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The most alarming sign that it’s hot as hell outside is Lev.
Lev, who is not jumping around the room, or talking about the most ridiculous things he can think of, or trying to drag Kenma to some new place in town he found that is just unbelievably interesting, according to him and no one else, but no; Lev is lying on the cool wooden floor of Kenma’s room and is. Silent.
He’s not completely still, of course – Kenma’s pretty sure he would still twitch and fidget in his grave – but doing nothing but idly tapping his fingers against the slightly dusty floorboards isn’t a normal behavior for the hyperactive hafu, and Kenma thinks he also stopped humming about 2 minutes ago, and that… doesn’t scare or alarm him, exactly, but still. He’s mildly uncomfortable now that there’s no background noise in the shape of Lev’s voice, which is usually always there, loud and cheerful, or at least murmuring, or at least humming.
Kenma puts his phone aside and allows himself to think about it, carefully. Is he so used to Lev’s voice it’s weird when he’s not hearing it?
He glances down, at the fair-haired head, the usually soft-looking strands now even more soaked with sweat then during matches, heavier, darker. He wonders.
They haven’t been spending time together, rather, Lev was spending time with him, because he’s like that – aggressively friendly and intimidatingly cheerful, a true lion wearing the skin of a spoiled domestic cat. There isn’t a force in the world able to stop his optimism; Kenma’s defenses of cold disinterest and cynicism have fallen almost immediately when Lev decided that he wanted them to be friends, and it’s scary, just a little. Lev could’ve been abusive, a bully, if he ever decided to do that on purpose – tearing down the mental walls around someone’s personal space, standing on the ruins of indifference and apathy and declaring himself a new ruler of a poor person’s mind, demanding undivided attention; but… Lev genuinely loves being a cat more than a lion. He looks like he expects someone to pet his hair when he doesn’t fuck up a spike; like he thinks he deserves a caress for his enthusiasm and it’s. It’s.
Kenma squeezes his eyes shut and sighs tiredly. Is he really?.. Lev’s adorable. Is he really going to think that?
He opens his eyes to find the green feline ones staring at him from the floor and thinks that Lev’s going to do something now and he may be so accustomed to that loud cheerfulness he misses it when it’s gone, but it’s still exhausting and troublesome and oh no.
“Kenma-saaaan”, Lev drawls out in an uncharacteristically lazy voice, but his eyes are wide open – curious or just thoughtful, Kenma can’t tell (probably not the latter though). “I think I’m going to pass out”.
Kenma huffs silently and picks up his phone again. “Your house has a functionong AC”, he says calmly, “you came here voluntarily.” Rather, he pestered Kenma with ‘can I come over? please? please?’ until he gave up. “You’ll be fine”.
He keeps his eyes on his twitter feed, but his ears are attuned to quiet whining and disappointed huffs. The sounds are coming from the floor. Then, slowly, they get closer to his bed. Then, suddenly, their source moves a little higher. Kenma hears loud gasp and feels like his leg has been burnt.
“What the…” “Your skin is so cold!”
Lev is clutching his calf, looking at him in astonishment – that expression is very stupid, and also the hand touching him is really hot. He might actually be close to heatstroke, not that it excuses sudden touches and stupid exclamations. Does it?..
“Kenma-san, please don’t kill me! At least for fifteen minutes”, Lev declares dramatically, holding his gaze with this stupidly serious and still very surprised expression, and then climbs on his bed and drapes himself over his legs, sighing contentedly. Then he stills. Then he goes from relaxed to tense in a second – Kenma can feel muscles in his arms suddenly become hard and his breath stopping. Then he opens one eye and looks at Kenma. Alarmed. Expectant. Kenma blinks at him, sighs and goes back to his phone.
“Fifteen minutes”, he murmurs, typing an answer to Kuroo’s message. He can feel Lev’s smile on his thigh.
…
In fifteen minutes Lev somehow, completely without his notice and thus protest, migrates from the foot of the bed and hugging his legs to lying next to him and completely, utterly spooning him. Kenma wonders if his skin is really that cool. He himself feels quite hot now.
…
In an hour, Lev stands up to go to the kitchen for a drink and falls immediately, passed out.
Heatstroke.
…
In a week, when Kenma asks him if cuddling was worth it, he says that it kinda was.