READY TO MAKE HISTORY, AGAIN?
Bokuto was crying. He had been crying for over an hour and the worst part was that he didn't even know why. He was completely overwhelmed. Every emotion he had was being felt at its full and terrible force. His crying was a sad and broken sound and the entire apartment heard it. They had the decency to leave him alone.
Bokuto didn't even know why he was upset. He had gotten an extension on his project from last week, received a 68, and his professor left it at that.
He should be fine. He wasn't.
Bokuto was trying to piece himself back together, but it was taking too long.
Despite appearances Bokuto was a relatively patient person. He accepted things took time, after all, he did not get good at volleyball overnight. But he was so fucking sick and tired of waiting. He'd been waiting his entire life; waiting for something to just click and for him to finally be okay.
He was scared that he would be like this forever. Always unable, always inferior.
He had a terrible vision of himself ten years in the future: clasping his head between his hands, crying, alone, afraid, and angry.
He cried harder. Bokuto was terrified of being broken forever.
Snap out of it, he told himself. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, stifled a scream, and stood up to finish getting ready for school.
Bokuto couldn't stand the worried, sympathetic looks he got from Kuroo and Daishou. He poured himself a cup of coffee in a to-go cup and left, slamming the door behind him. He felt the tears streaming down his face before he processed them. He was angry at himself.
He always was.
Bokuto sighed, wiped his eyes, and went quietly to school.
The fact that he'd gotten extensions for the majority of his homework and had yet to even start on it didn't help his mental status. He was exhausted. He'd stayed up every night for the past three days, staring at his blank worksheets and flashing cursors. He was always tired during volleyball the next day, but the physical exercise brought him at least some relief from the stress.
All the stress was starting to get to him. He had a constant headache that buzzed every time he tried to study. He was getting about 20 minutes of sleep each night, old anxious habits that died in junior high resurfaced. Worst of all he could feel himself isolating.
Bokuto spent the majority of the time in his room trying (and failing) to complete his homework. Everyone was concerned and he hated them for it. He wanted to be left alone. Every conversation he had was half hearted and lacked its normal energy.
Bokuto had lost the joy that lived inside him.
And it ached. It felt like someone had taken a knife and carved away a vital piece of him. Like they had cut away something as necessary as breathing. He felt a physical pain weighing on his soul. He missed something he didn't even know was there before.
Bokuto didn't feel whole. He felt like a lie; a pseudo human being. He wasn't used to feeling like this, and he hated the feeling.
Why stay alive if you're gonna be like this the rest of your godforsaken life? he wondered to himself. Why stay alive if you were just a fake? A destroyed version of your original self? What was the point in being if you couldn't be happy?
Bokuto realized he hadn't been paying attention to anything that was going on in class. He forced himself to pay attention but was quickly distracted by his thoughts once again.
Volleyball practice ended and Bokuto felt marginally better. That was quickly over when he remembered the shit load of homework which had to be completed in two days. He tried to think about something else, which didn't relieve the stress but at least he didn't have to think about it.
Unfortunately he ended up thinking about Akaashi.
Bokuto hadn't spoken to Akaashi since that night, which had been over a week ago. He missed him. He wanted to be back in high school again. School was hard, but he missed being surrounded by friends, he missed feeling useful on the volleyball team. He had been exceptional in high school, but on a renowned college team, he was just average.
Most of all he missed Akaashi.
He missed talking and laughing with him; missed the effortless conversation they made.
Bokuto missed the feeling he had around Akaashi.
Everything had changed dramatically and suddenly after high school. Everyone went their separate ways. They had futures to look forward to and dreams to achieve. Everyone left.
Bokuto should have moved on too. So why couldn't he? He was stuck stubbornly in the past, clinging to the fleeting feeling of happiness. Everyone had left and got on with their lives. Even Akaashi.
Bokuto had the horrible thought that he'd peaked in high school. That he'd never be better than who he was then. That ten years down the road he would still be reliving his glory days of being the high school volleyball team ace.
The thought made his hands shake. He was scared of the future and sick of the present. All he wanted to do was go back.
When Bokuto got home it was a shitshow.
Kuroo and Daishou were in the kitchen, arguing about something stupid once again. They seemed rather passionately involved in whatever they were bantering about, though when Bokuto walked in, they stopped dead, their faces filled with concern.
And it fucking pissed Bokuto off.
He didn't want their sympathy, he didn't need it. He wanted everything to feel as normal as possible, and the passive expressions they put on whenever he walked in the room weren't helping.
He was about to say something, but he made the mistake of clenching his fist. It still hurt from punching the wall and must've shown because Kuroo said, "Hey, you need to bandage your hand."
Bokuto's response was an immediate and unwavering, "No." He walked out of the entryway and towards the hallway, Kuroo following behind him.
"Oi. You really should." Kuroo said, voice a bit forceful. "It could get worse if it's not taken care of." He tried to reason with Bokuto, but Bokuto was facing the other way, stopped in the middle of the hall and temper slowly boiling. Kuroo suppressed a sigh. "Here, let me get my first aid–"
"I'm fine!" Bokuto yelled, his shoulders tense. "I don't want to bandage it."
Kuroo looked confused and opened his mouth to respond but Bokuto cut him off, "If my hand is bandaged then they won't let me play volleyball," he said.
"You'll still be able to train and stuff, you just won't be able to play and it will only be for a little bit," Kuroo said. "I know how it feels, Bokuto, but if you don't let it heal properly it'll get worse and you won't be able to play for even longer and it'll suck ass."
Bokuto practically had steam coming from his ears at this point. He struggled to contain himself as he spun around and addressed Kuroo. "Listen, volleyball is the only thing that's making me happy right now, the only thing that's bringing me any shred of joy. I'm not fucking bandaging it," he was growing restless. He'd been still for too long. He didn't want to be here, didn't want to be around them, didn't want to be talking.
"You really should–" Daishou started from the hall entrance.
"I said I'm not fucking bandaging it, okay?!" Bokuto wailed. Daishou flinched. Almost instantaneously Kuroo and Daishou's infuriating sympathy increased so dramatically Bokuto could feel it suffocating him.
"Fuck off," he seethed before storming off to his room and slamming the door behind him.
Bokuto slid down his door onto the floor and started crying. He did not cry quietly. He did not do anything quietly. He hated that about himself, he hated that he was loud and obnoxious, that he could not manage his emotions neatly and easily. He could not pack them away and crush them. His emotions demanded to be heard.
"Fuck, fuck," he whispered to himself, "FUCK," he yelled, banging the back of his head against the door.
He started sobbing, clutching his head in his hands. He felt overwhelming fear and anger. He was shaking and crying and he wanted to scream. His desperate attempts to calm himself did nothing. He had no coherent thoughts it was all one big unending torrent of panic and frustration that he couldn't make out. His thoughts were buzzing so loud he could feel them vibrating in his ears. He held his head in his shaking hands, unable to do anything else but sit on the floor and cry.
He was terrified of the future. What if he failed a class and couldn't play volleyball, what if Akaashi never spoke to him again, what if he had to live with his parents. What ifs were running through his head and they were all worst case scenario.
What if I'm like this forever? was repeating on a loop throughout his mind.
Bokuto was terrified of being broken forever. Terrified of being unhappy for the rest of his life.
Bokuto was angry at himself for being so broken, for not being able to pull himself together. He was angry and afraid.
And lonely. God he was lonely. He was living in an apartment with his best friend and yet he'd never felt more alone. Maybe it was the fact that Kuroo and Daishou were preoccupied with each other and whatever past they shared, or that recently they'd been looking at him with that expression you usually reserve for those sick dog commercials. Or the fact that everyone treated him like he was still nine years old and didn't know any better. Or the fact that the only person who didn't wouldn't even talk to him anymore.
He and Akaashi had been talking less and less ever since he graduated. Now they weren't talking at all.
Bokuto took a deep breath, wiped his eyes and dialed a number he knew by heart.
"Bokuto?" an exhausted voice sounded through Bokuto's tinny speaker.
"Akaashi?" Bokuto replied, voice rather even for someone who'd just been sobbing.
"I just woke up," Akaashi replied. It was 6:00 PM.
"Akaashi, I'm really–" Bokuto's voice cracked as he audibly began to cry again.
"I – I'm sorry, but I'm really not in the mood," Akaashi said. Despite the hesitance before his reply, his words were said with unwelcoming force and an edge of aggravation.
Bokuto took a shaky breath in, at a loss for words. "W-What?"
"That means don't call me," Akaashi said, weariness taking over. His five word sentence started harsh but ended quieter, as if a pain completely foreign to Bokuto was hiding behind them.
"I-I-I'm sorry, Akaa–" Bokuto stuttered, but the line beeped before he could finish his sentence. The last remaining breath Bokuto had shakily left his lungs. He sat there, frozen with the phone up to his ear in utter shock. Slowly, slowly his hand moved away from his head.
Bokuto felt a scream building in his throat. Emotions overrode his senses, his rationality, his entire being.
Bokuto couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, all he could do was feel.
His brain was screaming, but all he could do was sit on the floor and sob.
He slumped forwards against the floor and banged his fist on the floor so hard he shook the room.
Bokuto felt like he was made of electricity: jittery and unstable. It crackled through his bones and muscles, making him twitch and sob. He felt like he was about to explode into tiny, sputtering pieces of lightning.
Pain raged inside him, it howled and it ached and demanded to be wrought upon the world.
Bokuto was about to tear his room apart when his door opened abruptly.
"Bokuto," he heard Kuroo's voice but didn't turn to face him.
"Leave me the fuck alone," Bokuto said, voice shaking.
"No."
Bokuto stood up, turned around and glared, "Leave me alone," he repeated, and this time his voice was scarily even.
"Bokuto," Kuroo continued on undeterred. "What's wrong?" he asked simply, yet Bokuto felt the weight of those words.
"Too much for you to help with." Bokuto replied.
"Can I come in?" Kuroo asked. Bokuto just exhaled sharply through his nose in a way that meant whatever, I don't fucking care at this point. Kuroo took this as a yes (or maybe he didn't and just ignored him) and sat down on the edge of Bokuto's bed. "There's no use being stubborn, Bokuto. Tell me what's bothering you. I want to help."
You don't fucking care. You will never understand. You can't help me. I can't be helped, Bokuto's head screamed in response. Instead, he thought over Kuroo's words, then took a deep breath and let himself be helped.
"I can't focus. I can't do my fucking work. I can't do anything. I used to be amazing at volleyball, now I'm just average and shit at everything else. I don't want to be average at the only thing I'm good at and like," he paused. Kuroo opened his mouth to speak but Bokuto cut him off, "I feel so different than everyone. I feel like I'm a gag, the punchline to a joke. Like people don't see that I have problems too, and if they do they don't care. And..." Bokuto trailed off. He looked over to the phone he'd practically thrown across the room and felt the weight in his chest grow heavier.
"You miss him," Kuroo said for him.
"Yeah," Bokuto replied and felt the tension go out of his body. It was something that, for whatever reason, his mind didn't want to admit. He missed Fukurodani, he missed being the ace, he missed the attention, he missed his teammates, and he especially missed the person who changed his entire life – but the fact that things were changing again and they weren't talking made Bokuto want to push the thought into the very back of his mind where he wouldn't have to think or worry about it, so he could just move on and be a functioning adult. Honestly, thinking about Akaashi hurt.
"It'll work out," Kuroo said simply, interrupting Bokuto's thoughts before they could spiral out of control again. "I think it's just been a rough few weeks for the both of you, but that doesn't mean it'll last forever. It might take time, but maybe time is what it needs."
"I'm tired of waiting," Bokuto said.
"I know," Kuroo said, "But it's best to work yourself out before you try to put together a puzzle with broken pieces. Give him some time to figure himself out, and in the meantime I'll help you get better too, okay?"
Bokuto thought over this advice, then nodded. "Okay. I'll try."
"Why don't you come out here and we'll help you with your homework?" Kuroo offered.
Bokuto let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds okay."
Kuroo grinned and stood up. He held out his hands for Bokuto, who still sat on the floor. "Alright, now, get up, you pesky owl," he said, hoping his teasing tone would lighten things up. Bokuto grabbed his hands and Kuroo pulled him to his feet.
"What do you have to work on?" Kuroo asked.
Bokuto grabbed his bag and slung it over his front to pull out his work. "I've got some math stuff and a shittyass test coming up in science, plus a bunch of work I'm behind on." Bokuto handed Kuroo a folder and his laptop.
"Alright. How about you go to the bathroom to freshen up, then grab a snack and some water and meet us in the living room. Sound good?" Kuroo said. Bokuto agreed, and Kuroo smiled and slapped Bokuto on the back before heading out of his room.
Bokuto rinsed off his face, fixed his hair, and looked in the mirror. He wasn't sure who exactly it was staring back at him, but it must've been himself. He took a slow, deep breath and savored the feeling it gave him. His chest still felt heavy, but this was the start of expelling the feelings that weighed him down and replacing it with light, fresh air that his lungs seemed to lack these days. Yeah, Kuroo was right. Things could get better. At least he hoped so.
When Bokuto entered the living room with a bottle of water and an apple, Kuroo and Daishou had already taken Bokuto's work and split it up into smaller, less overwhelming chunks.
"You ready?" Kuroo asked. Bokuto nodded and sat down at the coffee table with them. "Alright, so we made a list of the things you have to do, sorted by priority. Checking things off will make you feel more productive," Kuroo said. He showed Bokuto the list he'd written down in Bokuto's notebook. "So… looks like you've got missing work for history, math, and reading. Then some more work for math and reading due soon…" Kuroo pointed at the assignments on the notebook with his pen as Daishou and Bokuto watched over his shoulders. "And finally, that science test coming up on Tuesday." At the bottom of the list, Kuroo wrote down "SCIENCE TEST" and underlined it. Twice.
"Way to make it look intimidating," Daishou said. Kuroo waved him off and began pulling stuff out of Bokuto's folder.
"Let's get the missing work done first, yeah? It'll be a good start on catching up and pulling your grade up." Kuroo shuffled through the homework and pulled out the assignments for history. Kuroo took one look at the paper and suddenly understood why Bokuto felt so overwhelmed – blocks of instruction covered at least half the front page, with no break in between steps or anything. It was way too many words to be trying to look at at once.
The first history assignment was some shitty guided reading thing for the textbook. According to Bokuto, this was the professor's way of making sure his students did their reading, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.
They began reading through the chapter, and Bokuto, who couldn't give less of a shit about history, had trouble collecting the information he read. When it became clear that he wasn't getting very much out of this, Daishou had an idea.
"Hey, Bokuto, toss me that volleyball," he said.
Bokuto reached over and grabbed one of the volleyballs he kept in the living room and tossed it to Daishou.
"Okay, let's do this: how about whoever has the ball has to read a sentence or two from the book out loud, then we toss it to another person, who has to read the next part. Then, at the end of each page we'll summarize the information and answer any questions from the guided reading. Sound good?"
Bokuto's face lit up, "Yeah, let's do it!"
Daishou started off by reading the first two sentences, then tossing the ball to Kuroo. Kuroo then read the next sentence, then passed it to Bokuto. As they went on, their pattern shifted to tossing to Bokuto every other sentence. Though he struggled at first, Bokuto became more fluent at summarizing the page's information. For the first guided question, Kuroo asked Bokuto aloud and Bokuto gave his response verbally, while Kuroo typed it up on the laptop. Kuroo showed him the response he wrote and told him to follow it as a guideline. For the rest of the questions, Kuroo would continue to ask the question out loud, but then instructed Bokuto to type up the response he gave him onto the computer. Before he knew it, Bokuto completed the entire assignment.
"Hell yeah!" He yelled, "What's next? I'll beat the shit out of it!" Bokuto jumped to his feet and screamed like he was King Kong.
Daishou and Kuroo looked at each other and laughed.
"Next is a twenty-five question practice quiz for the chapter," Daishou said, "and since you decimated that guided reading, this'll probably be easy as shit."
"Hell yeah! Gimme that quiz!" Bokuto commanded. Daishou held out the paper, and Bokuto snatched it from his hand, dropped back down to the floor, and completed it in fifteen minutes. When he was done he slammed his pen onto the table and promptly screeched, "Fuck school! What's next on the list?!"
Kuroo and Daishou laughed again. The amount of raw confidence radiating off of Bokuto was enough to create a new energy source.
"We can either start on math or reading," Kuroo said.
Bokuto's face immediately dropped. "Ew. Neither."
"Which do you hate more?" Daishou asked. Bokuto grumbled his response of reading, and Daishou said, "Okay, so let's start on that."
"Ughh! Why would you make me do that first?"
"To get it out of the way. If you do the stuff you don't like first, you might end up being more productive," Daishou replied. He pulled out the reading assignments, which there were three of. Thankfully they were shorter than the history work, so he concluded that it shouldn't take long to do. The first one was analyzing pieces of literature, the second one was on Romeo and Juliet (since apparently it was always going to be a first year assignment for the rest of eternity, no matter if you were a first year in college, high, or junior high. Screw you, Shakespeare). Finally, the third assignment was just a fill-in-the-blank style vocab worksheet. Pretty simple.
Though Bokuto wasn't a fan of the subject, they got through the work with relative ease. They used the same volleyball technique for the first assignment, and though Bokuto wasn't really good at analyzing stuff, he managed to get something down for every question.
The Romeo and Juliet assignment was by far the most entertaining – the job was to "translate" the dialogue from a scene the play into more modern language. Bokuto chose the scene before the balcony scene, where Mercutio and Benvolio were talking after Romeo hopped the wall. Kuroo and Daishou helped define words and get the general meaning of the dialogue, then Bokuto created humorous new lines. Once he was done, they decided to act it out.
"Okay, I'll read Romeo's lines," Bokuto said, "Kuroo will be Benvolio, and Daishou, you'll be Mercutio."
Kuroo and Daishou argued about their roles for a couple of minutes before Bokuto, "being the director, writer, and producer," told them to shut up.
"Romeo, you bastard!" Kuroo yelled, reading from the script, "Of course he jumped over the goddamn wall. Mercutio, call him."
"Well since you're already yelling for him, I guess I will too," Daishou shrugged, then leapt to the window, yanked it open, and started yelling out the fire escape. "Hey, asshat! Romeo! Show yourself, you coward! Are you dead? What about your ex, Rosaline? She was so hot, wasn't she, Romeo? She–"
Kuroo pulled Daishou away from the window, "Okay, okay, that's enough yelling," Kuroo laughed.
"Get back on script!" Bokuto demanded.
When the two finally recovered, Kuroo cleared his throat and looked back at the script. "Dude, shut up, you're gonna make him angry."
"I'm not gonna make him mad. I'd make him mad if I summoned some ghost for him to have sex with, yeah, but I'm being honest. I'm just trying to lure him back out."
"Whatever, come on, let's just go, Mercutio. The dumbass isn't gonna come out, he's just blindly looking for love."
"It's not gonna work out, dude!" Daishou fake-called out the window again. He turned to Kuroo. "He'll just sit under those trees with the fruits that look like vaginas all night. I bet he wants the fuck the vagina fruit. Whatever, Romeo! It's too cold to sleep out here, so I'm out. Come on, Benvolio."
"And scene!" Bokuto yelled. The three collapsed laughing.
"I see you've still got that ugly-ass hyena laugh," Daishou said, glancing over at Kuroo, who was doubled over.
"Shut up." He wheezed.
This just made them all laugh more. When they finally recovered, Kuroo suggested they order something for a late dinner and finish up the last reading worksheet. Kuroo called up a restaurant for delivery while Daishou started helping Bokuto with the work. By the time they finished the vocabulary, Kuroo got a call that the food arrived.
"I'll go down to the lobby to pick it up," Kuroo said, "You guys go ahead and start on the algebra."
"'Kay," Daishou said. Bokuto chilled as Daishou went through all their papers and found the math work; just one assignment, thankfully.
Bokuto, in the short break he had as he waited, found his mind on Akaashi again. In the few hours they'd been working, his mind completely drifted from his troubles, but seemed to try to overtake his mind every time he wasn't occupied with something. He still felt bad about earlier. Even if things got better, he'd feel bad for all of eternity. For a hot second he feared things would never get better – that Akaashi would just never talk to him ever again. As the bad thoughts came spiraling back in, Daishou must've noticed the change in his demeanor.
"You okay?" He asked.
Bokuto pulled himself out of his thoughts. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"You know," Daishou said, putting his hand to his chin in thought, "when you're starting to have a bad day, you should try and smile more." Bokuto looked at him like he had turned into an awful and cliche neurotypical therapist, so Daishou said, "I know it sounds dumb, but it actually works. There's this thing called the Facial Feedback Theory in psychology that basically says that your facial movement can influence your mood."
"Is that why you're making that dumb face with the tongue all the time?" Kuroo's voice rang through the living room. They turned around and found him standing in the open doorway with a takeout bag in his hand. He kicked the door shut with his foot behind him and brought the food to the coffee table.
"Ooh, food! I'm starving!" Bokuto said. He dug through the bag contents until he found his meal and began eating right away.
Kuroo glanced at the clock and sighed. At least it's the weekend, he thought to himself. "Okay, we still have a lot to go through. Let's get back to work."
Two hours later, Bokuto finished all of his work. The only thing left was to study for Monday's science test.
"Hhhhhh… can we do this tomorrow? I'm tired as shit," Daishou said.
"No way, I'm on a roll!" Bokuto bellowed.
"But it's almost midnight," he complained.
"As long as you can stay awake to pay attention to the material, I think it'd be a good idea to get it over with now," Kuroo said. "Going to sleep after studying will help you remember it better, and you should have a relaxed day tomorrow before the test and not cram."
Daishou sighed and stood up. "I'm getting a soda," he said, heading towards the kitchen.
Bokuto watched as Kuroo got prepared to help study. "Ugh, I'm the worst at this subject."
Kuroo turned to Bokuto and grinned. "Don't worry bud, science is my shit. I got you."
"Uggghhhhhh…" Bokuto groaned. "I don't wanna studyyyy…"
"Bokuto, listen. I helped Kenma study before like every test, and he passed every single one. I'm gonna help you too, and you're gonna pass this test, alright?"
Daishou returned from the kitchen with a can of soda in his hand. "It's like volleyball – you need to practice to win a game, right?"
Bokuto slowly nodded. "Yeah… yeah, you're right! I got this!"
"Okay, Bokuto," Kuroo started, "let's work on vocabulary first…"
They finally finished around 2:30 in the morning.
Kuroo was right: making lists really do make you feel more productive. Bokuto looked down on the list proudly, every line crossed through. All his completed work sat in a stack next to his laptop, which he plugged in for the night to charge. A weight (probably the stacks of previously uncompleted work) was lifted from his shoulders. He was exhausted, but not in the way he'd been the past few weeks – it was the type of exhaustion that, well, you only experienced after doing homework for eight hours straight. A type of exhaustion that helped you fall asleep in peace.
"Guys, thank you so much for going through the trouble to help me," Bokuto said. "It really, really helped. I feel a lot better now."
Both Kuroo and Daishou grinned. They looked strikingly similar like that.
"Of course," Daishou replied.
"No problem, Bokuto. Glad to help," said Kuroo, "Let us know if you ever want to work together again."
"Yeah!" Bokuto yelled. "I'm gonna ace this quiz, don't worry!"
Bokuto felt really, really good. This was the first time that he'd ever felt confident and pumped for a test. Bokuto was never good at school, volleyball being the only thing he was successful at – and even that wasn't the smoothest road. His parents wanted a smart kid who could go into medicine or law like they did, but all they got was a dumb, hyperactive kid who couldn't focus for shit. They didn't believe Bokuto could be successful with volleyball and urged him to pursue his academics as college approached, but Bokuto was going to use every ounce of his being to prove them wrong. He was going to become a famous professional volleyball player to represent Japan; he'd be successful and talented and no longer be forced to live off his parents' wealth. However, after the help he received from his friends, Bokuto could now prove that he was smart, too. He could learn, he could work, he could do well in school – it just took eighteen years to find methods that actually worked.
"Alright, well, I'm going to go to bed," Daishou said through a yawn. "Goodnight guys."
"Night," Kuroo and Bokuto replied simultaneously.
Kuroo looked back down at Bokuto's bruised knuckles. He remembered his outburst from earlier that day; Bokuto was being loud and aggressive, but Kuroo could see in his eyes that he was begging for him not to. Begging for him not to take away the only thing that made him happy, despite his injuries. Kuroo faced a dilemma: does he ignore Bokuto for the sake of his physical health, or listen to him for the sake of his mental health?
"Hey, Bokuto," Kuroo asked, "is it okay if I bandage your hand now?"
Bokuto brought his hand up to look at it. It was bruised, and his knuckles were scraped and beginning to scab. It still hurt a little. Bokuto took a deep breath, and told himself it was okay.
"Yeah, sure."
As Kuroo bandaged his hand, Bokuto's mind wandered again. He was thinking about Akaashi again. He couldn't figure out if it was his own fault, or if Kuroo was right and Akaashi had his own things to deal with. He couldn't help but think it was the former. Akaashi probably figured out that Bokuto had some sort of attachment to him and distanced himself because of it. He probably realized that Bokuto was too much to handle and left him like everyone else did. He probably got tired of Bokuto's clingy and impulsive behavior and separated himself. He probably figured out Bokuto was broken and always would be, that he was a book with pages missing, incomplete and worthless. The only reason Akaashi hung around him in the first place was probably because he pitied him. Bokuto was an obligation, and people got tired of obligations.
"Hey," Kuroo said, interrupting his thoughts like he could read Bokuto's mind. "You and Akaashi will be okay."
Kuroo finished up wrapping Bokuto's hand and put away his bandages.
"You think so?"
"Of course," Kuroo smirked, looking a bit pained, "even if you try, you can't avoid someone forever."