Archive of Our Own

In order of the most common questions: Akaashi did own a broom, but he lived in a tree and needed to sweep out the leaves. Yes, he practiced magic. He owned a magic store, after all. Finally, his online store did ship overseas and would accept PayPal.

It was an ordinary Monday afternoon when the bell tinkled in his store. Akaashi had been gathering satchels, but his shoulders tensed when he saw the familiar sweep of black hair covering the ethereal scar. Kuroo’s winning smile did nothing to help. And Kuroo had apparently brought a stranger, who trailed behind him with his head craning around, examining the tree walls and the vines draping from the ceiling. Spry gray hair. Bright eyes. Big smile. He seemed—interesting.

“Welcome,” Akaashi said, hostility edging his voice.

“Akaashi,” Kuroo said, waving lazily. “I know you said not to come, but I needed to pick up some ingredients. Protective wards. Shield charms. Guard sigils. Give me the best you got, and I’ll buy the second-best at the more moderate price.”

“I do sell those online,” Akaashi said, trying to keep polite. “That’s where I conduct most of my transactions.”

“But not all! Come on, Akaashi.” Kuroo grinned. It was a dangerous game that Akaashi played with Kuroo, who persisted in being a pain in his ass. They both knew that Akaashi wouldn’t refuse Kuroo this favor, just as they both knew Kuroo wouldn’t press the point. It was, all in all, a shitty situation. He eyed the scar behind Kuroo’s hair, shimmering in puffy red and elusive green. He began to gather the soft blush of the lavender herbs.

“Oh,” the stranger said suddenly, fumbling with an Erlenmeyer flask, which contained the laughter of a thousand birds. Akaashi hastily stepped forward to steady the glass, hands cupped around the neck. The stranger stared down at his hands.

“What’s wrong? Did you cut yourself?” Akaashi was already taking his hand before he recollected himself, but he still had the stranger’s warm fingers curled against his palm. He didn’t feel any cuts. The stranger stared at him, blinking twice in rapid succession. His mouth fell open, eyes sparkling.

“It’s you,” the stranger said. “It’s really you.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Akaashi said politely.

“You, I mean, have you ever heard of soulbonding?” The stranger’s eyes brightened, but Akaashi was already yanking his hands back, stepping behind the acorn counter. He whirled around to Kuroo, a demand in his throat, but Kuroo was holding up his hands.

“I’m sorry, Akaashi. Bokuto’s usually not like this. I mean, he is, but not like this this.” Kuroo shrugged almost helplessly. “He’s old magic. From the owl line. But he doesn’t really do soul magic or anything, right, Bokuto?” Kuroo glared at the stranger—Bokuto—who still stared with his mouth slightly agape.

“Soulbonding,” Bokuto was saying, obviously ignoring Kuroo. “Soulbonding, it’s where two souls—they bond together, and it’s old magic, I know, but I think it’s you—”

“That’s blood magic,” Akaashi said at the same time Kuroo said, “You can’t, Bokuto, you’re cursed.” Everything was spiraling downhill, and Akaashi felt extremely inclined to blame Kuroo for the entire mess.

“He’s cursed,” Kuroo said, like Akaashi hadn’t heard him earlier.

“That explains how he looks,” Akaashi said.

“No, it’s different,” Kuroo said.

“I’m just a little bit cursed,” Bokuto said, a wallowing complaint. “But okay. Okay! Fine, whatever, I don’t care.” His entire face became pinched and unhappy, a complete revolution from his earlier happy composure. Even his shoulders slumped down, folding into himself.

“But I’m sure you can come back to visit nice and friendly Akaashi whenever you like, right?” Kuroo said. Pain in the ass. Akaashi eyed him distastefully. This was another of Kuroo’s tactics to try and get visitors into Akaashi’s shop, a residue of their guilt in the sour affair. But Bokuto was already perking up again, grin growing on his face and his hands gripping into excited fists.

Akaashi had several reasons to refuse. First, he had no interest in getting involved in another’s affairs, not after the debacle with Kuroo and Kenma. Second, blood magic was an old, powerful magic that left a bad taste in his mouth. It was powerful and used by the old lineage, but anything that old and that sacred carried too much weight. Third, nobody would come rushing into a cursed stranger’s arms. Curses were a hefty business and difficult to break, even with all the necessary information.

“Come on, Bokuto. Let’s find some protection herbs,” Kuroo said, taking the silence as an obvious ‘no.’ He tried to steer him towards the rows of drying plants, but Bokuto glanced at Akaashi, half-puzzled and squinting. As if in the five seconds he had met Akaashi, he already knew it wasn’t like him to refuse.

Akaashi twisted his finger in his palm.

“If you need a guard sigil against a curse, I’ll have to do some research,” Akaashi said irritably, letting his words spill out hot and quick. “Come again tomorrow. The store opens at nine. I’ll give you the spell, no more than that.”

He didn’t know what pissed him off more—Kuroo’s surprised, delighted grin, or Bokuto’s knowing gaze, peering out with his hands deep in rose petals.

The owl watched from the trees while Akaashi propped open the door at eight in the morning. A squat bird, with mottled gray fur and human eyes.

“If you have to come in, then come,” Akaashi said, palming the sleep from his eyes. The little gray owl hooted, and Bokuto jumped down from the tree. The autumn leaves stirred around his human feet. Akaashi would have expected a mage from the old lineage to be dressed more ceremonially, but Bokuto was a mess of rumpled robes and rolled-up sleeves.

“How’d you know?” Bokuto grinned.

“My store is hidden,” Akaashi said. Kuroo, of course, knew the way through the wards, and once he had taken Bokuto through, Bokuto now knew the same. On his business card, Akaashi had listed his address as the Heart of the Forest, third right from the lost oak, two steps left from the false weeping willow. Which was perfectly accurate, except it only paved the way to his mailbox.

“Kuroo said you were really smart. And I think Kuroo’s really smart, so you must be really really smart. Like, doubly smart. I’m smart, too,” Bokuto added, tangling into a curious draping vine. Akaashi glared at him, but he was busy with his own mess. He kept his storefront tidy, with the crystals intuitively crossing the core of the tree and the candles clockwise around the room according to their scent. For his old spell scrolls, though, they had been dumped into a pile behind his small counter. He picked one up, using a hunk of mangano calcite, smoothed over by the whispering winds of a gulping cavern, as an expensive paperweight.

“I’m in the top five strongest of our nation’s mages,” Bokuto said, perching on a stool. Akaashi tried not to look surprised, though not for Bokuto’s sake. He knew many powerful mages, those who broke rocks with their minds or twisted the weather of the sky with a flick of their hands. For Bokuto to say he was more powerful than them—

“Yep,” Bokuto said louder. “Top five!” And it didn’t seem like Bokuto was the type to lie, even if the entirety of his personality seemed to disagree with the fact—

“To-o-op five,” Bokuto said, tapping along the counter.

“Ah,” Akaashi said. “So you couldn’t make it any higher.”

“Akaashi!” Bokuto whirled around, scandalized.

“What’s your curse?” Akaashi said instead, and his tactic worked. The shock slipped into a passive thoughtfulness, and Bokuto made a thinking sound that resembled an owl horking up.

“I don’t really know,” Bokuto said. “Something bad happens when I sleep at night. Something comes after me? I don’t know. It destroyed my old home, so now I have to move and sleep in the day.”

“Do you know the caster?”

“Nope.”

“When did it start?”

“Don’t know.”

Under the list of suspected cursers, Akaashi scribbled down ‘anybody who has met him.’

“So can you stop it?” Bokuto leaned forward, elbows brushing against the sharp crystals.

“No. Haven’t you been to a professional curse breaker?” Akaashi had pried out unfitting sleep-curse scrolls, sweeping the rest to the floor. Fortunately, Kenma had emailed him the newest grimoire of spells a few days ago, at his behest. He propped open his tablet and swiped to the c’s.

“Eh, nah. The thing is, my parents weren’t magic. And I didn’t know my grandparents. If it’s a family curse, maybe I shouldn’t break it.” Bokuto wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. Another reason why old magic was a pain in the ass.

Akaashi was an ordinary magician, who communicated with existing spirits. His magic followed rules and math, proper angles, transmutation of things already there. He was a conductor, but Bokuto was an instrument. A broken wailing tuba, most likely, but old magic snapped Akaashi’s rules like thin twigs. A fluent old magic user could likely summon elder beasts and waken the sleeping giants from the mountains. As if that could be useful. At ten, Akaashi had perfected a scrubbing spell that lifted ink from his furniture, and that was still more useful than anything old magic could boast.

Old magic had one more annoying point—it was inherited. It could skip generations before reappearing, but the famous cases were taught in elementary school classes as a warning tale. The early family who struck a bargain with a summoned ghoul, and now their ancestors were cursed to some tragic ritual. Some were only mildly inconveniencing and less fatal. Akaashi knew of an old magic user who merely had to burn a strand of hair every five years. But simply breaking the curse could have disastrous results, tearing apart old bargains as well.

“Annoying,” Akaashi murmured, pinching his fingers to zoom on a sample sigil.

“Are you talking about the spell or me?” Bokuto narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Yes,” Akaashi said. “Do you know what comes after you?”

“Some kind of thing,” Bokuto said vaguely, and Akaashi did his best not to curse him, too. “It looks like a void, I guess. I thought it had wings, but when it didn’t have a beak when it bit me.”

“It bit you? When?” Akaashi half-rose in his seat. “What do you feel?”

“Hungry?” Bokuto shrugged. “Guess it happened last month. I don’t think it was poisonous. Oh, I’m not hungry for blood or anything. Maybe meat. I don’t eat rats, though, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Akaashi said, doing his remarkable best not to grind his teeth. “Show me your wound.”

Bokuto shrugged again, like being bit by a strange magic creature didn’t bother him at all. He loosened his collar, unbuttoning his shirt far enough to reveal a sloppy bandage taped over his chest. When Bokuto tore off the tape, Akaashi could see the flaring scar. A little less than the width of his palm, he would guess, something with sharp edges that dug into the skin. The wound was already healing well. He suspected butterfly stitches had been used. Leaning over the counter, he gently touched around the inflamed area. Not a beak, then. Teeth, with canines.

And the scar was dangerously close to the heart, too. The thumps resonated in his fingertips. He smoothed his hand over the pectorals, cresting the warm skin. He was careful to be gentle around the scar, brushing fingers and delicate touches. It had gone after the heart. Dangerous.

When he glanced up to tell Bokuto as much, he noticed Bokuto’s face was strangely red. Bokuto jerked his head when the bell jangled in the doorway, and Akaashi realized he was caressing Bokuto’s chest just in time for Tsukishima to walk into the store.

“Oh,” Tsukishima said.

“I can explain!” Bokuto blurted out, and Akaashi could feel his heightened heartbeat. “It’s not what it looks like, Tsukki!”

“Ah, it looks like Akaashi is tending to your wound. So it’s something else?” Tsukishima smirked. At least it was his polite smirk. Akaashi was grateful for that much. But even while Bokuto blustered, Akaashi was already taping back the bandage neatly. Even if his ears ran slightly hot, that was no reason to be sloppy.

“Welcome,” Akaashi said belatedly. “The usual?”

“Thanks,” Tsukishima said.

Akaashi wrapped the rocks—thrice-soaked from the moon—into a small satchel. He knotted the burlap opening.

“Are these for your shields?” Bokuto was asking. He was lounging against the counter, shirt buttoned up wrong. Tsukishima seemed respectful of him, or at least tolerating, because his headphones were still around his neck and not against his ears. Akaashi suspected some sound magic had been cast over them. Still, sometimes he could hear a soft siren song.

“You should get some moon dust,” Bokuto said, “You do moon magic, right? You could craft a really nice shield in the full moon.”

“I see,” Tsukishima said. “A moon shield from moon rock during a full moon. You must have thought really hard for that.”

“Well, yeah.”

“I’m sorry for your wasted efforts, but some of us have to be awake in the morning and can’t play all night.”

“It’s just one night, Tsukki!” Bokuto frowned, which Akaashi identified as him sensing around the vague feeling of being mocked. “Anyway, it’d be worth it. You could make a really nice shield!”

“Not all of us are that invested in magic,” Tsukishima said. He had straightened up, which given his considerable height, meant he was nearly brushing against a low vine. Akaashi could identify his bristling, though he had no real intention of stepping between them. From what little he gleaned from Kuroo’s ramblings, Tsukishima had complicated feelings towards magic, and he didn’t push the issue.

“It’s not about being invested,” Bokuto said vaguely, scratching his wound. Akaashi caught his wrist. He didn’t want Bokuto to agitate his cursed wound.

“Good magic is indistinguishable from no magic,” Tsukishima said, almost like a memorization. He had drawn himself up higher. Akaashi had heard that line before, too, and Tsukishima seemed to be the embodiment of that ideal. His was the subtle pushing, the strong shield.

“Maybe,” Bokuto said. “But doesn’t it feel really good to be strong? To be good at something? Really good?” His tone didn’t seem particularly challenging, but Akaashi felt something—different—in the store. It was faint, but he could detect a stirring from the herbs, glowing from the stones, a heavier scent from the candles. Akaashi had always been more sensitive to magic, but even Tsukishima seemed to sense it, his guarded expression relaxing into surprise.

“Please stop disturbing my customers,” Akaashi said firmly, flattening his hand over Bokuto’s again. Things slowly settled down, like a feather landing on the ground. Bokuto hummed carelessly, distracted by something on the wall. Tsukishima’s eyes flickered to Akaashi.

“Thanks,” Tsukishima said, accepting the parcel of rocks from him. He seemed stiffer, less casual in his movement.

“This is a good store,” Bokuto said, the danger passing. “Akaashi’s helping me with my curse.”

“You’re cursed?” Tsukishima raised an eyebrow. “That explains how you look.”

Bokuto bristled, but Akaashi was already speaking before Bokuto could start.

“I’m not helping him,” Akaashi said. “I don’t help people anymore. I’m selling him a spell. Don’t misunderstand.” Bokuto blinked up at him, mouth slightly slack in surprise. But the shock passed and Bokuto grinned again, almost knowingly, and turned back to Tsukishima.

“Are you going east, Tsukki? I’ve got to nap, so I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll be walking.”

“Why don’t you try flying?” Bokuto was already rising from his seat. “Sorry, Akaashi, I’ll be back tomorrow to pick up whatever you got. Come on, Tsukki!”

It wasn’t surprising that Tsukishima lingered behind while Bokuto burst out the door and nearly fell into a pile of leaves. It was surprising that Tsukishima glanced towards Akaashi with a heavy look.

“Sorry about him,” Akaashi tried, but Tsukishima shook his head slowly. That wasn’t it, then.

“Cursed,” Tsukishima echoed. “Will you try breaking it?”

“No. I’ll find some shield spells,” Akaashi said. Tsukishima had frequented his shop for months, but he knew little about him. They exchanged some pleasantries, so he knew Tsukishima sometimes thought the weather was fair, and sometimes thought it was not. But Tsukishima was extremely intelligent and deeply mistrustful, which made Akaashi pay attention to the things he did. Mages who didn’t believe in magic were tricky. They didn’t fall for illusions unless the illusions were truly believed by the caster.

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Tsukishima said.

“Do you know something?” Akaashi watched attentively at Tsukishima’s small frown.

“Not really,” Tsukishima said, playing up a light-hearted tone that was fooling no one, “I only met Bokuto yesterday.”

The little owl hooted outside, rustling up the fiery leaves. Bokuto had met Tsukishima yesterday, and he was already talking to him with more knowledge and familiarity than Akaashi had after months. It didn’t bother him, except for the parts that did.

“Well,” Tsukishima said quietly, “it’s not about what I know, but what I don’t know.” He nodded to Akaashi briskly and pushed his headphones over his ears, heading out the door. The owl stirred from the leaf pile and flapped his way into the air, hovering while Tsukishima made his way out of the enchanted wards of the forest.

On the third day, Bokuto came to him as an owl. In the morning, he stayed as an owl, sitting on the sapling in the corner and sleeping beneath the leaves.

Akaashi’s trade wasn’t divination. He wasn’t a tech witch like Kenma, either, who used the lines of electricity and power stations to his bidding. Tsukishima might call himself a moon witch, and Kuroo was a self-proclaimed cat witch. But Akaashi simply had connections, who had connections, who had connections. If someone needed an ingredient, they could certainly try their hand at divination or hire a divination expert. But if they wanted thirty vials of fragile hippogriff tears, then Akaashi could ship that within the week. He could do magic—but he mostly didn’t.

Or he didn’t anymore.

Still, he was a conductor for magic, and treated his role with seriousness. Certainly, if a spell called for running water, he might turn on his faucet. Or if he needed an eye of newt, he might use a grape instead. But there was magic he wouldn’t dare touch, and that was mostly the old magic. Blood magic. Soul magic. Even while he searched for the owl magic lineage, he was careful only to view the ancestry tomes through filtered lenses, sepias and tints and shades. A pure picture could easily curse his tablet.

Though the old records praised owl magic for its strength, none delved into detail. He couldn’t find a past transaction where Bokuto’s ancestor might have willingly traded sleep for power. It was all very sparse, and not in the telling way, where something happened and the records were wiped out. No, just a mention here and there in folk songs. The bulk of the information was from recent times and about Bokuto himself, which Akaashi still browsed over, searching for a potential spell caster who had hated him so much that they would curse his heart.

Most pictures showed Bokuto holding trophies and rewards, grinning out at the camera. He flicked off the filter for the newspaper clippings. It was better, he thought, to see Bokuto in clear light. Gold eyes, bright grin. Akaashi touched the edge of the picture.

A whisper of wings.

“Did you find anything?” Bokuto settled onto a stool. Akaashi minimized the picture, smoothly slipping the tablet beneath his crustier scrolls.

“It might give people the wrong idea if you sleep in my shop,” Akaashi said dryly.

“Sorry! But your shop’s really nice, Akaashi. It makes me sleepy.” Bokuto blinked, marveling at the store.

Akaashi supposed it was nice. He had chosen this tree for its size and aptitude, and the redwood was remarkably beautiful and strong against the forest. Inside, the dust hazily drifted in the soft sunbeams. Assorted candles, seemingly random, were occasionally lit to cast a gentle glow over the flowers hanging upside down. The walls were mostly auburn brown, filled with books and knickknacks. A jacket weaved with the azure thread of sighs. A jar filled with a gossamer web that had listened to thousands of secrets. A small budding bonsai tree, leaves with lavender midnight glow.

“There are some shield spells that might work,” Akaashi said. “Which spells have you already tried?”

“Just the basic ones, I guess,” Bokuto said vaguely. “That’s usually enough for what I want.” Here, another shitty half-hearted statement. This was why dealing with powerful mages could be annoying.

“Basic,” Akaashi slowly probed. “Basic, as in…”

“You know, you just think it. Pow. Shield.” Bokuto shrugged. Akaashi could almost see the shimmer of shield surrounding him, which lasted like a bubble before rescinding back to the air. Annoying. Deeply, deeply annoying.

“Let’s try some older spells.” Akaashi pulled out a scroll, jotted down with ancient runes, and now with sticky notes flagging certain translations. “They might be weaker in theory, but it could help.”

“Yeah? How?” Bokuto peered at the circles.

“How much do you know about the three wishes theorem?”

“Nothing at all!”

Annoying.

“If someone offers you three wishes, your first wish would likely be for an infinite amount of wishes. Correct?”

“Well,” Bokuto said mournfully, “I’d probably ask for some cake.” His stomach rumbled, and he seemed likely to drool on the paper. Akaashi hastily scrambled around the desk, finding a sandwich he’d wrapped for his lunch. He shoved it into Bokuto’s hands and continued.

“It’s a common theme in the three wishes stories that a wish is warped. Say someone wishes for peace and quiet. They might find themselves on a deserted island. Someone asks for cake, they receive inedible cake.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Bokuto unwrapped the plastic covering the sandwich, biting into the white bread, lettuce, tomato, and cheese mix. He seemed pleased, mouth full of sandwich. Akaashi sat down.

“The wisher can act in two ways. They can trust the wish-granter to understand the implications of their wish, or assume the wish-granter is corrupting or misunderstanding their wishes. In practice, the part of ourselves we put into the spells always understand our implications. But we may need to ask the spirits in different ways to achieve better communication.” Akaashi tapped the scrolls. “These are the tried-and-true ways, even if they are less powerful and effective.”

“Let’s do them all!” Bokuto lit up in his seat.

“No, that’s not a good idea—”

“I’m thirsty.”

Akaashi dug around his counter for a dusty water bottle and tossed it at Bokuto.

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned,” he said dryly. “People don’t ordinarily get cursed.”

“Not really,” Bokuto said, mouth around the water bottle. “I’m a popular guy, Akaashi. That gets a lot of attention. I’m pretty good at magic. Do you want to see? I can do tons of magic!”

“No, that’s not necessary.”

“Tons of magic,” Bokuto muttered, a petulant child. He bit into the sandwich again. Akaashi briefly looked up from copying the spell over to a notebook paper. Bokuto’s casualness didn’t appear to be feigned, but he also didn’t know if Bokuto was cursed so often that this was merely an irrelevant hobby, stopping by a shop to purchase a small spell to ward off the worst of the charms. Not all curses called for a drop of hatred, but the most deadly always contained hatred by the oceans.

“I only take cash or credit,” Akaashi said, placing down his Bic quill. “I don’t take favors. Please pay upfront.”

“That’s rare,” Bokuto said, lettuce sticking from his mouth. “I got the cash, just, most stores take favors, don’t they?”

“It’s an inaccurate exchange rate.”

“Hm.” Bokuto blinked at him, but didn’t seem willing to argue. “I’ll let you know if the spell works!”

“There are no refunds.”

“No, not like that. Just to let you know that the spell is good, you know? I’ll stop by and we can celebrate. I’ll buy you,” Bokuto said magnanimously, “a sandwich.” Technically, though, he should have already bought a sandwich. Akaashi folded the spell paper and passed it over to him.

“That’s not necessary,” he said firmly. “I don’t get involved with my customers.”

“You don’t want to know if I’m okay?” Bokuto peered up at him, and Akaashi got the strange chill again, the one he faintly felt when Bokuto first arrived at the store. He felt deeply stubborn against something that wasn’t quite there.

“You seem strong enough to survive this,” Akaashi said, switching tactics. It worked, given the way Bokuto puffed up like an enthusiastic bird, fluffed feathers and giant grin.

“I am strong, aren’t I?” he said modestly. “I’m really good at magic. Do you want me to show you?”

“Not necessary.”

When Bokuto finally left on silent feathers, flapping into the crepuscule sky, Akaashi felt tired. The store seemed emptier without him lounging across the counter, but he busied himself with dusting across the amber walls and shooing out the dust with his broom. He didn’t get involved with customers. It had nothing to do with him.

The fourth day was overcast. He had thought the weather had worked its way into autumn, but humidity lingered in the air. A suffocating heat despite the lumbering clouds. Akaashi had a quiet morning of answering emails and sending requests. His afternoon was spent tending to his plants, sprinkling water over the dirt. In the late afternoon, the owl came.

The bell jingled to his store. The creak of the wooden door stirred open, wood scraping up the faint scent of mildew and moss. Akaashi had been melting a silver fork by maple candle. The twilight’s rays struck the human form from the back, casting him in shadow for a moment, and Akaashi nearly didn’t recognize him, with his withdrawn sullen face and unblinking eyes. A blood stain blotched around his chest. Then, he grinned.

“I want to buy another spell,” Bokuto said.

“You’re hurt.” Akaashi stood up.

“What? This? Nah, it’s nothing for a great mage like me. Barely hurts at all. It’s like a mosquito bite, if mosquito bites didn’t hurt. Nope, it’s—”

“Sit down already.” Akaashi hurried to his basic remedial kit, equipped with healing willow moss, compress dressings, aspirin, blessed tears, hydrocortisone ointment packets, and unbroken promises. Bokuto had already settled into the stool, unbuttoning his shirt with a stubborn expression. Akaashi recognized the light scratches, already scarring over. Talon marks. He still grabbed a wet cloth, pulling an old oak chair closer to him.

“Listen, Akaashi,” Bokuto said, “for great mages like me, this is nothing—ow! Ow, ow, ow!” He flinched and pulled away from the wet cloth.

“If it’s nothing,” Akaashi said, “that means you’ll stay still.”

“It—It doesn’t hurt.”

“Please stay still.” Akaashi twisted the cloth over his knuckles, forming a hard knot underneath his fingers. He brushed it gently over the wounds. There were four slashes. None were particularly deep, but the fourth trailed off with a hook, aimed to carve out the heart. The rivulets of water trickled down Bokuto’s chest, wetting his loosened shirt.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Bokuto said again, with his appalled stubborn expression.

“What happened?” Akaashi was curious, but he needed to take Bokuto’s mind off the pain. Not for any sympathetic reasons, of course. He needed him to stay still. Fortunately, Bokuto easily took the bait, eyes gleaming at the exciting adventure.

“The good news is that your spell worked,” Bokuto said, “except it only lasted for a little while. Like, five seconds. But I got some really good sleep in five seconds. Great mages like me, Akaashi, only need—”

“So you saw the creature.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.” Bokuto wrinkled his nose, fingers still tensing while Akaashi brushed over the wound with antibiotic ointment. “It had wings, I guess. And teeth. I fought it off, though! Are you impressed? It’s not always, right, that people can fight off curses. But I did, and it went all the way away, and it only took me most of the night.”

“Very impressive,” Akaashi said in an unimpressed voice. But it was enough for Bokuto, who grinned again. And unfortunately, it was impressive. Curses targeted after a specific person were difficult to ward away, and not for very long. He applied a fresh bandage.

“Right? Right? I’m the best at—ow!” Bokuto winced when Akaashi pressed the bandage firmly onto his chest. Accidental, of course.

“Come upstairs. I’ll get you a clean shirt.” Akaashi shoved open the curtains to the stairway, twisting wood steps curling to a door. Bokuto hovered in his seat, eyes widening at the sight. It was an ordinary quaint staircase, in Akaashi’s opinion, with tender vines and blooming flowers twirling around the rails and the amber grain shifting in quiet whispers beneath his feet.

“Wait, wait wait wait. Is this one of those things where you open the door and it goes into a different world?” Bokuto gaped at the doorway.

“No.” Akaashi opened the door to a small hallway. The twisting nature of the tree meant he had to climb another short set of stairs to his bedroom. He did try to keep his storefront impeccable, but his own room was based on efficiency more than neatness. His closet, for example, was sorted by the weather rather than size. Bokuto was still standing in the doorway while Akaashi tried to measure his shoulder width with his eyes. Wide, he thought. Wide and strong.

He hated himself for the thought.

“Can I come in?” Bokuto asked.

“Do as you wish.” Akaashi didn’t have any qualms about Bokuto entering his bedroom, except now that he thought about it, he did. But Bokuto was surprisingly sensitive, inching inside the bedroom with a pinched, harried look. Akaashi curled his fingers into his collection of summer shirts. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had seen his house. He should have cleaned his desk. Or made his bed. Or opened a window.

“Plants nice,” Bokuto said.

“Sorry?” Akaashi half-turned to where Bokuto was astutely staring out the window.

“The plants,” Bokuto said slowly, “nice.”

Akaashi glanced at the tree walls.

“Yes,” he said. “Plants are nice.”

“No, I mean, your plants, good, nice. Good nice.” Bokuto pointed to the row of plants Akaashi had lined up on the broader branches outside the window. Mostly herbs for his potions. Basil, lemongrass, chamomile, the like. Akaashi found a shirt that seemed big enough, or nearly big enough, and passed it to him.

“Thank you.” He took a seat on his old chair, too aware how it creaked in the silence. “I’ve built a familiar for them, though they don’t use it much.”

“Building a familiar?” Bokuto cocked his head, unbuttoning the remainder of his shirt. Akaashi directed his gaze towards the ceiling. He wasn’t a teenager, he chided himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at him.

“If the plant spirits wanted to occupy a vessel and move around.” Akaashi took down the little machine bird he had been crafting. It was mostly loose parts and cogs, but they all ran smoothly enough. When a plant spirit entered the bird, the amber eyes would sparkle with stars and the clockwork would tick along, metal wings smoothly sliding upwards. Now, it looked like Akaashi’s abandoned high school project.

“You’re good with plants,” Bokuto said, bending closer to examine the empty clockwork bird. He hadn’t put on the shirt yet. Akaashi did his best to hate him for that. He wouldn’t look. He absolutely wouldn’t look. He peeked. A hint of a flickering tattoo, something fluttery, whispered on Bokuto’s shoulder.

“I’m not a plant witch. But they’re very quiet.” Akaashi peeked again as a reward, and then returned to staring at the amber eyes of the machine. “For my plants, at least, they have no real wish to move around other than curiosity. The familiar stays empty for most of the duration.” It wasn’t uncommon, though, to see the machine bird move around its head in the mornings. The basil was particularly stubborn and would drag the watering pot towards its body. Thyme would be playful, his lavender a bit tart with him if he wasn’t careful throughout the day.

“Do you usually talk with your plants?” Bokuto finally slipped the shirt over his head, immediately getting stuck at the collar. Akaashi helped with the finishing tugs.

“Sometimes,” Akaashi said indifferently. “That’s how I started living here. I was traveling through the woods when I heard this tree. In exchange for shelter, I’d provide it magical nourishment.”

“So you do accept favors, huh?” Bokuto grinned. Akaashi’s shirt was tight on him. Akaashi appraised that quietly.

“I used to. Not anymore,” he said. “They’re rarely equal.”

“Is that so bad?”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t want an animal familiar?” Bokuto shrugged on his robes again, biceps hidden within the folds of lumpy cloth. Akaashi withheld a disgusted ‘tsk.’

“Animal familiar,” he repeated, trying to refocus. “No. I don’t want anything to rely on me.”

“Come on, Akaashi, animal familiars are good in their own way, right?” A rapid fluttering of wings, and Bokuto was an owl again, hopping onto the desk. He sat beside the machine bird, preening with his wings. He truly was a strange creature in owl form, lacking all the conventional traits of animal-turning magic. Akaashi found himself stroking the top of Bokuto’s head, charmed despite himself.

Bokuto cooed and skittered forward, leaning into his hand. It was like he was touch-starved. Akaashi brushed against the long, gray wings, fingers over the mottled bars. Bokuto closed his eyes.

Sleep curses were tiring. Correction: finding the caster of curses was tiring. Akaashi gently removed himself from the room, careful not to disturb the sleeping owl on his desk. He descended to his research room, a brisk room he had chosen for its airiness and winding wooden pillars. The curved window sat towards the north of the room, angled to provide light onto his sharp desk. His laptop was still opened to the last few messages received.

nekoma05: I’ve never heard of that kind of curse.
nekoma05: But I’ll keep looking.
nekoma05: I still owe you.

Akaashi was quick to type a response (“You don’t owe me anything.”) before he tabbed open the grimoire again. He had hoped, strangely enough, that the curse had been a family bargain. Most curses stemmed from family, after all. Because if it was removed from the lineage, then he would have to admit someone, for some reason, had wanted to curse Bokuto. And while Bokuto wasn’t very smart, he was amusing and sincere. It would be like cursing a child—unnecessary, to say the least. No innocuous spell would throw itself at his heart.

Sleepwalking spell. That was a start, but completely wrong. Sleep terrors, which was more likely, but most of the beasts were incorporeal. Nightmare curse, but those were completely incorporeal. Sleepless curse, which sounded like an amalgam of the current curse, but Akaashi couldn’t imagine anyone from the owl magic lineage to have difficulty in becoming nocturnal. He would start from scratch, then. Create a spell that even Bokuto could surely cast.

There were those who created their spells like a song, but Akaashi always cast his like a quick wish. The shorter the better for Bokuto, who had implied he was a nonverbal spell caster. Safety against all harm—no, that would be confusing. Even Akaashi’s sandwich could be constituted as a choking hazard harm. Safety against deadly harm, perhaps, or even just a simple, shield against malicious magic. For Bokuto, perhaps bad magic would be better. If what he said was true, then the force of his magic required less subtlety and simply more directness.

Akaashi’s hand grew tired from jotting down the notes, cramped and tight against the lined pages. He stretched his arm over his head, relaxing against his chair.

Something crawled outside his window.

Akaashi considered the tree more his house and home than shop and storage, which mean he prioritized his security above all else. Every shield spell he knew was cast over the tree, every ward in place, sigils written and buried in bottles throughout the forest. Only those who had been invited, even once, were allowed on the grounds. Which meant nothing had crawled outside his window for years. He stood up, loudly scraping his chair across the floor.

It was the evening twilight. Too early for Bokuto’s curse—but still—

He pulled open the door and darted towards his bedroom. His mechanical familiar had become occupied by his sage, which had pulled shut the window. The amber eyes flashed and the sage spirit eased out of the clockwork bird.

The creature stared from outside the window.

It was perched on the branch. The edges of its shape blurry like rain had splattered on inky paper, and it only retained the size of a small house cat. At one point, it had wings, and another, talons, but it was a void. It whispered with a pull, eyeless and endless. Akaashi thought he could hear it, even past the shielding spells on the glass. The creature had no mouth, but it spoke with a slithering hiss.

It’s your fault.

It knew.

It felt like someone had pressed their thumb against his heart, and now it was caving inside to show he was empty, a construct without form. He thought if he touched the creature, he would be sucked inside it, hand constantly longing for something to touch again, and he wasn’t frightened, just filled with a dull peace that someone had finally noticed, had finally said something about the person he had become. A heavy weight was being lifted off his shoulder. The floor slid underneath him.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto sprang from the desk, stumbling while still mostly asleep. He twisted towards the window, hand glowing in gold. When he touched the wall, the sigils on the windows lit up with a fiery burn, and the creature sprang away. The symbols burned white hot before fading into gray, crumbling into ash. Akaashi righted himself, but he didn’t remember falling.

“Was that,” Akaashi said.

“Are you all right?” Bokuto grabbed him by the shoulders. “Did it hurt you? It didn’t hurt you, right? It’s supposed to be my curse, it shouldn’t hurt you!”

“I’m fine,” Akaashi said, trying to pry him off. “Was that your cursed beast?”

“Probably.” Bokuto finally released his grip, though the worried incline of his eyebrows only increased. “Or at least one of them. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“You’re not holding up your hand.”

“Oh.” Bokuto held up the palm of his hand, inches away from Akaashi’s nose. “How many fingers am I holding up!”

“I’ll be fine.” Akaashi pushed his hand away. “It didn’t hurt you?”

“No. I mean, your familiar woke me up.” Bokuto glanced at the empty vessel, standing still once more.

“Will it come after you?”

“Probably not. Ah, sorry about your house!” Bokuto stood up, frowning at the window. Akaashi had spent days applying the shield spell to his window, but he had always assumed it would be used in dangerous situations. He was about to tell him not to concern himself about it, but Bokuto had already pressed his hand against the woodwork. Light broke through the symbols, the gray ash reconstituting into solid strokes. The messy desk gently fluttered into neatness, the chair rocking forward to the desk, the blankets on his bed neatening across the frame, pillows plumped. A candle lit and extinguished, just long enough to release a burst of tea scent. New warmth entered the room, and he thought he had felt this way before, when he woke in the morning and saw the fresh rays of light from the morning.

“Still, your house is good at shields,” Bokuto said, removing his hand. Fresh sapling leaves sprouted from where he had touched the wood. Akaashi expected Bokuto to be preening about his magic, demanding for attention, but Bokuto looked indifferent. As if he didn’t perform ten types of magic by just willing something in his mind.

“How did you do that?”

“What?” Bokuto blinked.

“The spell. How did you—” Akaashi wrinkled his forehead. Levitation, at the least. Growth. Reapplication of an old wasted spell. Some sort of cleaning spell for his metal familiar, which was looking like it was sparkling in the sun, even though he had dug the cogs out of some trash.

“Oh, I dunno. I’m not smart like you, Akaashi.” Bokuto shrugged. “I just wanted things to get better.”

Smart like him. And look where it got him, living in the middle of the forest and watching someone easily magic everything around him. Even the air seemed cleaner. He was a healthier person after Bokuto’s spell. It pissed him off.

“Stay the night,” he said crankily, and hastily added, “in the guest bedroom. It’s an attic and doesn’t have a bed, but there are some blankets.”

“That sounds nice.” Bokuto grinned, relaxed. “The blankets thing is okay. I’m a nester.”

Akaashi, quite frankly, had no idea what he meant. The more he learned about Bokuto, the less he was sure he really knew him.

A ‘nester’ was apparently someone who pulled the blankets into a nest, little scraps of fabric tucked into the corners. When Akaashi checked his attic in the morning, he found the nest empty. It wasn’t like he spent most of the night staring at his ceiling, wondering if Bokuto was asleep or awake, so it didn’t matter to him. When he trooped downstairs, Bokuto was already sitting on the stairs, petting the familiar vessel awkwardly on the head.

“I slept great,” Bokuto said, bags under his eyes.

“I see.”

“Hey, have you ever heard about draining curses? Just wondering. For a friend.”

“Do you feel tired?”

“No! My friend might feel tired, though, and he might be kinda cursed, so if you know…” Bokuto poked his fingers together, trying his best to fade into the stairs. It was too early in the morning for his antics. Akaashi bent at his knees. Bokuto peered up at him, vague fatigue lingering in his eyes. He seemed half-asleep, awkwardly tucked against the wall.

“I’ll make some coffee.” He stepped over Bokuto, making his way to the kitchenette. It was another short flight of stairs and a turn to the left. Bokuto trailed behind, metal familiar clanking in his hands.

“Magical coffee?” Bokuto asked hopefully. “Magical potions coffee full of energy?”

“Regular coffee full of coffee beans.” Akaashi reflected while he scrounged around his cupboard. “But it was a magical sale. Two for one.”

“Oh. I haven’t seen you do a lot of magic, huh.” Bokuto said it in almost a murmur, but Akaashi squinted at him, trying to figure out his intent. Bokuto bit into an apple, still staring around like he’d never seen a kitchen in a tree before.

“I understand Tsukishima’s sentiments. About the integration of magic. Though I’m not sure how much I agree with it.” Akaashi shrugged. “At the expense of sharing too much, my parents taught me the basics of magic with strict warnings.”

“Why would you think that’s oversharing? Isn’t that normal?” Bokuto nibbled over the apple core.

“I suppose,” Akaashi said. “But I don’t get involved with my customers. I don’t care to learn about their sordid family history or their personal afflictions. Though I might share things about myself, it’s not an invitation for a mutual pit of feelings.”

“You really think a lot about everything,” Bokuto said, and though he was sincere, Akaashi still felt like he’d been insulted. “But I think that’s still normal. They teach you stuff like that in school, too! How blood magic is bad, curses hurt the curse-caster.”

“In school, they instill a moral core where there is none to stabilize their sense of community.” Akaashi started on some toast, setting out his magical toaster that he had also purchased for a magical discount. “Curses don’t damage the caster. Blood magic isn’t evil, but they don’t want people running around, cutting each other for their blood.”

“But you still don’t like blood magic,” Bokuto observed.

“It’s unnecessary. Soul, as well. I have no intents of bonding with you,” Akaashi said, buttering the dry toast. Because soulbonding was a pain in the ass, for one thing. They tried to romanticize it in the movies, but it was an unpleasant business that had unknown repercussions. Lovers were the worst part. They would try to bond together, believing all it did was share feelings with each other. It was that, and so much more. A complete overlap, a new divergence, a brief moment of oneness and then the reseparation back to self. Fortunately for him and lovers, soulbonding was a process generally lost to the eaves of old books.

“I don’t want to bond with you, either,” Bokuto said, puzzled.

“You said you did when we first met.” Akaashi sliced a tomato, arranging the wedges beside the toast. He served the breakfast to Bokuto, who dug in obligingly.

“You got me all wrong!” Bokuto waved around his fork with all the elegance of a king on his breakfast throne. “I was just saying it, like an example. Do you have any eggs? I like eggs. It’s just that, remember that part where I told you my magic is great and everything?”

“Really, now.” Akaashi made his way to the refrigerator, searching for eggs. “I don’t remember that part.”

“Well, it is! It’s great! And sometimes I don’t even have to really think about it, and it does stuff. Like, I could sense it. Your soul.”

“You sensed a brittle shell?”

“No.” Bokuto studied him over his toast, crumbs falling in his lap. “Something good.”

“Please don’t flatter me,” Akaashi said, turning the omelets into scrambled eggs. He had heard of this. People who only heard what they wanted to hear might be seduced by such simple, kind words, but Akaashi was better than that. He wouldn’t let his heart soften or allow hope to spring into his chest.

“Well, you’ve always been good to me,” Bokuto said.

“You’re a paying customer. I only provide the spells, not the service.” Akaashi slid the eggs onto his plate. “It might have been different, once. But not anymore.”

“Sometimes it feels like you’re really thinking hard about something,” Bokuto said. “Not that I do that.” He stated it with a certain amount of pride. Akaashi eyed him, but Bokuto had descended on his eggs. Akaashi sat to eat at the counter. He wasn’t able to think clearly, not about spells or curses or minimum expenditures, because Bokuto was eating across from him. It had been a long time since he had eaten with anyone else.

He supposed some people might call it nice.

“I still want to see your magic,” Bokuto said. He touched his plate, which sprouted ungainly wings and flapped towards the sink in an uneven dizzying path. It bumped on the cupboards before it landed in the soapy water, porcelain wings withdrawn back into the smooth surface.

“That’s not necessary,” Akaashi said.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!”

“It’s nothing so interesting.”

“Come on, please! Please, please, please.” Bokuto grinned, elbows fully on the table now. “Please, please, please!”

Things had begun to sprout wings around them. Akaashi’s teacups fluttered inside the glass cage of the cupboard, little forks rose from the drawers. A spoon bent and twisted. An empty jug slowly filled with water, glass flowers blooming in slow, crystalline shape. His entire kitchen was dancing in the morning light, and Akaashi finally scowled softly in annoyance.

Finally, he placed his hand flat on the table.

Softer, please.

The table slowly transformed into a cushiony substance, the plates sinking into the folds. Bokuto jerked back, mouth open in surprise. It really wasn’t that impressive. Akaashi had to be specific with his magic, which was a limitation that Bokuto didn’t face. But Bokuto clapped his hands together loudly.

“That was great! Wait, hold on.” Bokuto swept over a portion of the table. Little scrapings leapt up, now feather-light and soft, and spun into the air. Modern stars.

“Did you see that? You think that’s cool, right?” Bokuto grinned.

“It could be better.” Akaashi twisted the scrapings. Shape, please. They melded together into a small bird, which fluttered in the air.

“That’s not better—this is better—” And Bokuto was already waving his hand again.

It really was stupid, the way Akaashi spent his morning. The magic was bristling in his kitchen until the afternoon, though it finally settled when they finished a plate with the small emblem of a bird fluttering around the outskirts.

“Did you see what I did?” Bokuto was chattering, hands wrapping around the plate, and he must have asked the question a thousand times in the morning alone.

“Of course I did,” Akaashi said, a little more snappish than he would have liked. He glanced upwards to see if he needed to apologize because he was starting to get a handle on Bokuto, in the little ways. He was temperamental and moody, but it wasn’t anything Akaashi hadn’t seen before. It was almost—enjoyable.

Bokuto happened to be looking up and caught his gaze. He seemed surprised that Akaashi was actually looking at him, even though he was the one who asked. But Akaashi wasn’t blameless. He couldn’t look away, either, at the way Bokuto was looking at him. Joy, he supposed. Overwhelming joy. But that was parting aside to show a real current of affection, and this was why old magic was awful, because he was starting to lose himself in ways he didn’t understand. Bokuto’s grin wavered, like the depth of his feelings struck him by surprise, too, and Akaashi wanted to laugh and push him away at the same time.

The bell tinkled for his store.

“I should go—”

“I’ve got stuff, in my hotel room—”

They were both standing up, except Akaashi was knocking his way to the door and Bokuto slipped away into his owl form and leapt for the window. And by that, he leapt into the window’s glass, squawked in surprise, and then sheepishly pushed aside the panes.

Akaashi straightened his shirt, trying his best not to look like he had been in the midst of an eye-fucking session with a stranger in his kitchen.

“Welcome,” he said. Tsukishima had arrived, though he was lingering in front of the row of old photographs and broken lockets and decadent dreams. Tsukishima briefly nodded to him, acting as if he hadn’t been waiting. Akaashi did find Tsukishima’s company enjoyable as well, but he thought, with a sinking feeling, that not in the same way he thought about Bokuto.

“Special order,” Tsukishima said, holding up a request form. “If this is something you can get.”

“It’s likely.” Akaashi took the form, briefly skimming the contents. “Moon dust?”

“Don’t tell Bokuto.” Tsukishima glanced around suddenly, suspicious. “Is he here?”

“No. He just left.” A second later, Akaashi realized the implication of his words. But scrambling for his defense would have only made him look even guiltier, so he pretended he didn’t notice Tsukishima’s scrutinizing gaze. He had Tsukishima’s vulnerability in his hands, after all. Real actual proof that Tsukishima cared.

“He has a way of getting to you,” Tsukishima said, in some halfway explanation for an unasked question. He seemed slightly irritated, but he pinched his shoulders back and shrugged with a forced carelessness.

“I’ll email you if I’m able to acquire the items,” Akaashi said.

“Thanks.” Tsukishima glanced at a vine. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but…”

“Yes?” It was rare for Tsukishima to need prompting, and even rarer for him to be saying something like ‘he shouldn’t be saying this.’ Tsukishima always simply said it. Akaashi braced himself for the worst.

“I haven’t known Bokuto for very long. But my glasses are enchanted with higher sight.” Tsukishima seemed increasingly reluctant to continue. “When I was last here, I didn’t see any spells attached to him.”

“What does that mean?” Akaashi rubbed the joint of his finger, a slow, sinking feeling passing through him.

“I’m sure of this.” Tsukishima turned away. “Bokuto isn’t cursed.”

Akaashi had seen many magical creatures. After all, he didn’t always live in a tree. He had seen otters with fur lined with seaweed, leaving bubbles in their wake. A trundling turtle with smaller turtles clutching to the vegetation on the shell. A bird of paradise, wings spread out with the color of mettle and dreams. Sometimes, he’d even been fortunate enough to take pictures of them. So when the cursed creature—the so-called cursed creature—arrived in the window again, he wasn’t surprised.

He sat against the attic wall. He had kept most antiques in the storage space, modern technology replacing the need for holosteric barometers and field microscopes, stenographs and daguerreotype pictures. Old enchanted orbs, a broken wire from an older model of computer. Things he couldn’t quite let go.

In the middle of the room, Bokuto slept in his nest of blankets.

The creature paced at the window, unable to penetrate the thick spelled glass. Bokuto was mumbling in his sleep, twisting in the blankets while the moon pooled around him. Akaashi watched the creature hiss, its void eyes flickering in vague frustration. It still looked more like emptiness than anything else. Like someone had cut a hole in the universe in the shape of a winged beast. But Akaashi listened to it with indifference, now, knowing the words weren’t directed at him.

Not good enough.

Not strong enough.

Not smart enough.

It had nothing to do with him, but the whispers were irritating him. He finally stood up, floorboards creaking under his weight. The creature hissed again, but scampered away from the branch. It stirred up the dry needles. Akaashi watched it flee back towards a distant mountain.

Finally, he settled by the nest of blankets and prodded Bokuto on the shoulder.

“Mmph,” Bokuto said, waking with elegance. He looked even more tired than before, despite his early sleep. It took him a long moment to orient himself, hands numbly grasping at the floor, eyes heavy and fatigued.

“You’re not cursed.” Akaashi thought there might be a better way of saying it, but he had little interest in that.

“Of course I am,” Bokuto said, rubbing his eyes. “Didn’t you see that—thing?”

“It’s not a curse.” Akaashi sat with his hands folded in his lap. “It’s a part of yourself that escapes when you sleep. Nobody has cursed you. This is your own doing.”

Akaashi’s magic was stringent rules and lines. He didn’t merely ask for things to be better. He asked for things to clean, things to fly, things to float. But Bokuto had no such control. And things might work out well for him because the spirits could understand, would understand, what he wanted. But he himself wasn’t always in control of what he needed.

“Oh,” Bokuto said, in a sort of strange voice that made Akaashi regret, a little, how he had phrased the fact. “Then what should we do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do we fight it. Make it go away. I kinda need sleep, Akaashi, because I’m great. And stuff.” Bokuto’s words had a strange, sleepless slur to the end, like a drunken question. He half-buried his face into his hands.

“I can’t help you anymore.” Akaashi twisted his hands. “There isn’t any spell for this. It’s none of my business.”

“You won’t help me?”

“No.”

“You don’t like me?”

“That has nothing to do with this.” Akaashi straightened under Bokuto’s heavy, questioning gaze. “I offer spells, not services. You’ll have to handle this on your own.” He expected more furious questions, but Bokuto slipped into a thoughtful, languid silence, staring at the wall.

“I guess Kuroo was right,” he said slowly.

“Kuroo?” Akaashi squinted at him, but Bokuto was already looking away.

“He told me not to come visit you. He said it’d hurt both of us.” Bokuto frowned. “I hate it when he’s right. It’s a pain, isn’t it? He’s gonna brag.”

“This isn’t something so melodramatic,” Akaashi said, almost angry now. “Don’t take it personally. It’s a matter of principle.”

“Now you’re just using big words so I don’t understand.”

“It’s—” Akaashi gritted his teeth. “It’s like the stories. A hero comes along to save the day, or a child runs away from their parents, or a knight has a quest. They ask the witch, don’t they? They ask for favors, for items to protect them, for wisdom. But they never give anything back to the witch. They just take what they can get and leave.”

“That’s a nice speech, Akaashi. Is that what happened to you?” Bokuto touched his eye. “Is that how Kuroo got his scar? Because he said it’s his fault, too, why you don’t like strangers.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?”

“I used to help others more. He came to me for help, once. Kenma was trapped. I sold him a spell and a song, and helped him cast it. But it went wrong.”

“Didn’t I see Kenma last week,” Bokuto said vaguely.

“The spell was successful, but it had a side effect. One day, that scar might widen and swallow the universe.”

“Then—”

“I’m not here to help other people.” Akaashi jerked away. “I’m tired of caring.”

And it was tiring, endlessly tiring. Those who came to him with empty hands and expected him to fill them up with anything he had inside. It wasn’t Kuroo’s fault. He didn’t blame him. But he had seen the scar and he had been filled with an unknowable heavy fear that this was his burden, now, too, and he had been giving himself these burdens all his life. He had been the caretaker for his spells and he wanted nothing more of that. A simple business. He’d sell things at a distance, without questions about what they needed or wanted. He would help nobody else.

“Well,” Bokuto said, “it sounds like a good idea.”

“Really, now.” Akaashi’s tone was so acidic that Bokuto blinked in bewilderment.

“Yeah. It’s a good idea. You’re right, Akaashi. You’re really, really right. Why are you surprised to hear that?” Bokuto was almost laughing, now, and Akaashi realized it was because his own face had become contorted with shock. Foolish. He shouldn’t be surprised. Of course he was right, and that was why he was saying it. So he didn’t know why he was so prepared against a barrage of insidious questions.

“I still won’t help you.”

“Yeah. I know.” Bokuto nodded to himself, like a conceited self-satisfaction. Or maybe it was what Akaashi was projecting on him in self-loathing.

“There might be others who are willing to help,” he offered, trying to sound like he didn’t care.

“Hey, Akaashi. Do you know why I didn’t visit a curse breaker in the first place?” Bokuto grinned, shoulders sagging. “Because I thought, a little bit, that I deserved this. But you really helped me a lot. Because I was wondering who’d hate me this much to curse me, and it turns out it’s nobody.”

That wasn’t true. It was just Bokuto instead.

“You can still stay here for your nights,” Akaashi said. “I won’t oust you.” But Bokuto already shook his head.

“Nah. Nah, it’s not that bad out there. The night’s pretty nice.” Bokuto folded his hands over his knees, old blankets scrounged up over his feet. “It kinda reminds me of you.”

Akaashi didn’t usually sit on the floor of his abandoned attic. It was the highest point of the tree, slender with a sloping roof. The high branches were the thinnest, and the window overlooked a small portion of the forest. The skyline was clear and the night sparkled above, a bluish purple hue, a smattering of stars above. Sometimes the birds were rowdy, but it was at least quiet, now, with a silence that filled the room like a comfortable pillow. It was colder, too. A chilliness not seen from the day now prickled over his hands, even where his fingers tried to preserve the warmth in each other.

“I’m sorry that I’m not as good a person as you think I was,” Akaashi said.

“Hm?” Bokuto blinked at him. “You’re a good person, Akaashi. Just because you don’t do something for me doesn’t mean you’re not. Well, that’s what I think. Maybe I’m wrong. But if I am, I don’t wanna know it.”

“Is that so.” The night was so quiet and still. He felt tired, though he had slept well for the last weeks of his life. He wasn’t wrong, but he hadn’t expected to be right.

“I’m glad I fell in love with you.” Bokuto was nodding off again, head tilting towards his chest. Akaashi didn’t move, breathe, for a moment, staring at the sprinkling of stars nestled into the night.

“You don’t love me,” he said sternly. “You don’t know me. And I won’t help you. You shouldn’t love me. It’ll hurt you.” It was just the sleeplessness talking. In the morning, Bokuto would realize he had said something wrong and he’d apologize and take it back and Akaashi would accept, magnificently, because he wasn’t the type of person who would be happy about things like this. His heart wouldn’t leap, his stomach wouldn’t drop, his hands wouldn’t twitch in his lap like he wanted to reach out and grab him and crawl into the nest that wasn’t quite his.

“Akaashi,” Bokuto said, rough and dreamily. “Do you really think there’s a love that doesn’t hurt?”

Outside the tree, nothing moved. The night continued in a sleepless quiet, cold and uncaring.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who wandered into the forest. All forests have soft spots, spaces melding one into another. Aspen blended with birch blended with butternut and balsam. One day, he heard a whisper. An old tree, ancient and wise, called to him. But old trees spoke slow, and he returned month after month, hand to the ground. Speak, please, he would cast, and listen for the voice. The tree offered an exchange. Shelter for magic. Shelter for a long slumber. Shelter for peace. He accepted the trade without a word, for the boy was as silent as a settled night.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who opened a shop. He responded favor with favor, and though he was never ardently beloved, he was generally well-liked. One day, a cat witch asked for a favor. His friend had been caught in his own machine, a spell gone awry, and was caught between the thin panes of his computer. He jumped from screen to screen, chased by a layered glitch that took the form of a virus eating away at his friend’s face. The boy knew a spell and helped to cast it, but the old spell brought back both friend and glitch. When the latter attacked the cat witch’s face, the boy sealed the virus to a scar. He refused any returns for the favor and became as cold as a frigid night.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who met an owl.

In the morning, Akaashi opened his shop. He cleaned the counter and swept the floor. One day passed. He received an order for a precious jewel, where a tiny world existed inside the polished sides. Small inhabitants walked over caverns and drank from the aqua pool. Akaashi packaged the precious world inside a box full of smoke, gently nestling the jewel inside the softer clouds. He nearly dropped the package when he thought he heard the bell ring. He had been wrong. The bell had not been rung. The second day passed.

On the third day, he sat at the counter with his hands on his thighs, watching the empty door.

Bokuto hadn’t returned, despite Akaashi’s offer for shelter. Kuroo hadn’t visited. Tsukishima had his supply delivered, and hadn’t visited, either. And ordinarily, this was fine. To have silence to himself was a precious artifact, something he dearly cherished. But even his little metal familiar had fallen silent and now he waited for something that wouldn’t come.

He hadn’t been wrong. That was the cold hard truth: curses didn’t hurt, blood magic was fair, and he was right, even when he didn’t want to be right. No matter how many times he ran through the situation in his head, he could only find himself blameless.

Three days ago, he had returned to the attic to see the blankets unraveled from the nest, laid out sloppily on the ground. He had been hopeful the first night, and even more expectant the second. It wasn’t his problem anymore. He had more customers. He had more issues.

When his cell phone rang, he nearly knocked over the potion of mild invincibility to answer it.

“Morning,” Kuroo said.

“Oh,” Akaashi said.

“I’m going to ignore your disappointment, and just come out with it. Have you seen Bokuto? I’ve been looking for him.”

“No,” Akaashi said. “I haven’t seen him.” He was half-hoping Kuroo would talk about something else, but he was already settling back into his seat, clutching his cell phone to his ear.

“Okay, thanks. I’ll see you—”

“I saw him three days ago,” Akaashi said forcefully. “Have you seen him since.” He could hear Kuroo’s thoughts, loud and annoying, even over the phone. Akaashi wasn’t the type to interrupt, he knew that, but he needed to know.

“I haven’t,” Kuroo said. “I haven’t seen him for some days. I was getting a little worried with his curse and all. Well, I know I’m meddlesome. Especially according to you, always calling and visiting like this.”

“It’s not something you need to do.” Akaashi rubbed his forehead. A few days. Three days. He didn’t know who else was Bokuto’s friend, but maybe he didn’t need to know. But maybe he could ask Tsukishima, then, who had known Bokuto albeit briefly.

“You don’t think so?” Kuroo was saying. “Even if you say it has nothing to do with me, I get concerned, you know. Something must have started you off on your new isolation. And that something was me. I mean, things don’t start with no reason.”

“I said it wasn’t your fault. I didn’t want to take care of people. That’s all.”

“I know it’s not easy, Akaashi. Taking responsibility, leading people. Honestly, I’d leave you alone if I thought you were happy. Kenma needs his alone time, too. I get it.” Kuroo chuckled, his voice low. “But I saw the way you were with Bokuto.”

“Cold and quiet?” Akaashi didn’t regret his actions, but he had t designated a chair as Bokuto’s, and the little sapling was empty.

“Warm and talkative. I haven’t seen you talk so much in a long time. I was afraid, you know, of you guys meeting. I told him, this can only hurt you, Bokuto. But I saw how much he liked talking to you. I know he can be a handful, but—you were good to him, Akaashi.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You asked him to come back the next day when you could have kicked him out. And you gave him lunch, too. He was really happy about that. After the curse destroyed his home, he didn’t have a lot left.”

“He didn’t tell me about that.” Though Akaashi should have assumed—with everything that had been going on, of course Bokuto wouldn’t have the resources or time to make himself lunch, and he didn’t eat rats, wasn’t that what he said—

“Then why’d you make him lunch?” Kuroo sounded honestly curious. Akaashi had given him food because Bokuto seemed hungry. Because it was natural. Because he hadn’t even thought about it, an act that his hands performed while his mind was occupied with other enjoyable things. Because it had been enjoyable to see him eat, fulfilled. He stared down at his hand now, empty and opened against the grain of the wood.

“It was nothing. It’s nothing.” Akaashi clenched his hand into a fist. “He said he was staying at a hotel. Do you know which one?”

“He moved around a lot. He was worried the curse would destroy wherever he stayed.”

“And you tried his old home?”

“Yeah, it’s empty. I wouldn’t worry about it, Akaashi. Even I’m only a little worried. He’s a really strong magician, even if that’s what he says all the time. He might get down sometimes, but he can cheer himself back up, usually. Even if it takes a while,” Kuroo said.

“Down,” Akaashi said slowly. “Has that happened recently?”

“Yeah, a while ago. Before he got cursed, actually. I think he called his parents or something. But, Akaashi, you don’t need to worry about him,” Kuroo said kindly. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you. He’ll come back eventually.”

“I don’t want to get involved.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll get going, then, and try to—”

“I’m not wrong,” Akaashi said.

“About what?” Kuroo sounded bewildered, but with the slight charm that reminded Akaashi about Bokuto. His store was so big and empty. He had never realized that.

“I’m right,” Akaashi tried, “I’m right about things. There’s no reason for me to change.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine.” Akaashi sank into his seat. “There shouldn’t be a problem.” He knew he wasn’t making much sense, but he found himself waiting on Kuroo’s soft inhale, the thoughtfulness slowing to an even canter.

“Well,” Kuroo said, doubtfully, “I think it’s fine if you did what you wanted, Akaashi.”

In time, Kuroo bid farewell to continue his search and Akaashi muttered something like how he’d let him know if he saw Bokuto, but he knew he was lying about something. The evening was falling again in dusky rays into his little store, decorated so well with bottles of whistling thistles and flapping letters that restlessly bit with their mouth envelopes. He finally stirred, leaving his cozy counter to close the door. He skimmed the dark skies, searching for any owl shapes. There was nothing, only the pinprick of trees in the distance.

He faintly recalled seeing a mountain, but he must have been dreaming, because the skyline had always been clear from the tree.

Frowning, he retreated back to his comfortable store. A candle had lit itself instinctively, burning with a hazel scent. The metal familiar was moving slowly, with a motion unrecognizable from any of his small plants. He watched the head turn side to side, wings creaking. His familiar, in many ways, relied on him. Many people relied on him. He wasn’t wrong to shirk off that heavy cloak.

But he still felt a strange sense of worry, because the night had fallen and if Bokuto slept, something would be lurking in the shadows to take his heart. It wasn’t fair. Akaashi’s heart could be taken. It was harder and colder than anything else. But Bokuto always cast his spells with strange vulnerability. Akaashi relied on asking the spirits for help, but Bokuto put himself into his magic and that was why he could be ambiguous and strange and defeat all the known rules. All he had to do was ask for things to be better, and things would fall into place, obedient to his whims. Akaashi wasn’t like that.

He wondered if Bokuto had found shelter.

The metal familiar was still moving with a deliberate tick-tick-tick, the cogs squeaking. Akaashi smoothed his hand over its back, fitted against the aluminum. He wondered what plant had entered. Perhaps a reclusive succulent, finally wandering outside for the first time. He would welcome it better, but his mind was occupied with strange owls who needed his help—but he didn’t want to give help to anybody else, not anymore, in the stories, they plied the witch for unpaid favors, and it was so tiring to care about anybody else’s well-being, too heavy for him, and he just wanted things to be better.

Better, please. It was a whimsical spell, cast with only hidden seriousness. He stroked the metal bird, and the metal bird finally twisted to look at him. It moved so slow, like each word would take days to decipher, a hollow sound rolling across the forest.

Akaashi’s hand dropped. The tree. He had no proof, but in its amber eyes, now alit with stars, he could sense the old tree that had first promised him shelter from his storm.

“It’s you,” he said, almost awed, but the bird flapped its wings upwards. Once, twice, and then the metal familiar dove out the window. He could see the empty shell of the tree visibly wither, bark drying up and twisting. He pushed open the door into the cool night, and he saw the metal familiar hovering beside a brief grove of trees.

“Wait,” he said, “Come back.”

The metal familiar flapped its wings and swam across the branches. Akaashi followed it, eyes glued on its steel belly. It sometimes creaked, but it was sometimes noiseless, just like his tree. He wondered if this was his spell or if it was merely the original exchange, shelter for peace, or maybe it was none of the above. Maybe the old tree was granting him a favor without asking for anything in return.

His breath was rolling from him in brief spurts, gusts of wispy winds. Sometimes he lost the familiar through the thicket of branches, only to find it against cresting along the wide moon. His legs had started to burn, chest heaving. They had passed through some soft spots of the forest, where familiar redwood trees were turning into weeping willows were turning into shadows. He could hear them now, low whispers that danced around him.

Worthless.

Is this what your father would have wanted?

Pathetic.

They weren’t for him, so he didn’t care. But his heart was leaping in his chest. He plodded after the familiar through another grove of shadowy trees and suddenly he was in a clearing, the fall leaves now purplish in the moonlight. A cursed creature had been knocked away, slowly crawling to its feet and hissing at Bokuto, who sat in the middle with blood on his face and arms and chest. Akaashi watched as the tattoos of feathers swirled around his bared forearm, twisting to appear as real feathers over his bloodied skin.

“Are you all right?” Akaashi approached him, and belatedly realized the awkwardness. Bokuto spun around, feathers halting in mid-transformation along his neck. The metal familiar perched in a tree, talons hooked across the soft branch.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Bokuto said hurriedly. “It’s not safe! Akaashi, you should go.”

“They can’t hurt me.” That wasn’t true. They could physically hurt him, just like they must have physically destroyed Bokuto’s old house. And there were plenty of them to make them a dangerous pack. They hid in every crevice of the trees, surrounding him with an overwhelming and drowning sense of fear. Voids, all of them. Emptiness trying to occupying space, which made his head ache and heart pound in fear. He knew if he touched them, he would be swallowed. But even while they whispered, he knew their taunts could not hurt him.

“What are you doing here?” Bokuto frowned, feathers bristling at another wicked hiss. “You should go. You should really, really go.”

“I just wanted to be here.” Akaashi thought about this. “I hope this isn’t private property.”

“Are you joking?”

“Partially.”

“This isn’t time to joke! I mean, it’s always time to have fun, but it’s not the time, right now, because you’re in danger, and you should go. You don’t have anything to do with this! Get out of here.” Bokuto flung his arm over to where the trees parted enough to reveal another soft spot, this one out in some midnight woods where the yellow leaves mingled with red.

“If I asked you, you’d probably tell me about your parents.” Akaashi shrugged, stuffing his cold hands into his pockets. “I’ve pieced together as much. You were upset after you called them. You didn’t realize it. These creatures manifested from your sleep. But if I asked you, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, probably,” Bokuto said. “But you’re not asking.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Then you should go! Get out, get out of here.”

“But you’ll die.” Akaashi studied him. “You’re tired from your lack of sleep. They’ll tear out your heart and eat it. I don’t want that to happen, but I don’t want to hear about your parents. You’ll probably tell me that they hurt you, that they made you think love was nothing but something that causes you pain. It would be heavy. You would be sad. For a very long time. And I would have to bear this.”

“Maybe!” Bokuto seemed bewildered and angry, justifiably so, for being insulted in the middle of the woods. “No, yeah, you’re right, maybe! I have a lot of things that are heavy, Akaashi! So what!”

So what. Out of all the people who had to walk into his shop, it had to be someone whose burden and magic was so big and large, that he could conjure up a monster the size of a mountain. In the distance, Akaashi could see it. It looked like a normal mountain, but it shifted, and the ground rumbled beneath him threateningly. Bokuto didn’t seem to notice, still occasionally flinging out his hand covered in light to ward off the smaller shadow beasts. Some were short, barely tall enough to scrape his shins. Others had grown bigger, stretched out with strong talons.

“I don’t want to care, but I care. I’m irritated.” Akaashi stepped forward. “What if you’re sad, for days and months and years? What must I bear in return?”

“Akaashi,” Bokuto growled. The ground rumbled again. The monster mountain had moved. Akaashi could feel the vibrations in his chest.

“So I won’t care. Isn’t that simple?” Akaashi shrugged, hands outstretched. “But then why does it hurt to know you kept secrets from me? Why do I want to protect you? Why do I do it so naturally that I don’t even recollect it?”

“I don’t need you to take care of me!” Bokuto stepped back. “I won’t die from this.”

“But if you come back to me an empty shell, then what would I be?” Akaashi closed the gap between them, huddling close enough to see the way Bokuto’s eyes widened, the way blood had trickled down his neck and dampening his collar. The feathers had a protective quality, he supposed. They were sharp and rustled in warning. Akaashi ignored the warning.

“I don’t need your help,” Bokuto said furiously. “I can handle this just fine.”

“Even if I told you that you didn’t deserve this curse?” Akaashi held out his hand. Even in the darkness, he could see the damp trails of blood where the shirt had been torn, talons striking against flesh to try and grasp the beating heart. Bokuto only gaped at him now, not moving while Akaashi slowly stretched his hand towards the wound.

Irritating. It was so irritating, to care so much. It irritated him that he felt almost comforted when he could provide Bokuto some amount of food and a portion of safety, because it was deceit and conceit and something more altogether, and he was reaching inside Bokuto now, trying to cast a spell that only said Help him, please. Magic was half asking from the spirits, and the other half, just himself. He put himself into the wish, all the guilt and frustration of standing there and watching the spell lash out and hit Kuroo in the eye, at the way Bokuto looked at him adoringly, at the feelings he had only recognized inside him as if he had just woken up from a long slumber. He put that all in his spell. He trusted hopefully and without proof that in his three wishes, the granted wishes would be kind.

He felt something hard beneath his fingertips and he pulled out a small feather. The wound glowed a hot gold, sealing together after the feather was removed. It wasn’t covered in warmth, but it was warm, and whispered something to him. Akaashi put it to his ear.

He could see his store, but from different eyes. This wasn’t his ordinary store because the viewer thought everything was marvelous, from the ordinary vines that flowered in splendorous yellows to the mundane weed stirring at the corner of the roots. And he could feel that moment when Bokuto almost broke the bottle and he had asked him if he was all right, and all that fear turned to relief, and that was all that had made Bokuto fall in love, he knew. Just that. Instead of anger, Akaashi had been concerned, and Bokuto loved him for that.

“Please have higher expectations for those you love,” Akaashi said softly. “But I want to help you. I want to try.” He blew on the feather. The gray of the feather was crackling, expanding, twisting into a giant sword. Each thin strand was crafted from the finest and hardest metal. It had a good weight to his hand.

“What’s that?” Bokuto slipped his hand around the handle. The sword warmed up immediately.

“I don’t know. A favor, I suppose. It should cut down all the monsters,” he said, because he understood its purpose now.

“For me?” Bokuto swung around the sword and the creatures leapt back, skittish around the new metal.

“I think it has a little bit of my soul.”

Bokuto yanked his hand back. Akaashi stifled a snort, masking it in a disgusted face.

“Just temporarily. A temporary soulbond, perhaps,” Akaashi said. “Because your monsters might be dangerous, but my monsters won’t hurt you.”

And it was already changing, he could tell. The shadows paced around the clearing restlessly, losing their appetite of disgusting prey. The whispers had changed to your fault and it’s heavy and your responsibility, but he didn’t mind it so much anymore. Perhaps because they were mingled with Bokuto’s whispers, the sounds came out as diluted, like he was hearing everything underwater.

“You’re doing so much for me,” Bokuto said worriedly. “Are you sure it’s okay? Aren’t you putting too much of yourself into helping someone like me?”

“I’m doing what I want,” Akaashi said. “Does this feel good?”

Bokuto gripped the feather sword again, twisting it in his hand. The fringes of the feather seemed to glow with a beautiful light, and Bokuto grinned, sudden and aggressive. Akaashi crossed his arms over his chest because really, it was a cold night, and Bokuto could have just texted him, didn’t he know his number. But he had to smirk at the way the shadows slithered up the trees, void eyes following every twitch of the sword and faintly buzzing with fear.

“Yeah,” Bokuto said. “It does.”

With a laugh, Bokuto was running off again, sword flashing in the moonlight. The void, cut to pieces, fell harmlessly to the ground and became nothing more than fertile soil, feathery nettles. Bokuto ran off, sword in hand. It was nice to see him defeating the curse, if only because it resonated inside Akaashi, too. It felt like a relief to see his sword cut through the whispers. But he still had another duty.

The metal familiar had fallen silent again, more extinguished than usual. Akaashi gathered up the familiar in his arms.

Thank you, he tried to think or spell. It wasn’t really a spell, not without any of the usual whizzes and sparkles. But he had a feeling that his spell worked.

When Bokuto returned, the night inched closer to the early morning. Akaashi was half-asleep by a tree, feet tucked against him and the familiar on his lap.

“Are you asleep?” Bokuto hunched over.

“No.” Akaashi looked him over critically. “You’re still bleeding.”

“Just a little!”

“A little lot. Please don’t bleed all over my store.” Akaashi stood up. The familiar didn’t move, but he thought he could find his way back on his own.

“It’s not that bad,” Bokuto muttered. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You’re covered in blood.”

Somewhere through a soft spot of the woods, the sword transformed back into a feather, and the feather disappeared, but it felt right. He found his store again in good shape, and while Bokuto muttered reluctantly about how it was only a small wound, over his heart, that had dug in a few inches, trying to rip him apart, Akaashi stayed another moment by the door to press his hand against the wood.

It only took a surprisingly short while for Akaashi to push and prod Bokuto back into his nest. Akaashi had tried to rebuild it. The results were sloppy, but Bokuto was already sleepily nodding off, which wouldn’t do with his hair wet. Bokuto made unhappy, sleepy faces under the hair dryer.

“It’s loud.”

“Is that so.”

“I wanna sleep!”

“Surprising.”

“Come on, Akaashi! Don’t you care!” Bokuto was still making his face, though he blinked in surprise when Akaashi finally shut off the hair dryer. Akaashi wasn’t angry, despite Bokuto’s sudden worry. It was a nice night, after all, with the moon and stars above and the tree below. He sat close to Bokuto with his knees pressed together. The blankets wrapped around them. Everything was warm. He could hear Bokuto’s breath and his own heartbeat, thrumming through his fingers. A witch’s wish.

“Yes,” Akaashi said.