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To be quite honest, he had found the movie to be boring and stupid.
The whole premise was a bunch of people trying to survive inside an apartment building during a zombie – or chomper – apocalypse. Which, of all descriptors to replace the term zombie with, is one of the least frightening. But anyways, that was hardly his biggest issue with the movie, there were way too many scenes full of people trembling in fright as they hid somewhere, breathing way too heavily yet somehow remaining undetected by the shambling horrors every time. The deaths were actually the most exciting part, and he couldn’t help but find it disappointing a handful of people actually survived long enough to be rescued.
Oddly enough, not everyone in the dorm seemed to agree.
“Akashicchi, can I please stay in your room tonight?” begged Kise as he grabbed their captain by the back of his shirt. He was practically trying to hide behind him despite being taller.
Luckily Akashi only looks amused by his behaviour. “I thought you would’ve been begging Tetsuya for the honour.”
Kise shakes his head furiously. “Kurokocchi lives all the way on the sixth floor. And uh, no offense Kurokocchi, but I think Akashicchi has a better chance at killing chompers,” he mutters that last part reluctantly.
Akashi chuckles a bit before carefully untangling himself from Kise. “Unfortunately I’ll have to decline, I have some work to do at my desk for a bit and you can be quite distracting. Why don’t you stay in Daiki’s room?”
“What!? Don’t push him on me!” Aomine shouts, and he tries to defend himself but Kise’s octopus-like arms latch onto his with vigour.
“Please don’t leave me to die Aominecchi! I promise I’ll be good, I’ll even sleep on the floor, please please plea-”
“Fiiiine! Fine! Just let go and be quiet!” Aomine shouts. Luckily, Kise is quick to obey.
“Thank you Aominecchi,” he says sweetly with a grin. Yet his relief doesn’t appear to last long as another worried expression crosses his face. “But we have to make sure Kurokocchi is safe too! Can he sleep over?”
Aomine scoffs. “My room is barely big enough for me, no way is there enough space for the three of us. Tetsu’s not that small, but if you wanna insist on it, I’d rather have him stay with me.”
KIse almost shrieks as he grabs on again. “Nononono! You can’t kick me out, I’m scared Aominecchiii!”
Midorima sighs and rubs his forehead with an irritated look on his face. “Murasakibara-kun, would you mind allowing Kuroko-kun to stay with you? If he doesn’t prefer to go home that is,” he adds.
Murasakibara turns to their smallest member, who only shrugs in response.
“Sure, I don’t mind.”
“Yay! Sleepover!” Kise cheers, releasing Aomine again.
“Whatever, you guys are making breakfast tomorrow as a fee,” Aomine demands.
“Whaat? You're just too lazy to cook yourself,” accuses Kise.
“Do you want to sleep in your own bed tonight or not?”
“Noooo, okay okay!”
So after a bit of shuffling and everyone saying their goodnights, everyone retreats to their rooms. Murasakibara tosses all his extra pillows and blankets on the ground for Kuroko to prepare as he likes, and flops himself onto his bed, heedless of the way it squeaks and groans.
His eyes are closed, so he doesn’t see the way Kuroko holds a pillow to his chest with a nervous expression.
“Um...Murasakibara-kun?”
Slowly, he cracks an eye open.
Kuroko doesn’t meet his eyes as he quietly speaks. “Thank you very much for allowing me to spend the night here.”
Murasakibara closes his eye again, only grunts in response to Kuroko’s usual display of manners.
“Um, I apologize to impose myself that much more but...would you mind if I...slept in the bed with you?” His voice got progressively softer but Murasakibara still heard him clearly in the silence of the night. Despite his surprise at the request, Murasakibara doesn’t move an inch as he considers it.
He prefers to sleep alone as he can sprawl out as much as he pleases...but Kuroko is small, and usually sleeps curled up on his side, just as unobtrusive as usual. Besides, the floor is a bit dirty with crumbs so perhaps it’s not exactly an unfair request.
“You better make something yummy for breakfast tomorrow,” he grumbles as he moves over.
There’s a quiet sigh of relief. “Thank you very much Murasakibara-kun. I promise I’ll do my best.”
The bed hardly dips as Kuroko climbs in, a slight tug of the blanket as he covers himself, and then more silence. Murasakibara allows his body to fully relax into the bed in preperation to fall asleep. He gets so calmed and settled in that he almost forgets he‘s not alone until Kuroko quietly asks, “Um...what did you think of the movie?”
He contemplates ignoring the question and completely falling asleep, but as lazy as he is, he still doesn’t mind talking to Kuroko for a bit. He’s interested in what knowing how the other felt about the movie as well since he was just as stone-faced during it. “I thought it was boring, they all should’ve died by the end.”
“Er, does Murasakibara-kun like gore?”
“Not particularly, I just thought they were stupid enough to be eaten. And the pacing was too slow with all that sneaking around and talking.”
“But it wouldn’t be much of a movie if they all died in the beginning when those windows broke. Besides, there were way too many in the building to fight, and some of them were quite strong. And the conversations gave the characters depth,” he argues.
Kuroko was as reasonable as always, but Murasabikara still maintains his opinions. “I didn’t like it anyways.”
“That’s fair.”
It goes silent again so after a couple of seconds Murasakibara assumes that’s the end of the conversation. There’s a muffled thump that sounds like something heavy was dropped, one of the occasional noises from the room above his. He feels Kuroko flinch in response to it.
“It actually frightened me,” Kuroko suddenly announces.
“’s just the room upstairs,” Murasakibara calmly explains.
“No...the movie. It frightened me. I’m not good with horror. You could say I’m just as bad as Kise-kun,” he admits, and Murasakibara is able to feel him drawing the blanket tighter around himself.
“Oh...why?” he asks. There were a couple of cheap jump scares, but Murasakibara couldn’t think of a single scene that would shake up someone as stoic as Kuroko. Unless he wasn’t fond of gore.
“It’s...the suspense. The tention makes me anxious, which I suppose was the goal.”
“Really?” Murasakibara asks with clear surprise this time. That was the least interesting part to him.
There’s a pause before Kuroko asks, “Have you ever read a horror novel before?”
Kuroko should know he’s not one to read a lot of books in general, but he still says, “no, why?”
“Just describing something with a horrifying appearance isn’t enough to scare anyone, especially when everyone will end up picturing their own unique creature anyways. And just like how people don’t normally feel concerned about the welfare of everyone single thing they encounter, there’s not a lot of tension if we don’t care about what happens to characters. Suspense toys with our fear of the unknown...It doesn’t help that I’m not a fan of zombies either. It would be such an overwhelming situation...”
Murasakibara heaves a large sigh before rolling over to look at Kuroko. The smaller man is still curled up, facing the door with his back to him. “You think too much Kuro-chin, it’s all made up.”
“I know.” Kuroko still doesn’t untense.
Murasakibara clicks his tongue. “Hey, move over here,” he commands.
After a moment of hesitation, Kuroko turns over too so they’re face to face.
“Come here,” he repeats, and now that Kuroko can see the gesture, he pats his chest.
For some reason Kuroko looks confused by his request. “Ah, huh?”
“Lay here. When I got nightmares as a kid, one of my older brothers would let me fall asleep like this. It’s nice,” he explains.
It’s a bit hard to see in the dark, but Kuroko definitely looks a bit annoyed. “Please try to keep in mind that I am not a child Murasakibara-kun,” he grumbles. Yet despite his reservations, he still slowly slides himself closer until he’s able to position himself as suggested. “Is this alright?” Kuroko whispers.
Murasakibara hums in agreement, fully aware of how it makes his chest rumble. Depending on how close Kuroko’s ear is to his body, he could probably hear the air rushing through his lungs and his heart beating in his chest. He always found the steady sounds a comforting white noise to fall asleep to, so he hopes it works just as well for Kuroko.
“Is it alright if I rub your back under your shirt? I think that’s the best part, but I don’t have to,” offers Murasakibara.
“I, um...if you would like?” he almost squeaks in reply. It really is a shame that from this new angle, Murasakibara is unable to see Kuroko’s face. It’s probably the most flustered he’s ever heard him, and now he’s curious as to what kind of expression he’s wearing.
Despite his potentially mischievous thoughts, Murasakibara is careful to move his large hand in small circles around the middle of Kuroko’s back. His skin feels smooth and cold against his palm and fragile things like glass and porcelain come to mind.
“Doesn’t this feel odd?” Kuroko asks after a moment.
Murasakibara immediately pauses. “Are you uncomfortable?”
“...no. This is nice, thank you.” Permission re-granted, Murasakibara continues the soothing motions.
Slowly, he feels Kuroko begin to relax. First, his skin warms from their shared body heat and the gentle friction of his hand. Then he makes himself more comfortable, putting an arm up to cushion his head with after making sure his human pillow is also okay with it. Then his weight becomes a little heavier on Murasakibara’s chest as he begins to finally relax his body. Then finally, his breaths begin to even out into a more rhythmic pattern he would associate with sleep.
“Kuro-chin?” he whispers, but there isn’t the slightest hint of a response. Slowly, Murasakibara takes his hand out from under Kuroko’s shirt. Rather than going to all of the effort of moving Kuroko back to where he was previously balled up, Murasakibara fully curls an arm around Kuroko to hold him like a stuffed animal.
Murasakibara allows his eyes to slip closed, a comforting weight pressing down on him and a warmth covering him.
He could get used to this.