Chapter Text
It’s not often Bokuto feels anxious.
His moods change fast, sure—everyone knows that—but anxiety isn’t usually one of them. Still, sitting in a class he’s been failing all semester does something chemical to him, like something he shouldn’t have eaten but did anyway. He keeps thinking: I’m going to throw up in Introduction to Creative Writing.
He doesn’t look at the professor. Not directly, at least. He looks near him, around him, at the slides projected on the screen behind him, but never at him. Looking feels like admitting something. Every time he slips and glances up, the professor is already looking at him, like he’s already decided something about Bokuto and is just waiting for Bokuto to catch up.
Bokuto shifts in his seat, knees knocking faintly against the underside of the long shared desk. His row consists of freshmen—he can tell without asking. They sit differently compared to upperclassmen, like they believe that classes are a challenge to tackle, rather than something they have to survive. This class only has two types of people: freshmen getting a requirement over with, and seniors who waited too long. And then there’s him, somehow a more humiliating third type: a junior retaking Intro to Creative Writing because he already failed it once.
He presses his pen into the margin of his notebook until the tip almost tears through the page. It doesn’t make sense to him, any of it. His major is exercise science. He lifts weights. He studies how his body can perform the best. What does that have to do with writing about, what, feelings? Metaphors? He understands the body—how it moves, how it strains, how it recovers. There’s a right way to do a lift and a wrong way. If you do it wrong, someone will correct you, and then you’ll fix it.
Writing doesn’t do that, or at least, not the way he experiences it. His professor says that writing is subjective, but Bokuto has seen enough red ink to know that’s not entirely true. Feedback comes back in the margins of his papers that should be helpful but ultimately means nothing to him. He reads the corrections and still doesn’t know what to fix. Every time he rewrites, it sounds the same to him. Like he’s just…moving words around and hoping they turn into something better. They don’t. So now he’s here again, with a row full of freshmen, still failing.
His advisor had been kind about it, which almost made it worse. She said it would be “in his best interest” to retake the class, said the old grade could be replaced, said his GPA was getting dangerously close to the threshold of being withheld from practices and benched at games. He stayed silent and nodded along, because that’s what you do when someone is trying to help you and you don’t have anything useful to offer back. He pretended he understood, like he had a plan to fix everything next semester.
He doesn’t have a plan. The lecture ends all at once—chairs scrape, bags zip, bodies move and conversations start mid-sentence like they’d been rudely interrupted by the lecture. Bokuto exhales, relief quick and sharp. He starts packing up immediately, quickly, like if he moves fast enough he can—
“Bokuto-kun, do you have a moment?”
He freezes mid-zip. It’s irritating how effective a polite tone can be when it’s used correctly. It’s not phrased like a command, but it feels like one. He stands, knowing this was inevitable, slings his bag over his shoulder, and makes his way down to the front.
Up close, Professor Takeda’s expression is softer than he expects, which feels wrong. Bokuto thinks if he were about to tell someone they were failing, he’d at least look slightly uncomfortable about it.
“I wanted to speak with you about your current grade,” Takeda says, lowering his voice, even though they are the only ones left in the room, like this is some sort of scandal.
Bokuto nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak yet. His throat feels tight in a way that’s unfamiliar and annoying.
“I’ll be direct,” Takeda continues. “If your performance doesn’t significantly improve, you will fail the course.”
There it is. Finally said out loud. Bokuto’s brain supplies something like, yeah, okay, that tracks, but it still settles unpleasantly in his stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he says, because nothing else sounds appropriate.
“It will be a challenge,” Takeda adds, “but it’s not impossible. There’s still time for you to recover your grade.”
That catches Bokuto’s attention; he looks up properly now. There’s something in Takeda’s phrasing, recover, that gives him the hope he hasn’t completely ruined this yet.
“With the remaining assignments, I’ll also allow you to resubmit previous work for partial credit. In return, I’d like you to attend my office hours weekly so we can work on your writing together.”
That would mean missing a day of practice every week, Bokuto thinks. He won't miss practice for anything, creative writing be damned. Bokuto rubs the back of his neck. “Um… well…” He could lie, he considers it for a second, something about a scheduling conflict that sounds more academic. Instead, he shrugs, a little sheepish. “You only have office hours during practice.”
Takeda looks to consider that for a moment. “I imagine Ukai-kun wouldn’t appreciate me interfering with your training,” he says. “But I also imagine he would appreciate even less if you were unable to compete due to academic ineligibility.”
That lands. Clean. Bokuto winces, just slightly. “Yeah,” he says, because that’s all he can really say.
There’s a pause. Then something shifts in Takeda’s expression, subtly but decisively—solution found. “In that case,” he says, “I’ll have you work with a former student of mine at the writing center. He was my teaching assistant for this course last semester. His schedule should be more accommodating.”
Bokuto nods before Takeda can finish speaking, thank you, god. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”
“You’ll be in good hands,” the professor continues. “He’s very meticulous.”
Bokuto doesn’t know what that means exactly, but it sounds like the kind of thing that will fix whatever it is he keeps doing wrong.
“So if I do this,” Bokuto says, leaning forward slightly despite himself, “I’ll pass?” It comes out a bit more desperate than he intended.
Takeda smiles, just a fraction. “If you commit to the process,” he says, “I believe you will.”
It’s not a guarantee, but it’s good enough for Bokuto. A wall he can spike through.
Takeda reaches into his bag, pulls out a sticky note, and writes quickly. The pen moves with an ease Bokuto has never had. He hands it over. There’s an email and a name: Akaashi Keiji.
“Contact him as soon as possible,” the professor says. “Your next assignment is due at the end of the week. Bring him what you have so far before revising anything else.”
Bokuto looks down at the note again, like the name might come with additional instructions if he waits long enough. He exhales through his nose, then nods once, more to himself than anything. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll do it.”
Subject: NEED HELP!!!!
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]hi akashi!
professor takeda told me to reach out so i can meet with u in the writing center for tutoring. r u free today after 6?
Sent from my iPhone
Akaashi reads the email once, then again, as if a second chance might improve it. It does not. There is something almost impressive about its efficiency—how many conventions it manages to ignore in so few lines. No capitalization, no context, no course name, and, most notably, not his name. Akashi; as if proper spelling were optional, like decorative trim. He exhales through his nose. Not quite a sigh—he tries not to reward this sort of thing with visible reaction—but something adjacent to it. He considers, briefly, whether this is how the student writes academically, and how he got into university with such grammar.
Professor Takeda teaches five different courses in the department, all of which produce students in varying states of confusion. The email offers no clues as to which one this is about, though Akaashi suspects he already knows. Takeda, for better or worse, is generous to a fault. He continues to believe in his students long after the available evidence suggests they are a lost cause. A referral from Takeda is rare, but serious. It implies effort without result. It implies a problem that has resisted standard correction.
Akaashi glances at the time. He is not scheduled to tutor tonight. He had, in fact, been looking forward to spending an evening not picking apart other people’s sentences. He considers ignoring the email, briefly. Unfortunately, he decides to reply.
Re: NEED HELP!!!!
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]Bokuto-san,
Let’s meet at 6:15 this evening. The writing center is located in room 0405 of the student center. Please send me the current assignment you need assistance with, as well as any work you have completed, so I may review it prior to our meeting.
Best,
Akaashi Keiji (he/him)
Literature | Fukurodani Honors College
[email protected]
He sends it before he can reconsider. This, he tells himself, is simply logical. It’s damage control—one session today may prevent several down the line.
The essay arrives shortly after. Akaashi opens the document, adjusts his glasses, and reads.
The first sentence ends too early. The second refuses to end at all. The third attempts a theme and instead produces something like a suggestion. By the fourth, he has identified a pattern: this is writing that understands sentiment but not structure. Everything feels equally important, which results in nothing being particularly clear. Commas appear as decorative elements. Periods are deployed either too soon or too late, like poorly timed applause. He scrolls. The prompt is acknowledged but never quite engaged. It hovers in the background, like a polite host being ignored at their own event.
And despite it all, much to Akaashi’s chagrin, he sees effort there. Not necessarily serviceable effort, but intention nonetheless. The writing is not careless, it is misguided, which is worse in some ways, but also more workable. Akaashi can correct direction; he cannot manufacture effort. Takeda would have noticed that too. Of course he would have. That is precisely the kind of detail Takeda builds entire pedagogical philosophies around. Akaashi leans back slightly in his chair, one hand resting against his chin. So, not lazy, just extremely lost. Clearly unaware of the gap between what he means and what he produces.
Akaashi checks the time. 6:15 passes and he waits. At 6:18, he begins to re-evaluate the cost-benefit structure of his evening. There is a particular kind of irritation reserved for people who waste your time while you are doing them a favor. By 6:23, he has drafted, in his head, a concise and entirely professional email to Professor Takeda outlining the situation. He is prepared to send it at 6:30.
“Uh…is this room 0405? I’m supposed to be here for tutoring.” The voice is loud for the space, but not confident. It carries the volume of someone used to being heard and the hesitation of someone who is no longer sure that’s appropriate.
Akaashi looks up—he registers several things at once, which is both his habit and, moreso, his problem. First: the assumption. Before this moment, Bokuto existed only as a stereotype. Akaashi had constructed him efficiently—a composite of previous students with similar deficiencies. Buff, of course. Casual to the point of negligence, intellectually incurious.
Now that he is here, the type holds…mostly. Though Akaashi is quite tall himself, Bokuto is tall in a way that makes the room feel smaller. Broad-shouldered, visibly athletic even under the informality of his clothes. The words Fukurodani Volleyball stretch across his chest like a declaration he doesn’t need to consciously make. His bag is a duffel, not a backpack, which tells Akaashi everything he needs to know about how his materials are stored—papers thrown in without a second thought, wrinkled beyond recovery, coexisting with clothing and equipment in a system that relies entirely on optimism. Bokuto’s hair is slightly damp. There’s a faint scent of soap layered over sweat, recent enough to suggest he made some effort to correct for it. He looks, in other words, exactly how Akaashi expected.
What’s less expected is his face. Not because it contradicts the rest—if anything, it aligns with the boyish charm too well—but because it introduces a variable Akaashi would have preferred to exclude. He looks like someone who expects to be corrected and intends, at least in theory, to accept it. Simply unguarded in a way that suggests sincerity is his default setting. It is, objectively, a complication. Akaashi notes this, then files it away under irrelevant.
Akaashi remains seated, because standing would imply a hierarchy he does not plan to create. “It is,” he says. “Hello, Bokuto-san. I’m Akaashi.”
Bokuto isn’t sure if tutoring is the worst or best thing that’s ever happened to him, which feels like the kind of thought that should be dramatic but isn’t. On one hand, it means admitting he needs help with writing, which Bokuto feels he's already done more than enough of today. On the other hand...Professor Takeda has accidentally assigned him to the prettiest man alive—his tutor is beautiful.
The most beautiful person Bokuto ever seen. Yes, in a typical way, where someone walks by and the world collectively thinks wow, they're hot. But this feels more catastrophic, like the universe sculpted an angel with an unreasonable amount of care and then accidentally let him become a writing tutor.
He looks a little dangerous, too. Not physically—Bokuto guesses he could probably pick him up with minimal effort. It's something else. Akaashi has the kind of face that belongs in old stories where sailors make one terrible decision because a siren smiled at them from the water. Like he could quietly tell you to ruin your own life, and you'd probably thank him afterward. The kind of person you probably shouldn’t stare at for too long. Bokuto stares anyway.
He starts with his hair—soft-looking, slightly wavy, somehow it falls perfectly into place without trying. Then his brows, pulled together just slightly like he’s always thinking about something more important than whatever is happening in front of him. His eyes are sharp; focused in a way that makes Bokuto feel like they could look straight through him and somehow read every embarrassing thing he's ever done. They're also still looking at him. His heart gives one hard, stupid thud against his ribs, the kind he usually only gets right before a spike.
"Oh," Bokuto says aloud before his brain can intervene. He realizes, all at once, that he has been openly staring at his tutor like an idiot. “Sorry I’m late,” he says quickly, words tripping over each other. “Practice ran over and—”
Akaashi lifts a hand, cutting him off. “No need to apologize,” he says. “Let’s get started so as not to waste any more time.”
Maybe someone else would find it harsh, but Bokuto lets it reel him in, hook, line, and sinker. In high school, something like that might’ve knocked him flat. Sent him spiraling, thinking about it for hours. Now it just…registers. He notices it, lets it go, and continues on. “I ran here when I saw the time,” Bokuto adds, adjusting the strap of his bag. “So I wouldn’t be too late. But I guess it didn’t really help—”
“Wait,” Akaashi says. He looks genuinely confused, which Bokuto assumes is not an emotion he normally experiences. “You ran here?”
“Yeah,” Bokuto says. That part feels obvious. “Practice ended a little after six, and by the time I showered and checked my phone it was already 6:15, so I had to run.”
Akaashi blinks at him. “Aren’t the volleyball courts on the west side of campus?”
Bokuto pauses. He thinks about it. Tries to picture a map of campus, which immediately feels like the wrong approach. “Um…maybe?” he says. “Which way is west?”
Akaashi waves a hand like that part is no longer relevant, though he somehow looks even more confused than before. “That doesn’t matter,” he says. Then, more to himself than to Bokuto, “That’s two miles. In eight minutes.”
“I guess so,” Bokuto shrugs. Now he’s confused. Is that bad? It feels like it might be bad. “I won’t be late next time,” he adds quickly. “I promise.”
“That’s—” Akaashi starts, then stops, like he’s editing himself in real time. “It’s fine, Bokuto-san. Professor Takeda mentioned you needed someone who could accommodate your schedule. Just let me know if practice runs over.”
Bokuto exhales, shoulders dropping a little. “I will,” he says. “I promise.”
Akaashi pulls out a printed copy of his essay.
Bokuto feels a little sick when he sees it. The margins are covered; ink everywhere. Corrections, notes, lines drawn through things he definitely spent time writing. Right. This part. His hot tutor gets to explain, in detail, everything that’s wrong with him. He wonders if this is what it always feels like when someone smarter than you looks at your thoughts.
“I can tell how important volleyball is to you,” Akaashi says.
Bokuto looks up. Well that’s certainly not what he expected.
“There’s a lot of passion behind your prose,” Akaashi continues, scanning the page.
“Oh,” Bokuto says. He’s used to praise. He likes it. Usually he knows what to do with it—lean into it, grin, say something back. But the way Akaashi says it, so straightforward, makes his stomach flip. “Volleyball is the most important thing in my life,” Bokuto says. It comes out without much thought, as most of his thoughts tend to do.
“I can see that,” Akaashi replies. “I enjoyed reading about your experience with it. It was interesting.”
Bokuto stares at him. “It was?” he asks. Akaashi likes his writing?
“However,” Akaashi says, “you failed to answer the prompt.”
“I did?” Bokuto asks, blinking.
“You did,” Akaashi says. “Read the prompt out loud.”
Bokuto looks down at his paper. “In one thousand words or less, describe a moment in your life that defined who you are.” He finishes, then looks up again, like maybe he’s missed something obvious.
“In this draft,” Akaashi says, “you describe your introduction to volleyball, your development as a player, and your success in high school. All of which are clearly significant. However, the prompt asks for a singular defining moment, not a summary of your progression.”
Bokuto stares at the paper again. “So basically,” he says slowly, “I messed up the entire thing.”
Akaashi’s mouth shifts, just slightly. “Not exactly,” he says. “There’s material here that can be repurposed. Rather than discarding everything, you should identify one moment and focus on it.”
“But how do I pick?” Bokuto asks. “They’re all important.”
“The importance of the moment is not the point,” Akaashi says. “What matters is how it changed you.”
Bokuto frowns. That feels incorrect, but he can’t immediately explain why. “Huh? Of course it has to be important. That’s the whole point.”
Akaashi doesn’t look bothered by this. If anything, it looks like he likes the challenge. “One time,” he says, “during my first semester here, I forgot my phone in my dorm.”
Bokuto blinks. Okay? That’s not a story. That’s just something that happens.
“I didn’t realize until I was already halfway to my first class,” Akaashi continues. “I considered going back for it, but I would have been late, so I didn’t.” He speaks evenly, but there’s a slight shift in his tone—less instructional, more…recollective. “For most of the morning, it was just inconvenient. I kept reaching for it out of habit. Between classes, while walking, even standing in line for coffee.” He glances briefly at the table, like he can see the version of himself doing it. “There’s a particular kind of discomfort in not being able to check something when you feel like you should be checking something.”
Bokuto nods, even though he’s not sure he’s ever felt that exact thing. Still, it makes sense.
“And when my classes ended,” Akaashi says, “I didn’t go straight back to my dorm. I walked across campus instead, slowly, and I noticed things I otherwise would have ignored.”
That seems like the most unrealistic part so far, Bokuto thinks.
“It was early autumn,” Akaashi adds. “The trees had just started to change. Not all at once—just a few branches at a time. You could see the difference if you were looking for it.”
Bokuto finds himself leaning forward slightly.
“I wasn’t, at first,” Akaashi admits. “But without anything else to occupy me, I started paying attention. The air felt different,” he says. “Cooler, but not cold. There was that smell—you only really notice it when the seasons are changing. Dry leaves, maybe. Something like that.”
Bokuto doesn’t know exactly what smell that is, but he feels like he should.
“I ended up walking longer than I intended,” Akaashi says. “There’s a path near the edge of campus that I’d passed before but never taken. I followed it without really thinking about it.” He glances at Bokuto briefly, like checking if he’s still there. “I realized, at some point, that nothing was waiting for me. Not immediately. No messages I needed to respond to. No updates I needed to check. And when I got back to my dorm,” Akaashi continues, “my phone was exactly where I left it. My notifications were still there. Nothing had changed.” He looks back at Bokuto. “I started leaving my phone behind on purpose after that, just to disconnect once in a while. To be present.”
Bokuto watches him and tries to imagine Akaashi walking around campus, noticing the trees. It feels right. “All because you forgot your phone,” he says.
Akaashi nods once. “Exactly.”
Bokuto leans back a little in his chair. He pictures himself doing that—leaving his phone behind, walking around campus with nothing to do. It sounds boring. But maybe, if he was with Akaashi, he might like it. “Wow,” he says. “You’re really good at this.”
Akaashi glances at him a moment longer, then back at the paper. “And you will be too,” he says, “once you identify your moment.” Akaashi’s eyes move across the essay again. “I also noticed,” he says, “that you only wrote about your successes. Powerhouse teams lose too, no?”
Bokuto doesn’t like where this is going. He shifts in his seat. “Well, yeah,” he says, frowning. “But why would I write about that?”
Akaashi looks up at him. “When was the last time you lost a game that mattered to you?”
“All games matter,” Bokuto says automatically. Though it’s true, it’s also a cop out, because he knows what Akaashi is really asking for. He doesn’t like to think about it, even though the weight of it is held over him every single day. But Akaashi knows what he’s doing, and Bokuto has no choice at this point, but to trust him. “My last year of high school,” he says. “Spring tournament.”
“You haven’t lost since then?”
“Not like that,” Bokuto says.
Akaashi hums quietly. “If I recall,” he says, “you placed second.”
“That’s not—” Bokuto stops himself, then shakes his head. “We would’ve won if it weren’t for me.”
Akaashi doesn’t interrupt, he just quietly observes.
“I was the ace,” Bokuto says. “I was supposed to be the strongest player on the court. But I…” He hesitates, then pushes through it. “I used to have really bad mood swings. Sometimes I’d just drop. Couldn’t get back up.” He looks down at his hands. “My team was good at helping me. Usually. But not that time. I wasn’t a reliable player,” he says.
Akaashi speaks carefully, softer. “I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. Unreliable players are not recruited by Division I collegiate teams.”
“Those offers didn’t matter,” Bokuto says, a little sharper than before. “Not after that…When I saw their faces…” he says, quieter now. “I just kept thinking I took something from them. I couldn’t do that again.” He looks up. “So I knew I had to get my emotions under control. Went to therapy and stuff. I never wanted to be the reason my team lost again.”
Akaashi studies him for a second. “It sounds like that loss really developed you as a player,” he says.
“Yeah,” Bokuto says. Then— “Oh.” He leans forward, sudden, energy snapping back into place. “Wait,” he says. “I see what you’re doing.” A grin spreads across his face, quick and bright. “Akaashi,” he says, like he’s just figured out something important. “You’re really smart.”
Akaashi smiles, small, controlled. “Unfortunately,” he says, “our time is up. Email me your next draft,” Akaashi continues, already gathering his things. “And let me know your availability for next week.”
“Yeah,” Bokuto says, already reaching for his bag. “I will.” He stands, slinging it over his shoulder. Then, almost as an afterthought, “thank you,” he says. “For helping me with this.”
Akaashi pauses, just briefly, then nods. “You’re welcome, Bokuto-san.”
Akaashi revises his opinion of Bokuto the way one revises a bad thesis: reluctantly, defensively, and fully aware it’s about to get worse before it gets better. Because the evidence is inconvenient. Bokuto, it turns out, is not just attractive—he’s the kind of attractive that feels like it was focus-grouped to annoy Akaashi personally. Not just in the obvious, superficial way, though there’s plenty of that: the broad shoulders, the impractical biceps, the kind of smile that has the disruptive quality of a camera flash going off in a dark room.
Worse, he isn’t stupid. Not in the clean, dismissible way Akaashi had hoped. Bokuto works hard. He pays attention. He cares, loudly and without irony, about his teammates. It’s exhausting and Akaashi dislikes him for it immediately. There must be a catch, there’s always a catch. But if there is, Bokuto is either hiding it well or doesn’t know it exists, which might be worse.
None of this matters, obviously. Bokuto is straight—painfully, unmistakably so. Even if he weren’t, which would require the universe to develop a sense of humor Akaashi does not believe it possesses, there are still boundaries—Akaashi is his tutor. They mean nothing to each other. Bokuto is a temporary obligation with a deadline attached. Akaashi will shepherd him through creative writing with minimal casualties, and then Bokuto will vanish back into whatever loud, uncomplicated life he came from. Their story concludes; no sequel.
Except it doesn’t, because it’s late, which is theoretically when Akaashi produces his best work, and instead he’s stuck in a loop of highly specific, deeply unhelpful observations about Bokuto. His arms, his smile, his stupid hair. He types a sentence. Deletes it. Types another. Deletes that too. The words line up obediently but say nothing, like they’ve unionized against meaning.
He considers stress as an explanation, mostly because it’s available and vaguely respectable, but the ache in his stomach doesn’t behave like stress. No, not his stomach, lower. When was the last time he got off? Akaashi exhales, annoyed at the entire situation—at Bokuto, at himself, at the fact that this is apparently where his night is going to end. Akaashi closes his laptop and moves to his bed, a choice he hates himself for even as he complies.
He feels he’s made a mistake the moment his back settles against the mattress. The room won’t spare him any comfort—moonlight slips through the curtains and lands across the bed like a stage light, isolating him in a performance he doesn’t remember auditioning for. The fan whirs steady and persistent, enough to feel judgemental. He hasn’t even done anything—at least not yet—but that doesn’t seem to matter. The whole room feels slightly off, as if punishing him for even wanting it. But this time, his body has priority over his mind, and so he closes his eyes in surrender and lets the feeling come. He slips his hand underneath the waistband of his pants, finally acknowledging the throbbing he’s been ignoring.
He releases a shaky breath at the friction against himself, already half hard—he’d feel embarrassed about that fact if he wasn’t currently incapacitated by his dick. He thinks about Bokuto as he palms himself through his boxers. Would those solid, calloused palms be gentle with him—light and teasing as they ghost over his body. Or would they be exactly as rough as they look—holding Akaashi down with all their strength and simply taking—stroking him for all he’s worth until he’s brought to tears. Akaashi gasps as he squeezes himself, fully hard now; he’s so wound up it almost feels painful. He pulls his weeping cock through the fly of his boxers, the head screaming with an angry, rosy red. He thumbs at the pearly drops of precum over his slit, whimpering as he circles it over the head and down, down, down to the base of his dick. What kind of noises could Bokuto elicit from him? What noises can he pull from Bokuto? He thinks of Bokuto as he strokes himself. Bokuto, so open and sincere, it only makes sense he would be unabashedly loud and expressive in bed too. Would Bokuto praise him? Tell Akaashi how good he is? It’s more frantic now, the way Akaashi touches himself, desperately chasing his release. He pushes himself over the edge imagining two toned hair and a blinding smile peering up at him from between his legs. Akaashi moans, fucking up into his fist with three final strokes before spilling over his hand.
Fuck.