Chapter Text
Akaashi awoke with a start, the kind strong enough to bang his knees into his desktop and shake his very soul. He fumbled for his glasses and slipped them on, looked left and right.
Not a thing stirred in the pitch-black office. It was evident that every working soul had long vacated the facility.
The editor pushed out a sigh that pressed his lungs flat. Despite the late hour he couldn’t quite muster the will to get up, and it wasn’t like this was the first time he’d woken up alone past midnight at his desk. He could barely grasp onto consciousness itself.
He gave the desk one last shuffle, a poor attempt to organize in consideration of his future self, before dragging himself to his feet. As he was picking up his bag, a faint beeping grabbed his attention. One of his coworkers had left their computer on.
Akaashi walked over and silenced the whirring monitor, hoping everything important on it had been saved. With that, he tried not to focus on the soreness surrounding his spine, and trudged out of the office.
He was too late, and far too long of a walk away from the office to turn back when Akaashi finally realized he’d forgotten his coat.
The rest of his night continued in this matter, long and cold and lonely and sore until the deceivingly vicious cycle repeated, and Akaashi returned to work the next day.
Nothing was out of the ordinary this morning. He forced himself into the shower when he woke up, shivering in the lonely confines of tile walls until he couldn’t take it anymore, then dressed for the day.
He left his apartment jacket-less and cold, uncaring of the damp strands sticking to his neck, picked up his usual breakfast of a large black coffee and a protein bar from the shop under the station.
The protein bar found itself in the trash shortly after, merely tearing the wrapper causing Akaashi’s stomach to lurch.
Akaashi walked quietly into the office, dim eyes skimming over who was here already. After working at the publishing house for almost a year and a half, the pitiful looks thrown over shoulders and computers were just par with the course.
“Good morning.”
Not even settled in his seat yet, Akaashi set his coffee on his desk and turned to greet the shorter man behind him. “Good morning, Tenma-san,” he greeted curtly, turning his back to the artist in favor of his work. He left no room for further conversation.
He wasn’t surprised when he still felt Tenma’s presence behind him several moments after. He had half a mind to nag the artist to just give him the damn manuscript and go , but his witty assertiveness had died along with high-school Akaashi.
“Can I help you, Tenma-san?”
“Did you eat breakfast?”
The prodding already overbearing, Akaashi found Tenma leaning against his desk by his side. In a dull tone, he replied, “I don’t think that pertains to the manuscript I was supposed to have Tuesday.”
The artist cracked a half-smile, “And I don’t that pertains to breakfast.”
“Today is Friday,” Akaashi ignored the statement, watching the other man over his glasses as he produced a small grocery bag from his backpack.
He dropped it in his lap, “Here you are.”
Akaashi eyed the bag, using a single finger to open the plastic up. Inside was a rather unconventional mix of pre-packaged snack foods. “Thank you, but I already ate this morning. You’d be better off taking these back.”
Tenma chewed his bottom lip, but didn’t take the bag back. “Okay, then. Don’t overwork yourself today.”Akaashi figured Tenma had his doubts about him, and saw through his perfectly practiced lord, but to him their relationship was strictly artist and editor.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Akaashi deadpanned as the man walked away.
Editing manga wasn’t the exact career Akaashi had planned to go into. He’d originally aimed for a spot in the literature department; by the time he was fresh out of college, he didn’t have anything left in him to fight whatever forces led him to manga.
He couldn’t say he regretted it, though. The hours were long and deadlines kept him too busy to be left alone to his own thoughts. Akaashi didn’t want the spare time to think. Thinking only brought misery and regret, or at least more than usual.
Which is why his workday today ended with a jolt just like yesterday’s, and almost every other one before that. The office had cleared out in record time as the tired editors dove into their weekend affairs.
Coat again forgotten on his chair, Akaashi hustled out. He may not have had plans, but he still had things to do. The unfinished manuscript in his bag felt heavier than usual.
The ridiculous amounts of people he saw out and about on his way home confused Akaashi almost as much as it annoyed him. He couldn’t wrap his head around why anyone in their right mind would want to explore Tokyo in this cold.
The largest concentration of traffic seemed to be near the Tokyo sports center, which he only caught a glimpse of on his commute. Every other person’s hands seemed to be full of noisemakers and flags. Talking filled the streets, filling the air with energy.
It was then that Akaashi finally remembered what time of year it was.
His heart pounded in his chest, reverberating all the way down to the tips of his fingers. It was as if his body was calling out for something.
White knuckles gripped the straps of his bag as he carried himself a little faster to his apartment.
Akaashi thanked the gods when no one tried to stop him as he came to his door. His heart was racing at this point, and he didn’t think he had the focus for coherent speech.
Akaashi locked the door behind him and didn’t turn the lights on when he entreated the small studio apartment. Setting his bag down, he kicked off his shoes and stripped. His dress pants and shirt joined the week’s previous clothes in the doorway.
Scouring his kitchen for anything to fill his stomach was unsurprisingly fruitless, though Akaashi speculated he wouldn’t have eaten anyway. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d visited a grocery store, and Tenma’s bag of goodies was “accidentally” left at work.
After staring at the single bag of rice he had in his cupboard a little more, Akaashi grabbed the tarp in the corner of the room and laid it out. He placed the small table that held his supplies on top of it, and then the easel, which cradled a fresh canvas.
Being immersed in a workplace full of artists had helped Akaashi uncover a few new skills of his own. He wasn’t anywhere near as good as his superiors, but he didn’t need to be good if he was simply trying to pass time.
Akaashi did turn on the floor lamp next to his desk, not confident enough to work in pure darkness. As his pencil mapped out the bones of his sketch, Akaashi allowed himself to fall into autopilot.
Painting was a simple enough hobby to pick up on the side. The cost of materials didn’t put him off from the activity, considering Akaashi didn’t spend his money on anything else. The sliver of spare time he should’ve been using to cook or clean his cluttered apartment was poured into painting.
Akaashi’s mind remained blank as the final outline was completed. Painting without true focus on what he was creating allowed him to temporarily drift off his own little pool of nothingness. It even helped him feel something for once.
He tapped into a few dollops of paint, mixing and testing a few times before he created the shade he had in mind. The brush colored the image with a mind of its own, and he liked it that way.
After a couple of hours, Akaashi found himself at the tail end of the painting, back aching from slouching toward the canvas for so long.
Akaashi scrunched his brow, humming in discontent as he fumbled through the tubes of paint until he found the right shade.
By the time the brown was mixed to his liking, Akaashi’s lip bore an imprint of his teeth. He swirled in an electric yellow next, followed by some white to brighten it up.
“Perfect.” Akaashi capped the tubes, tapping a clean brush into his creation. It was the exact shade, the exact vibrancy from an unclear memory he couldn’t quite grasp in his aimlessness.
Akaashi approached the canvas again, leaning in close to fill the smallest, most detailed space in the entire painting. He kept his wrist lifted as not to touch the wet paint.
It took him several minutes to get it just right. He yawned, lowering the brush to squint at the circle of gold he’d just painted.
He took a step back to stretch his back, and to finally reveal to himself what he’d painted. His hands typically did all of the processing before his eyes.
The minute his tired gaze fell on the canvas, his mouth went dry. A soft slap filled the air when the paintbrush Akaashi was holding hit the tarp.
Akaashi couldn’t move. He couldn’t bend over to retrieve the brush, couldn’t even tear himself away from the man’s back before him.
A wide moment later, when he finally regained command of his legs, Akaashi took a fumbling step back. A fold in the tarp caught his foot. He fell back hard on his ass, a sharp pain racing up his spine, all the while keeping his eyes on the picture.
The subject of the painting was unaccompanied by a background, made purely of blacks, grays, and whites. His back was turned, broad and strong. The hard lines of his shoulder blades were visible through his damp shirt.
His chin was turned, revealing one of his eyes. His irises held the only color in the painting.
Akaashi stared, horrified, at the man’s face, and felt the indifference he’d so desperately worked to have over these past few years crumble into dust.
The tarp crunched as he walked on his knees toward the easel. Akaashi lifted a trembling hand up to the canvas. Fear and regret rolled over him like tidal waves as he traced up the man’s bicep, his shoulder, his chin.
Saltiness on his tongue woke Akaashi up from his trance. He brought his hand down to his cheek, swiped over the skin. More tears fell when he blinked.
“Why...” Akaashi let out a wry laugh, falling slowly back down to the ground. The disbelief gradually faded, as the reality he’d once escaped regained its iron grip around him. He asked a question to the air. One that he already knew the answer to, but the answer still tormented him.
“Why can’t I just forget you?”
Bokuto did not respond, his form frozen in time by brushstrokes and pencil lines.