Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There are three things that Kenma notices after he returns back to Tokyo. One : he finds that his thoughts drift back to the night of the festival more often than not, leaving him stumbling around the first couple of weeks of highschool in a half-dazed state. Two : his heartbeat still involuntarily increases at the thought of Kuro tenderly pressing a kiss against his skin. Three : it has become a habit for Kenma to subconsciously fiddle with the protective bracelet that Kuro has gifted him whenever he was feeling nervous, which again, was more often than not.

High school isn’t as bad as Kenma had thought it would be. Fukurodani Academy is difficult to navigate and the classes are sometimes hard to understand, meaning that Kenma has to spend more of his time than before on studying, but overall it isn’t too bad. There are no highschool bullies like he had feared, the school canteen actually has pretty decent food to offer, and he managed to join a sports club like Kuro had suggested. 

Volleyball isn’t as bad as Kenma had thought it would be, either. The more time he spends at it, the more he sees where the ‘ game ’ comes in. It’s analytical, it’s fast-paced, and Kenma’s always thinking about the next move. He’s not a starting player yet, still watching the games from the sidelines, but if the way their coach makes approving hums whenever Kenma comments on plays the way he asks him to, then he guesses that Coach is going to start trying to sub him in from time to time. 

“Kenma-san.” 

Kenma looks up from where he has been absentmindedly fiddling with the bracelet. It’s only been a couple of months or so, but Kenma already wishes that the holidays would come sooner. 

“I told you to drop the - san already,” Kenma says with a frown, but he can’t find it in himself to truly be upset at the other. Akaashi takes a seat next to him on the gym floor and remains silent, letting the sound of shoes squeaking against the floor and volleyballs slamming into the court fill up the space between them instead. 

A loud holler cuts above the rest of the noise, followed by the distinctive cheer of HEY, HEY HEY! Kenma lets out a snort when he watches Bokuto start turning around in all directions, looking like a lost overgrown puppy. 

“He’s looking for you,” Kenma says to Akaashi, but he doubts that he even needs to let his friend know. Not with the way Akaashi’s eyes never left Bokuto. 

“It’s alright, he’ll find me eventually.”

Kenma notes the way Akaashi’s smile grows fonder the longer Bokuto looks around for him. He lifts a brow at the way Akaashi quickly schools his features back into a neutral one the moment Bokuto’s eyes land on him. On the other hand, Bokuto’s expression does a whole 180 and his face instantly breaks out into a giant smile as he runs over to them.

“Akaashi, did you see that? Did you see my super awesome line shot?” Bokuto asks at a volume that Kenma thinks should not be acceptable indoors, even in the gym hall, but Akaashi still nods and replies with a curt yes . According to Kuro, it takes 66 days for people to form habits or get used to things, but Kenma thinks that might not be true seeing as he’s been Bokuto’s teammate for more than two months already, yet he’s still not used to his energy. 

Kenma adds this to the list of things he wants to tell Kuro the next time they meet again. It also hasn’t escaped his notice at how it took him less than a week to get used to being around Kuro, but he doesn’t think that he will bring that up. 

“Is that bracelet special to you?”

It takes Kenma an embarrassingly long moment of time to realise that Akaashi had addressed the question to him, and that he had spaced out the entire time that Bokuto was here, thinking about Kuro ( again ). 

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were talking to me,” Kenma says quickly, as he lets go of the bracelet, not knowing when he had started playing with it again. 

“No, it’s alright. I just noticed you’re always holding onto it. Does it have a special meaning to you?” Akaashi asks again with an easy smile.

Kenma tries not to blush at the implication of that statement, but he can’t blame Akaashi when he doesn’t know any better. 

“I- Uhh..It-It’s”

“You don’t need to share it with me if you’re not comfortable, Kenma-san,” Akaashi says genuinely, and Kenma only slightly glares at him for the added honorific. “But it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I also have something special to me that I carry around.”

He watches Akaashi reach over to grab his jacket before sitting back down again, digging around his pocket until he pulls out his phone. Kenma hears the tingling of the bell on the keychain before Akaashi let’s it dangle from his phone. It’s a small pink Vabo-chan with a tiny golden bell attached at the bottom. Akaashi’s smile turns warm as he watches the keychain dangle back and forth, and Kenma wonders if this is what he looks like to others when he zones out. 

“I got this on the day when I saw a star. That’s when I decided to come to this school,” Akaashi explains. Kenma doesn’t understand how the two correlate but Akaashi seems content with his answer, so Kenma doesn’t press him for more. 

He thinks about Kuro and how he hasn’t left his mind since he got back to Tokyo. Kuro is important to him, that is one thing Kenma knows for sure. He thinks about all the times they’ve spent together in the mountains, exploring the place even if Kenma would usually prefer to sit down with his PSP. He doesn’t hate it, doesn’t think that he disliked the exploring after the first week or so. Spending his holidays with Kuro is a given at this point, and it has become something that Kenma looks forward to as much as new game releases. He thinks about how Kuro had kissed his wrist and how Kenma could still feel the phantom heat of his breath whenever he recalls the moment. His cheeks warm at the thought and he instinctively looks down at the bracelet for comfort. He had memorised the braided pattern, had traced each strand with his fingers more times than he could count, yet he never stopped to think what that would mean for him. Kenma glances at Akaashi who had focused his gaze back on Bokuto, following along with the movements of their team ace with tender eyes, and thinks about whether he looks like this when he…thinks about…Kuro?

Oh. 

Kenma’s heart stutters in his chest at the realisation and he buries his head into his knees with an embarrassed whine. He can feel Akaashi’s questioning eyes on him, so he turns to face him with warm cheeks. 

“The bracelet is special to me,” he mumbles into the crook of his elbow, but he knows Akaashi has heard him from the way he raises a brow. “More specifically, the person who gave it to me is special to me.”

Kenma is grateful that Akaashi doesn’t make a big deal out of his confession like he had been scared he would. Instead, Akaashi nods in understanding and shuffles closer to Kenma, mirroring his position by tucking his own long legs against his chest and resting his folded arms on top of them. 

“Do you have feelings for this person, Kenma?” Akaashi asks, his voice barely audible over the sound of volleyballs slamming against the gym floor and the shouts of excitement from their teammates. Kenma thinks that ‘ feelings ’ is a very vague term to use. Feelings could suggest that Kenma simply felt strongly about Kuro - hate, happiness, sadness, any emotion that he could feel, really - but it could also suggest that Kenma wanted to hold his hand and look into his eyes and feel the softness of his lips against his. 

Kenma nods his head. “Yeah, I think I do.”

His heart is pounding. He never knew that admitting something out loud could be so nerve-wrecking, and he really hopes that he hasn’t made a mistake of oversharing. He glances around them to make sure that no one else was listening in on their conversation. Kenma thinks that he might combust of embarrassment if someone were to ask him to repeat himself. 

“Would you like to talk more about it?” 

Kenma thinks that he most definitely would like to talk more about it, ask some advice or something because he has no clue what to do now after his realisation, but he also knows that he has reached his limit for the day, mentally and socially. As if his mind was being read, the sound of their coach blowing the whistle cuts through the gym. Kenma glances up at the clock and sees that it was already the end of their team practice, meaning that it was now time for the first years to start clean-up duty.  

“Maybe later,” he answers Akaashi. The other hums in understanding and they both move to stand when their coach starts calling everyone over. 

Kenma ends up being distracted all throughout clean-up, as well as the rest of the week.

—

“...and then they both make these heart eyes at each other without knowing that they’re doing it, even when I’m there too. It’s so frustrating to watch,” Kenma complains to Kuro as his fingers press the buttons of his Switch with a little more force than needed. 

Kuro hums in understanding, much like he has been doing throughout all of Kenma’s rant about Akaashi and Bokuto’s oblivious pining. They’re sitting by their usual tree, Kenma casually playing his games and telling Kuro everything that has happened since they’ve last seen each other, whilst Kuro watches him play and listens. It’s a routine that they’ve established fairly early on and even when Kenma’s throat never fails to be sore the day after from all the talking, he still ends up repeating the same thing the next holidays. 

“Why don’t you just hang out with other people then?” Kuro asks. Kenma pauses and glances over, and sees him absentmindedly braiding flowers together. He scrunches his nose at Kuro’s words. Despite what it may sound like, with him complaining about their pining, Kenma actually likes them as friends. They’re his first proper friends, first proper human friends at least, and he thinks that he actually wants their friendship to last. He has never considered hanging out with people other than Akaashi and Bokuto, and even the suggestion of it feels unpleasant to him. 

He hears a snort of laughter beside him and he turns to glare at a grinning Kuro. 

“Hey, it was only a suggestion, you don’t have to think so hard about it. If you like them then you stay friends with them, if you don’t then you find new ones. No need to scrunch up your little face like that,” Kuro says as he pokes him in between the crease of his furrowed brows. Kenma blinks in surprise and he hears Kuro let out another huff of laughter underneath his breath. 

“I didn’t,” Kenma says, definitely scrunching his face up now.

“You did,” Kuro retorts through a chuckle.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

Kenma puts his Switch down to retaliate, but Kuro is quick to cut him off.  

“It doesn’t matter,” Kuro jumps to say and Kenma raises an eyebrow at him. “What I’m trying to say is,” he starts off, and Kenma thinks that he’s acting awfully sheepish at the moment. “I’m proud of you, Kenma. You’ve really grown up since I first met you.”

Kenma nearly flinches at the unexpected first touch of Kuro’s hand gently caressing his hair, but then he relaxes into the comforting feeling of it. It’s something he didn’t realise that he’s been missing ever since he had returned back to Tokyo. 

Kuro’s words don’t fully sink in until he spots the faintest of what he thinks is a blush adorning Kuro’s cheeks underneath the mask. It could just be a trick of the light - shadows underneath the mask making it seem like Kuro is blushing -  and Kenma wants to convince himself that it was just that, but he knows better. Kenma thinks that it’s pretty unfair. He should be the one blushing from being treated like the protagonist of a shoujo manga and enjoying it, yet here Kuro is, blushing with a small bashful smile on his face.

“Kuro,” Kenma whines, averting his gaze back onto his Switch. 

He glances back at him and Kuro shoots him a grin, though Kenma notices that it lacks the usual confidence Kuro seems to emit in abundance. Kuro withdraws his hand and Kenma can already feel himself missing the touch.

“Hey, cheer up,” Kuro encourages. “You’re doing really well.”

Kenma tries to control the pounding of his heart, lest Kuro were to hear it. 

— 

“I think you should confess!” Bokuto exclaims loudly, earning them a couple of stares from other cafe-goers. 

Kenma tries not to grimace at his suggestion. He should have known that telling Bokuto about his feelings for Kuro would result in him urging him to confess. It had been too easy for Bokuto and Akaashi to get together. A lost match earned them the title of runner-up behind Itachiyama, crowning them as one of the Top 8 in Tokyo. Kenma didn’t get to play much during the tournament—subbed in for only half a set during their second game, as their third year setter went to get his hand retaped—but he wasn’t complaining. Akaashi was subbed in during their last match, during their last set, and Kenma didn’t even need to ask to know how nervous the other had been. It was matchpoint, and although Akaashi wasn’t the only setter in their current rotation, he had been the one right underneath the ball. A set too short and the ball fell back on their side of the court with the final whistle from the referee. 

The team didn’t blame him, but Kenma could see the way Akaashi blamed himself for their loss. He was around the corner when he overheard Bokuto’s accidental confession between words of reassurance. It went silent for a beat before Kenma heard Akaashi’s small ‘ I like you too ’. He left the two of them alone right afterwards. 

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kenma mumbles into his cup of hot chocolate. He looks over at Akaashi, sitting opposite of him and next to Bokuto in their little booth at the cafe, for help, but the other either genuinely can’t see him or he’s secretly siding with Bokuto and really good at pretending to ignore him. Kenma bets that it’s the latter. 

“Why not?” Bokuto asks, turning to Akaashi when Kenma chooses to pick at the half-eaten cheesecake in front of him instead of answering. “Akaashi, why does Kenma think it’s a bad idea? Are all my ideas bad?”

If Kenma squints hard enough, then he could imagine the spikes of Bokuto’s hair drooping down ever so slightly. He averts his eyes. 

“Bokuto-san, we shouldn’t press Kenma if he isn’t ready to tell us yet,” Akaashi says calmly, before picking up his own fork to take a piece of cheesecake from the shared plate. While he thinks that the words were meant to reassure him as much as they were to appease Bokuto’s curiosity, Kenma couldn’t help but feel slightly pressured by his words. He feels like a weight was placed on his heart from the guilt of not giving them a proper explanation. They had trusted him enough to tell him about their relationship after all, but he isn’t sure how well they would react if he were to tell them that the reason he can’t confess is because his crush isn’t human. 

Kenma lets out a long sigh and feels his energy leaving him along with it. He sees Akaashi and Bokuto glance at him from the corner of his eyes, but Kenma pointedly keeps his gaze focused on the cake in front of him. A part of Kenma regrets spilling everything to them. There's a small voice in his mind that tells him to prepare for when they will realise how boring Kenma is, how weird he is, and then they’ll leave him. Having feelings for a yokai was not normal, even knowing that yokai exist amongst them wasn’t normal, and Kenma was aware of that. He shakes his head and tries to clear his thoughts. All of a sudden, another voice, one louder than the one before and one that sounds oddly like Kuro, tells him that he’s being stupid. He imagines Kuro’s frowning face, his lips down-turned until it looks almost comical, telling him off for being self-deprecating. It seems that the yokai has made it his personal mission to help Kenma when he revealed his struggle with self-confidence some time ago. He smiles at the memory.

“I’ll- I’ll think about it,” Kenma announces quietly. Akaashi and Bokuto’s eyes are back on him, and it takes everything in him not to shrink away from their gaze. 

“Are you sure Kenma? You don’t need to feel pressured by us,” Bokuto says genuinely. Kenma glances up at his concerned face and wonders how he manages to look like the human-epitome of a puppy, despite his large size. 

“I-,” Kenma scrunches his nose to try and find the right words.

“Thinking about it won’t hurt anyone,” he ends up saying with a small—and hopefully encouraging—smile. Except he knows that it will hurt him. It will definitely hurt future-him, because the more he thinks about it, the more he knows that he can’t have anything more with Kuro. Not while Kenma was human and Kuro was a yokai. Kenma has heard enough folktales to know that a happy ending could never work between them as long as they remained as they are.

Bokuto seems to eat his words up though, and Akaashi seems to be satisfied now that the air around them has gone back to the way it was before. Kenma tries to clear his mind by opening up a game on his phone as he listens in on the idle chatter of his friends. The words confession and Kuro and pressure bounce around his head like the little character on his phone currently darting around violently from one side of the screen to the other. Kenma glances up and catches Bokuto wiping crumbs off Akaashi’s cheek with a bright smile, and instantly averts his eyes. Images of Kuro leaning in to wipe at his cheek, licking the remnants of sticky sweet candied-apple from his thumb, flash through Kenma’s mind and it takes everything in him not to combust on the spot. Kenma shakes his head and tries to lose himself in his game again, even as he feels heat bloom across his cheeks. He is not going to think about this. 

Kenma is definitely not going to think about Kuro, confessions and whatever came along with those thoughts.

—

Kenma is definitely thinking about Kuro, confessions and whatever came along with those thoughts.

Kenma is starting to think that there might be something wrong with him. How could he have spent an entire year thinking about Kuro and confessions and hand holding and kisses pressed against his heart, and STILL be thinking about all of those things with Kuro right next to him. 

Kuro must have dozed off somewhere in between Kenma’s catch up of his first term as a second year, because instead of the usual hums of acknowledgement, all Kenma hears is the soft, even breathing as Kuro naps away. It’s colder now, cold enough for Kenma to be wearing a hoodie underneath his jacket, but still not cold enough to prevent Kuro from taking a nap underneath the light afternoon sun. Kenma saves his game and puts his Switch on the ground next to him, before tucking his knees up against his chest as he watches over Kuro. 

Kuro has a hand resting over his stomach, slowly rising and falling with each breath, and his other lying idly by his side. Strands of his ridiculous hair moves along with the gentle breeze blowing through and Kenma feels his hand involuntarily twitch to feel them between his fingers. He digs his fingers into the grass instead. He trails his eyes over the mask, red, black and gold lines coming together to form the extravagant cat face he has become so familiar with over the years. The mask doesn’t have holes in it, which Kenma thinks is one of the reasons as to why Kuro is able to take naps without having to cover his eyes from the sun, and ends just at the tip of his strong nose. Kenma has spent a lot of time thinking about Kuro throughout the years, even more so after he realised his feelings and discussed them with his friends, but even then, Kenma doesn’t think that the Kuro in his mind comes anywhere close to Kuro in real life. Kuro is brighter in real life, the lines of his face and body sharper and more striking than Kenma’s brain could ever recall. And yet, despite all that, Kuro seems to have an air of gentleness around him. Everything from the locks of his hair to his slightly parted lips and soft skin. Kenma wants to blame this sudden onslaught of feelings on Kuro’s unguarded self doing things to him, but he knows that he would be having these thoughts even if he were back in his own room in Tokyo.   

He lets out a long sigh and rests his chin on top of his knees. A part of Kenma wants to shake Kuro awake - tell him to stop being boring by just napping there—but another part of Kenma, the bigger part and the part of him that is a sap—is content to simply sit and bask in Kuro’s company. 

He stretches a hand out and watches as his shadow falls over Kuro’s mask, blocking the sun from where his eyes would be. Kenma wonders if his hand makes any difference to Kuro’s comfort levels. He tries to remember what Kuro looked like without his mask, from the one time his younger and more curious self had demanded Kuro show him his face, but his mind comes up blank. Kenma clenches his fingers together and bites his lips in contemplation. He takes note of Kuro still peacefully dozing away and contemplates whether it would be creepy of him to take a quick peek at Kuro’s maskless face whilst he is napping. He has no doubt that Kuro would show him if he were to ask, but he also has no doubt about the never-ending teasing that would follow after. Kenma decides that seeing Kuro’s face was not worth his pride. Probably. Maybe. Most likely…?

Screw it , Kenma thinks, bringing his hand down to gently grasp onto the mask. The first time Kenma had noticed that the mask wasn’t attached by any strings, he had been beyond amazed, asking Kuro question after question to appease his curiosity. And although the questions had stopped after the first couple of years, his amazement about the mask had not. 

He lifts the near weightless mask with almost no resistance and sucks in a sharp breath. Kenma always knew that Kuro was handsome, despite his memory failing to remember him in detail. As a child, Kenma didn’t know if it was a yokai thing or if it was a Kuro thing, but he always knew that Kuro was handsome enough to be on the cover of one of those magazines he always saw. Seeing him now, Kenma can say with certainty that it was, it is , definitely a Kuro thing. 

Despite the mask covering his face for the majority of time, Kuro’s tanned skin seems to glow golden underneath the sun, with his long eyelashes casting soft shadows as he continues to sleep. Kenma gently places the mask on the ground next to him and hesitates for only a second, before lightly brushing strands of his hair away from his face. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t for Kuro’s hair to be soft and silky and somehow well taken care of despite its appearance. He finds himself gently carding his fingers through his hair, much like Kuro had done for him on multiple occasions, and he takes care not to accidentally wake him. 

Kenma briefly thinks that he would love to have a pocket-sized Kuro with fluffy hair for him to pet back in Tokyo, but then immediately scrunches his face at the thought. A pocket-sized Kuro meant a Kuro constantly around to nag at him, to take care of him, to make his heart pound and to set his cheeks ablaze. Kenma doesn’t think he’d be able to handle that when he could barely handle Kuro as he is now. 

Kuro stirs lightly and Kenma instantly pulls his hand back as if he had been burned. He watches with bated breath as the hand on Kuro’s stomach twitches and his eyebrows furrow together before he seems to relax again. Kenma waits for another moment to make sure that Kuro’s breaths come out steady again, before he dares to lift his hand back to Kuro’s hair. Kenma wonders about the things Kuro could be dreaming about and lightly traces his finger down to his furrowed eyebrows, where he then delicately uses his fingers to smooth out the crease in between them. Kuro lets out a little satisfied hum and Kenma freezes up again until he realises that Kuro had made that sound in his sleep. A strange feeling of satisfaction swells over him, knowing that he had managed to help Kuro, even if it was only a little bit. He traces his finger back over Kuro’s eyebrows, first over the left one and then over to the right one, following the lines of his face down the slope of his nose. He lets his fingers trail all over Kuro’s face - over his strong cheekbones, his sharp jaw, and plump lips - feeling the warmth of his skin that is normally hidden to him. Kenma takes another moment to admire being able to see Kuro like this, bare and unguarded, and lets his mind wander to possibilities of them in another universe, where they’re just simple childhood friends growing up alongside one another. 

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

Kenma nearly jumps out of his skin with a yelp and pulls his hands together over his pounding heart at the sudden sound of Kuro’s voice. He sends Kuro his nastiest scowl, but wavers slightly when he sees that the other still had his eyes closed. 

“You know, you could’ve just asked if you wanted to see my handsome face that badly, Kenma-kun,” Kuro drawls out teasingly, his lips pulled up higher on the left side in his signature smirk. Kenma’s face flushes with heat, because somehow seeing Kuro smirk at him like this without his mask does something to his heart. 

As if sensing Kenma’s embarrassment and wanting him to suffer some more, Kuro sends him a closed-eyed wink. 

Kenma feels his head explode from embarrassment and slams the mask back onto Kuro’s face with enough force to make him cry out. 

Kenma quickly turns around to hide his ever-increasing blush and tucks his knees back against his chest to wrap his arms around. He hopes that Kuro isn’t able to hear the way his heart seems to pound out of his chest. Kenma hears Kuro shuffle around behind him before he feels a familiar warm hand on his shoulders. 

“Hey, I was only joking around. I’m sorry if I went too far,” Kuro apologises sincerely as he spins Kenma back around to face him. Kenma almost mourns the loss when he sees Kuro donning his mask again, but then shakes his head to remind himself that there was nothing for him to lose. Kuro wasn’t his and neither did he have any rights to lose anything regarding Kuro in the first place. Kenma hates his current line of thoughts. 

“No, it’s fine,” he says, looking Kuro in the eye of his mask. He hopes that he’ll be able to look Kuro in the eye at least once in the future. 

“I’m also sorry for…” Kenma narrows his eyes at the ground. What is he sorry for? Is he sorry for taking Kuro’s mask off without his permission, for touching his face whilst he was sleeping? Is he sorry for catching feelings? For wanting more ? Kenma is sorry for a lot of things, but how could he apologise for all of them without laying bare his innermost feelings?

Kuro smiles gently at him and Kenma hates the way his heart throbs at the sight. “It’s okay, I understand.”

If Kenma were any braver, he would have cried out that Kuro didn’t understand anything; not the apology that Kenma couldn’t get out of his mouth nor the feelings he tried so hard to suppress. But Kenma isn’t brave. He’s a coward, so instead, he nods his head and picks his Switch back up again. 

“Oh, and also, I did not want to see your face,” Kenma mutters under his breath. He doesn’t deny that Kuro is handsome though. 

He notices Kuro’s grin from the corner of his eye and makes sure to keep his eyes pointedly locked on his screen. Kuro shuffles closer to him and bumps his shoulder against his playfully, before he settles in by leaning close to him.

“You didn’t deny that I’m handsome though,” Kuro gently teases by poking him on the cheek with a finger. Kenma tries to jab him in the rib with his elbow whilst still keeping his eyes on his game but Kuro artfully dodges and instead, wraps his arm around Kenma’s shoulder to pull him into a hug. Kenma doesn’t try to hide his disdain but just like how Kuro had seen through his attempted strike, Kuro also sees through his obvious lie and draws him closer. If Kuro notices Kenma readjusting himself to be more comfortable in his arms, then he’s kind enough to spare Kenma the embarrassment of mentioning it.

—

They don’t talk about what transpired a week ago, but Kenma notices the way Kuro would take his mask off during his naps more often now. And it’s hard not to notice, not when Kuro rests his head on Kenma’s lap as he plays his games or the way he would curl in closer to Kenma for warmth when a particularly strong gust of wind blows through. 

Kenma adds it onto his list of things to tell Akaashi and Bokuto, because ever since learning that Kuro ‘lives’ in the countryside that Kenma visits every school holidays, they’ve insisted that he tell them updates on his ‘relationship’ (Kenma had argued that he and Kuro weren’t in a relationship, but Akaashi had countered by saying that a connection with another is considered a relationship, regardless whether it was romantic or platonic. Kenma had scrunched up his nose and admitted his, albeit unwilling, defeat.).

Kuro had dropped him off by the large torii gate as usual a few minutes ago, after a long day of walking around trying to track down a new family of deer Kuro had spotted and wanted to show Kenma. They hadn’t managed to find the deer family, but just before Kenma had to leave, Kuro managed to spot some tracks. He had promised Kenma that he would check them out overnight so that they didn’t need to waste more time tomorrow tracking them down again. 

It's the time of the year where it starts getting dark in minutes, and although Kenma knows that it’s only around five in the afternoon, the quick setting of the sun makes him walk a little faster than usual. He’s just about to pull out his phone to keep his mind from wandering when he hears small whimpers from the bush. Kenma stops in his tracks and tries to concentrate his ears on the sound again. Just as he’s about to convince himself that he has imagined it all along, the bush starts rustling faintly and he hears another small cry. 

Kenma looks around him warily. He’s not too far from the torii gates, so the chances that there is a spirit lurking behind the bush was fairly high. But he’s also not too far from the footpath that he knows some of the local elderly like to track every Thursday morning, so the chance of it being a small animal caught in one of the bear-traps he saw on his way up was also pretty high. He glances at the sky and sees that the sun hasn’t fully set yet.

Kenma could walk away, ignore that he ever heard anything in the first place and be on his merry-way back to his uncle’s house, where there was no doubt, a warm dinner waiting for him. Or he could appease his curiosity and deal with the consequences later.  

Another small cry, this one sounding almost painful, comes from the bush and Kenma makes up his mind. He briefly wonders when he had become so reckless, but the bracelet on his wrist serves as a comforting reminder that safety was always close by. 

Kenma blames Kuro for his recklessness. 

He tucks his phone into his back pocket and approaches the bush with small, tentative footsteps. The rustling stops and Kenma second-guesses himself for a second before he gently moves the bush aside. He has to suppress a gasp so as not to frighten the small yokai when his eyes land on the leg stuck in a bear-trap. 

Kenma has been able to see and interact with different spirits ever since he started hanging around Kuro from a young age, but he doesn’t think that he’s ever seen a yokai look so ethereal. The spirit was the size of a small dog, but it might as well have been towering over him with it’s overwhelming presence. It’s body is solid and almost looks to be taking the form of a fox, save for its multiple fluffy tails. 

( “What humans define as evil or powerful spirits will usually take a more physical form. You should be careful of those,” Kuro had warned him after the incident with the vengeful tree yokai they encountered at the festival. Kenma had nodded his head and burned the warning into his head, making sure to double check that all the spirits around his home in Tokyo took a translucent form instead of a solid one. )

Kuro’s warning rings loud and clear in Kenma’s head at the realisation that the yokai in front of him was solid and actually stuck in the trap. He takes a small step back and instantly feels the yokai ’s eyes on him. He tries not to shudder under its gaze. 

He can feel his heartbeat increasing, pounding loudly in his eardrums as his eyes remain fixed on the yokai in front of him. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from it, and suddenly he’s taking another step closer. The logical part of his brain is screaming at him to run away. There’s no way of knowing whether this spirit was a good one like Kuro or if it was a bad one like the tree, but the curious part of his brain, the reckless part, is letting himself be drawn in by the yokai . He tries to reassure the logical part of his brain, tries to reassure himself that he doesn’t sense any hostility from the yokai , which means that it should be good. 

He gulps down his nerves, having read somewhere that animals could sense your emotions or something, and shakily extends his arm for the yokai to sniff at. This close to the yokai , Kenma could see the jagged edges of the jaws of the trap gashing into its leg, making the yokai bleed out almost translucent-gold blood. Kenma blinks away his surprise at seeing the blood when he feels the soft fur of the yokai ’s snout nuzzle against his head. Kenma doesn’t know much about yokai ’s—he didn’t even know that they could bleed, let alone bleed gold—but from what he knows about animals, having one nuzzle his hand was a good sign. 

“I’m going to get you out of there,” Kenma mumbles softly to the trapped yokai . He doesn’t know if talking to the yokai makes a difference in its behaviour, but he knows that it helps him keep his mind from whirlpooling over the edge. He pulls his phone back out and searches up how to open a bear-trap whilst vocalising everything to the yokai . In theory, releasing an animal from a bear-trap was simple: the springs on both sides have to be compressed downward to alleviate the pressure from the trap’s jaws, thus letting the animal pull itself out. But in reality, Kenma isn’t confident in his skills or strength to be able to ‘ simply press both sides down ’. He tells this to the yokai as well. 

The spirit whines pitifully and Kenma feels his heart clench by the sound. He puts his phone on the ground and makes sure that he’s still able to see the instructions on his screen clearly. Kenma shuffles closer to the yokai and almost finds himself entranced by it again. This close, he can make out the slight golden shimmer in its fur, seemingly glittering and gleaming from within itself instead of needing the sun to shine upon it. It briefly occurs to him that if he were to be in a game, this would probably be the special stage with a rare item drop. He can’t decide whether this excites him or scares him. 

It turns out, trying to release a bear-trap is even more difficult than Kenma had imagined. He should have known that nothing is as easy as wikiHow describes it to be. He ended up needing to use both his legs to press the springs down, all whilst trying to avoid getting too close to the yokai . He still isn’t 100% sure whether the yokai is safe or not, but he figures that making it this far without being eaten or having lost a limb had to mean something good. 

It takes another couple of tries and some more pitiful wails from the yokai until Kenma manages to free it. By the time he’s done, the sun has set and only the last couple of rays of sunlight peeking out from behind the hills in the distance remain. He’s more exhausted than he ever was during any volleyball practices at school, and he’s touching around for the fanny pack he knows is somewhere nearby, when he realises that the yokai still hasn’t left yet. 

Kenma feels a shiver run down his spine from having the yokai ’s eyes on him and he flicks a hand to try and shoo it away. Kenma thinks he probably wouldn’t have minded having the yokai stay with him after he saved it, if he didn’t know it was a yokai in the first place. It’s a little unnerving to say the least, and it’s times like these where Kenma wishes that he could just text Kuro for help. He would probably know what to do.

Despite his body protesting, Kenma pushes himself upright. The fox-like yokai continues boring its eyes at him and Kenma glances nervously around as he toes at the ground underneath him. He notes that the wound he had originally spotted on the yokai was either smaller than he had thought, or the yokai somehow knew how to heal itself. Kenma wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter. 

“I’m–I’m just gonna go now,” Kenma mumbles quietly. The yokai doesn’t move so Kenma starts by taking a small step backwards, making sure to keep his eyes locked on it just in case. Kenma realises that with every step he takes backwards, the yokai is taking one towards him. He freezes on the spot at the realisation and clenches his eyes shut together when the yokai continues it’s slow stalk towards him. So much for helping it out of its trap , Kenma thinks miserably as he feels its presence even closer to him now. He doesn’t even have time to think about possibly dying, before there’s a sudden gust of air around him and then something warm and slightly wet faintly brushes against his forehead. 

And then everything is still.

Kenma hesitantly cracks an eye open to find himself standing in the exact same spot he had been before. His hand flies to his forehead, and Kenma doesn’t know if he had been expecting anything, but relief still washes over him when he just feels the skin of his forehead underneath his fingers. He glances around for the yokai but finds no trace of it anywhere. Not any sparkles nor a single strand of fur. The only thing convincing Kenma that he hadn’t just imagined the whole exchange was the opened bear-trap still lying on the ground and his sore limbs. He checks his phone for the time and scrambles to sprint back to his uncle’s place when he sees how late it has gotten. 

—

Kenma nearly forgets about the entire incident with the fox- yokai until Bokuto’s recounting all the folklore he binge-read the night before (thus his heavy eyebags, he explains dejectedly) outside a konbini.

“I think I’ve encountered one before,” Kenma mumbles into the hot chocolate he’s holding in one hand, whilst he responds to Shoyo’s text with his other. He doesn’t know when he became so close with the little middle-blocker from Karasuno, but suddenly, there is another person who knows about his feelings for Kuro. 

“Ohh, was this with that ‘ Kuro ’ friend of yours?” Bokuto asks with large inquisitive eyes as he takes a bite from his meat bun. Kenma knows that he has improved, but he doesn't think that he will ever fully get used to his intense stare. 

“No, not really,” Kenma denies quietly. Now that he thinks back on it, Kenma finds it strange that he had forgotten the incident in the first place. He makes a reminder to ask Kuro about it the next time he sees him. 

“Talking about Kuro-san, have you confessed to him yet?” Akaashi asks, sharp as ever. Kenma does shrink in on himself this time, letting his school jacket swallow him up. It probably would be better if his jacket could actually swallow him up, he thinks miserably. 

“You should tell me more about those folktales, Bouto-san,” Kenma says, avoiding Akaashi’s pointed looks.

“Oh yeah, did you know that the Mountain God can shapeshi- Wait!” Bokuto exclaims loudly. “You were supposed to tell us about Kuro!”

Kenma doesn’t try to hide his scowl from his failed attempt at redirecting the conversation away from Kuro and his very-not-so-subtle feelings for him. 

“I haven’t,” Kenma admits shamelessly. He doesn’t need to look to know that his friends are giving him pitying looks. And Kenma doesn’t blame them. He would be giving the same look if their roles were reversed. 

But they’re not, unfortunately. 

“But you said you would!” Bokuto cries out, as if Kenma not confessing had personally offended him. Which it might as well have, with how invested both Akaashi and him seem to be. 

“I know I did, it’s just…” Kenma trails off, narrowing his eyes at the ground in thought. He takes a deep sigh.

“I’ll confess the next time I visit him,” Kenma declares boldly. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s tired of being on the receiving end of constant pitying looks or if it’s because he’s finally run out of excuses, but Kenma knows that he has to confess his feelings the next time he sees Kuro. 

Akaashi and Bokuto gape at him with such wide eyes that Kenma almost adds an ahahah jokes at the end. Almost .

“I- Are you sure Kenma?” Akaashi stammers. Kema doesn’t trust his voice right now, not with the mess of emotions whirling around his mind and the balls of cotton that seem to be stuck inside his mouth, so he nods his head instead. Bokuto looks deep in thought. 

“Are you alright Kenma?” Bokuto asks eventually. Kenma blinks in surprise and nearly bursts out laughing, because of course Bokuto would ask if he was alright. 

”I know that we've been pushing you to confess, but you don't have to do this if you don't want to,” he says seriously. Kenma sometimes forgets that Akaashi isn’t the only serious one out of his friends, and that Bokuto is more than just his loud side. Kenma shakes his head. Despite how nice it would be to take the easy way out by retracting his statement with the opening Bokuto’s given him, Kenma remains stubbornly determined. 

"It's alright, I want to do this,” Kenma says, trying to put on his most convincing face. “I’ll do it before you graduate so you can hear all about it.”

Bokuto nods his head enthusiastically.  "You know that me and ‘Kaashi will be cheering you on from here!" he cheers, slinging an arm around Akaashi. Akaashi loosens the chokehold Bokuto has subjected him into before smiling encouragingly at him.

“We’ll always be a phone call away,” he agrees, and Kenma can feel his heart swell with how much love he has for his friends. 

Kenma breaks off the eye contact before he feels himself combust. He thumbs at the edge of his phone and let’s his hair fall in front of him to hide his blush. 

“I- Thank you, really.”

—

That had been two weeks ago, when Kenma was still brimming with confidence that seemingly came from nowhere. Now, standing at the foot of the mountain and just a short walk away from where he knows Kuro will be waiting for him, Kenma doesn’t feel so confident anymore.

He’s spent the last two weeks trying not to think about the inevitable, which of course meant that he’s spent the last two weeks thinking about the inevitable. He has tried giving himself one of those pep talks that he sometimes sees Bokuto doing before some of their big games, as well as some of the breathing exercises Akaashi does whenever he gets overwhelmed, but nothing had managed to help his nerves from running into overdrive on the shinkansen to the countryside. 

He opens up Animal Crossing on his Switch and makes his way up the familiar trek he could navigate with closed eyes. He tries not to let his mind wander to how badly it could go and how it would actually destroy him if confessing would make things weird between them. Which of course, makes him think about it even more. Kenma lets out a loud sigh and tries to let himself get lost on his little island. He thinks life would be a lot easier if all he had to worry about were wasps falling down from shaking a tree too hard, or accidentally trampling on flowers that he spent a month growing. He lets out another sigh and feels himself deflate along with it. 

“Why the sad face, Kenma?” The sound of Kuro shouting from the distance breaks him out of his thoughts. He looks up and sees the yokai standing a little distance away from him by the torii gate, with his hands cupped around his mouth. Kenma rolls his eyes and saves his game, and speeds up his steps just a little to get to Kuro faster. 

Kuro pulls him into a tight hug when he’s close enough, and Kenma let’s himself bask in his warmth for a moment before pushing himself away. Kuro isn’t deterred though, as he shoots Kenma one of his stupidly wide grins when he narrows his eyes at him. 

“How was school? How long are you staying this time around? Why’d you look so sad earlier?” Kuro fires off question after question and falls into step easily with Kenma, who has started walking towards their tree. Kenma shrugs his shoulders and wishes that he kept his Switch on, because now he had no distraction from Kuro’s presence next to him. 

“I have to go back in a week,” Kenma mutters under his breath, but he knows that Kuro still hears him. 

“Oh, it’s this time of the year again?” Kuro asks whilst looking up into the sky. Kenma doesn’t know what he means, but he nods his head anyways. He knows that their hangout space is just a little further ahead, so he lets himself return to his Switch as he follows a step or two behind Kuro. 

“And why the long face before?” 

Kenma glances up to see Kuro looking at him over his shoulder, and returns his focus back on his game. He makes a small non-committal sound and shrugs his shoulders again, but he knows from experience that Kuro will keep bugging him until he gets an answer he’s satisfied with, especially if it has anything to do with Kenma’s wellbeing. 

“I’m just a little worried, I guess.”

Kuro slows down until he falls into step with him, and Kenma almost wishes that he didn’t, because he knows that this means Kuro has his full attention on him. 

“Why should you be worried when I’m right here?”

Kenma knows that Kuro means well, but he can’t help and make a face at the irony of his words. 

“That’s exactly the reason as to why I’m worried,” Kenma mumbles under his breath before hurrying his steps to get away from Kuro. 

Kuro makes a loud ‘ huh ’ sound before jogging to catch up to him. Kenma pointedly ignores all of his incessant questions as he chases him around in a circle.

Tomorrow. He would confess tomorrow, if only to keep their relationship the way it is for one more day. 

—

Tomorrow ends up being pushed back to the day after, and that gets pushed back to the tomorrow after that. Now there’s only the weekend left before Kenma has to go back to Tokyo. He can tell that Kuro has been worried about him the entire week, years of spending time with him has allowed him to pick up on Kuro’s emotions through his body language, but that doesn’t mean that he’s been able to bring himself to talk to Kuro yet. 

His heart flutters everytime he looks at Kuro, thumping uncontrollably until Kenma has to forcefully look away, and he thinks that if it were that bad already, then he can’t imagine how bad it would be if he were to confess for real.

“Kenma?”

Kenma blinks himself out of his daze at the sound of Kuro’s concerned voice. They’re sitting underneath the large tree that they usually sit under on slow days like these, where the sun shines just strong enough to warm their skin but the wind passing through gives them a silent excuse to scoot closer together. 

“What’s been on your mind?” Kuro asks tentatively. His voice is just above a murmur, yet Kenma could still feel the way it seems to wrap all around him like a blanket. He wishes that it were actually possible. 

Kuro is facing him now, and Kenma could imagine his concerned face from the way his lips are downturned. He tries not to let his eyes linger on them. 

“It’s just…” Is Kenma really going to do this now? He clenches the sleeves of his jumper into his hands to prevent them from trembling and hopes that the action was subtle enough for Kuro not to notice, but he doubts that it had escaped the yokai ’s attention. He takes a deep breath to try and reel in his nerves. 

“There’s just something I’ve been thinking about,” Kenma says, trying to delay where the conversation is inevitably heading towards. Kuro nods in encouragement, silent and strong in his support like he's always been—less so in the silent part and more so in the strong part. 

Kenma takes another deep breath and waits to hold it for 7 seconds before slowly exhaling. He empties his mind with the breath, letting go of images of him curled up all alone, Kuro pushing him away or cursing him or something. He might as well rip the bandage off right away. 

“Kuro,” Kenma gazes up and looks at Kuro right where his eyes would be. 

“I like you. And I’ve probably liked you for a long time already, even before I knew what the words I like you meant.”

It doesn’t occur to Kenma that he had clenched his eyes shut during the confession until he has to slowly pry them open again, Kuro’s silence stirring something unsettling in his stomach. He glances up at Kuro through the strands of his hair and instantly feels the knot of regret forming in his throat. He tries his best to swallow it back. Confessing isn’t something that Kenma wants to regret, it isn’t something that should feel like a mistake, yet here Kenma is. 

Kuro’s face is carefully neutral and his body language also doesn't give away anything that might help Kenma figure out his feelings.

“Kenma.”

Kenma looks away.

“Kenm-”

“Wait,” Kenma interrupts him. As much as he tries to convince himself that he is prepared for Kuro to reject him and push him away and banish him from his life, Kenma isn’t ready for it at all. Not now, not ever.

“I know that you’re going to say that it’s all just puberty or hormones or something,” he chances another glance at Kuro and hates the way his heart clenches in his chest. “But I honestly don’t think so, not if my feelings for the past couple of years have been true.” 

Kenma notices the way Kuro clenches his teeth together and could imagine the way Kuro’s eyebrows are furrowed together the way they occasionally do when his naps were plagued with anything other than peaceful sleep. 

“Kenma,” Kuro mutters, his voice lower than usual, but it isn’t in warning. Kenma thinks he sounds almost hesitant. 

“You know you can’t,” Kuro’s face remains impartial, but Kenma hears the slight quiver in his voice. “ We can’t.”

Kenma’s heart skips a beat. A thousand thoughts race through his mind at once, but one sticks out blaringly loud amongst the rest. 

Kuro hasn’t rejected him .

“Kuro, if this is about you being a yokai or me being human then I don’t care. I don’t care about being with anyone else.” He’s shuffling closer to Kuro on his knees. He needs Kuro to know that he doesn’t care about their differences. He doesn’t care for a ‘ normal ’ life and he has accepted this for a while already, no matter what Kuro thinks. 

“Kenma, you know we can’t-”

“Please Kuro!” Kenma cries out. He’s clutching onto the sleeves of Kuro’s yukata as he kneels in the space between his legs, with Kuro holding onto his arms to support him, even through his outburst of emotions. 

“Please at least consider my feelings,” he can hear the desperation bleed into his own voice, but Kenma doesn’t care about his shamelessness. He is laying himself bare for Kuro to see. 

“You don’t know what you mean, Kenma,” Kuro mutters seriously, but Kenma feels the way he tightens his hold around his arm, as if he didn’t want Kenma to pull away. 

Kenma sits back on his heels and brings his hands up to hold onto Kuro’s shoulder, gazing up at him through his lashes. 

“Tell me what I mean then.” 

He thinks that he understands it now. Kuro is hesitant—he’s scared but not unwilling. The realisation brings more relief for Kenma than he thought was possible. 

“Are you sure Kenma?” Kuro asks, barely above a whisper. Kenma nods and leans in closer to Kuro, squeezing his shoulders once in reassurance. 

He’s never been more sure of anything in his life before. 

“Yes Kuro, I’m sure. I love you.”

He hears Kuro suck in a sharp breath before one of his hands slides down to hold Kenma by the waist. His other hand reaches up to cradle Kenma’s cheek, before slowly bringing him closer.

Kenma’s eyelids flutter close involuntarily. He feels a small puff of air against his face, a moment of hesitation, and tries not to smile from the knowledge that he isn’t the only one who’s feeling nervous. Another beat of stillness passes, before Kenma feels a soft press of lips against his own. 

Kuro kisses him gently, with one hand tenderly carding through his hair whilst the other one tightens its grasp on Kenma’s hip, as if Kuro is both afraid of breaking Kenma and losing him if he didn’t hold on to him.

Kissing Kuro is everything that Kenma imagined and more. There are no fireworks going off in the distance and no cherry blossoms floating around them like the way it is in movies, but Kenma doesn’t mind.

It’s just them, Kuro and Kenma, and their mutual feelings for each other shared through a tender kiss.

—

Kenma ends up staying awake long after he had gotten into bed to sleep. He sees Kuro in front of him everytime he closes his eyes, leaning in to kiss him, and then he jerks his eyes open again to stop himself from turning to mush. It still feels like a fever dream to him. He can’t believe that he confessed to Kuro; that he confessed his deepest and utmost rawest feelings to him that he’s been harbouring inside of his heart for the longest time. And Kuro had accepted him, and had kissed him. Kuro had kissed him. Kenma now understands why the girls in trashy teen rom-coms thrash around in bed after kissing their crushes, because that’s exactly what Kenma feels like doing. He doesn’t though, because his aunt and uncle are sleeping in the room next to him and he doesn’t want to wake them, but it sure does feel like he spent the last couple of minutes thrashing around on the bed with how fast his heart’s beating. Or maybe that’s just the giddiness he’s been feeling since he came back from the mountains. He closes his eyes again and thinks it’s strange. 

His entire body feels like it’s floating, in a strange drift-y detached sort of way, yet he can still feel his heart pounding away in his chest. 

“Kenma.”

Kenma blearlily blinks his eyes open. It’s warm and bright, and he instantly has to squeeze his eyes back together as the sun blinds him. There’s a deep chuckle above him that Kenma is almost too familiar with, before a shadow passes over his eyes. He chances a peek with a cracked-open eye and sees the black outline of Kuro’s mess of hair and one of his large hands outstretched to block the sun out of his eyes. 

Kenma sits up slowly and belatedly realises that he’s wearing a school uniform. It consists of a white shirt under a deep red-striped tie and black vest, and topped off with a navy blazer. It’s definitely not Kenma’s own school uniform. When he looks around, he notices they’re sitting under a large tree, outside what looks like a school gym. He doesn’t recall ever being at a school like this, yet it feels so familiar, as if he’s been here everyday for the last couple of years. 

A hand brushes something off his head, and Kenma looks up to see Kuro holding a cherry blossom petal in his hand. 

“It was in your hair,” Kuro explains cheerily, as if Kenma couldn’t come to that conclusion himself. He watches Kuro blow the petal away and that’s when he realises that Kuro is also wearing the same uniform as him. He glances over at his face and frowns when he can’t make out Kuro’s eyes. Kenma tries rubbing his eyes and blinking away whatever it is that’s disturbing his sight, but it’s no use. It is as if someone had taken a dried-up eraser and desperately tried to rub away at Kuro’s face, making the top half of his face all blurry. 

“Kenma?” When Kuro tilts his head in concern, the blur across his eyes moves with him. 

Ah. He’s dreaming.

Kenma thinks that he should feel a little scared, but he feels oddly content. It makes him feel warm all over knowing that he can enjoy Kuro’s company even in his dreams. 

“You still tired?” Kuro asks, reaching out to trace a thumb across his cheek, and Kenma shakes his head. He grasps Kuro’s hand on his face with his own and nuzzles into the touch. Kenma tries not to blush from seeing Kuro blush.

He notices the mischievous glint that play’s on Kuro’s lips a second too late, and suffers the consequence by having Kuro squish his cheeks between his fingers. Kenma grasps onto both of Kuro’s wrists as he continues pulling at Kenma’s cheeks.

“Ku-wo, stwohp.”

Kuro snickers and this time Kenma does react quick enough to slap his hands away before he could stretch his cheeks any further. He shoots Kuro a glare as he rubs his slightly sore cheeks, which only makes Kuro laugh louder. 

“C’mon,” Kuro says after he recovers, helping Kenma stand up with an outstretched hand before swinging an arm around Kenma’s shoulders. “Let’s go.”

“Where to?” Kenma asks, shrugging Kuro’s arm a bit until it rests more comfortably around his shoulders.

“ Haah? ”

Kenma elbows Kuro in the ribs and suppresses a snicker from hearing Kuro’s ooft .

“And here I thought you were the heart and brain of–”

Kuro’s voice gurgles out on the last word and Kenma tries not to frown in confusion. He makes a non-committal sound in the back of his throat and chooses to focus on the way the green grass swishes in the wind around them instead. 

It’s a dream , he reminds himself. It was slightly unnerving, but Kenma could tell Kuro all about it tomorrow when they meet. And then Kuro would laugh at him for being silly and tell him that he was having strange dreams because of all the games he plays before bed. Kenma would roll his eyes at that, but still let Kuro continue his mini lecture because that’s what they’ve always done. And that’s what they’ll continue to do...and hopefully a bit more. It would be nice if this was a version of themselves out there in some parallel universe, where they’re not Kuro the yokai and Kenma the human, but just Kuro and Kenma, two childhood friends turned lovers. He feels his heart skip a beat at the thought and looks up to steal a glance at Kuro from the corner of his eyes.

Except Kuro isn’t there.

Kenma whips his head around but there is still no sign of Kuro. He doesn’t even realise when his shoulders have suddenly gone empty and cold.

“Kuro?” Kenma calls out, looking left and right for any traces of him, but all he sees is the vast expanse of swishing grass, stretching out as far as he can see. The school has disappeared and so has the large tree they were sitting under. It almost looks as if the ocean of grass had swallowed up everything around him, leaving Kenma standing in the middle of nothingness all by himself. 

Kuro wouldn’t leave him, Kenma was sure of this. He is sure of that fact, but that doesn’t stop the trickle of fear starting to leak into his mind. He thinks that the last time he felt this scared was probably when he had gotten lost in the forest where Kuro first found him, but it doesn’t really compare. 

Back then he had only been lost, but this, this is so much different. Not only is Kenma lost, he has also lost something, someone , that is irreplaceable to him. 

“Kuro! Where are you?” Kenma starts to jog, and then bursts into a sprint when the ground seems to swim around him. 

“You can stop hiding now. It’s not funny anymore,” he feels himself yell, but it doesn’t sound like his own voice. He’s described as quiet and composed, yet the desperation he hears in his voice makes him sound like anything but quiet and composed. 

“Kuro?” Kenma whimpers in between pants of exhaustion. The swirling of the long grass is starting to mess with his eyes, and Kenma can feel the burn in his legs and the sweat dripping down his face from exertion. Each step he takes feels like he's dragging the weight of Sisyphus’ boulder with him and he knows that the lack of breath is not helping either, but Kenma doesn’t stop to rest. He continues to run, looking for Kuro. He has to. 

Something large and golden sparkles in the corner of his eyes and Kenma has to squint from the brightness of it. It starts to take shape into something vaguely familiar but Kenma can’t think over the fog that suddenly formed itself in his mind. It comes closer and closer, and Kenma takes an unsteady step backwards until the golden shape takes the form of a large fox-like being in front of him. Flashes of bear traps and translucent-gold speckled blood flash across his mind and Kenma widens his eyes in shock. 

“Have you seen Kuro?” Kenma asks desperately. 

The fox yokai doesn’t answer him, but it takes another step forward until it’s almost face to face with Kenma. His head starts to throb from the overwhelming presence of the yokai and the strange buzz in the air. 

“Please, I need to find Kur-” before Kenma could finish his sentence, the yokai opens its jaw and lunges. Kenma squeezes his eyes shut tightly but feels nothing except a gentle breeze pass him.

When he opens his eyes again, the yokai in front of him is gone, but everything around him starts to swim. Something starts to churn uncomfortably inside of his stomach. Or was that his head? Or his heart? Kenma clutches tightly onto the sides of his head, anything to make the wrenching feeling go away, and takes another disorientating step backwards.

And then he’s falling into the void.

Kenma shoots up with a loud gasp and it takes him a moment to realise that the laboured pants he hears are his own. He could make out the slightest slivers of morning sun starting to peek their way through his blinds and groans in frustration. He hasn’t had a nightmare since he was younger, but that didn’t mean that his dislike for them decreased. Especially for the ones that always seem to crumble away with his increasing consciousness. Kenma lets out another sigh and buries his face into his hands. He tries to recall traces of his nightmare, but his mind draws a blank. It had been warm at first, but then everything went dark. And there was...there was Kuro. Kuro was in his nightmare!

His hand instinctively reaches for the bracelet on his wrist, but his fingers touch skin. He pats his arm up and down, and then sits up in panic when he can’t feel the familiar piece of leather anywhere on his arm. He scrambles out of bed and instantly flings his blanket to the side to search for the bracelet. 

Kenma lets out a sigh in relief when he spots the bracelet near the edge of the mattress and clutches it to his chest. But his relief is short-lived. Something feels off. And that’s when he realises it. 

The leather bracelet doesn’t simply fall off . It doesn’t break, no matter how much Kenma tries. And he had tried . So for it to just suddenly break in the middle of his sleep...he thinks the chances are highly unlikely. Something is definitely off. 

Kenma pulls on the hoodie by the edge of his bed and grabs his phone, before tip-toeing his way across the hall towards the door as quickly and quietly as he could. His uncle was most likely out in the fields already, but Kenma had no intention of trying to explain to his aunt as to why he is awake at this hour, let alone why he is trying to sneak out. 

Kenma bursts into a sprint for the mountains the moment he closes the front door with a soft click . He ignores the biting cold of the wind against his face and the strange looks from the occasional farmer he dashes past. He ignores the pain in the muscles of his legs and the piercing sting in his lungs and instead, tunnel-visions on the mountain to where Kuro is. 

‘Where he hopefully is’ a voice whispers in his mind. 

He tightens his hold on the broken bracelet and picks up his pace, despite the violent protests from his aching limbs. 

When Kenma arrives by the torii gates, he’s more of a mess than he is a person. Stray pieces of hair have come loose from where he’s started tying it in a low ponytail and his jacket hangs half off his shoulders. He’s breathing, but only barely he thinks bitterly. 

With one final resolute breath of air, Kenma crosses the threshold to enter the forest like he’s done so many times before, but he immediately feels a shiver run down his spine. It’s cold, and not in a morning-chill type of cold, but more of an eerie, almost hostile type of chill. Kenma feels goosebumps erupt across his skin and a sinking feeling starting to form in his stomach. 

“Kuro?” Kenma calls out, taking small and tentative steps as the cold feeling of déjà vu runs down his spine . The forest is completely quiet, save for the sound of his own footsteps and Kenma tries not to let the feeling in his stomach start to grow and eat him whole. He glances around himself. The forest still looks the same, or he thinks it does, but it definitely doesn’t feel the same. There are no birds chirping and no little animals scuttering around in the bushes. He can’t feel the presence of any yokai or little sprites that he usually does when he’s in the forest. There is no breeze passing by either, and Kenma can’t even hear the sound of the river that he knows is nearby. But he thinks, worst of all, there is no Kuro next to him. Kuro isn’t walking next to him, talking to him about anything and everything, yet making it sound like the most interesting topics Kenma has ever heard. He’s not here cracking jokes to Kenma or scolding him for having stayed up playing games. And he’s not here to hold his hand and smile tenderly at him, keeping Kenma company throughout everything. 

A horribly, horribly small voice whispers to him that Kuro is simply gone. Kenma whips his head around, but he knows that this wasn’t anyone talking to him—no, he’s known this voice his entire life. The small pessimist within him that hadn’t appeared in a while is suddenly telling him that this was bound to happen sooner or later. Good things don’t last forever, and that includes Kuro, the best thing that has happened to Kenma. He clutches the broken bracelet closer to his chest and blinks away the blur that’s starting to form around his eyes. 

He hears the rushing of the river, or he thinks he does as he blindly stumbles his way to their favourite spot by pure muscle memory. He thinks that whatever little hope he had of finding Kuro starts to trickle away with the empty sight of their spot. He tries to look around for any signs of the yokai , or even any yokai at all, but all Kenma sees is the large looming forest, stretching on even farther than his eyes can see—and suddenly—he’s turned back into his eight year old self, small and lost getting swallowed up by the mountain’s forest. Kenma falls to his knees and curls his body in on himself. 

He can’t do this. 

He can’t do this. 

Not anymore, not without Kuro. 

So Kenma cries.

Kenma cries and cries, and then cires some more, until he feels like he’s cried his entire life’s worth of tears during this time and the tear tracks have seared their marks deep into his skin, evidence of the pain he feels deep inside of him. He cries until his throat is raw and it hurts for him to even take a breath of air. He cries until it feels like even the wind and forest are crying with him, rustling the leaves of the trees violently to the sound of his grief. Kenma wants to curse the forest, curse the skies and curse the Mountain God or whatever deity took Kuro away from him, but he doesn’t.

It was Kenma’s fault.

Kuro had tried to warn him, but Kenma had pushed his feelings onto Kuro regardless, and this is how the universe had made him pay. Kenma can’t help but chuckle dryly as he pressed his forehead against the damp forest floor. If he had known that this was the price of his confession then he would have sealed his feelings for Kuro away to a place where not even the universe could take them away from him. He bitterly thinks that he should have sealed Kuro safely away within himself as well, if this was the outcome for them.

–

Kenma doesn’t remember much from what happened after he cried his heart and soul out in the forest. He vaguely recalls returning back to his uncle’s place and his aunt yelling out in concern when she saw him. Then everything blurs into frantic yells of concern and phone calls, and Kenma ends up back on a train to Tokyo with his aunt in the seat next to him, patting his arm in gentle patterns meant to soothe him. But Kenma hardly feels it. He hardly feels anything, not the feeling of his mother’s crushing embrace at the train station, nor the prodding and poking that the doctor does the next day at the hospital. He doesn’t taste any of the food his father cooks for him, nor does he hear the sound of the teacher teaching during class. 

It’s as if a part of Kenma had died on the inside, and he supposes that it wasn’t too far from the truth. A part of him did die the day that Kuro was taken away from him. 

And another part of him dies when Akaashi and Bokuto act as if they’ve never even heard of Kuro before. 

Kenma doesn’t miss the way they exchange concerned looks with one another when he begs them to try and remember Kuro one more time. They act as if he’s gone insane, and Kenma starts to feel it too. Neither Akaashi, Bokuto nor Hinata seem to have any recollection of Kuro, and the more days pass, the more Kenma thinks that he might have been a figment of his imagination afterall. But then Kenma sees the leather bracelet that he had stored safely at the bottom of his drawer, and he knows that Kuro is real. Or was . His heart still aches at the mere thought of Kuro, and Kenma hasn’t experienced a night of sleep where his pillow has been dry—if he manages to get any sleep at all, that is—since that day. 

His parents grow increasingly worried for him, with his mother even cutting down her hours in order to make sure that Kenma was taken care of, but he doesn’t know how to explain to them that a constant in his life—a part of him—has suddenly just disappeared. 

His parents buy him new video games, organise sessions with a therapist and even suggest he take some time off school, anything for Kenma to feel better, but it doesn’t help. He doesn’t think that anything could fill the hole in his chest that Kuro has left behind. 

–

It’s not until his parents bring up moving countries all together in order for Kenma to start anew, that Kenma begins picking himself up again. Or at least pretends to. He doesn’t know what leaving Japan would do to him. He spent time with Kuro here, so the thought of leaving the last piece of semblance of Kuro feels like ripping another hole in Kenma’s heart. So Kenma tries to get better. 

He eats the food that his father cooks for him, goes to therapy every second weekend, and even takes up Akaashi’s and Bokuto’s offer to go the arcade after school. His parents tell him that they’re proud that he has started to return back to his old self, and Kenma thanks them. But at night, Kenma clutches the leather bracelet to his chest and silently lets the pain he’s suppressed during the day flow down with his tears. 

Some days, sleep comes to him, but those nights are even worse than the ones he spends staring at the bracelet, trying to engrave the sight of it into his mind lest it also disappear from him. The nights where sleep does come to him, so do memories of Kuro. Painful memories where they’re laughing together, playing games on Kenma’s PSP or walking through the forest with interlaced hands. Kenma wakes up with dried tear tracks on his cheeks and a damp pillow during those mornings. Whilst these dreams are painful, they don’t compare to the nights where the universe decides to be cruel to him, showing him the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens between Kuro and him. 

Kisses planted onto the temple of a forehead. Hands interlaced tightly. Soft smiles exchanged between a tender interlock of lips. Flashes of skin against skin, warm embraces and gentle encouragements to do better. 

Kenma always screams himself awake during those nights, with violents sobs wracking through his body and his parents running into his room with concerned looks and deep eyebags. Those nights are the worst, because Kenma is reminded over and over again of the things that they could have had

It takes months and months, and lots of sudden breakdowns and more sleepless nights for Kenma to slowly start healing. Sometimes he feels like it’s all for nothing, and he’s a hair’s breadth away from tearing everything down again, but on other day’s he finds himself genuinely smiling again, and appreciating the people around him. 

They say time heals broken hearts, and Kenma supposes that there was at least some truth to the statement. Bokuto’s graduation happens, and he watches his friend move on to the next chapter in his life whilst Akaashi and him are thrown into the throes of 3rd year high school. Between exams, tutoring sessions and preparations for university, Kenma has managed to keep himself busy enough from spiralling into more thoughts about Kuro. He ends up restoring the bracelet so that he can wear it again, and finds that this helps him tremendously. On some days, he could pretend that Kuro is still here and Kenma isn’t by his side because of school, and only rarely does he get the twinge in his heart from the reminder that he was deluding himself into something that could never be anymore. But having the bracelet helps. He holds the bracelet close to his heart and takes deep breaths as his therapist taught him when things get too tough, and then it feels a little less difficult. 

In the end, Kenma manages to graduate highschool without any major problems and he ends up moving into his own little apartment after much convincing to his parents. He gets into university and life is looking up for him, or at least he thinks it is. He tries not to think too much about Kuro, and delves himself deep into his studies and trying to make friends. It’s a little difficult—Kenma has never been the extroverted type—but fortunately for him, Akaashi and Bokuto also attend the same university as him, and they have no troubles making friends and introducing him to them. He’s also heard that Hinata has plans on studying in Tokyo later, so that was another thing Kenma was looking forward to. 

When he thinks back on the him from two years ago, the him that struggled to even breath when he found out that Kuro disappeared, he thinks that he would be proud of himself now. Kenma has started a career in Youtube that is growing by the day, and there are days where he doesn’t even think about Kuro and all the hurt it used to bring him. He wonders if the him in the future will be able to look back on the time he spent with Kuro and feel nothing but fond the memories of that time. A part of Kenma hopes that his future self will be able to do that, but another part hopes that his future self holds on to his feelings for Kuro and not let him fade into a distant memory. 

—

Kenma does a double take outside the bar’s window. He’s sitting at a table with a couple of other friends nursing his second beer of the night in celebration of Hinata’s university acceptance. Everyone around him is pleasantly buzzed from the alcohol and the good vibes, and even Kenma could feel himself loosen up from the drinks he’s had. He thought he saw the glimmering wisps of a yokai in the corner of his eyes from outside of the window, but he must have mistaken the city light’s for it. Or he must be more tipsy than he thought. 

“Kenma!”

Kenma turns his head and pulls back just in time to avoid getting accidentally hit in the face from Hinata’s beer glass. He swings a buff arm around Kenma and pulls him close, and this close, Kenma could smell the amount of alcohol his friend has had. 

“We should ask Kenma here too!”

Kenma fights the urge to look away from all the eyes turning to him and raises a brow in question. It seems that in the two minutes that he had spaced out, the conversation had shifted to something different and now Kenma was completely lost. 

“We’re talking about how Hinata finally managed to get his feelings through Kageyama’s thick head, and then who we think is gonna get together next,” Bokuto announced a bit too enthusiastically. Kenma briefly wonders how many drinks Bokuto has had. He tries not to grimace at the topic and the way he is suddenly hyper aware of the weight of the leather bracelet around his left wrist. 

“I don’t think I’m drunk enough for this conversation,” Kenma says against the rim of his glass, and downs the drink to stall a proper response. He instantly regrets doing so, as another glass is pressed into his hands and his friends start chanting for him to drink, drink, drink . Kenma pulls a face after finishing the glass of something definitely too strong to be beer and feels his head start to spin. He vaguely thinks that he should stop drinking, or at least slow down, especially when the shadows start to glimmer and take forms of little spirits, but Kenma has always been weak to peer pressure and the sight of his friends having a good time.

“Kenmaa! Should I introduce you to someone nice? You always seem so lonely. Aren’t you at least a little interested in anyone?” Hinata cries against his shoulder, and Kenma vaguely thinks that his words sound a little slurred. He rests his throbbing head against the cool table top, and hears Hinata’s little ooft from the sudden shift, before he rests himself against Kenma’s back again. He can’t help the giggle that’s spilling out of him, and soon Hinata starts giggling along too. 

“You know,” Kenma’s words feel heavy, and his tongue feels strange and foreign in his own mouth, like it doesn’t belong to him anymore. 

“The last time I told someone I loved them, the universe took them away from me,” Kenma slurs. Or at least he thinks he does. The voice he hears doesn’t sound like his own, and it sounds too giggly to be his own. Hinata gasps dramatically, and he can feel some of their other friends look over at them, but he ignores them all by closing his eyes. Hinata is saying something to him, but his voice bubbles out into noise. He lets out a big sigh and sees Kuro in front of him and smiles at the sight of him. 

“I miss you, Kuro.”

The last thing he registers is the feeling of something wet rolling down his cheeks before the world goes black. 

—

Kenma wakes up with the sun burning his eyes and his head trying to split itself in half. His throat feels like parchment, and it hurts even when he tries to cough and clear it out.  Rolling over, he realises that he’s in his own bed, in his own small apartment. How he got there last night is a complete mystery to him though. He tries to curl in on himself underneath his blanket, but the throbbing in his head is getting more and more incessant, and Kenma knows from previous experience that if he doesn’t take paracetamol soon, he’s going to throw up all over himself. So he scoots himself to the edge of the bed and drags the blanket along with him as he makes his way towards the bathroom. The sun coming in from the bathroom’s window seems even harsher than the one from his bedroom, but Kenma does end up finding some paracetamol, despite barely opening his eyes enough to see. He takes two pills with some water from the cup, and then immediately blanches at the feeling of his dry mouth. 

His reflection in the mirror looks as bad as he feels, with his disheveled hair and crust in his eyes. Kenma can’t even laugh at how pathetic he looks even in his own eyes. He wonders what Kuro would think of him if he were to see him now. Kenma shakes his head. If Kuro were here, then Kenma wouldn’t have drunk to the point of...whatever that was last night. He cringes as the memories slowly clear up in his mind. The way he had gotten swayed by Hinata’s drunk stupor and gotten carried away with his drinking. And also the way he had spilled his thoughts out in a word vomit from the lack of filter. He hopes that his friends were the types of drunks that forgot everything in the morning—unlike Kenma . 

He groans again and crouches down to rest his head on his hands on the sink. He hopes the paracetamol sets in quickly. 

—

There is nothing better at curing a hangover than freshly baked apple pie from Sato-san’s a couple of blocks away. Kenma is aware that he sticks out like a sore thumb with his old hoodie pulled over his head and his even older sweatpants, especially amongst the business people on their way either to or from lunch on a mid-day Thursday, but he barely has any care for it at the moment. Drinking always makes people feel shitty the day after, but Kenma always feels especially shitty after a night of drinking and talking about Kuro. He doesn’t do it often, but he’s done it enough times to know that his current bad mood comes from having to remember all the painful memories. It shouldn’t be like this, but Kenma can’t help himself. He plays with the leather bracelet during these days. He’s aware that it’s probably the placebo effect, but Kenma finds that tracing over the patterns of the bracelet with his fingers seems to somehow always lift his mood, even by a little. 

He takes the bracelet off and holds it between both of his hands, as he stares and wonders when—if ever —he’ll stop depending on it the way he does. He knows it’s not charmed anymore, the protection spell Kuro put on it probably disappeared when Kuro did, but Kenma still finds himself seeking comfort from the bracelet. He’s carried the bracelet with him for so long now, that Kenma feels strange without it. Like a shirt buttoned up the wrong way. 

Kenma doesn't realise the way he’s caught up in his thoughts, until it’s too late. 

Someone bumps into him, and Kenma loses his hold on the bracelet. Whatever feelings of grogginess he felt earlier instantly leave his body and dropping the bracelet feels like a bucket of ice water has been thrown over him. Cold, hard panic washes over him. Kenma can’t lose the bracelet too. He’s already lost Kuro, he can’t lose the only physical reminder of Kuro he has left on him. 

His vision starts blurring as he frantically whips his head around, and he can feel his breath come in short bursts, as if he can’t take in enough air. Kenma thinks he spots the bracelet in front of him, just out of arm's reach, and shuffles over to them on his knees. He doesn’t know when he had fallen to them. 

He almost sheds his tears from relief at the sight of the bracelet and reaches out for it just as another hand comes into view and picks it up. 

Kenma wants to scream out NO! Beg whatever stranger to give it back to him, or even rip it from their hands if he has to, but all of his thoughts come to a halt when he looks up. 

The stranger wasn’t a stranger at all. 

No, Kenma was too familiar with this face, yet at the same time, not familiar enough. 

Standing in front of him, like a figment of Kenma’s most vivid dreams, is Kuro, holding the bracelet out to him. 

“Here you dropped th-”

Kuro halts mid-sentence and Kenma feels tears run down his cheek. Kuro looks exactly like he had remembered, if not a little older. Kenma didn’t know that it was possible for Kuro to age, but here he was. He’s dressed in plain clothes, a sweatshirt and jeans, and his hair is the same unruly mess that Kenma has come to love. But what surprises Kenma the most are his eyes. 

The Kuro before him has hazel eyes, as clear as the day, and they sparkle in the sunlight. Kenma has never seen the colour of Kuro’s eyes, and doubts he could visualise them the way they are right now, in front of him. 

Kenma doesn’t believe it. He could never recall Kuro with this much detail, even less so in the middle of the day in broad daylight. The Kuro in his memories and imagination never wore plain clothes, and he never, never saw Kuro’s eyes in his imagination. Which means…

“K-Kuro?”

Kenma slaps a hand over his mouth in shock. A part of him doesn’t want to believe it, only to find out that he had mistaken himself, but another part is desperately, desperately hoping that this was true.

The Kuro in front of him is frozen still in shock as well. He is looking at the bracelet in his hand and Kenma hopes that it isn’t a coincidence. 

He watches Kuro’s eyes. Watches him focus on the bracelet, taking in the details, before they trail over to him. He watches the way Kuro’s eyes wander from his body and up to his face, and finally to his eyes. 

When their eyes meet, Kenma sucks in a sharp breath. He can’t stop the tears from trailing down his cheeks. 

He sees Kuro’s eyes widen, and then there are tears streaming down his face as well. 

“Kenma?”

Kuro’s voice comes out croaky, but Kenma pays it no mind. The only thing that registers is the sound of his own name ringing over and over again in Kuro’s voice. Oh how he has missed it . He has missed it so much that he can barely contain the sob that makes its way past his lips. 

Kuro sniffles and smiles, but his tears don’t stop either. Even as he holds his arms open for Kenma. The tears don’t stop as Kenma stumbles and nearly trips over his own feet in his haste to get to Kuro, and they don’t stop when he throws himself into Kuro’s embrace. 

Kuro is warm, so so warm, as he wraps his arms around Kenma and clutches onto him like his life depends on it. Kenma sobs into his shoulder as he wraps his legs around him. Kuro’s embrace feels exactly like Kenma remembered, but also so much more. His mind had forgotten the little details, like the way Kuro would sigh contentedly the moment he was in his arms, or the way he would nuzzle his head in just that little bit closer whenever Kenma tightened his embrace around him. 

But this feels real. This feels very, very real, and Kenma is afraid that the moment he lets go, Kuro will vanish from his life again. 

“Kenma,” Kuro calls, and his voice sounds tear-strained. Kenma shakes his head, and refuses to look up from where he has buried his face in Kuro’s neck. If this really was all just a fragment of his imagination, then Kenma wants to stay in it for as long as possible, even if it means not looking at Kuro. Being in his arms was enough for him. He feels Kuro move his hands, one to his legs to support his weight and another move up to his head, carding his fingers through his hair like he used to. This nearly brings another wave of fresh tears to Kenma as he doesn't realise how much he has actually missed the feeling until Kuro is doing it again. 

“Kenma– Kenma look at me.”

Kenma tightens his grasp on Kuro’s shirt and shakes his head again. He doesn’t want to let this end. He doesn’t think that he’ll be able to pick himself back up again if this was something his mind has made up. 

Kuro chuckles, and Kenma feels it rumble through him, like a missing piece of a puzzle finally put in place again. 

“Please Kenma, please let me see you again.”

He sucks in a breath and feels tears welling in his eyes again. Kuro’s hand is still gently caressing his hair, and Kenma couldn’t stop the sob coming from his mouth even if he wanted to. He doesn’t consider himself an emotional person normally, but something about Kuro’s existence in Kenma’s life brings out this side of him, no matter what he does. He sucks in a deep breath, relishing Kuro’s scent and ingraining it into his mind, and tightens his hold around Kuro’s shoulders. 

Kenma can feel every inhale and exhale of Kuro’s, and if he focuses hard enough, he could also make out the pounding of his heart as he presses against him. Kenma could feel the soft material of Kuro’s sweater, and the ridge and pull of his muscles as he moved, and still , he has to convince himself that this is real. 

He pulls himself back slowly, not enough to get out of Kuro’s hold, but just enough to come face to face with him. Kuro is even more beautiful up close, and Kenma could feel the stinging of warmth at the corner of his eyes again. 

His skin is glowing in the daylight, and this close, Kenma could make out the specks of gold swimming in the warmth of Kuro’s eyes. They lock eyes with one another, and as if his eyes held all the secrets and answers Kenma’s been looking for, all of his doubts clear from his head. 

This is Kuro in front of him. 

This is Kuro holding him.

 Again. 

Finally .

Kenma scrunches his face together to prevent the tears from spilling over and sniffles his nose.

“No need to have such a scary face, kid.”

Kuro’s grin is boyish and all teeth, and oh so familiar to Kenma.

He’s missed this. He’s missed Kuro .  

His feet touch the ground again and Kenma is vaguely aware of the stares they receive from people passing by, but he pays them no mind, not when Kuro is still in front of him and holding him. 

Kuro smiles at him, and Kenma could almost imagine them back in the mountains, staring at each other just like this and his heart bursts like a dam. He takes a hold of Kuro’s face between his hands and brings him down to close the distance between them, pressing their lips gently together in a kiss long overdue. He feels Kuro smile into the kiss before engulfing Kenma’s hands into his own. 

They pull apart panting, with their hands still holding and Kenma takes a moment to just take in Kuro, his Kuro, right in front of him. 

“I’ve missed you, Kenma.”

“I’ve missed you too, Kuro. So, so much,” his voice barely comes out above a whisper, but Kenma knows that Kuro heard him. Kuro squeezes his hand lightly in reassurance, much like the many times he’s done before in the past, and Kenma takes in a shuddering breath to keep his emotions at bay.

“But where have you been Kuro? Where did you go? I just woke up one day and then–and you weren’t there anymore. I was so scared, Kuro. And–and so hurt. You didn’t even say anything–” Kenma lowers his head and squeezes his eyes together to will the fresh wave of tears away. He feels the frustration and hurt from the past years pinch in his throat but Kenma refuses to cry anymore. He wants answers now. 

“Hey, it’s okay now. I’m here,” Kuro murmurs as he rubs reassuring circles into his hand, and uses his other hand to cup Kenma’s face and do the same. “I’ll explain everything to you, but maybe not out here on the street. It’s a little bit of a long story.”

Kenma nods his head and Kuro flashes him a comforting smile. 

–

They end up making their way into a booth of a nearby corner cafe. The place isn’t packed, but it’s busy enough that other people won’t be able to overhear their conversation. Kuro ends up buying them drinks and a small cake to share, but Kenma doesn’t think that he’ll be able to stomach anything with the nerves twisting and turning in his stomach. 

“So…”

“So…” Kenma repeats after Kuro, and stirs the straw around in his drink. It’s a hot chocolate, something Kenma used to bring up the mountain often in small cans. He’s surprised and at the same time not surprised at all that Kuro remembers. 

“Where would you like me to start?”

Kenma opens his mouth at the absurdity of the question. Of course Kuro should start at the beginning, from the night he disappeared, but Kenma closes his mouth again and thinks about the question carefully.

“Are you really Kuro?”

Kuro raises a brow at the question and takes a slow sip of his coffee before clearing his throat. 

“Well, yes and no.” 

Kenma clenches his teeth together and tries not to narrow his eyes from the strange answer. He keeps quiet and lets Kuro continue. 

“I’m still Kuro, the yokai , you met and grew up with in the mountains, but technically, Kuro the yokai doesn’t exist anymore. The me you see in front of you is Kuroo Tetsuro, the human.”

A thousand questions fly around in Kenma’s head that he begins to feel the small throb of a headache again. The confusion must have shown on his face, because Kuro, or Kuroo , bursts into quiet awkward laughter. 

“Let me explain it properly to you.”

So Kuroo does.

Kenma listens carefully as Kuroo explains everything from the day that he disappeared, soaking in each word that leaves his lips like a sponge. He listens when Kuroo tells him about the story of the Mountain God, and how the god would grant a person’s greatest wish if they are to come upon it. 

Kuroo recounts the day that they shared their first kiss, and how the god had visited him that very night, in the form of a golden fox with nine glittering tails. He tells Kenma about the wish the god had apparently received, begging someone, anyone , to let Kuroo and Kenma be together as normal people. Kenma sucks in a breath from the vague memory of his dream that very night. He had dreamed of the two of them, walking together at a school. Kuroo and Kenma, two childhood friends turned lovers, and then the fox that had leaped at him with open jaws. 

“Then...you mean the reason that you disappeared…” 

Kenma needs a moment to process what feels like a tidal wave of information that Kuroo had just dumped him. 

“Yes,” Kuroo confirms as he fiddles with the spoon in his coffee cup nervously.

“The god granted your wish,” he reaffirms with a tight lipped smile. 

Kenma bites his lips to try prevent the burning behind his eyes from spilling over. All these years, Kenma had come to the conclusion that Kuroo’s disappearance had been his fault, and he thinks that slowly over the years, he had come to terms with it. But hearing Kuroo himself confirm it out loud for him hits him like a truck all over again. Kuroo could have stayed by his side this entire time, but Kenma had brought their separation upon themselves. His selfishness caused this change upon them. 

If only he hadn’t saved the Mountain God that night.

If only he hadn’t kissed Kuroo that day.

If only he hadn’t grown feelings for Kuroo. 

“Hey,” Kuroo whispers gently, forcing Kenma out of his thoughts. He has his hand outstretched on the table in front of him, centimetres away from Kenma’s own, as if he had wanted to reach out to him, but held himself back. 

Kenma closes the distance between them and intertwines his hand with Kuroo. Kuroo’s hold is instantly comforting— grounding —and Kenma relishes in the familiarity of it all. 

“I know you must be thinking that it was your fault,” Kuroo starts carefully, softly , as if he didn’t want to overwhelm Kenma further. “But I want you to know that whatever happened to me, to us —I had as much fault in it as you think you had.” 

Kenma sniffles and looks up at Kuroo when he squeezes their hands together reassuringly. 

“When the Mountain God came to me with your wish, it gave me a warning,” Kuroo starts explaining. Kenma notices the way Kuroo’s eyes gloss over as he stares at their interlaced hands, as if recalling the memories meant diving into the deepest depth of his mind. 

“It warned me that if I were to choose to accept your wish, Kuro the yokai , would cease to exist, all of it. Any traces I had left on earth as a yokai , any people I had met—all of it would be erased, including people’s memory of me, and even my own. The god asked me if I was sure about my decision to accept, and I was honestly really scared, because what if my existence as a yokai being erased meant that my existence would also be erased from you ? What if the memories we shared together would just be wiped from your mind, as if the time we spent together never existed?” Kuroo chuckles dryly, and Kenma does his best to reassure him the way he knows Kuro would have if their positions were reversed. So he squeezes their hands together and draws soothing circles into his skin with his thumb and lets Kuroo continue his story. 

“Those were some of the biggest worries I had at that time, but it wasn’t like I could just call you and ask if you were alright with it. The Mountain God barely shows itself as is, so who knows when—or if — I would ever get another opportunity to just–” Kuroo furrows his brows, and Kenma makes a small sound in understanding.

Kuroo takes a deep breath, tensing his whole body whilst doing so, before slowly exhaling and relaxing his body. 

“So I accepted the wish without letting you know first. I still kind of regret it, leaving without a word, but I think a part of me knew that no matter what, we would find each other again. That you would find me again,” Kuroo explains with a little snort of laughter, his cheeks dusting pink. 

Kenma tries and fails not to blush from the implication of it all. Kuroo had defied fate for the two of them, and yet, he had also placed his trust in fate’s kindness to grant them another chance at being together. 

“Isn’t it ironic though, because I was so scared of you forgetting me, but here I was, being the one who had forgotten until today.” 

Kenma squeezes their hands together and hopes that it is enough to erase the painful smile on Kuroo’s face.

“It wasn’t—it isn’t — your fault Kuro,” Kenma tries to reassure him. “Oh wait, sorry, you’re Kuroo now, right?”

Kuroo shakes his head and smiles at him, this time— finally —a real, genuine smile. 

“I’m still Kuro, your Kuro. Even more so now that I’ve finally regained my memories.” Kuroo smiles encouragingly at him, which Kenma returns gently, feeling more hopeful than ever.

“You’re still Kuro,” Kenma confirms with a small smile. 

Kenma’s head is honestly still spinning a little with all of the information, but he thinks that he’s also finally starting to understand. Kuroo had put his trust in Kenma, in their friendship—their relationship—and knew that they would be able to meet again. By chance or by destiny, Kenma isn’t quite sure, much like their first meeting in the woods could have been either, but Kenma thinks that it doesn’t matter either way. Kuroo had given everything he had, and it had paid off. Now it was his turn.

He sucks in a deep breath and lets his thoughts settle. 

“We both made some choices that ended up unintentionally hurting each other,” Kenma murmurs. “And we’ve both been forced to change, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad change.”

Kuroo nods, but he doesn’t look convinced. Kenma doesn’t know what else to say. He’s never been the best with words, always preferring to use his actions to show his emotions instead, but he doesn’t know how far he could go with his physical touch now. 

‘Kuroo Tetsuro’ is ‘Kuro the yokai’, and ‘Kuro the yokai’ is ‘Kuroo Tetsuro’, but at the same time, they’re different. Or at least, it feels different. Slightly , ever so slightly. Kenma knows that they can’t ever take back the time that they’ve lost between them, but he also knows that it shouldn’t matter ultimately. Distance and time have never affected them before, so he thinks, why should it now?

“Why don’t we—” Kenma debates his next words carefully. He knows what he wants, but he finds it difficult to try and form his thoughts into comprehensible sentences. Words have never been his strong suit. 

“We could try again…You and me, I mean…” Kenma trails off, cheeks heating at the confession. He doesn’t know where he’s getting all this courage from, but he knows that he needs to say this to Kuroo at least once. Now that he’s been given a second chance.

Kuroo looks shocked for a second, and Kenma can feel his heart beating from this unknown reaction. With all the years behind them, Kenma thought that he had managed to learn how to read Kuroo, but without the mask, Kema might as well be trying to read a stranger.

But then Kuroo’s eyes soften, and Kenma feels like he’s seeing Kuro through the eyes of his seventeen year old self again. It’s the first time Kenma has seen this expression on Kuroo, yet it doesn't change the way it makes him feel. 

This is familiar. 

This is comforting.

This is Kuro. 

“Yes. I would like that. I would like that very much, Kenma.” 

And then Kuroo is smiling at him, the same smile that Kenma has held so dearly inside of him—familiar, yet also a little foreign—and Kenma knows that he will be alright.

They will be alright

Because they’re Kuroo and Kenma, two childhood friends turned lovers.