Chapter Text
Akaashi Keiji always liked stories.
It didn’t matter the form: books, art, music, dance. There was a certain satisfaction in taking the whole of existence, everything that has passed and all that has yet to come, and giving it life right in front of you. Storytelling was the desperate act of proving you were alive. People made stories, and stories made people. Keiji was drawn in by the thrill of it.
Growing up with his dad in the shop, it was hard not to, really. Crafting with glass was a story in itself; more of a dialogue than anything, a give-and-take between man and the earth. Keiji was learning the language of glass before he was even learning to read.
“The stories are already in there,” Akaashi Hiro had said, his hands always careful, measured, probing with his instruments in a way that made Keiji feel incredibly clumsy.
“Sand to glass, glass to dust, dust to sand. We only get to shape the earth for so long before it returns home. It is our job, in the little time we have, to listen. We let glass tell the stories of the land it comes from; we give it shape, and then we let it go.”
The first time Keiji tried, he’d made a simple sphere, and it shattered in front of him.
“You pushed too hard,” his father had told him. “You must take what you’re given; no more, no less. If you ask too much of the glass, it will simply blow back into dust and leave you with nothing. Do you understand?”
Keiji nodded, his head low, his eyes trained on the shards at his feet.
“It’s alright, Keiji. You’ll get it. Try again.”
And so try he did, again and again and again. For years and years, he pulled and pushed, heated and cooled, cut and stretched. He turned molten glass over until his eyes burned, straining to learn the secrets glowing under his hands.
Now, at twenty years old, Keiji was confident, sure-handed. Like his father, he had a gift for finding the stories in his glass. He coaxed birds and fish and dragonflies to life, their wings seemingly coasting on the sunlight. He scored glass sheets with quick, almost instinctive arcs, and fit them together into composites that may as well have been windows into brightly-colored worlds.
And yet, he kept trying. Again, and again, and again, and again.
There was one story he hadn’t yet learned to tell.
“Keiji, come to bed,” his father said, peeking through the back door.
“I’m not tired.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Akaashi Hiro replied, gently. He saw the deep dark lines under his son’s eyes, cast further into shadow by the firelight. “If you want to produce good work, you need rest.”
“I’ll sleep in tomorrow,” Keiji replied, turning to his father.
There, past the exhaustion in his eyes, Akaashi Hiro saw a glint he’d come to recognize all too well.
(“Rest, Keiji,” he’d told his son, the first night he’d caught him working late. “The coronation is years away. You’ll get it right.”
“I can’t stop now,” his son had murmured, not taking his eyes off the furnace. “I can help him. I know it.”
“With a window? Keiji, we may only do what we can.”
Keiji whirled around, something hard in his eyes. “I can HELP. I just have to find the right story to tell.”
The master glass-maker sighed.
“Our fate is written, no matter what we do. That’s not your burden to bear.”
“IT SHOULDN’T BE HIS, EITHER!”
It was the first time his son had ever raised his voice at him. And standing there, eyes wide, fists clenched, Keiji’s eyes glinted with desperate resolve, and that’s when he knew.)
“Don’t push too hard,” Akaashi Hiro warned, resignedly, and retreated back upstairs.
Keiji turned back to the glass cooling in front of him. It had taken the shape of yet another bird; an owl this time, its wings wide and silent in the night air.
He placed it on the rack, stripped his gloves, and went back to the barrels of sand that seemed to taunt him more and more with each try.
Glassmaking was storytelling, his father always said. You melt the sand, let the glass take its shape, and it will tell you tales of the people it knew.
Well:
Once there was a prince with eyes of honeyed gold. He was kind and funny and the best at every game. As he got older he grew into his kingdom, learning laws and hosting dinners and meeting all the people he’d rule one day. He took it all in with the sort of grace that could not be taught, a certain surety in every step that compelled others to follow.
The prince took a boy stuck in his stories and showed him the world. He smiled like the sun on your skin and laughed like the wind in your hair, and stole Keiji’s heart just as easily.
And yet, the kingdom was destined to crumble around him.
Tell me what to do, Keiji pleaded. Tell me how to stop it.
The barrels stayed silent as they always did. How do you help a man whose story was told not by sand, but by stardust?
He sighed and began again anyway. Either way, the story was in his hands, and it would soon come time to tell it.
The thing about time was that it moved much like sand in an hourglass. At first, there was plenty; it uncurled into emptiness far, far away, a steady drip that he might’ve tuned out if he so decided. But the less he had, the more he noticed. The years he had to prepare turned into months, the months turned into weeks, and the steady drip became a roar. Every night when he closed his eyes, the ground shifted beneath his feet, the world slipped through his fingers, and the sand disappeared before his eyes like a great wave of—
“Akaashi?”
This time, it was the front door that opened, and moonlight spilled in through the crack. Moonlight, and a shock of silvery hair.
Akaashi sighed. “Good evening, Bokuto-san.”
Bokuto slipped further into the shop. His eyes were bright, but his voice was stern.
“Evening. That’s generous.”
“…I must have lost track of time.”
Bokuto’s lips fell into a pout. “You know the rules, ‘Kaashi. If I’m not worrying about my coronation, then you can’t, either.”
Akaashi could feel a smile tilting up his face.
“Yes. But you are, in fact, worried.”
Bokuto scoffed. “Am not!”
“Mmm?” he replied. “Then why are you out this late?”
The crown prince, in a very prince-like manner, froze like a child caught with sweets after bedtime.
Akaashi raised an eyebrow.
“…I wanted to see you,” he finally said, voice lifting like more of a question than an answer.
Even at the paper-thin excuse, Akaashi felt his face glow warm.
“Well, here I am,” he retorted, cursing his hopeless heart. “Are you satisfied?”
“Akaaaasheeeee. We had a deal!”
“Right,” Akaashi replied. “But that was contingent on the assumption that you don’t go about soliloquizing your woes in the streets at midnight, like a banshee.”
A beat of silence.
“Contin- solilo-“ Bokuto’s breath shot out in a huff. “I’m not a banshee!”
Akaashi failed to suppress his grin. “You worry like one.”
“I’m not worrying!” he insisted. “Maybe I was, before I got here. But now that I’m with you, I’m fine.”
Another beat of silence. This time Akaashi was the one who felt pinned under Bokuto’s earnest stare.
His traitorous heart smoldered like an ember in the fireplace. He swore that if he looked down, he’d see it glowing through his tunic.
“…I suppose I’m at a good stopping point,” he admitted.
Bokuto’s smile could stop wars.
☆
As was typical for a late-night venture, the two ended up back at the castle. At first, they perused the library, but neither was in the mood to sit still for very long. Eventually, Akaashi found himself wandering into the Hall of Kings after the prince.
“I’m not worried, I’m just thinking,” defended Bokuto, as soon as he held the doors open and met Akaashi’s stare. “This happens to be a great place to think.”
Akaashi just rolled his eyes and slipped through the oak doors.
The stained glass glowed faintly in the light of the moon. Akaashi had been here many times during the day; his work would be displayed here, after all, and he’d been given full access to whatever he needed. The nighttime quiet was foreign to him, though. It made the space feel bigger somehow, and shadows fell on the floor in muted tones of blue and purple.
They perused the Kings of the past in silence. Akaashi stared up at the portraits, took in the arcs of scored glass and the colors between them. Even in the dim light, the stories shone clear. There was a man exploring the seas, and one who brought in merchants from far and wide. There was one who held strong against bandits from the north, and one who built towns along the river. There was Bokuto’s grandfather, digging wells where the river ran dry. Across the hall stood his father in the library he started.
“I wonder if they can see me,” said Bokuto. He’d sat himself on the wooden platform, where he was to receive his own crown in a few weeks’ time, and took in the hall in front of him. “I wonder what they’d say.”
His gaze turned right, out to the one plain window remaining. Outside, the night was clear; the half-moon shone high above the mountains, and stars dotted the sky around it.
He didn’t look sad. Not really. Akaashi knew how sad looked on the prince: it weighed down his usually broad frame, slowed his movements, dimmed the light in his eyes like cold air on molten glass. But watching him sit there, surrounded on all sides by the faint glow of his family’s legacy, staring out at the blank sky… Maybe sad would’ve been easier to fix.
Akaashi took a seat next to him. “What would you want to hear from them? If they could see you now?”
Bokuto thought on that. He was silent for a minute before he answered.
“I’d want to hear what they’re most proud of, I think. About the kingdom.”
Akaashi frowned. In the prolonged silence that followed, Bokuto turned to him. He raised his brows in a silent question.
“I’m sorry,” Akaashi said quickly. “I- I just wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
Bokuto always loved to hear what he was doing well. It was a perfectly reasonable ask for a man with fate of an entire kingdom hanging over his head, in Akaashi’s opinion. He’d expected him to say something about how Koutarou was as good as all the Kings before him, or maybe just reassurance that he would be okay. Hell, that was the answer Akaashi wished he could give him, if only he knew it to be true.
“Well, we’re here today because of them,” Bokuto explained. “All thirty-nine of them. This is their kingdom, too, as much as it is ours. And I just think… I dunno. If I have to fight for it, I’d want to know what they think is worth fighting for.”
Akaashi frowned.
“You… you think you’ll have to fight?”
Bokuto turned to him, and his expression was… heavy.
“I don’t know. None of us do, right?”
In all his time knowing about the Hall of Kings, Akaashi had never stopped to think what their end might actually be. He imagined Bokuto leading the charge against some imaginary enemy. The thought made his blood run cold.
“You don’t have to, though,” he whispered. “You can just… not fight.”
Bokuto’s smile was weak, crooked. He stuck one hand into the folds of his robe and shrugged.
“Maybe. Or maybe not. There’s only one thing I know for sure.”
From his pocket, he pulled out a small book, and gently dusted a stray thread off the cover. He gazed at it and nodded to himself.
“No matter what choice I have, I can always do the right thing.”
Akaashi’s eyes widened at the title.
The Sword in the Forest.
It was Bokuto’s favorite book as a child, a story of a kingdom whose ruler was cursed by a powerful witch. Driven by bitterness and jealousy, she declared that he would become a horrid beast at the rise of the next full moon. The only way to stop the curse was to kill her with a sword forged by starlight, but the witch had hidden the sword in a deep, dark forest and enchanted the area to ward off anybody that dared approach.
With the full moon approaching, the king decided to brave the forest and try to find the sword. The king was kind and courageous, and he befriended the very creatures cursed to turn him away. The creatures, astonished by his benevolence, vowed to protect him from the darkness lurking in the shadows. Eventually, they found the sword, and the king returned to his kingdom to vanquish the witch and save himself from her curse.
But during their battle, the king realized that if killed the witch, all of her spells would be reversed. This meant that the enchanted forest would cease to exist. The king remembered the creatures who had become his friends during his travels, and knew he could not trade his life for theirs. Instead, the king banished the witch and promised to spare her life as long as she left his kingdom alone. He entrusted the sword to his best knights, left the kingdom to his most trusted partner, and ventured back into the forest to accept his fate.
When the next full moon came, the forest creatures gathered around him as the curse took over his body. Still, even the most powerful curse was no match for the kindness in his soul. In front of those whose lives he’d spared by sacrificing his own, the king became a mighty deer, the very essence of grace and gentility in the face of adversity. The creatures accepted him as the new king of the forest, and he went on to live out the rest of his days with his newfound family.
That very deer leapt across the cover of the well-worn book. Bokuto traced its path with his thumb absentmindedly.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said softly. “Maybe I’ll mess everything up, or maybe someone else will try.” His hands tightened around the book with resolve. “All I know is I’ll give my all for this kingdom, no matter what.”
The man looked out at the hall, nodding again like he’d just made a promise to himself. Akaashi watched him stare out at the polished marble, watched the pale glow of thirty-nine kings bathe his face in splintered blues.
If he looked long enough, the muted shadows could’ve been bruises on his pale skin. Akaashi resisted the urge to run his fingers across the colors on his jaw. He imagined Bokuto like this and felt a lump in his throat at how real—how possible—it could be. Fate could tear him up and spit him out if it wanted to. Akaashi knew this without a doubt. He knew Bokuto, brave and kind and so stubborn; this man would take the beating, he’d bear the weight of the world on his shoulders if it kept his people safe.
Not Akaashi. He would rather burn the kingdom to the ground than let Bokuto get hurt.
…Or was that how it’d all end?
The crown prince must’ve felt his worried stare, because he looked at Akaashi and immediately shifted to face him.
“Hey, hey, ‘Kaashi, it’s okay,” he said. The pensive look turned to a smile, and Bokuto tucked the book back in his pocket. He squeezed his knees together as he leaned toward Akaashi. Even the pale blues on his face seemed to brighten; dark bruises shifted to a soft glow, like moonlight through the clouds.
“I’m sorry,” said Akaashi, though it came out as more of a whisper. “I know you said not to worry.”
Bokuto’s head tilted, those honey-gold eyes turned his heart molten once again.
“What are you worried about?”
Akaashi looked down at his hands. “You. Something’s going to happen to you, and I can’t stop it. All I can do is make that window and set it off.”
“Then fill it with good things,” the prince replied. His voice alone gave his soft smile away. “Maybe then good things will happen to us.”
Akaashi huffed. “And then what? We celebrate this kingdom into the ground?”
There was the sound of a small chuckle, then a shape in his vision, slow, gentle. Bokuto took Akaashi’s hands and stilled them in his own. “You’re overthinking again.”
Akaashi looked up. Bokuto smiled back, simple and natural, a warm bed after a long journey.
Everything with Bokuto was simple.
Akaashi sighed. “I’m in charge of telling your story. Somehow I’m also in charge of finishing this one,” he explained, gesturing down the Hall of Kings. “But the two don’t make sense together. I look at you and I- I don’t see an end.”
Bokuto’s eyes widened a fraction, though his lips quirked up again.
“Then don’t make an end,” he replied. “Make what you see. Who cares what the ground says?”
Akaashi frowned. “The… ground?”
A shrug.
“That’s what you always say, right? About glassmaking?” Bokuto looked down at their feet, his brows scrunching together. “You’re just telling the story, it’s the ground that holds it.”
Ah.
Despite himself, Akaashi felt a giggle escape his lips. He looked out at the hall and imagined the colored shadows morphing into letters. How easy would that be, to read his future off the polished marble. “I said the land holds the story, not the…“
As Akaashi stared, the words died on his lips.
“Akaashi?”
He gazed out at the floor, then up at the marble arches, then across to the large oak door, and all at once, it clicked into place.
“…the ground,” he whispered. Akaashi whipped around, breathless. “The ground. Bokuto-san, you’re a genius.”
He was met with a puzzled stare. “What did I do—“
“I have to go.” Akaashi stood, the rush of a thousand images coming together propelling his feet toward the doors. Bokuto, bewildered, stood up quickly after him.
“Akaashi,” he called.
Akaashi turned back around. Bokuto made up the distance between them, wide-eyed. “Is everything okay?”
A shadow fell across the bridge of his nose, a spot of purple painted his cheek. Akaashi felt a laugh escape his lips as he reached up to brush the shape with his finger, probably smiling more fondly than his answer warranted. “Yes. Everything’s okay.”
At his touch, Bokuto’s eyes widened further still. It seemed he tried to take a step back and lean in at the same time, and as a result he just wavered in place. “Wh- what-“
“I have to go, right now,” repeated Akaashi, before he stepped back and resumed down the hall. He’d probably dwell more on that moment later, but for now— “I have a lot of work to do.”
Had he not been preoccupied, he might have looked back to see Bokuto stone-still in the middle of the hall, one hand on his cheek. But as it were, Akaashi strode out of the hall, leaving the big oak door ajar behind him, his thoughts swirling and settling like sand finally taking shape.
☆
The white polished marble gleamed where the afternoon sun came through the windows. Light streamed in and splintered into rays of red and green and gold, filling the room, reaching all the way up to the magnificent swooping arches of the Hall of Kings.
Thirty-nine stained-glass portraits glowed in the sunlight. One thick velvet curtain left a shadow where the fortieth would be. Akaashi Keiji stood in front of it, his hands clasped behind his back.
A small procession was gathered in front of him. The General of the Royal Guard held a ceremonial sword at his waist. The Judge of the High Court and his magistrate witnesses carried documents rolled into scrolls of parchment. Akaashi Hiro fiddled with the ring on his finger. A few guards flanked the group, and two more stood at the doorway on the other side of the hall.
At the center of it all, on the wooden platform, stood the King and Queen. One step below them, the crown prince.
All of their eyes were trained on Akaashi.
“The time has come,” intoned the Royal General, though a hint of trepidation weighed his words down. “In keeping with standard coronation practice, we will now unveil the new King’s window. Akaashi Keiji, you are the head of this project, is that correct?”
Akaashi nodded. “Yes, that is correct.”
The General nodded. “Then you have the floor.”
Akaashi could still feel all the eyes in the room on him. He looked from his father, to the King, to the crown prince. For three weeks, he had worked tirelessly, ensuring everything was perfect down to the last sliver of color. But this part, he’d only get to do once.
Bokuto, even through his wide-eyed nervousness, gave him an encouraging smile. A royal white robe wrapped his shoulders, and gold adornments wrapped around his torso. The large, stiff garment didn’t quite fit him. Not yet, anyway. He’d grow into it eventually.
Akaashi took a deep breath.
“None of us control our fate. Not really,” he began. “If that were the case, we’d all be where he is.” Akaashi gestured to Bokuto. “We’d all be kings. Nobody would die, no tears would be shed. Summers would never end. But one look outside shows us this is not the case.”
More sunlight poured in as the sun dropped lower on the horizon. Akaashi gazed at the shifting colors on the marble tiles. Soon, another autumn’s chill would blow through the kingdom, and time would march ever forward.
“All we can control is ourselves. What we say, what we do, how we make people feel.” Akaashi’s eyes swept across the procession. “When the world lays out our path, it’s our choice how to take it on. When the universe gives us a story, we choose how to tell it.”
Akaashi’s eyes met the crown prince’s.
“Bokuto Koutarou may not be in charge of his fate, but he is in charge of his story. He is kind, he is noble, he’s brave and he’s honest. He sees the best in everybody and finds a way to bring it out. He’ll give everything for his people to see them prosper, and as a result, he brings everyone together around him. The fates have given him his time in the sun, but make no mistake: he is his own light.”
Bokuto’s eyes widened, and Akaashi took a deep breath.
“Our story was always written in the stars, for better or for worse. Each and every king lit the way forward. But here and now, this king shines a little bit brighter. This is the one our oracle saw, two thousand years away. This is Bokuto Koutarou.”
Akaashi nodded, the velvet curtain fell away, and sunlight burst through the fortieth window.
The design was simple, really: a man, clothed in robes of white and gold, palms up, arms outstretched. The crown on his silver hair glowed molten in the afternoon sun. Small flecks of crystal splintered the light and rose from his hands, up into the inky blue background.
Or… not up. Not exactly.
The window garnered quite a few confused looks from the procession. The Royal General furrowed his brows. The King and Queen took in the view with a considerable head tilt.
See, for all its simplicity, the design was rather head-turning—literally speaking—for the fact that-
“-It’s… sideways,” the Queen whispered.
The crown prince’s visage was floating on an inky blue background, suspended side-up like a fish mounted on a wall.
Akaashi nodded and stepped back.
“Yes,” he explained. “Because it’s not the glass that holds his story.”
The King frowned. “I don’t understand.”
At their feet, Bokuto Koutarou was deep in thought as he echoed the words in a whisper. “It’s not the glass that holds the story…”
Akaashi smiled as he watched the cogs turn.
“…It’s… it’s the ground.”
Bokuto looked down, and gasped.
The autumnal sun shone directly through the window, casting his image onto the perfect center of the hall. The prisms rising from his palms seemed to cascade up the hallway, where wayward sunbeams splintered the other portraits into fractals of light. While the Koutarou on the window gestured vaguely at the archway, the Koutarou in the hallway was holding up a sky full of stars.
Akaashi took a deep breath and continued.
“Each king spent his life doing what he loved: taming the land, sailing the seas and bringing merchants from distant shores, hiring artists and poets and bakers and musicians. With each passing reign, the kingdom grew and grew, but this hall remained empty, just a passive log of the stories taking place outside.”
The procession stared down the hall, their mouths agape. Keiji’s eyes found the crown prince again.
“Today doesn’t end the hall of kings. Today completes the hall of kings,” he explained. “Our story continues on this very ground, and Bokuto Koutarou—the man who brings us all together—is the one destined to fill it.”
It took a couple of seconds, but Bokuto’s expression morphed from confusion, to understanding, to wonder. Now he was grinning, that wide, untamed grin that glowed brighter than any of the thousand light beams splashed across the floor.
Akaashi let himself smile back.
Whispers and murmurs of wonder started from the procession as they finally followed Bokuto’s gaze to the floor. Akaashi smiled and looked past the hall, down at the guards by the door. He nodded once, they nodded back.
“We can’t see what’s next,” Akaashi continued. “But our fortieth king will lead us through it. Not because some oracle said so, but because of who he is. Because of who he will be. Because no matter what he does, he’ll get the whole world to cheer him on.”
Akaashi gestured down the hall. At his signal, the guards pulled on the oak doors and stepped aside.
As the doors swung open, townspeople flooded the space, gasping and marvelling at the colors on the walls. There was the woman with the bakery on the corner. There was the pianist that always laughed when Bokuto made up words to his melodies. There were villagers from near and far, from river towns and mountain settlements, everywhere Bokuto had ever visited.
All at once the room was filled with the gasps and chatter and laughter of everyone that had ever known the crown prince. The procession stood frozen in shock, but Bokuto’s grin grew as he looked out at them, his arms outstretched in a hundred waves to a hundred old friends and generous patrons and makeshift caretakers.
Akaashi smiled at the sight. Their wonder at the windows, their movement like a swirling world of color all their own—all the people in the room made it feel brighter, somehow.
“Huh. So the hall’s finished,” mused the Royal General, barely audible over the crowd. He stared out at the people milling around, taking in the grand marbled room. “The kingdom’s not finished, just the hall. In all my years, man. I didn’t even think of that.”
Akaashi turned to Bokuto, who beamed right back, eyes aglow. His smile was brighter than he’d ever seen it, and he looked about one step away from hopping off the platform and joining the people himself.
Akaashi held back a laugh. Yes, this is how the hall was meant to be.
“Now there’s just one thing left to do,” Akaashi replied to the General.
The man nodded. “Right.” He took a step forward.
“Order! ORDER!”
Slowly, the chatter died down, and everyone’s eyes turned to the front of the room.
The Royal General cleared his throat.
“Welcome, everyone, please settle down and find a place, as it is time to proceed with the coronation of our new King.”
The room seemed to get even brighter as it erupted into cheers.
☆
It took a while for the hall to clear out. Of course, the new King was no help; he took his time to talk with everyone he could, saying yes, he’d hold baking contests, and yeah, a comedy night sounded AWESOME, and no, he didn’t know much about acoustics, but he’d bet a hallway concert would look really nice, anyway.
So, yes, it took a while, but finally, just two people remained.
“King Bokuto-san,” said Akaashi, bowing low.
When he rose, Bokuto was deep in a bow of his own.
“Master Glass-maker Akaashi.”
Akaashi winced. “Just Akaashi is fine. That does not roll off the tongue.”
Bokuto’s rush of breath was half-sigh, half-giggle. “Okay, good, I was just thinking the same thing.”
The sun had disappeared below the mountains by this point. The shapes on the ground softened at the edges, their colors blending together in the cool evening light.
Bokuto gazed down the hall, a fond smile on his face.
“I can’t believe you pulled that off,” he said quietly. “I mean—I can, of course, it’s you, you’re a genius. But it’s just…” He turned to Akaashi, eyes wide. “Did you really mean it? Everything you said?”
Akaashi’s foolish heart quickened its pace. “Of course I did,” he replied, willing the flush away from his cheeks. “You are going to be an incredible leader, Bokuto-san. I know it, your family knows it, the whole kingdom knows it. I have a hunch that that oracle knew it, too.”
Bokuto grinned, but his nose scrunched up the way it did when he was pondering one of his so-called grand ideas.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that, Akaashi. The whole… oracle thing?” Bokuto looked up at his portrait. “Everyone was convinced she was predicting some sort of end, except you. You believed in me when no one else did. You knew everything, and you chose to make a beginning. I think… I think maybe that’s why she chose the fortieth king.” He turned back to him, eyes wide. “Maybe it was never about me. Maybe she saw you.”
Despite himself, Akaashi felt his eyes widen in surprise. Bokuto’s gaze became a grin again. “Maybe she chose my story because it’d be safe in your hands,” he said.
Akaashi should have rejected the possibility immediately. To think anyone saw him over Bokuto—candescence incarnate—was ridiculous. But Bokuto was staring at him like he was worth something, like he deserved the spotlight of his dazzling smile, and something grew between the cracks of his stone-solid dismissal. Bokuto looked at Akaashi like he hung the stars, and somehow, Akaashi felt like he could.
Actually—he couldn’t help but smile as he looked at his window—in a way, he sort of did.
He shook his head and chuckled. “I told you, Bokuto-san. When I look at you, I don’t see an end. This land will know your name until we’re all stardust again. I’m just the messenger.” Akaashi turned from the king on the window to the real one in front of him. “But in all the stories they’ll tell about this kingdom, you’ll always be our greatest protagonist.”
Bokuto paused at that, wide-eyed, taking the words in. He let out an awed breath as he looked at the window again. His head tilted, his gaze turned soft.
And then, as if he’d made some sort of decision, he turned back to Akaashi and smiled.
“We’ll be protagonists. Both of us. I couldn’t have done this without you, Akaashi. And to be honest, I never want to.”
Bokuto took a breath, took his hands.
“I should’ve said this a while ago, but, you know… I thought I was doomed. Well, not doomed, but something bad was gonna happen, and I know how you worry about everything, I mean—remember that time you were all stressed out about a snowglobe?” Bokuto laughed, high and breathless. “I didn’t want to add myself to that list, at least not more than I already was, because you had to think about it so much anyway…”
Apparently the little courage he’d worked up had run dry. Now he was rambling on, looking at anything except Akaashi. The tips of his ears were flushed pink. He’d since let go of Akaashi’s hands to gesture wildly, leaving him just sort of standing there.
Fortunately, the glass-maker—well-versed in the art of interpretation—understood.
He stilled the King with a hand on his cheek. Bokuto’s jaw snapped shut, and his eyes flicked to Akaashi, molten in the dying light.
Akaashi let his stupid heart hum as he kissed him.
It was soft, sweet, just long enough to know the feel of his lips. Bokuto’s hands grasped at the nape of his neck as they pulled away.
“I love you, too,” said Akaashi.
Bokuto looked—for lack of better word—stunned. His eyes were wide, his lips just slightly parted. Akaashi wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
But then, slowly, like the sun rising over the mountains, his stare morphed into elation. His cheeks pulled wide with his smile, and his entire spirit seemed to lift. Then, in a flash of movement, there was a pair of strong arms around Akaashi’s torso and his feet were no longer on the floor. The room whirled into a blaze of colors as Bokuto spun him around, set him down, and crushed their lips together again.
Akaashi nearly staggered backward from the force, but Bokuto pressed a hand to the small of his back to keep him steady. The other cradled his jaw, grazing a gentle thumb across his cheekbone.
“I love you,” Bokuto whispered into his lips. “You’re incredible, Akaashi.”
Akaashi grabbed the lapels of his robe and pulled him impossibly closer. Bokuto’s kisses warmed him like fire in his veins. He was intoxicated, almost dizzy with it; he shouldn’t have expected anything less, really, from the man who shone like a star fallen to earth.
So he kissed him again, and again, and even more still, hands roaming, lips parting for tongues and gasps and whispered names like prayers on a shared breath. It was Bokuto who finally pulled away, his lips caught in between his teeth as he smiled. He held out his hand to Akaashi.
“Come with me?”
“What are we doing?” asked Akaashi, but he grabbed his hand all the same.
Bokuto began to tug him back down the hall. “Making up for lost time. But the things I want to do with you, I’m not doing in front of my thirty-nine ancestors.”
Akaashi wasn’t sure if his shiver was in anticipation or embarrassment. He gazed up at the other glass portraits as they passed them, who all suddenly seemed to be staring him down. “Ah. I feel like I already owe them an apology.”
Bokuto squeezed his hand. “You saved their kingdom, Akaashi. I’m sure they’ll forgive you.”
“Uh. You’ll be doing most of the saving, King Bokuto-san. Am I going to have to keep reminding you of that?”
Bokuto stopped abruptly and whirled around. “Will you? Keep reminding me?”
Akaashi—who had nearly stumbled into him—regained his balance and sighed. “For as long as you need, yes.”
Bokuto’s smile turned playful. He pressed another chaste kiss to Akaashi’s lips. “Then I’m going to keep forgetting, just to keep you around.”
The King turned back before the full effect of Akaashi’s eye roll could be felt, and dragged the glass-maker out of the Hall of Kings, leaving the doors open behind them.
☆
As night fell, a faint light shone through forty stained-glass portraits, splintering into colorful constellations on the marble floor. It was light from the moon, rising over the kingdom like it always did and always would. It was light from the lamps outside, burning through the darkness, ready to usher in a new dawn.
And it was light from a star that was actually two celestial systems, so closely intertwined they appeared as one, doubly bright.