#new fight moves essence of bratting and essence of brat taming

[moophinz]

Hey. Hey remember the trophy and scene called Taming the Mad Dog in Y3. Do you remember. Do you—

[hold-my-hand-kuroo]

the soulmate au i thought i wouldn’t write

aka the soulmate au where everyone is born with a book quote on their chest, and soulmates are people who share the starting and ending lines from the same book, and kuroo’s just unlucky

so basically,,,i took that devastating headcanon that kuroo’s parents are divorced and combined that with a faulty soulmate system and a quick little something on it while still promoting my neighbors to lovers bullshit-

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x reader

i.

It’s one night after Kuroo’s visit home that he lies restless in bed. Soulmates. He hates the very essence of the word, especially since his own possibilities are so unclear and vague. He thinks he’s cursed, just like his mother, for having such an unbelievably common line etched on his chest.

“It was love at first sight” was found in countless novels, novels that were never Kuroo’s cup of tea, but he read them, read as many as he could find out of curiosity. It wasn’t because he liked the idea of running into a special-someone after single meeting; in fact, he despises the very idea, as he finds it a little shallow and unsubstantial to a developed relationship after a culmination of encounters, but that was just him. Rather, it’s his frustration working against him, making him count every different quote, every different fragmented line that could’ve matched with the one forever stuck to him.

It’s far too much, and frankly, Kuroo hates feeling uncertain.

“You’ll love him,” his grandmother had told him upon welcoming him at her door. He almost froze in her warm embrace. “He matches exactly with you. It’ll be great!”

It wasn’t great as it turns out, but Kuroo had predicted that way before his supposed soulmate entered the door with his grandfather, and over a lackluster, silent meal, Kuroo left convinced that this man was absolutely not his soulmate. He even goes through the trouble of looking up the book that his lines came from, and he’d much rather not be associated with its contents after reading the quick summary. Out of courtesy and respect for his grandparents though, he does take the man’s number with the promise of speaking to him once again.

“Maybe it’ll take some time,” his grandmother reasoned, patting his shoulder gently. “It’s different for everyone.”

He wonders if she’s right but can’t imagine how much time it’d take. He likes his relationships, whether it be romantic or not, to start naturally, to grow with interaction and conversation until they flourished. There’s something manufactured to him about an arranged meeting with the intent of spending the rest of his life together with a stranger that he knows nothing about. A stranger that he simply isn’t interested in getting to know, not that it was the man’s fault. It’s Kuroo and his fear of ending up like his parents that keeps him alert and unwilling to pursue anything beyond just acquaintances before getting to know someone well.

“So? Are you planning on calling him back?” you sigh through the phone. It’s almost 5 AM, and you knew that when your phone buzzed at your bed side two hours ago, your best friend needed help. “

“Kitten, I lost that number the moment I walked out of the house,” Kuroo lies, stifling his yawn. He knows he should’ve been asleep, and he knows even better to let you sleep, but time passes far to quickly when he’s being serenaded by your speaking. “I just wish she’d stop setting me up with people. I swear it’s a new person every week.”

“It is,” you correct matter-of-factly. He can practically hear your eye-roll through your voice. “Have you talked to her about it? I’m sure she’d understand if you mentioned something.”

Kuroo groans. “I can’t do that to her. She’s been trying so hard, and to be honest, I’d feel a little bit bad since she’s been with me from even before I started playing volleyball.”

“Prior to conception?” you ask, raising a brow.

“Are you saying that I played volleyball in the womb, Y/N?” he asks, laughing. Finally.

“I’m just saying that you were a brat since birth.” He continues laughing softly much to your pleasure. “Now that you’re finally feeling better, can I go to sleep now?”

“It’s almost sunrise, though. Why not come take a run with me instead?” Kuroo offers. He knows you won’t, but he finds pleasure in teasing you over your lack of will to move. “I’ll even walk while you’re jogging to match your pace and give you a running start.”

“Very funny, Tetsu.” You swear that you’d hang up on him one day. A day that was better than whatever slump Kuroo found himself currently in. “You know I can’t run for my life.”

“It’s never to late to start practicing a healthy lifestyle,” Kuroo tsks. You retort back with something about sleeping properly, but he ignores it. “I’ll be out at 6. Would love to see you waiting for me.”

Kuroo knows that you won’t show up, and he doesn’t blame you. Not everyone could bring themselves to run right at dawn, especially people who slept very little thanks to him. He means it as a way to get back at you, to sound fine and normal again so that you won’t have to waste time worrying about him, and he believes that it works when you bid him a ‘good early night’ and go back to bed.

That is, until he sees your very grumpy and very disheveled appearance waiting for him outside on his sidewalk, tapping your foot impatiently on the pavement. He thinks he’s dreaming, taking no time to rub his eyes multiple times before he realizes that yes, you are indeed outside waiting to go on his morning run with him.

“After this, you owe me,” is all you say before getting your promised head-start. Kuroo walks steadily behind, making sure to take extra slow strides so that he won’t pass you.

The sun, just peeking through from the horizon outlines the back of your figure, shining on your hair and skin. Kuroo watches, gaze intent, and finds himself spacing out. He wonders how it’d feel to do this every morning, to wake up and spend more than just a run with you, but hugs in bed and breakfast too. Even if he hates cooking for himself, he thinks it’d be fun to do it with you. Would you be a morning person? He’s always kept you up at ridiculous hours on the phone, so when was morning for you? And how did you prefer your eggs to be cooked? Kuroo’s not a chef, but he prides himself in his healthy, balanced meals. If you ate with him everyday, he’s sure that he could-

Kuroo knows. He knows that he’s falling, been falling since forever, but he’s too scared to say anything to you. In a world with hundreds, maybe even thousands of books that started or ended with the same cliche line, “It was love at first sight,” he fears the idea of risking your happiness for his own sake. It seemed far too convenient for the two of you to be soulmates, and the thought of pursuing a relationship with you with the high risk of failure and keeping you away from finding your true fated one is a strong reminder for him to control himself.

He watches your fleeting figure in the distance and walks even slower.

ii.

“The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.”

From the start, you had the sinking suspicion that Kuroo’s quote matched yours. Even without realizing that his was the exact first line to your last line, there was something that just felt so incredibly natural about Kuroo. The fact that he was always there to listen to you and vice versa ever since your middle school days is a strong affirmation that Kuroo is indeed much more than just a friend to you.

You think back to the late night talks via phone cup, the two of you still in your adolescence, as Kuroo would vent to you about the fights his parents were having. The two of you were too young to know back then that the fights were just the start of something far bigger. The conversations would grow longer into the night, each day seemingly to grow worse and worse. Sometimes, you’d find yourself falling asleep right at your desk in the classroom of your elementary school.

“Hey, Y/N,” Kuroo had whispered to you on one fateful night. You raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to finish properly. “Uh, over.”

“What? Over,” you responded, trying to be as quiet as possible.

“Today I learned how to make things quiet….over,” Kuroo answered, grinning from his window. You remember your confusion and raised brow as you watched him run away from the cup and back, suddenly with two pillows. “Check this out.”

You watched curiously as he stuffed the two pillows on the sides of his head, almost as if they were to serve as ear plugs. That was the beginning of the mess that was his hair, you suppose, as ever since that night, you’ve never seen him look put together again. Not even during important ceremonies like graduation did he bother fixing his bedhead. Rather, it was impossible to do so, and you knew from first hand experience, trying to tame the mess almost every day during high school. Secretly, you enjoyed raking your fingers through his hair and enjoyed the physical contact.

“Hey, are you even paying attention?” Kuroo whines, snapping you out of your thoughts. From beside you, he turns his head to look at you, raising an eyebrow. “It’s getting to the good part.”

You roll your eyes. “Tetsu, this is the fourth time you’re making me watch this crime documentary, but for what?”

“But the DNA-“

“Nerd.” If you think hard about it, you can pinpoint the exact moment when Kuroo changed drastically. He wasn’t always as charismatic and as hardworking in his childhood, but you know for sure that it’s because of volleyball that he flourishes. He’s not an idiot, he never was, and you recall one fateful day in middle school when you visit him in his house to find him actually studying instead of playing games.

“I have to keep my grades up or else I’ll get kicked from the club,” he had said simply, but when you caught him tutoring his other teammates during his lunch break, you understood that it was a completely different story. Before you knew it something had triggered Kuroo into maturing quickly, working tirelessly at becoming all-rounded in his studies and sports. Whether that something was volleyball or the little bit of hope that Kenma gave him every time he showed up to practice, you weren’t sure, but you knew in your heart that Kuroo’s sudden improvement and change in attitude was what made him the captain of Nekoma later on in high school.

High school was a little lonely, you have to admit. Between exams and nationals, you felt that day by day, Kuroo slipped away from you. You watched his games whenever you had time, visited him at practices, and even studied with him whenever he offered, but he felt so distant. You didn’t blame him, though. You’re more than pleased to find him so involved in something, and whenever you heard his hyena-cackle from the gym, you thought about the quiet boy who once hid inside his room all day to avoid his parents. It was for the best.

You were always worried if he got tired of practicing until sunset and studying until sunrise while also keeping his team from falling apart, but even when you sat in his room during the weekends, waiting for him to wake up, he seemed content. Exhausted, yes, but upset that he could finally bring the people around him to stay together and rise? Never.

“If I knew you were going to be this bored, I would’ve picked something else,” Kuroo mumbles, breaking you out of your train of thought again.

“Kuroo, I was bored the second time you made me watch this.” He chuckles a little bit. “Crime documentaries are only interesting the first time.”

“I don’t agree with that, but I’ll put something new on, okay?” Scrolling lazily through the options on Netflix, you sit back and sigh. It doesn’t go unnoticed. “Something wrong?”

“Just thinking about how cool you’ve gotten,” you reply, trying to sound as sarcastic as possible. But it’s true. He started as a childhood crush that you merely dismissed as something part of growing up together and talking every day, but it had spiraled out of control before you could control it.

“Falling for me?” he teases with a wry grin.

“I’ve been falling, Tetsu.” It comes out of your mouth almost instinctively. Perhaps you were getting frustrated with the weird limbo that the two of you found yourself in, stuck in the area of something more than friends but not quite lovers. You bite the inside of you cheek to stop yourself from saying anything else.

He’s silent. You wish he weren’t. It’s foolish, but the smallest part of you hopes he’ll say that he feels the same, but you also know about his circumstances, his parents, and his worst fears. It’s selfish of you, and you take his silence as an affirmation of that.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, getting up from the couch. “I’ll get going.”

As you walk quietly outside of his house, you feel a pang of hurt. He doesn’t try to stop you, and you don’t blame him after crossing the unspoken boundary that he’s worked so hard to establish and maintain. But still, you miss him by your side walking you home, lending you a jacket if it was too cold. It’s your first time walking home alone in years, you realize, and you suddenly understand how quiet the night can be without the occasional rambling about chemical compounds or impressive volleyball matches.

When you get home, you almost forget about why you’re feeling so upset in the first place and try to call him before realizing that shouldn’t. You promptly hang up.

iii.

Kuroo dislikes conflict, especially when it has time to grow into something bigger. That’s why, the moment you walk out of his house, he considers his options. He could walk right out of his house to chase you, but what would he even say? He doesn’t like his throat feeling dry, and he definitely does not enjoy not having the proper words. It’s not something he can take lightly, because they’re your feelings, and he can’t step on them any longer.

He supposes that option two would be to wait for things to cool down so that he can apologize for being scared, for loving you so much that he’s afraid to waste your time, get you hopeful, and then let you down. He wonders if you for exactly how long he’s wanted to tell you his feelings and thinks back to his lonely childhood when you were the only one who offered to listen to him, the only one he could rely on, his savior. He didn’t dare to say anything then, and neither did he in high school, but he secretly hoped that teenage impulse would’ve taken the reigns then. It never did.

Instead, he’d just spend his every waking moment thinking about you and his every free weekend by your side while slowly, steadily creating boundaries to prevent himself from acting dumb. It’s a paradox of struggling to stay close to you but keeping you away just enough so that Kuroo won’t give in to instinct. Whether or not the two of you could go back to normal now wasn’t clear to him, and that’s exactly what he despises. Kuroo appreciates clarity and supported answers akin to a well-written research paper or the sound of a volleyball after a cleanly killed spike. He likes to know things, to be sure.

But most importantly, he values settling arguments in a quick and timely manner. He wills to learn from his parents’ mistakes, but the pit of fear he feels as he’s running toward your house close to midnight is a sign to him that he’s just the same as the people he doesn’t want to be like. Perhaps had he cared for you less, he wouldn’t have bothered to make amends. And perhaps you would’ve moved on and found a soulmate that you knew for sure was fated for your love and affection.

He throws pebbles at your bedroom window, hoping that you’re still up. He’s never seen you sleep before 1 AM, but he’s still nervous. When you don’t answer, he tries calling instead. Multiple times.

“What is it?” you mumble quietly, and he finds himself feeling oddly relieved. You open your bedroom window and squint, faintly making out Kuroo’s figure on your yard.

“I wanted to talk,” he replies slowly and takes a deep breath. You don’t say anything, so he takes it as a cue to continued. “I, uh, well first off, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“For someone who breaks into the weirdest motivational speeches I’ve ever heard in my life, you’re sure making this awkward, Tetsu.” Well at least you still had the humor in him to tease him. That’s a good sign.

“There’s not an easy way for me to tell you how much I don’t want to hurt you,” Kuroo answers. Even though it’s dark outside, the dim streetlight lets you see that he has his head hung down low. “Y/N, I like you. And I’m sorry.”

You feel your head spinning. You’re not even sure what he’s trying to say, so instead, you grip your phone tightly. “You better not be talking about liking me as a friend, Tetsu.”

“Yikes, do you really take me for someone like that,” he winces. “I mean it romantically Y/N.”

“Then why are you apologizing?” Your question comes out in shock, and you’re sure that he can hear your heart beat from outside of the window. He looks up at you, smiling.

“Because I don’t know if I should’ve told you,” Kuroo admits. “I don’t know…if we’re meant to be together, and I don’t want to fight with you every day.”

“Tetsu, we’ve known each other for years now, and whenever we fight, we always talk it out,” you say softly into the phone. There’s a brief pause, giving time for Kuroo to deliberate. You bite the bottom of your lip, feeling uncomfortable when he doesn’t say anything back. “I know you’re scared, and I understand why. I’m not gonna force you into something you don’t want to do. We can stay as friends, you know?”

“But I do want something more,” he argues back almost instantly. You hear him tsk under his breath through the line. “Do you…do you know how long I’ve wanted to hold your hand? Y/N, everything I look at reminds me of you, even the little cracks on the sidewalk. But what if we end up hating each other? We can’t even go back to being friends if that happens, and I-“

“Or we fall madly in love with each other.” Kuroo thinks your answer through carefully. Sure, that sounded more likely than his worst-case scenario, but he’s sure that’s what his parents thought too when they started dating and got married. He can’t say for sure though since the only time he’s seen them together was when any sort of affection they used to hold for one another was already gone.  

“Tetsu, we’ll be fine. I know it.”

And just like that, he feels his restraints break apart, years of love and adoration for you spilling out. “I’ll do my best—no. I promise I’ll never hurt you.” He silently makes a mental list of vows, swearing himself to never leave you crying alone, to never drag on arguments for weeks, to never throw anything at you.

“Yeah?” you murmur and take his words to heart. Kuroo’s a man of his word, loyal to a fault. It’s why you fell for him in the first place. “Now, care to come in and tell me exactly what about the sidewalk cracks reminds you of me? I’d like to know.”

iv.

“Babe, last chip,” Kuroo offers, handing you the nearly empty aluminum bag of Lays. You turn away from the movie the two of you are watching to look at him skeptically.

“What happed to my chip-hog, Kuroo Tetsurou?” you ask, feigning shock. He rolls his eyes so hard that you think they’re going to get stuck at the back of his head and starts to take the bag away from you. “Kidding, kidding. Thank you for the last chip. Your generosity is very much appreciated.”

“I’ll have you know that I usually eat healthy, unlike someone I know.” You can’t argue that and instead try to reach for the chip, feeling around the oily inside. You notice Kuroo’s keen gaze on you, unusually keen.

“If you wanted the last bite that badly, you can have it,” you laugh, but he shakes his head, offering a weak smile. You’re about to ask why he’s so strangely before your finger tips feel something solid against the bag. After a little bit of further investigation, you realize that it’s round and metallic and not the last chip. “Tetsu…”

“Sorry, I already had the last chip to be honest,” he confesses rather awkwardly. “There is a leftover though.”

You pull out the item and hold it against the light. The ring itself is just a little bit oily after spending some time in the bag, but it glimmers brightly. Kuroo holds his breath, waiting for a more vocal reaction from you, hands balled up into fists so tightly that his knuckles turn white. Your eyes dart back and forth between the silver band and his face contorted with anxiety as if he was expecting rejection.

You can’t believe it.

“Tetsu, I love it,” you murmur, awestruck. You take one of his fists, open it up, and place the ring into his palm. “Put it on for me, please.”

Kuroo’s hands are shaking as he gently grabs your fingers, sliding the ring on with ease. He let’s out a sigh of relief upon seeing that the fit is correct, but that isn’t enough to stop his excitement. He hears his heart beating in his ears and feels his eyes become dangerously wet as he looks at you. You smile and then laugh.

“Why are you crying, Tetsu?” you ask. He’s heard your voice thousands of times now, but there’s something about it now, it’s honey-like quality, that makes him melt even more and falls in love all over again. Pulling you into his chest, he buries his face into the crook of your neck so that you can’t see him crying, but you sure can feel the dampness from his tears and his shaking body. “Hm?”

“I didn’t think you’d say yes.” His voice is just above a whisper, tickling your ear. You feel him press a slow kiss onto your neck before continuing. “I dunno…I thought you wouldn’t want to do the whole marriage thing with me.”

“Why not?” You’re devastated that he’d even think that and wonder what you haven’t been doing to give him that boost of confidence. Kuroo notices your sudden change in tone, nuzzling further into his neck while making a sound of disagreement.

“It’s not your fault,” he mumbles. “It’s just…why would you marry someone that isn’t even your soulmate for sure?”

“We’re soulmates even if our quotes don’t match.” You say it with so much confidence that Kuroo’s heart almost stops. He knows that neither of you can be sure, not with so many people with the same engraving in his chest, but he feels as if he can believe you. “What about you? If anything, I thought that you didn’t want to do the whole marriage thing.”

Kuroo doesn’t reply. Instead he thinks back to the first major fight you two had. It started as something small and trivial but grew faster than he had anticipated into something much more serious. He remembers the yelling, the words exchanged that neither of you truly meant, and the door slamming and the lonely night he spent sleeping on the couch that followed. He had thought that it was over, that the two of you weren’t meant to be together, and it crushed him. Without noticing, he had become greedy and wanted to desperately keep you in his arms at night instead of letting you slip away to another possible soulmate, so when you finally left your room the following morning and broke into a conversation, compromising and talking over the events from the previous night, it was a weight off his shoulders.

But more importantly, it convinced him that the two of you were already far better than his parents who had left their problems unsolved. He could do this, and so could you, he reasons, and that was exactly what he thought when he bought the ring.

“I just love you a lot and wanted to try something new, you know? Maybe it could work out, like you said,” he finally answers, leaving his thoughts behind. He leaves his spot at your neck to face you, eyes fond with a grin. “And to be honest? I don’t think I’d be able to let you go that easily. Soulmate or not, you have me wrapped around your finger.”

You laugh and trail your fingers across his cheat. “I’m glad you think that way, because I’d hate not being forced to watch these boring movies every weekend.”

“You seemed pretty invested a little while ago though,” he teases back, pecking you on the cheek.

“No way.” You return the action by kissing the tip of his nose and raking your fingers through his hair. You swear he purrs but choose not the ruin the moment. “I was just thinking about something.”

“About me?” he says with his goofy smirk.

“Yeah,” is all you say, but before you can respond with something witty, Kuroo presses his lips to yours. He feels your eyes flutter shut and hums in content, smiling a little at your reaction. The two of you would be much more than just okay, he thinks, finding your hand once again to run his fingers over your ring. And then, feeling a little bit courageous, he find himself imagining a petal-adorned aisle and ringing bells, all with you standing by with him.