Work Text:
At 6:00 every morning, Kagami wakes up to the sight of Kuroko curled up against his side, eyes closed, lashes thick against translucent skin. It’s the most uselessly beautiful image to anyone who isn’t an artist, and Kagami isn’t an artist; instead of doing something productive, he languishes over the arch of Kuroko’s lips and the blue mess of his hair.
At 6:05 every morning, Kuroko stops pretending to be asleep and opens his eyes, and Kagami feels like he’s falling through the bed and flying through the air, a swooping victory in his stomach like the triumph after a dunk.
‘Go be useful,’ Kuroko says, eyes closing again. ‘It’s raining, make some coffee.’
‘Yes, your highness.’
While he leans over the open refrigerator door and hunts for milk, Kagami reflects on Kuroko. That isn’t to say that he isn’t almost in a constant state of reflection on Kuroko, but there is something about the nearly-silent patter of raindrops on their tenth-floor window that makes him miss the boy even though he’s only one room over. He knows how the morning is going to go: he’s going to make coffee, take it back into the room to find Kuroko asleep again, and after a brief debate he’s going to set the coffee aside and slip back between the blankets and find Kuroko’s slight waist. They’re going to wake up an hour later, late for school, and Kagami’s going to get his ear twisted by Riko for missing Wednesday morning practices. He’s going to protest about how difficult it is to remember a Wednesday.
He backtracks to the milk and and fights the urge to sit cross-legged on the floor and press his forehead against the cool plastic of the shelves. He wants to laugh to himself for a bit because even after two weeks, he still isn’t used to having a new presence in his previously lonely apartment. If anything, he’d expected life to be the same when Kuroko’s family dropped him off (apparently, for all his maturity, Kuroko did not take kindly to his father’s transfer and is ‘very fond of Tokyo’), maybe accounted for getting startled every once in a while. Instead, in the most clichéd manner, Kuroko brings new things to the household. A rug here, a cushion for Nigou there, vanilla ice cream in the freezer and a general realisation that Kagami’s life is slowly turning beautiful.
‘Ka-ga-mi-kun. Coffee.’
‘I’m getting it, you bastard!’
—
‘Kagami-kun,’ Kuroko says on one particularly rainy Sunday morning. It’s maybe 6:30 and Kagami really does not want to be awake before noon on a damn Sunday, but Kuroko is Kuroko and more often than not, Kuroko gets what he wants. (The remainder of occasions is stored in his head, Kagami’s sure, and used as fodder for revenge at a later date.) ‘I want to build a pillow fort.’
‘I don’t know what a pillow fort is.’
‘Where did your childhood—’
‘Basketball.’
‘But Himuro-kun—’
‘Also basketball.’
‘A pillow fort,’ Kuroko says with deliberate patience (even for him), ‘is a wonderful experience. You put a few chairs together around a rug or a mattress, make a tent with blankets, and stuff pillows in every bit of space that your butt isn’t occupying. Then you watch scary films and cry while I laugh.’
‘We’re not watching scary films inside a pillow fort at six in the morning.’
‘But I want to build a pillow fort.’
‘Kuroko. No.’
Kuroko fixes a death stare on him that not even Aomine is immune to, as far as Kagami knows, but he puts up a valiant fight anyway. He’s seventeen years old, over six feet tall, and has been told on more than one occasion that he has terrifying eyebrows. There is no way he’s losing to his invisible runt of a boyfriend, especially not after having fought the good fight for over a year now. Not without an ungraceful struggle, at least, which in this situation is defined as a hot blush rising to his cheeks and a twitch of his lips. Three and a half seconds pass before Kagami caves.
‘We’re not watching a scary film,’ he says. Four seconds later: ‘Fine, but no making fun of me after.’
‘Done,’ Kuroko says. He’s lying through his teeth, but Kagami lets it slide. It isn’t as if he has a choice.
—
At school, Koganei is ruthless with his teasing, and they bear his laughter because somewhere inside is the desperation that comes with knowing that he won’t be there next year, none of them will; coach and Mitobe and Hyuga and Kiyoshi, and in exchange for their company till the last leg of high school, Kagami would listen to a thousand innuendos.
It’s in these moments that Kagami knows to appreciate Kuroko’s quiet smiles and soft skin and the way he occupies the left side of Kagami’s bed with his small reading lamp and piles of books about people doing complicated things. That he can afford this closeness with Kuroko so early on, and for so long, is enough of a privilege that he pushes back the anxiety of their entire lives not being nearly enough to make Kuroko understand just how he fills up the spaces between Kagami’s ribs with that white noise that he can’t do without now.
Never leave me, he almost says to Kuroko in the bell breaks between classes, and while running laps around the outdoor courts, and while showering when he can hear Kuroko humming drama openings to himself outside. Stay with me until I drive you insane. Stay with me after that, too.
He usually ends up stuttering something like let’s skip history class, I’m too tired today or we’re out of pasta, so… while Kuroko raises his eyebrows.
‘Your history grades are disgusting,’ he says. ‘All your grades are disgusting. You’re not skipping class.’
Koganei, passing by, shrieks ‘Bossy!’ and Kuroko actually graces the taunt with a blush that goes straight to Kagami’s chest, along with the little burst of joy he gets whenever he realises that Kuroko’s much more noticeable than he used to be. A little louder, a little livelier. He wants to take credit, all of it. He wants to take Kuroko, all of him.
‘Come on,’ Kuroko’s hand is held out. ‘You want to go to college, don’t you?’
‘Athletic scholarships exist,’ Kagami replies.
‘I’m not sending you to Los Angeles with a D in history. Get moving, please.’
—
As it turns out, Kagami doesn’t have enough chairs. Not only is Kuroko highly disappointed, he is also very sarcastic about being highly disappointed.
‘Kagami-kun is too state-of-the-art for chairs,’ he’s saying to Nigou as he fixes the stupid mutt’s Pedigree. ‘He has barstools in the kitchen and a big couch in the living room. No chairs.’
Kagami glares at Kuroko from the couch, stretching an arm to grab his ankle and yank it. ‘Don’t be so mean, there’s still my bed.’
Kuroko puts the bowl aside and blinks at him. ‘Your bed is flat.’
‘I have bedposts.’
‘You—’ and then Kuroko smiles. ‘You have bedposts, that’s right.’
‘Only near the head, though,’ Kagami calls even as Kuroko bounds towards the bedroom, gathering up rumpled sheets on the way. ‘Kuroko! Only near the head!’
‘We’ll make a sloped roof!’
—
Kagami discovered that he was in love with Kuroko back in their first year, when he saw Kuroko utterly defeated, slumped on a bench muttering damn it while tears leaked out of his eyes. Truth be told, Aomine’s harsh words had been ringing in Kagami’s own ears at the point, but for the first time he realised that the strong face he was putting on was not only for his own sake. There was a blue-eyed bastard in his defensive range now, would be, forever now. (Is.)
Fighting on that court, the burn of the ball’s rubber on the heel of his hand and each of Kuroko’s tears further scalding that burn, Kagami had inhaled his first breath of the Zone. He’d ruled the court for those five minutes, prince and king and demonlord. And to know that the final push he’d needed to liftoff was Kuroko’s profile, eyebrows furrowed and lips pulled back — thinking about that while wrapping an arm around Kuroko’s flank (his reed-like ribs, God) had made him process something terrifying as Aomine fixed a knowing stare on him and said that difference is the reason I lost.
That difference, Kagami had realised, was in the way he held Kuroko and hit the back of his head and shouted at him and stared at him when he wasn’t looking, if only to ensure that he was still there. For Aomine, maybe, Kuroko had never lacked presence at all, had never been anything very special. But for Kagami, ever side of Kuroko’s was something new to discover and worry over, a favourite poem here and a rejected lasagna there. In that moment with Kuroko’s trembling arm around his neck and breaths coming hot against his chest, Kagami had realised just how completely fucked he was.
Not yours anymore, he’d wanted to say to Aomine. Mine now, the true nature of his victory; possession.
‘Your eyes look different,’ Riko had said to him later. ‘You’ve gone and done something stupid, haven’t you?’
‘Not yet, ma’am, if you’ll excuse me.’
She’d smiled, then, and it wasn’t a scary smile or an intimidating one or the one she got (still gets) when looking at their captain. That smile had reminded him of Alex with heartwrenching clarity, and he’d known what she was going to say before she said it.
‘Well then, go do it already.’
—
‘Aren’t you a little too old to be standing on beds?’
Being glared at by Kuroko thrice before 7:00 hits is probably a personal record. ‘Aren’t you a little too old to be so unhelpful?’
‘I don’t know how to do it!’
‘You’re just supposed to tie the corner around the bedpost, that’s all, surely that’s not too complex even for you, Kagami-kun—’
‘What’d you say, you bastard—’
Ten seconds later, he finds himself sullenly twisting the left corner of the sheet around the top of the bedpost while Kuroko watches from the middle of the bed, hands on his hips like an actual child. Kagami would find it endearing if he wasn’t being forced to play house with an eighteen-year-old. ‘Well, this is fun.’
‘Don’t anger me four times before seven in the morning,’ Kuroko says serenely. ‘I will hit you.’
Kuroko can be more terrifying than Riko and Hyuga combined, honestly. Being on the wrong side of his wrath is not how Kagami wants his peaceful Sunday to go; he quietly resumes the sheet-tying. It seems secure enough so that he can move to the other side.
Kuroko hops off so that Kagami can stretch the sheet over, but instead Kagami lets it drop in favour of staring at the way Kuroko smiles when he lifts an impatient Nigou up. That damn puppy receives more of his love and attention than Kagami himself does, and he’s pretty sure that’s unfair but Tatsuya says dogs don’t count.
‘Good boy,’ Kuroko murmurs, and Nigou yips happily and jumps out of his hands, running circles around him, making him laugh. Kagami thinks the sheet can fucking wait.
—
In spite of Riko’s vague-yet-clear instructions, Kagami had taken his own sweet time in doing the stupid thing. To be precise, he arrived on a decision to act when the Winter Cup buzzer went off for the final time, declaring them victors over Rakuzan with a margin of two points, his final dunk going through in a way that reminded him of the first time he had ever worked with Kuroko.
No more now.
Akashi had been...something beyond stunned. They all had, Kiyoshi laughing in disbelief and Hyuga roaring, Izuki simply blinking in surprise. But to Kagami, those were side details; he had eyes only for Kuroko, who was standing there in shock rivaling Akashi’s. Blue eyes sightless, hands by his sides, lips parted.
No more bullshit now.
Kagami had felt scores of gazes on him, striding over to Kuroko the way he was, but he’d lost the will to care; Kuroko’s frail frame in his arms meant so much more than a thousand spectators.
‘We did it,’ he’d said, Kuroko’s sweaty forehead against his sweaty shoulder. ‘We did it.’
And he’d expected Kuroko to cry, collapse, yell, but instead Kuroko brought a hand up and clutched at his arm, straightening up a little. ‘Congratulations, Kagami.’
Kagami.
After they were done thanking the referee, and Rakuzan, and the spectators, and a hysterical Riko, and an even more hysterical team, Kagami had lifted Kuroko up, one arm around his waist and another under his knees, even though they were both practically swaying with exertion. Kuroko hadn’t protested, none of them had; maybe Kagami really had been the last one to see it coming. He’d looked ahead at the doors to the lobby, onwards to the locker rooms, while Kuroko had pressed a wet cheek to his collarbone, arms curling around his neck and heart thudding right next to his.
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered today,’ Koganei hollered from behind them, but Kagami didn’t care. He didn’t care about whatever stupid pun Izuki was probably cracking, or that people were watching. He just didn’t care, no energy left to spend on anything but Kuroko, so small and clear in his arms that Kagami wanted to cry.
No more now.
‘No more now,’ he’d growled into the fabric of Kuroko’s jersey, kneeling in front of him with small hands in his hair. ‘You and me, okay, Kuroko? I don’t want you more than one fucking foot away from me.’
Kuroko had replied simply, pressing kisses to his head that made him die a hundred small deaths. ‘Yes.’
In retrospect, very little changed after that yes. They still fought, still played basketball, still got their asses whooped by Aomine and Imayoshi once in a while. But somewhere along the line, classical Japanese tuitions turned into let’s see who lasts longer without kissing the other, and Riko started separating them for practice, none of that kind of exercise on my court.
With this new Kuroko by his side, Kagami started feeling more invincible than he had when he’d first stepped foot into this country, and by God, didn’t he want to preserve that feeling. The confidence in Kuroko’s eyes, the power in his grip on Kagami’s wrist, his pulse, steady and sure. God, didn’t he want that forever. Doesn’t he want that forever.
—
‘This isn’t a pillow fort,’ Kuroko says. ‘It’s a canopy.’
‘Isn’t that supposed to be romantic anyway?’
Kuroko considers it for a moment, then shrugs. ‘More space for us,’ he says, lifting one of the sheets up. ‘After you.’
When Kuroko first brought up making a pillow fort, about forty five minutes ago, Kagami had expected a childish cave, spilled popcorn, the screams of Freddy Krueger’s dying victims. Instead he finds a foreign room within his room, the sound of the now-heavy rain immediately reduced by half, and the heavenly glow of Kuroko’s stupid little reading lamp.
Kuroko follows him and immediately pushes him back onto the bed. ‘Finally.’
‘I thought we were going to watch scary movies.’
He’s never loved rain more than this; the sound too far to be anything but soothing. Following it are occasional muted horns from the traffic below, a neighbour’s doorbell, Nigou making what Kagami assumes must be a holy mess of his shoes. The walls the sheets form are so flimsy yet strong, and white, white, white. It’s as if the morning could last forever.
‘Later.’ Kuroko’s straddling him now, still sleep-rumpled, the shirt Kagami had worn last night hanging off his pale shoulders, buttons done one off, hair a riot.
Now that Kuroko is here, with him, so little else matters but the squeak of trainers and the swish of a net and the nearly invisible dusting of freckles across the bridge of Kuroko’s nose. So little else matters but the overwhelming fact, truth, of Kuroko’s absent presence.
On his lips is a smile that no one else gets to see. With others, Kuroko plays the part of the silent listener, the sympathiser that responds in a kind quirk of his mouth. In here, he smiles like he holds all of Kagami’s secrets in his chest.
In here there is whiteness, and in this whiteness is Kuroko. In the face of his lenity, Kagami is moved beyond consolation.
‘Don’t. Don’t.’ Kuroko holds Kagami’s hands to his face, closes his eyes and kisses Kagami’s palms. ‘Shh, Kagami.’
Kagami.
‘I’m not even making any noise,’ Kagami chokes out, and Kuroko laughs, opens his eyes.
‘You know how, if you’re in a place where music is playing very loudly, you can feel it vibrate in your chest?’
Kagami’s too occupied with not bursting into tears (and consequently making noise) to make a proper reply, but he furrows his brows and nods anyway.
‘That is how I hear you in my heart,’ Kuroko whispers, pressing Kagami’s hand right above the object in discussion. ‘You’re being very loud right now.’
‘Kuroko.’
‘Yes.’ Kuroko sounds like he knows exactly what Kagami is going to say, another Kagami-reserved smile curling his lips, a small, shy one. He breaks their shared look, stares off to the side of the bed at his pile of books about people doing simpler things than what they’re doing right now.
‘I love you.’
Kuroko doesn’t look at him, just smiles a little more.
‘Yes,’ he says. Somewhere, a car backfires.