Work Text:
"The ghost, when examined, was just withered flowers."
-Hyouka, proverb
1
Are you happy?! the poster asked.
On his shortest route to school, he passed by a smattering of flyers that had been flung across the wooden fences, stuck against the damp wood like wet petals. Akaashi wasn’t particularly moved by the advertisement for a sketchy charm, but he considered the question.
He wasn’t unhappy, which was an unsatisfying answer. Happiness, after all, felt reserved for the euphoric delights like pulling off a setter dump or winning a match. Currently, he was wondering whether he brought his umbrella, since the gray clouds rumbled and cast pearly shadows, but the answer would neither enliven nor upset him. He was—neutral.
But say the poster grew wicked arms and legs, tearing itself away from its glossy companions. If it shoved him against an alley wall, the slick low price balling into a giant paper fist, he would finally admit that most would consider him an “unhappy” person. Personally, he thought he was unaligned, but he had a quiet disposition and an inclination towards realistic thinking. He wouldn’t protest if someone called him gloomy, especially in comparison to the “happiest” person he knew.
This “happy” person, one Bokuto Koutarou, was talking to Konoha outside the iron school gates. Bokuto’s cheeks were flushed, though he wore his dark blue winter jacket. When all Fukurodani students wore the same uniform, the personal winter jackets sparked some interest. The most popular reason was likely the ah, you look a little different, blush from romantically inclined classmates. Akaashi’s interest in Bokuto’s jacket was decidedly different—he eyed the way Bokuto shoved his sleeves to his forearms with some distaste. What was the point of wearing a jacket?
“Akaashi, hey!” Bokuto waved, the Vabo-chans and the spinning volleyball keychain jingling on his bulky bag.
“Morning,” Konoha said, good-natured. “I’ll go ahead first, then. See you later, hero.” Konoha peeled himself away while Bokuto grimaced at him, scrunched nose and exaggerated scowl.
“Good morning, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said. Bokuto’s attention snapped back to him, flickering once to his backpack. Probably to check if the matching volleyball keychain still dangled on his outside pocket, a narcissistic appeal.
“I was waiting for you! Do you want some candy?” Bokuto dug through his pockets, offering a crumpled receipt, a bottle cap, a battered train pass, a peeled post-it note, and finally, the professed blueberry gummy candy.
“No, thank you,” Akaashi said politely, speaking even as Bokuto’s cold hands pressed the wrapper into his objecting palm.
If introductions were in order, then meet Bokuto Koutarou: the third-year captain of the volleyball team and one of the top five aces of the country. While he was charismatic and highly sociable, he was also capricious and highly troublesome. But even if his moods escalated and plummeted, Akaashi still considered him a “happy” person.
As vice-captain, Akaashi’s duties included knowing everything about Bokuto—and there was very little to know. Bokuto simply loved volleyball. He was otherwise thoughtless and carefree, pirouetting out of difficult duties and laughing his way out of childish trouble. He could be a vexatious upperclassman, but he was a mood-maker. While he was grinning, even Akaashi felt a quiet relief and deep satisfaction.
And to the surprise of many, Akaashi didn’t think they were particularly close.
Akaashi was the vice-captain and setter, certainly. And, correct, Bokuto persistently called for his attention and gave him gifts (this candy, the keychain on his thin backpack, T-shirts from volleyball vendors). But when they walked home after practice and parted at the junction, Akaashi simply walked straight for ten steps to his house. During these two years, he had never invited Bokuto inside. Bokuto didn’t even know he lived so close.
That was the distance between them. The floors between their classrooms. The stable gap between them while they walked. The ten steps to his unseen house.
“Akaashi,” Bokuto said. “There’s a rumor about my classroom. Wanna hear it?”
“Not really.” Akaashi ripped open the candy wrapper, slipping the sweet candy underneath his tongue. Bokuto held out his hand for the trash and stuffed the shiny shards into his pockets. They approached Akaashi’s classroom at the end of the wing.
“You should get more fired-up, Akaashi.” Bokuto’s eyes gleamed, even under the shallow light. “I regret to inform you that our school is haunted—by a ghost.”
2
“As high school students, you should be self-aware about the impressions you give the world,” his homeroom teacher was saying. Akaashi tapped the tip of his pencil against his notebook. Some second-years had been caught in a shadier district after curfew. The teacher talked carefully around the issue, though every student already knew the details.
Simply put, the teacher was drawing lines between students and adults. Outside, in busy Tokyo, bustling crowds visited gleaming giants of department stores, gambled on sleek horses, flirted lasciviously outside seedy love hotels. Inside, Akaashi studied for his chemistry class, sketching out floating carbons and spinning hydrogen atoms.
Inside, there was a ghost.
The facts, pieced together from Bokuto’s jovial retelling: In the early morning, the baseball club met in classroom 3-6 at the end of the west wing. Classroom 3-1 was on the east wing, across from the courtyard. A wayward baseball club member happened to glance out the window (though, Akaashi, it wasn’t like Bokuto would be distracted like that, he was great at club things, like that thing they were supposed to do, by the way, Akaashi, did you finish that). To the wondering third-year’s eyes, he saw the ghost.
A long-haired girl in a white dress, holding a bouquet of black roses.
When the baseball club humored him and visited the classroom, there were two strange things. The first was that the classroom door was locked. The homeroom teacher finally arrived to unlock the door, but when the baseball club piled inside, the room was empty. They laughed, nervously, until they discovered the second strange thing: the desk by the window was wet.
A vague tale, certainly. But Bokuto leaned close to his ear, cupping his hands. Akaashi half-expected him to shout, but Bokuto whispered that five years ago, a third-year girl had committed suicide in a classroom. The reasons had been unclear. Bullying, an adult boyfriend, academic deficiencies, her father’s debt. At least one fact had persisted through the rumors.
Her hair had been long.
Akaashi refocused on the hunched teacher at the podium. Outside the small window, smoky wisps of darker clouds crawled over the skies. He hoped it didn’t rain, but he already felt nervously energetic. Something Bokuto had said vaguely bothered him, though he didn’t know why.
“I hope,” the teacher said, “you will walk a good path to becoming a fine adult.”
3
“It’s the charming Bokuto!” Bokuto announced, sliding into the chair in front of Akaashi’s seat. His knees jostled the desk, where Akaashi’s backpack now rocked wildly from the hook and his bento box inched dangerously closer to his book. The charming Bokuto had bread from the local bakery stall downstairs and a sports drink from the vending machine.
“You’re supposed to say something, Akaashi! Never mind, never mind, this is for you.” Bokuto slid the drink across the desk.
“Why?” Akaashi asked, already distracted. Bokuto had his gray uniform blazer waddled up in his lap. Even in his thin button-up shirt, his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. The tempestuous clouds threatened rain, the courtyard tree was coated in shadows, and a chilly nip by the window had crept into the room. Was Bokuto a walking, talking furnace? Akaashi felt colder just looking at him.
“So have you thought about the ghost story?” Bokuto tore open the cellophane on his bread. “I think the entire classroom’s haunted. Probably!”
“Is that why you’re here instead?” Or instead of any of the other third-year classrooms on the third floor. Though, on the annoying meter, Bokuto eating lunch with him barely ranked a one. In comparison, a rank two was Bokuto repeatedly humming the chorus to a catchy song, mangling the lyrics whenever he opened his mouth.
“I’m here to make sure you eat and don’t study so hard,” Bokuto said magnanimously, “and also, because I’m curious.”
Akaashi had his lunchbox and he thought studying was a bit of a pain, so he settled back into his chair for the third.
“I doubt it’s a ghost,” he said dryly.
“That’s a good point. Here’s a counterpoint, Akaashi. What if it’s a ghost?”
“A girl in white,” Akaashi said. “Isn’t it more likely that the baseball club member imagined her?” It was an eerie thought, standing in a dark hallway only to see a girl in a white dress emerge from the darkness, walking slowly towards the other end. It painted a vivid picture into the imagination.
“Maybe,” Bokuto said doubtfully, gnawing on his bread. “But other people have seen her, too.”
“A mass delusion inspired by contagious imagery.”
“And we didn’t know until yesterday when we started talking about it. Everybody thought they imagined it and didn’t say anything.” Bokuto nodded wisely. “Until now.”
That was more annoying.
“And what did they say?” Akaashi finally asked.
“It’s the same stuff, Akaashi. They’re always in the other wing and they see her in the same classroom. Nobody can tell what she looks like, because her hair’s covering her face. And there’re always black roses.” Bokuto wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. “Someone in the gardening club said those mean hatred. Do you think the ghost hates us?”
“Let’s think about this rationally,” Akaashi said. “One thing at a time.”
“You sound like a real detective, Akaashi.” Bokuto rested his elbows on the desk. “I’m no good at mysteries. Like, when they show the dramas at night. All those mirrors and piano wire. And the part at the end! Where the detective shouts, you murdered them because of this! I don’t get it.”
“What don’t you understand?” Akaashi finished his lunch, capping the empty box. From his desk, he pulled out a notebook and folded to a blank page.
“How does the detective know why the murderer did it?” Bokuto frowned. “How do you know what someone is thinking?”
“It’s easy to understand if you try.” Akaashi began penciling across the first blue line.
1. The girl in white – physically and consistently present
1a. Black roses
2. The witnesses – across the wing
“I can’t read upside down,” Bokuto said. Akaashi sipped his sports drink.
“We establish the facts,” Akaashi said. “The distance between the wings is considerable and the morning winter light is dim. Natural black roses are exceedingly rare. So how can they know the flowers are roses?”
“I guess they can’t,” Bokuto said. “That’s a smart idea, Akaashi. But that doesn’t really mean anything, right?”
“We’re simply gathering facts.” Akaashi tapped his pencil. “The baseball club. Do they usually hold their meetings in the third-year classroom?”
“Their club room sprung a leak the day before, and their advisor said they could use 3-6 until someone fixed the roof.” Bokuto’s face grew sober. “I’m glad it wasn’t the volleyball club room, Akaashi. I keep a lot of my stuff in there!”
So Bokuto was responsible for the trash heap in their club room, piling up childish toys and miscellaneous paper scraps. Akaashi had spotted a tennis ball and a badminton racket in the corner. They were the volleyball team.
1. The girl in white – physically and consistently present
1a. Black roses Dark flowers
2. The witnesses – across the wing, unclear vision
“We might be able to rule out a prank,” Akaashi said. “Nobody expected the baseball club to meet there in the morning, and the other sightings are too random. It’s unlikely the culprit would perform for such little chance of an audience.”
“Smart,” Bokuto said, vague, in a way that Akaashi suspected he didn’t understand. “If we’re listing everybody involved, what about the—you know.”
“The you know?”
“You know, the you know.” Bokuto frowned, twisting in his seat to face outside. They had a slight view of Bokuto’s classroom, a small window amidst other windows. Students in gray bustled around with all the confidence of older students, sitting on desks and leaning against the window frames. Third-years had the third floor, second-years had the second.
Akaashi rarely visited the third floor. The other members of the volleyball team welcomed him, taking the papers he needed Bokuto to sign as inevitability, but he usually felt uncomfortable. In contrast, Bokuto lounged across his desk, oblivious to the occasional glance. Another difference between them, he supposed.
“The girl,” Bokuto whispered, eyebrows raised. “The girl from before.”
“We don’t know much about her, or if she’s even related to these incidents. You also said it’s been five years.” Akaashi tipped more lead into his pencil. “What could happen in five years to inspire a haunting?”
“Graduation?”
“Do you think graduation takes five years?” Akaashi paused. “How are your grades?”
“So what’s next?”
3. Locked room
4. Wet desk
“You said your homeroom teacher had the key. Who had the key before that?”
“It was just in the teachers’ room. The teacher said she had the key the whole time, and she wouldn’t lie.” Bokuto nodded solemnly. “She’s new, and kinda nosey, but she’s nice.”
“Your classroom’s lock works?”
“Yep! I know, because I locked myself out a few times,” Bokuto said, grinning up at him. He had rested his chin on his forearm, millimeters away from the notebook. Between them, the small but steady gulf of the desk.
“What about the surrounding classrooms?”
“Komi and Konoha and Washio and Saru never complained about it. So I guess they work.” Bokuto turned his gaze out the window again. “Besides, I’m in class 1, at the end of the hall. You can’t mix that up with any other classroom, right?” Though he said it whimsically, Akaashi felt like he’d been insulted.
“Is there somewhere to hide in the classroom?” Akaashi wasn’t familiar with the third-year classroom, but he suspected the layout was similar. A locker for cleaning supplies against the wall, a podium, curtains, plenty of desks.
“The baseball club looked all over and didn’t find anyone.”
3. Locked room – only key in the teachers’ room, searched classroom after unlocking
“The desk,” Akaashi said. “When you say it was wet, what do you mean?”
“Just a little bit, I guess. Small part of it.” Bokuto’s eyelids fluttered shut. “Hey, Akaashi, throw out the trash for me.”
4. Wet desk – damp in a small area
Akaashi gathered his own scraps along with the half-eaten bread. The garbage cans, smartly sorted, had been placed at the end of the long hallway. He dumped the trash inside the appropriate bins. Trash, trouble, and a gnawing worry. This is what Bokuto had given him.
It would rain, he supposed as he gazed outside the row of windows. The placid pool of gray had been blanketed by fierce storm clouds, now billowing like an undulating sea. A moonlight glow covered the skies, and the hallway had been shifted to a darker hue. The chaotic bulletin board transformed into a demure display, the door to his classroom into a quiet passageway.
The lustrous light spilled over the desks, a hushed and tranquil radiance. Bokuto had finally pulled on his blazer, though he still rested his head on the desk. Akaashi thought, for a moment, that Bokuto had fallen asleep. But when he sat down, he could see Bokuto’s eyes were partially open, watchful out the window.
Are you happy?! the poster had asked.
He supposed the advertisement had wanted to pierce the weakness in a person’s heart. No, strangers would gasp, they weren’t happy. How could this little poster know? This secret that they carried around, the burden weighing down inside their chests? In the right moment, those words could provide a long-awaited relief, like a sudden rainfall.
In the silky shadows, Bokuto’s hair seemed an even darker gray. He had a face inclined to smiling, though his mouth was hidden behind his arm. Sharp eyebrows, alert eyes, the smell of soap. His curled hands, calloused. His sleeves had been folded sloppily. He’d kicked out his foot into the slim corridor of desks, showing thin fraying wisps of his slacks from where he’d treaded on them. The clouds rumbled, distant and loud.
They sat close enough that Akaashi could have reached out and touched Bokuto’s hair.
Akaashi thought he felt happy.
“Lunch will end soon,” Akaashi finally said. Bokuto sat up, blinking slowly. He rubbed his reddened cheek.
“Your classroom should be closer to mine,” Bokuto said petulantly. “I always have to take the long way to get here.”
“You can have lunch with your friends upstairs,” Akaashi said. He had his own second-year friends and Bokuto had his third-year friends.
And he wasn’t particularly close to Bokuto, after all. Though it wasn’t uncommon for Bokuto to visit his classroom for lunch, it didn’t occur frequently. Besides, proximity didn’t always precede pleasantry. In preschool, he had been in the White Rose group, but his best friend had been in the Sunflower group. It had created a mild scandal.
But Bokuto shook his head.
“I like having lunch with you, Akaashi.” Bokuto stood up, jostling the desk again. While the backpack didn’t move, Akaashi’s notebook nearly tottered off the edge.
“Well,” Akaashi said. “Please rest assured. Your own classroom’s not haunted.”
“You thought of something, Akaashi?” Bokuto rested his fingers on the desk.
“It’s only a guess.” Akaashi opened the notebook to the page again.
1. The girl in white – physically and consistently present
1a. Black roses Dark flowers
2. The witnesses – across the wing, unclear vision
3. Locked room – only key in the teachers’ room, searched classroom after unlocking
4. Wet desk – damp in a small area
“If we assume people act in rational ways,” Akaashi said, “then it’s not impossible to understand. Though, it’s just a guess.”
“Really?” Bokuto glanced at the silver clock above the chalkboard. “I gotta go, but—give me a hint, Akaashi! I want to know, too. One hint. One. Just a little one. Come on, Akaashi. Who’s the ghost?”
The first raindrop hit the window, distorting the lights of the school. The clouds had been torn asunder, and the rain began to fall.
“You should hurry to class,” Akaashi said.
4
“Ba-ba-ba-ba! It’s the charming Bokuto!” Bokuto threw open the club room door. Akaashi had finished changing, zipping up his jersey. The club room was crowded with piles of aging magazines, idol posters rolled up at the corners, lost and yellowing slips of paper, empty bottles of Air Salonpas, stray white jerseys, pale blue bibs, clipboards, half-filled water bottles, boxes of miscellaneous advertisements, books with cracked spines, and towels slung across the bench. The usual club room umbrella had been missing since the beginning of the rainy season. A ping-pong ball rolled across the floor, motivated by the sudden gust of wind. They were the volleyball team.
“Okay, so tell me, Akaashi. You have to tell me now. I’ve been waiting forever,” Bokuto said, flinging open his own locker and tossing his bag inside. “Who’s the ghost?”
“There is no ghost.”
The rain had slowed, but still tapped against the walls in a constant hum. A few stray droplets fell from the gutter drain, splattering soundly against the ground. In the dim light, Akaashi fumbled with his backpack. The volleyball keychain bounced on his hand while he unzipped the outer pocket. He touched the clear plastic umbrella inside and relaxed.
“But if you’re asking about the girl in white,” he said, zipping his backpack again, “the culprit might be your teacher.”
There were certain classics, he supposed. So it was the butler! was a classic. Just as ‘nobody’ looked at the butler, ‘nobody’ looked at the teacher. The line between the high school student and a teacher had become a vast divide, the podium a wooden canyon.
“Okay, Akaashi. But counterpoint: what if it’s not my teacher?” Bokuto slung his tie on the silver hook.
“She’s the one with the key, and she said she had it the whole time.”
“I don’t get it,” Bokuto said. Akaashi worked his fingers over his hands.
“Let’s say she comes in early morning to start the heater. From the distance across the courtyard, and with the story of five years ago, the witnesses might think it’s a classic girl in a white dress. But your teacher could have a white winter coat.” Akaashi tugged at his sleeve. “Or equally likely, a white jersey.”
“Oh.” Bokuto held up his own jacket, examining the white lining. “But why would she have black roses? You don’t need flowers to start a heater. Do you?”
“Not the school heaters, at least,” Akaashi said dryly. “But if you ignore the ghost story, and you only see flowers and a wet desk, what would you think?”
“The desk grew flowers.”
“Someone placed a vase of flowers on a desk.” Akaashi closed his locker. “More precisely, your teacher places a vase of flowers on a desk.”
“Why?” Bokuto gazed at him somberly.
“If she’s a new teacher, it’s possible she attended school with the girl from five years ago,” Akaashi said. “She might take advantage of the empty school to pay her respects.”
In the crisp morning, when few people would linger in the third floor hallways, he supposed the homeroom teacher recognized the opportunity. During the winter, the atmosphere would have changed to something softer. He imagined himself in his classroom, staring out the window. She would arrive in her jacket, a blur in white, hands spread over the heater. Her gaze would drift to the empty desks and empty classroom, and perhaps she would remember the girl from five years ago.
“If she’s bowing her head, her hair would cover her face,” Akaashi continued. “And if she’s nosey, perhaps she’s concerned about the students in her class going through something similar.”
“Oh.” Bokuto pulled on his kneepads, snapping the band over his thighs. Akaashi waited for more questions, but Bokuto had bent down to stuff his feet into his shoes.
“They could have been dark red flowers,” Akaashi said. “Rather than hatred, if you’re leaving flowers at a grave, there are other common meanings. ‘I miss you.’ Something like that.”
‘I miss you’ or ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘Could I have done something more.’ Something like that.
Bokuto sat quietly at the end of the bench, finger hooked into his kneepad. For once, he had properly shrugged his jacket over his blue shirt. The shadows on his broad back dimpled like wings. Akaashi was unable to see his expression.
He supposed even Bokuto would feel this weight. The sight, stark, of a bleeding flower in a vase, petals yet unfolded and stem so thin. Hands, resting atop a cold desk in a colder classroom. The unsettled wait for rain, the gray of students milling beneath the bare limbs of the tree. A thought from five years ago, a sight unseen. A ghost.
“Hey, Akaashi,” Bokuto said. “What do you mean by something—?”
The club room door swung open.
“Hey” and “Sup” and “Yo” filled the room, waving hands and a flurry of clanging lockers. Bokuto leapt up, arms already splayed out in excitement. He grinned easily, impatiently tapping his shoe against the door. The clean cut of his calves flexed underneath his kneepads.
Practice ran smooth. Akaashi practiced his spikes by the open gym door, where the rain whispered onto the grass. The others left, one by one, until Akaashi was only setting to Bokuto. The balls bounced hard against the court, thudding a hard trail. When Akaashi said, “We should go,” over the top of his water bottle, Bokuto only wiped the sweat off his face.
Back in the club room, Bokuto clasped his hands together and said, “I forgot my umbrella, sorry, Akaashi, can we share—” and Akaashi was already nodding, curtly, without turning to look at him.
“It’s better if we take the bus,” Bokuto said, and Akaashi nodded again.
The bus wheezed to a halt at their stop. In the rain, all the seats had been taken. Just as well, given their school’s strict policies about the propriety of high school students giving up their seats. Akaashi hooked his hand into the overhead plastic loop. The bus rocked gently down the streets. A placid advertisement for baby food formula, decorated with a smiley pastel elephant, beamed down upon him. The smell of wet wool and the sting of balm clung tenaciously to the seats.
On sharp corners, Akaashi occasionally bumped into Bokuto. The bus rocked the bag’s keychains into a raucous jangle, hidden by the dry coughs and rumble of the engine. Bokuto stared out the window, eyes flickering with interest over the stony walls, the damp leaves, the blue signs. When their stop finally arrived, Akaashi almost felt regretful to touch Bokuto on the shoulder.
Say someone asked him if he liked or disliked the rain. He would say he was neutral, another ambiguous and unsatisfying answer. Though he huddled underneath the clear umbrella, the sprinkle still caught on his cuffs and his sneakers sank into the shallow puddles. But Bokuto held out his hand, enjoying the cool wetness. Akaashi liked that about the rain.
The sky was the color of stone. While the rain falling on the umbrella hit the plastic sharply, long threads of rain fell in sleets beyond the umbrella rim. When a car passed by, the headlights shimmered across the puddles. Bokuto held the umbrella high, hand casually looped around the metal. He strode along the road, leaving Akaashi to step quickly along the inside of the sidewalk. The rain painted the fronds a deeper green, droplets clinging to the stamen of nestled blue flowers. A scent of fresh plants and wet dirt rose into the air, mingled with faint smoothness of oil.
Down the hill, away from the four-tiered apartments and brightly-lit convenience stores. The crowds of umbrellas, blooming pink and white and black, thinned to the stray fast-paced pedestrian. They didn't pass by the poster, but grocery store flyers and local band shows crammed the bulletin boards. Across from the alleyway, filled with green plastic crates and blue buckets. Waiting on the yellow bumps, crossing by the angular metal railing, passing by a warmly-lit shop where customers shook out their umbrellas underneath the awnings. The rain had a quiet roar, indistinct except by the shaking of the puddles. Beige houses, bulletin boards, cement garden walls. Akaashi’s cuff had been soaked and clung to his wrist. The distinct cold brought, strangely, warmth to his cheeks.
At their usual junction, Bokuto grinned and passed the umbrella handle to him. Bokuto’s hands were cold and damp, though Akaashi supposed everything was wet, now.
“I’ll use this!” Bokuto said, hoisting his bag over his head. “See you tomorrow, Akaashi.” The bag truly provided little shelter from the rain. Even when stepping out, another fresh wave of rainfall descended on his rolled down sleeves. The hem of his winter coat grew damper.
“Wait,” Akaashi said. “This is your umbrella. Take it.” He only had ten steps to take to his home. Even the rain enveloped him in cold, his house would be warm.
“It’s your umbrella, Akaashi! Remember?” Bokuto grinned charmingly.
“It’s yours.” Akaashi slipped a finger under the strap of his backpack. “I keep my umbrella in the outside pocket of this. It must have been obvious that I’d forgotten it, since it’d usually show its shape.”
Bokuto smiled vaguely.
“When you sat down at lunch, my backpack was lighter than when you left. It moved more when you bumped into it, in the beginning. This is just a guess,” Akaashi said, “but you hid the umbrella in the bundle of your blazer and put it in my backpack when I left.”
The candy, the drink, the umbrella. This was what Bokuto had given him.
“But it’s just a guess,” Bokuto said, sticking out his tongue. “It’s a nice theory, Akaashi. But you don’t have any proof, so too bad! Umbrella’s yours.”
“Then,” Akaashi said, “can I have another guess?”
“I’m not taking the umbrella!”
“It’s not about the umbrella.”
Bokuto shrugged. Akaashi stared through the clear plastic of the umbrella, stretched by the metal ribs. The raindrops fell and rolled down the top, sinking into other droplets until they raced down the sides, swirling the greens and grays of the world beyond.
“You saved someone’s life today,” he said. “That’s a good thing.”
Bokuto’s smile slid off his face. He lowered his bag.
The rain fell down harder.
5
In past winter days, Akaashi had awoken to the sound of rain. The sound would arrive, indistinct, a constant pattering across the walls of his house. The shadows of the raindrops would flatter down across his notebooks and textbooks. Sometimes he would sit on his bed, hand still tangled in the blankets and hair rumpled by sleep, and stare out the thin crack of his curtains. The rain would fall over the slopes of his neighbors’ houses, and fog would slowly creep down the mountains in fumes, in heaviness, in patience.
The rain flattened down Bokuto’s hair and fell down his shoulders.
“Did Konoha tell you?” Bokuto finally said, vague smile on his mouth. The strap of his bag twisted in his hand.
Tap-tap-tap. The sound of water on the umbrella, raindrops knocking politely at the door.
“No,” Akaashi said.
“How do you know?”
“It’s just a guess.”
“How did you guess?”
Akaashi wondered if the wisterias in the north park had yet bloomed, if the purples and blues of a dawning night unfolded in their petals or if they remained, untouched, inside the twisted buds.
“You have a habit,” he said. “When you don’t know where to place things, you’ll put them in your pockets.”
Bokuto shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, shoulder hunching.
“You have your train pass in your pocket, so you must have taken the train. Which isn’t strange,” Akaashi said. “Except when you think about what you said to me. You said—that you regretted to inform me that our school is haunted. But it isn’t something so regretful.”
“It’s a little regretful,” Bokuto said, grinning faintly.
“Perhaps. Though there’s a more common phrase associated with trains.” Akaashi breathed in the stinging cold air. “We regret to inform you that this train has been delayed by a human accident.”
It wasn’t common, but it wasn’t uncommon. The train would rock to a lull. The stationmaster would usher out in the sharp blue uniform. Paper slips exchanged hands, an excuse for being late to a class or a meeting. He supposed human accident was a misnomer, but he never cared to research into the ratio of accidents to suicides. None of the answers would assuage him. He remained one of the passengers in the train, unknowing to the loud cries of the station.
“But if something happened, I doubt you’d keep so calm. For Konoha, too. I think he had been with you.” Akaashi said. “After all, he said something while he was leaving. In volleyball, we’d call you the ace. If you saved someone, then perhaps someone would call you a hero.”
Bokuto pushed his wet hair back, a damp strand still curling over his forehead.
“But you were unhappy with that praise. You usually enjoy the attention, so I assume this was something that troubled you. This is a guess,” Akaashi said. “But perhaps you saved someone—from a human accident. And you worry if they’ll get into another accident, in the future. That’s why you don’t enjoy being called a hero.”
The road was a shivering mirror to the neighborhood buildings, the echo of houses inside the distorted puddles. A single droplet of rain blew against the back of his hand, dripping over his knuckles. The sky behind Bokuto seemed light, a never-ending cloudy brightness.
“I guess.” Bokuto shrugged slowly. “It’s not a big deal, Akaashi. I don’t even know what that college student was gonna do. It’s just, the train was coming, and he seemed a little forward, so I pulled him back. That’s all. Maybe he was just gonna step over the line a little bit. I don’t know.”
“I think it upset you,” Akaashi said reasonably. “You’ve been giving me gifts all day, probably to distract yourself.”
“I guess. Maybe.” Bokuto laughed. “I don’t know.”
Akaashi wanted to go home. His shoes were already wet. Ten steps straight, a flight of stairs up, four steps to the left to his room. He could escape the seeping cold aching into his sleeves and the brisk wind that swung the rain into his face.
Bokuto grinned, sliding the bag over his shoulder. The strap twisted across his chest like a gnarled scar.
“You’re right, Akaashi,” Bokuto said. “About everything. The last part, too. But it’s also—I don’t know, it’s also because I want to give you stuff, sometimes. You do a lot for me. And, I guess. I don’t know. I guess I want to make sure you’re all right. If I give you enough stuff, maybe you’ll be okay. And if you’re okay, then it’s okay if I’m not.”
Akaashi patiently waited for Bokuto’s smile to falter. But Bokuto grinned with a genuine interest, like he wasn’t drowning.
Slowly, Akaashi lowered his umbrella. It felt wrong to stay dry. The rain immediately leapt over him, attacking his bare neck and drenching his sleeves. His wet collar clung to him, clammy and wrinkled, and suffocated him with every shallow inhale.
If someone was looking at him, he thought dimly, they would think he didn’t care. Akaashi could stay in the classroom across the courtyard and watch the teacher bow her head, but Bokuto would sit at the desk and lean forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the drying flower. What did the teacher think on her first day, when she entered the classroom and saw her students? Did she remember, even for a second, the girl with long hair, who had sat beside her once? Did she worry about the day when her own teacher had walked into the classroom, with that somber face and carefully chosen phrase?
And Akaashi could sit inside the train, backpack tucked on his knees. But outside, Bokuto had grabbed someone’s coat. Bokuto’s hands could remember the twisted fabric and the thunder of the train while it roared beyond him. Did the college student glance back, wild and frightened? Did Bokuto release him when the doors finally hissed open and the people piled out, unknowing and uncaring, adults in business suits and students in crisp uniforms and the casual laughing friends and the student disappeared into the crowd? Did Bokuto sense what the college student had wanted to do, and wonder if on another train, another route, another station, the student would toe the safety line again? What did he feel, his hand on another’s back? What scared him, what hurt him, why was his first instinct to be kind?
But maybe Akaashi’s indifference was the carefully crafted intention. The school broadcasted strict policies about where he could roam, reining him away from danger. Bokuto’s teacher hid her sorrow in the early morning fog, mourning with the door locked tight. At the empty desk, Bokuto had slipped the umbrella into the backpack, careful and quiet. Adults who fumbled, bumping and falling, on their path, so that others would not follow. To keep those behind them safe.
Akaashi disliked that.
“It doesn’t work like that, Bokuto-san,” he said.
“Oh?” Bokuto blinked.
“You haven’t been eating,” Akaashi said. The bread, at lunch, had only been half-eaten.
“I have, I have.”
“You haven’t been sleeping,” Akaashi said. Bokuto had laid his head on the desk, tired, and watched the sky.
“I sleep loads.”
“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said. “Are you happy?”
The light of the sky touched upon Bokuto’s hair, shadows still hovering beneath the strands. His jacket had been doused, water running off the wrinkles of his sleeves and darting to the ground. Bokuto didn’t shiver, mouth crooked into a smile.
How do you know, Bokuto had asked, what someone is thinking?
The answer: Akaashi didn’t. He couldn’t. He tried. He failed. He guessed. He reached out, stumbling, for the rain to wet his hand.
One step. Another. And three more, plodding steps over the damp road. He held the umbrella up above them, trying to shield him from the worst of the rain. Bokuto stared at him curiously, but didn’t pull away. Akaashi briskly tugged out the handkerchief from his pocket and patted clumsily at Bokuto’s face, feeling the cold skin through the thin cloth and numb fingers. But Bokuto only smiled and let his eyes fall half-closed, leaning slightly into the touch.
“You’re wet, Akaashi,” Bokuto murmured. “I thought you’d know better than that.”
“I don’t know anything.” Akaashi gently stroked Bokuto’s hair, the wet strands slicked back behind his ear. “I don’t even understand my best friend.”
“Really? Huh.” Bokuto frowned vaguely. “I always thought Onaga was easy to understand, but I guess not.”
“I haven’t made my bed.”
Bokuto squinted at him.
“And I don’t have many games in my room,” Akaashi said.
“That’s okay, Akaashi,” Bokuto said, still squinting.
“Still.” Akaashi pointed behind him, handkerchief wrapped in his palm. “Come to my house. It’s not far.”
“Oh.” Bokuto studied the house, appraising the sturdiness of the walls. “Thanks, Akaashi, but I’d make everything a mess. Muddy footprints, stuff like that.”
“Please come inside,” Akaashi said.
Bokuto’s eyes darted to a pliant vine, the glossy flats of the leaves bobbing up and down. He finally nodded, jerky and hesitant.
Akaashi had a kettle with a notched handle, comfortable in his hand. Maybe he would boil water until the steam rolled out in unrelenting waves, and serve tea in stinging hot cups. Or maybe he would simply sit on his creaking desk chair, listening to Bokuto laugh about volleyball and snicker over jokes. Would it be better if he asked prodding questions, focused on startling trains and faint ghosts and what did he feel, how long he had been feeling that way?
Or perhaps they wouldn’t talk at all. While the rain battered on his window and the thunder cracked like sliding ice, maybe Bokuto would be quiet, hands wrapped around his knees. He’d watch the rain with some unknowable interest, hair damp but drying enough to fall over his eyes. He would be so unfamiliar, in Akaashi’s familiar room—here was Akaashi’s pile of books, his volleyball poster, a sports wristband, his slumped backpack, his friend—and maybe Akaashi would take his worn blanket and wrap the ends around Bokuto, trying to keep him safe and dry and warm.
Akaashi always took the shortest route to school. But whenever he walked back with Bokuto, he supposed he always took the longest route home.