Chapter Text
It’s insignificant really, Bokuto’s old blue sweatshirt. It didn’t hold any meaning to him. No stories attached to it. It wasn’t a gift, not something that he had to have, not even one of his favorites.
It was something he bought on a whim, in a thrift store, for reasons of just because.
There's no importance to that old blue sweatshirt of his, Kuroo could have thrown it out, donated it like he did all the other stuff, yet he still finds it in his possession almost a year later.
And Kuroo thinks it's kinda hilariously sad on how cliche he looks still holding on to it. Like some poor broken hearted boy right out of a drama.
It never held any significance for Bokuto but Kuroo always folds it with care. Moves it to the back of his dresser drawer, snips any frays that appear on the cuffs, and throws it in the wash whenever he feels it's acquired too much dust.
He doesn’t wear it. Doesn’t even hold it up to his nose for a whiff of something familiar. (His smell has long since disappeared anyway.)
But there are times, when Kuroo is getting dressed and he can’t seem to find anything to wear that he sees it - hidden in the back corner of the drawer as always. And it's then that Kuroo starts to think. Think about the times he’s seen him wear it. On morning jogs when the air is still too chilly, or lazy weekends when they both had all the time in the world, or even late nights when they were both sticky and sweaty with grins that stretched as wide as ever, and Bokuto is looking for something to save himself from the cold.
Its then, when he’s standing there, alone in what used to be their bedroom, that Kuroo realizes that's it been almost a whole year. And that he really ought to return it.
And so, he does.
He wants to laugh, really and truly, because he’s on Bokuto’s doorstep, uninvited and definitely unplanned. And all he has for an excuse is an old blue sweatshirt.
This has got to be funny, Kuroo thinks, it just has to be because he’s furiously wringing his hands around the material, twisting it until it's sure to have wrinkles and Kuroo just knows that there is someone laughing at him through the blinds of their window.
“Hello-” the door swings open, and Kuroo almost drops the sweatshirt on the ground at the sight. “-Oh. Kuroo. Hi?”
Bokuto’s expression doesn’t light up when he sees him, but nor does it fall and Kuroo decides to take that as a victory. “Hi? I mean-yeah, uh...hi?” It's downright cruel that Kuroo can’t seem to get his words right. Even harsher that all of this: the tripping on words, the doorstep, the sheer shock on Bokuto’s face is way too reminiscent of their first date. “I um, I was cleaning out the back of the closet the other day and I found this,” it's a lie, he knows, but it's one to save any last shred of his dignity that he still may have under Bokuto’s keen eyes. “I just thought you may have wanted it back or something? I hope I didn’t bother…”
Kuroo thinks he sees the faintest of smiles on Bokuto’s face. Small and barely visible, but it's there, and it makes Kuroo’s heart ache with a fondness that he thought he had lost.
“No, no it's not a problem,” he looks down at his feet for a second, so uncharacteristically quiet and still that it makes Kuroo’s hands fidget around the sweatshirt. “Did you - did you want to come in for a minute? If you weren’t busy or anything.”
And this is where Kuroo hesitates. At the threshold of Bokuto’s apartment, a place that he moved into because of him, and his own problems, his own mishaps, and his own goddamn inability to make a good thing work. This is where he stops, wonders what the hell is he doing, why the hell is he doing it? He wants to step back, say no thank you, but I really should be going, cause he shouldn’t be here. Should have never came in the first place, cause he doesn’t know, doesn’t know what he was looking for or even was hoping for when he approached Bokuto’s door.
And yet, he can’t - can’t back away from this chance and whatever it may hold, and he hears himself say, “Only if you’re sure you don’t mind.”
So this is where Kuroo laughs. At himself. On Bokuto’s couch, hands still around that old blue sweatshirt for reasons beyond himself, and he thinks with dry humor that this is the first time he’s ever felt awkward or out of place around Bokuto.
He hears him in the kitchen, making coffee for him, mentioning how he only has some because Akaashi and it only drives home how much of a guest Kuroo is. No longer fitting into a perfect little spot in Bokuto’s home, no longer a place for him in Bokuto’s life, but rather a visitor; only welcome when wanted, and even then Kuroo doesn’t know if that holds true.
But there is still that old blue sweater, now fresh with wrinkles from his own nervousness, that has remained the same. Like his own little token of them and what could have been. Except now, he’s about to give it away, under a pretense of something he isn’t quite sure of, where it will join all the other things he’s lost.
And the only thing Kuroo can say of it is that it sucks. A lot.
“This is the last bit of coffee I have,” Bokuto says when he returns, pressing the mug into Kuroo’s open hands, “Akaashi’s gonna be pissed that I gave away his ‘precious coffee’ but oh well, he’ll live.”
The apartment isn’t much bigger than their - Kuroo’s own. The living room is situated right across from the kitchen and a small round table in the dining area. The living room isn’t any grander either, just a simple TV and a brown leather couch that feels extremely well worn. Bokuto doesn’t sit too far away (maybe it's because the size of the couch) but the gap between them is, at least, noticeable to Kuroo and he tries hard not to think about it too much (maybe it's because he doesn't want to be near him).
Kuroo shuffles his feet against the carpet, Bokuto hasn’t spoken a word since he’s sat down, and it unnerves him, never quite use to silence between each other, much less a silence that was filled with such unnamed tension. He wants to say something: nice place you’ve got here or how have you been lately, but they all strangle themselves on his tongue, just a reminder of everything that’s gone wrong and Kuroo sips on his coffee to wash back any daring words.
“Just how you like it, yeah?” Bokuto asks, a smug little smile on his face at the melted happiness on Kuroo’s own.
“Yeah… yes, it's perfect.” It’s just a hint of sweetness, a touch away from being completely black. And hot, hot enough to sever taste buds but it's delicious, just to his taste.
“I’ve missed this...you,” Kuroo says quietly and he immediately wants to take it back at the surprised look on Bokuto’s face. Wishes it would rise with the steam of the coffee and far, far away from where anyone could hear.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, loud, the sound grating, “I didn’t mean to - I mean- I’m just really sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.” He tries to stand up, clumsy on his feet as he tries to balance himself. His heart is racing and his stomach has twisted itself up into knots so small, so painful it feels like small bombs have gone off all over.
But there is a hand on his arm, not pulling, not forceful, calloused but gentle, light like a breeze that can barely be felt. “It’s okay, you don’t have to go,” he says, those soft, electric eyes looking up at him pulling him in like it's done time and time again, “I’m glad you’re here actually.”
Kuroo looks at the sweatshirt, the blue material hiding within the shadows on the couch, and Kuroo thinks that he could just let it go. Let it be there - here - at Bokuto’s small apartment, the space he has made for himself. For so, so many reasons. Reasons that have built up and Kuroo has spent months, wondering if it was inevitable. Something that couldn’t haven’t been avoided, that no matter what happened that night a year ago, would have landed them right back here: In Bokuto’s living room, the light sparsely filtering through the blinds, with a hand on Kuroo’s arm that’s sparked something so familiar in his chest that it clenches almost painfully.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, a sigh heaves out of his chest, heavy and exhausting, but he sits back down, slow like a sinking rock. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Bokuto hasn’t looked up, but he speaks to his feet, voice light and joking, “If somebody told me earlier that you’d be the one knocking on my door, I wouldn’t have believed them y’know.”
Kuroo smiles, he has no reason to be smiling under these circumstances but god he has missed Bokuto’s voice so much. Missed that voice teasing him, the sound rough in its nature, but never hurtful, never meaning any real harm. And it makes him smile, smile til his face has split so wide that he can’t help but laugh at this point, the sound bubbling up like a shaken up soda til it spills over and he just can’t help it. Can’t help the tears that spill over too, they aren’t beautiful, nothing to write a poem about, but they flow so freely down his face and Kuroo feels equal parts free and pathetic that he’s crying in Bokuto’s home.
Kuroo sniffles, loud, and it catches Bokuto’s attention. His head snapping up, eyebrows arched in surprise that instantly melts into something soft, something sad, something understanding. “Oh c’mon man don’t cry, you’re gonna make me cry, you know I’m sensitive.”
It's a watery little laugh that he lets out, unstable and prone to breaking like a wave on the shores. “I’ve just missed you so fucking much.” He doesn’t know what he came there for. Doesn’t know what he wanted to happen, but all he’s managed to do is cry and admit painful truths he’s spent a year avoiding. Yet he feels relieved, because it's been a long ass time since he’s done something like this. It's been too long since he’s cried or even allowed himself to feel and accept things fully, always more than ready to bottle things up and put it on the shelf far, far away from where he could ever get to it.
His hands shake in his lap a bit and his toes curl in shoes but it’s time. It’s time he’s done this. “I don’t want you to think that I came over here to make you pity me so we could get back together,” he pauses, closes his eyes. (It’s always been easier to do things in the dark). “After you moved out I never got to - I wasn’t ready to…,” it hurts, his throat is hot and burning, voice falling barely above a whisper, but it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, “I fucked up,” he says resolutely. Quiet and final.
“I never got to apologize and I - I fucked up. I fucked up and I never should have pushed you away like that, never should have treated like you didn’t matter to me cause you did. You do.” Bokuto does not look at him with big wide eyes and a heartfelt expression. Kuroo’s tears are no more beautiful than a dirtied river that flows without end: aware of its soiled existence, aware of its cause. Knows that there is nothing anyone can do about it now, because it's too late. It's been too late for too long and all Kuroo can do is let it be. Let it exist as it does, whole and complete because pain and sorrow does not come in fragments. It does not come chipped and broken, but set on the front porch with the box already open and a self made invitation inside.
Bokuto does not crush him to his chest. Kuroo does not stop crying. And this is not the movies. Because the movies will highlight the ugly. Make it up until it can be slathered on a poster, called the height of cinema, idolized and romanticized for all the world to see it. But this is not the movies. There is nothing to be made up. The ugly exists, raw and uncut, and there is no one to see it but them and the old blue sweater in between.
“I know that's not what you want to hear, after all this time, but it was my fault that things ended and I need you - I need you to know that I still care about you. And I don’t even know what I came here for,” he barks out a laugh. Dry and humorless, borderline hysterical. Because he can’t stop talking and the lump in his throat won’t go away, but he’s scared because he’s never done this before. Scared because for once he’s the one saying too much and Bokuto is saying too little and he doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know how to stop. “I just showed up at your house like a dumbass and I - and I -”
“It was my fault too Kuroo.” Bokuto interrupts and the way he looks at him, with gentle understanding, is both shocking and comforting and Kuroo wishes he could wrap himself up in that feeling. But he doesn’t agree, doesn’t think that whatever Bokuto’s going to say is true because it's been a year and he’s thought about it all so much and it's him. It was all him.
But Bokuto’s already knows, already heard his cries and he knows what Kuroo’s going to say and beats him to it. “It was my fault too, and I know you don’t think that, but we both fucked this up. We both could have done things differently y’know. You were hurting, and you were stressed - we both were - and I knew that. I knew that and tried to force you to talk about your parents, and you just weren’t ready. So you pushed me away and I let you do that. I let you push me away and avoided coming home, god, I didn’t want to be there anymore and when I was there; all I did was try to force things out of you, and then we would argue again and it just became a fucked up cycle. And that's not… that's not us, that not how we were supposed to be.”
Bokuto is quiet when he speaks, hands fidgeting in his lap the same way Kuroo’s own hands move. Because he’s strung out on emotion and he’s desperate to tell Bokuto that he is wrong, that he is so so wrong because none of this would have happened in the first place if it wasn’t for him. But, at the same time, the part that is rational throughout all this, the part not affected by the trials of the heart knows that Bokuto is right. That their end was caused by both of their destruction. And it's a sad truth that they both have had to face. So Kuroo shuts up, keeps his eyes on his feet. He’s talked so much already, and there’s nothing left to be said now so instead he just sits and listens.
“Truth be told I still think about you. A lot!” Bokuto laughs. At himself. Like he can’t even believe what he’s saying. “I had tried so hard to get rid of you, moved out and brought everything with me. Left anything that reminded me of you and yet - I couldn’t stop thinking of you. I couldn't get you out of my head and you wouldn’t even believe it, but I tried dating again. But every time I went out with someone all I could think about is you. Because it always comes back down to you Kuroo, no matter how hard I try, it's always you. Pathetic isn’t it?”
This not the movies and Kuroo does not passionately kiss Bokuto when he catches the way tears well up in his eyes but he wishes he could. He wishes he could hold Bokuto forever, he wishes that things never got to this point. But it is, and he can’t change that now, and he even though his hands ache to touch him, he settles for letting them clench and shake in his lap.
“No, no that's not pathetic. Thats - I still think about you too. I never stopped thinking about you. Because I - I still love you Koutarou. I’m still in love with you and I don’t know what to do. It's been a whole year and no matter how hard I tried not to think about you, tried to forget how it felt to be with you; I’m still in love with you and it scares the absolute shit outta of me. I don’t know what to do anymore, so please tell me what to do. I just wanna move on, I'm tired and I want to move on and it hurts and I need you tell me what to do.”
“I’m still in love with you Tetsu, I can’t deny that okay, but things aren’t like they used to be, you know that. We’re both still in a lot of pain, there's obviously a lot of things we both need to work on. So, if we’re gonna-” Bokuto pauses, and Kuroo’s chest hurts with the fast pace of his heart cause he’s scared, and he’s hopeful, and the way Bokuto looks at him; soft but resilient, is something of wonders, something that leaves him breathless and his heart chases after every word Bokuto speaks. “-if we’re gonna do this again, we both have to work on it, on us. I want you back in my life, not as friends or strangers or any of that, because I love you and I wanna go back to us being… us. But only if we can both put in the effort to make that happen, okay?”
And this is not the movies. And the tears on Kuroo’s face are not pretty or beautiful, or something to be written about. And Bokuto does not take his face into his hands and kisses his lips until the world stops turning. But this is life, and this is them, and their tears, and their pain, and their love; raw and uncut in all its ugliness. Complete and whole because such things do not come in fragments, but in cut open boxes on front door steps. So Kuroo holds out his hand, because it is too early and he is too afraid to ask for anything more, and Bokuto takes it in his, with those gentle electric hands, and rests it atop that old blue sweater.
Sometimes the sky is purple.
Deep and swirling with untouchable softness, it is purple, melting into pink.
Sometimes the sky is purple, hanging heavy over train tracks with purpose and Kuroo chases it. Wonders where he can find that color, down here on earth, and capture the feeling it gives him forever.
His mother greets him at the train station with teary eyes and a too tight hug. She comes up to his chest now, Kuroo doesn’t remember when he’d gotten so tall.
“I missed you,” she says, already reaching for his luggage.
He laughs, softly, taking the suitcase out of her hands. Tells her that “she says that now” as they walk to the car.
She shakes her head, the same way she’s been doing all his life.
He misses her too, in honest.
Bokuto returns home the same time as Kuroo. He always does, somehow.
He throws pebbles at Kuroo’s window, standing under the street lamp outside like he’s right out of a movie.
Kuroo is already out the door before he can even wonder about what are they doing.
Sometimes the sky is purple and Bokuto throws pebbles at his window, with a too familiar grin, just to drag him out to an outdoor volleyball court with an old ball he found hidden away in his bedroom closet.
University has been good to him. He spikes harder now, ball thrumming pain into Kuroo’s fingers. He’s more focused, more in control; knows where he’s going to hit the ball, how and when, with frightening accuracy.
Kuroo tells him as such, when they’re too worn out to play anymore.
“You should play again, on your university’s team. So we could play against each other again like old times,” Bokuto replies, wistful. His hand covers Kuroo’s, intertwining their fingers together. Kuroo doesn’t remember when they’ve started doing that, only knows he dreads the day of when they might stop.
The asphalt is still warm, despite the late hour. Kuroo rests on it, lets the heat warm his back like a loving caress.
“You know I can’t do that,” he tells him.
Bokuto scrunches up his nose, sits up, agitated. “What’s stopping you?”
They’ve had this conversation before. Bokuto feels like Kuroo can do anything. Everything.
Kuroo says otherwise. “Studies. My parents. Everything. It’s just not going to work, there’s no way I could.”
Bokuto doesn’t turn to look at him, keeps his back to him, quiet. University has been good to him. His shoulders are broader. Jawline sharper. Back stronger, more muscle, and his hands more calloused.
Kuroo wonders how they’ve both changed so much and yet so little.
“I wish I could y’know,” Kuroo squeezes his hand. Bokuto’s shoulders relax a bit. “It’d be better playing with you though.”
Sometimes the sky is purple, with buzzing fireflies that match the emerging stars and Bokuto is silent.
He looks out into the horizon, where the colors blur and meld together, indistinguishable from each other. Bokuto is neither quiet or still, pulling Kuroo’s hand to his face, pulling him up with the movement, studying the differences between them.
Sometimes the sky is purple and Bokuto speaks quietly, breath rushing against their hands with his words.
“What’s stopping you?” He asks.
Kuroo watches the way Bokuto studies their hands. Studies him.
He’s not talking about volleyball anymore.
“You live so freely,” he comments. It is both an aversion and a honest reply.
Bokuto runs his thumb over the back of Kuroo’s hand, eyes flitting back to the melting horizon. His voice is still quiet when he speaks, but it is steady and solid. “What are you afraid of?”
“You.”
Sometimes the sky is purple and Kuroo is afraid to tell the truth but he does it anyway.
Sometimes the sky is purple and the glowing fireflies buzzing around are the same color of Bokuto’s eyes. They complement each other. Kuroo thinks he can see the purple reflecting in Bokuto’s eyes.
“That’s not it,” Bokuto says, earnest. University has been good to him. He’s more perceptive. Intuitive. Kuroo wishes he could dislike him for it.
“What more do you need?” Bokuto asks. He is an endless supply of questions. Kuroo only hopes that he can give him the answers.
“I don’t really know anymore.”
Kuroo stares out into the horizon. His hands doesn’t shake, nor do they tremble. His heart isn’t racing and he doesn’t feel a blush creeping along his cheeks. He is calm, still, the horizon is steady and he thinks he’s waited long enough.
“I’m ready,” he says, to the fireflies glowing ahead, “I’m not waiting for anything anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
Bokuto squeezes his hand and Kuroo looks down to study the way they curl around each other. How they seem to fit perfectly together despite their differences. Despite the way they’ve grown.
“Of course,” he breathes.
Sometimes the sky is purple and Kuroo wonders why he’d been chasing that feeling for so long when it was right there on Bokuto’s lips all along.