Archive of Our Own

Kenma is standing on the platform, watching Kuroo’s train leave and him with it, when it really hits him that this is it. Kuroo’s gone off to university, a good one-hour train ride away, and it’s very probable that they won’t see each other again for weeks, months even. He was aware of it before, of course, but only now that Kuroo’s out of his line of vision, swallowed up by a train that’s escaping into the distance, does it truly settle in.

Kuroo’s gone and Kenma is still here, and this might be when Kuroo finally realizes that Kenma isn’t worthy of his attention or time after all. It’s a fear he’s always had, deep down – that maybe he’ll get too boring for Kuroo one day. But with Kuroo right there, at his side, it was an easy one to keep down, to keep at bay.

But now Kuroo’s not right next to him anymore, and Kenma has nothing to keep this fear inside of him settled.

He’d told Kuroo that everything would be fine, when Kuroo had been nervous and looking for reaffirmation earlier that day, with a confidence in his voice he hadn’t truly felt. Kuroo had believed him, found solace in the ease with which Kenma had spoken those words.

Now Kenma only needs to believe himself.

He’s not entirely sure he can.

--

The first thing he does when he gets home is to start playing a game that takes up enough brain space to distract him from his restless thoughts and simmering fears.

It’s absurd, maybe, that he’s this restless.

People looking at Kuroo’s and his friendship usually see Kuroo as the clingy one, the affectionate one, the one who keeps their friendship healthy and alive, the one more invested in it. They see Kenma as cold, oftentimes. A lot of people don’t understand his and Kuroo’s relationship, why Kuroo would stick around for so long, around someone who seems so different from him, who doesn’t show affection openly in a way that’s easy to read.

A lot of people simply don’t understand Kenma.

It’s true that he doesn’t show affection in the same careless, easy way that Kuroo does. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t show it at all, however. He has his own ways of showing affection, and after years of being friends with him, Kuroo understands that. Kenma knows that Kuroo understands it because of the soft smile he sends Kenma’s way whenever he allows Kuroo to wrap his arms around him, when he accommodates for Kuroo in his schedule, when he tells Kuroo about a new game he’s excited to play.

Kenma shows affection by making time for people, letting people get close, even though he doesn’t initiate said closeness himself all too often, shows it by sharing his thoughts and interests.

In his own way, he shows Kuroo a lot of affection, and he knows that Kuroo gets something out of this friendship with him. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have stuck around for so long.

Still, he wonders if it’s enough.

Kuroo’s a little bit like a dog, sometimes, very focused on the present, physical and loud in his affection. Kenma wonders if Kuroo’s willingness to accommodate for Kenma will fade, now that he’s not a part of Kuroo’s very immediate present, now that he’s not physically around to be showered in affection.

He should have more trust in his childhood best friend, maybe.

But Kuroo takes up so much space in Kenma’s heart, in a way he isn’t sure he even fully understands and definitely can’t express, that it’s scary, sometimes. Because Kuroo could decide he’s had enough of Kenma, that he wants friends who are more similar to him, at any point. And there’d be nothing Kenma could do about it.

He and Kuroo were very similar, once; both of them introverted, withdrawn, shy.

Kuroo still is, in a way – he certainly isn’t the extroverted, overly confident person he makes himself out to be. But he’s also come out of his shell a lot in the past years, has grown into his own skin, gotten more confident. He follows his passions and interests with a determination that’s almost intimidating, now.

He’s grown a lot since they met. While there are still traces of the eight-year-old Kenma met in him, there’s a lot more to him, now.

Kenma sometimes thinks that he, himself, simply isn’t growing enough. That Kuroo is bound to outgrow him one day.

He wonders if that day is close, now that Kuroo is off to university, where he can make new friends and memories.

--

Kenma is lying in his bed, desperately trying to distract himself with playing a game on his PSP until he’s finally tired enough to fall asleep, trying to shut all thoughts of Kuroo out of his brain, when his phone pings with a new text.

Even though he tries to tell himself that he isn’t desperate and hasn’t been desperately waiting for Kuroo’s text all day, he immediately saves his game and puts his PSP down, grabbing his phone. It’s stupid, how much he misses him already. A lot of people have best friends who don’t live close to them, and Kuroo hasn’t even been gone for a whole day. Kenma has no reason to feel this way. Kuroo’s supposed to be the clingy one, after all, out of the two of them.

(Kenma thinks he might be the clingy one, actually, and people just don’t notice it, usually, because Kuroo’s good with indulging Kenma and giving him the attention he craves, enough so that Kenma doesn’t have to act on his clinginess. Kenma’s also better with keeping himself under control, especially when they’re in public.)

He’s a little nervous about actually unlocking his phone, now. He’s not sure what he’ll feel if it’s a text from someone who isn’t Kuroo. He knows it won’t be a good feeling.

(Stupid, he reminds himself.)

Slowly he unlocks it and opens his messages, breathing out a sigh of relief when he sees it’s actually a text from Kuroo.

i’m all settled in! i actually unpacked already, kenma are you proud of me??

Kenma smiles softly. For a moment he considers not answering right away, a little afraid his desperation and the fact that he’s been waiting for Kuroo’s text all day will bleed through. He usually isn’t good with texting back in a timely manner. But up until now Kuroo has been living next door and unafraid to come over at any possible moment. And everyone else doesn’t elicit the desire to answer on time in Kenma. (He sometimes still does, for Hinata Shouyou, but only because Hinata is not afraid to keep spamming Kenma until he gets an answer.)

Kenma settles on answering right away, if only because he wants to talk to Kuroo, already missing him an immense amount. It’s stupid, and he tries to remind himself again that lots of people have best friends who live further away and manage just fine. It somehow doesn’t feel comparable to his situation, and he doesn’t know why.

why do you have so much energy, he texts back. His phone lights up with a response only seconds later, which makes him want to smile. And since nobody’s there to witness him get soft over a quick answer, he lets himself.

why do you have so little energy, kitten, is the real question here :D

Kenma snorts and rolls his eyes. He feels very, very fond, warm and happy and settled. He still misses Kuroo terribly, but he’s also feeling better than he has all day, just seeing a few words on his phone screen.

i have just enough energy for important things, he answers.

that’s a lie! you never have enough energy to go outside with me!

are you saying you’re important?

are you saying i’m not?

Kenma smiles again, fondly. Kuroo is important to him, and he’s pretty sure Kuroo knows that. And while it’s true Kenma barely finds the motivation to go outside, he does sometimes, when it’s what Kuroo wants. He does a lot of things, if they’re for Kuroo.

The thought that Kuroo’s not there anymore to force him outside sits heavy in his stomach, suddenly, and he misses Kuroo even more.

maybe, he simply texts back, not enough to convey all the emotions running through him – but then again, he doesn’t necessarily want to convey all the emotions running through him. If he’s the only who’s feeling like he’s lost a limb, then it’d be silly to voice it; it would just make Kuroo worry. The last thing Kenma needs is for Kuroo to worry. He also doesn’t want to find out if he’s the only one feeling this way.

He still doesn’t understand why it aches this badly, Kuroo moving away. It’s not like Kuroo will be completely out of reach; in all probability, he’ll even come visit once or twice a month. But that doesn’t seem like enough, not at all, not when they’ve seen each other every day with very little exceptions for the past ten years.

of course i’m important! who else would you spend your precious time texting! you love me, admit it, Kuroo’s next text reads, and Kenma rolls his eyes, feeling all too fond. Kuroo is right, of course, but they’re best friends, so Kenma loving him is a given. Kenma doesn’t tell him this.

you’re so full of yourself, he writes, the beating of his heart – now strong and steady again, just because he has Kuroo’s attention – saying something completely different.

Maybe he can be okay like this, if he keeps getting the amount of Kuroo’s attention that he craves, even if it’s just through text.

--

Kenma realises quite quickly that he’s not okay like this.

He feels Kuroo missing in everything that he does: in his morning walk to school, now alone, in volleyball practice, now without Kuroo as their captain, heckling him. During lunch break, with neither Kuroo nor Yaku there to get on his (and Kai’s) last nerve (nor a Kai there to have anyone get on his last nerve), when he’s at home, alone, lying on his bed, no Kuroo there to burst through his door and demand all of his attention.

He misses Kuroo so badly he aches with it, feels a physical pain in his chest, sharp and consistent. Texting Kuroo helps a little; so far, it doesn’t seem like Kuroo is moving on from him onto better people, more outgoing and interesting friends. He texts Kenma all throughout the day, little messages about how things are going, what he’s doing, what’s happening around him, as well as reminders for Kenma to eat and pay attention in class and get a consistent amount of sleep.

It’s not enough.

Just Kuroo’s voice would help, Kenma thinks, on the Saturday exactly two weeks after Kuroo’s left for university.

He’s had a rough day; the first years were a handful during practice, and to Kenma’s dismay Lev kept egging them on. It’s not really that surprising that he did so, but it did grate on Kenma’s nerves, and combined with the fact that he’d felt on edge because of Kuroo’s absence anyway, it didn’t exactly leave him in a good mood. Coming home to an empty room, no Kuroo barging in and demanding Kenma’s attention, didn’t help either, and Kenma keeps thinking that maybe it’s absurd that he misses his best friend this badly, but he does, and he’s about ready to crawl out of his skin if he doesn’t feel some connection to Kuroo that’s more than just words on his phone screen.

So he does what he’s wanted to do for the past two weeks, refusing to feel needy and clingy (although that’s exactly how he feels) and calls Kuroo.

Kuroo, thankfully, picks up on the second ring.

“Kenma!” he excitedly half-shouts into the phone, and it’s like a weight on Kenma’s chest dissipates that he didn’t know was there. He lets out a breath of relief, letting Kuroo’s voice flow through him, relax him, settle all around him like a comfortable blanket.

“Kuro,” he says. He hopes the relief and fondness aren’t too evident in his voice. His hopes aren’t too high; Kuroo has always been good at reading him.

“Did something happen or did you just miss me?” Kuroo asks, and Kenma can hear the smirk that’s settling on Kuroo’s face clearly in his voice. There’s also an undercurrent of concern there, and Kenma wants nothing more than to have Kuroo right next to him and to be able to bury his face against his strong chest.

He suddenly feels overcome with emotion for his best friend, so much of it, and he still doesn’t understand how there’s so much of it. He briefly wonders if other people feel like this too, when thinking about their best friend, this entire whirlwind of emotions in his chest, or if that’s an experience that’s particular to the friendship he and Kuroo have.

“I had a stressful day,” Kenma offers, because he doesn’t feel ready to admit just how much he misses Kuroo. “Lev and the first years were really annoying during practice.”

Kuroo laughs, and it sounds fond but also a little sad. “I kind of wish I could’ve seen that,” he says, “I bet you scrunched your face up in that adorable way.”

And. Oh, Kenma realizes, he misses me too. It maybe shouldn’t be feeling as ground breaking as it does, but it does feel really, really ground breaking, relief flooding him. He’s been so scared that Kuroo was already moving on from their friendship, looking for new friends, even though Kuroo texts him a lot. And it doesn’t sound like he is; it sounds, in fact, like Kenma is still just as important to him as he was before Kuroo moved away.

Kenma feels so much better that he almost forgets to answer in indignation to Kuroo calling him adorable, which is just unacceptable. Although it does make his heart beat a little bit faster; probably because he missed Kuroo’s easy affection.

“It’s not adorable,” Kenma tells Kuroo, and he hears him laugh, open and free.

“Oh, but it is,” Kuroo says, sounding very fond, but there’s also a teasing lilt to his voice. Kenma can relate, a little; he also feels very, very fond of Kuroo right now.

“It’s not,” Kenma says.

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

“I miss you, kitten,” Kuroo says, affection bleeding through his voice. Warmth floods Kenma at the nickname and the tone of his voice. Kenma might keep insisting that he doesn’t like the nickname, but he very much does; he feels good whenever Kuroo calls him ‘kitten’, in a warm and dizzying way. He has no explanation for this, but he doesn’t think everything in life needs an explanation.

“Sap,” Kenma says, just as affectionately, and he knows Kuroo understands and hears what Kenma isn’t saying out loud: that he misses him too.

“We should do this more often,” Kuroo says.

“You being sappy?” Kenma teases.

“Phone calls,” Kuroo says. “I think it’s nice to stay in touch like this. And I can hear your voice like this, until I come visit and get the real thing again.”

Kenma swallows heavily. He doesn’t know how Kuroo does this: showing affection so easily, so openly. How he’s capable of saying all the words that sit too heavily in Kenma’s mouth. He’s glad for it – it’s reassuring, Kuroo being like this. It is a lot, too. Sometimes Kenma doesn’t know how to handle Kuroo’s affection. Sometimes, when Kuroo’s being particularly affectionate, Kenma’s entire body suddenly starts feeling too hot, too overwhelmed. He tries not to show it, because for all his mocking, the last thing he wants is for Kuroo to stop.

“Yeah,” he allows. “Phone calls would be nice.”

“Then it’s settled,” Kuroo says. “I’m going to call you every day, until you get sick of me.”

I could never get sick of you, Kenma thinks but doesn’t say. I think it’s going to be the other way around.

“I’m a hardened man, after years of your attention-seeking,” he says instead. Kuroo laughs again.

“Oh, but who says I’m not merely indulging your attention-seeking?” he teases. Kenma laughs, because Kuroo is right. More than Kuroo himself knows, probably.

“You wish,” he says.

“Of course,” Kuroo says easily, voice still teasing, “I dream of your affection-seeking every night.” Kenma laughs again and wishes it were true, with a fervour that surprises himself. He wonders again if this is a normal feeling in a friendship, or if it’s something that’s peculiar to theirs. Maybe this is simply what years of constant attention will do to you; instil the wish to have that attention on you at all times.

He thinks that’s probably the most logical explanation. He doesn’t have any other, at any rate.

--

He’s spent a lot of time texting Akaashi since Kuroo and Bokuto have gone off to university. While Akaashi’s situation is somewhat different from Kenma’s – Bokuto is his boyfriend, not just his best friend – their feelings about the situation are similar.

Kenma misses Kuroo with the same intensity that Akaashi misses Bokuto, and even though Kenma and Akaashi didn’t text that much before, neither of them the type to reply to text messages quickly, they now text quite a bit.

It’s nice, that Kenma can be honest about how much he misses Kuroo, around Akaashi. He felt a little uncomfortable voicing it, at first, but Akaashi never judged him for it, only showing a lot of understanding and even gratefulness that someone got him, at least partially. Kenma doesn’t know what it’s like to miss a boyfriend, but he does know what it’s like to miss his best friend, and it turns out there’s a surprising amount of overlap, at least between the two of them.

The other main difference in their situations, though, apart from the fact that Kuroo and Kenma aren’t in a romantic relationship, is that Akaashi sees Bokuto more often than Kenma does Kuroo. While Kuroo hasn’t visited at all, so far – which makes sense, since it’s only been a little over two weeks, although Kenma wishes he would – Bokuto has made the trip to see Akaashi every weekend.

Kenma tries to firmly tell himself that he isn’t jealous and has no reason to want Kuroo to spend this much time on him, nor does he have a good reason for Kuroo to want to.

Because they’re not in a romantic relationship. Which is obviously fine, because it’s not like Kenma wants to date his best friend. They’ve been friends for too long, it could just ruin things, and Kuroo is probably not even into guys like Kenma. And even if he were, it wouldn’t matter, because Kenma definitely isn’t into him like that. He isn’t.

Kenma’s pretty sure he would know, if he were.

(Still, he wishes Kuroo would spend as much time on him as Bokuto does on Akaashi, and sometimes, when Akaashi sends him pictures of him and Bokuto cuddling, because for all that he’s a good friend, he’s also an asshole, he wishes that were Kuroo and him. They used to cuddle regularly, before Kuroo went to university. Kenma misses that, too.)

--

“My roommate is such an asshole,” Kuroo complains.

“Uh huh,” Kenma makes. He’s sitting on his bed, back propped up against the wall. “You sure he wouldn’t say the same thing about you?”

“Hey!” Kuroo says. “Now that’s just rude! I’m not only a pleasure to be around in general, but also a pleasure to live with, I’ll have you know!”

“Sure you are,” Kenma says, sarcastically.

Phone calls between Kuroo and him have become routine, now. After that first phone call, initiated by Kenma, Kuroo has indeed made it a point to call Kenma every evening, even if it’s just for one or two minutes. Even though most people would probably see this as too much, for Kenma it’s honestly exactly what he needs.

He still misses Kuroo, so damn much, and the phone calls every evening are just enough to not make him feel as raw and untethered as he had the first two weeks, before their first phone call. He still feels pathetic for this. He also still hasn’t voiced to Kuroo just how badly he misses him, which is probably for the best. Although Kenma knows that Kuroo misses him too, he’s pretty sure it’s not even close to the all-encompassing wave of misery Kenma feels every time he remembers that Kuroo’s not living next-door anymore – and he remembers this pretty much all the time, which just isn’t helping.

It’s stupid, too, that their distance feels so insurmountable, sometimes. It’s just one hour by train, but it feels like Kuroo lives on the other side of Japan.

“I’m the most pleasant person you could ever be around,” Kuroo says, now, and Kenma laughs a little, but his heart also hurts, because even though Kuroo is great at getting on Kenma’s nerves sometimes, he kind of is the most pleasant person to be around, for Kenma. But he’s not physically around, at the moment. Kenma feels the space he used to occupy like a missing limb.

“Are you sure your roommate would sign off on that?” Kenma asks, which prompts outraged spluttering from Kuroo.

“He’d better, seeing as I’ve found his dirty socks on the couch, again,” Kuroo says, and Kenma scrunches his nose up in disgust.

“I bet you’re scrunching your nose up and making that adorable disgusted face right now,” Kuroo says, “and I’m going to take that as your agreement.”

“My disgusted face is not adorable,” Kenma says. He’s pretty sure he sounds like he’s pouting, which he is.

“Everything you do is adorable,” Kuroo says, and Kenma’s heart starts beating faster, for some stupid reason. His whole body is feeling warm and tingly. It’s absurd, that he misses Kuroo so much that he’s even taken to liking it when he says embarrassing things like this.

“Anyway. Remind me to not sit on your couch, if I ever visit you,” Kenma changes the topic, to stop Kuroo from saying embarrassing things, but also to stop the weird fluttering in his stomach.

“If? Kenma, I’m pretty sure you meant to say when. You have to visit me, I’m not letting you get out of this one,” Kuroo says. He sounds teasing, but there’s also an undertone to his voice that’s genuinely hurt, even a little bit scared. Like he thinks that maybe Kenma doesn’t want to actually spend time with him, which is absurd. Kenma spends every evening talking to Kuroo on the phone, and he also wants to see him in person again so badly that he’d just pack up his things and take the next train right now, if he could.

He’s gotten close to just packing up and visiting Kuroo over the weekend the last two weeks, actually, but he didn’t want to be an inconvenience. He’s also scared to let Kuroo know just how much he misses him and how desperate he is to see him again.

“Fine,” Kenma says. “When I visit you.”

“See? Now that’s better,” Kuroo says, and Kenma can hear his grin through the phone. He wants nothing more than to just see it, suddenly, the need burning through him with an intensity that nearly knocks him off his feet – or would do so, if he were standing.

He wants to ask Kuroo, wants to tell him to videocall, but he’s scared of rejection, scared to come off as too clingy. He just wants to see Kuroo’s face, but he doesn’t want to hear that maybe he’s too desperate, for a best friend. He’s also sure that he himself looks horrible right now, which shouldn’t matter because Kuroo has seen him in varying states of horrible, but somehow still does.

“You’re so full of yourself,” Kenma says, when all he really wants to say is please just force me to come visit you right now. You don’t even have to force me, my bag is packed, just say something, anything that I can use as an excuse.

He wonders if there’s a limit to how often one can think of oneself as pathetic. If there is, he’s probably getting close to reaching it.

--

have you ever sat on packed bags and wished desperately for bokuto to give you an excuse to just come visit him, he texts Akaashi later that evening, after Kuroo has hung up.

He’s spent a good thirty minutes debating whether to send this message to Akaashi or not, but in the end, he’s come to the conclusion that even if Akaashi can’t relate, he probably won’t judge him. And Kenma kind of desperately needs someone to tell him that he’s not weird for this.

He’s well aware that Kuroo is just his best friend and Bokuto is Akaashi’s boyfriend, so their situations aren’t exactly the same, he knows that, but he thinks he’d probably have a hard time finding someone who feels this desperate about their best friend. Which is fine. He doesn’t have to examine that. He and Kuroo have been friends for a long time, after all. It’s probably normal to get this attached, then, especially when you barely have other close social contacts.

The entire first two weeks, to be honest, reads Akaashi’s answering text, and Kenma immediately sighs in relief. His phone pings again.

It’s easier now because I know I’ll definitely see him on the weekend. And waiting five days is doable.

Kenma’s chest aches again. He kind of wants to scream at Akaashi, but it’s not Akaashi’s fault that Kenma hasn’t seen Kuroo in three weeks and is slowly losing himself over it, so he doesn’t. Still, he feels a burning jealousy. Bokuto doesn’t even live closer to Akaashi than Kuroo does to Kenma. And he visits every week anyway. Kenma knows he has no basis on which to want the same level of investment, demand it from Kuroo, but he still wants this so much – just Kuroo, here with him, instead of kilometres away in his dorm room.

Which is why he’s just waiting for an opportunity to visit Kuroo himself – he can’t just do it out of the blue, without good reason; he’s too scared of Kuroo not actually wanting him there, of coming off as too clingy. He just needs an excuse.

(And it’s so absurd, that people always think of Kuroo as the clingy one, when Kenma is this desperate to just see Kuroo’s face again. He’s so very clingy, he just hides it a lot better.)

--

It’s a Wednesday and Kenma’s waiting for Kuroo’s usual phone call, settled comfortably on his bed. It’s quite late already, about nine in the evening, and he’s slowly starting to get worried that maybe Kuroo won’t call at all, today – he’s might have stated that he’s going to call Kenma every single day, but it’s not like he’s obligated to actually do it, although so far, he hasn’t missed a single call.

It’s a routine that has been going for two and a half weeks now, so Kenma has kind of come to expect Kuroo’s daily phone calls, when maybe he shouldn’t, in case Kuroo decides to stop this routine.

He’s feeling a little anxious in the pit of his stomach. He’s not sure what he’s going to do if Kuroo doesn’t call – probably start crying. Kenma doesn’t usually cry, not really, but the idea of Kuroo abandoning this carefully crafted routine that has been the only thing keeping Kenma afloat so far is messing with his head a lot. He could call Kuroo himself, maybe, but if Kuroo doesn’t have the time or simply doesn’t want to talk, then Kenma doesn’t want to make him feel like he has to.

Frankly, he’s thinking about the entire thing too much. It’s just a phone call, it shouldn’t feel like this big of a thing. It still does.

Kenma’s phone starts vibrating, and he nearly drops it in his haste to answer it.

It’s a videocall request from Kuroo, not their usual phone call, today, and Kenma goes through a second of indecision because he knows he looks questionable at best, hiding himself in an oversized sweater. The idea of declining Kuroo’s call, however, seems completely unfeasible, and so he accepts.

He’s greeted by Kuroo’s face on his phone screen, hair messy as always, a wide grin on his face. The relief he feels at simply seeing Kuroo is so huge it feels absurd. He feels more relaxed than he has in weeks, suddenly – talking to Kuroo on a daily basis has helped a lot, but this, simply seeing him, is so much, and Kenma is hit again by how terribly he misses him.

“Hey, kitten,” Kuroo says, grinning even more widely, and Kenma rolls his eyes at him while his heart simultaneously starts beating faster and a fuzzy feeling settles in his stomach. He wonders if this is going to happen every time Kuroo says something embarrassing, now.

“I could just hang up on you,” he tells Kuroo, but it’s an empty threat. From the way Kuroo looks at him, he knows this all too well.

“But then how would you see my handsome face?” Kuroo asks, still grinning.

“I wouldn’t. Another perk,” Kenma says, and the fuzzy feeling in his stomach increases at Kuroo’s mock-pout.

“You’re so mean to–” Kuroo starts to say, simply to interrupt himself. “Hey, is that my sweater?”

Kenma’s heart stops for a second. Slowly, he looks at the sweater he’s wearing. It is, indeed, Kuroo’s. Kenma has stolen quite a few of Kuroo’s hoodies and sweatshirts, over the past few years. They’re big and comfortable and they make him feel safe, somehow. He enjoys sleeping in them and just wearing them around the house. Especially in the last few weeks, ever since Kuroo left for university, he’s been wearing the stolen clothes a lot. It wasn’t in his plans, however, to actually let Kuroo know that. He doesn’t necessarily feel embarrassed about Kuroo knowing that he’s been nicking his clothes, but he is afraid that Kuroo might want them back. And Kenma has no plans of ever giving them back.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tells Kuroo, who now starts grinning even wider. His eyes are crinkling up and nearly sparkling. He looks really happy, and also really fond, in a way. Kenma’s heart feels like it has to react to this by beating faster, which Kenma does his best to ignore.

“It looks good on you,” Kuroo says, which absolutely isn’t what Kenma was expecting. He stares at Kuroo and feels his face start to heat up. “You look really adorable in it, so small,” Kuroo adds, and Kenma wants to get annoyed at him for calling him ‘adorable’ again and bringing his height into the equation, but all he does is feel warm and fuzzy, his heart nearly beating out of his chest, his face impossibly hot.

“You sound like you want me to hang up on you,” he tells Kuroo.

“Never,” Kuroo says, his grin changing into something softer, smaller. The way this is going, Kenma maybe ought to see a doctor about his heart.

“Sap,” he says, sounding incredibly fond even to his own ears.

“Maybe,” Kuroo admits, soft smile still on his lips, and Kenma’s hit with the sudden desire to kiss him. He shoves it down right away. He has no idea where this desire has come from, but it isn’t important, because Kuroo is his best friend, and one does not simply want to kiss their best friend. He also wants to tell Kuroo he misses him, which he won’t do either.

“Are you visiting anytime soon?” is what comes out of his mouth instead, and Kenma wants to kick himself for saying that out loud, making it obvious just how much he’s been missing Kuroo, how badly he wants him here.

The expression on Kuroo’s face, impossibly, gets even softer.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he says. “I probably will, soon.” The relief Kenma feels at Kuroo’s words is so strong, it feels like a palpable thing, like maybe he could pluck it out of the air and try to knit a hoodie with it, one to hide in so he doesn’t have to let it show on his face.

“Good,” Kenma says, hating how clingy he sounds, that he’s let this side of him out into the open a little, but Kuroo doesn’t look put off by it. He looks happy, actually.

“I really miss you, Kitten,” he says quietly, and Kenma wishes he were here, with him in his room, just to kick him for making Kenma feel this much. (He probably wouldn’t. If Kuroo were here, he’d probably simply hide in his chest.)

He misses Kuroo so, so much, way more than simple words could reflect, and so he doesn’t say anything, because his words don’t seem like enough.

If he knew the right words, he still wouldn’t say them, he thinks. It feels so big, what he feels for Kuroo, that he’s afraid that if he lets it out, it’ll go and swallow them and the entire universe, hide it under a cloak of Kenma’s needs and wishes and desires, until everything is just Kuroo and him and the enormity of Kenma’s feelings.

“You really are a sap,” Kenma says, and it sounds so unbearably fond that it still feels like he’s saying too much.

--

The next day, Kuroo video calls him again. Kenma wonders if their routine is going to change, now – from talking on the phone to video chatting. He wouldn’t mind that. He does miss seeing Kuroo’s face, after all.

“My roommate is being incredibly annoying,” Kuroo tells him, grinning his usual smile. He looks good, unfairly so – he has clearly just come home from volleyball practice, his face sweaty, hair clinging to his forehead. Kenma thinks he should have at least been worth the effort of showering. Kenma also thinks that nobody should be allowed to be this good-looking.

He knows that Kuroo is attractive, of course; he’s seen both girls and boys throw themselves at Kuroo’s feet more often than he likes to think about. He usually doesn’t think about Kuroo’s attractiveness at all, but Kuroo is grinning, sweaty and good-looking, and it makes Kenma feel weird things. Probably irritation that Kuroo manages to be good-looking in this state, when Kenma himself is simply a mess when sweaty and exhausted.

“When is your roommate not annoying,” he says, trying to ignore the way Kuroo’s skin is shiny with sweat.

“I know, right,” Kuroo says, his grin somehow widening. “And that’s why I thought it’s high time for me to get out of here for a few days and drive back home this weekend!”

Kenma’s thoughts screech to a halt, for a second. Then, they start circling again, with renewed fervour. His heart is beating very fast.

“You’re coming home this weekend?” he asks. He hopes he doesn’t sound as breathless as he feels. He feels very breathless. He hasn’t seen Kuroo in person for nearly five weeks now, and the thought of having him close by again is doing weird things to Kenma’s stomach.

“Pretty sure, yeah,” Kuroo says, the sparkling in his eyes obvious even through the screen, and Kenma has to hold back for a second to not do anything embarrassing, like letting the words ‘thank God’ out of his mouth or starting to cry in pure relief.

“If you make the drive and don’t visit me, our friendship is over,” he tells Kuroo in no uncertain terms, his heart beating an erratic rhythm against his rib cage. He thinks that if Kuroo ends this close by and not coming over, he might do something rash, like storming over to the Kuroos’ house and shoving his best friend against a wall, or simply burying himself under a mountain of blankets and crying for a few hours.

“If I come all the way back home and don’t visit you, you can feel assured that it’s actually a clone of me and my real self is somewhere dead in a ditch,” Kuroo says, something earnest in his voice. Kenma feels the sudden impulse to scream at him, to clench his fists in Kuroo’s shirt and shove him and scream in his face. There are so many emotions warring inside him, and he’s not sure how to let them out. He wants to do something to Kuroo. He’s just not sure what.

“It’s Thursday,” he says, instead of screaming at Kuroo, who’s still safely behind a screen, “so does that mean you’re coming tomorrow?”

“Either tomorrow evening or Saturday morning,” Kuroo says.

Kenma is still feeling entirely too much.

“I expect you to come right over,” he says nevertheless, which is definitely way too clingy, but he’s desperate, with a near unbearable intensity, to see Kuroo – to really see him, in person, in front of him. To touch him, maybe. Kenma thinks if he doesn’t get to touch Kuroo, he might explode. There’s a tingling sensation right beneath his skin, particularly strong in his hands and fingers, that he thinks might only go away if he finally gets his hands on Kuroo again.

“Aww, I knew you missed me,” Kuroo says, teasing, and Kenma would probably feel a little bit uncomfortable and cornered if it weren’t for the fond set of Kuroo’s mouth and the earnest way he’d promised that the only thing capable of keeping him away would be death itself.

“You’re too full of yourself.”

“Actually, the only full thing here is your heart, which is filled with love for me,” Kuroo says, smirking. Kenma fondly rolls his eyes at him.

“I wish I knew how your ego got this big, so that I knew how to stop it from growing,” he tells Kuroo, and Kuroo laughs, loud and freely.

“My ego isn’t the only big thing about me,” he says, obnoxious smirk still on his face, and winks at Kenma.

Kenma hangs up on him.

He stares fondly at his phone. His heart is still beating entirely too fast, his skin tingling. He does feel filled to the brim with love for Kuroo, not that he’d ever voice that out loud.

His phone vibrates with a text from Kuroo.

i’m taking that as affirmation of your love, it says, and Kenma feels so fond he might burst.

He doesn’t know how to handle Kuroo’s easy confidence, sometimes; it’s so different from the Kuroo he’d met as a child. He also knows Kuroo isn’t this confident in everything, but he’s confident and comfortable around Kenma, and it can be a lot. Especially when Kuroo jokes around in this easy way of his, in a way that could almost be misconstrued as flirting. It always makes Kenma feel a little untethered, and he isn’t sure why, exactly. Maybe because the easy confidence Kuroo shows in his own sexuality is so far removed from where Kenma’s at.

Kenma has never even been on a single date. He doesn’t think he’d want to – the idea of going on a date with someone he doesn’t know seems uncomfortable at best. It doesn’t really matter, is the thing. Kenma doesn’t think he needs a romantic relationship to be comfortable and happy. The only thing currently missing in his life is Kuroo, not romance.

So maybe that’s why Kuroo’s joke-flirting is weird, to him – Kenma has never flirted with someone, not as a joke and sure as hell not earnestly. He isn’t even sure where he’d start.

It’s okay, though; Kuroo’s been doing this for years, now, and even if it’s sometimes too much for him, he’s at least gotten good at pretending it doesn’t faze him.

It also doesn’t really matter.

All that matters right now is that he’s going to see Kuroo again, in less than forty-eight hours. It feels almost surreal.

Forty-eight hours somehow seem like a lifetime, but still so much better than the waiting without any date to count towards that he has been doing for the past few weeks. Forty-eight hours are doable.

Kenma honestly can’t wait to finally, finally be in the same room as Kuroo again. If that’s maybe a little bit too clingy or desperate, then he doesn’t care.

--

He texts Akaashi that Kuroo is coming home for the weekend, and then nearly blocks him when Akaashi texts him back, Finally, you’ve been miserable without your boyfriend around.

He wants to scream at Akaashi a little bit. He’s not sure why this aggravates him so much – Yaku used to make jokes about Kuroo being Kenma’s boyfriend all the time, back when Kuroo and Yaku still went to Nekoma. Sure, it annoyed Kenma, back then, but it never made him feel this thoroughly bad inside. Akaashi’s text, though, makes him feel miserable, and he can’t pin-point why.

He doesn’t block Akaashi, but he also doesn’t text him back.

Instead he texts Hinata to tell him the news, because Hinata has also been subject to Kenma being generally unhappy in the last few weeks. Not as much as Akaashi by a long shot, but Hinata can be a nice person to confide in, sometimes, because he doesn’t really judge people.

kuro is visiting this weekend :)

!!!! So happy for you!!!!! Hope you get to play some volleyball with him!!!!! is what Hinata texts back, and Kenma smiles at his phone for a minute, feeling a little better. Even if everything else in his life seems to be changing, Hinata’s predictability stays the same, and that’s calming, in a way.

--

Friday comes, and Kenma can’t focus at all. School seems to pass him by in a haze, and he tries his best to at least be attentive in volleyball practice, provide the guidance the first years need, but he ultimately fails completely at this, the same way he fails at paying attention in class.

He just can’t think about anything but Kuroo and the fact that he might see him in just a few hours. His thoughts are just a constant loop of Kuroo, Kuroo, Kuroo, his smile, his laugh, the way he tends to sprawl out on Kenma’s bed, hogging most of it with his long limbs, the way he calls Kenma ‘Kitten’ in the evenings before saying Good Night, soft and fond, as if Kenma were something precious and this nickname more than just a way to tease him.

Kuroo is a constant in Kenma’s life, has been for a long time, but the way Kenma feels jittery and completely out of it, desperate just to see him again, that’s new. Then again, they’ve never gone longer than a week without seeing each other, until now – their respective families realized quite quickly that they both get grumpy when separated, and so Kenma simply came along on the Kuroo family trips, as well as Kuroo on the Kozume family vacations.

It had been a completely unsettling realization, that Kuroo has always been there, right by Kenma’s side, ever since they were eight and seven respectively – one that Kenma had first had a few months before Kuroo moved out, and promptly banished to the furthest parts of his brain. It’s a realization that has been haunting him ever since Kuroo actually moved out: that Kenma has never learned how to exist without Kuroo, and that he has to, now.

That even if he has Kuroo with him on the phone every evening, there is nothing really stopping Kuroo from leaving for good. It’s that terrifying realization that had clawed its way into him the moment he watched Kuroo’s train leave the train station and it hasn’t let go since.

Kenma spends his Friday waiting for a text from Kuroo telling him he’s on his way, or that he won’t make it Friday – or that he won’t make it at all, after all. He spends his Friday waiting for a text from Kuroo and trying not to think about how desperate he feels, trying not to think about the possibility of Kuroo distancing himself, leaving Kenma for good.

His phone doesn’t vibrate all evening, but around nine p.m., the doorbell rings.

In a single attempt to not act as desperate as he feels, Kenma does not get up to get the door, lets his mother do it instead, the way he usually would – Kenma has never once willingly opened the door if he wasn’t expecting a package with a new game or gaming console. Especially not if it might be Kuroo, who knows where they hide the spare key.

He tries not to listen to whatever is going on downstairs, tries to desperately focus on his game and nothing else, tries to tell himself that it doesn’t matter who’s there and that he definitely won’t be disappointed if it’s not Kuroo, who it probably isn’t, he hasn’t even texted yet, after all –

And then the door to Kenma’s room opens and his head snaps up. Kuroo is standing there, in all his glory, hair the same mess it always is, clothes rumpled, a backpack slung haphazardly over only one shoulder, and Kenma’s heart stops beating for a second, just to resume at thrice its previous speed.

“Kuro,” Kenma says, and he definitely doesn’t mean for that to come out half as breathless as it does. Kuroo grins at him and steps into the room, kicking the door shut and letting his backpack fall to the ground, and then Kenma is throwing his controller down and jumping up, crossing the space between them. Kuroo opens his arms and Kenma falls into them, and he tries to tell himself to not be this desperate and clingy, to not be this obvious about how unable he’s been to deal with not having Kuroo there, but Kuroo’s holding him close, burying his face in Kenma’s hair and fervently murmuring Kenma’s name over and over again, and Kenma thinks that maybe it’s okay, maybe he’s not the only one who’s felt desperate and clingy the last few weeks.

When Kenma finally feels tethered enough again to take a step back, Kuroo’s hands glide from his back to his hips, refusing to leave Kenma completely.

“I’ve missed you,” he tells Kenma, and his eyes are big and earnest, and there’s so much affection in them, and Kenma feels warm all over and doesn’t know what to do with himself. He has this weird urge to kiss Kuroo, again, can feel his eyes drift to Kuroo’s lips, and he closes them for a second to ground himself, push the urge away.

Then he opens them again, looks at Kuroo, and tells him earnestly, “I missed you too.”

“God, Kenma,” Kuroo groans, and then he’s tugging Kenma back into him, holding him close again, and Kenma lets him. He’s missed Kuroo so, so incredibly much and it feels so good to be in his arms, like he’s been running on empty batteries for a while and is finally recharging. He kind of never wants to let go again.

They move to his bed, eventually; Kuroo just kind of shuffles them over, lays down and tugs Kenma right back into him, curling around him like a big human blanket. They end up falling asleep like that: curled around each other, Kenma safely tucked into Kuroo’s arms. It feels secure and comfortable, just right, like this is where he belongs.

It’s the first time Kenma falls asleep without any problems since Kuroo left for university five weeks ago.

--

When Kenma wakes up, the first thing he notices is that he feels warm and comfortable and weighed down. He likes having some weight on him, pressing him into the mattress; it relaxes him. He bought a weighted blanket a few years back, but this is nothing like his weighted blanket – this is heavier and just better, in a way Kenma can’t even put into words.

Kenma sluggishly blinks his eyes open and realizes that the weight on him is Kuroo. It’s a really, really good feeling, and contented warmth spreads through him.

The next thing he realizes, though, is that Kuroo is dressed in his street clothes, and – oh, that’s right. They just fell asleep cuddling yesterday. Kenma was already in his pyjamas because Kuroo showed up so late, but Kuroo is still wearing jeans and a shirt, which really can’t be comfortable.

Kenma thinks he should probably wake Kuroo up, tell him to change into fresh clothes and go brush his teeth, but Kuroo feels so good on top of him, and Kenma is so comfortable. He’s missed Kuroo terribly, these past few weeks, and now that Kuroo is actually here, Kenma kind of doesn’t want to let him go. At all.

If Kuroo gets up now, there’s a high chance he won’t come back to bed and resume cuddling, instead going over to see his family, get breakfast, plan the day, and the possibility weighs on Kenma like lead. He’s not ready to let go of Kuroo again, now that he finally has him where he wants him.

So he simply nuzzles back into Kuroo, closes his eyes again and goes back to sleep – it feels like an egoistic thing to do, but he doesn’t actually care all that much. He really, really doesn’t feel like he’s capable of sharing Kuroo at the moment.

--

The next time Kenma wakes up, it’s because someone is softly shaking his shoulder. He slowly opens his eyes and looks into Kuroo’s face. Kuroo looks fond, a soft smile on his lips, and his hair actually looks somewhat brushed, a more deliberate version of his bedhead. Kenma blinks a few times and then lets his eyes wander over Kuroo’s body to confirm his suspicions – yes, Kuroo has changed his clothes and freshened up, apparently. Without waking Kenma. He probably deserves a medal for managing to detach Kenma without waking him; Kenma knows that he tends to be very clingy when he sleeps with Kuroo.

“Good morning, Kitten,” Kuroo says, sounding unfairly cheerful for the fact that he’s up and not on top of Kenma anymore. Kenma groans a little and decides to hide his face in his pillow. He also makes grabby hands at Kuroo, because he’s tired and still feels incredibly desperate to have Kuroo close.

Kuroo laughs quietly, but Kenma can feel his mattress dip and a few seconds later, Kuroo’s arms are back around him.

“You have to get up at some point, you know,” Kuroo tells him. Kenma just grumbles at him. He doesn’t feel like he needs to get up. Actually, he thinks staying in bed all day, cuddling with Kuroo, sounds like a very good plan. It’s probably not what Kuroo came here for, but Kenma feels like he deserves it, after not having Kuroo around for five weeks.

“You at least need to get up to eat something,” Kuroo says. Kenma grumbles some more, which earns him a fond chuckle.

“You can go back to bed after,” Kuroo tells him, misunderstanding Kenma’s grumbles. Kenma doesn’t feel like telling him that it’s not exactly getting up that’s bothering him – although he doesn’t particularly want to get up either – but rather letting go of Kuroo, and the chance of possibly not getting any more Kuroo cuddles, after.

“Come on,” Kuroo says, “I’ll even make pancakes for you?”

Now that does get Kenma’s attention. Kuroo’s pancakes are really, really good. Kenma rarely gets to eat them, since usually, when Kuroo is staying over, Kenma’s parents will make breakfast, but it’s always a treat when he does get them.

“Okay,” he says, and Kuroo grins knowingly at him.

Getting up to get pancakes does sadly mean that Kenma has to get up and Kuroo lets go of him – Kenma kind of wants to grab him and nuzzle right back into him, but he contains himself.

Breakfast with Kuroo is nice, the way it always is: familiar and relaxing. It also makes Kenma heart ache distinctly while he’s leaning on the kitchen counter, watching Kuroo flip pancakes, listening to him talk about university.

Kenma misses this, a lot. He misses Kuroo. It aches, to have this familiarity now, because it’s just a reminder that come tomorrow, he’ll lose this again, have to say goodbye to Kuroo once more, not knowing when he’ll see him the next time.

He wants to grab at Kuroo, dig his fingers into him and beg, just to make him stay. He feels like he needs to do something, anything at all: it feels so, so good to finally have Kuroo here, but even with Kuroo being mere metres away from Kenma, he feels too far away.

He’s living a different life now, one that he doesn’t necessarily need Kenma to be a part of it, one that had been going great the last five weeks without Kenma, while Kenma laid awake most nights, missing Kuroo so much he was aching, desperate to have Kuroo there again, to see his smile in person, hear his laughter without it being distorted by a phone, touch him.

This, having what he’s been dreaming about for the past five weeks? It doesn’t feel like enough, not when he has to let Kuroo go again. It doesn’t feel like enough period. It feels like Kenma needs more, needs to be even closer, and that’s absurd; he and Kuroo are already exceptionally close, even for best friends.

It’s not enough.

It’s not.

Kuroo’s pancakes are, as always, exceptional. Kenma would go so far as to say they’re a revelation, not that he’d ever tell Kuroo that. (He has told Yamamoto, though, once, just to make him jealous because Yamamoto has never had them and isn’t likely to get them anytime soon. Kenma doesn’t remember why he felt like making Yamamoto jealous. Sometimes he just feels petty.)

Kenma, however, isn’t really able to focus on the pancakes the way they deserve. Instead he keeps staring at Kuroo, who’s sitting on the opposite side of the table.

He wants to say something, maybe; ask Kuroo what he plans on doing with the day, ask Kuroo how long he plans on staying. (Ask Kuroo if he’s ever looked at Kenma and felt his heart lurch and stomach drop, feeling a little dizzy, the way Kenma is feeling lately when he looks at Kuroo.)

Instead, he eats.

Kuroo, of course, is more than happy about that. He always likes to see Kenma eat – he still insists Kenma doesn’t eat enough – and he especially likes to see Kenma eat food he cooked. Kenma doesn’t really understand why, maybe it has to do with vanity, but Kuroo just gets this glow about him whenever Kenma eats something Kuroo cooked for him.

It’s really endearing, actually. Not that Kenma would tell him that.

Kenma gets progressively more nervous throughout breakfast; he doesn’t know what Kuroo has planned for the rest of the day, and he’s scared that Kuroo’s going to do the dishes and then disappear to his parents’ house. Kenma could, of course, always follow him; he’s sure Kuroo’s father and grandparents would be excited to see him. But he doesn’t want to do that – doesn’t want to be clingy, doesn’t want to force Kuroo to spend time with him.

Kuroo, who’s had five weeks to get used to not having Kenma around – Kenma doesn’t want to be too much, expect too much all at once, now.

(What he does want is to finish school so he can go to the same university as Kuroo and cement his place in Kuroo’s life again. It feels pathetic and desperate.)

“What do you have planned for today?” Kenma asks, when he can’t take his thoughts running wild in his head anymore.

“I thought we could play some volleyball, maybe. I need to see that your skills are still there, now that you no longer have me around to push you,” Kuroo says, teasing grin on his face. “We can just go to your room and play some Mario Kart, though, if you hate that idea.”

Kenma looks at Kuroo, and his heart lurches. ‘We’. Kenma asked Kuroo what he wants to do, now that he’s back home, and he said ‘we’, like it’s a given that they’ll spend the entire weekend together. Kenma’s throat feels dry and his eyes are burning a little. He tries to get an answer out and fails.

Kuroo, taking his silence the wrong way, says, “I guess I did promise you that you could go back to bed, so if you want to do that, we can always go back to bed.”

He’s still using ‘we’. Kenma feels unsteady and raw.

“Volleyball is okay,” he manages to get out, his voice croaking a little. He’s not sure he’s capable of playing volleyball right now, with how unsteady he feels, but the answering happy grin on Kuroo’s face is enough reason to try, anyways.

(He deliberately does not remind Kuroo of the fact that he does, in fact, have volleyball practice today; he would rather miss out on that, spend the entire day with Kuroo, now that he has him here.)

Yaku would endlessly make fun of Kenma for this, call him whipped. Yaku is not here right now, and Kenma thinks he’s allowed to indulge Kuroo, just a little. He hasn’t seen him in five weeks, after all. And it’s not like he’s going completely soft on Kuroo: he will definitely mock Kuroo relentlessly for something, later. It’s important to keep boundaries established, after all.

Still, he looks at Kuroo, whose eyes are shining in excitement, and his stomach feels weird, and Kenma feels a lot softer than he should, maybe.

--

The weekend passes way too quickly. Kuroo spends the entirety of it glued to Kenma’s side; he eats dinner with his parents on Saturday, because his grandmother would have his head, otherwise, but he insists that Kenma come along for it, so they don’t even separate for that.

Then Sunday evening rolls around, and by the time Kenma has to bring Kuroo to the main railway station, it feels like no time has passed at all, like Kuroo has only been back home for a few minutes.

Kenma stands next to Kuroo at the train station, waiting for Kuroo’s train to arrive, and feels unhappy and small. Like he should curl into a ball and cry, or maybe hide himself in Kuroo’s luggage, make sure Kuroo takes Kenma back with him to university.

He wonders if Akaashi feels like this every Sunday, when Bokuto leaves again. Maybe not, because Akaashi always has the certainty of seeing Bokuto again just five days later.

Kenma wishes he had the same certainty, but he doesn’t, and he’s not in a position to make demands. (He wishes he were, so desperately that it scares him.)

He looks at Kuroo, who’s standing next to him, bundled up in a thick coat, his hair as unruly as always, and finds Kuroo already looking at him. There’s an expression on Kuroo’s face that makes Kenma think maybe he’s not the only one feeling this sorrowful about Kuroo leaving.

He takes a step closer and leans against Kuroo’s side, averts his eyes so he doesn’t have to look into Kuroo’s face anymore. He’s not sure how to deal with the fact that he’s seeing his own sadness mirrored there. It calms and distresses him at the same time.

Kuroo sighs, quietly, and puts an arm around Kenma. Kenma curls into him, hides his face in Kuroo’s side. His eyes burn. He hopes he’s not going to cry. He doesn’t like crying; doesn’t tend to cry a lot. Lately, he’s been crying more, and it’s because of Kuroo. He’s not sure what do with that.

“I’m going to miss you, Kitten,” Kuroo says.

‘Sap,’ Kenma wants to say. He stays quiet.

“I’ll try to visit soon again, okay?”

‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ Kenma wants to say. “Good,” he says instead, quietly. His voice sounds small enough that he thinks a gust of wind might be able to carry it away, leave it somewhere on the countryside, between hills and meadows, to settle into the ground and disappear, get overgrown by grass and flowers. He hopes it does: the affection and sorrow in his voice don’t belong here, in the bustling metropole that is Tokyo, too delicate to exist between hectic businessmen and uncompromising skyscrapers.

He can hear Kuroo sigh, again, and then he feels a light pressure on his head, as if Kuroo had pressed a kiss there, but that’s not – he wouldn’t have done that. For all that Kenma and Kuroo sometimes blur the lines when it comes to acceptable amounts of physical affection between best friends, Kuroo has never given Kenma a kiss, not even a small one on the cheek or forehead. Maybe it’s better this way, because Kenma feels like he’d combust if Kuroo did. (Maybe he wants Kuroo to, as desperately as he wants him to stay.)

He tries not to think about it.

He probably imagined the sensation, either way.

Then the train rolls into the station, and Kuroo lets go of Kenma, steps away from him.

Kenma, feeling a little frantic, suddenly, tugs Kuroo back, into a proper hug, and they stay like that only for a few seconds, Kuroo’s arms strong and secure around Kenma, his face hidden in Kenma’s hair, before they separate again.

“Don’t cause too much mischief while I’m gone,” Kuroo says, and then he’s making his way through the people at the platform, stepping into the train, and Kenma feels heavy and like something inside of him is breaking.

He wants to run after Kuroo, beg him to stay, the way he’s wanted to all weekend, but he doesn’t. Instead he watches as the train doors close, watches as the train slowly leaves the station, watches, even when there’s nothing to watch anymore, the train tracks shimmering purple from the dusking sun, empty where the train stood before, and he feels hollow.

When his feet finally carry him home, they do so without his commandeering, his consciousness and heart still left at the railway station, crying out for Kuroo.

--

Kenma meets Kuroo’s roommate the next Tuesday. Actually, ‘meets’ isn’t the right word, probably, but they are finally formally introduced.

So far, Kenma has only heard about him in Kuroo’s complaints (“he hogs the shower”, “he leaves his dirty socks everywhere”, “his girlfriend came to visit and he sexiled me again”, “he is a horrible slob and I genuinely do not get why Anyta, the angel that is his girlfriend, got together with him. She’s a beautiful, strong woman and he’s an absolute asshole – although he treats her well, I will say that”, “he ate my favourite snacks, Kenma, I think I’m going to kill him”). Kenma has never actually met the guy.

That changes on Tuesday afternoon; Kenma and Kuroo are video-chatting, the way they so often are, when there’s the loud bang of a door being pushed closed and then there’s a loud “yahoo, Kuroo!”. Kuroo’s face scrunches up in distaste. Kenma thinks he looks very adorable like that. He actually feels a little warm, looking at Kuroo.

Then a face squishes itself next to Kuroo’s, before shoving Kuroo out of the camera range completely, and grey eyes stare at Kenma inquiringly through the screen.

“You must be Kenma!” says the man that is staring at Kenma. Kenma guesses it’s Kuroo’s roommate.

“You can call him Kozume-san,” Kenma hears Kuroo grumble, and he has to suppress a smile.

“So possessive,” the stranger tsks.

“This is Kazama, my roommate,” Kuroo says in the background. So Kenma’s hunch was, indeed, correct.

“I’m so glad to finally meet Kuroo’s boyfriend!” Kazama says enthusiastically, and Kenma chokes.

“Best friend, actually,” he corrects quietly, not entirely sure why correcting the assumption leaves a terrible burning feeling in his chest.

“Oh?” Kazama says, looking far too interested. It makes Kenma feel a little bit uncomfortable; he’s not sure why Kazama is looking at him the way he does, why he’d even thought Kenma was Kuroo’s boyfriend in the first place – he sounded sincere, when he said it, and Kenma has no idea what to make of that.

“Yes, best friend,” Kuroo says from the background. There’s something in his voice that Kenma can’t quite place.

“You talk more to your best friend than I do to my girlfriend,” Kazama grins. “Where do you take the social energy from?”

Kenma’s eyebrows knit together. There’s an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and something is poking at the back of his mind, something he doesn’t have the time or energy to examine.

“Where do you take your capacity to be so goddamn annoying from?” Kuroo shoots back, and then Kazama’s face gets pushed out of the camera range, Kuroo’s beautiful face on the screen once again.

“Don’t mind him, Kitten,” he says, his voice soft, but there’s something unreadable in his eyes, too. Kenma hates that – he’s been able to read Kuroo like a book for years. He doesn’t like that he doesn’t know how to interpret the expression that is on Kuroo’s face right now.

“Kitten? You’re sure he’s not your boyfriend?” Kazama hollers from the back, and Kuroo’s expression changes to one Kenma is very familiar with: annoyance. He looks like he’s ready to hit Kazama over the head if need be.

Kenma feels – shaky, at best; unsteady, something coiling in his stomach. It feels like there’s acid in his veins and he doesn’t know how to deal with any of this, how to deal with himself. He doesn’t understand why Kazama, someone he’s never met before, can upset him so much, simply by joking about him and Kuroo being in a relationship. He’s used to jibes from their Nekoma friend group about this exact topic, after all, so why does this feel so different?

He also doesn’t know how to place the particular flavour of upset he’s feeling; it’s not disgust for the idea, certainly, but Kenma doesn’t know what it is. He’s not sure he wants to know.

“Maybe we should cut this call short,” Kuroo says, sounding apologetic. “I’ll call you tomorrow, hopefully with Kazama out of the house. I think Wednesdays are date nights for him anyways.”

Kenma simply nods, quietly. Maybe it’s better to end this here, he thinks; he’s not sure he can deal with more of Kazama, not when he still feels this unsteady and upset. He distinctly feels like he might want to crawl under the covers of his bed and just suffer, for a little while, feel his emotions out until they have settled and are ready to leave him: an activity that certainly demands for privacy.

“See you tomorrow, Kenma,” Kuroo says, his voice soft.

“Don’t punch him,” Kenma says, and Kuroo grins at him. The grin just upsets Kenma even more, in a way he’s not sure he has the words to describe; it claws into his insides and settles in his stomach.

He hangs up, quickly, before he has to look at Kuroo’s face any longer, give this feeling in his stomach room to grow.

Then he just lies down and stares at the ceiling, for a moment. There’s a turmoil inside of him, a raging storm, loud thunder and crashing waves. Kenma tries to sink into the waves and let them drown out his thoughts, sink under a veil of heaviness so he can start feeling weightless and cease existing consciously, just for a moment.

There is something in him, something that might have been there for a long time, screaming to get out, for Kenma to acknowledge it. Kenma doesn’t – he neither wants to look it in the face nor actually listen to it, and so he lets the waves of his turmoil pull him under, floating away from the Thing in his mind.

--

The rest of the week passes kind of uneventfully, for the most part; Kazama interrupts no more phone calls or videochats and Kenma keeps the turmoil in him successfully at bay.

That is, until Saturday rolls around.

Saturday starts off the way it usually does: with Kenma rolling out of bed barely in time for volleyball practice, which he actually attends, this week. The prior weekend, he stayed at home with Kuroo, instead; in his defence, though, Kuroo actually seemed to have completely forgotten that volleyball practice exists and Kenma truly did not feel like reminding him and potentially sharing him with the team, as pitiful as that may sound.

After practice, he checks his phone and finds a new text from Kuroo. That in itself isn’t unusual. The text, however, is.

have to cancel our call today, sry :( kazama set me up on a blind date, it reads.

Something in Kenma shatters.

It’s not like Kuroo has never been on a date before – but he’s only ever been on a handful, and all of them were in his first year of high school, none of them ever going anywhere. So although Kuroo is a notorious flirt, Kenma hasn’t actively had to think about him dating, not for a long time.

It shouldn’t hit him this hard – this idea of Kuroo on a date with someone. (Someone else, something inside of Kenma hisses that he shuts down, harshly.) Kuroo is his best friend, his best friend who has been single for years, so Kenma should be ecstatic for him.

He isn’t.

He aches, instead, and the Thing in him is screeching, begging Kenma to listen to what it’s trying to tell him, but it’s too shrill for Kenma to actually make out words. All he knows is that he feels worse than he has in a very long time – even though he’s been feeling horrible for weeks, ever since Kuroo left for university.

He doesn’t answer Kuroo. He should, probably, but for some reason he doesn’t feel capable of it.

Instead, he texts Hinata.

--

Two hours later, Kenma is on a train to Sendai. It’s probably the most spontaneous thing he’s ever done in his life, but his mother had agreed, Hinata had been ecstatic, and Kenma needs to see someone. He doesn’t feel like he can be alone right now. And he didn’t know who else to ask – the other people he could have asked, the only ones other than Hinata he would have felt at all comfortable asking, are Akaashi and Bokuto, and Kenma doesn’t want to interrupt their weekend time together.

So instead, he bought a train ticket to another prefecture, which feels incredibly dramatic and desperate – and yet not half as desperate as Kenma feels.

Kuroo cancelled their evening plans to go on a date, and for some reason, that makes Kenma want to scream.

--

Hinata is, if nothing else, a very good distraction. He’s loud and brash and enthusiastic and wants to know everything about every new video game Kenma has played, and Kenma lets himself talk and listen, lets his mind settle firmly on everything that isn’t Kuroo and slowly, slowly, he relaxes.

Hinata also, apparently, has a huge crush on Kageyama that he himself is not aware of. Kenma had noticed it before, of course, but lately it seems to have reached a new high: Hinata has barely stopped talking about Kageyama all afternoon long. It seems unrealistic, almost, that Hinata himself doesn’t appear to be actually aware of the fact that all of his thoughts seem to solely circle around volleyball and Kageyama.

Kenma wonders how one could be in love and not know it; it seems like the sort of thing you’re supposed to know, maybe. Doesn’t love come with fluttery feelings? How could one have their feelings go crazy around someone else, think about someone else all the time, and not notice it?

But then again, this is Hinata. Maybe he simply hasn’t given it thought, hasn’t deemed it important, too focused on volleyball to care about feelings. It seems like the sort of thing he’d do.

--

Kenma spends the night at Hinata’s and takes the train back home on Sunday. He almost doesn’t want to go home – almost wants to buy another train ticket, take the train to visit Kuroo, and do – something. He’s not entirely sure what. Just that he feels like doing something.

Now that he’s back home again, his inner turmoil is back, all these aching feelings about Kuroo and Kuroo going on a date. Kenma hates everything about it.

He spends most of his Sunday holed up in his room, playing video games; by the time evening comes around, he still hasn’t answered Kuroo’s text from the previous day. He should, probably – he hasn’t left Kuroo on read a single time since Kuroo graduated. That he’s doing it now is suspicious, maybe, but he still doesn’t have the mental energy for it. Doesn’t know what to say. He know what he should text, probably – something along the lines of ‘I hope you had fun’, or maybe something teasing like ‘a blind date is the only date you could score’. Neither of those options seem right, and he’s not sure how to put into words what he’s actually feeling.

He isn’t sure what it is that he’s feeling, after all.

He doesn’t know if Kuroo will even call him today, with Kenma still not having texted him back. The possibility of not getting a call from Kuroo terrifies and relaxes him at the same moment.

He’s not sure he would be able to speak to Kuroo now, feeling like the way he is, something clawing and ripping at him. He’s not sure he would be able to talk to Kuroo, look into his handsome face, and act like he’s okay, mask that he feels like something is ripping him apart from the inside.

He is sure, however, that Kuroo not calling would devastate him.

His phone rings, stopping him in his thoughts. Kenma looks at it, his hands shaky – it’s a phone call from Kuroo. The mix of relief and pure terror he feels at this absurd. It’s not a video call, at least. Kenma isn’t sure that he’d be able to deal with a video call right now.

He picks up.

“Hey Kenma,” Kuroo says, and his voice sounds a little subdued. “You never answered my text. Is everything okay?”

“Just feeling a little under the weather,” Kenma lies, immediately feeling guilty.

“Oh no!” Kuroo says, and from the tone of his voice it’s clear that he’s about to go into full mother-hen mode.

“How was your date?” Kenma asks, with the simple wish to distract him, and then immediately regrets having opened his mouth at all.

The distraction seems to work, at least.

“It was okay,” Kuroo says, not sounding too enthusiastic. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t call because of it.”

“I’ll survive one evening without you,” Kenma teases. Another lie, seeing as Kuroo cancelling their call for a date made him feel absolutely miserable.

“Maybe so,” Kuroo says, “but it doesn’t feel like it was worth it, really? Like don’t get me wrong – she was nice. Very nice, actually. And pretty. I mean, I guess Akiyama is my type – she seemed genuinely interested and she had pretty long hair and she was a little shy in an adorable way? And she was into volleyball! What more do you want, really–”

Kenma listens to Kuroo with a growing sense of unease. There is something vicious in his stomach and his throat feels tight. The Thing in him is wailing. He doesn’t want it, he doesn’t want to listen to it, he doesn’t want any of it. He doesn’t know her, but he’s sure Kuroo and pretty, long-haired Akiyama would look good together, make a beautiful couple. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anyone dating Kuroo, he realizes, doesn’t want Kuroo to talk about anyone lovingly or give them his attention in this way. The thought of Kuroo kissing someone makes him sick, and – and that’s not exactly true. The Thing sits at the forefront of his mind, demanding attention, and Kenma finally lets himself look, looks, looks at something that is not the monster he thought it was, but a giant accumulation of his own feelings, and oh. Oh.

So Kenma might actually not be opposed to the idea of Kuroo dating. As long as it is Kenma he’s dating.

“–waste of time, really,” he hears Kuroo say and tunes back in. “Maybe we’ll remain friends, though. I mean, she is nice. I just can’t see myself dating her.”

Relief floods Kenma. He feels – he feels not particularly changed, for all that this is the biggest realization he’s ever had in his entire life.

He’s in love with his best friend.

A lot of things make sense now, retrospectively.

“Hm,” Kenma makes, noncommittal, because he doesn’t really know how to answer Kuroo. Doesn’t want to let proper words out, because he suddenly doesn’t trust himself to keep his newfound feelings safely inside.

He can’t just blurt them out. He isn’t sure he wants to tell Kuroo at all – isn’t sure it’s worth the way it might endanger their friendship. And he certainly will not tell Kuroo over the phone if he ever decides to actually voice his feelings.

“Well, tell me about your weekend, Kitten,” Kuroo says, and Kenma feels his cheeks go hot and his stomach flutter pleasantly at the use of the nickname.

He could have possibly realized this a lot earlier.

“I visited Shouyou,” he offers.

“Oh, so that’s why you didn’t answer,” Kuroo says. There’s an undertone in his voice, something small, hurt and even a little bit angry. Kuroo is a little possessive of Kenma, sometimes. Kenma likes to admonish him for it, but he usually doesn’t actually mind, since it makes him feel warm and wanted.

“Hm,” Kenma makes, not confirming it, but also not correcting Kuroo. He can’t exactly tell him that reading the words ‘Kazame set me up on a blind date’ made him feel so miserable he took a spontaneous trip to Sendai and couldn’t look at his phone for the entire weekend. So he’ll let Kuroo come to his own conclusion.

“How’s Hinata doing?” Kuroo asks, sounding grumbly.

“Good. Still focusing all his energy on volleyball. Still hasn’t realized he’s pining after his setter,” Kenma tells him, and stops for a second. He feels like an idiot, now, for thinking Hinata was being absurdly oblivious, when it’s taken him this long to realize his own feelings, which have probably been there for a long time.

“Oho?” Kuroo makes, suddenly sounding very intrigued and a lot more cheerful.

“Don’t blabber about that to anyone,” Kenma admonishes him.

“I didn’t even say anything!” Kuroo says.

“And you better keep it that way. Shouyou and Kageyama can figure it out on their own,” Kenma tells him. He hears Kuroo sigh.

“I guess so,” he says. Kenma would bet there’s a pout on his face.

Kenma sighs himself, but he feels fond and so, so warm, now. A lot better than he was feeling just a few minutes earlier.

--

Kenma still feels fond and warm when he hangs up later that night. This is Kuroo’s power; making Kenma feel so much better with just a few sentences. Kenma feels almost overwhelmed with his love for Kuroo, now that he knows it’s there, knows it’s not simply platonic in nature.

It’s a weird realization to have, after ten years of friendship: that the way you see your best friend isn’t as neat and nicely packaged as you thought it was. Kenma isn’t sure when exactly his feelings for Kuroo crossed the boundary into romantic, but his best guess would be somewhere in his first year of high school, probably.

It makes sense, though, that it would be Kuroo. Kenma had thought of himself as simply not interested in romantic relationships for a long time, had even contemplated if maybe he was aromantic. He thinks Kuroo is probably the only person he could have developed these feelings for, years of friendship and trust and close physical proximity being a strong basis.

He’s not sure what to do with it.

The safest option would probably be to ignore his feelings, the way he has very competently done until now. Kuroo’s and his friendship is the most important friendship he has, one of the most important things in his life, and it’s not worth risking.

On the other hand, he thinks they might be able to recover from this. And his feelings feel so big, like they’re so much – they take up so much space that maybe it would be best to actually voice them.

He’s terrified of rejection, and rejection seems like the most likely outcome, but he knows Kuroo is bi, and he’s not sure he could live with never having told Kuroo that he was even an option in the first place. Kenma would hate watching Kuroo settle down with someone else regardless, but watching him settle down with someone else simply because Kenma never managed to let Kuroo know about his feelings would be even worse, he thinks.

He wants to – have a chance, maybe, as small as it may be. He doesn’t think Kuroo requites his feelings, but at least that way, he’ll know. (He doesn’t think he can move on if he gets rejected, not really; he’s not sure he’s even capable of developing feelings for anyone else. But maybe this is worth the risk, if just to put his mind to rest.)

--

Kenma texts Akaashi on Monday.

what would you say if i told you that i’m in love with kuro?

Congratulations, you’re officially the second to last person to know. Last place is saved for Kuroo-kun himself, of course, Akaashi texts back.

Kenma stares at his phone for a second. It’s probably fair, he thinks.

i have no idea why people think you’re harmless and polite, he writes anyway. He’s tempted to text Hinata, maybe, but he gets the feeling that Hinata wouldn’t be very helpful either. Very nice and sympathetic, probably, but not helpful. So he doesn’t.

--

Life goes on much the same; he still videochats with Kuroo, he still misses Kuroo horribly, and Akaashi is still the person he whines to, if he does whine.

But now, he accepts that sometimes he looks at Kuroo and simply wants to kiss him, that the tingling warmth in his stomach is his love for Kuroo.

It should be a huge change, maybe, but it isn’t, not really, much like the realization didn’t feel as ground-breaking as it should have. The biggest change is him trying to figure out whether or not it’s worth it to tell Kuroo about this. It’s a terrifying thing to consider, in its reality: the changes it might bring, for better or worse. Probably worse, all things considered; Kuroo has just gone on a date with someone else, after all, which doesn’t exactly bode well for Kenma.

Kenma has accepted that if he does actually tell Kuroo, it will most likely result in heartbreak. He doesn’t exactly want to get his heart broken, but then again, his heart already feels broken, thinking about Kuroo, and his feelings for Kuroo, and how they’re not reciprocated.

And he truly does want to let Kuroo know that he’s an option, at least. Maybe Kuroo will actually think about it and try to give Kenma a chance. Maybe Kuroo could learn to love Kenma this way.

Kenma isn’t sure Kuroo could, and it would still hurt, knowing Kuroo had never thought of him as more than a friend before, but it would be okay, because at least Kenma would get to have him.

Most likely, though, Kuroo will simply reject him, and apologize, and things will be strained for a little while, and then their friendship will – hopefully – recover. That’s the outcome Kenma is prepared for.

If he tells Kuroo, that is.

He thinks he should, that he wants to, but he is also terrified.

It’s a decision he will probably end up making the next time he sees Kuroo face to face.

--

I think you should tell him!!!!!, Hinata texts Kenma, after Kenma tells him about his realization after all. Mainly because it’s been two weeks, and he thinks he could do with a little sympathy and pity, maybe. This is not the reaction he expected, although he should have expected it, looking at it now.

maybe

No definitely!!!! I’m sure Kuroo-san would be really happy!!!!

Kenma scoffs a little at that. He wishes, but he, unlike Hinata, is anything but sure about that.

while kuro does like his getting his ego stroked, i’m pretty sure his main focus would be on his childhood best friend having feelings for him (!)

Exactly!!!!!!, comes Hinata’s next text, and Kenma stares at it in confusion.

??

He’d be super happy!!! He’s SO in love with you!!! He’d be over the moon!!!!!

Kenma’s face does something – questionable. He’s not sure exactly what it does. It probably mimics the whirlwind of thoughts and feelings inside of him. Hinata can’t – he must have meant ‘he loves you’. As in, ‘loves you platonically’. Because there’s no way – there’s no way.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, maybe Hinata just misunderstood something. Sometimes Hinata isn’t the best at picking up clues – he still hasn’t managed to realize that he’s in love with Kageyama, after all. So it would only be reasonable to assume that instead of missing a clue, he picked up the wrong one, this time.

Kenma sighs and plants himself face down onto his bed. He wanted a nice conversation, Hinata being sympathetic to his plight, and instead all he’s got is an aching heart, thinking about what it’d be like if Kuroo actually were into him.

He thinks his life would be a lot easier if he’d just never realized his feelings, after all.

--

He decides on a course of action, at least.

After spending an entire conversation with Kuroo being so distracted he can barely focus on what Kuroo’s talking about at all, he decides to tell him.

This – how the situation is, at the moment – is doing him no good. He feels achy and distracted all the time. It feels like he’s in a limbo, floating suspended in time, his aching heart casting a darkness around him that prohibits him from seeing anything of actual importance.

He can’t go on like this.

Telling Kuroo – it’ll hurt, he’s sure of that. It’ll burn, and he’ll ache and probably cry, but at least after that, life can move on, and Kenma can learn to deal with this reality. Sometimes, that’s the best thing one can do for oneself: ripping the band-aid off.

--

can i visit you? he texts Kuroo, after having made his decision. Sure, he could bring it up in one of their phone calls, ask Kuroo directly how he’d feel about Kenma visiting him sometime soon, but he’s not sure he feels capable of doing that, not sure he has the strength to, when he knows what said visit will bring. Hiding behind kanji on a phone screen seems a lot easier.

Of course!! Kuroo texts back just a few seconds later. Kenma imagines him to be grinning excitedly at his phone. The image hurts.

He’s not sure how excited Kuroo will be after Kenma has told him what he needs to say. He can see Kuroo before him, the excitement over seeing Kenma bleeding out of his face, being replaced with nothing but pity, possibly sadness that he can’t reciprocate his feelings, maybe even disgust. The image rips at him, at his heart, and he has to close his eyes for a moment, breathe, count to ten.

The sensation of a hole being ripped into his insides doesn’t dissipate, but when he opens his eyes again, he feels capable of focusing once more, despite the pain searing his insides.

this weekend?

That sounds amazing, Kitten!! I can’t wait to see you!!

You might take those words back once you actually see me, Kenma thinks, and wants to cry.

--

The weekend comes up much quicker than Kenma wants it to.

By the time Friday comes around, Kenma still isn’t sure how exactly to voice his confession, and he certainly doesn’t feel prepared for Kuroo’s rejection, for all his surety of it being the most probable outcome.

He’s decided on taking the train after school to visit Kuroo. If talking to him goes badly, he can take the train back home the next morning and be back in time for practice, get his mind off things with volleyball.

It’s a sensible plan, he thinks. He’s sure he can spend one night in the same room with Kuroo, even after having had this conversation, and if not, well, the last train back comes at eleven pm, so Kenma definitely has a way out.

--

He’s nervous. Bracing yourself for one outcome doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to accept it, and Kenma is terrified of being rejected, even more terrified of his confession irreparably damaging their friendship.

He doesn’t know why it feels so important to him to voice his feelings out loud; many people are content with hiding their feelings for years and years. Then again, Kenma did that, in a way. Just that he hid his feelings from himself.

He stares out of the train window. His head is resting against it, his body curled up a little in the seat. The window is dirty, but not so much so that he can’t see out of it, that he can’t see the passing trees and streets and houses.

Life is bustling on all around him, people going through their daily chores, driving from one appointment to the next, children playing with children and adults and dogs: all of it passing by too fast for Kenma to make out any discerning features. Or maybe it’s the dirt clinging to the window, giving everything a muddy sheen, that prevents him from getting details.

It might be both.

It’s interesting, how untouched their lives seem by his: Kenma nothing more than a face pressed against a train window, similar to them and yet so different.

And still, their lives intersect. His actions could have an effect on them that neither he nor they are aware of. Maybe he bought the last copy of a game that one of their children wanted to play. Maybe they’ve once seen him play volleyball.

Maybe he will drive Kuroo away with his confession, and Kuroo will try to find solace someplace else, in the arms of a daughter or son of somebody Kenma drove by.

Maybe they’ll get married, their lives forever intertwined in a way that Kenma wishes his were with Kuroo’s.

Kenma closes his eyes, his head still resting against the cool glass of the train window.

“The next stop is Nishi-Funabashi,” the automated voice announces. Kenma sighs. Only a few more to go.

--

Kenma nearly gets run over while stepping out of the train, some young woman in heels and a business suit with a smartphone pressed to her ear, rushing, her anxiety a completely different flavour than Kenma’s.

The sun is setting, painting everything in an orange glow: people, the train, the platform. Kuroo, who is waiting for him, his hair the same mess it always is, a wide grin on his face, something fond and emotional in his eyes.

“Hi Kitten,” he says when Kenma reaches him, and then tugs him into a hug, pressing Kenma hard against his chest. Kenma snakes his arms around Kuroo’s waist and just breathes him in for a second. Kuroo smells like pine needles and chemistry labs and sweat. Kenma has missed him, the way he always does, and for a moment he simply feels warm and happy and right. Here, in Kuroo’s arms, is where he belongs, where he’s always belonged, where he will always belong.

But a moment can only last so long.

Kenma takes a step back, and Kuroo lets go of him; he looks unhappy about it for a second, his hands twitching as if he were fighting the impulse to tug Kenma back against him.

Kenma loves him, loves him so much he aches with it.

“Hi Kuro,” he says.

--

Kuroo talks the entire way to his dorm, pointing out places and things, showing Kenma the environment through his eyes, how he sees it every day.

He’s glowing from excitement.

At some point during their trek to his dorm he catches Kenma’s hand in his to tug him along, get him moving a little faster. It feels warm and good and Kenma is about to savour the feeling, to clasp down a little so he never forgets it, when Kuroo realizes that he’s holding Kenma’s hand and lets go of it.

Kenma’s heart sinks in his chest.

He truly does not feel prepared to face Kuroo’s rejection at all.

--

“This is where I live,” Kuroo says happily, opening the door to his flat. It’s small, not that Kenma expected anything different. He’s heard it described and has seen it in the background of their video calls, after all.

The apartment door opens directly into the living room, which also houses a tiny kitchenette, consisting of a small stove, a microwave and a small fridge that does not look like it’s even capable of holding all the groceries that Kuroo eats in a week, much less the groceries he and his roommate both consume. His roommate, who is either in his room or gloriously absent. Kenma hopes it’s the latter.

The living room is small in itself; it has only room for the kitchenette, a tv and a ratty old sofa. The sofa might have been yellow or orange at some point in time; now the colour is so faded it has landed on a rather unbecoming shade of beige. It looks comfortable, though, not that it matters much; thanks to past conversations with Kuroo, Kenma has steadfastly decided that he’s never going to sit on it.

The living room opens to three doors: the bathroom and the two bedrooms.

“Let me show you my room,” Kuroo says excitedly and drags Kenma through the door on the left.

His room is even tinier than the living room; the small bed, desk, and wardrobe in it take up pretty much all the space. It looks homely, though: there are books scattered over the surfaces, posters of volleyball players on the walls, and a huge stack of papers that look like they might be important put mindlessly into a corner.

There are two framed pictures on Kuroo’s desk: one of him and his father, sister and grandparents, taken when Kuroo must have been around nine years old, all of them smiling into the camera except for Kuroo’s sister, who is looking at him with such a look of fondness it makes Kenma feel warm and happy.

And one of him and Kenma, both of them in their street clothes and dirty, Kuroo holding a volleyball in his hands. This one was also taken when they were still a lot younger, Kuroo about nine years old; Kenma remembers the day and picture with fondness. Kuroo had wanted to drag him to a pool, on that particular day. Kenma had refused and told him to go with someone else, and Kuroo, unwilling to spend the day apart from Kenma, had listed off other things they could possibly do, until they had settled on volleyball, a sport Kenma had been becoming more and more fond of, due to Kuroo’s influence.

It floors Kenma a bit, that Kuroo has this picture of them on his desk. Sure, Kuroo had the same picture on his wall in his room at his father’s house, but Kuroo’s wall there was, and still is, adorned by several pictures of him with friends: the majority of them with Kenma, but some simply with the volleyball club and other friends.

Here, however, Kuroo has only put two pictures up.

Having made the cut feels incredible, and for a moment Kenma’s nerves about his planned confession abate, leaving behind a feeling of fondness and warmth; he feels so in love with Kuroo, so indescribably lucky to have him in his life.

“We’re going to have to share the bed, there really isn’t any room for another mattress,” Kuroo says then, “not that we’ve never shared before.” Kenma gets ripped out of the calm contemplation of the love he feels for Kuroo, and his nerves come back with full force.

He hums noncommittally, and doesn’t say what he’s thinking. Which is that even though they regularly sleep in the same bed, this night might be something different altogether. This bed is tiny, leaving no room to sleep except cuddled close, and while usually, he would welcome the opportunity, he doesn’t think he could deal with it after Kuroo has rejected him. Maybe he’ll just forget every unfriendly word he’s ever thought about the couch and sleep on it instead.

The second thing on his mind is that he’s not sure what to say now, what to do.

This is it, his moment: They’re in Kuroo’s room, alone, face to face. Kuroo is in a good mood, excited and relaxed. It’s still relatively early, leaving enough time for Kenma to take the train back home, if everything goes badly.

If there’s any time at all to open his mouth and just say the word, just tell Kuroo his feelings, it’s now.

Suddenly, it feels like too much.

His hands start to get clammy, his stomach clenching tightly and hurting, and there’s a swelling of anxiety at the back of his throat. He tries to breathe, calmly, in and out, before the panic he can feel coming up can get any stronger, can overwhelm him and trigger a full-blown panic attack.

Kuroo, of course, notices immediately.

“Kitten, hey,” he says, softly, stepping closer. “Everything okay?”

In, Kenma breathes, and out again. He nods, slowly. “Just had a moment,” he says, trying to let the tone of his voice communicate that he’s not going to elaborate on this.

“Okay,” Kuroo says. His right hand comes up to cup Kenma’s face, and he starts gently stroking Kenma’s cheek with his thumb. Kenma wants to cry, suddenly and desperately, because Kuroo is so soft, so gentle and caring, looking at him as if Kenma is the only thing that matters right now, and Kenma doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve Kuroo and his unconditional love, not when he’s about to shake the very foundation of their friendship with a confession born out of nothing but his selfish desire to come to terms with the feelings he has for Kuroo.

He sighs and steps a step back. Breathes in again, and out.

He’s made up his mind.

“There is something I need to tell you,” he says, and his face must reveal how serious he is, right now, because Kuroo immediately looks alarmed. Kenma takes another deep breath. His chest feels tight. His hands are still clammy. There’s a pressure on his stomach.

He looks down at the ground and starts to speak.

“I’m in love with you. I probably have been for a while. I – I know you don’t feel the same and I hope this doesn’t change things between us but – I just needed to say it. To let you know.” His voice is shaky, but he gets the words out somewhat clearly. He slowly breathes in and out again.

Kuroo is completely silent. Kenma hesitantly looks up at his face. He is staring, wide-eyed, his mouth open in an expression of shock. There is something in his eyes that Kenma can’t read, and Kenma is absolutely terrified of what it might mean.

He takes another step back. He’s not sure why, but he feels like grabbing his backpack and fleeing – just running, from Kuroo and from this situation. He feels stupid for confessing in the first place. He shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have risked it, but now it’s out there and Kuroo knows and their friendship might be ruined forever –

And then Kuroo rips himself out of his stasis and takes two big steps forwards, closing the space between them, and presses Kenma to his chest, burying his face into his hair, holding him close.

“Kenma,” he says, something unbelieving in his voice. “Kenma.”

He sounds like he’s close to tears, and then Kenma can feel something wet where Kuroo’s face is pressed into his hair and realizes – oh. That’s because he is. Not only close, but crying.

He wants to say something – apologize, maybe – but the words get stuck in his throat.

“Kenma,” Kuroo says again, and then he’s full-on sobbing into Kenma’s hair. Kenma doesn’t know what he’s feeling, except for the fact that his chest still feels too tight and the pressure in his stomach hasn’t dissipated. He has no idea what’s going on, but it can’t be good – Kuroo is crying.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, after what feels like an eternity of Kuroo holding him and silently sobbing.

“Don’t you dare,” Kuroo says, and now Kenma is confused.

“Kenma,” Kuroo says once more, his name falling from Kuroo’s lips like a prayer. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

“What?” Kenma says feeling like his whole world has just been tilted off-kilter.

“I’ve been in love with you for so long.” Kuroo’s voice is soft but sturdy and Kenma. Feels completely overwhelmed for a moment. His thoughts go completely blank. The pressure on his chest dissipates, but so does every other feeling, before they suddenly and overwhelmingly rush back in.

“You mean that?” Kenma asks, desperately, pushing out of Kuroos arms and pushing Kuroo away from him, just a little bit, so he can look at him.

Kuroo’s face is open, and honest, and Kenma floods with a happiness unlike anything he’s ever felt before.

“Of course I do,” he says. “Kenma, of course I do. Who else is there, who else could I ever possibly love?”

“But – the date,” Kenma says. He doesn’t want to bring it up, not really, but it’s there, at the back of his mind, and Kuroo said ‘who else’, but he did go on a date with someone else, someone who’s not Kenma –

“Oh, Kenma,” Kuroo says, softly, and closes the space between them again. He gently takes Kenma’s face in his hands. “I merely went on that date because Kazama insisted. Because he’s aware that I’m in love with you. Everyone who’s ever met me is aware that I am in love with you. Kenma, he thought we were together, and when you told him that we aren’t, he decided my pining wasn’t good for me and tried to get me to move on. Even Akiyama could tell I was in love with you. I apologized to her, because she was really nice but I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and she just looked at me and said, ‘it’s fine. I’ve been there’.”

Kenma looks at Kuroo, at the open honesty on his face, and relaxes. Until something hits him.

“Wait,” he says. “You said aren’t. Not weren’t.”

“I didn’t want to assume,” Kuroo says, and his eyes are shining with fondness and hope.

“Please assume.” Kenma’s voice sounds desperate, still, and he feels self-conscious for a moment, but Kuroo’s entire face lights up, unmasked happiness in his eyes. Kenma just looks at him, for a moment, and then he can’t look anymore, because Kuroo leans in, and his lips meet Kenma’s, and then Kenma’s eyes close of their own accord and everything that isn’t the feeling of Kuroo’s lips on his own suddenly seems entirely unimportant.

Kuroo’s lips feel soft and warm. He tastes like black coffee and that horrible cheap chapstick he uses in unholy amounts, and Kenma has never felt happier in his entire life.

He feels warm, and fond, and whole.

This: this is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

Here, with Kuroo’s arms around his waist and Kuroo’s lips on his, he knows, for the first time, with absolute certainty, that his place at Kuroo’s side is secure, that it’s always been secure. That no matter what happens and how their lives are going to change, he will always have this, have Kuroo. That he was never in any danger of being replaced, and that he never will be.

Because he and Kuroo, they fit, in a way they only fit with each other. It’s him and Kuroo. It has always been him and Kuroo.