"Please tell me you're joking."
"Why would I joke about something as important as this, Tsukki?"
Kei ignored Kuroo's sloe-dark gaze – he would not fall prey to that teasing leer; it would take more than that to provoke him – in favor of scrunching his face into a sneer. "And by 'important' I assume you're referring to this over-commercialized, bastardized, and appropriated version of a 'holy day' that idiots around the world call 'Christmas.'"
"Easy on the air quotes, babe, it almost sounds like you don't care about Christmas."
"I don't."
And really, he didn't. Kei rolled his eyes as his boyfriend proceeded to gasp and clutch at his chest and act with appalling similarity to the eighty-seven year old woman that Kuroo truly was at heart. Christmas was a piss-poor excuse for a holiday, in his opinion. Christmas was the epitome of posturing and false cheer and obligation in the name of a breaking-and-entering fat man and a squalling baby born in a barn. Kei just didn't get it. Lying to your children, spending a required lump-sum of your earnings in order to prove your love to every significant and insignificant person in your life, filling your home to the brim with sticky, flammable, or sharp-cornered objects…
"Whoa, whoa," Kuroo was saying. "All I suggested was decorating a Christmas tree together. We don't even need to call it a Christmas tree. Yuletide arbor. Ye Olde Pine. Bokuto told me about a place that has super cheap trees even this late on Christmas Eve, and well...we do need something to put the gifts under." He finished this off with the barest hint of a smile – not a smirk or a leer or that full Chesire-cat grin, but a real smile – so Kei was almost inclined to keep his mouth shut because it was so rare that Kuroo just smiled in that stupidly handsome way of his that didn't make Kei want to punch his mouth. Almost.
"I don't have any gifts to put under a tree," he said instead. Deadpan. Kei wasn't the kind of person to sweeten his words in favor of the truth. Kuroo knew this. But for some reason, Kuroo didn't chuckle or snark back or kiss the corner of Kei's scowl because you're so adorable when you pretend to be mean, Tsukki. Instead, Kuroo looked completely blank. A little slack-jawed—innocent and young-looking in a way that Kei wasn't comfortable with. "Oi…" he started.
"Oh." Kuroo blinked. Then, falsely bright: "Oh! Well! That's fine. I mean, I don't have any gifts...either, heh. I mean, we've only been living together two months, and we've only gone out for nine months and two weeks and four days, we haven't even had our anniversary yet so obviously we wouldn't exchange gifts before that, on a holiday you don't really care about." Kei could only stare, feeling a little helpless, as Kuroo blinked about eighteen times in four seconds.
"Well, that's good—"
"I should just—"
They both stopped. Kei was frowning and Kuroo was grinning, which wasn't in general an unusual occurrence, but for some reason it was off and Kei didn't like it, but what was he supposed to say?
"Listen…" he tried again.
"I'm gonna go." Kuroo swept his leather jacket over his shoulders, still grinning in that too-many-teeth way. "I'll pick us up some food." Grabbed his keys, a wallet, a giant scarf.
"Kuroo," Kei said. It was 10 PM after all, and they'd already eaten. But Kuroo was walking towards the door. "Kuroo—"
"Bye!" A little high-pitched, Kuroo's voice was nonetheless kurt and empty. Almost cold. Their apartment door clicked shut.
Kei heaved a sigh. "See ya."
"Knock, knock," Kei drawled, twisting his neighbor's doorknob open. "I'm now entering your apartment, so if either of you are in any state of undress or compromised position, kindly whistle or signal or otherwise put out my eyes so that I might retain what's left of my virtue."
Kei heard Akaashi snort from in the kitchen and Bokuto stage-whisper should we whistle?
"You're fine, Kei," Akaashi called, although Kei clearly heard the sounds of clothing being adjusted. "And I wasn't aware you still had any virtue left to taint."
"It's a paltry amount," Kei responded as he made his way down the narrow hall to the kitchen. As he suspected, both Akaashi and Bokuto were flushed and the collars of their shirts were mussed. A reddish bruise was forming high on Bokuto's jaw. "But it's enough that I can still look my mother in the eye without shame."
"Laaame." Bokuto stuck his tongue out at him. Kei raised his eyebrow, but then Bokuto continued. "Kuroo's slacking if you still consider yourself virtuous after how long you all have been going out.
Kei winced involuntarily. Akaashi, of course, picked up on this. "Did something happen between you two?"
Bokuto gasped. "Did Tetsu finally give you the D?" Akaashi smacked him on the chest, something that Bokuto clearly didn't consider punishment due to the way he waggled his eyebrows.
"No, and none of your business," Kei sighed. "Kuroo is just acting funny."
"Like ha-ha funny?"
"Strange funny. He just took off out of nowhere. Doing his weird scheming captain smile. Except he didn't look like he was scheming, he looked like…." Kei stopped. He looked like he was going to cry.
"Like he was constipated?" Bokuto asked, dead serious. "Sometimes I leave real quick without any explanation when that happens. It always confuses Akaashi."
"Well, not anymore," Akaashi muttered. "Anyway, you said Kuroo just left? Without saying anything? That doesn't sound like him."
Akaashi, Bokuto, Kuroo and Kei had all met in high school when Kei transferred there in his third year and he had joined the school volleyball team. Akaashi and Bokuto had been high school sweethearts, but Kuroo and Kei hadn't gotten together until just the past year at university. It may have been Bokuto who was childhood buddies with Kuroo, but Akaashi had known him almost as long and could definitely speak on the matter of what was and wasn't normal for their inscrutable former volleyball captain.
"Well he said he was going to pick us up some dinner, but he just left so suddenly. And he seemed so upset about getting a Christmas tree for some reason."
Bokuto piped in. "Oh, did he not like the one he got at Sakanoshita? He told me he was heading there after practice." Both Bokuto and Kuroo still played division volleyball together at university.
"What? No." Kei frowned. "No there wasn't a tree. I don't want a tree. I told him I didn't have any gifts for him to put under it anyway."
Bokuto and Akaashi stared at him.
"You don't have any gifts for him?" Akaashi asked. His eyes were bulging in that same disturbed way they got when witnessing Bokuto eat his squat-lift weight in barbecue.
"On Christmas?" Bokuto added, anguished.
"I thought we were just going to exchange little gifts on New Years like we always do."
"But!" Surprisingly it was Akaashi who was losing his composure. "But this is your first Christmas together. You know, together. I thought you guys were going to do something special this year."
"What's so special about Christmas?"
Again, a too-long pause and too much staring.
"Oh my God, Kei…" Akaashi pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Whoa! Tsukki. You're the real-life Grinch!"
"Excuse me? I am not—what are you doing?" Bokuto was crouched down and had his hand clutched around Kei's ankle.
"Checking to see if your shoes are too tight."
"For the love of—Keiji, get your stupid boyfriend off me before I kick him in his dumb face."
"I guess that proves that your heart's a couple sizes too small."
Kei grit his teeth together in order to prevent the venomous retort ready on his tongue from escaping, which, it had to be acknowledged, would not help in his case as someone who was Not-The-Grinch. "Look," he said instead. "Kuroo knows that I don't buy into any of that obligatory shit. I just don't do Christmas. That doesn't make me the Grinch or the Scrooge or whoever."
"Christmas isn't about obligation," Akaashi said as Bokuto pointed out that Kei's glasses totally made him look like the Scrooge. "Christmas is about an opportunity. A priceless occasion where families and friends and loved ones can all take a moment to appreciate each other and all that they have, set in a backdrop of wintry flakes and fireside cuddling and gingerbread hot chocolate." Akaashi was poking a severe finger into Kei's chest, emphatic. "Christmas is fucking lovely. Especially when your family doesn't suck, and your friends are awesome, and your boyfriend is crazy about you."
"But—"
"Shush. Koutarou, go get the mitten box."
"Aye, aye, babe."
"What the hell? Mitten box?" But Akaashi was clearly done listening to whatever Kei had to say for himself, and disappeared down the hall to the bedroom while Bokuto rustled in the storage closet for the ominous 'mitten box.'
Kei stood in the middle of the kitchen, feeling like the only man in the universe immune to the maddening effects of Christmas. So maybe he should have gotten Kuroo something for Christmas, except it always seemed like Kuroo was perfectly happy with the way Kei was—which was a person thoroughly disenchanted with the idea of romanticism and formalities.
Kuroo had always been fine with the fact that Kei had wanted to take their relationship slowly, fine when Kei decided that it just made more sense to live together when the lease on his old apartment was up, fine that Kei only ever called him 'Kuroo' even though they had known each other for two years and had been together for almost half that time. Kuroo knew that Kei liked him, loved spending time with him, was stupidly attracted to him without Kei needing to spell it out for him. It was one of the things Kei liked most about Kuroo.
But the look on Kuroo's face when Kei had told him he didn't have any presents for him on Christmas, that he didn't care about Christmas at all, wasn't the look of a man who was fine with it. Wasn't the look of someone who was perfectly happy.
"Does he…" Kei whispered to himself, alone in a kitchen. "Does he not know that I care about him even if I don't care about this stupid holiday?"
"Tetsu might be a smart dude, but he's not immune to having doubts." Bokuto said from the doorway, startling Kei. He had on an uncharacteristic solemn expression, somewhat at odds with the reindeer antler headband holding back his hair and the enormous glittery-green box in his grip. "He's always been good at reading people, but he's only confident about it because he gets confirmation. It's like….he's read-blocking you, except even if you're where he expects you to be, the ball never hits his hand. So he thinks his read is wrong, even if it's not."
Kei could only gape at Bokuto as Akaashi strode back into the kitchen bearing what appeared to be a mass of ornaments and tinsel sewn onto a single sweater.
"What I believe Kou is trying to say, is that even though Kuroo might know deep down that you care about him, it's not enough to simply assume your feelings for one another. There needs to be communication, validation."
"Yeah, I got that," Kei sneered. He always turned to sarcasm when he felt cornered. Akaashi frowned.
"Kei, do you love Kuroo?"
Kei flushed crimson with embarrassing swiftness. His brow came down and his lip curled up and he had to stop the tide of snark and vitriol that threatened to bubble up his throat. Why was he so defensive? Why was he mortified at the notion of admitting to his best friends that he had genuine feelings for his boyfriend?
Of course he had genuine feelings for Kuroo. From the moment they'd met, Kuroo had been able to read Kei in a way that no one, not even his brother, not even his childhood friend Yamaguchi, had been able to. Not only could he read Kei, Kuroo could challenge him, rile him, provoke him until Kei felt not only absolutely murderous, but absolutely invested in his surroundings. Only Kuroo could make Kei really care about the people and things around him, make the air sing with possibility and make his days feel legitimately interesting. Kuroo didn't let Kei just brush off life as some sort of casual nuisance, losing himself in the music on his headphones and detaching from the world around him. Kuroo pulled him out of his comfort zone, exposed him to fear and excitement and anticipation and…opportunity.
Christmas isn't about obligation. Christmas is about an opportunity.
Kuroo, Kei realized, made his life bright, and sharp, and edged with promise. Kuroo made his life beautiful.
"I do," he murmured, voice hoarse. His eyes were trained on the tiles, his too-tight shoes. "I do love him."
Akaashi's voice was soft, but insistent. "And have you ever told him that?"
Kei stared at the tile and remained silent, because they all already knew.
For all that his heart was evidently a few sizes too small, it sat like lead in his chest. His silent phone hung heavy in his pocket. His empty apartment seemed like a black hole across the hallway. Kei stifled the urge to pull on headphones that weren't there, to mask his shame with an indifferent sneer. He looked up from the tile. Akaashi and Bokuto were looking back at him, nonjudgmental, but frank.
"I fucked up," Kei said. They nodded. "I've been fucking up." His breath was coming faster. His glasses fogged at the edges, his face hot. "What if he doesn't come back? What if that was my last chance to get my head out of my ass and I completely failed? What if I lose him—" His voice cracked.
"Kei, calm down, you can fix it." Akaashi had a hand on his shoulder.
"No, it's too late. I'd need a wormhole or a time machine." Oh god. Those were not tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. His vision blurred. He tucked his head into his chest, his only way of hiding his face as tall as he was.
Suddenly a tangle of wool and tinsel was thrown over his head, knocking his glasses askew. His arms were tugged mercilessly through the sleeves of some sort of sparkly, bauble-bedecked, ugly-as-original-sin Christmas sweater. Reindeer antlers were thrust on his head, a scarf with red and gold pom-poms wrapped around his neck. A giant hand was clapping him too-hard on the other shoulder.
"Nope!" Bokuto was saying, looking mischievous as an elf. "All you need is a Christmas miracle." He put thick mittens over Kei's hands as if bestowing a blessing. Akaashi handed Kei a gift card.
"What Koutarou is trying to say is that what you need to fix this is a grand gesture, and what better opportunity than embracing some of the holiday spirit?" Akaashi tossed him his own impish grin and steered him towards their apartment door.
"Wait—" Kei said, still sniffling.
"Don't worry about any expense. That's a gift card I was going to give you for New Years anyway. It works for most stores in this area, including Sakanoshita. Now go!"
They pushed him, trailing tinsel, out of their door. Kei looked towards the door to his own apartment, not quite able to quash the longing to just hide away, safe in routine.
Then he looked down at the disaster that he was wearing, and couldn't help the wry grin that twisted his lips for a moment as he caught his reflection in one of the sewn-on ornaments and saw the antlers perched on his head, stretching his height to absurd proportions.
Kuroo would love this.
He looked at the time on his phone. 11:15. No texts from Kuroo. Kei squared his shoulders and turned away from his apartment door. He was armed with a gift card, a recent paycheck, Santa-emblazoned mittens, and forty-five minutes to prove to his boyfriend that he wasn't the Grinch, and that he in fact was desperately in love with him.
And then he marched off to create his own Christmas miracle.
A/N: TBC in Part 2!