Ace of Hearts - Haikyuu || Short Stories || One Shots || Creative Rambles

I Don't Need You || Akaashi Keiji

Work was never what he expected. Everyone around him talked like his life as an editor was filled with fancy dinner parties and exclusive perks set aside for only those with power. They spoke about his job as if he drove around in a fancy car, ordered people around with single words and took all the credit when things turned out successfully.

In truth, being an editor was like herding cats - and not just any cats, no. It was like herding a rambunctious gang of feral cats who knew that their kitten eyes could make people move mountains for them. The reality of being an editor was needing to invest in glasses in his early 20s because he spent too many nights squinting at proofs and copy on his computer screen in a completely darkened room. It was long phone calls with artists and writers at three in the morning, offering comforting but firm words as they cried over rushed details and impossible deadlines.

Picking up the pieces of downtrodden people and finding solutions to boost their egos wasn't something beyond his capabilities. In a way, he could say he had been training to be an editor since he started high school. High school Akaashi had paid the toll of suffering, with those countless hours of Bokuto wrangling and supporting, for his current version to have success.

It was also thanks to that headache of an ace that Akaashi had a girlfriend, albeit one he hadn't seen in nearly three weeks due to his job. In a lot of ways, that poor woman had taken up the brute of his duties when Bokuto had moved on to the MSBY Black Jackals. At the time, she had just been a public relations intern tasked with the impossible: keeping the rookies in line. But she was incredibly good at her job, even if they did (sometimes) get beyond her control, and she quickly became a cornerstone of the Black Jackals PR team, often set with the task of babysitting them at public events.

If it hadn't been for a particularly terrible interview, after which Kamasaki Rai had pulled Bokuto by the collar to a corner and asked him 'just exactly how much of an idiot are you?,' Kamasaki would have never asked the troublesome wing spiker how he even managed to graduate high school. Without that comment, Bokuto would have never thought to drag his PR rep to the stands (practically screaming "what a coincidence that he came to the game today!") to meet "the sole force behind my high school success."

It was not love at first sight. In fact, it was more like Kamasaki saw a huge resource for future success at wrangling Bokuto and she wanted to get as much information as possible out of him before he disappeared forever. Their first conversation had only lasted three minutes before she hastily invited Akaashi to coffee with her - and the ace who refused to be left out - that afternoon.

Akaashi hadn't expected her to whip out a notebook and pen the moment they settled into the booth at the cafe and he certainly hadn't expected her to not care about the rapidly deflating man sitting next to her who seemed to lose more of his soul the longer his former setter and current babysitter talked. Just when Akaashi thought they might have killed Bokuto off, Kamasaki thanked Akaashi for his time, slipped enough money on the table to pay for everything the three had ordered, and grabbed the Black Jackal by his collar.

"You're a professional volleyball player," she scolded, pushing him out the door. "Stop acting like a two- year-old."

A small smile had formed on Akaashi's lips as he watched the pair walk away. Their techniques for handling Bokuto were certainly different, but he had to admire how she got the best out of the player without constantly feeding his ego.

He had texted Bokuto for her number before the pair had even made it out of his view - not knowing that the woman was also in the process of obtaining his number from Bokuto. The frosted-tipped, wing spiker was practically inconsolable when Kamasaki and his former setter started dating but he soon came around to the idea - claiming they had to make him the godparent of their first child.