gasp -- a fic?? on MY tumblr??? more likely than you think
/
this is from an art trade with the absolutely lovely bastard @buddh-art. madlad
here’s a link to the art O.O it’s SO PRETTY. WHAT. (LOOK AT IT BEFORE READING IT WILL HELP INTRO VISUALIZATION I PROMISE)
ao3 link!!
warnings: blood, the girls are FIGHTINgGGG (okay but physical fights fr), swearing
fandom/pairings: haikyuu/gen
prompt: “I’m going to kill them for punching you before I ever got to.” ft kuroo and bokuto, dumbass duo extraordinaire, and akaashi (plus some cameos)
“I’m going to kill them for punching you before I ever got to.” Kuroo cracks his knuckles.
“Oho?” Bokuto grins, teeth glinting in the fluorescent lighting. He’s pressing a wad of tissues against his cheekbone and nose, the edges of his lips hidden behind white. “Kill?”
Bokuto’s joking, behind the pain pulsing against his skin, but there’s this look in Kuroo’s eye that he doesn’t quite trust. No, that’s not it. He’s just never seen it before. He trusts Kuroo with everything.
Akaashi says he’s stupid for doing so but lots of people say he’s stupid anyway. Trusting Kuroo has only burned him like, a dozen times, and half of them Kuroo was burned too. Bros burn together.
Anyway. Anyway. Bokuto’s laughing and Kuroo’s not, so there’s something wrong.
Kuroo shoots him a look and Bokuto’s laughter dries up in his throat. The edges of his lips droop. “Bro, it’s fine.”
Kuroo’s mouth upturns into a sneer and Bokuto takes a step back. He’s never had Kuroo’s full frontal disdain directed at him and it’s kindof… it’s not… it’s not nice? It’s really…
Bokuto swallows.
The discomfort must shine on his face because Kuroo’s gaze flickers, startled, as he realizes where his scorn is directed.
“Shit, dude,” Kuroo says. A hand rubs against his face and he sighs, long and loud. “Fucking who punched you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bokuto says. His voice is a little muffled. Next to him, Akaashi releases a quiet huff of breath. Akaashi’s slender, cool fingers brush against his cheek, pulling at his hand.
Bokuto realizes how harshly he’s been pressing the tissues against his cheek, how there’s a numb scratch of pain, how the tissues stick to his face when he tries to pull them away. There’s a slight sludge of blood, since they caught his face, but he doesn’t -- it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. He’s fine. So why’s… “It doesn’t matter,” Bokuto says again, stubborn. He tries for another grin. “Sad you weren’t there to enjoy the party?”
Kuroo is a quiet energy. Bokuto’s known this, it’s why they fit so perfectly together. Why they make such good friends, why every moment is exhilarating and fun. Kuroo is quiet and sharp, the double edged sword to Bokuto’s war hammer. The shield with jagged edges. While Bokuto wears his emotions on the outer edges of his skin, Kuroo keeps it all tucked away behind his ribcage, gradually building a fire. Stoking embers. He has a quiet anger, a soft fury.
Bokuto never thinks too much about it. Not really. Bokuto laughs but it’s not… because Kuroo turns towards him with his quiet anger boiling in his eyes and it doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right.
Kuroo steps towards him, his testy expression juxtaposing his gentle touch against Bokuto’s face. Bokuto lets him trail fingers along his temple, eyebrows furrowing as Kuroo presses the softest of pressures against the wound.
It doesn’t hurt. Well, maybe in theory. Bokuto’s too focused on Kuroo’s expression to feel anything. Akaashi seems to fade into the background, his administration a soothing backdrop to Kuroo’s soft blaze.
“Who punched you?” Kuroo says. He looks like he’s about to punch Bokuto, too, and Bokuto doesn’t know if he would dodge it at this point. Whether for personal reasons or otherwise.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bokuto says. To Kuroo, this is the wrong thing to say, but Bokuto is immovable.
Kuroo glares at him, and Bokuto glares right back.
Kuroo swells up and Bokuto thinks, this is it, hunker down, prepare for a mean right hook. His eyes flicker shut instinctively, shoulders tensing. Bokuto is anything if not solid. He can take it. Throw it at me!
Well. That’s what you said before, too, and they certainly dished out what you could take. Maybe more…
But it doesn’t matter, because it’s over, and Bokuto isn’t going to enact revenge or something. He fought, they fought, it’s over.
Fear flutters against his throat. He can almost imagine the starburst of pain from Kuroo. He knows exactly what it might feel like, he’s seen it often enough. Even if he’s never personally experienced it, it was bound to happen eventually.
Nothing happens. Bokuto’s eyes flick open, and Kuroo is three steps away. He’s staring at Bokuto with this devastatingly haunted expression.
Bokuto frowns. “Bro. Chill out.”
“I’m not actually going to punch you right now, what the fuck?” Kuroo spits. They’re equally startled at Kuroo’s outburst. “You’re wounded!”
“Yeah, so?” Bokuto says. He touches his cheek absentmindedly. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It is a fucking big deal! Akaashi, tell him it’s a big deal,” Kuroo swivels on their third party.
Akaashi, to his credit, doesn’t flinch when faced with fire and ice all at once, Kuroo and Bokuto’s gazes cutting into his soul. In fact, he takes his time answering, seemingly unbothered. “Bokuto does downplay genuine trouble. But you’re not in your right mind, either, Kuroo.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” Kuroo says, each word falling like a bullet. Akaashi stares at him and Kuroo shifts his gaze, lip jutting out.
“Bokuto, sit down,” Akaashi says. Bokuto listens, dropping down on the couch. Akaashi is like water, he muses. If he’s going to make metaphors about all of his friends anyway.
Kuroo’s lava, his heavy burn, settles on Bokuto’s skull. “Tell me so I can pay back the favor.”
"No,” Bokuto says. He sticks his tongue out for emphasis and Akaashi flicks his temple. “Ouch! Akaashi, I’m mortally wounded, and you’re abusing me.”
“Get over yourself,” Akaashi says. Bokuto blinks and knows there’s an undercurrent of worry, even if he can’t quiet hear it. He misses a lot of subtleties. Whatever. It’s fine.
“Akaashi,” Kuroo stretches the name, leaning forward into Akaashi’s space. “You know, don’t you?”
“Well, I did find him first,” Akaashi says.
Bokuto and Akaashi alike quickly realize this is the wrong thing to say.
“Find?” Kuroo repeats. “You found him?”
Bokuto swallows and tries for a grin. “Man, you know me! Fight til I drop.”
“Do you need to go to the hospital--?”
“No!”
The three of them fall silent and Bokuto swallows, trying to sooth his rapidly beating heart. “No. I’m fine. I’m serious, Kuroo, chill.”
Telling lava to chill, understandably, is amusing. Kuroo laughs at him. Then he turns on his heel and leaves.
It strikes a little deeper than Bokuto thinks it should.
“He left,” Bokuto says. He knows it’s a dumb thing to say, he knows. Akaashi doesn’t make fun of him.
But Kuroo…
“Shirt,” Akaashi says. Bokuto jerks as Akaashi tugs at the fabric. Pain pricks as his shirt moves and Bokuto bites back a whine. He’s not weak. Eyes up here, he’d laughed, pointing at his face when they took a shot at his side.
Stupid. Whatever.
“I’m not your mom,” Akaashi says. His fingers are smooth as he directs Bokuto’s arms up, tugging his shirt off.
“My mom hasn’t helped me change in forever,” Bokuto mumbles, like that means anything. Akaashi hums anyway. A short tsk drops from his lips when the plane of Bokuto’s chest is revealed, his spotted sides.
It’s not bad. It’s not bad at all, Bokuto assures himself. He doesn’t bruise easily, so -- wait, no, that means it’s awful, so he must bruise really easily. That’s kinda lame, though, isn’t it--?
A sharp pain pricks from his side, squeezing a hiss from Bokuto’s lips. He avoids Akaashi’s stare, which is somehow harsher than a glare. “‘S fine.”
Akaashi sighs. “Stay still.”
Bokuto feels his mood slipping and grips at it. Akaashi has told him time and time again that his mood swings aren’t a sign of failure. That the spiral of depression is only pushed further when he thinks about how lame it is that he drops. How he can’t do anything. Immovable force in the worst way possible.
Akaashi starts applying a bruise cream. It’s like Akaashi’s touch. Soothing. Comforting.
“Kuroo hates me,” Bokuto says. It’s not what he means. Kuroo wouldn’t get angry if he hated Bokuto.
There’s a beat, then: “Hates that someone else got a shot first, maybe.”
Bokuto snorts, in spite of himself. “Scale of one to ten how jealous do you think Kuroo is that somebody punched me and got away with it?”
“I wouldn’t say they got away with it,” Akaashi hums. “You hit them back.”
“That I did,” Bokuto says. The coolness of pleasure buoys his depression, just for the time being. He leans back, smug confidence oozing from his pores. Then he shoots upright, dislodging Akaashi. “Oh my god! AKAASHI!”
“Mm?”
“I didn’t say you should’ve seen the other guy! Call Kuroo back in here!” Bokuto stands. “I gotta grab him! I missed my chance!”
“Do not,” Akaashi says.
Bokuto doesn’t hear him, searching for his shoes so he can go find Kuroo right now.
Flames dart up his back and he yelps. Akaashi jabbed him right on a bruise on his back. “Akaashi!”
Akaashi has that look on his face, the one that says listen to me right now or you will regret it.
Bokuto groans. “But Akaashi…”
“Just call him.”
“He won’t pick up--!” A second of silence. Then, “Okay, Akaashi.”
Bokuto sighs. He sits back down. Let’s Akaashi continue taking care of him.
He calls Kuroo, but he doesn’t pick up.
---
Kuroo isn’t stupid. When he saw Bokuto’s wide grin, the smile from eye to eye, he knew something was wrong.
Not from Bokuto. Bokuto has a freaky way of covering up his serious pains. Kuroo’s pretty sure the denial just runs so deep he manages to convince himself that everything’s fine, that he’s fine, so everyone else is convinced.
No, Bokuto didn’t tip him off.
Akaashi did.
Akaashi doesn’t mean to, and someone who doesn’t know Akaashi might have missed it. But he read the sharp worry in the crease of Akaashi’s eyes, the wiry tension in his neck, the tightness of his lips. Kuroo knows that Bokuto wasn’t okay when Akaashi found him.
Which is why it pisses him off how nonchalant Bokuto is about the entire situation.
Kuroo ignores the missed call from Bokuto and calls Tsukishima. He doesn’t pick up the first time but does on the second.
“What do you want.”
“Aw, I’m doing great, thanks Tsukki!”
“Do not call me that.”
“Hey, you saw Bokuto today, right? Like, an hour ago?”
There’s a static of silence. “Why?”
“See anyone with him?”
“Just Nakajima.”
“Thanks,” Kuroo says. He hangs up, wincing. He’ll get Tsukishima’s full pissy mood the next time they meet because of that, but he’s on a mission.
Nakajima. Kuroo frowns. Does he know anything about Nakajima?
He gets another phone call and is about to cancel it when he sees second prettiest setter flash across the screen.
He answers.
“Kuroo,” Akaashi says amicably. There’s a quiet wail on the other side of the phone and Kuroo pulls the phone away for a second, staring at it in surprise. Then he sticks it back against his ear, catching the tail end of what Akaashi was saying. “--and you should probably come back.”
“Hm? I have to hunt down Nakajima.”
“You know his name,” Akaashi says. He says it not like oh thank god, let me help, but more like goddamn it, another problem for me to fix. Which offends Kuroo, but just a little bit. “Great. Do you know where he is?”
It’s a challenge. “No, but--”
“Then you won’t find him.”
“I’ll just search the city, it’s not that hard.”
“Kuroo, I know your stubborn streak rivals Bokuto’s--” there’s a thump on the other end, then Akaashi’s voice returns, “--but it really would be in both of your best interests for you to return.”
“I wasn’t joking when I said I would kill whoever got to punch him first,” Kuroo says.
“I understand. But--”
Whatever else Akaashi says is lost in the static of Kuroo’s mind, which whites out the moment he spots someone stumbling down the sidewalk, nursing a bloody nose. He doesn’t know Nakajima personally, but he has seen the little bitch before.
“I’ll call you back,” Kuroo says, and shoves his phone in his pocket, barely remembering to end the call. He’s really getting on a lot of people’s bad side. He’s always on people’s bad side, though, so he doesn’t really care.
Nakajima’s limping, which. In Bokuto’s defense, he does look worse for wear.
Kuroo doesn’t give a shit. He stalks towards him, shoving his hands in his pockets. He stops directly in his path, staring at him down his nose, lip curled. “Nakajima.”
Nakajima looks up at him, gaze flickering with recognition, then irritation. “You’re Koutarou’s friend.”
The name flicks a switch in Kuroo and he loses it, the swing of his arm familiar as he cuts into Nakajima’s jaw. Nakajima jerks to the left, dropping and landing awkwardly on his arm.
“What the hell, man…?” Nakajima raises a hand to adjust his jaw, eyebrows furrowed angrily.
Kuroo doesn’t really know. He just knows that an unrighteous fury took over his soul the moment Nakajima dropped Bokuto’s first name. Bokuto’s first name is important, and only the right people are allowed to call him by name. Especially to other people. Who the fuck does Nakajima think he is?
“Don’t call him that,” Kuroo says simply. The words are acid on his tongue, burning his throat. “If you know what’s good for you.”
“Oh, so you’re threatening me, great.” Nakajima pushes to his feet. “Did he put you up to this? Upset he lost a little and decided to sick his dog on me?”
Kuroo’s flaming anger flickers and recedes. He inhales, waits for Nakajima to put himself back together. Watches blandly as Nakajima wipes blood off of his lip. Kuroo’s ire is viscous and glowing, lava sludging through caverns.
“Aw, little bud is angry he doesn’t have friends to back him up,” Kuroo says. He cools his voice off as much as he can, falling into easy disdain. “Frustrated, Jiji?” Kuroo leans into his space, peering at his eyes.
Nakajima swallows, glaring. “The fuck is your problem?”
“You are my problem,” Kuroo says. He looks Nakajima up and down, curling his lip. “Unfortunately.”
“Koutarou got what was--”
This time Kuroo aims for the base of his sternum. Nakajima drops like a box of rocks. He takes much longer to rise than before, air squeezing through his lungs in rasps. He lunges at Kuroo, who side steps easily. “Easy solution. Leave Bokuto’s name out of your filthy mouth and leave him alone, and we won’t have a problem.”
“You realize he made the first swing?” Nakajima says, gasping.
“I don’t give a shit,” Kuroo says. “If he made the first swing then you’re a real shit person. I should take you down right now.”
Nakajima whirls, hand shooting out. It wraps around Kuroo’s neck and squeezes.
Kuroo takes a shot at the inside of Nakajima’s elbow, ducking down and pressing his chin against Nakajima’s hand at the same moment. He swoops Nakajima’s foot too far to the right and drives his knee upwards.
Kuroo winces despite himself as Nakajima groans, falling once again, hands falling lax.
“Leave him alone,” Kuroo says. He thinks about pushing him over, grinding his heel into Nakajima’s throat. The thought passes. “You hear me?”
“You’re fucking crazy.” Nakajima moans.
“Do you understand what I am saying?” Kuroo says. He considers driving his knee against his back, pressing him against the ground.
“Jesus christ, yes, I’ll leave him fucking alone.”
It’s not enough. It’s never enough.
But his phone is ringing again, so he turns on his heel and stalks away.
---
“Kuuuuroooooooo,” Bokuto whines, throwing himself on Kuroo the moment he walks in. There’s a dull ache in his side as he nearly smothers Kuroo, but obviously greeting his best bud is more important.
“Aw, miss me?” Kuroo snickers and detaches himself from Bokuto.
Bokuto frowns. “Obviously. I want to go throw some volleyballs around. Akaashi can set!”
“No I will not,” Akaashi says from the couch.
“He will.”
“Bo, you shouldn’t be practicing right now,” Kuroo laughs. He pokes Bokuto in the forehead.
Bokuto stares at him, then lunges forward, knocking their foreheads together with a clack.
“Ow, what the fuck,” Kuroo yelps.
Bokuto grinds his teeth together and wraps his arms around Kuroo and clings like a limpet. “Block for me!”
“No!” Kuroo wiggles in Bokuto’s arms, trying to break free. It’s like trying to move a tree trunk.
Bokuto shoves his face in the juncture of Kuroo’s neck. “Pleasee.” His voice buzzes against Kuroo’s skin. Goosebumps rise along the back of Kuroo’s neck.
“No,” Kuroo says. He groans in defeat.
Bokuto beams, then realizes that Kuroo’s trying to shift in a different way than before, like he’s trying to hug him back. So he relinquishes Kuroo’s arms.
Kuroo hugs him around the neck and shoulders. “‘S fine. Let’s just chill.”
“Mmkay.” Bokuto melts into the hold. It’s so soft and warm. He nuzzles his nose into Kuroo’s neck and sighs. Bokuto’s always warm, but he loves physical contact anyway. It’s like a thousand soft blankets.
“C’mon, bud.” Kuroo tugs him towards the couch, where Akaashi is reading a book. Somehow. Among their loud noises.
“I don’t want to watch a movie,” Bokuto says. Even he can tell he’s being petulant, but he can’t help it. “I’ll get bored.”
Kuroo brings out his phone, waving it in front of Bokuto as he plops them both on the couch. “Let’s play minecraft.”
Bokuto’s frozen for half a second. Then he gasps, feeling a glow starting in his chest and gleaming outwards, shining through his eyes and teeth, glinting off his shoulders. “Yes! Bro, yes!” He scrambles for his phone, pressing his shoulder against Kuroo’s.
Kuroo’s shoulders stiffen. Bokuto is about to move away because he’s not the kind of guy to consciously discomfort his bros, but then Kuroo relaxes, tension leaking from his body.
“Do you want to make a new world?” Bokuto asks, booting his phone up and staring at the screen, already invested. He leans his head on Kuroo’s shoulder, humming.
“Sure,” Kuroo says. He doesn’t move for a few long seconds, fingers lax around his phone.
Bokuto glances up at him and catches Kuroo staring at his face, eyes roaming around. Bokuto swallows, knowing he’s staring at the white bandages. Kuroo’s gaze flicks to Bokuto’s shoulder, a bruise showing through the loose sweater he’s wearing.
“Punch me later,” Bokuto says.
Kuroo snorts in surprise, his vulnerable expression melting into one of ease. He shifts, jostling Bokuto’s head, settling against the back of the couch. “What should the seed be?”
“Bitch,” Bokuto says instantly. “No! Ace. Wait, we did that one already. Middle blocker. Cross spike!”
“Bitch it is,” Kuroo says.
Bokuto laughs. Kuroo smiles, teeth showing. Akaashi turns a page, and everything feels just right. He can barely feel the burn of his scabs with the warmth of Kuroo against him and the quiet presence of Akaashi just a few feet away.
And Bokuto smiles, the upturn of his lips quieter than his normal radiant beam. He knows, then; they’re good.
He’s good.
