Archive of Our Own ^beta

Life following the end of the world was a strange affair. Karasuno was a strange affair; unfamiliar halls and corners filled with simultaneously too many and too few people. Old classrooms that had been set aside and divided into living quarters by curtains, with networks of guide ropes winding their way along the halls and between outbuildings to help the blind navigate the unfamiliar space. Rotas and patrols for the sighted to fend off triffid buildup. Lessons in protocol for power cuts; border breaches; fire dills; earthquakes.

And throughout it all, the quiet. No cars outside, save for when an expedition to local cities was launched, searching for supplies. No hum of people. No rattle of trains or periodic roar of a plane overhead. Nothing but the constant rustle of leaves on the wind, and the sounds of the few rescued farm animals in their pens.

To begin with Keiji had hated it. Hated all of it; hated everything. Had simply lain on his bed, useless eyes dry in the darkness which went on forever. What was the point? What was the point in anything anymore?

Had he been left to his own devices, possibly he would have stayed that way far longer, stewing in righteous depression. But of course he wasn’t—couldn’t be. There was no room for idle hands in the strange community which Karasuno had insisted on founding, not even blind ones. There was food to be prepared and served, and cleaned up after. There were clothes to be washed. There was constant construction and renovation to assist with, and landscaping projects to turn any open area within the Karasuno enclosure into a working farm.

He’d found himself in the greenhouses early on, drawn outside by the distance from other people and the peaceful rustling of leaves. Without his sight he couldn’t see the triffids which apparently clustered around the fences—and couldn’t pick the rustle of their leaves apart from the less dangerous plants growing within.

The air was fresh in the countryside, and fresher still in the glass houses which were home to the more delicate plants. He couldn’t see them anymore, no. But that was no more an obstacle than with anything else, and his hands were still nimble enough to be gentle with stems; to feel when the soil in a pot was too dry or too moist. To hold things steady or reach them down for Yachi, the tiny and timid former manager of Karasuno who had once haltingly admitted to deciding to work in the greenhouses so she could escape the constant noise and chaos of the rest of the community.

And admittedly, at first she seemed no less nervous around Keiji than she was around anyone save her former teammates, but with time that eased into a more relaxed working relationship. Yachi could see, but she was short, and not strong enough to carry heavy bags of compost or pots. Keiji was blind, but could easily reach to the top of the greenhouse to open or close ventilation panels, or tie trellis ropes from the rafters. He was far from the strongest person at the compound, but could carry heavy pots and bags of compost, and follow directions to know which plants were which until they muddled their way to a simplified braille labelling system.

Working became a refuge. An escape. It didn’t bring his sight back, or his old life, but there was peace in the glass house which magnified the warm sunlight on his skin. There was comfort in the smells of earth and growing things, and the hum of insects outside.

Even when winter arrived he wrapped himself in as many layers as he could find and did something. Cleaned pots and wrote labels, making sure to get outside every day there wasn’t a snowstorm raging. By the time spring arrived once more the routine was drummed into his body; imprinted to muscle memory. He could navigate between the tables and workbenches without needing his hands for guidance. Could work by touch alone even when Yachi was elsewhere.

It was comforting. Reassuring. From the greenhouses he could hear the comings and goings of the rest of the community without getting caught up in the chaos which still seemed to erupt from time to time. Around him, seeds burst forth and filled the air with the scent of new life amid the musty earth.

If this was how the future had to be, Keiji couldn’t complain. There were definitely far worse options.

It was early afternoon when Keiji heard footsteps approaching the greenhouse. He tensed in place, gripping the workbench tightly. Who would be visiting at this time of day?

A moment later he relaxed, recognising the rapid pace.

“Hello, Bokuto-san,” he said as the footsteps came to a halt, keeping his voice comparatively level. After all, Yachi was around somewhere.

“Akaashi, how come you still call me that?” Bokuto replied, the frustration evident in his voice. “And how do you always know it’s me?”

Keiji smiled crookedly. “You’d be amazed at how many people don’t race over to the greenhouses in great excitement,” he said, shaking his head and deliberately ignoring the first question. “Anyway. The expedition went well?”

“Sure did!” Bokuto said. There was a shuffling sound. “I got you something.”

More rustling. A gentle thud—ceramic against wood, a sound he heard every day now. Two steps, then three more as Bokuto approached. He was close enough that Keiji could make out the sounds of his breath, still heavy from exertion—that or his over-excitement at showing off whatever it was he’d found.

“A gift was hardly necessary—”

Keiji stopped abruptly as Bokuto’s hands closed around his own.

“Over here, ‘kaashi.”

He let himself be steered over to…Bokuto released one hand and he reached out to feel the workbench nearby, exactly where he’d estimated it to be. Good. It was always reassuring to know that he could keep himself centred in one building at least.

“Hold out your hands,” Bokuto said, releasing the other. “It’s fragile, so be careful, okay? Don’t knock it.”

“Bokuto-san, am I ever not…” Keiji trailed off as something cool and cylindrical was pressed against his outstretched hands.

He felt it gently, running his fingers lightly over the terracotta. The texture had become familiar and reassuring over the last few months.

“A plant?”

“Sniff near the flowers!” Bokuto said gleefully. “It was pretty strong when I found it, although I guess it didn’t really like being in the van because most of it’s gone for now. But if you get close enough the smell’s still there, and I bet you can do your gardener thing and make it okay again.”

The plant pot shifted back and forth, which meant Bokuto was brimming with excitement. Keiji slid his hands up the pot until he found earth, then slowly tested the air until his fingers brushed against the foliage. The leaves were long, and formed on either side of stems which sprouted from a cluster roughly in the centre of the pot. It took him a moment to find the ones which ended in flowers, because the leaves continued partway up the stalks. Ever so gently, he eased his way to the flower at the top. With it cupped in his hand, he could lean forward without crushing anything. He sniffed tentatively.

That—it couldn’t be.

“It…it’s chocolate?” he said, frowning. “Bokuto-san…how…”

Bokuto said nothing as he pulled the plant away and set it down with such gentleness that it hardly made a sound. Keiji suspected he wanted to be sure he wasn’t going to drop it while he spoke.

“Well, we stopped off at a nursery.” There was a note of pride in his voice which made Keiji suspect Bokuto was grinning from ear to ear.

“Well, yes, I suppose you must have, but—why? I don’t understand. Does it have medicinal properties?”

Bokuto cleared his throat, and the rustle of fabric suggested he was shifting around on the spot. He’d never been good at standing still. “Well…I…You spend a lot of time out here with all these plants and things you know, but you can’t even see all the flowers and stuff anymore. So I guess I just wanted to get you a flower you could enjoy.”

There was silence after Bokuto spoke. Keiji felt struck dumb. He ought to say something—he really ought to say something—but the whole situation was so entirely unexpected that he wasn’t sure where to even start.

“You…didn’t have to,” he managed at last, acutely aware of the growing heat in his face.

“I know,” Bokuto said. The excitement in his voice was fading, replaced by something else. “But like I said, I wanted to, yeah?”

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

“You…don’t hate it or anything, do you?”

There was so much worry laced through those words that Keiji lost what little composure he had left, and burst into mixed laughter and tears.

“Of course I don’t!” he snapped, screwing his eyes tightly closed to will away the water which threatened to betray him. “Of course I don’t. I…thank you.”

Strong arms wrapped tightly around his chest and lifted him clear of the ground. He gasped with shock as the world span, and reached out to clutch for his idiot best friend’s shoulders, accidentally brushing the side of his head as he did so. Soft, cropped locks met his fingers and his hands froze.

“B-Bokuto-san…your hair?”

Bokuto laughed. “Oh, right, that! I guess I totally forgot. Well, I couldn’t spike it any more because I ran out of gel on the expedition, and I didn’t want it getting in my eyes while we were away, right? So I got Kuroo to cut it for me.” He laughed again. “He actually did a pretty awful job, so don’t ask him if you need a haircut, okay? But it’ll grow soon enough I guess, and at least I’m not so likely to get jumped by a triffid, yeah?” He lowered his voice and added: “Hinata reckons that Yachi’s the one to go to for a haircut, but I think she’s scared of me because I’m so loud, so I felt a bit bad asking.”

“Oh,” Keiji said, trying to place the odd, rising tightness in his chest. He found it, and added: “You look different, then.”

Bokuto set him down immediately, arms pulling back. “Yeah, but like I said, it’s a bad haircut so you’re not—”

“I don’t care,” Keiji said softly. No. He was not going to get upset by this, he absolutely wasn’t. Just moments ago he’d been overwhelmed with an inexplicable happiness thanks to a scented flower, for pity’s sake. But the words were there now, and it was all too easy to say them: “I don’t care about whether your hair looks good or not, I care that I can’t see it any more. You’ll—I mean everyone will start to look different and I won’t ever see that.”

There was a brief pause, and then Bokuto’s arms were round him once more, and a fuzzy head was buried against his shoulder.

“Geeehhhh! I’m really sorry Akaashi!” Bokuto wailed.

“What?” Keiji spluttered. “Bokuto-san, why are you apologising? This isn’t your fault. It’s just a fact I have to get used to.”

“But I said I’d be your eyes that time before, and then I didn’t even tell you about a really obvious thing like my haircut! I promise I’ll do better, okay?”

“Bokuto-san, you don’t need—I don’t need—”

“I know,” Bokuto said, and there was a rustle of fabric as he pulled away. For a moment Keiji felt the warmth of another body near his hand, tantalisingly close before it vanished again. “I know you don’t need that. You don’t need anyone’s help, because you just get on with things and work out how to do stuff all by yourself. But that’s not…I mean I…”

Bokuto sighed; a short, sharp huff of frustration. With himself?

With me? Keiji found himself wondering, suddenly alarmed.

“It’s…like the flower, I guess,” Bokuto mumbled. “I know I don’t need to. I just… Well anyway, I guess I, er…I should probably go help unpack everything. Bye, ‘kaashi.”

There was a muffled thud as Bokuto’s footsteps retreated. Had he bumped into something?

Moreso even than he usually did, Keiji wished he’d been able to see Bokuto as they spoke. He’d always understood him so well. He’d learnt all the expressions; all the mannerisms; all the subtle cues of his body language which hinted at the mood he was in. And while it was certainly true that Bokuto’s voice didn’t lack for expressiveness, adjusting to only being able to hear the words he said had left him frequently at a loss.

I hate this, he thought glumly. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I…

Clenching his fist, he thumped the workbench, flinching as he heard the sound of rattling terracotta. It wasn’t fair. He was coping, wasn’t he? Going blind at sixteen was far from how he’d expected his life to turn out, but given the mess they had escaped in Tokyo, realistically the fact he was even alive was more than he could have asked for. And it was tolerable, really it was. There were still things he could do, and he managed to occupy most of his time well enough that he didn’t lose endless hours to mourning the loss of his vision any more. There was braille to help replace books. There was the greenhouse in which he could surround himself with smells, and textures, and the sound of Yachi singing to herself when he was quiet enough that she forgot he was there. As much as he’d lost—as much as all of them had lost—there were plenty of good things to be found in the future they were making.

Somewhere in that future he would have time to learn Bokuto again, he was sure. It wasn’t as though they had the end of the school year to worry about any more. They’d passed it already. There would be no universities, no diverging futures. There was discussion about leaving the school site they had settled in, yes, but only to move somewhere they could spread out a little. Somewhere with easier borders to defend. There was talk of finding more people to join them, not of abandoning those they had already located.

But none of that changed the fact that right now, he’d had yet another conversation with Bokuto in which they had parted company with the sensation of something remaining unresolved between them. It didn’t change the fact that then and there, he felt as though he’d lost something he’d taken just as much for granted as his vision.

“…Akaashi-san?” came the timid voice from somewhere behind him. Oh. Yachi. How long had she been stood there?

“Ah—I’m sorry,” he said, straightening. “I hope nothing was knocked over?”

“No no, nothing at all!” Yachi said, her words tumbling out in a way that suggested she was on the verge of panic again. “I…er…I just wondered if you were feeling okay? Did something happen between you and Bokuto-san?”

Keiji sighed. “I…no. Nothing happened.” That’s the whole problem. “It’s just an ongoing frustration, I suppose. Bokuto-san has always been a very…visual person. It’s a lot harder to understand him now I’m—” he gritted his teeth “—blind.”

“Oh, I—I’m sorry,” Yachi said. “I didn’t…oh, what’s that? There’s a new…plant on the workbench? It looks…um…it’s a bit of a strange one to put in a pot like that.”

“Bokuto-san gave it to me,” Keiji said, stiffening slightly. What did she mean it looked strange?

“Oh! Oh no! Oh I’m…I’m sure it’s very nice really,” she said quickly. “It just—”

“What does it look like?” he asked, cutting off what he knew would be a near-endless stream of apologies otherwise.

“Well…it’s…” Yachi faltered. “It’s got some yellow flowers I suppose? A lot of them have lost their petals though, and they only have the green centres left. Is it a salad plant? The leaves look a little like dandelion leaves, and you can eat those I think, so…”

Keiji smiled, leaning back against the work surface as the words sank in. “So you’re saying it looks rather unassuming, like a weed, perhaps?”

“Oh, n-no! I’m sure Bokuto-san wouldn’t bring you a—”

“It looks like a weed,” he confirmed, nodding. He held out a hand to stop the expected protest. “It’s perfectly alright. I know it isn’t. The flowers are scented.” He gestured vaguely at the workbench. “I’m not sure where he found it, or what it is, but…feel free to see…smell for yourself.”

Yachi walked over and dragged the pot closer. He could tell the moment she sniffed at a flower because she gasped.

“Akaashi-san! Bokuto-san found this? You’d never guess from a distance that it…did you ask him to find one?”

Keiji blinked, surprised. “Well, no… In all honesty I wasn’t aware that they would be passing a nursery on this particular expedition. If I had I would have asked for some of those herbs you researched. I apologise, I should have though to mention it before they left.”

There was a short silence. He heard Yachi push the plant pot further back across the workbench.

“No, it’s fine, I just…he…are you two…”

Yachi abruptly cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry! That was a very forward question to ask, Akaashi-san; please forgive me! I can’t believe I said that out loud, and—”

“What? I’m not sure I…” He stopped as the implication sank in, feigning a cough so that he had an excuse to turn away and hopefully conceal the blush he could feel forming on his cheeks.

“N-no,” he managed at last, trying to remember the last time he had felt so acutely embarrassed while speaking to someone. “No, we’re just…”

“I’m so sorry!” Yachi wailed. “I didn’t mean to say that, Akaashi-san, it just slipped out because you both seem very close, and then he brought you flowers and I thought it must be a lovers’ token or something, and I only wanted to say that it wouldn’t bother me if you were, and just didn’t want anyone to know because of what they might say, but…if I’m wrong I…Oh goodness I’m wrong aren’t I, and now I look like such an idiot Akaashi-san, I’m ever so sorry if I offended you, and I didn’t mean it, I—”

“It’s fine, Yachi-chan,” he managed, although his voice sounded a little strangled. “I’m not offended. Although I’m not sure what—Bokuto-san has always been very enthusiastic in his friendships. He behaves the same way with everyone.”

Yachi didn’t reply for a moment. Akaashi had just begun to wonder if he’d scared her off—right as she finally seemed to have gotten over her nervousness around him, too—when she cleared her throat.

“Um…but Bokuto-san never brings flowers or gifts or things for anyone else,” she said quietly. “Just you.”

Keiji rapped on the door of his family’s room to announce he was home and entered, grabbing the cord which led to his sleeping area more out of habit than necessity. He sat down on the futon and sank his head into his hands, ignoring the “Keiji?” his mother called out.

He’d gotten used to being right. To making quick judgements and understanding situations on the fly. It had been a long time—a very long time—since he’d needed someone else to point things out for him. The fact that that 'someone' was a year younger and had known him for substantially less than half the time he had known Bokuto only made it more embarrassing.

I did wonder, he told himself, although even in the privacy of his own mind he had to admit that it had been in an idle, rather doubtful fashion.

Doubtful and almost as thoroughly quashed as his own…

Keiji frowned. He’d gotten far too used to not thinking that word, so as not to interfere with things. Things such as locker rooms, and team celebrations, and all the myriad other potential problems if he weren’t able to act naturally. Even after he’d come to terms with the trauma of everything which had necessitated their escape from Tokyo, there was the problem of the cramped living space at Karasuno, a general lack of privacy, and the fact he had relied on other people while he adapted to blindness—all very good reasons not to confront the fact he had a…a that, or the possibility that Bokuto might harbour similar feelings to his own.

Yachi might be wrong, he thought next, but that, too, was unlikely. She had a good eye for detail, and tended not to say things unless she were absolutely sure.

Denial at this point was redundant. And if he were honest with himself, it wasn’t really denial anyway. It was more a case of searching for excuses not to confront the issue and risk his more recent inability to communicate effectively from causing everything to blow up in his face. After all. They were set to live in rather close proximity to each other for the rest of their lives. There was no graduation to look forward to if he were wrong. No escape from the awkwardness even if he were right and then it ended badly.

And there’s my parents, he thought next, as his mother called his name once more. Is it worth risking their disapproval right now, when we all live in what is essentially the same room? The dividers aren’t especially substantial, and there aren’t any spare classrooms for me to move elsewhere. It’s less risky to just carry on the same way.

Even as he thought that, though, he knew it wasn’t true. If things got really bad, there were plenty of other places he could go. He’d even slept in the greenhouse overnight before. It would be more than possible to do that again—and they were probably going to relocate at some point. At that stage, he could simply ask someone else to share a room with him. Someone, he told himself pointedly. Not a specific person. Because there was still no certainty that—

“Keiji?” his mother said, far closer this time. He hadn’t even noticed her footsteps. “Keiji, is that you? Are you home?”

He sighed. “I’m here. On my bed.”

A hand brushed the top of his head, and a moment later his mother’s weight settled onto the futon beside him.

“What’s wrong, Keiji? You’re being very quiet.”

Better to just get it over with, he thought. Either his parents would accept him and things would continue as they had before, or they would reject him, or reject what he was telling them, and he would have to deal with the consequences—which were far better faced and acknowledged before everyone moved into new accommodations at whatever location was eventually settled on.

“I’m gay,” he said flatly, tensing in case he had to run.

His mother stayed silent for a long, awful moment, and then gently nudged his shoulder. “Well, that never stopped you talking before, so now how about you tell me what’s really bothering you. Did you have a falling out with Bokuto-kun?”

“What?” he spluttered, sitting up straighter.

“Keiji, dear. You’re seventeen years old, and you’ve never shown even the least bit of interest in girls. I’m not going to say it was obvious as such, because in truth be told you really did have something of an obsession with volleyball which could have masked a crush here or there, but…well. I’m your mother. I pay attention to these things.”

“But…you never…”

“Did I need to say something? I thought it was better to wait until you could tell me in your own time.”

“Oh.” A large part of the tightness in his chest eased. How long had it even been there? A thought for another time, perhaps. He cleared his throat, and added dryly: “Do I want to know why you thought I’d had an argument with Bokuto-san?”

“Are you telling me you didn’t?” his mother asked, all too innocently. “That it has nothing to do with the fact they all got back about an hour or so ago, and now here you are sitting by yourself in your room when normally someone has to prise you out of the greenhouses at night?” She nudged his shoulder. “And coming out, no less. If you’d done that while we were still living in Tokyo I’d have baked a cake.”

That surprised a laugh out of him. “Yes, I suppose you would have,” he said, smiling. “…You probably would have burnt it.”

The only difference between the gentle smack to the back of his head which his mother gave him then, and the one she would have given him a year or so earlier, was that this time his mother grabbed his shoulder with her free hand first so that she knew where his head was. It made it easier to find and hug her afterwards, relaxing as her arms wrapped around him in return.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you were worried about what your father and I would think,” she said after a moment. “Worried about your father, at the very least.”

She sighed as Keiji tensed against her shoulder. “He probably wouldn’t have been as on board with the cake idea, I will admit. I think if he’d still been working… But he’s not. The world’s a very different place, Keiji dear. We’ve lost enough already. He’s not going to risk losing you too, even if it’s…a little more difficult for him to understand, at first.”

Keiji pulled away so he could sit up straight.

“You think I shouldn’t tell him,” he said flatly.

“I think you may wish to phrase it a little more delicately than you did with me, that’s all,” his mother replied. Her hand brushed against his shoulder and squeezed. “But there, perhaps I’m being too hard on him. He coped remarkably well with finding Bokuto-kun in your bedroom that morning, all things considered.”

Keiji took a breath to point out that he’d tried to hit Bokuto, and then paused.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked eventually.

“My dear, that boy broke into our house first thing after learning that his family had gone blind, all so that he could make sure you were okay.”

“Well yes, but that was because I was the person who lived closest, and he needed to check whether the phones were working or not—”

“Keiji, dear. You’re an intelligent young man. You get it from me. Don’t expect me to believe you haven’t worked this one out.”

There were a lot of things which Keiji could have said in response to that. A lot of denials he could make, or ways in which he could divert the conversation. But what he settled on in the end was:

“I can’t be certain.”

His mother pulled him across into another slightly awkward side-on hug.

“Keiji, no one can ever be certain. It’s just one of those risks you have to take in life.”

A risk, he thought glumly. As if we haven’t all had enough of those.

Knowing what he had to do was less difficult than actually managing it—even if it was something as relatively simple as having a conversation with his closest friend. The converted classroom which he shared with his parents was near to the one which Bokuto technically lived in with his own family, but Bokuto hardly ever slept there any more. In fairness to him, it was harder to fit an outgoing and energetic family of five into one room than a quieter and more sedate one of three.

Rather than spend hours hunting him down, Keiji wound his way along to the school’s entrance and knocked on the wall to summon whoever it was that had duty that afternoon. The rota changed too often to be worth memorising. Or, it had, at least. He hadn’t really worried about it in a few months. The patrols and guard duties were a world apart from the greenhouse. Had they settled into an actual pattern by now?

“Akaashi-san? Can…can I help you?”

Shit. He didn’t recognise the voice enough to know who it was. Perhaps he spent too much time in the greenhouse these days.

He cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, keeping his voice level. “I wonder if you could pass on a message to Bokuto-san for me, if you happen to see him. Please inform him that I would like to talk, and will be in the greenhouse until…late, I suppose. I know he said he was helping unload things earlier, but I don’t know where he would go after that.” He sighed. “Frankly, I would probably only get in the way if I attempted to find him myself.”

The breeze from the open window was starting to feel cooler by the time Keiji heard familiar footsteps approaching the greenhouse.

“Hello, Bokuto-san,” he said, tipping his watering can. The last few drops spilled out into the pot he cradled with his free hand.

“Hey. Um, Narita said you wanted to talk to me?”

Narita, he thought to himself, a touch ashamed. I should have recognised his voice.

“Yes,” was all he said aloud.

“So, um…what was it about? Only he said you looked pretty serious—and you look kinda serious now I guess?”

He’s speaking more quickly than usual, Akaashi thought. Which means the rustling I can hear is probably him rocking on his heels.

“I…It’s about the plant,” he said, mentally cursing himself for tripping over the start of his sentence. “Bokuto-san, I’m blind.”

“Uhhh…” Bokuto cleared his throat. “Uh…I mean, yeah?” His voice squeaked a little. “I…oh noo, I didn’t describe it properly did I! I got all carried away because of the hair thing and then I never said what it looks like! Well, I mean, the flowers have these yellow petals, and they’re brown in the middle—all the pollen bits are dark brown, but like, a nice brown I think, not a bad one. And when the petals come off it’s like they’re still flowers but they’re green? And the leaves—”

“It’s okay, Bokuto-san,” Keiji said, waving in his general direction to get him to quieten down. If he didn’t get through what he wanted to say soon, he’d end up not saying it at all. “Yachi-chan told me what it looks like earlier, after you left.”

“Oh.”

For once, Keiji didn’t even miss his sight. He knew exactly what Bokuto would look like in that moment: deflated, head hanging half-limply. His hair was short now, which wouldn’t match the mental image he still had of the many times he’d seen Bokuto in exactly that position, but it was an insignificant difference really, safely ignored. If he were being brutally honest with himself, the allegedly disastrous nature of the haircut meant that he was probably better off with the outdated version of Bokuto’s appearance which his mind could conjure. It meant he had to be quick, or risk Bokuto becoming too emotional to stay and listen to what he needed to say.

“…But of course, Yachi-chan’s description had a more technical leaning and was rather brief. I would very much appreciate if you could give me a more detailed version. Later. What I really want to say is that neither of us have encountered this plant before. Yachi-chan lacks the time, and I lack the…ability to research it, if it even features in the gardening books we’ve gathered so far.”

He took a deep breath. “Bokuto-san, I don’t know how to look after this plant. What lighting conditions it requires; the soil in which it will best grow and thrive; how much to water it; if it needs additional fertiliser; whether to overwinter it indoors or out.”

There was a short silence.

“Argh, I’m sorry Akaashi!” Bokuto exclaimed, loudly enough that it made Keiji jump. “It was meant to be a gift and I just got you hard work! I’m a terrible friend, I promise I won’t do it again! It’s okay though, I won’t mind if you get rid of it or—”

“Bokuto-san!” Keiji snapped. This was—once again—going wrong. He ought to have predicted that meltdown, too. What’s wrong with me? he thought, furious with himself. You didn’t need eyesight to see that provoking Bokuto like that was going to end badly. Now fix it, quickly, before he thinks you’re angry at him!

He cleared his throat, clutching the workbench tightly.

“Bokuto-san, I have no intention of allowing the plant to die,” he said. “It was a gift, and a much appreciated one. I didn’t ask you to meet me here to suggest that your gift was a poor choice, or a burden.”

“Well why did you, then?” Bokuto asked. There was a trace of a whine in his voice. He hadn’t fully recovered from his slump, or the perception that he had made a grave mistake.

Another thing I’d forgotten, Keiji thought, tiredly. His tendency to focus overmuch on perceived personal criticisms, and the mental slump he inevitably falls into afterward.

“I actually wanted to explain something else,” he said, bracing himself. “It’s…something complicated, so I thought that using the plant as an example would help to get my point across.”

“Um, okay…” There was doubt—and lots of it—in Bokuto’s reply, but the whine wasn’t present. An encouraging sign. Appealing to his curiosity would have helped.

“I don’t know how to look after this plant,” Keiji repeated flatly. “Not as things stand. Before I lost my sight, I would have quickly been able to identify it in a book, and research its needs. But I can’t read any more. I can’t look at it. I’m not even sure if it will be catalogued in the gardening books which everyone has managed to obtain so far.”

“I’m sorry Akaashi! I didn’t—”

“Bokuto-san, please do not interrupt,” Keiji said, ducking his head. “You need to let me to finish.” Because if I don’t say it now I won’t say it at all, he added silently.

There was a pause, filled only with the gentle rustle of leaves outside. Bokuto had to be stood almost motionless to be making so little noise.

Keiji cleared his throat, gripping the workbench tightly. Perhaps it would be easier to say if he imagined the greenhouse was empty. “When I had my eyesight, everything was much simpler for me,” he said. “I always knew what to do, or had the means to learn how. But now…now I need to learn how to do an awful lot all over again, much of which I took for granted before.”

He frowned, and clenched his teeth a moment. Even if he were talking to an empty greenhouse, it would have been painful to admit. “For the most part, it’s difficult but not unfeasible,” Keiji went on, speaking into the silence. “It’s just going to require time. Time to transcribe books into braille as I become more familiar with it. Time to learn to work by touch alone. But there are some things—like this plant, for one example—where I don’t have the luxury of the time it would take me to learn from the beginning again by myself. If I take too long, or make mistakes, I could kill it.”

There was more he needed to say—much more, really—but his throat was locking up. Besides, if he tried to explain the full range of his reasonings, and every facet of why this mattered to him, he’d never get to the point he wanted to make. Time to wrap up.

“And the truth is, the same could be said of our rel—friendship. Bokuto-san, I don’t know if you are aware just how much the average human relies upon visual cues to aid in the understanding of speech and language. Losing my sight doesn’t just mean I can’t see where I’m going any more, or that I can’t read normal books. In a very real sense it’s taken away part of my ability to communicate with people, and it is immensely frustrating to have to deal with on a daily basis. Obviously I am adapting, but these things…these things take time, and there is only so much that I’ve been able to achieve over the last few months, especially as you have spent a large proportion of that time away from the compound.”

There was a short silence. Keiji clutched at the edge of the workbench, hanging his head. No doubt Bokuto was still wondering if he had more to say—probably he’d been too sharp. Too harsh. In fact, given his mood-swings earlier that day, he would probably have been better putting off this whole confrontation for another day—

“Akaashi?”

Despite how pointless it was, Keiji closed his eyes. There was a comfort in the movement, even after months of darkness. He gritted his teeth. “Bokuto-san, the reason I’m saying this is that I am acutely aware that if there is a breakdown in communication between two people, potentially it will start to drive a wedge between them. In this case us. If that hasn’t happened already. I had hoped to be better at all this by now, but I’m not.”

There had been a level of uncertainty in Bokuto’s voice which Keiji hated. He hated knowing what sort of expression Bokuto would have on his face without being able to see it—hated it because it was altogether clearer in his mind than the things he wanted to see. Hated it because it shouldn’t be happening in the first place, and probably wouldn’t have been if he’d just admitted what the problem was from the beginning, rather than hoping he could use every trick in his power to paper over the cracks.

The silence grew awkward. For half a second he wondered if Bokuto had actually left, before realising that, no. He was waiting.

“It’s alright, I’ve finished talking now,” he said, his voice a monotone. Odd, really, how exhausting it was to talk. Then again, after his sessions with Kenma, he supposed he oughtn’t be surprised by that. It was a little like therapy, in a way, or that was what his mother had said. Venting off the problems which had weighed upon him.

Do I really want to find it therapeutic that I’m admitting how badly I’ve been mismanaging things? he wondered. Bokuto still hadn’t said anything. There was a strong chance he simply didn’t know what to say at all. Perhaps he would leave again in a moment, and take the pressure to not fold into a graceless heap away with him. Keiji was good at not crying when he needed to keep a level expression, but if he allowed himself to be honest it would probably do him a lot of good to hole up somewhere private and let off the tension that way.

He wasn’t that lucky, of course. Bokuto cleared his throat. “So what do you mean about a wedge, Akaashi? You don’t really mean it like that, right?”

Keiji sighed, forcing his emotions to the back of his mind. “Bokuto-san, you are…a very visual person. Moreso even than most other people I know, much of your meaning and intent is conveyed through posture and body language, rather than simply through the words you speak. And now I can’t see that. I…in a way, it’s much like talking to someone on the other side of a thin wall. You could hear a person, perhaps, but you would struggle to hear them clearly. You would find it very difficult to follow a conversation that way, particularly if there were other sounds present to muddle things. With the way I am now, I feel as though we are continually misunderstanding one another. That is the problem I wanted to discuss.”

“So…you’re not mad I got you that plant? Really really not mad? Or like, annoyed? Maybe a little frustrated or something? Because it’s not an obligation, or maybe I could look after—”

“No!” Keiji snapped, standing up straight. “The plant is not a problem at all. There is nothing wrong with the plant. On the contrary, it was a very thoughtful gift which I really appreciate. I was using it as an example because it was…topical, I suppose.”

“So, you’re saying that the only problem is how you can’t see what I’m doing when I talk?”

Keiji winced.

“It’s a little more complicated than that, Bokuto-san. But in a broad, general sense…yes, I suppose you could put it that way. It leads to misunderstandings like the one we had earlier. I was frustrated with myself, but you seemed to interpret that as my being frustrated with you, and I didn’t realise the problem until it was too late. If I’d still been able to see, I could have acted differently. I could have—”

“You know, you keep blaming yourself for all this stuff Akaashi, but it’s not like it’s actually your fault,” Bokuto said. Keiji heard him take a step closer. “You should ease up on yourself a bit. And now I know what the problem is, I can help, right?”

Keiji gritted his teeth. “I hate needing help,” he said, forcing the words out. “I didn’t need this sort of help before. I was capable. I understood how things worked and I could—I didn’t need—”

A hand landed on his shoulder, squeezing gently. He froze, willing his face to stay level. When had Bokuto gotten that close?

“I think I get it,” Bokuto said. He was close enough that Keiji could hear the breath he took before adding: “And I didn’t say you needed lots of help, you know? I mean”—the hand lifted—“You’re doing all this now, right? Like you said, you’ve gotta learn all this new stuff. But you are, and you’re managing to do a job at the same time. And you were the one who kept calm and helped us all get out of Tokyo last year too, remember?”

There was movement at his side, and Keiji relaxed a hair as Bokuto shifted to stand next to him instead of in front. To judge from Bokuto’s voice, he was stood facing the workbench, probably looking out over the valley.

Then again, it was probably better not to make assumptions.

“So…” Something thumped against the workbench as Bokuto spoke. His hand? Had he bumped into it? “So if I help you, Akaashi, that’s not because you need help, okay? It’s…I mean I want to. I don’t want that wedge or anything. And if that means I gotta tell you what face I’m making or something like that, then I’ll do it, I swear. I’ll do whatever helps.”

Keiji shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to compensate for—”

“See, you’re doing it again!” Bokuto cried. “You—look, I listened to you, so now you have to listen to me, okay? Stop talking and let me be the one saying stuff now. Besides, you’re the one still sticking to old-world manners. If you’re gonna do that you should listen to your elders.”

A rustle of fabric was his only warning before Bokuto poked his upper arm. Keiji twitched, trying to keep his face level. He was damned if he was going to be as jumpy as his parents got about that sort of thing.

“Okay, Bokuto-san,” he said, gripping the workbench. Aggravating as it was to have the tables turned on him, really it was only fair. He let his head hang forward in the hope that his hair would cover his face. At least he could try and preserve some of his dignity.

“Right,” Bokuto said.

There was movement again, and then a warm, reassuring pressure against his arm. Half consciously, Keiji reached up with his opposite hand and felt for what it was, pulling his hand back sharply when he realised Bokuto was stood so that they were shoulder to shoulder. Well, Bokuto had never worried all that much about personal space, had he.

“You keep acting like you’re…I dunno, like you’re perfectly okay with everything and it doesn’t bother you.”

Bokuto’s voice was soft; far softer than usual. “Ever since that first day, you’ve never actually talked about what happened. I mean, okay, I don’t know what you said to Kenma about it all. I know a lot of people ended up talking to him, and that’s good! Really! But there’s other people you can talk to as well, and I—I mean, uh…and no one’s going to think less of you if you’re finding it hard. I mean, it is hard, right?”

There was a nudge from Bokuto—a gentle push from the arm pressed against Keiji’s own. The contact between them was hot; tense.

“And if I say I want to help you, it’s not some kind of pity thing, or anything like that,” he added. “It’s…it’s just like I said before. I want to. I want—”

Keiji forced himself to count out twenty painful seconds of silence before speaking, heart somewhere in his throat. Somewhere outside the breeze was picking up, rustling the leaves of the triffids and trees which lay outside the boundary fences, forever beyond his reach.

“Bokuto-san, it’s rude to leave a sentence unfinished,” he said, absurdly relieved that his voice stayed level. It was a conversation. He shouldn’t be so close to tears from it all. It had even been his idea in the first place.

The snort of laughter from beside him startled Keiji into a smile. Somewhat alarmingly, this was followed by a groan, sharp movement, and a loud thunk. Keiji pulled back, turning and reaching out to feel what was going on. His hands brushed a warm mound hunched over the workbench, one which shuddered beneath his touch.

“Bokuto-san, what are you doing?” he asked. “You’ll knock the flowers if you jog the workbench like this.”

“I’m sorry Akaashi,” came Bokuto’s mournful voice, slightly muffled. “It’s just, I’m trying to explain but it’s all coming out wrong, you know? And Kuroo said I should just say it but I’m getting it all muddled and I’m the worst at this, and then you just…you just do that and—”

“What did I do? And what does Kuroo-san have to do with this?” Keiji asked. “I don’t recall talking to him about anything. Particularly not anything to do with this.”

“Uh, ah… No that was before! Another time! See this is what I mean! It’s all going wrong, you should just stop talking to me forever.”

He sighed, rolling useless eyes. “I don’t want to stop talking to you Bokuto-san. I want to know what’s going on.”

The endless darkness had never felt like more of a curse. There were so many sounds on the edge of his hearing and none of them were any help. None of them could tell him what was going on. None could tell him how or why he had managed to mess things up again.

The wind outside shifted: carried to Keiji’s ears a murmur of voices from elsewhere in the grounds; the rumble of an engine in the garages; the gentle sigh of fabric rubbing against itself inside the greenhouse. Then, far closer, the clack of terracotta on wood as the heat and warmth of Bokuto beside him abruptly moved away.

He stood alone in a bubble of nothingness, anchored only by the ground at his feet and the wood in his hands—and then Bokuto’s hands settled on his own and gripped them tightly. Keiji stumbled, leaning back and bracing his weight on the workbench to avoid falling forward and making the whole heart-stopping experience even more overwhelming. Bokuto was close—so close—near enough that Keiji could feel the warmth of his body.

“Bokuto-san, wha—”

“So, this is what my hair looks like now,” Bokuto said quickly and somewhat breathlessly, cutting him off and dragging Keiji’s hands upward as though he was as close to panic as Keiji felt.

It was awkward to stand and fumble to press his hands to the sides of Bokuto’s head, particularly with Bokuto’s hands getting in the way as he tried to help, but after a few seconds Keiji’s fingers met the short, uneven locks once more and his heart-rate settled. This was fine. It was fine. Bokuto was just being his usual oddly-helpful-in-a-sideways-way self. His hands remained over Keiji’s as they worked their way across the top of Bokuto’s head, explaining the slightly shorter part where Kuroo’s hand had slipped while he was holding the scissors, and the bit which was little more than stubble at the back where they tried clippers to neaten it all up.

Keiji still couldn’t see it. He wasn’t entirely sure his imagination was or would ever be equipped with the ability to turn the tactile knowledge of the atrocity which had been committed across Bokuto’s head into a picture in his mind. The more he felt of the uneven locks, the more he suspected it actually was a blessing after all.

“Well,” he said eventually, swallowing a lump in his throat. “At least Kuroo-san never has to pursue a career in hairdressing.”

He pulled his arms back, gently tugging to let Bokuto know to release them and faltering when that didn’t happen.

“Bokuto-san. My hands.”

“Wha—oh! Yeah! Yeah, your hands. Right.”

The fingers around his own lifted and moved away, and Keiji pulled his hands down, clasping and re-clasping them and ducking his head to hide the blush he was sure, so sure had to be there. He felt hot all over. That had to show. Surely it had to show. Oh gods he was so obvious.

Bokuto cleared his throat. “You know Akaashi, if there’s anything else you want to, you know…see feel? Feel see? Sf—well that, whatever it’s called. You can just…any time, yeah? I don’t care if it’s plants, or places around the school, or the scavenging rig or…well… I mean you could even feel my face if you really want to know what it looks like when I’m talking, but that might be a bit um, distracting, and—”

“It’s not necessary, Bokuto-san,” Keiji said, thinking: I would die. I would actually die. “I’ll learn eventually. I only ask that you be patient while I adjust.”

Coward, he told himself. This isn’t a confession anymore. This is telling him half the story again, just the way you promised yourself you wouldn’t.

“While you learn how to talk to me again, huh? I mean, okay, if that’s what you really want, but it kinda seems like it might go faster if I helped, Akaashi. And it’d be good if you could learn again faster, because I can wait, I promise, if that’s what you need, but I feel like you’ve been really quiet lately and I miss the old Akaashi that didn’t kinda hide away from me. Because it really doesn’t bother me if you don’t understand something I say. All you have to do is tell me, and I’ll explain what I’m thinking, or doing, or whatever you need to know.”

The words stung because they were true—he could hear the strange softness in Bokuto’s voice, and he was right, right about all of it. Keiji had been avoiding Bokuto, avoiding conversations which had seemed likely to become minefields out of a stubborn refusal to admit that he was struggling in any way. Put like that, the fault really did lie with himself.

He sighed, twisting his fingers together in knots. “I apologise, Bokuto-san. I’m…I’m not very good at asking for help, I suppose.”

Bokuto laughed. “Yeah, no kidding. You’re really bad. Like, probably the worst person I know.”

A hand clapped hard against his shoulder, and this time Keiji couldn’t help the flinch, hands jerking apart and behind himself to clutch the workbench before he overbalanced and fell.

“Oh, shit!” Bokuto cried, and then the air in front of him was moving, fabric rustling as Bokuto scrambled away. When he spoke again his voice was more distant, far enough that Keiji could no longer hear the sharp inhalation beforehand: “I’m sorry Akaashi, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine, Bokuto-san. It was habit, and quite understandable. Besides. I’m not fragile. Unlike the other things in this greenhouse, I won’t break even if you do knock me over.”

“Right, yeah.”

Bokuto’s voice was lower still this time, almost more of a mumble than full speech. Keiji cursed himself, wishing he knew what he’d gotten wrong this time. It had been intended as a lighthearted remark, but Bokuto seemed to be taking it too seriously. Where were mind readers when you needed them?

There were two options in front of him. Firstly, he could abort his so-far-useless attempt at a confession, brush off the encounter, and attempt to steer things back towards something approaching normality while he continued to rebuild his ability to navigate social situations. It would be safe, and passed as the most comfortable option in the ongoing surreality which his life had become. Bokuto would almost certainly assign any further oddities on his behalf to his ‘adjustment’ from this point forward. The conversation could still be counted a success in that regard.

The second option was to concede that Bokuto actually had a point for once—no, damn it all, Bokuto often had a point, it was simply that he wasn’t always particularly adept at expressing it in ways other people understood, and lately Keiji had lost his ability to understand as easily as he had before. So, option two was to admit that Bokuto was right, and accept whatever help he was able to offer when it came to understanding his vocal cues by themselves. It would quite possibly lead to more interactions which pushed Keiji’s ability to keep a level expression to the very limit, but again, any slips could probably be blamed on his blindness.

The third option, which reared up in his mind without any particular advance warning, was that he could actually do what he had more or less intended to do when he had asked Bokuto to meet him in an isolated greenhouse at a time of day when they wouldn’t be overheard, and admit that the real root of the problem was the fact he was grasping at straws trying to stay close to Bokuto because he desperately missed the effortless closeness which being normal teenagers on the same volleyball team had offered them, and was self-destructing because pining after your closest friend was a lot harder when you couldn’t even see them any more, and ended up over-compensating whenever you had a conversation because when everything had changed there was no more benchmark for what behaviour seemed normal and what would give his real feelings away, and it was lonely, so fucking lonely in the dark as it was, but constantly trying to keep everything else buried away was slowly destroying him and if he were actually honest with himself he wasn’t really sure how much longer he could keep it going—

“Hey, uh… Akaashi, you—are you okay?” Bokuto asked, and there was that hovering warmth in front of him again, so tantalisingly close but never actually leading to a touch.

Keiji reacted on instinct alone, arms jerking forward automatically and clutching at the figure before him. His fingers found purchase in the fabric of Bokuto’s shirt and he gripped it tightly with both hands. Somehow it anchored him in a way that solid wood couldn’t quite manage.

“Uhhh, Aka—”

“I’m blind, Bokuto-san,” he managed to croak, voice hoarse with the effort of holding back tears which had sprung out of nowhere and crowded in the corner of his eyes, dangerously threatening to fall. “I don’t know where you are anymore. You stand nearby and I can hear you but I don’t know how near or far you are; if you’re standing or sitting; whether you’re smiling or frowning. I knew those things. I knew where to stand, what to say, how to support you as a friend and teammate. Now I spend every conversation we have wondering if you’re close enough that I could reach out and touch you, or if you’re too far away, and it’s… I don’t want this to be my life. But it is, and I can’t change it, and I hate it.”

Silence fell. Bokuto was still—very still—too still. Keiji loosened his grip, panic arriving in full flood as he realised the implications of his words, but the moment his hands relaxed Bokuto pulled him close, wrapping his arms around Keiji in a bear hug which almost knocked him off his feet.

“Bokuto-san—”

“You’re so stupid, ‘kaashi!” Bokuto muttered, mere millimetres from Keiji’s ear. “You keep doing this! You’re still trying to do everything all by yourself, but we’re a team. That never stopped—we just got to being a different kind of team, that’s all. But you can still lean on me—on everyone, I mean! That’s what being a team is, right?”

Keiji just about managed to nod, oddly grateful for their closeness. All the while Bokuto’s face was buried in Keiji’s hair it would be impossible for him to witness what had to be some kind of full body blush by now.

“And you don’t have to be so…so cool all the time, either. No one’s gonna think less of you if you actually do need help sometimes. I know I won’t.”

There were about a dozen potential responses which flitted through Keiji’s head, but he didn’t trust himself enough with any of them. It was as much as he could manage not to self destruct there and then.

“Akaashi?”

Bokuto loosened his arms and pulled back, but his hands remained on Keiji’s shoulders. Accidental? A deliberate point of contact? Probably he would have known, before. It would have been obvious from Bokuto’s expression. Now…

Keiji gritted his teeth. This was stupid. He was stupid. He was falling into the same trap as before, ignoring Bokuto’s words in favour of his own stubbornness when the entire reason they were having this conversation was to prevent exactly that.

“Bokuto-san, I still can’t see you. You need—”he scowled“—I need you to tell me what you’re doing. What you’re thinking.”

Bokuto laughed, a half-snort which twisted Keiji’s stomach into a knot. “Wow, you could read me that well before, could you? You always knew everything going on in my head?”

“Obviously I didn’t know everything, Bokuto-san. It’s impossible to read minds. But I—”

Bokuto’s hand lifted from his left shoulder and pressed firmly against Keiji’s mouth, stopping him in his tracks.

“I could kinda read you too, you know,” Bokuto said, pulling his hand away again as he spoke.

Keiji’s lips burned. His whole face burned. He clenched his fists by his sides, willing his expression to remain neutral somehow, to stay calm even as his stomach twisted into a series of knots. Bokuto had to be able to see the inevitable redness on his face at this point. Why was he still so damned close?

“Maybe not like…as good as you read me, not totally,” Bokuto went on. He paused. “Okay, I’m gonna guess by the look on your face you think I’m wrong, but I’m not! I just mean like…I always knew what you were like. That you’d bounce back from stuff, or you had it under control, or how you were always good at working out what to do but sometimes, you know, you’d get stuck feeling like it had to be you working out what to do. That kinda thing. It’s why we were such an awesome team, yeah?”

The hand still on Keiji’s shoulder squeezed. “So pretty much I’m saying I can see you’re doing it right now.” Bokuto cleared his throat. “It’s like I said before, you’ve been so quiet since we left Tokyo. And I—I know it’s been really hard to get used to, so I totally got it at first. But then you started getting better, except you just came out here all the time instead. Like you didn’t want to be around everyone else anymore, and that part I don’t understand. Or didn’t. I guess it makes sense if you felt like you couldn’t talk properly to people, but you just told me all about that and I’m gonna help, so it’s not like you have to worry anymore, right?”

This was the worst idea in the entire history of bad ideas, Keiji thought. I can’t tell him. There’s no way—no way—he feels the same or he’d have said something by now. And he’s probably staring at me. Watching to see my reaction, which means I need to give a believable reason for how obviously flustered I am, or he’ll probably just continue in this vein until someone is sent to find us or the night patrols get this far.

“It’s less simple than you make it sound, Bokuto-san,” he managed at last, turning his head down and to the side in the hope that it would minimise what Bokuto could read from his expression. “But thank you. I do appreciate your faith in me.”

He tensed at the sound of a sigh from in front of him.

“Hey, Akaashi,” Bokuto said. “You know what I’m doing right now? What my face looks like?”

“Obviously I don’t—”

“I’m making a face like ‘Why are you still so stupid’, because you’re just doing the same thing again! You don’t gotta hide or look away or act like there’s this huge problem between us. You just have to tell me what’s wrong, or what you need to know. I won’t mind. I already said that, didn’t I?”

Keiji nodded stiffly. “Thank you. You…you can let go of my shoulder now though, Bokuto-san.”

“Ehhh? But you just said—”

“I do appreciate the gesture, but it’s not necessary. I still need to learn to manage on my own.”

The words were painful to say—and stupid, too. He didn’t mean them, but how else was this excruciatingly awkward conversation going to end? Better to chalk it up as a failure already, and try again another time if he ever found the courage. Besides, there was a telling chill in the air. It had to be getting dark, which meant someone would come looking for them soon. Or at least, they’d come looking for Bokuto, who was usually a far more prominent face at whatever evening activities had been planned.

Bokuto’s hand didn’t move from where it was, though. If anything he gripped tighter.

“You know you really don’t, Akaashi. No one ever said you had to do stuff all by yourself. You just…I just…I really hate seeing—I don’t…”

Abruptly, the pressure on Keiji’s shoulder lifted. There was the sensation of movement in front of him—the warmth of Bokuto’s body, tantalisingly close—and then nothing but the sound of footsteps backing up. Keiji’s breath caught in his throat, and it took every fibre of strength to resist the urge to reach out. Surely the rapid flurry of his heartbeat had to be audible? Surely Bokuto had to have heard, and worked him out by now? His face—his face must have given him away, or his body language, far too keen and close, longing transparent in his every move. He shifted his weight, leaning back on the workbench behind him.

“It’s fine, Bokuto-san. I do appreciate your help, and… you’re right. I won’t keep shutting everyone out in future. Still, I should probably tidy things away for the evening now, and let you get back to your family.”

For a few seconds he worried that Bokuto wouldn’t understand—that the whole disastrous conversation would be prolonged even further—but then the rev of an engine sounded in the distance. Whatever strange atmosphere had built in the greenhouse was broken as Bokuto spluttered his way into saying that yes, he should probably go check what the others were doing, they were most likely waiting for him, and he’d see Keiji around later sometime, yeah?

Then he was gone, footsteps fading into the general background hum of the evening, and Keiji was alone once more.

It was quiet in the wake of Bokuto’s departure. Quiet and still, despite the voices carried to him on the wind. It had to be twilight by now, long shadows merging with the evening’s gloom. The sighted were heading indoors away from the night. First patrol would be around soon enough, but he had a few minutes before that to compose himself.

Keiji ached. His stomach twisted in upon itself as he mechanically set about tidying away his work things. There wasn’t really any need—only he and Yachi spent any real time in the greenhouses, and Yachi never moved anything without either telling him first or leaving a carefully stamped braille note on the workbench for him to find—but the thought of returning to the main school building was even less appealing.

His mother was going to be coy and ask how things had gone. His father would be around most likely, and the prospect of the conversation to come was a complication he had no wish to deal with. It was bad enough that he’d been too cowardly to confess, and worse still that somehow he’d managed to feel rejected despite that fact.

Moments of his conversation with Bokuto played over and over in his memory. In hindsight it was so much easier to see how he might have directed the conversation differently. Have brought up the subject easily, naturally. Mentioned his feelings in such a way that he could have brushed it off as a misunderstanding should Bokuto have rejected him outright.

Hindsight has a lot to answer for, he thought, slumping forward over the workbench. It was tidy already. If he wanted to avoid going back he’d have to find something else to do—a tempting prospect, given that following the return of an expedition people tended to gather in the hall to celebrate. His absence would be far more plausible if he had gotten distracted working, and if he were to avoid Bokuto for at least one evening, it would mean avoiding anywhere people were gathered.

The squashes probably needed re-potting. He’d been planning to do it in the morning with Yachi’s assistance, but working alone would only make the job a longer one, not more difficult. Nodding to himself, he fetched out the pots and stacked them in a corner of the bench before going for the propagator and the compost. No doubt Yachi would remark upon it when she found out, but that was tomorrow’s problem. He could always plead insomnia—it was an excuse he’d often used in the past.

Besides, the work was soothing even without his sight. He’d never been all that interested in plants or flowers before, but that was a boon, if anything. If he’d cared about their beauty, or learned to identify particular plants by visual cues, going blind would have made the work far harder for the knowledge of what he was missing. Instead it was all new: new and refreshingly different from the life he couldn’t get back.

Keiji was working on his second pot when he heard rapid footsteps outside. Frowning, he set it down and turned his head to better hear the commotion. At this time of night people only ran when there was an emergency—such as a break of the fences, or some kind of medical complication. If he needed to barricade himself in the greenhouse for the night—

“Akaashi!” Bokuto cried, arriving with heavy, panting breaths and a rattling of the greenhouse frame. Keiji froze where he stood.

“Akaashi, are you—did you—?” The words were rushed out between breaths, gasping and excited. “Because I—I really—if you—I mean—”

“Bokuto-san, please calm down,” Keiji said, quickly brushing as much of the dirt off his hands as he could. “At the very least you should probably catch your breath. What happened? Is something wrong?”

“No! Nothing’s wrong!” Bokuto loudly exclaimed. He came closer as he spoke, unusually hesitant by his movement. “It’s all great—I mean obviously it’s great, I just—” He swallowed heavily, close enough that Keiji could hear his lips part afterward: “Can I…?”

His fingers brushed lightly against Keiji’s hand, grasping it as Keiji nodded. They were warm and clammy—though admittedly, by the sounds of things Bokuto had just run the entire length of the compound, so no wonder.

Bokuto pulled, sliding his fingers across Keiji’s palm to guide it upward. Keiji blinked reflexively as he felt fabric, and then those clammy fingers sliding enough out of the way that they could press the palm of his hand against the warmth of a warm, wide chest. Beneath the fabric, he could feel Bokuto’s heart racing. 

“Bokuto-san?” he managed, mentally willing his own pulse to settle some.

“Akaashi I…I really like you,” Bokuto said, words tumbling out in a rush. “I mean really, like a whole lot. And I, that’s why I…actually nevermind that for now. I just mean, I came here earlier and how you were talking, hah, I guess I was pretty dumb because I we said all that and then I just walked away? But then I was talking to Kuroo, and he told me how I was really stupid, and I screwed up, so then I just had to come back, because I never would have done it if I’d realised…”

Keiji had stopped listening somewhere shortly after the beginning of Bokuto’s speech. His mind was blank, the words simply washing over him.

Almost without conscious effort his other hand reached forward, tangling in the fabric of Bokuto’s shirt and making him stutter. The greenhouse fell into silence as Keiji moved upward, feeling his way up to the top of Bokuto’s shirt and across the skin of his neck, seeking higher and higher. He felt Bokuto’s breath catch in his throat, felt the shudder as he brushed the edge of his jaw with his fingertips and located his chin, hesitating there.

“Ah,” he murmured. “My hands. They must be dirty.”

“Don’t care,” Bokuto said, his voice so soft it was almost overwhelming. “I…I really don’t care about that right now.”

Keiji’s lips quirked into a smile as he slid his fingers higher and found Bokuto’s own mouth, fixing the spot in his mind. He halted, feeling the short, sharp huffs of warm air across the pads of his fingertips. Bokuto was still. He was too still, and it was more than a little unnerving.

“Bokuto-san, please tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, in little more than a whisper.

Bokuto shuddered. “Uhhhhh…”

As close as they were, with his hand still on Bokuto’s chest Keiji could almost hear his heart racing beneath his palm. The hand atop his shook.

Keiji swallowed, gathering the last of his nerve. “Then…can I kiss you?”

The nod was small and subtle, barely a dip of movement beneath Keiji’s fingers but it was enough, enough to justify leaning forward and sliding his hand to cup Bokuto’s cheek as their lips met. Once, twice, three times they brushed haltingly against each other, scarcely meeting before drawing back. Keiji’s heart felt as though it were about to beat itself all the way out of his chest, a lump forming in his throat. Was this a good idea? Was it all about to go wrong?

Finally Bokuto moved, sliding his arm out from between them and pressing it against Keiji’s back. His other hand brushed Keiji’s cheekbone and wrapped around the back of his head and Keiji felt the smile against his mouth, felt the bunching of Bokuto’s cheek as he grinned, noses bumping together as their lips met once more.

Keiji’s breath caught in his throat and it would almost have been embarrassing the way his legs seemed so unsteady beneath him but for the fact Bokuto lurched first, staggering before he caught his balance again. They shuffled across the greenhouse, Bokuto steering Keiji backwards until he bumped into the workbench.

Kissing was outrageous. Intoxicating and addictive and heady and ridiculously stupid. Keiji didn’t really know what to do with his hands, or whether his eyes should be open or shut. Did Bokuto mind that Keiji’s fingers were shifting back and back into the cropped hair which he’d felt for the first time just scant hours earlier; that his other hand was wedged between them, clutching at the fabric of Bokuto’s shirt; that Keiji must objectively be terrible at this due to inexperience?

It was almost a relief when Bokuto pulled away—almost. Suddenly it was awkward and strange between them, lips covered in spittle and hands tense, gingerly touching each other as though at any moment some illusion would shatter and lay them bare. Because this…this was a change, and not one Keiji or Bokuto could take back. It was sudden, and new, and Keiji had no plan for how to proceed.

Step one, he told himself firmly, rationality reasserting itself the longer the pause went on, is going to be to stop thinking of Bokuto as Bokuto-san.

Bokuto’s nose rubbed against his. Keiji was sure his cheeks had to be bright red, and was suddenly glad the kiss had happened so late into the evening—the cover of darkness ought to mask how shamefully easily he had been affected.

“Hey, Akaa—Keiji?” Bokuto asked, just tentatively enough that Keiji’s stomach flipped once more. “Did you still wanna know what I’m thinking?”

Keiji let his hands fall to his sides, reaching back somewhat awkwardly to grip the edge of the workbench. “What are you thinking?”

Bokuto’s—Koutarou’s hand rubbed Keiji’s cheek gently, then traced down his jawline to his chin.

“I think I probably should have said all this a lot sooner.” He lifted Keiji’s head slightly, leaning forward so their lips were close enough to almost touch. “I don’t want to have to go back already.”

“We can stay a little longer,” Keiji said, reaching up to grab at Koutarou’s shirt. “No one’s coming to find us.”

Once the strange, shocking newness of it all had worn off, it was easy to kiss Koutarou. Far easier than letting himself think about what had to come next—the conversations, the plans for the immediate future, the matter of whether they would tell anyone. None of that mattered while their lips were pressed together, hands gripping each other ever more eagerly, as though time might run out on them and leave them wanting.

Finally Bokuto halted, and swore under his breath. He grabbed Keiji’s arm and dragged him down into an awkward crouch.

“Patrol,” he murmured in Keiji’s ear. “Don’t want them…you know.”

It was a different kind of knot in his gut this time. What didn’t he want? For them to have an audience, while things were still so new? For uncontrolled gossip? For anyone to know? The prospect of conducting any kind of relationship entirely in secret didn’t sit well. Was Boku—Koutarou ashamed?

They remained silent and still as the footsteps outside drew close and then passed them by. Koutarou’s hands remained on Keiji’s arm throughout, drawing small circles on his skin until he finally sighed.

“Guess we’re probably clear now. The flashlights have all moved on, anyhow.”

Keiji stiffened. “It’s important no one sees us, then.”

Bokuto’s hand slid down Keiji’s back. “Well, we still need to do all the…talking bit, right? I figured you weren’t gonna want people knowing about this before we even did that.”

Keiji swallowed heavily, trying to think past the warmth of Koutarou’s hand at the base of his spine. “Right,” he said. “We…should probably do that talking about things now, then.”

"Y-Yeah! Um…so you like me, huh?"

It was dark. Keiji reminded himself of the fact, and that as a result Bo—Koutarou absolutely could not see how red his cheeks were. It made it considerably easier to keep his voice level as he spoke.

“Of course I do. I have since the moment we met, if not before.”

Something warm and stubbly bumped into the crook of his neck—the top of Koutarou’s head

“How can you just say it like that?” he mumbled, clutching at Keiji’s shirt. “And what do you mean before, anyway?”

Ah. Caught in his own trap. Keiji gathered his hands into his lap, twisting his fingers together as he tried to think of a way to backtrack on that somewhat incriminating statement. Leftover nerves were obviously affecting his judgement if he’d been jarred enough that to blurt out a fact he’d never meant to admit aloud.

But there again, did it really matter that he hadn’t? He’d never meant to confess his feelings, either. So far, the results of breaking his resolution there had solely been positive. It was no guarantee—and there was no denying that a part of him instinctively recoiled at the thought of confessing the length and depths of his repressed feelings so soon after admitting he had them at all—but perhaps there was something to gain in being free with his feelings. In taking one of those risks in life.

He cleared his throat. “I suppose to be entirely honest it wasn’t that sort of like, back then. More…an appreciation of your skill, as I happened to come to one of your games in my final year of middle school.”

Bokuto stayed silent in the wake of this declaration, for just long enough that Keiji’s thoughts started swerving into panic territory. He’d said too much. He’d ruined the moment. Most likely he would have to somehow extract himself—

“Nyeeeeeeh, Aka—Keiiiji, that’s not fair! How am I supposed to beat that if you knew me before I ever got to meet you!”

Keiji almost choked on his own spittle. “It’s really not a competition,” he said.

Keiji. How did…did Koutarou manage the switch so easily? Just hearing his name from anyone other than his parents felt strange and unsettling—and even more unsettling in how much he wanted to keep hearing it. It was only a word, after all, and plenty of people had dropped the formalities and taken to using given names around the compound.

The silence beside him was stretching on a little too long once more. Keiji cleared his throat.

“Well, as I have confessed my part, this would be the point where you do some talking as well…Koutarou.”

The weight of Bokuto’s—Koutarou’s, damn it, stop being so immature about this—head against his neck lifted abruptly.

“You said it!” Koutarou whispered, voice high and tense. “Oh my god, you actually said it—can I kiss you again? I really want—”

“Talking first,” Keiji said, sure that if he allowed himself to be distracted now they’d end up getting caught before they’d managed to say anything else. And it was important, really it was, despite how near they were to each other, and how easy it would be to reach out and find him, grab hold and not let go. But: “We need to know where things stand,” he added.

“What do you mean? Where things stand?”

“It’s all very well liking each other, but it’s as you said. What about when other people find out? What will they say? What will they think? What do you even want people to know? The world is…there’s no getting away from anyone anymore. There’s no anonymity, no refuge if something goes wrong. It’s a lot to think about—”

The rustle of fabric and shifting of Koutarou’s hand was the only warning he got before he was being kissed again, lips pressed firmly against his own and a hand gently cupping his jaw.

“I don’t care about that stuff,” Koutarou said, pulling away. “I don’t care what anyone says. The world already ended—what are they gonna do? We both have important jobs. They need us, so it’s not like people can risk pissing us off even if they mind, which they probably really won’t. But I mean, we don’t have to tell anyone right now if you don’t want to. I bet we can keep it a secret for a while. But they’re gonna find out eventually, like you said, and I don’t care. I don’t want to miss out just because someone else didn’t get with the times.”

Keiji swallowed heavily. “I heard a lot of Kuroo-san just then,” he muttered, forcing as much dryness into his voice as he could.

Koutarou pulled him closer, into a decidedly awkward hug which Keiji should not have found as endearing as he actually did.

“Well, I maaybe talked to him about this on expeditions a bit…or kind of a lot, actually.”

“Ah.”

Koutarou squeezed tighter. “Didn’t you talk to anyone? Well, I guess you probably didn’t—”

“My mother knows,” Keiji said flatly, smirking as he felt Koutarou freeze in place. “I think she’d already guessed, but we talked about it earlier today. And…ah. Yachi asked me this afternoon if your gift was a lover’s token.”

“Yachi did? How come she talks to you and not me?”

Keiji snorted. “I don’t burst unexpectedly into the greenhouse each time I visit, reeking of engine oil and sweat. And I don’t shout excitedly, or dance around and bump into things, or—”

“Okay okay,” Koutarou whined, not loosening his grip on Keiji at all. “You made your point. Well, I told Kuroo. And we were out on the road at that point, but it was just us in the van so I don’t think anyone else heard. But he really didn’t think anyone would care. I mean, there’s more important stuff going on right now, you know? You’ve been shut up in here for so long—and I get why. It’s nice here. It’s quiet, and it’s peaceful I guess, and it’s been pretty hectic inside. But we’re getting a better system now, and people are pulling together, and everyone’s just…”

“They’re worried,” Keiji said flatly. “I may spend most of my time out here, but I’m not entirely isolated. I hear the rumours. There’s increasing pressure on the fences, and we lack the space to farm enough food to sustain us, when the towns run out of supplies to find. We need to move—somehow—and we need to make contact with any other survivors in the area to help our long-term survival.”

“Right, so in the middle of all that, who’s really gonna care about us being…well…you know.”

“Gay?”

Koutarou sighed into his hair. “Well, yeah, I guess, but I was sorta hoping you’d say ‘together’ or something.”

Something in Keiji’s stomach lurched in an oddly satisfying way. Sat there on the greenhouse floor, with Koutarou—and it was still something of a rush to feel entitled to call him that—Koutarou halfway wrapped around him, the prospect of ‘together’ didn’t seem so impossible after all.

“Alright then,” Keiji said, lifting his chin.

His lips brushed against what he guessed to be Koutarou’s neck, startling both a gasp out of him and a long shudder. He smirked.

“Together.”