Work Text:
The cafe wouldn’t have been Kuroo’s first choice to pick up lunch, but an accident up the street had filled the intersection with lights and sirens and stopped cars, so he had made the impromptu decision to forgo his usual spot and try something new.
It’s relatively busy, several young kids from the local high school plugged into their laptops, earphones in, locked on their screens. A young woman near the door reviewed a rather large manuscript with a red pen. The baristas called names, people filed in and out. His eyes fall on a young man sitting alone, attention on his hands. No phone to distract him, no obvious seat partner. The chair across from him was empty, as he fiddled with his fingers and watched it remain so.
Kuroo orders his coffee, and a sandwich, letting the barista sort everything and pack it up for him. He offers a small thanks, then intends to leave and find a place to sit outside that was less busy. The sun was out, anyway. It would be a nice way to have lunch.
He notices that man again, still not… doing anything. It was weird, in this day and age, to see anyone just sit and stare at the wall, evidently fully absorbed in their own thoughts. Maybe Kuroo is passively interested in his odd habits, and that’s why he keeps letting his eyes wander over to him. Or maybe it’s because he finds the man unabashedly gorgeous.
Sun-tanned skin and rough, dark hair pushed back from his eyes. He looks big, too. Broad and muscular but heavy-set. Not like the guys Kuroo would flirt with at the gym, this seemed more like someone who actually had to lift things for a living.
Shoot your shot, Kuroo tells himself. What’s the worst that can happen? It’s not like he hasn’t been rejected by handsome strangers before.
He leans over the table, tapping on the back of the empty chair and throwing all of his charm into his purr.
“Excuse me, but I can’t help but notice that you look awfully lonely over here. You haven’t been stood up, have you? Someone as handsome as you-? That would be a crime-”
“Alright,” the man says, no nonsense in his voice as he holds a hand up, very much like a traffic cop would. “Tone down the honey if you want to speak to me.”
Kuroo straightens up a bit at the tone, raising his eyes.
Oh, yes sir.
“Sorry,” Kuroo says. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“Evidently,” the man replies, before raising his eyes slightly. “Now to answer your question, no, I haven’t… been stood up. Yet.”
“Yet? Are you expecting to be?”
The man almost rolls his eyes. Kuroo bites at the inside of his cheek.
“Well, it’s about thirty minutes past the scheduled meet-up time for some… blind date my friend insisted upon setting me up for. So unless you’re my date, I very well may have been,” he replies, somewhat sarcastically.
Kuroo is not a bad person. Nor does he consider himself a liar, most of the time.
But he is an opportunist.
“Oh my god,” Kuroo says, immediately moving to sit down in the empty seat. “You must be - sorry, I thought I was the one that got stood up-”
He arches an eye, attention sweeping over Kuroo very judgementally.
“I watched you walk in here like four minutes ago.”
“Well I know, but I was late,” Kuroo replies, lacing his fingers together on the table. “I assumed you’d left, and I’d missed my chance to meet you.”
“Uh-huh.”
He’s not buying it.
That’s fine. Charm him anyway.
“Sorry, can we just… restart? Try and get off on the right foot?” Kuroo says, throwing on what he hopes is a charismatic and irresistible grin. “I feel like all I’ve done is put my foot in my mouth, and - you’re really hot, so I’d love to make a good first… or second impression.”
The man stares at him again, eyes passively appraising him before he seems to relent, dipping his head lightly.
“Okay. Fair enough. Asahi said you work as a seamstress for his company, you put most of the prototype garments together, yeah?”
Kuroo blinks rapidly.
“That’s… that’s right…”
Do I know anything about sewing?
No, more importantly: does he know anything about sewing? As long as he’s dumb to it I can fake anything.
“How long have you worked there?” he replies.
“A… a couple years,” Kuroo replies, trying to get his gears clicking. “I mean, I’ve had a passion for sewing all my life. So I just… you know, knew it was for me.”
“Right,” the man replies. “Well, I think the work Asahi does is awesome, so it’s cool to know he’s working with such a passionate team.”
“Oh, he is,” Kuroo replies. “But that’s… that’s enough about me. Tell me about yourself. It… it’s slipping my mind, what did you do for work?”
“I was working as a cop for a while, but I recently passed my exams to be a detective. Primarily in missing persons cases, I do a lot of work with training search and rescue and other emergency response teams as well.”
Jesus. That explains the command-voice.
“Wow,” Kuroo says. “So you’re like a real, everyday hero,” Kuroo says.
“Well that’s a bit much, but I do my best,” he says. “I like being able to make things just a little bit better for people, in their darkest moments.”
Kuroo smiles slightly. “Well, you know… I’m no missing person, but-”
“I could be the person you’re missing?” the man finishes for him.
“Damn, you’re quick,” Kuroo laughs. “Charming, heroic, handsome - why’s a fella like you going on blind dates?”
“Because a fella like me doesn’t have a lot of time to meet people the organic way,” he replies. “I’m not really good at putting myself out there. And Asahi said you were totally cute, and totally my type, so… how could I say no to that?”
Kuroo grins. “And… was he right? Am I your type?”
“He… misled me on a few details,” the main replies, chuckling slightly. “But I admit, you are pretty cute.”
“I’ll take it,” Kuroo says, grinning. “Now - this is such a stuffy cafe, and it’s such a beautiful day out, you wanna take this outside? There’s a park just across the way that-”
“Oh,” the man says, interrupting him and perking up considerably, looking at something over Kuroo’s shoulder. “There she is.”
“There who is?” Kuroo says, turning around as he speaks to see what the man was looking at. A young woman, light tones dyed through her hair, knit bag over her shoulder, looking lost. Cute as all hell, that was for sure.
The man lifts a hand to get her attention, and she perks up with a bright smile as she sees him, heading over.
Ooh…
“You were waiting for a woman…” Kuroo says, someone resigned and kicking himself for not even considering that possibility, turning around to look back at the stranger.
“Yeah…” he says.
“Why’d you even let me sit down?”
“You were cute, and I was bored. And you were trying so hard,” he says, before turning his attention up to the girl as she approaches their table. She gives him another smile.
“You must be Sawamura Daichi?” she says, at the same time Sawamura stands up, giving her a grin and returning her greeting.
“That’s me. Itsuki Mei?”
“That’s me,” she echoes back, and Kuroo compulsively feels his lip curl at her voice. Before he can even try and control his face, she adds: “Who’s this?” looking down at him.
“I don’t know,” Sawamura replies, looking back at Kuroo. “We were just chatting. Why don’t you hop in line, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Oh,” she says. “Sure, okay. Thanks,” and with another stupid smile, she turns to head further into the cafe.
“I guess this is the end?” Kuroo says.
“Dramatic, much?” Sawamura replies, before slipping between the tables, briefly over to the woman still reviewing her manuscript. With a few soft spoken words exchanged, he returns a second later holding her pen.
“What’s this?” Kuroo says, as Sawamura reaches to where Kuroo’s hands were still set on the table, turning one over so that he could write on his arm.
“This is my number,” Sawamura replies.
Kuroo’s eyes light up. “But- You have a date- with a really hot girl-”
“I have a date with someone who was forty minutes late with no text,” he corrects, finishing the number on Kuroo’s arm with a smiley face. “But I’m a man of my word, so I’m not ditching her. No matter how cute you are, or how hard you try,” he replies, capping the pen and turning to hand it back to the editor.
“Ah… haha… oh, cool, great,” Kuroo says, mentally cursing his tongue for losing its charisma at the worst possible moment. “Yeah, I respect that. Yeah. I’ll call you. Definitely. Tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sawamura replies, already heading away from him. “Include your name in that text for me, why don’t you?” he adds, before turning around to greet his date again.
“It’s Kuroo!” Kuroo calls, standing up from his chair despite Sawamura having already walked away. “Tets- it’s - ah, nevermind, okay-” he fumbles to pull his phone out, entering in the new number to send a text off right away.
Kuroo Tetsurou.
Or you could call me yours.
Sawamura evidently feels his phone buzz, apologizing to the girl before pulling it out to check the messages. Kuroo, for a second, sees a smile twitch at his lips, but ultimately, he leaves Kuroo on read and puts his phone back in his pocket, putting his attention back on his date.
Damn the goody-two-shoes type.
Fine. I’ll wait for my turn.