Work Text:
Title: Look But Not Touch
Author: Triste
Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke
Pairing: Akashi/Kuroko
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
Disclaimer: Not mine
Reeeeally belated fic for AkaKuro day, and also for the lovely Sei who wanted to see more of this pairing. <3
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The crowd of girls surrounding Kuroko and Akashi are watching them with bated breath and sparkling eyes, which Kise can sort of understand because, well, he looks at Kuroko like that a lot, too, but what he doesn’t appreciate about the performance before him (and it really is an act, or at least he hopes it is, because he’d cry if it wasn’t) is that he, along with the audience, has been forced to play the role of spectator when, in all honestly, he’d much rather be a participant.
“I won’t let you sleep tonight, Tetsuya,” says Akashi, lips scandalously close to Kuroko’s.
“Oh, Seijuurou.”
It’s obviously staged, but the girls start squealing regardless when Kuroko swoons into Akashi’s embrace. Kise, unable to keep quiet any longer, forgets about his own group that he’s supposed to be entertaining in favour of voicing his disapproval.
“This just isn’t right,” he grumbles, giving Kuroko his most pitiful wounded puppy face. “It sounds so weird for you to be on a first name basis with Akashicchi.”
“I’m working under orders from our captain,” Kuroko replies, switching from being maidenly and love struck to his usual blank expression.
Kise pouts, unimpressed, but then he brightens. “You can call me Ryouta if you want,” he offers hopefully.
“Not now, Kise-kun, I’m busy.”
Kise crumples at the rejection, and he turns, resentful and accusatory, to Akashi. “Why are we doing this? And whose idea was it to cosplay Ouran High School Host Club? More importantly, how come you and Kurokocchi get to play the part of the homo twins?”
Akashi’s smile is pleasant on the surface, but even Kise, dense as he can be sometimes, is able to notice the subtle twitching of his right eyebrow, which tells him without words ‘keep talking to me like that, peasant, and I’ll gut you.’
“In answer to your first question,” Akashi begins, his tone as amiable as his facial appearance, but with an icy undercurrent that makes Kise’s knees tremble with fear, “this event is being held to raise funds for the basketball club’s budget while also being a part of the school’s culture fair. In other words, we’re killing two birds with one stone.”
Their captain really shouldn’t use words like ‘killing’ so joyfully, Kise thinks, but he has enough sense to stay silent and let Akashi continue.
“Furthermore, I believe it was your idea to do a shoujo manga cosplay,” Akashi reminds him.
“Well, yeah,” Kise agrees, “but I was thinking more along the lines of something more, um, traditional.” With him and Kuroko as the hero and heroine, he adds (but only inside his mind, of course).
“We’ll earn more money this way. And finally, can you imagine Tetsuya or myself pretending to be the twin brother of Atsushi, for example?”
Shuddering at the mental image, Kise has to concede it’s a good point.
“Besides, Tetsuya and I are of a similar height, build and appearance, so it was the most logical choice,” Akashi concludes. “But if you have any further complaints, please feel free to let me know.”
He doesn’t bother to add ‘if you dare,’ but then again, there’s no need. Kise gets the message quite clearly. Akashi and lenient are an oxymoron, and his idiocy tolerance limit is already reaching its maximum.
Even so, Kise can’t resist one last attempt.
“It’s still not fair how you to get to wear matching outfits,” he mutters. “I want to try the pair look with Kurokocchi too!”
That would be the most awesome thing ever, and far, far better than what he’s doing at the moment, which happens to be dressing up as the host club’s founder and president (also known as the lonely prince), Suoh Tamaki, but Akashi seems to be under the impression that the role suits him perfectly.
He’s got it all wrong, in Kise’s opinion, although he admits Midorima is a very convincing Ootori Kyouya (it’s the glasses, strict upbringing and stick in the mud attitude that does it), but Murasakibara as Honey-senpai is plain disturbing, even though he does appear to enjoy being fed sweets and given cute plush toys by his adoring fans, and Aomine as Mori makes even less sense.
Fortunately (or not, depending on what happens when Aomine wakes up), Akashi had the foresight to drug his sports drink with sedative, which is why he’s sleeping soundly and not putting up a fight, oblivious to Kise’s suffering. A circle of girls admires his slumbering form, but only from a safe distance, as if he’s a tiger in a petting zoo or something.
Sulking, Kise appeals to Kuroko instead. “Why are you going along with this? I know we’re all terrified of disobeying Akashicchi, but you’re taking this stupid parody way too seriously.”
Kuroko gives him the thumbs-up sign. “Akashi-kun promised me a week’s worth of vanilla shakes if I made it more convincing.”
“But... but...” His betrayal leaves Kise on the verge of tears, especially when he realises what Akashi’s true intention is. Killing two birds with one stone, indeed, the crafty devil. “He’ll be taking you out to Maji Burger every day, seven times in total. That’s called a date, Kurokocchi!”
“Honestly, Ryouta, you’re making this unnecessarily complicated,” Akashi sighs. “It’s merely a reward for my subordinate’s hard work.”
“What about me, Aominecchi, Midorimacchi and Murasakibaracchi, then?”
“You three get to carry on existing, unharmed.” Akashi’s smile returns, but it’s darker now, and twice as frightening. “Unless, of course, you’d prefer me to do to you what I did to Daiki, because at this moment, it’s becoming more and more appealing.”
Kise quails, because he’s fairly sure Akashi would slip him something other than sleeping pills, like laxatives, or possibly poison (but maybe that’s his paranoia speaking), and reminds himself to never accept a drink from their captain in the future again (more importantly, he’s just witnessed undeniable proof that Akashi exclusively favours Kuroko over the rest of them, and that he has an even larger soft spot for him than Kise does).
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, bowing down to Akashi’s superior status of Alpha male in the Teikou basketball club ranking order (one that even Aomine doesn’t have the nerve to challenge). “Please continue.”
“That’s more like it,” Akashi says, pleased with Kise’s change of attitude. “You may be a masochistic fool, but you know your place. In acknowledgement of your deference, I shall kindly permit you to keep a signed copy of Tetsuya’s photo collection. I was planning to sell them all, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to let you have it.”
He’s talking about the pictures Akashi had them pose for two weeks before, which they’ll probably make a truckload of money from, if only for the sheer amount of topless snaps. If Kise’s memory serves him correctly, there should be a photograph of Kuroko in the girl’s summer uniform somewhere in his book, and he’s determined to blow it up and put it as pride of place on his wall (while also doing dirty, shameless things in front of it).
While he’s aware that he’s being appeased by Akashi throwing him scraps, it’s still better than nothing, so he only pouts a little bit when he and Kuroko resume their incestuous pretence.
Kuroko goes back to making come to bed eyes at Akashi, and the squealing starts up once more when Akashi leans in to run a fingertip along the line of Kuroko’s throat. The way Kuroko shivers definitely isn’t an act, and neither is Akashi’s predatory expression.
They’re enjoying this, or at least Akashi and the fan girls are, while Kise is resigned to only ever being able to look but not touch.