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“Hey, Kenny? You’re up! It’s your turn. Kenny? What are y—”
Oh. It was the package. He was staring down at that box again. Why Kenny had even brought it along to the training session, Kota didn’t know. Whenever it was in his sight it distracted him, pulling his attention to it like a magnet.
Kota moved across the ring to lean on the ropes, lightly tweaking them with his foot so that they would jog Kenny’s back where he was sitting against them. It was becoming frankly concerning to see how thorough a spell the little cardboard box seemed to have cast over him. Kenny’s hands were gripping tightly around it, fingers pinching the edges where the tape held them closed. ‘Just tear it off,’ Kota wanted to say, but if the last two weeks had told him anything, it was that this wasn’t so simple for Kenny. Instead he repeated gently, “You’re up next, come on.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Kenny murmured, eyes still fixed on the black scrawl of the return address on the box; Matt’s angular handwriting and the gaudy Young Bucks sticker made no mistaking who it was from. Kenny had to have memorised every little detail of its outer appearance with all the hours he’d spent contemplating it, and Kota was less than thrilled with the way Kenny’s brow creased and his lips tightened as he turned the package over in his hands, feeling the weight of it and listening for the sound of the contents shifting. It was the wrong place for his obsessive mind to be focussed right now.
‘You have a match to prepare for,’ he wanted to remind him. ‘You have so many big projects about to blow up in the next few weeks!’ You have a partner standing here next to you and you’re not even listening to me. He bit his tongue and swallowed the words, because it wasn’t as if Kenny didn’t know those things. The package apparently just had the ability to confound rationality, preoccupying Kenny more than he even seemed aware of.
“Hey,” Kota tried again, this time easing himself down to sit beside Kenny, sliding his legs under the bottom rope and wriggling until his knees were over the edge of the apron and his thigh was pressed up against Kenny’s. Kenny shifted reflexively to accommodate him, tucking his elbow in and resettling the box in his own lap, and Kota was relieved that he hadn’t moved further out of the way; the warmth where Kenny’s thigh pressed back reassured him that at least he wasn’t being completely shunned for this cardboard curiosity. “I think it would help if you just opened it.”
“I want to,” Kenny replied quietly.
“Then do it; it’ll be okay.”
“I…” Kenny faltered, and Kota was dismayed to see the package shake a little in his grip. With all his bravado, the moments when Kenny’s nerves got the better of him to the extent that he couldn’t hide them were infrequent enough that they made Kota’s heart drop.
Kota had seen Matt’s text: ‘Call me when you open it.’ He also knew all too well how difficult it was to actually break the silence when a relationship turned painful. Nevertheless, holding back the moment wasn’t likely to make it any easier.
Kenny took a deep breath and Kota leaned in closer, silently offering his strength where their bodies touched, while cursing the fact that the ropes were still awkwardly between them.
“Did you ever,” Kenny began slowly, “have a birthday, or some other special date, where you already knew what was going to be inside that giftwrapped box before you opened it, or a letter where you thought you knew what it was going to say?”
Kota pressed harder against him, manoeuvring his arm around Kenny’s back to squeeze ‘yes’, and ‘go on’.
“You just know that inside is something that you really, really want; something you’ve been dreaming of, and wishing for, for so long. But when it’s right there in your hands, just a paper thin distance away from coming true, suddenly you hear a voice in your head; one that paralyses you with fear that it somehow isn’t what you thought, what you hoped… and if you open it you’ll find out that you can’t have what you wanted so very much. I mean, maybe you misinterpreted the signs? It’s not a ring inside that jewellery box. Or the letter just says, ‘We are sorry to inform you that on this occasion—’. It’s not the shiny, beautiful thing that’s been your desire for the last years. You didn’t deserve it after all.” Kenny’s palms slid flat on the top of the box, putting the ‘URGENT!’ scrawl out of sight, before he startled Kota with a mirthless laugh. “We probably both think we know what’s in here.”
He was right; Kota had certainly already made an educated guess, and Kenny knew the Bucks well enough that any guess he made should be even more accurate.
“But what if we’re wrong?” Kenny laughed again, strange and tight. “If I open this and it’s not what I think it is – if everything that’s happened since Room 710 ended up changing how they feel – I can’t…” His voice cracked on the word and Kota wanted to grab him and pull him close, or rip the damn package open himself just to stop this thought spiral. But it wasn’t addressed to him, and it wasn’t his demon to slay. Kenny was so close to doing it; if he could only make that final leap.
Kota held his breath as Kenny suddenly plucked the package up from his lap, wondering if he was going to rip into it or hurl it away. After a long second, it was neither. “I can’t. Not yet,” Kenny whispered. “I have to train.” He jumped abruptly up and off the apron, awkwardly brushing the back of his hand over his face before shoving the box into his bag and jamming his hoodie in on top. “It’s my turn, right?”
“Kenny.” Kota scrambled to his feet and through the ropes in an instant, ready to get down and pull him into a hug, but Kenny was even quicker than him and was already rolling into the ring. “Wait—”
There were times when his partner’s manic energy could make Kota giddy with excitement, but watching him run the ropes apparently heedless of the tears falling wet on his own cheeks felt the opposite of that. It made him want to take the stupid package and burn it, except that then Kenny would never know for sure what the Bucks had sealed inside; what message they wanted him to go into Dominion having heard.
He found himself moving hastily inside the ropes again without thinking, getting into position to block Kenny’s way with his body. When they collided and Kenny stumbled back, surprised out of his inertia, Kota grasped him firmly and wrapped his arms around him. “Stop for a moment; work from strength, not fear,” he murmured into Kenny’s hair. Kenny’s nails were digging into his skin, gripping Kota as tightly as he had held the package a moment ago, and Kota could feel the tremble of adrenaline running through his hands. “Give yourself a minute, come on.”
Kenny let out a small, frustrated noise, and Kota was almost afraid that he’d made the wrong move; maybe it was better for his partner to work the edge off his feelings with the heat and sweat of mindless rope drills if that was where his instincts were driving him. But there was a tiny part of Kota - and perhaps it was a selfish part, although that hurt to think about - that wanted Kenny to reaffirm that it was safe to find comfort in his arms. So he held on, and breathed deep, and willed Kenny to get there with him.
And he knew that he was right to hold his nerve in the exact second when all the tension buzzing against him suddenly began to dissolve and Kenny melted into his embrace, face buried in his shoulder. “That’s it. That’s okay,” Kota whispered, not sure it actually mattered what he was saying, just that the familiarity of this position was what they needed right then. When the words blurred into kisses and Kenny turned his head to meet them, it somehow was okay again.
Kenny’s eyes were clear as they finally drew apart, and Kota watched his expression bloom into a soft smile. “Kota…”
“Kenny,” he replied quickly, wanting to silence the apology he could tell was hovering on Kenny’s lips, “don’t second-guess yourself, or the strength of your friendship with the Bucks.”
Kenny nodded. “I can’t let doubt get the better of me; I should’ve learned by now that only good things happen when I don’t.”
“You put your trust in me; you forgave me. I did the same for you, and Matt and Nick will too.”
“You’re right, I know. And I promise I’ll open the box before Dominion,” Kenny told him. “No, correction - I’ll open the box before I win at Dominion.”
-fin.