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When Tsukishima first met Kuroo, his first thought was…
…Troublesome.
They had first met in Tsukishima’s math class, having taken a couple advanced courses in high school leaving him in a pretty high level. He ended up sitting next to him in the lecture hall, which turned out to be a huge mistake, because when he sat down, Kuroo said something about borrowing Tsukishima’s phone number because he forgot his. When Tsukishima gave him an unimpressed look, he laughed and asked for a pencil instead, because he didn’t like taking math notes with pens.
“If you don’t like taking notes with pens, then why did you bring only a pen?” Tsukishima retorted, and Kuroo shrugged.
“By your third year of college, you’ll understand, Glasses-kun.” Kuroo replied, and Tsukishima decided right then and there that he hated him.
Every day, Kuroo would ask for a pencil, and Tsukishima would give him the same one. It was always promptly returned after class, the wood dented with bite marks. By the halfway point of the semester, the pencil was just a tiny stub, and Tsukishima had to provide Kuroo with a different one.
“It’s annoying,” he said to Yamaguchi one day while they were out to coffee, “Why doesn’t he just bring his own pencil and stop wasting all of mine?”
“Wow, you really don’t get it at all, do you Tsukki?” Yamaguchi smiled, taking a sip of his of vanilla latte, and Tsukishima furrowed his brow.
“What are you getting at, Yamaguchi?” he sneered, and Yamaguchi giggled, hiding behind his drink and waving his hand dismissively.
“Nothing, Tsukki! Sorry, Tsukki!”
“Tsukki, huh?”
Tsukishima and Yamaguchi looked up to see none other than Kuroo, smirking his stupid smirk with a blond kid standing next to him on his phone.
“Don’t call me that.” Tsukishima said with a glare, taking a sip of his coffee, and Kuroo laughed.
“So you’d prefer Glasses-kun over Tsukki?” he asked, then looked over to Yamaguchi. “Haven’t seen you around before. And you are?”
“Yamaguchi Tadashi,” he smiled, shaking Kuroo’s hand. “Tsukki’s best friend since childhood!”
“Nice to meet you, Yamaguchi-kun,” Kuroo grinned, “I’m Kuroo Tetsurou. Always nice to meet a good friend of Tsukki.”
“I said not to call me that!” Tsukishima growled, feeling his cheeks flush. Kuroo laughed again.
“You’re such a party pooper.” He said, reaching over to ruffle Tsukishima’s hair before turning to his blond friend, “C’mon Kenma, let’s get our coffee.”
Tsukishima huffed, fixing out his hair, glaring at Yamaguchi, who was muffling his laughter behind his hand.
“See what I mean? He’s a fucking asshole.”
“Oh yeah,” Yamaguchi laughed, “He’s absolutely horrible. You were right.”
“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
“Sorry, Tsukki!”
-x-
After their meeting in the coffee shop, Kuroo started popping up a lot more on campus, walking with Tsukishima to his classes or offering to pay for his drinks when they ran into each other at the vending machines. It was annoying, and it was even more annoying when Tsukishima found himself glancing around eagerly for the messy mop of black hair that would always come bother him.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” he muttered to himself as he pulled out some pocket change.
“Hey, Tsukki!”
Tsukishima turned around way faster than he normally would have, seeing Kuroo wandering towards him. He frowned at his own actions, putting his change in the vending machine and pressing the button for a strawberry milk.
“Hello.” He greeted softly, pulling his milk from the vending machine.
“Ah, I could go for something,” Kuroo said, digging through his pockets, “But I don’t think I have any change…”
Tsukishima furrowed his brow, looking at the change in his hand, then back to Kuroo, who was now digging through his backpack for loose change. He rolled his eyes, taking one of Kuroo’s hands and dumping the change into it.
“Here,” he said, looking up at Kuroo’s stunned face, “For all the times you’ve treated me.”
Kuroo blinked, accepting the change with reddened cheeks, trying to smirk, but it came out as a wobbly smile instead.
“Wow, thanks, Tsukki,” he said, turning to the machine and putting in the change, “Well, ah, since you treated me this time, maybe we could like…I dunno, go to dinner or something? My treat.”
Tsukishima raised his eyebrow, hiking his backpack higher on his shoulder and taking a sip from his milk box.
“We can split the bill,” Tsukishima finally said, “I like udon.”
The shocked look on Kuroo’s face was totally worth it.
“Y-Yeah, okay, cool, I mean- I like u-udon too. Sure. Cool. When…I mean, when are you free?”
“How about Saturday?” Tsukishima asked, and Kuroo nodded, grinning widely, clutching his bottle of tea.
“Yeah! Yeah, sounds great! Ah, here,” Kuroo pulled out his phone, “Gimme your number and I’ll text you where we’ll go. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.” Tsukishima agreed, and they exchanged numbers, Kuroo grinning excitedly the whole time and Tsukishima wondering if there were ways to stop yourself from blushing.
“It’s a date then! See you Saturday, Tsukki!” Kuroo waved, making his way to his class, Tsukishima waving back, taking another sip of his milk and looking at his phone. He dialed Yamaguchi, putting the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“What is wrong with me?”
“Tsukki? Did something happen?”
“I just agreed to go on a date with Kuroo. Am I insane?”
“Oh, you guys are finally going on a date?”
“What the hell do you mean finally?”
“Ah, well,” Yamaguchi chuckled, “Wasn’t it obvious that Kuroo-san liked you from the beginning?”
“No. Well, I mean, kind of, but I didn’t think he would do anything…”
“Mhm,” Yamaguchi hummed, “Well, when are you two going out?”
“Saturday,” Tsukishima replied, “For udon.”
“You should just enjoy it, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi said, “You deserve to have a little fun after your first semester of college!”
“…Yeah, okay, fine,” Tsukishima grumbled, “I gotta get to class, so I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye, Tsukki!”
-x-
In the short time he had known Kuroo, Tsukishima had never seen him so embarrassed and nervous before.
It was rather…cute.
His cheeks were red as he floundered through conversations about topics that Tsukishima figured were good topics for relationship building. Favorite movies, favorite music, opinions on certain places around Tokyo.
“Kuroo-san,” Tsukishima interrupted when he went on a tangent about some restaurant that had horrible service but excellent food, “There’s no need for you to be nervous.”
“Nervous?” Kuroo scoffed, his cheeks lighting up as he folded his arms, “I’m not nervous.”
“Uh huh.” Tsukishima smiled as their waitress set down their bowls of udon, Kuroo giving him an interested look. “…Yes?”
“I’ve been doing most of the talking,” Kuroo said, smirking as he picked up his chopsticks, “Why don’t you tell me a story, Tsukki?”
Tsukishima sighed, going through his mental banks for any stories that would entertain Kuroo while they ate their noodles.
“Ah,” he realized, looking up at Kuroo, who had a good mouthful of udon, then deadpanned, “Once when I was younger, my older brother made me laugh during dinner and a noodle came out of my nose.”
Kuroo snorted, broth and noodles sputtering out of his lips. He quickly covered his mouth, grabbing his napkin to clean himself up as he laughed.
“Oh my God,” Kuroo snickered, “That was low, Tsukki. When I had food in my mouth? Really?” Tsukishima smirked and shrugged, taking a bite of his own meal. “What kind of noodle was it?”
“Soba,” Tsukishima replied, “My dad had to pull it out of my nose.”
“Gross,” Kuroo chuckled, “I’ve only had liquids come out my nose, to be honest. I can’t imagine a noodle.”
They went through dinner exchanging stories, Kuroo telling the tale of how he accidentally hit his best friend Kenma in the face with a volleyball and gave him a bloody nose and got grounded for a week; Tsukishima recalling a time where he endured something similar with his older brother, who was practicing serves and Tsukishima walked outside at the wrong time.
It was odd, how much Tsukishima enjoyed this time with Kuroo after finding him annoying for a majority of the semester. Admittedly, Kuroo was a lot more tolerable like this, a little nervous, and a little more comfortable around Tsukishima and little bit less of a smug asshole. They split the bill and left the restaurant, talking all the way to the trains, then all the way back to Tsukishima’s apartment building.
“Well,” Tsukishima sighed, “Um. It was…fun, I guess.”
“Fun, you guess?” Kuroo asked with a smirk, and Tsukishima blushed, “C’mon, Tsukki, you had a lot of fun tonight. I even saw you smile a few times. See, there you go again!”
“Shut up,” Tsukishima said behind a smile, giving Kuroo’s arm a smack.
“Ow,” Kuroo whined, “You should smile more, Tsukki. You look good like that.”
Tsukishima felt himself blush harder, his smile turning into a grumpy pout, and Kuroo snickered.
“Alright, alright,” he relented, “I’ll stop now. Um. I guess I’ll see you later, then?”
“Yeah,” Tsukishima nodded, “We’ll hang out again sometime.”
“Cool,” Kuroo smiled, giving Tsukishima a little wave, “Have a good night!”
Tsukishima waved back, watching Kuroo start to walk down the street, feeling a little disappointed.
The rest of his night was plagued by the thought, ‘Should I have kissed him?’
-x-
They went on other dates, but they were rare, due to their busy schedules. Tsukishima had picked up a part time job at a bakery that had the best strawberry shortcake he had ever had (aside from his mother’s homemade cake, nothing could ever beat that), and Kuroo would sometimes come and visit and order a slice of it. Tsukishima liked it best when Kuroo came in towards the end of his shift, ordered a slice, and the two of them would sit at the nearby park and share it.
They ended up kissing after all, one evening after Tsukishima got off work. They were eating their cake, when Tsukishima suddenly felt lips upon his cheek. When he turned and looked at Kuroo, his face was beet red, and his shoulders were hunched embarrassedly. Tsukishima scoffed, saying, “You call that a kiss?” before leaning in and properly slotting their lips together.
When he told Yamaguchi about it on the phone, the freckled boy had laughed, muttered a ‘finally’, and congratulated him on his new boyfriend. Tsukishima told him to shut up.
They held hands, Tsukishima always snickering to himself when he felt Kuroo’s sweaty palm against his. They kissed, cuddled (Kuroo really liked to cuddle), and sometimes did…less appropriate things.
Tsukishima really did not know that Kuroo would become such a big part of his life, but he did.
It was a surprise, but not unwelcome in the slightest.
-x-
“Ah.”
Tsukishima blinked blearily at the ceiling, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Kuroo murmured, pulling the blond closer to him and nuzzling his face into his neck.
“Morning,” Tsukishima replied around a yawn, grabbing the edge of the blanket and pulling it up over the both of them, turning so he could leech more of Kuroo’s body heat. “I had a dream last night.”
“Oh ho?” Kuroo questioned, and Tsukishima stretched out with a grunt, then curling back into Kuroo.
“Mm. I had a dream we were in the park.”
“Aw, you dreamt of us? How cute.”
“If I was more awake I would punch you,” Tsukishima muttered, his eyes drooping closed as Kuroo traced shapes on his back apologetically. “We were in the park…and we were eating strawberry shortcake.”
“Mhm,” Kuroo encouraged, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of Tsukishima’s throat, “What else?”
“I looked over to you, and you had a little box in your hands,” Tsukishima continued, “And I started freaking out, but when you opened it, there was a strawberry inside.”
Kuroo snorted, laughing softly into Tsukishima’s collar bone.
“Oh,” Kuroo finally said, “I see.”
“It was weird,” Tsukishima said quietly, “But the strawberry was good.”
“Well that’s good. I’m glad I was able to provide a nice strawberry for you.”
“Mhm.” Tsukishima hummed, his eyes flittering shut, “I’m g’na sleep s’more.”
“Alright,” Kuroo pressed a kiss to Tsukishima’s forehead, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Tsukishima sighed, feeling himself drifting off back to sleep.
And just like he promised, Kuroo was there to greet him with a kiss when he woke up.