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delldarling · 4 years

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lies & gardeners | merrick

chasing truth | chapter one male faerie x gender/body neutral reader 7525 words sfw | navigating human emotions = tricky, dangit chapter index? or the prologue?

⊱ ────── .⋅ 🜁 ⋅. ────── ⊰

By virtue of being within the human realm, Merrick knew that none of this would be simple. By Fae standards, and by human too, Garrick’s description is a fairly common one. He’ll find neither hide nor hair of the gardener if he goes around, asking after a fellow with brown hair and tan skin. Even with all the changes humans have made to their society with technology.

Frustration has been steadily welling since the previous day, and his first foray into a human shopping mall.

“It’s why you were chosen,” he mutters to himself, perched in the rafters of a park gazebo as he re-packs his bag. The wallet he’d pinched, weathered brown and full of bills, is shoved in roughly. The soft shirt Kiera had chosen to give him is tucked away more carefully, having been replaced by a human-made shirt in green. The shade is particularly nice, at least, but the material itches slightly, rough against the wings trapped under his skin. He’s highly tempted to find another market and purchase something sleeveless, but… The shopkeeper’s reaction was a deciding factor in covering up.

Plenty of humans might have pictures dotting their skin - he’d seen more than his share during his time in the mall - but had sported wings like Merrick. The shopkeeper had touched him, and asked after his artist and the conversation had lasted far longer than he would have liked. They’d finally come away under the impression that he was the original designer, but a tattoo artist had done the work, which was perfectly fine with him. All Merrick wanted to do was stop talking.

Merrick sighs, confused and tired, and leans back against the curving roof, ignoring the spiders hiding poorly above his head. His cap, at least, is in fashion. The color and the quality haven’t set him apart any, though at some point he supposes he will have to get another. If he’s here that long. He scowls and closes his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. A nap is in order.

If only the children running around the park would stop shrieking. Merrick rolls a shoulder, breathing out slowly, and then a shuffling noise echoes from underneath him. Little feet scuffing the stone. He grinds his teeth and ignores the noise, hoping the child will vacate the area without any prompting.

“If you fall asleep there, you might fall. For real,” the child says authoritatively, having had enough of waiting. Merrick is still and silent, hoping that the child will take the hint and leave, but the tap, tap of little feet turning in a circle below continues.

“I won’t fall,” Merrick mutters, knowing, even as he does, that he should have kept his mouth shut. Engaging with the child will only encourage them.

“I fell off of my bed,” the child proclaims, as if they’ve reached the pinnacle of worldly experience. “Haven’t you ever done that?”

“Why do humans do this?” Merrick asks instead, sitting up straight and nearly cracking his skull against a wooden beam. He stops himself just short of it and turns his gaze upon the child - a girl, he thinks - who can’t be more than 7 or 8 summers. She looks thoroughly unimpressed with his scowl, or the way he’s precariously leaning over the rafter. “Every-” The tang of a lie stops him from saying every human, and he has to amend the statement quickly, before the child can interrupt. “Many of the humans I’ve met over the past day cannot seem to stop themselves from questioning.” Merrick throws the strap of his bag over his shoulder, adjusting until he can lean an elbow on either knee as he speaks, feet dangling over empty space. “Who is your tattoo artist? How did you get up here? Are you looking for a good time?”

The child blinks up at him, still unmoved by his plight, her small mouth curled into a frown. “I think you’ve been talking to weird people,” she finally says, turning on her heels when someone shouts. She leaves, taking her haughty attitude with her, but the words stick with him.

His own almost-lie sticks with him. The elderly man, the shopkeeper, some of those people hawking their wares outside unmoving carts- all of them had peppered him with questions he couldn’t answer. They’d wanted to draw him back into conversation, had wanted to touch if given even the slightest opportunity. And then there was you.

You hadn’t asked invasive questions that he’d little hope of answering correctly. He doesn’t know that he recalls your exact wording, but you’d been impressed by his speed, and your eyes-

Merrick snorts. He’s work to do, or at least a nap to take, and here he is, wondering about a human who had just a bit more manners than any of the others he’s met. “Ridiculous,” he says aloud, and rearranges himself against the gazebo wall once more. It’ll be dark again in a few hours, and he can start searching for the glamour Garrick has likely smothered himself with. Until then, he’s going to catch a few measly hours of sleep.

He should be done with this whole mess in a few weeks time, and then he’ll be back in the halls of the King, lauded as a hero. Perhaps Roran will have started to move on, and Kiera will cease giving him those judging looks. He’ll have his choice of work, and he can hardly wait to see where those jobs will take him. Yes. As soon as he’s back...

But even after that night, even after the next and the one after, Merrick is no closer to finding the gardener. The city is sprawling and there are too many humans for him to fly through the skies - and on the third night, one of their city guards - a policeman - comes and tells him that the homeless aren’t allowed to sleep in the park. He could have glamoured himself, could have hidden.. Though that likely would have tipped off Garrick, if he was anywhere close. He leaves after the fellow suggests a cheap motel, shelling out two bills, and decides that he might as well listen. There’s little reason not to seek out a bed, even a human made one, if he’s going to be here much longer.

The motel isn’t much better than the gazebo, Merrick finds, but it is one of the central points in the city. He’s able to pick up a more extensive, modernized map in a corner market, which makes some of his work easier, but then- Then the days slowly fade into weeks and he switches between motels as he picks up the barest hints of glamour. Every time he lays his head on the less than comfortable pillows, he’s sure that tomorrow will be the day he ends this. That he’ll track down Garrick, knock him out and drag him back to Court. But he can’t ignore the thoughts clamoring for attention in the back of his mind for much longer. He.. Can’t help but wonder if the gardener is even in the city any longer. He worries that he might be inadvertently tracking the wrong faerie, never mind that he hasn’t seen any others but common pixies. He falls asleep, telling himself that he can worry about it the next day.

Merrick wakes as evening falls.

His room is empty, as are those near-by. Or near enough. He can hear a few humans having a hushed argument through one of the walls, a bottle sloshing with liquid and clinking against a table as they pass it back and forth. Automobiles on the street, going much too fast. He doesn’t know that he’ll ever get used to the noise or the movement of them all. He used to assume that humans were called Quick Ones because of their limited lifespans, but it isn’t just that.

Humans are restless. Even in sleep, they move about or speak, and they never seem to keep steady hours either. Merrick doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to catch more than an hour or two of rest with the constant noise of them all.

Still, it’s been a month, and he can sleep through it now, at least for a while. Not always well - but after tonight, he’s fairly sure he’s going to sleep like the dead.

Merrick fumbles for the small pay-as-you-go phone he’d picked up a week back. It’s full of iron and man-made metals - but it isn’t near as heavy as the high-end devices humans are so fond of. It still makes his limbs ache to carry it close to his skin, but he supposes he can’t write off human inventions entirely.

It’s a useful piece of equipment, though Merrick only needs it to check the time, having thrown the motel clock in a drawer after the first night here.

“Seven,” he mutters, pushing himself off of the mattress. Likely he could have found a better place than this. He’s seen the high end hotels with glittering balustrades and carefully cultivated flora, but he’d taken the time and the trouble to track Garrick down to somewhere close to this neighborhood. He hadn’t wanted to be further than a few streets away, just in case Garrick had attempted to make a run for it, or in case he’d been wrong and found a different Fae altogether.

He’s fairly sure he’s right though.

The level of glamour the near-by Fae is using is affecting the environment. The neighborhood isn’t a particularly kind one. It’s full of cheap housing and dirty establishments, but greenery has sprung up in recent months - evidence of one of the Queen of Land’s people.

And then, just yesterday, by some blessed miracle, Merrick had heard a small group of humans mention “- and I’m meeting up with Garrick- Gar,” they’d corrected, phone pressed close to their face, “and maybe some of his friends, tomorrow at 8 at the bar.”

There are two bars in this crumbling section of the city, just a few doors down from each other. If Merrick snags a high vantage point across the street, he’ll be able to watch them both.

He’d best get ready, if he wants more than a few moments to settle.

Other than his bag, still packed full of nearly all his things, there’s nothing Merrick wants to take. He uses the shower because the water is pleasant enough, and cleanliness is nothing to sneer at, but he doubts he’s going to do more than watch tonight. Though if he sees Garrick with his own eyes, if he’s managed to identify him correctly? It will take the edge of worry off of his shoulders. Merrick pulls on the shirt Kiera gave him, just to have a reprieve from mildly itchy human material, and covers it with a grey hooded sweatshirt he’d taken off of a clothes line. He still jams the red cap back over his ears though, unwilling to find a replacement for the item when anything else will likely be sub-par.

He locks up behind himself, praying he won’t have to return - though he knows it’s a far-flung hope, and trudges toward Vine Street, bag slung over his shoulder. Early evening has settled over the city, yellowing streetlights starting to flicker on. Some of the sourness of the streets is dampened by the lack of sunshine, but the exhaust of passing cars still makes his nose wrinkle.

It’s busy, when he gets there. There isn’t quite a line to either establishment, though people flock into the places in steady groups of twos and threes. He eyes the building across the street - some kind of factory, once upon a time, and decides it looks empty enough to risk it.

Merrick might not be able to wear his wings out for all the humans to gawk at, but he’s still a Fae with wings. He’s used to navigating heights, and half the building is lined with a rickety set of stairs anyway. Fire Escape is labeled clearly along one creaking stair, but Merrick hops right over it, taking the steps a few at a time. It doesn’t quite reach the roof, but when he finally comes to a stop at the top, breath carefully measured, he can see hand and footholds in the old brick.

He climbs, and heaves himself onto the roof with nary a scratch. He then finds himself a good vantage point and settles down to wait, crossing his arms and resting them on the building ledge.

The people heading into Corner Pocket look a bit more jovial than the crowd mulling around the doors of Harvey’s, so he thinks he’ll have a better chance watching that one. It’s boring work though, the waiting, and for the first time Merrick thinks he might actually miss Roran. At least a partner would fill the silence.

Truth be told, Merrick isn’t quite sure what to expect. He’s looking for fawn colored hair and skin weathered by sunshine - but there are a fair few of those about. He supposes, if he truly had to think about it, he would assume that Garrick looks a bit sickly. He’s been hiding from his Court for half a year at least, and between the month Merrick has spent searching, and the time the Land Guard spent hounding him, he should be weary.

However, when Merrick spots him, he can’t quite believe his eyes. Garrick might technically be in hiding, but he’s living. He’s tall, at least as tall as Merrick, though after a moment he grudgingly admits that the Fae might be taller. He has short brown hair and a much stronger physique than Merrick had been expecting- and he’s smiling. It’s almost enough to induce a bit of jealousy in him. Here he’d been expecting a knob kneed gardener with clammy hands, and yet Garrick might as well be in the Land Guard.

He seems fond of the humans, laughing with them, leaning into their casual touches and ruffling ones hair. With a start, Merrick realizes he recognizes one of them, and he leans over the edge of the building to try and get a better look.

It’s… It’s you. The one whose phone he’d nearly broke, the one who’d smiled at him, pleasant and quiet, and- Merrick wrinkles his nose and straightens his posture. He’s being utterly ridiculous, letting nerves get to him. It’s been plenty long enough, and he’s going to have to go down there anyway. You shouldn’t remember him, not when he’d made a hasty get-away and spoken so little.

To be safe though, he decides to stay out of your line of sight as well.

He climbs back down the building side and moves slowly down the stairs, watching closely for any eyes that might catch his movement. The humans are oblivious though, and he makes it down without upset, sliding into the tail edge of a rather large group just outside the doors.

Merrick gets into the bar easy enough - he does have to use a bit of glamour to charm the bouncer into seeing proper ID, but it barely counts, and- Garrick doesn’t seem to be particularly sensitive to its use. He doesn’t up and run, or shout. He’s still sitting at a table when Merrick waltzes in, and he’s surrounded by the same group of chattering humans, all of them laughing over something.

Merrick hurries to the counter, sliding easily into the line of patrons crowding the area, and turns towards the bartender. He should order something, make his being there look normal. His shoulder jostles someone standing too close though, and when he makes room, trying to mutter something unobtrusive and calming, the human interrupts him with a delighted noise.

With his heart in his throat, and his every thought flying from his brain, Merrick turns to meet your gaze head on.

“It’s you!” You declare, eyes roving over his face. That same genial smile, the one that had stuck in the back of his unwilling head, curls your mouth. “Mr. Glad-I-hurt-My-Pride! Never thought I’d see you again.”

And I thought you wouldn’t recognize me, Merrick thinks, panic taking hold of his heart. He hopes that you can’t see the shock or any kind of disappointment in his features. Though.. Truth be told, he isn’t sure what exactly it is that he’s feeling. Nerves are making his stomach twist, and his palms heat, but-

“Pride?” He asks, hoping he sounds like he doesn’t know you. He takes a step back from you, and then his neck grows warm when you close the distance he attempts to make. He nearly stumbles into another patron behind him, half expecting you to reach out, to touch him - though he isn’t sure why that has his nerves singing with hope. It turns out that you’re only moving closer to the bar, but it feels intimate now, when you lean in towards him to converse, to be heard over the crowd of customers.

“I said something about my pride being hurt,” you tell him with a shrug, and then motion for him to speak when the bartender asks for an order. “Him first,” you insist. “I’m ordering a round for friends, and it’ll take me a minute.”

Merrick orders the first thing that looks appetizing, some kind of blackberry cider that the bartender claims is good. He licks nervously at his lips as a thought occurs to him. You know Garrick. Enough to share his table, to order drinks - he can use this. Use… you.

“-and then you said good in this really serious voice and stomped away,” you tell him, as soon as the bartender takes his currency and darts over to a register. You arch an eyebrow when he frowns, though you don’t sound accusatory.

“Good as in you weren’t physically injured,” he clarifies, happily accepting the pint the bartender returns with and turning to survey the room. Garrick is still sitting at his table, though now one of the humans is whispering something in his ear and he looks- He looks fond. That human too, is one he could use to get in close to Garrick. Surely using them would be better?

Friendship is one thing, but physical attraction can be a vastly powerful tool. Merrick glances back at you, mulling over the pros and cons.

“That’s a relief,” you murmur, flashing a smile his way before you order for your table, eyebrows drawn together in concentration. It’s almost irritating that he isn’t irritated. He still doesn’t find anything about you grating. He should - you’re a human, just making casual conversation - but you haven’t asked him prying questions or tried to interrupt him.

“Is it?” He asks, unthinking as he takes a sip of his drink. His eyes dart to your hands, fingertips tapping awkwardly against the bar. You look… Nervous.

“Is it a relief to me that you weren’t being rude?” You laugh, ceasing your fidgeting. “Yeah. I don’t think relief would fit very well if I found out you were trying to be an ass. Besides, you did something nice, saving my phone from the pavement - I wanted to think well of you.”

He shouldn’t care at all, but he can’t help the small smirk that pulls at the corner of his lips. The sound of your voice, the way your mouth is shaped when you laugh? He likes it. He opens his mouth- only to snap it shut when the bartender returns with a pitcher and a stack of glasses.

“Interested in helping me out one more time?” You ask, glancing at him from beneath lowered lashes, and there’s a tone to your words that he believes might be flirting. He could help you out, but even if Garrick hadn’t noticed his glamour use at the door, standing right in front of him might very well tip him off. Might, he thinks to himself, irritated with the vagueness of his thought. It will tip him off.

“I’ll follow,” he says before he can think more on it. His mouth is dry and his heartbeat is starting to thunder in his ears. Better to get this whole thing over with and get back to Faerie. Merrick steadfastly ignores the realization that it would mean the end of any flirtatious hints between you, and takes the stack of glasses you hand him. It’s a useless thought. He’s not here to charm humans, he’s here to do what his King bade him. He leans back to avoid the brush of your elbow, waiting for you to precede him, and then turns towards the table you’re sharing with Garrick.

Garrick isn’t there.

Adrenaline crashes into his bloodstream at lightning speed, and it takes everything within Merrick not to drop the glasses to the floor, let them break and scatter in a fountain of glass shards and start searching. He stays on your heels, searching each visible corner of the room, but he doesn’t see him anywhere. Had he truly been so distracted by a few moments of flirting?

You set the pitcher down with a hmm, glancing at the two - two - empty spots across the table.

“So Gar and-”

“Yep,” one of your companions, a red headed man, interrupts you, grinning slyly. “But I see you made a handsome friend over at the bar! Care to introduce us?”

“Next time, I’m getting the drinks,” one of them murmurs.

You grin, accepting the glasses that Merrick hands you, but before you can ask for his name, or say another word, he’s backing away.

“Pardon me,” he says, trying not to look you in the face. He fails, eyes raking quickly over your startled expression a single time, just- just so he’ll remember your face. Just so he’ll recognize you again, if he needs to use you. To get to Garrick. “Enjoy your evening,” he tacks on at the last second, feeling slightly ridiculous, but mostly angry. He’d taken one look at you, taken one sip of fizzing cider and lost focus, and now Garrick is gone. Merrick slides through the crowd, using glamour heavily to slip unnoticed between talking friends and dancing couples, and heads straight for the bathroom. He doubts the gardener took his companion there, not if he wants either of them to live, but he has to check.

Both of them, frustratingly, turn up empty of Fae. Merrick upends his glass of cider in one of the cracked sinks, glaring at his reflection. There’s a heavy flare of glamour, like pressure building and bursting at the front that suddenly catches his attention- but it’s fading already.

He follows it anyway, sifting through the people making their way toward the bathroom and then milling about the bar until he’s made note of every face throughout the building.

Merrick finds himself back out on the street, shoulders trembling with tension, wondering how he’d gotten it so wrong. Garrick must have noted his use of glamour the moment he’d done it, and simply kept his calm until he realized Merrick was distracted. He should have known better, should have kept his boring seat on the factory building and waited. He would have been able to follow Garrick back to his home, or at least make a note of where his companion lived.

He’s going to have to throw caution to the wind, then, and head into the skies. He’ll have to risk Garrick feeling the glamour, because the chance of a human snapping a picture of a Fae launching himself off of a roof is far too great. He heads back to the factory roof, breathless now when he reaches the top, and stares down angrily over the edge. Merrick has been yearning to stretch his wings, but the wait doesn’t quite feel worth it when he’s lost track of the damn gardener.

He strips off his shirt and his cap, uncaring of the cool breeze and shoves them into his bag. It almost aches, the feeling of his wings slipping free of his skin, but he doesn’t have time for more than a quick rub of the muscles he can reach, before he needs to be flying. He won’t be able to catch him - not without diving upon Garrick like some great bird of prey - but he hopes he’ll see him. At least then, this won’t have been one big waste of his time.

Merrick rolls his shoulders, steps up to the building edge, and jumps. His wings aren’t exactly made for slow, sweeping circles through the air. The four of them are strong, but thin, veined with a shade that Roran has always claimed reminds him of copper. They buzz, fluttering fast enough that they’re nothing more than a blur. He’s always done best with short, sharp distances, and it’s still been a short length of time. Surely he has more than a fair chance of finding some human-loving gardener?

He zips over the street, eyes keen on the people below, and starts his search.

Four hours later, he has to trudge back into his motel room, too tired to keep up a cloak of glamour, or to even lay his wings back into his skin. One of the inebriated humans he’d heard earlier is sitting on the steps, staring at him with bleary eyes and a red nose.

“Tho- thought absinthe brought on visions of fairies?” The man asks, glancing down at his paper wrapped bottle in surprise.

“Weariness, too,” Merrick mutters, blinking heavily as he nearly stumbles on the last step. He’s three doors down the walk - he can make it. He’s not sure, but he thinks the drunkard whispers some kind of expletive. It’s the last coherent thought Merrick has before his motel door is shutting behind him and he’s flopping straight onto the bed. Darkness rolls over him like the tide, and he willingly gives in.

He wakes to housekeeping tapping nervously at his door and just barely gets up in time to catch it. He waves away their apologies, pressing his hands firmly against the placard underneath the peep hole to close the door fully - and then drops to his knees, wings sagging against the ground. The carpet is rough, and even though he’s relished having them out, Merrick slaps a hand to each shoulder, hiding his wings in his skin once more.

Perhaps, if Merrick weren’t stubborn, he would send word back to the King of Air. He could have used a bit of help - but the thought of Roran showing up on his doorstep flat out halts the thought. He needs more information, because what the Queen of Land had given them was sorely lacking. The traitor’s chosen name? Had been correct. As had the vague description. Faun brown hair, eyes near the same shade, and skin, weathered tan by the sunshine. His hands and ears had held a green tint - glamoured from the human eye - so he was from the Land Court.

But he knew how to blend in with humans, had made friends of them. He was living, and living well among them, and he knew how to lose someone attempting to track him. He’d vanished at the first sign of trouble.

“Or he really was passing time with his companion and they distracted him from me,” Merrick grumbles, lips pulled into a frown as he stumbles over to the rickety table in the corner. The chair creaks as he flops into it, pulling close the map of the city and the small pad of paper provided by the motel.

Merrick supposes that Garrick could have been human born - maybe his human parent had been spirited to his Court and had passed on their knowledge as he grew? Maybe human parentage did have something to do with being able to lie. Still. He’s tempted to swear something crass to prove that Garrick isn’t simply a gardener. Other than that single flare of glamour, Garrick had left little to no trace of himself behind, and even someone with Merrick’s talents would be hard pressed to do that. Roran couldn’t have done it so smoothly.

The only thing Merrick had been able to find out with any certainty is that Garrick is fond of the group of humans he’d gone to Corner Pocket with. He’d checked back into the bar after he’d canvassed the area and found nothing. They’d been gone as well, safe from being followed or questioned. He’d asked after the group from one of the workers, but he’d been run nearly dry by then, dizzy on his feet. The worker had only given him a strange look and urged him to call his friends after he’d grabbed a few hours of sleep. Of course, asking the worker in the back alley while they took their smoke break… Had possibly been ill advised. He hadn’t wanted to risk glamour, and he couldn’t head inside the bar without a shirt on. They’d likely assumed he was as inebriated as the two men staying in the room next to his at the motel. It could have been worse.

Though he can’t say he’s not convinced that Garrick didn’t double back after he’d left and gotten his human companions to vacate the area.

Perhaps- no.

For the breadth of a second, he wonders if Garrick has roped the humans into this, but it’s highly unlikely. With such a large group of them, at least one would have spilled his secret. No. They’d been too at ease, and he doesn’t believe that you would have li- It simply doesn’t matter. None of the humans could have known enough about Garrick’s true nature to fool him.

A very small part, that he studiously ignores, is pleased by the thought. Being distracted by honest flattery is one thing, but being lied to is quite another.

He wonders how often Garrick has dealt with human lies, and whether it galls him or not, tasting the sourness upon the air.

Merrick scowls, fingers tracing idle paths on the now creased and worn map. He doesn’t even know if those born to the Land Court possess the same drawbacks when it comes to attempting to lie.

Besides, it’s entirely possible that Garrick will decide to run again. Even though he’s done his best to make a home for himself here, and seems to be fond of the local populace, he’s run twice already. Once from the Queen of Land - the place he was raised, and once when the land Guard found him. Both times he’d run far enough that it had cost quite a bit of time to track him down again. And yet... he might decide that a random citizen of the Air stumbling upon him is nothing to worry about.

He might not be able to find Garrick at the bar for some time, but he imagines one or two of the humans will return. They’d been charmed by his appearance, at least, so he doubts it will take over much to befriend one of them. And if, by chance, Garrick comes to assume that Merrick is a fellow runaway?

He might just be willing to speak to him.

Corner Pocket soon becomes Merrick’s most regular haunt, and his least favorite place in the human realm.

The drinks make it bearable, at least some of the time. The vast amount to choose from means he’s not bored, but enjoying a glass of anything by his lonesome is… Not very entertaining. And most of the attention he draws? Merrick does not want in the first place. He’s offended at least three different humans there in the week following his decision to befriend one of Garrick’s companions. One woman he refuses flat out, which leaves her petulant and loud. One of her friends apologizes on her behalf, rolling their eyes as they tow her out the door. One man seems to be desperately looking for a debate partner on human sports teams, and another says he simply doesn’t like the look of Merrick.

“There’s a couple colleges here,” one of the bartenders shares with him after the last man is quickly ushered out, having decided to upend his barstool and his drink. “We have regulars, but there’s always someone obnoxious popping in. If you’re going to be in here frequently, look out for those ones.” The truth of it is staggering, and Merrick quickly becomes used to picking out the humans who show up too far into their cups.

He’s tempted to give the endeavor up - to go back to searching for flares of glamour or seeking out spots that have shown an uptick in greenery growth. He has no desire to spend his afternoons or evenings in this place, repeatedly being approached by pushy humans. Even if getting to Garrick via his companions is a good strategy, he doesn’t have to needlessly suffer time with others.

But then, you walk back into the bar one evening.

Unthinking, he hides, moving to a seat out of your view that still lets him hear your conversation with the friend you’ve brought with you. He thinks he might recognize the fellow as well - his patched jacket and red hair seem familiar anyhow.

“-still think it’s silly,” your friend complains, tapping a knuckle against the bar as he glances at the daily specials. Merrick leans back a little farther in his chair, drinking the sight of you in. “This is the closest and cheapest place to meet, and now we’re going to that dance club? Since when do we all dance?”

“I think it was Em’s idea,” you say with a shrug, smiling and ordering something for yourself. Your friend grimaces, looking only mildly more pleasant when he orders his own drink.

“I think she’s trying to make the moves on Garfield,” your friend adds, a huff of a laugh escaping him.

“No. Red, come on, is that really his full name? I thought it was something like.. Garrett. Or Gary. And Em is going to have a serious time of it, he really only has eyes for-”

“Everyone knows,” Red says with a gruff sigh. “And honestly, I don’t know. I just thought I’d try it out on him and see if it stuck.”

“You really want to saddle him with the name Garfield? What if it is his name and he’s ashamed or something?” You ask before you thank the bartender. You wait until your friend has his glass in hand before you both raise them in some kind of silent toast and drink.

Red wipes the beer foam from his mouth and shrugs. “Then he’ll say something and I’ll let it go. We better hurry up here though, Em will blow her top if we end up being more than a minute late.”

It’s all too easy to glamour himself and shadow the two of you to the dance club. Merrick keeps well back, wrinkling his nose when the thumping music is loud enough for him to hear outside the heavy doors. The two of you don’t even blink, flashing IDs at the door and trading a look that has you both laughing. Merrick follows and drops the glamour as soon as he’s in the door. He doesn’t want to leave half his attention on holding it, or risk walking up to Garrick like a glowing beacon.

Despite the discomfort of the loud noise and the press of the bodies, a stillness comes over him when he does finally spot Garrick sitting at a low table. He looks well fed and completely at ease, staring at a young woman who is talking a mile a minute - though Merrick isn’t sure if Garrick is actually listening to her, or just looking past her. He perks up when he sees you and your friend Red though, waving the two of you over in obvious relief.

“Just you two?” You ask, eyebrows raising when Garrick gets to his feet to greet you with an embrace. You return it kindly enough, but it doesn’t appear to be something that happens frequently. Em doesn’t look quite as happy to have you both there, and Red looks startled when he, too, receives a sudden hug from the tall Land Fae. The three of you take your seats, though Red waves away the drink list when Em offers it to him, grimacing when he sees the prices. Garrick’s hand closes around a half-full glass and he too, looks as if the selection isn’t exactly to his liking.

“Everyone else was busy,” Em says brightly, though the way her eyes dart around tells Merrick that she’s lying. Garrick winces at the lie too, glancing off into the crowd of dancing people.

“What a shame,” Red mutters, scowling at the press of people, just quiet enough that Merrick is fairly sure Em doesn’t catch it. “So did you just have a real hankering for the club scene or-”

“It’s you again!” Your voice pipes up and then Merrick realizes: he’s drifted too close, the crowd of human dancers had parted to let him through. You’re smiling at him again, eyes tracing over his hair and his mouth, and you’re inviting and lovely- and Garrick’s face has gone completely and utterly blank.

“Yeah,” Merrick chokes out, taking another unsteady step towards you when you lift your hand in a slightly shy wave. He can’t get distracted. He can’t, he knows this, but he forces himself to look away from Garrick anyway. The last thing either of them wants is to start a fight amidst the humans, right? He can approach if he sticks to manners.

“I remember you too,” Em perks up, arching an eyebrow. “The runaway. Was it too soon to meet the friends last time?”

“Ignore her,” you urge him, trying to scoot further into the booth to make room for him. “She’s like a sour patch kid,” you tease. The words make no sense to Merrick, but a little of the tightness in Em’s face seems to even out, and she smiles at you, shifting aside so everyone can fit in the booth.

“Join us!” You suggest. “Unless you’re busy. I’m not trying to force our company on you.” You shrug, glancing away, as if you’re regretting your sudden outburst.

“O-of course,” Merrick hastens to say, and wants to kick himself, twice over. He should be claiming some kind of important business with Garrick, he should be trying to complete the task he’s been given by his King and all he wants to do is agree to whatever you say. He takes another step closer, mouth opening- and then there’s a clatter and Red is cursing something awful and Em is squealing, trying to stand in the booth without knocking over the table.

“Seriously?” Red barks, pushing to his feet and trying to grab at any napkins on the table. Garrick’s drink is empty, having been poured almost directly all over Red’s pale trousers. Though there’s a small splatter across Em’s pale shirt as well. “Shit aim, man, look at this!” Red snaps, gesturing at his damp lap.

“Will that stain?” Garrick asks, and he looks guilty, cheeks gone ruddy from embarrassment. “Is there anything I can-”

“He’s crashing on my couch,” you rush to say, getting out of the booth. “It’s not too far, come on, you can grab the clothes you left and shove these in my washer.” You meet Merrick’s eyes and give him a slightly sad smile. “Nice to see you again. One of these days, I’ll actually get the chance to-” You jump when Em latches onto your arm.

“Please let me use your washer too, the dye in that drink-” Em starts, nearly pushing you over as she starts to walk you and Red towards the entrance.

The three of you rush off, apparently having forgotten Garrick- and that’s when Merrick notices the glamour. It’s been washed over the two of them like a shadowy bubble, separating them from the surrounding humans, dulling the noise if not exactly canceling it.

“If you’re here for me,” Garrick says, sounding weary as he rights his fallen glass, “then come after me. Leave them out of this. They’ve done absolutely nothing to you.” He gets to his feet slowly, lips curled into a frown, broad shoulders slouched. There’s still a bit of space left between them, and he’s staring at Merrick like he’s reached the end of a very frayed tether.

For a moment, Merrick believes this is going to be easy. Garrick is all but defeated, tired of running, ready to face the fate laid down for him by his Queen. Merrick unsheathes the small blade he has strapped to his wrist, palming it as quickly and quietly as possible. Garrick’s eyes track the sudden gleam of it in his hand, the sharp edge catching the flashing lights over the dance floor.

“The Queen of Land isn’t pleased,” Merrick tells him, taking a step. Garrick doesn’t move. “The lies you’ve been spreading-”

Tension springs through Garrick’s limbs and Merrick has to throw himself back into the crowd of humans to avoid being tackled to the floor. The humans shriek, and Merrick curses - he’s cut his own hand, and knocked a few dancers down, but otherwise they’re all unhurt. Garrick though, is heading straight for the door, much quicker than Merrick would like.

“Really?” Merrick snaps out, exasperated, and then he’s streaking after Garrick, as fast as his feet will take him, glamouring himself as he goes. For someone so broad, for someone once tasked with doing nothing more than growing the Queen’s garden, Garrick runs like he was born to it. Merrick only just barely keeps up.

He decides though, watching the Fae dodge between humans and hurdle over one parked car, that he’s going to have a long conversation with Garrick before he does as he was tasked.

The chase carries them both through the city on feet too swift for humanity. The glamour is going to make both of them lag after a while, but for some reason Garrick still wants to keep his presence hidden from the humans, more than he wants to escape. Eventually though, Merrick gets tired of running. He strips off his shirt, freeing his aching wings and takes to the skies, just as he realizes that Garrick is heading for the park.

It’s a race then, to try and stop him before he has a myriad of plants at his disposal - and it’s one that Merrick very narrowly misses out on winning. He uses the momentum of his flight to bounce off of a fence, brandishing his weapon in a swinging arch. Garrick dodges the swipe of his blade purely on luck, and then willow tree branches are snapping out at Merrick like whips. He slips his wings back into his skin, not wanting to get them hurt and falls to the ground, rolling across the grass at high speed, stopped only by a park bench to his back.

Merrick grunts with the impact and leaps to his feet, ready to fight, clutching the handle of his blade with a still-stinging palm, and halts.

Garrick is standing on the other side of a slide, chest heaving as he attempts to get back his breath- but he’s not fighting. There’s ivy near at hand, Merrick notes, and he could make swift use of that, but instead he’s just staring, eyebrows drawn together, a frown just barely tugging at his mouth. The both of them stand there and stare, the moon rising slowly overhead.

“The King of Air sent you?” Garrick finally asks, still fairly breathless, eyes darting to the ink lines of Merrick’s wings, wrapped around his biceps and trailing down over his shoulders and arms.

“Are you a gardener?” Merrick asks, rather than answer. The answer to Garrick’s question is obvious anyway. Merrick possesses wings. The question he asks makes Garrick’s eyebrows arch.

“Hardly,” he mutters. “I’ve never been a gardener,” he says at normal volume and his shoulders lose some of their tension, hands resting carefully at his sides. “Were you looking for one?”

Merrick scowls. The Queen of Land had given them incomplete information - or her guard had tracked down the wrong Fae. It’s hard to believe her guard could have been so utterly incompetent though.

“Did you betray the Queen of Land?” He tries instead, straightening from his crouch of a fighting stance. The heat of the chase is beginning to leave him, and he’s regretting abandoning his shirt.

Garrick doesn’t answer, just purses his lips, watching him, waiting for something else to happen, for another question, maybe.

And then Merrick does something absolutely idiotic. He’s searching for common ground, searching for a way to get Garrick to continue speaking, even if it isn’t about something important. The only thing he can think of that he wants to ask, that has nothing to do with the Queen or betrayal - is about you. Heat rises along his neck and face, but before he can stop himself, he blurts out his question.

He asks Garrick for your name.

Garrick’s belly deep laughter echoes throughout the entire park.

⊱ ────── .⋅ 🜁 ⋅. ────── ⊰

...turn the page?

#exophilia #faerie boyfriend #male faerie x reader #fairy boyfriend #male fairy x reader #fairy x reader

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1157

survey by hxcsingingsk8r

Phone Scavenger Hunt

First off, what phone do you have? I have an iPhone 8.

And what provider do you use? It’s a local one you wouldn’t know about, called Globe.

How long have you had your current phone? I can’t remember if it would be 3 or 4 years this 2021. Either way, it’s definitely been a while and I’ve been itching to upgrade. It’s too early to make such a big purchase, though.

Do you have any cases for it? Describe them. I have a clear case that I bought last year. Before that, I had a pink Otterbox case that I managed to destroy even though Otterbox is normally known for its durability. I just have a very unique ability to wreck everything I’ve ever owned lol.

How old were you when you got your first cellphone? I was technically 6, but it was meant to be a present for my 7th birthday. We threw a birthday party a month in advance because my dad had to fly back abroad for work before my actual birthday, but we wanted him to be present at the celebration so we decided throwing a party early was the best route.

What about your first smartphone? [If the answer is different] It was an iPhone 5S.

How old are you now? Dunno what this has to do with the theme of the survey but I am now 22.

Okay, move onto the scavenger hunt part

What is your lock screen picture of? It’s of Kim Seon Ho at a restaurant, lmao.

Home screen? It’s one of the shots from a recent promotional photoshoot Hayley did for Good Dye Young.

How many pictures are thre currently on your phone? This question just made me so anxious hahaha. I have way too many photos; and upon checking, it turns out I currently have 6,266. My god do I need to clean up my camera roll this weekend.

How many videos? I have 227. I have no idea it’s gotten to be this many; I barely use my phone to take videos. I’ll go ahead and delete some of them right now, just to give my phone (and its storage) space to breathe.

What is your most recent picture of? It’s a work thing...I guess I’ll explain it so it can make more sense. So one of our clients has got this Lent campaign going on, and to spread word about it we’ve tapped a handful of food bloggers to try out the offers themselves and post about their experience on social media. Now that we’re in the middle of Holy Week they’ve gone ahead and uploaded their own posts, and I’m in charge of taking screenshots so I can show to the client that the execution had been successful.

And the most recent video? It’s a private vlog. Every Sunday, or at least every other Sunday I take a few minutes to sit down and do a weekly video thing where I talk about my ~mental~ and ~emotional~ status, and it’s basically a way to be in touch with myself and keep track of my progress. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get to uploading them one day.

Do you have any albums? If so, of what? Yeah. I have one for Cooper, one for Kimi, and a bunch of tiny albums I’ve made where I compiled 4–5 photos of friends to post on their birthdays.

What pictures have you favorited? I have a lot of favorited photos. There’s no required category for me to label them as such.

Do you have any shared albums with friends or family or work? No. I’m not sure if I can do that, or how to do it if it is allowed.

Do you have any alarms set? For what time and for what occasions? I have a bunch of alarms but only because they’re archived into the Clock app and I just haven’t gotten around to deleting them. When I was still new at my work, I used to have alarms set for certain work tasks I have to take note of every week – but now that I’ve gotten into the groove of things, I don’t need the alarms to be reminded about them anymore.

Check your weather app, what is the weather and temperature where you live? It says ‘Mostly Clear’ and shows a temperature of 26ºC.

Do you have the YouTube app? Do you have your own channel? I do have the app and my own account, but I never use it to post videos. It’s nice to have my own channel so that my homepage can be tailored to my interests.

Do you have an email app? Which one do you use? I just have the default Email app that comes with iOS, but I never use it because it’s so wonky. It doesn’t refresh new emails and it takes forever when it does, and it doesn’t always show the full thread of email conversations. If I absolutely need to check my email for something I usually have to pull out my laptop.

Does it say that there is an update available on your phone or any apps? Yes, it reminds me everyday hahaha. I don’t update unless Apple has been planning a big revamp with new features, though; and if the updates are just to address bugs, I disregard the reminders.

Go into your contacts, how many contacts do you have total? It says I have 178.

Name all of your contacts under the letter M: Feels a tad bit invasive, so I’ll just name five people I have under M: Lui, Kim, Patrice, Danika, and Andi.

Name all of your contacts under the letter U: I don’t have anyone under U.

Do you have any contacts that are businesses rather than people? Which ones? No, I don’t really use text to contact businesses. If I wanted to inquire or order from one, I usually head to their social media page.

Go into your notes, how many notes do you have saved? This is another one I have a hoarding problem with lol. My phone says I currently have 561 notes, though I’m fairly certain the biggest chunk of it comes from minutes I’ve taken down from work meetings. It was a whole lot less when I was still in school.

What kinds of things do you save in your notes? Like I said, I use Notes for taking down minutes from meetings. There are also a few surveys on there, from times I didn’t have internet and couldn’t post them on here.

Do you have any voice memos saved? What of? Yep. Some of them were recordings I had to do for journalism classes I was assigned to do voiceovers; some are interviews, also from my journ class; and the rest are of me rambling.

Do you ever use the calculator app? Pretty frequently for work.

Do you ever use the Maps app? Not really. If I needed directions, I would check out Waze for that.

Do you have any health/fitness apps? Which ones? I still have the Nike Training app from the very brief time I wanted to start working out earlier this year.

Do you have the Instacart app? The what now? I’ve never even heard of that.

What about a delivery service like Postmates, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Doordash? I have the McDelivery app for McDonald’s, but I also have other general delivery apps like Grab, Lalamove, and Transportify.

Do you have something like Venmo, Cashapp, or Paypal? I have the Paypal app but I never use it. I also have a couple of e-wallet apps just in case I’d have to use them as a payment method, since some businesses I purchase from prefer certain ones. Ultimately, though, I use Grab’s mobile wallet the most often.

Do you use Bitmoji? I think I did before? I never used it all that regularly though. Didn’t see the point.

What other keyboards do you use besides English? Any? Filipino, Korean, and Emoji.

Which social media network apps do you have? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, TikTok, and Snapchat. So I guess I have all the main ones?

If you have Instagram, what is your handle and how many followers? I have a very private one I only use for work. I didn’t want it to have any followers but at present there’s Angela (because she asked to follow it this week) and Bea (idk why).

What do you typically post on the various social media platforms? The only ones I regularly post on are Twitter and Facebook, and on either I share life updates (if there are any) and memes; though on Facebook I have to watch out what kind of memes I share and make sure they aren’t too offensive because I’m friends with relatives, workmates, and media on there lmao. But on Twitter, I basically have no filter.

Do you make TikTok videos? I don’t make any myself, but I do enjoy going through the app.

Do you only add people you know on Facebook? Yes, for the most part. I’ve taken to adding people as long as they’re from UP or my high school even though I’ve never met them as well, but if I sense that they only added me to try and sell me insurance OR try to get me into MLM, then it’s an instant unfriend for me.

Do you have an app that tracks Instagram followers? No, because I don’t need to track my Instagram followers. I’m off the radar as off the radar gets.

Do you have a Snapchat? Yeah, it’s still on my phone just because but I literally never touch it anymore.

Do you ever take selfies with filters? What app's filters do you use? Eh, just before. I don’t really take selfies anymore, period.

Do you use any apps like Depop or Poshmark or Etsy? No. Out of these three I’ve only ever heard of Etsy, too.

What messengers do you use to talk to people? Any besides just texting? I have Messenger to stay in touch with family and friends; Whatsapp and Viber for work; and Telegram just in case my friends want to play games.

Do you have any photo editing apps? Which ones? I have this app called Foodie that has some pretty filters. Otherwise, since I’m not on Instagram anyway I’m never on the lookout for photo editing apps; no one ever filters their photos on Facebook and Twitter lol.

Do you have any games? Which ones? I do have a ton of games on my phone. I never play any of them, but I keep them just in case I get bored enough to start revisiting them. I have word games, drinking games, games similar to Heads Up! where one person will have to guess the word on the screen while the phone is on their forehead, and gimmicky games like 1010! and Candy Crush haha.

Do you have any rideshare apps like Lyft or Uber? I have Grab, which is a rideshare, parcel delivery, food delivery, and online grocery app all in one.

Now go to the actual phone app, whose phone numbers are saved as favorites? I don’t tag any of my contacts as favorites.

Who was your most recent outgoing call to? I can’t recognize the number, so it was probably a Transportify driver that I called to give him directions to my house.

Who was your most recent incoming call from? I also can’t recognize the number, but this time he was most likely a Grab driver.

Who was your most recent missed call from? Again, can’t recognize the number HAHAA

Why did you miss that call? On purpose? Were you sleeping? Busy? My phone is on silent 24/7, so I must have missed it while I was working.

Who is your most recent voicemail from and what's it regarding? We don’t have voicemail in the Philippines.

What was the last thing you Googled or searched on your phone? Candle tunneling and how to fix it.

What music app do you use? Apple Music? Spotify? Something else? I use Spotify, but I also availed of a 3-month trial on Apple Music earlier this year just because. I think it’s supposed to end soon but I have no plans to shift.

What playlists have you made on there? I have playlists called, “robyn discovers kpop,” “winding down,” “angst,” “not my loss,” and my personal favorite, “paramore but fuck you.”

Lastly, what is the most recent song/album you've added to your collection? What Type of X - Jessi.

#survey #surveys

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curlystom · 5 years

Text

flowers — peter parker

{ in which you work at a flower shop and one boy catches your attention }

a/n: another repost! this was one of the fics i was most proudest of, and i still am to this day. enjoy!

word count: 4.1k

warnings: mentions of death, angst, and good ole’ fluff

MASTERLIST

The colorful petals of each flower made the small shop even brighter, inviting new customers in as they walked by. The combination of all the different aromas filled the space, pleasing your senses every time you strolled in for work.

You scrunched up your face as you breathed in the fresh scent the first time you walked in, already feeling a slight headache forming. You were in desperate need of some money, searching job after job all over Queens. All of them rejected you, explaining that they wanted someone with a little more experience. The owner of the flower shop, however, was kind enough to give you a job even though they weren’t hiring.

She saw potential in you.

New customers came in everyday, usually wandering around the store for bit before picking out the flowers of their choice. They kept you busy, handing you their picks for you to assort them into a beautiful bouquet. Seeing their faces as you handed them the finished product was enough for you to work there. Their expressions were nothing but pleased and delighted, something that always made your heart happy.

The soft sound of a bell rang as a customer walked in, the door closing behind him as he hung his head low, heading towards the lilies area. Your eyebrows furrowed at him, surprised that he didn’t even bother to greet the workers behind the counter. You ignored him for now, continuing to tie the small selection of flowers the previous customer had chosen together before the boy dropped a few white lilies on the counter.

He swung his backpack in front of him, reaching for his wallet in the front pocket as you happily handed the finished assortment to the patient customer. You carefully picked up the lilies, fixing them a bit before you grabbed a matching white ribbon to tie them together. The boy rocked back and forth on his heels, noticing the small details in the flowers that surrounded him. You snuck in a few quick glances at him, studying his face as you purposely took your time.

His bright, yet tired brown eyes tried to hide under his floppy, curly hair, and the shadow from his hood wasn’t enough to cover the evident bags underneath his eyes. A frown appeared on your face the longer you examined him, wondering if he was okay or not, but it was none of your business. You gave a sad smile as you tied a nice bow around the stems, ushering him to move towards the cashier so he could pay.

“How are you today?” You asked, accepting the money he handed you. He nodded his head with his lips in a fine line, not wanting to give a vocal answer.

You raised your eyebrows when you saw that he had given you the perfect amount of cash, staring back and forth at the boy who couldn’t be bothered to look at you. The question of whether or not he had bought this exact arrangement before ran through your mind as you placed the money in the drawer and gently handed him the flowers.

He drew his hand from his hoodie pocket to accept them, and you flinched once you felt how freezing cold his fingertips were. Despite how warm the weather was outside, he still remained to be cold as ice.

He kept a gentle grip around the stems of the lilies, his gaze still anywhere but at you as he quickly thanked you.

“H-have a good day,” you voice came out shaky, noticing that he was already heading towards the door. He mumbled out a ‘you too’ that you barely heard, his grip on the small bouquet tightening a little.

It saddened you to see someone so distraught as him, but you knew it wasn’t your place to ask him if he was okay. He was just a customer, someone you’d probably never see again. However, the tiredness in his eyes was still very visible even though he had left already, which made you want to help him even more.

“That was Peter Parker.”

You flipped around to see your boss leaning against the doorframe which led to the backroom and her office. She mirrored your sad smile from earlier as she uncrossed her arms to sort the paperwork that was lying on the counter.

“You know him?” You asked, twiddling with the edge of your sleeve.

“The boy comes in every tuesday to buy the same arrangement,” she said as she shrugged. “He never really says anything about it. I always thought it was for a girl though.”

Your brows knitted in a frown. It didn’t make sense to you, why he looked so distraught, why he couldn’t look at you, why his hands were so cold. If he buys them for a girl, then why does it look like he’s distraught about it?

———

He was on your mind for the rest of the month, briefly showing up every Tuesday with the same heartbroken expression on his face. As much as you would have liked to forget about him like any other customer, his distressed look along with the bags under his eyes never left your mind.

When the 4th Tuesday came along, you anxiously waited behind the counter for him to walk through the door. You bounced your leg up and down on the stool, swirling in it every now and then as you kept your gaze on the clock.

Minutes felt like hours as the clock finally read 6:30 pm, 30 minutes before the shop was supposed to close. You frowned at the assumption he probably wasn’t going to show up today before you heard the bell ring. Your head shot up at the sound, immediately recognizing the figure that had been in your head for the last month.

Peter looked a little better today, at least from what you could see. There wasn’t hoodie to shield his face from everybody, instead he wore a worn down grey sweater with a blue flannel underneath, the collar poking out a bit. His hands were tucked in his jean pockets as he wandered over to the lilies, giving you a small smile on the way.

You were surprised by his difference in mood, eyebrows raising as a smile of your own formed. He still looked just as tired, but the bags under his eyes were less noticeable and his hair was less curly, indicating that he had put in the time to do it this morning. It wasn’t long before he appeared in front of the counter, with the same number of white lilies and money in his hand as usual. He handed you both at the same time, graciously accepting the items with both of your hands so you wouldn’t drop it.

As you grabbed the white ribbon to tie the flowers together, the brown-haired boy took this time to look around the shop. His heightened senses made the floral aroma even more intense, his headache on the brink of surfacing. The different colors that surrounded him brought some sense of comfort that he couldn’t explain, and the fact that you were working today too made it better.

The weight on his shoulders were gone the moment he set foot in that shop and saw you there the first time. You reminded him so much of her, your personality, your smile. If he was being honest, he thought you were her for a second before realization struck him like a ton of bricks.

Her screams haunted him every night as he tried to fall asleep. That night was all he could think about, replaying the memory and imagining different scenarios where he was able to save her. He scolded himself every chance he got on the mistakes he made that day, how he had let her walk home by herself, to letting himself get distracted. It was all his fault.

Peter’s phone rang as he was swinging around the city. Her name appeared on his screen which made a soft smile form. He pulled off his mask as he answered the call and brought the phone to his ear, finding the nearest rooftop to rest on.

“Hey baby! Did you make it home safe?”

It was silent for a solid 15 seconds, but he swore it felt like hours. His heart immediately stopped as he sensed that something was wrong.

“What kind of boyfriend are you to let your girlfriend walk by herself, hm?” The man taunted.

His voice was intimidating enough to make even Peter’s skin crawl. He could hear his girlfriend’s pleading cries in the background, making tears swell up in his eyes.

“P-please. Don’t hurt her.” Peter begged, biting the inside of his mouth in fear.

A devious laugh could be heard from the other side of the line. “You don’t get to be making the calls here, kid.”

KAREN immediately started tracking her phone for him, to which her location appeared on the screen almost instantly. Peter quickly put his mask back on as he kept the man on the line, keeping it as reassurance that she was still alive. Luckily, he wasn’t too far from them.

He crawled on top of the glass roof once he was at the destination, keeping an eye on the man and his girl from above. Peter mapped out a plan in his head as he carefully dropped himself onto the ground, not wanting to ruin his entrance.

However, the man sensed his presence. The sound of a gun cocking sent shivers down Peter’s spine, in which he immediately started shaking his head and running towards him and her.

“Stop-, stop! Please, I’ll do anything.” Tears fell down onto his cheeks, his breathing hitching at every word he spoke. Her voice cracked as she screamed out for her boyfriend, making Peter’s heart clench in pain. He swore that nothing would happen to her, and she believed him. She thought that he was able to keep her safe, even with all the enemies Peter made daily. He warned her about the life she was getting into, but she didn’t care. She pledged to be with him through anything because of how in love they were.

Peter thought he had done a good job of protecting her, but he was clearly wrong.

“You’re too late.” The man spat out. The ringing sound of a gun going off wasn’t loud enough to shield the high pitch screams from her, making Peter drop to his knees as screams of his own escaped. His whole world had suddenly turned dark.

Peter shook his head when he heard someone call his name. His face had paled at the memory as his gaze were set on the lilies in front of him. “W-what?”

Your brows bumped together in a scowl, worried spelled all over your face. The seemingly okay boy was now full of trauma, eyes wide. The words got caught in your throat, but they were screaming it in your mind. I barely know you but I’m worried about you. Are you okay?

All you could do was hand him the bouquet, your hands shaking out of nervousness. He hesitated before reluctantly receiving them, taking in a few deep breaths in the process. His eyes went back and forth between you and the flowers, trying to come up with a proper excuse for his behavior.

“I-, uh.. I’m-. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head as he turned around and bolted out the door. You didn’t have enough time to say anything back before he was already gone. You stood there in shock with your hands at your side, contemplating the action you were about to do.

The door was on the verge of fully closing as you slipped through it, turning your head side to side to see where the curly-haired boy went. He was nowhere in sight, almost like he had disappeared. A frustrated sigh left your lips as you went back inside the shop so you could properly clock out. It seemed like you were going to have to see him the next week.

The walk home was something you never really enjoyed. People on the streets usually tried to get your attention, which led you to just walking right past them. The music was playing through your headphones as you past the local cemetery, a place where you usually tried to pass as fast as possible. You would have ignored the place as usual if it wasn’t for the familiar looking silhouette that rushed a few yards in front of you. They were holding nothing but a candle and the same bouquet of lilies that you had made earlier. Peter.

Curiosity ran through your mind as your eyebrows knitted together, slowly following the figure into the cemetery. It wasn’t long before he stopped in front of a tombstone, kneeling down as he placed the flowers beside it and lit the candle.

You hid behind the closest tree, poking your head out as you watched closely as to what he was doing. He already knew you were there the second he entered the cemetery. His movements were slower than usual as he crosses his legs in front of her grave. You slowly walked towards him as he mumbled words to her, not wanting to interrupt him. He bowed his head as he played with the leaves in front of him, talking about how his week was to her.

The sound of a leaf crunching made you retract your foot, your face showcasing a panicked look. Peter didn’t seem phased as he continued to rip the leaf in his hand apart.

“I already know you’re there.”

You let out a big sigh as you ambled towards him, now standing right behind the boy. He ushered for you to sit next to him, still keeping his gaze ahead of him. You hesitated for a bit, but finally obliged as you lowered yourself onto the grass.

You studied the fairly new tombstone in front of you as the words engraved slowly broke your heart the more you read.

Emily Watson.

August 15, 2001 — November 6, 2018

Beloved daughter and friend.

An awkward silence filled the space between the two of you for a while. The both of you didn’t know what to say, especially since you’ve never had a real conversation before. You bit the inside of your mouth as you exhaled deeply while Peter closed his eyes for a brief moment, trying forming the right words to say to you.

“S-she-, she was murdered.” He mumbled, your eyes widening at the news.

The screams replayed in his head as he took in a deep breath. Your eyes widened at the information, immediately feeling sympathetic for the boy next to you. He sniffed as his hand went to wipe the tears that had escaped away, not wanting to see him any more vulnerable. It was obviously failing.

“A man called me from her phone while I was… working,” he coughed, “I usually walk with her home but I wasn’t able to that day... He-, he took her right in front of her apartment building, and I wasn’t able to protect her.” More tears slipped out, along with a few of your own.

You didn’t know what to say back at this point, and even if you did, you couldn’t. Something so horrific to this poor boy and he had to go through it alone.

“It’s ironic. I’m Spider-Man.. I’m supposed to be able to save people. I do save people, everyday, But yet I couldn’t protect the one person that meant the world to me. What kind of superhero does that make me?”

The words slipped right out of Peter’s mouth, and he didn’t even care. Your eyes widened while your jaw dropped a bit, your posture suddenly becoming a lot straighter. It all clicked in your head.

The news of Spider-Man disappearing 6 months ago broke the Internet, rumors spreading around school about what could have happened. You usually paid no attention to it, but the constant conversations you heard in the halls stuck with you.

“Maybe he died..” Someone whispered as you gathered your belongings in your locker.

“No.. I don’t think so. Don’t you think they would have found his body by now?”

“No one can just disappear like that unless they die.”

You tensed at their words, wishing that you weren’t there at the moment.

You always had admired Spider-Man for always putting others first. He was brave, courageous, and you knew it took someone special to put themselves on the line everyday. When news broke out that he went missing, your heart sunk right to the floor, but you always prayed that he was still out there watching us.

And here he was in the flesh, with a broken heart sitting next to you as he stared at her tomb.

A million thoughts ran through your mind faster than you could even process them. Peter didn’t even bother to try and cover up his mistake, and you knew he wasn’t going to. He was purely in pain, ranting to a seemingly complete stranger that was doing nothing but listening. The emotions he bottled up for months was hitting it’s breaking point. He was hurting, and you wanted to take the pain away from him so bad.

“You can’t save everyone.” You whispered.

His head turned towards you as he let out a dry laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. “I could have saved her. I should have saved her.”

You shifted your body towards him, grabbing his hand, making him flinch before easing into your touch. “It’s not your fault,” you sighed, “there was nothing you could do.”

“H-he killed her right in front of me,” he cried, his shoulders slumped, “it’s-, it’s like I was just there to watch.”

His breathing started to become irregular the more he thought of her death. He closed his eyes as sobs slipped through his lips, his body becoming weaker by the second. You held the back of his neck as you brought him in for a hug, trying to comfort him the best you could.

Peter’s cries shook his entire body, the pain against his chest becoming almost impossible to bear. Tears started to weld up along the rim of your eyes, causing you to blink rapidly so they would go away.

You couldn’t even imagine how broken he must have been inside. The anger, the guilt, the grief. The boy didn’t deserve to feel that kind of pain. Your breathing began to become a little shaky the longer you two stayed in that position, your fingertips playing the little hairs on the nape of his neck.

“It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault.” You repeated, your voice quiet enough for just Peter to hear. “Emily would want you to know that it’s not your fault.”

It was enough to calm Peter down as his breathing became regular again. His chin rested on your shoulder, wrapping his arms around you to complete the hug. No one had been able to calm him down this easily since Emily, which would usually make him more upset. But instead, he felt content for the first time in a while.

Your touch was different than hers. Your hands weren’t as soft or warm, nor did your hair smell as sweet. Although, your smile was just as comforting as Emily’s, and your voice was so soothing that it could bring Peter into a slumber. It was different, yet the same, and it was enough to relieve the tension off Peter’s shoulders.

He was the first one to pull away, wiping his tears and nose as he settled into his previous spot. His eyes landed on the white lilies as his face formed a tight-lipped smile, the first genuine one in a long time.

The stems rested between his fingers as he picked it up before rolling it between the tips of his fingers. “She always told me that white represents purity and innocence,” he smiled, “and how she wanted her wedding to be filled with lilies.”

“Little did I know, they symbolize that the soul received restored innocence after death.”

Peter placed the lilies back in front of Emily’s tomb as you bit the inside of your mouth, sadness written all over your face.

It all made sense. Why he strolled into the shop with a look of sadness, why he bought the same amount of lilies, why he came in every week. It was because of her, yet something so beautiful was also something painful.

“I bet she loves them…” you forced a smile, making Peter nod in reply. “Yeah.. I do too.”

There was another silence, but this time it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was filled with a sense of serenity, making you sigh in relief. There was no more weight on Peter’s shoulders. His world was suddenly a lot brighter despite how dark it was outside, and there were no more screams echoing in his head, haunting him every minute of his day. Instead it was filled with your voice, telling him it was going to be okay.

“Tell me more about her.” You hesitated a bit, not wanting to put him on the spot but he smiled. Peter grabbed the hand that was resting on your thigh, like it was waiting for someone to hold it. You looked up at him surprised, almost thinking that it was a mistake. His thumb rubbed the back of your hand as he smiled from ear to ear, beginning to talk about the amazing things Emily and him have done. And although the two of you were currently sitting in front of the girl who made his world dark, talking to you made the pain disappear. You reminded him of what he had felt like before he had met Emily, and whether or not that was a bad thing, he was so thankful for it.

———

Thursday nights were always the least busy for the shop. You sat behind the counter once again, anxiously waiting for your shift to be over before the familiar sound of a bell ringing was heard. Peter stood there as the door closed behind him with a genuine smile on his face, but you were a bit confused as to why he was coming in on a Thursday night.

He walked towards the other half of the shop, an area he had never been in before as he carefully examined the different types of flowers in front of him. You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion as you saw that he had picked 5 red roses. It was a first for him.

Peter gently laid the roses out on the counter with his bottom lip between his teeth to prevent a giddy smile. An eyebrow was raised as you carefully slid them closer to you, reaching for a red ribbon to do your usual task.

“Who’s the lucky girl?” You teased, cocking your head to the side as you tied a bow around the stems, handing it to him as you were done.

His efforts were no use as a big smile was plastered all over his face, accepting the roses as he handed you a 10 dollar bill. You opened the cash register to place the piece of valuable paper in the drawer and gather Peter’s change before you saw the same roses out of the corner of your eye. A soft laugh left your lips, not understanding why is was he was giving them back to you. The building sweat from the palm of your hand was slowly transfering to the coins resting there as you stared back at the cheeky boy.

“You,” Peter smiled, now fully exposing his teeth.

A smile of your own formed as a breathy laugh escaped, handing Peter his change as he placed the roses in your hands. You shook your head at his attempt of being smooth, muttering out a ‘thank you’ as Peter nodded.

“I read somewhere online that uh-, roses symbolize gratitude.” He admitted, his cheeks turning into a light shade of red. “So I.. wanted to get you some-”

You placed the roses back on the counter as you ran around to give Peter a hug, catching him off guard at first before he wrapped his arms around you once again. The two of you stood in the middle of the shop as time seemed to have stopped. The both of you didn’t want to be the first to let go, scared to let this precious moment end already. Peter nuzzled his face in the crook of your neck, smiling from how safe you felt as he held him tighter.

Emily was one thing, but you were an entirely different thing and he was so happy about it. He was comfortable in someone’s arms again, and he was internally thanking anyone that was listening for letting it be you.

#oof i forgot how sad this was #bye #peter parker #peter parker one shot #peter parker fic #peter parker x reader #peter parker angst #peter parker fluff #tom holland #tom holland fic #tom holland fluff #tom holland one shot #tom holland x reader #tom holland angst

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shibyn · 5 years

Text

are you blushing or is that sunburn

haikyuu!! | bokuto/kuroo | 23k | ao3

"Wuh?" Bokuto only looks slightly perplexed, munching down on his popsicle in thought. "If we can't do it this week, we can just do it next, right?" He says, like it's the most obvious thing in the whole universe, the only possible answer. A bead of melted popsicle runs down the wooden stick, spilling across Bokuto's fingers. He awkwardly gurgles, unmelted ice still in his mouth, and he tries his best to lick the trail and proceeds to knock himself in the forehead with the ice pop.

It's. Endearing, maybe, if not completely embarrassing to watch.

Ahh, Kuroo thinks and averts his eyes. His neck is warm under the sun.

It's the hottest day of the year.

And so was the day before, and the day before that.

(A summer romance where things get a little too hot and spicy— literally. Tokyo’s melting.)

"—temperatures are soaring, paired up with cloudless skies. Take care these next couple of days, and stay hydrated! A cold front is on the way, so sweat it out, there's relief coming soon!—" Blearily, Kuroo wipes the sweat collecting beneath his eyes, glancing away from the TV that's been playing as white noise as he waits. It's early morning, windows wide open to the city waking. Outside the air is muggy and hot and he would love nothing more than to close the windows and crank up the air conditioning, but he's gotta be mindful of the AC or the bill will skyrocket. First day of summer break and it's already abysmally hot, he laments, sinking further into the couch. The pleather of the couch is grossly sticky whenever it peels from his bare shoulders. It's gonna be one helluva long day. "Tetsurou!!" The front door swings open without warning, slamming against the wall and bouncing back, striking the intruder. Not even deterred aside from a sharp yowch, and only momentarily pausing to kick off his shoes, Bokuto comes romping in through the entryway. Every bit of his stride looks like he can just barely contain the energy he has. He almost strides right past the living room, double taking when he notices Kuroo. "Wha— Tetsu, are you not ready!" Rising from his sprawl on the couch, Kuroo says, "I am ready, you airhead, you just took your time getting here. It's, what—" a quick glance to the clock— "—ten thirty? You're late, buddy." "By just fifteen minutes!" Bokuto whines, shoulders slumping, "I forgot the tickets the first time I left my house so I had to run back to get them!!" "You—" but of course. What else was he expecting? He did make their meet time thirty minutes earlier than necessary— just in case Bokuto forgot something. And another thing. And then something else. "How far out were you when you turned around?" "Halfway through the station!" he announces, bouncing on his toes, awfully chipper for how sweaty he is, "I think that was the fastest I've ever sprinted home." He's got his puppy-dog grin, but he is breathing a little heavier, his shirt damp in dots along his chest. "You didn't have to," Kuroo says, grimacing. Maybe he should've said that they had plenty of time— even if they ended up being late, so what? He literally incorporated the wiggle room for a reason. Coulda saved him the trouble. "I coulda paid for us up front." Aghast, Bokuto digs at his pocket and nearly punches Kuroo in the nose he presents his hand so fast. Clutched in his hand are two brightly colored tickets, a holographic sheen to them with the shifting light. The smallest sliver of a tanuki's face peeks out from where it's covered by his thumb. "Never! I've been holding onto these babies for so long, it'd be horrible if I let them go to waste!!" Kuroo snorts, smacking his hand away. "For months, man. You won them at a raffle at what? The club fair this year? They're about to expire." "Well!" Bokuto retracts his hand, haphazardly shoving the tickets into his pocket. Kuroo tries very hard not the wince when he sees them fold wrong when they go in. "I wanted to wait for the perfect time! All the rides are open now, and it's summer break! Ideal time!" "It's gonna be packed as hell." "Yeah? It's all the more people to see how terrified you'll be on the Exterminator." Bokuto grins. There's a challenge in his voice. Of course. Wouldn't be Bokuto if there wasn't a challenge. Kuroo scoffs. Wouldn't be him if he didn't step up to the challenge. Or at least egg him on. "You wish. You'll be the one holding on to me, scared outta your mind." "Whoever closes their eyes first on a ride loses!" In either to set the deal or to pull him to his feet, Bokuto extends his hand to him. Clicking off the weather channel, Kuroo, knowing his grin is taking up most of his face, takes Bokuto's hand and pulls himself to his feet. His palms are sweaty but his grip is still firm, stabilizing. "Lets get going, then." — Both of them lose. Neither of them really knows who lost first, per se. The Exterminator, the tallest ride that the park has to offer, towers near the entrance which, of course, they beelined to once they stepped in. On the first unsuspected drop, they had grabbed ahold of each other, screaming, eyes screwed shut. Their eyes stayed shut the remainder of the ride, the force of the wind too strong for them to even pry them. The ride was long over by the time they even thought about it. (Though— Now that Kuroo thinks about it, they never really agreed to what would happen if they lost.) Since they've both technically failed already, they do not hold back. On the ride that shoots the cart backwards, they're holding onto each other for dear life, hollering. On the tower drop they're grasping each others arms, screeching and laughing, dropping, then again and again. Every time they get off a ride Kuroo's bangs have been blasted back from his forehead and Bokuto's hair is slowly and eventually coming loose of its gel. Its almost ritual now to laugh about it unnecessarily hard for five minutes, pointing at Kuroo's cowlicks and Bokuto's willowy hair. Everyone else in the park probably hates them, but who gives a shit. They're having the time of their lives. Though it takes more than half the day, they dwindle through the lengthy list of rollercoasters at the park: Mt. Everest, American Eagle, Storm Runner, Steel Dragon, Fury, the Manta Ray... They even go through the crummy water-log-ride that's more of a musical show than a ride, lined with animatronic tanukis and flowers and rainbows and shit. It's the best ride yet. Even though they don't know the words, they sing along the whole time. The day's mostly gone by the time they slump down on a bench, one that happens to have the tracks of a ride twisting overhead, rumbling with the oncoming cart of screeching passengers. Kuroo's slouched across the entire length of the bench, back against Bokuto's shoulder, absently sipping at the icee in his hand that'll probably dissolve his teeth in due time. Bokuto, on the other hand, is scratching off furiously on a flimsy map splayed across his knees. "I think that's all of them!" Bokuto beams, chewing on his straw. He draws two thick lines in a green sharpie marker over Tanuki Timbers Forge Ride, gleefully humming its little jingle. Kuroo turns his head to peer at the map. There's something very satisfying about seeing every ride crossed out, conquered by the two of them— there quite literally isn't a place on the map they haven't crossed out. "Well, except there's still the restaurants we could go to," Bokuto continues, pointing with the capped end of the sharpie to Tanuki Tavern, a medieval-themed food stop, and Derby Hall, where there's apparently incredible chicken wings. "I mean, the only thing that's worth getting is this hell drink," Kuroo says, lifting his icee as indication. Truly, there isn't really anything special about the icee— aside from being so obscenely sugar boosted, its gotta be against FDA— but the cup that it comes in is a tanuki head. He's getting sick of tanukis at this point having seen them all damn day, but it's pretty funny since he got the cherry icee flavor and it looks like he's slurping up tanuki brains. (It's honestly lost all humor value now that he literally feels his teeth fading away in his gums. A funny cup in exchange for his teeth...) Bokuto shrugs, folding up the map. His icee is practically gone already even though Kuroo didn't see him drink from it. What the fuck. His hands are too steady, too. Did he actually drink it...? "I don't think either my wallet or yours would appreciate it if we went anywhere else, anyways!" "Then all we would have left is the gift shop. Buuut..." Clicking his tongue in mock annoyance, Kuroo pulls the bill of Bokuto's new hat down until it covers his eyes. Bokuto squawks, swinging at him. "We've already been in the gift shop since somebody haaad to cover up his hair..." "I couldn't just let the world see my hair when it's down! They're not ready for that," he whines, pulling the bill up. Wisps of his hair peak out from the back. Kuroo successfully suppresses the need to tuck them underneath the hat. I wasn't ready, either, Kuroo thinks airily, then feels very stupid. The cheeky little winking tanuki embroidered on the hat seems to be smirking at him. Fucker. "The gift shop's the last place you're meant to go at a theme park," Kuroo continues, pointedly looking away from that stupid tanuki. "But since we've already been, we can just go and leave." "Wait!" Perking up, Bokuto pops the lid off his icee and downs the rest in one go. Kuroo feels his insides shrivel just from watching. Bokuto drags a hand across his mouth, grinning, "There's actually one more thing! We passed it on the way to the Exterminator so we didn't get to appreciate it in its full glory! It's right by the entrance, too, so it's perfect! C'mon!" And then they finally reach it— the Holy Grail. Unreasonably tall, stationed in its own little pond, ridiculously cheesy; the statue of the park's mascot. Tammy Tanuki. It's meant to be grand, he's sure, but— but he just can't take it seriously now that he's not ten years old. A big ole bobble-headed cartoon tanuki in some mock power-ranger outfit, waving like its calling kids into the park, a cheeky 'follow me!'. The jets of water arcing around the metal structure have apparently been misaligned over the years, because now a stream hits the Tanuki straight into its open waving palm. There's silence for a note as the two of them revere before it. Kuroo waits expectantly. "I'm gonna get a coin on its head," Bokuto says abruptly, a fire igniting in his eyes. Christ, he's got his volleyball face on. "I'm gonna get it on its nose," he changes, striding to the railing with way too much determination, leaving Kuroo to try not to fall over wheezing. It takes a whole moment for him to gather himself to be able to trail after Bokuto. To rest his elbows on the rails He has to nearly bend in half, but he does so anyway, eyes creased in residual laughter, watching Bokuto dig in his pockets for coins. "Why the nose? You're gonna waste all of your money trying to make it," he says, because while he fuckin' loves the enthusiasm, he's gotta make sure Bokuto doesn't end up completely broke. "It's special!" Bokuto says, scandalized. He digs in every single one of his pockets, back, front, shirt, jacket. Pats himself loudly on the ass, as if that'll help him find coins. "Everyone just tosses it into the water! Wouldn't it, like, up how many years of luck I get if I get it in a cool place?" Kuroo snorts. "Or it might make Tammy Tanuki extra pissed at you. Isn't it throwing the coin into the water what makes your wish come true, or whatever it is? Landing it in some sick place on Tammy wouldn't count." "It would so count! Tammy would appreciate my skills." With a bright 'aha!', Bokuto pulls coins from the funky little coin pocket in the front of his pants. He unfurls his palm, and in it are nine measly coins. On closer inspection, Kuroo chokes on his laughter. They're not even yen. They're arcade coins. Bokuto looks a little heart broken, lips wobbly. "I was gonna use these the next time I went..." he mourns. "How long have they been in that pocket?" Kuroo asks, his voice hitching too high. Flushing in something close to embarrassment, Bokuto quickly counts and recounts. "That doesn't matter! What matters is that I'm gonna fuckin' land these trick shots!" He holds them out to Kuroo, who easily lends his palm for the coins to be dumped onto. He tosses one of the coins into the air a couple of times like he's getting a feel for the weight. Kuroo rests his chin in the palm of his unoccupied hand. "Ya sure you even want to do this, Bo? What if Tammy thinks you're disrespecting 'em by throwing some crummy aluminum coin at it? Not even in the water, too," he says languidly. Now that there's no real threat of Bokuto going to go broke money wise, there's no real need to dissuade him. But it's fun to do so anyways.

"Tammy loves me!" Bokuto hollers. He winds his arm back like he's a baseball player about to throw the ball of the century, and he just. Chucks the coin. Both of them watch as it streaks across the air, pings hollowly against the tanuki's forehead, and plops straight into the water below. A long moment of stunned silence settles. Kuroo whistles. "I'm surprised you even hit it." Bokuto gasps. "No faith! You have no faith in me!" He scoops another coin from Kuroo's palm, nearly sending all of them clattering to the pavement. "I have faith in the fact you're not gonna have any money after this." Instead of retorting loudly like he usually would, Bokuto grumbles something suspiciously sounding like 'thats not true', which sends Kuroo into a peel of obnoxious laughter. He chucks the coin again in a fit. It flies right over the entire statue, and Kuroo has to hold himself upright with the rails to keep from collapsing. Like the seconds passing, the amount of coins in Kuroo's hand dwindles. Within the span of six coins, Bokuto's changed tactics, now tossing rather than throwing, and he's gotten closer and closer to the tanuki's head, more-less its nose. When the eighth coin hits Tammy's eye and slides sadly into the pond, Kuroo hands Bokuto the final coin as a passing of rite. "Final one, Bo, make it count," Kuroo grins cheekily, raising a fist in a cheer. "It always counts!" Bokuto says, pinching it from Kuroo's fingers. Clutching the coin in his palm like he's channeling all of his energy into it, Bokuto pops his eyes open— when'd he even close them, Kuroo wonders absently— and, with his new strategy of throwing underhand, swings his arm back, and tosses. Maybe because it's the last one, but it seems so much more dramatic, the coin glimmering in the sunlight. There's no spin to it from what Kuroo can see in that split second, Bokuto's gotten crazy good at tossing in such a small amount of time— and for a brief second, he thinks this is the one. It lands solidly on the tanuki's head, the metal resounding like a gong, and it slides straight down the middle of its forehead. His breath catches and Bokuto goes ramrod straight, lurching forward and grasping the rails as if he's going to leap over them, and they both watch as it slides, slides, and reaches the nose— —and teeters right off, flipping as it drops to the water. Bokuto screams. Kuroo folds over in laughter. A mother hurries her child past them, pointedly not looking at them. "What the fuck! It was there!!" Bokuto screeches, leaning almost completely over the rail like he's yelling at the statue. Kuroo has to grab the back of his shirt before he joins the coins in the pond. "I was so close!! This isn't fair!" It takes a hot second for Kuroo to manage a breath to speak. "It technically counts," he placates, laughter still trickling in his voice, "It did get to the nose." "But it fell off! It doesn't count like that..." he whines, finally wilting from all of his yelling. He slouches against the rails. "I was so close..." A pause, then Kuroo finds golden eyes peering up at him. "Unless..." "Nope." Kuroo makes an X with his arms. "Not a chance. I'm not letting you make me go broke too." "But—! I was so close that time!! I could definitely do it if I had another chance! And with actual money—!" "Nuh-uh. This is how people develop gambling addictions, Bo." "Gambling's the only addiction that pays back!" "And that is where we end this conversation," Kuroo says loudly, ignoring Bokuto's indignant squawk. If he were here, Akaashi would obliterate Bokuto for such a statement in his quiet, judging kind of way. He actually shivers, fearful. He stoops to scoop up his icee that he'd set down, pointedly about to leave, but Bokuto clings to his arm, all hundred-eighty-centimeters of him weighing him in place. "One more! Just one more! And I promise that I'll stop! Even if it doesn't get in! I'll even pay you back!" Bokuto pleads, literally throwing all his cards on to the table. From the look that's in his eyes, he's going promise his first born at this rate. And— well. He can never say no to Bokuto. Kuroo sighs loud and deliberate. Bokuto perks up. Like a dog perking its ears. Goddammit. "Just one?" He asks, unrelenting. "Just this one," Bokuto reassures, unbelievably starry-eyed. Dude looks like he could catch the sun he's so determined. Even though Kuroo knows he'll keep his word, he keeps his eyebrows raised in challenge. Bokuto stubbornly does not crumble under the scrutiny. Then he sighs again, reaching for his pocket. "Lemme check if I actually have one—" "TETSUROU," Bokuto wails, louder than loud, christ, if people weren't looking at them suspiciously before, they sure as hell are now. If his face turns bright pink, he blames it on the stupid sun with its stupid UV rays. He doesn't quite fumble with the coin as he pulls it from his pocket, but there's a weird jerk in his motions, embarrassingly. It's a five-hundred yen. Yowch. "If you miss, you gotta buy me that shitty ice cream that's the shape of Tammy's head," he barters. "I was gonna do that anyways!" Bokuto cheers and snatches the coin, outshining the sun behind him. — "... Impressive," Akaashi says, eyebrows raising as excited hollering nearly blows out the phone's speaker. The screams last seconds too long, and he lowers the phone once he's realized the rest of the video's nothing but screaming. He slides the phone back to Kuroo. "I'm surprised he even made it." "Both of you have no faith in me!" Throwing his hands up, Bokuto slouches in the booth as far as humanly possible. "Of course I could get it! I'm thatskilled." "You missed the first nine times," Kuroo reminds, taking a long sip of his smoothie. Bokuto stills. "Well, yeah, I was figuring it out! Warming up!" He flounders. "If Kuro didn't give you his money, you wouldn't've made it," Kenma says around his straw and Bokuto deflates even more until he's practically a popped balloon on top of the table. Not even glancing once at him, Akaashi scoots his plate of food away from Bokuto's slump, out of collateral damage, in an almost practiced manner. Kuroo leans back till his head touches the booth, laughing. The four of them are tucked at a table next to a window, which is luckily situated in the path of the air conditioner. Bokuto had rallied them all here despite the crummy heat, claiming that they had to meet up, he's got a plan. Kuroo's only slightly worried of what that plan might be, since the last 'plan' involved raiding Karasuno's gym during practice. (It was a general consensus that one was shot down before it took flight. He doesn't even want to think of the wrath Sawamura would deal upon them.) Kuroo glances at Akaashi, measuring his expression: there's no tell-tale furrow to his brow, no slight scowl... He's just steadily picking away at his fries, nodding as Bokuto laments. Okay. That's good. Knowing Bokuto, he's probably spilt his plan to Akaashi before hand, so seeing that Akaashi specifically does not look conflicted means it's not too wild of a plan. That, or he simply hasn't said anything to Akaashi yet. Yipes. "Sooo," Bokuto begins, grinning. He even does a drum roll on the table, to which Kenma straight up glares at and Akaashi looks like he does not associate with anyone at the table. "Let's go to the beach!" "The... beach," Kenma repeats, deadpan. Kuroo chokes on his sip and spends the next minute trying not to die. None of them even try to thump him on the back, more-less glance at him to make sure he's not dying. Bastards. "The beach!" Bokuto repeats, leaning in, his chest nearly flat against the table. His eyes glimmer with a near tangible excitement. "Let's find a couple of days where we can go! Or it can even be just a day trip where'd we leave in the morning and spend the whole day there! I already looked, and the train ride wouldn't be too horrible, and I know where some public beaches are!" Kuroo raises his eyebrows, surprised. "You've really done your research this time, huh, Bo." "You betcha! There's no better time then now! And— We gotta play beach volleyball! If it's us four, I'm pretty sure that's more than enough to play!" Instantaneously, Kenma's face twists up into a scowl. "I'm not going to play volleyball. I'm not." "Kenmaaa!" "I'm not." Slouching into his seat, Kenma looks as resolute as he possibly can, even with his bright pink drink clasped in his hands. "It's going to be exhausting. You'll want to play too many matches, too, and that on top of the sun sounds awful." He slouches further until his chin and mouth disappears under the neck of his hoodie. End of input. Just before Bokuto can badger him more, Akaashi cuts in. "He's right, though," Akaashi says neutrally. Purposefully pauses to eat a fry. "What kind of 'relaxing break' would it be if we're going to be playing volleyball? We'd be doing the same thing if we stayed here." "But it's on the beach!" "My point didn't change." Like he's been shot, Bokuto slumps against the table. Presses his cheek on the cool surface, pouty as hell. "Do you just not wanna go to the beach...? Is that it...?" he asks more to the table than to Akaashi. Akaashi flicks his eyes to Bokuto then back to his fries. "It's going to be packed. And hot. I'd rather go during autumn." "But that's the point," he whines. "The hot sands, the blazing sun, the hot babes..." Clicking his tongue distastefully, Kenma redirects his attention to his phone. "'Knew there was an ulterior motive." And he drops the conversation with that one simple move. Once again, Kuroo chokes on his drink. Fuck, he needs to stop doing that— "C'mon! I mean!" Bokuto rises up, slamming his hands on the table and nearly sends a fork flying. "We'd be showin' off our stuff while we play! There's gotta be someone who'd be impressed! Anyone who'd think we're cool!" "I don't think it's necessary to try and look cool, Bokuto-san." While he speaks, Akaashi reorganizes the scattered cutlery, his motions very obviously a distraction from making eye contact. Kuroo salutes him in his thoughts. Even the strongest may fall to Bokuto's puppy-eyed look. "Regardless. I'm not keen on heat stroke. There's no sanctuary in hot water that's packed with people. I'd probably wouldn't go even if you said we wouldn't play volleyball, it's just not the right season for it." "But..." Bokuto flounders. Actually droops. Poor dude looks like all of his dreams have been crushed right in front of his eyes and its crumbly remnants scattered to the wind. Right around now, Kuroo decides he's finally had his fill of letting Kenma and Akaashi rip into his silly plans, and pats Bokuto's knuckles. "It's alright, big guy," he says, not quite keeping the grin from his voice, "I'm down to go. When are ya free?" And, he sees Kenma briefly roll his eyes into oblivion, Akaashi wince and brace. By some miraculous force, Bokuto does not quite burst at the seams, but comes very close to. — [Bokuto 10:22 A.M.] TETSU COME OUT FRONT DOoR NOW !!! ! It takes him a couple minutes to actually read the message, still groggy. He's been awake for the better part of an hour, but he's been too lethargic, soaking in his sweaty bed. Blegh. Even with all the covers kicked off into a pile at the end of his bed, he's still sweating profusely. The little portable fan he's got set up on his side table is cranked to its highest setting, too! This is bullshit, he thinks, closing his eyes and breathing slow, if he thinks I'm gonna go outside in this heat, this early... It's a little foreboding, that message. A little suspicious. Bokuto has no limits, and that will not change today. Even if he were to ignore the message, it would not stop him. Bokuto Koutarou is a force to be reckoned with. So he rolls out of bed. Wriggling on a pair of pants blindly grabbed from the floor, he clunkily makes his way down the stairs. He supposes it's a little miracle his mother isn't around to experience whatever Bokuto's got in store, or to even tease him about how this is the earliest he's ever been up during the break. Then she'd invite Bokuto inside for breakfast, regardless of whatever's waiting outside the door for him. Christ, she might even invite disaster inside. Have it sit at the table and hand it a plate of eggs. When he steps into the foyer, he can hear no immediately horrendous noises coming from outside, which actually does narrow down the options of why in the hell he's been called out of his house. Still doesn't reduce the amount of disaster that may occur, but at least it probably won't bother the neighbors. He puts a little steel in his spine and opens the door. Something golden, small, and very fast darts towards his knees and the next thing he knows he is flat on his ass, completely plowed over by what he belatedly realizes is a dog. All the air's knocked outta his lungs and he doesn't even get the chance to recover, especially when there's suddenly dog tongue all over his face. "Shit!" He thinks he hears the gods laughing at him. Bastards. Somewhere behind his obscured view of dog, Bokuto peers over him, face pinched apologetically, "Sorry, Tetsu! She got really excited and tore herself from my grip..." There's a sharp tug and the dog is pried of the top of him, finally letting him breathe. Since Kuroo's chemical makeup is one-hundred percent asshole, instead of asking why do you have a dog since as of three seconds ago he was very sure Bokuto didn't own one, or even pulling himself up from his current sprawl on the floor first, he says, "Should you really be walking a dog if you can't even hold on to the leash?" Bokuto rocks back on his heels, a corgi squirming in his hands as it tries to lick his chin, gaping at Kuroo like he's been hit. "I'm a little hurt. Should I be hurt? Actually, yeah, I am. Y'know what, just for saying that, Petunia, get him." Without warning, he releases the dog. "Petunia—?" Kuroo doesn't even get time to be boggled. With the force of a canon ball, the corgi crashes head first into his stomach again, maybe bruising some of his ribs. His fate doesn't look too well, so he resigns to it and eases back onto the floor, letting the dog lick his cheeks and forehead to its hearts content. Halfheartedly he pushes the dog's face from his, staring up to the ceiling. "You... named your dog Petunia?" he asks. Petunia's ears perk up and she briefly pulls away, looking down to him as if waiting for a command. After a half second of nothing, she returns to her original plan of cleaning his face for him. From his peripheral he sees Bokuto move and resettle next to him, feels his knee pressing into his side. "I don't have a dog?" Kuroo looks pointedly at Petunia who is slobbering all over the front of his shirt. "OH!" Rather than helping him, Bokuto reaches out and gives Petunia a hearty rub on the head. Petunia licks his hand like a greeting. A fond look lingers in Bokuto's eyes and Kuroo tries not to ogle for too long. "Petunia's not my dog, she's my neighbors! Ya know the lil granny next door? She asked me to take care of her dog for a while since her son isn't around to do it, he's on a trip or something, and she's got bad knees 'n all..." "God, I was gonna say what kinda bullshit—" he throws an arm over his eyes, nudging Petunia away. Finally she seems to get the memo and bounds to over Bokuto. "There's no way you wouldn't name your dog something silly if given the chance," Kuroo says. Bokuto has the audacity to look mildly offended, opening his mouth to retaliate, and halts. Closes his mouth. Pouts. "Touché," squinting his eyes, Bokuto huffs. "I think Petunia is a fine name, thank you very much!" "Never said it wasn't," he counters, then pulls himself up. "Just not one I'd think you'd go for. Maybe something like Soup." Looking up in thought, Bokuto nods like he's seriously considering it. "Hmm! Soup! Not bad! I was gonna go for something like Chad, or..." "Chad?" "It's fun!" "I don't think I could ever look at your dog and not lose it if you named it Chad." Bokuto gasps dramatically. "How could you! It's a lovely name!" Leaning down, he bonks his forehead with Petunia's, getting almost face-to-face with her. Well. About as face-to-face he can get with such an antsy dog. "Petunia, don't you think it's a good name?" Petunia, such a darling, hops up and tries licking his nose. He laughs, though it'd probably be more correct to call it a giggle, scratching beneath the dog's jaw. "Yeah! I know! It's brilliant!" Although he could sit here for hours, just watching Bokuto mess with this little corgi, laugh softer but just as bright, they are currently just sitting in his doorway with the door open, the heat crawling in. He can hear the phantom voice of his mom scolding him, Tetsurou, what the fuck, close the goddamn door, do you even know how much of the heat is coming in? "I'm guessing you didn't just bring her here to show her off, right?" Kuroo says pointedly. Both of them look up at him, eyes all sparkly 'n shit. Dammit, he thinks, squinting, it's already enough of a bright morning. "I thought about just going on a jog and taking her along, and I was, actually!" Bokuto says, lolling his head back to look up at the ceiling. Kuroo takes the moment to actually glance at his clothes— shorts, his usual kneepads, loose shirt. There's a very slight sheen of sweat on his arms and neck. "Then I passed your house and thought, hey, why don't I get Tetsurou?" "You woke me up to go jogging with you?" "With me and Petunia!" he reiterates, lifting Petunia up slightly like he's presenting her. Her tail wags with the force of typhoon winds and audibly smacks against Bokuto's bicep. Now. He has two options. Option one: go with Bokuto and sweat his ass off outside. Option two: don't go with Bokuto, get his persistent, moping messages, and sweat his ass off inside. Both options are gross and sweaty. Obviously. Obviously. Kuroo literally has to keep himself from grinning too too wide, reaching over to prod at the fleshy part of Bokuto's side. "Ya convinced me. Lemme change first. Help yourself to the freezer if you want." Bokuto cheers and, by extension of excitement, Petunia howls with him. — The teenager with sugar-pink hair at the ice cream stand greets them by name. Almost even has their usual order ready for them by the time they step up. To change things up, Kuroo gets a fudge pop. Dunno why— maybe it's just a chocolate kind of day. Bokuto hmms and haas in contemplation for five minutes. Familiar with his antics, the sugar-pink teenager lets him take his time. A queue of children has formed behind him, but none of them are putting up a fit— some of them even give him their input. ("The sonic one tastes more like blueberries!", "Strawberry's my favorite! Get that one!!") In the end Bokuto still gets his usual absurdly bright popsicle, a fluorescent-neon blue so obscenely blue it absorbs all surrounding light, though he's mopey whenever he leaves the stand. "It's not like we don't come here all the time," Kuroo drawls, almost done with his by the time Bokuto comes shoulder-to-shoulder with him. He didn't think it was possible to be this put out by ice cream choices, but this may be the saddest he's seen Bokuto ever since his last funk in a volleyball match. "But... but..." Almost glumly, Bokuto pulls the wrapper off and takes a bite. Never has he looked so unenthusiastic about his electric-blue pop before. "I wanted to get Bubbles..." Kuroo points his fudge pop at him accusingly. "You just wanted to see how fucked up her face could get." "Well, yeah!" Shocked, like he's surprised Kuroo has the audacity to state the obvious. "They're always funny! The last one I got didn't even have eyes!" "I remember that, yeah." The poor Bubbles pop not only was missing the whites of her eyes, but her pigtails had ended up in her cheeks. He's not entirely sure why the two of them had found it so funny in the moment, but they sure as hell did. Both of them had nearly collapsed onto the pavement from how much they howled with laughter— he's pretty sure a couple of bystanders thought they were on drugs or dying. He grins fondly. "Besides, I always end up getting this one!" Bokuto whines, his teeth already turning blue, "I mean, I like this one, but the Bubbles has its own kinda vibe to it, y'know? The chaotic energy of the fuck-up that's doomed for it and the gumballs for eyes. Love that crunch." Kuroo grins, exasperated, the remnants of the popsicle stick between his teeth. "I have no clue what you're talking about, man." In no particular rush, they meander along the sidewalk. Beside them, the river glitters with the sun's reflection, only blinding Kuroo whenever Bokuto's accidentally a small step behind to block out the glare. They're at the riverside that's caught somewhere between both their homes, not too horrible a walk from either to be an inconvenience. Whenever they have time to hang, they come around here. "So!" Bokuto beams once he's made a significant dent in his popsicle, fist pumped up in the air. With a plop, a small chunk of his popsicle flings onto the pavement. The lack of reaction from him is either him not noticing or not letting it get to him. "The beach!" "The beach," Kuroo nods. "This Wednesday." "This Wednesday!" Bokuto crows, excitement exponentially growing with each passing second. "I finally got some air into my volleyball, so we can use it when we go!" Bokuto says. He pats his bag where there's a very obvious volleyball-sized bulge. Of course he brought it along with him. Of course. "Though, I think there's a specific kind of volleyball we're meant to use at the beach? Er... because it... floats? Doesn't hurt as much when you spike it?" "That's just a beach ball, y'know, the inflatable red-blue-yellow balls?" Kuroo motions with his hand although he's not exactly sure what he's trying to gesture. "Not really specific for beach volleyball. Some people use it. They're inflatable, though. We— well, you might accidentally pop it if we use one." Gasping, Bokuto swipes at him. "What! I would not!!" Kuroo raises his eyebrows. "You nearly popped a regular volleyball with your super-inner-deluxe-crosses. An inflatable one would be vanquished in a single hit from you, you volleyball beast. We'd probably be playing with people who aren't volleyball players, too— Imagine the collateral damage. I don't think I'm ready to see you actually shatter someone's arm," he says drily. Grimacing, Bokuto surprisingly does not counter his point. "See, if Akaashi and Kenma were to come, we wouldn't have to worry..." he murmurs through the side of his mouth. Not quite bitter. Maybe edging on bitter. Maybe he's a little bit more hurt by their immediate refusal of the plan that Kuroo initially thought. "Nah, I think it might be for the better," Kuroo says flippantly. Cocking an eyebrow, Bokuto just gives him a look. "Well. Yeah, I mean, them not coming means we have no setters or braincells with us, but that means we have all the more freedom to do whatever we want," he points out, like he's revealing a hidden secret. "Also. Even if Kenma came with us, he woulda stayed underneath an umbrella the whole time, playin' on his gameboy. Completely invalidates the reason of going to the beach." Humming considerately, with his chin between his thumb and finger, Bokuto actually perks up, dawning on the possibilities. "Yer right. 'Kaashi's too nice, so he would keep Kenma company, so then regardless..." "Bingo," grinning, Kuroo pats him heavily on the shoulder. "So now that they're not coming— we literally have nothing stopping us!" "Do you think we can rent surfboards?" Honest to god, Bokuto twinkles he's so damn excited with the idea. "I've never surfed before! We could go surfing!" Kuroo has to bite down very hard on his tongue to keep from immediately saying let's do it. "I mean. Just because our residential braincells won't be there doesn't mean we should go do wacky shit that may end up with one of us drowned. 'Kaashi would skin me." "What are ya talkin' about? We can totally get someone to teach us!" "I think it just might be better to test the waters, yeah?" A little overwhelmed by the enthusiasm, Kuroo backtracks. "Next time we go to the beach we can surf. First we gotta make sure we can make it without a disaster playing volleyball there. Or accidentally wiping out some old grandma if the wind fucks with us whenever we're playing." Which reminds him— "Ah, shit. Wait a fuckin'—" Kuroo nearly drops both his phone with how quickly he pulls it from his pocket. Currently occupied with a bite of ice, Bokuto just peers curiously at him. He scrolls through the calendar he's got on his phone almost desperately, spotting Wednesday and the date— "Shit. I can't make it this week," he mutters, a scowl pulling at his face. Scratches at his cheek to keep it from cutting too deep. Dammit, how the hell did he forget? "My gram's birthday is this Tuesday. Ma's been designated as party host, and..." He cranes his head back and groans at the sky. "Fucking hell. My whole extended family's gonna be here for like, three days! I can't believe I forgot." "You forgot your grandma's birthday?" Bokuto says, scandalized. Even covers his mouth in a shocked gasp, like he's some horrified maiden from the eighteenth century hearing something uncouth. Dramatic asshole. "What a horrible grandson!" "Hey, I don't want to hear anything, you barely remember your own," Kuroo snipes back, punctuating with the popsicle stick. Bokuto shrugs, beaming. Not a damn care in the world. "I always have you to remember for me, anyways! I at least remember my granny's. Unlike someone here..." Kuroo snorts. "Bastard," he says, elbowing Bokuto, which consequently nearly sends the popsicle flying from his hands. "I wish I could just bail, but I know my mom would give me shit for the next decade if I did." Eyebrows shooting up, Bokuto smacks his arm both, maybe in retaliation, maybe not. Maybe he's shocked? "Dude! Our beach trip isn't that important, you shouldn't skip out on family just to hang with me! Your mom'll give me shit, too, if I let you come along!" "I see your true motive, you bastard. You just want my mom to like you enough to let you steal shit from our fridge," he accuses. Bokuto has the gall to not look ashamed of being found out. "Anyways, you're a helluva lot more fun to be around, y'know?" Kuroo continues, tipping his head back, back until he can't go further. He feels a little bare, talking like this. About this. "You don't ask me about the college I'm gonna go to or how I'm still single. Is that just an old person thing? To snoop in my life?" Gnawing on the popsicle stick, he shoves his phone back into his pocket begrudgingly. "Plus, you wanted to go this week. You've already gotten everything ready, right? We shouldn't have to push it off because I forgot about a family reunion." "Wuh?" Bokuto only looks slightly perplexed. He bites down on his popsicle in thought. "If we can't do it this week, we can just do it next, right?" He says around his bite, like it's the most obvious thing in the whole universe, the only possible answer. A bead of melted popsicle runs down the wooden stick, spilling across Bokuto's fingers. He awkwardly gurgles, unmelted ice still in his mouth, and he tries his best to lick the trail and proceeds to knock himself in the forehead with the ice pop. It's. Endearing, maybe, if not completely embarrassing to watch. Ahh, Kuroo thinks and averts his eyes. His neck is warm under the sun. "Alright, then," Kuroo says, rubbing at the back of his neck, "Same time next week? I swear I won't get wrapped up in anything." The grin Bokuto has rivals the sun above them. "I'm holding you to that! You're gonna buy me a Bubbles pop if you skip out!!" — "Man, is the AC even on?" Yamamoto knocks his head against the wall after collapsing against it. There's a pause as he inhales half his waterbottle. "I'm. I'm melting." "It's on," Shibayama says though he doesn't sound all too convinced, even though he's planted directly in front of the airflow. He and Inuoka look like they'd like to crawl into the AC unit since maybe that would be cooler. Kenma lays nearby, almost dead. "It sure doesn't feel like it's on," Kenma says into the floor. Kuroo reaches down and pulls on the back of his shirt. The noise of his shirt peeling off his back is, quite frankly, really gross. "C'mon— get up, you're gonna become a puddle there." "I might." "No, you're not," Yaku swoops in, forcing a water bottle into his hands. When Kenma doesn't move immediately Yaku threatens, "I'm not going to force you to drink if you don't move, but I'm going to force you to drink if you don't move." Immediately Kenma moves. "Don't." "Can we end practice early?" Lev cries from his place sprawled out on the floor. Fumbling with his water bottle, Kuroo watches as Haiba Lev, residential skyscraper and airhead of Nekoma, tips the bottle back and accidentally waterboards himself. Kuroo presses his mouth into a thin line, trying to keep his expression unchanging. From beside him, Yaku's turned away, shoulders shaking. Kuroo glances towards the clock. It's not too far into practice, maybe forty minutes. Usually by this type they're all raring to go, just getting started into their groove, but as he looks around, there's unmistakable sheen of sweat already layered on the floorboards and everyone's moving so sluggishly. Even at training camp they're not this exhausted, not even on the final days. "If you don't mind going home in this heat right now, I can talk to coach about it," he offers. Lev's face twists like he's tasting something nasty. "Neither sound good," Lev says hoarsely, using his shirt as a rag to wipe off his face. His face is just as damp as it was before when he pulls his shirt away. He groans. "I can't even wipe off my face! My shirt's already too sweaty to even absorb it! I think my face just got more wet..." Yaku's eyebrows raise like he cannot even fathom. "So you just smeared all of your sweat onto your face?" "That's fucking gross, dude," Yamamoto laughs, more amused than disgusted. "It's just sweat! It's natural!" Lev screeches, growing embarrassed, flushing even more under his skin. "I was already sweating on my face!" Teshiro, an angel, gives Lev a towel to save himself. As Lev scrubs at his face, Teshiro looks towards Kuroo, curious. "Would it even be wise to end practice today? It's meant to get hotter this week, then we'll have to practice in that since we'd've stopped this one." "Hotter?" Lev blurts, jerking the towel from his face to gape. Even though he just toweled off his face, the sweat just reappears. "It's already hotter than the sun! It can't get hotter than this!" "That's what a heatwave does, dumbass," Yaku grumbles. "Are you even from Tokyo? It's like this every summer." He nudges Lev's thigh not unkindly, but sharp enough to get him moving. "C'mon, nothing gets to ya, but some shitty weather does?" Although hesitantly, Kuroo calls for break. No one audibly protests, but he sees it in the dragging of feet, the slant of shoulders. At least they're good sports about it. Except for Lev. He'll have to check with Nekomata about calling practice over early today. — If he were an asshole, he could say 'I told you so!' and point and laugh. But he's not an asshole. He's nice. So he says: "Dude, you look like a cherry." Bokuto shoots him what's possibly the sharpest frown he's ever seen on him. It should be threatening since Bokuto has never given him such a stink eye, but the skin on his face is bright pink and there is no way on the planet he can take him seriously like this. The smile that threatens to split across his face almost slips by him, so he has to press a hand to his mouth to keep it from growing. Though he can try, there's no way he can keep the amusement from the tail of his words. "How in the hell did this happen?" Parked on a stool in the bathroom, Bokuto fidgets with his shirt in his hands, borderline embarrassed. His back is open for the viewing, the tanned expanse of it abruptly changing to an angry pink in clean lines at each of his shoulders and a wide scoop on his nape, along with a small gradation on the small of his back from where his shirt probably rode up. With how the sunburn's nearly glowing it's so bright, he's surprised it isn't audibly sizzling. "That's the thing," Bokuto rocks back in his seat, miserable, "I didn't even do anything! Well, not on purpose, but..." he flings his hands up in exasperation, nearly tossing the shirt with the motion. "I was just playin' with some of the kids next door, since their dad had to go get food for dinner— I wasn't even out there that long!" "So, due to the kindness in your heart, you've... fried, for a lack of better words," Kuroo snorts. There's no other word to describe the way his skin is radiating heat. If he was out there for any longer, Kuroo's worried his skin would have started blistering and boiling. Unsurprisingly, the heatwave's been unyielding. Bokuto blinks. Gasps with his whole chest. "Oh god, I hope they didn't get as burned as I did—! It was so fucking hot earlier—" He straightens up and for a second Kuroo's pretty sure he's going to leap to his feet and sprint to their house, just to make sure they're alright, up in arms with bottles and bottles of aloe vera. "They probably didn't," he quickly intercedes, almost reaching out for Bokuto's shoulders to guide him back to the stool but deflects his motion last second. There's no place on his shoulders that's not burnt, and he's not physically or mentally prepared to face the reaction if he were to even touch the sensitive burns. Unaware of his brief dilemma, Bokuto peers up to him, puppy-eyed, unsure, jittery. Kuroo sighs through his nose. "They probably didn't burn. Since... well, I'm assuming you went out to get the mail or something and the dad roped you into watching them while he went out, right?" "Right!" he nods enthusiastically. "So they were probably already planning to play outside," he points out, "hence, they probably had sunscreen on already. Unlike you, who didn't plan on staying out there aside from getting the mail." Bokuto ahhs in understanding, settling back into his seat. "Makes sense!" He leans back, back until he touches the cool wall behind him. A wince scrunches up his face but he relaxes once the initial pain of the sunburn fades from the chill. "I just wasn't expecting to scorch like I did. I've been outside for longer and never got burned! I really did get screwed over today, huh! Does a heatwave also mean that UV rays get stronger?" "Maybe," Kuroo shrugs solemnly. He himself feels the heat of a sunburn growing on the back of his neck, tips of his ears— he was outside for, how long? A couple of minutes to the station, then couple to walk here? It's probably an actual miracle Bokuto didn't straight up get sun poisoning. He enters the bathroom a little more, resting against the counter with his arms crossed. "So. You didn't just call me over just so I could laugh at you, right?" A pout pulls at his face. It's more of a subdued pout— probably because it hurts to be expressionate with burns that bad. He looks very sheepish for a moment, and Kuroo honestly cannot tell if his face just got pinker or not. He moves to rub his neck and immediately pulls away once he touches it, making a face. "I... I needed someone to put the aloe stuff on the spots I can't reach..." The acoustics of the bathroom amplifies Kuroo's laughter to a deafening note. He doesn't mean to laugh this hard, he swears, but it's just so— so cute of him. "You—" he wipes under his eye, getting dangerously close to straight up giggling. Bokuto's coiled up like a spring, pouting, embarrassed. "—couldn't you get your mom to help you? or your dad?" "It's! It's embarrassing!" he whines, throwing his shirt at Kuroo's face. "And besides, they're out for the day! And I mean—!!" "Why not Akaashi? He lives closer than I do!" "I didn't want to bother him!" "So you wanted to bother me?" He guesses Bokuto doesn't catch the amused lilt in his voice because guilt flashes across his face. The tension bleeds from him until he's slouching. "'Kaashi woulda lectured me on being more cautious," he slumps against his knees, staring at the tiles on the floor, "I knew you woulda just laughed and, like, told me to be careful, but I wouldn't feel as ridiculous as I would've felt if it were Akaashi..." Abruptly, he straightens up. "Not that I don't appreciate his fretting! I know it's kinda weird, so, I, uh..." Ahh. He gets that. He wonders if Kenma feels like that whenever he scolds him for staying up late and playing video games. Then again, Kenma's not a soft-hearted beefcake— he honestly probably doesn't give a shit about what Kuroo says, seeing that he still does it. Kuroo just waves off the worry. "Nah, I get it. It's a little less embarrassing since the worst I'll do is poke fun at you. Where's the Banana Boat stuff?" "Under the sink," Bokuto says automatically, then freezes. And, like a dawning sun, his expression brightens. "Bro...?" Kuroo's knees crack when he crouches down to the sink cabinets. Deep in the corner, past an unfathomable stock of hair gel, is the soothing lotion. "I'm already here, so I might as well," he shrugs, grin growing alongside Bokuto's. (As if. Even if Bokuto was forthright whenever he messaged him under the guise of 'tetsu pls its URGENT', he'd still come over and help.) (Whipped.) "Tetsuuu," he cries, reaching out like he wants to tackle him in a hug but physically cannot. "You're an absolute lifesaver, man! I can do my arms just fine, I just can't reach my back..." "I mean, it's just the nape of your neck. A little below it. You can't reach that?" Kuroo asks, stepping around Bokuto and taking a seat on the tub's edge. In a near habitual motion, like they've done this before, Bokuto immediately leans back and slots right between Kuroo's knees. He pointedly does not think anything of it, not at all, and chalks it up as it's easier for me to reach this way. He does not think about how warm Bokuto's skin is, even if it's not the sunburnt parts. Not even about how Bokuto tips his head back, nearly knocking the crown of his head into Kuroo's nose, how the smile curves his eyes from this angle. Not at all. Nope. Shirking, Bokuto shakes his head, the motion pulling Kuroo from inside his head. "My shoulders are tender since, y'know, they're crispy." To show, he raises his arm as high as it can go without making him strain— which, understandably, isn't very high. Maybe high enough to pluck something off a low hanging shelf. "And I'm not flexible at all! Even if I was able to move my arms more, I don't think I can reach it? I don't... really know how far it goes down, I can't really see it. And I can't really feel it out..." "It starts riiiight here." Kuroo presses the pad of his finger shy of where the pink starts, right above where his shoulder blades meet. Immediately he feels and sees every part of Bokuto tense up, ridged. It startles a laugh from him and he retracts his finger, and like an off switch, Bokuto slumps back down. "Dude," Bokuto laughs with his belly, the sound taking up the entire space of the room. He misses by a wide berth when he swings around to smack him. "You gotta gimme some kinda warning! That scared the shit outta me!" The muscles in his back dance as he straightens up, rolling his shoulders, and, frankly, it's a little distracting. Kuroo takes to looking at the soft hair curling at his nape instead. Which doesn't help. Shit. "Well, this is rather intimate," he says right over his inner turmoil because he is a man of composure, he cannot, will not, let this be where he loses it. "Ya sure you're not squeamish enough for me to do this?" Bracing, Bokuto says, "I'm ready for whatever you've got for me!" "Then I'll be sure to slather you up," he says lowly, squirting the aloe into his palm. The pump sputters, making a weird goopy noise, and his whole ambience of being even slightly risqué is ruined instantly. Whole bodied, Bokuto shivers. Laugh reaching squeaky, he twists around, planting a palm on Kuroo's face and shoving. "Dude. I'm literally a french fry right now. A fuckin' hush-puppy! No innuendos, please, it really hurts to smile like this! Keep it tame!!" Kuroo's nearly too entranced by the pitch of the laugh that he forgets himself and nearly flips backwards into the tub. "What! That's what I do best, though!" "Banana Boat just isn't sexy enough, Tetsu!" "Yeah, yeah, sure," he says, and without warning, smears the lotion across Bokuto's neck. Bokuto shrieks. "I said warn me!!" "Oops." — "I could kill you," Kenma grumbles, impatiently tucking his hair behind his ears. It slides right back out from behind his ear, damp with sweat. The entirety of him sags, like he's about to melt into a puddle on the pavement. "I could really kill you right now." It's easy to pretend he doesn't see the smoldering glare he's being given. He's dealt with it for... how many years now? Shrugging it off is just as easy as swiping a bug off his skin. "The gym has air conditioning. C'mon, we're already halfway there." He specifically does not say anything about how both of them and every person under the sun knows the gym's AC is shitty at best. And at least twelve teenage boys crammed in front of it? It can't even be called cooling at that point. Kenma huffs. He shifts his gym bag in a restless motion, pulling at his shirt. "Why are we practicing in this hell weather," he grumbles, "I'm already exhausted. I want to go home." "We've been let off the hook a whole lot recently— we gotta at least actually get some practice in instead of just calling it a day after warm ups." "No." "Yes, we have to." "No," he gripes. His hands flutter around again, pushing back his hair, readjusting his bag, fanning with his shirt. "We are going to be perfectly fine if we miss out on practice because of a heatwave. There's no matches in forever. We can practice when it's not hotter than satan's ass outside." "Sure, but then we'll have missed out chances to level up. You want to go against Hinata at your best, don't you?" From his peripheral, he sees Kenma straighten up. He grins. Hook, line, sinker. Kenma scrunches his nose and swings a hand at Kuroo's gut. "I hate you." "Do not." "I'm not doing this. I do. I'm about to die in my own sweat and other teenage boys sweat and it's going to suck. I could be at home right now. I'm out here, going to die in this shitty heatwave, because of you." "It's just sweat. You're already sweaty," Kuroo points out, "so it's just sweat on top of sweat." "And? you think I want to get even more sweaty? Bold of you," Kenma seethes, shoving the gym doors open with more force than necessary. Entering the gym feels like entering a goddamn sauna, and practice hasn't even started yet. Kuroo mourns in advanced. He's glad this is one of the practices they do without Nekomata around— he's not sure if it'd be alright for the old man to move in this temperature. "Ah, Kenma!" Lev cries from inside the locker room, somehow still excitable in this oven of a gym. "Don't come near me," Kenma seethes before disappearing behind the locker room doors. Kuroo tilts his head back. Breathes in deeply. This is going to fucking suck. Twenty minutes into practice they've had four breaks. The breaks so far have consisted of refilling and refilling their bottles they've been drained so fast. Also a lot of laying around. Sweaty imprints are spotted across the floorboards from where they've laid. They're almost like chalk outlines for bodies. The analogy feels a little morbid. Frankly, at this rate, they'll have laid around more than done any substantial practice. He thought that the AC coulda helped somewhat in the slightest— he probably should have known it's practically useless after it reaches a certain temperature outside. On the fifth break, Lev loses it. "Wait, wait, wait," Lev whines, clutching the spout with a desperation, "I thought global warming would get us all in thirty years! Why is it happening now?! Heatwaves just aren't like this!!" "Move, you big idiot," Yaku grits, giving Lev a hard shove that doesn't result in much, seeing how Lev is quite literally wrapped around the spout. There's a real chance of bodily harm that Lev does not seem to realize yet. "It's just a heatwave, dumbass. There's no way its global warming— imagine the kinda crap we woulda have to have done to cut the expectancy by thirty, to make the temperatures that bad." Lev shoves back. Why is he putting up a fight. Why did he think it was okay to wrap himself around the spigot, Kuroo wonders, briefly considering using his power as captain to get him the fuck off. He wants his damn water. He's going to become horrifically dehydrated from sweating, standing right here. "Its not that hard to believe! Seeing what corporations can do, if they all just said screw it, the ozone layer could be gone in a snap! The greenhouse effect could go into tenfold with their word!" Kai swoops in to refill his bottle when Yaku solidly plants his foot on Lev's gut, which, surprisingly, unsurprisingly, leads to a scuffle. "It's only this prefecture," Kai cuts into Lev's hysteria, sounding not in the least worried, though he's sweat covered and already going for another refill he just drank all of it so fast. What a saint. "I have relatives in Hyougo and they've said it's not like this there." "But that's also Hyougo, which is, like, far away!" "Very eloquent of you, Lev." "Why here?" Finally, Lev peels away from the faucet, falling away with Yaku's foot in his gut. He flops straight back onto the pavement and nearly gets trampled now that the water's free again. "Ow—! How— how could global warming just get concentrated in one area? That doesn't make sense!" "It's not global warming," Kenma says absently. There's a flurry of emoticons on his phone screen that can only come from one Hinata Shouyo. He shoves the device into his pocket once he notices the cheeky curve of Kuroo's eyes. "It's kind of like a monsoon that's just moving slow. But instead of rain, it's heat." "But what coulda even made this kind of thing happen? I've never heard of anything like that," Inuoka wonders aloud. The absolute god-send, he helps Lev from the ground where he probably would've stayed. "Supernatural," Fukunaga pops in sagely, wiggling his fingers in his strange emphasis. Lev and Inuoka collectively scrunch their faces up, unbelieving. Kenma shrugs. "At this rate it doesn't seem that far-fetched." "It's just a test of willpower, ain't it?" Taketora says, squirting the water from his bottle with such force it actually makes him choke when it hits a certain spot in the back of his throat. From beside him, Kenma makes such a face at the word willpower and the gurgling. "The more resilient we are in this kind of heat, the better we'll be in matches, right?" Smiling politely but with an exasperation around the edges, Kai says, "I'm not sure what kind of conditioning this would even be. I doubt we'll have any matches in this kind of heat." Because he's so nice and also the captain, he lets everyone else on the team refill their waters first. Finally, finally, he can refill his. Kuroo feels a century-old weariness when he finally takes an endless gulp. "Let's just call it off for today," he decides. —

"—clocking in at 39 degrees, it's officially the hottest day in Tokyo this summer! There's a sparing amount of clouds out today, but don't rely on them for cover. Take precaution going outside today, drink plenty of water—"

Pulling at the neck of his shirt, Kuroo tries to lend his ear more, but the broadcast's cutting out. Behind the counter the store attendant curses, flicking at the radio which looks a little too archaic to even been working in the first place. It reaches static before the spokesperson's voice becomes somewhat comprehensible again, the tinniness of the radio nearly drowning out every word.

From somewhere deeper in the store he can hear Bokuto still humming about which drink to choose. They took a pitstop here both because they were thirsty and because they may just have turned to mush if they stayed outside any longer. The broadcaster sounds a little too chipper about the damn heat than she needs to be.

Asshole. She's probably in some lovely air-conditioned building, unbothered by this bullshit. He's out here in this crummy store with the only form of relief coming from a rickety fan on the counter.

Ugh. Uuughhh.

Something very, very cold touches his neck. The noise he lets out is too high pitched, something he would love to say didn't come from him, but sadly, unfortunately, it does. Whirling around, he snatches the bottle from Bokuto's hands, who's face is so scrunched up to keep from laughing it's practically a raisin.

"Ha-ha, very funny," Kuroo says blandly, jabbing at Bokuto's side with the bottle. Bokuto screeches.

"You jumped! You actually jumped!" He's laughing too hard to even try and fight back. Each jab he gets to the side he shrieks at, folding in more on himself until he's basically crouched over. Kuroo decides to spare him for a moment to let him breathe. "You jumped, like, two feet in the air! Like a cat!" Comically, Bokuto gasps even louder. Unfolds like a dry sponge getting a splash of water. "Like a CAT! DUDE—"

"Don't say it."

"NEKOMA—"

Kuroo smothers Bokuto before his volume can amp up even more. "Understood, you've made this joke a billion times, alma mater cats, I'm basically a cat, yeah, yeah," he mocks. Bokuto's eyes crease up and he's laughing again, against Kuroo's hand, which is a weird feeling, so he peels it off before it gets weirder. "I can't believe you still find those kind of jokes funny. Bird brain."

"Excuse you, but owls are the smartest creature out there!" Bokuto puffs up like he's personally proud of it.

"They're literally not." Kuroo pokes his tongue out at the abashed gasp. "Crows have you beat. Even pigeons are smarter than owls."

The look of pure hurt on his face is hysterical. He actually goes through a facial adventure, which touches upon rage, grief, confusion, betrayal— before he just mutters: "Fuckin' Karasuno..."

Snorting hard enough it hurts, Kuroo puts a hand on Bokuto's shoulder to steer him out of the store. The second they step out, it's like walking into a different world, a different universe. He might be imagining it, but Kuroo feels the sweat immediately grow on his spine and soak through his shirt. Gross. Bokuto grumbles something deep. Wipes the sweat from under his eyes. They power on.

Maybe three minutes out in the heat and all energy they had earlier has sapped out of them and dissipated into the atmosphere. He thinks he saw it go with the heat coming from the pavement.

He is basically half his height he is sagging from the heat so much. Each step he takes the more he wilts. Perhaps not all that strangely, he can relate to the foliage they're passing, a grim shade of brown instead of their usual green. He, too, feels like he's withering at the edges. Overheating, dehydrated, about to set ablaze from the sun rays. In the false kinship he feels in the moment, he briefly considers sharing some water with the plants. Then he realizes that's stupid. Ridiculously stupid. There is not enough for both him and every single willowing plant out here.

"It's hot," Bokuto says, tone flat for once. When Kuroo glances over, his face is so scrunched up in a grimace so intensely Kuroo's momentarily scared it won't come off his face. "It's hot."

"Bo, if you keep talking about it, you'll only be more aware of it," Kuroo grits, lacking bite. The water bottle's already losing its blissfully cold condensation. He presses it to the back of his neck anyway— anything feels like a blessing against the sun.

"Te-tsu-rou!" Bokuto bursts, gesturing wildly, almost knocking Kuroo's elbow. It's a miracle he can even move this animatedly in this hellish beatdown. "I'm sweating my entire weight, man! I can feel the sweat between my toes! It might be pooling in my shoe—"

Grimacing, Kuroo presses the water bottle to the side of his face. The chill of the bottle seeps into his skin, an immediate comfort. He rolls it up his cheek, trying to sap out every degree of chilliness. Beads of condensation run down his face and he can feel it evaporating right off of his skin. "Wanna try camping out in a konbini until it gets cooler?"

"Nah, man, we're already so close to your place," Bokuto says, though he looks like he'd rather do nothing but exactly that. What an absolute trooper. "It's only gonna get hotter the longer we wait, right? Unless we stay till night, which like, defeats the whole purpose."

Kuroo, however, is not as strong willed as Bokuto. If he wasn't here, Kuroo would stop at every damn store to keep from being outside for longer than thirty seconds. But he is here. So he resigns himself to Bokuto's reasoning.

It is going to be a long walk.

Almost twenty-five minutes later and six stops for breathers along the way, they spill into his house, practically falling over each other once the door gives way. Near immediately Bokuto slings his bag onto the floor, punts his shoes off, but hesitates when he grabs the hem of his shirt. "Is your mom home?" he asks meekly.

Kuroo makes a face at his shoelaces, boggled. "What? I don't think she is."

"Cool." And in one fluid motion, his shirt comes flying off. He lets out a long yell that audibly comes from deep within his gut. "Aaaaugh! It's HOOOT!" Dragging his feet and his shirt, Bokuto moves sluggishly further into the house, specifically towards the kitchen. There's a loud thump and then what sounds like a body slumping onto the floor. Then a long wail. Slowly, it tapers, until it is no more.

Peering around the corner Kuroo finds that Bokuto had clipped his hip on the kitchen counter and unfortunately has passed away. He nudges the body with his foot when he passes. The body stiffens. "You alright there?"

With his face squished against the floor it's a little impossible to truly understand what is said, but Bokuto probably says: "I think this floor might be the best thing I've ever felt."

Snorting, he jabs his foot into Bokuto's side just to be an asshole. Tugging open the fridge door, he almost collapses against it, more than willing to just sit here and soak the chill in. He allows himself to be selfish for four seconds. Four seconds seem so, so short, but if he allows any more than that, he may not move away, so he quickly acquires a cold bottle of water.

"Holy fuck." Suddenly Bokuto's voice sounds a helluva lot clearer. He's peeled himself from the floor, now resting on his forearms, eyes pinpointed on the fridge like he's a predator locked on prey. "That feels fucking awesome."

"What, the breeze?" Kuroo jokes. Moves to close the fridge door.

Almost like a crazed animal, Bokuto scuttles— there just ain't another word to describe it— across the floor, planting himself directly in front of the fridges contents to purposefully prevent the door from being closed. Immediately, he sags, sighing, blissful.

A little befuddled, Kuroo laughs, bubbling. Bokuto's entire thigh is resting on his foot. "Dude?"

Bokuto simply reaches over and pats the spot next to him.

Kuroo's a simple man. Really. He allows himself a delegated amount of time to be selfish to be polite, to not be greedy. But this is an invite. So he goes. Sinking to his ass, he scoots closer and closer till his shoulder aligns beside Bokuto's and the edge of the door.

They probably look like idiots. They most definitely look like idiots. Both of them are sitting in front of the fridge's open door like they're starving, but instead of food, its the sweet bliss of chilly air. Sitting too close to each other to be even slightly comfortable, especially with how sweaty they are, but it's physically impossible to move from the sweet, sweet cold air.

Bokuto's right, though. It feels fucking awesome.

"My mom will kill us if we keep doing this," Kuroo says airly. Simply saying it to say it. With no conviction he grabs the door handle as if to close it, but with both of their bodies in the way, it doesn't go further than pressing into his own thigh. He slumps against it instead.

Bokuto hums. He looks one step away from crawling straight into the fridge, the shelves and food be damned. Anything to lower his body temperature.

Neither of them move.

As much as Kuroo himself would love to stay here, now that he's actually mentioned his mother he's very aware that she will commit murder if she sees this. It takes nearly all of his perseverance to roll out of the fridge's way, now slumping against it so it would close. Unmoving, Bokuto only grunts when it hits him. Kuroo leans harder. No budge.

"Bro."

"Dude."

Kuroo presses his cheek against the door edge. It's blissfully cold. The sunburn on his cheeks feels like it's healing right up. "C'mon. You gotta move. I do not have the power to stop my mom."

Every single muscle in Bokuto's arms and back visibly tense up. It's been a track record recently, how much he's seen Bokuto shirtless. What, is he becoming the new Karasuno's Number 5? Allergic-to-wearing-shirts? "I can't. It's too nice," he near whispers, strained, like he's caught between a horrible detrimental decision of life and death.

Unyielding, Kuroo puts the rest of his weight on the door. The vegetable compartment digs into Bokuto's side. "Just close me in the fridge," Bokuto begs, sagging forwards.

"No can do," he says. If it were an option he'd do it himself, but if his gangly limbs won't fit, Bokuto's beefy ones sure as hell won't. He puts his hands on Bokuto's shoulders and pushes. With minimum force, he falls right over.

"Auuugh, Tetsuuu!" he anguishes. Squirms like he's fight back to stop him, but is simply shoved out of the way. Like he's damming off the river of life, Kuroo closes the fridge door. Bokuto's very close to crying.

Heat lays heavy once the fridge air is used up. Bokuto has not moved, staring so longingly at the fridge. Not even blinking whenever Kuroo nudges him.

It is not looking good for their beach trip. The thought pulls at his guts, pulling them down to his feet. If such a short walk stretched into twenty-five minutes, he's got no clue how long it'll take for them to get to the station. And once they're there—

Thinking about the train cars makes him feel a certain kind of dread. He nearly didn't make it outside for ten minutes. To be in a metal death trap with tons of other people, for maybe two hours... they'd emerge as goo. Could they even make it to the next station without completely melting into the seats? The station might even be shut down. He hasn't even checked.

But it's just Tokyo, too— It's literally perfect at the beaches outside of Tokyo. Lovely temperatures, breezy days. Once they're outside of Tokyo, it's paradise.

Getting there's half the story.

"We're probably gonna have to raincheck for tomorrow, Bo," Kuroo says, knocking his head against the wall. Slouching, he inches down the wall, probably leaving a trail of sweat. Kinda disgusting. He honestly doesn't do anything to keep himself upright. Doesn't feel like he should.

For the second time, he's pushing this trip off, even though he knows how much Bokuto's prepared for it. Hell, he even went ahead and bought beach towels. (They were animal themed, too. Cats and Owls. They were so cute, Kuroo literally felt his heart squeeze when Bokuto showed him.)

Something doesn't quite wilt about Bokuto, but he slackens, sloping. "Okay," he says simply, pouting, and that's it. Kuroo waits for the refutal, the 'it's not thaaat bad outside!', the 'we can power through it!' He waits. Waits.

There is none.

Kuroo's stomach flips strangely, a weird dread in his gut, so he pulls himself upright to quell it.

"Hey," he says, quickly thinking of something, anything, to get that look off of Bokuto's face. With a curious expression, Bokuto rests his cheek atop his knee, waiting patiently. It's very cute of him. Kuroo distinctly pushes that thought aside and grins instead. "How does a water balloon fight sound to you?"

—

Practice is cancelled. Kuroo thanks every god under the sun. Someone would have died from practice if it were to happen— it'd probably be Lev, from either because he's got the heat tolerance of an ice cube or from Yaku's rage. Who knows.

However, during the time he would've been at practice, he finds he has absolutely nothing to do.

At this rate he might just fuse into the couch. His skin's already sticking, so it might as well just blend together. He can't practice volleyball, he might roast if he does it outside or break shit if he does it inside. The TV has nothing interesting on. He doesn't have school work he needs to catch up on. What is he even meant to do?

Audibly his skin tears from the couch when he rolls off. It doesn't hurt, but christ, the noise— he winces. In a haze, he moves to the kitchen, now hungry since he has nothing else to do.

When he opens the fridge with a grand swing, it's sad how hard it is to not crawl it. The popsicle box in the freezer is pathetically empty. Cursing the past him for leaving the fucking empty box like some kind of asshole, getting his hopes up, motherfucker, he plucks it from the shelf and chucks in the trash. After he's relished in the ice crystals on it, of course.

He rests his forehead against the fridge door.

Ahh. He wants some watermelon.

One-hundred percent on a whim, he goes to the store.

(It might not have been his smartest idea, bogged by exhaustion and heat, but he makes it. Somehow.)

"Welcome," the cashier calls from somewhere in the store. Politely she does not say a thing when he takes a whole ten minutes just standing at the freezer section to cool down. She also does not say a thing about how he should definitely not be outside at the height of day.

It's dead silent aside from the whirring of the plug-in fan at the counter and the cicadas outside. No one else is out and about. Usually, he can hear the chatter of the road outside, the screeches of children playing by the river. It's quiet. A damn ghost town outside. Is he in the Matrix? He's in the Matrix.

Maybe the heat's finally turning his brain to goo. He stands in front of the watermelon section for seven minutes before he realizes he's not actually in front of the watermelons, they're broccoli. He shuffles further down. Ah. There they are. Visibly there's no damn difference between the watermelons, but he still stands there and just looks at them, eying the textures. He gets a whole watermelon.

"Everything alright, Tetsurou-kun?"

He honest to god jumps, three inches off the ground and heart almost outta his throat. The watermelon in his hands literally shoots into the air and he scrambles to catch it. It's embarrassingly hard for him to catch it again. Volleyball player, who?

(Distantly, somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears a snort and a 'just like a cat!')

"Oh my, I didn't mean to scare you that bad!" Patting him heavy on the arm, it's the store clerk lady, portly and friendly. He did not realize he already made it to the counter. Jesus, he needs to clear his head. She seems more amused than worried about his whole struggle. "You feelin' alright?"

"Ah, yeah, don't worry about it, I'm just," he lets his eye wander, absently trying to fish for the right word, "out of it. The heat's getting to me, I think." Is he dehydrated? Aw, fuck. He's probably dehydrated, edging on delirious. Isn't this exactly why there's warning about going outside.

Humming, she says, "Go grab a water bottle, Tetsurou-kun, it's on me." It's the Adult Voice that leaves No Room for Refusal. Dutifully he grabs a water bottle from the freezer. She gives him a Stare until he realizes he should actually drink it in front of her. "I haven't see you here without Koutarou-kun in ages," the lady in the lieu of conversation, idly. Unknowingly, Kuroo locks up at the joints.

"Yeah," he says almost mechanically. Grins to loosen up. "It's strange to be here without Bo. Didn't want to bother him just to come with me to get just watermelon, y'know?" The last time he saw Bokuto was maybe a week ago. It's been very, very quiet without him.

"I'm sure he wouldn't have minded! That dear's too nice for his own good," waving her hand dismissively, she scans the lone watermelon he puts onto the counter.

He really is, Kuroo thinks absently. It's exactly why he didn't ask.

"The heat's always a little bit more tolerable when there's someone else with you," she continues, strangely profound, right over his absentmindedness. It makes him think of the walk he's got ahead of him to get home. Jarringly long, though it's barely that far away. Last time he walked back from here to his house was with Bokuto. They stopped at every place they passed, exhausted, but it was bearable. Fun, even.

"It is," he agrees. He looks outside while she bags the watermelon.

Outside, the city melts.

—

[Bokuto 3:56 P.M.] m guessin no beach this week either ?

[Kuroo 4:01 P.M.] don't think so : ( temps just hit highest ever recorded for tokyo jfc

[Bokuto 4:01 P.M.] WHAT didnt think it could even GET hotter here what !!

[Kuroo 4:01 P.M.] the beach might be boilin dude will there even be a beach left for us to go to....

[Bokuto 4:02 P.M.] DONT JINX IT!!!!!

—

"...despite the cold front that was meant to come, the temperatures are still astronomical. Tokyo is currently under Japan's hottest heatwave in all its history," drones the weatherman, who's looking at the broadcasted with a masked dread. "Everyone, stay inside until this heatwave passes. If you have to be outside, wear loose clothes and stay as hydrated as possible. Avoid staying outside for too long, especially if you are eldery—"

Kuroo peels his shirt off his back, uncomfortably damp with sweat. The weatherman isn't saying it, but it's clear as day on screen— the cold front didn't redirect, or gradually vanish. The blue lines are sweeping over Tokyo. The cold front is here.

Yet the temperatures haven't dropped. They haven't touched 30 degrees in weeks. Just in the past few days it's finally passed 40s and it's stillincreasing. At some point they might as well call a state of emergency for the city of Tokyo, if not the entire prefecture. There's never been a heatwave like this before.

Scrunching his nose, Kuroo gazes towards his open window. The sky is a pristine blue, completely cloudless. The sun leers in the sky just beyond the window frame, like an angry eye.

If it's only going to get hotter, he thinks fleetingly, then this could technically be called the cold front.

The thought feels like a resignation. Not groundbreaking, earth-shattering. He slumps back, head hitting the edge of the couch. Every scheduled event in Tokyo has already been postponed or cancelled altogether for the overhanging threat of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. He's got the itching feeling that public transports going to roll to a stop, and, eventually, everything else. How can you even stop a city like Tokyo?

If it gets hotter, what can they even do? Leave? Will everyone in Tokyo be evacuated, relocated?

The image makes his chest churn. He reaches for the remote and changes the channel.

—

Days pass. The temperature increases by three more degrees. It's catastrophic.

So, faced with an indiscernible future and nothing to do, he does what he does best.

He goes to Kenma's.

"Cars are overheating the second they turn on and it's practically dangerous to walk around, even to public transport, which just are functionally giant ovens now. What the hell are we meant to do?" Kuroo drawls, knocking his head against the bed frame, fanning himself with a roll of magazines as a substitute for a paper fan. The walk here didn't last longer than two minutes, but its under direct sun. The back of his neck feels like it's fried. He's gotten smarter about it, though, and brought an obscene amount of water for the walk. The bottle sits half empty next to his thigh.

Kenma looks... miserably resigned, maybe, like this is inevitable. His hair is permanently stringy from sweat, pulled back into the worlds shittiest and smallest pony tail to keep it from hanging in front of his face. A wet rag is draped around his neck, too— he minutely pats the sides of his face with it. Out of everything, the heat has yet to pry his console from his fingers.

"Melt." After a couple of powerful button punches, he glances to him. "If it becomes a national emergency maybe they'll send helicopters." He looks up in thought though his thumbs still fly across the console. "Helicopters can overheat, right?"

"Definitely." Once his arm grows tired, Kuroo lays the magazines over his face. The coated paper is slightly cool. Truthfully, it takes every ounce of his dignity to keep from smushing it into his face right now. "I'm a little insulted it's not a national emergency yet. Do people need to start dropping like flies for the government to consider doing anything?"

"Trick question. The situation needs to be unsalvageable before those in power takes notice. So. Maybe after a few hundred die and the city's on fire. Or until it wrecks some important business man's company."

Kuroo's eyebrows raise. Lolls his head back until he's looking at him upside down from beneath the magazines. "Heavy stuff, Kozume."

A victorious 8-bit jingle erupts from the switch in Kenma's hands. His eyes are sharp when he glances from over the top of it. "Lev may have been right for once, honestly— don't tell him I said that. I'll know if you do. But we could possibly be in this mess all because some rich man was thinking about how to increase production in some unethical way. We could feasibly be in a miniature greenhouse-dome if some factories let out some kind of advanced pollution all for the gains of a single man."

"I don't think there's a kind of pollution out there that can do something like that, especially to this magnitude— and to be so undetected prior? It just can't happen," Kuroo points out, motioning with the magazines, "and if anything, I don't think something that corrupt would happen here first. I'd maybe believe it if it first showed up in America."

"Doesn't matter where, the rich are to never be trusted."

"I'm going to pester you about this conservation if you become wealthy."

"If I become wealthy enough to actually have an impact on the carbon footprint, I'd want you to snipe me."

"Kenma!" Kuroo smacks his leg, scandalized. "Are you just moody because of the weather?"

Blatantly he is ignored. "Either way, you're right. This whole situation should be impossible. Even climate change couldn't just do this. There would've been some obvious kind of... sign, maybe."

"Even with a sign, it doesn't make sense that its thirty degrees in Chiba, yet it's almost fifty here." Begrudgingly, he pulls himself upright, tossing the magazines to the side. "It's only Tokyo! Just us! If it's not climate change, then what else could it be?"

Kenma shrugs, half invested. "Maybe this is how we're repenting."

Kuroo sneers. "Like this is happening because of some god? Of course you would think that, you've only been playing Fire Emblem recently..."

Raising an eyebrow, Kenma very pointedly does not look at him, focused on the game. Which is Fire Emblem. Go figure. "Well? Do you have a better explanation? Even Fukunaga said it's supernatural. That makes more sense than a selective global warming."

He slumps against the bed frame again, feeling a crick grow in his lower spine. The supernatural. He'd like to call bullshit, but at this point, what else would make sense? But— what would it be? He's not exactly religious, so he sure as hell doesn't know what kind of Shinto god has capabilities like this. Maybe some street-side shrine's god? Maybe not even that... Maybe something with its already established god-like statue?

A statue...

A snort bubbles in his throat. He has to stamp it down before he can start full-out cackling, but it still trickles out when he speaks. "Tammy would do it, that bastard— the amusement park's mascot statue. I told you about that thing, right? Suspicious as hell. If supernatural were real, that would have its own conscious."

He doesn't need to look to know that Kenma's face is twisting up in a scowl. "Tammy Tanuki. You think Tammy Tanuki would smite all of Tokyo."

"Y'know what, it's possible!" Kuroo sits up straight again, pressing his hands on his lower back to pop it. "Bo 'n I did throw coins at it! Ain't that disrespectful? Hah, imagine that! A silly amusement park statue saying fuck you to all of us because Bo landed a sick trick on it." He grins, recalling the catch of breath, holding, watching as that final coin soared through the air. That video he took was incredible, too. Two hooligans screeching, the video inconceivably blurry as they celebrated. It's almost like those bottle-flipping videos, but cooler! He should posted that to some other social media rather than just his instagram.

He wonders how Bokuto's fairing. Is he still taking care of Petunia, even in this sweltering heat? Is he putting enough sunscreen on if he does go outside?

It's... been a while since he's seen him.

A toe jabs right into the soft part of his neck abruptly. "I did not let you come over so you could mope and pine."

Jolting, Kuroo twists around, batting at Kenma's foot. "What? I am not pining. Or moping. Where the hell did you get that from?"

Kenma glances at him for a long moment,. "You're denying it."

"Of course I would, because I'm not?" "Then why would you bring up the amusement park? Sounds like pining to me."

Appalled, Kuroo sputters, "Pining for Tammy Tanuki? That thing appears in my dreams sometimes to haunt me, I'd be insane to pine for it. I literally just called it a bastard, too! Is your brain turning to mush?"

The look Kenma gives him makes him look like he's aged fifteen years in two seconds. It's the bone-deep-exasperation look he usually has around Lev, so, to say the least, he's a little hurt it's being used on him. "Kuro," he says, not even trying to school his expression into something more neutral, the asshole, "sometimes, I realize how much of a miracle it is you're academically smart, 'cause you're not smart otherwise."

"What?! Kenma—"

"Are you purposely being stupid?" Kenma sets down his switch in a way that's both gentle and irritated. From the quick glimpse, the screen's off. Instinctively Kuroo tenses. "I saw that wistful look on your face. You weren't thinking about the damn tanuki statue. You were thinking about Bokuto, weren't you?"

It sounds like an accusation. It sits heavily in the base of his gut. "I was, but why—?"

"Do I really need to spell it out?"

Kuroo's mouth is drier than it has been all week, all month. He tries to grin, tries to have some semblance of control, but its wobbly. "You might need to, because I'm not catching your drift."

Something glances across Kenma's face, but it's gone as soon as it shows. "You're pining over Bokuto, Kuro. Why else would you think about the amusement park? Don't give me the bullshit that it's Tammy Tanuki."

His heart misses a couple of beats.

"I— actually was thinking about Tammy first, though—?" he scrambles, because he's lost all purchase, Kenma's swiping out from beneath his feet—

"I don't care about that," Kenma scowls, "Even if you were, you still are pining over Bokuto. You literally just sat here, in my room, talking about Bokuto looking like a nut job in public, with some kind of lovestruck grin on your face. The audacity."

Kuroo's reeling. Mentally, physically, spiritually— he feels like he just got hit by a truck six times over. One second, he's thinking about how, hah-hah, maybe it's that stupid tanuki statue that caused a miniature global warming that scales the Tokyo prefecture, how funny would that be, and then, he's being told he's— he's in love? How the hell is he meant to recover from this? What the fuck? What the fuck?

A look settles on Kenma's face, some kind of expression that feels too soft. The turmoil is probably visible on his own. "We're going to melt to death eventually, you gotta say something."

"There's nothing to say!" Distraught, Kuroo turns away. His neck is more than just hot. He's burning. It makes sense. Does it? Is he in love with— Shit, it's, he's burning up hotter than it is outside, he's going to actually fucking scorch—

Chest tight, he tries focusing on outside because he's going to combust if he thinks of anything else. Blue sky, cloudless, shriveling trees, heat rising from the pavement—

Flashing in his head, the sun shining through the dotted clouds in the sky, coins glittering as they streaked through the air, striking like a gong, boisterous laughter—

Even if it may have possibly been that single moment that caused all of this, he wouldn't trade it for the world. Even if he angered some silly statue, chain-reaction causing a heatwave so violent there may be no recovery, he wouldn't.

The cicadas drone outside, so, so loud. He can feel the heat seeping in from outside, rolling in like a heavy wave from the windows. It trickles up his back, like sweat running backwards, and he. He.

He...

He stands abruptly, startling Kenma. For a moment he just stands and stares at nothing, thoughts lethargic but churning, churning in his head and oh my god.

"Kuro?" Kenma says somewhere, distantly, though he's just inches away. It feels like fuzz in his ears. Gauze. Cotton.

"I," Kuroo breathes, stumbling, "I, uhm. I have to... go." He turns, almost lurching, towards the door. He can't believe it. He can't believe it.

He's not thinking straight in the slightest, he realizes, as he slips his shoes on with a single shove. He's had his whole way of thinking just torn apart and reconstructed in the last two minutes, and, and what the hell is he doing. Plowing past the door, he staggers, it's like stepping into a brick wall of hot. It only stills him for a moment, but he keeps going, he may just disintegrate if he stops. There's clatter behind him and he thinks it's Kenma— if he can even move fast enough— and he makes it to the end of the yard before something nails him in the spine.

"Fuck—!" Kuroo shrieks, hands flying to his back. The point of impact on his back is strangely chilly, and he turns to see a cold water bottle sitting idly on the pavement.

"Are you an idiot?" Kuroo jerks, looking up, and there's Kenma at the doorway of his house, looking more frazzled than he has in hours— no, days. Even the agitation of the prior conversation holds no candle to the expression Kenma's got on his face now. Hand braced against the door frame, he looks like he's physically repulsed from stepping outside, but one step from lurching out and tearing Kuroo's head off his shoulders. Completely sapped of energy, too, just from the movement. "Huh? Did your brain melt out of your ears? Did it?"

Personally, he thinks this kind of assault is uncalled for. He's already been attacked not even minutes ago, come on. Sputtering, Kuroo bends to snatch the bottle from the ground. The condensation from the bottle evaporates almost immediately from the pavement. "Hey—"

"I don't know what you just thought of that was sooo urgent," Kenma bites, knuckles growing white as his agitation rises, "but did you really think you could last even a minute out here without water? Without an umbrella? Huh? We just talked about cars overheating, what the hell makes you think you can just sprint out here!"

He freezes. The heat weighs down on him, horribly overwhelming. He can feel his skin sizzling under the sun. Thinks he can hear it, too. "I..."

What the hell is he doing? Running from Kenma and his horrible confrontations? Running to Tammy Tanuki, maybe, to reconcile, beg forgiveness, please-return-the-temperatures-to-normal?

Running to Bokuto?

Kenma doesn't even give him the chance to gather his thoughts. "I don't care, it's hot." He reaches somewhere behind the door, grabbing for something— and Kuroo only has the briefest moment to catch the umbrella that's lobbed at him. Kenma points threateningly, "Whatever it is, get on with it, but be safe, you idiot, go get more water. Tell me about it later. Get out of the sun. Go before that water bottle becomes lukewarm."

Kuroo's mouth snaps shut. He nods, because that's all he can do, and turns heel and goes.

—

"How willing are you to do something that's dubiously illegal with me?" Kuroo blurts, words falling out of his mouth as he clutches himself upright on the door frame. Seconds pass and he's very, very hypersensitive of every single drop of sweat on him currently, rolling and dripping straight off him and onto the welcome mat below.

All Bokuto can really do is gape. His hair's loose of gel yet pinned back by a bright yellow clip, though stubborn strands still hang against his forehead. It looks unbelievably soft. The sleeveless shirt he's got on settles awkwardly along his neck, like he's been pulling at it to air it out, absolutely drenched in sweat. There's a spot of blue near the corner of his mouth that he can only assume is from an ice pop he may have had a while ago.

God. Even like this he is an absolute sight for sore eyes. It's been how long since he's last seen him? Two weeks? Three? Even with the recent revelations, he's. He's just glad to see him again.

Bokuto's mouth opens and closes three separate times before he settles on: "Can I even ask what dubious means?"

"I'm sure you get the context clues," Kuroo says, not quite snappish. Is he meant to repeat himself in this situation? Bokuto heard him loud and clear, yet, yet he's not saying anything. He fiddles with the umbrella nervously, unsure of how to keep going. It's unintentional, but his absent motions drags Bokuto's attention to it.

Bokuto glances past him, to where the heat rising from the pavement is visible, the browning foliage, and then back, a distraught look twisting on his face. "Jesus, Tetsu, did you— did you walk in this? How in the hell—"

"I've got an idea," he cuts off, leaning in as if it's a secret, "I think I know it! What started all of this shit— the catalyst."

"The huh?" Bokuto echoes, looking more and more confused with each passing second. The furrow in his eyebrow disturbs the sweat resting upon his forehead and slide down his temples. He's looking at Kuroo like he's lost his mind. Well— who wouldn't?

This. This is really not how Kuroo had hoped this would go. He's not exactly sure how this was gonna go, but this— this is not it.

"It was Tammy Tanuki," he plows on before he can lose face. Runs a hand through his bangs to slick them back but they just flop back over his forehead in a gross greasy mass. The empty water bottle in his hand crinkles with the motion. "We— It— Whenever we went to the park, I think it was throwing the coins at the statue. This all started after that day, didn't it? Right? The heatwave?"

Bokuto just looks completely lost at what to even think. "The heatwave? Tammy caused the heatwave?"

"Well— no, not—" he stumbles on his words, choking in his chest, "Christ, I dunno. Maybe? Remember— remember what I said about the coins, and if you landed them in a place they weren't meant to be, it'd piss Tammy off? I was totally bullshitting you, but, but I dunno, it— it's possible. With how fucked up this whole situation is, Tammy being behind all of it honestly could make some kinda sense. So maybe, if we were to, I dunno, get the coin off from Tammy's nose, then maybe? We'd be forgiven? If it's Tammy at all causing this heatwave..."

Once the words finish spilling from his mouth, he has to bite down on his lip to keep from rambling and sounding more like an idiot than he already is. Kuroo swallows thickly, running the back of his wrist under his chin.

God. This is all so fucking ridiculous, but— but this is all he's got. It's silly to think all of this rests on the shoulders of two stupid teenage boys who were just goofing off but. But...

Bokuto scrunches his nose, narrows his eyes. "I knew Tammy was fuckin' suspicious."

Kuroo, if he were a little more exhausted than he already is, could have cried right here and right now. Instead he just folds over and lets out probably the loudest laugh of his life.

—

"This is very illegal." Bokuto's voice almost wavers as he watches Kuroo vault over the fence. He isn't super successful, slick with an ungodly amount of sunscreen, doesn't land very gracefully, but hey, he's over.

"Dubiously illegal," Kuroo corrects, curses, flapping his hand from the sting of the hot metal. Any longer, and his skin might've been seared right off. The sun, hanging above their heads, is fucking vile. He can feel the heat rising from the pavement and it's scorching his damn legs. Doesn't help that the two of them just walked an abysmal distance in this goddamn heat, stopping every five minutes to rest and refresh and AUGH, his legs are already tired—

"I still don't know what that means," he whines, fidgeting. "Akaashi would kill both of us if he knew we were doing this. Without a doubt. I think I can hear him on his way over to come knock our heads off."

"All the more reason we should just hurry in," Kuroo reaches over the fence, motioning for the umbrella. "He wouldn't break in just to scold us, right? So if we're in, he wouldn't be able to kill us just yet."

"Yeah, but..." he passes the umbrella and grabs hold of the bars, wincing. While his climb over is awkwardly clunky, he does manage to land on his feet unlike Kuroo who nearly landed on his face. Once he lets go of the bars, he lets out a howl of pain, planting his hands on his thighs, then grumbles again when his hands burn the skin. "It's the yet! 'Kaashi would be waiting for us by the time we get out! We'll be trapped in here until the actual police come and get us! He might spare me, but I think he might actually beat you up, Tetsu."

"What! Why me?" He slips to Bokuto's side, putting both of them shoulder to shoulder to stay in the umbrella's shade. He's painfully aware Akaashi thinks he's a pain-in-the-ass, but damn, to actually be clobbered? Akaashi doesn't exactly look the beefiest, not like Bokuto, but regardless he's still an athlete. If he's unhinged, Kuroo's life might actually be in danger.

Bokuto doesn't really meet his eye when he shrugs. Weirdly enough, he gets the idea.

"I mean, you did just drag me along to commit a crime..."

"It's not a crime if no one finds out!"

With almost too much force, Bokuto nudges him with his shoulder, bubbling with laughter. Kuroo tries to save face but totally ends up stumbling almost completely face first onto the pavement. "Man, you're meant to be the more reasonable out of the two of us! How am I meant to argue with that?"

He's missed it. God, he's missed it.

Belatedly, he realizes just how quiet it is out here when Bokuto's impossibly loud laugh echoes through the park. He hears the tail end of it once, twice, then it's gone, and the dead silence of the air takes its place.

It's very strange to walk through the park when it's completely empty. There's no hum of rollercoasters, no jeers of children, no peppy tinny background music blaring over the speakers. Even stranger, their conversation tapered off almost immediately, and Kuroo's not sure if it's because it's too hot to talk, or there's a reason his hearts fluttering somewhere in his throat.

The path to the pond is not long. Now cleared of the usual human traffic and their brisk pace (the pavement's hot as hell, shit), they stand at the fence to the pond in minutes flat. The pond's half full— no, not even— probably a quarter full, most of its evaporated out by this point. The special theatrical arcs of water are no longer running, though the gleaming of coins beneath the statue light it up in its own kind of horrible theatrics.

Tammy looks strangely lonely out in the middle of the pond. Maybe, also, like a caged beast.

Peering from the corner of his eye, he sees Bokuto's just staring out to Tammy. There's a challenging look in his eye and it starkly reminds him of the first time they stood here, armed with coins and the air twenty degrees cooler. He bites his tongue.

"Well," he starts, inhaling deeply.

"All we gotta do is just find those coins, right?" Bokuto says clearly like it's nearly the easiest thing in the world, the single answer to all the problems. He grins to Kuroo, and honestly, maybe he's right. Anything is possible, especially with this kind of attitude, especially with Bokuto by his side. "No need to waste time standing around!" he hollers, his voice echoing, echoing. Without any warning, he swings his leg over the short fence, and begins his descent.

Blistering hot. It's abysmal. Jesus fuck, how the hell is the water not boiling yet. Kuroo breathes in deeply, steels his nerves. Even with his shoes still on— the dark polyester of the pond bottom looks like it will sear his foot right off— nothing will be able to sooth this scalding. He's glad the water only reaches his calfs. Any higher and he may just wimp out.

Water had seemed so kind, a sanction in this hell, he almost dreamed about wading in it— but this is horrible.

Splash.

"Holy fuck!"

Kuroo turns— Bokuto's hopping foot to foot, wincing 'hot! hot!' with every step. Probably seconds away from lunging back out of the water. "How the hell are you not— not dying?" Bokuto cries, eyes squished tight as he rises an inch, on his tippy toes.

"It's the perk of already being hot," Kuroo winks, and grimaces. "That was awful. Sorry. I am trying really hard not to yell right now. It's not all that different from a jacuzzi, right? Just. A couple degrees hotter."

"Tetsu," Bokuto says warily, frowning as he trudges behind, umbrella up and opened in his hand, "Are— Are you sure about this? Man, I can't tell your mom that I willingly let you roast like a turkey in a big ole pond—"

"You're roasting with me, how would you even tell my mom?" He retorts automatically. Then, momentarily, he bites his tongue, hesitating.

He's... He's really just dragging Bokuto out here, isn't he? Making him walk with him in near catastrophic temperatures, where plants have shriveled and traffic cones have melted— All under the pretense of 'just trust me'? If Bokuto had shown up at his house, telling him to come cross the city in this sweltering heat, he—

...what would he have done?

"You... don't have to do this with me," he says belatedly as he slows to a stop. The words sit awkward in his tongue, regretful, "I know this kinda sucks— er, really sucks— so you... don't have to."

Bokuto blinks at him owlishly, pausing. Fear builds up in his throat, and momentarily, he thinks Bokuto might actually take the offer and leave. He's been talking about how dangerous it is to be out here, how risky it is. Of course he doesn't want to be here. What the hell was he thinking? Kuroo would honestly not be surprised if he left at this point.

He's not sure he'd be able to convince himself to stay out here without Bokuto by his side.

"Well!" he puffs up, finally reaching Kuroo and covering him in the red-tinted shade of the umbrella, "I can't let you roast out here alone! Plus, if what you're sayin' is right, it is kinda also my fault that this whole heatwave shit happened. So I'm here!"

In the red coloring cast, the pink of Bokuto's sun burn almost looks like blush.

Kuroo doesn't get a chance to stare longer when Bokuto swivels to look at him, somehow beaming in this temperature. "Besides, who else would hold up the umbrella?"

Groaning, Kuroo shoves him but he's grinning, grinning so wide. His stomach's all warm and he knows it's not just the weather causing it. "Letting me do all the grunt work, huh! I see what's going on!"

"I mean, you did say that you're resilient to heat because you're already hot!" he counters, cheeky. Kuroo gasps.

"I can't believe you! Using my own words against me—! Where the hell did you learn the word resilient?"

He glitters. "I knew that one myself!"

Once again, the imposing figure of Tammy Tanuki towers over them. Looming more and more as they approach. Christ, it's bigger up close than he thought. Tammy's just eerie now, with the lack of theatrics and children's laughter in the distance, with hard shadows casted across its face from the sun's harsh angle.

The two of them are so tiny compared to it, it's almost like two unbelievers standing before an angry god. Once that image crosses Kuroo's mind, he really has to bite down to keep from snorting.

The umbrella tips back, too far back, and the unyielding sun nearly blinds him. "Bo, man, what—" he sputters, throwing his hands up to at least save his eyes.

"It's not there!" Bokuto blurts, boggled. He quickly readjusts the umbrella, but his eyes don't stray from the tanuki's face. Kuroo follows, perplexed, and—

The coin's no longer balanced on the stubby nose.

It feels like a joke. He waits and waits but the coin does not reappear, does not come out of hiding. He quickly skims the entire structure for— for anywhere it could've landed, if it was knocked off by the wind or something, but there's nothing except the water below.

Kuroo clicks his tongue, stomach plummeting. "Well. Shit. That just made things harder."

"I... I can't believe it..." mourning, Bokuto trudges closer to the statue, stopping right where it starts becoming a mine-field of scorching hot coins. His eyes don't leave the tanuki's nose once, like he's desperately watching, waiting for it to reappear. "My... my sick trick... my trick shot... gone..."

For a painstakingly long moment, Kuroo feels like it's all in vain. It takes an even longer moment to even think of something positive about this situation. Something that isn't... well. Making this a waste of time. "Well," Kuroo starts, trickling, coming up with it as he goes. Slaps a hand on Bokuto's shoulder blade to perk him up, maybe. "I was worried that one of us was gonna have to climb Tammy. That woulda caused more damage than breaking in. Just another charge to add on if we're caught. It's gotta be around the statue somewhere."

Unbelieving, Bokuto motions to the coins scattered around the statue. "But— there's a billion coins over here! There's no way we'll find the one you gave me!"

His feet already ache just thinking about how long he's gonna be standing in this water, ankles scalding from boiling water. Who in their right minds started the whole tradition of throwing coins in ponds for good luck? He's going to throttle whoever it was. Asshole. "Ain't no one else gonna be throwing a five-hundred yen into here but us. And even if there are others five-hundreds, then ours would be the one closest to the statue, right? Since it was probably knocked off by the wind?"

Bokuto halts so suddenly Kuroo thinks he can hear the whiplash. "You gave me a five-hundred yen to throw?" Suddenly Bokuto's wide, earnest eyes are pinned on him. It's a bit much. He leans towards Kuroo, pressing, peering at him even when he turns away. "You— Did you believe I could make it that much? You betted that much on me?"

"I didn't have any other change!" he flushes, "I mean, I knew if you had an unlimited amount of coins you would've made it at some point, and I thought what the hell—" He lengthens his stride, ducking from beneath the umbrella, just so Bokuto won't see how embarrassingly pink his face just got. However, his friend's an absolute hardhead, dearly stubborn, and easily matches his pace.

"Tetsuuu," he coos, nearly too gleeful with the information he's just obtained. "You did have faith in me! I can't believe it— you said I wouldn't make it, but all along—!!"

"Who's Bokuto Koutarou? I don't know who that is," Kuroo says loudly, mockingly, crouching down and quickly darting his hands in the water to scoop up coins. Fucking Owch— like he thought, the coins are scorching hot, even worse with the water. They clink almost musically as he rifles through them quickly. None of the coins show the arcade's logo, none of them that dull brass. Grimacing, he puts them aside, plop plop plop into the water.

He knew, but this... This is going to take forever.

There's a shuffle beside him, and to his surprise Bokuto crouches down too, arm brushing against his shoulder. He dips his hand into the water and takes his pick, though he immediately drops them out of his palm whenever they start searing into it, wincing.

Kuroo pauses to raise an eyebrow. "I thought you were the designated umbrella-holder?"

Cheeks puff up in a pout, Bokuto tries again. "It's boring just standing here. I can't let you do all the work, y'know. I've got to find that five-hundred yen and treasure it, it's the symbol of your faith in me—"

"Oh god, no more," Kuroo whines, knocking his elbow into Bokuto's side. Somehow, Bokuto's unbalanced enough that the nudge is enough to nearly teeter him into the water, so he quickly latches onto Kuroo before he can truly eat shit.

"Bro, be merciful! I think I'll instantly boil if I fall in," he cries. His grip is tight on Kuroo's forearm, fingers digging into pink skin, burning slightly with the hot water.

"Not my fault you're all wobbly," Kuroo grins, though it's uneven itself, crooked and goopy. He's not sure if he's imagining it, not sure, but he swears Bokuto's hand lingers longer than it should, grip firm yet softening. He's looking too deeply into it. Fuck, Kenma put all of this shit into his head, 'liking' Bokuto, and it's, it's— it's making him more skittish, more jumpy. He's gonna see things that aren't there, now that his world's rearranged and slotted back into place. It's embarrassing, they're really close to each other, Bokuto's shoulder occasionally brushing his, his ears bright pink, his stupid, stupid—

God, he might love him.

He turns back to the coins, gently pulling his arm from Bokuto's hand. Like a fucking coward, he does not look back.

And, after a brief moment, though it seems much longer with how double-timed Kuroo's heart is beating, Bokuto resumes the motions as well.

It's hot. Even with the umbrella, even with the sunscreen, he feels like he's fucking melting, standing in this stupid pool of water, crouching, shuffling through hundreds of steaming hot coins in steaming hot water, looking for some silly arcade coins, for the silly five-hundred yen.

The sun now peeks between the trees along the skyline, which is the only way to tell they've been at this for more hours than necessary. Now that the sun isn't directly overhead, no longer boiling the water and scorching the skin, they've reduced to kneeling and the umbrella idles in the water, abandoned. The air, however, is still stagnant with heat. Fucking humidity. His shirt is soaking wet and he has barely even touched the water's surface with it.

Maybe it's been two hours, or four. He's got no goddamn clue. All he knows is that they've got seven of the nine arcade coins and no five-hundred yen. If it's been two hours, then that's at least three coins an hour average. So another hour, and hopefully, probably, he'd have them all. But if it's been four...

My brain's too mushed to think about this, he relents, rocking back on his heels to press his palms into his eyes. It's going to melt out of my ears. It's not even that hot anymore.

He presses his thumbs in harder until colors flicker across his vision. Who am I kidding. It's still hot. It's never not gonna be hot.

Behind him, there's the telltale plops of coins into the water. A dejected sigh. Kuroo's stomach folds in on itself, so he sticks his hand back into the water to distract himself.

They've been working in a silent tandem this whole, which is so unlike them it pulls at Kuroo's stomach. Not a peep from either one of them. No jests, no snickers, no roughhousing. At this point, he's not going to lose it because he's been sifting through hundreds of coins for hours on end, but from how much the silence is killing him.

He just— hopes things will turn back to how they were before, even if they manage to get all of the coins or not.

"Hey, Tetsu," Bokuto says absently, swirling his hand in the water rather than picking up more. Full-bodied, Kuroo jumps, but quickly tries to compose himself though his shoulders remain tense. He hums, not trusting his voice— it will warble, he knows. His fingers are pruny and no longer sting from the hot metal of the coins.

"Tetsu," Bokuto repeats. Finally he looks up, his eyes are trained to the water, glassy. The coins reflect the dying sunlight onto his face, the lights dancing with the water's movement. Kuroo's never seen him this still before.

"Hm?" he barely manages, the noise caught in his throat. If it didn't feel so off, he'd bask in this image of Bokuto, soft edges even rounder, a polite orange coloring his cheekbones.

The brief pause echoes a lot louder than it should, with the lack of, well... everything, around them. Bokuto takes in a breath. It's the most defeated sound he's ever heard come from him.

"We should probably just... go back."

Kuroo straightens up from his stooped crouch. Unexpected, is what he'd like to call it, but he's had the inkling sitting low in his chest this whole time. "Wh— We've nearly gotten all the arcade coins, and the yen's gotta be here somewhere!" When he presents his hand, where he's had the coins clutched, the arcade symbol's in red impressions on his palm. He sounds desperate. Fuck, he doesn't want to, but he is.

It's just— if they leave, he feels like it'll all be over.

"I mean—" ahh, he didn't notice— he didn't realize how aggravated Bokuto is about the prospect of giving up. Didn't catch the growing frustration in his movements. "It's just... we've cleared most of the pond already, and it's been a while since either of us found one, and I know I was just kidding about it earlier, but I think your mom's actually gonna call the police if we're here longer."

He wants to protest it, but honestly, who's he fooling? The yen was already gone from Tammy's nose. His whole theory was riding on the fact that it was resting up there. But it's gone. Not even there. And if it that was the whole catalyst, then what the hell are they doing out here?

Kuroo breathes in shallowly. Once, twice. Gathers his will. "Alright," he says, standing. Disrupting the stillness around him, the swish of water from his movement is jarringly loud— he didn't think he stood up that abruptly, but huh, maybe he did. Jesus, he needs to get himself under control."Okay. Yeah. We... We should go."

There's a complete lack of motion from Bokuto.

To keep from losing composure, Kuroo moves to retrieve the umbrella instead, which has idly drifted away. He reaches for the handle only to realize he's still got all seven coins clenched in his hand still. Still. Even subconsciously, he's still hoping. He breathes in deeply— in and in until he can't keep going— exhales.

He lets go of the coins unceremoniously. No need for them, really.

Just as the coins splish into the water, there's a strangled noise from behind him.

"Dude, you—!" blurting, Bokuto leaps to his feet. In a splash that soaks most of Kuroo, he dives straight into the water. Frantically he regathers all the coins Kuroo just dumped, breathing a sigh of relief when they're all in his palm.

Jarred, Kuroo just watches, startled into stillness. The water's lukewarm from where it clings onto his skin. "What are you—?"

As if they're precious to him, Bokuto pulls his hands closer to his chest, cupping the coins like they're delicate. "I mean— I meant!" Choked up. That's the only way he can describe the floundering Bokuto's doing, the thickness of his voice. "I didn't— actually mean give up. I meant for today! It's almost dark and I think we'll become prunes if we stay out here longer, so, we can just— come back tomorrow!"

He's never been this stupefied before, he thinks. Never been this bewildered, this boggled, this what-ever-synonyms-for-shocked-there-is. "Come back tomorrow?" he echoes dumbly, "W— Why? There's no reason to?"

"No reason too—?" Bokuto parrots, squawking, appalled. He sinks lower until he's just sitting in the water, growing more confused. "Dude, we didn't even get all of them yet! We have to get them all, don't we?"

"It's not even worth it to get them all." Admitting it out loud— he can't tell if it's a relief or not. It's a resignation, and it's pulling at his guts.

The furrow between Bokuto's eyebrows deepens and deepens.

"Everything I had was literally depending on the coin being there, though," Kuroo stresses, continuing, motioning abortedly towards the statue, "I— I thought Tammy was so pissed that you got the coin there, so once it was off, Tammy wouldn't have reason to cause a catastrophic heatwave! But it's gone, there's still a heat wave, and we've been sitting out here for hours for no reason."

"It's not just for no reason, Tetsu," Bokuto tries, but something's building in Kuroo's chest, clawing higher and higher until its in the top of his throat.

"It was," he croaks, shaking his head, "It was— ridiculous, I can't even believe—" He leans back, back, face tilted up towards the fading sky. "I went out a limb more than anything. Can you believe? I pulled this theory out of my ass since Kenma n' I were talkin' about this whole thing, and I used it as..." He swallows, swallows again, but there's nothing getting past the thickness in his throat. "... as a excuse to see ya."

Bokuto's dead silent in this moment. So still he might not be breathing.

"I'm," Kuroo pauses, almost wheezing, unsure, because Bokuto's not responding, he's not responding, how is he meant to take that? "I'm sorry I, I dragged you out here to roast with me, all for some, some stupid reason. I just. I panicked and..."

Condescendingly, Kenma's voice echoes in his head, 'We're going to melt to death eventually, you gotta say something.' Fuckin' Kenma. He wasn't ready to jump this hurdle yet. He wasn't ever gonna be ready. The words rest on the back of his tongue, refusing to come out or go back down, and he feels like he's gonna puke.

"Tetsurou," Bokuto starts after a beat. Unfaltering. "I'd go anywhere with you."

The world rocks. There's no excuse this time he could possibly come up with for how he flushes. How the hell does he sound so sure—

"I thought," his mouth forms words, but he doesn't say any of them, momentarily unsure. He's silent until he looks Kuroo straight in the eyes. "I thought I maybe fucked up somewhere— been to clingy, maybe freaked you out. 'Kaashi called me out sometimes, saying I was been too much. I dunno! I just like being around you, with you. I was really scared I scared you off."

"You'd. Never scare me off, Bo," Kuroo says, just above a whisper, because, because this sounds like something and he's very scared he might misinterpret.

Bokuto's eyes crease in a smile, dawning. "Sweet!" He says, loudly. It's loud enough it echoes, disrupts the silence that's settled over the park. He winces, sheepish. "Sweet," he tries again, quieter. "So, then, it wouldn't scare you off if I said I liked you?"

Like a blow to the face, Kuroo teeters, dropping into the water with a plop. The ripples wake against Bokuto's knees, making a small personal light show for the brightest thing in his life. "It wouldn't," he says, because christ, he's gonna melt out here. He's gonna dissolve in this water and it's gonna be so embarrassing.

Rushing out a relief breath, Bokuto eases. He didn't notice his shoulders were hitching up in tension. "Cool," he says, giddy, jumpy. "Sweet. Awesome. That's great. 'cause I like you."

Laughter bubbles out of his throat, though it's wet and gooey and he might've hiccuped by the end of it. "Don't say that so easily, you big doof," Kuroo says thickly, resting back into the water.

Unfair. Bastard. How unfair, he can say kinda stuff and not have his whole world tremor.

Pressing his hands over his face to keep from growing pinker, Kuroo breathes. Maybe he can drown before he makes more of a fool of himself.

"Wanna come over?" he suggests, muffled by his palms. His stomach's fluttering like he's asking something risky. Like he's asking for a first date. Silly. Ridiculous. They've been on plenty already, haven't they? "I've got some of your spare clothes at home. We've got ice pops, too."

From the stomach, Bokuto laughs, something chime-y and wonderful. He presses his palm against Kuroo's stomach, pushing him, and he jerks to smack at his hand. "D'ya even need to ask?" he says, doughy.

Backlit by the setting sunlight, Bokuto's probably the best thing he's ever seen in his damn life.

"I just hope Akaashi's not waiting by the park gates," he admits sheepishly when he pulls Kuroo upright. Throughout the park, Kuroo's laugh echoes, scratchy, loud, but it's the loveliest.

Behind them, Tammy Tanuki shrinks and shrinks, then disappears in the distance.

—

"Can I get a Bubbles pop? Ah, actually— two of them?"

Resting his elbows on the wood of the counter, Kuroo looks out to the ocean. The edge of the sea, dotted with the bright colors of people, blends near seamlessly with the sky.

"Here you go," the teenager says, handing him the popsicles. She's not the pink-haired one from the stand by the riverside, but she's got the same charming smile. Must be an ice-cream stand employee requirement.

Thanking her, he steps out from the awning onto piping hot sand. Unbelievably hot sand. Jesus fuck. He doesn't hop on his toes, not quite— he couldn't even salvage his dignity if he did. A mere couple minutes in the shade, and he's already lost his numbness to the heat. He wishes he brought sandals or something. His toes fucking hurt.

God. Where did his damn immunity go? He managed two weeks in a catastrophic heatwave, why the hell is hot sand his downfall?

It's, frankly, quite wild that just last week Tokyo was on the edge of becoming a giant hot pot. Literally one of the most extreme heatwaves on the planet— relative to location, of course— nearly closing down the entire city to a stillness.

And, somehow, within a two day period, the temperature in Tokyo plummeted from near fifty degrees to a helluva-lot-more-tolerable thirty. A month long disaster, cleaned up and wiped away in two days. Ridiculously unbelievable. But hey, it's whatever. It took a while for everything to get back onto its feet— train tracks were still cautiously looked after, and things that had melted had to be repaired or replaced. But everything's crawling back to normal.

And for the first time in nearly a month, he's actually willingly standing in the sunlight.

Growth.

Fuckin' Tammy Tanuki, he thinks, idly strolling back to their spot. What a rat bitch.

"Ah— Tetsurou!!"

Mid-motion he turns and proceeds to get blinded on the spot. He has to throw his hands up to block the sun, what the fuck, the motherfucker's bright, but it's awkward to try and block it with the ice pops in his hands—

A hand shoots up into the air and waves around haphazardly until it casts a shadow over his eyes, the palm blocking the sun for the most part. It momentarily helps but the fact that it keeps moving and light keeps peeping through his fingers generally makes it useless. Laughter bubbles from his throat, giddy, and Kuroo smacks Bokuto on his shoulder whenever he's close enough. "You're not helping much, bud."

Bokuto puffs his cheeks out, smushing his hand over Kuroo's eyes. "At least I tried!" His hands are grossly sweaty and gritty at the same time, a really weird feeling on his face, so Kuroo tries prying his hands off, snorting. In retaliation— just because he can— Bokuto presses both his hands on his face, squishing his nose. Then he halts very abruptly. Peeling Bokuto's hands off his face, he sees that all focus is directed to what's in his hand. "Dude, is that what I think it is?"

Cheekily, Kuroo presents the ice pops with flourish, bowing with an arm extended, holding Bokuto's long-desired Bubbles pop. "You betcha."

With how loud Bokuto's gasp is you woulda thought he'd be proposing. "B-Bro," he says, watery. He takes it with certain kind of gentleness Kuroo didn't think he had in him.

Knocking his own pop against his, Kuroo grins, "Wouldn't be a proper trip if we didn't have ice cream, right?"

Momentarily there's no response from Bokuto. An expression's on his face that's a little indiscernible— a little too heartfelt. It's very soft on his face. Feather-soft. It makes his pulse rise in this throat, just before a grin splits across Bokuto's face, dispelling the fluttering. "'Course," he says, and he steps close enough to Kuroo to where their elbows and shoulders knock while they walk.

Kuroo tries very, very hard not to go bright red in the face.

Completely ungracefully, Bokuto practically flops straight down onto his towel, disrupting just about everything and sending sand everywhere. Doesn't seem to bother him, though— he fidgets, patting Kuroo's towel with vigor. "C'mon! We gotta open them at the same time!! Tetsu!!"

"Alright, alright," he grins, exasperated, ducking beneath the umbrella and settling onto his towel. The umbrella's just barely big enough for the two of them with their broad shoulders (more like just Bokuto's broad shoulders—), so they're thigh to thigh, elbows and knees knocking together. Bokuto's jittering so much Kuroo can feel his bones vibrate.

Pinching the wrapper, Bokuto looks towards Kuroo, expression bright, eyes creasing. "On the count of three, okay?"

"One, two... three!"

In his vigor Bokuto nearly drops the entire popsicle onto his leg. Side by side, they present them. And like an off switch, Bokuto's smile plummets. With a laugh that grows and grows, Kuroo has to turn away from Bokuto to keep from totally losing it. "No way," Bokuto mutters, sounding so so confused, appalled, and it's sending Kuroo into a fit of laughter again. "They look normal?" Offended, Bokuto squints at the Bubbles pops, eyes roving over each part.

They're the most normal looking Bubbles pops he's ever seen. Didn't even think it was possible to get one that looks normal.

Honestly, it's kinda funny in how ironic it is. "I think its due— after all the misfits we got, there's finally a proper one," Kuroo says placatingly, grinning. He inspects his own— Maybe the gum ball eyes are a little off-centered, but honestly, she's not a monstrosity.

"I want a refund," Bokuto grumbles. Kuroo throws his head back and howls in laughter.

"I knew it, you only want them for the funny-factor," he accuses, leaning heavily against Bokuto until he leans over too, though he's laughing too much to make it sound like a real accusation.

Bokuto looks confused that Kuroo would assume anything else. "It's one of their defining features." Grumpily he pops it in his mouth, munching with such a scowl on his face. It's probably the angriest he's ever eaten ice cream before, and the whole ordeal just Kuroo wheeze.

"Anyways—" Kuroo starts, trying to divert the conversation so that he stops looking so down, "How's the games been going?" He nods towards the net Bokuto had just been playing at. Teenagers currently are bumping the ball across the net with the ease of those who truly don't give a shit who wins or not. One does a spectacular dive to save a ball, getting a mouthful of sand. Unfortunately, the ball does not go far up into the air from their save, sadly hitting the sand with a pomf. The lost point doesn't bring them down, though— everyone's laughing at the mess of sand on the teen's face. Even the teen's laughing, too, practically spewing sand outta their mouth.

"Oh!" Almost too easily, Bokuto brightens up. Takes a huge ass bite from Bubbles's pigtail before speaking. "It sucks ass! Absolute ass! It is impossible to get a good jump! All I've got going for me is that I can still hit it over okay-ish, but it's horrible, man."

"Well, at least it's not solid wood you're diving into." Residual sand is dotted all over Bokuto's face— it would look like freckles if it wasn't so pale. Brushing his palm over Bokuto's cheeks, he really ends up just smudging the sand across on his face, but the flush that grows along his neck is well worth it.

"It's not really any kinder," Bokuto whines, "Like, sure, I'm not breaking my ribs against floorboards, but... but there's sand up my ass."

"Gross."

"SUPER gross!" Shaking the sand from his hair, which has grown willowy with the humid air, he takes another bite from his ice pop. Then he sputters so loudly people walking by glance to make sure he's not dying. "Why! It's everywhere! Everywhere!" he cries, spitting the chunk of ice to the side. When Kuroo looks closer, there's the sprinkling of sand particles all over the remnants of Bubbles.

"That one was totally on you, you doof, you just shook the sand outta your hair with your pop in your hand," Kuroo grins, not sympathetic in the slightest. However, he hands his still-completely-intact Bubbles to Bokuto, who watery blinks at it, mid scrapping the sand off his tongue. "Have mine— I can try to wipe it off of yours in the meantime."

A dopey smile crests across his face. Simply looking at it makes Kuroo flustered, unbearably to the core, so he forcibly switches the pops to look away. "D'aww, Tetsu," Bokuto coos, the affection palpable in his voice. He nudges his elbow into Kuroo's rib, obnoxious, but so fond. "Yer bein' so nice to me. D'ya got a crush on me or somethin'?"

Nonplussed, Kuroo scoops up a handful of sand and reels back, threatening. Bokuto screeches. Bodily turns away, shielding his ice cream. "You wouldn't!" he cowers.

Though having the power is very nice, he lowers his hand because he's a patron saint. "You're right, I'm too nice to ya," he sneers. Smears the sand off the pop with a spare napkin. The napkin does not get the sand off. There's sand on the napkin. Fuckin'— there's sand everywhere.

What else is he expecting? It's the damn beach. Ah. Whatever. He sticks the pop in his mouth. The sand granules scrape against his tongue, but soon enough they're just in his saliva, which he spits out to the side.

Bokuto's nose is scrunched up like he's watching the worst thing occur. His Bubbles pop is already nearly demolished. "Gross. How can you eat sand."

"Didn't," he corrects. The ice cream's sugary sweet now that the sand's out of his mouth.

"You so just did."

"Didn't you eat some earlier?" he prods, grinning a sharp cat's grin. Bokuto bristles full-bodied, embarrassed. "I saw that dive." He whistles, taunting, "Didn't even save it. A whole mouthful of sand, for nothing... Top ace of the country, who?"

Looking like he's five seconds from just leaping at him, Bokuto almost bursts. "I'd like to see you try! Which one of us will eat the most sand! I don't think you'd even be able to block me," he challenges, puffing up, very smug about it.

Kuroo snorts. "Who's the one here who can jump higher? I can block you easy-peasy."

Briefly, Bokuto's momently stilled. Like he's genuinely surprised. Then he leans, far, far into Kuroo's personal space, "You— You're actually gonna come play a round?" he asks, glimmering. The gold of his eyes glitters so brightly, a sparkling so tangible. Even if he wasn't already planning on playing a round, that charm— he'd be convinced in a second. Bokuto could probably convince him to do whatever he wants.

"'Course I will," he says, fondness pulling at his guts. What a volleyball brain. They're at the beach and they haven't even gone in the water once yet. "What else did I come here for?"

He'd go anywhere he'd ask, after all.

"Besides. Gotta show ya how to set properly, after all," smirking, Kuroo stands up briskly, striding out from their little umbrella to leave a gaping Bokuto to scramble after him a second later. In a couple of long strides, Bokuto falls in step with him, bumping their shoulders together. This time, it's his smile blinding him. He might need to wear sunglasses every time he looks at him.

"You're on!"

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#kuroo tetsurou #bokuto koutarou #bokuro #this is my pride and joy #do not take it seriously. its a lil silly #sappy #fluff #italics didn't move over but! not feeling like adding them in rn! go to ao3 lol

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renatlia · 5 years

Text

Dawn of the 1st Day

“Where’d the Time go?”

(Part 1/2)

Sensing a looming danger but no immediate threat, they allowed themselves a moment to regain composure. Whatever magic it was pulling them around had never had such an effect before. While sometimes enough to make one falter, this one in particular left them all with vertigo. The miserable Hero of Legend looked ready to crumble under the migraine he typically was able to grit and bear.

The Hero of the Sky was the first to recover. While working at his friend’s neck in hopes of helping, he tried to assess the situation. They were in a new area, one that somehow felt more ominous than anything he’d ever encountered. An intense, sinister hate that sent shivers up his spine.

Those who needed to rest while crawling dungeons, raiding temples, and being wide open to attack develop a keen sense of atmosphere. The absolute rage radiating from all sides set the party of heroes on high alert.

The sky child was reminded of Demise, and yet, the sensation felt heavier. Personal. The demon king may have had targeted his hatred on the goddess and her hero directly, but he hadn’t originally fought out of hatred. That evil sought power and would only hold anger for those actively in his way. Though the curse had twisted into pure malice by the Hero of the Wild’s era, most reappearances focused primarily on attaining power, the other two reincarnations affected by the curse merely put under surveillance.

“Wasn’t it just past noon?” The question snapped the Skyloftian out of his musings. Glancing back at the clock tower, he found it read 6:07, the scent of dew indicating early morn. The youngest of them was correct. It had been just after lunch when the worlds shifted.

“Odd? That’s never happened before,” the Hero of Twilight grunted.

The area wasn’t familiar at all either, judging by the faces shared amongst his comrades. It raised suspicion. The strong aftereffects of the magic that brought them there, the time of day changing, the storm of emotion that made the humid air even heavier. A gut feeling told him that the shadow they’d been following wasn’t behind this.

“Those construction workers look like my own, but that doesn’t lend much. I mean, we did have to drag away the old man before he spent all his rupees on milk after meeting my era’s Malon,” the most colorful among them smirked.

Unfortunately, the reaction they’d hoped to catch was nonexistent. Their unofficial leader was nowhere to be seen. The notion of anyone getting left behind had to be the most disturbing aspect of the last fifteen minutes. The missing hero’s protege looked beside himself with worry and lost on what to do.

“Look!” The Hero of Ages clapped for attention. “Just because the shift was harsher than usual, it doesn’t mean he got left behind. We’d see him again if he had been anyways. We were brought together for a reason, after all. The old man knows how to take care of himself, and he wouldn’t want us fussing over his absence instead of focusing on the matter at hand.

“Something strange is going on-different than usual, but we can’t panic over the unknown. Let’s split up and ask around. Where are we? What and where is the danger? Has anyone seen the old man? He may have only wandered off. It wouldn’t be the first time any of us had.”

Huh. He sure knew how to boost everyone’s morale. Must come from being a captain where he’s from.

“It would be unlike him to wander?” The Hero of Hyrule spoke up.

“Yeah, but... maybe he knows the place? He could’a gotten caught up in his head and forgot the plot. Okay, we’ll keep an eye out,” the farm hand nodded. He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

The eight left of them paired off to cover more ground. As the saying goes, it’s dangerous to go alone. One pair stayed put as the others went separate ways.

~*~

Link let the young hero wrap himself in the end of his scarf once again, the sudden changes in temperature chilling the island dweller. Having become fairly close, Link found it a small comfort to have the boy near. The teen was more than capable on his own, but something in the air raised the hairs off his neck.

The air cooled further as they passed the threshold to an open playground. The dew had yet to dry from the grass sealing in the night’s chill for a bit longer.

“Tingle!” his excitable friend whispered. He jutted his head towards an odd fellow spinning in place. It was a wonder the guy didn’t get dizzy.

The man, who had to be in his mid to late thirties, wore what Link could only describe as dark red undergarments over a skin-tight, full-body suit of a vibrant green. A hood exposed only his face and came to a point sticking up on the top of his head. Finally clueing Link in to what he was doing, he had a pen and parchment in hand and a compass dangling from his neck.

Okay, a map maker. Spinning explained. Gaudy costume? Still weird.

The little sailor tugged him over by the scarf he had wrapped tightly around his arms and was still firmly tucked around Link’s neck. The “forest fairy” was rather nice if a little bizarre. He told them that he sold maps of current locations at a discount, and so, the pair sat down next to a slide to get a better look at “Clock Town.”

Link frowned. The name tickled something in the back of his mind, and Tingle also seemed vaguely familiar. He quit thinking on it when felt a sharp sting in his neck, which had been happening frequently as of late. He must’ve jumped, because he received a concerned glance that he had to wave off.

Link knew the sting wasn’t a bad thing. He could recall his adventures just fine, but names, faces, and locations had become foggy since meeting the others. He remembered traveling across different eras and meeting many people of legend and myth. He figured out that the sting would stop him from thinking on them, and he pieced together that they were probably people his companions knew on their adventures (and likely lost). The goddesses sure had peculiar ways to protect their heroes. He just hoped the fog would clear once it was all over, feeling a sense of loss over his amnesia.

He blinked to focus on the map. The town was sectioned off in four areas, convenient that they’d paired off. “South Clock Town” held the clock tower with little else but the banker they had passed on their way north. To the west was what looked like an alley for shopping and other errands. The east, however, was far larger and most likely housed the local inn, which Link made a quick mental note of. The playground they were in didn’t have much, but they decided to ask around a bit more before ditching the place.

The little boy shooting darts at a balloon didn’t tell them anything. He had refused to listen to them and yelled at them to leave him alone to his practice. Not wanting to anger the child anymore, they proceeded to speak with the guard positioned at the town exit. After flailing for a moment at having found such a decorated knight in Clock Town, he managed to collect himself enough to direct them towards a cave past where Tingle... had been? “If anything, surely the Great Fairy can guide you!”

Entering the Fairy Fountain was just as refreshing as ever. The temperature was always comfortable no matter the weather outside. A calm would wash over you like a serene spring morning. Tall arches layered in vines surrounded a shallow pool of crystal clear water. The same water cascading down the circular wall parting at the entrance.

Link heard a squawk beside him, and he gasped also catching sight of a swirling cluster of fairies. Typically, there may be three or four fairies milling about at any given time, but there had to be around twenty circling in the center of the fountain.

“Heroes! Please hear my plea!” a warbled voice squealed from the mass. “I have been broken and shattered to pieces by the masked Skull Kid. Please find the one Stray Fairy lost in town, and bring her to this Fairy Fountain.”

Without hesitation, they spun on their heels and sprinted away to hunt down the missing fairy.

~*~

Link sighed as his childhood hero spent another handful of rupees to retry a game for the umpteenth time. For one who treasures his wallet so much, the Hero of Legend sure loved gambling. He’d tried prying him away, but the stubborn veteran just kept getting more red and hell-bent with every loss.

“I’ll be right outside when you’re done!” Link shouted over the loud music. The only acknowledgment he received was a shooing motion.

Taking a breather, he watched two performers juggling to each other in a daze. They were actually really good. The balls were thrown high and were in order of color. Maintaining that had to be difficult.

Link ruffled his hair. He really shouldn’t be spacing out like that, especially in unknown territory. Deciding to at least start on their original task, Link made his way over to the jugglers and overheard their conversation.

“My, my! Funny things are happening in town, aren’t they? Funny. Funny.”

“You’re telling me! Like the rumors about the swamp to the south? Did you hear about the kidnapping?”

What? Kidnapping? Link worried his bottom lip. Should I grab the others? We should help, right?

“Oh, my! The kidnapping?”

“Yep! But then the kid woke up. Get it? Kid napping? Hooo... I got a million of ‘em!”

He glared at the twins’ laughter. Though honestly, it wasn’t even a bad joke. Relax, Link. You’re just on edge. He rolled his shoulders back and coughed. “Excuse me. New around here. Could you tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re the twin jugglers from the Gorman Troupe! We’re practicing for the big carnival! It happens once in a blue moon!”

“Or in this year’s case, once in a really, really scary, red-eyed moon!”

“Ho! Ho! I hear it’s gonna fall harder than the way my clumsy brother is always dropping our juggling balls!”

“You see, we’re entertainers. We must keep people smiling. No matter how grim things get, we must always be optimistic!”

They proceeded to talk about some fellow performers, but Link’s mind was elsewhere. Scary moon? What do they mean it’s gonna fall? He turned around to go get his partner but found him standing only a couple feet away.

“Sorry, come again? ‘Red-eyed moon?’ What’s fallin’?” the Hero of Legend asked.

“Why, just look up!”

“Frightening, isn’t it? Hooo...”

AN: I feel like it’s been at least a month since I posted the Prologue, and I felt kinda bad about it. At least this part was fairly finished in my opinion, so I wanted to go ahead and post it. I don’t really have the other half fleshed out as much as I’d like it to be, but I’ll continue to work on it. Hope you like! (The majority of the dialogue for the npcs are taken straight from the game. That’s something taking up a huge part of my time trying to incorporate their words in scenes.)

#legend of zelda #linkeduniverse #linked universe #LU in MM #Ch 1 Pt 1 #only tagging the prevelant characters #Sky #Legend #Twilight #Ages #Wind #Hyrule #Tingle #Jugglers #sorry i took so long #enjoy

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sorcierstudies · 5 years

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what’s on my phone?

the phone i have is an iphone 8 in silver (very grateful for it)! my parents got it for me as a birthday gift and a replacement for the phone i dropped in a river… the phone case i have is a clear bumper case from a dollar store. it’s actually pretty good!

most of the apps are free, unless otherwise stated (with an *). sorted by folders! this doesn’t include any of the apple apps i stow away in a random folder.

messages - default app for texting others using imsg textnow - my main texting/calling app since i only have data camera - default app for capturing memories

snapchat - maybe i should delete this app LOL wechat - for communicating with parents and extended family instagram - studygram and staying in touch since we all got ig :’)

*headsup - fun game to play with friends and on long car rides! starbucks - buying drinks every now and then smiling mind - meditation app i haven’t used it a while whoops

app store - default app health - default app again settings - default app wallet - default app weather - default app, gotta know when it’s raining or too hot hotspot shield - internet safety guys safari - default app fido my account - tracking my data usage google maps - much better than the default app

tide - white noise + pomodoro timer *forest - pomodoro timer clock - default app calendar - default app

reminders - default app; helpful to give myself reminders notes - default app; for all those quick jots gmail - very very important for staying connected

vsco - editing my personal ig pics :) google photos - ain’t nobody got enough storage in the real app photos - default app; i’m running out of storage snapseed - my main app for editing studygram photos

calculator - default app khanacademy - sometimes i do math when i’m bored lingodeer - learning chinese google classroom - for school :)

spotify - for my tunes but i don’t use it a lot since i don’t have premium voice memos - default app; occasionally used for recording myself studying

facetime - default app; let’s stay connected! libby - super great app for ebooks and audiobooks from your library contacts - default app podcasts - default app (should i make a post on my favourite podcasts?

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missanthropicprinciple · 5 years

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apps on my phone

safari - 224 tabs open......oh damn

calendar - I don’t populate it. It’s just for reference.

photos - 11,000 + photos....time to back that up

camera - my rear-facing camera is broken which is gonna cost me like $50 to have repaired. In the mean time I’ve been tilting the phone at just the right angle and then holding down the shutter function.

yahoo mail - 23,000 + “unread” emails. Too busy to unsubscribe and delete.

clock - I use this a ton. Multiple alarms usually set to Pacific Rim dialogue.

outlook email - my uni email. I use this multiple times a day.

settings - bluetooth on, bluetooth off, bluetooth on, etc etc.

notes - 236. Imma delete these after I copy some of them down.

weather - I don’t open it much but when I do I check the weather.

contacts - It kinda has to be there.

app store - I surf for free apps I don’t need sometimes.

calculator - I use this way more than I should.

maps - one of the reasons I have unlimited data.

health - I rarely use this but it’s nice to see how many steps I’ve taken without selling my soul to Google. Though that ship has probably sailed.

pillow - I used to use this to monitor my sleep but it has a lot of limitations and in the end it used to make me nervous. I need to clear off the info and delete it.

facetime - For when I need to talk to the bff.

phone - duh.

imessages - also duh.

itunes - again, duh. However, iTunes is less and less user-friendly with every passing update.

instagram - I use this way more than I should.

snapchat - I rarely use this but bff sends me stuff on this sometimes.

tumblr - *sigh*

pinterest - I use this here and there.

solitaire - I don’t use this much anymore but I’m reluctant to delete it.

youtube - I use this every day.

stone - an app about stones and gems. I don’t use it anymore.

pacific rim stickers - the app isn’t available anymore as far as I know so I kinda can’t delete it.

pokemon go - I don’t use this much but I’m still low-key into it.

discord - always a fun time.

netflix - Only streaming service I pay for.

goodreads - in need of an update but I use it sometimes.

weheartit - I only use this for mindless image searches.

lyft - in case of emergency.

soundcloud - I hardly use this. Gonna delete it.

spotify - I use it almost every day to look for “new” music.

monument valley - one of the only two apps I’ve ever paid for.

monument valley 2 - one of the only two apps I’ve ever paid for.

huji - so fun!

gmail - don’t use it much now but will more after I graduate

voice memos - it’s nice to have, in case.

books - I don’t use this much because I read physical books most of the time.

ebook covers - very janky app which occasionally comes in handy.

google hangouts - I rarely use this.

apple tv - I bought some titles on there so yeah

find iPhone - can’t delete this damn thing

wallet - also can’t delete this

compass - it might come in handy

ringtone - I haven’t used it for a while, but I should make more.

ff.net - I don’t use it much.

fanfiction pocket - I use safari more than this

stocks - ya never know

sudoku - kinda sick of this.

google translate - always great to have

reminders - it’s a good prompter.

banking app - necessary

canvas - for uni, but I might delete it because I don’t have classes anymore.

hoopla - free streaming app from uni. I have many months to use it.

imgur - who doesn’t want to look at fun gifs?

canva - I need to use this more.

growit - I don’t use it anymore but I should update it.

tone pad - good for anxiety

twitter - I shouldn’t even have this lol

amazon prime - my free account expired. I just have to cancel it.

mood - it makes me more obsessive

moominstickers - should put in an app folder

letterboxd - useful!

terrarium - current obsession

viridi - developing obsession

#apps #iphone #personal

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cosmichoneyedblossoms · 6 years

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Distance

Pairing: Park Chanyeol x Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut

Word Count: oh honey... 6,810

A/N: I got a request a little bit ago to do a LONG angsty/fluffy Chanyeol imagine including pregnancy, sooooo, here it is! I hope you like it @babybunnysworld ☺️

Chanyeol’s lived in Seoul since he was born, so he pretty much knew the city like the back of his hand. Everyone knew him, all the shops in the area surrounding the dorm loved to see him when he actually got time away from the recording studio and the other members, but today, he actually had a reason to be out. One of his guitar strings snapped and he, unfortunately, didn’t have any extras in the dorm or in the studio, so that meant taking a trip to his usual music shop, but as he reached the shop, a sign on the door caught his attention, “Store temporarily closed due to illness. If in need of supplies, please visit The Music Box at this address…”

“Really guys? It’s only when I ever need you that you’re closed.” He sighed, pulling out his phone, his thumb opening up the maps app, and typing in the address listed, “A ten minute walk?” He glanced the way it pointed him to go, his eyes landing on a small alley path he’d never seen before. In all the years that he’s lived here, how is it he’s never heard of the shop ‘The Music Box’?

His followed the blue line on his phone that led him to an old shopping district. The buildings that still stood were faded shades of their original colors, the painted brick weather by the seasons that past through Seoul for many years, “You have reached your destination. The destination is on your left.” He turned off the navigation app before looking to the left of him to see a white painted building with a dark wood sign hanging from the side of the store that said, “Welcome to The Music Box.” Compared to the shop he usually went to, he would consider this store vintage; the building was obviously weathered, but well taken care of, the two large bow windows were clean and held gorgeous instruments on display, and the bright red door was eye-catching as well. Chanyeol shrugged as he walked up to the door and pushed it open, the bell on the door barely dinging as he walked into the shop.

Upon walking into the store, the inside was noticeably different than the outside. He was greeted by ceiling to floor bookshelves, a cream-colored settee with a button-tufted back paired with two accent chairs of the same elegance on either side of the settee. His eyes soon traveled over the gray painted walls that held all kinds of string instruments—guitars, violins, violas, cellos, basses, and even ukuleles and banjos. He wandered down the long aisles of bookshelves that were filled with scorebooks, as well as music history books; his fingers gently ran over their spines as the twinkling sound of piano keys reached his ears. He followed the melody to the back of the store to see you sitting on the bench with your eyes closed, completely engrossed in playing the song that was flowing from your fingertips. You looked tiny behind the black grand piano, but even so, you had it under your control, which Chanyeol admired. He had never had someone as beautiful as you appear before his eyes, and in one of his favorite places no less; you took his breath away from his lungs and you hadn’t even exchanged words with him. He leaned against the bookshelf, indulging in the scene that was unraveling in front of him.

Your fingers came to a stop on the keys, the sound of the piano quieting as you pulled away from the keys and opened your eyes. You caught a glimpse of someone standing at the end of the bookshelves and you stood quickly to meet his gaze. The moment your eyes connected, you knew that there would be something there, “I’m sorry for your wait.”

“Clair De Lune, right?” He asked and your eyes widened before you nodded.

“You heard that much to even pick out the title?” Your cheeks turned a slight pink under his gaze, “We’re not supposed to play any of the instruments while on the clock, I’m sorry if I disturbed your shopping.”

“Oh, no, I really enjoyed watching you play. It was quite beautiful.” His words brought a shy smile to your lips and he stood from his spot on the bookshelf, making his way towards you.

“Thank you…” The deep cognac tainted irises came close to you, making your heart race, “I-Is there anything I can help you with…?” You tried to break eye contact with him, but his eyes had you hypnotized.

“New guitar strings would be great.” His flat expression lifted, the corners of his plush pink lips rose up into a smile, them parting to show his pearly white teeth. Your heart fluttered at his smile—he was gorgeous, godly handsome. His black curly hair was styled to perfection, stunning sharp sculpted features dressed in flawless silk, dark clothes hugged his tall figure, them showing every muscular curve on his body. You swallowed hard, tearing your gaze from him to walk around behind the glass counter, your hand grabbing a set of keys. Your fingers fumbled pulling out the right key from the bunch, your shaky hands then inserted the key into the case lock, and unlocked it.

“Is there a certain strings you needed? Electric or Acoustic? ” You started to reach for the cheaper sets of strings when you heard his voice behind you.

“Acoustic, if you have D'Addario, that would be great.”

“Expensive strings, but great quality.” You grabbed the large box of strings and sat it on the counter, “Any particular gauge?” You pulled the blue, red, purple, and orange boxes from the large box on the counter as you waited for a response; with no response from him, you turned to see him not at the counter at more. You scanned the store from your spot, wondering where he went when your eyes found him at the wall behind the piano.

Chanyeol studied the pictures, certificates, and ribbons hanging on the wall, the pictures showing the same little girl, holding the certificates and ribbons. For every new year, there was a picture of a little girl, but a year older, she grew with grace and elegance through the years, but they stopped at 2012. He ran his fingers over the small gold plaque that say next to the picture, his voice coming out hoarse as he read it, “Y/N, First Place Winner of the Seoul Classical Piano Competition.”

“College got in the way of competitions, that’s why it stops at 2012.” Your voice startled him and he turned around to face you.

“These are all you?” He took a look at you, flicking his gaze to the pictures on the wall, and then back to you.

“Yeah, out of all my siblings, I was the one who enjoyed playing the most. You would think running a music store we all would fall into it, but it wasn’t the case.” You shrugged, rolling your eyes a bit.

“So this is your family’s store?” He took a few steps towards you as you nodded.

“Since 1952, when my great grandfather took over this business. My grandfather took over in 1970, two years before my father was born, and my dad took over in 1989 when my older brother was born, and here we are now.” Chanyeol watched your eyes glisten as you talked about your family and your beloved music store, he could tell this place meant a lot to you, “Oh crap!” You gasped, “I forgot about your strings.” You rushed back behind the counter and he followed you, chuckling a bit.

“I’ll take the light gauge, if you have any left.”

“Yes!” You grabbed the blue box and rang it up on the register, “Alright, it’ll be 59 dollars and 67 cents.” You watched as he pulled out his wallet, then a black credit card.

“You guys are cheaper than Shredders. They would’ve charged me a fortune.” The heart-stopping smile appeared on his lips once more as you took his card from him. You slid the card, trying to calm your fluttering butterflies in your stomach when your eyes caught the name on the card.

“Park Chanyeol?” You looked up at him, it finally hitting you who he was, “I never would’ve guessed Exo’s rapper would be in my store.” His eyes widened as he took his card from your hand.

“I was surprised you didn’t know who I was when I walked in the door.” He nervously slipped his card back into his wallet. You smiled at him while putting his strings into a bag.

“It never had occurred to me that someone famous would be walking into our store.” Your reaction was one he didn’t expect, he expected a screaming fan and he’d have to make a quick getaway, but you were calm and still acting like he was a normal person and not a celebrity. The ding of the doorbell grabbed your attention and then a deep male voice reached you.

“Y/N! We have new shipments in, will you—” Your father came into your vision, his eyes moving off of you onto Chanyeol, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had a customer.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay, I was about to leave.” Chanyeol replied, his smile coming back to his lips.

“I’ll be there in a minute, papa.” He nodded to you, vanishing from your sight and you turned your eyes back to Chanyeol, “Thank you for stopping in today, if you’re ever in the area again, please feel free to stop by and say hi.” You lifted his bag up and started to hand it to him.

“I definitely will.” He hummed, his fingers brushing over yours as he took the bag from you. You thought that he was hypnotizing, but in his eyes you were mesmerizing; he wished that your father had waited a few more minutes before popping into the store so he could at least get your number, but now that he was there, it felt like it would be impossible. He, reluctantly, left the store, his walk back to the dorm feeling like an eternity.

It had been days since he stepped foot into your music store and it was driving him insane. He wanted to see you, wanted to talk to you, wanted to spend every waking moment with you, but he still hadn’t gotten the courage to confront you again. When he closed his eyes, your image came to him so clearly, the way you sat behind the piano, a faint smile playing upon your lips, strands of your hair swaying with every movement you made, even with your eyes closed, your fingers didn’t miss a key. A sigh escaped him as he opened his eyes to see three other sets looking at him.

“Are we boring you?” Kyungsoo asked, kinking an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, we’re trying to play a game and you keep spacing out, the hell is up with that?” Baekhyun whined, sitting his cards face down on the table.

“Sorry guys, I just have some a lot going on in my head.” He replied, running his fingers through his thick curly locks.

“If we’re interrupting you, you can leave if you want.” Chen shuffled the deck of cards once more, Chanyeol immediately getting up to his feet.

“I’ll be back in a bit, don’t wait up for me.” He rushed to the front door, slipping out of his slippers, quickly lacing up his converse sneakers, and running out the door. His heart pounded in his chest as he ran to the shop, as he got close to the store, his feet soon came to a stop; it finally hit him that he didn’t know what time it was or what time the store closed, why did he just run out here without a plan? He turned around on his heels, cursing the fact that he had become so impulsive.

“Chanyeol?” He turned around at the sound of his name to see you standing near the shop with your hands full of books and papers, “What’re you doing here so late? It’s almost eleven at night.”

“Oh… I…” He became flustered at your question, not knowing how to answer, “I was just taking a walk—here let me help you.” He approached you, taking the books from your hands.

“Thank you.” You flashed a smile up at him while you dug your keys out of your jacket pocket and walked up to the shop door, unlocking it, and opening it, “Please come in.” He walked in at your invitation and sat the books down onto the glass counter, turning to look at you. You made his heart flutter, with every second you were in his sight he fell for you more and more.

“Y/N?” He whispered, your attention being pulled to him.

“What’s up?”

“I lied. I wasn’t on a walk. I was actually on my way here to see you.” You felt a fire climb up into your cheeks at his words, his heavy gaze starting to wake the butterflies in the pit of your stomach.

“See me? Do you need more strings? Let me get—” You broke the connection between you and began to walk past him to get behind the counter when his hand grabbed your wrist, stopping you in your tracks. You met his bourbon irises once more, their beauty leaving you speechless.

“You’ve been running amuck in my mind, and before I knew it I was running here to see you.” You couldn’t deny the fact that he had been dancing around in your thoughts, appearing when you least expect it, you even had an EXO playlist on repeat so you could hear his voice one more time, “I don’t know if this is too much to ask of you, but…go on a date with me.”

“A—a date?” Your words tripped over themselves as your heart thrashed around inside your rib cage.

“Yes.”

“When?” You asked and a smile appeared on his luscious lips.

“How about now? Frostbite is open until midnight and I’m dying for something sweet.” His eyes glistened under the warm glow of the store lights, making it almost impossible to say no to him. You nodded your answer and his smile grew even wider, “Well, let’s go.”

“A company party? You mean like with everyone from S.M. there?” You asked while sitting down on the bed, Chanyeol’s head popping out from the closet.

“Yeah, they said we could bring a date and the guys told me to bring you along. It’s just to celebrate the new year and I would love for you to come and meet all my friends and spend time with me and the guys.”

“Oh, so Irene is going to be there.” You huffed, rolling your eyes.

“Well she is part of S.M. so, yeah she’ll be there.”

“Perfect.” Chanyeol could sense the sarcasm in your voice, causing him to come out of the closet in one of his nice suits.

“What is your problem with her?”

“I just don’t like her. I feel like she’s trying to take my boyfriend from me. The nonstop texting, the constant facetimes while you’re with me, not to mention at all the award shows for the past year she’s been all over you.” Chanyeol watched your face fall as you listed off more things that upset you about her.

“Y/N...” He walked over to you, squatting down to peer up into your face, “She’s just a friend.”

“Chan—” He reached up, his hands coming to cradle your face, his thumbs gently rubbing your cheeks.

“She can’t replace you or even come close to taking your spot.” His umber eyes searched yours, the frustrated feelings that had ruined your mood vanished as you gazed into his dark irises.

“Promise?”

“I promise, my love.” You leaned down at his answer, pressing your lips to his. He slowly pulled away from you, a soft smile playing upon his lips, “Come with me, please? It won’t be any fun without you.” You tried to fight the grin that was coming to your lips but couldn’t.

“Fine. Let me go get ready. Can’t go looking like a bum, can I?”

It didn’t occur to you how many artists S.M. held until you were in a room with all of them. Members from SHINee, NCT, Girls Generation, as well as all the Rookies passed by you, your mind feeling starstruck as you took in the beauty of the idols around you. You spent hours connected to Chanyeol’s hip as well as the other boys when he stepped away, between the finger foods and alcohol, your buzz started to take flight. “Chanyeol…” You tugged on his sleeve, attempting to grab his attention when someone caught your eye, Irene, “Oh no...” Suho heard your growl and turned to look at you.

“What’s wrong?” He asked as he followed your line of sight to Irene. You had vented to Suho about what was going on with Chanyeol, not like you would tell Chanyeol that you were talking to Suho about your relationship problems, but he seemed to be the one you could trust the most, “Want me to go distract her?”

“No…” You reluctantly answered, knowing that she would find a way to him eventually. Suho rubbed your back and you leaned your head onto Chanyeol’s arm, his head turning away from the conversation he was having with Baekhyun to look down at you.

“What’s wrong? You tired?” You shook your head and slipped your hand into his, his fingers intertwining with yours, “Are you sure? We’ve been here for a while, we can go home if you want.”

“Actually—”

“Chanyeol!” The voice you dreaded so much reached your ears, making your skin crawl.

“Irene!” A smile came to his lips as she approached him.

“I was worried that I wouldn’t get to see you!” Her eyes fell down to you, a fake smile pasting itself to her lips, “I see you brought your girlfriend.”

“Yes, Irene this is Y/N, and Y/N you know who Irene is.”

“I do.”

“How do you know, Chanyeol?” She crossed her arms, passing a grin between Chanyeol and I.

“We met at the music store my parents own.”

“Oh? That’s cute, we’ve been friends for a long time now. Since our trainee days if I remember correctly.” A tight smirk found its way to your lips, leaving a sour taste on your tongue.

“It’s amazing that you two have been friends for so long. He talks about you all the time.”

“Oh really?” Her eyes lit up at my words.

“Absolutely. I have to say, I have no idea how you haven’t fallen in love with him yet. Lucky for me, though.” A gasp left her lips and Chanyeol’s fingers tightened around your hand.

“She’s just playing around, isn’t that right, Y/N?”

“He’s right, just playing around.” You glanced up at him, a very disgruntled expression on his face. You knew that he wasn’t going to like what came out of your mouth before you said it, but you did it anyway and now he’s upset.

“Y/N.” You turned your head at your name, Sehun coming into your vision, “Let’s go get you a drink?”

“Yeah, lets.” You pulled your hand from his grip and followed Sehun over to the drink table, a heavy sigh coming from your lips, “Thanks for getting me out of there.”

“No problem, Suho noticed how tense it got and asked me to help relieve some of the tension.” Sehun took a glass of champagne from the table, handing it to you. You sipped it slowly, watching Irene and Chanyeol converse, the more you watched the more frustrated you became. Your heart ached as you took in the bright smiles, tender gazes, and light touches, “Woah, Y/N.”

“What?” You looked up at Sehun, his hand raising up a napkin to dab at your cheeks.

“Why’re you crying?” He asked and you finally noticed that silent tears that were making an appearance. You took the napkin from him and wiped away your tears while sitting your drink down.

“It’s nothing, I’m sorry.” A fake laugh came out to cover your breaking heart as you sniffled, “I think I’m going to head home.”

“Let me go get Chan—”

“No. I’ll let him know, but he’ll probably want to spend his time with Irene.” It hit Sehun what was going on as he watched you make your way to them; while walked to them, you tried your best to pull yourself together before you reached them. You made sure all your tears were wiped away, you took a deep breath to attempt to calm your nerves, and finally called out to him, “Chanyeol.” His eyes flicked from Irene to you, a wide smile coming to his lips.

“Hey, baby.” He pulled you to him and pressed his lips to your forehead.

“We were just talking about you.” Irene gave you a small smile, a hint of confusion seeding itself into your mind.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, she was asking what you have planned for this summer and I said probably running the store and school.” Chanyeol rubbed your back, confusion starting to grow.

“Since we’re going on tour together this summer, I was curious how you were going to keep busy while Chanyeol was on tour.”

“In three months… Red Velvet and EXO are going on tour… together?” You looked up at Chanyeol whose face fell completely flat.

“You didn’t know?” Irene’s voice made the ache in your chest more painful.

“I didn’t know…” You kept your gaze fixed onto Chanyeol, his body tensing up the more Irene talked.

“We’ll be gone for three months touring around the world.” You forced a smile onto your face before turning towards Irene.

“How lovely, well, Irene, it was very nice to meet you, but seeing as I have to open the store in the morning, I must take my leave.”

“Wait, Y/N—” You slipped out of his touch, his hand quick to grab yours.

“You’re more than welcome to stay and continue to drink with your friends, but I’m going home.” You shook off his hand, starting to walk away from them, Chanyeol’s voice following you.

“Baby— Hold on— Hey—” His voice continued to trail behind you; you made it all the way outside before his hand finally grabbed your wrist to stop you, “Will you just wait a moment—” He walked in front of you, his eyes catching the tears falling down your face, “What’s wrong? Baby, talk to me.”

“I want to go home…” You sniffled, wiping your tears from your face with the back of your hand.

“Let me go tell the guys I’m leaving then—”

“You mean, let you go tell Irene you’re leaving. Don’t even worry about it.” You ripped your wrist from his hand, a sigh coming from his chest.

“Back on the Irene thing—”

“Yes, Chanyeol because I can see the way you stare at her! The way your eyes light up when you see her or when you talk to her, text her, facetime her, everything!” Your voice cracked from the pain that was rising up in your chest, tears rolled down your cheeks, staining your dress, and Chanyeol’s face contorted with anger.

“Who are you to talk to me about talking to other people and getting excited when you talk to them?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t act like I don’t see you getting all buddy-buddy with Suho. You guys text every day and the fact that he was all touchy with you today, pissed me off—”

“Our relationship isn’t even like that! I talk to Suho because he’s the only one I can trust with our relationship problems! He knows you better than you know yourself—”

“Oh whatever—” You rolled your eyes and kept moving towards the car, needing to get away from him, needing to breathe fresh air, but he stopped you, “We’re not done with this conversation, Y/N!”

“Go run back to your girlfriend—”

“You are my girlfriend!” Hearing his words finally broke something inside you and you turned to meet his eyes.

“Not for a while I haven’t! I’ve just been Irene’s place holder—”

“Who said I was dumping you?”

“You didn’t have to tell me, I can just see that you’re happier with her than you are me…” Chanyeol heard your heart breaking through your voice, his own heart falling into the pit of his stomach.

“Baby, no I’m not.”

“Whatever, just take me home.” You tore your gaze from his, pulled your arm from his grip, and continued to the car. You never imagined your first fight would revolve around another girl, you thought it would be over something like money or lack of time spent together, but not another girl.

The car ride home was silent, nothing but the sound of the engine roaring and the faint sound of classical music trickling from the speakers. Your eyes stayed glued to the scenery blurring outside your window, the quiet sighs from Chanyeol bringing forth the pain in your chest. Chanyeol parked the car near the store and you walked up to the door next to the store and unlocked it, making your way up to your home above the store. Chanyeol followed you up to the stairs, unable to fathom any words, not that he thought anything would make you feel better. He noticed he was getting closer to Irene, but didn’t realize how close he was to losing you in the crossfire.

“Baby…” He whispered to you as he closed the apartment door. You ignored him and walked to the bedroom, slamming the door behind you. You didn't want to hear him right now, you needed to calm down, needed to gather your thoughts; you loved Chanyeol more than anything in this world and the thought of losing him hurt.

“No, he's not leaving me…” You whispered to yourself as you mustered up enough energy to strip out of your clothes and pull on one of his shirts, turn off the lights, and then crawl into the cold bed. Chanyeol laid on the couch in his boxers, the events that just happened played out in his head, your tear stained face burned into his memory. He had never made you cry before and he never wanted to see you cry in the first place, watching the love of his life crumble before him, just broke him. He sat up on the couch and glanced down the hall at the bedroom door before getting up and making his way toward it. He quietly opened the door to see you laying in the dark under the blankets, the urge to hold you bubbled up inside him and that’s what he was going to do. He closed the door behind him and he walked over to his side of the bed and got into it, noticing your back was facing him.

“Baby…” He breathed, waiting for a response, words, a grunt, something, but you just laid there, wordlessly. He reached out, his fingers ghosting over your arm, “Please let me hold you.” It was only a moment that you didn’t want to respond, only a moment where you wanted to scream at him, only a moment where you wanted to kick him out of the bed, but you turned over and moved closer to him, his arms wrapping around your shape. He pressed gentle kisses to your forehead while running his finger through your hair, “I’ll stop talking to her… I don’t want to lose you, Y/N…” You took a deep breath and slowly exhaled into his chest before looking up at him.

“You don’t…?”

“Of course not, I love you more than there are stars in the sky. I never want to lose you.” Even in the darkness of the bedroom, you could see the warmth of his eyes; his hands trailed up your body to caress your cheeks, soft lips molded to yours, sending warmth through your body. You pulled away a bit to catch your breath, the mixture of yours and Chanyeol’s air became intoxicating. He slid his thumb over your plumpness, his tongue making an appearance as he licked his own; he pressed a kiss to your lips once more as his hands found your bare thighs. Soul withering kisses burned every last upset emotion you had, the feeling of want quickly replacing them.

“Chanyeol…” Your voice breathed between swollen lips.

“Please… I want to touch you…”

“Show me how much you love me.” Those seven words ignited a fire inside him, his hands made quick work of the fabric covering your heat—his body eager to feel you, to please you, to show you how much he loves you. Beautiful long fingers pushed their way into your core, finding your sweet spot so easily, your voice creating a quiet whimper that was like music to his ears. He loved hearing your breathless moans as he pleasured you, admiring your body as it writhed under his delicate touch, witnessing ecstasy melting into you—he loved it all. He teased you until your juices were dripping down his hand, playing with your sticky insides turned his growing erection into a painfully throbbing one that was begging for release. In a rush, he pulled his boxers off and positioned himself between your legs, his eyes flashing up to meet yours.

“Can I?” He asked and you nodded quickly, reaching out to him. He leaned down to press a kiss onto your lips while you wrapped your arms around his neck, and he slowly pushed his length into you, a gasp of pleasure leaving you before he rolled his hips into the back of your thighs. His lips placed blistering kisses against your skin as his hips thrusted into you at a steady pace, every deep stroke had him hitting your sensitive nerves, “God, I love you…” Chanyeol groaned, feeling your nails dig into the skin of his back, his thrusts becoming harder and erratic as he felt your walls clamp around him.

“Please don’t stop… I’m so close…” You breathlessly begged, your high right on the brink.

“Baby, I’m about to cum…” He warned, resting his forehead against yours.

“Cum with me…” Your lips connected once more, both of your highs melting into your bodies. Between the hazy feeling swirling around in your head and your heavy breaths, you managed to form coherent words, “Chanyeol… I’m so in love with you…”

“I know, baby. I’m in love with you more than you know.” Chanyeol held you close to him, your highs fading in the heat your languid kisses.

THREE MONTHS LATER:

“Are you sure you’re okay with me leaving? You’ve been sick all week, I don’t want you getting any worse.” Chanyeol smoothed over your loose strands of hair that managed to escape your messy bun.

“Yes, you have to be there for your fans and plus, I feel better today.” That was a lie and you knew it, you’d been feeling sick all morning, but were hiding it because you knew he would stay until you felt better.

“Promise me if you get any worse you’ll go to a doctor.” He peered into your face, his gentle eyes filled with worry.

“I promise, now, go, you’re going to miss your flight if you don’t go now.” Chanyeol glanced back at the guys who started to board the plane, his eyes coming back to you.

“Fine… I’ll message you when we land, okay?” He leaned down and pressed his lips to yours; this kiss wasn’t like his usual one, it was extremely gentle and endearing, your last kiss for the next couple of months and as you realized that, your feelings started to bubble up behind your closed eyes. Chanyeol pulled away from you to see your tears rolling down your cheeks, his thumbs quick to pad them away, “Hey, I love you.” He whispered, pulling you into a deep embrace; you wrapped your shaky hands around his body, burying your face into his chest.

“I love you, too.”

“We’re gonna be okay, I’ll be back soon, okay?” He placed his final kiss to your crown as the manager came into view, signaling for him to wrap it up, “I gotta go, baby.” You let your arms fall from around his waist, you heart climbing up into your throat.

“Be safe, okay?” He nodded to your words, a smile creeping onto his face.

“Kick some ass at school and I’ll put on great shows for you.” You laughed a bit as you nudged him.

“Deal. Now, go.” He nodded once more and walked towards the plane, turning around before walking into the tunnel to wave to you. You waved back and watched as he disappeared behind the tunnel wall.

TWO MONTHS BEFORE CHANYEOL’S RETURN:

“Alright, Ms. Y/L/N, it seems like all of your symptoms— the missed periods, tender breasts, vomiting, dizziness, and the excessive weight gain, leads up to one diagnosis… You’re pregnant.” Your doctor’s gleaming smile attempted to surprise you and this wasn’t the diagnosis you were thinking it would be.

“Pregnant?”

“Yup. We’re bringing in an ultrasound to see where you’re exactly at in your pregnancy, we’re guessing around four months gestation since you’re showing a little more signs that the first trimester usually lets on…” Your mind blocked out the sound of her voice while your thoughts ran wild about how this would effect Chanyeol. This could potentially ruin his career, he’s only 26 and has so much life left ahead of him—there’s no way he could possibly want children now since they’re at their peak performance. The sound of the ultrasound cart being rolled into the room spooked you back into the reality of the doctor's office, “Alright, Y/N, go ahead and roll your shirt up and lay back for me.”

“O-okay…” You lifted your shirt, noticing your rounded belly as you leaned back onto the examination table. She put a warm gel onto your stomach and lifted the wand of the ultrasound and put it onto your lower stomach.

“Alright let’s see what’s going on in here.” She moved the wand around, a wooshing sound left the machine, “Heartbeat sounds really good. It looks like you’re around 19, maybe 20 weeks.” She stared at the screen a little longer, moving the wand around and then coming to an abrupt stop, “Would you like to know the gender of your baby?”

“I’m that far along?” You asked and she nodded her head, humming her response, “What is the gender of the baby…?”

“I suggest you start buying dresses and tutus because your little girl is gonna look cute in them.” Hearing her say you were going to be having a daughter made your heart fluttered at the thought of Chanyeol cradling your daughter in his arms and all your worries faded.

CHANYEOL’S RETURN HOME:

He was supposed to be gone for another week, but since they finished everything that needed to be done, he took an earlier flight home to surprise you. He couldn’t wait to see you, all the calls, FaceTimes, and text messages weren’t enough for him, he wanted to hold you and kiss you for hours and never let you go.

The cab pulled up to the alleyway leading to the store and Chanyeol got out, taking his luggage out with him. He paid the driver and turned toward the alley, his precious memories flooding back to him, letting him remember the first time he actually walked this path. The annoying blue line that seemed to be leading him to a very untraveled path, but was actually leading him to the love of his life. He turned the corner to see the store light still on, he glanced down at his watch, remembering that you started taking students in the evenings to make a little more money to pay for school. He walked to the side door and pushed past it into the hall, he walked past the store door, stopping, and retreating back in his steps to see you at the piano through the door window. His heart raced in his chest like it was the first time seeing you again—he loved it when you were in work mode, the expression you always carried was soft and all smiles, and it lit up especially with children. He let a smile play on his lips as he watched you nod along to the simple tune that was being played, admiring the way you lost yourself even in the simplest of songs. A content sigh slipped past his lips while he forced himself to break his gaze on you, and he made his way up the stairs and into the apartment. The warm smell of ginger and honey tingled his senses as he sat his luggage down by the front door, he never thought he would be so glad to call an apartment above a music store home, but he loved it. He started to make his way towards the bedroom when something caught his eye while passing the spare bedroom. He turned his gaze to the room, taking in its new appearance.

The once taupe walls were now painted a pastel mint with one of the walls being decorated with hand-painted flowers, the one window in the room had pale pink curtains hanging from it, and the old wood flooring had been replaced with plush tan carpet. A white wood crib sat against the wall with flowers as well as a blush pink accent chair, a white dresser sat near the door, and he walked over to it, opening the drawers. His eyes fell onto folded girly clothing from onesies, tiny shirts, and pants, socks, hats, bows, and headbands; he looked in all the other drawers to find diapers, wipes, lotions, soaps, creams, and other miscellaneous baby items.

“Chanyeol?” Your voice reached his ears and he turned on his heels to meet your gaze. His eyes traveled down to your shape to see your round stomach being hugged by your white dress, “You weren’t supposed to be home for another week…?”

“I took an early flight home…” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from your large stomach, “Do you want to let me in on what’s going on?”

“I—” You swallowed hard, rubbing your hands over your belly, “Remember when I was getting sick when you left for tour and we thought it was just a stomach bug? Well, I went to the doctor and she told me I was pregnant with your daughter…”

“We’re having a baby…?” He whispered as he fell to his knees in front of you, his hands coming to hold your belly.

“A little girl, your little girl… I waited so long to tell you because I was worried about what would happen if you found out on tour and I couldn’t put your career at risk—”

“I don’t care that you hid it for so long… I’m just…” He rested his forehead against your stomach, muffled sniffles escaped him while he caressed your stomach, “I’m just so glad I’m finally getting to start a family with the one I love.” He looked up at you, tears streaming down his face.

“My love…” You knelt down in front of him, kissing over his tear-streaked cheeks, “You’re the only one I would ever think of starting a family with. My one and only.” A smile came to his face as you pulled away from him, his eyes falling to your stomach once more.

“Have you came up with a name for her yet?” You shook your head to his question, running your hand over your stomach again.

“I’ve been waiting for you to get home to decide.”

“Really?” His eyes grew wide at your response.

“Yes.” A toothy smile formed from the one that was already on his lips.

“What about Harlow?”

“Oh? Who would’ve thought you would’ve chosen a name so cute?” You teased him and he rested his hand on your stomach.

“What do you think, sweetie? What about Harlow for your name?” He waited for a moment, the feeling of his daughter kicking his hand made him gasp, “She likes it!” He smiled, pressing gentle kisses to your belly.

“Alright, alright, Harlow it is.”

Through all the tough times with Chanyeol, this moment had to be the best one of your life, it made everything worth it. All the fights, bickering, the time away from each other, the makeups, and the distance that came with his job, all of it led up to this moment, and you wouldn’t trade it for the world.

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