The Sky and Guilt Are The Only Feelings I have Left

apologize

The days of the week went by. Oikawa and Iwaizumi continued to come over, but the interactions became less tense and moved toward being more friendly and jovial. Akaashi's professors had replied asking if they could help and giving him extensions on his projects. His mother had called and checked in on him. Satisfied from hearing his voice, she stopped begging Oikawa to check on him. He had been fired from the bookstore for too many no shows, but they would give him a good recommendation if he needed one and there were no hard feelings. If he wanted to reapply to help around the holidays, they would be glad to have him as a seasonal hire.

Akaashi couldn't describe the elation he felt from all of this. He'd been avoiding these things for the last month and they'd slowly been eating away at him and pushing him further into himself. Moving past them felt so good. He wondered why he'd even avoided them in the first place. They all felt much larger and consequences were so much worse in his head. It was silly and he knew it, but sometimes his brain convinced him otherwise. All of it seemed so far away now and simple.

He'd started catching up on assignments, but not in such a furious perfectionist vigor as before. He did the calmly and with without letting himself get too carried away with how he could make a simple assignment perfect.

Thanks to Iwaizumi cooking every night for the past week, Akaashi had eaten more than he'd eaten in the past month or two even. He regained some of the weight he'd lost in the last month. He was still far too skinny, but his ribs poked out slightly less and he started regaining some color that a normal human being should have instead of that sickly look.

Overall, things were going well. They were as close to normal for Akaashi as they'd been for a long time. On Sunday, he went to the park and walked so he could get some fresh air and exercise. Summer was in full swing now and it felt good to sweat again. He told himself that he'd start jogging again. It'd be good for him. Maybe pull him out of his own head when his brain wanted to fight him.

At the park, he passed by Bokuto's garden out of habit. He looked around cautiously to make sure Bokuto wasn't there for some reason and approached it. A few of the plants were dying from the summer heat. There were a few spots where weeds had grown up and were attacking the plants that Bokuto had given a home there. It looked as if Bokuto hadn't been attending to the garden as much lately as usual.

I wonder if there's something wrong with him?

Without thinking, he kneeled by the garden and began pulling weeds. He admired the flowers and plants as he worked. The was a small peach tree that was attempting to give off fruit, but wasn't quite mature enough to produce anything big enough to eat. There was a row of lettuce that was going to go bad soon if no one took it. There was a tiny tomato bush that weeds had grown up around, but had still managed to produce some tomatoes although quite a few had already fallen off and rotten. Most of the plants Akaashi didn't know. They hadn't been given name plates for others to identify them. He could tell some of them were probably herbs or just small bushes of trees.

Akaashi worked until the sweat dripped down his face and the dirt under his fingernails compacted, but the garden was clear of weeds now. He raised up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. A cool breeze drifted by like a little thank you from the flowers. He closed his eyes and tried to soak up all the cool air possible.

A bell sounded in the wind causing him to open his eyes. He could hear a bark in the distance. Fearful Bokuto had come to walk the dogs or tend to his garden, he looked around him, but found no one. He pulled a reusable bag from his regular bag and placed all the pulled weeds in it to take to the compost area nearby.  The plants still needed to be watered, so he took the watering bucket that Bokuto kept in the garden to the fountain nearby and disposed of the weeds at the compost.