Spring Leaves

Chapter 24

Akaashi had the tendency to overanalyze every single little detail he noticed, from the design of someone's shoes to their feelings based on their body posture. He did this both consciously and subconsciously, mainly because they helped him know how to interact with that person and predict their possible actions or reactions.

Not only was it a fun pastime for him, but it was a useful skill for any situation he was in, just like the one he was facing now. In this case, however, he was using his observations to create theories as to what the people involved, those being his three closest friends, were thinking and feeling.

First, Bokuto was awfully dull, unlike him, when they spent time together both alone and not. His overall exterior was so much less vibrant and more guarded compared to when they met on the first day of that school year. His smiles were less buoyant, his movements were less animated, and his eyes rarely displayed the same positive emotions the rest of his body did. It probably wasn't obvious or noticeable to anyone else except for the few people Bokuto was extremely close to; he was one of those people.

At first, he didn't want to admit it, but, as more time passed, it became an undeniable fact that something changed. Sadly, he didn't know what caused it.

Next was Kenma, who seemed more on edge and spaced out than usual. Simply addressing Kenma would make him flinch or jump, which was almost always followed by a soft, confused hum of acknowledgment. Afterward, Kenma would begin to fumble around with his words more, apologize, then try to find the right words to say again. To Akaashi, it felt like Kenma was in his own world, and the shock from being snapped out of it was what caused the nerves.

That was only one out of many theories he could come up with at the top of his head, but there were probably so many more that would make much more sense if he had more information that he could use in this informal investigation.

Kuroo was surprisingly, in Akaashi's opinion, the least obvious. It wasn't because he paid less attention to Kuroo compared to Bokuto and Kenma, but because it just seemed like Kuroo being, well, Kuroo. Absolutely nothing felt odd or out of place when it came to Kuroo until he started noticing how their playful bickering had slightly disappeared, being replaced with more genuine remarks that just seemed so weird to hear from Kuroo. He never realized how much he missed those stupid, witty comments and retorting back with his own.

It would be so much easier if he could say all of these occurrences were one-time things, but they no longer were. And, though he hated to admit it, he simply wanted their past interactions back. Not only those with Kuroo, but with his other friends too, which is why he was trying to get to the root of the problem in the first place.

Despite the task being much more daunting than he had anticipated, he continued to list down any strange behaviors he could recall from his past few hangouts with them in a notebook.

Once he finished laying out all the information he had at that time, he turned to a different page where he'd written down a few possible causes that had been on his mind for a while. However, once he finished writing them, he couldn't think of any new ones.

It was frustrating, especially because lacking knowledge was something he hated, which was probably caused by his upbringing. This wasn't the time to analyze the reasons behind his own emotions though, but other people's instead.

"The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can figure out how to get things back to normal," he whispered to himself, sighing.

Right, normal. That was why he was doing this. He'd convinced himself it was just for that, no other ulterior motive.

Although his brain could do that, it couldn't come up with any more viable causes. Maybe it was because he was limiting himself to what he believed was possible. That clearly wasn't getting him anywhere, so he had to think outside the box. No matter how absurd a possibility sounded, there was still a small chance of it happening.