Kagami really should have done some research into who his neighbors would be when he decided to rent this house. He has just been hired at a new job right after graduating from college, one which required him to move to a new city. Because of the short notice after receiving the position, due in part to the company needing his skills "as soon as possible" (or so they say, he's working in an entry level position) Kagami had to do a quick move in after only looking at a couple rental places on Zillow. He didn't have enough time to vet the neighbors, or even look into what places were around him, and he is absolutely regretting this mistake right now.
Specifically when it comes to a certain blue haired neighbor, who owns too many pets of all has only talked to him once so far. His name was Kuroko. And once Kagami saw him going on a walk with five dogs at once, Kagami realized he made a giant mistake of moving into this house.
"Woof," he hears one of his neighbors' many dogs bark behind him. The unexpected noise startles him, causing him to drop the spade he was holding. All he wanted to do this morning other than sleeping in was tend to his tomato plants and make sure he got rid of all the weeds that seemed to have started growing this past week. He turns his head over his shoulder to glare at the dog.
Seeing as the dog had finally caught his new neighbors attention, he begins to wag his tail rapidly, along with letting out a series of more happy barks.
"What do you want?" Kagami grounds out at the dog as he slowly stands up to face the animal.
As he stands there watching the dog watching him, the dog's tail slows down until it finally stops wagging and the large brown eyes stare intently back at Kagami. It gives another bark, but this time much softer than before. Out of the corner of his eye, Kagami sees another dog approach the two of them from the direction of his neighbor's house. 'Not another one,' Kagami thinks as he sees the second dog run over carrying a stick.
The one redeeming quality about this place was that it had a front and back yard, allowing for Kagami to have space to grow the many plants that make up his garden. He certainly couldn't call this neighborhood quiet, with the amount of dogs and other animals his blue-haired neighbor has.
Kagami knows what these dogs want. And he wants nothing to do with it. Ever since he was a kid he couldn't stand being around animals. Dogs were the number one on his list of things to be avoided. (Don't blame him, they're scary alright.) so he tries to think of a way to quickly get the dogs to go away so he can peacefully go back to tending to his plants. The weather calls for rain later, and he wants to get inside before then.
Glaring down at the two dogs, Kagami begrudgingly comes to the conclusion that he might have to throw the damn stick, even to just get a couple seconds reprieve from the annoying dogs. He slowly reaches his hand out to take the stick being held by the one dog's mouth, the mouth made of sharp teeth and strong jaws, that could probably rip apart his face and break his bones if the beast wanted to. 'Just don't think about it, Kagami!'
Slowly taking the stick from the dog, Kagami nervously stands up from his bent down position. He lifts the stick above his shoulder and throws it. Hard. Thinking about it, he probably put too much force into his throw, but he wanted the dogs to go away, alright?
The stick ends up landing somewhere between the bushes lining the end of the backyards and the woods beyond their property. Kagami can't see where it landed. But this doesn't stop the two dogs from running after the stick anyways. Kagami watches the two dogs run away for a couple seconds before he turns back to what he was doing in his garden. 'Hopefully the two mutts don't come back.'
After he finishes watering his various plants, Kagami turns to walk back toward his house, and once again, he's stopped short by the loud barking coming from his neighbor's house. Again. "What now?" He mumbles under his breath as he stares at the house.
Then something lands on the ground right in front of him. He looks down, it's the stick he threw to the dogs earlier. Hearing the sounds of something moving in front of him, Kagami looks up to see the dogs from earlier running up to him.
'Oh shit!' is Kagami's first thought as he turns around and starts sprinting to the front door of his house, running inside to safety.
Once inside, Kagami looks through the window on his front door to make sense of what just happened. Outside, he sees his neighbor's dogs standing there next to the stick that was thrown at him. Then, he watches as his neighbor walks up to them, pats them both on the head, and reaches down only to throw the stick again as the dogs chase after it.
"Is that guy really using my yard to play with his dogs?!"
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
It was late a couple nights later, Kagami had finally laid down underneath his bed covers in the hopes that he would be able to quickly fall asleep. He had to be up early for an important meeting, one his boss said was the most important of his job so far. Hence why he wanted to get a good night's rest.
"Woof, Woof!" He hears coming from outside his window.
All the thoughts in his mind flee. This can't be real, right?
The next couple minutes are silent, almost enough for Kagami to let his guard down, when
"Woof, woof, woof!" is heard again.
This can't be serious, right?
The barking continues, which soon goes into howling. Continuous howling. Kagami tries his best to ignore the animals outside, but he… just… can't.
He can't take this any more. It's late, and all he wants to do is go to sleep. He throws off his covers and gets out of bed. Pushing his feet into a random pair of shoes sitting at his door, he leaves his house and stalks over to Kuroko's front door and bangs on it loudly.
This action causes all of the dogs in the house to run up to the front door and bark loudly behind it. Kagami really should have thought this through, but he is too mad and tired right now to care.
Kagami hears Kuroko from behind the door, telling his dogs to stop barking and to quiet down. When he opens the door, the first thing Kuroko sees is his very tall, very big, red-haired neighbor. Said neighbor appears to be very mad right now.
Kagami stares at his much shorter neighbor in silence for a couple seconds, before growling out, "Why is it that when I can't sleep, it's always one of your pets?"
Kuroko simply stares blankly at the man as he processes what he was just asked. After a couple of awkwardly long seconds he responds, "they were keeping you up, Kagami-kun? I'm sorry about that, I will tell them to quiet down."
Kagami in return also takes a couple seconds to process the man's answer. Kagami responds in shock. "Are you saying you slept through all that barking?!"
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
By this point, Kagami had been living in this house for four weeks now. It has also been four weeks of constant surprises from Kuroko and his many pets. But this one… this one takes the cake.
Kagami has heard of people keeping birds as pets before. When he was really little he vaguely remembers his grandfather having a couple.
But that man wouldn't let the birds leave his house. Wouldn't someone think the birds would fly away?
At least that's what Kagami thought would happen if he had pet birds.
But apparently, the birds Kuroko kept as pets, are not the ones to fly away at the first chance they get.
Four weeks into living in this new house, Kagami has finally managed to gain enough free time to get back into one of his old hobbies, playing basketball. It's a good thing that there is a small basketball court right down the block from his place. Walking up to it one afternoon, Kagami sees that two birds have built a bird's nest using the one basketball hoop.
But these aren't just any birds like pidgeons or Xxx that he often sees throughout the area.
No, Kagami spies two brightly colored parrots sitting on top of the basketball hoop. One a bright orange and another a vibrant red. And Kagami knows exactly where they came from, having had seen them many times when he glanced through his neighbors window. Those two birds taking hold of the only basketball hoop Kagami knows of within walking distance of his house belong to his neighbor, Kuroko Tetsuya.
Kagami sighs, what should he even do about this? While it would be possible to just shoo them off, Kagami doesn't want to hurt them, he's not a jerk. But at the same time… how could he just ignore this… this weirdness that his life has become? His life is being controlled by his neighbor's pets, for goodness sakes.
Sighing again, Kagami decides to see what he can do about this. He starts to move forward slowly, hoping that maybe if he keeps his head down then neither bird will notice him approaching. However, as he gets closer, both the birds spot him. Thinking he is a predator they decide to take flight, lifting their wings and taking off.
But as they fly off, to the direction of Kuroko's house, Kagami notes, the red bird decides that now would be a great time to relieve itself, coating the top of Kagami's head in white bird droppings.
"That's it!" Kagami screams out, to nobody around him. "I hate these stupid birds!"
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
One Friday about a month later, Kagami's company was given the day off for some holiday the owner was celebrating. Kagami didn't know exactly what it was, but he saw it as an opportunity to finish the small improvement project for his garden he had started a couple weeks before.
Changing into a pair of more comfortable pants and a T-shirt, Kagami makes his way outside. Kneeling down, Kagami decides he will begin his work today by pulling the few that decided to sprout over the course of the night and the early morning.
That's when he spots the … thing… sitting in the mulch of his garden. 'Oh no,' Please dont tell him what he thinks that is.
Leaning down, Kagami gets a closer look at what is existing in his garden. And it is exactly what he thought it was. A little brown poop turd lying there amongst his plants. 'This is not good,' Kagami thinks.
Kagani pushes some of the branches of his bushes aside, hoping it's the only one in his garden. And to his horror, he finds more… a lot more.
'But how?' he wonders. 'There was no way these were here yesterday!'
He doesn't know how all this poop ended up in his garden, he was home all last evening and night. But there is only one cause that he can think of.
Kagami grabs one of the smaller shovels he has and uses it to pick up one of the poop clumps lying in his garden. He then stalks over to Kuroko's house. The blue haired man has to be home today, even though it is a weekday, Kagami knows the man works from home.
Kagami knocks on the man's door and waits for him to answer. When he opens the door, Kagami has a grumpy look on his face. Kuroko notices this is starting to be a pattern.
"Kagami-kun," Kuroko greets. "Has something happened?"
Kagami's response is only to gently move the shovel by his side, causing Kuroko to look down and see the poop sitting on top. "Are these from your dogs?" Kagami grunts.
Kuroko looks down and at the dog poop sitting on the shovel. Those… definitely look like they came from his dog. "Most likely," Kuroko nods. "Do you want me to throw it away for you?"
Kagami nods in answer. "All of it," he clarifies.
"All of it?" Kuroko questions.
"Oh yeah," Kagami says, nodding. "There's more… a lot more."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
One Saturday morning months later, Kagami is kneeling in the grass as he is pulling some weeds growing next to the sunflowers, when all of a sudden he notices a shadow from a person standing behind him. He continues pulling a couple more weeds before he hears a hum from the person behind him.
"Kagami-kun," he hears Kuroko say quietly.
Kagami decides then that he better turn around and see what his neighbor wants before he makes the guy feel more awkward than he already must be feeling. He turns around to find Kuroko standing behind him and holding one of his many cats against his chest.
"Can I help you with something?" Kagami asks the blue haired man carefully, not knowing why the man has come up to speak to him.
Kuroko nods as he answers Kagami's question. "Yes, you see… next week… I'm going on a trip and-"
"No," Kagami says bluntly, cutting the other man off. "I'm not pet sitting for you."
"How did you even know I was going to ask that?" Kuroko asks.
"I know you have many pets and you said you were going on a trip, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what you wanted to ask," Kagami explained.
"But what if-" Kuroko tries to ask again.
"No," Kagami repeats. "You know that I've never even had a pet before, right?"
"Don't worry about that, it's much easier than it looks," Kuroko reassures Kagami, trying to convince him. Then a thought pops into his mind. "If you help me with this, then… when you have to go away, i'll take care of your plants!"
Kagami pretends to think over Kuroko's offer for a couple seconds, before looking back at the blue haired man. "Nice offer, but no."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
It started to rain once Kagami got home one afternoon. 'This doesn't look good,' Kagami thinks as he looks up at the sky before running into his house from his car.
The clouds are dark above him, and he knows that any second now it will start to downpour. As soon as Kagami closes the front door after his entrance, it does exactly that. A couple minutes after the downpour starts, Kagami begins to hear thunder ringing out in the distance.
'At least I'm inside,' Kagami thinks, feeling relieved, until…
"Woof, woof," he hears coming from the house next door.
'Great.'
Kagami ignores the barking dogs from next door and instead goes about the rest of his night, that is until he hears a "meow" coming from close by.
At first he thinks the sound is coming from outside, thinking one of Kuroko's cats must have gotten stuck outside. That is until he hears a second "meow" sounding from much closer.
"That's way too clear to be coming from outside," Kagami thinks as he whips his head around, looking for anything out of place.
Then, right around the corner to the hallway, he sees a shadow move. Kagami slowly walks around the corner to investigate the movement, and sitting on the floor he spots a small orange tabby cat.
He stares at the cat for a couple minutes, trying to process what he is looking at. The cat then pops its head up to look at the large human looming over it. Instead of freaking out and running away, the cat slowly stands up and stretches its body, walks over the remaining couple of feet and rubs its body and tail against Kagami's leg.
The entire time, Kagami remains staring down at the cat. It's one of Kuroko's, he knows that for a fact, but he is wondering how the cat was able to get into his house.
The cat then looks up at Kagami's face, large eyes filled with curiosity as it makes an attempt to climb up Kagami's leg. Feeling the cat's claws stab into his skin through the fabric of his pants, Kagani quickly picks the cat up to stop the pain. He suddenly finds himself holding the small cat in his arms. The cat pays no attention to the human holding him or the large distance it now is from the floor, instead curling up to Kagami's chest and falling asleep.
As he holds the cat in his arms, Kagami becomes aware of the wet fur soaking the cat. He sighs as he goes down the hallway in search of a towel to dry the animal off. The cat must have gotten caught in the rain, and even though he is not particularly fond of pets of any sort, he isn't going to just throw it back out into the cold pouring rain.
Wrapping the cat in the towel, Kagami gently places him on his couch in his living room. Kagami then goes back into his kitchen, opening his fridge to find the jug of milk sitting right at eye level. 'Cats like milk, right?" Kagami thinks as he takes the milk out and pours some into a small bowl.
After preparing some food of his own that he will eat for dinner, Kagami returns to the living room carrying his own dinner and the bowl of milk. He places the bowl on the floor next to the couch, but in a spot it won't tip over easily, and sits down on the couch next to the wrapped up cat. Feeling the couch dip, the cat lifts its head up to look at Kagami, when he sees it's only him, the cat simply drops it head down again, going back to its nap.
Kagami then turns on the TV, and the two stay that way on the couch for the rest of the evening, watching TV and listening to the sounds of thunder rolling and dogs barking outside. Eventually the cat moves to sit pn Kagami's lap, and Kagami finds himself petting the cat's fur gently, rubbing his hand up and down the cat's back.
As the rain and thunder begin to slow down, Kagami begins to doze off to sleep. Suddenly, a knock comes from his front door, knocking both Kagami and the small cat out of their sleep. As Kagami stands up to answer the person at his door, the small orange cat uses its claws to hang off Kagami's shirt, and Kagami is forced to use his arms to hold the cat up.
Opening his front door, Kagami comes face to face with his neighbor, Kuroko, who looked stressed until he spotted his cat wrapped protectively in Kagami's arms..
"Kagami-kun, it seems you've found my cat. I'm sorry he must've disturbed you tonight," Kuroko apologizes.
"It's alright," Kagami replies, keeping his hold on the small cat.
Kuroko holds his arms up. "If you don't mind, I would like to have him back," Kuroko asks.
"No," Kagami says.
"No?" Kuroko repeats, wondering what Kagami means.
"No," Kagami repeats his earlier statement. "I'm keeping him. He's nice and doesn't disturb my plants."
Kuroko is slightly taken aback by those words. But after a couple seconds he smiles and nods saying, "Alright, Kagami-kun, but only if this means I can come over more often."
