Chapter 1 - Not Like This
It's not that Bokuto doesn't know how to feed himself. He does, contrary to popular belief; he can throw a sandwich together and pour himself a glass of milk and peel an orange or whatever, he's an adult, god dammit.
The thing is, the thing is, though, that the fridge is all the way across the room and getting up from the table he's been slouching at, idly doodling since probably two, maybe three in the afternoon would require energy and motivation and effort, and frankly, well...he's fresh out of all of those.
Plus, the hangover that kept him in bed past noon and the uncomfortable weight of lingering alcohol still hanging around his, like, thighs reassure him that starving to death might not be such a bad way to go after all. Slow, yeah, but then maybe at least his head would stop hurting and he wouldn't have any more impossible deadlines to meet.
"I distinctly remember us having this conversation before," Akaashi's voice is saying somewhere in the periphery of Bokuto's unaffiliated attention span. He doesn't look up until a plate is clattering down in front of the nub of his abused ebony pencil, a pile of vaguely familiar pasta that might have been takeout yesterday heaped on top of it. "Don't draw on the table, Bokuto-san, it's not technically ours."
"Is right now," Bokuto mumbles, putting the miserable excuse for a pencil stub down and turning to examine the offering of lunch...more like early dinner at this point, "Did you heat this up?"
Akaashi just looks at him, unimpressed, as he steers back over to the counter, "How high up is the microwave again?"
"Uh," Bokuto starts with his mouth full, trying to eyeball it from where he's sitting and finally just settling on a shrug, "Okay, fair point, but you could've -"
"Nothing's stopping you from getting up to do it yourself, Bokuto-san." There's no malice behind the words, or the sigh that accompanies them, but Bokuto still ducks his head in chagrin and resumes shoveling food into his mouth like he hasn't eaten in days. 'Cause if he's being honest, he kind of hasn't. Stealing some of Kenma's fries and raiding the vending machine before his 8 am doesn't count. Again, it's not that he doesn't know how to feed himself, or that obtaining food in college is inherently impossible, as he's sure the first years are often led to believe, it's just that mustering the effort to create a whole meal of it is a struggle he just can't handle right now. On top of everything.
Akaashi wheels over with his own plate, leaning up to peer at Bokuto's latest blank page, and the collection of shiny black scrawlings on the tabletop beside it, "Isn't your sketchbook due next Friday?"
"No," Bokuto lies, scooping up more noodles and trying to cover the hangover doodles with his elbow at the same time. The resulting lap full of pasta he receives is just a matter of course, he decides, frowning as he reaches across the table for a napkin.
"Well you're not turning in the kitchen table as an assignment…" Akaashi mutters, gathering up a mouthful of pasta and averting his gaze, "Why is it whenever you draw at the table, you seem to miss the paper completely?"
"The texture's nicer...the wood, it's...really smooth," Bokuto tries to explain, waving his chopsticks around to try to demonstrate what he means. Judging by Akaashi's silence and critically raised eyebrow, he's not buying it.
Akaashi sighs, rubbing his temple as he rests one elbow on the table, "You know Kuroo-san says you're perfectly capable of finishing an entire project in one night, on paper, where it belongs…" He's already trailing off, even as Bokuto attempts to school his face into a neutral expression - what would that even look like? - and then his hand is leaving his forehead to prop his chin up thoughtfully, "Too soon?"
"I...yeah," Bokuto agrees absently. He prevents himself from saying anything else that can be used against him by stuffing more food into his mouth, as though trying to fill in a hole; a couple of holes, actually, that he'd almost managed to forget about for one single second today. Not that it makes a difference. If Akaashi hadn't reminded him, something else would have.
"It's been a week," Akaashi's voice has gone soft, gentle, and his arms have lowered to scoot his wheelchair a little closer to the table, "Have you seen each other, since…?"
"Well yeah," Bokuto shrugs dismissively, "We have class together."
"Have you talked?"
Bokuto doesn't look up from his plate, where he's started stirring the noodles around in a big squelchy, tangled mess. "Sure," he says, and doesn't say anything else. It's awkward, not painful...it won't be until later, when he's alone.
Akaashi's quiet, for a considerable moment, then he backs up from the table and wheels himself around, expression wiped clear when Bokuto glances up at him, "I'm tutoring tonight, so I won't be home 'til late." He doesn't wait for Bokuto to respond before going on briskly, "You should get out and get some fresh air...it's not good for you to stay cooped up so long, especially after drinking as much as you have."
Bokuto groans in protest, letting his chin fall onto the table and puffing out his cheeks petulantly. He knows he's sulking, he knows Akaashi isn't going to be swayed by it, but he doesn't care.
"Bokuto-san," Akaashi urges, rolling forward to nudge one footplate against Bokuto's leg, "If you're still in this spot when I get back, I'm not feeding you again."
"Good, let me starve and die..." Bokuto huffs back, letting his eyes fall closed solemnly, "You know what they say; dead men take no exams."
"Literally no one says that, Bokuto-san," Akaashi retorts without heat, the whisper of his wheels on the linoleum signaling that he's already turning away, "Go bother Oikawa-san if you don't know what else to do, you can be pathetic and hungover together. And draw something, while you're at it. On paper this time. Goodnight."
"'Night," Bokuto grumbles grudgingly against the table, slumping his shoulders and pressing his forehead against the cool, polished wood. It only soothes his throbbing head a little, but he keeps it there even as his feverish skin starts to warm it.
The apartment door clicks closed as Akaashi leaves, and empty, echoing silence falls.
.
.
"I'm just saying, it's your own fault for throwing that stupid party on a weeknight," Kuroo is saying, for probably the eight thousandth time. He doesn't know why he's bothering to say it eight thousand times; his roommate still isn't listening.
Oikawa has rolled himself into an inescapable blanket burrito, a package of frozen pineapple chunks balanced on his forehead. The corner of the bag is torn and spilling half-thawed yellow pieces on his pastel pink pillowcase in a growing puddle of melted ice; Oikawa doesn't seem to notice or care.
"Not that your bitching isn't appreciated, Tetsu-chan," he manages to snap sarcastically, squeezing his eyes shut against an obvious migraine, "But couldn't you be doing something else right now?"
"Oh?" Kuroo simpers, disregarding the hypocritical bitching comment and sitting down on the edge of the bed, no doubt jolting the mattress and exacerbating Oikawa's headache. "Did you have a suggestion?"
Oikawa mumbles something between gritted teeth, and Kuroo leans in closer, cupping a hand around his ear, "What was that?"
"I said get the fucking ibuprofen, Tetsu-chan. It's in my purse."
Kuroo just looks at him blankly, "Which one?"
"Smartass," Oikawa hisses ruefully, "The Vera Bradley one. It's green."
"Your face is green," Kuroo can't help shooting back, and well, it kind of is. He doesn't think Oikawa is the kind of drunk who projectile vomits, but he's definitely looking pretty nauseous right now. To be safe, he scoots down to the foot of the bed before starting his search for the green purse.
"You know," Oikawa says, probably glaring at either the ceiling or Kuroo's back in his misery, "It's not that easy being green."
"Okay, Kermit, try and lie still..." Rolling his eyes, Kuroo checks under the bed, and around the nightstand beside it, before getting up to look through the upturned laundry basket across the room. After the pandemonium he'd come home to last night, he wouldn't have been surprised to find it in the dishwasher, or something, if he found it at all.
Oikawa hadn't even asked if he could throw a party while Kuroo was gone, not even a 'heads-up, I might've invited a couple dozen people over to get shitfaced and swing from the literal rafters, is that cool?' Which...no, it wasn't exactly cool to come home after studying his ass off to find the whole apartment turned upside down, overrun with a pretty alarming number of drunken teenagers, most of whom he'd never even met, and doubted Oikawa knew much better. But he still might have been more forgiving if he'd at least known about it beforehand.
Wrung out as he'd been after hunching over textbooks all afternoon, trying to forcibly inject information into his brain via cramped, eye-crossing blocks of text, the willpower to go about shutting the madness down by himself had been a little bit beyond him. In the end he'd just gathered up whatever alcohol he could find - which wasn't the least bit hard to do - and crawled into his bed to crash. When he came to at a little before noon, it was to a quiet but completely trashed apartment, and his roommate half-dressed and unconscious on the bathroom floor. It was only when Oikawa woke up hours later - having been magically transported into his own bed and fucking tucked in like a baby - and started making his inevitable hangover Kuroo's problem that he started to develop a headache of his own.
So now he's crouching on the floor to sift through a clutter of crushed plastic cups and dubiously clean clothes he's only somewhat sure are Oikawa's - if only because he's fairly sure Oikawa would never voluntarily wear plaid, let alone the veritable kilt he unhooked from one of the dresser drawers a moment ago - until his attention finally lands on the creased, paisley green fabric of the purse in question, jammed underneath the chiffonier amid an array of, like, socks and makeup brushes and yet more plastic cups.
Kuroo thinks it would be a miracle if Oikawa's wallet was still in there, let alone the bottle of ibuprofen he's after. But, wonder of wonders, when he does fish it out from under the dresser and start to dig through the pockets, it doesn't seem too have been ransacked by any broke, wasted college students, and both the wallet and the coveted little bottle are safely tucked inside.
"I love you," Oikawa says earnestly as Kuroo returns to the bedside, setting the bottle on the nightstand and tossing the purse onto the pillow beside him.
"Be thankful nothing's stolen," Kuroo shrugs, stretching his arms over his head and turning to leave the room, "I'll get you some water to take that with."
"I love you, Tetsu-chan!" Oikawa repeats, insistently, but Kuroo's already on his way out, shaking his head to himself.
He doesn't even want to know what state of disarray the rest of the apartment is in - he hasn't dared to set foot any further than the bedroom since he woke up today - so he just keeps his eyes down as he makes his way to the kitchen, stepping over...patches of...he doesn't want to know… And just as he's clearing all the half-empty bottles of everything from grape juice to vodka from the counter, just as he's about to get down a glass from the cabinet overhead, he hears the apartment door clack and creak open.
Unacceptable. And of course the door hasn't been fucking locked.
Immediately, he storms over, a bottle of who-knows clenched in his hand and the exhausted, study-fucked, hungover wrath of God on his side, ready to wreck some shit.
"Hey dickweed, the party's ov-"
He stops, and the intruder stops. They both stop.
"Oh, uh…" Bokuto says, still hanging onto the doorknob as he rubs one foot against the back of his ankle, grinning nervously, "Kuroo...I uh...heh...I th-thought you went to the library on Tuesdays?"
Kuroo tries answer him. Tries to say 'it's Wednesday,' or 'Oikawa's sick,' or 'what are you doing here?' but he can't get a single sound to leave his mouth.
He glances at the mystery bottle in his hand and considers chugging all of it. He considers shutting the door in Bokuto's face.
"Listen, I'm just...gonna go…" Bokuto clears his throat and shifts his hand on the doorknob, "...Sorry."
"Wait," Kuroo gets out at last, and even to his own ears it sounds strained. Bokuto waits. Kuroo pinches the bridge of his nose, lets out a long sigh, and tries again, "Why don't you come in?"
.
.
Bokuto is just following orders. He's been telling himself that for half an hour, since Akaashi commanded him to get out of the house, in that tone that broaches no argument, and he finally decided to stop scratching angry little superheroes into the tabletop and obey him. He didn't bother with his hair, or his teeth, or wriggling into a binder before he left, because he had thought he would only be dealing with Oikawa and figured he was probably in no state to judge.
Then he opened the door and instantly regretted all of his life choices.
When Kuroo appears in the entryway it's all he can do not to turn and run for it, just like that. He doesn't think he's ever run from anything in his life, but there's a first time for everything, and the look Kuroo's wearing as he stalks over, in flannel pants with half a bottle of something in his grip, could probably strip the paint off the door Bokuto's propping open, more like a shield than a support at this point.
He's just following orders, he tells himself as he steps through the doorway; careful, like there might be a pitfall wherever he puts a foot down. To be fair, the apartment looks like a bomb hit it, smells strongly of alcohol and faintly of vomit, and Kuroo still looks awfully murderous for someone who just invited Bokuto to come in.
"I'm already dealing with one helpless, hungover drama queen here," Kuroo's saying, as he kicks a cluster of red Solo cups aside on the way to the kitchen, "Why not make it two and call it a night?"
"You don't have t -" Bokuto tries, but Kuroo's already talking over him.
"If you're here that probably means Akaashi's out, right? Did you eat anything?"
Bokuto nods once he knows he's looking, but otherwise keeps his gaze averted and his arms crossed as Kuroo reaches up into the cabinet overhead.
"Good, that's one less person I have to feed," he sounds brisk, businesslike, and Bokuto settles with the fact that he's really only here because Kuroo thinks he can't or won't take care of himself on his own. Which...alright, he was considering just letting himself starve out of laziness earlier today, before Akaashi came along. He still feels like he should be offended by Kuroo's lack of faith, though.
Kuroo is filling a glass of water from the tap, and he keeps shooting glances over his shoulder; not searching, not anticipating, just checking as if to make sure Bokuto's still there. And yeah, he's being quiet...he's not usually this quiet, this might be the quietest Kuroo's ever seen him be...but he just can't think of a single thing to say. There's not really tension, between them, there's just more space than there should be, and it's weird, and Bokuto doesn't want to break whatever allowance Kuroo's decided to make for him, but at the same time, he doesn't really want to be here. Not like this. It's like...nothing's changed, but everything has changed, and it's not painful, not right now. It's just awkward.
"Do you...want something to drink?" Kuroo asks after a long, cumbersome moment, turning to face him.
Bokuto looks over the insane assortment of bottles clumped together at the end of the counter, and huffs out a sort-of laugh, "Nah, I'm okay."
He sees Kuroo follow his gaze, and then some of the strain disappears as he cracks a tiny, amused smile, "I meant like, water…?"
It's not a peace offering, because they're not fighting. The fight is already done. It's not an apology, at least not one Bokuto will accept, and he doesn't think Kuroo means for it to be. There's no resolution, because technically speaking there's no conflict, but Bokuto can still feel himself relaxing. He thinks Kuroo's smile has kind of always had that effect on him.
"I'm okay," he says again, and he is.
TBC