blue lights || bokuaka

obligations

The next two weeks went like this.

Bokuto came to see Akaashi every day to buy a flower, and he ended up going to see him race that Friday once the guilt began to be too much. It was black and gooey and smothered Akaashi's conscience while wilting the flowers around him in the shop, covering his hands and making everything he touched sticky.

So he just had to go.

Bokuto called it a date, Akaashi called it an obligation.

The police did not show up, thankfully, and Akaashi had a fun time watching Bokuto race as much as he could from the highway rest stop. He didn't mind not having Kuroo with him, as most people kept to themselves and showed up to races by themselves anyway. He felt less alone knowing that there were more people who were alone, too.

He decided, however, that he did not like the sound of burnouts before the actual race, nor the smell or the faint taste of asphalt that they left in the air of the lot.

But he thinks it was okay so long as it helped Bokuto win.

The next week, Bokuto bought more flowers from him, ranging anywhere from the larger flowers to a bouquet with five different ones in it, despite Akaashi telling him that he didn't need to because Bokuto was not racing that week and he wouldn't be going to see Inarizaki with him.

There was no deal, this week.

Akaashi didn't know what it was about Bokuto Koutarou, maybe the vibrato in his voice or the silky kindness that always laced itself through his words, but with a simple please?, he found himself sitting on the ledge of the roof of another rest stop, watching Inarizaki racers in their black and white cars speed down an empty road that night, bets and victories in the soles of their shoes.

He lost betting on Suna, but he didn't mind the hole in his pocket when Bokuto smiled like summer and told him it was okay, that he could try his luck again next time with Osamu instead.

Akaashi didn't say that there would be no next time, and that thought never crossed his mind again.

He was stepping over every hurdle that told him to stop, every red flashing light melting into green had he squinted. He didn't want to blame himself for falling into what really felt like a trap, but it was kind of hard not to.

The universe set him up, and he had to deal with what he was dealt.

But it was okay.

Akaashi could get used to the blue flowers scattered around his room.

"Daisy, Daisy~!"

Akaashi resists the urge to smile at the excited tinge in Bokuto's voice as he spots him at his desk once he comes in, his grin beaming, though it wasn't at its full potential. He bounds over to the maplewood desk, pressing two one-thousand yen bills on it.

"Yes, Bokuto?"

He was beginning to like the taste of his name on his tongue. Kind of like bubblegum.

"I'd like to buy a bouquet, please. Daisies and carnations!"

Akaashi nods and looks at the money. "I'll arrange it for you."

His heart falls, the same feeling he'd been trying to get used to for the past month never really familiar to him after all, and there is a slow, heavy rhythm to it as he turns around to pick some daisies out from the bucket behind him.

"Oh, wait. Isn't a bouquet supposed to cost more?" Bokuto is pulling out his wallet, and Akaashi pauses for a second, knowing that he was right.

He hoped he'd never have to face this question.