Work Text:
Kuroo doesn’t know half the people in his apartment.
Bokuto wanted them to host a New Year’s Eve party, and proceeded to invite all the old high school volleyball captains, a few mutual friends from high school (read: Akaashi and Kenma, who both declined), the rest of the college volleyball team, plus a bunch of new friends they’ve each made. Even though Kuroo doesn’t know most of Bokuto’s friends, he’s having fun dancing and drinking and chatting. Bokuto’s taken it upon himself to hand out various 2020-themed accessories, so Kuroo’s ended up with a pair of flashing glasses that he keeps pushing up into his hair. Everyone seems to be having a good, tipsy time.
Until Daichi—who, for some reason, is grossly sober and not wearing any 2020-themed accessories—brings up his failed resolutions from last year.
“I made eight resolutions,” Daichi says sadly, sandwiched between Kuroo and Oikawa on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table. “I made eight resolutions and I only kept two.”
“Only two?” Kuroo laughs, slinging an over over Daichi’s shoulders and poking Oikawa in the cheek. “Bro, I didn’t even keep one.”
“I didn’t even make any at all!” Bokuto adds, flinging himself backwards over the couch. “So you’re better than all of us!”
Daichi blushes down to his neck. “Well, I wouldn’t say it like that—”
“I kept all of mine,” Oikawa says smugly, adjusting the rhinestone tiara on his head.
“How many did you make?” Bokuto asks.
“Two.”
“You kept the same number as Sawamura!”
“Yeah, but I have a 100% success rate and he only has a 25% success rate!”
“Two resolutions is two resolutions!”
“Can you complete any now?” Kuroo interrupts. “We still have half an hour until midnight.”
“Well…” Daichi slumps down in his seat, and for a moment Kuroo thinks he’s going to do something like put his face in his hands and cry. But instead he just pulls his phone out of his back pocket and opens up a list. “Here they are.”
“Ooh,” Bokuto hums as they all crowd around and squint at the little screen. “Hey, we could work on your jump serve right now!”
“The gym is closed,” Oikawa informs him.
“So? We’ll just go outside!”
“It’s too cold!”
“Coward.”
“There’s a tournament next week! Coach will kill us if we all get sick!”
Bokuto stops arguing to look back at the list. “What about becoming fluent in Italian?”
“Bro, he can’t become fluent before next year,” Kuroo points out.
“We don’t know that! Daichi’s smart!” Bokuto thumps him on the back.
Daichi coughs. “Not that smart.”
“He has twenty-eight minutes,” Kuroo adds.
“It’s fine, you know. I’ll just make fewer next year and raise my success rate,” Daichi interrupts.
“Not on my watch!” Bokuto declares. “We’re your friends, Sawamura! There’s gotta be one thing on this list we can do before midnight.”
“Actually, there is.” Oikawa meets Kuroo’s eyes over Daichi’s head with a grin, the kind of grin he does when he’s plotting something. “Check out number eight.”
Kuroo does.
8. Kiss a boy
“Oh,” he breathes out.
Daichi’s eyes grow to the size of volleyballs. “Oh, no, that’s, uh—that’s not important.”
For the usually calm and collected Daichi to stutter this much means it’s important. “Hey, Sa’amura,” Kuroo says gently, “if you made a resolution about it, it must be important. We’re your friends, we’re not gonna judge you.”
“You came out last October, right?” Bokuto says. “So yeah, of course you’d want to kiss boys this year!”
“Except I didn’t,” Daichi mopes.
“And that’s okay!” Oikawa assures him, throwing an arm around Daichi’s shoulders and almost whacking Kuroo in the face in the process. “You can’t just go kissing any guy.”
“Shut up, Sluttykawa, I literally saw you make out with three of my friends tonight, but okay,” Kuroo points out.
“Don’t be rude, Tetsu-chan, this isn’t about my dashing good looks. This is about finding Dai-chan a boy to kiss in the next twenty-five minutes,” Oikawa says. “So, Dai-chan, see anyone cute?”
Daichi hesitates, gaze sweeping over the clusters of people in Kuroo’s apartment. “I—I don’t know?”
“Hey!” Bokuto spreads his arms. “We’re guys! One of us could kiss him!”
Kuroo almost chokes on his own spit. “What?”
“I said,” Bokuto repeats slowly, “what if one of us kissed Sawamura? Then he doesn’t have to go looking for a random person and he ticks off another resolution before midnight! Boom!”
“I think we should ask Dai-chan if he wants any of us kissing him,” Oikawa points out, and Kuroo glances at the man in question.
Daichi’s face is bright pink as he looks among the three of them. “You guys don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s okay,” he says, voice trailing off midway through the sentence.
“We want to, if you want us to,” Bokuto says.
Daichi goes even redder and he looks at his lap before mumbling, “Yeah, that’s…okay. That’d be nice.”
Kuroo meets Oikawa’s gaze again, with excitement this time. “Any preference, Dai-chan?” Oikawa asks him.
“Don’t make me choose!” Daichi wails, curling in on himself and grabbing a pillow off the floor to hide his face in. “Anyone.”
“We’re down to twenty-one minutes,” Bokuto announces. “I’ll kiss him!”
“Excuse me, maybe I wanted to kiss him,” Oikawa snips back.
“You’ve kissed three people tonight and I’ve kissed none!”
“Not my fault!”
“I’m here too, you know,” Kuroo mutters, mostly to himself. Bokuto and Oikawa either don’t hear him or choose to ignore him, but Daichi peeks over the edge of the pillow.
“Okay.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.” Daichi tosses the pillow back to the floor, but right as Kuroo shifts to tuck a knee under him and lean in for the kiss, Bokuto’s swooping in to steal the kiss. Literally. Kuroo blinks and suddenly Bokuto’s sitting in front of him, cupping Daichi’s face in his hands and smacking a kiss to his lips.
“Kou-chan!” Oikawa whines. “Not fair!”
Kuroo knows his jaw is dropped, but he can’t help it. Daichi looks just as surprised, face slack as Bokuto pulls away with a happy hoot. “There’s number three!” he crows.
“That wasn’t even a proper kiss!” Oikawa scolds. “Come here, Dai-chan, I’ll show you a real kiss.” And with that, Oikawa slides into his lap and presses his lips to Daichi’s. This kiss is slower, gentler, but still undeniably sensual. Daichi’s initial shock seems to disappear as he starts leaning into the kiss, shy hands coming to rest on Oikawa’s waist.
Watching them, Kuroo can’t decide who he’s more jealous of.
Oikawa pulls away after a solid minute, grinning at the slightly dazed look on Daichi’s face. “What did you think, Dai-chan?”
“Uh…” Daichi blushes to the tips of his ears. “It was…it was really nice. I’m gonna be right back, though. I think I need a drink.”
Oikawa scoots off Daichi’s lap so he can get up; Kuroo watches him disappear into the kitchen. “Ayy, three out of eight! He’s got you beat!” Bokuto laughs, jabbing a finger in Oikawa’s face.
Oikawa grimaces and swats Bokuto’s hand away. “37.5% still isn’t 100%.”
“But he kept three resolutions and you only kept two!”
“I have the higher success rate!”
“Two is literally more than three!”
“Kou-chan, sweetie, think about that sentence for a second.”
“I meant three is more than two! I’ve been drinking a lot!”
“Is he okay?” Kuroo asks, and is once again ignored. He pushes himself to his feet and finds Daichi standing at the kitchen sink, filling a glass of water.
“We have bottled water out in the living room, you know.”
Daichi shrugs, turning the tap off and turning around to lean against the counter. “Kind of needed to hear myself think,” he says after taking a sip.
“Yeah, I can see how that could be a lot.” Kuroo awkwardly mirrors Daichi’s stance, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry if we made you uncomfortable. We really just wanted to help. Well, mostly Bokuto.”
Daichi, to his relief, laughs. “Oh, I wasn’t uncomfortable, but thanks. I know you guys meant well. And hey, I got three out of eight now, so I guess that’s not bad.”
“It’s pretty good, if you ask me. I kept exactly zero, so.” Kuroo shrugs, grinning lazily. “I don’t even think I’m gonna make any for 2020.”
“I guess the ones I didn’t keep this year are just going to be for next year,” Daichi muses. “I probably shouldn’t be adding to the list.”
“If you keep three again, your success rate will go up to 60%,” Kuroo adds.
There’s a beat of silence before they both start to snicker. “Don’t tell me Oikawa’s still insisting he did better than me,” Daichi laughs.
“He is.”
“I think that statistics class he took fried his brain.”
Kuroo throws his head back and laughs, knowing the sound is probably making a few heads turn. “I think his brain’s been fried for a long time. Iwaizumi-kun probably hit him in the head one too many times with a volleyball.”
Daichi chuckles. His fingers tap at the edge of the glass, and he looks thoughtful all of a sudden. “Hey, Kuroo?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I kiss you?”
Kuroo blinks. “Wait, you want me to?”
“I—well.” Daichi gulps and sets the glass down, starting to fidget. “It would be nice. I thought I was gonna kiss you before, but then Bokuto was there and Oikawa went next and…yeah.”
“Yeah,” Kuroo echoes. It’s very warm in the kitchen suddenly, and he doesn’t know where to look. Should he make the first move? Or is it up to Daichi since he asked? Or—
“So, can I?” Daichi asks softly.
“Oh, right. Yeah.”
They lean in at the same time, Kuroo bending down to close the few inches of height difference for their lips to meet. Daichi’s mouth is soft, a little cold from the water, but there’s no hesitancy in the way he brings his hand up to the back of Kuroo’s neck to hold him closer. Kuroo takes a step closer, one hand braced on the counter behind Daichi, effectively keeping him pinned. Daichi doesn’t seem concerned, just parts his lips and waits for Kuroo to do the same.
Kuroo isn’t really sure why he thought Daichi would be a shy kisser. He’s kissed women before, after all, and he just made out with Oikawa; he’s not aggressive nor is he content to let Kuroo do whatever he wants. The noise of the party fades away, Kuroo’s entire awareness shrunk down to Daichi in front of him, Daichi’s taste in his mouth, the soft fabric of Daichi’s shirt between his fingers.
Daichi pulls away first, their lips separating with a quiet wet noise, his eyes wide and a little darker than usual. Or maybe the temperamental kitchen light just dimmed itself again.
“That was…” Daichi coughs.
“If it was bad, you can say it was bad,” Kuroo says, trying to lighten the mood.
“No! It wasn’t bad. It was really good.” Daichi bites his lip, looking away as a blush spreads across his cheeks. “You were my favorite.”
Kuroo’s heart flutters. “Uh, thanks.”
“Yeah.”
Fortunately, before another awkward silence can descend, Bokuto comes bounding into the kitchen, waving a handful of noisemakers at them. “Come on! We’ve only got ten minutes left! Stop making out and get out here!” He shoves a paper party horn into each of their hands and then skips out, shouting something to Oikawa.
Daichi meets Kuroo’s eyes. “We should go back in. 2020’s waiting for us,” he says, grabbing his glass and starting to head out.
“It can wait a minute longer.” Kuroo reaches out, snaking an arm around Daichi’s waist and reeling him back in. “Can I kiss you again?”
Daichi smiles. “Maybe next year.”