#times three

Ushijima nodded and they listened to Daichi go through his first set.  Just over halfway through the set Tetsurou heard familiar footsteps heading towards them.  He took a deep breath just as the door backstage opened - he didn’t even bother wondering anymore just how he was so damn tuned into that presence - and the object of his affections walked in.

Tetsurou watched as Asahi sidled up to Ushijima and leaned in to ask him a question.  He watched out of the corner of his eye as they talked quietly.  It took everything he had not to crush his clipboard when Asahi laughed softly and shook his head at something Ushijima said.

“Sawamura’s nearly done with the solo act,” Yaku’s voice came over his headset.  “Is Azumane ready to take the stage?”

Tetsurou swallowed - his heart, his pride, his jealousy - and cleared his throat loud enough to interrupt whatever bubble Asahi and Ushijima were in.

“You’re up,” he said when they looked over.  “Good luck.”

Asahi laughed again and gave him a smile.  Ushijima patted him once on the shoulder and then Asahi was sweeping past Tetsurou.  Asahi paused beside him and he wanted to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Tell you a secret?”  Tetsurou nodded dumbly, barely able to remember to breathe with Asahi so close to him.  “I was born with the luck.  It’s the nerve to get up there and use it that’s the tricky part.”

And that’s how Tetsurou had a front row seat to the magic.  Asahi’s eyes flashed gold and then he was coated in a shimmering haze of luck, glittering in the dim lights backstage.  Asahi reached out and gently tapped Tetsurou’s shoulder.

“A touch of luck for you, for always being here for us.”  And with that Asahi slipped between the curtains to the roar of the crowd.

A half hour later Asahi and Daichi stepped backstage, sweating and grinning and giving the crowd one last wave.  The moment the curtain fell shut behind them the backstage area was a flurry of movement and noise and Tetsurou used it to snag Daichi by the shirt and guide him out of the chaos.  It took every ounce of the luck Asahi gifted him to get them both into Daichi’s dressing room before it hit.

Daichi curled over the toilet, coughing and choking and sounding generally miserable.  Not that Tetsurou was really doing any better, clutching the sink like his life depended on it while he spit mouthfuls of petals into the basin.  The wet petals stuck to the creamy porcelain and Tetsurou groaned.  Daichi groaned in agreement.  Then they both groaned in misery as their bodies rebelled against nature and they were hacking up petals once again.

—

“At least I’m not dying miserably alone.”  Tetsurou handed over his water bottle and watched Daichi take a swig of it before he started coughing: it was vodka.  He grinned at the irritated look Daichi shot him as he shoved the bottle back into Tetsurou’s hand.

“I’d rather not be dying at all.”  Daichi cleared out the taste of vodka with a swig of the bottle of whiskey he had on the counter next to him.  “Fuck I don’t know how you can drink that shit straight.”

Tetsurou let out a mirthless laugh.  “This coming from the rising star who can down whiskey like water?”

Daichi snorted and leaned his head back against the cabinet.  Tetsurou leaned against the counter next to him and took a drink.

“We’re a mess.”  Daichi tilted towards him.  “Aren’t we?”  Tetsurou hummed in agreement and took another drink.  He’d probably drink himself to death one day but, hey, it beat the flowers vining themselves through his entire fucking body slowly killing him.  At least the alcohol tasted good.

“I want to blame Asahi, you know,” Daichi continued, “but that’s not really fair to blame him.”

“What would we blame him for?  Existing?  It’s not his fault he’s so amazing and wonderful that we both have massive dumb ass crushes on him.”

And that was the thing, wasn’t it?  The real pain in the ass kicker for the whole event.  They had no one to blame for his weird disease.  They couldn’t fairly blame Asahi because they fell in love with him.  They couldn’t really blame themselves either.  It was just there.

“I just wish there was something we could do?  A doctor we could see who could do something.  But I know the minute we go, no matter how tightly locked down the non disclosure would be within a day someone would know.  And then it’ll be everywhere and our lives will be ruined.”

“I dunno.  ‘Rising star and his bodyguard die from unrequited love for star’s partner in crime on stage and screen in a bizarre, barely ever heard about disease’ has a nice ring to it don’t you think?”

“Better than ‘Hot new star and bodyguard are minor gods of music and mortality, visiting the mortals who serve and worship them, check page three for juicy news about their hot love life’ for sure.”

“Oh man.  Yaku was so worried that week.  He thought I was upset because something happened to Kenma or you were gonna fire me or some shit.”

“If only he knew you were upset because you had found out Asahi and Ushijima were gods and in love and you were puking up flowers.”  Daichi leaned over enough to drop his head on Tetsurou’s shoulder.  “And so was I.”

“Like.  I want to be jealous.  I really really do.  But at the same time how the fuck can I be jealous of a real life in the flesh god?  Like they are on a completely different scale than we are.  Does jealousy register with them?  Do you think Ushijima can even feel jealousy?  What would he even be jealous of?”

Tetsurou let Daichi reach over and grab the water bottle of vodka out of his hand and set it on the counter out of his reach.

“Come on bodyguard.”  He hopped off the counter and grabbed Tetsurou’s wrist.  “Talk like that is a sign that you need to step away from the fake water and go to bed.”

—

Well, he thought as he looked out at the fog covered world, today was as good a day as any to die.  He could feel it deep in his bones.  Would they do an autopsy?  Would they find dirt and roots between his bones?  A heart wrapped in thorny vines?  Lungs filled to the brim with flowers?  Or would they find nothing?  Write him off as just another casualty of young stardom?  Because of course they’d blame Daichi somehow.  His name wasn’t nearly enough to draw the masses in, no one cared that much about the bodyguard of a random celebrity after all.  But the celebrity?  That was the big ticket.  That was the money maker, even in the spectacle of his death.

“Oh, Love.”  Tetsurou winced at the sound of his mother’s voice.  He coughed weakly and hid the tiny flower that hit his palm from his mother’s sight.

“Kenma?”  Like he really had to ask.  His mother’s face went though a strange little twist of emotions at the sound of his raspy, ruined voice.

“That boy could know something was wrong with you even if he was in another country,” she said with a laugh that sounded so forced Tetsurou almost hoped he’d die right there so he wouldn’t have to hear it anymore.  She watched him, eyes sharp and cunning and kind and all the things he had always wanted to be in life.  He watched with detached interest as she took a deep breath and her shoulders straightened.  If he could have he would have sat up straight himself.  That was her serious stance and it made everyone who saw it stand at attention.  “So of course he’d know you were dying.”

What little breath was in his lungs seemed to vanish at her words.  There was no way she could know.  Sure he knew he looked sick but it didn’t really look any worse than a bad bout of flu.  In fact he was pretty sure he looked worse when he had the flu two years ago.

“What are you talking about?”  He managed to rasp out when his lungs started working again.  “It’s not that bad.”

“Kuroo Tetsurou.  Do not.”  He gulped.  His mother was not to be trifled with.  Even when he was on death’s doorstep ready to knock on the door.  “Do not try to tough it out or hand wave it away.”

“Well what the hell am I supposed to do?”  His voice cracked with his outburst but he didn’t care, didn’t stop to take a sip of something or control his panic.  “What am I supposed to do mom?  I’m dying.  I’m as good as dead already.  I don’t even know what the fuck is happening to us and we’re going to die coughing up fucking flower petals.”

“We?”  He froze under her sharp gaze.  “Who do you mean-”  Her words cut off when the door of the bathroom between his and Daichi’s suites shut and the unmistakable sound of Daichi hacking up a lung started.  “Tetsurou,” she scolded.  And then she was opening the bathroom door and slipping inside, voice soft and comforting.  Tetsurou blinked up at his ceiling; he wasn’t even sure what he just got scolded for.

A few minutes later his mother was back, gently guiding Daichi out of the bathroom and over to sit on Tetsurou’s bed.  He managed to pull himself up so they were sitting shoulder to shoulder and his mother gave them both a sad smile.

“This is my fault,” she said quietly.  “Your father wanted to tell you, Love.  But I insisted.  What good would knowing it do?  You’d still fall for someone eventually.”  Tetsurou shook his head in confusion.  “You do know some of it.  It’s a bit of the good old royal family curse.  Or something to do with it.  Once upon a time we might have known more about it or how to deal with it but the more knowledgeable we all seem to get about the world the less we really know it seems.  It’s hard to know about things we never discuss after all.”

Tetsurou froze.  He could feel Daichi’s warmth beside him, feel Daichi’s concerned gaze at his stillness.  Family curse meant… and if his mother was going to talk about it now then Daichi would learn…

Fuck.

He swallowed down the petals that threatened to choke him and opened his mouth to ask his mother to stop talking, to leave Daichi out of it, to leave the details out of it.  But before he could Daichi spoke.

“What do you mean by ‘royal family curse’?”

Double fuck.

“Oh?”  Tetsurou’s mother’s eyebrows were as expressive as his own and he really wished that his mother would not look so amused while he was on his death bed.  “Tetsu never told you?”

“Tetsu would like to die in peace now thank you.”  He coughed weakly for emphasis but stopped at his mother’s sharp glare.  “Sorry.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of things he hasn’t told me,” Daichi said.  “But what’s the royal family thing?”

“Well.  It’s about like it sounds I suppose.  The Kuroo family is part of the royal family of a small kingdom named Cira.”  He could feel Daichi’s gaze on him but Tetsurou refused to look over.  Instead he stared at his mother and attempted to convey just how much he never wanted Daichi to learn this via telepathy.  Which he didn’t have.  But his mother seemed to understand anyway.  Probably some secret mother power.

“Holy shit.”  And that’s why Tetsurou never told anyone.  The few people who knew, people he didn’t grow up with anyway, tended to treat him different once they found out.  Like he was suddenly made of glass.  Or alternatively he was suddenly the guy to come to with every tiny little problem.  “Holy shit,” Daichi repeated.  Then he punched Tetsurou on the arm.  “You asshole.  You never told me.”

Tetsurou’s mother laughed quietly and shook her head.  “Anyway.  We’re not too sure these days about the hows and the whys and the finer details.  But the best that we can tell is that it’s a royal family thing.  And how it seems to work is that once a member of the family meets someone the world - or a god or an alien or whatever, we don’t know honestly -  but once they meet someone that the world believes they belong with their soul aches to be with them.  Yes I am taking some poetic liberties here Tetsurou don’t even interrupt me.”  Daichi snorted at him.  He hadn’t even opened his mouth yet but he bit his lip and kept his silence.  “Shorter version so my son doesn’t bite his tongue off.  Once we meet someone we’re destined for our bodies and souls reject feelings for anyone else.  Violently yet kind of romantically.”

After the words sank in Daichi spoke.  “But I’m not part of any royal family.”

Tetsurou’s mother grinned at him.  “If the member of the royal family is in close contact with the person they’re destined for then that person will also contract the illness.  I think it’s a way to kind of encourage the two people to be together, to share some kind of a secret with each other.”

Daichi turned to look at him and after a minute Tetsurou looked back.  Then they both scrunched their faces a little and looked back at his mother.

“You did not just turn us into some cliché soulmate romcom,” Tetsurou said.

His mom shook her head.  “I didn’t.”  She grinned.

“Don’t.  Don’t say it.  Please I’m begging y-”

“The universe did.”

“-ou.”

“Do you not want to be my soulmate Tetsu?”  He slowly turned his head to give Daichi the most powerful glare he could.  Too bad it failed the moment he met Daichi’s eyes and saw the amusement dancing there.  It was a sparkle he hadn’t seen in months, since before this dumb pain in the ass illness took over their lives.

“How do we not die?” He held Daichi’s gaze as he spoke to his mother.  “Don’t tell me it’s some stupid ‘true love’s kiss’ or something.”

“Do you not want to kiss me Tetsu?”  Tetsurou raised a brow.

“If I have to kiss you to live then sure.”

“Harsh.”

Tetsurou’s mother leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead.  Then she did the same to Daichi.

“I think you two will be okay.  Just remember that you have each other to get you through this.  The universe has destined it to be so.”

“I always wanted to be a cliché,” Tetsurou grumbled as he fell back over and buried himself under the covers.

He licked his lips and spit out the petal resting on his tongue.  Fucking royal family shit always came back to bite him in the ass in the end.

—

Sawamura Daichi strolled onto the stage with a grin.

“Good evening!”

The crowd roared, screams and cheers that made the air shimmer with energy, and his grin grew.

Tetsurou shook his head, barely listening to Daichi’s spiel as the crowd went wild.  Until he realized the crowd has fallen into a hush that normally wouldn’t start for another five minutes.  A sense of dread coiled through his gut.

He wouldn’t.

“Kuroo,” Yaku hissed over the headset.  “Control your man.”

The heat rushed to his face.  “He is not my man,” he hissed back.

“Tetsurou,” Daichi called out.  “Come on out.”

That was it.  Tetsurou was going to kill him.

A presence loomed behind him and Tetsurou glanced over his shoulder.

“It is not worth the jail time Kuroo,” Ushijima said politely in lieu of a greeting.

“But it is so very tempting,” he responded.  Ushijima gave him a twitch of a smile.

“Tetsurou,” Daichi called again.  “Don’t leave me hanging out here.”

The crowd’s laughter was infectious.  He heard familiar footsteps heading for them and he took a deep breath.

Asahi’s smile still made his lungs seize a little but he didn’t feel the urge to hack up a flower so that was an improvement.  Asahi reached out and lightly patted his shoulder.

“Good luck,” Asahi said.  “Sounds like you could use it.”

Tetsurou grudgingly stepped through the curtain onto the stage.

The roar of the crowd nearly knocked him off his feet and Daichi spun on his heel.  Clearly he hadn’t expected Tetsurou to actually join him and Tetsurou could hear Yaku and his team going crazy over the headsets.  So he took his off and let it hang around his neck.

The look on Daichi’s face - the wonder and surprised and everything - made the entire world fall away, made the roar of the crowd fall into a hush, made Tetsurou’s stomach clench in anticipation.