"You own an impressively dingy wardrobe selection," Akashi comments, surveying Kuroko's closet with contempt. After Kuroko's dad had dropped Akashi's suitcases in his room, the two of them had been forced into Kuroko's room to unpack Akashi's things. When Akashi had asked where he should hang his alarmingly large number of clothes, Kuroko had grudgingly offered his own closet, suggesting that they split the space in half. Now, after closer observation, he didn't think that half of his tiny closet would fit even half of Akashi's clothes.
"Shut it, Akashit," Kuroko snaps, snatching one of Akashi's shirts from his suitcase and fitting it over a hanger before hanging it on the right side of his closet. The process repeats, Kuroko muttering curses under his breath as he hangs more and more of Akashi's ridiculously expensive clothing. He's right about the clothes not fitting. There's still a half suitcase full of clothes and three fourths of Kuroko's closet was now occupied by Akashi's garments, his own cheap clothing shoved to the far end of the closet.
"Well, I guess it'll work for now," Akashi sniffs in disdain. Kuroko briefly considers the rewards and punishments of cutting holes in every single one of Akashi's shirts. It was very tempting.
"Lovely," Kuroko says, slamming the closet door shut.
"You shouldn't slam doors, Tetsuya," Akashi croons, pulling his phone out of his pocket, yet again. "People might think you're angry for no reason," he says, his voice syrupy as he feigns an innocent look. Kuroko distinctly remembers hearing Kagami tell him how much his "Ignite Pass Kai" hurt as a punch in a gut. He has absolutely no complaints about testing for the second time on Akashi. Scooping up his novel from the floor, he takes a deep breath, doing his best to keep his calm.
"I hope a car runs you over when you get back into the city," Kuroko snarls and Akashi has the audacity to feign a look of hurt at Kuroko's words.
"It wouldn't do any good to be rude to your guest," Akashi chides and that's when Kuroko snaps. He takes the novel in his hand and chucks it straight at Akashi's head. Akashi snaps his head up in surprise, but to Kuroko's utter annoyance, he catches the novel smoothly in his left hand, his phone still in his other hand, and looking completely unfazed. He tosses it back to Kuroko as if the original intent had been to play a friendly game of catch with Kuroko's novel.
"Nice catch," Akashi comments as Kuroko fumbles with the novel, ultimately dropping it and it lands on the floor, his receive devoid of the elegance Akashi had in his own. His face flushes red in embarassment and anger as he bends down to pick up his light novel, spitting out curses and ill wishes at Akashi, who only chuckles in response.
Kuroko's mom makes a huge dinner for the celebration of Akashi's arrival, although Kuroko doesn't see what there was to celebrate about. He had had dreams about meeting his new friend and the two of them getting along spectacularly, telling stories, staying up late, and Akashi had shattered all his hopes into a million tiny shards. Screw him. He and Akashi glare at each other from across the small dining table, Kuroko's parents chattering away and asking Akashi questions, all of which he answered flawlessly.
"How are you liking the country so far Akashi-kun?" his mother had asked.
"It's very different from the city, but it's nice," Akashi had replied. Yeah, right, Kuroko sneers inwardly. As if you aren't complaining every other minute of the day.
"If you have any complaints or something that's bothering you, just tell us," Kuroko's dad says.
"I'm sure there will be no hindrances," Akashi smiles and Kuroko screams 'BULLSHIT' in his head. He grips his spoon harder, nails digging into his palm. A thin, tight lipped smile is plastered on his face when his father asked him how things were going with Akashi. He can't fake a smile and small talk as easy as Akashi could and it's even harder when Akashi is staring at him smugly from across the table.
"Wonderful," he says, through clenched teeth. "Just splendid."
The sound of the chiming doorbell wakes Kuroko up from his slumber the next morning and he blearily sits up to rub the sleep out of his eyes, glancing at the alarm clock. Seven in the morning. He slid out of his bed in a haste, stumbling down the stairs and flinging the door open to be greeted by a smiling face that could rival the harsh sunlight. He shields his eyes and Ogiwara flashes his toothy grin, holding out the paper to Kuroko.
"Good morning, Kurokooooo," he sang, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "So today for our headlines we have: a major car crash in the city, three cars in a row crashed into each other and the occupants are in the hospital, a new mayor candidate running for the position, and a small series of house robberies in which the culprit was quickly apprehended."
"Uhhhhh huh...," Kuroko yawns, not quite registering what Ogiwara said. Ogiwara showed no indication of being bothered by this, and instead laughs at Kuroko's sleepy state, ruffling his disheveled bed hair.
"You look beat," Ogiwara comments sympathetically, eyeing Kuroko up and down. "Something come up?"
"Oh, let me tell you," Kuroko says, blinking awake. After yesterday, he had been so ready to shit talk Akashi for hours to just about anyone would would listen. "I told you about my new guest from the city for the summer, right? Well his name's Akashi Seijuro-"
"-Akashi?" Ogiwara asks incredulously. "Like the Akashi Conglomerate? The redheads that make the front page all the time?"
"Yeah," Kuroko grumbles. "Well, he's the most irritating, selfish, spoiled brat I've ever met and spending the entire summer with him is going to make me crazy. All he cares about is his phone. Ogiwara-kun, please save me. Please take me away from here," he begs.
"Woah woah," Ogiwara says, holding up his hands. "I'm sure he's not that bad."
"Tetsuya just likes to make things worse than they seem, it appears," a voice sounded from the stairs and Kuroko whips around to see Akashi standing there with crimson bedhead just as atrocious as Kuroko's own. Ogiwara cocks an eyebrow as he surveys Akashi and Kuroko scowls.
"So you're Akashi Seijuro," Ogiwara says in amusement, glancing back and forth from Akashi and Kuroko.
"That I am. Who are you, and why are you ringing the doorbell at seven in the morning?" Akashi frowns, crossing his arms, clearly perturbed about his sleep being interrupted. His unfriendly demeanor doesn't faze Ogiwara though, and he only laughs.
"I'm the paper boy. Me and Kuroko are friends but we live kind of far so the only way I can talk to him in person is really in the mornings," Ogiwara informs. "Would you care to hear today's headlines?"
"Not really," Akashi deadpans, his gaze travelling towards Kuroko. "Tetsuya? With friends? Imagine that," he says, curling his lip in derision and Kuroko bristles.
"Can you just shut up and leave?" Kuroko hisses out, pointing up the stairs. "You're absolutely insufferable."
"Yes, yes, I shall leave you and your boyfriend or friend or whatever, to be," Akashi dismisses, walking back up the stairs and Kuroko flushes red in embarrassment at his words.
"Woooow," Ogiwara whistles, looking back at Kuroko and placing a hand on his shoulder. "I take back what I said. I'm so sorry for what you have to deal with. He is an ass."
"See!?" Kuroko exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. "How am I supposed to survive this with my sanity in tact?!"
"I can't help you there, buddy," Ogiwara says apologetically. He checks the time on his watch and yelps a bit when he sees that he's behind schedule. "Well, I gotta go now, cya Kuroko! Best of luck with Akashi!"
With that, he retreats back down the walkway to where his bike was parked and Kuroko wants to scream at Ogiwara for him not to leave him alone in hell with Akashi. Ogiwara pedals off, leaving Kuroko and he lets out a long sigh of resignation.
"What is it now, eighty eight days? Stay strong, Tetsuya," Kuroko mutters as he closes the door and walks back up the stairs to the bedroom.
The next day does nothing to relieve the tension between the two of them either. The tension is tangible at the dinner table and even Kuroko's parents seem uncomfortable with the two teenagers bickering, trying to assuage the situation to no avail.
"Is something wrong?" Kuroko's mom asks in concern and Kuroko shakes his head.
"Nothing at all," he lies and Akashi nods in agreement. Akashi seemed to have a remarkable talent of integrating insults aimed at Kuroko in his comments every time he opened his mouth. It was infurariating, to have the redhead mock his every movements. When Kuroko had dropped a plate in the sink and accidentally broke it whilst washing it, Akashi had snickered and offered to kiss his 'boo boo' better and didn't cease to remind Kuroko of his 'incompetence' for the rest of the day. When Kuroko had complained about being bored after finishing his novel, Akashi had voiced his 'sympathy' and advised Kuroko to try talking to some of his friends before snarkily adding 'oh wait, sorry, what friends?'. Two of the same of that kind of insult had been a low blow and Kuroko had fumed out of the house, opting to sit on the tree swing for the next few hours instead of having to breathe the same air as Akashi. A part of him had hoped that the redhead would come to apologize but to nobody's surprise, none came.
He'd try to ease tensions between the two of them but Akashi had walls of steel built around himself. He refused to answer when Kuroko asked what his family was like back home, and had completely ignored Kuroko when he asked about his friends back in the city. If he gave any answers, they all came in the form of curt one or two word replies that Kuroko could find no way to spark a conversation from. After ten more minutes of complete silence between the two of them, Kuroko had sighed and walked back out of the room. It was no good if only one person was trying, Kuroko thinks in annoyance.
At his parents insistence of the two of them spending more 'bonding' time together - Kuroko wants to puke when he thinks about the idea about spending more alone time with Akashi - the two quarreling teenagers had ended up on the porch swing in the backyard, sitting in silence, as far away from each other as possible on the swing as the sun began to set. Akashi had pulled out his phone again, the only thing he seemed to have remote interest in. Kuroko didn't bother trying to make small talk, instead flipping open a new novel and beginning to read.
When the sun had fully set and the oranges and reds in the sky had smeared together to turn to a dark navy, the wisps of clouds disappearing, Kuroko turned on the porch light, reading in the dim lighting.
"You'll ruin your eyes if you read with such poor lighting," Akashi's voice informs bossily, interrupting the silence. Kuroko ignores him and flips the page in his novel. "Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you, though."
Kuroko sighs and snaps his novel shut in compliance. Akashi hums smugly at this, relishing in the fact Kuroko had conceded he was right.
"What are you doing on your phone all the time, anyways?" Kuroko mumbles, kicking his shoes off and placing his feet on the porch swing. It rocks slowly and back forth from the gentle evening breeze
"Texting," Akashi replies nonchalantly. "At least, trying too, because the internet really is shit. Inside and outside the house."
"Your friends?" Kuroko asks, drawing his knees to his chest. It's not hard to see that Akashi would definitely be the popular kind of person at school, despite his nasty attitude. Kuroko himself had never had many friends - not many people lived on the country and even during school, people would fail to notice him with his ghostly presence. Summers and breaks were especially lonely.
"And girlfriend," Akashi adds. Kuroko hugs his knees closer, a pang in his chest. He was jealous, he admits. He wished that he had the fortune of having someone special in his life but it was painfully obvious no one would take a liking to someone as ordinary as him. As much as he hated to think about it, he was painfully jealous of Akashi. A wealthy lifestyle, plenty of friends and a girlfriend. It must be nice, Kuroko thinks forlornly, not to ever feel lonely.
"What's she like?" he asks. Despite Akashi's jerkish behavior, Kuroko didn't want to contend with the redhead. He had plans to befriend Akashi from the start, after all and he couldn't think of any other way besides asking him about his life. It's pathetic how relieved he is when Akashi answers his question with limited hostility.
"She's cute," Akashi shrugs. He scrolls through his phone and holds the phone in front of Kuroko's face to see. It was a picture of Akashi kissing the cheek of a girl with long black hair and green eyes. He looks happy, Kuroko notes. He wondered what a happy Akashi in real life was like. There's another pregnant pause between the two of them and Kuroko takes a deep breath, formulating the words for an apology in his head.
"So, uhm," Kuroko says, looking away. "I'm sorry for being rude to you before," he mutters, tracing patterns on the wooden seat of the swing. "I don't want to fight the rest of your time here. We don't have to be friends or anything, I mean. I'd just rather we at least be civilized and get along with each other without throwing insults around."
Akashi pauses and turns off his phone, putting it down, peering curiously at Kuroko.
"Alright," he concedes after a moment of silence. "I accept your apology."
So no apology from the great Akashi Seijuro himself, huh? Kuroko bristles slightly at Akashi's arrogance but says nothing. Kuroko's about to open his mouth to ask Akashi to cease his constant teasing about Kuroko, especially when they unknowingly struck so close to home but he bites his lip in the end, not wanting Akashi to think he was an oversensitive crybaby. The sky was rapidly growing darker and darker, the stars beginning to show, and crickets chirping from the grass.
"Are you-Shit!" Akashi swears as he slaps away a mosquito from his arm. "I forgot that the countryside was infested with mosquitoes."
"We're not infested," Kuroko says defensively, although the fact he had to swat a bug away from his leg as well didn't help aid his argument in the least. "It's just bad in the evening."
"Well I'm going back inside then," Akashi says, getting up from his seat and sliding the back door open. "Are you coming?" he asks, turning his head to face Kuroko. The latter blinks in surprise before nodding gratefully in compliance.
It warms his heart in a weird way, to be asked such a simple of question. To anybody else it would have been meaningless. To Kuroko, it meant that Akashi was finally lowering his walls, even if just a by a bit.
"This bed is so small," Akashi says for the third time, pressing his hand on the mattress of the bed. They had already showered and brushed and were now sitting around in Kuroko's room, stalling to turn off the lights. Kuroko's bed should have been next to the window - it was the best place, after all, but due to Akashi's arrival, Akashi now occupied the bed by the window and Kuroko's bed had been pushed against the adjacent wall. Akashi doesn't deserve that bed, Kuroko laments. Not a day had gone by so far where Akashi hadn't complained about the size of the bed.
"Well, sorry it doesn't fit your taste, Your Highness," Kuroko snaps, sitting at the edge of his bed. Akashi's frequent complaining about how the things in the country couldn't compare to that in the city had quickly grown old. Akashi probably slept on a king bed with satin blankets and plush pillows back home. I can only imagine the depressing downgrade to a single bed with a cotton comforter, Kuroko thinks sarcastically. Akashi had put his phone to charge on the desk and changed into a sleeveless tank and old shorts. Even in his pajamas, Akashi still looked more attractive than any asshole had the right too. If only he wasn't an utter jerk, Kuroko thinks sullenly, curling his toes.
Kuroko turns off the lights, leaving the ceiling fan on as testament that the summer heat would be unbearable to sleep in and Akashi opens the window, a warm breeze blowing into the room. Kuroko crawls into bed and stares at the ceiling, falling asleep to the hum of the ceiling fan and the chirping of crickets, wondering about the kind of person Akashi Seijuro really was.