4 Chapter 4: The Day After

I looked over at Akaashi, still sensing the press of his lips against mine. Before these past few days i had never thought of him like this, yet, what we had just done had felt right. Nothing I had ever done before even began to compare to this. Still breathless, I reached out and took his hand, feeling how soft his hands were despite being our setter. Pulling him closer once again I brought him onto my lap, this time more gentle. I felt the curve of his thighs on my legs and wrapped my arms around his waist. We were about level with each other now, just staring into each other's eyes, taking in the moment. I felt a small buzzing coming from inside one of Bokuto's pockets, but he didn't seem to notice it.

"Akaashi, um, are you going to answer that?"

Taking out his phone he groaned and said "Ugh, it's my mom." Immediately wishing I hadn't said anything I watched as he talked to his mom for a second, finally putting it back into his pocket.

"She says I have to come home now" his voice trailed off, disappointment evident.

"Oh... well, I'll help you get packed up"

"Are we ever going to have some uninterrupted time together?" Akaashi said, chuckling.

"Probably not" I replied playfully. I helped him put the last of his stuff in his backpack, helping him up the stairs. We walked put to the front porch, and I quickly looked left and right checking to see if anyone was out there. Seeing no one, I bent down and planted a quick kiss on Akaashi's lips. Feeling my face burn I leaned back up and saw that Akaashi was as red as i felt.

"Was… was that ok Akaashi?"

In response, he too glanced in both directions, then reached up on his tiptoes and kissed me, this time longer and harder than what I had done. He broke apart, teasing me, then headed back towards his house, shooting me one last look before he left. I couldn't help but smile yet again as I watched his head bob as he walked home like he was listening to music in his head.

I headed back into my house and up the stairs to my bedroom, plopping down on my head and going over today in my head. I kept replaying the events in my head, slowly falling into sleep even though it was quite early still.

I woke up the next morning with a sense of eagerness that only built up throughout the morning. This time, determined to show up at Akaashi's house as early as possible to surprise him, I rushed through breakfast and threw on whatever clothes I had. Today was going to be our first actual day of practice and I couldn't not look forward to it.

I took a step out the door and was immediately shocked by the sight of akaashi once again waiting for me outside my house.

"Um… hi?" I said.

"Hey," he said shyly, blushing and looking down at the ground. "I- uh... I wondered if you wanted to walk to school together again?"

I looked at him, smiling, and noticed that his black eye was already looking better than it did the night before. Not wanting to comment on it and accidentally offend Bokuto, I just said "yeah definitely" and we headed on our way.

"Y'know, I was planning on walking to YOUR house this morning."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible" Akaashi chuckled, but I knew that he probably didn't find what he said very amusing. Akaashi's parents weren't mean or abusive or anything, but they did expect a lot of him. Akaashi would never admit it to anyone, let alone himself, but I knew that their expectations took a toll on him mentally. He tried to do what he could to stay out so he didn't have to hear their constant nagging about his grades, despite the fact that they were perfect, or any other aspect of his life that they didn't approve of.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I felt a small hand wrapping around mine, and upon looking down I discovered Akaashi's fingers intertwined in mine. His hands were small, unusual for a setter but he did an excellent job nonetheless. I looked up at him and looked into his eyes which seemed small and innocent.

"Is… is this okay Bokuto."

I looked down again, looking at our hands. His hands were small, but not too small that they were hard to hold. In fact, they were kind of perfect, fitting in my hand so that my fingers wrapped around his without reaching back to my palm.

"Yeah… yeah, it's ok Akaashi." Akaashi, who had been my best friend for more years than I could remember. Akaashi, who was the highlight of my day every single day ever since I met him. Akaashi, who helped me with all my homework and was probably the only reason I was passing. Akaashi, whose hand I was now holding and had kissed last night on the couch in my basement.

We continued like this in peaceful silence, enjoying the smell of the spring morning and the birds chirping. Everything about right now seemed perfect. But as we drew closer to Fukurodani I started to hear voices in front of us belonging to our schoolmates. I dropped Akaashi's hand without even thinking about it and put it back in my pocket. I looked over and saw Akaashi looking at me, hurt evident in his eyes.

"I-I'm sorry Akaashi, I just don't know what's happening to me. I mean, I know I like you but I don't know if I'm gay or something completely else. Whatever I am, I don't think I'm ready for other people to know… I'm sorry."

"It's… It's ok, honestly, I don't think I'm ready either. Besides, as soon as people knew about this the volleyball team would be completely transformed."

I thought about what he had said. Would the volleyball team really be different? It was possible but I had never heard anyone else on the team be openly homophobic.

Because we had gotten to school so early we had a lot of time before our first classes. We headed around the back of Fukurodani to the gyms. Upon finding that they were unlocked, we headed inside. I grabbed a ball and passed it to Akaashi, who received it perfectly, passing it back to me. We practiced like this for a while, although it seemed like it had only been a few minutes until we were interrupted by the bell telling us to head to our first class.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about what he had said earlier. I mean, what would it be like for us to be completely out to the school? Fukordani wasn't necessarily the most accepting place, and life might be way more difficult than it was now. I mean, I could deal with the bullying, but could Akaashi? I had always taken him under my wing so usually, most bullies stayed clear of him, but I couldn't protect him from this. Life would be living hell for him, and I could only take care of him when I saw him, which was not a lot during the school day. I couldn't do that to him no matter what.

First period begun, and we were broken into lab partners for science. I was partnered with this kid named Eiji, who had always seemed nice but had never been close to my social circle.

"Um… hi" he said, shyly.

"Hey, so I got the instructions from the teacher so should we begin?"

We started to work on our lab, and slowly he became more comfortable around me. As I started to get to know him, I realized he was actually really nice. We kept working on our lab until the bell rang.

"Hey , we should totally hang out whenever" I told him, extending the offer of my friendship.

"Oh, yeah we should."

Giving each other our numbers we parted ways and headed to our next classes.

My next class was English, the single hardest class I was taking all year. My teacher, Ms. Suzuki, was the toughest teacher this school had. She was known to fail students over just a single grammatical error. Feeling dread build in my stomach and pulled my backpack tighter over my chest.

English ws exhausting, we had a pop test despite being less than a week into school to gauge how much we had learned over the summer. It was the most difficult class I had had in as long as I could remember. I only knew a few of the questions, so after turning it in I had a bad feeling in my stomach. Heading towards the cafeteria I could feel the feeling fade ever so slightly as I thought about Akaashi waiting in there for me. I opened the cafeteria door and discovered, to my surprise, AKaashi talking to a boy I didn't recognize. Upon even closer inspection I was shocked to see his hand resting on Akaashi's thigh, in a place too intimate to be an accident.