Ship: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou Fandom: Haikyuu!! Major Tags: none Other Tags: supernatural elements Word Count: 570
***
For most, the fey are the subject of fairy tales and of warnings told to children at night before bed. No one doubts that they are real, but the exact details of their existence remain hazy and shrouded in legend.
Most people are happier that way. From time to time, there's the person unfortunate or foolish enough to encounter the fey in the flesh. Many of them are never seen alive again. Others are never the same. Those who return relatively unscathed have little desire to repeat the experience; they say only the foolish or the insane would willingly seek out the fey again.
Kenma is not most people. He doesn't fear the fey. He's not a fool either. He knows how dangerous they can be, and he approaches them with a healthy caution, but he's not afraid. It's more dangerous to be afraid, for the fey can sense the fear and twist it to their own ends, weaving webs that require only a single nervous slip of the tongue to trap the hapless mortal who stepped into them. Kenma is cautious, but he's crossed into their domain enough times that he understands their rules. They don't always align with human logic, but their rules are a law that is always followed.
Like now. Kenma has spent the night watching the fey celebrate the first full moon of autumn and joined the festivities alongside them. But no matter how tempting, he hasn't let even the smallest morsel of their food or drink cross his lips. He's only visiting; he has no desire to stay. At least, not yet.
As dawn begins creeping across the horizon, it's time for him to leave. The catlike fey who invited him knows too and hugs him one last time, his whiskers tickling Kenma's nose as they rest their foreheads together.
Then, Kenma leaves. He knows the rules. He retraces his footsteps out down the same path from which he entered, and he doesn't look back. The sounds behind him fade until there's nothing but the noise of his footsteps in the underbrush. The path back from the fey's domain is a strange, liminal space where even the birds don't sing. The path ahead never seems to change, and it's easy to fall into the temptation to look back for guidance, or for any trace of the creatures who had been so beautiful and yet seemed to vanish so quickly.
Kenma keeps his gaze fixed straight ahead even as the worry grows in his heart that this will be the time no one follows. He knows it's the strange powers of the fey magnifying his fear, but that doesn't make it any easier to fight off.
The urge to glance over his shoulder is starting to grow almost unbearably strong when the noise of the forest suddenly springs back to life around him, and he knows he's made it out. He waits another few seconds, and then he hears the sound he always hopes for, but never assumes will follow—the sound of a cat's tail swishing through the leaves as Kuroo runs up to his side. For all the time they've shared, Kenma knows better than to assume Kuroo will always be there, for the fey move in ways even he doesn't fully understand, but that only makes every moment together, and every time Kuroo chooses to follow him home, that much more valuable.
FILL: Team Imaizumi Shunsuke/Kinjou Shingo, T
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Major Tags: none
Other Tags: supernatural elements
Word Count: 570
***
For most, the fey are the subject of fairy tales and of warnings told to children at night before bed. No one doubts that they are real, but the exact details of their existence remain hazy and shrouded in legend.
Most people are happier that way. From time to time, there's the person unfortunate or foolish enough to encounter the fey in the flesh. Many of them are never seen alive again. Others are never the same. Those who return relatively unscathed have little desire to repeat the experience; they say only the foolish or the insane would willingly seek out the fey again.
Kenma is not most people. He doesn't fear the fey. He's not a fool either. He knows how dangerous they can be, and he approaches them with a healthy caution, but he's not afraid. It's more dangerous to be afraid, for the fey can sense the fear and twist it to their own ends, weaving webs that require only a single nervous slip of the tongue to trap the hapless mortal who stepped into them. Kenma is cautious, but he's crossed into their domain enough times that he understands their rules. They don't always align with human logic, but their rules are a law that is always followed.
Like now. Kenma has spent the night watching the fey celebrate the first full moon of autumn and joined the festivities alongside them. But no matter how tempting, he hasn't let even the smallest morsel of their food or drink cross his lips. He's only visiting; he has no desire to stay. At least, not yet.
As dawn begins creeping across the horizon, it's time for him to leave. The catlike fey who invited him knows too and hugs him one last time, his whiskers tickling Kenma's nose as they rest their foreheads together.
Then, Kenma leaves. He knows the rules. He retraces his footsteps out down the same path from which he entered, and he doesn't look back. The sounds behind him fade until there's nothing but the noise of his footsteps in the underbrush. The path back from the fey's domain is a strange, liminal space where even the birds don't sing. The path ahead never seems to change, and it's easy to fall into the temptation to look back for guidance, or for any trace of the creatures who had been so beautiful and yet seemed to vanish so quickly.
Kenma keeps his gaze fixed straight ahead even as the worry grows in his heart that this will be the time no one follows. He knows it's the strange powers of the fey magnifying his fear, but that doesn't make it any easier to fight off.
The urge to glance over his shoulder is starting to grow almost unbearably strong when the noise of the forest suddenly springs back to life around him, and he knows he's made it out. He waits another few seconds, and then he hears the sound he always hopes for, but never assumes will follow—the sound of a cat's tail swishing through the leaves as Kuroo runs up to his side. For all the time they've shared, Kenma knows better than to assume Kuroo will always be there, for the fey move in ways even he doesn't fully understand, but that only makes every moment together, and every time Kuroo chooses to follow him home, that much more valuable.