Akaashi's 18th (and the events that followed...)

31. The Call

One thing Kuroo liked about Kenma being at university was that their apartments were close. As in, next door. Meaning, he could easily check up on Kenma to make sure he was eating, and bang on the adjoining wall when he could hear the bleeps of a console going off late into the night.

"Kuroo?" He heard a voice from behind his front door. Another thing he enjoyed was finally being able to see his best friend on a frequent basis again.

Kuroo smiled to himself as he strode over to it, pressing his ear against the door. "Who is it?"

"You know full well who it is. Let me in."

Kuroo cackled, flipping the latch and allowing the bedraggled-looking man to enter, but fell silent as he saw the state Kenma was in. "Seriously? How many days have you worn those clothes?" He chucked one of his clean shirts over to the sofa, which had previously been on the kitchen table, freshly laundered and waiting to be put away. "And why're you here at half past midnight?"

"No food in the fridge." Well, at least Kenma admitted that he needed to eat to survive.

"Kyanma!" Kuroo yelled, before realising that Bokuto, on the next floor up, would probably be asleep, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I'm not bailing you out again after this, got it?"

There was no reply, and Kuroo sighed, knowing that Kenma had realised this threat to be as empty as all his previous warnings, which he had, of course, ignored entirely. After Kuroo had thrown his friend a pair of tracksuit bottoms from his room, he turned to the kitchen cupboards, peering inside with dread. Yep, all he had left was half a bag of rice, some sesame oil, and a few drops of soy sauce left in a bottle.

He chucked the remaining rice into the cheap steamer he had bought from Aeon, and turned it on, moving to the fridge. A small head of broccoli and a block of tofu. Well, that would have to do, he thought as he took out the tofu and began chopping it up into little blocks.

"C'mover and help me," Kuroo called over his shoulder, and soon enough, the sound pattering of feet against the cold floor grew louder, until there was a tired, hungry aura poking through Kuroo's exasperated one.

"What do I do?" Kenma, of course, had never cooked in his life. Kuroo remembered him buying a trolley full of instant meals the last time he had forced Kenma to go shopping. Kuroo, unlike most students, tried to make as many meals from scratch as he could. It was no use wanting to be in the sporting industry without a proper diet. The protein in the tofu and the vitamins in the broccoli and the omega fatty acids in the sesame oil would keep his heart and lungs healthy, to pump blood around his body and revitalise him for the week of education ahead.

"You can finish cutting the broccoli, I'll fry the tofu," Kuroo instructed, pouring some sesame oil into a pan and turning on the stove and handing Kenma a knife.

Kenma stared at the knife silently. Kuroo rolled his eyes, moving behind his friend and placing his hands over the top, guiding Kenma's left hand to the broccoli stems, and the right hand with the knife, to chop each segment off. Kuroo felt the arm underneath him tense. He glanced down at Kenma's face, which had turned a light pink.

"You don't have to stare at me." Although the voice was quiet, it carried around the small kitchen, filling the silent gap.

Kuroo averted his gaze as soon as Kenma had spoken. "You are blushing though," he pointed out.

"Am not," Kenma murmured. "It's just hot next to the stove. Are you trying to burn the oil?"

"Kuso!" Kuroo exclaimed as he heard a crackling from the pan. The sesame oil was bubbling and hissing - had it burned? Kuroo chucked a piece of tofu into the pan, and it sizzled contentedly. No, it wasn't. He pushed the rest off the chopping board with a knife before stirring it around, and got out a pan of water to boil the broccoli. His utensils budget hadn't been large enough for a vegetable steamer, so they wouldn't have quite as many nutrients as they could, but at least Kenma would have to eat something other than pot noodle and plastic-wrapped apple pies.