I'm so slow that everything I go for has been filled already, but this was a really cool prompt so HAVE ANOTHER ONE.
Word Count: 1779
-
There’s a catch in the contract when they sign for theirs, the sort Akaashi’s used to seeing when he goes bouldering, or gets up for the trampolines. Akaashi peers at the finely-spaced lines thinking of high nets and feet springing higher still, and when he signs he can already feel the press of needle against skin. “Everyone’s doing it,” their agent says, taking back the tablets. “You can’t be competitive without.”
To Akaashi, it seems little more than a gimmick. They run trials at practice the next week, spread their feet across the wider court, and he watches Bokuto’s wings unfurl for the very first time. They’re designed to open at the apex of a jump, an added element of surprise with every spike. Akaashi understands it would be irrational to refuse the advantage. Even so, he looks at Bokuto wavering in his descent, fingertips grazing the balls as they whip past him as if he’s learning to play all over again, and he wonders if this might be a completely different game altogether.
Bokuto, naturally, adores the challenge. “One more,” he says. His feet have barely touched the ground before he swoops up again, back arching in a way that has to be painful. Akaashi serves, so high the ball would have flown to the rafters if they still existed, and Bokuto leaps up, stretches out. His wings rise, silver and white, so bright they’re almost blinding, and they carry him those last few centimeters as he swings.
This time, he connects.
“I’m gonna smash the ball so hard into the ground it smokes,” Bokuto enthuses. Akaashi thinks about cracks in the earth like volcanic eruptions, walls that spiral up into the open air. About Bokuto in the midst of the chaos, shooting up in pursuit of a floating star.
“That seems excessive.”
Bokuto laughs, spring tests a couple of hops. “Maybe,” he says, and clenches his fists. His wings stir. “But I could, now.”
-
It takes a couple of months for the transition to settle. Publicly, at least; it’s been building for years now, ever since the first set of wings debuted in Akaashi’s final semester of university. Some of the heavier players hold out for a while; strains are relatively common with the limits on maximum wingspan, but Akaashi has his implant removed at least three times over the first year. The newer models are more stable, they say, can boost up to three times instead of just once.
Then Kuroo goes down in the middle of a game, too enamoured with the stylised advertisements to remember common sense, and the media explodes. The association deems it an inevitable risk of the sport, the way concussions have been smothered in football for decades, screaming arms in baseball.
“When we play,” Oikawa Tooru breathes into the microphone, eyes glassed over as he recalls a sight higher than the crowd of journalists pressing him from an answer, “When we play, we fly.”
Akaashi has never much liked him.
In the midst of the controversy, Bokuto inadvertently becomes the association’s poster boy, hey hey hey splayed across Tokyo’s twenty-three wards. They hired a good photographer, Akaashi allows, looking at the threads of light weaving through Bokuto’s wings. Bokuto has the largest wingspan of any active player; he has to watch his teammates when he jumps in spite of the increased court space. He takes to the air like it's natural, now, and his eyes are never so bright as they look coming straight off a high spike, his descents no longer unsure.
So Akaashi says nothing, skirts the issue in post-game interviews. For as long as Kuroo is in hospital, he refuses to unfold his own wings, but he declines to participate in the strikes, and Bokuto takes to the air for them both.
-
Akaashi sees the exact moment Bokuto forgets how to fly. His feint fails earlier than he had anticipated, his earlier spikes blocked too easily, and he twists his shoulders without thinking, wrenches his spine in a desperate attempt to stay aloft. His cry rings out harsher than a crow, and Akaashi thinks, Icarus flew too close to the sun, a white blur hurtling down faster than he can see. He moves on instinct, his own wings falling open as he rushes forward, and it’s not enough still - Bokuto tumbles into him on an angle, reflects back onto the ground. His wings fold under him like paper.
Everyone in the auditorium hears them snap.
-
“Here for Bokuto?”
Kuroo looks good, though anything is better than the damp paleness of his skin as they lifted him onto a stretcher, his feet dragging limply on the ground.
“Yes,” Akaashi says. “You look well.”
“Almost well enough to fly again.” There’s an all-too-familiar light in Kuroo’s eyes. Bokuto has it when he lifts off, finally clears the net. “I’ll get the sequence right next time.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Akaashi says mildly. Bokuto and Kuroo tend to watch the same videos, get hooked on the same moves. Kuroo learns fast, but he’s sloppy, in a sense, always tries to use them before he has them perfected.
“You’ll see.” Kuroo ruffles his hair, asks a touch too casually, “Heard from Bokuto yet?”
Akaashi hasn’t heard anything. He’s watched the replays on news sites, tried to extrapolate the injury to a prognosis. He can’t bring himself to turn the volume up. Bokuto has always been loud, from the squeak of his sneakers trailing the floor to the grunts of exertion when he raises his arm. He’s heard Bokuto howl before - frustration, pain, when they lose a game. Not like that.
Kuroo spreads his arms out, and for a brief moment, Akaashi sees the outline of black synthetics. “I know you’re busy thinking about Bokuto right now, but if you need someone to talk to, I have a lot of free time on my hands right now.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Akaashi replies, “but you should extend the offer to Bokuto-san.”
Kuroo hesitates, long enough for Akaashi to interpret the silence himself. His smile, when he finds it again, is brittle. “We’d be banned from each other’s rooms within the day.”
“True,” Akaashi says, thinking, if Bokuto isn’t in his depressed mode. “If he behaves,” he adds, before he can regret it, “I’ll chaperone.”
“You’re a good kid,” Kuroo says, attempting to ruffle his hair again. Akaashi slaps him.
-
“Bokuto-san?”
The lights are dim when Akaashi enters. Bokuto’s lying in bed, staring out the window like he’d rather be falling from there, but he’s pouting, and ironically, that’s more of a relief than any medical report Akaashi could procure. “I screwed up,” he says. “I had it, and I screwed up.”
Akaashi takes his fist, unclenches it. “We’ve lost before.”
“I can’t fly anymore,” Bokuto whispers, and Akaashi had known, looking at his silent phone. He’s been playing volleyball with Bokuto for over a decade.
“Who told you that?” He keeps his voice neutral.
“I just know.” Bokuto gestures wildly at his general appearance. He has an IV line trailing up from his elbow, a brace around his neck. “I’m done for, Akaashi. We never even made it to the Olympics.” He bites his lip. “Sorry you had to play with such a sucky ace.”
“You can be competitive without flying,” Akaashi says, still clasping Bokuto’s hand. It’s easier than trying to correct him. “You’ve been one of the top five spikers since you were in high school. We believe in you, Bokuto-san.”
Bokuto looks from Akaashi to their joined hands, then back to Akaashi. “Really?”
“Of course,” Akaashi says. Even if it’s true that Bokuto will never fly again - and Akaashi really, really has his doubts about that now that he’s had a good look around Bokuto’s room, where it’s situated on the wards - wings are just an advantage. Akaashi has been playing with Tsukishima Kei for longer than he’d like, has been envious of Kageyama since he first heard the name. For all the open roofs and wide courts, they’re still playing volleyball. Oikawa still overexerts himself, struggles with injury half the season each year. Kuroo still pulls sneak attacks from Youtube, tries to copy every trick artist he comes across. Hinata still jumps higher than anyone ever thinks he can. Bokuto still commands the crowd every time he steps on the court, still races through games on a high. Still gets down after a mistake, evidently. “You’re our ace, Bokuto-san, and we’re one of the best teams in the nation.”
A smile spreads slowly over Bokuto’s face. “Say that again,” he urges, shaking Akaashi’s hand. “Tell me I’m the best.”
“You’re the best, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says tonelessly, but his lips quirk up in answer.
-
The ground is littered with balls their side of the court; Kuroo waves lazily at them from across the net. At some point, Akaashi tells himself, the strategy is going to pay off, and Kuroo will infuriate Bokuto to the point he smashes a ball through the net into his face, if not over.
Bokuto wobbles on his way down. He grabs Akaashi’s arm as his toes touch ground, tilting them both, and Akaashi remembers their first practice again, all unsteady on their feet like newborn lambs. “It’s hard to keep track of you when you come down like that,” he says, thinks at least he’s not falling this time.
You're not afraid? Kuroo had asked him, earlier. It makes less sense because if anyone's afraid, it should be Bokuto, but Kuroo's probably seen the way Akaashi's eyes follow him into the air when he jumps these days, knows he'll concentrate ten times more when Bokuto does.
“You need to fly into his arms,” Kuroo calls now, grinning smugly at them both.
Akaashi ignores him. “Ready?” he asks, and Bokuto grins at him. His face is a little flushed; his eyes spark with a familiar flame. Akaashi’s missed it.
“Once more,” Bokuto pleads, then looks to Kuroo. “Do the thing!” he yells. “You’re not doing the thing!”
Kuroo sighs, holds his arms up into a ring above his head. “You’re going to miss,” he shouts back, and Akaashi serves, high into the air, watching Bokuto fly higher still.
-
"You're not afraid?" Kuroo asks again, nodding towards Bokuto as he springs towards the bench, jacks up to their supporters in the stands.
Akaashi thinks about skies, and falling, and wings that glitter in the sun. About Bokuto's hand on his wrist, warm and reassuring, his landing stable again. "A little," he admits. "But he'll come down eventually."
FILL: Team Tennis no Ouji-sama, G
I'm so slow that everything I go for has been filled already, but this was a really cool prompt so HAVE ANOTHER ONE.
Word Count: 1779
-
There’s a catch in the contract when they sign for theirs, the sort Akaashi’s used to seeing when he goes bouldering, or gets up for the trampolines. Akaashi peers at the finely-spaced lines thinking of high nets and feet springing higher still, and when he signs he can already feel the press of needle against skin. “Everyone’s doing it,” their agent says, taking back the tablets. “You can’t be competitive without.”
To Akaashi, it seems little more than a gimmick. They run trials at practice the next week, spread their feet across the wider court, and he watches Bokuto’s wings unfurl for the very first time. They’re designed to open at the apex of a jump, an added element of surprise with every spike. Akaashi understands it would be irrational to refuse the advantage. Even so, he looks at Bokuto wavering in his descent, fingertips grazing the balls as they whip past him as if he’s learning to play all over again, and he wonders if this might be a completely different game altogether.
Bokuto, naturally, adores the challenge. “One more,” he says. His feet have barely touched the ground before he swoops up again, back arching in a way that has to be painful. Akaashi serves, so high the ball would have flown to the rafters if they still existed, and Bokuto leaps up, stretches out. His wings rise, silver and white, so bright they’re almost blinding, and they carry him those last few centimeters as he swings.
This time, he connects.
“I’m gonna smash the ball so hard into the ground it smokes,” Bokuto enthuses. Akaashi thinks about cracks in the earth like volcanic eruptions, walls that spiral up into the open air. About Bokuto in the midst of the chaos, shooting up in pursuit of a floating star.
“That seems excessive.”
Bokuto laughs, spring tests a couple of hops. “Maybe,” he says, and clenches his fists. His wings stir. “But I could, now.”
-
It takes a couple of months for the transition to settle. Publicly, at least; it’s been building for years now, ever since the first set of wings debuted in Akaashi’s final semester of university. Some of the heavier players hold out for a while; strains are relatively common with the limits on maximum wingspan, but Akaashi has his implant removed at least three times over the first year. The newer models are more stable, they say, can boost up to three times instead of just once.
Then Kuroo goes down in the middle of a game, too enamoured with the stylised advertisements to remember common sense, and the media explodes. The association deems it an inevitable risk of the sport, the way concussions have been smothered in football for decades, screaming arms in baseball.
“When we play,” Oikawa Tooru breathes into the microphone, eyes glassed over as he recalls a sight higher than the crowd of journalists pressing him from an answer, “When we play, we fly.”
Akaashi has never much liked him.
In the midst of the controversy, Bokuto inadvertently becomes the association’s poster boy, hey hey hey splayed across Tokyo’s twenty-three wards. They hired a good photographer, Akaashi allows, looking at the threads of light weaving through Bokuto’s wings. Bokuto has the largest wingspan of any active player; he has to watch his teammates when he jumps in spite of the increased court space. He takes to the air like it's natural, now, and his eyes are never so bright as they look coming straight off a high spike, his descents no longer unsure.
So Akaashi says nothing, skirts the issue in post-game interviews. For as long as Kuroo is in hospital, he refuses to unfold his own wings, but he declines to participate in the strikes, and Bokuto takes to the air for them both.
-
Akaashi sees the exact moment Bokuto forgets how to fly. His feint fails earlier than he had anticipated, his earlier spikes blocked too easily, and he twists his shoulders without thinking, wrenches his spine in a desperate attempt to stay aloft. His cry rings out harsher than a crow, and Akaashi thinks, Icarus flew too close to the sun, a white blur hurtling down faster than he can see. He moves on instinct, his own wings falling open as he rushes forward, and it’s not enough still - Bokuto tumbles into him on an angle, reflects back onto the ground. His wings fold under him like paper.
Everyone in the auditorium hears them snap.
-
“Here for Bokuto?”
Kuroo looks good, though anything is better than the damp paleness of his skin as they lifted him onto a stretcher, his feet dragging limply on the ground.
“Yes,” Akaashi says. “You look well.”
“Almost well enough to fly again.” There’s an all-too-familiar light in Kuroo’s eyes. Bokuto has it when he lifts off, finally clears the net. “I’ll get the sequence right next time.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Akaashi says mildly. Bokuto and Kuroo tend to watch the same videos, get hooked on the same moves. Kuroo learns fast, but he’s sloppy, in a sense, always tries to use them before he has them perfected.
“You’ll see.” Kuroo ruffles his hair, asks a touch too casually, “Heard from Bokuto yet?”
Akaashi hasn’t heard anything. He’s watched the replays on news sites, tried to extrapolate the injury to a prognosis. He can’t bring himself to turn the volume up. Bokuto has always been loud, from the squeak of his sneakers trailing the floor to the grunts of exertion when he raises his arm. He’s heard Bokuto howl before - frustration, pain, when they lose a game. Not like that.
Kuroo spreads his arms out, and for a brief moment, Akaashi sees the outline of black synthetics. “I know you’re busy thinking about Bokuto right now, but if you need someone to talk to, I have a lot of free time on my hands right now.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Akaashi replies, “but you should extend the offer to Bokuto-san.”
Kuroo hesitates, long enough for Akaashi to interpret the silence himself. His smile, when he finds it again, is brittle. “We’d be banned from each other’s rooms within the day.”
“True,” Akaashi says, thinking, if Bokuto isn’t in his depressed mode. “If he behaves,” he adds, before he can regret it, “I’ll chaperone.”
“You’re a good kid,” Kuroo says, attempting to ruffle his hair again. Akaashi slaps him.
-
“Bokuto-san?”
The lights are dim when Akaashi enters. Bokuto’s lying in bed, staring out the window like he’d rather be falling from there, but he’s pouting, and ironically, that’s more of a relief than any medical report Akaashi could procure. “I screwed up,” he says. “I had it, and I screwed up.”
Akaashi takes his fist, unclenches it. “We’ve lost before.”
“I can’t fly anymore,” Bokuto whispers, and Akaashi had known, looking at his silent phone. He’s been playing volleyball with Bokuto for over a decade.
“Who told you that?” He keeps his voice neutral.
“I just know.” Bokuto gestures wildly at his general appearance. He has an IV line trailing up from his elbow, a brace around his neck. “I’m done for, Akaashi. We never even made it to the Olympics.” He bites his lip. “Sorry you had to play with such a sucky ace.”
“You can be competitive without flying,” Akaashi says, still clasping Bokuto’s hand. It’s easier than trying to correct him. “You’ve been one of the top five spikers since you were in high school. We believe in you, Bokuto-san.”
Bokuto looks from Akaashi to their joined hands, then back to Akaashi. “Really?”
“Of course,” Akaashi says. Even if it’s true that Bokuto will never fly again - and Akaashi really, really has his doubts about that now that he’s had a good look around Bokuto’s room, where it’s situated on the wards - wings are just an advantage. Akaashi has been playing with Tsukishima Kei for longer than he’d like, has been envious of Kageyama since he first heard the name. For all the open roofs and wide courts, they’re still playing volleyball. Oikawa still overexerts himself, struggles with injury half the season each year. Kuroo still pulls sneak attacks from Youtube, tries to copy every trick artist he comes across. Hinata still jumps higher than anyone ever thinks he can. Bokuto still commands the crowd every time he steps on the court, still races through games on a high. Still gets down after a mistake, evidently. “You’re our ace, Bokuto-san, and we’re one of the best teams in the nation.”
A smile spreads slowly over Bokuto’s face. “Say that again,” he urges, shaking Akaashi’s hand. “Tell me I’m the best.”
“You’re the best, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says tonelessly, but his lips quirk up in answer.
-
The ground is littered with balls their side of the court; Kuroo waves lazily at them from across the net. At some point, Akaashi tells himself, the strategy is going to pay off, and Kuroo will infuriate Bokuto to the point he smashes a ball through the net into his face, if not over.
Bokuto wobbles on his way down. He grabs Akaashi’s arm as his toes touch ground, tilting them both, and Akaashi remembers their first practice again, all unsteady on their feet like newborn lambs. “It’s hard to keep track of you when you come down like that,” he says, thinks at least he’s not falling this time.
You're not afraid? Kuroo had asked him, earlier. It makes less sense because if anyone's afraid, it should be Bokuto, but Kuroo's probably seen the way Akaashi's eyes follow him into the air when he jumps these days, knows he'll concentrate ten times more when Bokuto does.
“You need to fly into his arms,” Kuroo calls now, grinning smugly at them both.
Akaashi ignores him. “Ready?” he asks, and Bokuto grins at him. His face is a little flushed; his eyes spark with a familiar flame. Akaashi’s missed it.
“Once more,” Bokuto pleads, then looks to Kuroo. “Do the thing!” he yells. “You’re not doing the thing!”
Kuroo sighs, holds his arms up into a ring above his head. “You’re going to miss,” he shouts back, and Akaashi serves, high into the air, watching Bokuto fly higher still.
-
"You're not afraid?" Kuroo asks again, nodding towards Bokuto as he springs towards the bench, jacks up to their supporters in the stands.
Akaashi thinks about skies, and falling, and wings that glitter in the sun. About Bokuto's hand on his wrist, warm and reassuring, his landing stable again. "A little," he admits. "But he'll come down eventually."