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Kagami slinks into the restaurant with an uncharacteristic humiliation, offers a few half-hearted waves at the other attendees of this event, then orders his noodles and goes to the nearest empty table.
“This is stupid,” he mutters after he gets his noodles.
“You did not have to participate,” a calm voice says.
Kagami jumps in his seat and only then notices the man sitting across from him. “Where did you come from?”
“I was here the whole time,” the man says mildly, “You sat down at my table.”
“Well, go away,” Kagami says, more vicious than intended because of his embarrassment, “I don’t want anyone thinking this is a—”
“A date?” the blue-haired man finishes dryly. “That is unlikely, given the nature of this event.”
Kagami flushes. The man, like Kagami, got into the spirit of things by dressing in black. He’s eating his jjajang myeon with impeccable neatness (a very impressive accomplishment, considering the inherent messiness of the black bean sauce on the noodles. Kagami is certainly not trying to be neat, the whole point of the activity was to celebrate his wretched singleness as only single people without any shame can.)
“Yeah, fine,” Kagami mutters. “Whatever.”
“I am Kuroko Tetsuya,” the man introduces himself, and after a second, Kagami mentally shrugs and returns the introduction.
“Pardon me, Kagami-kun, but you seem a little… reluctant to be here.”
Kagami shrugs. “I was supposed to come with my—brother,” that’s the easiest description of Himuro, at any rate, “He was the one who wanted to celebrate a Korean-style Black Day. He was a bit of a heartthrob in school, so not getting any Valentine’s Day or doing anything on White Day came as a bit of a shock to him.”
He’d also had an incredibly messy breakup with his boyfriend right before Valentine’s Day, but Kagami doesn’t feel the need to go into those details. Himuro had decided that celebrating a Korean style Black Day was the only way to get through his impending future as a doomed, loveless bachelor. (Himuro also became very melodramatic after a breakup.) Kagami had agreed to accompany him, as the only way to get him to stop bemoaning his love life.
“What happened?” Kuroko asks.
“He got a new boyfriend, so he bailed on me,” Kagami says darkly.
Kuroko thinks on this and then points, “You did not still have to come.”
Kagami shrugs. “Eh. I’ve been single forever so I just figured, why the hell not. Also, I like the noodles. You?”
“I am always forgotten about on Valentine’s Day and White Day,” Kuroko replies, without anything in his voice that indicates that he is necessarily feeling sorry for himself. “And I also like jjajang myeon .” He delicately eats more noodles and then adds, “I don’t particularly mind being single.”
“Yeah,” Kagami says, nodding. There are people all around them crying at each other or bemoaning their lack of a love life. (Himuro would have really fit right in, if he hadn’t gotten a new boyfriend.) “Me either, actually. Here’s to being single.” He offers his glass in cheers and Kuroko clinks it with his own.
*
Kagami thinks he is probably as red as his hair, as the girl rejoins her group of friends and they all burst out laughing. Oh God, kill me now. And then he thinks, At least there aren’t any witnesses…
“I saw that.”
Kagami nearly jumps out of his own skin. “What the—Kuroko?” he blinks, seeing the familiar face sitting on the park bench, drinking a vanilla milkshake. It’s been two weeks since they met at Black Day, and he wasn’t expecting to meet the other man ever again.
“Kagami-kun is surprisingly popular with the ladies,” Kuroko deadpans, “I feel lied to.”
“That wasn’t a lady, that was a teenage girl,” Kagami sputters. He lifts his hand to cover his face but then realizes he’s still carrying this— thing. “Also, I’m gay. And I don’t even like dogs.” He stares at the plushie in his hands and feels betrayed.
“I knew there must be something wrong with you,” Kuroko says. “Who doesn’t like dogs?”
“Me,” Kagami says, flushing, and irrationally glad that was the part Kuroko didn’t like. “You like dogs?”
“I have three,” Kuroko admits.
Kagami tosses the stuffed animal at him. “Here, catch.”
Kuroko catches the fake husky with remarkable grace considering he’s still holding a vanilla shake in one hand.
“It’s all yours,” Kagami says. “What are you even doing here?”
“Stalking you,” Kuroko replies.
Kagami stares at him for about three seconds—it’s strangely believable, coming from this man, and Kagami wonders if he minds—before Kuroko replies, “I am on my lunch break. I teach at the Kindergarten affiliated with this high school. It’s an escalator academy.”
“Oh,” Kagami says.
“And what are you doing, Kagami-kun? Besides breaking the hearts of teenage girls.”
“I’m not—” Kagami flushes again. “I, uh, helped her out, awhile back, and she wanted to meet me—I didn’t know she was going to give me something!”
Kuroko tilts his head, clearly not going to let Kagami off the hook. “‘Helped?’”
Curses. Kagami grimaces and says, “OK, I saved her life. I’m a firefighter.”
“How brave and manly of you, Kagami-kun. And so modest. No wonder you have stolen the hearts of young maidens.”
“Shut up,” Kagami says, but in a surprisingly good-natured way. “Is that your lunch?” he gestures to the milkshake.
“I like milkshakes,” Kuroko replies.
“That’s not a lunch. Wanna grab some ramen with me? There’s a stand over there.”
He’s not sure what exactly prompted him to make the offer. He’s not the kind of person to just casually invite people out to eat.
“Sure,” Kuroko replies. “It will be my treat. In thanks for the dog.” Kuroko pats the stuffed dog on the head, and Kagami tries not to blush again.
*
“You’re not supposed to mock me when I tell you my secrets!” Kagami sputters, but he’s already smiling.
“My apologies, Kagami-kun,” Kuroko says, with the faintest twitch of a smile, “I am sure that dog was most fierce.”
“It was, ” Kagami insists. “All the guys make fun of me for it, though. ‘Cuz we have a Dalmatian—which was just a joke on the Chief’s part, it’s not actually standard issue for firemen.”
This is the third time he’s run into Kuroko around his lunch time—and Kagami can’t exactly call it an accident anymore. He goes to this noodle shop hoping to run into Kuroko. He tells himself he just likes the conversation.
“So, what about you? Fair’s fair. Any phobias?”
“Not particularly,” Kuroko replies. “But Kagami-kun does not need to be ashamed, since you regularly climb into burning buildings. Surely one phobia can be forgiven.”
“Weeelll,” Kagami stretches out the word, and he’s not even sure why. He’s not sure what it is about Kuroko that makes him want to confess all kinds of things. “Maybe not just the one. I’ve always kinda had a thing about ghosts too.”
“But Kagami-kun,” Kuroko says, “I thought you knew that I have passed on. Surely you noticed you are the only one who can see me?”
“Wh- what? ” Kagami almost falls out of his chair before he notices that thing that is not quite a smile on Kuroko’s face. “Oh, you jerk! It sounds so plausible when you say it!” He settles himself back in his seat and says, “I’m never telling you anything, ever again.”
“I could not resist,” Kuroko says. And then, more seriously, he says, “I have never broken up with someone.”
Kagami blinks and wonders where this is coming from. He looks at Kuroko curiously.
“Kagami-kun was so honest, I wanted to return the favor with a secret of my own. I have only ever been dumped. It is why I have not felt tempted to date anyone, in a very long time.”
Kagami takes a big bite of his ramen to stall from time. He doesn’t quite look at Kuroko when he says, “Well, clearly everyone you dated is an idiot.” But that statement almost seems like too much, so he continues with, “Next person you date, you should dump ‘em first, just on principle.”
“I will keep that in mind, Kagami-kun,” Kuroko says.
*
“I’ve never really understood Japanese people in that way,” Kagami says. They’re having dinner, which somehow seems so much more extravagant than lunch. But he doesn’t want to make too big a deal out of this, because Kuroko is his friend. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge Public Displays of Affection fan, but some of the couples I know in Japan barely act like they’re dating.”
Kuroko thinks on this. “That is not so much the trend, nowadays. I work near a high school, if you recall, and there are many teenagers holding hands. It is not quite how things were done when I was in school.”
“Oh, hand holding, ” Kagami teases. “God forbid. These young kids are so shameless these days.”
Kuroko stares at him with his unreadable expression. Slowly, he says, “I once had a college professor who talked about the culture of Victorian hand play.”
“Er,” Kagami says, and he’s aware that he’s probably blushing. “That’s, uh, something different, and definitely not for school kids.”
“Kagami-kun has a filthy mind,” Kuroko says in mock sternness. “He meant something else. Like this.” And then Kuroko touches Kuroko’s hand, gently cupping it in his own, and rubs circles on the soft part of Kagami’s wrist and palm with his thumb. “It is just hand holding, but supposedly, it was quite erotic during a time in which such open displays of intimacy were forbidden.”
Kagami thinks he has never been aware of his own body before. He focuses on Kuroko’s hand, gently caressing and stroking the callouses on Kagami’s hand with just the barest of movements.
“Apparently, it could go on for hours,” Kuroko says.
“You don’t say,” Kagami says, his voice low and husky.
Kuroko releases Kagami’s hand and turns back to his noodles. “Which is just an example that some people can be quite shameless.”
This sharp return to reality is disorienting, and Kagami isn’t sure what’s happening anymore.
*
“Kagami-kun is such a messy eater,” Kuroko chides.
“Eh, I just have an appetite. You don’t eat enough,” Kagami says, although he will acknowledge that he’s getting noodles everywhere.
“Let’s try Italian,” he said when he suggested this outing, more as a change of pace than anything, but now he laughs at the fact that he’s still eating noodles since he was in the mood for spaghetti.
“You are flinging it anywhere,” Kuroko says pointedly, and Kagami follows his gaze to see a long strand of noodle between them.
“Hey, it’s like the red string of fate,” Kagami jokes, since the long spaghetti noodle is twining around Kuroko’s thumb and Kagami’s pinky.
“How romantic,” Kuroko says dryly. “And unsanitary.”
“Just like love,” Kagami quips.
He wonders how many times you can take the same person out for dinner before they both acknowledge that they’re dating.
*
“But I don’t want to go to the ball,” Kagami protests.
“What are you, some kind of reverse Cinderella?” The Fire Chief asks.
“I guess that makes you my wicked stepmother,” Kagami mutters.
“What was that?” Alex Garcia says dangerously.
“Nothing,” Kagami says, because he is not an idiot.
“Anyway, you have to go, it’s a charity event. And you know the Police Department will shame us if they raise more money than we do. You don’t want the Police Department to win, do you?”
“Of course not,” Kagami says, because their rivalry with the Police Department is something he feels on a deeply personal level.
“Bring your boyfriend,” Alex says.
“What boyfriend?” Kagami says.
Alex stares at him. “You don’t think you were actually keeping a secret, do you?”
“No, I—I don’t have a boyfriend,” Kagami says, very deliberately not blushing.
“The guy you got to lunch with every frickin’ day!”
“He’s just a—friend,” Kagami says.
Alex continues to look at him like she’s doubting his intelligence and then says, “You know, if this was a movie, you would have to pretend he’s your boyfriend in order to save face, and then make out with him by the end of the evening.”
“Good thing this is not a movie,” Kagami says.
Alex smiles, in an almost serene sort of way, and it makes Kagami very nervous. “Uh, Chief?”
*
“So, do you want to go to the Firemen’s and Policemen’s ball with me?” Kagami says. “Apparently my job depends on me bringing you as my fake boyfriend.”
Kuroko frowns at him. “…How?”
“OK, not so much my job, as the fact that Alex knows my family, and she threatened me horribly,” Kagami says. “Apparently, everyone I work with thinks we’re dating? And she wants to prove them right, or something.”
“Everyone I work with also thinks we’re dating,” Kuroko says calmly.
“Really?” Kagami says.
“Although, everyone I work with is five years old.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right for me too,” Kagami says. “Sooo.”
“I would love to be your fake boyfriend, Kagami-kun.”
*
“Oh, is this YOUR BOYFRIEND?”
Kagami glares at his Chief, who is the fifth person today to ask him that question.
“Only of the pretend variety,” Kuroko deadpans.
“Unacceptable,” Alex says. “Taiga is an idiot, but a good man. He’s been single for far too long.”
“Kagami-kun is a good man. And a little bit of an idiot,” Kuroko agrees.
“Hey!”
“He has a big house, did you know?” Alex says. “Huge bed. Would look super good with you in it.”
“For the love of god, stop hitting on him for me, ” Kagami says.
“And he cooks,” Alex says.
“I did not know that,” Kuroko says, sounding distinctly intrigued.
“Comes from family money,” Alex continues listing off Kagami’s virtues, “I used to babysit him when he was younger. Seen the men naked plenty of times in the locker room, can vouch that he’s well proportioned, if you know what I mean–”
“And we’re done now,” Kagami says, grabbing Kuroko by the shoulders and steering him away from his boss.
“But Kagami-kun, I found her very fascinating, I wanted to hear more about what she had to say,” Kuroko says.
“Nope. You two are never talking again,” Kagami says, feeling hot.
“That is a shame,” Kuroko says. “So. You can cook?”
“Yeah,” Kagami says. And then, what the hell, might as well go all in, “I’m really proud of my beef udon and soba. You should come by sometime, I’ll cook for you.”
“As your fake boyfriend?” Kuroko says.
“Or my real one,” Kagami says.
“Very smooth,” Kuroko says, and to Kagami’s relief he’s smiling. “It’s a date, then.”