Day 6: Paper Cuts and Paranoia
Summary: While studying his biology notes, Kuroko gets a paper cut. With Akashi to the rescue, Kuroko believes that Akashi may be overreacting…
Hours have passed into the early evening, the sky was emit in temporary, evanescent twilight. Such a beautiful time between the fall of the sun and the awakening of the perpetual stars. A guilty pleasure of his, but Kuroko was fascinated in watching the sunset, watching twilight fall and the beginning of night.
Yet Kuroko couldn't indulge in that pleasure due this ridiculous pile of homework he had to complete. These seemingly endless biology notes that were due in the morning were too important that Kuroko had to suppress his wish of staring into the twilight sky.
He felt envious of his significant other, Akashi Seijūrō, who was preparing their chicken dinner. Akashi had gotten lucky, today being one of the few days where his workload was smaller than usual, allowing him to not have any priorities in the evening other than make the two dinner.
"Kuroko, dinner's almost ready," Akashi called from the kitchen, causing Kuroko to pause in his uninteresting studies.
"Coming, Akashi-kun," Kuroko responded. Setting down his pencil, he moved his hand to close his notebook but in the process of doing so, he hand moved too quickly across the edge of the paper, causing a sharp pain to emit from the side of his index finger.
"Ouch," he winced, one of his sky blue eyes closing from the sudden pain, the other watching as a tiny stream of blood began to pour from the rather long cut, some of it dripping onto the notebook and smudging his biology notes. Well this sucks. Now parts of his biology notes are ruined and the nasty paper cut wasn't helping his problems either.
"Kuroko, I heard you yelp, what's the matter?" Akashi stepped out of the kitchen and walked towards Kuroko. At witnessing the trail of blood on his lover's hand, Akashi's eyes widened in shock.
"Akashi-kun," Kuroko mumbled at the site of his lover, gaze moving towards his ruined biology notes, unable to look him in the eye. He winced a little as his finger pulsed from the ongoing, sharp pain.
"Kuroko, what happened to you!? Why are you bleeding?" As if a light had been switched on in his brain, Akashi may as well have gone into full-out panic mode, rushing to Kuroko's side and gently but firmly grasping his bleeding hand for further inspection.
"I cut myself while trying to put my notes away," Kuroko admitted, still refusing to look his lover in the eye.
"It's just a paper cut-"
"Just a paper cut? Kuroko don't you see what's happened to you? I'll go grab the first aid kit. Kuroko, rinse your hands. The first thing we need to do is get that wound cleaned," Akashi interrupted and after speaking, all but sprinted into the bathroom for the first aid kit. Like an obedient dog, Kuroko paced towards the kitchen sink, turning on the faucet and rinsed his bleeding, trying to take his mind off the stabbing pain that came with that action.
He didn't want Akashi to know about this. It was something that Akashi had started to do ever since the duo started dating. Every time Kuroko were to get injured, whether he cut himself or even stubbed his toe, Akashi would pretty much turn into a panicked mother, racing for the first aid kit and give all of the treatment that Akashi thinks Kuroko needs; though Kuroko himself believes that his actions are a bit of an overreaction to the problem.
Speak of the devil, Akashi returns to Kuroko's side, holding onto the first aid kit as if his life depended on it, which Kuroko found odd seeing that neither of them were in a life-threatening situation.
Opening the first aid kit, Akashi immediately aimed for the antiseptic, the small tube barely used since Akashi just bought the tube last week.
"Kuroko, dry your hand, I'm going to apply antiseptic," Akashi ordered, unscrewing the cap of the antiseptic tube.
"Akashi-kun, that really isn't necessary," Kuroko retorted, still convinced that Akashi was overreacting. It's just a paper cut. He's not bleeding to death or anything.
"What are you saying? Of course it's necessary. Antiseptic reduces the chances of infection. The last thing we need is for you to get an infection because of a paper cut," Akashi, ignoring his lover's protest squeezes a small dab of antiseptic onto his finger, pausing so that Kuroko could dry his hands.
"Akashi-kun, aren't you overreacting?"
"Kuroko. I already squeezed a dab of antiseptic. Dry your hands so that I can apply it to your finger. This struggle that you're attempting is futile," Akashi responded, eyes narrowing. It's become very clear to Kuroko that he's not budging.
Sighing in defeat and obvious reluctance, Kuroko grabs a towel that he places next to the kitchen sink and quickly dries his hand, refusing to keep eye contact with Akashi. Finishing said task, Kuroko reached his now dry towards Akashi. Said redhead took Kuroko's hand with the one hand not dabbed in antiseptic and then rubbed the antiseptic into Kuroko's paper cut. Kuroko flinched, the stinging sensation not helping in relieving the pain.
"I know it stings, that just means that the antiseptic is doing its job," Akashi mentioned, noticing Kuroko's reaction.
"I already knew that but that doesn't mean I have to like it," Kuroko muttered.
"As I expected. Now the wound isn't that deep but it is rather long, so I'm afraid I can't use a regular Band-Aid for this," Akashi replies, searching through the first aid kit and grabbing some gauze wrap.
"Hold still. I'll need to wrap this gauze around your finger," Akashi commanded, which Kuroko once again reluctantly obeyed. The phantom was very tempted to protest again but decided to instead provide an inquiry.
"Akashi-kun?"
"Yes Kuroko?"
Kuroko paused, slightly hesitating on whether he wanted to cause a potential argument but decided that he might as well go for it.
"Akashi-kun why are you doing this?"
"Wrapping the gauze? Because it's difficult to wrap and properly tie a gauze strip when you only have one hand to do so. It's much easier if someone else does it," Akashi responds, eyes focused on wrapping the gauze strip across his index finger.
"No not that. I mean this," Kuroko gestures to the first aid kit. Without skipping a beat, he continues. "Why are you mothering me? I only got a paper cut yet you react as if I need stitches. I'm fine, Akashi-kun. I'm an independent adult and am capable of taking care of myself."
Akashi was silent. Kuroko felt like a weight was carried off my shoulders but he wasn't sure how Akashi would react to it. Waiting impatiently for some sort of reaction, he found none, other than Akashi finishing wrapping the gauze strip around Kuroko's finger.
"Ah, so you were wondering about that?" Akashi contemplated, moving his gaze away from the bandaged finger and moved his gaze towards Kuroko, placing his hand on Kuroko's cheek which caused a slightly startled Kuroko to return the gaze.
"It's because I care about you. I don't want you to be hurt or in pain and when I realize that you are, I want to be able to help you and give you the best care possible so that you'll truly be alright. I know that you protest and you think that I'm mothering you, but I only do that because I love you," giving Kuroko a genuine, loving smile, Akashi moved closer, placing a quick but loving chaste kiss on Kuroko's lips before pulling away to allow Kuroko to speak.
"Is that so? But still I'm able to take care of myself," Kuroko replied, face emotionless except for the slight blush that covered his cheeks due to the kiss.
"And I understand that. Still, if I'm able to be of assistance, I will gladly take care of you, even if you protest," he smiled, glancing towards the bandaged hand.
"I understand you're reasoning, Akashi-kun, but still I can take care of myself-"
"Hmm. It looks like dinner is ready," Akashi interrupted and just as suddenly, the oven timer went off, as if Akashi just predicted the future. This caused Kuroko to lose his composure and get a tad agitated at being interrupted.
"But Akashi-kun-"
"Oh Kuroko. Try not to bend that finger too much if you can help it. We don't want your cut to open up again while it's in the healing process," Akashi mentioned, opening the oven door and taking out the chicken dinner.
Kuroko sighed. He understands Akashi's motives quite well and he knows it because that he cares and loves Kuroko, but Kuroko is completely capable of taking care of himself. However it's been an interesting couple of minutes and decided that eating a chicken dinner with his significant other while watching the remaining minutes of twilight sounded much more tempting than complaining about being mothered and studying on ruined biology notes. So with that, their little conversation would just have to be put on hold for now.
Notes: I'd like to add that this fic is meant to be more comedic than just pure fluff so Kuroko and Akashi's personalities (mostly Akashi's) have been slightly exaggerated in order to add to the comedic genre of this particular fanfic. Don't worry I don't believe that they are necessarily ooc in this fanfic, but rather just exaggerated versions of their canon counterparts
Again as with all or my other fanfics before this one, comments, reviews and anything really is welcomed and encouraged! 3