Work Text:
When Kagami moved back to Japan, he hated winter.
There were a lot of reasons he disliked the chilling of the seasons, when all the trees were twisted limbs and frost covered windows like the goosebumps on his arms. Some were more practical, like how he couldn’t play basketball outside with it so cold, and others were more personal, like how every time he saw a commercial with happy families he had to turn off the TV.
So Kagami hated winter.
He especially hated it in Japan. At least in L.A., winter was just a cool twenty degrees Celsius, some light rain dusting the sidewalks, and the courts were open practically all year round. But here on this side of the globe, he had to spend all his time draped in blankets at his apartment and shivering in his coat whenever he stepped outside, glaring at any snowflakes peppered from the clouds.
And more than anything, he hated it because he had to spend it alone.
Of course, the holidays were a different sort over here, celebrated with couples rather than family. But that still didn’t stop Kagami’s gut from burning, lonely anger pooling in his muscles that he couldn’t even exert, when he was left with just his father’s shaky promise from California. He wasn’t even sure why it bothered him so much, given that his family never really celebrated together anyways, and he was often left with only a barrage of pretty toys and empty thoughts around the tree.
So Kagami hated winter, because when his phone rang three days before Christmas, he already knew what he was going to hear.
“Listen, I won’t be able to visit. Some meetings have come up.”
He froze. It wasn’t a surprise, it wasn’t anything he wasn’t expecting, but it still made his voice clog in his throat before his teeth clacked shut.
“Yeah, I understand,” he finally managed, though Why would you do this again? sat heavy on the back of his tongue.
When his father said his goodbyes, voice clipped and professional as always, Kagami snapped his phone shut and threw it to the other side of the room. If it broke, maybe that’d be all the better. He curled up against the wall beside his bed, winter chill crawling through his window onto his back, and clutched his knees.
It wasn’t a surprise, it wasn’t anything he wasn’t expecting, so he couldn’t understand why yet another broken promise stung so much.
Until it hit him that before, he had Alex and Tatsuya—his thoughts choked on the name—but now, for the first time since their fight, he truly felt alone as another sleepless night coiled against his vertebrae.
So Kagami hated winter.
Until he met a boy of personified snowflakes and frost, eyes the same color as ice sending chills down his spine.
When Kagami looked up, a snowflake hit him in the face.
“Gross,” he muttered under his breath as he scrunched his nose, brows furrowing into a scowl. He nearly wanted to swat it away, unwilling to admit it had actually fallen from the sky.
“Hm?”
Kagami turned and looked into wide, blue eyes, Kuroko staring at him from underneath his many cotton layers. Resisting the urge to snort in laughter yet again, because how someone could wear so much and still manage to walk amazed him, he settled for shaking his head instead.
“Nothing, I just hate winter.”
He kept on their path home until he realized the footsteps beside him had stopped. When he glanced back, it was to see tiny snowflakes reflected in those big eyes as Kuroko titled his head. And it unnerved him, partially because the action was so similar to a certain canine, yet the only description Kagami had for it was ‘cute,’ and partially because when Kuroko looked at him like that, it was as if Kuroko could hear everything he was thinking.
“Why do you hate winter?”
A dozen lonesome, bitter memories skirted his mind. An empty house. His father. Tatsuya.
He shrugged. “I hate the cold.”
Kuroko blinked, tracing over Kagami’s careful mask, and Kagami knew he was observing, that he was committing body language and voice to memory. He did the same thing during practice, and sometimes outside of practice, when they were sitting in Maji Burger or playing on the courts. Every time he did, it felt like he was chipping away at something around Kagami, leaving him vulnerable and nervous. Like Kuroko knew everything about him.
Which made him feel like Kuroko knew he was lying.
He braced himself, ready for a lecture on how it wasn’t right to lie to your best friend, especially when you’re trying to build your teamwork to become number one in Japan. Kuroko was just that kind of honest guy, and he had to glance away just so the guilt would stop bubbling in his stomach.
“That’s because you’re not prepared.”
A pause, in which he turned back to chilling eyes. “Huh?”
Kuroko was walking towards him, unwinding his black scarf from his neck. It left his frosted skin exposed to the weather, cheeks and nose flushing pink, breath fogging from his mouth. Then as soon as he stood in front of Kagami, he carefully wrapped that black scarf around his neck, tucking it close.
When he pulled away, his lips tilted in a smile, eyes sparkling like untouched snow, and Kagami heard his heart thump hard against his ribs.
“Winter is very different here, Kagami-kun. You’ll have to learn how to adapt.”
When he couldn’t take that gaze anymore, he snapped back around and marched off, his own cheeks red for reasons he didn’t want to think about as Kuroko followed behind him. “Yeah, I know!”
Kagami was supposed to hate winter.
But the patient smile on Kuroko’s face made him wonder if there was more to it than just the cold.
When Kagami glanced out the window, he saw snow.
It was coming down in thick sheets, cotton falling from sky, compared to the few small traces they’d had before. It slowly covered the street down below, a growing blanket of white as he watched in fascination. With the sudden quiet of his apartment after the party, the snowflakes were nearly loud against his windowpane.
There was something about the lonely sound that left an ache in his chest.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
He jumped out of his skin, spinning around to find himself drowning in blue. “Kuroko?! I thought you went home!”
Kuroko blinked up at him, as if Kagami should know the answer.
“I stayed to help clean up.”
His hand snapped out without him thinking, immediately tangling in soft hair on instinct and ruffling harshly. “What do you mean clean up? It was your party, you don’t clean up your own party!”
A smack at his hand and Kuroko smoothed his hair. “I wasn’t going to leave all of this to you, Kagami-kun. Not after you took the time to arrange all of it.”
Kagami looked over the room, at all the plates of food left and the cups strewn about and even the confetti from all the poppers that still littered the floor. It certainly had been one hell of a party, that much was obvious from how everyone had enjoyed themselves, and there was a lot of mess left. But, as he peeked outside again, he realized there was a problem.
“I appreciate the help, but how are you going to get home in this? This is the biggest snow we’ve had.”
Kuroko didn’t miss a beat. “We were planning on staying the night.”
Kagami arched a brow at him. “Inviting yourself over—” He froze, then squinted at Kuroko suspiciously. “What do you mean ‘we’?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, a bark answered from the floor, causing him to jump backwards as Nigou wagged his tail. He tiptoed back as he hissed, “You too?!”
“Please pardon our intrusion,” Kuroko politely said as he bowed ninety degrees to the floor.
He paused, eyeing the both of them, then rolled his eyes and rapped his knuckles against the back of Kuroko’s head, huffing fondly. “You know you’re always invited. The dog too.” Then as he moved to the kitchen, “C’mon, I’ll wash and you’ll dry. Deal?”
Halfway to the kitchen, footsteps and the clacking of toenails behind him, a hand caught his wrist, tugging him back. He blinked back curiously to find Kuroko watching him carefully, palm tightening its hold. Kagami tilted his head. “What is it?”
Kuroko took a deep breath, as if he were trying to steel himself, and released it slowly. Then, like the parting of clouds, he smiled in a way that had Kagami’s lungs racing and pulse pounding.
“Thank you, Kagami-kun.”
A frown. “For…what exactly?”
“For everything.”
“It really wasn’t anything. I told you, it was just a party.”
Kuroko shook his head. “It wasn’t just a party. It was the best day ever. And besides,” he took another breath, “None of it would have been possible without you.”
“That’s not true,” he protested. “Captain and the other senpai made the decorations, Furi helped set everything, and Tatsuya helped with the food.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Kuroko chuckled. “I meant, if it weren’t for you, all the Generation of Miracles would still be the same. If it weren’t for you and Seirin, they wouldn’t have realized their way of basketball was wrong. We wouldn’t have met today, or played basketball together.”
A pink stole over Kuroko’s cheeks as his smile grew, and it was so genuinely happy, that Kagami lost his breath, red eyes going wide. Joy radiated off of Kuroko in soothing waves, and it was in that instant Kagami realized he would do anything to keep Kuroko feeling like this for the rest of their lives.
“It’s all thanks to you that today was so wonderful, Kagami-kun. I really am glad I met you.”
Kagami had always thought Kuroko reminded him of winter. That he could be cold and harsh, yet so beautiful to look at, eyes able to give him chills better than any cold temperatures. That he was a wonder, stunning and dangerous all wrapped into one.
But Kuroko wasn’t winter.
Kuroko was summer. Bright and incredible and so warm. Irises of cotton candy and melting fireworks. Like Kuroko was Kagami’s own sun, his own light.
And before Kagami could stop himself, caught up in the smile on Kuroko’s cheeks and the happiness in his eyes, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Kuroko’s own.
It was softer than he had dreamed of and a little wet, overwhelming, almost chill but still warm in all the right places. It wasn’t until he felt Kuroko freeze beneath him, jawline flexing against the fingers Kagami didn’t know he put there, that he realized exactly what he was doing.
His eyes snapped open. He grabbed Kuroko’s shoulders and pushed back at the same time he pulled away, face burning and eyes wide and hands trembling. He gulped, mouth dry and throat bobbing, but couldn’t manage to look at Kuroko when he yelled, “S-sorry! I didn’t mean to! I just, I didn’t think and I’m an idiot and I—”
But then those lips were pressed back against his, Kuroko’s hands tangling in the collar of his shirt to tug him down. Kuroko made a hum in the back of his throat, mouth moving against Kagami’s until he responded in kind, fingers twisting in blue hair with a strangled noise. He wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, brushing in unison as he learned the shape of Kuroko’s mouth, but he knew it wasn’t long enough.
When Kuroko pulled back, his gaze was hazy, breath heavy on Kagami’s chin and Kagami couldn’t resist chasing after him just to leave one more kiss.
“There,” Kuroko panted. “Now it really is the best day ever.”
Kagami blinked. Licked his lips. Swallowed. “So…does that mean this is okay? I can kiss you again?”
Another tug and another brush of their mouths as Kuroko nipped at his lower lip, tugging it gently before smearing together again with a chuckle. And if Kagami thought Kuroko was happy before, it was nothing compared to the reverent tone in his voice as he whispered, “Yes. Yes, you can.”
Kagami was so caught up in tasting that smile as much as he could that he didn’t even notice Nigou barking happily and bounding in place beside them until Kuroko parted with a laugh, a hundred sunshine kisses on his lips.
And Kagami realized he couldn’t hate winter.
Not when Kuroko was pressed so close to him, lips searching along his neck and arms pliant around him as snow fell outside, chills spreading pleasantly down his spine.
When Kagami woke up, he was warm.
There were a lot of reasons he felt like he could melt the harshest frost, how he was all twisted limbs and cozy heat blanketed him like snow on the ground outside. Some were more practical, like the homemade quilt tangled around his legs, and others were more personal, like the slender arms draped over his waist, Kuroko’s soft breaths heating his collarbone.
It was quiet, a faint ringing in his eardrums. He didn’t open his eyes, just snuggled closer as he tightened his own hold on Kuroko’s shoulders, fingers twisting the ends of light blue strands. And all he could think was how he’d never felt more at home in this stillness.
Until there was a pitter-patter of feet on wooden floors, tiny and soft but still so loud in the early morning silence. They stopped right outside the bedroom door, waiting, before the clacking of a certain canine’s toenails followed. A hush, then a gentle series of smacks on their door.
“Papa? Da?”
Kuroko groaned into his ear, a sleepy rumble before he buried his face further in Kagami’s chest. Kagami didn’t even bother to open his eyes when he mumbled, “It’s your turn. He’s your son.”
“He’s your son before eight in the morning, Taiga-kun.”
“You said that yesterday, you know?”
“Yes, and it still holds true today.”
He snorted and nuzzled his face into soft hair, lips trailing along the messy bedhead he was so fond of. “Fine, but he’s not gonna let you sleep in. Did you forget what today is?”
As if he heard Kagami’s hushed voice, another set of smacks echoed on the door as Nigou barked along. “Papa! Da! Chris’mas!”
Untangling himself from Kuroko, though the hands clinging to his shirt put up quite the fight, he yelled back, “We’re coming, little monkey!” before the footsteps ran to the living room.
Once he’d stretched and popped his back, he leaned back down to cup Kuroko’s face. Those blue eyes that reminded him so much of summer and oceans still hadn’t opened, instead another grumbled whine reached his ears. So he squished Kuroko’s cheeks together, relishing in the victory as one eye cracked open, before pressing a series of kisses all over Kuroko’s faces.
A squeak then a laugh, and Kuroko gently smacked at his shoulder. “Taiga-kun! Stop it, that tickles!”
He grinned, then rubbed his stubble into the crook of Kuroko’s neck just to hear the answering giggle. “Then you better get up. He may have learned some patience from you, but even he won’t last long against those presents.”
It took just a few more tickles and well-placed kisses to get Kuroko out of bed, phantom trailing behind him while tugging the blanket around thin shoulders. Hand on the doorknob, Kagami was stopped by arms around his waist, lips pressed to his shoulder blade as fingers clutched at his stomach.
“Merry Christmas, Taiga-kun. I love you.”
He picked up one of Kuroko’s hands and kissed at his wrist, smile dancing wide on his face. "Yeah, love you too.”
Kagami used to hate winter.
But when he settled on the couch with Kuroko and their son, Nigou wagging his tail beside them as Kagami grabbed the first present to be opened, he decided winter could be so very warm.
And he loved it.