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“I’m writing a Fight Club musical,” Kuroo Tetsurou says and it ruins Kei’s life for three reasons:
One, Kuroo is present—sprawled over the loveseat in Oikawa’s living room, clutching a brown-tinted bottle with one hand, gesturing wildly with the other while he drops this magnificent bomb on the room at large. Last Kei heard, Kuroo was communing with nature far, far up north; not downing beer in Oikawa’s living room.
Two, Kuroo does not sound like he’s joking. He speaks with the same infuriating confidence he injects into all of his nonsense and Kei is immediately stuck on the phrase ‘Fight Club musical,’ unable to parse it into something that even remotely makes sense. What? Why?
Three, Kuroo boldly declares his aspirations while staring Kei in the eye, arrogance bleeding through every word, hovering somewhere between Oh, hello there, haven’t seen you since getting trapped in a hammock together and remember that time you bitched for twelve hours about artistic integrity rather than admitting tequila makes you a terrible lyricist, ‘cause I do.
Kageyama’s eyebrows tremble; his mouth screws up into a thoughtfully perplexed sneer. He makes this face a lot when he’s not sure if something is flying over his head or if someone is actually being weirder than he is. If only Yamaguchi were here. Kei could use some sanity injected into this bizarre excuse for a party.
Kei turns on his heel to storm out. He never agreed to stay long and the stress of having to be social is enough without Kuroo lounging around, talking about how he’s writing an R-rated musical scored by The Dust Brothers. Halfway out of the living room, out of the house, perhaps out of the prefecture for good measure—Kei is thwarted by the human equivalent of a golden retriever crashing straight into him. Drummers.
“Sorry!” Hinata squawks, catching the attention of the whole room.
It’s not nearly so easy to leave when everyone is staring, instead of just Kuroo.
“Kei-kun!” Oikawa says, waving the two of them in before shooting a flawless bitch, please at Kuroo. “What the hell is a Fight Club musical?”
“Well, I just don’t know yet, now do I?”
Kei spent two years of college crushing on this guy and one ill-fated night making good on it; how mortifying. To be fair, he felt that way at the time, too, though. Four years later, Kei still blames the tequila. And the rhyming dictionary, a little.
“You want a drink?” Hinata asks.
“God, yes.”
Hinata bounces off toward the kitchen—his energy is boundless, without him the room feels fifty percent calmer. When he comes back, it’ll be whiplash.
“Hey, Tsukki.” Kuroo nods at the sliver of space next to him on the loveseat.
Kei would rather not join Kuroo, but he cannot abide everyone knowing it, so he sits.
“Congrats on the chart-topper.” Kuroo knocks his beer in the air and takes a long drag. “Not every day your name is on a Top Ten single.”
“Thanks.” Kei accepts one of the beers Hinata’s juggling when he comes back into the room, then holds it steady while Hinata pops off the cap with a bottle opener. “But it’s the band’s name on it, not mine.”
“Semantics. You wrote it, right?”
Kei did write it. It’s the only track on Flux’s album he wrote almost all of, and it was only released as a single because Oikawa is both amazingly good at his job and a huge asshole.
"Hell yeah, he wrote it.” Hinata slings an arm over Kei’s shoulder and clinks the necks of their bottles together. “Who knew he had it in him, right?”
If Kei were slightly more masochistic, he might entertain the look Kuroo shoots across the three centimeters separating them on the loveseat as from somewhere in the realm of ‘I did, actually,’ but there’s no need. Kuroo’s always been the type to say those sorts of things out loud.
“Some of us got a better look.”
The subtext manages to both fly straight over Hinata’s head and clobber Kei directly in the face.
Hinata returns his attention to Kei. “You’ve been working with Oikawa on something since we’ve been back, right? How’s it going? Can I come in sometime and help?”
“He won’t even let me in,” Oikawa scoffs. To Kei, he says, “You know I wouldn’t put up with such offensive behavior from just anyone.”
“I offered to pay you for the time,” Kei says.
Oikawa waves him off. “Please, no one but you needs the studio any time soon. But you might have to share with Kuro-chan a bit.”
“You just said you’re not bothered,” Kei says. “Why are you punishing me?”
Kuroo leans in dangerously close, a smarmy grin plastered all of his face—crooked, full of teeth, eyes sparkling with amusement and focused directly on Kei like they’re the only two people in the room. “Aw, Tsukki, I thought we shared a special connection.”
What an outrageous claim. They haven’t seen each other or spoken in years. “I don’t associate with lunatics who do things like write Fight Club musicals.”
“How about lunatics failing to write Fight Club musicals? Because that part’s important. The failing.”
Oikawa’s cackling startles Kei nearly out of his seat. He’s turned to face Kuroo. He’s even leaned in a bit; god, when did that happen?
“You still haven’t explained what a Fight Club musical is,” Oikawa says. “I think you’re making shit up, honestly. You’re such an attention whore.”
“Oh that is rich coming from you,” Kuroo says. “I don’t know what it is yet. That’s the problem. All I know is it’s Fight Club but instead of fistfights maybe it’s stylized break dancing.”
“I can’t wait to hear how you describe it after another drink,” Oikawa says. “I’m dying to know how you’ll improve on all the crazy you shoved into that one sentence.”
Kuroo maintains eye contact with Oikawa and slowly drinks the rest of his beer. He says, “I think it will work best if the entire plot is exactly the same, but the costumes are all outrageous cowboy attire.”
Kei snorts. It’s completely accidental, he’s mortified he wasn’t able to keep it in.
Kuroo grins.
“You know, that actually doesn’t sound too bad.” Oikawa shrugs. “Now if only you could write it. Is this why you wanted me to find you a cowbell so badly?”
“You can play the cowbell?” Hinata asks like it’s anything other than rattling a stick around in a box. He glances at Kei. “We could do cowbell. Be like that New York rock band. More cowbell.”
“Blue Oyster Cult,” proclaims nearly everyone else in the room.
Hinata snaps his fingers. “That’s the one. It’d be cool to have a funky calling card, you know? Maybe the xylophone…”
“Can you play the xylophone?” Kageyama demands, gesturing wildly toward Kuroo.
Kuroo shrugs. “I could figure it out.”
“Sure, then, fuck it, arrange all your songs with a xylophone,” Oikawa says. “Like I said, Kuro-chan’s sticking around a bit. He owes me for the studio time and around forty-seven filthy, filthy secrets, so favors can be arranged.”
Kei hates it when Oikawa says stuff like this because it makes him worry at any point, Oikawa could decide Kei owes for the studio time, too. Oikawa has way more than forty-seven horrible pieces of blackmail on Kei. There’s a bit of mutually assured destruction, but not anywhere near enough for a battle of attrition.
“I don’t understand why you won’t let me pay you in money.”
“Me, either,” Kei mumbles.
Oikawa waves his cocktail. “You’re too valuable, Kuro-chan, I prefer to have a studio musician who can pick up and play almost anything at my disposal instead. And Kei-kun, come on, stop acting like we aren’t friends.”
“Who’d be friends with a maniac like you?” Kei asks, but he doesn’t mean it with any bite and Oikawa knows it.
“I’m almost excited to see what you throw at me,” Kuroo says. “Not gonna lie, xylophone sounds fun.”
“What about a zeusaphone? Can you play one of those?” Hinata asks. Then, when Kageyama goes to say something he snaps, “For the last time, yes, it’s real, I found it on the internet!”
“If he gets a chance to get a good look at it, Kuro-chan can play it,” Oikawa says with the bald-faced confidence of someone who has watched Kuroo do exactly that.
This will go on forever. Kei can already see how this conversation will escalate. Hinata will insist Kuroo demonstrate. It will become a ridiculous production of Kuroo playing oldies on any instrument put in his hands and between Hinata and Kageyama, it will never stop. They will never run out of ancient top forty hits they want to hear played on everything from a recorder to a bongo drum. Oikawa has a lot of instruments around here.
Kei excuses himself from the mayhem.
The walls of Oikawa’s basement studio are thick and squashy. Blue and grey foam pyramids covering every square centimeter except the long rectangular window on one wall. Kei is always struck with the urge to smoosh the soundproofing with his hands but resists because it looks stupid and childish when Hinata does. He indulges himself only when no one is around, and even now it’s a quick pat, something he could probably brush off if someone happened to catch him. Maybe someday Kei can have a house of his own with a recording studio in the basement. Foam soundproofing to squish to his heart’s content with no risk of witnesses.
Since getting back from tour, Kei has spent most of his free time here. Enough that his second-best bass lives in the rack of instruments toward the back and he has a usual seat tucked into the corner next to an amp no one dares fuss with.
Kei settles in, pulls headphones over his ears, adjusts his glasses, and starts idly picking out the backbone of the ballad Kageyama wrote extolling the virtues of yogurt drinks. No one knows that’s what it’s about—yet—only Kei has picked up on it and he can’t decide if he wants to be around when it comes out of the woodwork. Oikawa will be furious. That alone’s worth sticking around for.
An old favorite forms under his fingers—Flux’s first single, from the EP, not the LP. From before Oikawa had a budget for them. It reminds him of a headier buzz and radiant spotlights; hot like a sunburn and sweat, sweat, sweat slicking up his strings and dripping down his face. A rollercoaster. No getting off, no stopping, no slowing down. Those sorts of shows were always Kei’s favorite. The ones where no one really knew who they were or what to expect. Instead of singing along the crowd just screamed.
Back against the wall, legs crossed, headphones secure, Kei tries to lose himself in the feel in his chest. He doesn’t pay much attention to what he’s doing, just goes with the flow from Kageyama’s ballad into something wilder and undefined. Whatever feels nice rumbling around, thick notes careening about, looking for friends, trying to stick together and build up into something coherent.
“I’m trying to be polite and wait for you to have a bit of a lull, but dude you have been going on and on for like fifteen minutes straight,” crackles through the headphones.
Tsukishima slips his eyes open to see Kuroo looming over the soundboard, grinning into the mic.
Kei goes back to plucking the bass, but shoulders one side of his headphones down until they fall around his neck. “Come in if you’re going to hang around.”
Kuroo grins again and makes his way into the recording booth. He takes a seat at the keyboard and taps out a few notes to go along with Kei’s. He was like this in college, too. One of those devastatingly natural musicians who can’t function without playing something soft in the background, can’t converse without a soundtrack. Even last week at Oikawa’s party, he was constantly tapping a beat out against the side of his beer bottle. Drumming along with some vague, shapeless melody in his head.
“This the much-anticipated sequel to your monster hit? Carry On, Part II?” Kuroo asks.
"Maybe. No demands, but I’m trying to work on something.” Kei’s feelings about Carry On are complicated. On the one hand, he is very proud of it. On the other, he still isn’t sure he likes having so much of himself on display for the world to see. Everyone thinks they know him now. Thinks they’re entitled to carve him up and dissect him just because he went and bled himself dry once.
Kuroo looks at him like he heard the whole internal monologue, then taps a few keys—a doomsayer procession with a noisy, clanging chord at the end.
Kei whispers, “dun, dun, dun,” under his breath.
With a short laugh, Kuroo begins weaving a simple harmony between Kei’s notes. “They’re angling to shove you guys right back in the studio, huh?”
“Yeah. No break.”
“Gotta ride that wave. Our first two were like that. Was probably for the best but it took a lot out of us. I’m glad Bokuto and Akaashi refused to come back for number three until we’d had some time off. You far along?”
“No. Don’t even have demos. Mostly just trying to put things together so we can figure out what we like.” Kei switches to a minor key. Thinking about it makes him feel gloomy and dramatic. “What about you? Are you really writing a Fight Club musical? Or are you just screwing with Oikawa? I approve if that’s the case.”
“It’s real. I mean, it will be. S’gonna be my magnum opus. My epic.” Kuroo glances over, looks Kei up and down twice, and snorts. “Don’t even bother asking, I’m so stuck not even I know what it means. Maybe it has a bit of a vibe like West Side Story. Sounds kind of neat.”
The general, broad-stroke notion of it is ridiculous. A Fight Club musical, how stupid. Thing is, Kuroo tends to pull off gleeful insanity with showy aplomb. In college, he once did an end-to-end cover of Sergeant Pepper by himself with a recorder, tambourine, and harp. Kei will never, ever speak of how brilliant it was or how Lovely Rita still gets stuck in his head sometimes.
Kuroo transitions to slow, deep chords to go along with Kei’s bitchy notes. It sounds nice—an uneasy blend, relaxing in the same violent way as cracking knuckles. Kei likes it.
“It’s not a big deal right now—being stuck, I mean—band’s taking some time off and we all have work so it’s not like anyone’s suffering. We took a big break like this a few years ago, too, and it wound up being for the best. Hoping this is more of the same.”
“Must be nice.” Kei hums. “What part are you stuck on?”
“The whole thing is too… cool,” Kuroo says. “Shit, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“This your color thing you’re talking about?” Kei vividly remembers being fascinated by this notion in college, back when he first met Kuroo. The colors always seemed so apt; after a certain amount of exposure to Kuroo, it slots right into place. Of course, Kuroo sees music as colors. What else would he do? Hear it like most everyone else?
“Synaesthesia.” Kuroo taps out a few notes, then goes into a full-on, church organ-style dirge. “It is impossible to describe, just ignore me.”
“What’s cool? Blue?”
“Blue, green, too pale,” Kuroo mutters.
Kei used to wonder if he had synaesthesia, what would he see? Or feel? Or smell? With his luck, it’d be something weird like taste. D-sharp as mushrooms or b-flat as apples and nothing would ever taste like something he actually enjoys because that’s how his life works out most of the time.
“Play it?”
Kuroo doesn’t say anything, but the tone of his music shifts into something gentle and rolling, foamy, almost. It swells into peaks then breaks down into single notes tumbling one after another down Kei’s spine in a shiver, and yes, it feels cold. Blue and oceanic. Soothing.
“Not very Fight Clubby.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Kei plucks out another jilted and toothed string. When he glances up, Kuroo is watching. “Play me something red.”
Kuroo grins.
“I’m writing a Fight Club musical,” Kuroo says as Kei pushes open the door to Oikawa’s basement recording studio a week after their impromptu jam session and almost two after the first time Kei heard this insanity.
It was weird the first time. It’s downright bizarre the second.
Iwaizumi frowns with both eyebrows yanked straight up his forehead, nearly to his hairline. A complicated series of emotions cross his face when he glances up at Kei. Relief, annoyance, resignation.
“Oikawa’s upstairs.” Under his breath, Iwaizumi adds, “Lucky bastard.”
“I’m right here, you know,” Kuroo says.
“Oh, I know.”
“Imagine it: open on that epic scene with the gun on the skyscraper. Except… well, probably not a gun. Maybe a baguette. Maybe he’s being threatened with carbs…”
“Your creative process,” Iwaizumi despairs, “could be used to break criminals after all the legal interrogation methods have failed.”
Kei turns around and walks out. Right before the door swings closed he hears, “What, like torture?! Offensive.”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio,” Oikawa says over a plateful of sweet potato fries. They’re at a quaint, novelty diner meant to resemble a brunch-at-all-hours chain Kei ate at entirely too many times touring. The food is excellent for evening out the splotchy realm between still drunk and almost hungover. Without the alcohol, it’s mostly mediocre and greasy.
Kei makes a vague assenting noise. The restaurant isn’t busy but there’s still activity within a couple of meters at all times. The distractions make Kei grumpy. Or, maybe Kuroo’s whole ridiculous death by baguette thing is to blame for his mood.
A fry wags across the table. “Not that I mind. You take all the time you need. If I ever decide it’s an imposition, I’ll change the locks, but it’s gotten to the point where apparently I’m supposed to ask if you’re okay.”
“Apparently?”
“You’ve ignited Iwa-chan’s mothering instincts.” Oikawa rolls his eyes. “Please, please tell him I asked if you’re alright so he gets back to doing his usual walk around the house half-naked for no reason thing, I’m begging you.”
“Oh, no, you poor thing. Deprived of your man-candy.”
Oikawa viciously chomps a fry in half and glares. “He’s punishing me because of you and all you can do is tease me? Cruel.”
Kei considers the fries and grabs one to munch on. “I’m still working through the track. It’s okay.”
“Working through it like actually working through it? Or working through it, as in you haven’t even really started yet? Did you forget you asked me to save all the recordings? Should I go pull the tape and listen for myself?”
Kei sighs. “I’m just having a slow start.”
“You know you don’t have to do this. Nobody is saying you have to take lead on a track. There’s already plenty of material to work with.”
“They expect me to.”
“They,” Oikawa scoffs. “Who is ‘they’? Sho-chan? Tobio-kun? Tadashi-kun? Which of them said to you, ‘hey you have to write another song and it better be just as much of a banger as the first one?’
Kei remains stubbornly quiet.
Two fries later, Oikawa leans in, both elbows on the table, and grins. “I thought we don’t care what the fans think.”
He doesn’t. Kei doesn’t need their approval. He wrote Carry On because he needed to write it, nothing more. It went on the album because Oikawa is equal parts genius and sadist and it blew up because apparently Kei is not entirely alone in feeling like he’s drowning sometimes even if he never quite knows why.
Now, everyone expects Kei to do it again and the little, deep down part of him not resentful of the expectation desperately wants to pull it off twice. It felt good to get all that out. Cathartic. He dug something nasty and ill-defined from his guts and it felt amazing to do it. That it soared is incredible.
“I can figure it out. I just don’t know where to start yet.”
“Well, take your time. I’d rather have slow and well-made than quick and nothing but drum solos. Now, on to more interesting matters.” Oikawa waggles his eyebrows and hunches further in like secrets are imminent. “Want to tell me what you’ve been doing locked up in the studio with Kuro-chan?”
Absolutely not. Oikawa knows far too much, anything Kei gives him will be treated as ammunition.
“He just happens to be there. You warned us we might have to put up with each other, why are you surprised?”
“Because I expected you to turn around and leave when he’s there.” Oikawa leans back in his chair.
"It’s fine.”
Easy, even. Especially when Kei can, technically, pull up his headphones and listen only to what he’s doing instead of working around the cacophonous backdrop of Kuroo experimenting with every instrument he can get his hands on, whether he knows how to play it or not. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes even in words rather than inviting jingles in the key of D Major. Kuroo talks more about what his bandmates are doing than himself, and Kei generally feels like this is the best way to go about it and does the same.
Oikawa frowns. “Just fine? How boring.”
"What did you expect me to say?”
“Disastrous, catastrophic, some huge hyperbolic meltdown over how his hair is so annoying and he talks too much and how you aren’t sure how to act around him considering you once made out with him in a hammock after drinking a quite unfathomable quantity of tequila.”
Kei frowns. “That is very specific.”
“It’s been two weeks, I’ve had time to get my thoughts in order.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s fine.”
"Oh? How fortunate, because Kuro-chan’s going to stick around. Courthouse Wedding has nothing on their slate, they’re not even sure if they’ll come back for another album.” Oikawa watches Kei hungrily; like Kei will be surprised or scandalized by it.
“So?”
“So, nothing.” Oikawa huffs. “You’re no fun.”
“Coming from you? Compliment.”
Kuroo is at the piano again. He presses a few chords from the keyboard with his left hand and holds a harmonica to his mouth with his right. The resulting noise is clangy and intense. A little more in the realm of Fight Club, maybe.
“What color is that?” Kei asks. He’s a little obsessed with the idea of it. It’s such a marvelous puzzle to unravel. No one else has ever managed as far as Kei knows—Kuroo always says not to bother trying—but Kei thought he’d figured out a bit of a system for it in college and is desperately curious to expand on it.
“Safety-vest orange,” Kuroo mutters before blowing through the harmonica again. “Getting closer. I might almost not hate it.”
“How in the world is this better than the actually nice thing you were playing the other week?”
“It’s not meant to be nice,” Kuroo says. “It’s meant to be boiling coffee poured over the sunrise.”
Kei grabs his bass and takes his customary seat. “Iwaizumi is kind of right about your creative process.”
“Want to give me a hand, then? I’ve always thought we’d collaborate well.”
“Why in the world would you want to collaborate with someone who can’t even write one measly song when you’re stuck trying to write a whole-ass musical?” It slips out in frustration. Kei’s always had trouble holding his tongue around Kuroo.
“Nonsense,” Kuroo says. He sets the harmonica down on top of the keyboard and idly moves into playing some scales. “You’ve more than proved you can write a song. I like Carry On. It’s very you.”
Kei likes compliments as much as the next guy—to have his work validated and praised is hugely pleasant—but sometimes it’s hard to deal with it like this, straight at his face, stripped, acoustic.
“Shame. You have such bad taste, I’d almost prefer if you didn’t.” This, Kei thinks, is a situation where he doesn’t want to hear what color the music was. There’s no answer he would deem acceptable, especially when his feelings on the track have become so complicated.
“Someday you should tell me why you’re so resentful of your big accomplishment.” Kuroo grins. “Though, I bet I could guess.”
Kei could deny it. He doesn’t owe anyone explanations, least of all Kuroo, but a spacious expanse of bitter emptiness wants to rant about it. “It got bigger than I meant it to. I shouldn’t have let Oikawa release it like he did. I thought it’d be a deep cut or a b-side.”
“It meant a lot to people. You want to take it away from them?”
Kei doesn’t like how that question makes him sound.
“Just saying you’re the only one who knows what it means, but that doesn’t make it meaningless to the rest of the world,” Kuroo says. Then, “Give me a beat.”
Kei plays something mid-tempo, generic and deep, begging for contrast. Kuroo starts tapping away at the high end of the keyboard and considers the harmonica again.
“The harmonica doesn’t work. Stop trying to be gimmicky.”
“Maybe a theremin.”
The sliver of tension breaks. Kei laughs. “Maybe figure out the actual melody, first.”
Whatever it is they’re playing is pleasant. A little, jaunty conversation between the two of them with soft, rounded corners and three centimeters of padding all around.
Nice to see you again.
What have you been up to?
We keep running into each other.
Kuroo hums a moody tune under his breath. Purple, probably.
“I’ll help with your musical,” Kei says. “If you promise to behave.”
“I feel like I can get away with negotiating for the bad behavior, so I’m going to reject this initial offer.”
Kei snaps his D string loud enough to startle Kuroo. “Ass.”
“Maybe I should ask Hinata instead. Better rhythm”—snap—“Ouch, your poor strings, okay okay.”
“I don’t know how much I can contribute. Apparently, I require the stars aligning and probably a whole bunch of other bullshit to actually produce anything,” Kei says.
“Honestly? I just like working with you. Makes me relaxed. Good mood for theory-crafting.” Kuroo coaxes the tempo faster. “Besides, isn’t that the old maxim? Get stuck on something, move to something else. Never stop. No zero days.”
“No zero days,” Kei agrees.
“Spill,” Yamaguchi demands, both hands slamming down on the table, shoulders hunched, determination ablaze in his eyes. “I leave for one month—one month—and when I come back, you’re holed up in the studio with Kuroo working on some secret project? Please tell me it’s really a musical. I would kill someone to see the musical the two of you came up with.”
“Calm down. Only Kuroo is writing the musical. I’m just helping out while I try to work on something else.”
Yamaguchi cracks into raucous caterwauling.
“You’re—and let’s make sure I have this exactly right—‘just helping’ Kuroo write a musical while you ‘hang around’ and ‘work on your own thing?’” A vicious set of air quotes scrunch around each item Yamaguchi deems ridiculous.
Kei demands his face and posture stay perfectly neutral. “Yes.”
“You, who refused to so much as let anyone look at the sheet music for Carry On until you had already recorded the entire demo by yourself?”
“That was different.” Kei isn’t sure how, though.
“Right.” Yamaguchi gestures to the notebook circled by Kei’s protective arms resting on the table. “Why don’t you let me have a look at what you’re working on, then. Since it’s so different.”
Kei will not be doing this, but it takes a moment to assess the situation and utterly fail to develop an excuse for it. The truth is, Kei is not ready for anyone to see it, but Kuroo seeing it doesn’t count in the same way. Yamaguchi will look at Kei’s scribbles and hear it in his head. Kuroo sees an entirely unique landscape, and there is no scale in something like that. No judgment in being called daisy yellow rinsed with cornflower blue or pine needle green peppering a landscape of fire hydrants.
Explaining any of this to Yamaguchi would risk him understanding exactly which parts are complete and total bullshit designed to cover up certain other thoughts Kei is having about Kuroo, again. For one insane moment, Kei considers telling the truth. He ruthlessly dismisses the foolish notion.
“Maybe I’ll pop in at Oikawa’s sometime,” Yamaguchi says.
“What do you want from me?”
“I only want to know what’s going on,” Yamaguchi says, all slathered up in false innocence like he’s not Satan incarnate. “What have you been up? I’ve been gone a month, things seem to have changed.”
It is entirely Kuroo’s fault. Kei has been locked up with him in Oikawa’s basement for over half of Yamaguchi’s month away, making absolutely zero progress on their respective projects, giggling, flirting, snapping bass strings and piano keys at each other.
“I’m not telling you any of the details. It’s not my musical”—thank God—“and it’s no big thing. He asks my opinion and gives me feedback on what I’m working on. That’s all.”
Yamaguchi’s eyes go all fake-watery. He sniffs. “I’m so proud. You didn’t even need tequila this time.”
The worst part of Kei’s whole life is how everyone knows about the tequila part.
“Shut up.”
“Fine,” Yamaguchi draws it out with a long eye roll.
“How was touring with Terushima?”
“So different than touring with you,” Yamaguchi says. “I always kind of feel like part of Flux when I’m with you guys. With Terushima, it was like a month-long party. Very fun. Very weird.”
“You are part of Flux.”
“You know what I mean, I’m not in your official line-up or whatever.”
Kei is going to fix that. It’s right up at the top of his list. Yamaguchi just spent months touring with them and he has a significant presence on their first album. What started as small favors for Kei quickly turned into Flux’s unofficial fourth member and Kei knows Hinata and Kageyama won’t have any issue with it, they’ll agree Yamaguchi should be folded in, officially, if that’s what he wants.
“You could be if you stopped harassing me about Kuroo.”
“Ah, sure, but I’m not the one bringing him up again.”
Kei’s teeth snap around every comeback roiling away in his mouth.
Working with Kuroo is… nice.
Unpredictable. High-speed and sporadic. A sea of uncertainties: blue and foamy like the rolling melody he played the first time they ran into each other in Oikawa’s studio.
Kei never knows what’s going to happen next or even what heading they’re on, but it always feels like they’re moving; just neither of them know where. Someday they’ll have an entire collection of little jingles and ditties. Maybe some of them will even fit together by the time they’re done.
Who would have guessed collaborating with a raging lunatic is so easy? They haven’t even gotten anywhere. It’s ridiculous to have any optimism, but here he is struggling with a warm fluttering in his bones he doesn’t quite want to acknowledge. Even though Kei has nothing to show for their time together, he doesn’t hate this.
They’re off on a branch of the other melody from that first day in the studio—the red one. Kuroo keeps saying he wants something boiling and this is getting close. A volatile simmer. Apparently, they are at blood-orange now.
“Maybe you need some winds,” Kei mutters, head lolled back, eyes closed. “Like an oboe or something.”
“Not a horn?”
Kei snaps out some harsher notes. “For what?”
“Good point.” Kuroo pauses. “You know, if you wanted help on your thing, you’d only have to ask.”
Like Kuroo, Kei is swimming in all the pieces and nothing wants to stick together. Kei likes the key, he likes the beat and the melody, but when he tries to join them, they rumble contentiously in his chest. It doesn’t feel right. It won’t mesh.
Kuroo is patient enough to wait for an answer forever.
“Maybe later. I’m still figuring things out.”
“Like what?” Kuroo scribbles in his notebook. “Play me a little of what you’re toying with.”
Kei would never—for anyone else. But Kei asked Kuroo this same question and got an answer, and it’s not like Kuroo’s ever going to run around telling the world Kei is a fraud who lucked his way into one hit and can’t figure out how. So, he shifts into the fragmented spine of something that’s been itching in his fingers for some time now. It won’t end up being anything, Kei already knows. It’s too jazzy of a tempo with an odd rhythm to it—but he likes it.
Kuroo hums along. After a moment, he stands and wanders over to the drum kit, taps on a snare, and then abandons it entirely in favor of the cymbal. He nods to Kei’s weird beat then jumps right into it, fingernails coaxing a shimmering backdrop from the cymbal.
“Not bad,” Kei says. It still won’t go anywhere, though. Hinata is nowhere near subtle enough to pull off something like this and Kuroo might not be around for the masters.
No good will come of this. Kuroo is a wanderer. For now, he’s meandering around Tokyo writing a musical, but who knows where he’ll be in six months or a year, or even next week, really.
Too bad Kei’s better sense is only half listening. Instead, he’s falling victim to his horrendous taste in men and taste for Kuroo in particular. Besieged by memories of college and wondering what colors Kuroo hears when he listens to Kei’s music. About Kuroo’s lips. The tequila and bad lyrics night, hazy and faded, worn like the Toho Gakuen College hoodie he slips on whenever it’s a little too cold or Kei feels in need of something comforting to wrap up in.
Kei thinks he remembers Kuroo’s lips as soft. His tongue clever. Adventurous hands.
“It is my professional opinion that you are taking this too seriously,” Kuroo says, abandoning the cymbal in favor of emphatically banging out a dramatic rendition of what sounds oddly like We Didn’t Start the Fire on a tambourine in one hand, other hand tapping out single notes on the keyboard. “No good comes of forcing it. You drained your batteries, let’s go recharge them.”
Hanging out with Kuroo alone in the sanctity of Oikawa’s home studio, Kei’s bass kept firmly between them is one thing. It is another entirely to go out, into the world, no armor where everyone can see. “You’re full of it. If you want to go out, go, I’m not keeping you here.”
“You are in a rut. I demand you leave this basement and go interact with other human beings with me. It’ll be more fun that way. I’ll even pay for the drinks.”
This is bait. To Kuroo, there are two outcomes and both are in his favor. If Kei agrees, then Kuroo gets his way. If Kei refuses, Kuroo will press until he’s forced to acknowledge the last time they went drinking together.
Uncertainty comes in a huge, oppressive canyon aching with memories and nostalgia and old college crushes. Kei doesn’t think he’d mind acknowledging the tequila night so much anymore. It was a while ago and it was fun—and being around Kuroo is like having a slow, accumulating tolerance for insanity. His intensity is overwhelming at first but Kei is almost as used to it as he was when they woke up in that hammock, tangled together, sunrise drilling a crater in Kei’s skull while the sprinklers went off and kept him from dying of dehydration.
No, Kei wouldn’t mind acknowledging the tequila night. But he doesn’t know if he can do it anywhere other than here, in the studio, conversation taking place in the form of bass notes comingling with the piano.
I’m not sure, Kei says, in a dour procession along a C-chord.
You know you want to comes back in a sarcastic imitation of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
“Don’t you have stuff you need to work on, too?” Kei asks, out loud this time, his fickle melody still taking up all the background noise.
“I’m not in a hurry. And I’m hoping the karma from getting you unstuck will get me unstuck, too.”
“Oikawa said your hiatus might be permanent.” Kei’s been looking for an opportunity to ask ever since lunch the other week.
“There’s no ‘might’ but I guess it’s nice of him to be cagey about it. Bokuto and Akaashi intend to honeymoon until they can’t stand it anymore. Yaku’s doing well solo. I’m trying to move on to my own thing, too. For right now, we’ve grown as far as we can together. Now, it’s time to do some growing on our own. Maybe later we’ll come back and see how we fit—I’m looking forward to that part, it’s going to be good—but in the meantime? No, there’s no more Courthouse Wedding.”
“You’re not upset about it?”
“What I’m upset about is not figuring out what the hell my musical is supposed to be.”
“I thought it was supposed to be Fight Club?”
“But what does that mean?” Kuroo asks like the inflection could somehow transform the whole ridiculous notion into something grand and profound.
Kei thinks on it for a moment. He knows what it means to him, but that’s the easy answer. Kuroo is looking for something more abstract; a theme or a mood. “I bet you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Is it red? Is it black?’ Maybe it’s sour. Like gummy worms.”
“I wish I could say I’m surprised you equate gummies with their sour varieties but I’m not.” Kuroo snorts. “You’re just trying to distract me. Come out. It’ll be fun. Yaku owns a bar with live music every night, and—have you ever met Yaku?”
Kei shakes his head. He’s probably been introduced at one point; he knows who Yaku is, but they’ve never had a conversation.
“Well he is a picky son of a bitch. Will not abide posers or charlatans playing in his bar.” Kuroo grins again, this time softer, still that same authentic half-tilt. “And he’s a big fan of yours. Not of Flux; of you, specifically.”
“I do not want to go out and talk to strangers about Carry On.” It comes out harsher than Kei intends but he refuses to walk it back. No one listens to him on this. No one respects the boundary or accepts Kei wants some time and distance from it so he can reset.
“Okay, first of all, he’s not going to ask about it. Second, do you seriously think that’s the only thing people think well of you for? You’re more than that, anyone with half a brain can see it.”
Kei has been in Oikawa’s basement far too much lately. He feels a little like the squashy walls are coming closer every time he looks. They creep in on him, make the space tight and suffocating. Set his teeth on edge and corner him into making rash assumptions when he’s always prided himself on being level-headed and analytical.
“Come on, Tsukki. Let’s check out a bunch of indie musicians probably more talented than we are and cope with it by being snobby, judgmental, and drunk.” Kuroo emphasizes it with a jaunty, strolling tune that reminds Kei of improv.
“No tequila.” It means a lot of things.
Kuroo laughs. “Fine, no tequila. But ask me to leave my rhyming dictionary at home and the deal’s off.”
Kei sets his bass aside. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Yaku’s bar isn’t so much a bar as it is a basement full of cigarette smoke and teeth-rattling noise. The floor is a clean sort of sticky. It’s been swept, it’s been mopped. There’s nothing down there to glue Kei’s sneakers to it and yet each step carries the tacky sensation of half-dried rubber cement. The walls look sticky, too, but Kei refuses to get anywhere near them to find out if they’re actually as clean as the floor. The bartender—a tall, lanky guy with silvery hair swept over his forehead—throws his arms in the air and shrieks when he catches sight of them.
“Kuroo!” The bartender shouts. “You haven’t been by, Yaku is wounded!”
“Did he actually say that?” Kuroo asks once they’re close enough that he only has to shout to be heard.
“Of course not, but you know little Yaku.”
Kuroo laughs. “Oh, oh please call him that in front of me some time. I want to see if he beats you over the head with a bottle or just stabs you in the face with it.”
“He can’t possibly reach, so it’s fine.”
Kei has no idea if it’s sarcastic or not.
“Lev this is Tsukki. Tsukki, Lev. He likes to tempt fate by calling Yaku tiny and adorable.”
Lev might be taller than Kei is. Kei’s not sure—he’s rarely in the position to think about it. Earrings gleam down one ear, none on the other. He’s dressed in black, an apron flung over his clothes untied, and he wears one of those disconcerting smiles full of unease and run for the hills that has Kei immediately in need of a drink.
“Beer?” Kuroo asks, his laugher now aimed squarely at Kei.
“Yes.”
“When’s the band coming on? And who is the band? And where is Yaku?” Kuroo rattles off as Lev pops open a pair of bottles and hands them over.
“They’re getting ready now. Yaku should be back there with them. Dunno who they are, but he was excited to book them.”
“Nice. Thanks.”
Kuroo presses Kei away from the bar and toward a stairwell tucked near the bathrooms. Upstairs is a little quieter—not much, since it’s a glorified balcony overtop the rest of the bar, but the chatter is less pressing. It swells from beneath instead of closing in from all sides.
The crowd picks up when the band comes out on the stage, a trio of women—two blonde, one pale with ebony hair—who launch in, no introductions, no warming up. It’s punk, mostly. Good, old-fashioned, Ramones-era punk, straight out of New York and exactly what Kei needs on a night like this, after the month he’s had, after this whole past year has spent most of its energy trying to smother him.
The atmosphere sizzles.
Violent shows in little, back-alley clubs are always the best kind. Kei almost wants to be down on the ground floor. In the pit. Getting elbowed in the face and shoved around, covered in beer and sweat, halfheartedly nursing a bloody nose. Or on stage where it’s nothing but lights, lights, lights. Only almost, though, because there’s something unexpectedly magical about leaning against the balcony railing with Kuroo watching a sea of bodies writhe beneath them.
“They’re good,” Kei says.
Strong beat, strong synergy, the whole set feels ripped. It makes Kei want to flex his muscles, to demonstrate his strength. Kuroo grins from behind the lip of his beer, and Kei sort of wants that, too. If he gets one more drink in him he might even admit it.
“Told you. Yaku’s got good taste.”
“What colors?” Kei will stop asking the instant Kuroo so much as hints it’s unwelcome, but that moment still hasn’t cropped up. Loose tongue, energetic limbs, something so careful crashing off course, Kei adds, “I bet it’s hot pink. Like Malibu Barbie’s fingernails.”
Kuroo dips his head and laughs. “Oh, that’s not far off, actually. Have you been analyzing my weird color thing?”
“It’s not all that weird,” Kei says. When Kuroo glances up, he realizes he’s staring and turns his attention back to the punk girls.
Five songs into the set, Yaku pokes his head up the stairs and lets loose an unhinged grin when he sees Kuroo. “In between all the begging for mercy, Lev said I’d find a couple interesting someones up here.”
“’Sup, Little Yaku,” Kuroo says, completely unconcerned for the rage flashing across Yaku’s face. “Gotta say, that’s a good one. I hope it sticks.”
“Two murders is not all that different from one, I think,” Yaku says. He punches Kuroo in the arm, hard, and then turns to Kei.
“Hey, Tsukishima, right? Nice to meet you. Big fan.”
“Same,” Kei says. “And same.”
And that’s that. Yaku says nothing else about it, just reaches out a quick handshake and launches into the story of how he met the punk girls. No sycophantic nonsense about how Kei is a genius or hours spent badgering him about what it all means and what is he working on now. It is the most refreshing interaction Kei has had with a human aware of who he is in months.
“They’re good, right?” Yaku asks, nodding toward the stage. “Was thinking of sending them Oikawa’s way.”
“You should,” Kuroo says.
When Yaku turns his attention to Kei and arches an expectant eyebrow, Kei agrees. “I like their energy. They have a huge amount of presence.”
“Shimizu knows how to make herself heard without relying on volume, for sure.”
Kei lets the conversation fade into the background in favor of slamming drums and sweat dripping down his spine. If he were up on stage, he’d be soaked and blind—a live-wire unconcerned with Kuroo standing a little too close all night, deflecting conversations Kei doesn’t want any part of until the bar is closing down.
“You look done,” Kuroo says. “Time to go?”
Same as the night with the bad lyrics and tequila, Kei sees something sweet and kind amidst all the chaos Kuroo constantly shrouds himself in. Kei isn’t sure if he’s warm-fuzzy-and-grateful drunk or maybe he’s just spent too much time thinking about Kuroo and tequila, lately. Too much rose-tint on that nice moment all tangled up in the hammock, rocking under the stars, giggling over words that rhyme with ‘duck’.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Sometimes, it is the simple things. The first lungful of crisp, midnight air after stepping out of a packed bar still rattling with punk music. Swaying between tipsy and drunk, walking on the sidewalk curb with both arms splayed wide for balance instead of taking the easy way on solid ground. Kei walks in the direction of his apartment, because where else would he go? Kuroo comes along the whole way, doesn’t even mention it when they’re stumbling up the stairs to Kei’s floor, because if Kei didn’t want him to come in, he’d have said so by now.
The bass Kei keeps at home is the one he tours with. The one he’ll bring in when it’s time to record the masters instead of the reliable one he has at Oikawa’s now for demos. It’s solid and a zesty shade of electric-mint—and the world feels a little easier when Kei has it cradled to his chest.
Kuroo accepts the guardrail for what it is and sits on the floor, a bit off to the side and away from where Kei mindlessly plucks out the notes of old familiars and thinks about the things he’s always wanted to say except all the people he doesn’t want to tell won’t stop asking.
Drumming along to the beat on his thighs, Kuroo has a contented smile on his face between sips of water—and Kuroo doesn’t ask. Has never needed to. He’s always been content for Kei to get there in his own time and on his own terms.
The atmosphere hums floaty and serene. Low, twangy bass notes resonating with no amp—Kei’s always liked the way it sounds a little. Acoustic but hard, with a rattle to it. Hazy in the same way his head feels. Soft and clever, like Kuroo’s mouth the night of the tequila and the awful Nantucket-esque poems and why can’t Kei stop thinking about it? Every day. Every bridge. It all comes crashing back to that one night full of bad ideas and it could at least be a normal musical. No, no, instead Kei has to be all hung up on the guy failing to write about a breakdancing Fight Club full of cowboys.
“Are you playing Cyndi Lauper?”
Oh god, he is.
Kei trudges through his options: switch to something else and pretend he doesn’t know any Cyndi Lauper; bash Kuroo over the head with his bass and pray for amnesia; or own it.
“I like her.” Then, fueled by beer and bravado, Kei asks the question burning the back of his tongue. “Are you staying in Tokyo for a while?”
“Yes.”
It comes quick and sure, like Kuroo’s been waiting for Kei to ask. When Kei glances up, Kuroo’s staring right back at him, tapping the beat out on his thighs with twitching fingers desperate to wrap around something he can play.
Kuroo waits for the chorus and belts out, high, sharp and screeching, “If you’re lost you can look and you will find me.” He drags the end out outrageously.
Kei’s fingers slip he’s laughing so hard.
Then, suddenly quiet, in tune, fraught with emotion, Kuroo hums the last four notes.
The same notes come vibrating out of Kei’s bass. Gentle and deliberate.
“Mind if I come over there?” Kuroo asks, leaving the end open to interpretation.
“Sure.” Kei slides over to make room on the couch, gives himself a moment to be unsure and terrified, then strips off his bass to set aside on its rack. The silence feels thick and wanting so he adds, “but I don’t know where we’re going to find a hammock this time of night.”
“Okay,” Kuroo laughs. “It doesn’t have to be exactly like last time.”
And Kei is still thinking about it. That night under the stars and the way it’s permanently tangled up in foolish choices and one huge, mortifying crush that never really went away. Kuroo looks at Kei like he has the same scenery going on a loop, only he sees it all a little fonder, maybe, and Kei suddenly wants a better memory for them both to dwell on so he closes the gap and stops pretending this night was ever on any other rails. Their destination was set the instant those drums kicked in to rattle walls of Yaku’s club.
Kuroo’s mouth is as clever as Kei remembers. His shirt is fragile in Kei’s fist; thin cotton with too much give. Warmth rushes Kei’s neck and chest when Kuroo tongues his bottom lip and runs his fingers through Kei’s hair—sticky with cooled sweat, greasy now that it’s near two in the morning.
“Stay the night,” Kei says, pushing up and over to crowd Kuroo back.
A careless grin and mischievous hands sneaking under Kei’s clothes are all the answer he needs.
Kei wakes up with a tangle of inky hair climbing up his nostrils, an awful headache, parched throat, and only the petrifying sense of oh god, not again to tie it all together. At least Kei doesn’t have to figure out how to get out of a hammock, this time.
“Drunk-you left Tylenol and water on the nightstand,” Kuroo mumbles. “Drunk you has gotten so considerate, such a sweetheart. Sort of kinky, too.”
“Oh, right, I forgot you never stop talking.” Kei grumbles.
This is marginally less humiliating than last time. Kei has accumulated enough experience to navigate the land mines always strewn about after an ill-advised encounter, and—well, Kei’s not all that sorry this time around. Kuroo’s buried in the blankets, bare shoulders peeking above the edge. Kei still has his boxers and socks on. So, it could have been worse—or better. It depends on how he looks at it and Kei cannot possibly decide on an angle yet.
Kei reaches for the Tylenol and sits up to throw back two pills and drink as much of the water as he can stand before collapsing back in bed. Kuroo wiggles his way around so they’re facing each other and watches Kei for a long moment before squirming closer and wrapping an arm over him. Scalding fingertips dance along Kei’s spine.
“Morning. Fancy seeing you here, again.”
“Least there’s no sprinklers this time,” Kei mutters. It’s easier to keep focused on the parts falling neatly on either side of the line. If he doesn’t he might be forced to confront all the gray areas in the middle. How this is pretty nice. Kuroo’s warm and solid and outside of the blankets, Kei’s apartment is cold. The fuzziness in Kei’s head begs him to sleep another hour or two.
“There’s a couple things missing I’m happy to do without.”
Kei feels that way, too and he’s reasonably sure Kuroo will never push hard enough to make him admit it. Burrowing closer and deeper into the blankets, Kei closes his eyes and lets himself drift back to sleep. “Shh.”
Walking into Oikawa’s studio, Kei is immediately struck by the bizarre sensation of coming home to both parents in the living room, arms crossed, desperately trying to figure out what’s going on before anyone starts talking. Iwaizumi looks resigned, Oikawa both delighted and devastated, and then there’s Kei’s partner in crime, spinning in short half-circles on a stool in the corner, staring up at the ceiling and humming to himself.
Did Kei break something? Do they know there are now two tequila nights and one doesn’t even have the decency to be fueled by tequila? Kei slams into the old, teenage maxim of confess nothing before you know what you’re accused of.
“What’s going on?” Kei asks. It sounds horrifically fake and not at all casual like he was aiming for.
The atmosphere shifts immediately. Kei’s first impression was wrong, Oikawa isn’t readying to bring down the hammer; Oikawa has something to confess and he’s not sure what the reaction will be. With anyone else, Kei would prefer this scenario. With Oikawa? Hard to tell.
Iwaizumi elbows Oikawa in the side.
“I’ve been working on a bit of a passion project, and I think it’s time to see if you’re interested.” Oikawa seems uncharacteristically nervous. “Remember now, you’re the one who keeps recording everything.”
It hits Kei all at once, the rapid succession of: live mics; flirting; Oikawa heard all the conversations, even the ones creeping around in D Major.
“I might have—” Oikawa frowns and fiddles with a few dials. “What you two have been doing in there is really good. Low, intimate. I want you to consider the possibility of making something out of it.”
Oikawa hits a button on the console. Bass and piano flood the booth. It’s hardly anything, just Kei and Kuroo unconsciously screwing around while they talk. As soon as Kei gets a handle on which of the many nights this may have been, the quiet sound of Kei’s laughing fades into Kuroo’s ridiculous Bob Dylan impression as they seamlessly move into a tongue-in-cheek cover of Proud Mary.
Kei’s first reaction to most surprises is anger. He doesn’t like being caught off guard and he doesn’t like being made to process things with an audience. But this—this settles somewhere in the pit of his belly, delightful and warm. Validating. It’s weird and malformed. Jumpy music punctuated by quiet laughs and the sort of conversation heard through a closed door, only random words slipping through, sometimes enough of them for a whole phrase to get filled into the blanks.
Oikawa is right, it sounds good.
“I think you should work on this,” Oikawa says. “I know you want to leave your mark and feel like you have some obligation to live up to with Flux, but this could turn into something phenomenal. It is very you—both of you—in a way I don’t know if you can see yourselves. Think about it, okay?”
“Okay.” There’s too much to parse zooming through Kei’s head in rapid-fire bursts of anger, flattery, and pride with a heavy dose of the sort of excited butterflies that usually only come from the loud, messy shows. Kei already wants to do this. One look at Kuroo, and he knows they’re on the same page. No need to let Oikawa know so soon, though.
“All I’m asking.” Oikawa hands each of them a thumb drive and takes a couple of steps back toward the door. “Take a listen and see where it goes.”
Oikawa leaves. On his way out the door, Iwaizumi offers Kei a tiny smile before rolling his eyes at Kuroo, still spinning in circles on his stool but now focused on the thumb drive in his hand.
A complicated look envelops Kuroo’s face. “Oh, this is too bad, I actually sort of like it. No idea why, but… Huh.”
Suddenly all the things Kei’s supposed to be doing don’t fit. They’re breaking him apart at the seams, violently competing for space and attention he doesn’t want to give them. “I’m game to do this if you are.”
‘This’ is variable. Open to interpretation. Kei is desperate to know which of the multitude Kuroo will latch onto.
“I could be convinced,” Kuroo says, eyes still on the thumb drive but with the hint of a creeping smile. “Told you I could negotiate for the bad behavior.”
Kei suddenly wants to answer the question everyone but Kuroo keeps asking him.
“Carry On wasn’t about me, not really. Not in the way people keep wanting it to be,” Kei says. He’s never told anyone this, never even considered framing it in this context, but Kuroo seems to already know. “It was… wish fulfillment. A little thread that’s always nagged me finally pulled loose and chased down a rabbit hole.”
“Write that shit down, that was poetic—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up.”
Kuroo spins a full three-sixty on his stool, then wheels closer. “Anyone who thinks it was literal isn’t someone you should be listening to.”
“Lots of people not worth listening to, then.”
“You can’t be surprised,” Kuroo says.
Kei supposes no, he’s not.
“Hey, nobody tells you what it means, right?” Kuroo asks. “You wrote it. It’s yours. And in the same vein, if you want to write a successor, then do it. They don’t know what part two looks like. Not until you show them.”
Kei swallows.
“You don’t have to, though. You know that, right? No matter what anyone tries to tell you, you don’t owe them anything. For what it’s worth, it was a great song. But I’m convinced you have room to grow from there. That’s not the best you can be—Tsukki, I cannot wait to see your best. It’s going to be majestic. Dark purples, pale blues, yellow so light it’s see-through. Stars, the sky, whole thing washed up in watercolors.”
Kei has to tilt his head back and hold his breath to keep what wells up in him from spilling over. “I’m not that good.”
“Yet. You’re gonna be.”
It is, perhaps, the kindest compliment Kei has ever received, and easily the most palatable. Kei doesn’t deal well with barefaced praise, but it’s amazing to hear someone so earnestly say they don’t believe he’s reached his peak, to tear the anxiety straight out of him and deny it with no subtlety.
“What about your musical?” Kei asks.
Another toothy grin. “I still don’t know what it’s meant to be.”
“Oh yeah?” Kei asks. Then, teasingly, “Tell me about it.”
Kuroo scoots closer. “Well, you see, I’m writing a Fight Club musical.”