Teach Me How To Fly (A Koutaro Bokuto Story)

Bro Love

Tense. The whole room felt tense. Apparently, Kuroo and Bokuto never fought, so now the entire gym was full of tension.

Bokuto refused to speak to Kuroo until he apologized. He insisted that he'd done nothing wrong, that Kuroo was the only one to blame.

Kuroo refused to apologize. He claimed that it was all Bokuto's fault, that he wouldn't shut up about "that stupid owl" so he was forced to do what he'd done.

In the end, I think that Bokuto had just gone a little overboard and was too stubborn to admit it. Kuroo too, had handled the situation badly. Instead of taking it out on me, he should have simply talked to Bokuto about it.

Bokuto sat on the bench, arms crossed and me on his shoulder. Kuroo was over by the corner, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. No one dared to speak to either; probably out of fear that it might set them off.

Everyone did the last practice set, but the two boys had sat out. It was about now that I learned that Kuroo was Nekoma's captain, which was a bit of a shock to me. Though then again, if someone like Bokuto could be a captain, so could Kuroo.

I didn't like seeing Bokuto like this. He'd just had a fight with his best friend and he looked really upset by it. But I doubted Bokuto would be the one to talk to him first.

Kuroo wasn't going to be the one to step forward either. While he'd been wrong to do what he did, he wasn't entirely in the wrong.

Neither of them looked like they were about to give in. So that left it up to everyone else to patch things up between the two. But no one seemed to have the heart to get involved. That left only one person. Or rather, one owl.

I gave Bokuto's shirt sleeve a tug, telling him that I wanted to be put on the ground. He gave me a sad look, but let me down anyway. His mood fell even further when he watched me walk over to Kuroo's corner. It killed me to see Bokuto hurting, but if no one else was going to do anything about this, then I had to.

Once I'd reached Kuroo, he gave me a quick glare and mumble to himself. "Stupid owl..." His words were angry and most likely directed at me, but I could tell he was hurting just like Bokuto was. I'd always hated to see anyone hurting, especially when they were close to someone I loved.

He turned his head away from me, but I could see him watching me out of the corner of his eye. The bedheaded captain probably didn't trust me. Then again, there was a chance that I was coming over here to get revenge for the little stunt he'd pulled.

Now, while I had briefly considered biting him, I knew that doing so would get us nowhere. In all honestly, seeing how bad he felt shattered all desire to get back at him. No, I had to fix this.

Slowly getting closer to him, I stopped next to his hand. I waited a moment, half expecting him to try and hit me. He didn't, so I brushed my head against the top of his hand, hoping that my message was clear. "I forgive you."

My actions surprised Kuroo, as well as everyone else who had been watching. Hesitating for only a moment, the bedhead captain patted my head. "You're either stupid or too kindhearted," he said just loud enough for me to hear. "You should stop; you're making me feel bad." There was a slight laugh in his voice, but it was sort of sad. He didn't want to be fighting with Bokuto.

That was all I needed. I brushed against his hand once more before tugging at his shirt. "What?" He didn't seem to understand. I tugged at his shirt again. "I don't get what you want." Mentally sighing, I walked a few steps away from him and then back before tugging at his shirt again. "Follow you?" he guessed.

I nodded. Slowly Kuroo stood up and followed me right to where Bokuto was sulking. When he realized that was where I was taking him, he looked a bit uneasy. I felt sorry for him, but this was what had to be done. I gave him a light push towards Bokuto before going around to give the owl-haired a harder push towards his best friend.

All eyes fell on the two, silently watching to see how this would end.

Neither boy spoke. Then, at last, Kuroo spoke, saying words that no one expected. "I'm sorry I put your owl in Kenma's backpack," he said, not looking at Bokuto. Of course, he wasn't looking at Kuroo either. "I... You kept going on and on about how wonderful he is and I got jealous. I felt like the owl had replaced me."

Kuroo's little confession caught us all by surprise, especially me. I knew that he'd been irritated about Bokuto talking about me so much, but to hear that he was actually jealous of me... that was a shock. I certainly didn't think I was good enough to make anyone jealous.

Bokuto was silent a moment, a smile trying to fight its way onto his face. He threw an arm around Kuroo's shoulder. "I can't stay mad at you, you sexy bastard," he said, partly jokingly. Soon, both of them were grinning and back to the best friends that they had always been.

However, if they were back to normal, that meant trouble for everyone else. "Bokuto, please control yourself," Akaashi's voice said in his usual emotionless voice.

"You're just jealous of our bro love," Kuroo said back, not giving Bokuto a chance to respond.

"I am not."

"Are too."

"No one is jealous of that messed up little bromance you two have," Akaashi said, ending the conversation and earning a number of laughs from both teams, as well as the coaches and me. "Furthermore, I would hope this event will not repeat itself during the summer training camp."

The laughter stopped and Fukurodani's ace looked to Kuroo and then to Nekoma's coach. "Am I allowed to bring Kisa to that?" It was a good question. I was only allowed her because this was Bokuto's school and what they were talking about was a completely different school. If they wouldn't allow it, then he wouldn't fight it. Even Bokuto knows his limits.

"I'd actually prefer it," the old coach grinned. "An owl who's smart enough to not only help out with practice but can also correct a third year's homework and patch up a fight with nothing more than a little kindness? That's something I'd like to see again." Bokuto grinned at the old man's words, but the next ones were the best yet. "Besides, she seems to have become a part of the team, hasn't she?"

Almost immediately, I saw an idea pop into the ace's head. He quickly turned to the vice-captain with the biggest smile I'd ever seen. "Akaashi!"

"No, Bokuto."

I didn't have any idea what Bokuto's grand idea was, but I had a feeling that whatever it was, that energetic ace was going to get it.