Popcorn ~KuroKen~

Chapter 1: sweet

Tetsurou Kuroo

Goddamn it's cold! I hate December so much! Such a stressful time for me, especially as a single parent! Santa's bank account got smaller and smaller as the years went by, and a six year old only expected it to grow. I'd been tempted to tell him the truth, make it easier for myself, but the guilt would've wrecked me. Kazuki was everything to me, and seeing him upset almost made me break down.

He had turned six just a couple of weeks back, and had a big party to celebrate. I had to face the usual difficult questions about what had happened to his mother. It was such an ugly tale. The drugs, the rehab, the escape.. the break-in...the attack, the arrest, the single-parenthood...it was all ugly. She had been fuelled by drugs after escaping her rehab centre and stealing paracetamol. She broke the door down at night and tried taking Kazuki.

My eye had been sliced by a razor that day as I protected him , and I nearly lost full vision in it. A nasty scar was left on and around it, a permanent reminder of the psychotic bitch that had borne my child. He held my hand now, safe from her, as we made our way towards the cinema. There was a retro showing of Elf, given it was a week before Christmas, so I decided to treat him and take him out, both of us donning Santa hats for the journey.

I considered myself a pretty good father, but most of that was down to the fact that I was like a little kid myself, so we got on well. The foul winter wind blew, and I picked him up, letting him cuddle into me for warmth as we walked. I'm 23, and I still love a warm cuddle...

"Daddy?" I heard a muffled little voice say

"Yeah, buddy?" I said, making an unintentional pun about the movie we were going to watch.

"Do you have to go to work tomorrow...?"

Oh no....he asked me this most nights. Due to the financial situation, I had no choice but to work full time as an assistant at an office block. It meant that he spent a lot of time with my parents after school, and sometimes at weekends. It was Friday night, so he probably wanted to spend the day with me tomorrow....

"I'm sorry bud, daddy is going to be busy tomorrow. But, you're going to go and have lots of fun with Grandma and Granddad! They said they were going to take you to the zoo to see all the animals! Doesn't that sound fun?!" I responded. Guess it's time to tell mum and dad what to do with him tomorrow!!

"....yeah. When are you next gonna be home at weekend...?" he said, still pouting at me a little bit. I stopped and put him on the floor, before crouching down to his height.

"I'll tell you what. When I'm at work tomorrow, I'll see if I can get a few days off next week, and we'll go have fun together, ok?"

"Yeah! That sounds fun daddy!" he beamed back at me, and I gave him a tight hug before we walked off again. I was so weak to him, it's unbelievable.

Holding him close again to keep him warm, we walked up to the lit-up facade of the cinema, and I pushed the revolving door to enter. Grabbing a couple of bags of sweets for us to share, I approached the counter, and a boy with a pretty shoddy dye job approaching, flanked by a short guy with orange hair. It seemed that dye job was new, and the little shrimpy looking guy was showing him the ropes.

"Good afternoon, what can I do for you?" the blonde-ish boy said, a slight hint of nerves in his voice. I smiled widely at him, and his face relaxed a little bit.

"Two for Elf, please. Somewhere with leg room, if you can.." I hate being tall, it sucks...

"No problem Sir, can I get you anything else?"

"Yeah, uhhh....what milkshakes do you have?"

He looked a little worried, before shyly looking to the orange haired boy, who just chuckled and said "vanilla, strawberry, banana and chocolate."