Teach Me How To Fly (A Koutaro Bokuto Story)

Former Life

Wizzy: You should thank everyone who left an excited comment on the last chapter. If it weren't for that, I might not have done this one last night if they hadn't made me so happy and excited to do this chapter. That just shows how much I love you guys.

Whatever grand idea Bokuto had that only Akaashi seemed to know appeared to have been forgotten by the time the guys from Nekoma had to leave. In that short time though, I'd managed to make friends with most of the team, especially Kuroo the bedhead captain, Shibayama the ticklish boy, and Fukunaga the one who speaks owl.

Of course, it hadn't really dawned on me to try and ask Fukunaga to tell everyone who I really was. In fact, I didn't really say much about the fact that I'd once been human. I guess I had just gotten so used to being an owl and being with Bokuto that I kept forgetting my former life.

It wasn't until a week after the practice match with Nekoma that I found out what it was that Bokuto had been thinking that day. At least, I assumed it was the same thing. Though knowing him, it was very possible that he'd forgotten the thing from before and this was something entirely new.

Just as practice was about to begin and I was passed off to one of the managers, Akaashi called Bokuto over to him. Something was passed from one to the other, though from where I stood, I couldn't see. But whatever it was, it had Bokuto jumping and cheering.

And the next thing I knew, I was being scooped up by my beloved Bokuto. My body and limbs were turned this way and that. If I dared to resist whatever the ace was trying to do, I might have gotten hurt. So I simply let him move me however he needed.

Once he was done, he held me up and grinned. "Perfect!" Bokuto turned to the team's vice-captain. "Right Akaashi?" The setter just sighed and shook his head at Bokuto's antics.

However, I had yet to really figured what he's just done to me. My body felt strange. Kinda like that feeling you get when you first put on a pair of pants over top of another pair of pants. I looked down at myself and I saw it.

Bokuto had gone through the trouble of convincing Akaashi to somehow get this for me. It was a little sleeveless version of their volleyball uniforms. I even had a number. Zero. Sure, it might have been a lame number, but it made me feel like I really was part of the team. If it were physically possible, I probably would have cried a little.

Even happier than I was, was Bokuto. In fact, he was still excited and showing it off that it lasted until long after practice. He even sent probably thirty pictures of it to Kuroo, who, after the incident with Kenma's backpack, had gotten a lot more tolerant of these sorts of conversations with Bokuto.

Then, out of nowhere, the bedhead captain asks a question. It was a strange question because it had no relation to what we'd been talking about. In fact, the subject had nothing to do with Kuroo either.

What was the name of that girl again? The one you're so in love with?

Bokuto looked at me with a confused expression. "Why's he asking? I've said her name a thousand times," he said before typing out my first name and sending it.

I meant her last name.

Why did he want to know my last name? There was no way he could have known me as a human.

Murakami. But why do you want to know?

When Kuroo's answer came, he completely ignored the question. Is she a cute little second year? Light hair that's kinda wavy?

Now this was starting to look suspicious. How did Kuroo know that? He was describing me when I was still human. It was starting to irritate Bokuto. Alright, what's going on? How do you know what Kisa looks like when you've never met her?

Kuroo's answer was as mysterious as the rest had been, but this time he at least told us where we could find our answer. If you don't know already, then you better go look in today's newspaper.

Any further attempts to get anything more out of him were wasted time. Kuroo didn't respond, so Bokuto asked Akaashi, explaining everything that the bedhead captain had said. But Akaashi 's response was just as confusing.

Don't look at today's newspaper.

If Akaashi was telling Bokuto not to do something, chances were that it was for a good reason. Bokuto knew that all too well after all the trouble he'd gotten into and all the times the vice-captain had said "I told you so." But now with Kuroo's words convincing him to do the opposite, the poor third year was beyond confused.

In the end, he gave in to his curiosity and looked for whatever it was that Kuroo wanted him to see. And when he saw it, the happiness from earlier looked like it had been drained from him. I wasn't even sure I could help this time either.