Bokuto/Kuroo, Mornings
Kuroo wakes up in the best way. He comes to awareness slowly, and admittedly a little reluctantly, but it’s the weekend and he mentally praises everything he can think of that there’s no alarm ringing and shaking against the bedside table. Instead, there’s a faint glow of morning light through their not-quite-thick-enough curtains, the bitter scent and puttering sound of brewing coffee drifting in from the kitchen, and, best of all, Bokuto’s arm heavy and comfortable on his hip. He lies still for several long moments, absorbing the morning and trying to convince himself to wake the rest of the way up.
The pillow over his head is carefully lifted, and now he can hear birdsong through the open window.
“I know you’re awake,” Bokuto says, almost whispering. His breath ghosts across Kuroo’s cheek and makes him shiver, and Kuroo is torn between a desire to reclaim the pillow and lounge in sleepy comfort, or rolling over.
He settles on the latter. Bokuto’s big and muscley and his big muscles make for excellent substitute pillows. Bokuto laughs when Kuroo flops around and shoves his face against his bicep, and Kuroo only grumbles a little bit when Bokuto worms his arm around Kuroo’s shoulders and hugs him tight against his chest.
Bokuto isn’t wearing his usual sleeping shirt, and Kuroo smells cut grass and soap on his skin. Bokuto’s already been up and gone for his morning run and showered, and Kuroo’s still in bed. He feels vaguely pathetic about that, but also -- he’s pretty certain that morning runs are the work of the devil. He much prefers running in the late evening, when the sun is down and the pavement is warm from the day but the air has cooled and, more importantly, he’s actually awake and ready to wind down for the night.
He’d thought owls were supposed to like being up at night, but Bokuto has almost as strong an aversion to Kuroo’s evening runs as Kuroo does to the morning ones. They compromise by running together in the middle of the day, when the sun is high and hot and they’re both unhappy about it.
Bokuto jogs his shoulder, and Kuroo blinks a sleepy scowl at him. “It’s like ten-thirty,” he says, in a tone that suggests that ten-thirty is somehow not an appropriate time to wake up on the weekends. He pauses to kiss Kuroo’s forehead. “You wanna get up now?” he asks, not even trying to hide his eagerness. “I made coffee and breakfast and I texted Kenma, he’s gonna come over to play that new game later but we have time to go shopping or to the library or something first if you want.”
Kuroo zeroes in on the most important word in Bokuto’s little speech. “Coffee,” he agrees, and Bokuto’s breath is toothpaste-minty when he laughs in Kuroo’s face and kisses him again.
“Yeah yeah. You addict.” He says it fondly, as if Kuroo’s need for caffeine hadn’t been a point of contention for them in the first few months they lived together, before Bokuto aggressively learned how to use the coffee machine and Kuroo figured out how to navigate mornings with an exhaustingly energetic partner without being (as Kenma put it, during a somewhat forlorn phone call) a troublesome grouch.
Kuroo realizes that Bokuto is watching him with a worried, self-conscious expression, and he can tell that the prolonged stillness is starting to get to him. He finally rolls and stretches and makes slow movements towards getting out of bed. Bokuto is on his feet in a second, and he reaches a hand out to Kuroo in some parody of gallantry. Kuroo uses it to pull himself up and into Bokuto’s arms. He kisses him -- close-mouthed, because Bokuto’s lips might be minty fresh but Kuroo’s morning breath is legendary in its awfulness.
“I love you,” Kuroo mumbles against his mouth. He feels Bokuto’s answering grin.
“Yeah? Even before coffee?”
Kuroo steps deliberately on his foot on the way to the kitchen. Bokuto yelps and laughs and he perches eagerly on the counter while Kuroo drains his first cup, then immediately launches into a detailed story of what he’d seen on his run that morning, where he’d gone, what he and Akaashi talked about yesterday while Kuroo was in class.
When he goes to refill his mug, Kuroo catches one of Bokuto’s flailing hands and squeezes it tight.
“Always,” he says firmly, and Bokuto blinks, then ducks his head in embarrassed relief.
“I know,” Bokuto mumbles at his lap. “Just, sometimes… you know…” he flounders for words for a moment, then gives up with a self-conscious shrug.
Kuroo squeezes his hand again and goes in for a kiss that Bokuto dodges with a loud complaint about his disgusting breath. “I do.”