The Reckless & The Brave Book 1: Hold Me Tight Or Don't [Kurotsuki]

Chapter 13

"You okay, Tsukki?" Yamaguchi asks. They're sitting at a coffee shop not far from Kei's apartment. Kuroo had left for his job orientation two days ago and Kei was going a little stir crazy. He'd even asked Captain if anyone had a mission he could take part in but there'd been nothing for him. He decided to hunt for apartments to take his mind off his nerves and since Yamaguchi was released from the hospital a few days ago he'd decided to invite him to come along.

"I haven't been sleeping well," He admits, keeping his gaze on his coffee. The nightmares have been frequent. Even with Kuroo sleeping beside him he'd still woken up screaming a few times. It'd been hard to explain away. Kuroo had even offered to delay his trip but Kei didn't want to make that big of a deal of it.

"Me neither really, it's the first time I've ever been injured and I keep remembering my mom's face when she first saw me in the hospital," Yamaguchi rips a piece of croissant off and eats it. "How many more apartments are there to look at?"

"Just one more appointment today," Kei checks his phone. He'd texted information about each apartment to Kuroo throughout the day and he hadn't gotten a response yet. Kuroo had been pretty quick to respond up till now. Kei knows that he's working and it's normal for him not to respond but each unread message reminds him of the past.

"Are you sure it's just the sleep thing?"

"No..."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"It makes me sound paranoid," he admits.

"I think it's basically our jobs to be paranoid," Yamaguchi points out. Tsukishima scoffs and drinks some of his coffee.

"Kuroo hasn't answered my texts today. I guess I'm just more, anxious about him being gone than I thought I would be. It's stupid when I've gone on plenty of business trips since being back with him. But knowing that he's the one that's out of town makes me feel like he's leaving again," Kei knows that it's not what's happening, he knows that. He just can't seem to calm the anxiety it causes. He needs to be better than this. All of the training he'd gotten to control his emotions was useless.

"You really love him huh Tsukki," Yamaguchi has a dopey grin on his face. Kei raises his hand to touch the ring before he remembers that it's not there anymore. Kuroo took it with him on his business trip.

"I'm afraid to love him but I don't know if I could actually stop. I think all that training we had to go through with Guess to control our emotions was a waste of time. Kuroo gets into my head and it all goes out the window."

"Why don't you go back?" Yamaguchi asks.

"To the training facility?"

"Nah I saw Guess and Ushiwaka at headquarters yesterday. There are no new recruits so they're there for a bit," It's not a bad idea, they're always encouraged to keep up their training. Kei only really trains with Iwaizumi, the rest of the time he avoids the trainers. Guess especially. He was good at what he did but he got on Kei's nerves. Kei is pretty sure he gets on everyone's nerves on purpose. The red-haired man seems to enjoy getting under people's skin.

"I'll consider it." He will but he won't go in the end. "I think I'll just go beat up Iwaizumi or something. Let's go see that last apartment." He stands up and waits to make sure Yamaguchi does as well before he heads out of the coffee shop and to the apartment complex across the street. He's glad that he decided to bring Yamaguchi along for this. His friendly demeanor makes the rental agents open right up and he doesn't seem to mind asking all the questions you're supposed to ask when looking for an apartment. Kei had let Kuroo take the lead the last time they'd gotten an apartment together and He'd loved the place but he needs to have more control this time because there's still this little voice in the back of his head telling him not to trust the other man.