever reason, and Bokuto stands up with her in his arms.

“Okay, baby girl, you’re all right,” he tells her. “Everything’s okay.”

As if she understands and believes him, some of Akari’s crying starts to dissipate. Bokuto holds her up towards the ceiling, then cradles the back of her head and tilts her upside down towards the floor. He repeats it twice more, moving slowly as he does it.

“Aaaaand up we go!” he says. “And over the net she goes, then—nice receive!” He tilts her backwards towards the ground, eliciting a small smile. Eventually, after four or five more repetitions, Akari giggles. Bokuto hands her, fully placated, back to Akaashi.

Akaashi takes her back in his arms and gives her the volleyball, which she happily places in her mouth and begins gently chewing at.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Akaashi says wearily. His tears have mostly stopped, but he’s still sniffling. “I swear I tried everything.”

“Were you crying the whole time?” Bokuto asks, but there’s no accusatory tone in his words.

Akaashi averts his eyes. “No,” he lies.

“Akari and I have a few things in common, you know. Neither of us like to see you cry. In fact, it kinda makes us want to cry too.”

Akaashi wipes away some errant tears. “I just…the things I used to do to calm her down aren’t working anymore.”

“You know it’s important to let babies learn how to…what’s the word? Self-soothe?”

“I know, but it’s impossible. I hate seeing her be sad.”

“Well, I learned how to self-soothe after high school,” Bokuto declares proudly. “And you taught me how! And if you can teach me, you can teach our baby.”

Akaashi laughs a little. While Bokuto did eventually learn to manage his mood swings, Akaashi also remembers all the times Bokuto would call him after he graduated, just to complain or vent or whine, and demand that Akaashi fix it for him. It was a little unfair, perhaps, to compare Bokuto’s emotions to a baby’s, but he could see what Bokuto meant.

“Keiji, you know you’re a great dad, right?” Bokuto looks at him with an unwavering gaze. “Like, I tell the guys all the time. You do so much, you think of things I would have never come up with, and I could never do any of this without you.”

Akaashi looks back at him, then wipes away fresh tears. In his lap, Akari is mouthing and slobbering all over her volleyball, looking happy as can be. She grabs at Akaashi’s shirt and looks at him.

“Hey, how about we go out to eat tonight?” Bokuto suggests. “You know Shoyou’s been dying to babysit? I can ask him if he wants to come watch her.”

“How about tomorrow? It’s bad manners to give such little notice like that. Hinata might have plans already.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Okay, I’ll ask him about tomorrow.” Bokuto grabs his phone and stands up. “You two just sit there, I’ll make us something for dinner.”

“But you must be tired—”

“Nope!” Bokuto cuts him off and leans back down to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry about a thing, Papa Koutaro will handle it!”

Akaashi hears an ominous crash followed by skittering feet. He sighs and stands up from his work computer, then goes in search of the incident.

Out in the living room, one of the tall lamps is now lying on the floor, bits of broken lightbulb glittering in the sunlight. He looks around and sees a telltale volleyball on the couch, but no daughter to be found. She’s probably not far; their new house isn’t so big that he doesn’t know all her hiding places. He goes to get the broom and quickly sweeps up the shards of glass; he’ll come back for a thorough cleaning in a minute.

He checks the usual places: in the TV cabinet, behind the tall bookcase, between the houseplants in the corner. Akari isn’t in any of them. So he goes down the hall and gently knocks on her bedroom door. There’s no response, but he hears a rustling within.

“Akari?” he calls softly. “Can I come in?”

There’s a long pause before he gets an answer. A very tiny, soft, “Yes.”

He opens the door and can see her hiding under her bed. She’s curled up in a little ball on her side, looking miserable and refusing to meet his eyes. Akaashi crosses the room and sits down on the floor. He doesn’t know how she picked up Bokuto’s old habit of hiding in small places to pout. It’s strange, but also comforting, to see how much she takes after him.

“Didn’t I tell you no volleyball in the house?” he asks patiently.

“I’m sorry,” she replies. Her voice is tight and she sounds like she’s trying not to cry. “I was bored.”

Akaashi suddenly has the wherewithal to check his watch. It’s 3:30 – he’d told her he was going to stop working at 3. His heart sinks into his stomach with guilt.

“No, I’m sorry, Akari-chan,” he tells her, rubbing his temple with one hand. “I know I said we could go to the park.”

He works from home most of the time now, but the work-life balance is a struggle sometimes. When Akari isn’t at daycare she wants all of his attention, which he is normally more than happy to give. Unfortunately, he can’t explain deadlines very well to a four-year-old, and he hates telling her that he can’t play right now. When Bokuto is home the two of them wear each other out to an almost comical degree, but he’s deep in the volleyball season and traveling a lot these days.

Bokuto made him promise to do better, and Akaashi was really trying. He delegated more tasks to his junior colleagues, he let Udai slide way less on his submissions, and he even turned some opportunities down. But it still feels like none of it matters when he broke his promise to his daughter to take her to the park and she broke a lamp trying to play alone.

“Are you mad at me?” Akari asks.

Akaashi smiles at her. “No, I’m not mad. I should be apologizing to you. Do you still want to go play?”

She scurries out from under the bed and plops herself down in his lap. “Yes, I do! Please, please can we go already?”

“We’ll clean up the mess in the living room first, then yes, we can go.”

She grips him in a big hug and then runs out to find the broom. Akaashi scrambles up and calls after her to be careful, there’s still glass on the floor. Once the mess has been cleaned up—and luckily, the lamp still works and didn’t hit the TV on its way down this time—they prepare to go out to the park.

There’s a playground just a block down the street, and it was a big factor in their decision to buy this new house. There were plenty other reasons, but most of all Bokuto was adamant that their daughter have a place to run around outside. And she does, frequently, with great enthusiasm. She’s like Bokuto that way, in that she’ll keep going and never stop until Akaashi physically picks her up and takes her home.

Akari runs over to an open patch of grass and holds her volleyball aloft. It’s a proper-sized one now, though she still has her first one, the little one, teeth marks and all. “Papa Keiji, toss with me!” she calls.

She’s clumsy with it still, but she’s still the best in Akaashi’s eyes. He’s shown her how to set, and she tries to copy it, though usually she just ends up throwing the ball straight up into the air with her arms. A lot of the time, she tells Akaashi that she wants to “do that thing Papa Kou did”, which means she saw something Bokuto did on TV and Akaashi has to guess what it was.

Her favorite game, though, is when Akaashi tosses the ball high up into the air, then quickly picks her up so that she can try to hit it as it comes down. She misses half the time, but it’s an improvement from when she missed most of the time. When Bokuto is with them, he’s the one to pick her up while Akaashi tosses. Sometimes he lets her go just briefly at the highest point so she hovers in the air for a split second. She loves it, and Bokuto somehow never wears out tossing her over and over again.

Akaashi found out pretty early on that Bokuto loved throwing their child in the air. The first time he saw him do it, Akari was a little under a year old, and Akaashi just about had an aneurysm. But there was no denying how happy it made her, and Bokuto was always careful. Despite the initial panic, Akaashi knew that Bokuto would never do anything truly careless with their daughter. They roughhoused a lot, but never once had Akari actually gotten hurt. If anything, between the two of them, Bokuto had sustained the most injuries from her.

(Akaashi remembers, very fondly, the night Bokuto slinked into their bedroom with a bloody nose and the sheepish declaration, “Your daughter kicked my ass.”)

They play for about an hour until it starts to look like it might rain. Akari runs over and takes Akaashi’s hand as they get ready to leave.

“Papa Keiji, when we get home will you read my book?” she asks.

“Sure. Which one do you want to read?”

“No, my book. The one I wrote.”

Akaashi almost stops in his tracks. “You wrote one?” he repeats.

“Yeah, will you read it?” She looks up at him with wide, expectant eyes, and Akaashi coughs to hide the surge of emotion welling up inside him.

“Of course I will,” he says, and she giggles happily.

Back home, Akari pulls out a jumble of papers with scribbled crayon drawings. It takes her a moment to put them all in the right order, and Akaashi watches her, waiting patiently. She stares down at them, her little brow furrowed in concentration, then she declares that it’s ready.

She reads the story aloud to him, which is good because her handwriting is still that of a child’s. Her story is about two owls and their baby. One owl is the strongest in the woods, the other is the smartest. Their baby wants to learn to fly, but it’s hard for her. In the end, she gets one feather from each of her parents and learns to soar.

It takes everything in Akaashi to not burst into ugly tears by the end. He’d had no idea she was doing this, or that she even had any interest in writing. They love to read together, and she’s always asking questions about why something happened, or about what Akaashi is reading when she sees him with a book, or what he got to read for work. She must have been thinking about this for a long time.

“Okay, it’s finished!” she declares, and shoves the papers into his hands. “It’s not late.”

Akaashi arranges the papers together carefully, like they’d crumple into dust if he doesn’t handle them just right. “What do you mean it’s not late, sweetie?”

“Like Udai-sensei,” she says. “You always say Udai-sensei is late.”

He laughs; he never thought she was listening whenever he talks to Bokuto about work stuff during dinner. Maybe she picks up on more than he realizes. “I see,” he tells her. “Thank you for giving me this before your deadline, Akari-chan.”

She grins wide. “And you’ll tell me what to fix, right?”

“It’s perfect just the way it is, you don’t have to fix anything.”

“Noooo,” she insists. “That’s your job, you have to read it and tell me what to fix!”

Akaashi takes another look at the drawing and tries to look very serious. “Well, let’s see…I think the big owl dad could use some more feathers, don’t you think?”

Akari looks over it, her eyes carefully studying the picture he’s indicating. Then she nods, runs to her room, and returns with crayons. “Okay, thank you Papa Keiji!” she says, effectively dismissing him.

Now that she’s occupied with something, it seems like a good time to get started on dinner.

When Bokuto gets home, Akari is pulled out of her concentration like a switch being flipped. Akaashi always says it’s the moment when she goes from being his child to being Bokuto’s: no matter how buried she is in a book or a drawing or any other quiet activity, when Bokuto gets home she’s instantly transformed into a little storm of motion and excitement.

She runs over, gets picked up and thrown into the air, her face covered with kisses as she tells Bokuto all about what she did today. Leaving out, Akaashi notices, the lamp incident. It’s only after Akari has finished showing Bokuto her new book that Akaashi gets his own kisses and hugs. He doesn’t mind being second.

Later that night, Bokuto handles putting Akari to bed. Akaashi still has work to finish, and it’ll probably be another late night again. He holes himself back up in his office and listens to the distant sounds of his husband and daughter. Even though they share bedtime duties, he still feels a little pang of jealousy when it’s not his turn. Reading together feels like it’s his thing to do with Akari, although it never seems like she particularly cares which one of them does it with her. Then again, he was the first one to read her story, so that was something special.

He half-listens as Bokuto walks out of her room and down the hall. The shower turns on, providing a little background white noise to the otherwise silent house. Akaashi thinks that Bokuto will probably be asleep by the time he’s done with his work today. It puts a damper on his mood; he feels like they’ve been just barely missing each other lately, only ever talking during breakfast and dinner and text messages throughout the day.

It’s no one’s fault; it’s a busy time of year for them both. But all that combined with the lamp incident—and Akaashi’s guilt at his part in it—are making him start to feel particularly shitty.

An hour after the shower goes off, Akaashi hears a soft knock at his door.

“Come in,” he says, only partially paying attention. The door creaks open and footsteps approach him from behind. Next thing he knows, Akaashi is being hugged around the shoulders by a very clingy Bokuto.

“Why are you still working?” Bokuto whines, his face buried in Akaashi’s neck. Akaashi pats his head apologetically.

“Sorry, I’ve just got a lot to do today and time got away from me. I’ll be done in a little while.”

“Well, can I sit in here with you?”

“Sure, just…headphones, please, if you’re going to be on your phone.”

Bokuto stands up, then spins Akaashi’s chair around until they’re facing each other. Akaashi is about ready to be exasperated with him, but then he sees that Bokuto is shirtless, and he’s instantly distracted.

“So Akari told me she broke the lamp again today,” Bokuto says. There’s no anger or anything accusatory in his eyes. He just says it, a matter of fact.

Akaashi cringes and takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes. “Yeah…that was my fault.”

“No, I think it was her fault, she was the one playing inside. We talked about it, and she promised she wouldn’t throw her ball around in the living room anymore.”

“I lost track of time. I told her I’d take her to the park but I’m just….”

Bokuto kneels down in front of him and takes his hand. “It’s not your fault, Keiji. But if you want to watch her during the day you gotta work less.”

“I’m trying!” he insists, barely holding back the snappishness he feels. “I’ve cut back a lot, Koutaro.”

“I know you have, I know!” Bokuto holds up his free hand. “Sorry, I don’t think I said that right. I just mean you do so much already. I’ve been reading a lot about this thing called burnout lately, and I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“I’m not…burnt out,” Akaashi tries to say, but he finds he can’t lie to Bokuto, not when he’s looking at him like that. “It’s just…I don’t know.”

“Look, I was thinking, and you can think about it, but I figured something out. She’s gonna be starting school next year, right?”

“Oh don’t remind me,” Akaashi groans. He wants to cry. His little girl is growing up too fast. She was a baby yesterday. It can’t be time for her to go to school already.

“I know, I know.” Bokuto hates thinking about it too. “But you’ll have plenty of time to work when she’s in school all day. So why don’t you take time off work until then? That way you can make the most of it now, so you don’t have to do everything all at once?”

Akaashi just looks at him. It’s not fair how well Bokuto understands what he’s thinking. For the longest time Akaashi tried to be a steady and calm person, contrary to how he felt inside. Bokuto not only sees right through it, but it doesn’t bother him.

“Well, what about you?” Akaashi asks, deflecting. “I know you want to see her more too.”

“I mean yeah, of course I do! But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you.”

Akaashi grumbles a little. “I’ll…think about it,” he concedes.

Bokuto smiles wide and leans in for a quick kiss. When he pulls back, his eyes are wide and shining. “Okay, now I have something amazing to tell you.”

“Yes?”

“It’s so crazy, Keiji, I can’t believe it lined up like this.” He’s vibrating with energy. “We have a game against the Green Rockets the day before Akari’s birthday! And it’s a home game, so it’s gonna be here!”

The words sink in and Akaashi bolts up straighter in his seat. “Here?” he repeats, reaching forward and gripping Bokuto’s shoulders.

“Yeah!!” Bokuto nods.

“Here!!” Akaashi says again.

Akari has never actually been to one of Bokuto’s games, she’s only ever watched them on TV. Nothing has ever lined up quite right. Either she was too little, the game was too far away, or it was scheduled for too late at night. She’s at a good age now, and she’s starting to be able to halfway follow what’s going on. She couldn’t recite any strategy, and she mostly looks at Bokuto anyway, but she’s engaged in it. It’s perfect.

“We have to take her!” Akaashi declares. They’re both grinning ear to ear. “We can make a whole day of it. Or, I guess, you’ll have to be there most of the day, but I’ll take her to lunch and then maybe on her actual birthday we can spend the day together—Koutaro, she’s going to see you play!”

“Yeah!” Bokuto pulls Akaashi to his feet and up into a hug. “I’m going to get every point in the game for her!”

Akaashi wraps his arms around him and says, “Yes, every single one!”

Before he knows it, Bokuto is kissing him, and he forgets all about the work that’s still left undone. It doesn’t matter. He’s so happy right now, every bit of stress falling away in the face of the simple knowledge that their daughter is going to attend her first volleyball game. A game that her dad is playing in. For some reason, it feels like it’s the only thing Akaashi has ever wanted, and it’s just been given to him so plainly.

Bokuto’s kisses start to become deeper and a little more heated, and Akaashi has to pull back and put his hand over his husband’s mouth before he starts being taken in.

“Wait, wait,” he says, hating that he has to be responsible right now, “I really do have a lot of work I need to get done right now.”

“Really?” Bokuto whines. He’s wearing his most convincing sad eyes, but Akaashi can’t be tempted. He’s so behind.

“Yes, but—” he’s briefly cut off by another kiss “—if you let me get back to it now I can come to bed in like an hour or two.”

Bokuto thinks about it, then nods. “Okay,” he concedes. “I’ll just sit here and wait for you. Can I still sit in here? With headphones.”

“Yes, you can. Just don’t distract me…the faster I finish the quicker I can come to bed.”

Bokuto grins and rushes out of the room to grab his earbuds.

They decide to wait until about a week before Akari’s birthday to tell her the news. Their daughter has a serious problem with patience, and if she knows about it any sooner than that, she’ll lose all focus for anything else. And true to form, she spends every day leading up to the game watching and rewatching all of Bokuto’s games and dragging Akaashi and Bokuto both to the park to play.

On the day of, Bokuto has to be at the gym early. He gets up as quietly as he can, although Akaashi is pretty good at sleeping through his noise. He can’t resist coming around Akaashi’s side of the bed and giving him a soft little kiss on his head, which elicits a little sigh but doesn’t wake him. He wishes he could stay longer and watch Akaashi sleep, maybe kiss him some more or do other things, but he has to focus today. Today is the most important day of his volleyball career.

His daughter is coming to watch him play for the first time.

On his way out of the house, he blows a little kiss towards Akari’s room. If he goes in there to give her a goodbye kiss, she will wake up, and she will want to play. There’s plenty of time for that tomorrow.

He bursts into the locker room with more energy and volume than usual, and the usual is still quite a lot. Almost no one is fazed by it anymore, but today Sakusa actually glares at him about it.

“Today’s the day, isn’t it?!” Hinata exclaims, rushing up behind Bokuto and jumping onto his back. “Akari-chan is gonna come watch us?”

“Yep!” Bokuto replies, hiking Hinata’s legs up over his hips and carrying him over to his locker. The locker which, as it’s opened, reveals inner walls completely covered with pictures of Akari. Hinata hops down and grins.

“So that means we’re gonna win today, right?”

“Of course we are! Hey, Tsum-Tsum!”

Atsumu pokes his head around the corner, halfway out of his street clothes. “What?”

“You better send me every single toss today!”

“I’m not sending you every single toss.”

“Come on, I promise I’ll get points off every one of them!”

Atsumu flashes him a grin. “Maybe I’ll get ten service aces in a row, then I’ll be Akari-chan’s favorite.”

“Oh, she would actually love that!” Bokuto pauses and considers it. “But don’t do too many. She wants to see the rallies, a bunch of aces would just bore her.”

He thinks he hears Sakusa snickering as Atsumu slinks back around the corner.

The day’s practice goes great; Bokuto feels like he really could score every single point today. Strangely, there’s a hint of nervousness roiling inside him, but it’s so slight. Being watched doesn’t make Bokuto anxious, it’s what spurs him onward. And with Akaashi and his daughter both looking at him, it ought to make him feel like nothing in the world could stop him.

But what if Akari doesn’t like watching volleyball? What if she gets tired and wants to leave early? What if she really does like watching Atsumu more than watching him?

He receives three of Hinata’s best spikes in a row, and abolishes the thoughts one by one.

Pessimism was never something that ever crossed his mind. Even back when his mood swings were at their worst, nothing was ever “end of the world” bad. Being a dad for the last five years, and being a husband for the last seven, shifted something ever so slightly in his worldview.

He did get worried, genuinely worried now. The first time Akari had fallen down at the playground and drew blood on her knee, then ran to him crying big, sobbing tears, Bokuto felt like he’d failed irreversibly. He felt like he hadn’t done enough to protect her from even the smallest thing. The first time Akaashi had gotten really mad at him because he’d gone out with the team instead of coming home like he’d promised, Bokuto felt like he’d never be forgiven. The thought of letting either of them down, and the reality that he sometimes had, made him want to curl up into a ball and hide somewhere.

It was the worst in the year immediately following his full-time return to work. The systems and routines were all worked out, he and Akaashi both were confident they could make it work just fine. And for a while, they had.

But Bokuto missed them both so much he felt sick. He had no idea separation could hurt that badly. He asked Meian how he coped with being away from his wife and kid, and was told that it would get easier, but only slightly, and only with time. He called Akaashi every day whenever the team traveled overnight, and Akaashi sent him pictures and videos of every little moment.

Finally, rock bottom happened. MSBY lost a match, which wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that earlier in the day, during a video call with Akaashi and Akari, Bokuto had to watch his daughter cry and say she missed him, in the small words that a two-year-old knew, and asked if he could come home right now.

He never pulled himself out of the slump long enough to concentrate on the game. He was even subbed out for the final set, but by then there was no recovering. Losing was one thing. Losing because he was upset, something that hadn’t happened since high school, was mortifying.

He begged off going out for consolation drinks with the team and went back to their hotel. Atsumu told him before he left, in no uncertain terms, to get his shit together.

After a long shower, Bokuto fell backwards into bed and pulled out his phone. Akaashi had texted him a few times, telling him that he saw the game and could tell that something was wrong. He apologized for not being able to be there to talk to him, to pull him out of it. He told him that Akari was fine, she was sleeping now, and that she was looking forward to seeing him come home tomorrow.

Bokuto called Akaashi and rolled over onto his side. His husband picked up on the second ring.

“Hi, hon,” Akaashi said as he answered, sweet as could be. It made Bokuto’s chest hurt. Why wasn’t he at home?

“Mmmm,” Bokuto grumbled weakly in response.

“Not a great game tonight, huh?”

“No.” Bokuto curled up a little on the bed. “It sucked.”

“Your serves were sloppy, you completely botched that easy receive in the third set, and you got baited so many times by their setter I stopped counting.”

Akaashi’s bluntness was, in its way, a comfort. Everything he said were things he could fix. Things he knew how to do. Things that were, on a regular day, easy. His ability to play volleyball wasn’t the issue here, and a bit of his tension eased. But only a bit.

“Keiji,” Bokuto said softly, “am I a bad father?”

There was silence on the other end. He’d actually rendered Akaashi speechless. “What?” came the eventual answer. “No! Not in a million years.”

“Am I doing the wrong thing? I don’t ever want to quit volleyball but should I be home more? Is this not going to work?” The questions tumbled out of him before he could stop himself.

“No.” Akaashi’s answer was firm and resolute.

“I’m sorry I’m away so much,” Bokuto found himself saying. “I’m sorry that I leave you all alone at home to take care of our daughter by yourself.”

“Koutaro, no—”

“I’m sorry I made her cry, and then wasn’t there to fix it.” Somewhere in the deepest, dirtiest part of his heart, a tiny worry wormed its way through. Please don’t say this wasn’t worth it. Please don’t say I’m not worthy of you.

Akaashi’s voice broke through the thoughts with severity. “No, and don’t you ever let yourself believe even a fraction of that. Don’t you ever even think that quitting is an option for you. Akari-chan loves watching you play, and so do I. I won’t let you snuff yourself out for us, so don’t you ever say that again, okay?”

When Akaashi took that tone with him, it was more calming than the softest pillow. To other people, it sounded harsh. He’d heard people tell Akaashi to dial it back when he spoke to Bokuto like that, but no one ever made Bokuto believe in something so strongly as when Akaashi told him something. Like it was a fact. Like it was unchangeable. Like nothing anyone could do, least of all Bokuto himself, could shake Akaashi’s belief in his declarations. Akaashi’s belief in him.

How could he ever believe such a terrible thing of Akaashi? Even as an intrusive thought, it was unforgivable. Akaashi, who always stayed with him after practice as long as he liked. Akaashi, whose only thought was to lift Bokuto’s spirits. Akaashi, who had matched his energy from day one and even pushed himself beyond his own limits just to stay by his side.

“I promise you Akari is fine,” Akaashi continued. “She just misses you, and that’s okay. You’re not hurting her, you’re not letting her down. She knows you’ll be home tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Bokuto said, rolling onto his back and stretching out his legs. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He could list for hours everything that he loved about Akaashi, but near the top would always be the way Akaashi took his scattered, jumbled thoughts and placed them in the correct order.

“That’s my ace,” Akaashi replied. Bokuto could hear the smile on his face.

There was a brief silence between them. “Keiji.”

“What?”

“I just realized I didn’t eat dinner.”

“It’s a bit late for me to take the train down to bring you something.”

“I wonder if this place does room service.” He sat up and rifled through the drawer on the nightstand, finding a laminated menu buried underneath a phonebook. “Oh, looks like they do.”

“What do they have?”

Bokuto spent the next fifteen minutes reading off the menu to Akaashi, who gave his input on almost every item. They reminisced about the time on their honeymoon they’d missed a dinner reservation because they simply could not keep their hands off each other long enough to leave, and how they’d had to resort to vending machine cup noodles to feed themselves. Eventually, Bokuto decided on something to eat, and Akaashi promised to take him out for barbecue when he got home tomorrow.

Bokuto thinks about that night often.

When the Green Rockets arrive, he seeks out Kiryu immediately and greets him with a crushing hug. Kiryu asks to see the newest pictures of Akari and Bokuto excitedly pulls out his phone to show him.

“Wow, she’s so big now!” Kiryu exclaims. “She’s walking and everything.”

“She’s been an expert at that forever. Here, watch this!” Bokuto switches over to a video of Akari throwing up the ball high in the air, and Bokuto coming in from offscreen to spike it, to her massive delight.

“What a set,” Kiryu laughs.

“She’s gonna be five tomorrow.”

“Five!?” Bokuto laughs at the look on Kiryu’s face. “I must be getting old, I’m losing track of time so quickly.”

“And she’s coming tonight to watch the game.” Bokuto puffs out his chest proudly.

“No way!” Kiryu’s surprised eyes soften into a smile. “You know you just put the fear of God into me, right? With your girl watching you’re not gonna let anything by you.”

“Well, make me work for it a little bit,” Bokuto laughs. “She deserves an exciting game. I’ll shut you out next time.”

Kiryu’s laugh echoes throughout the gym. “I’ll hold you to that.”

It is, in fact, one of the most exciting games of the season, and the most fun match of Bokuto’s entire life.

When Akaashi and Akari walk into the gym, he runs over to the partition to greet them and picks Akari up in his arms. She’s wearing her MSBY jersey (of course with Bokuto’s number) and Akaashi has bought her little cheer sticks to bang together. She babbles to Bokuto about all the stuff she’s done so far today, and Akaashi adds that she’s told every stranger who will listen that she’s going to watch her dad play volleyball today.

They end up sitting at the best seat in the house, right at the net. Bokuto will be able to see them from either side of the court.

The energy in the crowd is unmatched. For whatever reason, Green Rockets fans always go a little wild, which makes the Black Jackals fans go crazy in return, resulting a feedback loop that makes even a mid-season game feel like a championship. It’s perfection.

Every chance he gets, he sneaks a glance over at Akaashi and Akari. She doesn’t look bored or tired in the slightest; he has no idea why he was ever worried about that. She’s on her feet the whole time, her eyes wide and taking in everything around her. He can even hear her tiny voice yelling “Nice receive!” or “Nice kill!” over the roar of the crowd. He turns and dedicates every single Bokuto Beam to her, his heart swelling as she points back at him and yells it back.

And next to her, Akaashi is smiling wider than ever. Bokuto notices something that has never occurred to him before. Every time Akari celebrates or cheers or yells something, Akaashi is doing it in the exact same way. In other words, she’s thoroughly copied his body language. This must be what Akaashi is like at home when they watch MSBY games on TV. She’s learned how to watch volleyball from him, and she’s learned the right things to yell from him.

It makes Bokuto so happy that he throws out three service aces in a row. He can only hear Akari and Akaashi over the crowd. He’s attuned to their voices so much that everything else falls away.

The game goes to the fifth set. Despite how well he’s playing, neither Kiryu nor Goshiki are letting him have it for free. They’re two of the best spikers in the country right now. Bokuto only got to play Shiratorizawa once when Goshiki was on the team, but he’s heard Hinata’s stories about the years following Ushijima’s graduation. Anyone who follows in Ushijima’s footsteps to become the ace of that team is no slouch.

He’s glad that the game has gone to five sets for a few reasons. First of all, it means this incredible feeling isn’t over yet. He’s giving his daughter as much volleyball to watch as he can. But also, he’s on the cusp of something, and he’s been carefully counting. He can distantly hear the announcers discussing it since the midpoint of the fourth set.

If he makes just five more points, he’ll crush his personal record for most points scored in a single game. And as soon as he gets that final one, then it’ll officially be the best match of volleyball he’s ever played.

Unfortunately, when the whole stadium is aware that he’s about to break a record, it means the Green Rockets don’t let up on him for an instant. They’re hemming him in as best they can, stuffing him every other attempt. If this was high school, Bokuto would have been riled up into making a million mistakes by now.

But it isn’t high school, and no matter what happens, all Bokuto needs to do is look over at his husband and daughter and see the whole world cheering him on.

Finally, he’s clawed his way through. All he needs to do is score one more point, and the record is broken. And like the universe wrote this story just for him, he’s up to serve.

The entire stadium starts clapping for him, even the fans who are rooting for the other team. This won’t be the winning point, but everyone wants to see him get this one.

Well, almost everyone. Kiryu is in the back rotation, and they lock eyes. He smirks a little at Bokuto, as if to say, Earn it. I’m not giving it to you.

Bokuto hears Akari shouting, “Papa Kou! Nice serve!!” as loud as her little voice can muster, and it drowns out everything else.

He’s been practicing this one, waiting for just the right time to pull it out.

He sends the ball over the net with a crushing jump serve. It goes directly for Kiryu, who receives it expertly with his massive forearms. And then it promptly spins out of bounds.

There’s a breathless second of silence before the whole crowd erupts. He’s done it; he’s broken his record. Thirty-one points scored in a single game, and he got the final one by putting spin on a serve. He’s never done that one before.

Bokuto belts out a victorious yell. Atsumu, Hinata, and Meian all rush him; he can barely hear anything they’re saying. He looks over at Akaashi and Akari; he’s holding their daughter up in the air, both of them cheering so loud their faces are going red. He wants nothing more than to run to them both, but the game is still going, and it’s his serve again.

Kiryu receives this one again and keeps it in play this time. The rally is quick, frantic, like the Green Rockets are desperate not to let MSBY ride the high of the previous moment. But it’s a losing battle. Bokuto runs up just as Atsumu sets the ball in a direct line to him, and Bokuto spikes it across to the complete opposite end of the court.

He spins around to grin at Akaashi, pointing and winking at him. He’s pretty sure he can see happy tears streaming down Akaashi’s face.

They don’t get the next point, but that’s far from the end of Bokuto’s high. They’re still going to win. He knows it in his bones. And when they do, it’s because Atsumu does a setter dump completely out of left field.

The cheer is instantaneously overwhelming. Even without setting a record it would have been an incredible game. Bokuto only half-wishes it could have gone on forever. But it’s over now, and Akaashi and Akari are coming to meet him at the side of the court.

Akari buzzes with excitement for hours. On the walk home, she rides on Bokuto’s shoulders and narrates the game to him for the sixth time. She tells him over and over how cool he looked, how fun it was, how he was the best one on the court, and—in a declaration that Bokuto knows he will never hear the end of—how Atsumu’s setter dump at the end was so amazing.

Bokuto tells her how Papa Keiji used to do that sometimes too. She says she wants to be a setter. Akaashi’s heart swells with pride, but then she changes her mind and says she wants to be a spiker. Or maybe a libero? (Which is a word she’s still learning to pronounce just right.)

They stop by the park before going home because she begs Bokuto to show her how he did the left handed spike in the second set. He’s more than happy to show her as if he hasn’t just finished a game in straight sets. Akaashi sets the ball for him, just like he always used to, and Akari laughs with glee to watch Bokuto spike them down over and over. She even throws a few tosses for him herself.

After they get home and have eaten dinner, Akari is finally wiped out. Akaashi knew it would happen; she works herself up into a frenzy just like her dad, and then shuts down completely. He only hopes that she doesn’t sleep through her actual birthday tomorrow.

Bokuto, however, has not shut down, and Akaashi genuinely believes he could play another five-set game if he wanted. He hasn’t had this much energy thrumming through him since when he first made the starting lineup. After putting their daughter to bed, Bokuto bounds into the kitchen where Akaashi is doing the dishes. He wraps his arms around Akaashi’s torso and kisses him a hundred times on the back of the neck.

“Can’t you wait a minute?” Akaashi laughs.

“No, I can’t.” Bokuto reaches over and shuts off the water. “You can do this later. Pay attention to me now.”

Akaashi turns around in his hold and finds himself immediately picked up. “I paid attention to you all night,” Akaashi says with a laugh. “The whole world did. Everyone saw you, and you were incredible.”

“Wasn’t I?” Bokuto says, then sets Akaashi down, places one hand on the side of his neck and kisses him deeply. “How incredible?”

“One of one.”

“What else?”

“My ace.” Akaashi is blushing, but he’s also smiling ear to ear as Bokuto leans in closer.

“And?”

“A star.”

Bokuto grins self-satisfactorily, then takes Akaashi’s hand and kisses the back of his fingers, holding eye contact all the while. Akaashi blushes harder and covers his face with his other hand. It’s not fair that Bokuto can still make him feel like he’s in high school, nursing a forbidden crush.

“What’s all that for?” he mumbles gently.

“What do you mean? That’s for Keiji.”

Akaashi can’t help but let out a little laugh. He moves his hand from his face and sees Bokuto’s wide, golden eyes staring intently at him.

“Hey…do you wanna…?” Bokuto asks, running slow fingers up Akaashi’s spine.

Akaashi tries not to nod too quickly, or too desperately. “Yes, but…let me finish the dishes first? I’ll be real quick.”

“It’ll be faster if I help you!”

It does go faster, and Bokuto doesn’t even cut any corners. He dries everything as meticulously as Akaashi washes them, and then gently places the dishware back in the cabinets while Akaashi wipes down the counters. Once everything is back in place, Bokuto grabs Akaashi by the wrist and they run down the hall to their room.

For a while they don’t do anything except lay on top of each other and kiss. Akaashi loves to stretch out over Bokuto’s wide body, his chest a perfect pillow for his head. And he loves how inevitably they switch positions, with all of Bokuto’s muscle crushing him from above. His very own weighted blanket. And he also loves how they lay side by side and suddenly there’s not a trace of that strength to be seen, but only gentleness as Bokuto puts one hand to the side of his neck, the other hand dragging fingernails lightly against his scalp.

Akaashi always understood him better than anyone, but even he had been surprised at Bokuto’s capacity for softness, in the beginning. Certainly Bokuto does everything loudly and fully, and Akaashi loves to be reminded of his sheer dominating force. No one else ever guesses it to look at him, but Bokuto is actually one of the most tenderly romantic people Akaashi has ever known.

The first time they kissed, it wasn’t rough nor was it particularly chaste. But it was deep and full and with intent; Bokuto kissed him like he’d been studying and practicing just how to do it, not just how to kiss but how to kiss him. And the more Akaashi thought about it after the fact, the more it made sense. Being the best was just in Bokuto’s nature. Not just because he acted like he was, but because he actually was. It was important to him, just like how his first time kissing Akaashi was important to him, so if he wanted to do it perfectly, he would. And he did.

That first year or so of dating, when they were long-distance, Bokuto wrote him letters. Actual handwritten letters. He said he did it to practice his kanji, but he filled them with such heartfelt words that Akaashi knew it was more than that. He’d been brought to tears by them more than once. Every single one of them was saved in a drawer, and he still went back to read them.

Even now, he buys Akaashi flowers all the time, just for no reason. He talks about him in interviews so often that Hinata once showed Akaashi a video called “12 minutes of Bokuto Koutaro reminding us he’s married unprompted.” He’s learned how to cook so that he could pay back every meal Akaashi brought to him on the train. Really, Akaashi can go on and on about how thoughtful Bokuto actually is.

It’s why he loves Bokuto’s moments of gentleness the most. Because it feels like a special side of him that’s only reserved for Akaashi. It’s why his favorite way to be kissed by him is softly on the side of the neck, on his cheek, on his chin, all the parts of him that send the most tantalizing sparks up his spine.

Bokuto is kissing his jawline now, slow and deliberate, and Akaashi is holding him tightly, even though there’s no force in the world that could draw him away.

“Hey, Keiji?” Bokuto says between kisses. “Did you know I can tell the future?”

The question comes so out of nowhere that Akaashi stifles a laugh. “What do you mean?”

“And I can make things happen just by thinking about them.”

“Well, that’s not true.”

“It is!” Bokuto insists as he reaches down to slip his fingers underneath Akaashi’s shirt. “I knew we were gonna have a girl because I wished for it so hard. And the first time I ever saw you, I knew that I was gonna get to kiss you one day. And I knew, when you set for me for the first time, that I was gonna marry you.”

“Koutaro,” Akaashi says, “I know you don’t believe in things being impossible, but that’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“No,” says Bokuto, bumping his forehead teasingly against Akaashi’s, “because I saw the way you looked at me that first day you walked in.”

This renders Akaashi a little speechless. He opens his mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. He couldn’t have been that obvious, could he?

“I knew you liked me too.” Bokuto grins, and he looks so proud of himself, so fond of Akaashi, that Akaashi turns and buries his face in the blankets beneath them.

“No you didn’t,” he mumbles. There’s no way Bokuto could have known that.

“Yes I did!” Bokuto kisses the side of his neck again, snuggling in close. “That whole time, you never looked at a single other player in the whole gym, you just stared at me. Even when I wasn’t doing anything.”

It’s mortifying to think he could have been so transparent. “I was just…I liked your technique, that’s all…” he tries to say, but Bokuto laughs and grabs him up in a hug, rolling over so that Akaashi is laying on top of him. Akaashi buries his face in Bokuto’s chest and feels kisses atop his head. After a minute, Bokuto gently coaxes his face up and presses another kiss to his forehead.

Akaashi is gripped by a flood of affection so intense it nearly knocks the wind out of him. So when he speaks, it’s a thought that’s only half-formed, something he hasn’t even realized he wants until this moment.

In everything, every step of their relationship, Bokuto has been the one to ask first. The first one to ask for Akaashi’s tosses. The one to confess. The one to propose. The one to ask Akaashi if they could raise a child together. This time, Akaashi will be the one to ask.

“You wanna have another?”

Bokuto’s eyes go wide and he blinks at him. His left hand, which has been slowly working its way up the back of Akaashi’s shirt, goes still. “What?”

“Come on, get me pregnant again.”

Bokuto’s face goes bright red as a wild grin spreads across his face. “Do you mean it, Keiji?”

Akaashi nods. “Yeah.” He smiles back. “Let’s have another kid. Didn’t you say something about six, once?”

“You’re right! If Akari-chan is gonna be a setter she needs a team to practice with!” Akaashi isn’t actually sure if Bokuto is being serious; still, Bokuto’s eyes are shining. “Yeah, I’d love another. But only if you’re really sure. I know I’m not really home a lot.”

“You know you’re home more often than you realize, right?” Akaashi reaches up to run his fingers through Bokuto’s hair. “It probably feels worse to you, but I promise it’s not that bad.”

Bokuto considers that, his face scrunched up in concentration as he thinks back over the years. “You’re right, Keiji! You’re always right.”

He places both hands on Akaashi’s cheeks and gently squeezes them together. “I’m so lucky, my husband is so pretty and so smart,” he teases gently.

“Mmm, and my husband,” Akaashi teases back, “for some reason still has his clothes on.”

“Well, let me fix that,” Bokuto replies with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

Holding Akaashi’s face between his palms, he pulls him in close for a kiss. Akaashi finds himself sinking into it, pressing his body into Bokuto with equal intent. In moments like this, it feels impossible that he could separate himself from Bokuto for even a second, like they’ve become one in every way. Akaashi wonders sometimes what it would be like to tell himself, back when he was sixteen, what would become of him and his feelings. He knew he wouldn’t have believed it.

But now, in this moment, when Bokuto puts his arms around him and spins his body to lay beside him, Akaashi knows for a cosmic certainty that he never had to worry.