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Kuroo yawned into his sleeves as he begrudgingly pushed an empty shopping cart through a store aisle. The place was near desolate, save for himself, the poor workers that had to take up shifts this early in the morning, and the despairingly loud person who’d dragged him here in the first place. Said person was standing a little ways ahead of him, bouncing on his heels in anxiety as he eyed a shelf of various mugs.
Kuroo glanced down at his watch. 7:30. If they were quick enough they could make it back home in time for him to get back in bed while it was still socially acceptable to do so. He pushed the cart forward with as much energy as he could manage and brought it to stand alongside his boyfriend. He looked at the display for a second before pointing to a random mug with a dog on it.
“Just get that one. It’s simple and cute, Akaashi’ll love it.” He said, looking up from his hunched over position on the shopping cart.
Bokuto picked up the mug and turned it over in his hands, studying it. He glanced over at the empty cart, and Kuroo was hopeful for a short moment, before Bokuto shook his head and put the mug back on the shelf. Kuroo groaned and dropped his head down onto the handle of the cart.
“What was wrong with it?” He asked.
Bokuto looked off to the side and crossed his arms in a pout. “It was simple but…too simple. ‘S not enough.”
“Then just get him two of ‘em if one’s not enough, problem solved.”
“Nooo! That’s just boring, he’ll think that I just got lazy.”
“And what’s wrong with that? Dude, it’s just a gift, you shouldn’t be giving yourself a headache over it.” Kuroo looked to the side and mumbled to himself, “you’re already giving me one over it.”
Bokuto let out a whine and crossed his arms over his chest tighter. “But it’s important! It’s our first Christmas together as official boyfriends. I wanna make it special.”
Kuroo looked up at him with his head resting on his arms. Of course that was the reason. Leave it to Bokuto to stress himself out over something like this. He sighed loudly and stood up, stretching his arms. It was admirable though, just how much he wanted to make things perfect and romantic. Kuroo smiled lazily and pushed the cart closer to him, patting him on the back. He’d be a bad friend if he didn’t try to help.
“C’mon, you hopeless romantic, let’s go find you a gift.” He laughed and stood up straight, stretching his back. Bokuto’s posture eased up and he appeared more relaxed at his friend’s offer to help.
The two walked together in silence for a while, glancing up and down the shelves of the aisles for anything that looked interesting. They passed by the kitchenware section of the store and an idea popped into Kuroo’s head.
“You could bake him something,” he suggested, picking up a whisk off of the rack of utensils and using it to illustrate his point. Bokuto considered the option for a moment and began to look as if he would agree, until he seemed to remember something and a frown replaced any expression of hope.
“No…” he mumbled, shaking his head, “I don’t think he’d trust my baking after Valentine’s Day.”
Kuroo cocked his head to the side in confusion. “What are you talking ab— Oh.” He paused as he remembered all of the frantic messages and pictures of burning food that he’d received from his friend earlier in the year. He burst out laughing at the memory, clutching his side with one arm and holding onto the cart with the other. “Yeah, I wouldn’t trust your baking either after that.” He wheezed.
Bokuto pouted and blushed in embarrassment. “It wasn’t that funny.”
“Dude, it was hilarious, you should’ve been there.”
“I was there! I was the one who almost destroyed the kitchen!”
Kuroo fell into another laughing fit, ignoring his friend’s protests. Bokuto grumbled and tugged at the shopping cart, trying to get it away from the other. “Whatever, we agree that making something’s a bust, so let’s just move on.” He huffed.
Kuroo continued to laugh off his amusement, but shook his head, holding onto the cart and reaching into his pocket. “Hang on, I think I actually gotta get something from here real quick.” He said and pulled out a piece of paper, glancing over it.
Bokuto raised an eyebrow in curiosity and walked over to Kuroo’s side, looking over his shoulder. “What’s that?” He asked.
“It’s a list of gifts for all my old teammates,” Kuroo answered, “You’re not the only one who gets to shop today. I’m here too so I might as well cross some of these off.”
Bokuto looked over the list with wide eyes, “You’re actually getting something for all those people? Dude, how do you do that, I can’t even decide on one gift.”
Kuroo smirked with a bit of pride, “It’s called asking people what they want, babe. It’s not that hard.” He laughed and looked back down at his list, reading back over everything he’d written to make sure he had something for everyone. His pride faltered a little when he read over one particular name, and he brought a hand up to scratch the back of his head in embarrassment. “Though, I probably should’ve put something more substantial down for Yaku.”
“What d’ya mean?” Bokuto asked, and Kuroo handed the list to him, pointing to a name near the middle of the page. The name Yaku was written in all caps, and underneath it were the words “kick Lev’s ass.” Bokuto looked up at Kuroo with a grin and buried his face into his boyfriend’s shoulder, letting out a laugh.
“Bro, you really wrote that?” he asked.
Kuroo laughed along with him and shook his head, “He was pretty annoyed with the guy when I went to ask him what he wanted and I guess I just played into the joke and forgot to write something serious.”
“Well, who knows, maybe he’s actually serious about that. You could make his Christmas, dude.”
“Maybe, but I’ll pass on giving him the best Christmas ever. Don’t want him to start having expectations or anything.” Kuroo laughed off the joke and looked back to the top of the list, reading what he’d brought it out for in the first place. He looked up at the shelves of cooking items and picked out a ring of measuring spoons.
“Who’re those for?” Bokuto asked, looking back at the list.
“Kai,” Kuroo answered, putting the spoons into the smaller part of the cart. Bokuto hummed in acknowledgement and continued to look through the paper, reading each item that was written.
“Hey, dude, there’s nothing for Kenma on here,” he pointed out, “you got some other list for him or somethin’?”
“Oh, that,” Kuroo let out a huff of amusement, “I get him the same thing every year, so I didn’t need to write it down.” He answered, gingerly taking back the list and putting it back into his pocket. “Although, I suppose I could buy it here…” he mumbled to himself and began to push the cart forward.
“Buy it here?” Bokuto asked, walking along beside him. “What exactly are you getting him?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure yet, but I got the general gist of it. Each year Kenma and I get each other the same thing: he gets me a hairbrush, and I get him some weird book of questionable origin.” Kuroo waved his hand in front of him to accentuate the “questionable origin” aspect.
Bokuto gave him a skeptical look and blinked in confusion. “Really? That’s it?” He asked, not very impressed by the tradition. “That doesn’t sound very heartfelt.”
“It doesn’t have to be, that’s the best part.” Kuroo stated, looking over at the other with a smile. “It’s funny and that’s enough. Plus we’ve done it for years now so it’s kinda expected.”
Bokuto sighed and looked off to the side, his lips moving into another pout. “Man, I wish giving gifts was that easy for me. I try to just get something small, but every time I think I’ve got something good, my brain always finds something wrong with it.”
Kuroo gave him a sympathetic look and patted his shoulder. “Babe, you shouldn’t think so hard on it. If your gut tells you that he’ll like something then he’ll like it! You know him better than anyone else, so trust your judgement.” He offered with a soft smile.
Bokuto returned his smile, “Yeah… I guess you’re right.” He said, his eyes looking down at his feet. “But I just want it to be perfect y’know? Like, yeah I get that he loves me and that he’ll like whatever it is I give him, but I don’t want it to be just that, y’know?” He brought up his arm to run a hand through his hair.
“I don’t want him to like it just because he loves me, I want him to like it because it’s good. I want him to see it and be like ‘Oh hell yeah babey, this is really cool!! I’m so happy!’ That’s why it’s gotta be perfect.” He explained, his face reddening a bit.
Kuroo laughed in fondness of his boyfriend’s wording, “I don’t think Akaashi’s the kinda guy to go ‘hell yeah babey,’ but yeah, I get what you mean.” He smiled and gave a small huff. “I really hope you didn’t put this much thought into my gift back when we started dating, though.”
Bokuto blushed and gave him a wobbly smile as an answer.
“Dude!” Kuroo laughed and gave him a weak smack on the shoulder, “you really didn’t have to do that. I don’t want you to get all bent outta shape over me.” He said, but had to fight to keep his face from heating up too much. Damn Bokuto and his love.
“But I wanted to!!” Bokuto grinned, taking the Kuroo’s hand in his, “I love you and I want you to know that!”
Kuroo had to stop pushing the cart to use his other hand to cover his face. “You’re too perfect, I swear.” He mumbled as Bokuto laughed beside him.
“Ah, not perfect enough to think of a good gift for Akaashi, though.” Bokuto mentioned, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. Kuroo looked up from where he’d hidden his face and gave him a playful glare.
“Don’t say that, man,” he scolded, “you’ll figure something out soon.”
Soon proved to be quite close as almost immediately an idea popped into Kuroo’s head.
“Oh, wait, I think I got something!” He exclaimed and reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
Bokuto looked over at him with brightened curiosity, “What is it? What is it”
Kuroo turned on his phone and fumbled through his contacts with his free hand, opening up his message history with Akaashi and beginning to type something out. “You might be against the idea of asking people what they want, but it’s definitely not out of the realm of possibility for me! I’ll shoot him a message asking him what he wants me to get him, and then tell you what that is! I mean, sure I already have something in mind for him, but I haven’t asked him about it yet, so it won’t be suspicious.”
He smiled at his brilliance and finished typing out the message. “There!” He shot as the message sent. He looked up at Bokuto expecting to have his excitement returned only to see his boyfriend looking at him with an expression akin to betrayal.
“Uuuh…” He drawled, “what’s the matter?”
Bokuto dropped the hand he was holding and crossed his arms. “Did you say that you already had an idea of what to get for Akaashi?”
“Uh, yeah. I have something in mind.”
Bokuto huffed loudly and threw his arms into the air, “So you’re telling me that you’ve had ‘something in mind’ for Akaashi this whole time, and you didn’t tell me?! Bro, I’ve been having a crisis over here!”
“What?” Kuroo blinked, confused by the sudden shift in attitude. “No dude, I can’t tell you what I’m getting him, that’d be stealing.”
“What do you mean, it’d be stealing? You haven’t gotten it for him yet!”
“Yeah, but we can’t just both give him the same thing, that’d be lame!”
“Oh, now you care about getting him the same thing! Yeah, says the guy who told me to get him two of the same mug earlier.”
“I didn’t mean the exact same one, and besides, one person getting someone a variety of the same type of thing isn’t the same as two different people having the same gift!”
“What do you mean it isn’t the same? It obviously is!”
“No, it different because－” Kuroo opened his mouth to argue how two separate gifts wasn’t the same as one, but was interrupted by his phone buzzing in his hand.
“Who is it?” Bokuto asked, still upset but not as heated as before.
“It’s from Akaashi.” Kuroo told him, opening the message and reading it aloud. “He says that he’s fine with anything, but something wearable would be nice.”
Bokuto was silent as he thought on the message, taking in the information. Kuroo shut off his phone and put it back in his pocket, waiting quietly as the other thought. After a few moments Bokuto’s eyes lit up and he looked over at Kuroo with a grin.
“I got it!” He said, putting his hands on his hips in a triumphant pose. “I saw a shirt over at a different store a few days ago that I think he’d like! That’s what I’ll get him!”
Kuroo gave him a wide smile in return, “Alright! I’ll check out what I got here, and then we’ll head over to that store!”
“Yeah!!” Bokuto yelled and ran down the aisle, his arms above his head in victory. “And I can also get him some jeans to go with it! Ooh! And maybe a jacket too!”
“Well, hey, don’t go and buy out the whole store now!” Kuroo laughed, shouting as he pushed the cart along to catch up to him. He glanced down at his watch as he ran after his boyfriend. 8:00.
He may not be able to go back to sleep again that morning, but helping relieve Bokuto of his gifting anxiety had been worth the trouble.