blue lights || bokuaka

foam squares

It's nighttime, and Akaashi is cleaning the floor, on his knees and scrubbing the tile with a giant sponge he got on sale at the convenience store.

Kuroo always wondered why the hell he would do such a thing, considering mops exist, but Akaashi just shook his head while handing the cashier this huge sponge wrapped in plastic.

He thinks it was an excellent investment.

He was somehow not tired after going on that date with Bokuto, the two of them going to the butterfly gardens immediately after eating breakfast. Normally, he would have wanted to go home, recharge his social battery until he needed to let it run again.

But there was something about Bokuto Koutarou that made Akaashi feel alive, feeding his energy through his smile and the ideas that sprouted from his head like wildflowers, and he found himself holding his hand and letting him lead him through a bricked path to see orange butterflies and blue flowers by the water.

It made him happy to feel the sun warming over his skin with a full tummy, to see Bokuto giggle as a butterfly landed on his nose.

Akaashi would have loved to do things like this all the time.

Dates, huh?

Hm.

The sound of his phone ringing beside him startles him out of his head and he jumps with a slight panic, his heart beating and deafening him in one ear.

He dries his hand on his shirt, before flipping it open and seeing Kuroo's contact. He was supposed to be hanging out with Bokuto for the night, so there wasn't really any reason to call.

He presses the phone to the ear that was not ringing with a high whistle after accepting the call.

"What the hell do you want?" Akaashi asks, expecting to hear a response with just as much snarkiness in a voice that sounded like candle flame from Kuroo.

"Daisy, Daisy~!"

Akaashi resists the urge to fall into the suds in front of him and curl up in a ball, hoping the world would open up a hole just for him to die in, as it was not Kuroo on the other line, but Bokuto.

"Oh, um...sorry." Akaashi shuts his eyes, hoping that Bokuto didn't think he was a major asshole to his best friend with no context, just because. "Hi, Bokuto."

"Hi~!" He says again, this time with a happier tone of voice, as if Akaashi was the one to greet him first. "I was calling because, um...me and Kuroo went to Yojiyoji."

"...The children's indoor park?" Akaashi stops and sits up straight, knowing nothing good could possibly come from whatever Bokuto is about to tell him. "I thought you two went out to get tea and dinner."

"Yeah, we did! But we kinda made a detour before coming home! Um...Kuroo got lost in the foam pit and now he's stuck because there are a bunch of kids crawling on him."

They are both quiet for a moment, Bokuto letting Akaashi take in this information while Akaashi was listening to Kuroo's terrified, muffled yelling in the distance over the line, getting drowned out by giggles and the excited yelling of other children.

His best friend, twenty-one years old and about the height of a black bear standing up, has gotten himself in a war, and lost to children and foam squares in a pit.

He somehow is not surprised.

Akaashi takes a breath, staring into the suds in front of him, before he nods. "Okay..."

"I cannot lift him out of the pit. Doctor's orders!"

Akaashi sighs and stands up, wondering how he ended up having to take care of Kuroo, too. "...I'm coming."