Chapter Text
Illegible handwriting. Ink smudges bleeding into the once pristine paper. Your hand failing to move as fast as your mind could think. None of it was new. The only new addition to your writing ritual had been a freshly purchased notebook from your favorite stationery store. You’d bought it that morning before school started, thanking the store owner for graciously letting you in twenty minutes before the store officially opened.
You hadn’t been able to wait until you got home to use it. The sleek black leather cover seemed to be drawing you in further every time you glanced at it in your backpack. Imagining the crisp sound of the cream-colored paper as you flipped to the next page was all too distracting. The thought of your pen hitting the page and creating its own life in the pages with the ink it left behind was enough to send shivers down your spine. So, as soon as lunchtime hit, you were nowhere to be found in the cafeteria.
It was impossible to focus there anyway. Instead, you took your new notebook to an empty classroom, claimed a desk as your own, set your supplies down carefully, took your pen in your hand, opened your notebook, and began filling the pages. It was perfect.
You thought of nothing else but what would happen next in your story, a smile tugging at your lips with every genius plot twist or unexpected character arc. You were so in the zone that by the time he arrived, you’d filled a quarter of the notebook with your words already.
“You already finished the last one?”
“I bought A4 instead of A5. It never stood a chance,” you muttered mindlessly, barely looking up and scrunching your nose as he slid the lunch tray on your desk, cluttering your precious writing space. You tried to keep going, your pen moving with less ferocity than before, but when he cleared his throat with a purposeful sharpness, you knew that your uninterrupted writing time had come to a swift end.
You shot him a glare from the corner of your eye as you shut your notebook, the thud echoing through the silent room.
“Sure, be mad at the guy who’s bringing you sustenance.”
“Labelling our school’s food as ‘sustenance’ is a stretch and you know it, Keiji. I’m sure a saltine cracker could give me more nutrients… and it’d probably taste better too.” You took the fork that lay on your tray and began poking and prodding at today’s ‘lunch special’. You weren't sure what the main dish was, and frankly, you didn’t want to find out. You resigned yourself to the bland vegetables that sat on the edge of the tray.
“It’s not that bad. Kind of tastes like ground beef if you try hard enough.”
“I’ll keep that in mind while I eat everything but the weird brown monstrosity sitting in front of me,” you replied with a dry laugh before stuffing a piece of broccoli into your mouth.
Anyone else interrupting your writing session like this would’ve earned a swift exit and left you in search of a quieter hideaway. But Akaashi Keiji had long since earned special privileges. Privileges he spent countless hours, days, weeks, months, even years, patiently building with you.
You weren’t exactly shy or scared, just guarded. Middle school had taught you to be. Years of taunts and whispers behind your back made it exceptionally hard to trust. You hadn’t done anything explicitly wrong, you had just been unlucky enough to become the object of their frustrations. Akaashi wasn’t immune to your suspicions when you met him freshman year. He was smart, well-liked, with the kind of charisma that people just naturally gravitated towards. You expected him to target you just like others before.
So, when he started to follow you to your empty lunch classroom, you ignored him, for fear that saying anything might cause him to make fun of you. When he curiously asked you questions about what you were writing in your notebook, you’d snap it shut and bolt from the room, leaving him behind. When he tried to get to know you, you’d shut him down immediately, making some excuse that you had lots of work to do and needed to focus, or that you were tired and not in the mood to talk to anyone.
But no matter how many times you pushed him away, no matter how often you dismissed him and his attempts at friendship, he kept showing up. Quietly, consistently, like clockwork. And slowly, you began to let your walls fall.
It started with light conversations and easy questions. Shallow ones about your favorite food, color, or season. Eventually came the deeper ones. Questions about why you were always alone. Why you refused to eat in the cafeteria. And what you spent your entire lunch period scribbling down in your notebook. You’d dodge them at first. Scared of what he might say to you. Until one day, you looked into his eyes and found not a hint of judgment within his irises.
So, you told him everything he’d been waiting to hear. How the bullying in middle school had taught you to distrust connections. How spending your lunch period in the cafeteria was distracting, with conversations firing at all sides and leaving you with no room to think. And how you spent your free time building worlds out of ink and pure imagination.
When he asked to read them, you flat-out refused. No one was allowed to look into your notebooks. However, after your conversations with him, the two of you got exponentially closer.
You didn’t mind the interruptions anymore. Sure, you’d grumble about how you didn’t get to finish a thought before he’d show up to eat lunch with you, but deep down you appreciated that out of all the people he could sit with in the cafeteria, he chose to spend his lunch period in a quiet room, alone with you. And you appreciated his attempts to get closer to you, even if they were unconventional at times.
At one point, he gifted you 50 Shades of Grey after taking a trip to the local bookstore. He'd asked a clerk for a book recommendation for a friend, unaware that the guy was messing with him. The next day, he handed it to you with a proud grin. You started at the cover with a raised eyebrow and proceeded to ask him if he’d read the blurb before buying the book. When he sheepishly said no, you summarized the plot, struggling to contain your laughter as his face turned bright red.
You couldn’t even find it in yourself to be mortified by how funny the whole situation was. Regardless, you found that spending more time with Akaashi and getting to know more about him was becoming a highlight of each and every day.
Akaashi liked proving to you in his own quiet way that not everyone was out to hurt you, and you felt like you could finally be yourself without fear of judgment. Just like that, the two of you became inseparable. The end of the school day couldn’t even keep you both apart anymore. Whether it was after school, the weekends, or even summer break, he was always by your side.
There was never a dull moment between the two of you. You’d spend lazy afternoons playing ridiculous board games—Twister had been a favorite by far—holding painting competitions (which he always won), and when he finally got his driver’s license, the two of you drove to the beach for a long overdue day trip.
The trip that changed everything in you.
You spent the entire day—sun up to sun down—laughing, swimming, building sandcastles like little kids. Neither of you had smiled that much in ages. But then, while splashing around, mid-play-fight, your foot slipped on the moist sand.
You’d expected to fall. To feel the cold sting of the water as your body fell in. You even braced yourself for Akaashi’s laughter. But that wasn’t the case at all. At most, the back of your head hit the ocean for a split second. Before you knew it, Akaashi’s arm had slunk around your waist, hoisting you before your body could make it underwater.
“You okay?” he asked with a chuckle.
You blinked at him. Maybe it was the light in his smile. The way the wet strands clung to his forehead. The depth of his dark blue eyes locked onto yours. Or maybe it was just his hand, warm and firm at your waist, easily holding you above water like it was nothing. Whatever it was, you were starstruck.
You’d had moments before—when his gentle words left you flustered or his gestures left you speechless. But you’d always brush it off as being surprised or caught off guard. This had been the first time that the word ‘love’ even graced your mind when thinking about Akaashi, and not in a friendship sense whatsoever. Something deeper.
However, as you looked into his eyes, watching as he tried to lightly blink away some beads of water that slipped to his eyelashes, the word ‘love’ felt right. More than that. You were in love with your best friend. You were in love with Akaashi Keiji.
“I-I’m fine, Keiji. That was a little dramatic,” you muttered, your face heating up as Akaashi held you in the same position.
“Good. Now, I can do this.”
He quickly removed his arm, and without warning, you felt your entire body become submerged in the water. You’d barely had time to catch your breath, coughing up bits of saltwater as you emerged. “I hate you,” you said in between strained coughs, Akaashi lightly patting your back as he continued to laugh at you.
It was a lie, though. You both knew it.
On the drive home, you sat in the passenger seat, windows down and music blasting—your playlist, of course. You kept stealing glances at him the entire ride. At the way the cool breeze danced in his hair, at how he lightly bobbed his head to the beat, at how his smile grew each time your eyes met before flicking back to the road.
Love definitely felt like the right word. Even now, as the two of you conversed over random topics while trying to force your school’s terrible lunch down your throat, love felt like the right word as you laughed along with him.