kuroo – 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.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Kuroo had told him. “You’re eighteen. It’s time to let your gay out a bit.” Alright, maybe he was right, but Bokuto still wasn’t prepared for all of – this. The name of the club had flashed in front of his eyes for just a moment, high above the long line of people trying to get in. Kuroo had pushed at his shoulders, fumbled with both of their IDs, and then they were in.

The crowd is a trembling ocean of lights and skin blinking from beneath dark clothes. Bokuto can’t recognise any faces, can’t even see exactly what’s going on along the walls, where the bar is, but Kuroo’s hand is at his elbow. “You wanted to dance, right?” – “Yeah,” Bokuto shouts back, because it’s loud and the song that comes on goes straight to his blood, roars through his bones. “I’ll just go and – you’ll find me again, yeah?”

Kuroo just grins and claps his shoulder. There’s no way he’d ever let Bokuto out of eyesight. Fuck, Bokuto thinks as he moves, pushing himself through the people standing around, to the dancefloor where the lights dance in so many colours that he just has to open his eyes wider, drinking them in. He’s wanted this for so long, to go out and be himself, like this, to feel the rhythm and just be.

Then, it’s easy. He finds space somewhere, fits himself into the waves of other humans, and the beat floods him. Everything is all at once. The music is thunder with twitching lightning as the melody, and Bokuto puts his hands over his head, neck bare, feet following some pulse he didn’t know he could feel.

The boy appears during the third song. He’s wearing all black, his hair’s a mess of sweat and lights pouring colour over his neck, and Bokuto can’t see his face. The lasers flitting around only throw tiny spots of red and blue, it’s anonymous and united, and so Bokuto moves. The boy, no, they’re all not teenagers and yet, he curves his body into a shivering wave, head fallen back, his skin gleaming almost white. Bokuto swallows. He shouldn’t, it’s just someone he doesn’t know, but that man moves like he’s been born to slither his way into Bokuto’s head, hypnotizing and utterly gorgeous –

A hand grazes his arm. Bokuto’s eyes whip forward. The man is facing him, and just now the lights have dimmed, so his expression is impossible to read. Anything after that is a blur in Bokuto’s head. He remembers that his hands find slender shoulders, thumb brushing against collarbones, that his thigh pushes against hips that roll softly into his motion. Songs pass by, music drowning into his bones, skin burning where the other man shows him a new dimension of what dancing is, and Bokuto’s fingers grasp at a shirt, naked skin over thin hipbones.

It could have been hours, or years. The music goes quiet, light flickering through the room – and Bokuto blinks. The crowd has dissolved. Almost nobody is left. It’s almost silent, then, and from the corner of his eyes he finds Kuroo, leaning at the bar, mouth agape.

The man stands before him. Bokuto’s hands are on his hips, and that face, he would recognise that anywhere.

“Akaashi?”

The smile on Akaashi’s lips is tiny, trembling. “Is that the moment where you pull back and say that you didn’t mean it like that?”

He’s gorgeous, God, he’s incredible, Bokuto thinks and lifts Akaashi’s fingers to his lips in an impulse. “No, I just – you were so – I didn’t know you could move like that.” His mouth brushes Akaashi’s knuckles. “We should do that again.”

Akaashi’s smiles softens. “We should,” he says, and then he winks at Kuroo who’s still speechless and looking like he tries to comprehend all of this. “But somewhere more private, where I can look at you, and you can see me.”

“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.”

koujaq:

moami:

It was supposed to be a joke. Kenma hides behind the door of Kuroo’s room while he’s downstairs to get them some tea. Nobody else is home. This is a good prank, Kenma thinks, I’m going to scare him a bit and maybe he’s going to tickle me then. Maybe we’ll end up cuddling (that would be really, really nice).

It is supposed to be a joke. Kenma jumps out from behind the door and rips his hands into the air when Kuroo comes in. He wants to yell something, a funny quote from a movie, but his body freezes when-

It was supposed to be a joke. But then Kuroo’s on the floor, the tray is dropped, and Kenma watches how his best friend shrinks into a tiny ball and covers his head with both hands.

“Don’t hit me, please don’t hit me, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry.”

“Kuroo.” Kenma’s voice breaks. He drops to the floor, reaches out, halts. “I didn’t know that you – I’m so sorry. Kuroo, l-look at me. I won’t hurt you.”

It takes a moment until Kuroo lifts his head. The tracks of tears on his cheeks feel like a knife through Kenma’s chest. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, looking at Kuroo, not moving an inch.

It was supposed to be a joke. But five minutes later, Kuroo sits on the bed, the spilled tea is wiped away, and Kenma listens to the story of what Kuroo has been living through during middle school whenever Kenma wasn’t with him. And oh, Kenma didn’t know that he could hate other people so much, but he does when Kuroo tentatively talks about fists that make bruises bloom and how being gay has only started to feel right when high school came around and Kenma’s fingers laced up with Kuroo’s in front of the team for the first time without any pain raining down on him.

Honey. Oh, oh wow. This broke my heart. Thank you so much for this beautiful art. You’re a wonderful person. ♥

It was supposed to be a joke. Kenma hides behind the door of Kuroo’s room while he’s downstairs to get them some tea. Nobody else is home. This is a good prank, Kenma thinks, I’m going to scare him a bit and maybe he’s going to tickle me then. Maybe we’ll end up cuddling (that would be really, really nice).

It is supposed to be a joke. Kenma jumps out from behind the door and rips his hands into the air when Kuroo comes in. He wants to yell something, a funny quote from a movie, but his body freezes when-

It was supposed to be a joke. But then Kuroo’s on the floor, the tray is dropped, and Kenma watches how his best friend shrinks into a tiny ball and covers his head with both hands.

“Don’t hit me, please don’t hit me, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry.”

“Kuroo.” Kenma’s voice breaks. He drops to the floor, reaches out, halts. “I didn’t know that you – I’m so sorry. Kuroo, l-look at me. I won’t hurt you.”

It takes a moment until Kuroo lifts his head. The tracks of tears on his cheeks feel like a knife through Kenma’s chest. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, looking at Kuroo, not moving an inch.

It was supposed to be a joke. But five minutes later, Kuroo sits on the bed, the spilled tea is wiped away, and Kenma listens to the story of what Kuroo has been living through during middle school whenever Kenma wasn’t with him. And oh, Kenma didn’t know that he could hate other people so much, but he does when Kuroo tentatively talks about fists that make bruises bloom and how being gay has only started to feel right when high school came around and Kenma’s fingers laced up with Kuroo’s in front of the team for the first time without any pain raining down on him.

rainbowd00dles:

@moami posted on twitter about kenma having a chubby stomach and muffin tops and then this happened

kuroo would love to cuddle him

me too kuroo. me too.

Oh my gosh, they are perfect. I want to squish Kenma’s cheeks and his beautiful tummy and I want them to hug all night, drink tea and kiss and be happy without anyone ever hurting them. Thank you so much, Rainbow! This is wonderful in any possible way. ♥

Because Kuroo loves all of him, the soft outside and the sometimes insecure, dark inside, anything and everything through shadows and light.

Some nights, Kenma can’t stop the stinging and crawling of his skin with cold showers. He dries himself off and migrates over into Kuroo’s room, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and hips, hair tied into a ponytail. He only ties it back for Kuroo. There’s nothing to hide when they’re alone.

Kuroo doesn’t look up. He’s sitting before his easel, rough fingers guiding the brush in delicate strokes. Kenma licks his lips. He manages to speak, but it’s hard and awkward. “I,” he says, slow, and remembers that Kuroo will love him whatever weakness he admits, whether his recovery is sluggish or smooth. “I don’t feel… good.”

“Thanks for telling me.” Kuroo puts the paintbrush away and turns. He opens his arms. “Come here?” Kenma has waited for that. He moves, catapults himself into Kuroo’s hug. It’s hard to keep his fingers away from his back, his face-

“May I try something?”

“Uhm.” Kenma frowns. Kuroo has spoken gently into his chest, where he’s buried his lips and kisses his skin. “Okay?”

“Trust me.” And Kenma does. He follows Kuroo’s plea to lie down on the bed, after Kuroo’s spread an old white bedsheet over it. Kenma rests his head on his hands and listens to the noises Kuroo makes, shuffling closer, uncapping a tub of paint, or is it something else?

A paintbrush touches his back. Something cold melt against his skin. Kenma’s lips curl into a smile. “That’s a good idea. Can you turn on music?”

Kuroo can, and he does. Kenma doesn’t know for how long Kuroo paints on him. His skin tingles with sensation, bursting into sparks of joy and yes, good, that’s better than the crawling stings from earlier. It’s almost natural to fall asleep. It’s dark outside when Kenma drifts back to consciousness. Kuroo’s rummaging in the kitchen; a cup of steaming tea is on the nightstand, together with Kuroo’s phone. The display is lit up, showing a photo.

Kuroo has taken a snap of his back. He’s painted two wings on Kenma’s back that melt together into the shape of a door. The lock is twisted out of a cat’s mouth, green eyes shining with cunning. On the back of his hand, Kenma then discovers the shape of a small, golden key. He smiles.

His skin doesn’t itch anymore.