Chapter Text
It was nearly one in the morning when Kuroo was woken up by the knocking on his front door.
He blinked groggily for a minute, squinting at the blurry ceiling and then turning to face the doorway into his front room. When the knocking came again, he sighed, rolling lazily out of bed and dragging himself across the thinly carpeted room to the door and peered out the peephole.
He jolted fully awake the second he saw the person on the other side. Frantically fumbling with the lock, he whipped the door open. Bokuto was standing there, shivering, absolutely drenched in rainwater and… was that a black eye? He looked up sheepishly at Kuroo, giving him a weak smile and croaking out a small, “Hey, man.”
His eyes were red rimmed and glassy, and his voice cracked like he had recently been crying.
“Bo… oh fuck, dude, get in here.” Kuroo gasped, grabbing Bokuto gently by the shoulder and ushering him into the tiny apartment.
After shutting and locking the door he paused for a minute, trying to form words, wanting desperately to say something, anything, but he couldn't figure out where to start. Bokuto was clearly shaken up, and freezing cold. Questions could wait, he decided. Bokuto needed something else at the moment.
Kuroo walked Bokuto to his room, hand gently pressed to the small of his best friend’s back. He crouched in front of his dresser and rummaged around for some dry clothes. A worn old Nekoma hoodie and some warm pajama pants.
“You get changed okay? You can shower if you want, I’m gonna make an ice pack for your eye and heat you up some food.” he said, pressing the bundle of clothes into Bokuto’s arms.
Bokuto nodded and sniffled a little. There was cold water dripping from his flattened hair onto his forehead, and under any other circumstances Kuroo would probably have teased him about ruining his preciously styled updo. But now… shit. Kuroo gave Bokuto’s ragged, shaking form another once over before giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and walking past him back out into the front room toward the kitchen.
“Come out to the kitchen when you’re done, alright? Take your time.”
As he waited for a plate of leftover macaroni and cheese to heat up in the microwave, Kuroo scooped some ice cubes from the fridge into a plastic bag to make Bokuto an ice pack. Kuroo leaned back against the kitchen counter to take a second and process the whole situation.
Bokuto was here. At one in the fucking morning. With a black eye.
His grip tightened on the slowly thawing ice pack in his hand. It had to have been Bokuto’s dad.
Kuroo had only met Bokuto’s family once. And after that, he could understand why Bokuto barely ever talked about them. Bokuto was the spitting image of his father; a tall, burly man with a strong, set jaw and amber eyes. It would have been funny, a glance into Bokuto’s future perhaps, but it was plain to see that apart from their genetics, Bokuto and his father had nothing in common. He lacked all of Bokuto’s contagious enthusiasm, his energy and his warmth. When Kuroo had met him he had barely said a word to either him or Bokuto. Kuroo had bowed and introduced himself, a little unsettled by the short, curt nod he got in response. Bokuto’s mother seemed just as cold, and he quickly learned that neither of them were the loud, expressive people Kuroo had always assumed Bokuto’s parents would be.
Even in Bokuto’s room, a floor above his parents and behind a closed door, his normally loud and boisterous friend didn’t dare raise his voice above much more than a whisper. They had mostly just played video games, talked quietly and goofed around on their phones, generally what they usually did when they were together. But the silence in the house had been intimidating, the air was suffocating with it, and Kuroo felt uneasy knowing that this was what Bokuto came home to every day. It felt...wrong to see him in that setting.
They hadn’t ever hung out at Bokuto’s place again after that.
It hadn’t been until their junior year of high school that Bokuto had first opened up to him about the abuse. Well, not Bokuto’s words for it, so much as Kuroo’s. Emotional abuse, he’d tried to explain, but Bokuto had refused fervently, insisted it was fine.
“They’re just strict.” he’d said at the time.
“Strict parents enforce a curfew, Bo, not stop feeding you for a week because you failed a math exam.”
He’d gotten quiet after that, and Kuroo bought him lunch for the next few days.
By the time senior year had rolled around, Bokuto and Kuroo were practically joined at the hip. Bokuto stayed at Kuroo’s house most nights, and on weekends he sometimes slept over for two days at a time. Kuroo’s parents adored Bokuto, and he quickly became like a second son to them.
Kuroo remembered bitterly how Bokuto’s parents hadn’t shown up at graduation, and how his own mother had fussed over him instead, fixing his tie and gown, and helping him secure his cap over his ridiculously gelled hair. They’d even taken their diploma pictures together, and there was a copy of one still tacked to the fridge in his parents’ kitchen. Kuroo doubted Bokuto’s parents even had a single picture of him in their entire house.
So, yeah. He knew Bokuto’s parents weren’t great. He knew that, if they ever interacted with their son at all, it was probably less than pleasant. But Bokuto had never talked about it. Even when Kuroo would try to pry, on days when he could tell Bokuto wasn’t feeling 100%. Bokuto would smile, his big, heart-melting, goofy smile and assure Kuroo he was fine. He had been worried, of course. He was in head over heels for the idiot for fuck’s sake, but he didn’t know how else to help.
So he did his best to protect Bokuto in other ways. He would be there whenever Bokuto needed him.
He remembered one day, the two of them sitting alone in his bedroom, laughing at some stupid joke one of them had made, when he had looked over at Bokuto, who had happened to snort while he was laughing, making himself laugh even harder as a result. It was at that exact moment, still gasping for breath and smiling so hard it hurt that he had realized he was in love with his best friend. His obnoxiously perfect dork of a best friend. His heart sank at the thought of anyone taking someone so incredible for granted. When Bokuto had left for his own house later that same night, Kuroo had stopped him.
“Hey,”
He’d said, catching Bokuto’s sleeve as he made for the steps down to Kuroo’s front door. Bokuto had paused and turned to look at him, and Kuroo pulled his best friend into a tight hug and squeezed.
“You know if you ever need help, you come straight to me.”
It took Bokuto a second, but after a brief pause he hugged back, enveloping Kuroo in a characteristically too-tight embrace. He hadn’t said anything back, but he had smiled with such genuine gratitude as he pulled away, nodding slightly, that Kuroo knew he understood.
And now here they were. Two years later, and Kuroo was up at one thirty in the morning, keeping his word.
The microwave beeped suddenly, startling Kuroo out of his deep thought, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Bokuto came around the corner a few seconds later, smirking a little as he noticed Kuroo’s expression.
“Come on, look alive Kuroo, it’s only one in the morning.” He teased.
He still looked worn out. Kuroo figured that the black eye didn’t help much in that department, but the dry clothes and the warm shower he must’ve taken seemed to have done him some good. Kuroo smiled at him and shook his head, pulling the hot plate from the microwave and setting it on the table for Bokuto. He offered up the ice pack in his other hand, which Bokuto gladly accepted and pressed tenderly to his bruised eye.
“C’mon idiot, eat now, and then we should probably talk.”
Bokuto sighed, but smiled back tiredly and slumped into a chair at Kuroo’s small kitchen table.
“Sounds like a plan.”