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It's getting colder outside every single day now, and Kenma doesn't even give the clock a second glance before acquiescing to the warmth of his bed and settling back in. Sleep seems to pull at him like waves these days, holding him under.
"Mm," mumbles Hinata, stirring. "Too bright."
Kenma cracks an eye open. It's 11 am; the curtains have fallen open in the middle, and light is spilling into the room, splaying like silk or gold paint across the middle of their bed. He risks a glance out the window; it's only just starting to rain, but it looks like it rained all night, too. Kenma stares for a moment, bleary-eyed, at the cold charm of Fall outside. He decides he's going to go back to sleep.
"What time is it?" Hinata asks. Definitely sounding more awake now.
Kenma squishes a hand over his cheek, finds his mouth. His palm vibrates with his boyfriend's answering noise, a grumble that turns into an amused giggle.
"Time for sleep," Kenma mutters back, settling into the pillow. "Always time for sleep."
Hinata licks his palm. He draws it back to its place under the pillow, sinking into the cotton depths. There's a moment where neither of them move, and Kenma thinks they're really going to go back to sleep after all; the rain is picking up outside, thrumming in polite taps against the window, and the electric blanket is the perfect temperature: why would anyone ever get up again?
Hinata shatters the illusion by shifting, jamming his leg against Kenma's. He sticks his head beneath the blonde's chin and starts to pepper kisses there. Definitely awake.
"Mm," Kenma groans, swatting him away, but he's smiling.
"Wake up," Hinata coos. Kenma swats at him again and he laughs. He settles beneath his chin, and without missing a beat Kenma wraps his arms around his smaller boyfriend to accommodate, tugging him closer. Their shins brush, tangle, warm flesh pressing together. Kenma breathes in the orange blossom scent of his hair.
"I don't want to get up," he admits, mumbling it like he's in confessional. "Ever."
"Ever," Hinata agrees, even though it's obvious he's awake now, what with the way he's moving his foot, tapping it a little like he's dancing. "Hey, what date is it?"
Kenma cracks open an eye again. Hinata is staring up at him, beaming, and Kenma concedes that the weather can stay like this forever if it wants. He's got the sun right here. "Uh. October first?"
The way Hinata's face lights up reminds him of when they first started dating, when he still felt like he had to squint against the redhead's sheer brightness, like it would get too good to look at the longer he stared. Now he gazes through lowered lashes like it's practiced, knowing he's probably smiling like a dork. Not caring.
"Kenma," Hinata says, sounding coy. "What date did you say it was?"
"Uh... October first?"
"October. Do you know what that means?"
That it's getting closer to Winter? he thinks. The weather outside is certainly acting like it. It's stopped raining, but there are too many leaves to soak out all of them, no matter what the sky wants to do. It's like Fall gone mental in Tokyo this year; the slick reds and browns of everything, the gray.
That's not the answer that Hinata wants, though, so he attempts to rack his brain. "Oh," he says, realising. "It's my birthday soon."
Hinata's eyes widen, and his expression turns sheepish. "Oh. It totally is! That's not what I meant, though."
"Oh," says Kenma. What else could he possibly mean?
"Kenma," Hinata says slowly, sounding offended. "It's my favourite holiday."
"Halloween?"
"Halloween. That means there's only 30 more days to prepare!"
His voice is getting kind of loud for 11 in the morning, so Kenma strokes his hair, trying to calm him. It feels soft between his fingers. He needs a haircut. "Prepare?"
"For Halloween! We've gotta get a pumpkin, and I always like to see if they need volunteers at any of the Fall festivals, y'know? And there's candy, we've gotta buy candy, for the trick or treaters, y'know! Also because candy is awesome, and Halloween candy is always the best. I've gotta do my shopping, because my wardrobe is, like, 99% shorts and flip flops right now, and volleyball stuff, y'know, so I probably need scarves or a coat; hey, you have the best fashion taste, Kenma, you should help me! And we totally have to plan all of our Fall dates." What started out as a slow grin is now taking up most of Kenma's face. "And pies!" Hinata adds, practically shouting it. "I need the ingredients to make pies."
Kenma leans down and kisses him, has to tilt up his face gingerly with a hand beneath his chin to reach his mouth. They lay like that kissing for a while, the morning chill starting to set in around them so that Kenma's nose goes cold where the rest of him feels warm and safe in bed. When he pulls away, Hinata looks dazed like he always does, brain reeling to try to catch up with whatever it is he was interrupted from saying. This time the realisation flashes white hot in his eyes.
"Shopping," he says, 100% serious.
Kenma surreptitiously side-eyes the window. "...Shopping."
"Yes. Today."
"Right now?"
"Well..." Hinata snuggles in against him again, and stretches like a cat. "Okay, maybe not right now." He peppers one, then another kiss to the underside of Kenma's chin. "Because sleep, right?"
"Sleep," Kenma agrees, and that's the end of the conversation.
.
They don't exactly sleep, but they're not out of bed until midday, when the rain has long since stopped and the weather outside is back to crisp and dry. Kenma wraps himself up in about a million layers- because seriously, who actually enjoys being cold?- and finds something for Hinata to wear. They set off into the cold mid-afternoon weather, hands clasped.
"Are we driving?" Kenma mumbles, and it's a miracle that Hinata understands him, what with his face buried ten miles in his scarf and everything.
"Nah," Hinata chirps, practically skipping along. "I thought it'd be nice to walk! Look at all the colours, Kenma!"
Kenma tries, but his eyes keep drifting back to his boyfriend, whose nose and cheeks are going pink in the chilled air. He squeezes their hands together. "Where to first? Groceries?"
"Oh- well, I thought we could buy some clothes, y'know?"
Kenma smiles. He's not one for complaining.
.
Hours later, he seriously regrets not taking the car.
The walk back up to the apartment is all mostly uphill, arms stuffed to the brim with shopping bags. Hinata struggles with a store-bought pumpkin he intends to make pie or something with. (Kenma had asked whether it was for a jack 'o lantern, and Hinata had laughed as if the very idea of not getting to pick out his own pumpkin from a patch was hilarious.)
He balances the bags on one hip while he manouevers the keys out of his pocket and finally gets the door unlocked so that he can hip-check it open, and Hianta pretty much just dumps the groceries in the doorway and skips the rest of the way through.
"Okay!" he shouts. "Okay. Cooking date. Kenma, Halloween cooking date!"
"It's only the first," Kenma mumbles, picking up after his boyfriend. He has to make several trips to the kitchen to get everything in there. "Do you want help, or...?"
"No!" Hinata waves his hands frantically. "No, it's gonna be a surprise. Ah... I guess it's not a date then, huh?"
Kenma smiles. "How about we go to one of those Fall festivals on the weekend? That can be our date."
Hinata's eyes light up. "Yes! Yes, you're a genius, see, this is totally why I'm gonna marry you." He rushes at Kenma with a kiss, catching him off guard. "You go sit down," he says earnestly, both of Kenma's hands clasped in his own. Kenma always thinks of, like, spiders and snakes when he does this; that paralysing look they give their victims, and how people talk about not being able to move once their gazes are locked. He totally gets it.
Once Hinata's kissed the breath out of him again- he doesn't think he'll ever get used to it- Kenma kind of dizzy-spins his way into the living room, sorting through their DVDs.
"I've got work later," he calls out, reminding his boyfriend.
"I know! I thought we could order takeout when you get home?"
Kenma smiles. "What happened to being on a cooking spree?"
"I am! You can't have dessert for dinner." He goes quiet like he's actually considering it.
"Fine," Kenma calls, biting back on a smile. "Are you going to pick me up?"
"Of course!"
He'd already known what the answer was; he's just a shit. He continues to fish through the DVDs, finally finding what he wants and sorting them into a neat little pile. He sets the first one up, leaving it on the menu screen while he sits on the sofa and waits.
Hinata enters the room again eventually, covered pretty much head to toe in flour and balancing two mugs in his hands. His grin abruptly vanishes when he sees the TV screen.
"Kenma, no."
"Kenma, yes."
"I can't watch horror movies!" His face has dawned with full-on terror now, like someone's just told him they're going to torture kittens for fun. "You're leaving me alone tonight!"
"For four hours," Kenma deadpans.
"Still! I'll freak out!"
"So go hang out with Tobio."
"No way!" Hinata scowls, which always looks unusual on his face. "Kageyama's the worst, it's like now that he doesn't have to see me every day he can't even stand to be around me unless we're playing volleyball. He's all, shut up, Hinata! All you ever talk about is your boyfriend!"
Kenma breaks out into a grin; his gaze drifts down to the two mugs in Hinata's hands. "Are one of those for me?"
"Huh? Oh- yeah." Hinata hands it over abruptly, spilling hot cocoa over his hand in the process. "Anyway, you're probably better at handling horror anyway, what with your, your, y'know, gothic novels or whatever you study at school. You have an unfair advantage."
Kenma takes the mug gingerly, smiling up at his boyfriend. "You don't have to watch them if you really don't want."
Hinata shuts his eyes, sucks in a breath. He does this before he has to spike a ball sometimes, too. Kenma waits. And waits.
"I'll do it." He's got his hands clenched into fists the same way he does when he gets all determined about winning a game of volleyball, right before he breaks out into one of those crazy jumps that make Kenma feel like his heart is being pulled straight out of his chest. Right before he soars.
Hinata settles in beside him on the sofa with his own mug of cocoa. Kenma sips his; it's a mocha, because his boyfriend is the smartest. "Are you ready for creepy dead kids and spirits hijacking TVs?"
From the corner of his eye he catches Hinata shuddering. "Of course I am. Press play." Kenma presses play. He doesn't miss the way that relief seems to flood the entire room when Hinata sees that he's put on The Nightmare Before Christmas.
.
They don't make the Fall festival by the weekend. Hinata drags him down to check it out on the 4th, and upon seeing that there are, to quote, "barely any pumpkins yet, it's like they're not even trying", they decide to go closer to Halloween.
That sets him in a pout for a while, but Kenma finds he's pretty easy to appease with some new scarves and an apple picking date. (Hitoka from work recommends the orchard; he pays her back with about three of Hinata's peach pies, until she politely asks him to stop.)
By the time their actual date rolls around, Kenma has just about eaten enough pie to give him his required calories for the next billion years. They line the kitchen counters, pantry, and fridge shelves comically, cut into little jack o'lantern shapes and reeking of pumpkin spice and cinnamon. Kenma doesn't have the heart to tell Hinata that he's probably made enough.
They've also started something of a war when it comes to making hot drinks for each other. Hinata will surprise him at the most random of times, like when he's holed up at his desk working on a paper or when he's clinging for dear life hung halfway out of their apartment window trying to set up the orange and purple Hello Kitty pumpkin-themed Halloween lights Hinata insisted he wanted up. He gets him back with trays full of foam cups on his return from shifts, and sliding chocolate-rich mugs over to his boyfriend whenever he's in the kitchen baking. (Which is a lot.)
He's admitted defeat in the form of one of Hinata's awesome hot apple ciders when he gets yanked by the wrist towards the doorway.
"It's already like almost five, we've gotta go!"
"But my cider-"
"Kenma!"
He concedes to the bullying, and allows himself to be yanked out of the door.
They walk there, huddled together in big coats-- Hinata's is an earthy orange that matches his hair, and Kenma's is a bright red that sheds fuzz everywhere, reminding him a little of his old high school volleyball uniform-- and holding hands. It gets dark earlier now, and Kenma's still trying to get used to it. The sky is lit up in deep oranges and yellows slowly fading to black, the moon full and visible behind a smoke curtain of clouds.
They buy candied apples on their way into the festival and head straight for the carnival-esque games, which Hinata insists on playing until he wins Kenma a prize. (He wins him a small plush cat, after spending way too much of their money bobbing for apples. His hair is soaked and he shivers for the rest of the night. Kenma names the cat Kiki and carries her around in his coat pocket.)
They meet up with Lev and Yaku halfway through the night and buy dinner together to share on a pile of hay bales. Hinata chatters on about the pumpkin they picked out earlier in the day and how awesome it is, how of course it's the perfect size because Kenma's a genius, and then switches to talking about couple costumes with Lev whilst Kenma and Yaku shoot each other sympathetic "our boyfriends are idiots" glances.
Lev and Yaku leave before they do. It's getting late and tomorrow is Halloween; Kenma figures they should get an early night. They're on their way out when Hinata spots the corn maze, and abruptly, his expression plummets. "We can't leave yet! Are you crazy? Corn maze, Kenma!"
"Neither of us have any sense of direction," Kenma protests, even as he's being pulled away from the exit. "Plus we're both short. There's no way we'll be able to see over the walls if we get lost."
"So I'll just climb them, it'll be fine." Hinata's got his tongue stuck out all determined. He marches right up the entrance and pays for their admissions before Kenma can protest.
Kenma keeps a firm grip on his boyfriend's hand. He's exhausted but the feeling of being led around like that always makes him kind of woozy; he blames Hinata for being so cute. Without any more protest he goes, allowing himself to be led along into Halloween oblivion. Hinata takes a left, then a right. He marches forward and takes two more rights.
"We're going to get lost," Kenma informs him.
"We're not gonna get lost," Hinata shoots back, sounding happy and breezy and sure.
.
They get lost.
It's about an hour before either of them can figure out how to find their way back again, and Hinata spends most of it telling Halloween jokes that he definitely got from Kuroo. ("Okay, but what's a skeleton's favourite dessert?" "Skeletons don't have stomachs." "A boo-berry pie!" "Shouldn't that be for ghosts?" "Well... I mean... sure, but-")
By the time Hinata manages to scramble up the side of a corn stalk wall- whilst Kenma has a mini heart-attack and tries to spot him so he doesn't die- he realises they're almost dead-centre in the maze, and is up there for ten minutes counting turns so that they can make their way back. They get distracted and make out on their way back through. Twice.
Kenma goes home feeling dizzy and cold, the coat no longer enough to keep the chill of Fall out of his bones. He supports Hinata with an arm around his shoulders while he chatters on about carving more pumpkins, setting up more decorations, going out in the morning to re-stock up on candy before the first wave of trick or treaters hits.
It's freezing, and when he gets back to the apartment, he wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and stay there for the rest of his life. It starts up raining again and they barely miss it, watching the sky open up from the kitchen window while Hinata puts away all the sweets he bought at the festival.
"Looks like it's gonna storm all night," he breathes, watching it with lightning reflecting back in his eyes. Hinata always thought that the boy embodied Summer but seeing him like this is like seeeing him electrified, all the organges and browns of his hair and his eyes reflected back in the piles of leaves they've spent all month trying to groom back from out front of their apartment block, seeing the electricity in the air reflected back in his personality. Hinata turns to him, sparking.
"I really love you, yknow?"
"Sappy."
"I'm serious! I love you and I love spending Halloween with you."
"You're worse than Kuroo." Kenma is smiling like an idiot. "Anyway, it's not like this is the first Halloween we've spent together."
Hinata comes up behind him and wraps his arms around his waist, just barely making it up on his tip toes so that he can rest his chin on Kenma's shoulder. "Yeah, but it's the first Halloween we've spent together in the same place. Living together, I mean."
That makes his cheeks heat up for some reason. He thinks about all the Halloweens they could spend together like this, year after year going to pumpkin patches and grocery shopping for bulk candy and getting lost in corn mazes together and he gets dizzy. This is his life. His life, with Hinata.
"You're totally thinking something cheesy right now, I can tell. Y'know, I think you try to hide it, Kenma, but you're worse than me and Kuroo combined. Aren't you?"
"We should go bike riding tomorrow," he murmurs, instead of answering.
Hinata breathes long and warm against his neck, smelling like pumkin spice and rain. "You can't ride a bike."
"Everyone can. It can't be hard."
"Not me. I couldn't for ages. Mom taught Natsu in, like, a day though. So it can't be hard to do."
Kenma smiles and feels another smile press back against the side of his neck, mirroring his. "You can teach me, then. Tomorrow morning. We'll ride to the store and buy more candy so you don't have a heart attack when the trick or treaters take it all."
"Oh, I'll be fine. We're going trick or treating too, after all."
Kenma grins again. The chill is starting to set into the kitchen, freezing his toes, and he decides that that's his cue to go to bed.
He figures his life could definitely be worse.