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ivyfics · 3 years

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Haunting (fic)

“You threw a rock. At his dick.”

His glasses slip, so he adjusts them with his fingers, releasing them from where they clench around the strap of his tote. “Lucky shot, I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”

It’s an insane casual conversation he’s having, two meters away from his door with a half-naked stranger.

KRTSKI/ T/ 1.5Kw

murder college au + meet cute

Read on AO3

“Why are you naked?”

Kei’s flat tone carries through the silence of the hallway. By the bend, crouched with a mop of something for hair, is a figure.

In front of Kei's room.

In the dark.

Naked.

Kei sighs, walking until he is right at his door. On closer look, the person is not entirely naked. There is a towel wrapped around his waist, slit opening dangerously close to his upper thigh.

Naked-dude-in-the-dark opens his mouth to answer and Kei holds up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t bother. I’m sure whatever is about to come out of your mouth is riveting.”

Kei thought moving into the off-campus dorms would make his life easier. They were older, so rent was cheaper than moving into his own apartment. It was close by enough to most of the buildings he had to attend, so easier transportation. It had several floors and it was backed up by the college, so it was reputable.

He thought. Thought.

Reality is different.

Yes, rent is cheaper, but that had more to do with the random far-off wailings and middle of the night noises that crept up and made sure almost all residents kept a no later than midnight self-imposed curfew.

Transport was cheaper, he would give it that.

The thing is impossibly big, and every student who actually came to visit instead of simply settling on a room while they were still away because they overslept and didn’t feel like making a day trip to Tokyo realized that a more costly apartment outweighed the possibility of having a run-in with Sadako herself had moved on to better places, leaving behind a group of late-comers and misfits.

The only silver lining is that he and Yamaguchi were within walking distance from each other.

The man straightened, standing at full height across from Kei. “I’m not naked. See, a towel is covering my bits.”

“Fine. Great. Just don’t jerk off in the hallway, if I call the RA about that again he’s going to egg my door.”

Towel dude blinked at him. “Someone’s been jerking off in your hallway?”

“Sometimes. The last dude stopped a while back.”

The stranger's head tilts to the side, questioning. “There’s been more than one? Wait, what happened to the last one?”

“He came on my door.” Kei shrugged, looking unimpressed at the disbelief. “I threw a rock at him and it hit his dick, so he left.”

“You threw a rock. At his dick.”

His glasses slip, so he adjusts them with his fingers, releasing them from where they clench around the strap of his tote. “Lucky shot, I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”

It’s an insane casual conversation he’s having, two meters away from his door with a half-naked stranger.

The stranger comes closer, and Kei finds himself stepping back. “Where did you get the rock?”

“From my terrarium.”

There’s a genuine curiosity in this tone. “You have a terrarium? What for?”

“Snake.”

“Snake,” he repeats. “I didn’t know we were allowed pets.”

“We’re not,” Kei stared through him, daring him to fight on this, “but three different people have ejaculated on my door this year.”

The stranger laughs, and gets closer still, as far from the door as Kei is opposite of him. “Fair enough.”

It’s a hideous laugh, terrible, and Kei wants no part of it. No sir. “Uhm. I’d like to go inside now.”

The stranger stops in his tracks, confused. “Go—Go ahead?”

“You see, I can’t just—” Kei drops his tote by his door, keycard on hand—” unlock my door when there’s a weirdo in the hallway.”

“Who?” The weirdo looks behind Kei, and himself, searching. When he’s confirmed it’s just the two of them, he brings his hand to his chest. “Me? I’m the weirdo?”

Kei almost laughs at his scandalized expression. Almost. “Dude. You’re naked.”

“There’s a towel—”

A bang! Resounds through the hallway, similar to the internal door that separates buildings three and four, followed by loud, screeching noises and wails. It’s more than the usual creepy noises here and there, more intentional and far more alarming.

The stranger jumps looking terrified, and runs to Kei’s side, putting his back to the other side of the noise. “ Fuck! Help me!” His eyes, desperate, bore into Kei’s. “I’m getting murdered.”

Of course. The naked weirdo is going to kill him. Kei rubs his temples, shoulders slumped.“I can’t take this anymore. I’m moving out.”

The stranger shakes him harder than he needs to to get Kei’s attention. “No, that’s not—The murder game?”

“Back off, will you.” Kei maneuvers himself away from his death grip. “What murder game?”

“Did you not get a knife? A plastic knife with a name on it?”

He did get something like that last week. Didn’t understand what the hell it was about. “I threw that out.”

“You threw—” He’s interrupted, the door wailing again, bloody murder in every screech. Loud thumps follow, getting closer. “Will you please keep me from getting fake murdered tonight?”

“Why are they trying to murder you while you’re naked?

“No killing while naked. Y’know, so they can’t get you while you shower.”

Kei is probably going to regret this. Another noise rings out and he’s sure he’ll regret it, but he’d rather be regretful inside his room. “Fine.”

He grabs his tote from the floor and grips his keycard tight. Before he opens the door, he looks the idiot in the eye. “If you kill me, I will haunt you,” Kei warns, “and If you drop the towel, I’ll kill you.”

He nods, and trods along with Kei when his door opens.“No nakedness. Got it, glasses.” He winces, realizing that insulting the person getting you away from pursuers is probably not a good idea. “Sorry. I’m Kuroo.”

Kei decides being a dick about it is too much of a bother. He nods, setting his tote down on his chair.“Tsukishima.”

Kuroo takes a look around. His room is tidy, with minimal laundry piled in a corner. When he reaches his dresser, there’s a hint of approval. “Nice terrarium, “Tsukishima-kun.”

Kei grunts in return. He’s not the best with people, much less in these kinds of circumstances.

“I’m very grateful you’ve given me a haven in these trying times.”

Kei points at the hoodie hanging from the back of his chair on his way to the terrarium. “Please wear something. Hi, Udon.”

Udon crawls towards the glass, used to being greeted when Kei comes back. He had to downsize his other possessions to make room for her, but it was definitely worth it. Her pink eyes blink at him and the tension he's built during the day slowly slides from his shoulders. He sticks his hand in the terrarium to give her a head boop, her white scales coming to meet his skin under her lamp.

“Udon?”

Kei shrugs. “She’s a noodle.”

Kuroo comes up behind him, still in his towel. He stares at Udon, following how she curves herself around Kei’s hand.“Cute noodle.”

Kei doesn’t know how to handle Kuroo's bare chest. This was a bad idea. “Indeed.”

Kuroo clears his throat and steps a little closer. “As I was saying, thank you for keeping me alive.”

He frowns. This is entirely too dramatic. “I didn’t—”

He gasps at the touch. Something sharp and cold is pressed against the back of his neck. It doesn’t hurt, and Kei doesn’t feel the sting of it. It lays against his skin gently. He’s of a mind to be enraged but it’s funny enough that he just sighs and drops his shoulders. Figures.

“I’m going to have to haunt you now.”

“Fine by me. Sorry, glasses-kun. You’re dead.”

Kei is reluctant to turn. The plastic knife Kuroo is holding to his neck has not moved other than to gently scrape against his skin. A caress, almost, if he lets himself think it. “I don’t have mine for you to collect.”

Kuroo laughs by his ear and Kei is sure they turn red. “Do you remember the name on it at least?”

He’s not going to acknowledge it, trying to remember what was written in the plastic knife someone slid under his door. The name did not sound familiar. “Miya something. Osamu?”

“I’ll just say I lost it. Take his instead.”

“And the noises?”

“I have very committed friends, you see.” Finally, Kuroo steps back. “I appreciate it, you letting me in. Got to see something really cute.”

Kei feels the absence immediately, and turns to him, Udon in hand.

Kuroo is putting the hoodie on, the plastic knife stuck between the towel and the pulled-up edge of boxers that were invisible until now.

“Hey.” It’s a weak protest. Kei likes that hoodie but he’s wary of getting too close to the cute half-naked stranger who so smoothly played him.

“It’s cold as tits out there.” As soon as the hoodie is over his head, he shakes like a dog, finger combing the awfulness that is his bangs. “I’m building two, floor three, room 7. For the hoodie. And the haunting.”

He opens the door and shoots Kei a smile. “Bye, Udon.”

Ends it with a wink and shuts his door carefully.

Kei sighs and holds Udon up to his face. “I really need to move out.”

#kurotsukki #krtski #HQ!!#ivyfics #myfic #fic

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ivyfics · 3 years

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Slasher Films (fic)

Tetsurou doesn’t care for the screaming or the ominous music playing behind him.

He couldn't care less what tacky, low-budget slasher film Kei picked this time around. His love for Kei’s chin nestled in the crook of his neck and the wandering, floaty kisses he nuzzles into Tetsurou’s cheek keep him uncaring and all but facing away from the screen.

KRTSKI/ T/ 930w

Fluff + kisses and cuddles

Read on AO3

Someone is screaming murder while dying a bloody, violent death.

Tetsurou doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even turn his head away from his phone to look at the movie playing on screen.

Kei comes back from the kitchen and sits, open and uncovered until Tetsurou crawls into his lap. Tetsurou couldn't care less about the plot line, or the movie, or the empty bowl of popcorn right next to him on the couch, so he works in contorting his body to fit Kei’s laid back posture, wiggling to get closer. It’s a challenge to get close, both of them being more limb than anything else but they make it work. Kei’s arms worm around his middle, fingers running up and down the span of Tetsurou’s back.

Tetsurou doesn’t care for the screaming or the ominous music playing behind him.

Kei snorts, the way he does when someone gets killed in an impossible terrible manner and the hard exhale tickles Tetsurou’s nape, making him shudder, and in turn, making Kei hold him tighter. Tetsurou is all for people getting shanked badly on film.

“If he hadn’t started running like a chicken with its head cut off, maybe he would have lived halfway through the movie.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kei keeps going. “If you saw a gigantic bird-like creature with four eyes in the middle of the night, what would you do?”

“Usually I just go back to bed next to you.”

“Feeling funny, aren’t you.”

Tetsurou blows a raspberry into Kei’s neck. “Compared to you? Always.”

Kei one-ups him by burying his face in Tetsurou’s neck and blowing one directly into his weak spot. It triggers Tetsurou’s fight or flight instinct because he’s severely ticklish and Kei knows this, the ass, so he squirms and tries to pull away while Kei laughs and holds him down so he doesn’t slip away from his lap and “crack his pretty little head open on the floor. ”

Tetsurou settles in again, his chin fitting into the crevice of Kei’s neck. Kei has gotten taller, his body filling out and getting sturdier.

“Why are people so dumb? If they simply had a functioning brain cell, they would not be getting murdered by a glorified chicken.”

Tetsurou chances a look at the screen, turning his head just in time to see someone lose their wrist and jettison a disturbingly large amount of blood. “That’s not how bodies work.”

Kei gives him a look. They’ve had this conversation a thousand times, it’s why Tetsurou considers this Kei-Cuddle-Time instead of watching the film. Kei braves it, one more time. “It’s not supposed to be real, it’s supposed to have shock value.”

“Well, I am shocked. Shocked at how bad it is.”

Kei chides him, resigned. “Tetsurou.”

Tetsurou is gearing up to protest, and he’s stopped. Kei acts put out but there’s a smile to his lips when he gives Kuroo another kiss, a soft lingering one by his temple and Tetsturou exhales all the fine points he was about to make about the importance of correct portrayals of physics in film and television.

Kei’s fingers start the slow treck up and down his spine, all the way to the undercut he got as a dare a year ago and kept maintaining out of spite. He sighs into Kei, boneless and enamored.

Tetsurou falls asleep by no fault of his own. He closes his eyes himself, but Kei plays with his hair and gently caresses his neck with a slow cadence--It feels like it’s fair to say that he is in no way responsible for a nap nuzzled in his boyfriend’s lap.

Kei’s careful shifting wakes him. “Shh. Go back to sleep.”

“What. Who died.”

“You did.”

“When?”

“About thirty minutes ago, when the movie ended.”

Tetsurou groans.

Kei laughs. “Let’s go to bed.”

Tetsurou shakes his head lightly and starts the process of untangling his limbs.“Give me a sec.”

“I got you.” Kei scoops him tighter and gets up with Tetsurou in his arms before he says anything. Tetsurou scrambles to hold on to him, legs crossing behind his back.

Kei hoists him once, to get a good grip and starts the walk to their shared bedroom.“When did you get so heavy?”

Tetsurou mumbles into Kei’s sweater. “Don’t call me fat.”

Kei huffs, straining with effort. Somehow manages to slap Tetesurou’s ass in retaliation. “I did not say that. Besides, you’re not fatter, just heavier. Training with Bokuto is paying off.”

“It better. I’m always sore now.” Tetsurou hums. “I’m surprised you can lift me with your twig arms.”

That earns him a hard pinch to his bottom and a violent toss straight into their messy bed.

Tetsurou bounces, one, twice and melts into the mattress. He is not moving a single finger, just closing his eyes and going back to sleep.

A light goes off to his right and Kei rummages through their closet. He crawls into bed with fresh pajamas on and after lowering all the blinds. Kei burrows next to him. His glasses are poking Tetsurou’s side but he’s too endeared to ask his boyfriend to please stop jabbing his ribs with his new, delicate eyewear. Tetsurou sighs, “I love you.”

Kei grunts in response.

Tetsurou pokes hard at what he can reach. “Bitch, say it back.”

Kei grunts harder.

#kurotsukki #krtksi #Fic #HQ!!#ivyfics #myfic

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ivyfics · 3 years

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hello friends I’m going to be updating my fics here so if u see me post like 3 million things all at once I apologise

#sorry #and hello

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ivyfics · 3 years

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gender IS a game and i'm uploading the files to emulation sites and the nintendo is going to send me a cease and desist over it

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ivyfics · 4 years

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With Me - Chap 5

Even as an alive person, Tetsurou wasn’t easy to live with. He knows that much at least, fleeting memories of frustration and roommate agreements floating around his head.

Not much has improved with him as a not-alive person either.

Read on AO3

Pairing: KuroTsuki Rating: M Chaps: 5/? (May change in the future) Additional Tags: Ghost!Kuroo, Haunted!Tsukishima, Tiniest bit of crack, Future angst.

PREVIOUS CHAP - NEXT CHAP - INDEX

“You are not walking out that door wearing that. Absolutely not.” Tetsurou floats, hands on his hips. Works on learning how to give someone the evil eye.

“Can you hear that?” Kei pauses, hand stilling where he’s tying his shoes. He tilts his head to the side and closes his eyes straining to hear. “It’s me, not caring.”

Kuroo is used to Kei being an absolute little shit by now, so he only scoffs. “You have such a nice ass and you waste it–squander it!–on ill-fitting garments. What has your ass ever done to you? Don’t you fucking grab those shoes!”

Kei pointedly ignores him, sliding his feet in, retying his already perfectly secure shoelaces. He’s a bunny-ears type of guy and it makes it worse for Kei to be ignoring him on purpose while making bunny ears with his laces.

Tetsurou shimmers close, unties the other one side, and starts tying it again, no bunny ears on sight. Kei tries to bat at him. “Don’t micromanage me. Go away!”

Tetsurou swerves before Kei can make contact and when he’s a safe distance away from Kei’s long arms, he pulls on the end of the hoodie’s string until it’s uneven.

Tetsurou hates that thing. Loathes it. “I’ll burn that thing!”

“Excuse me!?” Kei tightens the knot with deliberate force. “I get no respect in this house. This is my place! I pay rent!”

That feels like an unfair shot, Tetsurou has never had to pay rent because he doesn’t live here (Or at all, really.) “Yeah, well, I was here first.”

“You bitch.”

“Asshat.”

Kei’s alarm goes off and he pulls himself away from their squabble. “I’m going to be late today.”

Wednesdays are study group sessions for Kei. He gets home and immediately dives into bed until Tetsurou pesters him to at least change into pajamas. On the days where he’s especially annoying, he might get Kei to have a snack before bed. “Play nice with your study group. Take off your earphones once in a while, talk to another human being.”

“Yeah, yeah. See you later.”

“Don’t forget to eat if it’s getting late. Have a power break. Keep hydrated!”

“Yes, Mom. ” Kei walks away, middle finger high in the air.

Tetsurou doesn’t know it yet, but he started a war that day.

Even as an alive person, Tetsurou wasn’t easy to live with. He knows that much at least, fleeting memories of frustration and roommate agreements floating around his head.

Not much has improved with him as a not-alive person either. He’s nosy and too loud sometimes, he doesn’t hold his thoughts when he should. It’s not surprising that there are, occasionally, consequences to him being himself.

But this? This is going over the line.

Kei’s made a game of it, after their little spat last week. He’s turned it into slow, drawn-out torture. Taken all of the minuscule malice that lives in his gigantic body and poured it into the most miserable punishment.

Kei walks out of the bathroom already dressed. He comes out and stands, just stands, hands in his pockets, and manufactured aloofness radiating from his every pore.

Kuroo stills.

He looks once, twice, and gasps. “I don’t hate it. I don’t hate you in that. This is a mistake.”

There’s glee somewhere in Kei's expression. Hidden underneath all those layers of smugness and superiority, Kei is happy Tetsurou likes how he looks, he’s sure of it.

Maybe.

Maybe Tetsurou has finally lost the last marble he didn’t know he still had.

Kei is wearing what Tetsurou would consider the most obnoxious bright yellow tracksuit and he looks… so fucking good. Like Good good.

Like ‘Tetsurou might have tried to pick him up in a past life’ good. It’s slouchy and baggy and cool, somehow, matching to a tee with Kei’s pre-sleep vibe. The one that makes his eyes heavy and half-lidden and his expression slack. His limbs are leaden heavy and every move is set half a step slower.

It makes Tetsurou feel weird. Fizzy. He doesn’t know how to cope with it. “I’m sick.”

“You’re not sick,” Kei fires back. “You’re a ghost, you can’t get sick”

Tetsurou stammers. He feels off and Kei makes something inside him turn. He doesn't like turning, wants no part of it, no siree. He’s sick . “Oh, how do you know that, Mr.Ghost-Expert?”

“Can you get sick?” Kei's tone is mockingly bland.

“I don't know. What if this is ghost sick? Could I re-die? Like dead but a deeper level of dead.”

Kei’s eyes go nearly white with his exaggerated eye roll. Tetsurou half wants to smack him and half wants to run away and hide in between the walls for thirteen eons.

Kei gets home late one evening, walks in, drops everything, and stands in the middle of this kitchen. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Do you have to?“ Kei pleads. “Is there nothing else you could do?”

Tetsurou doesn’t pay attention to him at all, engrossed in his show.“What?"

"Kuroo."

Kei’s tone has him turning to see him.

Ah.

Tetsurou shrugs. “Pretend I am a cat. Accept my quirks with grace and a little loss of dignity.”

Kei closes his eyes, defeated, for a moment. He opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again.“Cats don’t crawl on walls.”

Tetsurou doesn’t move from his perch on the wall beside the window. “Only because of physics.”

“I could have lived somewhere else. Rented the other apartment. It smelled like mothballs, old pizza, and weed.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kei carries on, voice warping with his trek to the bedroom. “‘ This one is cheaper ’, I said. ‘ What’s a little ghost now and again’ , I thought?”

Tetsurou lets him be. “Fucked yourself over with that one my friend. Ghost time is all the time.”

Rain, this far up, is soundless. A soft cushion from the everyday noises that reach them from the outside, a barrier sprinkling from the sky. Rain falls.

Storms rage. They are loud winds beating against the side of buildings, announcing their violence with gusts like fists that carry darts of raindrops and shuddering cries of thunder. Unignorable.

Alive.

Tetsurou sighs, contented. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

The storm hasn’t disturbed Kei’s reading against the couch. He’s one of those people who shift, hasn’t been able to be still in one place while devouring pages. He started on the couch, sitting against the arm. He’s on the floor now, sitting with his legs crossed on the second-hand rug his brother sent him in the mail. It doesn’t go very well with the rest of the room with its odd orange circles and green lines, but a rug is a rug and the shabby hair looks soft, even if it’s worn in places.

Kei burned through half of his book since before the storm became one and at this pace, he’ll be done before bedtime. “I thought you liked it when it was sunny?”

He does. He very much does love to gorge on sun until he’s drunk. Storms have that same vitality, energy pouring out of the sky and beating itself against concrete and glass. “I like sunny days and storms. Rain is very middle ground. Overcast is neither here nor there so I don’t like those very much.” It’s quite poetic, really, seeing as Tetsurou is the embodiment of neither here nor there.Maybe it’s just sad. He’d rather think it’s poetic. “I love storms.”

Kei hums in agreement. Someday Tetsurou will learn how he can make even a hum sound patronizing. “Of course you do. Isn’t it like ghost law?”

“What?”

“It starts storming, and out come the creepy ghosts to murder everyone?”

Tetsurou sputters, offended. “I am not a creepy murder ghost. I’m a cute, helpful ghost.”

Kei almost chokes on the scoff that comes out of him. “Sure.”

Tetsurou is about to refute with a ten-point list of why he is a cute, helpful ghost before he’s interrupted by a flash of light, followed by a deafening crack of thunder that plunges them into darkness.

Kei lowers his book to his lap, throws a mildly annoyed glance at the speckled window. He looks up at the ceiling when he’s bored of watching rain hit the window. Let’s out a deep, bored sigh when there’s nothing else to do. “So. What tricks do you have?”

“Tricks”

Kei doesn’t even look at him. “Yeah. Ghost things. Spooky stuff. Tricks. ”

“I'm not a dog.”

“I wish you were a dog.”

Tetsurou smirks. Kei is not ready for this. This is his moment. Finally, he's going to scare Kei shitless and win this thing. He focuses on Kei, on the way he looks around, his human eyes finally getting used to the drastic shift in lighting. He’s relaxed, at ease with the noise and the thunder. Lightning strikes at a distance, it’s light faint through the sheets of water. It sets Kei’s face alight for a moment, bouncing off his glasses and Tetsurou admires his penchant for timing by releasing his question straight into Kei’s head exactly at that moment. What kind of dog?

Kei's shoulders go up with a jump, a choked gasp. His head swings forward with a jerk to look at Tetsurou.

Tetsurou riots. Just gives it all in one big evil villain laugh. Finally!

“Not funny.”

“ Au contraire , my friend, t’was very funny.”

“What the hell was that?”

“Oh, you know, a little creepy murder ghost action.”

Kei rubs at his temple. “So you can just talk into people’s heads. That’s neat. Just great.”

“Hey, you’re the one who asked for tricks.”

“If you can do that then why do you talk normally?”

Tetsurou shrugs.

He doesn't want to forget what it feels like to have a conversation, even with himself, to talk out loud. Losing words feels like losing more humanity. He doesn’t want to forego words for thoughts but Kei doesn’t need to know that. “It’s a bit rude, talking into people’s heads all the time.”

“Fair point,” Kei concedes with a nod, always one for politeness. It takes him thirty seconds to break from pretending he doesn’t want to know. His tongue clicks on his teeth, mild tone betraying the twitching of the hand not holding his book, thumb jammed on the page he was reading. He seems to notice he’s still holding it and places next to his knee after gently folding down a corner. “So, what else can you do?”

“Other than that, not much that you haven’t already seen.”

“Can you make other people see you?”

Kei looks at him, dissecting his expression. Tetsurou doesn’t know what he’s looking for but being on the end of Kei scrutiny always makes him antsy. “Uh, haven’t really tried?”

That is a lie, a bold-faced lie he hopes Kei doesn’t catch.

Of course, he’s tried. He tried, and tried and tried. It never worked. Nobody saw him. Nobody listened to him.

Nobody but Kei.

There are other things Tetsurou can do.

He can be solid but not for long. It drains him until he loses his shape and starts to phase through things unwittingly, making him feel as if there were two tons of bricks weighing him down for a while. He had to learn how to stop going through shit. It was so annoying, trying to grab onto something and going through it instead.

To make himself solid is not to return to his body. It’s not summoning a physical copy. Tetsurou is not flesh and blood. It is to steel the rawness of the entity that he is, pure unadulterated energy. Create a case around it, add weight but still feels like a ghost.

Thankfully, Kei doesn’t catch on and moves along. “Can you possess things? Make the couch cushion possessed?”

“Objects are a different thing. You see me move shit around all the time.”

“But is it like...Telepathically?”

Kei has been curious about it for a while, Tetsurou can guess, hearing the hidden excitement in his voice. “Yes. No. More like, a magnet, I guess?”

Tetsurou basically tapes the energy coming off of him to the energy left behind on objects until he can move them. Objects don’t particularly feel anything but if it’s a big object Tetsurou will feel very icky so he tries to avoid doing all of these things at all costs.

Then he opens his big mouth and gives Kei unsolicited information. “For humans, it feels wrong.”

It’s the best he can come up with to describe it. The energy of living human people is a cobweb of light surrounding them and what they touch. Strings upon strings of energy spooled together and slowly unraveling on all the things they come in contact with. Kei’s are a mix of—as a big Fuck you! to Tetsurou himself– yellow and orange, with some shiny black coming through very rarely.

He hates human strings. Every time he’s run through them even on accident it’s thrown him for a loop straight into hell. Minus zero out of ten, would definitely not recommend.

Kei gives him a look, a full one, with pursed lips and thinking eyebrows.

Tetsurou sighs. “You want to feel, don’t you?”

He nods. “I wanna feel.”

“Dude, it’s going to feel bad. Like, Awful bad.”

Kei juts out his hand, unphased. Tetsurou reluctantly brings his own hand forward, slowly, to give Kei a chance to change his mind. He doesn’t. The tip of Tetsurou’s finger glides over the top of Kei’s palm, phases through the barest amount, and a shock runs through his arm. Kei pulls away first and stares at his hand, runs the fingers of his free hand over the spot Tetsurou touched over and over.

He trips over his words trying to get them out. “It's like ice but more.”

“That’s...pretty accurate actually.” The freezing cold of the universe doesn’t solely belong to the void of endless black among the stars. For Tetsurou it’s frost burn, menthol invading his nose and his chest until he’s sure he’ll shatter.

“How?”

“As you know, there is not much material in the So now you’re transparent department, but I’ve thought about this a lot, so I think I have it down.”

He appreciates Kei’s restraint at the lack of an eye roll, but even in the dark, he can sense the twitch in Kei’s eyelid. “I think people who are compatible just have compatible energy. That spark everyone talks about. Some people aren’t so it feels icky.”

Kei does not appreciate his scientific breakthrough. “What?”

He rewinds a couple of steps. “Energy transfers through touch. It’s why it feels… icky to touch people. Alive people, I mean. For me. I—It’s not meant for me anymore. I’m different so it feels weird. It’s not compatible energy so you feel the oddness. Things—like the walls and stuff—they get charged with the energy of the stuff around them. Your bed, the counter, all of that.”

“My bed?”

“Yeah, your bed has your strings all over it.”

“That sounds so wrong,” Kei shudders out and closes his eyes, leaning his head against the wall. The rain has picked up, drowning out everything else but the two of them, enveloped in the shadows of Kei’s books and the peek of moonlight valiantly sailing through the storm, reaching past the windows to die on the floorboards. A brave, silent death, beaten down by the sound of the wind slapping raindrops against glass. It’s a painting, a vignette of quiet.

Kei’s breathing is even, not daring to disturb the storm raging outside. “Hmm. Tell me more about these...strings I apparently leave all over my bed.”

Tetsurou matches the sound as best he can. He’s guessing at the volume, imagines his vocal cords in his mind’s eyes, and wills them to be calm. “Over everything, really. Just by being around it, it becomes a little more yours. It soaks up who you are, how you feel.”

“Everything should be yours, then,” Kei says, “since you’re here all the time.”

Tetsurou doesn’t leave anything behind. He doesn’t own anything anymore, really, other than what is left of him, his thoughts and his words; but Kei is happy and content with that lazy smile of his he’s probably not aware he’s showing and Tetsurou is not in the business of making Kei unhappy. He’ll be the scary, creepy ghost that owns Kei's apartment and that comes out during thunderstorms.

He laughs it off and they talk for hours and hours in low voices and hushed tones while water beats around them and Tetsurou expressly does not dwell on how much he wishes he could leave something of himself behind in their shared four walls, or own something inside the apartment other than his thoughts.

Bladder pressing down on his need for sleep, Kei crawls out of bed, hands smudging his glasses. If he’d exert the effort of putting them on properly he wouldn’t have walked into a wall, but you live and you learn. Halfway to the bathroom, he stops. The window is open, curtain fluttering with sporadic gusts of wind.

Were he someone else, he’d think of stories of spirits and things from the great beyond told in the dark.

On the windowsill is Kuroo, face lax, and centered on faraway worlds. The ink of his hair blends with the shade of the almost raggedy navy fabric, shoulders slumped and curled where he hugs a single knee against his chest.

Save for now, Kuroo has always looked alive.

Splashes of moonlight dance on his skin, bursts aided by the blowing breeze, light on ivory.

Kei is half asleep, surely, to think that whatever ethereal being is perched on his windowsill is made of the same energy as the bumbling nerd leaving obscene drawings on his mirror.

Whoever, whatever it is, they are filled with melancholy seeping through their form, pools of something beyond Kei’s ability to comprehend with his sleep-addled mind in the half-lidded gaze peering up at the moon.

Kei goes back to his room with slow steps, lays back on the bed, bathroom break forgotten. Slumber pulls him back, witching hour casting a veil of untruth to his late-night sightseeing until he wakes an hour later, bladder screaming.

When Kei wakes next, fully, late night memories are cast as fleeting dreams that manage to escape him in the rays of sunshine now slanting through his blinds, body tangled up underneath covers and a blanket of something close to sadness on his shoulders.

Kei’s missing something, he knows.

It follows him when brushing his teeth, when he drops his toast butter-side down on the floor when he steps on gum on his way to class. He doesn’t have a clue what it might be.

The next couple of nights find him sleepless.

Kei tosses and turns until he gives up, flinching when his feet meet cold tile. He slumps to the living room defeated and wanting company to distract him from his lack of sleep.

Instead, he’s met with a specter.

The odd wave that chokes him is déjà vu , he knows, but the once useless factoid of its opposite lives within that moment too. A new friend with an old face, twisted and blended in mismatching, perfectly fitting parts, stumbling into an unknown place for the millionth time.

Jamais vu has never made sense until it has.

Kuroo doesn’t register his presence at all.

He’s torn between calling out for comfort and breaking the spell that has fallen over them silently.

One more look at Kuroo and he’s set.

Kei’s sheets are as unforgiving as when he first rose.

#ghostfic #withme #kurotsukki #kurotsuki #hq #haikyuu!!

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