Kiss Me (Like You Wanna Be Loved)

Chapter Three: Living Conditions

After working out the details, Keiji leaves Bokuto's apartment-his new apartment-and goes directly to the administration office. The Residence Director gives him a weary look and seems poised to deliver yet another no to a request to change dorms, so it's with no small amount of glee that Keiji reveals he'll be vacating his room and moving off-campus effective immediately.

He's never been so happy to spend half an hour filling out paperwork.

Packing up all of his belongings takes an absurdly short amount of time. He never truly settled into this room, too anxious and desperate to leave from the beginning. He doesn't even have pictures or posters to take down from the walls. He empties his closet and desk, filling up his backpack and a single suitcase. And that's it. He still has to strip his sheets from the bed and pack up his toiletries, but that will have to wait until morning.

Daishou sneers when he returns later that night and sees Keiji's side of the room cleared out.

"Still trying to switch dorms? They won't let you, you know?"

Keiji doesn't dignify that with a response, he just smirks and goes back to his reading.

It takes only one trip to move everything he owns to his new residence.

Well, everything except the divider curtain. He leaves that behind. He has a feeling Daishou's next roommate is going to need it. As he exits the dorm for the final time, he sends a brief thought of condolences to whomever ends up stuck with Daishou next.

Bokuto has practice until late in the evening, so Keiji has the whole apartment to himself as he unpacks and settles into his new room. A private room-his very own space where he can finally blissfully be alone.

It's the most peaceful night of sleep he's had since starting college.

The first morning in his new apartment, Keiji wakes to the muffled sounds of Bokuto singing in the shower. He's working himself up to be annoyed when he looks at his phone and realizes it's only five minutes before his alarm is scheduled to go off. Hmm. Perhaps he won't have to murder this roommate.

Still, he lounges in bed half-asleep until his alarm rings, then he stretches lazily and gets up. He can hear Bokuto in the kitchen now, and he's struck with the hopeful thought that there might be coffee out there. He wasn't allowed to have a coffee maker in his dorm room, and the idea of caffeine first thing in the morning is deliciously tempting.

Keiji wanders out of his room and heads toward the kitchen where he spots Bokuto. The other boy's hair is damp, hanging down around his face, and he's shirtless, with droplets of water glistening on his collarbones and sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Speaking of deliciously tempting, Keiji's brain helpfully supplies as he promptly walks into the wall.

"Oof." He regains his balance just as Bokuto glances over.

"Oh, hey! Morning, Akaashi! Want some breakfast?" Bokuto is standing at the stove, frying something in a pan, and all Keiji can think is that, somehow, this should not be allowed. Seeing those arms in a tight t-shirt was bad enough, but this-with his shoulders and his chest and his abs. Keiji is not awake enough to deal with this. Maybe he's still sleeping. Maybe this is a nightmare.

Or perhaps a wet dream.

Keiji closes his eyes. He is not looking. "Is there coffee?"

"Ah, no, sorry. But I can make you some eggs, if you want?"

"No, thank you."

"Are you sure? It's no problem!"

"I'm fine. I usually get something at the campus coffeeshop on my way to class."

"Oh, okay!" he says, turning off the stove and scraping the eggs from the pan to a plate. "Well, I gotta finish gettin' ready. I've got class all day then afternoon practice, so I won't be back until later tonight."

Keiji makes a sound of acknowledgement, keeping his eyes on his fingers fidgeting in front of him. "I suppose I'll see you later then."

"Yeah, later!" Out of the corner of his eye he sees Bokuto give him a cheery wave as he takes the plate of food and heads off in the direction of his room.

As a reward for not looking, Keiji allows himself to look-just a little!-at Bokuto's retreating back as he heads off down the hall. Then Keiji swallows a groan and retreats to his own room. He really hopes the next time he sees Bokuto the other boy has a shirt on and his hair is ridiculously spiked again, or else living here is going to involve much more suffering than he'd anticipated.

Not for the first time, Keiji finds himself wondering about the terrible things he must have done in a previous life to deserve such torturous misfortune in this one.

Living with Bokuto is not what Keiji expected.

Mostly because it's, well, a lot better than he thought it would be. It doesn't take long for Keiji to learn that Bokuto does not have volume control nor does he have an off-switch, which is sometimes a little grating on Keiji's poor introvert soul. But aside from that, Bokuto is a very kind and considerate roommate. He never interrupts Keiji when he's studying. He always cleans up after himself (at least in the common areas; the glimpses of his room Keiji gets from the hallway are a different story altogether). And he at least tries to modulate his volume, even if he is largely unsuccessful.

Over the first few weeks, they learn a little about each other in fleeting conversations. Bokuto's favorite topic is, naturally, volleyball. Though nothing could have prepared Keiji for Bokuto's reaction upon learning he used to play in middle school.

"You played volleyball?! You were a setter?! You played volleyball and you were a setter?!"

"Yes, Bokuto-san. Now please stop yelling."

Bokuto seems unsurprised to learn that Keiji is double majoring in Japanese Literature and English.

"I like language," he explains when Bokuto asks why.

Keiji, on the other hand, is surprised to learn about Bokuto's major. "Education? I would've figured something like sports science."

"Well, a lot of my electives are from the sports science track," he admits. "But the plan is to play volleyball professionally! Then when I retire I wanna teach, or coach, or maybe teach and coach. I like kids."

"You are a kid," Keiji says without thinking, but before he can worry he offended Bokuto, the other boy is tipping his head back and laughing.

"That must be why I get along with 'em!"

The way their schedules align, Keiji really only sees Bokuto in the evenings. Once or twice a week Bokuto's arrival home will coincide with Keiji's dinner break, so they'll eat together, Bokuto with whatever take-out he picked up, and Keiji with something simple he whipped together in the kitchen. Bokuto likes to talk, and as long as Keiji isn't busy studying, he finds he doesn't mind listening.

But perhaps the best part of living with Bokuto is that after the first morning, Keiji wakes up every day to the smell of coffee permeating the apartment. Because Bokuto-being a kind and considerate roommate-starts making extra coffee in the mornings, so by the time Keiji gets up there's still enough left in the pot for him to have a cup or two.

It's because of this that Keiji decides to forgive him for his habit of singing in the shower. Keiji does not, however, forgive him for having an incredibly distracting body. But as long as he keeps his shirt on in the common areas, it shouldn't be a problem.