It's been four years since Akaashi graduated high school. He's returning to Tokyo from a year long semester abroad in the United States. It's feels weird, walking the old streets he used to walk everyday. A year away can really make you appreciate some familiar streets. 

He had hoped that the study abroad could change things up for him. The first year of college for Akaashi was great. He got a new start. He could finally forget all the losses that high school brought. Losses that imprinted on him much more than he had liked. An image of a boy laughing and shouting his name flashes through Akaashi's head. No, he can't think about that right now. 

Just because you're back in Tokyo doesn't mean you'll run into him, Akaashi tells himself.

His flight brought him into Tokyo around noon. Overnight flights will really take all the energy out of a person. Akaashi isn't quite ready to go home, though, regardless of his exhaustion. 

He finds himself walking towards a coffee shop he used to do homework in. Best coffee in Tokyo. Or, at least it was, according to one person. 

The little bell rings when he walks in. It's less crowded than usual. Actually it might just be bigger. There's a set of stairs leading up to a second floor that Akaashi doesn't remember. The second floor is open, so Akaashi can see the tables and chairs up there. It circles around the cafe, like someone just cut a square out of the middle of the ceiling. On the side of the entrance, there are bar stools facing the window, a place for people to look out at the street without the awkward place of having the pedestrians look right back at you. 

Akaashi orders a latte, nothing fancy. This place is digging up more memories than Akaashi was prepared for, so he tries to get in and out as fast as possible. As he's about to leave, he looks up at the large window spanning the second floor. 

And is met with two golden eyes staring back at him. 

Akaashi inhales sharply. Why is he here? Of all the places in Tokyo, of all the people in Tokyo, why him, why here, why now?

The man drops his coffee cup in surprise, and Akaashi takes that as his cue to leave. 

He should have known better than to go there. He should have known that that's where he would be, if he were to be anywhere in the city. 

Akaashi needs to cool his head. He tries to go to this small park nestled somewhere you'd never think a park would be. But he's been gone for too long. He gets lost several times just trying to find the street that it's on. 

Finally, he finds it. He collapses on a bench and just tries to focus on the pretty flower bed. 

Apparently he was focusing too hard. 

"I knew you would come here."

Akaashi jumps, startled. He looks to see who it is, even though he recognized the voice before Bokuto even finished the sentence. 

"I guess things haven't really changed that much, have they?" Akaashi makes eye contact with those golden eyes once again. 

The eyes that belong to the man that broke his heart. 

The only thing is, Bokuto doesn't know that he broke Akaashi's heart. 

That's something that Akaashi made sure he would never know. 

Memories from high school came flooding back. Memories from a time that Akaashi so desperately wishes he could bring back. 

"It's been too long, Keiji." Akaashi winces at the use of his name. Bokuto notices. "What happened? Where did you go?"

After Bokuto graduated, and went off to some far away college to pursue his volleyball career, Akaashi was left alone at Fukurodani. Bokuto had asked Akaashi, quite incessantly actually, if he was okay wit Bokuto leaving. There were colleges he could go to in Tokyo, he insisted. He would stay for Akaashi. 

But who was Akaashi to hold him back? Who was Akaashi to tell one of the top five aces in the nation to stay for him?

He couldn't do that. 

So he told Bokuto that he could leave, he should, in fact. Bokuto tried to keep in touch, but Akaashi couldn't handle it. With exams, and the stress of the volleyball teams slowly crumbling, Akaashi couldn't get the idea that he was somehow weighing Bokuto down out of his head. 

So he responded less. 

And Bokuto called less.

Until they didn't talk at all. 

And now Akaashi was staring into the face of the man who he had tried so very hard to forget, but never could. 

"I don't know," Akaashi said, defeated. Because he really didn't know. At the time, he thought they had something that could last forever. Until it didn't. 

"Don't give me that," Bokuto said in a tone that told the shorter boy that Bokuto hadn't really gotten Akaashi out of his head either. 

"Four years, huh? Four years since we talked at all," Akaashi said, trying to formulate a way to express how he felt.

"It doesn't seem real, does it?" Bokuto looks up at the sky. After a moment of silence, he stands up. 

"It really hasn't felt real, though. Do you know what I mean?" Akaashi just stares at him. "Oh come on," Bokuto continues, "Keiji, I know you've felt it. It's like, these past few years, they've felt wrong. As if something was missing." Bokuto looks at him hopefully. 

Yes, exactly, Akaashi thinks. Nothing has managed to fill the hole you left in my life. 

"I don't know," Akaashi says, uncertainly. He doesn't know why he just doesn't agree with Bokuto because he feels exactly the same way. It's the same feeling that was weighing down on him over four years ago. 

That Akaashi isn't good enough for him. That he can do better. He should have someone who can better support him and his dreams. 

"Yes, you do." Bokuto sits back down and takes Akaashi's hand. Akaashi looks at the ground, tears springing into his eyes. 

"I never stopped loving you, Koutarou." Akaashi closes his eyes tight. He doesn't want to cry right now. 

Bokuto flinches with surprise and tightens his grip on Akaashi's hand. 

"Then what happened?" 

"I don't know, okay?" Akaashi starts to raise his voice. "You were going off to college, and I had to stay here. You were off doing new, better, more important things and I didn't think that I would hold up against that! I didn't think I would be something you would want to keep around." As Akaashi speaks, he starts to realize all the other feelings he had been burying for years. "How could I ever be good enough for the famous ace, Bokuto Koutarou?

"I couldn't."

Akaashi barely choked out those last two words before collapsing into sobs. There was nothing he could have done to keep Bokuto with him and it hurt more to try and lose than to stop trying altogether. 

The older boy hugs Akaashi to his chest. 

"Oh Keiji, you are more than enough. You had more than any of those fools at college had," Bokuto said soothingly. "I actually thought you had stopped caring. Whether I thought that you had found someone else, or simply moved on, I didn't want to bother you if you didn't want me to. That's why I stopped calling. You never had anything to worry about, Keiji." 

Akaashi hugs Bokuto tighter and continues to sob. How could he be so stupid? This just further proves how unworthy he is. 

"How could you love me after I did that to you?" Akaashi says into Bokuto's chest. 

"How could I ever stop loving you in the first place?"

And just like that, the missing piece was finally found and put back where it belonged. 

lmao this lowkey sucks but this is now my only form of personal fulfillment because if i am not constantly taking in information or working on something i am alone with my own thoughts and i get SUPER sad

i am so tired i just want someone to love me is that to much to ask

goodnight