Fic - soft skill
(link)
Why did I write this fic
Firstly, OMG being into Haikyuu again in 2026 has been such a joy. The last time I was caught up was in 2017, and now, 9 years later, I finally have seen Haikyuu's absolutely wonderful conclusion and happy ending... and also... Bokuaka my old otp has so much new development which only made it better!?!??
I've shipped Bokuaka since around 2017, since this part from their match at the start of nationals.
When I reread the manga in 2026, I saw it again and was like "ah, yep. That's it, the reason I ship them." I just find Akaashi's comments on Bokuto to be very thoughtful and calm and accepting and that pings my shipping senses. (if you know me from TGCF fandom, you may be thinking, what? And I'm telling you, I'm being 100% consistent in my tastes here.) Plus Bokuto is one of my 2 favourite characters in the series.
But actually, that is the official translation, whereas the panel I read in 2017 was a scanlation which was... Different... I am confident it's wrong because there's not any other evidence of Bokuto being this kind of performative character. (I did check the raws, but it just reminded me that Japanese grammar is hard.)
One of the first fanfics I ever wrote was also Bokuaka and inspired by this version of the line. I didn't finish it because I barely knew how to write back then, but it was still about Akaashi attempting to kind of manipulate Bokuto for their mutual benefit lol (I found the draft! Back then I was describing it as him learning how to operate heavy machinery), the fundamentals haven't changed.
Man... publishing a Haikyuu fic now feels like I've come back and beat a boss in my home village after going away and leveling up for 9 years!!!
This time around I was inspired mostly by just how happy I was with the Haikyuu ending and where everyone ended up. There was also a weirdly large influence from the 2025 Haikyuu magazine interviews, maybe because I spent so long trying to read them in Chinese.
Specifically, there was an interview question for Akaashi on how he stayed calm while playing, and he said something like, "Leaving aside whether this is a good mindset or not..." and then went on to talk about how he viewed himself as an unimportant background character who couldn't really make a difference to anything. And I kept returning to that little bit of retrospective doubt cast on his coping mechanisms back then. In the manga you just think 'wow, he found a way to calm himself down, great job!' but the adult him seems to have grown beyond that very self-deprecating mindset. Bruh... I doubt to what extent those interviews are even written by Furudate sensei... I have to think of the magazine as a piece of inspirational fanwork.
What was it like writing
Haikyuu has a very fine balance of realism and cartoonism (not a real word) so it was super hard trying to write fic for it. Also, half of the plot was a get together fic, which is not my wheelhouse, so I was dying the whole time trying to string together the ideas I wanted with the correct pacing. I feel like there are a lot of holes in the finished product. Worst of all, my view of the characters has changed quite a bit since I started writing... It's okay, it's published and I can move on now... (shriveled face)
On the bright side, Akaashi POV! A character with a big vocabulary and a habit of using it, not to mention a certain lack of self consciousness, in a modern day setting. I could choose words so much more freely than usual. I even dared to use some maths and logic related words since I figured he would still remember them from his high school exams. And especially when describing mental processes, if it was POV of anyone else who wasn't an introspective nerd, I would probably just gesture at them or focus on the resulting emotions and actions, but because it's Akaashi I sat down and tried to describe them just right.
Thoughts on story: If you look at it a certain way this fic barely has conflicts or a plot. Everything is resolved quickly. Or to put it another way, the fic is just the small part of the plot where all the resolutions happen. I think watching characters smoothly arrive at resolutions is still okay as a story because there's still some kind of journey going on there... but it requires the right kind of setup, which I wouldn't say I've achieved... anyway, I always find it interesting what minimum amount of "arc" is viable for a fanfic.
Last thing to say is that there is a certain 3 letter word that I was extremely happy to have included in the fic at just the right moment. I didn't plan for it, it just popped up there. I wonder how obvious it is to those who remember the relevant detail from canon?