Re: Burning Bright
Magali Swinderman
The elite Spring Leaf Academy for Talented Young Magicians has a pecking order that's been carved out across twelve complicated years of blood, sweat, and charisma. Tooru is more than a little stressed when the arrival of the famous Kuroo Tetsurou threatens to change everything.
dear sushibomb
so i was gonna write you a tiny one shot
and then...
i don't know what happened im sorry
well, this is a little fluffy and a little smutty
and a little long
sorry about that
it's still a one shot?
...a long shot
Matsukawa, sitting opposite him, almost chokes on a piece of mochi in laughter, white sugar sticking to his cracked lips, and Hanamaki looks tempted to shoot a quick water spell at his face to clean it off. Honestly, though, Hanamaki always looks a bit tempted to send a water spell at Matsukawa, even if he mostly hides it with that impassive expression on his face.
A transfer in the third year of high school is practically unheard of, although Tooru thinks he might have been told about it happening after that famous wild magic incident in Sapporo a few years ago had scared half of the Snow Path students to schools on any island but Hokkaido.
Sighing and straightening his posture, Tooru focuses on completing his cleaning of the tools, setting them down in their appropriate places as Hajime presses his finger back to the pot to check the temperature of the water. As he methodically sets the whisk into position, he can feel the build of the magic in his hands.
His hands tingle as he reaches for the green tea powder, opening the the matcha tin and adding three spoons of it to each of their cups as his friends continue their speculation about the transfer student around him. He pays attention with half an ear as he concentrates on adding the exact same amount of water to each of their cups, and then whisking exactly twelve times until the tea froths.
Kuroo runs a hand through his impossibly messy hair and sighs, giving his attention back to the vice principal and their ritual magics teacher, who gesture to the books. He looks resigned about them, and Tooru wonders if--
But Tooru had wanted to be alone, just in case. His bandages, wrapped snugly around his torso and winding around his hips and down his left thigh, had chafed against raw skin, and he'd forced himself to watch the final match with his jaw tight with tension. On TV, Kuroo's lips had curled up at the corner as he'd flung fire around with an easy grace. His posture had been relaxed but his eyes had been as alight as his fingertips, excited and alive and competitive in ways that made Tooru remember how, even only a few weeks earlier, he'd wanted to be there, in the ring, fighting for the title, too.
Yahaba gives him a skeptical look. "I was going to ask for your help on a new magical intention exercise Matsui gave us third period. Watari overdid things and sucked all the water out of the air, which basically turned our classroom into a rain-water swimming pool, but all I've managed is making the wood of the bookshelves turn halfway back into trees."
"I am one year ahead of you," Tooru replies, dropping his arm from Yahaba's shoulders as they reach the automatic doors of the high school dorm building. In contrast to the school learning campus, which is still the original Edo Period architecture, the dorms are all far more modern, and after spending all day in a mild chill, Tooru appreciates the immediacy of centralized heating as they step into the building. "And I'm the top student in my class. That means whichever exercise it is, I've done it, and excelled at it. So trust me!"
Laughing, Yahaba rolls his eyes. "Right, right." He combs his fingers through his hair and then tugs lightly at his scarf as they both head for the stairwell. "By the way, I heard you spilled tea all over yourself in class today!"
"You're not usually forgetful, Oikawa." Yahaba gives him a suspicious look, mixed with a bit of indulgence, and Tooru grins. He adores Yahaba, and he feels pretty confident about possibly leaving the team in his hands next year.
"You know what?" Yahaba wrinkles his nose thoughtfully as he presses his ID card to the door to give himself access to his floor. "You should use some of that charisma and recruit the King for Token."
Yahaba laughs and disappears through the double doors with a quick, "see you at practice, Captain!" and Tooru makes his way to the fifth floor, where this year-mates' rooms line up along a narrow hallway.
Almost all the rooms at Blue Castle are shared, but Tooru's had his own for two years now. The previous eleven years he'd roomed with Hajime, but one of the perks of Hajime being student council president is his fancy single occupant room downstairs on the first floor, with enough space for a television, two big comfortable sofas, and a table, making it easy for him to hold student council meetings.
Tooru claims a huge swath of the floor pretty often for movie marathons, and Hajime never seems to mind. He probably misses Tooru, honestly, because his life is about a hundred times more interesting when Tooru's around. Hajime has a tendency to get way too serious without Tooru to needle him into having fun, after all, even if he hates Tooru's taste in music and films and everything else. Often, Tooru wonders how they've managed to stay best friends for so long without much of anything but magic in common, but most of the time Tooru figures it's because they're so used to each other's quirks that they've stopped seeing all the differences.
Anyway, since Hajime'd moved out, Tooru's had their old double to himself. It's strange to look over to the other side of the room and see white blank walls instead of Hajime's volleyball posters and super-nerdy two-by-four meter poster of the periodic table, but something keeps him from putting any of his own extra posters up in that blank space. Maybe, Tooru thinks, as he fishes his key out of his pocket to let himself in, it's because he secretly still considers that side of the room Hajime's, or something.
Opening his door, Tooru slips out of his shoes and shuffles into the room, dropping his bag at his desk. It makes a demoralizing thud as it hits the wooden surface, and Tooru sighs, looking longingly at his bed, considering if he has enough time for a nap.
Tooru's key falls from his hand and clatters to the floor, and he spins around to find Kuroo Tetsurou sitting on Hajime's old bed on the other side of the room, resting his weight on his hands. His shirt is still barely halfway buttoned, and he's even more disheveled than he'd been earlier, clothes wrinkled and uniform slacks now rolled up twice to reveal a slice of tanned ankle. His messy hair falls into his face and he's smiling again, head tilted sideways as he takes Tooru in.
"You're the first magical type I've met that likes that sort of thing," Kuroo says, focus flitting back to Tooru's wall of posters, his gaze lingering on the Elemental Arena Japanese national league poster from 2010. "Most of you only want to watch magical stuff, like Token or whatever."
"It's called Elemental Arena." Tooru unbuttons his wool coat slowly, sliding it off and throwing it on his desk. He lets his scarf fall to the floor, along with the tea-stained slacks he'd worn and changed out of earlier today and some unsorted paperwork for gear requisitions for the team's two new first year players. "I'm captain of the school team."
"Yeah," Kuroo says, scratching at a cheek that's lightly stubbled, "but everyone in your family probably has magic, right? In mine, it's just me, so I grew up with people who don't care about weird shit, like, you know, 'tea ceremony magic' and all that." His fingertips are black. Hajime's have never gone that dark, since he doesn't use enough of his element to cause the singe that makes fire magicians easy to pick out in a crowd. "Plus, I don't get how Star Trek and faeries or aliens or whatever can be all that exciting when you have actual magic."
"And you're clearly a nerd," replies Kuroo, seeming delighted with the fact. "Which is a relief, honestly. Because the way everyone was talking you up, you sounded like a real asshole." He stretches out on the bed, then, turned sideways so he can still face Tooru. "I like nerds." His eyes gleam, and Tooru's breath catches in his chest for a moment.
"I like having my own room." Looking away from Kuroo pointedly, Tooru strips off his blazer and crosses the room to put it on the hanger he leaves on the front of his wardrobe. He takes a moment, as he straightens the lapels, to figure out how he should direct this conversation, and, for the first time in a long time, is uncertain if he even can. He licks his lips.
Tooru bristles, because Kuroo sounds a bit like Tooru's dad when he says it. "A waste of time, don't you agree, Tooru? Iwaizumi is student council president, and you're spending all your free time on a game?"
"Elemental Arena is the most popular game in Japan." Tooru narrows his eyes. "And don't worry, I wouldn't expect a fire magician to understand the intricacy of a game that's more about strategy than blowing things up."
"Hmm." Kuroo runs his hand through his hair. "If you say so." His phone beeps twice, and he pulls it out of his pocket to check the screen. He frowns at it, the first frown Tooru's seen from him, and then, without answering it, he slides it back into his pocket. Then he sits up, snagging a book from the top of the stack of them next to his bed. "Time to learn all about magic, I guess."
A group of elementary school students notice him, then, and, with awed, excited voices, call him over like they do with Tooru sometimes, tugging on the sleeve of his rumpled blazer. He joins them, easily, and Tooru forces his attention back to his friends.
Hajime snarls at him, which sets Matsukawa and Hanamaki off laughing again, and Tooru shoves a huge bite of rice into his mouth, smiling all the while. He spares another glance over at Kuroo, then, and this time, Hajime follows his gaze.
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