tetsurou – Moami

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.

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. ♥

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.

Kuroo asks him when they’re ten and eleven years old, lying in the grass of the garden behind Kenma’s house. Their fingertips touch, and Kuroo whispers as if it’s a secret. “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?” He wants to say, so you can have a superpower or something, but Kenma already says, quiet: “Everything.”

Kuroo frowns. “That’s stupid. You can’t hate all of yourself.”

Kenma falls silent. His fingertips are cold and pale, like the small marbles Kuroo collects. He wants Kenma to stop making that sad, tiny face. “What do you like about yourself, then?”

“Nothing.” There’s something wet, glinting on Kenma’s cheek.

That’s the moment where Kuroo takes Kenma’s hand for the first time. “Come on,” he says, and then again, louder, “let’s go play! I’ll show you something cool about yourself!”

After a moment, Kenma follows him. He wipes his tears with his shirt and nods.

Twelve years later, Kuroo takes his hand again and kisses the knuckles. “What are you thinking about?” His arm rests on Kenma’s shoulders, lap full of two sleeping cats, and Kenma leans into his side, lips still red, warm, mouth a smile.

“Nothing,” he says, soft, before stealing another kiss from his boyfriend. “I just thought of another thing for my list.”

“Will you tell me?” A rough thumb caresses Kenma’s knuckles, one by one, careful and so familiar. Kenma nods. “Sure. Thing number two hundred and fifty seven that I like about myself – that I’m here right now.”

The hug that Kuroo gives him knocks all air out of Kenma’s lungs, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. This time, it’s Kuroo who’s crying.

“Sorry I’m late!” Kuroo bursts through the door of the flat, a plastic bag full of groceries in each of his hands. Snow is hissing behind him, a storm of white flakes trying to claw its way into the warm house. Kuroo manages to slam the door shut with his foot before dragging the groceries into the kitchen. “Kenma?” He calls out while searching the bags, only putting away what belongs in the fridge and then wandering through the flat with a packet of sandwiches. “Ken-”

The door to Kenma’s room is open. Kuroo moves closer, taking a peek inside, making sure that his steps are loud enough to not startle his boyfriend. “May I come inside or is it alone time?”

“You can come in,” Kenma replies from inside. A blanket rustles, and Kuroo recognises the noise of a gaming console being put onto the nightstand. “Welcome home. I missed you.” It’s only with those words that Kuroo pushes the door open and comes inside. Kenma is under the blanket, curled up, lips forced into a thin smile. A jolt of pain flies through Kuroo’s chest.

He’s by Kenma’s side and underneath the blanket within seconds. “What’s wrong? Talk to me. Are you havin’ a bad day?”

Kenma bites his lips and nods. Sometimes Kuroo hates being right, hates knowing the reason that tears well up in Kenma’s eyes. “How can you still l-love me when I’m,” Kenma begins. His voice is so tiny, wet, shivering, and Kuroo immediately acts. He carefully slides his hands below the blanket, tickles his fingertips along Kenma’s soft waist. “Mhm.” Kenma closes his eyes, hums, a hiccup following as he smiles through the tears. “Kuroo.”

“I couldn’t not love you,” Kuroo says. “I don’t care if you look different.” His fingertips are reverent when they paint invisible patterns of gentleness onto Kenma’s lower belly that has gotten bigger and softer after he’s stopped playing volleyball in college. “I love you in any shape and age, I love you with wrinkles and grey hair and with blind eyes or a bigger stomach. I’d kiss you until we both couldn’t breathe anymore, no matter what. You’re always – just.”

“…I’m your K-Kenma?”

Kuroo nods. His neck is wet where Kenma has buried his face, and his chest hurts a bit because short nails dig into it through his Iron Man shirt. But it doesn’t matter. Kenma’s stomach is warm and beautiful below his touch, and the hiccups stop. “Okay?” No, it’s not. He knows. It returns, and it takes time to heal.

But Kenma looks up with eyes as golden as sunlight, kisses Kuroo’s mouth until both of their heads are dizzy, and then he lets his own fingers slide down to tickle the trail of hair on Kuroo’s stomach until both of them laugh, grin, smile.

When Kenma asks him if he’s always been like that, Kuroo has to force the howling machinery of his mind to a stop in order to find an answer.

“I don’t know,” he says, and it sounds so helpless, so stupid, so unlike him.

“It’s okay,” Kenma says and does that tiny smile that Kuroo loves. “I just want to understand.”

“I don’t think you can.”

Kuroo can’t keep his mouth from saying the words. They’re true, but they’re such a cliché too, and the effect on his mind is immediate. The edges of his thoughts tremble, a wave of dark fingers reaching into his brain and tugging at the wires, he burns and stands and has to do something.

He is always doing something. Kenma can sit and play games, but Kuroo has to –
– he runs in the morning, jogs around the lake before the uni’s dorm, eats breakfast and chases to class and some call him crazy for having classes until evening but what else should he do, how could be just be home and do nothing, they admire his intelligence though nobody expects it and finally, he’s useful, helpful, needed.

The volleyball training is hard but he’s the vice captain and manager, takes care of the water bottles, food, net, his fingers are pale with red sprinkles and callouses but God, he’s so good at this, they need him and thank him and he’ll never hear a grown man call him useless again, a disgrace, because now his mind is sharp, silver, he is fast and untouchable and he – he is useful.

“Kuroo.” Kenma’s fingers are soft. The touch of warm skin against his own is a jolt, and Kenma’s arm wrapping around his shoulder seems as if it could stop the world.

“M-my homework.” He tries to breathe. “It’s due in -”

“You’re a month ahead of your classes,” Kenma says, gentle. “You’re… you’re always doing so much. I love you, but – what you’re doing scares me. Can we talk about this?”

When Kenma lets him curl under the blanket, in the bed that Kuroo only sleeps in for a few hours each night, his mind screams. It’s hard, he can’t, has to get up, has to do –
But he feels the tears on his cheeks, hears the wild thunder of Kenma’s heart and if there’s one thing he knows, then it’s that Kenma loves him. And that things can’t stay like that.

“Okay. Okay.”

Kenma’s breath floods slowly against his neck. “Alright. I’ll listen.”

And Kuroo speaks.