A/N: This was inspired by a text on tumblr that I saw a really long time ago about how someone whished there was a Bokuaka Sci-fi au in which Bokuto was a scientist and Akaashi a guinea pig of a big company. I've been trying like a mad person to find the post but I haven't succeeded. (If you've by any chance seen it, then it would be so lovely if you let me know!) I (and my ship-angst indulged brain) loved the idea and couldn't help writing this so!

I wish you a great read, thanks a ton for giving my story a chance! Love you guys,

/Hugs MJ

Koutarou jumped up and down, energetic as always as he held tightly his dad's hand. He'd never seen his father's work before, and the 'take your child to work day' at school gave him the perfect opportunity. His mom had said that he could join her as well, but she was a third-grade teacher, so no way that Koutarou spent this special day in the same school as always! Instead, he had seen his dad's awesome lab. It was filled with all kinds of cool instruments and colourful fluids, and although it had been hard not touching anything, it had been great. Furthermore, he'd been presented to frankly pretty boring colleagues. Though one did buy him a big muffin after their lunch at the cafeteria, so they were okay he supposed.

Normally, children weren't allowed in the facility. Only in some special cases, and then they had to be above four and below ten to ensure the safety of information inside the frames of the building. It was more like a fortress than a building though, in the eyes of eight years old Koutarou, as he craned his neck as far as it would go. They'd gone out from the back, heading towards the smaller set of gates that led to the personnel parking lot. His honey colored eyes looked around with the same fascination that they'd held this morning. He would love to run and explore, to pet those huge dogs so unlike his own puppy. Those racks looked swing-friendly as well, and who would ask an eight years old to stand still when there was an awesome military truck a bit away? Still, the apparently biggest condition of Koutarou joining had been that he was to stick close to his father at all times. Apparently many areas were restricted and out of boundaries for civilians.

That was when he took notice of commotion right next to the truck. One man and one woman walked up to its back, the woman wearing fancy, yet boring, clothes, a flat bag in her one hand as the other gestured to the man. He was older, looked a little ragged with his thin hair and failing posture. He was wearing a long white jacket, just like Koutarou's dad, and looked strangely satisfied as the truck door slipped open. First, another woman stepped out. She didn't look like any person Koutarou had seen before, and if he wasn't so fascinated by nature he'd probably have been scared. She was muscular, a frown across her forehead visible even across the difference. She wore the same pattern on her clothes as the green van, and when she spoke her voice sounded gruff. He couldn't hear what she said though, but as she spoke, someone else emanated from the back. A boy slowly climbed out, not too far from Koutarou's age.

He looks like princess Jasmine, was Koutarou's first thought, seeing the for him uncommonly dark skin and black hair. At the thought of the connection to his favourite book, he felt a familiar tug from a coming grin. Although it didn't come. Because something else crossed his mind.

"…He looks really sad, dad," he stated truthfully, not turning golden eyes away from the other boy. Then he suddenly got a new thought and started jumping up and down again. "Maybe he'll get happier if we play together? Mom says I get all emotional when I haven't eaten so maybe he's all hungry and then you can't play right?! So first I just have to give him my apple and then fetch my volleyball and we can-!"

"No," his dad intervened uncharacteristically strictly, but his voice sounded weird in some other way too. Almost like it did when he told his mother that another had fallen (though Koutarou could never figure out who or from where they fell, feeling bad for them still as he supposed they must have scraped their knees pretty badly or something given how sad his dad's voice would sound). "No, you can't go talk to him."

"Why not?" He whined high-pitched, but before he could talk further his dad started gently but quickly tugging him away.

"Because he has things to attend to darling, so he can't play right now" was the answer, and okay, his dads voice was definitely weird somehow. Still, he let himself be tugged away as he kept staring after the dark haired boy. As he did, seemingly black eyes suddenly looked up to meet his, and he could feel how they bore into him even across the distance. Koutarou held his breath until they were in their car, uncharacteristically quiet as he sat down on his seat. Without him fully realising it (and not nearly comprehending why) silent tears fell down his cheeks.

His usually talkative and joking dad was quiet as well, hands weirdly pale as he gripped the wheel. Koutarou wasn't sure if he really heard that muttered, "The devils work, this young…" or if it was his own imagination. Either way, those dark eyes would be imprinted in his mind for the rest of that day.

Years passed, and Koutarou didn't visit the facility again. He'd asked his father if he could play with the strange boy a couple of times (because there were no other kids there, maybe he was lonely!). But his father had after the third time stated that the boy was just visiting on take-child-to-work-day like he was, so he wasn't there anymore. He thought it was sad, but he was a forgetting child of course. He found a best friend, Tetsurou, and made many others with his open personality. His dad never really talked about his work anymore, and Koutarou didn't think much about it. That is, until it was about time for him to start looking for a profession himself.

Frankly, he didn't have much choices in the higher up jobs. Few would accept him because according to the grade's standard, well, he sucked. But he was bright, he knew his stuff. It was only that no one wanted to put an important job on someone who'd failed each of their mathematics or weren't even okay at memorizing English words. It seemed grades were the only thing that the companies could see, even though he easily was top in his class at chemistry (okay, the territory of Kuroo was here skipped, but still).

His dad saw that though, and after pretty much fixing around he managed to get his son a job at the medicine company by the early age of nineteen. He'd been reluctant to do so though, and why so, Koutarou couldn't quite figure out. He'd started and immediately loved his job. He got his own small lab, got told what to do and so he did it. Some things were perhaps a little strange, and often they simply gave him a list of things to do (put together bottles of toxodinechloride and such, strange mix ups that he never really understood what they could possibly be used for. Others were very common in ordinary medicines and injections).

His dad was still a little wary about the whole ordeal, but when he refused to say why, Bokuto eventually let it go. He got a promotion at the age of twenty, and frankly there wasn't much of a difference at all. He got enlisted to do some drugs and such that were harder and received a promotion on his trespass as he was now allowed and supposed to deliver the things he'd done to different areas or use machines from the bigger labs. So finally he was allowed to go freely in the complex. He'd seen what there was too see (basically those laboratories, some offices and a higher up common room) and so he should be satisfied with knowing that. Except that Bokuto was off course a curious person, and there was this one place he hadn't been to yet. The eastern ward. He knew he wasn't allowed to be where he hadn't been ordered to deliver or work, but he couldn't handle not knowing forever what was beyond the boundaries. He wanted to see all the parts of the building because sometimes he found something interesting, like a great coffee machine or practically unused toilets. It was his workplace after all, and he thought that everyone should be entitled to each space as long as you didn't disturb anything.

And so he found himself just outside of there a month after he'd received the card. He straightened down his white lab coat and ran his fingers through his hair once to look more neat and professional before using his passport to open the bulletproof door that would lead him in. There was a code to it, one he'd simply figured out by just watching from the corner of his eye as someone else put it in. He'd had a good reason to be there too as he was replacing one of the elements right outside (yup, they'd pretty much declared him a janitor as well) so there wasn't a big deal to that.

He suppressed a whistle as he passed through, finding a mix of doors. All of the walls were plain and dark gray, with much dustier floors than the tiles were at Bokuto's section. Over there, there were a few paintings and post boards and such coating the walls, but here they were naked except for a sole fire extinguisher. It wasn't much at all apparently, but he was curious to know what hid behind the doors that were scattered every which were. They were in the same style as the big one that brought him here, irony with a passport reader, except that they had no code to go.

So he walked down the corridor (he was already there anyway, wasn't he?) and decided to listen if he could figure out what were inside them. He couldn't hear a sound as he leaned his ear against one door, with the tag '6', so he simply opened it. What he found inside surprised him greatly.

It was empty.

Well, that is except for a bed and a dusty glass that were in shards over the floor. If Bokuto would have looked closer, he would have noticed the brown spots covering the black floor, but he didn't, as he quickly lost interest in the emptiness.

And so, he closed the door and repeated the action with the room across, labelled '8'. He found just about the same thing, an empty bed in a copied room, except for an open notebook and a pen on the covers. As he took a few steps closer in the small but open area, he could see it written in neat letters written over and over again at the open pages, 'I think I'm still alive. I think I'm still alive.'

It was repeated for the entirety of the book except for maybe a fifth of it, which was empty. The further it went, the beautiful handwriting turned shaky and sloppy, ending with 'I think I'm still dead.'

It gave Bokuto chills, and even though he knew it was probably a stupid joke by someone, he got the feeling that he was encroaching on something he shouldn't touch. So he left the room, opening one more without walking in just to see that it was empty as well.

Bokuto huffed, kind of disappointed, because this was the only part of the facility he'd never been allowed to go to and it was empty. Probably just old guestrooms for the workers or something, the place was in the middle of nowhere after all. And so, he decided that he should get out of there before he was found, because even though this must have been an old thing that they'd forgotten all about, he was against his restrictions and had to go back. Just as he thought that, he could hear footsteps down the hall. Feeling his breath pick up, Bokuto started to speed walk to the door opposite him, quickly dragging his badge against the reader. He heard the beep of it unlocking as he looked down the hall, quickly backing into the room, quickly but quietly closing the door. He breathed a sigh of relief as the old thing didn't make a sound, feeling a grin tug at his lips. Though just as he heard their steps passing outside the door, a hoarse voice sounded from just behind him.

"…What are you doing?"

A/N: It would mean the WORLD to me if you'd be so kind to drop a review!

They give me so much joy and motivation!

Well, have a great day love!
/Hugs MJ