Monster || Kuroken ||

Chapter 4

The classroom was dead noisy. 

Kuroo could hear the noise of his classmates laughing and shouting,  even when it was just a few minutes to their first lesson. 

Knowing what to expect,  he stepped into the classroom in the most casual way he could. 

And instantly, the entire room went dead silent.

Everyone seemed to have felt Kuroo's presence in the room and had turned to look at him, their faces about to break into a smile.

But when they saw what was around Kuroo's neck, the smile on their faces disappeared and in its place was an expression of shock.

The first one to break from the freeze was a light brown haired boy who scrambled to Kuroo from the back of the classroom, fumbling his way through the chairs, tables, and his classmates. At last, when he finally reached Kuroo, he was staring up at Kuroo's face, eyes filled with worry.

"Feeling better?" Yaku said, glancing at the bandage around his neck. This was the first time he had seen anyone with his entire neck bandaged  — yet still look casual and cool as though it was the next new thing on what's trendy.

Kuroo smiled and pinched the sides of Yaku's mouth, pulling them upwards, making Yaku look like he frowning and smiling at the same time - which was weird.

"Smile," Kuroo said in a firm tone, smirking. "I would rather see a smile than some worried expression."

Yaku shook his head and swatted Kuroo's hands away impatiently. He stared fiercely at Kuroo. "My best friend got hurt and was almost killed. How can I smile right now?"

Kuroo looked into Yaku's light brown eyes for a split second and chuckled. "Thanks mate."

He turned to his other classmates and said loudly, "It's alright I'm fine, just got into a small fight with street gangsters." Then he grinned, to show that he was fine.

Most of the girls who weren't close to him nodded slowly and sat back down in their seats, still dumbfounded. Some threw him a few well wishes and the guys, on the other hand, came up to Kuroo and started bombarding him with questions.

Yaku, being the short dude, stood behind the crowd of tall guys with a disgruntled look. After a while, he decided to wait for Kuroo back in his seat.

Unfortunately, the teacher for the first period walked in and class began. The guys dispersed quickly and Kuroo walked to the back of the classroom, hands in his pockets. His seat was just two seats in front of Yaku's. Before he sat down, he caught Yaku's eye and mouthed one word: later.

Yaku nodded. He watched as Kuroo sat down, sighing as he looked at the pale bandage wrapped around Kuroo's neck.

I hope everything's fine... He thought.

***

"So I'm jumping straight to the point." Kuroo ripped apart the packaging of a Yakisoba bread, resting his elbows on the top of the backrest of a plastic chair. " Wednesday night l passed by this alley on my street and I heard a scream from the alley. I back-tracked and when I was in the alley, I saw this huge ass thing on top of this girl — which early in the morning I found out was a guy — and I ran forward to try to get the panther's attention. Then I ended up fighting that shit and that's how I ended up like this." Kuroo jabbed a finger at the bandage around his neck. 

Yaku, who was listening attentively to Kuroo, frowned. "You fought the panther bare-handed?"

"Not really. I tried to use this broken pipe I found somewhere at the side of the alley." Kuroo took a bite of the Yakisoba bread. "The panther is really, really creepy bro. Its eyes are red."