Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Bokuto wakes up, he is certain of exactly two things.

One: He is heinously hungover.

Two: In some way or another (even if Bokuto can’t quite remember what it is), Kuroo Tetsurou is to blame.

He doesn’t get out of bed right away, instead opting to roll over and shove his face into a pillow. He adjusts his position slightly when he remembers the necessity of breathing, then proceeds to just lay there as the night returns to him in fragments. It was, in fact, a surprise birthday party for Kuroo (which was a recipe for disaster from the start, really). The words shot for shot, dude, you won’t echo in the back of his head, and it’s a small comfort to know that, somewhere, Kuroo is probably feeling just as shitty as he is at the moment. If he's awake, that is.

It's--Bokuto lifts his face from the pillow just enough to consult the clock on his nightstand--9:52 A.M., so he doubts Kuroo has risen from the dead yet. (Come to think of it, he also wonders why he's had the misfortune to.)

The blinds in his room are mercilessly open, and when he sits up, he feels like he’s being stabbed in the eyes by the sunlight slanting in through the window. His phone isn’t on his side table--he makes a mental note to look for that at some point--but there is a #1 Dad mug containing what he’s pretty sure is rum, apple juice, and the curdled remnants of some whipped cream. He isn't sure what kind of person would find that appealing, and he really isn't sure how he could have let such a person into his apartment. The smell hits him with a wave of nausea that only worsens when he stands, and he sets the mug back down to be dealt with when his stomach doesn’t feel like it’s full of radioactive waste. Which it might be.

He runs one hand through his disheveled hair, squinting to assess the damage in the mirror over his dresser. The only thing he has on besides his boxers is a t-shirt that he’s fairly certain doesn’t belong to him, and the bags under his eyes are looking more like two weeks' worth of luggage. There’s something unidentified and sticky matted near the back of his head. He doesn’t want to know.

Resuming his mission of piecing together the last twenty-four hours, Bokuto searches the pockets of the pants discarded on the floor. He doesn’t find his phone, but he does find seven dollars and a stale Hot Cheeto (which, granted, isn’t all that abnormal). At this point he's more curious than concerned, because it’s not that he remembers nothing from the night before. As he crosses the hall to the bathroom, he’s certain that he recalls walking in on Nishinoya holding Asahi’s hair back while he knelt in front of the toilet and puked up his three beers.

(I never knew he was such a lightweight, Noya had said, some weird mix of worry and fascination in his eyes. Bokuto had to dodge a hairbrush to the face after shooting back something along the lines of funny coming from you, little bro. He still doesn’t regret it.)

But Bokuto is glad Noya can’t see him now, because the gross feeling in his stomach hasn’t subsided, and he’s pretty much accepted that he’ll be in Asahi’s position at some point within the next hour or so. The more pressing matter, though, is the fact that sometime between then and now, all of the shit that’d been sitting on the sink counter--his toothbrush, his near-empty hand soap, his hair products, for God’s sake--was pushed off to the side and scattered across the floor. Between that and the presence of what appear to be handprints on the mirror, he'd like to think there isn’t a very real possibility that someone had hooked up on his bathroom sink, but… well. There’s a very real possibility that someone had hooked up on his bathroom sink.

Bokuto picks up his toothpaste and toothbrush (which he washes very thoroughly), but he doesn't bother with anything else. Maybe it’s because he’s feeling lazy, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to acknowledge that there’s a pair of someone else’s underwear sitting on the floor beside the overflowing trashcan. Probably both.

He makes a valiant effort to scrub away his booze-flavored morning breath, foregoing the mouthwash when the familiar scent of alcohol makes his stomach turn. He knows that he should probably take a shower, but he has a warzone to survey, so he files that idea away for later.

When he steps into the main room of his apartment, it's as much of a disaster as he would have expected, had he given it much forethought. The first thing that stands out to him is the drooping banner that’s strung up over his kitchen cabinets, with HAPPY BDAY KUROO written in red poster paint. At some point, somebody had scribbled over KUROO with a bright blue marker and written BITCH underneath it. Bokuto isn’t entirely sure if he took part in that, but he’d like to think so.

All around, there are plastic cups--along with an occasional mug, for the more environmentally conscious--scattered between half-empty snack bowls, and the mutilated remains of a birthday cake take up the center of the kitchen island. Over the back of the couch, he can see a few pizza boxes stacked on the coffee table. Somebody left the TV on--switched to the cooking channel, for reasons unknown--and two women in a spotless kitchen are cackling into the stale air of his living room. Wincing at both the brightness of the screen and the aforementioned cackle, Bokuto shuts the TV off. Then, he turns around.

“...Seriously, dude?” he mutters hoarsely, because he hadn't necessarily expected to see Kuroo passed out on his couch with his head in an empty pizza box, but here he is.

Kuroo doesn’t respond, and Bokuto's eyes fall on the collection of (mostly) empty cups on the table. He opens the pizza box, suppressing a snort at the dick drawn on Kuroo’s face--in the same color marker, suspiciously, as the vandalism on the banner in the kitchen--and carefully, Bokuto picks up a single cup and balances it on Kuroo’s forehead. He pauses, and when there’s no response, he stacks another one upside-down on top of it.

Bokuto achieves a grand total of five cups before Kuroo finally shifts in his sleep, and when the slight movement causes the tower of cups to collapse across his face, Kuroo wakes up with an irritated groan and an arm flung over his eyes. He’s silent for a few seconds.

“...How many did you get?” he finally says, voice muffled slightly by the sleeve of his sweatshirt. There's a mysterious stain on the elbow.

Bokuto blinks. “What?”

“Cups,” Kuroo clarifies. “On my face. How many?”

“Five,” Bokuto says, grinning.

“Nice.” Kuroo lifts his arm and squints at Bokuto. “Still didn’t beat my record, though.”

“I’m gonna,” Bokuto shoots back. "And at least I don’t have a dick on my face.”

“Very optimistic," Kuroo says lightly. Bokuto just looks at him.

Realization dawns like a dark curtain over Kuroo's face, and he sighs.

“...I have a dick on my face, don’t I.”

“Yup,” Bokuto says, nodding somberly. “It’s a big one.”

“Sweet,” Kuroo replies as he sits up. Bokuto genuinely can’t tell if it’s sarcasm. “Oh, wow,” he continues, surveying the apartment over the back of the couch. “This place is trashed to shit.”

“I know,” Bokuto groans, collapsing forward with his face shoved into the couch. “I don’t wanna clean. My head feels like…”

He pauses, trying to come up with an accurate comparison.

“There’s a shitload of pissy bees in there," he finally settles on. "Probably my stomach too. I’m gonna throw up, and it’s just gonna be a whole bunch of bees.”

“Well, fortunately for you, bees are dying at an alarming rate,” Kuroo says, ruffling Bokuto’s hair with one hand. “So hang in there.”

Bokuto turns his face, exposing one eye, and glares at Kuroo.

“Dude,” he says. “Don’t tell me you have no bees. You gotta have at least a couple of bees. You were sauced.”

“Sauced,” Kuroo muses, like he’s studying a foreign language. “...I mean, I’m gonna assume from context clues that by bees you mean raging hangover. In which case, not really.” He grins, a little triumphantly, and shrugs as he settles against the back of the couch. “Guess somebody didn’t hydrate properly.”

“It’s not my fault,” Bokuto protests as he slumps onto the floor. “I always forget, ‘cause I’m like, why would I wanna drink water when alcohol exists? And then this happens,” he says, clutching Kuroo’s leg, “and I’m like, shit. Alcohol exists.”

“Well said.” Kuroo prods Bokuto’s shoulder with his foot. “Come on. Chug some water, then get in the shower and cleanse the sin from your body. It’ll help. Even if you’re just passing the time ‘til you puke your guts out.” He nudges Bokuto a bit harder, offering an encouraging smile in response to his pouty frown. “After that, you’ll be good.”

“Fine,” Bokuto says, wincing as he sits up and a sharp pain throbs at the base of his skull.

“And then,” Kuroo says, standing and extending a hand to help Bokuto up, “we can go out and order a fuckton of breakfast food.”

“You can order a fuckton of breakfast food,” Bokuto shoots back, eyeing Kuroo suspiciously once he’s upright.

“It’s my birthday,” Kuroo says. “I am completely entitled to breakfast food.”

“Today’s not your actual birthday,” Bokuto argues. “So it doesn’t count.”

“You make a very compelling point,” Kuroo counters, narrowing his eyes critically. “However, yesterday was my birthday party, and you--” he points one finger at Bokuto, “--are still hungover from said party. So technically, my birthday privileges haven’t expired yet.”

Bokuto isn’t entirely sure that’s how it works, but Kuroo’s giving him that pleading, expectant smile that he always feels a little bad saying no to. He supposes a little breakfast food won’t kill him. Hangover be damned.

“Fine,” he says, with an exaggerated huff of frustration. “You got me there.”

“I did?” Kuroo’s face flickers with surprise before breaking into a wide grin, like the mere prospect of breakfast food is the greatest news of his life. (On any other day, Bokuto might agree.)

“But,” Bokuto says, “if I, like, puke all over your omelet or something, you can’t blame me.”

Kuroo is silent for a moment.

"...More like--"

"Don't," Bokuto warns.

"--a vomlet."

“No,” Bokuto groans, turning to the empty room and announcing, “Everyone, breakfast is canceled because Kuroo Tetsurou is the worst.”

The volume of his own voice sparks a renewed throb of pain at the back of his head, and Bokuto winces.

“Whatever you say, dude.” Kuroo grins, pointing in the direction of the hallway. “Now go. Cleanse."

Bokuto pouts.

Bokuto has to jump out mid-shower, hair frothy with shampoo, to avoid emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor of the tub.

Bokuto is not sure he’s ever heard Kuroo cackle so hard in his life.

+

When Keiji wakes up, he is certain of exactly two things.

One: He is… moderately hungover.

Two: His shift begins in twenty minutes. (Well, twenty-three. Not that he’s counting.)

He rolls over onto his back, sighing at the ceiling. Getting up at 5:37 AM--also known as 5:30 and a snooze button--isn’t one of his favorite activities, even when he doesn’t have a nagging headache and an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. But it’s an eight-minute drive to the diner (nine if he gets stuck at that last intersection for two cycles of the light, like he sometimes does), and Keiji is never late for work. He knows it’s probably not that impressive, but it’s a fact he can be proud of.

He doesn’t have a whole lot of those.

Still, he isn’t used to working Sundays, especially not full shifts. His schedule is dictated by his younger brother’s school day--Tadami gets on the bus at 7:30, Keiji’s shift at Over-Easy begins at 8. Tadami’s soccer practice ends at 4:30, Keiji clocks out at 4. It’s become a routine.

But weekends are different. Tadami is usually home, and although Keiji feels safe leaving him--so long as there’s food in the fridge, and the downstairs neighbors are home to check up on him--he doesn’t feel especially good about it. Eleven-year-old kids shouldn’t have to stay home alone on weekends. Eleven-year-old kids shouldn’t have to prepare their own lunches, or memorize the neighbors’ phone numbers for emergencies, or spend nice days holed up in crappy one-bedroom apartments because it isn’t safe to walk to the park unsupervised.

Of course, eleven-year-old kids shouldn’t have to live alone with their older brothers, but a lot of things happen that shouldn’t. Just more to some people than others.

This particular weekend, though, Tadami isn’t home. He’s at some campground or nature preserve or something, a two-night class trip that Keiji had apprehensively initialed a permission slip and forked over fifty dollars for. Granted, it was the obvious choice, because fifty dollars was less than the weekend’s salary he’ll make while Tadami is away.

(Even if it weren’t, the moon-eyed, pouty-lipped please-Keiji-all-my-friends-are-going probably would have sufficed.)

When Keiji had dropped him off at school Friday morning, it pretty much went as expected.

Tadami realized he’d forgotten his toothbrush. Keiji, having anticipated this, had already put it in the side pocket of his bag before they left home.

Tadami’s no was a little too defensive when Keiji asked if he was nervous. Keiji didn’t call him out on it.

Tadami told Keiji all the other parents are starting to leave, you know, and rolled his eyes when Keiji shot back but I’m not a parent, now, am I?

But when Keiji really was about to go, Tadami grabbed his wrist and said, hey, wait, this means you can work tomorrow if you want to--his little gap-toothed grin shining in Keiji’s face--’cause you won’t have to take care of me all day.

Taking care of you is way more fun than working. It was the truth, but even as Keiji ruffled Tadami’s hair and smiled at the little scowl it elicited, he felt a pang of guilt. He'd hoped Tadami didn’t think of himself as a burden.

He'd hoped Tadami knew he was one of the very few things in Keiji’s life that made him happy.

But then Tadami had turned around and scampered off to join his classmates on the bus, laughing at some funny face or juvenile comment he was met with, and Keiji just watched him go.

Friday night, the apartment felt strangely… quiet. Quiet, and something else. Keiji didn’t realize until he was lying in bed, with no restless shifting or whispered conversations from Tadami’s side of the room, that that something else was empty.

Saturday, he worked eleven hours. Afterward, he slept for three, and proceeded to spend the rest of his night at the shifty dive a few blocks from his duplex, because hell, he'd earned it.

A grand total of two girls hit on him as he sat conspicuously alone at the bar, and both times, he very politely expressed that he wasn’t interested. The third person who gravitated towards him was a guy--not attractive, not unattractive--and Keiji was… slightly more interested. Interested enough to entertain a conversation, to flirt back a bit just for the hell of it, but not quite enough to say yes to the so, were you looking to go home with someone tonight breathed into his ear by a sour beer mouth.

Keiji went back to his apartment alone. He’d spent more on drinks than he’d intended. He tried not to feel guilty.

And now, today--Sunday--it’s 5:57 A.M., and Keiji is downing two ibuprofen with a mug of watery diner coffee.

Behind him, he hears the rattling of pills as his coworker stows the medicine bottle back into the little odds-and-ends first-aid bag from one of the kitchen cabinets. There’s a brief silence, and for one blissful moment, Keiji thinks that maybe--just maybe--he’s managed to escape interrogation.

“So,” a chipper voice says, crushing that dream a little too close to his ear. “Rough night? Was it… eventful, at least?”

“Not particularly,” Keiji says neutrally, turning around.

Warm brown eyes narrow, scanning his face. “I don’t believe you.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Keiji sips his coffee. More as a distraction than anything, because it tastes suspiciously like dishwater.

“Trashkawa,” a voice calls from the cook's station across the kitchen. “I don’t know how you have the energy to harass people this early in the morning.”

“I’m not harassing him!” Oikawa turns to Keiji, pointing one finger in Iwaizumi’s direction. “Keiji, tell Iwa-chan I’m not harassing you.”

“Stop harassing me,” Keiji says, trying to suppress a smile at the look of betrayal that erupts on Oikawa’s face, “and maybe I will.”

Oikawa, in a feat of supreme maturity, sticks his tongue out at Keiji before turning to peer through the wide cutout window that looks into the restaurant. Keiji glances over Oikawa’s shoulder; the diner’s only been open for two or three minutes, but Yachi is already fidgeting restlessly at the hostess stand as if she’s been there for half an hour.

“You’d better watch your mouth, Keiji-chan,” Oikawa finally responds, leaning forward onto the serving counter and craning his head further through the window, “or I’m gonna stick you with all the worst tabl--”

A balled-up dish towel hits him square in the back of the head and he yelps loudly, almost smacking his face on the top frame of the window as he whips around.

“Get off the counter,” Iwaizumi says, tying his black apron loosely behind his back. “It’s unsanitary.”

“So strict, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa comments, but there’s a sharp smile on his face as he crosses his arms and levels an appraising look across the room. “You’re lucky you look so good in black. I can’t stay mad at you.”

“What do I have to wear to make you stay away from me?” Iwaizumi shoots back, turning away to mess with the knobs on the stove.

(Not before Keiji notices the faint flush tinging his face.)

“Mm, that’s a dangerous question,” Oikawa says lightly, picking up the dish towel from the floor and examining a dark stain near the corner.

“Don’t you have anything better to do, Oikawa?” Iwaizumi’s voice is muffled as he roots through the fridge, emerging with two cartons of eggs in his hands and shooting a glare over his shoulder. “Your job, maybe?”

“Ooh, hear that, Keiji?” Oikawa says, and Keiji takes a small step back as Oikawa abandons the window and brushes past him. “I’ve been promoted from Trashkawa already. He’ll be professing his undying love by next week, I bet.”

“I’ll cross my fingers,” Keiji offers, turning to dump the rest of the coffee into the sink beside him. It’s not doing very good things for his lingering nausea.

Oikawa retrieves two aprons from the hooks at the back corner of the kitchen--on the way he passes the cook’s station and lightly flicks the towel at Iwaizumi’s ass, snickering at the indignant don’t think I won’t file a harassment suit, Shittykawa he receives in response.

When Oikawa’s back is turned, he doesn’t notice the little half-smile on Iwaizumi’s face. Keiji does.

Draping one of the aprons over his neck, Oikawa brings the other to Keiji, holding it out with a sincere smile.

“Sundays are a bitch,” he says. “There’s a travel cup on the bottom shelf of the dairy fridge. It’s not coffee.”

By the time Keiji gets the apron on, Oikawa is gone, and the door into the restaurant is swinging shut behind him.

Within a few hours Keiji discovers that, yes, Sundays are a bitch. A cold, merciless bitch. It’s nine o’clock when a couple more servers come in and relieve some of the burden on him and Oikawa, but a sudden onslaught of customers shortly afterward makes that relief pretty short-lived. On the bright side, the ibuprofen--along with the dry toast and glass of water that he forced upon himself around eight--has mitigated the worst of Keiji’s hangover symptoms, which makes things a lot more bearable.

(Not quite enough to accept Oikawa’s offer of what Keiji discovers to be pineapple vodka in the dairy fridge, but he still appreciates the gesture.)

Another minor upside of the Sunday rush is the fact that, once Keiji gets into the rhythm of incessant coffee-filling and spill-cleaning and condiment-fetching, he sort of forgets about the passage of time until he checks the clock in the kitchen and realizes it’s already quarter past eleven.

Then the door swings open, and Keiji nearly flings himself into the sink to avoid being flattened.

“I got the pack of Brunch Ladies that just sat down at table twelve,” Oikawa says, coming in and breezing past Keiji with an impressively balanced armful of dishes.

(The servers at Over-Easy have a thorough system of identification for certain archetypal customers, including but not limited to Brunch Ladies, Broke College Kids, and Nursing Home Escapees. Oikawa takes it all very seriously.)

“Nine’s all yours, though,” Oikawa continues. “Just saw Yacchan seat a couple guys there--she looked a little scared of them, but that’s your type, isn’t it? Anyway--” exiting the kitchen just as quickly, Oikawa pauses with a tray of drinks teetering in one hand and a full dispenser of maple syrup in the other, “--tell me which one you think has the worst hair, ‘kay? I couldn’t decide.”

Then he’s out the door. Keiji takes a moment to process.

He exits the kitchen a moment after Oikawa, dropping off a bottle of ketchup for the Minivan Family seated at table three before making his way toward the pair that Oikawa had delegated to him. He can only see the left side of the booth from his angle, and there’s a guy sitting with his elbow on the table and his face propped against his hand. He’s got a lazy smirk on his face and a rat’s nest of unruly black hair that flops down over one eye. Keiji is immediately reminded of Oikawa’s hair comment.

This should be interesting.

When Keiji reaches their table, he finally gets a decent look at the man seated on the right side of the booth. His face is turned down toward his menu, but Keiji can see that, true to Oikawa’s word, the guy’s got hair to give his friend across the table a run for his money. Rather than the style, though, the strangest thing about it is the color--a pale, cool grey, streaked haphazardly through with black.

Not bad, necessarily. Just… unusual.

Definitely the lesser of two evils.

Keiji pushes aside all thoughts of odd hair and discourse with Oikawa, pulling his little notepad from his apron pocket. Customers. These are customers.

“Good morning,” he begins. “My name is Akaashi, and I’ll be your server today.” Rehearsed and professional. Like always.

Then the guy on the right looks up at him, all wide golden eyes and innocent smile, and suddenly Keiji's thoughts are straying into very unprofessional territory.

Despite this development, Keiji maintains his pleasantly neutral expression--just flips the page of his notepad, offers a courteous smile, and continues as usual.

“Can I start you off with something to drink?”

Chapter Text

“Good morning, my name is Akaashi--”

--is pretty much all Bokuto registers before his soul sprouts a pair of wings and ascends to heaven, because fuck if this man isn’t the closest thing to an angel he’s ever seen in his life.

Akaashi says something else, but Bokuto doesn’t quite realize this until Kuroo and Akaashi are both looking expectantly at him--Kuroo with that smug-ass the moment this guy’s gone I’m gonna roast the life out of you grin, Akaashi with… whatever expression it is, it’s beautiful--and Bokuto sort of just stares in surprise. Because shit. Did Akaashi ask him a question? He might have.

Bokuto doesn’t know. He heard exactly six words. There aren’t very many ways he can go with this.

“Hello, Akaashi,” he says, smiling. It’s the best he can do.

Akaashi just looks at him for a second, as though waiting for him to continue. He’d definitely asked a question. Bokuto’s grin wavers. He’s about to say something--to apologize, maybe--but then Kuroo’s voice cuts in from across the table.

“You’ll have to excuse him, Akaashi,” he says, that obnoxious smile lingering on his face. Like he’s never been so amused in his life. “He’s very hungover.”

Bokuto blinks. Looks at Kuroo (murderously), then Akaashi (apologetically).

“Oh,” Akaashi says. But he doesn’t look uncomfortable--in fact, he smiles, just a small one, but still a smile. “Well, it’s always nice to know you aren’t alone, isn’t it?”

“Please,” Kuroo scoffs. “I’m not h--”

“I know you’re not.”

Bokuto freezes. He looks at Kuroo, expecting him to respond--at least to confirm that Akaashi just implied what Bokuto thinks he implied, because Bokuto knows he may not be the best at reading situations, but there’s really no other way he could--

“That aside,” Akaashi continues smoothly, his voice and expression perfectly impassive. “Anything to drink?”

That must’ve been the question that Bokuto spaced on before. Akaashi turns to him, pen poised over a notepad he'd pulled from his apron pocket.

“Um,” he says. His face feels warm. It’s not so much the question that’s difficult, it’s more the fact that his mind would rather focus on memorizing the color of Akaashi’s eyes than answering him.

“Water,” he finally says. “Water’s fine, please.”

(They’re blue. Deep, steely blue, with the slightest bit of green. Bokuto’s pretty sure he wants to drown in them.)

“Of course,” Akaashi says, another smile twitching at his lips (and really, he should be a little more careful, because Bokuto’s heart can only take so much), before turning to Kuroo.

“And for you?”

Kuroo grins. Maybe because he’s trying to be friendly, maybe because nothing is more hilarious to him than Bokuto floundering. It’s hard to tell.

“Same,” he says, with a sidelong glance that tells Bokuto it’s definitely the latter. “And a coffee would be great, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, that'll just be a minute.”

Akaashi sticks the notepad back in his pocket. He didn’t actually write anything on it. Kuroo thanks him as he turns to leave, and for a moment he doesn’t speak. Just watches him walk away.

“...That right there," he finally says, "was probably one of the most intimidating people I’ve ever met.” Kuroo pulls his eyes away from Akaashi’s back to look at Bokuto. “Can't even tell why, really. Just his vibe. I bet he could go kill a man in the kitchen and come back with his cute little notebook like nothing even happened.”

“Dude, that’d be totally unsanitary. He would never.”

“You met him five minutes ago,” Kuroo points out. “You don’t know his sanitation practices.”

“But he looked like a neat person,” Bokuto pouts. “I mean, his fingernails were clean and everything, so--”

“His fingernails, Bo? You noticed his fingernails? ” Kuroo smirks, one eyebrow raised. “That’s gotta be the gayest thing you’ve ever said.”

“So what! I was looking at his hands, okay? They were so pretty. Well--shit, he was just really pretty in general, wasn’t he?”

“He was a very beautiful man,” Kuroo agrees, nodding. “Didn’t seem too friendly, though. But maybe that’s just his face.”

“No, but did you see? He totally smiled! Like, just one time--no, more than one, actually--and only a little, but he did!” Bokuto smiles, definitely more than a little. “And it was when you said your stupid thing about me being hungover. Which at first I was like, you’re the worst, how could you betray me like this-- y’know, stuff like that--but then it made him smile, so I’m totally not mad about it, and then when he said--”

“Bo,” Kuroo interjects. “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t think I’ve seen you this hyped up since that game a few weeks back--”

“When I hit that killer spike at match point in the third set?” Bokuto says immediately, his face lighting up.

Kuroo just looks at him for a moment. Then, he laughs.

“Exactly,” he says. “Exactly like that.”

“You’re full of shit,” Bokuto says. “I was freaking out so bad the other team’s coach asked if I needed a doctor. That was so different.”

One of his fingers is tapping frantically on the scuffed linoleum of the table. Kuroo reaches over and flicks it.

“First of all,” he says, “I’m pretty sure the people at the next table are about to ask the same thing.”

Bokuto glances at the cluster of middle-aged women seated across from them. It’s not particularly subtle, but then again, neither are the circle of identical stares they’re giving him.

“Second,” Kuroo continues, “you’re right. It’s different.” Bokuto is pretty sure he's going to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He just reaches across the table and pushes Bokuto’s menu towards him. “Now look at your damn menu so you don’t get all stupid when he takes your order. Again.”

Bokuto picks it up, shooting Kuroo a quick glare over the peeling laminate at the top edge. Kuroo just smiles back, like the bastard he is.

“I shoulda done my hair better today,” Bokuto mutters, eyes scrolling noncommittally over the menu. He’s still got a funky feeling in his stomach, and nothing looks particularly appetizing. “Didn’t know the stakes were gonna be so high.”

“Listen.” Kuroo gestures toward his own hair. “Last night, the universe took the literal worst hair to ever exist on a human being and let it fester overnight in a pizza box. My divine purpose as a good wingman is to make you look, comparatively, like a fucking Pantene ad.”

Bokuto is silent for a moment.

“...Dude,” he finally says. “I’ve been trying all morning to figure out why I keep smelling pepperoni everywhere. That’s nasty.” He laughs, squinting at Kuroo’s hair. Visually speaking, it’s not too distinguishable from the ordinary. Bokuto can’t decide whether that’s good or bad. “You coulda washed your hair, at least.”

Kuroo scowls, slapping his menu down flat on the table. “Well, sorry you were puking in the shower while I was busy removing a giant dong from my face.”

“I have a perfectly good kitchen sink, you kn--”

Bokuto cuts off midsentence at the look of pure mortification that’s fallen over Kuroo’s face, and when they simultaneously turn, Akaashi is standing at the end of the table with a tray of drinks in his hand and a cryptic twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Bokuto has a hard time gauging his sincerity. “Is this a bad time?”

Bokuto, in a moment of selective muteness, turns his wide-eyed stare to Kuroo. He doesn’t look back, just fixes Akaashi with the most forced smile that Bokuto’s ever seen on his face.

“Of course not,” Kuroo replies, and he should really stop with the freaky grimace, because he’s reminding Bokuto of that one receptionist at his gym who always looks like customer service makes him want to die, and right now it’s gotta be making Akaashi a lot more uncomfortable than anything he could've overheard. Maybe. Possibly.

“If you insist,” Akaashi says, and Bokuto watches in silence as he sets each drink on the table. Bokuto doesn’t remember ordering a coffee, but he doesn’t say anything. Probably couldn’t, even if he wanted to.

“Do you need a few more minutes with the menu?” Akaashi asks once he’s finished, and when his eyes meet Bokuto's it definitely should not incite the reaction that it does.

“Don’t think so,” Kuroo says, and Bokuto exhales when Akaashi looks away. “You’re good, right, Bokuto?”

Bokuto stares at Kuroo, caught slightly off guard. Kuroo rarely addresses him by his actual name; it’s always Bo, or dude, or bro, or… well, pretty much anything but Bokuto or Koutarou is fair game.

But when he sees the grin on Kuroo’s face--a real one this time--he knows exactly why Kuroo did it. He can’t decide whether he appreciates it or not.

Bokuto plays it relatively safe and orders some toast and eggs, while Kuroo, true to his word, orders a fuckton of breakfast food. Probably enough to feed two average people, but then again, Kuroo Tetsurou is not the average person.

Akaashi nods, jotting everything down in his notepad and taking their menus. “Should be right out,” he says, even though the restaurant looks relatively busy. But hey, what does Bokuto know.

Kuroo is courteous enough not to comment as Bokuto watches Akaashi leave. He stops at a table of college-aged girls on his way and asks them something; the one who answers flashes him a wide grin, and he returns a thin, polite smile. As soon as he turns to go, the girl’s friend elbows her sharply in the side, and she covers her face with her hands.

“Bro,” Bokuto says. “I bet so many people here think he’s super hot. How am I supposed to make him love me?”

“Gotta figure out if he’s into dudes first.” Kuroo shrugs, following Bokuto’s gaze as Akaashi nearly collides with a conspicuously tall silver-haired waiter while dropping off the order at the serving counter. “Find a way to let him know you are, too. I mean, he definitely just heard me say something about removing a giant dong from my face, so I think we’ve managed to broach the topic.”

“Yeah, that’s a good p--”

Bokuto cuts off as a terrible thought occurs to him.

“Kuroo,” he says. “What if--he thinks we’re dating? Does it look like we’re on a date?” Bokuto presses himself back into the booth, like his fate as Kuroo’s lover is sealed if he doesn’t keep a maximum amount of distance between them. “Fuck. This totally looks like a date.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kuroo reassures him, kicking his shin under the table. “We’re just two bros,” he continues, light and melodic, “chillin’ in a diner booth, five feet apart ‘cause we’re not gay.”

“How could you reference Vines in my moment of weakness?” Bokuto whines. “We are gay, dude. We’re like, really fucking gay, and I bet it totally looks like we’re gay for each other, but we’re totally not, ‘cause Kenma would slit my throat, and--”

“Bo,” Kuroo says firmly. There’s a sly little smile on his face that’s oddly comforting. “Trust me. I got you.”

This turns out to be true.

When Akaashi eventually returns with their food, Kuroo picks up his phone from the table, unlocking it and squinting intently at the screen.

“Kuroo,” Bokuto says. “Food’s here.”

“What?” Kuroo looks up and blinks. “Oh,” he says, holding up his phone by way of explanation. “Sorry. It was Kenma. Super-important, wildly romantic boyfriend stuff.” He shrugs. “Y’know. The usual.”

Akaashi glances at Kuroo, but his expression is inscrutable. It’s… frustrating, almost.

“Tell him I say hi,” Bokuto offers, then reaches for his plate and thanks Akaashi with his brightest smile. It might be a little excessive. Depends who you ask.

When Akaashi asks if they need anything else, Bokuto bites back the answer he really wants to give and politely declines. Kuroo does the same, complaining a moment after Akaashi leaves that he meant to order another coffee.

“By the way,” Kuroo says, looking up from the empty mug that he’s pushing to the corner of the table, “you’re welcome.”

Bokuto grins, holding his hand out for a high five, which Kuroo accepts. The women at the adjacent table shoot them a look. Bokuto very deliberately ignores it.

He points at Kuroo’s phone. “Did Kenma actually text you?”

“Well, yeah. ‘Bout fifteen minutes ago, that is.” Kuroo puts his phone face down on the table, smiling fondly. “But he was just yelling at me for not coming home last night.”

“Ooh, busted.” Bokuto picks up his fork, stabbing the center of an over-easy egg and squishing the yolk out. “I told him about the surprise party, maybe like--a week ago? Two? I dunno. Anyway, he said he’d be sure to keep it a secret and everything, but that neither of you would actually want him to go. Not really sure what that means. I didn’t wanna ask.”

“Swear it’s not as bad as it sounds,” Kuroo laughs. He looks down at his plate, where he's methodically cutting a waffle into small bites with the side of his fork. “He gets anxious at big parties. I’ve always told him he shouldn’t feel obligated to go to anything if he’s gonna have a bad time.”

“Ah,” Bokuto says lightly. "Gotcha."

But what he doesn't say is how nice it sounds to have a relationship like that. The way Kuroo respects Kenma enough to not mind that he skipped the party, the way he smiled when Kenma scolded him for staying out all night.

Of course, Bokuto knows he shouldn’t expect a relationship quite like theirs. They’ve been dating since before university, and Kuroo’s in his second year of grad school now. Bokuto is pretty sure the only reason they aren’t married yet is some sort of mutual agreement that weddings aren’t worth the effort.

He sighs into the unsolicited coffee that Akaashi had brought him before. Maybe that was a romantic gesture. A man can hope.

When Akaashi comes by about fifteen minutes later to check in on them, Bokuto is the only one who answers, because Kuroo’s face is conveniently stuffed with hash browns. He fervently denies that the timing was intentional. Bokuto isn’t convinced.

But Bokuto manages not to make a fool of himself in front of Akaashi then, nor when Akaashi comes back to take their plates after they’ve finished, nor when he drops off the check. All things considered, Bokuto is proud of himself, because keeping his cool for an extended amount of time is hard enough even without a tragically beautiful waiter thrown into the mix.

Then, Kuroo opens up the check.

“So,” he says, squinting at the receipt. “You owe ten dollars. And mine’s… fuck, I’m a fatass.”

Bokuto snorts.

Kuroo glares at him, tucking a few bills into the cash pocket. “You know, you’d think puking up half your body weight earlier would make you want to eat more than usual, not less.”

“Suck one,” Bokuto casually retorts, digging his wallet out of his pocket. “How much did you say? Ten? Here.” He fishes out fourteen dollars and drops it on top of the check holder.

“...Bo, that’s--”

“I know! It’s a lot! I mean--we were kind of annoying, right?”

Kuroo shrugs. “You’re not wrong.”

“And--” Bokuto pulls out one more dollar. “Do you think he has to clean the table? You spilled a bunch of syrup right there.”

“It’s really not that--”

“Also, he gave me coffee when I didn’t order it, and I don’t think he charged me for it--did he?” (No, Kuroo says, glancing over the check and sighing. He didn’t.)

Bokuto throws down another dollar.

“Whole lotta ones ya got there,” Kuroo remarks, smirking. “Something you’re not telling me?”

“Shut up,” Bokuto says, pointing at him. “You know what else? He has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, and if I had to eat nothing but greasy diner food for the rest of my life just so I could see his face every day, I’d totally do it.”

“...Wow,” Kuroo says, eyes following Bokuto’s hand as he drops a few more bills onto the table. “That’s intense.”

(His sentiments seem to be echoed by a passing waiter, who casts a wide-eyed look at Bokuto before letting out a subtle snicker and continuing on his way.)

“Christ,” Kuroo says, following the receding head of shiny brown hair with narrowed eyes, “do you have to be tall and pretty and mildly gay-looking to work here? That’s gotta be some sort of equal opportunity violation.”

“Dude, you just said that so loud,” Bokuto hisses. Probably just as loud.

“Did I?” Kuroo looks very conspicuously at a spot over Bokuto’s shoulder. “Ooh, speak of the devil. Love of your life at one o’clock.”

Bokuto slaps the check holder shut, shoving it across the table so hastily that it almost flies off the edge. A second later Akaashi is standing beside the booth, glancing between the two of them like he’s half surprised he didn’t walk into something markedly more stupid.

“Is this all set?” He asks, tapping his (long, pretty) fingers lightly on the surface of the check book. “Need change or anything?”

“Yeah,” Bokuto says, acutely aware of his voice coming out higher than normal. “I mean--no change or anything--like yeah, we’re all set.” He forces a red-faced smile, and he doesn’t have to look to know exactly what face Kuroo is giving him right now. “Thank you!”

Akaashi smiles back. A little puzzled, but it’s right at Bokuto this time--like, eye contact--and damn, Bokuto so was not prepared for that.

“My pleasure,” Akaashi says as he tucks the check into his apron pocket. Turning to leave, he glances back to add, “Have a nice day, both of you.”

“You too,” Kuroo and Bokuto say simultaneously.

Then, softly, Akaashi laughs--laughs!--and Bokuto needs to get out of that damn booth before his entire body combusts.

As soon as Akaashi is gone Kuroo leans forward, fingers steepled in front of him, and his face breaks out in the most smug, shit-eating grin Bokuto’s ever seen. And for Kuroo--well. To say that’s an accomplishment would be an understatement.

“You,” he says, “are thoroughly fucked. Up, down, and sideways.”

Bokuto sighs, burying his face in his hands. “I’d let him,” he laments, and Kuroo snorts. “How much did I tip him, anyway? Did you notice? I wasn’t even counting.”

“I mean, I threw six, which would already be enough,” Kuroo says, “if we were normal fucking people. But then you added thirteen, which is more than your entire meal.”

"What?" Bokuto looks up. "No way. No way."

"Yeah, pretty sure one of those last ones was a five. Wasn't gonna say anything, but..."

“God,” Bokuto groans, slumping down in the booth. “I’m pathetic.”

“So we tipped him sixty-eight percent,” Kuroo continues casually. With his stupid calculator head. “Forty-six of which was you. Maybe forty-seven. Well--of the whole check, anyway. One-thirty, obviously, if you’re just talking your order.”

“You’re the worst.”

“By the way,” Kuroo adds, “breakfast was totally my idea. So you’re welcome.” When Bokuto looks at him, he’s got a dead-serious expression on his face. “And in my debt, you have to keep coming here with me ‘til you get his number.”

“Dude,” Bokuto says, smacking his palms flat on the table. “That’s so not--”

“Sorry,” Kuroo cuts him off, shrugging and grinning and definitely not at all sorry. “I don’t make the rules. Besides, I know I’m gonna be hearing about the one that got away--" (complete with air quotes) "--for weeks if you don’t get some sort of closure.”

“If I say yes, you’re paying.”

“Compromise,” Kuroo says. “You’ll cover the tips. For both my sake and his.”

“Alright,” Bokuto concedes, with all the conviction of a child being forced to apologize for something. “Kuroo Tetsurou, you are officially hired as my breakfast wingman.”

(He won’t admit it--not even to himself--but part of him thinks it just might be the best idea Kuroo’s ever had.)

+

“Black hair,” Keiji says as he passes Oikawa thoroughly scrubbing his hands at the sink. Keiji's pretty sure that's the third time in the past half hour. He doesn't comment.

Oikawa makes a face at something crusted to a plate, then turns the tap off and glances up at him. “Hmm?”

“Table nine,” Keiji clarifies. He takes down two mugs from a cabinet above the coffeemaker. “Just took their drink orders. The black hair’s the worst.”

“I thought so, too.” Oikawa flicks water from his fingers before ripping an excessive number of paper towels from the roll on the counter. He dries his hands slowly, and Keiji doesn’t trust the smirk that’s tugging at the side of his mouth.

“Thought you said you couldn’t decide,” Keiji says, filling both mugs.

“Well, I changed my mind.” Oikawa is tightly balling up the towels, but he pauses to shrug at Keiji. “Doesn’t really matter, though.”

(Which, Keiji has learned by now, is Oikawa-language for it does matter.)

“What’s the real reason you asked me?”

Oikawa narrows his eyes, hesitating like he’s about to argue. Instead, he just sighs.

“You’re too smart, Keiji-chan. It’s annoying.” He leans against the sink, cautiously watching Iwaizumi’s back as he tends to a few omelets. Maybe Oikawa doesn’t want to be caught slacking off, maybe he has some ulterior motives. Probably both.

“I wanted to know which one you thought was cuter,” Oikawa admits. “And I knew you’d be all weird about it if I just asked you like a normal person.”

Keiji considers protesting this, but… well. Oikawa may have a point.

“Why do you care?” He asks instead, raising an eyebrow at Oikawa before turning to fill a porcelain cream server at the dairy fridge. The incognito booze on the bottom shelf is beginning to look a lot more tempting.

“Well, it doesn’t make a difference to me, personally,” Oikawa says. He opens a cabinet and picks up a few of the clean plates sitting beside the sink. “Because my heart belongs to Iwa-chan, of course.”

He says the last part especially loud, meeting Iwaizumi’s glare with a cheerful grin when he turns around.

Iwaizumi opens his mouth, then pauses. Like he’s choosing his words carefully.

“...What are you even doing right now?” He eventually says, with an accusatory point of his spatula in Oikawa’s direction.

“Putting away dishes,” he says, theatrically sliding the stack of plates into the cabinet. “See?”

“Bullshit,” Iwaizumi scoffs as he turns back to the stove. “Lev’s supposed to be doing that, anyway. And you already know what you’re supposed to be doing, so I’m not sure why you’re back here.”

“Well,” Oikawa says, “I was just about to tell Keiji-chan that he, as someone who is far too pretty to be sad and lonely--”

“Is that a compliment?” Keiji interjects, placing the cream and both mugs onto a tray.

“--should definitely put the moves on the patron of his choice at table nine,” Oikawa continues, ignoring him, “who’ll fall in love with Keiji’s beautiful face and write his number on the receipt like in a shitty rom-com, then Keiji will fall in love with said patron’s slightly-less-beautiful face and text him after a strategic amount of time has passed, and it’ll be the birth of the passionate lifelong romance that our beloved Keiji-chan deserves.”

For a moment, they’re all silent. Oikawa is grinning at Iwaizumi, who’s leveling a speechless stare at Keiji, who’s dropping lemon slices into two glasses of ice water and willing himself to disappear. The only sound is the ambient sizzling of eggs.

“That… is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth,” Iwaizumi finally says. “Which is really saying something.”

Oikawa sighs. “Someday I’ll make you believe in love, Iwa-chan.”

“You could at least spare Akaashi the collateral damage,” Iwaizumi says. “Now do whatever you actually came in here to do, and if you see Lev around, remind him that he works here.”

“Fine,” Oikawa snaps, pulling a cardboard box from a cabinet and fishing out a generous handful of single-serve jam cups. “Table six was out of orange marmalade.”

If the kitchen didn’t have a swinging door, he probably would’ve slammed it.

“Didn’t think it was possible to make the words orange marmalade sound so vindictive,” Iwaizumi mutters, dropping a few strips of bacon into a pan.

“Don’t underestimate him,” Keiji says lightly.

“Never do,” Iwaizumi responds under his breath as Keiji leaves the kitchen. He’s not sure whether he’s meant to hear it.

Keiji’s just going to deliver their drinks and take their orders. That’s it. No hangover jokes--he’s still not entirely sure if that was a good idea or not--and no preoccupation with the customers’ hairstyles. It doesn’t matter what Oikawa’s trying to achieve with his meddling, it doesn’t matter if the dark-haired guy tries to provoke him, and it especially doesn’t matter if the other one looks at him with big bright eyes and a puppy-dog smile and--

Nope. Definitely doesn’t matter. And that’s not an Oikawa-language it doesn’t matter. It’s for real. So Keiji tells himself.

Of course, don’t get involved is also what he tells himself, but that becomes exponentially harder the moment he’s within earshot.

“--puking in the shower while I was busy removing a giant dong from my face.”

That’s the black-haired one--he’s slapping his menu onto the table, and there’s an indignant scowl on his face. They’re too engrossed in their argument to notice Keiji standing there at first, and the other one shoots back, “I have a perfectly good kitchen sink, you kn--”

And that, Keiji presumes, is when they realize they have an audience, because the two of them turn to him with expressions of abject horror, and it takes every ounce of Keiji’s willpower not to burst out laughing.

So he figures it’s alright to humor them a bit. They’ve set the precedent, after all.

“I’m sorry,” he says, toeing the line between smug and innocent, “is this a bad time?”

The guy on the left stumbles to tell him of course not with a strained smile, and Keiji isn’t sure whether he’s amused or unnerved. When he asks whether they need more time to order--more than half expecting a yes--the guy turns to his friend, and his grin melts into something more natural.

“Don’t think so,” he says. “You’re good, right, Bokuto?”

Bokuto. Keiji files that away. He wonders if the name was intentionally dropped for his benefit.

(The sly eyes and scheming smirk aimed at Bokuto from across the table--in addition to reminding Keiji uncannily of Oikawa--suggest that might be a yes.)

The two place their orders, with Bokuto ordering a relatively normal share of food and not-Bokuto ordering to feed a small army. Nodding as he writes it all down, Keiji turns and makes his way toward the window. He pauses for the cursory how is everything so far? check-in with a group of Broke(?) College Kids.

It’s great, thanks, they reassure him. When he tells them he’s very glad to hear it, a short blonde girl perks up like he’s just personally delivered the greatest compliment of her life.

He continues onward to drop table nine’s order slip at the window, looking up just in time to avoid colliding head-on with the plate of pancakes in Lev’s hands.

“Ah, sorry!” Lev takes a long step back. “Didn’t see you.”

“It’s fine,” Keiji says. “Not sure how Yaku hasn’t gotten trampled yet, though.”

He turns to walk away, pausing to add, “Iwaizumi’s going to flay you alive if you don’t take care of the dishes, by the way.”

Lev scurries off to the kitchen, and Keiji huffs a little laugh out his nose. The kid’s learning.

Keiji finds himself consciously awaiting table nine’s order--he checks up on his other tables, delivers other orders, whatever kills the time. He doesn’t want to admit that he maybe, possibly, perhaps, just might be looking forward to returning to Bokuto’s table. Oikawa is just getting to his head, he reasons; that is Oikawa’s area of expertise, after all.

Then again, blaming Oikawa doesn’t really explain the tightening in Keiji’s chest when he glances over from a few tables away to see Bokuto’s friend leaning toward him with a lazy smirk across the table and a light kick underneath it.

Maybe the guy’s not just Bokuto’s friend. Maybe that thought is what makes him feel so… whatever he’s feeling.

Maybe.

When Keiji passes the window again, table nine’s food is sitting on the counter. He’d been expecting it to take longer, but he also wouldn’t put it past Oikawa to harass Iwaizumi into expediting the order as part of his matchmaking efforts. He balances the plates, with minimal difficulty--there are three of them--and carries them to the table, pausing when Bokuto is the only one to notice his appearance.

“Kuroo,” he says, and the other guy--Kuroo, then--looks up from the phone in his hand. “Food’s here.”

“What? Oh.” Kuroo grins at him. “Sorry. It was Kenma. Super-important, wildly romantic boyfriend stuff. Y’know, the usual.”

Well, Keiji thinks, that settles that.

He tries not to smile.

Then Keiji tries not to die, because he isn’t typically one for hyperbole, but suddenly he’s met with what may be the brightest grin he’s ever seen in his life.

“Thanks!” Bokuto says, and for a moment Keiji’s afraid he may have said something out loud, but then Bokuto is reaching out to take his plate and Keiji feels relief flooding his chest.

“Of course,” Keiji replies, setting the other plates on the table. “Anything else I can get you?”

“I think we’re good,” Bokuto says, an ambient little smile still lingering on his face. He thanks Keiji again, and Keiji allows himself to smile back as he nods in reply. Just a bit. Because that’s a normal thing to do.

But as he walks away, he’s thinking of the way Bokuto smiled at him when he took his plate. So, so warm and open and absolutely dazzling--is that a normal thing to do when you’re thanking someone? To look at them like they’re handing you the entire world on a cheap ceramic diner plate?

Keiji doesn’t know.

It doesn’t matter.

(A nagging little voice asks him when he started speaking Oikawa’s language.)

Dismissing the thought, he takes another table’s drink order--a Morning-After Brunch Couple, it looks like, though he and Oikawa occasionally contest each other’s opinions on that one. When he retrieves their coffee from the kitchen, he can’t decide whether he’s glad or disappointed that Oikawa isn’t there to consult. He settles on a little bit of both, mostly because resolving the debate means he can stop thinking about it.

Whether the it in question is the accuracy of his customer-labeling or something else that’s lurking in the back of his mind, he can’t quite pin down.

After an acceptable amount of time has passed, Keiji returns to table nine to check up on them. Bokuto affirms that they’re good--has to, since Kuroo has his face full of food--and the way Kuroo’s looking at him vaguely suggests that this was an intentional setup.

(Keiji makes a mental note to run for the hills if Kuroo and Oikawa ever meet.)

Speaking of which--later, while Keiji is filling a fourth cup of coffee for one member of what he's decided is actually an Awkward First Date, he’s startled out of his thoughts by a sudden voice behind him.

“I saw him smile at you, you know.”

Keiji turns around so quickly that some of the coffee sloshes out of the mug onto his hand, sudden and scalding. He winces. Oikawa apologizes.

“Anyway,” Oikawa continues, “unless your boo--”

“Please don’t call him that. Please don’t call anyone that.”

“Well, what do I call him, then?”

“You should start by expanding your vocabulary,” Keiji says lightly, and before he can debate whether it’s a good idea, he adds on, “but his name’s Bokuto.”

“What?” Oikawa practically shrieks, followed by a loud shut up from the direction of the cook’s station. “How do you know that? Did you ask him? Did--”

“His friend said it,” Keiji explains. “Friend’s name is Kuroo, by the way. Not that it really matters. Anyway,” he says, attempting to step past Oikawa, “I don’t think anyone ordered a room-temperature coffee, so we can continue the interrogation later.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Oikawa says, reluctantly letting him pass.

“I know you will.”

After delivering the (slightly-above-room-temperature) coffee, Keiji collects table nine’s plates, and Bokuto smiles again as he hands his over. Not like before, but still… endearing. That’s a good word for him, Keiji thinks as he brings the plates to the window. Endearing.

When he gets their check--“ooh, better make a move before it’s too late, Keiji-chan”--and drops it off at the table, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t take Oikawa’s words to heart. Part of him does feel a little disappointed at the prospect of not seeing that smile again.

But a bigger part manages to convince him that he’s being ridiculous.

When he goes back to collect the check, there’s a strange sense of finality. Of course they’re leaving, just like any other customers. There shouldn’t be anything more to it.

And yet.

They’re fun, and Keiji doesn’t often find his job fun. Interesting at times, but rarely fun. So maybe it’s Oikawa’s aggressive unsolicited wingmanning, or maybe it’s the way he’s taken to thinking of Bokuto and Kuroo by name--as if he knows them or something--but Keiji sort of wishes they’d… stay a bit longer. It’s a stupid thought, and he feels stupid for thinking it. But it’s true.

“Is this all set?” Standing beside the table, Keiji places one hand lightly on top of the check holder, glancing between the two of them. “Need change or anything?”

Bokuto stumbles and stutters over an answer, something that ends in an overly enthusiastic thank you. Kuroo snickers at him. Just about what Keiji had expected, and he hates himself a little for presuming he's familiar enough with them to expect anything. But now Bokuto’s looking at him with a sweet smile and a tinge of pink on his face, and although Keiji can’t say he didn’t expect that, either, he doesn't stop himself from smiling back. Right at Bokuto this time, something just a touch more than his have-a-nice-day courtesy smile.

“My pleasure,” Keiji says sincerely, maybe a second too long after Bokuto had thanked him. He slides the check into the front pocket of his apron, but as he’s turning to leave, he gives them one last look.

“Have a nice day, both of you.”

He says it to pretty much everyone, barring the customers he really doesn’t like, but he can’t remember the last time he’s meant it this much.

“You too,” they say.

Both of them. It’s adorable.

And Keiji lets out a quiet laugh. At the accidental synchronicity, at the identical looks of embarrassment that follow--he can’t help himself, and if the expressions on Bokuto and Kuroo’s faces are anything to go by, it’s just as unexpected to them.

He has a fleeting moment of wondering that that says about him. That people are surprised when he laughs.

But it doesn’t matter, because now he’s walking away from the table, and he isn’t going to look behind him.

He brings the check to the kitchen.

“I overheard an interesting conversation at table nine, Keiji-chan,” he hears from the direction of the dairy fridge. When he looks up, Oikawa is standing there with a familiar travel mug in his hand.

“Overheard, or eavesdropped?” Keiji jokes, careful not to sound too interested.

“Same thing,” Oikawa says, waving his hand. “But your heartthrob with the Cruella de Vil hair had some very nice things to say about you. Open your book. It’s not a phone number, but it’s... something.”

Oikawa watches as Keiji opens the check holder, blinking in surprise at the messy fan of cash inside. When he counts (and double-counts), it’s nineteen above the twenty-eight-dollar bill. He frowns at the money in his hands, looking over the check one more time. His phone calculator tells him it’s a sixty-eight percent tip.

When these sorts of things happen, there are two distinct possibilities; the customer is either exceptionally kind, or exceptionally awful at math. It’s usually safer to assume the latter.

But when Oikawa says told you with a wide, earnest smile, Keiji decides that maybe--just this once--he’s going to let himself be optimistic.

Keiji’s nearly out of the kitchen, ready to corral all thoughts of table nine and bright smiles and generous tips to some dark, cobwebby recess of his mind, when a voice at his back stops him.

“Oh, and, Keiji-chan?”

He turns around.

“They’ll be back,” Oikawa says. A confident grin curls across his face as he slowly screws the lid back onto his cup. “Trust me.”

Chapter Text

“Gooood evening!” Bokuto announces, the double front doors of the gym swinging shut behind him.

He grins. Kageyama scowls.

“Is it?” He responds from behind the front desk, already extending a hand for Bokuto’s membership card.

“Yup! Because you get to see my smiling face!” Bokuto fishes through the pockets of his sweatpants, finally digging out a frayed lanyard with the gym’s logo printed down the strap. He tosses it to Kageyama, who fumbles to catch it--he should really be used to that by now, Bokuto thinks, but he doesn’t say anything.

Kageyama sighs. “I’m not really sure that--”

He’s cut off by a solid smack to the back of his head, and he turns to the second receptionist, the frown on his face deepening.

“The hell was that for?”

“Stop making scary faces at people!” Hinata yells, pointing one finger so close to Kageyama’s face that he goes cross-eyed looking at it.

“That’s just my face, dumbass,” Kageyama snaps, swatting Hinata’s hand away. “And next time you hit me, I’ll just hit you back harder. So watch it.”

Bokuto laughs. Hinata grins in acknowledgment.

After running the card under the scanner, Kageyama doesn't throw it back--just holds it out over the counter, letting it dangle from the lanyard.

“Have a good one,” Kageyama says as Bokuto takes it, with a tight-lipped smile that looks like it’s being forced out of him at gunpoint.

“You too,” Bokuto says, grinning back with considerably more sincerity. He turns to point at Hinata. “Make him smile. At least one time. For real. That’s your mission.”

How’d you even get hired here, anyway, he overhears as he walks away, followed by an indignant I could ask you the same thing, idiot. He isn’t quite sure Hinata understood the nature of his mission.

Habitually, he begins walking toward the locker room, like he would if he were on the clock; he works as a personal trainer, his clients including but not limited to uncomfortably flirtatious older women, washed-up athletes, and overzealous race trainees. It’s a great job--there’s something inherently rewarding about helping people have enthusiasm for their physical health. Of course, the free gym membership certainly doesn’t hurt, and it makes staying fit for his rec volleyball team far less of a chore.

But he isn’t there to work at the moment, and he remembers this when he’s halfway to the locker room. He pauses awkwardly in the middle of the gym’s main floor, because he didn’t exactly come with a specific plan in mind, and the possibilities are suddenly very overwhelming. He doesn’t have much time to consider it, however, before there’s a sudden shout of his name from across the room, loud enough to echo a bit unnervingly from the high ceilings.

He whips around, scanning the open area for a familiar face. There’s a guy with jacked arms and terrible form benching near the center of the floor, a blonde woman power-walking her heart out and squinting at an infomercial on the screen of a treadmill--nobody he recognizes, nobody paying him much mind.

But then there’s a lightning-flash of blond forelock and a little body zipping out from behind a tall rack of free weights, and Bokuto hardly has time to make sense of the slogan on Noya’s t-shirt before he’s reeling from a deceptively strong punch to his bicep.

“I didn’t know you were working tonight!” Noya says, grinning as Bokuto rubs his arm. “Didn’t see you on the schedule. Not that I memorize your schedule in, like, a stalker way--I just like to know who I’m gonna be on the clock with, y’know? Anyway,” he continues, waving one small hand at the digression. “What’s up?”

“I’m not working,” Bokuto says. “I woke up feeling like my body was made of booze and birthday cake, so I’m repenting.”

“Admirable. Is Kuroo alive?”

“Super alive! So alive that I’m kinda mad about it.”

“Alcoholic bastard,” Noya says flippantly. “We’ll get him someday.”

“Mhm,” Bokuto assents with a somber nod. “How’s Asahi?”

“Definitely worse,” Noya snickers. “He’s here. Working. Somewhere. But I had to drag him out of bed this morning. Like, physically drag him. Can you even imagine how much effort that takes?”

Bokuto considers the logistics for a moment.

“For you,” he finally says, “or for me?”

Noya scoffs. “Get back to me when you’ve tried.”

“I will.”

“On second thought,” Noya says, dark eyes narrowing, “don’t.”

“No promises.” Bokuto absently notes that Noya doesn’t have shoes on, just a mismatched pair of socks. “Any classes tonight?”

“Yup! Just an intro. It was a good one, though. People really got into it.”

He grins proudly, and Bokuto has to smile, too. Noya instructs a few physical self-defense lessons offered at the gym, and between his superhuman reflexes and his infectiously hyped-up attitude, he’s every bit as well-matched to the job as Bokuto is to his own. Of course, having an outlet for his boundless energy doesn’t hurt, either.

(Asahi will defend this statement. Fervently.)

And when Bokuto glances over Noya’s shoulder (it’s not particularly difficult), Asahi is, as luck would have it, sauntering out of the locker room with a white towel slung over his shoulder and his hair in a low wet ponytail.

“Asahi!” Bokuto calls, waving vigorously.

“Asahi?” Noya echoes-- yells, like he won’t be heard unless he outmatches Bokuto--as he whips around to look.

Asahi halts in the doorway, eyes widening as they dart between Bokuto and Noya. The look on his face is almost evaluatory--like he’s deciding whether he has the strength to handle both of them at once.

Either way, of course, it’s too late to escape. He smiles.

“Yuu,” he says fondly, and Noya’s face lights up as if Asahi hasn’t been calling him by his given name for a month already. “And Bokuto--I didn’t know you were coming in tonight.”

“He’s not working,” Noya says, meeting Asahi halfway across the room and colliding with his chest. Asahi barely reels from the impact. “I was waiting to see you!”

“Likewise.” Warmth floods Asahi’s face as one hand comes to rest on Noya’s lower back. “How was your class?”

“Great! How was yours? Drown any kids?”

“Nope,” Asahi laughs. “Not one.”

“God, you’re good at your job.”

Asahi lets out another little chuckle, leaning down to kiss the top of Noya’s head. Noya pouts indignantly. Asahi’s never looked so unapologetic.

Bokuto sighs--he doesn’t mean to as loudly as he does--or aloud at all, really--but he does.

Noya looks at him, with a concerned little tilt of his head. “You good?”

“I--” Bokuto falters over the split-second decision. Those aren’t really his specialty.

But then again, Bokuto knows what he wants to say. He definitely knows, because it's been lurking in the back of his mind all day. He just doesn’t know what he wants to hear.

“You guys are so cute,” he finally says, settling on honesty. “How do people do it?"

Noya frowns. “Asahi’s cute. I’m cute. It sorta just worked itself out.”

Bokuto’s eyes dart back and forth--rather, up and down--between their faces. Noya does have a point.

“Well, yeah,” Bokuto says. “But...  hypothetically,” he begins, and he really doesn’t even know why he’s bothering with pretense, because there’s already an anticipatory glimmer in Noya’s eyes. “What about when something doesn’t just work itself out?”

“Then you work it out,” Noya says, shrugging. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Or you come to your super-smart relationship-guru coworker-slash-friend for advice.”

“Something tells me it’s too late not to choose that,” Asahi says.

“So smart, babe,” Noya says, looking up to grin at Asahi before turning back to Bokuto. “Now, you. There’s a situation. Tell me.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it--”

“I’ll ask Kuroo.”

“Fine! Fine. It’s a situation. Don’t ask Kuroo. Please.” Bokuto frowns. “How’d you know he was even involved?”

“It’s you,” Noya says. “He’s always involved.”

Again. He has a point.

“Well,” Bokuto says.

Well. He takes a deep breath.

“It was this morning, and I felt gross, but Kuroo wanted breakfast, and he guilted me ‘cause it was his birthday weekend, so I was like, fine, so we went to this diner--one of those twenty-four-hour ones with the greasy food and the weird coffee--and, dude. I know I’m a little dramatic sometimes--”

“A little,” Noya echoes.

“--but,” Bokuto presses on, “believe me when I tell you that our waiter was probably the prettiest man in the universe. It was--Noya, it was just straight-up unfair. That’s something you can ask Kuroo about, ‘cause this guy had me totally stupid and Kuroo was giving me so much shit and then I accidentally tipped like twenty dollars--except I guess it was only kind of an accident--and when the guy smiled at me it was like, boom--" he claps his hands (startling an older man who's innocuously stepping onto a nearby elliptical), "--that was it. I was ready to die, Noya. To die. And then we left, and I thought I was gonna get over it, because that’s usually what happens, y’know? But I didn’t. I totally didn’t. And here I am, in what is probably the gayest and most pathetic moment of my young life.”

He exhales. Noya’s already large eyes have widened to the size of dinner plates. Asahi’s mouth is slightly open.

So maybe he got a little carried away. Maybe.

“First,” Noya says, “I’d like to revisit the ‘a little dramatic’ thing.”

“Maybe more than a little,” Bokuto concedes. “But I mean it.”

“Fine, fine.” Noya leans back into Asahi’s chest, smiling at the instinctive loop of arms over his shoulders. “So, let me get this straight--“

“More like get it gay,” Bokuto mutters, almost reflexively.

“Nice one,” Noya says. “But, for real, though--so, you saw this unfairly hot waiter when you were at hangover breakfast with Kuroo.”

“Yup.”

“Which, by the way--that’s rough, dude. You probably looked like hell.”

“Kuroo looked worse,” Bokuto says candidly. “He said it made me look good but I think maybe he was just trying to make me feel better.”

“Valiant effort,” Noya says. “Anyway, so there’s this beautiful man at your service--”

(He winks. Asahi sighs.)

“--and you totally fell in love at first sight and you totally want to bone him.”

“Well--” Bokuto’s face suddenly feels warm, and he glances around to check for bystanders. Asahi seems to have the same reaction. Elliptical Guy has long since donned headphones.

“Or--get boned by him, maybe?” Noya ventures, frowning thoughtfully. “Don’t think we’ve ever had that conversation, come to think of it.”

“Shut up,” Bokuto groans, covering his face with his hands. “It’s not even like that! I mean--I mean, I wouldn’t say no, but like--he wasn’t just pretty, y’know? He seemed like a super cool person, and I know you’re probably like--” he launches into a poor imitation of Noya’s voice, “--ooh, Bokuto, I bet he only said like three and a half words to you, you don’t even--”

“That so doesn’t sound like me,” Noya scoffs.

“It kinda does,” Asahi offers. “If you listen really closely.”

“No it--”

“That’s beside the point!” Bokuto says, pouting.

“Fine. Anyway, so what if did he only say like three and a half words to you? A guy that can whip you this bad with three and a half words is way more impressive than one who's gotta try super hard to get your attention, don’t you think?”

Bokuto hadn’t thought of it that way. He briefly considers attacking Noya’s word choice.

“I don’t think you need someone to tell you what to do,” Noya continues, pointing one finger accusingly at Bokuto. “You just need someone to kick your ass into doing it.”

Nailed it, Bokuto thinks. A little gratefully, a little bitterly.

“More like tell me how to do it,” he says.

Noya blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean--like, what do I even say to him? He’s at work! I don’t wanna make him uncomfortable while he’s supposed to be all professional and waiterly--it’s like if one of my clients dropped a twenty-pound barbell on his own foot and, while I was calling 911, told me through his cries of pain that it’s ‘cause he was distracted by my ass!”

“That’s oddly specific,” Asahi remarks.

Bokuto sighs.

“No fuckin’ way,” Noya says.

“That’s not important right now!” Bokuto says--a little loudly, evidenced by the dirty look he receives from a passing woman in a tacky tracksuit. “I just--even if I do figure out when to say something, it’s like--what do I say? I suck so bad at--that. Words. I’m gonna die.”

“Someday, yeah,” Noya says, shrugging. “But first you’re gonna live a long and happy life with beautiful waiter man after winning his eternal love and affection.”

“How am I supposed to be confident about it, though? I know I seem super confident about a lot of stuff, like volleyball and…”

Bokuto thinks for a moment, then shrugs.

“...well, like volleyball. But this is totally different! I suck at it! And I can’t ask Kuroo either ‘cause he confessed to Kenma when they’d already been best friends since, like, the dawn of time, so he’s never ever had a situation like this, and--”

“You’re doing the thing,” Noya says. When Bokuto just stares blankly, he sighs. “Y’know, the thing where you say three thousand words when you need, like, maybe ten. That thing. You’re doing that thing.”

“I know!” Bokuto says. “I know. I just--ugh. Fuck.”

He pauses. Condenses his thoughts. It’s a process.

“I guess,” he says slowly, “I’m just scared. Of not knowing what’s gonna happen. I’m not good at--at doing things that’re uncertain like that. I get myself all psyched up and I can’t get out of it.”

“Things are more fun when they’re uncertain, though, don’t you think?” Noya smiles. “It’s so lame when you know exactly how something is gonna end--like someone spoiling a movie for you, y’know? It’s like, don’t think of it as, you’re nervous it’s gonna go badly--just try to see it like, you’re excited to see what’s gonna happen.”

“But if it does go badly, what happens after? It’d be so awkward, I’d probably die of--of heartbreak and embarrassment and regret and a billion other things all at once. I’d die so fucking hard.”

“So that’s why you do it right as you’re leaving!” Noya says, flailing his hands like this should be obvious. “‘Cause then even if he shuts you down, you can just be like, okay, have a nice life, please return the shattered pieces of my heart within five to seven business days, and flee the building. It can’t be awkward if you never see him again!”

“But I don’t want to never see him again!”

Noya lets out a frustrated huff. “But you do wanna see him and suffer?”

“Yuu,” Asahi interjects gently, “I think you’re being a bit--”

“I’m not being dramatic!” Noya protests, angling his head roughly ninety degrees upward to pout at Asahi. “Waiting for love is suffering! It’s the worst kind of suffering!”

Asahi sighs. “If memory serves, I’m not sure you and I have the same definition of waiting.”

“What?” Noya squawks. “I pined for you, babe. Pined.”

“Two days after you started working here, you accosted me in the locker room and--”

“I did not accost you--!”

“Two days!”

“But it was two whole days of suffering!”

“Wait,” Asahi says soberly, his tone dipping into concern as he squints at the clock on the opposite wall. “Don’t you have another class in ten minutes?”

“Do I?” Noya glances down at his watch, almost comically oversized on his skinny wrist. “Fuck! You’re right.”

He wriggles out from under Asahi’s arms, whipping around and pointing at Bokuto.

“Listen,” he says. “Just think of it this way. Are you gonna survive?”

Bokuto blinks. “What?”

“Your… situation. Y’know. Whatever happens--no matter how awkward or embarrassing or messy it might go--in the long run you’re gonna end up alive and okay, even if it takes a little while?”

Bokuto nods slowly.

“And you’d rather be alive with one potentially cringey memory than alive wondering forever and ever what would’ve happened.”

“Yes,” is all Bokuto can say. He knows where this is going.

“Then it’s worth it,” Noya says. Like he’s never been so certain of anything in his life.

And then, after the quickest flash of a grin, he’s gone. Just a wild mess of dark hair and some words on the back of a t-shirt, halfway across the floor of the gym before Bokuto can summon something coherent to say.

When he does, it’s to Asahi, and it’s something along the lines of, “Shit, man. You really picked a good one.”

“Technically, a good one picked me,” Asahi says, eyes lingering on the corner that Noya just rounded. “All I had to do was recognize it, I think.”

Bokuto hums affirmatively. He’s thinking.

Even if it takes a little while.

“Oh, and, Bokuto?”

He turns to look at Asahi. They’re about eye to eye.

“This guy,” Asahi says, “is gonna do the exact same thing.”

He smiles, and he’s got the same look on that Noya had. Full faith.

“I hope so,” Bokuto says. “I really, really hope so.”

Alive and okay.

Bokuto grins back, and he makes his decision.

The conversation alone does wonders for his resolve, but coupled with the inherent mood lift of a productive workout, he’s brimming with positivity by the time he leaves the gym. As he walks by the front desk he grins brightly at Kageyama, who pauses just long enough for Hinata to wrestle out of the headlock that Kageyama, very unprofessionally, has him trapped in. Once freed, he stomps on Kageyama’s foot for good measure, then offers a quick wave and sunny smile to Bokuto before scrambling for some improvised tool of self-defense behind the desk.

Noya was right. Not that Bokuto is particularly surprised about that--Noya’s a lot smarter than he lets on. It’s something he’s outright acknowledged; see, you gotta set the bar low, so when you say something that isn’t stupid, people pay attention. At the time, Bokuto didn’t quite know if he believed it. He’s decided since then that he might.

So, sure, Noya was right. But the final word should be run by the breakfast wingman himself. It's a given, really.

(He’s ringing Kuroo before he’s even left the parking lot.)

“Dude,” Bokuto says by way of a greeting as soon as he hears Kuroo pick up. “I talked to Noya. At the gym. About how to win Akaashi’s eternal love and affection.”

“Hello to you too,” Kuroo says. “That coming from him verbatim?”

“I think so?” Bokuto slows to roll through a stop sign as he exits the lot. It totally counts.

“Sounds about right.”

“His advice is actually good, you know.”

“Fine, what’d he say? Find a phonebook tonight and harass every Akaashi in a twenty-mile radius? Go back in time and propose to him this morning?”

“First of all, it’s the twenty-first century,” Bokuto says, not incorrectly. “So the last time I saw an actual phonebook was on that Mythbusters episode.”

“That was a good one.”

“Yup.”

There’s a brief pause. Kuroo breaks it.

“So, second of all?”

“What?”

“That was your first of all,” he says, “and the suspense is killing me.”

“Oh! Right. Right. Well, basically what Noya said is I’m a huge idiot if I don’t take the chance ‘cause getting my heart stomped on is temporary but pussying out and not knowing what would've happened is forever.”

Kuroo is quiet for a moment.

“Wow,” he finally says. “Making a legitimate point and going for the balls. Impressive.”

“I know!” Bokuto realizes he forgot to put his seatbelt on, and he fumbles with the phone a bit as he pulls the belt over his chest.

“Are you driving?” Kuroo asks.

“Maybe.”

“You couldn’t wait to call me? You’re a shitty driver as it is.”

“I’m a great driver. Shut up. Really, though--when do we go back? Tomorrow? Is it weird to go tomorrow?”

“Super weird. Probably not Tuesday, either, and I’ve got a meeting with my advisor then anyway.”

“Nerd,” Bokuto says. “Wednesday, then? That’s not too soon still?”

“Nope," Kuroo decides. Bokuto isn't quite sure where his authority is coming from. "Wednesday’s perfect.”

Bokuto tries on some of Noya’s optimism. Tentatively, like a questionable article of clothing.

Wednesday will be perfect.

(It probably fits him better than Noya’s clothes.)

+

Tadami’s bus is scheduled to arrive at his middle school around five. Keiji pulls into the parking lot at quarter-of. The bus comes at five-thirty.

Standing on the curb surrounded by chattering parents, Keiji watches a swarm of kids pour out of the bus, grins on their faces and overpacked bags slung across their backs. One by one they’re flagged down by their respective mothers and fathers and whoever-elses, some flinging themselves into tight embraces, others pulled into slightly less voluntary ones, others just reuniting with mature smiles or muttered hellos.

Keiji feels, overall, a sort of ambient sentimentality, and the comfortable smile on his face widens as he sees Tadami skip down from the bottom step of the bus with his green backpack bouncing heavily from one shoulder. Keiji’s always told him it’s bad for his back to carry it like that. He decides to let it go this time.

Tadami waves a hasty goodbye to a gangly blond boy before turning to scan the crowd. He grins as he locks eyes with Keiji, hustling his way between his classmates before bursting through and ambushing Keiji with an unexpectedly enthusiastic hug.

“Hey, kid,” Keiji laughs, half expecting some sort of indignance at his word choice. “I’m guessing you had fun?”

“It was awesome!” Tadami confirms, stepping away to look Keiji in the eye with a bright, earnest grin. “Even better than I thought it was gonna be. I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

“Perfect,” Keiji says, Tadami tagging along behind him as he starts toward the parking lot. “We’re right up front. I got here sort of early.”

Tadami snorts. “Of course you did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keiji asks lightly, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re always early to things,” Tadami explains. “All of my things, anyway.” He’s already at the car, tugging at the passenger-side door handle and frowning when it doesn’t open.

“Better than me being late to all of your things,” Keiji says. He unlocks the car. “Trust me on that one.”

They lock eyes. Tadami stills, car door half open, and Keiji wishes he hadn't let his voice come out so... heavy.

You’re talking about them,  Tadami's cautious look says, aren’t you.

Doesn’t matter, replies the mix of assent and warning on Keiji’s face. Just get in the car.

Neither of them has spoken a word, but Tadami understands. He always does, they both do.

(Their father did, too. Their mother--fed up with that goddamn secret language, verbatim--always hated it.)

They get in the car.

The exchange is dismissed entirely by the time they’re pulling out of the parking lot, and Tadami, true to his word, launches on an immediate recap of his trip.

He got a grand total of fourteen bug bites--me and my friends all kept count, he says, sticking out his tongue when Keiji corrects his grammar. I came in second place. Keiji asks him if that’s a good thing, and he says he isn’t really sure.

He tells Keiji about the kid they lost during a nature hike--Turns out he was asleep in his tent the whole time, isn’t that hilarious?-- and the time when somebody claimed they’d seen a bear, and everyone was so scared, but he wasn’t. Definitely not. Not at all.

And Keiji listens. He listens to every word--smiling, laughing, getting an occasional word in, biting back his skepticism when he suspects something’s just a little bit exaggerated.

But midway through an impassioned rant about the--quote--grody outhouse at their campsite, Tadami pauses, and when Keiji glances over, he sees steely blue eyes narrowed critically under furrowed brows.

Sometimes Keiji forgets how alike he and his brother look. This is not one of those sometimes.

“You okay?” he asks, turning his attention back to the road.

“You’re in a really good mood,” Tadami says. “I mean--not that you aren’t normally in a good mood, but you know--is it ‘cause you got to work this weekend? You make more money on Sundays, right?”

“Time and a half,” Keiji says, though he’s not entirely sure Tadami knows what that entails. “But I’m happy because I missed you.”

(Of course, there’s no denying that he’d walked out of this today’s shift feeling unusually happy. It may not, however, be entirely right to say that his paycheck had more to do with it than a certain nineteen-dollar tip, and it’d be downright wrong not to consider the source of said tip.)

(But anyway.)

“Well, obviously.” Tadami rolls his eyes. When Keiji glances over at him, though, there’s a little smile at the corner of his mouth. Right beside a smudge of chocolate.

“...but I missed you too,” he adds, much softer, and the way he says it--pure and genuine, without the guarded preteen haughtiness that Keiji’s gotten used to--makes something fond and warm diffuse through Keiji’s chest. He wonders how Tadami would react if he acknowledged it.

“Good,” he says instead, because it’s probably the wiser option. “Did somebody give you chocolate on the bus or something?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Keiji echoes. “You might have some on your face, then. Possibly.”

“Dammit,” Tadami mutters, flipping the sun visor down from the ceiling and squinting into the little rectangular mirror. The light next to it doesn’t turn on, hasn’t for awhile. It’s not worth the trouble to fix.

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” Keiji can feel Tadami’s eyes searing into the side of his face.

“You know why not.” He flicks on his turn signal.

“But I’m in middle school.”

“I’m aware.” Keiji accelerates through the curve of the on-ramp instead of braking. He remembers this from a problem in his gen-ed physics class. He’d gotten it wrong at the time.

“Did you say dammit when you were eleven?” Tadami’s arms are crossed defiantly over his chest. Keiji isn’t looking, but he just knows.

(He’s still thinking about physics. It was his worst class. He could memorize the formulas, but he always picked the wrong ones to use.)

“I don’t remember,” Keiji says. He merges onto the highway, yielding to a shitty station wagon with a taillight out--he wonders if the driver knows.

(Keiji passed the class.)

“Well, try to,” Tadami presses.

(Keiji dropped out of college when he was twenty.)

Keiji can't really remember when he was eleven.

At least, not in the way Tadami is asking him to remember. His brain only dredges up facts. Rapid-fire, without much thought, like he’s taking inventory.

He lived with his father and his mother. Check. She was probably pregnant. Check. Tadami wouldn’t be born until the following year, on the fifth of April. A spring birthday. An Aries, which their mother thought was something that mattered. Check, check, check.

So their father was alive, and Tadami wasn’t. Keiji immediately thinks that he likes the reverse--the present--much better. He wonders if it’s a bad thought to have. If he should have contemplated it a second longer, or at least pretended to.

But he can’t, for the life of him, remember the presence or absence of the word dammit in his vocabulary. His mother's, maybe. But his own--he couldn't tell you.

“Probably not,” Keiji finally answers, and Tadami’s reflection rolls its eyes.

“Whatever,” he says, pouting into the mirror as he licks his finger and scrubs the evidence from his mouth. After he’s flipped the visor back up, he turns to Keiji. “Anyway, I didn’t have a lot, so I didn’t spoil dinner. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Wasn’t really,” Keiji says, veering right as their exit approaches. “But I appreciate the thought.”

Tadami settles back in his seat, apparently satisfied with the conversation.

And Keiji does appreciate the thought, because Tadami knows how serious Keiji is about ensuring that he has a legitimate meal every night. In fact, he’s adamant to the extent that Tadami occasionally gets annoyed about it, but even when he sulks and sighs and demands to know why is it so important to you, anyway, Keiji doesn’t relent. If he won’t be home, he prepares a meal in advance, or he very kindly asks the favor from the downstairs neighbors, or--if he’s got no other choice--he mutters an apology to his checking account and orders takeout to the house. But no matter what, Keiji never, ever lets it slip. Not when Tadami has an evening soccer game, not when he’s sick and insists he can’t eat.

(And certainly not the time last winter when Keiji himself was so thoroughly ass-kicked by the flu that he could barely drag himself out of bed--but silently, at five-thirty, he just threw on a sweater, washed his hands a few times extra, and went about his business like usual.)

I don’t know why you’re so psycho about this, Tadami had muttered. He was dong homework at the table, Keiji remembers. Chewing his pen. It’s just dinner. I’m not gonna starve to death, you know.

I do know, Keiji had said back, cracking a handful of uncooked spaghetti in half so it’d fit in the small pot on the stove. And don’t bite your pen. You’ll chip your teeth. I’ll have to sell a kidney to pay your dental bill. He’d set the lid crookedly on the pot, like he always does, letting a little steam vent out the uncovered edge. If I ever have to, which one do you think I should pick?

Tadami snorted. You’re so weird.

Runs in the family, Keiji shot back. I’m thinking maybe the left one.

Jackass.

You know what I’m going to say. Keiji probably tried a little too hard to look stern. Tadami pretended not to notice.

Whatever, he said. Anyway, it’s still dumb how you think you need to cook me food when you’re, like, on your deathbed.

Keiji, very clearly, remembers the smug look on Tadami's face when he very inopportunely sneezed.

I just do, he’d said, sniffling as he turned down the stove burner before going to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. The water was freezing. That had been a particularly cold winter, and the hot water system in their apartment was ancient.

But why?

Keiji paused.

Because I want to, he’d thought silently to himself, and it wasn’t untrue. Because I care about you.

Because I’ll be damned if I’m not a better parent than them, was also an option.

Just not a smart one.

Because kids should have dinner every night, he’d eventually decided to say. He shut off the faucet. That’s just how it is.

That was nearly a year ago. Keiji still remembers it.

Tonight is no exception.

Between Tadami’s absence over the weekend and Keiji’s bit of extra income, there’s plenty of occasion for a meal that’s relatively special. Of course, special really just means whatever the hell Tadami picks out at the grocery store, so Keiji’s apprehension is generally more nutritional than financial.

“I had to share a tent with a girl, you know,” Tadami says as Keiji squints at a picked-over endcap of breakfast cereals. Weekly sale item, proclaims a laminated piece of fluorescent pink cardstock. Buy two, get one free.

“Really?” Keiji pushes his cart past the display, wincing at the screech of a squeaky wheel. “Did that bother you?”

“Guess not,” Tadami shrugs. He picks up a box of oatmeal, studying the side panel intently. Keiji’s pretty sure Tadami hates oatmeal. “My friends were super annoying about it, though.”

“And did that bother you?” When Keiji looks at him, Tadami’s got this odd expression on his face. Like there’s something he’s putting down that Keiji isn’t picking up.

“Doesn't really matter,” he finally says, reshelving the oatmeal. “Anyway, guess what I learned from one of the rangers?”

It’s a subject change, transparent as hell. Keiji wants to call him on it, right there in the too-bright breakfast food aisle of a shitty supermarket.

Of course, Keiji also isn't stupid. He knows how that would go.

“And what was that?” He finally says. Tadami exhales a breath he’d been holding.

“If the sun suddenly went dark, we wouldn’t even know it ‘til eight minutes after. Fun fact.”

“No way.” Keiji turns a corner, following Tadami’s unspoken lead to the frozen foods section. “Did he tell you why?”

(Light travels at 300,000 kilometers per second. The earth and the sun are, on average, about 1,500,000 kilometers apart.)

“Yup!” Tadami grins, like he’d been waiting for Keiji to ask. “It's 'cause it takes eight minutes for the light to reach Earth. I didn’t really get it at first, but he sort of explained it better.”

“Very cool,” Keiji says, meeting Tadami’s expectant stare with a sincere smile. “Definitely one for the collection.”

(Tadami collects fun facts. Keiji always says he should write them down, but he insists he can remember them all. Keiji never really bothers questioning him.)

“I thought so, too.” Tadami whirls around as he turns a corner, walking backwards down the first freezer aisle as he continues to address Keiji. “Did you ever take any astrology classes?”

“Astronomy,” Keiji corrects him. “And no, I didn’t. I think I would’ve liked to, though.”

“Why didn’t you, then?” Tadami’s eyes flick up from shelves of bagged frozen vegetables. He’s still walking backwards. If he’s about to bump into anything, Keiji will tell him. He knows.

“I needed to take physics first.” Keiji glosses passively over the vegetables, but he’d promised to let Tadami pick out their entire meal. So far all he’d chosen was a box of macaroni shaped like dinosaurs. “I didn’t until the last semester I was there.”

“Oh.” Tadami pauses midway through opening a freezer door a little ways down the aisle, leaning back to squint at Keiji. “But you’re gonna go back someday, right?”

I don’t know, Keiji thinks.

“Planning on it,” he says.

Tadami blinks. Like he isn’t quite sure why he asked the question, doesn’t really know what to do with the answer.

“If you see something you want in there, grab it,” Keiji says, nodding toward the freezer. “You’re letting the cold air out.”

Tadami looks at him for a moment longer, studying his face with inexplicable scrutiny. But he just turns back around, leaning shoulders-deep through the open freezer door and emerging with a fresh grin on his face and a box clutched in both hands.

The chicken nuggets are dinosaur-shaped, too, but when Tadami drops them decisively into the cart beside the mac and cheese, Keiji doesn’t say anything. Just laughs.

At that point, Tadami seems more or less satisfied; on the way to the checkout he insists on riding at the end of it like Keiji’s told him a thousand times he’s too old to do, but Keiji concedes. Facing him, Tadami sticks out his tongue, and Keiji does it back.

He watches without comment as the teenage girl at the cash register apathetically rings up their purchase, hot-pink acrylic nails clicking against the screen. One of them’s broken, and Keiji absently wonders if she did it at work. Slammed it in the register or dropped a jar of pickles on it or something.

She reads their total from the screen as she struggles to put a sticker on a half-gallon of milk that Keiji had picked up.

“Debit," he tells her when she asks.

“Great,” she says. Keiji isn’t sure why.

“Can I do it?” Tadami asks, but he’s already reaching for the card.

Keiji lets him take it. He lines it up meticulously in the track, sliding it with the utmost concentration, then squints at the keypad for a moment before turning to Keiji.

“What’s the number again?”

“Your birthday,” Keiji tells him. The cashier watches them passively.

“Oh,” Tadami says. “Cool.”

He types it in.

As they’re leaving, the cashier tells them to have a nice day. Keiji says it back. She looks like she wants to die, and Tadami says as much once they’re out in the parking lot.

“I can’t imagine it’s a very fun job,” Keiji replies. He can’t remember where the car is parked, so he clicks the key. There’s a beep from somewhere indistinguishable.

“Sucks,” Tadami says.

“She’s young,” Keiji says. “I’m sure she won’t be working there forever.”

“Who knows.” Tadami shrugs. He points to his left. “I think it's one row that way.”

(He’s right.)

The ride home is quiet, save for the brief and evasive answer Keiji has to give when Tadami asks him why there’s a pair of shoes slung up over a power line by the laces.

I don’t know, Keiji says. People are weird.

Tadami squints out the window for a moment longer, then shrugs.

Yeah.

At home, Keiji tells Tadami to unpack his things before dinner. This, apparently, translates to throw your bag on the bedroom floor and materialize at the kitchen table two minutes later. It’s good enough.

“Is this some diet you’re on?” Keiji asks him a few minutes later, squinting at the back of the macaroni box. The pot bubbles on the stove.

“Huh?” Tadami looks up from the textbook sitting open on the table. Keiji hadn’t seen him take it out.

“There’s a strict dinosaur theme here,” Keiji elaborates. “Couldn’t help noticing.”

“Oh.” Tadami grins. “It tastes better than normal-shaped food. Not really sure why. It just does.”

“We’ll see about that,” Keiji says. “It’d better not let me down.”

(It doesn’t.)

He reports this to Tadami once they've sat down to eat.

“Told you,” Tadami says, mouth stuffed with chicken. “Hey, wanna hear something cool from my science book?”

“Not if you say it with your mouth full.”

Tadami rolls his eyes, but when he speaks again, there’s a conspicuous absence of dinosaur.

“Camels have three eyelids,” he says. “Fun fact.”

“You don’t need to say fun fact every time,” Keiji says. “But you’re right. That is cool. Did it say why?”

“Why what?”

“Why they’ve got three eyelids.” Keiji shrugs. “Seems a little excessive to me.”

Tadami snorts. “It’s ‘cause they live in the desert. It keeps the sand out of their eyes or something.”

“Useful,” Keiji remarks, stabbing a few pieces of mac and cheese with his fork.

“Yup,” Tadami says. “Super.”

That night, in an unprecedented turn of events, Tadami doesn’t ask to stay up late.

He spends a due amount of time insisting that he isn’t tired, but around eight-thirty--like clockwork--he announces that he is, now that he thinks of it, exhausted from traveling. Keiji reminds him that it was a three-hour ride in the back of a bus and not a foot voyage across the desert--sixth-graders, of course, don’t have three eyelids to protect them, and Tadami rolls his eyes when Keiji points this out--but he scoffs a rebuttal that Keiji just doesn’t understand how draining the weekend’s events had been.

Keiji concedes that it’s a valid point. Tadami says he knows that.

Later, when he slips noiselessly into their shared bedroom to grab clothes before his shower, Keiji sees Tadami’s backpack discarded by the foot of his bed. It’s overstuffed and bulky, still completely packed from the weekend.

Tomorrow, Keiji will nag him to unpack it. Right now, he just smiles.

Keiji showers quickly, giving his hair a half-assed towel-dry before gratefully putting on sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. He can already tell he won’t want to get out of bed tomorrow morning. It’s just a feeling.

He’s brushing his teeth when his phone rings.

It startles him, clattering loudly against the porcelain of the sink as it vibrates. He frowns, toothbrush dangling from his mouth. Work doesn’t usually call this late. Nobody does, really.

Keiji reaches for the phone, but the moment he checks the screen, his stomach drops--a number, not a name. Not saved in his contacts. Doesn't matter, though; he knows it by heart. Part of him wishes he didn’t need to, wishes he’d just save it. Another, though, knows exactly why he can’t.

Another says he should’ve blocked the number months ago.

He listens to one more ring, then two, spitting toothpaste into the sink and rinsing out his mouth with water. He moves slowly--it's a very distinct feeling. It’s something like dread, but it’s wavering dangerously close to anticipation.

It’s the sweat on his palms as he answers the call, it’s the automated voice crackling to life in his ear.

This is a collect call from an inmate at the Point Deacon Correctional Facility, it says. If you wish to accept--

He’s heard it enough times. He knows what to do.

There’s a click as the call is put through. A click, then a pause, then a sharp inhale on the other end. Unvoiced surprise that he’d really picked up.

“Keiji,” a quiet voice breathes into his ear. His name sounds like a foreign language. Something in his chest hurts.

He sighs, shuts his eyes tightly. When he opens them, they’re staring back from the mirror. Dark, tired, set in a face that looks gaunt and pale under the cold overhead light.

The same shade of blue as hers, and he hates that he thinks of it.

He turns to face the wall. Takes a deep, wavering breath.

“Hey, mom.”