We Were Phoenixes || Kuroo Tetsurou

[5]

It took Kuroo and Chiyome six weeks and 13 test missions to learn to work together — beating out both Nekomata and Yamiji's predictions at seven missions and four, respectively. (Yamiji is a bit a dreamer, let's be honest.) By the end of their second year they were moving together like a well oiled machine... only to snap out the fantasy the moment the mission ended and immediately take to bickering before walking off in opposite directions, not to speak again until the next one.

Their arguments caused such a ruckus that the unit leaders, with the understanding that it was their place to show young recruits the meaning of the adage "it could always be worse," decided to use the third year assignments to show Chiyome and Kuroo what a real challenge was. So when the beginning of the academic year rolled around (after just a three day break from the previous year) Chiyome's name stood next to Bokuto's and Kuroo's beside one Terushima Yuuji, much to the relief of one Sawamura Daichi, who was still having nightmares about Bokuto's fuck ups involving explosives and one Kita Shinsuke, who had gotten suspiciously good at identifying poisons during his year with Terushima.

The pairings raised a few eyebrows of the higher-ups, but Nekomata eased all worries by reminding them that third year was when, for half the missions, upperclassmen were added to the mix for guidance and to foster relationships between the different grades.

Chiyome had shrugged at the assignment, still a little peeved she wasn't with her brother but she figured, as long as it wasn't Kuroo again, she could handle anything. Kuroo, on the other hand, had just spent a year getting used to one person's quirks and he wasn't looking forward to another's. On the other hand, he knew Bokuto rather well and the thought of Chiyome struggling to reign the boisterous boy in was both amusing and terrifying.

In his two years, so far, at the academy the raven-haired teen had stood out amongst his peers as one of the most fiercely loyal recruits — protecting even those he didn't agree with simply because they were on his team. Kuroo would have never said that sense of loyalty and concern extended to that stubborn girl he'd been partnered with the year before, but as he watched her walk with the loud-mouthed, overly excited, ticking time bomb of a man, he felt the need to make sure she would be okay.

"Hey," he said to her as he grabbed her arm in the courtyard between the classroom and mission area. "Be careful, okay? Bokuto is a loose canon and you could get hurt if you don't treat missions with him with caution."

His words were met with a slight frown as Chiyome looked up at him with scrunched brows.

"I'm not incompetent, Kuroo," she said, yanking her arm out of his grasp and turning away from him. "Your concern is insulting."

- - -

Tears were running down Kuroo's face as he desperately swiped at his cheeks with the sleeve of his black suit. There were dozens of things he could have had on his mind that moment. Kenma was at his right and Yaku stood at his left and he could have been concerned about how they were all together and easy targets. He could be fretting over looking too much like an emotional wreck when he's supposed to be a hardened secret agent. He could be cursing himself for destroying his only good suit with his sweat and the never ending leaking of his eyes, but the only thought on his mind as incense swirled around his head was that Chiyome would have hated all this attention

"God, this is all your fault," he whispered to the closed casket. "You wouldn't have any of this attention if you'd just let me protect you."

There was so much more to do. More ceremony, more steps, more mourning, but the government was running the show and everything was going to go quick. Right now, this was the last time he could pretend she was still okay, hidden inside that wooden box, but soon, she'd be ashes in his hand, ready to float away forever. The thought was overwhelming and he tuned out the world as he let himself fall to his knees before her, leaning his head on the cool wood with tears streaming down his neck.