Chapter Text
Akashi wasn’t quite sure when this habit had begun, but he was certain it had something to do with Kuroko’s obsession to watch every animal show on TV that possibly existed. (Not that Akashi knew just how many were really out there, he had had never much interest in entertainment of that kind.)
Often Kuroko would stop whatever he was doing just to suddenly turn on the TV and ignore all of his surroundings. Every time Akashi tried talking to him, Kuroko paid no attention to him or just nodded, but it was obvious that he didn’t listen to a single word he was saying. Akashi quickly grew used to it and didn’t approach his boyfriend during these times anymore and joined him instead.
During the first few minutes he was confused. He saw nothing special about a bunch of puppies playing with each other and why Kuroko was so fascinated by it was beyond him. Surely Akashi didn’t hate animals, but to be so fond of watching them do things wasn’t something he could understand. Why did some animal that had no bond with you even matter? If he was watching videos of Yukimaru, that would be something different because the horse had always been with Akashi since he was born, but to see another horse would make him feel rather indifferent.
Akashi was about to get up to occupy himself with something more enjoyable, but just as he was taking a last look at the show Kuroko was watching, he saw something that he couldn’t take his eyes off.
He had told himself that he wouldn’t care, that it was completely pointless to watch a bunch of animals, but to see a cat putting its head into a plastic bag was surprisingly.. adorable. He didn’t know what it was that made that cat so different from the other animals, but he couldn’t bring himself to avert his gaze from it. What he was glad for was that Kuroko was too busy watching the cat meow pathetically when it couldn’t get its head out of the bag, so he didn’t notice how fascinated Akashi was by the animal.
How the cat moved, how it managed to look so graceful despite doing something as silly as getting stuck in a plastic bag, the way it meowed, all of that was adorable in Akashi’s eyes. He had always thought of cats to be more useful than dogs for example, since they were a lot less needy than a dog that wanted your attention all the time, but that Akashi would come to not even notice that he had just watched a cat doing things for a whole hour, that was surprising. Fortunately Kuroko still failed to notice how much Akashi got into it and when Kuroko looked at him, Akashi had put on a mask full of indifference on his face because like hell he would openly admit that he had liked watching any of that.
Maybe that could be excused, that it was only this one exception that Akashi liked watching animals, but that wasn’t the case.
It was during a long night full of reports, when Akashi decided that he deserved a break. Kuroko was fortunately sleeping already, so maybe… Akashi was hesistant, but typed an address into the bar of his browser anyway. Less than a minute later he had found what he needed and Akashi could feel all the tension and stress leaving his body.
He had played with the thought of watching this video for a while already. It had been two weeks since he had watched the cat on TV and the wish to see cats again had got stronger and stronger and now that he finally could do this again, he felt oddly satisfied. The video showed a bunch of cats trying to walk in snow and there was so much snow that they were barely able to move, yet they tried anyway. Akashi couldn’t help but be fond of them and before he could regain some of his self-control he watched another four videos, all of them being about cats.
No, he would not spend the whole night on this. Akashi wasn’t weak and would not give in to the desire to watch these balls of fur be adorable. He wasn’t a little child anymore after all. (Somehow, Akashi thought, he probably did deserve to have a bit more childhood now that he could, because his childhood hadn’t been what could be considered normal. But he dismissed that thought quickly, he was an adult, no matter how he looked at it, and he was far away from being childish.)
That’s how it really began.
From then on he would often take the chance and watch a few cat videos, of course only when Kuroko wasn’t home or sleeping. No one would ever guess that Akashi was the kind of person that smiled a lot and even made embarrassing noises sometimes while watching some cats playfully fight with each other and he would make sure that no one would ever find out. Especially not Kuroko. As much as Akashi loved his boyfriend, and he really did, and as much as he didn’t want to keep secrets from him, he was not willing to deal with the amount of teasing, once he would find out about Akashi’s little cat problem. Akashi knew that Kuroko would never spy on him or check what he was doing on his laptop, but he still felt paranoid nonetheless and made sure to always delete the browser’s history, so there was no way for Kuroko to ever know what Akashi was doing sometimes.
It’s not that he did anything bad anyway. He was faithful to Kuroko and loved him more than anyone else in his life, he simply didn’t want to give him any material for any possible teasing and Akashi was very aware of the fact that Kuroko would do that for sure.
One morning it happened though.
Kuroko had have a rough night last night (Kise had cried about something silly all night to Kuroko, Akashi didn’t even want to know more than that), so he was still sleeping, while Akashi was already up. Normally he didn’t get the chance to watch one of his beloved cat videos this early, but due to Kuroko still needing some sleep, now was a good time for it. Quickly he checked the channel of one of his favorite cats (a gorgeous red one that never failed to entertain him) and his heart started beating faster, when he saw that a new video had been uploaded. Not wanting to waste any time, Akashi clicked on it and no matter how many times he had seen cats being obsessed with boxes, he still loved it.
The video wasn’t very long, so Akashi was even more annoyed that he couldn’t watch it in peace. Someone was ringing the doorbell and he was actually expecting something important to be delivered, so he sighed and paused the video. This lovely cat had to wait for a bit longer.
Akashi got up to accept the package he had been waiting for, but little did he know that keeping his laptop open was a mistake and that Kuroko was awake and a bit too curious for his own, or rather Akashi’s, good.
Akashi almost froze, when he saw Kuroko sit on his laptop and when he heard the cat making noises, he knew it was over. That was it. His secret wasn’t a secret anymore and now he would have to suffer for it.
“Tetsuya.” He awkwardly said and put the package on the table. “I didn’t hear that you are awake.”
“Good morning to you too, Seijuurou-kun.” There was the small smile on Kuroko’s face that Akashi didn’t like. It wasn’t a normal smile, that was the smile of someone who knew that they had acquired dangerous knowledge to ruin someone else’s life and wasn’t too scared to take advantage of it.
“Before you jump to any conclusions,” Akashi began to talk once more and he could tell that his boyfriend was holding back his laughter, but chose to ignore it, “I didn’t watch that video because I wanted to. It’s for work.”
Even Akashi wouldn’t believe his own excuse, so he wasn’t surprised that Kuroko didn’t buy it.
“Seijuurou-kun. I am certain your company has no interest in cat videos.” He was about to make fun of him, Akashi could feel it and he wanted to run away and hide so badly. “Why don’t you admit that you like cats?”
“I do not–”
“Seijuurou-kun.” The way Kuroko said his name was all it took to silence Akashi and ashamed he looked to the ground.
“….Fine. Maybe I do like them a little bit.” Akashi was smart enough to know, when he had lost, so there was no need to make up any excuses anymore. Apparently it wasn’t enough for Kuroko.
“Seijuurou-kun, you don’t like them only a little bit. You subscribed to 30 different channels dedicated to cat videos.” This time Kuroko finally laughed and Akashi looked up to him again, feeling like a little child that had been caught doing something bad.
“It could be worse. 30 isn’t that much.”
“Seijuurou-kun, you are obsessed with cats.”
“I’m definitely not obsessed.”
Kuroko raised an eyebrow at that statement.
“Are you sure? Does Seijuurou-kun want me to search through his laptop to see how many pictures of cats you are hiding on it?”
“No!” Akashi almost yelled. He hadn’t meant to be loud or rush to his laptop to close it, but he was panicking and he couldn’t let Kuroko find even more blackmailing material. Kuroko laughed again and patted on the space next to him on the couch, so Akashi sat down and sighed.
“Don’t tell anyone, please. It’s…” Akashi tried his best to not hide his face in his hands. He felt humiliated enough already, he didn’t need to make it even worse.
With a lot of amusement Kuroko watched him for some moments, before he kissed Akashi’s cheek.
“Do you honestly think I didn’t know about this already?”
It was rare to make Akashi feel truly surprised, yet Kuroko still managed to do that in many ways.
“What did you just say?”
Akashi slowly started to dislike how often Kuroko had laughed about him in the span of a few minutes already.
“It was very obvious. You always seemed to be very interested whenever a cat was in TV and you aren’t as good at hiding your traces as you think. It was easy to find out that you are very fond of cats.”
He couldn’t help but groan this time when he heard Kuroko’s reply. Of course. Of course he should have known better than to try hiding anything from Kuroko. He always found out everything he wanted to know and even if Akashi was very skilled at as good as everything, Kuroko knew him well enough to see through everything.
For some moments there was silence and Akashi sighed again.
“It’s.. embarrassing, I know.”
“It’s not. It’s very cute that you care about animals too.”
“Cats.” Akashi corrected him. “I like cats. I still think it’s ridiculous that you spend so much time on watching your shows, nothing has changed about that.”
It was Kuroko’s turn to sigh.
“So you are one of these cat elitists who thinks that cats are better than any other kind of animals.”
“Well, Yukimaru–”
Kuroko silenced him with a kiss on his lips, obviously not wanting to hear another rant about how amazing his horse was and Akashi stayed silent even after the kiss, glad that he could bury his face in Kuroko’s shoulder and didn’t have to face him. Maybe there was something good about this, because he liked how Kuroko caressed his hair and deep down he didn’t hate being teased by him that much.
“I took a picture of you watching a cat video once, you know. I’m certain it would be fun to send it to everyone.”
“Tetsu-” Akashi immediately removed his head from the comfortable spot on Kuroko’s shoulder and glared at him, but his boyfriend had a pretty good weapon at this. He had quickly hit play on the video Akashi had meant to watch and hearing the cat meow was enough to make Akashi’s anger fade away and he couldn’t help but glance to the video.
Damn Kuroko and his dirty tricks.