kenma – Moami

Looking at the issue from all sides, Kuroo is about five percent disappointed in himself. If one examines the whole situation, that is far more than expected. The rest of his brain capacity is taken up by overheated whirring and wildly spinning coils at the moment, so he refuses to be blamed for his lack of investment in scolding himself.

“Kuro,” Kenma says. He’s still sitting there on Kuroo’s bed, one hand in his hair to push it up the side of his head, thumb gently nudging his earlobe forward.

Kuroo swallows.

“Are you deaf?”

He’s not, but it’s damn near close. Stupid heartbeat so loud in his ears. “No. I, uhm. It’s.” Be cool, fuck, remember how to do that still? “When did you get it?”

“Yesterday. It barely hurt.” Kenma doesn’t even flinch when Kuroo reaches to touch, but his lip twitches a bit. “Careful though.”

“‘Course.” So this is his life now, Kuroo thinks while he runs his fingertip over the silver stud resting in the flesh of Kenma’s ear. “Other side too?”

“Would look stupid otherwise.” A yawn. Kenma rubs a hand over his eyes, then winds away from Kuroo’s touch and drapes himself over his lap. The familiar shiver of warmth down his spine is one of the few things Kuroo knows better than his own face. Together with Kenma’s, his hands, the feeling of ground below his feet and, well, okay, that mouth against his own.

He waits (patient, of course, always for him) until Kenma has arranged himself. His strategy seems to be going for cuddling tonight, Kuroo deduces from the rough nudge against his fingers, Kenma’s forehead prodding until Kuroo threads a hand into the peach soft hair of his neck.

“Why now?” They only have a few nights. Then, it’s university for him again, and that last year for Kenma.

“Dunno,” Kenma mumbles into his leg.

“Liar.”

“Mhm.”

“Tell me. Please?” They all think that Kenma’s the one to get what he wants, no matter how ridiculous. It’s like that most of the time, but oh, not always. Kuroo leans down, kisses the hair that smells dark-sweet of sweat, this afternoon’s pie, grass and lemonade from earlier, their sheets and skin rubbing on another until it’s pink.

Kenma is quiet for a while. His fingers play with the hem of Kuroo’s pajama, tickles along the hair on his knee. The moon’s all the light for them.

A breath exhales against his leg. “I can’t get real piercings yet. I have to wait until school is over and I’m at university. It’s all I have until then. Not enough, but… but I’ll take it. I can wait.” He looks up at Kuroo, pale in the night with old kisses glinting dark over his neck and red on his mouth, a curved smile. “Can you?”

Kuroo wants to love him until they wither away.

“Yeah. ‘course.”

Kenma’s eyes are gone. Dark, hollow caves swallow the light where they used to be. His contours are shifting, bones cracking in his body. Kuroo can’t run. His leg is broken where Kenma’s claws have rammed into it, and the pain is so intense that his mouth tastes white and searing and his vision is smoky.

“Three questions,” Kenma sing-songs. His mouth is tiny and red. He’s licked some of Kuroo’s blood from his claws. The gym is empty. Kuroo is against a wall, crying, silent and pathetic because he can’t wrap his mind around this.

“Wh…” Blood is in his mouth. Kuroo chokes, whimpers. “Why?”

Kenma takes a step. “A person has to eat.”

“You’re not a person.”

Kenma smiles, soft, almost fond. “I was, for you, for the years I was weak and grew in this body. But no, I’m not. I’ll count that as a question, so you have one more left.”

The gym is quiet. Nobody knows he’s here. He wants to know many things. Kenma takes a step. His naked toes touch Kuroo’s, trace his sneakers.

He can’t close his eyes, not even when Kenma’s jaw makes a terrible crack, when it unhinges and reveals a maw that’s so red and wet it’s almost pretty.

Kuroo lets his head fall against the wall. The thump is a dull echo in his skull.

“Was Kenma ever in there, or was it only just you?”

The hollow caves of Kenma’s, no, the thing’s eyes seem to grow. Black envisions Kuroo. Something wet touches his skin, and he feels numbness spread throughout his – oh. Poison. He can’t feel anymore, then.

A whisper reaches his ears.

“Help me.”

A slow grin spreads on Kuroo’s lips. “Hey there, kitten.” He rips his eyes open, fingers shooting forward, and before the thing can so much as snarl, Kuroo’s hands go up in flames, shoving down its throat with a burst of sparks.

The thing roars. Black goo spurts from its tongue, spills over Kuroo’s arms, but he just grins, grins, fingers twisting and the tips pressing deep into the thing’s esophagus.

“You know,” Kuroo says, tilting his head as his fire takes the monster apart, its agonizing screams almost drowning out Kuroo’s voice, “that’s the thing with you monsters. First off, you think you know humans, but you don’t. We lie, and some of us are pretty good actors. We also know when someone’s lying, just like you did before about all those years. Bullshit. And second, we really don’t appreciate it when you engulf the gorgeous boys that we’re bonded to into your disgusting bodies, and especially not when it’s on their anniversary. So.” He takes a deep breath, plants both feet on the ground, and his smile vanishes.

“Either you give me back my boyfriend, or I fry you from the inside like a goddamn chicken nugget. Or – oh well. Too late. Guess my magic reached him.”

Kuroo takes a step back and pulls his hands out of the thing’s throat. It’s a trembling lump of black goo now, all the outer shell of Kenma’s imitation melted away. The gym is silent for a few seconds. Then, an angry hum fills the air.

“Too bad. You could have had this quick, mostly pain-free, but you pissed him off.” Kuroo sits down, crosses his legs, waiting with a smile. The thing makes a hurt noise somewhere in its body, and then the entire gym begins to shake.

“’s not really a good idea to mess with a mage and their dragon.”

“We have to get out of here.” Bokuto’s voice cracks like glass. The metal bar that he’s shoved through the door’s handles is creaking with every impact from the outside.

Kenma doesn’t hear him.

“Fuck, fuck, come on – don’t touch him!”

Kenma reaches, careful, and his fingers tremble when he brushes a bloody strand of hair from Kuroo’s forehead.

Bokuto’s scream pitches into a sob. “He’s fucking turning, Kenma, we can’t help him, we can’t, we can’t, we have to get outta here!”

No. His vision is black and crimson. Kuroo’s eyes are wide and dead and then they’re alive again, and his body starts to seize. The white of his eyes, the soft brown of his iris that Kenma loves more than himself is flooded by darkness.

“Please, please.” Bokuto’s knees hit the ground by his side. “Kenma. They bit him. Kenma, Kenma.” They can’t help, the camp with the cure is far away, but Kenma can’t just watch and do nothing, not after how Akaashi –

The door behind them howls with another impact. Bokuto falls silent. His fingers dig into Kenma’s shoulder, all nails and force, but when Kenma finally goes pliant and yields, it’s too late.

Kuroo, or what he used to be, surges. There’s no time to scream, because Bokuto’s rifle knocks against the top of his head, so wild and desperate that it would have killed anything that’s still alive. But Kuroo’s teeth are already sinking into Kenma’s hand, through bone and muscle, something snapping between his jaws.

Kenma doesn’t know how it ends. Screams echo through his dreams, a wave of other voices, their group having found them. When he wakes, something feels like it’s missing. A look down his body, past filthy clothes and blood all over himself, tells him that he’s back in the camp.

His wrist is empty. There’s a bandage around the stump.

And across the room is the cage, the one where they’d done terrible things to not-anymore-humans to find a cure, and Kuroo’s in it with eyes that flicker between black and brown. A needle is still stuck in his arm. The timer on the cage stands at 30:57, counting down from sixty minutes. So there’s half an hour left to know if they got the cure into his veins in time.

Kenma lies back down, holding his empty wrist, and waits.

“We don’t have a lot of – oh fuck.” There’s a vulnerable grace in the curve of Kuroo’s throat, so Kenma puts his mouth against it and brings a kiss down. It’s narrow in the equipment room of the club, but it’ll do, it has to. A nest of their training jackets and Kuroo’s shirt keeps the ground’s cold off their knees and allows Kenma to sit between Kuroo’s legs, grants him the privilege to run his curious fingers over trembling skin.

“We,” Kuroo starts again, the words sounding heavy in his mouth. It’s all red and swollen, Kenma thinks when he looks up at him, letting go of his throat for barely a second. “Not much time. I know. How much?” Not that he really cares for a reply. Kuroo’s the responsible one here, his eyes are the gold that focuses on the clock hanging across the room while Kenma loses himself in touches, whispers, his own nails raking flickers of white down Kuroo’s darker skin.

“Five. Not more, and if the others – God. You’re gorgeous.”

Kenma lets a soft, tiny noise escape his lips when Kuroo touches his chin. His eyes flutter shut, hand pressed to Kuroo’s warm stomach, the other drawing circles by the ivory of his hipbones. “Kiss,” Kenma demands, quiet as always.

Kuroo gives. He gives in and gives away, granting Kenma whatever wish he has, be it the fact that he accepted Kenma’s awkward confessions months ago or that he kissed him on the last day of training camp, where they had sneaked onto the roof and held hands under too many stars above their heads.

Then he’s back in reality. Kuroo has an arm around his back, hand smoothing against Kenma’s ribcage with a reverence that has been stealing his breath since they were twelve and Kuroo had hugged him as Kenma’s first friend ever. Now, their skin melts together in a harsh twitch of bodies. Kenma curls one of his leg around Kuroo’s waist, and he moans in a broken shadow of his own voice when a soft tongue pushes between his lips, bringing heat and slick pressure to his mouth. Kuroo shifts when Kenma kisses him back, and a noise seeps into the air trembling between their lips. Oh, Kenma thinks, spreading his legs over Kuroo’s lap, he’s hard.

“Kitten.” Kuroo says it like a prayer, when Kenma’s hand finds a way down, and his eyes are liquid gold, home, a ray of yes I want you I have chosen you and we’re each other’s. “You don’t have to – “

“You never make me do anything.” Kenma kisses him, tugs at Kuroo’s lips with careful teeth, until they’re so out of breath that the entire room seems to fill with nothing but them. “I want to. I really, really want to. If you don’t, I won’t, but – can I, could I.”

Kuroo doesn’t let the insecurity spread. His hands are on Kenma’s cheeks, thumbs tracing his breathless mouth. A brush of lips sears against his forehead. “Okay,” Kuroo rasps, “okay. I want you to. Kenma, Kenma.”

They’re late for training. Kenma’s hand is warm, his mouth and cheeks feel like they’re woven from fire, and his skin smells like Kuroo had poured his entire being all over Kenma (when really, he’d gotten his release with a dark noise in Kenma’s hand, lashes black and mouth a cherry-fever that Kenma would never forget). “I want to do that to you, too,” Kuroo had said after they got dressed.
Kenma had smiled.

beechichi:

Hey remember that time where @moami and I accidentally created an AU? Here’s some more 😀 Also Happy Kuroken Day (5/1)~ ❤

Kenma’s prediction did, over course, come true. The council approves his application with gritted teeth and fear sitting in their eyes. Kuroo almost ruins a sword when he hears the restrictions that have been put on, without a doubt, the most gifted and skilled magician that the council has seen in centuries. Still he is there to wait for Kenma to leave the sacred room where the rituals is performed. It takes two days. Kuroo can’t imagine the things they must have done to him.

But Kenma smiles when he exits the council’s holy halls. His silver jewelry, forged in the fire of Kuroo’s smithy without magic, gleams on his skin as if it had grown into his body. “They allow me to practice as I wish,” he says, closing his eyes as Kuroo wipes a tear off his cheek.

“And they made you cry,” Kuroo growls.

“Only a little.” Kenma flicks his fingers. A rush of wind curls around the both of them, and the guards standing by the council’s holy halls jump back with a cry.

They don’t walk out – they soar. Kenma’s magic radiates in gold now, having had its limitations removed by the council to give him access to his full potential. “What did they forbid you?” Kuroo whispers into his ear. He clings to Kenma, arms around his stomach, as they sail over the city, the wind obeying Kenma as if it was a cat that had found its true companion.

“Oh, a lot of things.” Kenma’s lips twitch. He sighs when Kuroo kisses him by his neck, careful not to touch the jewelry that echoes with powerful magic. “They,” Kenma mumbles, and his fingers slide to lace up with Kuroo’s. The touch sends a surge of warmth through Kuroo’s bones, oh, so that’s what it’s like, loving a man who could let his soul crumble to dust.

Kenma catches his breath as they sink to the ground. Kuroo’s smithy is quiet, no smoke rising from the chimney. When their feet touch the earth, Kenma’s cowl slides from his head. A wave of golden hair pours down his shoulder. “They said that I should not abuse my power.”

Kuroo grins. “A very loose definition.”

“Indeed.”

“You know, all this magical stuf sounds really adventurous. And I’ve always wanted to go on an adventure.”

Kenma’s smile is tiny when a white light flares up in the palm of his hand. A soft howl whirls through the air, invisible power lifting his gown, fluttering behind him as if it was… wings. “What a coincidence. So did I.”

The music’s rhythm pulses through his veins like a breath of aconite. He wants to go home. He wants to go home. He wants –

Kuroo is in the crowd. He’s carrying drinks, one for himself, something else for Kenma, and everyone moves along him like a court bowing for their king. Majesty, come through, let the music roar to your glory. He doesn’t even know it, Kenma thinks and bites at his own lip until it tastes bad and red. They adore him. Everyone does, he’s too nice, kind underneath all that snark and grinning, with hands that frame Kenma’s face like a masterpiece when Kuroo kisses him.

A girl. She smiles, oh she’s beautiful, Kenma looks down on the floor. His jeans are torn, shoes dirty. Why Kuroo took him here, he doesn’t know, something about having fun, about Kenma liking to dance with him? He does. It’s true.

The girl’s fingers touch Kuroo’s arm. Her nails are half-moons, rose-thorns, and Kuroo looks at her with a flip of his head.

Please, Kenma thinks. His fingers dig into the fabric of his jeans. He’s still out of breath from dancing, remembers Kuroo’s hands by his hips, their bodies together. It had been like living through a starburst, moving along with Kuroo, knowing everyone envied Kenma, looking at them.

But please, don’t, Kenma begs across the room with wordless eyes, don’t take him. Don’t touch him. Don’t take him away, even if you could. Let him be.

Kuroo shakes his head.

A shudder rakes down Kenma’s spine. He stands, bottom lip between teeth, staring at Kuroo as he comes over. One day, he’s going to lose him, to someone with grace and feather-light laughter and without cracked ugliness scattered across their past.

“Let’s go home.” Kuroo pushes the drink into his hand, lips tracing a kiss along Kenma’s temple. “You’re zoning out. Take my hand?”

“Okay.”

When they’re outside, drinks finished and jackets around their shoulders, Kenma pulls him down. He kisses Kuroo until their lungs ache, until Kuroo’s fingers burn in his neck and at his hip, until Kenma feels like they melt together again.

Kuroo kisses him, his nose, lips, the bow over his mouth that’s named after love’s god, until Kenma allows himself to cry. It’s silent between them. There are no words on the way home. Kenma’s hand is in Kuroo’s. He thinks back to the girl, but then they’re through the door and Kuroo nuzzles his hair once more before starting to talk about hot cocoa, about going to bed afterwards.

Kenma leans against the wall of the corridor and closes his eyes.

The girl’s face is in his mind, soft, overwhelmingly unbroken.

Not today, he thinks. And if I can do anything, everything, never.

Then Kuroo calls his name. “I’m here,” Kenma says, and moments later, Kuroo’s by his side again, pushing a mug into his hand, finding him in the corridor without turning on the light. “Let’s sleep in a few, yeah?”

Kenma smiles around the edge of the mug. The cocoa is sweet. Outside the window, the sun rises. “Yeah.”

beechichi:

Inspired by @moami ‘s Kuroken drabble

Bonus:

You’re making me sob internally more and more each time, Bee. I honestly can’t find the right words anymore. I have been looking at this for fifty years. Let me look at it for another fifty. They’re so gentle and good and natural; you captured everything my drabble tried to say. (And the bonus is gold, oh gosh, Lev don’t make your tiny boyfriend angry.) Bee, you’re so wonderful. Thank you. ♥

rainbowd00dles:

for @moami‘s cute lil’ fic here

You are successfully killing me with your wonderful art on a regular basis. Thank you so, so much for transforming my words into lines. I love how you included Yaku, how he talks so casually with Kuroo who’s used to Kenma needing to recharge, aaa I am so happy. This touched my heart. Thank you. ♥

Kenma recharges in a very special and, admittedly, kind of strange way.

And Kuroo doesn’t know when it began – sometime when they were smaller and the world was loud, scary, colourful – but it’s a ritual now, one that won’t break.

The team understands. They watch with a mix of amusement and fondness, because as soon as their coach calls for a break, Kenma reaches for Kuroo’s wrist. His fingers wrap around it, tugging once, twice. “I’m tired, Kuro.”

Kuroo talks to their other teammates while he sits on the bench. Nobody even looks twice when Kenma climbs onto his lap, legs sliding around his waist. They don’t question why Kenma nuzzles Kuroo’s neck, lips a soft pressure against his skin, dark lashes fluttering above his cheeks like feathers. There were never any questions asked about what relationship is going on there, exactly, it only mattered that Kenma could play and felt good and that Kuroo was grinning.

And because nobody really pays attention to it anymore, because it became so normal in its uniqueness, nobody is surprised that Kenma always enters the court with a tiny smile after their coach calls them back into training.

“Kenma!” The door of his room flies open with a loud bang and Kenma flinches. Such enthusiasm in Kuroo’s actions is always a sign for trouble. It means that Kuroo either has an idea (oh no), that Bokuto has come over and they’re bored (oh noo) or that he wants to drag Kenma away from his new game and into socialising, “because you always hole yourself up and you need to go out and have some food with me and my bro and Akaashi” (oh please no).

But today, Kuroo is carrying something. Kenma sees the object hover in the periphery of his vision, and he glances up from his game after pressing pause.

“What’s that?” It looks like-

“Happy Pi Day,” Kuroo says. His grin is bright and warm, and it’s the way his eyes are soft around the corners that tells Kenma: No going out. No socialising. Just the two of them, at home, because the tenderness in Kuroo’s voice when he says “scoot over” to sit down is sweet like honey. Kenma puts his game away, not even fighting the smile that curves his own mouth.

“You remembered?” And not only that.

In Kuroo’s hands sits a horribly disfigured pie. “Of course. How could I forget my boyfriend’s favourite holiday?” Kuroo clears his throat and places the pie in Kenma’s hands, pointing at the wonky letters that seem to be made out of icing. “For you.”

Kenma blinks. He reads the letters once, twice. And then he starts laughing so hard that the pie almost falls off his lap. Kuroo has to save it with one hand, the other wrapping around Kenma’s waist, his cheeks burning red. “I tried my best-”

“Yes, you did,” Kenma wheezes, still laughing, and pulls Kuroo into a kiss.

Later, when Kenma can finally breathe again, he carefully cuts himself a large chunk of the pie. Without ruining the letters, of course.

It’s not every day that you get a present that says “You’re the apple-pi of my eye.”