Alright, so, life was being tumultuous. Yet again. Kuroo was flustered as he rightly should be. Had him and his brother not traveled basically across an entire ocean to get to this damn place in search of their father, he might be back home content to live life. Yet, here he was, taking a night off after meeting Hattori to relax. Unwind, let go, relieve himself of stress that undoubtedly would give him more grey hairs. Not that he wasn't already grey; so maybe it would make his vitiligo spread. He did not want to have any more white splotches spread across his body than there was. Surely, he would begin appearing as an old man and he really wasn't that old.

Caught up in his thoughts, he hadn't realized how late it had gotten. As his toes dipped into a shallow puddle, he stopped to glance around. Where had he gotten himself to now? Flicking both ears forward, his pale gaze admired the twisted trees. Enveloping the sky to hide the clouds, branches entwined around each other until barely any light filtered through. In other areas, one might find themselves surrounded by darkness, but fortunately, tonight, he'd ended up in a dazzling area of illumination. A soft, audible gasp left his grey lips as he watched the mangrove come to life.

Twinkling and shimmering along the surfaces of the water, Kuroo took a step back. Placing his butt securely on the damp ground, he let his tail wrap around his front paws. Letting out a sigh of relief, he finally allowed himself to relax. Washed in the glow of bioluminescence, he sat in silence to succumb to his surroundings.

SPEECH

The last remnants of a deer leg swung haphazardly from his jaws as he trotted through the glimmering forest... swamp place. Was t a forest or a swamp? There were certainly dry spots of land, but with all the waterways he wasn't quite so sure how to define the place. Either way, it glowed almost ethereally in the darkness, illuminating the darkest parts of his coat, and bringing out a strange gleam to the reddest points of his fur. This seemed like a good place to settle down for the night, as long as he could find a secluded area where his slumber wouldn't be disturbed. With the scent of the deer meat swirling around in his nostrils he saw the other wolf before he smelled them. His ears pricked forward, taking note of the way they sat at the edge of one of the waterways, and slowly approaching from the side so as to not sneak up behind them. Not that sneaking was his forte, as his lumbering steps usually announced his presence more often than not, but he wanted it to be obvious he wasn't up to anything devious. Sitting back heavily on his own haunches a small distance away, Raylan dropped the deer leg on the ground beside him, glancing over at the other wolf with a single raised brow as he grinned softly. "A stunning sight, isn't it?" The bioluminescent foliage was beautiful in its own way, but the splotches of colouring on the other wolf held his interest in a different way. The fur itself where lighter hues sat seemed... different in comparison to the rest of the strangers coat. As much as Raylan tried not to stare he couldn't help himself, stealing more than a few glances at the other wolf from where he sat.

Illuminated by the glow of the bioluminescence around him, Kuroo sat distracted. Staring at the surface of the small stream at his paws, he watched his reflection ripple and distort. What was he even doing here anyway? His reflection wasn't going to be responding any time soon. There would be no answers to his inner qualms. Sighing softly, Kuroo lifted a splattered paw to break the surface of the water. Watching the light spread farther from being disturbed, his mouth twisted into a slight frown. Normally, he would be enjoying this sort of area, but it was difficult with his mind weighing so heavily on recent events.

Pulled from his inner dwellings by the sound of lumbering paws squelching on the muddy ground, Kuroo glanced up. At first, his expression stayed unchanged as the larger male approached. Oddly enough, he sort of looked like his brother but in a more attractive and appealing way. Meeting those fiery eyes for a moment, he forced himself to look away until the stranger promptly sat down and dropped the deer leg. Listening to it thunk made his eyes shift back. He could feel those ember eyes roving over his fur and he couldn't tell if he should be self-conscious or not. Kuroo was used to the stares. The vitiligo that covered his body made his fur stand out slightly, but not in such a way that it was garish.

One ear did pull in the direction of the stranger at the sound of his deep timbre of a voice. What a lovely sound. The thought crossed his mind for a moment before he fully turned his chin to smile back at him. "Indeed. Where I'm from, we don't have waters like this so I enjoy watching it," Kuroo's mid-baritone voice replied with that all too familiar accent. Forcing himself not to stare too much at the other male, Kuroo made himself look back over to the water.

The wolf's accent was unfamiliar, but it brought with it a sense of intrigue, and a question of where the wolf was from sat on the tip of his tongue. Raylan liked stories, whether it was telling them or hearing them, and he couldn't help himself from asking it, proper introductions be damned. "And where would that be?" He asked with a quirk of his brow. "I've never heard your accent before, but I like it." Oh he was definitely flirting, maybe not as openly as he normally would be, but it would be obvious to anyone who know what flirting was. Raylan's gaze shifted from the glistening foliage and water to rest completely on the other wolf, now openly looking, but not so much at the interesting fur pattern, instead gazing at his face. He was used to being larger than most other wolves, but the light pink eyes drew him in. They were like a softer version of his own blazing red eyes, but perhaps there was a more fiery streak beneath the reserved and quiet appearance of the wolf. "The name's Raylan," he eventually said, only just barely managing to hold back the flirty wink he so desperately wanted to give.

Attempting to distract himself by swishing the surface of the water with his paw, Kuroo's ears perked up when the stranger asked about where he was from. Tilting his face in the direction of the larger wolf, he smiled in return. "They call it Nihon. It is far across the ocean from here and quite the bitch of a journey if I do say so," his tone is light as he lets out a small laugh. Memories flooded back of him and his brother taking that god-awful trip across the water to get here. While it was for good reason since they were now so close to meeting their father, his homesickness still ached in his chest. He missed the mountains, the cherry blossoms, the lazy rivers, and shrines.

This wasn't the time to linger on home though as the stranger was flirting with him. Now, this was new. It wasn't every day that another wolf really took it past being friendly with him. Letting his eyes meet with the obsidian and ember-colored wolf, he wondered what was going on in that head. Did he mean it? Or was he the type that always flirted with everyone? Slightly cautious, Kuroo's cheeks flushed nonetheless. "Your voice is quite lovely as well," he replied with his own little smirk.

Before the silence could settle between them, the other introduced himself as Raylan. "Raylan," he tested the name on his tongue and through his accent, he kind of liked it. Had a nice ring to it, ya know? "You can call me Kuroo," his own smirk lifted a bit higher into a smile as he turned a bit more to face the wolf better. "What brings you all the way out here, Raylan?" Kuroo asks with a tilt of his head.