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“It’s going to rain today, Tetsurou,” his sister mentions in lieu of a farewell as she heads out for work. A muffled “bye sis” accompanied by the sound of frantic paper flipping follows before the door clicks shut.
Tetsurou downs his toast with some lukewarm coffee and shoves his study notes in his bag, jogging out the door. He was so excited about going to the arcade with Bokuto that he forgot to review his notes the night before.
“The life cycle of a white dwarf is…” Tetsurou takes one step out the door when he takes a look at the grey sky. “Oh, yeah.”
He pivots back and grabs his umbrella.
-
After Tetsurou’s fourth groan of agony, Kenma wanders over and starts picking up volleyballs with him.
“What’s wrong,” Kenma says flatly, tossing the volleyballs to Tetsurou as he threw them in the hampers.
“I should’ve studied a bit more.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t think I got the last question for my science test right.”
Kenma rolls his eyes. “I’m sure you aced it, Kuro.”
Tetsurou gives another dramatic, anguished groan before admitting, “Yeah, I’ll live.”
Kenma nods, shooting the last volleyball into the hamper. After cleaning up the gymnasium, the Nekoma team yell their goodbyes to the captain and head their separate ways back home in the drizzling rain, leaving Kenma to watch Tetsurou fumble with the lock.
“You can leave, Kenma — I’m going to stay here to wait for Bokuto anyway,” Tetsurou grunts, sliding the door open to re-slam it shut.
“Okay,” Kenma mumbles half-heartedly, no doubt playing Animal Crossing on his DS. Tetsurou waves over his shoulder as Kenma walks away before a little worried part of him causes him to yell after him, even though he’s sure he could get back on his own just fine.
“Kenma, make sure your eyes are off the screen when you’re walking!”
“Mm.”
“Check left and right before crossing the street!”
“...Mm.”
“Call me anytime you need me!”
“...”
“Also, you have an umbrella on you, right?”
Kenma looks up from the screen to turn back to him with a sour face. “...No.”
“Take mine.” Tetsurou offers his umbrella from his bag immediately while Kenma shakes his head, exasperated.
“It’s fine, it’s only a bit of rain. You’re going to need it, too.”
“I’m sure Bokuto will bring an umbrella.” When Kenma still refuses to take his umbrella, Kuroo waves his umbrella and raises his eyebrows. “Your 3DS’ll get wet.”
Kenma gives a tiny sigh out his nose and wordlessly takes the umbrella. “Thanks, Kuro,” he mumbles, shuffling away. He pops the umbrella open before turning around. “Have fun with Bokuto-san.”
Tetsurou grins. “You know I’ll have a blast.”
-
In hindsight, Tetsurou doesn’t know what made him so sure that Bokuto would bring an umbrella.
The rain switched up from a light drizzle to hard and heavy droplets by the time a sopping wet Bokuto arrives in front of the gym.
“You ran here from Fukuroudani,” Tetsurou repeats incredulously, rubbing his gym towel on Bokuto’s head to dry his hair. “Seeing it was raining, and you didn’t bring an umbrella.”
“Isn’t the arcade indoors anyway?” Bokuto wheezes, using his own towel to dry off his legs. Kuroo rubs his towel harder on his head in retaliation.
“Yeah and we have to walk there, genius.” Tetsurou throws his towel back into his bag and gathers Bokuto’s hair into one giant spike despite his protests. “And I don’t have an umbrella ‘cause I gave mine to Kenma.”
“We can just run to the arcade!” Bokuto retorts, parting the spike Tetsurou lovingly handcrafted with his soul into his signature two. “It’s like ten minutes away.”
Tetsurou pouts, leaning his back against the gym door while setting up a timer on his phone. “Let’s just wait thirty minutes to see if the rain will let up. I don’t wanna get wet.”
Bokuto sidles up right next to him, so close he can feel the other’s cold, bony, and wet ankles knock onto his, like it’s the most natural thing to do despite the doors width being a little over Lev’s height. Tetsurou wordlessly presses himself to Bokuto’s side to share whatever warmth he has. “You don’t wanna get wet?”
“Who does? Besides you, apparently.”
Bokuto squawks. “It was really hot the last few days! It’s, like, just the right amount of coolness.”
“It ruins my hair,” Tetsurou complains, to which Bokuto makes a noise of begrudging agreement.
“You don’t like the rain, then?”
“Nah, rain itself is fine. It’s pretty.”
“Yeah!”
They stand there in silence for a while, watching the heavy droplets hit the pavement and create ripples on its surface. Tetsurou feels at peace like this; he doesn’t mind being stuck in the rain as much as he thought he would. He muses that it must be because he’s together with Bokuto — there’s never a dull moment with Fukuroudani’s volleyball captain.
“You know, rain would be my favourite weather if it wasn’t so wet,” Tetsurou says, looking up at the softly thundering sky.
“Like snow?”
Tetsurou laughs. “You’d still get wet.” After a thoughtful pause spent thinking what would be the best material candidate to rain down on Earth, Tetsurou says, “I dunno. When I was a kid I wished it rained diamonds though.”
“Ouch!” Bokuto looks absolutely delighted. “Lil’ Kuroo was an absolute menace from the beginning, huh?”
Tetsurou gives his best impression of a villain laugh. “Yeah, but it was probably just ‘cause I read it in a book. Apparently it rains diamonds on Uranus and Neptune.”
“Wow,” Bokuto says in awe, looking at Tetsurou with wide eyes. “I’d wanna see that!”
“Yeah, same.”
Tetsurou watches as two frogs momentarily jump onto the dry pavement next to Bokuto’s sneaker, and Bokuto follows his gaze as they hop back into the unrelenting rain. Tetsurou remembers the last time he talked about extraterrestrial diamonds was with Yakkun and Kai when they were first years, where he brought up that he wanted to eat them and was met by a judgemental stare and a rueful silence, respectively.
“...Don’t raining diamonds sound tasty?”
“Yes!” Bokuto shouts, and Tetsurou feels vindication for his younger self. “That was my first thought when you brought it up!”
Tetsurou barks out a laugh. “Don’t look up pictures of the diamonds then, they look nothing like what I imagined as a kid. My diamond-eating dreams were shattered.”
“Noooo,” Bokuto whines. “The diamonds I’m thinking of are already cut and polished.”
“Me too,” Tetsurou agrees with a grin. “When I think of extraterrestrial diamonds, those are the only ones that come to mind.”
Bokuto beams, raising his fist that Tetsurou automatically meets just as his timer rings. Though the rain still continued to hit the pavement furiously, curtains of the sun’s rays start peeking through the grey clouds, forming a rainbow in the sky.
“Damn, I haven’t seen rainbows in ages,” Tetsurou mutters to himself bemusedly as Bokuto fawns over it. “I’m sure the rain will stop soon.”
“I’m starving after all that diamond talk! Let’s just make a run for it.”
“What? Food’s not allowed at the arcade, plus, the rain—”
“Let’s play games at your place!”
Tetsurou thinks to himself for a moment and admits it’s a sound idea. Even though they’ll get wet getting there they can change into a set of dry clothes (he’s sure he can throw some of his old pajamas Bokuto’s way), brew some hot drinks to warm themselves up, and play the Smash Bros game Kenma keeps forgetting to bring back home.
Plus, thirty minutes of staying put is asking a lot from Bokuto — he watches as Bokuto drops down to his sixth sumo squat since the timer rang, twisting his shoulders.
“All right,” he acquiesces as Bokuto cheers, taking a step out in the rain. “Keep up though.”
Tetsurou bolts out into the rain as Bokuto yells out “No fair!” after him.
His books, protected by the thin fabric of his bag, beat against him to the rhythm of the rain. The puddles splash into his sneakers, drenching his feet through his socks, and he can barely see with hair being plastered on one side of his face and getting pelted on the other. Tetsurou feels as though he’s fighting for his life against the heavy rain, and as he feels Bokuto catch up beside him he elbows him as some sort of retaliation. All Bokuto does is laugh boisterously directly into his ear, and as he watches Bokuto’s eyes glitter as he shoots past him, Tetsurou decides spending time in the rain with Bokuto beats any extraterrestrial diamond rainscapes he imagined as a kid.