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With half-closed eyes that definitely need more time to rest and fast hands knocking most of his things over, Akaashi prepares for the day not too differently from yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before to the day before that. Actually, this routine of washing just a half of his face, eating a quick breakfast as he puts his pants on, and an arduous search for his reading glasses that seem to last forever has been his daily routine for the last month.
Akaashi Keiji can blame only two things: Finals season and the creature sleeping on his bed.
He suppresses his second yawn in a row because he has no time for that. He needs those precious four seconds to brush his teeth. Just a glance in the mirror bathroom was enough to make his reflection look back at him with a grimace. Well, no time for breakfast today.
It’s more important to make sure his hair is reasonably presentable. He needs to get rid of his terrible bed hair even if it is with quick and clumsy hands. As he finishes up in the bathroom, something catches his attention from the reflection on the mirror making him turn around by instinct.
The small bundle up creature rises, stretching his paws more and more until he can no longer see white fur, but pale arms. The growls he is letting out of his now questionable human’s lips are louder with each second it passes.
Akaashi turns around again to give him some privacy as he dresses, closing his eyes to not see his naked reflection in the mirror.
“You know that you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to,” Akaashi says as he puts his books in his bag praying that they are the correct ones since his gunmetal blue eyes are still closed.
The growl coming out of Kenma is much louder now.
Akaashi just answers by clicking his tongue. He clumsily walks to the door of his small one-bedroom apartment to pick up his shoes and leave his messy place, not waiting for Kenma but leaving the door open for him.
It doesn’t matter, wherever he goes, the demon always follows right behind him.
“You forgot your breakfast!” He hears Kenma yell in the distance. Akaashi has no time to turn around, his legs already pick up a good fast rhythm that will leave him with at least one minute to spare before entering his first class.
“We can buy something on the way, I kinda want something sweet today.” Kenma tries again, his voice less loud now since he must be far behind him.
Akaashi keeps jogging to get to the train station in time. His class starts in just twenty-two minutes, if he loses the train, everything will be over.
He has to use all his energy left (that to be honest, wasn’t much) to make his legs go faster. Damn, he hasn’t run like this since...yesterday when he was late for work. Again, all thanks to Kenma.
He is almost running out of breath but all those years playing volleyball helped him to give him enough stamina to keep going. However, his companion is dying behind him. He can hear Kenma’s heavy and fast breathing along with his pleas to skip his first class.
“This is your fault!” He says playfully as he turns around, enjoying how kenma struggles to run. “Fuck! This is your fault!” He says again with much anger this time when he sees the train closing the doors.
Damn it, he was so close.
Akaashi can only see his defeated reflection on the doors of the subway’s train car. His breathing is still heavy as his lungs try to take in all the air possible. Kenma walks past him in a worse state, barely moving his legs as he rests his face on the closed doors.
The high pitched tune announcing that it’s time to keep moving is heard. Akaashi is too focused on calculating in his head how long is it for the next train to come and how fast he should run to get to his classroom until a bright red light starts blinking in the entire door.
“Come on,” he barely hears Kenma say when he uses his inhuman strength to open the doors.
“W- what… no, no, Kenma, no!” Too late, Kenma is in.
A couple of heads turn around to look at him and he only stays right at the door with wide eyes and his face looking like a tomato. He slowly walks in with his head low avoiding the looks that the people inside are giving him. The doors close right behind him and that robotic voice announce through the speakers that a small technical difficulty happen but it’s all fine now.
Luckily, the car train wasn’t that full. Akaashi walks to the seats at the end where Kenma most likely is seated. And yes, there he is looking through the window with no care in the world. A heavy sigh leaves his lips before sitting next to Kenma while he searches for the bottle of water that he always keeps in his bag without success. He must have left it on the kitchen counter.
“I told you not to do that anymore,” he whispers to Kenma even if no one is seated close by.
“It was an emergency,” Kenma says, turning his head to look at him with those piercing golden eyes. “At least to you.”
“If only you hadn't messed with my alarm settings again…”
“Who? Me?” He says with a fake innocent voice.
“Did you set my alarm to not go off?”
“I might have…”
Akaashi rolls his eyes at him. He blames himself too, he knows he has to set his two extra alarms every night since Kenma always turns them off almost unconsciously as he sleeps. “Why do you do that every morning?”
“Why do you have to get up every morning at seven? You crazy human.”
Akaashi glances around him to make sure no one is watching him. “You can stay to sleep, you don’t have to follow me around everywhere.”
“Ugh, I would love to but you would be so dead without me.” That's the last thing Kenma says, ending the conversation by resting his head on his shoulder to recover a few more minutes of sleep.
“Yeah, good luck looking after me as you are dead asleep.” Akaashi tilts his head to his right, giving Kenma more space to sleep comfortably.
It amuses him as Kenma takes his job that far and at the same time takes it so lightly. Not even the normal guardian angels stick with the human they are looking after every single minute of the day.
But Kenma is not like most guardian angels.
Well, practically he is not even an angel.
When a person turns eighteen years old, a guardian angel is picked to look after them for the rest of their human life. It is mainly to protect them and guide them through the beginning of adulthood, helping them make all the right choices. The angel it's only visible to the person they are guarding, so no one can see nor hear other angels.
Akaashi Keiji didn't like the idea of a bird-like person watching every step he takes, but his parents told him that they are not chosen randomly for you. It has to be a perfect match so they can give you advice on your daily life and be a reassuring presence giving you inner peace.
Pure crap.
They don't interfere with the human world unless the human is in extreme danger. That reason was enough for him to not worry that much about the guardian that was going to be chosen for him. He wanted the least interaction with the divine creature possible. He was planning on only talking with it to ask about the percentage of risk of every decision he made.
On his eighteen birthday, Akaashi waited patiently for the creature with a halo above his head and huge feathery wings as he has seen in movies or read about it in books, or even heard other people's statements. They said that their skin was as bright as the white clothes they wore, a gentle smile was plastered on their face and they looked as if they had been sculpted by god or whatever.
Yet, nothing appeared. Akaashi thought that maybe he was broken because they were supposed to show themselves in the first minute of the day.
Better for him. Now he didn't have that pressure of sharing his life with another being, but his parents were worried, his mother even cried telling him that his death was close and that's why god didn't bother to give him a guardian. He could hear her talking alone as she shared her theories about the reason why his only son wasn't on god's list. Well, not alone. She was definitely talking with her guardian angel.
Akaashi rolled his eyes painfully hard when his father joined the conversation saying that maybe it was because he chose not to be a doctor and save lives like them.
He was trying to sleep on his bed, his head full of overwhelming thoughts on why no one had shown up when a gleam of light caught his eye.
He looked away from his wall, with the words "you are late" ready to leave his mouth to stare at the creature at the center of his bedroom.
Only a gasp came out of him.
That thing wasn't an angel.
A pair of black horns were sticking out of his dark and long hair, small bat-like wings were coming out of his back, and his black tail couldn't stop wagging behind him.
"What the hell are you?" He managed to say after a couple of minutes of just staring at each other in complete silence.
The thing lowered his head, his hands playing with the long black sleeves of his strange clothes as he bites his bottom lip. His sharp fangs were showing when he tried to mumble something.
"W- what?"
"I'm Kenma," he whispered.
What's going on? Akaashi turns on his lamp on his bedside table to look better at the creature. The thing hissed immediately with the bright light while taking some steps back. It looked more scared than him.
"Uh... i- is that your name?" The creature nods with his head once. "So umm, Kenma, what exactly are you doing here?"
Does he come to kill him? That was his first thought, but Kenma just looks so frightened that he must be lost. He tries to say something but he closes his mouth to inhale deeply instead, to then take a few steps closer to his bed.
"I'm here t- to guard you."
What... "You are my guardian angel?"
Kenma grimaces almost instantly. "I'm not one of those things! I'm a demon."
"This must be a mistake," he mumbles to himself. Maybe his parents were right, his fate is awful. Probably he will become a serial killer and his spot in hell is waiting for him.
"But you are Akaashi Keiji, there's no mistake. I came here to look after you for the rest of your human years."
Does he have to live with that demon all his life? "Look, you are at the wrong house with the wrong human, I didn't summon you. I'm waiting for my guardian angel to get here, you will scare them if you don't leave."
The demon huffs as he sits crossed legs on the floor. "You think I wanted to be here? I was minding my own business in hell when they sent me here with nothing but a card with your name and the word protect under it. So that's what I'm gonna do."
What did he do to deserve this?
That's the same question he has been wondering since he received the company of the demon.
He had to get used to all the eyes on him whenever he walked, probably due to the guardian angels advising their humans to not interact with him since he had a demon following him. This severely damaged his poor social skills. Good thing he still had his best friend, Bokuto, and the guys from the team. But now he was in college in another city with almost no one around him. No one but Kenma.
He doesn't care much, at least the demon is the perfect company.
What he does care though is Kenma not following the rules. Kenma uses his power whenever he pleases, a thing that the guardian is forbidden to do. He shows himself to the world by transforming into a cat... a very annoying cat. He can literally hear him fighting with other guardians all the time. He interferes daily with every decision he takes and instead of helping him, he just likes to make every situation worse just so he can make fun of him.
Akaashi should be angry at him, but a look at Kenma’s peaceful sleeping face makes his heart miss a beat for some reason. He is too soft for him and he knows it, he doesn’t know how he got to this point though.
“Take this,” Kenma says, waiting for him at the door exit when his first class is finally over.
He gladly receives the hot drink in his hands, letting the bitter coffee scent fill his nostrils. The first smile of the day is formed on his lips. Ah, his sweet fuel. His welcoming lips are on the cup as the coffee steam slightly burns him, but he quickly removes them when he feels Kenma’s eyes on him.
“What? What did you put in it?”
Kenma’s reaction is too fast, turning his head to look away from him. “Why is that your first thought? I just wanted to do something nice for you.” Still, without looking at his face, Kenma gives him a small paper bag with food on it.
“Where did you get all of this?”
“From the coffee shop.”
“Kenma…” Akaashi stops walking, making Kenma do the same to have an eye battle for a long second. “Did you steal from it again?”
“What! Of course not, look at your wallet and you will see your money missing if you don’t believe me.”
That’s enough for him, it wouldn't be the first time the demon sneakily takes money from him. “At least you could have bought the expensive one that we like.”
“Oh I did, I already drank it. Yours is from that cheap coffee cart.”
Akaashi would have answer back, but he has to admit that he likes the smile playing on Kenma’s lips. Besides, coffee is coffee. “Well, thank you anyway.”
Kenma shrugs his shoulders. “Sorry for turning off your alarm… again.”
“Ugh, don’t be. You were right, I should have skipped this class, we did nothing important.”
“I told you so! You're in your last year of college, live a little, and skip classes.”
“You mean skip classes to sleep a bit more and then do nothing all day?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, that’s not living the college life at all.”
“Whatever, ” Kenma is walking closely by his side, his left wing touching his back from once in a while. “What I'm trying to say is that you need to relax.”
“Well, they invite me to a party tonight and I was thinking-”
“Who?”
“Oikawa-san from work.”
“No,” Kenma shakes his head disapprovingly. “He gives me a bad vibe and I don't want him anywhere near you.”
“I know he does, you literally hiss at him every time I go to the coffee shop. But he is kinda my friend and tomorrow is his birthday, I already told him I would try to be there tonight.”
“Keiji, haven’t you noticed how he looks at you? You can’t go.”
According to Kenma, everyone gives him a bad vibe. Damn it, and he hasn't even told him the worst part yet. “I will go anyway.”
"That's the stubbornness that kills most of the weak humans, you know? I guess I will have to work extra hard tonight and be extremely careful. If he tries anything I will rip off his chest to get his heart out."
“Wow, okay, not more late horror movies for you." Akaashi takes a sip of his coffee hoping that the hot liquid can give him a bit of courage. "It's not necessary for you to go."
Kenma snorts for a short second giving him an "okay, sure" look. It's not that he cares about Kenma being with him all the time, he deeply enjoys his company, but the demon can be harsh with other guardians which end up in them advising their humans to not be associated with the name of Akaashi Keiji.
"Actually, uh, I don't want you to go..."
"Are you fucking crazy?"
"Keep your voice down," Akaashi whispers, suddenly feeling that someone could hear them... or him. "If only you didn't scare every person I try to talk with. I need other friendships too."
"It's for your own good and you say all the time that you don't need anyone."
"Not all the time. Can you just please stay at the apartment tonight? Just for one night, that's all I'm asking."
"No, I'm not leaving you alone and unprotected. You have no idea about the dangers out there."
Akaashi rolled his eyes so hard that he was surprised that they hadn't fallen out from his head already. He had to use his best weapon and offer him his favorite human food, apple pie. But the demon didn't back down. Not when he was in his other classes, not when he was covering his shift at the coffee shop, not when they were on the train back home.
Kenma tried to persuade him all day by telling him the most horrible stories that have ever happened to humans when they go to parties and get drunk. It only made him feel sick to his stomach listening to all the gruesome details that Kenma was saying as if it was nothing. He can't back down after that, he can't make Kenma win the argument.
He even tried to use his last but best resource as Akaashi was getting ready to go out.
Red glowing eyes lusting for blood are staring at him, his black long nails are now twitching claws begging for destruction, the hunger is present in his sharp fangs under his devious smile.
He is standing to his full height and with the help of his completely spread wings, now he looks much bigger. His skin is pale as snow, the clothes he is wearing turned into as dark as the night, and his eyes are red as fresh blood.
Akaashi can see all of his dark veins bulging under the white skin in all of the demon’s body, creating strange patrons and symbols he cannot decipher.
“That would have intimidated me if you literally don't do that every time the neighbor let her dog out.”
Kenma flaps his wings in annoyance as he lets out a loud huff. “Fine, go straight to your potential death.”
“Fine.” He answers as he puts his jacket on.
“Fine!” Kenma scoffs, leaning against the wall as his figures turn smaller.
When his dear demon friend doesn’t feel like talking, he transforms into his cat form. Which now that he thinks about it, it has been happening more than usual this past month.
“I’ll be back around two. I have to study all day tomorrow anyway, so I won’t be staying longer than that, okay?”
The death glare that the cute cat is giving him intensifies. What a pretty deadly thing. Akaashi agrees that it is truly Kenma’s spirit animal.
He reaches out to pet Kenma’s head but he quickly moves away from his touch with a loud hiss. “See you when I come back.”
Akaashi turns around a few times to see Kenma looking at him, a dash of red within those golden eyes until he keeps walking and he can’t see them anymore.
It must be the habit that makes him lower his head at his right where Kenma should suppose to be walking beside him, he even makes sure that he is not being followed by the demon every fifteen seconds and the truth is that he is a little disappointed that Kenma is not there with him.
That’s how he spends the next hour at Oikawa’s house, him thinking about Kenma, him missing Kenma, him wanting Kenma. “You are being ridiculous,” he mumbles to himself with a little bit of hope that Kenma would answer just to agree with him.
Now he can finally confirm that Kenma wasn’t the one to blame for the lack of new friends, but he kinda knew that. He has always been uninterested in that aspect, approaching strangers to start a conversation wasn’t his thing before Kenma nor after him. He even tried to take a couple of drinks to help him lose himself a little, but he only ended up texting Bokuto about an owl documentary he had seen with Kenma the other day.
He can practically hear Kenma in his head telling him how boring this shitty party with that soft tone of his and that they should go home instead, they would probably have more fun just the two. He would also try to use his powers to make fun of some of the guests as he usually does with the annoying clients at the cafe. Akaashi can almost hear his small laugh filling his mind and soul.
Akaashi sighed as he glanced at his phone to see the time. A silly smile is playing on his lips at the thought of Kenma and oh god, he realizes that not even two hours have passed and he is already missing Kenma like crazy. How can be possible? He misses Kenma so badly it physically hurt, like if some kind of hole was there in his chest.
He lets out a small groan ready to insult Kenma for what he had done with him in these four years of knowing him, but that familiar warm face it’s not there and now Akaashi is even angrier with the demon. How dare he provokes these feeling in him?
With an irritated huff, he decides to leave because he doesn’t like this weight in his heart he hasn’t been feeling since he met Kenma.
He walks faster than he would like to admit to get home as soon as possible. The battle of his thoughts about his feelings for Kenma is a bit overwhelming, but a part of him is screaming about how he didn’t see it before. “You even sleep in the same bed!” his inner voice adds.
Fast and clumsy hands work to take the keys out of his pocket, but before reaching the door nob, he hears shuffling noise close to the entrance and a soft “fuck” as some footsteps walk away. Akaashi takes his shoes off before stepping into the darkness using the flashlight of his phone to not fall until he gets to his bedroom.
Under the covers, Kenma is pretending to be asleep and Akaashi suppresses the urge of rolling his eyes at the poor attempt of hiding that he was waiting by the door just because the gesture makes his heart beat faster.
Quietly, he takes his clothes off to wear the shirt he uses as a pajama and very slowly, he lays down next to Kenma pressing twice the bulge of blankets with his index finger.
“What?” He hears after a long second.
“I came early just to see you,” he says way too fast, way too honest.
The demon fights against the blankets covering him, revealing his face and making all Akaashi’s insides flustered.
His golden eyes are wide and fully alert as he looks for some kind of confession in his words. “Was the party that boring?”
“Yes, I shouldn’t have gone. As soon as saw puke in the garden I should have turned around.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah, sometimes humans do suck.”
“I know... not every human though.”
Their eyes met and a warm smile broke out on Kenma’s lips. “The truth is that I really missed you.”
As the moonlight shines through the window, making Kenma’s face glow under it, his gaze drops, refusing to meet his staring eyes. “Me too.”
He reaches out to touch him, his hand stopping before he can feel the warmth of his face. He asks permission with his eyes and Kenma grants it in the same way. His hand caresses his cheek as he traces his thumb over the dark strange marks on his face.
“I wake up every morning with you because I enjoy every minute we spend together. I know I don’t have to, I wouldn’t do it just because of a stupid job. It is my choice to be with you.”
Kenma’s breath fanned against his face and Akaashi can’t do anything else but stare at him in quiet awe. The demon doesn’t usually talk about his feelings.
Kenma’s hand grips his shirt, his longs nails almost digging on his burning skin to bring him closer to him. His lips are pressed against his in a long-awaited kiss.
He pulls away just because he needed air to breathe and live for more moments like these. “It’s my choice to be with you too.”
Akaashi doesn't know if he should feel more blessed to receive the demon for company years ago bringing happiness from the first time he saw him or because of the fact that Kenma doesn't follow the rules.
Kenma stares at him with an adorable pink blush decorating his cheeks before Akaashi brings his lips closer to kiss him again and again.