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DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THE RIGHTS FOR "THE KING OF FIGHTERS" SAGA ARE PROPERTY OF SNK PLAYMORE, AS WELL AS ANY OTHER MENTION TO THE COMPANY GAMES. I DONT MAKE ANY SORT OF PROFIT BY WRITING OR POSTING THIS STORY.

English version of one of my own favorite fanfics. I wrote it in english first and posted it somewhere else but since I like it so much I decided I would leave it here too. Enjoy the K'Kukris.

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SOMETHING QUICK

Fighting each other was only a matter of time. Neither of them was surprised when the announcer called both of their teams into the stage nor when they had to go one against the other in the third round. They treated and fought each other like complete strangers, there was no room for any complicity when there were so many eyes watching over them. The only thing that caught Kukri by surprise was losing the round. He had seen his opponents fight several times—especially K—but actually fighting him was a different experience. He was relentless, vicious and agile, qualities that made him the biggest threat of his team. Losing against him hurt his pride a little even taking into account that he also had fought against his robo-nanny briefly, an easier fight since he was already worn out after a fight with Mian. It also hurt to watch K take on Sylvie with the same ease and for instance, eliminating their team from the tournament. The poor thing never stood a chance against him and Kukri could almost foresee her crying in Mian's arms about how much of a NESTS failure she was.

His convincing triumph made the crowd go wild but K-being-K just ignored it, jumping out of the stage as soon as he was done. Kukri didn't care about losing, winning was merely a luxury and it wasn't the reason why he was participating. In fact, it was kind of a relief that the most tedious part of his mission was over. Since the fights were held on the morning and the tourney was over for him, Kukri figured he could take the rest of the day to recover. After all, he had a little night-time appointment that he wouldn't miss. They usually saw each other late in the night and always in the same place: the rooftop of a big old hotel far from the tournament grounds and where sometimes they rented a room to spend the night.

Kukri managed to sneak out early of Antonov's attempt to cheer Sylvie up by inviting the whole team to gather for dinner. While in route he wondered if K would bother to show up and how the possibility of not finding him there unsettled him. Much to his delight he found him on the roof, sitting on the ground with his back against a wall and observing the city landscape. It was a relief to see him there despite what had happened earlier, it surely made the insanely painful stair climbing to the roof worth it but Kukri wasn't going to tell him any sooner. He just approached him carefully although K had probably seen him upon his arrival. When he was close enough Kukri spoke in a flat stoic tone, trying his best not to look bothered by his own words "That was pretty impressive".

"Yeah, well... It's part of the job" K disregarded the comment pretty fast, moving his hand up and down in front of his face as if getting a nice comment thrown at him created a cloud of thick smoke that wouldn't let him breathe. The thought alone made him pull out the small box of cigarettes from his jacket.

It was easy for Kukri to forget who he was dealing with and watching him tear his whole team apart with almost no effort was a real eye opener. Of course he had researched K's past before or at least what little it existed of it. He was in essence a machine. A fighting machine—and a pretty fucking good one as Kukri himself would put it. He was fierce and savage in battle but if you paid close attention you could easily tell that he wasn't always giving his best effort. He often ended the fights without breaking a sweat or almost as if he was annoyed to have wasted precious minutes of his time on such bad opponents. It was clear for Kukri that fighting was second nature for K and one can only achieve such thing by years and years of mindless practice. Of course that could only mean lots of mindless fighting and if he was forced to do it, he probably was sick of it. No wonder the guy looked at the tournament as a chore.

"What?" K's voice broke the silence with that lazy voice of his, interrupting Kukri's own line of thought. The slim man barely turned his head down to meet the blue-eyed piercing gaze of his companion scowling at him. "You are thinking. What is it?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking about all the prize money you took away from me, thanks a bunch asshole" K couldn't help but to snort at the comment, forcing some cigarette smoke out of his nose and closing his eyes for a moment while he smiled. Kukri just leaned against the wall and slowly let himself slide down until he was on the ground where he crossed his arms and legs while shaking his head side to side faking resentment "Yeah, go ahead, laugh as much as you like you insensitive piece of shit".

"You were pretty good for a nobody" with a big smile on his face and such bold remarks on his mouth K seemed to be in a good mood to annoy the hell out of him. But Kukri wasn't the silent type and for each daring comment he had a snappy answer to match it or better.

"Your half-assed compliments don't fill my bank account you know?" Kukri sighed and pulled back the hoodie from his head, raising his head to let the breeze dry the sweat from his forehead and temples. The summer nights of South Town where unforgiving and it was pointless to cover himself in front of K who had literally removed his clothes more times than he would admit to himself. After a while he turned to K who had just brought the cigarette tip into his lips to take a drag "What are you going to do with your share of the money anyways?"

"I don't know. Buy food and shit, we don't split"

"What do you mean that you don't split? Are you fucking stupid? Don't you ever buy things for yourself? " K looked at the cigarette on his hands for a moment and before he could even open his mouth Kukri spoke first, a hint of annoyance in his words that he couldn't hide "Besides your disgusting nicotine addiction, moron. Isn't there something you'd like to buy?"

His frowned brow and his sudden quietness made it quite clear that K was lost in his thought. Kukri peeked at him out of the corner of his eyes a few times while he waited for an answer, if he had one. It wasn't strange at all that he didn't and Kukri knew that. Most of their conversations revolved around Kukri or what Kukri said, K barely spoke about himself even though at times he had a mouth as loud as his. In the months that they had been seeing each other, Kukri managed to come up with a theory of his own. He didn't think K was hiding something, not with that impulsive behavior of his. He didn't say a word about himself because he probably didn't know much about himself. Hell, sometimes Kukri wondered if he knew more about K than K himself. The only consistent things about him were the food he liked and they brands of beer and smokes that he preferred. Outside of that, he couldn't think of anything else and surely neither did K.

"A motorcycle, maybe. And a room for tonight"

It took Kurki a couple of seconds of analyzing the response and he bursted into laughter as soon as he realized how dumb the answer was and how hard he was proven wrong. It had never occurred to him that he was into motorcycles even though he was pretty much dressed to ride one. He almost laughed again, imagining him falling over and over, not being able to keep balance or taking a nap on a sidecar while his robo-pal did all the driving for him. His own laughter also served as the perfect shield to hide how pleased he was with the room mention. Of all of the things he could have chosen, he chose him. To share a room with him and to be with him. It almost sounded romantic and as a way to shake that thought away from his head, Kukri couldn't help but to say "Heh, I don't know man. I'm not sure if I like the idea of getting fucked by you twice in this day".

"Just twice? Come on, I know you can endure tougher battles than that."

Kukri raised a brow. "Was that a challenge?"

K threw the remains of his smoke aside after taking his final drag and he stood up, pulling a small card from his pocket and handing it over to Kukri. "No, but this is".

As he picked the card in between his fingers, Kukri smiled. He was almost too sure of what it was without even taking a look. He turned over the card and on the other side a very familiar logo confirmed his theory and so did the words that were under it. Room 120, enjoy your stay.

"Hey, are you coming or what?"

Kukri placed his hoodie over his head again before standing up to face K who was waiting by the stairs. Kukri fidgeted with the card while approaching him, disguising his excitement in the only way he could. "If I knew that letting you win would make you this needy I would've done it sooner". K rolled his eyes and went down the stairs while shaking his head side to side. The lack of a response was a little win for Kukri's ego but even then he knew that once they locked themselves in that room there wouldn't be any losers or winners. And he couldn't care less.